title: Commando

text: The Royal Air Force also formed 15 commando units in 1942, each of which was 150 strong. These units consisted of trained technicians, armourers and maintainers who had volunteered to undertake the commando course. These Royal Air Force Commandos accompanied the Allied invasion forces in all theatres; their main role was to allow the forward operation of friendly fighters by servicing and arming them from captured air fields. However, due to the forward position of these airfields, the RAF Commandos were also trained to secure and make safe these airfields and to help defend them from enemy counterattack.


title: Commando

text: During 1941, the United States Marine Corps formed commando battalions. The USMC commandos were known collectively as Marine Raiders. On orders from President Franklin D. Roosevelt through a proposal from OSS Director Colonel William J. Donovan and the former Commander of the United States Marine Detachment Major Evans F Carlson, directed the formation of what became the Marine Raiders. Initially this unit was to be called Marine Commandos and were to be the counterpart to the British Commandos. The name Marine Commandos met with much controversy within the Marine Corps leading Commandant Thomas J. Holcomb to state, "the term 'Marine' is sufficient to indicate a man ready for duty at any time, and the injection of a special name, such as "commando", would be undesirable and superfluous." President Roosevelt's son James Roosevelt served with the Marine Raiders. The Raiders initially saw action at the Battle of Tulagi and the Battle of Makin, as well as the Battle of Guadalcanal, the Battle of Empress Augusta Bay, and other parts of the Pacific Ocean Areas. In February 1944 the four Raider battalions were converted to regular Marine units. Additionally, as parachuting special forces units, Paramarines arguably also qualified as commandos- though they too were assimilated into regular Marine units in 1944.


title: Commando

text: In mid-1942, the United States Army formed its Army Rangers in Northern Ireland under William O. (Bill) Darby. The Rangers were designed along the similar lines to the British Commandos. The first sizable Ranger action took place in August 1942 at the Dieppe Raid, where 50 Rangers from the 1st Ranger Battalion were dispersed among Canadian regulars and British Commandos. The first full Ranger action took place in November 1942 during the invasion of Algiers in Northwest Africa in Operation Torch, again by members of the 1st Ranger Battalion.


title: Indian Oil Corporation

text: Indian Oil Corporation Limited (IOCL; d/b/a IndianOil) is a central public sector undertaking under the ownership of the Ministry of Petroleum and Natural Gas, Government of India. It is headquartered in New Delhi. It is a public sector undertaking whose operations are overseen by the Ministry of Petroleum and Natural Gas. Indian Oil is ranked 142nd on the Fortune Global 500 list of the world's biggest corporations as of 2022. It is the largest government owned oil producer in the country, with a net profit of $6.1 billion for the financial year 2020-21. As of 31 March 2021, Indian Oil's employee strength is 31,648, out of which 17,762 are executives and 13,876 non-executives, while 2,776 are women, comprising 8.77% of the total workforce.


title: Indian Oil Corporation

text: Indian Oil's business interests overlap the entire hydrocarbon value chain, including refining, pipeline transportation, marketing of petroleum products, exploration and production of crude oil, natural gas and petrochemicals. Indian Oil has ventured into alternative energy and globalisation of downstream operations. It has subsidiaries in Sri Lanka (Lanka IOC), Mauritius (IndianOil (Mauritius) Ltd) and the Middle East (IOC Middle East FZE).


title: Indian Oil Corporation

text: In May 2018, IOCL became India's most profitable government corporation for the second consecutive year, with a record profit of ₹21,346 crores in 2017–18. In February 2020, the company signed a deal with the Russian oil company Rosneft to buy 140,000 barrels per day of crude in year 2020. By 1 April 2020, IndianOil was in absolute readiness to launch BS-VI (Bharat Stage VI) fuels in all its retail outlets in Telangana and adopt world-class emission norms.


title: Indian Oil Corporation

text: In January 2021, sales were registered at an all time high of 410,000 barrels of oil per day till 26 January 2021. Delek, QatarEnergy, Saudi Aramco are its largest business partners with Abu Dhabi National Oil Company and National Iranian Oil Company signing deals to deliver high production output at end of 2020


title: Indian Oil Corporation

text: Indian Oil accounts for nearly half of India's petroleum products market share, 35% national refining capacity (together with its subsidiary Chennai Petroleum Corporation Ltd., or CPCL), and 71% downstream sector pipelines through capacity. The Indian Oil Group owns and operates 11 of India's 23 refineries with a combined refining capacity of 80.7 million tonnes per year. Indian Oil's cross-country pipeline network, for the transport of crude oil to refineries and finished products to high-demand centres, spans over 13,000 km. The company has a throughput capacity of 80.49 million tonnes per year for crude oil and petroleum products and 9.5 million cubic metres per day at standard conditions for gas. On 19 November 2017, IOCL, in collaboration with Ola, launched India's first electric charging station at one of its petrol-diesel stations in Nagpur. Indian governments' National Electric Mobility Mission Plan launched in 2013 aims at gradually ensuring a vehicle population of 6 to 8 million electric and hybrid vehicles in India by 2020.


title: Indian Oil Corporation

text: Servo is the lubricants brand under which IOCL operates its lubricant business. Servo is the largest selling lubricant brand in both automotive and industrial segments.


title: Indian Oil Corporation

text: It is said that deals with Royal Dutch Shell and Surgutneftegas and Chevron Corporation have been signed for exclusive business plans for supply in Asia with the Indian Oil Company, which are worth 20 billion dollars per year.


title: Indian Oil Corporation

text: As of 31 March 2021, the company had 31,648 employees, out of which 2,775 were women (8.77%). Its workforce includes 17,762 executives and 13,886 non-executives. The attrition rate in Indian Oil is around 1.5%. The company spent ₹96.57 billion on employee benefits during the FY 2016–17.


title: Indian Oil Corporation

text: Indian Oil's equity shares are listed on the Bombay Stock Exchange and National Stock Exchange of India.


title: Indian Oil Corporation

text: As of September 2018, it was owned 51% by the Government of India (through the President of India), and 43% by other entities. The latter included corporate bodies (20%), ONGC (14%), LIC (6%), Foreign portfolio investors,(6%) Oil India Limited (5%) and Indian Mutual funds (4%).


title: Indian Oil Corporation

text: This was similar to its shareholding in 2017. As of 31 December 2017, the Promoters Government of India held approx. 56.98% of the shares in Indian Oil Corporation. The public held the rest of the shares – 43.02%. This includes Mutual Fund Companies, Foreign Portfolio Investors, Financial Institutions/ Banks, Insurance Companies, Individual Shareholders and Trusts. IOCL's Market cap as of December 2022 was Rs. 1,10,075.05 crore.


title: Indian Oil Corporation

text: Indian Oil Corporation (IOC) buys a stake in Phinergy (Israel) for manufacturing, development, and sale of aluminum-air batteries (Al-Air batteries) for electric vehicles. This joint venture is ready to facilitate the development of Al-Air technology by intending to set up a factory in India.


title: Indian Oil Corporation

text: Indian Oil Corporation has two major domestic competitors – Bharat Petroleum and Hindustan Petroleum – and both are state-controlled, like Indian Oil Corporation. Major private competitors include – Reliance Petroleum, Essar Oil and Shell.


title: Indian Oil Corporation

text: India has begun the development of a strategic crude oil reserve sized at , enough for two weeks of consumption. Petroleum stocks have been transferred from the Indian Oil Corporation to the Oil Industry Development Board (OIDB). The OIDB then created the Indian Strategic Petroleum Reserves Ltd (ISPRL) to serve as the controlling government agency for the strategic reserve.


title: The Silent Patient

text: The Silent Patient is a 2019 psychological thriller novel written by British–Cypriot author Alex Michaelides. The successful debut novel was published by Celadon Books, a division of Macmillan Publishers, on 5 February 2019. The audiobook version, released on the same date, is read by Louise Brealey and Jack Hawkins. The story is narrated by an English psychotherapist, Theo Faber, dealing with a patient who turns mute after murdering her husband. Upon its release, the book debuted on "The New York Times" Best Seller list at No.1. It later won the Goodreads Choice Award 2019 in the Mystery and Thriller category.


title: The Silent Patient

text: On writing his debut novel, author Michaelides, who is also a screenwriter, said, "I was feeling very disillusioned as a screenwriter. I kept seeing scripts being mangled in the production and this sense of frustration made me decide to sit down and finally write a novel." He rewrote the draft around 50 times before finalizing it. The Athenian tragedy "Alcestis", by Euripides, served as an inspiration for the plot, while its narrative structure was influenced by Agatha Christie's writing.


title: The Silent Patient

text: Michaelides decided to set his novel in a psychiatric unit as he had worked at a secure psychiatric facility for teenagers while he was a psychotherapy student.


title: The Silent Patient

text: The novel received generally positive reviews from critics. "The Independent" lauded the book for its plot, characters and style, writing: "[the book is] vivid enough to warrant devouring it in a day ... the writing is scalpel-sharp and uncluttered, the style spare and concise, uncrowded with extraneous detail."" The Guardian" concurred, praising its "tight, uncluttered prose" and "skillful building [of] tension until the novel's shocking denouement". "Deccan Herald" called it "an intelligent plot coupled with an interesting character study, and finally the impactful punch that leaves you flabbergasted." "The Washington Post" praised the plot as "fresh" but criticised its "hacky horror tropes, trite scenes and comically shifty red herring characters." Another negative review came from "Kirkus Reviews", who panned the book as "clumsy, contrived, and silly ... with a twist savvy readers will see coming from a mile away."


title: Dandeny Muñoz Mosquera

text: Dandeny Muñoz Mosquera (born August 27, 1966), also known as "La Quica" (Colombian slang for "the fat girl", a childhood nickname), is a Colombian former hitman for the Medellín Cartel, a drug trafficking group. He was described as at one point being the "chief assassin" for the Cartel's leader Pablo Escobar.


title: Dandeny Muñoz Mosquera

text: He was believed to be responsible for the deaths of an unknown number of people with official estimates ranging in the hundreds. US authorities currently link him to the deaths of more than 220 people, having supposedly murdered members of both his own organization the Medellín Cartel and the rival Cali Cartel, as well as police officers and government officials. Colombian authorities connect him to the deaths of more than 40 police officers.


title: Dandeny Muñoz Mosquera

text: Arrested in 1991, he is serving multiple life sentences in a US prison. He was the first person ever to be convicted under a 1956 Federal law that made bombing a civilian aircraft a crime and the 1986 terrorism statute that allows the trial of foreign citizens in the United States if at least one victim was an American citizen. Among his convicted crimes is the 1989 bombing of Avianca Flight 203, which killed 110 civilians.


title: Dandeny Muñoz Mosquera

text: Born in Medellin, Muñoz Mosquera's father was a police officer and his mother an evangelist. He was raised in the church. He is believed to have joined the Medellín Cartel in 1978 at the age of twelve after being drawn into the gang by his brother Brance (also known as Tyson due to his resemblance to boxer Mike Tyson) before becoming a gunman in his teens. He was given the nickname "La Quica" (Colombian slang for "the fat girl") from a young age due to his resemblance to his great-aunt. He rose to become one of Pablo Escobar's highest ranking enforcers. However, Muñoz Mosquera has claimed that he joined the Colombian army as a teenager before leaving in 1986 and was jailed on "three or four" occasions on minor theft charges.


title: Dandeny Muñoz Mosquera

text: In 1989, he was arrested and convicted of being one of the main conspirators in the assassination of New Liberalism founder Luis Carlos Galán, a candidate in the Colombian presidential election set to be held in May 1990. Galán was murdered by an unknown gunman as he took the stage at a political rally to deliver a campaign speech in Soacha. He was jailed in the capital city, Bogotá, but escaped in April 1990 after paying more than $500,000 in bribes, the second time he had escaped from a Colombian prison.


title: Dandeny Muñoz Mosquera

text: He was wanted in connection with the murder of over 40 police officers in Colombia after Pablo Escobar began offering a $4000 reward for the murder of any officer in Medellín. Colombian authorities also believe that he was directly involved in the bombing at the headquarters of the Administrative Department of Security in December 1989 and a rocket attack on the US Embassy. He was also believed to run a training camp for teenage potential "sicarios" (hitmen) for the Cartel. He has two children.


title: Dandeny Muñoz Mosquera

text: In September 1991, Muñoz Mosquera travelled to the United States, landing in Miami before travelling to Los Angeles and New York. After federal agents received a tipoff from Colombia, on September 25, 1991, Muñoz Mosquera was arrested along with two other men while using a payphone in the Jackson Heights area of Queens, New York, for traveling with a fake passport. Officials stated that none of the men were armed and offered no resistance when challenged by officers. Muñoz Mosquera initially lied to agents, stating his name as Esteban Restrepo-Echavarria, before his identity was confirmed by fingerprint records provided by Colombian officials. He was presumed to have travelled to the United States on an assassination mission and was held without bail as a result. One of his suspected targets was believed to be Max Mermelstein, a former drug smuggler who had worked for Escobar but had entered witness protection and was expected to implicate Escobar in the murder of Barry Seal.


title: Dandeny Muñoz Mosquera

text: He was convicted one month later of lying to a federal officer and possessing a fake passport and sentenced to the maximum term of six years in jail. While he was in jail, federal prosecutors claimed that he was a major player in the Medellín Cartel and was responsible for the bombing of Avianca Flight 203 on the orders of Pablo Escobar. On 27 November 1989, the flight took off from El Dorado International Airport in Bogotá bound for Alfonso Bonilla Aragón International Airport in Cali but exploded in mid air minutes after takeoff, killing all 101 passengers and 6 crew members. Although the bombing had occurred in Colombia, he was eligible to be tried by the United States as two passengers on the flight, Carlos Andres Escobí and Astrid del Pilar Gómez, were American citizens.


title: Dandeny Muñoz Mosquera

text: Muñoz Mosquera was charged with "conspiracy to import and distribute cocaine, substantive importation of cocaine, participating and conspiring to participate in a racketeering enterprise, engaging in a continuing criminal enterprise, various offenses relating to the bombing of a civilian airliner and the extraterritorial murder of two citizens of the United States". His first trial in 1994 lasted two months but was declared a mistrial after the jury were unable to reach a verdict. In his second trial, in the same year, he was convicted on all thirteen counts and sentenced to 10 life sentences plus 45 years, all to be served consecutively. He became the first person ever to be convicted under a 1956 Federal law that made bombing a civilian aircraft a crime and the 1986 terrorism statute that allows the trial of foreign citizens in the United States if at least one victim was an American citizen. Before sentencing, Judge Sterling Johnson Jr. commented "Not only are you an evil man, but the things you did, you enjoyed doing." Johnson also stated his belief that Muñoz Mosquera was fortunate that the prosecution had not sought the death penalty as "these acts cry out for the death penalty." Following his conviction, he became one of the first inmates housed at ADX Florence, a supermax prison in Colorado. He is currently incarcerated at United States Penitentiary, Lee, in Virginia.


title: Dandeny Muñoz Mosquera

text: While Muñoz Mosquera was convicted of the Avianca bombing, his involvement in the bombing was questioned by Colombian Attorney General Gustavo de Greiff, who sent a letter to Judge Sterling Johnson before the final trial, stating:


title: Dandeny Muñoz Mosquera

text: The Colombian government initially suspected Gonzalo Rodríguez Gacha a.k.a. "The Mexican". Carlos Mario Alzate had also been blamed for the bombing and had confessed to the crime before Muñoz Mosquera was put on trial.


title: Dandeny Muñoz Mosquera

text: Many witnesses testified in court about Muñoz Mosquera's brutal acts as a high-ranking member of the Medellín cartel. Many of those witnesses were convicted felons with links to the Medellín and Cali Cartels. Muñoz Mosquera claims that he did not recognize the prosecution's witnesses, and his defense hinged on the insistence that he was a small-time thief and not even a "sicario" (contract killer), let alone Escobar's chief assassin. He did not deny that his brother Brance, known as "Tyson", later shot dead by Colombian forces, was involved in the Cartel (some, such as the anonymous informant whose tip led to Tyson's death, have claimed was the Medellín "Chief of Security").


title: Latin Americans

text: Latin Americans (; ; ) are the citizens of Latin American countries (or people with cultural, ancestral or national origins in Latin America). Latin American countries and their diasporas are multi-ethnic and multi-racial. Latin Americans are a pan-ethnicity consisting of people of different ethnic and national backgrounds. As a result, some Latin Americans do not take their nationality as an ethnicity, but identify themselves with a combination of their nationality, ethnicity and their ancestral origins. Aside from the Indigenous Amerindian population, all Latin Americans have some Old World ancestors who arrived since 1492. Latin America has the largest diasporas of Spaniards, Portuguese, Africans, Italians, Lebanese and Japanese in the world. The region also has large German (second largest after the United States), French, Palestinian (largest outside the Arab states), Chinese and Jewish diasporas.


title: Latin Americans

text: The specific ethnic and/or racial composition varies from country to country and diaspora community to diaspora community: many have a predominance of European-Amerindian or mestizo, population; in others, Amerindians are a majority; some are mostly inhabited by people of European ancestry; others are primarily mulatto. Various black African, Asian and zambo (mixed black African and Amerindian) minorities are also identified in most countries. The largest single group are white Latin Americans. Together with the people of part European ancestry, they combine for almost the totality of the population.


title: Latin Americans

text: Latin Americans and their descendants can be found almost everywhere in the world, particularly in densely populated urban areas. The most important migratory destinations for Latin Americans are found in the United States, Spain, France, Canada and Italy.


title: Latin Americans

text: Latin America ( or "Latinoamérica"; ; ) is the region of the Americas where Romance languages (i.e., those derived from Latin)—particularly Spanish and Portuguese, as well as French—are primarily spoken.


title: Latin Americans

text: It includes 21 countries or territories: Mexico in North America; Guatemala, Honduras, El Salvador, Nicaragua, Costa Rica and Panama in Central America; Colombia, Venezuela, Ecuador, Peru, Bolivia, Brazil, Paraguay, Chile, Argentina and Uruguay in South America; and Cuba, Haiti, the Dominican Republic and Puerto Rico in the Caribbean—in summary, Hispanic America, plus Brazil and Haiti. Canada and the United States, despite having a sizeable Romance-speaking communities, are almost never included in the definition, primarily for being predominantly English-speaking Anglosphere countries.


title: Latin Americans

text: Latin America, therefore, can be defined as all those parts of the Americas that were once part of the Spanish, Portuguese or French colonial empires, namely Spanish America, Colonial Brazil and New France.


title: Latin Americans

text: The population of Latin America comprises a variety of ancestries, ethnic groups and races, making the region one of the most diverse in the world. The specific composition varies from country to country: many have a predominance of European-Amerindian, or mestizo, population; in others, Amerindian are a majority; some are dominated by inhabitants of European ancestry; and some countries' populations are primarily mulatto. Black, Asian, and zambo (mixed black and Amerindian) minorities are also identified regularly. White Latin Americans are the largest single group, accounting for more than one-third of the population.


title: Latin Americans

text: The Latinobarómetro surveys have asked respondents in 18 Latin American countries what race they considered themselves to belong to. The figures shown below are averages for 2007 through 2011.


title: Latin Americans

text: Spanish and Portuguese are the predominant languages of Latin America. Spanish is the official language of most of the countries on the Latin American mainland, as well as in Puerto Rico (where it is co-official with English), Cuba and the Dominican Republic. Portuguese is spoken only in Brazil, the biggest and most populous country in the region. French is spoken in Haiti, as well as in the French overseas departments of French Guiana in South America and Guadeloupe and Martinique in the Caribbean. Dutch is the official language of some Caribbean islands and in Suriname on the continent; however, as Dutch is a Germanic language, these territories are not considered part of Latin America.


title: Latin Americans

text: Amerindian languages are widely spoken in Peru, Guatemala, Bolivia and Paraguay, and, to a lesser degree, in Mexico, Chile and Ecuador. In Latin American countries not named above, the population of speakers of indigenous languages is small or non-existent.


title: Latin Americans

text: In Peru, Quechua is an official language, alongside Spanish and any other indigenous language in the areas where they predominate. In Ecuador, while holding no official status, the closely related Quichua is a recognized language of the indigenous people under the country's constitution; however, it is only spoken by a few groups in the country's highlands. In Bolivia, Aymara, Quechua and Guaraní hold official status alongside Spanish. Guarani is, along with Spanish, an official language of Paraguay, and is spoken by a majority of the population (who are, for the most part, bilingual), and it is co-official with Spanish in the Argentine province of Corrientes. In Nicaragua, Spanish is the official language, but, on the country's Caribbean coast English and indigenous languages such as Miskito, Sumo, and Rama also hold official status. Colombia recognizes all indigenous languages spoken within its territory as official, though fewer than 1% of its population are native speakers of these. Nahuatl is one of the 62 native languages spoken by indigenous people in Mexico that are officially recognized by the government as "national languages" along with Spanish.


title: Latin Americans

text: Other European languages spoken in Latin America include: English, by some groups in Argentina, Chile, Costa Rica, Nicaragua, Panama and Puerto Rico, as well as in nearby countries that may or may not be considered Latin American, such as Belize and Guyana; English is also used as a major foreign language in Latin American commerce and education. Other languages spoken in parts of Latin America include German in southern Brazil, southern Chile, Argentina, portions of northern Venezuela and Paraguay; Italian in Brazil, Argentina, Uruguay and Venezuela; Polish, Ukrainian and Russian in southern Brazil; and Welsh in southern Argentina. Hebrew and Yiddish are used by Jewish diasporas in Argentina and Brazil.


title: Latin Americans

text: In several nations, especially in the Caribbean region, creole languages are spoken. The most widely spoken creole language in the Caribbean and Latin America in general is Haitian Creole, the predominant language of Haiti; it is derived primarily from French and certain West African tongues with Amerindian, English, Portuguese and Spanish influences as well. Creole languages of mainland Latin America, similarly, are derived from European languages and various African tongues.


title: Latin Americans

text: The vast majority of Latin Americans are Christians (90%), mostly Roman Catholics. About 71% of the Latin American population consider themselves Catholic. Membership in Protestant denominations is increasing, particularly in Brazil, Guatemala and Puerto Rico. Argentina hosts the largest communities of both Jews and Muslims in Latin America. Indigenous religions and rituals are practiced in countries with large Amerindian populations, especially Bolivia, Guatemala, Mexico and Peru, and Afro-Latin American religions such as Santería, Candomblé, Umbanda, Macumba and Vodou are practiced in countries with large Afro-Latin American populations, especially Cuba, Brazil, Dominican Republic and Haiti. Latin America constitutes, in absolute terms, the world's second largest Christian population, after Europe.


title: Latin Americans

text: According to the 2005 Colombian census or DANE, about 3,331,107 Colombians currently live abroad. The number of Brazilians living overseas is estimated at about 2 million people. An estimated 1.5 to two million Salvadorians reside in the United States. At least 1.5 million Ecuadorians have gone abroad, mainly to the United States and Spain. Approximately 1.5 million Dominicans live abroad, mostly in the United States. More than 1.3 million Cubans live abroad, most of them in the United States. It is estimated that over 800,000 Chileans live abroad, mainly in Argentina, Canada, United States and Spain. Other Chilean nationals may be located in countries like Costa Rica, Mexico and Sweden. An estimated 700,000 Bolivians were living in Argentina as of 2006 and another 33,000 in the United States. Central Americans living abroad in 2005 were 3,314,300, of which 1,128,701 were Salvadorans, 685,713 were Guatemalans, 683,520 were Nicaraguans, 414,955 were Hondurans, 215,240 were Panamanians and 127,061 were Costa Rica.


title: The Heat (film)

text: The Heat is a 2013 American buddy cop action comedy film directed by Paul Feig and written by Katie Dippold. It stars Sandra Bullock and Melissa McCarthy with Demián Bichir, Marlon Wayans, Michael Rapaport and Jane Curtin in supporting roles. The film centers on FBI Special Agent Sarah Ashburn and Boston Detective Shannon Mullins, who must take down a mobster in Boston.


title: The Heat (film)

text: The film was released in the United States on June 28, 2013. It received mixed to positive reviews from critics, who praised the chemistry and performances of Bullock and McCarthy, but called the film’s plot predictable. It was a success at the box office, grossing $229 million worldwide against a $43 million budget.


title: The Heat (film)

text: FBI agent Sarah Ashburn is an expert investigator in New York City. She is disliked by other agents for her uptight and arrogant personality. Her supervisor, who is considering her for promotion, assigns her to a mission in Boston. She meets Boston Police Department detective Shannon Mullins, who is skilled but loudmouthed, foul mouthed and hot-headed. The two women's professional styles clash horribly during their attempt to interrogate a local drug dealer. Ashburn reluctantly agrees to work with Mullins.


title: The Heat (film)

text: Ashburn and Mullins tail a local nightclub manager to his business, Club Ekko, and place a bug on his phone to get information on a drug lord named Simon Larkin. Leaving the club, Ashburn and Mullins are confronted by DEA agents Craig and Adam, who've been working the Larkin case for months. The women discover a surveillance video in the DEA agents' van showing that Mullins' brother, Jason, recently released from prison whom Mullins had sent him, appears to be connected to Larkin.


title: The Heat (film)

text: Ashburn convinces Mullins to go to her parents' home to ask Jason for information on Larkin. The whole family is angry with Mullins for arresting her brother, but Jason tips Mullins off about the body of a murdered drug dealer. Chemicals on the victim's shoes lead the women to an abandoned paint factory, where they witness a drug dealer being murdered by Julian Vincent, second-in-command of Larkin's organization. They apprehend Julian after a confrontation with the nightclub manager, but get no information on Larkin's whereabouts, despite Mullins threatening to shoot Julian's genitals.


title: The Heat (film)

text: The women spend the evening bonding in a bar. A drunk Ashburn reveals that her foster child's past is to blame for her bad attitude. The next morning Ashburn discovers that she has given her car away to one of the bar patrons, but when he starts the car, it explodes.


title: The Heat (film)

text: Julian has escaped from custody and intends to harm Mullins' family, so Mullins moves them into a motel. Jason tries to join the Larkin organization in an attempt to help Mullins solve the case. He gives her a tip about a drug shipment coming in. Despite Mullins' reluctance, Ashburn calls in the FBI, which discovers that it is only a pleasure cruise ship. Larkin shoots Jason for informing the FBI about the supposed drug shipment. Jason is rendered comatose. Mullins and Ashburn fall out, with Mullins vowing to bring her brother's attacker to justice. They reconcile after arresting several drug dealers as they try to ascertain Larkin's whereabouts.


title: The Heat (film)

text: The women equip themselves with assault weapons from Mullins' extensive personal arsenal, and infiltrate one of Larkin's warehouses, but they are captured and bound. Julian is about to torture them with knives when he gets called away by Larkin. Before Julian leaves, he stabs Ashburn in the leg and leaves the knife in the wound. Mullins removes the knife from Ashburn's leg and uses it to cut the rope binding her hands. Before she can cut the rope around her feet, they hear someone coming and Mullins puts the knife back in Ashburn's leg. But it's Craig and Adam who enter. Craig begins to untie the two women, but as they realise Adam is Larkin, Adam shoots Craig before he draws his gun. Adam/Larkin has been working on his own case from inside the DEA for several months.


title: The Heat (film)

text: Julian returns and Larkin orders him to kill Ashburn and Mullins while he goes to the hospital to kill Jason. Mullins had put her arms behind her chair so she looks tied up. After Larkin leaves, Mullins frees herself, grabs the knife in Ashburn's leg and attacks Julian first. Ashburn throws herself to the floor whilst tied to her chair and he falls. Julian then grabs Ashburn around the throat and threatens to slit her throat as Mullins raises a gun. Ashburn head butts Julian backwards and incapacitates him. The duo race to the hospital to save Jason.


title: The Heat (film)

text: Upon their arrival, Mullins searches for Jason; Ashburn, hindered by the stab wound in her leg, lags behind. Mullins finds Jason's room, but is disarmed by Larkin, who is about to kill Jason. Ashburn appears and subdues Larkin by shooting him in the genitals. Ashburn requests to stay in the FBI's Boston field office, and has developed a strong friendship with Mullins.


title: The Heat (film)

text: Jason is shown having fully recovered from his coma. Mullins receives a commendation from the Boston Police Department. Members of her family are present, and they all cheer for her. Mullins has signed the back of Ashburn's yearbook, "Foster kid, now you have a sister".


title: The Heat (film)

text: "The Heat" is screenwriter Katie Dippold's feature film debut. Dippold wrote the spec script on the side while fulfilling writing duties on "Parks and Recreation" and, ultimately, it sold to producer Peter Chernin for $600,000 prior to even being presented to prospective bidders. Inspired by the buddy cop film genre, primarily examples such as "Running Scared" (1986) and "Lethal Weapon" (1987), Dippold set out to write a film in which the leads were portrayed by women. As Dippold explains, "[In] "Running Scared", they go down to the Caribbean and there's this montage of them on scooters, and there's a different hot girl on the back every time it cuts back to the scooter. And it just felt like, I don't want to be the girl on the back of the scooter. I want to be the awesome cop doing this stuff."


title: The Heat (film)

text: Despite the success of "Bridesmaids" (2011), studio executives were still uncertain of an action film with a female-led cast. "There were people suspicious of this attempt, who thought girls won't want to see a cop action movie and guys won't want to see two girls holding guns and we'd cancel out our potential audience," said producer Jenno Topping. "But we really believed, at the end of the day, it wouldn't be about gender as much as it would be about delivering a courageous action comedy with some heart to it."


title: The Heat (film)

text: On May 19, 2012, director Paul Feig and actresses Sandra Bullock and Melissa McCarthy signed on to the film after previously struggling to close deals due to scheduling and payment conflicts. At this time, the film was called "The Untitled Female Buddy Cop Comedy".


title: The Heat (film)

text: Principal photography for "The Heat" began on July 5, 2012, at then-Dudley Square (now Nubian Square) in Boston, Massachusetts.


title: The Heat (film)

text: The soundtrack is composed by Michael Andrews who previously scored Feig's "Bridesmaids" and "Unaccompanied Minors" (2006). A soundtrack album containing songs featured in the film was released on June 25, 2013 by Lakeshore Records. Of these songs, the album includes a brand new track entitled "Rock This" by Santigold. Describing why he chose the songs featured in the film, Feig said, "My favorite part of filmmaking is finding the perfect music to complement what's happening on screen. And I wanted "The Heat" to feel like a party. I wanted the audience to have fun. And since I have to watch a movie hundreds of times as I'm making it, I wanted to use music that I wouldn't get tired of. Every song in this film is a desert island song for me. I will never get sick of them."


title: The Heat (film)

text: While originally intended to be released on April 5, 2013, Fox pushed back the release date to June 28, 2013. The film held its world premiere in New York City on June 23, 2013.


title: The Heat (film)

text: "The Heat" was released on DVD and Blu-ray Disc on October 15, 2013. The Blu-ray features an unrated version of the film, along with several audio commentaries: one with McCarthy and director Feig; one with the actors who portray the Mullins family; and one with the original Mystery Science Theater 3000 crew.


title: The Heat (film)

text: "The Heat" grossed $159.6 million in the United States and Canada, and $70.3 million internationally, for a worldwide total of $229.9 million, against a production budget of $43 million. "Deadline Hollywood" calculated the film made a net profit of $61.8 million, when factoring together all expenses and revenues.


title: The Heat (film)

text: The film earned $39.1 million in its opening weekend, finishing second at the box office behind "Monsters University".


title: The Heat (film)

text: On Rotten Tomatoes the film has an approval rating of 66%, based on 183 reviews with an average rating of 6.2/10. The website's critical consensus reads, ""The Heat" is predictable, but Melissa McCarthy is reliably funny and Sandra Bullock proves a capable foil." On Metacritic, the film has a score of 60 out of 100 based on reviews from 37 critics, indicating "mixed or average reviews". Audiences polled by CinemaScore gave the film an average grade of "A−" on an A+ to F scale.


title: The Heat (film)

text: Positive reviews lauded Bullock and McCarthy’s comedic performances. Critic Christy Lemire wrote, “the first produced script from Katie Dippold gives her a smart, inspired and wickedly funny foundation from which to work, and she and Bullock enjoy gangbusters chemistry with each other.”


title: The Heat (film)

text: Wesley Morris wrote in "Grantland", “My skepticism going in had to do with "The Heat" being a movie with two female characters that easily could have been played by a pair of men. But these two are like workplace sexism’s toxic side effects. Ashburn is the ambitious professional who lives only for promotions. Mullins is the anti-feminine ballbuster. Nobody likes either of them. And they don’t like each other until they do. This is generic genre stuff with a realish female friendship at its center: It’s a bra-mance.”


title: The Heat (film)

text: Owen Gleiberman of "Entertainment Weekly" gave the film a grade of B and wrote, “The director, Paul Feig, possesses a highly developed radar for the alternating currents of competition and camaraderie in female relationships. As he proved in "Bridesmaids" (2011)…Feig understands how women who don’t like each other express their antipathy — in ways both more direct and less direct than what men do. In "The Heat", Feig stages scenes like Richard Donner ("Lethal Weapon") with a touch of George Cukor ("The Women"). He has made a piece of smash-and-grab policier pulp that, through the interplay of Bullock and McCarthy, spins to its own snarly/confessional feminine beat.”


title: The Heat (film)

text: In contrast, Mick LaSalle of "The San Francisco Chronicle" called the film both formulaic and inspired, but acknowledged "the inspiration is in the combining of these two actresses."


title: The Heat (film)

text: In another mixed review, Keith Uhlich of Time Out said Bullock and McCarthy deserved better material, and also criticized the trailer for giving the impression that this was a less funny film.


title: The Heat (film)

text: Shortly after the film's release, director Feig announced that the film would be followed by a sequel. In October 2013, Bullock stated that she won't come back for the sequel and the project itself was put on hold. Instead, the sequel was reportedly being replaced by a spin-off film that will centre around Jamie Denbo and Jessica Chaffin's characters Beth and Gina from the first film.


title: Nasubi

text: Tomoaki Hamatsu was challenged to stay alone, unclothed, in an apartment for "Susunu! Denpa Shōnen" (January 1998 – March 2002), a Japanese reality-television show on Nippon Television, after winning a lottery for a "show business related job". He was challenged to enter mail-in sweepstakes until he won ¥1 million (about US$10,000) in total. He started with nothing (including no clothes), was cut off from outside communication and broadcasting, and had nothing to keep him company except the magazines he combed through for sweepstakes entry forms. After spending 335 days to reach his target, he set the Guinness world record for the "longest time survived on competition winnings".


title: Nasubi

text: Tomoaki Hamatsu lived in front of the camera, with only the possessions he won via the sweepstakes (save for basic utilities such as running water, heating and electricity), and the stacks of postcards and magazines required for entering the sweepstakes. Due to his nudity, an eggplant cartoon graphic covered his genitals when Tomoaki Hamatsu was standing on camera. "Nasubi" is the Japanese word for "eggplant"; the nickname was chosen due to his 30 cm long face that was said to be shaped like a Japanese eggplant, as well as the producers had to cover his genitals with an animated eggplant for the television audience. Tomoaki Hamatsu believed that he was being recorded and the show would be re-broadcast later once the footage had been gathered. In reality, the experiment was being livestreamed, with footage compiled and re-aired each week, complete with sound effects present at frequent intervals, using new tech to have 24/7 television to show him live using a joystick to cover up his genitals.


title: Nasubi

text: At first, he received no food at all, drinking only water and losing weight. Eventually, he won some sugary drinks from his sweepstakes entries. Later on, he won a bag of rice, but having not won any pots or containers with which to heat it, he was forced to eat it raw, and after devising a makeshift heating container with a discarded bag, he was able to cook the rice by placing it next to the lit stove. However, canned and kibble dog food became his primary food source for some time after running out of rice. After winning a stuffed toy in a sweepstake, he carried on conversations with it as his sensei, as it was his only sort of interaction. He never won clothing he could wear (only ladies' underwear, that was too small for him to use), nor did he ever win anything to trim his growing facial hair and fingernails. He also won other prizes he was unable to use, like movie tickets and a bicycle (both of which would have required him to exit the apartment to utilize) although he soon adapted the latter into a stationary bike. When he won a television set, he was unable to use it at first, as there was no cable or antenna hookup in the apartment (intentional by the producers out of fear he would discover he was already on TV). He would then win a PlayStation game, train simulator "Densha de Go!", alongside the controller needed to play it.


title: Nasubi

text: By this time, the show had become so popular within Japanese households, that people were starting to decipher the location of his flat, with paparazzi, fans, and even the press standing outside without Tomoaki Hamatsu knowing it. As such, producers were forced to procure a new space far away from the original location. He was transported blindfolded, and upon uncovering his eyes, he discovered a similar living space, along with all his previously won possessions. When he questioned if he had completed the challenge, he was instead told the change of space was for his new address to "bring in more luck". As such, he continued writing sweepstake entries, with a large chair and desk becoming his first items acquired in his new space. However, he was moved into yet another space after a long streak of misfortune in his entries. In this new space, his TV set became useful when he later won a VCR, which could be used with two previous tapes he had won, and would later win a proper PlayStation. He would end up playing his game for multiple days straight, ultimately forcing himself to stop in order to keep entering sweepstakes and achieve his goal.


title: Nasubi

text: After winning a set of 4 car tires worth around 84000¥, he closed upon his goal, which he finally achieved with a bag of rice, 335 days after starting. After being informed of his victory, he was given back his clothes and blindfolded and taken to a surprise location. Tomoaki Hamatsu happily went along believing he was going to get a special prize for his year of hard work. After they removed his blindfold, he found himself in South Korea. He was given a day at an amusement park, where he was able to enjoy Korean food, and ride on the park's multiple attractions. However, after finishing, he was taken to another apartment. He was once again asked to take off his clothes and challenged to enter sweepstakes, this time to win enough money to afford a flight with Japan Airlines to return home. However, When Tomoaki Hamatsu quickly met this goal after several weeks of entering competitions, it was revised multiple times, first to afford a ticket in business class, then first class; these goals were also met in a matter of weeks. When he had won enough to return to Japan he was blindfolded, clothed and taken to another apartment in Japan. When the blindfold was removed, he looked around, and instinctively took his clothes off, expecting to continue the challenge. However, the walls of the apartment fell away to reveal that he was actually in a TV studio with a huge live audience. Tomoaki Hamatsu was confused by this, because he thought the show had not yet been broadcast.


title: Nasubi

text: The entire ordeal lasted about 15 months, during which time his diaries on his experience of being locked away from the outside world became a best seller in Japan, and the TV show broke all records with 17 million viewers each Sunday night.


title: Nasubi

text: He reported being hot and sweaty wearing clothing for the first six months after his ordeal and had difficulty carrying on conversations for a long time.


title: Nasubi

text: In April 2020, Tomoaki Hamatsu tried persuading people to cooperate with the self-disciplined stay-at-home order during the wake of the initial COVID-19 outbreaks by citing his own personal experience with self-isolation.


title: Nasubi

text: After the rigors he went through in order to become a famous comedian, Tomoaki Hamatsu was unable to succeed in the variety TV world. Instead, he became a local talent in his native Fukushima, as well as a dramatic stage actor, founding the stage troupe Eggplant Way, performing across Japan. He has starred in "Densha Otoko", "Trick", "Atashinchi no Danshi", and portrayed the character Watcherman in "Kamen Rider W". He also appeared in the game "".


title: Nasubi

text: In 2016 Tomoaki Hamatsu successfully scaled Mount Everest after two aborted attempts in 2014 and 2015.


title: Circus

text: A circus is a company of performers who put on diverse entertainment shows that may include clowns, acrobats, trained animals, trapeze acts, musicians, dancers, hoopers, tightrope walkers, jugglers, magicians, ventriloquists, and unicyclists as well as other object manipulation and stunt-oriented artists. The term "circus" also describes the performance which has followed various formats through its 250-year modern history. Although not the inventor of the medium, Philip Astley is credited as the father of the modern circus. In 1768, Astley, a skilled equestrian, began performing exhibitions of trick horse riding in an open field called Ha'Penny Hatch on the south side of the Thames River. In 1770, he hired acrobats, tightrope walkers, jugglers and a clown to fill in the pauses between the equestrian demonstrations and thus chanced on the format which was later named a "circus". Performances developed significantly over the next fifty years, with large-scale theatrical battle reenactments becoming a significant feature. The traditional format, in which a ringmaster introduces a variety of choreographed acts set to music, developed in the latter part of the 19th century and remained the dominant format until the 1970s.


title: Circus

text: As styles of performance have developed since the time of Astley, so too have the types of venues where these circuses have performed. The earliest modern circuses were performed in open-air structures with limited covered seating. From the late 18th to late 19th century, custom-made circus buildings (often wooden) were built with various types of seating, a centre ring, and sometimes a stage. The traditional large tents commonly known as "big tops" were introduced in the mid-19th century as touring circuses superseded static venues. These tents eventually became the most common venue. Contemporary circuses perform in a variety of venues including tents, theatres and casinos. Many circus performances are still held in a ring, usually 13 m (42 ft) in diameter. This dimension was adopted by Astley in the late 18th century as the minimum diameter that enabled an acrobatic horse rider to stand upright on a cantering horse to perform their tricks.


title: Circus

text: Contemporary circus has been credited with a revival of the circus tradition since the late 1970s, when a number of groups began to experiment with new circus formats and aesthetics, typically avoiding the use of animals to focus exclusively on human artistry. Circuses within the movement have tended to favour a theatrical approach, combining character-driven circus acts with original music in a broad variety of styles to convey complex themes or stories. Contemporary circus continues to develop new variations on the circus tradition while absorbing new skills, techniques, and stylistic influences from other performing arts.


title: Circus

text: First attested in English 14th century, the word "circus" derives from Latin "circus", which is the romanization of the Greek "κίρκος" ("kirkos"), itself a metathesis of the Homeric Greek "κρίκος" ("krikos"), meaning "circle" or "ring". In the book "De Spectaculis" early Christian writer Tertullian claimed that the first circus games were staged by the goddess Circe in honour of her father Helios, the Sun God.


title: Circus

text: The modern and commonly held idea of a circus is of a Big Top with various acts providing entertainment therein; however, the history of circuses is more complex, with historians disagreeing on its origin, as well as revisions being done about the history due to the changing nature of historical research, and the ongoing circus phenomenon. For many, circus history begins with Englishman Philip Astley, while for others its origins go back much further—to Roman times.


title: Circus

text: In Ancient Rome, the "circus" was a building for the exhibition of horse and chariot races, equestrian shows, staged battles, gladiatorial combat, and displays of (and fights with) trained animals. The circuses of Rome were similar to the ancient Greek hippodromes, although circuses served varying purposes and differed in design and construction, and for events that involved re-enactments of naval battles, the circus was flooded with water; however, the Roman circus buildings were not circular but rectangular with semi circular ends. The lower seats were reserved for persons of rank; there were also various state boxes for the giver of the games and his friends. The circus was the only public spectacle at which men and women were not separated. Some circus historians such as George Speaight have stated "these performances may have taken place in the great arenas that were called 'circuses' by the Romans, but it is a mistake to equate these places, or the entertainments presented there, with the modern circus". Others have argued that the lineage of the circus does go back to the Roman circuses and a chronology of circus-related entertainment can be traced to Roman times, continued by the Hippodrome of Constantinople that operated until the 13th century, through medieval and renaissance jesters, minstrels and troubadours to the late 18th century and the time of Astley.


title: Circus

text: The first circus in the city of Rome was the Circus Maximus, in the valley between the Palatine and Aventine hills. It was constructed during the monarchy and, at first, built completely from wood. After being rebuilt several times, the final version of the Circus Maximus could seat 250,000 people; it was built of stone and measured 400m in length and 90m in width. Next in importance were the Circus Flaminius and the Circus Neronis, from the notoriety which it obtained through the Circensian pleasures of Nero. A fourth circus was constructed by Maxentius; its ruins have helped archaeologists reconstruct the Roman circus.


title: Circus

text: For some time after the fall of Rome, large circus buildings fell out of use as centres of mass entertainment. Instead, itinerant performers, animal trainers, and showmen travelled between towns throughout Europe, performing at local fairs.


title: Circus

text: The origin of the modern circus has been attributed to Philip Astley, who was born 1742 in Newcastle-under-Lyme, England. He became a cavalry officer who set up the first modern amphitheatre for the display of horse riding tricks in Lambeth, London, on 4 April 1768. Astley did not originate trick horse riding, nor was he first to introduce acts such as acrobats and clowns to the English public, but he was the first to create a space where all these acts were brought together to perform a show. Astley rode in a circle rather than a straight line as his rivals did, and thus chanced on the format of performing in a circle. Astley performed stunts in a 42 ft diameter ring, which is the standard size used by circuses ever since. Astley referred to the performance arena as a circle and the building as an amphitheatre; these would later be known as a circus. In 1770, Astley hired acrobats, tightrope walkers, jugglers, and a clown to fill in the pauses between acts.


title: Circus

text: Astley was followed by Andrew Ducrow, whose feats of horsemanship had much to do with establishing the traditions of the circus, which were perpetuated by Hengler's and Sanger's celebrated shows in a later generation. In England circuses were often held in purpose-built buildings in large cities, such as the London Hippodrome, which was built as a combination of the circus, the menagerie, and the variety theatre, where wild animals such as lions and elephants from time to time appeared in the ring, and where convulsions of nature such as floods, earthquakes, and volcanic eruptions were produced with an extraordinary wealth of realistic display. Joseph Grimaldi, the first mainstream clown, had his first major role as Little Clown in the pantomime "The Triumph of Mirth; or, Harlequin's Wedding" in 1781. The Royal Circus was opened in London on 4 November 1782 by Charles Dibdin (who coined the term "circus"), aided by his partner Charles Hughes, an equestrian performer. In 1782, Astley established the Amphithéâtre Anglais in Paris, the first purpose-built circus in France, followed by 18 other permanent circuses in cities throughout Europe. Astley leased his Parisian circus to the Italian Antonio Franconi in 1793. In 1826, the first circus took place under a canvas big top.


title: Circus

text: The Englishman John Bill Ricketts brought the first modern circus to the United States. He began his theatrical career with Hughes Royal Circus in London in the 1780s, and travelled from England in 1792 to establish his first circus in Philadelphia. The first circus building in the US opened on 3 April 1793 in Philadelphia, where Ricketts gave America's first complete circus performance. George Washington attended a performance there later that season.


title: Circus

text: In the Americas during the first two decades of the 19th century, the Circus of Pepin and Breschard toured from Montreal to Havana, building circus theatres in many of the cities it visited. Victor Pépin, a native New Yorker, was the first American to operate a major circus in the United States. Later the establishments of Purdy, Welch & Co., and of van Amburgh gave a wider popularity to the circus in the United States. In 1825, Joshuah Purdy Brown was the first circus owner to use a large canvas tent for the circus performance. Circus pioneer Dan Rice was the most famous pre-Civil War circus clown, popularizing such expressions as "The One-Horse Show" and "Hey, Rube!". The American circus was revolutionized by P. T. Barnum and William Cameron Coup, who launched the travelling P. T. Barnum's Museum, Menagerie & Circus, the first freak show. Coup also introduced the first multiple-ring circuses, and was also the first circus entrepreneur to use circus trains to transport the circus between towns.


title: Circus

text: In 1838, the equestrian Thomas Taplin Cooke returned to England from the United States, bringing with him a circus tent. At this time, itinerant circuses that could be fitted-up quickly were becoming popular in Britain. William Batty's circus, for example, between 1838 and 1840, travelled from Newcastle to Edinburgh and then to Portsmouth and Southampton. Pablo Fanque, who is noteworthy as Britain's only black circus proprietor and who operated one of the most celebrated travelling circuses in Victorian England, erected temporary structures for his limited engagements or retrofitted existing structures. One such structure in Leeds, which Fanque assumed from a departing circus, collapsed, resulting in minor injuries to many but the death of Fanque's wife. Traveling circus companies also rented the land they set up their structures on sometimes causing damage to the local ecosystems. Three important circus innovators were the Italian Giuseppe Chiarini, and Frenchmen Louis Soullier and Jacques Tourniaire, whose early travelling circuses introduced the circus to Latin America, Australia, Southeast Asia, China, South Africa, and Russia. Soullier was the first circus owner to introduce Chinese acrobatics to the European circus when he returned from his travels in 1866, and Tourniaire was the first to introduce the performing art to Ranga, where it became extremely popular.


title: Circus

text: After an 1881 merger with James Anthony Bailey and James L. Hutchinson's circus and Barnum's death in 1891, his circus travelled to Europe as the Barnum & Bailey Greatest Show On Earth, where it toured from 1897 to 1902, impressing other circus owners with its large scale, its touring techniques (including the tent and circus train), and its combination of circus acts, a zoological exhibition, and a freak show. This format was adopted by European circuses at the turn of the 20th century.


title: Circus

text: The influence of the American circus brought about a considerable change in the character of the modern circus. In arenas too large for speech to be easily audible, the traditional comic dialogue of the clown assumed a less prominent place than formerly, while the vastly increased wealth of stage properties relegated to the background the old-fashioned equestrian feats, which were replaced by more ambitious acrobatic performances, and by exhibitions of skill, strength, and daring, requiring the employment of immense numbers of performers, and often of complicated and expensive machinery.


title: Circus

text: From the late 19th century through the first half of the 20th century, travelling circuses were a major form of spectator entertainment in the US and attracted huge attention whenever they arrived in a city. After World War II, the popularity of the circus declined as new forms of entertainment (such as television) arrived and the public's tastes changed. From the 1960s onward, circuses attracted growing criticism from animal rights activists. Many circuses went out of business or were forced to merge with other circus companies. Nonetheless, a good number of travelling circuses are still active in various parts of the world, ranging from small family enterprises to three-ring extravaganzas. Other companies found new ways to draw in the public with innovative new approaches to the circus form itself.


title: Circus

text: In 1919, Lenin, head of Soviet Russia, expressed a wish for the circus to become "the people's art-form", with facilities and status on par with theatre, opera and ballet. The USSR nationalized Russian circuses. In 1927, the State University of Circus and Variety Arts, better known as the Moscow Circus School, was established; performers were trained using methods developed from the Soviet gymnastics program. When the Moscow State Circus company began international tours in the 1950s, its levels of originality and artistic skill were widely applauded.


title: Circus

text: Circuses from China, drawing on Chinese traditions of acrobatics, like the Chinese State Circus are also popular touring acts.


title: Circus

text: Contemporary circus (originally known as "cirque nouveau") is a performing arts movement that originated in the 1970s in Australia, Canada, France, the West Coast of the United States, and the United Kingdom. Contemporary circus combines traditional circus skills and theatrical techniques to convey a story or theme. Compared with the traditional circus, the contemporary genre of circus tends to focus more attention on the overall aesthetic impact, on character and story development, and on the use of lighting design, original music, and costume design to convey thematic or narrative content. For aesthetic or economic reasons, contemporary circus productions may sometimes be staged in theatres rather than in large outdoor tents. Music used in the production is often composed exclusively for that production, and aesthetic influences are drawn as much from contemporary culture as from circus history. Animal acts rarely appear in contemporary circus, in contrast to traditional circus, where animal acts have often been a significant part of the entertainment.


title: Circus

text: Early pioneers of the contemporary circus genre included: Circus Oz, forged in Australia in 1977 from SoapBox Circus (1976) and New Circus (1973); the Pickle Family Circus, founded in San Francisco in 1975; Ra-Ra Zoo in 1984 in London; Nofit State Circus in 1984 from Wales; Cirque du Soleil, founded in Quebec in 1984; Cirque Plume and Archaos from France in 1984 and 1986 respectively. More recent examples include: Cirque Éloize (founded in Quebec in 1993); Sweden's Cirkus Cirkör (1995); Teatro ZinZanni (founded in Seattle in 1998); the West African Circus Baobab (late 1990s); and Montreal's Les 7 doigts de la main (founded in 2002). The genre includes other circus troupes such as the Vermont-based Circus Smirkus (founded in 1987 by Rob Mermin) and Le Cirque Imaginaire (later renamed Le Cirque Invisible, both founded and directed by Victoria Chaplin, daughter of Charlie Chaplin).


title: Circus

text: The most conspicuous success story in the contemporary genre has been that of Cirque du Soleil, the Canadian circus company whose estimated annual revenue exceeds US$810 million in 2009, and whose "cirque nouveau" shows have been seen by nearly 90 million spectators in over 200 cities on five continents.


title: Circus

text: A traditional circus performance is often led by a ringmaster who has a role similar to a Master of Ceremonies. The ringmaster presents performers, speaks to the audience, and generally keeps the show moving. The activity of the circus traditionally takes place within a ring; large circuses may have multiple rings, like the six-ringed Moscow State Circus. A circus often travels with its own band, whose instrumentation in the United States has traditionally included brass instruments, drums, glockenspiel, and sometimes the distinctive sound of the calliope.


title: Circus

text: Common acts include a variety of acrobatics, gymnastics (including tumbling and trampoline), aerial acts (such as trapeze, aerial silk, corde lisse), contortion, stilt-walking, and a variety of other routines. Juggling is one of the most common acts in a circus; the combination of juggling and gymnastics is called equilibristics and includes acts like plate spinning and the rolling globe. Acts like these are some of the most common and the most traditional. Clowns are common to most circuses and are typically skilled in many circus acts; "clowns getting into the act" is a very familiar theme in any circus. Famous circus clowns have included Austin Miles, the Fratellini Family, Rusty Russell, Emmett Kelly, Grock, and Bill Irwin.


title: Circus

text: Daredevil stunt acts, freak shows, and sideshow acts are also parts of some circus acts, these activities may include human cannonball, chapeaugraphy, fire eating, breathing, and dancing, knife throwing, magic shows, sword swallowing, or strongman. Famous sideshow performers include Zip the Pinhead and The Doll Family. A popular sideshow attraction from the early 19th century was the flea circus, where fleas were attached to props and viewed through a Fresnel lens.


title: Circus

text: A variety of animals have historically been used in acts. While the types of animals used vary from circus to circus, big cats (namely lions, tigers, and leopards), camels, llamas, elephants, zebras, horses, donkeys, birds (like parrots, doves, and cockatoos), sea lions, bears, monkeys, and domestic animals such as cats and dogs are the most common.


title: Circus

text: The earliest involvement of animals in circus was just the display of exotic creatures in a menagerie. Going as far back as the early eighteenth century, exotic animals were transported to North America for display, and menageries were a popular form of entertainment. The first true animals acts in the circus were equestrian acts. Soon elephants and big cats were displayed as well. Isaac A. Van Amburgh entered a cage with several big cats in 1833, and is generally considered to be the first wild animal trainer in American circus history. Mabel Stark was a famous female tiger-tamer.


title: Circus

text: Animal rights groups have documented many cases of animal cruelty in the training of performing circus animals. The animal rights group People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA) contends that animals in circuses are frequently beaten into submission and that physical abuse has always been the method for training circus animals. It is also alleged that the animals are kept in cages that are too small and are given very little opportunity to walk around outside of their enclosure, thereby violating their right to freedom.


title: Circus

text: According to PETA, although the US Animal Welfare Act does not permit any sort of punishment that puts the animals in discomfort, trainers will still go against this law and use such things as electric rods and bullhooks. According to PETA, during an undercover investigation of Carson & Barnes Circus, video footage was captured showing animal care director Tim Frisco training endangered Asian elephants with electrical shock prods and instructing other trainers to "beat the elephants with a bullhook as hard as they can and sink the sharp metal hook into the elephant's flesh and twist it until they scream in pain".


title: Circus

text: On behalf of the Ministry of Agriculture, Nature and Food Quality of the Netherlands, Wageningen University conducted an investigation into the welfare of circus animals in 2008. The following issues, among others, were found:


title: Circus

text: Based on these findings, the researchers called for more stringent regulation regarding the welfare of circus animals. In 2012, the Dutch government announced a ban on the use of wild circus animals.


title: Circus

text: In testimony in U.S. District Court in 2009, Ringling Bros. and Barnum & Bailey Circus CEO Kenneth Feld acknowledged that circus elephants are struck behind the ears, under the chin and on their legs with metal tipped prods, called bullhooks. Feld stated that these practices are necessary to protect circus workers. Feld also acknowledged that an elephant trainer was reprimanded for using an electric shock device, known as a hot shot or electric prod, on an elephant, which Feld also stated was appropriate practice. Feld denied that any of these practices harm elephants. In its January 2010 verdict on the case, brought against Feld Entertainment International by the American Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals et al., the Court ruled that evidence against the circus company was "not credible with regard to the allegations". In lieu of a USDA hearing, Feld Entertainment Inc. (parent of Ringling Bros.) agreed to pay an unprecedented $270,000 fine for violations of the Animal Welfare Act that allegedly occurred between June 2007 and August 2011.


title: Circus

text: A 14-year litigation against the Ringling Bros. and Barnum & Bailey Circus came to an end in 2014 when The Humane Society of the United States and a number of other animal rights groups paid a $16 million settlement to Feld Entertainment; however, the circus closed in May 2017 after a 146-year run when it experienced a steep decline in ticket sales a year after it discontinued its elephant act and sent its pachyderms to a reserve.


title: Circus

text: On 1 February 1992 at the Great American Circus in Palm Bay, Florida, an elephant named Janet (1965 – 1 February 1992) went out of control while giving a ride to a mother, her two children, and three other children. The elephant then stampeded through the circus grounds outside before being shot to death by police. Also, during a Circus International performance in Honolulu, Hawaii, on 20 August 1994, an elephant called Tyke (1974 – 20 August 1994) killed her trainer, Allen Campbell, and severely mauled her groomer, Dallas Beckwith, in front of hundreds of spectators. Tyke then bolted from the arena and ran through the streets of Kakaako for more than thirty minutes. Police fired 86 shots at Tyke, who eventually collapsed from the wounds and died.


title: Circus

text: In December 2018, New Jersey became the first state in the U.S. to ban circuses, carnivals and fairs from featuring elephants, tigers, and other exotic animals.


title: Circus

text: In 1998 in the United Kingdom, a parliamentary working group chaired by MP Roger Gale studied living conditions and treatment of animals in UK circuses. All members of this group agreed that a change in the law was needed to protect circus animals. Gale told the BBC, "It's undignified and the conditions under which they are kept are woefully inadequate—the cages are too small, the environments they live in are not suitable and many of us believe the time has come for that practice to end." The group reported concerns about boredom and stress, and noted that an independent study by a member of the Wildlife Conservation Research Unit at Oxford University "found no evidence that circuses contribute to education or conservation."; however, in 2007, a different working group under the UK Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, having reviewed information from experts representing both the circus industry and animal welfare, found an absence of "scientific evidence sufficient to demonstrate that travelling circuses are not compatible with meeting the welfare needs of any type of non-domesticated animal presently being used in the United Kingdom." According to that group's report, published in October 2007, "there appears to be little evidence to demonstrate that the welfare of animals kept in travelling circuses is any better or any worse than that of animals kept in other captive environments."


title: Circus

text: A ban prohibiting the use of wild animals in circuses in England was due to be passed in 2015, but Conservative MP Christopher Chope repeatedly blocked the bill under the reasoning that "The EU Membership Costs and Benefits bill should have been called by the clerk before the circuses bill, so I raised a point of order". He explained that the circus bill was "at the bottom of the list" for discussion. The Animal Defenders International non-profit group dubbed this "a huge embarrassment for Britain that 30 other nations have taken action before us on this simple and popular measure". On 1 May 2019 Environmental Secretary Michael Gove announced a new Bill to ban the use of wild animals in travelling circuses. The Wild Animals in Circuses Act 2019 came into effect on 20 January 2020.


title: Circus

text: A bill to ban the use of wild animals in travelling circuses in Wales was introduced in June 2019, and subsequently passed by the Welsh Parliament on 15 July 2020. Over 6,500 responses were made by the people of Wales, to the public consultation on the draft Bill, 97% of which supported the ban.


title: Circus

text: The use of wild animals in travelling circuses has been banned in Scotland. The Wild Animals in Travelling Circuses (Scotland) Act 2018 came into force on 28 May 2018.


title: Circus

text: There are nationwide bans on using some if not all animals in circuses in Austria, Belgium, Bolivia, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Bulgaria, Colombia, Costa Rica, Croatia, Cyprus, Czech Republic, Denmark, Ecuador, El Salvador, Estonia, Finland, Greece, Hungary, India, Iran, Ireland, Israel, Italy, Malta, Mexico, Netherlands, Norway, Panama, Paraguay, Peru, Poland, Portugal, Singapore, Slovenia, Sweden, Switzerland, and Turkey. Germany, Spain, United Kingdom, Australia, Argentina, Chile, Brazil, Canada, and the United States have locally restricted or banned the use of animals in entertainment. In response to a growing popular concern about the use of animals in entertainment, animal-free circuses are becoming more common around the world. In 2009, Bolivia passed legislation banning the use of any animals, wild or domestic, in circuses. The law states that circuses "constitute an act of cruelty." Circus operators had one year from the bill's passage on 1 July 2009 to comply. In 2018 in Germany, an accident with an elephant during a circus performance, prompted calls to ban animal performances in circuses. PETA called the German politicians to outlaw the keeping of animals for circuses.


title: Circus

text: A survey confirmed that on average, wild animals spend around 99 to 91 percent of their time in cages, wagons, or enclosure due to transportation. This causes a huge amount of distress to animals and leads to excessive amounts of drooling.


title: Circus

text: City ordinances banning performances by wild animals have been enacted in San Francisco (2015), Los Angeles (2017), and New York City (2017).


title: Circus

text: Greece became the first European country to ban any animal from performing in any circus in its territory in February 2012, following a campaign by Animal Defenders International and the Greek Animal Welfare Fund (GAWF).


title: Circus

text: On 6 June 2015, the Federation of Veterinarians of Europe adopted a position paper in which it recommends the prohibition of the use of wild animals in travelling circuses.


title: Circus

text: Despite the contemporary circus' shift toward more theatrical techniques and its emphasis on human rather than animal performance, traditional circus companies still exist alongside the new movement. Numerous circuses continue to maintain animal performers, including UniverSoul Circus and the Big Apple Circus from the United States, Circus Krone from Munich, Circus Royale and Lennon Bros Circus from Australia, Vazquez Hermanos Circus, Circo Atayde Hermanos, and Hermanos Mayaror Circus from Mexico, and Moira Orfei Circus from Italy, to name just a few.


title: Circus

text: In other countries, purpose-built circus buildings still exist which are no longer used as circuses, or are used for circus only occasionally among a wider programme of events; for example, the Cirkusbygningen (The Circus Building) in Copenhagen, Denmark, Cirkus in Stockholm, Sweden, or Carré Theatre in Amsterdam, Netherlands.


title: Circus

text: The International Circus Festival of Monte-Carlo has been held in Monaco since 1974 and was the first of many international awards for circus performers.


title: Circus

text: Erich Kästner's children's books ' 1963 ("The Little Man") and ' 1967 ("The Little Man and the Little Miss") are largely set in a circus where the orphaned young protagonist grows up as a ward of the show's magician.


title: Circus

text: The atmosphere of the circus has served as a dramatic setting for many musicians. The most famous circus theme song is called "Entrance of the Gladiators", and was composed in 1904 by Julius Fučík. Other circus music includes "El Caballero", "Quality Plus", "Sunnyland Waltzes", "The Storming of El Caney", "Pahjamah", "Bull Trombone", "Big Time Boogie", "Royal Bridesmaid March", "The Baby Elephant Walk", "Liberty Bell March", "Java", Strauss's "Radetsky March", and "Pageant of Progress". A poster for Pablo Fanque's Circus Royal, one of the most popular circuses of Victorian England, inspired John Lennon to write Being for the Benefit of Mr. Kite! on The Beatles' album, "Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band". The song title refers to William Kite, a well-known circus performer in the 19th century. Producer George Martin and EMI engineers created the song's fairground atmosphere by assembling a sound collage of collected recordings of calliopes and fairground organs, which they cut into strips of various lengths, threw into a box, and then mixed up and edited together randomly, creating a long loop which was mixed into the final production. Another traditional circus song is the John Philip Sousa march "Stars and Stripes Forever", which is played only to alert circus performers of an emergency.


title: Circus

text: Plays set in a circus include the 1896 musical "The Circus Girl" by Lionel Monckton, "Polly of the Circus" written in 1907 by Margaret Mayo, "He Who Gets Slapped" written by Russian Leonid Andreyev 1915 and later adapted into one of the first circus films, "Katharina Knie" written in 1928 by Carl Zuckmayer and adapted for the English stage in 1932 as "Caravan" by playwright Cecily Hamilton, the revue "Big Top" written by Herbert Farjeon in 1942, "Top of the Ladder" written by Tyrone Guthrie in 1950, "Stop the World, I Want to Get Off" written by Anthony Newley in 1961, and "Barnum" with music by Cy Coleman and lyrics and book by Mark Bramble, "Roustabout: The Great Circus Train Wreck" written by Jay Torrence in 2006.


title: Circus

text: Following World War I, circus films became popular. In 1924 "He Who Gets Slapped" was the first film released by MGM; in 1925 "Sally of the Sawdust" (remade 1930), "Variety", and "Vaudeville" were produced, followed by "The Devil's Circus" in 1926 and "The Circus" starring Charlie Chaplin, "Circus Rookies", "4 Devils"; and "Laugh Clown Laugh" in 1928. German film "Salto Mortale" about trapeze artists was released in 1931 and remade in the United States and released as "Trapeze" starring Burt Lancaster in 1956; in 1932 "Freaks" was released; "Charlie Chan at the Circus", "Circus" (USSR) and "The Three Maxiums" were released in 1936 and "At the Circus" starring the Marx Brothers and "You Can't Cheat an Honest Man" in 1939. Circus films continued to be popular during the Second World War; films from this era included "The Great Profile" starring John Barrymore (1940), the animated Disney film "Dumbo" (1941), "Road Show" (1941), "The Wagons Roll at Night" (1941) and "Captive Wild Woman" (1943).


title: Circus

text: "Tromba", a film about a tiger trainer, was released in 1948. In 1952 Cecil B. de Mille's Oscar-winning film "The Greatest Show on Earth" was first shown. Released in 1953 were "Man on a Tightrope" and Ingmar Bergman's "Gycklarnas afton" (released as "Sawdust and Tinsel" in the United States); these were followed by "Life Is a Circus"; "Ring of Fear"; "3 Ring Circus" (1954) and "La Strada" (1954), an Oscar-winning film by Federico Fellini about a girl who is sold to a circus strongman. Fellini made a second film set in the circus called "The Clowns" in 1970. Films about the circus made since 1959 include Disney's "Toby Tyler" (1960), the B-movie "Circus of Horrors" (also in 1960); the musical film "Billy Rose's Jumbo" (1962); "A Tiger Walks", a Disney film about a tiger that escapes from the circus; and "Circus World" (1964), starring John Wayne. In Hanna-Barbera's first animated film "Hey There, It's Yogi Bear!" (1964), Cindy Bear is held captive in a circus where she is cruelly forced to perform until Yogi and Boo-Boo rescue her. "Mera Naam Joker" (1970), a Hindi drama film directed by Raj Kapoor which was about a clown who must make his audience laugh at the cost of his own sorrows. In the anime film "Jungle Emperor Leo" (1997), Leo's son Lune is captured and placed in a circus, which burns down when a tiger knocks down a ring of fire while jumping through it. "The Greatest Showman", a musical film loosely based on the life of P. T. Barnum, was released in 2017.


title: Circus

text: The TV series "Circus Humberto", based on the novel by Eduard Bass, follows the history of the circus family Humberto between 1826 and 1924. The setting of the HBO television series "Carnivàle", which ran from 2003 to 2005, is also largely set in a travelling circus. The circus has also inspired many writers. Numerous books, both non-fiction and fiction, have been published about circus life. Notable examples of circus-based fiction include "[ircus Humberto" by Eduard Bass, "Cirque du Freak" by Darren Shan, and "Spangle" by Gary Jennings. The novel "Water for Elephants" by Sara Gruen tells the fictional tale of a circus veterinarian and was made into a movie with the same title, starring Robert Pattinson and Reese Witherspoon. Science fiction writer Barry B. Longyear wrote a trilogy about a circus of the future: City of Baraboo; Elephant Song; and Circus World.


title: Circus

text: Circus is the central theme in comic books of Super Commando Dhruva, an Indian comic book superhero. According to this series, Dhruva was born and brought up in a fictional Indian circus called Jupiter Circus. When a rival circus burnt down Jupiter Circus, killing everyone in it, including Dhruva's parents, Dhruva vowed to become a crime fighter. A circus-based television series called "Circus" was also telecast in India in 1989 on DD National, starring Shahrukh Khan as the lead actor.


title: Google Trends

text: Google Trends is a website by Google that analyzes the popularity of top search queries in Google Search across various regions and languages. The website uses graphs to compare the search volume of different queries over time.


title: Google Trends

text: On August 5, 2008, Google launched Google Insights for Search, a more sophisticated and advanced service displaying search trends data. On September 27, 2012, Google merged Google Insights for Search into Google Trends.


title: Google Trends

text: Google Trends also allows the user to compare the relative search volume of searches between two or more terms.


title: Google Trends

text: Originally, Google neglected updating Google Trends on a regular basis. In March 2007, internet bloggers noticed that Google had not added new data since November 2006, and Trends was updated within a week. Google did not update Trends from March until July 30, and only after it was blogged about, again. Google now claims to be "updating the information provided by Google Trends daily; Hot Trends is updated hourly."


title: Google Trends

text: On August 6, 2008, Google launched a free service called Insights for Search. Insights for Search is an extension of Google Trends and although the tool is meant for marketers, it can be utilized by any user. The tool allows for the tracking of various words and phrases that are typed into Google's search-box. The tracking device provided a more-indepth analysis of results. It also has the ability to categorize and organize the data, with special attention given to the breakdown of information by geographical areas. In 2012, the Insights for Search has been merged into Google Trends with a new interface.


title: Google Trends

text: In 2009, Yossi Matias et al. published research on the predictability of search trends. In a series of articles in "The New York Times", Seth Stephens-Davidowitz used Google Trends to measure a variety of behaviors. For example, in June 2012, he argued that search volume for the word "nigger(s)" could be used to measure racism in different parts of the United States. Correlating this measure with Obama's vote share, he calculated that Obama lost about 4 percentage points due to racial animus in the 2008 presidential election. He also used Google data, along with other sources, to estimate the size of the gay population. This article noted that the most popular search beginning "is my husband" is "is my husband gay?" In addition, he found that American parents were more likely to search "is my son gifted?" than "is my daughter gifted?" But they were more likely to search "is my daughter overweight?" than "is my son overweight?" He also examined cultural differences in attitudes around pregnancy.


title: Google Trends

text: Google Trends has also been used to forecast economic indicators and financial markets, and analysis of Google Trends data has detected regional flu outbreaks before conventional monitoring systems. Google Trends is increasingly used in ecological and conservation studies, with the number of research articles growing over 50% per year. Google Trends data has been used to examine trends in public interest and awareness on biodiversity and conservation issues, species bias in conservation project, and identify cultural aspects of environmental issues. The data obtained from Google Trends has also been used to track changes in the timing biological processes as well as the geographic patterns of biological invasion.


title: Google Trends

text: A 2011 study found that an indicator for private consumption based on search query time series provided by Google Trends found that in almost all conducted forecasting experiments, the Google indicator outperformed survey-based indicators.


title: Google Trends

text: Evidence is provided by Jeremy Ginsberg et al. that Google Trends data can be used to track influenza-like illness in a population. Because the relative frequency of certain queries is highly correlated with the percentage of physician visits in which a patient presents with influenza-like symptoms, an estimate of weekly influenza activity can be reported. A more sophisticated model for inferring influenza rates from Google Trends, capable of overcoming the mistakes of its predecessors has been proposed by Lampos et al.


title: Google Trends

text: The use of Google Trends to study a wide range of medical topics is becoming more widespread. Studies have been performed examining such diverse topics as use of tobacco substitutes, suicide occurrence, asthma, and parasitic diseases. Further research should extend the utility of Google Trends in healthcare.


title: Google Trends

text: Furthermore, it was shown by Tobias Preis et al. that there is a correlation between Google Trends data of company names and transaction volumes of the corresponding stocks on a weekly time scale.


title: Google Trends

text: In April 2012, Tobias Preis, Helen Susannah Moat, H. Eugene Stanley and Steven R. Bishop used Google Trends data to demonstrate that Internet users from countries with a higher per capita gross domestic product (GDP) are more likely to search for information about the future than information about the past. The findings, published in the journal Scientific Reports, suggest there may be a link between online behaviour and real-world economic indicators. The authors of the study examined Google search queries made by Internet users in 45 countries in 2010 and calculated the ratio of the volume of searches for the coming year (‘2011’) to the volume of searches for the previous year (‘2009’), which they call the ‘future orientation index’. They compared the future orientation index to the per capita GDP of each country and found a strong tendency for countries in which Google users enquire more about the future to exhibit a higher GDP. The results hint that there may potentially be a relationship between the economic success of a country and the information-seeking behaviour of its citizens online.


title: Google Trends

text: In April 2013, Tobias Preis and his colleagues Helen Susannah Moat and H. Eugene Stanley introduced a method to identify online precursors for stock market moves, using trading strategies based on search volume data provided by Google Trends. Their analysis of Google search volume for 98 terms of varying financial relevance, published in "Scientific Reports", suggests that increases in search volume for financially relevant search terms tend to precede large losses in financial markets.


title: Google Trends

text: The analysis of Tobias Preis was later found to be misleading and the results are most likely to be overfitted. The group of Damien Challet tested the same methodology with unrelated to financial markets search words, such as terms for diseases, car brands or computer games. They have found that all these classes provide equally good "predictability" of the financial markets as the original set. For example, the search terms like "bone cancer", "Shelby GT 500" (car brand), "Moon Patrol" (computer game) provide even better performance as those selected in original work.


title: Google Trends

text: In 2019, Tom Cochran, from public relations firm 720 Strategies, conducted a study comparing Google Trends to political polling. The study was in response to Pete Buttigieg's surge in a poll of Iowa's likely Democratic caucusgoers conducted between November 8 to 13 by the Des Moines Register. Using Google Trends, he looked into the relationship between polling numbers and Google searches. His findings concluded that, while polling consists of far smaller sample sizes, the primary difference with Google Trends is that it only demonstrates intent to seek information. Google search volume was higher for candidates having higher polling numbers, but the correlation did not mean increased candidate favorability.


title: Google Trends

text: Research also shows that Google Trends can be used to forecast stock returns and volatility over a short horizon. Other research has shown that Google Trends has strong predictive power for macroeconomic series. For example, a paper published in 2020 shows that a large panel of Google Trends predictors can forecast employment growth in the United States at both the national and state level with a relatively high degree of accuracy even a year in advance.


title: Google Trends

text: In 2020, it was shown that Google Trends data can exhibit a high variability when queried at different points in time, indicating that it may not be reliable except for very frequent search terms due to sampling, and relying on this data for prediction is risky. This research made it to major headlines in Germany.


title: Google Trends

text: Google has incorporated quota limits for Trends searches. This limits the number of search attempts available per user/IP/device. Details of quota limits have not yet been provided, but it may depend on geographical location or browser privacy settings. It has been reported in some cases that this quota is reached very quickly if one is not logged into a Google account before trying to access the Trends service.


title: Google Trends

text: Google Hot Trends is an addition to Google Trends which displays the top 20 hot, i.e., fastest rising, searches (search-terms) of the past hour in various countries. This is for searches that have recently experienced a sudden surge in popularity. For each of the search-terms, it provides a 24-hour search-volume graph as well as blog, news and web search results. Hot Trends has a history feature for those wishing to browse past hot searches. Hot Trends can be installed as an iGoogle Gadget. Hot Trends is also available as an hourly Atom web feed.


title: Google Trends

text: Since 2008 there has been a sub-section of Google Trends which analyses traffic for websites, rather than traffic for search terms. This is a similar service to that provided by Alexa Internet.


title: Google Trends

text: The Google Trends for Websites became unavailable after the September 27, 2012, release of the new Google Trends product.


title: Google Trends

text: An API to accompany the Google Trends service was announced by Marissa Mayer, then vice president of search-products and user experience at Google. This was announced in 2007, and so far has not been released.


title: Google Trends

text: A group of researchers at Wellesley College examined data from Google Trends and analyzed how effective a tool it could be in predicting U.S. Congress elections in 2008 and 2010. In highly contested races where data for both candidates were available, the data successfully predicted the outcome in 33.3% of cases in 2008 and 39% in 2010. The authors conclude that, compared to the traditional methods of election forecasting, incumbency and "New York Times" polls, and even in comparison with random chance, Google Trends did not prove to be a good predictor of either the 2008 or 2010 elections. Another group has also explored possible implications for financial markets and suggested possible ways to combine insights from Google Trends with other concepts in technical analysis.


title: Kerry King

text: Kerry Ray King (born June 3, 1964) is an American musician, best known for being the co-lead guitarist and songwriter of thrash metal band Slayer. He co-founded the band with Jeff Hanneman in 1981 and remained a member for nearly four decades.


title: Kerry King

text: The youngest of three children, King was born and raised in Los Angeles, California. His father was an aircraft parts inspector, and his mother worked for the telephone company. He started learning guitar at the age of thirteen at his father's urging, saying "...my dad was trying to get me out of the wrong circles and give me a hobby." King attended three different high schools and had very good grades, even winning an award as his school's top math student in junior high. As the youngest child in the family, King says he was "spoilt" growing up. He learned guitar on his father's Gibson ES-175 and later had a Fender Stratocaster which he traded for a BC Rich Mockingbird, beginning a long relationship with BC Rich guitars. The first song he ever learned was Ted Nugent's "Cat Scratch Fever" and he soon became a major fan of Van Halen and Judas Priest, which had a major impact on his guitar playing.


title: Kerry King

text: King formed his first band with another guitarist who had been teaching him lessons, and this guitarist introduced him to Tom Araya. He discovered that he and Araya lived only a block away from each other, and they agreed to start jamming together. "Everything began from that point", King has said of Slayer's origins. In 1981, King was at an audition for a southern rock band which Jeff Hanneman was also auditioning for. King heard Hanneman playing guitar near the reception desk and approached him, soon learning that they liked a lot of the same music, and they decided to jam together. The pair enjoyed playing together and decided to start their own band with Araya and a neighborhood drummer named Dave Lombardo, which would soon evolve into Slayer. King, along with Araya, remained in Slayer for the entire length of the band's career, from 1981 to 2019.


title: Kerry King

text: In 1984, King was invited by ex-Metallica guitarist Dave Mustaine to join his new band Megadeth. Slayer's future was briefly in doubt as King played several shows with Megadeth, though he ultimately did not join full-time due to his commitment to Slayer. He still lived with his parents and has said that the desire to not spend time at home with his family caused him to spend more time rehearsing with the band, which helped his musicianship improve tremendously.


title: Kerry King

text: King says at that time their music was viewed simply as heavy metal and the term "thrash" emerged later. He was becoming heavily influenced by the band Venom, which helped shape Slayer's dark image. King says that after releasing "Haunting The Chapel" and "Hell Awaits" and seeing the band's audience grow steadily, he knew Slayer would be his career. The controversy surrounding Slayer's 1986 song "Angel Of Death" fueled King to dedicate himself to songwriting. "I think, on the whole, that mankind is full of fucking idiots. In a nutshell, our lyrics just say 'think'. That's it", he said of the unwanted "Angel of Death" attention.


title: Kerry King

text: Slayer fared better than most bands after heavy metal's dramatic decline in the 1990s, which King describes as "the fuckin' Limp Bizkit era". King almost stopped writing music entirely due to how offensive he believed the music scene had become at that time. "I couldn't understand why anybody would make music like that, let alone like it. That was definitely my darkest time as a musician, and that definitely showed up on "Diabolus in Musica"... through my lack of involvement", he has said.


title: Kerry King

text: In addition to appearing on Slayer's albums, he has also made several guest appearances for other artists. While lending production to 1986's "Reign in Blood", Rick Rubin was also helping with the production of the Beastie Boys' debut album "Licensed to Ill". Rubin felt the track "No Sleep till Brooklyn" needed a guitar solo, so he called in King to lay down the part. King has since commented that his playing ability "certainly wasn't that of a virtuoso". The video for "No Sleep till Brooklyn", whose title was a spoof on Motörhead's 1981 live album "No Sleep 'til Hammersmith", was originally intended to feature King being knocked offstage by a gorilla, although King refused. King replied, "If there's gonna be anyone knocking anyone offstage, it'll be me knocking the gorilla", which was what subsequently happened.


title: Kerry King

text: On "Licensed to Ill", King also played the guitar solo on the song "Fight For Your Right (To Party)".


title: Kerry King

text: King contributed the main lead guitar solo and outro part to Pantera's song "Goddamn Electric", which appeared on the 2000 album, "Reinventing the Steel". King's rig was set up in Pantera's bathroom backstage just after Ozzfest in Dallas, as the group still did not have their own dressing room, on top of not appearing on the festival bill. King has also made several guest appearances on Marilyn Manson's Rape of the World Tour, joining the band to play tracks such as "Little Horn", "1996" and "Irresponsible Hate Anthem". Many fans noticed elements of King's own style used on these occasions. On October 21, 2010, the final date of the Jägermeister Music Tour, King joined Megadeth on stage at the Gibson Amphitheater in Hollywood to perform "Rattlehead" which was the first time in 26 years that King had shared the stage with Megadeth (King had been a touring substitute for a few months in 1984).


title: Kerry King

text: He made an appearance in the 2009 movie "Brooklyn's Finest" as a member of SWAT team led by Ethan Hawke's character. In 2022, he appeared in the movie "Studio 666" as Krug.