title: Richard Hammond

text: During the second episode of series sixteen of "Top Gear", Hammond suggested that no one would ever want to own a Mexican car, since cars are supposed to reflect national characteristics and so a Mexican car would be "lazy, feckless, flatulent, overweight, leaning against a fence, asleep, looking at a cactus with a blanket with a hole in the middle on as a coat." Hammond finished with the remark "I'm sorry, but can you imagine waking up and remembering you're Mexican?!" The comments prompted Mexico's ambassador in London, Eduardo Medina-Mora Icaza, to lodge an official complaint to the BBC. Demanding an apology from the BBC, the ambassador stated: "These offensive, xenophobic and humiliating remarks only serve to reinforce negative stereotypes and perpetuate prejudice against Mexico and its people." The BBC defended the broadcast of this segment on the grounds that such national stereotyping was a "robust part" of traditional British humour.


title: Richard Hammond

text: In December 2016, in reference to the interior styling of a Volvo S90 co-presenter Clarkson joked that "the only problem is that in one of those, you couldn't enjoy a chocolate Magnum ice cream" – to which Hammond responded: "It's all right, I don't eat ice cream. It's something to do with being straight." The joke was written as a reference to a well-known advertisement in Finland (where that episode of "The Grand Tour" was filmed); however, LGBT rights campaigner Peter Tatchell accused Hammond of "pandering to prejudice", adding that "it's a perverse world when everyday pleasures like ice cream becomes the butt of homophobic innuendo." A spokesperson for UK LGBT rights charity Stonewall stated that "Hammond's choice of words were not just ridiculous, but chosen purposefully to mock and belittle."


title: Richard Hammond

text: A year later, in an interview with "The Times", Hammond stated: "Look, anyone who knows me knows I wasn’t being serious, that I’m not homophobic. Love is love, whatever the sex of the two people in love... It may be because I live in a hideously safe and contained middle-class world, where a person’s sexuality is not an issue". In an interview with "Newsweek Today", Hammond denied making homophobic comments, and refused to apologise for the remarks: "I entirely reject any criticism of me being anti-gay. That's just not the case."


title: Roman Polanski sexual abuse case

text: On March 10, 1977, then-43-year-old film director Roman Polanski was arrested and charged in Los Angeles with six offenses against Samantha Gailey (now Geimer), a 13-year-old girl – unlawful sexual intercourse with a minor, rape by use of drugs, perversion, sodomy, a lewd and lascivious act upon a child under 14, and furnishing a controlled substance to a minor. At his arraignment, Polanski pleaded not guilty to all charges but later accepted a plea bargain whose terms included dismissal of the five more serious charges in exchange for a guilty plea to the lesser charge of engaging in unlawful sexual intercourse with a minor.


title: Roman Polanski sexual abuse case

text: Polanski underwent a court-ordered psychiatric evaluation, and he was placed on probation. However, upon learning that he was likely to face imprisonment and subsequent deportation, Polanski became a fugitive from justice, fleeing to London and then France in February 1978, hours before he was due to be formally sentenced. Since then Polanski has mostly lived in France and has avoided visiting any countries likely to extradite him to the United States.


title: Roman Polanski sexual abuse case

text: On March 10, 1977, Polanski, then aged 43, faced six charges involving drugging and raping 13-year-old Samantha Jane Gailey (now Samantha Geimer). The charges were rape by use of drugs, perversion, sodomy, lewd and lascivious act upon a child under 14, unlawful sexual intercourse with a female under the age of 18, and furnishing a controlled substance to a minor. This ultimately led to Polanski's guilty plea to a different charge of unlawful sexual intercourse with a minor.


title: Roman Polanski sexual abuse case

text: According to Geimer's testimony to the grand jury, Polanski had asked Geimer's mother (a television actress and model) if he could photograph the girl as part of his work for the French edition of "Vogue", which Polanski had been invited to guest-edit. Her mother allowed a private photoshoot. Geimer testified that she felt uncomfortable during the first session, in which she posed topless at Polanski's request, and initially did not wish to take part in a second but nevertheless agreed to another shoot. This took place on March 10, 1977, at the home of actor Jack Nicholson in the Mulholland area of Los Angeles. When the crime was committed, Nicholson was on a ski trip in Colorado, and his live-in girlfriend Anjelica Huston who was there had left, but later returned while Polanski and Geimer were there. Geimer was quoted in a later article as saying that Huston became suspicious of what was going on behind the closed bedroom door and began banging on it, but left when Polanski insisted they were finishing up the photoshoot. "We did photos with me drinking champagne," Geimer says. "Toward the end it got a little scary, and I realized he had other intentions and I knew I was not where I should be. I just didn't quite know how to get myself out of there." In a 2003 interview, she recalled that she began to feel uncomfortable after he asked her to lie down on a bed, and described how she attempted to resist. "I said, 'No, no. I don't want to go in there. No, I don't want to do this. No!', and then I didn't know what else to do," she stated, adding: "We were alone and I didn't know what else would happen if I made a scene. So I was just scared, and after giving some resistance, I figured well, I guess I'll get to come home after this".


title: Roman Polanski sexual abuse case

text: Geimer testified that Polanski provided champagne that they shared as well as part of a Quaalude, and despite her protests, he performed oral sex upon her, had vaginal intercourse, and sodomized her, each time after being told "no" and being asked to stop.


title: Roman Polanski sexual abuse case

text: Describing the event in his autobiography, Polanski stated that he did not drug Geimer, that she "wasn't unresponsive", and that she did not respond negatively when he inquired as to whether or not she was enjoying what he was doing. The 28-page probation report submitted to the court by Kenneth Fare, his parole officer, and signed by deputy Irwin Gold, excused his behavior due to his creative genius and being an immigrant from a land with different morals, placed some of the blame on the victim and her mother, and concluded by saying that there was evidence "that the victim was not only physically mature, but willing." The officers report also quoted two psychiatrists' denial of Polanski being "a pedophile" or "sexual deviant".


title: Roman Polanski sexual abuse case

text: Claiming to protect Geimer from a trial, her attorney arranged a plea bargain. Polanski accepted, and, under the terms of the agreement, the five initial charges were dismissed. Instead, Polanski pleaded guilty to the lesser charge of engaging in unlawful sexual intercourse with a minor.


title: Roman Polanski sexual abuse case

text: Under the terms of the plea agreement, the court ordered Polanski to report to a state prison for a 90-day psychiatric evaluation, but granted a stay to allow him to complete his current project. Under the terms set by the court, he traveled to Europe to complete filming. While in Europe for the filming of the upcoming 1979 remake of "Hurricane", Polanski was photographed at Oktoberfest 1977 with his arms on multiple young girls and jars of beer around him. He was subsequently ordered to return to California and reported to Chino State Prison for the evaluation period beginning on December 19, 1977, and was released after 42 of the 90 scheduled days. Polanski's lawyers expected that Polanski would receive probation at the subsequent sentencing hearing, with the probation officer, examining psychiatrist, and the victim all recommending against prison time. During this time, on January 20, 1978, Polanski lost his job as the director of "Hurricane".


title: Roman Polanski sexual abuse case

text: Polanski's attorneys said that the presiding judge, Laurence J. Rittenband, suggested to them that he would send the director to prison and order him deported. According to the 2008 documentary "", Los Angeles Deputy District Attorney David Wells showed Rittenband the photographs of Polanski partying in Munich with young girls, and said Polanski was being cavalier about the charges against the 13-year-old girl. This would have constituted an "ex parte" communication, as although Wells was not an attorney of record in the case, he was technically a lawyer for one of the parties involved due to his work for the state of California. In response to the threat of imprisonment, Polanski became a fugitive from justice, fleeing the United States and going to England. Regarding the proposed sentencing, Rittenband said:


title: Roman Polanski sexual abuse case

text: Polanski fled initially to London on February 1, 1978, where he maintained a residence. A day later he traveled on to France, where he held citizenship, thus avoiding the possibility of extradition to the United States by the United Kingdom. Consistent with its extradition treaty with the US, France can refuse to extradite its own citizens, and an extradition request later filed by US officials was denied. Polanski has never returned to England and later sold his home there. The US could still request the arrest and extradition of Polanski from other countries should he visit them, and Polanski has avoided visits to countries (such as the UK) that were likely to extradite him. In 1979, Polanski gave a controversial interview with novelist Martin Amis in which, discussing his conviction, he said "If I had killed somebody, it wouldn't have had so much appeal to the press, you see? But ... fucking, you see, and the young girls. Judges want to fuck young girls. Juries want to fuck young girls. Everyone wants to fuck young girls!" In 1983, Polanski told journalist Clive James that "I like the girls of that age. And because the girls of that age, for some reason like me." Later in this interview James asked, "Granted that you have this interest in young girls, and have never concealed that you have this interest in young girls, wasn't an incident like the one that happened more or less bound to happen eventually?" and Polanski responded, "Looking back at it, it probably was bound to happen, yes."


title: Roman Polanski sexual abuse case

text: Filmmaker Joseph Losey (who exiled himself to the UK after being blacklisted by HUAC) responded to Polanski's flight by saying "I have not contacted him – and I'm not going to." Actor Robert Stack called his flight "a coward's way out", and then added "the ranks are closing in on him".


title: Roman Polanski sexual abuse case

text: Geimer sued Polanski in 1988, alleging sexual assault, intentional infliction of emotional distress and seduction. The case was settled out of court in 1993. After Polanski missed an October 1995 payment deadline, Geimer filed papers with the court, attempting to collect at least US$500,000. The court held that Polanski still owed her over $600,000, but it was unclear as of 2009 if this had since been paid.


title: Roman Polanski sexual abuse case

text: In a 2003 interview, Geimer said, "Straight up, what he did to me was wrong. But I wish he would return to America so the whole ordeal can be put to rest for both of us. I'm sure if he could go back, he wouldn't do it again. He made a terrible mistake but he's paid for it." In 2008, Geimer stated in an interview that she wishes Polanski would be forgiven; "I think he's sorry, I think he knows it was wrong. I don't think he's a danger to society. I don't think he needs to be locked up forever and no one has ever come out ever – besides me – and accused him of anything. It was 30 years ago now. It's an unpleasant memory ... (but) I can live with it."


title: Roman Polanski sexual abuse case

text: In 2008, a documentary film of the aftermath of the incident, "", premiered at the Sundance Film Festival. Following review of the film, Polanski's attorney, Douglas Dalton, contacted the Los Angeles district attorney's office about prosecutor David Wells' conversation with the trial judge, Laurence J. Rittenband. Based on statements by Wells included in the film, Polanski and Dalton sought judicial review of whether Wells acted illegally and engaged in malfeasance by interfering with the operation of the trial. However, after Polanski's arrest, Wells recanted his statements in the film, admitting that he had lied and "tried to butter up the story to make me look better".


title: Roman Polanski sexual abuse case

text: In December 2008, Polanski's lawyer filed a request to Judge David S. Wesley to have the case dismissed on the grounds of judicial and prosecutorial misconduct. The filing claims that Judge Rittenband (deceased in 1993) violated the plea bargain by keeping in communication about the case with deputy district attorney David Wells, who was not involved. In January 2009, Polanski's lawyer filed a further request to have the case dismissed, and to have the case moved out of Los Angeles, as the Los Angeles courts require him to appear before the court for any sentencing or dismissal, and Polanski did not intend to appear. In February 2009, Polanski's request was tentatively denied by Judge Peter Espinoza, who said that he would make a ruling if Polanski appeared in court. The same month, Samantha Geimer filed to have the charges against Polanski dismissed from court, saying that decades of publicity as well as the prosecutor's focus on lurid details continues to traumatize her and her family. Judge Espinoza also stated that he believed there was misconduct by the judge in the original case but Polanski must return to the United States to apply for dismissal.


title: Roman Polanski sexual abuse case

text: There is no statute of limitations governing the case because Polanski had already been charged and pleaded guilty in 1978 to having had unlawful sex with a minor. While some legal experts interviewed in 2009 thought he might at that point face no jail time for unlawful sex with a minor, his failure to appear at sentencing is in itself a crime.


title: Roman Polanski sexual abuse case

text: On July 7, 2009, Polanski's attorneys filed a petition for a writ of mandate (the California equivalent of a writ of "mandamus") with the Second Appellate District of the California Court of Appeal in order to seek review of Judge Espinoza's decision on an expedited basis. The next day, the Court ordered the prosecution to file an opposition, thus indicating that it was assuming jurisdiction over the case. This was unusual; petitions for extraordinary writs are usually summarily denied without any explanation.


title: Roman Polanski sexual abuse case

text: On September 26, 2009, Polanski was detained by Swiss police at Zurich Airport while trying to enter Switzerland, in relation to his outstanding 1978 U.S. arrest warrant. Polanski had planned to attend the Zurich Film Festival to receive a Lifetime Achievement Award. The arrest followed a request by the United States that Switzerland apprehend Polanski. U.S. investigators had learned of his planned trip from a fax sent on September 22, 2009, from the Swiss Justice Ministry to the United States Department of Justice's Office of International Affairs, which had given them enough time to negotiate with Swiss authorities and lay the groundwork for an arrest. Polanski had been subject of an Interpol red notice at the request of the United States since 2005.


title: Roman Polanski sexual abuse case

text: The Swiss Federal Department of Justice and Police said Polanski was put "in provisional detention". An arrest warrant or extradition to the United States could be subject to judicial review by the Federal Criminal Court and then the Federal Supreme Court, according to a ministry spokesman. Polanski announced that he intended to appeal extradition and hired lawyer Lorenz Erni to represent him. On October 6, his initial request for bail was refused by the Federal Department of Justice and Police; a spokesperson commented, "we continue to be of the opinion that there is a high risk of flight."


title: Roman Polanski sexual abuse case

text: On May 2, 2010, Polanski published an open letter entitled "I can remain silent no longer!" on Bernard-Henri Lévy's web site. In it, he stated that on February 26, 2010, Roger Gunson (the deputy district attorney in charge of the case in 1977, retired by the time of the letter) testified under oath before Judge Mary Lou Villar in the presence of David Walgren (the present deputy district attorney in charge of the case, who was at liberty to contradict and question Gunson) that on September 16, 1977, Judge Rittenband stated to all the parties concerned that Polanski's term of imprisonment in Chino constituted the totality of the sentence he would have to serve. Polanski also stated that Gunson added that it was false to claim (as the present district attorney's office does in their request for his extradition) that the time he spent in Chino was for the purpose of a diagnostic study.


title: Roman Polanski sexual abuse case

text: In reaction to the arrest, the foreign ministers of both France and Poland urged Switzerland to release Polanski, who holds dual citizenship of both countries, but subsequently withdrew their support for Polanski.


title: Roman Polanski sexual abuse case

text: The arrest provoked particular controversy in France, where over the years many had downplayed the severity of Polanski's crime, highlighting instead his achievements as a film director and the many years that had passed since his flight from the United States.


title: Roman Polanski sexual abuse case

text: The French minister of Culture and Communication, Frédéric Mitterrand, was vehement in his support, all the while announcing his "very deep emotion" after the questioning of the director, "a French citizen" and "a film-maker of international dimension": "the sight of him thrown to the lions for an old story which doesn't make much sense, imprisoned while traveling to an event that was intending to honor him: caught, in short, in a trap, is absolutely dreadful." These reactions resulted in political backlash in France.


title: Roman Polanski sexual abuse case

text: Daniel Cohn-Bendit criticized these statements by Mitterrand, mainly on the grounds that it was a "matter of justice" in as much as "a 13-year-old girl was raped", adding "I believe that a minister of Culture, even if his name is Mitterrand, should say: I'll wait and read the files [myself]". "It is a tough call, since it is true that a 13-year-old girl was raped, that she said in her own words 'I complained [as it was happening]' and that she afterwards added 'I accepted a large sum of money' [to remain silent]".


title: Roman Polanski sexual abuse case

text: Marc Laffineur, vice president of the French National Assembly and a member of President Nicolas Sarkozy's center-right party, criticized government ministers for rushing to judgment, saying the charges against Polanski should not be minimized.


title: Roman Polanski sexual abuse case

text: Marine Le Pen, from the National Front, during a TV talk show on how to prevent sex crime recidivism, criticized Mitterrand for his support of Polanski. She recalled that in 2005, Mitterrand had published the book "The Bad Life" in which he wrote about having sex with male prostitutes in Thailand. In the book, Mitterrand was quoted, "I got into the habit of paying for boys ... All these rituals of the market for youths, the slave market excite me enormously. One could judge this abominable spectacle from a moral standpoint but it pleases me beyond the reasonable." Le Pen called for Mitterrand to resign.


title: Roman Polanski sexual abuse case

text: The SACD, a society that collects authorship fees for film and theater works and redistributes them to authors, hosted an international petition in favor of Polanski. The petition stated:


title: Roman Polanski sexual abuse case

text: A number of celebrities, most of them French, expressed their support for Polanski by means of a public manifesto, whose concluding statements were "Roman Polanski is a French citizen, an artist of international reputation, now threatened to be extradited. This extradition, if brought into effect, would carry a heavy load of consequences as well as deprive the film-maker of his freedom." The signatories concluded: "we demand the immediate release of Roman Polanski." Not all assessments coming from the French film-making mainstream have been openly partisan, however. Luc Besson, for instance, remarked: "I do not know the history of the trial. ... I feel a lot of affection for [Polanski], he's a man I really like and I know him a bit, our daughters are very good friends but there is one justice, [and] it is the same for everyone".


title: Roman Polanski sexual abuse case

text: On September 30, 2009, the French government dropped its public support for Polanski, on the grounds that he was not "above the law". Government spokesman Luc Chatel said: "We have a judicial procedure under way, for a serious affair, the rape of a minor, on which the American and Swiss legal systems are doing their job", adding: "One can understand the emotion that this belated arrest, more than 30 years after the incident, and the method of the arrest, have caused."


title: Roman Polanski sexual abuse case

text: Public opinion polls in France consistently show between 65% and 75% of the population want to see Polanski extradited to the United States.


title: Roman Polanski sexual abuse case

text: Poland's Prime Minister Donald Tusk responded to early reactions by urging his cabinet ministers to exercise calm and reminding them that it is a "case of rape and of punishment for having sex with a child".


title: Roman Polanski sexual abuse case

text: A 2009 opinion poll showed that more than 75% of Poles would not like to see Polanski escape another trial.


title: Roman Polanski sexual abuse case

text: In Switzerland, the arrest caused widely varying reactions in the media and in politics, while the Swiss minister of justice, Eveline Widmer-Schlumpf, defended the arrest as legally required under the Swiss–U.S. extradition treaty and as a matter of equality before the law.


title: Roman Polanski sexual abuse case

text: When asked if he would consider granting Polanski a pardon, then-California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger said: "I think that he is a very respected person and I am a big admirer of his work. But, nevertheless, I think he should be treated like everyone else. It doesn't matter if you are a big-time movie actor or a big-time movie director or producer." Schwarzenegger added: "And one should look into all of the allegations, not only his allegations, but the allegations about his case. Was there something done wrong? You know, was injustice done in the case?"


title: Roman Polanski sexual abuse case

text: More than 100 people in the film industry, including Woody Allen, Martin Scorsese, Darren Aronofsky, David Lynch, Wes Anderson, Harrison Ford, Harmony Korine, Michael Mann, and Jonathan Demme, among many others signed a petition in 2009 calling for Polanski's release. A subsequent petition the following year was signed by Jean-Luc Godard, Mathieu Amalric, Xavier Beauvois, Agnès Varda, Bertrand Tavernier, Jean-Stéphane Bron, Patricio Guzmán, Jean-Paul Civeyrac, Katell Quillévéré and Cristi Puiu; Olivier Assayas and Louis Garrel also signed both petitions. Emma Thompson originally signed the first petition, but later asked for her name to be removed after a conversation with 19-year-old college student and activist Caitlin Hayward-Tapp. Other celebrities like Meryl Streep, Whoopi Goldberg and Debra Winger did not sign either petition, but spoke out in support of Polanski in other ways. Harvey Weinstein also defended Polanski. However, in 2018, Natalie Portman, Xavier Dolan and Asia Argento expressed regret and apologized for signing the original petition.


title: Roman Polanski sexual abuse case

text: Whereas a number of those in Hollywood have rallied behind Polanski, "The Los Angeles Times" reports that most others in the United States seem to have a different perspective: "In letters to the editor, comments on Internet blogs and remarks on talk radio and cable news channels, the national sentiment is running overwhelmingly against Polanski." Following the rearrest, David Wells announced that he had lied in the "" documentary, claiming that director Marina Zenovich told him that the documentary would not air in America, if he refused to lie in it (which Zenovich denied). Wells then proceeded to blast Polanski, calling him a pedophile rapist. Wells said "It's outrageous. This pedophile raped a 13-year-old girl. It's still an outrageous offense. It's a good thing he was arrested. I wish it would have happened years before."


title: Roman Polanski sexual abuse case

text: In May 2018, Polanski was expelled from the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences. The Academy stated: "The board continues to encourage ethical standards that require members to uphold the academy's values of respect for human dignity." Polanski's legal team responded to the dismissal by threatening a lawsuit stating the Academy had violated its code of conduct. The Academy responded to Polanski's lawyers by stating: "The Board of Governors retains its independent duty and authority as outlined in the bylaws to address and take action on any matter, whether submitted by the process outlined above or not, related to a member's status and to enforce the Academy's Standards of Conduct." Polanski's wife Emmanuelle Seigner turned down an invitation to join the Academy in support.


title: Roman Polanski sexual abuse case

text: On September 30, 2009, "New York Times" reported that Reid Weingarten of the firm Steptoe & Johnson, a well-known criminal defense lawyer, had been hired by Polanski for his defense along with attorneys Douglas Dalton, Bart Dalton, and Chad Hummel. According to the "New York Times":


title: Roman Polanski sexual abuse case

text: On October 21, after Swiss authorities had rejected Polanski's initial pleas to be released on bail pending the result of any extradition hearing, one of his lawyers, Georges Kiejman, floated the idea of a possible voluntary return to the United States in an interview with the radio station Europe 1: "If this process drags on, it is not completely impossible that Roman Polanski could choose to go finally to explain himself in the United States where the arguments in his favor exist."


title: Roman Polanski sexual abuse case

text: On November 25, the Federal Criminal Court of Switzerland accepted Roman Polanski's plea to be freed on US$4.5M bail. The court said Polanski could stay at his chalet in the Swiss Alps and that he would be monitored by an electronic tag during his house arrest.


title: Roman Polanski sexual abuse case

text: On December 10, Division 7 of the California Court of Appeal of the Second Appellate District heard oral argument on Polanski's petition for writ of mandate. Television stations including CNN, France 2 and TVN24 also filed applications to cover the hearing.


title: Roman Polanski sexual abuse case

text: The Court denied Polanski's petition in an opinion filed on December 24. The Court reasoned that since Polanski had adequate legal remedies in 1977 and at present in 2009, there was no reason to carve out a special exception to the fugitive disentitlement doctrine. In arriving at that holding, the Court pointed out that neither side had realized that Polanski had the option of simply asking to be sentenced "in absentia", which would result in a hearing where Polanski could directly attack the trial judge's alleged malfeasance in 1977. On January 6, 2010, upon remand to the superior court, Polanski's lawyers followed the appellate court's advice and presented a notarized letter from Polanski in which he asked to be sentenced "in absentia". The court asked the parties to brief the issue and scheduled a hearing for January 25. At the hearing, Superior Court Judge Peter Espinoza ruled Polanski must be present in court for sentencing.


title: Roman Polanski sexual abuse case

text: On July 12, 2010, the Swiss authorities announced that they would not extradite Polanski to the U.S. in part due to a fault in the American request for extradition. Polanski was no longer subject to house arrest, or any monitoring by Swiss authorities. In a press conference held by Swiss Justice Minister Eveline Widmer-Schlumpf, she stated that Polanski's extradition to the U.S. was rejected, in part, because U.S. officials failed to produce certain documents, specifically "confidential testimony from a January 2010 hearing on Mr. Polanski's original sentencing agreement". According to Swiss officials, the records were required to determine if Polanski's 42-day court-ordered psychiatric evaluation at Chino State Prison constituted Polanski's whole sentence according to the now-deceased Judge Rittenband. They reasoned that if this was the correct understanding, then "Roman Polanski would actually have already served his sentence and therefore both the proceedings on which the U.S. extradition request is founded and the request itself would have no foundation."


title: Roman Polanski sexual abuse case

text: In late October 2014, Polanski was questioned by prosecutors in Kraków, and released. Back in 2010 the Polish prosecutor general stated that under Polish law too much time had passed since the crime for Polanski to be extradited. On February 25, 2015, Polanski appeared in a Polish court for a hearing on the U.S. request for extradition. The judge scheduled another hearing to be held in April or sooner, to give time to review documents that arrived from Switzerland.


title: Roman Polanski sexual abuse case

text: On October 30, 2015, Polish judge Dariusz Mazur denied a request by the United States to extradite Polanski. According to the judge, allowing Polanski to be returned to American law enforcement would be an "obviously unlawful" act, depriving the filmmaker of his freedom and civil liberty. His lawyers argued that extradition would violate the European Convention on Human Rights. Polanski holds dual citizenship with Poland and France.


title: Roman Polanski sexual abuse case

text: On November 27, 2015, Poland decided it will not extradite Polanski to the U.S. after prosecutors declined to challenge the court's ruling, agreeing that Polanski had served his punishment and did not need to face a U.S. court again. Preparations for a movie he was working on had been stalled by the extradition request from last year.


title: Roman Polanski sexual abuse case

text: On December 6, 2016, the Supreme Court of Poland ruled to reject an appeal filed by Polish Minister of Justice Ziobro, and to uphold the October 2015 ruling.


title: Roman Polanski sexual abuse case

text: On August 17, 2017, Los Angeles County Superior Court Judge Scott Gordon rejected a request from Samantha Geimer to dismiss the case against Polanski.


title: Roman Polanski sexual abuse case

text: In December 2017, Polanski filed a ₪1.5 million suit in Herzliya Magistrates' Court against Israeli journalist and filmmaker Matan Uziel. Polanski maintained that Uziel, through his website, www.imetpolanski.com, falsely reported that five women had come forward to accuse him of raping them. Polanski was suing for libel and defamation of character. Herzliya Magistrates' Court rejected Polanski's request to be exempt from appearing in court after filing the libel suit. While Polanski gave various reasons for his inability to appear, the presiding judge, Gilad Hess, dismissed these one by one and ordered Polanski to pay Uziel ₪10,000 in costs. In November 2018, it was published that Polanski decided to drop the lawsuit, and was ordered by the court to pay Uziel ₪30,000 (US$8,000) for court costs. The court accepted Uziel's request that the suit not be dropped, but rather that it be rejected, making Polanski unable to sue Uziel again over the same issue in the future.


title: Puma (brand)

text: Puma SE, branded as Puma, is a German multinational corporation that designs and manufactures athletic and casual footwear, apparel and accessories, which is headquartered in Herzogenaurach, Bavaria, Germany. Puma is the third largest sportswear manufacturer in the world. The company was founded in 1948 by Rudolf Dassler. In 1924, Rudolf and his brother Adolf "Adi" Dassler had jointly formed the company "Gebrüder Dassler Schuhfabrik" (Dassler Brothers Shoe Factory). The relationship between the two brothers deteriorated until the two agreed to split in 1948, forming two separate entities, Adidas and Puma.


title: Puma (brand)

text: Following the split, Rudolf originally registered the newly established company as "Ruda" (derived from Rudolf Dassler, as Adidas was based on Adi Dassler), but later changed the name to "Puma". Puma's earliest logo consisted of a square and beast jumping through a "D", which was registered, along with the company's name, in 1948. Puma's shoe and clothing designs feature the Puma logo and the distinctive "Formstrip" which was introduced in 1958.


title: Puma (brand)

text: Christoph von Wilhelm Dassler was a worker in a shoe factory, while his wife Pauline ran a small laundry in the Franconian town of Herzogenaurach, from the city of Nuremberg. After leaving school, their son, Rudolf Dassler, joined his father at the shoe factory. When he returned from fighting in World War I, Rudolf was trained as a salesman at a porcelain factory, and later in a leather trading business in Nuremberg.


title: Puma (brand)

text: In 1924, Rudolf and his younger brother, Adolf, nicknamed "Adi", founded a shoe factory. They named the new business "Gebrüder Dassler Schuhfabrik" ("Dassler Brothers Shoe Factory") which was the only business at the time that manufactured sports shoes. The pair started their venture in their mother's laundry. At the time, electricity supplies in the town were unreliable, and the brothers sometimes had to use pedal power from a stationary bicycle to run their equipment. In 1927, they moved into a separate building.


title: Puma (brand)

text: The brothers drove from Bavaria to the 1936 Summer Olympics in Berlin with a suitcase full of spikes and persuaded United States sprinter Jesse Owens to use them, the first sponsorship for an African American. Owens won four gold medals. Business boomed; the Dasslers were selling 200,000 pairs of shoes annually before World War II.


title: Puma (brand)

text: Both brothers joined the Nazi Party, but Rudolf was a keen Nazi, who applied to join, and was accepted into, the Gestapo; they produced boots for the Wehrmacht. A growing rift between the brothers reached a breaking point during a 1943 Allied bomb attack. Adi and his wife climbed into a bomb shelter that Rudolf and his family were already in. "Here are the bloody bastards again," Adi remarked, apparently referring to the Allied war planes, but Rudolf, due to his apparent insecurity, was convinced his brother meant him and his family. When Rudolf was later picked up by American soldiers and accused of being a member of the Waffen SS, he was convinced that his brother had turned him in.


title: Puma (brand)

text: After increasingly different views of how to run the business, the brothers split the business in 1948. Rudolf moved to the other side of the Aurach River to start his own company. Adolf started his own company using a name he formed using his nickname—Adi—and the first three letters of his last name—Das—to establish Adidas. Rudolf created a new firm that he called "Ruda", from "Ru" in Rudolf and "Da" in Dassler. A few months later, Rudolf's company changed its name to Puma Schuhfabrik Rudolf Dassler.


title: Puma (brand)

text: Puma and Adidas entered a fierce and bitter rivalry after the split. The town of Herzogenaurach was divided on the issue, leading to the nickname "the town of bent necks"—people looked down to see which shoes strangers wore.


title: Puma (brand)

text: In the first football match after World War II in 1948, several members of the West Germany national football team wore Puma boots, including the scorer of West Germany's first post-war goal, Herbert Burdenski. Rudolf developed a football boot with screw-in studs, called the "Super Atom" in collaboration with people such as West Germany's national coach Sepp Herberger.


title: Puma (brand)

text: At the 1952 Summer Olympics, 1500 metres runner Josy Barthel of Luxembourg won Puma's first Olympic gold in Helsinki, Finland.


title: Puma (brand)

text: At the 1960 Summer Olympics, Puma paid German sprinter Armin Hary to wear Pumas in the 100-metre sprint final. Hary had worn Adidas before and asked Adolf for payment, but Adidas rejected this request. The German won gold in Pumas but then laced up Adidas for the medals ceremony, to the shock of the two Dassler brothers. Hary hoped to cash in from both, but Adi was so enraged he banned the Olympic champion.


title: Puma (brand)

text: During the 1968 Olympics Black Power Salute, Puma-sponsored African-American athletes Tommie Smith and John Carlos, after having won gold and bronze in the 200 meters, respectively, took to the podium with their Puma Suedes in hand and bowed their heads and raised their black-gloved fists in silent protest during the playing of the national anthem, an act meant to stand up for human rights and to stand up for black Americans.


title: Puma (brand)

text: A few months prior to the 1970 FIFA World Cup, Armin Dassler (Rudolf's son) and his cousin Horst Dassler (Adi's son) sealed an agreement which was dubbed "The Pelé pact". This agreement dictated that soccer player Pelé would be out of bounds for both Adidas and Puma. However, Pelé complied with a request by Puma's representative Hans Henningsen to increase the awareness and profile of Puma after he received $120,000 to wear the Formstrips. At the opening whistle of a 1970 World Cup finals match, Pelé stopped the referee with a last-second request to tie his shoelaces before kneeling down to give millions of television viewers a close-up of his Puma shoes. This outraged Horst, and future peace agreements were called off.


title: Puma (brand)

text: During the 1972 Summer Olympics, Puma provided shoes for the Ugandan 400 metres hurdles champion, John Akii-Bua. After Akii-Bua was forced out of Uganda by its military government, Puma employed him in Germany. Eventually, Akii-Bua returned to Uganda.


title: Puma (brand)

text: Puma launched the Clyde in 1973; designed for basketball player Walt "Clyde" Frazier, it gained wide popularity.


title: Puma (brand)

text: Puma became a public company in 1986, and thereafter was listed on the Börse München and Frankfurt Stock Exchange; its first profit since the IPO was registered in 1994. In May 1989, Rudolf's sons Armin and Gerd Dassler sold their 72 percent stake in Puma to Swiss business "Cosa Liebermann SA". The company acquired Scandinavian Tretorn Group in 2001, later sold to Authentic Brands Group in 2015. For the fiscal year 2003, the company had revenue of €1.274 billion, and majority shareholder Monarchy/Regency sold its shareholdings to a broad base of institutional investors.


title: Puma (brand)

text: In February 2007, Puma reported that its profits had fallen by 26% to €32.8 million ($43 million; £22 million) during the final three months of 2006. Most of the decline in profits was due to higher costs linked to its expansion; sales rose by more than a third to €480.6 million. In early April, Puma's shares rose €29.25 per share, or about 10.2%, to €315.24 per share. On 10 April, the French conglomerate PPR (which became Kering in 2013) announced that it had bought a 27% stake in Puma, clearing the way for a full takeover. The deal valued Puma at €5.3 billion. PPR said that it would launch a friendly takeover for Puma, worth €330 a share, once the acquisition of the smaller stake was completed. The board of Puma welcomed the move, saying it was fair and in the firm's best interests. As of July 2007, PPR owned over 60% of Puma stock.


title: Puma (brand)

text: In 2008, Melody Harris-Jensbach was appointed deputy chief executive officer; designer and artist Hussein Chalayan became creative director, and Puma acquired a majority stake in Chalayan's business and "Hussein Chalayan".


title: Puma (brand)

text: In July 2011, the company completed a conversion from an Aktiengesellschaft (German public limited company) to a Societas Europaea, the European Union-wide equivalent, changing its name from "Puma AG Rudolf Dassler Sport" to "Puma SE". At the same time, replaced the long-serving Jochen Zeitz as the firm's chief executive officer (CEO), with Zeitz becoming chairman. The company has been led by former football professional Bjørn Gulden since 1 July 2013. Arne Freundt was appointed CEO in November 2022.


title: Puma (brand)

text: In 2010, Puma acquired Cobra Golf, and took over bodywear and socks company Dobotex the following year. Puma holds a 5% stake of German sports club Borussia Dortmund, and has been its supplier since 2012. Puma is the main producer of enthusiast driving shoes and race suits. It is the primary producer for Formula One and NASCAR clothing, and entered a partnership with BMW, Ducati and Ferrari to make their respective shoes. It won the rights to sponsor the 2006 FIFA World Cup champions, the Italian national football team, making and sponsoring the clothing worn by the team. In 2014, Puma and Arsenal Football Club entered a 5-year merchandising partnership. The commercial partnership represents the biggest deal in Puma and Arsenal's history. The partnership ended in 2019.


title: Puma (brand)

text: Rihanna was named creative director of Puma overseeing direction of the womenswear line in December 2014. Two years later, Puma partnered with The Weeknd as a creative collaborator. In 2018, Puma launched its venture with its ambassador Selena Gomez called "Phenom Lux<nowiki>"</nowiki> and re-entered the basketball sneaker market for the first time since Vince Carter in 1998. The brand announced Jay-Z as the creative director for Puma Basketball, and signed basketball players Marvin Bagley III and Deandre Ayton, both of whom became the Top 2 picks of the 2018 NBA Draft.


title: Puma (brand)

text: In September 2020, Puma signed with Brazilian footballer Neymar, and launched its winter collection with Nigerian singer Wizkid. In July 2021, Puma signed with 18 athletes in India to represent the country in national and international events across sports such as hockey, shooting etc. In December, the brand launched High Court, its first women's basketball line, designed by creative director June Ambrose.


title: Puma (brand)

text: Puma has been a public company since 1986, listed on the Frankfurt Stock Exchange. French luxury group Kering (formerly known as PPR) holds 9.8%, Kering's largest shareholder Groupe Artemis owns 29% of the share capital. Since 1 July 2013, the company has been led by former football professional Bjørn Gulden (chief executive officer).


title: Puma (brand)

text: Puma ranks as one of the top shoe brands with Adidas and Nike. As of 2017, Puma SE employs more than 13,000 people worldwide and distributes its products in more than 120 countries. The company has a few small corporate offices around the world, and four "international hubs": Assembly Row, Somerville, Massachusetts; Hong Kong; Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam; and global headquarters in Herzogenaurach, Germany.


title: Puma (brand)

text: Puma offers products for football, basketball, running, training and fitness, golf, motorsports, and athleisure. It has sponsored a number of athletes, including Pelé, Eusébio, Johan Cruyff, Diego Maradona, Lothar Matthaus, Clyde Frazier, Jim Hines, Boris Becker, Martina Navratilova, Tommie Smith, Joe Namath, Linford Christie, Colin Jackson, Heike Drechsler, and Michael Schumacher.


title: Puma (brand)

text: International footballers Neymar, Gianluigi Buffon, Sergio Agüero, Antoine Griezmann, Marco Reus, Raphael Varane, Luis Suárez, David Silva, Vincent Kompany, Christian Pulisic, Yann Sommer, Jonas Hofmann and more sport Puma football boots.


title: Puma (brand)

text: For football clubs, Puma sponsors Borussia Dortmund, Manchester City F.C., Barrow AFC, Olympique de Marseille, Fenerbahçe S.K., Sociedade Esportiva Palmeiras, Borussia Mönchengladbach, Lillestrøm SK, Valencia CF, AC Milan, Peñarol, US Sassuolo, Club de Fútbol Monterrey, Bengaluru FC, Chennaiyin FC, Mumbai City FC and many others. National football teams include Italy, Iceland, Switzerland, Austria, Morocco, Egypt, and Uruguay. Puma is also the main sponsor of the Israel Football Association (IFA) and is currently a focus of the Palestinian Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions movement. The IFA, with sponsorship from Puma and other companies, operates from settlements, as does Puma itself via its past and present licensees in Israel.


title: Puma (brand)

text: In athletics (track and field), Puma sponsors the athletic associations for Brazil (CBAt), Jamaica (JAAA), Cuba (FCA), The Bahamas (BAAA), Grenada (GAA), Trinidad & Tobago (NAAATT), Dominica (DAAA), Barbados (AAB), Portugal (FPAtletismo), Switzerland (Swiss Athletics), and Norway (NFIF). It also has the world's fastest man, Jamaican track athlete Usain Bolt, under contract along with other track and field athletes like Andre De Grasse, Karsten Warholm, and Gianmarco Tamberi. Several world records were achieved by athletes wearing Puma shoes, such as Heinz Futterer (1954), Armin Hary (1960), Jim Hines (1976), Tommie Smith (1968), Asafa Powell (2015), and Usain Bolt (2002).


title: Puma (brand)

text: In 2018, Puma announced its entrance back into basketball after a break of almost 20 years, and appointed Jay-Z as the division's creative director. Marvin Bagley, Deandre Ayton, Zhaire Smith, and Michael Porter Jr. are the first players to join Puma's basketball roster and play in performance Puma basketball shoes.


title: Puma (brand)

text: Puma made its partnership with netball after 28 years by sponsoring the Melbourne Vixens in 2018, and became the official apparel sponsor of New Zealand's national netball team, the Silver Ferns. The firm sponsors Indian cricketer Virat Kohli, the former captain of the India cricket team. Golfers such as Rickie Fowler, Bryson DeChambeau and Lexi Thompson are equipped by Puma's golf brand Cobra Golf.


title: Puma (brand)

text: In Formula 1, Puma equips the teams of Mercedes AMG Petronas, Scuderia Ferrari, Red Bull Racing, and Alfa Romeo. It also sponsors BMW and Porsche in all of their Motorsports activities. In NASCAR, Puma equips Team Penske with fire suits, gloves, and shoes.


title: Puma (brand)

text: In 2000, Puma began auditing all of its suppliers on a yearly basis, and makes the results available in its sustainability reports. Since 2005, it has publicly provided a list of its suppliers.


title: Puma (brand)

text: In August 2004, a joint report from the National Labor Committee and China Labor Watch stated that workers at some of Puma's Chinese factories were enduring sweatshop conditions, working up to 16.5 hours per day for about US$0.31 an hour. Puma said it would investigate the claims.


title: Puma (brand)

text: In February 2012, a woman who worked for one of Puma's suppliers in Cambodia was shot during a protest over factory working conditions. Puma acknowledged the poor working conditions and said it would work to improve the situation.


title: Puma (brand)

text: According to a joint report from Labour Behind the Label and Community Legal Education Centre, 30 workers fainted in November 2012 while producing clothing for Puma in China. The faintings were caused by excessive heat and alleged forced overtime. In 2014, almost 120 workers fainted in two Cambodian clothing factories where sportswear was being produced for Puma and Adidas, due to temperatures above . In March 2017, 150 workers assembling Puma products in Cambodia fainted due to thick smoke.


title: Puma (brand)

text: Puma has obtained the Ethical Clothing Australia accreditation for its Australian-made products. This labour-friendly accreditation applies to only a small percentage of Puma's total production.


title: Puma (brand)

text: In 2020, the Australian Strategic Policy Institute accused at least 82 major brands, including Puma, of being connected to forced Uyghur labor in Xinjiang. In 2022, researchers from Nordhausen University of Applied Sciences identified cotton from Xinjiang in Puma shirts.


title: Puma (brand)

text: In May 2011, English newspaper "The Guardian" stated that Puma was the "world's first major company to put a value on its environmental impact" and that Puma "has made a commitment that within four years, half its international collections will be manufactured according to its internal sustainability standard, by using more sustainable materials such as recycled polyester, as well as ensuring its suppliers develop more sustainable materials and products."


title: Puma (brand)

text: Puma is also known for boosting positive environmental practices in its supply chain through financial incentives. The supply chain finance scheme implemented links the sustainability performance of key suppliers to the costs at which they can access finance. The system won the company an "Innovation Award" in Supply Chain Finance in 2016.


title: Veep

text: Veep is an American political satire comedy television series that aired on HBO from April 22, 2012, to May 12, 2019. The series was created by Armando Iannucci as an adaptation of his sitcom "The Thick of It". The protagonist of "Veep" is Selina Meyer (Julia Louis-Dreyfus), a fictional Vice President of the United States. The series follows Meyer and her team as they attempt to make their mark and leave a legacy but often instead become mired in day-to-day political games.


title: Veep

text: "Veep" received critical acclaim and won several major awards, including seven consecutive nominations for the Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Comedy Series, winning that award for its fourth, fifth, and sixth seasons. Its second, fourth, and sixth seasons won the , and its third season won the Television Critics Association Award for Outstanding Achievement in Comedy.


title: Veep

text: Louis-Dreyfus' performance won her six consecutive Primetime Emmy Awards, three Screen Actors Guild Awards, two Critics' Choice Television Awards, a Television Critics Association Award, and five consecutive Golden Globe nominations. For his portrayal of Selina's personal aide, Gary, Tony Hale received six consecutive Emmy nominations for Outstanding Supporting Actor in a Comedy Series, winning in 2013 and 2015. Other members of the cast who received Emmy nominations include Anna Chlumsky (six nominations), Gary Cole (one nomination), Matt Walsh (two nominations), Martin Mull (one nomination), Hugh Laurie (one nomination), and Peter MacNicol (one nomination).


title: Veep

text: The series follows the personal life and political career of Selina Meyer (Julia Louis-Dreyfus), Vice President and, later, President of the United States. Her party affiliation is never discussed. Formerly a United States senator from Maryland, Meyer campaigns for her party's nomination in the 2012 presidential election and is initially the front-runner, but ultimately loses the nomination to Stuart Hughes. Meyer subsequently joins the Hughes ticket as his running mate and is elected vice president. Her staff as vice president, upon whom Meyer is almost totally reliant, includes chief of staff Amy Brookheimer (Anna Chlumsky); director of communications Mike McLintock (Matt Walsh); deputy director of communications Dan Egan (Reid Scott); body man Gary Walsh (Tony Hale); and personal secretary Sue Wilson (Sufe Bradshaw). Later additions to her team as president include White House Chief of Staff Ben Cafferty (Kevin Dunn) and political strategist Kent Davison (Gary Cole). Jonah Ryan (Timothy Simons), initially a White House liaison to the vice president's office and later a New Hampshire congressman, also features prominently.


title: Veep

text: Meyer frequently finds herself relegated and ignored by Hughes, who is never depicted on-screen at the outset of the series. In the second season, Meyer comes to accrue some power and influence and, by the end of the season, is actively considering challenging Hughes for their party's nomination in the 2016 election. This becomes a moot point when Hughes abruptly resigns and Meyer becomes president. Meyer begins her presidential campaign at the end of the third season. The fourth season finds her adjusting to her new role while continuing her presidential campaign, both of which are undermined by a series of scandals. The election results in a tie between Meyer and challenger Bill O'Brien (Brad Leland), leading to a contingent election in the House of Representatives during the fifth season to decide the next president after a recount in Nevada fails to alter the election's outcome. The House vote ends in a tie; meaning that when the Senate votes to elect the vice president the winner will be the next president. The Senate vote also ends in a tie; Meyer's disgruntled Vice President Andrew Doyle (Phil Reeves), who did not run for a full term, casts the tiebreaking vote for O'Brien's running mate Laura Montez (Andrea Savage) instead of Meyer's running mate Tom James (Hugh Laurie), leading to Montez becoming president. The sixth season follows Meyer out of office for the first time in the series, as she attempts to ensure her legacy by authoring a memoir, setting up a foundation and attempting to establish a presidential library. At the end of the season, Meyer decides to run for president again. The seventh season sees Meyer attempting to run for president once again in the 2020 election, featuring her former political rivals Ryan and James as major competitors, in addition to introducing the young, likable, and progressive challenger Kemi Talbot (Toks Olagundoye).


title: Veep

text: The series also explores Meyer's personal life, such as her strained relationships with her daughter Catherine (Sarah Sutherland), ex-husband Andrew (David Pasquesi), and several significant others. The lives, careers, and relationships of the other characters are also explored, frequently intersecting with the series' principal narrative, satirizing the political activities and inner workings of the contemporary U.S. government.


title: Veep

text: Before creating "Veep", Scottish satirist Armando Iannucci created the BBC satire comedy "The Thick of It", set in a fictional department of the British government. "The Thick of It" was first broadcast in 2005 and won a number of awards. Iannucci directed a spin-off film, "In the Loop", which was released in 2009 and nominated for the Academy Award for Best Adapted Screenplay.


title: Veep

text: A pilot for an American version of "The Thick of It" was produced as a candidate for the 2007–08 season on ABC. Also titled "The Thick of It", it was developed for American audiences by writers Mitch Hurwitz and Richard Day and followed a low-level member of the United States Congress and his staff. Iannucci had a production credit on the show, but he was not otherwise involved. The pilot was produced by Sony Pictures Television and BBC Worldwide and directed by Christopher Guest.


title: Veep

text: In the pilot, John Michael Higgins played newly-elected Congressman Albert Alger, and Oliver Platt played committee chairman Malcolm Tucker. Rhea Seehorn portrayed Ollie Tadzio, an ambitious young speechwriter, and Michael McKean played Glen Glahm, "a former campaign operative who's now the Chief of Staff" for the congressman.


title: Veep

text: ABC did not pick up the show for its fall 2007 schedule. Iannucci distanced himself from the pilot, stating, "It was terrible...they took the idea and chucked out all the style. It was all conventionally shot and there was no improvisation or swearing. It didn't get picked up, thank God."


title: Veep

text: After "The Thick of It" was dropped by ABC, several networks including HBO, Showtime and NBC expressed interest in adapting the show. Iannucci re-entered talks with HBO (his initial preference) about adapting the series, with the result that a new pilot episode for a series situated in the office of the Vice President of the United States called "Veep" (a nickname derived from the position's initials "VP") was commissioned in late 2009. Iannucci was given much more creative control over the production, and co-wrote the pilot with British comedy writer Simon Blackwell, who also contributed to the British series "The Thick of It".


title: Veep

text: In April 2011, HBO announced that it had ordered "Veep" as a series, and later announced in January 2012 that the series would premiere on April 22, 2012.


title: Veep

text: Directors for Season 1 included Armando Iannucci, Tristram Shapeero and Chris Morris. "Veep" is executive produced by Iannucci, Christopher Godsick and Frank Rich. Co-executive producers are Simon Blackwell, Tony Roche, with Julia Louis-Dreyfus and Stephanie Laing as producers. The series' first four seasons featured an entirely British writing staff, including Iannucci, Blackwell, Roche, Sean Gray, Will Smith, Roger Drew, Ian Martin, Andy Riley, Kevin Cecil, David Quantick, Georgia Pritchett and Jesse Armstrong, among others, many of whom had previously worked with Iannucci on "The Thick of It".


title: Veep

text: Series creator Armando Iannucci departed as showrunner following the fourth season's end of production. Iannucci stated that his continuing busy schedule, as well as the challenge of maintaining his family life while switching between Baltimore and London, would not allow him to "[dedicate] one hundred percent" as head of the show, and he had chosen to "fire" himself as a result. David Mandel took over as showrunner for future episodes, becoming "Veep"'s first American writer. Mandel retained a small number of Iannucci's writing staff, as well as Chris Addison as director and supervising producer, whilst also bringing in his own staff, and American writers.


title: Veep

text: The pilot episode was filmed in February 2011 in Maryland, and filming for the series began in October 2011 in Baltimore, after several months of rehearsal designed to get the actors comfortable improvising with one another. For its first season, "Veep" reportedly hired 978 local Maryland residents, generating $40 million for the state, according to the Maryland Film Office. Season 2 production began shooting in November 2012, continuing to film in Baltimore and other areas of Maryland. "Veep" primarily filmed on a sound stage constructed from a Columbia, Maryland industrial warehouse, where replicas of places such as the Eisenhower Executive Office Building and West Wing were also built. The show continued filming in Maryland for its third and fourth seasons, as a bill was approved by state lawmakers in April 2013 that increased tax credits for film and TV productions in the state. Later filming locations included Annapolis and the Physical Sciences Complex in the University of Maryland, College Park campus.


title: Veep

text: Principal photography moved from Baltimore to Los Angeles in the show's fifth season after being one of a few series to be awarded tax incentives from the California Film Commission, as part of an expanded $330 million California Film Tax Credit program signed by Governor Jerry Brown in 2014. Filming took place for part of the show's fifth season in Washington, D.C., from February 25, 2016, to March 3, 2016. As a result of HBO's Community Impact program, a select number of local D.C. residents also worked on the production during the eight-day film shoot in the area. Areas in D.C. where production was reportedly found filming include the Superior Court, the Spring Valley neighborhood (where Julia Louis-Dreyfus once lived), and Dupont Circle's Kramerbooks independent bookstore. The seventh and final season wrapped filming in December 2018.


title: Veep

text: The first season of "Veep" received generally positive reviews from television critics. Review aggregator site Metacritic gave the season a score of 72 out of 100 based on reviews from 30 critics. The review aggregator website Rotten Tomatoes reported a 78% approval rating with an average rating of 7.2/10 based on 46 reviews. The site's consensus reads, "The jokes are funny and Julia Louis-Dreyfus is great in the lead, but "Veep" is still working to find its voice." Hank Stuever of "The Washington Post" praised the series, writing, "Thanks to Louis-Dreyfus, and the show's remarkable knack for dialogue and timing, "Veep" is instantly engaging and outrageously fun." Rob Brunner of "Entertainment Weekly" gave the season a positive review: "Charmingly goofy as ever, Louis-Dreyfus isn't quite believable as a Vice President – even a sitcom VP whose lack of gravitas is the show's central joke. But she's still a joy to watch, especially when she shows off that famous gift for physical comedy." Maureen Ryan of "The Huffington Post" gave the show a lukewarm review, writing, "Despite the clear talents of the assembled cast, Veep merely reinforces what most people already think and revisits territory many other politically oriented movies and TV shows have thoroughly covered." Brian Lowry of "Variety" gave the show a negative review and said a "show about an always-second office becomes second-tier TV."


title: Veep

text: The second season received acclaim from critics. It averaged a Metacritic score of 75 out of 100 based on reviews from 10 critics. On Rotten Tomatoes, it received an 92% approval rating with an average score of 8.6/10 based on 24 reviews. The site's consensus reads, "In "Veep"s second season, the satire is sharper, the insights are deeper, the tone is more consistent, and the result is a comedy of unexpected heft." David Hiltbrand of "The Philadelphia Inquirer" praised the series saying, "HBO's Veep is the sharpest Beltway satire the medium has ever seen, mostly because it focuses not on the power wielded by politicians, but on their desperate venality". Bruce Miller of "Sioux City Journal" also praised the show, writing: "The show is smart—smarter than most on network television—and it has life."


title: Veep

text: The third season received acclaim from critics. It received a Metacritic score of 86 out of 100 based on 10 reviews. It scored a 100% approval rating on Rotten Tomatoes, with an average rating of 8.6/10 based on 26 reviews. The site's consensus reads, ""Veep" continues its winning streak with a mix of smart comedy, bright performances and a refreshing approach to D.C. politics." Matt Roush of "TV Guide" praised the show, and in a joint review of "Veep" and "Silicon Valley" wrote: "["Silicon Valley" is] paired with the third season of the savagely hilarious "Veep"; this combo promises to be HBO's most robust and certainly most entertaining comedy hour in years." Brandon Nowalk of "The A.V. Club" wrote the show "has become the clearest heir to "30 Rock" and "Arrested Development", and specific bits throughout the season recall both series." Tim Molloy of "TheWrap" praised the cast saying, "The show works because all of its actors seem so human, so likable, despite the words coming from their mouths."


title: Veep

text: The fourth season received acclaim from critics. It received a Metacritic score of 90 out of 100 based on 11 reviews. As with the previous season, "Veep" scored a 100% rating on Rotten Tomatoes, based on 25 reviews, with an average rating of 9.1/10. The site's consensus reads, "Veep shows no signs of slowing down in its fourth season, thanks to sharp, funny, rapid-fire dialogue between POTUS and her hilariously incompetent staff." Tim Goodman of "The Hollywood Reporter" wrote, ""Veep" enters its fourth season, firmly established as one of television's best comedies, and then immediately does what seems impossible—it delivers its most thoroughly assured, hilarious and brilliantly written and acted episodes." Ben Travers of "Indiewire" wrote, ""Veep" is incomparable in comedy" and that "the HBO comedy has crafted a style so unique the series itself is entirely its own beast."


title: Veep

text: The fifth season received acclaim from critics. It received a Metacritic score of 88 out of 100 based on 18 reviews. The season scored a 94% rating on Rotten Tomatoes, based on 36 reviews, with an average rating of 8.7/10. The site's consensus reads, "Thanks to the spot-on comedic prowess of Julia Louis-Dreyfus and company "Veep" is back with as many laughs and expletive-filled absurdities as ever." Tim Goodman of "The Hollywood Reporter" wrote that ""Veep" doesn't just feel like it's firing on all cylinders, it feels invigorated and out to prove something", while Kevin Sullivan of "Entertainment Weekly" wrote that "in the switch to new showrunner David Mandel, the state of "Veep" is strong".


title: Veep

text: The sixth season received critical acclaim. On Metacritic, it has a score of 88 out of 100 based on 15 reviews, indicating "universal acclaim". It has a 94% rating on Rotten Tomatoes based on 36 reviews with an average score of 8.2/10. The site's critical consensus reads, "A move from the White House hasn't dulled "Veep"s razor-sharp satirical edge, thanks to Julia Louis-Dreyfus and her castmates' deft comic chemistry."


title: Veep

text: The seventh season received critical acclaim. On Metacritic, it has a score of 87 out of 100 based on 21 reviews, indicating "universal acclaim". It has a 97% rating on Rotten Tomatoes based on 59 reviews with an average score of 8.9/10. The site's critical consensus reads, "Brash and bonkers as ever, "Veep" bows out with an unapologetically absurd final season that solidifies its status as one of TV's greatest comedies."


title: Veep

text: Through its seven seasons, "Veep" has received critical acclaim and won several major awards, including seventeen Primetime Emmy Awards, two Critics' Choice Television Awards, a Peabody Award, four Screen Actors Guild Awards, two Television Critics Association Awards, three Directors Guild of America Awards and three Writers Guild of America Awards.


title: San Francisco Bay Area

text: The San Francisco Bay Area, often referred to as simply the Bay Area, is a populous region surrounding the San Francisco, San Pablo, and Suisun Bay estuaries in Northern California. The Bay Area is defined by the Association of Bay Area Governments to include the nine counties that border the aforementioned estuaries: Alameda, Contra Costa, Marin, Napa, San Mateo, Santa Clara, Solano, Sonoma, and San Francisco. Other definitions may be either smaller or larger, and may include neighboring counties that do not border the bay such as Santa Cruz and San Benito (more often included in the Central Coast regions); or San Joaquin, Merced, and Stanislaus (more often included in the Central Valley). The core cities of the Bay Area are San Francisco, San Jose, and Oakland.


title: San Francisco Bay Area

text: Home to approximately 7.76 million people, Northern California's nine-county Bay Area contains many cities, towns, airports, and associated regional, state, and national parks, connected by a complex multimodal transportation network. The Bay Area is known for its natural beauty, progressive politics, world-class universities, technology companies, and affluence. The larger federal classification, the combined statistical area of the region which includes fourteen counties, is the second-largest in California (after the Greater Los Angeles area), the fifth-largest in the United States, and the 41st-largest urban area in the world with 9.67 million people. The Bay Area's population is ethnically diverse: roughly three-fifths of the region's residents are Hispanic, Asian, African American, or Pacific Islander (with the other two-fifths being non-Hispanic White American), all of whom have a significant presence throughout the region.


title: San Francisco Bay Area

text: The earliest archaeological evidence of human settlements in the Bay Area dates back to 8000–10,000 BCE (from shell mounds in the Coyote Hills). In 1769, the Bay Area was inhabited by Ohlone people when a Spanish exploration party led by Gaspar de Portolá entered the Bay – the first documented European visit to the Bay Area. After Mexico established independence from Spain in 1821, the region was briefly controlled by the Mexican government until the United States seized the territory in 1846 during the Mexican–American War. Soon after, discovery of gold in California attracted a flood of treasure seekers, many using ports in the Bay Area as an entry point. During the early years of California's statehood, state legislative business rotated between three locations in the Bay Area before a permanent state capital was established in Sacramento. A major earthquake leveled the city of San Francisco and environs in 1906, but the region quickly rebuilt in time to host the 1915 Panama-Pacific Exposition. During World War II, the Bay Area played a major role in America's war effort in the Asiatic-Pacific Theater, with the San Francisco Port of Embarkation, of which Fort Mason was one of fourteen installations and location of the headquarters, acting as a primary embarkation point for American forces. In 1945, the United Nations Charter was signed in San Francisco, establishing the United Nations, and in 1951, the Treaty of San Francisco re-established peaceful relations between Japan and the Allied Powers. Since then, the Bay Area has experienced numerous political, cultural and artistic movements, developing unique local genres in music and art and establishing itself as a hotbed of progressive politics. Economically, the post-war Bay Area saw huge growth in the financial and technology industries, creating an economy with a gross domestic product of over $700 billion, and home to the third-highest concentration of Fortune 500 companies in the United States (as of 2018).


title: San Francisco Bay Area

text: Despite its urban character, the San Francisco Bay is one of California's most ecologically important habitats, providing key ecosystem services such as filtering pollutants and sediments from the rivers and supporting a number of endangered species. In addition, the Bay is known for its stands of coast redwoods, many of which are protected in state and county parks. The region is additionally known for the complexity of its landforms, the result of millions of years of tectonic plate movements. Because the Bay Area is crossed by six major earthquake faults, the region is particularly exposed to hazards presented by large earthquakes. The climate is temperate and generally very mild, and is conducive to outdoor recreational and athletic activities such as hiking, running, and cycling. The Bay Area is host to six professional sports teams and is a cultural center for music, theater, and the arts. It is also host to higher education institutions, including research universities such as Stanford University and the University of California, Berkeley. Home to 101 municipalities and nine counties, governance in the Bay Area involves numerous local and regional jurisdictions, often with broad and overlapping responsibilities. Over time, droughts and wildfires have increased in frequency and become less seasonal and more year-round, further straining the region's water security.


title: San Francisco Bay Area

text: The borders of the San Francisco Bay Area are not officially delineated, and the unique development patterns influenced by the region's topography, as well as unusual commute patterns caused by the presence of three central cities and employment centers located in various suburban locales, has led to considerable disagreement between local and federal definitions of the area. Because of this, professor of geography at the University of California, Berkeley Richard Walker claimed that "no other U.S. city-region is as definitionally challenged [as the Bay Area]."


title: San Francisco Bay Area

text: When the region began to rapidly develop during and immediately after World War II, local planners settled on a nine-county definition for the Bay Area, consisting of the counties that directly border the San Francisco, San Pablo, and Suisun estuaries: Alameda, Contra Costa, Marin, Napa, San Francisco, San Mateo, Santa Clara, Solano, and Sonoma counties. Today, this definition is accepted by most local governmental agencies including San Francisco Regional Water Quality Control Board, Bay Area Air Quality Management District, the San Francisco Bay Restoration Authority, the Metropolitan Transportation Commission, and the Association of Bay Area Governments, the latter two of which partner to deliver a Bay Area Census using the nine-county definition.


title: San Francisco Bay Area

text: Various U.S. Federal government agencies use definitions that differ from their local counterparts' nine-county definition. For example, the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) which regulates broadcast, cable, and satellite transmissions, includes nearby Colusa, Lake and Mendocino counties in their "San Francisco-Oakland-San Jose" media market, but excludes eastern Solano county. On the other hand, the United States Office of Management and Budget, which designates metropolitan statistical areas (MSAs) and combined statistical areas (CSA) for populated regions across the country, has five MSAs which include, wholly or partially, areas within the nine-county definition, and one CSA which includes all nine counties plus neighboring San Benito, Santa Cruz, San Joaquin, Merced, and Stanislaus counties.


title: San Francisco Bay Area

text: The Association of Bay Area Health Officers (ABAHO), which is an organization that has fought local outbreaks of AIDS, consists of the public health officers of the nine Bay Area counties plus Santa Cruz, Monterey, and San Benito counties outside of this region and the city of Berkeley.


title: San Francisco Bay Area

text: Among locals, the nine-county Bay Area can be further divided into five sub-regions: the East Bay, North Bay, South Bay, Peninsula, and the city of San Francisco. Although geographically located on the tip of the San Francisco Peninsula, the city of San Francisco is not considered part of the "Peninsula" subregion, but as a separate entity.


title: San Francisco Bay Area

text: The "East Bay" is the densest region of the Bay Area outside of San Francisco and includes cities and towns in Alameda and Contra Costa counties centered around Oakland. As one of the larger subregions, the East Bay includes a variety of enclaves, including the suburban Tri-Valley area and the highly urban western part of the subregion that runs alongside the bay. The "Peninsula" subregion includes the cities and towns on the San Francisco Peninsula, excluding the titular city of San Francisco. Its eastern half, which runs alongside the Bay, is highly populated, while its less populated western coast traces the coastline of the Pacific Ocean and is known for its open space and hiking trails. Roughly coinciding with the borders of San Mateo County, it also includes the northwestern Santa Clara County cities of Palo Alto, Mountain View, and Los Altos. The "South Bay" includes all of the rest of the cities in Santa Clara County, centered around San Jose, the largest city in Northern California. It is roughly synonymous with Silicon Valley due to its high concentration of tech companies, although the industry also has a significant presence in the rest of the Bay Area. The "North Bay" includes Marin, Sonoma, Napa, and Solano counties, and is the largest and least populated subregion. The western counties of Marin and Sonoma are encased by the Pacific Ocean on the west and the bay on the east and are characterized by its mountainous and woody terrain. Sonoma and Napa counties are known internationally for their grape vineyards and wineries, and Solano County to the east, centered around Vallejo, is the fastest growing region in the Bay Area.


title: San Francisco Bay Area

text: The earliest archaeological evidence of human habitation of the Bay Area dates to around 10,000 B.C. (Coyote Hills Shell Mound) along the shores of the bay, with evidence pointing to even earlier settlement in Point Reyes in Marin County. The Miwokan and Costanoan Ohlone people, who were living in the Bay Area at the time of first European contact, were possibly descended from Siberian tribes who arrived at around 1,000 BC by sailing over the Arctic Ocean and following the salmon migration. The Ohlone lived in about forty or so tribes spread throughout the lands adjacent to the San Francisco Bay and as far south as Point Sur near Monterey Bay.


title: San Francisco Bay Area

text: The first European claim to any of the area occurred in June 1579 when Sir Francis Drake landed at Drakes Bay near Point Reyes. Even though he claimed the region for Queen Elizabeth I as "Nova Albion" or New Albion the English made no immediate follow up to the claim. In November 1595, a Spanish exploration party led by Sebastião Rodrigues Soromenho also landed at Drakes Bay and claimed the region for Spain's King Philip II as "Puerto y Bahía de San Francisco".


title: San Francisco Bay Area

text: The San Francisco Bay itself remained undiscovered by Europeans until members of the Portolá expedition, while trekking along the California coast, encountered it in 1769 when the bay blocked their continued journey north. In 1806, a Spanish expedition led by Gabriel Moraga began at the Presidio, traveled south of the bay, and then east to explore the San Joaquin Valley. In 1821, Mexico gained its independence from Spain and the Bay Area became part of the Mexican province of Alta California, a period characterized by ranch life and visiting American trappers. Mexico's control of the territory would be short-lived, however, and in 1846 a party of settlers occupied Sonoma Plaza and proclaimed the independence of the new Republic of California. That same year, the Mexican–American War began, and American captain John Berrien Montgomery sailed the into the bay and seized San Francisco, which was then known as Yerba Buena, and raised the American flag for the first time over Portsmouth Square.


title: San Francisco Bay Area

text: In 1848, James W. Marshall's discovery of gold in the American River sparked the California Gold Rush, and within half a year 4,000 men were panning for gold along the river and finding $50,000 per day. The promise of fabulous riches quickly led to a stampede of wealth-seekers descending on Sutter's Mill. The Bay Area's population quickly emptied out as laborers, clerks, waiters, and servants joined the rush to find gold, and California's first newspaper, "The Californian", was forced to announce a temporary freeze in new issues due to labor shortages. By the end of 1849, news had spread across the world and newcomers flooded into the Bay Area at a rate of one thousand per week on their way to California's interior, including the first large influx of Chinese immigrants to the U.S. The rush was so great that vessels were abandoned by the hundreds in San Francisco's ports as crews rushed to the goldfields. The unprecedented influx of new arrivals spread the nascent government authorities thin, and the military was unable to prevent desertions. As a result, numerous vigilante groups formed to provide order, but many tasked themselves with forcibly moving or killing local Native Americans, and by the end of the Gold Rush, two thirds of the indigenous population had been killed.


title: San Francisco Bay Area

text: During this same time, a constitutional convention was called to determine California's application for statehood into the United States. After statehood was granted, the capital city moved between three cities in the Bay Area: San Jose (1849–1851), Vallejo (1851–1852), and Benicia (1852–1853) before permanently settling in Sacramento in 1854. As the Gold Rush wound down, wealth generated from the endeavor led to the establishment of Wells Fargo Bank and the Bank of California, and immigrant laborers attracted by the promise of wealth transformed the demographic makeup of the region. Construction of the First transcontinental railroad from the Oakland Long Wharf attracted so many laborers from China that by 1870, eight percent of San Francisco's population was of Asian origin. The completion of the railroad connected the Bay Area with the rest of the United States, established a truly national marketplace for the trade of goods, and accelerated the urbanization of the region.


title: San Francisco Bay Area

text: In the early morning of April 18, 1906, a large earthquake with an epicenter near the city of San Francisco hit the region. Immediate casualty estimates by the U.S. Army's relief operations were 498 deaths in San Francisco, 64 deaths in Santa Rosa, and 102 in or near San Jose, for a total of about 700. More recent studies estimate the total death count to be over 3,000, with over 28,000 buildings destroyed. Rebuilding efforts began immediately. Amadeo Peter Giannini, owner of the Bank of Italy (now known as the Bank of America), had managed to retrieve the money from his bank's vaults before fires broke out through the city and was the only bank with liquid funds readily available and was instrumental in loaning out funds for rebuilding efforts. Congress immediately approved plans for a reservoir in Hetch Hetchy Valley in Yosemite National Park, a plan they had denied a few years earlier, which now provides drinking water for 2.4 million people in the Bay Area. By 1915, the city had been sufficiently rebuilt and advertised itself to the world during the Panama Pacific Exposition that year, although the effects of the quake hastened the loss of the region's dominant status in California to the Los Angeles metropolitan area.


title: San Francisco Bay Area

text: During the 1929 stock market crash and subsequent economic depression, not a single San Francisco-based bank failed, while the region attempted to spur job growth by simultaneously undertaking two large infrastructure projects: construction of the Golden Gate Bridge, which would connect San Francisco with Marin County, and the Bay Bridge, which would connect San Francisco with Oakland and the East Bay. After the United States joined World War II in 1941, the Bay Area became a major domestic military and naval hub, with large shipyards constructed in Sausalito and across the East Bay to build ships for the war effort. The Army's San Francisco Port of Embarkation was the primary origin for Army forces shipping out to the Pacific Theater of Operations. That command consisted of fourteen installations including Fort Mason, the Oakland Army Base, Camp Stoneman and Fort McDowell in San Francisco Bay and the sub port of Los Angeles.


title: San Francisco Bay Area

text: After the war, the United Nations was chartered in San Francisco to help prevent the kind of devastation that occurred over the past decade, and in September 1951, the Treaty of San Francisco to re-establish peaceful relations between Japan and the Allied Powers was signed in San Francisco, entering into force a year later. In the years immediately following the war, the Bay Area saw a huge wave of immigration as populations increased across the region. Between 1950 and 1960, San Francisco welcomed over 100,000 new residents, inland suburbs in the East Bay saw their populations double, Daly City's population quadrupled, and Santa Clara's population quintupled.


title: San Francisco Bay Area

text: By the early 1960s, the Bay Area and the rest of Northern California became the center of the counterculture movement. Telegraph Avenue in Berkeley and the Haight-Ashbury neighborhood in San Francisco were seen as centers of activity, with the hit American pop song "San Francisco (Be Sure to Wear Flowers in Your Hair)" further enticing like-minded individuals to join the movement in the Bay Area and leading to the Summer of Love. In the proceeding decades, the Bay Area would cement itself as a hotbed of New Left activism, student activism, opposition to the Vietnam War and other anti-war movements, the black power movement, and the gay rights movement. At the same time, San Jose and the rest of the South Bay began to rapidly develop as it began to transition from a largely agricultural-based economy into the hotbed of the high-tech industry. Fred Terman, the director of a top-secret research project at Harvard University during World War II, joined the faculty at Stanford University in order to reshape the university's engineering department. His students, including David Packard and William Hewlett, would later help usher in the region's high-tech revolution. In 1955, Shockley Semiconductor Laboratory opened for business near Stanford, and although the business venture was a financial failure, it was the first semiconductor company in the Bay Area, and the talent that it attracted to the region eventually led to a high-tech cluster of companies later known as Silicon Valley.


title: San Francisco Bay Area

text: In 1989, in the middle of the World Series match between two Bay Area baseball teams, the Loma Prieta earthquake struck and caused widespread infrastructural damage, including the failure of the Bay Bridge, a major link between San Francisco and Oakland. Even so, the Bay Area's technology industry continued to expand and growth in Silicon Valley accelerated that the United States census confirmed that year that San Jose had overtaken San Francisco in terms of population. The commercialization of the Internet in the middle of the decade rapidly created a speculative bubble in the high-tech economy known as the dot-com bubble. This bubble began collapsing in the early 2000s and the industry continued contracting for the next few years, nearly wiping out the market. Companies like Amazon.com and Google managed to weather the crash however, and following the industry's return to normalcy, their market value increased significantly.


title: San Francisco Bay Area

text: Even as the growth of the technology sector transformed the region's economy, progressive politics continued to guide the region's political environment. By the turn of the millennium, non-Hispanic whites, the largest ethnic group in the United States, were only half of the population in the Bay Area as immigration among minority groups accelerated. During this time, the Bay Area was the center of the LGBT rights movement: in 2004, San Francisco began issuing marriage licenses to same-sex couples, a first in the United States, and four years later a majority of voters in the Bay Area rejected California Proposition 8, which sought to constitutionally restrict marriage to opposite-sex couples but ultimately passed statewide. The Bay Area was also the center of contentious protests concerning racial and economic inequality. In 2009, an African-American man named Oscar Grant was fatally shot by Bay Area Rapid Transit police officers, precipitating widespread protests across the region and even riots in Oakland. His name was symbolically tied to the Occupy Oakland protests two years later that sought to fight against social and economic inequality.


title: San Francisco Bay Area

text: Following the Inauguration of Donald Trump as President of the United States in 2017, the Bay Area became a center of resistance to his administration, beginning with widespread protests in concert with the nationwide Women's March a day later, followed by frequent public feuds between Trump and various Bay Area political, cultural, and business figures over issues of race and immigration.


title: San Francisco Bay Area

text: In March 2020, in response to the COVID-19 pandemic, all residents of 6 Bay Area counties were required by local health authorities to stay-at-home orders under a shelter-in-place, the first such order issued in the United States. Residents who were found outside and were not homeless, seeking emergency or health relief, or getting essential products such as food, were committing misdemeanors under to the order. The order was later expanded to cover the entire state of California three days later. In late 2020, protests over the murder of George Floyd took place in the city from May 28 into October.


title: San Francisco Bay Area

text: The Bay Area is located in the warm-summer Mediterranean climate zone (Köppen "Csb") that is a characteristic of California's coast, featuring mild to cool winters with occasional rainfall, and warm to hot, dry summers. It is largely influenced by the cold California Current, which penetrates the natural mountainous barrier along the coast by traveling through various gaps. In terms of precipitation, this means that the Bay Area has pronounced seasons. The winter season, which roughly runs between November and March, is the source of about 82% of annual precipitation in the area. In the South Bay and further inland, while the winter season is cool and mild, the summer season is characterized by warm sunny days, while in San Francisco and areas closer to the Golden Gate strait, the summer season is periodically affected by fog.


title: San Francisco Bay Area

text: Due to the Bay Area's diverse topography, the result of the clashing tectonic plates, the region is home to numerous microclimates that lead to pronounced differences in climate and temperature over short distances. Within the city of San Francisco, natural and artificial topographical features direct the movement of wind and fog, resulting in startlingly varied climates between city blocks. Along the Golden Gate Strait, oceanic wind and fog from the Pacific Ocean are able to penetrate the mountain barriers inland into the Bay Area. During the summer, rising hot air in California's interior valleys creates a low pressure area that draws winds from the North Pacific High through the Golden Gate, which creates the city's characteristic cool winds and fog. The microclimate phenomenon is most pronounced during this time, when fog penetration is at its maximum in areas near the Golden Gate strait, while the South Bay and areas further inland are sunny and dry.


title: San Francisco Bay Area

text: Along the San Francisco peninsula, gaps in the Santa Cruz Mountains, one south of San Bruno Mountain and another in Crystal Springs, allow oceanic weather into the interior, causing a cooling effect for cities along the Peninsula and even as far south as San Jose. This weather pattern is also the source for delays at San Francisco International Airport. In Marin county north of the Golden Gate strait, two gaps north of Muir Woods bring cold air across the Marin Headlands, with the cooling effect reaching as far north as Santa Rosa. Further inland, the East Bay receives oceanic weather that travels through the Golden Gate strait, and further diffuses that air through the Berkeley Hills, Niles Canyon and the Hayward Pass into the Livermore Valley and Altamont Pass. Here, the resulting breeze is so strong that it is home to one of the world's largest array of wind turbines. Further north, the Carquinez Strait funnels the ocean weather into the San Joaquin River Delta, causing a cooling effect in Stockton and Sacramento, so that these cities are also cooler than their Central Valley counterparts in the south.


title: San Francisco Bay Area

text: The Bay Area is home to a diverse array of wildlife and, along with the connected San Joaquin River Delta represents one of California's most important ecological habitats. California's Dungeness crab, Pacific halibut, and the California scorpionfish are all significant components of the bay's fisheries. The bay's salt marshes now represent most of California's remaining salt marsh and support a number of endangered species and provide key ecosystem services such as filtering pollutants and sediments from the rivers. Most famously, the bay is a key link in the Pacific Flyway and with millions of shorebirds annually visiting the bay shallows as a refuge, is the most important component of the flyway south of Alaska. Many endangered species of birds are also found here: the California least tern, the California clapper rail, the snowy egret, and the black crowned night heron.


title: San Francisco Bay Area

text: There is also a significant diversity of salmonids present in the bay. Steelhead populations in California have dramatically declined due to human and natural causes; in the Bay Area, all naturally spawned anadromous steelhead populations below natural and manmade impassable barriers in California streams from the Russian River to Aptos Creek, and the drainages of San Francisco, San Pablo, and Suisun Bays are listed as threatened under the Federal Endangered Species Act. The Central California Coast coho salmon population is the most endangered of the many troubled salmon populations on the west coast of the United States, including populations residing in tributaries to the San Francisco Bay. California Coast Chinook salmon were historically native to the Guadalupe River in San Francisco Bay, and Chinook salmon runs persist today in the Guadalupe River, Coyote Creek, Napa River, and Walnut Creek. Industrial, mining, and other uses of mercury have resulted in a widespread distribution of that poisonous metal in the bay, with uptake in the bay's phytoplankton and contamination of its sportfish.


title: San Francisco Bay Area

text: Aquatic mammals are also present in the bay. Before 1825, Spanish, French, English, Russians and Americans were drawn to the Bay Area to harvest prodigious quantities of beaver, river otter, marten, fisher, mink, fox, weasel, harbor and fur seals and sea otter. This early fur trade, known as the California Fur Rush, was more than any other single factor, responsible for opening up the West and the San Francisco Bay Area, in particular, to world trade. By 1817 sea otter in the area were practically eliminated. Since then, the California golden beaver re-established a presence in Alhambra Creek, followed by the Napa River and Sonoma Creek in the north Bay, and the Guadalupe River and Coyote Creek in the south Bay. The North American river otter which was first reported in Redwood Creek at Muir Beach in 1996, has since been spotted in the North Bay's Corte Madera Creek, the South Bay's Coyote Creek, as well as in 2010 in San Francisco Bay itself at the Richmond Marina. Other mammals include the internationally famous sea lions who began inhabiting San Francisco's Pier 39 after the 1989 Loma Prieta earthquake and the locally famous Humphrey the Whale, a humpback whale who entered San Francisco Bay twice on errant migrations in the late 1980s and early 1990s. Bottlenose dolphins and harbor porpoises have recently returned to the bay, having been absent for many decades. Historically, this was the northern extent of their warm-water species range.


title: San Francisco Bay Area

text: In addition to the many species of marine birds that can be seen in the Bay Area, many other species of birds make the Bay Area their home, making the region a popular destination for birdwatching. Many birds, including many described in the following paragraphs, are listed as endangered species despite once being common in the region, due to human and other factors.


title: San Francisco Bay Area

text: Western burrowing owls were originally listed as a species of special concern by the California Department of Fish and Game in 1979. California's population declined 60% from the 1980s to the early 1990s, and continues to decline at roughly 8% per year. A 1992–93 survey reported little to no breeding burrowing owls in most of the western counties in the Bay Area, leaving only Alameda, Contra Costa, and Solano counties as remnants of a once large breeding range. Bald eagles were once common in the Bay Area, but habitat destruction and thinning of eggs from DDT poisoning reduced the California state population to 35 nesting pairs. Bald eagles disappeared from the Bay Area in 1915, and only began returning in recent years. In the 1980s an effort to re-introduce the species to the area began with the Santa Cruz Predatory Bird Research Group and the San Francisco Zoo importing birds and eggs from Vancouver Island and northeastern California, and there are now nineteen nesting couples in eight of the Bay Area's nine counties. Other once absent species that have returned to the Bay Area include Swainson’s hawk, white tailed kite, and the osprey.


title: San Francisco Bay Area

text: In 1927, zoologist Joseph Grinnell wrote that osprey were only rare visitors to the San Francisco Bay Area, although he noted records of one or two used nests in the broken tops of redwood trees along the Russian River. In 1989, the southern breeding range of the osprey in the Bay Area was Kent Lake, although osprey were noted to be extending their range further south in the Central Valley and the Sierra Nevada. In 2014, a Bay Area-wide survey found osprey had extended their breeding range southward with nesting sites as far south as Hunters Point in San Francisco on the west side and Hayward on the east side, while further studies have found nesting sites as far south as the Los Gatos Creek watershed, indicating that the nesting range now includes the entire length of San Francisco Bay. Most nests were built on man-made structures close to areas of human disturbance, likely due to lack of mature trees near the Bay. The wild turkey population was introduced in the 1960s by state game officials, and by 2015 have become a common sight in East Bay communities.


title: San Francisco Bay Area

text: The Bay Area is well known for the complexity of its landforms that are the result of the forces of plate tectonics acting over of millions of years, since the region is located in the middle of a meeting point between two plates. Nine out of eleven distinct "assemblages" have been identified in a single county, Alameda. Diverse assemblages adjoin in complex arrangements due to offsets along the many faults (both active and stable) in the area. As a consequence, many types of rock and soil are found in the region. The oldest rocks are metamorphic rocks that are associated with granite in the Salinian Block west of the San Andreas fault. These were formed from sedimentary rocks of sandstone, limestone, and shale in uplifted seabeds. Volcanic deposits also exist in the Bay Area, left behind by the movement of the San Andreas fault, whose movement sliced a subduction plate and allowed magma to briefly flow to the surface.