title: Ismaïl Omar Guelleh

text: Ismaïl Omar Guelleh (; ) (born 27 November 1947) is the current President of Djibouti. He has been in office since 1999, making him one of the longest-serving rulers in Africa. He is often referred to by his initials, IOG.


title: Ismaïl Omar Guelleh

text: Guelleh was first elected as President in 1999 as the handpicked successor to his uncle, Hassan Gouled Aptidon, who had ruled Djibouti since independence in 1977. Guelleh was re-elected in 2005, 2011, 2016 and in 2021. The elections were largely boycotted by the opposition amid complaints over widespread irregularities. Guelleh has been characterized as a dictator, and his rule has been criticized by human rights groups and governments, such as the United States. He is, at the international level, a close ally of France.


title: Ismaïl Omar Guelleh

text: He was awarded the Padma Vibhushan, India's second-highest civilian award, on 25 January 2019 for his role in the safe evacuation of Indian citizens from Yemen.


title: Ismaïl Omar Guelleh

text: Guelleh was born in Dire Dawa, Ethiopia, into the politically powerful Mamassan subclan of the Ciise Dir clan of the Somali ethnic group. The father of Ismaïl Omar Guelleh, son of Guelleh Batal, is Omar Guelleh, one of the first native teachers in the 1930s before working, following his father's path, on behalf of the Franco-Ethiopian Railway Company (CFE) which built the line connecting Djibouti to Addis Ababa and whose head office was in Dire Dawa. When Guelleh was younger he attended a traditional Islamic school. In 1960, Guelleh migrated to Djibouti before finishing high school. In 1964, at the age of 18, Ismail Omar Guelleh began working in the General Information of the French Territory of the Afars and the Issas, because he spoke Amharic, Somali, Arabic, French, Italian and English.


title: Ismaïl Omar Guelleh

text: In 1975, he was suspended from his duties because he was suspected of transmitting information to the independence movement. He then became involved in the African People's League for Independence (LPAI) chaired by Hassan Gouled Aptidon, who campaigns for independence. Guelleh was elected into the LPAI’s Central Committee in 1983 and subsequently became the director of a cultural commission in Paris. In 1987, he became a member of the party leadership.


title: Ismaïl Omar Guelleh

text: After Djibouti became independent, he became head of the secret police and chief of the cabinet in the government of his uncle Hassan Gouled Aptidon, for whom he also served as chief of staff for more than two decades. He received training from the Somali National Security Service and then from the French Secret Service, and was intended to become his uncle's successor. He became President of Djibouti in 1999.


title: Ismaïl Omar Guelleh

text: Djibouti is one of four countries in Africa that have experienced instances of immediate successions from one family member to another.


title: Ismaïl Omar Guelleh

text: On 4 February 1999, President Gouled Aptidon, uncle of Ismail Guelleh, announced his retirement at the time of the next election, and an extraordinary congress of his party, the ruling People's Rally for Progress (RPP), chose Guelleh as its presidential candidate, handpicked by Aptidon. As the joint candidate of the RPP and moderate wing of the Front for the Restoration of Unity and Democracy (FRUD), Guelleh won the presidential election held on 9 April 1999 with 74.02% of the vote, defeating his only challenger, the independent candidate Moussa Ahmed Idriss. He took office on 8 May. Moussa Ahmed Idriss was arrested the following September for "threatening the morale of the armed forces" and detained at an undisclosed location.


title: Ismaïl Omar Guelleh

text: In December 2000, Guelleh sacked the chief of staff of the National Police Force, Yacin Yabeh, prompting policemen loyal to Yabeh to unsuccessfully rebel following his dismissal. Guelleh is credited with brokering a permanent peace agreement that year that brought to an end the country’s post-independence ethnic conflict.


title: Ismaïl Omar Guelleh

text: Guelleh was nominated by the RPP as its presidential candidate for a second time on 7 October 2004, at an Extraordinary Congress of the party. He was backed by several other parties and was the only candidate in the presidential election held on 8 April 2005. Brief protests against the elections erupted but where quickly suppressed by police. Without a challenger, Guelleh won 100% of the ballots cast and was sworn in for a second six-year term, which he said would be his last, on 7 May.


title: Ismaïl Omar Guelleh

text: However, in 2010, Guelleh persuaded the National Assembly of Djibouti to amend the nation's Constitution, allowing him to stand for a third term. This cleared the way for him to place his name on the ballot in Djibouti's 2011 election. It also resulted in large protests beginning in 2010 similar to the larger movement for democracy in the Arab countries. The protests were quickly put down, opposition leaders arrested and international observers expelled or arrested.


title: Ismaïl Omar Guelleh

text: Opposition parties boycotted the election, leaving only one little-known candidate against him on the ballot. Guelleh won almost 80% of the vote. Human Rights Watch questioned the fairness of the election given that opposition leaders were jailed twice prior to polling. Guelleh again said that he would not run for another term.


title: Ismaïl Omar Guelleh

text: Guelleh was also the winner of the 2016 election with about 87% of the popular vote. As in previous elections, the opposition had called for a country-wide boycott and demanded Guelleh conduct "transparent, free, fair and just elections." Opposition leaders and human rights groups complained of repression and police brutality in the run-up to the polls. After interviewing an opposition leader, a BBC team was arrested and expelled shortly before the vote.


title: Ismaïl Omar Guelleh

text: He was re-elected for a fifth term in the 2021 landslide election. One opposition candidate ran in the election, political newcomer Zakaria Ismail Farah, who accused the government of "ballot-box stuffing" and barring his delegates from accessing polling stations to monitor the voting process. Other with major opposition parties opted not to run candidates, accusing Guelleh of ruling via a dictatorship.


title: Ismaïl Omar Guelleh

text: In June 2021, Guelleh made vaccination against COVID-19 compulsory for both citizens and foreign residents.


title: Ismaïl Omar Guelleh

text: Throughout that same month, Guelleh reshuffled of his diplomatic corps, recalling seven ambassadors and appointing new ones to several countries across the Middle East.


title: Ismaïl Omar Guelleh

text: Guelleh’s long-time rule has opened questions about his eventual succession, with a trusted, hand-picked candidate chosen from within his inner circle being almost a certainty. For the longest time, the president’s son in law and minister of health, Djama Elmi Okieh, seemed to be Guelleh’s designated successor, but since 2018 he has fallen out of favor after an alleged affair with an employee and subsequent divorce. The new favored candidate since then seems to be Naguib Abdallah Kamil, a son of First Lady Kadra Mahamoud Haid from a previous marriage.


title: Ismaïl Omar Guelleh

text: By retaining Djibouti’s main political players in their respective government position, Guelleh has increased the risk for internal power struggles. Prime Minister Abdoulkader Kamil Mohamed and Finance Minister Ilyas Moussa Dawaleh are considered prime contenders for leadership struggles in the run-up to the next elections in 2026. Another possible candidate involved in intra-governmental fights for power includes Foreign Minister Mahamoud Ali Youssouf.


title: Ismaïl Omar Guelleh

text: Throughout his presidency, Guelleh has worked to install members of his family in important political and economic positions. A central role is occupied by his wife, Kadra Mahamoud Haid, who acts as the de facto vice-president, and his two daughters: Haibado, functioning as an important advisor to Guelleh, and Fatouma-Awo, heavily involved in the country’s business activities. His son in law, Djama Elmi Okieh, is the Minister of Health.


title: Ismaïl Omar Guelleh

text: One of the President’s half-brothers, Saad Omar Guelleh, is the General Manager of the economically paramount Port of Djibouti, while first cousin Djama Ali Guelleh has been the Director General of state-owned utilities company Electricité de Djibouti (EDD) since 1986, more than a decade before Guelleh came to power.


title: Ismaïl Omar Guelleh

text: Owing to this intricate blurring of state functions and the ruling clan, Guelleh has been able to exercise strict control over the country’s political, economic and judiciary affairs, aided by his strong grip on the police, military and other security forces. This has guaranteed that "the Guelleh clan’s domination of all public affairs prevailed."


title: Ismaïl Omar Guelleh

text: A message sent from the US Embassy in Djibouti in 2004 and published on WikiLeaks described Djibouti as "less a country than a commercial city state controlled by one man, Ismail Omar Guelleh."


title: Ismaïl Omar Guelleh

text: In its 2020 country report on Human Rights Practices, the US government identified "unlawful or arbitrary killings", "cases of cruel, inhuman, or degrading treatment or punishment by the government", and "arbitrary or unlawful interference with privacy; serious restrictions on free expression, the press, and the internet, including violence", among others, as "significant human rights issues" in the country.


title: Ismaïl Omar Guelleh

text: Guelleh has exploited his country’s strategic position for years, marked by large infrastructure investments, especially in ports and logistics. Since 2013, Guelleh has pursued closer economic and political relations with China, which coincided with Beijing’s growing strategic interest in the Middle East and Africa through the launch of the Belt and Road Initiative that year.


title: Ismaïl Omar Guelleh

text: The ensuing great power competition for the country has increased Djibouti’s scope for maneuver, but China’s influence has also grown over Djibouti, having established a naval base there in 2017 and triggering concerns among Djibouti’s traditional Western allies that Beijing’s authoritarian governance style is encouraging more autocratic behavior on Guelleh’s part as well.


title: Ismaïl Omar Guelleh

text: The influx of Chinese investments into the country has furthered Guelleh’s development plan based on the Singapore model. It is often understood as "as an authoritarian government delivering national prosperity through rigid planning and a singular focus on economic development at the expense of democracy, human rights, and basic freedoms." Guelleh has frequently made references to following Singapore’s path in official speeches, hoping to transform Djibouti into the "Singapore of Africa" by capitalizing on the Port of Djibouti’s growing role as a strategically located maritime trading hub.


title: Ismaïl Omar Guelleh

text: However, experts regard Djibouti’s continued government corruption and favoring of Chinese investors as a hindrance to that development strategy paying off. For example, in 2012 the Djibouti government sold its Doraleh Container Terminal concession of the Port of Djibouti to a Chinese competitor of concession partner DP World, an UAE-based port operator. In February 2018, Ismaïl Guelleh revoked DP World’s concession by presidential decree, transferring its assets to a state-run company. Using Chinese funding, that same year Djibouti also opened a long-term project to build what is projected to be Africa’s greatest free trade zone.


title: Ismaïl Omar Guelleh

text: In 2020, the London Court of International Arbitration ruled Djibouti’s expropriation illegal and ordered the original concession rights are to be restored. The Court had previously ordered the country to pay $533 million in compensation to the DP World company. Djibouti rejected the Court’s ruling and handed a quarter of the port's stake to China Merchants Ports Holdings.


title: Ismaïl Omar Guelleh

text: While the FDI-driven policy into port and logistics infrastructure pursued by Guelleh has been responsible for steady economic growth, it has created a service-dependent and capital-intensive economy with low exports and opportunities for job creation. Indeed, unemployment remains an enduring issue that disproportionally affects the young. According to a 2015 employment survey, Djibouti’s unemployment rate was at 39 percent, where only 25 percent of working age people were employed. A more recent estimate puts unemployment of the young at 80 percent.


title: Ismaïl Omar Guelleh

text: Furthermore, the investment projects behind the country’s economic growth throughout the years were financed by external debt, which has led to high levels of debt ownership by foreign actors, particularly China. Overall, the country’s economy was ranked as "mostly unfree" by the Heritage Foundation’s 2021 Index of Economic Freedom.


title: Ismaïl Omar Guelleh

text: The expansion of the Berbera port in Somaliland by DP World, which would reduce landlocked Ethiopia’s dependence on Djibouti for large parts of its trade, has been speculated to pose a threat to the port of Djibouti’s regional dominance. Guelleh has dismissed such claims.


title: Ismaïl Omar Guelleh

text: Djibouti under Guelleh’s rule has remained a stable country within a conflict-ridden region. Guelleh’s presidency has seen the signing of a peace agreement between warring ethnic tribes in 2000 and the resolution of a decade-long border dispute between Djibouti and Eritrea in 2018. The 2018 peace treaty between Ethiopia and Eritrea is expected to reduce Djibouti’s port revenues in the long-run and could in turn lead to Guelleh becoming unable to maintain his stringent control over the country.


title: Ismaïl Omar Guelleh

text: In 2020, Guelleh hosted the leaders of Somalia and its break-away Republic of Somaliland as well as Ethiopia’s Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed for peace talks.


title: Ismaïl Omar Guelleh

text: Guelleh expressed strong support for Ethiopia's Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed in the Tigray War between the government and the rebels, saying that he had chosen to "restore law and order at the federal level, and punish those seeking to break up the country" and dismissed the prospect of negotiations, saying that the Tigray People's Liberation Front had "structured itself so as to bring the central government to its knees" and that talks could "only lead to the partition of Ethiopia", setting a precedent for secession by other groups in the region.


title: Ismaïl Omar Guelleh

text: Following a visit of Guelleh and his entourage to Paris in late 2018, France’s National Financial Prosecutor's Office opened a preliminary investigation into the alleged fraudulent acquisition of several properties in the city. The investigation, launched after a complaint from anti-corruption NGO Sherpa and focusing on Guelleh’s wife, eldest daughter and son in law, is ongoing as of July 2021.


title: Mark Hoffman

text: Detective Lieutenant Mark Hoffman is a fictional character and the secondary antagonist of the "Saw" franchise. He is portrayed by Australian actor Costas Mandylor. While the character was first shown as a police officer in "Saw III", later films in the series have expanded his role and revealed him to be an apprentice, and subsequently the successor of the Jigsaw Killer. He serves as the main antagonist in "Saw V", "Saw VI" and "Saw 3D".


title: Mark Hoffman

text: Like his mentor and partner, Hoffman designs death traps that, for survivors, give them reason to appreciate their lives. Unlike his mentor, however, he has no emotion towards his victims and generally displays a very monotone personality. He also frequently places his victims in traps where at least one must be killed for the other(s) to escape, and on occasion has placed them in inescapable traps.


title: Mark Hoffman

text: "Saw III" briefly shows Hoffman during the investigation of Troy's chain trap. Hoffman is shown to be listening in on Officer Daniel Rigg's conversation with Detective Allison Kerry about Jigsaw's ability to continue his work. Unnoticed by the others, Hoffman pockets a chain fragment from the trap's aftermath and Kerry comments as to why the door had to be cut open by the police to secure the crime scene. He is very apathetic and glib while speaking to Rigg and Kerry. Rigg shows that this bothered him. Amanda and Hoffman then place Kerry in a trap which kills her even though she did as she was instructed, revealing that the trap was rigged to be inescapable.


title: Mark Hoffman

text: As they begin to put John's final tests into action, Hoffman and Amanda begin fighting over John's affections and legacy. Hoffman tries to win John's favor by warning him against Amanda's now murderous take on his legacy. John instead chooses to allow the game to progress. Hoffman, knowing the test was actually meant for Amanda, proceeds to sabotage the test by switching John's letter for Amanda with one of his own: a letter informing her that if she does not kill Lynn Denlon, he will tell John what she had done (she was the person that sent Cecil Adams to steal drugs, which ultimately resulted in Jill Tuck's miscarriage when Cecil slammed a door on her). Amanda does so, but is killed by Lynn's husband, Jeff Denlon, who then proceeds to kill John as well.


title: Mark Hoffman

text: In the opening scene of "Saw IV", Hoffman is called to the police morgue to hear a cassette tape that is found in Jigsaw's stomach during his autopsy. It is later revealed that the events of "Saw III" and "Saw IV" occurred at the same time, so this scene actually happened after the events of those two films.


title: Mark Hoffman

text: Prior, Hoffman knocks out Rigg and makes it seem that Detective Eric Matthews and himself have been captured by Jigsaw, and that Rigg must save them both. Rigg completes a series of tests, leading him to Jigsaw's lair and the location of Hoffman and Eric's trap. Despite previous warnings to not go through unsecured doors, Rigg enters the room of their trap before the timer expires, causing Eric's death and apparently killing Hoffman as well. However, Hoffman releases himself from his bonds, having never been in any danger, and reveals himself as Jigsaw's second accomplice. Hoffman leaves Rigg to die and walks out of the room. The morgue scene replays with a more detailed message to Hoffman, stating that Jigsaw's work is not over, and that Hoffman will not go untested.


title: Mark Hoffman

text: Hoffman has a more significant role in "Saw V". After FBI agent Peter Strahm enters Jigsaw's sickroom following the events of "Saw IV", Hoffman comes in from the scene of Rigg's final test and locks Strahm in. Strahm finds a hidden back door leading into a passage, where a microcassette warns not to proceed any further. Ignoring this message, Strahm moves down the passage, where Hoffman captures him and places him into a trap intended to kill him by drowning. Much to Hoffman's bewilderment, Strahm escapes his trap and is carried away on a gurney, while Hoffman makes himself out to be a hero, taking credit for the rescue of Corbett Denlon and ending the Jigsaw murders.


title: Mark Hoffman

text: It is revealed that Hoffman was the one who set up Seth Baxter's inescapable trap, in which Seth was bisected by a swinging pendulum blade despite crushing his hands in vices as instructed, in retaliation for the murder of Hoffman's sister; Hoffman made it look like a Jigsaw trap. Jigsaw subsequently kidnapped Hoffman, accusing him of trying to blame Jigsaw for something he had done, and blackmailed Hoffman into becoming his apprentice; he subsequently helped John find victims and set up several of the games seen in the first three films.


title: Mark Hoffman

text: Strahm begins to pursue Hoffman as a five-person trap set up by the latter plays out. Hoffman plants evidence to frame Strahm as the last Jigsaw apprentice. This deception eventually leads Strahm's superior, FBI agent Dan Erickson, to put out an all-points bulletin for Strahm's immediate arrest for the Jigsaw murders.


title: Mark Hoffman

text: Meanwhile, Strahm trails Hoffman to a dark basement with the hopes of finding him there. Strahm instead finds a glass box with a cassette tape from Hoffman. The tape states that Strahm will need to trust him and get into the box (filled with broken glass) if he wants to live. Strahm chooses not to heed the warning and instead throws Hoffman into the box, which safely lowers Hoffman down into the floor while the walls slide together, crushing Strahm to death. Hoffman is left as the hero from the Jigsaw murders, and Strahm (still believed to be alive by the world at large) is considered a suspect as Jigsaw's second apprentice.


title: Mark Hoffman

text: In "Saw VI", Hoffman traps a health insurer, William Easton, who denied a man's claim for medical help, leading to his death. It is later revealed that William had rejected Jigsaw's own insurance claim in relation to his cancer treatment, and that this is part of a wider game in which Jigsaw wants Hoffman to collaborate with Jill. Displeased, Hoffman visits Jill and tells her he will do it alone, demanding the information she was given about the targets for the trap. Jill gives Hoffman five envelopes that Jigsaw had given her for the next game.


title: Mark Hoffman

text: FBI agent Lindsey Perez, thought to have died in "Saw IV", is revealed to be alive. She figures out that Hoffman is Jigsaw's real apprentice, not Strahm. The key evidence is an audio lab analysis (with Hoffman present) of the tape from Seth Baxter's trap, which proves to contain Hoffman's disguised voice. Hoffman attacks Erickson and Perez, uses the technician as a shield against Perez' gunshots, and demands who else knows about him. Perez says, "Everyone," before Hoffman finally kills her. He then sets the audio lab on fire to destroy the evidence and finish off the three victims, planting Strahm's fingerprints around the room to keep suspicion from himself.


title: Mark Hoffman

text: The contents of Amanda's letter (as seen in "Saw III" and "Saw IV") are shown in a flashback, which explains that Hoffman had discovered that when Cecil robbed Jill's clinic for drugs, he was not acting alone. Amanda, visibly going through withdrawals and desperate for another high, pressured Cecil into doing so, she inadvertently caused Jill to miscarry her and John's unborn child, Gideon. In the letter, Hoffman blackmailed Amanda into killing Lynn, telling her that if she failed to do so, he would reveal her involvement in Jill's miscarriage to John.


title: Mark Hoffman

text: One of John's last requests to Jill is to test Hoffman, from one of the envelopes containing Hoffman's photograph. Jill stuns him, straps him into a chair, and puts him in an updated version of the reverse bear trap but does not leave a key for him to free himself. To escape, Hoffman slams his head down onto his left hand, breaking it so that he can slip it out of the strap. He tries unsuccessfully to pry the lock open with a screw driver, then throws his head through a barred window on the door; when the timer runs out, the device becomes jammed in the bars and cannot open fully. He then pulls his head free, sustaining a major wound to his right cheek as a result, and survives.


title: Mark Hoffman

text: In "Saw 3D", after escaping the updated reverse bear trap, Hoffman leaves, taking medical supplies, and returns to his hideout where he stitches his cheek and bandages his hand. Jill meets with Matt Gibson, an Internal Affairs detective at Hoffman's precinct, and tells him that Hoffman has been involved as an accomplice in nearly every Jigsaw murder. The police attempt to raid the area where Hoffman is, but he hides himself in a body bag and is rolled into the coroner's office. After escaping from there, he goes on a killing spree at the police station. He then finds Jill and puts her in the original reverse bear trap while she is strapped to a chair. With no means for Jill to escape, the trap springs open and kills her. Hoffman destroys his hideout and prepares to flee the city, but is attacked by three people wearing pig masks. One of the men is revealed to be Dr. Lawrence Gordon, who survived his amputation by cauterising his stump using a hot steam pipe; he was later nursed back to health by John, who subsequently recruited him as an apprentice. Lawrence takes Hoffman into the bathroom from the first film, chains him by the ankle to the pipes, and throws away the hacksaw he used to cut off his own foot before he can do the same. Lawrence then shuts off the lights and leaves, closing the door and leaving Hoffman to die. Hoffman's ultimate fate is not revealed.


title: Mark Hoffman

text: Hoffman outwardly acts as a hard-working and responsible police officer. Under the Jigsaw persona, however, he is much more cold-blooded and very apathetic towards his victims. Furthermore, he sometimes puts his victims in inescapable traps, in contrast to his predecessor, who disapproved of killing his victims outright. He also shows signs of needing to be in control of situations, and modifying them to make himself in control if he is not. It is also shown in "Saw V" that Hoffman loved his sister and was angered when her killer was released from prison.


title: Mark Hoffman

text: However, "Saw V" and "Saw VI" showed the lengths Hoffman will go to in order to protect his identity. When his identity is threatened, he becomes much more brutal, with a willingness to break any rules and kill anyone he has to. This was shown in "Saw V" and "Saw VI", when he murders three FBI agents and a lab technician (one indirectly, the others in cold blood) after his identity is revealed. In "Saw 3D", Hoffman kills six police employees personally and several more indirectly in order to kill Jill Tuck.


title: Mark Hoffman

text: Prior to the release of "Saw VI", actor Costas Mandylor stated of his character, "Hoffman is sort of torn of becoming a mad man or becoming a guy that's more composed, coming from a pure place like Jigsaw. That's my character's dilemma; does he go fucking crazy or follow the rules of the boss?" Costas also mentioned that, when compared to Jigsaw and his morals, the rough edges of Hoffman are really shown.


title: Mark Hoffman

text: In May 2021, longtime "Saw" series director Darren Lynn Bousman stated that Mandylor returning as Hoffman in a future "Saw" or "Spiral" film had been discussed.


title: That's the Way of the World

text: That's the Way of the World is the sixth studio album by American band Earth, Wind & Fire, released on March 15, 1975 by Columbia Records. It was also the soundtrack for a 1975 motion picture of the same name. The album rose to No. 1 on both the Billboard 200 and Top Soul Albums charts.


title: That's the Way of the World

text: "That's the Way of the World" has also been certified Triple Platinum in the U.S by the RIAA. In 2002, the band released live version of the album, recorded in 1975 – "".


title: That's the Way of the World

text: The album spent three weeks atop the Billboard 200 chart. That's the Way of the World also stayed on top of the Billboard Top Soul Albums chart for five weeks altogether.


title: That's the Way of the World

text: The single, "Shining Star", reached number one on both the "Billboard" Hot 100 and Hot Soul Singles charts. "Shining Star" went on to win a Grammy Award for Best R&B Performance by a Duo or Group with Vocals. The album's title track reached No. 5 on the "Billboard" Hot Soul Singles chart and No. 12 on the "Hot 100" chart.


title: That's the Way of the World

text: Stephen Curwood of the Boston Globe said "these guys are great and this is a sound you shouldn't miss". Variety exclaimed "Earth, Wind & Fire turn their multi-voiced big soul sound loose on eight solid numbers".


title: That's the Way of the World

text: Daryl Easlea of the BBC wrote "Seen as a meditation on the rules of living, the album is nothing less than a spiritual soul masterpiece." He added "leader Maurice White synthesised all the elements of the group so far – straight-up funk, African mysticism, jazz and sublime balladry, and made a brief, focused album." Chris Albertson of Stereo Review described the band's performance as a "disco delight" and the recording itself as "excellent". Alex Henderson of Allmusic noted That's the Way of the World is "EWF's crowning achievement". Gordon Fletcher of Rolling Stone said "Lousy production works to this LP's detriment — Maurice White has surprisingly chosen to have the entire album sound hot." Fletcher added "Great tunes (particularly the dynamic "Africano") and great musicianship are not what this one lacks — hopefully the next time out White will be able to tone things down accordingly in the places where a little under-statement is appropriate." LA Weekly called the LP "Serious romantic music to wear silk bellbottom slacks to." Clarence Page of the Chicago Tribune wrote "Their new album 'That's the Way of the World' [Columbia], exploits the moods, if not the explosive instrumental power, that made their last platter 'Open Our Eyes,' a smash hit." Robert Christgau of the Village Voice found that "Here ethnomusicology and colloquial homiletics are tacked onto the funk and soul and doowop and jazz, which makes for an instructive contrast -the taped-in-Africa Matepe Ensemble, whose spontaneous laughter closes out the coda, versus Maurice White, whose humorless platitutdes prove there's more to roots than turning a mbira into an ersatz vibraphone." Vibe also proclaimed "That's the Way of the World coursed effortlessly through a myriad of genres, from rock to jazz to funk to heavy African influences".


title: That's the Way of the World

text: "That's the Way of the World" was nominated in 1975 and 1976 for an American Music Award for Favorite Soul/R&B Album. EWF also won a Rock Music Award for "That's the Way of the World" in the category of Best Rhythm and Blues Album.


title: That's the Way of the World

text: During 2004 That's the Way of the World was inducted into the Grammy Hall of Fame. In 2012 "Rolling Stone" placed the album at 486 on its list of the 500 greatest albums of all time, calling it "make-out music of the gods". For the 2020 update of the list, the album's rank climbed to number 420.


title: That's the Way of the World

text: The information regarding accolades attributed to "That's the Way of the World" is adapted from acclaimedmusic.net, soultracks.com and rockhall.com.


title: Alcee Hastings

text: Alcee Lamar Hastings ( ; September 5, 1936 – April 6, 2021) was an American politician and judge from the state of Florida.


title: Alcee Hastings

text: Hastings was nominated to the United States District Court for the Southern District of Florida by President Jimmy Carter in August 1979. He was confirmed by the United States Senate on October 31, 1979. In 1981, after an FBI sting operation, Hastings was charged with conspiracy to solicit a bribe. Following a 1983 criminal trial, Hastings was acquitted; however, he was impeached for bribery and perjury by the United States House of Representatives in 1988 and was convicted by the United States Senate in his impeachment trial on October 20, 1989. While Hastings was removed from the bench, the Senate did not bar him from holding public office in the future. Hastings was the first and only African American impeached.


title: Alcee Hastings

text: A Democrat, Hastings was first elected to the United States House of Representatives in 1992. He represented Florida's 23rd congressional district from 1993 to 2013 and represented Florida's 20th congressional district from 2013 until his death in 2021. The 20th district included most of the majority-black precincts in and around Fort Lauderdale and West Palm Beach. Following Senator Bill Nelson's departure from office in January 2019, Hastings became the dean of Florida's congressional delegation; he retained this title until his death.


title: Alcee Hastings

text: Alcee Lamar Hastings was born in Altamonte Springs, Florida, the son of Mildred L. (Merritt) and Julius "J. C." Hastings. He was educated at Crooms Academy in Goldsboro (Sanford), Florida, before going on to attend Howard University in Washington, D.C. and Fisk University in Nashville, Tennessee. He earned his Bachelor of Arts degree in zoology and botany from Fisk in 1958. After being dismissed from Howard University School of Law, Hastings received his Juris Doctor from Florida A&M University College of Law in 1963. While in school, he became a member of the Kappa Alpha Psi fraternity. He was admitted to the bar in 1963, and began to practice law.


title: Alcee Hastings

text: Hastings decided to run for the United States Senate in 1970 after incumbent Spessard Holland decided to retire. He failed to win the Democratic primary or make the runoff election, finishing fourth out of five candidates, with 13% of the vote. Former Governor Farris Bryant finished first with 33% of the vote. State Senator Lawton Chiles was second with 26%. Chiles defeated Bryant in the runoff election and won the November general election.


title: Alcee Hastings

text: In 1977, Hastings became a judge of the circuit court of Broward County, Florida. On August 28, 1979, President Jimmy Carter nominated Hastings to the United States District Court for the Southern District of Florida. He was confirmed by the United States Senate on October 31, 1979, and received his commission on November 2, 1979. Hastings was the first black federal judge in the history of the state of Florida. His service was terminated on October 20, 1989 due to impeachment and conviction.


title: Alcee Hastings

text: In 1981, after a sting operation by the FBI against attorney and alleged co-conspirator William Borders, Hastings was charged with conspiracy to solicit a $150,000 bribe () in exchange for a lenient sentence for Frank and Thomas Romano on 21 counts of racketeering and the return of their seized assets. In his 1983 trial, Hastings was acquitted by a jury after Borders refused to testify in court, despite having been convicted in his own trial in 1982. Borders went to jail for accepting the first $25,000 payment, but was later given a full pardon by President Bill Clinton on his last day in office.


title: Alcee Hastings

text: The Judicial Conference of the United States investigated Hasting and brought its accusations, which it believed warranted an impeachment, to the United States House of Representatives.


title: Alcee Hastings

text: In 1988, the Democratic-controlled House of Representatives took up the case, and Hastings was impeached for bribery and perjury by a vote of 413–3. He was then convicted in his impeachment trial before the United States Senate on October 20, 1989. At the time, the Senate was also controlled by a Democratic majority. Hastings became the sixth federal judge in the history of the United States to be removed from office by the Senate. The Senate, in two hours of roll calls, voted on 11 of the 17 articles of impeachment. It convicted Hastings of eight of the 11 articles. The vote on the first article was 69 for and 26 opposed. He was removed from the bench, but the Senate did not preclude him from holding office in the future.


title: Alcee Hastings

text: Hastings filed suit in federal court claiming that his impeachment trial was invalid because he was tried by a Senate committee, not in front of the full Senate, and that he had been acquitted in a criminal trial. Judge Stanley Sporkin ruled in favor of Hastings, remanding the case to the Senate, but stayed his ruling pending the outcome of an appeal to the Supreme Court in a similar case regarding Judge Walter Nixon, who had also been impeached and removed.


title: Alcee Hastings

text: The Supreme Court ruled in "Nixon v. United States", again referring to Walter Nixon, that procedures for trying an impeached individual cannot be subject to review by the judiciary. Judge Sporkin changed his ruling accordingly, and Hastings's conviction and removal were upheld.


title: Alcee Hastings

text: Hastings attempted to make a political comeback by running for Secretary of State of Florida, campaigning on a platform of legalizing casinos. In a three-way Democratic primary, he placed second with 33% of the vote, behind newspaper columnist Jim Minter's 38% of the vote. In the runoff, which saw a large dropoff in turnout, Minter defeated Hastings, 67%–33%. Hastings won just one of Florida's 67 counties: Miami-Dade.


title: Alcee Hastings

text: Hastings was elected to the United States House of Representatives in 1992, representing Florida's 23rd district. After placing second in the initial Democratic primary for the post, he scored an upset victory over state representative Lois J. Frankel in the runoff, and went on to easily win election in the heavily Democratic district. He did not face a serious challenge for reelection thereafter. Following redistricting, Hastings represented Florida's 20th district from January 2013 until his death. His death triggered a special election in 2022.


title: Alcee Hastings

text: Hastings was a member of the Congressional Black Caucus and was elected president of the Parliamentary Assembly of the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe in July 2004. As a senior Democratic whip, Hastings was an influential member of the Democratic leadership. He was also a member of the House Rules Committee. He was previously a senior member of the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence (HPSCI). On the HPSCI, Hastings was the chairman of the Subcommittee on Oversight and Investigations.


title: Alcee Hastings

text: Hastings voted to impeach Texas federal judge Samuel B. Kent on all four counts presented against him on June 19, 2009.


title: Alcee Hastings

text: On December 18, 2019, Hastings voted to impeach President Donald Trump. On January 13, 2021, he voted to impeach Trump for a second time.


title: Alcee Hastings

text: Hastings and other members of the House of Representatives objected to counting the 25 electoral votes from Florida which George W. Bush narrowly won after a contentious recount. Because no senator joined his objection, the objection was dismissed by Vice President Al Gore, who was Bush's opponent in the 2000 presidential election.


title: Alcee Hastings

text: Hastings was one of the 31 House Democrats who voted not to count the 20 electoral votes from Ohio in the 2004 presidential election, despite Republican President George W. Bush winning the state by 118,457 votes. Without Ohio's electoral votes, the election would have been decided by the U.S. House of Representatives, with each state having one vote in accordance with the Twelfth Amendment to the United States Constitution.


title: Alcee Hastings

text: After the 2006 United States House of Representatives elections, Hastings attracted attention after it was reported that incoming House Speaker Nancy Pelosi might appoint him as head of the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence. He had support from the Congressional Black Caucus but was opposed by the Blue Dog Coalition. Hastings attacked his critics as “misinformed fools.” Pelosi reportedly favored Hastings over the ranking Democrat, Jane Harman, due to policy differences and the Congressional Black Caucus's support. On November 28, 2006, Pelosi announced that Hastings would not be the Committee's chairman, and she later chose Silvestre Reyes (D-TX). While Hastings was passed over to chair the committee, he became chair of a subcommittee. He told the "National Journal", “I am not angry. At some point along the way, it became too much to explain. That is legitimate politics. But it’s unfortunate for me.”


title: Alcee Hastings

text: On September 24, 2008, Hastings came under fire for comments he made about Republican vice-presidential candidate Sarah Palin. Speaking in Washington, D.C., to a conference sponsored by the National Jewish Democratic Council, he said, "If Sarah Palin isn't enough of a reason for you to get over whatever your problem is with Barack Obama, then you damn well had better pay attention. Anybody toting guns and stripping moose don't care too much about what they do with Jews and blacks. So, you just think this through."


title: Alcee Hastings

text: On September 29, 2008, Hastings issued a written apology, while standing by its core message: "I regret the comments I made last Tuesday that were not smart and certainly not relevant to hunters or sportsmen. The point I made, and will continue to make, is that the policies and priorities of a McCain-Palin administration would be anathema to most African Americans and Jews. I regret that I was not clearer and apologize to Governor Palin, my host where I was speaking, and those who my comments may have offended."


title: Alcee Hastings

text: In May 2009, "The Wall Street Journal" reported that Hastings spent over $24,000 in taxpayer money in 2008 to lease a luxury Lexus hybrid sedan. The "Journal" noted that the expenditure was legal, properly accounted for, and drawn from an expense allowance the U.S. government grants to all lawmakers.


title: Alcee Hastings

text: In June 2011, one of Hastings's staff members, Winsome Packer, filed a lawsuit alleging that he had made repeated unwanted sexual advances and threatened her job when she refused him. A congressional ethics panel investigated these claims. Packer was represented by the conservative legal group Judicial Watch. Hastings denied the allegations and called them "ludicrous." He said, "I will win this lawsuit. That is a certainty. In a race with a lie, the truth always wins. And when the truth comes to light and the personal agendas of my accusers are exposed, I will be vindicated.” In February 2012, it was reported that Hastings would be released from the lawsuit, and it would only continue against the Helsinki Commission which Hastings chaired and Packer represented in Vienna. In December 2017, it was reported that the Treasury Department paid $220,000 to settle the lawsuit. Hastings later complained that he played no role in the settlement negotiations but the way they had been framed implied that he had.


title: Alcee Hastings

text: Hastings opposed President Donald Trump's decision to recognize Jerusalem as Israel's capital. He stated: "I believe that Jerusalem is and should remain the undivided capital of Israel. To deny the Jewish connection to Jerusalem would be to deny world history. That being said, the manner in which the Trump Administration has announced its recognition of Jerusalem as the capital of Israel is of great concern."


title: Alcee Hastings

text: Hastings said that gun control is a "critical element" in addressing the United States' crime problem. He favored reinstating the Federal Assault Weapons Ban and supported a federal ban on bump stocks. He supported raising the minimum age to buy a rifle from 18 to 21. In 2017, he voted against the Concealed Carry Reciprocity Act of 2017. His last rating from the NRA was an F, indicating that the organization believed that he did not support gun rights legislation.


title: Alcee Hastings

text: Following the 2018 Stoneman Douglas High School shooting, Hastings released a statement in which he said, "The stranglehold of the gun lobby has gone on long enough."


title: Alcee Hastings

text: Hastings wrote a letter to the Speaker of the Florida House and President of the Florida Senate urging them to repeal the state's preemption law, which prohibits communities in Florida from passing their own gun regulations.


title: Alcee Hastings

text: Hastings was married three times and had three children; his first two marriages ended in divorce. He married Patricia Williams in 2019, and they remained together until his death.


title: Alcee Hastings

text: In January 2019, Hastings was diagnosed with pancreatic cancer, and he died from the disease on April 6, 2021, at the age of 84.


title: Figured bass

text: Figured bass is musical notation in which numerals and symbols appear above or below (or next to) a bass note. The numerals and symbols (often accidentals) indicate intervals, chords, and non-chord tones that a musician playing piano, harpsichord, organ, or lute (or other instruments capable of playing chords) should play in relation to the bass note. Figured bass is closely associated with basso continuo: a historically improvised accompaniment used in almost all genres of music in the Baroque period of Classical music ( 1600–1750), though rarely in modern music. Figured bass is also known as thoroughbass.


title: Figured bass

text: Other systems for denoting or representing chords include plain staff notation, used in classical music; Roman numerals, commonly used in harmonic analysis; chord letters, sometimes used in modern musicology; the Nashville Number System; and various chord names and symbols used in jazz and popular music (e.g., C Major or simply C; D minor, Dm, or D−; G, etc.).


title: Figured bass

text: Basso continuo parts, most common in the Baroque era (1600–1750), provided the harmonic structure of the music by supplying a bassline and a chord progression. The phrase is often shortened to "continuo", and the instrumentalists playing the continuo part are called the "continuo group".


title: Figured bass

text: The makeup of the continuo group is often left to the discretion of the performers (or, for a larger performance, the conductor), and practice varied enormously within the Baroque period. At least one instrument capable of playing chords must be included, such as a piano, harpsichord, organ, lute, theorbo, guitar, regal, or harp. In addition, any number of instruments that play in the bass register may be included, such as cello, double bass, bass viol, or bassoon. The most common combination, at least in modern performances, is harpsichord and cello for instrumental works and secular vocal works, such as operas, and organ and cello for sacred music. A double bass may be added, particularly when accompanying a lower-pitched solo voice (e.g., a bass singer).


title: Figured bass

text: Typically performers match the instrument families used in the full ensemble: including bassoon when the work includes oboes or other winds, but restricting it to cello and/or double bass if only strings are involved. Harps, lutes, and other handheld instruments are more typical of early 17th-century music. Sometimes instruments are specified by the composer: in "L'Orfeo" (1607) Monteverdi calls for an exceptionally varied instrumentation, with multiple harpsichords and lutes with a bass violin in the pastoral scenes followed by lamenting to the accompaniment of "organo di legno" and "chitarrone", while Charon stands watch to the sound of a regal.


title: Figured bass

text: The keyboard (or other chord-playing instrument) player "realizes" (adds in an improvised fashion) a continuo part by playing, in addition to the notated bass line, notes above it to complete chords, either determined ahead of time or improvised in performance. The figured bass notation, described below, is a guide, but performers are also expected to use their musical judgment and the other instruments or voices (notably the lead melody and any accidentals that might be present in it) as a guide. Experienced players sometimes incorporate motives found in the other instrumental parts into their improvised chordal accompaniment. Modern editions of such music usually supply a realized keyboard part, fully written out in staff notation for a player, in place of improvisation. With the rise in historically informed performance, however, the number of performers who are able to improvise their parts from the figures, as Baroque players would have done, has increased.


title: Figured bass

text: Basso continuo, though an essential structural and identifying element of the Baroque period, rapidly declined in the classical period (up to around 1800). A late example is C. P. E. Bach's Concerto in D minor for flute, strings and basso continuo (1747). Examples of its use in the 19th century are rarer, but they do exist: masses by Anton Bruckner, Beethoven, and Franz Schubert, for example, have a basso continuo part that was for an organist.


title: Figured bass

text: A part notated with figured bass consists of a bass line notated with notes on a musical staff plus added numbers and accidentals (or in some cases (back)slashes added to a number) beneath the staff to indicate what intervals above the bass notes should be played, and therefore which inversions of which chords are to be played.


title: Figured bass

text: The phrase "tasto solo" indicates that only the bass line (without any upper chords) is to be played for a short period, usually until the next figure is encountered. This instructs the chord-playing instrumentalist not to play any improvised chords for a period. The reason "tasto solo" had to be specified was because it was an accepted convention that if no figures were present in a section of otherwise figured bass line, the chord-playing performer would either assume that it was a root-position triad, or deduce from the harmonic motion that another figure was implied. For example, if a continuo part in the key of C begins with a C bass note in the first measure, which descends to a B in the second measure, even if there were no figures, the chord-playing instrumentalist would deduce that this was most likely a first inversion dominant chord (spelled B–D–G, from bottom note of the chord to the top).


title: Figured bass

text: Composers were inconsistent in the usages described below. Especially in the 17th century, the numbers were omitted whenever the composer thought the chord was obvious. Early composers such as Claudio Monteverdi often specified the octave by the use of compound intervals such as 10, 11, and 15.


title: Figured bass

text: Contemporary figured bass abbreviations for triads and seventh chords are shown in the table to the right.


title: Figured bass

text: The numbers indicate the number of scale steps above the given bass-line that a note should be played. For example:


title: Figured bass

text: Here, the bass note is a C, and the numbers 4 and 6 indicate that notes a fourth and a sixth above it should be played, that is an F and an A. In other words, the second inversion of an F major chord can be realized as:


title: Figured bass

text: In cases where the numbers 3 or 5 would normally be understood, these are usually left out. For example:


title: Figured bass

text: although the performer may choose which octave to play the notes in and will often elaborate them in some way, such as by playing them as arpeggios rather than as block chords, or by adding improvised ornaments, depending on the tempo and texture of the music.


title: Figured bass

text: Sometimes, other numbers are omitted: a 2 on its own or indicates , for example. From the figured bass-writer's perspective, this bass note is obviously a third inversion seventh chord, so the sixth interval is viewed as an interval that the player should automatically infer. In many cases entire figures can be left out, usually where the chord is obvious from the progression or the melody.


title: Figured bass

text: Sometimes the chord changes but the bass note itself is held. In these cases the figures for the new chord are written wherever in the bar they are meant to occur.


title: Figured bass

text: When the bass note changes but the notes in the chord above it are to be held, a line is drawn next to the figure or figures, for as long as the chord is to be held, to indicate this:


title: Figured bass

text: Note that when the bass moves the chord intervals have effectively changed, in this case from to , but no additional numbers are written.


title: Figured bass

text: When an accidental is shown on its own without a number, it applies to the note a third above the lowest note; most commonly, this is the third of the chord. Otherwise, if a number is shown, the accidental affects the said interval. For example, this, showing the widespread default meaning of an accidental without number as applying to the third above the bass:


title: Figured bass

text: Alternatively, a cross placed next to a number indicates that the pitch of that note should be raised (augmented) by a semitone (so that if it is normally a flat it becomes a natural, and if it is normally a natural it becomes a sharp). A different way to indicate this is to draw a backslash through the number itself. The following three notations, therefore, all indicate the same thing:


title: Figured bass

text: More rarely, a "forward" slash through a number indicates that a pitch is to be lowered (diminished) by a semitone:


title: Figured bass

text: When sharps or flats are used with key signatures, they may have a slightly different meaning, especially in 17th-century music. A sharp might be used to cancel a flat in the key signature, or vice versa, instead of a natural sign.


title: Figured bass

text: In the 20th and 21st century, figured bass is also sometimes used by classical musicians as a shorthand way of indicating chords when a composer is sketching out ideas for a new piece or when a music student is analyzing the harmony of a notated piece of music (e.g., a Bach chorale or a Chopin piano prelude). Figured bass is not generally used in modern musical compositions, except for neo-Baroque pieces.


title: Figured bass

text: In the 2000s, outside of professional Baroque ensembles that specialize in the performance practice of the Baroque era, the most common use of figured bass notation is to indicate the inversion in a harmonic analysis or composer's sketch context, however, often without the staff notation, using letter note names followed with the figure. For instance, if a piano piece had a C major triad in the right hand (C–E–G), with the bass note a G with the left hand, this would be a second inversion C major chord, which would be written G. If this same C major triad had an E in the bass, it would be a first inversion chord, which would be written E or E (this is different from the jazz notation, where a C means the added sixth chord C–E–G–A, i.e., a C major with an added 6th degree). The symbols can also be used with Roman numerals in analyzing functional harmony, a usage called "figured Roman"; see chord symbol.


title: Figured bass

text: A form of figured bass is used in notation of accordion music; another simplified form is used to notate guitar chords.


title: Weddell Sea

text: The Weddell Sea is part of the Southern Ocean and contains the Weddell Gyre. Its land boundaries are defined by the bay formed from the coasts of Coats Land and the Antarctic Peninsula. The easternmost point is Cape Norvegia at Princess Martha Coast, Queen Maud Land. To the east of Cape Norvegia is the King Haakon VII Sea. Much of the southern part of the sea is covered by a permanent, massive ice shelf field, the Filchner-Ronne Ice Shelf.


title: Weddell Sea

text: The sea is contained within the two overlapping Antarctic territorial claims of Argentine Antarctica, the British Antarctic Territory, and also resides partially within the Antarctic Chilean Territory. At its widest the sea is around across, and its area is around .


title: Weddell Sea

text: Various ice shelves, including the Filchner-Ronne Ice Shelf, fringe the Weddell sea. Some of the ice shelves on the east side of the Antarctic Peninsula, which formerly covered roughly of the Weddell Sea, had completely disappeared by 2002. The Weddell Sea has been deemed by scientists to have the clearest water of any sea. Researchers from the Alfred Wegener Institute, on finding a Secchi disc visible at a depth of on , ascertained that the clarity corresponded to that of distilled water.


title: Weddell Sea

text: In his 1950 book "The White Continent", historian Thomas R. Henry writes: "The Weddell Sea is, according to the testimony of all who have sailed through its berg-filled waters, the most treacherous and dismal region on earth. The Ross Sea is relatively peaceful, predictable, and safe." He continues for an entire chapter, relating myths of the green-haired merman sighted in the sea's icy waters, the inability of crews to navigate a path to the coast until 1949, and treacherous "flash freezes" that left ships, such as Ernest Shackleton's , at the mercy of the ice floes.


title: Weddell Sea

text: The sea is named after the Scottish sailor James Weddell, who entered the sea in 1823 and originally named it after King George IV; it was renamed in Weddell's honour in 1900. Also in 1823, the American sealing captain Benjamin Morrell claimed to have seen land some 10–12° east of the sea's actual eastern boundary. He called this New South Greenland, but its existence was disproved when the sea was more fully explored in the early 20th century. Weddell got as far south as 74°S; the furthest southern penetration since Weddell but before the modern era was made by William Speirs Bruce in 1903.


title: Weddell Sea

text: The Weddell Sea is an important area of deep water mass formation through cabbeling, the main driving force of the thermohaline circulation. Deepwater masses are also formed through cabbeling in the North Atlantic and are caused by differences in temperature and salinity of the water. In the Weddell sea, this is brought about mainly by brine exclusion and wind cooling.


title: Weddell Sea

text: In 1823, British sailor James Weddell discovered the Weddell Sea. Otto Nordenskiöld, leader of the 1901–1904 Swedish Antarctic Expedition, spent a winter at Snow Hill with a team of four men when the relief ship became beset in ice and was finally crushed. The crew managed to reach Paulet Island where they wintered in a primitive hut. Nordenskiöld and the others finally were picked up by the Argentine Navy at Hope Bay. All but one survived.


title: Weddell Sea

text: The Antarctic Sound is named after the expedition ship of Otto Nordenskiöld. The sound that separates the tip of the Antarctic Peninsula from Dundee Island is also named "Iceberg Alley", because of the huge icebergs that are often seen here. Snowhill Island, located east of the Antarctic Peninsula. It is almost completely snow-capped, hence its name. Swedish Antarctic Expedition under Otto Nordenskiöld built a cabin on the island in 1902, where Nordenskiöld and three members of the expedition had to spend two winters.


title: Weddell Sea

text: In 1915, Ernest Shackleton's ship, , got trapped and was crushed by ice in this sea. After 15 months on the pack-ice Shackleton and his men managed to reach Elephant Island and safely returned. In March 2022, it was announced that the well-preserved wreck of the "Endurance" had been discovered from its anticipated location, at a depth of .


title: Weddell Sea

text: As with other neighboring parts of Antarctica, the Weddell Sea shares a common geological history with southernmost South America. In southern Patagonia at the onset of the Andean orogeny in the Jurassic extensional tectonics created the Rocas Verdes Basin, a back-arc basin whose surviving southeastward extension forms the Weddell Sea. In the Late Cretaceous the tectonic regime of Rocas Verdes Basin changed leading to its transformation into a compressional foreland basin – the Magallanes Basin – in the Cenozoic. While this happened in South America the Weddell Sea part of the basin escaped compressional tectonics and remained an oceanic basin.


title: Weddell Sea

text: The Weddell Sea is one of few locations in the World Ocean where deep and bottom water masses are formed to contribute to the global thermohaline circulation which has been warming slowly over the last decade. The characteristics of exported water masses result from complex interactions between surface forcing, significantly modified by sea ice processes, ocean dynamics at the continental shelf break, and slope and sub-ice shelf water mass transformation.


title: Weddell Sea

text: Circulation in the western Weddell Sea is dominated by a northward flowing current. This northward current is the western section of a primarily wind-driven, cyclonic gyre called the Weddell Gyre. This northward flow serves as the primary force of departure of water from the Weddell Sea, a major site of ocean water modification and deep water formation, to the remainder of the World Ocean. The Weddell Gyre is a cold, low salinity surface layer separated by a thin, weak pycnocline from a thick layer of relatively warm and salty water referred to as Weddell Deep Water (WDW), and a cold bottom layer.


title: Weddell Sea

text: Circulation in the Weddell Sea has proven difficult to quantify. Geopotential surface heights above the 1000 dB level, computed using historical data, show only very weak surface currents. Similar computations carried out using more closely spaced data also showed small currents. Closure of the gyre circulation was assumed to be driven by Sverdrup transport. The Weddell Sea is a major site for deep water formation.


title: Weddell Sea

text: Thus, in addition to a wind-driven gyre component of the boundary current, a deeper circulation whose dynamics and transports reflect an input of dense water in the southern and southwestern Weddell Sea are expected. Available data does not lend to the quantification of the volume transports associated with this western boundary region, or to the determination of deep convective circulation along the western boundary.


title: Weddell Sea

text: The predominance of strong surface winds parallel to the narrow and tall mountain range of the Antarctic Peninsula is a remarkable feature of weather and climate in the area of the western Weddell Sea. The winds carry cold air toward lower latitudes and turn into southwesterlies farther north.


title: Weddell Sea

text: These winds are of interest not only because of their effect on the temperature regime east of the peninsula but also because they force the drift of ice northeastward into the South Atlantic Ocean as the last branch of the clockwise circulation in the lower layers of the atmosphere along the coasts of the Weddell Sea. The sharp contrast between the wind, temperature, and ice conditions of the two sides of the Antarctic Peninsula has been well known for many years.


title: Weddell Sea

text: Strong surface winds directed equatorward along the east side of the Antarctic Peninsula can appear in two different types of synoptic-meteorological situations: an intense cyclone over the central Weddell Sea, a broad east to west flow of stable cold air in the lowest 500-to-1000-metre layer of the atmosphere over the central and/or southern Weddell Sea toward the peninsula. These conditions lead to cold air piling up on the east edge of the mountains. This process leads to the formation of a high-pressure ridge over the peninsula (mainly east of the peak) and, therefore, a deflection of the originally westward current of air to the right, along the mountain wall.


title: Weddell Sea

text: The Weddell Sea is abundant with whales and seals. Characteristic fauna of the sea include the Weddell seal and killer whales, humpback whales, minke whales, leopard seals, and crabeater seals are frequently seen during Weddell Sea voyages.


title: Weddell Sea

text: The Adélie penguin is the dominant penguin species in this remote area because of their adaptation to the harsh environment. A colony of more than 100,000 pairs of Adélies can be found on volcanic Paulet Island.


title: Weddell Sea

text: Around 1997, the northernmost emperor penguin colony was discovered just south of Snowhill Island in the Weddell Sea. As the Weddell Sea is often clogged with heavy pack-ice, strong ice-class vessels equipped with helicopters are required to reach this colony.


title: Weddell Sea

text: In 2021, sponges and other unidentified suspension feeders were reported to have been found growing under the Filchner-Ronne Ice Shelf on a boulder at a depth of 1,233 m (872 of which were ice), 260 km from open water.


title: Weddell Sea

text: In February 2021 the Alfred Wegener Institute for Polar and Marine Research with RV Polarstern, a colony of approximately 60 million Jonah's icefish was found to inhabit an area in the Weddell Sea. It is estimated that the colony covers around 240 square kilometers, with an average of one nest per every three square meters.


title: KCON (music festival)

text: KCON is an annual convention held in locations across the world, created by Koreaboo and organized by CJ E&M. It was first held in Southern California in 2012 and has since expanded to ten countries as of 2022.


title: KCON (music festival)

text: In 2015, KCON expanded to Japan and then quickly announced the first KCON USA on the East Coast. In 2016, KCON expanded into Abu Dhabi, United Arab Emirates and Paris, France. In January 2017, KCON announced that they would be hosting their first KCON Mexico at the Mexico City Arena on March 17 and 18, 2017.


title: KCON (music festival)

text: An online replacement of KCON due to the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic, titled KCON:TACT, started on June 20 until June 26, 2020 via YouTube, AISPlay, and Shopee. The second season started on October 16, 2020 and ended on October 25, 2020. The third season started March 20, 2021.


title: KCON (music festival)

text: KCON was first created by Koreaboo in 2012, after a partnership with CJ E&M's US-based subsidiary, Mnet America. It was produced by Powerhouse Live, who have continued to work on KCON from 2013 to the present. KCON's initial aim was to establish an annual flagship event that would improve the experiences of American fans by providing them with an affordable way to connect with each other as well as with artists and professionals from the K-pop music industry. During KCON '12, Mnet Media's Ted Kim was interviewed by journalist Michael Holmes from CNN to discuss the rise of K-Pop in the United States.


title: KCON (music festival)

text: On June 21, 2016, Euny Hong reported in the "Wall Street Journal" that the North American KCONs, although very popular, were only a break-even financially. CJ E&M's American CEO Angela Killoren said they are more interested in the long-term goal of raising Korea's brand value than short-term gain. Also, in a June press conference, Shin Hyung-kwan, president of CJ E&M's Mnet contents business, said, "KCON, which has been held in Abu Dhabi in March, Japan in April, and Paris early this month, is not just about making money. Numbers are important but what matters more is the potential created by the event for the next five, 10 and 20 years." Shin added that the company goals were increasing the growth of products and services to the global market by expanding partnerships with Korean small and medium enterprises.


title: KCON (music festival)

text: KCON '12 was held on October 13 at the Verizon Wireless Amphitheatre in Irvine, California. Music artists invited to perform include 4Minute, B.A.P, Exo-M, Nu'est, VIXX, and G.NA. Jeff Yang of "The Wall Street Journal" reported that KCON '12 attracted over 20,000 people.


title: KCON (music festival)

text: KCON '13 was held from August 24 to 25 at the Los Angeles Memorial Sports Arena. The lineup included K-pop artists Exo (K & M), 2AM, Teen Top, f(x), G-Dragon, Crayon Pop, Dynamic Duo, Yu Seung Woo and DJ Koo. It also included rapper Missy Elliott, who is featured on one of G-Dragon's singles. Super Junior-M's Henry Lau performed and spoke at a panel.


title: KCON (music festival)

text: KCON '14 was held on August 9–10, returning for a second year to Los Angeles Memorial Sports Arena. The artist lineup included B1A4, BTS, CNBLUE, G-Dragon, Girls' Generation, IU, Jung Joon-young, Spica, Teen Top, and VIXX. Featured guests included Lee Seung-gi, Lee Seo-jin, Yoo In-na, Nam Gyu-ri, Kim Ji-seok; and Eric Nam, who hosted red carpet interviews, filmed by "Viki"."DramaFever" documented the red carpet, explaining the missing Girls' Generation 9th member, Sooyoung, who was filming a drama.NBC News interviewed Billboard K-Town columnist Jeff Benjamin, journalist-author Euny Hong, and Girls' Generation's Seohyun and Tiffany to answer "what is K-pop"." In response to Fusion TV, KCON co-project manager Angela Killoren said, "There's still this sense that, I'm the fan, and I'm the only fan, or I'm one of very few, and these are my artists, you have this incredible sense of – you discovered them, and you own them."


title: KCON (music festival)

text: The two nightly concerts were shown on the weekly K-pop cable television show M Countdown. "2 Nights in LA" was broadcast on Mnet America in the U.S. and in multiple countries.


title: KCON (music festival)

text: Danny Im of Mnet America's show "Danny From LA" hosted the concerts, along with "DFLA" co-host Dumbfoundead, Jung Joon-young, Tiffany, and opener Lee Seung-gi."DFLA", in its third season, filmed a live taping of the show at the convention.


title: KCON (music festival)

text: For this year's event, Mnet America started a new web-series, "KCON EXPERIENCE 2014", with multiple episodes, including footage of the stars' arrival at the airport in Los Angeles, backstage activities, and the weekend's panels, fan meetings, food stands. The convention included an outdoor marketplace, food truck alley, a mini 4DX theatre, and open stage area; with panels and workshops about music, k-dramas, e-sports, choreography styles, makeup, hair trends; and as billed, "all things Hallyu". Korean gaming channel OnGameNet (OGN) also organized a ""League of Legends" Champion Festival", an event involving Korean team CJ Entus Frost and American team Cloud 9.


title: KCON (music festival)

text: The convention doubled attendance from the previous year, with 42,000 attending. Of those 42,000, nearly 40 percent come from outside California, most were female, and less than 10 percent were Korean.


title: KCON (music festival)

text: KCON '15 expanded outside the United States for the first time and was held in Japan at the Saitama Super Arena. M.I.B's Korean-Japanese vocalist KangNam was the events ambassador. The convention/outdoor stage featured Korean artists CODE-V, High4, Shu-I, Tahiti, and 5tion. Performances on the main stage included Got7, Super Junior, Kangnam, My Name, Lovelyz, Block B, Sistar, Infinite, B1A4, 2PM's Jun. K, and Supernova.


title: KCON (music festival)

text: Freelance journalist Patrick St. Michel, who has lived in Japan for years, covered the Saitama event for MTV Iggy, complimenting the eagerness of the enthusiastic fans (15,000 at the concert), and "KCON 15's" successful soft sell of K-pop as a means to help smooth over a long and complicated relationship between Japan and South Korea.


title: KCON (music festival)

text: On April 17, 2015, KCON said the California convention would expand to a three-day event, and would move from the Los Angeles Memorial Sports Arena to L.A. Live and the Staples Center in Downtown Los Angeles.


title: KCON (music festival)

text: The convention was preceded with U.S. news reports about the drama and film stars to attend, "People" interviewed "Korean heartthrob" Kim Soo-hyun, and "The Hollywood Reporter" accounted for Kim (My Love from the Star), Korean American Ki Hong Lee (The Maze Runner, one of "People's" "Sexiest Men Alive"), U.S. born Daniel Henney (his latest ) and Son Ho-jun (Reply 1994); as well as drama sessions to be headlined by writer Park Ji-eun (producer, "My Love From Another Star") and director Jin Hyuk (Master's Sun, Doctor Stranger). Actor Son Ho-jun and director Go Min-gum of tvN's "Mr. Baek the Homemade Food Master" appeared at DramaFever's co-sponsored screening room of trending K-dramas.


title: KCON (music festival)

text: English-language South Korean media Yonhap called the musical line-up "some of the hottest K-pop artists." It included AOA, Block B, Crush, Got7, Monsta X, Red Velvet, Roy Kim, Shinhwa, Sistar, Super Junior and Zion.T. Getty Images captured photos of Kim Soo-hyun, Eric Nam, and many of the musical performers, individually identifying each name in girl groups AOA, Red Velvet and Sistar.


title: KCON (music festival)

text: Billboard noted new group Monsta X after their performance, as a "hot item on the KCON lineup", referring to a similar audience response to KCON '14's newest group, BTS, a group that continued to do a sold-out tour in the U.S. a year later. Billboard gave detailed positive reviews for both night's concerts, and interviewed Red Velvet and Got7.


title: KCON (music festival)

text: The Los Angeles Times reviewed Sunday's stage, "the year's most significant concert for one of the world's most fascinating music and cultural scenes." "Mega-group" Super Junior's fan base, the "ELFs", were noticed by media, wearing their blue devil horns, with one 23-year-old describing that when she was sad, just looking at Super Junior made her really happy. Fusion TV named seven of their "favorite KCON fashion statements" of the performing bands.


title: KCON (music festival)

text: Another South Korean English-language newspaper, "The Korea Times", headlined, "K-pop proves itself a gateway to South Korea at KCON", and interviewed two "older" fans, aged 28 and 31, whose developing interest in K-pop and K-dramas led them to further interests in other Korean culture (technology, skin products, food and fashion). As in previous years, the convention attempted to satisfy attendees, with one South Korea language based institute helping fans write messages of love and support to their favorite stars in Korean. KCON organizer Killoren reiterated that the convention was not just music, but more, "a convention, a concert, content, a conversation."


title: KCON (music festival)

text: South Korea government's web portal Korea.net article stated 120 small and medium-sized enterprises set up booths, and included photos taken by Small and Medium Business Administration staff. They said, "Angelenos have shown their strong enthusiasm for all things Korean."


title: KCON (music festival)

text: In 2015, KCON expanded to New York City, being held outside of Southern California for the first time.


title: KCON (music festival)

text: A day before opening, "Vogue" discussed fashion and favorite designers with AOA and VIXX, the later kept busy with a first time "showcase" in Orlando, Florida. Vogue told East Coast K-pop fans to "rejoice...KCon, America's premier (read: only) Korean pop culture convention comes to New York for the first time this weekend, bringing four of the country's top acts stateside", and "Keep your eyes and ears out for snappy songs and slick dance moves, but above all, for the colorful fashion trends." After focusing on the idol's fashion wear in L.A., Fusion TV shared the East Coast's fan's homemade and designer fashions.


title: KCON (music festival)

text: Killoren told Fusion TV that fans are eager to learn as much as possible about their idols, so the convention tries to provide this, through Q&A sessions with artists by emcees, and "hi-touches" or high fives between fans and band members.


title: KCON (music festival)

text: The Korean Cultural Service New York (KCSNY) combined their fifth annual global K-pop singing and dancing competition (with auditions held worldwide) with KCON, for a pre-show concert of six finalists. N.Y.'s Washington Heights group, The Class, won with a performance of VIXX's "Hyde", and will travel to South Korea to represent the U.S. at the K-Pop World Festival.


title: KCON (music festival)

text: Teen Top's appearance made them the first band to perform for three consecutive years; along with Girls' Generation, AOA and VIXX.


title: KCON (music festival)

text: Billboard's review compared the concert and convention to the inaugural KCON '12 in Irvine, California, pointing to this year's fewer musical acts, but a similar convention set-up, and gave indication of it becoming an "East Coast staple."


title: KCON (music festival)

text: The New York Times said, "The tears began as soon as Teen Top waved hello", and interviewed passionate fans, some who lined up for the concert at 2:00 a.m., and attended both the West and East Coast shows. They described fans who wear facial cleanser used by actress Song Ji-hyo of variety show "Running Man" and according to DramaFever watch over 53.9 hours per month streaming videos, compared with about 10.7 hours for Netflix users, are 85 percent non-Asian, and are mostly women aged 18 to 24.


title: KCON (music festival)

text: Fuse TV said the convention attendees were represented by all racial demographics, "women didn't outnumber men the way you'd normally see at a pop music convention", and "teens were out in full force, but not the majority."


title: KCON (music festival)

text: In November, KCON held its first 2-day domestic convention and concerts on the South Korean island of Jeju. Daily solo performances were held at the convention hall stage, and a main stadium concert on the second night, with a line-up including Shinhwa, Roy Kim, Block B, SG Wannabe, SPICA, M.I.B's Kangnam, Poten, Park Boram (soloist from Superstar K2), Oh My Girl, Shin Seung-hun, Teen Top, Day6, , Mamamoo, Sonamoo and Chen Zi Tong.


title: KCON (music festival)

text: The Jeju Tourism Organization and CJ E&M said the event was scheduled in hopes of revitalizing the local economy by drawing more tourists to the island.


title: KCON (music festival)

text: By the end of August, KCON '15's total attendance for the U.S. and Japan was 90,000; L.A.'s three days had 58,000 attendance and the two concerts in Staples Center with a sold-out crowd of 28,000 fans and Gross Sales $2,055,800, Newark's total was 17,000, and Saitama had 15,000.


title: KCON (music festival)

text: In November, the yearly attendance totals grew to 107,000, with the addition of the Jeju dates, which approximately 17,000 attended.


title: KCON (music festival)

text: In 2020, all in-person KCON events scheduled were all cancelled due to the COVID-19 pandemic. On May 14, 2020, KCON announced that it will be taking place on Mnet's YouTube channel on June 20–26, 2020 titled, "KCON:TACT", with 4 hours of concert every day, a Meet and Greet, and other benefits included with a YouTube Membership. The second season of KCON:TACT was held from October 16 until October 25 on Mnet and KCON's YouTube channel through membership.


title: KCON (music festival)

text: On February 16, 2021, Mnet announced that the online concert and meet and greet is coming back for 9 days, from March 20–28, 2021


title: KCON (music festival)

text: In 2022 KCON is the year KCON switched from online to in person again. Due to the pandemic, the previous years (2020-2021), was held online. In 2022 it will be held in South Korea, Japan, the United States, and Saudi Arabia. It will be held from May 7 to October 16.


title: KCON (music festival)

text: Jeff Benjamin, Billboard K-Town columnist, wrote that the convention has "hit every note to provide a new look at a world of music still gaining ground in the U.S.", and with thousands of people from all over North America attending KCON ‘12, the convention has "truly proved its ability to pass language barriers and kick-start what may be an annual music tradition." "The Orange County Register" described KCON ‘12 as "A daylong K-Pop invasion at Verizon Wireless Amphitheater".


title: KCON (music festival)

text: In 2014, New York City's Fuse TV said, "In just three years, KCON has become an annual pilgrimage for K-pop fans in America." NBC News said, "Thousands of screaming fans and the stars they adore gathered in Los Angeles for KCON, a celebration of Korean pop music and culture". Miami's Fusion TV called KCON '14 "the mother ship of all Korean culture events in this country", and observed, "k-pop fans might be the most devoted in the entire world." Melissa Block of NPR's All Things Considered said of KCON '14, "K-pop is here to stay."


title: KCON (music festival)

text: In 2015, Daniel Kreps of "Rolling Stone" wrote: "KCON has become so popular in the U.S. that even the Los Angeles fest is expanding to a larger venue...as attendance has ballooned since the inaugural KCON LA in 2012", and "will go bi-coastal...and head to Newark", adding, "KCON also hosted their first ever Japan convention." August Brown of the "Los Angeles Times" wrote: "In its early years, many wondered whether a South Korean act (other than Psy) could impact mainstream top-40 pop. But after watching the Sunday night installment of KCON 2015, it's clear that's the wrong question. K-pop's young and wide-ranging audience is the new mainstream in America."


title: Numan Acar

text: Acar was born in 1974 in Kozoglu, a small village in the Kelkit district of Turkey; he lived in the nearby city of Erzincan until 1982, when his family emigrated to Germany. Acar earned a degree in civil engineering, then switched his focus to acting. He started performing in both Turkish and German films, then started "Acar Entertainment" in 2007, producing German-Turkish movies.


title: Numan Acar

text: After numerous roles in Turkish, German and South Korean film and television productions, Acar played his first role in an American production in 2014, as Haissam Haqqani in season four of "Homeland". He reprised the role in 2020 for "Homeland" eighth and final season.


title: Numan Acar

text: Acar, who lives in Berlin, speaks several languages fluently including German, Turkish, Spanish and English and has knowledge of Kurdish, Azerbaijani and Arabic.


title: Dylan (1973 album)

text: Dylan is the thirteenth studio album by American singer-songwriter Bob Dylan, which is made up of outtakes he recorded for earlier albums. Columbia Records compiled it with no input from Dylan and released it on November 16, 1973. The album followed the artist's departure from Columbia for Asylum Records, and the announcement of his first major tour since 1966. In Europe the album was re-released in January 1991 with the title "Dylan (A Fool Such as I)".


title: Dylan (1973 album)

text: The album is made up from studio outtakes from the previous Dylan releases "Self Portrait" and "New Morning". The nine songs featured on the album consist of six cover songs and three traditional songs, adapted and arranged by Dylan. The first seven tracks were recorded in June 1970 during the "New Morning" sessions, the last two were recorded in April 1969 during the "Self Portrait" sessions. The album features a different recording of "Spanish Is the Loving Tongue" from the version previously issued as the B-side of Dylan's 1971 single "Watching the River Flow".


title: Dylan (1973 album)

text: The album cover was designed by art director John Berg. The original photograph featured on the album's front was shot by photographer Al Clayton. The serigraph was carried out by artist Richard Kenerson.


title: Dylan (1973 album)

text: Although "Dylan" received very poor reviews upon its release, it managed to reach in the U.S. and was certified gold by the RIAA. It became the first Bob Dylan album not to chart in the UK, where his albums generally charted higher than in the U.S.


title: Dylan (1973 album)

text: " Dylan" was the only Columbia Dylan album not to be reissued on compact disc in the North American market, until 2013 when it was included in the "" box set.


title: Ion Storm

text: Ion Storm, L.P. was an American video game developer founded by video game industry veterans John Romero and Tom Hall, both formerly of id Software. Despite an impressive pedigree and high expectations, the company only produced one commercial and critical success, 2000's "Deus Ex".


title: Ion Storm

text: The company was founded in Dallas, Texas in November 1996; a branch in Austin, Texas was opened in 1997. In April 1999, Eidos Interactive acquired 51% of the company in exchange for advances to the developers. The Dallas studio closed in July 2001, leaving the Austin studio as the new headquarters. After financial struggles at Eidos Interactive, the Austin studio followed with its own closure in February 2005.


title: Ion Storm

text: Ion Storm was founded by John Romero, Tom Hall, Todd Porter and Jerry O'Flaherty on November 15, 1996, with its headquarters in Dallas, Texas. Hall came up with the name, the "Storm" part coming from Porter's first project for the company. The company had signed a licensing deal with Eidos Interactive for six games, and the founders planned to scoop up titles from other companies that were close to completion, finish them, and push them out quickly to bring in initial revenue.


title: Ion Storm

text: In a fashion similar to other dot com busts, the company spent lavishly on office decor and facilities for employees. The corporate headquarters of Ion Storm were located in Suite 5400, of space in a penthouse suite on the 54th floor, the top floor, of the Chase Tower in Downtown Dallas. Ion Storm spent $2 million on the facility. Lisa Chadderdon of "Fast Company" said that the penthouse location was "unusual". For the first ten years after the construction of the JPMorgan Chase Tower, the penthouse location had been unleased.


title: Ion Storm

text: Russ Berger Design Group, a firm most known for its work in designing recording studios, was responsible for the interior design of the headquarters. This included a ten-foot-wide company logo set into the terrazzo floor of the lobby and matching green elevator doors. The headquarters included a "crash room", a dormitory facility with two beds, three couches, a VCR, a wide-screen television, and two telephone booths. It also housed a gaming room with a ping-pong table and four arcade machines, a changing area, and a shower room. The headquarters included these facilities because many employees in the video game industry work long hours at a time. The sun shone through the office's glass rooftop directly into the monitors of the employees, forcing them to cover their cubicles with black fabric.


title: Ion Storm

text: The company's first attempt was Todd Porter's real-time strategy "". "Dominion" was already partially completed by Todd Porter's previous employer, 7th Level, and was expected to take $50,000 and three months to complete. Instead, development continued for over a year costing hundreds of thousands. When it was finally released in 1998 it received poor ratings and equally poor sales.


title: Ion Storm

text: John Romero's "Daikatana" was meant to be finished within seven months of the founding of Ion Storm and was to use the "Quake" engine. From very early on in the game's development, "Daikatana" was advertised as the brainchild of John Romero, a man famous for his work at id Software in the development of "Wolfenstein 3D", "Doom" and "Quake". "Time" magazine gave Romero and "Daikatana" glowing coverage, saying "Everything that game designer John Romero touches turns to gore and gold." During that time, in April 1999, publisher Eidos Interactive acquired a 51% stake in the company, in exchange for advances to the developers. An early advertisement for "Daikatana", created by marketer Mike Wilson and approved by Romero, was a red poster with large black lettering proclaiming "John Romero's about to make you his bitch", a reference to Romero's infamous trash talk during gaming. Nothing else was featured on this poster but a small tag-line reading "Suck It Down", an Ion Storm logo and an Eidos logo. However, already behind schedule, the decision was made to port the entire game to the "Quake II" engine, six months into development. "Daikatana" was ultimately released three years late in Spring 2000, after its promised launch date of Christmas 1997. The game was released to middling critical reviews, and an aggressive advertising campaign in 1997 touting Romero's name as the reason to buy the game backfired as fans grew angry over delays.


title: Ion Storm

text: After the game's release, co-founders Romero and Hall along with level designer (and Romero's girlfriend at the time) Stevie Case left the company in 2001 to form Monkeystone Games, a game company that produced mobile games.


title: Ion Storm

text: In late 1997, Warren Spector was asked to found the Austin branch of Ion Storm. By keeping well clear of the troubles at the Dallas office, Ion Storm's Austin branch was more successful. "Deus Ex," a first-person stealth shooter drawing from a melange of conspiracy theories, released to critical and commercial success in June 2000. With the demise of Looking Glass Studios, Eidos Interactive secured the rights to the "Thief" franchise and together with Spector tried to relocate as many of the Looking Glass team to Austin as was possible.


title: Ion Storm

text: Like "Daikatana", Tom Hall's role-playing game "Anachronox" was moved over to the "Quake II" engine. These changes brought costly delays to an already beleaguered product line. Although "Anachronox" received critical acclaim for its vast storyline and characters, it, too, was commercially unsuccessful on its release in June 2001.


title: Ion Storm

text: Romero and Hall left the company after producing "Anachronox" in July 2001. On July 17, 2001, four and a half years after the company's creation, Eidos Interactive closed the Dallas office. The Austin office remained open to produce "" and "" until Spector's departure to "pursue personal interests outside the company" in 2004. A number of other senior staff also left at about the same time. After finishing their 6 game contract, on February 9, 2005, Eidos announced that the Austin office would also close, meaning the end of Ion Storm as a company.


title: Ion Storm

text: The rise and fall of the company is documented in great detail in the book "Masters of Doom". "Doom" was just one of a series of blockbuster games Romero had designed, and Ion Storm was founded in no small part on his celebrity status within the industry. This elevation of the game creators over the products themselves caused problems early on, evidenced in a 1997 advertisement which hyped the subsequently delayed "Daikatana" by boasting "John Romero's About To Make You His Bitch...Suck it down".


title: Ion Storm

text: In 2010, Romero would later apologize for the infamous advertisement. Romero stated in an interview that "up until that ad, I felt I had a great relationship with the gamer and the game development community and that ad changed everything. That stupid ad. I regret it and I apologize for it."


title: Ion Storm

text: The critical and commercial failure of "Daikatana" was a major contributing factor in the closure of Ion Storm's Dallas office. ScrewAttack named this game the #7 bust on their 2009 "Top 10 Biggest Busts", which listed the biggest failures in gaming, due to its controversial advertising and the hype that Romero built on this game, which in the end turned out to be a failure. GameTrailers ranked this game the #2 biggest gaming disappointment of the decade (the 2000s), citing the game's terrible AI for friend and foe alike, pushed-back release dates, controversial magazine ad, and gossip-worthy internal drama (among other things) as "the embodiment of game's industry hubris."


title: Ion Storm

text: Since its release, "Deus Ex" has appeared in a number of "Greatest Games of All Time" lists and Hall of Fame features. It was included in IGN's "100 Greatest Games of All Time" (#40, #21 and #34 in 2003, 2005 and 2007, respectively), "Top 25 Modern PC Games" (4th place in 2010) and "Top 25 PC Games of All Time" (#20 and #21 in 2007 and 2009 respectively) lists. GameSpy featured the game in its "Top 50 Games of All Time" (18th place in 2001) and "25 Most Memorable Games of the Past 5 Years" (15th place in 2004) lists, and in the site's "Hall of Fame". "PC Gamer" placed "Deus Ex" on its "Top 100 PC Games of All Time" (#2, #2, #1 by staff and #4 by readers in 2007, 2008, 2010 and 2010 respectively) and "50 Best Games of All Time" (#10 and #27 in 2001 and 2005) lists, and it was awarded 1st place in "PC Zone"s "101 Best PC Games Ever" feature. It was also included in Yahoo! UK Video Games' "100 Greatest Computer Games of All Time" (28th place) list, and in "Edge"s "The 100 Best Videogames" (29th place in 2007) and "100 Best Games to Play Today" (57th place in 2009) lists. "Deus Ex" was named the second-best game of the 2000s by Gamasutra. In 2012, "Time" named it one of the 100 greatest video games of all time, and G4tv ranked it as the 53rd best game of all time for its "complex and well-crafted story that was really the start of players making choices that genuinely affect the outcome." 1UP.com listed it as one of the most important games of all time, calling its influence "too massive to properly gauge."


title: Jorge Salinas

text: Jorge Salinas (born July 27, 1968) is a Mexican television and film actor, best known for his leading roles in telenovelas.


title: Jorge Salinas

text: Salinas then enrolled at Centro de Educación Artística (CEA) in 1990 and after finishing his studies, he received his first opportunity in the telenovela "Valeria y Maximiliano". He also appeared in the telenovelas "El abuelo y yo" (1991), "Mágica juventud" (1992), "Dos mujeres, un camino" (1993) and "María Isabel" (1997).


title: Jorge Salinas

text: In 1999, Salinas starred in the main cast of "Sexo, pudor y lágrimas" and in 2000, he appeared in the film "Amores perros".


title: Jorge Salinas

text: Salinas played leading roles in the telenovelas "Tres mujeres" (1999), "Mi Destino Eres Tú" (2000), "Las Vías del Amor" (2002), "Mariana de la Noche" (2003) and "La esposa virgen" (2005).


title: Jorge Salinas

text: In 2008, Salinas was one of the leading actors of the successful telenovela "Fuego en la sangre", where he shared credits with Adela Noriega and Eduardo Yáñez.


title: Jorge Salinas

text: In 2012, producer Salvador Mejía Alexandre cast Salinas in the starring role for "Qué bonito amor", a new version of the Colombian telenovela "La Hija del Mariachi".


title: Jorge Salinas

text: In 2014, Salinas starred in the telenovela "Mi corazon es tuyo" ("My Heart is Yours"). This won the best novela of the year. He played the protagonist,(Fernando Lascurian Borbolla) alongside Silvia Navarro (Ana Leal) and the villain Mayrin Villanueva.


title: Jorge Salinas

text: In 2017, Salinas starred with César Évora in the stage play "Variaciones Enigmáticas", written by Eric-Emmanuel Schmitt.


title: Jorge Salinas

text: In 2019, Salinas starred in "Un Poquito Tuyo" as Antonio Solano with Majorie de Sousa as Juelita Vargas.


title: Jorge Salinas

text: In 2020, Salinas starred in "Te Doy La Vida" as Ernesto Rioja Armida with Eva Cedeno as Elena Villasenor and Jose Ron as Pedro Garrido.


title: Jorge Salinas

text: Salinas had a brief relationship with actress Adriana Cataño, and the couple have one daughter, Gabriella (born September 1995). He married Fátima Boggio in 1996; they had twin sons together, Santiago and Jorge Emilio (born 2005), before their divorce in 2009.


title: Jorge Salinas

text: Salinas has a daughter named Valentina Salinas Noli, from a relationship with Actress Andrea Noli born on September 9, 2006.


title: Jorge Salinas

text: On October 15, 2011, Salinas married actress Elizabeth Álvarez, whom he met while filming the telenovela "La Fea Más Bella" and later starred with in "Fuego En La Sangre". The couple had twins, daughter Máxima and son León, on December 2, 2015.


title: Deb Fischer

text: Debra Lynelle Fischer (; born March 1, 1951) is an American politician serving as the senior United States senator from Nebraska, a seat she has held since 2013. A member of the Republican Party, Fischer was the first woman elected to a full term as a U.S. senator from Nebraska, and previously served in the Nebraska Legislature, representing the 43rd district for two terms from 2005 to 2013.


title: Deb Fischer

text: Fischer was born Debra Lynelle Strobel on March 1, 1951, in Lincoln, Nebraska. She is the daughter of Florence M. (née Bock) and Gerold Carl Strobel. Her father was the State Engineer/Director of the Nebraska Department of Roads under Governors Kay Orr and Ben Nelson and her mother was an elementary school teacher with Lincoln Public Schools.


title: Deb Fischer

text: In 1972, Strobel married Bruce Fischer, from Valentine, Nebraska; she had met him at the University of Nebraska–Lincoln. She and her husband raised three sons on the Fischer family cattle ranch south of Valentine. In 1987, she returned to the university and completed her B.S. degree in education.


title: Deb Fischer

text: In 1990, Fischer was elected to the Valentine Rural High School Board of Education, serving until 2004. Governor Mike Johanns appointed Fischer as a Commissioner to the Nebraska Coordinating Commission for Post-Secondary Education from 2000 to 2004.


title: Deb Fischer

text: In 2004, Fischer ran for the Nebraska Legislature from the 43rd legislative district in the state's Sandhills region. In the nonpartisan primary, she came in second in a field of seven, receiving 2226 votes (25.1%); front-runner Kevin T. Cooksley received 2264 votes (25.5%). In the general election, she defeated Cooksley with 8178 votes to his 8050, for a margin of 50.4%–49.6%.


title: Deb Fischer

text: In 2008, she won re-election unopposed. Nebraska's term-limits law precluded her running for re-election in 2012.


title: Deb Fischer

text: Fischer's district was geographically the largest in the Nebraska Legislature, comprising 12 counties and part of a 13th. During her tenure in the legislature, she did a weekly radio show on seven stations covering her district, and wrote a weekly column printed in several newspapers.


title: Deb Fischer

text: In 2007, she helped to filibuster a bill that created a statewide smoking ban for indoor workplaces and public places.


title: Deb Fischer

text: In 2009, Fischer was one of fourteen co-sponsors of L.B. 675, which required abortion providers to display ultrasound images of the fetus at least one hour prior to the abortions, in a position where the abortion seeker could easily view them. A spokesman for the National Right to Life Committee stated that the Nebraska law was stronger than those of other states, which only required that the client be asked if she wanted to see an ultrasound image. The measure passed by a 40–5 vote, and was signed into law by Governor Dave Heineman.


title: Deb Fischer

text: Fischer served as chairwoman for the Transportation and Telecommunications Committee and helped pass the BUILD Nebraska Act through the Unicameral. This bill prioritized a quarter cent of the state sales tax for infrastructure projects.


title: Deb Fischer

text: In January 2012, after incumbent Democratic Senator Ben Nelson announced his retirement, Fischer officially announced she would run for the U.S. Senate. The Republican primary campaign was expected to shape up as a battle between Attorney General Jon Bruning and State Treasurer Don Stenberg; Fischer and three less well-known candidates were also on the ballot.