title: Markdown

text: Markdown Extra is a lightweight markup language based on Markdown implemented in PHP (originally), Python and Ruby. It adds features not available with plain Markdown syntax. Markdown Extra is supported in some content management systems such as Drupal and TYPO3.


title: Markdown

text: LiaScript is a Markdown dialect that was designed to create interactive educational content. It is implemented in Elm and TypeScript and adds additional syntax elements to define features like:


title: Markdown

text: Implementations of Markdown are available for over a dozen programming languages; in addition, many applications, platforms and frameworks support Markdown. For example, Markdown plugins exist for every major blogging platform.


title: Markdown

text: While Markdown is a minimal markup language and is read and edited with a normal text editor, there are specially designed editors that preview the files with styles, which are available for all major platforms. Many general-purpose text and code editors have syntax highlighting plugins for Markdown built into them or available as optional download. Editors may feature a side-by-side preview window or render the code directly in a WYSIWYG fashion.


title: Five Star Movement

text: The Five Star Movement ( , M5S) is a political party in Italy. Its leader and president is Giuseppe Conte, Prime Minister of Italy from 2018 until 2021. The M5S was founded on 4 October 2009 by Beppe Grillo, a comedian and blogger, and Gianroberto Casaleggio, a web strategist. From 2014 to 2017, it was a member of the Europe of Freedom and Direct Democracy group in the European Parliament, along with the UK Independence Party and minor Eurosceptic parties. In January 2017, M5S members voted in favour of Grillo's proposal to join the Alliance of Liberals and Democrats for Europe Group but the party was eventually refused, and has since sat as Non-Inscrits in the European Parliament.


title: Five Star Movement

text: In November 2014, Grillo appointed a directorate composed of five leading members of parliament (Alessandro Di Battista, Luigi Di Maio, Roberto Fico, Carla Ruocco, and Carlo Sibilia), which lasted until the following October when he dissolved it and proclaimed himself the political head of the M5S. In January 2018, Grillo separated his own blog from the movement, which was used in the previous years as an M5S online newspaper and the main organ. From the foundation until 2021, Grillo also formally served as president of the association named the Five Star Movement; his nephew Enrico Grillo served as vice president and his accountant Enrico Maria Nadasi as secretary. After the 2021 M5S leadership election, a new statute was approved and Conte became the new president, while Grillo continued to be the guarantor of the movement. During the years, the M5S went through several splits, most recently in June 2022, when former leader Di Maio formed Together for the Future.


title: Five Star Movement

text: In the 2013 Italian general election, the M5S was the second-most popular single party and the third-most popular grouping, behind the centre-left Italia. Bene Comune and the centre-right coalition. The M5S turned down a coalition offer with the centre-left coalition and entered opposition. In 2016, Chiara Appendino and Virginia Raggi, both members of the M5S, were elected mayors of Turin and Rome, respectively. The M5S opposed the reforms proposed in the 2016 Italian constitutional referendum. In the 2017 M5S leadership election held on 21–22 September, Di Maio, the vice-president of the Chamber of Deputies, was elected in an online primary with 82% of votes as candidate to the premiership and political head of the movement, replacing Grillo as leader of the M5S but not as the M5S's guarantor. In the 2018 Italian general election, the M5S became the largest party in the Italian Parliament, and has since been part of government with both right-wing and left-wing coalitions.


title: Five Star Movement

text: The 2022 Italian general election saw a strong decrease in support for the party, which scored 15% and was the third most voted party but due the electoral law was the fourth party by seats in Parliament, where they sat at the opposition. Thanks in part to a strong performance in Southern Italy, the M5S defied single-digits polls in July 2022, and they won single-member constituencies in the South that otherwise would have been won by the centre-right coalition.


title: Five Star Movement

text: On 16 July 2005, Beppe Grillo suggested through his blog that supporters adopt social networks, such as Meetup, to communicate and coordinate local meetings. The first "40 Friends of Beppe Grillo" meetups began with the initial aim to "have fun, get together, share ideas and proposals for a better world, starting from one's own city, and discuss and develop my posts, if you believe them". Meetups featured thematic working groups on topics entitled "technology and innovation", "press-communication", "ethical consumerism", "currency study", "no incinerators", and others. From these beginnings, Grillo was asked to stand in the October 2005 centre-left coalition primaries for the selection of the prime ministerial candidate of The Union.


title: Five Star Movement

text: On three occasions (17 December 2005 in Turin, 26 March 2006 in Piacenza, and 16 to 18 June 2006 in Sorrento), the representatives of the Friends of Beppe Grillo meetups held national meetings with Grillo, where proposals regarding environmental issues such as the replacement of polluting incinerators with systems applying mechanical-biological waste treatment were discussed.


title: Five Star Movement

text: During the fourth national meeting held in Genoa on 3 February 2007, Grillo announced his desire to provide an autonomous space during his touring shows for local meetup activists. On 14 July 2007, some civic list representatives who participated in local elections the previous spring met in Parma to establish a national coordination between associations, movements, and organisations. They met to practice promoting and experimenting with direct and participatory democracy, and to share a document of intent, which included the establishment of proposals, abrogative referendums, the direct election of the Ombudsman, the institution of participatory budgeting, a bound mandate for public administrators, and open primaries.


title: Five Star Movement

text: On 14 June 2007, Grillo launched "Vaffanculo Day" (Fuck-off Day), or V-Day, in Bologna. V-Day was meant to mobilize the collection of signatures to submit a popular initiative seeking to introduce preferences in the current electoral law and to prevent parliamentary candidate nominations for the criminally convicted and those who have already completed two terms in office.


title: Five Star Movement

text: The name V-Day was chosen to reflect four references. The first refers to the Normandy landings of the Allies in Normandy during World War II in order to symbolise how Italian citizens would invade bad policy. The second refers to the motion picture and graphic novel "V for Vendetta", which the M5S frequently relates with its principles of political renewal (the logo of the movement shares the use of a red "V" symbol with the franchise). The third refers to the interjection "vaffanculo" ("fuck you") directed at bad policy, while the fourth is a reference to the Roman numeral for five.


title: Five Star Movement

text: V-Day, which continued the "Clean Parliament" initiative promoted by Grillo since 2006, took place in many Italian cities on 8 September 2007 to evoke the state of confusion caused by the Badoglio Proclamation on 8 September 1943. On that day, 336,000 signatures were collected, far exceeding the 50,000 required to file a popular initiative law. For the occasion, Michele Serra coined the term "grillismo".


title: Five Star Movement

text: V2-Day was organised for 25 April 2008, a second day of action aimed at collecting signatures for three referendums. On 29 and 30 September 2007 in Lucca, several members of the meetups and local civic lists, in the initial wake of the discussions started on the net and in the wake of the previous meeting of Perugia, defined the policies for the establishment of civic lists. On 10 October 2007, Grillo gave guidance on how to create the civic lists.


title: Five Star Movement

text: On 3 December 2008, Grillo presented the symbol of the Five Star Civic Lists for the 2009 local elections. The logo in the "V" of citizenship is a reference to V-Day. On 17 February 2009 in Bologna, a gathering of civic lists discussed the future of the movement and the coming elections. In particular, Sonia Alfano consulted with the activist base of the movement about her possible candidacy for the European Parliament as an independent candidate with the Italy of Values (IdV) list. She became the first Member of the European Parliament (MEP) from the M5S.


title: Five Star Movement

text: On 8 March 2009, the first national meeting of the Five Star Civic Lists was held in Florence, where Grillo presented the Charter of Florence, a 12-point program of the various local civic lists in the afternoon. About twenty local groups presented their ideas and experiences. In April 2009, Grillo announced he had received a letter from Nobel Prize winner in economics Joseph Stiglitz in which he declared he would look carefully at the experience of local civic lists promoted through the blog.


title: Five Star Movement

text: On 29 March 2009, Grillo announced that in the upcoming 2009 European Parliament election in Italy he would support Luigi de Magistris and Sonia Alfano (figures close to the movement) as independent candidates in the lists of IdV, together with the journalist Carlo Vulpio (also close to the movement). On 11 June, De Magistris and Alfano, candidates in all five constituencies, were elected to the European Parliament, resulting in the first and second preferences (of 419 000 and 143 000). In the same election, as stated by Grillo, 23 councilors were elected from the Five Star Civic Lists, especially in the municipalities of Emilia-Romagna in North Italy.


title: Five Star Movement

text: On 9 September 2009, the launch of the National Five Star Movement (M5S), inspired by the ideologies of the Charter of Florence, was announced. On 4 October 2009, Grillo, along with Gianroberto Casaleggio, Grillo declared the birth of the M5S and presented a programme at the Emerald Theatre in Milan.


title: Five Star Movement

text: During the 2010 Italian regional elections, the M5S obtained notable results in the five regions where it ran a candidate for president, as Giovanni Favia gained 7.0% of the vote in Emilia-Romagna (6.0% for the list, with two regional councilors elected); Davide Bono 4.1% in Piedmont (3.7%, two councilors); David Borrelli 3.2% in Veneto (2.6%, no councilors); Vito Crimi 3.0% in Lombardy (2.3%, no councilors); and Roberto Fico 1.3% in Campania (1.3%, no councilors).


title: Five Star Movement

text: In the 2011 Italian local elections on 15 and 16 May, the M5S was present in 75 of the 1,177 municipalities in the vote, including 18 of the 23 provincial capitals called to vote. In the first round, the M5S entered its representatives in 28 municipalities (for a total of 34 elected councilors) and often resulting in some important decisive ballots. Its best results were in the cities and towns of the center-north, especially in Emilia-Romagna, where the list achieved a share of the vote of between 9% and 12% in Bologna, Rimini, and Ravenna), and Piedmont. In Southern Italy, it rarely obtained 2% of the vote.


title: Five Star Movement

text: In the 2011 Molise regional election on 16 and 17 October, the M5S had its own candidate for the presidency and its own list. The list received 2.27% of the votes and the presidential candidate garnered 5.60% of the vote, but the movement achieved no seats.


title: Five Star Movement

text: In the 2012 Italian local elections, the M5S did well in several cities of the Northern Italy, notably in Genoa (14.1%), Verona (9.5%), Parma (19.9%), Monza (10.2%), and Piacenza (10.0%). In the small Venetian town of Sarego, the M5S's candidate was elected mayor with 35.2% of the vote (there is no run-off in towns with less than 15,000 inhabitants). In the run-offs, it won the mayorships of Parma (60.2%), Mira (52.5%), and Comacchio (69.2%). After the election, the M5S consistently scored around 15–20% nationally in opinion polls, frequently ahead of the centre-right The People of Freedom (PdL) and second to the centre-left Democratic Party (PD).


title: Five Star Movement

text: In the 2012 Sicilian regional election on 28 October, the M5S fielded Giancarlo Cancelleri as candidate. The campaign kicked off with Grillo's arrival in Messina on 10 October swimming from the mainland. In the election, Cancelleri came third with 18.2% of the vote, while the M5S was the most voted for party at 14.9%, obtaining 15 seats out of 90 in the Sicilian Regional Assembly in a very fragmented political landscape; however, the election was characterised by low participation as only 47.4% of eligible voters turned out to vote.


title: Five Star Movement

text: On 29 October 2012, Grillo announced guidelines for candidates wishing to stand in the 2013 general election. For the first time in Italy, the candidates were chosen by party members through an online primary, which took place 3 to 6 December. On 12 December 2012, Grillo expelled two leading members from the party (Giovanni Favia, regional councillor of Emilia-Romagna, and Federica Salsi, municipal councillor in Bologna) for breaking the party's rules. The former had talked about the lack of democracy within the party while the latter had taken part in a political talk show on Italian television, something that was discouraged and later forbidden by Grillo.


title: Five Star Movement

text: On 22 February 2013, a large crowd of 800,000 people attended Grillo's final rally before the 2013 general election in Piazza San Giovanni in Rome. On 24 and 25 February 2013, the M5S contested all Italian constituencies; Grillo was listed as head of the coalition, although he was not an electoral candidate. The vote for M5S in the Chamber of Deputies reached 25.55% of the vote in Italy and 9.67% for overseas voters, a total of 8,784,499 votes, making it the second most voted-for list after the PD, which acquired 25.42% of the votes in Italy and 29.9% abroad, or 8,932,615 votes, electing 108 deputies. The M5S vote for the Senate of the Republic was 23.79% in Italy and 10% abroad, a total of 7,375,412 votes, second only to the PD, which garnered 8,674,893 votes, electing 54 senators. The party gained a higher share of the vote than was predicted by any of the opinion polls. The M5S won 25.6% of the vote for the Chamber of Deputies, more than any other single party; however, both the centre-left coalition (Italia. Bene Comune) dominated by the PD, and the PdL-led centre-right coalition, obtained more votes as coalitions. The M5S was the largest party in the Abruzzo, Marche, Liguria, Sicily, and Sardinia regions.


title: Five Star Movement

text: On 21 March 2013, Luigi Di Maio was elected vice president of the Chamber of Deputies with 173 votes. Aged 26, he was the youngest vice president of the house to date.


title: Five Star Movement

text: Competing in its first European election, with a surge in popularity in February 2013, the M5S won second place at the 2014 European Parliament election held on 26 May, receiving 21.15% of the vote and returning 17 MEP.


title: Five Star Movement

text: In the run-up to the Eighth European Parliament term, the M5S lacked a European affiliation and sought a European parliament group. Initial negotiations were held with Europe of Freedom and Democracy (EFD) co-president Nigel Farage and The Greens–European Free Alliance (Greens/EFA). On 4 June 2014, The Greens/EFA rejected Grillo's attempts to obtain group membership. On 11 June 2014, the Alliance of Liberals and Democrats for Europe (ALDE) group rejected the M5S as a potential affiliate in a statement citing the party's perceived Euroscepticism and populism. In an online referendum offered to M5S members on 12 June 2014, the choice of European Parliament affiliation offered were Europe of Freedom and Democracy (EFD), the European Conservatives and Reformists (ECR), or to become Non-Inscrits. Party activists voted 78.1% to join the EFD group. On 18 June 2014, it was announced that the EFD group had enough MEPs to continue into the 8th European Parliament term. On 24 June 2014, M5S MEP David Borrelli was chosen as the group's new co-president and the EFD group name was amended to Europe of Freedom and Direct Democracy (EFDD) for the upcoming parliament. The EFDD group lost its official group status on 16 October 2014 after the defection of Latvian MEP Iveta Grigule until Polish MEP Robert Iwaszkiewicz joined the group four days later.


title: Five Star Movement

text: On 17 November 2015, after an online poll in which 40,995 people took part, the movement changed its logo to replace the URL of co-founder Grillo (beppegrillo.it) with the official movement URL. The other option was to remove Grillo's URL entirely, replacing it with nothing. The grounds for the removal of Grillo's name was that "the 5 Star Movement is mature enough and is preparing to govern Italy, so I believe it's correct not to associate it to a name anymore".


title: Five Star Movement

text: The movement's founder and main strategist Gianroberto Casaleggio died on 12 April 2016 in Milan, at the age of 61, after a long period of illness due to brain cancer. After his death, his son Davide was appointed as the president of Casaleggio Associati and took his father's office as leader and strategist of the M5S.


title: Five Star Movement

text: For the 2018 general election, the M5S presented a programme whose main points are the introduction of a basic income, known as the citizens' income, to fight poverty, a measure that would cost between €15 and €20 billion annually, plus the cut of the public debt by 40 points in relation to GDP in ten years, the adoption of measures to revitalise youth employment, a cut in pensions of over €5,000 net not entirely based on the contribution method, the reduction of IRPEF rates and the extension of the income tax threshold, and the increase in spending on family welfare measures from 1.5 to 2.5% of GDP. On 4 March, none of the three main groupings, namely the M5S, the centre-right coalition, and the centre-left coalition led by the Democratic Party (PD), won a majority of seats in the Italian Parliament, although the M5S became the largest individual party, with 32.7% of the vote and 227 seats in the Chamber. In May, the M5S entered into coalition talks with centre-left PD, but party secretary Matteo Renzi publicly criticised and rejected the deal being discussed by his fellow party members; the M5S then turned to the League. The talks resulted in the proposal for the self-described Government of Change under the leadership of Giuseppe Conte, a law professor close to the M5S. The formation of the cabinet initially failed on 27 May as President Sergio Mattarella did not agree on the appointment of Paolo Savona as the Italian Minister of Economy and Finance due to his perceived Euroscepticism.


title: Five Star Movement

text: After the 2018 general election, the M5S started a decline in both opinion polls, deputies and senators, and election results, starting with the 2019 European Parliament election. Into the 2018 general election, the M5S proposed a constitutional law that would have obliged members of parliament to resign if they intend to change party. The M5S had won 227 deputies and 112 senators; by February 2022, the party had declined to 157 deputies and 62 senators, though it remained the biggest party in both houses of parliament. The first defections came when the deputy Andrea Mura was removed by the M5S for his abstentionism and later resigned from his duties, while the deputy Matteo Dall'Osso left the party to join Forza Italia (FI), Silvio Berlusconi's centre-right party, and the senators Saverio De Bonis and Gregorio De Falco were ejected due to their opposition to policies of the M5S–League government. Further defections came in 2019, when the deputy Sara Cunial was ejected after accusing the M5S of "favouring agromafia", the senator Paola Nugnes, who would later join the left-wing parliamentary group Free and Equal (LeU) as an independent representative of the Communist Refoundation Party (PRC), was removed from the M5S after voting against Salvini's decrees on immigration, as did the deputies Veronica Giannone and Gloria Vizzini, who opposed some of the M5S–League government's legislation, while the deputy Davide Galantino, who would later join the right-wing Brothers of Italy, left the M5S to join the Mixed Group, as did the senator Elena Fattori, who joined Italian Left (SI) in January 2021.


title: Five Star Movement

text: In the 2019 European Parliament election in May, the M5S saw decline in its vote share and the number of seats held from 21.2% of the vote and 17 seats to 17.1% of the vote and 14 seats. The results were seen as a significant defeat for the party, as the League was able to surpass the M5S in terms of vote share and seats by a large margin. Additionally, the results showed the party had seen a significant decline since the 2018 general election.


title: Five Star Movement

text: After the results, Di Maio called a vote of confidence in his leadership after several officials criticised him; transperency of the Rousseau platform, the online platform used by the party, was questioned earlier on in the year. On 31 May 2019, Di Maio won the vote of confidence, with the support of 80% of 56,127 members who voted on the motion. Afterwards, Di Maio pledged to reform the party.


title: Five Star Movement

text: In August 2019, Deputy Prime Minister Matteo Salvini announced a motion of no confidence against Prime Minister Conte after growing tensions within the majority. Many political analysts believe the no confidence motion was an attempt to force early elections to improve the League's standing in the Italian Parliament, ensuring Salvini could become the next Prime Minister. On 20 August, following the parliamentary debate in which he accused Salvini of being a political opportunist who "had triggered the political crisis only to serve his personal interest", Prime Minister Conte resigned his post to President Sergio Mattarella.


title: Five Star Movement

text: On 21 August, President Mattarella started the consultations with all the parliamentary groups. On the same day, the national direction of the PD officially opened to a cabinet with the M5S, based on pro-Europeanism, a green economy, sustainable development, the fight against economic inequality, and a new immigration policy. In the days that preceded the second round, a confrontation between the PD and the M5S started, while the left-wing parliamentary group LeU announced its support for a potential M5S–PD cabinet. On 28 August, the PD's newly-elected secretary Nicola Zingaretti announced at the Quirinal Palace his favourable position on forming a new government with the M5S, with Conte at its head. On the same day, Mattarella summoned Conte to the Quirinal Palace for 29 August to give him the task of forming a new cabinet. On 3 September, members of the M5S voted on the Rousseau platform in favour of an agreement with the PD under the premiership of Conte, with more than 79% of votes out of nearly 80,000 voters. On 4 September, Conte announced the ministers of his new cabinet, which was sworn in at the Quirinal Palace on the following day. On 18 September, Renzi left the PD to found the centrist liberal party Italia Viva (IV); he then joined the government with IV to keep the League and Salvini out of power.


title: Five Star Movement

text: During Conte's second government, the M5S continued to suffer parliamentary defections, among them the senator Gelsomina Vono, who left the M5S to join first IV an then FI, the senator Elena Fattori, who moved to the Mixed Group and then joined SI in January 2021. while the senator Ugo Grassi, Stefano Lucidi, and Francesco Urraro joined the League. Additionally, the education ministry Lorenzo Fioramonti left the M5S to join the Mixed Group, the senator Gianluigi Paragone, who would later found the Eurosceptic Italexit party and was joined by the senators Carlo Martelli and Mario Giarrusso, was ejected for voting against the finance bill and for his lack of confidence vote to Conte's second cabinet, the deputies Nunzio Angiola and Gianluca Rospi joined the Mixed Group, as did the deputies Santi Cappellani, Massimiliano De Toma, Rachele Silvestri, Nadia Aprile, and Michele Nitti, who joined the PD, and the senator Luigi Di Marzio, while the deputy Flora Frate was expelled from the M5S for failure to return her salary.


title: Five Star Movement

text: On 22 January, four days before the 2020 Italian regional elections, Di Maio resigned as party leader and was replaced "ad interim" by Vito Crimi. On 15 June, the conservative Spanish newspaper "ABC" reported that then-Foreign Minister of Venezuela Nicolás Maduro paid Gianroberto Casaleggio €3.5 million in 2010 to finance an "anticapitalist, leftist movement in the Italian Republic". Davide Casaleggio said this was fake news that had already surfaced in 2016.


title: Five Star Movement

text: On 26 January 2021, Conte resigned as Prime Minister. On 11 February, registered members of the party were made to vote on whether to join a government headed by Mario Draghi government through the SkyVote platform; 59% voted in favour. The debate over whether to support the Draghi government led to a split in the party, and the party expelled parliamentarians who voted against Draghi, and would soon found Alternative, and ManifestA later in February 2022. Prominent member Alessandro Di Battista, who opposed the party's decision, left the M5S on 11 February.


title: Five Star Movement

text: On 23 April, M5S and its web platform called Rousseau separated from one another. This was mainly due to a strained relationship as many parliamentarians refused to cover costs of the Rousseau Association. This resulted on the association cutting its ties and sending its employees home on reduced pay. Additionally, disagreements between Davide Casaleggio and Conte over the latter's proposed reforms led to an increasingly strained relationship. After the separation, the M5S accused the association of interference in the party's decisions. In May 2021, Isabella Adinolfi became the eighth MEP to defect from the M5S since the 2019 European Parliament election. In July 2021, the senator Matteo Mantero left the M5S to join Power to the People.


title: Five Star Movement

text: On 6 August, after a two-day online election in which 67,064 members voted, Conte was elected president of the M5S, with 62,242 votes (93%) in favour. The M5S suffered significant losses in the 2021 Italian regional elections in October, particularly the mayor of Rome Virginia Raggi, who was decisively defeated. In November 2021, the senator Emanuele Dessì left the M5S to join the Communist Party. On 7 February 2022, the court of Naples suspended the resolutions regarding the change in the M5S statute and the election of Conte as president of the M5S. On 21 June, Di Maio announced a split over foreign policy disagreements with Conte's faction, leading the formation of the Together for the Future parliamentary group, joined by 51 deputies and 11 senators formerly of M5S.


title: Five Star Movement

text: During 2022, rumours arose around a possible withdrawal of M5S's support to the national unity government, including allegations that Draghi privately criticised Conte and asked Grillo to replace him. This came amid tension between the M5S and the Draghi government on economic, environmental, and foreign policy issues. On 12 July, Draghi stated he would resign if the M5S withdraws its support to the government. On 14 July, the M5S revoked the support to the government of national unity regarding a decree concerning economic stimulus to contrast the ongoing energy crisis, leading to a government crisis, and the collapse of Draghi's government on 21 July. Parliament was dissolved and a snap election was called for September 2022.


title: Five Star Movement

text: Some early opinion polling for the 2022 Italian general election showed that the only way to avoid a right-wing alliance victory was the formation of a large big tent coalition including the M5S, minor left-wing and centrist parties, and their 2019–2021 government ally, the PD. As the M5S was blamed by the PD for causing the fall of Mario Draghi's government, an alliance was excluded from both sides, despite some pressure from the left to maintain the PD–M5S alliance. They remained allies at the regional level, such as in Liguria and Sicily, though not without criticism and issues. Under Conte's leadership in 2022, the M5S declared themselves to be part of the progressive pole and to be to the left of the PD; their campaign centered around the minimum wage and in defense of the citizens' income from right-wing criticism.


title: Five Star Movement

text: In the general election held on 25 September, the M5S defied single-digit polls before the campaign and reached 15%. Thanks to its stronghold in the South, the party was able to avoid an even bigger win for the centre-right coalition, which was favoured by the Italian electoral law of 2017 and division within the left and centre. For the first time since 2018, the M5S returned at the opposition level and voted against Giorgia Meloni's government, which had been sworn in on 22 October, in the confidence vote in both houses of the Italian Parliament on 25–26 October. Conte said he would lead an "uncompromising opposition" and added: "We will be the outpost for the progressive agenda against inequalities, to protect families and businesses in difficulty, to defend the rights and values of our Constitution."


title: Five Star Movement

text: Opinion polling for the next Italian general election following the vote showed a continued increase of support for the M5S. According to a Euromedia Research poll published by the late night talk show "Porta a Porta" on 27 October, the M5S (17.3%) overtook the PD (17.0%), becoming Italy's second political party once again.


title: Five Star Movement

text: The M5S was conceived as a post-ideological movement, within the context of post-modern politics. and has been described as anti-establishment, environmentalist, and populist. It has promoted left-wing issues, such as a basic income and green-inspired policies, and has been compared to the anti-austerity movement in Spain, Pirate parties, and Occupy Wall Street. From 2014 to 2019, the M5S also supported some right-wing policies, especially on immigration, and has been described as a New Right or right-wing party, or also compared to the post-war populism of Guglielmo Giannini's Common Man's Front. Additionally, it has been variously described as anti-globalist, anti-immigration, big tent, Eurosceptic, and pro-Russian. Its members stress that the M5S is not a party but a movement, and the five stars in the name and logo are a reference to five key issues for the party, among them the common good, integral ecology, social justice, technological innovation, and a green economy. The M5S has promoted e-democracy, direct democracy, the principle of "zero-cost politics", degrowth, and nonviolence. Grillo himself once provocatively referred to the movement as populist.


title: Five Star Movement

text: In the M5S, themes are derived from ecology and anti-particracy, promoting the direct participation of citizens, who converge in the management of public affairs through forms of digital democracy, such as e-democracy. The movement wants to be a "democratic encounter outside of party and associative ties and without the mediation of directive or representational organisms, recognizing to all users of the Internet the role of government and direction that is normally attributed to a few". From the economic point of view, it embraces the theories of degrowth, supporting the creation of "green jobs", and the rejection of polluting and expensive "great works", including incinerators and high-speed rail, aiming for an overall better quality of life and greater social justice. The M5S proposes the adoption of large-scale energy projects, elimination of waste, sustainable mobility, protection of territory from overbuilding, and remote work. The movement's political discourse often refers to the Internet as a solution to many social, economic, and environmental problems. This approach bears similarities with North American cyber-utopianism and the Californian Ideology.


title: Five Star Movement

text: The movement bases its principles on direct democracy as an evolution of representative democracy. The idea is that citizens will no longer delegate their power to parties, which are considered to be old and corrupted intermediates between the state and themselves, that serve the interests of lobby groups and financial powers. They will succeed only by creating a collective intelligence made possible by the Internet.


title: Five Star Movement

text: In order to go in this direction, the M5S chose its Italian and European parliamentary candidates through online voting by registered members of Grillo's blog. Through an application called Rousseau reachable on the web, the registered users of M5S discuss, approve, or reject legislative proposals submitted then in Parliament by the M5S group. As an example, the M5S electoral law was shaped through a series of online votes, like the name of the M5S candidate for President of Italy. The choice to support the abolition of a law against immigrants was taken online by members of the M5S, even if the final decision was against the opinions of Grillo and Casaleggio. The partnership with the UK Independence Party was also decided by online voting, although the given options for the choice of European Parliament group for M5S were limited to Europe of Freedom and Democracy (EFD), European Conservatives and Reformists (ECR), and to stay independent (Non-Inscrits). The option of joining the Greens/EFA group was discussed, but this option was not available at the time of the voting due to that group's prior rejection of the M5S.


title: Five Star Movement

text: Andrea Ballatore and Simone Natale wrote about how digital utopianism plays a pivotal role in M5S's worldview, saying that Grillo and Casaleggio describe the web as a "transparent, unified, coherent entity", with its own logic, laws, agency and disruptive agenda. They say that the web, which acts as a mythical panacea, can, and wants to cure the social and economic ills of Italy, leading the nation towards a more prudent future. They also say that the web is described as a "supermedium", which will significantly change all political, social, informational, and organisational processes. Roberto Biorcio says that Grillo used the internet as a way for widespread dissemination of their politics consisting of two elements. The first is the idea that the people can express their feelings of "vaffanculo", which literally translates as "fuck you", or "fuck off", aimed at the entirety of the political class. This was at the same time an attempt to transform protest into legitimate political action, as they gathered 450,000 signatures for three legislative initiatives created to promulgate a "clean parliament". Eric Turner stipulates that despite the Internet being promoted by Grillo as horizontal and without hierarchy, many people in Italy critique that claim as being deceiving. He quotes blogger Massimo Mantetellini by saying that the mass comments and posts created by the M5S actually create confusion and allows a top-down modality in which the leaders do not follow their own ideas and principles.


title: Five Star Movement

text: The M5S has roots in environmentalism, as well as a left-wing stance on some major social issues. Fabio Bordignon states that the very first battles of Grillo's people had their roots relating to but not exclusively environmentalism and renewable energy, the problems of poverty and precarious employment, the battles against the power of big business and the effects of globalisation, and the morality of the political sphere and civil rights. He goes on to say that roughly about 10–15% of the laws proposed over the years are dedicated to the environment alone. Paolo Natale says that in the first years of the party's major success around 2012, the M5S was made up of mainly younger generations of people, and for the most part males who had received high levels of education as well as having left-wing political stances. He states that these people were searching for alternative ways of participating in politics besides the regular scheme of what existed, and especially in order to achieve good administration, high-quality public transport, and green spaces, but with sensitivity to problems linked to local crime.


title: Five Star Movement

text: In order to exemplify how the M5S ranks among other parties for social and environmental stances for the 2013 general election, Nicolò Conti created a chart using poll data, the various parties' individual manifestos, and how these preferences interacted and translated into a policy space that the parties contested. His results were that the M5S ranks first among other parties in welfare expansion, environmental protection, and market regulation, where welfare expansion meant the expansion of public social services and excludes education, environmental protection meant policies in favour of preserving/conserving the environment, and market regulation meant policies designed to create an equitable and open economic market.


title: Five Star Movement

text: One of the most important rules of M5S is that politics is a temporary service; no one who has already been elected twice at any level (local or national) can be a candidate again and has to return to their original job. Another feature of the movement is the so-called "zero-cost politics", according to which politics must not become a career and way to make money. Belonging to the movement requires the self-reduction of the salaries of the citizens elected. The movement also rejects campaign contributions. In the 2012 regional elections, the Sicilian wing of the M5S decided to allocate the money saved by the reduction of the salaries of their elected to a fund for microcredit to help small and medium enterprises. In the 2013 general election, the M5S stated to have rejected over €42 million of public electoral refunds, supporting its expenses for the campaign with crowdfunding through the blog.


title: Five Star Movement

text: In order to be M5S candidates, citizens must not have a criminal record. The party also supports initiatives to ban politicians with criminal records from being elected. Among the greater political battles of M5S is the ethical commitment to a greater simplicity and transparency to counter the practice of holding two or more positions, which show the intricate conflicts of interest between any organisation, subsequently strengthened by public register, as a way to avoid centralisations that are nepotistic and clientelistic.


title: Five Star Movement

text: On 15 July 2012, Grillo publicly expressed his support for same-sex marriage, when the subject was discussed in the PD's National Assembly. In offering his support to marriage between homosexual citizens, Grillo broke his silence on the subject; some observers had speculated he opposed same-sex marriage.


title: Five Star Movement

text: On 28 October 2014, an online referendum took place among the activists of the M5S on the recognition of same-sex civil partnerships, in which 21,360 voted in favour and 3,908 voted to oppose it. In February 2016, the M5S decided not to officially back the proposal of recognition of stepchild adoption for same-sex civil partnerships, refusing to take an official stand, and gave its parliamentarians freedom to vote their conscience on the matter.


title: Five Star Movement

text: The M5S supports the DDL Zan, an anti-homophobia law, which failed to pass in 2020. In the aftermath, the M5S defended itself from accuses by Italia Viva. On 31 March 2022, Senator Alessandra Maiorino introduced a bill to legalize same-sex marriage.


title: Five Star Movement

text: Grillo's campaign has an unwillingness to form alliances as a result of his refusal to be associated or characterised like any of the older political families including the centre-left and centre-right coalitions. As the government itself is made up of both centre-left and centre-right coalition parties, the M5S has had difficulties coming to an agreement with any of the other parties in both 2013 and 2018, where a supportive alliance between the M5S and the centre-left coalition was discussed in both election before leading to different outcomes. Despite the different views within the party, the issues on which the movement agrees keep the party intact through advocating the main five principles of the M5S. A Tecné poll in the aftermath of the 2018 Italian general election suggested that 56% of M5S voters preferred a government coalition between M5S and the League. A coalition between the M5S and the centre-right coalition as a whole was preferred by only 4%. 22% preferred a coalition between the M5S, the centre-left coalition led by the Democratic Party (PD), and the left-wing Free and Equal (LeU). A technocratic government was only supported by 1% of the M5S's voters.


title: Five Star Movement

text: Since the formation of the left-leaning government with the PD and LeU, the M5S opened up to alliances with the centre-left coalition, such as for local and regional elections. This, among other factors, reflected poorly in opinion polling for the 2022 Italian general election, which saw a decline for the M5S in the immediate months after the election and fell to third place since the 2019 European Parliament election, to single digit-polls before the campaign. 2023 could have been the first alliance at the national level with the PD and the centre-left coalition but the fall of the Draghi government, to which both the M5S and PD belonged as national unity, caused a rift in July 2022 and led to snap elections on 25 September. As the PD blamed it on the M5S as an attempt to gain ground in the polls, while the M5S criticized the PD for not moving on from Draghi, it led to the breakdown of talks. Ultimately, the lack of alliance between the centre and the left, including an electoral law favouring coalitions, led to the win for the centre-right coalition.


title: Five Star Movement

text: The M5S's position on immigration has been ambiguous. On 23 December 2016, Grillo wrote in his blog that all illegal immigrants should be expelled from Italy, that the Schengen Agreement should be temporarily suspended in the event of a terrorist attack until the threat has been removed, and that there should be revision of the Dublin Regulation. On 21 April 2017, Grillo published a piece questioning the role non-governmental organisations (NGOs) operating rescue ships off Libya are playing in the migrant crisis, asking where are they getting their money, and strongly suggesting they may be aiding traffickers. On 5 August 2017, Luigi Di Maio, who led the M5S in the 2018 general election, called for "an immediate stop to the sea-taxi service" bringing migrants to Europe.


title: Five Star Movement

text: During their 2018–2019 government with the League, the M5S approved Matteo Salvini's anti-immigration degrees, for which their future government allies, the PD, which had opposed it, criticised when the M5S declared themselves to be part of the progressive pole and to the left of the PD during the 2022 campaign. During their government with the PD in 2019–2021, the decrees were partially abolished. Conte later claimed credit, when he first signed the law, for having moderated and made them less extreme than they originally were at the time, and criticised them in an interview to the "Corriere della Sera", blaming them on Salvini. In August 2022, Conte fully disown them.


title: Five Star Movement

text: On 28 January 2014, Giorgio Sorial, a deputy of the M5S, accused President Giorgio Napolitano of being a hangman who repressed opponents. Prime Minister Enrico Letta immediately defended President Napolitano, charging the M5S with being extremists. The following day, Angelo Tofalo, another deputy of the M5S, ended his speech in the Chamber of Deputies by shouting "Boia chi molla!" ("Hangman the one who gives up!") a famous motto used during the Italian Fascist era. The M5S members, especially its leader Beppe Grillo, have been accused of being too vulgar and verbally violent.


title: Five Star Movement

text: A M5S demonstration inside the Chamber of Deputies against a law approved by the government, which happened in January 2014, caused a brawl between the M5S, the centrist Civic Choice, the right-wing Brothers of Italy, and the centre-left Democratic Party. Following insults to the president of the Chamber of Deputies Laura Boldrini, Italian journalist Corrado Augias stated on 31 January 2014 that the violence used by the M5S reminded him of fascism. The following day, a militant activist of the M5S burned some of Augias's books and uploaded the photos to his Facebook profile because according to him "Augias offended the movement". This episode was readily taken up by major national newspapers and heavily criticised by public opinion due to some similarities with Nazi book burnings. Grillo criticised the action, saying the person who uploaded the photos did not represent the movement.


title: Five Star Movement

text: In the 2018 general campaign, the M5S said that they would not have given public money to banks. In 2019, the M5S–League coalition government gave its consent to the possible bailout of Banca Carige's debt, consisting of an amount of up to 1.6 billion dollars, in order to compensate bondholders and shareholders. The M5S had previously criticised a similar bailout of Banca Monte dei Paschi di Siena approved by the Paolo Gentiloni's centre-left government.


title: Five Star Movement

text: About the politics of the European Union and the euro, the M5S has often been highly critical but ambiguous. On 12 June 2014, having been rejected by the Greens/EFA, and also by ALDE, the M5S offered its activists a limited-choice online referendum to choose a parliamentary group for the party. 78% of participating activists voted for the Eurosceptic EFDD.


title: Five Star Movement

text: In January 2017, the M5S tried to change its group inside the European Parliament, moving from the EFDD to the ALDE. Despite an initial agreement, ALDE leader Guy Verhofstadt refused the M5S' admission to the group due to insufficient guarantees to come to a common position on European integration. The attempted move caused a chilling of relations with EFDD leader Nigel Farage, who was not informed about the M5S' agreement with the ALDE. Grillo was critical of the rejection and blamed "the establishment" for preventing them joining the ALDE. On 9 January, the Radio Radicale news correspondent David Carretta published documents about the financial and political benefits which would have accrued to the M5S for its admission to ALDE on Twitter.


title: Five Star Movement

text: In December 2017, Di Maio stated that he supported a referendum for Italy to leave the eurozone and would vote to leave. He rejected his previous position in January 2018, refusing the idea of a referendum on the euro, which cannot be done by constitution and was previously strongly supported by the movement. In February 2018, Di Maio stated that "European Union is the Five Star Movement's home". In September 2019, Di Maio confirmed that the goal was to change Europe from the inside.


title: Five Star Movement

text: In November 2021, the party discussed switching to the Progressive Alliance of Socialists and Democrats group in the European Parliament.


title: Five Star Movement

text: The party has been characterised as an entrepreneurial party. During the 2010 Italian regional elections, some parties highlighted a contradiction between the voluntary collective action in the struggles of civil society and openness in political representation. Also in 2010, there were tensions between the movement and Italy of Values.


title: Five Star Movement

text: In March 2012, Valentino Tavolazzi, a city councilor in Rimini, advocated a national meeting on behalf of the movement, which gathered about 150 participants. At the meeting, there was both praise and criticism from the participants including from the few politicians who were present. The meeting took a harsh stance on the "conditions of Regulation M5S" because it was discovered to be in conflict with the statutes of its Civic Party of origin Project for Ferrara. In response, they lost the use of the logo, and were banned from taking any position on behalf of M5S, which was portrayed as a controversial move regarding internal democracy.


title: Five Star Movement

text: Since 2007, Grillo has criticised the cost of politics by supporting the reduction of payment for deputies and senators. Based on this policy, the benefits received by members of parliament would not exceed €5,000 gross per month, with any surplus returned to the state with solidarity allowance, also called end-term; however, according to Giovanni Favia, the regional director of the M5S, the deduction of €5,000 gross salary of parliamentarians is contrary to the principles of the movement as it would result in a reduction of only €2,500 net. In an interview published in several newspapers in November 2012, Favia estimated at €11,000 per month the fees prescribed for a member of M5S. The article does not explain how Favia got to deduct that amount because it necessarily includes reimbursements and per diem is not flat as costs and expenses which vary from member to member.


title: Five Star Movement

text: Following the expulsion of Favia and Federica Salsi for expressing views about the lack of internal democracy, the party has expelled several members for criticism. The expulsions were made unilaterally by Grillo; as per regulation, they took place without prior consultation with members of the movement. Another criticism frequently made by the same movement activists and former activists, such as Federico Pistono, social entrepreneur, author of "Robots Will Steal Your Job, but That's OK", and former member, is about the absence of any form of effective participation on the web. There is a tool for collective writing of the program and the proposed laws, but the forum is considered inadequate for the purpose. Through his blog in September 2012, Grillo said that a portal to participate via the web was already under construction. The triggering was scheduled for the end of 2012; at the time of the 2013 general election, it was not yet realised. Through what became known as the Rousseau platform, which is not owned by the M5S, activists were able to vote on several questions including on confidence votes.


title: The Croods: A New Age

text: The Croods: A New Age (also known as The Croods 2) is a 2020 American computer-animated adventure comedy film produced by DreamWorks Animation and distributed by Universal Pictures. The sequel to "The Croods" (2013) as well as the second film in "The Croods franchise", it was directed by Joel Crawford (in his feature directorial debut) from a screenplay by Paul Fisher, Bob Logan, and the writing team of Dan and Kevin Hageman, based on a story by Kirk DeMicco and Chris Sanders, the directors of the previous film. The film features the returning voices of Nicolas Cage, Emma Stone, Ryan Reynolds, Catherine Keener, Clark Duke, and Cloris Leachman (in her final voice role) alongside new additions to the cast including Peter Dinklage, Leslie Mann, and Kelly Marie Tran. The film follows The Croods, Guy and their pets Chunky and Douglas, as they discover an idyllic, walled-in paradise that meets all of its needs. Unfortunately, they must also learn to live with the Bettermans, a family with a couple of steps above the Croods on the evolutionary ladder.


title: The Croods: A New Age

text: A sequel to "The Croods" was first announced in April 2013, with directors DiMicco and Sanders returning to helm the film. Its development continued through 2014 and 2015 until its cancellation in November 2016 due to the doubts in response to Universal's acquisition of DreamWorks. However, the project was revived in September 2017 with Crawford replacing Sanders and DiMicco as director in the following month. Due to the COVID-19 pandemic in the United States, much of the final animations were done from the crew's homes.


title: The Croods: A New Age

text: "The Croods: A New Age" was theatrically released in the United States on November 25, 2020. It grossed over $216 million worldwide against its $65 million budget and received generally positive reviews, with critics calling it "a decent-enough follow-up" and praising the cast. The film was also nominated for the Golden Globe Award for Best Animated Feature Film.


title: The Croods: A New Age

text: A flashback shows the death of Guy's parents when he was a child. As they drown in tar, they tell him to find somewhere called "tomorrow". He goes on a long journey and meets a young Belt before taking him along for the ride. This eventually leads up to events of meeting Eep and her family.


title: The Croods: A New Age

text: The Croods, along with Guy and their pets Chunky and Douglas, are still searching for a place to settle down, all the while surviving many dangerous creatures along the way. Grug is repeatedly annoyed at Eep and Guy's blossoming romance, fearing they may separate from the rest of the pack. This fear intensifies after Guy proposes to Eep that they find their own "tomorrow" without the rest of the Croods. As Grug walks off in anger, he soon comes across a giant wall and leads the whole pack to it. On the other side lays an idyllic paradise-like land rich in agriculture that the Croods quickly become enamored with. However, they are soon caught in a net and are released by the owners of the land, a couple called Phil and Hope Betterman, who were best friends with Guy's parents before their deaths and Guy's disappearance. The Bettermans welcome the Croods to their giant tree-home as house guests, where they meet their daughter and Guy's old friend, Dawn, who immediately befriends Eep. Life with the Bettermans becomes degrading for Grug as the Bettermans soon reveal themselves to be technologically advanced, better-mannered, and visibly condescending toward the Croods. Believing that Guy is better off with them, they hatch a scheme to get Guy to leave the Croods. Phil eventually takes Grug to his secret man-cave, a sauna-like place behind some waterfalls, where he manipulates him into believing Guy should leave their pack in exchange for Eep staying with her family. Meanwhile, Hope angers Ugga by insulting her family's lifestyle and attempts to manipulate her like Phil, but fails, thus leading to Ugga and Grug's decision to leave.


title: The Croods: A New Age

text: Sometime after this, Eep discovers that Dawn has never left the inside of the wall. Relating this to the solitude she faced in her cave, Eep convinces Dawn to use Chunky to escape the land and jump their wall for a joyride that ends with a bee stinging Dawn and having her hand swell up. When Eep takes her back home, Guy, upon finding out, scolds her for her recklessness, ending with him insensitively calling her a "cave-girl". At dinner, tensions rise between the parents as well as Guy and Eep, especially when Dawn's swelling is revealed, culminating in Grug accidentally revealing his and Phil's deal. Having had enough, the Croods decide to leave in the morning, but Guy decides to stay after he and Eep have a falling out. Soon, the land is attacked by Punch Monkeys, monkeys with human-like strength, on account of Grug and Ugga eating a bunch of bananas the Bettermans hoard around their land and have forbidden Grug from eating. Phil reveals he sends the Punch Monkeys the bananas every day so that they leave the Bettermans alone and since Grug and Ugga ate them, the Punch Monkeys become upset and kidnap Grug, Phil, and Guy and take them to their homeland.


title: The Croods: A New Age

text: As the men are taken, the remaining Croods and Bettermans leave to rescue the men, but eventually get marooned on an island full of Wolf-Spiders, wolves with the characteristics of arachnids. During their time together, Hope finally snaps, lashing out on the Croods and running off. However, during an encounter with the Wolf-Spiders, she learns the error of her ways and accepts the Croods. When they learn the location of the men, they name themselves "The Thunder Sisters", after a female-exclusive clan Gran was in when she was younger. At the Punch Monkey home, Grug, Guy and Phil soon discover that Phil's diversion of a river to irrigate his farm unknowingly deprived the Punch Monkeys of their water supply and that the Punch Monkeys need the bananas not only to eat, but to offer to a large primate monster called the Spiny Mandrilla in hopes of appeasing it. The Punch Monkeys make Grug and Phil fight gladiator-style to see who will be the sacrifice and when they wear each other out, they exchange their bitter feelings with each other, making Guy regret what he said during his and Eep's fallout.


title: The Croods: A New Age

text: Soon, the Punch Monkeys dress all three men as bananas to sacrifice to the giant Spiny Mandrilla. Grug and Phil apologize for their poor behavior, and for putting pressure on Guy, but just as they are about to be eaten, the Thunder Sisters show up to rescue them. A long and perilous battle ends with Guy and Eep on a giant skull-chandelier where they reconcile and use it to defeat the Spiny Mandrilla by using fire to sever the ropes and send the skull falling into the abyss below. The Spiny Mandrilla climbs back out of the depths and grabs Eep by her "peanut toe", which she uses as a prosthetic phalange, and pulls it off, sending the monster plummeting to its demise and allowing the families to escape the work.


title: The Croods: A New Age

text: With their differences finally settled, the Bettermans allow the Croods to live in their land as neighbors, with Guy realizing that Eep is his "tomorrow". Guy and Eep soon move into one of the Bettermans’ bedrooms together, which Grug approves of, and the Punch Monkeys become their next door neighbors.


title: The Croods: A New Age

text: ADR group provided by Richard Gould, Januel Mercado, Ryan Naylor, James Ryan, Randy Thom and director Joel Crawford.


title: The Croods: A New Age

text: In April 2013, DreamWorks announced a sequel to the film "The Croods", with Chris Sanders and Kirk DeMicco set to return as directors and writers. According to DeMicco, the sequel would focus on Ugga and motherhood, making it "the first chapter of society," expanding on the first film, which he said is about "the last chapter of the caveman."


title: The Croods: A New Age

text: On June 12, 2014, it was announced that the sequel would be released on November 3, 2017. On August 21, 2014, the film was pushed back to December 22, 2017. On August 9, 2016, nearing Comcast's impending acquisition of DreamWorks Animation, 20th Century Fox removed the film from the release schedule. The film would be instead released by Universal Pictures sometime in 2018. On August 23, 2016, it was reported that Kevin and Dan Hageman were hired to rewrite the script.


title: The Croods: A New Age

text: On November 11, 2016, DreamWorks announced that production for the sequel was cancelled. According to reports, there had been doubts about proceeding with the project before Universal's acquisition of DreamWorks, and it was DreamWorks' decision to cancel the film. However, in September 2017, DreamWorks and Universal revealed that the film was back in production with a release date scheduled for September 18, 2020. It was also revealed that both DeMicco and Sanders would not be returning. In October 2017, it was reported that Joel Crawford would replace them as director and Mark Swift would replace both the first film's producers Jane Hartwell and Kristine Belson as the producer of the film. Production of the film was shifted to work remotely during the COVID-19 pandemic.


title: The Croods: A New Age

text: In September 2013, it had been confirmed that Nicolas Cage, Emma Stone, and Ryan Reynolds would reprise their roles in the sequel as Grug, Eep, and Guy from the first film. On May 21, 2015, Leslie Mann and Kat Dennings had joined the voice cast. Mann would lend her voice to an upscale mother of a rival family named Hope Betterman, while Dennings was set to voice her daughter, Dawn. It was also reported that Catherine Keener and Clark Duke were reprising their roles as Ugga and Thunk. In September 2017, it was confirmed that the original actors would reprise their roles. In October 2018, Peter Dinklage was cast in the film to voice the character Phil Betterman. In October 2019, DreamWorks revealed that Kelly Marie Tran had replaced Dennings as Dawn.


title: The Croods: A New Age

text: In September 2020, it was announced that Mark Mothersbaugh had composed music for the sequel. The original 2013 feature was scored by Alan Silvestri. In November 12, 2020, a single called Feel the Thunder was released and performed by HAIM from "Trolls World Tour".


title: The Croods: A New Age

text: "The Croods: A New Age" was theatrically released in the United States on November 25, 2020, by Universal Pictures, which was then followed by a PVOD release on December 18. It was previously scheduled to be released on November 3, 2017, December 22, 2017, September 18, 2020, and December 23, 2020. The studio spent about $26.5 million promoting the film. In the United Kingdom, the film was released on July 16, 2021.


title: The Croods: A New Age

text: "The Croods: A New Age" was released by Universal Pictures Home Entertainment on Digital HD and on DVD, Blu-ray, Blu-ray 3D and 4K Ultra HD on February 23, 2021. All the releases include two new short films "Family Movie Night: Little Red Bronana Bread" and "Dear Diary: World's First Pranks", the award-winning short "To: Gerard," deleted scenes, an audio commentary and more. It was also released by Universal Sony Pictures Home Entertainment in Australia, along in a 2-movie pack with its 2013 film. It was also released on DVD and Blu-Ray on October 18, 2021, by Warner Bros. Home Entertainment in the UK.


title: The Croods: A New Age

text: "The Croods: A New Age" has grossed $58.6 million in the United States and Canada, and $157.4 million in other territories, for a worldwide total of $216 million. It became the first animated film released during the COVID-19 pandemic and the first family film since "Sonic the Hedgehog" to break the $200 million mark.


title: The Croods: A New Age

text: In the United States, the film made $1.85 million from 2,211 theaters on its first day, $2.7 million on its second (a 47% increase, opposed to the normal 40% drop seen on Thanksgiving Day), then $4 million on its third. It went on to debut to $9.7 million in its opening weekend (a five-day total of $14.3 million), the biggest opening weekend since "Tenet" over two months prior. The film remained in first the following two weekends, grossing $4.4 million and $3 million, respectively. It was dethroned by "Monster Hunter" in its fourth weekend. That same weekend, the film was the most-rented on FandangoNow, Apple TV, and Google Play. In its fifth weekend the film grossed $1.7 million over the Christmas frame. It also remained number one on all digital rental platforms. IndieWire estimated the film had made about $20 million from PVOD sales up to that point (of which Universal would keep 80% of). The film continued to hold steady in subsequent weekends, and regained the top box office spot in its 12th week of release with $2.7 million.


title: The Croods: A New Age

text: The film earned $3 million on its opening day in China, which is the third biggest for a Hollywood film in 2020, behind "Tenet" and "Mulan". It went on debut to $19.2 million in China, and a total of $21.6 million internationally. By its third weekend of release the film crossed $46 million (RMB 300 million) in China, becoming the second-biggest Hollywood title of the year in the country behind "Tenet" ($66.6 million). It made $3.2 million in its fourth weekend of international play, pushing its running total above $57 million.


title: The Croods: A New Age

text: Critics noted "The Croods: A New Age" as "a decent-enough follow-up" and commended the cast. On review aggregator Rotten Tomatoes, 77% of 155 critics' reviews of the film are positive, and an average rating of 6.4/10. The website's critics consensus reads: "Another agreeable outing for the titular prehistoric clan, "The Croods: A New Age" may be the missing link for parents between more elevated family-friendly fare." According to Metacritic, which calculated a weighted average score of 56 out of 100 based on 30 critics, the film received "mixed or average reviews". Audiences polled by CinemaScore gave the film an average grade of "A" on an A+ to F scale (the same score as the first film), and PostTrak reported 83% of those gave the film a positive score, with 59% saying they would definitely recommend it.


title: The Croods: A New Age

text: Ben Kenigsberg of "The New York Times" gave a mixed-to-positive review, writing "No one would call it a huge leap on the evolutionary ladder, but the animated sequel "The Croods: A New Age" is slightly funnier than its serviceable 2013 predecessor." Michael O'Sullivan of "The Washington Post" rated the film 2/4 stars, describing it as a "larky, slightly lunatic film". Lindsey Bahr at "Associated Press" rated the film 2.5/4, stating "it might not be as novel as the first, but it's essentially harmless, if a little chaotic, fun for kids and doesn't need to be anything more than that". Kate Erbland of "IndieWire" gave the film a "C+" and said, "It's a little silly, very colorful, and entertaining enough to deliver some good-hearted ideas that aren't beholden to any period in time. Worth nearly a decade of push-pull to get here? Probably not, but on its own merits it's a charming throwback". Alonso Duralde of "TheWrap" gave the film a positive review and wrote, "You may never have thought you needed or even wanted a sequel to "The Croods", but you may find it a pleasant surprise in a year where most of the surprises have been anything but."


title: The Croods: A New Age

text: A follow-up animated series, titled "", was announced and set to be released simultaneously on Peacock and Hulu on September 23, 2021. Tran reprises her role as Dawn, while A. J. Locascio reprises his role as Thunk from "Dawn of the Croods". The new voice cast features Amy Landecker as Ugga, Kiff VandenHeuvel as Grug, Ally Dixon as Eep, Artemis Pebdani as Gran, Darin Brooks as Guy, Matthew Waterson as Phil, and Amy Rosoff as Hope.


title: Maggi

text: Maggi ( or ) is an international brand of seasonings, instant soups, and noodles that originated in Switzerland in the late 19th century. The Maggi company was acquired by Nestlé in 1947.


title: Maggi

text: Julius Maggi (1846–1912) took over his father's mill business in Kemptthal, Switzerland, in 1869. Under his leadership, the business developed into one of the pioneers of industrial food production with the aim of improving the diet of working-class families through better nutrient supply and faster preparation.


title: Maggi

text: In 1882, at a meeting of the Swiss “Non-Profit Society”, the doctor and factory inspector Fridolin Schuler spoke about the miserable nutritional situation of the factory workers: women workers no longer had enough time to cook for their families, cold meals or alcohol often replaced warm meals; meals were served in factory canteens and were cheap but not sufficiently nutritious. The consequences were malnutrition, stomach diseases and high infant mortality. Schuler advocated high-protein, easily digestible pulses/legumes. He demanded they should be offered to the working class in a convenient form for quick preparation and at a cheap price. The society turned to the Maggi company, among others.


title: Maggi

text: Julius Maggi experimented for two years with different methods of mechanical and chemical processing of legumes and different mixtures. The results were presented to the representatives of the society on November 19, 1884. They approved the results and signed a contract to exclusively recommend Maggis legumes for a period of three years. Maggi in turn guaranteed a fixed price and regular product controls for sales in Switzerland. However, great success did not follow. The society was accused of representing the interests of a private company. The Maggi company, on the other hand, had difficulties challenging other suppliers of soup flour on the market, despite the support of the society.


title: Maggi

text: Since 1884, Maggi has been offering flour made from protein-rich legumes, which can be cooked quickly by being roasted beforehand. Maggi was the first to bring protein-rich legume meals to the market, and followed up with a ready-made soup based on legume meals in 1886. After that Julius Maggi introduced bouillon concentrates, first in capsules, then in cubes. In 1897, Julius Maggi founded the company Maggi GmbH in Singen, Germany.


title: Maggi

text: From 1885 he brought nine industrially produced types of legume flour onto the market. At the Swiss Culinary Art Exhibition in Zurich in 1885 he received the "First Class Diploma". In 1886, the first instant soups based on legume flour and Maggi seasoning followed as competition for the meat extract invented by Justus von Liebig. The first warehouses and branches abroad were founded, including in Singen in Baden in 1887. In order to obtain additional capital for the planned further expansion, the company was converted into a public limited company in 1889 with Julius Maggi as general director. In 1908 Maggi brought the bouillon cube onto the market.


title: Maggi

text: Maggi introduced extensive social benefits that were unusual for the time, such as a canteen, workers' housing, company health insurance, widow's and old-age pensions, and in 1906 Saturdays off. In a strike at the Singen plant in 1907, Julius Maggi successfully mediated, accused the management of having lost "contact with the workforce" and suggested the establishment of a "workers' committee", an early form of the works council. In 1912 Maggi Singen signed the first collective agreement in the German food industry.


title: Maggi

text: Company founder Julius Maggi lived mainly in Paris from 1902 and led the company to great success with new products in France. The sales of pasteurized milk by the "Société laitière Maggi" amounted to 60 million liters in 1912, and the sales of bouillon cubes with the name KUB amounted to 6 million units a month in 1912.


title: Maggi

text: Shortly after Julius Maggi's death in 1912, the company was converted into a holding company, the Allgemeine MAGGI-Gesellschaft.


title: Maggi

text: In 1947, following several changes in ownership and corporate structure, Maggi's holding company merged with the Nestlé company to form Nestlé-Alimentana S.A., currently known in its francophone home base as Nestlé S.A.


title: Maggi

text: By 2020, as part of the Simply Good initiative, the domestic Maggi range is to be geared more towards well-known and healthier ingredients and the salt content to be reduced.


title: Maggi

text: In Germany, Cameroon, Côte d'Ivoire, Bénin, Gambia, Sénégal, Guinea, Nigeria, Ghana, Burkina Faso, Togo, Sierra Leone, Liberia, Mali, Niger, and Mauritania and parts of the Middle East, Maggi cubes are an integral part of the local cuisine. In Haiti and throughout Latin America, Maggi products, especially bouillon cubes, are widely sold with some repackaging to reflect local terminology. In the German, Dutch, and Danish languages, lovage has come to be known as "Maggi herb" (Ger. "Maggikraut", Du. "maggikruid" or "maggiplant", Da. "maggiurt"), because it tastes similar to Maggi sauce, although lovage is not present in the sauce.


title: Maggi

text: In Mexico, German-speaking countries, the Netherlands, the Czech Republic, Slovenia, Poland and France, "Maggi" is still synonymous with Maggi-Würze (Maggi seasoning sauce), a dark, soy sauce-type hydrolysed vegetable protein-based condiment sauce. In Spain and Mexico, it is sold under the name "Jugo Maggi." There are a total of nine different formulations, which differ between nations and/or regions.


title: Maggi

text: Maggi instant noodles are popular in Bangladesh, South Africa, Pakistan, Singapore, Malaysia, Papua New Guinea, Australia, New Zealand, Sri Lanka, Nepal, Bhutan, Maldives and India and are synonymous with instant noodles in most of these countries. Nestle has 39% market share in Malaysia, and had 90% market share in India prior to a nationwide ban by the Food Safety and Standards Authority of India. The ban was later lifted, but market share diminished to 53%. In Malaysia and Singapore, fried noodles made from Maggi noodles are called Maggi goreng. Maggi Instant noodles are branded as "Maggi 2 Minute Noodles" in Australia, South Africa, New Zealand and India.


title: Maggi

text: In India, Maggi Masala noodles carry a green dot, meaning they are specifically formulated to serve vegetarians. However, Maggi chicken noodles carry a red triangle, indicating that they are not vegetarian. This special formulation is not available in other countries, unless imported from India.


title: Maggi

text: In Philippines, localized versions of Maggi instant noodles were sold until 2011 when the product group was recalled for suspected "Salmonella" contamination. It did not return to market, while Nestle continues to sell seasoning products including the popular Maggi Magic Sarap.


title: Maggi

text: Recipe mixes or so-called "Fixes" were introduced in Germany in 1974. The product offers to the consumers an idea and a recipe to cook with two or three fresh ingredients and a Maggi mix. A complete step-by-step recipe is given on the back of the package. These products were originally launched in Germany, where they became very popular, and some Western European countries. In the 1990s, recipe mixes were introduced in Eastern Europe, particularly in Russia and Poland (under the Winiary brand), where they became a big success. Nowadays, the portfolio of recipe mixes offers consumers more than a hundred recipe ideas across different European countries.


title: Maggi

text: In May 2015, food safety regulators from Barabanki, a district of Uttar Pradesh, India reported that samples of Maggi 2 Minute Noodles had unexpectedly high levels of monosodium glutamate (MSG), as well as up to 17 times the permissible limit of lead. This finding led to multiple market withdrawals and investigations in India and beyond.


title: Maggi

text: Nestlé has faced criticism of its advertising not adhering to marketing regulations in developed countries, and for making misleading claims in developing countries. In October 2008, Nestlé aired a commercial meant for Bangladeshi television on British TV. The advert made false claims that the noodles would "help to build strong muscles, bone, and hair". The British Advertising Standards Authority stated that the advertisement did not abide by the new EU consumer protection legislation, by which advertisers have to provide proof of health claims.


title: Cherenkov radiation

text: Cherenkov radiation (; ) is electromagnetic radiation emitted when a charged particle (such as an electron) passes through a dielectric medium at a speed greater than the phase velocity (speed of propagation of a wavefront in a medium) of light in that medium. A classic example of Cherenkov radiation is the characteristic blue glow of an underwater nuclear reactor. Its cause is similar to the cause of a sonic boom, the sharp sound heard when faster-than-sound movement occurs. The phenomenon is named after Soviet physicist Pavel Cherenkov.


title: Cherenkov radiation

text: The radiation is named after the Soviet scientist Pavel Cherenkov, the 1958 Nobel Prize winner, who was the first to detect it experimentally under the supervision of Sergey Vavilov at the Lebedev Institute in 1934. Therefore, it is also known as Vavilov–Cherenkov radiation. Cherenkov saw a faint bluish light around a radioactive preparation in water during experiments. His doctorate thesis was on luminescence of uranium salt solutions that were excited by gamma rays instead of less energetic visible light, as done commonly. He discovered the anisotropy of the radiation and came to the conclusion that the bluish glow was not a fluorescent phenomenon.


title: Cherenkov radiation

text: A theory of this effect was later developed in 1937 within the framework of Einstein's special relativity theory by Cherenkov's colleagues Igor Tamm and Ilya Frank, who also shared the 1958 Nobel Prize.


title: Cherenkov radiation

text: Cherenkov radiation as conical wavefronts had been theoretically predicted by the English polymath Oliver Heaviside in papers published between 1888 and 1889 and by Arnold Sommerfeld in 1904, but both had been quickly dismissed following the relativity theory's restriction of superluminal particles until the 1970s. Marie Curie observed a pale blue light in a highly concentrated radium solution in 1910, but did not investigate its source. In 1926, the French radiotherapist Lucien Mallet described the luminous radiation of radium irradiating water having a continuous spectrum.


title: Cherenkov radiation

text: In 2019, a team of researchers from Dartmouth's and Dartmouth-Hitchcock's Norris Cotton Cancer Center discovered Cherenkov light being generated in the vitreous humor of patients undergoing radiotherapy. The light was observed using a camera imaging system called a CDose, which is specially designed to view light emissions from biological systems. For decades, patients had reported phenomena such as "flashes of bright or blue light" when receiving radiation treatments for brain cancer, but the effects had never been experimentally observed.


title: Cherenkov radiation

text: While the speed of light "in a vacuum" is a universal constant (), the speed in a material may be significantly less, as it is perceived to be slowed by the medium. For example, in water it is only 0.75"c". Matter can accelerate to a velocity higher than this (although still less than "c", the speed of light in a vacuum) during nuclear reactions and in particle accelerators. Cherenkov radiation results when a charged particle, most commonly an electron, travels through a dielectric (can be polarized electrically) medium with a speed greater than light's speed in that medium.


title: Cherenkov radiation

text: The effect can be intuitively described in the following way. From classical physics, it is known that accelerating charged particles emit EM waves and via Huygens' principle these waves will form spherical wavefronts which propagate with the phase velocity of that medium (i.e. the speed of light in that medium given by formula_1, for formula_2, the refractive index). When any charged particle passes through a medium, the particles of the medium will polarize around it in response. The charged particle excites the molecules in the polarizable medium and on returning to their ground state, the molecules re-emit the energy given to them to achieve excitation as photons. These photons form the spherical wavefronts which can be seen originating from the moving particle. If formula_3, that is the velocity of the charged particle is less than that of the speed of light in the medium, then the polarization field which forms around the moving particle is usually symmetric. The corresponding emitted wavefronts may be bunched up but they do not coincide or cross and there are no interference effects to worry about. In the reverse situation, i.e. formula_4, the polarization field is asymmetric along the direction of motion of the particle, as the particles of the medium do not have enough time to recover to their "normal" randomized states. This results in overlapping waveforms (as in the animation) and constructive interference leads to an observed cone-like light signal at a characteristic angle: Cherenkov light.


title: Cherenkov radiation

text: A common analogy is the sonic boom of a supersonic aircraft. The sound waves generated by the aircraft travel at the speed of sound, which is slower than the aircraft, and cannot propagate forward from the aircraft, instead forming a conical shock front. In a similar way, a charged particle can generate a "shock wave" of visible light as it travels through an insulator.


title: Cherenkov radiation

text: The velocity that must be exceeded is the phase velocity of light rather than the group velocity of light. The phase velocity can be altered dramatically by using a periodic medium, and in that case one can even achieve Cherenkov radiation with "no" minimum particle velocity, a phenomenon known as the Smith–Purcell effect. In a more complex periodic medium, such as a photonic crystal, one can also obtain a variety of other anomalous Cherenkov effects, such as radiation in a backwards direction (see below) whereas ordinary Cherenkov radiation forms an acute angle with the particle velocity.


title: Cherenkov radiation

text: In their original work on the theoretical foundations of Cherenkov radiation, Tamm and Frank wrote, "This peculiar radiation can evidently not be explained by any common mechanism such as the interaction of the fast electron with individual atom or as radiative scattering of electrons on atomic nuclei. On the other hand, the phenomenon can be explained both qualitatively and quantitatively if one takes into account the fact that an electron moving in a medium does radiate light even if it is moving uniformly provided that its velocity is greater than the velocity of light in the medium."


title: Cherenkov radiation

text: In the figure on the geometry, the particle (red arrow) travels in a medium with speed formula_5 such that


title: Cherenkov radiation

text: where formula_7 is speed of light in vacuum, and formula_2 is the refractive index of the medium. If the medium is water, the condition is formula_9, since formula_10 for water at 20 °C.


title: Cherenkov radiation

text: The left corner of the triangle represents the location of the superluminal particle at some initial moment (). The right corner of the triangle is the location of the particle at some later time t. In the given time "t", the particle travels the distance


title: Cherenkov radiation

text: Cherenkov radiation can also radiate in an arbitrary direction using properly engineered one dimensional metamaterials. The latter is designed to introduce a gradient of phase retardation along the trajectory of the fast travelling particle (formula_16), reversing or steering Cherenkov emission at arbitrary angles given by the generalized relation:


title: Cherenkov radiation

text: Note that since this ratio is independent of time, one can take arbitrary times and achieve similar triangles. The angle stays the same, meaning that subsequent waves generated between the initial time and final time "t" will form similar triangles with coinciding right endpoints to the one shown.


title: Cherenkov radiation

text: A reverse Cherenkov effect can be experienced using materials called negative-index metamaterials (materials with a subwavelength microstructure that gives them an effective "average" property very different from their constituent materials, in this case having negative permittivity and negative permeability). This means that, when a charged particle (usually electrons) passes through a medium at a speed greater than the phase velocity of light in that medium, that particle emits trailing radiation from its progress through the medium rather than in front of it (as is the case in normal materials with, both permittivity and permeability positive). One can also obtain such reverse-cone Cherenkov radiation in non-metamaterial periodic media where the periodic structure is on the same scale as the wavelength, so it cannot be treated as an effectively homogeneous metamaterial.


title: Cherenkov radiation

text: The Cherenkov effect can occur in vacuum. In a slow-wave structure, like in a traveling-wave tube (TWT), the phase velocity decreases and the velocity of charged particles can exceed the phase velocity while remaining lower than formula_7. In such a system, this effect can be derived from conservation of the energy and momentum where the momentum of a photon should be formula_19 (formula_20 is phase constant) rather than the de Broglie relation formula_21. This type of radiation (VCR) is used to generate high-power microwaves.


title: Cherenkov radiation

text: The Frank–Tamm formula describes the amount of energy formula_23 emitted from Cherenkov radiation, per unit length traveled formula_24 and per frequency formula_25. formula_26 is the permeability and formula_27 is the index of refraction of the material the charged particle moves through. formula_28 is the electric charge of the particle, formula_29 is the speed of the particle, and formula_7 is the speed of light in vacuum.


title: Cherenkov radiation

text: Unlike fluorescence or emission spectra that have characteristic spectral peaks, Cherenkov radiation is continuous. Around the visible spectrum, the relative intensity per unit frequency is approximately proportional to the frequency. That is, higher frequencies (shorter wavelengths) are more intense in Cherenkov radiation. This is why visible Cherenkov radiation is observed to be brilliant blue. In fact, most Cherenkov radiation is in the ultraviolet spectrum—it is only with sufficiently accelerated charges that it even becomes visible; the sensitivity of the human eye peaks at green, and is very low in the violet portion of the spectrum.


title: Cherenkov radiation

text: There is a cut-off frequency above which the equation formula_31 can no longer be satisfied. The refractive index formula_2 varies with frequency (and hence with wavelength) in such a way that the intensity cannot continue to increase at ever shorter wavelengths, even for very relativistic particles (where "v"/"c" is close to 1). At X-ray frequencies, the refractive index becomes less than 1 (note that in media, the phase velocity may exceed "c" without violating relativity) and hence no X-ray emission (or shorter wavelength emissions such as gamma rays) would be observed. However, X-rays can be generated at special frequencies just below the frequencies corresponding to core electronic transitions in a material, as the index of refraction is often greater than 1 just below a resonant frequency (see Kramers–Kronig relation and anomalous dispersion).


title: Cherenkov radiation

text: As in sonic booms and bow shocks, the angle of the shock cone is directly related to the velocity of the disruption. The Cherenkov angle is zero at the threshold velocity for the emission of Cherenkov radiation. The angle takes on a maximum as the particle speed approaches the speed of light. Hence, observed angles of incidence can be used to compute the direction and speed of a Cherenkov radiation-producing charge.


title: Cherenkov radiation

text: Cherenkov radiation can be generated in the eye by charged particles hitting the vitreous humour, giving the impression of flashes, as in cosmic ray visual phenomena and possibly some observations of criticality accidents.


title: Cherenkov radiation

text: Cherenkov radiation is widely used to facilitate the detection of small amounts and low concentrations of biomolecules. Radioactive atoms such as phosphorus-32 are readily introduced into biomolecules by enzymatic and synthetic means and subsequently may be easily detected in small quantities for the purpose of elucidating biological pathways and in characterizing the interaction of biological molecules such as affinity constants and dissociation rates.


title: Cherenkov radiation

text: More recently, Cherenkov light has been used to image substances in the body. These discoveries have led to intense interest around the idea of using this light signal to quantify and/or detect radiation in the body, either from internal sources such as injected radiopharmaceuticals or from external beam radiotherapy in oncology. Radioisotopes such as the positron emitters F and N or beta emitters P or Y have measurable Cherenkov emission and isotopes F and I have been imaged in humans for diagnostic value demonstration. External beam radiation therapy has been shown to induce a substantial amount of Cherenkov light in the tissue being treated, due to electron beams or photon beams with energy in the 6 MV to 18 MV ranges. The secondary electrons induced by these high energy x-rays result in the Cherenkov light emission, where the detected signal can be imaged at the entry and exit surfaces of the tissue.


title: Cherenkov radiation

text: Cherenkov radiation is used to detect high-energy charged particles. In open pool reactors, beta particles (high-energy electrons) are released as the fission products decay. The glow continues after the chain reaction stops, dimming as the shorter-lived products decay. Similarly, Cherenkov radiation can characterize the remaining radioactivity of spent fuel rods. This phenomenon is used to verify the presence of spent nuclear fuel in spent fuel pools for nuclear safeguards purposes.


title: Cherenkov radiation

text: When a high-energy (TeV) gamma photon or cosmic ray interacts with the Earth's atmosphere, it may produce an electron–positron pair with enormous velocities. The Cherenkov radiation emitted in the atmosphere by these charged particles is used to determine the direction and energy of the cosmic ray or gamma ray, which is used for example in the Imaging Atmospheric Cherenkov Technique (IACT), by experiments such as VERITAS, H.E.S.S., MAGIC. Cherenkov radiation emitted in tanks filled with water by those charged particles reaching earth is used for the same goal by the Extensive Air Shower experiment HAWC, the Pierre Auger Observatory and other projects. Similar methods are used in very large neutrino detectors, such as the Super-Kamiokande, the Sudbury Neutrino Observatory (SNO) and IceCube. Other projects operated in the past applying related techniques, such as STACEE, a former solar tower refurbished to work as a non-imaging Cherenkov observatory, which was located in New Mexico.


title: Cherenkov radiation

text: Astrophysics observatories using the Cherenkov technique to measure air showers are key to determine the properties of astronomical objects that emit very-high-energy gamma rays, such as supernova remnants and blazars.


title: Cherenkov radiation

text: Cherenkov radiation is commonly used in experimental particle physics for particle identification. One could measure (or put limits on) the velocity of an electrically charged elementary particle by the properties of the Cherenkov light it emits in a certain medium. If the momentum of the particle is measured independently, one could compute the mass of the particle by its momentum and velocity (see four-momentum), and hence identify the particle.


title: Cherenkov radiation

text: The simplest type of particle identification device based on a Cherenkov radiation technique is the threshold counter, which answers whether the velocity of a charged particle is lower or higher than a certain value (formula_33, where formula_7 is the speed of light, and formula_2 is the refractive index of the medium) by looking at whether this particle emits Cherenkov light in a certain medium. Knowing particle momentum, one can separate particles lighter than a certain threshold from those heavier than the threshold.


title: Cherenkov radiation

text: The most advanced type of a detector is the RICH, or ring-imaging Cherenkov detector, developed in the 1980s. In a RICH detector, a cone of Cherenkov light is produced when a high-speed charged particle traverses a suitable medium, often called radiator. This light cone is detected on a position sensitive planar photon detector, which allows reconstructing a ring or disc, whose radius is a measure for the Cherenkov emission angle. Both focusing and proximity-focusing detectors are in use. In a focusing RICH detector, the photons are collected by a spherical mirror and focused onto the photon detector placed at the focal plane. The result is a circle with a radius independent of the emission point along the particle track. This scheme is suitable for low refractive index radiators—i.e. gases—due to the larger radiator length needed to create enough photons. In the more compact proximity-focusing design, a thin radiator volume emits a cone of Cherenkov light which traverses a small distance—the proximity gap—and is detected on the photon detector plane. The image is a ring of light whose radius is defined by the Cherenkov emission angle and the proximity gap. The ring thickness is determined by the thickness of the radiator. An example of a proximity gap RICH detector is the High Momentum Particle Identification Detector (HMPID), a detector currently under construction for ALICE (A Large Ion Collider Experiment), one of the six experiments at the LHC (Large Hadron Collider) at CERN.


title: Grey Wolves (organization)

text: The Grey Wolves (), officially known by the short name Idealist Hearths (, ), is a Turkish far-right paramilitary organization and political movement affiliated with the Nationalist Movement Party (MHP). Commonly described as ultra-nationalist, neo-fascist, and Islamonationalist, it is a youth organization that has been characterized as the MHP's paramilitary or militant wing. Its members deny its political nature and claim it to be a cultural and educational foundation, as per its full official name: Ülkü Ocakları Eğitim ve Kültür Vakfı ("Idealist Clubs Educational and Cultural Foundation").


title: Grey Wolves (organization)

text: Established by Colonel Alparslan Türkeş in the late 1960s, it rose to prominence during the late 1970s political violence in Turkey when its members engaged in urban guerrilla warfare with left-wing militants and activists. Scholars have described it as a death squad, responsible for most of the violence and killings in this period. Their most notorious attack, which killed over 100 Alevis, took place in Maraş in December 1978. They are also alleged to have been behind the Taksim Square massacre in May 1977 and to have played a role in the Kurdish–Turkish conflict from 1978 onwards. The masterminds behind the attempted assassination of Pope John Paul II in 1981 by Grey Wolves member Mehmet Ali Ağca were not identified and the organization's role remains unclear. Due to these attacks, the Grey Wolves have been described by some scholars, journalists, and governments as a terrorist organization.


title: Grey Wolves (organization)

text: The organization has long been a prominent suspect in investigations into the deep state in Turkey, and is suspected of having had close dealings in the past with the Counter-Guerrilla, the Turkish branch of the NATO Operation Gladio, as well as the Turkish mafia. Among the Grey Wolves' prime targets are non-Turkish ethnic minorities such as Kurds, Greeks, and Armenians.


title: Grey Wolves (organization)

text: A staunchly Pan-Turkist organization, in the early 1990s the Grey Wolves extended their area of operation into the post-Soviet states with Turkic and Muslim populations. Up to thousands of its members fought in the First Nagorno-Karabakh War on the Azerbaijani side, and the First and Second Chechen–Russian Wars on the Chechen side. After an unsuccessful attempt to seize power in Azerbaijan in 1995, they were banned in that country. In 2005, Kazakhstan also banned the organization, classifying it as a terrorist group.


title: Grey Wolves (organization)

text: Under Devlet Bahçeli, who assumed the leadership of the MHP and Grey Wolves after Türkeş's death in 1997, the organization has been reformed. According to a 2021 poll, the Grey Wolves are supported by 3.2% of the Turkish electorate. Its members are often involved in attacks and clashes with Kurdish and leftist activists. The organization is also active in the Turkish-occupied portion of Cyprus and has affiliated branches in several Western European countries with significant Turkish communities, such as Germany, Belgium, and the Netherlands. They are the largest right-wing extremist organization in Germany. The Grey Wolves were banned in France in November 2020 for hate speech and political violence, and calls for similar actions are made elsewhere. In May 2021, the European Parliament also called on member states of the European Union to designate it as a terrorist group.


title: Grey Wolves (organization)

text: The organization's members are known as "Ülkücüler", which literally means "idealists". Its informal name is inspired by the ancient legend of Asena, a she-wolf in the Ergenekon, a Tengrist ancient myth associated with Turkic ethnic origins in the Central Asian steppes. In Turkey, the wolf also symbolizes honor. The Grey Wolves have a "strong emphasis on leadership and hierarchical, military-like organisation."


title: Grey Wolves (organization)

text: The Grey Wolves also use what scholar Ahmet İnsel describes as "fascist slogans imported from America", such as "Love it or leave it" ("Ya Sev Ya Terk Et!") and "Communists to Moscow" ("Komünistler Moskova'ya").


title: Grey Wolves (organization)

text: The salutation of the Grey Wolves is "a fist with the little finger and index finger raised" Turkic hand gesture. It was banned in Austria in February 2019. In Germany, the Christian Democratic Union (CDU) and the Left Party proposed banning the salute in October 2018, calling it fascist.