title: Richmond, California

text: Recently Mayor McLaughlin and Councilperson Butt have opposed Chevron's Renewal Project that would replace their 1950's era Hydrogen Manufacturing plant with a newer more efficient plant and would increase pollution by using dirtier, thicker, but cheaper crude oil.


title: Richmond, California

text: The city of Richmond has eight community centers which are located within city parks. Many of the city's community centers were closed in the early 2000s following budget miscalculations and financial difficulties. In the 2006 city elections many candidates ran on platforms promising to reopen these community centers, most of which had been closed due to budget cuts. That election also featured a city sales tax increase, Measure Q, which failed.


title: Richmond, California

text: There are 53 voting precincts in Richmond. During the regular election on November 7, 2006, 21,575 of 37,605 (57.37%) registered voters cast their ballots.


title: Richmond, California

text: Richmond has formerly been home to black culture and activist movements, most notably the Black Panther Party.


title: Richmond, California

text: The city has eight cannabis dispensaries, and although the city has passed legislation approving them and has legalized their presence, city management does not accept their legality. In fact, the city had sued to close them. It is trying to enforce an injunction that would suspend their operating licenses. Although the city council has passed an ordinance permitting the dispensaries, city management refuses to cooperate with the spirit of the law because it has yet to take effect. The question remains whether the clubs will be closed before the law allowing them to open takes effect.


title: Richmond, California

text: In 2019 the city approved "Power Plant Park" a marijuana farm consisting of 45 greenhouses on 18 acres north of North Richmond near Breuner Marsh and a solar farm. It is expected the create 500 new jobs and become a major economic contributor to the city.


title: Richmond, California

text: According to the California Secretary of State, as of February 10, 2019, Richmond has 52,364 registered voters. Of those, 33,166 (63.3%) are registered Democrats, 2,979 (5.7%) are registered Republicans, 14,108 (26.9%) have declined to state a political party, and 4.1% are registered members of a third party.


title: Richmond, California

text: The public schools in Richmond are administered by the West Contra Costa Unified School District, formerly the Richmond Unified School District. There are also many private schools, mostly Catholic schools under the authority of the Diocese of Oakland.


title: Richmond, California

text: The city has four high schools: De Anza High School, Salesian College Preparatory, Richmond High School, and Kennedy High School. In addition, there are four charter high schools, Making Waves Academy, Aspire Richmond California College Preparatory Academy, Leadership Public Schools: Richmond and West County Community High School, although West County Community High School was shut down in 2012. In 2012, Richmond Charter Academy, part of the Amethod Public Schools system, opened a charter middle school. There are also three middle schools, 16 elementary schools, and seven elementary-middle schools. Richmond also hosts three adult education schools.


title: Richmond, California

text: The Contra Costa Community College District serves all of Contra Costa County, and Richmonders who decide to attend a community college typically go to Contra Costa College, located in the neighboring city of San Pablo.


title: Richmond, California

text: 79.8% of Richmonders have a high school diploma or equivalent, compared with 84.2% nationally. But 27.1% have a bachelor's degree compared with a statistically similar 27.2% nationally.


title: Richmond, California

text: Since an exit exam requirement was implemented for California high schools, the CAHSEE, some Richmond high school students have been protesting against it. Some students sued the district in an attempt to eliminate the requirement. In July 2007, a compromise was reached in which the district would provide two additional years of educational assistance for the purposes of passing the exam. That year, only 28% of Richmond High School students had passed the CAHSEE, a prerequisite for graduating.


title: Richmond, California

text: All Richmond schools have banned junk food, such as candy, soda, Twinkies, pizza, and other similar items in attempt to curb childhood obesity and change children's eating habits. It has been speculated that this was done preemptively, because some believe the state will soon mandate such restrictions. Despite these efforts, soda consumption in Richmond schools has not diminished. Furthermore, the current 32% of Richmond children who are obese will increase the current 24% adult obesity rate to 42% according to the Contra Costa County Health Services. This led the city council to approve a referendum on a 1 cent per ounce tax on beverages with a high sugar content for the 2012 elections, a first in the nation. The measure was opposed by councilmembers Corky Boozé and Nat Bates, who stated that he knew "many obese people that are perfectly healthy" and that it was "elitist" and "targeted black" people respectively. Members Jovanka Beckles and Jeff Ritterman – the latter a cardiologist – expressed horror at the obesity rate. Beckles chastized the other black members (Bates and Boozé) for not supporting the measure, as she found that the epidemic most affected people of color like themselves. The revenues would have been used to counter obesity through health and fitness campaigns and expenditures. The referendum was defeated by voters in the November 2012 election.


title: Richmond, California

text: The city of Richmond has dozens of parks, national historic parks, and 10 sites listed under the National Register of Historic Places.


title: Richmond, California

text: Point Richmond, a neighborhood in Richmond, is known for its small-town appearance. "The Point", as it is known by locals, offers owner-operated stores, coffee shops, historic benches, and streetlights. The Masquers Playhouse is a performing arts center that offers shows and productions year round. Hotel Mac is one of the oldest buildings in the area and has classic early 20th century architecture, like many other buildings in the area. There is also The Plunge, a natatorium which had been closed due to seismic safety issues but was re-opened in August 2010 after the retrofitting was completed. The city expressed a desire to demolish the building at one point, but this was halted by the actions of a neighborhood preservation campaign which continues its mission to ""Save the Plunge!"".


title: Richmond, California

text: The Ferry Point Tunnel is one of the oldest tunnels in California. Built in 1899, this structure still gives access to many attractions and neighborhoods in Brickyard Cove. The tunnel goes to the Golden State Railroad Museum, the USS "Red Oak Victory", and many beaches and parks, and to Ferry Point where an abandoned ferry-rail pier stands with a historic ferry slip still standing, though somewhat damaged by fire. It can be viewed from an adjacent fishing pier.


title: Richmond, California

text: The is a restored World War II Victory ship, the 558th ship made in Richmond. Liberty and Victory ships transported troops and supplies during World War II.


title: Richmond, California

text: During World War II the city sprawled and its population increased dramatically. This led city leaders to construct the Richmond Civic Center in 1957. This center houses the city hall, a small convention center, library, hall of justice, police headquarters, and arts center.


title: Richmond, California

text: The Richmond Public Library, the only public library independent of the Contra Costa County Public Libraries system, lies in the heart of the civic center. It houses over 204,686 books, 4,014 audio materials, 5,277 video materials, and 491 serial subscriptions.


title: Richmond, California

text: The Richmond–San Rafael Bridge extends across San Pablo Bay. The bridge is the origin of the term "rollercoaster span", due to its curves, bumps, and appearance, which have also earned the bridge the nickname of "the rollercoaster bridge". It was built in 1957, and connects Contra Costa County with Marin County. Automobiles are charged a $6 toll in the westbound (towards Marin) direction only.


title: Richmond, California

text: The Golden State Railroad Museum is a complex series of model railroad layouts in a museum in the Brickyard Cove area of Point Richmond. A visitor can operate trains of various eras, and there are miniature freight and passenger terminals, trestles, tunnels, and meticulously detailed town and city scenes, many of which are copied from real life scenes of the 1950s.


title: Richmond, California

text: The Santa Fe Railroad Terminal operated as the western terminus for the railroad from the late 19th century to the late 20th century. It has now been transformed into a museum to exemplify the feel of the terminal in that era.


title: Richmond, California

text: The Rosie the Riveter/World War II Home Front National Historical Park is in Richmond, and commemorates women's shipbuilding and support for the war effort in the 1940s.


title: Richmond, California

text: Keller Beach is one of the city's beaches, located at Miller/Knox Regional Shoreline, a park in Brickyard Cove. It offers picnicking, sunbathing, wading, and swimming. The beach is overlooked by vehicles exiting the Brickyard Cove drive, Ferry Point tunnel and houses on the steep cliffs above. The beach, as with most of the cove, offers spectacular panoramic bay views of the Oakland hills, bridges, the San Francisco skyline and the Golden Gate.


title: Richmond, California

text: Point Molate Beach Park is a park on the western coast of Richmond along Western Drive. It was originally a Chinese shrimp camp in the 1870s.


title: Richmond, California

text: East Brother Light Station on East Brother Island (one of the Brother Islands) is host to an exclusive bed and breakfast. It is only accessible by private boat. Visitors come and stay for the day and picnic for free or they may pay for a room.


title: Richmond, California

text: The city is also home to a radio controlled model airplane airport, Breuner Airfield that is located in Breuner Marsh a contested piece of land near Point Pinole Regional Park in the Parchester Village neighborhood.


title: Richmond, California

text: Several regional parks administered by the East Bay Regional Park District lie within the city, including the Miller/Knox Regional Shoreline and the Point Pinole Regional Shoreline. They are linked by the San Francisco Bay Trail. Part of the former shipyard is now a marina.


title: Richmond, California

text: The Richmond Art Center, founded by Hazel Salmi in 1936, is one of the oldest continually operating non-profit art centers on the entire West Coast of the United States. Its programming includes exhibitions, adult and youth education, and community initiatives. The center currently provides some of the only visual arts education programming in the city of Richmond, relying primarily on public donations and private grants as its means of support.


title: Richmond, California

text: There is also the East Bay Center for the Performing Arts, Hilltop Multiplex, or Masquers Theaters in Point Richmond.


title: Richmond, California

text: The Richmond Progressive Alliance and California Green Party are active political parties in Richmond. The House Rabbit Society has its national headquarters in Richmond.


title: Richmond, California

text: Richmond is home to the National Institute of Art and Disabilities Art Center, also known locally as the NIAD Art Center. NIAD is a non-profit organization hosting over sixty client artists weekly. NIAD's client artists' work can be seen at NIAD's on-site gallery, the Florence Ludins-Katz Gallery. NIAD has a gift shop.


title: Richmond, California

text: The Richmond Art Center is a contemporary visual arts center, with a gallery and art classes in the heart of Richmond. A showcase for emerging and established artists, the Richmond Art Center hosts the annual ""The Art of Living Black"", art show which is a showcase of the artwork of Bay Area Black Artists. ""Featuring over 50 local artists, the works include fine arts and crafts, paintings, sculpture, photography, prints, masks, stained glass, quilts, textile art, ceramics, jewelry and dolls."" The beauty, the pain, the power and the eye of these black artists touch the soul deeply. Founded in 1936 by local artist Hazel Salmi, the Richmond Art Center is a Bay Area cultural institution.


title: Richmond, California

text: In addition, East Bay Center for the Performing Arts has maintained its roots in the Richmond community since 1968. The Center engages youth and young adults in imagining and creating new worlds for themselves and new visions for their communities through the inspiration and discipline of rigorous training in world performance traditions.


title: Richmond, California

text: From 1996 to 2002 a "geekfest" was held on the beach in Point Molate every few weeks or monthly by S.P.A.M. Records. The festival was a community service for under-21-year-olds.


title: Richmond, California

text: There are dozens of houses of worship for various religions in the city, and some which are not represented in the city can be found nearby. Christian denominational churches include the Kingdom Hall of Jehovah's Witnesses; Word of Faith church; St. Peters C.M.E.; Kingdom Land Baptist Church; Grace Baptist Church; Grace Lutheran Church; Grace Lao Lutheran Church; Temple Baptist Church; Unity Church of Richmond; Holy Trinity Episcopal Church; First Mexican Baptist Church; Holy Mission Christian Center; St. David Catholic Church, Greater New Bethel Apostolic Ministries, formerly New Bethel Church of God in Christ, founded by Bishop A.D. Bradley in 1945; Faith Temple C.O.G.I.C., and Faith Tabernacle A.O.H. Church Of God; and the Largest Church in Richmond, Hilltop Community Church which is Assemblies of God. There is also a large Laotian Buddhist temple that serves as a community center for the Lao community of the East Bay. There is a synagogue in the Hilltop Green District.


title: Richmond, California

text: The city has of parkland, which constitutes 1.5% of the city's land territory. A new national park, Rosie the Riveter World War II Home Front National Historical Park, is now under construction in the former Kaiser shipyards and other wartime industrial sites in Richmond. The park is a memorial to the six million women who labored on the home front, symbolized by the mythical figure "Rosie the Riveter". Richmond was selected for the park because it has many intact buildings that were constructed for 56 wartime industries. Its four shipyards produced an amazing 747 large ships and set production records. The home front changed Richmond from a predominantly rural community of 23,600 residents to a diverse population of over 100,000 people within a year. Industries operated around the clock and public housing, schools, day care centers, health care and merchants mobilized to support the new workforce that arrived on the city's doorstep. Fortunately, Richmond's turbulent and productive home front years were well chronicled and photographed. The National Park Service provides interpretive services and operates a Visitor Center in the craneway of the Ford Assembly Building.


title: Richmond, California

text: Richmond also has number of local parks and two large regional parks are under the authority of the East Bay Regional Parks District, a consortium of most of the Parks and Recreation lands and facilities of Alameda and Contra Costa County.


title: Richmond, California

text: Wildcat Canyon Regional Park is the city's largest park at . The park once housed a dance hall and roller rink and has distinctive stonework throughout, which was the rationale for its placement on the National Register of Historic Places. It features San Pablo Creek, trails, forests, horseback riding, picnic areas, and a play structure for children, as well as horses for rent and mountain biking trails. High school students practice cross-country in the park. It is situated in the eastern Richmond hills and stretches into Berkeley's Tilden Regional Park in Alameda County. The park has diverse animal and plant life including great horned owls, opossums, king snakes, rubber boas, turkey vultures and many others.


title: Richmond, California

text: The Richmond Greenway is a project costing millions of dollars to transform an old rail line into a walking, jogging, and biking trail. It will span east to west from the end of the Ohlone Trail that follows the BART line from El Cerrito to Berkeley. It will also follow the BART line to Richmond station and continue to Point Richmond. Pedestrian bridges will be used to cross major avenues such as San Pablo Avenue and 23rd Street. An additional side project will add a bike lane/bike trail between the Richmond Greenway and the Ohlone trail at Potrero Avenue via 23rd Street, Carlson Boulevard, Cutting Boulevard, and Potrero. It is currently under construction.


title: Richmond, California

text: Richmond is home to four marinas: the Brickyard Cove Yacht Club, Point San Pablo Yacht Club, Marina Bay Marina, and Channel Marina in the Santa Fe channel. In addition, Richmond has the "Richmond Plunge", a municipal natatorium dating back to 1926 and which reopened August 14, 2010. The pool is located in the Point Richmond neighborhood.


title: Richmond, California

text: The city has annual Juneteenth and Cinco de Mayo celebrations. The Cinco de Mayo celebrations sponsored by the 23rd Street Merchant's Association attracts thousands and closes the entire length of the roadway. The Richmond Police Department, Fire Brigade, United States Marine Corps and other organizations participate in the parade. This is in addition to a fireworks show at Marina Bay celebrating the July 4 and a Silly Parade, an event where people march down the street and generally act "weird" and silly. The city also participates in various Earth Day activities. The city hosts an annual and a physical activity and nutrition forum to discuss health in the community, it has been running since 2006. In 2010 the city began celebrating the Richmond Native American Pow-Wow in Nicholl Park, in 2012 this included area politicians and members of over 50 tribes from throughout the country.


title: Richmond, California

text: There are two African American weekly newspapers, one general interest online publication, and one multimedia news project that cover Richmond exclusively. The Richmond Post and Richmond Globe publish print and online editions. RichmondConfidential.org, which is run by the UC Berkeley Graduate School of Journalism, is a general interest online-only news publication serving the city of Richmond. Richmond Pulse is a youth-led print and online publication which focuses on community health. The West County Times, run by Media News Group, covers greater Contra Costa County.


title: Richmond, California

text: A local cable TV station, KCRT-TV, mainly plays historical archives but also airs government-access television (GATV), city council meetings and music videos.


title: Richmond, California

text: The Port of Richmond, located in along the city's southern coast beside the Richmond Inner Harbor, handles the third-largest shipping tonnage in California annually, a total of 19 million short tons. It ranks number one for ports of the San Francisco Bay for vehicles and liquid bulk. In addition to these commodities, the port can also handle dry-bulk, break-bulk, and containers. Seven of the terminals are city-owned, in addition to five dry docks, while there are 11 privately owned terminals. The port is served by a rail network operated by four major rail companies.


title: Richmond, California

text: The city's primary transportation hub is Richmond station. It is served by Bay Area Rapid Transit (BART) and service, plus Amtrak , , and regional rail and intercity rail service.


title: Richmond, California

text: The primary bus service in Richmond is operated by AC Transit, which runs 14 bus lines in the city. Service includes a number of local routes, rapid route 72R along San Pablo Avenue, transbay commuter service across the Bay Bridge to the Transbay Transit Center and limited All-Nighter service. Additional local service is operated by WestCAT. Bear Transit provides commuter and student service from El Cerrito BART and UC Berkeley to the UC Field Station in Campus Bay on route RFS. Several regional bus operators serve El Cerrito del Norte station (just south of Richmond) rather than Richmond station because of the former station's proximity to I-80.


title: Richmond, California

text: Before AC Transit and BART, the Key System provided a network of several rail lines on the East Shore and Suburban Railway.


title: Richmond, California

text: The Union Pacific Railroad (UP) has a mainline passing through Richmond. This line was formerly operated by the Southern Pacific Railroad (SP).


title: Richmond, California

text: The BNSF Railway (BNSF) has a yard and that serves as the Northern California terminus of their line that goes to their main classification yard at Barstow via the San Joaquin Valley. The track was formerly operated by the Atchison, Topeka and Santa Fe Railway (ATSF). Many years ago, the ATSF offered rail car ferry service from Point Richmond to San Francisco. The partially burnt remnants of the ferry pier can still be seen at Point Richmond.


title: Richmond, California

text: The Richmond Pacific Railroad (RPRC) is a class III shortline railroad operating on of track, providing switching services at Richmond's wharves. The RPRC is owned by the Levin-Richmond Terminal Corporation and was formerly known as the Parr Terminal Railroad (PRT).


title: Richmond, California

text: The San Francisco Bay Ferry relaunched ferry service to the San Francisco Ferry Building in January 2019. The service runs from the Craneway Pavilion in Marina Bay to the San Francisco Ferry Building seven days a week, with lower frequency on the weekends as opposed to higher volume weekday commutes. Schedules call for a 35-minute commute from the Marina Bay Terminal to San Francisco Ferry Building in either direction.


title: Richmond, California

text: Historically, Richmond had commuter ferry service from the Richmond Ferry Terminal to the San Francisco Ferry Building on weekdays and Fisherman's Wharf on weekends in addition to special Giants Ballpark service during the baseball season. The voyage took approximately 45 minutes each way. The service began in 1999, but was discontinued in the late 2000s in the economic downturn following the dot-com bust. Ferry ridership plummeted and the service became economically unsustainable, which led Red and White Fleet to discontinue the service. The Richmond ferry terminal is at Ford Point located adjacent to the historic Ford Plant in Marina Bay which is now open as an industrial park and under renovation. The terminal had its own dedicated AC Transit feeder service from Point Richmond and downtown Richmond with route 374 also now discontinued. A new ferry service from Richmond is planned for 2018 by the San Francisco Bay Area Water Transit Authority. The new ferry will take only half an hour to San Francisco and will use the existing terminal and parking facilities at Ford Point in Marina Bay. The San Francisco Bay Ferry relaunched ferry service to the San Francisco Ferry Building in January 2019.


title: Richmond, California

text: The city has aggressively developed its portions of the San Francisco Bay Trail and has more than any other city at present. The total length is and more is to be built. The city is also currently developing the Richmond Greenway a rails to trails project running parallel to Macdonald Avenue which will feed into the Ohlone Trail which serves as feeder service for the El Cerrito del Norte BART station. There is also the Hercules Bikeway connecting the Ohlone Trail with Hercules, which runs along the neighborhoods of East Richmond and El Sobrante. There is a trail under construction along Wildcat Creek to connect the Bay Trail and Wildcat Marsh with Wildcat Canyon Regional Park. The city also has many miles of trails in that park in addition to Miller/Knox, Point Isabel, and Point Pinole parks, among others.


title: Richmond, California

text: Dozens of parks are run by the Richmond Parks & Recreation Department. The Richmond Civic Center is currently undergoing a seismic upgrade and renovations program. Some buildings are being refurbished while other buildings will be replaced.


title: Richmond, California

text: Richmond is also home to the West County Detention Facility in the Point Pinole area. It is a male and female county jail.


title: Richmond, California

text: RichmondWorks and Richmond Summer YouthWorks are city programs that aim to decrease unemployment and crime and have led to hundreds receiving employment at area retail businesses.


title: Richmond, California

text: Richmond's waste disposal and recycling is handled by the Richmond Sanitary Service. Water is provided by the East Bay Municipal Utility District (EBMUD), while sewers are operated by the city government. The city's electricity and gas is provided by the Pacific Gas & Electric Company (PG&E).


title: Richmond, California

text: The Richmond Fire Department is the fire and rescue service for Richmond, and by contract with Contra Costa County it also serves East Richmond Heights, and North Richmond. The department is responsible for an area of . The department has seven fire stations in the city.


title: Richmond, California

text: In September 2002 the city coordinated an eight alarm fire call at the Richmond Sanitary Service landfill. After putting the fire out steam continued to spew forcing crews to remain on site for hours to water the still heated area in order to prevent reignition.


title: Richmond, California

text: The Richmond Police Department, first organized in 1909, is now headquartered at the Richmond Civic Center. The building was recently renovated, and is LEED certified.


title: Richmond, California

text: Richmond has many distinct neighborhoods. The city can roughly be divided into the northern Hilltop/El Sobrante, eastern Central/East Richmond, downtown/Iron Triangle and Southern Point Richmond/Marina Bay areas.


title: The Serpent and the Rainbow (film)

text: The Serpent and the Rainbow is a 1988 American horror film directed by Wes Craven and starring Bill Pullman. The script by Richard Maxwell and Adam Rodman is loosely based on the non-fiction book of the same name by ethnobotanist Wade Davis, wherein Davis recounted his experiences in Haiti investigating the story of Clairvius Narcisse, who was allegedly poisoned, buried alive, and revived with an herbal brew which produced what was called a zombie.


title: The Serpent and the Rainbow (film)

text: In 1978, a Haitian man named Christophe mysteriously dies in a French missionary clinic, while a voodoo parade marches past his window. The next morning, Christophe is buried in a traditional Catholic funeral. A mysterious man dressed in a suit who was outside Christophe's hospital window on the night he died is in attendance. As the coffin is lowered into the ground, Christophe's eyes open and tears roll down his cheeks.


title: The Serpent and the Rainbow (film)

text: Seven years later, Harvard anthropologist Dennis Alan is in the Amazon rainforest studying rare herbs and medicines with a local shaman. He drinks a potion and experiences a hallucination of the same black man from Christophe's funeral, surrounded by corpses in a bottomless pit.


title: The Serpent and the Rainbow (film)

text: Back in Boston, Alan is approached by a pharmaceutical company looking to investigate a drug used in Haitian Vodou to create zombies. The company wants Alan to acquire the drug for use as a "super anesthetic". The corporation provides Alan with funding and sends him to Haiti, which is in the middle of a revolution. Alan's exploration in Haiti, assisted by Dr. Marielle Duchamp, locates Christophe who is alive after having been buried seven years earlier. Alan is taken into custody, and the commander of the "Tonton Macoute", Captain Dargent Peytraud–the same man from Christophe's funeral and Alan's vision in the Amazon–warns Alan to leave Haiti.


title: The Serpent and the Rainbow (film)

text: Continuing his investigation, Alan finds a local man, Mozart, who is reported to have knowledge of the procedure for creating the zombie drug. Alan pays Mozart for a sample, but Mozart sells him rat poison instead. After embarrassing Mozart in public, Alan convinces Mozart to show Alan how to produce the drug for a fee of $1,000. Alan is arrested again by the "Tonton Macoutes", and tortured by having a nail driven through his scrotum, and then dumped on a street with the message that he must leave Haiti or be killed. Alan again refuses to leave and meets with Mozart to create the drug.


title: The Serpent and the Rainbow (film)

text: Alan has a nightmare of Peytraud, revealed to be a "bokor" who turns enemies into zombies and steals their souls. When Alan wakes up, he is lying next to Christophe's sister who has been decapitated. The "Tonton Macoutes" enter, take photos, and frame Alan for murder. Peytraud tells Alan to leave the country and never return, lest he be convicted of the murder, executed, and then his soul stolen by Peytraud. Peytraud puts Alan on a US bound plane, but Mozart sneaks on board and gives Alan the zombie drug. Mozart asks Alan to tell people about him, so that Mozart can achieve international fame. Alan agrees and returns to Boston with his mission apparently completed.


title: The Serpent and the Rainbow (film)

text: At a celebration dinner, the wife of Alan's employer is possessed by Peytraud, who warns Alan of his own imminent death. Alan returns to Haiti, where his only ally, a "houngan" named Lucien Celine, is killed by Peytraud and Mozart is beheaded as a sacrifice for Peytraud's power. Alan is then sprayed with the zombie powder and dies; later, Peytraud steals Alan's body from the hospital before the death can be reported to the US Embassy. Peytraud takes Alan to a graveyard where, helpless in his coffin, Alan sees that Peytraud has captured Marielle and will sacrifice her. Peytraud shows Alan Celine's soul in a "canari". Alan is then buried alive with a tarantula to "keep him company". Waking up in his coffin a few hours later, Alan is rescued by Christophe who was also turned into a zombie by Peytraud.


title: The Serpent and the Rainbow (film)

text: Having escaped Peytraud's trap, Alan returns to the "Tonton Macoute" headquarters looking for Marielle. There, Alan defeats Peytraud through a battles of wills, using Celine's white magic to drive a nail into Peytraud's groin, and sends his soul to hell. As the Haitian people celebrate the downfall of Jean-Claude Duvalier, Marielle proclaims "The nightmare is over".


title: The Serpent and the Rainbow (film)

text: "The Serpent and the Rainbow" was filmed in Boston, Massachusetts, Santo Domingo in the Dominican Republic, and in Haiti. During production in Haiti, the local government informed the cast and crew that they could not guarantee their safety for the remainder of the film's shoot because of the political strife and civil turmoil that was occurring during that time; as a result, production was relocated to the Dominican Republic for the remainder of the shoot.


title: The Serpent and the Rainbow (film)

text: In an interview, Craven stated that unlike his previous films that had problems with the Motion Picture Association of America, the first cut got an R rating without any problems. According to an article from Fangoria #71, the original cut was 184 minutes long but Craven felt that it was too long and talky so he cut it down to 98 minutes. It was then test screened to the audience and their reactions were favorable.


title: The Serpent and the Rainbow (film)

text: "The Serpent and the Rainbow" was released theatrically in the United States by Universal Pictures on February 5, 1988. It grossed $19,595,031 at the box office.


title: The Serpent and the Rainbow (film)

text: On review aggregator Rotten Tomatoes, "The Serpent and the Rainbow" holds an approval rating of 63%, based on 35 reviews, and an average rating of 5.8/10. Its consensus reads, "Although it's occasionally overwhelmed by excessive special effects, "The Serpent and the Rainbow" draws on a chilling atmosphere to deliver [an] intelligent, politically informed story." On Metacritic, the film has a weighted average score of 64 out of 100, based on 13 critics, indicating "generally favorable reviews".


title: The Serpent and the Rainbow (film)

text: Roger Ebert of "The Chicago Sun-Times" gave the movie three stars out of a possible four, praising Pullman's performance and the "stunning" visuals, while also noting "The Serpent and the Rainbow" seemed to take Haitain voodoo more seriously as a religion and cultural force than most horror movies with similar themes, which merely use voodoo as a "gimmick".


title: The Serpent and the Rainbow (film)

text: The film was first released on DVD by Image Entertainment in 1998, though this version is now out of print. It was subsequently re-released by Universal Studios in 2003 and in 2016 on Blu-ray from Scream Factory.


title: Venona project

text: The Venona project was a United States counterintelligence program initiated during World War II by the United States Army's Signal Intelligence Service (later absorbed by the National Security Agency), which ran from February 1, 1943, until October 1, 1980. It was intended to decrypt messages transmitted by the intelligence agencies of the Soviet Union (e.g. the NKVD, the KGB, and the GRU). Initiated when the Soviet Union was an ally of the US, the program continued during the Cold War, when the Soviet Union was considered an enemy.


title: Venona project

text: During the 37-year duration of the Venona project, the Signal Intelligence Service decrypted and translated approximately 3,000 messages. The signals intelligence yield included discovery of the Cambridge Five espionage ring in the United Kingdom and Soviet espionage of the Manhattan Project in the U.S. (known as Project Enormous). Some of the espionage was undertaken to support the Soviet atomic bomb project. The Venona project remained secret for more than 15 years after it concluded. Some of the decoded Soviet messages were not declassified and published by the United States until 1995.


title: Venona project

text: During World War II and the early years of the Cold War, the Venona project was a source of information on Soviet intelligence-gathering directed at the Western military powers. Although unknown to the public, and even to Presidents Franklin D. Roosevelt and Harry S. Truman, these programs were of importance concerning crucial events of the early Cold War. These included the Julius and Ethel Rosenberg spying case (which was based on events during World War II) and the defections of Donald Maclean and Guy Burgess to the Soviet Union.


title: Venona project

text: Most decipherable messages were transmitted and intercepted between 1942 and 1945, during World War II, when the Soviet Union was an ally of the US. Sometime in 1945, the existence of the Venona program was revealed to the Soviet Union by cryptologist-analyst Bill Weisband, an NKVD agent in the U.S. Army's SIGINT. These messages were slowly and gradually decrypted beginning in 1946. This effort continued (many times at a low level of effort in the latter years) through 1980, when the Venona program was terminated. The analyst effort assigned to it was moved to more important projects.


title: Venona project

text: To what extent the various individuals referred to in the messages were involved with Soviet intelligence is a topic of historical dispute. While a number of academics and historians assert that most of the individuals mentioned in the Venona decrypts were probably either clandestine assets and/or contacts of Soviet intelligence agents, others argue that many of those people probably had no malicious intentions and committed no crimes.


title: Venona project

text: The VENONA<ref name="cia.gov/csi/books/venona/preface"></ref> Project was initiated on February 1, 1943, by Gene Grabeel, an American mathematician and cryptanalyst, under orders from Colonel Carter W. Clarke, Chief of Special Branch of the Military Intelligence Service at that time. Clarke distrusted Joseph Stalin, and feared that the Soviet Union would sign a separate peace with Nazi Germany, allowing Germany to focus its military forces against the United Kingdom and the United States. Cryptanalysts of the U.S. Army's Signal Intelligence Service at Arlington Hall analyzed encrypted high-level Soviet diplomatic intelligence messages intercepted in large volumes during and immediately after World War II by American, British, and Australian listening posts.


title: Venona project

text: This message traffic, which was encrypted with a one-time pad system, was stored and analyzed in relative secrecy by hundreds of cryptanalysts over a 40-year period starting in the early 1940s. When used correctly, the one-time pad encryption system, which has been used for all the most-secret military and diplomatic communication since the 1930s, is unbreakable. However, due to a serious blunder on the part of the Soviets, some of this traffic was vulnerable to cryptanalysis. The Soviet company that manufactured the one-time pads produced around 35,000 pages of duplicate key numbers, as a result of pressures brought about by the German advance on Moscow during World War II. The duplication—which undermines the security of a one-time system—was discovered, and attempts to lessen its impact were made by sending the duplicates to widely separated users. Despite this, the reuse was detected by cryptanalysts in the US.


title: Venona project

text: The Soviet systems in general used a code to convert words and letters into numbers, to which additive keys (from one-time pads) were added, encrypting the content. When used correctly so that the plaintext is of a length equal to or less than that of a random key, one-time pad encryption is unbreakable. However, cryptanalysis by American code-breakers revealed that some of the one-time pad material had incorrectly been reused by the Soviets (specifically, entire pages, although not complete books), which allowed decryption (sometimes only partial) of a small part of the traffic.


title: Venona project

text: Generating the one-time pads was a slow and labor-intensive process, and the outbreak of war with Germany in June 1941 caused a sudden increase in the need for coded messages. It is probable that the Soviet code generators started duplicating cipher pages in order to keep up with demand.


title: Venona project

text: It was Arlington Hall's Lieutenant Richard Hallock, working on Soviet "Trade" traffic (so called because these messages dealt with Soviet trade issues), who first discovered that the Soviets were reusing pages. Hallock and his colleagues, amongst whom were Genevieve Feinstein, Cecil Phillips, Frank Lewis, Frank Wanat, and Lucille Campbell, went on to break into a significant amount of Trade traffic, recovering many one-time pad additive key tables in the process.


title: Venona project

text: A young Meredith Gardner then used this material to break into what turned out to be NKVD (and later GRU) traffic by reconstructing the code used to convert text to numbers. Gardner credits Marie Meyer, a linguist with the Signal Intelligence Service with making some of the initial recoveries of the Venona codebook. Samuel Chew and Cecil Phillips also made valuable contributions. On 20 December 1946, Gardner made the first break into the code, revealing the existence of Soviet espionage in the Manhattan Project. Venona messages also indicated that Soviet spies worked in Washington in the State Department, Treasury, Office of Strategic Services, and even the White House. Very slowly, using assorted techniques ranging from traffic analysis to defector information, more of the messages were decrypted.


title: Venona project

text: Claims have been made that information from the physical recovery of code books (a partially burned one was obtained by the Finns) to bugging embassy rooms in which text was entered into encrypting devices (analyzing the keystrokes by listening to them being punched in) contributed to recovering much of the plaintext. These latter claims are less than fully supported in the open literature.


title: Venona project

text: One significant aid (mentioned by the NSA) in the early stages may have been work done in cooperation between the Japanese and Finnish cryptanalysis organizations; when the Americans broke into Japanese codes during World War II, they gained access to this information. There are also reports that copies of signals purloined from Soviet offices by the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) were helpful in the cryptanalysis. The Finnish radio intelligence sold much of its material concerning Soviet codes to OSS in 1944 during Operation Stella Polaris, including the partially burned code book.


title: Venona project

text: The NSA reported that (according to the serial numbers of the Venona cables) thousands of cables were sent, but only a fraction were available to the cryptanalysts. Approximately 2,200 messages were decrypted and translated; about half of the 1943 GRU-Naval Washington to Moscow messages were broken, but none for any other year, although several thousand were sent between 1941 and 1945. The decryption rate of the NKVD cables was as follows:


title: Venona project

text: Out of some hundreds of thousands of intercepted encrypted texts, it is claimed under 3,000 have been partially or wholly decrypted. All the duplicate one-time pad pages were produced in 1942, and almost all of them had been used by the end of 1945, with a few being used as late as 1948. After this, Soviet message traffic reverted to being completely unreadable.


title: Venona project

text: The existence of Venona decryption became known to the Soviets within a few years of the first breaks. It is not clear whether the Soviets knew how much of the message traffic or which messages had been successfully decrypted. At least one Soviet penetration agent, British Secret Intelligence Service representative to the U.S. Kim Philby, was told about the project in 1949, as part of his job as liaison between British and U.S. intelligence. Since all of the duplicate one-time pad pages had been used by this time, the Soviets apparently did not make any changes to their cryptographic procedures after they learned of Venona. However, this information allowed them to alert those of their agents who might be at risk of exposure due to the decryption.


title: Venona project

text: The decrypted messages gave important insights into Soviet behavior in the period during which duplicate one-time pads were used. With the first break into the code, Venona revealed the existence of Soviet espionage at Los Alamos National Laboratories. Identities soon emerged of American, Canadian, Australian, and British spies in service to the Soviet government, including Klaus Fuchs, Alan Nunn May, and Donald Maclean. Others worked in Washington in the State Department, the Treasury, Office of Strategic Services,


title: Venona project

text: The messages show that the U.S. and other nations were targeted in major espionage campaigns by the Soviet Union as early as 1942. Among those identified are Julius and Ethel Rosenberg; Alger Hiss; Harry Dexter White, the second-highest official in the Treasury Department; Lauchlin Currie, a personal aide to Franklin Roosevelt; and Maurice Halperin, a section head in the Office of Strategic Services.


title: Venona project

text: The identification of individuals mentioned in Venona transcripts is sometimes problematic, since people with a "covert relationship" with Soviet intelligence are referenced by cryptonyms. Further complicating matters is the fact the same person sometimes had different cryptonyms at different times, and the same cryptonym was sometimes reused for different individuals. In some cases, notably Hiss, the matching of a Venona cryptonym to an individual is disputed. In many other cases, a Venona cryptonym has not yet been linked to any person. According to authors John Earl Haynes and Harvey Klehr, the Venona transcripts identify approximately 349 Americans who they claim had a covert relationship with Soviet intelligence, though fewer than half of these have been matched to real-name identities. However, not every agent may have been communicating directly with Soviet intelligence. Each of those 349 persons may have had many others working for, and reporting only to, them.


title: Venona project

text: The Office of Strategic Services, the predecessor to the CIA, housed at one time or another between fifteen and twenty Soviet spies. Duncan Lee, Donald Wheeler, Jane Foster Zlatowski, and Maurice Halperin passed information to Moscow. The War Production Board, the Board of Economic Warfare, the Office of the Coordinator of Inter-American Affairs and the Office of War Information, included at least half a dozen Soviet sources each among their employees.


title: Venona project

text: Venona has added information—some unequivocal, some ambiguous—to several espionage cases. Some known spies, including Theodore Hall, were neither prosecuted nor publicly implicated, because the Venona evidence against them was withheld.


title: Venona project

text: The identity of Soviet source cryptonymed "19" remains unclear. According to British writer Nigel West, "19" was Edvard Beneš, president of the Czechoslovak government-in-exile. Military historian Eduard Mark and American authors Herbert Romerstein and Eric Breindel concluded it was Roosevelt's aide Harry Hopkins. According to American authors John Earl Haynes and Harvey Klehr, "19" could be someone from the British delegation to the Washington Conference in May 1943. Moreover, they argue no evidence of Hopkins as an agent has been found in other archives, and the partial message relating to "19" does not indicate if this source was a spy.


title: Venona project

text: However, Vasili Mitrokhin was a KGB archivist who defected to the United Kingdom in 1992 with copies of large numbers of KGB files. He claimed Harry Hopkins was a secret Russian agent. Moreover, Oleg Gordievsky, a high-level KGB officer who also defected from the Soviet Union, reported that Iskhak Akhmerov, the KGB officer who controlled the clandestine Soviet agents in the U.S. during the war, had said Hopkins was "the most important of all Soviet wartime agents in the United States".


title: Venona project

text: Venona has added significant information to the case of Julius and Ethel Rosenberg, making it clear Julius was guilty of espionage, and also showing that Ethel, while not acting as a principal, still acted as an accessory, who took part in Julius's espionage activity and played a role in the recruitment of her brother for atomic espionage.


title: Venona project

text: Venona and other recent information has shown, while the content of Julius' atomic espionage was not as vital to the Soviets as alleged at the time of his espionage activities, in other fields it was extensive. The information Rosenberg passed to the Soviets concerned the proximity fuze, design and production information on the Lockheed P-80 jet fighter, and thousands of classified reports from Emerson Radio.


title: Venona project

text: The Venona evidence indicates unidentified sources code-named "Quantum" and "Pers" who facilitated transfer of nuclear weapons technology to the Soviet Union from positions within the Manhattan Project. According to Alexander Vassiliev's notes from KGB archive, "Quantum" was Boris Podolsky and "Pers" was Russell W. McNutt, an engineer from the uranium processing plant in Oak Ridge.


title: Venona project

text: The Venona decryptions were also important in the exposure of the atomic spy Klaus Fuchs. Some of the earliest messages decrypted concerned information from a scientist at the Manhattan Project, who was referred to by the code names of CHARLES and REST. One such message from Moscow to New York, dated April 10, 1945, called information provided by CHARLES "of great value." Noting that the information included "data on the atomic mass of the nuclear explosive" and "details on the explosive method of actuating" the atomic bomb, the message requested further technical details from CHARLES. Investigations based on the Venona decryptions eventually identified CHARLES and REST as Fuchs in 1949.


title: Venona project

text: According to the Moynihan Commission on Government Secrecy, the complicity of both Alger Hiss and Harry Dexter White is conclusively proven by Venona, stating "The complicity of Alger Hiss of the State Department seems settled. As does that of Harry Dexter White of the Treasury Department." In his 1998 book, United States Senator Daniel Patrick Moynihan expressed certainty about Hiss's identification by Venona as a Soviet spy, writing "Hiss was indeed a Soviet agent and appears to have been regarded by Moscow as its most important."


title: Venona project

text: Several current authors, researchers, and archivists consider the Venona evidence on Hiss to be inconclusive.


title: Venona project

text: Kim Philby had access to CIA and FBI files, and more damaging, access to Venona Project briefings. When Philby learned of Venona in 1949, he obtained advance warning that his fellow Soviet spy Donald Maclean was in danger of being exposed. The FBI told Philby about an agent cryptonymed "Homer", whose 1945 message to Moscow had been decoded. As it had been sent from New York and had its origins in the British Embassy in Washington, Philby, who would not have known Maclean's cryptonym, deduced the sender's identity. By early 1951, Philby knew U.S. intelligence would soon also conclude Maclean was the sender, and advised Moscow to extract Maclean. This led to Maclean and Guy Burgess' flight in May 1951 to Moscow, where they lived the remainder of their lives.


title: Venona project

text: In addition to British and American operatives, Australians collected Venona intercepts at a remote base in the Outback. The Soviets remained unaware of this base as late as 1950.


title: Venona project

text: The founding of the Australian Security Intelligence Organisation (ASIO) by Labor Prime Minister Ben Chifley in 1949 was considered highly controversial within Chifley's own party. Until then, the left-leaning Australian Labor Party had been hostile to domestic intelligence agencies on civil-liberties grounds and a Labor government founding one seemed a surprising about-face. But the presentation of Venona material to Chifley, revealing evidence of Soviet agents operating in Australia, brought this about. As well as Australian diplomat suspects abroad, Venona had revealed Walter Seddon Clayton (cryptonym "KLOD"), a leading official within the Communist Party of Australia (CPA), as the chief organiser of Soviet intelligence gathering in Australia. Investigation revealed that Clayton formed an underground network within the CPA so that the party could continue to operate if it were banned. In 1950, George Ronald Richards was appointed ASIO's deputy-director of operations for Venona, based in Sydney, charged with investigating intelligence uncovered the eleven Australians identified in the cables that were decoded. He continued Venona-related work in London with MI5 from November 1952 and went on to lead Operation Cabin 12, the high-profile 1953–1954 defection to Australia of Soviet spy Vladimir Petrov.


title: Venona project

text: For much of its history, knowledge of Venona was restricted even from the highest levels of government. Senior army officers, in consultation with the FBI and CIA, made the decision to restrict knowledge of Venona within the government (even the CIA was not made an active partner until 1952). Army Chief of Staff Omar Bradley, concerned about the White House's history of leaking sensitive information, decided to deny President Truman direct knowledge of the project. The president received the substance of the material only through FBI, Justice Department, and CIA reports on counterintelligence and intelligence matters. He was not told the material came from decoded Soviet ciphers. To some degree this secrecy was counter-productive; Truman was distrustful of FBI head J. Edgar Hoover and suspected the reports were exaggerated for political purposes.


title: Venona project

text: Some of the earliest detailed public knowledge that Soviet code messages from World War II had been broken came with the release of Chapman Pincher's book, "Too Secret Too Long", in 1984. Robert Lamphere's book, "The FBI-KGB War", was released in 1986. Lamphere had been the FBI liaison to the code-breaking activity, had considerable knowledge of Venona and the counter-intelligence work that resulted from it. However, the first detailed account of the Venona project, identifying it by name and making clear its long-term implications in post-war espionage, was contained in MI5 assistant director Peter Wright's 1987 memoir, "Spycatcher".


title: Venona project

text: Many inside the NSA had argued internally that the time had come to publicly release the details of the Venona project, but it was not until 1995 that the bipartisan Commission on Government Secrecy, with Senator Moynihan as chairman, released Venona project materials. Moynihan wrote:


title: Venona project

text: "[The] secrecy system has systematically denied American historians access to the records of American history. Of late we find ourselves relying on archives of the former Soviet Union in Moscow to resolve questions of what was going on in Washington at mid-century. ... the Venona intercepts contained overwhelming proof of the activities of Soviet spy networks in America, complete with names, dates, places, and deeds."


title: Venona project

text: One of the considerations in releasing Venona translations was the privacy interests of the individuals mentioned, referenced, or identified in the translations. Some names were not released because to do so would constitute an invasion of privacy. However, in at least one case, independent researchers identified one of the subjects whose name had been obscured by the NSA.


title: Venona project

text: The dearth of reliable information available to the public—or even to the President and Congress—may have helped to polarize debates of the 1950s over the extent and danger of Soviet espionage in the United States. Anti-Communists suspected many spies remained at large, perhaps including some known to the government. Those who criticized the governmental and non-governmental efforts to root out and expose communists felt these efforts were an overreaction (in addition to other reservations about McCarthyism). Public access—or broader governmental access—to the Venona evidence would certainly have affected this debate, as it is affecting the retrospective debate among historians and others now. As the Moynihan Commission wrote in its final report:


title: Venona project

text: "A balanced history of this period is now beginning to appear; the Venona messages will surely supply a great cache of facts to bring the matter to some closure. But at the time, the American Government, much less the American public, was confronted with possibilities and charges, at once baffling and terrifying."


title: Venona project

text: The National Cryptologic Museum features an exhibit on the Venona project in its "Cold War/Information Age" gallery.


title: Venona project

text: Controversy arose in 2009 over the Texas State Board of Education's revision of their high school history class curricula to suggest Venona shows Senator Joseph McCarthy to have been justified in his zeal in exposing those whom he believed to be Soviet spies or communist sympathizers. Critics such as Emory University history professor Harvey Klehr assert most people and organizations identified by McCarthy, such as those brought forward in the Army-McCarthy hearings or rival politicians in the Democratic party, were not mentioned in the Venona content and that his accusations remain largely unsupported by evidence.


title: Venona project

text: The majority of historians are convinced of the historical value of the Venona material. Intelligence historian Nigel West believes that "Venona remain[s] an irrefutable resource, far more reliable than the mercurial recollections of KGB defectors and the dubious conclusions drawn by paranoid analysts mesmerized by Machiavellian plots." However, a number of writers and scholars have taken a critical view of the translations. They question the accuracy of the translations and the identifications of covernames that the NSA translations give. Writers Walter and Miriam Schneir, in a lengthy 1999 review of one of the first book-length studies of the messages, object to what they see as the book's overconfidence in the translations' accuracy, noting that the undecrypted gaps in the texts can make interpretation difficult, and emphasizing the problem of identifying the individuals mentioned under covernames. To support their critique, they cite a declassified memorandum, written in 1956 by A. H. Belmont, who was assistant to FBI director J. Edgar Hoover at the time. In the memo, Belmont discusses the possibility of using the Venona translations in court to prosecute Soviet agents, and comes out strongly opposed to their use. His reasons include legal uncertainties about the admissibility of the translations as evidence, and the difficulties that prosecution would face in supporting the validity of the translations. Belmont highlights the uncertainties in the translation process, noting that the cryptographers have indicated that "almost anything included in a translation of one of these deciphered messages may in the future be radically revised." He also notes the complexities of identifying people with covernames, describing how the personal details mentioned for covername "Antenna" fit more than one person, and the investigative process required to finally connect "Antenna" to Julius Rosenberg. The Schneirs conclude that "A reader faced with Venona's incomplete, disjointed messages can easily arrive at a badly skewed impression."


title: Venona project

text: Many of the critiques of the Venona translations have been based on specific cases. The Schneirs' critique of the Venona documents was based on their decades of work on the case of Ethel and Julius Rosenberg. Another critique of the Venona translations came from the late Rutgers University law professor John Lowenthal, who as a law student worked as a volunteer for Alger Hiss's defense team, and later wrote extensively on the Hiss case. Lowenthal's critique focused on one message (Venona 1822 KGB Washington-Moscow 30 March 1945), in which the comments identified the covername 'Ales' as "probably Alger Hiss." Lowenthal raised a number of objections to this identification, rejecting it as "a conclusion psychologically motivated and politically correct but factually wrong." Lowenthal's article led to an extended debate on the 'Ales' message, and even prompted the NSA to declassify the original Russian text. Currently, Venona 1822 is the only message for which the complete decrypted Russian text has been published.


title: Venona project

text: Victor Navasky, editor and publisher of "The Nation", has also written several editorials highly critical of John Earl Haynes' and Harvey Klehr's interpretation of recent work on the subject of Soviet espionage. Navasky claims the Venona material is being used to "distort ... our understanding of the cold war" and that the files are potential "time bombs of misinformation." Commenting on the list of 349 Americans identified by Venona, published in an appendix to "Venona: Decoding Soviet Espionage in America", Navasky wrote, "The reader is left with the implication—unfair and unproven—that every name on the list was involved in espionage, and as a result, otherwise careful historians and mainstream journalists now routinely refer to Venona as proof that many hundreds of Americans were part of the red spy network." Navasky goes further in his defense of the listed people and has claimed a great deal of the so-called espionage that went on was nothing more than "exchanges of information among people of good will" and that "most of these exchanges were innocent and were within the law."


title: Venona project

text: According to historian Ellen Schrecker, "Because they offer insights into the world of the secret police on both sides of the Iron Curtain, it is tempting to treat the FBI and Venona materials less critically than documents from more accessible sources. But there are too many gaps in the record to use these materials with complete confidence." Schrecker believes the documents established the guilt of many prominent figures, but is still critical of the views of scholars such as John Earl Haynes, arguing, "complexity, nuance, and a willingness to see the world in other than black and white seem alien to Haynes' view of history."


title: The Broken Hearts Gallery

text: The Broken Hearts Gallery is a 2020 romantic comedy film written and directed by Natalie Krinsky, in her directorial debut. Executive produced by Selena Gomez, the film stars Geraldine Viswanathan, Dacre Montgomery, Utkarsh Ambudkar, Molly Gordon, Phillipa Soo and Bernadette Peters. The plot follows a 20-something in New York City who gets dumped by her latest boyfriend and creates an art gallery to display items from people's previous relationships. The film was theatrically released in the United States on September 11, 2020, to generally positive reviews from critics.


title: The Broken Hearts Gallery

text: Lucy is a young assistant at the Woolf Gallery in NYC. Idolizing her boss, Eva Woolf, she readily provides info about her to her boyfriend and work colleague, Max. Her friends and roommates, law student Amanda and model Nadine, hear her talking non-stop about him. At the gallery opening, instead of Max asking her to move in, she is both dumped for his ex Amelia and fired.


title: The Broken Hearts Gallery

text: Drunk and despondent, Lucy climbs into a guy’s car, believing it’s her "Lyft", the kind Nick takes her home. On the way, she describes the gallery fiasco. For weeks, she wallows in her room, with her roommates’ support. Finally, they urge her to clear out her cave of memorabilia from past relationships. Unable to sell her mementos, Lucy follows Max and Amelia into a restaurant, Nick sees her, steering her outside before she can cause a scene.


title: The Broken Hearts Gallery

text: Lucy and Nick end up at the Chloe hotel, an old YMCA. Renovating his dream boutique hotel for five years, he is out of money and needs help to keep the project going. He encourages her to hang Max’s tie on an old nail. Inspired, she writes a caption, and they jointly come up with the concept of "Broken Heart Gallery".


title: The Broken Hearts Gallery

text: Nick shows up at Lucy’s, inviting her to see something added to the wall. Excited, she envisions a chance for New Yorkers to connect over shared loss and humanity. Meeting and bonding with Marcos, Nick’s friend on the building project, they convince Nick to give her gallery space in exchange for work.


title: The Broken Hearts Gallery

text: Lucy shares photos with their stories on social media #BROKENHEARTGALLERY, then posts short videos of people parting with their memorabilia. She sees first-hand how freeing it is for people to give up their baggage.


title: The Broken Hearts Gallery

text: Seeking furniture and decorations for the gallery-hotel, they pound the streets, reclaiming pieces as they go. On the way, they chat about themselves. The money to start the hotel came from his grandma’s inheritance. Lucy’s mom sees art everywhere. Browsing in a secondhand-book shop, Lucy sees Max, follows him to a café, and meets Amelia. Nick rescues her again, saying they’re off to a meeting about their hot new gallery. They leave, Max looking intrigued.


title: The Broken Hearts Gallery

text: Alone one day in the hotel-gallery, a cold, blonde woman looking for Nick, declines to leave a message. Shortly thereafter, the three roommates invite Nick, Marco and his wife to a karaoke night birthday bash. Lucy shows Nick "New York Magazine" mentioning their project, and she tells him about her idea for a ball opening, inviting influencers. They sing a ‘Don’t Go Breaking My Heart’ duet, Marco (like her roommates) suggests Nick ask her out.


title: The Broken Hearts Gallery

text: Arriving home at 3 am, they find Max out front. After railing on him in Lucy’s defense, Amanda and Nadine head up. Max is telling her he wants her back when Nick shows up with birthday cake and the men butt heads. She and Max stay out, talking, and she agrees to a lunch.


title: The Broken Hearts Gallery

text: As Nick’s loan falls through, he tells her to rehome her exhibit, so Lucy approaches every gallery she knows. At lunch with Max, he suggests Eva Woolf, who surprisingly offers gallery space. Seemingly about to take it, as she and Max leave together, she has an epiphany. She asks Nadine for help in breaking up with him. He tells her Amelia dumped him, and she concludes that they were not meant to be together, as she’s the hero in his love story, and he’s the villain in hers. Telling Nick, he also has the backing and the loan. They all work to get the opening ready.


title: The Broken Hearts Gallery

text: Once finished, Lucy opens up to Nick, introducing him to her mom Cheryl, in a home due to dementia, the person she always sends voicemails to. Later on, they are intimate. Then Chloe appears (the cold woman from weeks ago), Lucy realises, then leaves hurt. Finding her, he explains he hadn’t changed the name for the cost, and he won’t be at the opening.


title: The Broken Hearts Gallery

text: Eva Woolf’s contributes, as she wants to empower others, donating the box of the wedding ring used to fund her gallery saying, ‘Pain is inevitable. It’s what you do with it that matters.’


title: The Broken Hearts Gallery

text: Marco and his wife find Nick before the opening, who claims to be ill. Marco tells him it’s heartbreak, and that Lucy got his backer and loan approved. During her opening speech, Nick bursts in with a neon sign, with the new name, "The Broken Hearts Hotel". Professing his love, she descends from the balcony, kissing him and tells him she reciprocates his love.


title: The Broken Hearts Gallery

text: In May 2019, it was announced that Geraldine Viswanathan, Dacre Montgomery and Utkarsh Ambudkar had joined the cast of the film, then titled "The Broken Heart Gallery", with Natalie Krinsky directing from a screenplay she wrote. Selena Gomez serves as an executive producer under her July Moon Productions banner. In September 2019, it was announced Molly Gordon, Suki Waterhouse, Phillipa Soo, Arturo Castro and Bernadette Peters had joined the cast of the film.


title: The Broken Hearts Gallery

text: Principal photography began in Toronto, Canada in July 2019. Filming also took place in New York City and wrapped in late-August.


title: The Broken Hearts Gallery

text: In June 2020, TriStar Pictures and Stage 6 Films acquired distribution rights to the film, and set it for a July 10, 2020, release. It was then delayed to July 17, and then again to August 7, 2020, due to the COVID-19 pandemic. However it was later pulled from the schedule, eventually being scheduled for a September 11, 2020 release. The film premiered on the Sony Pictures Studios lot as part of the company's ongoing "Drive-In Experience" event.


title: The Broken Hearts Gallery

text: In its opening weekend, "The Broken Hearts Gallery" grossed $1.1 million from 2,024 theaters, finishing fourth. The film fell 30% in its second weekend, grossing $800,000, then made $470,000 its third weekend.


title: The Broken Hearts Gallery

text: On review aggregator Rotten Tomatoes, the film has an approval rating of based on reviews, with an average rating of . The website's critics consensus reads: ""The Broken Hearts Gallery" is a rom-com with few surprises, but plenty of charm – led by a performance from Geraldine Viswanathan that's easy to love." On Metacritic, the film has a weighted average score of 57 out of 100, based on 21 critics, indicating "mixed or average reviews". Audiences polled by CinemaScore gave the film an average grade of "B" on an A+ to F scale, while PostTrak reported 77% of filmgoers gave it a positive score.


title: The Broken Hearts Gallery

text: Ryan Lattanzio of IndieWire gave the film a "B−" grade praised Viswanathan's performance as "totally winning" and wrote: ""The Broken Hearts Gallery" is pure glossy fantasy, though Viswanathan's puckish and self-deprecating performance suggests a greater mess waiting to break out of this slick offering. (For all its sleekness, Alar Kivilo's cinematography deftly captures the patchwork textures of Brooklyn.)"


title: Estonians

text: Estonians or Estonian people () are a Finnic ethnic group native to Estonia who speak the Estonian language.


title: Estonians

text: The Estonian language is spoken as the first language by the vast majority of Estonians; it is closely related to other Finnic languages, e.g. Finnish, Karelian and Livonian. The Finnic languages are a subgroup of the larger Uralic family of languages, which also includes, e.g., the Sami languages. These languages are markedly different from most other native languages spoken in Europe, most of which have been assigned to Indo-European family of languages. Estonians can also be classified into subgroups according to dialects (e.g., Võros, Setos), although such divisions have become less pronounced due to internal migration and rapid urbanisation in Estonia in the 20th century.


title: Estonians

text: There are approximately 1.1 million ethnic Estonians and their descendants with some degree of Estonian identity worldwide; the large majority of them are living in Estonia.


title: Estonians

text: Estonia was first inhabited about 10,000 years ago, just after the ice from the Baltic Ice Lake had melted. Living in the same area for more than 5,000 years would put the ancestors of Estonians among the oldest permanent inhabitants in Europe. On the other hand, some recent linguistic estimations suggest that Finno-Ugric language speakers arrived around the Baltic Sea considerably later, perhaps during the Early Bronze Age (ca. 1800 BCE).


title: Estonians

text: The oldest known endonym of the Estonians is , literally meaning "land people" or "country folk". It was used up until the mid-19th century, when it was gradually replaced by "Eesti rahvas" "Estonian people" during the Estonian national awakening. "Eesti", the modern endonym of Estonia, is thought to be derived from the word "Aestii", the name used by the ancient Germanic tribes for the people living northeast of the mouth of river Vistula. The Roman historian Tacitus in 98 CE was the first to mention the ""Aestii"" people. In Old Norse the land south of the Gulf of Finland was called "Eistland" and the people "eistr". The first known book in Estonian language was printed in 1525, while the oldest known examples of written Estonian originate in 13th-century chronicles.


title: Estonians

text: Although Estonian national consciousness spread in the course of the 19th century during the Estonian national awakening, some degree of ethnic awareness preceded this development. By the 18th century the self-denomination spread among Estonians along with the older . Anton thor Helle's translation of the Bible into Estonian appeared in 1739, and the number of books and brochures published in Estonian increased from 18 in the 1750s to 54 in the 1790s. By the end of the century more than a half of adult peasants could read. The first university-educated intellectuals identifying themselves as Estonians, including Friedrich Robert Faehlmann (1798–1850), Kristjan Jaak Peterson (1801–1822) and Friedrich Reinhold Kreutzwald (1803–1882), appeared in the 1820s. The ruling elites had remained predominantly German in language and culture since the conquest of the early 13th century. Garlieb Merkel (1769–1850), a Baltic-German Estophile, became the first author to treat the Estonians as a nationality equal to others; he became a source of inspiration for the Estonian national movement, modelled on Baltic German cultural world before the middle of the 19th century. However, in the middle of the century, the Estonians became more ambitious and started leaning toward the Finns as a successful model of national movement and, to some extent, toward the neighbouring Latvian national movement. By the end of 1860 the Estonians became unwilling to reconcile with German cultural and political hegemony. Before the attempts at Russification in the 1880s, their view of Imperial Russia remained positive.


title: Estonians

text: Estonians have strong ties to the Nordic countries stemming from important cultural and religious influences gained over centuries during Scandinavian and German rule and settlement. Indeed, Estonians consider themselves Nordic rather than Baltic, in particular because of close ethnic and linguistic affinities with the Finns.


title: Estonians

text: After the Treaty of Tartu (1920) recognised Estonia's 1918 independence from Russia, ethnic Estonians residing in Russia gained the option of opting for Estonian citizenship (those who opted were called "optandid" – 'optants') and returning to their fatherland. An estimated 40,000 Estonians lived in Russia in 1920. In sum, 37,578 people moved from Soviet Russia to Estonia (1920–1923).


title: Estonians

text: During World War II, when Estonia was invaded by the Soviet Army in 1944, large numbers of Estonians fled their homeland on ships or smaller boats over the Baltic Sea. Many refugees who survived the risky sea voyage to Sweden or Germany later moved from there to Canada, the United Kingdom, the United States or Australia. Some of these refugees and their descendants returned to Estonia after the nation regained its independence in 1991.


title: Estonians

text: Over the years of independence, increasing numbers of Estonians have chosen to work abroad, primarily in Finland, but also in other European countries (mostly in the UK, Benelux, Sweden, and Germany), making Estonia the country with the highest emigration rate in Europe. This is at least partly due to the easy access to oscillating migration to Finland.


title: Estonians

text: Recognising the problems arising from both low birth rate and high emigration, the country has launched various measures to both increase the birth rate and to lure migrant Estonians back to Estonia. Former president Toomas Hendrik Ilves has lent his support to the campaign "Talendid koju!" ("Bringing talents home!") which aims to coordinate and promote the return of Estonians who have particular skills needed in Estonia.


title: Estonians

text: One of the largest permanent Estonian community outside Estonia is in Canada with about 24,000 people (according to some sources up to 50,000 people). In the late 1940s and early 1950s, about 17,000 arrived in Canada, initially to Montreal. Toronto is currently the city with the largest population of Estonians outside of Estonia. The first Estonian World Festival was held in Toronto in 1972. Some notable Estonian Canadians include Endel Tulving, Elmar Tampõld, Alison Pill, Uno Prii, Kalle Lasn, and Andreas Vaikla.


title: Alcon Entertainment

text: Alcon Entertainment, LLC is an American film production company, founded in 1997 by film producers Broderick Johnson and Andrew Kosove. Since its establishment, Alcon Entertainment has developed and financed films that are ultimately distributed – in the United States mostly, and internationally on occasion – by Warner Bros. Pictures, following a ten-year motion picture production agreement.


title: Alcon Entertainment

text: Alcon Entertainment was established in January 23, 1997, and founded by film producers Broderick Johnson and Andrew Kosove, who are the co-CEOs of the company. The company is headquartered on Santa Monica Boulevard in Los Angeles, California. Both Johnson and Kosove presented FedEx founder and chairman Frederick W. Smith with a proposal suggesting that an independent film company, backed by a capitalized individual or company, and aligned with a major studio for an exclusive distribution arrangement would reap profits on copyrighted assets over a set period of time. On February 18, 1998, Alcon Entertainment set up two greenlight projects, with Warner Bros. distributing a single project. On May 15, 1998, Alcon inked a second deal with Warner Bros. in which Warner was allowed to distribute the film "Lost & Found".


title: Alcon Entertainment

text: Alcon's first major feature film was the 1999 comedy "Lost & Found". In March 2000, following the success of its second film "My Dog Skip", Alcon entered into a long-term distribution agreement with Warner Bros. The agreement had Warner Bros. in charge of worldwide distribution of a minimum of 10 films produced and financed by Alcon over the next five years. The agreement also allowed Warner Bros. to co-finance certain pictures with Alcon. Alcon and Warner Bros. signed a new agreement in February 2006, continuing their eight-year relationship, under which Warner Bros. would continue to distribute feature films developed and financed by Alcon. WB and Alcon extended the deal in 2015 which ended in 2019. On September 28, 2003, Alcon Entertainment had launched its television arm, with an exclusive co-production agreement at television studio Warner Bros. Television.


title: Alcon Entertainment

text: In 2011, Alcon Entertainment acquired the entire brand and rights to the "Blade Runner" franchise, which encompasses movies, series, games and other franchise media such as books. On March 8, 2012, Alcon had inked an affiliate production company headed by 2S Films executive Molly Smith, Belle Pictures, to develop film projects.


title: Alcon Entertainment

text: In 2014, Alcon partnered with Sleeping Giant Media to form ASG Music Group. ASG is a full service music company and record label. In 2017, ASG released the Blade Runner 2049 soundtrack, produced by Grammy nominated producer Michael Hodges, Kayla Morrison and Ashley Culp, with Epic Records. The Album reached No. 1 on the "Billboard" Soundtrack Sales Charts.


title: Zahi Hawass

text: Zahi Abass Hawass (; born May 28, 1947) is an Egyptian archaeologist, Egyptologist, and former Minister of State for Antiquities Affairs, serving twice. He has also worked at archaeological sites in the Nile Delta, the Western Desert, and the Upper Nile Valley.


title: Zahi Hawass

text: Hawass was born in a small village near Damietta, Egypt. Although he originally dreamed of becoming an attorney, he obtained a Bachelor of Arts degree in Greek and Roman Archaeology from Alexandria University in 1967. In 1979, Hawass earned a diploma in Egyptology from Cairo University. He then worked at the Great Pyramids as an inspector—a combination of administrator and archaeologist.


title: Zahi Hawass

text: When he was 33 years old, Hawass was awarded a Fulbright Fellowship to attend the University of Pennsylvania in Philadelphia to study Egyptology, earning a Master of Arts degree in the subject and also one in Syro-Palestinian Archaeology in 1983, and his PhD in Egyptology in 1987 from the Graduate Group in the Art and Archaeology of the Mediterranean World (AAMW), concentrating on "The Funerary Establishments of Khufu, Khafra and Menkaura During the Old Kingdom."


title: Zahi Hawass

text: Hawass was Associate Director of Excavation at Hermopolis in 1968 and Tarrana 1970–74. Since 1975 he has been Excavation Director and Restoration Director at various sites throughout Egypt, predominantly Giza.


title: Zahi Hawass

text: From 1969 to 1975, Hawass was Inspector of Antiquities for a multitude of archaeological expeditions, for instance the Yale Expedition at Abydos, Egypt in 1969, and Abu Simbel between 1972 and 74.


title: Zahi Hawass

text: He sporadically taught Egyptian archaeology, history and culture at universities in Egypt and the USA between 1988 and 2001, most notably at the American University in Cairo, the University of California, Los Angeles and Alexandria University. Hawass has described his efforts as trying to help institute a systematic program for the preservation and restoration of historical monuments, while training Egyptians to improve their expertise on methods of excavation, retrieval and preservation.


title: Zahi Hawass

text: Hawass was Inspector of Antiquities for Giza 1972–74, First Inspector until 1979 and Chief Inspector in 1980.


title: Zahi Hawass

text: Starting in 1987 he held the position of "Director General of the Giza monuments", which includes the sites of Giza, Saqqara, Memphis, Dahshur, Abusir and Bahariya Oasis.


title: Zahi Hawass

text: After the discovery of Gantenbrink's Door in 1993, he left the position – according to Hawass, a resignation – but was reinstated several month later, following a change in leadership and the transformation of the "Egyptian Antiquities Organization" into the Supreme Council of Antiquities.


title: Zahi Hawass

text: Hawass continues to be involved in archaeological projects at Giza and other sites in Egypt. Currently, he heads the science committee overseeing the Scanpyramids project.


title: Zahi Hawass

text: In 2002 Hawass was appointed as the Secretary General of the Supreme Council of Antiquities. When US President Barack Obama visited Cairo in June 2009, Hawass gave him personal tours of ancient Egyptian archaeological sites. Facing mandatory retirement, he was promoted by President Hosni Mubarak to the post of Vice Minister of Culture at the end of 2009.


title: Zahi Hawass

text: On January 29, 2011, in the midst of the Egyptian protests of that year, Hawass arrived at the Egyptian Museum in Cairo to find that a number of cases had been broken into and a number of antiquities damaged, so police were brought in to secure the museum. According to Andrew Lawler, reporting for "Science," Hawass said that he "faxed a colleague in Italy that 13 cases were destroyed. My heart is broken and my blood is boiling".


title: Zahi Hawass

text: Hawass later told "The New York Times" that thieves looking for gold broke 70 objects, including two sculptures of the pharaoh Tutankhamun, and took two skulls from a research lab, before being stopped as they left the museum.


title: Zahi Hawass

text: Hawass was appointed to the position of Minister of State for Antiquities Affairs, a newly created cabinet post, by Mubarak on January 31, 2011, as part of a cabinet shake-up during the 2011 protests. A press release including a statement from Hawass stated that he "will continue excavating, writing books, and representing his country," ensuring that archaeological sites in Egypt were being safeguarded and looted objects returned. Regarding the Egyptian Museum looting, he said that "The museum was dark and the nine robbers did not recognise the value of what was in the vitrines. They opened thirteen cases, threw the seventy objects on the ground and broke them, including one Tutankhamun case, from which they broke the statue of the king on a panther. However, the broken objects can all be restored, and we will begin the restoration process this week." Hawass rejected comparisons with the looting of antiquities in Iraq and Afghanistan.


title: Zahi Hawass

text: On February 13, Mahmoud Kassem of "Bloomberg" reported Hawass as saying that "18 artifacts, including statues of King Tutankhamun," were stolen from the Egyptian Museum in January; Kassem, paraphrasing Hawass, continues, "The missing objects include 11 wooden shabti statuettes from Yuya, a gilded wooden statue of Tutankhamun carried by a goddess and a statue of Nefertiti making offerings."


title: Zahi Hawass

text: Egyptian state television reported that Hawass called upon Egyptians not to believe the “lies and fabrications” of the Al Jazeera and Al Arabiya satellite television channels. Hawass later said “They should give us the opportunity to change things, and if nothing happens they can march again. But you can’t bring in a new president now, in this time. We need Mubarak to stay and make the transition.” On March 3, 2011, he resigned after a list was posted on his personal website of dozens of sites across Egypt that were looted during the 2011 protests.


title: Zahi Hawass

text: Hawass was reappointed Minister of Antiquities by then-Prime Minister Essam Sharaf, On March 30, 2011, a tweet was posted stating "I am very happy to be the Minister of Antiquities once again!" but resigned on July 17, 2011, after Sharaf informed him he would not be continuing in the position. According to opinion report from an Egyptian commentator in "The Guardian," Hawass was "sacked".


title: Zahi Hawass

text: Hawass has since begun working as a lecturer in Egypt and all around the world, and promoting Egypt's tourism globally in cooperation with the country's Ministry of Tourism. He also writes weekly articles in various newspapers and magazines, and continues working as an archaeologist and consultant.


title: Zahi Hawass

text: Hawass has written and co-written many books relating to Egyptology, including "The Curse of the Pharaohs: My Adventures with Mummies," and "King Tutankhamun: The Treasures from the Tomb", the latter published to coincide with a major exhibition in the UK. He has also written on Tutankhamun for the bi-monthly, UK-based magazine "Ancient Egypt."


title: Zahi Hawass

text: Hawass is a regular columnist for "Egypt Today" magazine, and the online historical community Heritage Key. He has narrated several videos on Egyptology, including a series on Tutankhamun.


title: Zahi Hawass

text: Hawass has appeared on television specials on channels such as the "National Geographic Channel", the "History Channel" and the "Discovery Channel". Hawass has also appeared in several episodes of the U.S. television show "Digging for the Truth", discussing mummies, the pyramids, Tutankhamun, Cleopatra, and Ramesses II. He also appeared on "Unsolved Mysteries" during a segment on the curse of Tutankhamun's tomb. In 2010, Hawass appeared on a reality-based television show on The History Channel called "Chasing Mummies".


title: Zahi Hawass

text: Hawass also worked alongside Egyptologist Otto Schaden during the opening of Tomb KV63 in February 2006 – the first intact tomb to be found in the Valley of the Kings since 1922.


title: Zahi Hawass

text: In June 2007 Hawass announced that he and a team of experts may have identified the mummy of Hatshepsut, in KV60, a small tomb in the Valley of the Kings. The opening of the sealed tomb was described in 2006 as "one of the most important events in the Valley of the Kings for almost a hundred years."


title: Zahi Hawass

text: Hawass was interviewed about his work by Keith Floyd as part of his television series "Floyd around the Med" in the episode "Cairo, Egypt and Aswan to Luxor" (2000).


title: Zahi Hawass

text: Hawass hosted and played further creative roles in the documentary "Egypt's Ten Greatest Discoveries".


title: Zahi Hawass

text: Hawass has repeatedly spearheaded movements to return many prominent and irregularly taken Ancient Egyptian artifacts back to Egypt from collections in various other countries. Examples of these artifacts include: the Rosetta Stone, the bust of Nefertiti, the Dendera zodiac ceiling painting from the Dendera Temple, the bust of Ankhhaf (the architect of the Khafre Pyramid), the faces of Amenhotep III's tomb at the Louvre Museum, the Luxor Temple's obelisk at the Place de la Concorde, and the statue of Hemiunu.


title: Zahi Hawass

text: In July 2003, the Egyptians requested the return of the Rosetta Stone from the British Museum. Hawass, then serving as Secretary General of the Supreme Council of Antiquities in Cairo, spoke at a press conference saying: "If the British want to be remembered, if they want to restore their reputation, they should volunteer to return the Rosetta Stone because it is the icon of our Egyptian identity." Referring to Egyptian antiquities at the British Museum, Hawass said, "These are Egyptian monuments. I will make life miserable for anyone who keeps them."


title: Zahi Hawass

text: Alex Joffe of the "Wall Street Journal" expressed the opinion that the looting of antiquities during the 2011 Egyptian revolution made Hawass' campaign to return Egyptian antiquities to Egypt "misguided or at least poorly timed."


title: Zahi Hawass

text: In 2019, Hawass relaunched his restitution campaign, asking the Berlin State Museums, the British Museum and the Musée du Louvre: “How can you refuse to lend to the new Grand Egyptian Museum when you have taken so many antiquities from Egypt?" All three museums refused his loan requests.


title: Zahi Hawass

text: In 2022, Hawass launched another petition, calling once again on the British Museum to return the Rosetta Stone, the bust of Nefertiti, and the Dendera Zodiac ceiling to Egypt. He plans on sending the petition, signed by a group of Egyptian intellectuals, to European museums in October.


title: Zahi Hawass

text: Hawass has been skeptical of the DNA testing of Egyptian mummies; "From what I understand," he has said, "it is not always accurate and it cannot always be done with complete success when dealing with mummies. Until we know for sure that it is accurate, we will not use it in our research."


title: Zahi Hawass

text: In December 2000, a joint team from Waseda University in Japan and Cairo's Ain Shams University tried to get permission for DNA testing of Egyptian mummies, but was denied by the Egyptian Government. Hawass stated at the time that DNA analysis was out of the question because it would not lead to anything.


title: Zahi Hawass

text: In February 2010, Hawass and his team announced that they had analyzed the mummies of Tutankhamun and ten other mummies and said that the king could have died from a malaria infection that followed a leg fracture. German researchers Christian Timmann and Christian Meyer have cast doubt on this theory, suggesting other possible alternatives for Tutankhamun's cause of death.


title: Zahi Hawass

text: In 2012, a study signed by Hawass disclosed that Ramses III may have had a haplogroup that is associated with the Bantu expansion and is the most dominant in Sub-Saharan Africa, E1b1a.


title: Zahi Hawass

text: Hawass has been accused of domineering behaviour, forbidding archaeologists to announce their own findings, and courting the media for his own gain after they were denied access to archaeological sites because, according to Hawass, they were too amateurish. A few, however, have said in interviews that some of what Hawass has done for the field was long overdue. Hawass has typically ignored or dismissed his critics, and when asked about it he indicated that what he does is for the sake of Egypt and the preservation of its antiquities.


title: Zahi Hawass

text: Hawass has been a long-standing opponent of normalised relations between Israel and Egypt. In January 2009 Hawass wrote in "Asharq Al-Awsat" that "The concept of killing women, children, and elderly people ... seems to run in the blood of the Jews of Palestine" and that "the only thing that the Jews have learned from history is methods of tyranny and torment—so much so that they have become artists in this field." He explained that he was not referring to the Jews' "[original] faith" but rather "the faith that they forged and contaminated with their poison, which is aimed against all of mankind." In an interview on Egyptian television in April 2009 Hawass stated that "although Jews are few in number, they control the entire world" and commented on the "control they have" of the American economy and the media. He later wrote that he was using rhetoric to explain political fragmentation among the Arabs and that he does not believe in a "Jewish conspiracy to control the world".


title: Zahi Hawass

text: Criticism of Hawass, in Egypt and more broadly, increased following the protests in Egypt in 2011. On July 12, 2011, "The New York Times" reported on a story on page A1 that Hawass receives an honorarium each year "of as much as $200,000 from "National Geographic" to be an explorer-in-residence even as he controls access to the ancient sites it often features in its reports." The "Times" also reported that he has relationships with two American companies that do business in Egypt.


title: Zahi Hawass

text: On April 17, 2011, Hawass was sentenced to jail for one year for refusing to obey a court ruling relating to a contract for the gift shop at the Egyptian Museum to a company with links to Hawass. The ruling was appealed and this specific sentence was suspended pending appeal. The following day, the National Council of Egypt's Administrative Court issued a decree to overturn the court's original ruling, specifying that he would serve no jail time, and would instead remain in his position as Minister of Antiquities. The jail sentence was lifted after a new contract was solicited for the running of the gift shop.


title: Zahi Hawass

text: As Minister of Antiquities, Hawass has been closely associated with the government of former President Hosni Mubarak. His resignation as minister on March 3, 2011, and his re-appointment to the Ministry on March 30, 2011, have been seen as part of the overall events surrounding Mubarak's resignation. It was reported that his re-appointment angered numerous factions, who opposed the appointment of any of the old guard under Mubarak to new positions in the government. The 2011 Egyptian protests resulted in increased criticism of Hawass. Demonstrators called for his resignation, and the upheaval has increased attention on his relationship with the Mubarak family and the way in which he has increased his public profile in recent years.


title: Zahi Hawass

text: Hawass has lent his name to a line of men's apparel, described by "The New York Times" as "a line of rugged khakis, denim shirts and carefully worn leather jackets that are meant, according to the catalog copy, to hark "back to Egypt’s golden age of discovery in the early 20th century"; the clothing was first sold at Harrods department store in London, in April 2011. Critics say the Hawass clothing commercializes Egyptian history, and objected to their understanding that "models had sat on or scuffed priceless ancient artifacts during the photo shoot," an accusation that was denied by Hawass and the clothing manufacturers. Hawass already sells a line of Stetson hats reproducing the ones he wears, which "very much resemble" the ones worn by Harrison Ford in the "Indiana Jones" movies.


title: Zahi Hawass

text: Hawass has received many honorary degrees. From outside Egypt, he has received honorary doctorates from the University of Pennsylvania (2000), the University of Lisbon (2011), the Chandrakasem Rajabhat University (2011), the New Bulgarian University (2016), the Universidad Católica Santo Domingo (2016), the Universidad San Ignacio de Loyola (2017) and the Russian State University for the Humanities (2021).


title: Zahi Hawass

text: Hawass is the recipient of the Egyptian state award of the first degree for his work in the Sphinx restoration project. In 2001, he was silver medallist offered by the Russian Academy of Natural Sciences. In 2002, he was awarded the American Academy of Achievement's Golden Plate and the glass obelisk from US scholars for his efforts to the protection and preservation of Ancient Egyptian monuments. In 2003, Hawass was given international membership in the Russian Academy for Natural Sciences (RANS), and in 2006, he was chosen as one of the world's 100 most influential people by "Time magazine". In 2015, He awarded the Golden Memorial Medal of Charles University. In 2018, he was awarded by the Academia Brasileira de Letras for being the only archaeologist who wrote more than 30 books. In the same year, he received the Presidential Medal of the Republic of Kosovo in recognition for his entire academic output. Also in 2018, he receives the grand prize of the Saudi Arabia Ministry of Culture. In 2022, he receives the plaque of honor from the Faculty of Economics and Political Sciences of Cairo.


title: Kenichi: The Mightiest Disciple

text: A 50-episode anime television series adaptation produced by TMS Entertainment aired on TV Tokyo from October 2006 to September 2007. Brain's Base produced an 11-episode original video animation (OVA) series released between March 2012 and May 2014. The anime television series was licensed in North America by Funimation in 2008, but the rights to the series expired in 2018. It was re-licensed by Discotek Media in 2020.


title: Kenichi: The Mightiest Disciple

text: As of February 2012, the "Kenichi: The Mightiest Disciple" manga had over 12 million copies in circulation.


title: Kenichi: The Mightiest Disciple

text: The story focuses on Kenichi Shirahama, a 15-year-old high school student and a long-time victim of bullying. At the beginning of the story, he befriends transfer student Miu Fūrinji; and desires to become stronger, he follows her to Ryōzanpaku, a dojo housing several masters of diverse martial arts, led by her grandfather Hayato Fūrinji.


title: Kenichi: The Mightiest Disciple

text: After learning basics from Miu, Kenichi overcomes a high-ranking member of the school's karate club and becomes a target for all the delinquents in the school. While initially training to protect himself, Kenichi eventually becomes a full disciple of Ryōzanpaku and becomes enamored of Miu. Subsequently, Kenichi's daily routine is divided between training under the six masters of Ryōzanpaku, and his fights against the members of 'Ragnarok', a gang of bullies trying alternately to recruit or to vanquish him.