title: Linear programming

text: Covering and packing LPs commonly arise as a linear programming relaxation of a combinatorial problem and are important in the study of approximation algorithms. For example, the LP relaxations of the set packing problem, the independent set problem, and the matching problem are packing LPs. The LP relaxations of the set cover problem, the vertex cover problem, and the dominating set problem are also covering LPs.


title: Linear programming

text: Finding a fractional coloring of a graph is another example of a covering LP. In this case, there is one constraint for each vertex of the graph and one variable for each independent set of the graph.


title: Linear programming

text: It is possible to obtain an optimal solution to the dual when only an optimal solution to the primal is known using the complementary slackness theorem. The theorem states:


title: Linear programming

text: Suppose that x = (x, x, ... , x) is primal feasible and that y = (y, y, ... , y) is dual feasible. Let (w, w, ..., w) denote the corresponding primal slack variables, and let (z, z, ... , z) denote the corresponding dual slack variables. Then x and y are optimal for their respective problems if and only if


title: Linear programming

text: So if the "i"-th slack variable of the primal is not zero, then the "i"-th variable of the dual is equal to zero. Likewise, if the "j"-th slack variable of the dual is not zero, then the "j"-th variable of the primal is equal to zero.


title: Linear programming

text: This necessary condition for optimality conveys a fairly simple economic principle. In standard form (when maximizing), if there is slack in a constrained primal resource (i.e., there are "leftovers"), then additional quantities of that resource must have no value. Likewise, if there is slack in the dual (shadow) price non-negativity constraint requirement, i.e., the price is not zero, then there must be scarce supplies (no "leftovers").


title: Linear programming

text: Geometrically, the linear constraints define the feasible region, which is a convex polyhedron. A linear function is a convex function, which implies that every local minimum is a global minimum; similarly, a linear function is a concave function, which implies that every local maximum is a global maximum.


title: Linear programming

text: An optimal solution need not exist, for two reasons. First, if the constraints are inconsistent, then no feasible solution exists: For instance, the constraints x ≥ 2 and x ≤ 1 cannot be satisfied jointly; in this case, we say that the LP is "infeasible". Second, when the polytope is unbounded in the direction of the gradient of the objective function (where the gradient of the objective function is the vector of the coefficients of the objective function), then no optimal value is attained because it is always possible to do better than any finite value of the objective function.


title: Linear programming

text: Otherwise, if a feasible solution exists and if the constraint set is bounded, then the optimum value is always attained on the boundary of the constraint set, by the "maximum principle" for "convex functions" (alternatively, by the "minimum" principle for "concave functions") since linear functions are both convex and concave. However, some problems have distinct optimal solutions; for example, the problem of finding a feasible solution to a system of linear inequalities is a linear programming problem in which the objective function is the zero function (that is, the constant function taking the value zero everywhere). For this feasibility problem with the zero-function for its objective-function, if there are two distinct solutions, then every convex combination of the solutions is a solution.


title: Linear programming

text: The vertices of the polytope are also called "basic feasible solutions". The reason for this choice of name is as follows. Let "d" denote the number of variables. Then the fundamental theorem of linear inequalities implies (for feasible problems) that for every vertex x of the LP feasible region, there exists a set of "d" (or fewer) inequality constraints from the LP such that, when we treat those "d" constraints as equalities, the unique solution is x. Thereby we can study these vertices by means of looking at certain subsets of the set of all constraints (a discrete set), rather than the continuum of LP solutions. This principle underlies the simplex algorithm for solving linear programs.


title: Linear programming

text: The simplex algorithm, developed by George Dantzig in 1947, solves LP problems by constructing a feasible solution at a vertex of the polytope and then walking along a path on the edges of the polytope to vertices with non-decreasing values of the objective function until an optimum is reached for sure. In many practical problems, "" occurs: many pivots are made with no increase in the objective function. In rare practical problems, the usual versions of the simplex algorithm may actually "cycle". To avoid cycles, researchers developed new pivoting rules.


title: Linear programming

text: In practice, the simplex algorithm is quite efficient and can be guaranteed to find the global optimum if certain precautions against "cycling" are taken. The simplex algorithm has been proved to solve "random" problems efficiently, i.e. in a cubic number of steps, which is similar to its behavior on practical problems.


title: Linear programming

text: However, the simplex algorithm has poor worst-case behavior: Klee and Minty constructed a family of linear programming problems for which the simplex method takes a number of steps exponential in the problem size. In fact, for some time it was not known whether the linear programming problem was solvable in polynomial time, i.e. of complexity class P.


title: Linear programming

text: Like the simplex algorithm of Dantzig, the criss-cross algorithm is a basis-exchange algorithm that pivots between bases. However, the criss-cross algorithm need not maintain feasibility, but can pivot rather from a feasible basis to an infeasible basis. The criss-cross algorithm does not have polynomial time-complexity for linear programming. Both algorithms visit all 2 corners of a (perturbed) cube in dimension "D", the Klee–Minty cube, in the worst case.


title: Linear programming

text: In contrast to the simplex algorithm, which finds an optimal solution by traversing the edges between vertices on a polyhedral set, interior-point methods move through the interior of the feasible region.


title: Linear programming

text: This is the first worst-case polynomial-time algorithm ever found for linear programming. To solve a problem which has "n" variables and can be encoded in "L" input bits, this algorithm runs in formula_19 time. Leonid Khachiyan solved this long-standing complexity issue in 1979 with the introduction of the ellipsoid method. The convergence analysis has (real-number) predecessors, notably the iterative methods developed by Naum Z. Shor and the approximation algorithms by Arkadi Nemirovski and D. Yudin.


title: Linear programming

text: Khachiyan's algorithm was of landmark importance for establishing the polynomial-time solvability of linear programs. The algorithm was not a computational break-through, as the simplex method is more efficient for all but specially constructed families of linear programs.


title: Linear programming

text: However, Khachiyan's algorithm inspired new lines of research in linear programming. In 1984, N. Karmarkar proposed a projective method for linear programming. Karmarkar's algorithm improved on Khachiyan's worst-case polynomial bound (giving formula_20). Karmarkar claimed that his algorithm was much faster in practical LP than the simplex method, a claim that created great interest in interior-point methods. Since Karmarkar's discovery, many interior-point methods have been proposed and analyzed.


title: Linear programming

text: In 1989, Vaidya developed an algorithm that runs in formula_22 time. Formally speaking, the algorithm takes formula_23 arithmetic operations in the worst case, where formula_24 is the number of constraints, formula_25 is the number of variables, and formula_26 is the number of bits.


title: Linear programming

text: In 2015, Lee and Sidford showed that, it can be solved in formula_27 time, where formula_28 represents the number of non-zero elements, and it remains taking formula_29 in the worst case.


title: Linear programming

text: In 2019, Cohen, Lee and Song improved the running time to formula_30 time, formula_31 is the exponent of matrix multiplication and formula_32 is the dual exponent of matrix multiplication. formula_32 is (roughly) defined to be the largest number such that one can multiply an formula_34 matrix by a formula_35 matrix in formula_36 time. In a followup work by Lee, Song and Zhang, they reproduce the same result via a different method. These two algorithms remain formula_37 when formula_38 and formula_39. The result due to Jiang, Song, Weinstein and Zhang improved formula_40 to formula_41.


title: Linear programming

text: The current opinion is that the efficiencies of good implementations of simplex-based methods and interior point methods are similar for routine applications of linear programming. However, for specific types of LP problems, it may be that one type of solver is better than another (sometimes much better), and that the structure of the solutions generated by interior point methods versus simplex-based methods are significantly different with the support set of active variables being typically smaller for the latter one.


title: Linear programming

text: There are several open problems in the theory of linear programming, the solution of which would represent fundamental breakthroughs in mathematics and potentially major advances in our ability to solve large-scale linear programs.


title: Linear programming

text: This closely related set of problems has been cited by Stephen Smale as among the 18 greatest unsolved problems of the 21st century. In Smale's words, the third version of the problem "is the main unsolved problem of linear programming theory." While algorithms exist to solve linear programming in weakly polynomial time, such as the ellipsoid methods and interior-point techniques, no algorithms have yet been found that allow strongly polynomial-time performance in the number of constraints and the number of variables. The development of such algorithms would be of great theoretical interest, and perhaps allow practical gains in solving large LPs as well.


title: Linear programming

text: Although the Hirsch conjecture was recently disproved for higher dimensions, it still leaves the following questions open.


title: Linear programming

text: These questions relate to the performance analysis and development of simplex-like methods. The immense efficiency of the simplex algorithm in practice despite its exponential-time theoretical performance hints that there may be variations of simplex that run in polynomial or even strongly polynomial time. It would be of great practical and theoretical significance to know whether any such variants exist, particularly as an approach to deciding if LP can be solved in strongly polynomial time.


title: Linear programming

text: The simplex algorithm and its variants fall in the family of edge-following algorithms, so named because they solve linear programming problems by moving from vertex to vertex along edges of a polytope. This means that their theoretical performance is limited by the maximum number of edges between any two vertices on the LP polytope. As a result, we are interested in knowing the maximum graph-theoretical diameter of polytopal graphs. It has been proved that all polytopes have subexponential diameter. The recent disproof of the Hirsch conjecture is the first step to prove whether any polytope has superpolynomial diameter. If any such polytopes exist, then no edge-following variant can run in polynomial time. Questions about polytope diameter are of independent mathematical interest.


title: Linear programming

text: Simplex pivot methods preserve primal (or dual) feasibility. On the other hand, criss-cross pivot methods do not preserve (primal or dual) feasibilitythey may visit primal feasible, dual feasible or primal-and-dual infeasible bases in any order. Pivot methods of this type have been studied since the 1970s. Essentially, these methods attempt to find the shortest pivot path on the arrangement polytope under the linear programming problem. In contrast to polytopal graphs, graphs of arrangement polytopes are known to have small diameter, allowing the possibility of strongly polynomial-time criss-cross pivot algorithm without resolving questions about the diameter of general polytopes.


title: Linear programming

text: If all of the unknown variables are required to be integers, then the problem is called an integer programming (IP) or integer linear programming (ILP) problem. In contrast to linear programming, which can be solved efficiently in the worst case, integer programming problems are in many practical situations (those with bounded variables) NP-hard. 0–1 integer programming or binary integer programming (BIP) is the special case of integer programming where variables are required to be 0 or 1 (rather than arbitrary integers). This problem is also classified as NP-hard, and in fact the decision version was one of Karp's 21 NP-complete problems.


title: Linear programming

text: If only some of the unknown variables are required to be integers, then the problem is called a mixed integer (linear) programming (MIP or MILP) problem. These are generally also NP-hard because they are even more general than ILP programs.


title: Linear programming

text: There are however some important subclasses of IP and MIP problems that are efficiently solvable, most notably problems where the constraint matrix is totally unimodular and the right-hand sides of the constraints are integers or – more general – where the system has the total dual integrality (TDI) property.


title: Linear programming

text: A linear program in real variables is said to be integral if it has at least one optimal solution which is integral, i.e., made of only integer values. Likewise, a polyhedron formula_42 is said to be integral if for all bounded feasible objective functions "c", the linear program formula_43 has an optimum formula_44 with integer coordinates. As observed by Edmonds and Giles in 1977, one can equivalently say that the polyhedron formula_45 is integral if for every bounded feasible integral objective function "c", the optimal "value" of the linear program formula_43 is an integer.


title: Linear programming

text: Integral linear programs are of central importance in the polyhedral aspect of combinatorial optimization since they provide an alternate characterization of a problem. Specifically, for any problem, the convex hull of the solutions is an integral polyhedron; if this polyhedron has a nice/compact description, then we can efficiently find the optimal feasible solution under any linear objective. Conversely, if we can prove that a linear programming relaxation is integral, then it is the desired description of the convex hull of feasible (integral) solutions.


title: Linear programming

text: Terminology is not consistent throughout the literature, so one should be careful to distinguish the following two concepts,


title: Linear programming

text: One common way of proving that a polyhedron is integral is to show that it is totally unimodular. There are other general methods including the integer decomposition property and total dual integrality. Other specific well-known integral LPs include the matching polytope, lattice polyhedra, submodular flow polyhedra, and the intersection of two generalized polymatroids/"g"-polymatroids – e.g. see Schrijver 2003.


title: Linear programming

text: MINTO (Mixed Integer Optimizer, an integer programming solver which uses branch and bound algorithm) has publicly available source code but is not open source.


title: Brian Kemp

text: Brian Porter Kemp (born November 2, 1963) is an American businessman and politician serving as the 83rd governor of Georgia since January 2019. A member of the Republican Party, Kemp served as the 27th secretary of state of Georgia from 2010 to 2018, and as a member of the Georgia State Senate from 2003 to 2007.


title: Brian Kemp

text: Born in Athens, Georgia, Kemp is a graduate of the University of Georgia. Before entering politics, he owned several agribusinesses, financial services, and real estate companies. In 2002, he was elected to the Georgia State Senate. In 2010, Governor Sonny Perdue appointed Kemp secretary of state of Georgia after Karen Handel resigned to run for governor. Kemp was elected to a full term as Georgia secretary of state in 2010 and reelected in 2014.


title: Brian Kemp

text: Kemp’s time as secretary of state was controversial. He was criticized after a data breach of over six million voters' personal information to 12 organizations occurred in 2015. During the 2016 election, he was the only state official to reject help from the Department of Homeland Security to guard against Russian interference. In 2018, he ran for governor, facing Democratic nominee Stacey Abrams. He refused to resign as secretary of state while campaigning for governor, which stirred controversy and accusations of abuse of power from Democrats. Kemp won the general election with 50.2% of the vote, narrowly avoiding the threshold for a runoff election. He resigned as secretary of state on November 8. Abrams suspended her campaign on November 16 but did not concede, accusing Kemp of voter suppression, which he denied. News outlets and political science experts have found no evidence that voter suppression affected the result of the election.


title: Brian Kemp

text: As governor, Kemp opposed face mask mandates and stay-at-home orders during the COVID-19 pandemic, and he prohibited localities from implementing stricter public health measures than the state as a whole. After the 2020 presidential election in Georgia, he faced criticism from President Donald Trump for following the state law that required him to certify the results, despite Trump's repeated false claims of fraud in the election. In 2021, Kemp signed into law the Election Integrity Act of 2021, which expanded early in-person voting and increased the state government's control over local election officials. He was challenged by former U.S. Senator David Perdue in the Republican primary for governor ahead of his reelection campaign. Although Trump endorsed Perdue, Kemp defeated Perdue in a landslide to win the primary. In the 2022 Georgia gubernatorial election, Kemp defeated Abrams in a rematch; she conceded defeat on election night.


title: Brian Kemp

text: Kemp was born in Athens, Georgia, the son of William L. Kemp II, into a prominent family with a history of political power. Kemp's grandfather Julian H. Cox was a member of the Georgia Legislature.


title: Brian Kemp

text: Kemp went to the private Athens Academy until ninth grade, when he transferred to Clarke Central High School to play football for Billy Henderson; he graduated in 1983. He later graduated from the University of Georgia, where he majored in agriculture.


title: Brian Kemp

text: He served as a Georgia State Senator from 2003 to 2007 after defeating the Democratic incumbent Doug Haines. In 2006, Kemp ran for Agriculture Commissioner of Georgia. He finished second in the primary, but lost the runoff to Gary Black. Kemp declared his candidacy for State Senate District 47 when incumbent Ralph Hudgens planned to run for Congress in Georgia's 10th congressional district, but Hudgens instead ran for reelection, changing Kemp's plans.


title: Brian Kemp

text: In early 2010, Kemp was appointed Georgia Secretary of State by then-Governor Sonny Perdue. Kemp won the 2010 election for a full term as secretary of state with 56.4% of the vote, to 39.4% for Democratic nominee Georganna Sinkfield. Four years later, Kemp was reelected.


title: Brian Kemp

text: Kemp rejects the conclusion by the United States Intelligence Community that Russia interfered in the 2016 election. Amid Russian interference in the 2016 election, Kemp denounced the Obama administration's efforts to strengthen election system security, including improving access to federal cybersecurity assistance, calling the efforts an assault on states' rights.


title: Brian Kemp

text: After narrowly winning the 2018 gubernatorial election, Kemp resigned as secretary of state in anticipation of becoming governor.


title: Brian Kemp

text: As evidence mounted that Russian hackers were attempting to disrupt the 2016 elections, President Obama directed Homeland Security Secretary Jeh Johnson to work with states to secure their voting systems as "critical infrastructure." Kemp was the only state election official to decline the help. In a 2017 interview, he denounced the effort as an assault on states' rights, saying, "I think it was a politically calculated move by the previous administration" and "I don't necessarily believe" Russia had attempted to disrupt the elections. In August 2016, amid Russian attempts to disrupt the 2016 elections, Kemp said that an intrusion by Russian hackers into voting systems was "not probable at all, the way our systems are set up" and accused federal officials of exaggerating the threat of Russian interference.


title: Brian Kemp

text: Georgia was one of 14 states that used electronic voting machines that produced no paper record, which election integrity experts say left elections vulnerable to tampering and technical problems. The 2018 indictment against Russian hackers (as part of Special Counsel Robert Mueller's probe into 2016 interference) said that the Russian hackers targeted county websites in Georgia.


title: Brian Kemp

text: In December 2016, Kemp accused the Department of Homeland Security of attempting to hack his office's computer network, including the voter registration database, implying that it was retribution for his previous refusal to work with DHS. A DHS inspector general investigation found there was no hacking, but rather it was "the result of normal and automatic computer message exchanges generated by the Microsoft applications involved."


title: Brian Kemp

text: In October 2015, the Georgia Secretary of State's office, under Kemp's leadership, illegally disclosed the personal information (including Social Security numbers and dates of birth) of 6.2 million registered Georgia voters. This data breach occurred when the office sent out a CD with this information to 12 organizations that purchase monthly voter lists from the office. The office was not aware of the breach until the next month, and did not publicly acknowledge it until "The Atlanta Journal-Constitution" reported the class action lawsuit against the office that resulted. Within a month of the breach becoming publicly known, it had cost taxpayers $1.2 million in credit monitoring services for those whose data had been compromised, and $395,000 for an audit into Kemp's handling of the unauthorized data disclosure.


title: Brian Kemp

text: Kemp drew criticism again in 2017 when it was revealed that a flaw in the state voting system exposed the personal information of over six million Georgia voters, as well as passwords used by county election officials to access voter files, to researchers at Kennesaw State University. The security flaw was fixed six months after it was reported to election authorities. After a lawsuit was filed, a server at the center of the controversy was wiped, preventing officials from determining the scope of the breach. Kemp denied responsibility, instead saying researchers at Kennesaw State University, who managed the system, had acted "in accordance with standard IT procedures" in deleting the data.


title: Brian Kemp

text: Kemp was accused by Democrats of voter suppression during the 2018 gubernatorial election. Political scientists Michael Bernhard and Daniel O'Neill described Kemp's actions as the worst case of voter suppression in that election year. The allegations arose from Kemp's actions as secretary of state: a few weeks before the election, he put 53,000 voter registration applications on hold, with 70% of the applicants being African American, and he purged 1.4 million inactive voters from voter rolls during his tenure, including 668,000 in 2017. Kemp denied engaging in voter suppression, stating that he was following federal and state law to update voter rolls with accurate information.


title: Brian Kemp

text: As a result of the controversies surrounding the 2018 Georgia midterms, critics have called Kemp's gubernatorial victory illegitimate. Glenn Kessler of "The Washington Post" noted such claims are "an article of faith among Democrats". Political scientists and news outlets have rejected these claims; "The Atlanta Journal-Constitution" wrote, "no evidence emerged of systematic malfeasance – or of enough tainted votes to force a runoff election between Republican Brian Kemp and Democrat Stacey Abrams". Political scientist Charles S. Bullock III told "The Washington Post" that claims of a stolen election were "not based on fact but will continue to be articulated by Abrams since it helps mobilize her supporters", while Richard Hasen took issue with Kemp's job performance but said that he had seen "no good social science evidence that efforts to make it harder to register and vote were responsible for Kemp’s victory over Abrams in the Georgia gubernatorial race". A "USA Today" fact check noted that the actions Kemp's office took during the election "can be explained as routine under state and federal law". Hasen told "PolitiFact", "I have seen no good evidence that the suppressive effects of strict voting and registration laws affected the outcome of the governor’s races in Georgia and Florida" and suggested Democrats "cool it" with claims the election was stolen.


title: Brian Kemp

text: Kemp introduced a controversial "exact match" policy during his first year as secretary of state in 2010. Under the system, eligible Georgians were dropped from voter rolls for an errant hyphen or if "a stray letter or a typographical error on someone's voter registration card didn't match the records of the state's driver's license bureau or the Social Security office." In a 2010 explanation defending the practice to the Department of Justice, Kemp's office said the policy was "designed to assure the identity and eligibility of voters and to prevent fraudulent or erroneous registrations." The Department of Justice initially rejected the policy, but allowed it to go into effect with additional safeguards; a later lawsuit claimed "it is not apparent that the Secretary of State ever followed the safeguards." The process was halted after a lawsuit in 2016, but the state legislature passed a modified form of the policy in 2017 and the process began again.


title: Brian Kemp

text: Critics consider these types of "exact match" laws a form of voter suppression designed to disproportionately target minorities, and African-American, Asian, and Latino voters accounted for 76.3% of the registrations dropped from voter rolls between July 2015 and July 2017. Critics say that minority names are more likely to contain hyphens and less common spellings that lead to clerical mistakes, resulting in rejection of the registration. In a 2018 ruling against Kemp, District Judge Eleanor Ross said the system places a "severe burden" on voters.


title: Brian Kemp

text: After changes to the Voting Rights Act in 2012 gave states with a history of voter suppression more autonomy, Kemp's office oversaw the closing of 214 polling locations, 8% of the total in Georgia. The closings disproportionately affected African-American communities. A consultant recommended that seven of the nine county polling locations in majority-minority Randolph County be closed ahead of the 2018 midterm election for failure to comply with the Americans with Disabilities Act. After the American Civil Liberties Union challenged the plan, the locations were allowed to remain open. Kemp denied knowledge of the plan, but a slide from a presentation given by the consultant read, "Consolidation has come highly recommended by the Secretary of State and is already being adopted by several counties and is being seriously considered and being worked on by many more." Officials claim the locations were closed as a cost-saving measure.


title: Brian Kemp

text: Georgia has removed registered voters from voter rolls for not voting in consecutive elections more aggressively than any other state. Between 2012 and 2018, Kemp's office canceled over 1.4 million voters' registrations, with nearly 700,000 cancellations in 2017 alone. On a single night in July 2017, half a million voters, about 8% of all registered Georgia voters, had their registrations canceled, an act "The Atlanta Journal-Constitution" said "may represent the largest mass disenfranchisement in US history." Kemp oversaw the removals as secretary of state, and did so eight months after declaring his candidacy for governor.


title: Brian Kemp

text: By early October 2018, Kemp's office had put more than 53,000 voter registration applications on hold, with more than 75% belonging to minorities. The voters are eligible to re-register if they still live in Georgia and have not died. An investigative journalism group run by Greg Palast found that, of the approximately 534,000 Georgians whose voter registrations were purged between 2016 and 2017, more than 334,000 still lived where they were registered. The voters were given no notice that they had been purged. Palast sued Kemp, claiming over 300,000 voters were purged illegally. Kemp's office denied any wrongdoing, saying that by "regularly updating our rolls, we prevent fraud and ensure that all votes are cast by eligible Georgia voters."


title: Brian Kemp

text: After Totenberg's ruling thousands of voting machines were sequestered by local election officials on Election Day in 2018, an action critics said was designed to increase wait times at polling locations. The sequestration of machines disproportionately affected counties that favored Kemp's opponent and caused voters in some locations to have to wait in line for hours in inclement weather. Other locations suffered delays because machines had been delivered without power cords. Kemp himself experienced technical problems attempting to vote in the election.


title: Brian Kemp

text: Kemp opposes automatic voter registration, a change that advocates say would help make voting easier for eligible citizens and help prevent voter suppression. In a leaked 2018 recording, he said that attempts to register all eligible voters "continues to concern us, especially if everybody uses and exercises their right to vote." In a separate 2018 recording made by a progressive group he said, "Democrats are working hard ... registering all these minority voters that are out there and others that are sitting on the sidelines. If they can do that, they can win these elections in November."


title: Brian Kemp

text: On November 4, 2018, 48 hours before his gubernatorial election, the secretary of state's office published the details of a zero day flaw in the state registration website, accusing Democrats of attempted hacking for investigating the problem but providing no evidence. Critics say the announcement was further evidence of voter suppression and gave hackers a window of opportunity during which voter registration records could be changed. In response to criticisms of the announcement, Kemp said, "I'm not worried about how it looks. I'm doing my job." In a ruling on the matter, Totenberg criticized Kemp for having "delayed in grappling with the heightened critical cybersecurity issues of our era posed [by] the state's dated, vulnerable voting system" and said the system "poses a concrete risk of alteration of ballot counts." In December 2018, "The Atlanta Journal-Constitution" found that Kemp made the hacking allegations without any evidence. "The Journal-Constitution" wrote that Kemp might have made the unsubstantiated accusations against Democrats as a ploy and diversion to help him win the election; the "examination suggests Kemp and his aides used his elected office to protect his political campaign from a potentially devastating embarrassment. Their unsubstantiated claims came at a pivotal moment, as voters were making their final decisions in an election that had attracted intense national attention."


title: Brian Kemp

text: On September 5, 2018, an attack ad was released claiming that Kemp chose not to pursue accusations of sexual assault against therapists employed by Massage Envy during his time overseeing the Georgia Board of Massage Therapy because of donations made by franchisee owners to Kemp's campaign. The offenders were able to renew their Board licenses after the accusations. Republican State Senator Renee Unterman said that there "appears to be a direct connection between campaign support from Massage Envy franchisees in exchange for non-action and suppression" and asked U.S. Attorney B.J. Pak to investigate "what seems to be a quid pro quo scheme being perpetrated through the secretary of state's office and the Kemp for governor campaign." Kemp said that he had done nothing illegal.


title: Brian Kemp

text: In response to the accusations, a spokesperson for Kemp's campaign asserted that Unterman was "mentally unstable" and suggested she "seek immediate medical attention before she hurts herself or someone else". The Kemp campaign was criticized for its apparent reference to Unterman's history of depression, about which she had spoken publicly. In response, Unterman said she would not be "intimidated, blackmailed, belittled, or sexually harassed" into silence. Kemp's campaign did not apologize for the remarks.


title: Brian Kemp

text: In March 2017, Kemp announced his candidacy in the 2018 Georgia gubernatorial election. In a field of six candidates, Kemp and Lieutenant Governor Casey Cagle finished in the two top places in the six-way May Republican primary, advancing to a runoff election.


title: Brian Kemp

text: During the runoff campaign, Cagle sought to portray Kemp as an incompetent secretary of state and Kemp sought to portray Cagle as scandal-prone and corrupt. Cagle frequently criticized Kemp's behavior during the campaign, accusing him of "dirty tricks" and of launching a "sexist attack" against one of Cagle's supporters.


title: Brian Kemp

text: During the primary and primary runoff campaigns, Kemp ran sharply to Cagle's right, benefiting from provocative campaign advertising (with a tagline "Yep, I just said that") and from President Donald Trump's endorsement late in the campaign, which Trump made at the request of Agriculture Secretary Sonny Perdue. In the runoff, Kemp was endorsed by the GeorgiaCarry.org and the Family Research Council as well as by Republican candidates who were eliminated in the primary, Michael Williams, Clay Tippins, and Hunter Hill. Many believe Perdue's support for Kemp was in response to Governor Nathan Deal's endorsement of Cagle.


title: Brian Kemp

text: Kemp ran against Democratic nominee Stacey Abrams, the minority leader of the Georgia House of Representatives, in the 2018 general election. During the campaign, Kemp embraced Trump-like policies and themes. He ran on a policy of imposing a state spending cap, opposing Medicaid expansion, and implementing the nation's "strictest" abortion laws. Kemp favors repealing the Affordable Care Act, calling it "an absolute disaster," and supports litigation seeking to eliminate the law's protections for persons with a preexisting condition. He has said he would sign a bill of "religious freedom and restoration", vetoed twice by Governor Deal, which would allow refusal of contraception to women or services to LGBT couples on the basis of religious beliefs.


title: Brian Kemp

text: Kemp provoked controversy with multiple campaign ads, including one where he posed with rifles and a shotgun that he jokingly pointed at teenager who "wanted to date his daughter", and another where he said his truck was for "rounding up criminal illegals". The lack of proper gun safety in handling the shotgun in the "Jake" ad attracted criticism from the National Law Enforcement Partnership to Prevent Gun Violence, which said the ad "delivers a message perpetuating domestic violence and misogyny while modeling egregiously unsafe behavior", and prompted criticism that the ad depicted irresponsible handling of guns. Kemp's supporters, by contrast, viewed the ad as a "lighthearted portrayal of a protective, gun-wielding Southern father vetting a potential suitor", and Kemp dismissed the criticism, telling critics, "Get over it."


title: Brian Kemp

text: During the 2018 campaign, former President of the United States Jimmy Carter and several Georgia-based organizations, such as the Georgia NAACP and Georgia Common Cause, called upon Kemp to resign as secretary of state while running for governor to ensure that he would not oversee his own election. Kemp declined to do so.


title: Brian Kemp

text: Almost a week before election day, Kemp canceled a scheduled debate so that he could instead attend a Trump rally in Georgia. Kemp blamed Abrams for the cancellation, saying that she was unwilling to reschedule it. The date of the debate had been agreed upon since mid-September.


title: Brian Kemp

text: Two days before the election, Kemp's office announced that it was investigating the Georgia Democratic Party for unspecified "possible cybercrimes"; the Georgia Democratic Party stated, "Kemp's scurrilous claims are 100 percent false" and called them a "political stunt." A 2020 investigation by the Georgia Attorney General's office concluded that there was no evidence for Kemp's claims. Later that year, it was revealed that the supposed cybercrime that his office had been the victim of was in fact a planned security test that Kemp had signed off on three months earlier.


title: Brian Kemp

text: On December 4, 2018, U.S. Representative Elijah Cummings, the incoming chairman of the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform, announced that he would like to call Kemp before Congress to testify about the fairness of his actions during the 2018 elections. "I want to be able to bring people in, like the new governor-to-be of Georgia, to explain ... to us why is it fair for wanting to be secretary of state and be running [for governor]," Cummings said.


title: Brian Kemp

text: On March 6, 2019, it was revealed that both Kemp and his successor as secretary of state, Brad Raffensperger, were under investigation by the House Oversight and Reform Committee for alleged voter suppression in the 2018 elections. Cummings oversaw the investigation. Kemp was given until March 20, 2019, to comply with document requests or face a subpoena.


title: Brian Kemp

text: In May 2019, Kemp signed into law a highly controversial bill that would prohibit abortions after a heartbeat can be detected in a fetus, which is usually when a woman is six weeks pregnant; the legislation was one of the country's strictest anti-abortion laws. The legislation was blocked by federal courts, which ruled it unconstitutional: a preliminary injunction entered in October 2019 blocked the legislation from going into effect, and a permanent injunction entered in July 2020 permanently voided the law. This injunction was later overturned with the 2022 Supreme Court decision Dobbs v. Jackson Women's Health Organization. Kemp has also publicly stated his support for a "statewide ban on the destruction of embryos".


title: Brian Kemp

text: In April 2019, Kemp signed legislation into law addressing some criticisms that arose from the contested 2018 election; the new law provides that polling places cannot be changed 60 days before an election, that county election officials cannot reject absentee ballots because of mismatched signatures, and that a voter whose voter registration application information does not match other government databases will not be removed from the voter rolls for this reason.


title: Brian Kemp

text: In March 2021, Kemp signed SB 202, which expanded early in-person voting, enacted a ban on no-excuse absentee voting, gave the legislature power to overrule or replace local election officials, and banned anyone other than election workers from providing food or water to voters waiting in line.


title: Brian Kemp

text: Kemp visited Swainsboro in September 2019 to announce the creation of a rural "strike team" focusing on economic development in rural areas of the state.


title: Brian Kemp

text: Kemp has supported efforts to overturn the Affordable Care Act, as well as efforts to hinder the functioning of the Affordable Care Act for Georgia residents. Kemp and Republicans in the Georgia legislature have opposed full Medicaid expansion. Kemp has sought to introduce work requirements for Medicaid recipients.


title: Brian Kemp

text: After Johnny Isakson announced that he would resign from the U.S. Senate on December 31, 2019, Kemp appointed businesswoman Kelly Loeffler to complete Isakson's term on December 4. Loeffler was sworn into office on January 6, 2020, but lost the seat to Democrat Raphael Warnock in the special election held for it.


title: Brian Kemp

text: Kemp appointed Carla Wong McMillian to fill a vacancy on the Supreme Court of Georgia caused by the retirement of Robert Benham.


title: Brian Kemp

text: Despite a regular election to the Supreme Court of Georgia being scheduled for November 2020, Kemp canceled the election when Judge Keith R. Blackwell announced he would retire between the scheduled election and the end of his term.


title: Brian Kemp

text: On April 1, 2020, Kemp announced a statewide stay-at-home order to combat the COVID-19 pandemic. He was among the last governors to issue a stay-at-home order, as a national emergency was declared three weeks earlier, on March 13. As he issued the order, Kemp said he had become aware the coronavirus could be spread by asymptomatic people only that day, despite warnings from health officials made months earlier. At the end of April, Kemp lifted the stay-at-home order over the opposition of mayors and against the advice of public health experts and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.


title: Brian Kemp

text: While many other states were implementing face mask mandates, Kemp prohibited localities from implementing stricter public health measures than the state. In response, localities filed lawsuits against Kemp. In July, Kemp prohibited Georgia cities and counties from requiring face masks to halt the virus's spread. At the time, coronavirus cases were surging in many states, and other states were implementing statewide mask mandates. By mid-July 2020, more than 127,000 COVID-19 cases had been reported in Georgia, with 3,000 deaths.


title: Brian Kemp

text: A July 2019 poll showed that Kemp had a 52% job approval rating among Georgians, making him the 22nd-most popular governor in the country. A May 2020 Ipsos poll showed that Kemp's job approval rating had declined to 39% among Georgians, making him among the nation's least popular governors; his low popularity was attributed to his handling of the coronavirus crisis. In November 2020, Kemp's approval rating fell to 37%, according to an IAG/Fox 5 poll. By May 2021, an "Atlanta Journal-Constitution" poll showed his approval rating had rebounded to 45%, and as of April 2022, it was up to 50%, according to Morning Consult.


title: Brian Kemp

text: In January 2021, after the election of President Joe Biden, Kemp was criticized by outgoing President Donald Trump for certifying the results. This resulted in speculation that he would face a Trump-backed primary challenger in 2022.


title: Brian Kemp

text: In a November 2020 Fox News interview, Trump said he was "ashamed" of having supported Kemp's 2018 gubernatorial campaign. Trump added that Kemp had "done absolutely nothing" to challenge the result of the 2020 election in Georgia in which Biden defeated Trump by 11,779 votes, the first time Georgia voted for the Democratic nominee for president since 1992. Kemp and Lieutenant Governor Geoff Duncan put out a joint statement explaining that calling a joint session of the Georgia General Assembly to appoint their own electors to send to the United States Electoral College would be unconstitutional.


title: Brian Kemp

text: In December 2020, Trump called for Kemp's resignation. The same month, attorney Lin Wood, acting separately from the Trump campaign, called for Kemp's imprisonment and Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger's.


title: Brian Kemp

text: In September 2021, Trump indicated at a rally in Perry, Georgia, that he would prefer Kemp's 2018 Democratic opponent Stacey Abrams to replace him. Trump said, "Stacey, would you like to take his place? It's OK with me." In December 2021, David Perdue announced his candidacy for governor, with Trump's endorsement. In May 2022, Kemp announced he had the support of former Vice President Mike Pence.


title: Brian Kemp

text: Kemp married Marty Argo, daughter of longtime Georgia House of Representatives member Bob Argo, on January 8, 1994; they have three daughters. The family belongs to Emmanuel Episcopal Church in Athens.


title: Brian Kemp

text: In May 2018, Kemp was sued for failure to repay $500,000 in business loans. The suit was related to his having personally guaranteed $10 million in business loans to Hart AgStrong, a Kentucky-based canola crushing company. The company was under investigation after making guarantees using assets it did not own and repaying suppliers using proceeds from insurance settlements. An attorney for the Georgia Department of Agriculture said these actions "may be a felony under Georgia law." No charges were filed, and Kemp and the plaintiff reached a settlement shortly before he became governor.


title: Brian Kemp

text: In October 2018, Atlanta television station WAGA-TV reported that companies Kemp owned owed more than $800,000 in loans to a community bank where he is a founding board member and stockholder. Such "insider loans" are legal as long as they are on the same terms as the bank would extend to any other borrower. Kemp's campaign declined to publicize the terms of the loan.


title: Heavenly Creatures

text: Heavenly Creatures is a 1994 New Zealand biographical psychological drama film directed by Peter Jackson, from a screenplay he co-wrote with his partner, Fran Walsh, and starring Kate Winslet and Melanie Lynskey in their feature film debuts, with supporting roles by Sarah Peirse, Diana Kent, Clive Merrison, and Simon O'Connor. Based on the notorious 1954 Parker–Hulme murder case in Christchurch, the film focuses on the relationship between two teenage girls—Pauline Parker and Juliet Hulme—which culminates in the murder of Parker's mother. The events of the film span the period from their meeting in 1952 to the murder in 1954.


title: Heavenly Creatures

text: The film opened in 1994 at the 51st Venice International Film Festival, where it won the Silver Lion and became one of the best-received films of the year. Reviewers praised most aspects of the production, with particular attention given to the performances by the previously unknown Winslet and Lynskey, as well as for Jackson's directing. The film received an Oscar nomination for Best Original Screenplay.


title: Heavenly Creatures

text: In 1952 Christchurch, New Zealand, an affluent 13-year-old English girl Juliet Hulme befriends a 14-year-old girl from a working-class family, Pauline Parker, when Juliet transfers to Pauline's school. They bond over a shared history of severe childhood disease and isolating hospitalizations, and over time develop an intense friendship. Pauline admires Juliet's outspoken arrogance and beauty.


title: Heavenly Creatures

text: Together they paint, write stories, make plasticine figurines, and eventually create a fantasy kingdom called Borovnia. It is the setting of the adventure novels they write together, which they hope to have published and eventually made into films in Hollywood. Over time it begins to be as real to them as the real world.


title: Heavenly Creatures

text: Pauline's relationship with her mother Honora becomes increasingly hostile and the two fight constantly. This angry atmosphere is in contrast to the peaceful intellectual life Juliet shares with her family. Pauline spends most of her time at the Hulmes', where she feels accepted. Juliet introduces Pauline to the idea of "the Fourth World", a Heaven without Christians where music and art are celebrated. Juliet believes she will go there when she dies. Certain actors and musicians have the status of saints in this afterlife, such as singer Mario Lanza, with whom both girls are obsessed.


title: Heavenly Creatures

text: During a day trip to Port Levy, Juliet's parents announce that they are going away and plan to leave Juliet behind. Her fear of being left alone makes her hysterical, culminating in her first direct experience of the Fourth World, perceiving it as a land where all is beautiful and she is safe. She asks Pauline to come with her, and the world that Juliet sees also becomes visible to Pauline. This is presented as a shared spiritual vision, a confirmation of their "Fourth World" belief, that influences the girls' predominant reality and affects their perception of events in the everyday world.


title: Heavenly Creatures

text: Juliet is diagnosed with tuberculosis and is sent to a clinic. Pauline is desolate without her, and the two begin an intense correspondence, writing not only as themselves, but in the roles of the royal couple of Borovnia. During this time Pauline begins a sexual relationship with a lodger, which makes Juliet jealous. For both of them, their fantasy life becomes a useful escape when under stress in the real world, and the two engage in increasingly violent, even murderous, fantasies about people who oppress them. After four months, Juliet is released from the clinic and their relationship intensifies. Juliet's father blames the intensity of the relationship on Pauline and speaks to her parents, who take her to a doctor. The doctor suspects that Pauline is homosexual and considers this a cause of her increasing anger at her mother as well as her dramatic weight loss.


title: Heavenly Creatures

text: Juliet catches her mother having an affair with one of her psychiatric clients and threatens to tell her father, but her mother tells her he already knows. Shortly afterward, the two announce their intention to divorce, upsetting Juliet. Soon it is decided that the family will leave Christchurch, with Juliet to be left with a relative in South Africa. She becomes increasingly hysterical at the thought of leaving Pauline, and the two girls plan to run away together. When that plan becomes impossible, the two share a bathtub and talk about murdering Pauline's mother as they see her as the primary obstacle to their being together.


title: Heavenly Creatures

text: As the date of Juliet's departure nears, it is decided that the two girls should spend the last three weeks together at Juliet's house. At the end of that time, Pauline returns home and the two finalize plans for the murder. Honora plans a trip for the three of them to Victoria Park, and the girls decide this will be the day. Juliet conceals a broken piece of brick in her bag and Pauline places it into an old stocking before departing on the trip. After having tea, the three walk on a path down a steep hillside. When Honora bends over to pick up a pink charm the girls have deliberately dropped, Juliet and Pauline bludgeon her to death with the brick.


title: Heavenly Creatures

text: A post-script states that Pauline and Juliet were arrested shortly after the murder; that, as the girls were too young to face the death penalty, both were sentenced to serve five years in prison; that they were released separately in 1959; and that it was a condition that they never see one another again.


title: Heavenly Creatures

text: Fran Walsh suggested to Peter Jackson (who was noted for horror-comedy films) that they write a film about the notorious Parker-Hulme murder. Jackson took the idea to his long-time collaborator, producer Jim Booth (who died after filming). The three filmmakers decided that the film should tell the story of the friendship between the two girls rather than focus on the murder and trial. "The friendship was for the most part a rich and rewarding one, and we tried to honour that in the film. It was our intention to make a film about a friendship that went terribly wrong," said Peter Jackson.


title: Heavenly Creatures

text: Walsh had been interested in the case since her early childhood. "I first came across it in the late sixties when I was ten years old. "The Sunday Times" devoted two whole pages to the story with an accompanying illustration of the two girls. I was struck by the description of the dark and mysterious friendship that existed between them—by the uniqueness of the world the two girls had created for themselves."


title: Heavenly Creatures

text: Jackson and Walsh researched the story by reading contemporary newspaper accounts of the trial. They decided that the sensational aspects of the case that so titillated newspaper readers in 1954 were far removed from the story that Jackson and Walsh wished to tell. "In the 1950s, Pauline Parker and Juliet Hulme were branded as possibly the most evil people on earth. What they had done seemed without rational explanation, and people could only assume that there was something terribly wrong with their minds," states Jackson. To bring a more humane version of events to the screen, the filmmakers undertook a nationwide search for people who had close involvement with Pauline Parker and Juliet Hulme forty years earlier. This included tracing and interviewing seventeen of their former classmates and teachers from Christchurch Girls' High School. In addition, Jackson and Walsh spoke with neighbours, family friends, colleagues, policemen, lawyers and psychologists. Jackson and Walsh also read Pauline's diary, in which she made daily entries documenting her friendship with Juliet Hulme and events throughout their relationship. From the diary entries, it became apparent that Pauline and Juliet were intelligent, imaginative, outcast young women who possessed a wicked and somewhat irreverent sense of humor. In the film, all of Pauline's voice-overs are excerpts from her journal entries.


title: Heavenly Creatures

text: The role of Pauline was cast after Walsh scouted schools all over New Zealand to find a Pauline 'look-alike'. She had trouble finding an actress who resembled Pauline and had acting talent before discovering Melanie Lynskey. Kate Winslet was among 175 girls to audition for the film, and was cast after impressing Jackson with the intensity she brought to her part. The girls were both so absorbed by their roles that they kept on acting as Pauline and Juliet after the filming was done, as is described on Jackson's website.


title: Heavenly Creatures

text: The entire film was shot on location in Christchurch in the South Island of New Zealand in 1993. Jackson has been quoted as saying ""Heavenly Creatures" is based on a true story, and as such I felt it important to shoot the movie on locations where the actual events took place."


title: Heavenly Creatures

text: The visual effects in the film were handled by the then newly created Weta Digital. The girls' fantasy life, and the "Borovnian" extras (the characters the girls made up) were supervised by Richard Taylor while the digital effects were supervised by George Port. Taylor and his team constructed over 70 full-sized latex costumes to represent the "Borovnian" crowds—plasticine figures that inhabit Pauline and Juliet's magical fantasy world. "Heavenly Creatures" contains over thirty shots that were digitally manipulated ranging from the morphing garden of the "Fourth World," to castles in fields, to the sequences with "Orson Welles" (played by Jean Guérin).


title: Heavenly Creatures

text: "Heavenly Creatures" garnered wide critical praise. Review aggregator Rotten Tomatoes gives the film a 93% score based on 56 reviews, with an average rating of 8.10/10. The site's critical consensus reads, "Dark, stylish, and captivating, "Heavenly Creatures" signals both the auspicious debut of Kate Winslet and the arrival of Peter Jackson as more than just a cult director." On Metacritic, the film has a score of 86 out of 100 based on reviews from 31 critics, indicating "universal acclaim".


title: Heavenly Creatures

text: Nick Hyman, writing for Metacritic, thought that 1994's Oscar-winning "Forrest Gump" was equally matched by "Memorable Film(s) Not Nominated for Best Picture", including "Heavenly Creatures", of which Hyman said, "Peter Jackson's masterful blend of fantastical visions and a heartbreaking real-life murder tragedy has arguably never been topped."


title: Heavenly Creatures

text: Owen Gleiberman, writing for "Entertainment Weekly", gave the film a B+ and said, "Set in the early '50s, in the New Zealand village of Christchurch, this ripe hallucination of a movie – a rhapsody in purple – has been photographed in sun-drenched candy color that lends it the surreal clarity of a dream... There's something bracing about the way that "Heavenly Creatures" serves up its heroines' fantasies with literal-minded brute force." Gleiberman complains that Jackson never quite explains "why the two girls have metamorphosed into the '50s teenybop answer to Leopold and Loeb," yet concludes, "Still, if the pleasures of "Heavenly Creatures" remain defiantly on the surface, on that level the movie is a dazzler."


title: Heavenly Creatures

text: "Heavenly Creatures" had a limited box office success, but performed admirably in various countries, including the United States, where it grossed a total of $3,049,135 during its limited run in 57 theatres; it grossed $5,438,120 worldwide. In the US, it opened on two screens in New York City (Angelika Film Center and Lincoln Plaza) and had the biggest per-screen gross of the weekend with an average gross of $15,796, grossing $41,323 in its opening 5 days.


title: Heavenly Creatures

text: "Heavenly Creatures" was an Academy Award nominee in 1994 for Best Original Screenplay and won for Best British Actress at the 1st Empire Awards.</ref> It featured in a number of international film festivals, and received very favourable reviews worldwide.


title: Heavenly Creatures

text: Miramax International believed that reception at the Cannes Film Festival would make the film more appealing than it already was.


title: Heavenly Creatures

text: The film made top ten of the year lists in "Time", "The Guardian", "The Sydney Morning Herald", and "The New Zealand Herald". It appears in Schneider's book "1001 Movies You Must See Before You Die."


title: Heavenly Creatures

text: In 1996, the film was released on videocassette and on Laserdisc at its original runtime of 99 minutes. In 2002, the film received DVD releases in Region 1 and Region 4 in an "uncut version" which ran for 109 minutes. Region 2 released the original 99-minute theatrical version.


title: Sekhmet

text: In Egyptian mythology, Sekhmet ( or Sachmis (), also spelled Sakhmet, Sekhet, Sakhet among other spellings, ), is a warrior goddess as well as goddess of healing. She is depicted as a lioness.


title: Sekhmet

text: Sekhmet is a solar deity, sometimes called the daughter of Ra and often associated with the goddesses Hathor and Bastet.


title: Sekhmet

text: Sekhmet was the daughter of the sun god, Ra, and was among the more important of the goddesses who acted as the vengeful manifestation of Ra's power, the Eye of Ra. Sekhmet was said to breathe fire, and the hot winds of the desert were likened to her breath. She was also believed to cause plagues (which were called as her servants or messengers) although she was also called upon to ward off disease.


title: Sekhmet

text: In a myth about the end of Ra's rule on the earth, Ra sends the goddess Hathor, in the form of Sekhmet, to destroy mortals who conspired against him. In the myth, Sekhmet's blood-lust was not quenched at the end of battle that led to her destroying almost all of humanity. To stop her Ra poured out beer dyed with red ochre or hematite so that it resembled blood. Mistaking the beer for blood, she became so drunk that she gave up the slaughter and returned peacefully to Ra. The same myth was also described in the prognosis texts of the Calendar of Lucky and Unlucky Days of papyrus Cairo 86637.


title: Sekhmet

text: In other versions of this story, Sekhmet grew angered at the deception and left Egypt, diminishing the power of the sun. This threatened the power and security of the world—thus, she was persuaded by the god Thoth to return and restore the sun to its full glory.


title: Sekhmet

text: Sekhmet was considered the wife of the god Ptah and mother of his son Nefertum. She was also said to be the mother of a lion god, Maahes. She was also considered to be the sister of the cat goddess Bastet.


title: Sekhmet

text: During an annual festival held at the beginning of the year, a festival of intoxication, the Egyptians danced and played music to soothe the wildness of the goddess and drank great quantities of wine ritually to imitate the extreme drunkenness that stopped the wrath of the goddess—when she almost destroyed humanity.


title: Sekhmet

text: In 2006, Betsy Bryan, an archaeologist with Johns Hopkins University excavating at the temple of Mut in Luxor (Thebes) presented her findings about the festival that included illustrations of the priestesses being served to excess and its adverse effects on them being ministered to by temple attendants. Participation in the festival was great, including by the priestesses and the population. Historical records of tens of thousands attending the festival exist. These findings were made in the temple of Mut because when Thebes rose to greater prominence Mut absorbed some characteristics of Sekhmet. These temple excavations at Luxor discovered a "porch of drunkenness" built onto the temple by the Pharaoh Hatshepsut during the height of her twenty-year reign.


title: Sekhmet

text: During the Greek dominance in Egypt, note was made of a temple for Maahes that was an auxiliary facility to a large temple to Sekhmet at Taremu in the Delta region, a city which the Greeks called Leontopolis.


title: Representative democracy

text: Representative democracy, also known as indirect democracy, is a type of democracy where elected people represent a group of people, in contrast to direct democracy. Nearly all modern Western-style democracies function as some type of representative democracy: for example, the United Kingdom (a unitary parliamentary constitutional monarchy), India (a federal parliamentary republic), France (a unitary semi-presidential republic), and the United States (a federal presidential republic).


title: Representative democracy

text: Representative democracy can function as an element of both the parliamentary and the presidential systems of government. It typically manifests in a lower chamber such as the House of Commons of the United Kingdom, and the Lok Sabha of India, but may be curtailed by constitutional constraints such as an upper chamber and judicial review of legislation. Some political theorists (including Robert Dahl, Gregory Houston, and Ian Liebenberg) have described representative democracy as polyarchy. Representative democracy places power in the hands of representatives who are elected by the people. Political parties often become central to this form of democracy if electoral systems require or encourage voters to vote for political parties or for candidates associated with political parties (as opposed to voting for individual representatives).


title: Representative democracy

text: Representatives are elected by the public, as in national elections for the national legislature. Elected representatives may hold the power to select other representatives, presidents, or other officers of the government or of the legislature, as the prime minister in the latter case.


title: Representative democracy

text: The power of representatives is usually curtailed by a constitution (as in a constitutional democracy or a constitutional monarchy) or other measures to balance representative power:


title: Representative democracy

text: Theorists such as Edmund Burke believe that part of the duty of a representative was not simply to communicate the wishes of the electorate but also to use their own judgment in the exercise of their powers, even if their views are not reflective of those of a majority of voters:


title: Representative democracy

text: Certainly, Gentlemen, it ought to be the happiness and glory of a Representative, to live in the strictest union, the closest correspondence, and the most unreserved communication with his constituents. Their wishes ought to have great weight with him; their opinion, high respect; their business, unremitted attention. It is his duty to sacrifice his repose, his pleasures, his satisfactions, to theirs; and above all, ever, and in all cases, to prefer their interest to his own. But his unbiassed opinion, his mature judgment, his enlightened conscience, he ought not to sacrifice to you, to any man, or to any set of men living. These he does not derive from your pleasure; no, nor from the Law and the Constitution. They are a trust from Providence, for the abuse of which he is deeply answerable. Your representative owes you, not his industry only, but his judgment; and he betrays, instead of serving you, if he sacrifices it to your opinion.


title: Representative democracy

text: The Roman Republic was the first known state in the Western world to have a representative government, despite taking the form of a direct government in the Roman assemblies. The Roman model of governance would inspire many political thinkers over the centuries, and today's modern representative democracies imitate more the Roman than the Greek model, because it was a state in which supreme power was held by the people and their elected representatives, and which had an elected or nominated leader. Representative democracy is a form of democracy in which people vote for representatives who then vote on policy initiatives; as opposed to direct democracy, a form of democracy in which people vote on policy initiatives directly. A European medieval tradition of selecting representatives from the various estates (classes, but not as we know them today) to advise/control monarchs led to relatively wide familiarity with representative systems inspired by Roman systems.


title: Representative democracy

text: In Britain, Simon de Montfort is remembered as one of the fathers of representative government for holding two famous parliaments. The first, in 1258, stripped the king of unlimited authority and the second, in 1265, included ordinary citizens from the towns. Later, in the 17th century, the Parliament of England implemented some of the ideas and systems of liberal democracy, culminating in the Glorious Revolution and passage of the Bill of Rights 1689.


title: Representative democracy

text: The American Revolution led to the creation of a new Constitution of the United States in 1787, with a national legislature based partly on direct elections of representatives every two years, and thus responsible to the electorate for continuance in office. Senators were not directly elected by the people until the adoption of the Seventeenth Amendment in 1913. Women, men who owned no property, and Black people, and others not originally given voting rights, in most states eventually gained the vote through changes in state and federal law in the course of the 19th and 20th centuries. Until it was repealed by the Fourteenth Amendment following the Civil War, the Three-Fifths Compromise gave a disproportionate representation of slave states in the House of Representatives relative to the voters in free states.


title: Representative democracy

text: In 1789, Revolutionary France adopted the Declaration of the Rights of Man and of the Citizen and, although short-lived, the National Convention was elected by all males in 1792. Universal male suffrage was re-established in France in the wake of the French Revolution of 1848.


title: Representative democracy

text: Representative democracy came into general favour particularly in post-industrial revolution nation states where large numbers of citizens evinced interest in politics, but where technology and population figures remained unsuited to direct democracy. Many historians credit the Reform Act 1832 with launching modern representative democracy in the United Kingdom.


title: Representative democracy

text: Globally, a majority of governments in the world are representative democracies, including constitutional monarchies and republics with strong representative branches.


title: Representative democracy

text: Separate but related, and very large, bodies of research in political philosophy and social science investigate how and how well elected representatives, such as legislators, represent the interests or preferences of one or another constituency. The empirical research shows that representative systems tend to be biased towards the representation of more affluent classes, to the detriment of the population at large.


title: Representative democracy

text: In his book "Political Parties", written in 1911, Robert Michels argues that most representative systems deteriorate towards an oligarchy or particracy. This is known as the iron law of oligarchy.


title: Representative democracy

text: Representative democracies which are stable have been analysed by Adolf Gasser and compared to the unstable representative democracies in his book "Gemeindefreiheit als Rettung Europas" which was published in 1943 and a second edition in 1947. Adolf Gasser stated the following requirements for a representative democracy in order to remain stable, unaffected by the iron law of oligarchy:


title: Representative democracy

text: A drawback to this type of government is that elected officials are not required to fulfill promises made before their election and are able to promote their own self-interests once elected, providing an incohesive system of governance. Legislators are also under scrutiny as the system of majority-won legislators voting for issues for the large group of people fosters inequality among the marginalized.


title: Representative democracy

text: Proponents of direct democracy criticize representative democracy due to its inherent structure. As the fundamental basis of representative democracy is non inclusive system, in which representatives turn into an elite class that works behind closed doors, as well as the criticizing the elector system as being driven by a capitalistic and authoritarian system.


title: Representative democracy

text: The system of stochocracy has been proposed as an improved system compared to the system of representative democracy, where representatives are elected. Stochocracy aims to at least reduce this degradation by having all representatives appointed by lottery instead of by voting. Therefore, this system is also called lottocracy. The system was proposed by the writer Roger de Sizif in 1998 in his book "La Stochocratie". Choosing officeholders by lot was also the standard practice in ancient Athenian democracy and in ancient India. The rationale behind this practice was to avoid lobbying and electioneering by economic oligarchs.


title: Representative democracy

text: The system of deliberative democracy is a mix between a majority ruled system and a consensus-based system. It allows for representative democracies or direct democracies to coexist with its system of governance, providing an initial advantage.


"Que Sera, Sera (Whatever Will Be, Will Be)" is a song written by the team of Jay Livingston and Ray Evans that was first published in 1955. Doris Day introduced it in the Alfred Hitchcock film "The Man Who Knew Too Much" (1956), singing it as a cue to their onscreen kidnapped son. The three verses of the song progress through the life of the narrator—from childhood, through young adulthood and falling in love, to parenthood—and each asks "What will I be?" or "What lies ahead?" The chorus repeats the answer: "What will be, will be."


title: Que Sera, Sera (Whatever Will Be, Will Be)

text: Day's recording of the song for Columbia Records made it to number two on the "Billboard" Hot 100 and number one in the UK Singles Chart. It came to be known as Day's signature song. The song in "The Man Who Knew Too Much" received the 1956 Academy Award for Best Original Song. It was the third Oscar in this category for Livingston and Evans, who previously won in 1948 and 1950. In 2004 it finished at number 48 in AFI's 100 Years...100 Songs survey of top tunes in American cinema.


text: The song popularized the title expression "que sera, sera" as an English-language phrase indicating "cheerful fatalism", though its use in English dates back to at least the 16th century. Contrary to popular perception, the phrase is not Spanish in origin (in Spanish it would be ""), and is ungrammatical in that language. It was evidently formed by a word-for-word mistranslation of English "What will be will be".


text: The popularity of the song has led to curiosity about the origins of the title saying, "que sera, sera", and the identity of its language. Both the Spanish-like spelling used by Livingston and Evans and an Italian-like form ("che sarà sarà") are first documented in the 16th century as an English heraldic motto. The "Spanish" form appears on a brass plaque in the Church of St. Nicholas, Thames Ditton, Surrey, dated 1559. The "Italian" form was first adopted as a family motto by either John Russell, 1st Earl of Bedford, or his son, Francis Russell, 2nd Earl of Bedford. It is said by some sources to have been adopted by the elder Russell after his experience at the Battle of Pavia (1525), and to be engraved on his tomb (1555 N.S.). The 2nd Earl's adoption of the motto is commemorated in a manuscript dated 1582. Their successors—Earls and, later, Dukes of Bedford ("Sixth Creation"), as well as other aristocratic families—continued to use the motto. Soon after its adoption as a heraldic motto, it appeared in Christopher Marlowe's play "Doctor Faustus" (written ca. 1590; published 1604), whose text (Act 1, Scene 1) contains a line with the archaic Italian spelling "Che sera, sera / What will be, shall be". Early in the 17th century the saying begins to appear in the speech and thoughts of fictional characters as a spontaneous expression of a fatalistic attitude. The phrase, in its English form, is used in the novel "Hard Times" by Charles Dickens, first published in 1854. The saying is always in an English-speaking context, and it has no history in Spanish, Portuguese, Italian, or French; in fact, the saying is ungrammatical in all four of these Romance languages. It is composed of Spanish or Italian words superimposed on English syntax. It was evidently formed by a word-for-word mistranslation of English "What will be will be", merging the free relative pronoun "what" (= "that which") with the interrogative "what?"


text: Livingston and Evans had some knowledge of Spanish, and early in their career they worked together as musicians on cruise ships to the Caribbean and South America. Composer Jay Livingston had seen the 1954 Hollywood film "The Barefoot Contessa", in which a fictional Italian family has the motto "Che sarà sarà" carved in stone at their ancestral mansion. He immediately wrote it down as a possible song title, and he and lyricist Ray Evans later gave it a Spanish spelling "because there are so many Spanish-speaking people in the world".


text: In modern times, thanks to the popularity of the song and its many translations, the phrase has been adopted in countries around the world to name a variety of entities, including books, movies, restaurants, vacation rentals, airplanes, and race horses.


text: The song originally appeared in the Alfred Hitchcock film "The Man Who Knew Too Much", where it appears diegetically and serves an important role in the film's plot. In the film, Day plays a retired popular singer, Jo Conway McKenna, who, along with her husband (played by Jimmy Stewart) and son, becomes embroiled in a plot to assassinate a foreign prime minister. After foiling the assassination attempt, Jo and her husband are invited by the prime minister to the embassy, where they believe their young son is being held by the conspirators. Jo sits at a piano and plays "Que Sera, Sera", singing loudly in the hope of reaching her son. Upon hearing his mother play the familiar song, her son whistles along, allowing her husband to find and rescue him just before he was to be murdered by the conspirators to the assassination attempt.


text: "Que Sera Sera" came to be considered Doris Day's signature song, and she went on to sing it in later films and TV appearances. In 1960's "Please Don't Eat the Daisies", she sings a snippet of the song to her co-star, David Niven, who plays her husband. In the 1966 film "The Glass Bottom Boat" she sings a snippet accompanied by Arthur Godfrey on ukulele. From 1968 to 1973, she sang a rerecorded version as the theme song for her sitcom "The Doris Day Show". The 1999 Studio Ghibli film "My Neighbors the Yamadas" features a Japanese cover of the song toward the end of the film. Director Isao Takahata wrote the translation for the lyrics, with an arrangement by Neko Saitou.


text: Versions of the song have appeared on a number of film and television soundtracks, often juxtaposed with dark or disastrous events to create an effect of black comedy. For example, in "The Simpsons" episode "Bart's Comet", the song is sung by the citizens of Springfield in anticipation of an impending comet strike that will wipe out the town and kill them all. In an episode of "The Muppet Show" starring Vincent Price, Shakey Sanchez, a pink/purple red and purple haired Muppet sings the song after Behemoth eats him and sings "I've Got You Under My Skin". Previously, the song was featured over the opening and the ending credits of "Heathers", a dark teen comedy dealing with murder and suicide. The version over the opening credits is performed by Syd Straw and the version over the ending credits is performed by Sly and the Family Stone. In 2009, the song appeared in a climactic scene in "Mary and Max" as Mary is about to commit suicide.


text: In 1956, the song was covered by The Lennon Sisters on The Lawrence Welk Show. Although it was just another number in the show at the time, during recent years, the song has since gained millions of views on YouTube and is now regarded as a very notable version of the song.


text: "Que Sera, Sera" has been adapted as a popular celebratory football chant, especially in England, typically with the lyrics:


text: This would be sung by fans following a victory that progresses their favoured team to the next round of a competition that will ultimately lead them to Wembley Stadium (typically the FA Cup, the finals of which have been held in Wembley since 1923). Manchester United fans sang it before and during the 1976 FA Cup Final. Although the song became more commonly used to associate a good cup run, Everton fans used it in 1963 to hail their soon to be crowned League Champions, using the phrase "win the League" instead of "Wembley".


text: "Wembley" may be sung with either melisma on the first syllable, or a schwa epenthesis (often respelled "Wemberley"). Other venues than Wembley may be substituted as appropriate, as when Republic of Ireland fans sang "We're going to Italy" when qualifying for the 1990 World Cup, or when fans of Millwall, about to exit the 2016–17 FA Cup, self-deprecatingly sang "We're going to Shrewsbury", their unglamorous next League One fixture.


text: In 1964, Day re-recorded the song for her 1964 children's album "With a Smile and a Song". This version featured Jimmy Joyce and the Children's Chorus, recorded in July 1964, and issued by Columbia Records three months later as the eighth track on the album. This version was produced by Allen Stanton and was arranged and conducted by Allyn Ferguson.


text: Australian pop singer Normie Rowe's 1965 recording of "Que Sera, Sera", which was produced by Pat Aulton on the Sunshine Record label (Sunshine QK 1103), was the biggest hit of his career, "the biggest Australian rock 'n roll hit of 1965", and is reputed to be the biggest-selling Australian single of the 1960s. The song was "done in the style of "Louie, Louie" and the manner of "Hang On Sloopy", and given a "Merseybeat" treatment (in the manner of The Beatles' "Twist & Shout"), and was backed by Rowe's band The Playboys. It was paired with a version of the Johnny Kidd & The Pirates' classic "Shakin' All Over", and the single became a double-sided No. 1 hit in most capitals (#1 Sydney, #1 Melbourne, #1 Brisbane, #1 Adelaide, and Perth). in September 1965, charting for 28 weeks and selling in unprecedented numbers, with Rock historian Ian McFarlane reporting sales of 80,000 copies, while 1970s encyclopedist Noel McGrath claimed sales of 100,000. Rowe scored another first in October 1965 when "Que Sera Sera" became his third hit single in the Melbourne Top 40 simultaneously. In 1965 Rowe received a gold record for "Que Sera, Sera" at Sydney's Chevron Hotel. In December 1965 the master of Rowe's version was purchased by Jay-Gee Records for release in the United States. In April 1966 Rowe received a second gold record for the sales of "Que Sera, Sera". In August 1966 Rowe won Radio 5KA's annual best male vocal award for "Que Sera, Sera". In 2006 Rowe released a newly recorded version, which was released by ABC via iTunes, and later adding "the whole digital mix with a radio mix and a dance mix".


text: In the decades since the song's original release, "Que Sera, Sera" has been covered by dozens of artists. A 1969 cover sung by Mary Hopkin and produced by Paul McCartney reached number 77 on the "Billboard" Hot 100, and number 7 on the Adult Contemporary chart.


text: A live recorded version by Shakin' Stevens was featured on his The Shakin' Stevens EP which reached to No. 2 in the UK Charts at Christmas 1982. His studio recorded version of the song is featured on his album "Give Me Your Heart Tonight" from the same year.


text: In 1989, a comedy version recorded by "Terence" (John Creedon) in aid of the RTÉ People in Need Telethon reached number 2 in the Irish Singles Chart.


text: As a result of the song's immediate popularity following the release of "The Man Who Knew Too Much", versions were soon written in other languages. An early example was a by Jo Leemans which reached the Belgian charts in December 1956. Versions of the song have also been recorded in Danish, French, Mandarin, Spanish, Japanese, and Swedish, among other languages. These in turn have led some non-English speakers to adopt the saying "que sera, sera".


text: In 1965, Swedish rock band Lenne and the Lee Kings recorded the song. Upon release as a single during the summer of that year, record label Gazell coupled it with the Titus Turner song "Sticks and Stones" on the B-side. Although it failed to chart in native Sweden, it reached number 38 in Finland in August 1965. Both sides of the single were included on their 1966 album "Stop The Music".


title: Annie (2014 film)

text: Annie is a 2014 American musical comedy-drama film directed by Will Gluck, produced by Village Roadshow Pictures and James Lassiter's Overbrook Entertainment and distributed by Sony Pictures Releasing's Columbia Pictures. A contemporary film adaptation of the 1977 Broadway musical of the same name (which in turn is based on the comic strip "Little Orphan Annie" by Harold Gray). The film changes the setting from the Great Depression to the present day. It is the second remake and the third film adaptation of the musical following the 1982 theatrical film starring Carol Burnett and Albert Finney and the 1999 television film starring Kathy Bates and Victor Garber. The film stars Quvenzhané Wallis in the title role, Jamie Foxx, Rose Byrne, Bobby Cannavale and Cameron Diaz (in her final film role before her subsequent retirement from acting from 2014 to 2022). "Annie" began production in August 2013 and was released theatrically on December 19, 2014. The film received generally negative reviews; the Rotten Tomatoes consensus say it "smothers its likable cast under clichés, cloying cuteness, and a distasteful materialism". It grossed $133.8 million against a budget of between $65–78 million.


title: Annie (2014 film)

text: "Annie" received two Golden Globe Award nominations in the categories of Best Actress in a Motion Picture – Comedy or Musical (for Wallis) and Best Original Song. Conversely, the film received two Golden Raspberry nominations and won in the category of Worst Remake while Diaz was nominated for the Golden Raspberry Award for Worst Supporting Actress. It was followed by a fourth adaptation that was a live NBC production of the musical.


title: Annie (2014 film)

text: In Harlem, Manhattan, New York City, Annie Bennett lives in foster care with several other girls under the care of Colleen Hannigan, a bitter former of C+C Music Factory who spends her days drinking, trying to snag a sweetheart, and giving various grueling chores to the orphans under her care. Annie spends Fridays waiting outside Domani's restaurant, believing her parents will come for her because a note written on a receipt from Domani's says they will return. When a city inspector checks on Miss Hannigan's treatment of the girls, Annie takes advantage of the situation; she manages to copy her social security number from his clipboard and heads off to get her information. Annie learns that there is no more information about her on her record than what she already knows.


title: Annie (2014 film)

text: While attempting to save a Shiba Inu from bullies, Annie is nearly run over but is saved by Will Stacks, a germaphobic cellphone mogul running for Mayor of New York City. Stacks' rescue of Annie goes viral on the Internet, boosting his popularity; per suggestion of Will's campaign manager Guy Danlily, Annie moves in with Will to boost his popularity further. Annie enjoys her new surroundings, befriending Will's assistant Grace Farrell. Annie also gets to adopt the stray dog from before, naming her Sandy. Bonding with Annie, Will reveals that he had humble beginnings in Queens; he never really knew his father due to his work hours, but believed he could understand him if he worked just as hard. Annie also helps Grace and Will realize that they like each other romantically.


title: Annie (2014 film)

text: Per Annie's request, Will takes her and her friends in Miss Hannigan's foster care to see the premiere of "MoonQuake Lake". Stacks is uninterested in the movie at first, but soon becomes a major fan along with Grace. Per Annie and Grace's insistence, Stacks joins the premiere party. After returning her friends home, Annie shows Grace her Friday routine of waiting to see if her parents will return; Grace sympathizes, agreeing to keep this a secret from Will. At Miss Hannigan's, the girls accidentally wake her; Miss Hannigan snaps at them, saying rich people are selfish and will ditch anyone they do not like anymore; thus recalling her own past. Slightly hung over, she laments about her situation of foster kids and her desire to reclaim stardom.


title: Annie (2014 film)

text: Annie is invited to a charity event, where she speaks about how grateful she is for all the opportunities she's been presented. When Annie is asked to read a speech, she runs off and reveals that she does not know how to read (despite being 10 years old and attending school). Teaming up with Miss Hannigan, Guy plans to have impostors claim Annie as their daughter to boost Will's popularity to the point where he wins; Guy will then share his payment with Miss Hannigan. However, Guy doesn't care about Annie's well-being, planning to dump Annie back into the foster care system after the election and cutting Hannigan out of the deal.


title: Annie (2014 film)

text: By the time Miss Hannigan has a change of heart, Annie has already been kidnapped by the imposters. Miss Hannigan tells Will about Guy's role in the scheme, and Will fires him. Will, Grace, Miss Hannigan and the girls board Will's helicopter; aided by the police, they chase the getaway car into the park. The kidnappers believe that Will paid them to kidnap Annie rather than Guy, so Annie gets upset and chastises Will, thinking he set up the kidnapping and rescue. To prove his innocence, Will announces to the press his withdrawal from the mayoral race, after which Annie helps Grace and Will admit their love for each other. Annie learns that her parents are dead which explains why they never came back for her. Will cheers Annie up when he decides to adopt her, then all three dance and sing happily.


title: Annie (2014 film)

text: Annie announces the opening of the "Stacks Literacy Centre", to help children like herself, who cannot read. Everyone sings Annie's "Tomorrow"; humorously, Miss Hannigan attempts to continue singing after the song is done, only to receive stares that cue her to stop.


title: Annie (2014 film)

text: Phil Lord and Christopher Miller's names appear in the end credits of "MoonQuake Lake", a fictional film within the film; the scenes were actually directed by Lord and Miller. Taylor Richardson, who played the title role in the 2012 Broadway revival of the musical, appears in the beginning of the film as one of Annie's classmates, also named "Annie".


title: Annie (2014 film)

text: While the film incorporates notable songs from the original Broadway production, written by composer Charles Strouse and lyricist Martin Charnin, the songs themselves were rearranged by Sia and Greg Kurstin to reflect its new contemporary setting. Executive music supervisor Matt Sullivan explained that there was a desire to make the film's use of music "seamless" rather than "abrupt", and to maintain the integrity and familiarity of the musical's most iconic songs, including "Tomorrow" and "It's the Hard Knock Life". The songs were rearranged with a percussive, pop-inspired style: in particular, "It's the Hard Knock Life" — whilst maintaining the use of "natural" sounds for its rhythm — was updated in a hip hop style. Lyrics to some songs were also updated to reflect the differences in the film's storyline and settings. Sia and Kurstin wrote three new songs for the soundtrack: "Opportunity", "Who Am I", and "MoonQuake Lake". Sia additionally co-wrote "The City's Yours" with Norwegian Stargate.


title: Annie (2014 film)

text: Sony Pictures first announced the film in January 2011, with Jay-Z and Will Smith serving as producers and Smith's daughter Willow attached to play the lead role. In February 2011, "Glee" co-creator Ryan Murphy became front-runner to direct the film, but by March, he had declined due to filming new episodes.


title: Annie (2014 film)

text: The production soon began seeking a screenwriter and actress Emma Thompson was considered. No developments arrived until May 2012, when Will Smith appeared on "Good Morning America" and provided updates, including that the film would be set in modern-day New York City, that Thompson was providing a script and that Jay-Z would also provide new songs for the film. In July 2012, "We Bought a Zoo" screenwriter Aline Brosh McKenna wrote a second draft of the script. In August, it was announced production was to begin in Spring 2013.


title: Annie (2014 film)

text: By February 2013, "Beasts of the Southern Wild" star and Oscar nominee Quvenzhané Wallis had replaced Smith in the lead role, and the film was given a Christmas 2014 release date.


title: Annie (2014 film)

text: In March 2013, the search for the rest of the cast continued and Justin Timberlake was rumored for the role of Daddy Warbucks. This was proven false when Jamie Foxx signed on for the role, which was renamed William "Will" Stacks. In June 2013, Cameron Diaz was cast as Miss Hannigan after Sandra Bullock declined.


title: Annie (2014 film)

text: In July 2013, Rose Byrne joined the cast as Grace Farrell, Stacks's faithful assistant and in August, "Boardwalk Empire" star and partner of Rose Byrne, Bobby Cannavale joined the cast as a "bulldog political adviser" to Will Stacks. In September, the rest of the cast was announced: Amanda Troya, Nicolette Pierini, Eden Duncan-Smith, and Zoe Colletti as Annie's foster sisters.


title: Annie (2014 film)

text: As of September 19, 2013, principal photography had begun. Shooting was done at Grumman Studios. Other scenes were filmed at the new Four World Trade Center.


title: Annie (2014 film)

text: While "rooted in the same story" according to Gluck, this adaptation is a contemporary take on the 1977 Broadway musical and contains many differences from the original: The setting was changed from the 1930s — the era of Franklin D. Roosevelt's presidency and the Great Depression — to present-day New York City. The opening school scene features class presentations by both the new Annie and a student representing her classic appearance, discussing aspects of and parallels between the economic states of the two settings, such as the New Deal and the modern lower class.


title: Annie (2014 film)

text: While Hannigan is complicit in deceiving Stacks and Annie that Annie's birth parents have been found (conspiring with Stacks' campaign manager Guy Danlily), they are not impersonated by Hannigan's brother Rooster and his girlfriend Lily as in the original version. Instead, Guy has 'people he uses for this kind of work' take Annie. The fate of Annie's birth parents is left open, whereas in previous versions Hannigan reveals that they died sometime previously but Annie has not been told.


title: Annie (2014 film)

text: On November 27, 2014, "Annie" was one of several films leaked by the "Guardians of Peace", a group that the FBI believes has ties to North Korea, following its breach of Columbia's parent company Sony Pictures Entertainment. Within three days of the initial leak, "Annie" had been downloaded by an estimated 206,000 unique IPs. By December 9, the count had risen to over 316,000. The chief analyst at "BoxOffice.com" felt that despite this, the leak was unlikely to affect "Annie"s box office performance as the demographic who pirates movies isn't the target audience for the film.


title: Annie (2014 film)

text: "Annie" was released on DVD and Blu-ray/DVD combo pack on March 17, 2015, by Sony Pictures Home Entertainment.


title: Annie (2014 film)

text: "Annie" opened on December 19, 2014, and earned $5.3 million on its opening day. In the first weekend, the film made $15.9 million and ranked third in the North American box office behind other new releases "" and "". The film grossed $85.9 million in North America and $47.9 million overseas for a worldwide total of $133.8 million.


title: Annie (2014 film)

text: On Rotten Tomatoes, the film has an approval rating of 28% based on 155 reviews and an average rating of 4.48/10. The site's critical consensus reads, "The new-look "Annie" hints at a progressive take on a well-worn story, but smothers its likable cast under clichés, cloying cuteness, and a distasteful materialism." On Metacritic, the film has a score of 33 out of 100 based on 38 critics, indicating "generally unfavorable reviews". Audiences polled by CinemaScore gave the film an average grade of "A−" on an A+ to F scale.


title: Annie (2014 film)

text: "PopMatters" magazine rated "Annie" with a three out of ten, saying, "In its aggravatingly choreographed frenzy, the party scene epitomizes "Annie": it's trying too hard both to be and not be the previous Annies, it's trying too little to be innovative or vaguely inspired. It's as crass as Miss Hannigan and as greedy as Stacks, at least until they learn their lessons. The movie doesn't appear to learn a thing." Michael Phillips of the "Chicago Tribune" gave "Annie" one-and-a-half stars, describing the adaptation as being "wobbly" and "unsatisfying", criticizing the commercialized nature of the plot changes, concluding that it was "finesse-free and perilously low on the simple performance pleasures we look for in any musical, of any period." Ben Sachs of the "Chicago Reader" gave the film three out of four stars, praising the "surprising amount of bite: the filmmakers openly acknowledge the similarities between the Great Depression and the present, and the populist message, however overstated, always registers as sincere." Sachs also praised director Will Gluck for "striking a buoyant tone that feels closer to classic Hollywood musicals than contemporary kiddie fare."


title: Annie (2014 film)

text: The soundtrack, rearranged by Sia Furler and Greg Kurstin, received a polarizing response from critics, with much criticism going towards the heavy use of auto-tune. "Entertainment Weekly" described its soundtrack as an auto-tuned "disaster," noting that "you won't ever hear a worse rendition of 'Easy Street' than the one performed by Diaz and Cannivale — I promise." David Rooney of "The Hollywood Reporter" says "all but a handful of the existing songs have been shredded, often retaining just a signature line or two and drowning it in desperately hip polyrhythmic sounds, aurally assaultive arrangements and inane new lyrics." Matt Zoller Seitz however, praised the soundtrack's new songs.


title: Annie (2014 film)

text: The performances were more positively received by some critics. "IGN.com" praised Wallis and Foxx for being "on-point" throughout much of the film, as well as Rose Byrne, calling her the "surprise" of the film. Matt Zoller Seitz called Wallis "the first Annie to bring something both culturally and personally new to this role," and praised the rest of the cast too, including Foxx and Byrne. Cameron Diaz's performance received polarized reviews, with critics praising her effort, but ultimately calling it too "vampy," as well as "strident and obnoxious." Peter Travers of "Rolling Stone" says that she "overacts the role to the point of hysteria."


title: Holography

text: Holography is a technique that enables a wavefront to be recorded and later re-constructed. Holography is best known as a method of generating real three-dimensional images, but it also has a wide range of other applications. In principle, it is possible to make a hologram for any type of wave.