title: Amarnath Temple

text: Every year, thousands of central armed forces and state police personnel are deployed to provide security to pilgrims from potential terror threats. The forces position at various halts and also in the perimeter of the shrine. This includes CRPF, BSF, ITBP, NDRF/SDRF and state police and traffic police.


title: Amarnath Temple

text: The number of pilgrims in 1989 varies between 12,000, 20,000 and 30,000 according to different accounts, to over 400,000 in 2007. The pilgrimage reached a peak in 2011 when the site received about 634,000 people. The number was 622,000 in 2012 and 350,000 in 2013. In 2018 the number of pilgrims were 285,006.


title: Amarnath Temple

text: Pilgrims have to pre-register and are allotted quotas according to state. States compromising a majority of the allotment include Uttar Pradesh, Punjab, Gujarat, Maharashtra and West Bengal.


title: Amarnath Temple

text: Sir Walter Roper Lawrence in "The Valley of Kashmir" (1895) writes that the difficulty of pilgrimage route affected the weak and sick, with many also falling victims to cholera. In 1928, over 500 pilgrims and mules died on the way to the cave. In 1969 a cloudburst resulted in the death of 40 pilgrims. The 1996 Amarnath Yatra tragedy involved the death of 243 pilgrims due to exhaustion and exposure. In July 2012, 12 pilgrims were killed in a road accident. The pilgrims were part of a team who had set up a community kitchen at the pilgrimage. Three people were killed and more injured due to a cloudburst at Baltal in 2015. Of the 622,000 yatra pilgrims in 2012, 130 died during the yatra. The major cause was attributed to people who were not physically fit for the arduous climb, high elevations, and adverse weather undertook the yatra. Some also died in road accidents before reaching the base camp from where the yatra starts. Of the 130 deaths, 88 were due to purported health reasons and 42 in road accidents. On 16 July 2017, 18 pilgrims died and many were seriously injured after a JKSRTC bus, which was plying from Jammu city to Pahalgam as part of Amarnath Yatra Convoy, fell into a 150-ft deep gorge near Nachlana area of Jammu's Ramban district around 1:45 P.M. 16 pilgrims had died on the spot, while 2 succumbed later to their injuries. This accident happened less than a week after a deadly terrorist attack on a bus carrying Amarnath Yatra pilgrims from Gujarat.


title: Amarnath Temple

text: On 8 July 2022, at around 5:30 pm, flash floods due to localised cloudburst near the holy cave shrine washed away scores of pilgrims. According to reports, at least fifteen pilgrims lost their lives in the incident. Jammu and Kashmir lieutenant-governor Manoj Sinha announced compensation of Rs 5 lakh each to the families of the 15 pilgrims who lost their lives in the flash floods.


title: Amarnath Temple

text: The first threat targeted against Amarnath pilgrims was in 1993; that year Pakistan-based Harkat-ul-Ansar had announced a ban due to demolition of Babri Masjid in the previous year. The pilgrimage however was mostly peacefully. The Harkat-ul-Mujahideen group imposed what it called a "ban" on the yatra in 1994, 1995 and 1998 while threatening the pilgrims of "serious consequences", however the pilgrimage did continue.


title: Amarnath Temple

text: On 2 August 2000, militants attacked the Nunwan base camp in Pahalgam. 32 people, including 21 unarmed Hindu pilgrims, 7 unarmed Muslim civilians and 3 security force officers, in a two hour long indiscriminate shoot, were killed. Among the dead were mostly pilgrims or porters and horsemen who were ferrying pilgrims. This attack was part of the larger 1-2 August 2000 Kashmir massacre in 5 separate coordinated terrorist attacks that killed at least 89 (official count) to 105 people (as reported by PTI), and injured at least 62 more. Then Indian Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee blamed Lashkar-e-Taiba for the killings.


title: Amarnath Temple

text: On 20 July 2001, a terrorist threw a grenade on a pilgrim night camp at Sheshnag near the Amarnath shrine in which at least 13 persons, including 3 women, were killed in two explosions and firing by militants, 2 were security officials and 3 of the killed person were Muslim civilians. 15 other were also injured in the attack.


title: Amarnath Temple

text: On 30 July and 6 August 2002, in two separate incidents terrorists from al-Mansuriyan, a front group of the Lashkar-e-Taiba, massacred 2 and 9 pilgrims and injured 3 and 27 people in Srinagar and near Nunwan pilgrimage base camp respectively.


title: Amarnath Temple

text: Eight Hindu pilgrims were killed on 10 July in a gun attack returning from Amarnath. The Pakistani outfit, the Lashkar-e-Taiba, was found responsible.


title: Amarnath Temple

text: The Amarnath pilgrimage was suspended in July 2016 due to the Kashmir unrest. A section of Sufis and Shias later demanded resumption of the Yatra. Kalbe Jawad, a Shia cleric and general secretary of Majlis-e-Ulama-e-Hind and Sufi cleric Hasnain Baqai expressed concern that the tradition had been suspended because of upheaval in Kashmir.


title: Amarnath Temple

text: The pilgrimage was suspended in August 2019 after the state government stated there was a threat of possible terrorist attacks. Similarly, the pilgrimage to Machail Mata was suspended as well. However, it was also speculated that the Yatra suspension might have been linked to the revocation of the special status of Jammu and Kashmir.


title: Amarnath Temple

text: On 22 April 2020, the Shri Amarnath Ji Shrine Board announced the suspension of the Yatra because of the COVID-19 pandemic in India. Later however it withdrew the press circular and announced cancellation of the suspension. Lieutenant Governor G. C. Murmu said that a final decision will be dependent on any future developments relating to the pandemic. In light of the pandemic, union territory government on 4 July announced that only 500 people will be permitted road travel to the shrine and everyone coming into the union territory of Jammu and Kashmir from outside will be tested for COVID-19, being quarantined until their reports come out to be negative. The pilgrimage was later cancelled on 21 July by the board due to the pandemic, with cases of coronavirus in the union territory increasing greatly since 1 July. Facilities for viewing the prayer ceremony online were made available.


title: Amarnath Temple

text: The shrine board on 27 March 2022 decided to resume the pilgrimage after a gap of two years, starting from 30 June and lasting for 43 days, while following protocols to prevent the spread of COVID.


title: Amarnath Temple

text: On 8 July, 2022, At least 16 people were killed, over 40 missing, and dozens were injured while around 15000 pilgrims were stranded near the Amarnath Holy cave due to a flash flood triggered by a cloudburst near the Lidder Valley "en route" to the venerated cave. The Amarnath Yatra was halted due to the flash flood on 8th July for 3 days.


title: Amarnath Temple

text: On 26 May 2008, the Government of India and the state government of Jammu and Kashmir reached an agreement to transfer of forest land to the Shri Amarnathji Shrine Board (SASB) to set up temporary shelters and facilities for Hindu pilgrims. Kashmiri separatists opposed the move citing reasons that it will jeopardize the article 370 that gives separate identity to the people of Jammu and Kashmir and prevents any Indian citizen to settle in Kashmir. People in Kashmir staged widespread protests against this decision by government of India. Due to the protests, the J&K State government relented and reversed the decision to transfer land. As a result, Hindus in the Jammu region launched counter-agitations against this roll back.


title: Amarnath Temple

text: Environmentalists have expressed concern that the number of people participating in the Amarnath Yatra is having a negative impact on the area's ecology and some have expressed support for government regulated limits on the number of pilgrims permitted to make the trek. However no studies have been made nor has an environmental impact assessment done. As of date, the Government of India restricts travellers only on the basis on logistics, time window for the yatra and weather.


title: Amarnath Temple

text: The Government of Jammu and Kashmir had in 2010 issued a notification under the State Motor Vehicle Taxation Act 1957, under which vehicles going to Amarnath Yatra will have to pay a tax of 2,000 for seven days and 2,000 per day after that. Similar provisions were made for pilgrims going to Sri Mata Vaishno Devi under which they need to pay 2000 for a period of three days. India's central political party the Bharatiya Janata Party expressed its ire over imposition of entry fee and accused the then UPA led central government to direct the Jammu and Kashmir dispensation to desist from making attempts to "discriminate" between followers of various religions. BJP criticized the decision "as a reminiscent of Jizya imposed during Mughal period on Hindus," In response to the question in Lok Sabha (Lower house of the Indian Parliament) then Minister of State for Finance, S. S. Palanimanickam clarified that tax is levied on all India Tourist Vehicles entering the state and is therefore not correct to say that Government of Jammu & Kashmir is levying any additional tax on vehicles going to Amarnath and Vaishno Devi. He also said that Taxation of Motor vehicles falls under the purview of State Governments as per the seventh schedule of Constitution of India and Central Government cannot direct the State Government to change the tax rate on vehicles.


title: Amarnath Temple

text: Famous Santoor artist Rahul Sharma named a track after Amarnath Cave temple as "Shiva Linga: The Amarnath Cave"


title: Guppy

text: The guppy (), also known as millionfish and rainbow fish, is one of the world's most widely distributed tropical fish and one of the most popular freshwater aquarium fish species. It is a member of the family Poeciliidae and, like almost all American members of the family, is live-bearing. Guppies originate from northeast South America, but have been introduced to many environments and are now found all over the world. They are highly adaptable and thrive in many different environmental and ecological conditions. Male guppies, which are smaller than females, have ornamental caudal and dorsal fins. Wild guppies generally feed on a variety of food sources, including benthic algae and aquatic insect larvae. Guppies are used as a model organism in the fields of ecology, evolution, and behavioural studies.


title: Guppy

text: Guppies were first described in Venezuela as "Poecilia reticulata" by Wilhelm Peters in 1859 and as "Lebistes poecilioides" in Barbados by De Filippi in 1861. It was named "Girardinus guppii" by Albert Günther in honor of Robert John Lechmere Guppy, who sent specimens of the species from Trinidad to the Natural History Museum in London. It was reclassified as "Lebistes reticulatus" by Regan in 1913. Then in 1963, Rosen and Bailey brought it back to its original name, "Poecilia reticulata". While the taxonomy of the species was frequently changed and resulted in many synonyms, "guppy" remains the common name even as "Girardinus guppii" is now considered a junior synonym of "Poecilia reticulata".


title: Guppy

text: Guppies are native to Antigua and Barbuda, Barbados, Suriname, Guyana, Trinidad and Tobago, and Venezuela. However, guppies have been introduced to many different countries on every continent except Antarctica. Sometimes this has occurred accidentally, but most often as a means of mosquito control. The guppies were expected to eat the mosquito larvae and help slow the spread of malaria, but in many cases, these guppies have had a negative impact on native fish populations. Field studies reveal that guppies have colonized almost every freshwater body accessible to them in their natural ranges, especially in the streams located near the coastal fringes of mainland South America. Although not typically found there, guppies also have tolerance to brackish water and have colonized some brackish environments. They tend to be more abundant in smaller streams and pools than in large, deep, or fast-flowing rivers. They also are capable of being acclimated to full saltwater as well as being used to cycle saltwater aquariums like their molly cousins.


title: Guppy

text: Guppies exhibit sexual dimorphism. While wild-type females are grey in body color, males have splashes, spots, or stripes that can be any of a wide variety of colors. The development and exhibiting of color patterns in male guppies is usually due to the amount of thyroid hormone that they contain. The thyroid hormones not only influence color pattern, but control endocrine function in response to their environment. The size of guppies vary, but males are typically long, while females are long.


title: Guppy

text: A variety of guppy strains are produced by breeders through selective breeding, characterized by different colours, patterns, shapes, and sizes of fins, such as snakeskin and grass varieties. Many domestic strains have morphological traits that are very distinct from the wild-type antecedents. Males and females of many domestic strains usually have larger body size and are much more lavishly ornamented than their wild-type antecedents.


title: Guppy

text: Guppies have 23 pairs of chromosomes, including one pair of sex chromosomes, the same number as humans. The genes responsible for male guppies' ornamentations are Y-chromosome linked and are heritable.


title: Guppy

text: Two generations of guppies per year occur in the wild. Guppies are well developed and capable of independent existence without further parental care by the time they are born. Young guppies school together and perform antipredator tactics. Brood size is extremely variable, yet some consistent differences exist among populations depending on the predation level and other factors. Females of matching body sizes tend to produce more numerous but smaller-sized offspring in high-predation conditions. Female guppies first produce offspring at 10–20 weeks of age, and they continue to reproduce until 20–34 months of age. Male guppies mature in 7 weeks or less. Total lifespan of guppies in the wild varies greatly, but it is typically around 2 years. Variations in such life historic characteristics of guppies are observed in different populations, indicating that different evolutionary pressures exist.


title: Guppy

text: Guppies' body sizes are positively correlated with age, and their size at maturation varies highly depending on the predation risk of the occupied environments. Male and female guppies from high-predation regions mature faster and start reproducing earlier, and they devote more resources to reproduction than those from low-predation regions. Females from high-predation regions reproduce more frequently and produce more offspring per litter, indicating that they are more fecund than low-predation females. Female guppies' reproductive success is also related to age. Older females produce offspring with reduced size and at increased interbrood intervals.


title: Guppy

text: One major factor that affects wild guppies' senescence patterns is the mortality rate caused by predation. Guppies from high-predation environments suffer high extrinsic mortality rate because they are more likely to be killed by predators. Female guppies from high-predation environments experience a significant increase in mortality at 6 months of age, while those from low-predation environments do not suffer increased mortality until 16 months. However, guppies from high-predation environments were found to have longer lifespans because their reproductive lifespans are longer. No significant difference is seen in postreproductive lifespans.


title: Guppy

text: In addition to senescence pattern, resource availability and density also matter in regulation of guppy populations. Guppies reduce their fecundity and reproductive allocation in response to scarce food. When food is abundant, they increase brood size. Differential reproductive allocation can be the cause of seasonality of life-history characteristics in some guppy populations. For example, during the wet season from May to December, guppies in the Northern Range of Trinidad reduce their investment in reproduction regardless of predation level, possibly in response to decreased food resources. Population density also matters in simpler environments because higher intraspecific competition causes a decrease in reproductive rate and somatic growth rate, and a corresponding increase in juvenile mortality rate due to cannibalism. It was confirmed that in low-predation environments, guppy populations are in part regulated by density.


title: Guppy

text: Guppies have the mating system called polyandry, where females mate with multiple males. Multiple mating is beneficial for males because the males' reproductive success is directly related to how many times they mate. The cost of multiple mating for males is very low because they do not provide material benefit to the females or parental care to the offspring. Conversely, multiple mating can be disadvantageous for females because it reduces foraging efficiency and increases the chances of predation and parasitic infection. However, females gain some potential benefits from multiple mating. For example, females that mate multiply are found to be able to produce more offspring in shorter gestation time, and their offspring tend to have better qualities such as enhanced schooling and predator evasion abilities.


title: Guppy

text: Female guppies mate again more actively and delay the development of a brood when the anticipated second mate is more attractive than the first male. Experiments show that remating females prefer a novel male to the original male or a brother of the original male with similar phenotypes. Females' preference for novel males in remating can explain the excessive phenotypic polymorphism in male guppies.


title: Guppy

text: Inbreeding ordinarily has negative fitness consequences (inbreeding depression), and as a result species have evolved mechanisms to avoid inbreeding. Inbreeding depression is considered to be due largely to the expression of homozygous deleterious recessive mutations. Numerous inbreeding avoidance mechanisms operating prior to mating have been described. However, inbreeding avoidance mechanisms that operate subsequent to copulation are less well known. In guppies, a post-copulatory mechanism of inbreeding avoidance occurs based on competition between sperm of rival males for achieving fertilization. In competitions between sperm from an unrelated male and from a full sibling male, a significant bias in paternity towards the unrelated male was observed.


title: Guppy

text: Female guppy choice plays an important role in multiple mating. Female guppies are attracted to brightly colored males, especially ones with orange spots on the flank. Orange spots can serve as an indicator of better physical fitness, as orange-spotted males are observed to swim longer in a strong current. There is also the concept of color association to possibly explain mate choice since one of the food sources wild guppies compete vigorously for is the fruit of cabrehash trees ("Sloanea laurifolia"), an orange carotenoid-containing fruit. The orange coloration that female guppies select for in males is composed of carotenoids, the saturation of which is affected by the male's carotenoid ingestion and parasite load. Guppies cannot synthesize these pigments by themselves and must obtain them through their diet. Because of this connection, females are possibly selecting for healthy males with superior foraging abilities by choosing mates with bright orange carotinoid pigments, thus increasing the survival chance of her offspring. Due to the advantage in mating, male guppies evolve to have more ornamentation across generations in low-predation environments where the cost of being conspicuous is lower. The rate and duration of courtship display of male guppies also play an important role in female guppies' mating choice. Courtship behavior is another indicator of fitness due to the physical strength involved in maintaining the courtship dance, called sigmoid display, in which the males flex their bodies into an "S" shape and vibrate rapidly.


title: Guppy

text: Female mating choice may also be influenced by another female's choice. In an experiment, female guppies watched two males, one solitary and the other actively courting another female, and were given a choice between the two. Most females spent a longer time next to the male that was courting. Female guppies' preference for fit males allows their descendants to inherit better physical fitness and better chance of survival.


title: Guppy

text: Guppies have many predators, such as larger fish and birds, in their native range. Some of their common predators in the wild are "Crenicichla alta", "Anablepsoides hartii", and "Aequidens pulcher". Guppies' small bodies and the bright coloration of males make them easy prey, and like many fish, they often school together to avoid predation. Schooling is more favored by evolution in populations of guppies under high predation pressure, exerted either by predator type or predator density. Coloration of guppies also evolves differentially in response to predation. Male guppies that are brighter in color have an advantage in mating as they attract more females in general, but they have a higher risk of being noticed by predators than duller males. Male guppies evolve to be more dull in color and have fewer, smaller spots under intense predation both in wild and in laboratory settings. Female guppies in a high-predation environment also evolve to prefer brightly colored males less, often rejecting them.


title: Guppy

text: When guppies encounter a potential predator, some of them approach the predator to assess danger. This behavior, called predator inspection, benefits the inspector since it gains information, but puts the inspector at a risk of predation. To reduce the risk, inspectors avoid the predator's mouth area—called the 'attack cone'—and approach the predator from the side or back. They may also form a group for protection, the size of which is larger in high-predation populations. Although evidence indicates predators are less likely to attack an inspector than a non-inspector, the inspectors remain at higher risk due to proximity to the predator.


title: Guppy

text: Risk-taking behaviors such as predator inspection can be evolutionarily stable only when a mechanism prevents selfish individuals from taking advantage of "altruistic" individuals. Guppies may adopt a conditional-approach strategy that resembles tit for tat. According to this hypothesis, guppies would inspect the predator on the first move, but if their co-inspectors do not participate in the predator inspection visits or do not approach the predator close enough, they can retaliate at the trailers by copying the trailer's last move in the next predator inspection visit. The hypothesis was supported in laboratory experiments.


title: Guppy

text: When guppies detect a predator, their irises rapidly darken from silver to jet black, which draws predators to attack the guppies' head instead of their body's center of mass. Perhaps counterintuitively, this predator divertive behavior allows guppies to rapidly pivot out of the way as predators lunge where the guppies' head was; this "matador-like" anti-predator behavior was first described in guppies but may be found in other animal species with bright, attention-grabbing coloration located on vital organs, such as epaulette sharks.


title: Guppy

text: Guppies are also host to a range of parasites and one of these, "Gyrodactylus turnbulli", has been used as a model system for studying host-parasite interactions. Recent work on this has shown that the interaction between exposure to chronic anthropogenic noise and "G. turnbulli" can decrease guppy survival. While a short burst of underwater noise has positive effects on parasite densities on the host. Most likely resulting in negative fitness effects for guppies.


title: Guppy

text: Wild guppies feed on algal remains, diatoms, invertebrates, zooplankton, detritus, plant fragments, mineral particles, aquatic insect larvae, and other sources. Algal remains constitute the biggest proportion of wild guppy diet in most cases, but diets vary depending on the specific conditions of food availability in the habitat. For example, a study on wild Trinidad guppies showed that guppies collected from an oligotrophic upstream region (upper Aripo River) mainly consumed invertebrates, while guppies from a eutrophic downstream region (lower Tacarigua River) consumed mostly diatoms and mineral particles. Algae are less nutritious than invertebrates, and the guppies that feed mainly on algae have poor diets.


title: Guppy

text: Guppies' diet preference is not simply correlated to the abundance of a particular food. Laboratory experiments confirmed that guppies show 'diet switching' behavior, in which they feed disproportionately on the more abundant food when they are offered two food choices. The result shows that different groups of guppies have weak and variable food preference. Diet preference in guppies could be related to factors such as the presence of competitors. For example, the lower Tacarigua River has a larger variety of species and competition for invertebrate prey is higher; therefore, the proportion of invertebrates is small in the diets of those guppies.


title: Guppy

text: Guppies often forage in groups because they can find food more easily. Shoaling guppies spend less time and energy on antipredatory behavior than solitary ones and spend more time on feeding. However, such behavior results in food that is found being shared with other members of the group. Studies also show when an evolutionary cost exists, guppies that tend to shoal are less aggressive and less competitive with regards to scarce resources. Therefore, shoaling is preferred in high-predation regions, but not in low-predation regions. When guppies with a high tendency to shoal were isolated from high-predation regions and were relocated to predator-free environments, over time, they decreased their shoaling behavior, supporting the hypothesis that shoaling is less preferred in low-predation environments.


title: Guppy

text: Guppies are highly prolific livebearers. The gestation period of guppies varies considerably, ranging from 20 to 60 days at 25 to 27 C and depending on several environmental factors. Reproduction typically continues through the year, and the female becomes ready for conception again quickly after parturition. Male guppies, like other members of the family Poeciliidae, possess a modified tubular anal fin called the gonopodium, located directly behind the ventral fin. The gonopodium has a channel-like structure through which bundles of spermatozoa, called spermatozeugmata, are transferred to females. In courted mating, where the female shows receptive behavior following the male's courtship display, the male briefly inserts the gonopodium into the female's genital pore for internal fertilization. However, in the case of sneaky mating where copulation is forced, the male approaches the female and thrusts the gonopodium at the female's urogenital pore.


title: Guppy

text: Once inseminated, female guppies can store sperm in their ovaries and gonoducts, which can continue to fertilize ova up to eight months. Because of the sperm-storage mechanism, males are capable of posthumous reproduction, meaning the female mate can give birth to the male's offspring long after the male's death, which contributes significantly to the reproductive dynamics of the wild guppy populations.


title: Guppy

text: The guppy has been successfully hybridised with various species of molly ("Poecilia latipinna" or "P. velifera"), e.g., male guppy and female molly. However, the hybrids are always male and appear to be infertile. The guppy has also been hybridised with the Endler's livebearer ("Poecilia wingei") to produce fertile offspring, with the suggestion that, despite physical and behavioural differences, Endler's may represent a subspecies of "Poecilia reticulata" rather than a distinct species.


title: Guppy

text: Due to the extensive selective breeding of guppies for desirable traits such as greater size and colour, some strains of the fish have become less hardy than their wild counterparts. Immense inbreeding of guppies has been found to affect body size, fertility and susceptibility to diseases.


title: Guppy

text: Guppies prefer a hard-water aquarium with a temperature between and salt levels equivalent to one tablespoon per . They can withstand levels of salinity up to 150% that of normal seawater, which has led to them being occasionally included in marine tropical community tanks, as well as in freshwater tropical tanks. Guppies are generally peaceful, though nipping behaviour is sometimes exhibited between male guppies or towards other top swimmers like members of the genus "Xiphophorus" (platies and swordtails), and occasionally other fish with prominent fins, such as angelfish. Guppies should not be kept as a single fish in an aquarium because both males and females show signs of shoaling, and are usually found in large groups in the wild. Its most famous characteristic is its propensity for breeding, and it can breed in both freshwater and marine aquaria.


title: Guppy

text: Guppies prefer water temperatures around for reproduction. Pregnant female guppies have enlarged and darkened gravid spots near their anal vents. Just before birth, the eyes of fry may be seen through the translucent skin in this area of the female's body. When birth occurs, individual offspring are dropped in sequence, typically over a period of one to six hours. The female guppy has drops of two to 200 fry at a time, typically ranging between 30 and 60.


title: Guppy

text: Well-fed adults do not often eat their own young, although sometimes safe zones are required for the fry. Specially designed livebearer birthing tanks, which can be suspended inside the aquarium, are available from aquatic retailers. These also serve to shield the pregnant female from further attention from the males, which is important because the males sometimes attack the females while they are giving birth. It also provides a separate area for the newborn young as protection from being eaten by their mother. However, if a female is put in the breeder box too early, it may cause her to have a miscarriage. Well-planted tanks that offer barriers to adult guppies shelter the young quite well. Guppy grass, water sprite, water wisteria, duckweed, and java moss are all good choices. A continuous supply of live food, such as "Daphnia" or brine shrimp, keep adult fish full and may spare the fry when they are born. Young fry take roughly three or four months to reach maturity. Feeding fry live foods, such as baby brine shrimp, microworms, infusoria and vinegar eels, is recommended. Alternatives include finely ground flake food, egg yolk, and liquid fish food, though the particulates in these may be too large for the youngest fry to eat.


title: Mike Leigh

text: Mike Leigh (born 20 February 1943) is an English film and theatre director, screenwriter and playwright. He studied at the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art (RADA) and further at the Camberwell School of Art, the Central School of Art and Design and the London School of Film Technique. He began his career as a theatre director and playwright in the mid-1960s, before transitioning to making televised plays and films for BBC Television in the 1970s and '80s. Leigh is known for his lengthy rehearsal and improvisation techniques with actors to build characters and narrative for his films. His purpose is to capture reality and present "emotional, subjective, intuitive, instinctive, vulnerable films." His films and stage plays, according to critic Michael Coveney, "comprise a distinctive, homogenous body of work which stands comparison with anyone's in the British theatre and cinema over the same period."


title: Mike Leigh

text: Leigh's most notable works include the black comedy-drama "Naked" (1993), for which he won the Best Director Award at Cannes, the Oscar-nominated, BAFTA- and Palme d'Or-winning drama "Secrets & Lies" (1996), the Golden Lion-winning working-class drama "Vera Drake" (2004), and the Palme d'Or-nominated biopic "Mr. Turner" (2014). Other well-known films include the comedy-dramas "Life Is Sweet" (1990) Meantime (1983) and "Career Girls" (1997), the Gilbert and Sullivan biographical film "Topsy-Turvy" (1999) and the bleak working-class drama "All or Nothing" (2002). He won great success with American audiences with the female led films, "Vera Drake" (2004) starring Imelda Staunton, "Happy-Go-Lucky" (2008) with Sally Hawkins, the family drama "Another Year" (2010), and the historical drama "Peterloo" (2018). His stage plays include "Smelling A Rat", "It's A Great Big Shame", "Greek Tragedy", "Goose-Pimples", "Ecstasy" and "Abigail's Party".


title: Mike Leigh

text: Leigh has helped to create stars – Liz Smith in "Hard Labour", Alison Steadman in "Abigail's Party", Brenda Blethyn in "Grown-Ups", Antony Sher in "Goose-Pimples", Gary Oldman and Tim Roth in "Meantime", Jane Horrocks in "Life is Sweet", David Thewlis in "Naked - "and remarked that the list of actors who have worked with him over the years - including Paul Jesson, Phil Daniels, Lindsay Duncan, Lesley Sharp, Kathy Burke, Stephen Rea, Julie Walters  - "comprises an impressive, almost representative, nucleus of outstanding British acting talent." His aesthetic has been compared to the sensibility of the Japanese director Yasujirō Ozu and the Italian Federico Fellini. Ian Buruma, writing in "The New York Review of Books" in January 1994, commented: "It is hard to get on a London bus or listen to the people at the next table in a cafeteria without thinking of Mike Leigh. Like other wholly original artists, he has staked out his own territory. Leigh's London is as distinctive as Fellini's Rome or Ozu's Tokyo."


title: Mike Leigh

text: Leigh was born to Phyllis Pauline ("née" Cousin) and Alfred Abraham Leigh, a doctor. Leigh was born at Brocket Hall in Welwyn Garden City, Hertfordshire, which was at that time a maternity home. His mother, in her confinement, went to stay with her parents in Hertfordshire for comfort and support while her husband was serving as a captain in the Royal Army Medical Corps. Leigh was brought up in the Broughton area of Salford, Lancashire. He attended North Grecian Street Junior School. He is from a Jewish family; his paternal grandparents were Russian-Jewish immigrants who settled in Manchester. The family name, originally Lieberman, had been anglicised in 1939 "for obvious reasons". When the war ended, Leigh's father began his career as a general practitioner in Higher Broughton, "the epicentre of Leigh's youngest years and the area memorialised in "Hard Labour"." Leigh went to Salford Grammar School, as did the director Les Blair, his friend, who produced Leigh's first feature film "Bleak Moments" (1971). There was a strong tradition of drama in the all-boys school, and an English master, Mr Nutter, supplied the library with newly published plays.


title: Mike Leigh

text: Outside school Leigh thrived in the Manchester branch of Labour Zionist youth movement Habonim. In the late 1950s he attended summer camps and winter activities over the Christmas break all round the country. Throughout this time the most important part of his artistic consumption was cinema, although this was supplemented by his discovery of Picasso, Surrealism, "The Goon Show", and even family visits to the Hallé Orchestra and the D'Oyly Carte. His father, however, was deeply opposed to the idea that Leigh might become an artist or an actor. He forbade him his frequent habit of sketching visitors who came to the house and regarded him as a problem child because of his creative interests. In 1960, "to his utter astonishment", he won a scholarship to RADA. Initially trained as an actor at RADA, Leigh started to hone his directing skills at East 15 Acting School where he met the actress Alison Steadman.


title: Mike Leigh

text: Leigh responded negatively to RADA's agenda, found himself being taught how to "laugh, cry and snog" for weekly rep purposes and so became a sullen student. He later attended Camberwell School of Arts and Crafts (in 1963), the Central School of Art and Design and the London School of Film Technique on Charlotte Street. When he had arrived in London, one of the first films he had seen was "Shadows" (1959), an improvised film by John Cassavetes, in which a cast of unknowns was observed 'living, loving and bickering' on the streets of New York and Leigh had "felt it might be possible to create complete plays from scratch with a group of actors." Other influences from this time included Harold Pinter's "The Caretaker"—"Leigh was mesmerised by the play and the (Arts Theatre) production"— Samuel Beckett, whose novels he read avidly, and the writing of Flann O'Brien, whose "tragi-comedy" Leigh found particularly appealing. Influential and important productions he saw in this period included Beckett's "Endgame", Peter Brook's "King Lear" and in 1965 Peter Weiss's "Marat/Sade", a production developed through improvisations, the actors having based their characterisations on people they had visited in a mental hospital. The visual worlds of Ronald Searle, George Grosz, Picasso, and William Hogarth exerted another kind of influence. He played small roles in several British films in the early 1960s, ("West 11", "Two Left Feet") and played a young deaf-mute, interrogated by Rupert Davies, in the BBC Television series "Maigret". In 1964–65, he collaborated with David Halliwell, and designed and directed the first production of "Little Malcolm and his Struggle Against the Eunuchs" at the Unity Theatre.


title: Mike Leigh

text: Leigh has been described as "a gifted cartoonist ... a northerner who came south, slightly chippy, fiercely proud (and critical) of his roots and Jewish background; and he is a child of the 1960s and of the explosion of interest in the European cinema and the possibilities of television."


title: Mike Leigh

text: In 1965, he went to work at the Midlands Art Centre in Birmingham as a resident assistant director and had the opportunity to start experimenting with the idea that writing and rehearsing could potentially be part of the same process. "The Box Play", a family scenario staged in a cage-like box, "absorbed all sorts of contemporary ideas in art such as the space frames of Roland Pichet..it was visually very exciting," and two more 'improvised' pieces followed.


title: Mike Leigh

text: After the Birmingham interlude he found a flat in Euston, where he lived for the next ten years. In 1966–67, he worked as an assistant director with the Royal Shakespeare Company on productions of "Macbeth", "Coriolanus", and "The Taming of the Shrew". He worked on an improvised play of his own with some professional actors called "NENAA", (an acronym for the North East New Arts Association), which explored the fantasies of a Tynesider working in a café, with ideas of founding an arts association in the northeast.


title: Mike Leigh

text: Leigh wrote, in 1970, "I saw that we must start off with a collection of totally unrelated characters (each one the specific creation of its actor) and then go through a process in which I must cause them to meet each other, and build a network of real relationships; the play would be drawn from the results." After Stratford-upon-Avon, Leigh directed a couple of London drama school productions that included Thomas Dekker's "The Honest Whore" at E15 Acting School in Loughton – where he met Alison Steadman for the first time. In 1968, wanting to return to Manchester, he sub-let his London flat and moved to Levenshulme. Taking up a part-time lectureship in a Catholic women teachers training college, Sedgley Park, he ran a drama course and devised and directed "Epilogue", focusing on a priest with doubts, and for the Manchester Youth Theatre he devised and directed two big-cast projects, "Big Basil" and "Glum Victoria and the Lad with Specs".


title: Mike Leigh

text: As the decade came to a close, Leigh knew he wanted to make films, and that "The manner of working was at last fixed. There would be discussions and rehearsals. Plays or films would develop organically with actors fully liberated into the creative process. After an exploratory improvisation period, Leigh would write a structure, indicating the order in which scenes happened, usually with a single bare sentence: Johnny and Sophie meet; Betty does Joy's hair; [etc.]. And it was rehearsed and rehearsed until it achieved the required quality of 'finish'."


title: Mike Leigh

text: In the 1970s, Leigh made nine television plays. Earlier plays such as "Nuts in May" and "Abigail's Party" tended more towards bleakly yet humorously satirising middle-class manners and attitudes. His plays are generally more caustic, stridently trying to show the banality of society. "Goose-Pimples" and "Abigail's Party" both focus on the vulgar middle class in a convivial party setting that spirals out of control. The television version of "Abigail's Party" was made at some speed, Steadman was pregnant at the time, and Leigh's objections to flaws in the production, particularly the lighting, led to his preference for theatrical films.


title: Mike Leigh

text: There was something of a hiatus in Leigh's career following the death of his father at the end of February 1985. Leigh was in Australia at the time – having agreed to attend a screenwriters' conference in Melbourne at the start of 1985, he had then accepted an invitation to teach at the Australian Film School in Sydney – and he then 'buried his solitude and sense of loss in a busy round of people, publicity and talks.' He gradually extended 'the long journey home' and went on to visit Bali, Singapore, Hong Kong, China. He said later, " The whole thing was an amazing, unforgettable period in my life. But it was all to do with personal feelings, my father, where to go next, and my desire to make a feature film. I felt I was at the end of one stage of my career and at the start of another."


title: Mike Leigh

text: His 1986 project codenamed 'Rhubarb', for which he had gathered actors in Blackburn, including Jane Horrocks, Julie Walters and David Thewlis, was cancelled after seven weeks' rehearsals and Leigh returned home. "The nature of what I do is totally creative, and you have to get in there and stick with it. The tension between the bourgeois suburban and the anarchist bohemian that is in my work is obviously in my life, too...I started to pull myself together. I didn't work, I simply stayed at home and looked after the boys." In 1987 Channel 4 put up some money for a short film and, with Portman Productions, agreed to co-produce Leigh's first feature film since "Bleak Moments."


title: Mike Leigh

text: In 1988, Mike Leigh and producer Simon Channing Williams founded Thin Man Films, a film production company based in London, to produce Mike Leigh's films. They chose the company name because both founders were the opposite of it. Later in 1988, he made "High Hopes", about a disjointed working-class family whose members live in a run-down flat and a council house. Leigh's subsequent films such as "Naked" and "Vera Drake" are somewhat starker, more brutal, and concentrate more on the working-class. His stage plays include "Smelling A Rat", "It's A Great Big Shame", "Greek Tragedy", "Goose-Pimples", "Ecstasy", and "Abigail's Party".


title: Mike Leigh

text: Throughout the 1990s, Leigh enjoyed his share of critical successes including such films as the comedy "Life is Sweet" (1990) starring Alison Steadman, Jim Broadbent, Timothy Spall, Claire Skinner, and Jane Horrocks. The film was his third feature film which follows a working-class North London family over a few weeks one summer. Film critic Philip French in "The Observer" defended the film against criticism that it was patronising: "Leigh has been called patronising. The charge is false. The Noël Coward/David Lean film "This Happy Breed", evoked by Leigh in several panning shots across suburban back gardens, is patronising. Coward and Lean pat their characters on the back...Leigh shakes them, hugs them, sometimes despairs over them, but never thinks that they are other than versions of ourselves." The film was nominated by the Independent Spirit Awards for Best International Film.


title: Mike Leigh

text: Leigh's fourth feature film was the black comedy "Naked" (1993), starring David Thewlis as a deranged intellectual and conspiracy theorist. The film premiered at the 46th Cannes Film Festival where it competed for the Palme d'Or and received wins for Best Director for Leigh and Best Actor for Thewlis. Derek Malcolm of "The Guardian" noted that the film "is certainly Leigh's most striking piece of cinema to date" and that "it tries to articulate what is wrong with the society that Mrs Thatcher claims does not exist."


title: Mike Leigh

text: In 1996, Leigh directed his fifth feature film the drama "Secrets & Lies" (1996). The film's ensemble featured a cast of Leigh regulars including Timothy Spall, Brenda Blethyn, Phyllis Logan, and Marianne Jean-Baptiste. The film premiered at the 1996 Cannes Film Festival where it received the Palme d'Or and the Best Actress award for Blethyn. The film was both a financial and critical success. Influential film critic Roger Ebert, writing for the "Chicago Sun-Times", gave "Secrets & Lies" four out of four stars. He wrote that "moment after moment, scene after scene, "Secrets & Lies" unfolds with the fascination of eavesdropping". He called the film "a flowering of his technique. It moves us on a human level, it keeps us guessing during scenes as unpredictable as life, and it shows us how ordinary people have a chance of somehow coping with their problems, which are rather ordinary, too." In 2009, he added the film to his "Great Movies" list. The film received five Academy Award nominations including Best Picture, and Best Director.


title: Mike Leigh

text: The anger inherent in Leigh's material, in some ways typical of the Thatcher years, softened after her departure from the political scene. In 2005, Leigh returned to directing for the stage after many years absence with his new play, "Two Thousand Years" at the Royal National Theatre in London. The play deals with the divisions within a left-wing secular Jewish family when one of the younger members finds religion. It is the first time Leigh has drawn on his Jewish background for inspiration.


title: Mike Leigh

text: In 2002, Leigh became chairman for his alma mater, London Film School. Leigh remained chair until March 2018, where he was succeeded by Greg Dyke.


title: Mike Leigh

text: In 2004, he directed ninth directorial feature film, "Vera Drake", a British period film about a working-class woman (Imelda Staunton), who performs illegal abortions during the 1950s. The film premiered at the 61st Venice International Film Festival to rapturous reviews where it won the Golden Lion for Best Film, and the Volpi Cup for Best Actress for Staunton. Review aggregator Rotten Tomatoes gave the film an approval rating of 92% with the consensus, "with a piercingly powerful performance by Imelda Staunton, "Vera Drake" brings teeming humanity to the controversial subject of abortion." The film received 11 British Academy Film Award nominations winning 3 awards for Best Director, Best Actress in a Leading Role and Best Costume Design. The film was also nominated for 3 Academy Awards for Best Director, Best Actress, and Best Screenplay.


title: Mike Leigh

text: In 2008, Leigh released his a modern-day comedy, "Happy-Go-Lucky" starring Sally Hawkins where it debuted at the Berlin International Film Festival where she won the Silver Bear for Best Actress. The film was a critical success with many praising Hawkins for her lead performance. She received many Awards including a Golden Globe Award for Best Actress – Motion Picture Comedy or Musical. That same year he was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature in 2008.


title: Mike Leigh

text: In 2010, Leigh released his film, "Another Year" starring Jim Broadbent, Ruth Sheen, and Lesley Manville. It premiered at the 2010 Cannes Film Festival in competition for the Palme d'Or. The film was shown at the 54th London Film Festival before its general British release date on 5 November 2010. The film was also a success in the United States with film critic Roger Ebert giving the film his highest rating, four out of four stars writing, "Not quite every year brings a new Mike Leigh film, but the years that do are blessed with his sympathy, penetrating observation, and instinct for human comedy...Leigh's "Another Year" is like a long, purifying soak in empathy." At the 83rd Academy Awards, Leigh was nominated for an Oscar for Best Original Screenplay losing to "The King's Speech".


title: Mike Leigh

text: Leigh released his twelfth feature film, the biographical period film "Mr. Turner" (2014) based on the life and artworks of J. M. W. Turner portrayed by Timothy Spall. The film premiered at the 2014 Cannes Film Festival where it competed for the Palme d'Or and won rave reviews, with many critics praising Spall's performance as the talented and tortured artist. Spall received the Cannes Film Festival Award for Best Actor Award and the film won the Vulcan Award for its cinematography by Dick Pope. "Observer" critic Mark Kermode described the film as a "portrait of a man wrestling light with his hands as if it were a physical element: tangible, malleable, corporeal". That year, Leigh joined "The Hollywood Reporter" for an hourlong roundtable discussion with other directors who had made films that year Richard Linklater ("Boyhood"), Bennett Miller ("Foxcatcher"), Morten Tyldum ("The Imitation Game"), Angelina Jolie ("Unbroken"), and Christopher Nolan ("Interstellar"). The film received four Academy Award nominations for its Cinematography, Production Design, Costume Design, and Costume Design.


title: Mike Leigh

text: In 2015, he accepted an offer from English National Opera to direct the Gilbert and Sullivan operetta "The Pirates of Penzance" (cond: David Parry, design: Alison Chitty, starring: Andrew Shore, Rebecca de Pont Davies and Jonathan Lemalu). The production then toured Europe, visiting Luxembourg (Les Théâtres de la Ville de Luxembourg), Caen (Théâtre de Caen) and Saarländisches Staatstheater.


title: Mike Leigh

text: In 2018, Leigh released another historical feature, "Peterloo", based on the 1819 Peterloo Massacre. The film was selected to be screened in the main competition section of the 75th Venice International Film Festival. The film was distributed in the UK by Entertainment One and in the US by Amazon Video. The film received mixed reviews with "The New York Times" called it a "brilliant and demanding film".


title: Mike Leigh

text: Leigh uses lengthy improvisations developed over a period of weeks to build characters and storylines for his films. He starts with some sketch ideas of how he thinks things might develop, but does not reveal all his intentions with the cast who discover their fate and act out their responses as their destinies are gradually revealed. Initial preparation is in private with the director and then the actors are introduced to each other in the order that their characters would have met in their lives. Intimate moments are explored that will not even be referred to in the final film to build insight and understanding of history, character and personal motivation. When an improvisation needs to be stopped, he says to the actors: 'Come out of character,' before they discuss what's happened or what might have happened in a situation.


title: Mike Leigh

text: Leigh begins his projects without a script, but starts from a basic premise that is developed through improvisation by the actors. Leigh initially works one-to-one with each actor, developing a character who is based, in the first place, on someone he or she knows. The critical scenes in the eventual story are performed and recorded in full-costumed, real-time improvisations where the actors encounter for the first time new characters, events or information which may dramatically affect their characters' lives. Final filming is more traditional as definite sense of story, action and dialogue is then in place. The director reminds the cast of material from the improvisations that he hopes to capture on film. "The world of the characters and their relationships is brought into existence by discussion and a great amount of improvisation ... And research into anything and everything that will fill out the authenticity of the character." It is after months of rehearsal, or 'preparing for going out on location to make up a film', that Leigh writes a shooting script, a bare scenario. Then, on location, after further 'real rehearsing', the script is finalized; "I'll set up an improvisation, ... I'll analyse and discuss it, ... we'll do another and I'll ... refine and refine... until the actions and dialogue are totally integrated. Then we shoot it."


title: Mike Leigh

text: In an interview with Laura Miller, "Listening to the World: An Interview With Mike Leigh", published on salon.com, Leigh states, "I make very stylistic films indeed, but style doesn't become a substitute for truth and reality. It's an integral, organic part of the whole thing." Leigh's vision is to depict ordinary life, "real life", unfolding under extenuating circumstances. Speaking of his films, he says, "No, I'm not an intellectual filmmaker. These are emotional, subjective, intuitive, instinctive, vulnerable films. And there's a feeling of despair...I think there's a feeling of chaos and disorder." He makes courageous decisions to document reality. He speaks about the criticism "Naked" received: "The criticism comes from the kind of quarters where "political correctness" in its worst manifestation is rife. It's this kind of naive notion of how we should be in an unrealistic and altogether unhealthily over-wholesome way."


title: Mike Leigh

text: Leigh's characters often struggle, "to express inexpressible feelings. Words are important, but rarely enough. The art of evasion and failure in communication certainly comes from Pinter, whom Leigh acknowledges as an important influence. He especially admires Pinter's earliest work and directed "The Caretaker" while still at RADA."


title: Mike Leigh

text: Leigh has cited Jean Renoir and Satyajit Ray among his favourite film makers. In addition to those two, in an interview recorded at the National Film Theatre at the BFI on 17 March 1991; Leigh also cited Frank Capra, Fritz Lang, Yasujirō Ozu and even Jean-Luc Godard, "...until the late 60s." When pressed for British influences, in that interview, he referred to the Ealing comedies "...despite their unconsciously patronizing way of portraying working class people" and the early 60s British New Wave films. When asked for his favorite comedies, he replied, "One, Two, Three", "La règle du jeu" and "any Keaton". The critic David Thomson has written that, with the camera work in his films characterised by 'a detached, medical watchfulness', Leigh's aesthetic may justly be compared to the sensibility of the Japanese director Yasujirō Ozu. Michael Coveney: "The cramped domestic interiors of Ozu find many echoes in Leigh's scenes on stairways and in corridors and on landings, especially in "Grown-Ups", "Meantime" and "Naked". And two wonderful little episodes in Ozu's "Tokyo Story", in a hairdressing salon and a bar, must have been in Leigh's subconscious memory when he made "The Short and Curlies" (1987), one of his most devastatingly funny pieces of work and the pub scene in "Life is Sweet"..."


title: Mike Leigh

text: In 2012 Leigh participated in the "Sight & Sound" film polls of that year. Held every ten years, to select the greatest films of all time, contemporary directors were asked to select ten films.


title: Mike Leigh

text: In September 1973, he married actress Alison Steadman; they have two sons: Toby (born February 1978) and Leo (born August 1981). Steadman appeared in seven of his films and several of his plays, including "Wholesome Glory" and "Abigail's Party". They divorced in 2001. He then lived in central London with the actress Marion Bailey.


title: Mike Leigh

text: Leigh is an atheist and a Distinguished Supporter of Humanists UK. He is also a republican (anti-monarchist). In 2014, Leigh publicly backed "Hacked Off" and its campaign for UK press self-regulation by "safeguarding the press from political interference while also giving vital protection to the vulnerable."


title: Mike Leigh

text: In November 2019, along with other public figures, Leigh signed a letter supporting Labour Party leader Jeremy Corbyn describing him as "a beacon of hope in the struggle against emergent far-right nationalism, xenophobia and racism in much of the democratic world" and endorsed him ahead of the 2019 UK general election. In December 2019, along with 42 other leading cultural figures, he signed a letter endorsing the Labour Party under Corbyn's leadership in the 2019 general election. The letter stated that "Labour's election manifesto under Jeremy Corbyn's leadership offers a transformative plan that prioritises the needs of people and the planet over private profit and the vested interests of a few."


title: Mike Leigh

text: Leigh has been nominated at the Academy Awards seven times: twice each for "Secrets & Lies" and "Vera Drake" (Best Original Screenplay and Best Director) and once for "Topsy-Turvy", "Happy-Go-Lucky", and "Another Year" (Best Original Screenplay only). Leigh has also won several prizes at major European film festivals. Most notably, he won the Best Director award at Cannes for "Naked" in 1993 and the Palme d'Or in 1996 for "Secrets & Lies". He won the Leone d'Oro for the best film at the International Venice Film Festival in 2004 with "Vera Drake".


title: Mike Leigh

text: He was appointed an Officer of the Order of the British Empire (OBE) in the 1993 Birthday Honours, for services to the film industry.


title: Schoolboy Q

text: Quincy Matthew Hanley (born October 26, 1986), better known by his stage name Schoolboy Q (stylized as ScHoolboy Q), is an American rapper. In 2009, Hanley signed to Carson-based independent record label Top Dawg Entertainment (TDE) and in late 2011, secured a recording contract with major label Interscope Records. Hanley is also a member of the hip-hop supergroup Black Hippy, alongside label-mates and fellow California-based rappers Ab-Soul, Jay Rock, and Kendrick Lamar.


title: Schoolboy Q

text: In 2008, Hanley released his first full-length project, a mixtape titled "ScHoolboy Turned Hustla". He later released a follow-up in 2009, titled "Gangsta & Soul". He then returned in January 2011, with his first independent album, titled "Setbacks". The project, released under TDE, to digital retailers only, reached number 100 on the US "Billboard" 200 chart. A little over a year later, his second independent album "Habits & Contradictions", was also released exclusively to digital retailers. The album received generally favorable reviews and debuted at number 111 on the US "Billboard" 200.


title: Schoolboy Q

text: After signing with Interscope, Hanley subsequently began recording his major-label debut studio album, titled "Oxymoron" (2014). The album debuted at number one on the US "Billboard" 200 and was preceded by the singles "Collard Greens" (featuring Kendrick Lamar), "Man of the Year", "Studio" (featuring BJ the Chicago Kid) and "Hell of a Night". The first three singles all charted on the US "Billboard" Hot 100 chart, with "Studio" remaining his best-performing as a lead artist to date.


title: Schoolboy Q

text: Quincy Matthew Hanley was born October 26, 1986, on a United States Army air base in Wiesbaden, West Germany, to an African-American mother and a Honduran-American father. His parents divorced before he was born, and his mother gave him a surname different from those of either of his parents, choosing one at random. His father remained in the Army while Hanley and his mother moved to Texas for a couple years, before settling in South Central Los Angeles, on 51st Street, neighboring Figueroa and Hoover Street.


title: Schoolboy Q

text: Hanley played American football from the age of six until he was 21, and played receiver, cornerback, tailback, and returner. He attended John Muir Middle School. After graduating Crenshaw High School, Hanley went on to attend Glendale Community College, Los Angeles City College, Los Angeles Southwest College and West Los Angeles College.


title: Schoolboy Q

text: Growing up on Hoover Street, Hanley joined the 52 Hoover Gangster Crips: "I was gang-banging at 12. I was a Hoover Crip. My homies were doing it and I wanted to do it. I can't really explain that. I didn't get into it with another hood or anything like that. I was just following the leader." Before turning to music, Hanley became a drug dealer selling Oxycontin, and for a short time crack cocaine and marijuana. In 2007, he was arrested for home invasion and sent to jail for six months, half of which he finished on house arrest.


title: Schoolboy Q

text: Hanley has said he wrote his first verse when he was 16, but was not serious about music until he was 21. Music became his way of expressing himself. In 2006, he began to work with Top Dawg Entertainment (TDE), a Carson-based independent record label, recording at their studio House of Pain and collaborating with their artists. His first time at TDE's studio, Hanley worked with his soon to be Black Hippy cohorts Jay Rock and Ab-Soul. This eventually led to Hanley signing a recording contract with TDE. On July 29, 2008, Hanley released his first mixtape titled "Schoolboy Turned Hustla", with G.E.D. Inc., the same imprint that helped launch the career of fellow West Coast rapper Tyga, with whom Schoolboy Q worked with early in their respective careers. After the release of "Schoolboy Turned Hustla", he signed a deal with Top Dawg Entertainment in 2009, where he later formed Black Hippy, with fellow label-mates and frequent collaborators, Kendrick Lamar, Jay Rock and Ab-Soul.


title: Schoolboy Q

text: In 2009, Hanley was involved in a short-lived rivalry with fellow West Coast rapper 40 Glocc. Hanley released a diss track titled "Ezell (40 Glocc Killa)", where he questions 40 Glocc's gang-banging. Hanley later stated in a video interview as to why they were "beefing": "He made some false statements about my boy, Tyga, that's my little brother. He did a lot of fake stuff with Wayne, a lot of lies, rumors and childish shit that I really didn't like, and I really felt disrespected by this clown saying all this shit so I just had to like air it out". He went on to say "It's over with, I did what I did, I said what I said and I won't diss him no more, because it's obvious he ain't on my level...so why categorize myself with a loser?". Hanley released "Gangsta & Soul", his second mixtape on May 14, 2009, which included the aforementioned diss track. The mixtape was his first official project with Top Dawg Entertainment, which presented the mixtape alongside G.E.D. Inc.


title: Schoolboy Q

text: Although Hanley did not release a project, 2010 had him touring and in the studio working with the rest of Black Hippy and on his then-upcoming project "Setbacks". On January 11, 2011, TDE released "Setbacks", his first independent album, exclusively through iTunes, to critical acclaim. The album reached number 100 on the US "Billboard" 200 chart, selling close to 1,000 digital copies in its first abbreviated week. Two weeks after the album's release, Hanley took to Twitter and gave the album away for free. By the time Schoolboy Q's first album "Setbacks" was released in early 2011, he'd quit gangbanging altogether.


title: Schoolboy Q

text: "Setbacks" propelled Hanley into the spotlight and allowed him to earn a large internet following. Hanley headlined his first show on March 11, 2011, at the Key Club in West Hollywood, California. In March 2011, Hanley was arrested at the 2011 South by Southwest music festival and explained that he was ultimately jailed because of marijuana possession.


title: Schoolboy Q

text: "Habits & Contradictions" was released in 2012 through iTunes, with only a few hard copies being sold and signed by Schoolboy Q in L.A. In early hours of release, the album moved up to iTunes Top 10 Albums chart and stayed over within days after release. The album debuted at #111 on the US "Billboard" 200 chart, with first-week sales of 3,900 digital copies in the United States. With only two days at retail the Top Dawg Entertainment release scanned nearly 4,000 units to crack the Top 100, without any marketing or advertising. The album also debuted on the Top R&B/Hip-Hop Albums at number twenty-five, Top Rap Albums at number sixteen, Top Independent Albums at number seventeen and at number three on the Top Heatseekers album chart respectively. Music videos for "Hands on the Wheel" with ASAP Rocky, "NigHtmare on Figg St.", and "Druggys wit Hoes Again" with Ab-Soul, followed the album's release.


title: Schoolboy Q

text: In 2012, Top Dawg Entertainment closed a joint venture deal with Interscope Records and Aftermath Entertainment, marking the end of Hanley's career as an independent artist. On April 3, 2012, Interscope Records released "Hands on the Wheel" as a promotional single via iTunes and began promoting the song at Urban and Rhythmic radio formats in North America.


title: Schoolboy Q

text: In June 2012, Hanley revealed he had begun working on his major label debut, and announced he will be the second member of Black Hippy to release his commercial debut with Interscope, following Kendrick Lamar. From September to November, Hanley appeared alongside Danny Brown and ASAP Mob as supporting acts for ASAP Rocky's 40-date national Long. Live. ASAP Tour. Also Hanley toured with rappers Wiz Khalifa, Mac Miller and Kendrick Lamar on the Under The Influence Tour. In a November 2012 interview, Hanley expressed "Kendrick [Lamar] left me no choice but to drop a classic", referring to Lamar's debut "good kid, m.A.A.d city" and its impact on his own respective major label debut.


title: Schoolboy Q

text: In June 2013, Schoolboy Q performed at the 2013 BET Experience Music festival, with Kendrick Lamar, Snoop Dogg and Miguel, immediately preceding the BET Awards show. On June 11, 2013, Schoolboy Q released "Collard Greens", the lead single from his debut album "Oxymoron". In July 2013, for their 53rd issue, "Mass Appeal" called on photographer/director 13thWitness, to shoot Schoolboy Q, alongside friend and fellow American rapper Mac Miller, for their cover story. In the story, the two speak on how they met, their comedic relationship and their respective futures. On August 7, 2013, Hanley appeared on BET's "106 & Park", to premiere the music video for "Collard Greens. On August 27, 2013 Hanley appeared on "The Tonight Show with Jay Leno", alongside Macklemore and Ryan Lewis, to perform "White Walls", the sixth single from the duo's platinum-selling debut album "The Heist", which was released in October 2012.


title: Schoolboy Q

text: In October 2013, at the BET Hip Hop Awards, Schoolboy Q performed "Collard Greens", his debut album's lead single. Schoolboy Q also appeared alongside his Top Dawg label-mates Kendrick Lamar, Jay Rock, Ab-Soul and Isaiah Rashad, in a cypher presented by BET. On November 5, 2013, it was revealed Schoolboy Q would appear on the soundtrack to the 2013 video game "NBA Live 14". A snippet of the song, which is titled "Man of the Year", first surfaced with the release of the music video for Kendrick Lamar's single "Bitch Don't Kill My Vibe". On November 23, 2013, the song was released as a single via the iTunes Store. With the release of the 2014 Grammy Nominations, Q was nominated for Album of the Year for his participation on Macklemore and Ryan Lewis' album, "The Heist".


title: Schoolboy Q

text: On January 24, 2014, Schoolboy Q made his network television debut, performing "Man of the Year" on NBC's "Late Night with Jimmy Fallon". In January 2014, Schoolboy Q announced a three-month tour in support of his major-label debut, set to begin March 1, in Providence, Rhode Island. The tour run came to a close on June 1, in Manchester, England. Schoolboy Q's Top Dawg label-mate Isaiah Rashad and fellow American rapper Vince Staples, made appearances to support Q in domestic dates. Rashad, also supported Q on European tour dates.


title: Schoolboy Q

text: In April 2014, before his two sold-out shows in Las Vegas, Schoolboy Q was the musical guest on "Jimmy Kimmel Live!". During his time on stage, Schoolboy Q was joined by BJ the Chicago Kid, for a special rendition of "Oxymoron"s fourth single "Studio," and later returned to perform the album cut "What They Want." Also in April, Schoolboy Q made his solo magazine cover debut with the April/May issue of the long-standing hip-hop magazine "The Source", which hit newsstands on April 10, 2014.


title: Schoolboy Q

text: On February 24, 2016, TDE founder, Top Dawg, announced Schoolboy Q's fourth album would be released before the summer. On April 5, 2016, Schoolboy Q released a single titled "Groovy Tony". On April 28, 2016, Schoolboy Q announced the album was completed and was turned in for mixing. On May 13, 2016, a follow-up single featuring Kanye West, titled "That Part", was released. On May 31, 2016, Schoolboy Q revealed his second major-label album would be released July 8, 2016. On June 14, 2016, Schoolboy Q revealed that his second major-label album would be titled "Blank Face LP", while also unveiling the album's cover art. The album cover makes use of the notorious Crying Jordan meme. However, a few days later, in an interview with TMZ, Schoolboy Q revealed he was "trolling" his fans and later revealed the official album cover. In June 2016, Schoolboy Q performed a live rendition of "That Part", in a medley with "Groovy Tony", on "The Late Show with Stephen Colbert".


title: Schoolboy Q

text: On December 18, 2016, Schoolboy Q announced via social media that he would be releasing an album in 2017. In February 2017, Schoolboy Q stopped by Zane Lowe's Beats 1 radio show and revealed that his new album was close to completion. He said he's grown a lot since he started his rap career and said his new project is going to show his evolution: "It's more so my life after I made it to the point of Schoolboy Q. I gave you me, but I never gave you the other side of me: the father, the dude that's actually happy, the dude that doesn't be in the hood just hanging out. The dude that's trying to put his homies in position now. I'm not a deadbeat father anymore." In June 2017, Schoolboy Q revealed on social media that he had made "like 50 songs" during the recording process of his fifth studio album. On July 31, 2018, label president Top Dawg confirmed via Twitter that the album was "90-95% done." On September 15, 2018, Schoolboy Q announced that the album has been delayed due to the death of his longtime friend and frequent collaborator Mac Miller. On March 11, 2019, Schoolboy Q announced "2 MORE DAYS" via his Instagram. The following day a behind the scenes video of Schoolboy Q working on new music was posted with the caption, "2morrow nigHt we back at it."


title: Schoolboy Q

text: On April 15, 2019, Schoolboy Q announced the title of his 5th studio album CrasH Talk via his Instagram. The album was released on April 26, 2019. "CrasH Talk" debuted at #3 on Billboard's top 200.


title: Schoolboy Q

text: On July 20, 2020, British virtual band Gorillaz released a song featuring Schoolboy Q called "Pac-Man" as the fifth episode of the band's web series "Song Machine", in honor of Pac-Man's 40th anniversary.


title: Schoolboy Q

text: Schoolboy Q cites rappers Nas, 50 Cent, Jay-Z, The Notorious B.I.G., Kurupt, and Tupac as artists who influenced him: "But Biggie, Nas and 50 Cent [are my biggest influences]". He claims that Nas is his favorite rapper of all time. In several interviews, Schoolboy Q has stated 50 Cent is the biggest reason he started to take rapping and his music career seriously, even going as far as saying 50 Cent probably saved his life. He has also stated the person he looks up to the most is hip hop mogul Sean Combs, from whom he adopted the nickname "Puffy".


title: Schoolboy Q

text: In an interview with "Complex" magazine, he stated he "got [my rhyme-style] from Jay-Z. If you really listen to Jay-Z, he has a new sound every time he raps. It's never the same. He might use a little swag, but it's always like a different flow. So that's all I try to do." He says he chooses to not always do the traditional style of rapping, having no restrictions when he raps: "But at the same time, it's just a feeling I can't really explain. You got to be wiser to stay on the track, but there's no rules. When you start rapping with rules, it's when you start sounding boring. You may hear me fuck with my voice, you may hear me do a two-bar pause, you may hear me do an odd 33 bars instead of 30. Give you 14 bars instead of 16." Schoolboy Q has said: "what I get from 50 [Cent] is a lot of aggression", in a 2012 interview, adding "he basically birthed my whole style". Schoolboy Q has been called very versatile with his rapping, as proven on his albums "Setbacks" and "Habits & Contradictions". Writer Rebecca Haithcoat articulated the rapper's aesthetic circa 2012, around the time of the release of the album "Setbacks": "His style had begun to take shape, with his penchant for stretching vowels like Silly Putty or slurring a word and then snapping back into double time."


title: Schoolboy Q

text: Schoolboy Q has two daughters. His first daughter, Joyce "Joy" Hanley, was born on April 24, 2009 and his second daughter was born on January 4, 2019. Schoolboy Q has mentioned Joy in several of his songs, and she has also appeared in several of his music videos, notably "Phenomenon", "Nightmare on Figg St.", "There He Go" and "Break the Bank". Joy was also involved in his major-label debut album "Oxymoron", where she appeared on the album cover and had various speaking parts throughout the album.


title: Schoolboy Q

text: Schoolboy Q is a fan of the Los Angeles Angels baseball team and the San Francisco 49ers football team.<ref>


title: Saab 340

text: The Saab 340 is a Swedish twin-engine turboprop aircraft designed and initially produced by Saab AB and Fairchild Aircraft. It is designed to seat 30-36 passengers and, as of July 2018, there were 240 operational aircraft used by 34 different operators.


title: Saab 340

text: Under the production arrangement in which production was split 65:35 between Saab and Fairchild, Saab constructed the all-aluminium fuselage and vertical stabilizer along with final assembly of the aircraft in Linköping, Sweden, while Fairchild was responsible for the wings, empennage, and wing-mounted nacelles for the two turboprop engines. After Fairchild ceased this work in 1985, production of these components was transferred to Sweden.


title: Saab 340

text: On 25 January 1983, the Saab 340 conducted its maiden flight. During the early 1990s, an enlarged derivative of the airliner, designated as the Saab 2000, was introduced. However, sales of the type declined due to intense competition within the regional aircraft market. In 1998, Saab decided to terminate production of the Saab 340.


title: Saab 340

text: During the 1970s, Swedish aircraft manufacturer Saab AB became increasingly interested in the civil aircraft market. In 1974, the company decided to proceed with developing its first major civilian aircraft, having previously focused almost entirely upon military aircraft. During the late 1970s, internal studies had determined that a short-haul airliner should be optimised to seat around 30 passengers. Likewise, it was decided to make use of turboprop propulsion, which was slower but more economical than turbofan engines, and to optimise the airliner to take advantage of this type of powerplant; this decision may have been influenced by high oil prices during that decade, such as the 1973 oil crisis. According to author Gunnar Eliasson, the selection of a turboprop engine made the type less attractive to airlines than jet-powered competitors, however recognised that the General Electric CT7-5A2 engine picked was quite competitive with the jet engines of that era. As conceived, the airliner was to match the performance of jets within its short-haul role.


title: Saab 340

text: Towards the end of the 1970s, the regional airliner venture had become the largest industrial venture in Sweden and was recognised as being too large for Saab to conduct alone. Accordingly, in January 1980, it was announced that Saab had entered into a partnership arrangement with US manufacturer Fairchild Aircraft to develop and produce the upcoming regional airliner. Under this partnership, Fairchild became responsible for the manufacture of sections such as the wings, tail unit, and engine nacelles while Saab was responsible for 75 per cent of the costs of development, system integration and certification. To match the new partnership, the type received the designation of "SF340". The decision to develop a new generation regional airliner had fortuitously coincided with the removal of control by the US federal government under the 1978 Airline Deregulation Act, an event which would notably contribute to sales of the type during the following decade.


title: Saab 340

text: The 340 shared several manufacturing and design techniques that were used in Saab's military aircraft, such as the then in-development Saab JAS 39 Gripen multirole combat aircraft. One such technique was eliminating the use of rivets on the aluminium structures, using diffusion bonding instead, to reduce weight. On 25 January 1983, the first SF340 performed its maiden flight. Shortly following its launch onto the market in 1984, the Saab 340 became the best selling commuter aircraft in the world. By 1987, all activity by Fairchild on the programme had ceased, the US company having chosen to curtail its aircraft activities, thus Saab became solely responsible for producing the 340.


title: Saab 340

text: In 1985, due to Fairchild's decision to exit the aircraft manufacturing business following the completion of the first 40 units, Saab dropped the Fairchild name from the project and proceeded to continue aircraft production, referring to the type under the designation "Saab 340A". A total of 159 A models were manufactured. In 1989, an improved version of the airliner, the second generation "340B", introduced more powerful engines and wider horizontal stabilizers; later production 340Bs also featured an active noise control system. A total of 200 aircraft were built. In 1994, the final third generation version, the "340B Plus", was delivered for service and incorporated improvements that were being introduced at the same time upon the larger Saab 2000, itself a derivative of the 340. A total of 100 aircraft were completed, adding up to a total of 300 B models. The Saab 340 typically seated between 30 and 36 passengers, with 34 seats being the most common configuration. The last two 340s built were constructed as older configuration 36-seat aircraft for Japan Air Commuter.


title: Saab 340

text: One of the major improvements introduced in the "340B Plus" was the installation of an active noise and vibration control system in the cabin, reducing noise and vibration levels by about ten dB during cruising flight. This optional feature carried over from the 340B was standard in the 340B Plus along with extended wingtips which was an option on the 340B, about 30 aircraft having the WT option. Another change from earlier models was a more modern interior design and the moving of the lavatory compartment from the aft of the passenger cabin to just aft of the flight deck in most 3rd generation units. This increased total available cargo volume as the original location intruded into the cargo bin area. While the active noise control became standard on all Saab 340Bs in 1994 the first-ever 340B Plus (third B+ built) was delivered new to Hazelton Airlines in Australia in 1995, later operating for Regional Express, and currently for the Japanese Coast Guard. The system could also be retrofitted onto existing airliners.


title: Saab 340

text: During 1997, Saab was releasing pessimistic press releases on the 340 programme, stating that it was considering the potential closure of production line, but also pledged that it would maintain full support to existing customers if this happened. On 24 December 1997, Saab announced that it had come to the decision to terminate production of the 340, which it claimed had lost SKr3 billion ($386.4 million) in the previous three years. By late 1998, as production was being slowed down towards an eventual shut down, Saab stated that it had been holding talks with a number of interested parties, reportedly including Indian and Chinese companies, on the potential sale of the 340 production line to another manufacturer. On 8 June 1999, the final 340 was delivered, by which time nearly 460 aircraft had been delivered. Production of all models of the 340 was terminated in 1999, and Saab ultimately decided to cease all civil aircraft production in 2005.


title: Saab 340

text: According to Eliasson, the decision to power the type using turboprop engines rather that jet engines had been provided as one of the reasons for Saab deciding to close down the project; another major factor had been the increasingly competitive and politicised regional airliner market in which various competing airlines were alleged to have substantially benefited from government subsidies, while the Swedish government were unwilling to make such commitments to Saab's civil projects. According to authors Sören Eriksson and Harm-Jan Steenhuis, while the 340 had been faster than jet-powered competitors such as the Fokker 100 and British Aerospace 146, it had no clear advantage in terms of payload or range; as the regional airliner market became increasingly crowded, newer types such as the Bombardier CRJ200 and Embraer ERJ 145 family, which did have an advantage over the 340, had led to diminished sales.


title: Saab 340

text: During the early 1980s, Sweden's Defence Materiel Administration (FMV) requested that Ericsson, a Swedish electronics company, develop a suitable radar for an airborne early warning (AEW) system. The corresponding system was soon paired with the 340 as a platform. Several military variants of the type were produced, including the "Saab 340 AEW&C, 340AEW-200" & "340AEW-300", which are AEW and airborne early warning & control (AEW&C) aircraft.


title: Saab 340

text: During the 2010s, Saab promoted the 340 in the maritime patrol mission. A specialised variant of the aircraft, designated as the "340 MSA", was mooted; the proposed patrol aircraft is to be equipped with various sensors and combat systems to be capable of performing both anti-surface and anti-submarine warfare, as well as signals intelligence and long range search and rescue operations. In June 2014, Anders Dahl, head of Saab Singapore, gave a presentation on the 340MSA, and observed that several nations were in talks with Saab on the type, as well as there being increasing demand for such maritime patrol aircraft in Southeast Asia.


title: Saab 340

text: On 6 June 1984, the Saab 340's launch customer, Swiss operator Crossair, received its first 340 aircraft. One week later, the type performed its first flight with paying customers on board; passengers on board this flight included Pope John Paul II.


title: Saab 340

text: During 1989, US regional airline American Eagle placed a large order for the type, procuring a total of 50 340Bs along with options for an additional 50 aircraft. However, business conditions and demand for turboprop-powered regional airliner transformed dramatically during the 1990s; this can be perhaps best summarised by AMR Eagle's decision in October 1999 to announce its intention to phase out its 340 fleet. Faced with diminished value and demand for the 340, Saab chose to shutter production in 1999.


title: Saab 340

text: While production of the type ceased in 1999, Saab continued to develop and heavily market the 340 for various purposes in both the civil and military markets. In July 2001, the company announced that it had launched a new partnership with service provider Piedmont Hawthorne to remarket used regional 340s to corporate customers. In April 2002, it was announced that Canadian company Field Aviation had been contracted by Saab to produce a freighter version of the 340, initially focusing on conversions of the earlier 340A model.


title: Saab 340

text: Even after production was terminated, a large number of 340s have remained in commercial service in the following decades. By 2006, there was a resurgence in demand for turboprop-powered airliners, in part due to the rising price of oil; during this year, Saab announced the largest ever leasing deal for the 340, providing a total of 25 340s to Australian operator Regional Express Airlines. By late 2010, Saab was evaluating the option of extending the certified lifespan of the 340 which, under the Maintenance Review Board programme, is typically limited to 60,000 hours; the company believes the maintenance programme could be extended to accommodate up to a 75,000 hour limit.


title: Saab 340

text: The existing aircraft have remained relatively active and competitive into the following decade. In late 2008, following a merger between US carriers Northwest Airlines and Delta Air Lines, the latter announced that a new Saab 340 base was being formed in Atlanta, after which the merged airline would replace its inventory of 12 ATR 72s in its regional fleet with 49 former Northwest 340s. During early 2009, Russian operator Polet Airlines conducted talks with American Eagle to lease 25 340s to increase its breadth of regional flights.


title: Saab 340

text: A stretched, and significantly faster, derivative of the aircraft, designated as the Saab 2000, was also developed and produced during the 1990s.


title: Saab 340

text: As of July 2018, there were 210 Saab 340s in service with 34 operators around the world. Primary operators include Regional Express with 52 aircraft, Silver Airways with 21, Loganair with 16, PenAir with 13, SprintAir with 12, Castle Aviation with 6 and an additional 2 operated for PuppySpot, and others with fewer aircraft of the type.


title: Saab 340

text: In December 2016, the fleet average is at 35,277 h and 39,446 cycles – a mean 0.89h per flight, less than halfway of its remaining life: the airframe life has been extended from 45,000 to 80,000 flight hours and 90,000 cycles and the Saab 340 should remain in service for another 30 years. Fleet leaders are at 71,268 cycles and 61,867h.


title: Saab 340

text: Between 1983 and 2013, there were 13 hull-loss accidents involving the Saab 340 series aircraft, resulting in the deaths of 48 people.


title: Mechanic: Resurrection

text: Mechanic: Resurrection is a 2016 American action thriller film directed by Dennis Gansel and written by Philip Shelby and Tony Mosher, with a story by Shelby and Brian Pittman. It is the sequel to the 2011 film "The Mechanic", which was a remake of the 1972 film of the same name. The film stars Jason Statham, Tommy Lee Jones, Jessica Alba and Michelle Yeoh.


title: Mechanic: Resurrection

text: "Mechanic: Resurrection" premiered in Hollywood on August 22, 2016, and was theatrically released in the United States on August 26, 2016. It received mostly negative reviews, but grossed $125 million worldwide against a budget of $40 million, eclipsing its predecessor and making it a financial success.


title: Mechanic: Resurrection

text: Since faking his own death, Arthur Bishop has been living quietly in Rio de Janeiro under the name Santos. He is approached by a courier, Renee Tran, who knows his true identity and explains that her employer wishes Bishop to kill three targets and stage their deaths as accidents. Bishop escapes, eluding her and her mercenaries and fleeing to Thailand. He takes shelter at the resort island beach house of his friend, Mei, and learns that Tran is working for Riah Crain.


title: Mechanic: Resurrection

text: Some time later, a bruised woman, Gina Thornton, approaches Mei for first aid before returning to a boat anchored nearby. Mei sees her being beaten by a man aboard the boat and alerts Bishop. Together, they rescue Thornton, but in the scuffle, the man's head hits a bollard and he dies. Bishop searches, unsuccessfully, for evidence of the man's identity, then sets the boat ablaze. While Mei tends to Thornton's injuries, Bishop finds that Thornton is also connected to Crain, and concludes that Crain anticipated Bishop would become romantic with her: Crain would then kidnap her to make Bishop take the assassination jobs. On being confronted with his theory, Thornton reveals that Crain had threatened the children's shelter in Cambodia that she runs unless she participated. Over the next few days, Bishop gets to know Thornton better and they fall in love. As expected, Crain's mercenaries arrive and abduct them.


title: Mechanic: Resurrection

text: Crain keeps Thornton hostage to ensure Bishop completes the assassinations. The first target is a warlord named Krill, held in a Malaysian prison. Bishop gets himself imprisoned by posing as a wanted man, and gains Krill's trust by killing a man who attempts to kill him who turned out to be Krill's former right-hand man. Bishop then kills Krill himself by overdosing him with snake venom and escapes with the help of Crain's operatives. The next target is Adrian Cook, a Sydney-based billionaire and former trafficker of underage sex workers. Bishop bypasses the tight security of Cook's penthouse apartment and breaks the glass bottom of his overhanging pool using a tube containing chemicals that cause the glass to crack, sending him plummeting to his death.


title: Mechanic: Resurrection

text: While relaying details of the third target, Crain allows Bishop to speak to Thornton, who repositions the camera, enabling Bishop to identify Crain's boat. Bishop attempts a rescue, but Crain is able to thwart it. The final target is Max Adams, an American arms dealer in Varna, Bulgaria. While planning his attempt, Bishop realizes that the targets are Crain's only major competition in arms dealing. Bishop instead approaches Adams to warn him of Crain's plan and recruit his help. Bishop fakes Adams' death, then reports his success to Crain, directing him to the submarine pen to find the body.


title: Mechanic: Resurrection

text: At the pen, Bishop decimates Crain's mercenaries then makes for Crain's boat anchored nearby. He fights off more of Crain's men and rescues Thornton. He discovers the boat is rigged with explosives and puts Thornton in an emergency release pod. Bishop kills the remaining mercenaries, then overpowers Crain and secures him to the boat with a metal chain. The bombs explode, killing Crain and seemingly Bishop.


title: Mechanic: Resurrection

text: Thornton is rescued and the remains of Crain's boat are salvaged. Thornton returns to Cambodia and her teaching duties and is surprised when Bishop turns up there. Adams discovers how Bishop survived: he escaped in a watertight chain locker but destroys the evidence as a token of gratitude for sparing his life and enabling him to monopolize the arms trade by taking market share from Bishop's main victims.


title: Mechanic: Resurrection

text: Filming began on November 4, 2014, in Bangkok (Thailand). Filming also took place in Buzludzha (Bulgaria), George Town (Malaysia), Sugarloaf Mountain (Brazil), Sydney Harbour (Australia) and Phnom Penh (Cambodia)


title: Mechanic: Resurrection

text: On November 7, 2014, Lionsgate set the film for a January 22, 2016 release. The film was later moved back to April 15, 2016, and on August 3, 2015, the release was again delayed until August 26, 2016.


title: Mechanic: Resurrection

text: "Mechanic: Resurrection" grossed $21.2 million in North America and $104.5 million in other territories for a worldwide total of $125.7 million.


title: Mechanic: Resurrection

text: The film was released in the United States and Canada on August 26, 2016, alongside "Don't Breathe" and "Hands of Stone", and was projected to open to $6–8 million from 2,258 theaters. It grossed $2.6 million on its first day and $7.5 million in its opening weekend, finishing 5th at the box office.


title: Mechanic: Resurrection

text: In China, the film made $24.3 million in opening weekend. China was the largest territory for the film, with a total gross of $49.2 million.


title: Mechanic: Resurrection

text: On review aggregation website Rotten Tomatoes the film holds an approval rating of 31% based on 59 reviews, with an average rating of 4.45/10. The website's critical consensus reads: "With little to recommend beyond a handful of entertaining set pieces, "Mechanic: Resurrection" suggests this franchise should have remained in its tomb." On Metacritic, which assigns a weighted average score, the film has a score of 38 out of 100, based on 15 critics, indicating "generally unfavorable reviews". Audiences polled by CinemaScore gave the film an average grade of "B+" on an A+ to F scale.


title: Mechanic: Resurrection

text: "Variety"s Owen Gleiberman gave the film a positive review and praised Statham. He says this what the first film should have been, "a bite-sized Bond film, or maybe a grittier homicidal knockoff of the , with a lone-wolf renegade as the entire team."


title: Mechanic: Resurrection

text: Frank Scheck of "The Hollywood Reporter" praised Statham but gave a mixed review saying "it's all about as ridiculous as it sounds, with Statham's character hopscotching across the globe in mere hours; equipped with unlimited resources and advanced knowledge of chemistry, architecture and engineering; and seemingly physically invulnerable", but also noted "the film is certainly watchable, thanks to the elaborately staged action sequences and Statham's killer charisma."


title: Apocalypse (character)

text: Apocalypse (En Sabah Nur) is a supervillain appearing in comic books published by Marvel Comics. He is one of the world's first mutants, and was originally a principal villain for the original X-Factor team and now for the X-Men and related spin-off teams. Created by writer Louise Simonson and artist Jackson Guice, Apocalypse first appeared in "X-Factor" #5 (May 1986). Apocalypse is one of the most powerful beings in the Marvel Universe.


title: Apocalypse (character)

text: Since his introduction, the character has appeared in a number of "X-Men" titles, including spin-offs and several limited series. Apocalypse has also been featured in various forms of media. Oscar Isaac portrayed the character in "".


title: Apocalypse (character)

text: While writing the first five issues of "X-Factor", Bob Layton dropped hints of a villain operating behind the scenes and leading the Alliance of Evil (mentioned in "X-Factor" #4, May 1986). Layton intended to reveal this character to be the Daredevil villain the Owl on the final page of "X-Factor" #5. However, Layton left the book after writing this issue and was replaced by writer Louise Simonson. Editor Bob Harras said that the character arose because of storytelling needs: "All I had communicated to Louise was my desire that an A-level, first class character be introduced. I wanted a Magneto-level villain who would up the stakes and give the X-Factor team reason to exist."


title: Apocalypse (character)

text: In a 2011 interview with "The Philadelphia Inquirer", Simonson explained that when the "X-Factor" series was created, the original five X-Men were pulled out of the purview of Chris Claremont, who was writing "The Uncanny X-Men". However, Simonson felt that the series need an archenemy, or what Simonson called "a big, bad villain", and conceived of Apocalypse. Simonson described the character thus:


title: Apocalypse (character)

text: "Apocalypse is the first mutant – a brilliant shape-shifter who is virtually immortal – and sees himself as the father of mutantkind…In his early years, which I covered in the "X-Factor Forever" miniseries . . . Apocalypse encountered the Celestials and realized there was a time when humanity might be judged unworthy and destroyed. Consequently, he's been using Darwinian principles – survival of the fittest – to kill off the weak and force the survivors to grow stronger, to push humanity to get better and more powerful. He considers himself the Apocalypse of modern man and the father of what humanity will come next – Mutantkind. Where Magneto sees mutants as the next step of evolution and strives to protect all mutants, Apocalypse believes in absolute survival of the fittest – so if the Hulk, for example, is stronger than [the X-Men's] Colossus...well, in Apocalypse's world he would say, 'Bye, bye, comrade.'"


title: Apocalypse (character)

text: Harras also commented, "As soon as I saw the sketch by Walter [Simonson] and heard Louise's take on him, I knew we had the character I wanted. Jackson [Guice] redrew the page, patching in the shadowy Apocalypse where the Owl had been. But the genesis was clearly Walt and Weezie's." Guice admitted to difficulty recalling the details behind redrawing the last page of issue #5: "The best I can remember now is putting his look together pretty much right on the pencil page—just adding bits of costuming business which hinted toward his true appearance when we'd eventually see him in full reveal. I don't believe there was even a character sketch done for him at that point—I planned on making sense of it all later on, but by then I was gone and others had that concern." Apocalypse's silhouette in issue #5 does not match up with his full appearance in issue #6, suggesting the possibility that Guice was using Simonson's sketch as a reference for issue #6 but did not have access to it earlier, necessitating that he come up with his own design for issue #5. Walter Simonson himself has downplayed his role in the character's creation, saying that Guice was responsible for creating the design and that he, Simonson, merely modified it later: "I did not co-create Apocalypse. However, I wish I had. Louise Simonson and Jackson Guice created him. He appeared in a few panels at the end of one of Jackson’s last X-FACTORs, so I am the first artist to use him extensively in stories. And I kind of juiced up his physique a bit."