title: B. J. Thomas

text: Thomas achieved mainstream success again in 1968, with the song "The Eyes of a New York Woman". Five months later, the more successful single "Hooked on a Feeling" featured the sound of Reggie Young's electric sitar, and was first released on the album "On My Way" via Scepter Records. "Hooked on a Feeling" became Thomas' second million-selling record. A year later, "Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid" featured Thomas performing the Bacharach/David song "Raindrops Keep Fallin' on My Head", which won the Academy Award for best original song that year. The song reached No. 1 on the "Billboard" Hot 100 in January 1970. Its sales also exceeded one million copies, with Thomas being awarded his third gold record. The song was also released on an album of the same title. His other hits of the 1970s included: "Everybody's Out of Town", "I Just Can't Help Believing" (reached No. 9 in 1970 and was covered by Elvis Presley), "No Love at All", "Mighty Clouds of Joy" and "Rock and Roll Lullaby".


title: B. J. Thomas

text: After experiencing hits with Scepter Records, his label for six years, Thomas left the label in 1972. He spent a short period with Paramount Records in 1973 and 1974, during which time he released "Songs" (1973) and "Longhorns & Londonbridges" (1974).


title: B. J. Thomas

text: In 1975, Thomas released the album "Reunion" on ABC Records, which had absorbed the Paramount label. It contained "(Hey Won't You Play) Another Somebody Done Somebody Wrong Song", which was the longest-titled No. 1 hit ever on the Hot 100. It was his first big hit since 1972 and secured him his fourth gold record.


title: B. J. Thomas

text: In 1976, Thomas released "Home Where I Belong", produced by Chris Christian on Myrrh Records, the first of several gospel albums. It was the first Christian album to go platinum, and Thomas became one of the biggest contemporary Christian musical artists of the period. Thomas embraced his newfound faith, but sometimes clashed with fundamentalist Christian fans because he still performed his previous popular hits.


title: B. J. Thomas

text: On MCA Records, Thomas and Chris Christian recorded his last Top 40 hit single, "Don't Worry Baby". It appeared on his last pop album, which also included the Adult Contemporary hit "Still the Lovin' Is Fun".


title: B. J. Thomas

text: During the 1980s, Thomas had less success on the pop charts, but some of his singles topped the country singles chart. Two of those songs included "Whatever Happened to Old-Fashioned Love" and "New Looks from an Old Lover" in 1983. Additionally, "Two Car Garage" reached No. 3 on the country charts. In 1981, on his 39th birthday, Thomas became the 60th member of the "Grand Ole Opry". His Opry membership later lapsed, with the Opry having classified him as a non-regular "guest artist".


title: B. J. Thomas

text: Thomas scored another hit, recording "As Long as We Got Each Other", the theme music to the television series "Growing Pains". The first-season theme was a solo for Thomas, but was re-recorded as a duet with Jennifer Warnes for the second and third seasons. For the show's fourth season, it was re-recorded again with British singer Dusty Springfield, but the Thomas/Warnes version was reinstated for season five and some of season seven. Thomas first released this track on his 1985 album "Throwing Rocks at the Moon" via Columbia Records.


title: B. J. Thomas

text: Thomas also wrote two books, including the autobiography "Home Where I Belong", and starred in the movies "Jory" and "Jake's Corner". Several commercial jingles, including ones for Coca-Cola, Pepsi and Bell Telephone, have featured his singing voice and music. On December 31, 2011, Thomas was the featured halftime performer at the 2011 Hyundai Sun Bowl in El Paso, Texas.


title: B. J. Thomas

text: On April 2, 2013, Thomas released "The Living Room Sessions", an album with acoustic arrangements of well-known hits. It featured guest appearances with established and emerging vocalists, accompanying Thomas on seven of the album's twelve tracks.


title: B. J. Thomas

text: On December 3, 2013, the National Academy of Recording Arts and Sciences announced that the 1969 single "Raindrops Keep Fallin' on My Head" by Thomas would be inducted into the 2014 Grammy Hall of Fame.


title: B. J. Thomas

text: Thomas married singer-songwriter Gloria Richardson in December 1968. They had three daughters: Paige (born 1970), Nora (adopted from North Korea in 1978) and Erin (born in 1979).


title: B. J. Thomas

text: Shortly after his career began, Thomas became dependent on drugs and alcohol, which led to his marriage nearly ending. On January 28, 1976, Thomas became a Christian, less than a month after Gloria did. Most press sources indicated that Thomas had been sober since he and Gloria reconciled in 1976.


title: B. J. Thomas

text: On March 23, 2021, Thomas announced on his official Facebook page that he had stage IV lung cancer and was being treated in Texas. He died approximately nine weeks later on May 29 at his home in Arlington, Texas, at the age of 78.


title: About a Boy (film)

text: About a Boy is a 2002 romantic comedy-drama film directed by Paul Weitz and Chris Weitz, who co-wrote the screenplay with Peter Hedges. It is an adaptation of the 1998 novel of the same name by Nick Hornby. The film stars Hugh Grant, Nicholas Hoult, Toni Collette, and Rachel Weisz. The film at times uses double voice-over narration, when the audience hears alternately Will's and Marcus's thoughts.


title: About a Boy (film)

text: The film was theatrically released on 26 April 2002 by Universal Pictures. It was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Adapted Screenplay. Actors Hugh Grant and Toni Collette were nominated for a Golden Globe and a BAFTA Award, respectively, for their performances. The film received positive reviews from critics and earned $130.5 million against a $30 million budget.


title: About a Boy (film)

text: Will Freeman lives a carefree lifestyle without any responsibility or commitments, thanks to royalties left to him by his father's successful Christmas song. Will joins the Single Parents Alone Together (SPAT) community group under the pretense that he is the father to an imaginary child, but instead aims to meet single mothers. Will meets Suzie who he is attracted to but also meets Marcus, the socially awkward son of one of Suzie's friends unexpectedly on a planned play-date. When Will and Suzie take Marcus home, they find Marcus' mother Fiona (who suffers bouts of depression) has attempted suicide and rush to get her to the hospital in time.


title: About a Boy (film)

text: Marcus soon discovers that Will's imaginary son does not exist, and uses it as leverage by blackmailing Will to go out with his mother as he wants to ensure Fiona doesn't get depressed again. Though Will shows no interest in Fiona, he begins to bond with Marcus and ultimately matures as an adult as a result. Will helps Marcus to establish confidence, but this plan soon backfires, and Marcus accidentally reveals that Will is not a parent. Fiona confronts Will and demands an explanation. Will retorts that he is only building confidence in the boy because he is routinely humiliated and bullied at school. Though Will promises to cease further contact with Marcus, Fiona recognizes that Will's genuine interest in her son is good for both of them.


title: About a Boy (film)

text: Will joins Marcus and Fiona for Christmas, giving Marcus a Mystikal album as well as a portable CD player. During an exchange with Suzie who knows by now of Will's earlier deception, Marcus stands up for Will, and in turn, also stands up to Fiona's confrontational methods. Will defuses the situation, citing an earlier incident where Marcus accidentally killed a duck with his mother's cottage loaf. Marcus invites Will to Christmas dinner, and Will genuinely enjoys his day with Marcus' family. As Marcus develops his first crush at school (Ellie), Will also meets Rachel, who he hits it off with, and for the first time in his dating life, he begins to develop a serious interest in a woman. When Rachel begins to lose interest in Will as he describes his lifestyle, he brings up Marcus, and she responds as she is a single mother and believes Marcus is Will's son. Will fails to correct her, and asks Marcus to pose as his son for a while. Marcus eventually encourages Will to tell the truth, but when Will does so and admits the truth to Rachel, it does not have the effect Will had expected, and the relationship ends.


title: About a Boy (film)

text: Fiona's depression returns, and Marcus goes to Will for help. Will, however, is still upset over his break-up and lashes out at Marcus. He soon finds his previous life of self-dependence unfulfilling, missing the company Marcus provided. Will decides to reconcile with Marcus and talks to Fiona about her depression, but then finds out from her that Marcus is due to perform at a school talent show that night, which would ultimately result in him being humiliated for the rest of his school life. As expected, Marcus' performance is greeted with brutal mockery, but Will joins in with a guitar, ultimately saving him from total humiliation.


title: About a Boy (film)

text: By the next Christmas, Will and Rachel reconcile, with Will having abandoned his previous lifestyle permanently. Will invites one of his Amnesty International colleagues to set him up with Fiona, and Marcus and Ellie remain good friends.


title: About a Boy (film)

text: The soundtrack composed by singer-songwriter Badly Drawn Boy was released on 23 April 2002. The film also included music from "Who Wants to Be a Millionaire?" by Keith Strachan and Matthew Strachan.


title: About a Boy (film)

text: With a budget of US$30 million, the film grossed $49.4 million in the United States and Canada, and $89.2 million in other territories, for a worldwide total of $130.5 million.


title: About a Boy (film)

text: On Rotten Tomatoes the film holds an approval rating of 93% based on 187 reviews, and an average rating of 7.7/10. The website's critical consensus states, ""About a Boy" benefits tremendously from Hugh Grant's layered performance, as well as a funny, moving story that tugs at the heartstrings without tilting into treacle." Metacritic assigned the film a weighted average score of 75 out of 100, based on 38 critics, indicating "generally favorable reviews". Audiences polled by CinemaScore gave the film an average grade of "B+" on an A+ to F scale.


title: About a Boy (film)

text: In December 2002, the film was chosen by the American Film Institute as one of the ten best movies of the year. "The Washington Post" declared the film to be "that rare romantic comedy that dares to choose messiness over closure, prickly independence over fetishised coupledom, and honesty over typical Hollywood endings." "Rolling Stone" wrote, "The acid comedy of Grant's performance carries the film [and he] gives this pleasing heartbreaker the touch of gravity it needs".


title: About a Boy (film)

text: Roger Ebert observed that "the Cary Grant department is understaffed, and Hugh Grant shows here that he is more than a star, he is a resource." The film earned Grant his third Golden Globe nomination, while the London Film Critics Circle named Grant its Best British Actor and "GQ" honoured him as one of the magazine's men of the year 2002. "His performance can only be described as revelatory," wrote critic Ann Hornaday, adding that "Grant lends the shoals layer upon layer of desire, terror, ambivalence and self-awareness."


title: About a Boy (film)

text: "The New York Observer" concluded: "[The film] gets most of its laughs from the evolved expertise of Hugh Grant in playing characters that audiences enjoy seeing taken down a peg or two as a punishment for philandering and womanising and simply being too handsome for words—and with an English accent besides. In the end, the film comes over as a messy delight, thanks to the skill, generosity and good-sport, punching-bag panache of Mr. Grant's performance."


title: About a Boy (film)

text: "About a Boy" also marked a notable change in Grant's boyish look. Now 41, he had lost weight and also abandoned his trademark floppy hair. "Entertainment Weekly"s Owen Gleiberman took note of Grant's maturation in his review, saying he looked noticeably older and that it "looked good on him." He added that Grant's "pillowy cheeks are flatter and a bit drawn, and the eyes that used to peer with 'love me' cuteness now betray a shark's casual cunning. Everything about him is leaner and spikier (including his hair, which has been shorn and moussed into a Eurochic bed-head mess), but it's not just his surface that's more virile; the nervousness is gone, too. Hugh Grant has grown up, holding on to his lightness and witty cynicism but losing the stuttering sherry-club mannerisms that were once his signature. In doing so, he has blossomed into the rare actor who can play a silver-tongued sleaze with a hidden inner decency."


title: Flight 19

text: Flight 19 was the designation of a group of five General Motors TBM Avenger torpedo bombers that disappeared over the Bermuda Triangle on December 5, 1945, after losing contact during a United States Navy overwater navigation training flight from Naval Air Station Fort Lauderdale, Florida. All 14 airmen on the flight were lost, as were all 13 crew members of a Martin PBM Mariner flying boat that subsequently launched from Naval Air Station Banana River to search for Flight 19.


title: Flight 19

text: A report by Navy investigators concluded that flight leader Lt. Charles C. Taylor mistook small islands offshore for the Florida Keys after his compasses stopped working, resulting in the flight heading over open sea and away from land. The report was later amended by the Navy to read "cause unknown" to avoid blaming Taylor for the loss of five aircraft and 14 men. The report attributed the loss of the PBM aircraft to an explosion in mid-air while searching for the flight.


title: Flight 19

text: Flight 19 undertook a routine navigation and combat training exercise in TBM-type aircraft. The assignment was called "Navigation problem No. 1", a combination of bombing and navigation, which other flights had completed or were scheduled to undertake that day. The flight leader was United States Navy Lieutenant Charles Carroll Taylor, who had about 2,500 flying hours, mostly in aircraft of this type, while his trainee pilots each had 300 total, and 60 flight hours in the Avenger. Taylor had completed a combat tour in the Pacific theater as torpedo bomber pilot on the aircraft carrier and had recently arrived from NAS Miami where he had also been a VTB (torpedo-bombing plane) instructor. The student pilots had recently completed other training missions in the area where the flight was to take place. They were U.S. Marine Captains Edward Joseph Powers and George William Stivers, U.S. Marine Second Lieutenant Forrest James Gerber and USN Ensign Joseph Tipton Bossi; their call signs started with 'Fox Tare'.


title: Flight 19

text: The aircraft were three TBM-1Cs (BuNo 45714, 'FT3'; BuNo 46325, 'FT81'; BuNo 73209, 'FT117'), one TBM-1E (BuNo 46094, 'FT36'); and one TBM-3 (BuNo 23307, 'FT28'). Each aircraft was a version of the Grumman TBF Avenger, built by General Motors' Eastern Aircraft Division under wartime production license. Under the U.S. Navy aircraft designation system used during World War II, Grumman-built Avengers were designated TBF and GM-built aircraft such as these were designated TBM. Each was fully fueled, and during pre-flight checks, it was discovered they were all missing clocks. Navigation of the route was intended to teach dead reckoning principles, which involved calculating, among other things, elapsed time. The apparent lack of timekeeping equipment was not a cause for concern as it was assumed each man had his own watch. Takeoff was scheduled for 13:45 local time, but the late arrival of Taylor delayed departure until 14:10. Weather at NAS Fort Lauderdale was described as "favorable, sea state moderate to rough". Taylor was supervising the mission, and a trainee pilot had the role of leader out front.


title: Flight 19

text: Called "Naval Air Station, Fort Lauderdale, Florida, navigation problem No. 1", the exercise involved three different legs, but the actual flight should have flown four. After take off, they flew on heading 091° (almost due east) for until reaching Hens and Chickens Shoals, commonly called Chicken Rocks, where low level bombing practice was carried out. The flight was to continue on that heading for another before turning onto a course of 346° for , in the process over-flying Grand Bahama island. The next scheduled turn was to a heading of 241° to fly at the end of which the exercise was completed and the Avengers would turn left to then return to NAS Ft. Lauderdale.


title: Flight 19

text: Radio conversations between the pilots were overheard by base and other aircraft in the area. The practice bombing operation is known to have been carried out because at about 15:00 a pilot requested and was given permission to drop his last bomb. Forty minutes later, another flight instructor, Lieutenant Robert F. Cox in FT-74, who was forming up with his group of students for the same mission, received an unidentified transmission.


title: Flight 19

text: An unidentified crew member asked Powers, one of the students, for his compass reading. Powers replied: "I don't know where we are. We must have got lost after that last turn." Cox then transmitted; "This is FT-74, plane or boat calling 'Powers' please identify yourself so someone can help you." The response after a few moments was a request from the others in the flight for suggestions. FT-74 tried again and a man identified as FT-28 (Taylor) came on. "FT-28, this is FT-74, what is your trouble?" "Both of my compasses are out", Taylor replied, "and I am trying to find Fort Lauderdale, Florida. I am over land but it's broken. I am sure I'm in the Keys but I don't know how far down and I don't know how to get to Fort Lauderdale."


title: Flight 19

text: FT-74 informed the NAS that aircraft were lost, then advised Taylor to put the sun on his port wing and fly north up the coast to Fort Lauderdale. Base operations then asked if the flight leader's aircraft was equipped with a standard YG (IFF transmitter), which could be used to triangulate the flight's position, but the message was not acknowledged by FT-28. (Later he would indicate that his transmitter was activated.) Instead, at 16:45, FT-28 radioed: "We are heading 030 degrees for 45 minutes, then we will fly north to make sure we are not over the Gulf of Mexico." During this time no bearings could be made on the flight, and IFF could not be picked up. Taylor was told to broadcast on 4805 kHz. This order was not acknowledged so he was asked to switch to 3000 kHz, the search and rescue frequency. Taylor replied – "I cannot switch frequencies. I must keep my planes intact."


title: Flight 19

text: At 16:56, Taylor was again asked to turn on his transmitter for YG if he had one. He did not acknowledge but a few minutes later advised his flight "Change course to 090 degrees (due east) for 10 minutes." About the same time someone in the flight said "Dammit, if we could just fly west we would get home; head west, dammit." This difference of opinion later led to questions about why the students did not simply head west on their own. It has been explained that this can be attributed to military discipline.


title: Flight 19

text: As the weather deteriorated, radio contact became intermittent, and it was believed that the five aircraft by this point were more than out to sea east of the Florida peninsula. Taylor radioed "We'll fly 270 degrees west until landfall or running out of gas" and requested a weather check at 17:24. By 17:50 several land-based radio stations had triangulated Flight 19's position as being within a radius of ; Flight 19 was north of the Bahamas and well off the coast of central Florida, but nobody transmitted this information on an open, repetitive basis.


title: Flight 19

text: At 18:04, Taylor radioed to his flight "Holding 270. We didn't fly far enough east; we may as well just turn around and fly east again". By that time, the weather had deteriorated even more and the sun had set. Around 18:20, Taylor's last message was received. (It has also been reported that Taylor's last message was received at 19:04.) He was heard saying "All planes close up tight ... we'll have to ditch unless landfall ... when the first plane drops below 10 gallons [], we all go down together."


title: Flight 19

text: As it became obvious the flight was lost, air bases, aircraft, and merchant ships were alerted. A Consolidated PBY Catalina departed after 18:00 to search for Flight 19 and guide them back if they could be located. After dark, two Martin PBM Mariner flying boats originally scheduled for their own training flights were diverted to perform square pattern searches in the area west of . US Navy Squadron Training No. 49 PBM-5 BuNo 59225 took off at 19:27 from Naval Air Station Banana River (now Patrick Space Force Base), called in a routine radio message at 19:30 and was never heard from again.


title: Flight 19

text: At 21:15, the tanker SS "Gaines Mills" reported it had observed flames from an apparent explosion leaping high and burning for 10 minutes, at position . Captain Shonna Stanley reported unsuccessfully searching for survivors through a pool of oil and aviation gasoline. The escort carrier also reported losing radar contact with an aircraft at the same position and time.


title: Flight 19

text: A 500-page Navy board of investigation report published a few months later made several observations:


title: Flight 19

text: This report was subsequently amended "cause unknown" by the Navy after Taylor's mother contended that the Navy was unfairly blaming her son for the loss of five aircraft and 14 men, when the Navy had neither the bodies nor the airplanes as evidence.


title: Flight 19

text: Had Flight 19 actually been where Taylor believed it to be, the flight would have made landfall with the Florida coastline within 20 minutes, depending on how far down they were. However, a later reconstruction of the incident showed that the islands visible to Taylor were probably the Bahamas, well northeast of the Keys, and that Flight 19 was exactly where it should have been. The board of investigation found that because of his (dogmatic) belief that he was on a base course toward Florida, Taylor actually guided the flight farther northeast and out to sea. Further, it was general knowledge at NAS Fort Lauderdale that if a pilot ever became lost in the area to fly a heading of 270° (due west). Likewise a rule of thumb was that any pilot who got lost going south would simply turn his plane around with the sun on his larboard side [left] and then following the Florida coast heading North. By the time the flight actually turned west, they were likely so far out to sea they had already passed their aircraft's fuel endurance. This factor combined with bad weather, and the ditching characteristics of the Avenger, meant that there was little hope of rescue, even if they had managed to stay afloat.


title: Flight 19

text: It is possible that Taylor overshot Gorda Cay and instead reached another land mass in the southern Abaco Islands. He then proceeded northwest as planned. He fully expected to find the Grand Bahama Island lying in front of him as expected. Instead, he eventually saw a land mass to his right side, the northern part of Abaco Island. Believing that this landmass to his right was the Grand Bahama Island and his compass was malfunctioning, he set a course to what he thought was southwest to head straight back to Fort Lauderdale. However, in reality this changed his course farther northwest, toward open ocean.


title: Flight 19

text: To further add to his confusion, he encountered a series of islands north of Abaco Island, which look very similar to the Key West Islands. The control tower then suggested that Taylor's team should fly west, which would have taken them to the landmass of Florida eventually. Taylor headed for what he thought was west, but in reality was northwest, almost parallel to Florida.


title: Flight 19

text: After trying that for a while and with no land in sight, Taylor decided that it was impossible for them to fly so far west and not reach Florida. He believed that he might have been near the Key West Islands. What followed was a series of serious conversations between Taylor, his other aircrew and the control tower. Taylor was not sure whether he was near Bahama or Key West, and he was not sure which direction he faced due to compass malfunction. The control tower informed Taylor that he could not be in Key West since the wind that day did not blow that way. Some of the aircrew believed that their compass was working. Taylor then set a course northeast according to their compass, which should take them to Florida if they were in Key West. When that failed, Taylor set a course west according to their compass, which should have taken them to Florida if they were in Bahama. If Taylor stayed this course he would have reached land before running out of fuel. However, at some point Taylor decided that he had tried going west enough. He then once again set a course northeast, thinking they were near Key West after all. Finally, his flight ran out of fuel and may have crashed into the ocean somewhere north of Abaco Island and east of Florida.


title: Flight 19

text: In 1986 the wreckage of an Avenger was found off the Florida coast during the search for the wreckage of the Space Shuttle "Challenger". Aviation archaeologist Jon Myhre raised this wreck from the ocean floor in 1990. He mistakenly believed it was one of the missing planes.


title: Flight 19

text: In 1991 a treasure-hunting expedition led by Graham Hawkes announced that the wreckage of five Avengers had been discovered off the coast of Florida, but that tail numbers revealed they were not Flight 19. In 2004 a BBC documentary showed Hawkes returning with a new submersible 12 years later and identifying one of the planes by its bureau number (a clearly readable 23990) as a flight lost at sea on October 9, 1943, over two years before Flight 19 (its crew all survived), but he was unable to definitively identify the other planes; the documentary concluded that "Despite the odds, they are just a random collection of accidents that came to rest in the same place from home."


title: Flight 19

text: In March 2012 Hawkes was reported as saying it had suited both him (and indirectly his investors) and the Pentagon to make the story go away because it was an expensive and time-consuming distraction, and that, while admitting he had found no conclusive evidence, a statistician he consulted said it was Flight 19.


title: Flight 19

text: Records showed training accidents between 1942 and 1945 accounted for the loss of 95 aviation personnel from NAS Fort Lauderdale. In 1992, another expedition located scattered debris on the ocean floor, but nothing could be identified. In the 2000s, searchers expanded their search area farther east, into the Atlantic Ocean, but the remains of Flight 19 have still not been confirmed found.


title: Flight 19

text: A 2015 newspaper report claimed a wrecked warplane with two bodies inside was retrieved by the Navy in the mid-1960s near Sebastian, Florida. The Navy initially said it was from Flight 19 but later recanted its statement. Despite Freedom of Information Act requests for details in 2013, the names are still not known because the Navy does not have enough information to identify the bodies.


title: Flight 19

text: A wrecked plane found in the Everglades in Broward County was also, incorrectly, postulated to be from Flight 19. In fact this TBN-3E crashed March 16,1947. The crash was reportedly caused by its pilot, Ensign Ralph N. Wachob, developing vertigo. Wachob was killed in the crash.


title: Flight 19

text: Flight 19 is featured in the 1977 science-fiction film "Close Encounters of the Third Kind". In the film's opening, the aircraft are discovered in the Sonoran Desert, in pristine condition with full fuel tanks, one of several mysterious events that imply extraterrestrial activity. In the film's ending scene, the crew return to Earth from the alien mothership, seemingly the same age as at their disappearance.


title: Don't repeat yourself

text: "Don't repeat yourself" (DRY) is a principle of software development aimed at reducing repetition of software patterns, replacing it with abstractions or using data normalization to avoid redundancy.


title: Don't repeat yourself

text: The DRY principle is stated as "Every piece of knowledge must have a single, unambiguous, authoritative representation within a system". The principle has been formulated by Andy Hunt and Dave Thomas in their book "The Pragmatic Programmer". They apply it quite broadly to include "database schemas, test plans, the build system, even documentation". When the DRY principle is applied successfully, a modification of any single element of a system does not require a change in other logically unrelated elements. Additionally, elements that are logically related all change predictably and uniformly, and are thus kept in sync. Besides using methods and subroutines in their code, Thomas and Hunt rely on code generators, automatic build systems, and scripting languages to observe the DRY principle across layers.


title: Don't repeat yourself

text: The opposing view to DRY is called WET, a backronym commonly taken to stand for "write everything twice" (alternatively "write every time", "we enjoy typing" or "waste everyone's time"). WET solutions are common in multi-tiered architectures where a developer may be tasked with, for example, adding a comment field on a form in a web application. The text string "comment" might be repeated in the label, the HTML tag, in a read function name, a private variable, database DDL, queries, and so on. A DRY approach eliminates that redundancy by using frameworks that reduce or eliminate all those editing tasks except the most important ones, leaving the extensibility of adding new knowledge variables in one place.


title: Don't repeat yourself

text: Another approach to abstractions is the AHA principle. AHA stands for ""Avoid Hasty Abstractions"", described by Kent C. Dodds as optimizing for change first, and avoiding premature optimization. and was influenced by Sandi Metz's "prefer duplication over the wrong abstraction".


title: Don't repeat yourself

text: AHA is rooted in the understanding that the deeper the investment we've made into abstracting a piece of software, the more we perceive that the cost of that investment can never be recovered (sunk cost fallacy). Thus, engineers tend to continue to iterate on the same abstraction each time the requirement changes. AHA programming assumes that both WET and DRY solutions inevitably create software that is rigid and difficult to maintain. Instead of starting with an abstraction, or abstracting at a specific number of duplications, software can be more flexible and robust if abstraction is done when it is needed, or, when the duplication itself has become the barrier and it is known how the abstraction needs to function.


title: Don't repeat yourself

text: AHA programming was originally named MOIST by Dodds, later again by Daniel Bartholomae, and originally referred to as DAMP by Matt Ryer. There was a different programming principle already named DAMP and described by Jay Fields, and the community pushed back against the usage of MOIST, due to the cultural aversion to the word "moist". Dodds called for alternatives on Twitter, and suggested DATE as an alternative before settling on Cher Scarlett's suggestion of AHA.


title: Top Gun (soundtrack)

text: The album reached number one in the US charts for five nonconsecutive weeks in the summer and autumn of 1986. It was the best selling soundtrack of 1986 and one of the best selling of all time. The song "Take My Breath Away" by Berlin went on to win both the Academy Award for Best Original Song and the Golden Globe Award for Best Original Song. According to Allmusic, the album "remains a quintessential artifact of the mid-'80s", and the album's hits "still define the bombastic, melodramatic sound that dominated the pop charts of the era."


title: Top Gun (soundtrack)

text: In 1999, the album was reissued as a "Special Expanded Edition" with additional songs, and in 2006, it was reissued again as "Music From and Inspired by Top Gun: Deluxe Edition", containing additional songs not in the film.


title: Top Gun (soundtrack)

text: Toto were originally intended to perform the track "Danger Zone", but legal conflicts between the film's producers and the band's lawyers prevented this. Bryan Adams was approached to perform it, but refused any involvement in the film, feeling that it glorified war and, as such, not wanting any of his work linked to it. (Adams also refused to allow his song "Only the Strong Survive" to be featured in the film.) REO Speedwagon were approached but declined, due to not being allowed to contribute any of their own compositions to the soundtrack. Corey Hart also declined, preferring to write and perform his own compositions. Eventually, the film's producers agreed that "Danger Zone" would be recorded and performed by Kenny Loggins.


title: Top Gun (soundtrack)

text: Members of Toto also wrote and intended to perform a song called "Only You" that would have been used as the film's love theme instead of "Take My Breath Away", but legal conflicts prevented doing so. The Motels were originally considered to perform "Take My Breath Away", and a demo version exists on their 2001 compilation "Anthologyland".


title: Top Gun (soundtrack)

text: Judas Priest were also approached to allow their song "Reckless" in the film but declined when the proposed contract stipulated that the filmmakers have exclusive rights to the song, which would have necessitated the band omitting the song from their forthcoming album "Turbo" (1986). Former Judas Priest guitarist K.K. Downing later called their opting out of the film "a big mistake". The band offered the producers three other songs for the soundtrack, all of which were rejected.


title: Top Gun (soundtrack)

text: ABC members Martin Fry and Mark White were invited to see the director's rough cut version of "Top Gun" in 1986. "They were looking to offer a few British bands soundtrack opportunities. Mark and I weren't impressed with the film and chose not to contribute any music to it."


title: Top Gun (soundtrack)

text: Bobby Blotzer of Ratt proposed using the song "Reach for the Sky", an outtake from Ratt's 1984 album "Out of the Cellar". Although the rest of the band seriously considered the idea, they declined under the belief that their long-time fans would not like the song and would accuse the group of selling out. Although the song title "Reach for the Sky" would become the title of the band's 1988 album, the track itself was never officially released.


title: Top Gun (soundtrack)

text: The Cars' song "Stranger Eyes" (from their 1984 album "Heartbeat City") was featured in an early teaser trailer for the film, though it was absent from the film's final cut.


title: Top Gun (soundtrack)

text: In 2006, the "Special Expanded Edition" was repackaged in the UK with five additional songs "not included in the motion picture".


title: House of Valois

text: The Capetian house of Valois ( , , ) was a cadet branch of the Capetian dynasty. They succeeded the House of Capet (or "Direct Capetians") to the French throne, and were the royal house of France from 1328 to 1589. Junior members of the family founded cadet branches in Orléans, Anjou, Burgundy, and Alençon.


title: House of Valois

text: The Valois descended from Charles, Count of Valois (1270–1325), the second surviving son of King Philip III of France (reigned 1270–1285). Their title to the throne was based on a precedent in 1316 (later retroactively attributed to the Merovingian Salic law) which excluded females (Joan II of Navarre), as well as male descendants through the distaff side (Edward III of England), from the succession to the French throne.


title: House of Valois

text: After holding the throne for several centuries the Valois male line failed and the House of Bourbon succeeded the Valois to the throne as the senior-surviving branch of the Capetian dynasty.


title: House of Valois

text: The Capetian dynasty seemed secure in the rule of the Kingdom of France both during and after the reign of King Philip IV (Philip the Fair, ). Philip left three surviving sons (Louis, Philip and Charles) and a daughter (Isabella). Each son became king in turn, but each died young without surviving male heirs, leaving only daughters who could not inherit the throne. When Charles IV died in 1328 the French succession became more problematic.


title: House of Valois

text: In England, Isabella of France claimed the throne on behalf of her 15-year-old son. In contrast to France it was unclear whether a woman could inherit the English crown but English precedent allowed succession through the female line (as exemplified by Henry II of England, son of Matilda). The French rejected Isabella's claim, arguing that since she herself, as a woman, could not succeed, then she could not transmit any such right to her son. Thus the French magnates chose as their new monarch Philip of Valois, who became King Philip VI of France. The throne of Navarre went its separate way, to Joan of France, daughter of Louis X, who became Joan II of Navarre.


title: House of Valois

text: Because diplomacy and negotiation had failed, Edward III would have to back his claims with force to obtain the French throne. For a few years, England and France maintained an uneasy peace. Eventually, an escalation of conflict between the two kings led to King Philip VI confiscating the Duchy of Aquitaine (1337). Instead of paying homage for Aquitaine to the French king, as his ancestors had done, Edward claimed that he himself was the rightful King of France. These events helped launch the Hundred Years' War (1337-1453) between England and France. Though England ultimately failed to win that prolonged conflict, English and British monarchs until 1801 continued to maintain, at least formally, a claim to the French throne.


title: House of Valois

text: The Hundred Years' War could be considered a lengthy war of succession between the houses of Valois and Plantagenet. The early reign of Philip VI was a promising one for France. The new king fought the Flemings on behalf of his vassal, the count of Flanders, and restored that count to power. Edward III's aggression against Scotland, a French ally, prompted Philip VI to confiscate Guyenne. In the past the English kings would have to submit to the King of France. But Edward, having descended from the French kings, claimed the throne for himself. France was then at the height of its power. No one believed that the English king could make good his claim to France.


title: House of Valois

text: Edward's initial strategy was to ally with Flanders and the princes of the Empire. The alliances were costly and not very productive. While on a truce the French and English kings intervened in the War of the Breton Succession. In 1346, Edward invaded France and pillaged the countryside rather than attempt to hold territory. French forces led by Philip VI confronted Edward III at the Battle of Crécy, which resulted in a devastating and humiliating defeat for the French. Despite this, the most that Edward could make out of his victory was the capture of Calais.


title: House of Valois

text: John II succeeded his father Philip VI in 1350. He was menaced by Charles II of Navarre, of the Évreux branch of the Capetian family, who aspired to the French throne by the right of his mother, the senior descendant of Philip IV of France. Charles' character eventually alienated both the French and English monarchs, because he readily switched sides whenever it suited his interest. In 1356, Edward, the Black Prince, eldest son and heir of Edward III, led an army to a chevauchée in France. John pursued the Black Prince, who tried to avoid battling the French king's superior force. Negotiations broke down. In the Battle of Poitiers, the French suffered another humiliating defeat, and their king was captured. Edward hoped to capitalize on the victory by invading France and having himself crowned at Reims. But the new leader, the Dauphin Charles, avoided another pitched battle, and the city of Reims withstood siege. In the Treaty of Brétigny, the English king gained an enlarged Aquitaine in full sovereignty, gave up the duchy of Touraine, the counties of Anjou and Maine, the suzerainty of Brittany and of Flanders, and his claim to the French throne.


title: House of Valois

text: Charles V became king in 1364. He supported Henry of Trastámara in the Castilian Civil War, while the Black Prince supported the reigning king, Peter of Castile. The Black Prince won, but Peter refused to pay for his expenses. The Black Prince tried to recover his losses by raising taxes in Aquitaine, which prompted them to appeal to the King of France. War was renewed. The French recovered their territories place after place. When Charles died in 1380, only Calais, Bordeaux and Bayonne were left to the English.


title: House of Valois

text: The ancient, great families of the feudal nobility had largely been replaced by an equally powerful class – the princes of the royal blood. With the confiscation of Guyenne, the only remaining non-Capetian peer was the Count of Flanders. The Montfort dukes of Brittany, the houses of Évreux and Bourbon, and the princes of the House of Valois, constituted the great nobility of the kingdom.


title: House of Valois

text: Succeeding to the throne at the age of 11, the reign of Charles VI of France was the first minority since that of Saint Louis' in 1226. Power devolved into the hands of his uncles, the dukes of Anjou, Berry and Burgundy. The dukes squandered the resources of the monarchy to pursue their own ends. Anjou pursued his claim in the Kingdom of Naples; Berry governed his large estates in Languedoc; and Burgundy, having married the heiress of Flanders, found it more convenient to rule his vast dominions from Paris. Charles terminated his uncles' regency at the age of 21, even though he would have been entitled to it as early as the age of 14. His early reign was promising, but the onset of madness, which he may have inherited from the Bourbon dukes through his mother, would prove to be disastrous for France. Burgundy, the most powerful of the princes and peers, naturally took power in his hands. But his nephew, Louis I, Duke of Orléans, the king's brother, contested his authority. Rivalry between the two princes and their descendants led to the Armagnac–Burgundian Civil War.


title: House of Valois

text: In 1415 Henry V of England, great-grandson of Edward III, invaded France. In the Battle of Agincourt, the Armagnac faction fought the English and were decimated. The dukes of Orléans and Bourbon were captured, and the Burgundian party gained ascendancy in Paris. Henry proceeded to conquer Normandy. The Armagnacs assassinated John the Fearless, duke of Burgundy, a belated revenge for the assassination of Louis I, Duke of Orléans. The new duke, Philip the Good, allied himself with the English. In the Treaty of Troyes, Henry V of England became regent of France and heir to that throne; he also married Catherine of Valois, the French king's daughter. The Dauphin Charles was effectively disinherited. To assume a greater appearance of legality, it was ratified by the Estates General later that year.


title: House of Valois

text: To accept the Treaty of Troyes would be a denial of the legitimacy of the Valois. While England was accustomed to change her kings, the French largely adhered to theirs. The treaty was recognized only in English-controlled territories in northern France, and by the allied dukes of Burgundy and Brittany. Henry V died before his sickly father-in-law, Charles VI, leaving the future of the Lancastrian Kingdom of France in the hands of his infant son Henry VI of England, and his brother, John, Duke of Bedford.


title: House of Valois

text: The able leadership of Bedford prevented Charles VII from retaking control of northern France. In 1429, Joan of Arc successfully raised the siege of Orléans and had the king crowned at Reims, an important French propaganda victory. Power struggles between Bedford, his brother Humphrey, Duke of Gloucester, and their uncle Cardinal Beaufort hampered the English war effort. The Duke of Burgundy, alienated by the blunders of Gloucester, reconciled with the King of France in the Treaty of Arras, 1435. Bedford had died that same year.


title: House of Valois

text: The warring parties arranged long truces, during which the French king prepared for the renewal of war, while the English relaxed and took a break from fresh taxes. By 1450, the French had reconquered Normandy, and Guyenne the next year. A final English attempt to recover their losses ended in decisive defeat at the Battle of Castillon, 1453. With this victory, the English had been expelled in all of France except Calais. The Valois succession was upheld and confirmed.


title: House of Valois

text: With the expulsion of the English, Charles VII had reestablished his kingdom as the foremost power of Western Europe. He created France's first standing army since Roman times, and limited papal power in the Gallican Church by the Pragmatic Sanction of Bourges. But his later years were marred by quarrels with his eldest son and heir, the Dauphin Louis, who refused to obey him. The dauphin was banished from court for his intrigues, and did not return to France until his father's death.


title: House of Valois

text: Louis XI succeeded his father in 1461. At the beginning of his reign Louis reversed his father's policies, abolishing the Pragmatic Sanction to please the pope and the standing armies, which he distrusted, in favor of Swiss mercenaries. As a prince he had leagued with the nobility against his father, but as a king he found that his power could only be maintained by subduing them. He was the lifelong enemy of Charles the Bold, Count of Charolais, and later Duke of Burgundy. In 1465 the League of the Public Weal, an alliance of the feudal princes, which consisted of Charles, Duke of Berry, the king's brother, the Count of Charolais, the Dukes of Brittany, Bourbon, Lorraine (then a member of the House of Anjou), and several others, attempted to restore their feudal prerogatives. Louis feared a further escalation of the conflict against this formidable coalition. To obtain peace he conceded all their demands, including the Duchy of Normandy to his brother, which carried with it one-third of the offices of state.


title: House of Valois

text: Louis seldom relied on the fortunes of war, but rather on intrigue and diplomacy. He maintained his power by paying pensions to well-placed people in the courts of his vassals and in neighboring states. He retook Normandy from his brother at the first opportunity. He bought off Edward IV of England to desist from attacking France. He fomented rebellions in the Burgundian dominions. At the death of Charles the Bold in 1477, he seized the duchy of Burgundy, which he claimed as a reverted fief, even though the original grant did not specify the exclusion of female heirs. But the marriage of Mary of Burgundy, heiress of Charles the Bold, to Maximilian of Austria would prove problematic for later generations. In 1481, the last male of the House of Anjou died, willing all the Angevin possessions to the king. At the end of his reign royal power had become absolute in France.


title: House of Valois

text: Charles VIII succeeded his father in 1483, at the age of 13. During his minority the nobles again attempted to seize power, but they were defeated by Charles' sister Anne of France. Charles' marriage to Anne of Brittany prevented a future total Habsburg encirclement of France.


title: House of Valois

text: As the heir of the House of Anjou, Charles VIII decided to press his claim to the Kingdom of Naples. It was the beginning of the Italian Wars. In September 1494 Charles invaded Italy with 25,000 men, and attained his object by 22 February 1495, virtually unopposed. But the speed and power of the French advance frightened the powers of Italy. The League of Venice, which consisted of the Republics of Venice and Florence, the Duchies of Milan and Mantua, the Kings of Spain and Naples, the Emperor and the Pope, united against the French. Charles, who did not wish to be trapped in Naples, had to fight against them in the Battle of Fornovo. Charles succeeded in returning to France, but all his conquests and booty were lost. The debts he incurred for the campaign prevented him from resuming the war, and he died in an accident in 1498. With his death the senior line of the House of Valois became extinct. He was succeeded by his cousin, the Duke of Orleans, who became Louis XII of France.


title: House of Valois

text: Louis XII married his predecessor's widow, Anne of Brittany, in order to retain that province for France. The new king also continued his predecessor's policy in Italy. The Dukes of Orleans were descended from Valentina Visconti, and through her claimed the Duchy of Milan. From 1499 to 1512, excepting a brief period in 1500, Louis XII was Duke of Milan. French military activity continued in Italy, with various leagues formed to counter the dominant power. Louis died without a son, and was succeeded by his cousin and son-in-law, Francis of Angoulême, who became Francis I of France in 1515.


title: House of Valois

text: Francis I belonged to a cadet branch of the House of Orleans. In the Battle of Marignano, Francis defeated the Swiss, who had ousted his predecessor from Milan, and took control of the duchy. In the Imperial Election of 1519, the Kings of Spain, France, and England fought for the imperial title. The King of Spain was a grandson of the deceased emperor, but the electors thought him to be a foreigner as much as the French king. The kings resorted to bribes, and the Spanish king became Charles V, Holy Roman Emperor.


title: House of Valois

text: The election of the Spanish king to the imperial throne made him the first monarch in Europe, both in title and in reality. Annoyed, the French king demanded that the emperor pay homage for Flanders and Artois; the emperor responded by reasserting his claim to the duchy of Burgundy. The rivalry of the French royal house with the Habsburgs dominated the rest of the sixteenth century. The emperor took Milan from the French in 1521. The King of England and the pope supported the emperor. France was surrounded by enemies on all sides. Domestic troubles led to the defection of Charles III, Duke of Bourbon and Constable of France, to the emperor. In 1525, at the Battle of Pavia, the French were defeated and the king himself was captured. Francis obtained his release through the Treaty of Madrid, in which he renounced claims in Naples and Milan, surrendered Burgundy to Spain, abandoned sovereignty over Flanders and Artois, and gave up two of his sons as hostages. Francis repudiated the treaty. Having often found himself alone in his struggle against the emperor, Francis formed the Franco-Ottoman alliance with the sultan, to the scandal of Christian Europe. Francis supported the conversion of the German princes to Protestantism, as it increased his potential allies against the emperor. In his own dominions, the Protestants were suppressed.


title: House of Valois

text: Henry II succeeded to the throne in 1547. He continued his father's policies, as did his successors. He persecuted Protestants in his kingdom, while Protestants abroad were his allies. Henry captured the three bishoprics of Metz, Toul, and Verdun. French offensives failed in Italy. In 1556, Charles V abdicated, splitting the Habsburg dominions between his son, Philip II of Spain, who gained Spain and the Low Countries, and his brother Ferdinand I, who became emperor. The French retook Calais after England allied with Spain. The Peace of Cateau-Cambrésis (1559) ended the Italian Wars. The French lost all their Italian territories except Saluzzo, and were confirmed in the possession of Calais and the three bishoprics. It was a diplomatic victory for Philip II, who gave up nothing which belonged to himself. The Spanish king retained Franche-Comté and was confirmed in his possession of Milan, Naples, Sicily, Sardinia, and the State of Presidi, making him the most powerful ruler in Italy.


title: House of Valois

text: The last phase of Valois rule in France was marked by the French Wars of Religion. Henry II died in a jousting accident in 1559. His eldest son and heir, Francis II, succeeded him. The new king was already King of Scotland by right of his wife, Mary, Queen of Scots. The queen's maternal relatives, the House of Guise, gained an ascendancy over the young king.


title: House of Valois

text: The House of Guise was a cadet branch of the ducal House of Lorraine. They claimed descent from Charlemagne and had designs on the French throne. They considered the House of Bourbon, princes of the blood, as their natural enemies. The leading Bourbons, the brothers Antoine, King of Navarre, and Louis, Prince of Condé, were Protestants. The House of Guise identified themselves as champions of the Catholic cause. They were on the point of executing Condé when the young king died.


title: House of Valois

text: With the succession of her minor son Charles IX in 1560, Catherine de' Medici maneuvered for a balance of power. She released Condé, hoping to use the Bourbons as a counterweight against the Guises. Antoine of Navarre converted to Catholicism and became Lieutenant-General of the Kingdom. The Massacre of Vassy sparked the "first" religious war between the Catholics and the Huguenots. Navarre and Guise died in this war. Anne de Montmorency, Constable of France, was the notable casualty of the second war. Condé died in the third war. The Huguenots were unable to win a substantive victory, but were able to keep an army in the field.


title: House of Valois

text: Henry, King of Navarre, married Margaret of France, sister of Charles IX, in 1572. The marriage, which had been expected to reconcile the Protestants and Catholics, proved to be a disappointment. The St. Bartholomew's Day massacre ensued; the Huguenots who flocked in Paris for the wedding were massacred "en masse". Navarre and Condé were spared, forced to convert, and detained. The guilt of having permitted the massacre would haunt Charles for the rest of his life. In 1573, the king's brother, Henry, Duke of Anjou, was elected King of Poland.


title: House of Valois

text: In 1574, only three months after Henry's coronation as King of Poland, he succeeded to the French throne as Henry III. The next year the king's only remaining brother, the Duke of Alençon, fled the court and joined with Condé and Navarre. This combined threat forced the new king to grant the demands of the rebels. Alençon was made Duke of Anjou. The concessions to the Huguenots disquieted the Catholics, who formed the Catholic League. The League was led by the princes of the House of Lorraine – the dukes of Guise, Mayenne, Aumale, Elboeuf, Mercœur and Lorraine, supported by Spain. The Huguenots held the southwest and were allied to England and the princes of Germany. The death of the king's brother, in 1584, meant that the Huguenot King of Navarre had become heir presumptive to the throne of France. Pressured by the Catholic League, the king issued the Treaty of Nemours, which outlawed Protestantism and made Protestants incapable of holding royal office.


title: House of Valois

text: In the resulting War of the Three Henrys, the royalists led by the king, the Huguenots led by Henry of Navarre, and the Catholic League led by Henry of Guise, fought a three-way contest for the control of France. After the humiliation of the Day of the Barricades, Henry III fled from Paris. Guise had entered Paris against his express prohibition; he resolved to assassinate the audacious duke. The assassination of Guise drew the odium of the Catholic League. Henry III sought the alliance of Navarre. The two kings were on the point of taking Paris with their great army, when the French king fell by the hands of an assassin. With his death the male line of the House of Valois had been completely extinguished, after reigning for 261 years in France.


title: House of Valois

text: The royal Bourbons originated in 1272, when the youngest son of King Louis IX married the heiress of the lordship of Bourbon. The house continued for three centuries as a cadet branch, serving as nobles under the Direct Capetian and Valois kings.


title: House of Valois

text: In 1589, at the death of Henry III of France, the House of Valois became extinct in the male line. Under the Salic law, the Head of the House of Bourbon, as the senior representative of the senior-surviving branch of the Capetian dynasty, became King of France as Henry IV.


title: House of Valois

text: The application of the Salic Law meant that with the extinction of the Valois in the male line, the Bourbons succeeded to the throne as descendants of Louis IX.


title: House of Valois

text: Forms of address for Valois kings and princes included "Most Christian Majesty", "Dauphin", "your Grace", "Your Majesty", "Most regal Majesty".


title: Iris Apfel

text: Iris Apfel ( Barrel; born August 29, 1921) is an American businesswoman, interior designer, and fashion icon. In business with her husband, Carl, from 1950 to 1992, Apfel led a career in textiles, including a contract with the White House that spanned nine presidencies. In retirement, she drew acclaim for a 2005 show at the Costume Institute at The Metropolitan Museum of Art featuring her collection of costume jewelry and styled with clothes on mannequins as she would wear it. She has become a fashion icon, she signed to IMG in 2019 as a model at age 97, and she was featured in a 2014 documentary called "Iris" by Albert Maysles.


title: Iris Apfel

text: Born Iris Barrel in Astoria, Queens, New York on August 29, 1921, Apfel is the only child of Samuel Barrel (1897–1967), whose family owned a glass and mirror business, and his Russian-born wife, Sadye Barrel (née Asofsky) (1898–1998), who owned a fashion boutique. Both were Jewish. Although raised on a farm by her parents and grandparents, she often rode the subway in to explore Manhattan, where she fell in love with Greenwich Village. While still a child, she shopped its antique shops, starting her extraordinary collection of jewellery from around the world.


title: Iris Apfel

text: She studied art history at New York University and attended art school at the University of Wisconsin.


title: Iris Apfel

text: As a young woman, Apfel worked as a copywriter for "Women's Wear Daily," earning $15 a week, and for interior designer Elinor Johnson, dressing apartments for resale and honing her talent for sourcing rare items. She was also an assistant to illustrator Robert Goodman.


title: Iris Apfel

text: On February 22, 1948, she married Carl Apfel (August 4, 1914 – August 1, 2015). Two years later, in 1950, they launched the textile firm Old World Weavers and ran it until they retired in 1992. The Apfels specialised in fabric reproductions from the 17th, 18th and 19th centuries, and traveled to Europe twice a year in search of textiles they could not source in the United States. The business's New York showroom was located at 115 East 57th Street in Manhattan. Over her career, Iris Apfel took part in a variety of design restoration projects, including work at the White House for nine presidents: Harry S. Truman, Dwight D. Eisenhower, John F. Kennedy, Lyndon B. Johnson, Richard Nixon, Gerald Ford, Jimmy Carter, Ronald Reagan, and Bill Clinton. She found the White House contract to be among the easiest of Old World Weaver's clients, as they generally wanted only to replicate what had previously been in place. The one exception, Apfel said, was Jacqueline Kennedy. Apfel recalled: “She employed a very famous Parisian designer to gussy up the house and make it a real Frenchie, and the design community went bananas. After that we had to throw it all out and start again. But I did like Mrs Nixon. She was lovely.”


title: Iris Apfel

text: Through their business, the couple began travelling all over the world where Apfel also bought pieces of non-Western, artisanal clothes. She wore these clothes to clients' high-society parties.


title: Iris Apfel

text: In 2011, Iris Apfel became a visiting professor at the University of Texas at Austin in its Division of Textiles and Apparel.


title: Iris Apfel

text: In 2016, she performed in a television commercial for the French car DS 3, and was the face of Australian brand Blue Illusion. In March 2016, Apfel announced a collaboration with technology startup WiseWear on an upcoming line of Smart Jewellery. In 2018 she published a biography with HarperCollins entitled "Iris Apfel: Accidental Icon".


title: Iris Apfel

text: In 2019, at the age of 97, she signed a modelling contract with global agency IMG. Seeing she was frequently sought out for appearances, Tommy Hilfiger encouraged her to sign with formal representation.


title: Iris Apfel

text: On September 13, 2005, The Costume Institute at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York City premiered an exhibition about Iris Apfel's style entitled "Rara Avis (Rare Bird): The Irreverent Iris Apfel". It was the museum's first time showcasing an exhibit about clothing and accessories focused on a living person who wasn't a designer. The success of the exhibition, curated by Stéphane Houy-Towner, prompted an initial traveling version of the exhibit at the Norton Museum of Art in West Palm Beach, Florida, the Nassau County Museum of Art in Roslyn Harbor, New York, and later at the Peabody Essex Museum in Salem, Massachusetts.


title: Iris Apfel

text: The Museum of Lifestyle & Fashion History in Boynton Beach, Florida, is designing a building that will house a dedicated gallery of Apfel's clothes, accessories, and furnishings.


title: Iris Apfel

text: Apfel consults and lectures about style and other fashion topics. In 2013, she was listed as one of the fifty "Best-Dressed over 50" by "The Guardian".


title: Iris Apfel

text: Apfel is the star of a documentary by Albert Maysles, called "Iris". It premiered at the New York Film Festival in October 2014, and was subsequently acquired by Magnolia Pictures for US theatrical distribution in 2015.


title: Iris Apfel

text: Apfel was also featured in the documentary "If You're Not in the Obit, Eat Breakfast", a television film which premiered in 2017.


title: Iris Apfel

text: In 2018, Mattel created a Barbie doll in Apfel's image, making her the oldest person to ever have a Barbie made in her image and the recipient of the highest honor the Barbie brand bestows. The Barbie, released in conjunction with Apfel's book, was not for sale, but Mattel also made two “Styled by Iris Apfel" Barbie dolls that were commercially available.


title: Iris Apfel

text: Iris Apfel was awarded the Women Together Special Award of the Year at the 12th Annual Women Together Gala at the United Nations Headquarters in New York City, June 7, 2016. She was accompanied by other awardees, including Hollywood actress Rosario Dawson, the Punta Cana Foundation, the Loewe Foundation and others. Apfel was handed the award by Malu Edwards Hurley, member of the board of directors of Women Together and MC of the gala event, together with Carlos Jimenez, representative of Spain at the United Nations Headquarters in Brussels.


title: Iris Apfel

text: In November 2016, Apfel was awarded the Women's Entrepreneurship Day Pioneer Award for her work in the fashion field at the United Nations in New York City.


title: Iris Apfel

text: The Apfels did not have children, partly because of the amount of travel their work necessitated; she did not want children to be raised by a nanny.


title: Iris Apfel

text: Married 67 years, Carl died on August 1, 2015, aged 100. Apfel celebrated her 100th birthday on August 29, 2021.


title: Ministry of State Security (China)

text: The Ministry of State Security (MSS or Guoanbu; ; IPA: ) is the principal civilian intelligence, security and secret police agency of the People's Republic of China, responsible for counterintelligence, foreign intelligence and political security. The MSS is active in industrial espionage and adept at cyber espionage. Its military counterpart is the Intelligence Bureau of the Joint Staff Department. Described as one of the most secretive intelligence organizations in the world, it is headquartered in Beijing with subordinate branches at the provincial, city, municipality and township levels throughout China.


title: Ministry of State Security (China)

text: Today's MSS began as the Chinese Communist Party's Central Special Branch until it was replaced by the Central Social Affairs Department (SAD) in 1936. In 1955, the Social Affairs Department was replaced by the Central Investigation Department (CID), China's primary civilian intelligence organization from 1955 to 1983 and the MSS's immediate predecessor. The MSS was created in 1983 with the merging of the CID and the counterintelligence elements of the Ministry of Public Security (MPS).


title: Ministry of State Security (China)

text: MSS functions as China's intelligence, security and secret police agency. A document from the U.S. Department of Justice described the agency as being like a combination of the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) and Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI). Author Clive Hamilton described it as being similar to an amalgamation of the Australian Security Intelligence Organisation (ASIO) and the Australian Secret Intelligence Service (ASIS) "with a lot more power and less subject to the constraints of the rule of law." The stated mission of the MSS is to ensure "the security of the country through effective measures against enemy agents, spies, and counter-revolutionary activities designed to sabotage, destabilize or overthrow China's socialist system."


title: Ministry of State Security (China)

text: After the introduction of market elements in the Chinese economy in the early 1980s (leading to a hybrid economic system that includes Soviet-style economic planning and large-scale state ownership existing alongside a significant private sector) and especially after the end of the Cold War, many foreign analysts described the Communist "Party–State" and its security agencies as being left without a real ideology, relying only on repression and the stoking of Chinese nationalism; more recent works, however, highlight the increasing importance of Marxism–Leninism in the worldview, internal culture and self-image of the CCP security apparatus; Vladimir Lenin and Mao Zedong remain the central influences, although classical Chinese thinkers such as Sun Tzu are also studied. According to researchers Peter Mattis and Matthew Brazil, who have studied the MSS for many years:


title: Ministry of State Security (China)

text: The MSS is a civilian agency, although it controls its own separate police force (the "State Security Police", one of the four components of the People's Police) and includes some People's Liberation Army (PLA) officers among its personnel. The MSS official uniform is dark navy blue, similar to that of the regular People's Police, with the only difference being a badge on the right arm with the Chinese characters "国安" ("State Security").


title: Ministry of State Security (China)

text: Article 4 of the Criminal Procedure Law of the People's Republic of China gives the MSS the same authority to arrest or detain people as regular police for crimes involving state security with identical supervision by the procuratorates and the courts. The National Intelligence Law of 2017 grants the MSS broad powers to conduct many types of espionage both domestically and abroad; it also gives the MSS the power to administratively detain those who impede or divulge information on intelligence work for up to 15 days.


title: Ministry of State Security (China)

text: In November 1927, the CCP established its first formal intelligence service, with Zhou Enlai founding the Central Special Branch (, often shortened to Teke; sometimes written Special Services Section (SSS)) to conduct "special operations" work. With Xiang Zhongfa and Gu Shunzhang's assistance, Zhou designed the organization that many Chinese intelligence officers today see as the origins of their enterprise. Establishing secret bases across the Chinese territory, the Teke was composed of four sections led by Gu Shunzhang and Kang Sheng.


title: Ministry of State Security (China)

text: Zhou's primary objective was to disrupt the Kuomintang's secret police attempts to penetrate the CCP which required both a defensive counterintelligence effort to identify potentially traitorous members of the party and an offensive intelligence effort to plant spies within the Kuomintang's security and intelligence services. To prevent leaks and limit damage caused by infiltration by Nationalist spies, agents of Teke were forbidden to have any relationship with other agents making the party so compartmentalized that many never knew the name of the organization only calling it "Wu Hao's Dagger", a reference to Zhou Enlai's "nom de guerre".


title: Ministry of State Security (China)

text: Based in Shanghai, Teke grew to become "a small army of messengers, people smugglers, and informers" with a constant presence in clubs, religious organizations, music groups, and brothels serving as Zhou Enlai's (and subsequently the CCP's) eyes and ears both in Shanghai and across the nation. Nonetheless, Teke had to compete with the newly established KMT Bureau of Investigation and Statistics (BIS) under the notorious Dai Li whose nickname as the "Chinese Himmler" lives on for his horrific torture record which included death in excruciating agony and forced heroin overdosing. Under Dai Li, the BIS created vast networks of 100,000 operatives across and outside the borders of China and mastered new means of intercepting communist communications — an art taught to the KMT by American cryptographer Herbert Yardley for use against the Japanese. The overwhelming advantages of the KMT were challenged only by the extensive and thorough infiltration of the security services by Teke agents including Qian Zhuangfei, Li Kenong, and Hu Di.


title: Ministry of State Security (China)

text: Gu Shunzhang, whom Zhou Enlai had chosen to head operations for Teke, would prove to be one of the most adversely consequential members of the CCP's underground intelligence ring. Having been born in Shanghai on "the wrong side of the tracks" according to French author Roger Faligot, Gu lived crudely out of bars smoking opium, having affairs, and joining the Green Gang but made a name for himself as a magician. Made a bodyguard for Mikhail Borodin, the Comintern agent and advisor to the Kuomintang from Soviet Russia, Gu was sent to Vladivostok to learn the tactics of insurrection and tradecraft of espionage as Borodin feared division between the Chinese nationalists and communists. A trained spy, Gu led Teke operations from the group's 1927 founding until 25 April 1931.


title: Ministry of State Security (China)

text: While performing the typical magic show for young children that usually covered for his espionage missions, a nationalist informer who had turned on the CCP recognized Gu from a photograph and alerted the KMT authorities. A number of KMT agents appeared and tackled Gu, not only gleeful to have detained one of their most challenging communist adversaries but successful in turning the spymaster against the communists making Gu the most notorious intelligence traitors in modern Chinese history. As Gu provided the KMT with a flood of Teke agents' names and safe house locations, Zhou's spy inside the BIS, Qian Zhuangfei, immediately notified Zhou and Kang Shang who were able to relocate every Teke agent within two days — avoiding a potential extermination of CCP's core. Some agents, however, were located and arrested. On 21 June 1931, presumably with help from Gu's defection, the KMT captured CCP General Secretary Xiang Zhongfa hiding in a jewelry store with his cabaret dancer mistress. Despite offering to convert to the KMT party, Xiang was shot by his jailers before the received word of Chiang Kai-shek's pardon. Though the CCP's nascent intelligence branch under Kang Shang had narrowly escaped destruction, the damage done by Gu's defection and the number of communist spy arrests attrited the group until, in 1935 the CCP elected to disband it. While many of Teke's agents moved to the Red Army's Political Protection Bureau (PPB) led by Dong Fa, the PPB focused entirely on counterintelligence meaning real intelligence collection would go largely dormant until the formation of the Social Affairs Department.


title: Ministry of State Security (China)

text: In 1936, the CCP established in Yan'an, Shaanxi the Social Affairs Department, often abbreviated as SAD in English, to consolidate the party's foreign intelligence and counterintelligence efforts. It wasn't until 1938 when Kang Sheng took control of the department and restructured the organization that it took its final form in the merging of the preceding Special Branch, the Political Protection Bureau (which Kang Sheng had previously headed), and the Guard Office. The Political Protection Bureau provided rear area security to communist forces prior to the Long March and close security to Mao during the march while the Guard Office established a local constabulary and counterintelligence service. Under Kang Sheng and his deputy Li Kenong, the SAD provided the CCP foreign intelligence, domestic intelligence, military security, and political security in every province in which communist forces held terrain.


title: Ministry of State Security (China)

text: The Social Affairs Department was constructed similarly to the Soviet model (as Kang had been trained by Soviet intelligence in Moscow):


title: Ministry of State Security (China)

text: From 1942 to 1944, as the Social Affairs Department expanded, Kang Sheng became paranoid and fearful of spies within his organization. Kang, known as the "Chinese Beria" abroad, frequently reminded others that political deviation was inextricably linked to being a traitorous spy, remarking "There is a close link between the twin crimes of espionage and deviationism. One is not a deviationist, as we have tended to believe, by chance or error. It is, ineluctably, dialectically, because one is a Japanese agent or a Kuomintang spy—or both. We must begin a ruthless hunt to root out these two plagues from Yan'an because, by fighting against deviationism, we weaken the clandestine plots of our enemies, and vice versa." Convinced that at least 30 percent of his organization were counterrevolutionaries and spies, Kang established a counterintelligence quota which contributed greatly to the practice of "bigongxin", forcing a false confession in order to build a case against the accused. Kang's counterintelligence inquisition utilized "techniques of punishment and interrogation inspired by the millennia-long Chinese tradition of torture, updated by twentieth-century Stalinism for the requirements of the era" with torture practices including driving bamboo spikes under fingernails, inserting hair from a horse's tail into the penis, pumping high-pressure water into the vagina, cutting off the breasts of women looking for their tortured husbands, forcing the ingestion of large amounts of vinegar, applying burning incense to armpits, tying to a whipped horse's tail, and live burials. Kang's perceived connection between political deviation and traitorship led many senior leaders to avoid criticizing Kang's purges.


title: Ministry of State Security (China)

text: Known by 1944 as the "party hangman", Kang was eventually opposed by Zhou Enlai and later Mao Zedong who forced Kang to produce his own self-criticism proclaiming that perhaps only 10 percent of the comrades accused were spies and, in November 1944, relieved him of the position as head of the Social Affairs Department. Various rumors for the cause of his removal endure. One version claims that his paranoid purges made him a target of many senior communist officials, many of whom found themselves in Kang's sights. Another less likely explanation from Mao's physician, Li Zhuisui, claims that Kang suffered acute paranoia and symptoms of schizophrenia and consequently sent to a mental asylum. American intelligence reported believed Kang's downfall was the result of the recent collapse of the pro-Stalinist faction proceeding the deaths of Stalin and Beria since Kang had trained as an intelligence officer in Moscow. Li Kenong, the new head of the Social Affairs Department, developed the organization's intelligence networks and was appointed by Zhou Enlai to simultaneously serve as the nation's deputy minister of foreign affairs.


title: Ministry of State Security (China)

text: In an effort to disaffiliate the intelligence service from Kang Sheng's paranoia-driven legacy of purges, the organization was renamed to the CCP Central Investigation Department () with only one SAD branch moved out to its own organization, the Legal and Administrative Work Department.


title: Ministry of State Security (China)

text: In the 1950s, nearly every Chinese embassies abroad had an Investigation and Research Office, a cover for a group of intelligence officers belonging to the Central Investigation Department (CID) who kept close watch on diplomats and embassy staff, often sitting in on meetings and reporting back to CID headquarters' Eight Bureau (known later as the "Institute of Contemporary International Relations").


title: Ministry of State Security (China)

text: On 9 February 1962, Li Kenong died after a period of illness from the residual effects of brain damage from a fall he had sustained three years prior. Kong Yuan, Kang Sheng's former secretary and friend of Zhou Enlai, ran the service with Zou Dapeng and Luo Qingchang as his deputies.


title: Ministry of State Security (China)

text: Early in 1996, Mao Zedong and his defense chief Marshal Lin Biao plotted to overthrow army Chief of Staff and Deputy Prime Minister Luo Ruiqing who, despite being a lifelong supporter of Mao's revolution and founder of the MPS, had opposed the political training in the military instituted at Mao's directive. Eager to thieve for the second time a senior position in the security services from Luo and to gain a stronghold over the party's security apparatus, Kang Sheng prepared a traitorous dossier on Luo complete with accusations of "illicit intercourse with foreigners". Lin Biao sent for Luo's arrest, and, under appalling conditions of incarceration and interrogation, Luo attempted to commit suicide in March by throwing himself from his cell breaking two legs after which Red Guards forced him to make his own self-criticism. As Mao Zedong launched his infamous Cultural Revolution in 1966, Kang Sheng attempted to limit the destructive influence of the revolution on his intelligence and security apparatus issuing in September the directive "Codes, telegrams, confidential documents, files, and secret archives are the essential secrets of the Party and State; the safeguarding of all of these elements is the responsibility of all cadres, revolutionary masses, students, and revolutionary teachers." Despite this, Kang Sheng soon found that the calamitous red wave that overtook Mao's China would grow beyond his control. It wouldn't be until October 1978, after Mao's death in September 1976, that Hua Guofeng and Wang Dongxing would rebuild the Central Investigative Department which was officially reestablished on 28 July 1978. The organization still lacked experience or established tradecraft which would cause them a number of embarrassments.


title: Ministry of State Security (China)

text: The most impactful embarrassment of the newly reestablished Central Investigative Department (or "Diaochabu") was their inability to predict the Vietnamese invasion of the Republic of Kampuchea (today Cambodia) in 1979. Following a visit to Democratic Kampuchea by Wang Dongxing in early November 1978, he and head of the new Central Investigative Department Luo Qinchang praised the ten-year friendship with the Khmer Rouge and helped Kaing Khek and Ta Mok to establish the neighboring communist party's notorious S-21 interrogation and extermination camp where around 20,000 Cambodians would be killed under Pol Pot's genocide. Within a month of Wang and Luo's return to China, the Socialist Republic of Vietnam launched a full-scale invasion of Kampuchea in response to a series of border attacks on the Liberation Army of Kampuchea. Perhaps by ideological closeness to Pol Pot and his followers, Chinese intelligence under the Central Investigative Department, and consequently PRC leadership, was caught by surprise by the Vietnamese invasion. Unable to contact the Khmer Rouge who, under the leadership of Ta Mok, had escaped into the jungles to organize a guerrilla resistance with only one Chinese agent carrying a defective satellite radio, a thousand Chinese military advisors fled Cambodia via Thailand and left 4,000 civilian advisors to the invading Vietnamese army. Compounding the intelligence failure, as the invasion broke the Central Investigative Department expressed confidence to Chinese leaders that the invasion would be easily repelled and that the Chinese embassy in the capital, Phnom Penh, would be unharmed.


title: Ministry of State Security (China)

text: Hoping to force a Vietnamese withdrawal from its ally Cambodia, the People's Republic of China launched their own southward invasion across the border into Vietnam in February 1979 which was withdrawn four weeks later after heavy resistance by Vietnamese guerrillas bearing Soviet and American weapons. Nonetheless, head of the CCP Deng Xiaoping supported the Khmer Rouge for another ten years in exile limiting his criticism of the two million-victim genocide assessing "the domestic counterintelligence activities created a negative atmosphere, slowing down many activities and causing social problems as well as many other problems... A thorough study of this political aspect should be undertaken and concrete measures taken."


title: Ministry of State Security (China)

text: At the end of the Cultural Revolution, as China struggled to regain its footing after a tumultuous decade, Deng Xiaoping and his fellow reformers Hu Yaobang and Zhao Ziyang endeavored down the road of governmental reform. General Secretary of the CCP Central Committee Hu Yaobang decried Kang Sheng's destructive and paranoid legacy in a speech in November 1978 enumerating many of the crimes Kang Sheng had been found guilty of, up to and through the Cultural Revolution. Kang's condemnation was bolstered by the investigation prepared by Luo Qingchang's Central Investigative Department which detailed how Kang had organized the Yan'an purges and named any of his opponents "counter-revolutionary".


title: Ministry of State Security (China)

text: Deng Xiaoping, himself a victim of Mao's Cultural Revolution, the Gang of Four, and Kang Sheng's secret police and whose brother was wheelchair-bound after Red Guards threw him from a high window, committed to reforming the Chinese intelligence services. Firstly, Deng initiated a small but meaningful campaign to degrade Kang Sheng's legacy which began with Hu Yaobang's speech. Secondly, Deng subordinated the Central Investigative Department into a minor political organ. Finally, Deng took all the "external intelligence expertise" from the Central Investigative Department and consolidated it and all the CCP's espionage and counterintelligence functions into a new, "revolutionized" Chinese intelligence service, fitting of the new era of the Chinese "opening-up" to the world.


title: Ministry of State Security (China)

text: Proposed by Zhao Ziyang and approved at the first session of the sixth National People's Congress (NPC), the Ministry of State Security (MSS) was approved on 20 June 1983 to be a merger between the Central Investigation Department and the counterintelligence elements of the Ministry of Public Security (MPS) to "protect the security of the state and strengthen China's espionage work". The following day, the NPC appointed Ling Yun to be the first Minister of State Security which would announce its establishment on 1 July 1983. There were serious political reasons behind the merger, as Luo Qingchang, who had been Director of the CID since 1973 and was a powerful player in Chinese Communist intelligence since the 1940s, was a fierce opponent of Deng Xiaoping. Although Deng had risen to supreme power in the late 1970s, he initially couldn't remove Luo from his post, until he finally succeeded in 1983. But even after this, Luo still remained influential as an adviser on the "Central Leading Group for Taiwan Affairs". Although the MSS maintains loyalty to party and ideology as a central mission, its founding represents the first time that a Chinese intelligence organ was placed under the State Council instead of the party.


title: Ministry of State Security (China)

text: The 1st Bureau of the new MSS managed internal affairs and security in each of the provinces with the help of local and regional offices. The MSS also maintained a number of concentration camps () where apprehended enemy spies like the Taiwanese "Society of the Continent" network in Tianjin. The 2nd Bureau of the MSS was responsible for foreign intelligence collection beginning in the nearby capitals of Tokyo, Bangkok, and Singapore. Intelligence officers of the 2nd Bureau operated under diplomatic cover posing as advisors or secretaries to diplomats in-country. The MSS' 3rd Bureau was responsible for nearby areas the People's Republic of China wished to draw back into the CCP's control: Hong Kong, Taiwan, and Macau. The 4th Bureau focused on the technical aspects of espionage, the 5th Bureau for local intelligence, the 6th Bureau for counterintelligence, the 7th Bureau that conducted surveillance or special operations, and the 8th Bureau engaged in research through open sources (OSINT). The 8th Bureau took control over the former branch of the Central Investigative Department called the China Institutes of Contemporary International Relations (CICIR) whose members denied any connections to the Chinese intelligence apparatus. The 9th Bureau managed the threat of enemy infiltration and MSS officer defections, the 10th Bureau worked with the State Scientific & Technological Commission and the intelligence section of the Commission for Science, Technology, and Industry for National Defense (COSTIND). The 11th Bureau managed computers, networks, and information technology equipment, and finally the 12th Bureau was responsible for liaising with foreign intelligence services under the name of the Office of Foreign Affairs. Officers of the 12th Bureau worked with the CIA's David Gries, BND's Dr. Herms Bahl, MI6's Nigel Inkster, and the DGSE's Thierry Imbot while keeping them under surveillance. The so-called Office of Foreign Affairs also took up duties to surveil visiting tourists, diplomats, and journalists who began to enter the country after China's opening to the world. The MSS' first head announced "The intelligence agencies and secret services of some foreign countries have increased their spying activities against China's state secrets and are now sending agents to subvert and destroy our country."


title: Ministry of State Security (China)

text: One of the longest-serving Ministers of State Security was Jia Chunwang, a native of Beijing and a 1964 graduate of Tsinghua University, reportedly an admirer of the American Central Intelligence Agency (CIA). He served as Minister of State Security from 1985 until March 1998, when the MSS underwent an overhaul and Xu Yongyue was appointed the new head of the organization. Jia was largely responsible for the development of the MSS out of each of the provincial departments of state security, wherein many police officers found themselves intelligence officers the next day. Within the first year, Jia consolidated the security departments of Beijing, Fujian, Guangdong, Guangxi, Heilongjiang, Jiangsu, Liaoning, and Shanghai. Between 1985 and 1988 Jia had managed to incorporate those departments of Chongqing, Gansu, Hainan, Henan, Shaanxi, Tianjin, and Zhejiang. Finally, from 1990 to 1995, Jia incorporated security departments from Anhui, Hunan, Qinghai, and Sichuan provinces. Jia was then appointed to the Minister of Public Security post, after 13 years as head of the MSS. The MSS was under the influence of Zhou Yongkang until his ouster and conviction for corruption in 2014. One of the people responsible for "taking down" Zhou Yongkang was Chen Wenqing of the Central Commission for Discipline Inspection, who was nominated Minister of State Security by Chinese Premier Li Keqiang in 2016, partly as a reward for purging Zhou and his network.


title: Ministry of State Security (China)

text: Since CCP general secretary Xi Jinping assumed power in 2012, the MSS gained more responsibility over cyberespionage vis-à-vis the PLA, and has sponsored various advanced persistent threat groups such as Double Dragon. In October 2018, the Deputy Minister of State Security, Yanjun Xu, was charged with economic espionage by the United States prosecutors.


title: Ministry of State Security (China)

text: On May 28, 2021, a federal grand jury in the United States District Court for the Southern District of California returned an indictment against four People's Republic of China (PRC) citizens for their alleged roles in a long running campaign of computer network operations targeting trade secrets, intellectual property, and other high value information from companies, universities, research institutes, and governmental entities in the United States and abroad, as well as multiple foreign governments. The indictment alleges that Zhu Yunmin, Wu Shurong, Ding Xiaoyang, and Cheng Qingmin targeted the following sectors: aerospace/aviation, biomedical, defense industrial base, healthcare, manufacturing, maritime, research institutes, transportation (rail and shipping), and virus research from 2012 to 2018, on behalf of the PRC Ministry of State Security. Additionally, the indictment alleges the use of front companies by the PRC Ministry of State Security to conduct cyber espionage.


title: Ministry of State Security (China)

text: In March 2009 former MSS operative Li Fengzhi told the "Washington Times" in an interview that the MSS was engaged in counterintelligence, the collection of secrets and technology from other countries, and repressing internal dissent within China. The internal repression, according to Li, includes efforts against houses churches, the underground church and the Falun Gong religious group, plus censoring the Internet to prevent China's population from knowing what is going on outside the country. Li emphasized that MSS's most important mission is, "to control the Chinese people to maintain the rule of the Communist Party".


title: Ministry of State Security (China)

text: In 2012, an executive assistant to MSS vice minister Lu Zhongwei was found to have been passing information to the CIA. Lu Zhongwei was not formally charged, but that incident was said to have infuriated Hu Jintao and led to a tightening on information dissemination and increased counterintelligence activities in Beijing and abroad.


title: Ministry of State Security (China)

text: The Shanghai State Security Bureau (SSSB) of the MSS has repeatedly been involved in both failed and successful attempts to recruit foreign agents. In 2010, the SSSB directed US citizen Glenn Duffie Shriver to apply for a position at the National Clandestine Service of the CIA. In 2017, SSSB case workers were implicated in the recruitment of US Department of State employee Candace Claiborne who was charged with obstruction of justice.


title: Ministry of State Security (China)

text: In 2013, a Chinese driver was employed by Senator Dianne Feinstein who was notified that the driver was being investigated for possible Chinese spying. At some point, he visited China and was recruited by China's MSS. He worked for Senator Feinstein for several years. The FBI concluded the driver hadn't revealed anything of substance.


title: Ministry of State Security (China)

text: During January 2017, the FBI arrested Candace Claiborne, a State Department employee who had previously worked in the American Embassy in Beijing between 2009 and 2012. In April 2019 Claiborne pleaded guilty to one count of conspiring to defraud the United States. Prosecutors argued that she had passed sensitive information to the MSS.


title: Ministry of State Security (China)

text: Companies such as Huawei, China Mobile, and China Unicom have been implicated in MSS intelligence collection activities.


title: Ministry of State Security (China)

text: In 2017, MSS officials entered the United States on the pretense of transit visas as cultural officials. During the visit the officials made an attempt to persuade Chinese dissident Guo Wengui to return to China in order to face charges for prosecution. Guo Wengui accepted the meeting, out of apparent gratitude for one of the officials, named Liu Yanping, having previously assisted in bringing the wife of Guo Wengui to America. However, Guo Wengui recorded the conversations and alerted the FBI. Subsequently, the Chinese officials were confronted by FBI agents in Pennsylvania Station, the Chinese officials initially claimed to be cultural affairs diplomats but ultimately admitted to being security officials. The Chinese officials were given a warning for their activities in New York and were ordered to return to China. Two days later, the officials again visited the apartment of Guo Wengui once more prior to leaving the country. While at the apartment the second time, the officials reportedly ate dumplings made by the wife of Guo Wengui, and Guo Wengui walked them out of the building after again declining their offer of clemency for silence. The FBI was aware of the second visit and agents were prepared to arrest the Chinese security officials at JFK Airport prior to their Air China flight on charges of visa fraud and extortion, but arrests were not made following pressure from the State Department to avoid a diplomatic crisis. The FBI did, however, confiscate the Chinese officials’ phones before the plane took off.


title: Ministry of State Security (China)

text: In 2019, according to a report released by the European External Action Service, there were an estimated 250 MSS spies operating in Brussels.


title: Ministry of State Security (China)

text: In September 2020, a journalist, a Chinese MSS operative and her Nepalese informant were arrested in India for providing classified information about Indian army deployments in Doklam area and India's Ministry of External Affairs to two officers of Yunnan State Security Department (YSSD) of the MSS.


title: Ministry of State Security (China)

text: In December 2020, 10 MSS Operatives of Xinjiang State Security Department (XSSD) were arrested in Kabul, Afghanistan by the National Directorate of Security. During Questioning, one of operative told the interrogators that they were gathering information about al Qaeda, Taliban and Turkistan Islamic Party in Kunar and Badakhshan provinces, and wanted to trap and assassinate high-level members of Turkistan Islamic Party. At least two of the operatives were also in contact with the Haqqani network for this job. After days of negotiations between Afghanistan and China, all of them were pardoned and were flown out of the country in a plane arranged by the Chinese government.


title: Ministry of State Security (China)

text: In February 2021, "The Daily Telegraph" reported that Britain had expelled three MSS agents posing as journalists.


title: Ministry of State Security (China)

text: In March 2021, at least six Chinese bloggers were arrested by MSS for 'insulting' People's Liberation Army Ground Force soldiers who died in the Galwan Valley clash. Those bloggers had suggested that the death toll of the China-India border clash was 11x higher than the official count of four.


title: Ministry of State Security (China)

text: In late April 2021, the Ministry of State Security announced that it was introducing several new measures to fight alleged infiltration by "hostile forces" of Chinese companies and other institutions. These measures include drawing up a list of companies and organizations considered to be at risk of foreign infiltration and requiring them to take security measures. In addition, staff travelling on business trips to the Five Eyes countries (the United States, United Kingdom, Australia, Canada, and New Zealand) have been ordered to report all contacts with foreign personnel, participate in anti-espionage seminars, and leaving mobile phones, laptops, and USB drives at home before traveling abroad.


title: Ministry of State Security (China)

text: In September 2022, it was reported during Congressional testimony that the FBI had informed Twitter of at least one MSS agent on its payroll.


title: Ministry of State Security (China)

text: In 2017, the cyberespionage threat group known as Gothic Panda or APT3 was determined to have nation-state level capabilities and to be functioning on behalf of the MSS by researchers.


title: Ministry of State Security (China)

text: In 2018, the United States Department of Justice indicted two individuals of the cyber-espionage group APT10, which it stated was under the direction of the Tianjin State Security Bureau (TSSB) of MSS.


title: Ministry of State Security (China)

text: In 2020, the United States Department of Justice indicted two MSS contractors who were involved in hacking Moderna, a biotechnology company developing a vaccine for the COVID-19 pandemic. In September 2020, the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency released a security advisory regarding hacking by groups affiliated with the MSS.


title: Ministry of State Security (China)

text: In September 2020, A New York City Police Officer of Tibetan descent was arrested for gathering information on Tibetan American community for the Tibet State Security Department (TSSD) of MSS. He was also trying to recruit potential informants inside the local Tibetan community.