title: Gulf Cartel

text: In the United States, the Gulf Cartel has been responsible for several kidnappings, primarily in the McAllen metropolitan area. Investigators believe that more unreported kidnappings have occurred in nearby locations. When victims are kidnapped by the drug cartels on American territory, kidnappers usually hide them in the trunk of a car and take them to Mexico. FBI investigators said that victims are "kidnapped, threatened, assaulted, drugged and transported into Mexico to meet with Cartel members." Reports indicated that kidnappers working for the Gulf Cartel train with paintball equipment "to practice simulated kidnapping schemes in order to prepare for the actual kidnapping they intended to commit." In one reported incident, Isaac Sanchez Gutierrez, a man from Palmview, Texas, said he faced an ultimatum: pay $10 million to the Gulf Cartel, or transport 50 drug loads from Mexico into the U.S. in order to free his kidnapped brother.


title: Gulf Cartel

text: Before 2010, it was not clear whether the Gulf Cartel controls the human trafficking business in its territory or whether it simply taxes operators for using their smuggling corridors. "La Jornada" mentioned that before the rupture with Los Zetas in 2007, the corridor of Reynosa, Tamaulipas was often used for human smuggling. People smuggling is currently controlled by a cell within the Gulf Cartel known as "Los Flacos", dedicated to the kidnapping and smuggling of undocumented migrants as far as South America to the United States. It operates primarily on the Tabasco–Veracruz–Tamaulipas corridor. Human trafficking in the Rio Grande Valley has become "ground zero" and was considered the "new Arizona" in December 2011 by the "Homeland Security Today".


title: Gulf Cartel

text: A U.S. agent mentioned that the drug cartels that operate on the Mexico–United States border, and principally across from Texas, are "in control of not only the narcotrafficking, but also the human smuggling."


title: Gulf Cartel

text: In August 2007, "La Maña" gang, an alleged sub-group of the criminal group Los Zetas and the Gulf Cartel, was reported to have controlled the extortion business in Matamoros, Tamaulipas. The newspaper "La Vanguardia" mentioned that the Gulf Cartel receives "large sums of money by extorting businesses" all around Tamaulipas. Many of the extortions are first carried out on the phone. -->


title: Gulf Cartel

text: Critics say that the strategy of capturing drug kingpins often resulted in the increase in extortion, as the cartels look for other sources of money.


title: Gulf Cartel

text: When the Gulf Cartel was moving tons of cocaine to the United States and moving millions of dollars in cash along the border in the 1970s, Juan García Ábrego decided that he needed more protection. Court documents indicated that García Ábrego was bribing several law enforcement officials, prosecutors, and politicians on both sides on the border to keep himself impune and untouched. His former friends and associates mentioned that the drug lord was paying one of Carlos Salinas de Gortari's deputy attorneys general more than $1.5 million a month for his protection. He is allegedly reported to have been protected by a large private army of gunmen. A retired FBI agent and expert in drug trafficking explained that the Gulf Cartel "relied on bribery" to build its drug empire and consolidate its prominence.


title: Gulf Cartel

text: FBI agents have claimed that the Gulf Cartel moves millions of dollars in cash through the Rio Grande Valley each month, a tempting amount for many U.S. officials. Much of the money stays in the area, which has caused several officials—both federal and state—to succumb to the "easy money aspect" the drug money has to offer. The Gulf Cartel also bribes journalists to persuade them not to mention any violent incidents in the media. In addition, due to the low-paying salaries of many policemen, the Gulf Cartel often "buys" many law enforcement officers in Mexico.


title: Gulf Cartel

text: Stealing oil from PEMEX and selling it illegally has been one of the many funding activities of the Gulf Cartel. They were reported to have stolen around 40% of the oil products in 2011 in northern Mexico and then selling it illegally in Mexico and in the American black market. One leader of the Gulf Cartel confessed after his apprehension that "drug trafficking is their main business, but due to the difficulties they have been encountering, oil theft has been an important financial cushion" for the cartel. They have also been reported to steal vehicles.


title: Gulf Cartel

text: Some of the revenue of the Gulf Cartel is often laundered in several bank accounts, properties, vehicles, and gasoline stations. Bars and casinos are often the hubs for money laundering of the drug cartels. Top leaders of the Gulf organization, like Juan García Ábrego, Osiel Cárdenas Guillén, Jorge Eduardo Costilla Sánchez and Antonio Cárdenas Guillén, among others, have been charged by the U.S. government for laundering millions of dollars. Bank accounts inside the United States also launder millions of dollars for the drug lords of the Gulf Cartel. "The Economist" mentioned in 1997 that the drug money from the Gulf Cartel in the Rio Grande Valley was perhaps moving about $20 billion, and that around 15% of the retailers' gains were from drug money.


title: Gulf Cartel

text: For the most part, the arms trafficking circles of the Gulf Cartel operate directly across the border in the United States, just like most of the criminal groups in Mexico. Nonetheless, there are indeed circles within the Gulf Cartel that coordinate the arms trafficking routes inside Mexico. Arms trafficking from the U.S. to Mexico, however, is often carried out individually, and there is no criminal group in Mexico or an international organization that is solely dedicated to this activity.


title: Gulf Cartel

text: Jesús Enrique Rejón Aguilar, a top-tier Los Zetas boss, was caught on 3 July 2011, and claimed in an interview that was aired on national television that the Gulf Cartel, unlike Los Zetas, has an "easier and quicker access to arms in the United States", and probably works "with some people in the government" to traffic weapons south of the U.S. border.


title: Gulf Cartel

text: Prostitution circles are believed to be used by the Gulf Cartel to persuade journalists to favor them in the media. Prostitutes are also used as informants and spies, and provide their sexual favors to extract information from certain targets.


title: Gulf Cartel

text: The Mexican criminal organizations like the Gulf Cartel launder money through counterfeiting, since they are free from taxes and more accessible to people who cannot buy original products. The products sold can be clothing, TVs, video games, music, computer programs, and movies. In 2008 in the state of Michoacán, the Gulf Cartel was reported to have controlled the counterfeit business, where it produced and sold millions of fake CDs and movies.


title: Gulf Cartel

text: Reports indicate that gunmen from the Gulf Cartel often impersonate law enforcement officers, using military uniforms to confuse rival drug gangs and move freely through city streets.


title: Gulf Cartel

text: Due to the Gulf Cartel's territory in northern Tamaulipas, primarily in the border cities of Reynosa and Matamoros, they have been able to establish a sophisticated and extensive drug trafficking and distribution network along the U.S.–Mexico border in South Texas. The Mexican drug cartels that operate in the area are currently employing gang members to distribute drugs and conduct other criminal activities on their behalf. Among these gangs, that range from street gangs to prison gangs, are the Texas Syndicate, the Latin Kings, the Mexican Mafia, Puro Tango Blast (Vallucos), the Hermandad de Pistoleros Latinos, and the Tri-City Bombers—all based in the Rio Grande Valley and Webb County, Texas.


title: Gulf Cartel

text: While the entire Mexico–United States border has experienced high levels of drug trafficking and other illegal smuggling activities for decades, this activity tends to be concentrated in certain sectors within Texas. Two such sectors are the Rio Grande Valley and West Texas, near the El Paso–Juárez metropolitan area. The high level of legitimate travel and movement of goods and services between border cities in the U.S. and Mexico facilitates the drug business in the area. The majority of the commerce between the United States and Mexico passes through the state of Texas. Due to its multifaceted transportation networks and proximity to major production areas right across the border in Mexico, Texas is a major hub for drug trafficking. According to the National Drug Intelligence Center, drug traffickers commonly use private vehicles and commercial trucks to traffic narcotics throughout the state. The drug organizations usually use the Interstates 10, 20, 25, 30, and 35, as well as U.S. Highways 59, 77, 83, and 281. The Gulf of Mexico also presents a danger to the flow of drugs to Texas; the Port of Houston and the Port of Brownsville enable traffickers to use small vessels and pleasure craft to transport illicit drugs into and from southern Texas.


title: Gulf Cartel

text: Illicit drugs also are smuggled into and through Texas via commercial aircraft, cars, buses, passenger trains, pedestrians, and package delivery services. Narcotics are also smuggled through the railroads that connect the U.S. and Mexico. Moreover, the Mexican drug traffickers often use small boats to transport drugs through the coastal areas of South Texas, usually operating at night to prevent them from being spotted by law enforcement officials. Another avenue that they have implemented is to construct tunnels to get their product across the border. By constructing a tunnel, the cartel can get their product across the tight border security with the possibility of no detection. Apart from using these common ways, once the product is across the border, common cars and trucks are used for faster distribution in different cities. To use the seas, the cartel also implemented the use of narco submarines.


title: Gulf Cartel

text: On 21 July 2009, the United States DEA announced coordinated actions against the Gulf Cartel and Los Zetas drug trafficking organizations. Antonio Cárdenas Guillén, Jorge Eduardo Costilla Sánchez, Heriberto Lazcano Lazcano and 15 of their top lieutenants, have been charged in U.S. federal courts with drug trafficking-related crimes, while the U.S. State Department announced rewards totaling US$50 million for information leading to their capture.


title: Gulf Cartel

text: In May 2013, Aurelio Cano Flores (alias "El Yankee") was sentenced to 35 years in prison for conspiring to import multi-ton quantities of marijuana and cocaine into the United States. Cano Flores, also known as "Yeyo", was a former Mexican police officer and is the highest-ranking Gulf Cartel member to be convicted by a U.S. jury in 15 years.


title: Gulf Cartel

text: On 30 June 2019, Mario Alberto Cárdenas Medina, the son of Osiel's brother Mario, was arrested in the state of Mexico. He was arrested with a female companion identified as Miriam "M" and is accused of being responsible for recent violence in Tamaulipas


title: Gulf Cartel

text: In (2018) the CIA framed the “Matamoros Cartel” for killing the antagonist’s men to intentionally start a cartel war between rivals.


title: Gulf Cartel

text: The Gulf Cartel during the late 1980s and early 1990s era is briefly portrayed in Netflix’s "" series (2018 - 2021) with Mexican actor Jesús Ochoa playing Juan Nepomuceno Guerra and Flavio Medina playing as nephew Juan García Ábrego.


title: Homo habilis

text: Homo habilis ("handy man") is an extinct species of archaic human from the Early Pleistocene of East and South Africa about 2.31 million years ago to 1.65 million years ago (mya). Upon species description in 1964, "H. habilis" was highly contested, with many researchers recommending it be synonymised with "Australopithecus africanus", the only other early hominin known at the time, but "H. habilis" received more recognition as time went on and more relevant discoveries were made. By the 1980s, "H. habilis" was proposed to have been a human ancestor, directly evolving into "Homo erectus" which directly led to modern humans. This viewpoint is now debated. Several specimens with insecure species identification were assigned to "H. habilis", leading to arguments for splitting, namely into ""H. rudolfensis"" and ""H. gautengensis"" of which only the former has received wide support.


title: Homo habilis

text: Like contemporary "Homo", "H. habilis" brain size generally varied from . The body proportions of "H. habilis" are only known from two highly fragmentary skeletons, and is based largely on assuming a similar anatomy to the earlier australopithecines. Because of this, it has also been proposed "H. habilis" be moved to the genus "Australopithecus" as Australopithecus habilis. However, the interpretation of "H. habilis" as a small-statured human with inefficient long distance travel capabilities has been challenged. The presumed female specimen OH 62 is traditionally interpreted as having been in height and in weight assuming australopithecine-like proportions, but assuming humanlike proportions she would have been about and . Nonetheless, "H. habilis" may have been at least partially arboreal like what is postulated for australopithecines. Early hominins are typically reconstructed as having thick hair and marked sexual dimorphism with males much larger than females, though relative male and female size is not definitively known.


title: Homo habilis

text: "H. habilis" manufactured the Oldowan stone-tool industry and mainly used tools in butchering. Early "Homo", compared to australopithecines, are generally thought to have consumed high quantities of meat and, in the case of "H. habilis", scavenged meat. Typically, early hominins are interpreted as having lived in polygynous societies, though this is highly speculative. Assuming "H. habilis" society was similar to that of modern savanna chimpanzees and baboons, groups may have numbered 70–85 members, with multiple males to defend against open savanna predators, such as big cats, hyenas and crocodiles. "H. habilis" coexisted with "H. rudolfensis", "H. ergaster" / "H. erectus" and "Paranthropus boisei".


title: Homo habilis

text: The first recognised remains—OH 7, partial juvenile skull, hand, and foot bones dating to 1.75 million years ago (mya)—were discovered in Olduvai Gorge, Tanzania, in 1960 by Jonathan Leakey. However, the actual first remains—OH 4, a molar—were discovered by the senior assistant of Louis and Mary Leakey (Jonathan's parents), Heselon Mukiri, in 1959, but this was not realised at the time. By this time, the Leakeys had spent 29 years excavating in Olduvai Gorge for early hominin remains, but had instead recovered mainly other animal remains as well as the Oldowan stone-tool industry. The industry had been ascribed to "Paranthropus boisei" (at the time ""Zinjanthropus"") in 1959 as it was the first and only hominin recovered in the area, but this was revised upon OH 7's discovery. In 1964, Louis, South African palaeoanthropologist Phillip V. Tobias, and British primatologist John R. Napier officially assigned the remains into the genus "Homo" as, on recommendation by Australian anthropologist Raymond Dart, "H. habilis", the specific name meaning "able, handy, mentally skillful, vigorous" in Latin. The specimen's association with the Oldowan (then considered evidence of advanced cognitive ability) was also used as justification for classifying it into "Homo". OH 7 was designated the holotype specimen.


title: Homo habilis

text: After description, it was hotly debated if "H. habilis" should be reclassified into "Australopithecus africanus" (the only other early hominin known at the time), in part because the remains were so old and at the time "Homo" was presumed to have evolved in Asia (with the australopithecines having no living descendants). Also, the brain size was smaller than what Wilfrid Le Gros Clark proposed in 1955 when considering "Homo". The classification "H. habilis" began to receive wider acceptance as more fossil elements and species were unearthed. In 1983, Tobias proposed that "A. africanus" was a direct ancestor of "Paranthropus" and "Homo" (the two were sister taxa), and that "A. africanus" evolved into "H. habilis" which evolved into "H. erectus" which evolved into modern humans (by a process of cladogenesis). He further said that there was a major evolutionary leap between "A. africanus" and "H. habilis", and thereupon human evolution progressed gradually because "H. habilis" brain size had nearly doubled compared to australopithecine predecessors.


title: Homo habilis

text: Many had accepted Tobias' model and assigned Late Pliocene to Early Pleistocene hominin remains outside the range of "Paranthropus" and "H. erectus" into "H. habilis". For non-skull elements, this was done on the basis of size as there was a lack of clear diagnostic characteristics. Because of these practices, the range of variation for the species became quite wide, and the terms "H. habilis" sensu stricto ("in the strict sense") and "H. habilis" sensu lato ("in the broad sense") were in use to include and exclude, respectively, more discrepant morphs. To address this, in 1985, English palaeoanthropologist Bernard Wood proposed that the comparatively massive skull KNM-ER 1470 from Lake Turkana, Kenya, discovered in 1972 and assigned to "H. habilis", actually represented a different species, now referred to as "Homo rudolfensis". It is also argued that instead it represents a male specimen whereas other "H. habilis" specimens are female. Early "Homo" from South Africa have variously been assigned to "H. habilis" or "H. ergaster" / "H. erectus", but species designation has largely been unclear. In 2010, Australian archaeologist Darren Curoe proposed splitting off South African early "Homo" into a new species, ""Homo gautengensis"".


title: Homo habilis

text: In 1986, OH 62, a fragmentary skeleton, was discovered by American anthropologist Tim D. White in association with "H. habilis" skull fragments, definitively establishing aspects of "H. habilis" skeletal anatomy for the first time, and revealing more "Australopithecus"-like than "Homo"-like features. Because of this, as well as similarities in dental adaptations, Wood and biological anthropologist Mark Collard suggested moving the species to "Australopithecus" in 1999. However, reevaluation of OH 62 to a more humanlike physiology, if correct, would cast doubt on this. The discovery of the 1.8 Ma Georgian Dmanisi skulls in the early 2000s, which exhibit several similarities with early "Homo", has led to suggestions that all contemporary groups of early "Homo" in Africa, including "H. habilis" and "H. rudolfensis", are the same species and should be assigned to "H. erectus".


title: Homo habilis

text: There is still no wide consensus as to whether or not "H. habilis" is ancestral to "H. ergaster" / "H. erectus" or is an offshoot of the human line, and whether or not all specimens assigned to "H. habilis" are correctly assigned or the species is an assemblage of different "Australopithecus" and "Homo" species. Nonetheless, "H. habilis" and "H. rudolfensis" generally are recognised members of the genus at the base of the family tree, with arguments for synonymisation or removal from the genus not widely adopted.


title: Homo habilis

text: Though it is now largely agreed upon that "Homo" evolved from "Australopithecus", the timing and placement of this split has been much debated, with many "Australopithecus" species having been proposed as the ancestor. The discovery of LD 350-1, the oldest "Homo" specimen, dating to 2.8 mya, in the Afar Region of Ethiopia may indicate that the genus evolved from "A. afarensis" around this time. The species LD 350-1 belongs to could be the ancestor of "H. habilis", but this is unclear. The oldest "H. habilis" specimen, A.L. 666-1, dates to 2.3 mya, but is anatomically more derived (has less ancestral, or basal, traits) than the younger OH 7, suggesting derived and basal morphs lived concurrently, and that the "H. habilis" lineage began before 2.3 mya. Based on 2.1-million-year-old stone tools from Shangchen, China, "H. habilis" or an ancestral species may have dispersed across Asia. The youngest "H. habilis" specimen, OH 13, dates to about 1.65 mya.


title: Homo habilis

text: It has generally been thought that brain size increased along the human line especially rapidly at the transition between species, with "H. habilis" brain size smaller than that of "H. ergaster" / "H. erectus", jumping from about in "H. habilis" to about in "H. ergaster" and "H. erectus". However, a 2015 study showed that the brain sizes of "H. habilis", "H. rudolfensis", and "H. ergaster" generally ranged between after reappraising the brain volume of OH 7 from to . This does, nonetheless, indicate a jump from australopithecine brain size which generally ranged from .


title: Homo habilis

text: The brain anatomy of all "Homo" features an expanded cerebrum in comparison to australopithecines. The pattern of striations on the teeth of OH 65 slanting right, which may have been accidentally self-inflicted when the individual was pulling a piece of meat with its teeth and the left hand while trying to cut it with a stone tool using the right hand. If correct, this could indicate right handedness, and handedness is associated with major reorganisation of the brain and the lateralisation of brain function between the left and right hemispheres. This scenario has also been hypothesised for some Neanderthal specimens. Lateralisation could be implicated in tool use. In modern humans, lateralisation is weakly associated with language.


title: Homo habilis

text: The tooth rows of "H. habilis" were V-shaped as opposed to U-shaped in later "Homo", and the mouth jutted outwards (was prognathic), though the face was flat from the nose up.


title: Homo habilis

text: Based on the fragmentary skeletons OH 62 (presumed female) and KNM-ER 3735 (presumed male), "H. habilis" body anatomy has generally been considered to have been more apelike than even that of the earlier "A. afarensis" and consistent with an at least partially arboreal lifestyle in the trees as is assumed in australopithecines. Based on OH 62 and assuming comparable body dimensions to australopithecines, "H. habilis" has generally been interpreted as having been small-bodied like australopithecines, with OH 62 generally estimated at about in height and in weight. However, assuming longer, modern humanlike legs, OH 62 would have been about and , and KNM-ER 3735 about the same size. For comparison, modern human men and women in the year 1900 averaged and , respectively. It is generally assumed that pre-"H. ergaster" hominins, including "H. habilis", exhibited notable sexual dimorphism with males markedly bigger than females. However, relative female body mass is unknown in this species.


title: Homo habilis

text: Early hominins, including "H. habilis", are thought to have had thick body hair coverage like modern non-human apes because they appear to have inhabited colder regions and are thought to have had a less active lifestyle than (presumed hairless) post-"ergaster" species. Consequently, they probably required thick body hair to stay warm. Based on dental development rates, "H. habilis" is assumed to have had an accelerated growth rate compared to modern humans, more like that of modern non-human apes.


title: Homo habilis

text: The arms of "H. habilis" and australopithecines have generally been considered to have been proportionally long and so adapted for climbing and swinging. In 2004, anthropologists Martin Haeusler and Henry McHenry argued that, because the humerus to femur ratio of OH 62 is within the range of variation for modern humans, and KNM-ER 3735 is close to the modern human average, it is unsafe to assume apelike proportions. Nonetheless, the humerus of OH 62 measured long and the ulna (forearm) , which is closer to the proportion seen in chimpanzees. The hand bones of OH 7 suggest precision gripping, important in dexterity, as well as adaptations for climbing. In regard to the femur, traditionally comparisons with the "A. afarensis" specimen AL 288-1 have been used to reconstruct stout legs for "H. habilis", but Haeusler and McHenry suggested the more gracile OH 24 femur (either belonging to "H. ergaster" / "H. erectus" or "P. boisei") may be a more apt comparison. In this instance, "H. habilis" would have had longer, humanlike legs and have been effective long-distance travellers as is assumed to have been the case in "H. ergaster". However, estimating the unpreserved length of a fossil is highly problematic. The thickness of the limb bones in OH 62 is more similar to chimpanzees than "H. ergaster" / "H. erectus" and modern humans, which may indicate different load bearing capabilities more suitable for arboreality in "H. habilis". The strong fibula of OH 35 (though this may belong to "P. boisei") is more like that of non-human apes, and consistent with arboreality and vertical climbing.


title: Homo habilis

text: OH 8, a foot, is better suited for terrestrial movement than the foot of "A. afarensis", though still retains many apelike features consistent with climbing. However, the foot has projected toe bone and compacted mid-foot joint structures, which restrict rotation between the foot and ankle as well as at the front foot. Foot stability enhances the efficiency of force transfer between the leg and the foot and vice versa, and is implicated in the plantar arch elastic spring mechanism which generates energy while running (but not walking). This could possibly indicate "H. habilis" was capable of some degree of endurance running, which is typically thought to have evolved later in "H. ergaster" / "H. erectus".


title: Homo habilis

text: Typically, "H. ergaster" / "H. erectus" is considered to have been the first human to have lived in a monogamous society, and all preceding hominins were polygynous. However, it is highly difficult to speculate with any confidence the group dynamics of early hominins. The degree of sexual dimorphism and the size disparity between males and females is often used to correlate between polygyny with high disparity and monogamy with low disparity based on general trends (though not without exceptions) seen in modern primates. Rates of sexual dimorphism are difficult to determine as early hominin anatomy is poorly known, and are largely based on few specimens like. In some cases, sex is arbitrarily determined in large part based on perceived size and apparent robustness in the absence of more reliable elements in sex identification (namely the pelvis). Mating systems are also based on dental anatomy, but early hominins possess a mosaic anatomy of different traits not seen together in modern primates; the enlarged cheek teeth would suggest marked size-related dimorphism and thus intense male–male conflict over mates and a polygynous society, but the small canines should indicate the opposite. Other selective pressures, including diet, can also dramatically impact dental anatomy. The spatial distribution of tools and processed animal bones at the FLK Zinj and PTK sites in Olduvai Gorge indicate the inhabitants used this area as a communal butchering and eating grounds, as opposed to the nuclear family system of modern hunter gatherers where the group is subdivided into smaller units each with their own butchering and eating grounds.


title: Homo habilis

text: The behaviour of early "Homo", including "H. habilis", is sometimes modelled on that of savanna chimps and baboons. These communities consist of several males (as opposed to a harem society) in order to defend the group on the dangerous and exposed habitat, sometimes engaging in a group display of throwing sticks and stones against enemies and predators. The left foot OH 8 seems to have been bitten off by a crocodile, possibly "Crocodylus anthropophagus", and the leg OH 35, which either belongs to "P. boisei" or "H. habilis", shows evidence of leopard predation. "H. habilis" and contemporary hominins were likely predated upon by other large carnivores of the time, such as (in Olduvai Gorge) the hunting hyena "Chasmaporthetes nitidula", and the saber-toothed cats "Dinofelis" and "Megantereon". In 1993, American palaeoanthropologist Leslie C. Aiello and British evolutionary psychologist Robin Dunbar estimated that "H. habilis" group size ranged from 70–85 members—on the upper end of chimp and baboon group size—based on trends seen in neocortex size and group size in modern non-human primates.


title: Homo habilis

text: "H. habilis" coexisted with "H. rudolfensis", "H. ergaster" / "H. erectus", and "P. boisei". It is unclear how all of these species interacted. To explain why "P. boisei" was associated with Olduwan tools despite not being the knapper (the one who made the tools), Leakey and colleagues, when describing "H. habilis", suggested that one possibility was "P. boisei" was killed by "H. habilis", perhaps as food. However, when describing "P. boisei" five years earlier, Louis Leakey said, "There is no reason whatever, in this case, to believe that the skull represents the victim of a cannibalistic feast by some hypothetical more advanced type of man."


title: Homo habilis

text: It is thought "H. habilis" derived meat from scavenging rather than hunting (scavenger hypothesis), acting as a confrontational scavenger and stealing kills from smaller predators such as jackals or cheetahs. Fruit was likely also an important dietary component, indicated by dental erosion consistent with repetitive exposure to acidity. Based on dental microwear-texture analysis, "H. habilis" (like other early "Homo") likely did not regularly consume tough foods. Microwear-texture complexity is, on average, somewhere between that of tough-food eaters and leaf eaters (folivores), and points to an increasingly generalised and omnivorous diet.


title: Homo habilis

text: It is typically thought that the diets of "H. habilis" and other early "Homo" had a greater proportion of meat than "Australopithecus", and that this led to brain growth. The main hypotheses regarding this are: meat is energy- and nutrient-rich and put evolutionary pressure on developing enhanced cognitive skills to facilitate strategic scavenging and monopolise fresh carcasses, or meat allowed the large and calorie-expensive ape gut to decrease in size allowing this energy to be diverted to brain growth. Alternatively, it is also suggested that early "Homo", in a drying climate with scarcer food options, relied primarily on underground storage organs (such as tubers) and food sharing, which facilitated social bonding among both male and female group members. However, unlike what is presumed for "H. ergaster" and later "Homo", short-statured early "Homo" are generally considered to have been incapable of endurance running and hunting, and the long and "Australopithecus"-like forearm of "H. habilis" could indicate early "Homo" were still arboreal to a degree. Also, organised hunting and gathering is thought to have emerged in "H. ergaster". Nonetheless, the proposed food-gathering models to explain large brain growth necessitate increased daily travel distance. It has also been argued that "H. habilis" instead had long, modern humanlike legs and was fully capable of effective long distance travel, while still remaining at least partially arboreal.


title: Homo habilis

text: Large incisor size in "H. habilis" compared to "Australopithecus" predecessors implies this species relied on incisors more. The bodies of the mandibles of "H. habilis" and other early "Homo" are thicker than those of modern humans and all living apes, more comparable to "Australopithecus". The mandibular body resists torsion from the bite force or chewing, meaning their jaws could produce unusually powerful stresses while eating. The greater molar cusp relief in "H. habilis" compared to "Australopithecus" suggests the former used tools to fracture tough foods (such as pliable plant parts or meat), otherwise the cusps would have been more worn down. Nonetheless, the jaw adaptations for processing mechanically challenging food indicates technological advancement did not greatly affect diet.


title: Homo habilis

text: "H. habilis" is associated with the Early Stone Age Oldowan stone tool industry. Individuals likely used these tools primarily to butcher and skin animals and crush bones, but also sometimes to saw and scrape wood and cut soft plants. Knappers - individuals shaping stones, appear to have carefully selected lithic cores and knew that certain rocks would break in a specific way when struck hard enough and on the right spot, and they produced several different types, including choppers, polyhedrons, and discoids. Nonetheless, specific shapes were likely not thought of in advance, and probably stem from a lack of standardisation in producing such tools as well as the types of raw materials at the knappers' disposal. For example, spheroids are common at Olduvai which features an abundance of large and soft quartz and quartzite pieces, whereas Koobi Fora lacks spheroids and provides predominantly hard basalt lava rocks. Unlike the later Acheulean culture invented by "H. ergaster" / "H. erectus", Oldowan technology does not require planning and foresight to manufacture, and thus does not indicate high cognition in Oldowan knappers, though it does require a degree of coordination and some knowledge of mechanics. Oldowan tools infrequently exhibit retouching and were probably discarded immediately after use most of the time.


title: Homo habilis

text: The Oldowan was first reported in 1934, but it was not until the 1960s that it become widely accepted as the earliest culture, dating to 1.8 mya, and as having been manufactured by "H. habilis". Since then, more discoveries have placed the origins of material culture substantially backwards in time, with the Oldowan being discovered in Ledi-Geraru and Gona in Ethiopia dating to 2.6 mya, perhaps associated with the evolution of the genus. Australopithecines are also known to have manufactured tools, such as the 3.3 Ma Lomekwi stone tool industry, and some evidence of butchering from about 3.4 mya. Nonetheless, the comparatively sharp-edged Oldowan culture was a major innovation from australopithecine technology, and it would have allowed different feeding strategies and the ability to process a wider range of foods, which would have been advantageous in the changing climate of the time. It is unclear if the Oldowan was independently invented or if it was the result of hominin experimentation with rocks over hundreds of thousands of years across multiple species.


title: Homo habilis

text: In 1962, a circle made with volcanic rocks was discovered in Olduvai Gorge. At intervals, rocks were piled up to high. Mary Leakey suggested the rock piles were used to support poles stuck into the ground, possibly to support a windbreak or a rough hut. Some modern-day nomadic tribes build similar low-lying rock walls to build temporary shelters upon, bending upright branches as poles and using grasses or animal hide as a screen. Dating to 1.75 mya, it is attributed to some early "Homo", and is the oldest-claimed evidence of architecture.


title: Nuclear holocaust

text: A nuclear holocaust, also known as a nuclear apocalypse, nuclear Armageddon, or atomic holocaust, is a theoretical scenario where the mass detonation of nuclear weapons causes globally widespread destruction and radioactive fallout. Such a scenario envisages large parts of the Earth becoming uninhabitable due to the effects of nuclear warfare, potentially causing the collapse of civilization and, in the worst case, extinction of humanity and/or termination of life on Earth.


title: Nuclear holocaust

text: Besides the immediate destruction of cities by nuclear blasts, the potential aftermath of a nuclear war could involve firestorms, a nuclear winter, widespread radiation sickness from fallout, and/or the temporary (if not permanent) loss of much modern technology due to electromagnetic pulses. Some scientists, such as Alan Robock, have speculated that a thermonuclear war could result in the end of modern civilization on Earth, in part due to a long-lasting nuclear winter. In one model, the average temperature of Earth following a full thermonuclear war falls for several years by 7 – 8 °C (13 to 15 degrees Fahrenheit) on average.


title: Nuclear holocaust

text: Early Cold War-era studies suggested that billions of humans would survive the immediate effects of nuclear blasts and radiation following a global thermonuclear war. The International Physicians for the Prevention of Nuclear War believe that nuclear war could indirectly contribute to human extinction via secondary effects, including environmental consequences, societal breakdown, and economic collapse.


title: Nuclear holocaust

text: The threat of a nuclear holocaust plays an important role in the popular perception of nuclear weapons. It features in the security concept of mutually assured destruction (MAD) and is a common scenario in survivalism. Nuclear holocaust is a common feature in literature and film, especially in speculative genres such as science fiction, dystopian and post-apocalyptic fiction.


title: Nuclear holocaust

text: The English word "holocaust", derived from the Greek term "holokaustos" meaning "completely burnt", refers to great destruction and loss of life, especially by fire.


title: Nuclear holocaust

text: One early use of the word "holocaust" to describe an imagined nuclear destruction appears in Reginald Glossop's 1926 novel "The Orphan of Space": "Moscow ... beneath them ... a crash like a crack of Doom! The echoes of this Holocaust rumbled and rolled ... a distinct smell of sulphur ... atomic destruction." In the novel, an atomic weapon is planted in the office of the Soviet dictator, who, with German help and Chinese mercenaries, is preparing the takeover of Western Europe.


title: Nuclear holocaust

text: References to nuclear destruction often speak of "atomic holocaust" or "nuclear holocaust." For instance, U.S. President George W. Bush stated in August 2007: "Iran's active pursuit of technology that could lead to nuclear weapons threatens to put a region already known for instability and violence under the shadow of a nuclear holocaust".


title: Nuclear holocaust

text: As of 2021, humanity has about 13,410 nuclear weapons, thousands of which are on hair-trigger alert. While stockpiles have been on the decline following the end of the Cold War, every nuclear country is currently undergoing modernization of its nuclear arsenal. The "Bulletin" advanced their symbolic Doomsday Clock in 2015, citing among other factors "a nuclear arms race resulting from modernization of huge arsenals". In January 2020, it was moved forward to 100 seconds before midnight.


title: Nuclear holocaust

text: John F. Kennedy estimated the probability of the Cuban Missile Crisis escalating to nuclear conflict as between 33% and 50%.


title: Nuclear holocaust

text: In a poll of experts at the Global Catastrophic Risk Conference in Oxford (17–20 July 2008), the Future of Humanity Institute estimated the probability of complete human extinction by nuclear weapons at 1% within the century, the probability of 1 billion dead at 10% and the probability of 1 million dead at 30%. These results reflect the median opinions of a group of experts, rather than a probabilistic model; the actual values may be much lower or higher.


title: Nuclear holocaust

text: Scientists have argued that even a small-scale nuclear war between two countries could have devastating global consequences and such local conflicts are more likely than full-scale nuclear war.


title: Nuclear holocaust

text: (2) would be worse than (1), and (3) would be worse than (2). Which is the greater of these two differences?


title: Nuclear holocaust

text: He continues that "Most people believe that the greater difference is between (1) and (2). I believe that the difference between (2) and (3) is "very much" greater." Thus, he argues, even if it would be bad if massive numbers of humans died, human extinction would itself be much worse because it prevents the existence of all future generations. And given the magnitude of the calamity were the human race to become extinct, Nick Bostrom argues that there is an overwhelming moral imperative to reduce even small risks of human extinction.


title: Nuclear holocaust

text: Many scholars have posited that a global thermonuclear war with Cold War-era stockpiles, or even with the current smaller stockpiles, may lead to human extinction. This position was bolstered when nuclear winter was first conceptualized and modelled in 1983. However, models from the past decade consider total extinction very unlikely, and suggest parts of the world would remain habitable. Technically the risk may not be zero, as the climatic effects of nuclear war are uncertain and could theoretically be larger than current models suggest, just as they could theoretically be smaller than current models suggest. There could also be indirect risks, such as a societal collapse following nuclear war that can make humanity much more vulnerable to other existential threats.


title: Nuclear holocaust

text: A related area of inquiry is: if a future nuclear arms race someday leads to larger stockpiles or more dangerous nuclear weapons than existed at the height of the Cold War, at what point could war with such weapons result in human extinction? Physicist Leo Szilard warned in the 1950s that a deliberate doomsday device could be constructed by surrounding powerful hydrogen bombs with a massive amount of cobalt. Cobalt has a half-life of five years, and its global fallout might, some physicists have posited, be able to clear out all human life via lethal radiation intensity. The main motivation for building a cobalt bomb in this scenario is its reduced expense compared with the arsenals possessed by superpowers; such a doomsday device does not need to be launched before detonation and thus does not require expensive missile delivery systems, and the hydrogen bombs do not need to be miniaturized for delivery via missile. The system for triggering it might have to be completely automated, in order for the deterrent to be effective. A modern twist might be to also lace the bombs with aerosols designed to exacerbate nuclear winter. A major caveat is that nuclear fallout transfer between the northern and southern hemispheres is expected to be small; unless a bomb detonates in each hemisphere, the effect of a bomb detonated in one hemisphere on the other is diminished.


title: Nuclear holocaust

text: Historically, it has been difficult to estimate the total number of deaths resulting from a global nuclear exchange because scientists are continually discovering new effects of nuclear weapons, and also revising existing models.


title: Nuclear holocaust

text: Early reports considered direct effects from nuclear blast and radiation and indirect effects from economic, social, and political disruption. In a 1979 report for the U.S. Senate, the Office of Technology Assessment estimated casualties under different scenarios. For a full-scale countervalue/counterforce nuclear exchange between the U.S. and the Soviet Union, they predicted U.S. deaths from 35 to 77 percent (70 million to 160 million dead at the time), and Soviet deaths from 20 to 40 percent of the population.


title: Nuclear holocaust

text: Although this report was made when nuclear stockpiles were at much higher levels than they are today, it also was made before the risk of nuclear winter was first theorized in the early 1980s. Additionally, it did not consider other secondary effects, such as electromagnetic pulses (EMP), and the ramifications they would have on modern technology and industry.


title: Nuclear holocaust

text: In the early 1980s, scientists began to consider the effects of smoke and soot arising from burning wood, plastics, and petroleum fuels in nuclear-devastated cities. It was speculated that the intense heat would carry these particulates to extremely high altitudes where they could drift for weeks and block out all but a fraction of the sun's light. A landmark 1983 study by the so-called TTAPS team (Richard P. Turco, Owen Toon, Thomas P. Ackerman, James B. Pollack and Carl Sagan) was the first to model these effects and coined the term "nuclear winter."


title: Nuclear holocaust

text: More recent studies make use of modern global circulation models and far greater computer power than was available for the 1980s studies. A 2007 study examined the consequences of a global nuclear war involving moderate to large portions of the current global arsenal. The study found cooling by about 12–20 °C in much of the core farming regions of the US, Europe, Russia and China and as much as 35 °C in parts of Russia for the first two summer growing seasons. The changes they found were also much longer-lasting than previously thought, because their new model better represented entry of soot aerosols in the upper stratosphere, where precipitation does not occur, and therefore clearance was on the order of 10 years. In addition, they found that global cooling caused a weakening of the global hydrological cycle, reducing global precipitation by about 45%.


title: Nuclear holocaust

text: The authors did not discuss the implications for agriculture in depth, but noted that a 1986 study which assumed no food production for a year projected that "most of the people on the planet would run out of food and starve to death by then" and commented that their own results show that, "This period of no food production needs to be extended by many years, making the impacts of nuclear winter even worse than previously thought."


title: Nuclear holocaust

text: In contrast to the above investigations of global nuclear conflicts, studies have shown that even small-scale, regional nuclear conflicts could disrupt the global climate for a decade or more. In a regional nuclear conflict scenario where two opposing nations in the subtropics would each use 50 Hiroshima-sized nuclear weapons (about 15 kilotons each) on major populated centres, the researchers estimated as much as five million tons of soot would be released, which would produce a cooling of several degrees over large areas of North America and Eurasia, including most of the grain-growing regions. The cooling would last for years, and according to the research, could be "catastrophic". Additionally, the analysis showed a 10% drop in average global precipitation, with the largest losses in the low latitudes due to failure of the monsoons.


title: Nuclear holocaust

text: Regional nuclear conflicts could also inflict significant damage to the ozone layer. A 2008 study found that a regional nuclear weapons exchange could create a near-global ozone hole, triggering human health problems and impacting agriculture for at least a decade. This effect on the ozone would result from heat absorption by soot in the upper stratosphere, which would modify wind currents and draw in ozone-destroying nitrogen oxides. These high temperatures and nitrogen oxides would reduce ozone to the same dangerous levels that are experienced below the ozone hole above Antarctica every spring.


title: Nuclear holocaust

text: It is difficult to estimate the number of casualties that would result from nuclear winter, but it is likely that the primary effect would be global famine (known as Nuclear Famine), wherein mass starvation occurs due to disrupted agricultural production and distribution. In a 2013 report, the International Physicians for the Prevention of Nuclear War (IPPNW) concluded that more than two billion people, about a third of the world's population, would be at risk of starvation in the event of a regional nuclear exchange between India and Pakistan, or by the use of even a small proportion of nuclear arms held by America and Russia. Several independent studies show corroborated conclusions that agricultural outputs would be significantly reduced for years by climatic changes driven by nuclear wars. Reduction of food supply would be further exacerbated by rising food prices, affecting hundreds of millions of vulnerable people, especially in the poorest nations of the world.


title: Nuclear holocaust

text: According to a peer-reviewed study published in the journal "Nature Food" in August 2022, a full-scale nuclear war between the U.S. and Russia would kill 360 million people directly and more than 5 billion people would die from starvation. More than 2 billion people would die from a smaller-scale nuclear war between India and Pakistan.


title: Nuclear holocaust

text: An electromagnetic pulse (EMP) is a burst of electromagnetic radiation. Nuclear explosions create a pulse of electromagnetic radiation called a nuclear EMP or NEMP. Such EMP interference is known to be generally disruptive or damaging to electronic equipment.


title: Nuclear holocaust

text: By disabling electronics and their functioning, an EMP would disable hospitals, water treatment facilities, food storage facilities, and all electronic forms of communication, and thereby threaten key aspects of the modern human condition. Certain EMP attacks could lead to a large loss of power for months or years. Currently, failures of the power grid are dealt with using support from the outside. In the event of an EMP attack, such support would not exist and all damaged components, devices, and electronics would need to be completely replaced.


title: Nuclear holocaust

text: In 2013, the US House of Representatives considered the "Secure High-voltage Infrastructure for Electricity from Lethal Damage Act" that would provide surge protection for some 300 large transformers around the country. The problem of protecting civilian infrastructure from electromagnetic pulse has also been intensively studied throughout the European Union, and in particular by the United Kingdom. While precautions have been taken, James Woolsey and the EMP Commission suggested that an EMP is the most significant threat to the U.S.


title: Nuclear holocaust

text: The risk of an EMP, either through solar or atmospheric activity or enemy attack, while not dismissed, was suggested to be overblown by the news media in a commentary in "Physics Today". Instead, the weapons from rogue states were still too small and uncoordinated to cause a massive EMP, underground infrastructure is sufficiently protected, and there will be enough warning time from continuous solar observatories like SOHO to protect surface transformers should a devastating solar storm be detected.


title: Nuclear holocaust

text: Nuclear fallout is the residual radioactive dust and ash propelled into the upper atmosphere following a nuclear explosion. Fallout is usually limited to the immediate area, and can only spread for hundreds of kilometers from the explosion site if the explosion is high enough in the atmosphere. Fallout may get entrained with the products of a pyrocumulus cloud and fall as black rain (rain darkened by soot and other particulates).


title: Nuclear holocaust

text: This radioactive dust, usually consisting of fission products mixed with bystanding atoms that are neutron activated by exposure, is a highly dangerous kind of radioactive contamination. The main radiation hazard from fallout is due to short-lived radionuclides external to the body. While most of the particles carried by nuclear fallout decay rapidly, some radioactive particles will have half-lives of seconds to a few months. Some radioactive isotopes, like strontium-90 and caesium-137, are very long-lived and will create radioactive hot spots for up to 5 years after the initial explosion. Fallout and black rain may contaminate waterways, agriculture, and soil. Contact with radioactive materials can lead to radiation poisoning through external exposure or accidental consumption. In acute doses over a short amount of time radiation will lead to prodromal syndrome, bone marrow death, central nervous system death and gastrointestinal death. Over longer periods of exposure to radiation, cancer becomes the main health risk. Long-term radiation exposure can also lead to in utero effects on human development and transgenerational genetic damage.


title: Nuclear holocaust

text: As a result of the extensive nuclear fallout of the 1954 Castle Bravo nuclear detonation, author Nevil Shute wrote the popular novel "On the Beach", released in 1957. In this novel, so much fallout is generated in a nuclear war that all human life is extinguished. However, the premise that all of humanity would die following a nuclear war and only the "cockroaches would survive" is critically dealt with in the 1988 book "Would the Insects Inherit the Earth and Other Subjects of Concern to Those Who Worry About Nuclear War", by nuclear weapons expert Philip J. Dolan.


title: Nuclear holocaust

text: In 1982, nuclear disarmament activist Jonathan Schell published "The Fate of the Earth", which is regarded by many to be the first carefully argued presentation that concluded that extinction is a significant possibility from nuclear war. However, the assumptions made in this book have been thoroughly analyzed and determined to be "quite dubious". The impetus for Schell's work, according to physicist Brian Martin, was:


title: Nuclear holocaust

text: The belief in "overkill" is also commonly encountered, with an example being the following statement made by nuclear disarmament activist Philip Noel-Baker in 1971: "Both the US and the Soviet Union now possess nuclear stockpiles large enough to exterminate mankind three or four – some say ten – times over". Brian Martin suggested that the origin of this belief was from "crude linear extrapolations" of the bombing of Hiroshima. He said that if the bomb dropped on Hiroshima had been 1,000 times as powerful, it could not have killed 1,000 times as many people. Similarly, it is common to see stated that the combined explosive energy released in the entirety of World War II was about 3 megatons, while a nuclear war with warhead stockpiles at Cold War highs would release 6000 WWII's of explosive energy. An estimate for the necessary amount of fallout to begin to have the potential of causing human extinction is regarded by physicist and disarmament activist Joseph Rotblat to be 10 to 100 times the megatonnage in nuclear arsenals as they stood in 1976; however, with the world megatonnage decreasing since the Cold War ended this possibility remains hypothetical.


title: Nuclear holocaust

text: According to the 1980 United Nations report "General and Complete Disarmament: Comprehensive Study on Nuclear Weapons: Report of the Secretary-General", it was estimated that there were a total of about 40,000 nuclear warheads in existence at that time, with a potential combined explosive yield of approximately 13,000 megatons.


title: Nuclear holocaust

text: By comparison – in the timeline of volcanism on Earth – the 1815 eruption of Mount Tambora exploded with a force of roughly 30,000 megatons, and ejected of mostly rock and tephra, which included 120 million tonnes of sulfur dioxide as an upper estimate, turning 1816 into the "year without a summer" due to the levels of global dimming sulfate aerosols and ash expelled. The larger Mount Toba eruption, which occurred approximately 74,000 years ago, produced an estimated of tephra and of sulfur dioxide, with a possible explosion force of 20,000,000 megatons (Mt) of TNT, forming Lake Toba and reducing the human population to mere tens of thousands. The Chicxulub impact, connected with the extinction of the dinosaurs, corresponds to at least 70,000,000 Mt of energy, which is roughly 7000 times the combined maximum arsenal of the US and Soviet Union.


title: Nuclear holocaust

text: Comparisons with supervolcanos are more misleading than helpful due to the different aerosols released, the likely air burst fuzing height of nuclear weapons and the globally scattered location of these potential nuclear detonations all being in contrast to the singular and subterranean nature of a supervolcanic eruption. Moreover, assuming the entire world stockpile of weapons were grouped together, it would be difficult due to the nuclear fratricide effect to ensure the individual weapons would detonate all at once. Nonetheless, many people believe that a full-scale nuclear war would result, through the nuclear winter effect, in the extinction of the human species, though not all analysts agree on the assumptions put into these nuclear winter models.


title: Heidi Fleiss

text: Heidi Lynne Fleiss (born December 30, 1965) is an American former madam. She ran an upscale prostitution ring based in Los Angeles and is often referred to as the "Hollywood Madam". Fleiss has also worked as a columnist and was a television personality regularly featured in the 1990s in American media.


title: Heidi Fleiss

text: Fleiss was born and raised in the Los Feliz neighborhood of Los Angeles. Her father, Paul M. Fleiss (1933–2014) was a pediatrician and her mother, Elissa (née Ash) was an elementary school teacher. Their marriage ended in divorce. She has a brother, Jesse, and had another brother, Jason, who drowned. She also has three sisters: Amy, Kim, and Shana.


title: Heidi Fleiss

text: At the age of 22, Fleiss began managing a prostitution ring under Madam Alex after meeting her in 1987 via Fleiss's film-director boyfriend Iván Nagy. Fleiss stated in 2002 that Alex and she had "a very intense relationship" and that she "was kind of like the daughter she loved and hated, so she was abusive and loving at the same time." In the same interview, Fleiss said she worked as a prostitute for a short period to learn all aspects of the occupation. At the time, she was learning to take over Alex's business, there was a labor shortage as most of Alex's prostitutes were approaching middle age and setting their sights on retiring from prostitution.


title: Heidi Fleiss

text: Alex tasked Fleiss with revitalizing the business by recruiting a new batch of young, attractive women.


title: Heidi Fleiss

text: By 1990, Fleiss severed her links with Madam Alex and began her own prostitution ring. Fleiss has stated that she made her first million dollars after only four months in the business as a madam, and that on her slowest night, she made $10,000. By 1991, she was so successful that she was able to reject women who wished to work for her. In June 1993, she was arrested for multiple charges, including attempted pandering.


title: Heidi Fleiss

text: Federal charges were filed in 1994, and Fleiss posted $1 million bail. The state trial began the same year and Fleiss was convicted. In May 1996, her state conviction was overturned, and her appeal bond was set at $200,000. She was convicted of federal charges of tax evasion in September 1996 and sentenced to seven years in prison. Fleiss served 20 months at the Federal Correctional Institution, Dublin, California. She was released to a halfway house on November 19, 1998, and ordered to perform 370 hours of community service.


title: Heidi Fleiss

text: Fleiss's ring reportedly had numerous prominent and wealthy clients. When questioned by British TV presenter Davina McCall about revealing the names of her clients, she replied, "It's not my style."


title: Heidi Fleiss

text: In 1995, Nick Broomfield made a documentary about her prostitution ring called "". In 2004, a made-for-TV movie was produced called "".


title: Heidi Fleiss

text: In 1996, after having been convicted of being a madam, and shortly before her incarceration for such offences, she was interviewed by Ruby Wax.


title: Heidi Fleiss

text: Fleiss and reality-TV personality Victoria Sellers hosted and produced an instructional DVD titled "Sex Tips with Heidi Fleiss and Victoria Sellers" in 2001.


title: Heidi Fleiss

text: In January 2010, Fleiss was the third housemate to enter the final Channel 4 series of "Celebrity Big Brother" in the UK; she was the second to be evicted. She did not return for the finale.


title: Heidi Fleiss

text: In 2005, Fleiss announced plans to open a brothel in Pahrump, Nevada called "Heidi Fleiss's Stud Farm". In 2007, Fleiss opened a laundromat called Dirty Laundry in Pahrump, as her plans for the brothel had been put on hold due to a "slight complication." In 2009, she said that she had abandoned her plans to open such a brothel because she did not want to "deal with all the nonsense in the sex business". Instead, she said, she would focus on renewable energy, which she described as "perfect for Nevada" and "the wave of the future". She opened a fashion boutique in Los Angeles after being released from prison.


title: Heidi Fleiss

text: , and since at least January 2017, Fleiss owns and manages the Flying S Ranch Ultralight Flightpark, an ultralight private use airport in Pahrump, with FAA designation NV54.


title: Heidi Fleiss

text: Fleiss eventually moved to Pahrump, Nevada, a small town near Death Valley while caring for 25 parrots. Drew Pinsky, who treated Fleiss for substance abuse, performed brain scans on her that showed significant frontal lobe dysfunction, which Pinsky surmised was behind her inability to empathize with people, and her propensity for doing so with birds.


title: Heidi Fleiss

text: In 2009, Fleiss was treated for substance abuse at the Pasadena Recovery Center, which was filmed for the third season of "Celebrity Rehab with Dr. Drew". One of her fellow patients was Sizemore, against whom her prior restraining order had lapsed. Both Fleiss and Sizemore consented to appear together on the show before filming began, and their reunion, depicted in the third episode, was amicable, though Fleiss subsequently expressed mixed feelings about his presence there. During the filming of the program, Fleiss left the center and was involved in an accident with her SUV near her home in Nevada. She subsequently returned to rehab.


title: Heidi Fleiss

text: After completing treatment for substance abuse, Fleiss briefly became engaged to Dennis Hof, owner of Nevada's Moonlite BunnyRanch. Fleiss said in 1994 that she is a vegetarian.


title: Heidi Fleiss

text: In August 2013, Nevada police found nearly 400 marijuana plants growing at her Pahrump, Nevada, home, but did not arrest Fleiss and submitted their report to the district attorney's office.


title: Heidi Fleiss

text: In 2022 Fleiss announced that she would be moving to Missouri after someone shot one of her parrots with a pellet gun.


title: Tidal (service)

text: Tidal (stylized in all caps) is a Norwegian-American subscription-based music, podcast and video streaming service that offers audio and music videos. Tidal was launched in 2014 by Swedish public company Aspiro which is now majority-owned by Block, Inc., an American payment processing company.


title: Tidal (service)

text: With distribution agreements with all three major record labels and many independent labels, Tidal claims to provide access to more than 80 million tracks and 350,000 music videos. It offers two levels of service: Tidal HiFi (up to CD quality – FLAC-based 16-bit/44.1 kHz) and Tidal HiFi Plus (up to MQA – 24-bit/96 kHz). Tidal claims to pay the highest percentage of royalties to music artists and songwriters within the music streaming market.


title: Tidal (service)

text: In March 2015, Aspiro was acquired by Project Panther Bidco Ltd., which relaunched the service with a mass-marketing campaign, promoting it as the first artist-owned streaming service. In January 2017, Sprint Corporation bought 33% of Tidal for a reported $200 million. In March 2021, Block, then known as Square, agreed to pay $297 million for majority ownership of Tidal. In June, 2022, through the disclosure of the Annual Stockholder Meeting 2022, Block reported that the stake acquired in the Tidal music service was 86.8%.


title: Tidal (service)

text: While some observers praised the high-fidelity audio quality, and higher subscription fees that would result in higher royalties to the artists and songwriters, others felt the high subscription fees and exclusive Tidal content from the artists involved could lead to more music piracy. Tidal claimed to have over 3 million subscribers in 2016, although the veracity of those claims and the company's reported streaming numbers have been questioned. , Tidal operates in 61 countries.


title: Tidal (service)

text: Branching off from WiMP, which was launched in Norway in 2010 and later available in Sweden, Denmark, Germany, and Poland, Aspiro launched the Tidal brand in the UK, the US, and Canada on October 28, 2014. The launch was supported by Sonos and 15 other home audio manufacturers as integration partners. In January 2015, Tidal launched in five more European countries: Ireland, Finland, the Netherlands, Belgium and Luxembourg.


title: Tidal (service)

text: Aspiro was purchased by Project Panther Bidco Ltd. (controlled by American rapper and businessman Jay-Z) for SEK 466 million (USD $56.2 million) in January 2015. Before the acquisition of Aspiro, Jay-Z stated in an interview with "Billboard" that he was willing to partner with other streaming services to carry out his vision. "We talked to every single service and we explored all the options," he said, "But at the end of the day, we figured if we're going to shape this thing the way we see it, then we need to have independence. And that became a better proposition for us, not an easier one, mind you," he concluded.


title: Tidal (service)

text: On April 16, 2015, it came to public attention that Tidal was closing its original Aspiro offices in Stockholm, terminating the employment for all Swedish employees and the CEO, Andy Chen. The company refused to comment on closing the offices but confirmed that Andy Chen had been replaced as CEO by Peter Tonstad. In September 2015, Tidal began selling digital downloads and CDs. In December 2015, Tidal appointed Jeff Toig as CEO of the company. Toig left the company in March 2017. Richard Sanders was announced as CEO in August 2017.


title: Tidal (service)

text: In January 2017, the company announced a partnership with British company Master Quality Authenticated (MQA) which they claim delivers master-quality recordings at typically 96 kHz / 24-bit with the highest possible resolution to its HiFi subscribers. Tidal is the only streaming company to offer MQA. MQA is a lossy format. On January 23, 2017, US mobile carrier Sprint announced that they were buying a 33 percent stake in Tidal, and it was reported that Sprint would offer exclusive content to Sprint customers. In September 2017, Tidal partnered with Mercedes-Benz's web portal app. American rapper Nicki Minaj starred in a commercial promoting the Mercedes partnership. The catalog available in MQA on Tidal currently comprises certain albums and singles from Universal Music Group, Warner Music Group, its affiliates and certain independent distributors, including AvidPlay service provided by Avid Technology. Since November 2020, the largest part of the MQA catalog available on Tidal is that of Warner Music Group and its affiliates, which was made available as part of a new deal with MQA and Warner Music Group itself. In the past, Sony Music also offered certain albums and singles from their catalog in MQA on Tidal, but their quality were later reduced; exceptions include Beyoncé's albums "Lemonade" and "", both released by Parkwood Entertainment and distributed by Sony Music's label Columbia Records (likely most possible reason of these exceptions is Tidal's ownership — Jay-Z is Beyoncé's husband).


title: Tidal (service)

text: In 2017, Tidal announced a series of podcasts to launch the same year. American rappers Fat Joe and Joey Badass each host "Coca Vision" and "47 Minutes" respectively.


title: Tidal (service)

text: In July 2019, Tidal expanded their credits feature and launched interactive official music credits on the platform, allowing user to click on musicians and other contributors. These credits are supplied by the labels and artists direct to Tidal.


title: Tidal (service)

text: On March 2, 2021, it was announced that financial technology company Square, Inc. had reached an agreement to acquire majority ownership of Tidal. Square would pay $297 million in cash and stock for Tidal, and Jay-Z would have a board position. Jay-Z and other artists who own stocks in Tidal would remain stakeholders.


title: Tidal (service)

text: In November 2021, Tidal introduced a free tier for the first time, though exclusively for the United States. CD-quality HiFi audio was also introduced to all paid plans, while keeping MQA-quality audio exclusive for the new HiFi Plus plan.


title: Tidal (service)

text: A key selling point for Tidal as compared with other streaming services such as Spotify and Pandora Radio is the exclusive content already available and expected for the future from the current artists who co-own the company, as well as others. Exclusive content available on the relaunch of Tidal included Rihanna's single "Bitch Better Have My Money", The White Stripes debut television appearance, "Daft Punk's Electroma" (2006), and playlists personally curated by Jay-Z, Beyoncé, Arcade Fire and Coldplay. Tidal stated on its official Twitter page that "lots of exclusive content [is] on the way".


title: Tidal (service)

text: Jay-Z's catalogue was not available on Spotify but was almost entirely exclusive on Tidal until his 50th birthday.


title: Tidal (service)

text: During the press conference, Jay-Z, Beyoncé, Rihanna, Kanye West, Nicki Minaj, Daft Punk, Jack White, Madonna, Arcade Fire, Alicia Keys, Usher, Chris Martin, Calvin Harris, deadmau5, Jason Aldean and J. Cole were introduced to the stage as "the owners of TIDAL". Eric Harvey of Pitchfork stated of the artists who co-own the service, "These are the 1 percent of pop music in the world right now, these are artists who do not answer to record labels, do not answer to corporations."


title: Tidal (service)

text: On March 30, 2015, a press conference was held at Skylight at Moynihan Station in New York City, to relaunch Tidal officially. The conference started with a brief introduction and explanation of Tidal. After introducing the aforementioned sixteen artist co-owners of Tidal onstage, recording artist Alicia Keys spoke on behalf of the artists and for Tidal. She stated, "So we come together before you on this day, March 30th, 2015, with one voice in unity in the hopes that today will be another one of those moments in time, a moment that will forever change the course of music history." Keys also described the event as like a "graduation". At the end of the press conference, all artists onstage signed a declaration, which stated Tidal's mission. Tidal claimed to have gained 100,000 new subscribers following the press conference revealing the artists involved in the service.


title: Tidal (service)

text: In June 2015, Lil Wayne joined the service's roster as an artist co-owner, kicking off the partnership by exclusively releasing a track on the service called "Glory". On February 23, 2016, T.I. joined the service's roster as the latest co-owner, kicking off the partnership by releasing "Money Talk", a single from his tenth album, "Dime Trap", exclusively on the service as well as the album was streamed live from Greenbriar Mall in Atlanta.


title: Tidal (service)

text: On July 1, 2017, it was reported Kanye West left Tidal as co-owner and shareholder, after a financial argument with its board of directors regarding compensation for his contributions to the company. West later demanded payment from Tidal of $3 million for his inclusion on marketing efforts, video production, and claiming the release of his 2016 album, "The Life of Pablo", being the reason for Tidal's 1.5 million subscriber increase soon following the release. In response, Tidal stated West failed to deliver the videos he promised on his contract.


title: Tidal (service)

text: In April 2015, Tidal exclusives included Beyoncé releasing a video of her performing "Die With You", a never-before-heard original song, dedicated to her and Jay-Z's wedding anniversary, Madonna releasing a teaser of her upcoming music video at the time for "Ghosttown" and Rihanna debuting her brand new song and music video "American Oxygen".


title: Tidal (service)

text: In January 2016, Tidal released Rihanna's "Anti" as a one-week exclusive stream. In February 2016, Tidal secured an exclusive initial release with Kanye West's "The Life of Pablo". West went on to vow that the album would "never appear on any other services [than Tidal]", nor would it ever be for sale. On April 23, 2016, Beyoncé released her second visual album, "Lemonade", for streaming exclusively on Tidal. On April 25, it was made available for purchase by track or album on Amazon Music and the iTunes store and on May 6, it arrived at physical retailers.


title: Tidal (service)

text: Jay-Z's 2017 album "" debuted on Tidal. The next year, Jay-Z released a collaborative album with Beyoncé, "Everything Is Love", via Tidal.


title: Tidal (service)

text: Tidal regularly streams concerts live and on-demand including the Made in America festival and TIDAL X Brooklyn. In 2018, Tidal live-streamed Hot 97's 25th annual Summer Jam. Also in 2018, Tidal partnered with Equal Justice Initiative to live-stream The Concert for Peace and Justice. The concert commemorated the opening of The National Memorial for Peace and Justice and The Legacy Museum, both located in Montgomery, Alabama.


title: Tidal (service)

text: Shortly after Tidal's launch and press conference, the mobile version of the service shot to the top 20 of the U.S. iPhone Apps chart. Following criticism for its "out-of-touch marketing campaign", two weeks later, the app had already fallen out of the top 700 rankings of the same list.


title: Tidal (service)

text: Glenn Peoples of "Billboard" wrote that Tidal was a good thing for the music industry. He stated that the U.S. streaming market needed a "kick in the butt" when looking at the growth rate of streaming from 2014 to 2015. Peoples also noted that more competition in the streaming market is a good thing as it could lead to a "greater diffusion of innovation". He concluded that a service like Tidal – which is promoted as paying a fair amount of royalties to both the artists and the songwriters – will lead to the industry as a whole sorting out its issues with streaming royalties.


title: Tidal (service)

text: Writing for "USA Today"s website, Micah Peters released a list of "3 reasons why Jay-Z's new Tidal streaming service is stupid". The article focused on points that the high fidelity, the lossless audio quality model being promoted was "overestimat[ing] the average listener". Peters worried that most listeners do not have the required, advanced headphones to distinguish the difference between ordinary and high-fidelity audio (Hi-Fi). The article also stated that the $20 price was not reasonable for the mass market.


title: Tidal (service)

text: Recording artist Lily Allen expressed her opinions on Tidal on her official Twitter account. She feared that the high price of Tidal, as well as the mass popularity of the artist co-owners, could result in crippling the music industry and increasing piracy. She stated, "I love Jay-Z so much, but Tidal is (so) expensive compared to other perfectly good streaming services, he's taken the biggest artists… Made them exclusive to Tidal (am I right in thinking this?), people are going to swarm back to pirate sites in droves".


title: Tidal (service)

text: Jay-Z responded to criticism with a freestyle during the Tidal X: Jaÿ-Z B-Sides concert. He compares Tidal with Apple and Nike and says that Tidal has been subjected to hypocritical criticism.


title: Tidal (service)

text: Kanye West's decision to initially release his album "The Life of Pablo" as a Tidal streaming exclusive led to criticism from fans, who felt that streaming exclusivity could promote piracy. The album was pirated over 500,000 times as of February 17, 2016. West later made the album available to stream on competing services. In July 2017, West terminated his contract with Tidal, claiming that the service owed him $3 million.


title: Tidal (service)

text: One artist has stated that artist royalties per track from Aspiro/Tidal are currently over three times than those paid by Spotify, but that royalties may decrease to provide a sufficient return on investment. Jay-Z commented in an interview to "Billboard" that artists would be paid more by being streamed on Tidal than with Spotify, stating "Will artists make more money? Even if it means less profit for our bottom line? Absolutely." In the same interview, he also stressed the service was for people "lower down on the food chain".


title: Tidal (service)

text: On February 27, 2016, Yesh Music, LLC and John Emanuele from the band The American Dollar launched a $5 million class-action lawsuit that claimed Tidal has yet to compensate the band for any of the royalty payments accrued from the streaming of the band's 116 copyrighted songs. The suit also accused Tidal of using faulty numbers to payout artists while also having undercut these same individuals by 35%. A response from Tidal stated that they are indeed fully up to date on all royalties for the group and have removed said intellectual property from their servers.


title: Tidal (service)

text: In January 2017, Norwegian newspaper "Dagens Næringsliv" ('Today's Business') reported that it had received internal documents disclosing lower subscriber counts than had been publicly announced by Tidal and its owners, having only 350,000 users in September 2015 (contradicting a claim by Jay-Z that the service had a million users), and 850,000 subscribers by March 2016, rather than the 3 million claimed by the service (which may have been inflated by including users that were using a free trial).


title: Tidal (service)

text: In May 2018, "Dagens Næringsliv" published a report accusing Tidal of intentionally falsifying streaming numbers for Beyoncé's "Lemonade" and Kanye West's "The Life of Pablo" albums and consequently paying inflated royalties to the artists' record labels. The newspaper supported its report with a comprehensive study from Norwegian University of Science and Technology's Center for Cyber and Information Security in Gjøvik. "Variety" reported, the music service, which "has rarely shared its data publicly", being the exclusive streaming platform for both albums, "claimed that West's album had been streamed 250 million times in its first 10 days of release in February of 2016, while claiming it had just 3 million subscribers – a claim that would have meant every subscriber played the album an average of eight times per day; and that Beyonce's album was streamed 306 million times in its first 15 days of release in April of 2016."


title: Tidal (service)

text: The company denied any wrongdoing. Following the allegations, Norwegian collection society TONO filed an official police complaint against Tidal. Danish music organization Koda has also announced that it would be conducting an independent audit of Tidal data.


title: Tidal (service)

text: After confusion of Tidal and MQA claiming that the MQA encoding is better than the FLAC format and encoding with little to no evidence, GoldenSound conducted a series of tests by attempting to publish test audio to the platform, however got rejected because "the MQA encoder was unable to encode the file." GoldenSound then successfully published music with hidden test audio inside of it such as white noise, an impulse response, a square wave, a 32-tone test signal and the RMAA test sequence interspersed with self-produced music. He uploaded a 44.1 kHz version and an 88.2 kHz version, which the MQA encoder should have been able to upload with no loss, distortions or compression. However, after comparing the original master to the MQA encoded one, it was shown that the "mastered" MQA-encoded versions uploaded to Tidal was lossy and had distorted many of the tests and, on the 88.2 kHz version, had added high-frequency noise to the entire file. These files were compared to the same files uploaded to other streaming services, prominently Deezer, which had absolutely no loss or compression added, showing that it was only the MQA encoding that had been worsening the quality of the file. The concluding statement from GoldenSound was that MQA is not lossless, it is lossy and differs from the original master and is not at all how the artist intended for it to be listened to.


title: Tidal (service)

text: The test files uploaded to Tidal were quickly taken down shortly after GoldenSound sent an e-mail to MQA questioning their legitimacy and their recommended methods for encoding to MQA, stating that there is no viable or easy method to test their claims about lossless-ness, even for indie artists.


title: Tidal (service)

text: Musician Neil Young removed his music from Tidal after it had been converted to MQA and misleadingly labeled "Master". Young criticized the audio quality and the MQA business scheme:


title: Tidal (service)

text: Tidal has apps available for Microsoft Windows, macOS, iOS and Android compatible devices. Tidal is compatible with Apple TV, Roku, CarPlay, Android TV, and Amazon Fire TV.


title: Woody Harrelson filmography

text: Woody Harrelson is an American actor who made his film debut as an uncredited extra in "Harper Valley PTA" (1978). His breakthrough role was as bartender Woody Boyd on the NBC sitcom "Cheers" (1985–1993), which garnered Harrelson a Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Supporting Actor in a Comedy Series from a total of five nominations. He would later reprise the character in other television shows, such as "Frasier" and "The Simpsons". In 1992, Harrelson starred opposite Wesley Snipes in "White Men Can't Jump". He then appeared in the Oliver Stone-directed "Natural Born Killers" (1994) alongside Tommy Lee Jones and Robert Downey Jr. For his performance as free-speech activist Larry Flynt in "The People vs. Larry Flynt" (1996) he was nominated for a Golden Globe Award for Best Actor and an Academy Award for Best Actor. He next appeared in "The Thin Red Line" (1998).


title: Woody Harrelson filmography

text: From 1999 to 2000, Harrelson acted in the Broadway revival of "The Rainmaker". He then had a minor role in the 2003 comedy "Anger Management". From 2005 to 2006, Harrelson played Rev. Shannon in a London production of Tennessee Williams' "The Night of the Iguana". His next film role was as hit-man Carson Wells in the Coen brothers-directed "No Country for Old Men" (2007), which won the Academy Award for Best Picture. That year he also portrayed physician Robert O. Wilson in the documentary "Nanking". In 2008, Harrelson starred opposite Will Ferrell in "Semi-Pro" and Will Smith in "Seven Pounds". His work in "The Messenger" (2009) garnered him an Independent Spirit Award for Best Supporting Male. He then starred in "Zombieland" (2009), later returning to the franchise in "" (2019).


title: Woody Harrelson filmography

text: Harrelson starred as Haymitch Abernathy in "The Hunger Games" (2012). He would return to the role for three more films: "" (2013), "" (2014), and "" (2015). He then played the title role in the 2016 biopic "LBJ". For his performance in "Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri" (2017), Harrelson was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor and a BAFTA Award for Best Actor in a Supporting Role, but he lost both to co-star Sam Rockwell. That year, he also portrayed the militaristic "Colonel" in "War for the Planet of the Apes". The following year, he appeared in the Ron Howard-directed "" (2018). He then portrayed Admiral Chester Nimitz in the Roland Emmerich-directed "Midway" (2019), after having a minor role in Emmerich's "2012" (2009). During the 2020 Democratic presidential primaries, he portrayed candidate Joe Biden for multiple episodes of "Saturday Night Live". In 2021, Harrelson portrayed serial killer Cletus Kasady and voiced the symbiote Carnage in the Sony's Spider-Man Universe (SSU) film "", having first played the former character in a mid-credits cameo in "Venom" (2018).


title: ß

text: In German orthography, the letter ß, called ' ( ) and ' (, "sharp S"), represents the phoneme in Standard German when following long vowels and diphthongs.


title: ß

text: The letter-name combines the names of the letters of () and () in German. The character's Unicode names in English are sharp s and eszett. The lower-case Eszett letter is used only in German, and can be typographically replaced with the double-s digraph , if the ß-character is unavailable. In the 20th century, the ß-character was replaced with "ss" in the spelling of Swiss Standard German (Switzerland and Liechtenstein), while remaining Standard German spelling in other varieties of German language.


title: ß

text: The letter originates as the digraph as used in late medieval and early modern German orthography, represented as a ligature of (long s) and (tailed z) in blackletter typefaces, yielding . This developed from an earlier usage of in Old and Middle High German to represent a separate sibilant sound from ; when the difference between the two sounds was lost in the 13th century, the two symbols came to be combined as in some situations.


title: ß

text: Traditionally, did not have a capital form, although some type designers introduced "de facto" capitalized variants.


title: ß

text: In 2017, the Council for German Orthography officially adopted a capital, , into German orthography, ending a long orthographic debate.


title: ß

text: The HTML entity codice_1 was introduced with HTML 2.0 (1995). The capital () was encoded by ISO 10646 in 2008.


title: ß

text: In standard German, three letters or combinations of letters commonly represent (the voiceless alveolar fricative) depending on its position in a word: , , and . According to current German orthography, represents the sound :


title: ß

text: In verbs with roots where the vowel changes length, this means that some forms may be written with , others with : , , .


title: ß

text: The use of distinguishes minimal pairs such as (, to rip) and (, to travel) on the one hand ( vs. ), and (, penance) and (, buses) on the other (long vowel before , short vowel before ).


title: ß

text: Some proper names may use after a short vowel, following the old orthography; this is also true of some words derived from proper names (e.g., , named after Ernst Litfaß).


title: ß

text: According to the orthography in use in German prior to the German orthography reform of 1996, was written to represent :


title: ß

text: In the old orthography, word stems spelled internally could thus be written in certain instances, without this reflecting a change in vowel length: (from ), (from ), and (from ), (comparative: ). In rare occasions, the difference between and could help differentiate words: (expiration of a pass) and (appropriate).


title: ß

text: If no is available, or is used instead ( especially in Hungarian-influenced eastern Austria). Until 2017, there was no official capital form of ; a capital form was nevertheless frequently used in advertising and government bureaucratic documents. In June of that year, the Council for German Orthography officially adopted a rule that would be an option for capitalizing besides the previous capitalization as (i.e., variants and would be accepted as equally valid).


title: ß

text: In Swiss Standard German, usually replaces every . This is officially sanctioned by the reformed German orthography rules, which state in §25 E: "" ("In Switzerland, one may always write 'ss'"). Liechtenstein follows the same practice. There are very few instances where the difference between spelling and affects the meaning of a word, and these can usually be told apart by context.


title: ß

text: As a result of the High German consonant shift, Old High German developed a sound generally spelled or that was probably pronounced and was contrasted with a sound, probably pronounced (voiceless alveolar retracted sibilant) or (voiced alveolar retracted sibilant), depending on the place in the word, and spelled . Given that could also represent the affricate , some attempts were made to differentiate the sounds by spelling as or : (), (), (). In Middle High German, simplified to at the end of a word or after a long vowel, but was retained word internally after a short vowel: () vs. () and ().


title: ß

text: In the thirteenth century, the phonetic difference between and was lost at the beginning and end of words in all dialects except for Gottscheerish. Word-internally, Old and Middle High German came to be pronounced (the voiced alveolar sibilant), while Old and Middle High German continued to be pronounced . This produces the contrast between modern standard German and . The former is pronounced and comes from , while the latter is pronounced and comes from .


title: ß

text: In the late medieval and early modern periods, was frequently spelled or . The earliest appearance of ligature resembling the modern is in a fragment of a manuscript of the poem "Wolfdietrich" from around 1300. In the Gothic book hands and bastarda scripts of the late medieval period, is written with long s and the Blackletter "tailed z", as . A recognizable ligature representing the digraph develops in handwriting in the early 14th century.


title: ß

text: By the late 1400s, the choice of spelling between and was usually based on the sound's position in the word rather than etymology: () tended to be used in word final position: (, ), (, ); () tended to be used when the sound occurred between vowels: (, ). While Martin Luther's early 16th-century printings also contain spellings such as (), early modern printers mostly changed these to : . Around the same time, printers began to systematically distinguish between (the, that [pronoun]) and (that [conjunction]).


title: ß

text: In modern German, the Old and Middle High German is now represented by either , , or, if there are no related forms in which occurs intervocalically, with : (), (), and ().


title: ß

text: The pre-1996 German use of was codified by the eighteenth-century grammarians Johann Christoph Gottsched (1748) and Johann Christoph Adelung (1793) and made official for all German-speaking countries by the German Orthographic Conference of 1901. In this orthography, the use of was modeled after the use of long and "round"-s in Fraktur. appeared both word internally after long vowels and also in those positions where Fraktur required the second s to be a "round" or "final" s, namely the ends of syllables or the ends of words. In his "Deutsches Wörterbuch" (1854) Jacob Grimm called for or to be written for all instances of Middle and Old High German etymological (e.g., instead of from ); however, his etymological proposal could not overcome established usage.


title: ß

text: In Austria-Hungary prior to the German Orthographic Conference of 1902, an alternative rule formulated by Johann Christian August Heyse in 1829 had been officially taught in the schools since 1879, although this spelling was not widely used. Heyse's rule matches current usage after the German orthography reform of 1996 in that was only used after long vowels.


title: ß

text: Although there are early examples in Roman type (called "Antiqua" in a German context) of a -ligature that looks like the letter , it was not commonly used for . These forms generally fell out of use in the eighteenth century and were used in Italic text only; German works printed in Roman type in the late 18th and early 19th centuries such as Johann Gottlieb Fichte's did not provide any equivalent to the . Jacob Grimm began using in his (1819), however it varied with word internally. Grimm eventually rejected the use of the character; in their (1838), the Brothers Grimm favored writing it as . The First Orthographic Conference in Berlin (1876) recommended that "ß" be represented as - however, both suggestions were ultimately rejected. In 1879, a proposal for various letter forms was published in the "Journal für Buchdruckerkunst". A committee of the Typographic Society of Leipzig chose the "Sulzbacher form". In 1903 it was proclaimed as the new standard for the Eszett in Roman type.


title: ß

text: Until the abolition of Fraktur in 1941, it was nevertheless common for family names to be written with in Fraktur and in Roman type. The formal abolition resulted in inconsistencies in how names such as Heuss/Heuß are written in modern German.


title: ß

text: The Swiss and Liechtensteiners ceased to use in the twentieth century. This has been explained variously by the early adoption of Roman type in Switzerland, the use of typewriters in Switzerland that did not include in favor of French and Italian characters, and peculiarities of Swiss German that cause words spelled with or to be pronounced with gemination. The Education Council of Zurich had decided to stop teaching the letter in 1935, whereas the Neue Zürcher Zeitung continued to write until 1971. Swiss newspapers continued to print in Fraktur until the end of the 1940s, and the abandonment of ß by most newspapers corresponded to them switching to Roman typesetting.


title: ß

text: When the Nazi German government abolished the use of blackletter typesetting in 1941, it was originally planned to also abolish the use of . However, Hitler intervened to retain , while deciding against the creation of a capital form. In 1954, a group of reformers in West Germany similarly proposed, among other changes to German spelling, the abolition of ; their proposals were publicly opposed by German-language writers Thomas Mann, Hermann Hesse, and Friedrich Dürrenmatt and were never implemented. Although the German Orthography Reform of 1996 reduced the use of in standard German, Adrienne Walder writes that an abolition outside of Switzerland appears unlikely.


title: ß

text: Because had been treated as a ligature, rather than as a full letter of the German alphabet, it had no capital form in early modern typesetting. There were, however, proposals to introduce capital forms of for use in allcaps writing (where would otherwise usually be represented as either or ). A capital was first seriously proposed in 1879, but did not enter official or widespread use. Historical typefaces offering a capitalized mostly date to the time between 1905 and 1930. The first known typefaces to include capital were produced by the foundry in Leipzig, in 1905/06. at the time widely advocated the use of this type, but its use nevertheless remained very limited.


title: ß

text: The preface to the 1925 edition of the dictionary expressed the desirability of a separate glyph for capital :


title: ß

text: The was edited separately in East and West Germany during the 1950s to 1980s. The East German of 1957 (15th ed.) introduced a capital , in its typesetting without revising the rule for capitalization. The 16th edition of 1969 still announced that an uppercase was in development and would be introduced in the future. The 1984 edition again removed this announcement and simply stated that there is no capital version of .


title: ß

text: In the 2000s, there were renewed efforts on the part of certain typographers to introduce a capital, . A proposal to include a corresponding character in the Unicode set submitted in 2004 was rejected. A second proposal submitted in 2007 was successful, and the character was included in Unicode version 5.1.0 in April 2008 (). The international standard associated with Unicode (UCS), ISO/IEC 10646, was updated to reflect the addition on 24 June 2008. The capital was finally adopted as an option in standard German orthography in 2017.


title: ß

text: The recommendation of the Sulzbacher form (1903) was not followed universally in 20th-century printing.


title: ß

text: The first variant (no ligature) has become practically obsolete. Most modern typefaces follow either 2 or 4, with 3 retained in occasional usage, notably in street signs in Bonn and Berlin. The design of modern tends to follow either the Sulzbacher form, in which (tailed z) is clearly visible, or else be made up of a clear ligature of and .


title: ß

text: The inclusion of a capital in ISO 10646 in 2008 revived the century-old debate among font designers as to how such a character should be represented. The main difference in the shapes of in contemporary fonts is the depiction with a diagonal straight line vs. a curved line in its upper right part, reminiscent of the ligature of tailed z or of round s, respectively. The code chart published by the Unicode Consortium favours the former possibility, which has been adopted by Unicode capable fonts including Arial, Calibri, Cambria, Courier New, Dejavu Serif, Liberation Sans, Liberation Mono, Linux Libertine and Times New Roman; the second possibility is more rare, adopted by Dejavu Sans. Some fonts adopt a third possibility in representing following the Sulzbacher form of , reminiscent of the Greek (beta); such a shape has been adopted by FreeSans and FreeSerif, Liberation Serif and Verdana.


title: ß

text: In Germany and Austria, a 'ß' key is present on computer and typewriter keyboards, normally to the right-hand end on the number row.


title: ß

text: In other countries, the letter is not marked on the keyboard, but a combination of other keys can produce it. Often, the letter is input using a modifier and the 's' key. The details of the keyboard layout depend on the input language and operating system: on some keyboards with US-International (or local 'extended') setting, the symbol is created using (or ) in Microsoft Windows, Linux and ChromeOS; in MacOS, one uses on the US, US-Extended, and UK keyboards. In Windows, one can use . On Linux works, and for uppercase.


title: ß

text: The HTML entity for is codice_1. Its code point in the ISO 8859 character encoding versions 1, 2, 3, 4, 9, 10, 13, 14, 15, 16 and identically in Unicode is 223, or DF in hexadecimal. In TeX and LaTeX, codice_3 produces ß. A German language support package for LaTeX exists in which ß is produced by codice_4 (similar to umlauts, which are produced by codice_5, codice_6, and codice_7 with this package).


title: ß

text: In modern browsers, "ß" will be converted to "SS" when the element containing it is set to uppercase using codice_8 in Cascading Style Sheets. The JavaScript in Google Chrome and Mozilla Firefox will convert "ß" to "SS" when converted to uppercase (e.g., codice_9).