title: Algebraic structure

text: An axiom of an algebraic structure often has the form of an identity, that is, an equation such that the two sides of the equals sign are expressions that involve operations of the algebraic structure and variables. If the variables in the identity are replaced by arbitrary elements of the algebraic structure, the equality must remain true. Here are some common examples.


title: Algebraic structure

text: Some common axioms contain an existential clause. In general, such a clause can be avoided by introducing further operations, and replacing the existential clause by an identity involving the new operation. More precisely, let us consider an axiom of the form ""for all there is such that" where is a -tuple of variables. Choosing a specific value of for each value of defines a function formula_14 which can be viewed as an operation of arity , and the axiom becomes the identity formula_15


title: Algebraic structure

text: The introduction of such auxiliary operation complicates slightly the statement of an axiom, but has some advantages. Given a specific algebraic structure, the proof that an existential axiom is satisfied consists generally of the definition of the auxiliary function, completed with straightforward verifications. Also, when computing in an algebraic structure, one generally uses explicitly the auxiliary operations. For example, in the case of numbers, the additive inverse is provided by the unary minus operation formula_16


title: Algebraic structure

text: Also, in universal algebra, a variety is a class of algebraic structures that share the same operations, and the same axioms, with the condition that all axioms are identities. What precedes shows that existential axioms of the above form are accepted in the definition of a variety.


title: Algebraic structure

text: The axioms of an algebraic structure can be any first-order formula, that is a formula involving logical connectives (such as ""and"", ""or"" and ""not""), and logical quantifiers (formula_22) that apply to elements (not to subsets) of the structure.


title: Algebraic structure

text: Such a typical axiom is inversion in fields. This axiom cannot be reduced to axioms of preceding types. (it follows that fields do not form a variety in the sense of universal algebra.) It can be stated: ""Every nonzero element of a field is invertible;"" or, equivalently: "the structure has a unary operation such that


title: Algebraic structure

text: The operation can be viewed either as a partial operation that is not defined for ; or as an ordinary function whose value at 0 is arbitrary and must not be used.


title: Algebraic structure

text: Group-like structures: one binary operation. The binary operation can be indicated by any symbol, or with no symbol (juxtaposition) as is done for ordinary multiplication of real numbers.


title: Algebraic structure

text: Ring-like structures or Ringoids: two binary operations, often called addition and multiplication, with multiplication distributing over addition.


title: Algebraic structure

text: Lattice structures: two or more binary operations, including operations called meet and join, connected by the absorption law.


title: Algebraic structure

text: Algebraic structures can also coexist with added structure of non-algebraic nature, such as partial order or a topology. The added structure must be compatible, in some sense, with the algebraic structure.


title: Algebraic structure

text: Algebraic structures are defined through different configurations of axioms. Universal algebra abstractly studies such objects. One major dichotomy is between structures that are axiomatized entirely by "identities" and structures that are not. If all axioms defining a class of algebras are identities, then this class is a variety (not to be confused with algebraic varieties of algebraic geometry).


title: Algebraic structure

text: Identities are equations formulated using only the operations the structure allows, and variables that are tacitly universally quantified over the relevant universe. Identities contain no connectives, existentially quantified variables, or relations of any kind other than the allowed operations. The study of varieties is an important part of universal algebra. An algebraic structure in a variety may be understood as the quotient algebra of term algebra (also called "absolutely free algebra") divided by the equivalence relations generated by a set of identities. So, a collection of functions with given signatures generate a free algebra, the term algebra "T". Given a set of equational identities (the axioms), one may consider their symmetric, transitive closure "E". The quotient algebra "T"/"E" is then the algebraic structure or variety. Thus, for example, groups have a signature containing two operators: the multiplication operator "m", taking two arguments, and the inverse operator "i", taking one argument, and the identity element "e", a constant, which may be considered an operator that takes zero arguments. Given a (countable) set of variables "x", "y", "z", etc. the term algebra is the collection of all possible terms involving "m", "i", "e" and the variables; so for example, "m"("i"("x"), "m"("x", "m"("y","e"))) would be an element of the term algebra. One of the axioms defining a group is the identity "m"("x", "i"("x")) = "e"; another is "m"("x","e") = "x". The axioms can be represented as trees. These equations induce equivalence classes on the free algebra; the quotient algebra then has the algebraic structure of a group.


title: Algebraic structure

text: Structures whose axioms unavoidably include nonidentities are among the most important ones in mathematics, e.g., fields and division rings. Structures with nonidentities present challenges varieties do not. For example, the direct product of two fields is not a field, because formula_24, but fields do not have zero divisors.


title: Algebraic structure

text: Category theory is another tool for studying algebraic structures (see, for example, Mac Lane 1998). A category is a collection of "objects" with associated "morphisms." Every algebraic structure has its own notion of homomorphism, namely any function compatible with the operation(s) defining the structure. In this way, every algebraic structure gives rise to a category. For example, the category of groups has all groups as objects and all group homomorphisms as morphisms. This concrete category may be seen as a category of sets with added category-theoretic structure. Likewise, the category of topological groups (whose morphisms are the continuous group homomorphisms) is a category of topological spaces with extra structure. A forgetful functor between categories of algebraic structures "forgets" a part of a structure.


title: Algebraic structure

text: There are various concepts in category theory that try to capture the algebraic character of a context, for instance


title: Algebraic structure

text: In a slight abuse of notation, the word "structure" can also refer to just the operations on a structure, instead of the underlying set itself. For example, the sentence, "We have defined a ring "structure" on the set formula_25," means that we have defined ring "operations" on the set formula_25. For another example, the group formula_27 can be seen as a set formula_28 that is equipped with an "algebraic structure," namely the "operation" formula_6.


title: Kim Min-seok (actor)

text: Kim Min-seok (born January 24, 1990) is a South Korean actor. He played the role of the main character in Shark: The Beginning (2021). He had supporting roles in television series such as "Flower Band" (2012), "Descendants of the Sun", "The Doctors" (2016) and "Innocent Defendant" (2017).


title: Kim Min-seok (actor)

text: Kim participated in "Superstar K 3", a survival audition show for singers on Mnet. He showed up at the preliminary regional audition in Daegu but never made it to the group of 11 contestants that actually competed in the show. Shortly after, Kim made his debut in tvN's music youth series "Flower Band", playing an ambitious keyboard player.


title: Kim Min-seok (actor)

text: He gained recognition with his role in the pan-Asia hit drama "Descendants of the Sun". The same year, he starred in SBS' medical drama "The Doctors" and won the Best New Actor award at the 53rd Baeksang Arts Awards.


title: Kim Min-seok (actor)

text: In 2017, Kim played supporting roles in SBS' legal thriller "Innocent Defendant", JTBC's coming-of-age drama "Hello, My Twenties! 2" and tvN's romantic comedy series "Because This Is My First Life". On November 16, 2017, it was reported that Kim's contract with Woollim Entertainment had expired and he had not renewed with the company. It was later reported that he had signed to Respect Entertainment.


title: Kim Min-seok (actor)

text: In 2018, Kim played his first lead role in the drama special "Almost Touching". In December 2018, Kim enlisted in the military to serve his conscripted duty.


title: Kim Min-seok (actor)

text: In September 2020, Kim joined the cast of multi-season rom-com web series "City Couple's Way of Love" of Kakao TV, which will depict the real love stories of young people who live fiercely with "another me" in a complex city. The first series "Lovestruck in the City" is set to air on December 8, 2020 and it will be available for streaming on Netflix also.


title: Kim Min-seok (actor)

text: In 2021, Kim's upcoming film "Shark: The Beginning" will be released on Original Film TVING, which will premiere in June 2021. and Kim will be Cameo appearing in the drama "Racket Boys".In June 2021, Kim confirmed to appear in "Engine On From Today", airing on KakaoTV with a total of four episodes.


title: Lists of United States network television schedules

text: This article gives a list of United States network television schedules including prime time (since 1946), daytime (since 1947), late night (since 1950), overnight (since 2020), morning (since 2021), and afternoon (since 2021). The variously three to six larger commercial U.S. television networks each has its schedule. which is altered each year (and usually more frequently), and the introductions and relevant articles provide a comprehensive review for each year, from the 1946 season to the present.


text: Public broadcasting in the U.S. has often been more decentralized, and less likely to have a single network feed appear across most of the country (though some latter-day public networks such as World Channel and Create have had more in-pattern clearance than National Educational Television or its successor PBS have had). Also, local stations can and have deviated occasionally or frequently from commercial network schedules for a variety of reasons.


title: Taunton

text: Taunton () is the county town of Somerset, England, with a 2011 population of 69,570. Its thousand-year history includes a 10th-century monastic foundation, Taunton Castle, which later became a priory. The Normans built a castle owned by the Bishops of Winchester. Parts of the inner ward house were turned into the Museum of Somerset and Somerset Military Museum. For the Second Cornish uprising of 1497, Perkin Warbeck brought an army of 6,000; most surrendered to Henry VII on 4 October 1497. On 20 June 1685 the Duke of Monmouth crowned himself King of England here in a rebellion, defeated at the Battle of Sedgemoor. Judge Jeffreys led the Bloody Assizes in the Castle's Great Hall. The Grand Western Canal reached Taunton in 1839 and the Bristol and Exeter Railway in 1842. Today it hosts Musgrove Park Hospital, Somerset County Cricket Club, is the base of 40 Commando, Royal Marines, and is home to the United Kingdom Hydrographic Office on Admiralty Way. The popular Taunton flower show has been held in Vivary Park since 1866, and on 13 March 2022, St Mary Magdalene parish church was elevated to the status of Taunton Minster.


title: Taunton

text: The town name derives from "Town on the River Tone or Tone Town. Cambria Farm, which now hosts a park and ride close to the M5 motorway Junction 25, was the site of Bronze and Iron Age settlement and a Roman farm. There was a Romano-British village near the suburb of "Holway". Taunton was important in Anglo-Saxon times as a burh with a mint. King Ine of Wessex threw up an earthen castle about 700, but it was levelled in 722 by his queen, Æthelburg of Wessex, to prevent seizure by rebels.


title: Taunton

text: A monastery was founded before 904. The bishops of Winchester owned the manor, and obtained the first charter for their "men of Taunton" from King Edward in 904, freeing them from all royal and county tribute. Some time before Domesday, Taunton became a borough with privileges and a population of some 1,500, including 64 burgesses governed by a portreeve appointed by the bishops. Somerton took over from Ilchester as county town in the late 13th century, but declined; the county-town status passed to Taunton about 1366. Between 1209 and 1311 the Bishop of Winchester's manor of Taunton expanded two-and-a-half times. The parishes of Staplegrove, Wilton and Taunton were part of Taunton Deane hundred.


title: Taunton

text: In 1451, during the Wars of the Roses, Taunton saw a skirmish between the Earl of Devon, and Baron Bonville. Queen Margaret and her troops passed through in 1471 to defeat at the Battle of Tewkesbury. In the Second Cornish uprising of 1497 most Cornish gentry supported Perkin Warbeck's cause and on 17 September a Cornish army some 6,000 strong entered Exeter before advancing on Taunton. Henry VII sent his chief general, Giles, Lord Daubeney, to attack the Cornish. When Warbeck heard that the King's scouts were at Glastonbury he panicked and deserted his army. On 4 October 1497, Henry VII reached Taunton, where he received the surrender of the remaining Cornish army. Ringleaders were executed and others fined a total of £13,000.


title: Taunton

text: Taunton Castle changed hands several times in the Civil War of 1642–1645, as did the town. During the Siege of Taunton it was defended by Robert Blake from July 1644 to July 1645, and suffered destruction of many medieval and Tudor buildings. On 20 June 1685, the Duke of Monmouth crowned himself King of England at Taunton during the Monmouth Rebellion. In the autumn of that year Judge Jeffreys lived in the town during the Bloody Assizes that followed the Battle of Sedgemoor.


title: Taunton

text: The town lacked a charter of incorporation until 1627. This was renewed in 1677, but lapsed in 1792 due to vacancies in the corporate body, and was not reincorporated until 1877. The medieval fairs and markets (a weekly market remains) were celebrated for the sale of woollen cloth called "Tauntons" made in the town. On the decline of the woollen industry in the west of England, silk-weaving was introduced at the end of the 18th century.


title: Taunton

text: In 1839 the Grand Western Canal reached Taunton, aiding southward trade, which was enhanced by the arrival of the railway in 1842.


title: Taunton

text: In the Second World War, the Bridgwater and Taunton Canal formed part of the Taunton Stop Line, set to curb any advance of a German invasion. Pillboxes can still be seen along its length.


title: Taunton

text: A fire aboard a to London sleeping car train approaching Taunton in 1978 killed 12 passengers and injured 15 others.


title: Taunton

text: Taunton was rated "strategically important" in the government's Regional Spatial Strategy, allowing Somerset County Council to receive funding for large-scale regeneration projects. In 2006, the council revealed plans dubbed "Project Taunton". This would see regeneration of the areas of Firepool, Tangier, the retail town centre, the cultural quarter, and the River Tone, to sustain Taunton as business hub in the South West.


title: Taunton

text: The Firepool area, just north of the town centre by the main railway station, includes vacant or undeveloped land. The Council is promoting sustainable, high-quality, employment-led mixed-use development to attract 3,000 new jobs and 500 new homes.


title: Taunton

text: In Tangier, a brownfield area between Bridgwater & Taunton College and the bus station, the project proposes to build small offices and more riverside housing.


title: Taunton

text: The "Cultural Quarter" is the area along the river between Firepool and Tangier. The plans are to extend riverside retail and attract smaller, boutique businesses such as those found at Riverside.


title: Taunton

text: Plans for the town centre include more pedestrianisation and greater sizes and numbers of retail units.


title: Taunton

text: Several sites along the River Tone are set for renovation. Firepool Weir lock, long silted up, was to be dredged in 2011 to allow boats to pass from the navigable section of the Tone through Taunton to the Bridgwater and Taunton Canal. Goodland Gardens received a makeover and a new café, The Shed, opened. Projects to develop Somerset Square (a paved area next to the Brewhouse Theatre) and Longrun Meadow (a country park near Bridgwater & Taunton College) have been put forward.


title: Taunton

text: Traffic congestion was identified as an obstacle to further economic growth. Part of the strategy was a new road infrastructure consisting of a £7.5 million link road to ease traffic in the town centre (Taunton's "Third Way"), completed in 2011, and a Northern Inner Distributor Road linking Staplegrove Road, the station and Priory Avenue at a planned cost of £21 million, opened in 2017.


title: Taunton

text: Taunton was the main settlement and centre of the local government district of Taunton Deane. The district, formed on 1 April 1974 under the Local Government Act 1972, by merging the municipal borough of Taunton, Wellington urban district, Taunton Rural District, and Wellington Rural District, was granted borough status in 1975, perpetuating the mayoralty of Taunton. The district was named as an alternate form of the Taunton hundred. Taunton Deane Council, once based at the Municipal Buildings in Corporation Street, moved to modern facilities at Deane House on Belvedere Road in spring 1987.


title: Taunton

text: Somerset County Council, based at County Hall in Taunton, consists of 55 councillors. The town has broadly six electoral divisions, each with a single county councillor: Taunton North; Taunton East; Taunton South; Bishop’s Hull & Taunton West; Comeytrowe & Trull, Monkton & North Curry (which includes rural areas). Three are Liberal Democrats, two are Conservative and one is an independent.


title: Taunton

text: On 18 March 2022 the Government confirmed that Somerset’s county council and four district councils will be replaced by a single unitary authority from 1 April 2023 with elections for the new authority’s 110 councillors (2 per electoral division) taking place on 5 May 2022. The new unitary authority will be called Somerset Council.


title: Taunton

text: Taunton Deane is a county constituency of the House of Commons. It is based on the town, but extends to Wellington and small villages and parts of Exmoor. The current MP is Rebecca Pow of the Conservative Party.


title: Taunton

text: Taunton lies on the River Tone between the Quantock, Blackdown and Brendon hills. The area is known as the Vale of Taunton. It is surrounded by many other large towns and cities seen on this directional compass:


title: Taunton

text: Taunton is 38 miles (61 km) south-west of Bristol, 28 miles (45 km) north-east of Exeter, 63 miles (102 km) north-east of Plymouth and 40 miles (64 km) north-west of Weymouth.


title: Taunton

text: The Taunton area has Permian red sandstones and breccia outcrop 295–250 million years old. Rocks of Triassic age (248–204 million years ago) underlie much of Somerset's moors and levels.


title: Taunton

text: The several local nature reserves in and around Taunton are protected under Section 21 of the National Parks and Access to the Countryside Act 1949. South Taunton Streams is an urban wetland. The northern suburbs include the Children's Wood riverside reserve, a movement corridor for animals such as otters along the banks of the Tone. Birds include the kingfisher, dipper, grey wagtail, mute swan, grey heron and reed warbler and butterflies the small and large skipper, marbled white, small heath and small copper, along with dragonflies and damselflies.


title: Taunton

text: Weirfield Riverside, a nature reserve along the River Tone, has alder and willow woodland, bramble, scrub and rough grassland. The wetter, flood-prone areas include hemlock water-dropwort, and yellow flag. Silk Mills Park and Ride offer landscaping and ponds in three areas by the Tone. The woodland and grassland support aquatic and marginal vegetation, with various birds, bats, reptiles and invertebrates. Frieze Hill Community Orchard has turned from allotments to rough grassland and orchard. Among the apples grown are Kingston Black and Yarlington Mill.


title: Taunton

text: Like most of South West England, Taunton has a temperate climate, wetter and milder than the rest of the country. The annual mean temperature is about . Seasonal temperature variation is less extreme because of the adjacent sea. The summer months of July and August have mean daily maxima of about . In winter, mean minimum temperatures of or are common. In the summer the Azores high pressure affects the south-west of England, but convective cloud sometimes forms inland, reducing the sunshine hours. Annual sunshine rates are slightly under the regional average of 1,600 hours. Most of the rainfall in the south-west is caused by Atlantic depressions or by convection – in autumn and winter by the former, which are then at their most active. In summer, much rainfall results from the sun heating the ground, leading to convection, showers and thunderstorms. Average rainfall is about . Some 8–15 days of snowfall are typical. November to March have the highest mean winds and June to August the lightest. The prevailing wind direction is from the south-west.


title: Taunton

text: The town of Taunton (which for population estimates includes the unparished area or former municipal borough plus the neighbouring parishes of Bishop's Hull, Comeytrowe, Norton Fitzwarren, Staplegrove, Trull and West Monkton) had an estimated population of 61,400 in 2001. Taunton includes Holway, once a village in its own right as one of the "Five Hundreds of Taunton Deane", the Infaring division or district of three districts that made up Taunton Deane.


title: Taunton

text: Taunton is the largest town in the Somerset shire county and forms part of the larger borough of Taunton Deane, which includes the town of Wellington and surrounding villages. This had an estimated population of 109,883 in 2010.


title: Taunton

text: In 2011, Taunton built-up area had a population of 60,479 and the surrounding borough of Taunton Deane one of 110,187. Of Taunton's residents 91.6 per cent were White British in 2011, compared with 93.4 per cent for Taunton Deane. Taunton's ethnic mix resembles that of South West England – 91.8 per cent White British in the same year. It is also matches other major regional centres like Poole and Plymouth. The larger urban area, extending to Monkton Heathfield, Norton Fitzwarren and Bathpool, had a 2011 population of 64,621.


title: Taunton

text: Taunton Deane had low unemployment of 4.1 per cent compared with a national average of 5.0 per cent in 2005.


title: Taunton

text: Taunton is home to the United Kingdom Hydrographic Office (UKHO), a Ministry of Defence body responsible for providing navigational and other hydrographic information for national, civil and defence requirements. The UKHO is located on Admiralty Way and has a workforce of about 1100. At the start of the Second World War, chart printing moved to Taunton, but the main office did not follow until 1968. Taunton holds the head offices of Debenhams, Western Provident Association, Viridor and CANDAC. Other professional services are based at Blackbrook near the motorway junction.


title: Taunton

text: The first store of the multinational New Look clothing retailer opened in Taunton in 1969. Taunton is also famed for cider.


title: Taunton

text: Gray's Almshouses in East Street, founded by Robert Gray in 1615 for poor single women, are red brick buildings bearing the arms of Robert Gray, dated 1635, and another arms of the Merchant Tailors. A small room used as a chapel has original benches and a painted ceiling. It has been classed by English Heritage as a Grade I listed building.


title: Taunton

text: St Margaret's Almshouses was founded as a leper colony in the 12th century. Glastonbury Abbey acquired patronage of it in the late 13th century and rebuilt it as almshouses in the early 16th. From 1612 to 1938 the building continued as such, cared for by a local parish. In the late 1930s it was converted into a hall of offices for the Rural Community Council and accommodation for the Somerset Guild of Craftsmen. It later fell into disrepair. The Somerset Buildings Preservation Trust with Falcon Rural Housing purchased and restored it for use as four units of social housing. It is a Grade II* listed building.


title: Taunton

text: The grounds of Taunton Castle include the Somerset County Museum and The Castle Hotel, which incorporates the Castle Bow archway. With the municipal buildings they form a three-sided group just beyond the Castle Bow archway from Fore Street. The centre of the square is a car park, and a plain brick Mecca Bingo hall fills the west side of it.


title: Taunton

text: The frontage of the Fore Street "Tudor Tavern", now a Caffè Nero branch, dates from 1578, but the rest is thought to be from the 14th century.


title: Taunton

text: The riverside area north of the centre is edged by Morrisons supermarket, retirement housing and the Brewhouse Theatre. Towards the centre are the Zinc Nightclub, Bridge Street and Goodlands Gardens. A current regeneration programme north of Bridge Street will include redeveloping the County Cricket Ground, which hosted open-air concerts for Elton John in 2006 and 2012 and for Rod Stewart in 2014.


title: Taunton

text: Hankridge Farm, a retail park close to the M5 motorway, has stores that include Currys PC World, Oak Furniture Land, Hobbycraft, Halfords, B&Q, The Range and the town's second Sainsbury's. There is a Venue in the park with restaurants, an Odeon cinema and a Hollywood Bowl bowling alley. It is now known as Riverside Retail Park.


title: Taunton

text: Taunton has three other such parks. Belvedere is near the town centre. St Johns is just off Toneway, towards the motorway, and consists of two units, occupied by DFS, joined by Go Outdoors in April 2014. Taunton's second largest retail park is Priory Fields in Priory Avenue, with eight units and an anchor store, Wickes. It was redeveloped in 2003 to modernise a rather worn-out retail park and increase retail floor space.


title: Taunton

text: The Old Market was a farmers' market in the Parade in front of Market House, but then moved to the Firepool area, although cattle trading on the site ceased only in 2008. A large indoor shopping centre to the east of the Parade covers a site that was once a pig market. Although its official name is now Orchard, and before that the Old Market Centre, locals still call it the Pig Market; one existed there from 1614 to 1882.


title: Taunton

text: County Walk is a small indoor shopping arcade in the town centre with an anchor supermarket, Sainsbury's, and several other large national retailers such as Subway, Costa Coffee, and Savers.


title: Taunton

text: Taunton's public parks include Vivary Park, Goodlands Park and Victoria Park. The most notable is Vivary, on land that was once a medieval fish farm or "vivarium" for Taunton Priory and Taunton Castle. Fronted by a pair of cast iron gates from the Saracen Foundry of Glasgow, it contains the Sherford Stream, a Tone tributary that flows through the park, which is near the town centre. It has two main open spaces and a war memorial dating from 1922, a miniature golf course, tennis courts, two children's playgrounds, a model railway track added in 1979, and an 18-hole, 4620-yard, par-63 golf course. The park includes trees, rose beds and herbaceous borders, with some 56,000 spring and summer bedding plants used each year. The rose garden includes the Royal National Rose Society Provincial Trial Ground. Taunton Flower Show held annually in the park since the 19th century. It has been described as "The Chelsea of the West", and draws some 24,000 visitors over two days. Goodlands Gardens, in the centre of the town, is behind the Debenhams department store and The Castle Hotel.


title: Taunton

text: The Pride Rainbow Path in Goodland Gardens, Taunton town centre, runs alongside the River Tone. Designed by Jenny Keogh and Liz Hutchin of GoCreate, it opened on 28 June 2021 to mark the anniversary of the Stonewall riots, which served as a catalyst for the gay rights movement. It is believed to be the first such path in the UK. The opening coincided with the first Taunton Pride in July 2021 and the Pride inspired Art Trail.


title: Taunton

text: While using the traditional LGBTQ+ colours, the far end of the 62-metre path includes a chevron of the progress colours: black, brown, light blue, pink, and white stripes to reflect ethnic diversity. The path has been designed not to require maintenance for 15 years. It was funded by Taunton's Emergency Town Centre Recovery Fund and is intended to reflect Taunton's commitment to inclusivity and diversity.


title: Taunton

text: Taunton railway station is on the Bristol to Exeter line, the Reading to Taunton line, and the Cross Country Route. It is served and operated by Great Western Railway and served by CrossCountry, with services to Manchester Piccadilly, , , , London Paddington, , and . There is generally a fast and a slow train each hour to Bristol Temple Meads and Exeter St Davids and a train an hour to London Paddington.


title: Taunton

text: The old rail route to is now a heritage West Somerset Railway with services between and Minehead. The Buses of Somerset route 28 links the stations at Taunton and Bishops Lydeard.


title: Taunton

text: In 2009, Project Taunton, the authority responsible for Taunton's regeneration project, revealed proposals for Taunton metro rail, under a transport sustainability plan. They were not implemented.


title: Taunton

text: Taunton has road links with the M5 motorway junctions 25 (Taunton) and 26 (Wellington) close to the town, and other major roads such as the A38 and A358. The Taunton bypass section of the M5, between the two junctions, opened in April 1974 and relieved the town of heavy holiday traffic on the A38. Taunton Deane services use that motorway section.


title: Taunton

text: A strong economy increases traffic; in 2011 the County Council foresaw a sharp rise from 2001 levels. Two major roads opened: the Third Way (A3807) linking Bridge Street and Castle Street in 2011, and the Northern Inner Distributor Road (A3087) between Staplegrove Road and Priory Avenue in July 2017.


title: Taunton

text: On the evening of 4 November 2011, 34 vehicles met with an accident near junction 25 of the M5 motorway northbound, on the north-eastern edge of the town at West Monkton. Seven people were killed and a further 51 injured.


title: Taunton

text: Many local services are provided by The Buses of Somerset: town services and routes to Minehead, Bridgwater, Weston-Super-Mare and elsewhere. Other services are provided by Hatch Green Coaches. Services were also operated by Webberbus until the firm closed on 12 May 2016. Taunton bus station was in Tower Street from 1953 until 2020. Most services now terminate at stops on The Parade or Castle Way.


title: Taunton

text: A park-and-ride service is run by The Buses of Somerset between the Taunton gateway near the M5 Motorway and Silk Mills on the north-west side of town.


title: Taunton

text: Berrys Coaches, based in Taunton, operates several "Superfast Services" to London. National Express Coaches runs long-distance coach services to many destinations.


title: Taunton

text: Taunton Tramway opened on 21 August 1901. Six double-decker cars operated on a gauge line between the railway station and the depot at East Reach. In 1905 the service was withdrawn for two months while the track was improved; the cars were replaced by six single-decker cars and the old double deckers sold to Leamington Spa. A short extension beyond the station to Rowbarton opened in 1909, making the line long. However, the price of its electricity was due to rise in 1928 to a level the firm refused to pay, and it offered to sell out, but this was not accepted. The electricity was cut off on 28 May 1921 and the system closed.


title: Taunton

text: The Bridgwater and Taunton Canal is a navigable waterway that links Taunton with Bridgwater, opened in 1827. Having been closed to navigation in 1907, it re-opened after restoration in 1994.


title: Taunton

text: State secondary schools in Taunton include The Castle School, Heathfield Community School, Bishop Fox's School and The Taunton Academy. Further education is offered by Richard Huish College, The Taunton Academy (sponsored by Richard Huish College) and Bridgwater and Taunton College. Heathfield Community School has a post-16 further education college specialising in performing arts and technical theatre called The SPACE (The Somerset Performing Arts Centre for Education). Heathfield Community School is also a teaching school and the base of Taunton Teaching Alliance. The Taunton campus of Bridgwater and Taunton College is a partner of Plymouth University and includes University Centre Taunton. There are three co-educational independent schools: Queen's College, King's College and Taunton School.


title: Taunton

text: In March 2009, it was found that Jim Knight, Minister of State for Schools and Families, had approved the closure of Ladymead Community School and the nearby St Augustine of Canterbury RC/CoE School in the Priorswood area of Taunton. They gave way in September 2010 to the Taunton Academy.


title: Taunton

text: Young people with special educational needs are provided for by two special schools and one complex Pupil Referral Unit (PRU). Sky College caters for boys aged 10–18 who have social, emotional and mental-health difficulties. Selworthy School has pupils of 4–19 who have complex and multiple learning difficulties, while the Taunton Deane Partnership College is a complex PRU for children in Key Stages 2, 3 and 4, with a Medical Tuition Service, Outreach & Advisory Service and an Area Access Team.


title: Taunton

text: Taunton is within Somerset Primary Care Trust and home to Musgrove Park Hospital, within Somerset NHS Foundation Trust. This is one of two district hospitals in Somerset, alongside Yeovil District Hospital. A Nuffield Hospital also lies in the town, run privately by Nuffield Health. The town has several medical surgeries and a family planning clinic, an occupational health centre and a chiropractic clinic.


title: Taunton

text: The Taunton Minster Church of St Mary Magdalene, built of sandstone more in the South Somerset style, retains an attractive painted interior, but its prime feature is a 15th and 16th-century tower rebuilt in the mid-19th century. It is one of the country's best examples and a landmark 158 feet (48 m) high. It was termed by Simon Jenkins, "the finest in England. It makes its peace with the sky not just with a coronet but with the entire crown jewels cast in red-brown stone." It holds 12 bells and 3 bells "hung dead" for the clock.


title: Taunton

text: Close by is the parish church of St James near the centre of Taunton close. The oldest parts are early 14th century; there are fragments of 15th-century glass in the west end. Like St Mary's, it has a sandstone tower, but built to a less impressive design. It too was rebuilt in the 19th century, in this case due to building defects in the original. It backs onto the County Ground.


title: Taunton

text: The church of St John the Evangelist was built in 1858 to serve the poor of the town. The church of St Andrew, built 1878, serves the area of Rowbarton.


title: Taunton

text: In the later 17th century, Taunton had two Dissenting places of worship: "Paul's Meeting" and the Baptist Meeting. The former was built at the top of Paul Street soon after 1672 on a bowling green behind the "Three Cups Inn", now The County Hotel, and rapidly became one of the largest congregations in the county. After Mayor Timewell sacked both Paul's Meeting and the Baptist Meeting in 1683, the dissenters were driven to worship in private houses on the outskirts of Taunton, where their assemblies were regularly raided by the Justices of the Peace. Paul's Meeting survived attempts to turn it into a workhouse, and with the coming of William III and Mary II, followed by the Toleration Act 1688, it reopened. Hugh Willoughby, 15th Baron Willoughby of Parham, was educated in early life at Taunton Dissenters' Academy. The Baptist Meeting became the Baptist New Meeting, registered in 1691 and rebuilt in 1721 as Mary Street Chapel.


title: Taunton

text: Taunton Unitarian Chapel, dating from 1721, stands in Mary Street. Samuel Taylor Coleridge, while living at Nether Stowey away, came to the chapel to preach several times. Dr Malachi Blake, who founded the Taunton and Somerset Hospital in East Reach, Taunton, was also a preacher there, attending in 1809 a celebration of the 50th year of George the Third's reign. The chapel retains its original interior, including Flemish oak pillars in Corinthian style. The pews and pulpit are also in oak. There is an early 18th-century candelabra.


title: Taunton

text: St George's, the town's Roman Catholic church, dates from the mid-19th century. It was the second Catholic church built in Taunton since the Reformation, replacing a smaller St George's Chapel. The main building is designated by English Heritage as a Grade II* listed building, while the clergy house is Grade II listed.


title: Taunton

text: Taunton town centre has the Brewhouse Theatre. It closed in February 2013 due to financial difficulties, but reopened in April 2014 under the Taunton Theatre Association (TTA), which was granted the 61-year lease that Taunton Deane Borough Council had bought on the site and its contents from the administrator. Tacchi-Morris Arts Centre is a professional theatre based at Heathfield Community School, hosting touring theatre, dance and comedy, and productions by South West schools and colleges. Tacchi-Morris Arts Centre also runs community classes. The Creative Innovation Centre CIC has an arts and culture venue in the town centre.


title: Taunton

text: Several concerts a year are held at Taunton's largest church, St Mary Magdalene. In recent years The Sixteen, The Tallis Scholars and Gabrieli Consort have all performed to full audiences. Taunton also has several choirs and orchestras that perform in the town's churches and school chapels. Many music and drama groups are members of the Taunton Association of Performing Arts (TAPA), which produces a diary and calendar of performances in and about the town.


title: Taunton

text: Since 2001 Taunton has been the base of a domestic violence charity, the ManKind Initiative, to help male victims of domestic abuse.


title: Taunton

text: Taunton is mentioned in "The Remains of the Day" by Kazuo Ishiguro, "Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy" by John le Carré, and Evelyn Waugh's "Scoop". It was given the fictitious name "Toneborough" by Thomas Hardy.


title: Taunton

text: Taunton Rugby Football Club (RFC), based in Taunton, currently play in National League 1, having achieved back-to-back promotions in 2009 and 2010 and then again in 2020. It played at Priory Park Sports Ground from 1935 to 2001, before moving to the Commsplus Stadium.


title: Taunton

text: The County Ground was originally home to Taunton Cricket Club, formed in 1829. It played at the County Ground until 1977, before moving to Moorfields, Taunton, in conjunction with Taunton Vale Hockey Club, since when the County Ground has been solely used by Somerset County Cricket Club (CCC). Somerset CCC was formed in 1875, but did not achieve first-class status until 1891. The County Ground has a capacity of 8,500; the ends are called the River End and the Marcus Trescothick Pavilion End. It is the current home of the England women's cricket team. The Somerset Cricket Museum is nearby.


title: Taunton

text: Taunton Cricket Club has since 2002 been located at the new Taunton Vale Sports Club Ground in Staplegrove, which features two cricket fields. The Taunton Vale ground is also a regular home venue for Somerset's Second XI. Taunton Deane Cricket Club has a ground adjacent to Vivary Park, while Taunton St Andrews Cricket Club is based at the nearby Wyvern Sports and Social Club. All three clubs play in the West of England Premier League or one of its feeder leagues.


title: Taunton

text: Taunton Town Football Club (FC) plays at Wordsworth Drive. An earlier Taunton Town FC played at Priory Park in the 1930s, however the current team was formed in 1947 by local businessmen as "Taunton FC", changing to the current name in 1968, and played its first friendly fixture in 1948. For most of its history, Taunton belonged to the Western League. It spent a six-season spell in the Southern League from 1977, and after a further period in the Western League, returned to the Southern League in 2002, after winning the FA Vase in 2001. The club won the Division One South and West league title in 2017/18 and narrowly missed out on further promotion in 2018/19. The club went on to become the 2021/22 champions of the Southern League Premier Division South, securing promotion to the National League South for the first time in the Club’s history on 23 April 2022.


title: Taunton

text: Somerset Vikings is a rugby league club formed in 2003 as part of the Rugby Football League's plans to develop the game beyond its traditional north-of-England areas. Initially the side was made up of a mixture of Royal Marines based in Taunton and Exeter with local rugby union players keen to try the 13-man code. It plays at Hyde Park, also home to Taunton RFC.


title: Taunton

text: The Taunton Tigers is a semi-professional basketball team competing in the English Basketball League Men's Division 1. The team plays its home games at Wellsprings Leisure Centre, which seats 500.


title: Taunton

text: Taunton Racecourse is close to the Blackdown Hills, about from the centre of Taunton. Although racing had been held in the area before, the first race at thi site was held on 21 September 1927. The Orchard Stand and Paddock Stand provide catering facilities and are used for meetings and conferences on days when racing is not taking place. Greyhound racing was held at the Priory Park Sports Ground and County Cricket ground in the past.


title: Taunton

text: Taunton is twinned with Lisieux in France, Königslutter in Germany, and Taunton, Massachusetts in the US.


title: Christine Todd Whitman

text: Christine Temple Whitman (née Todd; born September 26, 1946) is an American politician and author who served as the 50th governor of New Jersey from 1994 to 2001 and as Administrator of the Environmental Protection Agency in the administration of President George W. Bush from 2001 to 2003.


title: Christine Todd Whitman

text: Born in New York City to a Republican political family, Whitman graduated from Wheaton College in 1968 and began her political career in the Nixon administration Office of Economic Opportunity. Before being elected Governor of New Jersey, she founded the Republican advocacy organization Committee for Responsible Government in 1993. , she is the only woman to have served as governor of New Jersey.


title: Christine Todd Whitman

text: During the 2020 presidential election, Whitman chose to endorse Democratic nominee Joe Biden over Republican nominee Donald Trump. She is a co-founder and co-chair of States United Democracy Center. In 2022, she joined former Democratic presidential candidate Andrew Yang to create the Forward Party, a centrist third party.


title: Christine Todd Whitman

text: Whitman was born Christine Temple Todd in New York City, the daughter of Eleanor Prentice Todd (née Schley) and businessman Webster B. Todd. Her parents were involved in Republican politics, and both the Todds and the Schleys were wealthy and prominent New Jersey political families. Her mother's family were among the first New Yorkers to move to what became Far Hills, New Jersey, which became a popular suburb for wealthy, moderate Republicans. Her maternal grandfather, Reeve Schley, was a member of Wolf's Head Society at Yale and the vice president of Chase Bank. He was also a longtime president of the Russian-American Chamber of Commerce.


title: Christine Todd Whitman

text: Christine's father amassed a fortune from working as a building contractor on projects including Rockefeller Center and Radio City Music Hall. Webster used his wealth to donate to Republican politicians, and became an advisor to Dwight D. Eisenhower. Her mother Eleanor served as a Republican national committeewoman and led the New Jersey Federation of Republican Women.


title: Christine Todd Whitman

text: Christine grew up on her family's farm, Pontefract, in Oldwick, New Jersey. On the farm, Christine grew up riding horses and fishing. She has three older siblings including her brothers, Webster and Danny. Her parents were politically active, taking Christine to her first political convention in 1956 for the renomination of Dwight D. Eisenhower. Her mother's political activity caused a newspaper to speculate that she could be a viable candidate for governor, although Eleanor never chose to run for office. As a child she attended Far Hills Country Day School before being sent to boarding school at Foxcroft in Virginia. Christine disliked being so far away from home and after a year transferred to the Chapin School in Manhattan, allowing her to return home on the weekends. After graduating from Wheaton College in 1968, earning a bachelor of arts degree in government, she worked for Nelson Rockefeller's presidential campaign.


title: Christine Todd Whitman

text: During the Nixon administration, Whitman worked for the Office of Economic Opportunity under Donald Rumsfeld. She conducted a national outreach tour for the Republican National Committee, was deputy director of the New York State Office in Washington, and worked on aging issues for the Nixon campaign and administration. Her husband, John Whitman, had a job with Citicorp that required the family to move to England for three years. When the family returned to the United States, Christine stayed home with the couple's two children, although she did remain active in Somerset County Republican politics.


title: Christine Todd Whitman

text: Whitman was appointed to the board of trustees of Somerset County College (later renamed Raritan Valley Community College). Elected to two terms on the Somerset County Board of County Commissioners, she served as deputy director and director of the board. Among her accomplishments was the construction of a new county courthouse. From 1988 to 1990, she served as president of the New Jersey Board of Public Utilities under governor Thomas Kean.


title: Christine Todd Whitman

text: In 1990, Whitman ran for the U.S. Senate against incumbent Bill Bradley, losing a close election. She was considered an underdog against the popular Bradley. During her campaign, Whitman criticized the income tax hike proposed by then governor James Florio. Bradley did not take a stance on the issue.


title: Christine Todd Whitman

text: In 1993, Whitman helped to found the Committee for Responsible Government, an advocacy group espousing moderate positions in the Republican Party. In 1997, the CRG softened its pro-choice position, and renamed itself as the Republican Leadership Council.


title: Christine Todd Whitman

text: Whitman ran against incumbent James Florio for governor in 1993, and defeated him by one percentage point to become the first female governor in New Jersey history. She was the second woman and first Republican woman to defeat an incumbent governor in a general election, but was unable to gain a majority of the votes, winning by a plurality. Charges of suppression of minority votes were raised during the campaign. Two days after the election, Ed Rollins, Whitman's campaign manager, bragged about having spent $500,000 to suppress the black vote. Whitman denied Rollins's claim and demanded an apology and a retraction. An investigation into Rollins's claim found no wrongdoing.


title: Christine Todd Whitman

text: Whitman pledged during the campaign that she would lower state taxes by 10% a year for three years. Once in office, she kept the campaign promise, and lowered income taxes. The decline in the tax burden made it likely that the issue of tax revenue shortfall would be addressed later. Jim Saxton, in a report to the federal congress, argued that New Jersey's income tax cuts improved "the well-being of the New Jersey family", and would not lead to an increase in property taxes. Saxton cited Tim Goodspeed's research and a recent paper published by the Manhattan Institute. He admitted that "a few localities raised [property] taxes", as expected by Goodspeed, but both Saxton and Goodspeed counted on the flypaper effect to mitigate any broad or persistent increases. However, the resulting long-term deficit could not be easily reversed, and subsequent governors ran into difficulties with the cumulative revenue losses and interest payments on the debt the state government issued.


title: Christine Todd Whitman

text: In 1995, Whitman was criticized for saying that young African-American males sometimes played a game known as "jewels in the crown", which she claimed had as its intent having as many children as possible out of wedlock. Whitman subsequently apologized, and voiced her opposition to attempts by Congressional Republicans to bar unwed teenage mothers from receiving welfare payments.


title: Christine Todd Whitman

text: Also in 1995, the Republican Party selected Whitman to deliver the party's State of the Union response. She became the first woman to deliver a State of the Union response by herself; this was also the first State of the Union response given to a live audience.


title: Christine Todd Whitman

text: In 1996, Whitman rejected the Advisory Council's recommendation to spend tax money on a needle exchange to reduce incidence of HIV infections.


title: Christine Todd Whitman

text: Whitman was re-elected in 1997, narrowly defeating Jim McGreevey, the mayor of Woodbridge Township, who criticized Whitman's record on property taxes and automobile insurance rates. McGreevey also criticized Whitman for allowing a private sector company to administer the vehicle inspection program. In the 1997 election, the early prediction was that Whitman, as an incumbent, would have an easy win. The result, however, was that Whitman duplicated her 1993 election with only a one-point victory and a plurality of the votes. Murray Sabrin, a college professor who ran as a Libertarian candidate, and finished third with five percent of the vote, received votes mostly from conservative Republicans who might otherwise have voted for Whitman.


title: Christine Todd Whitman

text: In 1997, she repealed the one percentage-point increase to the state sales tax that her predecessor Governor Florio had imposed, reducing the rate from 7% to 6%, instituted education reforms, and removed excise taxes on professional wrestling, which led the World Wrestling Federation to resume events in New Jersey. As a result, she was made honorary WWF Champion and awarded a replica belt by Gorilla Monsoon at that year's SummerSlam pay-per-view. In 1999, Whitman vetoed a bill that outlawed partial birth abortion. The veto was overridden, but the statute was subsequently declared unconstitutional by the judiciary. In 1999, she made a cameo appearance on the television show "".


title: Christine Todd Whitman

text: In 1999, Whitman fired Colonel Carl A. Williams, head of the New Jersey State Police, after he was quoted as saying that cocaine and marijuana traffickers were often members of minority groups, while the methamphetamine trade was controlled primarily by white biker gangs.


title: Christine Todd Whitman

text: In 2000, under Whitman's leadership, New Jersey's violation of the federal one-hour air quality standard for ground level ozone dropped to 4 from 45 in 1988. Beach closings reached a record low, and the Natural Resources Defense Council recognized New Jersey for instituting the most comprehensive beach monitoring system in the country. New Jersey implemented a new watershed management program, and became a national leader in opening shellfish beds for harvesting. Whitman agreed to give tax money to owners of one million acres (4,000 km²) or more of open space and farmland in New Jersey.


title: Christine Todd Whitman

text: When Democratic Senator Frank Lautenberg announced that he would not seek re-election in 2000, Whitman considered running, but ultimately decided not to.


title: Christine Todd Whitman

text: According to "The New York Times", Whitman "seemed to be on a short list of vice presidential candidates in 2000, right up until July 8, 2000 – days before the opening of the Republican National Convention in Philadelphia – when a four-year-old photograph surfaced showing an oddly smiling Governor Whitman, surrounded by law enforcement agents, frisking a black drug suspect on a street in Camden".


title: Christine Todd Whitman

text: In 1996, Whitman had joined a New Jersey State Police patrol in Camden, New Jersey. During the patrol, the officers stopped a 16-year-old African American male named Sherron Rolax and frisked him. The police did not find any contraband on Rolax's person, but Whitman frisked the youth as well. A state trooper photographed the act. In 2000, the image of the smiling governor frisking Rolax was published in newspapers statewide, drawing criticism from civil rights leaders who saw the incident as a violation of Rolax's civil rights and an endorsement of racial profiling by Whitman (especially since Rolax was not arrested or charged). Whitman later told the press that she regretted the incident, and pointed to her efforts in 1999 to oppose the New Jersey State Police force's racial profiling practices. In 2001, Rolax learned about the photograph and sued Whitman in federal court, claiming that the search was illegal and constituted an invasion of privacy. The appeals court agreed that the act did suggest "an intentional violation" of Rolax's rights, and that he "was detained and used for political purposes by his governor", but upheld the trial court's decision that it was too late to sue.


title: Christine Todd Whitman

text: Ultimately, then-Republican presidential nominee George W. Bush selected Dick Cheney as his running mate in the 2000 presidential election.


title: Christine Todd Whitman

text: Whitman was appointed by President George W. Bush as Administrator of the United States Environmental Protection Agency, taking office on January 31, 2001.


title: Christine Todd Whitman

text: In the final weeks of the Clinton administration in January 2001, the administration ratified a new drinking water standard of 0.01 mg/L (10 parts per billion, or ppb) of arsenic, to take effect in January 2006. The old drinking water standard of 0.05 mg/L (equal to 50 ppb) arsenic had been in effect since 1942, and the EPA, since the late 1980s, had weighed the pros and cons of lowering the maximum contaminant level (MCL) of arsenic. The incoming Bush administration suspended the midnight regulation, but after months of research, the EPA approved the new 10 ppb arsenic standard to take effect in January 2006 as initially planned.


title: Christine Todd Whitman

text: In 2001, the EPA produced a report detailing the expected effects of global warming in each state in the country. President Bush dismissed the report as the work of "the bureaucracy."


title: Christine Todd Whitman

text: After the September 11 attacks in New York City, she appeared there twice to inform New Yorkers that the toxins released by the attacks posed no threat to their health. On September 18, the EPA released a report in which Whitman said, "Given the scope of the tragedy from last week, I am glad to reassure the people of New York and Washington, D.C. that their air is safe to breathe and their water is safe to drink." She also said, "The concentrations are such that they don't pose a health hazard...We're going to make sure everybody is safe."


title: Christine Todd Whitman

text: In fact, the EPA was criticized for the outdated equipment used in collecting test data in Lower Manhattan - not because no better was available, but to support the official statements made (Stranahan, 2003 & Schneider and McCumber 2004). A 22-year veteran of the EPA and senior chemist reported that the available advanced technology found nine for each fiber detected with the outdated technology deployed by the EPA in Lower Manhattan after 9/11. USGS and NASA collected tests highly disputing the EPA findings in 2001 (Schneider 2004). Moreover, the NY City Department of Health published the data to the NY State Dept. of Health website to which EPA employees had access. In an apparent attempt to support the Whitman statement the EPA falsified the data to protect themselves from being sued. "They displayed absolutely no respect for health and safety of the public." (Markowitz and Rosner 2002). "What was being said to the press was not consistent with the hard facts, the data." (Peacock 2003).


title: Christine Todd Whitman

text: However, a 2003 report by the EPA's Inspector General determined that the assurance was misleading, because the EPA "did not have sufficient data and analyses" to justify it.


title: Christine Todd Whitman

text: A July 2003 report from the EPA Office of Solid Waste and Emergency Response provided extensive documentation supporting many of the inspector general's conclusions. The report further found that the White House had "convinced EPA to add reassuring statements and delete cautionary ones" by having the National Security Council control EPA communications after the September 11 attacks. On June 27, 2003, after having several public conflicts with the Bush administration, Whitman resigned.


title: Christine Todd Whitman

text: In December 2007, legal proceedings began on the responsibility of government officials in the aftermath of the September 11, 2001 attacks. Whitman was among the defendants. The plaintiffs alleged that Whitman was at fault for saying that the downtown New York air was safe in the aftermath of the attacks.


title: Christine Todd Whitman

text: In April 2008, the United States Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit overruled the district court, holding that as EPA administrator, Whitman could not be held liable for assuring the World Trade Center area residents that the air was safe for breathing after the buildings collapsed. The court ruled that Whitman had based her statement on contradictory information from President Bush. The U.S. Department of Justice had argued that holding the agency liable would establish a risky legal precedent because such holding would make public officials afraid of making public statements.


title: Christine Todd Whitman

text: In an interview in 2007, Whitman stated that Vice President Dick Cheney's insistence on easing air pollution controls, not the personal reasons she cited at the time, led to her resignation. At the time, Cheney pushed the EPA to institute a new rule allowing power plants to make major alterations without installing costly new pollution controls. Whitman stepped down in protest against such demand by the White House, she said. She decided that because she did not agree with the rule, she would not be able to defend it if it were to be challenged in a legal action. The federal court eventually overturned the rule on the ground that it violated the Clean Air Act.


title: Christine Todd Whitman

text: In 2016, Whitman apologized for the first time for her declaration a week after 9/11 that the air in lower Manhattan was safe to breathe.


title: Christine Todd Whitman

text: In early 2005, Whitman released a book entitled "It's My Party, Too: Taking Back the Republican Party... And Bringing the Country Together Again" in which she criticizes the policies of the George W. Bush administration and its electoral strategy, which she views as divisive.


title: Christine Todd Whitman

text: The last chapter of that book, entitled "A Time for Radical Moderates", speaks to radical centrists across the political spectrum. The same year as her book was released, Whitman formed a political action committee called It's My Party Too (IMP-PAC), to assist electoral campaigns of moderate Republicans at all levels of government. After the 2006 midterm elections, IMP-PAC was merged into RLC-PAC, the Republican Leadership Council's PAC.


title: Christine Todd Whitman

text: Whitman runs the Whitman Strategy Group, an energy lobby organization which claims to be "a governmental relations consulting firm specializing in environmental and energy issues."


title: Christine Todd Whitman

text: In February 2013, Whitman supported legal recognition of same-sex marriage in an amicus brief to the U.S. Supreme Court.


title: Christine Todd Whitman

text: As of 2015, Whitman is a member of the ReFormers Caucus of Issue One. The group, which included 100 other former elected officials advocated for campaign finance reform.


title: Christine Todd Whitman

text: On February 26, 2016 she endorsed John Kasich in his bid seeking the GOP nomination for presidential candidate. She said that Donald Trump was using “fascist” tactics in his campaign and after Chris Christie's endorsement of Trump said that, in the case of a Trump nomination by the GOP, she would vote for Hillary Clinton. In 2018, Whitman wrote an op-ed calling Trump unfit for office and urging other Republicans to pressure him to step down.


title: Christine Todd Whitman

text: In February 2020, Whitman endorsed former Massachusetts Governor Bill Weld for president in the Republican primaries, in which he was challenging incumbent president Donald Trump. Whitman spoke at the 2020 Democratic National Convention in support of the campaign of Democratic nominee Joe Biden.


title: Christine Todd Whitman

text: Whitman was a co-founder of the States United Democracy Center in 2021 and serves today as its co-chair. In her States United capacity, she was among the former state officials who submitted testimony to the U.S. House of Representatives Select Committee to Investigate the January 6th Attack on the United States Capitol, arguing that the attack was part of "a sustained and coordinated effort by the former president and his anti-democracy allies to suppress voting rights, delegitimize free and fair elections, and subvert the will of the voters by overturning election results deemed undesirable to their movement." In July 2022, Whitman was among three former Republican governors who submitted a friend-of-the-court brief to the U.S. Supreme Court, urging the court to uphold provisions of the federal Voting Rights Acts of 1965 that protect minority voters from having their voting power diluted. With her States United co-founders, Joanna Lydgate and Norm Eisen, Whitman was a winner of the 2022 Brown Democracy Medal, given by the McCourtney Institute for Democracy at Pennsylvania State University.


title: Christine Todd Whitman

text: Since 2003, Whitman has been on the board of directors of Texas Instruments and United Technologies. Whitman is also co-chair of the CASEnergy Coalition, and in 2007, voiced support for a stronger future role of nuclear power in the United States. Whitman joined the board of the American Security Project in April 2010. By 2015 she served as chairperson of the board of directors.


title: Christine Todd Whitman

text: At a 1973 inaugural ball for Richard Nixon, Christine had her first date with John R. Whitman (1944-2015), an old friend she had met while a student at Chapin. The pair married the next year. Whitman was a businessman and an investment banker; he was also the grandson of early 20th-century Governor of New York Charles S. Whitman.


title: Christine Todd Whitman

text: While governor, Whitman used Pontefract, the family farm on which she was raised, as her primary residence. Whitman had purchased the property in 1991 following the death of her mother.


title: Christine Todd Whitman

text: With her late husband, Whitman has two children: daughter Kate and son Taylor. Kate has followed her mother into politics, including an unsuccessful run for the U.S. House of Representatives and having worked as a congressional aide. In 2007, Kate was named executive director of the Republican Leadership Council, her mother's organization which promotes moderate Republicanism. Whitman has seven grandchildren.


title: Christine Todd Whitman

text: Whitman's hobbies have included mountain biking, playing football, and trapshooting. Whitman also had a Scottish Terrier named Coors (now deceased), who is the mother of former president George W. Bush's dog Barney.


title: Christine Todd Whitman

text: Markovitz, G. and D. Rosner.2002. "Deceit and Denial: The Deadly Politics of Industrial Pollution" Berkeley: University of California Press


title: Christine Todd Whitman

text: Peacock, A. 2003. "Libby, Montana: Asbestos and the Deadly Silence of an American Corporation" Boulder, CO: Johnson Books


title: Christine Todd Whitman

text: Schneider, A. and D. McCumber. 2004. "An Air That Kills: How the Asbestos Poisoning of Libby, Montana, Uncovered a National Scandal" New York: Berkley Books


title: The Wave (2008 film)

text: The Wave () is a 2008 German socio-political thriller film directed by Dennis Gansel and starring Jürgen Vogel, Frederick Lau, Jennifer Ulrich and Max Riemelt in the leads. It is based on Ron Jones' social experiment The Third Wave and Todd Strasser's novel "The Wave". The film was produced by Christian Becker for Rat Pack Filmproduktion. The movie was successful in German cinemas, and 2.3 million people watched it in the first ten weeks after its release.


title: The Wave (2008 film)

text: A history teacher, Rainer Wenger, is forced to teach a class on autocracy, despite being an anarchist and wanting to teach the class on anarchy. When his students, the third generation after the Second World War, do not believe that a dictatorship could be established in modern Germany, he starts an experiment to demonstrate how easily the masses can be manipulated. He begins by demanding that all students address him as "Herr Wenger", as opposed to Rainer, and places students with poor grades beside students with good grades — purportedly so they can learn from one another and become better as a whole. When speaking, they must stand and give short, direct answers. Wenger shows his students the effect of marching together in the same rhythm, motivating them by suggesting that they are superior to the anarchy class, which is below them. Wenger suggests a uniform of a white shirt and jeans, to remove class distinction and further unite the group. A student in the class named Mona argues it will remove individuality, but she is dismissed. Another student in the class named Karo shows up to class without the uniform and is ostracized. The students decide among themselves they need a name, deciding on "Die Welle" (The Wave). Karo suggests another name, but she is the only person in the class who votes for it.


title: The Wave (2008 film)

text: The group is shown to grow closer together, and former bullies Sinan and Bomber are shown to reform, protecting Tim, the class outcast, from a pair of anarchists demanding he sell them drugs. Sinan also creates a distinctive logo for the group, while Bomber creates a salute. Tim becomes very attached to the group, having finally become an accepted member of a social group. He burns all of his brand-name clothes, after a discussion about how large corporations do not take responsibility for their actions. Karo and Mona protest the actions of the group, and Mona, disgusted with how her classmates are embracing fascism, leaves the project group. Her other classmates do not see the connection with fascism and continue attending the class. The members of The Wave begin spray-painting their logo around town at night, having parties where only Wave members are allowed to attend, and ostracizing and tormenting anyone not in their group.


title: The Wave (2008 film)

text: When Tim and his group of new friends are confronted by a group of angry punks (including those that Tim faced previously), Tim pulls a Walther PP pistol, causing them to back down. Tim explains to his shocked friends that the pistol only fires blanks. Tim later shows up at Wenger's house, offering to be his bodyguard. Although he declines his offer, Wenger still invites Tim in for dinner; this puts further strain on his already tense relationship with his wife, Anke, who thinks his experiment has gone too far. Wenger finally asks Tim to leave his house, only to find the next morning that Tim had slept outside on his doorstep. Anke, upset upon learning this, tells Wenger to stop the experiment immediately. Wenger accuses her of being jealous and insults her dependency on pills. Shocked, Anke leaves him, saying the Wave has made him into a terrible person.


title: The Wave (2008 film)

text: Karo continues her opposition to the Wave, earning the anger of many in the group, who ask her boyfriend, Marco, to do something about it. A water polo competition is due to happen later that day, and Wenger asks the Wave to show up in support of the team. Karo and Mona, denied entry to the competition by members of The Wave, sneak in another way in order to distribute anti-Wave fliers. Members of the Wave notice this and scramble to retrieve the papers before anybody reads them. In the chaos, Sinan starts a fight with an opposing team member, the two almost drowning each other. Members of the Wave in the stands begin to violently shove one another. After the match, Marco confronts Karo and accuses her of causing the fight. She replies that the Wave has brainwashed him completely. He slaps Karo, causing her to get a nosebleed. Unsettled by his own behaviour, Marco approaches Wenger and asks him to stop the project. Wenger seemingly agrees and calls a rally for the Wave members for the following day in the school's auditorium.


title: The Wave (2008 film)

text: Once in the rally, Wenger has the doors locked and begins whipping the students into a fervour. When Marco protests, Wenger calls him a traitor and orders the students to bring him to the stage for punishment. However, Wenger turns out to have been acting and was using this meeting to test the students and to see how extreme the Wave has become. Wenger declares that he is disbanding the Wave, but Dennis argues that they should try to salvage the good parts of the movement. Wenger points out there is no way to remove the negative elements of fascism. Seeing the movement falling apart right in front of his very eyes, Tim suffers a mental breakdown and pulls out a gun, refusing to accept the Wave is over as he does not want to lose all that he's gained. When Bomber says the gun only fires blanks and tries to take it, Tim shoots him, revealing it has live rounds. When Tim asks why he shouldn't shoot Wenger too, Wenger says that without him, there would be no one to lead the Wave and it would just die anyway. Utterly consumed by despair, Tim abruptly shoots himself in the head, preferring to commit suicide than go on living without the movement.


title: The Wave (2008 film)

text: Horrified, Wenger cradles his corpse and looks on helplessly at how his own vanity and foolishness have resulted in his whole class being scarred for the rest of their lives. The film ends with Wenger being arrested by the police and driven away, Bomber being taken away to the hospital, and Marco and Karo being re-united; the final shot shows Wenger in the back of a police car, staring blankly into the camera, a look of distress on his face.


title: The Wave (2008 film)

text: The Wave is not the only movie to convert a social experiment conducted in the United States into a fictionalized plot. The Stanford prison experiment of 1971 was adapted for the 2001 production "Das Experiment" by Oliver Hirschbiegel, and the 2015 production directed by Kyle Patrick Alvarez, "The Stanford Prison Experiment". Gansel's Wave is based on teacher Ron Jones's "Third Wave" experiment, which took place at a Californian school in 1967. Because his students did not understand how something like national socialism could even happen, he founded a totalitarian, strictly-organized "movement" with harsh punishments that was led by him autocratically. The intricate sense of community led to a wave of enthusiasm not only from his own students, but also from students from other classes who joined the program later. Jones later admitted to having enjoyed having his students as followers. To eliminate the upcoming momentum, Jones aborted the project on the fifth day and showed the students the parallels towards the Nazi youth movements.


title: The Wave (2008 film)

text: In 1976, Jones published a narrative based on those experiences titled "The Third Wave", which was made into a television movie of the same title in 1981. In the same year, author Todd Strasser, writing under the pen-name "Morton Rhue", published his book "The Wave" (a novelization of the television movie), which was published in Germany in 1984 and has since enjoyed great success as a school literature text. It has sold a total of over 2.5 million copies. Furthermore, the 1981 movie is available at almost all public media centers. The story has also influenced many plays and role plays worldwide.


title: The Wave (2008 film)

text: The screenplay is based on an article written by Ron Jones in which he talks about the experiment and how he remembers it. The rights to the story which belonged to Sony were given over to Dennis Gansel for the production of a German movie. As a consequence, Todd Strasser, whose novel popularized the material in Germany, and the publisher Ravensburg, did not receive direct revenues from the film project. Gansel was working on the book for one year until he asked to join him as a co-author. The screenplay moves the experiment, which was carried out in California in the 1960s, to present day Germany. The specific location is never mentioned explicitly as it stands for Germany as a whole. Gansel explained that he did not intend to reenact Jones’ experiment, but rather show how it would be carried out in present-day Germany. He said the movie is not an adaption and that he changed characters, dialogues as well as the beginning and ending of the movie. This also includes subsidiary aspects such as the football team which was turned into a water polo team in the German version whose coach, as opposed to the original, is the teacher himself. The major difference, however, concerns the physical violence and the bloody end which became part of the movie. Nonetheless, Gansel claimed in an interview that it was extremely important to him to ensure that his movie would not differ as much from the experiment as Strasser's book. Thereby he described Jones, who supported the film project as a counselor, as a "living certificate" of authenticity and that the ending was inspired by the Emsdetten school shooting. He claimed that Jones does not like the way the characters in Strasser's novel are depicted. The former teacher commented that Gansel's movie gave an "incredibly convincing" account of the actual experiment.


title: The Wave (2008 film)

text: According to Gansel, representatives of the Bavarian film-funding agency which were initially inquired to fund the film project declined because they compared it to Strasser's novel. Furthermore, they criticized that the teacher lacked a clear anti-authoritarian position in the submitted script. The entire project was jeopardized and the first film-funding agency to grant financial aid was the Medienboard Berlin-Brandenburg. Afterwards, the (FFA) and the (DFFF) as well as other co-producers decided to subsidize the project. Constantin Film also became one of the sponsors and further managed the film's distribution. The overall budget of the movie amounts to 4.5 million euros and the movie was shot within 38 days.


title: The Wave (2008 film)

text: According to Dennis Gansel, German students have grown tired of the topic concerning the Third Reich. Gansel himself had felt an oversaturation during his schooldays and had developed an emotional connection to this chapter of German history only after watching the film "Schindler's List". One difference between the experiment conducted at the time in the United States and today's Germany he saw in the fact that the American students had asked themselves quite horrified how there could even exist something like the concentration camps. His film, however, was made on the premise that people felt immune to the possibility of a repetition of history as a result of the intensive study of National Socialism and its mechanisms. “Therein lies the great danger. It is an interesting fact that we always believe that what happens to others would never happen to us. We blame others, for example the less educated or the East Germans etc. However, in the Third Reich the house caretaker was just as fascinated by the movement as was the intellectual.”


title: The Wave (2008 film)

text: The small town the movie is set in is prosperous and does not show any salient social or economic problems and the teacher practices a liberal lifestyle. Gansel is convinced that the plot gains a broader psychological validity by the choice of such a location. “Everyone thinks they would have been Anne Franks and Sophie Scholls in Nazi Germany. In my opinion this is complete nonsense. I would say that biographies of resistance rather originate in coincidences,” claims Gansel. He then explains that, for example, Karo's political awareness and opposition arise out of vanity: she does not like the white shirt. In the past Gansel had been sure that he would have been part of the resistance but while working on The Wave he realized how “non-politically” the conversion of people took place. He remarks that every human being has the need for belonging to a group.


title: The Wave (2008 film)

text: He says he does not believe that films are capable of having a greater political impact on the viewers and that a film can only influence people who were already sensitized to the topic presented. In his opinion films can at best stimulate discussions, but to be able to do that they have to be really entertaining. “In Germany there has always existed the great misunderstanding that politics in the world of cinema were synonymous with boredom,” says Gansel. He claims that in between high-brow cinema, as films by Christian Petzold, and the entertaining comedies by Til Schweiger there was a vast gap in Germany, which urgently had to be filled. He made the film in a way that should have a “seductive effect” on the viewers to make them interested in The Wave and by doing so show the powerful attraction such a movement can have. He chose Jürgen Vogel as the leading actor because he wanted someone he himself would have liked to have as a teacher, for Vogel brought with him real life experience and a certain kind of authority. In Gansel's own schooldays it had been these kind of teachers whom he had trusted the most. Gansel, whose grandfather had been a Wehrmacht officer, also announced that this film would be the first and last one concerning the topic of the Third Reich in his career as a director.


title: The Wave (2008 film)

text: Teacher Wenger's casual manner at the beginning of the film contributes to the expectation of a comedy. Reviewers have noted a similarity to American films that deal with competent teachers who evoke the capability of disadvantaged students, such as "Dead Poets Society" or U.S. high school films that assign a particular adolescent type to every character. Gansel focuses less on mental motivation processes of the individual characters but rather on the resulting sense of community. His script co-author Thorwarth emphasized that it is necessary to define the characters very clearly in order to retain the common thread despite the variety. The film is structured by five days of the project week. At this, the beginning of every new day of the week is marked by an insert.


title: The Wave (2008 film)

text: The narrative style doesn't keep the audience at distance, so that it can reflect on the things that happened, but rather lets them experience the occurrences; so the plot is narrated linearly. Similar experiences of various characters, for instance, scenes in which students tell their parents about their day at school, are realized as cross-cutting and thus demonstrate the range of different perceptions of the day. The film is narrated from the perspective of a third person, although particular scenes provide individual characters' subjective points of view. An example for this is the scene in which Karo is in the schoolhouse at night, or the scene at the end when Wenger is arrested by the police and driven away. While on the one hand Wenger is filmed in low angle shot and sings rock music in the opening sequence, on the other hand he seems depressed in this last scene. "Slow motion shots reflect [his] tormenting self-reproaches." The change to the subjective view of the thoughtful character corresponds to the dramatic composition throughout the film. This change is meant to initiate reflections on the part of the audience. Gansel justifies the drastic end with the necessity of shocking the audience after the length of the film, of providing a counter-statement and of taking up a stance. A critic assumed that in this country you can't say Adolf without having consequences. So triggering off fascism involves a couple of dead persons.


title: The Wave (2008 film)

text: Throughout the film high and low angle shots are used in order to express the balance of power, those at the “top” and those at the “bottom”. At some parts, the film utilizes stylistic devices of the Nazi weekly reviews, which recorded Hitler's speeches. An example for this is the closing speech of Wenger. In this scene the camera is placed close behind him, at the level of his nape, and so offers a view of the geometrically arranged crowd of students. Other scenes are based on pop culture. Especially the film clip in which the Wave-supporters spray their logo on buildings, is staged in the style of a music video. This logo is designed as "a jagged tsunami wave in a similar way to Manga comics." There is a high frequency and abrupt manner of film editing. There is fast, even rapid camera work and the rock music, that accompanies many of the scenes, is often characterized as impulsive.


title: The Wave (2008 film)

text: German criticism of "Die Welle" was extremely divided. Solely the opinions on the actors were always the same. “From the first scene on, the sympathetic guy tears the audience on his side”, it was reported about Jürgen Vogel, he was transforming the moral ambiguity of his figure into a “mercurial energy”. He played his role realistically, was “credible” or the ideal cast. For the young actors the most frequently used word was “convincing”, while the 18-year-old Frederick Lau in his role as the outcast Tim received special highlighting. In contrast to the praise for the actors, many critics demurred on the figures, developed by the screenplay. They criticized that the psychological developments are missed out, Wenger and the other figures are partially constructed by cliches, or defined by “something model-like”, they also argued that the figures are “slightly oversubscribed stereotypes” or “placeholders”. According to the lack of depth in their motives and emotions, they seem to be distanced, the critics argued further, especially Karo's transformation from the enthusiastic participant to the aggressive opponent is not comprehensible. The critics don't see a stringent necessity for the students, why they should join the movement at all, because their commitment to conformity is not imaginable in West Germany today. The movie, according to the critics, therefore often seems “very pedagogically prescribing: you know, what is meant, but you don’t really believe it.” The critics add, that the pretended serfdom of the Wave-supporters is also undermined by celebrating and tagging excessively. Why the teacher, established as an authority person, becomes a victim of his own staged role play, “remains puzzling“, the critics claim. Because Gansel attributes a position as a left-winger and former squatter to him, he involuntarily provides further evidence for the Götz Aly's thesis, that the 68er Bewegung have further developed the authoritarian body of thought of the Nazis of 1933, they argued critically. But the character‘s composition was also defended: “The categorization is rather necessary here, because it shows the vulnerability of entirely different people for one and the same idea.“


title: The Wave (2008 film)

text: There was also disagreement about the staging. The movie was exciting, disturbing and fascinating, and deals with a difficult plot as exciting entertainment, some critics pointed out. For a mainstream movie "The Wave“ was often "pleasantly rough and snotty“, they reported. Other critics accused the movie of being conventionally staged, similar to a "Tatort"-police procedural TV series, or let off steam about the "graffiti-scenes and a nearly never-ending escalating party scene."


title: The Wave (2008 film)

text: Jones was complimentary of the film, praising its accuracy to the real-life events (despite the changed ending) that he felt the television film and Strasser's book missed. He noted that although the ending deviates from what happened, its depiction of a "what-if" scenario for the Wave getting out of the teacher's control was closer to what he felt would happen to a true fascist movement even if its leader renounced it.


title: The Wave (2008 film)

text: The soundtrack of the film was released on 25 May 2008 through EMI Germany, and contains tracks by The Subways, Kilians, Johnossi, Digitalism and The Hives, as well as a cover version of the classic Ramones' track "Rock 'n' Roll High School" made for the film by the German punk band . wrote and recorded a song for the film, "Was Dich So Verändert Hat", in both a German and English version. The German version ended up in the film but the English version is available on an international version of the soundtrack. The title-song "Garden Of Growing Hearts" was performed by Berlin band Empty Trash. The original film score was composed by Heiko Maile, a member of the band Camouflage.


title: The Wave (2008 film)

text: In the 1981 film and its novelization, the action takes place in the fictitious Gordon High School, which in turn is based on a series of events at a school in Palo Alto, California. The names were changed to sound German, but the characters are similar. For example, Rainer Wenger, Karo, Marco, Mona, and Tim correspond to Ben Ross, Laurie Saunders, David Collins, Andrea, and Robert Billings. The outsider theme was expanded by introducing three new characters: Sinan who is Turkish, Kevin the aggressive bully, and Dennis from East Germany who is mocked as "Ossi". The 1981 film's ending, where there is no violence and the teacher is not arrested, is much tamer than the ending of "Die Welle" and is more accurate to the real-world events that inspired both films.


title: The Wave (2008 film)

text: When the movie was released the publisher Die Broschüre provided schools with material to help teachers "to prepare the visit to the movie theater“ as well as "reviewing it afterwards“. Furthermore, an official novel corresponding to the movie, written by Kerstin Winter, was published. The Wave was released with 279 copies in Germany on 13 March 2008. One day later it was first screened in Austrian movie theaters. Overall the movie attracted 2.5 million German viewers. [46]


title: The Wave (2008 film)

text: The Wave received an award for the Best Actor in a Supporting Role (Frederick Lau) and the Bronze Lola in the category Best Feature Film at the German Film Awards in 2008 (Deutscher Filmpreis). Furthermore, Ueli Christen was nominated in the category Best Editing. In the same minute lead actor Jürgen Vogel was nominated in the category Best Actor at the European Film Awards 2008. Moreover, The Wave was screened at the Sundance Film Festival in the World Cinema - Dramatic section without receiving an award. The movie was also shortlisted for the seating contest of a German airbender for the Oscar in the category Best Foreign Language Film, but lost out to "The Baader Meinhof Complex".


title: Richard Hickock

text: Richard Eugene Hickock (June 6, 1931 – April 14, 1965) was one of two ex-convicts convicted of murdering four members of the Clutter family in Holcomb, Kansas on November 15, 1959, a crime made famous by Truman Capote in his 1966 non-fiction novel "In Cold Blood". Along with Perry Edward Smith, Hickock took part in the burglary and multiple murder at the Clutter family farmhouse.


title: Richard Hickock

text: Richard Hickock was born on June 6, 1931 in Kansas City, Kansas to farmworker parents, Walter Sr. and Eunice Hickock. He was one of several siblings, including a younger brother named Walter Jr. According to Walter Jr., their parents provided them with a good upbringing, but they were strict; he said of them, "I'm not sure if they were loving in the way you'd usually say a family is loving." In 1947, the Hickock family relocated to the small east Kansas town of Edgerton. Hickock was a popular student and an athlete at Olathe High School. After finishing high school, Hickock had wanted to attend college, but his family lacked the means to finance his post-secondary education. Hickock went to work as a mechanic instead.


title: Richard Hickock

text: Head injuries from a serious automobile accident in 1950 left Hickock disfigured, rendering his face slightly lopsided and his eyes asymmetrical. According to his brother Walter, the accident "almost killed him," and it also changed him. After being released from the hospital, Hickock was left with hospital bills and mounting debts, leading him to start bad financial habits like writing bad checks and gambling. He drifted through several manual labor jobs, working as a railroad worker, mechanic, and ambulance driver while simultaneously continuing to write bad checks and commit petty theft. Eventually, the crime caught up with him, and in March 1958, at the age of 26, Hickock received his first prison sentence. He was imprisoned in the Kansas State Penitentiary for stealing a rifle out of a local home.


title: Richard Hickock

text: When Hickock was 19, he married for the first time. However, he became involved in an extramarital affair, which eventually resulted in the conception of his first child. Hickock then decided to end his first marriage to marry his mistress, and they had two children together. While serving his 1958 prison sentence, his second wife divorced him as well.


title: Richard Hickock

text: While serving his prison sentence, Hickock met fellow inmates Perry Smith and Floyd Wells, the latter of whom used to work for the Clutter family. Wells told Hickock about the affluence of the family's patriarch, Herbert Clutter, specifically telling Hickock that Clutter kept a safe in his house containing $10,000. Hickock and Smith devised a plan to rob and murder the Clutter family. Hickock was released from prison in August 1959, after serving seventeen months. Upon release from prison, he got a job at a body shop in Olathe, Kansas and tried to live an upright life; however, soon afterwards, he contacted Smith. Hickock and Smith met up in Olathe, where they collected supplies to aid in the commission of the crimes. They then went to Holcomb, where the Clutter family resided.


title: Richard Hickock

text: Hickock testified after the trial that he and Smith had gotten the idea to rob the Clutters after Hickock was told by Wells, their former cellmate, that there was a safe in the family's house containing $10,000. However, when they invaded the house just after midnight on November 15, 1959, Hickock and Smith discovered that there was no such safe. The pair then murdered all four members of the family. According to Truman Capote's account of the Clutter murders, "In Cold Blood", Hickock was prevented by Smith from raping 16-year-old Nancy Clutter during the incident.


title: Richard Hickock

text: Alvin Dewey, chief investigator in the case, testified at the trial that Hickock insisted in his confession that Smith performed all the killings. Smith, however, first claimed Hickock killed the two women, but later claimed to have shot them himself. Both defendants refused to testify during their trial.


title: Richard Hickock

text: Hickock and Smith were arrested in Las Vegas, Nevada, on December 30, 1959 for the Clutter family murders, for which they were both tried and found guilty. They both talked extensively to Capote when the author was researching "In Cold Blood".


title: Richard Hickock

text: Hickock and Smith were executed by hanging at the Kansas State Penitentiary on April 14, 1965. When asked if he had any last words, Hickock declined, but he requested to address the KBI agents who had worked on his case and now were present as witnesses to his execution. Hickock told them he had "no hard feelings" towards them, shook each agent's hand, and simply said, "Goodbye." Smith, in contrast, attempted to speak beyond the room when he addressed the media representatives and declared: "capital punishment is legally and morally wrong." Hickock was executed first and was pronounced dead at 12:41 a.m; Smith followed shortly afterward and was pronounced dead at 1:19 a.m.


title: Richard Hickock

text: Hickock and Smith were both buried in nearby Mount Muncie Cemetery in Lansing, Kansas. Hickock donated his eyes for corneal transplants, and they were used on two patients in Kansas City later that day.


title: Richard Hickock

text: On December 18, 2012, the killers' bodies were exhumed from Mount Muncie Cemetery, as authorities hoped to solve a 53-year-old cold case using DNA. Smith and Hickock had fled to Florida after the Clutter murders, and the two had been questioned about the December 19, 1959 shooting murder of Cliff and Christine Walker and their two young children. A polygraph administered at the time of their arrest in the Clutter case cleared them of the Walker family murders, but by modern polygraph standards, their test results are no longer considered valid. After the exhumation, officials in Kansas retrieved bone fragments from Smith and Hickock's corpses in order to attempt to compare their DNA to semen found in Christine Walker's pants.


title: Richard Hickock

text: In August 2013, the Sarasota County sheriff's office announced they were unable to find a match between the DNA of either Smith or Hickock with the samples in the Walker family murder. Only partial DNA could be retrieved, possibly due to degradations of the DNA samples over the decades or contamination in storage, making the outcome one of uncertainty (neither proving nor disproving the involvement of Smith and Hickock). Consequently, investigators have stated that Smith and Hickock still remain the most viable suspects.


title: Richard Hickock

text: In 2017, "The Wall Street Journal" uncovered a handwritten manuscript that Hickock wrote during the time that he awaited his execution on death row. The manuscript, reportedly titled "The High Road to Hell," allegedly shone a light on the motive behind the murders, which to this day is in dispute. Before his execution, Hickock had insisted (and Smith concurred) that Smith committed all of the murders himself. However, Hickock's manuscript describes how he shined a flashlight on each of the four Clutters' heads while Smith fired; Hickock's only regret, according to the manuscript, was that Smith did all of the killing and Hickock personally committed no murders. In discussing his alleged motive, Hickock claimed that he had committed the killings in a murder-for-hire plot in exchange for $5,000 from a man only named Roberts, writing, "I was going to kill a person. Maybe more than one. Could I do it? Maybe I'll back out. But I can't back out, I've taken the money. I've spent some of it. Besides, I thought, I know too much." Throughout 1961, Hickock sent the manuscript to reporter Mack Nations, who had promised to convert it into a book-length manuscript. After completing the project, Nations sent the converted manuscript to the publishing company Random House, but they sent it back and let Nations know that they had already commissioned Capote to write about the Clutter murders.


title: Richard Hickock

text: Writer Kevin Helliker of the "Journal" speculated that Hickock may have been pathologically lying or engaging in fantasy in his manuscript, arguing that had Hickock's story been true, he and Smith likely would have used the information to try to negotiate their way out of their death sentences by pinning the crime on Roberts, and he and Smith would not have struggled to make ends meet after the crime if they had been paid for it. Michael Stone, a Columbia University psychiatrist who specialized in studying Smith and Hickock, read the manuscript at the request of the "Journal" and said on the record, "I don't believe for a minute that they got paid to do it."


title: Richard Hickock

text: Hickock was portrayed by Scott Wilson in the 1967 film adaptation of "In Cold Blood"; by Anthony Edwards in the 1996 TV miniseries adaptation; by Mark Pellegrino in the 2005 film "Capote"; and by Lee Pace in the 2006 film "Infamous".


title: Salting the earth

text: Salting the earth, or sowing with salt, is the ritual of spreading salt on the site of cities razed by conquerers. It originated as a curse on re-inhabitation in the ancient Near East and became a well-established folkloric motif in the Middle Ages. The best-known case is the salting of Shechem in "Judges" 9:45; the supposed salting of Carthage is now believed to be a nineteenth-century invention.


title: Salting the earth

text: The custom of purifying or consecrating a destroyed city with salt and cursing anyone who dared to rebuild it was widespread in the ancient Near East, but historical accounts are unclear as to what the sowing of salt meant in that process. In the case of Shechem, various commentaries explain it as: