title: Beiyang government

text: Following their retreat from Henan, NPA leaders (excluding Sun Chuanfang and Zhang Zongchang) came together on 7 June 1927. The generals agreed to try to seek rapprochement with Nanjing and to endorse the Three Principles of the People. They proposed a new principle of "morality" (). They agreed on a reformation of the national government and suggested for Zhang a choice to either return to Manchuria and distance himself from politics or to establish his position as an important politician in the government. Two of the clauses agreed upon were the total destruction of Feng Yuxiang and joint decision-making in diplomacy between both the Beijing and Nanjing governments.


title: Beiyang government

text: With the continuing advance of the KMT, Zhang was forced to abandon Beijing on June 3, 1928. On the way back to his power-base in Manchuria the next morning, his train was blown up by officers of the Japanese Kwantung Army, killing him, in what is known as the Huanggutun incident. Yan Xishan's troops soon occupied Beijing, effectively dissolving the Beiyang government; unification was declared on June 16 by the Nationalists. Beijing was renamed Peiping until the end of the Chinese Civil War in 1949. Zhang's son, Zhang Xueliang, took over the National Pacification Army and retained a government in exile led by Premier Pan Fu. However, many civil servants, including former ministers and presidents, had already switched over to the Nationalist government. The United States became the first major power to switch recognition to the Nationalist government in Nanjing on October 1. Japan was the last major power to switch because they detested the anti-Japanese attitude of the KMT. Zhang negotiated with Chiang Kai-shek to end this pretense leading to the dissolution of the Beiyang government, the NPA, and the unification of China under the Nationalist flag on 29 December 1928.


title: Beiyang government

text: The Japanese had poor relations with the new KMT one-party state in Nanjing. When the Japanese created the separatist Manchukuo in 1932, the new country used Beiyang symbolism. These were followed by Mengjiang, the Provisional Government, and the Reformed Government; which all used Beiyang symbols. When the high ranking Nationalist Wang Jingwei defected to the Japanese, he was put in charge of the Reorganized Government in 1940. Wang insisted upon adopting Nationalist symbols to create a parallel rival government against the KMT government in Chungking instead of reviving the Beiyang government. Both Wang's government and Chongqing's Nationalist government used near identical symbols and claimed their continuity from Sun Yat-sen's rather than Yuan Shikai's regime.


title: Peter McNeeley

text: Peter McNeeley (born October 6, 1968) is an American former heavyweight boxer, best known for his 1995 fight with Mike Tyson, before which McNeeley had said he would wrap Tyson in a "cocoon of horror." McNeeley fought aggressively but was knocked down twice within the first two minutes. McNeeley was disqualified after his manager Vinnie Vecchione stepped into the ring to stop his fighter from taking any more punishment after the second knockdown. "TV Guide" included the fight in their list of the 50 Great TV Sports Moments of All Time in 1998.


title: Peter McNeeley

text: Peter Smith McNeeley was born on 6 October 1968 in Medfield, Massachusetts, U.S.; the child of Nancy McNeeley, (née Gray) (1944-2018) and Tom McNeeley (1937–2011). His father was a former heavyweight contender who challenged Floyd Patterson for the world heavyweight championship, and later served eight years as the boxing commissioner of the Massachusetts State Boxing Commission. His mother, Nancy, was a former Miss America contestant from New Hampshire. His youngest brother was referred to as “Snubby.” McNeeley's grandfather, Thomas McNeeley Sr. was a New England boxing champion and fought on the 1928 Olympic boxing team.


title: Peter McNeeley

text: McNeeley had 21 amateur fights, finishing his amateur career with the record 15–6. Albeit a brief amateur career, he successfully represented the United States, wherein he defeated Wayne Bernard, the world Maritime heavyweight champion; and the first round knockout of No. 1 ranked US amateur James Johnson. He won the New England Golden Gloves in Lowell, Massachusetts in 1989 and the New England Diamond Belt Tournament later that year.


title: Peter McNeeley

text: In 1995, McNeeley was arrested and charged with assault and using batteries as a dangerous weapon. In March 2006, McNeeley was arrested in Norwood, Massachusetts, after he punched a man and stole his wallet containing $200. In June 2006, McNeeley was arrested for driving the getaway car used in a robbery of a Walgreens in Stoughton, Massachusetts. After searching the car, police recovered $180 in cash and a black fanny pack which had also been stolen from the store. The charges were later reduced to larceny.


title: Leslie Easterbrook

text: Leslie Easterbrook is an American actress and producer. She played Sgt./Lt./Capt. Debbie Callahan in the "Police Academy" films and Rhonda Lee on the television series "Laverne & Shirley".


title: Leslie Easterbrook

text: Easterbrook was adopted when she was nine months old; her adoptive parents, Carl and Helen Easterbrook, raised her in Arcadia, Nebraska. She attended and graduated from Kearney High School and Stephens College. Her father was a music professor and her mother was an English teacher at the University of Nebraska at Kearney.


title: Leslie Easterbrook

text: One of her earlier successes was in 1980 as Rhonda Lee beginning with season six of "Laverne & Shirley". The role of Rhonda was part of the show's change of locale from Milwaukee to Hollywood.


title: Leslie Easterbrook

text: Easterbrook told author Paul Stenning, "The funny thing is, that's not me at all. I'd never played tough. I'd played all kinds of things, but I'd never played someone who's intimidating or someone that was aggressive sexually. I was of a size that I never played the girl who got the guy. I wondered how I could do it. But I did. I went for the audition and I scared the producer and the director and then they backed up in their chairs and I went 'Oh no, now I really blew it. I scared them'. So I left the audition upset. I didn't get to read the script until I got the part. I thought it was outrageous and so funny."


title: Leslie Easterbrook

text: Easterbrook appeared in "Murder, She Wrote", "", "Hangin' with Mr. Cooper", "Baywatch", "Matlock", "Hunter", and "The Dukes of Hazzard". In 2005, she replaced Karen Black as Mother Firefly in Rob Zombie's "The Devil's Rejects", the sequel to the 2003 horror film, "House of 1000 Corpses". In 2007, she played security guard Patty Frost in Rob Zombie's remake of "Halloween". In 2008, she played as Betty in the thriller/horror film "House". In 2010, she starred in "The Afflicted". She also appeared on "Ryan's Hope" as Devlin Kowalski. Her voice work has been featured in several projects, including "" and "".


title: Leslie Easterbrook

text: She sang the National Anthem at Super Bowl XVII which landed her starring roles in musicals on Broadway and throughout the country; she recorded a song for the soundtrack of "".


title: Leslie Easterbrook

text: Easterbrook made a video, "Real Beginner's Guide to the Shotgun Sports", the first in a series designed to encourage and prepare nonshooters for their first shooting experience. Easterbrook serves on the board of the National Law Enforcement Officers Memorial Fund, and supports a number of children's charities. Easterbrook is a National Rifle Association member and has served on the board of directors of the California Rifle and Pistol Association.


title: Leslie Easterbrook

text: Easterbrook is married to "M*A*S*H" writer Dan Wilcox. She was previously married to fellow actor Victor Holchak.


title: Leslie Easterbrook

text: She is good friends with former "Police Academy" cast member Scott Thomson and was close friends with Marion Ramsey. Easterbrook describes the cast of the original film as a "big family".


title: Nancy Kwan

text: Nancy Kwan Ka-shen (; born May 19, 1939) is a Chinese-American actress, philanthropist, and former dancer. In addition to her personality and looks, her career was benefited by Hollywood's casting of more Asian roles in the 1960s, especially in comedies.


title: Nancy Kwan

text: Born in Hong Kong on May 19, 1939, and growing up in Kowloon Tong, Kwan is the Eurasian daughter of Kwan Wing-hong, a Cantonese architect and Marquita Scott, a European model of English and Scottish ancestry. Kwan Wing-hong was the son of lawyer Kwan King-sun and Juliann Loke Yuen-ying, daughter of Loke Yew. He attended Cambridge University and met Scott in London. The two married and moved to Hong Kong, where Wing-hong became an eminent architect. In that era, society held a dim view of interracial marriage. Nancy has an older brother, Ka-keung.


title: Nancy Kwan

text: In fear of the Japanese invasion of Hong Kong during World War II, Wing Hong, in the guise of a coolie, escaped from Hong Kong to North China in Christmas 1941 with his two children, whom he hid in wicker baskets. Kwan and her brother were transported by servants, evading Japanese sentries. They remained in exile in western China for five years until the war ended, after which they returned to Hong Kong and lived in a spacious, contemporary home her father designed. Scott escaped to England and never rejoined the family. Kwan's parents divorced when she was two years old. Her mother later moved to New York and married an American. Remaining in Hong Kong with the children, her father married a Chinese woman, whom Kwan called "Mother". Her father and her stepmother raised her, in addition to her brother and five half-brothers and half-sisters. Five of Kwan's siblings became lawyers.


title: Nancy Kwan

text: Except during World War II, Kwan had a comfortable early life. Cared for by an "amah" (阿嬤), a woman who looks after children, Kwan owned a pony and passed her summers in resorts in Borneo, Macao, and Japan. An affluent man, her father owned a several-acre hilltop property in Kowloon. In her youth, she was called "Ka-shen". She wrote in 1960 that as an eight-year-old, her fortune-teller "predicted travel, fame, and fortune for me".


title: Nancy Kwan

text: Kwan attended the Catholic Maryknoll Convent School until she was 13 years old, after which she travelled to Kingsmoor School in Glossop, England a boarding school that her brother, Ka-keung, was then attending. Her brother studied to become an architect and she studied to become a dancer.


title: Nancy Kwan

text: Kwan's introduction to "tai chi" sparked a desire to learn ballet. When Kwan was 18, she pursued her dream of becoming a ballet dancer by attending the Royal Ballet School in London. She studied performing arts subjects such as stage make-up, and danced every day for four hours. Her studies at the Royal Ballet School ran concurrently with her high-school studies. Because Kwan's high school had deep connections with nearby theatre companies, Kwan was able to perform small parts in several of their productions. Upon graduating from high school, she sojourned in France, Italy, and Switzerland on a luxury trip. Afterwards, she travelled back to Hong Kong, where she started a ballet school.


title: Nancy Kwan

text: Stage producer Ray Stark posted an advertisement in the "Hong Kong Tiger Standard" (later renamed "The Standard") regarding auditions for the character Suzie Wong for a play. The ad asked applicants to present their pictures, résumés, and proportions. Kwan submitted the application and was discovered by Stark in a film studio constructed by her architect father. After auditioning for Stark, she was asked to screen test to play a character in the prospective film "The World of Suzie Wong". Stark preferred Kwan over the other women because she "would have more universal acceptance". Another auditionee, French actress France Nuyen, played the stage version of the role and had been called a "businessman's delight" by a number of reviewers. Stark disliked this characterization, as well as "happy harlot" characters such as Melina Mercouri in "Never on Sunday". Stark wanted an Asian actress because slanting the eyes of a white actress would merely look artificial. He also praised Kwan's features: an "acceptable face" and "being alluringly leggy [and] perfectly formed".


title: Nancy Kwan

text: For each screen test, Kwan, accompanied by her younger sister, was chauffeured to the studio by her father's driver. Stark characterized Kwan's first screen test as "pretty dreadful", but one that hinted at her potential. After four weeks of training with drama teachers, including hours of lessons with Pulitzer Prize–winning playwright–screenwriter John Patrick, Kwan's second screen test was a significant improvement. Although she had not yet become an actress, Stark said, there was a "development of her authority". Once, upon viewing her screen test, Kwan said, "I'm a terrible girl" and "squealed with embarrassment"; acting as a prostitute was a vastly different experience from her comfortable life with her affluent father. The reaction prompted Stark to refrain from letting her view the dailies. Kwan did a third screen test after four months had passed, and a deadlock existed between whether to choose Kwan or Nuyen.


title: Nancy Kwan

text: Owing to Kwan's lack of acting experience, at Stark's request, she travelled to the United States, where she attended acting school in Hollywood and resided in the Hollywood Studio Club, a chaperoned dormitory, with other junior actresses. She later moved to New York. Kwan signed a seven-year contract with Stark's Seven Arts Productions at a beginning salary of $300 a week though she was not given a distinct role. In 2005, Edward S. Feldman and Tom Barton characterized Kwan's wages and her employment as "indentured servitude". In a retrospective interview, Kwan told Goldsea that she had no prior acting experience and that the $300 a week salary was "a lot of money to me then".


title: Nancy Kwan

text: When "The World of Suzie Wong" began to tour, Kwan was assigned the part of a bargirl. In addition to her small supporting character role, Kwan became an understudy for the production's female lead, France Nuyen. Though Stark and the male lead William Holden preferred Kwan, despite her somewhat apprehensive demeanor during the screen test, she did not get the role. Paramount favored the eminent France Nuyen, who had been widely praised for her performance in the film "South Pacific" (1958). Stark acquiesced to Paramount's wishes. Nuyen received the role and Kwan later took the place of Nuyen on Broadway. In a September 1960 interview with Associated Press journalist Bob Thomas, she said, "I was bitterly disappointed, and I almost quit and went home when I didn't get the picture." Kwan did not receive the lead role because Stark believed she was too inexperienced at the time. Nuyen won the title role in the upcoming movie because of her powerful portrayal of Suzie Wong during the tour. She moved to England to film the movie, leaving an opening for Kwan to ascend to the lead female role in the touring production. In 1959, one month after Nuyen was selected for the film role and while Kwan was touring in Toronto, Stark told her to screen test again for the film. Kwan responded to his phone call from London, asking, "How can I come? I'm in this show." To provide a pretext for Kwan's sudden hiatus from the touring production, Stark sent a cablegram to her superiors saying her father had become ill and had been hospitalized. Kwan later recalled in an interview about three years later, "So I went to the manager and told him a lie. It was not very nice, but what could I do?" After Kwan accepted the role, the Broadway play producer sued her for leaving with little notice.


title: Nancy Kwan

text: Nuyen, who was in an unstable relationship with Marlon Brando, had a nervous breakdown and was fired from the role because of her erratic actions. The film's director, Jean Negulesco, was fired and replaced by Richard Quine. Kwan, who previously had never been in a film, defeated 30 competitors from Hollywood, France, Japan, Korea, and the Philippines. On February 15, 1960, she began filming the movie in London with co-star William Holden. During the filming, Kwan's only trouble was a lingerie scene. Robert Lomax, as played by Holden, tears off her Western dress and says, "Wear your own kind of clothing! Don't try to copy some European girl!" Director Richard Quine was displeased with Kwan's underclothes: She wore a full-slip rather than a half-slip and bra. Finding the attire too modest and unrealistic, he asked Stark to talk to Kwan. Stark discovered Kwan taking refuge in her dressing room, sobbing grievously. He warned her, "Nancy, wear the half-slip and bra or you're off the picture. France Nuyen is no longer in it, remember? If you're difficult you'll be off it too. All we want to do is make you the best actress possible." Kwan returned to the set after lunch, aloofly wearing a bra and half-slip, acting as if what had happened earlier had not transpired.


title: Nancy Kwan

text: Owing to Kwan's perceptible Eurasian appearance, the film's make-up artists endeavored to make her look more Chinese. They plucked her eyebrows and sketched a line across her forehead. In movies where Kwan plays Asian roles, the makeup artists slant her brown eyes. Gossip columnist Hedda Hopper wrote that Kwan, as a Eurasian, does not look fully Asian or European. Hopper wrote that the "scattering of freckles across her tip-tilted nose give her an Occidental flavor". The production spanned five months, an unusually lengthy period for the era.


title: Nancy Kwan

text: "The World of Suzie Wong" was a "box-office sensation". Critics lavished praise on Kwan for her performance. She was given the nickname "Chinese Bardot" for her unforgettable dance performance. Kwan and two other actresses, Ina Balin and Hayley Mills, were awarded the Golden Globe for the "Most Promising Newcomer–Female" in 1960. The following year, she was voted a "Star of Tomorrow". Scholar Jennifer Leah Chan of New York University wrote that "Suzie" provided an Asian actress—Kwan—with the most significant Hollywood role since actress Anna May Wong's success in the 1920s.


title: Nancy Kwan

text: Following "The World of Suzie Wong", Kwan was unprepared for fame. While she was purchasing fabric in a store on Nathan Road, she found people staring at her from the window. Wondering what they were staring at, it suddenly struck her that she was the point of attraction. Kwan remarked that in Beverly Hills, she can walk without attracting notice. She rationalized, "[It] is better in America because America is much bigger, I guess". When people addressed her father after watching the film, they frequently called him "Mr. Wong", a name that severely displeased him. Kwan said in a 1994 interview with the "South China Morning Post" that even decades after her film debut and despite her having done over 50 films thence, viewers continued to send numerous letters to her about the film.


title: Nancy Kwan

text: The scene of Kwan, reposed on a davenport and adorned in a dazzling "cheongsam", while showing a "deliciously decadent flash of thigh", became an iconic image. Clad in a cheongsam—"a Chinese dress with a high collar and slits, one on each side of the skirt"—Kwan was on the October 1960 cover of "Life", cementing her status as an eminent sex symbol in the 1960s. Nicknamed the "Suzie Wong dress", the cheongsam in the portrait spawned thousands of copycat promotional projects. In a 1962 interview, Kwan said she "loved" the "cheongsam", calling it a "national costume". She explained that it "has slits because Chinese girls have pretty legs" and "the slits show their legs".


title: Nancy Kwan

text: Chinese and Chinese-Americans became aggrieved after seeing how Chinese women were depicted as promiscuous. Tom Lisanti and Louis Paul speculated that the wave of unfavorable media attention drove filmmakers to escalate the production of Kwan's next film. In 1961, she starred in "Flower Drum Song" in a related role. The film was distinguished for being the "first big-budget American film" with an all-Asian cast. Kwan did not sing the songs in the musical film; the vocals for Linda Low were performed by B. J. Baker. Comparing "Suzie Wong" and "Flower Drum Song", she found the latter much harder because the girl she played was "more go-getter". Her prior ballet education provided a strong foundation for her role in "Flower Drum Song", where she had much space to dance.


title: Nancy Kwan

text: After starring in "The World of Suzie Wong" and "Flower Drum Song", Kwan experienced a meteoric rise to celebrity. Scholar Jennifer Leah Chan of New York University chronicled the media attention Kwan received after starring in two Hollywood films, writing that Kwan's fame peaked in 1962. In addition to being featured on the cover of "Life" magazine, Kwan was the subject of a 1962 article in a popular women's magazine, "McCall's", entitled "The China Doll that Men Like".


title: Nancy Kwan

text: As a Hollywood icon, Kwan lived in a house atop Laurel Canyon in Los Angeles. She commuted in a white British sports car and danced to Latin verses. She enjoyed listening to Johnny Mathis records and reading Chinese history texts. In 1962 (when she was 22), Kwan was dating Swiss actor Maximilian Schell. In an interview that year, she said she did not intend to get married until she was older, perhaps 24 or 25. She said a number of Americans married just to leave home or to "make love". Kwan said this was problematic because she found dialogue and an ability to appreciate and express humor important in a marriage: "You can't just sit around and stare at walls between love-making."


title: Nancy Kwan

text: In 1961, Kwan offered to work as a teacher for King's Own Yorkshire Light Infantry. The infantry was training for military involvement in Malaya (now part of Malaysia), and the regiment's commanders believed that the infantrymen should be taught the Chinese language and how to handle chopsticks. Captain Anthony Hare announced to the public that the infantry needed a teacher – an attractive one. He later acknowledged that he appended the teacher "must be attractive" so that more soldiers would attend the sessions. Kwan, in Hollywood at the time, replied via cable: "Please consider me a candidate as Chinese teacher for Yorkshire Light Infantry. I am fluent in Chinese, fabulous with chopsticks, and fond of uniforms." Captain Hare commented, "Miss Kwan is too beautiful. I think she would be too much of a distraction." Her tardy request was not evaluated, as the infantry had already accepted the application of another Chinese woman.


title: Nancy Kwan

text: In 1963, Nancy Kwan's long hair, famous from "The World of Suzie Wong", was chopped into a sharp modernist bob by Vidal Sassoon for the film "The Wild Affair", at the request of director John Krish. Designed by London hairdresser Vidal Sassoon, Kwan's bob cut in the film drew widespread media attention for the "severe geometry of her new hairstyle". Sassoon's signature cut of Kwan's hair was nicknamed "the Kwan cut", "the Kwan bob", or was plainly known as "the Kwan"; photographs of Kwan's new hairstyle appeared in both the American and British editions of "Vogue".


title: Nancy Kwan

text: Kwan's success in her early career was not mirrored in later years, due to the cultural nature of 1960s America. Ann Lloyd and Graham Fuller wrote in their book "The Illustrated Who's Who of the Cinema": "Her Eurasian beauty and impish sense of humor could not sustain her stardom". Her later films were marked by multifarious parts, comprising movie and television roles for American and European productions. Kwan discovered that she had to journey to Europe and Hong Kong to escape the ethnic typecasting in Hollywood that confined her largely to Asian roles in spite of her Eurasian appearance.


title: Nancy Kwan

text: Her third movie was the British drama film "The Main Attraction" (1962) with Pat Boone. She played an Italian circus performer who was the love interest of Boone's character. While she was filming the movie in the Austrian Alps, she met Peter Pock, a hotelier and ski teacher, with whom she immediately fell in love. She reflected, "The first time I saw that marvelous-looking man I said, 'That's for me.'" After several weeks, the two married and resided in Innsbruck, Tyrol, Austria. Kwan later gave birth to Bernhard "Bernie" Pock. In December 1963, Pock was constructing a luxury hotel in the Tyrolean Alps. During Christmas of that year, Nancy Kwan visited the location and was able to participate in several pre-1964 Winter Olympics events despite having been very occupied with movies. Her contract with film production company Seven Arts led her to travel around the world to film movies. She found the separation from her son, Bernie, who was not yet a year old, difficult. She said, "He's coming into a time when he's beginning to assert his personality." Fair-skinned and blue-eyed, Bernie had his father's appearance.


title: Nancy Kwan

text: In 1963, Kwan starred as the title character of "Tamahine". Because of her role, she went to the optician to get contact lenses so she would look blue-eyed. Playing an English-Tahitian ward of the head master at an old English public school, she was praised by the "Boston Globe" for her "charming depict[ion]" of the character.


title: Nancy Kwan

text: In "Fate Is the Hunter" (1964), her seventh film, Kwan played an ichthyologist. It was her first role as a Eurasian character. Kwan's roles were predominantly comic characters, which she said were more difficult roles than "straight dramatic work" owing to the necessity of more vigor and precise timing.


title: Nancy Kwan

text: Kwan met Bruce Lee when he choreographed the martial arts moves in the film "The Wrecking Crew" (1969). In Kwan's role in the film, she fought the character played by Sharon Tate by throwing a flying kick. Her martial arts move was based not on karate training, but on her dance foundation. Author Darrell Y. Hamamoto noted that this "ironically" twisted Kwan's "dragon-lady role" through its underscoring the replacement of Kung Fu with Western dance moves. She became close friends with Lee and met his wife and two children. In the 1970s, both Kwan and Lee returned to Hong Kong, where they carried on their companionship.


title: Nancy Kwan

text: Kwan divorced Peter Pock in June 1968. She married Hollywood screenwriter David Giler in July 1970 in a civil ceremony in Carson City, Nevada. The marriage was Kwan's second and Giler's first. They divorced in 1971.


title: Nancy Kwan

text: That year, Kwan returned to Hong Kong with her son because her father was sick. She initially intended to remain for one year to assist him, but ultimately remained for about seven years. She did not stop her work, starring as Dr. Sue in the film "Wonder Women" (1973). While in Hong Kong, Kwan founded a production company, Nancy Kwan Films, which made ads mostly for people in Southeast Asia. In the 1980s, she returned to the United States, where she played characters in the television series "Fantasy Island", "Knots Landing" and "Trapper John, M.D.".


title: Nancy Kwan

text: In 1976 Kwan married Norbert Meisel, an actor, director, screenwriter, and producer. Like her first husband Peter Pock, as well as her former fiancé Maximilian Schell, Meisel was Austrian. “I have my Austrian karma,” she said in a 2021 interview. “I think it’s lifetime."


title: Nancy Kwan

text: In a 1993 interview with the "St. Petersburg Times", Kwan remarked that her son Bernie was frequently called a "blond, blue-eyed Chinese" because he could speak the language fluently. In 1979, the two returned to the United States because Kwan wanted him to finish his schooling there. Bernie was an actor, a martial artist, and a stunt performer. For the 1991 action comedy film "Fast Getaway", fellow stunt performer Kenny Bates and he gripped hands and leaped off the Royal Gorge Bridge. They fell 900 ft before being restrained by wire rope 200 ft over the Arkansas River. Bates said their stunt was the "highest 'double drop' ever attempted". Kwan and Bernie recorded a tape about "t'ai chi ch'uan".


title: Nancy Kwan

text: In 1987, Nancy Kwan co-owned the "dim sum" restaurant Joss. Kwan, producer Ray Stark, and restaurateur and Hong Kong film director Cecile Tang financed the restaurant, located on Sunset Strip in West Hollywood.


title: Nancy Kwan

text: Kwan sporadically records audiobooks. In 1995, Kwan recorded an audiobook for Anchee Min's memoir "Red Azalea" in what "Publishers Weekly" called a "coolly understated performance that allows the story's subtleties and unexpected turns to work by themselves". In 2011, she recorded an audiobook for the 1989 memoir "When Heaven and Earth Changed Places" by Le Ly Hayslip with Jay Wurts. "San Francisco Chronicle"s Patricia Holt praised Kwan's intonation in her delivery, writing that "Kwan's faint Asian accent and careful pronunciation of Vietnamese words make Hayslip's weaving of her past and present lives a riveting experience".


title: Nancy Kwan

text: In 1993, Kwan played Gussie Yang, a "tough-talking, soft-hearted Hong Kong restaurateur", in the fictional "". She played a pivotal role in the film, a character based on Seattle restaurateur and political leader Ruby Chow who hires Bruce Lee as a dishwasher and gives him the funds to open a martial arts school.


title: Nancy Kwan

text: In May 1993, she completed the production of a film about Eurasians, "Loose Woman With No Face", which she wrote, directed, and starred. She called the film "a slice of life about Euro-Asians in Los Angeles, and it's something I know about".


title: Nancy Kwan

text: In 1993, Kwan was asked about whether she was confronted with racism as a leading Asian Hollywood actress in the 1960s. Kwan replied, "That was 30 years ago and (prejudice) wasn't such a heavy issue then. I was just in great Broadway productions that were turned into films. I personally never felt any racial problems in Hollywood." In the 1990s, she faced a severe shortage of strong roles. She attributed this to both her age and the movie enterprise's aversion to selecting Asians for non-Asian roles. In earlier years, she was able to play an Italian and a Tahitian.


title: Nancy Kwan

text: In the 1990s, there were more Hollywood films about Asians. Kwan could have capitalized on the trend through a role in the 1993 film "The Joy Luck Club". Because the filmmakers refused to excise a line calling "The World of Suzie Wong" a "...horrible racist film," she passed on the role.


title: Nancy Kwan

text: In November 1993, Kwan co-starred in the two-character play "Arthur and Leila" about two siblings who struggle with their Chinese identities. It debuted in the Bay Front Theater in Fort Mason, San Francisco, and moved to Los Angeles two weeks later. "Variety" reviewer Julio Martinez praised Kwan for her ability to "flo[w] easily between haughty sophistication and girlish insecurity".


title: Nancy Kwan

text: In 1994, an article in the "South China Morning Post" said that she preserved her "dancer's figure" through the Chinese martial art tai chi and frequent dance sessions. That year, she assumed the role of 52-year-old Martha in Singapore Repertory Theatre's showing of "Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf?", an "intense psychological play" by Edward Albee.


title: Nancy Kwan

text: In 1995, she produced and acted in the feature film "Rebellious". Bernie was the director, writer, and star of the film, which was co-produced by Norbert Meisel.


title: Nancy Kwan

text: In 1996, when he was 33, Kwan's son, Bernie, died after contracting AIDS from his girlfriend whom Kwan had cautioned him to avoid. Four years after his death, poet and actress Amber Tamblyn compiled her debut poetry book "Of the Dawn" and dedicated it to Pock. Tamblyn had acted in "Rebellious" when she was nine, alongside her father Russ Tamblyn. Calling Pock a "big brother", she said he was the "first guy" to convince her to share her poems.


title: Nancy Kwan

text: Nancy Kwan has appeared on television commercials even into the 1990s and appeared in "late night infomercials" as the spokesperson for the cosmetic "Oriental Pearl Cream".


title: Nancy Kwan

text: Kwan has been involved in philanthropy for AIDS awareness. In 1997, she published "A Celebration of Life – Memories of My Son", a book about her son who died after being infected by HIV. She gave profits from both the book and a movie she created about him to supporting the study of AIDS and the promotion of AIDS awareness.


title: Nancy Kwan

text: On March 17, 2006, "cheongsam"-wearing Kwan and her husband, Norbert Meisel, attended the debut performance of Hong Kong Ballet's depiction of "Suzie Wong" at Sha Tin Town Hall. Kwan told "The Kansas City Star" in 2007 that she did not consider retiring, leads to trouble. Retirees, she professed, frequently find themselves with nothing to do because they have not readied themselves for it. Kwan said, "I hope I'm working until the day I die. If work is a pleasure, why not?" In 2006, Kwan reunited with "Flower Drum Song" co-star James Shigeta to perform A. R. Gurney's two-person play "Love Letters". They performed the play at Los Angeles' East West Players and San Francisco's Herbst Theatre.


title: Nancy Kwan

text: Kwan appeared in Arthur Dong's 2007 documentary "Hollywood Chinese", where other Chinese dignitaries and she discussed the past accomplishments and the impending plight of Chinese people in the film industry.


title: Nancy Kwan

text: Kwan and her husband Norbert Meisel write and direct films about Asian-Americans. Kwan believes that Asians are not cast in enough films and TV shows. Meisel and she resolved to create their own scripts and films about Asian characters. In 2007, they wrote, directed, and produced "Star of Sunshine", a "Bildungsroman" film starring "Boys Don't Cry" actress Cheyenne Rushing, who plays Rachel. An ardent pianist in an conflicted household, Rachel journeys to find her restless father, a musician who deserted her when she was a mere child. In "Sunshine", Rachel is supported by Kwan, the manager of a jazz club, who knows a mystery about her. In the film's final scene, Kwan dances, an activity she has enjoyed since her youth.


title: Nancy Kwan

text: Kwan wrote an introduction for the 2008 book "For Goodness Sake: A Novel of the Afterlife of Suzie Wong" written by American author James Clapp using the pen name Sebastian Gerard. Clapp became acquainted with Kwan through director Brian Jamieson, who was filming a documentary about Kwan's life.


title: Nancy Kwan

text: Kwan serves as a spokeswoman for the Asian American Voters Coalition, a pan-Asian political organization established in 1986 to aid Asian actors.


title: Nancy Kwan

text: In her performing arts career, Kwan has appeared in two television series and over 50 films. "The Straits Times" reported in March 2011 that Kwan continues to serve as a film screenwriter and executive.


title: Nancy Kwan

text: Kwan currently resides in Los Angeles and has family members in Hong Kong. Once every few years, she travels to the former colony.


title: Joel Corry

text: Joel Corry (born 10 June 1989) is an English DJ, producer and television personality. He came to prominence in 2019 with the release of his single "Sorry", featuring vocals from Hayley May (who was not credited in the official music video), which reached number six in the UK Singles Chart. In 2020, Corry released the singles "Lonely" and "Head & Heart". The latter, which features MNEK on vocals, spent six weeks at number one in the UK Top Singles Chart and also became Corry's first entry on the US "Billboard" Hot 100. Corry stated that he was influenced by UK garage growing up, and that it played a "huge role in his development as a DJ and a producer".


title: Joel Corry

text: Corry had a reccurring role on MTV reality television series "Geordie Shore", alongside then-girlfriend Sophie Kasaei from 2012-2013, he briefly appeared again on the show in 2017. He also has a personal training business, an app called Joel Corry PT and a gym and leisurewear company Most Rated, which is also the name of his own record label. In 2015 he released his debut singles "Back Again" and "Light It Up". In 2017 he released the singles "Just Wanna", "All the Things", "All Night", "Sunlight" and "Feel This Way". He released the singles "Hurt", "All I Need", "Only You", "Good As Gold" and "Fallen" in 2018 which premiered on "Our Culture Mag". In April 2019, he released the single "Sorry"; the song features uncredited vocals from Hayley May. In July 2019, the song broke the record for the most Shazamed track in one day, with 41,000 Shazams. The song was featured on the ITV2 reality television series "Love Island". The song peaked at number six on the UK Singles Chart.


title: Joel Corry

text: In July 2020, Corry achieved his first UK number-one single with the MNEK collaboration "Head & Heart". It stayed at number 1 for six consecutive weeks and became an international hit for Corry. It was certified platinum for exceeding 600,000 units on 11 September 2020.


title: Joel Corry

text: In July 2022, Corry appeared in an episode of "Love Island" where he DJed for a party thrown for the islanders.


title: Brandin Cooks

text: Brandin Tawan Cooks (born September 25, 1993) is an American football wide receiver for the Houston Texans of the National Football League (NFL). He played college football at Oregon State, where he received consensus All-American honors, and was selected by the New Orleans Saints in the first round of the 2014 NFL Draft. After three seasons with New Orleans, Cooks played one season for the New England Patriots and two seasons for the Los Angeles Rams before joining the Texans in 2020.


title: Brandin Cooks

text: Cooks was born in Stockton, California to Worth Cooks Sr. and Andrea Cooks on September 25, 1993. Worth Sr. died of a heart attack when Brandin was six years old and Cooks and his three brothers, Fred, Worth Jr., and Andre, were thereafter raised by their mother. He attended Lincoln High School in Stockton, where he played high school football for the Trojans. As a sophomore, he recorded 29 receptions for 600 yards and seven touchdowns. As a junior, he had 46 receptions for 783 yards and 10 touchdowns, while also collecting three interceptions on the defensive side of the ball. As a senior, he had 66 receptions for 1,125 yards and 11 touchdowns. Cooks was ranked by the Rivals.com recruiting network as the 26th-best wide receiver and the 240th overall prospect in his class. He originally committed to play college football at the UCLA but changed to Oregon State University. In addition to football, Cooks played basketball and ran track in high school.


title: Brandin Cooks

text: Cooks recorded three receptions for 26 yards in the 29–28 loss in his collegiate debut against Sacramento State. On October 15, against BYU, he had three receptions for 90 yards and his first collegiate receiving touchdown, which came on a 59-yard reception from quarterback Sean Mannion, in the 38–28 loss. He played in all 12 games with three starts and recorded 31 receptions for 391 yards and three touchdowns. In addition, he returned kickoffs, averaging 22.4 yards per return on eight attempts.


title: Brandin Cooks

text: Cooks started his sophomore season with six receptions for 80 yards and a touchdown in a 10–7 victory over Wisconsin. Two weeks later, against UCLA, he had six receptions for 175 yards and a touchdown in the 27–20 victory. In the following game against Arizona, he had nine receptions for 149 yards in the 38–35 victory. On October 13, against BYU, he had eight receptions for 173 yards in the 42–24 victory.


title: Brandin Cooks

text: On October 27, against Washington, he had nine receptions for 123 yards and a touchdown in the 20–17 loss. On November 3, against Arizona State, he had six receptions for 116 yards in the 36–26 victory. Overall, he had 67 receptions for 1,151 yards and five touchdowns. The combination of Cooks and Markus Wheaton created one of the most dynamic receiving duos in college football and Oregon State history. The two players combined for 158 receptions, 2,395 yards, and 16 touchdowns in the 2012 season.


title: Brandin Cooks

text: Cooks started the 2013 season with 13 receptions for 196 yards and two touchdowns in the 49–46 loss to Eastern Washington. In the next game, against Hawaii, he had seven receptions for 92 yards and two touchdowns in the 33–14 victory. One week later, against Utah, he had nine receptions for 210 yards and three touchdowns in the 51–48 victory. The performance marked his only game as a Beaver with three receiving touchdowns. In the following game against San Diego State, he had a collegiate career-high 14 receptions for 141 yards in the 34–30 victory. His 14 receptions tied a school single-game record with Mike Hass and Isaiah Hodgins. He continued to perform well with nine receptions for 168 yards and two touchdowns against Colorado in the next game, a 44–17 victory. Cooks started October with 11 receptions for 137 yards and two touchdowns against Washington State in the 52–24 victory. In the following week against California, he had 13 receptions for a collegiate career-high 232 yards and a touchdown in the 49–17 victory. His 232 receiving yards were the second-most in a game in school history, behind Mike Hass's 293 against Boise State in 2004. In the next two games, against Stanford and USC, he had receiving touchdowns in both games. On November 23, against Washington, he had 10 receptions for 117 yards and a touchdown in the 69–27 loss. In the regular season finale against Oregon, he had ten receptions for 110 yards in the 36–35 loss. Oregon State finished with a 6–6 record and qualified for the Hawaii Bowl. Against Boise State, he had eight receptions for 60 yards and a touchdown in the 38–23 victory.


title: Brandin Cooks

text: Cooks finished the 2013 season with 128 receptions for 1,730 yards and 16 touchdowns. Cooks's receptions and receiving yards were Pac-12 records. His 128 receptions shattered the school single-season record, previously held by James Rodgers and Markus Wheaton with 91 each. He was held to under 100 yards only four times and exceeded 200 yards in a game twice. At the end of the season, he won the Fred Biletnikoff Award and was a consensus All-American. He was the second Oregon State player to win the Biletnikoff Award, the first being Mike Hass in 2005. He finished his collegiate career among the best in school history by being second in receptions, third in receiving yards, and first in receiving touchdowns. Cooks and quarterback Sean Mannion teamed up for 23 receiving touchdowns over their careers, a school record for a quarterback-receiver tandem.


title: Brandin Cooks

text: On January 2, 2014, Cooks announced that he would forgo his senior season and enter the 2014 NFL Draft.


title: Brandin Cooks

text: In addition to football, Cooks ran track at Oregon State. He earned a second-place finish in the 60-meter dash at the 2012 UW Invitational, clocking a personal-best time of 6.81 seconds.


title: Brandin Cooks

text: Cooks was selected by the New Orleans Saints as the 20th overall pick of the first round of the 2014 NFL Draft; the Saints traded up from the 27th spot, giving their first and third-round picks to the Arizona Cardinals in return for Arizona's first-round pick, in order to get Cooks. Cooks was the highest drafted player out of Oregon State since Ken Carpenter went 13th overall in the first round of the 1950 NFL Draft. In addition, he was the highest drafted wide receiver in school history.


title: Brandin Cooks

text: In his first NFL game, Cooks caught seven passes for 77 yards and a touchdown and had an 18-yard rush in a 37–34 overtime road loss to the Atlanta Falcons. This made Cooks the youngest player, at 20 years and 347 days, to catch a touchdown pass since Reidel Anthony caught one against the Miami Dolphins on September 28, 1997, at 20 years and 343 days. During Week 8 against the Green Bay Packers, Cooks recorded six catches for 94 yards and a touchdown to go along with a four-yard rushing touchdown in the 44–23 road victory. Two weeks later against the San Francisco 49ers, he caught five passes for 90 yards and a touchdown in the 27–24 loss. In the next game against the Cincinnati Bengals, Cooks had to leave the eventual 27–10 defeat with an injury. It was later revealed that he broke his thumb, prematurely ending his rookie season.


title: Brandin Cooks

text: Cooks finished his rookie season with 53 receptions for 550 yards and three touchdowns to go along with seven carries for 73 yards and a touchdown in 10 games and seven starts.


title: Brandin Cooks

text: Cooks began the 2015 season as the number-one wide receiver for the Saints. In the first four games of the season, he totaled 20 receptions for 215 yards as the team started 1–3. Cooks caught for over 100 yards in a game for the first time in his career in the Week 5 game against the Philadelphia Eagles, where he had five catches for 107 yards and a touchdown in the 39–17 loss. Three weeks later, Cooks caught six passes for 88 yards and two touchdowns in a 52–49 victory over the New York Giants. His two touchdowns were part of a record-tying seven touchdowns thrown by Drew Brees. In Week 10, Cooks had five passes for 98 yards and two touchdowns along with an 11-yard rush during a 47–14 loss to the Washington Redskins. During Week 13, he recorded six receptions for 104 yards and a touchdown in a 41–38 loss against the Carolina Panthers. In Weeks 15 and 16 combined, Cooks had 15 catches for 247 yards and two touchdowns against the Detroit Lions and Jacksonville Jaguars. The Saints finished with a 7–9 record and missed the playoffs


title: Brandin Cooks

text: Cooks finished his second professional season with 84 catches for 1,138 yards and nine touchdowns in 16 games and 12 starts, leading the Saints in all of those categories.


title: Brandin Cooks

text: Before the 2016 season, Cooks was pegged as a breakout candidate by ESPN. He lived up to the pre-season hype when he had six receptions for 143 yards and two touchdowns and an 11-yard rush during the season-opening 35–34 loss against the Oakland Raiders. He caught a 98-yard touchdown pass in the third quarter to set the Saints' franchise record for the longest play from scrimmage. Cooks, along with Willie Snead IV and rookie Michael Thomas, finished the day with 373 receiving yards combined, the most ever by a New Orleans trio in a loss. During Week 6 against the Carolina Panthers, Cooks had seven passes for 173 yards, which included a 87-yard touchdown reception, in the 41–38 victory. After a Week 12 49–21 win over the Los Angeles Rams, in which he was not targeted for a single pass, Cooks voiced his frustration by saying, "Closed mouths don't get fed." During a Week 15 48–41 road victory against the Arizona Cardinals, he caught seven passes for a career-high 186 yards and two touchdowns, one for 65 yards and one for 45 yards. The Saints finished with a 7–9 record and missed the playoffs.


title: Brandin Cooks

text: Cooks finished the 2016 season catching 78 receptions for a then career-high in receiving yards with 1,173 and eight touchdowns in 16 games and 12 starts. He finished seventh in the NFL in receiving yards. Despite the fact that his targets dropped from 129 in 2015 to 117 in 2016, his 10.0 yards per target ranked sixth among NFL wide receivers.


title: Brandin Cooks

text: On March 10, 2017, the New England Patriots traded their 2017 first-round (used on Ryan Ramczyk) and third-round draft picks (one was originally acquired from the Cleveland Browns in exchange for Jamie Collins) to the Saints for Cooks and a 2017 fourth-round draft pick. On April 29, 2017, the Patriots picked up the fifth-year option on Cooks' contract.


title: Brandin Cooks

text: During a Week 3 36–33 victory over the Houston Texans, Cooks had five receptions for 131 yards and scored his first two touchdowns as a Patriot, including a 25-yard game winner with 23 seconds left; after the game-winning touchdown, he scored on the ensuing two-point conversion. In Week 11 against the Oakland Raiders at Estadio Azteca, he had six receptions for 149 yards and a season long 64-yard touchdown in a 33–8 victory. Through Week 12 of the 2017 season, he led all players in receptions of at least 40 yards, with six.


title: Brandin Cooks

text: Cooks finished his only season with the Patriots with 65 receptions for 1,082 yards and seven touchdowns in 16 games and 15 starts. In addition, he rushed nine times for 40 yards. Cooks and Rob Gronkowski combined to form a 1,000-yard receiving duo for the Patriots, which was their first since 2011. Cooks finished second to Gronkowski in receptions, receiving yards, and receiving touchdowns on the season.


title: Brandin Cooks

text: The Patriots finished atop the AFC East with a 13–3 record and earned the #1-seed in the AFC. In the against the Tennessee Titans, Cooks caught three passes for 32 yards in the 35–14 victory. In the game against the Jacksonville Jaguars, he had six receptions for 100 yards in the 24–20 victory. During Super Bowl LII against the Philadelphia Eagles, he caught a 23-yard reception and had a one-yard rush, but left the game early in the second quarter with a concussion after getting tackled by Eagles safety Malcolm Jenkins. He was placed on concussion protocol and took no further part in the Super Bowl as the Patriots lost by a score of 41–33.


title: Brandin Cooks

text: On April 3, 2018, the New England Patriots traded Cooks and a fourth-round draft pick to the Los Angeles Rams for a first-round pick (used on Isaiah Wynn) and a sixth-round pick. On July 17, 2018, Cooks signed a five-year, $81 million extension with the Rams with $50.5 million guaranteed.


title: Brandin Cooks

text: In Week 2 against the Arizona Cardinals, Cooks had seven receptions for a season-high 159 yards in the 34–0 shutout victory. Two weeks later against the Minnesota Vikings, Cooks had seven receptions for 116 yards and a touchdown along with a 10-yard rush in the 38–31 victory. In Week 9, against his former team, the New Orleans Saints, Cooks caught six receptions for 114 yards and a touchdown in the 45–35 road loss. In the next game against the Seattle Seahawks, he had another great outing, catching ten passes for 100 yards and rushing for a nine-yard touchdown in a 36–31 victory. During Week 11 against the Kansas City Chiefs, Cooks caught eight passes for 107 yards in the narrow 54–51 victory. In one of the highest-scoring back-and-forth games in NFL history, Cooks helped convert a key first down on a 22-yard reception on the drive that put the Rams up for good. After a Week 12 bye, the Rams went on the road to face the Detroit Lions. In the 30–16 road victory, he eclipsed 1,000 receiving yards on the season. In the process, Cooks became the first player in NFL history with 1,000 receiving yards in three consecutive seasons with three different teams.


title: Brandin Cooks

text: Cooks finished the regular season with 80 receptions for a career-high 1,204 yards and five touchdowns in 16 games and starts. He also rushed 10 times for 68 yards and a rushing touchdown.


title: Brandin Cooks

text: The Rams finished atop the NFC West and earned the #2-seed for the NFC Playoffs. In the against the Dallas Cowboys, Cooks recorded four catches for 65 yards and a five-yard rush in a 30–22 victory. In the against the Saints, Cooks had seven receptions for 107 yards in a 26–23 overtime road victory to reach Super Bowl LIII. It was his second straight Super Bowl appearance and the Rams faced off against Cooks' former team, the New England Patriots. In the Super Bowl, Cooks caught eight passes for 120 yards, but the Rams lost 13–3 in the lowest-scoring Super Bowl in history. Cooks had three chances at scoring pivotal receiving touchdowns in the game. On the first attempt, Cooks was wide open in the endzone and the play was broken up by Jason McCourty at the end. The second was a drop by Cooks in the endzone when the Rams were trailing by seven with over four minutes left. The last occurred on the next play when Goff threw a pressured pass to Cooks that ended up being under thrown and picked off by Stephon Gilmore.


title: Brandin Cooks

text: In Week 3 against the Cleveland Browns, Cooks caught eight passes for 112 yards and had an eight-yard rush in the 20–13 road victory on "NBC Sunday Night Football". During a narrow Week 5 30–29 road loss against the Seattle Seahawks on "Thursday Night Football", Cooks had to leave the game to be evaluated for a concussion. Three weeks later against the Cincinnati Bengals in London, he suffered a concussion after taking a helmet-to-helmet hit from Jessie Bates during the first quarter. The Rams went on to win 24–10 and Cooks missed the next two games due to the concussion. He returned in Week 12 against the Baltimore Ravens.


title: Brandin Cooks

text: Cooks finished the 2019 season with 42 receptions for 583 yards and two touchdowns in 14 games and starts, all his lowest totals since his rookie season in 2014.


title: Brandin Cooks

text: On April 10, 2020, Cooks and a 2022 fourth-round draft pick were traded to the Houston Texans in exchange for the Texans second-round draft pick, which was later used on Van Jefferson, in the 2020 NFL Draft.


title: Brandin Cooks

text: During Week 5 against the Jacksonville Jaguars, Cooks recorded eight catches for 161 yards and his first touchdown as a Texan during the 30–14 win. During Week 16 against the Cincinnati Bengals, Cooks recorded seven catches for 141 yards and a touchdown during the 37–31 loss. In the regular-season finale against the Tennessee Titans, he had 11 receptions for 166 yards and two touchdowns in the 41–38 loss.


title: Brandin Cooks

text: Cooks finished the 2020 season with 81 receptions for 1,150 yards and six touchdowns. He also joined Brandon Marshall as the only players in NFL history to record a 1,000-yard receiving season with four different teams.


title: Brandin Cooks

text: Cooks entered the season as a starting wide receiver for the Texans. He started the season with five receptions for a season-high 132 receiving yards in a 37–21 victory over the Jacksonville Jaguars. Over the course of the season, he was a very consistent option for the Texans, totalling eight games with over five receptions, four total games with at least 100 receiving yards and five games with at least one touchdown. He finished the season as the leading receiver, recording a career-high 90 catches with 1,037 yards and six touchdowns. He became the third player in franchise history to have consecutive 1,000-yard receiving seasons.


title: Brandin Cooks

text: On April 7, 2022, despite multiple trade rumors, Cooks signed a two-year contract extension with the Texans worth $39.6 million with $36 million guaranteed. Through 12 games, Cooks led the 1-9-1 Texans in receptions and yards but had just one touchdown for the NFL's lowest scoring offense. Before Week 13, Cooks suffered a calf injury in practice and missed two games.


title: Brandin Cooks

text: Cooks is a Christian. He followed big plays in the 2016 season with a bow-and-arrow motion, referencing a Bible verse in which a boy named Ishmael used his archery skills to survive in the desert after he nearly died there without water.


title: Brandin Cooks

text: In 2020, Cooks donated $50,000 to his hometown of Stockton, California. The donation helped establish the Stockton's Children's Fund, which serves local children impacted by the coronavirus pandemic.


title: Barbed wire

text: Barbed wire, also known as barb wire, is a type of steel fencing wire constructed with sharp edges or points arranged at intervals along the strands. Its primary use is the construction of inexpensive fences, and it also used as a security measure atop walls surrounding property. As a wire obstacle, it is a major feature of the fortifications in trench warfare.


title: Barbed wire

text: A person or animal trying to pass through or over barbed wire will suffer discomfort and possibly injury. Barbed wire fencing requires only fence posts, wire, and fixing devices such as staples. It is simple to construct and quick to erect, even by an unskilled person.


title: Barbed wire

text: The first patent in the United States for barbed wire was issued in 1867 to Lucien B. Smith of Kent, Ohio, who is regarded as the inventor. Joseph F. Glidden of DeKalb, Illinois, received a patent for the modern invention in 1874 after he made his own modifications to previous versions.


title: Barbed wire

text: Barbed wire was the first wire technology capable of restraining cattle . Wire fences are cheaper and easier to erect than their alternatives (one such alternative is Osage orange, a thorny bush that is time-consuming to transplant and grow). When wire fences became widely available in the United States in the late 19th century, it became more affordable to fence much larger areas than before, and intensive animal husbandry was made practical on a much larger scale.


title: Barbed wire

text: An example of the costs of fencing with lumber immediately prior to the invention of barbed wire can be found with the first farmers in the Fresno, California, area, who spent nearly $4,000 () to have wood for fencing delivered and erected to protect of wheat crop from free-ranging livestock in 1872.


title: Barbed wire

text: Fencing consisting of flat and thin wire was first proposed in France, by Leonce Eugene Grassin-Baledans in 1860. His design consisted of bristling points, creating a fence that was painful to cross. In April 1865 Louis François Janin proposed a double wire with diamond-shaped metal barbs; Francois was granted a patent. Michael Kelly from New York had a similar idea, and proposed that the fencing should be used specifically for deterring animals.


title: Barbed wire

text: More patents followed, and in 1867 alone there were six patents issued for barbed wire. Only two of them addressed livestock deterrence, one of which was from American Lucien B. Smith of Ohio. Before 1870, westward movement in the United States was largely across the plains with little or no settlement occurring. After the American Civil War the plains were extensively settled, consolidating America's dominance over them.


title: Barbed wire

text: Ranchers moved out on the plains, and needed to fence their land in against encroaching farmers and other ranchers. The railroads throughout the growing West needed to keep livestock off their tracks, and farmers needed to keep stray cattle from trampling their crops. Traditional fence materials used in the Eastern U.S., like wood and stone, were expensive to use in the large open spaces of the plains, and hedging was not reliable in the rocky, clay-based and rain-starved dusty soils. A cost-effective alternative was needed to make cattle operations profitable.


title: Barbed wire

text: The "Big Four" in barbed wire were Joseph Glidden, Jacob Haish, Charles Francis Washburn, and Isaac L. Ellwood. Glidden, a farmer in 1873 and the first of the "Big Four," is often credited for designing a successful sturdy barbed wire product, but he let others popularize it for him. Glidden's idea came from a display at a fair in DeKalb, Illinois in 1873, by Henry B. Rose. Rose had patented "The Wooden Strip with Metallic Points" in May 1873.


title: Barbed wire

text: This was simply a wooden block with wire protrusions designed to keep cows from breaching the fence. That day, Glidden was accompanied by two other men, Isaac L. Ellwood, a hardware dealer and Jacob Haish, a lumber merchant. Like Glidden, they both wanted to create a more durable wire fence with fixed barbs. Glidden experimented with a grindstone to twist two wires together to hold the barbs on the wire in place. The barbs were created from experiments with a coffee mill from his home.


title: Barbed wire

text: Later Glidden was joined by Ellwood who knew his design could not compete with Glidden's for which he applied for a patent in October 1873. Meanwhile, Haish, who had already secured several patents for barbed wire design, applied for a patent on his third type of wire, the S barb, and accused Glidden of interference, deferring Glidden's approval for his patented wire, nicknamed "The Winner," until November 24, 1874.


title: Barbed wire

text: Barbed wire production greatly increased with Glidden and Ellwood's establishment of the Barb Fence Company in DeKalb following the success of "The Winner". The company's success attracted the attention of Charles Francis Washburn, Vice President of Washburn & Moen Manufacturing Company, an important producer of plain wire in the Eastern U.S. Washburn visited De Kalb and convinced Glidden to sell his stake in the Barb Wire Fence Company, while Ellwood stayed in DeKalb and renamed the company I.L Ellwood & Company of DeKalb.


title: Barbed wire

text: In the late 1870s, John Warne Gates of Illinois began to promote barbed wire, now a proven product, in the lucrative markets of Texas. At first, Texans were hesitant, as they feared that cattle might be harmed, or that the North was somehow trying to make profits from the South. There was also conflict between the farmers who wanted fencing and the ranchers who were losing the open range.


title: Barbed wire

text: Demonstrations by Gates in San Antonio in 1876 showed that the wire could keep cattle contained, and sales then increased dramatically. Gates eventually parted company with Ellwood and became a barbed wire baron in his own right. Throughout the height of barbed wire sales in the late 19th century, Washburn, Ellwood, Gates, and Haish competed with one another. Ellwood and Gates eventually joined forces again to create the American Steel and Wire Company, later acquired by The U.S. Steel Corporation.


title: Barbed wire

text: Between 1873 and 1899 there were as many as 150 companies manufacturing barbed wire. Investors knew that the business required minimal capital, and almost anyone with determination could profit by manufacturing a new wire design. There was then a sharp decline in the number of manufacturers, and many were consolidated into larger companies, notably the American Steel and Wire Company, formed by the merging of Gates's and Washburn's and Ellwood's industries.


title: Barbed wire

text: Smaller companies were decimated because of economies of scale and the smaller pool of consumers available to them, compared to the larger corporations. The American Steel and Wire Company established in 1899 employed vertical integration: it controlled all aspects of production, from producing the steel rods to making many different wire and nail products from that steel. It later became part of U.S. Steel, and barbed wire remained a major source of revenue.


title: Barbed wire

text: German immigrant William C. Edenborn who later settled in Winn Parish, Louisiana, patented a machine which simplified barbed wire manufacture. This reduced the unit price from . His wire was the "humane" version that did not harm cattle. The original wire was sharp-teethed and contributed to western range wars. Edenborn's company in time supplied 75% of the barbed wire in the United States. A wire nail machine that he patented reduced the price of wire nails from 8¢ to 2¢ per pound.


title: Barbed wire

text: Barbed wire was important in protecting range rights in the Western U.S. Although some ranchers put notices in newspapers claiming land areas, and joined stockgrowers associations to help enforce their claims, livestock continued to cross range boundaries. Fences of smooth wire did not hold stock well, and hedges were difficult to grow and maintain. Barbed wire's introduction in the West in the 1870s dramatically reduced the cost of enclosing land.


title: Barbed wire

text: Barbed wire emerged as a major source of conflict with the so-called "Big Die Up" incident in the 1880s. This occurred because of the instinctual migrations of cattle away from the blizzard conditions of the Northern Plains to the warmer and plentiful Southern Plains, but by the early 1880s this area was already divided and claimed by ranchers. The ranchers in place, especially in the Texas Panhandle, knew that their holdings could not support the grazing of additional cattle, so the only alternative was to block the migrations with barb wire fencing.


title: Barbed wire

text: Many of the herds were decimated in the winter of 1885, with some losing as many as three-quarters of all animals when they could not find a way around the fence. Later other smaller scale cattlemen, especially in central Texas, opposed the closing of the open range, and began cutting fences to allow cattle to pass through to find grazing land. In this transition zone between the agricultural regions to the south and the rangeland to the north, conflict erupted, with vigilantes joining the scene causing chaos and even death. The Fence Cutting Wars ended with the passage of a Texas law in 1884 that made fence cutting a felony. Other states followed, although conflicts occurred through the early years of the 20th century. An 1885 federal law forbade placing such fences across the public domain.


title: Barbed wire

text: Barbed wire is cited by historians as the invention that tamed the West. Herding large numbers of cattle on open range required significant manpower to catch strays. Barbed wire provided an inexpensive method to control the movement of cattle. By the beginning of the 20th century large numbers of cowboys were unnecessary.


title: Barbed wire

text: John Warne Gates demonstrated barbed wire for Washburn and Moen in Military Plaza, San Antonio, Texas in 1876. The demonstration showing cattle restrained by the new kind of fencing was followed immediately by invitations to the Menger Hotel to place orders. Gates subsequently had a falling out with Washburn and Moen and Isaac Ellwood. He moved to St. Louis and founded the Southern Wire Company, which became the largest manufacturer of unlicensed or "bootleg" barbed wire.


title: Barbed wire

text: An 1880 US District Court decision upheld the validity of the Glidden patent, effectively establishing a monopoly. This decision was affirmed by the US Supreme Court in 1892. In 1898 Gates took control of Washburn and Moen, and created the American Steel and Wire monopoly, which became a part of the United States Steel Corporation.


title: Barbed wire

text: This led to disputes known as the range wars between open range ranchers and farmers in the late 19th century. These were similar to the disputes which resulted from enclosure laws in England in the early 18th century. These disputes were decisively settled in favor of the farmers, and heavy penalties were instituted for cutting a barbed wire fence. Within 2 years, nearly all of the open range had been fenced in under private ownership. For this reason, some historians have dated the end of the Old West era of American history to the invention and subsequent proliferation of barbed wire.


title: Barbed wire

text: The most important and most time-consuming part of a barbed wire fence is constructing the "corner post" and the bracing assembly. A barbed wire fence is under tremendous tension, often up to half a ton, and so the corner post's sole function is to resist the tension of the fence spans connected to it. The bracing keeps the corner post vertical and prevents slack from developing in the fence.


title: Barbed wire

text: "Brace posts" are placed in-line about from the corner post. A horizontal "compression brace" connects the top of the two posts, and a diagonal wire connects the top of the brace post to the bottom of the corner post. This diagonal wire prevents the brace post from leaning, which in turn allows the horizontal brace to prevent the corner post from leaning into the brace post. A second set of brace posts (forming a "double brace") is used whenever the barbed wire span exceeds .


title: Barbed wire

text: When the barbed wire span exceeds , a "braced line assembly" is added in-line. This has the function of a corner post and brace assembly but handles tension from opposite sides. It uses diagonal brace wire that connects the tops to the bottoms of all adjacent posts.


title: Barbed wire

text: "Line posts" are installed along the span of the fence at intervals of . An interval of is most common. Heavy livestock and crowded pasture demands the smaller spacing. The sole function of a line post is not to take up slack but to keep the barbed wire strands spaced equally and off the ground.


title: Barbed wire

text: Once these posts and bracing have been erected, the wire is wrapped around one corner post, held with a hitch (a timber hitch works well for this) often using a staple to hold the height and then reeled out along the span of the fence replacing the roll every 400 m. It is then wrapped around the opposite corner post, pulled tightly with wire stretchers, and sometimes nailed with more fence staples, although this may make readjustment of tension or replacement of the wire more difficult. Then it is attached to all of the line posts with fencing staples driven in partially to allow stretching of the wire.


title: Barbed wire

text: Barbed wire for agriculture use is typically double-strand -gauge, zinc-coated (galvanized) steel and comes in rolls of length. Barbed wire is usually placed on the inner (pasture) side of the posts. Where a fence runs between two pastures livestock could be with the wire on the outside or on both sides of the fence.


title: Barbed wire

text: Galvanized wire is classified into three categories; Classes I, II, and III. Class I has the thinnest coating and the shortest life expectancy. A wire with Class I coating will start showing general rusting in 8 to 10 years, while the same wire with Class III coating will show rust in 15 to 20 years. Aluminum-coated wire is occasionally used, and yields a longer life.


title: Barbed wire

text: Corner posts are in diameter or larger, and a minimum in length may consist of treated wood or from durable on-site trees such as osage orange, black locust, red cedar, or red mulberry, also railroad ties, telephone, and power poles are salvaged to be used as corner posts (poles and railroad ties were often treated with chemicals determined to be an environmental hazard and cannot be reused in some jurisdictions). In Canada spruce posts are sold for this purpose. Posts are in diameter driven at least and may be anchored in a concrete base square and deep. Iron posts, if used, are a minimum in diameter. Bracing wire is typically smooth 9-gauge. Line posts are set to a depth of about . Conversely, steel posts are not as stiff as wood, and wires are fastened with slips along fixed teeth, which means variations in driving height affect wire spacing.


title: Barbed wire

text: During the First World War, screw pickets were used for the installation of wire obstacles; these were metal rods with eyelets for holding strands of wire, and a corkscrew-like end that could literally be screwed into the ground rather than hammered, so that wiring parties could work at night near enemy soldiers and not reveal their position by the sound of hammers.


title: Barbed wire

text: As with any fence, barbed wire fences require gates to allow the passage of persons, vehicles and farm implements. Gates vary in width from to allow the passage of vehicles and tractors, to on farm land to pass combines and swathers.


title: Barbed wire

text: One style of gate is called the Hampshire gate in the UK, a New Zealand gate in some areas, and often simply a "gate" elsewhere. Made of wire with posts attached at both ends and in the middle, it is permanently wired on one side and attaches to a gate post with wire loops on the other. Most designs can be opened by hand, though some gates that are frequently opened and closed may have a lever attached to assist in bringing the upper wire loop over the gate post


title: Barbed wire

text: Gates for cattle tend to have four wires when along a three wire fence, as cattle tend to put more stress on gates, particularly on corner gates. The fence on each side of the gate ends with two corner posts braced or unbraced depending on the size of the post. An unpounded post (often an old broken post) is held to one corner post with wire rings which act as hinges. On the other end a full-length post, the tractor post, is placed with the pointed end upwards with a ring on the bottom stapled to the other corner post, the latch post, and on top a ring is stapled to the tractor post, tied with a Stockgrower's Lash or one of numerous other opening bindings. Wires are then tied around the post at one end then run to the other end where they are stretched by hand or with a stretcher, before posts are stapled on every . Often this type of gate is called a portagee fence or a portagee gate in various ranching communities of coastal Central California.


title: Barbed wire

text: Most gates can be opened by push post. The chain is then wrapped around the tractor post and pulled onto the nail, stronger people can pull the gate tighter but anyone can jar off the chain to open the gate.


title: Barbed wire

text: Barbed wire fences remain the standard fencing technology for enclosing cattle in most regions of the United States, but not all countries. The wire is aligned under tension between heavy, braced, fence posts (strainer posts) and then held at the correct height by being attached to wooden or steel fence posts, and/or with battens in between.


title: Barbed wire

text: The gaps between posts vary depending on type and terrain. On short fences in hilly country, steel posts may be placed every , while in flat terrain with long spans and relatively few stock they may be spaced up to apart. Wooden posts are normally spaced at on all terrain, with 4 or 5 battens in between. However, many farmers place posts apart as battens can bend, causing wires to close in on one another.


title: Barbed wire

text: Barbed wire for agricultural fencing is typically available in two varieties: soft or mild-steel wire and high-tensile. Both types are galvanized for longevity. High-tensile wire is made with thinner but higher-strength steel. Its greater strength makes fences longer lasting because it resists stretching and loosening better, coping with expansion and contraction caused by heat and animal pressure by stretching and relaxing within wider elastic limits. It also supports longer spans, but because of its elastic (springy) nature, it is harder to handle and somewhat dangerous for inexperienced fencers. Soft wire is much easier to work but is less durable and only suitable for short spans such as repairs and gates, where it is less likely to tangle.


title: Barbed wire

text: In high soil-fertility areas where dairy cattle are used in great numbers, 5- or 7-wire fences are common as the main boundary and internal dividing fences. On sheep farms 7-wire fences are common with the second (from bottom) to fifth wire being plain wire. In New Zealand wire fences must provide passage for dogs since they are the main means of controlling and driving animals on farms.


title: Barbed wire

text: Barbed wire was used for the first time by Portuguese troops defending from African tribes during the Combat of Magul in 1895. Less well known is its extensive usage in the Russo-Japanese War.


title: Barbed wire

text: In 1899 barbed wire was also extensively used in the Boer War, where it played a strategic role bringing spaces under control, at military outposts as well as to hold the captured Boer population in concentration camps.


title: Barbed wire

text: The government of the United States built its first international border fence from 1909 to 1911 along the California-Mexico border. It included barbed wire and was intended to keep cattle from moving between the two countries. In 1924, the United States created its border patrol, which built more barbed wire fences on the Mexican border; this time to prevent people from crossing.


title: Barbed wire

text: More significantly, barbed wire was used extensively by all participating combatants in World War I to prevent movement, with deadly consequences. Barbed wire entanglements were placed in front of trenches to prevent direct charges on men below, increasingly leading to greater use of more advanced weapons such as high-powered machine guns and grenades. A feature of these entanglements was that the barbs were much closer together, often forming a continuous sequence.


title: Barbed wire

text: Barbed wire could be exposed to heavy bombardments because it could be easily replaced, and its structure included so much open space that machine guns rarely destroyed enough of it to defeat its purpose. However, barbed wire was defeated by the tank in 1916, as shown by the Allied breakthrough at Amiens through German lines on August 8, 1918.


title: Barbed wire

text: One British writer described how the Germans used barbed wire as follows: The enemy wire was always deep, thick, and securely staked with iron supports, which were either crossed like the letter X, or upright, with loops to take the wire and shaped at one end like corkscrews so as to screw into the ground. The wire stood on these supports on a thick web, about four feet high and from thirty to forty feet across. The wire used was generally as thick as sailor's marline stuff, or two twisted rope yarns. It contained, as a rule, some sixteen barbs to the foot. The wire used in front of our lines was generally galvanized, and remained grey after months of exposure. The (German) wire, not being galvanized, rusted to a black color, and shows up black at a great distance.


title: Barbed wire

text: In the 1930s and 1940s Europe the Nazis used barbed wire in concentration camp and extermination camp architecture, where it usually surrounded the camp and was electrified to prevent escape. Barbed wire served the purpose of keeping prisoners contained.


title: Barbed wire

text: Infirmaries in extermination camps like Auschwitz where prisoners were gassed or experimented on were often separated from other areas by electrified wire and were often braided with branches to prevent outsiders from knowing what was concealed behind their walls.


title: Barbed wire

text: During the United States' World War II Internment of Japanese Americans, barbed wire was used to enclose the concentration camps, such as Manzanar.


title: Barbed wire

text: During the 1968 Chicago riots, barbed wire was attached to the fronts of police and National Guard vehicles. The vehicles were used to drive into protesters and rioters and were nicknamed "Daly dozers" after then-Chicago mayor Richard J. Daley.


title: Barbed wire

text: Most barbed wire fences, while sufficient to discourage cattle, are passable by humans who can simply climb over or through the fence by stretching the gaps between the wires using non-barbed sections of the wire as handholds. To prevent humans crossing, many prisons, and other high-security installations construct fences with razor wire, a variant which replaces the barbs with near-continuous cutting surfaces sufficient to injure unprotected persons who climb on it. Both razor wire and barbed wire can be bypassed with protection, such as a thick carpet, or with the use of wire cutters.


title: Barbed wire

text: A commonly seen alternative is the placement of a few strands of barbed wire at the top of a chain link fence. The limited mobility of someone climbing a fence makes passing conventional barbed wire more difficult. On some chain link fences, these strands are attached to a bracket tilted 45 degrees towards the intruder, further increasing the difficulty.


title: Barbed wire

text: Barbed wire began to be widely used as an implement of war during World War I. Wire was placed either to impede or halt the passage of soldiers, or to channel them into narrow defiles in which small arms, particularly machine guns, and indirect fire could be used with greater effect as they attempted to pass. Artillery bombardments on the Western Front became increasingly aimed at cutting the barbed wire that was a major component of trench warfare, particularly once new "wire-cutting" fuzes were introduced midway through the war.


title: Barbed wire

text: As the war progressed, the wire was used in shorter lengths that were easier to transport and more difficult to cut with artillery. Other inventions were also a result of the war, such as the screw picket, which enabled construction of wire obstacles to be done at night in No Man's Land without the necessity of hammering stakes into the ground and drawing attention from the enemy.


title: Barbed wire

text: During the Soviet–Afghan War, the accommodation of Afghan refugees into Pakistan was controlled in Pakistan's largest province, Balochistan, under General Rahimuddin Khan, by making the refugees stay for controlled durations in barbed wire camps (see Controlling Soviet–Afghan war refugees).


title: Barbed wire

text: The frequent use of barbed wire on prison walls, around concentration camps, and the like, has made it symbolic of oppression and denial of freedom in general. For example, in Germany, the totality of East Germany's border regime is commonly referred to with the short phrase "Mauer und Stacheldraht" (that is, "wall and barbed wire"), and Amnesty International has a barbed wire in their symbol.


title: Barbed wire

text: Movement against barbed wire can result in moderate to severe injuries to the skin and, depending on body area and barbed wire configuration, possibly to the underlying tissue. Humans can manage not to injure themselves excessively when dealing with barbed wire as long as they are cautious. Restriction of movement, appropriate clothing, and slow movement when close to barbed wire aid in reducing injury.


title: Barbed wire

text: Infantrymen are often trained and inured to the injuries caused by barbed wire. Several soldiers can lie across the wire to form a bridge for the rest of the formation to pass over; often any injury thus incurred is due to the tread of those passing over and not to the wire itself.


title: Barbed wire

text: Injuries caused by barbed wire are typically seen in horses, bats, or birds. Horses panic easily, and once caught in barbed wire, large patches of skin may be torn off. At best, such injuries may heal, but they may cause disability or death (particularly due to infection). Birds or bats may not be able to perceive thin strands of barbed wire and suffer injuries.


title: Barbed wire

text: More than 60 different species of wildlife have been reported in Australia as victims of entanglement on barbed wire fences, and the wildlife friendly fencing project is beginning to address this problem.


title: Barbed wire

text: Grazing animals with slow movements that will back off at the first notion of pain ("e.g.", sheep and cows) will not generally suffer the severe injuries often seen in other animals.


title: Barbed wire

text: Barbed wire has been reported as a tool for human torture. It is also frequently used as a weapon in hardcore professional wrestling matches, often as a covering for another type of weapon—Mick Foley was infamous for using a baseball bat wrapped in barbed wire—and infrequently as a covering of or substitute for the ring ropes.


title: Barbed wire

text: Because of the risk of injuries, in 2010 Norway prohibited making new fences with barbed wire for limiting migration of animals. Electric fences are used instead. Consequently, Rolls-Royce Motor Cars is using Norwegian hides for producing leather interior in their cars, since the hides from Norwegian cattle have fewer scratches than hides from countries where barbed wire is used.


title: Opioid epidemic

text: The opioid epidemic, also referred to as the opioid crisis, is the rapid increase in the overuse, misuse/abuse, and overdose deaths attributed either in part or in whole to the class of drugs opiates/opioids since the 1990s. It includes the significant medical, social, psychological, and economic consequences of the medical, non-medical, and recreational abuse of these medications.


title: Opioid epidemic

text: Opioids are a diverse class of moderate to strong painkillers, including oxycodone (commonly sold under the trade names OxyContin and Percocet), hydrocodone (Vicodin, Norco), and fentanyl, which is a very strong painkiller that is synthesized to resemble other opiates such as opium-derived morphine and heroin. The potency and availability of these substances, despite the potential risk of addiction and overdose, have made them popular both as medical treatments and as recreational drugs. Due to the sedative effects of opioids on the respiratory center of the medulla oblongata, opioids in high doses present the potential for respiratory depression and may cause respiratory failure and death.


title: Opioid epidemic

text: Opioids are highly effective for treating acute pain, but there is strong debate over whether they are effective in treating chronic or high impact intractable pain, as the risks may outweigh the benefits.


title: Opioid epidemic

text: From 1999 to 2016 it is estimated 453,300 Americans have died from opioid use. What the U.S. Surgeon General dubbed "The Opioid Crisis" was theorized to have been caused by the over-prescription of opioids in the 1990s, which led to the CDC "Guideline for Prescribing Opioids for Chronic Pain", 2016 and the resulting impact on medical access to prescription opioids "outside of active cancer treatment, palliative and end of life." Opioids initiated for post-surgical pain management have long been debated as one of the causative factors in the opioid crisis, with misuse/abuse estimated at 4.3% of people continuing opioid use after trauma or surgery.


title: Opioid epidemic

text: When people continue to use opioids beyond what a doctor prescribes, or when opioids are over-prescribed, whether to minimize pain or induce euphoric feelings, it can mark the beginning stages of an opiate addiction, with a tolerance developing and eventually leading to dependence, when a person relies on the drug to prevent withdrawal symptoms. Writers have pointed to a widespread desire among the public to find a pill for any problem, even if a better solution might be a lifestyle change, such as exercise, improved diet, and stress reduction. Opioids are relatively inexpensive, and alternative interventions, such as physical therapy, may not be affordable.


title: Opioid epidemic

text: In the late 1990s, around 100 million people or a third of the U.S. population were estimated to be affected by chronic pain. This led to a push by drug companies and the federal government to expand the use of painkilling opioids. In addition to this, initiatives like the Joint Commission began to push for more attentive physician response to patient pain, referring to pain as the fifth vital sign. This exacerbated the already increasing number of opioids being prescribed by doctors to patients. Between 1991 and 2011, painkiller prescriptions in the U.S. tripled from 76 million to 219 million per year, and as of 2016 more than 289 million prescriptions were written for opioid drugs per year.


title: Opioid epidemic

text: Mirroring the growth of opioid pain relievers prescribed is an increase in the admissions for substance abuse treatments and opioid-related deaths. This illustrates how legitimate clinical prescriptions of pain relievers are being diverted through an illegitimate market, leading to misuse, addiction, and death. With the increase in volume, the potency of opioids also increased. By 2002, one in six drug users were being prescribed drugs more powerful than morphine; by 2012, the ratio had doubled to one in three. The most commonly prescribed opioids have been oxycodone and hydrocodone.


title: Opioid epidemic

text: The epidemic has been described as a "uniquely American problem". The structure of the US healthcare system, in which people not qualifying for government programs are required to obtain private insurance, favors prescribing drugs over more expensive therapies. According to Professor Judith Feinberg, "Most insurance, especially for poor people, won't pay for anything but a pill." Prescription rates for opioids in the US are 40 percent higher than the rate in other developed countries such as Germany or Canada. While the rates of opioid prescriptions increased between 2001 and 2010, the prescription of non-opioid pain relievers (aspirin, ibuprofen, etc.) decreased from 38% to 29% of ambulatory visits in the same time period, and there has been no change in the amount of pain reported in the U.S. This has led to differing medical opinions, with some noting that there is little evidence that opioids are effective for chronic pain not caused by cancer.


title: Opioid epidemic

text: The opioid epidemic affects women and men differently. For instance, women are more likely than men to be prescribed prescription opioids and develop a substance use disorder. Women are also more likely to have chronic pain than men are. In cases of domestic abuse and rape, women are prescribed pain medicine more than men. Along with that, during pregnancy women may use prescription opioids to help with pregnancy pain, especially with post-pregnancy pain. The number of women that have died from opioid pain relievers has increased 5 times from what it was in 1999 in 2010. To help stop the spread of opioid abuse in women, it is advised that women are educated on the drugs that they are taking and the possible risk of addiction. Additionally, alternatives should always be used when possible in order to prevent addiction.


title: Opioid epidemic

text: Most research gone into understanding the epidemic is mostly focused on females, specifically anticipated mothers. Women are at the greatest risk for opioid addiction compared to men. Usually, opioid misuse in women stems from unused prescription drug hoarding, the dependence of the drugs and higher pain levels compared to men. Women are less likely to report opioid misuse in contrast to the male population. Analyzers of the epidemic stress that their main concern is the female victims, and studies tend to neglect the male population victimization, when over 70% of prescription drug intake and overdose, happen to males.


title: Opioid epidemic

text: Adolescents are another category of people that can become easily addicted to opioids. Even before their teenage years, children go through the rapid growth of their reward center, also known as the Mesolimbic pathway. The development of the Mesolimbic pathway allows children to be easily satisfied by small rewards to encourage learning, motivation, and acceptable behavior. However, this growth peaks in their adolescent years, and they start to feel a need for larger, more meaningful rewards, such as psychoactive substances which produce reward signals through direct receptor binding. Teens also have an underdeveloped prefrontal cortex which governs impulse control and decision making. The combination of underdeveloped prefrontal cortex and a rundown reward system can lead to adolescents with addictive seeking behaviors and higher susceptibility to the neurological changes developed in substance use disorder (SUD). The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention estimates that In 2018, over 53 million people aged 12 years and older in the United States, reported the misuse of prescription drugs.


title: Opioid epidemic

text: A 2020 review of the opioid epidemic in pediatrics stated that there were 4,094 opioid overdose deaths in people ages 14–24 in 2017. Teens commonly use opioids as recreational drugs, instead of what they are supposed to be used for, pain management. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention says that for every opioid death of a teen there are 119 emergency visits and 22 treatment admissions related to opioid abuse. Half a million teenagers in 2014 were reported as non medically prescribed opioid users and a third of those as having a substance use disorder (SUD).


title: Opioid epidemic

text: Family is widely discussed as an influence for factors affecting adolescent opioid misuse behavior and in the treatment of adolescent opioid misuse. Family involvement has been shown to be effective in decreasing substance use in adolescents by addressing family risk factors that may be contributing to an adolescent's substance use. Some of these risk factors that are contributing to the increase in popularity of opioids include easy accessibility. The late 1990s increase in opioid recommendation from pharmaceutical companies created an abundance of prescription painkillers in adult households. If family members are taking opioids for pain or have taken them in the past and did not dispose of them correctly or do not protect them properly, it can make it easy for adolescents to get their hands on them.


title: Opioid epidemic

text: Proper disposal of these drugs is crucial to reducing adolescent misuse. A national insurance cohort reviewed almost 90,000 opioid prescribed patients, 13–21 years old, and found that 5% continued to fill their prescription 90 days or more after surgery. Medicine take-back programs are the most recommended and regulated disposal method by the United States Drug Enforcement Agency, although, it is not guaranteed that the prescribed patient will comply with this recommendation. There are also eight different at-home drug disposal products on the market but none of them is federal agency approved or in the process of being evaluated. The main concern of proper opioid disposal is trash and sewage disposal that create pharmaceutical pollution and still grants access for adolescents with substance use disorders.


title: Opioid epidemic

text: Not only are youth at a heightened risk of developing opioid addictions, but treating opioid use disorder in this population is also more difficult than it is for older individuals. A systematic review of the epidemiological literature has found that adolescents and young adults consistently have shorter retention times in medication treatments for opioid use disorder than do older adults. This is why it is important for schools to implement effective strategies and programs to teach young children about the dangers and consequences of opioid misuse. Although the retention time of adolescents is much lower than adults, educating them from a younger age on opioid misuse should help keep children away from these drugs.


title: Opioid epidemic

text: The continued prevalence of the opioid epidemic in the United States can be traced to many reasons. For one, there is a lack of appropriate treatments and treatment centers across the nation. Big cities like New York City are lacking in treatment services and health offices as well as small rural areas. Another reason the opioid epidemic is hard to combat is due to available housing being limited to recovering addicts. Having limited housing makes it easy for recovering substance users to return to the very unhealthy environments and relationships that promoted drug abuse in the first place. Along with housing, jobs for recovering addicts can be difficult to find. Addicts with criminal records are not able to find jobs once they leave recovery. Having to combat job insecurity can lead to stress, which can cause someone to relapse. The fact that "wraparound services", or programs that provide services for patients who have just come out of rehabilitation centers or programs, are rare to non-existent, and is also a contributing reason as to why the opioid epidemic has gone on for so long.


title: Opioid epidemic

text: The public reaction that has made the first step in ending the opioid epidemic was the lawsuit that the state of Oklahoma put up against Purdue Pharma. The state of Oklahoma argued that Purdue Pharma helped start the opioid epidemic because of assertive marketing and deceptive claims on the dangers of addiction. One of the marketing strategies was to redefine "substance use disorder" as "pseudo addiction". In 2019, Purdue Pharma agreed to settle and pay 270 million dollars to the state of Oklahoma that would go towards addiction research and treatment. The settlement could indicate a win for other states that have taken legal action against similar opioid manufacturers. Specifically, states like California are raising similar claims that Purdue Pharma marketed the drug Oxycontin as a safe and effective treatment, which led to the opioid crisis leaving thousands dead in California from opioid overdoses.


title: Opioid epidemic

text: Title II of the Comprehensive Drug Abuse Prevention and Control Act of 1970, otherwise known as the Controlled Substance Act, established five drug schedules to regulate and control their manufacture and distribution. In 2017, President Donald Trump officially declared the opioid crisis a "public health emergency." In 2018, the United States federal government enacted the SUPPORT Act which aims to help Americans gain access to opioid addiction treatment and help and reduce the amount of opioids prescribed. Other efforts include enacting legislation that provides funds from the Department of Health and Human Services to help support the creation and use of Syringe Services Programs. Recently, legislatures have started to advocate for the implementation of supervised injection sites as another way to help the opioid crisis and reduce harm. However, the United States Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit held that supervised injection cites violate the Federal Crack House Statute.


title: Opioid epidemic

text: In 1993, an investigation by the chief coroner in British Columbia identified an "inordinately high number" of drug-related deaths, of which there were 330. By 2017, there were 1,473 deaths in British Columbia and 3,996 deaths in Canada as a whole.