title: Ace Combat 7: Skies Unknown

text: For their commendable performance, all members of Spare Squadron are pardoned and transferred to a base on Tyler Island off the coast of Usea. Trigger and his wingman Count are recruited by the elite Long Range Strategic Strike Group (LRSSG). Assisted by the LRSSG, Osea and its allies mount a series of devastating counter-offensives, including the destruction of one of the Arsenal Birds with a refurbished Stonehenge artillery array, culminating in a large-scale operation to capture the Erusean capital, Farbanti.


title: Ace Combat 7: Skies Unknown

text: Trigger encounters Mihaly again, but their duel is interrupted when Osea and Erusea use anti-satellite weapons to destroy each other's satellite network, causing a collisional cascade that breaks down satellite communication networks worldwide. Mihaly escapes Farbanti in the confusion; Erusea loses control over its AI-controlled drone fleet and collapses into a civil war between conservative and radical factions looking to end and prolong the war respectively, and multiple Erusean states declare independence. With the network down, Dr. Schroeder personally travels to the ISEV to transmit the latest flight data gathered from Mihaly into a new generation of Erusean combat drones, manufactured in automated drone factories across the continent.


title: Ace Combat 7: Skies Unknown

text: Operating independently, the LRSSG attempts to extract the leader of the Erusean conservative faction and Osean informant in an effort to end the war decisively. The informant reveals that Harling was killed by an Erusean drone that spoofed Osean IFF signals, but he is accidentally killed by other Osean forces after his extraction. In the same battle, Dr. Schroeder and Mihaly's granddaughters are attacked by other Erusean forces and are saved by the LRSSG.


title: Ace Combat 7: Skies Unknown

text: Meanwhile, Avril and the 444th, isolated, try to survive on a chaotic Tyler Island, where rogue Osean penal units clash with Eruseans and other Osean forces. They find Erusean Princess Rosa Cossette D'Elise, whose liaison aircraft was shot down by Erusean radicals. Avril and Rosa aid the LRSSG in evacuating both friendly military units and refugees from the island, and head to the ISEV to seek aid. The LRSSG arrives at the seceded state of Shilage in search of supplies, where Trigger duels and defeats Mihaly; after the battle, Mihaly asks Trigger to end the drone threat.


title: Ace Combat 7: Skies Unknown

text: Schroeder and Avril's group both arrive at the ISEV. When Schroeder prepares to upload Mihaly's flight data, Ionela destroys the data upon learning of his intentions. It is revealed that Schroeder was a Belkan, once part of a powerful country whose leaders destroyed their own infrastructure with nuclear weapons rather than admit defeat. Schroeder was part of a long-standing legacy of Belkans who wanted revenge for the loss of their country and did this by forcing the nations that defeated them into needless conflicts, using his own drone program and Mihaly's combat data to create a force capable of crushing Osea. Disillusioned by the destruction his program had caused, Schroeder agrees to help Avril in taking down the factories but reveals that the data had already been uploaded to two advanced drones, nicknamed Hugin and Munin.


title: Ace Combat 7: Skies Unknown

text: An Osean-Erusean coalition assaults the ISEV with the intention of seizing it from Erusean radicals. Rosa and Avril sabotage the ISEV and disable its microwave power transmissions, allowing Trigger to attack and destroy the remaining Arsenal Bird. However, Hugin and Munin suddenly arrive and repel the coalition, intending to complete the data transmission and prolong the war. The next morning, Trigger leads a counterattack on the ISEV and shoots down one of the drones, but the other escapes into an undersea tunnel. Trigger and Count follow the drone into the tunnel, and Trigger manages to destroy it and the signal repeaters to prevent the broadcast and end the war. A later cutscene reveals that peace has returned to Usea, with Cossette leading the post-war peace movement.


title: Ace Combat 7: Skies Unknown

text: In the DLC missions, set in-between an attack on Erusean missile bases and the Battle of Farbanti, the LRSSG is assigned to capture the "Alicorn", a massive Erusean submersible aviation cruiser armed with a rail cannon firing nuclear artillery shells, and its commander, Captain Matias Torres. After failing to apprehend the submarine, the LRSSG discovers that the "Alicorn" has defected from the Erusean Navy, and Torres intends to attack the Osean capital with nuclear shells smuggled onto the "Alicorn", killing millions and terrorizing Osea into ending the war. After utilizing sonobuoys and a magnetic anomaly detector to locate the "Alicorn", the LRSSG forces it to the surface and engages it in a protracted battle, eventually destroying the submarine and killing Torres, ending their threat to Osea.


title: Ace Combat 7: Skies Unknown

text: In the VR mode of the game, ""'s protagonist, Mobius 1, engages in combat against the Free Erusea terrorist group in 2014, five years prior to the events of the main game. This storyline occurs separately from the main plot.


title: Ace Combat 7: Skies Unknown

text: Despite lackluster reviews, "Ace Combat Infinity" for the PlayStation 3 was a surprise hit for the veteran fans, commercial interest in the series by Namco Bandai was renewed and prompted internal development team Project Aces to develop a true sequel for the first time since "Ace Combat 6" for the Xbox 360. Originally set to be released in 2017, "Ace Combat 7: Skies Unknown" was released for the PlayStation 4 and Xbox One on January 18, 2019, and was released for Microsoft Windows on February 1. The game also features special missions in virtual reality, which is exclusive to PlayStation VR. Two-player local multiplayer was rumored to have been included, but was not present in the final game. The game is the first of the series to use Unreal Engine 4. Pre-orders for the game came with digital copies of "" for the PlayStation 4, and "" on the Xbox One. The game also features post-release downloadable content that adds new aircraft and missions. On May 26, 2022, a DLC adding content from "", which was released the following day, was released.


title: Ace Combat 7: Skies Unknown

text: In Japan, the game sold 202,379 copies for the PlayStation 4 during its first week, and has sold 286,570 units as of March 2019. In Southeast Asia, the game sold over 500,000 units within a month. In the United Kingdom, it had the highest debut sales in the series, entering the charts second overall. By July 2020, "Ace Combat 7" had sold over two million units, marking a major commercial milestone for the franchise since "" in 2002. , the game had sold over units worldwide, surpassing "Ace Combat 04: Shattered Skies" to become the franchise's best-selling title. As of August 2021, the game has sold over 3 million units in total.


title: Jan van Eyck

text: Jan van Eyck ( , ; – July 9, 1441) was a painter active in Bruges who was one of the early innovators of what became known as Early Netherlandish painting, and one of the most significant representatives of Early Northern Renaissance art. According to Vasari and other art historians including Ernst Gombrich, he invented oil painting, though most now regard that claim as an oversimplification.


title: Jan van Eyck

text: The surviving records indicate that he was born around 1380 or 1390, most likely in Maaseik (then Maaseyck, hence his name), Limburg, which is located in present-day Belgium. He took employment in The Hague around 1422, when he was already a master painter with workshop assistants, and was employed as painter and "valet de chambre" to John III the Pitiless, ruler of the counties of Holland and Hainaut. After John's death in 1425, he was later appointed as court painter to Philip the Good, Duke of Burgundy, and worked in Lille before moving to Bruges in 1429, where he lived until his death. He was highly regarded by Philip, and undertook a number of diplomatic visits abroad, including to Lisbon in 1428 to explore the possibility of a marriage contract between the duke and Isabella of Portugal.


title: Jan van Eyck

text: About 20 surviving paintings are confidently attributed to him, as well as the "Ghent Altarpiece" and the illuminated miniatures of the Turin-Milan Hours, all dated between 1432 and 1439. Ten are dated and signed with a variation of his motto ("As I (Eyck) can"), a pun on his name, which he typically painted in Greek characters.


title: Jan van Eyck

text: Van Eyck painted both secular and religious subject matter, including altarpieces, single-panel religious figures and commissioned portraits. His work includes single panels, diptychs, triptychs, and polyptych panels. He was well paid by Philip, who sought that the painter was secure financially and had artistic freedom so that he could paint "whenever he pleased". Van Eyck's work comes from the International Gothic style, but he soon eclipsed it, in part through a greater emphasis on naturalism and realism. He achieved a new level of virtuosity through his developments in the use of oil paint. He was highly influential, and his techniques and style were adopted and refined by the Early Netherlandish painters.


title: Jan van Eyck

text: Little is known of Jan van Eyck's early life and neither the date nor place of his birth is documented. The first extant record of his life comes from the court of John of Bavaria at The Hague where, between 1422 and 1424, payments were made to "Meyster Jan den malre" (Master Jan the painter) who was then a court painter with the rank of valet de chambre, with at first one and then two assistants. This suggests a date of birth of 1395 at the latest. However, his apparent age in the London probable self-portrait of 1433 suggests to most scholars a date closer to 1380. He was identified in the late 16th century as having been born in Maaseik, a borough of the prince-bishopric of Liège. His last name however is related to the place Bergeijk, due to genealogical information related to the coat-of-arms with three millrinds; that information also implies that he stems from the Lords of Rode (Sint-Oedenrode). Elisabeth Dhanens rediscovered in the quarterly state "the fatherly blazon, in gold, three millrinds of lauric acid", similar to other families that descend from the Lords of Rode in the quarter of Peelland in the 'meierij van's-Hertogenbosch'. His daughter Lievine was in a nunnery in Maaseik after her father's death. The notes on his preparatory drawing for "Portrait of Cardinal Niccolò Albergati" are written in the Maasland dialect.


title: Jan van Eyck

text: He had a sister Margareta, and at least two brothers, Hubert (died 1426), with whom he probably served his apprenticeship and Lambert (active between 1431 and 1442), both also painters, but the order of their births has not been established. Another significant, and rather younger, painter who worked in Southern France, Barthélemy van Eyck, is presumed to be a relation. It is not known where Jan was educated, but he had knowledge of Latin and used the Greek and Hebrew alphabets in his inscriptions, indicating that he was schooled in the classics. This level of education was rare among painters, and would have made him more attractive to the cultivated Philip.


title: Jan van Eyck

text: Van Eyck served as official to John of Bavaria-Straubing, ruler of Holland, Hainault and Zeeland. By this time he had assembled a small workshop and was involved in redecorating the Binnenhof palace in The Hague. After John's death in 1425 he moved to Bruges and came to the attention of Philip the Good c. 1425. His emergence as a collectable painter generally follows his appointment to Philip's court, and from this point his activity in the court is comparatively well documented. He served as court artist and diplomat, and was a senior member of the Tournai painters' guild. On 18 October 1427, the Feast of St. Luke, he travelled to Tournai to attend a banquet in his honour, also attended by Robert Campin and Rogier van der Weyden.


title: Jan van Eyck

text: A court salary freed him from commissioned work, and allowed a large degree of artistic freedom. Over the following decade van Eyck's reputation and technical ability grew, mostly from his innovative approaches towards the handling and manipulating of oil paint. Unlike most of his peers, his reputation never diminished and he remained well regarded over the following centuries. His revolutionary approach to oil was such that a myth, perpetuated by Giorgio Vasari, arose that he had invented oil painting.


title: Jan van Eyck

text: His brother Hubert van Eyck collaborated on Jan's most famous works, the "Ghent Altarpiece", generally art historians believe it was begun c. 1420 by Hubert and completed by Jan in 1432. Another brother, Lambert, is mentioned in Burgundian court documents, and may have overseen his brother's workshop after Jan's death.


title: Jan van Eyck

text: Considered revolutionary within his lifetime, van Eyck's designs and methods were heavily copied and reproduced. His motto, one of the first and still most distinctive signatures in art history, "" ("AS I CAN"), a pun on his name, first appeared in 1433 on "Portrait of a Man in a Turban", which can be seen as indicative of his emerging self-confidence at the time. The years between 1434 and 1436 are generally considered his high point when he produced works including the "Madonna of Chancellor Rolin", "Lucca Madonna" and "Virgin and Child with Canon van der Paele".


title: Jan van Eyck

text: Around 1432, he married Margaret who was 15 years younger. At about the same time he bought a house in Bruges; Margaret is unmentioned before he relocated, when the first of their two children was born in 1434. Very little is known of Margaret; even her maiden name is lost – contemporary records refer to her mainly as "Damoiselle Marguerite". She may have been of aristocratic birth, though from the lower nobility, evidenced from her clothes in the portrait which are fashionable but not of the sumptuousness worn by the bride in the "Arnolfini Portrait". Later, as the widow of a renowned painter Margaret was afforded a modest pension by the city of Bruges after Jan's death. At least some of this income was invested in lottery.


title: Jan van Eyck

text: Van Eyck undertook a number of journeys on Philip the Duke of Burgundy's behalf between 1426 and 1429, described in records as "secret" commissions, for which he was paid multiples of his annual salary. Their precise nature is still unknown, but they seem to involve his acting as envoy of the court. In 1426 he departed for "certain distant lands", possibly to the Holy Land, a theory given weight by the topographical accuracy of Jerusalem in "The Three Marys at the Tomb", a painting completed by members of his workshop c. 1440.


title: Jan van Eyck

text: A better documented commission was the journey to Lisbon along with a group intended to prepare the ground for the Duke's wedding to Isabella of Portugal. Van Eyck's was tasked with painting the bride, so that the Duke could visualise her before their marriage. Because Portugal was ridden with plague, their court was itinerant and the Dutch party met them at the out-of-the-way castle of Avis. Van Eyck spent nine months there, returning to the Netherlands with Isabella as a bride to be; the couple married on Christmas Day of 1429. The princess was probably not particularly attractive, and that is exactly how Van Eyck conveyed her in the now lost portrait. Typically he showed his sitters as dignified, yet did not hide their imperfections. After his return, he was preoccupied with completing the "Ghent Altarpiece", which was consecrated on 6 May 1432 at Saint Bavo Cathedral during an official ceremony for Philip. Records from 1437 say that he was held in high esteem by the upper ranks of Burgundian nobility and was employed in foreign commissions.


title: Jan van Eyck

text: Jan van Eyck died on 9 July 1441, in Bruges. He was buried in the graveyard of the Church of St Donatian. As a mark of respect, Philip made a one-off payment to Jan's widow Margaret, to a value equal to the artist's annual salary. He left behind many unfinished works to be completed by his workshop journeymen. After his death, Lambert van Eyck ran the workshop, as Jan's reputation and stature steadily grew. Early in 1442 Lambert had the body exhumed and placed inside St. Donatian's Cathedral.


title: Jan van Eyck

text: In 1449 he was mentioned by the Italian humanist and antiquarian Ciriaco de' Pizzicolli as a painter of note and ability, and was recorded by Bartolomeo Facio in 1456.


title: Jan van Eyck

text: Jan van Eyck produced paintings for private clients in addition to his work at the court. Foremost among these is the "Ghent Altarpiece" painted for the merchant, financier and politician Jodocus Vijdts and his wife Elisabeth Borluut. Started sometime before 1426 and completed by 1432, the polyptych is seen as representing "the final conquest of reality in the North", differing from the great works of the Early Renaissance in Italy by virtue of its willingness to forgo classical idealisation in favor of the faithful observation of nature.


title: Jan van Eyck

text: Even though it may be assumed – given the demand and fashion – that he produced a number of triptychs, only the "Dresden altarpiece" survives, although a number of extant portraits may be wings of dismantled polyptychs. Telltale signs are hinges on original frames, the sitter's orientation, and praying hands or the inclusion of iconographical elements in an otherwise seemingly secular portrait.


title: Jan van Eyck

text: About 20 surviving paintings are confidently attributed to him, all dated between 1432 and 1439. Ten, including the "Ghent Altarpiece", are dated and signed with a variation of his motto, . In 1998 Holland Cotter estimated that "only two dozen or so paintings...attributed...with varying degrees of confidence, along with some drawings and a few pages from...the Turin-Milan Hours". He described the "complex relationship and tension between art historians and holding museums in assigning authorship. Of the 40 or so works considered originals in the mid 80s, around ten are now vigorously contested by leading researchers as workshop".


title: Jan van Eyck

text: Since 1901 Jan van Eyck has often been credited as the anonymous artist known as Hand G of the Turin-Milan Hours. If this is correct, the Turin illustrations are the only known works from his early period; according to Thomas Kren the earlier dates for Hand G precede any known panel painting in an Eyckian style, which "raise[s] provocative questions about the role that manuscript illumination may have played in the vaunted verisimilitude of Eyckian oil painting".


title: Jan van Eyck

text: The evidence for attributing van Eyck rests on part on the fact that although the figures are mostly of the International Gothic type, they reappear in some of his later work. In addition, there are coats of arms connected with the Wittelsbach family with whom he had connections in the Hague, while some of the figures in the miniatures echo the horsemen in the "Ghent Altarpiece".


title: Jan van Eyck

text: Most of the Turin-Milan Hours were destroyed by fire in 1904 and survive only in photographs and copies; only three pages at most attributed to Hand G now survive, those with large miniatures of the "Birth of John the Baptist", the "Finding of the True Cross" and the "Office of the Dead" (or "Requiem Mass"), with the "bas-de-page" miniatures and initials of the first and last of these The "Office of the Dead" is often seen as recalling Jan's 1438–1440 "Madonna in the Church". Four more were lost in 1904: all the elements of the pages with the miniatures called "The Prayer on the Shore" (or "Duke William of Bavaria at the Seashore", the "Sovereign's prayer" etc.), and the night-scene of the "Betrayal of Christ" (which was already described by Durrieu as "worn" before the fire), the "Coronation of the Virgin" and its bas-de-page, and the large picture only of the seascape "Voyage of St Julian & St Martha".


title: Jan van Eyck

text: Except the 'Ghent Altarpiece,' Van Eyck's religious works feature the Virgin Mary as the central figure. She is typically seated, wearing a jewel-studded crown, cradling a playful child Christ who gazes at her and grips the hem of her dress in a manner that recalls the 13th-century Byzantine tradition of the Eleusa icon ("Virgin of Tenderness"). She is sometimes shown reading a Book of Hours. She usually wears red. In the 1432 "Ghent Altarpiece" Mary wears a crown adorned with flowers and stars. She is dressed as a bride, and reads from a girdle book draped with green cloth, perhaps an element borrowed from Robert Campin's "Virgin Annunciate". The panel contains a number of motifs that later reappear in later works; she is already Queen of Heaven, wearing a crown adorned with flowers and stars. Van Eyck usually presents Mary as an apparition before a donor kneeling in prayer to the side. The idea of a saint appearing before a layperson was common in Northern donor portraits of the period. In "Virgin and Child with Canon van der Paele" (1434–1436), the Canon seems to have just paused momentarily to reflect on a passage from his hand-held bible as the Virgin and Child with two saints appear before him, as if embodiments of his prayer.


title: Jan van Eyck

text: Mary's role in his works should be viewed in the context of the contemporary cult and veneration surrounding her. In the early 15th century Mary grew in importance as an intercessor between the divine and members of the Christian faith. The concept of purgatory as an intermediary state that each soul had to pass through before admission to heaven was at its height. Prayer was the most obvious means of decreasing time in limbo, while the wealthy could commission new churches, extensions to existing ones, or devotional portraits. At the same time, there was a trend towards the sponsorship of requiem masses, often as part of the terms of a will, a practice that Joris van der Paele actively sponsored. With this income he endowed the churches with embroidered cloths and metal accessories such as chalices, plates and candlesticks.


title: Jan van Eyck

text: Eyck usually gives Mary three roles: Mother of Christ; the personification of the "Ecclesia Triumphans"; or Queen of Heaven.


title: Jan van Eyck

text: The idea of Mary as a metaphor for the Church itself is especially strong in his later paintings. In "Madonna in the Church" she dominates the cathedral; her head is almost level with the approximately sixty feet high gallery. Art historian Otto Pächt describes the interior of the panel as a "throne room" which envelops her as if a "carrying case". This distortion of scale is found in a number of other of his Madonna paintings, including "Annunciation". Her monumental stature borrows from the works of 12th- and 13th-century Italian artists such as Cimabue and Giotto, who in turn reflect a tradition reaching back to an Italo-Byzantine type and emphasises her identification with the cathedral itself. Art historians in the 19th century thought the work was executed early in van Eyck's career and attributed her scale as the mistake of a relatively immature painter. The idea that her size represents her embodiment as the church was first suggested by Erwin Panofsky in 1941. Till-Holger Borchert says that van Eyck did not paint "the Madonna in a church", but as "the Church".


title: Jan van Eyck

text: Van Eyck's later works contain very precise and detailed architectural details, but are not modeled on actual historical buildings. He probably sought to create an ideal and perfect space for Mary's apparition, and was more concerned with their visual impact rather than physical possibility.


title: Jan van Eyck

text: The Marian paintings are characterized by complex depictions of both physical space and light sources. Many of van Eyck's religious works contain a reduced interior space that is nonetheless subtly managed and arranged to convey a sense of intimacy without feeling constricted. The "Madonna of Chancellor Rolin" is lit from both from the central portico and side windows, while the floor-tiles in comparison to other elements shows that the figures are only about six feet from the columned loggia screen, and that Rolin might have had to squeeze himself through the opening to get out that way. The different elements of the cathedral in "Madonna in the Church" are so specifically detailed, and the elements of Gothic and contemporary architecture so well delineated, that many art and architecture historians have concluded that he must have had enough architectural knowledge to make nuanced distinctions. Given the accuracy of the descriptions, many scholars have tried to link the painting with particular buildings. But in all the buildings in van Eyck's work, the structure is imagined and probably an idealized formation of what he viewed as a perfect architectural space. This can be seen from the many examples of features that would be unlikely in a contemporary church, including the placing of a round arched triforium above a pointed colonnade in the Berlin work.


title: Jan van Eyck

text: The Marian works are heavily lined with inscriptions. The lettering on the arched throne above Mary in the "Ghent Altarpiece" is taken from a passage from the Book of Wisdom (7:29): "She is more beautiful than the sun and the army of the stars; compared to the light she is superior. She is truly the reflection of eternal light and a spotless mirror of God". Wording from the same source on the hem of her robe, on the frame of "Madonna in the Church" and on her dress in "Virgin and Child with Canon van der Paele", reads Although inscriptions are present in all of van Eyck's paintings, they are predominant in his Marian paintings, where they seem to serve a number of functions. They breathe life into portraits and give voice to those venerating Mary but also play a functional role; given that contemporary religious works were commissioned for private devotion, the inscriptions may have been intended to be read as an incantation or personalized indulgence prayers. Harbison notes that van Eyck's privately commissioned works are unusually heavily inscribed with prayer, and that the words may have served a similar function to prayer tablets, or more properly "Prayer Wings", as seen in the London "Virgin and Child" triptych.


title: Jan van Eyck

text: Van Eyck was highly sought after as a portrait artist. Growing affluence across northern Europe meant that portraiture was no longer the preserve of royalty or the high aristocracy. An emerging merchant middle class and growing awareness of humanist ideas of individual identity led to a demand for portraits.


title: Jan van Eyck

text: Van Eyck's portraits are characterized by his manipulation of oil paint and meticulous attention to detail; his keen powers of observation and his tendency to apply layers of thin translucent glazes to create intensity of color and tone. He pioneered portraiture during the 1430s and was admired as far away as Italy for the naturalness of his depictions. Today, nine three-quarters view portraits are attributed to him. His style was widely adopted, most notably by van der Weyden, Petrus Christus and Hans Memling.


title: Jan van Eyck

text: The small "Portrait of a Man with a Blue Chaperon" of c. 1430 is his earliest surviving portrait. It evidences many of the elements that were to become standard in his portraiture style, including the three-quarters view (a type he revived from antiquity which soon spread across Europe), directional lighting, elaborate headdress, and for the single portraits, the framing of the figure within an undefined narrow space, set against a flat black background. It is noted for its realism and acute observation of the small details of the sitter's appearance; the man has a light beard of one or two days' growth, a reoccurring feature in van Eyck's early male portraits, where the sitter is often either unshaven, or according to Lorne Campbell "rather inefficiently shaved". Campbell lists other van Eyck unshaven sitters; "Niccolò Albergati" (1431), "Jodocus Vijdt" (1432), "Jan van Eyck?" (1433), "Joris van der Paele" (c. 1434–1436), "Nicolas Rolin" (1435) and "Jan de Leeuw" (1436).


title: Jan van Eyck

text: Notes made on the reverse of his paper study for the "Portrait of Cardinal Niccolò Albergati" provide insight into Eyck's approach to minute detaing of his sitter' faces. Of his detailing of beard growth he wrote, "die stoppelen vanden barde wal grijsachtig" ("the stubble of the beard grizzled"). On the other aspects of his attempts to record the old man's face he noted, "the iris of the eye, near the back of the pupil, brownish yellow. On the contours next to the white, bluish ... the white also yellowish ..."


title: Jan van Eyck

text: The "Léal Souvenir" portrait of 1432 continues the adherence to realism and acute observation of the small details of the sitter's appearance. However, by his later works, the sitter placed at more of a distance, and the attention to detail less marked. The descriptions are less forensic, more of an overview, while the forms are broader and flatter. Even in his early works, his descriptions of the model are not faithful reproductions; parts of the sitters face or form were altered to either present a better composition or fit an ideal. He often altered the relative proportions of his models' head and body to focus on the elements of their features that interested him. This led him to distort reality in this paintings; in the portrait of his wife he altered the angle of her nose, and gave her a fashionably high forehead that nature had not.


title: Jan van Eyck

text: The stone parapet at the base of the canvas of "Léal Souvenir" is painted as if to simulate marked or scarred stone and contains three separate layers of inscriptions, each rendered in an illusionistic manner, giving the impression they are chiseled onto stone. van Eyck often set the inscriptions as if in the sitters voice, so that they "appear to be speaking". Examples include the "Portrait of Jan de Leeuw" which reads "... Jan de [Leeuw], who first opened his eyes on the Feast of St Ursula [21 October], 1401. Now Jan van Eyck has painted me, you can see when he began it. 1436". In "Portrait of Margaret van Eyck" of 1439 the lettering acclaims "My husband Johannes completed me in the year 1439 on 17 June, at the age of 33. As I can."


title: Jan van Eyck

text: Hands play a special significance in van Eyck's painting. In his early portraits the sitters are often shown holding objects indicative of their profession. The man in "Léal Souvenir" may have been a legal professional as he holds a scroll resembling a legal document.


title: Jan van Eyck

text: The "Arnolfini Portrait" of 1432 is filled with illusionism and symbolism, as is the 1435 "Madonna of Chancellor Rolin", commissioned to display Rolin's power, influence and piety.


title: Jan van Eyck

text: Van Eyck incorporated a wide variety of iconographic elements, often conveying what he saw as a co-existence of the spiritual and material worlds. The iconography was embedded in the work unobtrusively; typically the references comprised small but key background details. His use of symbolism and biblical references is characteristic of his work, a handling of religious iconography he pioneered, with his innovations taken up and developed by van der Weyden, Memling and Christus. Each employed rich and complex iconographical elements to create a heightened sense of contemporary beliefs and spiritual ideals.


title: Jan van Eyck

text: Craig Harbison describes the blending of realism and symbolism as perhaps "the most important aspect of early Flemish art". The embedded symbols were meant to meld into the scenes and "was a deliberate strategy to create an experience of spiritual revelation". Van Eyck's religious paintings in particular "always present the spectator with a transfigured view of visible reality". To him the day-to-day is harmoniously steeped in symbolism, such that, according to Harbison, "descriptive data were rearranged ... so that they illustrated not earthly existence but what he considered supernatural truth." This blend of the earthly and heavenly evidences van Eyck's belief that the "essential truth of Christian doctrine" can be found in "the marriage of secular and sacred worlds, of reality and symbol". He depicts overly large Madonnas, whose unrealistic size shows the separation between the heavenly from earthly, but placed them in everyday settings such as churches, domestic chambers or seated with court officials.


title: Jan van Eyck

text: Yet the earthly churches are heavily decorated with heavenly symbols. A heavenly throne is clearly represented in some domestic chambers (for example in the "Lucca Madonna"). More difficult to discern are the settings for paintings such as "Madonna of Chancellor Rolin", where the location is a fusion of the earthly and celestial. Van Eyck's iconography is often so densely and intricately layered that a work has to be viewed multiple times before even the most obvious meaning of an element is apparent. The symbols were often subtly woven into the paintings so that they only became apparent after close and repeated viewing, while much of the iconography reflects the idea that, according to John Ward, there is a "promised passage from sin and death to salvation and rebirth".


title: Jan van Eyck

text: Van Eyck was the only 15th-century Netherlandish painter to sign his canvases. His motto always contained variants of the words "" (or a variant) – "As I Can", or "As Best I Can", which forms a pun on his name. The aspirated "ICH" instead of the Brabantian "IK" is derived from his native Limburgish. The signature is sometimes inscribed using Greek lettering such as "". The word "Kan" derives from the Middle Dutch word "kunnen" related to the Dutch word "kunst" or to the German "Kunst" ("art").


title: Jan van Eyck

text: The words may be related to a type of formula of modesty sometimes seen in medieval literature, where the writer prefaces his work with an apology for a lack of perfection, although, given the typical lavishness of the signatures and mottos, it may merely be a playful reference. Indeed, his motto is sometimes recorded in a manner intended to mimic Christ's monogram "", for example in his c 1440 "Portrait of Christ". Further, as the signature is often a variant of "I, Jan van Eyck was here", it can be seen as a, perhaps somewhat arrogant, assertion of both the faithfulness and trustworthiness of the record and the quality of the work ("As I (K)Can").


title: Jan van Eyck

text: The habit of signing his work ensured that his reputation survived, and attribution has not been as difficult and uncertain as with other first generation artists of the early Netherlandish school. The signatures are usually completed in a decorative script, often of a kind reserved for legal documents, as can be seen in "Léal Souvenir" and the "Arnolfini Portrait", the latter of which is signed "Johannes de eyck fuit hic 1434" ("Jan van Eyck was here 1434"), a way of recording his presence.


title: Jan van Eyck

text: Many of van Eyck's paintings are heavily inscribed, in lettering of Greek, Latin or vernacular Dutch. Campbell sees in many examples a "certain consistency which suggest that he himself had painted them", rather than they are later additions. The letterings seem to serve different functions depending on the type of work on which they appear. In his single panel portraits they give voice to the sitter, most notably in "Portrait of Margaret van Eyck", where the Greek lettering on the frame translates as "My husband Johannes completed me in the year 1439 on 17 June, at the age of 33. As I can." By contrast the inscriptions on his public, formal religious commissions are written from the point of view of the patron, and there to underscore his piousness, charity and dedication to the saint who he is shown accompanying. This can be seen in his "Virgin and Child with Canon van der Paele", reads An inscription on the lower imitation frame refers to the donation, "Joris van der Paele, canon of this church, had this work made by painter Jan van Eyck. And he founded two chaplaincies here in the choir of the Lord. 1434. He only completed it in 1436, however."


title: Jan van Eyck

text: Exceptionally for his time, van Eyck often signed and dated his frames, then considered an integral part of the work –


title: Jan van Eyck

text: the two were often painted together, and while the frames were constructed by a body of craftsmen separate to the master's workshop, their work was often considered as equal in skill to that of the painter.


title: Jan van Eyck

text: He designed and painted the frames for his single head portraits to look like imitation stone, with the signature or other inscriptions giving the impression that they had been chiseled into the stone. The frames serve other illusionistic purposes; in "Portrait of Isabella of Portugal", described by the frame, her eyes gaze coyly but directly out of the painting, as she rests her hands on the edge of a faux stone parapet. With this gesture Isabella extends her presence out of the pictorial space and into that of the viewer.


title: Jan van Eyck

text: Many of the original frames are lost and known only through copies or inventory records. The London "Portrait of a Man" was likely half of a double portrait or pendant; the last record of the original frames contained many inscriptions, but not all were original; the frames were often overpainted by later artists. "Portrait of Jan de Leeuw" also bears its original frame, which is painted over to look like bronze.


title: Jan van Eyck

text: Many of his frames are heavily inscribed, which serves a dual purpose. They are decorative but also function to set the context for the significance of the imagery, similar to the function of margins in medieval manuscripts. Pieces such as the "Dresden Triptych" were usually commissioned for private devotion, and van Eyck would have expected the viewer to contemplate text and imagery in unison. The interior panels of the small 1437 "Dresden Triptych" are outlined with two layers of painted bronze frames, inscribed with mostly Latin lettering. The texts are drawn from a variety of sources, in the central frames from biblical descriptions of the assumption, while the inner wings are lined with fragments of prayers dedicated to saints Michael and Catherine.


title: Jan van Eyck

text: Members of his workshop completed works based on his designs in the years after his death in the summer of 1441. This was not unusual; the widow of a master would often carry on the business after his death. It is thought that either his wife Margaret or brother Lambert took over after 1441. Such works include the "Ince Hall Madonna", "Saint Jerome in His Study", a "Madonna of Jan Vos" ("Virgin and Child with St Barbara and Elizabeth") c. 1443, and others. A number of designs were reproduced by second-generation Netherlandish artists of the first rank, including Petrus Christus, who painted a version of the "Exeter Madonna".


title: Jan van Eyck

text: Members of his workshop also finished incomplete paintings after his death. The upper portions of the right hand panel of the "Crucifixion and Last Judgement diptych" are generally considered the work of a weaker painter with a less individual style. It is thought that van Eyck died leaving the panel unfinished but with completed underdrawings, and the upper area was finished by workshop members or followers.


title: Jan van Eyck

text: There are three works confidently attributed to him but known only from copies. "Portrait of Isabella of Portugal" dates to his 1428 visit to Portugal for Philip to draw up a preliminary marriage agreement with the daughter of John I of Portugal. From surviving copies, it can be deduced that there were two other "painted-on" frames apart from the actual oak frame, one of which was lettered with gothic inscription to the top, while a faux stone parapet provided support for her hands to rest upon.


title: Jan van Eyck

text: Two extant copies of his "Woman Bathing" were made in the 60 years after his death, but it is known mostly through its appearance in Willem van Haecht's expansive 1628 painting "The Gallery of Cornelis van der Geest", a view of a collector's gallery containing many other identifiable old masters. "Woman Bathing" bears many similarities to "Arnolfini Portrait", including an interior with a bed and a small dog, a mirror and its reflection, a chest of drawers and clogs on the floor; more broadly similar are the attendant woman's dress, the outline of her figure, and the angle from which she faces.


title: Jan van Eyck

text: In the earliest significant source on van Eyck, a 1454 biography in Genoese humanist Bartolomeo Facio's "De viris illustribus", Jan van Eyck is named "the leading painter" of his day. Facio places him among the best artists of the early 15th century, along with Rogier van der Weyden, Gentile da Fabriano, and Pisanello. It is particularly interesting that Facio shows as much enthusiasm for Netherlandish painters as he does for Italian painters. This text sheds light on aspects of Jan van Eyck's production now lost, citing a bathing scene owned by a prominent Italian, but mistakenly attributing to van Eyck a world map painted by another.


title: Peter A. McCullough

text: Peter Andrew McCullough (; born ) is an American cardiologist. He was vice chief of internal medicine at Baylor University Medical Center and a professor at Texas A&M University. During the COVID-19 pandemic, McCullough has promoted misinformation about COVID-19, its treatments, and mRNA vaccines.


title: Peter A. McCullough

text: Peter Andrew McCullough was born in Buffalo, New York, on December 29, 1962. He earned a Bachelor of Science degree from Baylor University in 1984 and his Doctor of Medicine (MD) degree from the University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center in 1988. He completed his residency in internal medicine at the University of Washington in Seattle, a cardiology fellowship in 1991, and practiced internal medicine in Grayling, Michigan, for two years before enrolling in the University of Michigan School of Public Health, earning a Master of Public Health (MPH) degree in 1994.


title: Peter A. McCullough

text: After receiving his MPH, McCullough was a cardiovascular fellow at William Beaumont Hospital in the Detroit metropolitan area until 1997. He then worked at the Henry Ford Heart and Vascular Institute in Detroit until 2000, served as section chief of cardiology of the University of Missouri–Kansas City School of Medicine, and returned to William Beaumont Hospital where he worked from 2002 to 2010. He spent the next four years as chief academic and scientific officer of the St. John Providence Health System, Detroit, before joining the Baylor University Medical Center in 2014. McCullough entered into a confidential separation agreement with Baylor Scott & White Medical Center in February 2021. In July, in response to his promotion of misinformation about COVID-19, Baylor sued McCullough to prevent him falsely claiming any current association with Baylor Health.


title: Peter A. McCullough

text: McCullough is a founder and current president of the Cardio Renal Society of America and co-editor-in-chief of "Cardiorenal Medicine",the society's journal, and also editor of "Reviews in Cardiovascular Medicine". He has conducted several studies on running and heart disease, and co-described the term Phidippides cardiomyopathy, a heart condition found in some high endurance athletes. McCullough's other research projects have included the relationship between heart disease and kidney disease and risk factors for heart disease. He is a member of the conservative advocacy group Association of American Physicians and Surgeons and has advocated for conspiracy theories promoted by the group.


title: Peter A. McCullough

text: During the COVID-19 pandemic, McCullough advocated for early treatment using the discredited treatments hydroxychloroquine and ivermectin, criticized the response of the National Institutes of Health and the Food and Drug Administration, dissented from public health recommendations, and contributed to COVID-19 misinformation.


title: Peter A. McCullough

text: In April 2020, McCullough led a study of the medication hydroxychloroquine as a treatment for COVID-19 for the Baylor Scott & White Medical Center. McCullough told "The Wall Street Journal" that the urgency of the public health crisis justified compromises on best practices in medical research. In July, after major studies found hydroxychloroquine was ineffective against COVID-19 and the Food and Drug Administration revoked its emergency use authorization (EUA), McCullough supported a second EUA.


title: Peter A. McCullough

text: In August 2020, McCullough, Harvey Risch of the Yale School of Public Health, and co-authors published an observational study proposing an early outpatient treatment regimen for COVID-19 in the "American Journal of Medicine". Based on previous evidence, the article made recommendations for treating ambulatory COVID-19 patients, but presented no new evidence. The article was shared on social media, mainly by groups which had previously published COVID-19 misinformation, in posts falsely interpreting the publication as an official endorsement of hydroxychloroquine as a treatment for COVID-19. The Ministry of Health of Brazil endorsed the article on its website, contributing to a severe COVID-19 misinformation problem in Brazil. The article was criticized in letters to the editors; the editors responded that the article included some "hopeful speculations...What seemed reasonable last summer based on laboratory experiments has subsequently been shown to be untrue."


title: Peter A. McCullough

text: McCullough and Risch were two of three witnesses called by committee chair Senator Ron Johnson to testify before a United States Senate Committee on Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs hearing on COVID-19 treatments held in November 2020. McCullough testified in support of social distancing, vaccination, and controversial treatments, including hydroxychloroquine. Ashish Jha, dean of the Brown University School of Public Health, called to testify by the ranking member, said the "clear consensus in the medical and scientific community, based on overwhelming evidence" is that hydroxychloroquine is ineffective as a treatment for COVID-19. McCullough said Jha was promoting misinformation and Jha's opposition to the drug was "reckless and dangerous for the nation." Jha responded on "The New York Times" opinion page, "By elevating witnesses who sound smart but endorse unfounded therapies, we risk jeopardizing a century's work of medical progress."


title: Peter A. McCullough

text: McCullough testified before a committee of the Texas Senate in March 2021, posted to YouTube by the Association of American Physicians and Surgeons, in which he made false claims about COVID-19 and COVID-19 vaccines, including that people under 50 years of age and survivors do not need the vaccine and that there is no evidence of asymptomatic spread of COVID-19.


title: Peter A. McCullough

text: Posted on the Canadian online video sharing platform Rumble, McCullough gave an interview in April 2021 to "The New American", the magazine of the right-wing John Birch Society, in which he advanced anti-vaccination messaging, including falsely claiming huge numbers of fatalities attributed to the COVID-19 vaccines. In May 2021, McCullough gave an interview in which he made claims about COVID-19 and COVID-19 vaccines which were "inaccurate, misleading and/or unsupported by evidence", including that survivors cannot be re-infected and so do not require vaccination and that the vaccines are dangerous.


title: Peter A. McCullough

text: During television appearances, McCullough has contradicted public health recommendations, including when asked about the aggressive spread of COVID-19 among children, by suggesting that healthy persons under 30 had no need for a vaccine, and when asked about the relative merits of vaccination-induced immunity versus "natural" (survivor) immunity, by disputing the necessity of vaccinations to achieve herd immunity. In December 2021, McCullough appeared on the "Joe Rogan Experience" promoting debunked conspiracy theories and misinformation (e.g. the COVID-19 pandemic was planned, the spike protein causes cell death, medical authorities are conspiring to illegitimately suppress hydroxychloroquine and ivermectin).


title: Ouagadougou

text: Ouagadougou ( , , ) is the capital of Burkina Faso and the administrative, communications, cultural, and economic centre of the nation. It is also the country's largest city, with a population of 2,415,266 in 2019. The city's name is often shortened to "Ouaga". The inhabitants are called "ouagalais". The spelling of the name "Ouagadougou" is derived from the French orthography common in former French African colonies.


title: Ouagadougou

text: Ouagadougou's primary industries are food processing and textiles. It is served by an international airport and is linked by rail to Abidjan in the Ivory Coast and, for freight only, to Kaya. There are several highways linking the city to Niamey, Niger, south to Ghana, and southwest to Ivory Coast. Ouagadougou has one of West Africa's largest markets, which burned down in 2003 and has since reopened with better facilities and improved fire-prevention measures. Other attractions include the National Museum of Burkina Faso, the Moro-Naba Palace (site of the Moro-Naba Ceremony), the National Museum of Music, and several craft markets.


title: Ouagadougou

text: The name "Ouagadougou" dates back to the 15th century when the Ninsi tribes inhabited the area. They were in constant conflict until 1441 when Wubri, a Yonyonse hero and an important figure in Burkina Faso's history, led his tribe to victory. He then renamed the area from "Kumbee-Tenga", as the Ninsi had called it, to "Wage sabre soba koumbem tenga", meaning "head war chief's village". "Ouagadougou" is a Francophone spelling of the name.


title: Ouagadougou

text: The city became the capital of the Mossi Empire in 1441 and became the permanent residence of the Mossi emperors (Moro-Naba) in 1681. The Moro-Naba Ceremony is still performed every Friday by the Moro-Naba and his court. In 1919 the French made Ouagadougou the capital of the Upper Volta territory (basically the same area as contemporary Burkina Faso). In 1954 the railroad line from Ivory Coast reached the city. Ouagadougou's population doubled from 1954 to 1960 and has been doubling about every ten years since.


title: Ouagadougou

text: On 15 January 2016, gunmen armed with heavy weapons attacked central Ouagadougou at the Cappuccino restaurant and the Splendid Hotel. 28 people were killed, and at least 56 wounded; after a government counterattack, a total of 176 hostages were released the morning after the initial attack. Three of the perpetrators were also killed. The jihadist insurgency continued with major attacks in 2017 and 2018.


title: Ouagadougou

text: Ouagadougou, situated on the central plateau (), grew around the imperial palace of the Mogho Naaba. An administrative centre of colonial rule, it became an important urban centre in the post-colonial era. First the capital of the Mossi Kingdoms and later of Upper Volta and Burkina Faso, Ouagadougou became a veritable communal centre in 1995.


title: Ouagadougou

text: Ouagadougou's climate is hot semi-arid ("BSh") under Köppen-Geiger classification, and closely borders with tropical wet and dry ("Aw"). The city is part of the Sudano-Sahelian area, with annual rainfall of about . The rainy season stretches from May to September, with an average temperature of . The cool season runs from October to February, with a minimum average temperature of . The maximum temperature during the hot season, which runs from March to April, can reach . The harmattan (a dry wind) and the West African Monsoon are the two main factors that determine Ouagadougou's climate. Even though Ouagadougou is farther from the equator, its hottest months' temperatures are slightly hotter than those of Bobo-Dioulasso, the country's second most populous city.


title: Ouagadougou

text: Ouagadougou's first municipal elections were held in 1956. The city is governed by a mayor who is elected to a five-year term, two senior councillors, and 90 councillors.


title: Ouagadougou

text: The city is divided into five arrondissements, consisting of 30 sectors, which are subdivided into districts. Districts of Ouagadougou include Gounghin, Kamsaoghin, Koulouba, Moemmin, Niogsin, Paspanga, Peuloghin, Bilbalogho, and Tiendpalogo. Seventeen villages comprise the Ouagadougou metropolitan area, which is about .


title: Ouagadougou

text: The population of this area is estimated at 1,475,000, 48% of whom are men and 52% women. The rural population is about 5% and the urban population about 95% of the total, and the density is 6,727 inhabitants per square kilometre, according to the 2006 census.


title: Ouagadougou

text: Ouagadougou's communes have invested in huge city-management projects. This is largely because Ouagadougou constitutes a 'cultural centre' by merit of holding the SIAO (International Arts and Crafts fair) and the FESPACO (Panafrican Film and Television Festival of Ouagadougou). Moreover, the villages' growing affluence allows for such investment, and the population's rapid growth necessitates it.


title: Ouagadougou

text: Though literacy in Ouagadougou is not high, there are three universities in the city. The largest is the state University of Ouagadougou, which was founded in 1974. In 2010 it had around 40,000 students (83% of the national population of university students).


title: Ouagadougou

text: The city's official language is French and the principal local languages are More, Dyula and Fulfulde. The bilingual program in schools (French plus one of the local languages) was established in 1994.


title: Ouagadougou

text: Ouagadougou's inhabitants play a wide array of sports, including association football, basketball, and volleyball. There are tournaments and activities organized by the local authorities. The Stade du 4-Août is the home of Étoile Filante de Ouagadougou, the city's main Football team.


title: Ouagadougou

text: Ouagadougou has both state and private hospitals. The two state hospitals in the city are the Centre hospitalier national Yalgado Ouedraogo (CHNYO) and the Centre hospitalier national pédiatrique Charles de Gaulle (CHNP-CDG). Despite that, the local population still largely can only afford traditional local medicine and the "pharmacopée".


title: Ouagadougou

text: Many residents travel on motorcycles and mopeds. The large private vendor of motorcycles JC Megamonde sells 50,000 motorbikes and mopeds every year.


title: Ouagadougou

text: Ouagadougou's citizens also travel in green cabs, which take their passengers anywhere in town for 200 to 400 CFA, but the price is higher after 10:00 pm and can then reach 1000 CFA.


title: Ouagadougou

text: Thomas Sankara International Airport Ouagadougou (code OUA) serves the area with flights to West Africa and Europe. Air Burkina has its head office in the Air Burkina Storey Building () in Ouagadougou.


title: Ouagadougou

text: Ouagadougou is connected by passenger rail service to Bobo-Dioulasso, Koudougou and Ivory Coast. As of June 2014, "Sitarail" operates a passenger train three times a week along the route from Ouagadougou to Abidjan. There are freight services to Kaya in the north of Burkina Faso and in 2014 plans were announced to revive freight services to the Manganese mine at Tambao starting in 2016.


title: Ouagadougou

text: The economy of Ouagadougou is based on industry and commerce. Some industrial facilities have relocated from Bobo-Dioulasso to Ouagadougou, which has made the city an important industrial centre of Burkina Faso. The industrial areas of Kossodo and Gounghin are home to several processing plants and factories. The industry of Ouagadougou is sector that fuels urban growth, as people move to the city from the countryside to find employment in industry. The Copromof workshop in Ouagadougou sews cotton lingerie for the French label "Atelier Augusti."


title: Ouagadougou

text: Ouagadougou is an important commercial centre. It is a centre where goods are collected and directed to rural areas. With a large consumer base, large amounts of energy sources, raw materials for buildings, agricultural products and livestock products are imported to the city.


title: Ouagadougou

text: The economy is dominated by the informal sector, which is characterized by petty commodity production, and workers not necessarily having salaries. Traditional, informal trade is widespread and concentrated around markets and major roads, as well as in outlets in neighborhoods. There are also instances of modern economic practices with workplaces having qualified, stable labor forces, or more traditional forms of business such as family businesses.


title: Ouagadougou

text: The tertiary sector is also an important part of the economy. This comprises communications, banking, transport, bars, restaurants, hotels, as well as administrative jobs.


title: Ouagadougou

text: The Bangr-Weoogo urban park (area: ), before colonialism, belonged to the Mosse chiefs. Considering it a sacred forest, many went there for traditional initiations or for refuge. The French colonists, disregarding its local significance and history, established it as a park in the 1930s. In 1985, renovations were done in the park. In January 2001, the park was renamed "Parc Urbain Bangr-Weoogo", meaning "the urban park of the forest of knowledge".


title: Ouagadougou

text: Another notable park in Ouagadougou is the "L'Unité Pédagogique", which shelters animals in a semi-free state. This botanic garden/biosphere system stretches over and also serves as a museum for the country's history.


title: Ouagadougou

text: "Jardin de l'amitié Ouaga-Loudun" (Garden of Ouaga-Loudun Friendship), with a green space that was renovated in 1996, is a symbol of the twin-city relationship between Ouagadougou and Loudun in France. It is situated in the centre of the city, near the "Nation Unies' crossroads".


title: Ouagadougou

text: There are a number of cultural and art venues, such as the Maison du Peuple and Salle des Banquets, in addition to performances of many genres of music, including traditional folk music, modern music, and rap.


title: Ouagadougou

text: Several international festivals and activities are organized within the municipality, such as FESPACO (Panafrican Film and Television Festival of Ouagadougou), which is Africa's largest festival of this type, SIAO (International Art and Craft Fair), FESPAM (Pan-African Music Festival), FITMO (International Theatre and Marionnette Festival) and FESTIVO.


title: Ouagadougou

text: The most common places of worship are Muslim mosques. There are also numerous Christian churches: Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Ouagadougou (Catholic Church), Association of Reformed Evangelical Church of Burkina Faso (World Communion of Reformed Churches), Assemblies of God, Deeper Life Bible Church, and the International Evangelism Center.


title: Jimmy Chin

text: Jimmy Chin (born ) is an American professional mountain athlete, photographer, film director, and author.


title: Jimmy Chin

text: As a mountain athlete, Chin has been a professional climber and skier on The North Face Athlete team for over 20 years. His travels have taken him to all seven continents and he has led and participated in expeditions around the world, building a resume of historic climbing and ski mountaineering achievements. In 2006 he achieved the first successful American ski descent from the summit of Mount Everest with Kit and Rob DesLauriers. Five years later, Chin, Conrad Anker, and Renan Ozturk captured the first ascent of "Shark's Fin", a granite wall on India's Meru Peak.


title: Jimmy Chin

text: As an artist, Chin's work documenting expeditions and climbs from the Sahara to the Himalaya has been featured in numerous publications, including "National Geographic", "The New York Times Magazine", "Vanity Fair", "Outside" magazine and others. In 2019, Chin was awarded the "National Geographic" Photographer's Photographer Award by his peers. His first book of photography documenting his career in the mountains, "There and Back", became a "New York Times" Best Seller in 2021.


title: Jimmy Chin

text: Chin co-directs with his wife Elizabeth Chai Vasarhelyi. Together they directed the documentary "Meru", which won numerous awards including the Audience Award at the Sundance Film Festival and was shortlisted for an Academy Award, and "Free Solo", which won an Academy Award for Best Documentary Feature, a BAFTA and seven Primetime Emmys. "Free Solo" had the highest-grossing opening weekend in history for a documentary. The film eventually grossed $29 million dollars in the box office. Chin and Chai's 2021 documentary, "The Rescue", chronicles the Tham Luang cave rescue. "The Rescue" won numerous awards, including the People's Choice Award at Toronto International Film Festival, and was also shortlisted for an Academy Award. Chin and Vasarhelyi are currently working on their first scripted feature, "Nyad", starring Annette Bening and Jodie Foster about Diana Nyad's historic swim from Cuba to Florida.


title: Jimmy Chin

text: Chin has creative directed and directed commercial work for brands including Ford Motor Company, Apple, Bose, Chase Bank, Panerai, Yeti, and The North Face.


title: Jimmy Chin

text: Chin has photographed and participated in expeditions on all seven continents. Some of the notable expeditions are listed below. Outside of major expeditions, Chin has also participated in numerous exploratory climbing and skiing expeditions to Alaska, Argentina, Baffin Island, Borneo, Chile, Mali, Chad, the Pitcairn Islands and other remote regions of the planet.


title: Jimmy Chin

text: In 1999 to 2001, Chin organized several climbing expeditions to Pakistan's Karakoram Mountains. He signed a sponsorship agreement with The North Face in 2001.


title: Jimmy Chin

text: In 2002, he was asked to join a "National Geographic" expedition to make an unsupported crossing of the remote Chang Tang Plateau in Tibet with Galen Rowell, Rick Ridgeway and Conrad Anker. The expedition was featured in "National Geographic"s April 2003 issue and documented in Rick Ridgeway's book "The Big Open".


title: Jimmy Chin

text: In 2003, Chin headed to Everest with Stephen Koch. They attempted the direct North Face via the Japanese Couloir to the Hornbein Couloir in alpine style, eschewing supplemental oxygen, fixed ropes and camps. They were unsuccessful and both were nearly killed in an avalanche.


title: Jimmy Chin

text: In May 2004, Chin climbed Everest with David Breashears and Ed Viesturs while filming for Working Title on a feature film project with Stephen Daldry. Chin later accompanied Ed Viesturs to Annapurna in 2005. Viesturs successfully climbed Annapurna and finished his quest to climb all of the world's 8000 meter peaks without oxygen. Chin photographed the expedition and the story was featured in the September 2005 issue of "Men's Journal".


title: Jimmy Chin

text: In October 2006, he achieved the first successful American ski descent of Mount Everest with Kit DesLauriers and Rob DesLauriers. They skied from the summit and are the only people to have skied the South Pillar Route on the Lhotse Face.


title: Jimmy Chin

text: In May 2007, Chin joined the Altitude Everest Expedition as a climber and expedition photographer in an attempt to retrace George Mallory and Sandy Irvine's fateful last journey up the North Face of Everest.


title: Jimmy Chin

text: In 2007, Chin ventured to Borneo with Mark Synnott, Conrad Anker, and Alex Honnold to make a first ascent of a 2,500-foot overhanging alpine big wall at an elevation of 14,000 feet on Mount Kinabalu.


title: Jimmy Chin

text: In 2008, Chin, Conrad Anker, and Renan Ozturk made their first attempt on the Shark's Fin, a 1,500-foot blade of granite leading to the summit of 21,000-foot Meru Central, in India’s Garhwal Himalaya range. They spend 19 days on the wall but are forced to turn back just 100 meters short of the summit.


title: Jimmy Chin

text: In 2009, on an expedition to Chad's remote Ennedi Desert, Chin, Alex Honnold, Renan Ozturk, Mark Synott, and James Pearson made numerous first ascents of sandstone towers and arches.


title: Jimmy Chin

text: Outside of major Himalayan expeditions, Chin has participated in numerous exploratory climbing and skiing expeditions to Baffin Island, Borneo, Mali, Chad, the Pitcairn Islands, Antarctica and other remote regions of the planet.


title: Jimmy Chin

text: In October 2011 Chin, Conrad Anker and Renan Ozturk made the first ascent of the Shark's Fin route on Meru Central in the Garhwal Himalayas in India. They had tried the same climb in 2008, but were forced to turn around 100m from the summit. His film of the climb, "Meru", was released in theaters in 2015.


title: Jimmy Chin

text: Filming for Free Solo commenced in 2016. Chin, Alex Honnold and the film crew filmed in Yosemite and Morocco over the course of the next 2 years. "Free Solo" was released in theaters in 2018.


title: Jimmy Chin

text: In 2017, Chin and Anker established a new route on Ulvetanna—the Wolf's Fang—in Queen Maud Land, Antarctica.


title: Jimmy Chin

text: In 2020, Chin, Anker, Jim Morrison, and Hilaree Nelson climbed and skied Mount Vinson, the highest peak in Antarctica, in a one- day push. The team spent less than 48 hours at the mountain. They went on to attempt to climb and ski the French Route on Mount Tyree, the second highest peak in Antarctica, but turned around due to high avalanche danger.


title: Jimmy Chin

text: Chin began filming in 2003 under the mentorship of Rick Ridgeway. He was a cinematographer for the National Geographic television special "Deadly Fashion". He later worked with David Breashears, shooting Ed Viesturs climbing to the summit of Mount Everest. He worked as a cinematographer with Chris Malloy of Woodshed films on the feature documentary "180 South".


title: Jimmy Chin

text: In 2010, Chin started the commercial production company Camp 4 Collective with Tim Kemple and Renan Ozturk. He sold the company to his partners in 2014.


title: Jimmy Chin

text: Chin collaborated with his wife Elizabeth Chai Vasarhelyi to produce and direct the feature-length documentary "Meru", about his 2011 climb. It premiered at the 2015 Sundance Film Festival, winning the US Audience Documentary Award.


title: Jimmy Chin

text: Alex Honnold and Chin started climbing together in 2009 but it was not until 2015 that Honnold chose Chin and wife Elizabeth Chai Vasarhelyi to film his process of climbing up El Capitan.


title: Jimmy Chin

text: On June 3, 2017, Chin led a team that filmed Alex Honnold on the first ever rope-free ascent of El Capitan in Yosemite National Park. Collaborating again with Vasarhelyi, they produced and directed the feature-length documentary "Free Solo". "Free Solo" went on to win the at the 2018 Toronto International Film Festival, the 2018 BAFTA Award for Best Documentary, and the 2018 Academy Award for Best Documentary Feature.


title: Jimmy Chin

text: Chin and Chai's 2021 documentary, "The Rescue", chronicles the 2018 Tham Luang cave rescue, during which twelve boys belonging to an association football team and their assistant coach were rescued from inside a flooded cave in northern Thailand. The film, which premiered in select theaters in October 2021, won the People's Choice Documentary Award at the Toronto International Film Festival and received generally positive reviews.


title: Jimmy Chin

text: The 8-part documentary series "Edge of the Unknown with Jimmy Chin" premiered on Disney Plus on September 7, 2022. Chin and Chai co-directed and produced 2 episodes, while Chin was featured throughout the series.


title: Jimmy Chin

text: Chin has worked with charities and campaigns supporting environmental rights. He has given master classes for the Rowell / International Campaign for Tibet to support Tibetan wildlife and culture. He has also partnered with the American Alpine Club to create an intentional resource for grieving. His work with The Access Fund supports national monument rights. Chin sits on the board of the National Outdoor Leadership School (NOLS) and a contributing member of the Conservation Alliance since 2001. Chin is also a member of the SeaLegacy ocean conservation project.


title: Jimmy Chin

text: Chin was born and raised in Mankato, Minnesota, and graduated from Wayland Academy. Both his parents are from China, his father was born in Wenzhou, and his mother was born in Harbin. They both worked as librarians.


title: Jimmy Chin

text: He is a 1996 alumnus of Carleton College, where he received a BA in Asian Studies. He first became involved in climbing while at Carleton. After college, he became a climbing "dirtbag", despite his parents' disapproval. He serendipitously discovered photography when he borrowed his sleeping climbing partner's camera to take a photo. They sold the picture for $500, and this started his photography career.


title: Jimmy Chin

text: On May 26, 2013, Chin married film director and producer Elizabeth Chai Vasarhelyi. They live in Jackson, Wyoming, with their daughter and son.


title: Thomas Girardi

text: Thomas Girardi (born June 3, 1939) is a former attorney and co-founder of the now-defunct Girardi & Keese, a downtown Los Angeles law firm.


title: Thomas Girardi

text: Girardi graduated from Loyola High School (Los Angeles) in 1957. He received his undergraduate degree from Loyola Marymount University in 1961, his J.D. degree from Loyola Law School in 1964, and an LL.M. from New York University in 1965. In 1970, Girardi became the first attorney in the state of California to win a $1 million-plus award for a medical malpractice case. Girardi has handled major cases against the former Lockheed Corp (now the Lockheed Martin Corp.), Pacific Gas & Electric Co, Los Angeles County Metropolitan Transportation Authority, and Hollywood's seven major movie studios.


title: Thomas Girardi

text: In a notable case against Pacific Gas & Electric, the utility company agreed to pay $460 million to 650 residents of the desert community of Hinkley, California. The residents blamed incidents of cancer and other diseases on contaminated water leaked from a gas pumping station. This case was the inspiration for the film "Erin Brockovich" (2000) starring Julia Roberts. "That particular case revolutionized people's thinking about all the toxic things they are exposed to," he told "Attorney at Law" magazine. Girardi also served as an adviser on the film. In 2003, he received the honor of being inducted into the Trial Lawyer Hall of Fame by the California State Bar. According to his website, he is a Member of the Board of Directors and former President of the prestigious International Academy of Trial Lawyers, an invitation-only worldwide organization limited to 500 trial lawyers. Girardi was also the first trial lawyer to be appointed to the California Judicial Council, the policymaking body of the state courts.


title: Thomas Girardi

text: Girardi was known for his work in Democratic party politics, donating millions of dollars to campaigns, playing a role in fundraising events, and giving advice to governors regarding judicial appointments.


title: Thomas Girardi

text: In 2010, Girardi was among a group of lawyers who attempted to enforce in U.S. courts a $489 million default judgment entered by a court in Nicaragua, allegedly against Dole Food and Shell Chemicals based on the effects of the pesticide DBCP upon exposed workers. The U.S. courts found that Girardi and others had submitted a translation of the pertinent Nicaraguan documents that was flawed in crucial respects. Girardi and others were formally reprimanded, and their law firm was fined for violating their duty of candor to the courts.


title: Thomas Girardi

text: In December 2020, a federal judge in Chicago froze Girardi's assets, citing that he had "misappropriated at least $2 million in client funds that were due to the families of those killed" by the Boeing 737 MAX Lion Air Flight 610 crash in Indonesia.


title: Thomas Girardi

text: No one from the Girardi Keese law firm, including Girardi, appeared at the first bankruptcy hearing, in January 2021, for two Chapter 7 involuntary bankruptcy petitions filed in December 2020.


title: Thomas Girardi

text: In March 2021 the "Los Angeles Times" reported that Girardi had been sued more than 100 times. Multiple complaints had been filed against him with the California State Bar. Nevertheless, his Bar license had remained pristine due to alleged improper relationships between Girardi and Bar officials, as well as Girardi not having malpractice insurance. Many of the Bar complaints involved alleged financial malfeasance, including allegations of theft by two dozen women who won $17 million in a lawsuit claiming that hormone replacement therapy caused their cancer along with the alleged misappropriation of millions of dollars in a burn victim lawsuit.


title: Thomas Girardi

text: On March 9, 2021, the State Bar of California changed Girardi's status to "not eligible to practice law in [California]".


title: Thomas Girardi

text: In August 1964, Girardi married his first wife Karen Weitzul. She filed for divorce in October 1983. Girardi then married Kathy Risner in September 1993, and Kathy filed for divorce in January 1998. Kathy passed away in May 2018.


title: Thomas Girardi

text: In January 2000, 60-year-old Girardi married his third wife, 28-year-old singer and actress Erika Jayne, who later became known as a star of the reality-television series "The Real Housewives of Beverly Hills". He has appeared in several episodes of "The Real Housewives of Beverly Hills" alongside his wife. In November 2020, Erika Girardi announced the couple had separated and that she had filed for divorce.


title: Thomas Girardi

text: In February 2021, Girardi was placed in a conservatorship due to short-term memory loss, and in March 2021 he was diagnosed with Alzheimer's disease. Girardi was placed in a memory care facility in August 2021.


title: My Year of Rest and Relaxation

text: My Year of Rest and Relaxation is a 2018 novel by American author Ottessa Moshfegh. Moshfegh's second novel, it is set in New York City in 2000 and 2001 and follows an unnamed protagonist as she gradually escalates her use of prescription medications in an attempt to sleep for an entire year.


title: My Year of Rest and Relaxation

text: "My Year of Rest and Relaxation" is Moshfegh's second novel, following "Eileen" (2015, shortlisted for the Man Booker Prize), as well as a novella ("McGlue", 2014) and a short story collection ("Homesick for Another World", 2017). Moshfegh initially planned "My Year of Rest and Relaxation" to be focused primarily on the terror attacks of September 11, 2001, even reaching out to terrorism expert Paul Bremer, but she called off the interview and the project took a different tack.


title: My Year of Rest and Relaxation

text: I feel like the book was successful in that I graduated out of a lot of those concerns by writing the book. When I wrote the book, my passion and anger were located much more outwardly and so the tone of the narrator, who I think a very angry person, is not something I relate to anymore.


title: My Year of Rest and Relaxation

text: The unnamed narrator, a slender and beautiful blonde from a wealthy WASP family, is a recent graduate of Columbia University, where she majored in art history. During her freshman year in college, both of her parents died—first her father from cancer, then her mother in a suicide caused by an interaction between psychiatric medications and alcohol. Now living on Manhattan's Upper East Side and increasingly dissatisfied with her post-collegiate life, the narrator finds a conveniently incompetent psychiatrist, Dr. Tuttle, who freely prescribes a variety of sleeping, anti-anxiety, and anti-psychotic medications for the insomnia the narrator reports as her complaint; in fact, the narrator hopes to spend as few hours awake as possible, lulling herself with pills and middlebrow movies she plays on repeat on her VCR, until the aging machine breaks down.


title: My Year of Rest and Relaxation

text: When the narrator is fired from her job in an art gallery, she chooses to live off unemployment payments and her inheritance, while attempting to sleep for a year in an effort to reset her life. But her "year of rest and relaxation" is regularly interrupted. Her college roommate Reva (who unabashedly envies the narrator's wealth and appearance) makes frequent unannounced visits, which the narrator allows despite her disdain for Reva's social climbing and annoyance at having to listen to Reva's problems—her own mother's terminal cancer, a frustrating affair with her married boss. The narrator is also occasionally in contact with an older boyfriend, Trevor (a banker who works in the World Trade Center), though he frequently cuts off their relationship to date women his own age, returning when one of them has dumped him or occasionally in response to the narrator's pleading.


title: My Year of Rest and Relaxation

text: The narrator initially makes trips out of her apartment only to a local bodega, Dr. Tuttle's office, and the Rite Aid to fill her prescriptions. But as she takes stronger and stronger medications, she begins leaving the apartment in her sleep, among other things to go to nightclubs (or so she gathers from Polaroid photographs and glitter she discovers when she awakes from her multi-day blackout). She also wakes up on a train headed toward the funeral of Reva's mother on New Year's Eve 2000. Convinced these activities—which have no appeal to the narrator in her conscious hours—are disrupting her efforts at complete rest, she decides she needs to sleep locked inside her apartment. She contacts Ping Xi, an artist represented by the gallery where she used to work, who agrees to bring her food and other necessities for four months in exchange for being allowed to make any kind of art project he wishes while she is unconscious: the only requirement is that all trace of him be gone when she wakes every three days to eat, bathe, and take another pill to put herself under again. To prepare, she empties her apartment, giving her designer clothes to the ever-covetous Reva, who has just been dumped by her boss — unaware that she is pregnant, he arranged a promotion that would transfer her out of his office and to the company's office in the World Trade Center. Reva plans to have an abortion; the narrator sleeps until June 1.


title: My Year of Rest and Relaxation

text: She readjusts to life slowly, spending hours over the summer of 2001 sitting in a park and refurnishing her once-expensively decorated apartment with mismatched, used furniture from Goodwill. But as she hoped, her worldview has been transformed by her rest: her contempt for Reva has evaporated and for the first time she earnestly reciprocates her friend's previously-insistent declarations that "I love you", though now Reva is the one who has become distant. The narrator calls Reva once more, on her birthday in August, but Reva brushes off the call. They never speak again; on September 11, Trevor is in Barbados on his honeymoon but Reva dies in the terror attack on the World Trade Center. The narrator goes out to buy a new VCR to tape the news coverage, returning as time passes to watch the video, in particular footage of a woman leaping out of the tower whom she believes to be Reva.


title: My Year of Rest and Relaxation

text: "My Year of Rest and Relaxation" is narrated in the first person, establishing a personage critics called "an antihero...[who] resists every stereotype of the female nurturer" and "hypnotically unlikeable", perhaps even "an attempt to see just how 'unlikeable' characters can get." Reviewing the novel in "Pacific Standard", Rebecca Stoner called the narrator's "acid insights into the various aspects of life that disgust her...one of the primary pleasures of the novel" and in the "Chicago Review of Books", Lincoln Michel found the "narrator...an enjoyable hater whose observations are both caustic and insightful." In "The New Yorker", Jia Tolentino read the novel differently: though she too notes the novel's "withering attention to the gleaming absurdities of pre-9/11 New York City, an environment...beset with delusional optimism, horrifically carefree," Tolentino felt "My Year of Rest and Relaxation" departed from Moshfegh's earlier work featuring "characters who are repulsed by themselves, or who are themselves repulsive." She argued that this novel "instead builds a façade of beauty and privilege around her characters, forcing the reader to locate repulsion somewhere deeper: in effort, in daily living, in a world that swings between tragic and banal."


title: My Year of Rest and Relaxation

text: Told in the present tense (while the narrator includes some memories of her past, she recounts them as thoughts occurring to her in the present rather than as flashbacks), the novel is "tuned to a hyper-contemporary frequency," Tolentino wrote, with the narrator's indifference to real-life events highlighting the way her plan for self-improvement by tuning out the world contrasts with "the oft-preached mandates of authenticity or engagement". (At the same time, Tolentino suggested, "There is something in this liberatory solipsism that feels akin to what is commonly peddled today as wellness.")


title: My Year of Rest and Relaxation

text: Critics frequently commented on the "blackly funny" tone of the novel, though in "The Guardian", Anthony Cummins noted that "by the end, this comically adversarial narrative" has expanded well beyond comedy, "hitting multiple marks at once: as an art-school prank, a between-the-lines tale of displaced grief and a pitiless anatomy of gender injustice, it also offers (via the inevitable 9/11 ending) a dark state-of-America fable." Accordingly, critics varied widely in their interpretation of the novel's themes. While some read it as a critique of capitalism or an examination of "self-care", Stoner also pointed to "an anachronistic belief in the sanctity of art...a faith in the power of art to rouse us, to make us believe that, though the world may feel intolerable, it remains worthwhile to '[dive] into the unknown ... wide awake.'"


title: My Year of Rest and Relaxation

text: According to literary review aggregator website Bookmarks, the novel received very positive reviews. In "Slate", Laura Miller praised the novel, saying, "Moshfegh excels here at setting up an immediately intriguing character and situation, then amplifying the freakishness to the point that some rupture feels inevitable." "Publishers Weekly" found the book "captivating and disquieting...showcas[ing] Moshfegh's signature mix of provocation and dark humor." Several reviews, including Miller and "Publishers Weekly", felt "the novel drags a bit in the middle", though the ending was widely praised, with Miller saying Moshfegh "found a more satisfying way to resolve the plot" in "My Year of Rest and Relaxation" than in her first novel, "Eileen".


title: My Year of Rest and Relaxation

text: Reviewing the novel in "The New Yorker", Jia Tolentino wrote, "Ottessa Moshfegh is easily the most interesting contemporary American writer on the subject of being alive when being alive feels terrible." In "The New York Times", Dwight Garner was more hesitant in his praise, but ultimately concluded: "Moshfegh writes with so much misanthropic aplomb, however, that she is always a deep pleasure to read. She has a sleepless eye and dispenses observations as if from a toxic eyedropper."


title: My Year of Rest and Relaxation

text: In 2018, Margot Robbie bought the rights of the book under her production company LuckyChap Entertainment. Robbie is producing alongside her husband Tom Ackerley. Yorgos Lanthimos is reportedly writing and directing the adaptation.


title: My Year of Rest and Relaxation

text: A German-language stage adaptation of "My Year of Rest and Relaxation", "Mein Jahr der Ruhe und Entspannung", premiered in 2020 in Zürich, Switzerland, directed by Yana Ross.


title: Christie Hefner

text: Christie Ann Hefner (born November 8, 1952) is an American businesswoman. She was chairman and CEO of Playboy Enterprises from 1988 to 2009, and is the daughter of "Playboy" magazine founder Hugh Hefner.


title: Christie Hefner

text: Hefner was born in Chicago, Illinois. She is the daughter of Mildred (Williams) and Hugh Hefner. Her parents had separated by the time she was five. When her mother remarried, she moved to Wilmette, Illinois. There she graduated from New Trier High School. She attended the National Music Camp at Interlochen, Michigan, during the summers from 1964 to 1969.


title: Christie Hefner

text: She graduated "summa cum laude" from Brandeis University with a bachelor's degree in English and American literature in 1974. She was elected to Phi Beta Kappa in her junior year.


title: Christie Hefner

text: After college, she free-lanced for the "Boston Phoenix" for a year, writing movie reviews. Thereafter, she moved back to Chicago and started working at "Playboy".


title: Christie Hefner

text: In 1982, she became president of Playboy Enterprises, and was made chairman of the board and CEO in 1988. She was the longest serving female CEO of a publicly traded company. She extended its magazine franchise overseas, to 25 localized foreign editions and also developed the company's profitable pay television business — the first time a magazine successfully leveraged its brand into a television network. The company also acquired adult-oriented businesses such as Spice Network and ClubJenna. Continuing the company's electronic expansion, in 1994 Christie led the company onto the Internet with the launch of Playboy.com, the first national magazine to launch a web site, and built an international, profitable, multi-revenue stream business including premium content, e-commerce, advertising and gaming, both online and mobile. She also built a highly profitable direct marketing, catalog and e-commerce business in film and music through both acquisition and organic growth. And, she greatly expanded the leveraging of the Playboy brand via licensing. In her last year as CEO, Playboy generated close to $1 billion in global retail sales, 80% of the sales to women. When she left over 40% of her executives were women. For three years, she was named to "Fortune" list of "Most Powerful Women".


title: Christie Hefner

text: In 2008, she released a memo to employees about her efforts to streamline the company's operations, including eliminating its DVD division and laying off staff.


title: Christie Hefner

text: On December 8, 2008, she announced her plans to step down as CEO of Playboy. Hefner said that the election of Barack Obama as the next U.S. president had inspired her to give more time to charitable work, and that the decision to step down was her own. "Just as this country is embracing change in the form of new leadership, I have decided that now is the time to make changes in my own life as well", she said. She stepped down from her position at Playboy on January 30, 2009.


title: Christie Hefner

text: In May 2011, Hefner was named executive chairman of Canyon Ranch Enterprises, a resort company that operates six premier spa destinations and an online website providing health and wellness advice.


title: Christie Hefner

text: As of 2015, Hefner was chairman of the board of Hatchbeauty Brands and served on the board of the D.C. based Center for American Progress Action Fund, a progressive public policy think tank. Christie also serves on the advisory boards of the R.D. Offutt company, an international, multi-billion dollar family owned agricultural conglomerate and Edge Beauty, the world's leading direct-to-consumer company in creating, designing, manufacturing and marketing unique, culturally relevant niche fragrance brands.


title: Christie Hefner

text: Hefner created the Hugh M. Hefner First Amendment Award in honor of her father, and has helped to raise $30 million to build the CORE Center in Chicago, the first outpatient facility in the Midwest for people with AIDS.


title: Christie Hefner

text: Hefner married former Illinois state senator William A. Marovitz, a real estate developer and attorney in 1995. They divorced in 2013 and have no children. Marovitz was sued by the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission for allegedly using inside information to trade illegally in shares of Playboy. In 2011, he settled out of court for $168,352.


title: Christie Hefner

text: She lives in Chicago and has one brother, David, a computer systems analyst. She also has two half-brothers, Cooper and Marston, from her father's marriage to Kimberley Conrad.


title: Gearbox Software

text: Gearbox Software is an American video game development company based in Frisco, Texas. It was established as a limited liability company in February 1999 by five developers formerly of Rebel Boat Rocker. Randy Pitchford, one of the founders, serves as president and chief executive officer. Gearbox initially created expansions for the Valve game "Half-Life", then ported that game and others to console platforms. In 2005, Gearbox launched its first independent set of games, "Brothers in Arms", on console and mobile devices. It became their flagship franchise and spun off a comic book series, television documentary, books, and action figures. Their second original game series, "Borderlands", commenced in 2009, and by 2015 had sold over 26 million copies. The company also owns the intellectual property of "Duke Nukem" and "Homeworld".


title: Gearbox Software

text: Gearbox expanded into publishing with the creation of Gearbox Publishing in 2015. A parent company, The Gearbox Entertainment Company, was established for Gearbox Software and Gearbox Publishing in 2019. Gearbox Entertainment was acquired by the Embracer Group in April 2021, becoming its seventh major label. A third division, Gearbox Studios, to focus on television and film productions, was established in October 2021.


title: Gearbox Software

text: Gearbox Software was founded on February 16, 1999, by Randy Pitchford, Brian Martel, Stephen Bahl, Landon Montgomery and Rob Heironimus, five developers formerly of Rebel Boat Rocker. Before Rebel Boat Rocker, Pitchford and Martel previously worked together at 3D Realms, and Montgomery previously worked at Bethesda Softworks. By 2000, the company employed 15 people.


title: Gearbox Software

text: They started with developing expansions to Valve's "Half-Life". Porting "Half-Life" to console platforms (each with new game content) followed, building the company's experience in console game-making, in addition to enhancing and building upon the successful "Counter-Strike" branch of the "Half-Life" franchise. Prior to "Half-Life 2", they had developed or helped develop every "Half-Life" expansion game or port, including "", "", "", "Half-Life" for the Sony PlayStation 2 (including ""), and "Half-Life" for the Sega Dreamcast (including "Blue Shift"). Branching out to other publishers, they pursued additional port work, each game being released with additional content, but this time from console to PC. These projects included their first non-first-person shooter, "Tony Hawk's Pro Skater 3", and "", forging new publisher relationships with Activision and Microsoft Game Studios respectively. Additional new development, in the form of a PC game in the James Bond franchise ("") for Electronic Arts, also occurred during the company's initial 5-year period.


title: Gearbox Software

text: In 2005, they launched an original property of their creation, "Brothers in Arms", with the release of "" on the Xbox, PC and PlayStation 2. Later that year a sequel, "", was launched. In 2008, "" was released.


title: Gearbox Software

text: 2007 brought announcements of new projects based on licensed film intellectual properties, including the crime drama "Heat" and the science-fiction classic "Aliens". In the September 2007 issue of Game Informer, Pitchford stated that development on the "Heat" game had not yet begun, as the planned development partner for the project had gone under. This was followed by an announcement by Sega that they would be helming a new version of rhythm game "Samba de Amigo" for the Wii, a departure from their signature first-person shooter titles.


title: Gearbox Software

text: Work on a new intellectual property, "Borderlands", began around 2005 and was first announced in 2007. Pitchford likened the game as a combination of computer role-playing games such as "Diablo" and "NetHack", and first-person shooters like "Duke Nukem". Defining features of "Borderlands" was its cel-shading graphics style and its procedurally-generated loot system that was capable of generating millions of different guns and other gear items. "Borderlands" was released in October 2009, published by 2K, a subsidiary of Take-Two Interactive. By August 2011, had sold over 4.5 million copies, making it a critical success for Gearbox and allowing them to expand the studio and budgets for subsequent games. Subsequently, Gearbox developed two additional games in the video game series, "Borderlands 2" (2012) and "Borderlands 3" (2019), as well as the spin-off title "Tiny Tina's Wonderlands" (2022), and the series has spawn additional games from other studios under 2K/Take-Two or through license, including "" by 2K Australia, and "Tales from the Borderlands" from Telltale Games. Gearbox and Take-Two have also partnered with Lionsgate to develop a live-action "Borderlands" film, which as of November 2022 is in post-production.


title: Gearbox Software

text: In July 2013, Gearbox announced plans to rerelease "Homeworld" and "Homeworld 2" in high definition for modern PC platforms, in addition to making it available through digital distributors.


title: Gearbox Software

text: In July 2014, Randy Pitchford formally contested the "" class action lawsuit stating the game had cost them millions of their own money and the advertising was solely the fault of the publisher.


title: Gearbox Software

text: In December 2015, Gearbox opened a second development studio in Quebec City, Canada. The studio is run by Sebastien Caisse and former Activision art director Pierre-Andre Dery. The team consists of over 100 members and is contributing to the development of original AAA titles.


title: Gearbox Software

text: Gearbox established Gearbox Publishing in 2015, first announced to the public in December 2016, as to publish third-party games, starting with the remastered version of "Bulletstorm" from People Can Fly. Pitchford said that they wanted to start expanding into other areas of capital growth beyond games that Gearbox was traditionally known for, and planned to use Gearbox Publishing as a starting point. Later, in May 2019, Gearbox established The Gearbox Entertainment Company, Inc. (Gearbox Entertainment) as a parent company for both Gearbox Software and Gearbox Publishing.


title: Gearbox Software

text: In April 2021, Gearbox Entertainment was wholly acquired by the Embracer Group for approximately , and was added as the company's seventh major publishing group. Pitchford stated that while they were looking to raise capital from 2016, they came to meet with Embracer, and saw that their decentralized studio model would work well for Gearbox. 2K remained on Gearbox's board and continued to publish the "Borderlands" series.


title: Gearbox Software

text: Gearbox Entertainment opened a second Canadian studio, Gearbox Studio Montreal, in August 2021, to support 250 new staff, bringing the total size of Gearbox to around 850 employees.


title: Gearbox Software

text: Gearbox announced the formation of Gearbox Studios as a third company under the Gearbox Entertainment Company on October 6, 2021, to oversee television and film productions, with Pitchford serving as Gearbox Studios president alongside as president and CEO of the parent company. Former CTO Steve Jones was named as president of Gearbox Software in Pitchford's place. Embracer announced it intent to acquire Perfect World Entertainment in December 2021 and placing the group, including its publishing arm and Cryptic Studios, under the Gearbox Entertainment operating group. Following its acquisition in April 2022, Perfect World Entertainment was rebranded as Gearbox Publishing San Francisco, with the naming to be applied retroactively to past games published under Perfect World.


title: Gearbox Software

text: Gearbox Entertainment announced they will acquire Lost Boys Interactive, who had supported Gearbox in "Tiny Tina's Wonderlands", in April 2022. Later that November, Gearbox acquired the "Risk of Rain" IP from Hopoo Games, while Embracer transferred ownership of Volition to Gearbox Entertainment from Deep Silver following poor reception to their "Saint's Row" reboot. Further, Eidos Shanghai, another studio under the Embracer Group, was transferred to Gearbox Studios and rebranded as Gearbox Studio Shanghai that same month.


title: Gearbox Software

text: As of December 2021, The Gearbox Entertainment Company, as an operating division of Embracer Group, manages three primary divisions of Gearbox: Gearbox Software which develops video games, Gearbox Entertainment which oversees other media productions based on Gearbox's properties, and Gearbox Publishing which handles publishing of Gearbox and other third-party software. The Gearbox Entertainment Company now oversees Perfect World Entertainment (rebranded as Gearbox Publishing San Francisco) and its subsidiaries, including Cryptic Studios, following approval of Embracer's acquisition of the company completed by February 2022.


title: Gearbox Software

text: Gearbox Software has three additional studios in addition to their main studios in Frisco, Texas; Gearbox Studios Montreal, Gearbox Studio Québec, and Gearbox Studio Shanghai.


title: Gearbox Software

text: Gearbox has developed a total of six games in the "Half-Life" series: the expansion packs "" and ""; ports of "Half-Life" for Dreamcast (which included "Blue Shift") and "Half-Life" for PlayStation 2 (which included ""); they also did a large amount of work on both the retail release of "Counter-Strike" and the main portion of "".