Evergreen USA RRG, Inc., is a liability insurance company, that offered liability insurance to privately owned campgrounds, RV parks, resorts, and paddlesport operations throughout the United States.

Privately owned campgrounds are often members of organizations such as ARVC (Association for RV Parks and Campgrounds), Kampgrounds of America, Yogi, Coast to Coast, etc.

Coverages included general liability (business insurance), auto insurance, trailer spotting coverage, directors and officers liability insurance and garage liability.  Evergreen was formed under the Federal Liability Risk Retention Act of 1986  and is a Risk Retention Group.

Currently Evergreen is in run-off and is no longer writing insurance policies and is only handling claims that have incurred on policies which it wrote.

History
In 1989 Evergreen was chartered in Arizona but in 1995 redomesticated to Vermont. Evergreen was started because it was nearly impossible for campgrounds, RV parks and resorts to find insurance in the mid to late 1980s because of the hard insurance market that companies were in as part of the insurance cycle. Richard Hartford began Evergreen USA to help the camping industry.

References

Insurance companies of the United States
Financial services companies established in 1989
Companies based in Burlington, Vermont

Evergreen USA RRG


Proposition 65 (formally titled The Safe Drinking Water and Toxic Enforcement Act of 1986, and also referred to as Prop 65) is a California law passed by direct voter initiative in 1986 by a 63%–37% vote. Its goals are to protect drinking water sources from toxic substances that cause cancer or birth defects and to reduce or eliminate exposures to those chemicals generally, such as in consumer products, by requiring warnings in advance of those exposures, with the intended goal being that companies choose to reformulate their products without the substances rather than simply providing notice of such substances in their product.

The proposition

In 1986, political strategists including Tom Hayden and his then wife, environmental activist Jane Fonda, thought that an initiative addressing toxic pollutants would bring more left leaning voters to the polls to help Democrat Tom Bradley in his gubernatorial race against incumbent Republican George Deukmejian, who had vetoed several pollution cleanup bills.  Hayden and others funded the initiative, and found three environmental attorneys to write it, including David Roe who did not expect it to pass.  Voters passed it 2–1, but did not elect Bradley.

The act states: "no person in the course of doing business shall knowingly discharge or release a chemical known to the state to cause cancer or reproductive toxicity into water" or into anywhere that feeds a drinking water source.  It also says that "no person in the course of doing business shall knowingly and intentionally expose" anyone to those chemicals "without first giving clear and reasonable warning."

Proposition 65 is administered by CalEPA's California Office of Environmental Health Hazard Assessment (OEHHA). Proposition 65 regulates substances officially listed by California as causing cancer or birth defects or other reproductive harm, in two ways. The first statutory requirement of Proposition 65 prohibits businesses from knowingly discharging listed substances into drinking water sources, or onto land where the substances can pass into drinking water sources. The second prohibits businesses from knowingly exposing individuals to listed substances without providing a clear and reasonable warning. The requirements apply to amounts above what would present a 1-in-100,000 risk of cancer assuming lifetime exposure (for carcinogens), or above one thousandth (1/1000) of the no observable effect level (for reproductive toxins).

An official list of substances covered by Proposition 65 is maintained and made publicly available. Chemicals are added to or removed from the official list based on California's analysis of current scientific information. All substances listed show their known risk factors, a unique CAS chemical classification number, the date they were listed, and, if so, whether they have been delisted. As a result of lawsuits, the list now also contains substances known only to cause cancer in animals, and  contains over 900 substances.

Proposition 65 has had limited success in reducing exposures to known toxic chemicals, especially in consumer products, and its successes illustrate gaps in the effectiveness of federal toxics laws (see  below). It remains politically controversial even after more than 30 years (see  below), in large part because it, in effect, requires businesses to know the scientific safety level for specific cancer- and birth defect-causing chemicals that those businesses are intentionally exposing members of the public to, unless government has already set those levels. According to the California Environmental Protection Agency, "Proposition 65 has... increased public awareness about the adverse effects of exposures to listed chemicals.... [and] provided an incentive for manufacturers to remove listed chemicals from their products.... Although Proposition 65 has benefited Californians, it has come at a cost for companies doing business in the state."

Enforcement
Enforcement is carried out through civil lawsuits against Proposition 65 violators. These lawsuits may be brought by the California Attorney General, any district attorney, or certain city attorneys (those in cities with a population exceeding 750,000). Lawsuits may also be brought by private parties "acting in the public interest," but only after providing notice of the alleged violation to the Attorney General, the appropriate district attorney and city attorney, and the business accused of the violation.

A Proposition 65 Notice of Violation must provide adequate information to allow the recipient to assess the nature of the alleged violation.  A notice must comply with the information and procedural requirements specified in regulations. A private party may not pursue an enforcement action directly under Proposition 65 if one of the government officials noted above initiates an action within sixty days of the notice.  After 2003, private enforcers must also serve a certificate of merit (statement of expert consultation(s) supporting belief of reasonable and meritorious private action) as a means of preventing frivolous enforcement actions.

A business found to be in violation of Proposition 65 is subject to civil penalties of up to $2,500 per day for each violation. In addition, the business may be ordered by a court of law to stop committing the violation. Other penalties may apply, including unfair business practices violations as limited under California Proposition 64 (2004).

From 1988 (when the initiative went into effect) until 2020, there have been more than 30,000 violation claims, targeting over 100,000 products, filed by citizen prosecutors.  From 2000 to 2020, businesses paid more than $370 million in settlements, with almost three quarters of that amount going to attorneys, and the majority of that going to a small group of perpetual litigants.  One example cited by the Los Angeles Times is that of the for-profit company "Safe Products for Californians", run by Kenneth Moore and his lawyer ex-wife Tanya Moore, who received almost $700,000 in legal fees from over 100 lawsuits (half against Amazon sellers) in which Kenneth was her only client.

If a company's product contains a chemical on the list, but the intended use of the product would not expose the customer to the hazards found by scientific research (for example, a topical soap that contains a chemical known to cause cancer when eaten), the burden is placed on the company to prove that its product will not cause harm if it chooses not to label the product.  Many companies therefore find it less expensive to simply add the Prop 65 warning to their products, regardless of the danger to the consumer.

Accomplishments
Proposition 65 has caused large numbers of consumer products to be reformulated to remove toxic ingredients, as documented in settlements of enforcement actions.

Proposition 65 has also caused government and industry to cooperate on scientific issues of chemical risk, resulting in risk-based standards for 282 toxic chemicals in the law's first few years of operation, an accomplishment described by a Governor's Task Force as "100 years of progress [by federal standards] in the areas of hazard identification, risk assessment, and exposure assessment." The existence of clear numerical standards has significantly assisted efforts to comply with the law, and to enforce it in situations of non-compliance.

Warning label

The following warning language is standard on products sold in California if they contain chemicals on the Proposition 65 list and the amount of exposure caused by the product is not within defined safety limits:

WARNING: This product contains chemicals known to the State of California to cause cancer and birth defects or other reproductive harm.

The wording can be changed as necessary, as long as it communicates that the chemical in question is known to the state to cause cancer, or birth defects or other reproductive harm.  For exposures from other sources, such as car exhaust in a parking garage, a standard sign might read: "This area contains chemicals known to the State of California to cause cancer, or birth defects or other reproductive harm".

Controversy and abuse

Political controversy over the law, including industry attempts to have it preempted by federal law, have died down, although preemption bills continue to be introduced in the U.S. Congress, most recently H.R. 6022 (introduced June 6, 2018). However, enforcement actions remain controversial.  Many Proposition 65 complaints are filed on behalf of straw man plaintiffs by private attorneys, some of whose businesses are built entirely on filing Proposition 65 lawsuits.

The law has also been criticized for causing "over-warning" or "meaningless warnings,"  and this risk has been recognized by a California court. There is no penalty for posting an unnecessary warning sign, and to the extent that warnings are vague or overused, they may not communicate much information to the end user. Many companies now routinely attach Prop 65 warning labels to any product of theirs that they think might possibly contain one of the 900 listed chemicals without testing to see whether the chemical is really present in their product and without reformulating their product, because it is cheaper to do so than to run the risk of being sued by Prop 65 enforcers.

Examples of warning signs can be found at gas stations, hardware suppliers, grocery stores, drug stores, medical facilities,  parking garages, hotels, apartment complexes, retail stores, banks, and restaurants, warning about hazardous chemicals in items for sale, or present in the immediate environment.  Utility companies mail a Prop 65 notice to all customers each year to warn them about exposures to natural gas, petroleum products and sandblasting.

Abuse of enforcement lawsuits has also been a consistent theme of Proposition 65 opponents, who criticize the motives of citizen enforcers. Industry critics and corporate defense lawyers charge that Proposition 65 is "a clever and irritating mechanism used by litigious NGOs and others to publicly spank politically incorrect opponents ranging from the American gun industry to seafood retailers, etc." Critics also note that the majority of settlement money collected from businesses has been used to pay plaintiffs' attorney fees. Businesses paid over $14.58 million in attorney fees and costs in 2012, 71% of all settlement money paid.

Because the law allows private citizens to sue and collect penalties from any business violating the law, lawyers and law firms have been criticized for using Proposition 65 to force monetary settlements out of Californian businesses. In the past the Attorney General's office has cited several instances of settlements where plaintiff attorneys received significant awards without providing for environmental benefit to the people of California, resulting in a requirement that the Attorney General's office must approve any pre-trial Proposition 65 settlement.

Recent reform efforts
In the 2013–14 session of the California State Assembly, a consensus bill, AB 227, introduced by Assemblyman Mike Gatto (D-Los Angeles), effectively offered to protect certain small companies in specified circumstances from the threat of citizen enforcement lawsuits, by providing them with a streamlined compliance procedure and limited penalties. The bill was passed unanimously, with support from Proposition 65 proponents and supporters, and was enacted on October 10, 2013.

Following the success of AB 227, Gov. Jerry Brown announced on May 7, 2013, that his office plans to introduce a proposal to reform Proposition 65.  In 2017, Brown advocated for more reform to Prop 65 to reduce "frivolous shakedown lawsuits."

Reformulation of consumer goods

Alleged violators
 the below list includes some of the named Fortune 500 companies that have been sued or received an intent to sue for allegedly not disclosing the Prop 65 warning on one or more of their products. The list includes, but is not limited to:
 Amazon
 CVS
 Walmart
 Target
 Walgreens
 Disney
 Dollar General
 Whole Foods
 McDonald's (settled for US$3 million in 2002)

In most cases, such as McDonald's, Walgreens, and Disney, the listed chemicals have been removed. "As of August 2019, Amazon faces over 1,000 Prop 65 'Intent to Sue' notices." E-commerce marketplaces, like Amazon, require their sellers to disclose if their products contain Prop 65 chemicals. However, these companies are currently under fire for some of their sellers allegedly not disclosing Prop 65 chemicals that are in their brands.

List of chemicals

Proposition 65 requires that the governor revise and republish at least once per year the list of chemicals known to the State to cause cancer or reproductive toxicity.

There also exists a "Safe harbor List" with tolerance thresholds for some of the chemicals named in the Proposition 65 list. Concentrations under the tolerance threshold do not legally require the warning label.

See also
 California ballot proposition
 Environmentalism
 Pollution
 Toxicity

Notes

References

External links
 Official Proposition 65 website
 Official Proposition 65 list of substances
 California Attorney General – Proposition 65 regulations
 Forbes.com -Toxic Avengers, Morse Mehrban gets rich from Proposition 65

1986 in the environment
65
Environment of California
Initiatives in the United States
Regulation of chemicals
Regulation in the United States
United States state environmental legislation

1986 California Proposition 65


Blast First is a sub label of one-time independent record label Mute Records, founded in approximately 1985. It was named after a phrase taken from the first number of the radical Vorticist journal Blast, published by Wyndham Lewis in 1914. Lewis's "Manifesto" begins with the words "BLAST First (from politeness) ENGLAND".

History
The label was founded by Paul Smith to give UK release to albums by Sonic Youth, a US band with which he was then working closely. It went on to feature more hardcore rock bands than the master label of its synthpop-oriented parent company. Before Mute Records was sold to the EMI group, Blast First fit into the company's profile, which included labels such as the Fine Line and the Grey Area.

The labels employees included the sisters Pat and Liz Naylor, and the novelist Alistair Fruish.

The label released a range of alternative music from Butthole Surfers and  Labradford through Suicide and Sonic Youth to the William Fairey Band's Acid Brass collection. The latter, a departure for a label noted for its guitar based rock bands, was a covers album of tunes such as A Guy Called Gerald's "Voodoo Ray" and 808 State's "Pacific," all replayed by a brass band. Blast First also organised the Disobey experimental club nights, with Russell Haswell and Bruce Gilbert (aka DJ Beekeeper) of the Post-punk band Wire.

Artists

A.C. Temple
Acid Brass
The Afghan Whigs
Band of Susans
Beme Seed
Big Black
Big Stick
The Blue Humans
Glenn Branca
Caspar Brötzmann Massaker
Butthole Surfers
Common Language
Dinosaur Jr.
FM Einheit & Caspar Brötzmann
Erase Errata
Fushitsusha
The Charles Gayle Trio
Michael Gibbs
H.O.D.I.C.A.
Keiji Haino
Head of David
Hovercraft
HTRK
KaitO
Richard H. Kirk
Labradford
Liars
Lunachicks
Maxine
The Mekons
Mother Goose
Phill Niblock
Pan Sonic
Rapeman
The Raincoats
Rivulets
Sonic Youth
Ciccone Youth
Lee Ranaldo
Stretchheads
Suicide
Sun Ra
Jimi Tenor
Ed Tomney
2K
Ut

Compilation series
 Sonic Mook Experiment
 The Devil's Jukebox (Nothing Short Of Total War) – deleted limited edition box set; 3000 UK copies and 1500 US copies were made.

Noted albums
Albums on Blast First that either reached the UK Albums Chart or have become examples of the indie/alternative genre:
 Big Black – Songs About Fucking (1987) (BFFP 19)
 Sonic Youth – Daydream Nation 2xLP (1988) (BFFP 34)
 Afghan Whigs – Gentlemen (1993) (BFFP 89)
 Butthole Surfers – Locust Abortion Technician (1987) (BFFP 23)
(Note: Blast First was merely the UK label for these US bands, which were all primarily signed to deals with American labels).

See also
 List of record labels

References

External links
 Radio 1
Mute Records
Blast First Petite
Discography listing at Rate Your Music
A 2015 interview with Paul Smith

1984 establishments in the United Kingdom
British independent record labels
EMI
Hardcore record labels
Industrial record labels
Alternative rock record labels

Blast First


North to the Klondike is a 1942 American northern adventure film directed by Erle C. Kenton and starring Broderick Crawford, Evelyn Ankers and Andy Devine.  The supporting cast features Lon Chaney Jr. in his last film before The Wolf Man, which also stars Ankers, but North to the Klondike was released the year after The Wolf Man.

Plot

Cast
 Broderick Crawford as John Thorn
 Evelyn Ankers as Mary Sloan
 Andy Devine as Klondike
 Lon Chaney Jr. as Nate Carson
 Lloyd Corrigan as Doctor Curtis
 Willie Fung as Waterlily
 Keye Luke as K. Wellington Wong
 Stanley Andrews as Jim (Tom) Allen
 Dorothy Granger as Mayme Cassidy
 Monte Blue as Burke
 Riley Hill (credited as Roy Harris) as Ben Sloan
 Paul Dubov as Piety Smith
 Fred Cordova as Indian Joe
 Jeff Corey as Lafe Jordon

References

External links

1942 films
Films based on works by Jack London
Films directed by Erle C. Kenton
1940s action films
American action films
Northern (genre) films
American black-and-white films
1940s American films
Universal Pictures films

North to the Klondike


Kwabena Darko (born 23 October 1942) is an entrepreneur, minister of religion and former politician. He owns the largest privately owned agro-industrial concern in Ghana and is listed in "Who's Who in World Poultry". Darko is also known by many in the sub-region as the "Poultry King" and "Akokɔ Darko" (meaning "Poultry Darko" in Akan).

Early life
Kwabena Darko was born on 23 October 1942 at Bekwai, in the Ashanti Region of Ghana. He lost his father at an early age and had to engage in petty trading to supplement the family income. He ended up in part-time education in order to devote more time to trading because of the family's financial circumstances. His mother later remarried the owner of a small chicken farm. Kwabena Darko quickly learnt the running of the farm and was an able assistant to his stepfather. He proceeded to Israel, where he studied agriculture at the Ruppin Institute, specialising in poultry science in the late 1950s and early sixties.

Career
On his return to Ghana, Kwabena Darko worked with the  Ghana State Farms Corporation. After 6 months, he resigned and joined his stepfather, who was now into commercial poultry farming. The farm expanded from 5,000 birds to 100,000 birds for egg laying within two years. He started his own poultry farm, Darko Farms and Company in April 1967.

Politics
Kwabena Darko who describes himself as Nkrumahist run for president in the 1992 election on the ticket of the National Independence Party with Naa Afarley Sackeyfio as the running mate. He came 4th with 2.8 per cent of the total votes cast. The election was won by Jerry Rawlings of the National Democratic Congress, who reportedly said that "people should not buy chicken from Darko Farms, because if they did I would get money for politics".

Christianity
Darko was reportedly a Christian from the age of about 16 years. Between 1965 and 1996, he was a deacon (Elder) with the Assemblies of God Church. He went on to hold other positions in the church. He has been the International Vice-President of the Full Gospel Businessmen's Fellowship International (FGBMFI), (Africa), an international Christian network, from 1990 to 1995. He became the General Overseer for the Oasis of Love International Church since 1996. he was ordained as a minister of religion in 2000.

Family
Kwabena Darko is married to Rev. Dr. Christiana Darko, a director of the Darko Farms and Company Limited as well as the International Outreach Director for West Africa of The Women's Aglow Fellowship International. They have six children, Sam, Vernon, Jonathan, Maxine, Mercy and Bernice. The first three are actively involved in running the company.

Positions currently held
Chairman and Chief Executive Officer, Darko Farms and Company Limited - 1969–present
Chancellor, Regent University College of Science and Technology - 2003–present
Member, Nominating Committee of the African Prize for Leadership 1994–Present
International Secretary, FGBMFI, Costa Mesa, U.S. 1994–Present
General Overseer, The Oasis of Love International Church - 1996–Present
Board Member, Oasis International Training Center - 2000–Present
External Board Member, The Bank of Ghana - 2001–Present
Chairman, Sinapi Aba Trust - 1994–Present

Honours
Grand Medal Order of the Volta, National Award for his Contributions to Agriculture - 1978
Honorary Certificate for Selfless Devotion to Charity by Christian Voluntary Society - 1978
Award by Ghana Animal Science Association for Outstanding Contribution to the Association - 1982
Best Farmer Award, Royal Agriculture Show, London - 1984
Honorary Member, Ghana Science Association - 1985
National Best Poultry Farmer - 1986
Meritorious Award for Contribution to Charity by the Ghana National Trust Fund - 1990
Certificate of Honor for Voluntary Service and Contribution to Charity by the Department of Social Welfare and Community Development - 1990
The First General Superintendent Certificate of Honor Assemblies of God Ghana - 1990
Certificate of Honor for Outstanding Contribution to the Ghana Feed Millers Association - 1992
Junior Achievement of Ghana Business Hall of Fame - 1992
Ordained as a Minister of religion - 2000
Honorary Doctorate of Science Degree by KNUST - 2002
Honorary Doctorate of Divinity by Global Missions and Bible College, London - 2002

See also
List of Ghanaian politicians
National Independence Party

References

External links
Profile of Kwabena Darko
Darko Farms and Company Limited

1942 births
Living people
Ghanaian Pentecostals
National Independence Party (Ghana) politicians
Recipients of the Order of the Volta
Candidates for President of Ghana
People from Ashanti Region
20th-century Ghanaian businesspeople
Ghanaian agriculturalists

Kwabena Darko


Parallel evolution is the similar development of a trait in distinct species that are not closely related, but share a similar original trait in response to similar evolutionary pressure.

Parallel vs. convergent evolution

Given a trait that occurs in each of two lineages descended from a specified ancestor, it is possible in theory to define parallel and convergent evolutionary trends strictly, and distinguish them clearly from one another. However the criteria for defining convergent as opposed to parallel evolution are unclear in practice, so that arbitrary diagnosis is common. When two species share a trait, evolution is defined as parallel if the ancestors are known to have shared that similarity; if not, it is defined as convergent. However, the stated conditions are a matter of degree; all organisms share common ancestors. Scientists differ on whether the distinction is useful.

Parallel evolution between marsupials and placentals

A number of examples of parallel evolution are provided by the two main branches of the mammals, the placentals and marsupials, which have followed independent evolutionary pathways following the break-up of land-masses such as Gondwanaland roughly 100 million years ago. In South America, marsupials and placentals shared the ecosystem (before the Great American Interchange); in Australia, marsupials prevailed; and in the Old World and North America the placentals won out. However, in all these localities mammals were small and filled only limited places in the ecosystem until the mass extinction of dinosaurs sixty-five million years ago. At this time, mammals on all three landmasses began to take on a much wider variety of forms and roles. While some forms were unique to each environment, surprisingly similar animals have often emerged in two or three of the separated continents. Examples of these include the placental sabre-toothed cats (Machairodontinae) and the South American marsupial sabre-tooth (Thylacosmilus); the Tasmanian wolf and the European wolf; likewise marsupial and placental moles, flying squirrels, and (arguably) mice.

Parallel coevolution of traits between hummingbirds and sunbirds contributing to ecological guilds

Hummingbirds and sunbirds, two nectarivorous bird lineages in the New and Old Worlds have parallelly evolved a suite of specialized behavioral and anatomical traits. These traits (bill shape, digestive enzymes, and flight) allow the birds to optimally fit the flower-feeding-and-pollination ecological niche they occupy, which is shaped by the birds' suites of parallel traits. Thus, a parallel coevolved behavioral syndrome within the birds creates an emergent guild of highly specialized birds and highly adapted plants, each exploiting the other's involvement in the flowers' pollination in the Old World and New World alike.

The bill shape of nectarivores, being long and needle-like, allows them to reach down a flower's pistil/stamen and get at the nectar within. Nectarivores may also use their specialized bills to engage in nectar robbing, a practice seen in both hummingbirds and sunbirds in which the bird gets nectar by making a hole in the base of the flower's corolla tube instead of inserting its bill through the tube as is standard, thus "robbing" the flower of nectar since it is not pollinated it in return.

Nectarivores and ornithophilous flowers often exist in mutualistic guild relationships facilitated by the bird's bill shape, food source, and digestive ability acting in concert with the flower's tube shape and adaptation to pollination by hovering or perching birds. The birds eat nectar using their long, thin bills and, in so doing, collect pollen on their bills; this pollen is then transferred to the next flower they feed on. This mutualism coevolved in parallel between the Old World and New World birds and their respective flowers. Moreover, the digestive enzyme activity in nectarivores matching the nectar composition in their respective flowers appears to have coevolved in parallel between plants and pollinators across continents, as the nectarivorous lineages independently evolved the ability to digest the nectar specific to their flowers, resulting in distinct guilds.

The capacity of nectarivores to digest sucrose is far greater than that of other avian taxa. This difference is due to an analogous high concentration of sucrase-isomaltase, an enzyme that hydrolyzes sucrose. Sucrase activity per unit intestinal surface area appears to be higher in nectarivores than in other birds, meaning these nectarivorous avians can digest more sucrose more rapidly than other taxa. Moreover, the Adaptive Modulation Hypothesis does not apply for nectarivores and sugar-digesting enzymes, meaning that two lineages of nectarivores should not necessarily both have high sucrase-isomaltase concentrations even though they both eat nectar. Thus, parallel acquisition of analogous sucrose digestive capability is a reasonable conclusion because there is no apparent cause for the two lineages to share this high enzyme concentration.

References

Notes
Dawkins, R. 1986. The Blind Watchmaker. Norton & Company.
Mayr. 1997. What is Biology. Harvard University Press
Schluter, D., E. A. Clifford, M. Nemethy, and J. S. McKinnon. 2004. Parallel evolution and inheritance of quantitative traits. American Naturalist 163: 809–822.
McGhee, G.R. 2011. Convergent Evolution: Limited Forms Most Beautiful.  Vienna Series in Theoretical Biology, Massachusetts Institute of Technology Press, Cambridge (MA).  322 pp.

Evolutionary biology

Parallel evolution


The Tennessee Department of Transportation (TDOT) is the department of transportation for the State of Tennessee, with multimodal responsibilities in roadways, aviation, public transit, waterways, and railroads. It was established in 1915 as the Tennessee Department of Highways and Public Works, and renamed the Tennessee Department of Transportation in 1972. The core agency mission of TDOT is to provide a safe and reliable transportation system for people, goods, and services that supports economic prosperity in Tennessee. Since 1998, TDOT has been ranked amongst the top five in the nation for quality highway infrastructure. It is primarily headquartered in downtown Nashville and operates four regional offices in Chattanooga, Jackson, Knoxville, and Nashville.

Major responsibilities
The major duties and responsibilities of TDOT are to:
 plan, build, and maintain the state-owned highway and Interstate system of over ;
 administer funding and provide technical assistance in the planning and construction of state and federal aid road programs for cities and counties;
 provide incident management on Tennessee's Interstate system through TDOT SmartWay, an intelligent transportation network of cameras and dynamic message signs;
 staff transportation management centers in the four largest urban cities in Tennessee;
  provide motorist information;
 construct and maintain 19 rest area facilities and 17 welcome centers;
 administer program for control of outdoor advertising adjacent to Interstate and state highways;
 issue and administer special permits for movement of overweight and over-dimensional vehicles;
 prepare and distribute city, county, and state road maps, aeronautical charts, and airport directories;
 promote safe driving behaviors on highways;
 provide management, technical and financial assistance, and supervision to public, private, and nonprofit public transportation agencies in the state
 administer funding and assistance in location, design, construction, and maintenance of the state's 80 public airports;
 support improvements in Tennessee's railroads and rail service;
  inspect over 19,000 bridges, 80 public airports, and all of the state's railroads;
  maintain state park roads;
 operate Reelfoot Airpark and ferry operations;
 respond to initiatives of the Tennessee Aeronautics Commission;
 provide aerial photography and mapping services to all state agencies;
 provide aircraft for state executive transportation and economic development recruiting;
 administer highway beautification programs;
 provide grants to all Tennessee counties for litter abatement and litter prevention education; and
 provide cycling trails that connect or go through state parks and natural areas.

History

Prior to 1915, the state had no central authority governing construction and maintenance of roads. The governor, legislature, other road associations, and local governments all attempted to serve these tasks, leading to a lack of planning and management. In 1915, a State Highway Commission was created to organize transportation services. The original commission consisted of six volunteer members. As responsibilities of the commission grew, this became inadequate, and in 1919 the commission was replaced with three paid members. By 1922, roads in Tennessee were behind surrounding states. Governor Austin Peay created a new Department of Highways and Public Works and appointed J.G. Creveling, Jr. as the single commissioner. Peavy also implemented a tax of two cents per gallon to fund the new department. The collapse of the banking system in 1930 resulted in significant losses for the state and led to an inability to fund the department. All of its workers had to be released. However, in 1933 the New Deal projects gave $11 million of federal money for highway projects. Diversion of federal funds and military enlistment of personnel during World War II again crippled the department. Following the war, the construction of the new Interstate Highway system brought a massive boom to the department. In 1972, due to its expanding role in all modes of transportation, it was renamed the Tennessee Department of Transportation. In the 1980s, TDOT began the $3.3 billion Better Roads Program to clear a backlog of projects and improve aging roads. In 1989, the gas tax was set at 21.40 cents per gallon to help fund this project. Through the 1990s and early 2000s, the department began working on ways to improve efficiency and involve communities.

Organization
TDOT is headed by a single commissioner who is appointed by the governor. The leadership level also includes the Deputy Commissioner, and leaders for legal, aeronautics, community relations, and legislation.  Three bureaus exist under this level. Most administrative offices operate from the TDOT headquarters in downtown Nashville, the state's capital city. There are also four regional offices across the state. Each region is further divided into districts which are then subdivided into county facilities.

The following table lists the regions, district offices, maintenance and construction offices for each region, and counties served.

Bureau of Administration
This bureau serves the administrative tasks of the department. It is further divided into the following divisions:
Division of Central Services
Division of Finance
Division of Internal Audit
Division of Human Resources
Division of Strategic Planning
Division of Information Technology
Division of Procurement and Contracts

Bureau of Environment and Planning
This bureau studies environmental effects and ensures compliance with environmental policy. It also collects and analyses data to develop long range project and safety plans. It contains the following divisions:
Environmental Division
Long Range Planning Division
Freight and Logistics Division

Bureau of Engineering
This bureau designs, constructs, and maintains the state's highway system. This Bureau is directed by the Chief Engineer.  The majority of the bureau is split into two categories: Design and Operations, with each overseen by an Assistant Chief Engineer.

The Assistant Chief Engineer of Design oversees the following divisions:
Roadway Design Division
Right of Way Division
Structures Division

The Assistant Chief Engineer of Operations is responsible for overseeing the four regional offices. They also oversee the following divisions:
Traffic Operations Division
Materials and Tests Division
Construction Division
Maintenance Division

Additionally there are three independent divisions that report directly to the Chief Engineer:
Bid Analysis and Estimating Office
Program Administration and Development Division
Strategic Transportation Investments Division

Transportation system
TDOT reports the following as Tennessee's transportation system:

Highway system
Bridges: 19,500, including 8,150 state owned bridges and 11,419 locally owned bridges
Interstates: (Centerline Miles)
19 Interstate rest areas
17 Interstate and U.S. Route welcome centers
9 truck weigh stations
State highways, (Centerline Miles)
Total highways,  (Lane Miles)

Airport system
74 general aviation
5 commercial
142 heliports

Rail system
18 shortline railroads on  of rail
6 major rail lines on  of rail

Transit system
28 transit systems serving all 95 counties

Waterways
 of main channel navigable waterways
2 ferries

Bicycle and pedestrian system
 of greenways, sidewalks, and trails
9 bicycle trails on  including a single across state trail totaling
 of greenways, sidewalks, and trails

Funding
Funding for the state transportation system in Tennessee comes from a fund that is separate from the state's general fund which operates most of the other state agencies in Tennessee. Transportation revenues come from both federal transportation monies and from state funding resources. Those state funds come from a combination of dollars collected from gas and diesel tax revenues, titling and registration fees. Tennessee operates on a "pay as you go" system by using available revenues resulting in no debt service. Tennessee is one of three states in the nation that does not finance transportation through bonding. Critics of this mechanism claim that it inhibits the ability of the department to sufficiently complete necessary infrastructure improvements.

Leadership history
The leaders of the department and its preceding organizations have been:

References

External links
Official website
TDOT Facebook
TDOT Twitter pages
TDOT Smartway Cameras
Tennessee 511
TDOT HELP program
TDOT Civil Rights Division
Governor's Highway Safety Office
SmartCommute
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Department
State departments of transportation of the United States
Transportation in Nashville, Tennessee
Transportation
1915 establishments in Tennessee
Government agencies established in 1915

Tennessee Department of Transportation


Edward John "Chips" Hardy (born 23 January 1950) is an English screenwriter, novelist, playwright, and creative director. He and Elizabeth Ann, his wife, are the parents of actor Tom Hardy, with whom Hardy worked on BBC One's drama series Taboo, as the co-creator, a writer and a consulting producer.

Early life
Chips Hardy was born on 23 January 1950 and grew up in Ealing. Named Edward after both his father, Edward Thomas Hardy, who worked for the Port of London Authority, and his grandfather, Edward Egmore Hardy, who was the Fire Chief at Ealing Studios. His mother, Patricia, was a deputy headmistress.

In 1961 Hardy won a state scholarship to Latymer Upper School. In 1969 he won an Exhibition to read English at Downing College, Cambridge.

Career
Alongside a career in advertising as an award-winning Global Creative Director, Hardy has written for television, movie, theatre, novels and stand-up material. Productions include a children's television series with a talking chair called Helping Henry and About Face, a television drama with Maureen Lipman. Hardy also won a British Comedy Award for his work with Irish comedian Dave Allen.

In 2007, Hardy's novel Each Day A Small Victory was published in the form of frontline despatches from amongst the embattled wildlife in an English country lay-by, illustrated by Oscar Grillo.

Blue on Blue, Hardy's darkly comic play on self-harm, was first showcased at the Latchmere 503 in London in 2007. The play was revived in 2016 at the Tristan Bates in London in partnership with BLESMA, the British Limbless Ex-serviceman's Association. In 2008, Hardy's one woman dysfunctional Cabaret, There's Something In The Fridge that Wants To Kill Me!, ran notably at the Edinburgh Festival.

In 2009, inspired by an idea from his son Tom Hardy, Chips Hardy and Tom created the story that was to become the 2017 eight-part series Taboo. Hardy is the co-creator, a writer and a consulting producer.

References

Other websites

1950 births
English novelists
English playwrights
English television writers
Screenwriters from London
Living people

Chips Hardy


The Warsaw Conference of 1850 was a conference attended by representatives of the Kingdom of Prussia, the Austrian Empire and the Russian Empire on 28 October 1850, in Warsaw, Congress Poland. The aims of the conference were to re-establish order in the German states following the revolutions of 1848, and also to prevent war between Austria and Prussia over the so-called Hessian Question. The conference resulted in Russian support for Austria as well as the restoration of the German Confederation.

Background
In 1848 the Elector of Hesse, Frederick William, granted his subjects a constitution in order to prevent open revolt. After the failure of the German National Assembly to create a united German state, the nationalist and revolutionary movement lost momentum, thus resulting in many German Princes retracting their liberal constitutions. The Electorate of Hesse was no exception.

In 1850, Frederick William summoned the reactionary Hans Daniel Hassenpflug to be his head of government. Hassenpflug soon threw himself into the struggle against the constitution, leading to him becoming highly unpopular amongst all classes within the electorate. Eventually the constitution was retracted, leading to the resignation of the army, and subsequently forcing Frederick William and his government to flee the capital of Kassel when the people rose up to restore the liberal constitution.

By virtue of the Treaty of Vienna, Frederick William called for the German Diet to restore order in his states. However, the call subsequently gave rise to a split between Austria and Prussia over the Hessian Question.

On the one hand, Prussia refused to even acknowledge the existence of the Diet and stated that it had abdicated its function in 1848 when the Frankfurt Parliament was established to replace it. Subsequently, Prussia declared that it would resist the self-styled Diet by arms if it marched troops into the Electorate of Hesse.

Conversely, Austria upheld the existence of the Diet, of which it held the presidency and was supported by Bavaria, Württemberg, Saxony, Baden and several other small German states. The Kingdom of Hanover was somewhat on the fence over the issue, but most other northern German states supported Prussia.

At a conference held at Bregenz on 12 October 1850, the Emperor of Austria and the Kings of Saxony, Württemberg and Bavaria resolved to comply with the requests of the Elector of Hesse and advance federal troops into the electorate. Both sides then immediately began to amass their forces in preparation for a large scale war, with Prussia sending troops to the Electorate of Hesse with the orders to shoot upon Federal troops should they attempt an invasion.

War seemed inevitable when Nicholas I of Russia, offered to be a mediator in the dispute, which subsequently led to the conference held at Warsaw.

Warsaw Conference
At the conference, Prussia was aware that Russia would likely support Austria, which had a more conservative nature and had recently allied with Russia to crush the Revolutions of 1848. Unable to resist the combined might of Austria and Russia, Prussia stepped down and allowed the intervention of the Diet in those states that recognised it. Subsequently, the Russian Tsar gave only his "moral" support to Austria.

The very next day, a combined force of 12,000 Austrian and Bavarian soldiers entered the electorate at Hanau, accompanied by a Federal Commissary, the Count of Rechberg. The electorate was declared under martial law, the citizens called upon to deliver up their arms; and a harsh proclamation issued by Count Rechberg, in the name of the Diet, accompanied by another from the elector to his "faithful and loyal subjects", called upon them to submit to Federal forces. Control of the Electorate of Hesse was quickly restored, and war between Austria and Prussia was successfully averted.

Sources

Foreign relations of Prussia
1850 in Europe
19th-century diplomatic conferences
Diplomatic conferences in Poland
19th century in Warsaw
1850 conferences
October 1850 events
1850

Warsaw Conference of 1850


Vanessa Anne Hudgens ( ; born December 14, 1988) is an American actress and singer. After making her feature film debut in Thirteen (2003), Hudgens rose to fame portraying Gabriella Montez in the High School Musical film series (2006–2008), which brought her significant mainstream media success. The success of the first film led Hudgens to acquire a recording contract with Hollywood Records, with whom she released two studio albums, V (2006) and Identified (2008).

Since the release of her studio albums and the High School Musical franchise, Hudgens has focused on her acting career. She appeared in the films Bandslam (2009), Beastly, Sucker Punch (both 2011), Journey 2: The Mysterious Island, Spring Breakers (both 2012), Second Act (2018), Bad Boys for Life (2020), and Tick, Tick...Boom! (2021). She starred in the Netflix Christmas movies The Princess Switch (2018) and its sequels (2020 and 2021) and The Knight Before Christmas (2019), and co-produced the latter three.

Hudgens played the role of Emily Locke in the NBC series Powerless (2017). She made her Broadway debut playing the title role in the musical revival of Gigi (2015) and had roles in two of Fox's live musical productions: Rizzo in Grease Live! (2016) and Maureen Johnson in Rent: Live (2019). In 2022, Hudgens co-hosted the Met Gala in Manhattan.

Early life
Vanessa Anne Hudgens was born in Salinas, California, and was raised along the West Coast, from Oregon to Southern California. Her mother, Gina (née Guangco), held a succession of office jobs, and her father, Gregory Hudgens, was a firefighter. She has a younger sister, Stella, who is also an actress. She was raised as a Catholic. Her father, who died of cancer in February 2016, was of Irish, French and Native American descent, and her mother is Filipina, a native of the island of Mindanao. All of her grandparents were musicians.

Career

19982004: Early roles
Starting in 1998, Hudgens performed in musical theater as a singer, and appeared in local productions of Carousel, The Wizard of Oz, The King and I, The Music Man, and Cinderella, among others. Two years after her career in stage plays and musicals, she began auditioning for commercials and television shows, and her family moved to Los Angeles after she won a role in a television commercial. She began her acting career at age 15, and she briefly attended Orange County High School of the Arts, followed by homeschooling with tutors.

Hudgens had her first acting role in an episode of the sitcom Still Standing, airing on CBS in 2002, in which she portrayed Tiffany. Later that year, she guest starred in an episode of the series Robbery Homicide Division, airing on CBS. Hudgens made her theatrical debut in the 2003 drama film Thirteen, in the supporting role of Noel. The film, which revolved around teenager Tracy trying to fit in and getting caught up in the wrong crowd, was somewhat of a commercial success, grossing $10 million worldwide. Despite its minor commercial success, the film received positive critical reviews. USA Today called Thirteen the most "powerful of all recent wayward-youth sagas". Hudgens subsequently landed a role in the 2004 science fiction-adventure film Thunderbirds, based on the 1960s television series. Hudgens portrayed the character of Tin-tin. The film was a commercial failure and was strongly criticized for "abandoning the original concepts".

2005–2008: High School Musical and music

In January 2006, Hudgens played Gabriella Montez, one of the lead roles in the Disney Channel Original Movie High School Musical. The film saw Hudgens portraying the new girl at high school who falls for the captain of the basketball team. The two later reveal a passion for singing, and audition for the school play together. Hudgens starred alongside Zac Efron and Ashley Tisdale, the former of which she was partnered up with during the auditioning process due to their "chemistry". It was Disney Channel's most-watched film that year with 7.7 million viewers in its premiere broadcast in the US, until August's premiere of The Cheetah Girls 2, which achieved 8.1 million viewers.

For the film, Hudgens recorded numerous songs which had commercial success. The song "Breaking Free", a duet with Zac Efron, became Hudgens' highest peak on the US Billboard Hot 100 at number 4, and number 9 in the UK. Following the success of the film, Hudgens released her debut studio album, V, on September 26, 2006. It sold 34,000 copies in its first week, and debuted at number 24 on the US Billboard 200 chart. In February 2007, the album was certified gold by the Recording Industry Association of America. As of August 2009, the album has sold 570,000 copies in the US. It was preceded by two singles, "Come Back to Me" and "Say OK", both of which were moderately successful in several countries. Both singles received promotion on Disney Channel, with the music videos for both premiering on the channel.

In 2007, Hudgens reprised her role as Gabriella in High School Musical 2, released on August 17. The premiere was watched by over 17.2 million viewers in the US, almost 10 million more than its predecessor, making it the most-watched Disney Channel Original Movie of all time. Disney Channel aired a weekly program called Road to High School Musical 2, beginning on June 8, and leading up to the premiere of High School Musical 2 in August. The show offered viewers a behind-the-scenes look into the production of the movie. The world premiere of the opening number "What Time Is It" was on Radio Disney May 25, 2007, and similarly "You Are the Music in Me" premiered on July 13, 2007. The film was generally well received by critics. USA Today'''s Robert Bianco awarded the film three stars out of four, stating that High School Musical 2 was "sweet, smart, bursting with talent and energy, and awash in innocence". While critics enjoyed the film, they noted that the timing of its premiere seemed odd, premiering just when school was about to resume again whereas the film's plot involved the gang going on summer vacation.

Her second studio album, Identified, was released on July 1, 2008 in the United States. It sold 22,000 copies in its first week, 12,000 less than V. Despite the drop in sales, the album debuted at number 23 on the Billboard 200, one spot higher than V. The album was preceded by one single, "Sneakernight", which peaked at number 88 on the Billboard Hot 100. Following the commercial failure of the album, Hudgens parted ways with Hollywood Records. Hudgens again reprised her role in High School Musical 3: Senior Year, the first film from the franchise to be released theatrically. It opened at number one at the North American box office in October 2008, earning $42 million in its first weekend, which broke the record previously held by Mamma Mia! for the biggest opening by a musical. The film finished with $252 million worldwide, which exceeded Disney's expectations.

2009–2017: Mainstream film and television

Following the completion of the High School Musical series, Hudgens confirmed that she was taking a break from her music career to focus more on acting. She played a supporting role in a musical comedy Bandslam, which was released theatrically on August 14, 2009. Hudgens plays "Sa5m", a 15-year-old awkward freshman with untapped talents. Although Bandslam was commercially unsuccessful, Hudgens' performance received praise from critics. David Waddington of the North Wales Pioneer noted that Hudgens "outshines the rest of the cast, failing to fit in with the outcast narrative and making the inevitable climactic ending all the more expected", and Philip French of The Guardian compared her acting to Thandie Newton and Dorothy Parker.

In 2010, Hudgens made a return to theater productions and starred in the musical Rent as Mimi. The stage production ran from August 6–8, 2010, at the Hollywood Bowl. Her involvement in the production drew negative comments, but director Neil Patrick Harris defended his decision with casting Hudgens by saying, "Vanessa [Hudgens] is awesome. She's a friend. I asked her to come in and sing to make sure she had the chops for it. And she was very committed and seemed great."

In 2011, Hudgens starred with Alex Pettyfer in the film Beastly, based on Alex Flinn's 2007 novel. She played one of the main characters, Linda Taylor, and described her as "the 'beauty' of the story but not the stereotypical beauty everyone thinks of." Hudgens and Pettyfer were recognized as ShoWest Stars of Tomorrow. Beastly was released on March 4, 2011, to mostly negative reviews. It was ranked No. 45 in The Times predicted "50 Biggest Movies of 2010". The film was screened at ShoWest and drew enthusiastic reactions from the luncheon crowd of exhibition officials. The film went on to make $28 million worldwide as of 2012. Hudgens also starred as one of the five female leads in the action film Sucker Punch, directed by Zack Snyder. She played Blondie, an institutionalized girl in an asylum. The film was released in March 2011, and grossed $19 million in its first weekend at the North American box office, opening at number two. By the end of its run, Sucker Punch totaled $89 million worldwide. Though the film's content was derided, it received some recognition for the visual effects of the fantasy sequences. Sucker Punch received a nomination at the 2011 Scream Awards for Best F/X, and its stunt work was nominated for a Taurus Award.

In 2012, Hudgens starred alongside Dwayne Johnson and Josh Hutcherson in the science fantasy action-adventure film Journey 2: The Mysterious Island (2012), the sequel to the 2008 film Journey to the Center of the Earth, playing Hutcherson's love interest. The film earned $325 million worldwide during its theatrical run, which outperformed its predecessor. It received generally mixed to negative reviews from critics. The consensus from Rotten Tomatoes is: "Aggressively unambitious, Journey 2 might thrill teen viewers, but most others will find it too intense for young audiences and too cartoonishly dull for adults".

In 2013, Hudgens starred alongside Selena Gomez, Ashley Benson, Rachel Korine and James Franco in the film Spring Breakers. The story followed four college-aged girls who decide to rob a fast food restaurant in order to pay for their spring break. It was released theatrically in March 2013, receiving generally positive reviews. The film featured mature themes such as drug use, violence, and sexual escapades. To coincide with the film, Hudgens released the dubstep-influenced song "$$$ex", with a music video featuring clips from the film. The song features guest vocals from YLA, and was produced by Rock Mafia. Hudgens later expressed her discomfort with a sex scene: "It was very nerve-racking for me. I told my agent that I never want to do it ever again." Later that year, Hudgens played Cindy Paulson in The Frozen Ground, a film based on the Robert Hansen case wherein she plays his only victim who escaped. She co-starred with John Cusack and Nicolas Cage. She also starred in the action film Machete Kills, based on the eponymous character of the same name from the Spy Kids franchise. The film was directed by Robert Rodriguez. By the end of the year, Hudgens starred alongside Michael Shannon, Joel Marsh Garland, Dree Hemingway, and Nick Lashaway in Spike Jonze's short comedy-drama film Choose You. The cast performed the film live as a skit at the first YouTube Music Awards, to the music of Avicii.

In 2014, Hudgens starred as a pregnant teenage runaway girl in the drama film Gimme Shelter with Brendan Fraser, written and directed by Ron Krauss.

In 2015, Hudgens starred in the Columbia Pictures' comedy horror film Freaks of Nature. That same year, she took on the title role in a production of Alan Jay Lerner and Frederick Loewe's Gigi, which opened at the Kennedy Center from January 16 to February 12, before transferring to Broadway on April 8. The production closed on June 21.

On January 31, 2016, Hudgens starred in the role of Rizzo in Grease Live!, Fox's live broadcast based on the original Broadway musical. Hudgens dedicated her performance to her father, who died from cancer one day before the special aired.

In 2017, Hudgens played Emily Locke on NBC's comedy series Powerless, which was based on DC Comics characters. It was cancelled after one season. That same year, Hudgens was featured on Shawn Hook's single "Reminding Me" and starred in the music video. She hosted the 2017 Billboard Music Awards with rapper Ludacris, which premiered on May 21. Hudgens also served as a permanent judge alongside Nigel Lythgoe and Mary Murphy on the 14th season of the American reality dance show So You Think You Can Dance.

2018present: Career expansion

In 2018, Hudgens starred in the romantic comedy film Dog Days, alongside Finn Wolfhard and Nina Dobrev. She collaborated with electronic dance music duo Phantoms on the single "Lay With Me", released in September 2018. She starred in the Netflix film The Princess Switch in November 2018, in which she portrayed both a European duchess and a pastry chef from Chicago, who temporarily switch roles. In December 2018, she co-starred opposite Jennifer Lopez in the comedy film Second Act, directed by Peter Segal. Hudgens returned for the 15th season of So You Think You Can Dance, as part of the panel of permanent judges. The same year, she essayed the role of Vanessa Morales in a production by Kennedy Center of Lin-Manuel Miranda's original musical In the Heights.In January 2019, Hudgens starred in another Fox live musical presentation, Rent: Live, as Maureen Johnson. Hudgens also co-starred with Mads Mikkelsen in the Netflix film adaption of Víctor Santos's 2013 graphic novel Polar: Came From the Cold. In November 2019, she starred in and served as a producer on the Netflix film The Knight Before Christmas.

In 2020, Hudgens appeared in the third entry in the Bad Boys franchise, Bad Boys for Life, which grossed over $426 million worldwide. In November that year, she starred in and produced the Netflix film The Princess Switchs sequel, The Princess Switch: Switched Again, portraying an additional third role. By the end of the year, Hudgens hosted the MTV Movie & TV Awards: Greatest of All Time television special, which highlighted the greatest moments of film and television since the 1980s, as well as moments from past editions of the award ceremony.

In 2021, she voiced the lead character, Sunny Starscout, in the animated Netflix film My Little Pony: A New Generation. In November 2021, Hudgens appeared in Netflix's biographical film adaption of the musical Tick, Tick... Boom!, as playwright Jonathan Larson's friend Karessa Johnson, directed by Lin-Manuel Miranda. Hudgens lent her voice to songs on the film's soundtrack. Later that month, she appeared in the third installment of Netflix's The Princess Switch film series, The Princess Switch 3: Romancing the Star, directed by Mike Rohl. Hudgens reprised her three roles from the second installment, and also served as a producer.

In 2022, Hudgens starred alongside Alexandra Shipp, Kiersey Clemons, and Ezra Miller in the Paramount Pictures' action thriller film, Asking for It. The film released in theaters, digitally, and on Blu-ray on March 4. Later that month, she co-hosted the 94th Academy Awards' red carpet pre-show with Terrence J, Sofia Carson, and Brandon Maxwell. In May 2022, Hudgens co-hosted the Met Gala red carpet livestream for Vogue with actress and television personality La La Anthony, and the magazine's editor-at-large Hamish Bowles. In June 2022, she co-hosted the 30th MTV Movie & TV Awards with Tayshia Adams, with Hudgens hosting the first half of the ceremony for film and scripted television.

 Upcoming projects
Hudgens will be voicing the character of Willow in the Netflix 3D anime-style series Army of the Dead: Lost Vegas, which will serve as a prequel to the 2021 zombie heist film Army of the Dead. She is re-teaming with director and executive producer Zack Snyder for the series, after they previously worked together on Sucker Punch. The series is reported to release sometime in 2022.

Hudgens will star in Hamish Linklater and Lily Rabe's film Downtown Owl, alongside Rabe, Ed Harris, Finn Wittrock, Jack Dylan Grazer, and August Blanco Rosenstein. It is an adaption of Chuck Klosterman's 2008 novel of the same name, and is being produced by Sony Pictures' production label Stage 6 Films. Principal photography began in Saint Paul, Minnesota in April 2022.

Hudgens has also signed to lead and executive produce the trucker adventure-drama film Big Rig. Principal photography is slated to begin later in 2022.

Personal life
In 2021, Hudgens confirmed via Instagram that she was in a relationship with Major League Baseball shortstop Cole Tucker. Hudgens and Tucker reportedly got engaged at the end of 2022.

Hudgens was raised Catholic but now identifies as a non-denominational Christian. She attends the Los Angeles affiliate church of Hillsong Church.

In May 2016, Hudgens paid $1,000 in restitution for damage of U.S. Forest Service property by carving initials within a heart on a rock in the Coconino National Forest and displaying it on her personal Instagram feed.

In March 2020, Hudgens posted an Instagram video where she stated that it is "inevitable" that people will die from the COVID-19 pandemic. The video caused controversy as critics accused her of minimizing the impact of the disease and the need for preventive measures. She subsequently apologized for her "insensitive" remarks.

As of October 2021, Hudgens is living in the "Little DeMille" house, which director Cecil B. DeMille built for his mistress. Before Hudgens, actor Gary Oldman owned the property.

Leaked photos
On September 6, 2007, photos allegedly stolen from Hudgens were leaked online, one showing her posing in lingerie and another showing her nude. A statement from her publicist said that the photo was taken privately and it was unfortunate that they were released on the Internet. Hudgens later apologized, saying that she was "embarrassed over the situation" and regretted having "taken [those] photos". In January 2008, Hudgens released a statement indicating that she declined to comment further on the subject. In October 2007, OK! magazine speculated that Hudgens would be dropped from High School Musical 3 as a result of the explicit images, but The Walt Disney Company denied this, stating, "Vanessa has apologized for what was obviously a lapse in judgment. We hope she's learned a valuable lesson."

In August 2009, another set of images showing Hudgens topless emerged on the Internet. Hudgens' representatives did not comment, though her lawyers requested the removal of the pictures. In late 2009, Hudgens sued www.moejackson.com for posting nude "self-portrait photographs" of her taken on a mobile phone in a private home. Hudgens later commented on the photos' impact on her career in the October issue of Allure, stating, "Whenever anybody asks me, would I do nudity in a film, if I say that it's something I'm not comfortable with, they're like, 'Bullshit, you've already done it.' If anything, it makes it more embarrassing, because that was a private thing. It's screwed up that someone screwed me over like that. At least some people are learning from my mistake." According to Us Weekly, additional nude images were released on the Internet on March 15, 2011.

Public image

Hudgens was represented by William Morris Agency but signed on to Creative Artists Agency in 2011. In 2006, Hudgens' earnings were estimated to be $2 million. Hudgens was included in Forbes richest list in early 2007, and the Forbes article noted that she was included in Young Hollywood's Top Earning-Stars. On December 12, 2008, Hudgens was ranked No. 20 in the list of Forbes "High Earners Under 30", having reported to have an estimated earnings of $3 million in 2008."High Earners Under 30" . (December 12, 2008) Forbes. Retrieved December 13, 2008.  She was number 62 at FHM's 100 Sexiest Women 2008 and number 42 in the 2009 list. Hudgens is also featured in Maxims lists. She was included in Peoples annual "100 Most Beautiful People" 2008 and 2009 lists.

Hudgens promotes Neutrogena and was the 2008 featured celebrity for Sears' back-to school campaign. In 2007, she became a spokesperson for Marc Eckō products but ended the contract after two years. Hudgens regularly volunteers for charitable activities, including those for Best Buddies International, Lollipop Theater Network, St. Jude Children's Research Hospital and the VH1 Save The Music Foundation. Hudgens is also featured in A Very Special Christmas Vol.7 disc which benefits the Special Olympics. Hudgens is also part of the "Stand Up to Cancer (SU2C): Change The Odds" along with other Hollywood stars including Zac Efron, Dakota Fanning, Kristen Bell, and others.

Brian Schall sued Hudgens in 2007 for an alleged "breach of contract"; according to the suit, Schall claims he advanced costs and expenses on Hudgens' behalf for her songwriting and recording career. Schall claims Hudgens owed him $150,000 after helping her earn more than $5 million for her music career. Hudgens argued that she was a 16-year-old minor when she signed the contract in October 2005, and therefore too young to do so. She subsequently disaffirmed it on October 9, 2008. Papers filed in court by her lawyer say California's Family Code "provides that the contract of a minor is voidable and may be disaffirmed before (age 18) or within a reasonable time afterward." In 2008, Hudgens was sued by Johnny Vieira, who claims he was owed a share of Hudgens' advances, royalties and merchandising revenue in exchange for his management services. Vieira accuses Hudgens of abandoning her talent team as soon as she became a commercial name. In early May 2009, the case was settled.

Hudgens is a frequent attendee of the Coachella Valley Music and Arts Festival. She has been unofficially called the "Queen of Coachella". She is known for her boho-chic fashion style, occasionally going barefoot at the festival as well.

In March 2023, Hudgens was named as a global tourism ambassador by the Philippine government.

Filmography
Film

Television

 Stage

Discography

 V (2006)
 Identified (2008)

Concert toursHeadlining Identified Summer Tour (2008)Co-headlining High School Musical: The Concert (2006–07)Opening act'''
 The Cheetah Girls – The Party's Just Begun Tour (2006)

Awards and nominations

See also
 Filipinos in the New York City metropolitan region
 List of Filipino Americans

References

External links

1988 births
Living people
21st-century American actresses
21st-century American singers
21st-century Christians
21st-century American women singers
Actresses from California
American actresses of Filipino descent
American child actresses
American child singers
American Christians
American dance musicians
American women pop singers
American film actresses
American musicians of Filipino descent
American people of Irish descent
American television actresses
Child pop musicians
Christians from California
Former Roman Catholics
Hollywood Records artists
Orange County School of the Arts alumni
People from Salinas, California
Singers from California
American people who self-identify as being of Native American descent
American musical theatre actresses

Vanessa Hudgens


Juan-y-Pherick's Journey and Other Poems is a 1916 collection of poems by W. Walter Gill. The book was published by Yn Çheshaght Gailckagh, the Manx Society, and is Gill's only collection. It is a significant contribution to the literature of the Isle of Man, as there are few other individual poetry collections from this period.

At the time of the books' release, Gill was serving as a private in active service in World War I. The release was conceived of partly as an extension of Manx literature and culture, being, as it was, the only poetry collection released by the Manx Society other than William Cubbon's selection, A Manx Poetry Book. But it was also used as a fundraiser for the war effort, as was announced at its release:

"The book is issued with the object of earning money wherewith the Manx Society may be enabled to send music, reading matter and comforts to Manx soldiers and sailors on active service or in training, and to that purpose the gross receipts from sales will be devoted."

The book contained 31 poems, seven of which had appeared in print before: 'Lament of the Mother Tongue' and 'The Ould Times' in Mannin (Volumes I and V), and 'Friends', 'Vespers', 'A Fancy', 'To an Exile', 'Exile to Exile' and 'Lament of the Mother Tongue' in A Book of Manx Poetry edited by William Cubbon. Two of the poems were based on others' work; 'Inscription for a Crucifix' is a translation of Victor Hugo, and 'Lament of the Mother Tongue' is a verse version of W. J. Cain's literal translation from the Manx of William Kennish's 'Dobberan Çhengey ny Mayrey' which was first published in 1840.

The poems are predominantly pensive or melancholic in mood, with winter or night as recurring settings or themes for nearly half of the collection. Other key themes include nature and the landscape, home and exile, and a foreboding of mortality. In contrast to other poetry and writing from the Isle of Man at this time, Gill's collection is striking for its relative absence of overt nationalism or sentimentality. This was commented on questioningly in a review in Mannin, the journal of The Manx Society, upon the book's release in 1916:

"Mr Gill's verses are not ostensibly and ostentatiously 'Manxy.' He uses the dialect sparingly, and a little unsurely, and he cannot produce the sympathetic intimate personal sketches which have so endeared 'Cushag' to us all."

Despite such controlled reviews of the book upon its release, it came to be considered by Mona Douglas, one of the leading figures of the Manx Cultural Revival, to be Gill's 'best and most original contribution to Manx Culture', even over his highly renowned Manx Scrapbooks.

One example of the tone of Gill's poetry can be found in October, a poem thatillustrates his unsentimental use of nature in his work::

October

The skies are dark and swollen with rain,
Their floor sags heavily round Barrule,
The sun's face fades to a silver stain,
Out of the West the wind comes cool
And full of the scent of rain at hand;
Rain-laden and gusty it sweeps the hills,
Already its onset shakes and spills
The first few drops of the brim-filled cup;
The fern is red, the rivers are up –
Winter beleaguers again our land.

The title poem of the collection, 'Juan-y-Pherick's Journey', is the story of a delusional homeless man who travels the Isle of Man begging and preaching. His name is the Manx version of 'John of Patrick'. P. W. Caine, in his review of the collection, said of this poem that it was "profoundly interesting, if not always convincing". A letter to Mannin by J. R. Moore of Ashburton, New Zealand, suggested that the poem might be based on two real-life characters, Chalse y Killey and Thom Delby.

Quotes
 Our finite hearts thirst for the infinite sea. (Exile to Exile)
 Watchful lights of a distant coast / Opening and closing like the yellow eyes of lions. (Lights)
 Our women doze uneasily, / Their dreams made bitter by the sea. (Thoughts after Storm)
 Nights that besiege our dreams with death. (The Cottage)
 Shine back, O moon, day's lost delights, or weave / Their memories into dreams. (Vespers)
 The tendrils travel, but the root remains. (Home)

References

British poetry collections
1916 books
Manx literature


The Bioclipse project is a Java-based, open-source, visual platform for chemo- and bioinformatics based on the Eclipse Rich Client Platform (RCP).

About
Biclipse gained scripting functionality in 2009, and a command line version in 2021.

Like any RCP application, Bioclipse uses a plugin architecture that inherits basic functionality and visual interfaces from Eclipse, such as help system, software updates, preferences, cross-platform deployment etc. Via its plugins, Bioclipse provides functionality for chemo- and bioinformatics, and extension points that easily can be extended by other, possibly proprietary, plugins to provide additional functionality.

Product
The first stable release of Bioclipse includes a Chemistry Development Kit (CDK) plugin to provide a chemoinformatic backend, a Jmol plugin for 3D-visualization of molecules, and a BioJava plugin for sequence analysis. Recently, the R platform, using StatET, and OpenTox were added.

Bioclipse is developed as a collaboration between the Proteochemometric Group, Dept. of Pharmaceutical Biosciences, Uppsala University, Sweden, the Christoph Steinbeck Group at the European Bioinformatics Institute, and the Analytical Chemistry Department at Leiden University, but also includes extensions developed at other academic institutes, including the Karolinska Institutet and Maastricht University. The development is backed up by the International Bioclipse Association.

Bioclipse Scripting Language
The Bioclipse Scripting Language (BSL) is a scripting environment, currently based on JavaScript and Groovy. It extends the scripting language with managers that wrap the functionality of third party libraries, as mentioned above. These scripts thus provide means to make analyses in Bioclipse sharable, for example, on MyExperiment.org. Bioclipse defines a number of core data types that managers support, allowing information to be used between these managers.

References

External links

Free bioinformatics software
Cheminformatics
Java platform software
Free chemistry software
Bioinformatics
Bioinformatics organizations
Bioinformatics companies
Chemotherapy

Bioclipse


The ExoLife Finder (ELF) telescope is an under-development hybrid interferometric telescope being designed at the Instituto de Astrofisica de Canarias (IAC) for the direct detection and imaging of exoplanets and potentially water-bearing exoplanets. Developed by a collaboration of scientists and engineers including the PLANETS Foundation, the ELF aims to analyze the surfaces and atmospheres of exoplanets for evidence of life, focusing on nearby star systems within 25 light years of Earth. The telescope's design features non-redundant circular arrays of 5-meter-scale mirrors and tensegrity-based mechanical support with an outer diameter of 35m. It uses multiple layers of advanced atmospheric wavefront sensing and control. It is a scalable optical concept, and could be built within a 10 year timeframe. A 3.5-meter precursor called the Small ELF (SELF) is currently being built in the Canary Islands. The ELF's first targets will include nearby stars cooler than the Sun.

ELF incorporates several new technologies in order to study exoplanets that could be 100 million times fainter than the stars they orbit. This combination of technologies results in smoother and lighter optics compared to conventional telescope mirrors and greater control of optical diffraction and wavefront errors created by the atmosphere. According to the team behind ELF, the telescope's imaging capabilities and detection methods, which include analyzing planetary energy signatures and spectroscopic chemical fingerprints, will advance our understanding of exoplanetary environments and the search for extraterrestrial life.

The Small ELF (SELF)
The Small ExoLife Finder (SELF) telescope is a 3.5m outer diameter Fizeau telescope built from 15 0.5m diameter subapertures arranged in a circular pattern like the ELF telescope. SELF uses a telescope support structure built from a tensegrity structure of cables and compressional elements. This structure creates a stiff basis for the optics that can be 10 times lighter than a conventional truss structure. The subapertures are aligned and carefully phased using a small secondary mirror for each of the 15 subapertures. Machine learning algorithms and photonic structures built into the optical system allow the SELF to overcome the effects of the atmosphere to suppress the bright central starlight in order to see the exoplanetary environments around nearby bright stars.

Laboratory for Innovation in OptoMechanics (LIOM)
The key to finding life is to measure reflected starlight from an exoplanet. ELF does this with a very large diameter telescope using optical technologies that can measure and correct the distortions in the optical wavefront created by the atmosphere above the telescope and the telescope's imperfections. The ELF depends on 4 innovations: 1) new ways of  creating accurate light-weight large mirrors without grinding glass, 2) a scalable optical system that combines elements of conventional telescopes with interferometry, 3) new ways of precisely supporting optics without massive mechanical trusses, and 4) photonics and machine learning innovations to measure and correct the stellar wavefront. IAC hosts the Laboratory for Innovation in OptoMechanics (LIOM) where scientists, engineers, and students are working on solving all of these problems.

Design and specifications
The ExoLife Finder (ELF) is a specialized large telescope designed for exoplanetary research, with an ultimate focus on detecting the energy signatures of life or its optical fingerprints on nearby exoplanets. The ELF is effectively a Fizeau interferometer that links an array of diffraction-limited unobscured off-axis subaperture telescopes at a common Gregorian focus. The direct detection of exoplanetary light relies on an extremely large telescope aperture with superior control of diffraction and correction of atmospheric wavefront distortions. The ELF's basic design consists of circular arrays of 5-meter-scale mirrors, utilizing thin curvature-polished technology, resulting in a total diameter of about 35 meters. This size allows the ELF to "image" dozens of exoplanets within 25 light years of Earth, opening a new window onto exoplanetary science and the search for extraterrestrial life.

Cost is highly dependent on system mass and the ELF employs a structural principle called tensegrity which utilizes actively controlled tension and compression to greatly reduce weight. Tensegrity is often used in bridge designs but the term originated with Buckminster Fuller 50 years ago. Each of the ELF's mirrors has a dedicated secondary off-axis mirror. Off-axis telescopes are often used in radio dish receivers, but their usage in optical telescopes has been made possible by new polishing technology. This design reduces scattered light that might interfere with the faint optical signal received from exoplanets.

The ELF is intended to be scalable, affordable, and rapidly buildable within a decade timeframe. Its unusual design allows the telescope to achieve the sensitivity needed to reconstruct images of exoplanets, making it the earliest and most cost-effective path forward for finding and characterizing life on nearby exoplanets.

Mirror technology
One of the key innovations of the ELF telescope is its mirror technology, which significantly differs from that of traditional telescopes that are descended from the abrasive glass shaping concept pioneered by Isaac Newton 500 years ago. Such traditional telescope mirrors are several centimeters thick and can require many 10's of cycles of rubbing and measuring to achieve a high quality optical surface. Large optical mirrors like these typically cost $0.5M per m2. The combination of curvature polishing and tensegrity support structures can reduce the cost and time to fabricate large telescope optics by more than an order of magnitude. Dynamically maintaining the shape of such thin mirrors against gravity direction changes and wind forces is done with 3D printed electroactive polymers.

Imaging and detection capabilities
ELF is designed to indirectly image the surface of exoplanets and to detect the energy signatures and spectroscopic chemical fingerprints that are indicative of life. The telescope's primary focus is on detecting molecules such as water, oxygen, methane, carbon dioxide, and ozone, which are commonly associated with life on Earth. Additionally, the ELF is capable of detecting photosynthetic bio-pigments on the surface of exoplanets, which could indicate the presence of photosynthetic organisms.

The ELF's useful imaging capabilities extend up to 120 trillion miles, or 24 light years, away from Earth with a particular sensitivity for exoplanets around stars cooler than the Sun. This range allows it to target dozens of exoplanets within 25 light years of our solar system, including the nearby star system Alpha Centauri, which holds promising worlds like Proxima B in the habitable zone.

To achieve its imaging and detection goals, the ELF utilizes the so-called vortex nulling properties of its Fizeau interferometry. These optics create what is called a coronagraph from the telescope primary optics alone. The use of complex inversion algorithms that depend on repeated observations of the exoplanet systems over months then samples the exoplanetary rotation and orbit to reveal details of its surface structure like oceans, continents, forests, deserts, or even city complexes.

Location
The precursor small ELF is locate on Mt. Teide on Tenerife island and the proposed location for the full ELF telescope could be in the Canary Islands for seeing the Northern sky or in Chile's Atacama Desert to see southern exoplanets like Proxima B. The remote and dry environment of the Atacama Desert provides optimal conditions for astronomical observations, while minimizing light pollution and atmospheric disturbances.

References

Astronomical imaging
Astronomical instruments
Exoplanets

ExoLife Finder


Temukan, also known as Tamouken, or Toukeh, Taokè as called by Greeks, is an ancient city in Iran, dating back to the Achaemenid era.  It was discovered by archaeologists in April 2005 while conducting excavations at Borazjan in the  Dashtestan county of the southern Iranian province of Bushehr.

Temukan hosts the Bardak-e Siyah Palace. Archaeologists had thought that the site was part of Tawwaj, however, other discoveries in the region, made in 2004 and 2005, indicate that Tawwaj is actually several kilometers away from the site.

Archaeological sites in Iran
Former populated places in Iran
Buildings and structures in Bushehr Province
Historical geography of Fars

Temukan


A wallrow is a combination of a field boundary, dry stone wall and the spontaneous regeneration of scrubland brought about by the shelter of that wall, often containing species of trees, woody shrubs, herbaceous growth and other flora, and coined by Dr. Marcus Collier, a landscape ecologist and field boundary specialist from Ireland paper.

Overview
Like fencerows, wallrows are distinct from hedgerows because they are not deliberately planted, nor are they as managed as hedgerows paper. The presence of a stone wall often obstructs mechanical management, thus facilitating scrub development. Woody vegetation is necessary for a field boundary to be a wallrow; a stone wall overgrown solely with herbaceous plants is not so much a wallrow as a wall. However, early stages of wallrow development generally consist of herbaceous inundation prior to the arrival of woody shrubs with animals (especially birds) and the wind as the main dispersal agents. Woody vegetation is necessary to attract seed-dispersing faunae, and for soil development, thus facilitating further the spread of woody shrubs and trees. In this way wallrows are strikingly similar to North American fencerows, though the obvious difference remains that fencerows are based along a wooden fence or under telegraph lines, and wallrows along a field boundary stone wall. Wallrows are common in Ireland, especially where fields are abandoned or under-managed.

References

Land management
Fences
Types of wall

Wallrow


The Falling Man is a photograph taken by Associated Press photographer Richard Drew of a man falling from the World Trade Center during the September 11 attacks in New York City. The unidentified man in the image was trapped on the upper floors of the North Tower, and it is unclear whether he fell while searching for safety or he jumped to escape the fire and smoke. The photograph was taken at exactly 9:41:15 A.M. on the day of the attacks.

The photograph was widely criticized after publication in international media on September 12, 2001, with readers labeling the image as disturbing, cold-blooded, ghoulish, and sadistic. However, in the years following, the photo has gained acclamation.

A Time magazine retrospective published in 2016 stated "Falling Man's identity is still unknown, but he is believed to have been an employee at the Windows on the World restaurant, which sat atop the north tower. The true power of Falling Man, however, is less about who its subject was and more about what he became: a makeshift Unknown Soldier in an often unknown and uncertain war, suspended forever in history."

Background

On Tuesday, September 11, 2001, four passenger jets were commandeered by 19 al-Qaeda terrorists after takeoff. Two of these hijacked airliners, American Airlines Flight 11 and United Airlines Flight 175, were intentionally crashed into the Twin Towers of the World Trade Center complex in New York City, killing or trapping well over 1300 people above the 91st floor of the North Tower and more than 600 above the 76th floor of the South.

That morning, an estimated 200 people were witnessed falling from the upper levels of the burning skyscrapers. All but three came from the North Tower, where considerably more people were confined to a much smaller number of floors. Most of the people who fell from the World Trade Center deliberately jumped to their deaths to escape the smoke, flames, and extreme heat (in some places, estimated at over 2,000 degrees Fahrenheit). A smaller percentage of the falling deaths were accidents caused by people losing their grip or being knocked off-balance near window ledges, or attempting to climb down to a lower floor below the fire. Officials could not recover or identify the remains of those forced out of the towers due to the conditions on the ground near the base of the building at the time, prior to their collapse. The New York City medical examiner's office said it does not classify them as "jumpers," explaining that a "jumper" is defined as someone who "goes to the office in the morning knowing that they will commit suicide," adding that the victims who fell from the towers did not want to die but "were forced out by the smoke and flames or blown out." The medical examiner's office listed manner of death as homicide for all deaths associated with the 9/11 attacks.

The morning of September 11, Richard Drew was on assignment for the Associated Press, photographing a maternity fashion show in Bryant Park. Alerted by his editor to the attacks, Drew took the subway to the Chambers Street subway station, near the World Trade Center site. He took the falling man image while at the corner of West and Vesey Street from a low angle. He took eight photographs in sequence, after realizing that a series of loud cracking sounds was not that of falling concrete, but rather people hitting the ground. He took between ten and twelve different sequences of images of people jumping from the tower, before having to leave the site due to the South Tower's collapse.

The man fell from the south side of the North Tower's west face. Thus, the left half of the backdrop features the North Tower while the South Tower is visible on the right. The photograph gives the impression that the man is falling straight down; however, a series of photographs taken of his fall shows him to be tumbling through the air.

Publication history
The photograph initially appeared in newspapers around the world, including on page seven of The New York Times on September 12, 2001. The photo's caption read, "A person falls headfirst after jumping from the north tower of the World Trade Center. It was a horrific sight that was repeated in the moments after the planes struck the towers." It appeared only once in the Times because of criticism and anger against its use. Five and half years later, it appeared on page 1 of The New York Times Book Review on May 27, 2007.

Identification

The identity of the subject of the photograph has never been officially confirmed. The large number of people trapped in the tower has made identifying the man in the 12 photos difficult, though several sources have attempted to identify him.

Norberto Hernandez
After seeing a missing persons poster, reporter Peter Cheney suggested in the Canadian national newspaper The Globe and Mail that the man pictured in the photo may have been Norberto Hernandez, a pastry chef at Windows on the World, a restaurant located on the 106th floor of the North Tower. Some members of Hernandez's family initially agreed with Cheney, but after examining the entire photo sequence and noting details of his clothing, they were no longer convinced.

Jonathan Briley
"The Falling Man", an article about the photograph by American journalist Tom Junod, was published in the September 2003 issue of Esquire magazine. It was adapted into a documentary film by the same name. The article gave the possible identity of the falling man as Jonathan Briley, a 43-year-old sound engineer who worked at Windows on the World. Briley had asthma and would have known he was in danger when smoke began to pour into the restaurant. He was initially identified by his brother, Timothy. Michael Lomonaco, the restaurant's executive chef, also suggested that the man was Briley based on his body type and clothes. In one of the photos, the Falling Man's shirt or white jacket was blown open and up, revealing an orange t-shirt similar to one shirt that Briley often wore. Briley's older sister Gwendolyn also suggested that he could be the victim. She told reporters of The Sunday Mirror, "When I first looked at the picture ... and I saw it was a man—tall, slim—I said, 'If I didn't know any better, that could be Jonathan. Briley's remains were recovered the day after 9/11. Jonathan Briley was brother to Alexander Briley, a member of the band Village People.

Other uses
 is a 2006 documentary film about the photo. It was made by American filmmaker Henry Singer and filmed by Richard Numeroff, a New York-based director of photography. The film is loosely based on Junod's Esquire story. It also drew its material from photographer Lyle Owerko's pictures of falling people. It debuted on March 16, 2006, on the British television network Channel 4, later made its North American premiere on Canada's CBC Newsworld on September 6, 2006, and has been broadcast in more than 30 countries. The U.S. premiere was September 10, 2007, on the Discovery Times Channel.

The novel Falling Man, by Don DeLillo, is about the September 11 attacks. The "falling man" in the novel is a performance artist recreating the events of the photograph. DeLillo says he was unfamiliar with the title of the picture when he named his book. The artist straps himself into a harness and jumps from an elevated structure in a high visibility area (such as a highway overpass), hanging in the pose of The Falling Man.

In July 2022, GameStop received controversy for allowing a non-fungible token titled Falling Man to be listed on their newly-launched NFT platform. The digital image depicted an astronaut falling in a pose and background replicating Drew's photograph, and was provided the seller's description "This one probably fell from the MIR station", referencing the 1997 crash of Spektr. The NFT was later delisted from the platform.

See also
 Impending Death
 List of photographs considered the most important

References
Citations

Sources
 9/11: The Falling Man (March 16, 2006). Channel 4.

Further reading

External links
 NPR interview with Esquire magazine writer Tom Junod, August 21, 2003

2001 in art
Associated Press
Male murder victims
People murdered in New York City
Color photographs
Photographs from the September 11 attacks
Works originally published in The New York Times
World Trade Center
Terrorism deaths in New York (state)
Victims of the September 11 attacks
Unidentified people
People notable for being the subject of a specific photograph
Unidentified murder victims in New York (state)
Unidentified American people

The Falling Man


Forest protection is  a branch of forestry which is concerned with the preservation or improvement of a forest  and prevention and control of damage to forest by natural or man made causes like forest fires, plant pests, and adverse climatic conditions (global warming).

Forest protection also has a legal status and rather than protection from only people damaging the forests is seen to be broader and include forest pathology too. Due to the different emphases there exist widely different methods forest protection.

In German-speaking countries, forest protection would focus on the biotic and abiotic factors that are non-crime related. A protected forest is not the same as a protection forest. These terms can lead to some confusion in English, although they are clearer in other languages. As a result, reading English literature can be problematic for non-experts due to localization and conflation of meanings.

The types of man-induced abuse that forest protection seeks to prevent include:
 Aggressive or unsustainable intensive farming and logging
 Pollution of the forest soil
 Expanding city development caused by population explosion and the resulting urban sprawl

There is considerable debate over the effectiveness of forest protection methods. Enforcement of laws regarding purchased forest land is weak or non-existent in most parts of the world. In the increasingly dangerous South America, home of major rainforests, officials of the Brazilian National Agency for the Environment (IBAMA) have recently been shot during their routine duties.

Land purchase
One simple type of forest protection is land acquisition by the state or conservation organisations in order to secure it, or for reforestation / afforestation. It can also mean forest management or the designation of areas such as natural reservoirs which are intended to be left to themselves. However, merely purchasing a piece of land does not prevent it from being used by others for poaching and illegal logging.

On site monitoring
A better way to protect a forest, particularly old growth forests in remote areas, is to obtain a part of it and to live on and monitor the purchased land. Even in the United States, these measures sometimes don't suffice because arson can burn a forest to the ground, leaving burnt areas free for different use.

Another issue about living on purchased forest-land is that there may not be a suitable site for a standard home without clearing land, which defies the purpose of protection. Alternatives include building a treehouse or an earthhouse. This is being done currently by indigenous people in South America to protect large reservoirs. In former times, North American Native Americans used to live in tipies or mandan earthhouses, which also require less land. An undertaking to develop modern treehouses is being taken by a company from Germany called "TrueSchool treehouses".

Other methods of protection
A number of less successful methods of forest protection have been tried, such as the trade in certified wood. Protecting a small section of land in a larger forest may also have limited value. For example, tropical rainforests can die if they decrease in size, since they are dependent on the moist microclimate which they create. There is an excellent article in National Geographic October issue concerning redwood forest in California and their effort to maintain forest and rainforest.

A compromise is to conduct agriculture and stock farming, or sustainable wood management. This ascribes different values to forest land and farmland, for which many areas are clear felled.

Neighborhood leakage
Two conflicting studies on the idea that protecting forests only relocates deforestation. This is called 'neighborhood leakage'. According to the paradox of forest protection protected areas such as rural settlements near protected zones grew at twice the rate of those elsewhere.  The IUCN implements such protocols that protect  over 670 eco-regions. 46% of the eco-regions had less than 10% forest protection. Which means that these areas are not being monitored as they should and the protection is not working. Considering forest protection within global priority areas was unsatisfactory. An example given was that the average protection of 8.4% in biodiversity hotspots. Results have policy relevance in terms of the target of the Convention on Biological Diversity, reconfirmed in 2008, to conserve in an effective manner that "at least 10% of each of the world's forest types".

See also

 Agreement on the Application of Sanitary and Phytosanitary Measures
 Conservation biology
 Conservation ethic
 Conservation movement
 Conservation reliant species
 Deep ecology
 Ecology
 Ecology movement
 Environmentalism
 Environmental movement
 Environmental protection
 Forest conservation
 Forest Principles
 Habitat conservation
 List of environmental organizations
 Natural environment
 Natural capital
 Natural landscape
 Natural resource
 Protection forest
 Renewable resource
 Sustainable development
 Sustainability
 Sustainable agriculture
 Urban forest
 Water conservation

References

External links
Forests in danger *Roadmap to Recovery: The World's Last Intact Forest Landscapes *Global Forest Resources Assessment 2005
CoolForests.org - Conservation Cools the Planet

Forest conservation
Environmental protection

Forest protection


Frédéric Chopin's ballades are four one-movement pieces for solo piano. He composed them between 1835 and 1842. The four ballades are said to have been inspired by Polish poet Adam Mickiewicz. The exact inspiration for each individual ballade, however, is unclear and not agreed upon.

Ballades were composed before Chopin, in literature and Italian Renaissance music. But, Chopin invented the ballade as an abstract musical form. The ballade is a distinct form and cannot be placed into another form (e.g. sonata). After Chopin, other composers such as Franz Liszt and Johannes Brahms also wrote ballades.

The ballades are thought to be the best of Chopin's compositions and of romantic music.  The ballades are difficult for pianists to play, even after they learn the technical difficulty of the notes. There are still the creative expressions to be mastered.

All four ballades are from 8 to 12 minutes in length. They are in triple time (three beats to a bar), or in 6/4 or 6/8 time. Each is an individual work and should not be played as a group in a concert. Even Chopin did not do this. He wanted listeners to find their own interpretation of the music. Each piece has its own poetry, drama and story.

Chopin's four ballades are very popular pieces and are often heard in concerts around the world. There have been many recordings made of the ballades by classical pianists.

References

Compositions by Frédéric Chopin
Solo piano pieces

Ballades (Chopin)