title: Allan McGregor

text: During the 2016–17 season, McGregor was recovering from a back injury, thus leaving him behind Eldin Jakupovic and David Marshall in the pecking order. He was loaned to Cardiff City in January 2017 to bolster his fitness before he could play for Hull again. He kept a clean sheet on his debut during a 1–0 victory over Burton Albion on 21 January 2017.


title: Allan McGregor

text: In May 2018, McGregor accepted the offer of a two-year contract with Rangers. At the end of the 2018–19 season, he was named in the PFA Scotland Team of the Year (for a fourth time in his career).


title: Allan McGregor

text: During the first half of the 2019–20 season, McGregor helped Rangers qualify from their Europa League group. In December 2019, Rangers and McGregor agreed to extend his contract by a year. In the Old Firm derby played on 29 December 2019, McGregor saved a penalty from Ryan Christie. Rangers went on to win the match 2–1, which was their first victory at Celtic Park since October 2010.


title: Allan McGregor

text: At the start of December 2020, McGregor set a club record for appearances in UEFA competitions. At the end of the month he made his 400th appearance across his two Rangers spells. McGregor was praised for his performance in a 1–0 Old Firm win against Celtic on 2 January 2021, particularly for a fingertip save from Leigh Griffiths.


title: Allan McGregor

text: McGregor helped Rangers reach the 2022 UEFA Europa League Final, which they lost on penalties to Eintracht Frankfurt. He then appeared as a substitute in their 2022 Scottish Cup Final victory against Hearts.


title: Allan McGregor

text: On 30 January 2007, ex-Rangers manager Alex McLeish named McGregor in his first squad as Scotland manager. He made his international debut against Austria on 30 May 2007, playing the first half in goal before being substituted. McGregor received his second cap for Scotland after coming on as a second-half substitute for Craig Gordon in a friendly against Northern Ireland at Hampden in August 2008. He gave away a penalty when he brought down Warren Feeney but saved the resulting spot kick from David Healy and the match ended in a 0–0 draw. McGregor was then first choice goalkeeper for the friendly match against Argentina at Hampden in November 2008; Scotland lost 1–0 but McGregor made a number of notable saves. McGregor made his first competitive start for Scotland when he was selected ahead of Craig Gordon for Scotland's 2010 World Cup qualifier against the Netherlands.


title: Allan McGregor

text: On 3 April 2009, McGregor was banned from representing Scotland again after multiple breaches of squad discipline. After returning to their hotel at 4am from the international game with the Netherlands on 28 March, McGregor and then-teammate Barry Ferguson were the last to leave the bar at lunchtime. They were subsequently dropped from the following match against Iceland on 1 April 2009, the incident has been referred to by the media as "Boozegate". Gestures made by the players to cameras when they were both unused substitutes in the Iceland match led the SFA to inform the players by fax that they would not be considered for national team selection again. McGregor later apologised and was docked two weeks' wages by Rangers. McGregor was on the verge of being recalled to the national team by manager Craig Levein, but was omitted from the squad after he was attacked on the way home from a night out in Glasgow city centre. On 2 August 2010, McGregor was recalled to the national team for the 3–0 friendly defeat against Sweden. He made a number of important saves in the match to prevent a heavier defeat.


title: Allan McGregor

text: McGregor was named as first choice goalkeeper for Scotland's Euro 2012 qualifying matches in 2010, starting the first two matches against Lithuania and Liechtenstein. In the qualifying match against the Czech Republic McGregor was given the Man of the match award even though Scotland lost 1–0. McGregor was then given the man of the match award for his performance against World and European champions Spain even though Scotland were defeated at Hampden 3–2. Spain internationalist Pablo Hernandez believed McGregor to be a world class goalkeeper and said, "He made some amazing saves, it was a fantastic performance,"


title: Allan McGregor

text: McGregor remained first choice goalkeeper for Scotland when he was selected for the friendly against Brazil at the Emirates Stadium London in March 2011. Scotland lost 2–0. He was then selected for Scotland's first match in the Nations Cup against Northern Ireland in Dublin. Before the second match of the tournament against Wales, McGregor was praised by the Scotland manager Craig Levein as being an "absolute diamond" since Levein had taken over the Scotland team manager's job. McGregor then received his 12th and 13th caps in the tournaments matches against Wales, and Ireland. McGregor received the Scottish Sports Writers International Player of the Year award for season 2010–11.


title: Allan McGregor

text: McGregor started both international matches against Denmark and Czech Republic in August and September 2011 but was criticised for making a mistake in the friendly game against Denmark which cost Scotland a goal.


title: Allan McGregor

text: McGregor announced his retirement from international football in March 2019, having made 42 appearances for Scotland. His last appearance was in a 2018–19 UEFA Nations League game against Israel, when he produced an important save late on to preserve a 3–2 win.


title: Rocky Handsome

text: Rocky Handsome is a 2016 Indian Hindi-language action thriller film directed by Nishikant Kamat, written by Ritesh Shah, and produced by John Abraham under J. A. Entertainment and Sunir Khetrapal under Azure Entertainment respectively. An official adaptation of the 2010 Korean film "The Man from Nowhere", the film stars Abraham and child artist Diya Chalwad while Shruti Haasan, Nathalia Kaur, Kamat, Teddy Maurya and Sharad Kelkar appear in crucial supporting roles. The story follows a mysterious loan agent, who sets out to exact vengeance against a notorious crime syndicate after they kidnap his shady neighbour's eight-year-old daughter, with whom he shares a special bond.


title: Rocky Handsome

text: Based remotely in an unknown village in Goa, Kabir Ahlawat lives a quiet life running a pawn shop. His next-door neighbor is Anna, a drug addict and bar dancer. She lives with her little daughter Naomi, who develops a nurturing relationship with Kabir. Meanwhile, ACP Dilip Sangodkar from the NCB is after Mantoo, a crime boss supported by brothers Kevin Ferriera and Luke Ferriera, who control a mass racket in organ harvesting and drug manufacturing with a professional assassin named Attila. One night, Anna and her accomplice, who is also her boyfriend, steal drugs from Mantoo's henchman Big Show. Anna hides the drugs in a camera she pawns to Kabir. The consignment loss enrages Mantoo, who assigns Kevin and gives 3 days to recover the stolen drugs. Luke and Attila reach Anna's place, where they torture Anna for the camera. However, much to their surprise, Naomi becomes an eyewitness to the brutal torments.


title: Rocky Handsome

text: Unwittingly, Anna reveals the location of the drug, as a response to which Big Show enters Kabir's house along with his man Viju Dempo, demanding the camera. Kabir is obliged to hand the camera to Luke when he tells that Naomi and Anna are his captives. Kabir gets a call from Kevin to make a delivery to Mantoo, and promises to release them, if the delivery is successful. He delivers the drugs to Mantoo, where he finds that cops have already raided Mantoo's haven. Mantoo flees, and Kabir chases him, but is arrested by the cops when they find Anna's corpse with all her organs harvested in Kabir's car. Kevin brutally murders Mantoo, claiming all his organs, and becomes the new drug lord.


title: Rocky Handsome

text: During interrogation, Kabir escapes from the police station. The officers are bewildered by his combat skills and find out he was a former decorated RAW Special Forces soldier, who retired after his pregnant wife Rukshida was killed in stray terrorist gunfire outside a hospital. Kabir fights with Attila at a nightclub and is shot, but breaks into a medical shop and performs an impromptu surgery. He then continues on his journey.


title: Rocky Handsome

text: Kabir finds and frees several child slaves in a drug manufacturing plant, and in the process, kills Luke. He tracks down Kevin, who tells that he has had Naomi killed. He shows a container that has what he says are her eyes. Kabir kills all the gang members, including Attila and Kevin. As he prepares to commit suicide out of grief, Naomi emerges. She had been saved by Attila before her eye surgery; he took pity on her because she had been kind to him. The eyes in the container belonged to the gangsters' surgeon, who had been killed by Attila as the latter took to save Naomi. Kabir is arrested, but the officers allow Naomi to ride with him. Kabir asks them to stop at a convenience store, where he buys a backpack and school supplies for Naomi. Kabir asks her if she can manage until he returns, to which she agrees with him and the two embrace.


title: Rocky Handsome

text: Haasan was cast as Abraham's wife, while seven-year-old Chalwad, who was first seen in "Kick", plays an important role. Nathalia Kaur, who was seen in the item number "Dan Dan Cheeni" in Ram Gopal Varma’s "Department", plays the mother of the child. "But the theme of our film is the action. We are getting action directors from abroad—Eastern Asia—for the stunts," said Kheterpal. According to him, the shooting in Hyderabad was for about 45–50 days. While the second schedule was filmed in Goa, the third was in Mumbai.


title: Rocky Handsome

text: The film earned in one day including paid previews in India. The film went down on day two with collections of crore nett. The film earned on third day and the film had a very low weekend of crore nett with crore nett on paid previews. The collections on Monday were low at around nett. The film grossed in its first week and by the end of its theatrical run.


title: Rocky Handsome

text: The music for "Rocky Handsome" has been composed by Sunny Bawra, Inder Bawra, Ankit Tiwari and Bombay Rockers while the lyrics are penned by Kumaar, Manoj Muntashir, Abhendra Kumar Upadhyay, Sachin Pathak, Sagar Lahauri and Shekhar Astitwa. The album contains a total of 7 tracks. The first song, "Rock Tha Party," was released on 15 February 2016. The soundtrack was released on 22 February 2016 which included 6 songs. Later an unplugged version of Alfazon Ki Tarah was released on 22 March 2016 voiced by Shreya Ghoshal, John Abraham and Ankit Tiwari.


title: Rocky Handsome

text: The film has received negative reviews aimed at its execution of story and script, holding a 0% "Rotten" score on aggregate site Rotten Tomatoes. Sonali Kokra of The National (UAE) gave it a 1/5 rating, stating that "With Rocky Handsome, director Nishikant Kamat completes a hat-trick of poorly made remakes that fail spectacularly to do justice to the originals.". Anupama Chopra of The Hindustan Times gave it 2/5 stars, writing, "Not for a minute did I think that [Abraham] couldn't do the things he was doing. The trouble is that what he's doing isn't very interesting – especially if you’ve seen the original film. [...] Way too much time and effort is spent showcasing the leading man – John's body is a no-carb miracle and Kamat fetishises it.".


title: Rocky Handsome

text: However, other critics were more appreciative of the film, namely praising its action sequences and Abraham's physicality. Subhash K. Jha rated the film 4/5, writing "It would have to be a toss-up between Shoojit Sircar's excellent political thriller "Madras Café" and now Nishikant Kamat's "Rocky Handsome"." Bollywood Hungama rated the film 3.5/5, writing, "On the whole, ROCKY HANDSOME is for people who like action films. Despite the film having a simple plot, it has been garnished with engrossing drama and action stunningly. One can find the right mix of tension, action, emotion under one roof. A well-made action thriller."


title: Rollerball (2002 film)

text: Rollerball is a 2002 American science fiction sports film directed by John McTiernan. A remake of the 1975 film of the same name, based on William Harrison's short story "Roller Ball Murder", the film stars Chris Klein, Jean Reno, LL Cool J, Rebecca Romijn and Naveen Andrews. Unlike the previous film, it has a much greater focus on action, with more muted social and political overtones than the original, and takes place in the present rather than in a future dystopian society.


title: Rollerball (2002 film)

text: "Rollerball" was released on February 8, 2002. Upon its release, the film was critically panned, receiving criticism for the lack of the original's social critique. It was a box office bomb, grossing $25 million against a production budget of $70 million.


title: Rollerball (2002 film)

text: In 2005, the new sport of Rollerball, an extraordinarily violent extension of roller derby involving motorcycles and a metal ball, becomes hugely popular in many countries. Marcus Ridley invites NHL hopeful Jonathan Cross to join him playing for the Zhambel Horsemen in Kazakhstan. The highly paid Marcus and Jonathan are teamed with low-paid locals, who are often severely injured in the game.


title: Rollerball (2002 film)

text: In the beginning, Jonathan, the team's star player and the poster child of promoter Alexi Petrovich, is enamored by the high-octane sport, the popularity, sports cars, and his female teammate Aurora. But Jonathan and Ridley eventually discover that the cynical Alexi and his opportunistic assistant, Sanjay, have a vested interest in keeping the game as popular as possible, through planned gory "accidents" and ensuring that Jonathan and Ridley cannot quit the team and remain high-profile stars.


title: Rollerball (2002 film)

text: After an accident almost kills Aurora, Jonathan and Ridley decide that they need to flee the country to save their lives. The two are followed by Alexi and several bodyguards, who attack the two before they can reach the Russian border. Jonathan is injured and Ridley has to leave him behind. Alexi and his men capture Jonathan and kill Ridley after the latter successfully crosses the border.


title: Rollerball (2002 film)

text: Following the escape attempt, Alexi tries to stage a public execution of Jonathan by removing all the rules from the upcoming Rollerball match, along with trading Aurora to the opposing team (as requested by Jonathan in an attempt to get her away from danger). However, Jonathan, with the help of his teammates, start a revolution, causing the fans to see the sport for what it really is, and ultimately to kill Alexi.


title: Rollerball (2002 film)

text: Although the first draft of the script was considered by many to be very good and even superior to the original film, director John McTiernan didn't like it because it focused more on social commentary, while he thought that the audience would like to see more of the Rollerball scenes. This was why he had the original script completely re-written several times and made sure that it focused more on WWE-like showmanship, including crazy costumes and stunts while changing the film's storyline from a modern-day success story to a classic underdog story and changing the name of the main character in the film from Jonathan E. to Jonathan Cross as well.


title: Rollerball (2002 film)

text: The movie was filmed in about 15 weeks, between July 24 and November 2000. McTiernan's first cut, which was over two hours long, was test screened in Las Vegas around April or May 2001, and got a very negative response from test audiences. The release date was then pushed back from May to July 13, 2001, by MGM to test the movie again, hoping that they would find the right audience for it.


title: Rollerball (2002 film)

text: Harry Knowles from "Ain't it Cool News" was invited by McTiernan for a test screening of the film in Long Island sometime after the first test screening, and in his review of McTiernan's original cut, Knowles said that the movie was bad but at least it was an unapologetic hard-R film with much nudity and some brutal violence in Rollerball scenes, but even as a workprint it was obvious how poorly the action scenes were edited, and the story was bad. "The 'Rollerball' edit I saw was one of the worst films I'd seen in my life. There was jeering in the theater," Knowles said. Knowles was also one of the people who read the original first draft of the script (one that McTiernan rejected) and he said that it was an amazing script which solved all the problems of the original film.


title: Rollerball (2002 film)

text: Following the negative test screenings, MGM ordered massive re-shoots and re-edits to be done on the film in the middle of 2001. Shortly after the test screenings, MGM appointed a new head of marketing and distribution, Robert Levin, who convinced McTiernan to let go of the summer release date. This would give the studio more time to devise a better marketing strategy and allow McTiernan to do re-shoots and to re-edit the film for a PG-13 rating, in an attempt by the studio to get a wider audience to see the film. The release date was then pushed back again from August all the way to February 2002, due to all the post production work causing delays. McTiernan shot two weeks of additional footage in late 2001 to clarify certain scenes, especially the film's ending, and also cut down the violence and all the nudity.


title: Rollerball (2002 film)

text: On orders from the studio, around 30 minutes were cut out of the original rough cut of the film and the entire ending was re-shot and changed. Some of the cuts were made because MGM thought the movie was "too Asian".


title: Rollerball (2002 film)

text: In the original ending, Petrovich gets killed by Sanjay and Jonathan and Aurora fly back to the US, during which Jonathan says that he will continue playing the Rollerball game in the US, and how he is now part owner of the game.


title: Rollerball (2002 film)

text: Some of the scenes that were cut for the PG-13 rating, but were never put back even in later DVD and Blu-ray so called R rated versions of the film, include lots more blood in all the Rollerball scenes and parts like skulls getting smashed, bones getting broken, teeth flying out, a scene where Aurora is topless and walks towards Jonathan in the locker room originally didn't have a shadow over her (this was added in post production to cover her up for the PG-13 rating), their sex scene was also longer, and so was their conversation while they are lying down in a sauna. Some of the other similar edits that were done on more graphic scenes in the film include digitally replacing blood spurts with sweat.


title: Rollerball (2002 film)

text: Some of the action scenes were also longer in the original cut and/or edited differently or re-shot, such as the opening scene in San Francisco which was partially re-shot after the original version of it was considered to be too confusing due to the editing.


title: Rollerball (2002 film)

text: The infamous night vision sequence was actually a re-shot version of the scene. After realizing that they shot the original version of the scene to look too dark, filmmakers had to return and re-shoot the entire sequence, delaying the movie's release for six months. Due to the issues with the budget, this scene could not be finished properly, thus it was decided to add green visual tint to the scene to make the scene look like it was shot in night vision, despite the lack of point in giving it that look.


title: Rollerball (2002 film)

text: The original score by Brian Transeau was also removed, purportedly because it sounded "too Arabic", and was replaced with a new score by Éric Serra. Also, some of the other music was changed or removed from the first cut of the film.


title: Rollerball (2002 film)

text: "Rollerball" was panned by critics. On Rotten Tomatoes the film has an approval rating of 3% based on 117 reviews, with an average rating of 2.55/10. The site's consensus reads, "Removing the social critique of the original, this updated version of "Rollerball" is violent, confusing, and choppy. Klein makes for a bland hero." On Metacritic the film has a score of 14 out of 100 based on reviews from 28 critics, indicating "overwhelming dislike". Audiences surveyed by CinemaScore gave the film a grade B− on scale of A to F.


title: Rollerball (2002 film)

text: "Time Out"'s Trevor Johnson described it as "a checklist shaped by a 15-year-old mallrat: thrashing metal track, skateboards, motorbikes, cracked heads and Rebecca Romijn with her top off". "Chicago Sun-Times" reviewer Roger Ebert called it "an incoherent mess, a jumble of footage in search of plot, meaning, rhythm and sense". The film's lead, Chris Klein, was also a subject of criticism and ridicule, being referred to as a bland hero.


title: Rollerball (2002 film)

text: The film was a box-office flop, earning a worldwide total of $25.9 million compared to a production budget of $70 million. In 2014, the "Los Angeles Times" listed the film as one of the most expensive box office flops of all time.


title: Rollerball (2002 film)

text: Rebecca Romijn was nominated for a Golden Raspberry Award as Worst Supporting Actress, where she lost to Madonna for her cameo in "Die Another Day". At the 2002 Stinkers Bad Movie Awards, the film won the awards for Worst Director (McTiernan), Worst Remake, and Worst Female Fake Accent (Romijn-Stamos). Romijn-Stamos was also nominated for Worst Actress but lost to Madonna for "Swept Away".


title: Rollerball (2002 film)

text: The creator of "Rollerball", science fiction author William Harrison, said, "I've never watched the 2002 incarnation of "Rollerball", and have no interest in it."


title: Rollerball (2002 film)

text: In 2013, director John McTiernan was sent to federal prison for making a false statement to an FBI investigator in February 2006 about his hiring the private investigator Anthony Pellicano to illegally wiretap Charles Roven, the producer of the film, around August 2000. McTiernan (who was released in 2014) had been in a disagreement with Roven about what type of film "Rollerball" should be, and had hired Pellicano to investigate Roven's intentions and actions.


title: Tsuchinoko

text: In Japanese folklore, the , literally translating to "child of hammer", is a snake-like being. The name "tsuchinoko" is prevalent in Western Japan, including Kansai and Shikoku; the creature is known as in Northeastern Japan.


title: Tsuchinoko

text: Tsuchinoko are described as being between in length, similar in appearance to a snake, but with a central girth that is much wider than its head or tail, and as having fangs and venom similar to that of a viper. Some accounts also describe the tsuchinoko as being able to jump up to in distance followed immediately by a second jump while still in the air.


title: Tsuchinoko

text: According to legend, some tsuchinoko have the ability to speak and a propensity for lying, and they are also said to have a taste for alcohol. Legend records that it will sometimes swallow its own tail so that it can roll like a wheel, similarly to the "hoop snake" of American legend.


title: Joji Obara

text: , born Kim Sung-jong () is a Korean-Japanese serial rapist who may have raped between 150 and 400 women. In October 2000, he was charged with drugging, raping and killing the British woman Lucie Blackman, the rape and manslaughter of the Australian woman Carita Ridgway, and the rape of eight other women.


title: Joji Obara

text: In 2007, Obara was jailed for life on multiple rape charges and manslaughter, but was acquitted of Blackman's rape and murder for lack of direct evidence. In December 2008, the Tokyo High Court found Obara guilty on the counts of abduction, dismemberment and disposal of Blackman's body. Blackman's death, as well as Obara's trial, received extensive press coverage internationally, especially in Britain.


title: Joji Obara

text: Joji Obara was born on 10 August 1952 to poor Zainichi Korean parents in Osaka. During his youth, Obara's father worked his way from scrap collector to immensely wealthy owner of a string of properties and pachinko parlors. Obara was educated at private Tokyo schools, and received daily tutoring in a variety of subjects. At age 15, he enrolled in a prestigious prep school affiliated with Keio University, virtually guaranteeing his acceptance into the university. Two years later, after his father's death in Hong Kong, Obara inherited property in Osaka and Tokyo. After traveling extensively and graduating from Keio University with degrees in politics and law, he became a naturalized Japanese citizen and legally changed his name. Obara invested heavily in real estate speculation, gaining assets estimated as much as $38 million. After losing his fortune and his firm in the 1990s recession, he was pursued by creditors, and reportedly used his business as a money laundering front for the yakuza syndicate Sumiyoshi-kai.


title: Joji Obara

text: Obara was a drug user who was reported to have a fixation on white women (who were often viewed as status symbols in Japan). He developed a pattern of criminal behavior, beginning with unlawfully administering drugs to render his victims unconscious and abduct and rape them. Obara victimized women of both Japanese and Western backgrounds. He recorded his attacks on videotape, at least 400 of which were recovered by police, giving them cause to believe that he might have raped anywhere from 150 to 400 women. Police found extensive journals in which Obara made reference to "conquest play", a euphemism describing his sexual assaults on women whom he wrote were "only good for sex" and on whom he sought "revenge on the world" drugging them with chloroform.


title: Joji Obara

text: Carita Simone Ridgway (March 3, 1970 February 29, 1992) was an Australian model from Claremont, Perth, Western Australia, who was working in Tokyo's Ginza area as a bar hostess to earn money for acting school. Common in East Asian nations, "hostess" in this sense describes a modern form of geisha entertainer, i.e. young women at bars who are paid to engage in conversation with men, light their cigarettes, sing karaoke, and sometimes dance with a strict policy against men touching the hostesses or making sexual propositions. Popular hostesses often receive drinks, presents and social invitations from their favourite customers.


title: Joji Obara

text: Ridgway, who was offered a lift by Obara, was drugged; this led to chloroform-related liver failure and brain death. Obara's culpability was exposed when, while using an alias (Nishita), he had taken an unconscious Ridgway to the hospital claiming that she was suffering from shellfish (oyster)-related food poisoning. Ridgway died after life-support was stopped at her family's request; she was then cremated and repatriated to Australia. The cause of death was initially deemed hepatitis E, and there was no support for an investigation by the embassy or Japanese police as requested by the family. Police searched Obara's home and found a diary entry that read, "Carita Ridgway, too much chloroform", and a videotape of Obara raping Ridgway.


title: Joji Obara

text: Lucie Jane Blackman (September 1, 1978 July 1, 2000) was a British woman from Sevenoaks, Kent, who worked as a hostess in Tokyo. Blackman had previously worked as a flight attendant for British Airways and went to Japan to see the world and earn money to repay her debts. At the time of her death, she was working as a hostess at Casablanca, a nightclub later known as Greengrass, in Roppongi, Tokyo. On July 1, she went on a "dōhan" (paid date) with a Casablanca customer. Other than a few calls to a friend during the date, no one heard from her again.


title: Joji Obara

text: Blackman's family, wanting to find her, flew to Tokyo and started a high-profile media campaign. They approached British foreign secretary Robin Cook, who was visiting Tokyo at that time. Newspapers started publicizing Blackman's disappearance on July 13, when British prime minister Tony Blair mentioned the case during an official visit to Japan, where he met with Japanese prime minister Yoshiro Mori. An information hotline was staffed by British expatriates, and an anonymous businessman funded a reward of £100,000. As a result of the publicity surrounding the case, three foreign women came forward to describe waking up sore and sick in Obara's bed, with no memory of the night before. Several of them had reported him to Roppongi police, but were ignored. It was also around this time that police made the connection between cases via the man known as Nishita and Obara.


title: Joji Obara

text: On February 9, 2001, Blackman's body was found, buried in a shallow grave under a bathtub in a seaside cave at Miura, Kanagawa, about south of Tokyo and a few hundred meters from Obara's apartment. The body had been cut into 10 pieces and put inside separate bags, her head shaved and encased in concrete. The body was too decomposed to show the cause of death. According to Obara's indictment, he made Blackman a drink containing a drug before raping her at a condominium in Zushi, then killed her. Obara has maintained his innocence, claiming the drugs were voluntarily self-administered.


title: Joji Obara

text: In October 2000, Obara was charged with drugging, raping and killing Blackman, as well as with raping eight other women and the manslaughter of Ridgway. His trial began on July 4, 2001. On April 24, 2007, he was found guilty of multiple rape charges and manslaughter, but was acquitted of Blackman's rape and murder for lack of direct evidence. Evidence supporting his guilt of rape included the approximately 400 videos shot by Obara, which showed him engaged in date rape (including one with Ridgway). For the charge of manslaughter, the prosecutor produced an autopsy report showing traces of chloroform in Ridgway's liver and a paper trail showing that Obara accompanied her to the hospital before she died. In Blackman's case, however, the prosecutor could not produce any forensic evidence linking Obara to her death. Her cause of death could not be determined.


title: Joji Obara

text: Blackman's father, Tim Blackman, accepted £450,000 in "mimaikin" (condolence money) from a friend of Obara's. Blackman's other family members were opposed to accepting the money. A trust, using some of this money and promoting personal safety, was established in Blackman's name. The judge stated that in deciding on the sentence he did not attach much importance to Obara's payment of "consolation money" to a number of his victims.


title: Joji Obara

text: The former prosecutor Takeshi Tsuchimoto criticised the decision to acquit Obara for the murder of Blackman by pointing to the conviction of Masumi Hayashi due to circumstantial evidence. The public prosecutor, however, appealed the Blackman-related verdicts, as crucial forensic evidence had not been heard at the original trial, and on March 25, 2008, an appeal trial commenced in the Tokyo High Court. The court found Obara guilty on the counts of abduction, dismemberment and disposal of Blackman's body on December 16, 2008. In early December 2010, the Supreme Court of Japan rejected Obara's appeal and upheld his life sentence.


title: Joji Obara

text: The Japanese judicial system received criticism for its handling of the case. It is believed that the police did not take this missing person case seriously "because Lucie was working illegally in a job from which women often flee without notice". As a result, the discovery of the body came too late to determine the cause of death. The verdict, by a panel of three judges, cited the lack of forensic evidence as a reason for acquittal. Some foreign media from common law countries also criticised the police for having leaked information to the press.


title: Parietal eye

text: A parietal eye, also known as a third eye or pineal eye, is a part of the epithalamus present in some vertebrates. The eye is located at the top of the head, is photoreceptive and is associated with the pineal gland, regulating circadian rhythmicity and hormone production for thermoregulation. The hole in the head which contains the eye is known as a pineal foramen or parietal foramen, since it is often enclosed by the parietal bones.


title: Parietal eye

text: The parietal eye is found in the tuatara, most lizards, frogs, salamanders, certain bony fish, sharks, and lampreys. It is absent in mammals, but was present in their closest extinct relatives, the therapsids, suggesting it was lost during the course of the mammalian evolution due to it being useless in endothermic animals. It is also absent in the ancestrally endothermic ("warm-blooded") archosaurs such as birds. The parietal eye is also lost in ectothermic ("cold-blooded") archosaurs like crocodilians, and in turtles, which may be grouped with archosaurs in Archelosauria. Despite being lepidosaurs, as lizards and tuatara are, snakes lack a parietal eye.


title: Parietal eye

text: The third eye, where present, is always much smaller than the main paired eyes, and, in living species, it is always covered by skin, and is usually not readily visible externally.


title: Parietal eye

text: The parietal eye is a part of the epithalamus, which can be divided into two major parts; the epiphysis (the pineal organ, or pineal gland if mostly endocrine) and the parapineal organ (often called the "parietal eye", or if it is photoreceptive, the "third eye"). These structures arise as a single anterior evagination of the pineal organ or as a separate outgrowth of the roof of the diencephalon, but during development it divides into two more or less bilaterally symmetric organs which rotate their location to become a caudal pineal organ and a parapineal organ. In some species, it protrudes through the skull. The parietal eye uses a different biochemical method of detecting light from that of rod cells or cone cells in a normal vertebrate eye.


title: Parietal eye

text: Many of the oldest fossil vertebrates, including ostracoderms, placoderms, crossopterygians, and even early tetrapods, had a socket in the skull that appears to have held a functional third eye. This socket remains as a foramen between the parietal bones even in many living amphibians and reptiles, although it has vanished in birds and mammals.


title: Parietal eye

text: Lampreys have two parietal eyes, one that developed from the parapineal organ and the other from the pineal organ. These are one behind the other in the centre of the upper surface of the braincase. Because lampreys are among the most primitive of all living vertebrates, it is possible that this was the original condition among vertebrates, and may have allowed bottom-dwelling species to sense threats from above.


title: Parietal eye

text: "Saniwa", an extinct varanid lizard, probably had two parietal eyes, one that developed from the pineal organ and the other from the parapineal organ. "Saniwa" is the only known jawed vertebrate to have both a pineal and a parapineal eye. In most vertebrates, the pineal organ forms the parietal eye, however, in lepidosaurs, it is formed from the parapineal organ, which suggests that "Saniwa" re-evolved the pineal eye.


title: Parietal eye

text: The parietal eye of amphibians and reptiles appears relatively far forward in the skull; thus it may be surprising that the human pineal gland appears far away from this position, tucked away between the corpus callosum and cerebellum. Also the parietal bones, in humans, make up a portion of the rear of the skull, far from the eyes. To understand this, note that the parietal bones formed a part of the skull lying between the eyes in sarcopterygians and basal amphibians, but have moved further back in higher vertebrates. Likewise, in the brain of the frog, the diencephalon, from which the pineal stalk arises, appears relatively further forward, as the cerebral hemispheres are smaller but the optic lobes are far more prominent than the human mesencephalon, which is part of the brain stem. In humans the optic tract, commissure, and optic nerve bridge the substantial distance between eyes and diencephalon. Likewise the pineal stalk of "Petromyzon" elongates very considerably during metamorphosis.


title: Parietal eye

text: Crustaceans have a single eye atop the head as a nauplius (first-stage larva). The eye has a lens and senses the direction of light but cannot resolve more details in images. Later, more sophisticated segmented eyes develop on sides of the head while the initial eye stays for some time. So, it is possible to say that, at some stage of development, crustaceans also have a "third eye". Some species, like the brine shrimp, retain the primary eye, being three-eyed in the adult stage. Most arthropods have simple eyes, called "ocelli", between their main, compound eyes.


title: Eeswaran

text: Eeswaran is a 2021 Indian Tamil-language action drama film written and directed by Suseenthiran, and produced by Balaji Kapa under banners Madhav Media. It stars Silambarsan, Bharathiraja, Nidhhi Agerwal marking the debut in Tamil cinema and Nandita Swetha. The film has music scored by Thaman S, whereas cinematography and editing were handled by Tirru and Anthony respectively.


title: Eeswaran

text: Principal photography commenced on Dindigul in October 2020, and wrapped up within a single schedule of 22 days. The film released on 14 January 2021, coinciding with Pongal. The film received mixed reviews from critics and was an average success.


title: Eeswaran

text: Periyasamy is a farmer who leads a simple and happy life with his wife Paapathi, and their children. One day, the family astrologer Kaali visits periyasamy's family and makes accurate predictions about their past and future. Periyasamy's world turns upside down the very same day, because just as Kaali had predicted, Paapathi slips and injures her head, and succumbs to her injuries. Years go by, Periyasamy's children get married and move to Chennai for their livelihood leaving him alone in the village. He eagerly awaits his family's occasional visits.


title: Eeswaran

text: A young man, Eeswaran, joins as house help/ foster son for Periyasamy. Eeswaran is street smart, wise and runs from pillar to post to get things done, all the while establishing connections with many VIP's in the state. In March 2020, the entire country goes into lockdown due to the COVID-19 pandemic in India, and Periasamy's family decides to move to the village rather than being stuck in the city. Periyasamy is overjoyed at the idea of spending more time with his grandchildren, So he calls astrologer Kaali, who predicts that there would certainly be a death in the next few days, leaving them worried about contracting the coronavirus and dying from the complications. The whole family takes PCR tests and to their relief, results come back as negative. However, the doctor informs Eeswaran about Periyasamy's young granddaughter Diya's rare heart condition which requires immediate attention. Eeswaran arranges for Diya's surgery without the family's knowledge, in order to keep them calm and happy.


title: Eeswaran

text: Meanwhile, Eeswaran's married ex-girlfriend and Periyasamy's granddaughter Vasuki, also comes to stay with them in the lockdown and this causes tension between the two. Vasuki and Eeswaran fell in love, but they broke up when Eeswaran refused to leave the village for the sake of Periyasamy. Vasuki's younger sister Poongodi falls in love with Eeswaran, but he doesn't reciprocate her feelings for the same reason, that he doesn't want to leave Periyasamy alone. Periyasamy understands this situation and confesses to Eeswaran about how he lost the one true love of his life, Parvathi. He says that he had married Paapathi due to circumstances, but Parvathi came back into his life once again. He had no choice but to marry her as his second wife and they had a son, Aadhisivan. But things go awry when Paapathi came to know of Parvathi and Periyasamy's relationship. So, Parvathi took Aadhisivan and disappeared for good, Periyasamy doesn't know their whereabouts until date. He urges Eeswaran to accept Poongodi's proposal, Eeswaran obliges.


title: Eeswaran

text: Periyasamy's daughter and son-in-law Maragadhamani's business keeps incurring losses and he gets loans from his wife's brothers but fails to repay them, leading to family feuds. Maragadhamani asks Periyasamy to sell the family owned land and help him in his business, but Periyasamy vehemently refuses. So, Maragadhamani plans to kill Periyasamy in order to usurp the family property. He sends poisonous snakes into Periyasamy's farm, Eeswaran discovers the plan and saves the family, but gets bitten. He thrashes Maragadhamani, but the family throws Eeswaran out, citing that he is an outsider. Seeing the commotion, Diya faints and the whole family tries to rush her to the hospital for surgery. But they are stopped by Rathnaswamy, Periyasamy's arch-nemesis who was just released from jail. Rathnaswamy wants revenge against Periyasamy as he believes that the latter was the root cause of the suicide of his wife and daughter. Eeswaran rescues the family once again from Rathnaswamy despite the snake poison affecting his body. Finally, he rushes to see Diya, where he collapses and is taken for emergency treatment. Amidst all the confusion, Sonamuthu, a close aide of Periyasamy and Kutty Puli, Eeswaran's friend, explain that Eeswaran is none other than Periyasamy and Parvathi's son Aadhisivan and the truth was hidden as a dying wish from Parvathi. Periyasamy and the whole family are overwhelmed hearing this and rush in to see him. Eeswaran recovers from the snake bite and Diya's surgery also is successful and the whole family is happily reunited.


title: Eeswaran

text: Eeswaran gets married to Poongodi, he solves Maragadhamani's loan problems and asks him to do proper money management. He gets a call informing him about the sudden demise of astrologer Kaali, indicating that Kaali's predictions came true in some form.


title: Eeswaran

text: In August 2020, Silambarasan was reported to be a part of Suseethiran's untitled film. A source claimed that Simbu had read the script through a virtual meeting with the director, due to the COVID-19 lockdown, and expected to shoot the film in October 2020, during the fifth phase of unlock. Producer Balaji Kapa of Madhav Media, stated an official announcement of their colloaboration with the director and actor on 10 October 2020. Silambarasan released the first look of the film on 26 October 2020, in which the title was revealed to be "Eeswaran".


title: Eeswaran

text: The film's cast members had Bharathiraja signing to act as father of Silambarasan. Bala Saravanan signed to appear in a comical role, and Nidhi Agerwal playing the female lead. Thaman S was roped in to compose music, whilst cinematographer Tirru, editor Anthony and art director Rajeevan, were also a part of the technical crew.


title: Eeswaran

text: For his role in the film, Silambarasan took an extremely intense weight training and strict diet regime, under his trainer Sandeep Raj, in which he lost 30 kilograms in the process. He also indulged in sports, yoga and Bharathanatyam, as a part of the fitness regime. He learnt Bharathanatyam from former actress Saranya Mohan, for few sequences.


title: Eeswaran

text: The principal photography commenced on 17 September 2020, the very same day of the launch. The production team adhered to the safety guidelines, imposed by the government in order to control the spread of COVID-19. Primarily shot at Dindigul, the principal shoot was wrapped up on 7 November 2020, Simbu also completed the dubbing portions of the film on a single day.


title: Eeswaran

text: The music for the film is composed by Thaman S, collaborating with Silambarasan for the third time after "Osthe" (2011) and "Vaalu" (2015) and first time collaborated with Suseenthiran. The lyrics for the songs were written by Yugabharathi. Thaman started composing for the film, during the announcement of the release, and completed within a record time of two months. Before the audio release, the first song "Thamizhan Paattu" was served as the film's lead single, which was released on 14 December 2020. The tracklist of the film was released on 2 January 2021, which featured four songs, and the audio was released the very same day, at the Albert Theatre in Chennai.


title: Eeswaran

text: Reviewing for the soundtrack album for "Sify", music critic Siddharth Srinivas gave 3 out of 5, stating ""Eeswaran" is a nice and effective album from Thaman, who doesn’t go long lengths but still makes it an adequately listenable experience on the whole." A critic from "Thandora Times" gave 3 out of 5 stating, ""Eeswaran" has songs that have a commercial film package." "Studio Flicks" gave 2.5 out of 5 stating ""Eeswaran" has all the elements of a successful commercial album."


title: Eeswaran

text: "Eeswaran" is scheduled to release on 14 January 2021, coinciding with Pongal. The Tamil Nadu theatrical rights of the film were bought by 7G Films. It was released through video-on-demand, over the new platform OlyFlix, for viewers across overseas countries. Satellite Rights and Digital Rights of the film Acquired by Star India Network.


title: Eeswaran

text: M. Suganth of "The Times of India", gave 2.5 out of 5 and stated "The lack of novel ideas, ineffective twists and female leads who have hardly anything to do affect the flow of the film. The emotional scenes lack required intensity, and the tension surrounding the antagonist could have been much better." Srinivasa Ramanujan of "The Hindu" stated "The Simbu-starrer is yet another village-based tale that has more uncles and relatives than ideas." "Behindwoods" gave 2.25 out of 5 stating "STR's vintage changeover is promising, but Eeswaran falls short of expectations." "Sify" gave 2.5 out of 5 and stated ""Eeswaran" is an average formulaic rural family entertainer."


title: Eeswaran

text: Ranjani Krishnakumar of "Firstpost" gave 1.5 out of 5 and stated "In bringing together this colourful and relatable cast of characters, Suseenthiran scores. But that’s that. Once he’s established the milieu, he doesn’t know where to take the film." Ashameera Aiyappan of "Cinema Express" gave 1.5 out of 5 and stated "It is great that Simbu looks like he has turned back time. But it isn’t great that the film also seems to have travelled back with him." Manoj Kumar R of "The Indian Express" gave 1 out of 5 stars "Eeswaran is nothing but a two-hour-long verbal and visual flow of cues that reinforce the patriarchal view of women's subservient role to men in a family."


title: Eeswaran

text: Logesh Balachandran of "India Today" gave 3.5 out of 5 and wrote "Eeswaran isn't a great film, but director Suseenthiran gets many things right. At a time when fans are longing to witness that energetic Simbu on screen, which has been missing for years now, Suseenthiran delivers a perfect rural entertainer that serves just that. The screenplay has been developed in a manner to please both the star’s fans and family audience. Unlike the actor’s previous films, there is adequate emotion in the script which works big time."


title: Eeswaran

text: In the motion poster of the film which released on 26 October, the protagonist Silambarasan had a snake wrapped on his neck a forest official filed a case stating that the team had given sedatives to the animal to prevent it from harming the team which kills the animal very soon and also said that many crews are lying telling it is a fake snake. However, the team stated that the snake was a plastic snake and no harm was there for the animal as well as the crew. But a video was released in which Silambarasan practised throwing a snake in a sack bag, but the team said it was a scene in the movie and the snake was a fake one. On 19 November, the Animal Welfare Board of India, objected the film's team to remove the controversial motion poster, which was later removed from YouTube.


title: Eeswaran

text: Director Suseendhiran was involved in controversy over unnecessarily interrupting when Nidhhi Agerwal was speaking in front of public during the audio launch of the film. The director reportedly urged the actress to say that she loves Silambarasan. His distateful behaviour was heavily criticised in the social media for harassing Agerwal in front of public. However the director clarified the controversy stating that he wanted to give the essence to the audience on how the film will work.


title: Eeswaran

text: The film was given permission to release the film with 100% seating capacity in theatres along with Vijay starrer "Master" (2021) by the Government of Tamil Nadu despite the increase in COVID-19 cases in India especially with cases also increasing in Tamil Nadu. However the Central Government of India issued warrant against Tamil Nadu government's decision to approve the release of the films with full 100% seating capacity. The central government stated that 100% seat occupancy is clearly in violation of the guidelines of MHA which only allows 50% seat occupancy in theatres. Some doctors also cautioned against full seating capacity for the film. Soon after, Central Government notice was passed and it was revoked back to 50% seating capacity in Tamil Nadu theatres.


title: Eeswaran

text: In overseas countries, the makers had signed a deal for the new OTT platform OlyFlix, where the makers will premiere the film through video-on-demand from 14 January 2021 (coincdiing with the release in Indian theatres). However, the Tamil Nadu Theatre Owners Association opposed the decision for a simultaneous OTT release, fearing that piracy sites may upload the high definition print of the film, which will affect the theatrical business. The exhibitors also threatened to boycott the film, if they suggest for an OTT release on the said date. Following pressure from theatre owners and exhibitors, the makers decided to hold the release over video-on-demand, and instead they requested the theatre owners to increase the number of screens for the film.


title: Mohammed al-Qahtani

text: Mohammed Mani Ahmad al-Qahtani () (sometimes transliterated as al-Kahtani) (born November 19, 1975) is a Saudi citizen who was detained as an al-Qaeda operative for 20 years in the United States's Guantanamo Bay detention camps in Cuba. Qahtani allegedly tried to enter the United States to take part in the September 11 attacks as the 20th hijacker and was due to be onboard United Airlines Flight 93 along with the four other hijackers. He was refused entry due to suspicions that he was trying to illegally immigrate. He was later captured in Afghanistan in the battle of Tora Bora in December 2001.


title: Mohammed al-Qahtani

text: After military commissions were authorized by Congress, in February 2008, Qahtani was charged on numerous counts. In May, the charges were dropped without prejudice. New charges were filed against him in November 2008 and dropped in January 2009, as evidence had been obtained through torture and was inadmissible in court. This was the first time an official of the Bush administration had admitted any torture of detainees at Guantanamo.


title: Mohammed al-Qahtani

text: In a "Washington Post" interview in January 2009, Susan Crawford of the Department of Defense said "we tortured Qahtani", saying that the U.S. government had so abused Qahtani through isolation, sleep deprivation, forced nudity and exposure to cold that he was in a "life-threatening condition."


title: Mohammed al-Qahtani

text: On March 6, 2022, Qahtani was airlifted from Guantanamo Bay by the U.S. military and flown back to Saudi Arabia to a mental health treatment facility after 20 years in American custody. His release was announced by the U.S. Department of Defense the next day.


title: Mohammed al-Qahtani

text: Mohammed al-Qahtani was born on 19 November 1975 in Kharj, Saudi Arabia. He is a Saudi national from a large Sunni family. His father served as a police officer for 28 years. His mother remained at home to raise their twelve children. He has seven brothers and four sisters, who range in age from 14 to 42 years of age.


title: Mohammed al-Qahtani

text: On August 3, 2001, Qahtani at the age of 26 flew into Orlando, Florida, from Dubai. He was questioned by immigration agent José Meléndez-Pérez, who was dubious that he could support himself with only $2,800 cash to his name, and suspicious that he intended to become an illegal immigrant, as he was using a one-way ticket. He was sent back to Dubai, and subsequently returned to Saudi Arabia.


title: Mohammed al-Qahtani

text: Captured in the Battle of Tora Bora in December 2001, Qahtani was shipped by the Americans with other detainees in June 2002 to the Guantanamo Bay detention camp set up five months prior at the United States Navy base at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba. He continued giving a false name, and insisted he had been in the area solely to pursue an interest in falconry.


title: Mohammed al-Qahtani

text: After ten months, U.S. Border and Immigration Authorities took a fingerprint sample and discovered that he was the same person who had tried to enter the United States just before the September 11 attacks. Seizing the airport's CCTV surveillance recordings, the FBI claimed they were able to identify the car of Mohamed Atta at the airport, believed to be there to pick up Qahtani. Another military account stated that Qahtani was identified as someone who had previously been turned away due to visa problems – by fingerprints "taken in Southwest Asia".


title: Mohammed al-Qahtani

text: At that time, the military invited FBI interrogators to interview Qahtani. By the fall of 2002, they were frustrated by his resistance. DOD interrogators talked of using different techniques, based on a class they attended.


title: Mohammed al-Qahtani

text: Shortly after September 26, 2002, top administration political appointees: David Addington, the VP's chief of staff; Alberto Gonzales, then White House Counsel; John A. Rizzo of the CIA; William Haynes II, General Counsel of DOD; his legal assistant, Jack Goldsmith; and two Justice Department lawyers, Alice S. Fisher and Patrick F. Philbin, flew to Camp Delta to view Qahtani and talk with his interrogators. They were trying to develop ways to break down detainee resistance and had come up with a list of potential techniques to be used.


title: Mohammed al-Qahtani

text: Lieutenant Colonel Diane Beaver, the top legal adviser at Guantanamo, suggested to her command in Defense that acting with "pure intent" was important, and they might seek immunity from "command authorities" prior to using such harsh interrogation techniques. (In August 2002, the Office of Legal Counsel, Department of Justice, had provided legal opinions (later called the Torture Memos) to the CIA that narrowly defined torture and authorized the use of enhanced interrogation techniques, since commonly defined as torture).


title: Mohammed al-Qahtani

text: The political appointees went on to Charleston, South Carolina to view Jose Padilla, and finally to Norfolk, Virginia to view Yaser Esam Hamdi. These men were United States citizens. Like the foreign detainees in Guantanamo, they were held in solitary confinement, where most human contact was with their interrogators, according to a theory about how to develop dependence among prisoners, for long-term gathering of intelligence by interrogators. At this time, none of the detainees, including the American citizens, had access to counsel or federal courts.


title: Mohammed al-Qahtani

text: Qahtani had initially been interrogated by FBI agents, who used standard techniques based in police work. On December 2, 2002, Secretary of Defense Rumsfeld authorized in writing the use of 17 enhanced interrogation techniques to be used against Qahtani (see next section). After details of Qahtani's status were leaked in 2004, the US Department of Defense issued a press release stating that Qahtani had admitted:


title: Mohammed al-Qahtani

text: Al-Qahtani is also said to have informed interrogators that he had received operational training in covert communications from Abu Ahmed al-Kuwaiti, whom he identified as a courier for Osama bin Laden. This was an early lead at a time when the hunt for bin Laden by other means had ground to a halt, but, as the national security expert Peter Bergen has noted, it had to be combined with another eight years of work, relying on a wide variety of techniques of intelligence-gathering, to culminate in the US government's 2011 raid on the bin Laden compound in Abbottabad, Pakistan and killing of the al-Qaeda leader.


title: Mohammed al-Qahtani

text: At Guantánamo, Mohammed al-Qahtani was subjected to a regime of 17 aggressive interrogation techniques, known as the "First Special Interrogation Plan," authorized in writing by US Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld on December 2, 2002, and implemented under the supervision and guidance of Secretary Rumsfeld and the commander of Guantánamo, Major General Geoffrey Miller. After complaints from military investigators, the list of approved techniques was reduced.


title: Mohammed al-Qahtani

text: The special interrogation plan and techniques were not revealed until 2008 in testimony to the Senate Judiciary Committee during its investigation of detainee treatment, and were reported by the FBI Inspector General, Glenn Fine. The authorized techniques were related to those described in the three August 2002 legal opinions, later known as the Torture Memos, drafted by John Yoo and signed by Jay S. Bybee of the Office of Legal Counsel, Department of Justice, issued to the CIA.


title: Mohammed al-Qahtani

text: Under these coercive techniques, Qahtani gave additional information, including naming 30 other prisoners as working directly for bin Laden. The military used this information as justification to hold the men as enemy combatants. But, because the material was extracted under torture, it was later considered inadmissible in court. Qahtani later recanted this testimony, saying he had given the names of other detainees only to stop the abuse.


title: Mohammed al-Qahtani

text: It was not until February 2008 that Qahtani was first charged before a military commission, and the prosecution dropped the charges in May of that year. He was charged again in November 2008, but on January 14, 2009, Susan J. Crawford, a senior Pentagon official of the Bush administration, stated that she would not proceed with his prosecution. She said that Qahtani's "treatment met the legal definition of torture... The techniques they used were all authorized, but the manner in which they applied them was overly aggressive". As convening authority of the military commissions, Crawford was responsible for overseeing the Guantanamo military commissions. Her statement was the first time any top official of the Bush administration had said there was torture of detainees at Guantanamo.


title: Mohammed al-Qahtani

text: Gitanjali Gutierrez, a defense lawyer for al-Qahtani who works for the New York-based Center for Constitutional Rights, has said she thought Qahtani's torture constituted a war crime.


title: Mohammed al-Qahtani

text: On March 3, 2006, "Time" magazine published the secret log of 49 days of the 20-hour-per-day interrogation of Qahtani at Guantanamo Bay detention camp from late November 2002 to early January 2003. This had been leaked to the press. The log described Qahtani being forcibly administered intravenous fluids, drugs, and enemas, in order to keep his body functioning well enough for the interrogations to continue. The log, titled "SECRET ORCON INTERROGATION LOG DETAINEE 063", offers a daily, detailed account of the enhanced interrogation techniques used from November 23, 2002, to January 11, 2003.


title: Mohammed al-Qahtani

text: The interrogation log does not record Qahtani admitting to being a member of al-Qaeda. The entry for January 1, 2003, relates that Qahtani blames Osama bin Laden for deceiving the 19 9/11 hijackers ("his friends"):


title: Mohammed al-Qahtani

text: 2A0780 asked how one man, Bin Laden, convince 19 young men to kill themselves, (detainee was starting to fade he was going in and out of sleep.) The question was repeated, detainee stated that they were tricked, that he distorted the picture if front of them, 2A0780 asked detainee if this made him mad, detainee stated yes, (detainee did not realize that 2A780 had not started putting detainee into the picture) 2A0780 asked detainee if he was mad that his friends had been tricked, detainee said yes. 2A0780 asked detainee if his friends knew about the plan, detainee said no, 2A0780 asked if detainee knew about the plan, detainee stated that he didn't know. 2A0780 asked detainee if it made him mad that he killed his friends, detainee stated yes. 2A0780 asked detainee if he was glad that he didn't die on the plane, detainee stated yes. 2A0780 asked detainee if his parents were happy that he didn't die detainee stated yes. 2A0780 stated "he killed your friends" detainee stated yes.


title: Mohammed al-Qahtani

text: When asked about his greatest sins in his life, Qahtani responded that he had not taken care of his parents properly, had not finished college, and had not been able to repay $20,000 he had borrowed from his aunt.


title: Mohammed al-Qahtani

text: On March 3, 2006, Qahtani's lawyer Gitanjali Gutierrez said that her client had recanted the accusations he had made against fellow detainees during earlier periods of interrogation under torture. He had told his lawyer that he was forced to falsely confess and name names, in order to get his "enhanced interrogation" to end. He had accused 30 other detainees of being former bodyguards of Osama bin Laden.


title: Mohammed al-Qahtani

text: Given the circumstances of how Qahtani's confessions were obtained, lawyers for the other detainees argued that his testimony should not be used by the military as justification to detain their clients. They used this argument in their petitions for "habeas corpus" challenges for their clients. The government argued that, under the Detainee Treatment Act (2005), detainees could not use the federal courts for "habeas corpus" except on appeal.


title: Mohammed al-Qahtani

text: In its decision in "Hamdan v. Rumsfeld" (2006), the Supreme Court ruled that the Detainee Treatment Act and the military commissions as established by the Department of Defense were unconstitutional for depriving detainees of "habeas corpus" and rights of due process, and that the military commissions had not been authorized by Congress.


title: Mohammed al-Qahtani

text: In the fall of 2006, Congress quickly passed and the President signed the Military Commissions Act of 2006. It responded to the Court's concerns but mandated the restriction of detainees to the military commission system.


title: Mohammed al-Qahtani

text: On February 9, 2008, the "New York Times" reported that the Office of Military Commissions was close to laying charges against six of the high-value detainees at Guantanamo, including Qahtani. He was believed to have been the planned 20th hijacker for the 9/11 attacks.


title: Mohammed al-Qahtani

text: Qahtani and the other five were charged on February 11, 2008, with war crimes and murder, and faced the death penalty if convicted. Gitanjali Gutierrez, an attorney with the Center for Constitutional Rights (CCR), was representing Qahtani. Attorneys at CCR denounced the systematic use of torture against detainees and challenged the validity of the military commission. They said that evidence in Qahtani's death penalty case was obtained by torture.


title: Mohammed al-Qahtani

text: In their February 2008 press release, CCR said that "the military commissions at Guantanamo allow secret evidence, hearsay evidence, and evidence obtained through torture. They are unlawful, unconstitutional, and a perversion of justice."


title: Mohammed al-Qahtani

text: According to his lawyer, in early April 2008, al-Qahtani tried to kill himself after learning that he faced charges that could carry the death penalty. He cut himself at least three times, causing "profuse bleeding" that needed hospital treatment.


title: Mohammed al-Qahtani

text: On May 11, 2008, the government charges against al-Qahtani were dropped. Commander Jeffrey Gordon, a Pentagon spokesman, told reporters that it was possible for the charges to be re-instated, at a later date, because they had been dropped "without prejudice".


title: Mohammed al-Qahtani

text: On November 18, 2008, Chief Prosecutor Lawrence Morris announced that he was filing new charges against Qahtani. When announcing the new charges, Morris stated that the new charges were based on "independent and reliable evidence". He stated: "His conduct is significant enough that he falls into the category of people who ought to be held accountable by being brought to trial."


title: Mohammed al-Qahtani

text: Susan Crawford, the senior official in charge of the Office of Military Commissions, had the final authority over whether charges were laid. On January 14, 2009, after a change in administrations, Crawford ruled that the prosecution would not proceed against Qahtani because he had been subjected to interrogation techniques in Guantanamo that rose to the level of torture. Bryan Whitman, a DOD spokesman, said that the techniques were legal at the time they were applied, according to Department of Justice legal opinions.


title: Mohammed al-Qahtani

text: Mohammed al-Qahtani's "habeas corpus" case was reinstated in July 2008 after the Supreme Court ruled in "Boumediene v. Bush," stating that Guantanamo detainees have a constitutional right to "habeas corpus" and the right to petition federal courts.


title: Mohammed al-Qahtani

text: When President Barack Obama took office in January 2009, he made a number of promises about the future of Guantanamo.


title: Mohammed al-Qahtani

text: He promised the use of torture would cease at the camp. He promised to institute a new review system, convening a task force to review material on detainees that was made up of officials from six agencies, whereas the OARDEC reviews were conducted entirely by the Department of Defense. Reporting back a year later, the Joint Review Task Force recommended release and repatriation of 53 detainees. It classified other individuals as too dangerous to be transferred from Guantanamo, although there was insufficient evidence to charge them with crimes. On April 9, 2013, that document was made public after a Freedom of Information Act request. Some 71 detainees were determined to be eligible for a Periodic Review Board assessment, similar to a parole board, to determine if they could be released.


title: Mohammed al-Qahtani

text: Mohammed al Qahtani was one of the 71 individuals deemed too innocent to charge, but too dangerous to release.


title: Mohammed al-Qahtani

text: Obama promised that those deemed too innocent to charge, but too dangerous to release would start to receive reviews from a Periodic Review Board. Qahtani was recommended for transfer to Saudi Arabia on June 9, 2021.


title: Mohammed al-Qahtani

text: On 2 September 2014, a judicial panel for the Second US Circuit Court of Appeals in New York stated that pictures and videos of Qahtani, taken while in detention, should remain classified. The Center for Constitutional Rights, which represented Mohammed al-Qahtani for this federal lawsuit, had sought to disclose these audiovisual materials under the Freedom of Information Act. The judges decided that the release of these pictures and videos "could logically and plausibly harm national security because these images are uniquely susceptible to use by anti-American extremists as propaganda to incite violence against United States interests domestically and abroad". On March 9, 2015, the Supreme Court denied certiorari in his case.


title: Mohammed al-Qahtani

text: In a review of the drama film "Zero Dark Thirty" (2012) about the hunt for Osama bin Laden, Peter Bergen, a national security analyst, compared the character of Ammar and the issue of torture to the treatment of Qahtani in detention. In a controversial passage, Ammar is interrogated under torture in the film and gives up the name of a bin Laden courier. Bergen notes that although Qahtani gave a name under alleged torture, it took another eight years, with US analysts using every form of intelligence-gathering from high technology to 'people on the ground,' for the government to locate and kill Osama bin Laden. Other sources later suggested the character of Ammar was based on Ammar al-Baluchi.


title: Mohammed al-Qahtani

text: In the television documentary series "The Path to 9/11", al-Qahtani is portrayed by Elie Gemael, who portrayed 9/11 hijacker Mohammed Atta in "Zero Hour".


title: Richard Castle

text: Richard Edgar "Rick" Castle (born Richard Alexander Rodgers) is a fictional character on the ABC crime series "Castle". He is portrayed by Nathan Fillion.


title: Richard Castle

text: The name Richard Castle is also used as a pseudonym under which a set of real books about the characters Derrick Storm and Nikki Heat, based on the books mentioned in the television series, are written. These books have achieved success, becoming "New York Times" bestsellers. Actor Nathan Fillion appears as the face of Richard Castle on the books and on the official website, and participates in book signings. The Castle book series was actually written/ ghost-written by screenwriter Tom Straw.


title: Richard Castle

text: According to Fillion, the character's name "Rick Castle" was noted by the show creator as sounding like "Rich Asshole" and says that this reflects his character. He describes Castle as being "a bit of a douche" with a Peter Pan syndrome stemming from a lack of a "real male adult role model in his life".


title: Richard Castle

text: Andrew Marlowe explained that he designed Castle's character as one that presents a "storytelling point of view" as a counterpoint to Beckett's evidence-based police work. On casting Fillion to fill the role, Marlowe described "Castle" as "the right vehicle for the right personality". He also acknowledged the similarity between the Castle/Beckett relationship and the Booth/Brennan relationship of "Bones".


title: Richard Castle

text: Castle is the father of Alexis Castle and the son of Martha Rodgers, both of whom live with him. His father is a CIA operative who has used the aliases "Jackson Hunt" and "Anderson Cross". Castle's birth name is Richard Alexander Rodgers; he uses Richard Edgar Castle as his "nom de plume", (Edgar in honor of Edgar Allan Poe, though he still considers Alexander his middle name). Fillion describes the family dynamic as unconventional because "Castle is very much mothered by his 15-year-old daughter, and at the same time he turns around and mothers his own mother."


title: Richard Castle

text: As a child, he never knew who his father was. He reasoned that he never missed having a father as he never had anything to miss, and it allowed him to imagine that his father could be anyone he wished. He was looked after by a nanny who spent most of her time watching daytime television. "One Life to Live" was the inspiration to write his first novel. He was further inspired to become a writer when a man (later revealed to be the father he never knew) handed him a copy of Ian Fleming's "Casino Royale" at the New York Public Library when he was ten years old. He also claims to have been kicked out of all of New York's finer academic institutions at least once, and to have picked up speed reading while spending his days as a child in the New York Public Library.


title: Richard Castle

text: Castle has been married and divorced twice. His first wife was Alexis's mother, Meredith (Darby Stanchfield), an impulsive, free-spirited actress, and red-haired like her daughter. She and Richard occasionally meet for a sexual liaison, causing Richard to refer to her metaphorically as a "deep-fried twinkie" (something that is a treat on occasion, but to have it every day would kill you) when she contemplated moving back to New York. His second wife was Gina Cowell (Monet Mazur), his publisher, a role she continues after their divorce. Castle and Gina became involved again, briefly, when she spent a summer with him in the Hamptons supervising his second Nikki Heat novel, but they soon ended their relationship.


title: Richard Castle

text: Castle has sole custody of his daughter, Alexis. As a result of his own experiences being raised by a nanny, he insisted on raising her himself, made easier by the fact that he works from his large loft apartment shared with his mother. Alexis sometimes seems more mature and responsible than her father, parenting "him". Richard takes great care of her, but also likes to play with her.


title: Richard Castle

text: Castle also plays regular poker games with fellow authors James Patterson, Stephen J. Cannell, Michael Connelly, and Dennis Lehane. When Cannell died in 2010, a fictional mystery writer was invited by Castle to the game, but a seat was left empty in their friend's honor. He also mentions being friends with Jonathan Kellerman, Wes Craven, and Stephen King.


title: Richard Castle

text: In the fifth season, Castle finally meets his father (portrayed by James Brolin), whom he learns is a spy when he helps him rescue Alexis when she was kidnapped. A Russian enemy of Castle's father seeks revenge for the Russian's murdered wife, so he kidnaps Alexis to lure him out. His father has been checking in on him, his mom, and Alexis their whole lives.


title: Richard Castle

text: At the end of the final fifth-season episode, Castle proposes marriage to Beckett just as she prepares to reveal her decision on a Washington, DC job offer. The episode ends before she answers. At the beginning of the first sixth-season episode, "Valkyrie", Kate accepts.


title: Richard Castle

text: They are finally married during the seventh season in a private wedding with their family, taking place at Castle's house in the Hamptons.


title: Richard Castle

text: In the eighth and final season, Beckett estranges herself from Castle in order to protect him from LokSat, a deadly mastermind who she's after, although they are married still and very much in love. Beckett starts living elsewhere, not letting Castle know about LokSat. After the events of "Mr. And Mrs. Castle" they get back together. Alexis becomes Castle's main helping hand in his P.I. agency. In the series finale, a flash forward to seven years later shows Castle and Beckett are the parents of three children.


title: Richard Castle

text: Early episodes of the series had Castle voicing over the introductory credits beginning with Season 2.


title: Richard Castle

text: "There are two kinds of folks who sit around thinking how to kill people: Psychopaths, and mystery writers. I'm the kind that pays better. Who am I? I'm Rick Castle... Every writer needs inspiration, and I found mine."" [Det. Kate Beckett as Nikki Heat] ""And thanks to my friendship with the mayor, I get to be on her case... And together, we catch killers.""


title: Richard Castle

text: Castle is an author of mystery fiction, with 26 bestsellers. His first novel, "In a Hail of Bullets", accrued at least 21 rejections before being accepted by a publisher (he keeps the first rejection letter he received framed on his office wall as motivation) and winning the Nom DePlume Society's Tom Straw Award for Mystery Literature. The books have made Castle wealthy; when Alexis is kidnapped he can pay a $3 million ransom. Castle has a large multi-floor Manhattan apartment, a beachfront house in the Hamptons, and luxury cars.


title: Richard Castle

text: His most popular works are a series starring "Derrick Storm"; "A Calm Before The Storm", "Gathering Storm", "Unholy Storm", "Storm's Last Stand", "Storm Season", "Storm Rising", "Storm Warning", and "Storm's Break" and in the pilot episode, Castle attends a party for the release of the final book in the Storm series, "Stormfall", which ends with the surprise death of Derrick Storm, Castle having become bored with the character. He later reads from the novel before a book-signing. Patterson and Cannell both disagree with the decision to kill off Storm, with Cannell commenting that he could have retired or crippled Storm instead, so that he could revisit the character if he changed his mind.


title: Richard Castle

text: His other books include "Death of a Prom Queen", "Flowers For Your Grave", "Hell Hath No Fury", "A Skull at Springtime", "At Dusk We Die", "When It Comes to Slaughter", and "A Rose for Everafter". By his own admission, his early works—"Death of a Prom Queen", "Flowers For Your Grave", and "Hell Hath No Fury"—are of poor quality; he points to "Hell Hath No Fury" in particular, with its plotline of "angry Wiccans out for blood" as being a low point in his career.


title: Richard Castle

text: After using his friendship with the Mayor to get partnered with NYPD detective Kate Beckett under the pretense of conducting research for a new character, Castle plans a new series of novels starring a new character, a detective based on Beckett. He soon names Beckett's literary alter-ego "Nikki Heat", much to her embarrassment. Beckett takes umbrage at the name, regarding it a "stripper name", and insists that Castle change it, despite his proposing the book titles "Summer Heat", "Heat Wave", and "In Heat". Ultimately, he sticks with the name, and the first novel in the series, "Heat Wave", is released to much critical acclaim and financial success. Castle is offered a lucrative contract for three more Nikki Heat novels, with talk in the third season of a movie adaptation. The title of his second Nikki Heat novel, "Naked Heat", once again displeases Beckett.


title: Richard Castle

text: It has been suggested that Castle's interest in death, murder, and the macabre may be the result of a childhood trauma. When Beckett confronts him about it, Castle avoids the question. However, as soon as he tells the story, he admits it is fictional and that it's "[his] job to make stuff up". Later, he admits to his daughter that one of the reasons he writes is to try to understand how criminals could do the things they do. He was under consideration for a deal to write three novels revolving around an unnamed British spy (implied to be James Bond) but rejected the offer, allegedly because his publisher wanted three more Nikki Heat novels and offered him more money, but secretly because accepting would have ended his collaboration with Beckett. In "Hollander's Woods", the source of Castle's interest in murder writing is revealed: in 1983, when he was 11, he found a murdered girl and was confronted by her killer who let him go. The girl's body was never found and she was never identified so no one believed his story. According to Castle, this encounter is what causes him to do what he does: he never was able to solve the mystery of what happened to him in the woods that day so he's driven to solve all the other mysteries he can. In the present of the episode, Castle is confronted by a similar case and finally gets to learn the truth of what happened that day and personally stop a serial killer of an unknown, but presumably large, number of murdered women.


title: Richard Castle

text: Castle is something of a "method writer", endlessly researching his subjects and acquiring new skills to put himself in the mind of his characters. Amongst the useful skills Castle (and to some extent, partner-in-crime Alexis) have acquired are lock picking, safe cracking, fencing, and a basic grounding in forensic science and criminal psychology. Because he's a writer, although he notoriously shirks "boring paperwork," his ability to speed-read allows him to sift through information faster than most of the precinct (a skill Gates puts to use when hunting for a bomber) and he retains almost everything he reads, especially when it comes to case files (making him the closest approximation to an expert when Jerry Tyson, aka 3XK, returns in Season 7 after stealing his entire case file in Season 6). He also has researched crimes and serial killers, such as the original crime spree of serial killer Jerry Tyson aka The Triple Killer or 3XK for "When It Comes to Slaughter". In the pilot episode, "Flowers For Your Grave", Castle displays an uncanny knack for behavioral observation when he observes Beckett and is able to accurately profile her, to which a visibly shaken Beckett responds "cute trick".


title: Richard Castle

text: Kyra Blaine, an ex-girlfriend of Castle to whom he dedicated "A Rose for Everafter", told Beckett that Castle only dedicates his books to people he truly cares about.


title: Richard Castle

text: In "Hollander's Woods", Castle is awarded the Poe's Pen Achievement Award which he says is the highest award a mystery writer can receive. Although shaken by an encounter with the serial killer who inspired his writing interest, Castle accepts the award and dedicates it to his family and friends as he recognizes that, without them, he wouldn't have won it.


title: Richard Castle

text: In the pilot episode of "Castle", Castle is consulted by Detective Beckett of the NYPD when two victims are murdered in the style of two deaths portrayed in his novels, "Hell Hath No Fury" and "Flowers for Your Grave" respectively. Though Beckett wants Castle's access to the case limited, Castle repeatedly defies her instructions in order to see the handiwork of his copycat. Unsatisfied with what he considers a boring resolution to the case, Castle convinces Beckett to continue the investigation, and winds up discovering deeper layers to the crime. While the murders initially appeared to have been committed by the mentally ill client of a social worker who was one of the victims, Castle notes that the murderer did not duplicate the crimes exactly, eliminating the possibility that he was a deranged fan. He realizes that the killer was actually the social worker's brother attempting to frame her client, so that he could inherit his father's money after his death (his father suffering from terminal cancer). By the end of the pilot, Castle enters into a working relationship with Beckett under the pretense of conducting research for his new series of "Nikki Heat" novels.


title: Richard Castle

text: This relationship is often strained by Castle's luck in personally encountering the suspects, and sneaking in behind breaching teams even after Beckett has ordered him to remain behind; his attempts to follow them once allowing a suspect a chance to escape (although in Castle's defense this was merely because his ex-wife called him on his cell phone during the stake-out rather than any mistakes on his part). Despite this, Castle's familiarity with numerous obscure subjects often gives breakthroughs. His career yields many contacts, including a CIA agent willing to break Agency protocol by telling Castle and Beckett that their current victim was not a CIA agent.


title: Richard Castle

text: Although he is a proficient marksman (secret until Beckett bets with him on the practice range), he works the cases wholly unarmed (with a few rare, isolated exceptions). While his status as a consultant generally allows him to participate in the 'fun' parts of detective work without worrying about the more tedious details such as paperwork, the team puts him in situations where the criminals request no police involvement, such as to drop off a ransom. Castle still requires official police authority to request information from various sources, and can only question witnesses under supervision.


title: Richard Castle

text: Beckett often steps in to stop him becoming carried away with wild theories that threaten to obscure the facts. He once speculated that a surgeon had been killed for his involvement in an organ-smuggling ring before they discovered that he was wanted for plastic surgery he had performed for someone in witness protection. Castle's writing career has given him a knack for noting minor details in the situations they investigate, such as when he noted that rent for a victim's apartment had been paid for "after" her death.


title: Richard Castle

text: Initially portrayed as jocular and immature, such as having a bulletproof vest made up for himself that says "WRITER" rather than "POLICE", Castle's character deepens as the series progresses. In "Sucker Punch", while attempting to catch the killer responsible for the death of Beckett's mother over a decade ago, Castle willingly donates $100,000 of his own money for a fake hit, to lure out the killer. He then offers to terminate his partnership with Beckett after she was forced to shoot the real killer, revealed to be a contract assassin silent about his employer. Beckett rejects the offer on the grounds that Castle makes her hard job more fun.


title: Richard Castle

text: In season 3 "Nikki Heat", Castle is upset when B-movie actress Natalie Rhodes is cast as Nikki, thinking she is not right for the role. When Rhodes comes onto a case to observe Beckett, Castle is further insulted that she has not read the actual book. Rhodes considers him unimportant to the film and Beckett likes having Natalie around. However, as the case goes on, Rhodes begins to copy Beckett's mannerisms and outfits, complete with brunette wig, annoying Beckett while Castle begins to like her more. At one point, Rhodes kisses Castle, making it clear she wants to sleep with him to feel the character more but Castle turns her down, telling Beckett that sleeping with the actress playing the fictional version of her is "way too meta".


title: Richard Castle

text: In "Knockdown", Castle helps Beckett in catching her mother's killer. When Martha points out that he has written 22 books before meeting Beckett but he did not have to go to police station every day, Castle replied by saying that it is not about the books anymore. Castle and Beckett finally kiss as a ploy to distract a guard, although their reactions imply that they both felt something.


title: Richard Castle

text: Since then, despite Beckett's then current relationship with another man, they begin spending increasing amounts of time together, with Castle even admitting he is jealous when Beckett agrees to help another writer with his book. In the final episode of Season 3, "Knockout", Castle finally admits his feelings to Beckett, who is apparently unconscious after being shot while delivering a eulogy at Roy Montgomery's funeral after Montgomery sacrificed himself to atone for his role in the death of Beckett's mother. She claims amnesia after she has recovered from the shooting, refusing the possibility of a relationship while her mother's real killer still walks free.


title: Richard Castle

text: In season 4, Castle is contacted by a shadowy figure who says that he is a friend of Roy Montgomery and that he has been charged with protecting Beckett in his stead. Castle learns that Montgomery knew who ordered Beckett's mother's death; he had been the one who found out about the kidnappings and offered not to go to the police if Montgomery, Raglan and MacAllister gave him the money they made from the ransoms which has been estimated at several millions of dollars. According to the man, this person has grown powerful enough for the revelation to destroy him. Montgomery had kept files that, should they be revealed would harm the killer and others. The deal was that Montgomery's family and Beckett would be safe if he wanted the files kept secret. Upon his death, he had sent the files to the mysterious man and had charged him with upholding the deal. The only other condition was that Beckett couldn't go near the case or else the deal was off. Castle says that he will keep her reined in. He tells only his mother this information and confides in her as to the deal he made. Martha wants Castle to tell Beckett the truth, but Castle tells her that he can't because Beckett will be killed by the people behind her mother's murder if she keeps digging and that he has to protect her.


title: Richard Castle

text: In 'Dial M for Mayor', a mysterious conspiracy is uncovered that was attempting to force Mayor Weldon, Castle's close friend, out of office. The attempt to smear him for embezzlement backfired when a young woman named Laura Cambridge discovered the fact and she was killed. During the case, the mysterious man once again contacts Castle and asks to meet. When they do, he helps him solve the case. However, he later reveals that the conspiracy aimed at the Mayor would have forced Castle out of the 12th Precinct because no one would force Captain Gates to retain him. The man said that they needed Castle to remain at Beckett's side because he was the only one able to keep her away from her mother's case. Castle promises that he will uphold his end of the deal to keep Beckett away from the case.


title: Richard Castle

text: In "Pandora" and Linchpin", the investigation of a murder leads Castle and Beckett to reunite with Sophia Turner, a CIA operative on whom he based a major character. Beckett shows some jealousy at how the two are close and Turner tells Beckett that after she and Rick became involved, it was the beginning of the end of their partnership. The trio work together to stop a plot that could escalate into World War III. However, Sophia turns out to not only be part of the plot but is actually a KGB mole who infiltrated the CIA only to be left on her own when the Soviet Union collapsed. Holding Beckett and Castle at gunpoint, she hints that Castle's father was in the CIA and that was why he gained access years ago. She is killed by a true CIA agent as Beckett and Castle help stop the plot. While mourning Sophia, Castle admits to Beckett that she was much truer to the character he created.


title: Richard Castle

text: In "47 Seconds", Beckett reveals to a suspect that she remembered every second of being shot, not realizing that Castle was watching behind the one-way glass mirror. As a result, although Castle tried to hide it, he started to become distant with her, much to Beckett's confusion, concluding that she never mentioned her memory of the event because she didn't return his feelings and didn't want to create an awkward situation.


title: Richard Castle

text: In the season 4 finale, Castle is concerned when a murder case is connected to the conspiracy behind Beckett's mother and is told by the mystery man that Beckett's life is in danger if she investigates. After failing to warn her off subtly, Castle confesses to Beckett how he's been protecting her and she's outraged over his making decisions for her. He confronts her over how he knows she remembers his declaration of love and they both decide they're done. After nearly dying in a confrontation with the killer and quitting the police force, Beckett comes to Castle's apartment, telling him she could only think of him while on the verge of death and then they later kiss passionately.


title: Richard Castle

text: The thread of their relationship continues in Season 5, with Castle and Beckett trying (and mostly failing) to conceal their relationship from their co-workers – not simply because of office gossip, but the threat of a misconduct charge being levied by the ever-watchful Captain Gates. In episode 5.04 (Murder, He Wrote), Ryan accidentally stumbles on the truth while interrogating a suspect, but chooses to keep the truth to himself and respect their privacy. Lanie and Esposito learn the truth in the following episode when Castle was framed for murder (Ryan told Esposito and Beckett told Lanie so that they were aware of the fact that their background research would expose Castle's contact with Beckett outside of case-related matters). In the Season 5 episode "Still", Captain Gates reveals that she has known about the relationship and has kept quiet since to maintain "plausible deniability", i.e. she cannot report the relationship because she hasn't personally witnessed any behavior to suggest a relationship and is happy to keep up the plausible deniability so long as the pair remain professional on the job.


title: Richard Castle

text: In the season six episode "Veritas", after Beckett is framed for murder by the man who had ordered the death of her mother, Castle works to protect her. They are eventually able to clear her name and as a bonus, finally arrest the man Beckett had been after for so long with hidden evidence Roy Montgomery had left Johanna Beckett.


title: Richard Castle

text: In episode eleven of season 7, Castle is ordered to leave the NYPD due to co-operating with a mafia don to prove the innocence of one of his underlings suspected of murder, leading to the true murderer being assassinated.


title: Richard Castle

text: After being restored to his position in the police department, Castle is finally able to bring down old enemy Jerry Tyson, aka serial killer 3XK during "Resurrection" and "Reckoning."


title: Richard Castle

text: In the season seven finale, "Hollander's Woods", Castle is confronted with his past when a murder surfaces that matches one he saw in his youth. The murder he'd witnessed had been his inspiration to write as because he was never able finish the story of what had happened in the woods when he was a kid, he became driven to finish all the other stories he could find. The investigation leads them to discover a serial killer who has been operating for at least thirty years with an unknown number of victims, all people who won't be missed. The investigation leads them to the identity of the girl Castle saw murdered and a showdown between Castle and the killer after he breaks into the man's barn in search of evidence. Castle is forced to fatally shoot the killer in self-defense with Beckett's gun and brings closure to his victims though the incident leaves him shaken.


title: Richard Castle

text: After being banned from the 12th Precinct, Castle completed online courses and became a fully licensed private investigator, hoping that he could still work with the department by conducting his own investigations rather than as part of theirs, but was informed that this planned loophole wouldn't work as he still wasn't allowed to directly come in contact with evidence. He continued to operate as a P.I., but soon found himself dissatisfied with the role, as he was mainly hired for minor cases or people viewing his new career as a 'gimmick' rather than a serious profession; one case saw him hired by someone who wanted him to act as a fake witness to her plans to fake her own death. However, after rescuing Beckett from his old nemesis the Triple Killer, Captain Gates eventually re-hired Castle as a consultant for the 12th precinct-'officially' designating it as community service for interfering in an active case-also reinstating him as Beckett's partner.


title: Richard Castle

text: After Gates and Beckett are promoted so that Beckett is now captain of the 12th precinct, Castle re-opens Richard Castle Investigations (his private investigator's office) to allow him to take part in investigations due to Beckett's more deskbound role.


title: Richard Castle

text: As a promotion for the show, "Richard Castle's" book "Heat Wave" was released in hardcover by Hyperion on September 29, 2009 and debuted at No. 26 on "The New York Times" Best Seller list. In its fourth week on the list, "Heat Wave" broke into the top 10 as No. 6. "Heat Wave" was released in paperback on July 27, 2010 and debuted at No. 34 on "The New York Times" best seller Paperback Mass-Market list. The novel features a fictionalized version of the already fictional Richard Castle, named "Jameson Rook", who enters into a partnership with Heat that mirrors Castle's working relationship with Beckett. The second novel, "Naked Heat", was released September 28, 2010, and debuted at No. 7 on "The New York Times" Best Seller list. As with "Heat Wave", ABC released a series of early chapters of "Naked Heat" online. The third Nikki Heat novel, "Heat Rises", was released on September 20, 2011. The fourth book in the series, "Frozen Heat", was released on September 11, 2012. A graphic novel featuring Derrick Storm titled "Deadly Storm", written by Brian Michael Bendis and Kelly Sue DeConnick, with art by Lan Medina, was published by Marvel Comics on September 28, 2011. Hyperion has also published three original Derrick Storm eBook novellas; "A Brewing Storm" was published in May 2012, "A Raging Storm" in July, and "A Bloody Storm" in August.


title: Richard Castle

text: Like "Castle", the Nikki Heat novels are set in New York City. The title character, Nikki Heat, is based on Castle's partner, Kate Beckett. The first book, "Heat Wave", was initially published on September 29, 2009. It reached the No. 6 spot in its fourth week on the "New York Times" bestseller list. The second book, "Naked Heat", was released on September 28, 2010. It debuted at No. 7 on the "Times" list. The third book, "Heat Rises", was released on September 20, 2011. It debuted on the "Times" list on October 9 at No. 1. The fourth book was released on September 11, 2012, and debuted at No. 7 on September 23. The fifth Nikki Heat novel, "Deadly Heat", was released September 17, 2013, and debuted at No. 8 on the "New York Times" bestseller list.


title: Richard Castle

text: The ABC network was able to successfully conceal the true identity of the ghost-writer of the "Castle" book series throughout the eight years of the program's production from 2009 through 2016, allowing the mystery of the true identity of this individual to then remain as an intriguing part of the over-all "Castle myth." In 2010, the hint was dropped, when the "Nom de Plume Society," and the "Tom Straw Mystery Writer's Award," were apparently created to fete actor Nathan Fillion with said award, however at that point in time the general public remained unaware of the connection. The general mystery persisted regarding the ghost-writer's true identity, despite the fact that some then proposed the possibility that therefore Straw must be the true ghost-writer. The ghost-writer's name was only finally fully revealed after the series production was discontinued in 2016. It was then officially acknowledged that the Castle book series was indeed entirely written by a ghostwriter and that established screenwriter Tom Straw wrote the first seven.


title: Brandon Boston Jr.

text: Brandon Elliot "B. J." Boston Jr. (born November 28, 2001) is an American professional basketball player for the Los Angeles Clippers of the National Basketball Association (NBA). He played college basketball for the Kentucky Wildcats.