title: MGM Resorts International

text: On August 22, 2007, Dubai World said it would buy a 9.5 percent stake in MGM for about $2.4 billion. It would also invest about $2.7 billion to acquire a 50 percent stake in MGM's CityCenter project. Dubai World would pay MGM Mirage an additional $100 million if the project opened on time and on budget. The investment firm would buy 14.2 million shares from MGM Mirage. The firm would also issue a public tender for an additional 14.2 million shares at the same price.


title: MGM Resorts International

text: On October 29, 2008, MGM Mirage halted a $5 billion Atlantic City project on land next to the Borgata.


title: MGM Resorts International

text: At about the same time, New Jersey gambling regulators were evaluating MGM Mirage's suitability to operate casinos in New Jersey, and were unconvinced that MGM Mirage's Macau partner, Pansy Ho, could operate independently from influence of her father, Stanley Ho. The latter was often accused of ties with Chinese organized crime and letting the gangs operate in his casinos' VIP rooms. Faced with not complying with New Jersey gaming regulations, MGM Mirage decided to divest the highly profitable Borgata in order to continue pursuing the even more lucrative Chinese market. MGM Mirage subsequently transferred its 50% share in the Borgata to a divestiture trust through which it received all benefit of the ownership. The trust was responsible for selling MGM's interest within 30 months, although MGM had the right to direct the trustee during the first 18 months.


title: MGM Resorts International

text: On December 16, 2008, MGM Mirage announced the sale of its Las Vegas Treasure Island resort and casino to billionaire Phil Ruffin. The sale was completed on March 20, 2009 for $600 million in cash plus a $175 million promissory note.


title: MGM Resorts International

text: On March 23, 2009 Dubai World and Infinity World announced that they had filed a lawsuit in the Delaware Chancery Court seeking to be released from their CityCenter joint venture agreement with MGM Mirage after the company filed its annual report stating that "there is substantial doubt about our ability to continue as a going concern," and "it cannot provide assurance that its business would generate sufficient cash flow from operation."


title: MGM Resorts International

text: Starting on April 6, 2009 news reports surfaced that MGM Mirage had hired investment firm Morgan Stanley to assist the company in finding possible buyers for the MGM Grand Detroit and the Beau Rivage.


title: MGM Resorts International

text: On June 15, 2010, shareholders approved a name change from MGM Mirage to "MGM Resorts International", to emphasize the brand's global scope and increased non-gaming strategy.


title: MGM Resorts International

text: In April 2011 an initial public offering was announced for the MGM Macau property. Under the agreement, Pansy Ho would receive a 29 percent stake in the company, MGM China Holdings Ltd, which was created as a listing vehicle for the IPO. MGM Resorts would hold 51 percent and the public would receive 20 percent. MGM China raised $1.5 billion from its IPO on the Hong Kong Stock Exchange. In January 2013, MGM China received government approval to build its second resort in Macau.


title: MGM Resorts International

text: In 2013, MGM won state licenses to build a $1-billion resort in National Harbor, Maryland and a $950-million resort in downtown Springfield, Massachusetts. In May 2014, MGM broke ground on a $375-million arena on the Las Vegas Strip with sports and entertainment company AEG.


title: MGM Resorts International

text: In 2013, Foxwoods and MGM ended their relationship, and the MGM Grand at Foxwoods was renamed the Fox Tower.


title: MGM Resorts International

text: On May 1, 2014, the company broke ground on the $375-million T-Mobile Arena located behind New-New York Hotel and Casino, in partnership with AEG Live. The arena opened on April 6, 2016. In September 2014, MGM purchased the naming rights for a new baseball stadium in Biloxi, resulting in MGM Park. That same year, the Massachusetts Gaming Commission approved a license for MGM Springfield, an $800-million project.


title: MGM Resorts International

text: MGM sold several properties in 2015, including the Railroad Pass Casino, the Gold Strike, and properties in Reno (Circus Circus Reno and a 50 percent stake in the Silver Legacy) were sold to Eldorado Resorts for $72.5 million.


title: MGM Resorts International

text: In April 2016, MGM held an initial public offering for MGM Growth Properties (MGP), a new real estate investment trust (REIT) with ownership of ten of the company's casinos; the parent company would continue to operate the casinos under a lease agreement. The offering raised $1.05 billion, and left MGM Resorts with 76 percent ownership of the REIT. In June 2016, MGM announced a joint venture with Sydell Group to renovate and rebrand the Monte Carlo as the Park MGM, named after the adjacent dining and entertainment district, The Park, that opened in April 2016. In August 2016, MGM bought out Boyd Gaming's interest in the Borgata for $900 million, and then sold the property to MGP for $1.2 billion and leased it back for $100 million per year.


title: MGM Resorts International

text: In 2017, MGM launched two online ventures under the PlayMGM brand: an online sportsbook in Nevada, and an online casino in New Jersey.


title: MGM Resorts International

text: In October 2017, MGM purchased the San Antonio Stars of the Women's National Basketball Association. The team was moved to Mandalay Bay Events Center and began play as the Las Vegas Aces in 2018. In August 2018, MGM and Hyatt sold the Grand Victoria Casino to Eldorado Resorts for $328 million. In January 2019, MGM bought Yonkers Raceway and Empire City Casino in New York from the Rooney family for $850 million, and then immediately sold the land and buildings to MGP for $625 million, and leased them back for $50 million per year.


title: MGM Resorts International

text: in 2019, MGM sold two resorts on the Las Vegas strip: Bellagio and Circus Circus. They sold their real estate assets of Bellagio to Blackstone Group while selling Circus Circus to Phil Ruffin. In 2020, they sold their real estate assets of MGM grand and Mandalay Bay to a joint venture between Blackstone and mgm growth properties.


title: MGM Resorts International

text: in 2021, they bought 50% of Dubai world’s share of city center and sold the real estate assets of Aria and Vdara to Blackstone and later purchased the operating assets of Cosmopolitan of Las Vegas and later sold the Mirage to Hard Rock International.


title: MGM Resorts International

text: In August 2020, MGM cut 18,000 job positions as a result of the effects of the COVID-19 pandemic. The job cuts represent one fourth of its workforce, which before the start of the pandemic was 68,000.


title: MGM Resorts International

text: MGM lobbied the Trump administration against giving federal approval for a casino operated by two native tribes in East Windsor, Connecticut. The casino would have provided competition to a MGM casino across border in Massachusetts.


title: MGM Resorts International

text: In 2007, MGM Hospitality was established to operate hotels, resorts and residences in key destinations around the globe using the brands of Bellagio, MGM Grand and Skylofts.


title: MGM Resorts International

text: In 2009, the company formed Diaoyutai MGM Hospitality, a joint venture with Diaoyutai State Guesthouse of China (the Chinese Foreign Ministry’s venue for VIPs) which develops and operates 5-star hotels and resorts in China.


title: MGM Resorts International

text: In 2014, MGM and Hakkasan Group announced the formation of a joint venture named MGM Hakkasan Hospitality, which would develop non-gaming hotels around the world. The partnership was terminated a year later.


title: MGM Resorts International

text: Following the U.S. Supreme Court's May 2018 ruling that struck down the PASPA sports betting ban, in July 2018, MGM announced a 50/50 joint venture with UK gambling operator GVC Holdings (now known as Entain) to create a sports betting and online gaming platform targeting the U.S. market in states where such activities are legal. In January 2019, the joint venture was named Roar Digital. Additionally with the move into sports betting MGM announced official partnerships with several North American professional sports leagues, including the National Basketball Association, the National Hockey League, and Major League Baseball.


title: MGM Resorts International

text: In September of the same year, the company announced a partnership with sports bar chain restaurant Buffalo Wild Wings. The partnership will involve Buffalo Wild Wings sports bars across the country showcasing custom sportsbook content on TV screens inside the bars, featuring live odds provided by BetMGM, as well as the establishment of three new Buffalo Wild Wings sports bars within MGM properties or in partnership with BetMGM as additional states come online. At the end of October 2019, the company established a betting partnership with Yahoo Sports to connect its sports betting online platform to the popular sports website. At the end of October 2019, the company established a betting partnership with Yahoo Sports to connect its sports betting online platform to the popular fantasy sports platform.


title: MGM Resorts International

text: In addition to the company's partnerships with leagues, on July 9, 2020, BetMGM announced an exclusive betting partnership with the Denver Broncos of the National Football League. BetMGM would follow this deal with multiple betting partnerships with other NFL teams, including the Detroit Lions, Las Vegas Raiders, Tennessee Titans, and Pittsburgh Steelers. In late 2020 through early 2021, BetMGM continued to develop its partnership library with other teams in other leagues, including the Detroit Red Wings of the NHL, Washington Nationals of MLB, and Philadelphia 76ers of the NBA, as well as with other business ventures like TopGolf to extend the company's brand image to new bettors in operating markets. In May 2021, BetMGM signed a deal with the Baltimore Ravens to become the official gaming partner of the NFL team.


title: MGM Resorts International

text: On November 8, 2021, BetMGM, along with 8 other sports gaming operators, were awarded sports betting licenses by the New York State Gaming Commission. New York will be the largest sports gaming market in the United States when operators launch their applications in 2022. Additionally, on the same day, BetMGM agreed to a multi-year marketing partnership with Madison Square Garden Sports and will become an official sports gaming sponsor for both the New York Knicks of the NBA and New York Rangers of the NHL.


title: MGM Resorts International

text: On September 14, 2022, BetMGM entered into a naming rights agreement with NJ Transit to becoming the naming sponsor of the Meadowlands Rail Line for $3 million over the next 3 years. The rail line is a special event shuttle train that offers rail service to and from MetLife Stadium only during New York Giants and New York Jets home football games, as well as major concerts and other sporting events.


title: MGM Resorts International

text: All U.S. properties (excluding golf courses and where otherwise indicated) are fully owned by Vici Properties and operated by MGM through a long-term triple net lease agreement.


title: MGM Resorts International

text: The company's top executives include: James Murren, chairman and chief executive officer; Bill Hornbuckle, president of global casino marketing; Brian Sandoval, president of global gambling development; Corey I. Sanders, chief operating officer; and John McManus, executive vice president, general counsel and secretary.


title: MGM Resorts International

text: As of 2015, according to the company, among the company's management ranks, more than 38 percent are minorities and nearly 43 percent are women. The company has received wide recognition for its diversity and inclusion initiatives, such as: 40 Best Companies for Diversity (Black Enterprise Magazine), Top 10 Companies for Latinos (DiversityInc Magazine), Best Places to Work for LGBT Equality (Human Rights Campaign Foundation), Top 10 Regional Companies(DiversityInc) and Top Corporation for Women's Business Enterprises (Women's Business Enterprise National Council). "Fortune" magazine named MGM Resorts one of the World's Most Admired Companies in 2017.


title: MGM Resorts International

text: MGM Resorts International received criticism for filing a lawsuit on July 18, 2018 against survivors and relatives of victims slain in the October 1, 2017 Las Vegas shooting. MGM has claimed that, because it utilized the security services of Contemporary Services Corporation, a vendor certified by the Department of Homeland Security at the time of the October 1 shooting, any proceedings should be held in federal court where MGM is shielded from liability by the Support Anti-Terrorism by Fostering Effective Technologies Act, also known as the Safety Act. MGM said they are insured for $751 million towards the settlement of the lawsuit which MGM believes will be settled in May 2020. Robert Englet, an attorney to some of the survivors, describes the countersuit as an attempt to get a more favorable judge. Brian Claypool, another attorney of the survivors', called the lawsuits a “public relations nightmare”. MGM's controversial action prompted a public outcry from survivors of the shooting, family members of the victims, lawmakers, and media members in New York State urging the New York State Gaming Commission to block MGM from completing its $850 million deal to purchase Empire City Casino and Yonkers Raceway in Yonkers, New York, which deal had been scheduled to close in January 2019. In October 2019, MGM agreed to pay victims and survivors up to $800 million.


title: MGM Resorts International

text: The company continues to receive wide recognition for its diversity and inclusion initiatives, such as: 40 Best Companies for Diversity ("Black Enterprise Magazine") in 2012, Best Places to Work for LGBT Equality (Human Rights Campaign Foundation) in 2013, Top 10 Regional Companies ("DiversityInc") in 2014, Top 10 Companies for Latinos ("DiversityInc Magazine"), and top 100 Companies for MBA Students (Universum Global) in 2014. "Fortune" has named MGM Resorts one of the World's Most Admired Companies.


title: Verónica (2017 Spanish film)

text: Veronica () is a 2017 Spanish supernatural horror film directed by Paco Plaza which stars Sandra Escacena alongside Claudia Placer, Bruna González, Iván Chavero and Ana Torrent.


title: Verónica (2017 Spanish film)

text: It is loosely based on true events from the 1991 Vallecas case where Estefanía Gutiérrez Lázaro died mysteriously after she used a ouija board.


title: Verónica (2017 Spanish film)

text: The film opens in 1991 in medias res, with emergency services responding to a call from a young girl. She sounds panicked and screams about something coming to get her brother before the call cuts off.


title: Verónica (2017 Spanish film)

text: The film goes back in time three days. Verónica is a 15-year-old girl living with her mother and three young siblings in an apartment in the working-class district of Vallecas, Madrid. Their father recently died and their mother works long hours at a bar to support the family, leaving Verónica in charge of her younger siblings: twins Lucia and Irene, and Antoñito. On the day of the solar eclipse, her teacher explains how some ancient cultures used eclipses to stage human sacrifices and summon dark spirits.


title: Verónica (2017 Spanish film)

text: Verónica and her friends Rosa and Diana go into the basement to conduct a séance using a Ouija board. Verónica wants to reach out to her late father, and Diana her late boyfriend, who died in a motorcycle accident. Rosa and Diana pull their hands back when the glass cup becomes too hot. Verónica's hand remains on it, and at the moment of the eclipse, the cup shatters, cutting her finger and dripping blood onto the board. Verónica becomes unresponsive, whispering something repeatedly, then lets out a demonic scream. She wakes in the school nurse's office, who tells her she probably passed out from iron deficiency.


title: Verónica (2017 Spanish film)

text: Verónica begins experiencing paranormal occurrences and her friends avoid her. Looking for answers, she goes back to the school basement and finds the school's elderly blind nun whom the students call "Sister Death." The nun explains that the séance attached a dark spirit to her and tries to compel the spirit to leave, but nothing happens.


title: Verónica (2017 Spanish film)

text: Verónica draws protective Viking symbols for the kids, only for the demon to destroy them. She tries to help Lucia when the spirit chokes her, but Lucia says it was Verónica who was choking her. Verónica wakes up to find that she's on her first period. As she scrubs her mattress, she finds burn marks on the underside. She also finds on each of the kids' mattresses a large burn mark in the shape of a human body. Sister Death tells Verónica that she used to see dark spirits when she was younger, and intentionally blinded herself in an unsuccessful attempt to stop the visions. Verónica can force the spirits to leave by doing right what she did wrong as it is important to say goodbye to the spirit at the end of a séance. Verónica asks Rosa and Diana to hold another séance, but they refuse. Rosa reveals that at the séance, Verónica whispered that she herself would die in five days.


title: Verónica (2017 Spanish film)

text: Desperate, Verónica decides to hold the séance with her siblings. She has Antoñito draw the protective symbols on the walls, but he flips to the wrong page and instead draws symbols of invocation. When she tells the spirit to say goodbye, it refuses. She calls the police and escapes with her siblings. However, she sees that she is not actually holding Antoñito but had imagined it. Her brother is actually hiding in a closet. She finds him but he won't go with her. Verónica looks at herself in the mirror and sees the demon, realizing she has been possessed by the demon the entire time, and had been harming her siblings under its control. She attempts to end the possession by slitting her own throat but is prevented by the demon. The police enter to find her being attacked by an invisible force and passing out. The medics carry her and Antoñito out while a shaken detective observes the scene. As the detective watches a photograph of Verónica suddenly catch fire, he is informed that she has died.


title: Verónica (2017 Spanish film)

text: Five years later in 1996, he reports of unexplained paranormal activity having occurred in Madrid. It is explained that the movie is based on the true events of the first police report in Spain where a police officer certifies having witnessed paranormal activity.


title: Verónica (2017 Spanish film)

text: The film was inspired when Estefanía Gutiérrez Lázaro (1973–1991) reportedly suffered hallucinations and seizures after performing the séance at a school in Madrid to try to contact her friend's deceased boyfriend who had died six months earlier. Her exact cause of death is a mystery. Her house allegedly became haunted after her death according to the British magazine "NME". The American magazine "Newsweek", referenced by "NME", is more cautious and while acknowledging that the case is real, likens the event to the similar pop-culture phenomenon and urban legend "The Amityville Horror". In the same magazine, director Paco Plaza says that he didn't feel bound to portray the real events, clarifying "...the whole story of Veronica and the sisters and Antoñito, this little Marlon Brando with glasses, it’s all a vision."


title: Verónica (2017 Spanish film)

text: The screenplay was penned by Paco Plaza alongside Fernando Navarro. The film was produced by Apache Films alongside El Expediente La Película AIE, with the participation of RTVE and support from ICAA. The score was composed by Eugenio Mira, credited under the pseudonym Chucky Namanera.


title: Verónica (2017 Spanish film)

text: "Verónica" originally released on 25 August 2017 in Spain. In addition, the film was released in eight other countries between the months of December 2017 up until February 2018.


title: Verónica (2017 Spanish film)

text: The film was selected for the lineup of the 2017 Toronto International Film Festival's Contemporary World Cinema section.


title: Verónica (2017 Spanish film)

text: In Spain the film grossed $4,212,203, and $1,910,886 in other territories, for a worldwide total of $6,123,089.


title: Verónica (2017 Spanish film)

text: The review aggregator Rotten Tomatoes reported an 88% approval rating from 33 critic reviews. The website's critical consensus reads, "A scarily effective horror outing, "Veronica" proves it doesn't take fancy or exotic ingredients to craft skin-crawling genre thrills."


title: Verónica (2017 Spanish film)

text: Jonathan Holland from "The Hollywood Reporter" gives a negative review of the film and wrote "The real horror in "Veronica" is not in the CGI visuals, or in Pablo Rosso's frantic cinematography, or in the aural bombardment of sound effects and music; it’s in the relationship between the children". Overall though he sums up his film review with "Thick on chills, thin on psychology."


title: Verónica (2017 Spanish film)

text: Shortly after the release of "Verónica" on Netflix Jordan Crucchoila of Vulture countered other reviewers who believe that "Verónica" is the scariest movie on Netflix "In our estimation, "Veronica" is not that scary. It’s a worthy effort, but as far as witch-board movies go, you’ll get more out of "Ouija 2: Origin of Evil".", but overall still believes that the film has "some great set-piece scares, and the movie’s most disturbing moment is pretty damn good." Ed Potton of "The Times" does not believe that the film is good and gave the film a 2 out of 5, and wrote "A considerable buzz online suggested that this Spanish horror might arrest the recent run of iffy Netflix movies. Sadly, it doesn't." Dennis Harvey of "Variety", wrote that the film's ideas "aren’t ultimately original enough or its scares potent enough to suggest Plaza wouldn’t benefit from trying his directorial hand at someone else’s screenplay." Paul Tassi from "Forbes" magazine wrote "If I was scoring the movie myself I’d probably give it a 6 out of 10, “fresh,” but not exactly stunning."


title: Verónica (2017 Spanish film)

text: In March 2022, Netflix announced the development of a prequel film titled "Sister Death" (), directed by Paco Plaza and written by Jorge Guerricaechevarría. It will star , Almudena Amor and , among others.


title: Rafael Márquez

text: Rafael Márquez Álvarez (; born 13 February 1979) is a Mexican former professional footballer and current head coach of Spanish team Barcelona Atlètic. Nicknamed "El Káiser", he is regarded as the best defender in Mexico's history and one of the best Mexican players of all time.


title: Rafael Márquez

text: Márquez began his career with Atlas in 1996, playing in over 70 games with the club before moving to France in 1999 with Monaco, where he won the Ligue 1 title. In 2003, Márquez transferred to Barcelona, becoming the first ever Mexican to represent the club. He would go on to play in over 200 games during seven seasons with the "Blaugrana", winning numerous championships. In 2006, he became the first Mexican player to win the UEFA Champions League when Barcelona defeated Arsenal in the final. In 2010, Márquez joined the New York Red Bulls of Major League Soccer. After being released from the club in 2012, he moved back to Mexico, this time to play for León, captaining the team to back-to-back Liga MX titles in 2013 and 2014. Márquez then transferred to Hellas Verona of the Italian Serie A. He returned to boyhood club Atlas in 2015, and announced his retirement from football in April 2018.


title: Rafael Márquez

text: Márquez is the third most-capped player in the history of the Mexico national football team, earning 147 caps throughout his career. In 2018, he became only the fourth player to play for his national team in five consecutive editions of the FIFA World Cup, alongside compatriot Antonio Carbajal, Lothar Matthäus, and Gianluigi Buffon, appearing in the 2002, 2006, 2010, 2014, and 2018 tournaments. He is also the Mexican player with the most World Cup matches played with 19. With the national team, Márquez won the 1999 FIFA Confederations Cup, and the 2003 and 2011 editions of the CONCACAF Gold Cup.


title: Rafael Márquez

text: Márquez began his career with Atlas, for whom he debuted in October 1996 at only 17 years of age. Márquez rose to prominence while with Atlas, making 77 appearances for the team and being runner-up in the league, losing the final against Toluca on penalties during the Verano 1999 tournament.


title: Rafael Márquez

text: After playing the 1999 Copa América with Mexico, Márquez joined French club AS Monaco for a reported US$6 million. He made his debut on 14 August against Bastia. In his first season, Monaco won the league title, with Márquez being named in the Ligue 1 team of the season. He went on to play in 109 matches with Monaco over four seasons, winning the Coupe de la Ligue as well.


title: Rafael Márquez

text: In the summer of 2003, Márquez signed for Spanish club Barcelona. He made his debut in La Liga on 3 September 2003 against Sevilla, the match ending in a 1–1 draw. On 9 November, he scored his first goal for Barcelona in their 2–1 victory over Real Betis. In his first season with Barcelona, Márquez made 22 league appearances (31 across all competitions) as the team finished second in the league, five points behind Valencia.


title: Rafael Márquez

text: During his second season, he was moved from his natural position as a centre back to a defensive midfield role, due to injuries to players Thiago Motta, Edmílson and Gerard. That year, Barcelona won its 17th league title on 14 May 2005 after a 1–1 tie with Levante. A month after an injury to his left knee, Márquez returned to play against A.C. Milan in the first leg of the 2006 UEFA Champions League semi-final. Barcelona, playing away at the San Siro, won 1–0. On 17 May, Barcelona won the UEFA Champions League after defeating Arsenal 2–1 in the final, with Márquez playing the entire match. He became the first Mexican to play in a Champions League final and the first to win it. Following his participation with Mexico at the 2006 World Cup, Márquez signed a four-year contract extension with Barcelona, with the buy-out clause set at €100 million.


title: Rafael Márquez

text: During the 2007–08 season, Márquez formed a partnership with new signing Gabriel Milito while captain Carles Puyol was out injured. Constant injuries, however, threw off his form. Márquez's success declined with the rest of the season, leading Barcelona to end up in third place in La Liga after a miserable second half where injuries lead to his contribution being negligible. Even so, new coach Pep Guardiola continued to rely on his contributions; with the departure of Ronaldinho, Márquez had become the last original signing of the Frank Rijkaard era to remain on the team. In October 2007, Márquez was included in the list of players nominated for the FIFA World Player of the Year award, the only player from the CONCACAF to be nominated.


title: Rafael Márquez

text: Márquez was Guardiola's first-choice at centre back along with captain Puyol for the 2008–09 season. On 13 December 2008, Márquez played his 200th match for Barcelona in their 2–0 win against Real Madrid. On 28 April 2009, during Barcelona's 2008–09 Champions League semi-final match against Chelsea, Márquez sustained a knee injury which required surgery, meaning he would miss the remainder of the season. Barcelona would go on to complete a historic treble after winning the Champions League final 2–0 against Manchester United.


title: Rafael Márquez

text: Prior to the 2009–10 season, Márquez received an offer from Italian Serie A club Fiorentina. Márquez, however, said he wanted to end his career at Barcelona. Márquez eventually signed a new contract with Barça in November 2009 that would keep him at the club until 2012. On 20 February 2010, he scored his first goal since his return against Racing Santander.


title: Rafael Márquez

text: On 31 July 2010, Márquez was released from his contract by Barcelona. During his time with the club, he played in 242 matches and scored 13 goals, making him the most-capped non-European player in the club's history and the eighth-most capped foreigner. In his 12-year European career, Márquez appeared in 46 UEFA Champions League matches, which was the most by a Mexican or CONCACAF player, until compatriot Javier Hernández surpassed that record in 2017. At the time, Márquez was also one of two players from CONCACAF to play in a Champions League final, the other being Trinidad and Tobago's Dwight Yorke for Manchester United in 1999.


title: Rafael Márquez

text: After seven years with and being released by Barcelona and participating at the 2010 FIFA World Cup, it was reported that Italian club Juventus were interested in signing Márquez as a back-up for defender Leonardo Bonucci.


title: Rafael Márquez

text: On 1 August 2010, it was announced that Márquez had signed with the New York Red Bulls of Major League Soccer on a three-and-a-half-year contract. He was the club's third Designated Player and was unveiled to the media at Red Bull Arena on 3 August wearing the number 4 jersey and reuniting with former Barcelona teammate Thierry Henry. On 8 August, Márquez made his MLS debut against the Chicago Fire in a scoreless draw. On 21 August, Márquez scored his first goal, an astonishing shot with his right foot, for the Red Bulls in a 4–1 win at Toronto FC. On 21 October, Márquez started for the Red Bulls in a 2–0 victory over New England Revolution which clinched the regular season Eastern Conference title.


title: Rafael Márquez

text: New York released Márquez on 13 December 2012. His stint in New York was heavily criticized by many fans and journalists for his constant injuries, suspensions and perceived lack of commitment to the fans and club. Márquez later revealed in an interview with ESPN Deportes that going to play in the United States was "a bad decision" and called it the worst decision he ever made in his career. He said that he had misjudged the arc of his career, believing it was declining faster than it was, and that he regretted declining offers from various European clubs, including one from Italian side Juventus.


title: Rafael Márquez

text: Hours after being released by the New York Red Bulls, it was announced that Márquez signed with León, returning to his home country after 13 years abroad. It would not be until 5 October 2013 that Márquez scored his first goal for León in the Liga MX against Puebla, scoring a penalty kick in the 17th minute.


title: Rafael Márquez

text: On 15 December, León captured the Apertura 2013 title after defeating América 5–1 on aggregate. Márquez, the club captain, played in both legs as he lifted his first league title in Mexico, more than 14 years after losing the final against Toluca when he played in Atlas. The following tournament, Márquez helped León capture their second straight league title, becoming only the second team in history to win consecutive league titles in the short tournament era, the first being UNAM, who won the Clausura 2004 and Apertura 2004. He also became the first Mexican footballer to win league titles in three countries.


title: Rafael Márquez

text: On 7 August 2014, Hellas Verona of Serie A signed Márquez on undisclosed terms. He stated that he had taken a pay cut to join the club as he was desperate to return to Europe. He made his debut in the league on 31 August, starting as Verona played out a goalless draw at home against Atalanta.


title: Rafael Márquez

text: On 21 December 2015, it was announced that Márquez had officially transferred to Atlas, returning to the club he debuted with. He was handed the number 4 shirt.


title: Rafael Márquez

text: On 19 April 2018, Márquez announced that he would retire at the end of the season. He did, however, state his intention of representing Mexico at the World Cup. Márquez played his final match at the Estadio Jalisco on 20 April, a 1–0 victory in the Clásico Tapatío against Guadalajara. The following week, Márquez played his final club match against Pachuca at the Estadio Hidalgo, which ended in a 0–0 draw.


title: Rafael Márquez

text: Márquez made his debut with Mexico on 5 February 1997 in a friendly match against Ecuador. It was reported that his call-up was due to an error made by national team coach Bora Milutinović, who wanted to call up fellow Atlas player César Márquez. Márquez became a regular call-up for Mexico, although he was not chosen for the 1998 FIFA World Cup squad. Márquez played various tournaments with the national team, winning the 1999 FIFA Confederations Cup and losing to Canada at the 2000 CONCACAF Gold Cup. Márquez started all four of Mexico's games during the 2002 World Cup in South Korea and Japan, where he was given the captain's armband by then coach Javier Aguirre despite his young age of 23. He received a red card during Mexico's second round 2–0 loss to the United States for a deliberate mid-air head butt on Cobi Jones in the final minutes of the match.


title: Rafael Márquez

text: Márquez was selected by Ricardo La Volpe for the 2006 World Cup in Germany. Márquez played in all of three of Mexico's opening round matches, and scored the lone Mexican goal in a 2–1 loss to Argentina in the second round off a Pável Pardo free kick which was headed to the far post by Mario Méndez, allowing an unmarked Márquez to strike the ball into the back of the net. The winner was scored by Maxi Rodríguez in extra time after Hernán Crespo had equalised for Argentina.


title: Rafael Márquez

text: New Mexico coach Hugo Sánchez called-up Márquez to participate in the 2007 CONCACAF Gold Cup and the 2007 Copa América. Márquez joined up with the team Mexico for the Gold Cup's championship game against the United States after the conclusion of 2006–07 La Liga; he started the match, which Mexico lost 2–1.


title: Rafael Márquez

text: Márquez captained Mexico at the 2010 World Cup, scoring Mexico's goal in the tournament's opening match against South Africa which ended in a 1–1 draw. In Mexico's 2–0 win against France, Márquez assisted Javier Hernández in Mexico's first goal.


title: Rafael Márquez

text: On 29 March 2011, Márquez became the eighth player in history to reach 100 caps for Mexico in a friendly match against Venezuela, where Mexico drew 1–1.


title: Rafael Márquez

text: During Mexico's opening match at the 2014 World Cup – a 1–0 win over Cameroon – Márquez became the first player to captain a team in four World Cups. On 23 June, he scored the opening goal in the 3–1 win against Croatia, thus advancing to the knockout stage. This goal made Márquez the first Mexican player to score in three consecutive World Cups, and the second Mexican player ever to score in three World Cups after Cuauhtémoc Blanco.


title: Rafael Márquez

text: In May 2015, it was announced Márquez was included in the 23-man squad that would participate in the Copa América tournament in Chile. He was selected to start as captain in Mexico's opening fixture of the tournament, a 0–0 draw with Bolivia in Viña del Mar. The following year, Márquez captained Mexico at the Copa América Centenario, scoring in their opening game a 3–1 victory over Uruguay.


title: Rafael Márquez

text: On 11 November 2016, in a 2018 World Cup qualifier in Columbus, Ohio, Márquez scored the winning goal for Mexico in the 89th minute to seal a 2–1 victory over the United States.


title: Rafael Márquez

text: Appearing in Mexico's second group-stage match against New Zealand at the 2017 FIFA Confederations Cup, Márquez – at 38 years and four months – became the second-oldest player to appear in a match in Confederations Cup history. He was also making his first appearance at the tournament since 2005, setting new record for most years between consecutive matches with twelve.


title: Rafael Márquez

text: On 4 June 2018, Marquez was named in Mexico's final 23-man squad for the World Cup. This meant he would travel to his fifth World Cup finals, becoming only the fourth player in history to do so, alongside German Lothar Matthäus, Italian Gianluigi Buffon and fellow Mexican Antonio Carbajal. He was substituted in for Andrés Guardado at the 74th minute in Mexico's 1–0 win over defending-champions Germany, and became the third man in history to play at a fifth World Cup. On 2 July, in Mexico's round of 16 match against Brazil, Márquez became the first player ever to play as a captain in five World Cups and was substituted off at half-time, marking his last appearance as a professional.


title: Rafael Márquez

text: On 8 April 2020, Márquez was appointed youth coach at RSD Alcalá, taking care of the Cadete A (under 15) squad for the 2020–21 season.


title: Rafael Márquez

text: Following his retirement, he was introduced as Atlas' new sporting president, succeeding Fabricio Bassa. He held the position until May 2019. In October 2021, Márquez joined the TUDN network as an analyst and commentator for national team games.


title: Rafael Márquez

text: Capable of playing as a centre-back, sweeper, or defensive midfielder, Márquez is widely considered one of Mexico's greatest-ever players. Nicknamed the "Kaiser of Michoacan" he has been described as elegant on the ball, dependable in the air and skillful coming out of defense. He also stood out for his leadership, as well as his passing range, and his ability to read the game and intercept the ball.


title: Rafael Márquez

text: Although considered one of the best Mexican footballers of all time, Márquez is also seen as a controversial figure in the Mexican media for his indiscipline during crucial matches with Mexico.


title: Rafael Márquez

text: Márquez's father, Rafael Márquez Esqueda, was also a professional football player in Mexico. Rafael married Mexican actress Adriana Lavat in December 2001 and had two children, Santiago Rafael and Rafaela, before separating in 2007 and divorcing. He is now married to Jaydy Michel, ex-wife of singer Alejandro Sanz. His younger cousin, Luis Alberto Márquez, is also a professional footballer. Luis was formed in Atlas' rival club, Guadalajara and also played for Zacatepec.


title: Rafael Márquez

text: On 9 August 2017, it was reported that Márquez was among 22 people sanctioned under the Foreign Narcotics Kingpin Designation Act (also known as the "Kingpin Act") by the United States Treasury Department for alleged ties to a drug trafficking organization allegedly headed by Raúl Flores Hernández, a suspected drug trafficker with links to the Sinaloa Cartel and the Jalisco New Generation Cartel. He was placed on a Specially Designated Nationals List by the Treasury Department's Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC). Nine businesses, including a soccer school and charitable foundation, were linked to Márquez by the OFAC. All 22 people were accused of providing support to, or being under the control of Flores Hernández.


title: Rafael Márquez

text: According to the OFAC, Márquez conducted money laundering by acting as a strawperson for Flores Hernández and his criminal organization. They alleged that Márquez used businessmen Mauricio Heredia Horner and Marco Antonio Fregoso González to act for or on his behalf. Márquez's assets "that are under U.S. jurisdiction or are in the control of U.S. persons" would be frozen. The Mexican Attorney General's Office said in a statement that Márquez came voluntarily to their offices to provide a statement that same day. Since September 22, 2021 he has been removed from the list and is now clear of his name from the U.S Treasury Department.


title: Sobek

text: Sobek (also called Sebek or Sobki, ) was an ancient Egyptian deity with a complex and elastic history and nature. He is associated with the Nile crocodile or the West African crocodile and is represented either in its form or as a human with a crocodile head. Sobek was also associated with pharaonic power, fertility, and military prowess, but served additionally as a protective deity with apotropaic qualities, invoked especially for protection against the dangers presented by the Nile. Sobek has been famed for having been revered by the first female Pharaoh by the Nebty name Sat-Sekhem-Nebet-Tawy Sobekneferu, present both in the female Pharaoh's nomen, Sobek'Neferu (sbk-nfrw - Beauty of Sobek), and her praenomen Ka'Sobek'Re (The Ka of Sobek-Ra).


title: Sobek

text: Sobek enjoyed a longstanding presence in the ancient Egyptian pantheon, from the Old Kingdom of Egypt (c. 2686–2181 BCE) through the Roman period (). He is first known from several different Pyramid Texts of the Old Kingdom, particularly from spell PT 317. The spell, which praises the pharaoh as the living incarnation of the crocodile god, reads:


title: Sobek

text: The origin of his name, "Sbk" in Egyptian, is debated among scholars, but many believe that it is derived from a causative of the verb "to impregnate".


title: Sobek

text: Though Sobek was worshipped in the Old Kingdom, he truly gained prominence in the Middle Kingdom (), most notably under the Twelfth Dynasty pharaoh, Amenemhat III. Amenemhat III had taken a particular interest in the Faiyum of Egypt, a region heavily associated with Sobek. Amenemhat and many of his dynastic contemporaries engaged in building projects to promote Sobek – projects that were often executed in the Faiyum. In this period, Sobek also underwent an important change: he was often fused with the falcon-headed god of divine kingship, Horus. This brought Sobek even closer with the kings of Egypt, thereby giving him a place of greater prominence in the Egyptian pantheon. The fusion added a finer level of complexity to the god's nature, as he was adopted into the divine triad of Horus and his two parents: Osiris and Isis.


title: Sobek

text: Sobek first acquired a role as a solar deity through his connection to Horus, but this was further strengthened in later periods with the emergence of Sobek-Ra, a fusion of Sobek and Egypt's primary sun god, Ra. Sobek-Horus persisted as a figure in the New Kingdom (1550–1069 ), but it was not until the last dynasties of Egypt that Sobek-Ra gained prominence. This understanding of the god was maintained after the fall of Egypt's last native dynasty in Ptolemaic and Roman Egypt (). The prestige of both Sobek and Sobek-Ra endured in this time period and tributes to him attained greater prominence – both through the expansion of his dedicated cultic sites and a concerted scholarly effort to make him the subject of religious doctrine.


title: Sobek

text: The entire Faiyum region – the "Land of the Lake" in Egyptian (specifically referring to Lake Moeris) – served as a cult center of Sobek. Most Faiyum towns developed their own localized versions of the god, such as Soknebtunis at Tebtunis, Sokonnokonni at Bacchias, and Souxei at an unknown site in the area. At Karanis, two forms of the god were worshipped: Pnepheros and Petsuchos. There, mummified crocodiles were employed as cult images of Petsuchos.


title: Sobek

text: Sobek Shedety, the patron of the Faiyum's centrally located capital, Crocodilopolis (or Egyptian "Shedet"), was the most prominent form of the god. Extensive building programs honoring Sobek were realized in Shedet, as it was the capital of the entire Arsinoite nome and consequently the most important city in the region. It is thought that the effort to expand Sobek's main temple was initially driven by Ptolemy II. Specialized priests in the main temple at Shedet functioned solely to serve Sobek, boasting titles like "prophet of the crocodile-gods" and "one who buries of the bodies of the crocodile-gods of the Land of the Lake". For the Greco-Roman period, the settlements Bakchias, Narmouthis, Soknopaiou Nesos, Tebtunis and Theadelphia at the edges of the Faiyum provide numerous papyri, ostraca and inscriptions that relate to temples and priests of Sobek and his local incarnations: The sources from these five settlements are central to study cult practice, temple economy and social networks of priestly families under Roman rule.


title: Sobek

text: Outside the Faiyum, Kom Ombo, in southern Egypt, was the biggest cultic center of Sobek, particularly during the Ptolemaic and Roman periods. Kom Ombo is located about 30 miles (48 km) north of Aswan and was built during the Graeco-Roman period (332 BCE – 395 CE). The temple at this site was called the "Per-Sobek", meaning the "house of Sobek".


title: Sobek

text: Sobek is, above all else, an aggressive and animalistic deity who lives up to the vicious reputation of his patron animal, the large and violent Nile crocodile / West African crocodile. Some of his common epithets portray this nature succinctly, the most notable of which being: "he who loves robbery", "he who eats while he also mates", and "pointed of teeth". However, he also displays grand benevolence in more than one celebrated myth. After his association with Horus and consequent adoption into the Osirian triad of Osiris, Isis, and Horus in the Middle Kingdom, Sobek became associated with Isis as a healer of the deceased Osiris (following his violent murder by Set in the central Osiris myth). In fact, though many scholars believe that the name of Sobek, "Sbk", is derived from "s-bAk", "to impregnate", others postulate that it is a participial form of the verb "sbq", an alternative writing of "sAq", "to unite", thereby meaning "Sbk" could roughly translate to "he who unites (the dismembered limbs of Osiris)".


title: Sobek

text: It is from this association with healing that Sobek was considered a protective deity. His fierceness was able to ward off evil while simultaneously defending the innocent. He was thus made a subject of personal piety and a common recipient of votive offerings, particularly in the later periods of ancient Egyptian history. It was not uncommon, particularly in Ptolemaic and Roman Egypt, for crocodiles to be preserved as mummies to present at Sobek's cultic centers. Sobek was also offered mummified crocodile eggs, meant to emphasize the cyclical nature of his solar attributes as Sobek-Ra. Likewise, crocodiles were raised for religious reasons as living incarnations of Sobek.


title: Sobek

text: Upon their deaths, they were mummified in a grand ritual display as sacred, but earthly, manifestations of their patron god. This practice was executed specifically at the main temple of Crocodilopolis. These mummified crocodiles have been found with baby crocodiles in their mouths and on their backs.


title: Sobek

text: The crocodile is one of the few reptiles seen to diligently care for their young, and often transports its offspring in this manner. The practice of preserving this aspect of the animal's behavior via mummification is likely intended to emphasize the protective and nurturing aspects of the fierce Sobek, as he protects the Egyptian people in the same manner that the crocodile protects its young.


title: Sobek

text: In Ptolemaic and Roman Egypt, a local monograph called the "Book of the Faiyum" centered on Sobek with a considerable portion devoted to the journey made by Sobek-Ra each day with the movement of the sun through the sky. The text also focuses heavily on Sobek's central role in creation as a manifestation of Ra, as he is said to have risen from the primal waters of Lake Moeris, not unlike the Ogdoad in the traditional creation myth of Hermopolis.


title: Sobek

text: Many varied copies of the book exist and many scholars feel that it was produced in large quantities as a "best-seller" in antiquity. The integral relationship between the Faiyum and Sobek is highlighted via this text, and his far reaching influence is seen in localities that are outside the Faiyum as well; a portion of the book is copied on the Upper Egyptian (meaning southern Egyptian) Temple of Kom Ombo.


title: J. D. Tippit

text: J. D. Tippit (September 18, 1924 – November 22, 1963) was an American World War II U.S Army veteran and police officer who served as an 11-year veteran with the Dallas Police Department. About 45 minutes after the assassination of John F. Kennedy on November 22, 1963, Tippit was shot and killed in a residential neighborhood in the Oak Cliff section of Dallas, Texas. Lee Harvey Oswald was initially arrested for the murder of Tippit and was subsequently arrested for killing Kennedy. Oswald was killed by Jack Ruby, a Dallas nightclub owner, two days later.


title: J. D. Tippit

text: Tippit was born near the town of Annona, Texas, in Red River County. He was the eldest of seven children to Edgar Lee Tippit (1902–2006) and Lizzie Mae "May Bug" Rush (1905–1990). The Tippit and Rush families were of English ancestry, their ancestors having immigrated to Virginia from England by 1635. It is sometimes reported that J. D. stood for "Jefferson Davis", but in fact, the letters did not stand for anything.


title: J. D. Tippit

text: Tippit attended public schools through the tenth grade and was raised as a Baptist, a faith he practiced for the rest of his life. In the fall of 1939, when he was 15 years old, his family moved to Baker Lane, a stretch of dirt road six miles southwest from Clarksville, Texas.


title: J. D. Tippit

text: He saw service in World War II when he entered the United States Army on July 21, 1944. He volunteered for the paratroopers, part of the newly-formed airborne forces, and after finishing his training he was sent to Europe, in January 1945, and was assigned to the 513th Parachute Infantry Regiment (513th PIR), part of the 17th Airborne Division, which had recently fought in the Battle of the Bulge and suffered heavy casualties. He saw combat in Operation Varsity, the airborne crossing of the Rhine River in March 1945, earning a Bronze Star, and remained on active duty until June 20, 1946.


title: J. D. Tippit

text: Tippit began working for the Dearborn Stove Company in 1946. He next worked for Sears, Roebuck and Company in the installation department from March 1948 to September 1949 when he was laid off. Tippit and his wife Marie moved to Lone Star, Texas, where Tippit attempted to farm and raise cattle.


title: J. D. Tippit

text: In January 1950, Tippit enrolled in a Veterans Administration vocational training school at Bogata, Texas. He left the school in June 1952. After several setbacks as a farmer and rancher, Tippit decided to become a police officer. The Tippit family then relocated to Dallas where Tippit was hired by the Dallas Police Department as a patrolman in July 1952. During his time with the Dallas Police Department, Tippit was cited twice for bravery.


title: J. D. Tippit

text: At the time of his death, Tippit was earning a monthly salary of $490 () as a Dallas police officer. He was also working two part-time jobs; he worked at Austin's Barbecue restaurant on Friday and Saturday nights and at the Stevens Park Theatre on Sundays.


title: J. D. Tippit

text: On November 22, 1963, Tippit was working beat number 78, his normal patrol area in south Oak Cliff, a residential area of Dallas.


title: J. D. Tippit

text: At 12:45 p.m., 15 minutes after Kennedy was shot, Tippit received a radio order to drive to the central Oak Cliff area as part of a concentration of police around the center of the city. At 12:54, Tippit radioed that he had moved as directed. By then, several messages had been broadcast describing a suspect in the shooting at Dealey Plaza as a slender white male, in his early 30s, tall, and weighing about . Oswald was a slender white male, 24 years old, tall, and an estimated weight of at autopsy.


title: J. D. Tippit

text: At approximately 1:11–1:14 p.m., Tippit was driving slowly eastward on East 10th Street — about past the intersection of 10th Street and Patton Avenue — when he pulled alongside a man who resembled the police description. Oswald walked over to Tippit's car and exchanged words with him through an open vent window. Tippit opened his car door and as Tippit walked toward the front of the car, Oswald drew his handgun and fired five shots in rapid succession. Three bullets hit Tippit in the chest, another in his right temple, one bullet missed him altogether. Tippit's body was transported from the scene of the shooting by ambulance to Methodist Hospital, where he was pronounced dead at 1:25 p.m. by Dr. Richard A. Liguori.


title: J. D. Tippit

text: A short time later, Hardy's shoe store manager Johnny Brewer observed Oswald acting suspiciously as police cars passed nearby with sirens blaring. Oswald then ducked into the Texas Theatre without purchasing a ticket. The police were notified by the theater's cashier and responded by surrounding the theater. Oswald was arrested after a brief struggle.


title: J. D. Tippit

text: Twelve people who witnessed the shooting or its aftermath were mentioned in the Warren Report. Domingo Benavides saw Tippit standing by the left door of his parked police car, and a man standing on the right side of the car. He then heard three shots and saw Tippit fall to the ground. Benavides stopped his pickup truck on the opposite side of the street from Tippit's car. He observed the shooter fleeing the scene and removing two spent cartridge cases from his gun as he left.


title: J. D. Tippit

text: Benavides waited in his truck until the gunman disappeared, and then "a few minutes" more, before assisting Tippit. He then tried, unsuccessfully, to use the radio in Tippit's car to report the shooting to police headquarters. Then another, unidentified person used the radio in the car and reported the shooting to a police operator for the first time. After that, Ted Callaway, who was Benavides' boss at the used car lot and a former Marine, also used the radio and reported the shooting (hearing in response that the police already know about it). Callaway testified that he had seen the shooter with the gun "in a raised pistol position", and shouted at him, but what the shooter responded was unintelligible. Helen Markham witnessed the shooting and then saw a man with a gun in his hand leave the scene. Markham identified Oswald as Tippit's killer in a police lineup she viewed that evening. Barbara Davis and her sister-in-law Virginia Davis heard the shots and saw a man crossing their lawn, shaking his revolver, as if he were emptying it of cartridge cases. Later, the women found two cartridge cases near the crime scene and handed the cases over to police (two other cartridge cases were handed to a policeman by Benavides). That evening, Barbara Davis and Virginia Davis were taken to a lineup and both Davises picked out Oswald as the man whom they had seen.


title: J. D. Tippit

text: Taxicab driver William Scoggins testified that he was sitting nearby in his cab when he saw Tippit's police car pull up alongside a man on the sidewalk. Scoggins heard three or four shots and then saw Tippit fall to the ground. As Scoggins crouched behind his cab, the man passed within 12 feet of him, pistol in hand, muttering what sounded to him like, "poor dumb cop" or "poor damn cop." The next day, Scoggins viewed a police lineup and identified Oswald as the man whom he had seen with the pistol.


title: J. D. Tippit

text: The Commission also named several other witnesses who were not at the scene of the murder, but who identified Oswald running between the murder scene and the Texas Theatre, where Oswald was subsequently arrested.


title: J. D. Tippit

text: It was the unanimous testimony of expert witnesses before the Warren Commission that these spent cartridge cases were fired from the revolver in Oswald's possession to the exclusion of all other weapons.


title: J. D. Tippit

text: Out of the four bullets recovered from Tippit's body, only one (according to Nicol) or none (according to Cunningham) could be positively identified as having been fired from Oswald's revolver; the others "could have" been fired from that revolver, but there was no certain match. When the revolver was test-fired by the FBI, it was reported that it was leaving inconsistent microscopic markings on the bullets, i.e. two consecutive bullets fired from it could not be matched to each other. This was because the revolver had been rechambered for .38 Special but not rebarreled for .38 Special, so the bullets were slightly undersized compared to the barrel, making their passage through the barrel "erratic". Extensive damage to the bullets (mutilation) was also noted. Later, the House Select Committee on Assassinations (HSCA) agreed with Cunningham's conclusion that none of the bullets found could be positively identified, or ruled out, as having been fired from Oswald's revolver. Still, when they test-fired the gun, they found that bullets fired from it could actually be matched to each other, if they were of the same type and manufacturer.


title: J. D. Tippit

text: There was a discrepancy between the four cartridge cases (2 Western, 2 Remington-Peters) and the four bullets (3 Western-Winchester, 1 Remington-Peters) found; one of the proposed explanations was that Oswald fired five shots, and one bullet and one cartridge case were not found.


title: J. D. Tippit

text: Upon his arrest and during subsequent questionings by police, Oswald denied any involvement in Tippit's murder. Based on eyewitness' statements and the gun found in Oswald's possession at the time of his arrest, he was formally charged with the murder of J. D. Tippit at 7:10 p.m. on November 22. During the course of the day, police began to suspect that Oswald was also involved in the shooting of Kennedy.


title: J. D. Tippit

text: At approximately 1:00 am on November 23, Oswald was also charged with assassinating President John F. Kennedy. Oswald continued to maintain his innocence in connection with both murders. In the late morning of November 24, while being transported from the Dallas City Jail to the Dallas County Jail, Oswald was fatally shot in the abdomen by Dallas nightclub owner Jack Ruby. The shooting was broadcast throughout the United States and Canada on live television.


title: J. D. Tippit

text: As Oswald was killed before he was tried for either crime, President Lyndon B. Johnson commissioned a committee of US Senators, Congressmen and elder statesmen to investigate the events surrounding the deaths of Kennedy, Tippit, and Oswald in an effort to answer questions regarding the events. President Johnson also hoped to quell rumors that arose after Oswald was shot by Jack Ruby that the assassination and subsequent shootings were part of a conspiracy. The committee, known as the Warren Commission (named for the commission chairman, Chief Justice Earl Warren), spent ten months investigating the murders and interviewing witnesses. On September 24, 1964, the Warren Commission released an 888-page report that concluded there was no evidence of a conspiracy and Oswald had acted alone in killing Kennedy and Tippit. The report also concluded that Jack Ruby acted alone in the killing of Oswald.


title: J. D. Tippit

text: In 1979, the HSCA reported: "Based on Oswald's possession of the murder weapon a short time after the murder and the eyewitness identifications of Oswald as the gunman, the committee concluded that Oswald shot and killed Tippit."


title: J. D. Tippit

text: Some conspiracy theorists have alleged that the murder of Tippit was part of a conspiracy to kill Kennedy, implying that two murders could not have happened so closely together by coincidence. Warren Commission attorney David Belin referred to Tippit's killing as the "Rosetta Stone to the JFK assassination".


title: J. D. Tippit

text: Some critics dispute that Oswald shot Tippit, arguing that the physical evidence and witness testimony do not support that conclusion. New Orleans district attorney Jim Garrison, who investigated the assassination of John F. Kennedy and brought evidence in his 1969 trial of businessman Clay Shaw, contended in his book "On the Trail of the Assassins" that the witness testimony and handling of evidence in the Tippit murder was flawed and that it was doubtful that Oswald was the killer or even at the scene of the crime. According to Garrison, numerous witnesses who were not interviewed by the Warren Commission reported seeing two men fleeing the scene of Tippit's murder. He also claimed that Helen Markham, the Warren Commission's star witness, expressed uncertainty as to her identification of Oswald in the police lineup. Garrison also claimed that bullets recovered from Tippit's body were from two different manufacturers (that was actually what the Warren Commission stated), and the gun found on Oswald at his arrest did not match the cartridges found at the scene. Garrison accused the Dallas Police Department of mishandling the evidence and of possibly firing Oswald's revolver to produce bullet cartridges for the FBI to link to his gun.


title: J. D. Tippit

text: Other critics state that Tippit himself was a conspirator, tasked to kill Oswald by organized crime or right-wing politicians in order to cover up the search for other assassins.


title: J. D. Tippit

text: On the evening of the assassination, both Attorney General Robert F. Kennedy and the new President, Lyndon B. Johnson, called Tippit's widow to express their sympathies. Jacqueline Kennedy wrote a letter expressing sorrow for the bond they shared. The plight of Tippit's family also moved much of the nation and a total of $647,579 was donated to them following the assassination. One of the largest individual gifts was $25,000 that Dallas businessman Abraham Zapruder donated to Frances Tippit after selling his film of the president's assassination to "Life" magazine.


title: J. D. Tippit

text: A televised funeral service for Tippit was held on November 25, 1963, at the Beckley Hills Baptist Church, attended by about 2000 people, at least 800 of them police colleagues. Police outriders attended the hearse on its way to the burial at the newly established Memorial Court of Honor at the Laurel Land Memorial Park in Dallas. His funeral was held on the same day as those of both Kennedy and Oswald.


title: J. D. Tippit

text: In January 1964, Tippit was posthumously awarded the Medal of Valor from the American Police Hall of Fame, and he also received the Police Medal of Honor, the Police Cross, and the Citizens Traffic Commission Award of Heroism. A state historical marker memorializing Tippit was unveiled November 20, 2012, at the location where the shooting occurred.


title: J. D. Tippit

text: Tippit's widow married Dallas police lieutenant Harry Dean Thomas in January 1967. They were married until his death in 1982. Marie Tippit later married Carl Flinner; the marriage ended in divorce after which Marie resumed using the surname of Tippit.


title: J. D. Tippit

text: Tippit married Marie Frances Gasway on December 26, 1946. Marie died on March 2, 2021 at age 92. The couple had three children: Charles Allan (born 1950-2014), Brenda Kay (born 1953) and Curtis Glenn (born 1958).


title: J. D. Tippit

text: In films, Tippit has been portrayed by Price Carson in 1991's "JFK", and David Duchovny in 1992's "Ruby". He was also portrayed by Matt Micou in the 2013 television drama "Killing Kennedy".


title: Motherfucker

text: Motherfucker ( ), sometimes abbreviated as mofo, mf, or mf'er, is an English-language vulgarism. It is a form of the profanity "fuck". While the word is usually considered highly offensive, it is rarely used in the literal sense of one who engages in sexual activity with another person's mother, or their own mother. Rather, it refers to a mean, despicable, or vicious person, or any particularly difficult or frustrating situation. Alternatively, it can be used as a term of admiration, as in the term "badass motherfucker", meaning a fearless and confident person.


title: Motherfucker

text: Like many widely used offensive terms, "motherfucker" has a large list of minced oaths. "Motherhumper", "motherfugger", "mother f'er", "mothersucker", "mothertrucker", "motherfreaker", "motherlover", "mofo", "fothermucker", "motherflower", "mother flipper", "motherkisser" and many more are sometimes used in polite company or to avoid censorship. The participle "motherfucking" is often used as an emphatic, in the same way as the less strong "fucking". The verb "to motherfuck" also exists, although it is less common. Conversely, when paired with an adjective, it can become a term denoting such things as originality and masculinity, as in the related phrase "badass mother fucker." Use of the term as a compliment is frequent in the jazz community, for example when Miles Davis addressed his future percussionist Mino Cinelu: "Miles...grabbed his arm and said, 'You're a motherfucker.' Cinelu thanked Miles for the compliment."


title: Motherfucker

text: The word dates back at least to the late 19th century. In an 1889 Texas murder case, a witness testified that the victim had called the defendant a "God damned mother-f—king, bastardly son-of-a-bitch" shortly before his death. A later Texas court opinion from 1897 prints the word "mother-fucking" in full. and in 1917 a U.S. soldier called his draft board ""You low-down Mother Fuckers."" in a letter.


title: Motherfucker

text: In literature, Norman Mailer, in his 1948 novel "The Naked and the Dead" uses it occasionally, disguised as "motherfugger", and used it in full in his 1967 novel "Why Are We in Vietnam?". It appears twice in James Purdy's 1956 novella "63: Dream Palace". In Kurt Vonnegut's novel "Slaughterhouse-Five" the word is used by one of the soldiers in the story – leading to the novel being often challenged in libraries and schools. Vonnegut joked in a speech, published in the collection "Fates Worse Than Death", that "Ever since that word was published, way back in 1969, children have been attempting to have intercourse with their mothers. When it will stop no one knows."


title: Motherfucker

text: The words "mother for you" or "mother fuyer", as minced oaths for "motherfucker", were used in blues and R&B records from the 1930s. A few examples include Memphis Minnie's "Dirty Mother For You" (1935), Roosevelt Sykes' "Dirty Mother For You" (1936), and Dirty Red's "Mother Fuyer" (1947). The singer Stick McGhee, whose recording of "Drinking Wine Spo-Dee-O-Dee" was a hit in 1949, claimed that he had originally heard the song as "Drinking Wine, Motherfucker". Later, Johnny "Guitar" Watson had a hit in 1977 with "A Real Mother For Ya".


title: Motherfucker

text: In popular music, the first mainstream rock release to include the word was the 1969 album "Kick Out the Jams" by MC5. The title track, a live recording, is introduced by vocalist Rob Tyner shouting "And right now. right now. right now it's time to. kick out the jams, motherfuckers!". This was quickly pulled from stores, and an edited version was released with the words "brothers and sisters" overdubbed on the offending word. At about the same time, the Jefferson Airplane released the album "Volunteers", the opening track of which, "We Can Be Together", included the line "up against the wall, motherfucker", a popular catch phrase among radical groups at the time. This attracted less attention. The word was strongly implied, but not said explicitly, in Isaac Hayes' huge 1971 hit song "Theme from Shaft". Arlo Guthrie's 1967 piece "Alice's Restaurant" used a minced version, "mother rapers." Though rarely broadcast in the US, the word has since become common in popular music, particularly in hip hop.


title: Motherfucker

text: The word appears in George Carlin's "Seven Words You Can't Say on Television". In one HBO special, he comments that at one point, someone asked him to remove it, since, as a derivative of the word "fuck", it constituted a duplication. He later added it back, claiming that the bit's rhythm does not work without it.


title: Motherfucker

text: The word has become something of a catchphrase for actor Samuel L. Jackson, who frequently utters the word in some films. His use of the word helped him overcome a lifelong stuttering problem.


title: Ray-Ban

text: Ray-Ban is an American-Italian brand of luxury sunglasses and eyeglasses created in 1936 by Bausch & Lomb. The brand is known for its Wayfarer and Aviator lines of sunglasses. In 1999, Bausch & Lomb sold the brand to Italian eyewear conglomerate Luxottica Group for a reported $640 million.


title: Ray-Ban

text: In 1929, US Army Air Corps Colonel John A. Macready worked with Bausch & Lomb, a Rochester, New York-based medical equipment manufacturer, to create aviation sunglasses that would reduce the distraction for pilots caused by the intense blue and white hues of the sky.


title: Ray-Ban

text: Specifically, MacCready was concerned about how pilots' goggles would fog up, greatly reducing visibility at high altitude. The prototype, created in 1936 and known as "Anti-Glare", had plastic frames and green lenses that could cut out the glare without obscuring vision. The name "Ray-Ban" was hence derived from the ability of these glasses to limit the ingress of either ultra-violet or infra-red rays of light. Impact-resistant lenses were added in 1938. The sunglasses were redesigned with a metal frame the following year and patented as the Ray-Ban Aviator. According to the BBC, the glasses used “Kalichrome lenses designed to sharpen details and minimise haze by filtering out blue light, making them ideal for misty conditions.”


title: Ray-Ban

text: In 1999, the Global Eyewear Division of Bausch & Lomb, including Ray-Ban was acquired by Luxottica Group for US$240 million.


title: Ray-Ban

text: In 2021, Ray-Ban commercialized a model of smart glasses that they developed with Facebook Reality Labs called Ray-Ban Stories.


title: Ray-Ban

text: Ray-Ban's most popular sunglasses are the Wayfarer, Erika, and Aviator models. During the 1950s, Ray-Ban released the Echelon (Caravan), which had a squarer frame. In 1965, the Olympian I and II were introduced; they became popular when Peter Fonda wore them in the 1969 film "Easy Rider". The company has also produced special edition lines, such as The General in 1987, bearing similarity to the original aviators worn by General Douglas MacArthur during the Second World War.


title: Ray-Ban

text: In the 1980s the Ray-Ban Clubmaster was added to the model line. The Clubmaster has a browline frame and went on to become the third best selling sunglasses style of the 1980s, behind the Wayfarer and Aviator.


title: Service-level agreement

text: A service-level agreement (SLA) is a commitment between a service provider and a customer. Particular aspects of the service – quality, availability, responsibilities – are agreed between the service provider and the service user.


title: Service-level agreement

text: The most common component of an SLA is that the services should be provided to the customer as agreed upon in the contract. As an example, Internet service providers and telcos will commonly include service level agreements within the terms of their contracts with customers to define the level(s) of service being sold in plain language terms. In this case, the SLA will typically have a technical definition of "mean time between failures" (MTBF), "mean time to repair" or "mean time to recovery" (MTTR); identifying which party is responsible for reporting faults or paying fees; responsibility for various data rates; throughput; jitter; or similar measurable details.


title: Service-level agreement

text: A service-level agreement is an agreement between two or more parties, where one is the customer and the others are service providers. This can be a legally binding formal or an informal "contract" (for example, internal department relationships). The agreement may involve separate organizations or different teams within one organization. Contracts between the service provider and other third parties are often (incorrectly) called SLAs – because the level of service has been set by the (principal) customer, there can be no "agreement" between third parties; these agreements are simply "contracts." Operational-level agreements or OLAs, however, may be used by internal groups to support SLAs. If some aspect of service has not been agreed upon with the customer, it is not an "SLA".


title: Service-level agreement

text: SLAs commonly include many components, from a definition of services to the termination of agreement. To ensure that SLAs are consistently met, these agreements are often designed with specific lines of demarcation and the parties involved are required to meet regularly to create an open forum for communication. Rewards and penalties applying to the provider are often specified. Most SLAs also leave room for a periodic (annual) revisitation to make changes.


title: Service-level agreement

text: Since the late 1980s SLAs have been used by fixed-line telecom operators. SLAs are so widely used these days that larger organizations have many different SLAs existing within the company itself. Two different units in an organization script an SLA with one unit being the customer and another being the service provider. This practice helps to maintain the same quality of service amongst different units in the organization and also across multiple locations of the organization. This internal scripting of SLA also helps to compare the quality of service between an in-house department and an external service provider.


title: Service-level agreement

text: The output received by the customer as a result of the service provided is the main focus of the service level agreement.


title: Service-level agreement

text: Service-level agreements can contain numerous service-performance metrics with corresponding service-level objectives. A common case in IT-service management is a call center or service desk. Metrics commonly agreed to in these cases include:


title: Service-level agreement

text: Uptime is also a common metric, often used for data services such as shared hosting, virtual private servers and dedicated servers. Common agreements include percentage of network uptime, power uptime, number of scheduled maintenance windows, etc.


title: Service-level agreement

text: It is not uncommon for an internet backbone service provider (or network service provider) to explicitly state its SLA on its website. The U.S. Telecommunications Act of 1996 does not expressly mandate that companies have SLAs, but it does provide a framework for firms to do so in Sections 251 and 252. Section 252(c)(1) for example ("Duty to Negotiate") requires Incumbent local exchange carriers (ILECs) to negotiate in good faith about matters such as resale and access to rights of way.


title: Service-level agreement

text: A web service level agreement (WSLA) is a standard for service level agreement compliance monitoring of web services. It allows authors to specify the performance metrics associated with a web service application, desired performance targets, and actions that should be performed when performance is not met.


title: Service-level agreement

text: The underlying benefit of cloud computing is shared resources, which are supported by the underlying nature of a shared infrastructure environment. Thus, SLAs span across the cloud and are offered by service providers as a service-based agreements rather than a customer-based agreements. Measuring, monitoring and reporting on cloud performance is based on the end UX or their ability to consume resources. The downside of cloud computing relative to SLAs is the difficulty in determining the root cause of service interruptions due to the complex nature of the environment.


title: Service-level agreement

text: As applications are moved from dedicated hardware into the cloud, they need to achieve the same even more demanding levels of service than classical installations. SLAs for cloud services focus on characteristics of the data center and more recently include characteristics of the network (see carrier cloud) to support end-to-end SLAs.


title: Service-level agreement

text: Any SLA management strategy considers two well-differentiated phases: negotiating the contract and monitoring its fulfillment in real-time. Thus, SLA management encompasses the SLA contract definition: the basic schema with the QoS parameters; SLA negotiation; SLA monitoring; SLA violation detection; and SLA enforcement—according to defined policies.


title: Service-level agreement

text: The main point is to build a new layer upon the grid, cloud, or SOA middleware able to create a negotiation mechanism between the providers and consumers of services. An example is the EU–funded Framework 7 research project, SLA@SOI, which is researching aspects of multi-level, multi-provider SLAs within service-oriented infrastructure and cloud computing, while another EU-funded project, VISION Cloud, has provided results concerning content-oriented SLAs.


title: Service-level agreement

text: FP7 IRMOS also investigated aspects of translating application-level SLA terms to resource-based attributes to bridge the gap between client-side expectations and cloud-provider resource-management mechanisms. A summary of the results of various research projects in the area of SLAs (ranging from specifications to monitoring, management and enforcement) has been provided by the European Commission.


title: Service-level agreement

text: Outsourcing involves the transfer of responsibility from an organization to a supplier. This new arrangement is managed through a contract that may include one or more SLAs. The contract may involve financial penalties and the right to terminate if any of the SLA metrics are consistently missed. The setting, tracking and managing SLAs is an important part of the outsourcing relationship management (ORM) discipline. Specific SLAs are typically negotiated upfront as part of the outsourcing contract and used as one of the primary tools of outsourcing governance.


title: Service-level agreement

text: In software development, specific SLAs can apply to application outsourcing contracts in line with standards in software quality, as well as recommendations provided by neutral organizations like CISQ, which has published numerous papers on the topic (such as "Using Software Measurement in SLAs") that are available in to the public.


title: Replication crisis

text: The replication crisis (also called the replicability crisis and the reproducibility crisis) is an ongoing methodological crisis in which the results of many scientific studies are difficult or impossible to reproduce. Because the reproducibility of empirical results is an essential part of the scientific method, such failures undermine the credibility of theories building on them and potentially call into question substantial parts of scientific knowledge.


title: Replication crisis

text: The replication crisis is frequently discussed in relation to psychology and medicine, where considerable efforts have been undertaken to reinvestigate classic results, to determine both their reliability and, if found unreliable, the reasons for the failure. Data strongly indicate that other natural, and social sciences are affected as well.


title: Replication crisis

text: The phrase "replication crisis" was coined in the early 2010s as part of a growing awareness of the problem. Considerations of causes and remedies have given rise to a new scientific discipline, metascience, which uses methods of empirical research to examine empirical research practice.


title: Replication crisis

text: Since empirical research involves both obtaining and analyzing data, considerations about its reproducibility fall into two categories. The validation of the analysis and interpretation of the data obtained in a study runs under the term reproducibility in the narrow sense. The task of repeating the experiment or observational study to obtain new, independent data with the goal of reaching the same or similar conclusions as an original study is called replication.


title: Replication crisis

text: Replication has been called "the cornerstone of science". Environmental health scientist Stefan Schmidt began a 2009 review with this description of replication:


title: Replication crisis

text: But there is limited consensus on how to define "replication" and potentially related concepts. A number of types of replication have been identified:


title: Replication crisis

text: "Reproducibility" can also be distinguished from "replication", as referring to reproducing the same results using the same data set. Reproducibility of this type is why many researchers make their data available to others for testing.


title: Replication crisis

text: The replication crisis does not necessarily mean these fields are unscientific. Rather, this process is part of the scientific process in which old ideas or those that cannot withstand careful scrutiny are pruned, although this pruning process is not always effective.


title: Replication crisis

text: A hypothesis is generally considered to be supported when the results match the predicted pattern and that pattern of results is found to be statistically significant. Results are generally considered significant when statistical testing determines that there is a 5% (or less) probability that the measured effects are inconsequential. This is depicted as "p" < 0.05, where "p" (typically called the "p"-value) is the probability level. This should result in 5% of hypotheses that are supported being false positives (an incorrect hypothesis being erroneously found correct), assuming the studies meet all of the statistical assumptions. Some fields use smaller p-values, such as "p" < 0.01 (1% chance of a false positive) or "p" < 0.001 (0.1% chance of a false positive). But a smaller chance of a false positive often requires greater sample sizes or a greater chance of a false negative (a correct hypothesis being erroneously found incorrect). Although "p"-value testing is the most commonly used method, it is not the only method.


title: Replication crisis

text: Despite issues with replicability being pervasive across scientific fields, several factors have combined to put psychology at the center of the conversation. Some areas of psychology once considered solid, such as social priming, have come under increased scrutiny due to failed replications. Much of the focus has been on the area of social psychology, although other areas of psychology such as clinical psychology, developmental psychology, and educational research have also been implicated.


title: Replication crisis

text: In August 2015, the first open empirical study of reproducibility in psychology was published, called The Reproducibility Project: Psychology. Coordinated by psychologist Brian Nosek, researchers redid 100 studies in psychological science from three high-ranking psychology journals ("Journal of Personality and Social Psychology", "", and "Psychological Science"). 97 of the original studies had significant effects, but of those 97, only 36% of the replications yielded significant findings ("p" value below 0.05). The mean effect size in the replications was approximately half the magnitude of the effects reported in the original studies. The same paper examined the reproducibility rates and effect sizes by journal and discipline. Study replication rates were 23% for the "Journal of Personality and Social Psychology", 48% for "Journal of Experimental Psychology: Learning, Memory, and Cognition", and 38% for "Psychological Science". Studies in the field of cognitive psychology had a higher replication rate (50%) than studies in the field of social psychology (25%).


title: Replication crisis

text: A study published in 2018 in "Nature Human Behaviour" replicated 21 social and behavioral science papers from "Nature" and "Science," finding that only about 62% could successfully reproduce original results.


title: Replication crisis

text: Similarly, in a study conducted under the auspices of the Center for Open Science, a team of 186 researchers from 60 different laboratories (representing 36 different nationalities from six different continents) conducted replications of 28 classic and contemporary findings in psychology. The study's focus was not only whether the original papers' findings replicated but also the extent to which findings varied as a function of variations in samples and contexts. Overall, 50% of the 28 findings failed to replicate despite massive sample sizes. But if a finding replicated, then it replicated in most samples. If a finding was not replicated, then it failed to replicate with little variation across samples and contexts. This evidence is inconsistent with a proposed explanation that failures to replicate in psychology are likely due to changes in the sample between the original and replication study.


title: Replication crisis

text: Results of a 2022 study suggest that many earlier brain–phenotype studies ("brain-wide association studies" (BWAS)) produced invalid conclusions as the replication of such studies requires samples from thousands of individuals due to small effect sizes.


title: Replication crisis

text: Of 49 medical studies from 1990 to 2003 with more than 1000 citations, 92% found that the studied therapies were effective. Of these studies, 16% were contradicted by subsequent studies, 16% had found stronger effects than did subsequent studies, 44% were replicated, and 24% remained largely unchallenged. A 2011 analysis by researchers with pharmaceutical company Bayer found that, at most, a quarter of Bayer's in-house findings replicated the original results. But the analysis of Bayer's results found that the results that did replicate could often be successfully used for clinical applications.


title: Replication crisis

text: In a 2012 paper, C. Glenn Begley, a biotech consultant working at Amgen, and Lee Ellis, a medical researcher at the University of Texas, found that only 11% of 53 pre-clinical cancer studies had replications that could confirm conclusions from the original studies. In late 2021, The Reproducibility Project: Cancer Biology examined 53 top papers about cancer published between 2010 and 2012 and showed that among studies that provided sufficient information to be redone, the effect sizes were 85% smaller on average than the original findings. A survey of cancer researchers found that half of them had been unable to reproduce a published result.


title: Replication crisis

text: Economics has lagged behind other social sciences and psychology in its attempts to assess replication rates and increase the number of studies that attempt replication. A 2016 study in the journal "Science" replicated 18 experimental studies published in two top-tier economics journals, "The American Economic Review" and the "Quarterly Journal of Economics", between 2011 and 2014. It found that about 39% failed to reproduce the original results. About 20% of studies published in "The American Economic Review" are contradicted by other studies despite relying on the same or similar data sets. A study of empirical findings in the "Strategic Management Journal" found that about 30% of 27 retested articles showed statistically insignificant results for previously significant findings, whereas about 4% showed statistically significant results for previously insignificant findings.


title: Replication crisis

text: A 2019 study in "Scientific Data" estimated with 95% confidence that of 1,989 articles on water resources and management published in 2017, study results might be reproduced for only 0.6% to 6.8%, even if each of these articles were to provide sufficient information that allowed for replication.


title: Replication crisis

text: A 2016 survey by "Nature" on 1,576 researchers who took a brief online questionnaire on reproducibility found that more than 70% of researchers have tried and failed to reproduce another scientist's experiment results (including 87% of chemists, 77% of biologists, 69% of physicists and engineers, 67% of medical researchers, 64% of earth and environmental scientists, and 62% of all others), and more than half have failed to reproduce their own experiments. But fewer than 20% had been contacted by another researcher unable to reproduce their work. The survey found that fewer than 31% of researchers believe that failure to reproduce results means that the original result is probably wrong, although 52% agree that a significant replication crisis exists. Most researchers said they still trust the published literature.


title: Replication crisis

text: Early analysis of result-blind peer review, which is less affected by publication bias, has estimated that 61% of result-blind studies in biomedicine and psychology have led to null results, in contrast to an estimated 5% to 20% in earlier research.


title: Replication crisis

text: The replication crisis may be triggered by the "generation of new data and scientific publications at an unprecedented rate" that leads to the "desperation to publish or perish" and a failure to adhere to good scientific practice.


title: Replication crisis

text: Predictions of an impending crisis in the quality control mechanism of science can be traced back several decades. Derek de Solla Price—considered the father of scientometrics, the quantitative study of science—predicted that science could reach "senility" as a result of its own exponential growth. Some present-day literature seems to vindicate this "overflow" prophecy, lamenting the decay in both attention and quality.


title: Replication crisis

text: Historian Philip Mirowski offers another reading of the crisis in his 2011 book "Science-Mart: Privatizing American Science". Mirowski uses the word "Mart" as a metaphor for the commodification of science. In his analysis, the quality of science collapses when it becomes a commodity being traded in a market. He argues his case by tracing the decay of science to the decision of major corporations to close their in-house laboratories. They outsourced their work to universities in an effort to reduce costs and increase profits. The corporations subsequently moved their research away from universities to an even cheaper option – Contract Research Organizations.


title: Replication crisis

text: Social systems theory, as expounded in the work of German sociologist Niklas Luhmann, inspires a similar diagnosis. This theory holds that each system, such as economy, science, religion or media, communicates using its own code: "true" and "false" for science, "profit" and "loss" for the economy, "news" and "no-news" for the media, and so on. According to some sociologists, science's mediatization, its commodification and its politicization, as a result of the structural coupling among systems, have led to a confusion of the original system codes. If science's code of "true" and "false" is substituted with those of the other systems, such as "profit" and "loss" or "news" and "no-news", science enters into an internal crisis.


title: Replication crisis

text: Economist Noah Smith suggests that a factor in the crisis has been the overvaluing of research in academia and undervaluing of teaching ability, especially in fields with few major recent discoveries.


title: Replication crisis

text: Philosopher and historian of science Jerome R. Ravetz predicted in his 1971 book "Scientific Knowledge and Its Social Problems" that science—in its progression from "little" science composed of isolated communities of researchers, to "big" science or "techno-science"—would suffer major problems in its internal system of quality control. He recognized that the incentive structure for modern scientists could become dysfunctional, now known as the present publish-or-perish challenge, creating perverse incentives to publish any findings, however dubious. According to Ravetz, quality in science is maintained only when there is a community of scholars, linked by a set of shared norms and standards, who are willing and able to hold each other accountable.


title: Replication crisis

text: Philosopher Brian D. Earp and psychologist Jim A. C. Everett argue that, although replication is in the best interests of academics and researchers as a group, features of academic psychological culture discourage replication by individual researchers. They argue that performing replications can be time-consuming, and take away resources from projects that reflect the researcher's original thinking. They are harder to publish, largely because they are unoriginal, and even when they can be published they are unlikely to be viewed as major contributions to the field. Ultimately, replications "bring less recognition and reward, including grant money, to their authors".


title: Replication crisis

text: A major cause of low reproducibility is the publication bias stemming from the fact that statistically non-significant results and seemingly unoriginal replications are rarely published. Only a very small proportion of academic journals in psychology and neurosciences explicitly welcomed submissions of replication studies in their aim and scope or instructions to authors. This does not encourage reporting on, or even attempts to perform, replication studies. Among 1,576 researchers surveyed by "Nature" in 2016, only a minority had ever attempted to publish a replication, and several respondents who had published failed replications noted that editors and reviewers demanded that they play down comparisons with the original studies. An analysis of 4,270 empirical studies in 18 business journals from 1970 to 1991 reported that less than 10% of accounting, economics, and finance articles and 5% of management and marketing articles were replication studies. Publication bias is augmented by the pressure to publish and the author's own confirmation bias, and is an inherent hazard in the field, requiring a certain degree of skepticism on the part of readers.


title: Replication crisis

text: Certain publishing practices also make it difficult to conduct replications and to monitor the severity of the reproducibility crisis, for oftentimes the articles do not come with sufficient descriptions for other scholars to reproduce the study. The Reproducibility Project: Cancer Biology showed that of 193 experiments from 53 top papers about cancer published between 2010 and 2012, only 50 experiments from 23 papers have authors who provided enough information for researchers to redo the studies, sometimes with modifications. None of the 193 papers examined had its experimental protocols fully described and replicating 70% of experiments required asking for key reagents. The aforementioned study of empirical findings in the "Strategic Management Journal" found that 70% of 88 articles could not be replicated due to a lack of sufficient information for data or procedures. In water resources and management, most of 1,987 articles published in 2017 were not replicable because of a lack of available information shared online.


title: Replication crisis

text: Questionable research practices (QRPs) are intentional behaviors which capitalize on the gray area of acceptable scientific behavior or exploit the researcher degrees of freedom (researcher DF), which can contribute to the irreproducibility of results. Researcher DF are seen in hypothesis formulation, design of experiments, data collection and analysis, and reporting of research. Some examples of QRPs are data dredging, selective reporting, and HARKing (hypothesising after results are known). In medicine, irreproducible studies have six features in common. These include investigators not being blinded to the experimental versus the control arms, a failure to repeat experiments, a lack of positive and negative controls, failing to report all the data, inappropriate use of statistical tests, and use of reagents that were not appropriately validated.


title: Replication crisis

text: QRPs do not include more explicit violations of scientific integrity, such as data falsification. Fraudulent research does occur, as in the case of scientific fraud by social psychologist Diederik Stapel, cognitive psychologist Marc Hauser and social psychologist Lawrence Sanna. Despite these scandals, scientific fraud appears to be uncommon. In 2009, a meta-analysis found that 2% of scientists across fields admitted to falsifying studies at least once and 14% admitted to personally knowing someone who did. Such misconduct was, according to one study, reported more frequently by medical researchers than by others.


title: Replication crisis

text: According to biotechnology researcher J. Leslie Glick's estimate in 1992, about 10 to 20% of research and development studies involved either QRPs or outright fraud. A 2012 survey of over 2,000 psychologists indicated that about 94% of respondents admitted to using at least one QRP or engaging in fraud, although the methodology of this survey and its results have been called into question.


title: Replication crisis

text: According to a 2018 analysis of 200 meta-analyses, "psychological research is, on average, afflicted with low statistical power", meaning that most studies do not have a high probability of accurately finding an effect when one exists. Findings from original studies which have low power will often fail to replicate, and replication studies with low power are susceptible to false negatives. Low statistical power is a substantial contributor to the replication crisis.


title: Replication crisis

text: Within economics, the replication crisis may be exacerbated because econometric results are fragile: using different but plausible estimation procedures or data preprocessing techniques can lead to obtaining conflicting results.


title: Replication crisis

text: Philosopher Alexander Bird argues that high rates of failed replications can be consistent with quality science. He argues that this depends on the base rate of hypotheses: a field with a high rate of incorrect hypotheses would see a high rate of failed reproductions. Given the parameters of statistical testing, 5% of studies testing incorrect hypotheses would be significant (a false positive). If there are almost no correct hypotheses (true positives), then the false positive findings would outnumber the true positives. When trying to replicate these results, a further 95% of the false positives would then be identified, resulting in a high number of failed replications.


title: Replication crisis

text: When effects are wrongly stated as relevant in the literature, failure to detect this by replication will lead to the canonization of such false facts.