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This entry was created to redirect to Bricket Wood because that is where a more complete account of the life of Sir David Yule and Lady Yule can be found. Her name is also linked to J. Arthur Rank and British National Films Company. MPLX/MH 18:03, 6 Oct 2004 (UTC)

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Community Reinvestment Act

The Community Reinvestment Act (CRA, P.L. 95-128, 91 Stat. 1147, title VIII of the Housing and Community Development Act of 1977, et seq.) is a United States federal law designed to encourage commercial banks and savings associations to help meet the needs of borrowers in all segments of their communities, including low- and moderate-income neighborhoods. Congress passed the Act in 1977 to reduce discriminatory credit practices against low-income neighborhoods, a practice known as redlining.

The Act instructs the appropriate federal financial supervisory agencies to encourage regulated financial institutions to help meet the credit needs of the local communities in which they are chartered, consistent with safe and sound operation (Section 802.) To enforce the statute, federal regulatory agencies examine banking institutions for CRA compliance, and take this information into consideration when approving applications for new bank branches or for mergers or acquisitions (Section 804.)

Enforcement
The Community Reinvestment Act of 1977 sought to address discrimination in loans made to individuals and businesses from low and moderate-income neighborhoods. The Act mandates that all banking institutions that receive Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC) insurance be evaluated by Federal banking agencies to determine if the bank offers credit in a manner consistent with safe and sound operation (as per Section 802(b) and Section 804(1)) in all communities in which they are chartered to do business. The law does not list specific criteria for evaluating the performance of financial institutions. Rather, it directs that the evaluation process should accommodate the situation and context of each individual institution. Federal regulations dictate agency conduct in evaluating a bank's compliance in five performance areas, comprising twelve assessment factors. This examination culminates in a rating and a written report that becomes part of the supervisory record for that bank.

The law, however, emphasizes that an institution's CRA activities should be undertaken in a safe and sound manner, and does not require institutions to make high-risk loans that may bring losses to the institution. An institution's CRA compliance record is taken into account by the banking regulatory agencies when the institution seeks to expand through merger, acquisition or branching. The law does not mandate any other penalties for non-compliance with the CRA.

Regulations
The same banking agencies that are responsible for supervising depository institutions are also the agencies that conduct examinations for CRA compliance. These agencies are the Federal Reserve System (FRB), the FDIC, and the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency (OCC). In 1981, to help achieve the goals of the CRA, each of the Federal Reserve Banks established a Community Affairs Office to work with banking institutions and the public in identifying credit needs within the community and ways to address those needs.

Implementation of the CRA by these financial supervisory agencies is enacted by Title 12 of the Code of Federal Regulations (CFR); Parts 25, 228, 345, and 563e with the addition of Part 203 as it relates to sections of the Home Mortgage Disclosure Act (HMDA).

The Federal Financial Institutions Examination Council (FFIEC) coordinates inter-agency information about the CRA. Information about the CRA ratings of individual banking institutions from the three responsible agencies (Federal Reserve, FDIC, and OCC), is publicly available from the website of the FFIEC. These ratings were first made available by the Clinton administration to enable public participation and public comment on CRA performance.

In addition to the regulatory framework in place, each federal financial supervisory agency's Inspector General performs regular audits on any regulatory changes made to see if the intended goals are actually being fulfilled.

History
The original Act was passed by the 95th United States Congress and signed into law by President Jimmy Carter on October 12, 1977. The CRA was passed as a result of national pressure to address the deteriorating conditions of American cities—particularly lower-income and minority neighborhoods.

Community activists, such as Gale Cincotta of National People's Action in Chicago, led the national fight to pass, and later to enforce the Act. Several legislative and regulatory revisions have since been enacted.

Original act
The CRA followed similar laws passed to reduce discrimination in the credit and housing markets including the Fair Housing Act of 1968, the Equal Credit Opportunity Act of 1974 and the Home Mortgage Disclosure Act of 1975 (HMDA). The Fair Housing Act and the Equal Credit Opportunity Act prohibit discrimination on the basis of race, sex, or other personal characteristics. The Home Mortgage Disclosure Act requires that financial institutions publicly disclose mortgage lending and application data. In contrast with those acts, the CRA seeks to ensure the provision of credit to all parts of a community, regardless of the relative wealth or poverty of a neighborhood.

Before the Act was passed, there were severe shortages of credit available to low- and moderate-income neighborhoods. In their 1961 report, the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights found that African-American borrowers were often required to make higher downpayments and adopt faster repayment schedules. The commission also documented blanket refusals to lend in particular areas (redlining).

The allegations of "redlining" certain neighborhoods originated with the Federal Housing Administration in the 1930s. The "residential security maps" created by the Home Owners' Loan Corporation (HOLC) for the FHA were used by private and public entities for years afterwards to withhold mortgage capital from neighborhoods that were deemed "unsafe". Contributory factors in the shortage of direct lending in low- and moderate-income communities were a limited secondary market for mortgages, informational problems to do with the lack of credit evaluations for lower-income borrowers, and lack of coordination among credit agencies.

In Congressional debate on the Act, critics charged that the law would create unnecessary regulatory burdens. Partly in response to these concerns, Congress included little prescriptive detail and simply directs the banking regulatory agencies to ensure that banks and savings associations serve the credit needs of their local communities in a safe and sound manner. Community groups only slowly organized to take advantage of their right under the Act to complain about law enforcement of the regulations.

Legislative revision history
The hidden table below lists the acts of Congress that affected the Community Reinvestment Act directly. The years in which the legislative revisions were made appear in bold text preceding the Public Laws that enacted them. The links to the codification and section notes may provide additional information about the legislative changes as well.

Legislative changes 1989
The Financial Institutions Reform, Recovery and Enforcement Act of 1989 (FIRREA) was enacted by the 101st Congress and signed into law by President George H. W. Bush in the wake of the savings and loan crisis of the 1980s. As part of the subsequent general reform of the banking industry, FIRREA added section 807 (12. U.S.C. § 2906) to the existing CRA statutes in an effort to improve the area concerning insured depository institution examinations.

The new language now required the appropriate Federal regulatory agency to prepare a written evaluation after completing the examination of an institution's record in meeting the credit needs of its entire community, including any low- and moderate-income neighborhoods within it. These evaluation reports were divided into separate sections - one confidential; allowing the evaluated institution to retain its proprietary and personal information integrity at the same time the beginnings of the related databases were being compiled, and the other made public; intended to increase access and oversight of the CRS examination process. The public section introduced a four-tiered CRA examination rating system with performance levels of 'Outstanding', 'Satisfactory', 'Needs to Improve', or 'Substantial Noncompliance', each supplemented with a written synopsis of the agencies' evaluation reasoning using any available facts to support their conclusions.

According to Ben Bernanke, this law greatly increased the ability of advocacy groups, researchers, and other analysts to "perform more-sophisticated, quantitative analyses of banks' records", thereby influencing the lending policies of banks. Over time, community groups and nonprofit organizations established "more-formalized and more-productive partnerships with banks."

Legislative changes 1991
Around the time of the introduction of the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation Improvement Act of 1991 (FDICIA), the appropriate Federal regulatory agencies had reliably compiled enough institution examination data to warrant its inclusion in the public section of the written evaluations first established in 1989. With the passage of this Act in December 1991, section 807 (12. U.S.C. § 2906) was amended to require the inclusion of any examination data relevant in determining an institutions CRA rating as well.

A week earlier that same December, the existing CRA statute was amended once again upon the enactment of the Resolution Trust Corporation Refinancing, Restructuring, and Improvement Act of 1991. It allowed the Resolution Trust Corporation (RTC) to make available any branch of any savings association located in any predominantly minority neighborhoods that the RTC had been appointed the conservator or receiver of any minority depository institution or women's depository institution with favorable conditions. Upon the addition of section 808 (12. U.S.C. § 2907) to the existing CRA statutes by the Act, any depository institution which donated, sold with favorable terms (as determined by the appropriate Federal financial supervisory agency), or made available on a rent-free basis any branch of such institutions located in any predominantly minority neighborhood to any minority depository institution or women's depository institution, the amount of the contribution or the amount of the loss incurred in connection with such activity would go towards meeting the credit needs of the institution's community and would be taken into consideration when CRA examinations were evaluated.

Legislative changes 1992
Although minor amendments were made directly to the Community Reinvestment Act concerning the consideration of minority and female owned institutions & partnerships during evaluations first established in 1991, other portions of the Federal Housing Enterprises Financial Safety and Soundness Act of 1992 indirectly affected the CRA practices at the time in requiring Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, the two government sponsored enterprises that purchase and securitize mortgages, to devote a percentage of their lending to support affordable housing.

Legislative changes 1994
The Riegle-Neal Interstate Banking and Branching Efficiency Act of 1994, which repealed restrictions on interstate banking, listed the Community Reinvestment Act ratings received by the out-of-state bank as a consideration when determining whether to allow interstate branches.

According to Bernanke, a surge in bank merger and acquisition activities followed the passing of the act, and advocacy groups increasingly used the public comment process to protest bank applications on Community Reinvestment Act grounds. When applications were highly contested, federal agencies held public hearings to allow public comment on the bank's lending record. In response many institutions established separate business units and subsidiary corporations to facilitate CRA-related lending. Local and regional public-private partnerships and multi-bank loan consortia were formed to expand and manage such CRA-related lending.

Regulatory changes 1995
In July 1993, President Bill Clinton asked regulators to reform the CRA in order to make examinations more consistent, clarify performance standards, and reduce cost and compliance burden.

Robert Rubin, the Assistant to the President for Economic Policy, under President Clinton, explained that this was in line with President Clinton's strategy to "deal with the problems of the inner city and distressed rural communities". Discussing the reasons for the Clinton administration's proposal to strengthen the CRA and further reduce red-lining, Lloyd Bentsen, Secretary of the Treasury at that time, affirmed his belief that availability of credit should not depend on where a person lives, "The only thing that ought to matter on a loan application is whether or not you can pay it back, not where you live." Bentsen said that the proposed changes would "make it easier for lenders to show how they're complying with the Community Reinvestment Act", and "cut back a lot of the paperwork and the cost on small business loans".

By early 1995, the proposed CRA regulations were substantially revised to address criticisms that the regulations, and the agency's implementation of them through the examination process to date, were too process-oriented, burdensome, and not sufficiently focused on actual results. The CRA examination process itself was reformed to incorporate the pending changes. Information about banking institutions' CRA ratings was made available via web page for public review as well. The Office of the Comptroller of the Currency (OCC) also moved to revise its regulation structure allowing lenders subject to the CRA to claim community development loan credits for loans made to help finance the environmental cleanup or redevelopment of industrial sites when it was part of an effort to revitalize the low- and moderate-income community where the site was located.

During one of the Congressional hearings addressing the proposed changes in 1995, William A. Niskanen, chair of the Cato Institute, criticized both the 1993 and 1994 sets of proposals for political favoritism in allocating credit, for micromanagement by regulators and for the lack of assurances that banks would not be expected to operate at a loss to achieve CRA compliance. He predicted the proposed changes would be very costly to the economy and the banking system in general. Niskanen believed that the primary long-term effect would be an artificial contraction of the banking system. Niskanen recommended Congress repeal the Act.

Niskanen's, and other respondents to the proposed changes, voiced their concerns during the public comment & testimony periods in late 1993 through early 1995. In response to the aggregate concerns recorded by then, the Federal financial supervisory agencies (the OCC, FRB, FDIC, and OTS) made further clarifications relating to definition, assessment, ratings and scope; sufficiently resolving many of the issues raised in the process. The agencies jointly reported their final amended regulations for implementing the Community Reinvestment Act in the Federal Register on May 4, 1995. The final amended regulations replaced the existing CRA regulations in their entirety. (See the notes in the "1995" column of Table I. for the specifics)

Legislative changes 1999
In 1999 the Congress enacted and President Clinton signed into law the Gramm-Leach-Bliley Act, also known as the Financial Services Modernization Act. This law repealed the part of the Glass–Steagall Act that had prohibited a bank from offering a full range of investment, commercial banking, and insurance services since its enactment in 1933. A similar bill was introduced in 1998 by Senator Phil Gramm but it was unable to complete the legislative process into law. Resistance to enacting the 1998 bill, as well as the subsequent 1999 bill, centered around the legislation's language which would expand the types of banking institutions of the time into other areas of service but would not be subject to CRA compliance in order to do so. The Senator also demanded full disclosure of any financial "deals" which community groups had with banks, accusing such groups of "extortion".

In the fall of 1999, Senators Dodd and Schumer prevented another impasse by securing a compromise between Sen. Gramm and the Clinton Administration by agreeing to amend the Federal Deposit Insurance Act to allow banks to merge or expand into other types of financial institutions. The FDIC related provisions of the new Gramm-Leach-Bliley Act, along with the addition of sub-section § 2903(c) directly to Title 12, insured any bank holding institution wishing to be re-designated as a financial holding institution by the Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System would also have to follow Community Reinvestment Act compliance guidelines before any merger or expansion could take effect.

At the same time the G-L-B Act's changes to the Federal Deposit Insurance Act would now allow for bank expansions into new lines of business, non-affiliated groups entering into agreements with these bank or financial institutions would also have to be reported as outlined under the newly added section to Title 12, § 1831y (CRA Sunshine Requirements), to satisfy Gramm's concerns.

In conjunction with the Gramm-Leach-Bliley Act changes, smaller banks would be reviewed less frequently for CRA compliance by the addition of [https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/12/2908-#a §2908. (Small Bank Regulatory Relief)] directly to, (the existing CRA laws), itself. The 1999 Act also mandated two studies to be conducted in connection with the "Community Reinvestment Act":
 * the first report by the Federal Reserve, to be delivered to Congress by March 15, 2000, is a comprehensive study of CRA to focus on default and delinquency rates, and the profitability of loans made in connection with CRA;
 * the second report to be conducted by the Treasury Department over the next two years, is intended to determine the impact of the Act on the provision of services to low- and moderate-income neighborhoods and people, as intended by CRA.

On signing the Gramm-Leach-Bliley Act, President Clinton said that it, "establishes the principles that, as we expand the powers of banks, we will expand the reach of the [Community Reinvestment] Act".

Regulatory changes 2005
In 2002 there was an inter-agency review of the effectiveness of the 1995 regulatory changes to the Community Reinvestment Act and new proposals were considered. In 2003, researchers at the Federal Reserve Bank of New York noted that dramatic changes in the financial services landscape had weakened the CRA, and that in 2003 less than 30 percent of all home purchase loans were subject to intensive review under the CRA.

In early 2005, the Office of Thrift Supervision (OTS) implemented new rules that – among other changes – allowed thrifts with over $1 billion in assets to tweak the long-standing 50-25-25 CRA ratings thresholds by continuing to meet 50 percent of their overall CRA rating through lending activity as always but the other 50 percent could be any combination of lending, investment, and services that the thrift wanted. The obligations to adhere to 25 percent for services and 25 percent for investments became optional and the means to securing a satisfactory CRA rating was left to the discretion of the qualifying thrifts instead (See the notes in the "2005" column of Table I. for the specifics).

In April 2005, a contingent of Democratic Congressmen led by Representative Barney Frank issued a letter protesting these changes, saying they undercut the ability of the CRA to "meet the needs of low and moderate-income persons and communities". The changes were also opposed by community groups concerned that it would weaken the CRA.

After enacting a technical regulatory amendment in the interim incorporating a different formula for stratifying both metropolitan and rural zones to better align with an expanded definition of them under the CRA in the process, the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC), the Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System (FRB), and the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency (OCC) also put a new set of regulations into effect in September 2005 - mirroring much of what the OTS had already initiated earlier in the year (See the notes in the "2005" column of Table I for specifics). These regulations also included less restrictive definitions of "small" and "intermediate small" banks. "Intermediate small banks" were defined as banks with assets of less than $1 billion but more than $250 million, which allowed these banks to opt for examination as either as a small bank or a large bank. Currently banks with assets greater than $1.061 billion have their CRA performance evaluated according to lending, investment and service tests. The agencies use the Consumer Price Index to adjust the asset size thresholds for small and large institutions annually.

Regulatory changes 2007
The Office of Thrift Supervision (OTS) proposed revising and started to solicit public comment regarding the complete alignment of its CRA rule with the CRA rules of the other three federal banking agencies in November 2006. The agency referenced several factors for the proposed realignment, in particular, that a consistent CRA standard applied to both the banking and the thrift industries would facilitate objective evaluations of CRA performance; ensure accurate assessments of banks and thrifts that operated in the same markets; and permit the public to make reasonable comparisons of bank and thrift CRA performance.

OTS Director at the time, John Reich announced the final decision to go ahead and implement the proposed revisions in four main areas of its existing Community Reinvestment Act (CRA) regulations to reestablish uniformity between its rules and those of the other federal banking agencies. Reaffirming the basis for the revised rules as first proposed, Reich stated, "OTS is making these revisions to promote consistency and facilitate objective evaluations of CRA performance across the banking and thrift industries. Consistent standards will allow the public to make more effective comparisons of bank and thrift CRA performance." He noted the changes reinforce CRA objectives consistent with thrifts' performance in meeting the financial services needs of their communities.

This OTS rule revision aligned with that of the other agencies by:
 * 1) eliminating the option of alternative weights for lending, investment, and service under the large, retail savings association test;
 * 2) defining institutions with assets between $250 million and $1 billion as "intermediate small savings associations" subject to a new community development test;
 * 3) indexing the asset threshold for "small" and "intermediate small" savings associations annually based on changes to the Consumer Price Index (CPI); and
 * 4) clarifying the adverse impact on a savings association's CRA rating where the OTS finds evidence of discrimination or other illegal credit practices.

These four changes generally mirror the ones made by the other three federal agencies in late 2005. The agency noted that latitude would be provided for a short period of time to institutions in the context of examinations conducted after the effective date, July 1, 2007, in order to implement program changes under the new rule smoothly.

Legislative changes 2008
With the passage of the Higher Education Opportunity Act into law,, on August 14, 2008, each appropriate Federal financial supervisory agency shall now consider, as a factor in assessing and taking into account the record of a financial institution's CRA compliance, any & all low-cost education loans provided by the financial institution to low-income borrowers. All the affected Federal financial supervisory agencies have one year after the date of enactment to issue rules in final form to implement the change into the Code of Federal Regulations (CFR) according to Title X, Subtitle C, Section 1031 of the Act.

CRA reform proposals
In 2007, Ben Bernanke suggested further increasing the presence of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac in the affordable housing market to help banks fulfill their CRA obligations by providing them with more opportunities to securitize CRA-related loans.

On February 13, 2008, the United States House Committee on Financial Services held a hearing on the Community Reinvestment Act's impact on the provision of loans, investments and services to under-served communities and its effectiveness. There were 15 witnesses from government and the private sector.

On April 15, 2008, an FDIC official told the same committee that the FDIC was exploring offering incentives for banks to offer low-cost alternatives to payday loans. Doing so would allow them favorable consideration under their Community Reinvestment Act responsibilities. It had recently begun a two-year pilot project with an initial group of 31 banks.

Congresswoman Eddie Bernice Johnson introduced new legislation, the, on March 12, 2009, to expand the scope of CRA to include non-bank financial institutions, such as credit unions. There were other attempts to legislatively "modernize" the Community Reinvestment Act in previous sessions of Congress, such as in /  and, among others. The United States House Committee on Financial Services held hearings on September 16, 2009 on "Proposals to Modernize the Community Reinvestment Act" with 10 witnesses, including Johnson. Another hearing was held on April 15, 2010 on "Perspectives and Proposals on the Community Reinvestment Act" with eight witnesses.

On June 24, 2010, the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency (OCC), Federal Reserve System, Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC), and the Office of Thrift Supervision (OTS) jointly published proposed revisions to the rules implementing the Community Reinvestment Act. These agencies, with the National Credit Union Administration (NCUA), make up the Federal Financial Institutions Examination Council (FFIEC), which coordinates regulation of financial institutions, including implementation of the Community Reinvestment Act. The proposed revisions to CRA rules are intended to revise the term "community development" to "include loans, investments and services that support, enable or facilitate projects or activities" that meet the criteria described in the Housing and Economic Recovery Act of 2008 (HERA) and are conducted in designated target areas identified under the Neighborhood Stabilization Program established by HERA and the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 (ARRA). Among other things, this would expand the range of persons served to include middle-income households.

In 2009, The Federal Reserve Banks of Boston and San Francisco published Revisiting the CRA: Perspectives on the Future of the Community Reinvestment Act, which assembles views from a wide range of academic researchers, regulators, community development practitioners and financial service industry representatives on how to improve the CRA going forward.

The Obama administration has increased scrutiny of the provision of credit to poor and African American neighborhoods. Lenders have come under investigation for not operating in such areas, whether they have halted service there or have never operated in them before. Former Atlantic associate editor Daniel Indiviglio attributes increasing noncompliance with the CRA to the tightening of lending requirements.

In 2020, the OCC proposed a final rule for CRA that was billed as an attempt to modernize the act to keep with changes in the financial sector, particularly the growth of digital banking. It did this unilaterally without support from the FDIC and the Federal Reserve.

Community groups were also opposed to the 2020 proposal. Led by the National Community Reinvestment Coalition (NCRC), 1,594 or 83% of the 1,922 unique comments submitted disagreed with the OCC’s rule; 674 of those comments cited NCRC or used some of the organization’s suggested language. An additional 10,000 comments from individuals, submitted through an online petition campaign, also supported NCRC’s point of view.

Despite this opposition, the OCC published the final rule in 2020. Immediately after, NCRC and the California Reinvestment Coalition (CRC), represented by Democracy Forward and Farella Braun + Martel, filed a lawsuit seeking to vacate the OCC’s CRA rule, claiming that it violated the Administrative Procedure Act and was finalized without sufficient data to support the revisions. In February 2020, a federal judge rejected the OCC’s attempt to dismiss the lawsuit, a key hurdle in moving the claim forward.

In January 2021, with the inauguration of President Joe Biden, the OCC went under new leadership, and on December 14, 2021, the OCC fully rescinded its 2020 CRA rule.

Community groups submitted a position paper on March 1, 2022, to the OCC, FDIC and Federal Reserve about the key reforms they wanted to see. These included a consideration of race on CRA exams, more objective measures of performance that reduce ratings inflation, and expanded CRA assessment areas that include not only where banks have branches but also areas with significant amounts of bank lending and/or deposit activity.

The groups also recommended that CRA be expanded to apply throughout the financial sector, beyond banks. This would require Congressional legislation, but there were precedents in state CRA laws that apply to mortgage companies and credit unions, not just banks.

New regulations with the support of consumer advocates were proposed in October 2023, that would count online loans to target demographics regardless of geographic location. These were the subject of a lawsuit by the American Bankers Association.

Effectiveness
The first major research study of CRA was the 1993 book Community Reinvestment Performance (1993, Probus Publishing) by Kenneth H. Thomas, Ph.D., a Finance Lecturer at The Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania. The main conclusion of the book, which was based on an analysis of the results of 6,706 CRA exams, was that the law was needed and it works but it must be improved, mainly through better and more objective enforcement to avoid "CRA Grade Inflation". Many of the recommendations in that book were included in the 1995 CRA reform. The CRA Handbook (1998, McGraw Hill) carefully examined over 1,500 CRA exams under the 1995 reforms and identified further CRA Grade Inflation and made specific recommendations to improve the law's effectiveness, primarily through more objective and quantifiable standards.

Some economists have questioned if the CRA was – or at least had become – irrelevant, because it was not needed to encourage banks to make profitable loans to a variety of borrowers. In a 2003 research paper, economists at the Federal Reserve could not find clear evidence that the CRA increased lending and home ownership more in low income neighborhoods than in higher income ones. A 2008 Competitive Enterprise Institute study resulted in a similar finding.

Former Federal Reserve chair Ben Bernanke has stated that an underlying assumption of the CRA – that more lending equals better outcomes for local communities – may not always be true, pointing to "recent problems in mortgage markets". However, he notes that at least in some instances, "the CRA has served as a catalyst, inducing banks to enter under-served markets that they might otherwise have ignored".

The Woodstock Institute, a Chicago-based policy and advocacy nonprofit, found in an analysis of 1996 Chicago-area survey data that low income areas still lagged behind in access to commercial loans. Most small business loans made by CRA regulated banks went to higher income areas; 16.6% in low-income areas, 18.4% in low- and moderate-income tracts; 21.8% in middle-income areas and 23.1% in upper-income areas.

In a 1998 paper, Alex Schwartz of the Fannie Mae Foundation found that CRA agreements were "consistently successful in meeting their goals for mortgages, investments in low-income housing tax credits, grant giving to community-based organizations, and in opening (and keeping open) inner-city bank branches." In a 2000 report for the US Treasury, several economists concluded that the CRA had the intended impact of improving access to credit for minority and low-to-moderate-income consumers.

In a 2005 paper for the New York University Law Review, Michael S. Barr, professor at the University of Michigan Law School, presented evidence to demonstrate that the CRA had overcome market failures to increase access to credit for low-income, moderate-income, and minority borrowers at relatively low cost. He contends that the CRA is justified, has resulted in progress, and should be continued.

Speaking to the February 2008 Congressional Committee on Financial Services hearing on the CRA, Sandra L. Thompson, Director of the Division of Supervision and Consumer Protection at the FDIC, lauded the positive impact of CRA, noting that, "studies have pointed to increases in lending to low- and moderate-income customers and minorities in the decades since the CRA's passage." She cited a study by the Joint Center for Housing Studies at Harvard University, that found that "data for 1993 through 2000 show home purchase lending to low- and moderate-income people living in low- and moderate-income neighborhoods grew by 94 percent – more than in any of the other income categories".

In his statement before the same hearing, New York University economics professor Larry White stated that regulator efforts to "lean on" banks in vague and subjective ways to make loans is an "inappropriate instrument for achieving those goals". In a world of national banking enterprises, these policies are more likely to drive institutions out of neighborhoods. He stated that better ways to accomplish the goals would be vigorous enforcement of anti-discrimination laws, of antitrust laws to promote competition, and federal funding of worthy projects directly through an "on-budget and transparent process" like the Community Development Financial Institutions Fund.

According to a 2012 study "credit markets enabled a substantial fraction of Hispanic families to live in neighbourhoods with fewer black families, even though a substantial fraction of black families were moving to more racially integrated areas. The net effect is that credit markets increased racial segregation".

Politico has reported that the Community Reinvestment Act may sometimes push poor people out of their own neighborhoods by facilitating investment by outsiders.

Sound practices and profitability
According to a 2000 United States Department of the Treasury study of lending trends in 305 U.S. cities between 1993 and 1998, $467 billion in mortgage credit flowed from CRA-covered lenders to low- and medium-income borrowers and areas. In that period, the total number of loans to poorer Americans by CRA-eligible institutions rose by 39% while loans to wealthier individuals by CRA-covered institutions rose by 17%. The share of total US lending to low and medium income borrowers rose from 25% in 1993 to 28% in 1998 as a consequence.

Responding to concerns that the CRA would lower bank profitability, a 1997 research paper by economists at the Federal Reserve found that "[CRA] lenders active in lower-income neighborhoods and with lower-income borrowers appear to be as profitable as other mortgage-oriented commercial banks".

Concerns at the time over the 1995 regulatory change causing an increase in the inability of financial institutions to expand through mergers or acquisition due to regulatory denial based on poor CRA compliance were unfounded. Over the 1993-97 period, one regulatory agency, the Federal Reserve Board, actually approved more applications than the average percentages of those without a detailed CRA review taking place. Of the 1,100 merger or acquisition cases the FRB reviewed on average per year where the relevant institutions were subject to CRA, only 70 instances on average were identified with potential CRA problems regardless of public opposition or internal reporting raising the concern. On average, 22 of these were ultimately identified as CRA compliance being the primary reason for both application withdrawal or FRB denial.

In October 1997, First Union Capital Markets and Bear, Stearns & Co launched the first publicly available securitization of Community Reinvestment Act loans, issuing $384.6 million of such securities. The securities were guaranteed by Freddie Mac and had an implied "AAA" rating. The public offering was several times oversubscribed, predominantly by money managers and insurance companies who were not buying them for CRA credit.

In October 2000, to expand the secondary market for affordable community-based mortgages and to increase liquidity for CRA-eligible loans, Fannie Mae committed to purchase and securitize $2 billion of "MyCommunityMortgage" loans. In November 2000 Fannie Mae announced that the Department of Housing and Urban Development ("HUD") would soon require it to dedicate 50% of its business to low- and moderate-income families." It stated that since 1997 Fannie Mae had done nearly $7 billion in CRA business with depository institutions, but its goal was $20 billion. In 2001 Fannie Mae announced that it had acquired $10 billion in specially-targeted Community Reinvestment Act (CRA) loans more than one and a half years ahead of schedule, and announced its goal to finance over $500 billion in CRA business by 2010, about one third of loans anticipated to be financed by Fannie Mae during that period.

Speaking in 2007, the 30th anniversary of the CRA, Ben Bernanke, Chair of the Federal Reserve System since 2006, stated that the high costs of gathering information, "may have created a 'first-mover' problem, in which each financial institution has an incentive to let one of its competitors be the first to enter an underserved market". Bernanke notes that at least in some instances, "the CRA has served as a catalyst, inducing banks to enter underserved markets that they might otherwise have ignored". In the same 2007 speech, Bernanke also noted that, "managers of financial institutions found that these loan portfolios, if properly underwritten and managed, could be profitable" and that the loans "usually did not involve disproportionately higher levels of default".

Housing advocacy groups
CRA regulations give community groups the right to comment on or protest banks' purported non-compliance with CRA. Such comments could help or hinder banks' planned expansions. Groups at first only slowly took advantage of these rights. Regulatory changes during the Clinton administration allowed these community groups better access to CRA information and enabled them to increase their activities.

In an article for the New York Post, economist Stan Liebowitz wrote that community activists' intervention at yearly bank reviews resulted in their obtaining large amounts of money from banks, since poor reviews could lead to frustrated merger plans and even legal challenges by the Justice Department. Michelle Minton noted that Chase Manhattan and J.P. Morgan donated hundreds of thousands of dollars to ACORN around the same time they were to apply for permission to merge and needed to comply with CRA regulations.

According to The New York Times, some of these housing advocacy groups provided early warnings about the potential impact of lowered credit standards and the resulting unsupportable increase in real estate values they were causing in low to moderate income communities. Ballooning mortgages on rental properties threatened to require large rent increases from low and moderate income tenants that could ill afford them.

According to Inner City Press, "Bronx-based Fair Finance Watch commented to the Federal Reserve about the practices of now-defunct non-bank subprime lender New Century, when U.S. Bancorp bought warrants for 24% of New Century's stock. The Fed, rather than take any action on New Century, merely waited until U.S. Bancorp sold off some of the warrants, and then said the issue was moot." However, subprime loans were so profitable, that they were aggressively marketed in low-and moderate-income communities, even over the objections and warnings of housing advocacy groups like ACORN.

Predatory lending
In a 2002 study exploring the relationship between the CRA and lending looked at as predatory, Kathleen C. Engel and Patricia A. McCoy noted that banks could receive CRA credit by lending or brokering loans in lower-income areas that would be considered a risk for ordinary lending practices. CRA regulated banks may also inadvertently facilitate these lending practices by financing lenders. They noted that CRA regulations, as then administered and carried out by Fannie Mae and Freddie MAC, did not penalize banks that engaged in these lending practices. They recommended that the federal agencies use the CRA to sanction behavior that either directly or indirectly increased predatory lending practices by lowering the CRA rating of any bank that facilitated in these lending practices.

The FDIC has tried to address this issue by "stopping abusive practices through the examination process and supervisory actions; encouraging banks to serve all members and areas of their communities fairly; and providing information and financial education to help consumers make informed choices". FDIC policy currently states that "predatory lending can have a negative effect on a bank's CRA performance."

Competition also played a part in lending practices. In order to gain market share lenders lowered their standards.

Relationship to the 2008 financial crisis
Economist Stan Liebowitz wrote in the New York Post that a strengthening of the CRA in the 1990s encouraged a loosening of lending standards throughout the banking industry. He charged the Federal Reserve with ignoring the negative impact of the CRA. According to Manhattan Institute scholar Howard Husock, the CEO of a midsize bank reported that 20% of his institution's CRA-related mortgages were delinquent in their first year and probably 7% would end in foreclosure. In a commentary for CNN, Congressman Ron Paul, who serves on the United States House Committee on Financial Services, charged the CRA with "forcing banks to lend to people who normally would be rejected as bad credit risks." In a The Wall Street Journal opinion piece, economist Russell Roberts wrote that the CRA subsidized low-income housing by pressuring banks to serve poor borrowers and poor regions of the country.

Other economists have examined the issue and concluded that the CRA did not contribute to the financial crisis, notably economist Paul Krugman, Tim Westrich of the Center for American Progress, Robert Gordon of the American Prospect, Ellen Seidman of the New America Foundation, Daniel Gross of Slate, Dean Baker of The Center For Economic and Policy Research, and Aaron Pressman from BusinessWeek. Law professor Michael S. Barr, a Treasury Department official under President Clinton, stated that approximately 50% of subprime loans were made by independent mortgage companies that were not regulated by the CRA, and another 25% to 30% came from only partially CRA regulated bank subsidiaries and affiliates. Barr noted that institutions fully regulated by CRA made "perhaps one in four" sub-prime loans, and that "the worst and most widespread abuses occurred in the institutions with the least federal oversight".

According to American Enterprise Institute fellow Edward Pinto, Bank of America reported in 2008 that its CRA portfolio, which constituted 7% of its owned residential mortgages, was responsible for 29 percent of its losses. He charged that "approximately 50 percent of CRA loans for single-family residences ... [had] characteristics that indicated high credit risk", yet, per the standards used by the various government agencies to evaluate CRA performance at the time, were not counted as "subprime" because borrower credit worthiness was not considered. Krugman argues that Pinto's category of "other high-risk mortgages" incorrectly includes loans that were not high-risk, that instead were like traditional conforming mortgages. Gene Epstein of Barron's disputed Krugman's claims and those of the article he cited as erroneous and misleading. Another CRA critic, Joseph Fried, concedes that "some of this CRA subprime lending might have taken place, even in the absence of CRA. For that reason, the direct impact of CRA on the volume of subprime lending is not certain." A study by the economists, Agarwal, Benmelich, and Bergman, found that banks undergoing CRA-related regulatory exams took additional mortgage lending risk.

The Financial Crisis Inquiry Commission formed by the US Congress in 2009 to investigate the causes of the 2008 financial crisis, concluded "the CRA was not a significant factor in subprime lending or the crisis". Ben Bernanke, then Chairman of the Federal Reserve, wrote that experience and research contradict "the charge that CRA was at the root of, or otherwise contributed in any substantive way to, the current mortgage difficulties." Government economists and officials, including Janet Yellen, then President and CEO of the Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco, FDIC Chair Sheila Bair, Comptroller of the Currency John C. Dugan, and Federal Reserve Governor Randall Kroszner, also hold that the CRA did not significantly contribute to the subprime crisis. According to Yellen, former Chair of the Federal Reserve, independent mortgage companies made risky "higher-priced" loans at more than twice the rate of the banks and thrifts; most CRA loans were responsibly made, and were not the "higher-priced" loans that have contributed to the current crisis. During a 2008 House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform hearing on the role of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac in the financial crisis, including in relation to the Community Reinvestment Act, when asked if the CRA provided the "fuel" for increasing subprime loans, former Fannie Mae CEO Franklin Raines said it might have been a catalyst encouraging bad behavior, but it was difficult to know. Raines also cited information that only a small percentage of risky loans originated as a result of the CRA.

In 2015, Federal Reserve Board economists Neil Bhutta and Daniel Ringo published a summary of available studies on the issue. They concluded that "CRA-related loans were a small fraction of the subprime market during the mortgage boom", and hence it was not a significant contributor to the financial crisis.

title: Community Reinvestment Act


text:
British National Films Company

The British National Films Company was formed in England in 1934 by J. Arthur Rank, Lady Annie Henrietta Yule of Bricket Wood, and producer John Corfield.

Origin
Joseph Arthur Rank was a devout member of the Wesleyan Methodist Church and the son of a millionaire flour miller. On the first day of the week, he was a Sunday school teacher, and he discovered that if he screened religious films instead of lecturing his class, he got a positive response.

His idea spread to other classes held by other churches, and in 1933 this motivated Rank to form the Religious Film Society to distribute the films that he wanted to show to other Sunday schools.

Following distribution, Rank then decided to go into the business of producing religious films. Mastership was his first religious film production. It was a twenty-minute film made at Merton Park Studios at a cost of £2,700. Mastership was never shown commercially because it was merely intended as a form of evangelism and shown within other churches. Rank was pleased with the results, and other films went into production in Elstree at the better-equipped Rock Studios, which were later renamed British National.

Press challenge
In the 1930s, the Methodist Times newspaper in England began attacking the low moral standards exhibited by British films and by American films shown in Britain. In response, the London Evening News answered the Methodist Times by suggesting that if the Methodist Church was so concerned about the effect that the film industry was having upon family life in Britain, it should start producing its own family-friendly films. It was this exchange that motivated Rank to expand his film interests into the commercial market.

Lady Yule
A young producer named John Corfield introduced Rank to Lady Annie Henrietta Yule of Bricket Wood, who was both extremely wealthy and extremely bored with life. In order to fill her life with activity, she engaged in big game hunting and breeding Arabian horses with a degree of success and lasting fame; her Hanstead Stud won international recognition. She also commissioned luxury yachts, including the Nahlin, which she chartered in 1936 to the new king, Edward VIII. Upon meeting Rank, she decided to add the making of films to her list. However, when it came to the business side of film production, Lady Yule did not share the same ideas as Rank with regard to making and distributing films to improve society; she did not believe in giving discounts to religiously motivated film productions. She thought that films were an interesting hobby and similar to her financial interests in Arabian horse breeding.

Formation of the company
In 1934, Rank, Lady Yule and John Corfield formed the British National Films Company and went into production in answer to the challenge by the Evening News.

British National's first feature film was Turn of the Tide, which was released in 1935. The script was based upon a 1932 novel by Leo Walmsley called Three Fevers. The setting, which Rank knew from childhood, was Robin Hood's Bay on the north coast of Yorkshire, England. Having read the book, Rank decided that it would make an excellent family-friendly British film in answer to the Hollywood-style films that Alexander Korda was making at the Denham Film Studios.

Although Turn of the Tide featured a good cast, British National were unable to gain wide distribution for the film, and when they did, it was as the second half of a double feature. The company struggled to recoup its costs. Rank knew that for British National to make a profit, he had to create a commercial version of his Religious Film Society to control distribution and exhibition.

Pinewood Film Studios
In 1934, Charles Boot had undertaken to construct a new film studio in the village of Iver Heath in Buckinghamshire. His location was set among the pine trees on the estate grounds of a mansion called Heatherden Hall that Boot had recently bought at auction. The complex was named Pinewood Film Studios and was completed within a year. By 1935, Boot had approached British National about taking over ownership and management of the new studios, and a contract was entered into. Corfield eventually resigned from the board of Pinewood Film Studios, and Lady Yule sold her shares to Rank.

Film distribution
The problems that British National experienced in distributing Turn of the Tide were eventually solved by Rank.

title: British National Films Company


text:
Julie Hesmondhalgh

Julie Claire Hesmondhalgh ( born 25 February 1970) is an English actress and narrator. She is known for her role as Hayley Cropper in the ITV soap opera Coronation Street between 1998 and 2014. For this role, she won "Best Serial Drama Performance" at the 2014 National Television Awards and "Best Actress" at the 2014 British Soap Awards.

Hesmondhalgh's other regular television roles include Cucumber (2015), Happy Valley (2016), Broadchurch (2017) and The Pact (2021). Her stage credits include God Bless the Child at the Royal Court Theatre in London (2014), and Wit at the Royal Exchange, Manchester (2016).

Early life
Hesmondhalgh was born in Accrington, Lancashire. She applied to drama school aged 18, and studied at the London Academy of Music and Dramatic Art from 1988 to 1991 (one of her classmates was Benito Martinez). On finishing her training, Hesmondhalgh was a part of Arts Threshold, a small independent theatre in London, for several years, and worked with Rufus Norris in his directorial debut. In the 1990s, she appeared in such television dramas as The Bill, Catherine Cookson's The Dwelling Place, and in the Victoria Wood comedic television movie Pat and Margaret.

Television
Hesmondhalgh is best known for playing Hayley Cropper in the ITV soap opera Coronation Street. Making her debut appearance on the show in January 1998, she played the first transgender character in a British soap opera. She took maternity leave from the soap between 2000 and 2001 after the birth of her first daughter. After nearly ten years on the show, Hesmondhalgh decided to take another break for a year in order to spend more time with her family. She left on 22 October 2007 and returned on 17 November 2008. On 24 December 2011, Hesmondhalgh appeared on ITV's The Cube, winning £20,000 for her Accrington-based anti-poverty charity, Maundy Relief.

Hesmondhalgh's character Hayley was involved in high-profile storylines, including one concerning a gender transition, and a hostage storyline in the Underworld factory in which Hayley and Carla Connor (Alison King) were kidnapped, bound and gagged by rogue businessman Tony Gordon, who intended to murder them. They escaped unharmed, although Tony was killed in the ensuing explosion. On 11 January 2013, ITV announced that Hesmondhalgh would be leaving Coronation Street in January 2014 after 15 years on the show, and that her character Hayley was to leave in a controversial right-to-die storyline, following a battle with pancreatic cancer. Hesmondhalgh filmed her final scenes on 18 November 2013; they were broadcast on 22 January 2014, the night she won a National Television Award for Best Performance in a Serial Drama, which she shared with her longtime co-star, David Neilson. Over 10 million viewers tuned in to Hayley's final episode, where she ended her life. She worked with pancreatic cancer charities to raise awareness of the disease, and was involved in a petition and attended a parliamentary debate on the subject in 2014.

From 22 January 2015, Hesmondhalgh played the role of Cleo Whitaker in the Channel 4 drama series Cucumber, written by Russell T Davies. She also appeared in the BBC Four film Black Roses: The Killing of Sophie Lancaster, a television film about the murder of Sophie Lancaster. Hesmondhalgh played the role of Sophie's mother, Sylvia Lancaster, a role which she previously portrayed on stage. Hesmondhalgh is friends with Sylvia Lancaster and patron of the Sophie Lancaster Foundation. In 2015, Hesmondhalgh won a Royal Television Society Award for Best Female Actor in a Drama for her role as Sylvia.

In 2015, Hesmondhalgh appeared in an episode of the BBC drama Moving On, with Shane Richie and John Thomson, as well as the one episode of Inside No 9, written by Steve Pemberton and Reece Shearsmith.

In 2016, Hesmondhalgh joined the cast of acclaimed drama thriller Happy Valley for its second series on BBC One. She was offered the role by creator, writer and executive producer Sally Wainwright. Hesmondhalgh's character Amanda Wadsworth, is a midwife and working mother from Yorkshire who has a fraught relationship with her husband, John (Kevin Doyle).

In 2017, Hesmondhalgh played the role of rape victim Trish in the third and final series of Broadchurch on ITV.

In 2018, Hesmondhalgh was announced as a guest star in the Doctor Who episode "Kerblam!"

In 2019, Hesmondhalgh played Amanda in the first episode of the final season of Channel 4's Catastrophe with Rob Delaney and Sharon Horgan. In March 2019, it was announced that Hesmondhalgh would be appearing in a new six part ITV comedy drama, The Trouble with Maggie Cole, with Dawn French.

In 2019 Methuen Drama published her Working Diary as part of their Theatre Makers series. She is, with writer Becx Harrison and visual artist Grant Archer, co-founder of Take Back, a Manchester-based theatre collective dedicated to making script in hand rapid responses to social and political events.

In 2020, Hesmondhalgh played Heather in the third series of The A Word. In May 2021, Hesmondhalgh played Nancy in the BBC1 series The Pact, alongside Laura Fraser, Rakie Ayola, Eiry Thomas, Aneurin Barnard and Jason Hughes. The series, set in Wales, was written by Pete McTighe.

In 2021, Hesmondhalgh started narrating the revival of The Weakest Link, taking over from Jon Briggs. In January 2024, she starred as Suzanne Sercombe in the ITV1 drama Mr Bates vs The Post Office.

Stage
From 19–29 September 2012, Hesmondhalgh appeared at the Royal Exchange Theatre in Manchester, portraying Sylvia Lancaster in Black Roses: The Killing of Sophie Lancaster opposite Rachel Austin. The play was based on the real-life story of Sylvia's late daughter, Sophie Lancaster. Hesmondhalgh won a Manchester Theatre Award for Best Studio Performance in 2013.

On 23 January 2014, she returned to the Royal Exchange Theatre for her first role since leaving Coronation Street, in the Simon Stephens play Blindsided, which ran until 15 February that year. From 12 November to 20 December 2014, she appeared in God Bless The Child at the Royal Court Theatre in London, directed by Vicky Featherstone, playing Mrs Bradley, with Amanda Abbington.

In June 2015, Hesmondhalgh performed a script-in-hand scratch performance of her first one-woman play, These I Love, at Gulliver's in Manchester.

In January 2016, she played Vivian Bearing, an American Professor of Poetry dying of ovarian cancer, in Margaret Edson's Wit at The Royal Exchange main stage, directed by Raz Shaw, for which she was nominated for a TMA and won a Manchester Theatre Award for Best Actress.

She is a founder member of a Manchester-based grassroots theatre company creating work about social issues, Take Back, which she runs with Rebekah Harrison and Grant Archer, and to which she has contributed as a writer and actor. She is a member of The Gap collective, a new writing company in Manchester and performed their first gala performance at Halle St Peters in September 2015, in a piece by her husband Ian Kershaw.

On 30 April 2017, Hesmondhalgh starred in a one-off performance at the Royal Court Theatre, of Lemn Sissay's The Report, directed by John E. McGrath.

In February 2018, she starred as Renee in The Almighty Sometimes by Kendall Feaver. It was directed by Katy Rudd at the Royal Exchange.

In February 2019, she performed the title role in Mother Courage and Her Children by Bertolt Brecht, adapted by Anna Jordan. It was directed by Amy Hodge at the Royal Exchange, Manchester.

She is a supporter of Arts Emergency and a mentor with the National Youth Theatre.

Personal life
Hesmondhalgh is married to screenwriter Ian Kershaw. The couple live in Tameside with their two daughters.

Activism and fundraising
Hesmondhalgh is a Labour Party member. In August 2015, she endorsed Jeremy Corbyn's campaign in the Labour Party leadership election. She tweeted: "Proudly supporting Jeremy Corbyn in the Labour leadership contest." She campaigned for Corbyn as party leader in the 2017 UK general election. In May 2017, speaking at Labour's general election campaign launch in Manchester, she said: "I realised the Labour party and its core values would finally be in line with my own deeply held socialist beliefs about equality, justice and peace."

On 1 May 2013, Hesmondhalgh appeared on ITV game show All Star Mr & Mrs with husband Ian, and won £20,000 for Maundy Relief.

Hesmondhalgh is a patron of the following organisations: Trans Media Watch, Maundy Relief, Marple Drama, WAST, Manchester People's Assembly, Reuben's Retreat, The Alex Williams Believe and Achieve Trust, and The Sophie Lancaster Foundation (for whom she and Ian held a creative writing competition in schools across the North West in 2011). The latter organisation was set up following the murder of Sophie Lancaster.

In 2019, she set up the group 500 Acts of Kindness, a fundraising community where 500 members donate a pound a week to give to an individual, group, family or organisation in need.

title: Julie Hesmondhalgh


text:
Four Horsemen Studios

Four Horsemen Studios is a collectible figure design studio and manufacturer, specializing in creating sculptures of toys and action figures. The company was founded in the late 1990s as a contractor to Mattel, and have since grown to an independent studio creating their own lines of figures as well as manufacturing third party designs under license.

History
The current members and co-owners of Four Horsemen studios are Jim Preziosi, Eric Treadway, and H. Eric “Cornboy” Mayse. The three met while employed as figure sculptors at McFarlane Toys. In September 1999, the three left McFarlane to found Four Horsemen Studios along with former partner, Chris Dahlberg, where, in a partnership with Mattel, they created hundreds of figures for Mattel's Masters of the Universe, The Dark Knight, Harry Potter, DC Universe Classics and Man of Steel toy lines, among others.

In 2005, Four Horsemen Studios began creating their own properties and designing and manufacturing the toys to support them. The studio has developed several in house properties including: Seventh Kingdom,  Gothitropolis,  Magma Corps, Symbiotech, and Mythic Legions

In early 2010, the Horsemen made the leap into licensed action figures. The studio signed a deal to produce figures based on the 1960s sci-fi toy line The Outer Space Men. A second license, 1980′s brand The Power Lords, was purchased in 2013.

Seventh Kingdom
The first original line to make it into production, Seventh Kingdom's Xetheus won the first Fantastic Exclusive competition in 2005.

Magma CORPS
Magma CORPS was the second original line to see actual product. A vinyl figure of Argus a leader within the Mercury City police force was created in 2006.

Gothitropolis
The third original line to actually be produced as figures, Gothitropolis includes Scarabus, the Time Keepers, and all the members of the Raven Flocks via two kickstarters.

Symbiotech
The fourth original line, Symbiotech has yet to see any actual production but has down quite well over the years in Fan Ex voting. The line was announced as the next to go into production but has since been put on hold while licensed lines take precedence.

Symbiotech designs that have been shown to the public suggest a humanoid and beast character in symbiosis with each other. Each design had two figures that could combine or interact.

Mythic Legions
Mythic Legions is a fantasy line of action figures from Four Horsemen Studios. "The action figure line consists of an endless variety of characters ranging from heroic knights and dwarves to evil orcs and skeleton soldiers." The property started with a successful Kickstarter campaign in 2015 after the success of a campaign for Gothitropolis. Initially planned as a 1/18 scale line using the Glyos system of swappable parts, the line was changed to 1/12 scale, and the studio worked hard to maintain that interchangeability.

Wave 1
 * Silver Knight Legion Builder
 * Gold Knight Legion Builder
 * Bronze Dwarf Legion Builder
 * Silver Dwarf Legion Builder
 * Standard Skeleton Legion Builder
 * Golden Skeleton Legion Builder
 * Sir Gideon Heavensbrand
 * Gorgo Aetherblade
 * Thord Ironjaw
 * Skapular the Cryptbreaker
 * Sir Galeron
 * Orn Steelhide
 * Clavian
 * Attila Leossyr
 * Sir Owain
 * Jorund Runeshaper
 * Tibius
 * Otho
 * Sir Ignatius
 * Bothar Shadowhorn
 * Carpathias
 * Attlus the Conqueror
 * Urkku
 * Vitus
 * Asterion
 * Azhar
 * Zazhar
 * Urzokk
 * Bog Goblin
 * Malleus
 * Kickstarter Exclusive Sir Valgard
 * Orc Deluxe Legion Builder
 * Barbarian Deluxe Legion Builder Set
 * Weapons Packs 1-4
 * Heroic Weapon Pack
 * Evil Weapon Pack
 * Mythic Legions Art Book
 * Fan's Choice Figure - Vorgus Vermillius

At San Diego Comic-Con 2015, Four Horsemen Studios revealed the prototype of a Troll deluxe figure for Mythic Legions.

Wave 1.5
 * Pixxus
 * Sir Godfrey
 * Ilgar
 * Unkann
 * Stone Troll
 * Forest Troll

Wave 1.75 - Covenant of Shadow.
 * Baron Volligar
 * Gorthokk
 * Torionn
 * Cador
 * Scaphold
 * the Silverhorn Sentry
 * the Templar Knight Legion Builder
 * Deluxe Knight Builder Set

Four Horsemen Studios also released a wave of avian warriors, called Eathyron's Dozen.
 * Eathyron
 * Trumpetus
 * Toucarr
 * Scarletros
 * Phoenicius
 * Pelecus
 * Osperus
 * Drayleeon
 * Cyanicus
 * Colonel Domesticus
 * Bubotros
 * Archaeopterix
 * Mallatard the Duck
 * Eagalus

Four Horseman Studios launched a second successful Kickstarter campaign, Mythic Legions: Advent of Decay, in 2017.

Wave 2 -Advent of Decay
 * Elf Legion Builder
 * Vampire Legion Builder
 * Steel Knight Legion Builder
 * Iron Knight Legion Builder
 * Gwendolynne Heavensbrand
 * Calavius
 * Lucretia
 * Boarrior
 * Lord Aydon
 * B’alam
 * Hagnon
 * Myria Goldenbranch
 * Vampire Knight
 * Gryshaa the Slytherer
 * Shadow Elf Warrior
 * Delphina of Eathyross
 * Fantastic Exclusive Winner
 * Gadriel
 * Deluxe Knight Builder 2
 * Elf Legion Builder 6-pack
 * Vampire Legion Builder 6-pack
 * Steel Knight Legion Builder 6-pack
 * Iron Knight Legion Builder 6-pack
 * Orc Deluxe Legion Builder 2
 * Orc Deluxe Legion Builder 2 6-Pack
 * Faunus
 * Queen Urkzaa
 * Jjuno The Crusher
 * Malachi Cinderhorn
 * Aza Spiritbender
 * Freyja of Deadhall
 * Cavern Dwarf Legion Builder
 * Cavern Dwarf Legion Builder 6-pack
 * Barbarian Warrior Builder
 * Artemyss Silverchord
 * Herra Serpenspire
 * Brother Mandibulus
 * Xarria
 * Goblin Legion Builder
 * Goblin Legion Builder 6-pack
 * Knubnik
 * Gonxx
 * Elf Weapon Pack
 * Dwarf Weapon Pack
 * Knight Weapon Pack
 * Dark Forces Weapon Pack

Other Original Lines
Other lines that have been shown during Fan Ex voting but have not had any other information about the made public at this thine include:

 * Chrysalis
 * Zodiac Pack
 * Alien Line

The Outer Space Men
Licensed from their original creator, Mel Birnkrant in 2010, The Outer Space Men take a new look at the 1968 action figure line by the Colorforms company. Using Mel's designs and a new joint technology created by Onell Designs called Glyos, Four Horsemen Toy Design Studios produced a new line of figures with interchangeable parts.

Power Lords
The Power Lords license was acquired in 2012 and the first figures went into production in 2013. Working again with the original designer of a classic toy line (this time with Wayne Douglas Barlowe) and the Glyos joint system from Onell Design, Four Horsemen Toy Design Studios added to both giving us new characters and the expanded Glyos joint system.

DC Comics Lines
Mattel has commissioned Four Horsemen Studios for most if not all the figures in the DC Comics lines including Man of Steel, Dark Knight Rises. DC Universe Classics, and Young Justice.

Masters of the Universe
Four Horsemen Studios were responsible for the figure sculpts of the 200x re-imaging of Mattel's Masters of the Universe toy line and helped bring about the Masters of the Universe Classics, an Adult Collectors figure line. They will continue to work for Mattel in the new 2015 Club 200X line.

Thundercats
4H Studios are currently sculpting all the figures for Mattel's Thundercats line, which is being sold exclusively on Mattel's direct-to-consumer site MattyCollector.com. The characters are in scale with Mattel's Masters of the Universe Classics figures. Thundercats is licensed to Mattel by Warner Bros.

Max Steel (Overseas Figures)
Many of the Gigantor figures that were part of the Max Steel line in Europe and Latin America are sculpts by members of Four Horsemen Studios

NECA
NECA Four Horsemen Studios were contracted to sculpt the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles line in 2008.

Toy Biz
Several figures that were part of the Toy Biz Marvel Comics lines from 2001 to 2005 were sculpted by Four Horsemen Studios

The Fan Ex Project
In 2005 Four Horsemen Studios created a whole new way to interact with their fan base and let those fans participate in the design process called the Fantastic Exclusive Project, quickly shortened by the fan base to be called the Fan Ex Project. They started by giving the fans several original line names and brief descriptions than let the fans choose which one would be made into actual figures. Once the line was chosen fans would then decide which figure, then scale, articulation, accessories, and even repaints. The final choices would be combined into a figure and sold by the studio.

Fan Ex 2005
The Seventh Kingdom line was the winner of the first vote in the newly created Fan Ex. The character the fans chose was Xetheus, the Champion of Mynothecea, a Minotaur from the Animal Kingdom. There were 7 variations of the figure produced in very limited numbers. There were about 250 of each figure with Xetheus himself getting around twice that.

Fan Ex 2006
For the second year of voting Seventh Kingdom again and this time Ramathorr, Captain of the Anitherian Guard. Also from the Animal Kingdom Ramathorr was an Elephant and there were a total of nine figures offered. 4 Elephants, 2 Mutants, 1 Rhino, 1 Hippo and 1 Boar. Unfortunately production issues left many of the original figures with breakage issues. Four Horsemen Studios paid for a second production run to make sure fans ended up with quality product.

Fan Ex 2007
In the third year a new line won the first round of voting. Gothitropolis took the stage and the big bad of the story line, Scarabus. 10 figures would be released in this year but production issues (rising costs at the Chinese factories) pushed the actual sales of these figures to 2010. In between Four Horsemen Studios offered The Time Keepers, also from Gothitropolis 2008 and Queens court, 11 ladies representing 5 of the seven Kingdoms.

Fan Ex on Kickstarter
The Fan Ex project moves its fulfillment to Kickstarter

Members

 * Jim Preziosi - Founding member
 * Eric Treadaway - Founding member
 * H. Eric (Cornboy) Mayse - Founding member
 * Sherri Lynn Cook - Lead painter
 * Chris Gawrych - Production manager
 * Christopher Dahlberg - Founding member (Chris amicably left the company in 2012).

Awards and honors
Poppies Toy Industry Awards:
 * 2007 Best Male Figure Under 12" - Judges pick - Clayface
 * 2008 Best Male Figure 5 - 11" - Judges pick - Donatelo
 * 2009 Best Overall Line / Low End - Judges pick - DC Universe Classics
 * 2009 Best Overall Line / Low End - Fan pick - DC Universe Classics
 * 2009 Best Build a Figure - Judges pick - Kilowog
 * 2009 Best Build a Figure - Fan pick - Kilowog
 * 2010 Best Overall Line - Low End - Judges pick - Masters of the Universe Classics
 * 2010 Best Overall Line - Low End - Fan pick - Masters of the Universe Classics
 * 2010 Best Male Figure 5 - 11" - Judges pick -  Trapjaw
 * 2010 Best Female Figure Under 11" - Judges pick - Evil-Lyn
 * 2010 Best Female Figure Under 11" - Fan pick - She-ra
 * 2010 Best Build a Figure - Fan pick - Darkseid
 * 2010 Best Overall Line - Low End - Judges pick - Masters of the Universe Classics
 * 2011 Best Overall Line - Low End - Fan pick - Masters of the Universe Classics
 * 2011 Best Male Figure 5 - 11" - Judges pick -  Scarabus
 * 2011 Best Build a Figure - Fan pick - Bane
 * 2012 Best Female Figure 5" - 11" - Judges pick - Sorceress
 * 2012 Best Female Figure 5" - 11" - Fan pick - Sorceress
 * Toyfare Hall of Fame 2008 (inaugural class)

title: Four Horsemen Studios


text:
Heinrich Boie

Heinrich Boie (4 May 1794, Meldorf, Holstein – 4 September 1827, Bogor, West Java, Indonesia) was a German zoologist. He was the brother of Friedrich Boie. In the field of herpetology they described 49 new species of reptiles and several new species of amphibians.

Heinrich Boie studied law at Kiel and Göttingen. At university he became interested in natural history through the lectures of Johann Friedrich Blumenbach and Friedrich Tiedemann. He was appointed Coenraad Jacob Temminck's assistant at Leiden. In 1825, he travelled to Java with Salomon Müller in order to collect specimens for the museum. He died there of gall fever.

A species of Indian gecko, Cnemaspis boiei, is named in honor of Heinrich Boie or his brother Friedrich Boie.

title: Heinrich Boie


text: User talk:209.216.94.74

title: User talk:209.216.94.74


text:
American Guild of Organists

The American Guild of Organists (AGO) is an international organization of academic, church, and concert organists in the US, headquartered in New York City with its administrative offices in the Interchurch Center. Founded as a professional educational association, it was chartered by the Board of Regents of the University of the State of New York in 1896, with the authority to grant certificates of associate or fellow to members who passed examinations.

Membership is not limited to professional organists, but is open to anybody with an interest in organs and organ music. As of 2020, there are approximately 14,000 voting members in all categories of membership. The AGO's current president is Eileen Hunt, elected in 2022.

The guild seeks to set and maintain high musical standards and to promote understanding and appreciation of all aspects of organ and choral music.

Founders
Among the 145 founding members of the guild were Benjamin Dwight Allen, John W. Bischoff, Dudley Buck, George Whitefield Chadwick, Kate Sara Chittenden, Charles Whitney Coombs, Gaston Dethier, Clarence Dickinson, Clarence Eddy, Mary Chappell Fisher, Arthur Foote, William Gilchrist, Henry Houseley Henry Holden Huss, Bruno Klein, Ernst R. Kroeger, Benjamin Johnson Lang, Peter C. Lutkin, Charlotte Wells Saenger, Fannie Morris Spencer, Samuel Prowse Warren (also served as President of the AGO in 1902), and Herve D. Wilkins. Clifford Demarest also played an important role in its first two decades.

Organization
The American Guild of Organists is geographically divided into seven regions and 298 chapters. The AGO has chapters in Australia (Sydney), Barbados, Hong Kong, Kenya (Nairobi), Finland (Helsinki), Singapore, Shanghai, and Taiwan. The European chapter is the oldest chapter outside of the US, with many members in France and Germany, as well as other countries.

The leadership of the AGO consists of a National Council, seven regional councillors forming a Board of Regional Councillors, and various local chapters within each region. The national headquarters is located at 475 Riverside Drive, Suite 1260, in New York, New York, in the Interchurch Center.

The National Council is the governing body of the American Guild of Organists. The four national officers, five national councillors with committees in portfolio, and the chair of the board of regional councillors (selected by the seven regional councillors from among their number) are members of the National Council. The executive director is a non-voting member of the National Council. The chaplain is an honorary member of the National Council.

The national officers of the guild consist of a president, a vice president/councillor of competitions and new music, a secretary/councillor for communications, and a treasurer/councillor for finance and development. National councillors coordinate and represent to the National Council specific areas of the work of the guild—education, membership, competitions and new music, conventions, young organists, and finance and development.

The regional councillors are elected by the members of the guild assigned to chapters within each of the seven regions. Regional councillors are responsible for supervision and coordination of the work of the guild in their regions and representation of the region on the National Council through the chair of the Board of Regional Councillors. The Board of Regional Councillors meets in person with the National Council once per year with voice, but no vote.

Appointed district conveners are responsible for the development of the guild's interests in each state or area located within the region. The district convener assists the regional councillor in the work of the region.

In addition to district conveners, regional coordinators are appointed to assist the regional councillor and a national councillor in coordinating work of a specific portfolio area of the guild within the region, such as education, regional competitions for young organists, and professional development.

In 2014, the formerly nine regions were consolidated into seven:
 * Northeast
 * Mid-Atlantic
 * Southeast
 * Great Lakes
 * North Central
 * Southwest
 * West

Over the years, a number of international chapters have been formed and are grouped into the following AGO regions:
 * Northeast:
 * Europe, Finland
 * Southeast:
 * Barbados, Nairobi
 * West:
 * Hong Kong, Sydney (Australia), Shanghai, Singapore, Taiwan

These international chapters formally affiliate with the AGO rather than other professional associations that may already exist in their country, such as the Royal Canadian College of Organists or Royal College of Organists (UK).

Eileen Hunt is currently president, elected in 2022 to a two-year term to succeed Michael Bedford (2016–2022). Other past presidents serving in the 21st century, and their terms in office, include John Walker (organist) (2014–2016), Eileen Guenther (2008–2014) and Frederick Swann (2002–2008).

Programs and publications
The organization holds national conventions in even-numbered years and regional conventions in odd-numbered years. The 2010 national convention held in Washington, D.C., on July 4–8, for example, included workshops and concerts at prominent Washington-area churches, with premieres of newly commissioned works. The 2014 national convention, attended by more than 1,700 members, featured several notable venues in the Boston area, including Memorial Church of Harvard University and Trinity Church. The 2020 national convention planned for July in Atlanta, Georgia, was cancelled due to the COVID-19 pandemic.

The AGO sponsors a number of education programs, including "Pipe Organ Encounters", which are intended to introduce youth to the organ and its workings. It also produces a series of instructional DVDs for organists, providing insights into advanced playing technique, organ registration, improvisation, and interpretation. Renowned organists on these Master Series videos are: Catharine Crozier (vol. 1), Marie-Claire Alain (vol. 2), Frederick Swann (vol. 3), Gerre Hancock (vol. 4), and Marilyn Mason (vol. 5).

The AGO issues several professional certificates and designations upon completion of the appropriate exams and membership in good standing: the Service Playing Certificate (SPC), Colleague (CAGO), Choir Master (ChM), Associateship (AAGO), and Fellowship (FAGO), the highest level of certification bestowed upon accomplished organists by the organization's Board of Examiners.

The American Organist
Until November 1967, the journal The Diapason (published by Scranton-Gillette) was billed as the Official Journal of the American Guild of Organists, and the Official Magazine of the Royal Canadian College of Organists. In 1967, the AGO began publishing Music Magazine, a news journal for its membership. Now titled The American Organist, the monthly magazine is the official journal of the AGO for members and non-member subscribers. The illustrated periodical features news about new and restored pipe organs, concert programs, research into organ literature, chapter activities, and reviews of new organ recordings. The American Organist is also the official magazine for the Associated Pipe Organ Builders of America. Its masthead proclaims the journal's goal, to further the AGO's "ideals, objectives, and cultural and educational aspirations". From October, 1968, to June, 2009, The American Organist was also the official journal of the Royal Canadian College of Organists. The AGO also is an affiliate with the online journal Vox Humana.

Contests
The AGO organizes several awards and competitions, including the Pogorzelski-Yankee Competition, the AGO/ECS Publishing Award in Choral Composition, and the AGO/Marilyn Mason Award in Organ Composition.

The AGO/Marilyn Mason Award has its roots in the Holtkamp Organ Composition Contest, which was inaugurated in 1978 by Walter Holtkamp (president of the Holtkamp Organ Company) and Donald Hinshaw (president of Hinshaw Music) to encourage composers under 30 years of age. The Holtkamp Organ Composition was held annually until 1984 in conjunction with the International Contemporary Organ Music Festival at the Hartt School of Music. Winners of the Holtkamp Organ Composition Contest included:

 * 1978: Thomas Crawford and Frank Wiley, co-winners; Steven Errante and Paul Hofreiter, honorable mentions
 * 1979: Richard Campanelli, winner; Robert Sirota, honorable mention
 * 1980: Thomas Crawford and Blair Sanderson, co-winners; Frank Wiley, honorable mention
 * 1982: James Primosch

In 1984 the award was rebranded as the AGO/Holtkamp Award which awards a commission (and publication) for an organ work and a cash prize. It's held every two years in conjunction with AGO's national convention. In 2010 the award was rebranded as the AGO/Marilyn Mason Award to honor Marilyn Mason. Until 2016 the winning compositions were published by Hinshaw music; since then they have been published by H. T. FitzSimons. Winners include:

 * 1984: Ingrid Arauco for What Seraphs Are Afoot
 * 1986: Timothy Kramer for Perceptions of Antiquity
 * 1988: Martin Matalon for Variations for Organ and Percussion
 * 1990: Frank Ferko for A Practical Program
 * 1992: Ellen Ruth Harrison for That Line Which Is Earth's Shadow
 * 1994: Timothy Tikker for Variations SUr Un Vieux Noel
 * 1996: Robert Greenlee for Three Spirituals for Palm Sunday and Aaron Hunt for Fantasia and Fugue on St. Theodulph
 * 1998: Carlyle Sharpe for Confitemini Domino
 * 2000: David Arcus for Song of Ruth and Naomi
 * 2002: Emily Porter for What Wondrous Love Is This, O My Soul?
 * 2004: George Akerley for A Sweet for Mother Goose
 * 2006: Barrie Cabena for Six Sketches on Children's Hymns
 * 2008: Rachel Laurin for Prelude and Fugue in F Minor
 * 2010: Michael Bedford for Theme and Variations on Le P'ing
 * 2012: Nicholas O'Neill for Festive Voluntary
 * 2014: No prize awarded
 * 2016: Ivan Božičević for The Moonpiper
 * 2018: Mark Kurtz for Re-Formations (after Bach)
 * 2020: Joel Peters for Eine Wolke nahm ihm Weg
 * 2022: Rashaan Rori Allwood for In Memory Of...
 * 2024: Brooke Joyce for TBD

Recognition
In 2013 the AGO was inducted in the American Classical Music Hall of Fame.

title: American Guild of Organists


text:
Who are the Most Beloved People?

Who are the Most Beloved People? is the title of a famous essay about the People's Volunteer Army (PVA) in Korea written by Chinese journalist Wei Wei.

Content
The essay revolves around the theme that the Chinese soldiers are the "most beloved people". To illustrate this point, Wei Wei lists three examples of the soldiers' sacrifices. The first example describes the battle between the Chinese 38th Corps and the US 2nd Infantry Division at the Battle of the Ch'ongch'on River and how a company of soldiers sacrificed themselves during combat. The second example shows an artilleryman rescued a child in the aftermath of an air strike and volunteers for rifleman duty in order to avenge the aggressions against the Korean people. The third example records a conversation from a soldier and his selfless commitment towards the liberation of Korea. The essay ends with a reminder that the peace at home is not possible without the sacrifices from the "most beloved people".

Impacts
Described as smooth reading and moving, the essay became instantly popular in China after it was published on April 11, 1951, in the People's Daily newspaper. The essay had also earned praises from the top Chinese leaders. Considered the most famous literary and propaganda piece produced by China during the Korean War, the essay succeed in elevating the soldiers' traditionally low social status within the Confucian culture, and helped to boost the recruitment of soldiers for the Korean War. In the decades following the essay's publication, the phrase "most beloved people" has become synonymous with the PVA and PLA in mainland China, while the essay has become required reading in Chinese school curriculum.

title: Who are the Most Beloved People?


text:
Flipper (anatomy)

A flipper is a broad, flattened limb adapted for aquatic locomotion. It refers to the fully webbed, swimming appendages of aquatic vertebrates that are not fish.

In animals with two flippers, such as whales, the flipper refers solely to the forelimbs. In animals with four flippers, such as pinnipeds and sea turtles, one may distinguish fore- and hind-flippers, or pectoral flippers and pelvic flippers.

Animals with flippers include penguins (whose flippers are also called wings), cetaceans (e.g., dolphins and whales), pinnipeds (e.g., walruses, earless and eared seals), sirenians (e.g., manatees and dugongs), and marine reptiles such as the sea turtles and the now-extinct plesiosaurs, mosasaurs, ichthyosaurs, and metriorhynchids.

Usage of the terms "fin" and "flipper" is sometimes inconsistent, even in the scientific literature. However, the hydrodynamic control surfaces of fish are always referred to as "fins" and never "flippers". Tetrapod limbs which have evolved into fin-like structures are usually (but not always) called "flippers" rather than fins. The dorsal structure on cetaceans is called the "dorsal fin" and the large cetacean tails are referred to primarily as flukes but occasionally as "caudal fins"; neither of these structures are flippers.

Some flippers are very efficient hydrofoils, analogous to wings (airfoils), used to propel and maneuver through the water with great speed and maneuverability (see Foil). Swimming appendages with the digits still apparent, as in the webbed forefeet of amphibious turtles and platypus, are considered paddles rather than flippers.

Locomotion
For all species of aquatic vertebrates, swimming performance depends upon the animal's control surfaces, which include flippers, flukes and fins. Flippers are used for different types of propulsion, control, and rotation. In cetaceans, they are primarily used for control while the fluke is used for propulsion.

The evolution of flippers in penguins was at the expense of their flying capabilities, in spite of evolving from an auk-like ancestor that could 'fly' underwater as well in the air. Form constrains function, and the wings of diving flying species, such as the murre or cormorant have not developed into flippers. The flippers of penguins became thicker, denser and smaller while being modified for hydrodynamic properties.

Hydrodynamics
Cetacean flippers may be viewed as being analogous to modern engineered hydrofoils, which have hydrodynamic properties: lift coefficient, drag coefficient and efficiency. Flippers are one of the principal control surfaces of cetaceans (whales, dolphins and porpoises) due to their position in front of the center of mass, and their mobility which provides three degrees of freedom. Flippers on humpback whales (Megaptera novaeangliae) have non-smooth leading edges, yet demonstrate superior fluid dynamics to the characteristically smooth leading edges of artificial wings, turbines and other kinds of blades. The whale's surprising dexterity is due primarily to its non-conventional flippers, which have large, irregular looking bumps called tubercles across their leading edges. The tubercles break up the passage of water, maintaining even channels of the fast-moving water, limiting turbulence and providing greater maneuverability.

The foreflippers used by the pinnipeds act as oscillatory hydrofoils. Both fore and hind flippers are used for turning. A 2007 study of Steller's sea lion found that a majority of thrust was produced during the drive phase of the fore flipper stroke cycle. Although previous findings on eared seals suggested that thrust was generated by the initial outward movement of the fore flippers or the terminal drag-based paddling phase, the 2007 study found that little or no thrust was generated during those phases. Swimming performance in sea lions is modulated by changes in the duration and intensity of movements without changing their sequence. Using criteria based on velocity and the minimum radius of turns, pinnipeds' maneuverability is superior to cetaceans but inferior to many fish.

Evolution of flippers
Marine mammals have evolved several times, developing similar flippers. The forelimbs of cetaceans, pinnipeds, and sirenians presents a classic example of convergent evolution. There is widespread convergence at the gene level. Distinct substitutions in common genes created various aquatic adaptations, most of which constitute parallel evolution because the substitutions in question are not unique to those animals.

When comparing cetaceans to pinnipeds to sirenians, 133 parallel amino acid substitutions occur. Comparing and contrasting cetaceans-pinnipeds, cetaceans-sirenians, and pinnipeds-sirenians, 2,351, 7,684, and 2,579 substitutions occur, respectively.

Digit processes
Whales and their relatives have a soft tissue flipper that encases most of the forelimb, and elongated digits with an increased number of phalanges. Hyperphalangy is an increase in the number of phalanges beyond the plesiomorphic mammal condition of three phalanges-per-digit. This trait is characteristic of secondarily aquatic vertebrates with flippers. Hyperphalangy was present among extinct ichthyosaurs, plesiosaurs, and mosasaurs. Cetaceans are the sole mammals to have evolved hyperphalangy. Though the flippers of modern cetaceans are not correctly described as webbed feet, the intermediate webbed limbs of ancient semiaquatic cetaceans may be described as such. The presence of interdigital webbing within the fossils of semi-aquatic Eocene cetaceans was probably the result of BMP antagonists counteracting interdigital apoptosis during embryonic limb development. Modifications to signals in these tissues likely contributed to the origin of an early form of hyperphalangy in fully aquatic cetaceans about 35 million years ago. The process continued over time, and a very derived form of hyperphalangy, with six or more phalanges per digit, evolved convergently in rorqual whales and oceanic dolphins, and was likely associated with another wave of signaling within the interdigital tissues.

Although toothed cetaceans have five digits, most baleen whales have four digits and even lack a metacarpal. In the latter (mysticetes), the first digit ray may have been lost as late as 14 million years ago.

Flipper evolution in turtles
Sea turtles evolved in the Cretaceous. Their flippers developed gradually by a series of stepwise adaptations, with the most fundamental traits of flippers appearing in the deepest nodes (the earliest times) in their phylogeny. These initial traits evolved only once among chelonioids, and the bauplan was refined through a secondary process of specialization.

Evers et al. identified characters related to the pectoral girdle and forelimb that are related to the modification of sea turtle arms and hands into flippers.

Key biomechanical features of flippers

 * flattening of elements
 * lengthening of the humerus
 * reduction of mobility between individual flipper elements

Fundamental traits for flipper movement

 * lateral position of the humeral process
 * change in the angle of the internal scapula

Foraging behavior
Because of the specialization of flippers and their hydrodynamic constraints, it was thought that they were not used to significantly interact with the environment, unlike the legs of terrestrial tetrapods. However, the use of limbs for foraging is documented in marine tetrapods. Use of the flippers for foraging behavior is observed in marine mammals such as walruses, seals, and manatee, and even in reptiles such as sea turtles. Among turtles, observed behaviors include a green turtle holding a jellyfish, a loggerhead rolling a scallop on the sea floor, and a hawksbill turtle pushing against a reef for leverage to rip an anemone loose. Based on presumed limb use in ancestral turtles, these behaviors may have occurred as long ago as 70 million years.

title: Flipper (anatomy)


text:
Julian Bell

Julian Heward Bell (4 February 1908 – 18 July 1937) was an English poet, and the son of Clive and Vanessa Bell (who was the elder sister of Virginia Woolf). The writer Quentin Bell was his younger brother and the writer and painter Angelica Garnett was his half-sister. His relationship with his mother is explored in Susan Sellers' novel Vanessa and Virginia.

Background
Julian Heward Bell was born in St Pancras, London, and was brought up at Charleston, Sussex. He was educated at Leighton Park School and King's College, Cambridge, where he joined the Cambridge Apostles. He was a friend of some of the Cambridge Five, including Anthony Blunt, to whom he lost his virginity. (In the BBC dramatisation Cambridge Spies he appears as Blunt's lover and Guy Burgess's unrequited love interest). After graduating he worked towards a college fellowship, without success.

In 1935 he went to China, to a position teaching English at Wuhan University. He wrote letters describing his relationship with a married lover, K. - Ling Shuhua, the wife of Professor Chen Yuan (better known by his pen-name, Chen Xiying). The identity of 'K' became a sensitive issue when the Chinese-British novelist Hong Ying published a fictionalised account, K: The Art of Love in 1999. After a 2002 ruling by a Chinese court, that the book was 'defamation of the dead', the author rewrote the book, which was published in 2003 under the title The English Lover.

Bell was initially a pacifist and edited an anthology of memoirs of conscientious objectors from the First World War, We Did Not Fight.

In 1937, Bell became increasingly supportive of the socialist and anti-fascist movements and decided to enlist in the Spanish Civil War. His parents and his aunt Virginia tried to dissuade him; eventually, they persuaded Julian to get a job as an ambulance driver on the Republican side, rather than a soldier. His motive for going to Spain was general sympathy for the cause of the Spanish Republic, plus "the usefulness of war experience in the future and the prestige one would gain in literature and – even more – Left politics". After just a month in Spain he found himself in the thick of the action, driving an ambulance for the British Medical Unit attached to the International Brigades at the Battle of Brunete. He was hit by bomb fragments on a stretch of road just outside Villanueva de la Cañada, sustaining a massive lung wound, and later died in a military hospital at El Escorial. He was 29.

Works

 * Winter Movement (1930) poems
 * We Did Not Fight: 1914–18 Experiences of War Resisters (1935) editor
 * Work for the Winter (1936) poems
 * Essays, Poems and Letters (1938) edited by Quentin Bell

title: Julian Bell