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Marie Hall

Marie Pauline Hall (8 April 1884 – 11 November 1956) was an English violinist.

Biography
Hall was born in Newcastle upon Tyne, England. She received her first lessons from her father, who was a harpist in the orchestra of the Carl Rosa Opera Company. She also studied with a local teacher, Hildegarde Werner. Hall's family moved around the country with her father and spent some years in Guarlford, a small village near Malvern. When she was nine, Émile Sauret heard her play, and she gained one of the recently instituted Wessely Exhibitions at the Royal Academy of Music, London: but owing to her father's lack of means she did not take it up.

She continued to study under several well known teachers, including a year with Edward Elgar in 1894 aged 10, August Wilhelmj in London in 1896, and Max Mossel in Birmingham in 1898. The story goes that a clergyman found her in a half-starved condition playing for coppers in the streets of Bristol, took her to London and with the assistance of some friends—including W. Ebsworth Hill of the renowned violin makers W.E. Hill & Sons, composer Jane Roeckel and philanthropist Philip Napier Miles —placed her in a position to receive lessons from Professor Johann Kruse (who had studied with Joachim) in 1900. In 1901, upon the advice of Jan Kubelík, she went to study under his former tutor Otakar Ševčík in Prague.

Hall played for the first time in Prague in November 1902, Vienna in January 1903, and made her London début on 16 February 1903 aged nineteen with Henry Wood at St James's Hall. The demanding programme included Paganini's first concerto, the Tchaikovsky concerto and Henryk Wieniawski's Fantaisie Brillante on themes from Faust. She scored a success in all these places. She made an international concert tour in 1904, playing in Germany, Canada, America and Australia, including an impromptu concert in a large marquee in Fiji with a particularly badly-tuned piano.

She made a tour through South Africa in 1910, for which she received £10,000 ($50,000) said at the time to be the largest ever paid to a violinist.

She possessed a technique that she believed was due to Ševčík's teaching. While she appeared to be not very strong physically, Hall proved herself strong enough to go on long tours and perform exacting programs without fatigue.

Ralph Vaughan Williams completed The Lark Ascending with Hall's assistance, and dedicated it to her. She gave the first public performances, that for violin and piano at a concert of the Avonmouth and Shirehampton Choral Society on 15 December 1920, and that for violin and orchestra at the Queen's Hall with the British Symphony Orchestra under Adrian Boult on 14 June 1921. She owned and played one of the two Viotti Stradivarius violins.

In 1916, she recorded an abridged version of the Elgar Violin Concerto with the composer conducting.

Hall has been described as "perhaps the most successful woman violinist of any during the pre-war period, a truly international celebrity,” and as "a very charming woman, very small and jolly and with a great sense of humour. She was also extremely generous." She died in Cheltenham on 11 November 1956.

The 1709 Stradivarius violin which she played for more than 50 years, now known as the "Marie Hall Stradivarius,” was sold at Sotheby's in April 1988 for a record £473,000 to an anonymous South American bidder.

Personal life
In 1911, Hall married her business manager Edward Baring; they settled in Cheltenham and had one child, Pauline. For the last years of her life she lived in Cheltenham in a large Victorian villa, "Inveresk", in Eldorado Road.

title: Marie Hall


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User talk:Manuel de Sousa (usurped)

Please don't post copyrighted material on Wikipedia, unless you have explicit permission to do so, or the text is under public domain or GFDL. See Copyrights. thanks, Dori | Talk 16:17, Mar 15, 2004 (UTC)

Dear Manuel, welcome to wikipedia! As Dori pointed out, users cannot post copyrighted material, such as the article you created about the House of Braganza. We welcome, of course, any original contribution, especially in historical topics. It wont take much of your time to create a simple original article in House of Braganza/Temp that we can add to our encyclopaedia. You can learn more aboutr the project in Community Portal. Cumprimentos, Muriel 16:28, 15 Mar 2004 (UTC)

I have removed the copyright violation on the two articles you submitted following your email to Jimbo. Sorry about any confusion caused. If you have any questions, see the help pages, add a question to the village pump or ask me on my talk page. I hope you enjoy editing here and being a Wikipedian! Angela. 08:13, Mar 16, 2004 (UTC)

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Please don't put pages of stuff about "H.R.H. Dom Rosario" in articles where they don't belong. Whatever else Rosario may be, he is not "Duarte Pio, Duke of Braganza". Wikipedia is not the place to promote people's claims to titles. You will find NPOV helpful in your future editing. Viewpoints that are at odd with those generally held must be attributed. - Nunh-huh 10:00, 16 Mar 2004 (UTC)

WARNING
If you continue to repost articles that have been deleted as copyright violations, you will be blocked from editing.--Jiang 06:04, 30 Mar 2004 (UTC)

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

title: User talk:Manuel de Sousa (usurped)


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Parliament of Wallonia

The Parliament of Wallonia (Parlement de Wallonie) (Walloon Parliament (Parlement wallon) in the decrees) is the legislative body of Wallonia, one of the three self-governing regions of Belgium (the other two being Flanders and the Brussels-Capital Region). The parliament building, the former Hospice Saint-Gilles, is situated in Namur, the capital of Wallonia, at the symbolic confluence of the Meuse and the Sambre, the two main rivers of the most inhabited parts of Wallonia, the Sillon industriel. On the other side of the Meuse, facing the Parliament, is the Élysette, the seat of the Government of Wallonia.

History and names
A 1974 law on the temporary creation of regions installed a Walloon Regional Council (alongside a Flemish Regional Council), which were both abolished in 1977. At the creation of the first (permanent) regional assemblies in 1980 (second state reform), the body was also called "Walloon Regional Council" (Conseil régional wallon). Its members were the national representatives and senators elected in the Walloon Region, who thus by law held two offices simultaneously.

The fourth state reform (1993), transformed Belgium into a federal state and changed the "Walloon Regional Council" (Conseil régional wallon) into the "Council of the Walloon Region" (Conseil de la Région wallonne), which was directly elected for the first time on 21 May 1995. Shortly before these elections, in April 1995, the Council adopted a resolution to use the terms "Walloon Parliament" (Parlement wallon) and "Walloon deputies" (députés wallons).

A 2005 constitutional amendment revised the official terminology for all community and regional councils into community and regional parliaments, changing the "Council of the Walloon Region" into the "Walloon Parliament" (Parlement wallon).

In 2015, the Parliament opted to use the term "Parliament of Wallonia" (Parlement de Wallonie) instead of "Walloon Parliament".

Composition
All members of the Parliament of Wallonia are also members of the Parliament of the French Community, except for German-speaking members (currently Monika Dethier-Neumann and Edmund Stoffels) who represent the German-speaking population and are advisory members of the Parliament of the German-speaking Community.

The parliament exercises several functions:
 * It discusses and passes decrees, and they can take initiatives to draw them up. After this, decrees are sanctioned and promulgated by the Walloon Government.
 * It controls the Walloon Government. Control is exercised via the vote.
 * It ratifies the international treaties linked to its powers.

2014–2019
This is the composition of the Walloon Parliament following the 2014 regional election.

2009–2014
This is the composition of the Walloon Parliament following the 2009 regional election. The PS, Ecolo and CDH formed together a government.

2004–2009
This was the composition of the Walloon Parliament following the 2004 regional election. The PS and CDH formed together a government.

1999–2004
This was the composition of the Walloon Parliament following the 1999 regional election. The PS, Ecolo and PRL formed together a government.

1995–1999 1999–2004 2004–2009 2009–2014 2014–2019 2019–present

Constituencies
The Walloon Parliament is the only Belgian parliament which still uses arrondissement-based constituencies. The federal Chamber of Representatives and the Flemish Parliament both merged theirs into larger province-based constituencies.

A January 2018 law merged both Luxembourg constituencies and reformed the Hainaut constituencies (* = boundaries changed), following a successful challenge by Ecolo to the Constitutional Court that constituencies with too few seats are unrepresentative.

title: Parliament of Wallonia


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San Bernardino Strait

The San Bernardino Strait (Kipot ng San Bernardino) is a strait in the Philippines, connecting the Samar Sea with the Philippine Sea. It separates the Bicol Peninsula of Luzon island from the island of Samar in the south.

History
During this ill-fated expedition, one ship alone, the little San Juan de Letran with a skeleton crew of only 20 men, logged more than 5,000 kilometres in Philippine waters, including those of the San Bernardino Strait, and the San Juanico Strait between Samar and Leyte.

The San Juan also completely circumnavigated the island of Mindanao, then tried to reach Mexico but was blown back to the Marianas by a storm in the North Pacific. It made its way back to the Filipinas (as Samar and Leyte had been named by Villalobos), and on January 3, 1544 ran aground in the treacherous currents of the San Bernardino Strait "just as dozens of Spanish vessels were to do for the next three centuries".

In order to guide ships traversing along the strait, the Capul Island Lighthouse was built from 1863 to 1896 under Francisco Perez Muñoz, following the designs of Guillermo Brockman in 1892. It was given a historical marker by the National Historical Commission on October 24, 2018.

Second World War
During the Battle of Leyte Gulf, Imperial Japanese Admiral Kurita took his main battleship force through the strait to reach the American transports anchored in Leyte Gulf, but withdrew after the Battle off Samar.

title: San Bernardino Strait


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Guy d'Hardelot

Guy d'Hardelot (August 1858 – 7 January 1936) was the pen name of Helen Rhodes (née Helen Guy), a French composer, pianist and teacher.

Biography
D'Hardelot was born Helen Guy, to an English father and a French mother, at Château d'Hardelot, near Boulogne-sur-Mer.

At the age of 15, she went to Paris, where she studied at the Conservatoire de Paris under Marie Renaud-Maury (1852-1928) and came to the notice of Charles Gounod and Victor Maurel, who were much impressed with her ability. She also met Jules Massenet, who encouraged her to compose. On coming to London, she became a pupil of Clarence Lucas. Emma Calvé was a good friend to d'Hardelot and did much to bring her songs to notice.

Most of her life, d'Hardelot was engaged in teaching singing and diction at her home in London and many of her pupils attained success. In 1896, she toured the United States with Calvé. Her first real success as a composer was won with "Because", though her song "Sans Toi" had previously been favorably received. Among her other successes were "I Know a Lovely Garden", "I Think", "I Hid My Love", "Dawn" and "A Bunch of Violets".

She was singularly successful as a writer of songs, in which she combined French delicacy with English solidity. Few women composers became more popular in the early 20th century than did d'Hardelot, and her success was won on merit alone. In spite of the help of many friends, it was some time before she achieved this success.

Her sister, Edith Dick, was also a composer.

title: Guy d'Hardelot


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Alexander Stewart, Earl of Buchan

Alexander Stewart, Earl of Buchan, called the Wolf of Badenoch (1343 – July 1394), was a Scottish royal prince, the third son of King Robert II of Scotland by his first wife Elizabeth Mure. He was Justiciar of Scotia and held large territories in the north of Scotland.

He is best remembered for his destruction of the royal burgh of Elgin and its cathedral. His sobriquet was given due to his notorious cruelty and rapacity, but there is no proof that it was used during his lifetime.

Power and influence
Known in charters as Alexander Senescalli (Latin for Steward), first noted when, on 14 August 1370, he issued letters patent from Ruthven Castle undertaking to grant protection to the Bishop of Moray and all of his lands, men and property in Badenoch. His father, Robert the Steward, had acquired the lands of Badenoch probably from Euphemia, Countess of Moray who had become his second wife.

Robert had a petulant relationship with his uncle, King David II of Scotland. In 1368, he and his sons were required by David's parliament to take an oath that they would keep their undisciplined followers in check—later that year, Robert and Alexander were imprisoned in Lochleven Castle possibly as a result of these oaths having been broken. Following Robert's accession to the throne, Alexander was formally made Lord of Badenoch on 30 March 1371.

Alexander's possession of Badenoch was unaffected by the restoration of the Earldom of Moray to John Dunbar in March 1372, nor were the territories of John MacDonald, Lord of the Isles, in Lochaber—similarly with the lands of Urquhart (south of Inverness) which had been granted to David Stewart, Earl of Strathearn and King Robert's eldest son with his second wife, Euphemia. Alexander further extended his territorial gains in 1371 by leasing the Urquhart lands from his younger half-brother and then obtained possession of the Barony of Strathavon bordering his Badenoch lands.

In October 1372, Alexander was given the Royal Lieutenancy for those lands outwith the Earldom of Moray north and west of Inverness and added lands in Aberdeenshire and north Perthshire. In the same year, he was Royal Justiciar in the Appin of Dull in Perthshire which meant that Alexander held crown authority from north Perthshire to the Pentland Firth.

Alexander de Ard, a principal claimant for the Earldom of Caithness as the eldest grandson of Earl Malise, resigned his territories to the crown in favour of both Alexander and his half-brother David. However Alexander effectively doubled his land holdings when he married Euphemia Countess of Ross, in June 1382.

Alexander became the jure uxoris Earl of Ross and this provided him the Ross lands (but only during his own lifetime). Other lands belonging to his wife – including Lewis, Skye, Dingwall and Kingedward in Aberdeenshire – he held in joint ownership with her. His possession of the Barony of Kingedward, a large part of the former Earldom of Buchan allowed King Robert to give Alexander the title of Earl of Buchan only days after his marriage. Alexander ruled these territories with the help of his own private cateran forces, building up resentment among other land owners and this included Alexander Bur, Bishop of Moray.

Church defiance
There was no dominant potentate in Moray during the 12th and 13th centuries and the bishops ruled their territories with a great deal of independence, but this ended when King Robert I of Scotland elevated his nephew Thomas Randolph to the Earldom of Moray sometime between 12 April and 29 October 1312. The Randolph family did not hold the Earldom for long and it reverted to the crown on the death of Thomas's son John, in 1346, and lay vacant for the next 26 years. In 1365, bishop Bur persuaded David II that his lands in Badenoch and Strathspey should be governed as if in regality. To emphasise this, Bur, when he entered into the protection agreement with Alexander in 1370, ensured that the de facto Lord of Badenoch would have no hold on him, nor his lands and people.

A few months later in March 1371, on his father's accession to the throne, Alexander was officially made Lord of Badenoch. Robert II's charter gave Alexander the lands of Badenoch seemingly in regality with, presumably, authority over the church lands however, bishop Bur possibly protested at this, as the details of the grant of Badenoch contained in the Register of the Great Seal has no reference to regality.

Alexander was therefore to hold the Badenoch lands with no greater authority than John Comyn had a century before. The bishop continued to come under pressure from Alexander either directly or from his caterans possibly acting independently. Boardman explains that both the bishops of Moray and Aberdeen were in dispute with Alexander regarding the strain that his cateran followers were putting on church lands and tenants.

Boardman also theorises that it was this occupation of church lands, virtually rendering them worthless in terms of income, that may have been the reason for Bur 'voluntarily' giving up his rights to estates such as Rothiemurchas, on 20 April 1382. Complicating matters was the fact that neither of the bishops could appeal to the 'legitimate secular authority' as that authority was Alexander himself in his positions of Lord of Badenoch and Royal Lieutenant and was the reason why they appealed directly to the King.

Increasing pressure
King Robert's reputation declined because of his backing Buchan's methods and so in November 1384, John, Earl of Carrick with the backing of the general council, took executive authority from his father with lawlessness in the north being a major issue. The Lordship of Strathnairn had been administered by Buchan with the approval of the King, but now under Carrick's leadership, Sir David Lindsay was able to reassert his right to Strathnairn.

In April 1385, at the council, Buchan's brother David claimed that Buchan was holding Urquhart unlawfully, while Sir James Lindsay of Crawford reinstated his claim to the Lordship of Buchan and finally, the Earl of Moray demanded that some of Buchan's men be prosecuted for the killing of some of his men. Despite these early attacks on his position, Buchan significantly strengthened his territorial position, especially in the Great Glen where he retained Urquhart after his brother's death and then in the autumn of 1386 he gained the lands of Bona at the head of Loch Ness from the Earl of Moray and the adjoining lands in Abriachin from Sir Robert Chisholm.

Buchan's increased influence in Scottish affairs was again furthered when sometime before February 1387, he was appointed Justiciar North of the Forth Carrick's guardianship of Scotland had not been a success and certainly failed to rein in Buchan and so late in 1388, King Robert's second son, Robert, Earl of Fife (Robert Stewart, Duke of Albany) became the effective ruler of the Kingdom.

Within days, Fife removed Buchan from the Justiciarship and, it is assumed, the Royal Lieutenancy and the Sheriffdom of Inverness and later installed his own son, Murdoch as Justiciar North of the Forth. Fife was very uncompromising towards Buchan, who had been described as 'useless to the community' at a previous general council meeting. Buchan had long deserted his wife and lived with Mairead inghean Eachainn with whom he had several children, including Alexander Stewart, Earl of Mar. Marital law was the prerogative of the Church and so on 2 November 1389, Bishop Alexander Bur of Moray and Bishop Alexander Kylquhous of Ross, ordered his return to his wife, Euphemia. Buchan agreed to this but didn't live up to his promise and so Fife encouraged Euphemia of Ross during her divorce proceedings against Buchan and, in 1392, Euphemia was successful in her appeal to the Avignon papal court and his marriage was annulled. Following the annulment, Buchan lost all claim to Euphemia's lands which returned to her and to her son Alexander Leslie, Earl of Ross who contracted to marry Fife's daughter.

Burning of Elgin and aftermath
King Robert II died at Dundonald Castle in Ayrshire on 19 April 1390 and the chronicler Wyntoun informs that Robert was not buried at Scone until 13 August 1390, only a day before his son John, Earl of Carrick was crowned King as Robert III. Fife was retained as Guardian of Scotland probably much against Buchan's hopes as he must have looked at some sort of volte-face on some of Fife's actions, particularly as Buchan reached his zenith of possessions under Carrick. On top of this, Bishop Bur turned to Thomas Dunbar, Sheriff of Inverness and son of the Earl of Moray to provide his protection. The events of May and June 1390 in the Laich of Moray were perhaps the result of a combination of factors that presented themselves to Buchan. Firstly, John Dunbar, Earl of Moray and his fellow northern landowner Sir David Lindsay of Glenesk both absented themselves from Moray to attend a substantial tourney at Richard II of England's court. In addition, Bishop Bur's involvement with Buchan's estrangement with his wife and then Bur's alignment with Moray presented an opportunity for revenge culminating in the destruction of Forres in May and then Elgin with its cathedral in June. His destruction of the church possessions in Elgin was complete—as well as the cathedral, the monastery of the Greyfriars, St Giles parish church and the Hospital of Maison Dieu were all put to flame. Church and state now came together to oppose him—excommunicated by Bur, Buchan had to appear at the Church of the Friars Preacher, in Perth in the presence of his brothers, King Robert III of Scotland and the Earl of Fife, and the council-general to plead for forgiveness—absolution was granted by bishop Walter Trail, Bishop of St Andrews.

Buchan's brutal assault on Moray in 1390 was to some extent intended to extricate himself from Fife's domination but turned out to be unsuccessful—Alexander was to lose his Lordship of Urquhart in 1392 and then his claim on Ross following his wife's divorce in 1392. Fife's influence waned during the mid-1390s while that of King Robert and his son David, Earl of Carrick increased—the King took back responsibility for Scottish-English relations and had manoeuvred the Red Douglas Earl of Angus into a dominating position in southeastern Scotland at the expense of Fife's ally, the Black Douglas. Although Fife's authority over Scottish affairs had lessened he still exercised considerable power in government. Fife and Carrick both campaigned against Buchan and his sons and other lawless elements in the west and north. Although Buchan appeared to have halted his violent traits after this, his sons did not. A fight ensued near Pitlochry involving Duncan and Robert Stewart at the head of a band of caterans when Sir Walter Ogilvie and Walter de Lychton and followers were killed. Later it is recorded that three sons of Buchan were imprisoned in Stirling Castle from 1396 to 1402, perhaps the reason for Buchan's low profile during the later 1390s.

Buchan is again mentioned at Spynie Castle on 3 May 1398 being ordered to deliver it up to William, bishop of Moray by Robert III. Buchan appears to have left the north in his latter years appearing as Baillie of the Earldom of Atholl in 1402 and a mention in 1404 in Perth. However, several sources indicate he died in July 1394, which causes one to wonder to whom is being referred in 1398 and 1404 if not his son by the same name.

Buchan having acquired vast territories in the north lost a large part of them during his own lifetime (lands of Ross and Urquhart). He held royal appointments only to have them removed (Justiciar of Scotia and Royal Lieutenant north of the Moray Firth.) He was unsuccessful in maintaining law and order and this seen alongside his inability to hold onto his Ross territories demonstrated his ineffectiveness. He died circa 20 July 1405 and was buried at Cathedral of Dunkeld, Perthshire. His chest tomb, topped by an effigy in armour, is one of the few Scottish royal monuments to have survived from the Middle Ages.

Death
Stewart is buried in Dunkeld Cathedral with a handsome and somewhat defaced monument, with the description: His Jacet Domninus Alexander Senescallus, Dominus De Badenoch, Bonæ Memorle, Qui Obit 24 Die Mensis Julii, Anno Domini 1394.

There is a legend that Stewart—the "Wolf of Badenoch"—died after a chess game with the Devil. According to this legend, Stewart was visited at Ruthven Castle by a tall man dressed in black. The two played chess through the night, with a storm rising when the stranger called "Check" and "Check Mate". The legend says that the next morning the Wolf of Badenoch was found dead in the castle's hall, with his men dead outside the castle walls.

Mairead inghean Eachann
According to historian Angus Mackay, Alexander Stewart the Wolf of Badenoch's mistress, Mairead inghean Eachainn, was, in fact, Mariota Mackay, daughter of Iye Mackay, 4th of Strathnaver. There is however no evidence for this assertion. Stewart and Mairead had several illegitimate children, including Alexander Stewart, Earl of Mar.

The Mackay historian explains that Mariota Mackay who is described in Latin as "Mariota filia Athyn", being the "handfasted" wife of Alexander Stewart the Wolf of Badenoch, would explain Stewart's friendship with Farquhar Mackay who was Mariota Mackay's brother and physician to Robert II of Scotland. It would also explain why a party of Mackay's supported Stewart the Wolf of Badenoch in a raid into the Braes of Angus in 1391. It may well also have served as a motive for Angus Du Mackay, 7th of Strathnaver having supported Alexander Stewart the Earl of Mar, son of the Wolf, at the Battle of Dingwall in 1411 against Donald of Islay, Lord of the Isles, as Mackay and Stewart the Earl of Mar would have been cousins.

title: Alexander Stewart, Earl of Buchan


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Parliament of the Brussels-Capital Region

The Parliament of the Brussels-Capital Region (French: Parlement de la Région de Bruxelles-Capitale, Dutch: Parlement van het Brussels Hoofdstedelijk Gewest), is the governing body of the Brussels-Capital Region, one of the three regions of Belgium. It is also known as the Brussels Regional Parliament (French: Parlement Bruxellois, Dutch: Brussels Hoofdstedelijk Parlement).

Elections
Elections of 75 Brussels regional deputies, 89 since 2004, take place every five years. Here is the list of past regional elections:
 * 18 June 1989 (first elections)
 * 21 May 1995, coincided with the federal legislative elections;
 * 13 June 1999, coincided with the European Parliament elections;
 * 13 June 2004, coincided with the European Parliament elections;
 * 7 June 2009, coincided with the European Parliament elections;
 * 25 May 2014 coincided with the European Parliament elections;
 * 26 May 2019, coincided with the 2019 European Parliament election;
 * 9 June 2024, coincided with the 2024 European Parliament election

Current composition
The composition of the Brussels Parliament is as follows:

Previous compositions

2004–2009 2009–2014 2014–2019 2019–2024 2024–present

Functions
The Brussels Parliament role mainly consists in controlling the government of the Brussels-Capital Region, approving the budget and creating and passing legislation in regional matters, known as ordinances, which are legally binding. One of its first tasks after the Parliament is renewed is appointing five ministers and three regional secretaries of state, who together form the cabinet of the Brussels-Capital Region.

The Brussels Parliament can also force the cabinet as a whole or one or more of its members to resign by passing a motion of no confidence. However, because the Parliament cannot be dissolved prior to the end of its five-year term, such a motion is only admissible if it is a constructive motion, in other words, the Parliament must decide upon a successor to the cabinet or to one or more of its members.

The 89 members of the Brussels Parliament are divided into two language groups: 72 belong to the French-speaking group and 17 members belong to the Dutch-speaking group. The members of the French-speaking group also make up the Parlement francophone bruxellois (in English: Francophone Brussels Parliament), which was formerly known as the Assembly of the French Community Commission, while the members of the Dutch-speaking group make up the Council of the Flemish Community Commission. The Parlement francophone bruxellois and the Council of the Flemish Community Commission together form the United Assembly of the Common Community Commission. The Community Commissions are to a certain extent responsible for Community competencies within the Brussels-Capital Region.

19 of the 72 French-speaking members of the Brussels Parliament are also members of the Parliament of the French Community of Belgium, and until 2004 this was also the case for six Dutch-speaking members, who were at the same time members of the Flemish Parliament. Nowadays, people voting for a Flemish party have to vote separately for 6 directly-elected members of the Flemish Parliament.

Due to the multiple capacities of single members, there are members of the Brussels Parliament who are simultaneously members of the Parliament of the French Community of Belgium and of the Senate as "community senators" for the French Community. At the moment, this is the case for François Roelants du Vivier (MR), (PS) and Sfia Bouarfa (PS). However, there are certain restrictions in place in order to prevent one person from combining too many mandates. For instance, it is not possible to be a member of the Chamber of Representatives and of one of the Regional Parliaments at the same time.


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Robert Scheer

Robert Scheer (born April 4, 1936) is an American left-wing journalist who has written for Ramparts, the Los Angeles Times, Playboy, Hustler Magazine, Truthdig, ScheerPost and other publications as well as having written many books. His column for Truthdig was nationally syndicated by Creators Syndicate in publications such as The Huffington Post and The Nation. He is a clinical professor of communications at the Annenberg School for Communication & Journalism at the University of Southern California. Scheer is the former editor in-chief for the Webby Award-winning online magazine Truthdig. For many years, he co-hosted the nationally syndicated political analysis radio program Left, Right & Center on National Public Radio (NPR), produced at public radio station KCRW in Santa Monica. The Society of Professional Journalists awarded Scheer the 2011 Sigma Delta Chi Award for his column.

Early life
Scheer was born and raised in the Bronx, New York City. His mother, Ida Kuran, was a Russian Jew, and his father, Frederick Scheer, was a Protestant native of Germany; both worked in the garment industry. Robert graduated from Christopher Columbus High School in the Bronx. After graduating from City College of New York with a degree in economics, he studied as a fellow at the Maxwell School of Syracuse University, and then did further economics graduate work at the Center for Chinese Studies at UC Berkeley. Scheer has also been a Poynter fellow at Yale University, and was a fellow in arms control at Stanford University.

The Ramparts years
In 1962 in Berkeley, California, Scheer along with David Horowitz, Maurice Zeitlin, Phil Roos, and Sol Stern founded Root and Branch: A Radical Quarterly, one of the earliest campus New Left journals.

While working at City Lights Books in San Francisco, Scheer co-authored Cuba, an American Tragedy (1964) with Maurice Zeitlin. Between 1964 and 1969, he served, variously, as the Vietnam War correspondent, managing editor, and editor-in-chief of Ramparts magazine in San Francisco. Scheer reported from Cambodia, China, North Korea, Russia, Latin America and the Middle East (including the Six-Day War), as well as on national security matters in the United States. While in Cuba, where he interviewed Fidel Castro, Scheer obtained an introduction by the Cuban leader for the diary of Che Guevara — which Scheer had already obtained, with the help of French journalist Michele Ray, for publication in Ramparts and by Bantam Books. After Ramparts collapsed, Scheer became a freelance writer who was published in major magazines including Playboy, Look, Esquire, Lear's and Cosmopolitan.

Congressional run
In the late 1960s, Scheer made a bid for elective office as an anti-Vietnam War candidate. He challenged U.S. Representative Jeffery Cohelan in the 1966 Democratic primary. Cohelan was a liberal, but like most Democratic officeholders at that time, he supported the Vietnam War. Mathematician Serge Lang served as Scheer's campaign treasurer. Scheer lost, but won over 45% of the vote (and carried Berkeley), a strong enough showing against an incumbent to represent an indicator of the strength of New Left Sixties radicalism. (Cohelan would lose re-nomination four years later to anti-war Berkeley City Councilman Ron Dellums.)

In 1968, he signed the "Writers and Editors War Tax Protest" pledge, vowing to refuse to pay taxes in protest against the Vietnam War.

In July 1970, Scheer accompanied as a journalist a Black Panther Party delegation, led by Eldridge Cleaver, who also wrote for Ramparts, to North Korea, China, and Vietnam. The delegation also included people from the San Francisco Red Guard, the women's liberation movement, the Peace and Freedom Party, Newsreel, and the Movement for a Democratic Military.

In the November 1970 California elections, Scheer ran for the U.S. Senate as the nominee of the Peace and Freedom Party against Republican senator George Murphy and Democratic Congressman John V. Tunney. Scheer received 56,731 votes and lost the election to Tunney.

Los Angeles Times and Public Radio
After several years freelancing for magazines, including New Times and Playboy, Scheer joined the Los Angeles Times in 1976 as a reporter. There he met Narda Zacchino, a reporter whom he later married in the paper's news room. As a national correspondent for 17 years at the LA Times, he wrote articles and series on diverse topics such as the Soviet Union during glasnost, the Jews of Los Angeles, arms control, urban crises, national politics and the military, and covered several presidential elections. The LA Times entered Scheer's work for the Pulitzer Prize 11 times, and he was a finalist for the Pulitzer national reporting award for a series on the television industry.

After Scheer left the LA Times in 1993, the paper granted him a weekly op-ed column which ran every Tuesday for the next 12 years until it was canceled in 2005. The column now appears in Truthdig and is distributed nationally by Creators Syndicate. Scheer is also a contributing editor for The Nation magazine. He was heard weekly on the nationally syndicated political analysis radio program Left, Right & Center, produced at and syndicated by public radio station KCRW in Santa Monica, and is a host of Scheer Intelligence, a half-hour KCRW podcast with politically engaged individuals.

Scheer has taught courses at Antioch College, City College of New York, UC Irvine, UCLA and UC Berkeley, and is now a clinical professor at the University of Southern California's Annenberg School for Communication, where he teaches two courses each semester on media and society.

Scheer interviewed every president from Richard Nixon through Bill Clinton. He conducted the 1976 Playboy interview with Jimmy Carter, in which the then-presidential candidate admitted to having "lusted" in his heart. In an interview with George H. W. Bush, the then presidential candidate revealed that he believed nuclear war was "winnable." Scheer has profiled politicians from Californians Jerry Brown and Willie Brown to Washington insiders like Henry Kissinger and Zbigniew Brzezinski, and figures like actor Tom Cruise.

Iraq War
In an August 6, 2002 article, he wrote that "a consensus of experts" informed the Senate that the Iraqi weapons arsenal was "almost totally destroyed during eight years of inspections." On June 3, 2003, Scheer concluded that White House justifications for the war were a "big lie." On November 4, 2003, he penned an article in favor of withdrawal from Iraq.

World War II
In an April 7, 2010 article, he wrote that Harry Truman perpetrated "the most atrocious act of terrorism in world history when he annihilated the civilian populations of Hiroshima and Nagasaki".

Russia and Ukraine
Scheer has accused tech companies of censoring articles that question the "NATO narrative" on the 2022 Russian invasion of Ukraine.

Support of Kentucky Republican for U.S. Senate
In 2010, Scheer expressed support for Republican Rand Paul, son of former Libertarian presidential candidate and Republican congressman Ron Paul, in his United States Senate campaign in Kentucky.

End of Los Angeles Times relationship
Scheer has often expressed highly controversial ideas. In a February 15, 2005 LA Times article entitled "What We Don't Know About 9/11 Hurts Us", he stated: "Would George W. Bush have been reelected president if the public understood how much responsibility his administration bears for allowing the 9/11 attacks to succeed?" After running his column for more than 12 years after he had worked as a reporter for the paper 17 years, the Los Angeles Times ended a nearly 30-year relationship with Scheer in November 2005, citing the need to cut costs, but subsequently replaced him with two conservative columnists. Scheer said in an interview with Democracy Now! that the paper's owner, the Tribune Company, owns a newspaper and a television station in the same market, which is illegal, and may have fired Scheer in an attempt to make it easier to obtain a waiver permitting the dual ownership from the Federal Communications Commission (FCC). He also commented during a November 14, 2005, appearance on Democracy Now!: "What happened is that I had been the subject of vicious attacks by Bill O'Reilly and Rush Limbaugh. ... I was a punching bag for those guys. I'm still standing, and the people who run the paper collapsed."

In a posting on The Huffington Post, Scheer wrote: "The publisher Jeff Johnson, who has offered not a word of explanation to me, has privately told people that he hated every word that I wrote. I assume that mostly refers to my exposing the lies used by President Bush to justify the invasion of Iraq. Fortunately 60 percent of Americans now get the point but only after tens of thousand of Americans and Iraqis have been killed and maimed as the carnage spirals out of control. My only regret is that my pen was not sharper and my words tougher."

Scheer's firing incited a protest held outside the LA Times downtown office on November 15, and hundreds of readers wrote letters of complaint while some, including Barbra Streisand, publicly announced the cancellation of their LA Times subscriptions. Within a few days of his column being retired by the Times, the San Francisco Chronicle offered itself as the new home paper of Scheer's syndicated column, which ran there for years.

Truthdig
On November 29, 2005, Scheer co-launched, as editor in chief, the online news magazine, Truthdig. Scheer's column there was syndicated nationally by Creators Syndicate in publications such as The Huffington Post and The Nation. In a 2014 Los Angeles Magazine feature about Truthdig, Ed Leibowitz writes, "The columnists and bloggers [of Truthdig] chart an ecosystem in irreversible decline, follow human rights crises and repression overseas, and probe the erosion of American democracy by perpetual war, the disappearance of privacy rights, the abandonment of the poor, and a political system in thrall to corporate titans, gross polluters, and Wall Street crooks. By pursuing these subjects with an intellectual rigor and relentlessness seldom found on the Web, Truthdig has become one of the most critically acclaimed Internet-based news sites in the world. Among the site's most covered stories was an atheist manifesto by writer Sam Harris and a searing birthday tribute to slain U.S. Army Ranger and former NFL star Pat Tillman, written by his brother, Kevin.

Truthdig is a four-time recipient of the Webby Award for best political blog, and in 2013, Truthdig won a fifth award for best political site. Truthdig is a winner of multiple awards from the Society of Professional Journalists and the Los Angeles Press Club.

In March 2020, a dispute between Scheer and Truthdig's CEO and publisher, Zuade Kaufman, led to a work stoppage by employees who were subsequently fired. In November 2022, after almost two years on "hiatus", the website relaunched without Scheer's involvement.

Awards
Scheer received the 2010 Distinguished Work in New Media Award from the Society of Professional Journalists, and in 2011 Ithaca College named Scheer the winner of the Izzy Award for outstanding achievement in independent media.

Scheer was the 1998 honoree of the Shelter Partnership, an organization of Los Angeles downtown businesses as well as the recipient of the USC School of Social Work's Los Amigos Award. He won the James Aronson Award for Social Justice Journalism for his writing in the Los Angeles Times and The Nation about the case of nuclear scientist Wen Ho Lee. He has also received awards and citations from Stanford University, the Russian Academy of Sciences, the University of California, San Diego, and Yale University.

Personal life
Scheer's first wife was Serena Turan Scheer. Serena, now the widow of poet Lou Embree, is the older sister of film critic Kenneth Turan. A Brooklyn native, she was on the editorial staff of Root and Branch and a reporter on the Oakland Tribune. Scheer and Turan divorced. Scheer married Anne Butterfield Weills in 1965. Their son Christopher Weills Scheer was born September 8, 1968. Scheer and Weills subsequently divorced.

Robert Scheer is now married to Narda Catharine Zacchino. She worked at the Los Angeles Times for 31 years, where she became the associate editor and a vice president. She was later deputy editor of the San Francisco Chronicle. Zacchino is the co-author of three books and is a senior fellow at USC's Annenberg Center on Communication Leadership and Policy.

Books
Scheer's book, They Know Everything About You: How Data-Collecting Corporations and Snooping Government Agencies Are Destroying Democracy, was released on February 21, 2015. It was published by Nation Books, who also released Scheer's previous book The Great American Stickup: How Reagan Republicans and Clinton Democrats Enriched Wall Street While Mugging Main Street on September 7, 2010. Publishers Weekly wrote about the latter book saying that it "proves that, when it comes to the ruling sway of money power, Democrats and Republicans, Wall Street and Washington make very agreeable bedfellows." The book made the Los Angeles Times bestseller list and on October 17, 2010, was reviewed in the same paper by Jonathan Kirsch, who wrote
 * Robert Scheer is a journalist in the gadfly tradition of Lincoln Steffens, I. F. Stone and Seymour Hersh. His latest book, The Great American Stickup, blames the 'captains of finance' for causing the 2008 'meltdown' of the global economy in the first place and then profiting from the tax dollars that were thrown at the problem — 'a giant hustle that served the richest of the rich,' as he puts it, 'and left the rest of us holding the bag.'

Scheer has written eight other books, including a collection entitled Thinking Tuna Fish, Talking Death: Essays on the Pornography of Power; With Enough Shovels: Reagan, Bush and Nuclear War; and America After Nixon: The Age of Multinationals. In 2004, Scheer published The Five Biggest Lies Bush Told Us About Iraq, which became a Los Angeles Times Bestseller. It was co-authored by his oldest son, Christopher Scheer, and Lakshmi Chaudhry, senior editor at Alternet.

Scheer's anthology Playing President: My Close Encounters with Nixon, Carter, Bush I, Reagan and Clinton – and How They Did Not Prepare Me for George W. Bush (Akashic Books, 2006), is a collection of his many interviews, profiles, and columns about Presidents Richard Nixon through George W. Bush. The Pornography of Power: How Defense Hawks Hijacked 9/11 and Weakened America was published in 2008.

Works

 * Maurice Zeitlin, Robert Scheer, Cuba, Tragedy in our Hemisphere, Grove Press, 1963
 * With Enough Shovels: Reagan, Bush, and Nuclear War, Random House Incorporated, 1983, ISBN 9780394722030
 * Christopher Scheer, Robert Scheer, Lakshmi Chaudhry, The Five Biggest Lies Bush Told Us about Iraq, Akashic Books, Seven Stories Press, 2003, ISBN 9781583226445

As writer
Scheer and his son were creative script consultants on the Oliver Stone film Nixon, which was nominated for an Academy Award for best original screenplay.

As producer
In 2005, the Mill Valley Film Festival premiered a documentary he co-produced on the activist and philanthropist Stanley Sheinbaum.

As actor
In 1998, Scheer played a journalist in the 1998 feature film, The Siege and as a television pundit in the satirical political comedy Bulworth. In 2007 he was in the Argentinian film short colloquially entitled, "La Vuelta del Perro."

Discography

 * A Night At Santa Rita, Narrated by Rosko; James Spaulding (flute); Ron Carter (bass); Nat Hentoff (commentary); Bob Thiele (producer); Victor Kalin (cover painting). (Flying Dutchman FDS 111)

title: Robert Scheer


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.40 S&W

The .40 S&W (10.2×22mm) is a rimless pistol cartridge developed jointly by American firearms manufacturers Smith & Wesson and Winchester in 1990. The .40 S&W was developed as a law enforcement cartridge designed to duplicate performance of the Federal Bureau of Investigation's (FBI) reduced-velocity 10mm Auto cartridge which could be retrofitted into medium-frame (9 mm size) semi-automatic handguns. It uses 0.40 in bullets ranging in weight from 105 to 200 gr.

History
In the aftermath of the 1986 FBI Miami shootout, in which two FBI special agents were killed and five wounded, the FBI started the process of testing 9×19mm Parabellum and .45 ACP ammunition in preparation to replace its standard-issue revolver with a semi-automatic pistol. The semi-automatic pistol offered two advantages over the revolver: increased ammunition capacity and increased ease of reloading during a gunfight. The FBI was satisfied with the performance of its .38 Special +P 158 gr lead semi-wadcutter hollowpoint (LSWCHP) cartridge ("FBI load") based on decades of dependable performance. Ammunition for the new semi-automatic pistol had to deliver terminal performance equal or superior to the .38 Special FBI load. The FBI developed a series of practically oriented tests involving eight test events that they believed reasonably represented the kinds of situations that FBI agents commonly encountered in shooting incidents.

During tests of the 9×19mm and .45 ACP ammunition, the unit chief of the FBI Firearms Training Unit, John Hall, decided to include tests of the 10mm Auto cartridge, supplying his own Colt Delta Elite 10mm semi-automatic, and personally hand-loaded ammunition. The FBI's tests revealed that a 170 - 180 gr JHP 10mm bullet, propelled between 900 - 1000 ft/s, achieved desired terminal performance without the heavy recoil associated with conventional 10mm ammunition (1300 - 1400 ft/s). The FBI contacted Smith & Wesson and requested it to design a handgun to FBI specifications, based on the existing large-frame Smith & Wesson Model 4506 .45 ACP handgun, that would reliably function with the FBI's reduced-velocity 10mm ammunition. During this collaboration with the FBI, S&W realized that downsizing the 10mm full-power to meet the FBI's medium-velocity specification meant less powder and more airspace in the case. They found that by removing the airspace they could shorten the 10mm case enough to fit within their medium-frame 9mm handguns and load it with a 180 gr JHP bullet to produce ballistic performance identical to the FBI's reduced-velocity 10mm cartridge. S&W then teamed with Winchester to produce a new cartridge, the .40 S&W. It uses a small pistol primer whereas the 10mm cartridge uses a large pistol primer.

The .40 S&W cartridge debuted January 17, 1990, along with the new Smith & Wesson Model 4006 pistol, although it was several months before the pistols were available for purchase. Austrian manufacturer Glock Ges.m.b.H. were commercially available ahead of Smith & Wesson in 1990, with pistols chambered in .40 S&W (the Glock 22 and Glock 23) which were announced a week before the 4006. Glock's rapid introduction was aided by its engineering of a pistol chambered in 10mm Auto, the Glock 20, only a short time earlier. Since the .40 S&W uses the same bore diameter and case head as the 10mm Auto, it was merely a matter of adapting the 10mm design to the shorter 9×19mm Parabellum frames. The new guns and ammunition were an immediate success, and pistols in the new caliber were adopted by several law enforcement agencies around the nation, including the FBI, which adopted the Glock pistol in .40 S&W in May 1997.

The popularity of the .40 S&W accelerated with the passage of the now-expired Federal Assault Weapons Ban of 1994, which prohibited sales of pistol or rifle magazines that could hold more than ten cartridges, regardless of caliber. Several U.S. states, and a number of local governments, also banned or regulated so-called "high-capacity" magazines. As a result, many new firearm buyers limited to purchasing pistols with a maximum magazine capacity of 10 rounds chose pistols in the .40 S&W chambering instead of smaller-diameter cartridges such as the 9×19mm (9mm Luger or 9mm Parabellum).

The .40 S&W case length and overall cartridge length are shortened, but other dimensions except for case web and wall thickness remain identical to the 10mm Auto. Both cartridges headspace on the mouth of the case. Thus in a semi-auto, they are not interchangeable. Fired from a 10mm semi-auto, the .40 Smith & Wesson cartridge will headspace on the extractor and the bullet will jump a 0.142 in freebore just like a .38 Special fired from a .357 Magnum revolver. If the cartridge is not held by the extractor, the chances for a ruptured primer are great. Smith & Wesson does make a double-action revolver (the Model 610) that can fire either cartridge via use of moon clips. A single-action revolver in the .38–40 chambering can also fire .40 or 10mm rounds provided it is equipped with a correctly sized cylinder. Some .40 caliber handguns can be converted to 9mm with a special purpose-made barrel, magazine change, and other parts.

In 2015, the FBI announced they were going back to 9mm ammunition, citing advancements in ballistic technology and increased accuracy in a gunfight. This has caused a substantial contribution to the .40 S&W's decline in popularity with law enforcement in the US.

Cartridge dimensions
The .40 S&W has 1.25 ml (19.3 grains H2O) cartridge case capacity.

The common rifling twist rate for this cartridge is 406 mm, 6 grooves, ∅ lands = 9.91 ;mm, ∅ grooves = 10.17 mm, land width = 3.05 mm and the primer type is small pistol. According to the official C.I.P. guidelines, the .40 S&W case can handle up to 225 MPa piezo pressure. In C.I.P.-regulated countries, every pistol/cartridge combo has to be proofed at 130% of this maximum C.I.P. pressure to certify for sale to consumers. The SAAMI pressure limit for the .40 S&W is set at 241.32 MPa piezo pressure.

Performance

The .40 S&W cartridge has been popular with law enforcement agencies in the United States, Canada, Australia, and Brazil. While possessing nearly identical accuracy, drift and drop as the 9mm Parabellum, it has an energy advantage over the 9mm Parabellum and .45 ACP, and a more manageable recoil than the 10mm Auto cartridge. Marshall & Sanow (and other hydrostatic shock proponents) contend that with good jacketed hollow point bullets, the more energetic loads for the .40 S&W can also create hydrostatic shock in human-sized living targets.

Based on the ideal terminal ballistic performance in ordnance gelatin during lab testing in the late 1980s and early 1990s, the .40 S&W earned status as "the ideal cartridge for personal defense and law enforcement". Ballistically the .40 S&W is almost identical to the .38-40 Winchester introduced in 1874, as they share the same bullet diameter and bullet weight, and have similar muzzle velocities. The energy of the .40 S&W exceeds standard-pressure .45 ACP loadings, generating between 350 ftlb and 500 ftlb of energy, depending on bullet weight. Both the .40 S&W and the 9mm Parabellum operate at a 35000 psi SAAMI maximum, compared to a 21000 psi maximum for .45 ACP.

.40 S&W pistols with standard (not extended) double-stack magazines can hold as many as 16 cartridges. While not displacing the 9mm Parabellum, the .40 S&W is commonly used in law enforcement applications in keeping with its origin with the FBI. Select U.S. special operations units have available the .40 S&W and .45 ACP for their pistols. The United States Coast Guard, having dual duties as maritime law enforcement and military deployments, has adopted the SIG Sauer P229R DAK in .40 S&W as their standard sidearm. However, as of 2020, the Coast Guard has adopted the Glock 19 GEN5 MOS as its new sidearm. Numerous federal and local law enforcement agencies are currently in the process of transitioning from .40 S&W to 9mm, most notably the FBI, who adopted 9mm firearms in 2015. In 2019, U.S. Customs and Border Protection adopted 9mm Glock handguns, replacing the .40 S&W Heckler & Koch P2000 CBP was previously using.

The .40 S&W was originally loaded at subsonic velocity (984.25 ft/s) with a 180 gr bullet. Since its introduction, various loads have been created, with the majority being either 155 ,. However, there are some bullets with weights as light as 135 gr and as heavy as 200 gr. Cor-Bon and Winchester both offer a 135 gr JHP and Cor-Bon also offers a 140 gr Barnes XPB hollow-point. Double Tap Ammo, based in Cedar City, Utah, loads a 135 gr Nosler JHP, a 155 gr, 165 gr and 180 gr Speer Gold Dot hollow-point (marketed as "Bonded Defense"), a 180 gr Hornady XTP JHP, and three different 200 gr loads included a 200 gr Full Metal Jacket (FMJ), a 200 gr Hornady XTP JHP and Double Tap's own 200 gr WFNGC (Wide Flat Nose Gas Check) hard cast lead bullet; the latter specifically designed for hunting and woods carry applications.

Case failure reports in older Glock pistols
The .40 S&W has been noted in a number of cartridge case failures involving older Glock pistols, due to the relatively large area of unsupported case head in those barrels, given its allowed chamber pressure level. The feed ramp on the Glock .40 S&W pistols is larger than on other Glocks, which leaves the rear bottom of the case unsupported, and it is in this unsupported area that the cases fail. Most, but not all, of the failures have occurred with reloaded or remanufactured ammunition. Cartridges loaded at or above the SAAMI pressure, or slightly oversized cases which fire slightly out of battery are often considered to be the cause of these failures, which are commonly referred to as "kaBooms" or "kB!" for short. While these case failures do not often injure the person holding the pistol, the venting of high-pressure gas tends to eject the magazine out of the magazine well in a spectacular fashion, and usually destroys the pistol. In some cases, the barrel will also fail, blowing the top of the chamber off.

Synonyms

 * .40 caliber
 * .40 Auto
 * 10×22 mm
 * 10mm Kurz (A moniker based on the .40 S&W being a "shorter version" of the 10mm Auto, similar to how the .380 ACP (also known as 9mm short or 9mm Kurz) is shorter and lower powered but in caliber similar to the 9mm Parabellum)

title: .40 S&W


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May Sutton

May Godfrey Sutton (September 25, 1886 – October 4, 1975) was an American tennis player who was active during the first decades of the 20th century. At age 16 she won the singles title at the U.S. National Championships and in 1905 she became the first American player to win the singles title at Wimbledon.

Biography
May Sutton was born on September 25, 1886  in Plymouth, England, the youngest of seven children of Adolphus DeGrouchy Sutton, a captain in the Royal Navy and Adeline Esther Godfray. When she was six years old, Sutton's family moved to a ranch near Pasadena, California. It was there that she and her sisters played tennis on a court built by her father. As young ladies, May and her sisters, Violet, Florence, and Ethel, dominated the California tennis circuit. In addition to being accomplished tennis players, the girls were excellent basketball players. May, Florence and Violet were all on the Pasadena High School basketball team, which went undefeated in 1900. In 1904 at age 17 years and 9 months, May Sutton won the singles title at the U.S. Championships on her first attempt and became the youngest US champion in history. She also teamed with Miriam Hall to win the women's doubles title and came close to making it a clean sweep by advancing to the mixed doubles final.

She was unable to defend her U.S. title as she traveled to England in May 1905 to compete in the Wimbledon Championships. In June, she won the grass court Northern Championships in Manchester, defeating Hilda Lane in the final. Sutton became the first American and first non-British woman to win the Wimbledon singles title when she beat British star and reigning two-time Wimbledon champion Dorothea Douglass Chambers in the challenge round. She did it while shocking the British audience by rolling up her sleeves to bare her elbows and wearing a skirt that showed her ankles. For the next two years, she and Chambers met in the final, with Chambers recapturing the title in 1906 and Sutton winning it back in 1907.

Sutton was the 1908 Rose Parade Queen in Pasadena.

On December 11, 1912, she married Tom Bundy, who was a three-time winner of the men's doubles title at the U.S. Championships, and semi-retired to raise a family. However, in 1921 at the age of 35, she made a comeback and became the fourth-ranked player in the U.S. In 1925, she was a women's doubles finalist at the U.S. Championships and, although almost forty years of age, her game was strong enough to be selected for America's Wightman Cup team. In 1922 and 1923, she won the women's singles in the Ojai Tennis Tournament. She was a Wimbledon quarterfinalist in 1929 at the age of 42, which was the first time she had played Wimbledon since 1907. In 1928 and 1929, she and her daughter Dorothy Cheney became the only mother/daughter combination to be seeded at the U.S. Championships. Her nephew, John Doeg, won the U.S. Championships in 1930, and in 1938, daughter Dorothy won the Australian Championships.

In 1956, Sutton was inducted into the International Tennis Hall of Fame. She never stopped playing tennis and was playing regularly well into her late 80s.

Sutton died of cancer on October 4, 1975, in Santa Monica, California and was interred in the local Woodlawn Memorial Cemetery.

Playing style
Eight-time U.S. National Championship winner Molla Bjurstedt Mallory indicated that Sutton was the best player she had met. "Her drive was the fastest and the...most difficult...to handle, because it dove suddenly to the ground and then jumped up unexpectedly with queer curves. When she could keep her drives near the baseline, they either forced me back farther than I had been accustomed to play or compelled me to make errors. She was also strong overhead when she came to the net and altogether had more power and effectiveness than any other woman tennis player of her time". Sutton played with an extreme Western grip and had a powerful topspin forehand that made the ball dip and bound high.

title: May Sutton


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Karl Klindworth

Karl Klindworth (25 September 1830 – 27 July 1916) was a German composer, virtuoso pianist, conductor, violinist and music publisher. He was one of Franz Liszt's pupils and later one of his closest disciples and friends, being also on friendly terms with composer Richard Wagner, of whom he was an admirer. He was highly praised by fellow musicians, including Wagner himself and Edward Dannreuther. Among his pupils were Hans von Bülow, Georgy Catoire, and Ethelbert Nevin.

Family
Klindworth was born in Hanover in 1830 as the son of Carl August Klindworth and Dorothea Wilhelmine (1800–1853), née Lamminger, daughter of court printer Johann Thomas Lamminger (1757–1805). He was the paternal nephew of diplomat and intelligence agent Georg Klindworth and clockmaker Karl Friedrich Felix Klindworth (1788–1851).

As a child, the young Klindworth received violin lessons and taught himself to play the piano. As he was not accepted as violin pupil of Louis Spohr, he then joined a traveling theater company as a successful violinist and conductor when he was only 17. In 1850, he took over the leadership of the Neue Liedertafel in Hanover. In the summer of 1852, Klindworth went to Weimar where he took piano lessons with Franz Liszt and was soon one of his closest disciples and friends. He also became on friendly terms with Richard Wagner.

Career
In 1854, Klindworth went to London, where he remained for fourteen years, studying, teaching and occasionally appearing in public. From London Klindworth went to Moscow in 1868, following Nikolai Rubinstein's invitation to take up the position of professor of pianoforte at the Moscow Conservatory, where he first met Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky as professor of harmony. While in Russia, he completed his pianoforte arrangements for Wagner's Der Ring des Nibelungen, which he had commenced during Wagner's visit to England in 1855, Beethoven's sonatas and also his critical edition of Frédéric Chopin's works. He then became conductor of the Berlin Philharmonic in 1882, in association with Joseph Joachim and Franz Wüllner, being also the conductor of the Berlin Wagner Society. At this time, he established the Klindworths Musikschule, which later became the Klindworth-Scharwenka Conservatory.

Klindworth remained in Berlin until 1893, when he retired to Potsdam, practicing as a teacher. He earned his great reputation as an editor of musical works, having re-orchestrated Chopin's second piano concerto, adopted and raised Winifred Williams to be a perfect "Wagnerite" and made the orchestration of the first movement of Alkan's solo piano concerto, the eighth of the composer's etudes in all the minor keys, though others have since orchestrated all three movements. He died in 1916 in Stolpe, near Oranienburg, aged 85.

Piano works

 * Concert-Polonaise
 * Polonaise-Fantaisie, dedicated to "mes amis de Londres"

Arrangements

 * Hector Berlioz: Ballet of the Sylphs and Hungarian March from The Damnation of Faust
 * Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky: Roméo et Juliette for two pianos, Francesca da Rimini, for piano for 4 hands and Andante cantabile from String Quartet No. 1, Op. 11
 * Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart: Requiem, K626 for solo piano.
 * Franz Schubert's Great C major Symphony for two pianos
 * Richard Wagner: Rienzi, The Flying Dutchman, Tannhauser, Prelude to act 3 of Lohengrin, Tristan and Isolde, The Mastersingers of Nuremberg, Ring of the Nibelungen, Prelude of Parsifal
 * Charles-Valentin Alkan: Concerto for Piano and Orchestra, Op.39 originally from Douze Études dans Tous les Tons Mineurs, Op.39 no.8 1st movement from : Concerto for Solo Piano (Allegro Assai)

Editions

 * Frédéric Chopin: Oeuvres completes, 6 volumes. Moscow (1873–1876)
 * Ludwig van Beethoven: Sonatas for piano, 3 vols. Berlin (1884)
 * Johann Sebastian Bach: The Well-Tempered Clavier, Mainz (1894)
 * Felix Mendelssohn: Songs Without Words, London (1898)

Piano schools

 * The skill in playing the piano, 24 pieces of exercise in all major and minor keys. Mainz (1897)
 * Novello's School of Pianoforte. London (1902)
 * Elementary Piano School'. London, Mainz (1903)
 * 24 pieces of exercise in all major and minor keys for the training of skill in playing the piano, latest magazine for Bertini's piano school.

Letters and writings

 * Then and now in England. Bayreuth (1898)
 * Memory and thoughts of Karl Klindworth, letters to Wahnfried. Bayreuth (1916)
 * Unpublished Karl Klindworth's letters to Tchaikovsky. Berlin (1965)

title: Karl Klindworth


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Christian Peoples Alliance

The Christian Peoples Alliance (CPA) is a minor Christian right political party in the United Kingdom. The party was founded in its present form in 1999, having grown out of a cross-party advocacy group called the Movement for Christian Democracy. The first leader of the party was Ram Gidoomal; Alan Craig took over from him in 2004 and resigned in 2012. He was replaced by Sidney Cordle, the party's current leader.

Movement for Christian Democracy
The beginnings of the party can be traced to the Movement for Christian Democracy (MCD), a group founded in 1990 with the aim to combat rising secularism within the United Kingdom. The three founding members were David Alton, Derek Enright and Ken Hargreaves, who were Members of Parliament representing the Liberal, Labour and Conservative parties respectively. Though political parties with explicitly Christian aims and values had been previously established within the United Kingdom, such as the Protestant Unionist Party (PUP) in Northern Ireland, the MCD, unlike the PUP, claimed to represent both Protestants and Catholics on a nationwide, rather than regional, basis.

The MCD existed as a cross-party advocacy group and never became a political party. However, many of its members sought to form the CPA; the movement's chairman, Alan Storkey, and its vice-chairman, David Campanale, formed the CPA in 1999 following a consultation of MCD members. In the 1997 general election Storkey stood as a Christian Democrat in Enfield Southgate.

Formation of the Christian Peoples Alliance
Following the devolution of the Scottish Parliament and the Welsh Assembly, elements of proportional representation at a local government level saw the party gain confidence. In 2000, Ram Gidoomal, a convert from Hinduism to Christianity, became the party's leader.

Gidoomal stood for election in the 2000 London mayoral election, gaining 98,549 votes and finishing fifth, ahead of the Green Party in first preference votes. The party campaigned on job opportunities for Londoners, amongst other policies. In November that year, a candidate supported by the Christian Peoples Alliance stood at the Preston by-election, finishing seventh.

Following this, the party continued campaigning in London, mostly in working class areas, such as Canning Town in Newham. In 2002, Alan Craig became the first Christian Democrat to be elected in Britain, as a member of the local Newham council.

Craig leadership
After the 2004 London mayoral election, Gidoomal stepped down as party leader to be succeeded by Craig. The party contested the 2005 general election with little electoral success, though a "blind candidating" contest run by the BBC's Newsnight programme saw members of the public, unaware of the party of each contestant speaking, place the party's manifesto and policies second.

In 2006, The party won two more council seats in Canning Town. Later that year, Cardinal Keith O'Brien and Bishop Philip Tartaglia attended the party conference in Glasgow prior to the Scottish Parliament elections. Bishop Tartaglia gave a speech opening the conference in which he praised a number of party policies. In the following year, the party had two members elected at parish council level for Aston cum Aughton in the Metropolitan Borough of Rotherham.

In January 2008, Craig defended Anglican Bishop Michael Nazir-Ali, following his comments in the Telegraph that "Islamic extremism was creating 'no-go areas' for people of a different faith." Craig described the bishop as "courageous" for raising the matter.

As part of a party pact with the Christian Party, Craig stood for the London mayoral election in 2008 as "The Christian Choice", gaining almost 3% of the vote. This was followed with 249,493 votes at the European Parliament election 2009, 1.6% of the total.

The party's 'Mayflower Declaration' laid out the party's values and policies, voicing its opposition to the prospect of the Iraq War, deeming it "illegal, unwise and immoral" — a position by which it has stood.

In 2011, Craig was criticised for comparing gay rights activists to Nazis in the Church of England Newspaper.

Craig resigned as leader in October 2012; he later joined the UK Independence Party (UKIP).

Abbey Hills Mosque
The CPA campaigned against the building of the Abbey Mills Mosque in West Ham, planned to have been built by a sect of Islam which the CPA claimed was a "radical sect". The party's broadcast in relation to the planning was censored on both the BBC and on ITV, leading to the CPA taking unsuccessful legal action. A 23-year-old man from Stevenage posted a death threat on YouTube in response to the group's opposition to the mosque's construction. The party claimed the planned mosque was an "unwanted landmark", stating its belief that the construction would "undermine community cohesion". A petition on the official Downing Street website to prevent the mosque's construction gained more than 255,000 signatures, claiming that the mosque would "cause terrible violence".

Targeting of Stella Creasy
In November 2019, during the general election campaign, it was reported that CPA would focus on opposing Stella Creasy in her Walthamstow constituency. Creasy had that summer led successful attempts to decriminalise terminations in Northern Ireland.

The CPA campaign followed another in October that year by the Center for Bio-Ethical Reform, an anti-abortion group. The CBR campaign led to police passing a file to the Crown Prosecution Service to consider whether it constituted harassment.

The CPA came last with less than 1% of the vote.

Organisation
Annual accounts submitted to the Electoral Commission show an income of £11,000 for 2013.

International affiliation
Since 2007, the party has been affiliated to the European Christian Political Movement, an association of Christian Democrat parties, think tanks and politicians across Europe.

Ideology
In 2000 and 2004 in London, it put inner-city regeneration and fighting discrimination, as its top policy priorities.

The CPA has opposed the reclassification of cannabis.

When Craig became leader he introduced policies in favour of linking Christianity to the European Union Constitution, building more church schools and supporting 5th century Christian morality. He led campaigns backing the UNISON steward at Newham Council who faced disciplinary action; against plans to build London's large casino in Newham, against the Excel Arms Fair; against what he claims are Labour's plans to move local families out of Canning Town in support of yuppie housing. Craig has also campaigned against proposals to demolish parts of Queen Street Market in favour of "non-invasive refurbishment" environment.

Same-sex marriage
The party was involved in the campaign against the Marriage (Same Sex Couples) Act 2013 with its leader Sid Cordle speaking at a rally in Trafalgar Square. While the debates were taking place he spoke at a rally outside Westminster.

In May 2014, during the EU elections, under questioning from Andrew Neil on the BBC Daily Politics programme Cordle said that it was possible that recent storms in the UK could have been caused by God, saying, "I think all Christians believe that God does, and can do, things with nature. A lot of Christians believe God is angry over 'gay marriage' and God can show that anger if he wants to."

In May 2017, on the Daily Politics programme, Cordle was accused of "embarrassing" himself and was described as a "bigot" by the journalist Owen Jones after claiming that marriage's sole purpose was the procreation of children. The presenter, Jo Coburn, was forced to ask Cordle to allow Jones to speak on several occasions, but Cordle accused Jones of being "insulting" and claimed that Coburn's reluctance to allow him to respond to Jones was "fake news".

Economic and European policy
The Christian Peoples Alliance rejects the class struggle doctrine and supports a mixed market economy, with an emphasis on the community, social solidarity, support for social welfare provision and some regulation of market forces. The central theme is social justice, responsible charity and an emphasis on "people before profit". Within the Mayflower Declaration, the party sets out its goals and desires as providing resources to discourage economic dependency and promote gainful employment. It also supports a holistic approach to care, which moves beyond mere financial assistance, as well as help for those in danger of being pushed to the margins of society, like the homeless and disabled.

The Mayflower Declaration was updated and reprinted in early 2013 just after Cordle became leader. It now has a new introduction and at the back the policy on Europe was changed from support for the EU to "while we are members of the European Union to work with fellow Christians to seek to bring about moral and democratic reform". It subsequently went further and in its 2014 European manifesto said it wanted a referendum on the EU and that if a referendum was held it would support leaving the EU.

Election results
The party has had candidates elected at local government elections. In Newham London Borough Council, Alan Craig was a councillor (2002-2010), as were Simeon Ademolake (2006–2010) and Denise Stafford (2006–2010). Paul Martin and David Gee were elected to Aston-cum-Aughton Parish Council (2007–2009).

The party has contested a number of seats for the UK Parliament.

House of Commons
Thirty-one candidates stood for the CPA in the 2017 general election. The party contested nine by-elections after 2017. The party stood 27 candidates in the 2019 general election and 22 candidates in the 2024 general election.

London Assembly
† In 2008 the CPA fielded Joint-ticket candidates with the Christian Party, standing as "Christian Choice"

The party has consistently contested elections to the London Assembly but failed to gain any seats.

title: Christian Peoples Alliance


text:
Ravenel, Oise

Ravenel is a commune in the Oise department in northern France.

Location
It is located about 70 kilometres north of Paris.

title: Ravenel, Oise


text:
Reginald De Koven

Henry Louis Reginald De Koven (April 3, 1859 – January 16, 1920) was an American music critic and prolific composer, particularly of comic operas.

Biography
De Koven was born in Middletown, Connecticut, and moved to Europe in 1870, where he received the majority of his education. He graduated B.A. from St John's College, Oxford in England in 1880.

He undertook piano studies at Stuttgart Conservatory with Wilhelm Speidel, Sigmund Lebert, and Dionys Pruckner. He studied composition at Frankfurt with Johann Christian Hauff, and after staying there for six months moved on to Florence, Italy, where he studied singing with Luigi Vanuccini. Study in operatic composition followed, first with Richard Genée in Vienna and then with Léo Delibes in Paris.

De Koven returned to the U.S. in 1882 to live in Chicago, Illinois, and later lived in New York City. He was able to find scope for his wide musical knowledge as a critic with Chicago's Evening Post, Harper's Weekly and New York World. Many of his songs became popular, especially "Oh Promise Me", with words by Clement Scott, which was one of the biggest song successes of its time and remains a wedding standard.

Between 1887 and 1913, De Koven composed 20 light operas, in addition to hundreds of songs, orchestral works, sonatas and ballets. While Victor Herbert's operettas were heavily influenced by those of continental operetta composers, De Koven's works were patterned after Gilbert and Sullivan. His greatest success was Robin Hood, which premiered in Chicago in 1890 but was performed all across the country. It played in New York at the Knickerbocker Theatre and in London, in 1891, and at New York's Garden Theatre in 1892, and it continued to be revived for many years. His other operettas included The Fencing Master (1892, Casino Theatre, New York); Rob Roy, first produced in Detroit, Michigan, 1894; The Highwayman (1897, Herald Square Theatre, New York); The Little Duchess (1901, Casino Theatre, New York); and The Beauty Spot (1909, Herald Square Theatre).

From 1902 to 1904, De Koven conducted the Washington, D.C., symphony. His wife, Anna de Koven, was a well-known socialite, novelist and amateur historian who published her works under the name "Mrs. Reginald de Koven." The music press doubted that De Koven could compose serious operas. His opera The Canterbury Pilgrims (with a libretto by poet and dramatist Percy MacKaye) premiered at the Metropolitan Opera in 1917. He composed a second opera, Rip Van Winkle (also with a libretto by MacKaye), but died before it was performed in 1920 in Chicago.

One obituary asserted that he proved that "the American stage was not dependent upon foreign composers."

Selected stage works

 * The Begum (1887), operetta, libretto by Harry B. Smith
 * Robin Hood (1890) operetta, libretto by Harry B. Smith
 * The Fencing Master (1892) operetta, libretto by Harry B. Smith
 * The Algerian (1893) operetta, libretto by Glen MacDonough
 * Rob Roy (1894), operetta, libretto by Harry B. Smith
 * The Mandarin (1896), operetta, libretto by Harry B. Smith
 * The Highwayman (1897), operetta, libretto by Harry B. Smith
 * The Three Dragoons (1899), operetta, libretto by Harry B. Smith
 * The Man in the Moon (1899), musical, music by De Koven, Ludwig Englander and Gustave Kerker, book and lyrics by Louis Harrison and Stanislaus Strange
 * Papa's Wife (1899), musical, lyrics by De Koven, book by Harry B. Smith, lyrics by Smith and De Koven
 * Broadway to Tokio (1900), musical, book and lyrics by Louis Harrison and George V. Hobart
 * Foxy Quiller (In Corsica) (1900), operetta, libretto by Harry B. Smith
 * The Little Duchess (1901) musical, book and lyrics by Harry B. Smith
 * Maid Marian (1902), musical, book and lyrics by Harry B. Smith
 * Red Feather (1903), operetta, book by Charles Klein, lyrics by Charles Emerson Cook
 * The Jersey Lily (1903), musical, book and lyrics by George V. Hobart
 * Happyland; or, The King of Elysia (1905), operetta, libretto by Frederic Ranken
 * The Student King (1906), operetta, libretto by Frederic Ranken and Stanislaus Stange
 * The Golden Butterfly (1908), operetta, libretto by Harry B. Smith
 * The Beauty Spot (1909), musical, book by Joseph W. Herbert, lyrics by Terry Sullivan
 * The Wedding Trip (1911), operetta, book by Fred de Gresac, lyrics by Harry B. Smith
 * The Canterbury Pilgrims (De Koven) (1916), opera, libretto by Percy MacKaye
 * Rip Van Winkle (1919), opera, libretto by Percy MacKaye

Other compositions

 * Prelude in G minor
 * Rosalie: Chansonette (1901)

title: Reginald De Koven


text:
Lyceus

The Apollo Lyceus (Ἀπόλλων Λύκειος, Apollōn Lukeios) type, also known as Lycean Apollo, originating with Praxiteles and known from many full-size statue and figurine copies as well as from 1st century BCE Athenian coinage, is a statue type of Apollo showing the god resting on a support (a tree trunk or tripod), his right forearm touching the top of his head and his hair fixed in braids on the top of a head in a haircut typical of childhood. It is called "Lycean" not after Lycia itself, but after its identification with a lost work described, though not attributed to a sculptor, by Lucian as being on show in the Lyceum, one of the gymnasia of Athens. According to Lucian, the god leaning on a support with his bow in his left hand and his right resting on his head is shown "as if resting after long effort." Its main exemplar is the Apollino in Florence or Apollo Medici, in the Uffizi, Florence.

The attribution, based on the type's "elongated proportions, elegant pose and somewhat effeminate anatomy", as Brunilde Sismondo Ridgway characterised it, is traditionally supported on the grounds of the type's similarity to Praxiteles's Hermes from Olympia - one replica of the Lycian Apollo even passed as a copy of the Hermes for a time. The comparison essentially rests on the Apollino, whose head has proportions similar to those of the Aphrodite of Cnidus and whose pronounced sfumato confirms the long-held idea that it is Praxitelean in style, in spite of the many differences among the extant examples.

Nevertheless, most exemplars of this type exhibit a pronounced musculature which does not resemble masculine types normally attributed to Praxiteles - it has further been proposed that it is a work of his contemporary Euphranor, or of a 2nd-century BCE work The Apollino, for its part, would thus be an eclectic creation from the Roman era, mixing several styles from the "second classicism" (i.e. from the 4th century BC).

The famous pose with the arm resting on the head was so thoroughly identified with Apollo that it was used for the Hadrianic sculpture of Antinous as Apollo at Leptis Magna. With the Hellenistic and Roman depictions of a youthful Dionysus typologically not always distinguishable from Apollo, the pose seems to have been inherited by Dionysus, as in the 2nd century CE Ludovisi Dionysus, a Roman sculpture. The pose is also used in the Amazon statue types, and its long-established conventional expression of lassitude identified Sleeping Ariadne as well.

title: Lyceus


text: User talk:4.21.199.2

title: User talk:4.21.199.2


text:
User:Leo Bauer

Leo Bauer is a Anti-German political dissident in Berlin.

Website:

 * Initiative Potsdamer Abkommen

title: User:Leo Bauer


text:
Wesley Snipes

Wesley Trent Snipes (born July 31, 1962) is an American actor and martial artist. Snipes has made films in a variety of genres, such as numerous thrillers, dramatic feature films, and comedies, though he is best known for his action films. He was nominated for the Independent Spirit Award for Best Supporting Male for his work in The Waterdance (1992) and won the Volpi Cup for Best Actor for his performance in the film One Night Stand (1997).

Born in Florida, Snipes started his acting career in the 1980s with a one episode appearance on the soap opera All My Children (1984). His first film roles were both in 1986 in Wildcats and Streets of Gold. He had prominent roles in the 1990s, starring in the films New Jack City with Ice-T (1991), White Men Can't Jump with Woody Harrelson (1992), Passenger 57 with Bruce Payne (1992), Rising Sun with Sean Connery (1993), Demolition Man with Sylvester Stallone (1993), To Wong Foo, Thanks for Everything! Julie Newmar with Patrick Swayze and John Leguizamo (1995), and U.S. Marshals with Tommy Lee Jones (1998). Also in 1998, he was cast as Eric Brooks / Blade in the superhero horror film Blade, based on the Marvel Comics superhero of the same name, a role he went on to reprise in Blade II (2002) and Blade: Trinity (2004).

Snipes had smaller roles during the 2000s, most of them being direct-to-video before returning to the theatrical release, cast as Doctor "Doc" Death in the 2014 action film The Expendables 3 where he was reunited working with Sylvester Stallone. His television work includes multiple episodes in drama series H.E.L.P. (1990), action thriller crime drama series The Player (2015), and drama limited series True Story (2021), opposite Kevin Hart.

He formed a production company, Amen-Ra Films, in 1991, and a subsidiary, Black Dot Media, to develop projects for film and television. Snipes has been training in martial arts since the age of 12, earning a 5th dan black belt in Shotokan Karate and 2nd dan black belt in Hapkido. Many of his action films have featured martial arts. In 2017, Snipes made his debut as a novelist with the urban fantasy supernatural adventure Talon of God.

Early life
Snipes was born in Orlando, Florida, the son of Marian (née Long), a teacher's assistant, and Wesley Rudolph Snipes, an aircraft engineer. He grew up in the Bronx, New York. He attended the High School of Performing Arts of Fiorello H. LaGuardia High School of Music & Art and Performing Arts but moved back to Florida before he could graduate. After graduating from Jones High School in Orlando, Snipes returned to New York and attended the State University of New York at Purchase, from which he received a bachelor's degree in fine arts. Snipes also attended Southwestern College in California.

Acting
At the age of 23, Snipes was discovered by an agent while performing in a competition. He made his film debut in the 1986 Goldie Hawn vehicle Wildcats. Later that year, he appeared on the TV show Miami Vice as a drug-dealing pimp in the episode "Streetwise" (first aired December 5, 1986). In 1987, he appeared as Michael Jackson's nemesis in the Martin Scorsese–directed music video "Bad" and the feature film Streets of Gold. That same year, Snipes was also considered for the role of Geordi La Forge in the TV series Star Trek: The Next Generation, but the role eventually went to LeVar Burton. Snipes auditioned and lobbied hard for the role of Leroy Green in the 1985 cult classic movie The Last Dragon, but the role was given to Taimak instead.

Snipes's performance in the music video "Bad" caught the eye of director Spike Lee. Snipes turned down a small role in Lee's Do the Right Thing for the larger part of Willie Mays Hayes in Major League, beginning a succession of box-office hits for Snipes. Lee would later cast Snipes as the jazz saxophonist Shadow Henderson in Mo' Better Blues and as the lead in the interracial romance drama Jungle Fever. After the success of Jungle Fever, The Washington Post described Snipes as "the most celebrated new actor of the season". He then played Thomas Flanagan in King of New York opposite Christopher Walken. He played the drug lord Nino Brown in New Jack City, which was written specifically for him by Barry Michael Cooper. He also played a drug dealer in the 1994 film Sugar Hill.

Snipes has played a number of roles in action films, including Passenger 57, Rising Sun, Demolition Man (with Sylvester Stallone), Drop Zone, Money Train, The Fan, U.S. Marshals and The Art of War, as well as comedies like White Men Can't Jump, and To Wong Foo, Thanks for Everything! Julie Newmar where he played a drag queen. Snipes has appeared in additional dramas, such as The Waterdance and Disappearing Acts.

In 1997, Snipes won the Best Actor Volpi Cup at the 54th Venice Film Festival for his performance in New Line Cinema's One Night Stand. In 1998, Snipes had his largest commercial success with Blade, appearing in the title role, based on the Marvel Comics character of the same name. Blade has grossed over $150 million worldwide. The film spawned a franchise. He also received a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame and an honorary doctorate in humanities and fine arts from his alma mater, SUNY/Purchase. In 2004, Snipes reprised his role in the third film, Blade: Trinity, which he also produced. In 2005, Snipes sued New Line Cinema and David S. Goyer, the film's studio and director, respectively. He claimed that the studio did not pay his full salary, that he was intentionally cut out of casting decisions, and that his character's screen time was reduced in favor of co-stars Ryan Reynolds and Jessica Biel. The suit was later settled, but no details were released.

Snipes later appeared in The Contractor, filmed in Bulgaria and the UK, Gallowwalkers, released in 2012, and Game of Death. Snipes was originally slated to play one of the four leads in Spike Lee's 2008 war film Miracle at St. Anna but had to leave the film due to tax problems; his role eventually went to Derek Luke.

Snipes made a comeback performance in Brooklyn's Finest as Casanova "Caz" Phillips, a supporting character, it was his first theatrical release film since 2004. He also had to turn down the part of Hale Caesar in The Expendables because he was not allowed to leave the United States without the court's approval. In 2014, he appeared in the sequel The Expendables 3. His comedic role-playing D'Urville Martin in Dolemite Is My Name has earned him positive reviews and a number of award nominations.

Other ventures
In the late 1990s, Snipes and his brother started a security firm called the Royal Guard of Amen-Ra, dedicated to providing VIPs with bodyguards trained in law enforcement and martial arts. Amen-Ra is also the name of his film company. In 1996, the first film produced by Amen-Ra was A Great And Mighty Walk – Dr. John Henrik Clarke.

In 2000, the business was investigated for alleged ties to the United Nuwaubian Nation of Moors. It emerged that Snipes had spotted 200 acre of land near their Tama-Re compound in Putnam County, Georgia, intending to buy and use it for his business academy. Both Snipes's business and the groups used Egyptian motifs as their symbols. Ultimately, Snipes and his brother did not buy the land, instead establishing their company in Florida, Antigua, and Africa.

In 2005, Snipes entered into negotiations to fight Fear Factor host Joe Rogan on Ultimate Fighting Match, but the deal fell through.

In 2010, Snipes co-created the sci-fi comics After Dark with Antoine Fuqua. In 2017, he made his debut as a novelist with the urban fantasy supernatural adventure Talon of God. In 2022, he returned to comics with The Exiled.

Personal life

Snipes began training in martial arts when he was 12 years old. He has a 5th degree black belt in Shotokan karate and a 2nd degree black belt in Hapkido. He has also trained in Capoeira under Mestre Jelon Vieira and in a number of other disciplines including Kung Fu at the USA Shaolin Temple, Brazilian Jiu Jitsu, and kickboxing. During his time in New York, Snipes was trained in fighting by his friend and mentor Brooke Ellis.

Snipes has been married twice, first to April Snipes (née Dubois), with whom he has a son Jelani, who had a cameo role in Snipes' 1990 film Mo' Better Blues. In 2003, Snipes married painter Nakyung "Nikki" Park Snipes, with whom he has four children. Snipes also has a son who resides in British Columbia, Canada. Snipes, who was raised a Christian, converted to Islam in 1978, but left Islam in 1988. During a 1991 interview, Snipes said "Islam made me more conscious of what African people have accomplished, of my self-worth, and gave me some self-dignity".

Snipes' apartment in New York City was destroyed by the collapse of the World Trade Center's Twin Towers during the September 11 attacks. He was on the West Coast at the time.

Income tax conviction
In 2008, Snipes was convicted on misdemeanor charges of willful failure to file federal income tax returns, and was sentenced to three years' imprisonment. After an unsuccessful appeal, he served 28 months in federal prison. He was released in April 2013.

Charges
On October 12, 2006, Snipes, Eddie Ray Kahn, and Douglas P. Rosile were charged conspiring to defraud the United States and knowingly making or aiding and abetting the making of a false and fraudulent claim for payment against the US. Snipes was also charged with willfully failing to file timely federal income tax returns. The conspiracy charge against Snipes alleged that he agreed with Kahn and Rosile to file false amended returns for 1996 and 1997, including false tax refund claims totaling over $11.3 million for the two years. The government alleged that Snipes, on Kahn's advice and with Rosile's assistance, attempted to obtain fraudulent tax refunds using a tax protester theory called the "861 argument" (an argument that the domestic income of US citizens and residents is not taxable). The government alleged that Snipes sent three fictitious "bills of exchange" for $14 million to the Internal Revenue Service (IRS).

The indictment also charged that Snipes failed to file tax returns for any of the years 1999 through 2004. Snipes responded to his indictment in a letter on December 4, 2006, declaring himself to be "a non-resident alien" of the United States; in reality, Snipes is a birthright U.S. citizen. Such tactics are common of the "Freemen", "Sovereign Citizen", or "OPCA" (Organized Pseudolegal Commercial Argument) category of litigation strategy.

Trial and sentencing
Following a jury trial, Snipes was acquitted on February 1, 2008, of the felony count of conspiracy to defraud the US and on the felony count of filing a false claim with the government. He was found guilty on three misdemeanor counts of failing to file federal income tax returns, and acquitted on three other failure-to-file charges. His co-defendants, Douglas P. Rosile and Eddie Ray Kahn, were convicted on the conspiracy and false claim charges.

On April 24, 2008, Snipes was sentenced by Judge William Terrell Hodges to the maximum allowable term of three years in prison for the three misdemeanors counts. Kahn was sentenced to ten years in prison and Rosile was sentenced to four and a half years in prison. The US Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit affirmed Snipes's convictions in a 35-page decision issued on July 16, 2010.

Snipes reported to federal prison on December 9, 2010 to begin his three-year sentence, and was held at McKean Federal Correctional Institution, a federal prison in Pennsylvania. On June 6, 2011, the US Supreme Court declined to hear Snipes's appeal, which had challenged the venue for the counts of failure to file returns. Snipes was released from federal prison on April 2, 2013 after serving 28 months, finishing his period of house arrest on July 19, 2013.

On November 1, 2018, the United States Tax Court ruled that the IRS did not abuse its discretion in rejecting an offer in compromise made by Snipes and in sustaining the filing of a notice of federal tax lien in connection with approximately $23.5 million in federal tax liabilities for tax year 2001 and years 2003 through 2006.

Publications

 * Talon of God (co-written with Ray Norman) (July 25, 2017)

title: Wesley Snipes


text:
Fauna of New Zealand

The animals of New Zealand, part of its biota, have an unusual history because, before the arrival of humans, less than 900 years ago, the country was mostly free of mammals, except those that could swim there (seals, sea lions, and, off-shore, whales and dolphins) or fly there (bats). However, as recently as the Miocene, it was home to the terrestrial Saint Bathans mammal, implying that mammals had been present since the island had broken away from other landmasses. The absence of mammals meant that all of the ecological niches occupied by mammals elsewhere were occupied instead by either insects or birds, leading to an unusually large number of flightless birds, including the kiwi, the weka, the moa (now extinct), the takahē, and the kākāpō. Because of the lack of predators, even bats spend most of their time on the ground. There are also about 60 species of lizard (30 each of gecko and skink), four species of frog (all rare and endangered), and the tuatara (reptiles resembling lizards but with a distinct lineage).

Some butterflies of New Zealand are endemic, while many species have been introduced and some species of butterflies periodically migrate to New Zealand. The Australian painted lady has been known to migrate from Australia to New Zealand in times of strong migration in Australia.

Invasive species
Humans first arrived via the Pacific islands, in several waves at some time before 1300 AD, bringing with them the Polynesian rat (kiore) and the domesticated dog. Europeans later brought pigs, ferrets, stoats, mice, rats, dogs, cats, sheep, cattle, and many other mammals. Of these, the rats, ferrets, cats, stoats and dogs have all seriously impacted the New Zealand fauna, driving some species to extinction. Brushtail possums were introduced from Australia for a fur industry, and deer from Europe as game animals, both seriously damaging the forest habitat of many birds.

In recent years, successful efforts have been made to remove possums, rats, ferrets, and other mammals from many large and small offshore islands in an effort to return these places to something more closely resembling their pre-human state. An estimated 30 tons of dead possums were removed from Kapiti Island, for example. Similarly, efforts are being made to control such species in selected locations on the mainland. In a further step, in certain mainland reserves mammals are being eliminated within predator-proof fences creating ecological islands. Examples are Zealandia in Wellington city, from which about a ton of dead possums was removed after the installation of a mammal-proof fence, and the Maungatautari Restoration Project.

title: Fauna of New Zealand