title: Joe Torre

text: His older brother Frank Torre was also a Major League Baseball player. Frank died in 2014. His eldest brother, Rocco, was a New York Police Department officer who died in 1996. His older sister, Marguerite, was a Roman Catholic nun and teacher, and through 2007 was the principal of the Nativity of the Blessed Virgin Mary School in Ozone Park, Queens until her death on May 29, 2022. His other sister Rae died in 2015.


title: Joe Torre

text: On December 14, 2005, Torre carried the Olympic Flame in Florence, Italy, as part of the torch relay of the 2006 Winter Olympics in Turin, running it 405 meters, and ending up at the Ponte Vecchio.


title: Joe Torre

text: , Torre and his wife live in Harrison, New York. Until February 2020, they also had a house in Mahopac.


title: United States Seventh Fleet

text: The Seventh Fleet is a numbered fleet of the United States Navy. It is headquartered at U.S. Fleet Activities Yokosuka, in Yokosuka, Kanagawa Prefecture, Japan. It is part of the United States Pacific Fleet. At present, it is the largest of the forward-deployed U.S. fleets, with 50 to 70 ships, 150 aircraft and 27,000 Sailors and Marines. Its principal responsibilities are to provide joint command in natural disaster or military operations and operational command of all US naval forces in the region.


title: United States Seventh Fleet

text: The Seventh Fleet was formed on 15 March 1943 in Brisbane, Australia, during World War II, under the command of Admiral Arthur S. "Chips" Carpender. It served in the South West Pacific Area (SWPA) under General Douglas MacArthur. The Seventh Fleet commander also served as commander of Allied naval forces in the SWPA.


title: United States Seventh Fleet

text: Most of the ships of the Royal Australian Navy were also part of the fleet from 1943 to 1945 as part of Task Force 74 (formerly the Anzac Squadron). The Seventh Fleet—under Admiral Thomas C. Kinkaid—formed a large part of the Allied forces at the Battle of Leyte Gulf, the largest naval battle in history, in October 1944. The Seventh Fleet fought in two of the Battle of Leyte Gulf's main actions, the Battle of Surigao Strait and the Battle off Samar.


title: United States Seventh Fleet

text: After the end of the war, the 7th Fleet moved its headquarters to Qingdao, China. As laid out in Operation Plan 13–45 of 26 August 1945, Kinkaid established five major task forces to manage operations in the Western Pacific: Task Force 71, the North China Force with 75 ships; Task Force 72, the Fast Carrier Force, directed to provide air cover to the Marines going ashore and discourage with dramatic aerial flyovers any Communist forces that might oppose the operation; Task Force 73, the Yangtze Patrol Force with another 75 combatants; Task Force 74, the South China Force, ordered to protect the transportation of Japanese and Chinese Nationalist troops from that region; and Task Force 78, the Amphibious Force, charged with the movement of the III Marine Amphibious Corps to China.


title: United States Seventh Fleet

text: After the war, on 1 January 1947, the Fleet's name was changed to Naval Forces Western Pacific. In late 1948, the Fleet moved its principal base of operations from Qingdao to the Philippines, where the Navy, following the war, had developed new facilities at Subic Bay and an airfield at Sangley Point. Peacetime operations of the Seventh Fleet were under the control of Commander in Chief Pacific Fleet, Admiral Arthur W. Radford, but standing orders provided that, when operating in Japanese waters or in the event of an emergency, control would pass to Commander, Naval Forces Far East, a component of General Douglas MacArthur's occupation force.


title: United States Seventh Fleet

text: On 19 August 1949 the force was designated as United States Seventh Task Fleet. On 11 February 1950, just prior to the outbreak of the Korean War, the force assumed the name United States Seventh Fleet, which it holds today.


title: United States Seventh Fleet

text: Seventh Fleet units participated in all major operations of the Korean and Vietnamese Wars. The first Navy jet aircraft used in combat was launched from a Task Force 77 (TF 77) aircraft carrier on 3 July 1950. The landings at Inchon, Korea were conducted by Seventh Fleet amphibious ships. The battleships , , and all served as flagships for Commander, U.S. Seventh Fleet during the Korean War. During the Korean War, the Seventh Fleet consisted of Task Force 70, a maritime patrol force provided by Fleet Air Wing One and Fleet Air Wing Six, Task Force 72, the Formosa Patrol, Task Force 77, and Task Force 79, a service support squadron.


title: United States Seventh Fleet

text: Over the next decade the Seventh Fleet responded to numerous crisis situations including contingency operations conducted in Laos in 1959 and Thailand in 1962. During September 1959, in the autumn of 1960, and again in January 1961, the Seventh Fleet deployed multiship carrier task forces into the South China Sea. Although the Pathet Lao and North Vietnamese supporting forces withdrew in each crisis, in the spring of 1961 their offensive appeared on the verge of overwhelming the pro-American Royal Lao Army.


title: United States Seventh Fleet

text: Once again the fleet moved into Southeast Asian waters. By the end of April 1961, most of the Seventh Fleet was deployed off the Indochinese Peninsula preparing to initiate operations into Laos. The force consisted of the and carrier battle groups, antisubmarine support carrier , one helicopter carrier, three groups of amphibious ships, two submarines, and three Marine battalion landing teams. At the same time, shorebased air patrol squadrons and another three Marine battalion landing teams stood ready in Okinawa and the Philippines to support the afloat force. Although the administration of President John F. Kennedy already had decided against American intervention to rescue the Laotian government, Communist forces halted their advance and agreed to negotiations. The contending Laotian factions concluded a cease-fire on 8 May 1961, but it lasted only a year.


title: United States Seventh Fleet

text: In June 1963 the Seventh Fleet held 'Flagpole '63,' a joint naval exercise with the Republic of Korea.


title: United States Seventh Fleet

text: Seventh Fleet represented the first official entrance of the United States into the Vietnam War, with the Gulf of Tonkin incident. Between 1950 and 1970, the U.S. Seventh Fleet was known by the tongue-in-cheek nickname "Tonkin Gulf Yacht Club" since most of the fleet's operations were conducted from the Tonkin Gulf at the time.


title: United States Seventh Fleet

text: On 12 February 1965, became the first U.S. Navy ship to conduct operations inside Vietnam coastal waters. "Salisbury Sound" set up a seadrome in Da Nang Bay and conducted seaplane patrols in support of Operation Flaming Dart, the bombing of North Vietnamese army camps.


title: United States Seventh Fleet

text: Operating primarily from Yankee Station off the north coast of Vietnam and the aptly-named Dixie Station off the south coast of Vietnam in the South China Sea, Seventh Fleet was organized into a series of task forces, often known by the acronym CTF (Commander Task Force):


title: United States Seventh Fleet

text: In 1975, ships and aircraft of the Fleet evacuated thousands of U.S. citizens and refugees from South Vietnam and Cambodia as those countries fell to opposing forces.


title: United States Seventh Fleet

text: Since the end of the Vietnam War, the Seventh Fleet has participated in a joint/combined exercise called Team Spirit, conducted with the Republic of Korea armed forces. With capability to respond to any contingency, Fleet operations are credited with maintaining security during the Asian Games of 1986 and the Seoul Olympics of 1988. During 1989, Seventh Fleet units participated in a variety of exercises called PACEX, the largest peacetime exercises since World War II.


title: United States Seventh Fleet

text: A carrier task force of the Seventh Fleet, Task Force 74 (TF 74), entered the Bay of Bengal at the height of the war in December 1971. Its mission was to support Pakistan during the war. TF 74 comprised the nuclear-powered aircraft carrier ; the amphibious assault carrier ; the destroyers , , and ; the guided-missile escorts , , and ; the nuclear-powered attack submarine ; and supply ship . On 15 December, a day before the surrender of Pakistan to the joint force of India and Bangladesh, the task force entered the Bay of Bengal, at a distance of some from Dhaka.


title: United States Seventh Fleet

text: The Soviet Union, in favor of India, dispatched the 10th Operative Battle Group of its Pacific Fleet under Admiral Vladimir Kruglyakov from Vladivostok to the area. This caused the United States Seventh Fleet to abort its mission and leave the Bay of Bengal.


title: United States Seventh Fleet

text: At the same time, the Royal Navy had forces in the Arabian sea with a similar goal as the Seventh Fleet, but that mission was also aborted. India won the war and Bangladesh was liberated amid US and UK's naval support to Pakistan.


title: United States Seventh Fleet

text: In response to the Iraqi invasion of Kuwait on 2 August 1990, General Norman Schwarzkopf (CINCENT) discussed naval command arrangements in his area of responsibility with Commander-in-Chief, Pacific, Admiral Huntington Hardisty. The result was that Commander, U.S. Seventh Fleet was ordered to assume additional responsibilities as Commander, U.S. Naval Forces Central Command. The Fleet Commander departed Yokosuka, Japan immediately, heading for the Persian Gulf, and joined the remainder of his staff aboard the flagship on 1 September 1990. During Operation Desert Shield and Operation Desert Storm, Naval Forces Central Command exercised command and control of the largest U.S. Navy armada since the Second World War. At the peak of combat operations, over 130 U.S. ships joined more than 50 allied ships to conduct maritime intercept operations, minesweeping and combat strike operations against enemy forces in Iraq and Kuwait.


title: United States Seventh Fleet

text: Naval Forces Central Command included six aircraft carrier battle groups, two battleships ("Missouri" and "Wisconsin"), two hospital ships, 31 amphibious assault ships, four minesweeping vessels and numerous combatants in support of allied air and ground forces. After a decisive allied victory in the Gulf War, Commander U.S. Seventh Fleet relinquished control of Naval Forces Central Command to Commander, Middle East Force on 24 April 1991 and returned to Yokosuka, Japan to resume his Asia-Pacific duties.


title: United States Seventh Fleet

text: Following months of tension as well as the death of North Korean leader Kim Il-Sung, in July 1994, the "Kitty Hawk" battle group was diverted from a Southern Watch deployment to the Persian Gulf and remained in the Western Pacific (the Seventh Fleet's operation area) for the entire deployment. The "Independence" also conducted operations near the Peninsula during the crisis.


title: United States Seventh Fleet

text: In 1996, two aircraft carrier battle groups were sent to the Taiwan Straits under Seventh Fleet control to demonstrate U.S. support for Taiwan during the Third Taiwan Strait Crisis. The "Nimitz" battle group (CCDG 7) made a high speed transit from the Persian Gulf, while Carrier Group Five, led by "Independence", sortied from its Japanese homeports.


title: United States Seventh Fleet

text: On 21 August 2017, while on a routine visit to Singapore, destroyer was involved in a collision with merchant vessel "Alnic MC" off the coast of Singapore, east of the Strait of Malacca. The incident left 10 Navy sailors missing and five injured. The US Navy announced that Commander of the Seventh Fleet Vice Adm. Joseph Aucoin had been dismissed and replaced by Vice Adm. Phillip G. Sawyer, who had already been nominated and confirmed to replace the retiring Aucoin.


title: United States Seventh Fleet

text: Of the 50–60 ships typically assigned to Seventh Fleet, 18 operate from U.S. facilities in Japan and Guam. These forward-deployed units represent the heart of Seventh Fleet, and the centerpieces of American forward presence in Asia. They are 17 steaming days closer to locations in Asia than their counterparts based in the continental United States. It would take three to five times the number of rotationally-based ships in the U.S. to equal the same presence and crisis response capability as these 18 forward deployed ships. On any given day, about 50% of Seventh Fleet forces are deployed at sea throughout the area of responsibility.


title: United States Seventh Fleet

text: Following the end of the Cold War, the two major military scenarios in which the Seventh Fleet would be used would be in case of conflict in Korea or a conflict between People's Republic of China and Taiwan (Republic of China) in the Taiwan Strait.


title: United States Seventh Fleet

text: It was reported on 10 May 2012 that would be dispatched to Singapore in the northern spring of 2013 for a roughly 10-month deployment. On 2 June 2012 the U.S. and Singaporean Defense Ministers announced that Singapore has agreed 'in principle' to the US request 'to forward deploy up to four littoral combat ships to Singapore on a rotational basis.' Officials stressed however that vessels will not be permanently based there and their crews will live aboard during ship visits.


title: United States Seventh Fleet

text: Task Force 70 – TF 70 is the Battle Force of 7th Fleet and is made up of two distinct components: Surface Combatant Force 7th Fleet, composed of cruisers and destroyers, and Carrier Strike Force 7th Fleet, made up of at least one aircraft carrier and its embarked air wing. The Battle Force is currently centered around Carrier Strike Group Five, the carrier responsible for unit-level training, integrated training, and material readiness for the group's ships and aviation squadrons. As the only continuously forward deployed carrier strike group, the CSG-5 staff does not stand down when the strike group is in Yokosuka, but instead continues to maintain command responsibilities over deploying Carrier Strike Groups and independently deployed cruisers, destroyers, and frigates that operate in the Seventh Fleet operating area. The commander and staff are also responsible for the higher level Task Force 70 duties throughout the year in addition to the CSG-5 duties. The composition of the strike group in immediate proximity of "Ronald Reagan" varies throughout the year.


title: United States Seventh Fleet

text: The CSG 5 Commander also serves as Battle Force Seventh Fleet and Commander, Task Force (CTF 70) for 7th Fleet. In these responsibilities, CSG 5 serves as the Commander of all surface forces (carrier strike groups, independently deploying cruisers, destroyers and frigates) in the 7th Fleet area of responsibility. CTF 70 also serves as the Theater Surface Warfare Commander (TSUWC) and Theater Integrated Air Missile Defense Commander (TIAMDC) for Seventh Fleet.


title: United States Seventh Fleet

text: During the Korean War, Captain Charles L. Melson was the commanding officer of the flagship of the Seventh Fleet, the battleship from 20 October 1952. He also served during that time as Commander, Task Group 70.1.


title: United States Seventh Fleet

text: Task Force 71 – TF 71 includes all Naval Special Warfare (NSW) units and Explosive Ordnance Disposal Mobile Units (EODMU) assigned to 7th Fleet. It is based in Guam.


title: United States Seventh Fleet

text: Task Force 72 – TF 72 is the Patrol and Reconnaissance Force, Seventh Fleet. It is located at Naval Air Facility Misawa (Misawa Air Base), Japan. It is mainly composed of anti-submarine warfare (ASW) aircraft and maritime airborne surveillance platforms such as P-3 Orion and Lockheed EP-3 reconnaissance planes operating on land bases. Toward the end of the Korean War, Commander Task Force 72 transferred his flag to on 7 March and detachments of VP-42 also left USS "Salisbury Sound" for that seaplane tender. That same day Task Force Seventy-Two was established as the Formosa Patrol Force under Rear Admiral Williamson in Pine Island.


title: United States Seventh Fleet

text: Task Force 73/Commander, Logistics Group Western Pacific – 7th Fleet's Logistics Force composed of supply ships and other fleet support vessels. Headquartered in Singapore.


title: United States Seventh Fleet

text: Task Force 74 – TF 74 was the designation used for the "Enterprise" battle group in 1971. Today, it is the Fleet Submarine Force responsible for planning and coordinating submarine operations within 7th Fleet's area of operations.


title: United States Seventh Fleet

text: Task Force 75 – Navy Expeditionary Forces Command Pacific is 7th Fleet's primary Expeditionary task force. Located in Camp Covington, Guam, CTF 75 is responsible for the planning and execution of coastal riverine operations, explosive ordnance disposal, diving, engineering and construction, and underwater construction throughout the 7th Fleet area of responsibility.


title: United States Seventh Fleet

text: Task Force 76 – Amphibious assault task force currently headquartered at U.S. Fleet Activities Sasebo, mainly responsible for supporting Marine landing operations. It is composed of units capable of delivering ship-to-shore assault troops, such as and amphibious assault ships, and landing craft.


title: United States Seventh Fleet

text: Task Force 77 – 7th Fleet Mine Warfare Force composed of mine countermeasure, mine hunter, and mine control ships as well as mine countermeasure helicopters (MH-53). This task force is only activated during specific combat operations and was filled by the Commander of Mine Warfare Command. Mine Warfare Command has now been disestablished and replaced by Navy Mine and Antisubmarine Warfare Command, Naval Base Point Loma, Calif.


title: United States Seventh Fleet

text: Task Force 78 – In 1973, Task Force 78 served as the mine clearance force that cleared Haiphong Harbour in Operation End Sweep. Major elements of the U.S. Navy mine warfare force, including Mobile Mine Command (MOMCOM), Mine Warfare Support Group (MWFSG), and HM-12 were airlifted by C-5A to NAS Cubi Point in the Philippines. These specialists formed the nucleus of Task Force 78, under the command of Rear Admiral Brian McCauley, for Operation End Sweep. Commander, Mine Force, U.S. Atlantic Fleet had reported to Vice Admiral James L. Holloway III, Commander, Seventh Fleet, in September 1972 as Commander Task Force 78. TF 78 was officially activated in November 1972. However, it became clear more helicopters were needed. Responding to a Navy request for assistance, Commanding General, Fleet Marine Force Pacific (CG FMFPAC) directed that HMH-463 deploy from MCAS Kaneohe Bay, Hawaii, to NAS Cubi Point, to join Task Force 78. On 27 November 1972, with the efficient support of Col. Bill Crocker's MAG-24, HM-463 embarked at Pearl Harbor aboard , which was en route from Norfolk to augment Seventh Fleet Amphibious Forces and to participate in End Sweep.


title: United States Seventh Fleet

text: The ceasefire was signed on 23 January 1973, and the day afterwards, major components of TF 78 deployed from Subic Bay to Haiphong. These included four ocean minesweepers (MSO), USS "Inchon", and four amphibious ships, including two with docking capabilities to handle the minesweeping sleds towed by the CH-53Ms. During the six months of Operation End Sweep, ten ocean minesweepers, nine amphibious ships, six fleet tugs, three salvage ships, and nineteen destroyers operated in Task Force 78 in the vicinity of Haiphong.'


title: United States Seventh Fleet

text: As of 2010, Commander Naval Forces Korea, an administrative liaison unit between USFK, the ROK Navy, and Seventh Fleet, has been assigned the TF 78 designation. Naval Forces Korea is headquartered at Yongsan and has a base at Chinhae, Commander Fleet Activities Chinhae.


title: United States Seventh Fleet

text: Task Force 79 – The Marine expeditionary unit or Landing Force assigned to the fleet, consisting of at least a reinforced Marine battalion and its equipment. This unit is separate from the Marine Expeditionary Unit (MEU) normally embarked in USS "Bonhomme Richard" Amphibious Readiness Group (ARG). Marine units serving in 7th Fleet are normally drawn from III Marine Expeditionary Force based in Okinawa, Japan.


title: Kickstarter

text: Kickstarter is an American public benefit corporation based in Brooklyn, New York, that maintains a global crowdfunding platform focused on creativity. The company's stated mission is to "help bring creative projects to life". As of July 2021, Kickstarter has received $6.6 billion in pledges from 21 million backers to fund 222,000 projects, such as films, music, stage shows, comics, journalism, video games, board games, technology, publishing, and food-related projects.


title: Kickstarter

text: People who back Kickstarter projects are offered tangible rewards or experiences in exchange for their pledges. This model traces its roots to subscription model of arts patronage, where artists would go directly to their audiences to fund their work.


title: Kickstarter

text: Kickstarter launched on April 28, 2009, by Perry Chen, Yancey Strickler, and Charles Adler. "The New York Times" called Kickstarter "the people's NEA". "Time" named it one of the "Best Inventions of 2010" and "Best Websites of 2011". Kickstarter reportedly raised $10 million funding from backers including NYC-based venture firm Union Square Ventures and angel investors such as Jack Dorsey, Zach Klein and Caterina Fake. The company is based at 58 Kent Street in Greenpoint, Brooklyn, housed in part of the former Eberhard Faber Pencil Factory.


title: Kickstarter

text: On February 14, 2013, Kickstarter released an iOS app called Kickstarter for the iPhone. The app was aimed at users who create and back projects and was the first time Kickstarter had an official mobile presence.


title: Kickstarter

text: On October 31, 2012, Kickstarter opened projects based in the United Kingdom, followed by projects based in Canada on September 9, 2013, Australia and New Zealand on November 13, 2013, the Netherlands on April 28, 2014, Denmark, Ireland, Norway, and Sweden on September 15, 2014, Germany on April 28, 2015, France and Spain on May 19, 2015, Austria, Belgium, Italy, Luxembourg and Switzerland on June 16, 2015, Singapore and Hong Kong on August 30, 2016, Mexico on November 15, 2016, and Japan on September 12, 2017. In July 2017, Strickler announced his resignation.


title: Kickstarter

text: On April 20, 2020, Kickstarter announced that it was likely going to lay off workers due to the coronavirus pandemic causing the number of active projects to be "about 35% below what it was at this time last year with no clear sign of rebound." The layoff was reported by the union to affect up to 45% of the employees, although Kickstarter has yet to report the scale of the layoff as of May 2, 2020. The union negotiated a settlement for laid off employees including four months of severance pay and up to six months of continued health benefits for anyone who gets laid off, recall rights for a year (so that those laid off can return to job openings), and a release from noncompete agreements for those who accept severance pay.


title: Kickstarter

text: In December 2021, Kickstarter announced they would be moving their platform to Blockchain, with the aim of making the tools required for creating a crowdfunding site available to anyone.


title: Kickstarter

text: Kickstarter is one of a number of crowdfunding platforms for gathering money from the public, which circumvents traditional avenues of investment. Project creators choose a deadline and a minimum funding goal. If the goal is not met by the deadline, no funds are collected (a kind of assurance contract).


title: Kickstarter

text: The kickstarter platform is open to backers from anywhere in the world and to creators from many countries, including the US, UK, Canada, Australia, New Zealand, The Netherlands, Denmark, Ireland, Norway, Sweden, Spain, France, Germany, Austria, Italy, Belgium, Luxembourg, Switzerland and Mexico.


title: Kickstarter

text: Kickstarter applies a 5% fee on the total amount of the funds raised. Their payments processor applies an additional 3–5% fee. Unlike many forums for fundraising or investment, Kickstarter claims no ownership over the projects and the work they produce. The web pages of projects launched on the site are permanently archived and accessible to the public. After funding is completed, projects and uploaded media cannot be edited or removed from the site.


title: Kickstarter

text: There is no guarantee that people who post projects on Kickstarter will deliver on their projects, use the money to implement their projects, or that the completed projects will meet backers' expectations. Kickstarter advises backers to use their judgment on supporting a project. They also warn project leaders that they could be liable for legal damages from backers for failure to deliver on promises. Projects might also fail even after a successful fundraising campaign when creators underestimate the total costs required or technical difficulties to be overcome.


title: Kickstarter

text: When asked what made Kickstarter different from other crowdfunding platforms, co-founder Perry Chen said: "I wonder if people really know what the definition of crowdfunding is. Or, if there’s even an agreed upon definition of what it is. We haven’t actively supported the use of the term because it can provoke more confusion. In our case, we focus on a middle ground between patronage and commerce. People are offering cool stuff and experiences in exchange for the support of their ideas. People are creating these mini-economies around their project ideas. So, you aren’t coming to the site to get something for nothing; you are trying to create value for the people who support you. We focus on creative projects—music, film, technology, art, design, food and publishing—and within the category of crowdfunding of the arts, we are probably ten times the size of all the others combined."


title: Kickstarter

text: On June 21, 2012, Kickstarter began publishing statistics on its projects. As of December 4, 2019, there were 469,286 launched projects (3,524 in progress), with a success rate of 37.45% (success rate being how many were successfully funded by reaching their set goal). The total amount pledged was $4,690,286,673.


title: Kickstarter

text: The business grew quickly in its early years. In 2010 Kickstarter had 3,910 successful projects and $27,638,318 pledged. The corresponding figures for 2011 were 11,836 successfully funded projects and $99,344,381 pledged; and there were 18,109 successfully funded projects, $610,352 pledged in 2012.


title: Kickstarter

text: On February 9, 2012, Kickstarter hit a number of milestones. A dock made for the iPhone designed by Casey Hopkins became the first Kickstarter project to exceed one million dollars in pledges. A few hours later, a new adventure game project started by computer game developers, Double Fine Productions, reached the same figure, having been launched less than 24 hours earlier, and finished with over $3 million pledged. This was also the first time Kickstarter raised over a million dollars in pledges in a single day. On August 30, 2014, the "Coolest Cooler", an icebox created by Ryan Grepper, became the most funded Kickstarter project in history, with US$13.28 million in funding, breaking the record previously held by the Pebble smartwatch.


title: Kickstarter

text: From 2012 to 2013, Wharton professor Ethan Mollick and Jeanne Pi conducted research into what contributes to a project's success or failure on Kickstarter. Some key findings from the analysis were that increasing goal size is negatively associated successfully, projects that are featured on the Kickstarter homepage have an 89% chance of being successful, compared to 30% without, and that for an average $10,000 project, a 30-day project has a 35% chance of success, while a 60-day project has a 29% chance of success, all other things being constant.


title: Kickstarter

text: The ten largest Kickstarter projects by funds raised are listed below. Among successful projects, most raise between $1,000 and $9,999. These dollar amounts drop to less than half in the Design, Games, and Technology categories. However, the median amount raised for the latter two categories remains in the four-figure range. There is substantial variation in the success rate of projects falling under different categories. Over two thirds of completed dance projects have been successful. In contrast, fewer than 30% of completed fashion projects have reached their goal. Most failing projects fail to achieve 20% of their goals and this trend applies across all categories. Indeed, over 80% of projects that pass the 20% mark reach their goal.


title: Kickstarter

text: Creators categorize their projects into one of 13 categories and 36 subcategories. They are: Art, Comics, Dance, Design, Fashion, Film and Video, Food, Games, Music, Photography, Publishing, Technology and Theater. Of these categories, Film & Video and Music are the largest categories and have raised the most money. These categories, along with Games, account for over half the money raised. Video games and tabletop games alone account for more than $2 out of every $10 spent on Kickstarter.


title: Kickstarter

text: To maintain its focus as a funding platform for creative projects, Kickstarter has outlined three guidelines for all project creators to follow: creators can fund projects only; projects must fit within one of the site's 13 creative categories; and creators must abide by the site's prohibited uses, which include charity and awareness campaigns. Kickstarter has additional requirements for hardware and product design projects. These include


title: Kickstarter

text: The guidelines are designed to reinforce Kickstarter's position that people are backing projects, not placing orders for a product. To underscore the notion that Kickstarter is a place in which creators and audiences make things together, creators across all categories are asked to describe the risks and challenges a project faces in producing it. This educates the public about the project goals and encourages contributions to the community.


title: Kickstarter

text: Several creative works have gone on to receive critical acclaim and accolades after being funded on Kickstarter. Others, such as the Ouya console, have resulted in commercial failure. The documentary short "Sun Come Up" and documentary short "Incident in New Baghdad" were each nominated for an Academy Award; contemporary art projects "EyeWriter" and "Hip-Hop Word Count" were both chosen to exhibit in the Museum of Modern Art in 2011; filmmaker Matt Porterfield was selected to screen his film "Putty Hill" at the Whitney Biennial In 2012; author Rob Walker's Hypothetical Futures project exhibited at the 13th International Venice Architecture Biennale; musician Amanda Palmer's album "Theatre is Evil" debuted at No. 10 on the Billboard 200; designer Scott Wilson won a National Design Award from Smithsonian's Cooper-Hewitt, National Design Museum following the success of his TikTok + LunaTik project; the Kickstarter funded GoldieBlox toy gained nationwide distribution in 2013; and approximately 10% of the films accepted into the Sundance, SXSW and Tribeca Film Festivals are projects funded on Kickstarter.


title: Kickstarter

text: Numerous well-known creators have used Kickstarter to produce their work, including: musicians Jennifer Paige, Paula Cole, TLC, Amanda McBroom, De La Soul, Amanda Palmer, Daniel Johnston, Stuart Murdoch, Tom Rush and Disciple; filmmakers and actors Kevin Sorbo, Alyson Hannigan, Zach Braff, Bret Easton Ellis, Colin Hanks, Ed Begley, Jr., Gary Hustwit, Hal Hartley, Jennie Livingston, Mark Duplass, Matthew Modine, Paul Schrader, Ricki Lake, Whoopi Goldberg, Chris Stuckmann, Kristen Bell, John de Lancie and Zana Briski; authors and writers Brandon Sanderson, Dan Harmon, Kevin Kelly, Neal Stephenson, Steve Altes, and Seth Godin; photographers Spencer Tunick, Shane Lavalette, and Gerd Ludwig; game developers Tim Schafer, Keiji Inafune, Brian Fargo, and Rand Miller; designer Stefan Sagmeister; animator John Kricfalusi; comedian Eugene Mirman; animators Don Bluth and Gary Goldman; entrepreneurs Tim Ferriss, Samuel Agboola, and Craig Mod; as well as custom guitar maker Moniker.


title: Kickstarter

text: The Oculus Rift began as a 2012 Kickstarter project and became one of the most funded projects at the time. The company was then acquired by Facebook two years later for $2 billion.


title: Kickstarter

text: Both Kickstarter and project creators have cancelled projects that appeared to have been fraudulent. Questions were raised about the projects in internet communities related to the fields of the projects. The concerns raised were: apparent copying of graphics from other sources; unrealistic performance or price claims; and failure of project sponsors to deliver on prior Kickstarter projects.


title: Kickstarter

text: In the 2015 "Huffington Post" article "Why Kickstarter is Corrupted" Nathan Resnick blames the rise of paid advertising, investor-backed campaigns, and crowdfunding agencies for the decline of Kickstarter as a useful tool for small inventors and creators. Kickstarter's internal reports says that 9% of Kickstarter projects fail to deliver rewards.


title: Kickstarter

text: Resnick cites Nebia, backed by Tim Cook and Eric Schmidt, as an example of a well funded, investor-backed project using Kickstarter purely for publicity, thus drawing donations from smaller teams.


title: Kickstarter

text: On March 19, 2019, Kickstarter's staff announced plans to unionize as part of the Office and Professional Employees International Union (OPEIU), which would make Kickstarter the only major tech company to have a union. Shortly after the announcement, three senior staffers released a memo dissenting against the decision, claiming that it is too extreme and that it would be a "misappropriation of unions for use by privileged workers." According to Kickstarter employees, they wanted to found a union both for enabling collective bargaining for wages and for "giving employees more clout," allowing them to work for goals that they saw in their interest and the public's interest.


title: Kickstarter

text: In May, Aziz Hasan, then CEO of Kickstarter, announced that the company would require an election for the union rather than voluntarily recognizing it, saying that "our view is that we are better set up to be successful without the framework of a union."


title: Kickstarter

text: On September 16, the employees filed a complaint against Kickstarter with the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) after two employees were terminated. According to the workers, they were fired for unionizing, although the company says it was for "performance issues." After these allegations, some Kickstarter creators have started a campaign against Kickstarter to let its employees unionize.


title: Kickstarter

text: On September 28, Kickstarter confirmed that it would not recognise the unionisation effort. In a statement addressed to project creators, the CEO stated that unionisation would turn workplace relations "inherently adversarial" and that it "doesn’t reflect who we are as a company." Additionally, the CEO confirmed that Kickstarter stood by its decision to fire the two employees and would be pursuing legal action to fight their claims. The statement immediately resulted in criticism and calls for boycotts from creators who had previously used the platform, while writer Neil Gaiman tweeted that he would be unlikely to post support for or links to new Kickstarter campaigns "as long as they are anti-union."


title: Kickstarter

text: Kickstarter employees continued to file complaints to the NLRB, which forced Kickstarter to allow its employees a formal vote on unionization. The vote was held on the morning of February 18, 2020, with 46 voting in favor of joining the OPEIU and 37 voting against. The CEO at the time, Aziz Hasan, said after the vote, "We support and respect this decision, and we are proud of the fair and democratic process that got us here." With this, the OPEIU will now work with the union effort, Kickstarter United, to bargain with Kickstarter management for a contract.


title: Kickstarter

text: On December 8, 2021, Kickstarter announced a plan to develop a decentralized protocol on blockchain platform Celo to build an open source and blockchain-based crowdfunding infrastructure and then move its own website to that system. The announcement prompted backlash from creators and backers on Twitter, many of whom pledged to abandon Kickstarter if the move went forward. On December 15, a week later, Kickstarter responded to the controversy in a blog post that clarified the company's position but did not indicate a change of plans.


title: Prague Castle

text: Prague Castle (; ) is a castle complex in Prague 1 Municipality within Prague, Czech Republic, built in the 9th century. It is the official office of the President of the Czech Republic. The castle was a seat of power for kings of Bohemia, Holy Roman emperors, and presidents of Czechoslovakia. The Bohemian Crown Jewels are kept within a hidden room inside it.


title: Prague Castle

text: According to the Guinness Book of Records, Prague Castle is the largest ancient castle in the world, occupying an area of almost , at about in length and an average of about wide. The castle is among the most visited tourist attractions in Prague, attracting over 1.8 million visitors annually.


title: Prague Castle

text: The history of the castle began in 870 when its first walled building, the Church of the Virgin Mary, was built. The Basilica of Saint George and the Basilica of St. Vitus were founded under the reign of Vratislaus I, Duke of Bohemia and his son St. Wenceslas in the first half of the 10th century.


title: Prague Castle

text: The first convent in Bohemia was founded in the castle, next to the church of St. George. A Romanesque palace was erected here during the 12th century.


title: Prague Castle

text: Several 13th-century Venetian coins found there were studied by the numismatist Zdenka Nemeškalová-Jiroudková.


title: Prague Castle

text: King Ottokar II of Bohemia improved fortifications and rebuilt the royal palace for the purposes of representation and housing. In the 14th century, under the reign of Charles IV the royal palace was rebuilt in Gothic style and the castle fortifications were strengthened. In place of the rotunda and basilica of St. Vitus, building began of a vast Gothic church, that were completed almost six centuries later.


title: Prague Castle

text: During the Hussite Wars and the following decades, the castle was not inhabited. In 1485, King Vladislaus II Jagiellon began to rebuild the castle. The massive Vladislav Hall (built by Benedikt Rejt) was added to the Royal Palace. New defence towers were also built on the north side of the castle.


title: Prague Castle

text: A large fire in 1541 destroyed large parts of the castle. Under the Habsburgs, some new buildings in Renaissance style were added. Ferdinand I built the Belvedere as a summer palace for his wife Anne. Rudolph II used Prague Castle as his main residence. He founded the northern wing of the palace, with the Spanish Hall, where his precious art collections were exhibited.


title: Prague Castle

text: The Third Defenestration of Prague in 1618 took place at the castle which kick-started the Bohemian Revolt. During the subsequent wars, the castle was damaged and dilapidated. Many works from the collection of Rudolph II were looted by Swedes in 1648 during the Battle of Prague (1648) which was the final act of the Thirty Years' War.


title: Prague Castle

text: The last major rebuilding of the castle was carried out by Empress Maria Theresa in the second half of the 18th century. Following the abdication of Ferdinand I, in 1848, and the succession of his nephew, Franz Joseph, to the throne, the former emperor, Ferdinand I, made Prague Castle his home.


title: Prague Castle

text: In 1918, the castle became the seat of the president of the new Czechoslovak Republic, Tomáš Masaryk. The New Royal Palace and the gardens were renovated by Slovenian architect Jože Plečnik. In this period the St. Vitus Cathedral was finished on September 28, 1929. Renovations continued in 1936 under Plečnik's successor Pavel Janák.


title: Prague Castle

text: On March 15, 1939, shortly after Nazi Germany forced Czech President Emil Hacha (who suffered a heart attack during the negotiations) to hand his nation over to the Germans, Adolf Hitler spent a night in the Prague Castle, "proudly surveying his new possession." During the Nazi occupation of Czechoslovakia in World War II, Prague Castle became the headquarters of Reinhard Heydrich, the Reich Protector of Bohemia and Moravia. According to a popular rumor, he is said to have placed the Bohemian crown on his head; old legends say a usurper who places the crown on his head is doomed to die within a year. Less than a year after assuming power, on May 27, 1942, Heydrich was ambushed during Operation Anthropoid, by British-trained Slovak and Czech resistance soldiers while on his way to the Castle, and died of his wounds, which became infected, a week later. Klaus, his firstborn son, died the next year in a traffic accident, also in line with the legend.


title: Prague Castle

text: After the liberation of Czechoslovakia and the coup in 1948, the Castle housed the offices of the communist Czechoslovak government. After Czechoslovakia split in 1993 into the Czech Republic and Slovakia, the castle became the seat of the Head of State of the new Czech Republic. Similar to what Masaryk did with Plečnik, president Václav Havel commissioned Bořek Šípek to be the architect of post-communist improvements for Prague Castle, in particular of the facelift of the castle's gallery of paintings.


title: Prague Castle

text: The castle buildings represent many of the architectural styles of the last millennium. Prague Castle includes Gothic St. Vitus Cathedral, Romanesque Basilica of St. George, a monastery and several palaces, gardens and defense towers. Most of the castle areas are open to tourists. The castle houses several museums, including the National Gallery collection of Bohemian baroque and mannerist art, exhibition dedicated to Czech history, Toy Museum and the picture gallery of Prague Castle, based on the collection of Rudolph II. The Summer Shakespeare Festival regularly takes place in the courtyard of Burgrave Palace.


title: 2022 NASCAR Camping World Truck Series

text: The 2022 NASCAR Camping World Truck Series was the 28th season of the NASCAR Camping World Truck Series, a stock car racing series sanctioned by NASCAR in the United States. The season started with the NextEra Energy 250 on February 18 at Daytona International Speedway, and concluded with the Lucas Oil 150 on November 4 at Phoenix Raceway. This was the final season of the Truck Series with Camping World as the title sponsor, as CEO Marcus Lemonis announced the brand would not return for the 2023 season. On August 26, 2022, it was announced that Craftsman would return as the Truck Series title sponsor, although the tool company is now owned by Stanley Black & Decker instead of Sears, who owned Craftsman when they were the series title sponsor from 1995 to 2008. This makes Stanley Black & Decker the series' third title sponsor.


title: 2022 NASCAR Camping World Truck Series

text: Zane Smith of Front Row Motorsports clinched both the regular season championship and the Camping World Truck Series championship. Toyota won its 13th manufacturers' championship. Corey Heim of Kyle Busch Motorsports won the 2022 Camping World Truck Series Rookie of the Year honors.


title: 2022 NASCAR Camping World Truck Series

text: Note: The Triple Truck Challenge races (the first race at World Wide Technology Raceway and races at Nashville and Mid-Ohio) are listed in bold.


title: 2022 NASCAR Camping World Truck Series

text: () Bold – Pole position awarded by time. "Italics" – Pole position set by final practice results or owner's points. * – Most laps led.  – Stage 1 winner.  – Stage 2 winner. "" – Regular season top 10 finishers.


title: Sweetener (album)

text: Sweetener is the fourth studio album by American singer Ariana Grande. It was released on August 17, 2018, through Republic Records. Grande co-wrote all the songs on the album except for the first track, and its production was handled by Pharrell Williams, Charles Anderson, Hit-Boy, Ilya Salmanzadeh, and Max Martin, with guest features from Williams, Nicki Minaj and Missy Elliott.


title: Sweetener (album)

text: The album explores themes of romance, sexual intimacy, unhealthy relationships, womanhood, anxiety, and perseverance through hardships. Primarily a pop, R&B and trap record, it also incorporates elements of house, funk, neo soul and hip hop music, mainly consisting of uptempo tunes and downtempo ballads, which heavily incorporate harmonies. "Sweetener" received critical acclaim upon its release, favoring the experimental nature of its production. Some critics considered it a vital record in Grande's career due to its subject matter. It won Best Pop Vocal Album at the 61st Annual Grammy Awards, scoring Grande her first Grammy Award. "Sweetener" featured in numerous publications' year-end music lists of the best albums of 2018, and was subsequently inducted in decade-end lists of the 2010s.


title: Sweetener (album)

text: Three singles were released from "Sweetener", all of which reached the top-twenty of the US "Billboard" Hot 100: The lead single, "No Tears Left to Cry", debuted and peaked at number three, while the second and third singles, "God Is a Woman" and "Breathin", reached numbers eight and twelve, respectively. "Sweetener" debuted at number-one on the US "Billboard" 200, making it Grande's third album to reach the summit. It was certified platinum by the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA), and topped charts in many other countries, including in Australia, Canada, Ireland, New Zealand and the United Kingdom. Grande ventured on a four-show promotional tour, entitled The Sweetener Sessions, after the album's release. Launched in further support of both "Sweetener" and its successor, "Thank U, Next" (2019), Grande embarked on the Sweetener World Tour in 2019.


title: Sweetener (album)

text: On May 20, 2016, Grande released her third studio album "Dangerous Woman", which was met with positive reviews and commercial success. Work on "Sweetener" commenced around early July of that year, the first song created being the title track, co-written and produced by Pharrell Williams. On November 13, 2016, Grande stated on Snapchat that she had finished her fourth album. Later, she clarified by saying, "I didn't mean to make an album, and I don't know if it's done at all, but I just have a bunch of songs that I really really like. I've been working a lot and have been creating and feeling inspired." Further confirmation came in December 2017, when Grande confirmed that she was still working on the album.


title: Sweetener (album)

text: Grande's manager Scooter Braun told "Variety" that the album has a more mature sound: "It's time for [Ariana] to sing the songs that define her... Whitney, Mariah, Adele – when they sing, that's their song. Ariana has big vocal moments; it's time for her song." Williams told "Los Angeles Times": "The things that [Ariana] has to say on this album, it's pretty next-level." Producers Max Martin and Savan Kotecha were later confirmed to have collaborated with Grande in the album. On December 28, 2017, Grande shared several pictures of her in the studio throughout the year. On December 31, 2017, Grande shared a snippet from the album on her Instagram, with the caption "see u next year"; it was later revealed that the track was the closing track on the album, titled "Get Well Soon".


title: Sweetener (album)

text: In April 2018, it was reported that Grande was planning on releasing the album's lead single on April 27, 2018. The following week, on April 16, 2018, it was reported that Grande had moved up the lead single release to April 20, 2018, due to label-mate Post Malone's album "Beerbongs & Bentleys" being released on April 27. The following day, Grande announced that the album's lead single, "No Tears Left to Cry" and revealed the release date to be April 20, 2018.


title: Sweetener (album)

text: Grande appeared on "The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon", where she announced that her album was titled "Sweetener" and that it would be released that summer. She further explained the meaning behind the title is "It's kind of about like bringing light to a situation, or to someone's life, or somebody else who brings light to your life, or sweetening the situation." A May 2018 cover article in "Time" magazine by Sam Lansky noted that, for the first time with this album, Grande "took the lead on writing". In late May 2018, she announced that the album would feature fifteen tracks and three collaborations, which are Missy Elliott, Nicki Minaj and Williams.


title: Sweetener (album)

text: In early June 2018, Grande announced during her set at Wango Tango that the album would be available for pre-order on June 20, and "The Light Is Coming" would be released as a promotional single along with it. The second single, "God Is a Woman", was announced to be released on July 20, 2018, however, on July 12, Grande surprised fans by announcing that the single would be released the following day. Prior to the album's release, Spencer Kornhaber of "The Atlantic" commented that the first three singles from the album "sparked with a sense of defiance and rattled mortality ... [a] trifecta of pseudo-spiritualism and sneaky innovation. ... Grande's music and videos radiate [intoxicating, unworried confidence]".


title: Sweetener (album)

text: Musically, "Sweetener" is a pop, R&B and trap record that includes elements of house, funk, neo soul and hip hop music on its beats and productions. The melodies and harmonies on the album are diverse and include uptempo songs and many different downtempo, sentimental ballads. Stephen Thomas Erlewine from AllMusic stated that the album "deepens the R&B inclinations of 2016's "Dangerous Woman"." In an interview with Zach Sang, Grande said: "The thing that I love most about this project sonically, is that all I really did was sing in my sweet lower register".


title: Sweetener (album)

text: The album begins with 38-second a cappella intro, "Raindrops (An Angel Cried)", written by Bob Gaudio, and originally performed by Frankie Valli and the Four Seasons. "Blazed" is a high tempo funk-influenced song. It features vocals and background vocals by Pharrell Williams, who also produced the track. She first admitted the name of the song on her Twitter account. Lyrically, it is about "loving someone and being with them." "The Light Is Coming" merges hip hop and R&B elements. Grande sings the lyrics "The light is coming / to give back everything the darkness stole", over a "jittery beat" used with quick drums and synths, and a heavily sampled CNN archive clip of a man shouting at former senator Arlen Specter at a town hall meeting in Pennsylvania in 2009 concerning healthcare ("You wouldn't let anybody speak for this and instead!"). Israel Daramola described the song as a "glitchy, thumping" dance record with a sample that highlights Grande's "nursery rhyme-style melody" "R.E.M." is an R&B song that is built over a smooth doo-wop beat. The song's title stands for "rapid eye movement", which is where memorable and vivid dreams occur. In an interview with Jimmy Fallon for the "Tonight Show", she admitted that "R.E.M." was her favorite song. She later confirmed on Twitter that "R.E.M." is a song based on Beyoncé's demo titled "Wake Up", a leftover from the singer's 2013 self-titled album.


title: Sweetener (album)

text: The fifth track "God Is a Woman" contains lyrics about female sexual empowerment and spirituality; "Time" described the song as "an anthemic, sultry banger." A trap-pop song, "God Is a Woman" contains influences of reggae whilst "Sweetener" was the first song that Grande recorded for the album, and it features Williams vocals in the background similar to "R.E.M.". Being a trap-inspired song, it symbolises empowerment. "Successful" is a 90s-esque neo soul song that has elements of gospel and trap. Lyrically, it's about "girls feeling good about their own individual success." "Everytime" is a "trap-pop" song that contains a pop-rap chorus. "Breathin" is a dance-pop song that contains influences of synth-pop. "The Independent" called the song an "emotional highlight" and that it is a "mental health bop over a good, solid pop beat." Lyrically, it is about Grande's overcoming growth from anxiety.


title: Sweetener (album)

text: "No Tears Left To Cry" is a dance-pop and disco song with a UK garage beat. It was served as the first official single for the album. Lyrically, it is about overcoming a tragic event and trying to turn it into a positive and uplifting experience. Many listeners interpret this as her way of addressing the Manchester Arena bombing that took place at her Dangerous Woman Tour concert in May 2017. "Borderline" is a 90s contemporary R&B song that features American rapper Missy Elliott. It's one of Grande's favorites on the album. "Better Off" is a "retro-fied" ballad that discusses a toxic relationship. "Goodnight n Go" is an EDM song with deep house and tropical influences. It contains a sample of "Goodnight and Go", written and performed by Grande's inspiration Imogen Heap. In an interview with "Billboard", Heap said that "it feels like a gift". She went on saying: "When somebody that famous picks up on a song that has had its day and gives it a second life, it's a real gift. I think she's done a lovely version of it." "Pete Davidson" is an interlude of the album and has a trap and hip hop production. Lyrically, it is about her then-fiancé, Pete Davidson. "Get Well Soon" is a soul-ballad that has a laid back R&B melody with lyrics that talk about Grande's personal anxiety and trauma following the Manchester Arena bombing. At the end of the song, 40 seconds of silence are played as a tribute to the twenty-two victims of the bombing, bringing the duration of the track up to 5:22, a reference to the date of the bombing. (May 22, 2017).


title: Sweetener (album)

text: In a 2018 interview with Zach Sang, Grande mentioned she had recorded over 30 songs for the album that did not end up making the final cut, including "On Top of Everything".


title: Sweetener (album)

text: Grande hinted the album title to be "Sweetener" in an Instagram post on November 5, 2016. On May 1, 2018, Grande appeared on The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon where she formally announced the title, and further explained: "It's kind of about like bringing light to a situation, or to someone's life, or somebody else who brings light to your life, sweetening the situation."


title: Sweetener (album)

text: The artwork for "Sweetener" consists of colorful, upside-down and other-worldly visuals. The cover of the album's lead single, "No Tears Left to Cry", features Grande's side profile lit by a rainbow and the title of the song written in rotated, upside-down text. In the song's music video, Grande is seen walking on walls and ceilings. The cover of the album's only promotional single, "The Light Is Coming", which features Nicki Minaj, is an upside-down picture of Grande. After her performance of "No Tears Left To Cry" on "The Tonight Show", where the set was inspired by the song's music video and photo shoot, Grande took to Instagram to reveal that the film was one of the inspirations for the aesthetic.


title: Sweetener (album)

text: Grande revealed on Twitter that the inspiration for the upside-down theme was when she showed a friend sitting opposite her a picture, and "he said 'I even love it upside-down' and that was kind of it for me. At the time I had been feeling very 'upside-down' for a while & the simplicity of that was like, 'oh duh, wow, my bestie a genius.' Everything clicked after that." The album artwork of "Sweetener" is a simplistic upside-down portrait of Grande with grey hair and the title of the album written in black at the bottom. It was shot by Dave Meyers, who directed the music videos for the album's first two singles, "No Tears Left to Cry""" and "God Is a Woman", and the promotional single "The Light Is Coming""". It was revealed piece by piece on a separate Instagram account, named after the album, starting on June 12, 2018, leading up to the release of the album's pre-order on June 20, 2018. The artwork was the first in her discography to be in color, which she said was because it was "a new chapter. For the first time, my life is in color, as well."


title: Sweetener (album)

text: Grande went silent on all social media after sharing a snippet of a song from the album on December 31, 2017. On April 17, 2018, Grande broke her silence by sharing a teaser of the album's lead single, "No Tears Left to Cry", which was released on April 20, 2018, alongside its music video. In the music video, she teased the album by writing some of the song names, including "God Is a Woman", "Breathin", "R.E.M.", "Successful", "Sweetener", "Borderline" and the first 3 letters of "Blazed", which was teased again in a behind-the-scenes video. She first performed the song at Coachella later that night, as a guest during the performance of DJ Kygo. Grande announced the title of the album and several song titles on "The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon" on May 1, 2018, shortly before performing "No Tears Left to Cry". She also opened the 2018 "Billboard" Music Awards with a performance of the song on May 20, 2018. On June 2, 2018, Grande performed at Wango Tango in California, closing her set with a performance of "No Tears Left to Cry" and also sharing a snippet of "The Light Is Coming". On August 8, 2018, three dates were announced for a series of promotional concerts in the United States, titled The Sweetener Sessions, in partnership with American Express. "Sweetener" was released on August 17, 2018.


title: Sweetener (album)

text: Grande also announced a world tour in support of the album and her fifth album "Thank U, Next". Titled the Sweetener World Tour, it began on March 18, 2019, and concluded on December 22, 2019. A concert film titled "", is based on the tour and was released on Netflix on December 21, 2020.


title: Sweetener (album)

text: The album's lead single, "No Tears Left to Cry", was released on April 20, 2018, alongside its music video. The track debuted at number three on the US "Billboard" Hot 100, becoming Grande's ninth Hot 100 top-ten and sixth to debut in the top-ten, tying Grande with Lady Gaga and Rihanna in sixth among acts with the most top 10 debuts on the chart. The single made Grande the first artist in the chart's 60-year history to debut in the top 10 with a lead single from each of her first four albums. The song also topped the Mainstream Top 40 chart in July 2018, reached number one in nine countries and top-ten in twenty others. It was later certified triple Platinum by the RIAA, for earning over three million units in the United States.


title: Sweetener (album)

text: "God Is a Woman" was released as the albums second official single on July 13, 2018, with its music video premiering 12 hours after the song's release. The single debuted at number eleven on the "Billboard" Hot 100 and peaked at number eight, making it Grande's tenth top-ten song on the chart and placing her as the twelfth overall artist and seventh female artist with the most Hot 100 top-tens in the 2010s decade. The song also became Grande's second single to top the US Mainstream Top 40 airplay chart from "Sweetener", and third overall. It was later certified double Platinum by the RIAA, for earning over two million units in the United States.


title: Sweetener (album)

text: "Breathin" was released to US contemporary hit radio as the third and final single from the album on September 18, 2018. The song debuted at number 22 on the "Billboard" Hot 100, and later peaked at number 12. Its music video, directed by Hannah Lux Davis premiered on November 7, 2018, on her YouTube account.


title: Sweetener (album)

text: "The Light Is Coming", featuring Nicki Minaj, was released on June 20, 2018, along with the pre-order of the album as the only promotional single from the record. The song debuted at number 95 on the "Billboard" Hot 100 and later peaked at number 89, following the release of the parent album.


title: Sweetener (album)

text: "Sweetener" received critical acclaim from music critics. At Metacritic, which assigns a normalized rating out of 100 to reviews from mainstream critics, "Sweetener" has an average score of 81 based on 20 reviews, indicating "universal acclaim".


title: Sweetener (album)

text: Reviewing for "Vice", Robert Christgau called the album a "garden of sonic delights" and wrote: "Grande is pleasant in such a physically uncommon and technically astute way. Her pure, precise soprano is warm without burr or melisma, its mellow sweetness never saccharine or showy". In "The New York Times", Jon Pareles said the singer's voice "can be silky, breathy or cutting, swooping through long melismas or jabbing out short R&B phrases; it's always supple and airborne, never forced. […] Ms. Grande sails above any fray, past or present. Her aplomb is her triumph." Brittany Spanos of "Rolling Stone" called the album "a refreshing, cohesive package. … [The producers' approach lets] Grande's easy way with trap phrasing find a home next to her flair for Broadway-esque dramatic runs"; it combines "the sensual romance of the album's plentiful love songs and the aching heartbreak of the others." Spanos concludes that it is Grande's "best album yet, and one of 2018's strongest pop releases to date. Kate Solomon of "The Independent" commented that with music that is "often unexpected, sometimes in a good way, it is an album by an artist in flux – trying to move forward while reluctant to fully relinquish old ideas." Some critics dubbed "Sweetener" an important album in Grande's catalogue.


title: Sweetener (album)

text: Writing for "NME", Douglas Greenwood deemed the album "[a] confident, accomplished, sometimes left-field collection of pop bangers, proving that she's not shy of experimentation." He also commented that "there are a couple of songs on "Sweetener" that you'd happily leave on the shelf." Similarly, in "The Guardian", Alexis Petridis said that "her collaborations with Pharrell really push the boundaries. But they make the rest of this album seem formulaic." He considered the album "uneven", with its attempts to balance out what Grande called a "weird" record. Petridis felt that "the world could use more pop music as imaginative as "Sweetener"s highlights."


title: Sweetener (album)

text: Neil McCormick in "The Daily Telegraph" felt that "the quality of the songs is high, although there are moments when they might be trying too hard to demonstrate that the teen queen is all grown up now," and argued, "as modern, branded, blockbuster pop albums go, "Sweetener" is a delightful confection." He commented less favorably about guest rappers Nicki Minaj and Missy Elliott, who "sound like they dialled in clichéd verses for a pay cheque."


title: Sweetener (album)

text: In December 2018, "Billboard" placed "Sweetener" at the top of their year-end list for the best albums of 2018. Complimenting Grande's take on the sadness, they said "she didn't let her past define her, and she didn't dwell on what her future may hold, either" and praised Grande that "while most fans couldn't possibly relate to her extraordinary circumstances, Grande still ended the year seeming more approachable and human than ever". "Sweetener" alongside its followup "Thank U, Next" placed on "Billboard"'s decade end album's list "The 100 Greatest Albums of the 2010s" at numbers 38 and 8 respectively. They called "Sweetener" her most personal sound and "a radiant, pure snapshot of what stumbling upon happiness sounds like". They said that Grande had "found herself -- and graduated to a new level of pop superstardom". On their rankings of the Grammy's Best Pop Vocal Album winners, "Yardbarker" ranked "Sweetener" number 15 on their list. "Sweetener" landed a number two position on "Paper"'s "Top 20 Albums of 2018".


title: Sweetener (album)

text: According to "Billboard", as of 2022, "Sweetener" is one of the 15 best-performing 21st-century albums without any of its singles being number-one hits on the "Billboard" Hot 100. "Sweetener" debuted at number-one on the US "Billboard" 200 with 231,000 album-equivalent units, of which 127,000 represented traditional album sales. It marked Grande's third number one album in the US and her fastest-selling album to date. Among female artists, "Sweetener" scored the second-largest US sales debut of 2018, behind Cardi B's "Invasion of Privacy" (255,000 album-equivalent units).


title: Sweetener (album)

text: The album's songs recorded 126.7 million on-demand audio US streams through its first week, constituting the largest streaming week ever for a non-hip hop album by a woman, a record later bested by Grande's "Thank U, Next". It was also the fourth non-hip hop record ever to cross 125 million on-demand first-week streams. "Billboard" noted "Sweetener"'s strong performance on streaming services was remarkable for a pop album at the time, since streaming was dominated by rap music.


title: Sweetener (album)

text: On the US "Billboard" Hot 100 chart, issue dated September 1, 2018, ten of Grande's songs (nine of which are from "Sweetener") charted simultaneously, placing Grande as the fourth female artist with the most simultaneous entries on the chart for a female soloist, behind Taylor Swift, Beyoncé, and Cardi B. The same week, Grande ascended to number one on the Artist 100 chart, due to strong album sales and song streams. In its second week, "Sweetener" descended to number four, moving 75,000 equivalent album units, while in its third week, it fell one position to number five, with a furthered 56,000 units earned.


title: Sweetener (album)

text: "Sweetener" was ranked 38th on the 2018 year-end "Billboard" 200 chart. The succeeding year, on the 2019 year-end "Billboard" 200 chart, "Sweetener" was ranked as 32nd most popular album of the year. On April 3, 2019, the album was certified platinum by the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) for combined sales and album-equivalent units of over a million units in the US. As of June 2020, the album has sold 321,000 copies in the country.


title: Sweetener (album)

text: "Sweetener" topped the record charts of 22 territories, and reached the top 10 in six other markets. In the United Kingdom, "Sweetener" debuted at number one on the UK Albums Chart, moving 45,000 album-equivalent units. It became her second number-one album in the UK, and her fastest selling album to date. Following its release, two album tracks entered the UK Singles Chart as "Breathin" debuted at number eight, and "Sweetener" landed at number 22, while the single "God Is a Woman" ascended six places to number six. "Sweetener" was the best-performing album of 2018 by a foreign female artist in the UK. It has been certified platinum by the British Phonographic Industry (BPI), for shipments of over 300,000 units in the country.


title: Sweetener (album)

text: In Australia, the album became Grande's third number one on the ARIA Albums Chart. All 15 of the album's tracks placed on the ARIA Singles Chart simultaneously, becoming Grande's first album to do so. It ranked as the country's fourth-best-selling solo album by a female artist in 2018. Additionally, two "Sweetener" singles, "No Tears Left to Cry" and "God Is a Woman", landed in ARIA's annual top singles chart for the same year.


title: Sweetener (album)

text: Grande's embrace of trap music on the album was praised by some critics for showcasing the contemporary influence of hip hop on pop music. Elias Leight of "Rolling Stone" declared that "Sweetener" "proved trap was the new pop" with the collaborations with Williams, Martin and Salmanzadeh. Leight stated "the mass embrace of the trap template demonstrates the remarkable extent to which a once-niche style now rules modern production". In "Billboard"s opinion, "while [Grande's] peers and predecessors find themselves victim to changing tastes and trends within the pop landscape, Ariana continues to rise untouched above them". "Sweetener" message of love, positivity, and resilience has been noted by media outlets as one of its signature traits. "Evening Standard" named Grande "the most important artist of 2018" due in part to the positivity she expressed in the album. "Paper" paralleled the album with Beyoncé's "Lemonade" (2016), saying "like Beyoncé who made "Lemonade" from her own life's lemons just two years ago, "Sweetener"s legacy will be its resoundingly positive message about true love's grace and its ability to help us cope with loss".


title: Robert Bork

text: Robert Heron Bork (March 1, 1927 – December 19, 2012) was an American jurist who served as the Solicitor General of the United States from 1973 to 1977. A professor at Yale Law School by occupation, he later served as a judge on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit from 1982 to 1988. In 1987, President Ronald Reagan nominated Bork to the U.S. Supreme Court, but the U.S. Senate rejected his nomination after a highly publicized confirmation hearing.


title: Robert Bork

text: Bork was born in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania and received both his undergraduate and legal education at the University of Chicago. After working at the law firms of Kirkland & Ellis and Willkie Farr & Gallagher, he served as a professor at Yale Law School. He became a prominent advocate of originalism, calling for judges to adhere to the Framers' original understanding of the United States Constitution. He also became an influential antitrust scholar, arguing that consumers often benefited from corporate mergers and that antitrust law should focus on consumer welfare rather than on ensuring competition. Bork wrote several notable books, including a scholarly work titled "The Antitrust Paradox" and a work of cultural criticism titled "Slouching Towards Gomorrah".


title: Robert Bork

text: From 1973 to 1977, he served as Solicitor General under President Richard Nixon and President Gerald Ford, successfully arguing several cases before the Supreme Court. During the October 1973 Saturday Night Massacre, Bork became acting U.S. Attorney General after his superiors in the U.S. Justice Department chose to resign rather than fire Special Prosecutor Archibald Cox, who was investigating the Watergate scandal. Following an order from the President, Bork fired Cox, his first assignment as Acting Attorney General. Bork served as Acting Attorney General until January 4, 1974, and was succeeded by Ohio U.S. Senator William B. Saxbe.


title: Robert Bork

text: In 1982, President Reagan appointed Bork to the Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit. In 1987, Reagan nominated Bork to the Supreme Court after Justice Lewis Powell announced his retirement. His nomination precipitated unprecedented media attention and efforts by interest groups to mobilize opposition to his confirmation, primarily due to his criticisms of the Warren and Burger courts' interpretations of the Constitution, especially of the First Amendment and the constitutional right to privacy, and his role in the Saturday Night Massacre. His nomination was ultimately rejected in the Senate, 42–58. The Supreme Court vacancy was eventually filled by another Reagan nominee, Anthony Kennedy. Bork subsequently resigned from his judgeship on the D.C. Circuit in 1988 and served as a professor at various institutions, including the George Mason University School of Law. He also advised presidential candidate Mitt Romney and was a fellow at the American Enterprise Institute and the Hudson Institute prior to his death in 2012.


title: Robert Bork

text: Bork was born on March 1, 1927, in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. His father, Harry Philip Bork Jr. (1897–1974), was a steel company purchasing agent, and his mother, Elizabeth ("née" Kunkle; 1898–2004), was a schoolteacher. He was an only child. His father was of German and Irish ancestry, while his mother was of Pennsylvania Dutch (German) descent.


title: Robert Bork

text: Bork attended the Hotchkiss School in Lakeville, Connecticut, then attended the University of Chicago. He was a brother of the international social fraternity Phi Gamma Delta, and graduated with a Bachelor of Arts in 1948. He then attended the University of Chicago Law School, where he was an editor of the "University of Chicago Law Review". He graduated in 1953 with a Juris Doctor and membership in Order of the Coif and Phi Beta Kappa. While in law school, Bork took a two-year leave of absence to serve in the U.S. Marine Corps during the Korean War.


title: Robert Bork

text: After law school, Bork spent another year in military service, then entered private practice in 1954 as an associate at the law firm Kirkland & Ellis and Willkie Farr & Gallagher. In 1962, Bork left private practice and joined the faculty of Yale Law School as a professor. He taught at Yale until 1981, with a four-year break from 1973 to 1977, during which he served as U.S. Solicitor General. Among his students during this time were Bill Clinton, Hillary Clinton, Anita Hill, Robert Reich, Jerry Brown, Linda Greenhouse, John Bolton, Samuel Issacharoff, and Cynthia Estlund.


title: Robert Bork

text: At Yale he was best known for writing "The Antitrust Paradox", a book in which he argued that consumers often benefited from corporate mergers, and that many then-current readings of the antitrust laws were economically irrational and hurt consumers. He posited that the primary focus of antitrust laws should be on consumer welfare rather than ensuring competition, as fostering competition of companies within an industry has a natural built-in tendency to allow, and even help, many poorly run companies with methodologies and practices that are both inefficient and expensive to continue in business simply for the sake of competition, to the detriment of both consumers and society. Bork's writings on antitrust law, with those of Richard Posner and other law and economics and Chicago School thinkers, have been influential in causing a shift in the Supreme Court's approach to antitrust laws since the 1970s.


title: Robert Bork

text: Bork served as Solicitor General in the U.S. Department of Justice from March 1973 until 1977. As Solicitor General, he argued several high-profile cases before the Supreme Court in the 1970s, including 1974's "Milliken v. Bradley", where his brief in support of the State of Michigan was influential among the justices. Chief Justice Warren Burger called Bork the most effective counsel to appear before the court during his tenure. Bork hired many young attorneys as assistants who went on to have successful careers, including judges Danny Boggs and Frank H. Easterbrook as well as Robert Reich, later Secretary of Labor in the Clinton administration.


title: Robert Bork

text: On October 20, 1973, Solicitor General Bork was instrumental in the "Saturday Night Massacre" when President Richard Nixon ordered the firing of Watergate Special Prosecutor Archibald Cox following Cox's request for tapes of his Oval Office conversations. Nixon initially ordered U.S. Attorney General Elliot Richardson to fire Cox. Richardson resigned rather than carry out the order. Richardson's top deputy, Deputy Attorney General William Ruckelshaus, also considered the order "fundamentally wrong" and resigned, making Bork Acting Attorney General. When Nixon reiterated his order, Bork complied and fired Cox. Bork claimed he carried out the order under pressure from Nixon's attorneys and intended to resign immediately afterward, but was persuaded by Richardson and Ruckelshaus to stay on for the good of the Justice Department. Bork remained Acting Attorney General until the appointment of William B. Saxbe on January 4, 1974. In his posthumously published memoirs, Bork claimed that after he carried out the order, Nixon promised him the next seat on the Supreme Court, though Bork did not take the offer seriously as he believed that Watergate had left Nixon too politically compromised to appoint another justice. Nixon would never get the chance to carry out his promise to Bork, as the next Supreme Court vacancy came after Nixon resigned and Gerald Ford assumed the presidency, with Ford instead nominating John Paul Stevens following the 1975 retirement of William O. Douglas. Ford planned to nominate Bork to replace William Colby as CIA Director, but his advisors convinced him to turn to first Edward Bennett Williams and then George H. W. Bush instead due to Bork's unpopularity and lack of experience in intelligence.


title: Robert Bork

text: Bork was a circuit judge for the United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit from 1982 to 1988. He was nominated by President Ronald Reagan on December 7, 1981, was confirmed via voice vote by the Senate on February 8, 1982, and received his commission on February 9, 1982.


title: Robert Bork

text: One of Bork's opinions while on the D.C. Circuit was "Dronenburg v. Zech", 741 F.2d 1388, decided in 1984. This case involved James L. Dronenburg, a sailor who had been administratively discharged from the United States Navy for engaging in homosexual conduct. Dronenburg argued that his discharge violated his right to privacy. This argument was rejected in an opinion written by Bork and joined by Antonin Scalia, in which Bork critiqued the line of Supreme Court cases upholding a right to privacy.


title: Robert Bork

text: In rejecting Dronenburg's suggestion for a rehearing "en banc", the D.C. Circuit issued four separate opinions, including one by Bork (again joined by Scalia), who wrote that "no principle had been articulated [by the Supreme Court] that enabled us to determine whether appellant's case fell within or without that principle."


title: Robert Bork

text: In 1986, President Reagan considered nominating Bork to the Supreme Court after Chief Justice Warren Burger retired. Reagan ultimately nominated then-Associate Justice William Rehnquist to be the next Chief Justice and Bork's D.C. Circuit colleague, Antonin Scalia, for Rehnquist's Associate Justice seat. Some journalists and correspondents believed that if Reagan nominated Bork in 1986, Bork would have likely made the Supreme Court as the Senate was led by the Republicans. However, the Senate Democrats may still have fought to defeat Bork in 1986, and Republicans' Senate majority at the time was very narrow (53–47) which implies that maybe Bork still would have been defeated in 1986, especially when the six Republicans who voted against Bork's 1987 nomination were not first elected in the November 1986 Senate elections.


title: Robert Bork

text: President Reagan nominated Bork for associate justice of the Supreme Court on July 1, 1987, to replace retiring Associate Justice Lewis F. Powell Jr. A hotly contested United States Senate debate over Bork's nomination ensued. Opposition was partly fueled by civil rights and women's rights groups, concerned about Bork's opposition to the authority claimed by the federal government to impose standards of voting fairness upon states (at his confirmation hearings for the position of solicitor general, he supported the rights of Southern states to impose a poll tax), and his stated desire to roll back civil rights decisions of the Warren and Burger courts. Bork is one of only four Supreme Court nominees (along with William Rehnquist, Samuel Alito, and Brett Kavanaugh) to have been opposed by the American Civil Liberties Union. Bork was also criticized for being an "advocate of disproportionate powers for the executive branch of Government, almost executive supremacy", most notably, according to critics, for his role in the Saturday Night Massacre.


title: Robert Bork

text: Before Justice Powell's expected retirement on June 27, 1987, some Senate Democrats had asked liberal leaders to "form a 'solid phalanx' of opposition" if President Reagan nominated an "ideological extremist" to replace him, assuming it would tilt the court rightward. Democrats also warned Reagan there would be a fight if Bork were nominated. Nevertheless, Reagan nominated Bork for Powell's seat on July 1, 1987.


title: Robert Bork

text: Following Bork's nomination, Senator Ted Kennedy took to the Senate floor with a strong condemnation of him, declaring:


title: Robert Bork

text: Robert Bork's America is a land in which women would be forced into back-alley abortions, blacks would sit at segregated lunch counters, rogue police could break down citizens' doors in midnight raids, schoolchildren could not be taught about evolution, writers and artists could be censored at the whim of the Government, and the doors of the Federal courts would be shut on the fingers of millions of citizens for whom the judiciary is--and is often the only--protector of the individual rights that are the heart of our democracy. ... The damage that President Reagan will do through this nomination, if it is not rejected by the Senate, could live on far beyond the end of his presidential term. President Reagan is still our president. But he should not be able to reach out from the muck of Irangate, reach into the muck of Watergate and impose his reactionary vision of the Constitution on the Supreme Court and the next generation of Americans. No justice would be better than this injustice.


title: Robert Bork

text: Bork responded, "There was not a line in that speech that was accurate." In an obituary of Kennedy, "The Economist" remarked that Bork may well have been correct, "but it worked". Bork also contended in his book, "The Tempting of America", that the brief prepared for then-Senator Joe Biden, Chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee, "so thoroughly misrepresented a plain record that it easily qualifies as world class in the category of scurrility." Opponents of Bork's nomination found the arguments against him justified, claiming that Bork believed the Civil Rights Act was unconstitutional, and he supported poll taxes, literacy tests for voting, mandated school prayer, and sterilization as a requirement for a job, while opposing free speech rights for non-political speech and privacy rights for gay conduct. In 1988, an analysis published in "The Western Political Quarterly" of "amicus curiae" briefs filed by U.S. Solicitors General during the Warren and Burger courts found that during Bork's tenure in the position during the Nixon and Ford Administrations (1973–1977), Bork took liberal positions in the aggregate as often as Thurgood Marshall did during the Johnson Administration (1965–1967) and more often than Wade H. McCree did during the Carter Administration (1977–1981), in part because Bork filed briefs in favor of the litigants in civil rights cases 75 percent of the time.


title: Robert Bork

text: Television advertisements produced by People For the American Way and narrated by Gregory Peck attacked Bork as an extremist. Kennedy's speech successfully fueled widespread public skepticism of Bork's nomination. The rapid response to Kennedy's "Robert Bork's America" speech stunned the Reagan White House, and the accusations went unanswered for months.


title: Robert Bork

text: During debate over his nomination, Bork's video rental history was leaked to the press. His video rental history was unremarkable, and included such harmless titles as "A Day at the Races", "Ruthless People", and "The Man Who Knew Too Much". Writer Michael Dolan, who obtained a copy of the hand-written list of rentals wrote about it for the "Washington City Paper". Dolan justified accessing the list on the ground that Bork himself had stated that Americans had only such privacy rights as afforded them by direct legislation. The incident led to the enactment of the 1988 Video Privacy Protection Act.


title: Robert Bork

text: To pro-choice rights legal groups, Bork's originalist views and his belief that the Constitution did not contain a general "right to privacy" were viewed as a clear signal that, should he become a justice of the Supreme Court, he would vote to completely overrule the Court's 1973 decision, "Roe v. Wade". Accordingly, a large number of groups mobilized to press for Bork's rejection, and the resulting 1987 Senate confirmation hearings became an intensely partisan battle.


title: Robert Bork

text: On October 23, 1987, the Senate denied Bork's confirmation, with 42 Senators voting in favor and 58 voting against. Two Democratic senators, David Boren (D-OK) and Ernest Hollings (D-SC), voted in his favor, while six Republican senators--John Chafee (R-RI), Bob Packwood (R-OR), Arlen Specter (R-PA), Robert Stafford (R-VT), John Warner (R-VA), and Lowell Weicker (R-CT)--voted against Bork. His defeat in the Senate was the worst of any Supreme Court nominee since George Washington Woodward was defeated 20–29 in 1845, and the third-worst on record.


title: Robert Bork

text: The seat Bork was nominated to eventually went to Judge Anthony Kennedy, who was unanimously approved by the Senate, 97–0. Bork, unhappy with his treatment in the nomination process, resigned his appellate court judgeship in 1988.


title: Robert Bork

text: According to columnist William Safire, the first published use of "bork" as a verb was possibly in "The Atlanta Journal-Constitution" of August 20, 1987, two months prior to the final vote: "Let's just hope something enduring results for the justice-to-be, like a new verb: Borked." Perhaps the best-known use of the verb "to bork" occurred in July 1991 at a conference of the National Organization for Women in New York City. Feminist Florynce Kennedy addressed the conference on the importance of defeating the nomination of Clarence Thomas to the U.S. Supreme Court, saying, "We're going to bork him. We're going to kill him politically. This little creep, where did he come from?" Thomas was subsequently confirmed after the most divisive confirmation hearing in Supreme Court history to that point.


title: Robert Bork

text: In March 2002, the "Oxford English Dictionary" added an entry for the verb "bork" as U.S. political slang, with this definition: "To defame or vilify (a person) systematically, esp. in the mass media, usually to prevent his or her appointment to public office; to obstruct or thwart (a person) in this way."


title: Robert Bork

text: Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh used the term during his own contentious Senate confirmation hearing testimony when he stated that "The behavior of several of the Democratic members of this committee at my hearing a few weeks ago was an embarrassment. But at least it was just a good old-fashioned attempt at borking."


title: Robert Bork

text: Following his failure to be confirmed, Bork resigned his seat on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit and was for several years both a professor at George Mason University School of Law and a senior fellow at the American Enterprise Institute for Public Policy Research, a Washington, D.C., based think tank. Bork also consulted for Netscape in the Microsoft litigation.


title: Robert Bork

text: He later served as a fellow at the Hudson Institute, a visiting professor at the University of Richmond School of Law and a professor at Ave Maria School of Law in Naples, Florida. In 2011, Bork worked as a legal adviser for the presidential campaign of Republican Mitt Romney.


title: Robert Bork

text: Bork is known by American conservatives for his theory that the best way to reconcile the role of the judiciary in the U.S. government against what he terms the "Madisonian" or "counter-majoritarian" dilemma of the judiciary making law without popular approval is for constitutional adjudication to be guided by the framers' original understanding of the United States Constitution. Reiterating that it is a court's task to adjudicate and not to "legislate from the bench," he advocated that judges exercise restraint in deciding cases, emphasizing that the role of the courts is to frame "neutral principles" (a term borrowed from Herbert Wechsler) and not simply "ad hoc" pronouncements or subjective value judgments. Bork once said, "The truth is that the judge who looks outside the Constitution always looks inside himself and nowhere else."


title: Robert Bork

text: Bork built on the influential critiques of the Warren Court authored by Alexander Bickel, who criticized the Supreme Court under Earl Warren, alleging shoddy and inconsistent reasoning, undue activism, and misuse of historical materials. Bork's critique was harder-edged than Bickel's, however, and he has written, "We are increasingly governed not by law or elected representatives but by an unelected, unrepresentative, unaccountable committee of lawyers applying no will but their own." Bork's writings influenced the opinions of judges such as Associate Justice Antonin Scalia and Chief Justice William Rehnquist of the U.S. Supreme Court, and sparked a vigorous debate within legal academia about how to interpret the Constitution.


title: Robert Bork

text: Some conservatives criticized Bork's approach. Conservative scholar Harry Jaffa criticized Bork (along with Rehnquist and Scalia) for failing to adhere to natural law principles, and therefore believing that the Constitution says nothing about abortion or gay rights (Jaffa believed that the Constitution "prohibited" these things.) Robert P. George explained Jaffa's critique this way: "He attacks Rehnquist and Scalia and Bork for their embrace of legal positivism that is inconsistent with the doctrine of natural rights that is embedded in the Constitution they are supposed to be interpreting." Jaffa attacked Bork as insufficiently conservative. Bork, in turn, described adherents of natural law constitutionalism as fanatical.


title: Robert Bork

text: Bork wrote several books, including the two best-sellers "The Tempting of America", about his judicial philosophy and his nomination battle, and "Slouching Towards Gomorrah: Modern Liberalism and American Decline", in which he argued that the rise of the New Left in the 1960s in the U.S. undermined the moral standards necessary for civil society, and spawned a generation of intellectuals who oppose Western civilization. During the period these books were written, as well as most of his adult life, Bork was an agnostic, a fact used pejoratively behind the scenes by Southern Democrats when speaking to their evangelical constituents during his Supreme Court nomination process. Bork's 1971 "Indiana Law Journal" article "Neutral Principles and Some First Amendment Problems" has been identified as one of the most cited legal articles of all time.


title: Robert Bork

text: In "The Tempting of America", p. 82, Bork explained his support for the Supreme Court's desegregation decision in "Brown v. Board of Education":


title: Robert Bork

text: Bork opposed the Civil Rights Act of 1964, saying that the provisions within the Act which prohibited racial discrimination by public accommodations were based on a principle of "unsurpassed ugliness". However, he later came to refute his earlier views, saying in his 1987 confirmation hearing that the Civil Rights Act and other racial equality legislation of the 1960s "helped bring the nation together in ways which otherwise would not have occurred." Bork opposed the 1965 Supreme Court ruling in "Griswold v. Connecticut," which struck down a Connecticut Comstock Act of 1873 that prohibited the use of contraceptives for married couples. Bork said the decision was "utterly specious," "unprincipled" and "intellectually empty." Bork argued that the Constitution only protected speech that was "explicitly political", and that there were no free speech protections for "scientific, literary or that variety of expression we call obscene or pornographic."


title: Robert Bork

text: In 1998 he reviewed "", conservative pundit Ann Coulter's book on impeaching Clinton, pointing out that "'High crimes and misdemeanors' are not limited to actions that are crimes under federal law."


title: Robert Bork

text: In 1999, Bork wrote an essay about Thomas More and attacked jury nullification as a "pernicious practice". Bork once quoted More in summarizing his judicial philosophy. In 2003, he published "Coercing Virtue: The Worldwide Rule of Judges", an American Enterprise Institute book that includes Bork's philosophical objections to the phenomenon of incorporating international ethical and legal guidelines into the fabric of domestic law. In particular, he focuses on problems he sees as inherent in the federal judiciary of three nations, Israel, Canada, and the United States—countries where he believes courts have exceeded their discretionary powers, and have discarded precedent and common law, and in their place substituted their own liberal judgment.


title: Robert Bork

text: Bork also advocated modifying the Constitution to allow Congressional supermajorities to override Supreme Court decisions, similar to the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms' notwithstanding clause. Though Bork had many liberal critics, some of his arguments have earned criticism from conservatives as well. Although an opponent of gun control, Bork denounced what he called the "NRA view" of the Second Amendment, something he described as the "belief that the constitution guarantees a right to Teflon-coated bullets." Instead, he argued that the Second Amendment merely guarantees a right to participate in a government militia.


title: Robert Bork

text: In October 2005, Bork publicly criticized the nomination of Harriet Miers to the Supreme Court, saying her nomination was "a disaster on every level."


title: Robert Bork

text: On June 6, 2007, Bork filed suit in federal court in New York City against the Yale Club over an incident that had occurred a year earlier. Bork alleged that, while trying to reach the dais to speak at an event, he fell, because of the Yale Club's failure to provide any steps or handrail between the floor and the dais. (After his fall, he successfully climbed to the dais and delivered his speech.) According to the complaint, Bork's injuries required surgery, immobilized him for months, forced him to use a cane, and left him with a limp. In May 2008, Bork and the Yale Club reached a confidential, out-of-court settlement.


title: Robert Bork

text: On June 7, 2007, Bork with several others authored an "amicus" brief on behalf of Scooter Libby arguing that there was a substantial constitutional question regarding the appointment of the prosecutor in the case, reviving the debate that had previously resulted in the "Morrison v. Olson" decision.


title: Robert Bork

text: On December 15, 2007, Bork endorsed Mitt Romney for president. He repeated this endorsement on August 2, 2011, during Romney's second campaign for the White House.


title: Robert Bork

text: A 2008 issue of the "Harvard Journal of Law and Public Policy" collected essays in tribute to Bork. Authors included Frank H. Easterbrook, George Priest, and Douglas Ginsburg.


title: Robert Bork

text: Bork was married to Claire Davidson from 1952 until her death from cancer in 1980. They had a daughter, Ellen, and two sons, Robert Bork, Jr. and Charles Bork. In 1982, he married Mary Ellen Pohl, a Catholic religious sister turned activist. Bork Jr. is a prominent conservative activist who is currently president of the Antitrust Education Project.


title: Robert Bork

text: Bork died of complications from heart disease at the Virginia Hospital Center in Arlington, Virginia, on December 19, 2012. Following his death, Scalia referred to Bork as "one of the most influential legal scholars of the past 50 years" and "a good man and a loyal citizen". He is interred at Fairfax Memorial Park.


title: Apoplexy

text: Apoplexy () is rupture of an internal organ and the accompanying symptoms. The term formerly referred to what is now called a stroke. Nowadays, health care professionals do not use the term, but instead specify the anatomic location of the bleeding, such as cerebral, ovarian or pituitary.


title: Apoplexy

text: Informally or metaphorically, the term "apoplexy" is associated with being furious, especially as "apoplectic".


title: Apoplexy

text: From the late 14th to the late 19th century, "apoplexy" referred to any sudden death that began with a sudden loss of consciousness, especially one in which the victim died within a matter of seconds after losing consciousness. The word "apoplexy" was sometimes used to refer to the symptom of sudden loss of consciousness immediately preceding death. Ruptured aortic aneurysms, and even heart attacks and strokes were referred to as apoplexy in the past, because before the advent of medical science, there was limited ability to differentiate abnormal conditions and diseased states. Although physiology as a medical field dates back at least to the time of Hippocrates, until the late 19th century physicians often had inadequate or inaccurate understandings of many of the human body's normal functions and abnormal presentations. Hence, identifying a specific cause of a symptom or of death often proved difficult or impossible.


title: Apoplexy

text: Because the term by itself is now ambiguous, it is often coupled with a descriptive adjective to indicate the site of bleeding. For example, bleeding within the pituitary gland is called "pituitary apoplexy", and bleeding within the adrenal glands can be called "adrenal apoplexy".


title: Apoplexy

text: Apoplexy also includes hemorrhaging with the gland and accompanying neurological problems such as confusion, headache, and impairment of consciousness.


title: Oxford University Press

text: Oxford University Press (OUP) is the university press of the University of Oxford. It is the largest university press in the world, and its printing history dates back to the 1480s. Having been officially granted the legal right to print books by decree in 1586, it is the second oldest university press after Cambridge University Press.