title: Boeing–Sikorsky RAH-66 Comanche

text: During November 1993, assembly of the first prototype commenced at Sikorsky's facility in Stratford, Connecticut and at Boeing's manufacturing plant in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. Later all of the rotorcraft's sub-assemblies were transferred to the former location where final assembly occurred. In December 1994, the Department of Defense reduced the number of planned prototypes to two as the services shifted budgets to pay for increased troop salaries. On 25 May 1995, the first Comanche prototype was formally rolled out at Sikorsky's production facility, after which it was transferred to West Palm Beach, Florida to commence flight testing activities. On 4 January 1996, the prototype Comanche, flown by test pilots Bob Gradle and Rus Stiles, performed its 39-minute maiden flight. The first flight had been originally planned to take place during August 1995, but had been delayed by a number of structural and software problems that had been encountered. On 30 March 1999, the second prototype conducted its first flight, before joining the flight test program shortly thereafter.


title: Boeing–Sikorsky RAH-66 Comanche

text: The flight test program was conducted using the pair of prototypes produced, which had been assigned the serial numbers "94-0327" and "95-0001". Following a demonstration of its ability to meet certain key criteria, on 1 June 2000, the RAH-66 entered the $3.1 billion engineering and manufacturing development (EMD) phase of the program. Through the early 2000s, the U.S. Army maintained its plans for the intended purchase of over 1,200 Comanches, which were to fill both the scout helicopter and light attack roles; as late as 2003, it was being anticipated that deliveries of operational RAH-66s would commence as scheduled during 2006.


title: Boeing–Sikorsky RAH-66 Comanche

text: During late 2000, it was revealed that an effort to reduce the Comanche's empty weight by approximately or 2.1 per cent in order to conform with its established target weight had been initiated. The first Comanche prototype, serial "94-0327", completed 318 flights over 387 hours before reaching the end of its testing career during January 2002. The second prototype, serial "95-0001", had accumulated 103.5 flight hours and 93 sorties by May 2001. During late 2001 and early 2002, testing with the second RAH-66 was halted while the aircraft underwent extensive modifications, received both mission equipment and more powerful T800-LHT-801 engines. On 23 May 2002, the second prototype re-commenced flight testing with the additional equipment fitted. Accordingly, the expanded test programme involved new aspects such as the testing of the armaments and night vision systems; these test flights continued into 2003. During testing, the Comanche was recorded as having attained a cruise speed of , as well as having achieved a "dash speed" of . It also demonstrated ability to perform a 180° turn in under five seconds.


title: Boeing–Sikorsky RAH-66 Comanche

text: During 2002, the Comanche program underwent heavy restructuring; consequently, the planned number of Comanches to be purchased was decreased to 650 rotorcraft. At the time, the projected total cost for the full production of the Comanche in such numbers stood at $26.9 billion. Originally, the EMD phase was to last for six years with five Comanches to be constructed for the testing regime. During 2003, production on the third RAH-66, which was to be the first EMD-conformant helicopter, was started. Subsequently, eight RAH-66s were to be constructed for operational testing purposes. The initial production RAH-66s were to be completed in a Block I configuration that included the majority of the rotorcraft's planned weapons and sensors. From the 16th Comanche onwards, deliveries would have been made to the Block II standard with all of the planned capabilities.


title: Boeing–Sikorsky RAH-66 Comanche

text: On 23 February 2004, the U.S. Army announced that they had decided to terminate all work on the Comanche program. At the time, it was stated that the Army had determined that a number of upgrades would be necessary in order for the RAH-66 to be capable of surviving on the battlefield in the face of current anti-aircraft threats; however, the Army had instead decided to re-direct the bulk of its funding for rotary development toward the renovation of its existing helicopter fleet of attack, utility, and reconnaissance aircraft. Specifically, the Army also had plans to reuse the funds allocated to the Comanche program to speed up development of unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs), which could also perform the scouting role intended for the vehicle. At the time of its termination, the Comanche program had reportedly spent US$6.9 billion. The contract termination fees involved were estimated to total US$450–680 million for the main program partners Sikorsky and Boeing.


title: Boeing–Sikorsky RAH-66 Comanche

text: Subsequently, the Army decided to pursue development of another battlefield scout helicopter under the "Armed Reconnaissance Helicopter" program; this resulted in another rotorcraft, designated as the Bell ARH-70, being selected and developed with the intention to replace the OH-58D in place of the Comanche. However, on 16 October 2008, the Department of Defense notified Congress and Bell that it was canceling the program, reportedly due to cost overruns on its development.


title: Boeing–Sikorsky RAH-66 Comanche

text: A multitude of reasons contributed to the ultimate cancellation of the RAH-66 program. According to aviation author James Williams, efforts to speed up the program via the elimination of risk-mitigation measures and the stream of continuous adjustments to account for annual budget cuts to the rotorcraft resulted in the formation of a negative cycle that functioned to greatly extend the rotorcraft's development schedule. Over the course of the Comanche's development, multiple government agencies had acted to cut the number of helicopters that were intended to be ordered; one particularly common basis for such curtailments was that the Cold War had ended and thus such quantities were unnecessary (a phenomenon known as the "Peace Dividend"). However, significant reductions in volume directly resulted in the rapid climbs in the projections of the Comanche's unit cost; in turn, this stimulated and gave validity to critics of the program, such as the Army Acquisition Executive James Ambrose, who had prominently declared that the Army would not receive any aircraft "costing a dollar over $7.5 million".


title: Boeing–Sikorsky RAH-66 Comanche

text: As early as 1995, it is claimed by Williams that the Comanche had been facing complete cancellation as a choice between which defense development programs were to be scrapped. During mid-1999, the Comanche was subject to substantial governmental scrutiny; the Government Accountability Office (GAO) reported that it had "serious doubts" about the program and noted that the Comanche would "consume almost two thirds of the whole Aviation budget by Fiscal Year 2008". In addition, wartime experiences, such as from the Kosovo War, had led to some senior figures within the Army to place a greater emphasis on the use of unmanned platforms for conducting many of the same roles for which the Comanche was being developed to perform. By 2000, Williams postulates that the primary reason for retaining the program was out of concern for the state of the helicopter industry—Sikorsky's production and employment figures were at their lowest for decades and the contract was considered critical.


title: Boeing–Sikorsky RAH-66 Comanche

text: Author Fred Brooks criticized the program's requirement for the Comanche to be capable of ferrying itself across the Atlantic as an example of excessive requirements being present in a project's design phase and of their costly repercussions. Williams observes that the Comanche's weight requirements were unachievable, and claimed that this was due to poor management, in which no party was allegedly aware of or in control of the rotorcraft's final weight; there were concerns that, when outfitted with actual equipment required for operations, the Comanche's engines would be incapable of lifting the total weight of the helicopter. Additionally, it has been claimed that it proved difficult to convince the Army that the program suffered from serious troubles while key individuals failed to realize the existence of insurmountable technical problems. Prized elements of the program, such as certain software capabilities and its integration, failed to foster confidence with Army overseers; several capabilities were viewed as having been unproven and risky, while the anticipated consumption of up to 40 per cent of the aviation budget by the Comanche alone for a number of years was considered to be extreme. According to Williams, it was concluded that the Army's aviation budget would be better spent on the delivery of less risky and more critical needs.


title: Boeing–Sikorsky RAH-66 Comanche

text: In a report published during 2008, the GAO recorded that an Army spokesperson had stated that "the program's costs could no longer be justified". Author Cindy Williams stated of the Comanche: "The rationale for cutting Comanche... is twofold. First, the doctrinal niche that the Comanche occupies is unnecessary in the near term and probably not viable in the longer term. Secondly, as with all rotary-wing aircraft, the Comanche is a voracious consumer of strategic airlift."


title: Boeing–Sikorsky RAH-66 Comanche

text: The manufacturing team, Sikorsky and Boeing, have attributed factors that were outside of their control, such as budget cuts, "requirement creep", and a protracted development period, to have caused problems with the program, rather than dysfunctionality on their part. Under the Comanche program, each company was responsible for the construction of different elements of the rotorcraft. Since the termination, both companies have decided to team up again to produce a jointly-developed prototype, designated as the SB-1 Defiant, for the Army's Future Vertical Lift (FVL) programme.


title: Boeing–Sikorsky RAH-66 Comanche

text: The Comanche was intended to be an advanced armed reconnaissance and attack helicopter. The Comanche was specifically tailored to the role of armed scout to replace the U.S. Army's OH-58D Kiowa Warrior, which is an upgraded version of a Vietnam War-era observation helicopter. It was both smaller and lighter than the AH-64 Apache attack helicopter that it had been intended to accompany. The RAH-66 was powered by a pair of LHTEC T800 turboshaft engines, each capable of generating up to 1,563 hp (1,165 kW) of power. The RAH-66's fuselage was long and composed of composite materials; it was designed to be capable of fitting more readily onto transport ships, enabling the Comanche to be more rapidly deployed to flash points and other rapidly-developing situations. However, in the event of strategic transport assets not being available, the helicopter's ferry range of would have allowed it to fly itself to battlefields overseas on its own.


title: Boeing–Sikorsky RAH-66 Comanche

text: As intended, it would have functioned as a stealth helicopter, incorporating a number of different techniques and technologies in order to reduce its radar cross-section (RCS) along with other areas of visibility and detectability. The exterior surfaces of the RAH-66 were faceted and covered with both radar-absorbent material (RAM) coatings and infrared-suppressant paint; as a result of these combined measures, the Comanche's RCS was stated to be 360 times smaller than that of the AH-64 Apache. The acoustic signature of the helicopter was also reported to be noticeably lower than comparative helicopters; this reduction had been partially achieved through the adoption of an all-composite five-blade main rotor and pioneering canted tail rotor assembly.


title: Boeing–Sikorsky RAH-66 Comanche

text: As intended, the Comanche was to be equipped with sophisticated avionics, including navigation and detection systems, which would have enabled operations at night and in inclement weather. Its primary mission was scouting using its advanced sensors, in particular locating and designating targets for attack helicopters, such as the AH-64 Apache, to strike. The Comanche was furnished with a digital fly-by-wire flight control system. Each of the two crew members were to be provided with a pair of multi-functional LCDs in addition to the Helmet-Integrated Display and Sight System (HIDSS).


title: Boeing–Sikorsky RAH-66 Comanche

text: For the light attack role, the RAH-66 was to be furnished with various armaments. It was equipped with a single chin-mounted 20 mm three-barrel XM301 rotary cannon, which could be pointed rearwards and retracted under a fairing when not in use to decrease the helicopter's radar cross-section. In addition, the RAH-66 was capable of internally carrying a maximum of six AGM-114 Hellfire air-to-ground missiles or up to twelve AIM-92 Stinger air-to-air missiles, which would be evenly divided between a pair of retractable weapons pylons. Beyond storing munitions internally, the Comanche could also mount external stub wings to carry up to eight Hellfire missiles or sixteen Stinger missiles. However, operations performing with armaments mounted externally would reduce the effectiveness of the Comanche's stealth technologies.


title: Boeing–Sikorsky RAH-66 Comanche

text: Both prototype airframes "94-0327", "95-0001", are located at the United States Army Aviation Museum at Fort Rucker, Alabama.


title: Rank in Judo

text: In Judo, improvement and understanding of the art is denoted by a system of rankings split into "kyū" and "dan" grades. These are indicated with various systems of coloured belts, with the black belt indicating a practitioner who has attained a certain level of competence.


title: Rank in Judo

text: are ranked according to their skill and knowledge, and, for later "dan" grades, their contribution to the art. Their rank is indicated by the colour of belt that they wear. There are two broad categories of rank: those who have attained a level of competency at which they are considered worthy of a and who hold grades and those who are yet to attain that level and who hold grades. Those who hold "dan" grades are collectively termed (literally "person who has dan") and those with "kyū" grades are , literally "person without dan".


title: Rank in Judo

text: This ranking system was introduced by Kanō Jigorō, the founder of judo, in 1883. However, the current system is not the original one, but based on Kanō's last system introduced between 1926-1931, with some modification shortly after Kanō's death in 1938. The first "dan" grades were awarded to his students Saigō Shirō and Tomita Tsunejirō. Since then it has been widely adopted by other modern martial arts.


title: Rank in Judo

text: In the current system as in use in Japan, there are six student grades ranked in descending numerical order. Beginners were given the rank of and wore a light blue belt. Once they had passed an elementary level of instruction, they were promoted to , when they would adopt the white belt. This they wore through . The remaining three grades (, and were all indicated with brown belts (for seniors) or with purple belts (for juniors).


title: Rank in Judo

text: 1st "kyū" is the last kyū rank before promotion to first degree black belt ("shodan"). There are (in practice) 10 "dan" ranks, which are ranked in ascending numerical order.


title: Rank in Judo

text: The ninth ("kudan") and tenth degree black belt ("jūdan") and, theoretically, those higher, have no formal requirements. Only 15 individuals have been promoted to the rank of Kōdōkan 10th dan. On January 6, 2006, three individuals were promoted to this rank simultaneously: Daigo Toshirō, Ichirō Abe, and Ōsawa Yoshimi. This is the most ever at the same time, and the first in 22 years. No one has ever been promoted to a rank higher than 10th "dan", but in theory the Judo rank system is not limited to 10 degrees of black belt. As an educator by profession, Kanō believed that there should be no end to an individual's learning, and therefore no limit to the number of dan ranks. The English language edition (1955) of "Illustrated Kodokan Judo", edited by the Kōdōkan, says:


title: Rank in Judo

text: This statement was later clarified, however. Essentially, the dan-rank system was capped at 10 after the death of Kanō. In that respect, in the November 1963 issue of "Jūdō", the Kōdōkan's official magazine, the Kōdōkan responding to the question "Do the 11th and 12th Dan really exist?" clarifies that the hierarchy now stops at 10 and that the Kōdōkan does not envisage any nominations to these grades.


title: Rank in Judo

text: There have only been fifteen 10th dan promotions awarded by the Kōdōkan itself in the history of Judo.


title: Rank in Judo

text: Although "dan" ranks tend to be consistent between national organizations there is more variation in the "kyū" grades, with some countries having more "kyū" grades. Although initially "kyū" grade belt colours were uniformly white, today a variety of colours are used. The first black belts to denote a Dan rank in the 1880s. Initially the wide obi was used; as practitioners trained in kimono, only white and black obi were used. It was not until the early 1900s, after the introduction of the judogi, that an expanded colored belt system of awarding rank was created.


title: Rank in Judo

text: For "dan" ranks, the first five are colored black, 6th, 7th, and 8th "dan" have alternating red and white panels (段だら,"dandara"), and for 9th, 10th "dan" and above, the belts are solid red. In judo's promotion system as originally finalized by Kanō around 1926 there was no maximal dan rank, and judoka holding 10th dan (and above) would normally wear a red belt, but also could wear a white belt (the same color as the lowest kyū rank), or a black belt. However, since the highest dan rank reached in judo for a living person or conferred posthumously remains 10th dan, any judo dan rank higher than 10th dan is now considered as a merely historical theoretical option. Some time after the death of Kanō the promotion system essentially became capped at 10th dan. Furthermore, holders of a dan rank above "godan" (5th "dan") will often wear a plain black belt during regular training practice and outside any ceremonial duties.


title: Rank in Judo

text: Examination requirements vary depending on country, age group and of course the grade being attempted. The examination itself may include competition and kata. The "kyū" ranks are normally awarded by local instructors ("sensei"), but "dan" ranks are usually awarded only after an exam supervised by independent judges from a national judo association. For a rank to be recognized, it must be registered with the national judo organization or the Kōdōkan.


title: Rank in Judo

text: In Japan, the use of belt colors is related to the age of the student. Some clubs will only have black and white, others will include a brown belt for advanced kyū grades and at the elementary school level it is common to see a green belt for intermediate levels.


title: Rank in Judo

text: In Europe the belt system is white, yellow, orange, green, blue, brown and black for both senior and junior practitioners. Judokas who have attained the 6th Dan may also use a red-white paneled belt, and judokas who have attained the 9th Dan may wear a solid red belt. In some countries a red belt is used between the white and yellow belts to signify full membership of the judo club or the countries judo association. More commonly the red belt is, however, reserved only for 9th and 10th Dan practitioners.


title: Rank in Judo

text: In some countries junior practitioners have an extra system in place to show the progress in between two kyū grades. The sub rank is symbolized by a small piece of fabric on the end of the belt. The colour of these are yellow, orange, green, blue or, brown. The piece added to the belt can never be of a lower or the same colour as the belt worn by the judoka, so an orange belt can’t have a yellow piece, but it can have green, blue or, brown.


title: Rank in Judo

text: In other countries, such as Finland, junior sub ranks below a certain age are denoted by one to three red stripes on both ends of the belt. They are also used to signify that joint locks, chokes or strangles may not be performed upon the wearer as those are not taught nor applied to juniors below the age of 15 due to safety reasons.


title: Rank in Judo

text: Brazilian belt rankings are normally white, grey, blue, yellow, orange, green, purple, brown and black (6th, 7th, and 8th dan may wear alternating red and white panels, and 9th and 10th dan holders may wear solid red belts). As in some European countries, young judoka in Brazil have an extra system in place to show the progress in between two kyū grades. The sub rank exists between white and orange belts and is symbolized by the ends of the current belt being the color of the next rank.


title: Rank in Judo

text: In Canada belt rankings for Seniors are, in ascending order: white, yellow, orange, green, blue, brown and finally black. Belt rankings for Juniors use, white, white-yellow, yellow, yellow-orange, orange, orange-green, green, green-blue, blue, blue-brown, and brown.


title: Rank in Judo

text: In Australia belt rankings for Seniors are, in ascending order: white, yellow, orange, green, blue, brown and finally black. Belt rankings for Juniors follow the same ranks and colours (up to and including brown), but have either 1, 2 or 3 white bars (depending upon age) at each end of the belt, as follows:


title: Rank in Judo

text: In Ireland the senior belt system is white, yellow, orange, green, blue, brown and black. A practitioner must be at least sixteen before being eligible to grade for blackbelt. For white, yellow, orange and green belt gradings are held in the practitioners club and are based on demonstration of a syllabus and kata. For promotion to blue and brown the judoka must compete at a national grading against players of their own rank and win at least two fights by ippon or wazari. To achieve black belt a judoka must earn 100 points i.e. 10 points for every ippon or waza-ari victory against a brown belt.


title: Rank in Judo

text: In the United States only senior players (usually those age 16 and over) are allowed to earn "dan" levels, signified by wearing a black belt. The United States Judo Federation (USJF) and United States Judo Association (USJA) recognize "dan" grades awarded by the other organization. Advanced "kyū" levels can be earned by both seniors and juniors (children under the age of about 16) and are signified by wearing belts of various colours other than black. The order of belt colours can vary from dōjō to dōjō, depending on the dōjō's organizational affiliation.


title: Rank in Judo

text: For senior players, both the USJF and the USJA specify six "kyū", as listed in the table. The USJA requires "Beginners" (not a kyū) to wear a white belt until they test for yellow belt. The USJA also recommends wearing a patch specifying the practitioner's level. This is true for both "kyū" and "dan" levels.


title: Rank in Judo

text: The USJF Juniors ranking system specifies ranks to 11th "kyū" ("jūichikyū"). The USJA Juniors ranking system specifies twelve levels of "kyū" rank, beginning with "Junior 1st Degree" (equivalent to "jūnikyū", or 12th "kyū") and ending with "Junior 12th Degree" (equivalent to "ikkyū"). As with the senior practitioners, the USJA recommends that juniors wear a patch specifying their rank.


title: G. E. Smith

text: George Edward Smith ("né" Haddad; born January 27, 1952) is an American guitarist. Smith was the lead guitarist for the duo Hall & Oates during the band's heyday from 1979 to 1985, playing on five number one singles. After Hall & Oates went into a hiatus in 1985, Smith joined the sketch-comedy show "Saturday Night Live", serving as bandleader and co-musical director of the Saturday Night Live Band.


title: G. E. Smith

text: Smith has recorded and performed with many acclaimed artists, including David Bowie, Mick Jagger, Bob Dylan, Roger Waters, Tina Turner, Tracy Chapman and Dan Hartman. He was the initial lead guitarist in Bob Dylan's Never Ending Tour band from 1988 to 1990 and also served as musical director and a guitarist of Dylan's The 30th Anniversary Concert Celebration at Madison Square Garden in 1992. From 2010 to 2013, Smith was the rhythm, lead and bass guitarist in Roger Waters's "The Wall Live" tour, one of the highest-grossing concert tours of all time.


title: G. E. Smith

text: He received a Grammy Award nomination along with Buddy Guy in 1997 for the album "Live! The Real Deal" along with the Saturday Night Live Band as well as an Emmy Award for the "Saturday Night Live: The 25th Anniversary Special" in 2000. His albums as a solo artist include "In the World" (1981), "Get a Little" (with the Saturday Night Live Band, 1993), "Incense, Herbs and Oils" (1998) and "Stony Hill" (2020) with Leroy Bell.


title: G. E. Smith

text: Smith was born January 27, 1952, in Scranton, Pennsylvania as George Edward Haddad. His father was Lebanese and his mother was from Ohio. His last name, Haddad, is Arabic for blacksmith. Growing up in Stroudsburg, Pennsylvania, Smith started playing guitar at the age of 4. In 1959, at the age of 7, he was given a C. F. Martin guitar. On his 11th birthday Smith's mother bought him his first electric guitar, a Fender Esquire, a model that dated to 1952, his birth year. As a teen he was already earning money as a musician, playing in numerous venues such as Poconos resorts and high school dances.


title: G. E. Smith

text: In the early 1970s, Smith left the Poconos for the New Haven, Connecticut area, where he played in a group called The Scratch Band, which also included his future Hall & Oates bandmate Mickey Curry. In late 1977, Smith got his first break when he joined Dan Hartman, releasing his successful album "Instant Replay" as well as the singles hit "Instant Replay" and fronting as the guitarist in his tour in Europe and the United States. Upon his return to the East Coast, Smith moved to Manhattan and became the guitarist for Gilda Radner's 1979 Broadway show "Gilda Live". Radner and Smith became friends and married shortly afterward, divorcing in 1982. In 1981, Smith released his first solo album, "In the World".


title: G. E. Smith

text: From 1979 to 1985, Smith played lead guitar with Daryl Hall and John Oates, a band which also included Tom "T-Bone" Wolk, Charles DeChant and Mickey Curry. With Hall & Oates, Smith scored five U.S. #1 singles, including "Private Eyes", "Kiss on My List", "Maneater", "I Can't Go for That (No Can Do)", and "Out of Touch" as well as five consecutive multi-platinum albums: "Voices", "Private Eyes", "H2O", "Rock 'n Soul Part 1" and "Big Bam Boom." Other U.S. Top 10 singles included "Family Man", "Say It Isn't So", "Did It in a Minute" and "Method of Modern Love".


title: G. E. Smith

text: From 1985 to 1995, Smith served as the Saturday Night Live band's bandleader and co-musical director, along with longtime "SNL" band keyboardist Cheryl Hardwick. Smith had become acquainted with "SNL" creator Lorne Michaels through show alumna Gilda Radner, to whom Smith was married from 1980 to 1982. After a five-year absence, Michaels was back at the show's helm for the 1985–1986 season, and hired Smith as part of his retooling. During his tenure on the show, Smith (alongside bandmate T-Bone Wolk) became well-known to television audiences for his emotive performances during "band shots," brief snippets of the band playing before "SNL" went to commercial break. Smith and Wolk were parodied in this capacity in a 1993 episode of "The Simpsons". In addition to his onstage duties, Smith also advised Michaels on which musical acts to book on the show.


title: G. E. Smith

text: In the midst of his "SNL" tenure, Smith toured with Bob Dylan for the first 281 concerts of the Never Ending Tour from June 1988 until October 1990. He also served as the musical director for special events such as the 1988 Emmy Awards, the 1993 Rhythm and Blues Foundation Awards, Bob Dylan's 30th Anniversary Concert at Madison Square Garden as well as acting as the musical director at the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame Concert in Cleveland.


title: G. E. Smith

text: Smith was fired from "SNL" after the disastrous 1994–1995 season, which saw the show's lowest ratings in nineteen years. Smith was part of the same exodus that also saw the dismissal of 12 of the show's 15 cast members. He was replaced as bandleader by saxophonist Lenny Pickett and keyboardist Cheryl Hardwick.


title: G. E. Smith

text: In 1996, Smith received a Grammy nomination for his work with Buddy Guy on the album "Live: The Real Deal". Smith released his third solo album, "Incense, Herbs and Oils" in 1998. Smith served as the musical director and band leader honoring Bob Dylan and Willie Nelson at the Kennedy Center Honors in Washington, D.C. He also led bands for the Muddy Waters Tribute, and the 1998 and 1999 Mark Twain Awards honoring Richard Pryor and Jonathan Winters which aired on PBS, and Comedy Central.


title: G. E. Smith

text: In 2005, Smith and his band appeared on the "Comedy Central Roast" of Jeff Foxworthy and did a performance with the band Bama.


title: G. E. Smith

text: Smith toured with Roger Waters during the 2010–2013 tour The Wall Live. On December 12, 2012, he performed with Waters at Madison Square Gardens for The Concert for Sandy Relief.


title: G. E. Smith

text: In August 2012, Smith performed for the Republican Party and Mitt Romney at the 2012 Republican National Convention in Tampa Bay, Florida, as the convention's house band. However, Smith said that he is not a Republican or political and saw the event as "just another job". In July 2016, Smith again led the house band for candidate Donald Trump at the 2016 Republican National Convention in Ohio.


title: G. E. Smith

text: Smith was one of the many guests appearing on the NBC "Saturday Night Live 40th Anniversary Special" on February 15, 2015.


title: G. E. Smith

text: Smith has performed with Jim Weider—formerly of The Band and member of The Weight Band—on their "Masters of the Telecaster" series.


title: G. E. Smith

text: In 2015, Smith and wife Taylor Barton started "Portraits", a project which hosts a rotating roster of acclaimed musicians and artists from all realms for a deeper look at what drives them creatively. Now in its fourth series they have hosted creative legends from Billy Squier to Ethan Hawke and from the Bacon Brothers to the Avett Brothers.


title: G. E. Smith

text: Smith made a cameo appearance in the music video "Sudden Signs of Grace" (2020) by guitarist/songwriter Tom Guerra.


title: G. E. Smith

text: Smith was married to comedian Gilda Radner (1980–1982) and has been married to singer/songwriter Taylor Barton since 1990.


title: Jocelyn Flores

text: "Jocelyn Flores" is a song written and performed by American rapper and singer XXXTentacion. It is the second single from his debut studio album "17". The song is a homage to XXXTentacion's deceased friend of the same name as the song title. It was sent to rhythmic radio on October 31, 2017, as the album's second single.


title: Jocelyn Flores

text: The song is dedicated to Jocelyn Amparo Flores, a 16-year-old native of The Bronx who later moved to Cleveland, Ohio. She flew to Florida to meet XXXTentacion and later committed suicide during the vacation on May 13, 2017. Flores' life and death have been subject to rumor and misinformation, which was addressed by a September 2018 article on "The Daily Beast".


title: Jocelyn Flores

text: XXXTentacion became infatuated with Flores after seeing her photographs on Twitter and first communicated with her on May 1, 2017. He invited her to his state of Florida and hired her as a model for his Revenge clothing line and early reports mistakenly state that she was already a model and arrived in Florida purely for work, but she had not previously done such work. Another girl was also staying with the rapper, and while he was out to attend his cousin's prom, a bag containing $7,000 in cash was raided; each girl blamed the other. Concerned that the tension between the two guests would end in violence, XXXTentacion expelled both girls from his home and rescinded the offer for Flores to model for him; she checked into the Hampton Inn in Coconut Creek shortly before midnight and was found dead in the morning.


title: Jocelyn Flores

text: Flores' family members have had conflicting views on the use of her name as the song's title; some have felt touched and honored while others felt strongly offended by XXXTentacion not asking permission to use her name.


title: Jocelyn Flores

text: The song is built around a sample of producer Potsu's song "I'm Closing My Eyes", which includes vocals from Shiloh Dynasty.


title: Jocelyn Flores

text: "Jocelyn Flores" entered at number 31 on the US "Billboard" Hot 100 and eventually peaked at number 19 after his death. It debuted at number 56 on the UK Singles Chart, selling 5,998 units including sales and streams. The song also entered at number 14 on the UK R&B Chart, and number two on the UK Independent Chart.


title: Polaris (Marvel Comics)

text: Polaris (Lorna Dane) is a fictional character appearing in American comic books published by Marvel Comics. Created by Arnold Drake and Jim Steranko, Polaris first appeared in "The X-Men" #49 (October 1968). For the majority of her publication history, she has been a member of either the X-Men or one of its sister groups, such as X-Factor. In comics published from 1987 to 1989, she was possessed by a telepathic entity called Malice. In comics published from 2000 to 2001 she was a member of the Acolytes and Magneto's cabinet on Genosha. She was shown to be one of the few survivors of a genocide on the island carried out by Wild Sentinels.


title: Polaris (Marvel Comics)

text: A mutant, Polaris can control magnetism in a manner similar to Magneto, whom she long suspected to be her biological father. This relationship was confirmed in "Uncanny X-Men" #431 (November 2003). She has also had a complicated long term relationship with the X-Man Havok, to whom she was engaged, and has been characterized as struggling with recurrent mental health issues.


title: Polaris (Marvel Comics)

text: Polaris was created by writer Arnold Drake and artist Jim Steranko, and first appeared in "The X-Men" #49 (October 1968). She first appeared as a member of the X-Men in "X-Men" #60, in 1969, and remained a member of the team until just after the debut of a new team of X-Men in "Giant-Size X-Men". Polaris appeared as a supporting character for the team for several years before joining a new incarnation of the X-Factor team in "X-Factor" #70 (September 1991), remaining with that team until "X-Factor" #149 (September 1998).


title: Polaris (Marvel Comics)

text: In 2020, Marvel ran an "X-Men election" on their website allowing fans to vote for their favorite mutant from a list of ten nominees, with the winner becoming a member of the 2021 flagship "X-Men" series written by Gerry Duggan. Polaris won the vote and joined the X-Men alongside Cyclops, Jean Grey, Wolverine, Sunfire and Synch.


title: Polaris (Marvel Comics)

text: Lorna Dane met the original team of X-Men while still a student. When the villain Mesmero used his "psyche-generator" to summon mutants in North America with latent powers, Lorna found herself compelled to travel to San Francisco, where Mesmero was. There she encountered the X-Man Iceman, who broke her trance by causing her to slip on a patch of ice and then convinced her to come to his apartment. At the apartment, Lorna met the rest of the X-Men who soon learned that she had latent mutant powers. Mesmero and his android Demi-Men captured her and took her to their desert headquarters, with the X-Men in pursuit. The psyche-generator awakened her mutant powers and Mesmero named her "Queen of the Mutants".


title: Polaris (Marvel Comics)

text: When the X-Men attempted to rescue her, Magneto revealed himself as the leader of the group behind her abduction—and, more importantly, claimed to be Lorna's father. Despite the X-Men's assertions that Magneto is evil, Lorna could not bring herself to fight her own father. Iceman returns from meeting with her foster parents who told him that her birth parents had died in a plane crash years earlier. This information caused Lorna to turn against Magneto but it was later revealed that she had caused the accident and Magneto had her memories of it erased with the help of Mastermind. For a while, Iceman was attracted to her, but Lorna did not truly reciprocate the feelings. She instead fell in love with their teammate Havok.


title: Polaris (Marvel Comics)

text: Unbeknownst to Lorna, the Magneto who claimed to be her father is revealed to be an android. Shortly after, Lorna was captured by Sentinels, but was rescued by the X-Men. Lorna joined the X-Men and began living at Xavier's mansion. Lorna aided Havok and the X-Men in repelling the alien Z'Nox's attempted invasion of Earth.


title: Polaris (Marvel Comics)

text: Lorna Dane's first "code name" was Magnetrix, but she quickly decided that she did not like this name. However, that did not keep Havok from continuing to use that name as a way to annoy and flirt with her. The two leave the X-Men to pursue their mutual interest in geophysics. They moved to the Diablo mountain range in California.


title: Polaris (Marvel Comics)

text: Lorna, with Havok, is later seen battling the Hulk. When the old and new X-Men fought the mutant island Krakoa, Lorna displayed the full potential of her powers for the first time by disrupting the Earth's magnetic field, which sent Krakoa into deep space. They then joined Moira MacTaggert at her facility for genetic research on Muir Island.


title: Polaris (Marvel Comics)

text: Lorna received a new costume of Shi'ar design, when her mind came under the domination of the Shi'ar Intelligence agent Davan Shakari, also known as Erik the Red. It was Erik the Red who gave Lorna the codename Polaris, which she has continued to use ever since. At the time, Shakari served D'Ken, then emperor of the Shi'ar Galaxy. Shakari kidnapped Alex Summers and Lorna, and subjected them to a powerful form of mind control. He turned them against the X-Men in an attempt to assassinate Professor Charles Xavier. A massive battle ensued at Kennedy International Airport, with the duo battling the X-Men. Polaris was defeated by Storm, but Shakari managed to escape with both her and Havok. Xavier eventually freed both Polaris and Havok from Shakari's control.


title: Polaris (Marvel Comics)

text: Polaris and Havok remained inactive as members of the X-Men, though they did return from time to time to assist the team. With the X-Men, they battled Proteus on Muir Island. For the most part, Lorna and Alex remained in civilian life for a number of years, settling in New Mexico and completing their college degrees. They were forced to reluctantly help the X-Men in Arcade's Murderworld. Their new life was interrupted when the Marauders ambushed them around the time of the Mutant Massacre. Polaris’ mind was overtaken by the psionic being known as Malice.


title: Polaris (Marvel Comics)

text: Under Malice's control, Lorna attacked the X-Men as leader of the Marauders. Shortly thereafter, the Malice entity found that it had become permanently bonded to Lorna's body. She led the Marauders against the X-Men during Inferno. After Mister Sinister was seemingly killed, Malice's hold over Lorna weakened. Temporarily regaining control of her own mind, Lorna was able to place a phone call to the X-Men in Australia for help, but they arrived too late. Lorna had been taken to be with her alleged half-sister Zaladane, a priestess for the Savage Land's Sun People. The X-Men arrived in time to witness Zaladane's getaway, though Havok managed to infiltrate her army in disguise while the X-Men followed. In the Savage Land, the X-Men found that Zaladane had amassed an army of Savage Land natives who were being mentally controlled for her by Worm, one of the Savage Land Mutates. Zaladane revealed that she is in fact Lorna's sister and, using the High Evolutionary's machinery, stripped Lorna of her magnetic powers, taking them as her own. In addition, the process managed to finally separate Lorna from Malice. Zaladane and her forces clashed with Ka-Zar and the X-Men. During the encounter, Lorna's secondary mutation activated: she grew in height, became invulnerable, and gained superhuman strength. Zaladane's army was released from Worm's control, and Lorna finally regained her freedom.


title: Polaris (Marvel Comics)

text: Having nowhere else to go, Lorna went to Moira MacTaggert's mutant research station on Muir Island. On her way there, her secondary mutation activated again, as evidenced by a sudden increase in height. At this time, she discovered that her new mutation also affects those around her, amplifying negative emotions such as anger and hate.


title: Polaris (Marvel Comics)

text: Upon examination, Dr. MacTaggert was at a loss to explain Lorna's new mutation, although she did confirm that the only way Zaladane could have taken her powers away was if she had been a biological sibling. Shortly after her arrival, Lorna joined the Muir Island X-Men team formed by Moira and former X-Man Banshee. This team defended Muir Island from the attacking Reavers, who were hunting for Wolverine.


title: Polaris (Marvel Comics)

text: Prior to this time, it had not been clear that Polaris was actually drawing strength from being a nexus for negative emotional energies. Polaris’ status as a nexus, however, was perceived by the villainous Shadow King. The Shadow King used Polaris as a gateway to allow him access to the physical world from the astral plane, causing a worldwide increase in anger, hatred, and violence in the process. Polaris was freed of his influence with the help of X-Factor and the X-Men during the Muir Island Saga. Upon the defeat of the Shadow King, Polaris’ magnetic powers return due to a combination of Zaladane's death a short time before and the neural-disruptive psionic blade of the X-Man Psylocke, leaving no trace of her increased size, strength, or emotion-control powers.


title: Polaris (Marvel Comics)

text: Polaris was then asked to join the newly formed X-Factor by Valerie Cooper, and, tired of hiding out on Muir Island, she accepted. Havok and Polaris were set as its leaders. Although joining X-Factor offered Polaris the chance to reunite with Havok, their relationship remained largely unresolved. Polaris was able to come to terms with her experiences with mind control thanks to psychiatrist Dr. Leonard Samson, helping her to develop her confidence. Polaris developed a strong belief in Xavier's dream while a member of X-Factor. Polaris became the government's secret weapon against a possible attack from Magneto, with the government hiring the mercenary Random to test her abilities. Malice later returned to bother her once more but Havok and Polaris, out of their love for each other, each tried to absorb her, preventing the other from being possessed. In the end, Malice perished at the hands of Mister Sinister.


title: Polaris (Marvel Comics)

text: Shortly thereafter, Havok was kidnapped by agents of the Dark Beast, who forged a note explaining that Havok needed to get away from Polaris. This devastated Polaris, causing her to feel abandoned and betrayed. X-Factor's atmosphere changed as the criminals Mystique and Sabretooth were forced by the government to join the group. Polaris began to question her place on the team after this, especially as most of her original teammates were no longer active. She discovered Havok's fate as he attacked X-Factor with the Dark Beast's agents, apparently under mind-control. After Havok was defeated, Polaris tried to reach out to him, only to be attacked and severely injured when she felt she could trust him. When Sabretooth betrayed and attacked the team, Polaris was severely injured.


title: Polaris (Marvel Comics)

text: After recovering from her injuries, and learning that Havok's "terrorist" activities had been a front for his true undercover work, Polaris forgave him, although she rejected him romantically. She also agreed to join Havok's new X-Factor team. However, during their first team meeting, she could only watch as Havok was seemingly killed in the explosion of a faulty time machine constructed by the mutant from the future, Greystone. Although Havok had left Polaris in charge of his team while trying to stop Greystone, she apparently did not feel like she could keep the team together, and they disbanded shortly thereafter.


title: Polaris (Marvel Comics)

text: Weeks later, Nightcrawler encountered Lorna in a church and she confided in him that she felt she was being followed and that she was sure Alex was still alive. A group of Skrulls working with Apocalypse were indeed shadowing her and broke into her apartment to retrieve the headgear from Havok's original costume. Lorna then learned that she was one of , a team of mutants supposedly destined to usher in a new golden age for mutant-kind. Polaris journeyed with the X-Men to Egypt to battle Apocalypse. During the encounter, Magneto, another member of The Twelve, discovered that he could use Lorna to tap into the Earth's magnetic field with incredible force, effectively hiding the reduced state of his powers at the time.


title: Polaris (Marvel Comics)

text: After Apocalypse was defeated, Polaris returned to Genosha with Magneto to supply him with power and help him keep order. She believed she was doing it for the greater good, but also enjoyed the education in her powers that she received. Magneto launched a full-scale assault on Carrion Cove, the last city opposing his rule, in order to gain access to technology that would restore his full abilities. Polaris attempted to stop him, but she was defeated and left the country with the Avengers. She later returned with Quicksilver to help oppose Magneto's tyrannical rule.


title: Polaris (Marvel Comics)

text: Although Quicksilver was discovered and forced to leave Genosha, Polaris maintained a low profile in order to covertly transport refugees from the war to other nations, as well as monitor Magneto's actions. After Magneto's spine was severed by Wolverine, Polaris was able to steal a blood sample from his medical tests, which she used to confirm that Magneto was her biological father. When Cassandra Nova’s Sentinels destroyed Genosha and massacred millions, Polaris was one of the few survivors. She was left emotionally scarred after witnessing the massacre after being unable to save them.


title: Polaris (Marvel Comics)

text: Later, some of the X-Men went to Genosha to survey what occurred there. They encountered a nude and deranged Polaris in Genosha after its population was massacred by Cassandra Nova's Sentinels. When Polaris rejoined the X-Men, the extremely traumatic experience had left her with a darker, more ruthless personality, even killing some members of the anti-mutant Church of Humanity. Havok broke up with Polaris after they were about to be married, leaving her at the altar for nurse Annie Ghazikhanian with whom he had an affair while he was in a coma using telepathy. Polaris now driven to instability yet again went berserk and commenced to go on a rampage that nearly resulted in her killing Havok. A case was made that it was due to the trauma from Genosha but nobody bought it. Juggernaut succeeded in knocking her out. She remained this way until some psychic therapy with Professor Xavier. Polaris promised to do no more harm and she was accepted back to the X-Men.


title: Polaris (Marvel Comics)

text: Iceman later admitted to Polaris that he still had feelings for her and after some mild flirtation, the two began a relationship. The relationship was not to last, however, since Lorna's other relationships (namely with Havok) were still unresolved. Havok has confessed to still loving her after Annie had left him, however, Polaris pushed him away.


title: Polaris (Marvel Comics)

text: It was revealed that Polaris had lost her powers on M-Day, but had avoided telling her teammates. When confronted by Valerie Cooper, who has knowledge of her power loss, Polaris claimed that her power loss is psychological and she believes she is preventing herself from using them. Polaris eventually was forced by circumstance to accept that her powers were gone and admit the fact to the rest of the team—whereupon all the other members of her squad, except her would-be-paramours Iceman and Havok, revealed to her that they had already guessed it. She then left the mansion with Havok to "search" for her lost powers, irrationally convinced they lay with an alien named Daap, a seeming twin to the deceased X-Statix member Doop, who she had seen on a recent mission in space. Daap soon crashed to Earth and kidnapped Polaris and the Leper Queen, the leader of the anti-mutant group known as the Sapien League.


title: Polaris (Marvel Comics)

text: Apocalypse took them both, restrained the Leper Queen, and forcibly transformed Polaris into the new Pestilence. Seemingly mind-wiped, she ingested viruses from the World Health Organization and was attempting to create a meta-plague. In the climactic battle between the X-Men, the Avengers, and Apocalypse, Wolverine discovered a choking Pestilence was Lorna. She was recovering in the X-Mansion when former Horsemen of Apocalypse Gambit and Sunfire returned to take her away. She arose and refused to go with them, but also decided to quit the X-Men. Polaris decided to leave that night to search for Apocalypse in Egypt. She went alone and was later hunted until Havok and the new Uncanny X-Men team saved her. Emma Frost has also noted that her powers seem to be "strange and mutating".


title: Polaris (Marvel Comics)

text: After being rescued from an anti-Apocalypse cult by the new team, Polaris agreed to join Professor X, Darwin, Havok, Marvel Girl, Nightcrawler, and Warpath on their mission to stop Vulcan. Her current relationship with Havok is still developing. Polaris seemed to finally show concrete signs of forgiving Havok, telling him to "just shut up and kiss me" after the team won their first battle against the entire regiment of Shi'ar soldiers in their beginning struggle against D'Ken and in support of Lilandra. Although Havok initially rebuffs her advances, hesitant to "start up again after" everything that happened between them, Lorna says that he needs to "blow off some steam" and the scene ends with them kissing. Polaris helps in the big fight and seriously hurts Vulcan and Gladiator with her powers, but in the end she is one of the X-Men left behind.


title: Polaris (Marvel Comics)

text: Following the death of Corsair at the hands of Vulcan, Polaris joined the newest incarnation of the Starjammers, intending to kill Vulcan and restore Lilandra Neramani to the Shi'ar throne. Their mission proved unsuccessful and Polaris, along with Havok, Ch'od, and Raza, was captured and incarcerated on an underwater planet by Vulcan.


title: Polaris (Marvel Comics)

text: Lorna was later shown to still be a prisoner of Vulcan and his forces. Vulcan ordered her to be heavily drugged so they can further study this. She was later freed by Havok and the other Starjammers, who vowed to kill Vulcan.


title: Polaris (Marvel Comics)

text: Polaris and the Starjammers played a large role in the War of Kings storyline, which also featured Vulcan, The Inhumans, Nova, and The Guardians of the Galaxy. Pursued by a Shi'ar superdestroyer after escaping, Lorna uses the fact that she is Crystal's sister-in-law to allow the Starjammers through the Kree's defensive shield. After the Shi'ar Imperial Guard's attack on Crystal and Ronan's wedding, Lorna plays a minor but pivotal role in regaining Kree popular support for the Inhumans by making sure that Crystal's humanitarian acts towards the injured Kree civilians are broadcast all over the Kree networks. After this, she once again joins the Starjammers on their mission to rescue Lilandra. They promptly commandeer a Shi'ar Ironclad (which she helps capture by magnetizing the Starjammer to its hull) which they then use to join the main Shi'ar fleet until their cover is blown when they rescue Rocket Raccoon and his team, the Guardians of the Galaxy. Following the surrender of the Shi'ar to the Inhumans, Lorna remains on the Shi'ar homeworld along with Havok and Marvel Girl.


title: Polaris (Marvel Comics)

text: Through Ch'od, and apparently due to the incident of Rachel and Korvus both losing the connection to the Phoenix Force, it is known that Polaris, Havok, Rachel and Korvus have departed for Earth.


title: Polaris (Marvel Comics)

text: Magneto, Rogue, Frenzy, and Gambit respond to Rachel's distress call and Rogue uses Legion's powers to teleport to the space station they are on. Lorna, Korvus and Alex are mind controlled by an alien force and are being used to help torture and kill Shi'ar. When she meets up with Magneto their reunion is short lived as the Shi'ar attack the assembled group and Lorna, Alex and Korvus attack Magneto, Frenzy and Gambit. Rachel's actions break them free of the mind control and the X-Men join forces. Polaris says she has many things she wanted to ask Magneto and he responds by saying at another time when they are out of danger. The team works together to build a black hole that takes the space station and all aboard back to Earth ending Lorna's space arc.


title: Polaris (Marvel Comics)

text: Polaris along with Havok are seen joining Wolverine's side after Wolverine suggests that they go out on their own away from their family and join X-Factor.


title: Polaris (Marvel Comics)

text: During the Breaking Points storyline, Longshot used his psychometric powers to read a photograph of Lorna's mother and nominal father from which Longshot learned the truth about their death. Lorna forced Longshot to show her what he had seen, using M's telepathic powers to make a connection. Lorna was devastated to learn that the first outbreak of her powers led to their death in a plane crash. Magneto had Mastermind manipulate her memories to repress her involvement in her parents' death. Later, Polaris and Havok have broken up, due to Havok agreeing to lead the Uncanny Avengers, and Polaris wanting to remain with X-Factor.


title: Polaris (Marvel Comics)

text: Polaris is now the leader of X-Factor. The name was bought from Maddox by Serval's CEO Harrison Snow. X-Factor is a corporate team that protects the interest of the company. It is revealed that Harrison secretly had nanos put in her right eye, without her consent. Her half brother Quicksilver is on the team and is secretly spying on her for her ex Havok.


title: Polaris (Marvel Comics)

text: During the "Last Days" part of the "Secret Wars" storyline, Polaris assisted Magneto during the incursion between Earth-616 and Earth-1610. As the energies of the two planets inched closer to impact cascade and send chaos through the streets, Magneto and Polaris are taking the fight to this "other" Earth, battling the parallel Sentinels sent after them. Polaris is shocked to see the energy levels her father is exhibiting, all the while trying to protect the people caught in the crossfire of Magneto and the Sentinels.


title: Polaris (Marvel Comics)

text: During the "Secret Empire" storyline, Polaris breaks in on a prison in New Tian when Havok is about to attack the time-displaced Jean Grey and Jimmy Hudson. While Jean and Jimmy look for their teammates, Polaris manages to defeat Havok and helps the young mutants to escape. Upon escaping, Polaris and Danger reveal to the team that Magneto assigned them to look after them, which they've done secretly.


title: Polaris (Marvel Comics)

text: In the new status quo for mutants post "House of X and Powers of X", Professor X and Magneto invite all mutants to live on Krakoa and welcome even former enemies into their fold. Polaris is seen with Magneto as he explains the process of resurrection for mutants involving the combined powers of The Five (Hope Summers, Goldballs, Proteus, Eva Bell and Elixir).


title: Polaris (Marvel Comics)

text: Polaris is seen attacking the last compound of Orchis on Earth with Magneto, Storm and Cyclops. Later, she joins Rachel Summers, Daken, Northstar and former X-students Eye-Boy and Prodigy in a new initiative in Krakoa: they are to investigate any mutant death and prepare a report for The Five as part of the Resurrection Protocols of Krakoa. Their first case involves the supposed death of Northstar's twin sister, Aurora. Following the conclusion of the "X-Factor" title, Polaris was elected during the Hellfire Gala to become a new member of the main X-Men team.


title: Polaris (Marvel Comics)

text: Polaris' powers enable her to sense and control magnetism, including manipulating metals which are susceptible to magnetism. Her powers come from celestial technology that reactivated her x-gene as proven by Cerebro.


title: Polaris (Marvel Comics)

text: Polaris can generate magnetic energy pulses, create force fields, manipulate the Earth's magnetic field, and allow herself to fly. By concentrating, Polaris can perceive the world around her solely as patterns of magnetic and electrical energy. She can perceive the natural magnetic auras surrounding living beings as well. She has bright green hair, the first indication of her mutation. At first, she dyed her hair brown to hide this, but later she appears with her characteristic green hair.


title: Polaris (Marvel Comics)

text: Briefly in her history, Polaris lost her magnetism power, but gained the ability to absorb negative emotions from the environment and use it as strength, endurance, invulnerability, and the ability to temporarily increase her height and mass. She eventually lost these additional powers and her original magnetic powers returned.


title: Polaris (Marvel Comics)

text: Polaris was among the mutants depowered by the Scarlet Witch during the House of M storyline. However, due to Apocalypse's manipulations, Celestial technology restored her x-gene returning her natural magnetic abilities. The limits of her magnetic powers are unknown, she is referred to as one of the biggest threats of the current team by the opposing Shi'ar Imperial Shockers, cybernetic guards. In the "Emperor Vulcan" she shields the Starjammer against the attacks of a whole fleet of starships and was shown to directly destroy at least one enemy battleship with a magnetic blast.


title: Polaris (Marvel Comics)

text: As the Horseman Pestilence, Lorna had shown the ability to ingest virulent diseases without harm, absorbing their traits, and according to Apocalypse is able to spread a "meta-plague" that will kill anyone who has not been inoculated with the virus' vaccine, the Blood of Apocalypse. She had also been shown to fight off toxins and drugs quicker than normal.


title: Polaris (Marvel Comics)

text: Maite Molina of "ComicsVerse" referred to Polaris as an "iconic X-Men hero," writing "Why are so many comic book readers die-hard fans of Polaris? Well, there is a multitude of reasons. Lorna Dane exemplifies an air of authenticity. She does not believe there is a point in one’s heroic journey where you have to establish yourself. Polaris has fought against the tension of her agency. She has lived a history where much was taken from her. Ultimately, she has endured. So, despite the seemingly insurmountable obstacles and countless foes, Lorna has never faltered in her steadfast role as a member of the X-Men. This is why she is so beloved." Polaris was the winner of a popularity contest held by Marvel Comics in 2021, which served to determinate who would the final member of a new X-Men team that would debut during the Hellfire Gala storyline.


title: Polaris (Marvel Comics)

text: Polaris in the Age of Apocalypse reality was one of the many prisoners in Sinister's Breeding Pens, and a victim of the Dark Beast's tests. She had been rendered nearly powerless because Rogue had absorbed her abilities and permanently retained half of her powers when the two had a fallout prior to Rogue being taken to the X-Men. Prelate Scott Summers frees her, but she cannot recognize him; she mistakes him for Magneto, whom she believes is her father.


title: Polaris (Marvel Comics)

text: Magneto becomes romantically involved with Susanna Dane an American exchange student in Europe who is helping smuggle him from place to place. When Magneto finds out she is having a child he tells her to go home because what she is doing is likely to get her and her child killed. Lorna Dane grows up in California and watches Magneto declare war on the human governments as a child. Eventually Magneto reveals he is her father when he becomes ruler of Genosha. Polaris is shocked and storms off due to him never having been there for her. She eventually comes around as she is seen later when the new world order began, where mutants were the ruling class and with Magneto being their monarch. Lorna is still residing with him in his palace on Genosha with all his children. Polaris, Quicksilver and the Scarlet Witch were considered royalty in this reality, and Lorna eventually develops a close relationship with her father.


title: Polaris (Marvel Comics)

text: Polaris works as a long-term member of the X-Men, after Magneto takes over from an ill Professor Xavier. This Polaris knows she is the daughter of Magneto. The X-Men briefly fight and lose against an insane Madelyne Pryor. Later, they seemingly perish in an atomic explosion but survive this as well. Polaris is one of the victims in the reality-threatening battle involving Pryor and the Beyonder. Badly injured, she dies in her father's arms, reassured that everything will be okay.


title: Polaris (Marvel Comics)

text: In the Ultimate Marvel continuity of "Ultimate X-Men", Polaris is an attractive teenage mutant girl who is a member of the "Academy of Tomorrow", a mutant peacekeeping squad led by Emma Frost. In this continuity, she is also the girlfriend of Havok but as a twist, she was also the ex-girlfriend of his brother Cyclops, whom Havok resents with a passion.


title: Polaris (Marvel Comics)

text: Polaris is framed for killing dozens of people with her powers during a rescue mission, and imprisoned in the Triskelion of the Ultimates with mutant terrorist Magneto. After beating him at Chess after only 12 or so games, Magneto beats her into unconsciousness with a chair, and then uses her to goad Havok into rescuing her, so that he can escape the maximum-security cell by swapping places with Mystique. In the end, Polaris' name is cleared and she returns to the Academy of Tomorrow. She was killed in Ultimatum along with the rest of the Academy of Tomorrow except for Havok. It is implied in Havok's discussion of the events leading up to the explosion that there may have been more than meets the eye going on.


title: Polaris (Marvel Comics)

text: An alternate version of Polaris is drafted onto the interdimensional superhero team the Exiles. Originating from Earth-8149, she is seemingly killed in battle with a group of Sentinels engineered to destroy her, but is plucked out of time moments before her death to join the Exiles. In the end Polaris finds out Magneto her father has turned to the side of good because of her death to avenge her murder at the hand of Sentinels.


title: The Feminine Mystique

text: The Feminine Mystique is a book by Betty Friedan, widely credited with sparking second-wave feminism in the United States. First published by W. W. Norton on February 19, 1963, "The Feminine Mystique" became a bestseller, initially selling over a million copies. Friedan used the book to challenge the widely shared belief that "fulfillment as a woman had only one definition for American women after 1949—the housewife-mother."


title: The Feminine Mystique

text: In 1957, Friedan was asked to conduct a survey of her former Smith College classmates for their 15th anniversary reunion; the results, in which she found that many of them were unhappy with their lives as housewives, prompted her to begin research for "The Feminine Mystique", conducting interviews with other suburban housewives, as well as researching psychology, media, and advertising. She originally intended to create an article on the topic, not a book, but no magazine would publish the work.


title: The Feminine Mystique

text: The phrase "feminine mystique" was coined by Friedan to describe the assumptions that women would be fulfilled from their housework, marriage, sexual lives, and children. The prevailing belief was that women who were truly feminine should not want to work, get an education, or have political opinions. Friedan wanted to prove that women were unsatisfied and could not voice their feelings.


title: The Feminine Mystique

text: "The Feminine Mystique" begins with an introduction describing what Friedan called "the problem that has no name"—the widespread unhappiness of women in the 1950s and early 1960s. She discusses the lives of several housewives from around the United States who were unhappy despite living in material comfort and being married with children. Friedan also questions the women's magazine, women's education system, and advertisers for creating this widespread image of women. The detrimental effects induced by this image were that it cornered women into the domestic sphere, and that it led many women to lose their own identities.


title: The Feminine Mystique

text: Chapter 1: Friedan points out that the average age of marriage was dropping, the portion of women attending college was decreasing and the birthrate was increasing for women throughout the 1950s, yet the widespread trend of unhappy women persisted, although American culture insisted that fulfillment for women could be found in marriage and housewifery. Although aware of and sharing this dissatisfaction, women in the 1950s misinterpreted it as an individual problem and rarely talked about it with other women. As Friedan pointed out, "part of the strange newness of the problem is that it cannot be understood in terms of the age-old material problems of man: poverty, sickness, hunger, cold." This chapter concludes by declaring "We can no longer ignore that voice within women that says: 'I want something more than my husband and my children and my home.'"


title: The Feminine Mystique

text: Chapter 2: Friedan states that the editorial decisions concerning women's magazines at the time were being made mostly by men, who insisted on stories and articles that showed women as either happy housewives or unhappy careerists, thus creating the "feminine mystique"—the idea that women were naturally fulfilled by devoting their lives to being housewives and mothers. Friedan also states that this is in contrast to the 1930s, at which time women's magazines often featured confident and independent heroines, many of whom were involved in careers.


title: The Feminine Mystique

text: Chapter 3: Friedan recalls her own decision to conform to society's expectations by giving up her promising career in psychology to raise children, and shows that other young women still struggled with the same kind of decision. Many women dropped out of school early to marry, afraid that if they waited too long or became too educated, they would not be able to attract a husband. Friedan argues at the end of the chapter that although theorists discuss how men need to find their identity, women are expected to be autonomous. She states, "Anatomy is woman's destiny, say the theorists of femininity; the identity of woman is determined by her biology." Friedan goes on to argue that the problem is women needing to mature and find their human identity. She argues, "In a sense that goes beyond any woman's life, I think this is a crisis of women growing up—a turning point from an immaturity that has been called femininity to full human identity."


title: The Feminine Mystique

text: Chapter 4: Friedan discusses early American feminists and how they fought against the assumption that the proper role of a woman was to be solely a wife and mother. She notes that they secured important rights for women, including education, the right to pursue a career, and the right to vote.


title: The Feminine Mystique

text: Chapter 5: In this chapter, Friedan, who had a degree in psychology, criticizes the founder of psychoanalysis, Sigmund Freud (whose ideas were very influential in the United States at the time of the book's publication). She notes that Freud saw women as childlike and destined to be housewives, once pointing out that Freud wrote, "I believe that all reforming action in law and education would break down in front of the fact that, long before the age at which a man can earn a position in society, Nature has determined woman's destiny through beauty, charm, and sweetness. Law and custom have much to give women that has been withheld from them, but the position of women will surely be what it is: in youth an adored darling and in mature years a loved wife." Friedan also points out that Freud's unproven concept of "penis envy" had been used to label women who wanted careers as neurotic, and that the popularity of Freud's work and ideas elevated the "feminine mystique" of female fulfillment in housewifery into a "scientific religion" that most women were not educated enough to criticize.


title: The Feminine Mystique

text: Chapter 6: Friedan criticizes functionalism, which attempted to make the social sciences more credible by studying the institutions of society as if they were parts of a social body, as in biology. Institutions were studied in terms of their function in society, and women were confined to their sexual biological roles as housewives and mothers as well as told that doing otherwise would upset the social balance. Friedan points out that this is unproven and that Margaret Mead, a prominent functionalist, had a flourishing career as an anthropologist.


title: The Feminine Mystique

text: Chapter 7: Friedan discusses the change in women's education from the 1940s to the early 1960s, in which many women's schools concentrated on non-challenging classes that focused mostly on marriage, family, and other subjects deemed suitable for women, as educators influenced by functionalism felt that too much education would spoil women's femininity and capacity for sexual fulfillment. Friedan says that this change in education arrested girls in their emotional development at a young age, because they never had to face the painful identity crisis and subsequent maturation that comes from dealing with many adult challenges.


title: The Feminine Mystique

text: Chapter 8: Friedan notes that the uncertainties and fears during World War II and the Cold War made Americans long for the comfort of home, so they tried to create an idealized home life with the father as breadwinner and the mother as housewife. Friedan notes that this was helped along by the fact that many of the women who worked during the war filling jobs previously held by men faced dismissal, discrimination, or hostility when the men returned, and that educators blamed over-educated, career-focused mothers for the maladjustment of soldiers in World War II. Yet as Friedan shows, later studies found that overbearing mothers, not careerists, were the ones who raised maladjusted children.


title: The Feminine Mystique

text: Chapter 9: Friedan shows that advertisers tried to encourage housewives to think of themselves as professionals who needed many specialized products in order to do their jobs, while discouraging housewives from having actual careers, since that would mean they would not spend as much time and effort on housework and therefore would not buy as many household products, cutting into advertisers' profits. Critics of this theory point out that under the circumstances men, not women, would be buying these household products and women having actual careers would increase women's buying power while increasing advertisers profits.


title: The Feminine Mystique

text: Chapter 10: Friedan interviews several full-time housewives, finding that although they are not fulfilled by their housework, they are all extremely busy with it. She postulates that these women unconsciously stretch their home duties to fill the time available, because the feminine mystique has taught women that this is their role, and if they ever complete their tasks they will become unneeded.


title: The Feminine Mystique

text: Chapter 11: Friedan notes that many housewives have sought fulfillment in sex, unable to find it in housework and children. She notes that sex cannot fulfill all of a person's needs, and that attempts to do so often drive married women to have affairs or drive their husbands away as they become obsessed with sex.


title: The Feminine Mystique

text: Chapter 12: Friedan discusses the fact that many children have lost interest in life or emotional growth, attributing the change to the mother's own lack of fulfillment, a side effect of the feminine mystique. When the mother lacks a self, Friedan notes, she often tries to live through her children, causing the children to lose their own sense of themselves as separate human beings with their own lives.


title: The Feminine Mystique

text: Chapter 13: Friedan discusses the psychologist Abraham Maslow's hierarchy of needs and notes that women have been trapped at the basic, physiological level, expected to find their identity through their sexual role alone. Friedan says that women need meaningful work just as men do to achieve self-actualization, the highest level on the hierarchy of needs.


title: The Feminine Mystique

text: Chapter 14: In the final chapter of "The Feminine Mystique", Friedan discusses several case studies of women who have begun to go against the feminine mystique. She also advocates a new life plan for her women readers, including not viewing housework as a career, not trying to find total fulfillment through marriage and motherhood alone, and finding meaningful work that uses their full mental capacity. She discusses the conflicts that some women may face in this journey to self-actualization, including their own fears and resistance from others. For each conflict, Friedan offers examples of women who have overcome it. Friedan ends her book by promoting education and meaningful work as the ultimate method by which American women can avoid becoming trapped in the feminine mystique, calling for a drastic rethinking of what it means to be feminine, and offering several educational and occupational suggestions.


title: The Feminine Mystique

text: Friedan originally intended to write a sequel to "The Feminine Mystique", which was to be called "Woman: The Fourth Dimension", but instead only wrote an article by that name, which appeared in the "Ladies' Home Journal" in June 1964.


title: The Feminine Mystique

text: Friedan's chapter on Freud was inspired by the philosopher Simone de Beauvoir's "The Second Sex" (1949).


title: The Feminine Mystique

text: "The Feminine Mystique" drew large numbers of white, middle-class women to the feminist cause. Her book "took the complicated and jargon-laden ideas of psychologists, economists, and political theorists, and translated them into powerful, readable, relatable prose that touched millions."


title: The Feminine Mystique

text: Politicians increasingly recognized women's frustrations due in part to Friedan's work. The Equal Pay Act of 1963, signed into law June 10, stipulated women receive the same pay as men for the same work. On October 11 of the same year, the Presidential Commission on the Status of Women issued its final report and making recommendations for further action to end inequities.


title: The Feminine Mystique

text: "The Feminine Mystique" was translated into many languages, including a Catalan translation in 1965: "La mística de la feminitat". Friedan was the first feminist thinker to be published during the dictatorship of Francoist Spain.


title: The Feminine Mystique

text: NOW (The National Organization for Women) was organized in 1966 with 30 women from different backgrounds; Friedan was one of them, and helped draft the founding statement of NOW. The statement called for "the true equality for all women". NOW demanded the removal of all barriers to "equal and economic advance". Friedan's influence can be seen in the founding statement; a main emphasis of the book is "women's need for identity and autonomy", and NOW's statement says "NOW is dedicated to the proposition that women first and foremost are human beings, who… must have the chance to develop their fullest human potential."


title: The Feminine Mystique

text: "The Feminine Mystique" is widely regarded as one of the most influential nonfiction books of the 20th century, and is widely credited with sparking the beginning of second-wave feminism in the United States. Futurist Alvin Toffler declared that it "pulled the trigger on history." Friedan received hundreds of letters from unhappy housewives after its publication, and she herself went on to help found, and become the first president of the National Organization for Women, an influential feminist organization.


title: The Feminine Mystique

text: In addition to its contribution to feminism, "The Feminine Mystique" related to many other coinciding movements. "Her work indicates for us the ways that feminism was interconnected with the struggles of working-class men and women, with black and Jewish battles against racism and anti-Semitism… As a result, "The Feminine Mystique" had substantial impact on a wide range of political activists, thinkers, and ordinary individuals."


title: The Feminine Mystique

text: By the year 2000, "The Feminine Mystique" had sold over 3 million copies and had been translated into many foreign languages.


title: The Feminine Mystique

text: On February 22 and 23, 2013, a symposium titled "React: The Feminine Mystique at 50", co-sponsored by The New School for Public Engagement and The Parsons School of Design, was held. An accompanying exhibit titled "REACT" was also on display, consisting of twenty-five pieces of artwork responding to "The Feminine Mystique".


title: The Feminine Mystique

text: Also in February 2013, a fiftieth-anniversary edition of "The Feminine Mystique" was published, with a new introduction by Gail Collins.


title: The Feminine Mystique

text: Also in 2013, to celebrate its centennial the U.S. Department of Labor created a list of over 100 "Books that Shaped Work in America", which included "The Feminine Mystique." The Department of Labor later chose "The Feminine Mystique" as one of its top ten books from that list.


title: The Feminine Mystique

text: In 2014 the Betty Friedan Hometown Tribute committee won the Superior Achievement award in the special projects category for its 50th anniversary celebration of the publication of "The Feminine Mystique." They received the award from the Illinois State Historical Society.


title: The Feminine Mystique

text: Immediately after its publishing, "The Feminine Mystique" was the recipient of much backlash against feminism. Significant numbers of women responded angrily to the book, which they felt implied that wives and mothers could never be fulfilled. "Women who valued their roles as mothers and housewives interpreted Friedan's message as one that threatened their stability, devalued their labor, and disrespected their intelligence." In a Letter to Editor in "McCall's", one woman wrote, "All this time I thought I was happy, and a nice person. Now I discover I've been miserable and some sort of monster in disguise—now out of disguise. How awful!" Another said, "Mrs. Friedan should save her pity for those who really need it—the half starved, oppressed people in the world." When women critical of the work were not expressing personal offense at Friedan's description of the housewife's plight, they were accusing her of planning to destroy American families. Jessica Weiss quoted in her paper, "If the mothers, (or housewives as we are called) took this advice, what would become of our children? Or better yet, the future of the world."


title: The Feminine Mystique

text: Historian Joanne Meyerowitz argues that many of the contemporary magazines and articles of the period did not place women solely in the home, as Friedan stated, but in fact supported the notions of full- or part-time jobs for women seeking to follow a career path rather than being a housewife. These articles did, however, still emphasize the importance of maintaining the traditional image of femininity.


title: The Feminine Mystique

text: Daniel Horowitz, a Professor of American Studies at Smith College, points out that although Friedan presented herself as a typical suburban housewife, she was involved with radical politics and labor journalism in her youth, and during the time she wrote "The Feminine Mystique" she worked as a freelance journalist for women's magazines and as a community organizer.


title: The Feminine Mystique

text: The W. W. Norton publishing house, where Betty Friedan's work was initially circulated to be published as a book also generated some criticism. In fact an employee under the alias "L M" wrote in a two-page memo that Friedan's theoretical views were "too obvious and feminine", as well as critiquing her approach by suggesting it to be unscientific.


title: The Feminine Mystique

text: In addition, Friedan has been criticized for focusing solely on the plight of middle-class white women, and not giving enough attention to the differing situations encountered by women in less stable economic situations, or women of other races or trans-women. According to Kirsten Fermaglich and Lisa Fine, "women of color—African American, Latina, Asian American and Native American women—were completely absent from Friedan's vision, as were white working-class and poor women." Despite being written during the Civil Rights Movement, Friedan's text "barely mentions African-American women." In her "", Black feminist bell hooks writes "She did not speak of the needs of women without men, without children, without homes. She ignored the existence of all non-white women and poor white women. She did not tell readers whether it was more fulfilling to be a maid, a babysitter, a factory worker, a clerk, or a prostitute than to be a leisure-class housewife. She made her plight and the plight of white women like herself synonymous with a condition affecting all American women.  In so doing, she deflected attention away from her classism, her racism, her sexist attitudes towards the masses of American women. In the context of her book, Friedan makes clear that the women she saw as victimized by sexism were college-educated white women".


title: The Feminine Mystique

text: Friedan has also been criticized for prejudice against homosexuality. In part, this criticism stems from her adherence to the paradigmatic belief at the time that "bad mothers" caused deviance from heteronormative and cisnormative society.


title: The Feminine Mystique

text: Despite these criticisms, her "language aimed at white American middle-class women won large numbers of supporters to the feminist cause," implying perhaps that Friedan's decision to exclude other groups was deliberate in mobilizing a group of women that had in some cases not thought of the improvement of their rights.


title: Russian submarine Kursk (K-141)

text: K-141 "Kursk" (, transl. , meaning "Atomic-powered submarine "Kursk"") was an Oscar II-class nuclear-powered cruise missile submarine of the Russian Navy.


title: Russian submarine Kursk (K-141)

text: On 12 August 2000, K-141 "Kursk" was lost when it sank in the Barents Sea, killing all 118 personnel on board.


title: Russian submarine Kursk (K-141)

text: K-141 "Kursk" was a Project 949A class "Antey" () submarine of the Oscar class, known as the Oscar II by its NATO reporting name, and was the penultimate submarine of the Oscar II class designed and approved in the Soviet Union. Construction began in 1990 at the Soviet Navy military shipyards in Severodvinsk, near Arkhangelsk, in the northern Russian SFSR. During the construction of K-141, the Soviet Union collapsed; work continued, and she became one of the first naval vessels completed after the collapse. In 1993 K-141 was named "Kursk" after the Battle of Kursk in the 50-year anniversary of this battle. K-141 was inherited by Russia and launched in 1994, before being commissioned by the Russian Navy on December 30, as part of the Russian Northern Fleet.


title: Russian submarine Kursk (K-141)

text: The Antey design represented the highest achievement of Soviet nuclear submarine technology. They are the second-largest cruise missile submarines ever built, after some ballistic missile submarines were converted to carry cruise missiles in 2007. It was built to defeat an entire United States aircraft carrier group. A single Type 65 torpedo carried a warhead powerful enough to sink an aircraft carrier. Both missiles and torpedoes could be equipped with nuclear warheads. She was longer than the preceding Oscar I-class of submarines. The senior officers had individual staterooms and the entire crew had access to a gymnasium.


title: Russian submarine Kursk (K-141)

text: The outer hull, made of high-nickel, high-chromium stainless steel thick, had exceptionally good resistance to corrosion and a weak magnetic signature which helped prevent detection by U.S. magnetic anomaly detector (MAD) systems. There was a gap to the -thick steel pressure hull. She was designed to remain submerged for up to 120 days. The sail superstructure was reinforced to allow it to break through the Arctic ice.


title: Russian submarine Kursk (K-141)

text: The submarine was armed with 24 SS-N-19/P-700 Granit cruise missiles, and eight torpedo tubes in the bow: four and four . The Granit missiles with a range of , were capable of supersonic flight at altitudes over . They were designed to swarm enemy vessels and intelligently choose individual targets which terminated with a dive onto the target. The torpedo tubes could be used to launch either torpedoes or anti-ship missiles with a range of . Her weapons included 18 SS-N-16 "Stallion" anti-submarine missiles.


title: Russian submarine Kursk (K-141)

text: "Kursk" was part of Russia's Northern Fleet, which had suffered funding cutbacks throughout the 1990s. Many of its submarines were anchored and rusting in Zapadnaya Litsa Naval Base, from Murmansk. Little work to maintain all but the most essential front-line equipment, including search and rescue equipment, had occurred. Northern Fleet sailors had gone unpaid in the mid-1990s.


title: Russian submarine Kursk (K-141)

text: During her five years of service, "Kursk" completed only one mission, a six-month deployment to the Mediterranean Sea during the summer of 1999 to monitor the United States Sixth Fleet responding to the Kosovo crisis. This was due to a lack of funds for fuel. As a result, many of her crew had spent little time at sea and were inexperienced.


title: Russian submarine Kursk (K-141)

text: "Kursk" joined the "Summer-X" exercise, the first large-scale naval exercise planned by the Russian Navy in more than a decade, on 10 August 2000. It included 30 ships including the fleet's flagship "Pyotr Velikiy" ("Peter the Great"), four attack submarines, and a flotilla of smaller ships. The crew had recently won a citation for its excellent performance and had been recognized as the best submarine crew in the Northern Fleet. While it was on an exercise, "Kursk" loaded a full complement of combat weapons. It was one of the few vessels authorized to carry a combat load at all times.


title: Russian submarine Kursk (K-141)

text: On the first day of the exercise, "Kursk" successfully launched a Granit missile armed with a dummy warhead. Two days later, on the morning of 12 August, "Kursk" prepared to fire dummy torpedoes at the "Pyotr Velikiy". These practice torpedoes had no explosive warheads and were manufactured and tested at a much lower quality standard. On 12 August 2000, at 11:28 local time (07:28 UTC), there was an explosion while preparing to fire. The Russian Navy's final report on the disaster concluded the explosion was due to the failure of one of "Kursk"'s hydrogen peroxide-fueled Type 65 torpedoes. A subsequent investigation concluded that high-test peroxide (HTP), a form of highly concentrated hydrogen peroxide used as propellant for the torpedo, seeped through a faulty weld in the torpedo casing. When HTP comes into contact with a catalyst, it rapidly expands by a factor of 5000, generating vast quantities of steam and oxygen. The pressure produced by the expanding HTP ruptured the kerosene fuel tank in the torpedo and set off an explosion equal to of TNT. The submarine sank in relatively shallow water, bottoming at about off Severomorsk, at . A second explosion 135 seconds after the initial event was equivalent to 3-7 tons of TNT. The explosions blew a large hole in the hull and caused the first three compartments of the submarine to collapse, killing or incapacitating all but 23 of the 118 personnel on board.


title: Russian submarine Kursk (K-141)

text: The British and Norwegian navies offered assistance, but Russia initially refused all help. All 118 sailors and officers aboard "Kursk" died. The Russian Admiralty initially told the public that the majority of the crew died within minutes of the explosion, but on 21 August, Norwegian and Russian divers found 24 bodies in the ninth compartment, the turbine room at the stern of the boat. Captain-lieutenant Dmitri Kolesnikov wrote a note listing the names of 23 sailors who were alive in the compartment after the boat sank.


title: Russian submarine Kursk (K-141)

text: "Kursk" carried a potassium superoxide cartridge of a chemical oxygen generator; these are used to absorb carbon dioxide and chemically release oxygen during an emergency. However, the cartridge became contaminated with sea water and the resulting chemical reaction caused a flash fire which consumed the available oxygen. The investigation showed that some men temporarily survived the fire by plunging under water, as fire marks on the bulkheads indicated the water was at waist level at the time. Ultimately, the remaining crew burned to death or suffocated.


title: Russian submarine Kursk (K-141)

text: Russian President Vladimir Putin, though immediately informed of the tragedy, was told by the navy that they had the situation under control and that rescue was imminent. He waited for five days before ending his holiday at a presidential resort in Sochi on the Black Sea. Putin was only four months into his tenure as president, and the public and media were extremely critical of his decision to remain at a seaside resort. His highly favourable ratings dropped dramatically. The president's response appeared callous and the government's actions looked incompetent. A year later he said, "I probably should have returned to Moscow, but nothing would have changed. I had the same level of communication both in Sochi and in Moscow, but from a PR point of view I could have demonstrated some special eagerness to return."


title: Russian submarine Kursk (K-141)

text: A consortium formed by the Dutch companies Mammoet and Smit International was awarded a contract by Russia to raise the vessel, excluding the bow. They modified the barge "Giant 4" which raised "Kursk" and recovered the remains of the sailors.


title: Russian submarine Kursk (K-141)

text: During salvage operations in 2001, the team first cut the bow off the hull using a tungsten carbide-studded cable. As this tool had the potential to cause sparks which could ignite remaining pockets of reactive gases, such as hydrogen, the operation was executed with care. Most of the bow was abandoned and the rest of the vessel was towed to Severomorsk and placed in a floating dry dock for analysis.


title: Russian submarine Kursk (K-141)

text: The remains of "Kursk"s reactor compartment were towed to Sayda Bay on Russia's northern Kola Peninsula, where more than 50 reactor compartments were afloat at pier points, after a shipyard had removed all the fuel from the boat in early 2003.


title: Russian submarine Kursk (K-141)

text: Some torpedo and torpedo tube fragments from the bow were recovered and the rest was destroyed by explosives in 2002.


title: Russian submarine Kursk (K-141)

text: Notwithstanding the navy's oft-stated position that a collision with a foreign vessel had triggered the event, a report issued by the government attributed the disaster to a torpedo explosion caused when high-test peroxide (HTP), a form of highly concentrated hydrogen peroxide, leaked from a faulty weld in the torpedo's casing. The report found that the initial explosion destroyed the torpedo room compartment and killed everyone in the first compartment. The blast entered the second and perhaps the third and fourth compartments through an air conditioning vent. All of the 36 men in the command post located in the second compartment were immediately incapacitated by the blast wave and possibly killed. The first explosion caused a fire that raised the temperature of the compartment to more than . The heat caused the warheads of between five and seven additional torpedoes to detonate, creating an explosion equivalent to 2–3 tons of TNT that measured 4.2 on the Richter magnitude scale on seismographs across Europe and was detected as far away as Alaska.


title: Russian submarine Kursk (K-141)

text: Vice-Admiral Valery Ryazantsev differed with the government's official conclusion. He cited inadequate training, poor maintenance, and incomplete inspections that caused the crew to mishandle the weapon. During the examination of the wrecked sub, investigators recovered a partially burned copy of the safety instructions for loading HTP torpedoes, but the instructions were for a significantly different type of torpedo and failed to include essential steps for testing an air valve. The 7th Division, 1st Submarine Flotilla never inspected "Kursk"s crew's qualifications and readiness to fire HTP torpedoes. "Kursk"s crew had no experience with HTP-powered torpedoes and had not been trained in handling or firing HTP-powered torpedoes. Due to their inexperience and lack of training, compounded by incomplete inspections and oversight, and because the "Kursk"s crew followed faulty instructions when loading the practice torpedo, Ryazantsev believes they set off a chain of events that led to the explosion.


title: Tim David

text: Timothy Hays David (born 16 March 1996), better known as Tim David, is an Australian cricketer. He played for the Singapore national cricket team and various Twenty20 franchise teams. He made his international debut for Singapore in July 2019. In September 2022, he was announced in the Australian national cricket team's squad for the 2022 T20 World Cup.


title: Tim David

text: Timothy Hays David was born in Singapore to Rod David, a cricketer who played for Singapore at the 1997 ICC Trophy. The family moved to Singapore from Australia in the 1990s where his father worked as an engineer. They moved back to Australia when he was two years old in the wake of the 1997 Asian financial crisis and he grew up in Perth.


title: Tim David

text: David made his Twenty20 debut for Perth Scorchers in the 2017–18 Big Bash League season (BBL) on 1 January 2018. For the 2020–21 Big Bash League season, David was signed by the Hobart Hurricanes. In the opening fixture of the tournament, he scored 58 runs, with Hobart beating the Sydney Sixers by 16 runs, and David being named the player of the match. In February 2022, David signed a two-year extension to his BBL contract with the Hobart Hurricanes.


title: Tim David

text: In May 2021, in the PSL Mini Replacement Draft for the remainder of the postponed 2021 Pakistan Super League, David was signed by the Lahore Qalandars as a replacement for Joe Burns. In the 2022 Pakistan Super league David was signed by reigning champions Multan Sultans.


title: Tim David

text: In July 2021, David played in the Hoofdklasse tournament in the Netherlands. After playing in the Dutch league, David signed with Surrey County Cricket Club to play in Surrey's final two matches in the 2021 T20 Blast in England. The following month, he played in the 2021 Royal London One-Day Cup, and scored his first century in List A cricket with an unbeaten 140 against Warwickshire. In the quarter-finals of the tournament, David scored 102 runs, as Surrey beat Gloucestershire by five wickets to advance to the semi-finals of the competition.


title: Tim David

text: In 2021, he was drafted by Southern Brave for the inaugural season of The Hundred. In the final for the 2021 season of The Hundred, David scored 15 off 6 balls, and then came up with a catch, and later a crucial runout of Liam Livingstone, that each played a significant role in his team winning. In February 2022, David was signed by Lancashire County Cricket Club to play in the 2022 T20 Blast in England. In April 2022, he was bought by the Southern Brave for the 2022 season of The Hundred.


title: Tim David

text: In August 2021, David was included in the Royal Challengers Bangalore squad for the second phase of the 2021 Indian Premier League (IPL) in the UAE. He made his IPL debut on 24 September 2021 against Chennai Super Kings. By doing so, he became the first international player from Singapore to play in the IPL. In February 2022, he was bought by the Mumbai Indians in 2022 Indian Premier League auction.


title: Tim David

text: Western Australia XI, Perth Scorchers, Singapore, Hobart Hurricanes, Lahore Qalandars, Surrey, Saint Lucia Kings, Southern Brave, Royal Challengers Bangalore, Tasmania, Multan Sultans, Mumbai Indians, Lancashire, Australia.


title: Tim David

text: In July 2019, David was added to a training squad for the Singapore cricket team ahead of the Regional Finals of the 2018–19 ICC T20 World Cup Asia Qualifier tournament. Later the same month, he was named in Singapore's Twenty20 International (T20I) squad for the Regional Finals of the tournament. He made his T20I debut for Singapore against Qatar on 22 July 2019.


title: Tim David

text: In September 2019, David was named in Singapore's squad for the 2019 Malaysia Cricket World Cup Challenge League A tournament. He made his List A debut for Singapore, against Qatar, in the Cricket World Cup Challenge League A tournament on 17 September 2019. He was the leading run-scorer in the tournament, with 369 runs in five matches. In October 2019, he was named in Singapore's squad for the 2019 ICC T20 World Cup Qualifier tournament in the United Arab Emirates. Ahead of the tournament, the International Cricket Council (ICC) named him as the player to watch in Singapore's squad.