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Hanna Reitsch

Hanna Reitsch (29 March 1912 – 24 August 1979) was a German aviator and test pilot. Along with Melitta von Stauffenberg, she flight tested many of Germany's new aircraft during World War II and received many honors. Reitsch was among the very last people to meet Adolf Hitler alive in the Führerbunker in late April 1945.

Reitsch set more than 40 flight altitude records and women's endurance records in gliding and unpowered flight, before and after World War II. In the 1960s, she was sponsored by the West German foreign office as a technical adviser in Ghana and elsewhere, and founded a gliding school in Ghana, where she worked for Kwame Nkrumah.

Early life and education
Reitsch was born in Hirschberg, Silesia, on 29 March 1912 to an upper-middle-class family. She was daughter of Dr. Wilhelm (Willy) Reitsch, who was an ophthalmology clinic manager, and his wife Emy Helff-Hibler von Alpenheim, who was a member of the Austrian nobility. Despite her mother being a devout Catholic, Hanna was raised a Protestant. She had two siblings, her brother Kurt, a Frigate captain, and her younger sister Heidi. Reitsch began flight training in 1932 at the School of Gliding in Grunau. While a medical student in Berlin she enrolled in a German Air Mail amateur flying school for powered aircraft at Staaken, training in a Klemm Kl 25.

1933–1937
In 1933, Reitsch left medical school at the University of Kiel to become, at the invitation of Wolf Hirth, a full-time glider pilot/instructor at Hornberg in Baden-Württemberg. Reitsch contracted with the Ufa Film Company as a stunt pilot and set an unofficial endurance record for women of 11 hours and 20 minutes. In January 1934, she joined a South America expedition to study thermal conditions, along with Wolf Hirth, Peter Riedel and Heini Dittmar. While in Argentina, she became the first woman to earn the Silver C Badge, the 25th to do so among world glider pilots.

In June 1934, Reitsch became a member of the Deutsche Forschungsanstalt für Segelflug (DFS) and became a test pilot in 1935. Reitsch enrolled in the Civil Airways Training School in Stettin, where she flew a twin-engine on a cross country flight and aerobatics in a Focke-Wulf Fw 44. In 1937, Ernst Udet gave Reitsch the honorary title of Flugkapitän after she had successfully tested Hans Jacobs's divebrakes for gliders. At the DFS she test-flew transport and troop-carrying gliders, including the DFS 230 used at the Battle of Fort Eben-Emael.

1937–1945
In September 1937, Reitsch was posted to the Luftwaffe testing centre at Rechlin-Lärz Airfield by Ernst Udet.

Her flying skill, desire for publicity, and photogenic qualities made her a star of Nazi propaganda. Physically she was petite in stature, very slender with blonde hair, blue eyes and a "ready smile". She appeared in Nazi propaganda throughout the late 1930s and early 1940s.

Reitsch was the first female helicopter pilot and one of the few pilots to fly the Focke-Achgelis Fa 61, the first fully controllable helicopter, for which she received the Military Flying Medal. In 1938, during the three weeks of the International Automobile Exhibition in Berlin, she made daily flights of the Fa 61 helicopter inside the Deutschlandhalle.

In September 1938, Reitsch flew the DFS Habicht in the Cleveland National Air Races.

Reitsch was a test pilot on the Junkers Ju 87 Stuka dive bomber and Dornier Do 17 light/fast bomber projects, for which she received the Iron Cross, Second Class, from Hitler on 28 March 1941. Reitsch was asked to fly many of Germany's latest designs, among them the rocket-propelled Messerschmitt Me 163 Komet in 1942. And as such, she became the first and only woman in the world to fly a rocket plane. A crash landing on her fifth Me 163 flight badly injured Reitsch; she spent five months in a hospital recovering. Reitsch received the Iron Cross First Class following the accident, one of only three women to do so.

She was also the only woman to fly the world's biggest glider, the Messerschmitt Me 321 Gigant (Giant). She was instrumental in having a second pilot added to the Me 321. She was also the first woman in the world to fly a jet fighter (Me 262), and the only woman in the world to fly a cruise missile (Fieseler Fi 103R Reichenberg). She was also likely to have been the first woman to fly a dive bomber (Ju 87).

In February 1943 after news of the defeat in the Battle of Stalingrad she accepted an invitation from Generaloberst Robert Ritter von Greim to visit the Eastern Front. She spent three weeks visiting Luftwaffe units, flying a Fieseler Fi 156 Storch.

V1, 1944
On 28 February 1944, she presented the idea of Operation Suicide to Hitler at Berchtesgaden, which "would require men who were ready to sacrifice themselves in the conviction that only by this means could their country be saved." Although Hitler "did not consider the war situation sufficiently serious to warrant them ... and ... this was not the right psychological moment", he gave his approval. The project was assigned to Gen. Günther Korten. There were about seventy volunteers who enrolled in the Suicide Group as pilots for the human glider-bomb. By April 1944, Reitsch and Heinz Kensche finished tests of the Me 328, carried aloft by a Dornier Do 217. By then, she was approached by SS-Obersturmbannführer Otto Skorzeny, a founding member of the SS- Selbstopferkommando Leonidas (Leonidas Squadron). They adapted the V-1 flying bomb into the Fieseler Fi 103R Reichenberg including a two-seater and a single-seater with and without the mechanisms to land. The plan was never implemented operationally, "the decisive moment had been missed."

In her autobiography Fliegen, mein Leben Reitsch recalled that after two initial crashes with the Fi 103R she and Heinz Kensche took over tests of the prototype Fi 103R. She made several successful test flights before training the instructors. "Though an average pilot could fly the V1 without difficulty once it was in the air, to land it called for exceptional skill, in that it had a very high landing speed and, moreover, in training it was the glider model, without engine, that was usually employed."

In October 1944, Reitsch claimed she was shown a booklet by Peter Riedel which he'd obtained while in the German Embassy in Stockholm, concerning the gas chambers. She further claimed that while believing it to be enemy propaganda, she agreed to inform Heinrich Himmler about it. When she did, Himmler is said to have asked whether she believed it, and she replied, "No, of course not. But you must do something to counter it. You can't let them shoulder this onto Germany." "You are right," Himmler replied.

Berlin, 1945

During the last days of the war, Hitler dismissed Hermann Göring as head of the Luftwaffe and appointed von Greim to replace him. Von Greim and Reitsch flew from Gatow Airport into embattled Berlin to meet Hitler in the Führerbunker, arriving on 26 April when Red Army troops were already in the central area of Berlin. Reitsch and von Greim had been flown from Rechlin–Lärz Airfield to Gatow Airfield in a Focke-Wulf Fw 190 (with Reitsch riding in the small plane's fuselage), escorted by twelve other Fw 190s from Jagdgeschwader 26 under the command of Hauptmann Hans Dortenmann. In Berlin, Reitsch and von Greim took a Fi 156 Storch—initially piloted by von Greim until his foot was struck by a bullet, then by Reitsch reaching over him to land on an improvised airstrip in the Tiergarten near the Brandenburg Gate and Berlin Victory Column. On 27 April, Hitler gave Reitsch two capsules of poison for herself and von Greim, which she accepted.

Shortly after midnight on 29 April, Hitler ordered Reitsch and von Greim to fly out of Berlin in an Arado Ar 96 (which had been flown to the Tiergarten by the pilot who stowed Reitsch in his fuselage), asserting that they could get General Walther Wenck to save Berlin. Von Greim was ordered to get the Luftwaffe to attack the Soviet forces that had just reached Potsdamer Platz and to make sure Himmler was punished for his treachery in making unauthorised contact with the Western Allies regarding surrender terms. Troops of the Soviet 3rd Shock Army, which was fighting its way through the Tiergarten from the north, tried to shoot the plane down fearing that Hitler was escaping in it, but it took off successfully.

Capture, 1945
Reitsch was soon captured along with von Greim and the two were interviewed together by U.S. military intelligence officers. When asked about being ordered to leave the Führerbunker on 29 April 1945, Reitsch and von Greim reportedly repeated the same answer: "It was the blackest day when we could not die at our Führer's side." Reitsch stated, "We should all kneel down in reverence and prayer before the altar of the Fatherland," referring to the Führerbunker. Reitsch dismissed assertions of Hitler's survival, saying, "He had no reason to live and the tragedy was that he knew it ... perhaps better than anyone else did." Reitsch claimed Hitler was initially motivated by a will to "make Germany healthy again", but gambled his populace. She criticised his incompetence as a leader (e.g. his selection of the wrong persons for office) and argued repeatedly that never again must an individual have so much control over any country. Reitsch was held for eighteen months; von Greim killed himself on 24 May 1945.

Evacuated from Silesia ahead of the Soviet troops, Reitsch's family took refuge in Salzburg. During the night of 3 May 1945, after hearing a rumour that all refugees were to be taken back to their original homes in the Soviet occupation zone, Reitsch's father shot and killed her mother and sister and her sister's three children before killing himself.

1945–1979
After her release Reitsch settled in Frankfurt am Main. After the war, German citizens were barred from flying powered aircraft, but within a few years gliding was allowed, which she took up again. In 1952, Reitsch won a bronze medal in the World Gliding Championships in Spain; she was the first woman to compete and in 1955 she became German champion. She continued to break records, including the women's altitude record (6848 m) in 1957 and her first diamond of the Gold-C badge.

During the mid-1950s, Reitsch was interviewed on film and talked about her wartime flight tests of the Fa 61, Me 262 and Me 163.

In 1959, Indian Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru invited Reitsch, who spoke fluent English, to start a gliding centre, and she flew with him over New Delhi. In 1961, United States President John F. Kennedy invited her to the White House.

From 1962 to 1966, she lived in Ghana. The then Ghanaian President, Kwame Nkrumah invited Reitsch to Ghana after reading of her work in India. At Afienya she founded the first black African national gliding school, working closely with the government and the armed forces. The West German government supported her as technical adviser. The school was commanded by J.E.S. de Graft-Hayford, with gliders such as the double-seated Schleicher K7, Slingsby T.21 and a Bergfalke, along with a single-seated Schleicher K 8. She gained the FAI Diamond Badge in 1970. The project was evidently of great importance to Nkrumah and has been interpreted as part of a "modernist" development ideology.

Reitsch's attitudes to race underwent a change. "Earlier in my life, it would never have occurred to me to treat a black person as a friend or partner ..." She now experienced guilt at her earlier "presumptuousness and arrogance". She became close to Nkrumah. The details of their relationship are now unclear due to the destruction of documents, but some surviving letters are intimate in tone.

In Ghana, some Africans were disturbed by the prominence of a person with Reitsch's past, but Shirley Graham Du Bois, a noted African-American writer who had emigrated to Ghana and was friendly towards Reitsch, agreed with Nkrumah that Reitsch was extremely naive politically. Contemporary Ghanaian press reports seem to show a lack of interest in her past.

Throughout the 1970s, Reitsch broke gliding records in many categories, including the "Women's Out and Return World Record" twice, once in 1976 (715 km) and again, in 1979 (802 km), flying along the Appalachian Ridges in the United States. During this time, she also finished first in the women's section of the first world helicopter championships.

Last interview, 1970s
Reitsch was interviewed and photographed several times in the 1970s, towards the end of her life, by Jewish-American photojournalist Ron Laytner. In her closing remarks she is quoted as saying:

"And what have we now in Germany? A country of bankers and car-makers. Even our great army has gone soft. Soldiers wear beards and question orders. I am not ashamed to say I believed in National Socialism. I still wear the Iron Cross with diamonds Hitler gave me. But today in all of Germany you can't find a single person who voted Adolf Hitler into power ... Many Germans feel guilty about the war. But they don't explain the real guilt we share – that we lost."

In the same interview, she is quoted as saying, "I asked Hermann Göring one day, 'What is this I am hearing that Germany is killing Jews?' Göring responded angrily, 'A totally outrageous lie made up by the British and American press. It will be used as a rope to hang us someday if we lose the war.'"

Death
Reitsch died of a heart attack in Frankfurt at the age of 67, on 24 August 1979. She had never married. She is buried in the Reitsch family grave in the Salzburger Kommunalfriedhof.

Former British test pilot and Royal Navy officer Eric Brown said he received a letter from Reitsch in early August 1979 in which she said, "It began in the bunker, there it shall end." Within weeks she was dead. Brown speculated that Reitsch had taken the cyanide capsule Hitler had given her in the bunker, and that she had taken it as part of a suicide pact with Greim. There is no record of an autopsy.

List of awards and world records

 * 1932: women's gliding endurance record (5.5 hours)
 * 1936: women's gliding distance record (305 km)
 * 1937: first woman to cross the Alps in a glider
 * 1937: the first woman in the world to be promoted to flight captain by Colonel Ernst Udet
 * 1937: the first woman to fly a helicopter (Fa 61)
 * 1937: world distance record in a helicopter (109 km)
 * 1938: the first person to fly a helicopter (Fa 61) inside an enclosed space (Deutschlandhalle)
 * 1938: winner of German national gliding competition Sylt-Breslau Silesia
 * 1939: women's world record in gliding for point-to-point flight.
 * 1943: While in the Luftwaffe, the first woman to pilot a rocket plane (Messerschmitt Me 163). She survived a disastrous crash though with severe injuries and because of this she became the first of three German women to receive the Iron Cross First Class.
 * 1944: the first woman in the world to pilot a jet aircraft at the Luftwaffe research centre at Rechlin during the trials of the Messerschmitt Me 262 and Heinkel He 162
 * 1952: third place in the World Gliding Championships in Spain together with her team-mate Lisbeth Häfner
 * 1955: German gliding champion
 * 1956: German gliding distance record (370 km)
 * 1957: German gliding altitude record (6848 m)

Books by Hanna Reitsch

 * Fliegen, mein Leben. 4th ed. Munich: Herbig, 2001. ISBN 3-7766-2197-4 (Autobiography)
 * Ich flog in Afrika für Nkrumahs Ghana. 2nd ed. Munich: Herbig, 1979. ISBN 3-7766-0929-X (original title: Ich flog für Kwame Nkrumah).
 * Das Unzerstörbare in meinem Leben. 7th ed. Munich: Herbig, 1992. ISBN 3-7766-0975-3.
 * Höhen und Tiefen. 1945 bis zur Gegenwart. Munich: Heyne, 1984. ISBN 3-453-01963-6.
 * Höhen und Tiefen. 1945 bis zur Gegenwart. 2nd expanded ed. Munich/Berlin: Herbig, 1978. ISBN 3-7766-0890-0.

In popular culture
Reitsch has been portrayed by the following actresses in film and television productions:
 * Reitsch is one of the two female test pilots (the other being Melitta von Stauffenberg) featured in The Woman Who Flew for Hitler (Pan Macmillan, 2017) by Clare Mulley
 * Barbara Rütting in the 1965 film Operation Crossbow
 * Diane Cilento in the 1973 British film Hitler: The Last Ten Days.
 * Myvanwy Jenn in the 1973 British television production The Death of Adolf Hitler.
 * Anna Thalbach in the 2004 German film Downfall (Der Untergang).

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XML Schema (W3C)

XSD (XML Schema Definition), a recommendation of the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C), specifies how to formally describe the elements in an Extensible Markup Language (XML) document. It can be used by programmers to verify each piece of item content in a document, to assure it adheres to the description of the element it is placed in.

Like all XML schema languages, XSD can be used to express a set of rules to which an XML document must conform to be considered "valid" according to that schema. However, unlike most other schema languages, XSD was also designed with the intent that determination of a document's validity would produce a collection of information adhering to specific data types. Such a post-validation infoset can be useful in the development of XML document processing software.

History
XML Schema, published as a W3C recommendation in May 2001, is one of several XML schema languages. It was the first separate schema language for XML to achieve Recommendation status by the W3C. Because of confusion between XML Schema as a specific W3C specification, and the use of the same term to describe schema languages in general, some parts of the user community referred to this language as WXS, an initialism for W3C XML Schema, while others referred to it as XSD, an initialism for XML Schema Definition. In Version 1.1 the W3C has chosen to adopt XSD as the preferred name, and that is the name used in this article.

In its appendix of references, the XSD specification acknowledges the influence of DTDs and other early XML schema efforts such as DDML, SOX, XML-Data, and XDR. It has adopted features from each of these proposals but is also a compromise among them. Of those languages, XDR and SOX continued to be used and supported for a while after XML Schema was published. A number of Microsoft products supported XDR until the release of MSXML 6.0 (which dropped XDR in favor of XML Schema) in December 2006. Commerce One, Inc. supported its SOX schema language until declaring bankruptcy in late 2004.

The most obvious features offered in XSD that are not available in XML's native Document Type Definitions (DTDs) are namespace awareness and datatypes, that is, the ability to define element and attribute content as containing values such as integers and dates rather than arbitrary text.

The XSD 1.0 specification was originally published in 2001, with a second edition following in 2004 to correct large numbers of errors. XSD 1.1 became a W3C Recommendation in April 2012.

Schemas and schema documents
Technically, a schema is an abstract collection of metadata, consisting of a set of schema components: chiefly element and attribute declarations and complex and simple type definitions. These components are usually created by processing a collection of schema documents, which contain the source language definitions of these components. In popular usage, however, a schema document is often referred to as a schema.

Schema documents are organized by namespace: all the named schema components belong to a target namespace, and the target namespace is a property of the schema document as a whole. A schema document may include other schema documents for the same namespace, and may import schema documents for a different namespace.

When an instance document is validated against a schema (a process known as assessment), the schema to be used for validation can either be supplied as a parameter to the validation engine, or it can be referenced directly from the instance document using two special attributes,  and. (The latter mechanism requires the client invoking validation to trust the document sufficiently to know that it is being validated against the correct schema. "xsi" is the conventional prefix for the namespace "http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema-instance".)

XML Schema Documents usually have the filename extension ".xsd". A unique Internet Media Type is not yet registered for XSDs, so "application/xml" or "text/xml" should be used, as per RFC 3023.

Schema components
The main components of a schema are:

 * Element declarations, which define properties of elements. These include the element name and target namespace. An important property is the type of the element, which constrains what attributes and children the element can have. In XSD 1.1, the type of the element may be conditional on the values of its attributes. An element may belong to a substitution group; if element E is in the substitution group of element H, then wherever the schema permits H to appear, E may appear in its place. Elements may have integrity constraints: uniqueness constraints determining that particular values must be unique within the subtree rooted at an element, and referential constraints determining that values must match the identifier of some other element. Element declarations may be global or local, allowing the same name to be used for unrelated elements in different parts of an instance document.
 * Attribute declarations, which define properties of attributes. Again the properties include the attribute name and target namespace. The attribute type constrains the values that the attribute may take. An attribute declaration may also include a default value or a fixed value (which is then the only value the attribute may take.)
 * Simple and complex types. These are described in the following section.
 * Model group and attribute group definitions. These are essentially macros: named groups of elements and attributes that can be reused in many different type definitions.
 * An attribute use represents the relationship of a complex type and an attribute declaration, and indicates whether the attribute is mandatory or optional when it is used in that type.
 * An element particle similarly represents the relationship of a complex type and an element declaration, and indicates the minimum and maximum number of times the element may appear in the content. As well as element particles, content models can include model group particles, which act like non-terminals in a grammar: they define the choice and repetition units within the sequence of permitted elements. In addition, wildcard particles are allowed, which permit a set of different elements (perhaps any element provided it is in a certain namespace).

Other more specialized components include annotations, assertions, notations, and the schema component which contains information about the schema as a whole.

Types
Simple types (also called data types) constrain the textual values that may appear in an element or attribute. This is one of the more significant ways in which XML Schema differs from DTDs. For example, an attribute might be constrained to hold only a valid date or a decimal number.

XSD provides a set of 19 primitive data types (, ,  ,  ,  ,  ,  ,  ,  ,  ,  ,  ,  ,  ,  ,  ,  ,  , and  ). It allows new data types to be constructed from these primitives by three mechanisms:
 * restriction (reducing the set of permitted values),
 * list (allowing a sequence of values), and
 * union (allowing a choice of values from several types).

Twenty-five derived types are defined within the specification itself, and further derived types can be defined by users in their own schemas.

The mechanisms available for restricting data types include the ability to specify minimum and maximum values, regular expressions, constraints on the length of strings, and constraints on the number of digits in decimal values. XSD 1.1 again adds assertions, the ability to specify an arbitrary constraint by means of an XPath 2.0 expression.

Complex types describe the permitted content of an element, including its element and text children and its attributes. A complex type definition consists of a set of attribute uses and a content model. Varieties of content model include: A complex type can be derived from another complex type by restriction (disallowing some elements, attributes, or values that the base type permits) or by extension (allowing additional attributes and elements to appear). In XSD 1.1, a complex type may be constrained by assertions—XPath 2.0 expressions evaluated against the content that must evaluate to true.
 * element-only content, in which no text may appear (other than whitespace, or text enclosed by a child element)
 * simple content, in which text is allowed but child elements are not
 * empty content, in which neither text nor child elements are allowed
 * mixed content, which permits both elements and text to appear

Post-Schema-Validation Infoset
After XML Schema-based validation, it is possible to express an XML document's structure and content in terms of the data model that was implicit during validation. The XML Schema data model includes:

 * The vocabulary (element and attribute names)
 * The content model (relationships and structure)
 * The data types

This collection of information is called the Post-Schema-Validation Infoset (PSVI). The PSVI gives a valid XML document its "type" and facilitates treating the document as an object, using object-oriented programming (OOP) paradigms.

Secondary uses for XML Schemas
The primary reason for defining an XML schema is to formally describe an XML document; however the resulting schema has a number of other uses that go beyond simple validation.

Code generation
The schema can be used to generate code, referred to as XML Data Binding. This code allows contents of XML documents to be treated as objects within the programming environment.

Generation of XML file structure documentation
The schema can be used to generate human-readable documentation of an XML file structure; this is especially useful where the authors have made use of the annotation elements. No formal standard exists for documentation generation, but a number of tools are available, such as the Xs3p stylesheet, that will produce high-quality readable HTML and printed material.

Criticism
Although XML Schema is successful in that it has been widely adopted and largely achieves what it set out to, it has been the subject of a great deal of severe criticism, perhaps more so than any other W3C Recommendation. Good summaries of the criticisms are provided by James Clark, Anders Møller and Michael Schwartzbach, Rick Jelliffe and David Webber.

General problems:
 * It is too complicated (the spec is several hundred pages in a very technical language), so it is hard to use by non-experts—but many non-experts need schemas to describe data formats. The W3C Recommendation itself is extremely difficult to read. Most users find W3Cs XML Schema Primer much easier to understand.
 * XSD lacks any formal mathematical specification. (This makes it difficult to reason about schemas, for example to prove that a modification to a schema is backwards compatible.)
 * There are many surprises in the language, for example that restriction of elements works differently from restriction of attributes.

Practical limitations of expressibility:
 * XSD offers very weak support for unordered content.
 * XSD cannot require a specific root element (so extra information is required to validate even the simplest documents).
 * When describing mixed content, the character data cannot be constrained in any way (not even a set of valid characters can be specified).
 * Content and attribute declarations cannot depend on attributes or element context (this was also listed as a central problem of DTD).
 * It is not 100% self-describing (as a trivial example, see the previous point), even though that was an initial design requirement.
 * Defaults cannot be specified separately from the declarations (this makes it hard to make families of schemas that only differ in the default values); element defaults can only be character data (not containing markup).

Technical problems:
 * Although it technically is namespace-conformant, it does not seem to follow the namespace spirit (e.g. "unqualified locals").
 * XSD 1.0 provided no facilities to state that the value or presence of one attribute is dependent on the values or presence of other attributes (so-called co-occurrence constraints). This has been fixed in XSD 1.1.
 * The set of XSD datatypes on offer is highly arbitrary.

 * The two tasks of validation and augmentation (adding type information and default values) should be kept separate.

Version 1.1
XSD 1.1 became a W3C Recommendation in April 2012, which means it is an approved W3C specification.

Significant new features in XSD 1.1 are:

 * The ability to define assertions against the document content by means of XPath 2.0 expressions (an idea borrowed from Schematron).
 * The ability to select the type against which an element will be validated based on the values of the element's attributes ("conditional type assignment").
 * Relaxing the rules whereby explicit elements in a content model must not match wildcards also allowed by the model.
 * The ability to specify wildcards (for both elements and attributes) that apply to all types in the schema, so that they all implement the same extensibility policy.

Until the Proposed Recommendation draft, XSD 1.1 also proposed the addition of a new numeric data type, precisionDecimal. This proved controversial, and was therefore dropped from the specification at a late stage of development.

license: Creative Commons - Attribution Share-Alike - https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/

title: XML Schema (W3C)


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Esophageal atresia

Esophageal atresia is a congenital medical condition (birth defect) that affects the alimentary tract. It causes the esophagus to end in a blind-ended pouch rather than connecting normally to the stomach. It comprises a variety of congenital anatomic defects that are caused by an abnormal embryological development of the esophagus. It is characterized anatomically by a congenital obstruction of the esophagus with interruption of the continuity of the esophageal wall.

Pathophysiology
The genetic causes of EA/TEF include chromosome anomalies or variants in genes involved in critical developmental processes which are dosage sensitive. Several EA/TEF risk genes have been discovered include the transcriptional regulators SOX2, MYCN, CHD7, FANCB, and members of FOX transcription factor family.

Others plausible candidate genes in the etiology of EA/TEF were identified as APC2, AMER3, PCDH1, GTF3C1, POLR2B, RAB3GAP2, and ITSN1.

Signs and symptoms
This birth defect arises in the fourth fetal week, when the trachea and esophagus should begin to separate from each other.

It can be associated with disorders of the tracheoesophageal septum.

Complications
Any attempt at feeding could cause aspiration pneumonia as the milk collects in the blind pouch and overflows into the trachea and lungs. Furthermore, a fistula between the lower esophagus and trachea may allow stomach acid to flow into the lungs and cause damage. Because of these dangers, the condition must be treated as soon as possible after birth resulting in emergency neonatal surgery.

Associated birth defects
Other birth defects may co-exist, particularly in the heart, but sometimes also in the anus, spinal column, or kidneys. This is known as VACTERL association because of the involvement of Vertebral column, Anorectal, Cardiac, Tracheal, Esophageal, Renal, and Limbs. It is associated with polyhydramnios in the third trimester.

Diagnosis
This condition may be visible, after about 26 weeks, on an ultrasound. On antenatal USG, the finding of an absent or small stomach in the setting of polyhydramnios was considered a potential symptom of esophageal atresia. However, these findings have a low positive predictive value. The upper neck pouch sign is another sign that helps in the antenatal diagnosis of esophageal atresia and it may be detected soon after birth as the affected infant will be unable to swallow its own saliva.

On plain X-ray, a feeding tube will not be seen pass through the esophagus and remain coiled in the upper oesophageal pouch.

Classification
This condition takes several different forms, often involving one or more fistulas connecting the trachea to the esophagus (tracheoesophageal fistula).

Treatment
Treatments for the condition vary depending on its severity. The most immediate and effective treatment in the majority of cases is a surgical repair to close the fistula/s and reconnect the two ends of the esophagus to each other. Although this is usually done through an incision between the ribs on right side of the baby, a technique using three small incisions (thoracoscopy) is being used at some centers.

In a minority of cases, the gap between upper and lower esophageal segments may be too long to bridge. In these situations traditional surgical approaches include gastrostomy followed by gastric pull-up, colonic transposition and jejunum transposition. Gastric pull-up has been the preferred approach at many specialized centers, including Great Ormond Street (London) and Mott Children's Hospital (Ann Arbor). Gastrostomy, or G-tube, allows for tube feedings into the stomach through the abdominal wall. Often a cervical esophagostomy will also be done, to allow the saliva which is swallowed to drain out a hole in the neck. Months or years later, the esophagus may be repaired, sometimes by using a segment of bowel brought up into the chest, interposing between the upper and lower segments of esophagus.

In some of these so-called long gap cases, though, an advanced surgical treatment developed by John Foker, MD, may be utilized to elongate and then join the short esophageal segments. Using the Foker technique, surgeons place traction sutures in the tiny esophageal ends and increase the tension on these sutures daily until the ends are close enough to be sewn together. The result is a normally functioning esophagus, virtually indistinguishable from one congenitally well formed. Unfortunately, the results have been somewhat difficult to replicate by other surgeons and the need for multiple operations has tempered enthusiasm for this approach. The optimal treatment in cases of long gap esophageal atresia remains controversial.

Magnetic compression method is another method for repairing long-gap esophageal atresia. This method does not require replacing the missing section with grafts of the intestine or other body parts. Using electromagnetic force to attract the upper and lower ends of the esophagus together was first tried in the 1970s by using steel pellets attracted to each other by applying external electromagnets to the patient. In the 2000s a further refinement was developed by Mario Zaritzky's group and others. The newer method uses permanent magnets and a balloon.
 * 1) The magnets are inserted into the upper pouch via the baby's mouth or nose, and the lower via the gastrotomy feeding tube hole (which would have had to be made anyway to feed the baby, therefore not requiring any additional surgery).
 * 2) The distance between the magnets is controlled by a balloon in the upper pouch, between the end of the pouch and the magnet. This also controls the force between the magnets so it is not strong enough to cause damage.
 * 3) After the ends of the esophagus have stretched enough to touch, the upper magnet is replaced by one without a balloon and the stronger magnetic attraction causes the ends to fuse (anastomosis).

In April 2015 Annalise Dapo became the first patient in the United States to have their esophageal atresia corrected using magnets.

Complications
Postoperative complications may include a leak at the site of closure of the esophagus. Sometimes a stricture, or tight spot, will develop in the esophagus, making it difficult to swallow. Esophageal stricture can usually be dilated using medical instruments. In later life, most children with this disorder will have some trouble with either swallowing or heartburn or both. Esophageal dismotility occurs in 75-100% of patients. After esophageal repair (anastomosis) the relative flaccidity of former proximal pouch (blind pouch, above) along with esophageal dysmotility can cause fluid buildup during feeding. Owing to proximity, pouch ballooning can cause tracheal occlusion. Severe hypoxia ("dying spells") follows and medical intervention can often be required.

Tracheomalacia a softening of the trachea, usually above the carina (carina of trachea), but sometimes extensive in the lower bronchial tree as well—is another possible serious complication. A variety of treatments for tracheomalacia associated with esophageal atresia are available. If not severe, the condition can be managed expectantly since the trachea will usually stiffen as the infant matures into the first year of life. When only the trachea above the carina is compromised, one of the "simplest" interventions is aortopexy wherein the aortic loop is attached to the rear of the sternum, thereby mechanically relieving pressure from the softened trachea. An even simpler intervention is stenting. However, epithelial cell proliferation and potential incorporation of the stent into the trachea can make subsequent removal dangerous.

The incidence of asthma, bronchitis, bronchial hyperresponsiveness, and recurrent infections in adolescent and adult esophageal atresia survivors far exceeds that of their healthy peers. During the first decade of surgical repair of EA, as much as 20% of patients died from pneumonia. From there on, pneumonia has remained as a major pulmonary complication and a reason for readmissions after repair of EA. The risk factors of pneumonia within the first five years of life include other acute respiratory infections and high number of esophageal dilatations.

Epidemiology
It occurs in approximately 1 in 3000 live births.

Congenital esophageal atresia (EA) represents a failure of the esophagus to develop as a continuous passage. Instead, it ends as a blind pouch. Tracheoesophageal fistula (TEF) represents an abnormal opening between the trachea and esophagus. EA and TEF can occur separately or together. EA and TEF are diagnosed in the ICU at birth and treated immediately.

The presence of EA is suspected in an infant with excessive salivation (drooling) and in a newborn with drooling that is frequently accompanied by choking, coughing and sneezing. When fed, these infants swallow normally but begin to cough and struggle as the fluid returns through the nose and mouth. The infant may become cyanotic (turn bluish due to lack of oxygen) and may stop breathing as the overflow of fluid from the blind pouch is aspirated (sucked into) the trachea. The cyanosis is a result of laryngospasm (a protective mechanism that the body has to prevent aspiration into the trachea). Over time respiratory distress will develop.

If any of the above signs/symptoms are noticed, a catheter is gently passed into the esophagus to check for resistance. If resistance is noted, other studies will be done to confirm the diagnosis. A catheter can be inserted and will show up as white on a regular x-ray film to demonstrate the blind pouch ending. Sometimes a small amount of barium (chalk-like liquid) is placed through the mouth to diagnose the problems. However, performing such an oral contrast study is not advised due to a risk of aspiration.

Treatment of EA and TEF is surgery to repair the defect. If EA or TEF is suspected, all oral feedings are stopped and intravenous fluids are started. The infant will be positioned to help drain secretions and decrease the likelihood of aspiration. Babies with EA may sometimes have other problems. Studies will be done to look at the heart, spine and kidneys. Surgery to repair EA is essential as the baby will not be able to feed and is highly likely to develop pneumonia. Once the baby is in condition for surgery, an incision is made on the side of the chest. The esophagus can usually be sewn together. Following surgery, the baby may be hospitalized for a variable length of time. Care for each infant is individualized. It's very commonly seen in a newborn with imperforate anus.

title: Esophageal atresia


text: Talk:Saigon (disambiguation)

title: Talk:Saigon (disambiguation)


text:
Talk:Clontarf Township, Swift County, Minnesota

What is the difference between Clontarf and Clontarf Township, both in the State of Minnesota?--Dieter Simon 01:10 Feb 20, 2003 (UTC)

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text:
Tiddleywink

Tiddleywink is a hamlet consisting of eight cottages on the B4039 road, near the village of Yatton Keynell, about 3 mi northwest of Chippenham, Wiltshire, England. The name is said to derive from rhyming slang for "a quick drink", one of its cottages historically being known to serve beer to passing cattle drovers.

Because of its small size, Tiddleywink has been for many years omitted from the official book of place names, the Collins British Atlas and Gazetteer, and from most maps. It has been shown, however, that it was recognised as a settlement in the 1881 census, when it had a total of 28 residents.

Early in 2003, after much campaigning, residents won their settlement two new road signs and widespread recognition as their story made the national news.

title: Tiddleywink


text:
Not

Not or NOT may refer to:

Language

 * Not, the general declarative form of "no", indicating a negation of a related statement that usually precedes
 * ... Not!, a grammatical construction used as a contradiction, popularized in the early 1990s

Science and technology

 * Negation, a unary operator in logic depicted as,  , or
 * Bitwise NOT, an operator used in computer programming
 * NOT gate, a digital logic gate (commonly called an inverter)
 * Nordic Optical Telescope, an astronomical telescope at Roque de los Muchachos Observatory, La Palma, Canary Islands

Other uses

 * Nottingham railway station (station code NOT)
 * Polish Federation of Engineering Associations (Naczelna Organizacja Techniczna)
 * Not, Missouri, an unincorporated community in the United States
 * "Not" (song), a 2019 song by Big Thief

title: Not


text:
1903 in literature

This article contains information about the literary events and publications of 1903.

Events

 * January–December – Henry James's novel The Ambassadors is published as a serial in the monthly North American Review.
 * May 22 – Japanese philosophy student Misao Fujimura (藤村操, born 1886) carves a poem into a tree at Kegon Falls before committing suicide over unrequited love.
 * June 20 – Jack London's novel The Call of the Wild begins serial publication in the Saturday Evening Post.
 * October 24 – Mark Twain sets out for Florence (Italy).
 * December – The Prix Goncourt for French literature is awarded for the first time, to John Antoine Nau for his novel Force ennemie.
 * December 16 – The London County Council erects a plaque to novelist Charles Dickens (d. 1870) on his former home in Doughty Street.
 * December 19 – The first of G. K. Chesterton's short stories in the series The Club of Queer Trades, "The Tremendous Adventures of Major Brown", appears in Harper's Weekly.
 * unknown date – William Foyle and his brother Gilbert establish the London bookselling business of Foyles.

Fiction

 * Pío Baroja – El Mayorazgo de Labraz (Lord of Labraz, second of La Tierra Vasca – The Basque Country trilogy, 1900–1909)
 * Ioan A. Bassarabescu – Nuvele
 * Thio Tjin Boen – Tjerita Oeij Se
 * René Boylesve – Enfant à la Balustrade
 * Samuel Butler (died 1902) – The Way of All Flesh
 * Erskine Childers – The Riddle of the Sands
 * Joseph Conrad – Typhoon and Other Stories (U. K. book publication)
 * Joseph Conrad and Ford Madox Hueffer – Romance
 * Florence Converse – Long Will
 * Grazia Deledda – Elias Portolu
 * Isabelle Eberhardt – Trimardeur (serialization begins)
 * John Fox, Jr. – The Little Shepherd of Kingdom Come
 * Mary E. Wilkins Freeman – The Wind in the Rose Bush
 * George Gissing – The Private Papers of Henry Ryecroft
 * Henry James – The Ambassadors
 * Jack London – The Call of the Wild
 * John Antoine Nau – Force ennemie
 * Frank Norris (died 1902) – The Pit
 * Marmaduke Pickthall – Said the Fisherman
 * Bram Stoker – The Jewel of Seven Stars
 * Jules Verne – Travel Scholarships (Bourses de voyage)
 * Mary Augusta Ward – Lady Rose's Daughter
 * Émile Zola – Vérité
 * Jerzy Żuławski – Na Srebrnym Globie (On the Silver Globe, first in the Trylogia Księżycowa – Lunar Trilogy)

Children and young people

 * L. Frank Baum – The Enchanted Island of Yew
 * Beatrix Potter
 * The Tale of Squirrel Nutkin
 * The Tailor of Gloucester
 * Herminie Templeton – Darby O'Gill and the Good People (book publication)
 * Kate Douglas Wiggin – Rebecca of Sunnybrook Farm

Drama

 * Dusé Mohamed Ali – The Jew's Revenge
 * Jacinto Benavente – La noche del sábado (Saturday Night)
 * Haralamb Lecca – Cancer la inimă
 * André de Lorde – Le Système du docteur Goudron et du professeur Plume
 * W. Somerset Maugham – A Man of Honour
 * René Morax – La Dîme
 * Ștefan Petică – Frații
 * Florencio Sánchez – M'hijo el dotor (My son, the doctor)
 * George Bernard Shaw – Man and Superman (published)
 * J. M. Synge – In the Shadow of the Glen
 * Pierre Wolff – The Secret of Polichinelle
 * Stanisław Wyspiański – Wyzwolenie (Liberation)

Poetry

 * Giovanni Pascoli – Canti di Castelvecchio
 * Thomas Traherne (died 1674) – Poetical Works
 * W. B. Yeats – In the Seven Woods, being poems of the Irish heroic age

Non-fiction

 * James Allen – As a Man Thinketh
 * Ada Cambridge – Thirty Years in Australia
 * E. K. Chambers – The Mediaeval Stage
 * W. E. B. Du Bois – The Souls of Black Folk
 * Helena Rutherfurd Ely – A Woman's Hardy Garden
 * Auguste Escoffier – Le Guide culinaire
 * Helen Keller – The Story of My Life (book publication)
 * G. E. Moore – Principia Ethica
 * John Morley – The Life of Gladstone
 * Alois Riegl – Der moderne Denkmalkultus, sein Wesen, seine Entstehung (The Modern Cult of Monuments, Its Character and Origin)
 * W. B. Yeats – Ideas of Good and Evil (essays)

Births

 * January 10 – E. Arnot Robertson, English novelist and broadcaster (died 1961)
 * February 11 – Alan Paton, South African novelist and activist (died 1988)
 * February 13 – Georges Simenon, Belgian crime writer (died 1989)
 * February 17 – Sadegh Hedayat, Iranian-born novelist (suicide 1951)
 * February 21
 * Anaïs Nin, French-American novelist and diarist (died 1977)
 * Raymond Queneau, French poet (died 1976)
 * February 22 – Morley Callaghan, Canadian writer (died 1990)
 * February 24
 * Vladimir Bartol, Slovene author (died 1967)
 * Irène Némirovsky, Russian-born French novelist (died 1942)
 * June 8 – Marguerite Yourcenar, Belgian novelist (died 1987)
 * June 18 – Raymond Radiguet, French author (died 1923)
 * June 25 – George Orwell, English novelist and journalist (died 1950)
 * July 3 – Oliver Stonor, English novelist (died 1987)
 * July 10 – John Wyndham, English science fiction writer (died 1969)
 * September 5 – János Kemény, American-born Transylvanian Hungarian writer (died 1971)
 * September 9 – Edward Upward, English novelist and short story writer (died 2009)
 * September 10 – Cyril Connolly, English critic and writer (died 1974)
 * September 14 – Mart Raud, Estonian poet, playwright and writer (died 1980)
 * October 17
 * G. E. Trevelyan, English novelist (died 1941)
 * Nathanael West, American novelist and screenwriter (died 1940)
 * October 28 – Evelyn Waugh, English novelist and critic (died 1966)
 * December 6 (November 23 OS) – Gaito Gazdanov, Russian-born novelist (died 1971)
 * December 10
 * Mary Norton, English children's writer (died 1992)
 * William Plomer (Robert Pagan), South African-born novelist, poet and literary editor (died 1973)
 * December 13 – Todhunter Ballard, American novelist (died 1980)
 * December 24 – Nancy Brysson Morrison, Scottish novelist (died 1986)
 * December 29 – Sergiu Dan, Romanian novelist and journalist (died 1976)
 * Uncertain dates – Kathleen Lindsay, prolific English-born romance novelist (died 1973)

Deaths

 * January 22 – Augustus Hare, English biographer and travel writer (born 1834)
 * February 8 – Ada Ellen Bayly, English novelist (born 1857)
 * March 4 – Joseph Henry Shorthouse, English novelist (born 1834)
 * March 6 – Gaston Paris, French literary critic and scholar (born 1839)
 * March 8 – Josefina Wettergrund, Swedish writer (born 1830)
 * March 9 – Minnie Mary Lee, American author of poems, stories, sketches and novels (born 1825)
 * March 14 – Ernest Legouvé, French dramatist (born 1807)
 * April 28 — Frances Augusta Conant, American journalist (born 1841)
 * April 29 – Paul Du Chaillu, French American travel writer (born c. 1831)
 * May 12 – Richard Henry Stoddard, American critic and poet (born 1825)
 * May 24 – Max O'Rell (Léon Paul Blouet), French journalist (born 1847)
 * June 12 – Claymoor, Romanian fashion and entertainment critic (peptic ulcer; born c. 1842)
 * July 11 – W. E. Henley, English poet (tuberculosis, born 1847)
 * August 31 – William Hastie, Scottish theologian (born 1842)
 * September 1 – Charles Bernard Renouvier, French philosopher (born 1815)
 * October 4 – Otto Weininger, Austrian philosopher (suicide, born 1880)
 * November 1 – Theodor Mommsen, German classical scholar and historian (born 1817)
 * November 11 — Lavilla Esther Allen, American author (born 1834)
 * November 19 – Hugh Stowell Scott (Henry Seton Merriman), English novelist (born 1862)
 * December 28 – George Gissing, English novelist (emphysema, born 1857)

Awards

 * Prix Goncourt: John Antoine Nau for Force ennemie
 * Nobel Prize for Literature: Bjørnstjerne Bjørnson

title: 1903 in literature


text:
Murder of Gwen Araujo

Gwen Amber Rose Araujo (February 24, 1985 – October 4, 2002) was an American teenager who was murdered in Newark, California at the age of 17. She was murdered by four men, two of whom she had been sexually intimate with, who beat and strangled her after discovering that she was transgender. Two of the defendants were convicted of second-degree murder, but not the requested hate-crime enhancements to the charges. The other two defendants pleaded guilty or no-contest to voluntary manslaughter. In at least one of the trials, a "trans panic defense"—an extension of the gay panic defense—was employed.

Merél and Magidson were sentenced to life imprisonment with the possibility of parole after 15 years. Merél was granted early parole in 2016, after reportedly showing extensive remorse to Araujo's mother, who supported the decision. Magidson, however, has reportedly never shown remorse and has been denied parole twice since his sentencing.

Victim
Gwen Araujo was born on February 24, 1985, in Brawley, California, to Edward Araujo and Sylvia Guerrero. Her parents divorced when she was 10 months old.

Araujo came out as transgender in 1999 at the age of 14, and began using the name Gwen after her favorite musician, Gwen Stefani, but also went by Wendy and Lida. She began to grow her hair long and planned to undergo hormone treatment and surgery. Her older sister said that she was bullied in junior high school because of her voice and bearing. She transferred to an alternative high school, but did not return for the 2002–03 academic year.

Background
Araujo first met Michael Magidson, José Merél, Jaron Nabors, and Jason Cazares in late August or early September 2002. The night they met Araujo, she flirted with all four men and they smoked marijuana together. After she left, Nabors asked the other three, "Could this be a dude?", but none of the four men took the thought seriously. Later, she engaged in oral sex with Magidson and anal sex with Merél. She claimed to be menstruating and, during sex, would push her partners' hands away from her genitalia to prevent them from discovering that she had a penis.

Nicole Brown, who was dating Paul Merél (José's older brother) and was acquainted with Araujo, said that she and Araujo had engaged in a physical fight after Brown challenged Araujo to strip for the men. Araujo surprised her with a strong blow during the fight, and Brown said the men "were tripping, because she was smaller than me and just as strong. She fought like a guy." The four men debated in late September whether Araujo was female, concluding that "something bad could happen" to her if she was not.

Confrontation
On the night of October 3, 2002, Araujo attended a party at a house rented by José and Paul Merél, attended by them, their younger brother Emmanuel Merél, Michael Magidson, Jaron Nabors, Jason Cazares, and Nicole Brown. Nabors later testified that José Merél said that night, "I swear, if it's a f— man, I'm gonna kill him. If it's a man, she ain't gonna leave." According to Nabors, Magidson added "I don't know what I'm going to do", and Nabors replied, "Whatever you do, make sure you don't make a mess." Brown said the four men were out at a club together and did not return to the house until after midnight.

In the early morning hours of October 4, Magidson asked Araujo to reveal her sex or allow him to touch her genitals, which she refused. Brown suggested that one of them should inspect Araujo, and Magidson took Araujo to the bathroom. After half an hour, during which José Merél later confessed he had sex with Araujo, Brown went to the bathroom, where she discovered Araujo had male genitalia during a forced inspection. Brown was surprised and blurted out, "It's a f— man!", and the men with whom she had had sexual relations became enraged and violent. Brown testified that she warned Araujo that the men were "very angry", but upon exiting through the front door, Araujo was confronted and forced back inside the house by Magidson, Nabors, and Cazares. Emmanuel Merél testified that he also tried to escort Araujo away from the house, but was prevented by Magidson and Nabors.

José Merél vomited upon learning Araujo had male genitalia, then began to cry in disbelief, saying "I can't be f— gay." Brown testified that she tried to comfort Merél after the discovery, saying "It's not your fault. I went to high school with you, and you were on the football team. Any woman that knows you after this, it's not going to matter. Just let her go."

After Araujo was brought back into the house, Magidson grabbed at her skirt and underwear in an attempt to expose her genitals. He then proceeded to punch her in the face, knocking her to the ground, and put her in a chokehold, but he was pulled off by others. Araujo begged the men to stop, saying "No, please don't. I have a family." José Merél became angry and struck her in the head with a can of food, denting the can and opening a cut on her head, and then he struck her again with a frying pan. The last words Merél heard Araujo speak were "I told you I was sorry."

At some point after that, Brown woke Paul Merél, and they left the house with Emmanuel Merél. Emmanuel Merél later testified he walked to a convenience store to buy gum, then went to a friend's house to spend the night.

Nabors and Cazares left in Magidson's truck to retrieve shovels and a pickaxe from Cazares's house, saying as they left the Merél house that the other men were going to "kill that b—". Brown recalled that after she had left with Paul Merél, they drove around the block and returned to the house to see Nabors and Cazares leaving in Magidson's truck.

Murder
When Nabors and Cazares returned, Araujo was still conscious, bleeding from her head wound and sitting on the couch. José Merél became concerned that Araujo was bleeding on the couch and ordered her off it. At some point, the assault resumed. Nabors and Cazares urged the others to "knock the b— out", according to Nabors's testimony. Magidson hit her head against the living room wall with his knee, rendering her unconscious. Nabors testified that Magidson's assault was so severe it left a dent in the wall and cracked the plaster. Cazares kicked her. Merél was concerned with cleaning Araujo's blood off the couch and carpet before retreating to his room so the others would not see him crying.

After Araujo was knocked unconscious, Magidson bound her wrists and ankles, then she was wrapped in a comforter to minimize the amount of blood staining the carpet, before being carried to the garage of the home. After this, the defendants' testimonies diverge.

Nabors testified that Magidson strangled her with a rope and that Cazares struck her with a shovel, but Nabors was returning from the garage and did not actually witness the act of strangulation. Referring to Araujo as Lida—the name she had used with them—Nabors testified that he saw Magidson raising the rope to her neck before he left the garage and that Magidson later told the others "that he had wrapped the rope around Lida's neck and twisted it."

Magidson testified that it was instead Nabors who strangled her and struck her with the shovel, and Cazares testified that he never struck her and did not see her die. José Merél testified he was cleaning Araujo's blood out of the carpets and couch as Magidson was binding her ankles, prior to her being taken to the garage. Merél also said he thought she was still alive until he saw her body in the bed of Magidson's truck. It is not clear at what point during this sequence of events she died. However, the autopsy showed that she died from strangulation associated with blunt force trauma to the head. According to Nabors, Magidson "wasn't sure if Lida had died from twisting the rope, but once Jason hit her twice with the shovel, he knew she was dead".

She was then placed in the bed of a pick-up truck, and the four men drove her body four hours away, burying her near the Sierra Nevada mountains in a shallow grave in the El Dorado National Forest near Silver Fork Road in El Dorado County. On their way home, they purchased breakfast at a McDonald's drive-through window. Later that morning, during a phone conversation, Brown asked José Merél what happened, to which he replied "Let's just say she had a long walk home."

Arrests
The partygoers did not report the crime and the assailants said nothing to anyone about the murder. Araujo usually checked in with her mother, so when she did not come home the day after the party, her mother called the police on October 5 to report her missing. Police did not initially take the missing persons case seriously, partly because she was transgender, and also because she was known to stay away from home overnight. Rumors reached her family that a girl who had been outed as transgender at a party had been killed and buried in Tahoe, and her aunt called the police on October 9 to pass on the story. Police began to interview the partygoers, and one of them led the police to the Meréls' house.

Two days after Araujo was reported missing, a friend of Jaron Nabors described him as appearing distraught. Nabors had confessed to a friend what the four had done shortly after returning from the grave site. That friend tipped off the police and agreed to wear a microphone during a subsequent conversation with Nabors about the murder. Confronted with the recording, Nabors agreed to lead authorities to the body on October 15.

The Alameda County Sheriff's Office dispatched four crime scene investigators and two detectives to recover Araujo's body from the grave site. The four who were initially arrested and accused of the murder were Magidson (age 22); Nabors (19), José Merél (22), and Paul Merél.

Paul Merél was released after Brown and Emmanuel Merél told the police that he had left the scene with them. Magidson, Nabors, and José Merél were charged with murder on October 17 and held without bail. On October 24, Nabors pleaded not guilty, Magidson was still looking for an attorney, and José Merél was still reviewing the evidence against him. In an interview with the Los Angeles Times, Merél was confident that charges would be dropped.

After he was arrested, Nabors wrote a letter to a girlfriend in which he stated the defendants had discussed a "Soprano-type plan" to "kill the b— and get rid of her body". The letter was intercepted by sheriff's officials and led to the arrest of Cazares on November 19. Cazares had been identified as a potential witness on October 22. At the first trial, defense attorney Tony Serra accused Nabors of writing the letter knowing it would be intercepted and implicate Cazares.

Jaron Nabors
Nabors pleaded guilty on February 24, 2003, to a lesser charge of voluntary manslaughter, which carried an 11-year prison sentence, along with a promise to testify against the other three defendants. During the formal entry of his plea, Judge Kenneth Burr warned Nabors that he could still be charged with murder if prosecutors found he was not "living up to your end of the bargain".

During the February 2003 indictment proceedings, Nabors gave a detailed account of the murder and burial. As they were burying her, the men continued to disparage her. Nabors testified that he stated he "couldn't believe that someone would ever do that, would be that deceitful" and that José Merél added "he was so mad he could still kick her a couple more times".

Nabors received an 11-year sentence on August 25, 2006. With credit for time served, he was expected to spend approximately five years in jail from that point on.

First trial
Before the first trial, the prosecuting attorney, Alameda County deputy district attorney Chris Lamiero argued that simply being transgender should not have been a death sentence:

"One can debate the propriety of one choosing to identify with a gender other than the one they were born with. But I trust juries to understand that people don't get to make life or death decisions simply based on someone's lifestyle. That's not a world in which I want to live or most people want to live in."

Jury selection for the trial of Magidson, José Merél, and Cazares began on March 15, 2004. Prospective jurors were asked if they knew any lesbian, gay, bisexual, or transgender people; whether they knew any recently married same-sex couples; whether they had met any transgender people; or whether they had seen a "movie or theatrical performance depicting the activities of a transgender person". One of the defense attorneys explained the last question had specifically asked if prospective jurors had watched the film Boys Don't Cry or the play The Laramie Project, but was changed over defense concerns that by being so specific, those who had not would be prompted to watch them.

The first trial began on April 14, 2004. Prosecuting attorney Lamiero deadnamed Araujo, using male pronouns and her birth name to refer to her, saying the defendants had decided "that the wages of [Gwen] Araujo's sin of deception were death". In his opening statement, the defense attorney for Magidson argued that he should not be charged with murder, rather manslaughter at worst, under California law. Magidson's attorney said that his client was not biased but had been shocked "beyond reason" to learn he had unwittingly had sex with a "man": a variant of the gay panic defense. During his testimony, Nabors said he felt his friends had been raped, since Araujo (whom he referred to as male) "did not come clean with being what he really was. I feel like he forced them into homosexual sex, and my definition of rape was being forced into sex." When asked how she forced them, Nabors answered, "Through deception."

The first trial ended in a mistrial on June 22 following nine days of deliberations, when the jurors were unable to reach a unanimous decision for the three men. While the jury agreed that Araujo had been murdered, they could not agree whether it was premeditated. The final votes were 10–2 in favor of acquitting Merél and Cazares of first-degree murder, and 7–5 in favor of convicting Magidson of first-degree murder. Although they were given the option of convicting the men of second-degree murder or manslaughter, they were unable to proceed past the first-degree murder deliberations.

One of the jurors wrote a newspaper article after the mistrial; in it, he credited Cazares's defense attorney, Tony Serra, with introducing enough reasonable doubt about the veracity of the prosecution's witnesses, including both Brown (who had admitted to consuming more than a dozen beers that night) and Nabors (who was characterized as a liar and "chameleon", prone to exaggeration and eager to please in every social situation).

Second trial
The second trial began on May 31, 2005. Publicity by transgender activists was credited with informing the public about the tactics the defense lawyers had adopted to blame Araujo for her own death, changing the approach to the case. The day after the first trial ended in a mistrial, a court granted Araujo's mother's petition for a posthumous name change, requiring the defense lawyers to refer to the victim with female pronouns. Magidson, Merél, and Cazares were charged with first-degree murder with hate-crime enhancements.

The three defendants testified in this trial—and blamed each other as well as Nabors. Nabors, testifying for the prosecution, stated that Magidson admitted to strangling Araujo. Merél testified that Nabors was responsible for the major head injuries to Araujo, but supported the assertion that Magidson had strangled her. Magidson testified that Nabors admitted he had strangled Araujo. During Magidson's testimony, a tape of his initial interview with the police was shown, in which an investigator was recorded coaching him to use the trans panic defense: "You'd be surprised. Moms—especially moms—if they knew the facts—you'd be surprised."

During the closing statements of the second trial, Cazares' defense lawyer Tony Serra argued that the three defendants were "ordinary human beings" who were guilty, at most, of manslaughter for their role in the death in a "classic state of heat and passion". Serra also argued that Cazares took no active role in killing her. To avoid a second mistrial, prosecuting attorney Chris Lamiero argued for a first-degree murder conviction, but gave jurors the option of a second-degree murder conviction for the three, or even manslaughter for Merél. He asked the jury to return first-degree murder convictions of Magidson and Cazares, fingering Magidson as the main culprit who had strangled Araujo and calling him "a poor excuse for a man" with a "stupid and moronic" list of excuses for murdering her.

On September 8, the jury announced that it had reached verdicts on two of the three defendants. As Judge Harry Sheppard instructed, the verdicts were kept secret.

On September 12, after a week of deliberation, the jury announced its verdicts. It had deadlocked on Cazares, voting 9–3 in favor of convicting him for murder. Magidson and Merél were each convicted on the charge of second-degree murder, but not convicted of the hate-crime enhancement allegations. After the trial, one of the jurors stated in an interview with the San Francisco Chronicle that the murder conviction was because "The community standard is not and cannot be that killing is something a reasonable person would have done that night" but not hate crimes since the murder was believed to have been committed not because Araujo was transgender, but to "cover up a situation that had gotten out of control".

Lamiero had undermined criminal intent by commenting, "Gwen being transgender was not a provocative act. It's who she was. However, I would not further ignore the reality that Gwen made some decisions in her relation with these defendants that were impossible to defend ... I don't think most jurors are going to think it's OK to engage someone in sexual activity knowing they assume you have one sexual anatomy when you don't."

Michael Magidson and José Merél were sentenced in January to 15 years to life in prison, for second-degree murder. While Merél expressed deep sorrow and regret to Araujo's family, Magidson was angry about his verdict and expressed "no remorse" for his role in murdering Araujo, according to presiding Judge Harry Sheppard.

Jason Cazares
To avoid a third trial, Cazares pleaded no contest to manslaughter on December 16, 2005, and was sentenced to six years in prison, with credit for time already served. Attorney Gloria Allred represented Araujo's family. Cazares asked to begin serving his sentence after the birth of his third child, scheduled for March or April 2006, which was granted, although Lamiero noted "it's difficult for me to entertain a request like that when Gwen Araujo is dead". According to Lamiero, Cazares was willing to plead guilty to being an accessory after the fact, but that deal was rejected because the sentence was just three years and admitted no culpability in the murder.

Aftermath
Gwen Araujo was mourned in a public funeral at St. Edwards Catholic Church in Newark on October 25, 2002. Fred Phelps and the members of Phelps's Westboro Baptist Church promised to picket the funeral, but did not. There were people there that picketed with signs, but friends wore angel wings to block the casket from the signs. She was cremated, and her mother Sylvia Guerrero retained the urn with her ashes.

TransVision, a comprehensive health and social services program for transgender people in Alameda County, was founded in 2002 and operated by Tri-City Health Center after the murder of Gwen Araujo.

At the request of Guerrero, a judge posthumously changed the victim's legal name to Gwen Amber Rose Araujo on June 23, 2004. Amber Rose was the name Guerrero had chosen before her child was born, in the event it was a girl.

On the first anniversary of the murder, Horizons Foundation created the Gwen Araujo Memorial Fund for Transgender Education. The fund's purpose was to support school-based programs in the nine-county Bay Area that promote understanding of transgender people and issues through annual grants. Through this fund, Sylvia Guerrero and her family spoke in middle and high schools about transgender awareness and understanding. By 2005, Guerrero had spoken to more than 20 schools. The fund was closed sometime before September 2020.

Sylvia Guerrero, Araujo's mother, worked as a legal assistant at a San Jose law firm, but,, was homeless due to PTSD from the incident. Guerrero has been unable to return to work and now moves her belongings from relatives' houses using a borrowed car from her friend. , Guerrero was staying with her son but was still too traumatized to return to work.

Media portrayals

 * A Lifetime movie titled A Girl Like Me: The Gwen Araujo Story, starring J. D. Pardo and Mercedes Ruehl, first aired in June 2006.
 * The case was also the subject of a 2007 documentary, Trained in the Ways of Men. This documentary by Michelle Prevost examines the 2002 murder, and aims to debunk the so-called gay panic (or trans panic) defense.
 * "Deadly ID", an episode of Investigation Discovery's Fatal Encounters (season 1 episode 8, first aired May 7, 2012) explored the crime's timeline from both Araujo's and Magidson's dramatized perspectives.
 * An episode of the Investigation Discovery's Murder Among Friends titled "Murder Party" (season 2 episode 4) aired on July 6, 2017. The episode examines the case using dramatizations of the background of Araujo, events leading up to her murder and the aftermath. It also examines the backgrounds of the killers and their friends, how they got caught, and interviews with the victim's mother, friends, and the victim's advocates, along with showing actual photos of her and her murderers and explaining how the court trials went.

California legislation
In September 2006, California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger signed the "Gwen Araujo Justice for Victims Act" (AB 1160) into law. The law limited the use by criminal defendants of the "gay/trans panic defense" by allowing parties to instruct jurors not to let bias influence their decisions, including "bias against the victim" based on his or her "gender identity, or sexual orientation". The law put California on record as declaring it contrary to public policy for defendants to be acquitted or convicted of a lesser included offense on the basis of appeals to "societal bias".

In September 2014, California Governor Jerry Brown signed Assembly Bill No. 2501 into law. The law further restricted the use of the gay/trans panic defense by amending California's manslaughter statute to prohibit defendants from claiming that they were provoked to murder by discovering a victim's sexual orientation or gender identity. AB 2501 was introduced by Assemblywoman Susan A. Bonilla in partnership with Equality California. In announcing the bill's introduction they cited the murder of Araujo and the 2008 murder of gay California teen Larry King.

Parole and release
Jason Cazares was released from prison in July 2012.

Jaron Nabors was released from prison some time before 2016.

José Merél was granted parole in 2016 with the support of Sylvia Guerrero.

Michael Magidson said he was not ready for release at his parole board hearing in 2016, and his request for parole was also opposed by Guerrero. Magidson was denied parole again in September 2019.

title: Murder of Gwen Araujo