title: Frontex

text: The corps is composed of agency and member states' officers, who support and work under the command of the national authorities of the country in they are deployed in.


title: Frontex

text: The future officers who are recruited do not necessarily need prior law enforcement experience, and undergo a year of training organised by the agency.


title: Frontex

text: The corps may also work in non-EU countries that have signed a 'status agreement' with the European Commission, such as Albania, Montenegro or Serbia.


title: Frontex

text: A monitoring and risk analysis centre will be established, with the authorisation to carry out risk analysis and to monitor the flows towards and within the EU. The risk analysis includes cross-border crime and terrorism, process personal data of persons suspected to be involved in acts of terrorism and cooperate with other Union agencies and international organisations on the prevention of terrorism. A mandatory vulnerability assessments of the capacities of the Member States to face current or upcoming challenges at their external borders will be established.


title: Frontex

text: The Agency is able to launch joint operations, including the use of drones when necessary. The European Space Agency's earth observation system Copernicus provides the new Agency with almost real time satellite surveillance capabilities alongside the current Eurosur border surveillance system.


title: Frontex

text: Frontex regularly releases reports analyzing events related to border control, irregular border crossing and different forms of cross-border crime. The general task of assessing these risks has been laid out in Frontex founding regulation, according to which the agency shall "carry out risk analyses [...] in order to provide the Community and the Member States with adequate information to allow for appropriate measures to be taken or to tackle identified threats and risks with a view to improving the integrated management of external borders". Frontex's key institution with respect to intelligence and risk assessment is its Risk Analysis Unit (RAU) and the Frontex Risk Analysis Network (FRAN), via which the Frontex staff is cooperating with security experts from the Member States.


title: Frontex

text: The latest FRAN report as of 2013 stated that 24 805 illegal border-crossing were detected. In the Eastern Mediterranean area specifically at the land border between Greece and Turkey, illegal border-crossings were down by nearly 70% compared to the second quarter of 2012, but up in the Central Mediterranean route.


title: Frontex

text: The Agency has a new mandate to send liaison officers and launch joint operations with neighbouring third countries, including operating on their territory.


title: Frontex

text: The Border and Coast Guard has a supportive capacity to repatriate immigrants residing illegally in the union and is responsible for the coordination of return operations. The decision about who should be returned is always taken by the judicial or administrative authorities of the Member States. The merits of return decisions remain the exclusive responsibility of the Member State, with the appeal against this return decision having to be taken through the respective Member State.


title: Frontex

text: In recent years Frontex has procured some equipment of its own. It also charters some airplanes used mainly for surveillance around the Mediterranean Sea.


title: Frontex

text: The EU's precursors, the European Communities which were founded in the 1950s, had little mandate to facilitate coordination between member states' border and coast guard authorities. Milestones towards coordination on foreign, security, border and asylum policy matters include the signing of the Schengen Agreement in 1985, the establishment of the European Union in 1993 with the introduction of the Common Foreign and Security Policy pillar, as well as the Amsterdam Treaty's consolidation of Schengen rules within the EU framework in 1999.


title: Frontex

text: Frontex, then officially the "European Agency for the Management of Operational Cooperation at the External Borders of the Member States of the European Union", was established by Council of Regulation (EC) 2007–2004. It began work on 3 October 2005 and was the first EU agency to be based in one of the new EU member states from 2004. Frontex' mission is to help European Union member states implement EU rules on external border controls and to coordinate cooperation between member states in external border management. While it remains the task of each member state to control its own borders, Frontex is vested to ensure that they all do so with the same high standard of efficiency. The agency's main tasks according to the Council Regulation are:


title: Frontex

text: The institution was centrally and hierarchically organised with a management board, consisting of one person of each member state as well as two members of the commission. The member states representatives are operational heads of national security services concerned with border guard management. Frontex also has representatives from and works closely with Europol and Interpol. The management board is the leading component of the agency, controlling the personal, financial, and organisational structure, as well as initiating operative tasks in annual work programmes. Additionally, the Board appoints the executive director. The first director was Ilkka Laitinen.


title: Frontex

text: According to its third amended Budget 2015, the agency had in that year 336 employees. Additionally, the agency could make use of 78 employees which had been seconded from the member states. The dependency of the organisation on staff secondments has been identified by external auditors as a risk, since valuable experience may be lost when such staff leave the organisation and return to their permanent jobs.


title: Frontex

text: Special European Border Forces of rapidly deployable border guards, called Rapid Border Intervention Teams (RABIT) who are armed and patrol cross-country land borders, were created by EU interior ministers in April 2007 to assist in border control, particularly on Europe's southern coastlines. Frontex's European Patron Network began work in the Canary Islands in May 2007 and armed border force officers were deployed to the Greece–Turkey border in October 2010.


title: Frontex

text: The Commission was prompted to take swift action due to the immigration crisis of 2015, which brought to the forefront the need to improve the security of the external borders of the union. This crisis has also demonstrated that Frontex, which had a limited mandate in supporting the Member States to secure their external borders, had insufficient staff and equipment, and lacked the authority to conduct border management operations and search-and-rescue efforts.


title: Frontex

text: The new Agency was proposed by the European Commission on 15 December 2015 to strengthen Frontex, widely seen as being ineffective in the wake of the European migrant crisis. Support for the proposal has come from France and Germany, with Poland and Hungary expressing opposition to the plan, concerned by the perceived loss of sovereignty.


title: Frontex

text: The limitations of the former EU border agency, Frontex, hindered its ability to effectively address and remedy the situation created by the refugee crisis: it relied on the voluntary contributions by Member States as regards resources, it did not have its own operational staff and it did not have an explicit mandate to conduct search and rescue operations. The enhanced Agency will be strengthened and reinforced to address all these issues. The legal grounds for the proposal are article 77, paragraph 2(b) and (d), and article 79, paragraph 2 (c), of the Treaty on the Functioning of the European Union. Article 77 grants competence to the EU to adopt legislation on a "gradual introduction of an integrated management system for external borders," and article 79 authorizes the EU to enact legislation concerning the repatriation of third-country nationals residing illegally within the EU.


title: Frontex

text: On 18 December 2015, the European Council roundly supported the proposal, which was then be subjected to the ordinary legislative procedure. The Border and Coast Guard was officially launched on 6 October 2016 at the Bulgarian external border with Turkey.


title: Frontex

text: On 4 December 2019, a regulation amending the mandate of the European Border and Coast Guard Agency (Regulation 2019/1896) entered into force. The revised regulation gave the Agency a broader mandate by extending its powers in the following five areas: standing corps, EUROSUR, return operations, antenna offices, and extended cooperation with the third countries. Ever since Frontex was transformed into the Agency in 2016, the broader mandate has been deemed controversial, and the issue of whether the EU or the member state were competent in border management has also been a matter of debate. While announcing the future of Frontex during his State of the Union speech in 2015, the then European Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker called for "a more efficient" border management and stated that "there is not enough Europe in this Union and there is not enough union in this Union." Although the member states still retain the primary responsibility for border management, the Agency now has a broader mandate to initiate its own operations. Hence, with the growing executive powers of the Agency, the EU has a stronger role in the issue of border management. However, concerns regarding human rights violations are still being voiced, in particular, due to the broader executive powers of the Agency under the revised regulation.


title: Frontex

text: The present agency is not a new body. It does not replace Frontex and it retains the same legal personality. What the Commission draft Regulation aims to do is to strengthen the mandate of the EU border agency, to increase its competences and to better equip it to carry out its operational activities. The new tasks and responsibilities of the Agency need to be reflected by its new name.


title: Frontex

text: It coordinates its work alongside the European Fisheries Control Agency and European Maritime Safety Agency with regard to coastguard functions. The permanent staff of the Agency was more than doubled between 2015 and 2020.


title: Frontex

text: "Joint Operation Poseidon" began on 2006, after Greece asked for surveillance by Frontex of the country's sea and land borders between the EU-member Greece and Turkey. The Joint Operation is divided into two branches, the Poseidon Sea Operation which oversees the sea borders of the EU with Turkey in the Mediterranean and Aegean seas, and the Poseidon Land Operation which oversees the southeastern land border of the EU with Turkey on the Evros river. The operation turned permanent and has been expanded subsequently on the year 2011. Near the end of 2015 this operation was replaced by Poseidon Rapid Intervention.


title: Frontex

text: "Joint Operation Hermes" began on 20 February 2011, after Italy asked for Frontex surveillance of the Mediterranean Sea between Italy and North Africa, the southern border of the EU being in the Sea. The Libyan no-fly zone came into effect subsequently, and combat operations started on 20 March 2011.


title: Frontex

text: The Netherlands has a Coast Guard Dornier 228 aircraft with air force crew and Portugal, an air force C-295MPA, stationed at Malta and Pantelleria. The number of observed shiploads of people intending to illegally enter into the EU through this sector increased from 1,124 in the first quarter of 2013 to 5,311 in the second quarter of 2013.


title: Frontex

text: African and other would-be illegal immigrants continue to set sail for Italian shores aboard unseaworthy boats and ships. Several of these attempts have ended with capsized boats and hundreds of people drowning in the sea, though the Italian navy has saved thousands of lives in its Operation Mare Nostrum.


title: Frontex

text: Operation Triton is a border security operation conducted by Frontex, the European Union's border security agency. The operation, under Italian control, began on 1 November 2014 and involves voluntary contributions from 15 other European nations (both EU member states and non-members). Current voluntary contributors to Operation Triton are Croatia, Iceland, Finland, Norway, Sweden, Germany, the Netherlands, France, Spain, Ireland, Portugal, Austria, Switzerland, Romania, Poland, Lithuania, Malta and the United Kingdom. The operation was undertaken after Italy ended Operation Mare Nostrum, which had become too costly for a single country to fund; it was costing the Italian government €9 million per month for an operation that lasted 12 months. The Italian government had requested additional funds from the other EU member states but they did not offer the requested support.


title: Frontex

text: "Joint Operation Triton" is under Italian control and focuses on border security within 30 nautical miles of the Italian shore. It began on 1 November 2014 and involves 15 other European nations volunteering services, both EU member states and non-members. voluntary contributors are Iceland, Finland, Norway, Sweden, Germany, the Netherlands, France, Spain, Portugal, Austria, Switzerland, Romania, Poland, Lithuania, Malta and the United Kingdom. The operation's assets consist of two surveillance aircraft, three ships and seven teams of staff who gather intelligence and conduct screening and process identification. In 2014, its budget was estimated at €2.9 million per month.


title: Frontex

text: After the April 2015 Libya migrant shipwrecks, in which about 800 refugees died, EU ministers proposed on 20 April 2015, to double the size of Operation Triton and to widen its mandate to conduct search and rescue operations across the Mediterranean Sea. Fabrice Leggeri, the head of Frontex, dismissed turning Triton into a search and rescue operation, saying it would "support and fuel the business of traffickers". Instead he recommended to expand air surveillance of the Maltese waters "anticipate more disasters.


title: Frontex

text: On 12 December 2015 it was reported that a newly founded asylum seeker reception center in Moria, Lesbos, Greece was coordinated, controlled and monitored by Frontex. In this center, in prison-like conditions, the asylum seekers were reported to undergo swift detention about their status for the purposes of registration. Independent journalists were reported to have had limited access to the facilities. While the reception center is not in the position to grant refugee status, it was reported that some asylum seekers could be held in the reception camp indefinitely.


title: Frontex

text: In an NGO Statement on International Protection presented at the UNHCR Standing Committee in 2008 a broad coalition of non-governmental organisations have expressed their concern, that much of the rescue work by Frontex is in fact incidental to a deterrence campaign so broad and, at times, so undiscriminating, that directly and through third countries – intentionally or not – asylum-seekers are being blocked from claiming protection under the 1951 Refugee Convention.


title: Frontex

text: According to European Council on Refugees and Exiles (ECRE) and British Refugee Council in written evidence submitted to the UK House of Lords inquiry, Frontex fails to demonstrate adequate consideration of international and European asylum and human rights law including the 1951 Convention relating to the Status of Refugees and EU law in respect of access to asylum and the prohibition of refoulement.


title: Frontex

text: In addition ECRE and British Refugee Council have expressed a worry with the lack of clarity regarding Frontex accountability for ensuring compliance with international and EC legal obligations by Member States involved in Frontex coordinated operations. This is compounded by the lack of transparency, and the absence of independent monitoring and democratic accountability of the Agency.


title: Frontex

text: Reports have surfaced of video footage of FRONTEX violating the law, by helping the Greek coast guard block and push back asylum-seekers and migrants who have reached Greek territorial waters instead of rescuing them, which is their obligation under EU laws and regulations.


title: Frontex

text: Despite a 2012 European Court of Human Rights ruling that refugees should not be returned to Libya, due to risk of torture and violence, Frontex was criticised in April 2021 for supporting the Libyan Coast Guard to do so.


title: Frontex

text: In September 2009, a Turkish military radar issued a warning to a Latvian helicopter patrolling in the eastern Aegean—part of the EU's Frontex programme to combat illegal immigration—to leave the area. The Turkish General Staff reported that the Latvian Frontex aircraft had violated Turkish airspace west of Didim. According to a Hellenic Air Force announcement, the incident occurred as the Frontex helicopter—identified as an Italian-made Agusta A109—was patrolling in Greek airspace near the small isle of Farmakonisi, which lies on a favourite route used by migrant smugglers ferrying migrants into Greece and the EU from the opposite Turkish coastline. Frontex officials stated that they simply ignored the Turkish warnings as they were not in Turkish airspace and continued their duties. Frontex later took photographs of the Turkish Coast Guard escorting illegal immigrants towards Greek waters and the photos accompanied by written evidence were submitted to EU authorities.


title: Frontex

text: Another incident took place in October 2009 in the airspace above the eastern Aegean sea, off the island of Lesbos. On 20 November 2009, the Turkish General Staff issued a press note alleging that an Estonian Border Guard aircraft Let L-410 UVP taking off from Kos on a Frontex mission had violated Turkish airspace west of Söke.


title: Frontex

text: On 7 December 2020, the EU's anti-fraud watchdog, OLAF, raided the offices of Frontex Executive Director Fabrice Leggeri, as well as his head of Cabinet Thibauld de La Haye Jousselin as part of an investigation into allegations of staff harassment, misconduct and migrant pushbacks. According to an internal document seen by the Greek Newspaper Ekathimerini, Leggeri "actively resisted" the recruitment of the required 40 fundamental rights officers provided for in the regulation of the new European Border and Coast Guard Agency, answering frequent questions from agency staff in early 2020 that "it is not a priority." The story also accuses Leggeri of being in charge of a "comically incompetent" human resources department that formally offered jobs to large numbers of Standing Corps personnel and then withdrew them the next day. The Ekathimerini story also quotes an EU document that alleges Frontex's Executive Director Fabrice Leggeri "actively resisted" the recruitment of the required 40 fundamental rights officers required in the regulation of the new European Border and Coast Guard Agency, answering frequent questions from agency staff in early 2020 that "it is not a priority" and "repeatedly made it clear to staff" that "Frontex is not an expensive lifeguard service." Frontex operations staff were made to understand that "reporting pushbacks involving Frontex personnel is not a route to popularity or promotion" within the agency. The paper also reported that no provision had yet been made for the new border guard "Standing Corps" to carry firearms legally over EU borders. In January 2021, EU Commissioner Ylva Johansson called for the EU ombudsman to open an inquiry.


title: Frontex

text: According to the UK's Financial Times, on 12 January 2021, the EU's "embattled border and coastguard agency", was ridiculed for tweeting a 77-second short film celebrating its new uniforms on the same day that the bloc's anti-fraud office, OLAF, confirmed it would investigate the agency.


title: Frontex

text: In 2020, ships of Frontex were complicit in so-called illegal "pushbacks" of migrants attempting to reach mainland Europe via Greek waters. In such pushbacks, which is illegal under international law, migrants already in European waters are sent back to areas outside the borders of the European Union.


title: Frontex

text: Frontex's involvement in these illegal practices follows from an analysis of open source sources, leaked documents, imagery and conversations with both migrants and Frontex staff conducted by a journalistic research collective involving Bellingcat and Der Spiegel, among others.


title: Frontex

text: In early 2021, reports emerged in the media of serious recruitment and HR issues at Frontex. At least one report spoke of a “comically incompetent” HR department at the agency. Reported problems included first-person accounts of offers for the Standing Corps being made and then withdrawn the following day; recruits being brought to Poland for training only to be told they had failed a medical test the previous month and then abandoned; inadequate provisions made for COVID protection during training; and nonexistent communication with new staff about key practical issues.


title: Frontex

text: These issues, combined with the fact that the Standing Corps cannot be armed under current regulations because the agency's new 2019 mandate did not include the necessary legal basis under which it can acquire, register, store and transport firearms, have led some to refer to the Standing Corps internally as a “Potemkin Corps”, i.e. something for show only.


title: Frontex

text: In June 2021, former FRONTEX deputy director Gil Arias Fernández criticised the agency's recruitment process, stating that it had no safeguards in place to prevent infiltration by far-right extremists.


title: Frontex

text: In February 2021, Frontex was accused of its staff meeting "with scores of unregistered lobbyists that represent the weapons, surveillance and biometrics industries". The investigation also indicated that Frontex misled the European Parliament. In 2018, the agency told MEPs in response to a question: “Frontex only met with registered lobbyists who are registered in the EU Transparency Register … no meetings were held in 2017.” But according to the documents obtained, Frontex “held at least four meetings with industry” that year, CEO wrote. “Of the 24 private bodies that participated in these meetings – mostly companies – over half (58 percent or 14 bodies) were not registered in the EU Transparency Register.” Overall, their research found that from 2017 to 2019, Frontex met with 138 private groups: 108 companies, 10 research centers or think tanks, 15 universities and one non-governmental organization. Human rights organizations were notably absent.


title: Frontex

text: On August 14, 2022, the Euro-Mediterranean Human Rights Monitor released a report documenting the effects of European Union Commission Intrusive surveillance program for migrants and asylum seekers, that the EU Commission’s intrusive migrant surveillance program works dangerous and illegal to collect detailed information about migrants and asylum seekers, such as genetic and biometric data and DNA fingerprints, their religious beliefs and their sexual orientation. Moreover, the Euro-Med indicated that the program would criminalize innocent people, impede their right to seek asylum, facilitate the procedures for expulsion and return them to their countries, and consolidate the misperception linking asylum and terrorism.


title: Sarkaria Commission

text: The Sarkaria Commission was set up in 1983 by the central government of India against M. Karunanidhi. The Sarkaria Commission's charter was to examine the central-state relationship on various portfolios and suggest changes within the framework of Constitution of India.


title: Sarkaria Commission

text: The final report contained 247 specific recommendations. In spite of the large size of its reports - the Commission recommended, by and large, status quo in the Centre-State relations, especially in the areas, relating to legislative matters, role of Governors and use of Article 356.


title: Sarkaria Commission

text: It is widely accepted that to whatever extent the Commission suggested change, the recommendations were not implemented by the government.


title: Sarkaria Commission

text: The Commission felt that the State Government should be given prominence in appointing the Governor. The appointment should be made


title: Sarkaria Commission

text: The commission felt that the chief minister should be consulted before appointing the governor. For proper working of the parliamentary system, there has to be a personal rapport between the governor and the chief minister. Thus the main purpose of consulting the chief minister is to ascertain his objections, if any, to the proposed appointment. The commission found that consultation with the chief minister has not invariably been taking place in recent years. The general practice, as far as the commission has been able to ascertain, seems to be that the Union Government merely informs the chief minister that a certain person is being appointed as the governor of the state. Sometimes even such prior intimation is not given. The commission recommended that the Vice President of India and the Speaker of the Lok Sabha should be consulted by the prime minister in the selection of governor. Such consultation, the commission felt, will greatly enhance the credibility of the selection process.


title: Sarkaria Commission

text: Some of the recommendations have been adopted such as governor to be from outside the state. The SC has many times emphasized the urgent need for implementing Sarkaria commission's recommendations on selection and appointment of governors.


title: United States national rugby union team

text: The United States men's national rugby union team represents the United States in men's international rugby union. Nicknamed the Eagles, it is controlled by USA Rugby, the national governing body for the sport of rugby union in the United States. USA Rugby is a member of Rugby Americas North, one of six regional governing bodies under World Rugby. Until rugby returned to Olympic competition, with sevens at the 2016 Rio Games, the United States was the reigning Olympic rugby champion, having defeated the one other competitor in 1920 and the two other competitors at the 1924 Summer Olympics.


title: United States national rugby union team

text: , the men's Eagles are ranked 19th in the world by the World Rugby Rankings. Their previous highest ranking was 12th, achieved ahead of the 2019 World Cup. The team's lowest ranking was 20th, first following a winless campaign in the 2008 Churchill Cup and second for a single week in 2022 during the 2023 World Cup qualifying tournament.


title: United States national rugby union team

text: The highest profile tournament in which the men's Eagles play is the Rugby World Cup. The men's Eagles have played in all but two Rugby World Cups since the tournament began in 1987. The United States is hosting the 2031 Rugby World cup.


title: United States national rugby union team

text: The United States competed in the Pacific Nations Cup every Summer from 2013 to 2015. Previously, the U.S. has competed in the now-defunct Churchill Cup and the Pan American Championship. In April 2015, USA Rugby announced the creation of a new, annual International Championship to be contested among the top-6 ranked rugby nations in the Americas: Argentina, Brazil, Canada, Chile, Uruguay and the United States. The contest was named the Americas Rugby Championship and began in 2016. The United States won the 2017 Americas Rugby Championship after drawing with Argentina XV. It was the United States' first 15-a-side rugby union title in over 90 years.


title: United States national rugby union team

text: Informal football games such as rugby became popular in the United States in the mid-19th century. Rugby union was played as early as 1872 among rugby clubs in the San Francisco Bay Area composed mainly of British expatriates. On December 2, 1882, the first Californian representative rugby team to play an outside opponent, took on a group of rugby-playing ex-Britons, who called themselves the Phoenix Rugby Club of San Francisco. California lost to the Phoenix club 7–4.


title: United States national rugby union team

text: The first recorded rugby game in the U.S. was played in May 1874 when local Harvard University hosted Canadian McGill University. The game sparked an interest on college campuses nationwide. In 1876 Yale, Harvard, Princeton, and Columbia formed the Intercollegiate Football Association, which largely used the rugby code. In 1886 Harvard's Oscar Shafter Howard introduced these rules to the campus of the University of California, Berkeley.


title: United States national rugby union team

text: American football was fierce, and as injuries mounted, the public became alarmed at its brutalities and President Theodore Roosevelt threatened to outlaw the sport. Beginning in 1906, rugby union became the game of choice at Stanford University, University of California, Berkeley and several other colleges in California. Rugby's popularity, however, was short lived, and the sport had died out by the outbreak of World War I.


title: United States national rugby union team

text: A California student team toured Australia and New Zealand in 1910, and invited their hosts to return the visit. Australia obliged by touring North America in 1912, and the U.S. national team played its first international match on November 16, 1912 against Australia in Berkeley, California. The visitors won 12–8. A year later, the U.S. hosted New Zealand at the same venue on November 15, 1913, but the Kiwis ran away with the contest 51–3 in front of 10,000 spectators.


title: United States national rugby union team

text: Following the end of World War I, the U.S. participated in the Inter-Allied Games where they defeated Romania, before losing to a France XV side, a match in which no caps were awarded. Rugby union had not been played competitively in most of the U.S. for more than a decade before the 1920 Olympics. The U.S. Olympic committee decided that because "California is the only state playing Rugby in the US, the Committee will give sanction but no financial aid". Harry Maloney, coach at Stanford University and then-president of the California rugby union, assembled a mostly California-based team, with seven players from Stanford and six from the University of California, Berkeley. The Olympic Games Committee of the Amateur Athletic Union paid the expenses to transport the team from California to the games in Antwerp. By the time the US Rugby team arrived in Europe, Czechoslovakia and Romania had withdrawn from the competition. France and the U.S. were the only teams left to compete. The U.S. won a shock 8–0 victory over France to earn the gold medal.


title: United States national rugby union team

text: The stunned French suggested that the U.S. team tour France, which they did; winning three out of the four matches they played. Between 1920 and 1924, however, rugby union virtually disappeared once again in the U.S., as American football soared in popularity.


title: United States national rugby union team

text: The 1924 Paris Olympics caused France to challenge the U.S. to defend its title. Once again, the U.S. Olympic Committee granted permission but no funds. Nonetheless, seven players of the 1920 team dusted off their boots, raised $20,000, found 15 new players including some American football players who had never played in a rugby union match. The assembled U.S. team was again based heavily from Northern California, with 9 Stanford alumni, 5 from Santa Clara, and 3 from Cal. The team headed for England to play some tuneup matches, where they were beaten four times.


title: United States national rugby union team

text: The French Olympic Committee (FOC) had scheduled the rugby event to kick off the 1924 Paris Games at Colombes Stadium in Paris. Romania and the U.S. were expected to provide only token opposition for the European champions. On Sunday, May 11, the U.S. pounded Romania 39 to 0, including nine tries.


title: United States national rugby union team

text: The final was played at Colombes Stadium on May 18 before an estimated crowd of 30,000–50,000 that had gathered to watch the rugby final and the awarding of the first medal of the 1924 Olympics. Bookmakers set the odds at five to one with a 20-point spread. However, the Americans were not intimidated, and the American captain Babe Slater wrote in his diary before the match "we are sure going to let them know they have been in a battle." Despite the odds, the U.S. team started well, led by captain Colby "Babe" Slater, and led 3–0 at the half. Heavy tackling by the Americans, derived from American football, intimidated and exhausted the French, as the U.S. scored four tries in the second half to defeat the French 17–3. Rare vintage film footage of the 1924 gold medal match was released in the documentary, "A Giant Awakens: the Rise of American Rugby".


title: United States national rugby union team

text: Shortly after the 1924 Olympics, however, the International Olympic Committee (IOC) removed rugby union as an Olympic sport. Without the Olympic incentive, the sport's growth in America collapsed and the game remained dormant.


title: United States national rugby union team

text: The sport then enjoyed a renaissance, beginning in the 1960s and continuing through the 1970s. This created the need for a national governing body to represent the United States in the international rugby community. The United States of America Rugby Football Union (now known as USA Rugby) was formed in 1975 by four territorial organizations (Pacific Coast, West, Midwest, and East). The first Eagles match was played against Australia in 1976, before a crowd of 7,000 at Glover Stadium in Anaheim. The Wallabies won 24–12.


title: United States national rugby union team

text: The U.S. also performed well against France in Chicago, losing the game 14–33, in front of 8,000 fans. The next season the Eagles played two internationals, one against England (XV-not capped) at Twickenham on their 1977 United States rugby union tour of England, which they lost 37–11, and the other against Canada, which they also lost, 17–6. The U.S. played the Canadians again in 1978, and defeated them 12–7 in Baltimore. They then travelled to Canada in 1979 and lost 19–12 in Toronto.


title: United States national rugby union team

text: The U.S. national team came to further prominence during the 1980s, and from the start of the decade, were playing a notably larger number of games every season. They did however lose all three of their games in 1980, all at home. They could not muster up a win in 1981 either, losing 3–6 to Canada, and 7–38 to South Africa, in what was considered to be the lowest attended international rugby match, with only 30 spectators present at a private polo ground in Glenville, New York. In 1982, the U.S. drew Canada 3–3. They travelled to Australia in 1983 to play the Wallabies, and lost 49–3 in Sydney. The U.S. played its first-ever match against Japan in 1985, winning 16–15 at the Prince Chichibu Memorial Stadium.


title: United States national rugby union team

text: The U.S. participated in 1987 in the first ever Rugby World Cup in New Zealand and Australia. The U.S. were in Pool 1, alongside co-hosts Australia, England and Japan. The U.S. won their first ever World Cup game, defeating Japan 21–18 at Ballymore Stadium in Brisbane, with fullback Ray Nelson scoring 13 points. The U.S. lost both subsequent matches; 47–12 against the Wallabies and 34–6 against England. The U.S. finished third in the pool, out of contention for the quarterfinals.


title: United States national rugby union team

text: The Eagles first met Wales at Cardiff in November 1987 as the final match of their 1987 tour, where Wales, who had just finished third in the inaugural Rugby World Cup, enjoyed a 46–0 win. In 1988, the Eagles had mixed success in their tour of Europe, defeating Romania but losing to the Soviet Union.


title: United States national rugby union team

text: The U.S. notched three consecutive wins from September 1990 to May 1991 — all against Japan — for the first three-match win streak in U.S. team history.


title: United States national rugby union team

text: The U.S. made their way through a qualifying tournament to reach the 1991 Rugby World Cup in the United Kingdom, pooled with defending champions New Zealand, hosts England, and Italy in a tough group. In their first match of the tournament, Italy defeated them 30–9. Next, New Zealand defeated them 46–6. Hosts England won 37–9 at Twickenham. The U.S. finished fourth in the pool.


title: United States national rugby union team

text: In round one of the Americas qualifying tournament for the 1995 Rugby World Cup the U.S. defeated Bermuda 60–3 to advance to round two. Argentina defeated the Eagles twice in close games in the series to qualify, leaving the U.S. missing out on the 1995 Rugby World Cup in South Africa.


title: United States national rugby union team

text: The Eagles had a successful tour of Europe in 1998, beating Spain and Portugal. Also in 1998, the U.S. played Fiji for the first time, losing 9–18 in Suva.


title: United States national rugby union team

text: The Eagles set out to qualify for the 1999 Rugby World Cup in Wales. In round four of the Americas qualifying tournament in Buenos Aires, the United States lost 52–24 to Argentina and 31–14 to Canada, but defeated Uruguay 21–16 in their last game to qualify for the 1999 tournament. The U.S. played in the 1999 Pacific Rim Championship, notching its first-ever victories over Fiji (25–14) and Tonga (30–10).


title: United States national rugby union team

text: However, the Eagles subsequently suffered their heaviest defeat ever, losing 106–8 to England in a warmup match before the 1999 Rugby World Cup.


title: United States national rugby union team

text: The Eagles entered the 1999 Rugby World Cup in pool E alongside Australia, Ireland and Romania. In their first game, the United States went down 53–8 to Ireland. They then lost to Romania 27–25. Australia defeated the Eagles 55–19 in their final game of the tournament, seeing the Eagles finish fourth in the pool. The Eagles, however, had the honor of being the only side to score a try against the eventual champions, Australia, during the entire tournament.


title: United States national rugby union team

text: In qualifying matches for the 2003 Rugby World Cup the U.S. finished third in the Americas. The U.S. won the repechage and qualified for the 2003 tournament by beating Spain 62–13 and 58–13. The Super Powers Cup was first contested in 2003 between Japan, Russia and the United States. The U.S. then followed up with victories over Japan and Canada. This was the first time the Eagles had won four consecutive tests since making their international debut in 1976.


title: United States national rugby union team

text: At the 2003 Rugby World Cup the Eagles finished fourth of five in their pool. In the first match against Fiji, the Americans led 13–3 early in the second half, but Fiji regained the lead and secured a 19–18 win, with the Eagles suffering their ninth consecutive World Cup loss. The U.S. then lost to Scotland. The Americans defeated Japan 39–26, behind 17 points by Mike Hercus, for their first win in a Rugby World Cup since 1987 (also against Japan). The U.S. closed the tournament with a loss to France, concluding the tournament with a 1–3 record.


title: United States national rugby union team

text: The 2004 Super Powers Cup saw the addition of Canada. The U.S. beat Russia in the third-place play-off. The U.S. toured Europe in November 2004, losing 55–6 to Ireland and 43–25 to Italy. The 2005 Super Cup took part between the U.S., Canada, Japan and Romania. The U.S. lost 30–26 to Canada but beat a Romanian team stripped of their France-based players 23–16 in the third place play-off.


title: United States national rugby union team

text: The U.S. campaign to qualify for the 2007 Rugby World Cup began in 2006. The U.S. lost 56–7 to Canada, resulting in a home/away play-off against Uruguay. The U.S. defeated Uruguay 42–13 in the first match and 26–7 in the second to send them through to the Rugby World Cup.


title: United States national rugby union team

text: In the 2007 Rugby World Cup, the U.S. joined England, Samoa, South Africa and Tonga in Pool A. The Eagles, ranked 13th in the world standings, lost all 4 games in Pool A, scoring 1 bonus point in the game against Samoa. Coached by New Zealander Peter Thorburn, the Eagles started off with tough match against the defending world champions England, losing 28–10. The U.S. was then beaten by Tonga 25–15, lost to Samoa 25–21, and lost their final match to highly favored South Africa 64–15. The Eagles, however, had a major highlight in the South Africa match. After a Todd Clever interception and a pair of passes, Takudzwa Ngwenya sped down the sideline and outran the speedster Bryan Habana to score a try that received Try of the Year honors at the 2007 IRB Awards.


title: United States national rugby union team

text: Following the resignation of Scott Johnson, on March 5, 2009 Eddie O'Sullivan was named the new national coach.


title: United States national rugby union team

text: The Eagles finished a solid 2009 campaign at a mark of 4–5, with a 4–3 record in full internationals. In the 2009 Churchill Cup, the Eagles lost to Ireland and Wales, but defeated Georgia to take home the Bowl.


title: United States national rugby union team

text: The Eagles split a World Cup qualifying series with Canada, but lost on aggregate points. The Eagles then faced Uruguay in a two-game playoff. In November 2009, the United States booked their place at the 2011 Rugby World Cup with two wins against Uruguay, winning the home leg 27–6 in Florida.


title: United States national rugby union team

text: The Eagles played 7 matches in 2010: 3 home matches in June at the Churchill Cup, finishing with a 1–2 record, and 4 matches in Europe in the Fall, finishing 1–3.


title: United States national rugby union team

text: In the June 2010 Churchill Cup, the US beat Russia 39–22, before losing to the England Saxons 32–9 and France A 24–10.


title: United States national rugby union team

text: For the November 2010 tests, the Eagles traveled to Europe. The Eagles defeated Portugal 22–17, but lost to Scotland A 25–0, and lost to Georgia 19–17.


title: United States national rugby union team

text: The Eagles finished 2010 ranked 16th in the world, and with a record in test matches of 2 wins (Russia, Portugal) and 1 loss (Georgia).


title: United States national rugby union team

text: The buildup to the 2011 Rugby World Cup started in June with three matches in the Churchill Cup. The Eagles dropped their first matches to the England Saxons 87–8 and to Tonga 44–13, before defeating Russia 32–25. 2011 was the final Churchill Cup.


title: United States national rugby union team

text: The Eagles finalized their 2011 Rugby World Cup preparations with three test matches in August. The Eagles lost to Canada 28–22, lost their second match against Canada 27–7. and lost to Japan 20–14. The Eagles had a 1–5 record in test matches for the year in their preparations for the 2011 Rugby World Cup.


title: United States national rugby union team

text: In their 2011 Rugby World Cup opening match against Ireland the Eagles defense initially held, before conceding their first try at the 39' mark. The final tally was 22–10.


title: United States national rugby union team

text: The Eagles came into the World Cup with their measuring mark for success as being a win over Russia. The Americans took a 10–3 lead into the half, and held on to win 13–6.


title: United States national rugby union team

text: For their third match, Australia dominated, leading to the final result of 67–5, the worst defeat a U.S. team has ever suffered to Australia.


title: United States national rugby union team

text: The final match saw the Eagles playing Italy for a third-place finish in Pool C. The Italians finished with a 27–10 victory. The defeat marked the end of the 2011 Rugby World Cup for the U.S.


title: United States national rugby union team

text: The Eagles finished 2011 with a record of 2–7 in full tests. The performances in the Rugby World Cup showed improvement, and the win over Russia left the team with a 1–3 RWC record and feeling as a modest success. The World Cup also saw prop Mike MacDonald become both the most capped Eagle in World Cup play (11 caps) and the most capped Eagle of all time at 65 caps. Also notable was the performance of lock John van der Giessen, who achieved the most lineout steals of all players in the 2011 Rugby World Cup, despite appearing in only three matches.


title: United States national rugby union team

text: The Eagles played three matches in North America during the 2012 June international window. This was a regular series of international tests for the United States against Tier 1 (Italy) and Tier 2 (Canada, Georgia) opponents, as the Churchill Cup is no longer held. The highlights of the June tests were a win over higher-ranked Georgia, and a match against Italy at BBVA Compass Stadium in Houston that drew a record crowd of 17,214.


title: United States national rugby union team

text: The Eagles also played three matches in Europe during the November 2012 tests. The Eagles finished their European tour with 2 wins (Romania, Russia) and 1 loss (Tonga) — the first time since 1998 that the Eagles had concluded a European tour with a winning record — and improved in ranking from 17th to 16th.


title: United States national rugby union team

text: The U.S. played five matches during the June 2013 international test window, with one test match against Ireland and four matches as part of the 2013 IRB Pacific Nations Cup. The U.S. started with competitive matches against Canada (9–16), Ireland (12–15), and Tonga (9–18), but finished with double-digit losses against Fiji (10–35) and Japan (20–38), and sliding to #18 in the rankings.


title: United States national rugby union team

text: In August 2013, the U.S. played a home-and-away series against Canada as part of qualifying for the 2015 Rugby World Cup. The U.S. lost both matches by an aggregate score of 20–40, meaning the U.S. must play Uruguay in 2014 as part of 2015 RWC qualifying.


title: United States national rugby union team

text: In November 2013, the U.S. lost 19–29 to the Māori All Blacks at PPL Park in Philadelphia before a sold-out crowd of 18,500.


title: United States national rugby union team

text: Throughout late 2013 and early 2014, a number of U.S. players signed contracts to play professionally overseas. Of the players called into the U.S. national team in March 2014 for two home-and-away 2015 Rugby World Cup qualifying matches against Uruguay, 14 of the 26 were playing professionally overseas, with 10 playing professionally in England.


title: United States national rugby union team

text: The Eagles defeated Uruguay 59–40 on aggregate over two tests during 2014 to qualify for the 2015 Rugby World Cup. During the June 2014 test window, the U.S. played competitive matches against higher ranked Scotland and Japan, and the test window culminated with a 38–35 victory over Canada. Subsequently, in November 2014 the Eagles were defeated 74–6 by New Zealand in a match played in front of a crowd of more than 61,000 spectators at Soldier Field, Chicago.


title: United States national rugby union team

text: The Eagles began a lengthy assembly in build up to the 2015 Rugby World Cup with the 2015 Pacific Nations Cup. On July 18, the U.S. dropped the opening PNC match 21–16 to Samoa. The team bounced back to upset Japan 23–18. The Eagles, however, fell to Tonga in the final preliminary match for the PNC 33–19. In the resulting fifth-place match, the Eagles edged rival Canada 15–13. The victory was the second consecutive over team Canada. Three weeks later, Canada and the U.S. met again in a World Cup warmup match. For the first time, the U.S. laid claim to a three-match win streak over team Canada after defeating the Canadians 41–23. Continuing on the road to the World Cup, the U.S. faced off against English Premiership side Harlequins, where the Americans fell to the visitors 24–19. The Eagles returned to Soldier Field to compete against the #2 ranked Australia Wallabies. The Americans trailed 14–10 at the half. In the second half, the Wallabies capitalized on American errors and pushed the match out of reach: Australia 47, the U.S. 10.


title: United States national rugby union team

text: The Professional Rugby Organization (PRO Rugby) began a professional rugby competition in 2016. Five teams played a 10-match schedule from April to July. Each PRO Rugby team had a quota for overseas players and U.S. Eagles internationals. The U.S. national team included 14 professionals in the starting lineup for the June 2015 test against Italy — six U.S.-based professionals and eight overseas professionals. PRO Rugby did not last long, however, with the competition folding after only one season.


title: United States national rugby union team

text: Professional rugby returned in 2018 with the advent of Major League Rugby, a seven-team competition that runs from April to early July. U.S. head coach Gary Gold called up an all-professional squad for the June 2018 tests, drawing from a mix of Major League Rugby players and overseas professionals. During the June 2018 tests, the U.S. defeated Scotland 30–29 to give the U.S. its first win over a Tier 1 nation since beating France at the 1924 Olympics. In the November tests, the U.S added wins against Canada (42–17), Samoa (30–29), and Romania (31–5) to ensure their longest full international test win streak in team history with 10. The streak ended with a defeat to Ireland in Dublin. In their first match of the 2019 Rugby World Cup, they were defeated (45–7) against England.


title: United States national rugby union team

text: The following table shows the results of the U.S. national team during the previous 24 months, as well as upcoming fixtures.


title: United States national rugby union team

text: On 28 October, head coach Gary Gold named a 30-man squad for the 2023 RWC Final Qualification Tournament in Dubai.


title: United States national rugby union team

text: The Eagles do not have an official home stadium. Boxer Stadium in San Francisco was the unofficial home of the Eagles from 1996 to 2000, hosting 12 of their 17 test matches. The Eagles also played several of their home games at Infinity Park in Denver, Colorado. The Eagles played a home match against a Tier 1 nation every June between 2012 and 2014, in front of large crowds at BBVA Stadium in Houston, Texas. Since 2012, the Eagles have played at other MLS stadiums, such as Talen Energy Stadium in Philadelphia and the Dignity Health Sports Park in Los Angeles. The Eagles play some of their less high-profile matches at smaller soccer venues.


title: United States national rugby union team

text: The United States' biggest rival in rugby is Canada. The US has played more test matches against Canada than any other country. The two teams first met in 1977, and have played every year since then with the exceptions of 2010 and 2020. As of the end of 2019, the two sides have met 58 times, with 22 wins for the U.S., 38 wins for Canada, and 2 draws.


title: United States national rugby union team

text: The U.S. and Canada routinely play each other in qualifying matches for the Rugby World Cup. They have met in the qualification stages for every tournament, except for the 1987 tournament, for which teams were invited rather than going through qualification matches, and the 1995 tournament, for which Canada had automatically qualified by finishing as a quarterfinalist in the 1991 Rugby World Cup. Since 2015, the teams play each other annually at the Americas Rugby Championship.


title: United States national rugby union team

text: The U.S. has been undefeated in the last 12 matches, with 11 wins and a draw. The first victory of the Eagles' current unbeaten streak ended a seven-match winning streak by Canada that lasted from 2009 through 2013.


title: United States national rugby union team

text: The United States has qualified for every Rugby World Cup except the 1995 and 2023 tournament. The best result that the U.S. has managed at a Rugby World Cup is to win one game, which it accomplished in 1987, 2003, and again in 2011.


title: United States national rugby union team

text: The Pacific Nations Cup has been played every year since 2006, and has been played in its current format since 2013, when the United States and Canada joined Japan, Fiji, Samoa and Tonga.


title: United States national rugby union team

text: The Americas Rugby Championship pits the six highest ranked rugby nations in North and South America (Argentina XV, Brazil, Canada, Chile, United States, and Uruguay). It was first contested in 2016.


title: United States national rugby union team

text: Rugby was included an Olympic sport four times from 1900 to 1924, with the United States winning the last two of those tournaments — 1920 and 1924. After a lengthy absence, rugby returned to the Summer Olympics in 2016, albeit in the rugby sevens format.


title: United States national rugby union team

text: Below is table of the representative rugby matches played by a United States national XV at test level up until November 19, 2022.


title: United States national rugby union team

text: The USA Falcons, formerly the USA Selects is the second national rugby team for the United States. The USA Falcons is a developmental team, usually fielding younger players looking to break into the U.S. national team, and sometimes including amateur domestic U.S. national team players who need more high-level matches.


title: United States national rugby union team

text: The USA Selects formerly participated in the Americas Rugby Championship, when the tournament only featured "A" sides for Argentina, Canada, the United States, and Uruguay. The USA Selects best results in the ARC were their second-place finishes in 2013 and 2014 Since 2016, the ARC only features an A team from Argentina along with the national sides of Brazil, Canada, Chile, Uruguay, and the United States. The USA Falcons now play in a separate tournament known as the Americas Pacific Challenge.


title: United States national rugby union team

text: The U.S. women's national team, officially formed in 1987, has been an international powerhouse since its inception, although more recently have fallen behind other powerhouses such as England and New Zealand on the world rankings. The Eagles won the first official World Cup in 1991, and finished second in the two following World Cups (1994, 1998). The Eagles have set a high standard for international competition, leading an ensuing wave of women's rugby growth and game development worldwide. The US finished 7th in the 2002 tournament. The women's national team traveled to the United Kingdom in January 2006 to play Scotland, Ireland and England, winning all three games. The 2006 Women's Rugby World Cup was held in Edmonton, Canada.


title: B.A.P.S.

text: B.A.P.S (an acronym for "Black American Princesses") is a 1997 American female buddy comedy film directed by Robert Townsend and starring Halle Berry, Natalie Desselle, and Martin Landau. The film was written by Troy Byer and was her first screenplay. The film received largely negative reviews from critics, although it has since been considered a cult classic, especially for Black Hollywood. In total it earned $7.3 million at the box office worldwide.


title: B.A.P.S.

text: The film features several celebrity cameos, including LL Cool J, Leon Robinson, Heavy D, and Dennis Rodman.


title: B.A.P.S.

text: Denise "Nisi" (Halle Berry) and Tamika "Mickey" (Natalie Desselle) work at a soul food diner in Decatur, Georgia. Their plan is to one day open the world's first combination hair salon and soul food restaurant if they ever get enough money. Their boyfriends, Ali (Pierre Edwards) and James (A.J. Johnson), hope to one day own a luxury cab company.


title: B.A.P.S.

text: Nisi and Mickey hear about a contest for a video girl where the winner gets $10,000 and spend all their savings to fly to Los Angeles for Nisi to compete. On the plane ride there, Nisi reads a book on etiquette and she and Mickey discuss their new hairstyles, which are so tall they block the movie projector.


title: B.A.P.S.

text: Although Nisi does not land the dancing girl role, a man named Antonio spots them at the auditions and offers them the same amount of money to be in a different music video and invites them to a Beverly Hills mansion. Once they arrive, they learn about the real reason they were brought there, which was for Nisi to pretend to be the granddaughter of a woman the owner of the house, an aging Mr. Blakemore (Martin Landau), once loved when he was younger named Lily. They agree to the plan, but eventually grow fond of Mr. Blakemore and take care of him and refuse to take his money.


title: B.A.P.S.

text: Feeling guilty for deceiving Mr. Blakemore, they plan to return to Decatur and leave a confession letter for him to read after they are gone. However, before they can depart, Mr. Blakemore is rushed to the hospital. Nisi tries to confess to him at his bedside but he silences her before she can finish and passes away soon afterwards. Mr. Blakemore's lawyer, Tracy Shaw (Troy Byer), informs them that he knew all along that Nisi was not Lily's granddaughter because Lily never had any children.


title: B.A.P.S.

text: Back at the mansion, Nisi, Mickey, and their boyfriends are preparing to return to Decatur. Mr. Blakemore's lawyer arrives and read's his last will and testament, in which he calls the girls his "B.A.P.S", short for Black American Princesses, and gives them some portion of his wealth. The film ends with Nisi and Mickey opening their combination hair salon and restaurant, which they name "Lily'z".


title: B.A.P.S.

text: Writer Beyer was disappointed by the final cut of the film, and believed that her "words had not honestly made it onto the screen". She explained that this was the first time Robert Townsend had directed a film that he had not written. She used her earnings from this film to direct her first film.


title: B.A.P.S.

text: Initial reception was overwhelmingly negative. On Rotten Tomatoes, the film has a score of 15% based on 33 reviews. Audiences surveyed by CinemaScore gave the film a grade B.


title: B.A.P.S.

text: Roger Ebert gave the film a rare no-stars rating, calling it "jaw-droppingly bad and stupid". Ebert included the film on his "most hated" list.


title: B.A.P.S.

text: Janet Maslin praised Halle Berry for her comedic performance and described the film as a "watered-down "Pretty Woman"". Maslin concluded "It's good for a half-hour of humor before the fun starts to dissolve." Esther Iverem of "The Washington Post" wrote "Despite its idiotic promotional trailers, 'BAPS' is a very funny movie." Lisa Alspector of the "Chicago Reader" called it "absurdly broad comedy infused with classic emotions and set in sumptuously detailed environments".


title: B.A.P.S.

text: In 2018, Anne Cohen of the website "Refinery29" called the film a "Black cult classic" and said the film deserved better than its (at the time) 13% rating on Rotten Tomatoes. Cohen said "The fact that the film has had such a lasting impact... proves that the film spoke to its audience."


title: B.A.P.S.

text: B.A.P.S. is in development to be produced as a live stage play in 2023 from film producer and playwright Je'Caryous Johnson, who also adapted to the stage other urban movies such as "Two Can Play That Game" (2017), "Set It Off" (2018) and "New Jack City" (2022). The play was originally slated to open in May 2020, however the COVID-19 pandemic forced the production to close.


title: Siskiyou County, California

text: Siskiyou County (, ) is a county in the northernmost part of the U.S. state of California. As of the 2020 census, the population was 44,076. Its county seat is Yreka and its highest point is Mount Shasta. It falls within the Cascadia bioregion.


title: Siskiyou County, California

text: Siskiyou County is in the Shasta Cascade region along with the Oregon border. Because of its outdoor recreation, Mt. Shasta, McCloud River, and Gold Rush era history, it is an important tourist destination within the state.


title: Siskiyou County, California

text: Siskiyou County was created on March 22, 1852, from parts of Shasta and Klamath Counties, and named after the Siskiyou mountain range. Parts of the county's territory were given to Modoc County in 1855.


title: Siskiyou County, California

text: The county is the site of the central section of the Siskiyou Trail, which ran between California's Central Valley and the Pacific Northwest. The Siskiyou Trail followed Native American footpaths, and was extended by Hudson's Bay Company trappers in the 1830s. Its length was increased by "Forty-Niners" during the California Gold Rush.


title: Siskiyou County, California

text: After the discovery of an important gold strike near today's Yreka, California, in 1851, prospectors flooded the area. This was described in detail by Joaquin Miller in his semi-autobiographical novel "Life Amongst the Modocs."


title: Siskiyou County, California

text: In the mid-1880s, the construction of the Central Pacific Railroad along the Siskiyou Trail brought the first wave of tourism. Visitors were drawn by the county's many summer resorts, and to hunt or fish in the largely untouched region. The Southern Pacific railroad, the successor to the Central Pacific, called its rail line “The Road of A Thousand Wonders.”


title: Siskiyou County, California

text: In the early 1940s, Siskiyou County was home to the semi-serious State of Jefferson movement, which sought to create a new state from several counties of northern California and the adjoining counties of southern Oregon. The movement has seen a revival in recent years.


title: Siskiyou County, California

text: The origin of the word "Siskiyou" is not known. It may be a Chinook Jargon word for a "bob-tailed horse" (ultimately originating in Cree), or as was argued before the State Senate in 1852, from the French "Six Cailloux" (six stones), a name given to a ford on the Umpqua River by Michel Laframboise and his Hudson's Bay Company trappers in 1832. Others claim the "Six Cailloux" name was appropriated by Stephen Meek, another Hudson's Bay Company trapper who discovered Scott Valley, for a crossing on the Klamath River near Hornbrook.


title: Siskiyou County, California

text: The county is home to the Black Bear Ranch, a commune started in 1968 with the slogan "Free Land for free people."


title: Siskiyou County, California

text: On September 4, 2013, the Siskiyou County Board of Supervisors voted 4 to 1 to secede from the State of California.


title: Siskiyou County, California

text: According to the U.S. Census Bureau, the county has a total area of , of which is land and (1.1%) is water. It is the fifth-largest county by area in California.


title: Siskiyou County, California

text: Siskiyou County is geographically diverse. From towering Mount Shasta (elev. 14,179 ft/(4,322 m)) near the center of the county, to lakes and dense forests, as well as desert, chaparral, and memorable waterfalls, the county is home to world-famous trout-fishing rivers and streams, such as the Sacramento and McCloud rivers. The county is dotted as well with lakes and reservoirs, such as Castle Lake and Lake Siskiyou. Mount Shasta itself has a winter sports center. Pastoral Scott Valley in the western part of the county has many wide, tree-lined meadows, supporting large cattle ranches. The basins of northeastern Siskiyou County, including Butte Valley, Lower Klamath and Tule Lake basins, have some of the deepest and richest soils in the state, producing alfalfa, potatoes, horseradish, and brewing barley. Butte Valley nurseries are the leading source of premium strawberry plants in North America. Much of the county is densely forested with pine, fir, incense-cedar, oak, and madrone; Siskiyou County is also home to the rare Baker's Cypress Tree, Cupressus bakeri, which grows in only eleven scattered locations in the world, five of which are in Siskiyou County.


title: Siskiyou County, California

text: The county's natural resources are most often used these days for skiing, snowboarding, hiking, mountain biking, camping, and wilderness recreation, as historic logging practices have been largely discontinued due to Federal and State environmental regulations. The county's water is viewed as sufficiently pure and abundant that the county is a source of significant amounts of bottled water, distributed throughout the country. A large Crystal Geyser plant is at the base of Mt. Shasta, near Weed.


title: Siskiyou County, California

text: Substantial amounts of the county are forested within the Siskiyou and Cascade Ranges, including significant oak woodland and mixed conifer forests. Siskiyou County is the northern extent of the range for California Buckeye, a widespread California endemic. The Klamath National Forest occupies of land which includes elements in Siskiyou County as well as Jackson County, Oregon.


title: Siskiyou County, California

text: Siskiyou Transit And General Express (STAGE) operates buses connecting the more populated areas of the county. Amtrak trains stop in Dunsmuir. Amtrak California motorcoaches operate from Sacramento and Medford, OR, with stops in Yreka, Weed, Mount Shasta, and Dunsmuir, for passengers connecting to and from Amtrak trains in Sacramento or Stockton.


title: Siskiyou County, California

text: Siskiyou County owns and operates Butte Valley Airport, Happy Camp Airport, Scott Valley Airport, Siskiyou County Airport and Weed Airport (all general aviation). Dunsmuir Municipal-Mott Airport and Montague-Yreka Rohrer Field are also within the county.


title: Siskiyou County, California

text: The closest airports for commercial domestic plane departures are Rogue Valley International-Medford Airport north of the county in Medford, Oregon, Crater Lake–Klamath Regional Airport, northeast of the county in Klamath Falls, Oregon, and Redding Municipal Airport south of the county in Redding, California.


title: Siskiyou County, California

text: Siskiyou is a strongly Republican county in Presidential and congressional elections. The last Democrat to win a majority in the county was Lyndon Johnson in 1964; however, Bill Clinton won a plurality of votes in 1992.


title: Siskiyou County, California

text: On November 4, 2008, Siskiyou County voted 60.1% for Proposition 8 which amended the California Constitution to ban same-sex marriages. Dunsmuir and Mount Shasta voted against Prop 8.


title: Siskiyou County, California

text: On September 3, 2013, the Siskiyou County Board of Supervisors voted 4–1 in favor of secession from California to form a proposed state named Jefferson. A similar move was made in 1941, but was shelved due to the attack on Pearl Harbor.


title: Siskiyou County, California

text: The following table includes the number of incidents reported and the rate per 1,000 persons for each type of offense.


title: Siskiyou County, California

text: The 2010 United States Census reported Siskiyou County had a population of 44,900. The racial makeup of Siskiyou County was 38,030 (84.7%) White, 571 (1.3%) African American, 1,814 (4.0%) Native American, 540 (1.2%) Asian, 80 (0.2%) Pacific Islander, 1,491 (3.3%) from other races, and 2,374 (5.3%) from two or more races. Hispanic or Latino of any race were 4,615 persons (10.3%).


title: Siskiyou County, California

text: As of the census of 2000, there were 44,301 people, 18,556 households, and 12,228 families residing in the county. The population density was 7/sq mi (3/km). There were 21,947 housing units at an average density of 4/sq mi (1/km). The racial makeup of the county was 87.1% White, 1.3% Black or African American, 3.9% Native American, 1.2% Asian, 0.1% Pacific Islander, 2.8% from other races, and 3.7% from two or more races. 7.6% of the population were Hispanic or Latino of any race. 13.5% were of German, 12.0% English, 9.8% Irish, 9.5% American and 7.1% Italian ancestry according to Census 2000. 91.7% spoke English and 5.7% Spanish as their first language. As of March 2012, the largest self-reported ancestry groups in Siskiyou County are 15% German, 13% English, 12% Irish and 6% Italian.


title: Siskiyou County, California

text: There were 18,556 households, out of which 27.6% had children under the age of 18 living with them, 51.7% were married couples living together, 10.1% had a female householder with no husband present, and 34.1% were non-families. 28.6% of all households were made up of individuals, and 12.8% had someone living alone who was 65 years of age or older. The average household size was 2.35 and the average family size was 2.87.


title: Siskiyou County, California

text: In the county, the population was spread out, with 24.0% under the age of 18, 6.7% from 18 to 24, 22.7% from 25 to 44, 28.4% from 45 to 64, and 18.1% who were 65 years of age or older. The median age was 43 years. For every 100 females there were 96.5 males. For every 100 females age 18 and over, there were 94.1 males.


title: Siskiyou County, California

text: The median income for a household in the county was $29,530, and the median income for a family was $36,890. Males had a median income of $31,936 versus $22,650 for females. The per capita income for the county was $17,570. About 14.0% of families and 18.6% of the population were below the poverty line, including 26.6% of those under age 18 and 7.3% of those age 65 or over.


title: 1999 Odisha cyclone

text: The 1999 Odisha cyclone (IMD designation BOB 06, JTWC designation 05B) was the most intense recorded tropical cyclone in the North Indian Ocean and among the most destructive in the region. The 1999 Odisha cyclone organized into a tropical depression in the Andaman Sea on 25 October, though its origins could be traced back to an area of convection in the Sulu Sea four days prior. The disturbance gradually strengthened as it took a west-northwesterly path, reaching cyclonic storm strength the next day. Aided by highly favorable conditions, the storm rapidly intensified, attaining super cyclonic storm intensity on 28 October, before peaking on the next day with winds of and a record-low pressure of 912 mbar (hPa; ). The storm maintained this intensity as it made landfall on Odisha on 29 October. The cyclone steadily weakened due to persistent land interaction and dry air, remaining quasi-stationary for two days before slowly drifting offshore as a much weaker system; the storm dissipated on 4 November over the Bay of Bengal.


title: 1999 Odisha cyclone

text: Although its primary effects were felt in a localized area of India, the outer fringes of the super cyclone impacted Myanmar and Bangladesh. Ten people were killed in the former, while two were killed in the latter by the storm's rainbands. The storm was the most severe to strike Odisha in the 20th century, raking the state and adjacent areas with high storm surge, powerful winds, and torrential rainfall. The storm's impacts exacerbated the damage caused by a very severe cyclone that struck the same region less than two weeks earlier. The 5–6 m (16–20 ft) surge brought water up to 35 km (20 mi) inland, carrying along with it coastal debris and inundating towns and villages. The surge combined with heavy rains to produce widespread flooding, damaging around 1.6 million homes and causing rivers to breach 20,005 flood embankments. The storm's effects destroyed numerous crops, including sugar cane, rice, and other winter-time harvests. Although estimates of the death toll varied significantly—at times suggesting 30,000 fatalities—the Government of India enumerated 9,887 fatalities in the country, of which a majority were caused by storm surge; over 8,000 deaths occurred in Jagatsinghpur. The total damage cost of the destruction wrought by the super cyclone amounted to US$4.44 billion.


title: 1999 Odisha cyclone

text: Recovery efforts were extensive following the storm's passage. The Government of India allocated ₹3 billion (US$69.3 million) to the Odisha state government, supplementing earlier contributions made towards relief from the earlier cyclone. Various branches of the Indian Armed Forces were dispatched to aid the recovery efforts. Contributions from foreign governments amounted to nearly US$13 million, with more than half allocated by the United States. Alongside foreign and domestic government contributions, between 12 and 14 international aid agencies concurrently participated in relief efforts in the storm's aftermath.


title: 1999 Odisha cyclone

text: Although the storm organized into a tropical cyclone in the Andaman Sea, the origins of the 1999 Odisha cyclone can be traced back to an area of convection that began developing in the Sulu Sea on 21 October. Despite some signs of development, wind shear suppressed outflow and prevented any significant organization. Tracking westward, the disturbance encountered a more favorable environment in the South China Sea; as a result, thunderstorm activity began to increase. Prompted by these changes, the Joint Typhoon Warning Center (JTWC) issued a Tropical Cyclone Formation Alert (TCFA) at 02:00 UTC on 23 October. However, the system failed to develop any further before wind shear reemerged in the Gulf of Thailand, causing convection to diminish and resulting in the cancellation of the TCFA. On 24 October, the storm crossed the Malay Peninsula and moved into the Andaman Sea by 03:00 UTC on the following day. Although the environment remained moderately unfavorable for tropical cyclogenesis, the disturbance organized, developing fair outflow, a strong rainband, and additional convection. At 06:00 UTC on 25 October, the system became a tropical depression while centered 550 km (340 mi) east of Port Blair. As such, the India Meteorological Department (IMD) designated the system as "BOB 06". With the storm now steadily organizing, the JTWC once again issued a TCFA at 19:30 UTC on 25 October; early the following day, the IMD assessed that the nascent depression had strengthened into a cyclonic storm. At the time, the storm was located 325 km (200 mi) south-southeast of Rangoon, Myanmar.


title: 1999 Odisha cyclone

text: Under the steering influence of an upper-level ridge to its northeast, BOB 06 began to take a more northwesterly course. The ridge also provided a highly conducive environment for intensification and eventually became positioned atop the strengthening cyclonic storm, slowing the cyclone and allowing it to generate good outflow. With these conditions in place, BOB 06 entered a phase of rapid intensification, strengthening faster than climatological rates. BOB 06 strengthened into a severe cyclonic storm at 03:00 UTC on 27 October and attained very severe cyclonic storm intensity just nine hours later with the storm centered 650 km (405 mi) south of Chittagong, Bangladesh. An eye emerged on visible satellite imagery early on 28 October, and at 15:00 UTC that day, the IMD classified BOB 06 as a super cyclonic storm, the highest rating on the IMD's cyclone scale. Using the Dvorak technique, the IMD estimated that BOB 06 reached its peak intensity three hours later with maximum sustained winds of and a minimum barometric pressure of 912 mbar (hPa; ); this made BOB 06 the strongest tropical cyclone ever recorded in the North Indian Ocean by pressure with sustained winds at the time matched by only two other known cyclones in the Bay of Bengal. At the time, the 1977 Andhra Pradesh cyclone was the only storm in the region of comparable intensity. Although the storm's organization and appearance deteriorated as it neared land, BOB 06's intensity held steady up until it made landfall on the Odisha coast between Puri and Kendrapara at 06:00 UTC on 29 October.


title: 1999 Odisha cyclone

text: Rather than moving inland as forecast, the tropical cyclone became quasi-stationary over the coastal Jajpur area as it laid within a weak steering region between two upper-level anticyclones. Remaining situated over land, the storm steadily weakened as it began to advect dry air into its circulation, deteriorating into a cyclonic storm on 30 October. The entraining of dry air limited thunderstorm activity to a single rainband to the system's northeast. Soon, the weakening storm became caught in a mid-tropospheric wind flow, inducing a southward drift that brought BOB 06 back over the Bay of Bengal. The cyclone continued to weaken over water, and the IMD stopped monitoring the storm on 31 October; the JTWC followed suit a day later. The remnant low-pressure system continued to meander around the area for a few more days before eventually dissipating.


title: 1999 Odisha cyclone

text: The India Meteorological Department periodically issued cyclone warning bulletins during the storm's lifetime, with the first being directed to the Chief Secretary of the Andaman and Nicobar Islands on 26 October; the first bulletin noted potential impacts and advised fishermen not to venture out to sea. Six warnings were issued for the islands, with the last being issued on 27 October once the storm passed to the north and west. Due to initial uncertainty in the storm's forecast track, the first warnings for the coast of mainland India on 27 October concerned northern Andhra Pradesh, Odisha, and West Bengal. Hourly dissemination of cyclone bulletins were carried out by Doordarshan and All India Radio beginning on 28 October. These warnings eventually narrowed in scope to the eventually affected areas, with the last warning being issued for Odisha on 31 October.


title: 1999 Odisha cyclone

text: The Indian Department of Agriculture and Cooperation (DAC) served as the primary administrative body for coordinating preparatory and relief work during the 1999 Odisha cyclone. Upon the storm's formation, the DAC requested the chief secretaries and relief commissioners of Andhra Pradesh, Odisha, and West Bengal to begin storm preparations and initiate evacuations if necessary. Evacuations in Odisha involved nearly 150,000 people living within 10 km (6 mi) of the coastline in five districts. Six districts maintained 23 permanent cyclone shelters operated by the Indian Red Cross Society, eventually serving to house 30,000 evacuees. At Paradip Port, twelve docked ships were evacuated out to sea to avoid the cyclone. In neighboring West Bengal, 200,000 people were evacuated from the state's vulnerable low-lying islands. The Indian Army was placed on stand-by, and food supplies were stocked up in prone regions. Train service was cancelled for the areas expected to be impacted by the cyclone.


title: 1999 Odisha cyclone

text: Passing south of Bangladesh, the 1999 Odisha super cyclone's northern fringes swept across the country, killing two people and initially causing 200 fishermen to go missing. Substantial damage to housing was reported.


title: 1999 Odisha cyclone

text: The state of Odisha sustained the most catastrophic damage associated with Cyclone BOB 06, which was considered the state's severest cyclone of the 20th century. The damage was compounded by the earlier impact of a very severe cyclonic storm that struck nearby areas just 11 days earlier. Twelve districts of Odisha suffered severe damage, reporting complete breakdown of essential services: Balasore, Bhadrak, Cuttack, Dhenkanal, Jagatsinghpur, Jajpur, Keonjhar, Kendrapara, Khurda, Puri, Mayurbhanj, and Nayagarh. Among these, the blocks of Erasma and Kujang in Jagatsinghpur were the worst affected. In total, 12.9 million people were affected by the storm; estimates for the storm's death toll vary significantly, though the India Meteorological Department indicated that around 9,887 were killed, with an additional 40 persons missing and 2,507 others injured. The majority of these deaths occurred in Jagatsinghpur. where 8,119 were killed. The Centre for Research on the Epidemiology of Disasters' EM-DAT disaster database indicates that 10,915 people were killed. However, other estimates suggested that the death toll may have been as high as 30,000. The storm's effects damaged 1.6 million homes across 14,643 villages and 97 blocks. In turn, 2.5 million people were marooned. A total of (7,110 mi) of crop land was impacted, and 444,000 livestock casualties were also reported. The sugar cane crop was destroyed alongside other kharif and rabi crops. About 2 million tonnes (2.2 million tons) of the winter rice crop was destroyed. Total damage caused by the destructive cyclone amounted to US$4.4444 billion.


title: 1999 Odisha cyclone

text: Along the Odisha coast, the cyclone generated a 5–6 m (16–20 ft) storm surge that brought water up to 35 km (20 mi) inland, inundating a large swath of coastal areas. The Indian Ministry of Urban Development estimated a peak storm surge height of 6.7 m (22 ft). One visually estimated storm surge of 9 m (30 ft) was reported; however, this estimate was determined to have been too high. Regardless, no in-situ measurement of the peak storm surge exists as all potential instruments were destroyed by the storm. Storm surge was responsible for a majority of the fatalities linked to the 1999 Odisha cyclone, accounting for around 7,000 deaths. The intense wave action sank 9,085 fishing boats and caused the loss of 22,143 fishing nets. Some fishing trawlers were carried and deposited 1.5–2.0 km (0.9–1.2 mi) inland. A 4 km (2.5 mi) stretch of road leading out of Paradip was covered by sand dunes measuring 1 m (3.3 ft) in height and 0.5 km (0.3 mi) in width. Paradip Port sustained severe damage to several components including various warehouses and its power transmission system, though its core infrastructure remained intact. Damage at the port was estimated at around ₹300 million (US$6.9 million). The storm surge destroyed nearly every house in Paradip near the point of landfall. In Gopalpur, 27 villages were submerged by the surge. To the south in southern Andhra Pradesh, 48 trawlers sank. To the north in West Bengal, Substantial damage to housing was reported, causing injuries to 30 people in Midnapore.


title: 1999 Odisha cyclone

text: Stations in Paradip and Bhubaneswar each recorded sustained winds of before their instruments failed. Winds of were measured in Puri as the cyclone passed to the north. The strong winds damaged electric lines and uprooted trees over 50 years old in Puri and Kendrapada. Downed power lines across the state cut off communications between Odisha and the rest of the world for over 24 hours and caused widespread power outages. According to the Southern Electricity Supply Corporation, damage to the power grid caused by the cyclone totaled ₹330 million (US$4.4 million). Stalling over land, the Odisha cyclone dropped torrential rainfall, with 24-hour rainfall rates at times exceeding 20 cm (7.9 in); Paradip documented 53 cm (20.9 in) over one 24-hour period. Over the course of the storm's passage, total rainfall amounts over 60 cm (23.6 in) occurred over a large swath of Odisha. The highest recorded rainfall total was documented in Oupada, which measured 95.5 cm (37.60 in) of rain over a three-day period. Flooding caused by the storm was estimated to have killed approximately 2,000 people. The heavy rains flattened thatched huts and damaged roads and other infrastructure. Within the seven worst affected districts, over 70% of homes were destroyed; most of these were thatched homes, though 10–15% of non-thatch roofed homes were also destroyed. Approximately 11,000 schools were either significantly damaged or destroyed. All major district roads in the area were either washed out or blocked by felled trees. In Bhubaneswar, 60% of trees were flattened by the winds and rain; aerial surveys revealed that the entire city was submerged by floodwaters. Adjacent areas were nearly stripped of all tree cover. Until 8 November, the city remained without power. The inundation induced by the far-reaching storm surge and heavy rain kept Konark submerged in knee-deep water for six days after landfall. Over the course of four days, the excessive rainfall caused the flooding of the Baitarani, Brahmani, Budhabalanga, Kharasua, and Salandi rivers, resulting in 20,005 flood embankment breaches and the damaging of 6 headworks. Thousands of people suffered chemical burns after the flooding mixed industrial chemicals into bathing ponds. Oswal Chemicals and Fertilisers, which maintained the world's largest diammonium phosphate plant, reported severe damage to the facility. In the five districts most affected, all electric water pumps were disabled, though hand pumps remained operable.


title: 1999 Odisha cyclone

text: The Government of India declared a national disaster in the aftermath of the cyclone, though international appeals were initially unanticipated. The destruction wrought by the cyclone was expected to cause a six-month-long total loss of normal livelihood. Damage sustained to various sanitation infrastructure led to a heightened risk of communicable disease outbreaks; indeed, diarrhea and cholera saw increased incidences following the storm's impact. Within a month of the cyclone's landfall, the Odisha state government reported 22,296 cases of diarrheal disorders. The area's vulnerability to disease was also compounded by a lack of pre-storm vaccinations, raising fears of a potential measles outbreak. The outbreak of diseases caused by the storm's effects stabilized by February 2000. For most locations, the initial loss of telecommunication and rail operation was restored within a few days.


title: 1999 Odisha cyclone

text: Prime Minister of India Atal Bihari Vajpayee announced the allocation of ₹3 billion (US$69.3 million) to the Odisha state government, supplementing an earlier allocation of US$59.5 million made towards relief from the cyclone that struck the region earlier that October. However, the Odisha state government demanded a larger commitment of ₹5 billion (US$73.3 million) for relief alongside ₹25 billion (US$366.7 million) for rehabilitation. The Central government also considered the establishment of a Department for Natural Disaster Management to handle the devastation caused by the cyclone. Ultimately, a "High Powered Task Force" was formed under the command of the Ministry of Defence to provide rehabilitation support. The Indian Army sent infantry, engineers, and signal detachments to assist with disaster relief, including a field medical unit containing 30 ambulances and 340 doctors. Indian Air Force helicopters dropped food packets in affected regions beginning on 30 October, while other government ground personnel distributed various relief supplies including vaccines and plastic sheeting. Due to severe damage to air traffic control infrastructure, the Biju Patnaik International Airport was closed until 2 November, curtailing relief operations. Schools that survived the cyclone were repurposed as temporary shelters for those displaced. Due to the high amount of animal carcasses, the Government of India offered US$3 for every carcass burned–higher than minimum wage. However, backlash led the government to fly in 200 Dalits from New Delhi and 500 from Odisha to carry out the carcass removal.


title: 1999 Odisha cyclone

text: On 2 November, the Canadian International Development Agency contributed C$150,000 (US$203,964) to the International Federation of the Red Cross to aid the recovery effort; Canada eventually doubled their contributions through the Canadian Lutheran World Relief and CARE. The European Commission channeled €2 million (US$2.1 million) through the European Community Humanitarian Office for use by various relief organizations. Contributions to aid agencies were also made by the British Department for International Development (DFID), with initial contributions made to Christian Aid and CARE totaling £330,000 (US$540,837). DFID's initial emergency assistance was later increased to £3 million (US$4.9 million) and supplemented by a £25 million ($40.9 million) contribution over the course of six months. The Swiss Humanitarian Aid Unit allocated CHF 800,000 (US$779,666) to five Swiss relief organizations operating in India. Food aid worth A$300,000 (US$191,700) was sent by the Australian Government and delivered to approximately 1 million people through the World Food Program. Other countries sent aid through their respective International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies branch. Following an initial disaster declaration by United States Ambassador to India Dick Celeste, the United States Agency for International Development contributed US$7,482,000 through Food for Peace and the Office of Foreign Disaster Assistance to complement recovery efforts. The United Nations Children's Fund allocated more than US$100,000 to help supply basic health and shelter needs, while the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs made a similar allocation through an emergency grant and with reserves from an earlier grant from Norway.


title: 1999 Odisha cyclone

text: Between 12 and 14 international aid agencies were concurrently active in Odisha in the storm's aftermath. The Odisha Government made appeals to various non-governmental organizations as the government's relief supplies only covered 40% of affected areas. In response to the storm's devastation, Oxfam prepared an initial aid package, including emergency water equipment worth £250,000 (US$306,665) and 50,000 instant meals. Several members of the Action by Churches Together Alliance made contributions to the post-cyclone relief efforts. Lutheran World Relief made initial grants of US$15,000 each to the Church's Auxiliary for Social Action (CASA) and Lutheran World Federation for emergency programs in northeastern India. The United Evangelical Lutheran Churches in India sent US$700,000 worth of various relief supplies in concert with CASA. The Indian Red Cross Society distributed relief supplies from their zonal warehouse in Calcutta, with initial supplies valued at CHF 20,000 (US$19,491). In addition to the Indian society of the Red Cross, a joint Indian and International Federation assessment team was assembled to survey the damage. CARE carried over its preexisting relief operations from the early October cyclone, routing food supplies by train to hard-hit locations in Odisha. The Odisha state branch of the Red Cross extended the emergency relief phase to a three-month relief operation and a six-month rehabilitation program with the help of the Federation. The overall humanitarian response spanned well into late 2000. Bochasanwasi Akshar Purushottam Swaminarayan Sanstha dispatched aid to 91 villages greatly affected by the storm in the Jagatsinghpur and Kendrapada districts; medical camps were established in 32 villages. Three villages were "adopted" by BAPS Charities in January 2000 to rebuild in Jagatsinghpur: Chakulia, Banipat, and Potak. A total of 200 concrete homes were constructed, as well as two concrete schools and two village tube-wells. The project was finally completed in May 2002, two and a half years after the cyclone hit. Similarly, Oxfam facilitated various restoration projects in the Ganjam district, including in the communities of Denotified Tribes.


title: 1999 Odisha cyclone

text: Runoff caused by the cyclone enhanced available nutrients in the Bay of Bengal, supplementing the already present equatorward ocean current and resulting in an increase in chlorophyll a and particulate organic carbon in the region.


title: Easy Virtue (2008 film)

text: Easy Virtue is a 2008 British romantic comedy film based on Noël Coward's play of the same name. The play was previously made into the silent movie "Easy Virtue" (1928) by Alfred Hitchcock. This adaptation is directed by Stephan Elliott, written by Elliott and Sheridan Jobbins, and stars Jessica Biel, Ben Barnes, Colin Firth and Kristin Scott Thomas. The score contains many Coward and jazz-age songs, some of which are sung or partially sung by the cast.


title: Easy Virtue (2008 film)

text: "Easy Virtue" is a social comedy in which a glamorous American widow, Larita, meets and impetuously marries a young Englishman, John Whittaker, at the Monaco Grand Prix. When they return to England, his mother takes an immediate and strong dislike to her daughter-in-law, while his father finds a kindred spirit. Family tensions escalate.


title: Easy Virtue (2008 film)

text: The film was screened at the Toronto International Film Festival and London Film Festival prior to its 7 November release by Pathé in the UK. Subsequently, the film was also screened at the Rio International Film Festival, Middle East International Film Festival in Abu Dhabi, and the Rome Film Festival. It closed the Adelaide Film Festival prior to the Australian theatrical release on 12 March 2009.


title: Easy Virtue (2008 film)

text: Set in the early 1930s, Larita meets John Whittaker in Monaco. They marry and he takes his bride to the family mansion near Flintham in rural Nottinghamshire to meet his mother, Veronica Whittaker and father, Major Jim Whittaker and his two sisters, Hilda and Marion. Veronica, already predisposed to dislike her new daughter-in-law, is further disappointed to find that Larita is American and, like Jim, speaks fluent French. Larita also meets John's former girlfriend and neighbour Sarah Hurst, who is gracious about the marriage.


title: Easy Virtue (2008 film)

text: Larita makes some inadvertent gaffes, accidentally killing the family chihuahua and giving some joking advice to Hilda that unfortunately results in embarrassment to, and enmity from, the sisters. Sarah comes to the Whittakers' parties, and to play tennis, accompanied by her brother Philip, on whom Hilda has a crush. Philip, however, is infatuated with Larita, which further angers Hilda. Larita reveals she has been previously married and remains calm in the face of her mother-in-law's disdain. To Larita's disappointment, John is not eager to leave the estate so that they can find a home of their own. Larita is bored and miserable in the countryside and hates blood sports like hunting, and any of the entertainment that country English people seem to enjoy. She reads "Lady Chatterley's Lover", shocking the female relatives, and she will not play tennis. She dislikes Veronica's stuffy decor, her constant entertaining of her friends, and the overcooked food. She tries to get along with Veronica who refuses to accept her and resents her attempts to bring American traditions into the home.


title: Easy Virtue (2008 film)

text: Veronica and her hunting party discover John and Larita having sex in an outbuilding. Larita becomes increasingly isolated and demoralized by her mother-in-law's derision, verbal attacks and dirty tricks. Apart from Jim, Larita's only friends are the servants, whom she treats better than Veronica does. Larita retreats to Jim's workshop to work on his motorcycle. Still troubled from having lost all his men in the Great War, Jim has lost interest in the estate. Any love between him and his wife has long since disappeared. The Whittakers have fallen on hard times. John loses his independence and seems immature as he is drawn into family life. John's affection for Larita seems to be waning, as he complains about his wife to Sarah, who finds his overture inappropriate.


title: Easy Virtue (2008 film)

text: Hilda receives a newspaper cutting from her uncle in America revealing information about Larita's first husband, an older man dying of cancer. Veronica and her daughters assume that Larita had married her first husband for his money, and even imply she killed him. John withdraws from Larita, while Jim scolds his daughters for their cruelty. Larita explains that she loved her first husband and helped him to die on his own terms and end his suffering.


title: Easy Virtue (2008 film)

text: At Veronica's Christmas party, John refuses to dance with Larita, so Jim dances a tango with her. She determines to leave the marriage, and on her way out of the mansion, she apologises to Sarah for having interrupted her relationship with John. She hopes that Sarah will take John back. Veronica and her daughters confront Larita one last time, and an argument ensues in which Veronica and Larita trade barbs, and Larita advises the daughters to leave and see the world, in their own eyes, while they still can. Larita destroys a large statue as she leaves the house, with a heartbroken John onlooking. Jim goes with her in her car and Furber wishes them both well.


title: Easy Virtue (2008 film)

text: Coward's play was adapted to the screen by Stephan Elliott and Sheridan Jobbins but hardly any feature of the original play remains besides the main characters, and even they do not greatly resemble Coward's cast.


title: Easy Virtue (2008 film)

text: In his autobiography, "Present Indicative" published in 1937, Coward describes his object in the play as being "to compare the déclassée woman of to-day with the more flamboyant demi-mondaine of the 1890s." He goes on to say, "The line that was intended to establish the play on a basis of comedy rather than tragedy, comes at the end of the second act when Larita, the heroine, irritated beyond endurance by the smug attitude of her 'in-laws', argues them out of the room."


title: Easy Virtue (2008 film)

text: Although the play was made into a silent film in 1928, directed by Alfred Hitchcock and starring Isabel Jeans and Franklin Dyall, this film is not mentioned in Coward's autobiography. The 2008 version of the film is favourably reviewed by the Noël Coward Society.


title: Easy Virtue (2008 film)

text: Filmmaker Stephan Elliott instructed Kristin Scott Thomas to play Mrs. Whittaker as a "mustache-twirling... Disney witch." Initially, the actress responded by suggesting this is the worst direction she had ever received, but later embraced her character's wickedness and somewhat haggard appearance and unflattering wardrobe.


title: Easy Virtue (2008 film)

text: The score for the film was produced by Marius de Vries and the film's director Stephan Elliott. It features several songs by Cole Porter and Noël Coward. It was performed by the Easy Virtue Orchestra—which was assembled specifically for the film. Jessica Biel makes her musical debut singing two tracks which are featured on the soundtrack album. Ben Barnes sings several songs on the sound track, including "Room with a View", while Colin Firth makes a guest appearance on the closing track.