title: Valve Index

text: The headset uses an IPS fast switching 1440×1600 LCD panel for each eye for a combined resolution of 2880×1600. The panels are full RGB and can operate at refresh rates of 80, 90, 120, or 144 Hz. The specified field of view is 130°, but users report a practical field of view of 120°. The panels and lenses can be moved horizontally to adjust the user's inter-pupillary distance (IPD) using a physical slider underneath the displays. The allowable IPD adjustment ranges between 58 and 70mm.


title: Valve Index

text: The headset and controllers both support Valve's Lighthouse 2.0 tracking system, while retaining full compatibility with all previous HTC Vive base stations, using SteamVR.


title: Valve Index

text: The headset is intended to be used with the Valve Index Controllers—known during development as the Knuckles Controllers—but is also backward compatible with the HTC Vive and HTC Vive Pro controllers. The Valve Index Controllers have a joystick, touchpad, two face buttons, a menu button, a trigger, and an array of 87 sensors that allow the controllers to track hand position, finger position, motion, and pressure to create an accurate representation of the user's hand in virtual reality. In addition, the controllers include an accelerometer for additional measurements.


title: Valve Index

text: The Index includes "a pair of ultra near-field, full range, off-ear (extra-aural) headphones", which use BMR drivers to create accurate and immersive low frequency sounds, as well as a microphone.


title: Valve Index

text: The Valve Index is Valve's first virtual reality headset developed and manufactured in house, and is planned to be the launch console for Valve's upcoming virtual reality games. Development on a completely first party headset started some time around 2015 according to interviews with staff, before the release of their Vive headset with HTC. In February 2021, Valve registered patents for a new VR headset, describing the improvements over the previous model.


title: Valve Index

text: It sold an estimated 149,000 sets in 2019, 103,000 of which were in the fourth quarter due to the announcement of "", which buyers received for free. The sudden demand caused the unit to be sold out in all 31 countries except Japan in January 2020. As of December 2019, 6.67% of the VR units connected to Steam are Valve Index sets. While Valve had anticipated supply for many of those that had ordered the Index in time for the March 2020 release of "Half-Life: Alyx", the COVID-19 pandemic impacted production of the Index which left Valve with a reduced number of units available on the release date.


The 2022 Rhode Island gubernatorial election was held on November 8, 2022, to elect the governor of Rhode Island. Incumbent Democratic Governor Dan McKee became Rhode Island's governor on March 2, 2021, when term-limited Gina Raimondo resigned following her confirmation as United States Secretary of Commerce. McKee easily won a full term on election day, defeating Republican Ashley Kalus by more than 19 percentage points.


title: 2022 Rhode Island gubernatorial election

text: McKee's margin of victory and 58.1% vote share were the highest for any candidate for governor of Rhode Island since 1992.


title: Rosalina (Mario)

text: Rosalina, known as Rosetta in Japan (ロゼッタ), is a fictional character in the "Mario" series of video games. She debuted in "Super Mario Galaxy" (2007), where she acts as a non-player character who resides in the Comet Observatory, the game's hub world. Rosalina is the adoptive mother of Lumas, a fictional species of stars in the game, and also watcher of the cosmos. Rosalina has since appeared as a player character in subsequent "Mario" games, such as the "Mario Kart", "Mario Golf", "Mario Party", and the "Super Smash Bros." series.


title: Rosalina (Mario)

text: In an interview, Shigeru Miyamoto stated that he had planned the usual kidnapping of Princess Peach, but also "had another cast of characters, a princess from outer space and her family of talking stars, who had a deeper, sadder story that was revealed through elegant picture-book scenes throughout the game." This storybook was known in-game as "Rosalina's Storybook", which told Rosalina's backstory and was written by Yoshiaki Koizumi late at night so that no one would find out about it, saying that "for a long time, it really felt like telling a story in a "Mario" game was something that wasn't allowed" in an interview. In another interview, Koizumi stated "I felt in this case that the Lumas and Rosalina really needed a story to explain what they were doing out there and to give the players a deeper understanding of their presence. So telling her story as a fairytale by reading the book to all the Lumas as if they were young children at storytime just seemed like the mood-appropriate way to accomplish this."


title: Rosalina (Mario)

text: When Rosalina's character was in early development, the "Super Mario Galaxy" development team contemplated having her character be related to Princess Peach. This relationship did not remain as an element of the final story, but is the reason for the design similarities between Peach and Rosalina.


title: Rosalina (Mario)

text: In "Super Mario Galaxy", Bowser kidnaps Princess Peach by removing her castle from the ground with Peach still inside, and also attacks the Comet Observatory, where Rosalina lives with her adopted Lumas, and steals its main source of fuel: Power Stars. Rosalina asks Mario to retrieve the lost Power Stars; in return she promises to help him save Princess Peach. Once Mario retrieves enough Power Stars, Rosalina is able to turn her Comet Observatory into a comet and drive Mario to the center of the universe, where Bowser keeps the kidnapped Princess Peach. After Bowser is defeated by Mario, Bowser's galaxy at the center of the universe turns into a supermassive black hole, devouring Princess Peach's castle, Rosalina's Comet Observatory and Bowser's Airships. All of Rosalina's Lumas throw themselves into the black hole in order to stop it. After this, Rosalina appears to Mario, explaining to him about the circle of life and the death and rebirth of stars; it is implicit in her explanation that the universe and all the Lumas are to be reborn. Afterwards, Rosalina is gone and Mario, as well as Bowser and Peach, wake up back in the Mushroom Kingdom again. Once 120 Power Stars in the game are collected, Rosalina delivers a thank you message to the player, promising to watch over them. In a backstory which is unlocked gradually as the game progresses, Rosalina tells the story of how she was a girl who travelled in a spaceship to help a lost Luma find its parents, hiding the fact that she herself had lost her own mother. As Rosalina starts to feel lonely, numerous other Lumas soon come to join her, and she learns that their purpose in life to eventually transform into other things. Rosalina decides to build a house for her new family, which soon becomes the Comet Observatory.


title: Rosalina (Mario)

text: In "Super Mario Galaxy 2", throughout the game, a shadowy form named the "Cosmic Spirit", strongly resembling Rosalina, appears to help in levels where the player has died multiple times. Rosalina is the one who mysteriously sends letters containing 50 Star Bits to Baby Luma who grants Mario a spin attack and she herself appears after Mario defeats Bowser and rescues Princess Peach in the final cutscene before the credits play. Rosalina also appears late in the game as well (by collecting 120 Power Stars), telling Lumas the story of the "Green Stars", which opens the Green Star missions (additional optional missions in the game), and finally, with the game completed, she appears on the game's hub and thanks Mario.


title: Rosalina (Mario)

text: In "Super Mario 3D World", Rosalina is featured as an unlockable fifth character. She possesses the ability to perform the Spin Attack that Mario could in the "Galaxy" games, using it as both an attack and a second jump. When asked why Nintendo chose Rosalina over other "Mario" characters, "3D World" director Kenta Motokura responded, "I was thinking about what would be pleasing after the ending and wanted to bring in another female character in addition to Princess Peach. Rosalina has a following among the "Super Mario Galaxy" fanbase, and she's appeared in "Mario Kart" recently, so I think she is well known."


title: Rosalina (Mario)

text: In "Super Mario Odyssey", she has a minor reference as hint art in the Dark and Darker side of the moon which can be hit by Cappy to collect ten coins.


title: Rosalina (Mario)

text: Rosalina appears in "Mario Kart Wii", "Mario Kart 7", "Mario Kart 8", "Mario Kart Arcade GP DX" and "Mario Kart Tour" as an unlockable character, and is unlocked by default in "Mario Kart 8 Deluxe". "Mario Kart 8" sees the introduction of a baby version of Rosalina. Rosalina also has a namesake racing track in "Mario Kart 7" called "Rosalina's Ice World".


title: Rosalina (Mario)

text: In "Mario Kart Wii", Rosalina is a Large-sized unlockable character. She can be unlocked by winning first place with at least a 1 Star Rank in all Mirror Grand Prix Cups, having a "Super Mario Galaxy" save file and play fifty races, or playing 4,950 races. Rosalina rides in Large vehicles, and is the first female character to ever be in this class due to her tall height. A Luma orbits around her during gameplay, and occasionally squeals or giggles when the player performs an aerial trick. Like Peach and Daisy, Rosalina appears in a biker suit while racing on any of the bikes, only that the color scheme is different to the overall color scheme of her main dress. Her signature bike is the Shooting Star and her signature kart is the Honeycoupe.


title: Rosalina (Mario)

text: In "Mario Kart 7", Rosalina is a Cruiser-class character, along with Donkey Kong and Wiggler, and this time, she appears unaccompanied by a Luma in the races. Rosalina has an advantage bonus in weight and speed. Just as in "Mario Kart Wii", Rosalina is an unlockable character. She can be unlocked winning the 150cc Star Cup. She has her own track in the Special Cup, Rosalina's Ice World, which makes allusion to the "Super Mario Galaxy" series. When Rosalina uses the Peach Parasol for a glider, it becomes turquoise to match her color scheme. Likewise, her Birthday Girl kart is colored blue.


title: Rosalina (Mario)

text: In "Mario Kart 8", Rosalina retains her bike gear from "Mario Kart Wii" when riding a bike or an ATV, and her signature dress for karts. In addition, her infant counterpart debuted in this game. Much like in "Mario Kart 7", her Peach Parasol glider is turquoise. In the Wii U version, she is one of the lighter heavyweights, sacrificing some speed and weight to boost her acceleration, handling, and traction stats a little. She shares these traits with Donkey Kong, Waluigi, Roy Koopa, and Link. In "Deluxe", she is available from the start. While she is still a heavyweight character, she is now in the lightest of the 5 different heavy groups, sharing stats with King Boo and Link.


title: Rosalina (Mario)

text: Joystiq commented on her appearance, saying that it was nice to see that another "Nintendo character join the obscenely large roster of folks showing their faces in the game."


title: Rosalina (Mario)

text: She also appears as a playable character in "", available via downloadable content. Rosalina is a playable fighter in "Super Smash Bros. for Nintendo 3DS and Wii U" and "Super Smash Bros. Ultimate", where she fights alongside various colored Lumas, as well as being in "Mario Party 10", "", "Super Mario Party", "Mario Tennis Aces", "" and "Mario Party Superstars". She also joined the roster in "Mario & Sonic at the Rio 2016 Olympic Games", and later reappeared in "Mario & Sonic at the Olympic Games Tokyo 2020". Rosalina appears in "Super Mario Maker" as a Mystery Mushroom costume, which can be unlocked either through the 100-Mario challenge, or by scanning her amiibo figure. Rosalina also appeared in a crossover in "Puzzle & Dragons Z". She appears in "Mario + Rabbids Sparks of Hope" along with a Rabbid version of her.


title: Rosalina (Mario)

text: In a poll conducted by "Official Nintendo Magazine", the readers ranked Rosalina as the sixth greatest female character. Journalist Tom East who conducted the poll described Rosalina as a "leading lady", saying that "she obviously made a big impression on you because after one appearance (not counting "Mario Kart") she has made the top ten."


title: Rosalina (Mario)

text: Chris Greenhough of Joystiq claimed that "Super Mario Galaxy" was the first "Mario" game to have an engaging story, and cited Rosalina as an example, saying that "although this narrative thread (Rosalina's Storybook) starts life as the kind of standard fare you'd expect from a "Mario" title, Rosalina's tale quickly becomes tragic". Game researcher and designer Douglas Wilson opined in GameSetWatch that "Super Mario Galaxy"'s most surprising moment did not involve new gaming mechanics, a plot twist, but rather the character Rosalina and her storybook, stating "The biggest shocker was a simple storybook tale told by a princess named Rosalina." Furthermore, he wrote that ""Super Mario Galaxy" is a brilliant game, for reasons already covered in various reviews. Yet despite the largely positive coverage, I was disappointed that the gaming press so overwhelmingly ignored (or in one case, dismissed) Rosalina’s storybook", and compared it to "The Little Prince" and "My Neighbour Totoro". Siliconera called Rosalina's Storybook "bittersweet" as "the game could just as easily been a simple "save the princess" story and still have been a great game, but...the engaging story takes "Super Mario Galaxy" to an artistic level other "Mario" titles haven't approached."


title: Rosalina (Mario)

text: Destructoid reviewed Rosalina very positively, saying that she is a "celestial stunner", summing up that "Rosalina embodies style perfection" and thus is "out of this world", giving her an "A+" on their "Gamer's Red Carpet". Kotaku's Michael McWhertor called her an "attractive Peach replacement" in their "Super Mario Galaxy" impressions. Phil Pirrello of IGN reviewed Rosalina positively, giving her a 7 out of 10. Shane Bettenhausen of 1UP.com labelled Rosalina as a "celestial hottie", and one of the better "Mario Kart Wii" characters in an otherwise disappointing roster. Larry Hester of "Complex" listed Rosalina as one of the 40 "hot but forgotten" female video game characters.


title: Rosalina (Mario)

text: Rosalina also drew some criticisms. Callum Archer of GameRant.com listed Rosalina at number nine in his top-ten list of "Mario" characters that disappeared from the franchise or should disappear, describing her as a re-skin of Princess Peach, who "didn't even do that much" in "Super Mario Galaxy 2". Jake Shapiro of NintendoLife complained about Rosalina being a princess from the "Mario" franchise, stating "It’s a bummer that every single female-identified character in Mario Kart 8 is a princess". Matthew Wilkinson of TheGamer.com listed Rosalina among the five characters that should not return in the "Mario Kart" series, stating that "Now feels like the right time to take her out of this franchise for a while". Joey Davidson of TechnoBuffalo.com disapproves the addition of Baby Rosalina in "Mario Kart 8," stating she "could have been dropped for better options". Jeremy Parish of Polygon.com ranked 73 fighters from "Super Smash Bros. Ultimate" "from garbage to glorious", listing Rosalina at 51st, stating that "Rosalina is basically the most powerful singular force in the cosmos, if Super Mario Galaxy is to be believed—a divine arbiter of existence who can reset all reality at will. You’d think she’d have better things to do than whallop on Bowser Jr." Gavin Jasper of "Den of Geek" ranked Rosalina as 33rd on his list of "Super Smash Bros. Ultimate" characters, stating "Rosalina is a fresh addition to the Mario franchise and a welcome face at his parties and go-kart races. In Smash, she adapts the Ice Climbers concept as her own fighting style, thanks to her partnership with Luma." According to John Adams of his "Female Fighters: Perceptions of Femininity in the Super Smash Bros. Community", that Rosalina had non-sexualized focus on her appearance, prompting users on praising on its costumes.


title: Ansys

text: Ansys, Inc. is an American company based in Canonsburg, Pennsylvania. It develops and markets CAE/multiphysics engineering simulation software for product design, testing and operation and offers its products and services to customers worldwide.


title: Ansys

text: Ansys was founded in 1970 by John Swanson, who sold his interest in the company to venture capitalists in 1993. Ansys went public on NASDAQ in 1996. In the 2000s, the company acquired numerous other engineering design companies, obtaining additional technology for fluid dynamics, electronics design, and physics analysis. Ansys became a component of the NASDAQ-100 index on December 23, 2019.


title: Ansys

text: The idea for Ansys was first conceived by John Swanson while working at the Westinghouse Astronuclear Laboratory in the 1960s. At the time, engineers performed finite element analysis (FEA) by hand. Westinghouse rejected Swanson's idea to automate FEA by developing general purpose engineering software, so Swanson left the company in 1969 to develop the software on his own. He founded Ansys under the name Swanson Analysis Systems Inc. (SASI) the next year, working out of his farmhouse in Pittsburgh.


title: Ansys

text: Swanson developed the initial Ansys software on punch-cards and used a mainframe computer that was rented by the hour. Westinghouse hired Swanson as a consultant, under the condition that any code he developed for Westinghouse could also be included in the Ansys product line. Westinghouse also became the first Ansys user.


title: Ansys

text: By 1991 SASI had 153 employees and $29 million in annual revenue, controlling 10 percent of the market for finite element analysis software. According to "The Engineering Design Revolution", the company became "well-respected" among engineering circles, but remained small.


title: Ansys

text: In 1994, Swanson sold his majority interest in the company to venture capitalist firm TA Associates. Peter Smith was appointed CEO and SASI was renamed after the software, Ansys, the following year.


title: Ansys

text: In the late 1990s, Ansys shifted its business model away from software licenses, and corresponding revenue declined. However, revenue from services increased.


title: Ansys

text: In February 2000, Jim Cashman was appointed CEO. Current CEO Ajei S. Gopal was appointed in early 2017.


title: Ansys

text: Ansys develops and markets engineering simulation software for use across the product life cycle. Ansys Mechanical finite element analysis software is used to simulate computer models of structures, electronics, or machine components for analyzing the strength, toughness, elasticity, temperature distribution, electromagnetism, fluid flow, and other attributes. Ansys is used to determine how a product will function with different specifications, without building test products or conducting crash tests. For example, Ansys software may simulate how a bridge will hold up after years of traffic, how to best process salmon in a cannery to reduce waste, or how to design a slide that uses less material without sacrificing safety.


title: Ansys

text: Most Ansys simulations are performed using the Ansys Workbench system, which is one of the company's main products. Typically Ansys users break down larger structures into small components that are each modeled and tested individually. A user may start by defining the dimensions of an object, and then adding weight, pressure, temperature and other physical properties. Finally, the Ansys software simulates and analyzes movement, fatigue, fractures, fluid flow, temperature distribution, electromagnetic efficiency and other effects over time.


title: Ansys

text: Ansys also develops software for data management and backup, academic research and teaching. Ansys software is sold on an annual subscription basis.


title: Ansys

text: The first commercial version of Ansys software was labeled version 2.0 and released in 1971. At the time, the software was made up of boxes of punch cards, and the program was typically run overnight to get results the following morning. In 1975, non-linear and thermo-electric features were added. The software was exclusively used on mainframes, until version 3.0 (the second release) was introduced for the VAXstation in 1979. Version 3 had a command line interface like DOS.


title: Ansys

text: In 1980, Apple II was released, allowing Ansys to convert to a graphical user interface in version 4 later that year. Version 4 of the Ansys software was easier to use and added features to simulate electromagnetism. In 1989, Ansys began working with Compuflo. Compuflo's Flotran fluid dynamics software was integrated into Ansys by version 5, which was released in 1993. Performance improvements in version 5.1 shortened processing time two to four-fold, and was followed by a series of performance improvements to keep pace with advancements in computing. Ansys also began integrating its software with CAD software, such as Autodesk.


title: Ansys

text: In 1996, Ansys released the DesignSpace structural analysis software, the LS-DYNA crash and drop test simulation product, and the Ansys Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD) simulator. Ansys also added parallel processing support for PCs with multiple processors. The educational product Ansys/ed was introduced in 1998. Version 6.0 of the main Ansys product was released in December 2001. Version 6.0 made large-scale modeling practical for the first time, but many users were frustrated by a new blue user interface. The interface was redone a few months later in 6.1. Version 8.0 introduced the Ansys multi-field solver, which allows users to simulate how multiple physics problems would interact with one another.


title: Ansys

text: Version 8.0 was published in 2005 and introduced Ansys' fluid–structure interaction software, which simulates the effect structures and fluids have on one another. Ansys also released its Probabilistic Design System and DesignXplorer software products, which both deal with probabilities and randomness of physical elements. In 2009 version 12 was released with an overhauled second version of Workbench. Ansys also began increasingly consolidating features into the Workbench software.


title: Ansys

text: Version 15 of Ansys was released in 2014. It added a new features for composites, bolted connections, and better mesh tools. In February 2015, version 16 introduced the AIM physics engine and Electronics Desktop, which is for semiconductor design. The following year, version 17 introduced a new user interface and performance improvement for computing fluid dynamics problems. In January 2017, Ansys released version 18. Version 18 allowed users to collect real-world data from products and then incorporate that data into future simulations. The Ansys Application Builder, which allows engineers to build, use, and sell custom engineering tools, was also introduced with version 18.


title: Ansys

text: Released in January 2020, Ansys R1 2020 updates Ansys’ simulation process and data management (SPDM), materials information and electromagnetics product offerings. In early 2020, the Ansys Academic Program surpassed one million student downloads.


title: Ansys

text: In May 2020, Ansys joined Microsoft, Dell and Lendlease on the steering committee of the Digital Twin Consortium, which aims to advance the use of digital twin technology. The company collaborated with the US Army and L3Harris to advance the use of FACE technical standard. In April, 2020, Samsung Foundry certified Ansys’ RaptorH EM simulation solution for developing 2.5D/3D-ICs and systems-on-chip using Samsung's signoff flow. In August, 2020, Ansys received TSMC certification for its SoIC 3D chip stacking technology. In October, 2020, the company signed the agreement to acquire Analytical Graphics Inc. for $700 million.


title: Ansys

text: In 2021, Optimo Medical AG integrated their Optimeyes digital twin technology with Ansys Mechanical to create identical copies of cornea for surgical procedure testing purposes. Ansys and Siemens Energy collaborated to improve additive manufacturing (AM) processes. In May 2021, Ansys acquired Phoenix Integration, Inc. for an undisclosed amount.


title: Ansys

text: In November, 2021, the company was certified for Samsung's 3 nm and 4 nm Process Technologies. The same year, Ansys acquired Zemax for an undisclosed amount. The company began supporting Arm-based Graviton2 Processors, first time that Ansys' EDA semiconductor simulation solutions were made available on the Arm Neoverse architecture. In Partnership with Cornell University, Ansys developed simulating courses.


title: Jessica Jones (season 3)

text: The third and final season of the American streaming television series "Jessica Jones", which is based on the Marvel Comics character of the same name, follows Jones as she teams up with her mother's killer Trish Walker to take down a highly intelligent psychopath until a devastating loss reveals conflicting ideals that pits them against each other. It is set in the Marvel Cinematic Universe (MCU), sharing continuity with the films and other television series of the franchise. The season is produced by Marvel Television in association with ABC Studios and Tall Girls Productions, with Melissa Rosenberg and Scott Reynolds serving as showrunners.


title: Jessica Jones (season 3)

text: Krysten Ritter stars as Jones alongside Rachael Taylor as Walker, with Eka Darville and Carrie-Anne Moss also returning from previous seasons, as well as J. R. Ramirez, Mike Colter, and David Tennant in guest roles. They are joined by Benjamin Walker, Sarita Choudhury, Jeremy Bobb, and Tiffany Mack. The third season was ordered in April 2018, a month after the second season was released. Filming for the season began by the end of that June, with Ritter making her directorial debut during the season.


title: Jessica Jones (season 3)

text: The season was released on June 14, 2019, and consists of 13 episodes. Netflix canceled the series on February 18, 2019.


title: Jessica Jones (season 3)

text: On April 12, 2018, a month after the release of the second season, Netflix ordered a third season of "Jessica Jones". The season consists of 13 episodes. Scott Reynolds joined Melissa Rosenberg as co-showrunner for the season.


title: Jessica Jones (season 3)

text: With the season order came confirmation that the returning starring cast would include Krysten Ritter as Jessica Jones, Rachael Taylor as Patricia "Trish" Walker, Eka Darville as Malcolm Ducasse, and Carrie-Anne Moss as Jeri Hogarth. Rebecca De Mornay also returns as Dorothy Walker while Benjamin Walker, Jeremy Bobb, Sarita Choudhury, Tiffany Mack, Jessica Frances Dukes and Aneesh Sheth joined the cast.


title: Jessica Jones (season 3)

text: By the end of May 2018, Ritter was undergoing training to prepare for the start of filming "very soon", which would officially begin by the end of June. Ritter also made her directorial debut during the season.


title: Jessica Jones (season 3)

text: A soundtrack album for the season was released by Hollywood Records and Marvel Music digitally on July 19, 2019, with Sean Callery returning as composer.


title: Jessica Jones (season 3)

text: The third and final season of "Jessica Jones" was released on Netflix worldwide on June 14, 2019. The season, along with the additional "Jessica Jones" seasons and the other Marvel Netflix series, was removed from Netflix on March 1, 2022, due to Netflix's license for the series ending and Disney regaining the rights. The season became available on Disney+ in the United States, Canada, United Kingdom, Ireland, Australia, and New Zealand on March 16, ahead of its debut in Disney+'s other markets by the end of 2022.


title: Jessica Jones (season 3)

text: On review aggregator Rotten Tomatoes, the season has an approval rating of 73% with an average rating of 6.40/10, based on 40 reviews. The website's critical consensus states, "Even if it's not the most satisfying finale for an entire era of Marvel television, "Jessica Jones"' final chapter finishes strong by giving its complicated heroine the space to change—and Krysten Ritter one last chance to work her sarcastic magic." On Metacritic, it has a weighted average score of 64 out of 100, based on 6 critics, indicating "generally favorable reviews".


title: Bolt Thrower

text: Bolt Thrower were an English death metal band from Coventry. They formed in 1986 and released their first album with Vinyl Solution in 1988. The band then shifted to a new record label, Earache Records, soon becoming one of the best selling bands on that label. Their last label was Metal Blade Records. The band had a succession of members, and had toured Europe, the United States, and Australia. Over the course of their 30-year career, Bolt Thrower released eight studio albums, three EPs, one live album, three compilation albums and two demos. On 14 September 2016 the band announced that they were breaking up, following the death of drummer Martin Kearns exactly a year earlier.


title: Bolt Thrower

text: Bolt Thrower were formed in September 1986 as a grindcore band, influenced largely by bands such as Slayer, Crass and Discharge. The band was founded by bassist Gavin Ward and guitarist Barry Thomson in a Coventry pub toilet during a hardcore punk gig. Shortly thereafter Andrew Whale and Alan West joined on drums and vocals respectively. In April 1987 the "In Battle There Is No Law" demo was recorded with this line-up.


title: Bolt Thrower

text: Their second recording was the "Concession of Pain" demo, which they made in September 1987. Gavin had switched to guitars and they recruited Alex Tweedy to play the bass. However, Alex did not show up for the recording, and so Gavin played both guitar and bass for the demo. Two weeks after the recording session, Gavin's girlfriend Jo Bench replaced Tweedy.


title: Bolt Thrower

text: With this line-up they recorded their first Peel session on 3 January 1988, with John Peel, the alternative disk jockey of BBC Radio One. He had received their second demo and became enthusiastic about the band. They recorded four tracks for it, resulting in a deal with Vinyl Solution to release one album. Just before the recording of their first full-length album, they replaced their singer with their driver Karl Willetts. Their debut LP, "In Battle There Is No Law" is only a half hour in length and has a primitive and raw sound often categorized as grindcore.


title: Bolt Thrower

text: They were not satisfied with the deal with Vinyl Solution as it was a pure hardcore label at that time. The label did little promotion for Bolt Thrower and their blend of death metal and hardcore punk, so after one album Bolt Thrower decided to leave Vinyl Solution and were signed by Earache Records. Earache Records had also signed many other death metal bands including Carcass and Napalm Death. The artwork for their second album was created by John Sibbick under contract for Games Workshop for the Warhammer 40,000 rulebook released in 1987. After Games Workshop heard the recording of the songs for Bolt Thrower's second Peel session, which was recorded on 6 November 1988, they offered to supply the artwork for Bolt Thrower's album, an offer the band quickly accepted. The record was released in 1989, titled "Realm of Chaos: Slaves to Darkness", after the 1988 book of published by Games Workshop. Most of the lyrics to the songs were also influenced by the game, but not merely because of the deal with Games Workshop. Karl, Andy and Gavin were very much into the games Games Workshop produced and they wrote a couple of songs about these games, including "Plague Bearer" and "World Eater". After the recording of "Realm of Chaos", they went on the 'Grindcrusher Tour' with labelmates Napalm Death, Carcass and Morbid Angel. On the "Cenotaph" EP one song ("Realm of Chaos") appears that is recorded during this tour. This EP also features the two CD-bonus tracks from "War Master" and "Realm of Chaos" plus the song "Cenotaph".


title: Bolt Thrower

text: Continuing, they recorded their third and final Peel session on 22 July 1990. On these three songs from the upcoming album were performed in raw versions as well as "Lost Souls Domain" off "Realm of Chaos". The next step in the history of Bolt Thrower was the album titled "War Master". It was recorded, as was the previous album, in Slaughterhouse Studios, which burnt down two weeks after the recordings were completed. Again, Games Workshop offered to do their artwork; however, as it was considered too expensive, Bolt Thrower declined the offer. The former head designer of Games Workshop would do the artwork, resulting in artwork quite similar to "Realm of Chaos". During the US tour they went on to promote the "War Master" album, they used an old US school bus as a tour bus, loaded with many computer games. All three Peel sessions were then released on one CD named "The Peel Sessions 1988–90" in 1991.


title: Bolt Thrower

text: Their next step was the album "The IVth Crusade". The title has a double meaning, as it was their fourth studio album (not counting the Peel sessions), but the album title also refers to the Fourth Crusade and the capturing of Constantinople. The cover artwork is a painting from Eugène Delacroix, showing "The Entry of the Crusaders in Constantinople".


title: Bolt Thrower

text: They wrote slower songs which were heavier and more bombastic. It leans more towards doom metal influenced by bands like Candlemass, in combination with their own massive death metal sound. The album was followed by the tour 'World Crusade' with the Polish death metal act Vader and the Swedish death metal band Grave in Europe. The band toured the US again as well as Australia. During this time, a single was released called "Spearhead", containing a very heavy, extended remix of the CD track "Spearhead", plus two new tracks and "Dying Creed" off the new album.


title: Bolt Thrower

text: Their next album is called "...For Victory" and was released in 1994. It was the final album with Karl Willetts and Andrew Whale. Both left the band because of changing life directions. The latest American tour did not go well, they returned home prematurely and by this time the band was quite fed-up with touring. A limited edition of the album exists containing a bonus live CD, called "War" (sometimes called "Live War"). After the album released, Karl Willetts was replaced by former Pestilence singer Martin van Drunen, and Martin "Kiddie" Kearns, who took over the drum kit.


title: Bolt Thrower

text: In 1995 and 1996 they went on two European tours. In 1997, Martin van Drunen decided to leave the band as he felt that he never really became a part of Bolt Thrower, and because he had a disease that made his hair fall out and gave him insecurity on stage. For at least one show in Germany, long time friend Dave Ingram stood in. Martin Kearns also decided to leave the band. The position at the drum kit is now taken by Alex Thomas. Karl Willetts temporarily rejoined the band to do vocal duties on their next album. The band switched record labels from Earache to Metal Blade Records, because since the US "...For Victory" tour they had seen a lack of success with Earache. Earache had also wanted to get rid of them and Bolt Thrower wanted to leave Earache as soon as possible, so they parted company.


title: Bolt Thrower

text: The album titled "Mercenary" was released on 8 September 1998 in Europe and on 10 November 1998 in the US and features nine tracks. It is an overall slower album than its predecessors. However, it is definitely very heavy and sounds very much like classic Bolt Thrower. Karl also returned to performing his previous style of singing; the hardcore punk influences have disappeared again. After the album recording, Karl left the band again and the band recruited Dave Ingram permanently after he left Benediction.


title: Bolt Thrower

text: In November 1998, Earache Records released "Who Dares Wins", a compilation featuring various older recordings, including the "Spearhead" and "Cenotaph" EPs. The band members themselves do not approve of the compilation's release and warn not to buy it, considering it a cheap cash-in from Earache. Originally, it was titled "No Guts - No Glory" but the title was changed because one song on "Mercenary" has the same title and Metal Blade Records objected. Following the release of "Mercenary", the band embarked on a tour of Europe, called "Into the Killing Zone", with Dave Ingram on vocals. Alex Thomas departed since he lacked interest in the musical direction of Bolt Thrower.


title: Bolt Thrower

text: After a short European tour in 2001 (which only consisted of 5 dates), they started to work on a new album. "Honour - Valour - Pride" was released in 2001 on Metal Blade Records, and shows a progression from the direction taken on "Mercenary". It contains nine tracks; the digipak includes one bonus track. Martin Kearns returned to the band after he settled his things in his life.


title: Bolt Thrower

text: In 2004, the band began working on new material for their latest album. They intended to record it in May 2004, with the release set to the end of the year by Metal Blade. Meanwhile, a European tour and a US tour were being prepared. Unfortunately, right before the recording could begin, Dave Ingram decided to leave due to health and personal issues. This postponed the new record and tours, and priority was set to finding a new singer. On 18 November 2004 the band announced the return of Karl Willetts. Recording of the album, titled "Those Once Loyal", started in May 2005; it was released on 11 November in Germany, 14 November in the rest of Europe and 15 November in the United States, 2005. It has been met with widespread critical acclaim from magazines such as "Rock Sound", "Rock Hard" and "Metal Hammer". A European tour followed in January and February 2006. A second leg followed in April, with dates in Scandinavia, the UK, Spain and more.


title: Bolt Thrower

text: Bolt Thrower announced that, as they were satisfied with the "Those Once Loyal" album, they would be indefinitely postponing the recording of another LP. The band stated that their goal was always to stop after releasing "the perfect Bolt Thrower album". However, Karl Willetts had mentioned work on a ninth album.


title: Bolt Thrower

text: Since releasing "Those Once Loyal", Earache has released a remastered edition of the 1989 album "Realm of Chaos" featuring alternate artwork by John Sibbick, the artist responsible for the original artwork of both the "Warhammer 40,000" Rogue Trader cover and "Realm of Chaos - Slaves to Darkness". The band encouraged people not to buy it as, like "Who Dares Wins", it was released without their consultation let alone consent. Furthermore, it has been alleged that the band has not received royalties from Earache for a number of years.


title: Bolt Thrower

text: Martin Kearns, who had been Bolt Thower's drummer from 1994 to 1997 and again since 2000, died unexpectedly at the age of 38 on 14 September 2015. As a result of his death, Bolt Thrower went on hiatus and cancelled their upcoming Australian tour, which would have been their first since 1993.


title: Bolt Thrower

text: On 14 September 2016, the first anniversary of Kearns' death, Bolt Thrower announced on their website that they would not continue, explaining, "We spent over 20 years together, touring the world, with 3 different vocalists, but he was so much more than just a drummer to us. So when we carried his coffin to his final resting place, the Bolt Thrower drummer position was buried with him. He was, and will now forever remain THE Bolt Thrower drummer, our Powerhouse and friend Martin 'Kiddie' Kearns." Rumours of the band's break-up were confirmed two days later by frontman Karl Willetts, stating, "I can confirm that Bolt Thrower are definitely over for good. There will be no reunion tours etc... no compromise."


title: Bolt Thrower

text: On 7 March 2017, which would have been Kearns' 40th birthday, Bolt Thrower posted a lengthy statement on their website, which suggested that a reunion or possible new release in memory of him was in the works. As of 2022, nothing has come of this.


title: The Vietnam War (TV series)

text: The Vietnam War is a 10-part American television documentary series about the Vietnam War written by Geoffrey C. Ward and directed by Ken Burns and Lynn Novick. The first episode premiered on PBS on September 17, 2017. The script is by Geoffrey Ward, and the series is narrated by Peter Coyote. This series is one of the few PBS series to carry a TV-MA rating.


title: The Vietnam War (TV series)

text: The series cost around $30 million and took more than 10 years to make. It was produced by Ken Burns and Lynn Novick, who had previously collaborated on "The War" (2007), "Baseball: The Tenth Inning" (2010), and "Prohibition" (2011). The production companies were WETA-TV in Washington, D.C., and Burns' Florentine Films. It was funded in part by the National Endowment for the Humanities.


title: The Vietnam War (TV series)

text: The series features interviews with 79 witnesses, including many Americans who fought in the war or opposed it as Anti-war protesters, as well as Vietnamese combatants and civilians from both the North and the South. Burns deliberately avoided "historians or other expert talking heads" and "onscreen interviews with polarizing boldfaced names like John Kerry, John McCain, Henry Kissinger and Jane Fonda." Instead, interviews were intended to provide a ground-up view of the War from the perspective of everyday people who lived through it. The third episode features an interview with retired UPI reporter Joseph L. Galloway, who was awarded a Bronze Star with "V" device for assisting with the wounded in the Battle of Ia Drang. Others interviewed include Vincent Okamoto, Karl Marlantes, and Tim O'Brien, author of "The Things They Carried", a popular collection of linked short stories about the war.


title: The Vietnam War (TV series)

text: The researchers for the film also accessed more than 24,000 photographs and examined 1,500 hours of archival footage. Within the series' 17-and-a-quarter-hours, there are scenes covering 25 battles, ten of which are detailed scenes documenting and describing the action from a number of perspectives.


title: The Vietnam War (TV series)

text: "The Vietnam War" was released on Blu-ray and DVD on September 19, 2017. Extras include a 45-minute preview program, two segments on the lives of two of the series' participants, and deleted scenes. The series is also available for digital download, and can also be seen on Kanopy.


title: The Vietnam War (TV series)

text: Accompanying the series is a 640-page companion book, The Vietnam War: An Intimate History by Geoffrey Ward and Ken Burns. Containing an introduction by Burns and Novick, it was published by Burns’ long-time publisher, Alfred A. Knopf, and released on September 5, 2017.


title: The Vietnam War (TV series)

text: Review aggregator Rotten Tomatoes gave the series an approval rating of 96% based on 49 reviews and a weighted average score of 9.36/10. The site's critical consensus states, ""The Vietnam War" revisits a dark chapter in American history with patience, grace, and a refreshing – and sobering – perspective informed by those who fought." Metacritic, another aggregator, gave the series a normalized score of 90 out of 100 based on 19 reviews, indicating "universal acclaim".


title: The Vietnam War (TV series)

text: "Washington Post" opinion writer George Will noted that the series is "an example of how to calmly assess episodes fraught with passion and sorrow." He continues: "The combat films are extraordinary; the recollections and reflections of combatants and others on both sides are even more so, featuring photos of them then and interviews with many of them now." Will concludes his column by declaring the series a "masterpiece".


title: The Vietnam War (TV series)

text: Ken Burns anticipated politically motivated criticisms of the film from both the left and the right: "After "The Vietnam War" I'll have to lie low. A lot of people will think I'm a Commie pinko, and a lot of people will think I'm a right-wing nutcase, and that's sort of the way it goes."


title: The Vietnam War (TV series)

text: "San Jose Mercury News" writer Tatiana Sanchez reported that some American and South Vietnamese veterans were "angry, [and] disappointed" with the documentary. They characterized it as a "betrayal". She writes: "veterans of the South Vietnamese military say they were largely left out of the narrative, their voices drowned out by the film's focus on North Vietnam and its communist leader, Ho Chi Minh. And many American veterans say that the series had several glaring omissions and focused too much on leftist anti-war protesters and soldiers who came to oppose the war."


title: The Vietnam War (TV series)

text: Historian Mark Moyar published a review in which he criticized the series. Moyar felt that Burns and Novick overemphasized American battlefield defeats during 1966–1967 while glossing over the many victories. He also felt that Burns did not properly explain why American generals ordered their forces to fight so fiercely for seemingly meaningless hills; Moyar feels that engaging the Viet Cong in sparsely populated areas was a superior option to letting them draw near populated cities, where American airpower and artillery would require more careful use. Moyar also contended that Burns and Novick should have more strongly emphasized the amount of foreign aid that the North Vietnamese received from the Chinese and that both Vietnams were not entirely self-sufficient. He also believed that Nixon, a mercurial president who expressed many contradictory opinions, could not be taken entirely seriously in the tape excerpts used in the documentary wherein he appears to express a desire to cut South Vietnam loose immediately after the 1972 elections and the Paris Peace Accords, while the documentary let the excerpts stand as seeming fact.


title: The Vietnam War (TV series)

text: Scholar Thomas Bass criticizes the film for its "urge toward healing and reconciliation, rather than truth". Bass's main objection is that the film perpetuates the narrative of the two Vietnams that justified U.S. involvement, arguing that "Southern Vietnam was never an independent country" and that Edward Lansdale played a role in that U.S. creation. He notes the prominent feature of Duong Van Mai Elliott in promoting this view, and the absence of a Daniel Ellsberg interview. Bass contends that this, together with the film's reliance on architects of the war such as "former generals, CIA agents and government officials, who are not identified by rank or title, but merely by their names and anodyne descriptions" is deemed as evidence of the film's "conservative credentials". "Newsweek" echoed Bass's objection that the movie obscures facts about the root causes of the war and its framing by the United States.


title: The Vietnam War (TV series)

text: University of Chicago historian Mark Philip Bradley gave the mini-series a mixed review, saying "it is mainly unsuccessful at evoking the complexities of Vietnam’s past... We never hear a discussion of how American empire and the broader political, economic, and cultural complexities of the making of twentieth-century American global hegemony were bound up in the U.S. intervention in Vietnam. Questions of race and racism are only lightly addressed." But Bradley argued that the series was successful in telling "powerful individual stories that bring us into the quotidian dimensions of the American war in Vietnam in far more compelling ways than I have seen many other documentaries or books on Vietnam do."


title: The Vietnam War (TV series)

text: Trent Reznor and Atticus Ross, current members of the band Nine Inch Nails, were tasked to score the series, and provide both original music and a compilation soundtrack of popular songs.


title: The Vietnam War (TV series)

text: The PBS website describes the series as featuring "more than 120 iconic popular songs that define the era", including songs by then contemporary artists. Of these, 38 songs were selected for the series' soundtrack album, which was released on September 15, 2017.


title: 1915 Çanakkale Bridge

text: The 1915 Çanakkale Bridge (), is a road suspension bridge in the province of Çanakkale in northwestern Turkey. Situated just south of the coastal towns of Lapseki and Gelibolu, the bridge spans the Dardanelles strait, about south of the Sea of Marmara. The bridge was officially opened by President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan on 18 March 2022 after roughly five years of construction. The year "1915" in the official Turkish name honours an important Ottoman naval victory against the navies of the United Kingdom and France during World War I.


title: 1915 Çanakkale Bridge

text: The bridge is the longest suspension bridge in the world—with a main span of , the bridge surpasses the Akashi Kaikyo Bridge (1998) in Japan by . It is the centrepiece of the planned Kınalı-Balıkesir Motorway, which will connect the O-3 and O-7 motorways in East Thrace to the O-5 motorway in Anatolia.


title: 1915 Çanakkale Bridge

text: The bridge is the first fixed crossing over the Dardanelles and the sixth one across the Turkish Straits, after three bridges over the Bosphorus and two tunnels under it.


title: 1915 Çanakkale Bridge

text: The bridge's tender project was designed by Tekfen Construction and Installation and detailed designed by COWI A/S and PEC (Pyunghwa Engineering Consultants in South Korea, for cable design and approach bridge design packages only). Arup and Aas-Jakobsen participated in the project as Independent Design Verifier (IDV). The Administrator consultants are Tekfen and T-ingénierie.


title: 1915 Çanakkale Bridge

text: The total length of the bridge is and together with the approach viaducts the length reaches , which surpasses the total length of the Osman Gazi Bridge and its approach viaducts by , to become the longest bridge of any type in Turkey.


title: 1915 Çanakkale Bridge

text: The height of the bridge's two towers is , making it the second tallest bridge in Turkey, after the Yavuz Sultan Selim Bridge, and the third tallest structure in the country. Internationally, the bridge is the sixth tallest bridge in the world, surpassing the Sutong Bridge in China. The deck of the bridge is high and wide, with a maximum thickness of . The deck carries six lanes of motorway (three in each direction), together with two walkways on each side for maintenance.


title: 1915 Çanakkale Bridge

text: According to President Erdoğan, the bridge cost €2.5 billion ($2.7 billion) to build, but would save €415 million ($458 million) per year from a reduction of fuel consumption and carbon emissions.


title: 1915 Çanakkale Bridge

text: Proposals for a bridge spanning the Dardanelles Strait have existed since the 1990s. A bridge was proposed again in 2012, and in 2014, it was placed in the Turkish government's future transportation projects list. In September 2016, the government officially launched the bridge building project. Bids for the contract to construct the bridge were made in 2017. The contract was awarded to a consortium containing Turkish companies Limak Holding and Yapı Merkezi, alongside South Korean companies DL Holdings and SK Ecoplant.


title: 1915 Çanakkale Bridge

text: Construction began in March 2017. The bridge was initially scheduled for completion in September 2023, and later brought forward to March 2022. On 16 May 2020, the second tower was completed, on the Gallipoli side (European coast). By 13 November 2021 all block decks were installed. The toll bridge opened for traffic on 18 March 2022, with a toll price of 200 lira (€13.60).


title: 1915 Çanakkale Bridge

text: are all related to the date of the Ottoman naval victory, on 18 March 1915, during the naval operations in the Gallipoli campaign.


title: 1915 Çanakkale Bridge

text: Meanwhile, the length of the bridge's main span (2,023 metres) refers to the centennial of the Turkish Republic (1923–2023).


title: Secretary of State for Defence

text: The secretary of state for defence, also referred to as the defence secretary, is a secretary of state in the Government of the United Kingdom, with overall responsibility for the business of the Ministry of Defence. The incumbent is a member of the Cabinet of the United Kingdom.


title: Secretary of State for Defence

text: The post of Secretary of State for Defence was created on 1 April 1964 replacing the positions of Minister of Defence, First Lord of the Admiralty, Secretary of State for War and Secretary of State for Air, while the individual offices of the British Armed Forces were abolished and their functions transferred to the Ministry of Defence. In 1997, Michael Portillo was filling this post at the time of the Portillo moment. In 2019, Penny Mordaunt became the UK's first female defence secretary.


title: Secretary of State for Defence

text: The postholder is supported by the other ministers in the Defence Ministerial team and the MOD permanent secretary. The corresponding shadow minister is the shadow secretary of state for defence, and the secretary of state is also scrutinised by the Defence Select Committee.


title: Secretary of State for Defence

text: The current secretary of state for defence is Ben Wallace MP, since his appointment by Prime Minister Boris Johnson in July 2019. He was reappointed by Prime Minister Liz Truss in September 2022. He was also reappointed by Prime Minister Rishi Sunak in October 2022.


title: Secretary of State for Defence

text: Corresponding to what is generally known as a defence minister in many other countries, the Defence Secretary's remit includes:


title: Secretary of State for Defence

text: The position of Minister for Co-ordination of Defence was a British Cabinet-level position established in 1936 to oversee and co-ordinate the rearmament of Britain's defences. It was established by the Prime Minister, Stanley Baldwin in response to criticism that Britain's armed forces were understrength compared to those of Nazi Germany. When the Second World War broke out, the new Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain formed a small War Cabinet and it was expected that the Minister would serve as a spokesperson for the three service ministers, the Secretary of State for War, the First Lord of the Admiralty and the Secretary of State for Air; however, political considerations resulted in all three posts being included in the Cabinet, and this role proved increasingly redundant. In April 1940 the position was formally wound up and the functions transferred to other Ministers.


title: Secretary of State for Defence

text: The post of Minister of Defence was responsible for co-ordination of defence and security from its creation in 1940 until its abolition in 1964. The post was a Cabinet level post and generally ranked above the three service ministers, some of whom, however, continued to also serve in Cabinet.


title: Secretary of State for Defence

text: On his appointment as Prime Minister in May 1940, Winston Churchill created for himself the new post of Minister of Defence. The post was created in response to previous criticism that there had been no clear single minister in charge of the prosecution of World War II. In 1946, the post became the only cabinet-level post representing the military, with the three service ministers – the Secretary of State for War, the First Lord of the Admiralty, and the Secretary of State for Air, now formally subordinated to the Minister of Defence.


title: Secretary of State for Defence

text: The post was created in 1964 as successor to the posts of Minister for Coordination of Defence and Minister of Defence. It replaced the positions of First Lord of the Admiralty, Secretary of State for War and Secretary of State for Air, as the Admiralty, War Office and Air Ministry were merged into the Ministry of Defence (the Secretary of State for War had already ceased to be a cabinet position in 1946, with the creation of the cabinet-level Minister of Defence).


title: LGB Alliance

text: The LGB Alliance is a British advocacy group founded in the UK in 2019, in opposition to the policies of LGBT rights charity Stonewall on transgender issues. Its founders were Bev Jackson, Kate Harris, Allison Bailey, Malcolm Clark and Ann Sinnott. It has said that lesbians are facing "extinction" because of the "disproportionate" focus on transgender identities in schools. It has opposed a ban on conversion therapy for trans people in the UK, gender-affirming care including puberty blockers for children reporting gender dysphoria, and gender recognition reform.


title: LGB Alliance

text: The LGB Alliance describes its objective as "asserting the right of lesbians, bisexuals and gay men to define themselves as same-sex attracted", and states that such a right is threatened by "attempts to introduce confusion between biological sex and the notion of gender".


title: LGB Alliance

text: The LGB Alliance has been described by the Labour Campaign for Trans Rights as transphobic, in a statement signed by a number of Labour MPs including current Deputy Leader Angela Rayner, and by SNP MP John Nicolson, and by articles in two scholarly journals as "trans-exclusionary". Hope not Hate and the Trades Union Congress have described the group as anti-trans. It has also been described by Labour MPs and several LGBT organisations and activists as a hate group.


title: LGB Alliance

text: The UK group was granted charitable status by the Charity Commission for England and Wales in April 2021, which was controversial with LGBT groups in the UK, fifty of whom signed an open letter condemning it. A hearing for an appeal against its charitable status started in the First-tier Tribunal in September 2022.


title: LGB Alliance

text: In September 2019, twenty-two people signed an open letter to "The Sunday Times" accusing leading UK gay-rights charity Stonewall of having "undermined women's sex-based rights and protections" through its policy on transgender issues. It further stated that twelve months earlier, a group had asked Stonewall to commit to "fostering an atmosphere of respectful debate" with those who wished to question its transgender policies, but that Stonewall had refused to allow any such dialogue, and that "if Stonewall remains intransigent, there must surely now be an opening for a new organisation committed both to freedom of speech and to fact instead of fantasy."


title: LGB Alliance

text: One month after the publication of the open letter, it was announced that a new group called the LGB Alliance had been launched. The group was co-founded by Bev Jackson, Kate Harris, Allison Bailey, Malcolm Clark, and Ann Sinnott, with the support of Simon Fanshawe, who spoke at the initial meeting on 22 October 2019 along with Miranda Yardley and Charlie Evans. Harris stated that:


title: LGB Alliance

text: The main difference is that lesbians, gays, and bisexuals have something in common because of our sexual orientation, that has nothing to do with being trans. We welcome the support of anyone — gay, straight or trans — as long as they support our commitment to freedom of speech and biological definitions of sex. So we are a very broad and accepting group. We will be called transphobic, but we're not.


title: LGB Alliance

text: In October 2020, Ann Sinnott, a director of the LGB Alliance at the time, initiated a legal case calling for a judicial review of the Equality and Human Rights Commission's guidance on the Equality Act 2010, crowdfunding almost £100,000 for legal fees. The Alliance believes that the specifics of the Equality Act 2010 have been "misrepresented" by some organisations. In May 2021 the case was found by the court to be unarguable, Justice Henshaw stating that "the claimant has shown no arguable reason to believe the Code has misled or will mislead service providers about their responsibilities under the Act."


title: LGB Alliance

text: In June 2021, the LGB Alliance announced the appointment of five new trustees in addition to Harris, Jackson and documentary producer Malcolm Clark: co-founder of Shed Productions Eileen Gallagher OBE, strategy consultant Conrad Roebar, professor of philosophy Kathleen Stock OBE, professor of human rights law Robert Wintemute and Labour peer Lord Young of Norwood Green. At the same time, Ann Sinnott announced her resignation as a director.


title: LGB Alliance

text: In October 2021, the organisation was hosted with a stand at the Conservative Party Conference, which reportedly cost £6,000. Later that month, the organisation hosted its own conference, with guests including MPs Joanna Cherry, Jackie Doyle-Price and Rosie Duffield, as well as the television comedy writer and anti-trans activist Graham Linehan. A protest against the Alliance was held outside the conference venue, attended by Daniel Lismore and the King's College London LGBT+ Society.


title: LGB Alliance

text: On 5 November 2021, MP John Nicolson said that the Speaker of the House of Commons had referred "abuse and obsessive behaviour" from the Alliance to the House of Commons security as part of a review following the murder of David Amess. The Alliance had previously run a fundraising campaign for itself where it pledged that "make a donation to us IN HIS [Nicholson's] NAME and we will tweet out your message," subsequently tweeting a number of statements attacking Nicolson, including one that called him a "rape-enabling politician". The fundraiser had been removed from the JustGiving and GoFundMe crowdfunding platforms for violating their rules.


title: LGB Alliance

text: On 30 March 2022, the London Community Foundation awarded the LGB Alliance a grant as part of the Arts Council England Let's Create Jubilee Fund, for a film "Queens — 70 Years of Queer History". They withdrew the grant in April 2022, after being made aware of the legal challenge against the Alliance's charitable status.


title: LGB Alliance

text: In May 2022, the organization urged the closure of all sex venues for one month, including saunas, leather bars and dark rooms, in response to the 2022 monkeypox outbreak.


title: LGB Alliance

text: On 10 June 2022, the organization announced that they had received a grant from the National Lottery Community Fund to create a helpline "for young lesbian, gay and bisexual people and their families and friends."


title: LGB Alliance

text: In December 2022 Twitch removed LGB Alliance from its approved list of charities because their 'anti-transgender advocacy' violated the platform's policies against hateful content, over 16,000 people voted for them to be removed. That same month, it was reported that LGB Alliance has office space at 55 Tufton Street, a building also occupied by several right-wing groups promoting climate change denial and anti-immigration politics, including Migration Watch UK, Global Warming Policy Foundation, Brexit Central, Leave Means Leave, Taxpayers' Alliance, and others. The LGB Alliance denied having links to the groups, stating "the office was chosen because it's handy, flexible, and that it became available at the right time".


title: LGB Alliance

text: In March 2020, the LGB Alliance submitted an application for charitable status to the Charity Commission for England and Wales. Bev Jackson, a founder of the LGB Alliance in a speech stated "We're applying for charitable status and building an organization to challenge the dominance of those who promote the damaging theory of gender identity."


title: LGB Alliance

text: A petition set up against the application received 30,000 signatures. The application was granted in April 2021. After the Alliance was granted the status of charity, the UK Pride Organisers Network released an open letter signed by more than 50 LGBT+ Pride groups across the UK condemning the decision.


title: LGB Alliance

text: In June 2021, a number of groups, including transgender youth charity Mermaids and the Good Law Project, appealed against the decision to grant charitable status, on the basis that it did not "meet the threshold tests to be registered as a charity". They say that the LGB Alliance does not meet two key criteria for charitable status under the Charities Act 2011: that a charity should "give rise to tangible, legally recognised benefits that outweigh any associated harms", and that they "benefit the public or a sufficient section of the public". The Charity Commission reaffirmed its role "to decide whether an organisation's purposes fall within the legal definition of charity" and that objections to the LGB Alliance's application had been "carefully considered" in its original decision to grant charitable status. Lui Asquith, director of legal and policy at Mermaids, said "LGB Alliance purports to be an organisation that supports lesbian, gay and bisexual people, but it doesn't. Many trans people are LGB and LGB Alliance actively works to oppose the advancement of rights of trans individuals." Mermaids were supported in this appeal by the Good Law Project, the LGBT+ Consortium, Gendered Intelligence, Trans Actual, and the LGBT Foundation. A First-tier Tribunal sat from 9 to 16 September 2022 and from 7 to 8 November 2022, with Mermaids, the Charity Commission and LGB Alliance represented in court. Judgment was reserved until a later date, expected to be early 2023.


title: LGB Alliance

text: In August 2021, the Charity Commission announced that it would be engaging with the LGB Alliance trustees after the Alliance posted a Tweet stating that "adding the + to LGB gives the green light to paraphilias like bestiality – and more – to all be part of one big happy 'rainbow family'" which was subsequently removed by Twitter for violating the social media platform's rules.


title: LGB Alliance

text: On 7 September 2022, the LGB Alliance was found by the Fundraising Regulator to have broken its Code of Fundraising Practice in two ways. Firstly by making a "false and misleading" claim that it was the only charity representing lesbian, gay, and bisexual interests. Secondly, it failed to deal correctly with a complaint made about this claim.


title: LGB Alliance

text: Co-founder Bev Jackson said that lesbians are in danger of extinction due to disproportionate focus on transgender issues in schools: "At school, in university, it is so uncommon, it is the bottom of the heap. Becoming trans is now considered the brave option." She also voiced concern that "If you do not accept that everyone has a gender identity then you are automatically labelled transphobic which means you can no longer discuss women's lives and what's happening to lesbians. We are increasingly discovering that lesbians are no longer welcome in the LGBTQ+ world, which is astonishing."


title: LGB Alliance

text: Jackson has said, "Lesbians don't have penises. A lesbian is a biological woman who is attracted to another biological woman. That's obvious. Or at least it was obvious until a few years ago."


title: LGB Alliance

text: The group has said that the LGBT rights movement in the UK has "never demanded that society change its laws, its activities and its language to accommodate us" and that the focus was instead on building bridges. In June 2020, the Alliance said in a tweet that it is not homophobic to oppose same-sex marriage, citing a statistic that most lesbian, gay and bisexual people are not married. "PinkNews" says that the tweet was deleted following criticism from actor David Paisley, Scottish MP Mhairi Black, and journalist Owen Jones. The Alliance later tweeted that "that tweet was very badly formulated! The introduction of same-sex marriage was a great breakthrough for gay people."


title: LGB Alliance

text: The LGB Alliance is critical of the campaign by other LGBT+ groups to make conversion therapy illegal, stating that the campaign "is being used as political cover to promote an affirmation-only approach to gender identity". The LGB Alliance also believes that affirmation-based therapy for transgender youth "is itself a form of conversion therapy" and has lobbied MPs to "stop transing the gay away".


title: LGB Alliance

text: The Alliance opposes proposed legislation in the Scottish Parliament to change the process of legal recognition of gender to be "based only on self-identification rather than biological sex", and reduce the age of access from 18 to 16.


title: LGB Alliance

text: The group took out adverts in Scotland to campaign against the Scottish government's plan to reform the Gender Recognition Act, stating that the reform would create a "gender free-for-all" and is "a law that could be exploited by predatory men who wish to hurt women and girls". A number of complaints were made to the UK's advertising watchdog, the Advertising Standards Authority (ASA), over the adverts. The ASA deemed the issue not serious enough for a full investigation, but issued the group with an "Advice Notice", advising that the messages could be "potentially misleading".


title: LGB Alliance

text: The Alliance supports compulsory relationships and sex education (in Scotland termed "Relationships, Sexual Health and Parenthood Education"), but says that the concept of gender identity is being taught as fact despite what Alliance representatives say is its lack of scientific basis. They also allege that the materials being provided to schools are produced by campaign groups rather than people with any relevant qualifications in education or science and that the materials violate principles of safeguarding by instructing teachers to conceal children's expressed desires to transition from their parents. The Alliance refers to this manner of gender identity education as potentially harmful propaganda.


title: LGB Alliance

text: Bev Jackson accused the Tavistock and Portman NHS Foundation Trust, which offers Gender Identity Development Services (GIDS) to children, of "transing out the gay". She also referred to studies which showed that children who identified as transgender were more likely to be autistic, saying she had spoken with a teacher at an SEN (special educational needs) school who told her there were "24 trans kids, one non binary, but no gays and lesbians."


title: LGB Alliance

text: In November 2020, Jackson was quoted in a BBC story about children experiencing delays in access to gender reassignment treatment, saying "We don't think children should be allowed to self-diagnose any medical condition." The next month, Jackson welcomed the High Court verdict in the "Bell vs. Tavistock" trial, which ruled that children should not be given puberty blockers without court approval. In September 2021, the verdict was overturned by the Court of Appeal.


title: LGB Alliance

text: Malcolm Clark, co-founder of the Alliance, has argued against LGBT+ clubs in schools, due to the risk of "predatory gay teachers". LGBT+ clubs had previously been banned under the Section 28 legislation against "promotion of homosexuality". He stated, "There should never, of course, be bullying. But the vast majority of children have not settled on a sexual orientation. Suggesting they do have a sexual orientation is fraught with dangers – for kids" and "Having clubs where kids explore on school grounds …their sexual orientation seems to be unnecessary and potentially dangerous". Co-founders Kate Harris and Bev Jackson declined to comment on these remarks when asked by "PinkNews" for their thoughts.


title: LGB Alliance

text: According to journalist Gaby Hinsliff, "The Alliance is seen by many in the LGBT sector as a fringe organisation at best, and at worst a hate group." It has been described as a hate group by Pride in London, Pride in Surrey, the LGBT+ Liberal Democrats, the Labour Campaign for Trans Rights, the Independent Workers' Union of Great Britain, barrister Jolyon Maugham, Green Party of England and Wales co-leader Carla Denyer, journalist Owen Jones and Dr Natacha Kennedy, co-chair of the Feminist Gender Equality Network. Broadcaster India Willoughby has described the group as "baddies masquerading as the good guys." The group has also been described as "anti-trans" by the Trades Union Congress and Hope not Hate. Paul Roberts OBE, CEO of LGBT Consortium said of the LGB Alliance "they exist to oppose free, safe and empowered trans lives".


title: LGB Alliance

text: In November 2020, the gay men's magazine "Boyz" retweeted Twitter posts from the LGB Alliance and responded to criticism by suggesting that people not jump to conclusions about the organisation and instead "hear them out". Companies that advertised in "Boyz" or stocked the magazine were targeted with threats of boycotts, and at least one venue, the cabaret club Royal Vauxhall Tavern, stopped distributing it. The magazine eventually apologised "for the publicity we have given the LGB Alliance." "The Spectator" writer Brendan O'Neill wrote a defence of the Alliance after the "Boyz" controversy, arguing the group was being targeted by left-wing activists who had deprived it of opportunities to raise money by getting it removed from crowdfunding websites and that activists had lobbied to have gay rights activist and LGB Alliance co-founder Allison Bailey investigated by her employers for transphobia.


title: LGB Alliance

text: In December 2020, John Nicolson, Member of Parliament for Ochil and South Perthshire, described the group as "sinister" and said that it was absurd for the BBC to rely on "transphobic groups like the so-called LGB Alliance" to give balance on reports about trans issues, saying "you would never do a report on racism, for example, and call in a racist organisation to say that they don't think black people have a right to equality". In October 2021, Labour Shadow Minister for Women and Equalities Taiwo Owatemi argued that the Alliance "should be rejected by all those who believe in equality," saying that the Alliance "opposes LGBT+ inclusive education," disregards Gillick competency, and has opposed conversion therapy bans.


title: LGB Alliance

text: The group has been condemned by a number of MPs, including SNP MP Mhairi Black, Liberal Democrat MP Jamie Stone, and Labour MP Charlotte Nichols. A statement from the Labour Campaign for Trans Rights group calling the LGB Alliance transphobic and trans-exclusionist was signed by two of the three candidates in the 2020 party leadership elections, Rebecca Long-Bailey and Lisa Nandy, as well as candidates for deputy leader Dawn Butler and Angela Rayner, the latter being elected deputy leader. In July 2020, the group met with Conservative Minister for Women and Equalities Kemi Badenoch. A number of other Conservative politicians, including MPs Ben Bradley and Jackie Doyle-Price have voiced support for the group.


title: LGB Alliance

text: The Alliance has been described as trans-exclusionary in articles published in the journals "Metaphilosophy" and the "Journal of Gender Studies". A 2021 article in the "International Journal of Sociology" listed the Alliance among "UK lobby groups [that] are successfully pushing a radical agenda to deny the basic rights of trans people." Mike Homfray of the University of Liverpool has argued that "there is ample evidence that the LGB Alliance, far from respecting the existence of trans people, has as a central aim their isolation and separation from LGB people."


title: LGB Alliance

text: Dame Melanie Dawes, chief executive of Ofcom, responding to a comment from MP John Nicolson asking why "transphobic groups like the so-called LGB Alliance" should appear on BBC programming, said quoting anti-trans pressure groups in order to bring balance "can be extremely inappropriate".


title: LGB Alliance

text: Gary Powell, who participated in the Alliance's pre-launch meetings and was involved in the promotion of its launch, has been criticised for speaking at events organised by the Heritage Foundation and writing for the Witherspoon Institute, both American conservative think tanks which have campaigned against LGBT rights. Bev Jackson, one of the founders of the Alliance, has been criticised for saying that "working with the Heritage Foundation is sometimes the only possible course of action" since "the leftwing silence on gender in the US is even worse than in the UK". Malcolm Clark, another Alliance co-founder, has been criticised for saying that he "[doesn't] see the point of LGBT clubs in schools," stating that it would offer "unnecessary encouragement" to predatory teachers. The Alliance received criticism after giving controversial conservative social media personality Andy Ngo a press pass to their October 2021 conference and saying that "whatever his other work in the past, his work on the Wi Spa controversy was extraordinary and important."


title: LGB Alliance

text: The former UK Conservative MP Ben Howlett has described how LGB Alliance and Sex Matters lobbied Conservative Party members of parliament in private: "I think one of the core reasons why issues surrounding trans people are going high up the agenda is that there's a lot of Machiavellian stuff going on behind the scenes".


title: LGB Alliance

text: In November 2022 the group was criticised for excluding the trans victims of the Colorado Springs nightclub shooting in their social media condolences, after which they tweeted: "We stand in solidarity – as LGB people – against all violence and extend our thoughts to ALL the victims of such horror".


title: LGB Alliance

text: A number of LGB Alliance groups have been formed internationally with similar objectives and branding. The UK organisation promotes 16 of them on its website; Australia, Brazil, Canada, Iceland, Ireland, Mexico, Norway, Poland, Serbia, Spain, USA, Wales, India, Germany, Finland and New Zealand.


title: LGB Alliance

text: In October 2020, a group called "LGB Alliance Ireland" was launched on Twitter. A number of Irish LGBT+ activists said that group was based in the UK and was mainly composed of British supporters. This was disputed by the group, which stated that "all our committee members are living in Ireland, with representation in each of the four provinces". In November 2020, the LGB Alliance Ireland faced criticism after calling for schools to ignore LGBT youth organisation BeLonG To's Stand Up Awareness Week. In August 2022, the Global Project against Hate and Extremism released a report in which it classified LGB Alliance Ireland as a far-right anti-transgender hate group.


title: LGB Alliance

text: In September 2020, a linked group was launched in Iceland, named "LBG teymið", with Iva Marín Adrichem as a co-founder. Icelandic national queer organisation Samtökin '78 director Þorbjörg Þorvaldsdóttir condemned the group. The Icelandic group later rebranded as "Samtökin 22".


title: LGB Alliance

text: In August 2022, the LGB Alliance Australia filed an application with "Equal Opportunity Tasmania", part of the Tasmanian Department of Justice, for permission to hold drag shows from which trans women would be banned from attending. Tasmania's anti-discrimination commissioner rejected the request. In October 2022, the Global Project against Hate and Extremism released a report in which it classified LGB Alliance Australia as a far-right anti-transgender hate group. The LGB Alliance Australia responded that they believed GPAHE had misrepresented them.


title: Gregory Helms

text: Gregory Shane Helms (born July 12, 1974) is an American professional wrestler. He is currently signed with WWE under a legends contract, as a wrestler and as a backstage producer. In WWE, Helms has wrestled as The Hurricane, Gregory Helms, and Hurricane Helms. He is also known for his time with World Championship Wrestling (WCW), where he wrestled as "Sugar" Shane Helms.


title: Gregory Helms

text: Helms first began wrestling in 1991 at the age of 17, and wrestled in numerous independent promotions, including the Organization of Modern Extreme Grappling Arts, winning numerous light heavyweight and tag team championships. In 1999, he signed with WCW, and gained fame as "Sugar" Shane Helms, a member of 3 Count. During his time there he won both the WCW Hardcore Championship and the WCW Cruiserweight Championship. When WCW was bought by the World Wrestling Federation (WWF, now WWE), Helms' contract was kept by WWF. Helms renamed himself "The Hurricane" and won the WWE Cruiserweight Championship. He later picked up a sidekick, Rosey, and they won the World Tag Team Championship together.


title: Gregory Helms

text: He dropped the superhero gimmick in 2005, and began wrestling under his real name. He once again won the Cruiserweight Championship in early 2006, and held it for over a year, becoming the longest reigning Cruiserweight Champion and the longest reigning champion of any kind in SmackDown history. After being out of action for over a year after neck fusion surgery Helms returned to SmackDown in September 2008, referring to himself as Hurricane Helms, before moving to the ECW brand where he reverted to his Gregory Helms name, and became a backstage interviewer. In mid-2009, he brought back The Hurricane character, and appeared as both Gregory Helms and The Hurricane on the ECW brand. After the ECW brand ended, Helms was released by WWE in February 2010, however he returned as a surprise entrant in the 2018 and 2021 Royal Rumble matches.


title: Gregory Helms

text: Helms began wrestling at the age of 17 in 1991. He won his first championship shortly afterwards, by defeating "Playboy" T.C. Cruise to become the Southern Wrestling Alliance (SWA) Light Heavyweight Champion. Helms spent the majority of his early career in his home state of North Carolina, winning numerous light heavyweight championships.


title: Gregory Helms

text: Helms began calling himself "The Show" Shane Helms, and teamed with "Big Daddy" Mike Maverick, initially using the team name Assault and Battery. They later dubbed themselves The Serial Thrillaz, and won several independent tag championships. The pair also began wrestling in the Organization of Modern Extreme Grappling Arts (OMEGA), which was founded by The Hardy Boyz (Matt and Jeff). The Serial Thrillaz won the OMEGA Tag Team Championship twice between 1997 and 1998, before they began competing for Southern Championship Wrestling (SCW). They won the SCW Tag Team Championship, and Helms also won the SCW Heavyweight Championship. SCW would mark the end of the Serial Thrillaz, as Helms vacated both titles before moving on to NWA Worldwide. Once there, Helms joined the Bad Street Boys with Shannon Moore, Christian York, and Joey Matthews.


title: Gregory Helms

text: Helms and his friend Shannon Moore signed with World Championship Wrestling (WCW) in May 1999. In WCW, Helms, along with Moore and Evan Karagias, formed the heel (villainous) stable (faction) 3 Count, and the trio debuted on the December 23 episode of "WCW Thunder". The trio was a parody of the boy bands 'N Sync and the Backstreet Boys, and their gimmick involved making music videos and performing songs before their matches.


title: Gregory Helms

text: 3 Count collectively won the WCW Hardcore Championship on "WCW Monday Nitro" in February 2000. This win made 3 Count the first trio to win the Hardcore Championship. At Uncensored, Brian Knobbs defeated all members of 3 Count to win the Hardcore Championship. During a match, Helms suffered a broken nose, and was sidelined while he recovered. Upon his return, Tank Abbott had been added to the group, as a fan, and was utilized in an enforcer role. 3 Count had a long-running feud (scripted rivalry) with The Jung Dragons, with the Dragons attempting to steal 3 Count's fictional recording contract. This led to a ladder match between the two teams at New Blood Rising, which 3 Count won due to Abbott's interference. As a result, Abbott claimed that he should be the lead singer of 3 Count, and was kicked out by the other three members, leading to a feud.


title: Gregory Helms

text: 3 Count later disbanded as Moore and Helms kicked Karagias out of the group for attempting to steal the spotlight. At the same time, the Jung Dragons turned on Jamie Noble, who formed a team with Karagias. The three teams met in a Triangle match at Mayhem, which 3 Count won. They also wrestled each other in a number one contendership ladder match at Starrcade, to earn a WCW Cruiserweight Championship match, in which both Moore and Helms grabbed the contract at the same time. As a result, they later wrestled for the opportunity to wrestle for the championship, which Helms won, although he lost the subsequent championship match to Chavo Guerrero Jr. at the Sin pay-per-view.


title: Gregory Helms

text: Moore and Helms would leave WCW briefly in 2001 to wrestle in NWA Wildside, where they held the Wildside Tag Team Championship for one day. Helms became the number one contender for the Cruiserweight Championship after winning a match at SuperBrawl Revenge, but was attacked by Karagias and Moore afterwards. Despite the attack, Helms would go on to defeat Guerrero for the WCW Cruiserweight Championship at Greed and was the reigning Cruiserweight Champion immediately before WCW was bought out by the World Wrestling Federation (WWF). Helms' contract with WCW was one of twenty-five that were included in WWF's purchase of WCW.


title: Gregory Helms

text: Helms made his WWF debut on the July 5, 2001 episode of "SmackDown!", using the name "Hollywood" Gregory Helms. He was part of the Invasion storyline as a member of The Alliance losing his Cruiserweight Championship in a one-on-one match to another Alliance member, Billy Kidman.


title: Gregory Helms

text: Helms began wrestling as "The Hurricane" on August 27, and also began wearing a superhero costume. That night, he won the WWF European Championship from Matt Hardy with help from Ivory, but lost it to Bradshaw on October 22, 2001. In September 2001, Hurricane formed a tag team with Lance Storm who was now managed by Ivory and Hurricane later picked up a sidekick, in Molly Holly who began to call herself "Mighty Molly", and the two came to the arena in a custom "Hurri-Cycle" (with Molly in the sidecar). The team of Hurricane and Storm began feuds with teams like The Hardy Boyz and Big Show and Spike Dudley. Hurricane and Storm got a shot at the WCW Tag Team Championship against The Hardy Boyz at No Mercy in a losing effort.


title: Gregory Helms

text: During 2002, The Hurricane won the WWF Hardcore Championship at WrestleMania X8, but Molly betrayed him, hitting him in the back of the head with a frying pan, and defeating him for the championship. Hurricane was later drafted to the SmackDown! brand following the brand extension, and he won the WWE Cruiserweight Championship from Tajiri and Billy Kidman in a triple threat match. He lost it to Jamie Noble at King of the Ring. Later in 2002, he was traded to the Raw brand, won the WWE Tag Team Championship with Kane, and held them for around a month in an alliance known as Hurri-Kane.


title: Gregory Helms

text: In 2003, Hurricane feuded with The Rock. In backstage segments, The Rock referred to The Hurricane as "The Hamburglar" (in part because his mask was similar to the Hamburglar's). The feud culminated in a match on the March 10 episode of "Raw", in which The Rock dominated. Hurricane, however, was able to roll up The Rock from behind after The Rock was distracted by Stone Cold Steve Austin's appearance on the ramp.


title: Gregory Helms

text: In late 2003, Hurricane "discovered" Rosey's potential as a superhero and christened him "Rosey, the Super Hero in Training" (the "S.H.I.T."). On May 1, at Backlash, The Hurricane and Rosey defeated La Résistance in the finals of a Tag Team Turmoil match to win the World Tag Team Championship. Not long after winning the championship, Stacy Keibler joined Rosey and The Hurricane as their sidekick, "Super Stacy". In August 2005, Rosey and The Hurricane lost Keibler as their sidekick when she and Christy Hemme were traded to the SmackDown! brand. On September 5, 2005 Hurricane and Rosey were defeated by Lance Cade and Trevor Murdoch during Cade and Murdoch's debut match on "Raw". As a result, Cade and Murdoch earned a title match at the Unforgiven pay-per-view. During the title match, Murdoch delivered an elevated DDT on The Hurricane to the outside. The DDT caused Hurricane to suffer a storyline "stinger" and allowed Cade and Murdoch to beat the injured Hurricane later in the match to win the World Tag Team Titles.


title: Gregory Helms

text: During the next few weeks, the pair began a losing streak, mainly caused by Hurricane's on-screen injuries. During the October 17 episode of "Raw", The Hurricane was assaulted by Kurt Angle at the request of Vince McMahon. After the beating, footage was shown of The Hurricane ripping off his mask and striking Rosey because he did not help him fend off Angle. The next week, The Hurricane no-showed a World Tag Team Title match, leaving Rosey to face the champions alone. During the match, The Hurricane (out of costume) appeared at the top of the entrance ramp, reverting to his real name, Gregory Helms, and watched as Rosey was double teamed and defeated. After the match, Helms announced that he was fed up with being funny for the crowd, and that he was sick of carrying Rosey as a tag team partner. This turned him into a heel in the process. On the November 7 episode of "Raw", Helms and Rosey faced off in a singles match, which Helms won. Subsequently, Helms wrestled mostly on "Raw"'s sister show, "Heat". On the January 2, 2006 episode of "Raw" Helms confronted Jerry Lawler over jokes that Lawler had been making at Helms' expense, and Lawler said that when Helms was The Hurricane, he was entertaining and called Helms a joke. Helms responded by slapping Lawler, who hit Helms back. This confrontation led to Lawler defeating Helms in a match at New Year's Revolution.


title: Gregory Helms

text: At the 2006 Royal Rumble, Helms participated in an Open Invitational match for the Cruiserweight Championship and won, even though he was a "Raw" superstar and the championship was defended solely on "SmackDown!". As a result, he returned to the SmackDown! brand in February 2006 to start a feud with Nunzio, Kid Kash and the other cruiserweights. During this time, Helms defeated Nunzio in a one-on-one match. The next week, he was supposed to defend against Kid Kash, but Kash was away on a family emergency, so Scotty 2 Hotty took his place. Helms defeated him and declared that he was better than all the other cruiserweights. As a result, all the cruiserweights at the show invaded the ring and attacked Helms. It was later announced by SmackDown! General Manager Theodore Long that at the No Way Out pay-per-view event, Helms would face all the cruiserweights in a match for the title. Helms was able to retain the championship. Later, Long mandated that Helms had to defend his title against a cruiserweight each week on "SmackDown!" to prove that he truly was better than all the cruiserweights. Helm's first defense under this new rule was against Psicosis of The Mexicools; Helms retained by cheating.


title: Gregory Helms

text: In early March 2006, Helms suffered a broken nose. After complaining to Long about having to wrestle on the March 10 episode of "SmackDown!", Long told Helms that he did not have to defend his title, but put Helms in a champion versus champion match against the United States Champion, Chris Benoit. During the match, Helms attempted to leave, but was blocked by other cruiserweights who threw Helms back into the ring, resulting in Helms losing the match. Helms underwent successful surgery on his nose and was expected to miss five to six weeks. During this time SmackDown! announcers stated that Helms had a no-compete clause in his contract allowing him to waive the thirty-day title defense rule due to any injury. Helms returned to the ring on the April 28 episode of "SmackDown!", teaming with MNM to face Super Crazy, London and Kendrick in a six-man tag team match. Helms continued to defend his belt during pay-per-views, but he made more regular appearances on "SmackDown!"'s sister show, "Velocity".


title: Gregory Helms

text: Helms continued defending his title against other cruiserweights, while on occasion facing off against SmackDown!'s other title holders in champion versus champion matches. Helms faced World Heavyweight Champion Rey Mysterio on June 16 and United States Champion Bobby Lashley on July 7 but lost both matches. Eventually, Helms became the longest cruiserweight champion in WWE history, as well as the longest reigning champion of any kind in SmackDown! history. For much of late 2006, he feuded with Matt Hardy, with whom Helms exchanged several victories in matches on "SmackDown!". In Helms' hometown of Raleigh, North Carolina, at No Mercy, Hardy beat Helms. The two rivals also joined opposing teams at Survivor Series, where Helms was in Team Rated-RKO, and Hardy was a member of Team D-X; Team Rated-RKO lost the match.


title: Gregory Helms

text: Helms went on to feud with Jimmy Wang Yang over the Cruiserweight Championship, after a tag team match in which Matt Hardy and Yang defeated Helms and Sylvan on the November 10 episode of "SmackDown!". The feud ended after Helms defeated him to retain the title at Armageddon in December 2006. In 2007, Helms once again feuded with the entire Cruiserweight division on "SmackDown!". During this feud, Helms' reign as Cruiserweight Champion came to an end at No Way Out, when he was unable to win a Cruiserweight open invitational, which saw Chavo Guerrero win the championship. Shortly after losing the championship, Helms formed a tag team with Guerrero, but they did not win any matches as a team.


title: Gregory Helms

text: On May 18, 2007, WWE reported that Helms had broken two vertebrae in his neck, one of which was pressing on his spinal cord. He underwent surgery with Dr. Lloyd Youngblood to repair them approximately a week later. Following the surgery, Helms was announced to be out for a year and a half due to the injury.


title: Gregory Helms

text: Helms returned on the September 19, 2008, episode of "SmackDown" in a non-wrestling role. Throughout the show, he appeared in short video promos, called "Hurrapops", referring to himself as "Hurricane Helms", a modified version of his old ring name "The Hurricane", and mocked heel superstars including Shelton Benjamin and Curt Hawkins and Zack Ryder. In the following weeks, he mocked several other superstars in the "Hurrapops", ending each promo with the phrase, "I'm just sayin'!" On the November 28 episode of "SmackDown", a "Hurrapop" appeared in which Helms announced that he would make his return to the ring on the next episode of "SmackDown". On the December 5 episode of "SmackDown", Helms defeated Montel Vontavious Porter (MVP) in his ring return. Helms was quickly scripted into a feud with the United States Champion Shelton Benjamin, defeating him in two non-title matches on "SmackDown", although he failed to win a championship match on December 26.


title: Gregory Helms

text: On April 15, 2009, Helms was drafted to the ECW brand as part of the 2009 Supplemental Draft. Helms made his ECW debut as a backstage interviewer on April 28, 2009, reverting to his Gregory Helms ring name, interviewing Evan Bourne. He started a storyline where, while he was interviewing someone, a scripted accident would occur, leading to Helms leaving the interview seconds before the person in distress was saved by The Hurricane. On the August 11, 2009 episode of "ECW", Helms was attacked by Paul Burchill after Helms denied being The Hurricane. The Hurricane later attacked Burchill in the ring dressed in his Hurricane attire, to save Yoshi Tatsu. The next week on ECW, he made his in-ring debut for the brand as The Hurricane, and defeated Burchill. He continued to feud with Burchill, who attempted to expose The Hurricane's true identity, until the November 17 episode of "ECW" when The Hurricane defeated Burchill in a mask versus career match.


title: Gregory Helms

text: Following his WWE release, Helms began wrestling on the independent circuit, including for the Canadian Wrestling's Elite as Hurricane Helms. On October 23, 2010, Helms made his debut for Jersey All Pro Wrestling, where he, under his Hurricane gimmick, defeated Azrieal. On January 10, 2011, Helms signed a contract with Lucha Libre USA. In the promotion, Helms allied himself with Marco Corleone, and in his debut for the promotion at the January 22 tapings, he defeated Corleone's rival and Lucha Libre USA Champion Lizmark Jr. via disqualification.


title: Gregory Helms

text: On January 29, 2011 Helms made his debut for Pro Wrestling Guerrilla (PWG), during the WrestleReunion 5 weekend, in a match, where he was defeated by Joey Ryan. He also took part in 20-Man Legends Battle Royale, making his second appearance of the night. He eliminated Cruel Connection, but later was thrown out by Shane Douglas and Terry Funk.


title: Gregory Helms

text: In April 2011, Helms wrestled at Carolina Wrestling Federation (Mid-Atlantic) where he defeated Ric Converse and won the vacant PWI International Heavyweight Championship. In 2013, Helms returned to the revived OMEGA, now called OMEGA Championship Wrestling, and on October 12, he defeated Shane Williams to advance in a tournament for the OMEGA Championship. On November 16, 2013, Helms was defeated by Chris Hero at a Pro Wrestling Syndicate event.


title: Gregory Helms

text: In March 2015, Helms received a tryout for Total Nonstop Action Wrestling (TNA, now Impact Wrestling) as an agent and began working for the company within that capacity that same month. At Bound for Glory, Helms made his on-screen debut under his full birth name to congratulate the TNA X Division Champion Tigre Uno.


title: Gregory Helms

text: On the February 2, 2016 episode of "Impact Wrestling", Helms assisted Trevor Lee in defeating Tigre Uno for the X Division Championship, turning villainous in the process. Helms would then soon bring in Andrew Everett to officially form The Helms Dynasty. On the December 15 episode of "Impact Wrestling" dubbed "Total Nonstop Deletion," Helms was thrown into the "Lake of Reincarnation," and emerged as his 3 Count alter ego "Sugar" Shane Helms, and after insulting Lee and Everett's dance moves, was once again knocked into the lake by his teammates, Helms would later emerge from the lake as the Hurricane, where he would go on to assist Matt Hardy in defeating Lee and Everett.


title: Gregory Helms

text: In June 2018, it was announced that Helms signed with Ring of Honor. He worked as wrestler and producer, including a feud against Marty Scurll.