title: American Rescue Plan Act of 2021

text: Senate majority Leader Chuck Schumer predicted that the Senate would pass the bill before March 14. On March 4, Schumer introduced the Senate version of the bill on the floor, which had a few changes to the House bill. The Senate voted 51–50 to advance the relief bill and allow debates to begin, with Harris casting the tie-breaking vote. Ron Johnson objected to Schumer's request to skip the reading of the bill, forcing the Senate clerks to read aloud the entire 628-page Senate bill, delaying the Senate amendment process for up to 15 hours. On March 5, the Senate reconvened and had 3 hours of debate, and thereafter moved to the "vote-a-rama" session, where senators would have the opportunity to introduce, debate, and vote on amendments.


title: American Rescue Plan Act of 2021

text: There were multiple amendments brought onto the Senate floor. Bernie Sanders introduced the first amendment to raise the federal minimum wage to $15 per hour. All Republicans and eight Democrats voted against the amendment. After the vote, Sanders stated he was not surprised by the outcome and vowed that progressives would keep fighting on other fronts to raise the minimum wage. Senator Tom Carper introduced an amendment which would extend the unemployment benefits through the end of September but would cut the benefits from $400 to $300. The amendment also did not tax the first $10,200 of unemployment benefits. Senator Joe Manchin, a key vote in the Senate, disagreed with Carper's amendment, stalling the Senate amendment process for hours while his Democratic colleagues and the White House pressured him to support Carper's amendment. Manchin had initially signalled he would support a GOP-backed amendment by Portman to cut off the unemployment benefits at July. After hours of negotiations between top Senate Democrats and the White House, Manchin stated he would back a revised version of Carper's amendment which would cut off the unemployment benefits at September 6. The final vote was 50 to 49 on party lines, and the bill was sent back to the House for final passage.


title: American Rescue Plan Act of 2021

text: President Biden doubted that his desire to increase the federal minimum wage to $15 an hour would be included in the final coronavirus relief package. Biden predicted that Senate rules for budget reconciliation would prevent the increase from going forward. While recent polling indicates that support for increasing the minimum wage to $15 an hour ranges from 53 to 60%, Democratic Senators Joe Manchin and Kyrsten Sinema opposed this provision and threatened to derail the bill over this issue.


title: American Rescue Plan Act of 2021

text: On February 25, the day before the full House vote, the Senate Parliamentarian Elizabeth MacDonough ruled that the proposal to add the minimum wage provision to the stimulus bill was not compatible with the Senate's budget reconciliation process. Pelosi stated later that day that the House will still approve the bill with the minimum wage raise, although it will have to be amended out in the final Senate bill to comply with the parliamentarian's ruling. Progressive Democrats and liberal groups urged Harris to overrule MacDonough (which she has the constitutional power to do as president of the Senate) or for Senate Democratic leadership to replace her (which the Republicans did once before, firing Robert Dove in 2001 after he made a series of rulings blocking tax cuts from being considered under the 51-vote budget reconciliation process); however, neither course was taken. On March 5, eight members of the Senate Democratic caucus joined all 50 Republican Senators to reject an amendment raised by Senator Sanders to increase the minimum wage to $15 in the bill.


title: American Rescue Plan Act of 2021

text: In a budget analysis released in February 2021, the Congressional Budget Office found that increasing the minimum wage to $15 would lift 900,000 people out of poverty and cumulatively raise the wage of all affected people by $333 billion, but also could increase the cumulative budget deficit, over the next decade, to $54 billion (and add $16 billion in interest costs) and reduce employment by 0.9% (1.4 million jobs) over four years.


title: American Rescue Plan Act of 2021

text: Republican Senators Mitt Romney and Tom Cotton introduced their own bill, which would raise the minimum wage to $10, phasing in gradually to 2025. The minimum wage would biennially rise with inflation, indexed to the chained consumer price index. Businesses would also be required to use the E-Verify system so to ensure that workers paid the higher wages are legal immigrants and eligible to work. Adult workers would have to provide a photo ID, states would be incentivized to share driver's-license data with the system, and the federal government would make more of an effort to block or suspend misused Social Security numbers.


title: American Rescue Plan Act of 2021

text: The House-passed bill included $1.5 million to cover operating shortfalls on the New York-Ontario Seaway International Bridge (caused by border closures), and $140 million for the Silicon Valley BART extension. Both provisions were removed from the Senate bill due to Republican opposition.


title: American Rescue Plan Act of 2021

text: On March 10, 2021, the House passed the Senate bill on a near party-line (Jared Golden voted against) vote of 220–211 (concurring in the Senate amendments), sending the bill to President Biden for his signature. Biden signed the bill the following day, on March 11, 2021. On March 15, 2021, the White House announced that Gene Sperling will oversee the implementation of the bill. Following the signing, Biden and his top messengers kicked off a "Help is Here" tour across the country to promote the legislation, with Harris visiting a COVID-19 vaccination site in Las Vegas and First Lady Jill Biden visiting an elementary school in New Jersey. On March 16, Biden promoted the bill in Chester, Pennsylvania.


title: American Rescue Plan Act of 2021

text: Preliminary injunctions issued in federal district court cases halted section 1005 payments, which related to socially disadvantaged farmers and ranchers. Section 1005 was repealed by the Inflation Reduction Act of 2022.


title: American Rescue Plan Act of 2021

text: The Act also allocates $60 billion to counties and $10 billion for a Coronavirus Capital Projects Fund. (The bill initially passed by the House would have instead allocated $65 billion to counties and $65 billion to municipalities; rather, the Senate formula was adopted). Key elements and provisions of the Act include:


title: American Rescue Plan Act of 2021

text: The bill contains the following COVID-19 funding (including for COVID-19 vaccines, testing, and contact tracing) and other healthcare-related funding:


title: American Rescue Plan Act of 2021

text: The bill's economic-relief provisions are overwhelmingly geared toward low-income and middle-class Americans, who will benefit from (among other provisions) the direct payments, the bill's expansion of low-income tax credits, child-care subsidies, expanded health-insurance access, extension of expanded unemployment benefits, food stamps, and rental assistance programs. The bill contains little direct aid to high income-earners, who largely retained their jobs during the COVID-19 economic shock and bolstered their savings. Biden's administration crafted the plan in part because economic aid to lower-income and middle-income Americans (who are more likely to immediately spend funds on bills, groceries, and housing costs to avoid eviction or foreclosure) is more likely to stimulate the U.S. economy than aid to higher-earners (who are more likely to save the money). The Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy found that the stimulus bill's direct payments, child tax credit expansion, and earned income tax credit expansion would boost the income of the poorest one-fifth of Americans by nearly $3,590. The Congressional Budget Office estimated that the bill's increase in health insurance subsidies would lead to 1.3 million previously uninsured Americans gaining health insurance coverage.


title: American Rescue Plan Act of 2021

text: An analysis by Columbia University's Center on Poverty and Social Policy estimated that the original stimulus proposal would reduce overall U.S. poverty by a third, reduce child poverty by 57.8% and reduce the adult poverty rate by more than 25%. However these estimates relied in part upon a minimum wage increase that was not included in the final bill, meaning effects on poverty may be notably different from those anticipated in that study.


title: American Rescue Plan Act of 2021

text: The Tax Policy Center wrote that, for households making under $25,000, the bill would cut their taxes by an average of $2,800, which would boost their after-tax income by 20%. Additionally, low-income households with children would see an average tax cut of about $7,700, and this would boost their after-tax income by 35%. Middle-income households will also see an average tax cut of about $3,350, and this would increase their after-tax income by 5.5%. Overall, about 70% of the bill's tax benefits will go to households making under $91,000.


title: American Rescue Plan Act of 2021

text: Commentators in the press have said that the American Rescue Plan Act of 2021 has likely contributed to the inflation—felt in the form of higher prices—experienced across the United States in 2022.


title: American Rescue Plan Act of 2021

text: A March 2022 study released by the Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco estimated that fiscal support measures designed to counteract the severity of the pandemic's economic effect (i.e. the American Rescue Plan) may have raised inflation about 3 percentage points by the end of 2021 (inflation was about 7% in 2021, so this would imply an inflation rate of 4% without the Rescue Plan) noting that at the same time these measures may have prevented "outright deflation and slower economic growth, the consequences of which would have been harder to manage".


title: American Rescue Plan Act of 2021

text: Nobel Prize in economics-winner Paul Krugman admitted in an op-ed for the New York Times in July 2022 that he was among many economists that foresaw little risk due to the American Rescue Plan but that resulted being wrong about it.


title: American Rescue Plan Act of 2021

text: The relief package received universal support from Democrats and universal opposition from Republicans, passing on a party-line vote. Some House Democratic progressives expressed disappointment with some changes to the relief package made in the Senate (such as the removal of the $15 minimum wage) to win over moderate Democratic support, but continued to support the package.


title: American Rescue Plan Act of 2021

text: Republicans in Congress opposed the bill, claiming it to be unaffordable, and claiming the bill only benefitted Democratic-led states. Though the bill provided some funding for Republican-leaning states, 61% of aid would go to states that voted for Biden in November 2020.


title: American Rescue Plan Act of 2021

text: Clinton Administration Treasury Secretary and Harvard University President Lawrence Summers called the bill “the least responsible macroeconomic policy we’ve had in the last 40 years,” arguing the law would lead to substantial inflation (and possibly a recession, if the Federal Reserve responded by raising interest rates). Later data would show a large surge in inflation. Although the importance of the law in causing this has been disputed, price increases rose to the highest levels in 40 years, as Summers had argued.


title: American Rescue Plan Act of 2021

text: Some Democrats argued the bill’s provisions were similar to policies Republicans had supported in the Trump administration; Republicans responded by arguing that such measures were no longer necessary, as the economy was no longer in a recession and COVID-19 vaccines were now being administered.


title: American Rescue Plan Act of 2021

text: President Joe Biden advocated for fast-tracking the stimulus package with optimally bipartisan support. In early February 2021, Biden criticized Republicans for not seeking a bipartisan compromise on a final aid bill, and said the Republicans were wilfully obstructing his proposal. At the time, Biden signaled openness to passing the legislation without any support from congressional Republicans. Biden stated that he could not, "in good conscience," make concessions to Republicans who he said propose to either "do nothing or not enough" as Republicans complain Biden is forsaking his promises on bipartisanship and unity. Furthermore, Biden noted that "[a]ll of a sudden, many of them have rediscovered fiscal restraint and the concern for the deficits" whereas in the Trump administration Republicans had passed trillions in dollars in tax cuts and mostly corporate aid for the coronavirus crisis, adding trillions of dollars to the national debt without much reservation.


title: American Rescue Plan Act of 2021

text: Republican mayors such as Jerry Dyer of Fresno, Francis X. Suarez of Miami, David Holt of Oklahoma City, and Betsy Price of Fort Worth, Texas expressed their support for the plan. Dyer told the "Washington Post" that "It's not a Republican issue or a Democrat issue. It's a public health issue. It's an economic issue. And it's a public safety issue."


title: American Rescue Plan Act of 2021

text: Over 150 CEOs of major companies expressed support for the Biden stimulus plan in a letter and urged Congress to pass it.


title: American Rescue Plan Act of 2021

text: A broad range of advocacy and interest groups praised the bill, including local government groups (National Association of Counties and U.S. Conference of Mayors); business associations (National Farmers Union, Airlines for America, National Association of Realtors, National Restaurant Association, Small Business Majority); education organizations (the American Council on Education, American Federation of Teachers, National Education Association, National School Boards Association), organized labor (the AFL–CIO and AFSCME); healthcare organizations (American Academy of Pediatrics, Association of State and Territorial Health Officials, National Nurses United), the American Public Transportation Association, and the civil rights group UnidosUS. Feeding America, the American Hotel & Lodging Association, the Main Street Alliance, the U.S. Travel Association, the American Hospital Association, the Association of American Medical Colleges, and the National Council of Nonprofits praised the bill, but said that additional relief would be necessary. The Business Roundtable, U.S. Chamber of Commerce, and Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget called for a smaller and more targeted package.


title: American Rescue Plan Act of 2021

text: Several observers have noted that the stimulus greatly increases the role of the government in fighting poverty in the United States, to an extent not seen since Lyndon Johnson's Great Society in the 1960s; accordingly some have seen it as evidence that the United States is moving towards social democracy and away from the "government is the problem" consensus in place since the 1980s.


title: American Rescue Plan Act of 2021

text: Dave Yost, the Republican Ohio Attorney General, sued the Biden administration over the provision of the Act that creates a $350 billion fund to help state and local governments pay first responders and other COVID-19-related expenses. The Act provides that a state cannot use federal aid money to offset net revenues lost if a state chooses to implement new state tax cuts. Yost's suit claims that this limitation coerces states and infringes on their "sovereign authority to set state tax policy."


title: American Rescue Plan Act of 2021

text: The stimulus plan had broad public support. A February 11 "Newsweek"/Harris X poll showed that 60% of Republican voters expressed support for the stimulus plan and a poll from Quinnipiac University found that 68% of Americans support it. A Morning Consult/"Politico" poll showed that 76% of voters, including 60% of Republicans and 89% of Democrats, supported the bill. A Monmouth University poll found that 62% of Americans approve of the stimulus package, with 92% of Democrats, 56% of independents, and 33% of Republicans supporting the legislation. CBS News released a poll on March 12, which showed that 75% of Americans approved the stimulus bill, including 77% of independents, 46% of Republicans, and 94% of Democrats. In a poll conducted by Data for Progress and Vox, around 31% of Republican voters believed that their party backs the legislation, with 53% believing that it does not.


title: The Final Countdown (film)

text: The Final Countdown is a 1980 American science fiction war film about a modern nuclear-powered aircraft carrier that travels through time to the day before the December 7, 1941, attack on Pearl Harbor. Produced by Peter Douglas and Lloyd Kaufman (founder of Troma Entertainment) and directed by Don Taylor, the film contains an ensemble cast starring Kirk Douglas, Martin Sheen, James Farentino, Katharine Ross and Charles Durning.


title: The Final Countdown (film)

text: This was the final film by Don Taylor. Kaufman also served as an associate producer and had a minor acting role.


title: The Final Countdown (film)

text: The film was produced with the cooperation of the United States Navy's naval aviation branch and the United States Department of Defense. It was set and filmed on board (CVN-68), filming operations of the modern nuclear warship, which had been launched in the early 1970s. "The Final Countdown" was a moderate success at the box office.


title: The Final Countdown (film)

text: In 1980, the aircraft carrier is departing Naval Station Pearl Harbor for naval exercises in the mid-Pacific Ocean. The ship takes on a civilian observer, Warren Lasky (Martin Sheen) — a systems analyst for Tideman Industries working as an efficiency expert for the U.S. Defense Department — on the orders of his reclusive employer, Mr Tideman, whose secretive major defense contractor company designed and built the nuclear-powered warship.


title: The Final Countdown (film)

text: Once at sea, the "Nimitz" encounters a mysterious electrically charged storm-like vortex. While the ship passes through it, radar and other equipment become unresponsive and everyone aboard falls into agony. Initially unsure of what has happened to them and having lost radio contact with U.S. Pacific Fleet Command at Pearl Harbor, Captain Yelland (Kirk Douglas), commander of the aircraft carrier, fears that there may have been a nuclear strike on Hawaii or the continental United States. He orders general quarters and launches a RF-8 Crusader reconnaissance aircraft. The aircraft returns after photographing Pearl Harbor, but the images show an intact row of U.S. Pacific fleet battleships, of which several were destroyed during the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor on December 7, 1941.


title: The Final Countdown (film)

text: When a surface contact is spotted on radar, Yelland launches two ready alert Grumman F-14 Tomcat fighter jets from VF-84 to intercept. The patrol witnesses a civilian wooden yacht being strafed and destroyed by two Imperial Japanese Navy Mitsubishi A6M "Zero" fighters, killing three crew members. The F-14s are ordered to drive off the Zeros without firing, but when the Zeros inadvertently head towards the "Nimitz", Yelland gives clearance to shoot them down. The "Nimitz" rescues survivors from the yacht: prominent U.S. Senator Samuel Chapman (Charles Durning), his aide Laurel Scott (Katharine Ross), her dog Charlie and one of the two downed Zero pilots (Soon-Tek Oh). Commander Owens (James Farentino), an amateur historian, recognizes Chapman as a politician who could have been Franklin D. Roosevelt's running mate (and his potential successor) during his final re-election bid, had Chapman not disappeared shortly before the Pearl Harbor attack.


title: The Final Countdown (film)

text: When a Grumman E-2 Hawkeye scouting craft discovers the Japanese fleet task force further north in unpatrolled waters, poised to launch its attack on Pearl Harbor, the "Nimitz" crew realize that they have been transported back in time to the day before the attack. Yelland has to decide whether to destroy the Japanese fleet and alter the course of history or to stand by and allow history to proceed as they know it. The American civilians and the Zero pilot are kept isolated, but while being questioned, the Japanese pilot obtains a rifle, kills two Marine guards, and takes Scott, Owens, and Lasky hostage. He threatens to kill them unless he is given access to a radio to warn the Japanese fleet about the "Nimitz". Lasky tells Commander Owens to recite and describe the secret plans for the Japanese attack; the dumbfounded Japanese pilot is overcome and shot by the Marines. In the aftermath, Scott and Owens develop an attraction for each other.


title: The Final Countdown (film)

text: Chapman is outraged that Yelland knows of the impending Japanese attack but has not told anyone else, and demands to be taken to Pearl Harbor to warn the naval authorities. Yelland instead orders Owens to fly the civilians and sufficient supplies via helicopter to an isolated Hawaiian island, assuming they will eventually be rescued. When they arrive, Chapman realizes he has been tricked and uses a flare gun to force the pilot to fly to Pearl Harbor. During a struggle with another crew member, the flare gun discharges, destroying the craft and stranding Scott and Owens on the island. The "Nimitz" launches a massive strike force against the incoming Japanese fleet, but right after that, the time vortex storm returns. After a futile attempt to outrun the storm, Yelland recalls the strike force, and the ship and its aircraft safely return to 1980, leaving the past relatively unchanged. Upon the return of the "Nimitz" to Pearl Harbor, Pacific Fleet admirals board the ship to investigate the "Nimitz"s unexplained disappearance. Lasky leaves the ship with Scott's dog, Charlie, and encounters the mysterious Mr. Tideman face-to-face. Tideman is revealed to be a much older Owens. He and his wife, Laurel Scott, invite Lasky to join them as they have "a lot to talk about".


title: The Final Countdown (film)

text: Peter Douglas was the driving force behind "The Final Countdown". With a limited budget and a promising script, he was able to attract interest from the U.S. Navy. Officials from the Department of Defense offered full cooperation after seeing a script, but insisted that for safety and operational readiness, the film schedule would be dependent on the "on location" naval consultant, William Micklos. Principal photography took place at Naval Air Station Key West, Naval Station Norfolk, and off the Florida Keys, over two five-week periods in 1979. Scenes at Pearl Harbor consisted of mainly stock footage with most of "The Final Countdown" exteriors shot on the "Nimitz" while at sea, and at drydock for interiors. During operations, an emergency landing took place with the production crew allowed to film the recovery of the aircraft on the "Nimitz"; the sequence appeared in the final film.


title: The Final Countdown (film)

text: Crew members of the "Nimitz" were used as extras, a few with speaking parts; a total of 48 of the crew appear as "actors" in the final credits. The difficulties in filming a modern jet fighter were soon apparent when the first setup to record an F-14 takeoff at Naval Station Norfolk, Virginia, resulted in both camera and operator being pitched down a runway.


title: The Final Countdown (film)

text: Dissension in the production crew led to major changes during location shooting, with a number of the crew being fired and replaced. Taylor's direction was considered workmanlike, as he had a reputation for bringing projects in on time and on budget, but suggestions from U.S. naval aviators were ultimately incorporated into the shooting schedules with the "B" crew placed in charge of all the aerial sequences that became the primary focus of the film.


title: The Final Countdown (film)

text: In order to film the aerial sequences, Panavision cameras were mounted on naval aircraft while camera-equipped aircraft and helicopters were leased from Tallmantz Aviation, including a Bell 206 Jet Ranger helicopter, a Learjet 35, and a B-25 bomber converted into a camera platform. Three Mitsubishi A6M Zero replicas, originally built for the film "Tora! Tora! Tora!" (1970), were flown by pilots from the Confederate Air Force, now called the Commemorative Air Force. Two of the replicas were featured in a dogfight with F-14 Tomcats; it was the first time such a dissimilar engagement had appeared in film, with the aircraft's' "totally different speeds...environments and weaponry".


title: The Final Countdown (film)

text: In one scene where an F-14 "thumps" a Zero by flying under and streaking upward in front of the slower aircraft, the resultant "jet blast" of turbulent air was so intense that the yokes of both of the Zeros in the scene were violently wrenched out of the pilots' hands and caused both aircraft to momentarily tumble out of control. The lead pilot's headset, along with his watch, were ripped off and out of the open canopy of his Zero, resulting in a few anxious moments as the F-14 pilots were unable to establish contact. During a scene when a Zero fires on an F-14, in order to get on the "six" of the low and slow Zero—that is, to bring one's aircraft directly behind the target aircraft in a position corresponding to six o'clock on an analog clock face—the jet fighter did a low pull up that ended just above the ocean in a screaming recovery.


title: The Final Countdown (film)

text: During the climactic attack on Pearl Harbor, scenes reproduced in monochrome from "Tora! Tora! Tora!" featured Aichi D3A Val dive bombers, Mitsubishi A6M Zero fighters and Nakajima B5N Kate torpedo bombers.


title: The Final Countdown (film)

text: "The Final Countdown" was released to theaters in the United States on August 1, 1980. A novelization by Martin Caidin, based on the screenplay, was released in the same month and largely dovetailed with the film presented on screen (the novelization ending with Lasky accompanying Tideman/CDR Owens and Laurel to their home, where it is revealed that the time travel phenomenon explored in the film had an extraterrestrial origin that is not further expanded upon).


title: The Final Countdown (film)

text: The film was released on home video, on March 30, 2004. It was later released by Blue Underground on a two-DVD set (with both full-screen and widescreen formats) and a special two-disc limited edition set with a hologram cover. Each DVD edition was accompanied by special featurettes, including a "behind-the-scenes" documentary and a commentary track by the producer and other studio principals. On November 4, 2008, a high-definition two-disc Blu-ray set was released, but lacked some of the earlier background materials. On May 25, 2021, a 4K Ultra High-Definition disc set was released as a limited edition with some additional special features, a copy of the film on Blu-ray disc and a copy of John Scott's original motion picture score on CD.


title: The Final Countdown (film)

text: "The Final Countdown" received mixed reviews from critics. On the review aggregator website Rotten Tomatoes, the film received an approval rating of 52% based on 21 reviews, with an average rating of 5.9/10.


title: The Final Countdown (film)

text: Vincent Canby of "The New York Times" considered it more of an interesting, behind-the-scenes tour of "Nimitz". "We see planes landing and taking off with beautiful precision and, just to let us know that things don't always run smoothly on "Nimitz", we also see one plane, which has lost its landing hook, landing safely anyway because of the ship's emergency gear." Roger Ebert commented that "logic doesn't matter in a "Star Wars"(-like) movie". He went on to clarify: "Unfortunately, the movie makes such a mess of it that the biggest element of interest is the aircraft carrier itself." Later reviews concentrated on the intriguing aspect of the time travel story, again stressing that the military hardware was the real star. The U.S. Navy sponsored the film premiere and exploited the film as a recruiting tool to the extent that the theatrical poster appeared in U.S. Navy recruiting offices shortly after the film's release. Ebert and Gene Siskel selected the film as one of their "dogs of the year" in a 1980 episode of "Sneak Previews", which surprised some readers of Ebert's column because he gave the film an unimpressed but hardly rancorous 2 stars out of 4 and praised some elements of the production (particularly the details about life on board the aircraft carrier).


title: The Final Countdown (film)

text: Christopher John reviewed "The Final Countdown" in "Ares Magazine" #5 and commented that "There is nothing wrong with what is on the screen in "Final Countdown"; what is on the screen, however, is only half of the film. Maybe someday, like "Close Encounters of the Third Kind", someone will go back and put in the missing half-hour of this movie."


title: The Final Countdown (film)

text: The film grossed $6.1 million in its first 10 days of release from 630 theatres and earned a total of $16.6 million in the United States and Canada.


title: Bodh Gaya

text: Bodh Gaya is a religious site and place of pilgrimage associated with the Mahabodhi Temple Complex in Gaya district in the Indian state of Bihar. It is famous as it is the place where Gautama Buddha is said to have attained Enlightenment () under what became known as the Bodhi Tree. Since antiquity, Bodh Gaya has remained the object of pilgrimage and veneration both for Hindus and Buddhists. In particular, archaeological finds including sculptures show that the site was in use by Buddhists since the Mauryan period.


title: Bodh Gaya

text: For Buddhists, Bodh Gaya is the most important of the main four pilgrimage sites related to the life of Gautama Buddha, the other three being Kushinagar, Lumbini, and Sarnath. In 2002, Mahabodhi Temple, located in Bodh Gaya, became a UNESCO World Heritage Site.


title: Bodh Gaya

text: Bodh Gaya is considered to be the holiest site in Buddhism. Known as Uruwela in the Buddha's time, it is situated by the bank of Lilajan River. The first temple at the site was built by King Ashoka.


title: Bodh Gaya

text: Traditionally, Buddha was born in 563 BC on the following auspicious Baisakhi purnima. As Siddhartha, he renounced his family at the age of 29 in 534 BC, and travelled and meditated in search of truth. After practicing self-mortification for six years at Urubela (Buddhagaya) in Gaya, he gave up that practice because it did not give him Vimukthi. Then he discovered Noble Eight-fold path without help from anyone and practiced it, then he attained Buddhatva or enlightenment. Enlightenment is a state of being completely free from lust (raga), hatred (dosa) and delusion (moha). By gaining enlightenment, you enter Nirvana, in which the final stage is Parinirvana.


title: Bodh Gaya

text: At this place, the Buddha was abandoned by the five men who had been his companions of earlier austerities. All they saw was an ordinary man; they mocked his well-nourished appearance. "Here comes the mendicant Gautama," they said, "who has turned away from asceticism. He is certainly not worth our respect." When they reminded him of his former vows, the Buddha replied, "Austerities only confuse the mind. In the exhaustion and mental stupor to which they lead, one can no longer understand the ordinary things of life, still less the truth that lies beyond the senses. I have given up extremes of either luxury or asceticism. I have discovered the Middle Way." This is the path which is neither easy (a rich prince) nor hard (living in austere conditions practicing self-denial). Hearing this, the five ascetics became the Buddha's first disciples in Deer Park, Sarnath, 13 kms north east of Benares.


title: Bodh Gaya

text: The disciples of Gautama Siddhartha began to visit the place during the full moon in the month of Vaisakh (April–May), as per the Hindu calendar. Over time, the place became known as Bodh Gaya, the day of enlightenment as Buddha Purnima, and the tree as the Bodhi Tree.


title: Bodh Gaya

text: The history of Bodh Gaya is documented by many inscriptions and pilgrimage accounts. Foremost among these are the accounts of the Chinese pilgrims Faxian in the 5th century and Xuanzang in the 7th century. The area was at the heart of a Buddhist civilization for centuries, until it was conquered by Turkic armies in the 13th century.


title: Bodh Gaya

text: The place-name, Bodh Gaya, did not come into use until the 18th century CE. Historically, it was known as Uruvela, Sambodhi (Saṃ+bodhi, "Complete Enlightenment" in Ashoka's Major Rock Edict No.8), Vajrasana (the "Diamond Throne" of the Buddha) or Mahabodhi ("Great Enlightenment"). The main monastery of Bodh Gaya used to be called the Bodhimanda-vihāra (Pali). Now it is called the Mahabodhi Temple.


title: Bodh Gaya

text: During the period from the 11th to 13th centuries, Bodh Gaya was under the control of local chieftains known as the Pithipatis of Bodh Gaya who were responsible for the management of the region. One of their rulers, Acarya Buddhasena, was noted as making a grant to Sri Lankan monks near the Mahabodhi temple.


title: Bodh Gaya

text: contains the Mahabodhi Temple with the Vajrasana or "diamond throne" and the holy Bodhi tree. This tree was originally a sapling of the Sri Maha Bodhi tree in Sri Lanka, itself grown from a what is claimed to be a sapling of the original Bodhi tree.


title: Bodh Gaya

text: In approximately 250 BCE, about 200 years after the Buddha attained Enlightenment, Emperor Asoka visited Bodh Gaya in order to establish a monastery and shrine on the holy site.


title: Bodh Gaya

text: Representations of this early temple are found at Sanchi, on the toraṇas of Stūpa I, dating from around 25 BCE, and on a relief carving from the stupa railing at Bhārhut, from the early Shunga period (c. 185–c. 73 BCE).


title: Bodh Gaya

text: Kittisirimegha of Sri Lanka, a contemporary of Samudragupta, erected with the permission of Samudragupta, a Sanghārāma near the Mahabodhi Temple, chiefly for the use of the Singhalese monks who went to worship the Bodhi tree. The circumstances in connection with the Sanghārāma are given by Xuanzang (Beal, op. cit., 133ff) who gives a description of it as seen by himself. It was probably here that Buddhaghosa met the Elder Revata who persuaded him to come to Ceylon.


title: Bodh Gaya

text: Several Buddhist temples and monasteries have been built by the people of Bhutan, Mongolia, China, Japan, Korea, Cambodia, Laos, Myanmar, Nepal, Sikkim, Sri Lanka, Taiwan, Thailand, Tibet and Vietnam in a wide area around the Mahabodhi Temple. These buildings reflect the architectural style, exterior and interior decoration of their respective countries. The statue of Buddha in the Chinese temple is 200 years old and was brought from China. Japan's Nippon temple is shaped like a pagoda. The Myanmar (Burmese) temple is also pagoda shaped and is reminiscent of Bagan. The Thai temple has a typical sloping, curved roof covered with golden tiles. Inside, the temple holds a massive bronze statue of Buddha. Next to the Thai temple is 25-metre statue of Buddha located within a garden which has existed there for over 100 years.


title: Bodh Gaya

text: Across the Phalgu river is the Sujata Stupa, in the village of Bakraur. The stupa was dedicated to the milkmaid Sujata, who is said to have fed Gautama Buddha milk and rice as he was sitting under a Banyan tree, ending his seven years of fasting and asceticism, and allowing him to attain illumination through the Middle Way. The stupa was built in the 2nd century BCE as confirmed by finds of black polished wares and punch-marked coins in the attending monastery.


title: Bodh Gaya

text: The Great Buddha Statue also known as 80 feet statue is in Bodhgaya. The unveiling and consecration of the Great Buddha Statue took place on 18 November 1989. The consecration ceremony was attended by the 14th Dalai Lama, who blessed the 25-meter statue, the first great Buddha ever built in the history of India. The Statue is now a symbol of the holy place Bodhgaya, next to Mahabodhi Temple which is a World Heritage site, and enjoys constant visits of pilgrims from all over the world. Among local people, it is nicknamed "the 80-foot (25-meter) Buddha Statue."


title: Bodh Gaya

text: Under the slogan "Spread Buddha's rays to the Whole World," Daijokyo spent seven years on construction of the Great Buddha Statue, mobilizing 120,000 masons in total.


title: Bodh Gaya

text: On 7 July 2013, at around 05:15, a low intensity bomb blast took place in the 2500-year-old Mahabodhi Temple complex. This was followed by a series of nine low intensity blasts which resulted in two monks being injured; one was Tibetan and the other Burmese. These blasts were carried out by an Islamic terrorist organization called Indian Mujahideen. Two other bombs, one under the 80-foot statue of the Buddha and the other near Karmapa Temple were defused by the police.


title: Bodh Gaya

text: On 1 June 2018, a special National Investigation Agency (NIA) court of Patna sentenced five suspects in the case to life imprisonment.


title: Bodh Gaya

text: As per the 2001 census, Bodh Gaya had a population of 30,883. Males constitute 54% of the population and females 46%. Bodh Gaya has an average literacy rate of 51%, lower than the national average of 59.5%; with male literacy of 63% and female literacy of 38%. 8% of the population is under 6 years of age.


title: President of Italy

text: The president of Italy, officially denoted as president of the Italian Republic () is the head of state of Italy. In that role, the president represents national unity, and guarantees that Italian politics comply with the Constitution. The president is the commander-in-chief of the Italian Armed Forces and chairs the High Council of the Judiciary. A president's term of office lasts for seven years. The incumbent president is former constitutional judge Sergio Mattarella, who was elected on 31 January 2015, and re-elected on 29 January 2022.


title: President of Italy

text: The framers of the Constitution of Italy intended for the president to be an elder statesman of some stature. Article 84 states that any Italian citizen who is fifty or older on election day and enjoys civil and political rights can be elected president. The article also states that the presidency is incompatible with any other office; therefore, the president-elect must resign any other position before being sworn in.


title: President of Italy

text: The 1948 Constitution does not put any term limit on the presidency, although until 2013 no president ever ran for a second term. On 20 April 2013, President Giorgio Napolitano agreed to run for a second term in an attempt to break the parliamentary deadlock in the 2013 presidential elections and was duly reelected the same day. However, he made it clear that he would not serve his full term and resigned in January 2015.


title: President of Italy

text: The President of the Italian Republic is elected by an electoral college of about 1,000 members (1,009 in the 2022 election). It comprises both chambers of the Italian Parliament—the Chamber of Deputies and the Senate of the Republic—meeting in joint session, combined with 58 special electors appointed by the regional councils of the 20 regions of Italy. Three representatives come from each region (save for the Aosta Valley, which due to its small size only appoints one), so as to guarantee representation for localities and minorities. As a result of the 2020 Italian constitutional referendum, the number of lawmakers will be reduced starting in 2022, with 400 deputies and 200 elected senators, also reducing the number of electors at presidential elections going forward. The electoral college currently consists of:


title: President of Italy

text:
According to the Constitution, the election must be held by a secret ballot, with the senators, deputies and regional representatives all being required to vote. A two-thirds vote is required to elect on any of the first three rounds of balloting and after that a simple majority suffices. The number of rounds has often been large thanks to the secret ballot and fragmented nature of the Italian Parliament. The election is presided over by the President of the Chamber of Deputies, who calls for the public counting of the votes. The vote is held in the Palazzo Montecitorio, seat of the Chamber of Deputies, which is expanded and re-configured for the event.
There is no formal personal candidacy but only proposals from groups within the electoral college or from groups of no fewer than half a million citizens, so any citizen may be voted or elected, regardless of any expressed intention to be a candidate.
Members of the electoral college, mostly being part of political parties, can make public or undisclosed agreements between each other on a name to vote as candidate, but the votes during the ballot remain secret as only the candidate's name is revealed but not the voter who wrote it so it's not always clear, especially to the public, if such agreements are there and if a party or a group of voters actually comply with them during a ballot.
For these reasons, during the ballots, there could be votes for public figures not related to politics (actors, singers, soccer players for example or even fictitious characters) or non feasible candidates. Those kinds of votes are not fully beyond a political strategy, considering they're secret and that the first ballots requires a larger winning majority. They may be used to express discontent about the potential actual candidates, to test or show if a candidate is willing to become President at that moment, to spoil secondary candidates in order to increase interest in main candidates for future ballots, to spoil a potential candidate of the adversary party at the first ballots or to let other parties express their more interesting candidates before a potential winning ballot.


title: President of Italy

text: Often a successful vote is reached when the major political parties within the chambers reached an agreement on a willing candidate before that final ballot and their members comply with such agreement during the vote.


title: President of Italy

text: The President of the Italian Republic assumes office after taking an oath before the Italian Parliament and delivering a presidential address.


title: President of Italy

text: The term of the President of the Italian Republic lasts seven years. This prevents any officeholder from being reelected by the same houses, which have a five-year mandate, also granting some freedom from excessive political ties to the appointing body. The Italian president's term may end by voluntary resignation, death while in office, permanent disability due to serious illness, or dismissal as for crimes of high treason or an attack on the Constitution.


title: President of Italy

text: A former president of the Republic is called President "emeritus" of the Republic and becomes Senator for life "ex officio". In the absence of the President of the Republic, including travel abroad, presidential functions are performed by the President of the Senate.


title: President of Italy

text: The Constitution lays out the duties and powers of the President of the Republic, to include the following:


title: President of Italy

text: In practice, the president's office is mostly—though not entirely—ceremonial. The Constitution provides that nearly all presidential acts must be countersigned by a member of the government (either the prime minister or an individual minister) as most presidential acts are only formal and real political responsibility is upon the government. Many of the others are duties that the president is required to perform. However, pardons and commutations have been recognized as autonomous powers of the president.


title: President of Italy

text: Despite the seemingly ceremonial nature of the position the president's role still has important implications. The president’s ability to send a piece of legislation back to Parliament is not taken lightly by legislators, who are unlikely to ignore it unless the legislation is critical. Moreover, in times of political instability the president has significant leeway in appointing prime ministers, such as when President Scalfaro appointed Lamberto Dini as prime minister against the wishes of outgoing Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi, or when President Napolitano appointed Mario Monti in 2011 and Enrico Letta in 2013.


title: President of Italy

text: This leeway extends even further to cabinet appointments, as in 2018 when President Mattarella blocked the appointment of Paolo Savona to the Ministry of Economy and Finance. Mattarella felt that Savona's Euroscepticism would endanger Italy's relationship with the EU; he took the line that as the guardian of the Constitution, he could not allow this to happen.


title: President of Italy

text: According to Article 86 of the Constitution, in all the cases in which the president is unable to perform the functions of the office, these shall be performed by the president of the Senate, who would temporarily serve as Acting President of Italy.


title: President of Italy

text: In the event of permanent incapacity, death in office or resignation of the president, the president of the Chamber of Deputies shall call an election of a new president within fifteen days, notwithstanding the longer term envisaged during the dissolution of the Parliament or in the three months preceding dissolution.


title: President of Italy

text: The officeholder resides in Rome at the Quirinal Palace and also has at his disposal the presidential holdings of Castelporziano, near Rome and Villa Rosebery in Naples. The residence at the Quirinal is guarded by the Corazzieri, an elite cuirassier honor guard that is part of the Carabinieri and has its historical roots in the guards of the House of Savoy.


title: The Net (1995 film)

text: The Net is a 1995 American action thriller film directed by Irwin Winkler and starring Sandra Bullock, Jeremy Northam, and Dennis Miller. The film was released on July 28, 1995.


title: The Net (1995 film)

text: United States Under Secretary of Defense Michael Bergstrom commits suicide after being informed that he has tested positive for HIV.


title: The Net (1995 film)

text: Angela Bennett is a systems analyst and remote worker in Venice, California for Cathedral Software in San Francisco. Her interpersonal relationships are almost completely online and on the phone, with the exception of forgettable interactions with her neighbors and visits to her mother, who is institutionalized with Alzheimer's disease and often forgets who Bennett is.


title: The Net (1995 film)

text: Bennett's co-worker, Dale, sends her a floppy disk of the game "Mozart's Ghost" with a backdoor labeled "π" that permits access to a commonly used computer security system called "Gatekeeper" sold by Gregg Microsystems, a software company led by CEO Jeff Gregg.


title: The Net (1995 film)

text: Dale and Bennett agree to meet, but the navigation system in Dale's private aircraft malfunctions and it crashes into a tower, killing him.


title: The Net (1995 film)

text: Bennett travels to Cozumel on vacation, where she meets Jack Devlin. After seducing Bennett, Devlin pays a mugger to steal her purse as they walk along the beach. He chases the mugger into the foliage, catches the mugger, and roots through the purse to find the disk before shooting the mugger.


title: The Net (1995 film)

text: He takes Bennett out on his speedboat to kill her as well, but she finds his gun and confronts him. While fleeing with the disk and Devlin's wallet, Bennett's dinghy collides with rocks. She is unconscious in the hospital for three days.


title: The Net (1995 film)

text: When Bennett wakes up, she finds that the disk was ruined by the sun and all records of her life have been deleted: She was checked out of her hotel room in Cancun, her car is no longer at the airport parking lot, and her credit cards are invalid. Bennett's home is now empty and listed for sale.


title: The Net (1995 film)

text: Moreover, because none of the neighbors remember her, they cannot confirm her identity. Bennett's Social Security number is now assigned to a "Ruth Marx", for whom Devlin has entered an arrest record by using the Gatekeeper backdoor to hack the police computer system.


title: The Net (1995 film)

text: When Bennett calls her own desk at Cathedral Software, an imposter answers and offers Bennett her old life back in exchange for the disk. She contacts the only other person who knows her by sight, psychiatrist and former lover Alan Champion. He checks her into a hotel, offers to contact a friend at the FBI, and arranges to have her mother moved for her safety.


title: The Net (1995 film)

text: Using her knowledge of the backdoor and a password found in Devlin's wallet, Bennett logs into the Bethesda Naval Hospital's computers and learns that Under Secretary of Defense Bergstrom, who had opposed Gatekeeper's use by the federal government, was murdered by altering the results of his HIV test leading to a misdiagnosis. Fellow hacker "Cyberbob" connects π with the "Praetorians", a notorious group of cyberterrorists linked to recent computer failures around the country. Bennett and Cyberbob plan to meet, but the Praetorians intercept their online chat. Bennett escapes from Devlin—a contract killer for the cyberterrorists, but the Praetorians kill Champion by tampering with pharmacy and hospital computer records. After Bennett is arrested by the California Highway Patrol, a man identifying himself as Champion's FBI friend frees her from jail. She realizes he is an imposter and escapes again.


title: The Net (1995 film)

text: Now wanted for murder and thought to be Ruth Marx, Bennett hitchhikes to Cathedral's office where, using her imposter's computer, she connects the cyberterrorists to Gregg Microsystems and uncovers their scheme: once the Praetorians sabotage an organization's computer system, Gregg sells Gatekeeper to it and gains unlimited access through the backdoor. Bennett emails evidence of the backdoor and Gregg's involvement with the Praetorians to the FBI from the Moscone Center and tricks Devlin into releasing a virus into Gregg's mainframe, destroying Gatekeeper and undoing the erasure of her identity. During a battle on the catwalks of the convention center, in which Devlin accidentally kills the Bennett imposter from Cathedral Software (the real Ruth Marx), Bennett ambushes Devlin with a fire extinguisher, causing him to fall to his death. Bennett regains her identity, home, and life. She then reunites with her mother, and the conspiracy is exposed, with Jeff Gregg being arrested by the FBI, live on television.


title: The Net (1995 film)

text: In October 1994, Bullock committed to filming "The Net" from mid-January through April 10, 1995. "The Net" was filmed in San Francisco's Moscone Center and Macworld on January 5, 1995, as well as at Washington, D.C., locations in April 1995.


title: The Net (1995 film)

text: With an estimated budget of $22 million and a release date of , "The Net" grossed $50.7 million in the United States and Canada. Including foreign markets, the film grossed $110.6 million worldwide.


title: The Net (1995 film)

text: Based on 54 reviews, it has an average score of 5.3 out of 10 on Rotten Tomatoes with 43% of critics giving positive reviews. The site's consensus states: "The premise isn't without potential and Sandra Bullock is as likable as ever, but "The Net" lacks sufficient thrills – or plausible plot points – to recommend catching." Metacritic, using a weighted average, assigned the film a score of 51 out of 100 based on 22 reviews, indicating "mixed or average reviews." Roger Ebert gave the film three out of four stars, describing "The Net" as basically an update of an Alfred Hitchcock trope ("Innocent Person Wrongly Accused"), which was in parts contrived but carried by Bullock's naturalistic performance.


title: The Net (1995 film)

text: Owen Gleiberman, writing for "Entertainment Weekly", complimented Sandra Bullock's performance, saying, "Bullock pulls you into the movie. Her overripe smile and clear, imploring eyes are sometimes evocative of Julia Roberts". Audiences polled by CinemaScore gave the film an average grade of "B" on an A+ to F scale.


title: The Net (1995 film)

text: A sequel named "The Net 2.0", starring Nikki DeLoach as Hope Cassidy and directed by Charles Winkler, son of Irwin Winkler, was announced in February 2005. It was released direct-to-video in 2006, and was about a young systems analyst who arrives in Istanbul for her new job, to find that her identity has been stolen.


title: The Net (1995 film)

text: The film spawned an American spinoff television series of the same name, starring Brooke Langton as Angela Bennett.


title: Ryback

text: Ryback Allen Reeves (né Ryan; born November 10, 1981) is an American professional wrestler. He is best known for his time in WWE where he performed under the ring name Ryback.


title: Ryback

text: One of the eight finalists on WWE's "Tough Enough 4", Reeves later signed a developmental contract with WWE and wrestled in three of its developmental territories: Deep South Wrestling (DSW), Ohio Valley Wrestling (OVW), and Florida Championship Wrestling (FCW). In 2010, as Skip Sheffield, he participated in the first season of "NXT", joined WWE's main roster as part of The Nexus, and headlined SummerSlam before being sidelined due to injury. Following his 2012 return as Ryback, he headlined multiple WWE pay-per-view events – generally in contention for the WWE Championship – and became a one-time Intercontinental Champion prior to his release from the company in 2016.


title: Ryback

text: Ryback Allen Reeves was born Ryan Allen Reeves in Las Vegas on November 10, 1981. He started watching professional wrestling at the age of eight, and was a guest bell ringer at a live World Wrestling Federation (WWF, later WWE) event at the age of 13. Wanting to become a professional wrestler, Reeves began lifting weights at 12 years old and was nicknamed "Silverback" as a teenager after a friend joked that he resembled a gorilla, later adopting part of it as his name. He excelled at baseball and football while attending Western High School and Palo Verde High School. He also played baseball during his freshman year at the Community College of Southern Nevada, but broke his leg and missed two seasons. He attended the University of Nevada, Las Vegas, entering its fitness management program.


title: Ryback

text: Reeves sent a brief one-minute videotape of himself to become a contestant on WWE's reality television series, "$1,000,000 Tough Enough", and was invited to Venice Beach with 49 others. During the first week of training, Reeves suffered from bronchitis and a rib injury. He eventually became one of the eight finalists to appear on "SmackDown!" and the last to be voted off. Even though he did not win the competition, Reeves impressed WWE officials enough for them to sign him to a developmental contract. He spent time healing from his injuries in Las Vegas before heading to Atlanta, Georgia in March 2005.


title: Ryback

text: After training in Deep South Wrestling (DSW) for most of 2005 and early 2006, Reeves was transferred over to Ohio Valley Wrestling (OVW) in early March. In July 2006, Reeves was suspended for 30 days due to failing a drug test as part of WWE's Wellness Program. According to Reeves, he had been taking several over the counter bodybuilding supplements, one of which caused a positive reading. The supplements he was using were later taken off the market due to this effect and, although his suspension remained in place, Reeves eventually returned to the roster after passing a second test. His case was later featured on the CNN documentary "Death Grip: Inside Pro Wrestling".


title: Ryback

text: After over a year's absence, Reeves returned to OVW under the ring name Ryback and won the OVW Heavyweight Championship on October 15, 2008, before losing it in the same month.


title: Ryback

text: Soon after the title loss, Reeves was then re-signed to a developmental contract with WWE. From late 2008 to early 2010, Reeves wrestled in Florida Championship Wrestling (FCW) under the ring name of Ryback and later Skip Sheffield.


title: Ryback

text: On February 16, 2010, Sheffield was announced as one of eight FCW contestants to take part in the first season of WWE's new "NXT" show, where he finished sixth.


title: Ryback

text: On the June 7 episode of "WWE Raw", Sheffield and the seven other "NXT" participants interfered in the main event match between John Cena and CM Punk, attacking both competitors as well as the announcing team before dismantling the ring area and surrounding equipment. The group, named The Nexus, would continue feuding with Cena over the following weeks. This resulted in a seven-on-seven elimination tag team match at the 2010 SummerSlam, where The Nexus lost to Team WWE led by Cena. In August, Reeves broke his ankle during a match, which made him undergo three surgeries and kept him away from wrestling for over a year until December 2011.


title: Ryback

text: Reeves returned to television on the April 6, 2012, episode of "WWE SmackDown", under the Ryback ring name as a fan favorite. Ryback's 38 match winning streak ended in a WWE Championship match against CM Punk at Hell in a Cell in October 2012, where he lost after a controversial pin by referee Brad Maddox. He failed to capture the title twice more from Punk, first at Survivor Series, and then on the January 7, 2013 episode of "Raw", both times being interfered and attacked by The Shield (Dean Ambrose, Roman Reigns and Seth Rollins).


title: Ryback

text: On January 27 at the Royal Rumble, Ryback entered the Royal Rumble match as the thirtieth and final entrant and eliminated five superstars before being the last man eliminated by John Cena. Ryback would then resume his rivalry with The Shield on the February 4 "Raw", when he teamed up with John Cena and Sheamus to attack the stable. This culminated in a six-man tag team match on February 17 at Elimination Chamber, where The Shield emerged victorious when Seth Rollins pinned Ryback for the win. The following night on "Raw", Ryback and Sheamus teamed up with Chris Jericho to face The Shield in a rematch, but were again defeated. Ryback then began a feud with Mark Henry after several non-verbal confrontations led to them attacking Drew McIntyre with their finishing moves in an attempt to one-up each other. On the March 15 episode of "SmackDown", Ryback defeated Henry via disqualification following interference from The Shield. Afterwards, Henry delivered the "World's Strongest Slam" to Ryback three times in a row. Ryback and Henry competed in a Bench Press Challenge on the March 29 "SmackDown", where Ryback tied Henry at 53 reps after Henry choked him with the weight. On April 7 at WrestleMania 29, Ryback was defeated by Henry in a singles match.


title: Ryback

text: The following night on "Raw", Ryback saved WWE Champion John Cena from assault by Mark Henry before attacking Cena as well, turning heel in the process for the first time since 2010. The following week on "Raw", Ryback explained his attack on Cena as stepping out from his shadow and getting revenge for Cena not having his back against The Shield; before Ryback got a measure of revenge later that night, by allowing the Shield to attack Cena. After becoming the number one contender to the WWE Championship, but Ryback continued his feud with Cena by attacking him on several occasions while also having confrontations with The Shield. Ryback received his title opportunity in a Last Man Standing match on May 19 at Extreme Rules. The match ended in a no contest after Ryback rammed Cena and himself into the electric backdrop at the top of the ramp. The following night on "Raw", Ryback entered the arena in an ambulance and challenged Cena to an ambulance match for the WWE Championship at the first-ever Payback pay-per-view. The following week on the May 27 episode of "Raw", Cena accepted Ryback's challenge, but announced their match would instead be a 3 Stages of Hell match; the first fall a lumberjack match, the second a tables match, and the third an ambulance match. On June 16 at Payback, Ryback won the lumberjack match, but went on to lose both the tables and ambulance matches and his shot at the WWE Championship, to end the feud.


title: Ryback

text: Ryback then began feuding with Chris Jericho, which led to a singles match on July 14 at Money in the Bank, where Ryback emerged victorious. In August, Ryback debuted a new gimmick, where he began bullying various backstage workers. Also as part of the gimmick, Ryback would back away from fighting opponents of equal size and taking advantage of smaller and vulnerable opponents, and do a poo in the ring.


title: Ryback

text: On September 15 at Night of Champions, Ryback aligned himself with Paul Heyman after helping him defeat CM Punk. Despite being a bully himself, Ryback claimed he hated bullies and vowed to stop CM Punk and anyone else who acted as such. On October 6 at Battleground, Ryback was defeated by Punk in a singles match following a low blow from Punk. On October 27 at Hell in a Cell, Ryback and Heyman were defeated by Punk in a 2-on-1 handicap Hell in a Cell match. The feud ended the following night on "Raw", when Punk defeated Ryback in a Street Fight match after forcing him to submit to the "Anaconda Vise", marking Ryback's first ever submission loss. On the November 11 episode of "Raw", the alliance between Ryback and Heyman came to an end when Heyman verbally berated him. On November 24 at Survivor Series, Ryback was defeated by the returning Mark Henry after he answered Ryback's open challenge.


title: Ryback

text: Ryback then began a tag team with fellow former Paul Heyman Guy Curtis Axel collectively labelled as "RybAxel", and on the December 6 episode of "SmackDown", they defeated WWE Tag Team Champions Cody Rhodes and Goldust in a non-title match to earn a shot at the titles. RybAxel received their title shot on December 15 at , but were defeated by Cody Rhodes and Goldust in a four-way elimination match, also involving Big Show/Rey Mysterio and The Real Americans (Antonio Cesaro and Jack Swagger). RybAxel received another shot at the WWE Tag Team Championship on April 6, 2014, on the WrestleMania XXX pre-show, but were defeated by defending champions The Usos in a fatal four-way elimination match, which also included Los Matadores and The Real Americans. At Payback, RybAxel defeated Cody Rhodes and Goldust in a tag team match. At Money in the Bank, RybAxel lost to Gold and Stardust. On July 2, it was announced that Ryback and Axel would be competing for the vacant Intercontinental Championship in a 19-man battle royal at Battleground, but neither Ryback or Axel managed to win. On August 26, 2014, Ryback underwent hernia surgery.


title: Ryback

text: After a two-month injury, Ryback returned on the October 27 episode of "Raw", as a face, returning to his old "Feed Me More" gimmick, and defeating Bo Dallas. Ryback would later end his association with Axel on the November 6 episode of "Superstars". Four days later on the November 10 episode of "Raw", Ryback appeared to join Team Authority for Survivor Series after attacking John Cena, but attacked his supposed teammates after they interfered in his match against Cena, joining Team Cena the following week. Ryback was eliminated by Rusev, but Team Cena won the match, putting The Authority out of power. Ryback defeated Team Authority member Kane in a Chairs match at . After Seth Rollins coaxed Cena to bring The Authority back into power, Ryback, along with Erick Rowan and Dolph Ziggler, were (kayfabe) fired by Triple H on the January 5 episode of "Raw" as punishment for insubordination, but they were re-hired after Cena defeated Rollins, Kane and Big Show in a handicap match due to the distraction caused by Sting, on the January 19 episode of "Raw". On the January 22 episode of "SmackDown", Ryback defeated Rusev via count-out to earn a spot in the Royal Rumble match, where he was eliminated by Big Show and Kane. At Fastlane, he teamed with Rowan and Ziggler in a six-man tag team match against Rollins, Big Show and Kane, but lost. Ryback participated in the André the Giant Memorial Battle Royal at WrestleMania 31, but was eliminated by the eventual winner, Big Show. On the "Raw" following Extreme Rules, Ryback was attacked by Bray Wyatt (who sent a series of mysterious promos aimed at Ryback weeks prior), leading to a match at Payback, which Ryback lost.


title: Ryback

text: At Elimination Chamber, Ryback won the vacant Intercontinental Championship, his first professional wrestling championship in WWE, by defeating Sheamus, Dolph Ziggler, R-Truth, King Barrett and Mark Henry in an Elimination Chamber match. The following night, before Ryback was scheduled to make his first title defense against The Miz; Big Show attacked Miz and confronted Ryback, starting a feud between the two. At Money in the Bank, Big Show defeated Ryback by disqualification after Miz attacked him; Ryback retained the title as a result. Ryback was scheduled to defend the title against Big Show and Miz in a triple threat match at Battleground, but the match was postponed after Ryback developed a staph infection in his knee; the match was rescheduled for SummerSlam, where Ryback pinned The Miz to retain the title. Ryback once again defended his championship against Big Show on the August 31 episode of "Raw", where he pinned Show after a distraction from The Miz, ending the feud. On the September 11 episode of "SmackDown", Kevin Owens, who was one of the lumberjacks, cost him a win against Seth Rollins. Three days later on the September 14 episode of "Raw", it was announced that he would face Owens at Night of Champions for his Intercontinental Championship. Owens won the match by pinfall after he raked Ryback's eyes, ending his reign at 112 days. After initially failing to regain the title using his rematch clause after Owens proceeded to get himself counted out, Ryback defeated Rusev to earn another opportunity at Hell in a Cell, where Ryback failed to regain the championship from Owens, ending the feud.


title: Ryback

text: On the November 12 episode of "SmackDown", Ryback would enter the 16-man tournament to crown the new WWE World Heavyweight Champion, but he would lose to Kalisto in the first round. At Survivor Series, Ryback participated in a five-on-five elimination tag team match, teaming with The Usos and The Lucha Dragons to defeat The New Day, Sheamus and King Barrett. In December, Ryback started a feud with Rusev after interrupting Rusev and the returning Lana on "Miz TV", which would lead to a match between the two at , where Ryback was defeated by Rusev by technical knockout. On January 24, 2016, Ryback competed in the Royal Rumble match for the WWE World Heavyweight Championship as the ninth entrant, but was eliminated by Big Show.


title: Ryback

text: On the February 4 episode of "SmackDown", Ryback debuted a new look, abandoning his singlet and now sporting black trunks, where he defeated Erick Rowan, but was attacked by The Wyatt Family. Ryback teamed up with Big Show and Kane, being billed as "the titans" of WWE, to defeat Wyatt Family members Erick Rowan, Luke Harper and Braun Strowman in a six-man tag team match at Fastlane, with Ryback pinning Harper for the victory. The next night on "Raw", during a rematch between the two teams, Ryback walked out on Big Show and Kane, and later proclaimed that he was tired of being in tag team matches, turning heel for the first time since 2014.


title: Ryback

text: On the March 7 episode of "Raw", Ryback confronted United States Champion Kalisto backstage, leading to a title match between them on the WrestleMania 32 pre-show, which Ryback lost. In a non-title rematch between the two on the April 21 episode of "SmackDown", Ryback defeated Kalisto, reigniting their feud. With the win, he earned another shot at Kalisto's United States Championship at Payback, but was again defeated on the pre-show, this was his final match and final appearance in WWE.


title: Ryback

text: On May 2, it was reported that WWE had sent Reeves home from television due to a contract dispute, and he did not participate in a battle royal match he was promoted for. The following day on May 3, Reeves posted a long explanation on his personal Tumblr page, confirming that he himself made the decision to go home, and cited a lack of equal pay for talent and creative frustration as primary reasons for his departure.


title: Ryback

text: On August 5, Reeves announced on Instagram that he and WWE had parted ways. Three days later, WWE released Ryback.


title: Ryback

text: Immediately after announcing his departure from WWE, Reeves announced via Instagram that he would be taking independent bookings. He has not lost a match on the independent circuit from August 2017 to August 2018, and has not wrestled since August 2018. Reeves teased joining All Elite Wrestling in a Twitter post, where he stated he was "going to the competition". He later tweeted out a video of himself standing in front of slot machines, seemingly confirming himself as the surprise entrant in the Casino Battle Royale at Double or Nothing 2021. Despite the tease, however, he would not make an appearance at the event, and has not made an appearance in AEW.


title: Ryback

text: The Ryback character has been described as "Goldberg meets The Ultimate Warrior meets Rob Van Dam's tights". Owing to similarities between him and Goldberg (the latter of whom was estranged from WWE at the time, due to his own failed stint with the company in 2003–2004), the portmanteau of "Ryberg" was devised for Reeves. In October 2012, after Reeves allegedly "stole" a move used by Goldberg during a match, Goldberg would respond by stating, "now comparisons offend me". Spectators at WWE events had been chanting "Goldberg" during Reeves' matches from 2012, which Reeves said "never bothered [him]". In response to podcast host and mixed martial artist Chael Sonnen's confusion about Ryback's appeal in late 2014, former WWE writer Jon Piermarini noted that the creative staff were doing "essentially the exact same thing they did with the character when it did not work or catch on the first time" and would only continue to get Goldberg's character over as Ryback.


title: Ryback

text: Reeves has garnered praise from peers such as Wade Barrett, who called himself "a huge fan of Ryback". WWE Hall of Famer Mick Foley said Ryback "had been doing a great job" in his solo promos, and that Ryback's first verbal interaction opposite Foley in 2013 "went really well".


title: Ryback

text: Reeves's in-ring work as Ryback has been criticized by some writers and fans since 2012, when IGN reporter Matt Fowler described Reeves as "green", "unsafe", and lacking in stamina. This was after Reeves botched his "Shell Shocked" (a cradle suplex lifted and dropped into a running horizontal muscle buster) finishing move multiple times on Tensai on the October 1 episode of "Raw", which was described by an "IB Times" writer as "hard to watch". Reeves later attributed the error to sickness and improper technique on his part. Readers of the "Wrestling Observer Newsletter" voted Ryback the "Most Overrated" wrestler in the publication's 2012 awards, and WWE live crowds went on to chant "You can't wrestle" at Reeves in 2013. On the other hand, Jon Piermarini felt that Reeves had the potential to be successful under a new gimmick, stating: "I see a lot of good qualities and I see someone who can talk, I see someone that could be different and stand out... I think that there's something there".


title: Ryback

text: According to Mike Johnson of "PWInsider", Dolph Ziggler received a concussion from a stiff clothesline by Reeves in a January 2014 match, with Johnson reporting that this damaged Reeves's reputation among peers along with ongoing complaints of his recklessness – a reason why his recent pushes were aborted. In November 2014, CM Punk labelled Reeves as a "steroid guy" and said that wrestling him "took 20 years off" his life, while also claiming that Reeves purposely broke his ribs. Reeves denied the notion that he is a hazardous wrestler, and claimed that he would not be placed in matches with top WWE stars if he were as unsafe as some have claimed. Veteran wrestler Chris Jericho also dismissed the allegations of dangerous in-ring performance directed at Reeves, saying: "Having worked with [him], I've never seen those types of things... it was always fun". Former WWE producer Arn Anderson said he never "had an issue working with him on matches or anything. He was always very, very easy to work with".


title: Ryback

text: Former World Champion Mark Henry said of Reeves's reputation: "A lot of his peers look at him as difficult. A lot of his peers looked at him as dangerous." He also expressed displeasure with Reeves "talk[ing] shit" about the industry (including once labelling it "fake"), which Henry said had drawn the ire of many other wrestlers besides himself.


title: Abwehr

text: The Abwehr (German for "resistance" or "defence", but the word usually means "counterintelligence" in a military context; ) was the German military-intelligence service for the "Reichswehr" and the "Wehrmacht" from 1920 to 1944. Although the 1919 Treaty of Versailles prohibited the Weimar Republic from establishing an intelligence organization of their own, they formed an espionage group in 1920 within the Ministry of Defence, calling it the "Abwehr". The initial purpose of the "Abwehr" was defence against foreign espionage: an organizational role which later evolved considerably. Under General Kurt von Schleicher (prominent in running the "Reichswehr" from 1926 onwards) the individual military services' intelligence units were combined and, in 1929, centralized under Schleicher's "Ministeramt" within the Ministry of Defence, forming the foundation for the more commonly understood manifestation of the "Abwehr".


title: Abwehr

text: Each "Abwehr" station throughout Germany was based on the local army district ("Wehrkreis"); more offices opened in amenable neutral countries and (as the greater Reich expanded) in the occupied territories. On 4 February 1938, the Ministry of Defence—renamed the Ministry of War in 1935—was dissolved and became the Oberkommando der Wehrmacht (OKW) with Hitler in direct command. The OKW formed part of the Führer's personal "working staff" from June 1938 and the "Abwehr" became its intelligence agency under Vice-Admiral Wilhelm Canaris. The Abwehr had its headquarters at 76/78 Tirpitzufer (the present-day Reichpietschufer) in Berlin, adjacent to the offices of the OKW.


title: Abwehr

text: The "Abwehr" was created in 1920 as part of the German Ministry of Defence when the German government was allowed to form the "Reichswehr", the military organization of the Weimar Republic. The first head of the "Abwehr" was Major Friedrich Gempp, a former deputy to Colonel Walter Nicolai, the head of German intelligence during World War I, who proved mostly ineffectual. At that time it was composed of only three officers and seven former officers, plus a clerical staff. When Gempp became a general, he was promoted out of the job as chief, to be followed by Major Günther Schwantes, whose term as the organization's leader was also brief. Many members of the "Reichswehr" (a significant portion of them Prussian) declined when asked to consider intelligence work, since for them, it was outside the realm of actual military service and the act of spying clashed with their Prussian military sensibilities of always showing themselves direct, loyal, and sincere. By the 1920s, the slowly growing "Abwehr" was organised into three sections:


title: Abwehr

text: The "Reichsmarine" intelligence staff merged with the "Abwehr" in 1928. While the Treaty of Versailles forbade Germany from engaging in any form of espionage or spying, during the Nazi era the "Abwehr" disregarded this prohibition, as they saw it as hypocritical.


title: Abwehr

text: In the 1930s, with the rise of the Nazi movement, the Ministry of Defence was reorganised; surprisingly, on 7 June 1932, a naval officer, Captain Konrad Patzig, was named chief of the "Abwehr", despite the fact that it was staffed largely by army officers. Proving himself quite a capable chief, Patzig swiftly assured the military of his intentions and worked to earn their respect; he established good connections with the Lithuanian clandestine service against the Soviets, forged relations with other foreign agencies—except for Italy, whose cipher he distrusted. His successes did not stop the other branches of the military services from developing their own intelligence staffs.


title: Abwehr

text: After the Nazis seized power, the "Abwehr" began sponsoring reconnaissance flights across the border with Poland, under the direction of Patzig, but this led to confrontations with Heinrich Himmler, head of the SS. Army leaders also feared that the flights would endanger the secret plans for an attack on Poland. Adolf Hitler ordered the termination of the overflights in 1934 after he signed a nonaggression treaty with Poland since these reconnaissance missions might be discovered and jeopardize the treaty. Patzig was fired in January 1935 as a result, and sent to command the new pocket battleship "Admiral Graf Spee"; he later became Chief of Naval Personnel. His replacement was another "Reichsmarine" captain, Wilhelm Canaris.


title: Abwehr

text: Before he took over the "Abwehr" on 1 January 1935, the soon-to-be Admiral Canaris was warned by Patzig of attempts by Himmler and Reinhard Heydrich to take over all German intelligence organizations. Heydrich, who headed the "Sicherheitsdienst" (SD) from 1931, had a negative attitude towards the "Abwehr"—shaped in part by his belief that Germany's defeat in the First World War was primarily attributable to failures of military intelligence, and by his ambitions to control all political intelligence-gathering for Germany.


title: Abwehr

text: Canaris, a master of backroom dealings, thought he knew how to deal with Heydrich and Himmler. Though he tried to maintain a cordial relationship with them, the antagonism between the "Abwehr" and the SS did not stop when Canaris took over. Not only was competition with Heydrich and Himmler's intelligence operations a hindrance, so too were the redundant attempts by multiple organizations to control communications intelligence (COMINT) for the Reich. For instance, Canaris's Abwehr controlled the Armed Forces Deciphering operation, while the navy maintained its own listening service, known as the "B-Dienst". Further complicating COMINT matters, the Foreign Office also had its own communications security branch, the "Pers Z S".


title: Abwehr

text: Matters came to a head in 1937 when Hitler decided to help Joseph Stalin in the latter's purge of the Soviet military. Hitler ordered that the German Army staff should be kept in the dark about Stalin's intentions, for fear that they would warn their Soviet counterparts due to their long-standing relations. Accordingly, special SS teams, accompanied by burglary experts from the criminal police, broke into the secret files of the General Staff and the "Abwehr" and removed documents related to German-Soviet collaboration. To conceal the thefts, fires were started at the break-ins, which included "Abwehr" headquarters.


title: Abwehr

text: Before the reorganization of the OKW in 1938, the "Abwehr" was merely a department within the "Reichswehrministerium" (Ministry of Armed Forces), and it was not until after Canaris was appointed chief that its numbers increased and it gained some independence. Experiencing an explosion in personnel of sorts, the "Abwehr" went from fewer than 150 employees to nearly one-thousand between 1935 and 1937. Canaris reorganized the agency in 1938, subdividing the "Abwehr" into three main sections:


title: Abwehr

text: "Abwehr" liaisons were also established with the army, navy and Luftwaffe High Commands, and these liaisons would pass on specific intelligence requests to the operational sections of the "Abwehr".


title: Abwehr

text: "Abwehr" I was commanded by Colonel Hans Pieckenbrock, "Abwehr" II was commanded by Colonel Erwin von Lahousen and "Abwehr" III was commanded by Colonel Egbert Bentivegni. These three officers formed the core of the Abwehr.


title: Abwehr

text: Under the structure outlined above, the "Abwehr" placed a local station in each military district in Germany, (""Wehrkreis""), called 'Abwehrstelle' or 'Ast'. Following the German Table of Organisation and Equipment model of "Abwehr" headquarters, each "Ast" was usually subdivided into sections for


title: Abwehr

text: Typically each "Ast" would be commanded by a senior army or naval officer and would be answerable to "Abwehr" HQ. in Berlin. Operations carried out by each "Ast" would be in tandem with the overall strategic plan formulated by Admiral Canaris. Canaris in turn would receive instructions on what intelligence gathering should take priority from the OKW or, increasingly after 1941, Hitler directly. In practice, each "Ast" was given considerable latitude in mission planning and execution—a facet of the organisation which ultimately damaged its intelligence gathering capability.


title: Abwehr

text: Each local "Ast" could recruit potential agents for missions and the "Abwehr" also employed freelance recruiters to groom and vet potential agents. In most cases, the agents were recruited civilians, not officers/soldiers from the military. The recruitment emphasis seems to have been very much on "quantity" not "quality". The poor quality of recruits often led to the failure of "Abwehr" missions.


title: Abwehr

text: In neutral countries the "Abwehr" frequently disguised its organisation by attaching personnel to the German Embassy or to trade missions. Such postings were referred to as "War Organisations" (""Kriegsorganisationen"" or ""KO's"" in German). In neutral but friendly Spain for example, the "Abwehr" had both an "Ast" and a KO while Ireland had neither. In friendly countries of interest, occupied countries, or in Germany, the intelligence service would normally organise "Abwehr sub-stations" (""Abwehrleitstellen"" in German or ""Alsts"" in German), or "Abwehr adjoining posts" (""Abwehrnebenstellen"" in German). The ""Alsts"" would fall under the jurisdiction of the geographically appropriate "Ast", which in turn would be supervised by the Central division in Berlin. For a while, the KOs were tolerated by the neutral countries and those who feared Germany too much to protest but as the Allied powers waged war against Germany, many of the KOs were simply expelled at the host countries request—due at least in part to pressure from the Allies.


title: Abwehr

text: Before the war began, the "Abwehr" was fairly active and effective as it built a wide range of contacts; they developed links with the Ukrainians opposed to the Soviet regime, conducted meetings with Indian nationalists working against British rule in India, and established an information-sharing agreement with the Japanese. There was even some significant penetration into the extent of the United States industrial capacity and economic potential, and data was collected by the "Abwehr" concerning American military capacity and contingency planning.


title: Abwehr

text: Sometime in March 1937, senior "Abwehr" officer Paul Thümmel provided a vast array of significant information about the German intelligence services to Czech agents who in turn, forwarded the data to SIS London. Thümmel also delivered details over "military capabilities, and intentions" as well as "detailed information on the organization and structure of the "Abwehr" and SD along with "the near-complete order of battle of the Wehrmacht and Luftwaffe, and German mobilization plans"; and, later "he gave advanced warnings of the German annexation of the Sudetenland as well as the invasions of Czechoslovakia and Poland."


title: Abwehr

text: After assumption of absolute control over the OKW in February 1938, Hitler declared that he did not want men of intelligence under his command, but men of brutality, an observation which did not sit well with Canaris. Whether he was deeply troubled by Hitler's comment or not, Canaris and the "Abwehr" still busied themselves preparing the ideological groundwork for the annexation of Austria which occurred in March 1938.


title: Abwehr

text: A month later, Canaris and the "Abwehr" were set to work subverting the Czechs as part of Hitler's strategy to acquire the Sudetenland. Before the spring of 1938 came to an end, the conservative members of the German Foreign Office and many ranking officers in the military began sharing their fears over an impending international disaster and the threat of another catastrophic European war based on Hitler's actions. A conspiratorial group formed around General Erwin von Witzleben and Admiral Canaris as a result. Throughout the process, Canaris and subordinates such as Helmuth Groscurth worked to prevent war to the extent feasible. Meanwhile, Canaris participated in the plots among the military leadership for a coup against Hitler and attempted to open up covert communication lines with the British, convinced that Hitler would push Europe to war. Before the actual invasion of Poland occurred, the "Abwehr" went so far as to send a special emissary, Ewald von Kleist-Schmenzin, to London in order to warn them. Subverting the Nazi government with warnings to the Allies was but one part of the picture, as this move did not stop or deter Canaris from obeying Hitler's orders to provide 150 Polish army uniforms and small arms to Himmler and Heydrich for their staged attack on a German radio station by 'Polish' forces; one act which Hitler used to justify his assault on Poland.


title: Abwehr

text: Under Canaris, the "Abwehr" expanded and proved to be efficient during the early years of the war. Its most notable success was Operation Nordpol, which was an operation against the Dutch underground network, which at the time was supported by the Special Operations Executive. Concomitant to the period known as the Phoney War, the "Abwehr" collected information on Denmark and Norway. Shipping in and out of Danish and Norwegian ports was placed under observation and over 150,000 tons of shipping was destroyed as a result. Agents in Norway and Denmark successfully penetrated their military thoroughly enough to determine the disposition and strength of land forces in both countries and deep-cover "Abwehr" operatives kept the German forces, particularly the Luftwaffe, intimately informed during the invasion of Norway. Against both of these nations, the "Abwehr" mounted what one would call a successful intelligence operation of some scale and proved itself critical to the success of German military endeavors there.


title: Abwehr

text: Fear over the drastically low levels of available petroleum at the beginning of 1940 prompted activity from the German Foreign Office and the "Abwehr" in an attempt to ameliorate the problem "by concluding an unprecedented arms-for-oil" deal, brokered so as to push back the "Anglo-French dominance in the Ploiești oilfield." "Abwehr" operatives also played on Romanian fears, making them more amenable to Hitler's offer to shield them from the Soviets—through which the Germans acquired cheap oil. In this regard, the "Abwehr" provided some semblance of economic utility for the Nazi regime.


title: Abwehr

text: In March 1941, the Germans forced a captured SOE radio operator to transmit messages to Britain in a code that the Germans had obtained. Even though the operator gave indications that he was compromised, the receiver in Britain did not notice. Thus the Germans were able to penetrate the Dutch operation and maintained this state of affairs for two years, capturing agents, and sending false intelligence and sabotage reports until the British caught on. In "Bodyguard of Lies" Anthony Brown suggests that the British were well aware that the radios were compromised and used this method to feed false information to the Germans regarding the site of the D-Day landings.


title: Abwehr

text: Hitler sent Canaris as a special envoy to Madrid during the early summer of 1940 to convince Spain to join in the coming fight against the Allies, for which Gibraltar could have strategic military value. The repeat visit, in December 1940, was a failure; Franco, for various political and military reasons, was not ready to join the German war effort.


title: Abwehr

text: Initial estimates of the Soviet Red Army's will and capability were low, a line of thinking shared by the Nazi hierarchy. A great deal has been made by historians over this fact, but some of the German General Staff's optimism was the result of estimates provided by the "Abwehr", whose assessments left the German General Staff believing that the Red Army only possessed ninety infantry divisions, twenty-three cavalry divisions, and a mere twenty-eight mechanized brigades. By the time the reappraisal of the Red Army by German military intelligence occurred in mid-June 1941 (which was about 25 percent higher than previously reported), it was a foregone conclusion that Hitler's invasion of the Soviet Union was going to take place.


title: Abwehr

text: Late assessments from the "Abwehr" contributed to military overconfidence and their reporting mechanism said nothing of the massive mobilization capability of the Soviet Union, an oversight that arguably contributed to the German defeat since time-tables were so important for German success. The German Army's failure to reach its objectives in short order proved pivotal; once winter came, improperly outfitted German forces suffered when supplies did not reach them. Overestimating their capabilities and trusting their own assessments too much, as well as underestimating their enemies (especially the Soviets and the Americans), atop long-standing traditions of unconditional obedience, comprised a historically central weakness in the German system, according to historian Klaus Fischer.


title: Abwehr

text: On 8 September 1941, under the auspices of the Commissar Order ("Kommissarbefehl") the OKW issued a decree concerning the ruthless ideological imperatives of the Nazi state against all semblance of Bolshevism, a provision that included executing Soviet commissars and prisoners of war. Admiral Canaris, the head of the "OKW Ausland/Abwehr", immediately expressed concern about the military and political ramifications of this order. Killing soldiers and even non-combatants in contravention of the Geneva Convention was not something the "Abwehr" leadership—namely Canaris—supported.


title: Abwehr

text: The "Abwehr" was active in North Africa leading up to and during the Western Desert Campaign of 1941-42. North Africa, like other cases, proved disastrous for the "Abwehr". The greatest failure occurred as a result of deception operations conducted by the British. An Italian of Jewish ancestry was recruited in France sometime in 1940 by the "Abwehr". Unknown to the Germans, this individual was an agent codenamed "Cheese" who was already working for the British SIS before the war began. In February 1941, the "Abwehr" sent Cheese to Egypt to report on any British military operations; instead of providing his German handlers with accurate information, he passed strategic deception materials and hundreds of MI5 doctored messages to Nazi intelligence by way of a fictitious sub-agent named ‘Paul Nicosoff’, helping to ensure the success of Operation Torch. Confirmation of this fact came when one of Hitler's most trusted military advisers, Chief of the OKW Operations Staff, General Alfred Jodl, later informed his Allied interrogators that the Allied landings in North Africa came as a total surprise to the German general staff.


title: Abwehr

text: The need for upwards of 500 more agents to supplement intelligence operations in North Africa prompted the "Abwehr" to get creative. Arab prisoners of war (POWs) languishing in French camps were offered a trip back to their homeland if they agreed to spy for the Germans in North Africa, as were Soviet POWs in the east. Other intelligence collection efforts included working closely with the "Luftwaffe" on aerial reconnaissance missions over North Africa. Previously, aerial reconnaissance was ordered by army intelligence officers of the Army Group HQ (part of the structure to which the "Abwehr" was assigned). Major Witilo von Griesheim was sent to (Italian) Libya in early 1941 to set up AST Tripoli (code name WIDO). He soon set up a network of agents and wireless stations gathering information in Libya and in the surrounding French territories. In mid-July 1941, Admiral Canaris ordered "Luftwaffe" Major Nikolaus Ritter of "Abwehr" I to form a unit to infiltrate Egypt through the desert to make contact with the Egyptian Army Chief of Staff, el Masri Pasha, but this effort repeatedly failed. Accompanying Ritter in Libya was the Hungarian desert explorer László Almásy with a mission to gather intelligence from British-held Egypt. After Ritter was injured and sent away, Almásy took over command, and organised the 1942 Operation Salam, which succeeded in transporting two German agents across the Libyan Desert behind enemy lines to Egypt. In July 1942, Almásy and his agents were captured by British counterintelligence operatives.


title: Abwehr

text: Other operations in North Africa were occurring concomitantly with those of Almásy and Ritter. During late January 1942 for instance, the OKW authorized the creation of a special unit, "Sonderkommando Dora", which was placed under the command of "Abwehr" officer, Oberstleutnant Walter Eichler (formerly a Panzer officer as well). The unit included geologists, cartographers, and mineralogists, who were sent into North Africa to study desert topography and assess the terrain for military use, but by November 1942—following the Axis retreat from El Alamein—"Sonderkommando Dora" along with the Brandenburgers operating in the area, were withdrawn from the Sahara altogether.


title: Abwehr

text: An Iranian national recruited in Hamburg by the "Abwehr" before the war was converted into a double agent by British and Russian intelligence officers (working together in one of the few joint intelligence efforts of the war), who code-named him "Kiss". From late 1944 until the end of the war, Kiss, who was based out of the intelligence center in Baghdad, provided false information on Soviet and British troop movements in Iraq and Iran to the "Abwehr"; as directed by his Allied controllers. On the Afghan border, the "Abwehr" sought to turn the Faqir of Ipi against British forces. They infiltrated the region using Manfred Oberdorffer, a physician, and Fred Hermann Brandt, an entomologist under the guise of a medical mission to conduct research on leprosy.


title: Abwehr

text: Just how committed to German victory were typical members of the "Abwehr" is difficult to assess, but if its leadership tells a story, it is not one of conviction. For instance, during March 1942 when many Germans still had confidence in their Führer and their army, Canaris saw things differently and told General Friedrich Fromm that there was no way Germany could win the war.


title: Abwehr

text: Canaris had made the United States a primary target even before its entry into the conflict. By 1942, German agents were operating from within all of America's top armaments manufacturers. The "Abwehr" also suffered a very public debacle in Operation Pastorius, which resulted in the executions of six "Abwehr" agents sent to the United States to sabotage the American aluminum industry. The "Abwehr" attempted use of coercion as a means to infiltrate the United States when they 'recruited' a naturalized American citizen visiting Germany, William G. Sebold, by Gestapo threats and blackmail, code-naming him TRAMP, and assigning him the task of "serving as radio and microfilm channel for Major Nikolaus Ritter, head of the "Abwehr" Hamburg post's air intelligence section". Unfortunately for the Germans, who used Sebold successfully for a short period, he was discovered, and became a counterspy, and his communications to Germany were screened by the FBI. Not every spy the "Abwehr" sent was captured or converted in this manner, but the Americans, and especially the British, proved mostly successful in countering the efforts of the German "Abwehr" officers, and used them to their advantage.


title: Abwehr

text: The "Abwehr" was impaired by agents who aided the Allies in whatever covert means were necessary. Canaris personally gave false information that discouraged Hitler from invading Switzerland (Operation Tannenbaum). He also persuaded Francisco Franco not to allow German forces to pass through Spain to invade Gibraltar (Operation Felix), but it may have been just as much the imposition of the SD. The SD was allegedly spreading rumors about the partition of Spain. SD operatives also established a station at the central post office in Madrid to police mail going through Spain, and even attempted to assassinate one of Franco's pro-Allied generals, which strengthened Franco's intransigence to Hitler and the Nazi regime.


title: Abwehr

text: Still, images of the "Abwehr" as a veritable organ of resistance inside the heart of Nazi Germany are not an accurate reflection across the spectrum of its entire operations or its personnel. There were some committed Nazis in its ranks. Before the invasion of Poland for instance, the "Abwehr" and SiPo jointly drew up a list of over sixty-thousand names, people who were to be the targets of Operation Tannenberg, an effort designed to systematically identify and liquidate the Polish elite. For several months before the invasion of the Soviet Union, the "Abwehr" was key in deception operations set up to convince the British and the Soviets that Great Britain was under threat of imminent invasion, an undertaking which helped soften the eastern territories for Operation Barbarossa. Before the commencement of the attack on the Soviet Union, the "Abwehr" also spread rumours that the British talk of an impending German attack was nothing more than disinformation.