title: First Jewish–Roman War

text: The siege of Jerusalem, the fortified capital city of the province, quickly turned into a stalemate. Unable to breach the city's defenses, the Roman armies established a permanent camp just outside the city, digging a trench around the circumference of its walls and building a wall as high as the city walls themselves around Jerusalem. Anyone caught in the trench attempting to flee the city would be captured and crucified in lines on top of the dirt wall facing into Jerusalem, with as many as five hundred crucifixions occurring in a day. The two Zealot leaders, John of Gischala and Simon Bar Giora, only ceased hostilities and joined forces to defend the city when the Romans began to construct ramparts for the siege.


title: First Jewish–Roman War

text: During the infighting inside the city walls, a stockpiled supply of dry food was intentionally burned by the Zealots to induce the defenders to fight against the siege, instead of negotiating peace; as a result many city dwellers and soldiers died of starvation during the siege. Tacitus, a contemporary historian, notes that those who were besieged in Jerusalem amounted to no fewer than six hundred thousand, that men and women alike and every age engaged in armed resistance, that everyone who could pick up a weapon did, and that both sexes showed equal determination, preferring death to a life that involved expulsion from their country. Josephus puts the number of the besieged at near 1 million. Many pilgrims from the Jewish diaspora who, undeterred by the war, had trekked to Jerusalem to be present at the Temple during Passover, became trapped in Jerusalem during the siege and perished.


title: First Jewish–Roman War

text: In the summer of 70, following a seven-month siege, Titus eventually used the collapse of several of the city walls to breach Jerusalem, ransacking and burning nearly the entire city. The Romans began by attacking the weakest spot: the third wall. It was built shortly before the siege so it did not have as much time invested in its protection. They succeeded towards the end of May and shortly afterwards broke through the more important second wall. During the final stages of the Roman attack, Zealots under John of Giscala still held the Temple, while the Sicarii, led by Simon Bar Giora, held the upper city. The Second Temple (the renovated Herod's Temple), one of the last fortified bastions of the rebellion, was destroyed on Tisha B'Av (29 or 30 July 70).


title: First Jewish–Roman War

text: All three walls of Jerusalem were eventually destroyed as well as the Temple and the citadels; the city was then put to the torch, with most survivors taken into slavery; some of those overturned stones and their place of impact can still be seen. John of Giscala surrendered at Agrippa II's fortress of Jotapata while Simon Bar Giora surrendered at the site where the Temple once stood. The Temple of Jerusalem's treasures, including the Menorah and the Table of the Bread of God's Presence, which had previously only ever been seen by the High Priest of the Temple, were paraded through the streets of Rome during Titus' triumphal procession, along with some 700 Judean prisoners who were paraded in chains, among them John of Giscala and Simon Bar Giora. John of Giscala was sentenced to life imprisonment while Simon Bar Giora was executed. The triumph was commemorated with the Arch of Titus, which depicts the Temple's treasures being paraded. With the fall of Jerusalem, some insurrection still continued in isolated locations in Judea, lasting as long as 73.


title: First Jewish–Roman War

text: During the spring of 71, Titus set sail for Rome. A new military governor was then appointed from Rome, Sextus Lucilius Bassus, whose assigned task was to undertake the "mopping-up" operations in Judea. He used X "Fretensis" to besiege and capture the few remaining fortresses that still resisted. Bassus took Herodium, and then crossed the Jordan to capture the fortress of Machaerus on the shore of the Dead Sea and then continued into the Forest of Jardus on the northern shore of the Dead Sea to pursue some 3,000 Judean rebels under the leadership of Judah ben Ari, whom he swiftly defeated. Because of illness, Bassus did not live to complete his mission. Lucius Flavius Silva replaced him, and moved against the last Judean stronghold, Masada, in the autumn of 72. He used Legio X, auxiliary troops, and thousands of Jewish prisoners, for a total of 10,000 soldiers. After his orders for surrender were rejected, Silva established several base camps and circumvallated the fortress. According to Josephus, when the Romans finally broke through the walls of this citadel in 73, they discovered that 960 of the 967 defenders had committed suicide.


title: First Jewish–Roman War

text: The Roman suppression of the revolt had a significant demographic impact on the Jews of the Land of Israel; many perished in battle and due to siege conditions. The city of Jerusalem was entirely destroyed; it is unlikely that many Jews survived in Jerusalem or the surrounding area. Many of the Jewish rebels were scattered or sold into slavery.


title: First Jewish–Roman War

text: Josephus claimed that 1,100,000 people were killed during the siege of Jerusalem, 97,000 were captured and enslaved and many others fled to areas around the Mediterranean. A significant portion of the deaths was due to illnesses and hunger brought about by the Romans. "A pestilential destruction upon them, and soon afterward such a famine, as destroyed them more suddenly." Seth Schwartz rejected Josephus' estimates of the death toll as being impossible because, in his estimations, there were about a million people living in Palestine at the time, of which about half were Jews, and significant Jewish populations continued to live there after the war, even in Judea, which was severely damaged. However, according to Schwartz, the reported figure of 97,000 captives taken during the war is much more reliable. This would suggest that a sizeable segment of the population was either driven out of the country or, at the very least, displaced.


title: First Jewish–Roman War

text: The revolt affected Judaea's economic and social environment, as well as, to a lesser extent, the Jewish world at large. Due to the influx of pilgrims and wealth from the Roman and Parthian Empires, which concentrated vast wealth in Jerusalem, the Second Temple had developed into a massive economy by the first century, but the destruction of the city and the temple brought this establishment to an end. Additionally, according to Josephus and other scholars, the Romans confiscated and auctioned off all Jewish land or all land held by Jews who had participated in the insurrection.


title: First Jewish–Roman War

text: Before Vespasian's departure, the Pharisaic sage and Rabbi Yohanan ben Zakkai obtained his permission to establish a Judaic school at Yavne. Zakkai was smuggled away from Jerusalem in a coffin by his students. Later, this school became a major center of Talmudic study (see Mishnah). This became the crucial mark in the development of the Rabbinic Judaism, which would emphasize Torah study and communal synagogue worship, what would allow Jews to continue their culture and religion without the Temple and in the diaspora. The religious reaction to the destruction was also evident through changes in "halakhah" (Jewish law), midrashim, and the Syriac Apocalypse of Baruch, all of which mention the agony of the temple's destruction.


title: First Jewish–Roman War

text: According to Philostratus's "Life of Apollonius", Titus refused to accept a wreath of victory offered by the groups neighboring Judaea, on the grounds that he had only been the instrument of divine wrath.


title: First Jewish–Roman War

text: The "Jewish Encyclopedia" article on the Hebrew Alphabet states: "Not until the revolts against Nero and against Hadrian did the Jews return to the use of the old Hebrew script on their coins, which they did from motives similar to those which had governed them two or three centuries previously; both times, it is true, only for a brief period." Despite the heavy losses and the destruction of the Temple, Jewish life continued to thrive in Judea. However, dissatisfaction with Roman rule eventually led to the Bar Kokhba revolt of 132–136 CE, which appears to have resulted in Judaea's destruction and depopulation.


title: First Jewish–Roman War

text: The Great Revolt of Judea marked the beginning of the Jewish–Roman wars, which radically changed the Eastern Mediterranean and had a crucial impact on the development of the Roman Empire and the Jews. Despite the defeat of the Great Revolt, tensions continued to build in the region. With the Parthian threat from the East, major Jewish communities throughout the Eastern Mediterranean revolted in 117 CE. The revolt, known as the Kitos War in 115–117, which took place mainly in the diaspora (in Cyprus, Egypt, Mesopotamia and only marginally in Judea), while poorly-organized, was extremely violent and took two years for the Roman armies to subdue. Although only the final chapter of the Kitos War was fought in Judea, the revolt is considered part of the Jewish–Roman Wars. The immense number of casualties during the Kitos War depopulated Cyrenaica and Cyprus and also reduced Jewish and Greco-Roman populations in the region. The third and final conflict in the Jewish–Roman Wars erupted in Judea, known as the Bar Kokhba revolt of 132–136 CE, concentrating in Judea province and led by Simon bar Kokhba. Although Bar Kokhba was initially successful against Roman forces and established a short-lived state, the eventual Roman effort defeated Bar Kokhba's rebels. The result was a level of destruction and death that has been described as a genocide of the Jews, a ban on Judaism, and the renaming of the province from Judea to Syria Palaestina, with many Jews being sold into slavery or fleeing to other areas around the Mediterranean. Although Hadrian's death (in 137 CE) eased restrictions and persecution of the Jews, the Jewish population of Judea had been greatly reduced.


title: First Jewish–Roman War

text: The vocation of rabbi was founded by Rabban Gamaliel, a Pharisee, but the vocation's relationship to the Pharisees is debated. In any case, scholars agree that the rabbis replaced the High Priest's role in Jewish society after 70 CE.


title: First Jewish–Roman War

text: The destruction of the Second Temple in 70 CE marked a turning point in Jewish history. In the absence of the Temple, the synagogue became the center of Jewish life. When the Temple was destroyed, Judaism responded by more devoted observance to the commandments of the Torah. Synagogues replaced the temple as a central meeting place, and the rabbis replaced high priests as Jewish community leaders. Because of the rabbis' dominance after 70 CE, the era is called the rabbinic period. The rabbis filled the void of Jewish leadership in the aftermath of the Great Revolt, and, through their literature and teachings, helped Judaism adapt in the absence of the Temple.


title: First Jewish–Roman War

text: The main account of the revolt comes from "The Jewish War" of Josephus, a former Jewish commander of Galilee, who, after capture by the Romans after the Siege of Yodfat, attempted to end the rebellion by negotiating with the Judeans on Titus's behalf. Josephus and Titus became close friends, and later Josephus was granted Roman citizenship and a pension. He never returned to his homeland after the fall of Jerusalem, living in Rome as a historian under the patronage of Vespasian and Titus. Other accounts of the revolts, though not as accurate as Josephus, come from the "Histories" of Tacitus, "The Twelve Caesars" of Suetonius and the "Strategemata" of Frontinus.


title: First Jewish–Roman War

text: A "History of the Jewish War" was written by Jewish historian Justus of Tiberias, but it has been lost and survives only in quotes by Josephus, Eusebius and Jerome. It was apparently very critical towards "The Jewish War" of Josephus, prompting a harsh response from him in his autobiography.


title: First Jewish–Roman War

text: Another account of the revolt comes from a 4th century chronicle written in Latin by an anonymous author, erroneously thought to be Hegesippus in the past and thus commonly referred to as Pseudo-Hegesippus. However, such work is usually seen as nothing more than a rewriting of "The Jewish War" of Josephus with blatant anti-Jewish and pro-Christian alterations, and is therefore dismissed as unreliable by scholars.


title: First Jewish–Roman War

text: The events leading to the First Jewish – Roman War and the war itself are depicted in "Window To Yesterday The Swordsman".


title: First Jewish–Roman War

text: The First Jewish – Roman War and the Siege of Jerusalem are depicted in "The Lost Wisdom of the Magi".


title: First Jewish–Roman War

text: The First Jewish – Roman War and the Siege of Jerusalem are depicted in "The Legend of Destruction" 2021 Israeli film.


title: Flipped (2010 film)

text: Flipped is a 2010 American romantic comedy-drama film co-written and directed by Rob Reiner, and based on Wendelin Van Draanen's 2001 novel of the same name. Starring Callan McAuliffe, Madeline Carroll, Rebecca De Mornay, Anthony Edwards, John Mahoney, Penelope Ann Miller, Aidan Quinn, and Kevin Weisman, the film tells the story of two eighth graders who start to have feelings for each other, despite being total opposites. "Flipped" was released in theaters in the United States on August 6, 2010 by Warner Bros. Pictures. It garnered lukewarm reviews from critics, and grossed $4.3 million against a $14 million budget.


title: Flipped (2010 film)

text: In 1957, 7-year-old Bryce Loski moves in across the street from Julianna "Juli" Baker. Looking into each other's eyes, Juli knows it’s love, but Bryce is put off and avoids her.


title: Flipped (2010 film)

text: Four years later Juli is still completely enamored, rarely leaving Bryce alone. He tries everything to get rid of her, including dating Sherry Stalls, one of the most popular girls in school, whom he knows she dislikes. This does not deter her. Bryce's best friend Garrett, who has a crush on Sherry, tells her why Bryce is dating her, so she dumps him. Embarrassed, Bryce looks forward to seventh grade as he hopes with more students Juli will finally meet someone else.


title: Flipped (2010 film)

text: The following year, Chet Duncan, Bryce's grandfather, moves in with the family. Juli adores an old sycamore tree in their neighborhood, but one day discovers the tree is going to be cut down. Juli tries to prevent its removal by climbing it and refusing to come down. After much attention from the town, her father Richard convinces her to come out of the tree and it is cut down. Juli is almost inconsolable until Richard gives her a painting of the tree, which helps her overcome her distress, and her exploits are written about in the local paper.


title: Flipped (2010 film)

text: Juli raises chickens in her backyard as part of a school project and soon finds them laying eggs, which she sells to their neighbors but gives to Bryce as a gesture. She is hurt when she finds out Bryce has been throwing away the eggs she offered, out of his father's fear of salmonella due to the state of their yard. Embarrassed, Juli decides to fix it up.


title: Flipped (2010 film)

text: After reading about Juli in the paper, Chet helps her with her yard work and develops real affection for her, as she reminds him of his late wife. When traditional and house proud Steven, Bryce's father, criticizes the Bakers' apparent lack of care for their property, Chet confides that it's rented, as they devote most of their finances to caring for Juli's mentally-disabled uncle Daniel. The property is supposed to be cared for by their landlord. As Chet spends more time with Juli and encourages Bryce to be more open-minded, Bryce realizes he has feelings for her.


title: Flipped (2010 film)

text: Meanwhile, as Juli is encouraged to broaden her mind by Chet, she starts to question if she actually likes Bryce. Going with her father to visit Daniel on his birthday, they have a difficult but ultimately positive interaction. Afterward, Juli is told by a classmate that Bryce has been admiring her, but she overhears Bryce agreeing with Garrett as he makes fun of her and Daniel, causing Juli to completely lose interest in him. Unbeknownst to her, Bryce is disgusted with Garrett's attitude and stops spending time with him, but they remain friendly.


title: Flipped (2010 film)

text: Feeling badly about their indifference towards the Bakers, Bryce's mother Patsy invites them over for a family dinner. Bryce is excited, but Juli tells him privately that she overheard Bryce making fun of her and her uncle, calling him a coward for not defending her. The dinner gets off to an awkward start, but is a success. After dinner, Juli apologizes to Bryce for her behavior, and he realizes she feels complete indifference to him, leaving him feeling confused and hurt.


title: Flipped (2010 film)

text: As the basket boy auction, an annual school charity event, approaches, Bryce finds out he has been selected as a basket boy and will be auctioned off to the other students along with a homemade lunch. Juli finds out Sherry is planning to bid on Bryce, but acts uninterested. Bryce hears a rumor that Sherry and another girl are going to bid for him and Juli is seen having a lot of cash with her, but out of sympathy she bids on a rejected boy named Eddie Trulock instead. Sherry bids on Bryce and wins.


title: Flipped (2010 film)

text: During the basket boy lunch, Bryce is completely uninterested in Sherry's conversation, and instead watches Juli eat with Eddie Trulock. Overwhelmed with jealousy, Bryce gets up and tries to kiss Juli in front of all their classmates, but she rejects him and runs off in humiliation. Bryce runs after her, and Garrett confronts him for abandoning the prettiest girl in school. When he makes fun of Juli, Bryce ends their friendship for good. He tries to talk to Juli and explain, but Juli won't see or speak to him.


title: Flipped (2010 film)

text: Two days later, with Richard's permission, Bryce plants a sapling sycamore tree in Juli's front yard to show her how he truly feels. When she sees this, she goes out to help him and realizes that after all these years, they have never really talked. As they plant the tree, their hands touch, they look into each other’s eyes and share a knowing smile.


title: Flipped (2010 film)

text: "Flipped" has received lukewarm reviews. On review aggregator Rotten Tomatoes, the film has garnered a 54% approval rating based on 76 reviews, with an average rating of 6.00/10. The consensus reads: "While not without its nostalgic charms, Rob Reiner's sometimes awkward adaptation of Wendelin Van Draanen's childhood novel doesn't reach the heights of the director's earlier work like "Stand By Me"." On Metacritic, the film holds a rating of 45 out of 100, indicating "mixed or average reviews".


title: The Best of Me (film)

text: The Best of Me is a 2014 American romantic drama film directed by Michael Hoffman and written by Will Fetters and J. Mills Goodloe, based on Nicholas Sparks' 2011 novel of the same name. The film stars James Marsden and Michelle Monaghan with Luke Bracey and Liana Liberato.


title: The Best of Me (film)

text: "The film -- the story of Dawson and Amanda -- moves between alternate scenes of the couple's relationship in 1992, and their current separate lives."


title: The Best of Me (film)

text: Dawson Cole works on an oil rig off the coast of Louisiana. An explosion on the job nearly kills him, throwing him into the water, but miraculously he survives. After his recovery months later, Dawson learns that his close friend and surrogate father—Tuck—has died and returns home for the first time in almost twenty years to carry out Tuck's final wishes.


title: The Best of Me (film)

text: When he arrives at Tuck's house, Dawson is surprised to find that Tuck also arranged for Dawson's high school girlfriend, Amanda, to join him. It seems that Tuck's intention was to heal the hurt between Dawson and Amanda. However, Amanda is now married.


title: The Best of Me (film)

text: Dawson was born into a notorious backwoods criminal family with an abusive father. In flashbacks, it is revealed that as a teenager, he left his father's home and stayed overnight in Tuck Hostetler's garage. Tuck, a local mechanic who had recently lost his wife, allowed Dawson to live with him and eventually considered him a son of his own.


title: The Best of Me (film)

text: Dawson and Amanda attended the same high school and began dating, soon falling in love. On the afternoon of the prom, Dawson's father and brothers beat Tuck. Dawson, angered, goes to his father's with the intent of killing him with Tuck's rifle. However, they scuffle, and Dawson's cousin, an expectant teen father, is accidentally killed. In exchange for a lighter sentence, Dawson testifies against his father and brothers. Since Dawson would not be paroled for at least four years, he cut ties with Amanda, forcing her to choose college over staying with him.


title: The Best of Me (film)

text: After Tuck's death, Amanda and Dawson meet with Tuck's lawyer and learn that they are to scatter Tuck's ashes at a cottage he owned with his wife. Later, Dawson and Amanda spend a passionate night together. They have lunch and discuss their plans, during which Dawson is reminded by Amanda that she had continued to try to visit him in prison. The following day, Amanda decides to return to her family and her strained marriage, to fulfill her family commitments.


title: The Best of Me (film)

text: When Amanda goes home, Dawson remains at Tuck's to restore the garden. However, she later decides to split up with her husband, and she leaves Dawson a voicemail expressing her love. Before anything more can happen between them, Dawson is attacked and almost killed by his brothers, having been almost pushed in front of a moving train. Dawson knocks them out, but after calling 911, he is spotted by his father across the railroad tracks and is shot dead.


title: The Best of Me (film)

text: Meanwhile, Amanda gets a call that her son has been in a car accident. On arriving at the hospital, the doctor tells her he needs a new heart. That same night, the doctors tell her they had found a donor. While sleeping, Amanda has a dream of Dawson sitting on the side of her bed when she is awoken by the doorbell being rung by her mother, who has come to tell her that Dawson had been shot and killed by his father.


title: The Best of Me (film)

text: One year later, Amanda gets a call from her son telling her he found out who the donor was and that maybe she knew him: Dawson Cole. Shocked and happy upon hearing this, she drives back to the house Tuck had left them. It is there that she reads the letter Dawson had left her, telling her how much he loved her. She proceeds to take a walk through the garden Dawson had beautifully arranged for her before he died.


title: The Best of Me (film)

text: On June 17, 2011, Warner Bros. acquired the film rights to the novel "The Best of Me" by Nicholas Sparks. On March 15, 2012, it was announced that the studio had tapped screenwriter J. Mills Goodloe to adapt the book.


title: The Best of Me (film)

text: On September 27, it was reported that Warner Bros. was in final talks with Michael Hoffman to direct the film, Will Fetters was set to rewrite the screenplay, marking his second adaptation of a Nicholas Sparks novel, and Denise Di Novi was set to produce the film, along with Sparks and Sparks' agent Theresa Park as co-producers, marking Di Novi's fifth film collaboration with Sparks, Sparks' second time producing a film adaptation of one of his novels and Park's production debut. On July 25, 2013, Relativity Media acquired the distribution rights from Warner Bros., marking the studio's third film adaptation of a Nicholas Sparks novel. On October 22, Michelle Monaghan was cast to play the female lead Amanda Collier, and Ryan Kavanaugh was to co-produce the film. On October 24, the studio set the film for an October 17, 2014 release.


title: The Best of Me (film)

text: On January 9, 2014, the studio offered James Marsden, who co-starred in the 2004 adaptation of Sparks' 1996 novel "The Notebook" to play the male lead Dawson Cole, replacing Paul Walker after his death. On January 28, Liana Liberato joined the film's cast as the younger version of Monaghan's character, Amanda Collier. On February 12, Luke Bracey was added to the cast to play the younger version of Marsden's character, Dawson Cole. On March 12, Sebastian Arcelus and Gerald McRaney joined the cast of the film. Arcelus played Frank Reynolds, Amanda's husband and father of her children, while McRaney played Tuck, a widower who takes in young Dawson and becomes a friend and father-figure to him. On March 25, Jon Tenney was added to the cast to play Harvey Collier, the father of Amanda.


title: The Best of Me (film)

text: Principal photography began on March 6, 2014 in New Orleans, Louisiana for a 42-day shoot. On April 30 and May 1 the filming took place in the downtown Covington area. Also filming took place in parts of Pearl River, Louisiana.


title: The Best of Me (film)

text: On June 27, 2014, it was announced that composer Aaron Zigman would be scoring the music for the film.


title: The Best of Me (film)

text: The soundtrack album for the film, released on October 7, 2014, features original music primarily from the genre of country music, recorded by artists such as Lady Antebellum, Hunter Hayes, David Nail, Colbie Caillat, Kip Moore, Eli Young Band, Eric Paslay, Thompson Square, and Thomas Rhett. "I Did with You" by Lady Antebellum was released on September 8, 2014 as the first promotional single from the soundtrack. The band's other contribution, "Falling for You" is also available on the deluxe edition of their fifth studio album, "747".


title: The Best of Me (film)

text: "The Best of Me" opened in North America on October 17, 2014 across 2,936 theaters. It has grossed $26.8 million in North America and $9.2 million in other territories for a worldwide total of $35.9 million.


title: The Best of Me (film)

text: In its opening weekend, the film grossed $10 million finishing fifth at the box office behind "Fury", "Gone Girl", "The Book of Life" and "Alexander and the Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Day", making it the worst opening for a Nicholas Sparks' novel adaptation.


title: The Best of Me (film)

text: "The Best of Me" was panned by critics. , the film scored a 12% approval rating on Rotten Tomatoes, based on 82 reviews with an average rating of 3.64 out of 10. The site's consensus read, "At nine films and counting, the line between Nicholas Sparks film fans and detractors is clear, and "The Best of Me" will change few minds on either side of the divide." On Metacritic, the film scored 29 out of 100, based on 26 critics, indicating "generally unfavorable reviews". In CinemaScore polls conducted during the opening weekend, cinema audiences gave "The Best of Me" an average grade of "B+" on an A+ to F scale.


title: The Best of Me (film)

text: "The Best of Me" was released on DVD and Blu-ray on February 3, 2015. At the same time, a "Tears of Joy" edition of the film with a running time of 115 minutes and an alternated ending was released on DVD and Blu-ray.


title: Bill Nelson

text: Clarence William Nelson II (born September 29, 1942) is an American politician and attorney serving as the administrator of the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA). Nelson previously served as a United States Senator from Florida from 2001 to 2019. A member of the Democratic Party, he previously served in the Florida House of Representatives from 1972 to 1978 and in the United States House of Representatives from 1979 to 1991. In January 1986, Nelson became the second sitting member of U.S. Congress to fly in space, after Senator Jake Garn, when he served as a payload specialist on mission STS-61-C aboard the Space Shuttle "Columbia". Before entering politics he served in the U.S. Army Reserve during the Vietnam War. As of 2022, Nelson remains the last Democrat to have served as a United States Senator from Florida.


title: Bill Nelson

text: Nelson retired from Congress in 1990 to run for governor of Florida, but was unsuccessful. He was later elected Treasurer, Insurance Commissioner and Fire Marshal of Florida, serving from 1995 to 2001. In 2000, Nelson was elected to the U.S. Senate seat that had been vacated by retiring Republican Senator Connie Mack III with 51% of the vote. He was reelected in 2006 with 60% of the vote and in 2012 with 55% of the vote. Nelson ran in 2018 for a fourth term, but was narrowly defeated in the general election by then-Governor Rick Scott. In May 2019, Nelson was appointed to serve on NASA's advisory council.


title: Bill Nelson

text: In the U.S. Senate, Nelson was generally considered a centrist and a moderate Democrat. Nelson supported same-sex marriage, lowering taxes on lower and middle income families, expanding environmental programs and regulation, protecting the Affordable Care Act, and expanding Medicaid. Nelson chaired the Senate Aging Committee from 2013 to 2015, and served as ranking member of the Senate Commerce Committee from 2015 to 2019.


title: Bill Nelson

text: On March 19, 2021, President Joe Biden announced his intention to nominate Nelson to the position of NASA administrator. Nelson was confirmed by unanimous consent by the Senate on April 29, 2021, and was sworn in by vice president Kamala Harris on May 3, 2021.


title: Bill Nelson

text: Nelson was born on September 29, 1942, in Miami, Florida, the only child of Nannie Merle and Clarence William Nelson. He is of Scottish, Irish, English, and Danish descent. His father died of a heart attack when Nelson was 14 and his mother of Lou Gehrig's disease (ALS) when he was 24.


title: Bill Nelson

text: He attended Baptist and Episcopal churches but later was baptized through immersion in a Baptist church. He served as International President of Kiwanis-sponsored Key Club International (1959–1960). In 2005, he joined the First Presbyterian Church in Orlando.


title: Bill Nelson

text: Nelson attended the University of Florida, where he was a member of Florida Blue Key and Beta Theta Pi social fraternity. He transferred to Yale University, where he was a member of the Book and Snake secret society. Nelson received a Bachelor of Arts with a major in political science from Yale University in 1965 and a Juris Doctor from the University of Virginia in 1968.


title: Bill Nelson

text: In 1965, during the Vietnam War, he joined the United States Army Reserve. He served on active duty from 1968 to 1970, attaining the rank of captain, and he remained in the Army until 1971. Nelson was admitted to the Florida bar in 1968, and began practicing law in Melbourne in 1970. In 1971, he worked as legislative assistant to Governor Reubin Askew.


title: Bill Nelson

text: In 1986, Nelson became the second sitting member of Congress (and the first member of the House) to travel into space. He went through NASA training with Senator Jake Garn of Utah. Nelson was a Payload Specialist on 's STS-61-C mission from January 12 to 18, 1986. This mission was the last successful Space Shuttle flight prior to the "Challenger" accident, which occurred ten days after the end of this mission. In 1988, Nelson published a book about his space flight experience entitled "Mission: An American Congressman's Voyage to Space".


title: Bill Nelson

text: In 1972, Nelson was elected to the Florida House of Representatives as the member from the 47th district, representing much of Brevard County and portions of Orange County and Seminole County. He won reelection in 1974 and 1976.


title: Bill Nelson

text: Nelson was elected to the U.S. House of Representatives in 1978 in the open 9th congressional district after the five-term Republican incumbent, Louis Frey Jr., chose to run for governor of Florida rather than for reelection.


title: Bill Nelson

text: In 1980, Nelson was reelected to that district, which encompassed all of Brevard and part of Orange County. He was redistricted to the 11th congressional district, encompassing all of Brevard and parts of Orange, Indian River, and Osceola counties; he won reelection in 1982, 1984, 1986, and 1988. He remained a member of the U.S. House of Representatives until 1991.


title: Bill Nelson

text: Nelson chaired the House Space Subcommittee for six years as a key member of the House Committee on Science, Space and Technology. His district included Cape Canaveral and its space facility. In 1988, Bill Nelson criticized President Reagan's policy to export American satellites for launch on China's Long March rockets. Nelson called this an "inconsistent administration policy." Nelson stated that Reagan "wanted to build up commercial space ventures, and on the other hand, he is cutting off the commercial space ventures at the knees with these export licenses."


title: Bill Nelson

text: In 1990, Nelson ran unsuccessfully for the Democratic nomination for governor of Florida. His primary rival was former U.S. Senator Lawton Chiles. During the campaign, the younger Nelson tried to highlight Chiles' age and use of Prozac to treat his depression, but this proved to be an unpopular strategy, and Nelson lost by a wide margin, getting 30.5% of the vote to Chiles' 69.5%. Chiles went on to win the general election.


title: Bill Nelson

text: In 1994, Nelson announced his intention to seek the office of Treasurer, Insurance Commissioner and Fire Marshal of Florida. He won the election with 52% of the vote over State Rep. Tim Ireland's 48%. In 1998, he won re-election to the office, again defeating Ireland.


title: Bill Nelson

text: In 2000, Nelson announced that he would be running for the United States Senate seat held by retiring Republican Connie Mack III. Florida's resign-to-run law compelled Nelson to submit his resignation as Treasurer, Insurance Commissioner and Fire Marshal early in 2000 when he began to campaign for the U.S. Senate seat. He chose January 3, 2001, as the effective date of his resignation, as that was the date on which new Senators would be sworn in.


title: Bill Nelson

text: In 2000, Nelson ran as a Democrat for the U.S. Senate seat vacated by retiring Republican Senator Connie Mack III. He won the election, defeating U.S. Representative Bill McCollum, who ran as the Republican candidate.


title: Bill Nelson

text: Following the 2004 election, in which Republican George W. Bush was re-elected and the Republican Party increased its majority in both the House and the Senate, Nelson was seen as vulnerable. He was a Democrat in a state that Bush had won, though by a margin of only five percentage points.


title: Bill Nelson

text: Evangelical Christian activist James Dobson declared that Democrats, including Nelson, would be "in the 'bull's-eye'" if they supported efforts to block Bush's judicial nominees. Nelson's refusal to support efforts in Congress to intervene in the Terri Schiavo case was seen as "a great political issue" for a Republican opponent to use in mobilizing Christian conservatives against him.


title: Bill Nelson

text: Katherine Harris, the former Florida Secretary of State and two-term U.S. representative, defeated three other candidates in the September 5 Republican primary. Harris's role in the 2000 presidential election made her a polarizing figure. Many Florida Republicans were eager to reward her for her perceived party loyalty in the Bush-Gore election, while many Florida Democrats were eager to vote against her for the same reason. In May, when the party found itself unable to recruit a candidate who could defeat Harris in the primary, many Republican activists admitted that the race was already lost.


title: Bill Nelson

text: He obtained the endorsement of all 22 of Florida's daily newspapers. Harris failed to secure the endorsement of Jeb Bush, who publicly stated that she could not win; the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, which had supported her in her House campaigns, did not endorse her in this race.


title: Bill Nelson

text: As the election approached, polls showed Harris trailing Nelson by 26 to 35 points. Nelson transferred about $16.5 million in campaign funds to other Democratic candidates, and won the election with 2,890,548 votes to Harris's 1,826,127 votes. He won 57 out of the state's 67 counties.


title: Bill Nelson

text: Vice President Joe Biden called Nelson crucial to President Obama's chances for winning Florida in 2012. In March 2011, Biden was reported as having said that if Nelson lost in 2012, "it means President Obama and the Democratic presidential ticket won't win the key battleground state, either." Congressman Connie Mack IV, the son of Nelson's direct predecessor in the Senate, won the Republican nomination. Nelson eventually defeated Mack with 55.2% of the vote to Mack's 42.2%.


title: Bill Nelson

text: Nelson ran for re-election in 2018. He ran unopposed in the Democratic Party primary, which took place on August 28, 2018. He faced incumbent Florida Governor Rick Scott (a Republican) in the general election on November 6, 2018. The extremely tight race—with a margin of less than 0.25% separating Nelson and Scott—triggered a manual recount as mandated by state law. A recount showed that Scott had defeated Nelson by 10,033 votes.


title: Bill Nelson

text: A paper by scholars at the MIT Election Data and Science Lab concluded that the design of Broward County's 2018 general election ballots may have resulted in Nelson receiving 9,658 fewer votes than he otherwise would have received (which would have narrowed Scott's margin of victory but not changed the result of the election). The study found that many voters did not see the U.S. Senate race on the lower left side of the ballot and, as a result, did not cast votes in that race.


title: Bill Nelson

text: On May 28, 2019, Nelson was appointed to serve on NASA's advisory council. Nelson was a member-at-large of the council, which advises on all major program and policy issues before the agency. His appointment was praised by NASA administrator Jim Bridenstine, who stated that "Nelson is a true champion for human spaceflight and will add tremendous value as we go to the Moon and on to Mars."


title: Bill Nelson

text: On February 22, 2021, reports emerged that President Biden was considering nominating Nelson to be the NASA Administrator, then, on March 18, 2021, it was reported that Biden had selected Nelson for the position, with Biden officially announcing the decision the next day. Nelson's nomination received widespread support from members of Congress from both parties, including from Nelson's senate successor Rick Scott, as well as the overall space industry. The United States Senate in unanimous consent voted to confirm Nelson to be NASA Administrator on April 29, 2021. Nelson was sworn in on May 3, 2021, by Vice President Kamala Harris.


title: Bill Nelson

text: Nelson was often considered to be a moderate Democrat. He has styled himself as a centrist during his various campaigns. During Nelson's 2018 re-election campaign, challenger Rick Scott characterized Nelson as a "socialist"; PolitiFact described the assertion as "pants-on-fire" false. According to ratings by the "National Journal", Nelson was given a 2013 composite score of 21% conservative and 80% liberal. In 2011, he was given composite scores of 37% conservative and 64% liberal.


title: Bill Nelson

text: He has a lifetime conservative rating of nearly 30% from the American Conservative Union. Conversely, the Americans for Democratic Action gave Nelson a 90% liberal quotient for 2016. In the 115th Congress, Nelson was more conservative than 93% of other congressional Democrats. GovTrack, which analyzes a politician's record, places Nelson near the Senate's ideological center and GovTrack placed him among the most moderate Senators in 2017.


title: Bill Nelson

text: The only Florida Democrat in statewide office in 2017, he was described by Politico in March of that year as "a Senate indicator species...an institutional centrist." Politico wrote that the Democratic Party "is shifting left and so is he."


title: Bill Nelson

text: In July 2017, Nelson had a 53% approval rating and 25% disapproval rating, with 22% of survey respondents having no opinion on his job performance. FiveThirtyEight, which tracks Congressional votes, shows that Nelson had voted with President Donald Trump's positions 42.5% of the time .


title: Bill Nelson

text: In 2005, Nelson was one of ten Democrats who voted in favor of the Dominican Republic – Central America Free Trade Agreement (CAFTA) on its 55–45 passage in the Senate.


title: Bill Nelson

text: On several occasions, Nelson has voted to reduce or eliminate the estate tax, notably in June 2006, when he was one of four Democrats voting for a failed (57–41) cloture motion on a bill to eliminate the tax.


title: Bill Nelson

text: Nelson voted for the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009, often referred to as economic stimulus, proposed by President Obama. In August 2011, Nelson voted for a bill to increase the debt ceiling by $400 billion. Nelson said that while the bill was not perfect, "this kind of gridlock doesn't do anything." Nelson voted against Paul Ryan's budget.


title: Bill Nelson

text: In May 2013, Nelson asked the Federal Trade Commission and the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau to investigate why consumers who carried out a real-estate short sale were having their credit scores lowered to the same degree as those who went through foreclosure. Nelson suggested a penalty if the issue was not addressed within ninety days.


title: Bill Nelson

text: Nelson voted in favor of the Biggert–Waters Flood Insurance Reform Act of 2012, which required the National Flood Insurance Program to raise insurance rates for some properties at high risk of flooding to better reflect true flood risk costs and keep the program solvent. In 2014, following an outcry by Florida property owners facing steep flood insurance-rate hikes, Nelson supported legislation that would provide retroactive refunds for taxpayers who had experienced large hikes in their flood-insurance rates due to the sale or purchase of a home. The proposal would also cap average annual premium increases at 15 to 18 percent and allow insurance-rates subsidies based on current flood maps.


title: Bill Nelson

text: In 2010, PolitiFact found that Nelson had flip-flopped on the issue of earmarks, pushing for a moratorium on the practice after saying that "earmarks were an important part of creating jobs and growing Florida's economy."


title: Bill Nelson

text: In September 2014, Nelson said the U.S. should hit back at ISIS immediately because "the U.S. is the only one that can put together a coalition to stop this group that's intent on barbaric cruelty."


title: Bill Nelson

text: He supported the "Denying Firearms and Explosives to Dangerous Terrorists Act." Introduced in 2013 and again in 2015, it would keep guns from people with suspected terrorist links.


title: Bill Nelson

text: Standing outside the Orlando Pulse nightclub immediately after the June 2016 massacre there, Nelson called Omar Mateen a "lone wolf," and when asked if it was an act of jihad he said he could not confirm that. Shortly afterwards, citing intelligence sources, Nelson said there was apparently "a link to Islamic radicalism," perhaps ISIS. Nelson later said on the Senate floor that "terrorists...want to divide people" but that Mateen had instead "brought people together. Following the massacre, Nelson and Barbara Mikulski supported an increase in FBI funding. A year after the Orlando massacre, Nelson attended a memorial at which he reiterated that it had "united Orlando and it united the country."


title: Bill Nelson

text: In August 2017, the Miami Herald urged Nelson to back Lindsey Graham's Taylor Force Act, which would block U.S. subsidies to the Palestinian Authority, which gives monetary assistance to "Palestinian prisoners, former prisoners and families of 'martyrs.'" Nelson did vote for the bill, which passed overwhelmingly.


title: Bill Nelson

text: In March 2010, Nelson voted for the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act, also known as Obamacare, and the Health Care and Education Reconciliation Act of 2010, which passed and were signed into law by President Obama.


title: Bill Nelson

text: In 2016, he called the House Zika bill "a disaster," complaining that it would take "$500 million in health care funding away from Puerto Rico" and limit access to "birth control services needed to help curb the spread of the virus and prevent terrible birth defects." In 2017 Nelson wrote a letter to the Center for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) asking them to prioritize Zika prevention.


title: Bill Nelson

text: In September 2017, Nelson and Susan Collins (R-ME) introduced the Reinsurance Act of 2017, an effort "to stabilize the health insurance marketplace." It would provide $2.25 billion to "reduce risk for insurance companies by providing funds to insurers for high-risk enrollees" and "help keep premiums in check."


title: Bill Nelson

text: In January 2017, Nelson wrote President Trump a letter protesting his immigration order. "Regardless of the constitutionality or legality of this Executive Order," he wrote, "I am deeply concerned that it may do more harm than good in our fight to keep America safe." U.S. success in the fight against terrorism, he argued, "depends on the cooperation and assistance of Muslims who reject radicalism and violence. Whether intended or not, this Executive Order risks alienating the very people we rely upon in the fight against terror."


title: Bill Nelson

text: In March 2010, Nelson complained that President Obama had made a mistake in canceling NASA's Constellation program. He argued against the $6-billion Commercial Crew Development proposed by the presidential administration and for a NASA-developed heavy-lift rocket built on Constellation's inheritance (which was later included in the 2010 NASA Authorization Act and became SLS). 11 years later, Charles Bolden (NASA administrator in 2010) commented that Nelson's skepticism was common in Congress at the time and refused to call him an opponent of commercial crew.


title: Bill Nelson

text: On July 7, 2011, it was reported that Nelson said Congress "starved" the space program of funding for several years, but suggested that the situation was turning around and called on the Obama administration to push for NASA funding. In September 2011 Nelson, together with Republican Kay Hutchison, led the push to continue the development of Constellation's Ares V SLV in the form of Space Launch System.


title: Bill Nelson

text: In 2016, Sen. Nelson brokered a bipartisan compromise on ending import of Russian RD-180 rocket engines.


title: Bill Nelson

text: In 2017 and 2018, Nelson sought to prevent Jim Bridenstine, President Trump's nominee to head NASA, from being confirmed in the Senate. Bridenstine had no formal qualifications in science or engineering, and denied the scientific consensus on climate change. Bridenstine was ultimately confirmed.


title: Bill Nelson

text: During his own confirmation hearing in 2021, Nelson reversed his earlier stances on the Commercial Crew Program and desirability of a NASA administrator without STEM education, and praised Bridenstine (the latter endorsed him earlier).


title: Bill Nelson

text: In June 2021, Nelson told CNN Business' Rachel Crane about the future of U.S.-Russian cooperation in the International Space Station (ISS): "For decades, upwards now of 45 plus years [we've cooperated with] Russians in space, and I want that cooperation to continue. Your politics can be hitting heads on Earth, while you are cooperating" in space.


title: Bill Nelson

text: On December 18, 2010, Nelson voted in favor of the Don't Ask, Don't Tell Repeal Act of 2010, which established a legal process for ending the policy that prevented gay and lesbian people from serving openly in the United States Armed Forces.


title: Bill Nelson

text: On April 4, 2013, Nelson announced that he no longer opposed same-sex marriage. He wrote, "The civil rights and responsibilities for one must pertain to all. Thus, to discriminate against one class and not another is wrong for me. Simply put, if The Lord made homosexuals as well as heterosexuals, why should I discriminate against their civil marriage? I shouldn't, and I won't."


title: Bill Nelson

text: Nelson voted for the Authorization for Use of Military Force Against Iraq Resolution of 2002 authorizing military action against Iraq.


title: Bill Nelson

text: In July 2017, Nelson voted in favor of the Countering America's Adversaries Through Sanctions Act that placed sanctions on Iran together with Russia and North Korea.


title: Bill Nelson

text: In September 2016, in advance of a UN Security Council resolution 2334 condemning Israeli settlements in the occupied Palestinian territories, Nelson signed an AIPAC-sponsored letter urging President Barack Obama to veto "one-sided" resolutions against Israel.


title: Bill Nelson

text: In March 2017, Nelson co-sponsored the Israel Anti-Boycott Act, Senate Bill 720, which permits U.S. states to enact laws that would require contractors to sign a pledge saying that they would not boycott any goods from Israel, or their contracts would be terminated


title: Bill Nelson

text: In December 2017, Nelson supported President Trump's decision to recognize Jerusalem as Israel's capital.


title: Bill Nelson

text: In April 2017, Nelson called for tougher economic sanctions against Venezuela, which he called an "economic basket case."


title: Bill Nelson

text: He opposed a 2009 spending bill until his concerns about certain provisions in the bill related to Cuba were assuaged by Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner, who assured him that those provisions "would not amount to a major reversal of the decades-old U.S. policy of isolating the communist-run island."


title: Bill Nelson

text: In 2006, Nelson met with Syrian President Bashar Assad in Damascus at the recommendation of the bipartisan Iraq Study Group to try to improve US-Syria relations and help stabilize Iraq. He did this despite the United States Department of State and the White House saying they disapproved of the trip.


title: Bill Nelson

text: Following the destruction of Kosmos 1408 in an anti-satellite weapons test by Russia, Nelson stated that "With its long and storied history in human spaceflight, it is unthinkable that Russia would endanger not only the American and international partner astronauts on the ISS, but also their own cosmonauts", and the "actions are reckless and dangerous, threatening as well the Chinese space station".


title: Bill Nelson

text: In 2012, the National Rifle Association (NRA) gave Nelson an "F" rating for his support of gun control. Nelson is an advocate for new gun control laws, including an assault weapons ban, a ban on magazines over ten rounds, and a proposal that would require individuals buying guns at gun shows to have background checks.


title: Bill Nelson

text: In response to the 2016 Orlando nightclub shooting, Nelson expressed remorse that the Democrats' Feinstein Amendment, which would have banned the sale of guns to individuals on the terrorist watch list, and a Republican proposal to update background checks and to create an alert for law enforcement when an individual is placed on the terrorist watch list, had failed to pass the Senate. He stated "What am I going to tell the community of Orlando that is trying to come together in the healing? Sadly, what I am going to have to tell them is that the NRA won again." Both he and Marco Rubio supported the bills.


title: Bill Nelson

text: In October 2017, after the Las Vegas shooting, Nelson and Dianne Feinstein sponsored a bill to ban bump stocks for assault weapons. "I'm a hunter and have owned guns my whole life," he said. "But these automatic weapons are not for hunting, they are for killing."


title: Bill Nelson

text: Nelson spread misinformation via Twitter after the Stoneman Douglas High School shooting, falsely claiming that shooter Nikolas Cruz wore a gas mask and tossed smoke grenades as he shot people. After an April 2018 shooting in Liberty City, Nelson claimed that assault weapons had been used in the shooting, when in fact handguns were used.


title: Bill Nelson

text: Nelson and Mel Martinez co-sponsored a 2006 bill banning oil drilling off Florida's Gulf Coast. In 2017 he said he wanted the ban to continue to 2027, but that it was "vigorously opposed by the oil industry." Along with 16 Florida congress members from both parties, he urged the Trump administration to keep the eastern Gulf of Mexico off limits to oil and gas drilling. "Drilling in this area," they wrote, "threatens Florida's multibillion-dollar tourism-driven economy and is incompatible with the military training and weapons testing that occurs there."


title: Bill Nelson

text: In 2011, Nelson co-sponsored the RESTORE Act, which directed money from BP fines to states affected by the Deepwater Horizon oil spill.


title: Bill Nelson

text: On June 27, 2013, Nelson co-sponsored the Harmful Algal Bloom and Hypoxia Research and Control Amendments Act of 2013 (S. 1254; 113th Congress), a bill that would reauthorize and modify the Harmful Algal Bloom and Hypoxia Research and Control Act of 1998 and would authorize the appropriation of $20.5 million annually through 2018 for the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) to mitigate the harmful effects of algal blooms and hypoxia.


title: Bill Nelson

text: In 2015, after Gov. Rick Scott directed Florida officials to stop using the terms "climate change" and "global warming," Nelson introduced an amendment to prevent federal agencies from censoring official communications on climate change. It "fell to a point of order after a 51-49 vote, though Senator Marco Rubio (R-FL) joined Nelson in supporting the amendment."


title: Bill Nelson

text: After Hurricane Maria in 2017, Nelson and Marco Rubio agreed that Trump had taken too long to send the U.S. military to Puerto Rico to take part in relief efforts. "For one week we were slow at the switch," Nelson said in San Juan. "The most efficient organization in a time of disaster is an organization that is already capable of long supply lines in combat. And that's the U.S. military." After Hurricane Maria led many Puerto Ricans to flee to Florida, Nelson encouraged them to register to vote there.


title: Bill Nelson

text: In 2007, Nelson was the only Democrat on the Senate Intelligence Committee to vote against an amendment to withhold funds for the use by the CIA of torture on terrorism suspects. His vote, combined with those of all Republican members of the committee, killed the measure.


title: Bill Nelson

text: In January 2018, Nelson voted to reauthorize the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, which allows the National Security Agency to extend a program of warrantless spying on internet and phone networks. In 2015, he had called for a permanent extension of the law.


title: Bill Nelson

text: Nelson received campaign contributions from Saudi Arabia's lobbyists. In June 2017, Nelson voted to support Trump's $110 billion arms deal with Saudi Arabia. In March 2018, Nelson voted against Bernie Sanders' and Chris Murphy's bill to end U.S. support for the Saudi Arabian-led intervention in Yemen.


title: Bill Nelson

text: On August 7, 2018, Nelson claimed that Russian operatives had penetrated some of Florida's election systems ahead of the 2018 midterm elections; the claim was contentious during his 2018 re-election bid. He stated that more detailed information was classified. At the time, fact-checkers did not have evidence to backup Nelson's claims. However, later that August, "three people familiar with the intelligence" told NBC News "that there is a classified basis for Nelson's assertion", because "VR Systems had been penetrated in August 2016 by hackers working for" GRU.


title: Bill Nelson

text: A government official familiar with the intelligence told McClatchy that Russian hackers had penetrated some of Florida's county voting systems in 2016. DHS spokesperson Sarah Sendek said that the agency has "not seen any new compromises by Russian actors of election infrastructure." "The Tampa Bay Times" reported that Nelson had been told by leaders of the Senate Intelligence Committee of a penetration of some of Florida's voter registration databases in 2016.


title: Bill Nelson

text: Department of Homeland Security Secretary Kirstjen Nielsen and FBI director Christopher Wray denied Nelson's claims in a letter to Florida election officials. Amid the criticism, Nelson defended his assertions about Russian penetration, saying he and fellow Florida Senator Marco Rubio had been instructed by Mark Warner and Richard Burr, leaders of the Senate Intelligence Committee, to warn the Florida Secretary of State about Russian interference. Warner and Burr neither confirmed nor denied Nelson's claim that Florida's systems had been penetrated, while Rubio "has taken a line on the controversy similar to Burr and Warner's." The Foundation for Accountability and Civic Trust, a conservative watchdog group, filed an ethics complaint against Nelson, saying that he "discussed classified information or made it up."


title: Bill Nelson

text: Special Counsel Robert Mueller's investigation on Russian interference in the 2016 election, which concluded in April 2019, found that Russian intelligence officials "sent spearphishing emails to over 120 email accounts used by Florida county officials responsible for administering the 2016 U.S. election," and that "at least one Florida county" was successfully penetrated. In August 2018, federal authorities said they saw no signs of any "new or ongoing compromises" of state or local election systems. In May 2019, Governor Ron DeSantis said that voter databases in two counties had been successfully penetrated ahead of the 2016 presidential election.


title: Bill Nelson

text: In 1972, Nelson married Grace Cavert. The couple have two adult children: Charles William "Bill Jr." Nelson and Nan Ellen Nelson.


title: Problem solving

text: Problem solving is the process of achieving a goal by overcoming obstacles, a frequent part of most activities. Problems in need of solutions range from simple personal tasks (e.g. how to turn on an appliance) to complex issues in business and technical fields. The former is an example of simple problem solving (SPS) addressing one issue, whereas the latter is complex problem solving (CPS) with multiple interrelated obstacles. Another classification is into well-defined problems with specific obstacles and goals, and ill-defined problems in which the current situation is troublesome but it is not clear what kind of resolution to aim for. Similarly, one may distinguish formal or fact-based problems requiring psychometric intelligence, versus socio-emotional problems which depend on the changeable emotions of individuals or groups, such as tactful behavior, fashion, or gift choices.


title: Problem solving

text: Solutions require sufficient resources and knowledge to attain the goal. Professionals such as lawyers, doctors, and consultants are largely problem solvers for issues which require technical skills and knowledge beyond general competence. Many businesses have found profitable markets by recognizing a problem and creating a solution: the more widespread and inconvenient the problem, the greater the opportunity to develop a scalable solution.


title: Problem solving

text: There are many specialized problem-solving techniques and methods in fields such as engineering, business, medicine, mathematics, computer science, philosophy, and social organization. The mental techniques to identify, analyze, and solve problems are studied in psychology and cognitive sciences. Additionally, the mental obstacles preventing people from finding solutions is a widely researched topic: problem solving impediments include confirmation bias, mental set, and functional fixedness.


title: Problem solving

text: The term "problem solving" has a slightly different meaning depending on the discipline. For instance, it is a mental process in psychology and a computerized process in computer science. There are two different types of problems: ill-defined and well-defined; different approaches are used for each. Well-defined problems have specific end goals and clearly expected solutions, while ill-defined problems do not. Well-defined problems allow for more initial planning than ill-defined problems. Solving problems sometimes involves dealing with pragmatics, the way that context contributes to meaning, and semantics, the interpretation of the problem. The ability to understand what the end goal of the problem is, and what rules could be applied represents the key to solving the problem. Sometimes the problem requires abstract thinking or coming up with a creative solution.


title: Problem solving

text: Problem solving in psychology refers to the process of finding solutions to problems encountered in life. Solutions to these problems are usually situation or context-specific. The process starts with problem finding and problem shaping, where the problem is discovered and simplified. The next step is to generate possible solutions and evaluate them. Finally a solution is selected to be implemented and verified. Problems have an "end" "goal" to be reached and how you get there depends upon problem orientation (problem-solving coping style and skills) and systematic analysis. Mental health professionals study the human problem solving processes using methods such as introspection, behaviorism, simulation, computer modeling, and experiment. Social psychologists look into the person-environment relationship aspect of the problem and independent and interdependent problem-solving methods. Problem solving has been defined as a higher-order cognitive process and intellectual function that requires the modulation and control of more routine or fundamental skills.


title: Problem solving

text: Problem solving has two major domains: mathematical problem solving and personal problem solving. Both are seen in terms of some difficulty or barrier that is encountered. Empirical research shows many different strategies and factors influence everyday problem solving. Rehabilitation psychologists studying individuals with frontal lobe injuries have found that deficits in emotional control and reasoning can be re-mediated with effective rehabilitation and could improve the capacity of injured persons to resolve everyday problems. Interpersonal everyday problem solving is dependent upon the individual personal motivational and contextual components. One such component is the emotional valence of "real-world" problems and it can either impede or aid problem-solving performance. Researchers have focused on the role of emotions in problem solving, demonstrating that poor emotional control can disrupt focus on the target task and impede problem resolution and likely lead to negative outcomes such as fatigue, depression, and inertia. In conceptualization, human problem solving consists of two related processes: problem orientation and the motivational/attitudinal/affective approach to problematic situations and problem-solving skills. Studies conclude people's strategies cohere with their goals and stem from the natural process of comparing oneself with others.


title: Problem solving

text: Among the first experimental psychologists to study problem solving were the Gestaltists in Germany, e.g., Karl Duncker in "The Psychology of Productive Thinking" (1935). Perhaps best known is the work of Allen Newell and Herbert A. Simon.


title: Problem solving

text: Experiments the 1960s and early 1970s asked participants to solve relatively simple, well-defined, but not previously seen laboratory tasks. These simple problems, such as the Tower of Hanoi, admitted optimal solutions which could be found quickly, allowing observation of the full problem-solving process. Researchers assumed that these model problems would elicit the characteristic cognitive processes by which more complex "real world" problems are solved.


title: Problem solving

text: Much of computer science and artificial intelligence involves designing automatic systems to solve a specified type of problem: to accept input data and calculate a correct or adequate response, reasonably quickly. Algorithms are recipes or instructions that direct such systems, written into computer programs.


title: Problem solving

text: Steps for designing such systems include problem determination, heuristics, root cause analysis, de-duplication, analysis, diagnosis, and repair. Analytic techniques include linear and nonlinear programming, queuing systems, and simulation. A large, perennial obstacle is to find and fix errors in computer programs: debugging.


title: Problem solving

text: Formal logic is concerned with such issues as validity, truth, inference, argumentation and proof. In a problem-solving context, it can be used to formally represent a problem as a theorem to be proved, and to represent the knowledge needed to solve the problem as the premises to be used in a proof that the problem has a solution. The use of computers to prove mathematical theorems using formal logic emerged as the field of automated theorem proving in the 1950s. It included the use of heuristic methods designed to simulate human problem solving, as in the Logic Theory Machine, developed by Allen Newell, Herbert A. Simon and J. C. Shaw, as well as algorithmic methods such as the resolution principle developed by John Alan Robinson.


title: Problem solving

text: In addition to its use for finding proofs of mathematical theorems, automated theorem-proving has also been used for program verification in computer science. However, already in 1958, John McCarthy proposed the advice taker, to represent information in formal logic and to derive answers to questions using automated theorem-proving. An important step in this direction was made by Cordell Green in 1969, using a resolution theorem prover for question-answering and for such other applications in artificial intelligence as robot planning.


title: Problem solving

text: The resolution theorem-prover used by Cordell Green bore little resemblance to human problem solving methods. In response to criticism of his approach, emanating from researchers at MIT, Robert Kowalski developed logic programming and SLD resolution, which solves problems by problem decomposition. He has advocated logic for both computer and human problem solving and computational logic to improve human thinking


title: Problem solving

text: Problem solving is used when products or processes fail, so corrective action can be taken to prevent further failures. It can also be applied to a product or process prior to an actual failure event—when a potential problem can be predicted and analyzed, and mitigation applied to prevent the problem. Techniques such as failure mode and effects analysis can proactively reduce the likelihood of problems.


title: Problem solving

text: Forensic engineering is an important technique of failure analysis that involves tracing product defects and flaws. Corrective action can then be taken to prevent further failures.


title: Problem solving

text: Reverse engineering attempts to discover the original problem-solving logic used in developing a product by taking it apart.


title: Problem solving

text: In military science, problem solving is linked to the concept of "end-states", the condition or situation which is the aim of the strategy. Ability to solve problems is important at any military rank, but is essential at the command and control level, where it results from deep qualitative and quantitative understanding of possible scenarios. "Effectiveness" is evaluation of results, whether the goal was accomplished. "Planning" is the process of determining how to achieve the goal.


title: Problem solving

text: Some models of problem solving involve identifying a goal and then a sequence of subgoals towards achieving this goal. Andersson, who introduced the ACT-R model of cognition, modelled this collection of goals and subgoals as a goal stack, where the mind contains a stack of goals and subgroals to be completed with a single task being carried out at any time.


title: Problem solving

text: It has been observed that knowledge of how to solve one problem can be applied to another problem, in a process known as transfer.


title: Problem solving

text: Problem-solving strategies are steps to overcoming the obstacles to achieving a goal, the "problem-solving cycle".


title: Problem solving

text: Common steps in this cycle include recognizing the problem, defining it, developing a strategy to fix it, organizing knowledge and resources available, monitoring progress, and evaluating the effectiveness of the solution. Once a solution is achieved, another problem usually arises, and the cycle starts again.


title: Problem solving

text: Insight is the sudden a"ha!" solution to a problem, the birth of a new idea to simplify a complex situation. Solutions found through insight are often more incisive than those from step-by-step analysis. A quick solution process requires insight to select productive moves at different stages of the problem-solving cycle. Unlike Newell and Simon's formal definition of a "move problem", there is no consensus definition of an "insight problem".


title: Problem solving

text: Common barriers to problem solving are mental constructs that impede an efficient search for solutions. Five of the most common identified by researchers are: confirmation bias, mental set, functional fixedness, unnecessary constraints, and irrelevant information.


title: Problem solving

text: Confirmation bias is an unintentional tendency to collect and use data which favors preconceived notions. Such notions may be incidental rather than motivated by important personal beliefs: the desire to be right may be sufficient motivation. Research has found that scientific and technical professionals also experience confirmation bias.


title: Problem solving

text: Andreas Hergovich, Reinhard Schott, and Christoph Burger's experiment conducted online, for instance, suggested that professionals within the field of psychological research are likely to view scientific studies that agree with their preconceived notions more favorably than clashing studies. According to Raymond Nickerson, one can see the consequences of confirmation bias in real-life situations, which range in severity from inefficient government policies to genocide. Nickerson argued that those who killed people accused of witchcraft demonstrated confirmation bias with motivation. Researcher Michael Allen found evidence for confirmation bias with motivation in school children who worked to manipulate their science experiments to produce favorable results.


title: Problem solving

text: However, confirmation bias does not necessarily require motivation. In 1960, Peter Cathcart Wason conducted an experiment in which participants first viewed three numbers and then created a hypothesis that proposed a rule that could have been used to create that triplet of numbers. When testing their hypotheses, participants tended to only create additional triplets of numbers that would confirm their hypotheses, and tended not to create triplets that would negate or disprove their hypotheses.


title: Problem solving

text: Mental set is the inclination to re-use a previously successful solution, rather than search for new and better solutions. It is a reliance on habit.


title: Problem solving

text: It was first articulated by Abraham Luchins in the 1940s with his well-known water jug experiments. Participants were asked to fill one jug with a specific amount of water using other jugs with different maximum capacities. After Luchins gave a set of jug problems that could all be solved by a single technique, he then introduced a problem that could be solved by the same technique, but also by a novel and simpler method. His participants tended to use the accustomed technique, oblivious of the simpler alternative. This was again demonstrated in Norman Maier's 1931 experiment, which challenged participants to solve a problem by using a familiar tool (pliers) in an unconventional manner. Participants were often unable to view the object in a way that strayed from its typical use, a type of mental set known as functional fixedness (see the following section).


title: Problem solving

text: Rigidly clinging to a mental set is called "fixation", which can deepen to an obsession or preoccupation with attempted strategies that are repeatedly unsuccessful. In the late 1990s, researcher Jennifer Wiley found that professional expertise in a field can create a mental set, perhaps leading to fixation.


title: Problem solving

text: Groupthink, where each individual takes on the mindset of the rest of the group, can produce and exacerbate mental set. Social pressure leads to everybody thinking the same thing and reaching the same conclusions.


title: Problem solving

text: Functional fixedness is the tendency to view an object as having only one function, unable to conceive of any novel use, as in the Maier pliers experiment above. Functional fixedness is a specific form of mental set, and is one of the most common forms of cognitive bias in daily life.


title: Problem solving

text: Tim German and Clark Barrett describe this barrier: "subjects become 'fixed' on the design function of the objects, and problem solving suffers relative to control conditions in which the object's function is not demonstrated." Their research found that young children's limited knowledge of an object's intended function reduces this barrier Research has also discovered functional fixedness in many educational instances, as an obstacle to understanding. Furio, Calatayud, Baracenas, and Padilla stated: "... functional fixedness may be found in learning concepts as well as in solving chemistry problems."


title: Problem solving

text: As an example, imagine a man wants to kill a bug in is house, but the only thing at hand is a can of air freshener. He may start searching for something to kill the bug instead of squashing it with the can, thinking only of its main function of deodorizing.


title: Problem solving

text: There are several hypotheses in regards to how functional fixedness relates to problem solving. It may waste time, delaying or entirely preventing the correct use of a tool.


title: Problem solving

text: Unnecessary constraints are arbitrary boundaries imposed unconsciously on the task at hand, which foreclose a productive avenue of solution. The solver may become fixated on only one type of solution, as if it were an inevitable requirement of the problem. Typically, this combines with mental set, clinging to a previously successful method.


title: Problem solving

text: Visual problems can also produce mentally invented constraints. A famous example is the dot problem: nine dots arranged in a three-by-three grid pattern must be connected by drawing four straight line segments, without lifting pen from paper or backtracking along a line. The subject typically assumes the pen must stay within the outer square of dots, but the solution requires lines continuing beyond this frame, and researchers have found a 0% solution rate within a brief allotted time.


title: Problem solving

text: This problem has produced the expression "think outside the box". Such problems are typically solved via a sudden insight which leaps over the mental barriers, often after long toil against them. This can be difficult depending on how the subject has structured the problem in their mind, how they draw on past experiences, and how well they juggle this information in their working memory. In the example, envisioning the dots connected outside the framing square requires visualizing an unconventional arrangement, a strain on working memory.


title: Problem solving

text: Irrelevant information is a specification or data presented in a problem that is unrelated to the solution. If the solver assumes that all information presented needs to be used, this often derails the problem solving process, making relatively simple problems much harder.


title: Problem solving

text: For example: "Fifteen percent of the people in Topeka have unlisted telephone numbers. You select 200 names at random from the Topeka phone book. How many of these people have unlisted phone numbers?" The "obvious" answer is 15%, but in fact none of the unlisted people would be listed among the 200. This kind of "trick question" is often used in aptitude tests or cognitive evaluations. Though not inherently difficult, they require independent thinking that is not necessarily common. Mathematical word problems often include irrelevant qualitative or numerical information as an extra challenge.


title: Problem solving

text: The disruption caused by the above cognitive biases can depend on how the information is represented: visually, verbally, or mathematically. A classic example is the Buddhist monk problem:


title: Problem solving

text: The problem cannot be addressed in a verbal context, trying to describe the monk's progress on each day. It becomes much easier when the paragraph is represented mathematically by a function: one visualizes a graph whose horizontal axis is time of day, and whose vertical axis shows the monk's position (or altitude) on the path at each time. Superimposing the two journey curves, which traverse opposite diagonals of a rectangle, one sees they must cross each other somewhere. The visual representation by graphing has resolved the difficulty.


title: Problem solving

text: Individual humans engaged in problem-solving tend to overlook subtractive changes, including those that are critical elements of efficient solutions. This tendency to solve by first, only or mostly creating or adding elements, rather than by subtracting elements or processes is shown to intensify with higher cognitive loads such as information overload.


title: Problem solving

text: Problem solving can also occur without waking consciousness. There are many reports of scientists and engineers who solved problems in their dreams. Elias Howe, inventor of the sewing machine, figured out the structure of the bobbin from a dream.


title: Problem solving

text: The chemist August Kekulé was considering how benzene arranged its six carbon and hydrogen atoms. Thinking about the problem, he dozed off, and dreamt of dancing atoms that fell into a snakelike pattern, which led him to discover the benzene ring. As Kekulé wrote in his diary,


title: Problem solving

text: There also are empirical studies of how people can think consciously about a problem before going to sleep, and then solve the problem with a dream image. Dream researcher William C. Dement told his undergraduate class of 500 students that he wanted them to think about an infinite series, whose first elements were OTTFF, to see if they could deduce the principle behind it and to say what the next elements of the series would be. He asked them to think about this problem every night for 15 minutes before going to sleep and to write down any dreams that they then had. They were instructed to think about the problem again for 15 minutes when they awakened in the morning.


title: Problem solving

text: The sequence OTTFF is the first letters of the numbers: one, two, three, four, five. The next five elements of the series are SSENT (six, seven, eight, nine, ten). Some of the students solved the puzzle by reflecting on their dreams. One example was a student who reported the following dream:


title: Problem solving

text: With more than 500 undergraduate students, 87 dreams were judged to be related to the problems students were assigned (53 directly related and 34 indirectly related). Yet of the people who had dreams that apparently solved the problem, only seven were actually able to consciously know the solution. The rest (46 out of 53) thought they did not know the solution.


title: Problem solving

text: Mark Blechner conducted this experiment and obtained results similar to Dement's. He found that while trying to solve the problem, people had dreams in which the solution appeared to be obvious from the dream, but it was rare for the dreamers to realize how their dreams had solved the puzzle. Coaxing or hints did not get them to realize it, although once they heard the solution, they recognized how their dream had solved it. For example, one person in that OTTFF experiment dreamed:


title: Problem solving

text: In the dream, the person counted out the next elements of the series six, seven, eight, nine, ten, eleven, twelve yet he did not realize that this was the solution of the problem. His sleeping mindbrain solved the problem, but his waking mindbrain was not aware how.


title: Problem solving

text: Albert Einstein believed that much problem solving goes on unconsciously, and the person must then figure out and formulate consciously what the mindbrain has already solved. He believed this was his process in formulating the theory of relativity: "The creator of the problem possesses the solution." Einstein said that he did his problem-solving without words, mostly in images. "The words or the language, as they are written or spoken, do not seem to play any role in my mechanism of thought. The psychical entities which seem to serve as elements in thought are certain signs and more or less clear images which can be 'voluntarily' reproduced and combined."


title: Problem solving

text: In cognitive sciences, researchers' realization that problem-solving processes differ across knowledge domains and across levels of expertise and that, consequently, findings obtained in the laboratory cannot necessarily generalize to problem-solving situations outside the laboratory, has led to an emphasis on real-world problem solving since the 1990s. This emphasis has been expressed quite differently in North America and Europe, however. Whereas North American research has typically concentrated on studying problem solving in separate, natural knowledge domains, much of the European research has focused on novel, complex problems, and has been performed with computerized scenarios.


title: Problem solving

text: In Europe, two main approaches have surfaced, one initiated by Donald Broadbent in the United Kingdom and the other one by Dietrich Dörner in Germany. The two approaches share an emphasis on relatively complex, semantically rich, computerized laboratory tasks, constructed to resemble real-life problems. The approaches differ somewhat in their theoretical goals and methodology, however. The tradition initiated by Broadbent emphasizes the distinction between cognitive problem-solving processes that operate under awareness versus outside of awareness, and typically employs mathematically well-defined computerized systems. The tradition initiated by Dörner, on the other hand, has an interest in the interplay of the cognitive, motivational, and social components of problem solving, and utilizes very complex computerized scenarios that contain up to 2,000 highly interconnected variables.


title: Problem solving

text: In North America, initiated by the work of Herbert A. Simon on "learning by doing" in semantically rich domains, researchers began to investigate problem solving separately in different natural knowledge domainssuch as physics, writing, or chess playingthus relinquishing their attempts to extract a global theory of problem solving. Instead, these researchers have frequently focused on the development of problem solving within a certain domain, that is on the development of expertise.


title: Problem solving

text: Complex problem solving (CPS) is distinguishable from simple problem solving (SPS). When dealing with SPS there is a singular and simple obstacle in the way. But CPS comprises one or more obstacles at a time. In a real-life example, a surgeon at work has far more complex problems than an individual deciding what shoes to wear. As elucidated by Dietrich Dörner, and later expanded upon by Joachim Funke, complex problems have some typical characteristics as follows:


title: Problem solving

text: Problem solving is applied on many different levels − from the individual to the civilizational. Collective problem solving refers to problem solving performed collectively.


title: Problem solving

text: It has been noted that the complexity of contemporary problems has exceeded the cognitive capacity of any individual and requires different but complementary expertise and collective problem solving ability.


title: Problem solving

text: Collective intelligence is shared or group intelligence that emerges from the collaboration, collective efforts, and competition of many individuals.


title: Problem solving

text: Collaborative problem solving is about people working together face-to-face or in online workspaces with a focus on solving real world problems. These groups are made up of members that share a common concern, a similar passion, and/or a commitment to their work. Members are willing to ask questions, wonder, and try to understand common issues. They share expertise, experiences, tools, and methods. These groups can be assigned by instructors, or may be student regulated based on the individual student needs. The groups, or group members, may be fluid based on need, or may only occur temporarily to finish an assigned task. They may also be more permanent in nature depending on the needs of the learners. All members of the group must have some input into the decision-making process and have a role in the learning process. Group members are responsible for the thinking, teaching, and monitoring of all members in the group. Group work must be coordinated among its members so that each member makes an equal contribution to the whole work. Group members must identify and build on their individual strengths so that everyone can make a significant contribution to the task. Collaborative groups require joint intellectual efforts between the members and involve social interactions to solve problems together. The knowledge shared during these interactions is acquired during communication, negotiation, and production of materials. Members actively seek information from others by asking questions. The capacity to use questions to acquire new information increases understanding and the ability to solve problems. Collaborative group work has the ability to promote critical thinking skills, problem solving skills, social skills, and self-esteem. By using collaboration and communication, members often learn from one another and construct meaningful knowledge that often leads to better learning outcomes than individual work.


title: Problem solving

text: In a 1962 research report, Douglas Engelbart linked collective intelligence to organizational effectiveness, and predicted that pro-actively 'augmenting human intellect' would yield a multiplier effect in group problem solving: "Three people working together in this augmented mode [would] seem to be more than three times as effective in solving a complex problem as is one augmented person working alone".


title: Problem solving

text: Henry Jenkins, a key theorist of new media and media convergence draws on the theory that collective intelligence can be attributed to media convergence and participatory culture. He criticizes contemporary education for failing to incorporate online trends of collective problem solving into the classroom, stating "whereas a collective intelligence community encourages ownership of work as a group, schools grade individuals". Jenkins argues that interaction within a knowledge community builds vital skills for young people, and teamwork through collective intelligence communities contributes to the development of such skills.


title: Problem solving

text: Collective impact is the commitment of a group of actors from different sectors to a common agenda for solving a specific social problem, using a structured form of collaboration.


title: Problem solving

text: After World War II the UN, the Bretton Woods organization and the WTO were created; collective problem solving on the international level crystallized around these three types of organizations from the 1980s onward. As these global institutions remain state-like or state-centric it has been called unsurprising that these continue state-like or state-centric approaches to collective problem-solving rather than alternative ones.


title: Problem solving

text: Crowdsourcing is a process of accumulating the ideas, thoughts or information from many independent participants, with aim to find the best solution for a given challenge. Modern information technologies allow for massive number of subjects to be involved as well as systems of managing these suggestions that provide good results. With the Internet a new capacity for collective, including planetary-scale, problem solving was created.


title: Caroline Aherne

text: Caroline Mary Aherne (24 December 1963 – 2 July 2016) was an English actress, comedian and writer. She was best known for performing as the acerbic chat show host "Mrs Merton", in various roles in "The Fast Show", and as Denise in "The Royle Family", a series which she co-wrote. She won BAFTA awards for her work on "The Mrs Merton Show" and "The Royle Family".


title: Caroline Aherne

text: Aherne narrated the Channel 4 reality television series "Gogglebox" from its inception in 2013 until 8 April 2016. Aherne died of cancer at the age of 52.


title: Caroline Aherne

text: Aherne was born in Ealing, London, on 24 December 1963, the second child of Irish parents Bartholomew Edmond "Bert" Aherne, a railwayman with London Transport, and Mary Frances "Maureen" Aherne ("née" Regan). From the age of two, Aherne was brought up in Wythenshawe, Manchester. Like her brother, Patrick, Aherne had retinoblastoma in childhood, which left her partially sighted in one eye.


title: Caroline Aherne

text: She attended the Hollies Convent FCJ School in West Didsbury and then studied drama at Liverpool Polytechnic.


title: Caroline Aherne

text: Aherne began performing on the Manchester comedy circuit as characters such as Mitzi Goldberg, lead singer of the comedy country and western act the Mitzi Goldberg Experience, and Sister Mary Immaculate, an Irish nun.


title: Caroline Aherne

text: The Mrs Merton character originated as a voice on the 1988 Frank Sidebottom album titled "5:9:88", after Aherne worked as a receptionist for his show on Piccadilly Radio. Aherne was then invited by DJ Martin Kelner to develop the character on his show, where she would spend many years appearing as a comedy agony aunt across the north of England on the BBC Night Network.


title: Caroline Aherne

text: In 1990 Aherne became a late night radio presenter on KFM Radio in Stockport, joining a line-up which included Craig Cash as well as Jon Ronson, Spence MacDonnald and "The Word"'s Terry Christian.


title: Caroline Aherne

text: Aherne's first TV appearances were as Mrs Merton in a semi-regular spot on the Granada TV discussion show "Upfront" in 1990. After that Mrs Merton became the regular celebrity interviewer on Granada's Saturday morning show "Express!", a youth TV programme presented by I Am Kloot's John 'Johnny Dangerously' Bramwell and Sumy Kuraishe from a number of random locations in the north west. In 1992, Aherne appeared as Mrs Merton in the local Yorkshire Television series, "Frank’s Fantastic Shed Show", with Chris Sievey in his Frank Sidebottom persona. For this Leeds-based ITV station Aherne had recorded a pilot of "Mrs Murton's Nightcap", but they had not pursued the concept. In 1993, she made brief appearances in "The Smell of Reeves and Mortimer" and alongside Steve Coogan and John Thomson in a Granada TV pilot entitled "The Dead Good Show".


title: Caroline Aherne

text: She rose to prominence in 1994 as her created character Mrs Merton on the mock chat show "The Mrs Merton Show" under her married name of Caroline Hook. The guests were real-life celebrities, not actors, who found themselves the subject of outrageous "faux-naïf" questions – in one memorable example the wife of magician Paul Daniels, Debbie McGee, was asked "So, what first attracted you to the millionaire Paul Daniels?" - while a regular audience of pensioners were used each week for Mrs Merton to bounce questions off.


title: Caroline Aherne

text: Another episode featured comedian Bernard Manning and actor Richard Wilson. Manning clashed with Wilson and Aherne as she asked him about his racist attitudes at one point saying, “Who do you vote for now Hitler's dead?”, although he acknowledged that "One Foot in the Grave" was funny. The series ran in various formats from 1994 to 1997, winning a BAFTA for Best Talk Show in 1997. The success of the show was partly attributed to the "round vowel sounds of the North West accent" which "naturally sound safe and unthreatening" and which allowed the character "to ask the most outrageous, below-the-belt questions of her guest stars".


title: Caroline Aherne

text: The Mrs Merton character was given a sitcom, "Mrs Merton and Malcolm", which depicted her home life with her "mummy's boy" son (played by co-writer Craig Cash). This aspect of Malcolm's character was exaggerated to the point that many complained the series ridiculed those with learning difficulties. "Mrs Merton and Malcolm" lasted one series, and was released on DVD in 2008.


title: Caroline Aherne

text: Between 1994 and 1997 she appeared in and wrote for the BBC comedy series "The Fast Show". One of her most notable characters was the "Chanel 9 Neus" meteorologist Poula Fisch, who invariably reported a temperature for all locations of 45 °C (113 °F) while exclaiming "Scorchio!" with apparent surprise. Other characters included the endlessly chattering northern Renée, wife of submissive husband Roy and supermarket Checkout Girl who, by way of conversation, would comment nosily and judgementally on each item a customer had bought.


title: Caroline Aherne

text: Aherne's most popular creation is the situation comedy "The Royle Family", which she co-created and wrote with Cash, and directed in its third series. The programme ran for three series from 1998 to 2000. Aherne starred alongside Ricky Tomlinson and Sue Johnston, as their daughter Denise Royle. The show was a commercial and critical success, and ran for three series with a total of 20 episodes as well as five one-offs made for showing at Christmas. After a 2000 spoof documentary with Cash entitled "Back Passage to India", Aherne said "The Royle Family" would end in December 2000 after a Christmas special, and that she would not appear on television again, although she would continue to write. Aherne received BAFTAs for Best Sitcom in 2000 and 2007, and she won the BAFTA for Best Comedy Performance in 2000. She was nominated for directing in 2001.


title: Caroline Aherne

text: Following a disagreement with Cash, Aherne moved to Australia, retreating from the press. She wrote "Dossa and Joe" which was screened on BBC Two in 2002. Although critics applauded it, the show failed to attract viewers and did not return for a second series. Returning to Britain, she began work on another sitcom with Cash, but pulled out, after which Cash wrote "Early Doors" with Phil Mealey; Aherne was listed in the credits in the "Thanks To" section.


title: Caroline Aherne

text: After "Dossa and Joe", Aherne avoided media attention. When "The Fast Show" was featured on the BBC One show "Comedy Connections", Aherne was the only cast member not interviewed. In April 2006, the BBC said Aherne and Cash were developing a script for a one-off special of "The Royle Family". "The Royle Family: The Queen of Sheba" was broadcast on 29 October 2006, to an audience of 7.8 million. Aherne subsequently made few TV appearances. On 14 October 2008, she appeared in the BBC comedy drama "Sunshine", written by Cash and Phil Mealey, as a barmaid. She appeared in "The Royle Family" special "The New Sofa" on Christmas Day 2008. In 2009, she appeared in another special for Comic Relief, as well as another Christmas Day special entitled "The Golden Eggcup".


title: Caroline Aherne

text: She co-wrote the ITV comedy-drama "The Fattest Man in Britain", which was broadcast in December 2009. In November 2010, Aherne appeared in the special "The Royle Family: Behind the Sofa" shown on Gold, featuring clips of "The Royle Family" and interviews with Aherne, Cash and the cast, which was followed by another Christmas Day special, "Joe's Crackers". She narrated a BBC1 documentary series "Pound Shop Wars" broadcast in November 2012. She also appeared in "The Fast Show" internet specials, sponsored by the lager brand Fosters, which reunited most of the original principal cast; only Mark Williams was unable to participate.


title: Caroline Aherne

text: Aherne wrote the 2013 one-off sitcom "The Security Men", along with Jeff Pope for ITV. The episode starred Paddy McGuinness, Brendan O'Carroll, Dean Andrews, Bobby Ball and Peter Wight.


title: Caroline Aherne

text: Aherne's final major role was as narrator of the Channel 4 comedy reality series "Gogglebox", reflecting her character in "The Royle Family", who would frequently be watching TV and commenting on it. Cash filled in when she was unavailable and took over the role permanently in April 2016.


title: Caroline Aherne

text: Aherne's final on-screen appearance came in the Sky One show "After Hours", where she was reunited with Cash who produced and directed the show. She played the role of Sheila.


title: Caroline Aherne

text: Aherne was married to Peter Hook of the bands Joy Division and New Order from 1994 until 1997. During their marriage, he appeared in her TV series "The Mrs Merton Show" as leader of Hooky & the Boys, the show's house band. After her death, Hook said that he was repeatedly physically abused by Aherne during their marriage.


title: Caroline Aherne

text: Aherne struggled with depression and alcoholism. Before "The Royle Family" began, she suffered from depression and attempted suicide in July 1998 after the death of her former boyfriend, BBC technician Matt Bowers, from stomach cancer in 1997 and the end of a relationship with American actor, Alexis Denisof. She checked in to the Priory, where she was diagnosed as a binge alcoholic.