title: Angels (Robbie Williams song)

text: The Scottish newspaper "Aberdeen Press and Journal" wrote that "Angels" is "perhaps the strongest cut" from the "Life thru a Lens" album. John Bush from AllMusic noted Williams' "crooning". Larry Flick from "Billboard" described it as a "sweet ballad that never gets sappy". He noted that the production is "first-rate, the lyric is thoughtful and ear-grabbing, and his smoky, crisp vocal is a sheer delight. All that and a chorus to kill for." "Daily Record" wrote, "The ex-Take That star shows he has come of age with this melodic pop ballad." They also added, "Surprisingly grown-up sounding Robbie on what is his best tune to date." "Irish Independent" called it an "epic ballad". Pan-European magazine "Music & Media" commented that "with songs of the quality of Angels, Robbie Williams is on his way towards extending his audience by drawing in older listeners." They also added that it "distinguishes itself from its indie rock inspired predecessors 'Old Before I Die' and 'Lazy Days' by exchanging their guitars for a more mellow, piano-based arrangement." A reviewer from "Music Week" gave it four out of five, calling it "[a] brave ballad for Christmas which further suggests it will be Williams and not Barlow who will really come through." The magazine's Martin Aston added, "Class power ballad in Elton John vein that builds to stirring string-driven climax." Dave Fawbert from "ShortList" declared it a "genuinely brilliant song", noting that it has "a pretty understated vocal from Robbie. Nothing too over the top, just sincere." In 2003, "Q" ranked "Angels" number 237 in their list of the "1001 Best Songs Ever".


title: Angels (Robbie Williams song)

text: The "Guardian" wrote in 2022 that "Angels was so ubiquitous for so long that it is almost impossible for anyone of a certain age to listen to it objectively: throughout the late 90s and 00s, it wasn’t so much a song as an unavoidable fact of daily life. Most pop songwriters would kill to come up with something with such impact and longevity."


title: Angels (Robbie Williams song)

text: At the 2005 Brit Awards, "Angels" was voted by the British public the best song in the past 25 years of British music, though it had only reached number four on the singles chart. Williams performed the song live with Joss Stone then. In a 2005 survey by UK digital TV station Music Choice, Britons chose it as the song they would most like played at their funeral.


title: Angels (Robbie Williams song)

text: The accompanying music video for "Angels" was directed by Vaughan Arnell, and filmed at Saunton Sands. Filmed largely from the air, Williams walks around a beach, stares at the sky, kicks a football and rides a motorbike with a woman while a helicopter flies around them.


title: Angels (Robbie Williams song)

text: In 2009, Williams performed "Angels" at the final of the sixth series of "The X Factor" with Olly Murs. On 14 June 2018, Williams performed "Angels" with Russian soprano Aida Garifullina at the 2018 FIFA World Cup opening ceremony held at the Luzhniki Stadium in Moscow, Russia. On 23 June 2018, Williams performed the song as a special guest at American singer-songwriter Taylor Swift's Reputation Stadium Tour concert at Wembley Stadium in London.


title: Angels (Robbie Williams song)

text: Jessica Simpson's cover of "Angels" was the fourth and final single released from her album "In This Skin" in 2004. It was produced by Billy Mann.


title: Angels (Robbie Williams song)

text: The video for "Angels" opens a visibly anxious Simpson on an empty stage rehearsing for a performance. She can be seen in intercut scenes staring into space, as if she has lost her self-confidence and ability to perform. As the song progresses, however, white roses can be seen scattered around her as a sign of hope, and soon Simpson begins to regain her confidence. The song then shifts into its instrumental bridge to correlate with the emotions of the characters, as Simpson proceeds to climb to the top of the building for her final performance. There she is greeted by a youth orchestra, and finishes the song.


title: Angels (Robbie Williams song)

text: Simpson's version of "Angels" failed to break into the "Billboard" Hot 100 (though it did reach number six on the Bubbling Under Hot 100 Singles). However, the song did become a moderate success on the Top 40 Mainstream and Hot Digital Tracks charts. Both Simpson, and her father and manager Joe Simpson, had hoped this song would lead to her first Grammy nomination, as Britney Spears and Christina Aguilera, her 1990s rivals, had each already been nominated as well as winning. The song's downloads were not allowed to help it.


title: Angels (Robbie Williams song)

text: In 2005, Yuridia, former contestant of the popular Mexican show "La Academia", released "Ángel", a Spanish version of the song which she had interpreted during her stay in the reality show, as her debut and lead single. In Mexico, as well as in other parts of Latin America, "Ángel", became an instant hit, leading her debut album of almost the same name to achieve Diamond status in Mexico and becoming one of the most recent best selling Mexican singers and the best female Mexican seller of the past decade. The singer received two gold certifications for 20,000 copies sold in Mexico.


title: Angels (Robbie Williams song)

text: "Ángel" reached 32 on the "Billboard" Hot Latin Songs chart and "La Voz de un Angel" managed to climb into the top 20 on the "Billboard" Hot Latin Albums chart, peaking at 16. In Mexico the song became the most successful song of 2005, leading the charts during 13 week.


title: Angels (Robbie Williams song)

text: David Archuleta initially covered this song during the 7th season of "American Idol", in 2008. A studio version of this cover was produced and made available for purchase as a digital download exclusively via iTunes Store for a limited period.


title: Angels (Robbie Williams song)

text: Later in that year, he decided to re-record the song, with a different arrangement and production, for his debut album. The version is also available for digital purchase since 27 October 2008, when it was released to help promote the pre-order of Archuleta's album.


title: Angels (Robbie Williams song)

text: Archuleta's version of the song has become the second highest charting version in the United States after the original performed by Robbie Williams. It managed to enter the "Billboard" Hot 100 at #89 due to digital downloads. On the Canadian Hot 100 the song peaked at #64.


title: Angels (Robbie Williams song)

text: In November 2020, Blessing Chitapa, winner of the ninth series of "The Voice UK", released a cover version of "Angels" as her winner's single. The song is included on Chitapa’s debut album, "Count My Blessings".


title: Angels (Robbie Williams song)

text: On 14 November 2020, Chitapa performed the song "Angels" live on "The Voice UK" grand final, with the single being released after the show was finished as a digital download.


title: Voice acting

text: Voice acting is the art of performing voice-overs to present a character or provide information to an audience. Performers are called voice actors/actresses, voice artists, dubbing artists, voice talent, voice-over artists, or voice-over talent. Voice acting is recognised as a specialized dramatic profession in the United Kingdom, primarily due to BBC broadcasts of radio drama production.


title: Voice acting

text: Examples of voice work include animated, off-stage, off-screen or non-visible characters in various works such as feature films, dubbed foreign-language films, animated films, anime, television shows, video games, cartoons, documentaries, commercials, audiobooks, radio dramas and comedies, amusement rides, theater productions, puppet shows and audio games. Voice actors are also heard through pre-recorded and automated announcements that are a part of everyday modern life in areas such as shops, elevators, waiting rooms and public transport. The role of a voice actor may involve singing, most often when playing a fictional character, although a separate performer is sometimes enlisted as the character's singing voice.


title: Voice acting

text: The voices for animated characters are provided by voice actors. For live-action productions, voice acting often involves reading the parts of computer programs, radio dispatchers or other characters who never actually appear on screen. With an audio drama, there is more freedom because there is no need to match a dub to the original actor or animated character. Producers and agencies are often on the lookout for many styles of voices, such as booming voices for more dramatic productions or cute, young-sounding voices for trendier markets. Some voices sound like regular, natural, everyday people; all of these voices have their place in the voiceover world, provided they are used correctly and in the right context.


title: Voice acting

text: In the context of voice acting, narration is the use of spoken commentary to convey a story to an audience. A narrator is a personal character or a non-personal voice that the creator of the story develops to deliver information about the plot to the audience. The voice actor who plays the narrator is responsible for performing the scripted lines assigned to them. In traditional literary narratives (such as novels, short stories, and memoirs) narration is a required story element; in other types of (chiefly non-literary) narratives (such as plays, television shows, video games, and films) narration is optional.


title: Voice acting

text: One of the most common uses for voice acting is within commercial advertising. The voice actor is hired to voice a message associated with the advertisement. This has different sub-genres such as television, radio, film, and online advertising. The sub-genres are all different styles in their own right. For example, television commercials tend to be voiced with a narrow, flat inflection pattern (or prosody pattern) whereas radio commercials, especially local ones, tend to be voiced with a very wide inflection pattern in an almost over-the-top style. Marketers and advertisers use voice-overs in radio, TV, online adverts, and more; total advertising spend in the UK was forecast to be £21.8 billion in 2017. Voice-over used in commercial adverts is also the only area of voice acting where "de-breathing" is used. This means artificially removing breaths from the recorded voice, and is done to stop the audience being distracted in any way from the commercial message that is being put across.


title: Voice acting

text: Dub localization is the practice of voice-over translation, in which voice actors alter a foreign-language film or television series. Voice-over translation is an audiovisual translation technique, in which, unlike in Dub localization, actor voices are recorded over the original audio track, which can be heard in the background. This method of translation is most often used in documentaries and news reports to translate words of foreign-language interviewees.


title: Voice acting

text: Automated dialogue replacement (ADR) is the process of re-recording dialogue by the original actor after the filming process to improve audio quality or reflect dialogue changes, also known as "looping" or a "looping session". ADR is also used to change original lines recorded on set to clarify context, improve diction or timing, or to replace an accented vocal performance. In the UK, it is also called "post-synchronization" or "post-sync".


title: Voice acting

text: Voice artists are also used to record the individual sample fragments played back by a computer in an automated announcement. At its simplest, each recording consists of a short phrase which is played back when necessary, such as the "mind the gap" announcement introduced on the London Underground in 1969, which is currently voiced by Emma Clarke. In a more complicated system, such as a speaking clock, the announcement is re-assembled from fragments such as "minutes past", "eighteen", and "p.m." For example, the word "twelve" can be used for both "Twelve O'Clock" and "Six Twelve". Automated announcements can also include on-hold messages on phone systems and location-specific announcements in tourist attractions.


title: Voice acting

text: Software to modify and generate human voices has become popular in the 21st century. AI startup Dessa created a computer-generated Joe Rogan's voice using thousands of hours of his podcast audio, while Ubisoft used speech synthesis to give thousands of characters distinguished voices in the video game "", and Google announced in 2020 their solution to generate human-like speech from text.


title: Voice acting

text: In movie trailers and television and radio commercials, voice actors are often recruited through voice acting agencies. Mel Blanc, June Foray, Daws Butler, Don Messick, Phil Harris, Paul Winchell, Dan Castellaneta, Bill Farmer, Jim Cummings, Frank Welker, Mary Kay Bergman, Billy West, Jeff Bennett, Dee Bradley Baker, Grey DeLisle, Rob Paulsen, Tress MacNeille, Jason Marsden, Jessica DiCicco, Pamela Adlon, Kath Soucie, Kate Micucci, Debi Derryberry, Alan Tudyk, Tara Strong, Phil Lamarr, Tom Kenny, Nancy Cartwright, Jeff Bergman, Fred Tatasciore, Kate Higgins, Jennifer Hale, John DiMaggio, Steve Blum, Troy Baker, Mark Hamill, Kevin Conroy, Charles Martinet, Eric Bauza, Lauren Tom, and others have made careers in this field.


title: Voice acting

text: The UK banned broadcasting of the voices of people linked to violence in Northern Ireland from 1988 to 1994, but television producers circumvented this by simply having voice actors dub over synchronized footage of the people who had been banned.


title: Voice acting

text: occupations include performing roles in anime, audio dramas, and video games; performing voice-overs for dubs of non-Japanese movies; and providing narration to documentaries and similar programs. Japan has approximately 130 voice acting schools and troupes of voice actors who usually work for a specific broadcast company or talent agency. They often attract their own appreciators and fans, who watch shows specifically to hear their favorite performer. Many Japanese voice actors frequently branch into music, often singing the opening or closing themes of shows in which they star, or become involved in non-animated side projects such as audio dramas (involving the same characters in new storylines) or image songs (songs sung in character that are not included in the anime but which further develop the character).


title: Voice acting

text: Most of the films in the theaters are dubbed in Portuguese, and most Brazilians tend to prefer watching movies in their native language. Many voice actors are also dubbing directors and translators. To become a voice actor in Brazil, one needs to be a professional actor and attend dubbing courses. Some celebrities in Brazil have also done voice acting.


title: Voice acting

text: Voice acting in Iran is divided into three categories. Voice over Persian films, voice over Iranian animations, and dubbing of films and animations related to other countries (in non-Persian language)


title: Voice acting

text: In the first category, due to the lack of facilities for simultaneous recording of sound while filming a film, the voice actors spoke instead of the film actors. Although this type of voice is related to years ago and now with the increase of facilities, it is possible to record the voice of the actors at the same time, but even today, sometimes the voice of the voice actors is used instead of the main actor.


title: Voice acting

text: The tail of the voice is on Iranian animations, and like in other parts of the world, voice actors speak instead of animated characters.


title: Voice acting

text: But most of the activities of Iranian voice actors are in the field of dubbing foreign films. In this case, the main language of the film is translated into Persian, and the dubbing director compiles the sentences according to the atmosphere of the film and the movement of the actors 'mouths and other such cases, and finally the voice actors play roles instead of the actors' voices.


title: Voice acting

text: Actors often lend their voices to characters in games and some have made a career of it across many of the main game-manufacturing countries, mostly the United States, Canada, the United Kingdom, and Japan. Their names have sometimes been linked to a particular character they have voiced.


title: Voice acting

text: Notable video game voice actors include Maaya Sakamoto (the Japanese version of Lightning in "Final Fantasy XIII"), Tatsuhisa Suzuki (Noctis Lucis Caelum in "Final Fantasy XV"), Miyu Irino (the Japanese version of Sora in the "Kingdom Hearts" series), David Hayter (Solid Snake and Big Boss in the "Metal Gear" series), Steve Downes and Jen Taylor (Master Chief and Cortana in the "Halo" series), Nolan North (Nathan Drake in the "Uncharted" series and Desmond Miles in the "Assassin's Creed" series), Troy Baker (Joel in "The Last of Us" series) and Charles Martinet (Mario, Luigi, Wario, and Waluigi in Nintendo's "Mario" franchise).


title: Voice acting

text: Other actors more linked with film or television acting have also voiced video game characters, such as Ray Liotta (Tommy Vercetti in "" and Billy Handsome in ""), Michael Dorn (various characters in "World of Warcraft" and Gatatog Uvenk in "Mass Effect 2"), Kaili Vernoff (Miranda Cowan in "Grand Theft Auto V" and Susan Grimshaw in "Red Dead Redemption 2"), Ashley Johnson (Ellie in "The Last of Us" series), Kristen Bell (Lucy Stillman in the first three mainline entries in the "Assassin's Creed" franchise) and Kevin Spacey (Jonathan Irons in "").


title: Stanislav Ianevski

text: Stanislav Ianevski (; born Stanislav Rumenov Yanevski, ; on 16 May 1985), is a Bulgarian actor best known for playing Viktor Krum in the 2005 fantasy film "Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire".


title: Stanislav Ianevski

text: Ianevski was born in Sofia. He lived in England for five years, as well as in Israel. While attending Mill Hill School in the United Kingdom with fellow Harry Potter actor Harry Melling, Ianevski had no particular acting aspirations and was not a drama student. He had only auditioned for "Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire" after being spotted by Fiona Weir, a casting director who prompted him to attend an acting workshop, which resulted in his casting as Viktor Krum, a Bulgarian character in the Harry Potter series. He was selected from 650 others, most of whom had auditioned in Sofia. He also starred in "", the sequel to Eli Roth's film "Hostel".


United States v. Elizabeth A. Holmes, et al., (No. 18-CR-00258-EJD) was an United States federal criminal fraud case against the founder of now-defunct corporation Theranos, Elizabeth Holmes, and its former president and COO, Ramesh Balwani. The case alleged that Holmes and Balwani perpetrated multi-million dollar wire-fraud schemes against investors and patients. Holmes and Balwani each had their own jury trial.


title: United States v. Elizabeth A. Holmes, et al.

text: A five-person team from premier white-collar crime litigation firm Williams & Connolly defended Holmes. The case began on August 31, 2021, when a jury of Santa Clara County residents was selected. The jury reached a split verdict on January 3, 2022, with Holmes found guilty of criminal fraud on four counts. On November 18, 2022, she was sentenced to 11.25 years in prison (135 months).


text: Balwani had the same charges as Holmes. On July 7, 2022, Balwani was found guilty on all counts and also faced up to 20 years in prison and millions of dollars in restitution. On December 7, 2022 he was sentenced to 12 years and 11 months, plus three years of probation, with a surrender date by March 15, 2023.


text: Founded by Holmes in 2003, Theranos was a blood-testing company that claimed to revolutionize blood testing by developing testing methods that could use surprisingly small volumes of blood, such as from a fingerprick. The decline of Theranos began in 2015, when a series of journalistic and regulatory investigations revealed doubts about the company's technology claims and whether Holmes had misled investors and the government. In 2018, the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission charged Theranos and Holmes with deceiving investors by "massive fraud" through false or exaggerated claims about the accuracy of the company's blood-testing technology. Holmes settled the charges by paying a $500,000 fine, returning 18.9 million shares to the company, relinquishing her voting control of Theranos, and being barred from serving as an officer or director of a public company for ten years.


text: On June 15, 2018, following an investigation by the U.S. Attorney's Office for the Northern District of California in San Francisco that lasted more than two years, a federal grand jury indicted Holmes and former Theranos chief operating officer and president, Ramesh "Sunny" Balwani, on nine counts of wire fraud and two counts of conspiracy to commit wire fraud. Both pleaded not guilty. Prosecutors allege that Holmes and Balwani engaged in two criminal schemes, one to defraud investors, the other to defraud doctors and patients. After the indictment was issued, Holmes stepped down as CEO of Theranos but remained chair of the board.


text: In June 2019, Bloomberg News reported Holmes and Balwani were looking into a possible defense strategy of blaming the media for the downfall of Theranos and whether journalist John Carreyrou's reporting caused undue influence upon government regulatory agencies in order to write a sensational story for "The Wall Street Journal". Later unsealed documents indicated Holmes's plans to blame Balwani, who "dominated" her to such an extent she was unable to make her own decisions. "Ms. Holmes plans to introduce evidence that Mr. Balwani verbally disparaged her and withdrew ‘affection if she displeased him’; controlled what she ate, how she dressed, how much money she could spend, who she could interact with essentially dominating her and erasing her capacity to make decisions." Holmes may also be preparing a "mental defect" defense, to explain why she was dominated by Balwani.


text: In October 2019, "The Mercury News" reported that Cooley LLP, Holmes's legal team in a class-action civil case, requested that the court allow them to stop representing her, stating that she had not paid them in a year for services, and that "given Ms. Holmes's current financial situation, Cooley has no expectation that Ms. Holmes will ever pay it for its services as her counsel." In November 2019, "Law.com" reported that Senior District Judge H. Russel Holland, who was overseeing the civil case, indicated that he would allow Cooley to withdraw.


text: In February 2020, Holmes's defense requested a federal court to drop all charges against her and her co-defendant Balwani. This was not done, however a federal judge ruled in favor of the defense that four charges would be dropped: one count of conspiracy to commit wire fraud and three counts of wire fraud. These were in relation to doctors and "non-paying customers"; since some Theranos blood tests were paid for by medical insurance companies, these patients were not deprived of any money or property; nor were the doctors deprived of money. Still, patients who either paid in full or paid a co-payment for a blood test would be considered as possible fraud victims. As such, the judge kept the 11 charges of wire fraud for investors and paying patients.


text: In May 2020, prosecutors added a twelfth fraud charge concerning test results from a patient in Arizona. In July 2020, prosecutors filed a third superseding indictment that removed the twelfth charge, settling on a final 11 indictments comprising 7 for investors and 4 for patients.


text: In late August 2020, Holmes's legal team filed new motions seeking the dismissal of seven of the felony fraud charges, claiming that Judge Edward Davila had made a mistake about her obligations to the Theranos investors. The charges were not dismissed.


text: In September 2020, "Bloomberg News" reported that Holmes was exploring a "mental disease" defense for her criminal fraud trial when the judge overseeing the case ruled that government prosecutors would be allowed to examine Holmes.


text: In February 2021, federal government prosecutors accused Holmes and other executives of destroying evidence in Theranos's final days in business. The attorney for Holmes argued the government was to blame for their failure to preserve critical evidence. The specific evidence in question concerned the company's history of internal testing, including the accuracy and failure rates of Theranos's blood-testing systems.


text: Holmes was charged with two counts of conspiracy to commit wire fraud in violation of 18 U.S.C § 1349 and nine charges of wire fraud in violation of 18 U.S.C §1343. The case was prosecuted by the United States Attorney for the Northern District of California, with Holmes being defended by white-collar crime litigation firm Williams & Connolly. The case began on August 31, 2021, after being delayed for over a year due to the COVID-19 pandemic and Holmes's pregnancy. A jury of residents from Northern California was selected, eventually consisting of 8 men and 4 women. Two of the jurors were replaced during the trial, one for playing Sudoku and another for her Buddhist faith.


text: There were dozens of witnesses, including James Mattis. Other prominent investors and/or board members were discussed but not called into court, including Betsy DeVos, Rupert Murdoch, Larry Ellison, George Shultz, and Henry Kissinger. Other witnesses include former employees, including a lab director, who said "I found these instruments to be unsuitable for clinical use". Erika Cheung, a former Theranos employee, said she was very concerned about the accuracy of the technology.


text: Evidence was provided of Holmes's role in faked product demonstrations, falsified validation reports, misleading claims about contracts, and overstated financials. There was audio and video evidence of Holmes making inflated or misleading claims about Theranos. There were forged documents saying Pfizer and Schering-Plough had validated the company's blood-testing technology. Holmes admitted to personally manipulating those documents.


text: Holmes took the stand in her defense for seven days. She both deflected blame on others, or accepted it some cases. She sold the jury on a vision of a future at Theranos, saying it was not a crime to be optimistic about the possibilities of the technology that she herself was misled about by her own expert staff. Holmes testified that she had been raped while she was a student at Stanford and that she had sought solace from Balwani in the aftermath of the incident. She also said that Balwani sought control over her during their romantic relationship, which was still ongoing when the alleged criminal acts took place, and at times berated and sexually abused her. However, she also testified that Balwani had not forced her to make the false statements to investors, business partners, journalists and company directors that had been described in the case.


text: Prosecutors argued her culpability crossed into fraud when she lied about the accuracy, types and number of tests Theranos's machines could do, "At so many of the forks in the road, she chose the dishonest path," said an attorney during closing arguments.


text: On January 3, 2022, Holmes was found guilty on four counts of defrauding investors three counts of wire fraud, and one of conspiracy to commit wire fraud. She was found not guilty on four counts of defrauding patients three counts of wire fraud and one of conspiracy to commit wire fraud. The jury returned a "no verdict" on three counts of wire fraud against investors the judge declared a mistrial on those counts because the jury failed to agree unanimously on a verdict and the government at its discretion declined to have a retrial. It contrasted with the verdict against Balwani who was found guilty on all counts.


text: Holmes waited for sentencing while remaining 'at liberty' on $500,000 bail, secured on property. She faced a maximum sentence of twenty years in prison, and a fine of $250,000, plus restitution, for each count of wire fraud and for each conspiracy count. Prosecutors sought 15 years in prison, a three-year supervised release and restitution of $800 million.


text: On January 12, the judge scheduled sentencing for September 26, 2022, which is after the conclusion of the Balwani trial; the results of that trial might influence the sentencing decision. In July, the sentencing was re-scheduled to October 17 with no reason given for the delay. A few days prior to the rescheduling, Holmes had asked the judge to acquit because "no rational juror could have found" her guilty beyond a reasonable doubt, she maintained. On September 6, 2022, Holmes requested a new trial because of new evidence. A judge denied the new trial saying the new evidence was not material enough to change the outcome.


text: On November 18, 2022, Holmes was sentenced to 11.25 years (135 months) in prison and ordered to surrender to authorities no later than April 27, 2023. The sentence included a fine of $400, or $100 for each count of fraud, and a three-year supervised release after the prison term is served. She could get about a 15% reduction on prison time with good behavior, which would put her sentence at years with no possibility for parole.


text: Judge Edward Davila recommended she be incarcerated at Federal Prison Camp, Bryan, in Texas, a minimum security facility with limited or no perimeter fencing. "No one wants to get kicked out because compared to other places in the prison system, this place is heaven. If you have to go it's a good place to go," said a criminal defense lawyer.


text: After the verdict, some members of the jury spoke publicly about the case. Juror Wayne Kaatz said, "It's tough to convict somebody, especially somebody so likable, with such a positive dream. [We] respected Elizabeth's belief in her technology, in her dream. [We thought], 'She still believes in it, and we still believe she believes in it." Kaatz said the jury found Holmes's seven-day testimony to be "non credible". He said the jury ranked each witness's testimony on a scale of one to four, with one being the least credible. Holmes scored a two. Kaatz said while the jury quickly concluded she was guilty of fraud against investors, they were not convinced she was fraudulent of patients, as they were "one-step removed" from the CEO.


text: According to "The New York Times", the case "came to symbolize the pitfalls of Silicon Valley's culture of hustle, hype and greed." It would serve as a warning to other Silicon Valley start-ups that stretch the truth to secure funding. Holmes "would be the most notable female executive to serve time since Martha Stewart did in 2004 after lying to investigators about a stock sale".


text: Jury selection began on March 9. Opening arguments were expected to start on March 15, but were delayed when the judge adjourned proceedings due to COVID-19 exposure by someone in attendance in the courtroom. Balwani was charged with two counts of conspiracy to commit wire fraud in violation of 18 U.S.C § 1349 and ten charges of wire fraud in violation of 18 U.S.C §1343. The case is being prosecuted by the United States Attorney for the Northern District of California.


text: During opening arguments, Balwani's legal team argued he was only an investor, however the prosecution presented a text from Balwani to Elizabeth Holmes in which he said, "I am responsible for everything at Theranos", contradicting his earlier claim. The government called 24 witnesses, and Balwani's defense called 2; Balwani himself did not testify. Prosecutors maintained Balwani was responsible for the lofty financial projections that investors relied on. For example, Balwani told investors Theranos would generate $1 billion in revenue by 2015 as a result of a deal with Walgreens. Prosecutors said Balwani had in fact "duped" Walgreens into the business relationship, because it was useful for recruiting other investors, a "house of cards"; Walgreens terminated its relationship with Theranos in 2016. Prosecutors attempted to show that Balwani knew about the problems in Theranos's technology and business while deceiving investors and patients. Balwani's defense maintained he "acted in good faith to make blood testing more accessible, more convenient and more affordable to everyone" and had not engaged in fraud.


text: On July 7, 2022, the jury returned a verdict of guilty on all 12 counts. It including two counts of conspiring with Holmes, six counts of defrauding investors and four counts of patient fraud. This contrasted with the verdict against Holmes which was mixed.


text: Balwani faced up to 20 years in prison and millions of dollars in restitution. On December 7, 2022 he was sentenced to 12 years and 11 months, plus three years of probation, with a surrender date by March 15, 2023.


title: Dominion Voting Systems

text: Dominion Voting Systems Corporation is a company that sells electronic voting hardware and software, including voting machines and tabulators, in the United States and Canada. The company's headquarters are in Toronto, Ontario, and Denver, Colorado. It develops software in offices in the United States, Canada, and Serbia.


title: Dominion Voting Systems

text: Dominion produces electronic voting machines, which allow voters to cast their vote electronically as well as optical scanning devices to tabulate paper ballots. Dominion voting machines have been used in countries around the world, primarily in Canada and the United States. Dominion systems are employed in Canada's major party leadership elections, and they are also employed across the nation in local and municipal elections. Dominion products have been increasingly used in the United States in recent years. In the 2020 United States presidential election, equipment manufactured by Dominion was used to process votes in twenty-eight states, including the swing states of Wisconsin and Georgia.


title: Dominion Voting Systems

text: The company was subjected to extensive attention following the election, at which then-president Donald Trump was defeated by Joe Biden, with Trump and various surrogates promoting conspiracy theories, falsely alleging that Dominion was part of an international cabal to steal the election from Trump, and that it used its voting machines to transfer millions of votes from Trump to Biden. There is no evidence supporting these claims, which have been debunked by various groups including election technology experts, government and voting industry officials, and the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA). These conspiracy theories were further discredited by hand recounts of the ballots cast in the 2020 presidential elections in Georgia and Wisconsin; the hand recounts in these states found that Dominion voting machines had accurately tabulated votes, that any error in the initial tabulation was human error, and that Biden had defeated Trump in both battleground states.


title: Dominion Voting Systems

text: In December 2020 and January 2021, Fox News, Fox Business, Newsmax, and the "American Thinker" rescinded allegations they had reported about Dominion and Smartmatic after one or both companies threatened legal action for defamation. In January 2021, Dominion filed defamation lawsuits against former Trump campaign lawyers Sidney Powell and Rudy Giuliani, seeking $1.3 billion in damages from each. After Dominion filed the lawsuit against Powell, One America News Network (OANN) removed all references to Dominion and Smartmatic from its website without issuing public retractions. During ensuing months, Dominion filed suits seeking $1.6 billion from each of Fox News, Newsmax, OANN and former Overstock.com CEO Patrick Byrne, while also suing Mike Lindell and MyPillow. Despite motions by the defendants to dismiss the lawsuits, judges said the cases against Fox News, Lindell, and MyPillow could proceed.


title: Dominion Voting Systems

text: Dominion Voting Systems Corporation was founded in 2002 in Toronto, Ontario, Canada, by John Poulos and James Hoover. The company develops proprietary software in-house and sells electronic voting hardware and software, including voting machines and tabulators, in the U.S. and Canada and retains a development team in their Serbian office. The company maintains headquarters in Toronto and in Denver, Colorado. Its name comes from the "Dominion Elections Act".


title: Dominion Voting Systems

text: In May 2010, Dominion acquired Premier Election Solutions (formerly Diebold Election Systems, Inc.) from Election Systems & Software (ES&S). ES&S had just acquired Premier from Diebold and was required to sell off Premier by the United States Department of Justice for anti-trust concerns. In June 2010, Dominion acquired Sequoia Voting Systems.


title: Dominion Voting Systems

text: Poulos, President and CEO of Dominion, has a BS in electrical engineering from the University of Toronto and an MBA from INSEAD. Hoover, Vice President, has an MS in mechanical engineering from the University of Alberta.


title: Dominion Voting Systems

text: Dominion Voting Systems (DVS) sells electronic voting systems hardware and software, including voting machines and tabulators, in the United States and Canada. This equipment includes the DVS ImageCast Evolution (ICE), ImageCast X (ICX), and ImageCast Central (ICC).


title: Dominion Voting Systems

text: ImageCast Evolution is an optical scan tabulator designed for use in voting precincts that scans and tabulates marked paper ballots. The ICE will also mark ballots for voters with disabilities using an attached accessibility device that enables all voters to cast votes with paper ballots on the same machine. When a marked paper ballot is inserted, the tabulator screen display messages indicating whether the ballot has been successfully input. Causes of rejection include a blank ballot, an overvoted ballot, and unclear marks. After the polls close, results from the encrypted memory cards of each ICE tabulator can be transferred and uploaded to the central system to tally and report the results.


title: Dominion Voting Systems

text: ImageCast X is described as an accessible ballot-marking device that allows a voter to use various methods to input their choices. An activation card is required for use, which is provided by a poll worker. The machine has audio capability for up to ten languages, as required by the U.S. Department of Justice, and includes a 19" full-color screen for visual operation, audio and visual marking interfaces and Audio-Tactile Interface (ATI). ATI is a hand-held controller that coordinates with headphones and connects directly to the ICE. During the voting process, the machine generates a marked paper ballot that serves as the official ballot record. The display can be adjusted with contrast and zoom functions that automatically reset at the end of the session. The ATI device has raised keys with tactile function, includes the headphone jack and a T-coil coupling, and has a T4 rating for interference. It uses light pressure switches and may be equipped with a pneumatic switch, commonly known as "sip-n-puff", or a set of paddles.


title: Dominion Voting Systems

text: ImageCast Central uses commercial off-the-shelf Canon DR-X10C or Canon DR-G1130 scanners at a central tabulation location to scan vote-by-mail and post-voting ballots like provisional ballots, ballots requiring duplication and ballots scanned into multi-precinct ICE tabulators. The results are dropped into a folder located on the server where they can be accessed by the Adjudication Client software.


title: Dominion Voting Systems

text: DVS voting machines operate using a suite of proprietary software applications, including Election Management System, Adjudication Client, and Mobile Ballot Printing. The software allows for various settings, including cumulative voting, where voters can apply multiple votes on one or more candidates, and Ranked Order Voting, where voters rank candidates in order of choice and the system shifts votes as candidates are eliminated.


title: Dominion Voting Systems

text: The Election Management System (EMS) includes a set of applications that handle pre- and post-voting activities, including ballot layout, programming media for voting equipment, generation of audio files, importing results data, and accumulating and reporting results.


title: Dominion Voting Systems

text: Adjudication Client is a software application with administrative and ballot inspection roles. It allows a jurisdiction to resolve problems in a ballot on screen that would normally be rejected, to be remade or hand counted because of one or more exceptional conditions like a blank ballot, write-ins, over-votes, marginal marks and under-votes. The application configures user accounts, reasons for exception, batch management and report generation, which in some jurisdictions must be performed by an administrator directly on a server. Ballot inspection allows users to review ballots with exceptional conditions and either accept or resolve the ballot according to state laws. Each adjudicated ballot is marked with the username of the poll worker who made the change.


title: Dominion Voting Systems

text: Mobile Ballot Printing operates in conjunction with the EMS, which creates printable ballot images in .pdf format including tints and watermarks. The image is exported to a laptop and then printed on blank paper to provide a ballot record. After configuration and setup are complete, the laptop only contains geopolitical information and no voter data. The system will also generate reports in Excel, Word and .pdf format, including total number of ballots printed and ballot style.


title: Dominion Voting Systems

text: Dominion is the second-largest seller of voting machines in the United States. In 2016, its machines served 70 million voters in 1,600 jurisdictions. In 2019, the state of Georgia selected Dominion Voting Systems to provide its new statewide voting system beginning in 2020.


title: Dominion Voting Systems

text: In total, 28 states used Dominion voting machines to tabulate their votes during the 2020 United States presidential election, including most of the swing states. Dominion's role in this regard led supporters of then-President Donald Trump to promote conspiracy theories about the company's voting machines, following Trump's loss to Joe Biden in the election.


title: Dominion Voting Systems

text: In Canada, Dominion's systems are deployed nationwide. Currently, Dominion provides optical scan paper ballot tabulation systems for provincial elections, including Ontario and New Brunswick. Dominion also provides ballot tabulation and voting systems for Canada's major party leadership elections, including those of the Liberal Party of Canada, the Conservative Party of Canada, and the Progressive Conservative Party of Ontario.


title: Dominion Voting Systems

text: Ontario was the first Canadian province to use Dominion's tabulator machines in select municipalities in the 2006 municipal elections. New Brunswick used Dominion's 763 tabulator machines in the 2014 provincial elections. There were some problems with the reporting of tabulator counts after the election, and at 10:45 p.m. Elections New Brunswick officially suspended the results reporting count with 17 ridings still undeclared. The Progressive Conservatives and the People's Alliance of New Brunswick called for a hand count of all ballots. Recounts were held in 7 of 49 ridings and the results were upheld with variations of 1–3 votes per candidate per riding. This delay in results reporting was caused by an off-the-shelf software application unrelated to Dominion.


title: Dominion Voting Systems

text: In June 2018, Elections Ontario used Dominion's tabulator machines for the provincial election and deployed them at 50 percent of polling stations.


title: Dominion Voting Systems

text: Dominion's architecture was also widely used in the 2018 Ontario municipal elections on October 22, 2018, particularly for online voting. However, 51 of the province's municipalities had their elections impacted when the company's colocation centre provider imposed an unauthorized bandwidth cap due to the massive increase in voting traffic in the early evening, thus making it impossible for many voters to cast their vote at peak voting time. The affected municipalities extended voting times to compensate for the glitch; most prominently, the city of Greater Sudbury, the largest city impacted by the cap, extended voting for a full 24 hours and announced no election results until the evening of October 23.


title: Dominion Voting Systems

text: Following the 2020 United States presidential election, Donald Trump, his attorneys, and other right-wing personalities amplified the unfounded rumors originated by the proponents of the far-right QAnon conspiracy theory that Dominion Voting Systems had been compromised, supposedly resulting in millions of votes intended for Trump either being deleted or going to rival Joe Biden. Within days after the election, the Trump campaign had prepared an internal memo on several of the allegations against Dominion, and found them to be baseless. Trump persisted in the claims, citing the pro-Trump OANN media outlet, which itself claimed to cite a report from Edison Research, an election monitoring group. Edison Research said that they did not write such a report, and that they had "no evidence of any voter fraud".


title: Dominion Voting Systems

text: Trump and others also made unsubstantiated claims that Dominion had close ties to the Clinton family or other Democrats. There is no evidence for any of these claims, which have been debunked by various groups including election technology experts, government and voting industry officials, and the CISA. On November 12, 2020, CISA released a statement that confirmed "there is no evidence that any voting system deleted or lost votes, changed votes or was in any way compromised." The statement was signed by various government and voting industry officials including the presidents of the National Association of State Election Directors and the National Association of Secretaries of State.


title: Dominion Voting Systems

text: Trump's personal attorney Rudy Giuliani made several false assertions about Dominion, including that its voting machines used software developed by a competitor, Smartmatic, which he claimed actually owned Dominion, and which he said was founded by the former socialist Venezuelan leader Hugo Chávez. Giuliani also falsely asserted that Dominion voting machines sent their voting data to Smartmatic at foreign locations and that it is a "radical-left" company with connections to antifa. These accusations of a connection between Dominion and Smartmatic were made on conservative television outlets, and Smartmatic sent them a letter demanding a retraction and threatening legal action. Fox News host Lou Dobbs had been outspoken during his program about the accusations, and on December 18 his program aired a video segment refuting the accusations, though Dobbs himself did not comment. Fox News hosts Jeanine Pirro and Maria Bartiromo had also been outspoken about the allegations, and both their programs aired the same video segment over the following two days. Smartmatic also demanded a retraction from Newsmax, which had also promoted baseless conspiracy allegations about the company and Dominion, and on December 21 a Newsmax host acknowledged the network had no evidence the companies had a relationship, adding "No evidence has been offered that Dominion or Smartmatic used software or reprogrammed software that manipulated votes in the 2020 election." The host further acknowledged that Smartmatic is not owned by any foreign entity, nor is it connected to George Soros, as had been alleged. Dominion sent a similar letter to former Trump attorney Sidney Powell demanding she retract her allegations and retain all relevant records; the Trump legal team later instructed dozens of staffers to preserve all documents for any future litigation.


title: Dominion Voting Systems

text: In a related hoax, Dennis Montgomery, a software designer with a history of making dubious claims, asserted that a government supercomputer program was used to switch votes from Trump to Biden on voting machines. Trump attorney Sidney Powell promoted the allegations on Lou Dobbs's Fox Business program two days after the election, and again two days later on Maria Bartiromo's program, claiming to have "evidence that that is exactly what happened." Christopher Krebs, the director of the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency, characterized the claim as "nonsense" and a "hoax." Asserting that Krebs's analysis was "highly inaccurate, in that there were massive improprieties and fraud," Trump fired him by tweet days later.


title: Dominion Voting Systems

text: Powell also asserted she had an affidavit from a former Venezuelan military official, a portion of which she posted on Twitter without a name or signature, who asserted that Dominion voting machines would print a paper ballot showing who a voter had selected, but change the vote inside the machine. Apparently speaking about the ICE machine, one source responded that this was incorrect, and that Dominion voting machines are only a "ballot marking device" system in which the voter deposits their printed ballot into a box for counting.


title: Dominion Voting Systems

text: The disinformation campaign against Dominion led to their employees being stalked, harassed, and receiving death threats. Ron Watkins, a leading proponent of the QAnon conspiracy theory, posted videos on Twitter in early December of a Dominion employee using one of the machines, falsely stating that the employee was pictured tampering with election results. The employee received death threats as a result, and a noose was found hanging outside his home. Eric Coomer, Dominion's director of product strategy and security, went into hiding soon after the election due to fear for his and his family's safety. He said that his personal address had been posted online, as had those of everyone from his parents and siblings to ex-girlfriends. In one of their lawsuits, Dominion explained they had spent $565,000 on security as a result.


title: Dominion Voting Systems

text: After questions about the reliability of the company's systems surfaced during the election, Edward Perez, an election technology expert at the Open Source Election Technology Institute stated, "Many of the claims being asserted about Dominion and questionable voting technology is misinformation at best and, in many cases, they're outright disinformation."


title: Dominion Voting Systems

text: During the 2021 German federal election, the Center for Monitoring, Analysis and Strategy found that accusations of Dominion engaging in voter fraud were common among German far-right users of Telegram, despite the company's technology not being used in German elections.


title: Dominion Voting Systems

text: In September 2022, Fulton County PA officials filed a lawsuit against Dominion, alleging that a third party computer forensics expert had discovered a Python script infection on one of its voting machines, and that there was evidence that the machine had been connected to an external system located in Canada.


title: Dominion Voting Systems

text: On December 22, 2020, lawyers representing Eric Coomer, Dominion's director of product strategy and security (who had been forced to go into hiding due to death threats), filed a defamation lawsuit on his behalf in the state of Colorado. The filing stated that the "false and baseless" claims against him have caused "immense injury to Dr. Coomer's reputation, professional standing, safety, and privacy." Among those named in the lawsuit were the Trump campaign, Rudy Giuliani, Sidney Powell, conservative commentator Michelle Malkin, and Colorado businessman and activist Joseph Oltmann. Additionally, conservative media outlets OANN, Newsmax, and "The Gateway Pundit" were also named. Coomer asserted they had characterized him as a "traitor" and that as a result he was subjected to "multiple credible death threats". Coomer also said that Oltmann had falsely claimed in a podcast that Coomer had participated in a September 2020 conference call with members of antifa, and that during the call he had said, "Don't worry about the election, Trump is not gonna win. I made f-ing sure of that. Hahahaha." In April 2021, Newsmax published a retraction and apology on its website, saying it "found no evidence" to support the allegations against Coomer. Powell, who had asserted there was a recording of Coomer saying this, acknowledged in a July 2021 deposition that no such recording existed. Dominion itself was not party to the suit, but released a statement saying "Sidney Powell and many others—including some news organizations—have trampled on countless reputations as they pandered their ridiculous conspiracy theories."


title: Dominion Voting Systems

text: On October 7, 2021, CNN reported that after examining over 2,000 pages of documents provided to the court, that they had found that in sworn depositions to the court Giuliani stated that he had spent less than an hour reviewing allegations against Coomer and "didn't have the time" to fact check them before taking them public in a November 19, 2020 press conference where he called Coomer "a vicious, vicious man" who is "close to Antifa" and is "completely warped and he specifically says that they're going to fix this election." In a deposition Powell admitted to Coomer's lawyers that she didn't have "a lot of specific knowledge about what Mr. Coomer personally did" in the supposed election conspiracy. She also admitted to Coomer's lawyers that her claim that he had been "recorded in a conversation with antifa members, saying that he had the election rigged for Mr. Biden," was mistaken as there was no such recording.


title: Dominion Voting Systems

text: On April 5, 2022, Coomer filed a lawsuit in Denver District Court against MYPillow CEO Mike Lindell, along with his company, and his media platform Frankspeech for spreading the unsupported Oltmann claims and having "intentionally and persistently defamed Coomer as a 'traitor'".


title: Dominion Voting Systems

text: On May 13, 2022, Colorado State District Judge Marie Avery Moses rejected motions to dismiss the case made by the Trump campaign, Powell, Giuliani, and other defendants. She ruled that there was evidence of actual malice which Coomer would need to prove in trial.


title: Dominion Voting Systems

text: In December 2020, defamation attorneys representing Dominion sent letters to Trump personal attorney Rudy Giuliani, White House counsel Pat Cipollone, and former Dominion contractor and self-described whistleblower Mellissa Carone, advising them to preserve all records relating to the company and demanding Giuliani and Carone cease making defamatory claims about the company, warning that legal action was "imminent." Carone had alleged in testimony that "Everything that happened at that [Detroit ballot counting facility] was fraud. Every single thing." The letter to Carone asserted that, despite Carone presenting herself as a Dominion insider, she was "hired through a staffing agency for one day to clean glass on machines and complete other menial tasks." Michigan Circuit Court judge Timothy Kenny had previously ruled that an affidavit Carone had filed was "simply not credible."


title: Dominion Voting Systems

text: Dominion sent My Pillow CEO and Trump supporter Mike Lindell a letter in January 2021 stating, "you have positioned yourself as a prominent leader of the ongoing misinformation campaign" and that "litigation regarding these issues is imminent". Lindell told "The New York Times", "I would really welcome them to sue me because I have all the evidence against them".


title: Dominion Voting Systems

text: Under threat of litigation, on January 15, 2021, the conservative online magazine "American Thinker" published a retraction of stories it published asserting that Dominion engaged in a conspiracy to rig the election, acknowledging, "these statements are completely false and have no basis in fact". Fox News, Fox Business, and Newsmax all aired fact checks of their own previous coverage of Dominion and competitor Smartmatic after Smartmatic threatened lawsuits, and after they were listed as other groups spreading falsehoods about Dominion in the lawsuit by Dominion against Giuliani.


title: Dominion Voting Systems

text: Dominion filed defamation lawsuits against former Trump campaign lawyer Sidney Powell on January 8, 2021, and against Giuliani on January 25, 2021, asking for $1.3 billion in damages from each. Both lawsuits accused Powell and Giuliani of waging a "viral disinformation campaign" against the company involving "demonstrably false" claims. In the lawsuit against Powell, the company stated that Powell had "doubled down" after Dominion formally notified her that her claims were false, and had posted on Twitter to spread false claims to over one million followers. One of Dominion's attorneys explained they had filed the lawsuit against Powell first "because she's been the most prolific and in many ways has been the originator of these false statements". The suit against Giuliani is based on more than fifty statements by Giuliani made on his podcast, at legislative hearings, on Twitter, and in conservative media, and alleges that Giuliani made false statements about the company in an attempt to earn money from legal fees and through his podcast.


title: Dominion Voting Systems

text: After Dominion filed the lawsuit against Powell, OANN removed all references to Dominion and Smartmatic from its website without issuing public retractions.


title: Dominion Voting Systems

text: In court documents, Dominion's legal team, out of "professional courtesy", stated that they would not oppose the request of Powell's legal team for more time to prepare, but noted that she had "evaded service of process for weeks", forcing them to "incur unnecessary expenses" to serve her with the lawsuit. These included "hiring private investigators and pursuing Powell across state lines", and while evading being served, she "refused to respond to requests" offering waivers that could have given her more time to react to the complaint. The suit against Powell had been filed on January 8, 2021, but those employed by Dominion were only able to serve her the summons on January 28, 2021. Her attorney Howard Kleinhendler denied she had tried to evade service, noting that she travels a lot and "has had to take extra precautions concerning her security, which may have made serving her more difficult. Ms. Powell had no reason to evade service as she looks forward to defending herself in court."


title: Dominion Voting Systems

text: On February 16, 2021, Dominion announced that they would be filing a lawsuit against Lindell in response to OANN airing a program by Lindell titled "Absolute Proof" that repeated his false claims about the 2020 election. Six days later, Dominion filed defamation lawsuits against My Pillow and Lindell. The lawsuit, which asked for $1.3 billion in damages, alleged, "MyPillow's defamatory marketing campaign—with promo codes like 'FightforTrump,' '45,' 'Proof,' and 'QAnon'—has increased MyPillow sales by 30-40% and continues duping people into redirecting their election-lie outrage into pillow purchases." Dominion further stated its intentions were to stop Lindell from using MyPillow to profit off of election conspiracy theories at the expense of Dominion.


title: Dominion Voting Systems

text: On March 22, 2021, Powell's attorneys moved to dismiss Dominion's lawsuit against her, arguing that "No reasonable person would conclude that the statements [made by Powell against Dominion] were truly statements of fact...Plaintiffs themselves characterize the statements at issue as 'wild accusations' and 'outlandish claims.' They are repeatedly labeled 'inherently improbable' and even 'impossible.' Such characterizations of the allegedly defamatory statements further support defendant's position that reasonable people would not accept such statements as fact but view them only as claims that await testing by the courts through the adversary process." They held that she was obviously just expressing an opinion, but not one motivated by malice as "She believed the allegations then and she believes them now."


title: Dominion Voting Systems

text: On March 26, 2021, Dominion filed a $1.6 billion defamation lawsuit against Fox News, alleging that Fox and some of its pundits spread conspiracy theories about Dominion, and allowed guests to make false statements about the company. A Fox News motion to dismiss the suit was denied on December 16, 2021, by a Delaware Superior Court judge.


title: Dominion Voting Systems

text: On August 4, 2021, a federal judge granted a sanctions motion against Gary Fielder and Ernest John Walker, the attorneys that filed suit against Dominion, Facebook, and others claiming fraud in the 2020 presidential election. Plaintiff's attorneys were ordered to pay $180,000 for the defendants' attorneys' fees, with the judge finding that the lawsuit was filed "in bad faith" and made frivolous arguments.


title: Dominion Voting Systems

text: On August 10, 2021, Dominion announced that they were suing conservative news channels OANN and Newsmax, plus former Overstock.com CEO Patrick M. Byrne. The lawsuit against OANN also named its anchors Chanel Rion and Christina Bobb.


title: Dominion Voting Systems

text: The next day, district judge Carl J. Nichols denied motions by Lindell, Powell, and Giuliani to dismiss the lawsuits against them.


title: Dominion Voting Systems

text: On April 20, 2022, Judge Nichols ruled that Dominion's defamation lawsuit against Byrne could move forward denying his motion to dismiss the case.


title: Dominion Voting Systems

text: In an April 2022 article focusing on the case, "Forbes" noted that there could be additional lawsuits filed by Dominion which "has identified more than 150 people as potential targets of litigation." It also reported that Dominion has "sent letters to preserve evidence and warning of potential litigation to right-wing figures including pro-Trump attorney Lin Wood and Melissa Carone, who Giuliani has promoted as a witness to supposed voter fraud efforts."


title: Dominion Voting Systems

text: In response to pressure from advocacy groups opposing false claims of electoral fraud, and despite an angry response from U.S. Senator Steve Daines and five Republican state attorney generals (including Ken Paxton and Patrick Morrisey), DirecTV dropped One America News (OAN) from its channel lineup on April 5, 2022. Angelo Carusone of Media Matters for America told reporters that as 90% of OAN's revenue came from DirecTV that the company will not survive through Dominion's lawsuit against it, but will "be wiped out from the litigation costs. Forget about any judgment."


title: Dominion Voting Systems

text: On April 12, 2022, Delaware state court judge Eric Davis scheduled the date for the jury trial for the defamation lawsuit against Fox News to begin on April 17, 2023, and set aside five weeks for proceedings.


title: Dominion Voting Systems

text: Andrew Parker, a lawyer for My Pillow, Inc., on April 18, 2022, filed a countersuit in Minnesota asserting that Dominion is a governmental actor due to contracting with state and local agencies and that it had violated the company's rights under the First and Fourteenth amendment as well as inflicting "tortious interference with prospective business...using today's cancel culture to eliminate dissent and to cover up the election issues that compromised the 2020 result." As evidence of harm, he stated: "MyPillow employees have been subjected to ridicule in their personal lives, and death threats necessitating protection from local law enforcement...employees are subjected to daily hateful and barbaric calls, emails, and comments on the company's social media platforms." The Daily Beast reported that Lindel had hired veteran First Amendment lawyer Nathan Lewin, and was also receiving informal advice from Alan Dershowitz, who stated "My role is to come up with ideas as they pertain to the First Amendment. I give them cases, and I suggest First Amendment theories—my role is limited to advising on the First Amendment issues at hand. ... Our position is that Dominion is the government, for purposes of the First Amendment. The government delegated to them the most important governmental function, mainly counting votes in a presidential election. And they are therefore subject to criticism in the exact same ways that the government would be subject to criticism in that situation. And criticism of how the government conducted a presidential election is the highest bar protecting the First Amendment right to criticize such action."


title: Dominion Voting Systems

text: In Washington D.C. Federal U.S. District Court, on May 19, 2022, Judge Carl Nichols dismissed a defamation lawsuit brought against Dominion Voting Systems (and also Smartmatic) while also imposing sanctions on Mike Lindell CEO of MyPillow.


title: Dominion Voting Systems

text: Delaware Superior Court Judge Eric M. Davis, on June 6, 2022, denied a motion from Newsmax to dismiss Dominion's case against them. Judge Davis stated that Newsmax "knew the allegations were probably false" about Dominion's technology, and "there were enough signs indicating the statements were not true to infer Newsmax's intent to avoid the truth." He went on to say that as "Newsmax apparently refused to report contrary evidence, including evidence from the Department of Justice, the allegations support the reasonable inference that Newsmax intended to keep Dominion's side of the story out of the mainstream." He ruled that Dominion had made a "reasonable inference" concerning Newsmax's actions and let the case proceed. On June 21, 2022, Judge Davis also denied Fox Corporation's motion to dismiss the suit by Dominion Voting Systems. He held that Dominion had shown that the company's chairman, Rupert Murdoch, and his son, CEO Lachlan Murdoch, may have acted with "actual malice" by directing the network to broadcast the conspiracy theory despite having been notified that it was false – as a business calculation in order to stem plummeting viewership. Dominion provided the court with reports from various news outlets that Rupert Murdoch had "spoke with Trump and other senior Republicans shortly after the election and urged them to drop their election-fraud narrative and concede defeat". Dominion pointed to a claim that Murdoch urged a Republican Leader to ask other party members not to endorse the false theory. Dominion also pointed out that Murdoch's other media outlets "The Wall Street Journal" and the "New York Post" condemned the conspiracy theory, and urged Trump to concede, which the court held supported "a reasonable inference that Rupert and Lachlan Murdoch either knew Dominion had not manipulated the election or at least recklessly disregarded the truth", and therefore should be subject to factual discovery. Soon after the court's decision, Fox News, on June 30, 2022, replaced their lead attorney Chip Babcock (a specialist in First Amendment cases) with veteran trial attorney Dan K. Webb. This was seen by legal reporters as "an indication that Fox News expects to go to trial".


title: Dominion Voting Systems

text: On July 11, 2022, the court docket for the case showed that Dominion had issued a subpoena to former Attorney General William Barr. They had also recently issued subpoenas to Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger; Christopher Krebbs, the former director of the Department of Homeland Security's Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency; and Benjamin Hovland, the former chairman of the U.S. Election Assistance Commission. In response to the development, a spokesperson for Fox News stated: "We are confident we will prevail as freedom of the press is foundational to our democracy and must be protected, in addition to the damages claims being outrageous, unsupported and not rooted in sound financial analysis, serving as nothing more than a flagrant attempt to deter our journalists from doing their jobs."


title: Dominion Voting Systems

text: In early July 2022, two lawyers from U.K.-based Kennedys Law LLP, Michael J. Tricarico and Marc Casarino joined Powell's legal team of Lawrence J. Joseph and J. Howard Kleinhendler in the defamation cases involving Dominion Voting Systems and Smartmatic. By July 13, 2022, Kleinhendler withdrew from the team. (He along with L. Lin Wood had worked alongside Powell challenging the election results of 2020 in what are sometimes referred to as the "Kraken" cases.)


title: Dominion Voting Systems

text: Media outlets such as the Guardian mentioned the lawsuit against Fox News in late July, when excerpts of Jared Kushner's book "Breaking History" were released. According to Kushner, he spoke to Rupert Murdoch on election night 2020 after Fox News reported that the electoral votes for Arizona had been won by Joe Biden. "I dialed Rupert Murdoch and asked why Fox News had made the Arizona call before hundreds of thousands of votes were tallied. Rupert said he would look into the issue, and minutes later, he called back. ...[Murdoch told him] 'Sorry Jared, there is nothing I can do. The Fox News data authority says the numbers are ironclad. He says it won't be close.'"


title: Dominion Voting Systems

text: The New York Times, on August 13, 2022, noted that there had been no movement towards settlement from either Dominion or Fox, and both "are deep into document discovery, combing through years of each other's emails and text messages, and taking depositions". They reported that sources "expected Rupert and Lachlan Murdoch, who own and control the Fox Corporation, to sit for depositions as soon as this month". Citing sources at Fox News, speaking under condition of anonymity, they reported "Anchors and executives have been preparing for depositions and have been forced to hand over months of private emails and text messages to Dominion." Among the current and former Fox personnel who have given or were set to give depositions in August were Steve Doocy, Dana Perino, and Shepard Smith. Sources also told the Times that Dominion was focusing on Lachlan Murdoch's reaction to President Trump's anger at the network calling Arizona for Biden, seeking to place him "in the room when the decisions about election coverage were being made". Accounts hold that the younger Murdoch did not pressure anyone to reverse the call, but "he did ask detailed questions about the process that Fox's election analysts had used after the call became so contentious." While Fox continues to claim that any statements made on air were covered by the First Amendment, and as such can not be considered defamation, the Times reported that "Fox has also been searching for evidence that could, in effect, prove the Dominion conspiracy theories weren't really conspiracy theories." Looking for connections to the Venezuelan dictator who died in 2013, lawyers for Fox in court filings have asked Dominion to turn over any internal communications going back over a decade that include any of the words "Hugo", "Chavez", "tampered", "backdoor", "stolen", or "Trump". Fox's recent replacement of its outside legal team with one of the nation's most prominent trial lawyers was seen as "a sign that executives believe that the chances the case is headed to trial have increased".


title: Dominion Voting Systems

text: In mid-August 2022, documents from the Dauphin County prothonotary's office revealed that Dominion plans to subpoena the Pennsylvania Department of State for records related to its case against Fox News. In accord with this action, they were to seek a deposition from former Secretary of the Commonwealth Kathy Boockvar.


title: Dominion Voting Systems

text: On August 31, 2022 Sean Hannity was deposed by Dominion's lawyers. The New York Times noted that in most defamation cases settlements are reached before any depositions are taken. As an example they pointed to how Fox News had settled in 2020 after the parents of Seth Rich sued due to Hannity and other Fox personnel trying to link his death to an email hack. In that case Fox settled the case before Hannity could be deposed. This was taken as further proof that both sides anticipated the case going to trial.


title: Dominion Voting Systems

text: Dominion's lawyer, Mary Kathryn Sammons, told a Federal court on September 16, 2022, that Mike Lindell was still repeating the same baseless claims against the company: "The problem here is the lawsuit is based on the public figures making very public lies about Dominion. Unfortunately, the lies have continued." She went on to say that the continuing lies have resulted in continued threats of violence against the company. As the case was entering the discovery stage, she expressed concern that Lindell would not abide by the rules of non-disclosure. Judge Nichols set aside time for the parties to designate documents for confidentiality before further action would be taken. Lindell had recently bragged publicly of disregarding an FBI request to not disclose the seizure of his phone in an unrelated criminal case involving Tina Peters, a Republican Mesa County clerk who was charged in engaging in a data breach of Dominion Voting System machines.


title: Dominion Voting Systems

text: It was announced on October 3, 2022, that the Supreme Court of the United States had declined Mike Lindell's appeal against Judge Carl Nichols' ruling; allowing Dominion's case to proceed.


title: Dominion Voting Systems

text: On October 20, 2022, Fox's lawyers asked the court to sanction Dominion alleging they destroyed evidence - electronic messages between CEO John Poulos and senior executives Kay Stinson and Waldeep Singh. Fox argues this should result in the jury being instructed that they "must presume the messages contained information unfavorable to Plaintiffs...and information undermining Plaintiffs' damages calculation," or that the case be dismissed and Dominion fined for spoliation. Dominion holds Fox's claim about spoliation is "meritless" and "a distraction."


title: Dominion Voting Systems

text: On December 5, 2022 The U.S. Supreme Court declined to take up a case, "Kevin O’Rourke, et al., v. Dominion Voting Systems, Inc., et al.", rejected by lower courts. The plaintiffs had alleged that Dominion, Facebook, Mark Zuckerberg, Priscilla Chan, and the Center for Tech and Civic Life "engaged in concerted action to interfere with the 2020 presidential election through a coordinated effort to, among other things, change voting laws without legislative approval, use unreliable voting machines, alter, votes through an illegitimate adjudication process...[and] privately fund only certain municipalities and counties." This left in place federal judge N. Reid Neureiter's ruling that the plaintiffs lacked standing.


title: Dominion Voting Systems

text: In early December 2022, the Delaware Superior Court filed notice that Lachlan Murdoch would be deposed under oath at a Los Angeles law firm. The deposition was set to begin on December 5 and "will continue from day to day (Sundays and holidays excluded) until complete, unless otherwise agreed." Also in early December 2022, the Delaware Superior Court filed a notice that Rupert Murdoch would be deposed under oath on December 13-14 via video conference. Previously Fox's lawyers had stated that any efforts to depose the Murdochs and put them at the center of the case would just be a "fruitless fishing expedition."


title: Deborah Cavendish, Duchess of Devonshire

text: Deborah Vivien Cavendish, Duchess of Devonshire, (born Deborah Vivien Freeman-Mitford and latterly Deborah, Dowager Duchess of Devonshire; 31 March 1920 – 24 September 2014) was an English aristocrat, writer, memoirist, and socialite. She was the youngest and last-surviving of the six Mitford sisters, who were prominent members of British society in the 1930s and 1940s.


text: Known to her family as "Debo", Deborah Mitford was born in Asthall Manor, Oxfordshire, England. Her parents were David Freeman-Mitford, 2nd Baron Redesdale (1878–1958), son of Algernon Freeman-Mitford, 1st Baron Redesdale, and his wife, Sydney (1880–1963), daughter of Thomas Gibson Bowles, MP. She married Lord Andrew Cavendish, younger son of the 10th Duke of Devonshire, in 1941. When Cavendish's older brother, William, Marquess of Hartington, was killed in action in 1944, Cavendish became heir to the dukedom and began to use the courtesy title Marquess of Hartington. In 1950, on the death of his father, the Marquess of Hartington became the 11th Duke of Devonshire.


text: The Duchess was the main public face of Chatsworth for many decades. She wrote several books about Chatsworth, and played a key role in the restoration of the house, the enhancement of the garden and the development of commercial activities such as Chatsworth Farm Shop (which is on a quite different scale from most farm shops, as it employs a hundred people); Chatsworth's other retail and catering operations; and assorted offshoots such as Chatsworth Food (later Chatsworth Estate Trading), which sold luxury foodstuffs carrying her signature; and Chatsworth Design, which sells image rights to items and designs from the Chatsworth collections. Recognising the commercial imperatives of running a stately home, she took a very active role and was known to man the Chatsworth House ticket office herself. She also supervised the development of the Cavendish Hotel at Baslow, near Chatsworth, and the Devonshire Arms Hotel at Bolton Abbey.


text: In 1999, the Duchess was appointed a Dame Commander of the Royal Victorian Order (DCVO) by Queen Elizabeth II, for her service to the Royal Collection Trust. Upon the death of her husband in 2004, her son Peregrine Cavendish became the 12th Duke of Devonshire. She became the Dowager Duchess of Devonshire at this time, and moved into a smaller house on the Chatsworth estate.


text: She was a maternal aunt of Max Mosley, former president of the Fédération Internationale de l'Automobile (FIA), as well as the grandmother of fashion model Stella Tennant (1970–2020).


text: In 1981, the Duchess became politically active when she and her husband, Andrew Cavendish, 11th Duke of Devonshire, joined the new Social Democratic Party.


text: The Duchess died on 24 September 2014, at the age of 94. Her funeral was held on 2 October 2014 at St Peter's Church, Edensor. Guests included The Prince of Wales and The Duchess of Cornwall.


text: At the time of her death, journalist Michael Crick speculated that she was the last living Briton who had met Hitler.


text: Cavendish was interviewed on her experience of sitting for a portrait for painter Lucian Freud in the BBC series "Imagine" in 2004.


text: In an interview with John Preston of "The Daily Telegraph", published in September 2007, she recounted having tea with Adolf Hitler during a visit to Munich in June 1937, when she was visiting Germany with her mother and her sister Unity, the latter being the only one of the three who spoke German and, therefore the one who carried on the entire conversation with Hitler. Shortly before ending the interview, Preston asked her to choose with whom she would have preferred to have tea: American singer Elvis Presley or Hitler. Looking at the interviewer with astonishment, she answered: "Well, Elvis of course! What an extraordinary question."


text: In 2010, the BBC journalist Kirsty Wark interviewed the Duchess for "Newsnight". In it, the Duchess talked about life in the 1930s and 1940s, Hitler, the Chatsworth estate, and the marginalisation of the upper classes. She was also interviewed on 23 December by Charlie Rose for PBS.


text: On 10 November 2010, she was interviewed as part of "The Artists, Poets, and Writers Lecture Series" sponsored by the Frick Collection, an interview which focused on her memoir and her published correspondence with Patrick Leigh Fermor.


title: Bascule bridge

text: A bascule bridge (also referred to as a drawbridge or a lifting bridge) is a moveable bridge with a counterweight that continuously balances a span, or leaf, throughout its upward swing to provide clearance for boat traffic. It may be single- or double-leafed.


title: Bascule bridge

text: The name comes from the French term for balance scale, which employs the same principle. Bascule bridges are the most common type of movable span because they open quickly and require relatively little energy to operate, while providing the possibility for unlimited vertical clearance for marine traffic.


title: Bascule bridge

text: Bascule bridges have been in use since ancient times, but until the adoption of steam power in the 1850s, very long, heavy spans could not be moved quickly enough for practical application.


title: Bascule bridge

text: There are three types of bascule bridge and the counterweights to the span may be located above or below the bridge deck.


title: Bascule bridge

text: The fixed-trunnion (sometimes a "Chicago" bascule) rotates around a large axle that raises the span(s). The Chicago bascule name derives from the location where it is widely used, and is a refinement by Joseph Strauss of the fixed-trunnion.


title: Bascule bridge

text: The trunnion (sometimes a "Scherzer" rolling lift), raises the span by rolling on a track resembling a rocking-chair base. The "Scherzer" rolling lift is a refinement patented in 1893 by American engineer William Donald Scherzer.


title: Bascule bridge

text: The rarer Rall type combines rolling lift with longitudinal motion on trunnions when opening. It was patented (1901) by Theodor Rall. One of the few surviving examples is the Broadway Bridge (1913), in Portland, Oregon.


title: Rashard Lewis

text: Rashard Quovon Lewis (born August 8, 1979) is an American former professional basketball player. Lewis entered the NBA directly from Alief Elsik High School. He rose to prominence in the NBA as a scorer with the Seattle SuperSonics, and was later a member of the Orlando Magic, Washington Wizards and Miami Heat. He garnered two NBA All-Star selections, one with Seattle and another with Orlando. Lewis reached the NBA Finals three times, winning an NBA championship in 2013 as a member of the Heat.


title: Rashard Lewis

text: Despite being recruited by Florida State, Kansas and Houston, Lewis bypassed college and opted for the 1998 NBA draft, wherein he was selected by the Seattle SuperSonics with the 32nd overall pick. At the time of his selection, he was the last player remaining in the "green room", where fifteen of the top draft prospects sit until their selection. He and teammate Ray Allen made Seattle a contender during the early 2000s.


title: Rashard Lewis

text: In 2001, Lewis was selected to play for the United States Basketball Team in the Goodwill Games, in which they won the gold medal. On October 31, 2003, Lewis scored a career-high 50 points to lead the Seattle SuperSonics to a 124–105 win over the Los Angeles Clippers to close out a two-game series in Saitama, Japan. Lewis was named an All-Star in 2004–05. Lewis holds the SuperSonics' record for most three-pointers made, having passed Dale Ellis for second place on November 22, 2005, and Gary Payton for first place on March 13, 2007, when Lewis made his 918th three-pointer in a game against the Detroit Pistons.


title: Rashard Lewis

text: After playing his first nine seasons for the Seattle SuperSonics, Lewis joined the Orlando Magic in July 2007, as he agreed to a six-year sign-and-trade deal worth $118 million. In his first season with the Magic, Lewis was moved from his usual small forward position to power forward. That year, he made 53 more three-pointers than his previous single-season record (173, 2004–05). During the playoffs, the Magic reached the second round, with Lewis contributing a 33-point performance against the Detroit Pistons in Orlando's only win of the series. Lewis was the Magic's top scorer in the playoffs and set personal records in points, rebounds, and assists.


title: Rashard Lewis

text: Lewis started the 2008–09 season as the team's second leading scorer, earning an appearance in the 2009 NBA All-Star Game. In the 2009 NBA playoffs, Lewis hit a game-winning shot in the first game of the Eastern Conference Finals against the Cleveland Cavaliers, what he called the biggest shot of his career. The Magic won the series and advanced to the NBA Finals, where they were defeated by the Los Angeles Lakers in five games.


title: Rashard Lewis

text: On August 6, 2009, Lewis was suspended without pay for the first ten games of the 2009–10 season after testing positive for a banned substance that he had taken during the 2008–09 NBA season. He was tested for it during the 2009 NBA Finals. The over-the-counter supplement he was taking contained Dehydroepiandrosterone which is frequently used to combat fatigue.


title: Rashard Lewis

text: On December 18, 2010, Lewis was traded to the Washington Wizards in exchange for Gilbert Arenas. In 60 games for the Wizards over two seasons, Lewis averaged 9.7 points, 4.9 rebounds and 1.5 assists per game.


title: Rashard Lewis

text: On June 20, 2012, Lewis was traded, along with the 46th pick in the 2012 NBA draft, to the New Orleans Hornets in exchange for Trevor Ariza and Emeka Okafor. On June 30, 2012, the Hornets agreed to buyout terms with Lewis and waived him.


title: Rashard Lewis

text: On July 11, 2012, Lewis signed a two-year deal with the Miami Heat. The move reunited him with former Seattle teammate Ray Allen. The Heat finished the 2012–13 season with a league-best 66–16 record. Lewis won his first NBA championship with the Heat's Finals series victory over the San Antonio Spurs.


title: Rashard Lewis

text: Lewis earned rave reviews from Heat coach Erik Spoelstra for the way he defended in Game 3 of the 2014 Eastern Conference Finals against the Indiana Pacers, even though he finished without a single point, rebound, assist or steal. Lewis worked his way into the starting lineup during the series, earning notoriety for helping the team despite a lack of impressive box score statistics in games 3 and 4. In Game 5 of the series, Lewis started again, and scored 18 points on 6-of-9 shooting from behind the three-point line. In Game 6, Lewis started and scored 13 points as the Heat advanced to the NBA Finals. The Heat went on to lose the Finals to the San Antonio Spurs in five games.


title: Rashard Lewis

text: On July 19, 2014, Lewis signed with the Dallas Mavericks. However, just four days later, his contract was voided by the Mavericks after he failed his physical when it was discovered that his right knee required surgery.


title: Rashard Lewis

text: In 2017, Rashard joined the 3 Headed Monsters of the BIG3 basketball league, a team that included NBA Hall of Famer Gary Payton as the head coach, and teammates such as Jason Williams, Mahmoud Abdul-Rauf and Kwame Brown. The 3 Headed Monsters went 7-1, reaching the Championship game, where they lost to undefeated Trilogy. Lewis was awarded MVP for the season.


title: Sean Abbott

text: Sean Anthony Abbott (born 29 February 1992) is an Australian professional cricketer originally from Windsor in New South Wales who has represented his country internationally. After playing in junior cricket for Baulkham Hills Cricket Club, he progressed to play grade cricket for Parramatta District. Abbott completed his schooling at Gilroy College, Castle Hill. He is an all-rounder who bats right-handed.


title: Sean Abbott

text: He made his List A debut for New South Wales against Western Australia at the Sydney Cricket Ground on 17 October 2010 in the 2010–11 Ryobi One-Day Cup, but neither bowled nor batted in the match. He made his first-class cricket debut exactly one year later, against South Australia at the Adelaide Oval.


title: Sean Abbott

text: Abbott has played for Parramatta and Sydney University in the Sydney Grade Cricket competition and both of the Sydney teams in the Big Bash League, the Sydney Thunder in the 2011–12 and 2012–13 seasons and the Sydney Sixers in 2013–14.


title: Sean Abbott

text: During a Sheffield Shield match on 25 November 2014, Abbott bowled a bouncer that hit Phillip Hughes on the neck. Hughes died two days later at St Vincent's Hospital, Sydney, as a result of a vertebral artery dissection, leading to subarachnoid haemorrhage. Many of the condolence messages included support for Abbott. He returned to training the day before Hughes' funeral, and returned to play against Queensland in a Sheffield Shield match starting on 8 December 2014, returning a match-winning 6/14 in Queensland's second innings.


title: Sean Abbott

text: In January 2015, Abbott was named as Australia's young cricketer of the year. Abbott was bought by Royal Challengers Bangalore in the 2015 auctions for 10,000,000 rupees (approx 200,000 AUD).


title: Sean Abbott

text: Abbott was named the Sydney Sixers Player of the Tournament in BBL|06 after taking 20 wickets over 10 games. He shared the award with Sixers batsmen Daniel Hughes.


title: Sean Abbott

text: On 28 August 2017 the Sixers announced that Abbott had re-signed with the club for three more editions of the Big Bash League. He played for New South Wales in the 2017–18 JLT One-Day Cup and took 12 wickets, the most of any player in the team.


title: Sean Abbott

text: Ahead of the 2019–20 Marsh One-Day Cup, Abbott was named as one of the six cricketers to watch during the tournament. In November 2020, in round four of the 2020–21 Sheffield Shield season, Abbott scored his maiden century in first-class cricket.


title: Sean Abbott

text: In April 2021 English county Surrey announced the signing of Abbott as their second overseas player for the season, specifically for the T20 Vitality Blast competition and also three County Championship matches. He made his first class Surrey debut on 27 May 2021 at The Oval against Gloucestershire.


title: Sean Abbott

text: In February 2022, he was bought by the Sunrisers Hyderabad in the auction for the 2022 Indian Premier League tournament. In April 2022, he was bought by the Manchester Originals for the 2022 season of The Hundred.


title: Sean Abbott

text: He made his Twenty20 International debut for Australia against Pakistan in the United Arab Emirates on 5 October 2014. Two days later, he made his One Day International debut, also against Pakistan in the UAE. He then played in two more Twenty20 matches for Australia against South Africa in early November 2014.


title: Sean Abbott

text: He was awarded the Bradman Young Cricketer of the Year at the Allan Border Medal ceremony by the CA in 2015.


title: Sean Abbott

text: In 2019, Abbott made his return to Australia's international side after a five-year hiatus, taking 2/14 off his four overs against Pakistan at Optus Stadium. On 16 July 2020, Abbott was named in a 26-man preliminary squad of players to begin training ahead of a possible tour to England following the COVID-19 pandemic. On 14 August 2020, Cricket Australia confirmed that the fixtures would be taking place, with Abbott included in the touring party.


title: Joe Mauer

text: Joseph Patrick Mauer (born April 19, 1983) is an American former professional baseball catcher and first baseman, who spent his entire 15-year Major League Baseball (MLB) career with the Minnesota Twins. A six-time All-Star, Mauer is the only catcher in MLB history to win three batting titles, and the only catcher to ever win a batting title in the American League (AL).


title: Joe Mauer

text: He also won three consecutive Gold Glove Awards (2008–2010), five Silver Slugger Awards (including three in a row) and the 2009 AL Most Valuable Player (MVP) Award. , he is the most recent catcher to win (or even place in the top three in the voting) the MVP award in the American League. Mauer was selected by the Twins as the first overall pick of the 2001 Major League Baseball draft and was a fan-favorite during his career as he was a Minnesota native.


title: Joe Mauer

text: Mauer played football, basketball, and baseball for St. Paul's Cretin-Derham Hall Raiders. In his senior year he became the only athlete ever to be selected as the "USA Today" High School Player of the Year in two sports (football in 2000 as a quarterback and baseball in 2001 as a catcher).


title: Joe Mauer

text: In December 2009, "Sports Illustrated" magazine included Mauer in its article on ten "signature" moments in U.S. high-school sports in the 2000–2009 decade, referring to his selection by the Minnesota Twins as the first pick in the 2001 amateur draft.


title: Joe Mauer

text: Mauer attended the same high school as Baseball Hall of Famer and former Milwaukee Brewer Paul Molitor who later became his major league manager with the Twins. Molitor has said that Mauer "has the best swing he had ever seen". Jim O'Neill, Mauer's baseball coach at Cretin-Derham Hall, said his former student "has been groomed for this job since he was a little boy. Mauer's dad, Jake, created a contraption for Joe he later named the 'Quickswing.' The device dropped balls down a tube from eye level and released them at waist level." Mauer had been asked to leave his T-ball league at the age of four, because he was hitting the ball too hard for the other players. "Another guy that came from Cretin-Derham Hall, Paul Molitor, was very similar, [and] had a good short swing," O'Neill said. "And they're both able to wait on the ball so long because they don't have the big swing. Like anything, you keep simple and keep it small or short, there's not a lot of holes in it and not a lot of room for errors."


title: Joe Mauer

text: A stand-out in baseball, Mauer struck out only once during his four-year high school career, and hit .605 during his senior season. Years later, Mauer laughingly told an interviewer: "I can remember the time I did strike out. It was junior year, and it was in the state tournament. I came back to the bench and everybody thought something was wrong with me." Mauer's high school batting average exceeded .500 every year. He also set a Minnesota high school record and tied the national preps mark by hitting a home run in seven consecutive games. Mauer caught for the Team USA Junior National team from 1998 to 2000 and hit .595 during his final year on the team. He was voted best hitter at the World Junior Baseball Championship in Canada in . In , Mauer was voted the United States District V Player of the Year.


title: Joe Mauer

text: Mauer averaged more than 20 points a game as a point guard for Cretin-Derham Hall. He was also named to the All-State team during his final two years on Cretin-Derham's basketball team.


title: Joe Mauer

text: Mauer had an accomplished high school football career. In 2000, he appeared in the Faces in the Crowd section in Sports Illustrated. During his senior season as the Raiders' quarterback, Mauer completed 178 of 269 passes (66% completion percentage), for 3,022 yards, 41 touchdowns and 5 interceptions. He finished his two-year career as a starter with 5,528 yards and 73 touchdowns, leading the Raiders to two consecutive Class 5A State Championship Game appearances and winning the title in 1999, the Raiders' first of all time.


title: Joe Mauer

text: Mauer was honored as the 2001 Gatorade National Player of the Year, was named to the USA Today All-USA high school football team, was honored as USA Today's Player of the Year, was a Reebok/ESPN High School All-American, and was awarded Player of the Year for the game that would go on to be known as the U.S. Army All-American Bowl. Mauer was also named National High School Quarterback of the Year in 2000 by The National Quarterback Club.


title: Joe Mauer

text: After committing to play football at Florida State University, Mauer ultimately decided instead to enter the Major League Baseball Draft. Mauer was selected by the Twins as the first overall pick of the 2001 draft, ahead of college pitcher Mark Prior, who was taken second overall by the Chicago Cubs. Mauer was part of the United States' roster at the All-Star Futures Game at U.S. Cellular Field before being promoted to the Twins' roster in after his predecessor, A. J. Pierzynski, was traded to the San Francisco Giants, in the 2003 offseason.


title: Joe Mauer

text: Mauer went 2-for-3 in his Major League debut, hitting a single off Rafael Betancourt of the Cleveland Indians for his first major-league hit. A knee injury to his left medial meniscus on April 7, 2004, required surgery and sidelined Mauer for more than a month. After a rehabilitation stint with the Twins' AAA affiliate Rochester Red Wings, Mauer returned to the Twins' lineup in June. In July, pain and swelling in his knee forced an early end to Mauer's 2004 season. Following his injury-shortened 2004, Mauer signed a contract for $5.7 million with the Twins on January 24, 2005. In 2005, Mauer returned to the Twins' lineup for his first full major league season and had 144 hits in 131 games, with 9 home runs and 55 RBI. He ended the year with an average of .294.


title: Joe Mauer

text: In his 2006 season, Mauer became the first catcher in American League history to lead the American League in batting average, finishing with an average of .347. Mauer's performance during the months of May and June garnered attention from the national media. He recorded a .528 batting average over the first ten days of June and hit .452 over the course of the month. He was also the first player since Mike Piazza in 1997 to reach base four or more times for five consecutive games. On June 12, Mauer was named the American League Player of the Week by Major League Baseball for his performance the week of June 4–11, during which he hit .625 (15-for-24) with 5 doubles, 4 RBI and 2 stolen bases.


title: Joe Mauer

text: Mauer recorded his first five RBI game June 26, against the Los Angeles Dodgers. Mauer followed that up with his first career five-hit game on June 27, also against the Los Angeles Dodgers. He was also named MLB Player of the Month for June after batting .452 with a .624 slugging percentage and .528 on-base percentage, 11 doubles, 14 RBI and 18 runs. Along with Johan Santana (Pitcher of the Month) and Francisco Liriano (Rookie of the Month), Mauer was part of the first-ever single-team sweep of MLB's three monthly awards. On July 2, Mauer was selected by the players to his first All-Star Game. Mauer appeared on the cover of the August 7, 2006 issue of Sports Illustrated.