title: Donkey punch

text: Sex columnist Dan Savage has discussed the alleged practice on several occasions. In 2004, Savage referred to the donkey punch as "a sex act that exists only in the imaginations of adolescent boys," adding "no one has ever attempted 'the Pirate,' just as no one has ever performed a Hot Karl, delivered a Donkey Punch, or inserted an Icy Mike. They're all fictions." Responding to an enquiry from Wikipedia editors, he again discussed the donkey punch urban legend in his "Savage Love" column in 2006. He wrote, "attempting a Donkey Punch can lead to ... unpleasant outcomes," including "injury, death or incarceration"; he also pointed out that it "doesn't even work." He quoted Jeffrey Bahr, a faculty member at the Medical College of Wisconsin,


title: Donkey punch

text: Jordan Tate, commenting in "The Contemporary Dictionary of Sexual Euphemisms" (2007) on the "almost purely theoretical nature" of the term, claimed,


title: Donkey punch

text: The adult film star credited as the first known recipient of a donkey punch is Gia Paloma, who had the act performed on her by Alex Sanders in the 2004 film "Gutter Mouths 30".


title: Donkey punch

text: "Donkey Punch", a pornographic film premised around the act, was released by JM Productions in 2005. The film consists of four scenes in which the male actors engage in rough sex with their female co-stars, punching them repeatedly in the head and body throughout. In response to her experience on the set, performer Alex Devine allegedly stated ""Donkey Punch" was the most brutal, depressing, scary scene that I have ever done," and commented that "I actually stopped the scene while it was being filmed because I was in too much pain."


title: Donkey punch

text: The viciousness of the film prompted Peter van Aarle of Cyberspace Adult Video Reviews to forgo covering any further releases from JM, while Zack Parsons of Something Awful (which awarded "Donkey Punch" a score of -49, where -50 is the worst score possible) wrote that the film was "one of the most morally repugnant pornographic movies I have seen" and "the sort of movie that the government would cite when trying to arrest pornographers and outlaw pornography."


title: Donkey punch

text: "Donkey punch" was one of several slang terms used by Enron traders to refer to their price gouging methods. During investigations into the 2004 Enron scandal over manipulation of the electricity market in California, recordings of Enron traders were uncovered dating from 2000 and 2001. In the recordings, fraudulent accounting schemes were referred to using slang terms, including "Donkey Punch." The 2007 report by the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission was unable to identify the meaning that Enron had attached to the term "Donkey Punch." U.S. senator Maria Cantwell, in a 2004 press release about the Enron hearings, identified the Donkey Punch as "a crude pornographic term," one of many "lewd acts" that Enron employees used to describe their schemes. Cantwell asked the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission to take down the emails that were on its website due to the content.


title: Donkey punch

text: The term received extensive coverage online after it was given as an incorrect response on the January 16, 2012, broadcast of the American game show "Jeopardy!". The prompt was "A blow to the back of the neck is the punch named for this animal"; the correct response was rabbit punch, a dangerous boxing move. The first contestant responded with "What is a donkey?" The subsequent contestant gave the correct response. A clip of the scene became a viral video.


title: Allegations of CIA assistance to Osama bin Laden

text: Some sources have alleged that the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) had ties with Osama Bin Laden's al-Qaeda and its "Afghan Arab" fighters when it armed Mujahideen groups to fight the Soviet Union during the Soviet–Afghan War.


text: About the same time as the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan, the United States began collaborating with Pakistan's Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) to provide several hundred million dollars a year in aid to the Afghan Mujahideen insurgents fighting the Afghan pro-Soviet government and the Soviet Army in Operation Cyclone. Along with native Afghan mujahideen were Muslim volunteers from other countries, popularly known as "Afghan Arabs". The most famous of the Afghan Arabs was Osama bin Laden, known at the time as a wealthy and pious Saudi who provided his own money and helped raise millions from other wealthy Gulf Arabs.


text: When the war ended, bin Laden organized the al-Qaeda organization to carry on armed jihad against other countries, primarily against the United States.


text: A number of commentators have described Al-Qaeda attacks as "blowback" or an unintended consequence of American aid to the mujahideen. In response, the United States government and American and Pakistani intelligence officials involved in the operation have denied this theory. Many journalists, including CNN's Peter Bergen, have also denied the claim. They maintain the aid was given out by the Pakistani government, that it went to Afghan and not foreign mujahideen, and that there was no contact between the Afghan Arabs (foreign mujahideen) and the CIA and other American officials, let alone the arming, training, coaching, or indoctrination.


text: As of 2018, there is no publicly available documentary evidence to support any of the claims regarding collaboration between U.S. government agencies and bin Laden.


text: During the anti-Soviet war Bin Laden and his fighters received American and Saudi funding. Some analysts believe Bin Laden himself had security training from the CIA.


text: Robin Cook, Foreign Secretary in the UK from 1997 to 2001, believed the CIA had provided arms to the Arab mujahideen, including Osama bin Laden, writing, "Bin Laden was, though, a product of a monumental miscalculation by western security agencies. Throughout the '80s he was armed by the CIA and funded by the Saudis to wage war against the Russian occupation of Afghanistan."


text: In conversation with former British Defence Secretary Michael Portillo, two-time prime minister of Pakistan Benazir Bhutto said Osama bin Laden was initially pro-American. Prince Bandar bin Sultan of Saudi Arabia, has also stated that bin Laden once expressed appreciation for the United States' help in Afghanistan. On CNN's Larry King program he said:


text: Bandar bin Sultan: This is ironic. In the mid-'80s, if you remember, we and the United - Saudi Arabia and the United States were supporting the Mujahideen to liberate Afghanistan from the Soviets. He [Osama bin Laden] came to thank me for my efforts to bring the Americans, our friends, to help us against the atheists, he said the communists. Isn't it ironic?


text: U.S. government officials and a number of other parties maintain that the U.S. supported only the indigenous Afghan mujahideen. They deny that the CIA or other American officials had contact with Bin Laden, let alone armed, trained, coached, or indoctrinated him. American scholars and reporters have called the idea of a CIA-backed Al Qaeda "nonsense", "sheer fantasy", and a "common myth".


text: According to Peter Jouvenal, Americans could not train mujahideen because Pakistani officials would not allow more than a handful of U.S. agents to operate in Pakistan and none in Afghanistan.


text: The former Al-Qaeda leader Ayman al-Zawahiri says much the same thing in his book "Knights Under the Prophet's Banner".


text: Bin Laden himself once said "The collapse of the Soviet Union ... goes to God and the mujahideen in Afghanistan ... the US had no mentionable role," but "collapse made the US more haughty and arrogant."


text: In "Ghost Wars" (2004), Steve Coll recounted: "Bin Laden moved within Saudi intelligence's compartmented operations, outside of CIA eyesight. CIA archives contain no record of any direct contact between a CIA officer and bin Laden during the 1980s." Yet Coll also documents that bin Laden at least informally cooperated with the ISI during the 1980s and had intimate connections to CIA-backed mujahideen commander Jalaluddin Haqqani; Milton Bearden, the CIA's Islamabad station chief from mid-1986 until mid-1989, took an admiring view of bin Laden at the time. Afghan assets recounted the fanaticism and intolerance of many of the so-called "Afghan Arabs" to the CIA, yet the CIA discounted these reports, instead contemplating direct support to the Arab volunteers under the guise of a Spanish Civil War-inspired "international brigade"—a concept that never got off paper.


text: According to Norwegian researcher Thomas Hegghammer, the book "Unholy Wars" by journalist John K. Cooley did the most to propagate the view that the CIA trained the Afghan Arabs. In this book, Cooley described “the central role of the CIA’s Muslim mercenaries, including upwards of 2,000 Algerians, in the Afghanistan war”. He did not present any evidence for his claims, though. And according to historian Odd Arne Westad, his book is unreliable. Based on information by Soviet defector Vasili Mitrokhin, parts of the book “obviously originate in Soviet disinformation from the 1980s”.


text: According to CNN journalist Peter Bergen, known for conducting the first television interview with Osama bin Laden in 1997, "Bin Laden had his own money, he was anti-American, and he was operating secretly and independently."


text: Bergen quotes Pakistani Brigadier Mohammad Yousaf, who ran the Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) Afghan operation between 1983 and 1987:


text: It was always galling to the Americans, and I can understand their point of view, that although they paid the piper they could not call the tune. The CIA supported the mujahideen by spending the taxpayers' money, billions of dollars of it over the years, on buying arms, ammunition, and equipment. It was their secret arms procurement branch that was kept busy. It was, however, a cardinal rule of Pakistan's policy that no Americans ever become involved with the distribution of funds or arms once they arrived in the country. No Americans ever trained or had direct contact with the mujahideen, and no American official ever went inside Afghanistan.


text: Marc Sageman, a Foreign Service Officer who was based in Islamabad from 1987 to 1989, and worked closely with Afghanistan's Mujahideen, states that no American money went to the foreign volunteers.


text: No U.S. official ever came in contact with the foreign volunteers. They simply traveled in different circles and never crossed U.S. radar screens. They had their own sources of money and their own contacts with the Pakistanis, official Saudis, and other Muslim supporters, and they made their own deals with the various Afghan resistance leaders."


text: As Peter Beinart writes in an October, 2001 article in The New Republic arguing against blowback as a cause for the 9/11 attacks:


text: As Vincent Cannistraro, who led the Reagan administration's Afghan Working Group from 1985 to 1987, puts it, "The CIA was very reluctant to be involved at all. They thought it would end up with them being blamed, like in Guatemala." So the Agency tried to avoid direct involvement in the war, ... the skittish CIA, Cannistraro estimates, had less than ten operatives acting as America's eyes and ears in the region. Milton Bearden, the Agency's chief field operative in the war effort, has insisted that "[T]he CIA had nothing to do with" bin Laden. Cannistraro says that when he coordinated Afghan policy from Washington, he never once heard bin Laden's name.


text: Fox News reporter Richard Miniter wrote that in interviews with the two men who "oversaw the disbursement for all American funds to the anti-Soviet resistance, Bill Peikney—CIA station chief in Islamabad from 1984 to 1986—and Milt Bearden—CIA station chief from 1986 to 1989—he found,


text: Both flatly denied that any CIA funds ever went to bin Laden. They felt so strongly about this point that they agreed to go on the record, an unusual move by normally reticent intelligence officers. Mr. Peikney added in an e-mail to me: “I don’t even recall UBL [bin Laden] coming across my screen when I was there.


text: Other reasons advanced for a lack of a CIA-Afghan Arab connection of "pivotal importance," (or even any connection at all), was that the Afghan Arabs themselves were not important in the war but were a "curious sideshow to the real fighting."


text: One estimate of the number of combatants in the war is that 250,000 Afghans fought 125,000 Soviet troops, but only 2000 Arab Afghans fought "at any one time".


text: According to Bearden, the CIA did not recruit Arabs because there were hundreds of thousands of Afghans all too willing to fight. The Arab Afghans were not only superfluous but "disruptive," angering local Afghans with their more-Muslim-than-thou attitude, according to Peter Jouvenal. Veteran Afghan cameraman Peter Jouvenal quotes an Afghan mujahideen as saying "whenever we had a problem with one of them [foreign mujahideen], we just shot them. They thought they were kings."


text: Many who traveled in Afghanistan, including Olivier Roy and Peter Jouvenal, reported of the Arab Afghans' visceral hostility to Westerners in Afghanistan to aid Afghans or report on their plight. BBC reporter John Simpson tells the story of running into Osama bin Laden in 1989, and with neither knowing who the other was, bin Laden attempting to bribe Simpson's Afghan driver $500—a large sum in a poor country—to kill the infidel Simpson. When the driver declined, Bin Laden retired to his "camp bed" and wept "in frustration."


text: Academic historian Paul Thomas Chamberlin wrote in 2018 that "[t]o date, no researcher has produced documentation of direct links between Washington and bin Laden or, for that matter, Zarqawi. The weight of evidence suggests that the CIA and the future leaders of Al-Qaeda and ISIS were not in communication with one another during the Soviet occupation in Afghanistan."


text: Sir Martin Ewans stated that the Afghan Arabs "benefited indirectly from the CIA's funding, through the ISI and resistance organizations," and that "it has been reckoned that as many as 35,000 'Arab-Afghans' may have received military training in Pakistan at an estimated cost of $800 million in the years up to and including 1988."


text: Some of the CIA's greatest Afghan beneficiaries were Arabist commanders such as Haqqani and Gulbuddin Hekmatyar who were key allies of Bin Laden over many years. Haqqani—one of Bin Laden's closest associates in the 1980s—received direct cash payments from CIA agents, without the mediation of the ISI. This independent source of funding gave Haqqani disproportionate influence over the mujahideen, and helped Bin Laden develop his base.


text: Sheik Omar Abdel Rahman, an associate of Bin Laden's, was given visas to enter the US on four occasions by the CIA. Rahman was recruiting Arabs to fight in the Soviet-Afghan war, and Egyptian officials testified that the CIA actively assisted him. Rahman was a co-plotter of the 1993 World Trade Center bombing.


text: One allegation not denied by the US government is that the U.S. Army enlisted and trained a former Egyptian soldier named Ali Mohamed, and that it knew Ali occasionally took trips to Afghanistan, where he claimed to fight Russians. According to journalist Lawrence Wright, who interviewed U.S. officials about Ali, the Egyptian did tell his Army superiors he was fighting in Afghanistan, but did not tell them he was training other Afghan Arabs or writing a manual from what he had learned from the US Army Special Forces. Wright also reports that the CIA failed to inform other US agencies that it had learned Ali, who was a member of Egyptian Islamic Jihad, was an anti-American spy.


title: Toyota RZ engine

text: The Toyota RZ engine family is a straight-four piston engine series built in Japan. The RZ series uses a cast-iron engine block and aluminum SOHC or DOHC cylinder heads. It has electronic fuel injection (EFI), 2 or 4 valves per cylinder and features forged steel connecting rods.


title: Toyota RZ engine

text: The 1RZ is a version built from 1989. Bore and stroke is . The original carburetted model in Japanese trim produces at 5,400 rpm and maximum torque of at 2,400 prm.


title: Toyota RZ engine

text: The 1RZ-E is the fuel-injected version of the 1RZ. With a compression ratio of 9.0:1 and in Japanese trim, output is at 5,200 rpm and maximum torque of at 2,600 prm. With redline at 5,500 rpm.


title: Toyota RZ engine

text: The 2RZ is a version. Bore and stroke is ; a variety of combination of heads and fuel delivery systems were available.


title: Toyota RZ engine

text: This is an SOHC engine with two valves per cylinder. Valve adjustment is by shim over bucket. Output is at 5,200 rpm. Originally manufactured with a carburetor induction system, it was later upgraded to Electronic Fuel Injection, with the -E suffix added to the engine designation. Toyota specified unleaded fuel with a rating of at least 91 RON in Australia.


title: Toyota RZ engine

text: The 2RZ-FE, and 4RB1 or 4RB2 in China, is a version. Bore and stroke is . Compression ratio is 9.5:1. Output is at 5000 rpm with of torque at 4000 rpm. This engine does not feature balance shafts. It has four valves per cylinder and DOHC. Valve adjustment is by shim over bucket. The 2RZ-FE is an interference engine. A version called the 4RB3 is also manufactured in China. This one has a bore and stroke of , while sharing the 2RZ's bore spacing.


title: Toyota RZ engine

text: The 3RZ-FE is a version. Bore and stroke is . Compression ratio is 9.5:1. Output is at 4800 rpm with of torque at 4000 rpm. This engine features twin, chain-driven balance shafts. It has four valves per cylinder and DOHC. Valve adjustment is by shim over bucket. The 3RZ-FE is an interference engine with a timing chain.


title: Chad Lindberg

text: Chad Tyler Lindberg (born November 1, 1976) is an American actor. He is known for his film roles in "The Fast and the Furious" and "October Sky", as well as television roles on "Sons of Anarchy" and "Supernatural". Lindberg was also the co-host of the television series "Ghost Stalkers".


title: Chad Lindberg

text: Lindberg was born in Puyallup, Washington, the son of Luwana and Pete Lindberg. He attended Mount Vernon High School. He began his acting career as Rory in "Black Circle Boys" at the 1997 Sundance Film Festival. From there, he made several guest appearances on popular television shows, such as "ER", "Buffy the Vampire Slayer", and "The X-Files". He continued pursuing films roles, particularly as Sherman O'Dell in "October Sky" and Jesse, a mechanic suffering from ADHD, in "The Fast and the Furious".


title: Chad Lindberg

text: He received attention for his role in "I Spit on Your Grave", the 2010 remake of the '70s cult classic. He has also appeared in the recurring role of Chad Willingham on "" and as Ash on "Supernatural". He took part in Tony Zierra's 2011 documentary "My Big Break", which follows the early careers of Lindberg, Wes Bentley, Brad Rowe and Greg Fawcett. He was also a guest star in an episode of "The Cape" as Hicks, a professional sniper assassin. He was more recently featured as a paranormal investigator on the Destination America program "Ghost Stalkers".


title: Naoto Ohshima

text: After leaving Sonic Team, Ohshima formed an independent game company called Artoon. There he went on to work on such games "as Pinobee" and "", and in 2004, the sequel to "Blinx", "". In 2010, Artoon was absorbed into AQ Interactive. That same year, he and other key members of Artoon left to form Arzest. Early in his career, he was credited under the nickname "Big Island" in a number of games, which is a literal translation of his family name.


title: Zubr-class LCAC

text: The Zubr class, Soviet designation Project 1232.2, (NATO reporting name "Pomornik") is a class of Soviet-designed air-cushioned landing craft (LCAC). The name "Żubr" is Polish for the European bison. This class of military hovercraft is, , the world's largest, with a standard full load displacement of 555 tons. The hovercraft was designed to sealift amphibious assault units (such as marines and tanks) from equipped/non-equipped vessels to non-equipped shores, as well as to transport and plant naval mines.


title: Zubr-class LCAC

text: Ten Zubr-class hovercraft remain in service. There are two vessels in the Russian Navy and four with the Hellenic Navy. In 2009 China placed an order for four vessels from Ukraine as part of a deal worth 315 million USD. Two updated versions of the vessels were built by Crimea's Feodosia Shipbuilding Company, followed by two advanced models of the surface warship.


title: Zubr-class LCAC

text: The purchase of HS "Cephalonia" (L 180) for the Hellenic Navy marked the first time a Soviet-designed naval craft had been built for a NATO member.


title: Zubr-class LCAC

text: In June 2017 Russia announced the restarting of production of Zubr-class craft. Representatives from the Russian shipbuilding industry soon after responded by stating production could not possibly resume in 2018 and would only be possible by 2019–2021, refuting the government position. Representatives cited the lack of availability of and inability to mass-produce components, notably gas-turbine engines and reduction gears as the main obstacles.


title: Zubr-class LCAC

text: NPO Saturn (ODK GT) and Turboros developed marine gas turbine engines M70FRU (D090), FR RU, M70FRU2 (DP/DM71) along M90FR, M75RU, E70RD8 and Elektrosila, AO Zvezda, Metallist, Samara and others developed redactors and gears.


title: Zubr-class LCAC

text: High strength and buoyancy is provided by a rectangular pontoon, the main load-carrying part of the ship's hull. The superstructure built on the pontoon is divided into three compartments with two longitudinal bulkheads: combat material compartment in the midsection fitted with tank ramps, and outboard sections housing main and auxiliary propulsion units, troop compartments, living quarters, and NBC protection systems. To improve working conditions in the battle stations, troop compartments and living quarters are fitted with air-conditioning and heating-systems, sound/heat-insulating coatings, and structures made of vibration damping materials. The ship provides normal conditions for the crew to make meals and rest.


title: Zubr-class LCAC

text: Personnel are protected against the effects of weapons of mass destruction by airtight sealing of combat stations, crew and troop compartments, augmented with individual gas masks and protection suits. The ship is also protected from magnetic influence mines with an active system to compensate for the magnetic fields generated by the ship and transported materials. The central command post and MS-227 device compartments are strengthened with alloy armor. Chinese have built their own version designated as Type 958.


title: Zubr-class LCAC

text: The Zubr-class landing craft has a cargo area of and a fuel capacity of 56 tons. It can carry three main battle tanks (up to 150 tonnes), or ten armoured vehicles with 140 troops (up to 131 tonnes), or 8 armoured personnel carriers of total mass up to 115 tonnes, or 8 amphibious tanks or up to 500 troops (with 360 troops in the cargo compartment).


title: Zubr-class LCAC

text: At full displacement the ship is capable of negotiating up to 5-degree gradients on non-equipped shores and -high vertical walls. The Zubr class remains seaworthy in conditions up to Sea State 4. The vessel has a cruising speed of .


title: Spitzer Space Telescope

text: The Spitzer Space Telescope, formerly the Space Infrared Telescope Facility (SIRTF), was an infrared space telescope launched in 2003. Operations ended on 30 January 2020. Spitzer was the third space telescope dedicated to infrared astronomy, following IRAS (1983) and ISO (1995–1998). It was the first spacecraft to use an Earth-trailing orbit, later used by the Kepler planet-finder.


title: Spitzer Space Telescope

text: The planned mission period was to be 2.5 years with a pre-launch expectation that the mission could extend to five or slightly more years until the onboard liquid helium supply was exhausted. This occurred on 15 May 2009. Without liquid helium to cool the telescope to the very low temperatures needed to operate, most of the instruments were no longer usable. However, the two shortest-wavelength modules of the IRAC camera continued to operate with the same sensitivity as before the helium was exhausted, and continued to be used into early 2020 in the Spitzer Warm Mission.


title: Spitzer Space Telescope

text: During the warm mission, the two short wavelength channels of IRAC operated at 28.7 K and were predicted to experience little to no degradation at this temperature compared to the nominal mission. The Spitzer data, from both the primary and warm phases, are archived at the Infrared Science Archive (IRSA).


title: Spitzer Space Telescope

text: In keeping with NASA tradition, the telescope was renamed after its successful demonstration of operation, on 18 December 2003. Unlike most telescopes that are named by a board of scientists, typically after famous deceased astronomers, the new name for SIRTF was obtained from a contest open to the general public.


title: Spitzer Space Telescope

text: The contest led to the telescope being named in honor of astronomer Lyman Spitzer, who had promoted the concept of space telescopes in the 1940s. Spitzer wrote a 1946 report for RAND Corporation describing the advantages of an extraterrestrial observatory and how it could be realized with available or upcoming technology. He has been cited for his pioneering contributions to rocketry and astronomy, as well as "his vision and leadership in articulating the advantages and benefits to be realized from the Space Telescope Program."


title: Spitzer Space Telescope

text: The Spitzer was launched on 25 August 2003 at 05:35:39 UTC from Cape Canaveral SLC-17B aboard a Delta II 7920H rocket. It was placed into a heliocentric (as opposed to a geocentric) orbit trailing and drifting away from Earth's orbit at approximately 0.1 astronomical units per year (an "Earth-trailing" orbit).


title: Spitzer Space Telescope

text: The primary mirror is in diameter, , made of beryllium and was cooled to . The satellite contains three instruments that allowed it to perform astronomical imaging and photometry from 3.6 to 160 micrometers, spectroscopy from 5.2 to 38 micrometers, and spectrophotometry from 55 to 95 micrometers.


title: Spitzer Space Telescope

text: By the early 1970s, astronomers began to consider the possibility of placing an infrared telescope above the obscuring effects of Earth's atmosphere.


title: Spitzer Space Telescope

text: In 1979, a report from the National Research Council of the National Academy of Sciences, "A Strategy for Space Astronomy and Astrophysics for the 1980s", identified a Shuttle Infrared Telescope Facility (SIRTF) as "one of two major astrophysics facilities [to be developed] for Spacelab", a shuttle-borne platform. Anticipating the major results from an upcoming Explorer satellite and from the Shuttle mission, the report also favored the "study and development of ... long-duration spaceflights of infrared telescopes cooled to cryogenic temperatures."


title: Spitzer Space Telescope

text: The launch in January 1983 of the Infrared Astronomical Satellite, jointly developed by the United States, the Netherlands, and the United Kingdom, to conduct the first infrared survey of the sky, whetted the appetites of scientists worldwide for follow-up space missions capitalizing on the rapid improvements in infrared detector technology.


title: Spitzer Space Telescope

text: Earlier infrared observations had been made by both space-based and ground-based observatories. Ground-based observatories have the drawback that at infrared wavelengths or frequencies, both the Earth's atmosphere and the telescope itself will radiate (glow) brightly. Additionally, the atmosphere is opaque at most infrared wavelengths. This necessitates lengthy exposure times and greatly decreases the ability to detect faint objects. It could be compared to trying to observe the stars in the optical at noon from a telescope built out of light bulbs. Previous space observatories (such as IRAS, the Infrared Astronomical Satellite, and ISO, the Infrared Space Observatory) were launched during the 1980s and 1990s and great advances in astronomical technology have been made since then.


title: Spitzer Space Telescope

text: Most of the early concepts envisioned repeated flights aboard the NASA Space Shuttle. This approach was developed in an era when the Shuttle program was expected to support weekly flights of up to 30 days duration. A May 1983 NASA proposal described SIRTF as a Shuttle-attached mission, with an evolving scientific instrument payload. Several flights were anticipated with a probable transition into a more extended mode of operation, possibly in association with a future space platform or space station. SIRTF would be a 1-meter class, cryogenically cooled, multi-user facility consisting of a telescope and associated focal plane instruments. It would be launched on the Space Shuttle and remain attached to the Shuttle as a Spacelab payload during astronomical observations, after which it would be returned to Earth for refurbishment prior to re-flight. The first flight was expected to occur about 1990, with the succeeding flights anticipated beginning approximately one year later. However, the Spacelab-2 flight aboard STS-51-F showed that the Shuttle environment was poorly suited to an onboard infrared telescope due to contamination from the relatively "dirty" vacuum associated with the orbiters. By September 1983, NASA was considering the "possibility of a long duration [free-flyer] SIRTF mission".


title: Spitzer Space Telescope

text: Spitzer is the only one of the Great Observatories not launched by the Space Shuttle, as was originally intended. However, after the 1986 Challenger disaster, the Shuttle-Centaur upper stage, which would have been required to place it into its final orbit, was abandoned. The mission underwent a series of redesigns during the 1990s, primarily due to budget considerations. This resulted in a much smaller but still fully capable mission that could use the smaller Delta II expendable launch vehicle.


title: Spitzer Space Telescope

text: One of the most important advances of this redesign was an Earth-trailing orbit. Cryogenic satellites that require liquid helium (LHe, T ≈ 4 K) temperatures in near-Earth orbit are typically exposed to a large heat load from Earth, and consequently require large amounts of LHe coolant, which then tends to dominate the total payload mass and limits mission life. Placing the satellite in solar orbit far from Earth allowed innovative passive cooling. The sun shield protected the rest of the spacecraft from the Sun's heat, the far side of the spacecraft was painted black to enhance passive radiation of heat, and the spacecraft bus was thermally isolated from the telescope. All of these design choices combined to drastically reduce the total mass of helium needed, resulting in an overall smaller and lighter payload, resulting in major cost savings, but with a mirror the same diameter as originally designed. This orbit also simplified telescope pointing, but did require the NASA Deep Space Network for communications.


title: Spitzer Space Telescope

text: The primary instrument package (telescope and cryogenic chamber) was developed by Ball Aerospace & Technologies, in Boulder, Colorado. The individual instruments were developed jointly by industrial, academic, and government institutions, the principals being Cornell, the University of Arizona, the Smithsonian Astrophysical Observatory, Ball Aerospace, and Goddard Spaceflight Center. The shorter-wavelength infrared detectors were developed by Raytheon in Goleta, California. Raytheon used indium antimonide and a doped silicon detector in the creation of the infrared detectors. These detectors are 100 times more sensitive than what was available at the beginning of the project during the 1980s. The far-infrared detectors (70–160 micrometers) were developed jointly by the University of Arizona and Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory using gallium-doped germanium. The spacecraft was built by Lockheed Martin. The mission was operated and managed by the Jet Propulsion Laboratory and the "Spitzer Science Center", located on the Caltech campus in Pasadena, California.


title: Spitzer Space Telescope

text: Spitzer ran out of liquid helium coolant on 15 May 2009, which stopped far-IR observations. Only the IRAC instrument remained in use, and only at the two shorter wavelength bands (3.6 μm and 4.5 μm). The telescope equilibrium temperature was then around , and IRAC continued to produce valuable images at those wavelengths as the "Spitzer Warm Mission".


title: Spitzer Space Telescope

text: Late in the mission, ~2016, Spitzer's distance to Earth and the shape of its orbit meant the spacecraft had to pitch over at an extreme angle to aim its antenna at Earth. The solar panels were not fully illuminated at this angle, and this limited those communications to 2.5 hours due to the battery drain. The telescope was retired on 30 January 2020 when NASA sent a shutdown signal to the telescope from the Goldstone Deep Space Communications Complex (GDSCC) instructing the telescope to go into safe mode. After receiving confirmation that the command was successful, Spitzer Project Manager Joseph Hunt officially declared that the mission had ended.


title: Spitzer Space Telescope

text: All three instruments used liquid helium for cooling the sensors. Once the helium was exhausted, only the two shorter wavelengths in IRAC were used in the "warm mission".


title: Spitzer Space Telescope

text: While some time on the telescope was reserved for participating institutions and crucial projects, astronomers around the world also had the opportunity to submit proposals for observing time. Prior to launch, there was a proposal call for large, coherent investigations using Spitzer. If the telescope failed early and/or ran out of cryogen very quickly, these so-called Legacy Projects would ensure the best possible science could be obtained quickly in the early months of the mission. As a requirement tied to the funding these Legacy teams received, the teams had to deliver high-level data products back to the Spitzer Science Center (and the NASA/IPAC Infrared Science Archive) for use by the community, again ensuring the rapid scientific return of the mission. The international scientific community quickly realized the value of delivering products for others to use, and even though Legacy projects were no longer explicitly solicited in subsequent proposal calls, teams continued to deliver products to the community. The Spitzer Science Center later reinstated named "Legacy" projects (and later still "Exploration Science" projects) in response to this community-driven effort.


title: Spitzer Space Telescope

text: Important targets included forming stars (young stellar objects, or YSOs), planets, and other galaxies. Images are freely available for educational and journalistic purposes.


title: Spitzer Space Telescope

text: The first released images from Spitzer were designed to show off the abilities of the telescope and showed a glowing stellar nursery, a big swirling, dusty galaxy, a disc of planet-forming debris, and organic material in the distant universe. Since then, many monthly press releases have highlighted Spitzer capabilities, as the NASA and ESA images do for the Hubble Space Telescope.


title: Spitzer Space Telescope

text: As one of its most noteworthy observations, in 2005, Spitzer became the first telescope to directly capture light from exoplanets, namely the "hot Jupiters" HD 209458 b and TrES-1b, although it did not resolve that light into actual images. This was the first time the light from extrasolar planets had been directly detected; earlier observations had been indirectly made by drawing conclusions from behaviors of the stars the planets were orbiting. The telescope also discovered in April 2005 that Cohen-kuhi Tau/4 had a planetary disk that was vastly younger and contained less mass than previously theorized, leading to new understandings of how planets are formed.


title: Spitzer Space Telescope

text: In 2004, it was reported that Spitzer had spotted a faintly glowing body that may be the youngest star ever seen. The telescope was trained on a core of gas and dust known as L1014 which had previously appeared completely dark to ground-based observatories and to ISO (Infrared Space Observatory), a predecessor to Spitzer. The advanced technology of Spitzer revealed a bright red hot spot in the middle of L1014.


title: Spitzer Space Telescope

text: Scientists from the University of Texas at Austin, who discovered the object, believe the hot spot to be an example of early star development, with the young star collecting gas and dust from the cloud around it. Early speculation about the hot spot was that it might have been the faint light of another core that lies 10 times further from Earth but along the same line of sight as L1014. Follow-up observation from ground-based near-infrared observatories detected a faint fan-shaped glow in the same location as the object found by Spitzer. That glow is too feeble to have come from the more distant core, leading to the conclusion that the object is located within L1014. (Young "et al.", 2004)


title: Spitzer Space Telescope

text: In 2005, astronomers from the University of Wisconsin at Madison and Whitewater determined, on the basis of 400 hours of observation on the Spitzer Space Telescope, that the Milky Way galaxy has a more substantial bar structure across its core than previously recognized.


title: Spitzer Space Telescope

text: Also in 2005, astronomers Alexander Kashlinsky and John Mather of NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center reported that one of Spitzer earliest images may have captured the light of the first stars in the universe. An image of a quasar in the Draco constellation, intended only to help calibrate the telescope, was found to contain an infrared glow after the light of known objects was removed. Kashlinsky and Mather are convinced that the numerous blobs in this glow are the light of stars that formed as early as 100 million years after the Big Bang, redshifted by cosmic expansion.


title: Spitzer Space Telescope

text: In March 2006, astronomers reported an nebula near the center of the Milky Way Galaxy, the Double Helix Nebula, which is, as the name implies, twisted into a double spiral shape. This is thought to be evidence of massive magnetic fields generated by the gas disc orbiting the supermassive black hole at the galaxy's center, from the nebula and from Earth. This nebula was discovered by Spitzer and published in the magazine "Nature" on 16 March 2006.


title: Spitzer Space Telescope

text: In May 2007, astronomers successfully mapped the atmospheric temperature of HD 189733 b, thus obtaining the first map of some kind of an extrasolar planet.


title: Spitzer Space Telescope

text: Starting in September 2006, the telescope participated in a series of surveys called the Gould Belt Survey, observing the Gould's Belt region in multiple wavelengths. The first set of observations by the Spitzer Space Telescope was completed from 21 September 2006 through 27 September. Resulting from these observations, the team of astronomers led by Dr. Robert Gutermuth, of the Center for Astrophysics | Harvard & Smithsonian reported the discovery of Serpens South, a cluster of 50 young stars in the Serpens constellation.


title: Spitzer Space Telescope

text: Scientists have long wondered how tiny silicate crystals, which need high temperatures to form, have found their way into frozen comets, born in the very cold environment of the Solar System's outer edges. The crystals would have begun as non-crystallized, amorphous silicate particles, part of the mix of gas and dust from which the Solar System developed. This mystery has deepened with the results of the "Stardust" sample return mission, which captured particles from Comet Wild 2. Many of the Stardust particles were found to have formed at temperatures in excess of 1,000 K.


title: Spitzer Space Telescope

text: In May 2009, Spitzer researchers from Germany, Hungary, and the Netherlands found that amorphous silicate appears to have been transformed into crystalline form by an outburst from a star. They detected the infrared signature of forsterite silicate crystals on the disk of dust and gas surrounding the star EX Lupi during one of its frequent flare-ups, or outbursts, seen by Spitzer in April 2008. These crystals were not present in Spitzer previous observations of the star's disk during one of its quiet periods. These crystals appear to have formed by radiative heating of the dust within 0.5 AU of EX Lupi.


title: Spitzer Space Telescope

text: In August 2009, the telescope found evidence of a high-speed collision between two burgeoning planets orbiting a young star.


title: Spitzer Space Telescope

text: In October 2009, astronomers Anne J. Verbiscer, Michael F. Skrutskie, and Douglas P. Hamilton published findings of the "Phoebe ring" of Saturn, which was found with the telescope; the ring is a huge, tenuous disc of material extending from 128 to 207 times the radius of Saturn.


title: Spitzer Space Telescope

text: GLIMPSE, the "Galactic Legacy Infrared Mid-Plane Survey Extraordinaire", was a series of surveys that spanned 360° of the inner region of the Milky Way galaxy, which provided the first large-scale mapping of the galaxy. It consists of more than 2 million snapshots taken in four separate wavelengths using the Infrared Array Camera. The images were taken over a 10-year period beginning in 2003 when Spitzer launched.


title: Spitzer Space Telescope

text: MIPSGAL, a similar survey that complements GLIMPSE, covers 248° of the galactic disk using the 24 and 70 μm channels of the MIPS instrument.


title: Spitzer Space Telescope

text: On 3 June 2008, scientists unveiled the largest, most detailed infrared portrait of the Milky Way, created by stitching together more than 800,000 snapshots, at the 212th meeting of the American Astronomical Society in St. Louis, Missouri. This composite survey is now viewable with the GLIMPSE/MIPSGAL Viewer.


title: Spitzer Space Telescope

text: Spitzer observations, announced in May 2011, indicate that tiny forsterite crystals might be falling down like rain on to the protostar HOPS-68. The discovery of the forsterite crystals in the outer collapsing cloud of the protostar is surprising because the crystals form at lava-like high temperatures, yet they are found in the molecular cloud where the temperatures are about . This led the team of astronomers to speculate that the bipolar outflow from the young star may be transporting the forsterite crystals from near the star's surface to the chilly outer cloud.


title: Spitzer Space Telescope

text: In January 2012, it was reported that further analysis of the Spitzer observations of EX Lupi can be understood if the forsterite crystalline dust was moving away from the protostar at a remarkable average speed of . It would appear that such high speeds can arise only if the dust grains had been ejected by a bipolar outflow close to the star. Such observations are consistent with an astrophysical theory, developed in the early 1990s, where it was suggested that bipolar outflows garden or transform the disks of gas and dust that surround protostars by continually ejecting reprocessed, highly heated material from the inner disk, adjacent to the protostar, to regions of the accretion disk further away from the protostar.


title: Spitzer Space Telescope

text: In April 2015, Spitzer and the Optical Gravitational Lensing Experiment were reported as co-discovering one of the most distant planets ever identified: a gas giant about away from Earth.


title: Spitzer Space Telescope

text: In June and July 2015, the brown dwarf was discovered using the gravitational microlensing detection method in a joint effort between Swift, Spitzer, and the ground-based Optical Gravitational Lensing Experiment, the first time two space telescopes have observed the same microlensing event. This method was possible because of the large separation between the two spacecraft: Swift is in low-Earth orbit while Spitzer is more than one AU distant in an Earth-trailing heliocentric orbit. This separation provided significantly different perspectives of the brown dwarf, allowing for constraints to be placed on some of the object's physical characteristics.


title: Spitzer Space Telescope

text: Reported in March 2016, Spitzer and Hubble were used to discover the most distant-known galaxy, GN-z11. This object was seen as it appeared 13.4 billion years ago.


title: Spitzer Space Telescope

text: On 1 October 2016, Spitzer began its Observation Cycle 13, a year extended mission nicknamed "Beyond". One of the goals of this extended mission was to help prepare for the James Webb Space Telescope, also an infrared telescope, by identifying candidates for more detailed observations.


title: Spitzer Space Telescope

text: Another aspect of the "Beyond" mission was the engineering challenges of operating Spitzer in its progressing orbital phase. As the spacecraft moved farther from Earth on the same orbital path from the Sun, its antenna had to point at increasingly higher angles to communicate with ground stations; this change in angle imparted more and more solar heating on the vehicle while its solar panels received less sunlight.


title: Spitzer Space Telescope

text: Spitzer was also put to work studying exoplanets thanks to creatively tweaking its hardware. This included doubling its stability by modifying its heating cycle, finding a new use for the "peak-up" camera, and analyzing the sensor at a sub-pixel level. Although in its "warm" mission, the spacecraft's passive cooling system kept the sensors at . Spitzer used the transit photometry and gravitational microlensing techniques to perform these observations. According to NASA's Sean Carey, "We never even considered using Spitzer for studying exoplanets when it launched. ... It would have seemed ludicrous back then, but now it's an important part of what Spitzer does."


title: Spitzer Space Telescope

text: Examples of exoplanets discovered using Spitzer include HD 219134 b in 2015, which was shown to be a rocky planet about 1.5 times as large as Earth in a three-day orbit around its star; and an unnamed planet found using microlensing located about from Earth.


title: Spitzer Space Telescope

text: In September–October 2016, Spitzer was used to discover five of a total of seven known planets around the star TRAPPIST-1, all of which are approximately Earth-sized and likely rocky. Three of the discovered planets are located in the habitable zone, which means they are capable of supporting liquid water given sufficient parameters. Using the transit method, Spitzer helped measure the sizes of the seven planets and estimate the mass and density of the inner six. Further observations will help determine if there is liquid water on any of the planets.


title: Easton, Pennsylvania

text: Easton is a city in, and the county seat of, Northampton County, Pennsylvania, United States. The city's population was 28,127 as of the 2020 census. Easton is located at the confluence of the Lehigh River, a river that joins the Delaware River in Easton and serves as the city's eastern geographic boundary with Phillipsburg, New Jersey.


title: Easton, Pennsylvania

text: Easton is the easternmost city in the Lehigh Valley, a region of that is Pennsylvania's third largest metropolitan region with 861,889 residents as of the U.S. 2020 census. Of the Valley's three major cities, Allentown, Bethlehem, and Easton, Easton is the smallest with approximately one-fourth the population of Allentown, the Valley's largest city.


title: Easton, Pennsylvania

text: The greater Easton area consists of the city of Easton, three townships (Forks, Palmer, and Williams), and three boroughs (Glendon, West Easton, and Wilson). Centre Square, the town square of the city's downtown neighborhood, is home to the Soldiers' & Sailors' Monument, a memorial for Easton area veterans killed during the American Civil War. In the first half of the 20th century, Centre Square was referred to by locals as the Circle. The Peace Candle, a candle-like structure, is assembled and disassembled every year atop the Civil War monument for the Christmas season.


title: Easton, Pennsylvania

text: The Norfolk Southern Railway's Lehigh Line, formerly the main line of the Lehigh Valley Railroad, runs through Easton on its way to Bethlehem and Allentown heading west across the Delaware River to Phillipsburg, New Jersey. Easton is located northeast of Allentown, north of Philadelphia, and west of New York City.


title: Easton, Pennsylvania

text: On August 22, 1751, Thomas Penn, the son of William Penn, the colony's founder and original proprietor married Juliana Fermor. On September 8, 1751, a letter was sent to Colonial Governor James Hamilton by Penn requesting that a new town on the confluence be named Easton and that it be in a new county called Northampton. In 1752, the city was named in honor of Lady Juliana's family estate, the Easton Neston as requested. The county's name was also named after the estate's location, south Northamptonshire, England.


title: Easton, Pennsylvania

text: The Lenape Native Americans originally referred to the area as "Lechauwitank", or "The Place at the Forks". The site of the future city was part of the land obtained from the Lenape Indian tribe in the Walking Purchase of 1737. A plaque commemorating this fact is set in the town square. Thomas Penn set aside a tract of land at the confluence of the Lehigh and Delaware rivers for a town. Easton was settled by Europeans in 1739 and founded in 1752, As Northampton County was being formed at this time, Easton was selected as its county seat.


title: Easton, Pennsylvania

text: During the French and Indian War, the Treaty of Easton was signed here by the British colonial government of the Province of Pennsylvania and the Native American tribes in the Ohio Country, including the Shawnee and Lenape.


title: Easton, Pennsylvania

text: Easton was an important military center during the American Revolutionary War. During the Revolutionary War, Easton had a military hospital. On June 18, 1779, General John Sullivan led 2,500 Continentals from Easton to engage British Indian allies on the frontier. Easton was one of the first three places the Declaration of Independence was publicly read (along with Philadelphia and Trenton). It is claimed that the Easton flag was flown during that reading, making it one of the first "Stars and Stripes" to fly over the colonies. This flag was used by a militia company during the War of 1812, and currently serves as Easton's municipal flag.


title: Easton, Pennsylvania

text: Situated at the confluence of the rapidly flowing Lehigh River and the deeper and wider Delaware River, Easton became a major commercial center during the canal and railroad periods of the 19th century and a transportation hub for the region's coal, iron, and steel industries. The Delaware Canal was built soon after the lower Lehigh Canal was opened in 1818 and became effective in delivering much-needed anthracite coal to the regions largest markets of Philadelphia, New Jersey, and New York City.


title: Easton, Pennsylvania

text: Seeing other ways of exploiting the new fuel source, other entrepreneurs quickly moved to connect across the Delaware River reaching into the New York City area to the east via a connection with the Morris Canal in Phillipsburg, New Jersey, so the town became a canal nexus or hub from which the Coal from Mauch Chunk reached the world. The early railroads were often built to parallel and speed shipping along transportation corridors, and by the late 1860s the Lehigh and Susquehanna Railroad (LH&S) and Lehigh Valley Railroad (LVRR) were built to augment the bulk traffic through the canals and provide lucrative passenger travel services. The LVRR, known as the Black Diamond Line had twice daily express passenger trains to and from New York City and Buffalo, New York via Easton. The Central Railroad of New Jersey (CNJ), would lease and operate the LH&S tracks from the 1870s until the Conrail consolidations absorbed both the Central Railroad of New Jersey and Lehigh Valley Railroad in 1966. Today, the Lehigh Valley Railroad's main line is the only major rail line that goes through Easton and is now known as the Lehigh Line; the Lehigh Line was bought by the Norfolk Southern Railway in 1999.


title: Easton, Pennsylvania

text: Canal transportation was largely replaced by railroads in the mid-19th century with Easton being a hub for five railroads including the Jersey Central, Lehigh Valley Railroad and others. Easton lost its prominence in passenger transportation with the rise of the automobile in the mid-20th century. The development of improved logistics, transfer and handling methods lead to other regions profiting from freight transportation rather than Easton.


title: Easton, Pennsylvania

text: Like the Pennsylvania Dutch region to the southwest, Easton was settled largely by Germans. The "Pennsylvania Argus", a German language newspaper, was published in Easton until 1917. As part of their heritage, the Germans put up one of the continent's earliest Christmas trees in Easton; Daniel Foley's book states that "Another diary reference unearthed recently makes mention of a tree set-up at Easton, Pennsylvania, in 1816." There is a plaque in Scott Park (along the Delaware River) commemorating this event. The Pennsylvania guide, compiled by the Writers' Program of the Works Progress Administration in 1940, colorfully described the rich and cosmopolitan fabric of Easton's society in the first half of the 20th century:


title: Easton, Pennsylvania

text: Historians of angling believe that Samuel Phillipe, an Easton gunsmith, invented the six-strip split-cane bamboo fly rod. A Pennsylvania Historical and Museum Commission plaque near Center Square commemorates this event.


title: Easton, Pennsylvania

text: According to the U.S. Census Bureau, the city has a total area of , of which is land and (8.39%) is water, including Bushkill Creek and the Lehigh and Delaware rivers. It also includes an island, called Getter's Island, which was the site of the last public execution in Pennsylvania.


title: Easton, Pennsylvania

text: Easton is divided into four districts: Downtown (DD), College Hill (CH), South Side (SS), and West Ward (WW). A number of smaller additional parks and institutional districts also exist.


title: Easton, Pennsylvania

text: Downtown Easton lies at the confluence of the Lehigh River and Delaware River and is a low-lying area surrounded by hills to the north, west, and south. North of downtown is College Hill, the home of Lafayette College. South Easton, divided by the Lehigh River from the rest of the city, was a separate borough until 1898; it was settled initially by Native Americans, later by canal workers, and then was later the home of several silk mills. The boroughs of Wilson, West Easton, and Glendon are also directly adjacent to the city; the first and largest of which, Wilson, partially aligns in the same North-South Grid as the city of Easton.


title: Easton, Pennsylvania

text: Easton's Historic Downtown District lies directly at the confluence, north banks of the Lehigh River and west banks of the Delaware River. Downtown adjoins each of the three other districts to the north, west, and south. Downtown continues west to Sixth Street and north to US Route 22.


title: Easton, Pennsylvania

text: College Hill is located north of downtown, starting north of US Route 22. This neighborhood is home of Lafayette College, a liberal arts and engineering institution.


title: Easton, Pennsylvania

text: The West Ward district is situated to the west of downtown and encompasses much of the west side of Easton between Sixth and Fifteenth Streets.


title: Easton, Pennsylvania

text: Under the Köppen climate classification, Easton falls within either a hot-summer humid continental climate ("Dfa") if the isotherm is used or a humid subtropical climate ("Cfa") if the isotherm is used. Summers are usually hot and very muggy, averaging in the mid-80s during the day, though the high humidity makes it feel much warmer. Fall and spring months are typically mild, offering many days in the mid-60s, as well as stronger winds. Winters are usually very cold and produce about 30 inches of snow. The local hardiness zone is 6b.


title: Easton, Pennsylvania

text: Easton operates a mayor-on-council city government. Residents elect a city controller, six city councilpersons (three at large and three district) and a mayor who is also Chairman and a voting member of the city council. All of these officials are elected to four-year terms. The incumbent mayor, Democrat Sal Panto Jr., was re-elected to his fourth consecutive term in 2019; he had previously served two terms as mayor from 1984–1992.


title: Easton, Pennsylvania

text: Easton is part of Pennsylvania's 7th congressional district, represented in the United States House of Representatives by Democrat Susan Wild, first elected to this office in 2018.


title: Easton, Pennsylvania

text: As of the 2010 census, the city was 67.2% White, 16.8% Black or African American, 0.4% Native American, 2.4% Asian, 0.1% Native Hawaiian, and 4.9% were two or more races. 19.9% of the population were of Hispanic or Latino ancestry.


title: Easton, Pennsylvania

text: As of the census of 2000, there were 26,263 people, 9,544 households, and 5,735 families residing in the city. The population density was 6,168.4 per square mile (2,380.3/km). There were 10,545 housing units at an average density of 2,476.7 per square mile (955.7/km). The racial makeup of the city was 78.48% White, 12.71% African American, 0.24% Native American, 1.66% Asian, 0.11% Pacific Islander, 3.67% from other races, and 3.13% from two or more races. Hispanic or Latino of any race were 9.79% of the population. The increase in Hispanic/Latinos—from less than 10% of the population in the 2000 census, to nearly 20% in the 2010 census, is a significant change in the city's demographics. The growth in Hispanic residents is similar to increases in Allentown and Bethlehem, the Valley's two largest cities.


title: Easton, Pennsylvania

text: There were 9,544 households, out of which 30.5% had children under the age of 18 living with them, 37.7% were married couples living together, 16.6% had a female householder with no husband present, and 39.9% were non-families. 31.5% of all households were made up of individuals, and 11.0% had someone living alone who was 65 years of age or older. The average household size was 2.46 and the average family size was 3.10.


title: Easton, Pennsylvania

text: In the city, the population was spread out, with 23.3% under the age of 18, 16.3% from 18 to 24, 29.9% from 25 to 44, 18.6% from 45 to 64, and 11.9% who were 65 years of age or older. The median age was 32 years. For every 100 females, there were 97.4 males. For every 100 females age 18 and over, there were 96.1 males. The median income for a household in the city was $33,162, and the median income for a family was $38,704. Males had a median income of $32,356 versus $23,609 for females. The per capita income for the city was $15,949. About 12.3% of families and 16.0% of the population were below the poverty line, including 21.3% of those under age 18 and 11.2% of those age 65 or over.


title: Easton, Pennsylvania

text: The Easton Area School District serves the residents of the city of Easton along with Forks and Palmer Townships and the village of Martins Creek to the north. As of the 2000 census, the combined population of the municipalities in the Easton Area School District was 53,554.


title: Easton, Pennsylvania

text: The school district has seven elementary schools (Cheston, Forks, March, Palmer, Paxinosa, Shawnee and Tracy) for grades K-5, Easton Area Middle School Campus (in Forks Township) for grades 6–8, and Easton Area High School (in Easton) for grades 9–12. Total student enrollment is about 8,289 students in all grades as of 2020-21.


title: Easton, Pennsylvania

text: Easton Area High School is known for its long-standing athletic rivalry with Phillipsburg High School in neighboring Phillipsburg, New Jersey. The two teams play an annual football game on Thanksgiving Day that is considered one of the largest and longest-standing rivalries in American high school football. 2006 marked the 100th anniversary of the Easton-Phillipsburg high school football rivalry The game, which was shown on ESPN, was won by Easton. In 2009, Easton was the location of the Gatorade REPLAY Game in which the 1993 teams from the Easton vs. P-Burg Game met again to resolve the game, which ended in a 7–7 tie. The REPLAY Game was won by Phillipsburg, 27–12.


title: Easton, Pennsylvania

text: Easton Area High School athletes compete in the Eastern Pennsylvania Conference, which consists of the 12 largest high schools in the Lehigh Valley and is one of the nation's most elite high school athletic conferences. Easton holds the third most LVIAC championships in all sports, behind only Parkland High School and Emmaus High School. Easton is also home to Notre Dame High School, a Catholic school.


title: Easton, Pennsylvania

text: Easton is the home of one four-year college, Lafayette College, which was established in 1826. Lafayette is located in the College Hill section of Easton and is home to 2,514 undergraduate students as of the 2022-2023 academic year. In 2017 the "U.S. News & World Report" ranked Lafayette as the 36th best liberal arts school in the country.


title: Easton, Pennsylvania

text: Before the American Civil War, Easton was the location of Union Law School, which was founded in 1846 and seems to have foundered fairly soon after the 1856 death of its founder, Judge Washington McCartney. While at least one student, future Wisconsin state senator Robert L. D. Potter, graduated in the spring of 1857, a historian in 2000 dismissed Union in an endnote as "a one-man operation that died with him" ["i.e.", McCartney].


title: Easton, Pennsylvania

text: Easton is the home of 27 interactive children's attractions, and the National Canal Museum, which focuses on the importance of canals in the region, and the Crayola Experience, which is owned by Crayola LLC (formerly known as Binney & Smith), a major toy manufacturer based in nearby Forks Township. The global headquarters for Victaulic is also based in nearby Forks Township. The city was also once the home of Dixie Cup Corporation, the manufacturer of Dixie Cups and other consumer products. Majestic Athletic, current provider of uniforms for Major League Baseball, is based in nearby Palmer Township.


title: Easton, Pennsylvania

text: The Lehigh Valley Railroad, Central Railroad of New Jersey using the Lehigh and Susquehanna Railroad, Lehigh and Hudson River Railway and Conrail are major defunct railroads that operated in Easton. The Norfolk Southern Railway is now the only railroad in Easton.


title: Easton, Pennsylvania

text: Easton's daily newspaper is "The Express-Times". "The Morning Call", based in Allentown, also is read in the city. Easton is part of the Philadelphia DMA, but also receives numerous radio and television channels from New York City and the smaller Scranton-Wilkes-Barre media market to the northwest.


title: Easton, Pennsylvania

text: Two television stations are based in the Easton area: PBS affiliate WLVT Channel 39 in Bethlehem, and independent station WFMZ Channel 69 in Allentown.


title: Easton, Pennsylvania

text: Five radio stations are based in Easton: WEEX, a sports radio station broadcasting at 1230 AM, WODE-FM "The Hawk", a classic rock station broadcasting at 99.9 FM, WCTO "Cat Country 96," a country music station broadcasting on 96.1 FM, WJRH, a Lafayette College radio station broadcasting at 104.9 FM and WEST "Loud Radio", a rhythmic contemporary radio station broadcasting at 99.5 FM. In addition, WDIY-FM, a National Public Radio affiliate located in Bethlehem, maintains a translator in Easton broadcasting at 93.9 FM.


title: Easton, Pennsylvania

text: Easton was once served only by the 215 area code from 1947 (when the North American Numbering Plan of the Bell System went into effect) until 1994. In response to southeastern Pennsylvania's growing telecommunication demand, Easton telephones exchanges were switched to area code 610 in 1994. An overlay area code, 484, was added to the 610 service area in 1999.


title: Easton, Pennsylvania

text: Major state, federal, or interstate highways serving Easton include I-78, US 22, PA 33, PA 248 and PA 611 (Delaware Drive). Major east−west roads (from north to south) in Easton include Corriere Road, Zucksville Road, Northwood Avenue, Lafayette Street, Hackett Avenue, Northampton Street, Butler Street (known as William Penn Highway west of Wilson, then as Easton Avenue nearing Bethlehem), Freemansburg Avenue, and Canal Street. Major north−south roads (from west to east) in Easton include Farmersville Road, Stones Crossing Road, Greenwood Avenue, 25th Street, Bushkill Drive, 13th Street, Centre Street, Sullivan Trail, Richmond Road, 3rd Street (Known as Smith Avenue south of the Lehigh River, then as Philadelphia Road farther south), Cattell Street, Riverside Drive, and Delaware Drive (PA 611).


title: Easton, Pennsylvania

text: Air transport to and from Easton is available through Lehigh Valley International Airport, which is located approximately west of the city, in Hanover Township. Braden Airpark, also known as Easton Airport, is a smaller airport located about three nautical miles north of Easton's central business district.


title: Easton, Pennsylvania

text: Local bus transportation is provided by LANta, which serves Lehigh and Northampton counties. The Easton Intermodal Transportation Center in downtown Easton serves as a hub for LANTA buses. NJ Transit provides bus service from Center Square in Easton to Phillipsburg and Pohatcong in New Jersey along the 890 and 891 routes. Greyhound Lines provides intercity bus service to Easton, stopping at the Easton Intermodal Transportation Center. Trans-Bridge Lines provides regular bus service to New York City.


title: Easton, Pennsylvania

text: Easton has no passenger rail service. Until 1983 NJ Transit's Raritan Valley Line terminated at Phillipsburg, across the Delaware River from Easton. The line now stops at High Bridge, New Jersey, roughly to the east. Under NJT's I-78 Corridor study, this service would be restored. The former Lehigh Valley Railroad main line, the Lehigh Line, travels through Easton and is owned by the Norfolk Southern Railway.


title: Easton, Pennsylvania

text: Electricity in Easton is provided by Met-Ed, a subsidiary of FirstEnergy. Natural gas service in Easton is provided by UGI Utilities. The city's Public Works department provides water, sewer service, and trash and recycling collection to Easton. Easton's water supply comes from the Delaware River. The city's water is treated at a filtration plant along the Delaware River and then stored in reservoirs and delivered to customers. The Easton Suburban Water Authority serves suburban areas outside of Easton and purchases water from the city's Public Works department. The city's Public Works department contracts with Raritan Valley Disposal for trash and recycling collection in Easton.


title: Speak Now World Tour – Live

text: Speak Now World Tour – Live is the first live album by American singer-songwriter Taylor Swift. It was released on November 21, 2011, by Big Machine Records. It consists of two components: an audio CD and a visual accompaniment either on DVD or Blu-ray. Recorded on Swift's Speak Now World Tour, which she embarked on to support her third studio album "Speak Now", the live album consists of songs and performances on various dates.


title: Speak Now World Tour – Live

text: The 16-track CD is made up of live recordings of all "Speak Now" tracks on the standard edition save for two—"Never Grow Up" and "Innocent", and the deluxe edition track "Ours". Additionally, it includes three covers of pop songs of other artists—"Drops of Jupiter" (Train), "Bette Davis Eyes" (Kim Carnes), and "I Want You Back" (the Jackson 5). Swift's single "Back to December" was performed as part of a medley with OneRepublic's "Apologize" and her own "You're Not Sorry" from her 2008 album "Fearless". The DVD or Blu-ray contains bonus performances of Swift's other songs not from "Speak Now" and video recordings of Swift's rehearsals for the tour and personal life.


title: Speak Now World Tour – Live

text: In Brazil, "Speak Now World Tour – Live" was supported by the digital single "Long Live" featuring Brazilian singer Paula Fernandes, which reached the top 10 on the Brasil Hot 100 Airplay chart. Music critics praised the live album for showcasing Swift's stage persona and showmanship, but considered it too long and took issue with her live vocals as weak and strained. In the United States, the album peaked at number 11 on the "Billboard" 200 and has sold 368,000 copies as of July 2019. "Speak Now World Tour – Live" additionally entered the top 30 on charts in Australia, Canada, and Japan, and was certified triple platinum in the first country.


title: Speak Now World Tour – Live

text: American singer-songwriter Taylor Swift released her third studio album, "Speak Now", in October 2010. She quickly followed with the Speak Now World Tour, which started in February and wrapped its North American leg in November 2011. By December 2011, the album had sold 3.7 million copies, and the tour had attracted 1.3 million concertgoers. Swift's management team at Big Machine Records decided to release a live album to accompany the tour because of its profitability. According to the management team leader Jim Weatherson, "We've sold out virtually every show. [...] We know there's got to be a gap between 1.3 million tickets and 3.7 million albums. We felt we could create a wonderful piece for people to either relive the concert or experience what it was all about." On Swift's part, she told "Billboard" that she wanted to capture the tour on DVD because she would like to look back at it in the future": "Every single night I stand on that stage and it feels like it's the best crowd of the tour every night. They are so loud and emotional and so passionate, and [...] I want to look back on this years from now and show it to my kids and my grandkids."


title: Speak Now World Tour – Live

text: Swift announced "Speak Now World Tour – Live", her first live album, and its cover artwork via her official website on September 21, 2011. The live album was marketed as country music, aligning with Swift's self-identity as a country-music artist. The DVD and Blu-ray releases feature all seventeen performances from the North American leg of the Speak Now World Tour, as well as bonus content. The CD has over seventy-five minutes of music as well as select live performances of songs from the "Speak Now" album. The combo was released on November 21, 2011, via Big Machine Records in North America. It was released in Australia on November 25, and other territories on November 28. In the United States, Swift partnered with American Greetings Corporation for a holiday promotion where contest winners won a copy of "Speak Now World Tour – Live".


title: Speak Now World Tour – Live

text: In the United States, a Walmart-exclusive release contained a promotional CD single of "Ours", a track on "Speak Now" deluxe edition. Meanwhile, a Target-exclusive edition contains bonus DVD material consisting of bonus performances of the songs "Ours", "Nashville" by David Mead, and "The Sweet Escape" by Gwen Stefani; and behind-the-scenes footage of the music video for "Mean". Many of the songs and performances were captured from various legs around the world of the tour. The Brazilian release of the album contains a new studio version of the song "Long Live", featuring new verses in Portuguese, composed and sung by Brazilian singer Paula Fernandes. The track was released for download in January 2012, accompanied by a music video. The version peaked at number five on the Brasil Hot 100 Airplay chart.


title: Speak Now World Tour – Live

text: "Speak Now World Tour – Live" is a set of CD and DVD; it consists of 16 tracks on the CD and 18 on the DVD, alongside bonus behind-the-scenes footage and videos of Swift's personal life. The CD runs for 79 minutes, and the DVD two hours. The 16-track CD consists of live recordings of all tracks on the standard edition of "Speak Now", save for two—"Never Grow Up" and "Innocent"; a live recording of the deluxe edition track "Ours"; and three covers of songs by other artists—"Drops of Jupiter" (Train), "Bette Davis Eyes" (Kim Carnes), and "I Want You Back" (the Jackson 5). Swift's live recording of "Back to December" is part of a medley with two other songs: OneRepublic's "Apologize" and her own "You're Not Sorry" from her 2008 studio album "Fearless". Music critics described "Speak Now World Tour – Live" as country pop and pop rock. "Slant Magazine" Jonathan Keefe said that despite Swift's self-identity as a country musician, her music instead "leans far more heavily on massive pop-rock power chords and sing-along choruses" that suited the live arenas where Swift performed.


title: Speak Now World Tour – Live

text: The DVD features bonus performances of songs from other albums by Swift—"Our Song", "You Belong with Me", "Fifteen", and "Love Story". The DVD recording of Swift's "Fearless" is part of a medley with Train's "Hey Soul Sister" and Jason Mraz's "I'm Yours". In addition, it also contains home videos and footage of Swift's rehearsals for the tour. Recorded on numerous shows from the Speak Now World Tour, the DVD performances showcase elaborate stage settings, choreography, backup dancers and band, and Swift's numerous costume changes. In AllMusic, James Christopher Monger said that the film "more closely resembled a high-profile Broadway musical than it did a country music concert".


title: Speak Now World Tour – Live

text: The DVD starts with Swift performing "Sparks Fly" in a fringed golden dress as aerialists dangle from the rafters. She sings the tracks, "Mean" and "Our Song", on a banjitar alone, in front of a porch setting resembling the American countryside. For the performance of "Speak Now", which has lyrics about a protagonist interrupting a wedding, Swift is dressed in a royal blue dress, ponytail, and short white gloves, and performs girl group-styled choreography with colorful dressed backup dancers; another backup dancer plays a bride in a puffy gown. Swift then sings "Fearless" / "Hey Soul Sister" / "I'm Yours" on ukulele sitting under a glowing tree. The performance of "Enchanted" is accompanied by ballet dancers, whereas "Haunted" features Swift hurling herself at a bell. The last song before the encore is "Long Live", and the concert closes with "Fifteen" and "Love Story". During the performance of "Love Story", Swift sings on a floating balcony across the venue as glitter falls across the venue.


title: Speak Now World Tour – Live

text: In a review for Roughstock, Matt Bjorke said "Speak Now World Tour – Live" might not appeal to those who had not been fans of Swift already, but appreciated her for improving live vocals. Jonathan Keefe in "Slant Magazine" found the covers of Train and OneRepublic awkward, criticized Swift's live vocals as weak and off-key, and considered the live album's impact unsubstantial because it "may not add anything to an already solid set of songs on a narrative level". Keefe nonetheless praised it for showing Swift's "one-of-us authenticity" and songwriting that strongly resonated with her audience.


title: Speak Now World Tour – Live

text: In "The Straits Times", Yeow Kai Chai similarly took issue with Swift's vocals as weak and off-key, and found the covers, such as "I Want You Back" and "Drops of Jupiter", forgettable. Yeow nonetheless appreciated Swift's stage persona: "Her sincerity and pretty girl-next-door smarts redeem every cookie-cutter confessional." The "Daily Breeze" journalist Sam Gnerre, on the contrary, deemed the covers the highlights. Gnerre found the CD rather "typical", but praised the DVD for showcasing Swift's showmanship, "her remarkable mix of youthful energy and seasoned skill". "The Oklahoman" Brandy McDonnell praised the DVD and found the covers entertaining but said that "Ours" was disappointing and Swift's vocals were uneven. Jon Dolan of "Rolling Stone" lauded the content of the DVD but found the CD and bonus behind-the-scenes material redundant. Dolan commented that the best moments are where Swift performs alone with her guitar.


title: Speak Now World Tour – Live

text: In "The Newcastle Herald", Heather Williams similarly lauded Swift's artistry and called her "a great role model and musician". In "The Gold Coast Bulletin", Bob Anthony wrote: "it's clear Swift knows how to put on a show. And while she may not be a country music purist's cup of tea, there are thousands of tweenies out there who would love nothing more than to have this collection in their collection." Carlos Olivares Baró in a review for Mexican media agency Notimex lauded the stage and selected the performances of "Sparks Fly", "Mean", "Speak Now", "Last Kiss", and "Long Live" as standouts.


title: Speak Now World Tour – Live

text: "Speak Now World Tour – Live" debuted at number eleven on the US "Billboard" 200 chart with 77,000 copies sold first-week. It also debuted at number two on the Top Country Albums chart, the highest debut of the week. As of July 2019, the album has sold 368,000 copies in the US. The album peaked at number 16 on the Australian albums chart and entered the top 30 on albums charts in Canada and Japan. In Australia, it additionally peaked atop the country-music albums chart, and the DVD, which peaked at number five, was certified triple platinum by the Australian Recording Industry Association (ARIA) in 2014. Two of the tracks appeared on charts. The live recording of "Drops of Jupiter" peaked at number seven on the Bubbling Under Hot 100 Singles chart, number 22 on the Country Digital Song Sales chart, and number 74 on the Hot Canadian Digital Songs chart. The medley "Back to December / Apologize / You're Not Sorry" also peaked at number 45 on the Country Digital Song Sales chart.


title: Broome, Western Australia

text: Broome, also known as Rubibi by the Yawuru people, is a coastal pearling and tourist town in the Kimberley region of Western Australia, north of Perth. In the the population was recorded as 14,660. It is the largest town in the Kimberley region.


title: Broome, Western Australia

text: Broome is located on Western Australia's tropical Kimberley coast on the eastern edge of the Indian Ocean.


title: Broome, Western Australia

text: Being situated on a north–south peninsula, Broome has water on both sides of the town. On the eastern shore are the waters of Roebuck Bay extending from the main jetty at Port Drive to Sandy Point, west of Thangoo station. Town Beach is part of the shoreline and is popular with visitors on the eastern end of the town. It is the site of the 'Staircase to the Moon', where a receding tide and a rising moon combine to create a stunning natural phenomenon. On "Staircase to the Moon" nights, a food and craft market operates on Town Beach.


title: Broome, Western Australia

text: Roebuck Bay is of international importance for the millions of migrating waders or shorebirds that use it seasonally on migration through the East Asian – Australasian Flyway from their breeding grounds in northern Asia. They feed on the extensive intertidal mudflats and roost at high tide on the red sand beaches of the bay. They can be seen in the largest numbers in summer, but many of the younger birds remain throughout the first and second years of their lives. The Broome Bird Observatory, sited in pindan woodland close to the northern shore of Roebuck Bay, was established by Birds Australia in 1988, and formally opened in 1990. The purpose of the observatory is to study the birds, learn how to protect them and educate the public about them.


title: Broome, Western Australia

text: A mixed black flying fox and little red flying fox colony of around 50,000 megabats lives all year in mangroves next to Broome township's small Streeter's Jetty. They chatter and socialise loudly before flying out at dusk each evening. The bats are key pollinators and seed dispersers for native trees and plants.


title: Broome, Western Australia

text: Named for the Java-to-Australia undersea telegraph cable that reaches shore there, Cable Beach is situated from town along a bitumen road. The beach itself is long with white sand, washed by tides that can reach over . Located directly east of Cable Beach over the dunes is Minyirr Park, a coastal reserve administered by a collaboration of the Shire of Broome and the Yawuru people.


title: Broome, Western Australia

text: It is often mistakenly thought that the first European to visit Broome was William Dampier in 1688, but he only visited the north of what was later named the Dampier Peninsula. In 1699 he explored the coast from Shark Bay to La Grange Bay, from where he headed north leaving the Australian coast. Many of the coastal features of the area were later named for him. In 1879, Charles Harper proposed the formation of a Government Station at the Roebuck Bay Pastoral and Agricultural Association's site at Cape Villaret, at the south end of Roebuck Bay, to provide facilities for the extension of the Pearl Shell Fishery, and to form a port and base of operations for intending pastoral and agricultural settlers. In 1883, John Forrest chose the site for the town, and it was named after Sir Frederick Broome, the Governor of Western Australia from 1883 to 1889.


title: Broome, Western Australia

text: The 1880s saw the commencement of Broome's pearling industry, which initially involved slavery and indentured labour, pearl diving being an occupation reserved for specific ethnic groups, most prominently from Japan and followed by other Asian countries. This led to numerous racially motivated conflicts, most notably the 1920 race riots between Japanese and Malay residents, resulting in 8 deaths and at least 60 injuries. The Broome community came to "reflect the hierarchy of the pearling industry, which was based on occupation and ethnicity". White collar occupations and positions of power were exclusively held by Europeans. As a consequence, racial segregation was common in Broome until the 1970s.


title: Broome, Western Australia

text: In 1889, a telegraph undersea cable was laid from Broome to Banjuwangi, East Java, connecting to England. Hence the name Cable Beach given to the landfall site.


title: Broome, Western Australia

text: Broome was attacked at least four times during World War II as part of the Japanese air raids on Australia. The worst attack in terms of loss of life was an air raid on 3 March 1942 in which at least 86 people (mostly civilian refugees from the Dutch East Indies) were killed, making it the second deadliest Japanese attack on Australia after the bombing of Darwin. Twenty-two aircraft were destroyed, most of them flying boats, the remains of which can still be seen in the harbour at low tide.


title: Broome, Western Australia

text: In 1950, Broome was the setting for Arthur Upfield's novel "The Widows of Broome", his 12th novel featuring Detective Inspector Napoleon Bonaparte ("Bony").


title: Broome, Western Australia

text: Dinosaur footprints dated as Early Cretaceous in age (approximately 130 million years ago) were discovered out to sea at Gantheaume Point in the 1960s. The tracks can be seen only during very low tide. In 1996, some of the prints were cut from the ground and stolen, but have since been recovered.


title: Broome, Western Australia

text: Broome entered into a sister city agreement with Taiji, Japan in 1981 as historic ties between the two towns date back to the early 1900s, when Japan became instrumental in laying the groundwork of Broome's pearling industry. The annual dolphin hunt in Taiji was the subject of the 2009 documentary "The Cove", and sparked a unanimous decision by Broome's council, headed by Graeme Campbell, to end the relationship with Taiji if the dolphin hunt were to continue. The decision was reversed in October 2009.


title: Broome, Western Australia

text: The Broome community led a campaign to protest against a proposal to industrialise the James Price Point outside Broome. The campaign has received ardent support from public figures such as John Butler, Missy Higgins, Clare Bowditch and former leader of the Australian Greens, Dr Bob Brown. A concert for the campaign was held on 5 October 2012 at Federation Square in Melbourne and was attended by approximately 6,000 people. A long term protest camp operated at James Price Point. One of the campaign points was to protect the significant 'dinosaur highway' of dinosaur tracks that are found in the intertidal zone outside Broome. The campaign has since remained a divisive topic amongst locals, with many blaming the 'no' decision for the slow economic growth that characterises the region.


title: Broome, Western Australia

text: Fossilised "Megalosauropus broomensis" dinosaur footprints dated as early Cretaceous in age are out to sea at Gantheaume Point. The fossil trackway can be viewed during very low tide. Plant fossils are preserved extensively in the Broome Sandstone at Gantheaume Point and in coastal exposures further north.


title: Broome, Western Australia

text: The fossil trackways at Broome include possibly the largest known dinosaur footprints, sauropod tracks upwards of long. It is suspected that the sauropod that made these tracks might have been tall at the hip.


title: Broome, Western Australia

text: The town has a history based around the exploits of the men and women who developed the pearling industry, starting with the harvesting of oysters for mother of pearl in the 1880s to the large present-day cultured pearl farming enterprises.


title: Broome, Western Australia

text: At first, Indigenous people, especially women and girls, were forced to dive for pearls by European pearlers, and many died working in the industry. Report of abuses in the early days of pearling led to legislation in 1871 and 1875 regulating native labour and prohibiting the use of women as divers. Asians, especially Japanese, excelled at pearl diving, with many of them becoming valued citizens in the town. Indeed, many people with Japanese names thrive in the community. Pearling was a dangerous and sometimes deadly occupation and the town's Japanese cemetery is the resting place of 919 Japanese divers who lost their lives working in the industry.


title: Broome, Western Australia

text: Each year Broome celebrates the fusion of different cultures brought about by the pearling industry in an annual cultural festival called Shinju Matsuri (Japanese for "festival of the pearl").


title: Broome, Western Australia

text: In 2010, the Shire of Broome and Kimberley commissioned a Memorial to the Indigenous Female Pearl Divers. In April 2019, the skeletons of 14 Yawuru and Karajarri people which had been sold by a wealthy Broome pearler to a museum in Dresden in 1894 were brought home. The remains, which had been stored in the Grassi Museum of Ethnology in Leipzig, showed signs of head wounds and malnutrition, a reflection of the poor conditions endured by Aboriginal people forced to work on the pearling boats. , the remains are being stored in Perth until facilities have been built to accommodate them in Broome.


title: Broome, Western Australia

text: Under the Köppen climate classification, Broome has a hot semi-arid climate ("BSh"), being a little too dry to be classified as a tropical savanna climate ("Aw"); like most parts of the Australian tropics, it has two seasons: a dry season and a wet season. The dry season is from April to November with nearly every day clear and maximum temperatures around . The wet season extends from December to March, with maximum temperatures of around , rather erratic tropical downpours and high humidity. Broome's annual rainfall average is , 75% of which falls from January to March. Broome observes an average of 48.4 days a year that record measurable precipitation. According to the indigenous Yawuru calendar, there are six seasons.


title: Broome, Western Australia

text: Broome is susceptible to tropical cyclones and these, along with the equally unpredictable nature of summer thunderstorms, play a large part in the erratic nature of the rainfall. For instance, in January 1922, Broome Post Office recorded just of rainfall while in the same month of 2018, the airport received . Dewpoint averages at in the wet season, but is as low as in the dry season.


title: Broome, Western Australia

text: Broome contains five schools: four government, Broome Primary School, Cable Beach Primary School, Roebuck Primary School, and Broome Senior High School; and St Mary's College, a Catholic K–12 school.


title: Broome, Western Australia

text: Broome hosts a lawn bowling club and a golf club. The town has four Australian rules football clubs; Broome Bulls Football Club (established 1949) the Broome Saints, Towns and Cable Beach all competing in the West Kimberley Football Association with games played at Haynes Oval.


title: Broome, Western Australia

text: Four Association Football clubs compete in the local Broome Soccer Association's BLiga competition each dry season. FC Meatworks, Pearlers, Racing G and Broome Town field sides across men's and women's divisions.


title: Broome, Western Australia

text: Broome International Airport is the regional air hub of northwestern Western Australia and is considered the tourism gateway to the Horizontal Falls and the whole Kimberley region.


title: Broome, Western Australia

text: The Broome Tramway was an industrial tramway used to convey goods between Mangrove Point and the town centre from 1898 until the 1960s.


title: Broome, Western Australia

text: Since 1992 Broome has been home to a local community newspaper, the "Broome Advertiser", published each Thursday, part of the Seven West Media group. Previously Broome had a Saturday weekly newspaper, published from 1912 to 1930, "The Nor-West Echo", the successor to the "Broome Chronicle and Nor'West Advertiser" (1908–1912).


title: Broome, Western Australia

text: Locally, television stations available include GWN7, WIN, Nine, ABC, SBS and Goolarri Media.<ref name="businessnews/Goolarri-Media"></ref><ref name="regionalartswa/goolarri-media"></ref> GWN7 broadcasts a half-hour news program for regional WA, "GWN7 News", at 5:30pm weeknights; GWN7 has a district newsroom covering Broome and surrounding areas based in the town.


title: Stoning of the Devil

text: is part of the annual Islamic Hajj pilgrimage to the holy city of Mecca in Saudi Arabia. During the ritual, Muslim pilgrims throw pebbles at three walls (formerly pillars), called "jamarāt", in the city of Mina just east of Mecca. It is one of a series of ritual acts that must be performed in the Hajj. It is a symbolic reenactment of Ibrahim's (or Abraham's) hajj, where he stoned three pillars representing the temptation to disobey God.


title: Stoning of the Devil

text: On Eid al-Adha (the 10th day of the month of Dhu al-Hijjah), pilgrims must strike the Big Jamarah or Al-Jamrah Al-Aqaba with seven pebbles. After the stoning is completed on the day of Eid, every pilgrim must cut or shave their hair. On each of the following two days, they must hit all three walls with seven pebbles each, going in order from east to west. Thus at least 49 pebbles are needed for the ritual, more if some throws miss. Some pilgrims stay at Mina for an additional day, in which case they must again stone each wall seven times. The pebbles used in the stoning are traditionally gathered at Muzdalifah, a plain southeast of Mina, on the night before the first throwing, but can also be collected at Mina.


title: Stoning of the Devil

text: Until 2004, the three "jamarāt" (singular: "jamrah") were tall pillars. After the 2004 Hajj, Saudi authorities replaced the pillars with walls for safety; many people were accidentally throwing pebbles at people on the other side. To allow easier access to the "jamarāt", a single-tiered pedestrian bridge called the Jamaraat Bridge was built around them, allowing pilgrims to throw stones from either ground level or from the bridge.


title: Stoning of the Devil

text: Before 2004, the distance between the small and middle ' was ; between the middle and large ' it was .


title: Stoning of the Devil

text: When he [Abraham] left Mina and was brought down to (the defile called) al-Aqaba, the Devil appeared to him at Stone-Heap of the Defile. Gabriel (Jibrayil) said to him: "Pelt him!" so Abraham threw seven stones at him so that he disappeared from him. Then he appeared to him at the Middle Stone-Heap. Gabriel said to him: "Pelt him!" so he pelted him with seven stones so that he disappeared from him. Then he appeared to him at the Little Stone-Heap. Gabriel said to him: "Pelt him!" so he pelted him with seven stones like the little stones for throwing with a sling. So the Devil withdrew from him.


title: Stoning of the Devil

text: All three "jamarāt" represent the devil: the first and largest represents his temptation of Abraham against sacrificing Ishmael (Ismāʿīl); the second represents the temptation of Abraham's wife Hagar (Hājar) to induce her to stop him; the third represents his temptation of Ishmael to avoid being sacrificed. He was rebuked each time, and the throwing of the stones symbolizes those rebukes.


title: Stoning of the Devil

text: The stoning of the "jamarāt" also represents the repudiation of man's self ("", literally the "internal despot") and the act of casting aside one's low desires and wishes. As one Islamic theologian states:


title: Stoning of the Devil

text: The Stoning of the Devil ritual is considered the most dangerous part of the pilgrimage, as sudden crowd movements on or near the Jamaraat Bridge can cause people to be crushed. On several occasions, thousands of participants have suffocated or been trampled to death in stampedes.


title: Stoning of the Devil

text: An important step in managing crowds is the recent replacement of the "jamarāt" pillars by walls to ease and speed up the stoning. The bridge has also been widened in recent years to accommodate the ever-growing number of pilgrims who perform the Hajj each year.


title: Stoning of the Devil

text: Crowd conditions are especially difficult during the final day of Hajj, which is the day pilgrims leave the valley of Mina and return to Mecca for the farewell "Tawaf" (the final circumambulation of the Kaaba). According to hadith, Muhammad's last stoning was performed just after the noon prayer. Many scholars feel that the ritual can be done any time between noon and sunset on this day; however, many Muslims are taught that it should be done immediately after the noon prayer. This leads to people camping out until noon and rushing out then to do the stoning.


title: Stoning of the Devil

text: These two factors have been said to be most responsible for a stampede during the Hajj of 2006 which killed at least 346 pilgrims and injured at least 289 more. This was despite several attempts by the authorities to inform pilgrims about the permissibility of staggering their visits to the "jamarāt" as well as instructing them to leave their luggage at their tents. Adding to the confusion involved in the tragedy is the lack of co-operation on the part of pilgrims who do not leave the "jamarāt" area by the proper route, and therefore interfere with the movements of others who are arriving.


title: Stoning of the Devil

text: Another crush occurred on September 24, 2015, in Mina when at least 2,411 pilgrims were killed, a new Associated Press count shows, three times the number of deaths acknowledged by the kingdom three months later. The AP figures establish the Sept. 24 crush at Mina as the deadliest in the history of the annual pilgrimage. It occurred just weeks after a fatal crane collapse in Mecca.


title: Stoning of the Devil

text: Authorities have said the Mina crush and stampede occurred when two waves of pilgrims converged on a narrow road, suffocating or trampling to death those caught in the disaster.


title: Stoning of the Devil

text: Saudi Arabia has spent billions of dollars on crowd control and safety measures for those attending the annual five-day pilgrimage, required of every able-bodied, financially capable, Muslim once in his or her life, but the sheer number of participants makes ensuring their safety difficult. The hajj in 2015 drew some two million pilgrims, though in recent years it has drawn more than three million without any major incidents.


title: Stoning of the Devil

text: However, experts have said that the density of the crowds is very likely to lead to a crowd collapse in such circumstances. Edwin Galea of the University of Greenwich said: "If you’re designing an event to handle that crowd density, it's inherently dangerous." He pointed out that the 500,000 people an hour who could cross the Jamarat bridge after it was widened in 2004 is equivalent to the largest-ever football crowd once every 24 minutes or the population of Germany in a week. One possible solution would be to spread the Hajj over a longer period.


title: Ledley King

text: Ledley Brenton King (born 12 October 1980) is a former player who was a one-club man, spending his entire career at Tottenham Hotspur and playing 323 competitive matches for the club from 1999 to 2012. He is currently a club ambassador for Tottenham Hotspur.


title: Ledley King

text: Highly rated as a central defender, in 2009 he was named by "The Times" as Tottenham's 25th best player of all time. From 2002 to 2010, King made 21 international appearances for England, scoring twice and representing the nation at UEFA Euro 2004 and the 2010 FIFA World Cup.


title: Ledley King

text: In the latter part of his career, King was plagued by chronic knee problems, for which no effective treatment or remedy was found. Instead of training with the rest of the squad King undertook fitness exercises on his own, allowing him to play one first team game per week. His former manager Harry Redknapp called King "an absolute freak" for being able to perform at Premier League level despite not training. Whilst playing, King was cited by opponents and pundits as one of the best defenders in the Premier League.