title: Tetraethyllead

text: Tetraethyllead helped cool intake valves and was an excellent buffer against microwelds forming between exhaust valves and their seats. Once these valves reopen, the microwelds pull apart and abrade the valves and seats, leading to valve recession. When TEL began to be phased out, the automotive industry began specifying hardened valve seats and upgraded materials which allow for high wear resistance without requiring lead.


title: Tetraethyllead

text: A gasoline-fuelled reciprocating engine requires fuel of sufficient octane rating to prevent uncontrolled combustion (preignition and detonation). Antiknock agents allow the use of higher compression ratios for greater efficiency and peak power. Adding varying amounts of additives to gasoline allowed easy, inexpensive control of octane ratings. TEL offered the business advantage of being commercially profitable because its use for this purpose could be patented. Aviation fuels with TEL used in WWII reached octane ratings of 150 to enable turbocharged and supercharged engines such as the Rolls-Royce Merlin and Griffon to reach high horsepower ratings at altitude. In military aviation, TEL manipulation allowed a range of different fuels to be tailored for particular flight conditions.


title: Tetraethyllead

text: In 1935 a licence to produce TEL was given to IG Farben, enabling the newly formed German to use high-octane gasoline. A company, Ethyl GmbH, was formed that produced TEL at two sites in Germany with a government contract from 10 June 1936.


title: Tetraethyllead

text: In 1938 the United Kingdom Air Ministry contracted with ICI for the construction and operation of a TEL plant. A site was chosen at Holford Moss, near Plumley in Cheshire. Construction started in April 1939 and TEL was being produced by September 1940.


title: Tetraethyllead

text: For mixing with raw gasoline, TEL was most commonly supplied in the form of "Ethyl Fluid", which consisted of TEL blended with 1,2-dichloroethane and 1,2-dibromoethane. Ethyl Fluid also contained a reddish dye to distinguish treated from untreated gasoline and discourage the use of leaded gasoline for other purposes such as cleaning.


title: Tetraethyllead

text: In the 1920s before safety procedures were strengthened, 17 workers for the Ethyl Corporation, DuPont, and Standard Oil died from the effects of exposure to lead.


title: Tetraethyllead

text: Dichloroethane and dibromoethane act in a synergistic manner, where equal or approximately equal quantities of both provide the best scavenging ability.


title: Tetraethyllead

text: In most industrialized countries, a phaseout of TEL from road vehicle fuels was completed by the early 2000s because of concerns over air and soil lead levels and the accumulative neurotoxicity of lead. In the European Union, tetraethyllead has been classified as a Substance of Very High Concern and placed on the Candidate List for Authorisation under Registration, Evaluation, Authorisation and Restriction of Chemicals (REACH). Potential use of TEL would need to be authorised through the REACH authorisation procedure. While not a complete ban, it introduces significant obligations such as a mandatory analysis of alternatives and socioeconomic analysis.


title: Tetraethyllead

text: The use of catalytic converters, mandated in the United States for 1975 and later model-year cars to meet tighter emissions regulations, started a gradual phase-out of leaded gasoline in the U.S. The need for TEL was lessened by several advances in automotive engineering and petroleum chemistry. Safer methods for making higher-octane blending stocks such as reformate and iso-octane reduced the need to rely on TEL, as did other antiknock additives of varying toxicity including metallic compounds such as methylcyclopentadienyl manganese tricarbonyl (MMT) as well as oxygenates including methyl tertiary-butyl ether (MTBE), "tert"-amyl methyl ether (TAME), and ethyl "tert"-butyl ether (ETBE).


title: Tetraethyllead

text: Lead-replacement additives were scientifically tested, and some were approved by the Federation of British Historic Vehicle Clubs at the UK's Motor Industry Research Association in 1999.


title: Tetraethyllead

text: In Europe, Professor Derek Bryce-Smith was among the first to highlight the potential dangers of TEL and became a leading campaigner for removal of lead additives from petrol. However, leaded motor fuel re-entered the UK market in small quantities from 2000 in response to lobbying from classic-car organisations who contended their vehicles would be rendered useless without leaded fuel. Bayford & Co was the only wholesale supplier.


title: Tetraethyllead

text: Vehicles designed and built to run on leaded fuel often require modification to run on unleaded gasoline. These modifications fall into two categories: those required for physical compatibility with unleaded fuel, and those performed to compensate for the relatively low octane of early unleaded fuels. Physical compatibility requires the installation of hardened exhaust valves and seats. Compatibility with reduced octane was addressed by reducing compression, generally by installing thicker cylinder head gaskets and/or rebuilding the engine with compression-reducing pistons, although modern high-octane unleaded gasoline has eliminated the need to decrease compression ratios.


title: Tetraethyllead

text: Leaded gasoline remained legal as of late 2014 in parts of Algeria, Iraq, Yemen, Myanmar, North Korea, and Afghanistan. North Korea and Myanmar purchased their TEL from China, while Algeria, Iraq, and Yemen purchased it from the specialty chemical company Innospec, the world's sole remaining legal manufacturer of TEL. In 2011 several Innospec executives were charged and imprisoned for bribing various government state-owned oil companies to approve the sale of their TEL products.


title: Tetraethyllead

text: Leaded fuel was commonly used in professional motor racing, until its phase out beginning in the 1990s. Since 1993, Formula One racing cars have been required to use fuel containing no more than 5 mg/L of lead.


title: Tetraethyllead

text: NASCAR began experimentation in 1998 with an unleaded fuel, and in 2006 began switching the national series to unleaded fuel, completing the transition at the Fontana round in February 2007 when the premier class switched. This was influenced after blood tests of NASCAR teams revealed elevated blood lead levels.


title: Tetraethyllead

text: TEL remains an ingredient of 100 octane avgas for piston-engine aircraft. The current formulation of 100LL (low lead, blue) aviation gasoline contains of TEL, half the amount of the previous 100/130 (green) octane avgas (at 4.24 grams per gallon), and twice as much as the 1 gram per gallon permitted in regular automotive leaded gasoline prior to 1988 and substantially greater than the allowed 0.001 grams per gallon in automotive unleaded gasoline sold in the United States today. The United States Environmental Protection Agency, FAA, and others are working on economically feasible replacements for leaded avgas, which still releases 100 tons of lead every year. Children living near airports servicing small (piston-engine) aircraft have measurably higher concentrations of lead in their blood.


title: Tetraethyllead

text: Antiknock agents are classed as "high-percentage" additives, such as alcohol, and "low-percentage" additives based on heavy elements. Since the main problem with TEL is its lead content, many alternative additives that contain less poisonous metals have been examined. A manganese-carrying additive, methylcyclopentadienyl manganese tricarbonyl (MMT or methylcymantrene), was used for a time as an antiknock agent, though its safety is controversial and it has been the subject of bans and lawsuits. Ferrocene, an organometallic compound of iron, is also used as an antiknock agent although with some significant drawbacks.


title: Tetraethyllead

text: High-percentage additives are organic compounds that do not contain metals, but require much higher blending ratios, such as 20–30% for benzene and ethanol. It had been established by 1921 that ethanol was an effective antiknock agent, but TEL was introduced instead mainly for commercial reasons. Oxygenates such as TAME derived from natural gas, MTBE made from methanol, and ethanol-derived ETBE, have largely supplanted TEL. MTBE has environmental risks of its own and there are also bans on its use.


title: Tetraethyllead

text: Improvements to gasoline itself decrease the need for antiknock additives. Synthetic iso-octane and alkylate are examples of such blending stocks. Benzene and other high-octane aromatics can be also blended to raise the octane number, but they are disfavored today because of toxicity and carcinogenicity.


title: Tetraethyllead

text: Tetraethyllead is highly toxic, with as little as 6 mL being enough to induce severe lead poisoning. The hazards of TEL's lead content are heightened due to the compound's volatility and high lipophilicity, enabling it to easily cross the blood–brain barrier and accumulate in the limbic system, frontal cortex, and hippocampus, making chelation therapy ineffective.


title: Tetraethyllead

text: Early symptoms of acute exposure to tetraethyllead can manifest as irritation of the eyes and skin, sneezing, fever, vomiting, and a metallic taste in the mouth. Later symptoms of acute TEL poisoning include pulmonary edema, anemia, ataxia, convulsions, severe weight loss, delirium, irritability, hallucinations, nightmares, fever, muscle and joint pain, swelling of the brain, coma, and damage to cardiovascular and renal organs.


title: Tetraethyllead

text: Chronic exposure to TEL can cause long-term negative effects such as memory loss, delayed reflexes, neurological problems, insomnia, tremors, psychosis, loss of attention, and an overall decrease in IQ and cognitive function.


title: Tetraethyllead

text: The carcinogenity of tetraethyllead is debatable. It is believed to harm the male reproductive system and cause birth defects.


title: Tetraethyllead

text: Concerns over the toxicity of lead eventually led to the ban on TEL in automobile gasoline in many countries. Some neurologists have speculated that the lead phaseout may have caused average IQ levels to rise by several points in the US (by reducing cumulative brain damage throughout the population, especially in the young). For the entire US population, during and after the TEL phaseout, the mean blood lead level dropped from 16 μg/dL in 1976 to only 3 μg/dL in 1991. The U.S. Centers of Disease control previously labelled children with 10 µg/dL or more as having a "blood lead level of concern." In 2021, the level was lowered in accordance with the average lead level in the U.S. decreasing to 3.5 µg/dL or more as having a "blood lead level of concern."


title: Tetraethyllead

text: In 1853, German chemist Karl Jacob Löwig (1803–1890) first prepared what he claimed was Pb(CH) from ethyl iodide and an alloy of lead and sodium. In 1859, English chemist George Bowdler Buckton (1818–1905) reported what he claimed was Pb(CH) from zinc ethyl (Zn(CH)) and lead(II) chloride. Later authors credit both methods of preparation with producing tetraethyl lead.


title: Tetraethyllead

text: Regardless of the details of the chemical discoveries, tetraethyl lead remained unimportant commercially until the 1920s. In 1921, at the direction of DuPont Corporation, which manufactured TEL, it was found to be an effective antiknock agent by Thomas Midgley, working under Charles Kettering at General Motors Corporation Research. General Motors patented the use of TEL as an antiknock agent and used the name "Ethyl" that had been proposed by Kettering in its marketing materials, thereby avoiding the negative connotation of the word "lead". Early research into "engine knocking" (also called "pinging" or "pinking") was also led by A.H. Gibson and Harry Ricardo in England and Thomas Boyd in the United States. The discovery that lead additives modified this behavior led to the widespread adoption of their use in the 1920s, and therefore more powerful, higher-compression engines. In 1924, Standard Oil of New Jersey (ESSO/EXXON) and General Motors created the Ethyl Gasoline Corporation to produce and market TEL. Deepwater, New Jersey, across the river from Wilmington, was the site for production of some of DuPont's most important chemicals, particularly TEL. After TEL production at the Bayway Refinery was shut down, Deepwater was the only plant in the Western hemisphere producing TEL up to 1948, when it accounted for the bulk of the Dupont/Deepwater's production.


title: Tetraethyllead

text: The toxicity of concentrated TEL was recognized early on, as lead had been recognized since the 19th century as a dangerous substance that could cause lead poisoning. In 1924, a public controversy arose over the "loony gas", after five workers died, and many others were severely injured, in Standard Oil refineries in New Jersey. There had also been a private controversy for two years prior to this controversy; several public health experts, including Alice Hamilton and Yandell Henderson, engaged Midgley and Kettering with letters warning of the dangers to public health. After the death of the workers, dozens of newspapers reported on the issue. "The New York Times" editorialized in 1924 that the deaths should not interfere with the production of more powerful fuel.


title: Tetraethyllead

text: To settle the issue, the U.S. Public Health Service conducted a conference in 1925, and the sales of TEL were voluntarily suspended for one year to conduct a hazard assessment. The conference was initially expected to last for several days, but reportedly the conference decided that evaluating presentations on alternative anti-knock agents was not "its province", so it lasted a single day. Kettering and Midgley stated that no alternatives for anti-knocking were available, although private memos showed discussion of such agents. One commonly discussed agent was ethanol. The Public Health Service created a committee that reviewed a government-sponsored study of workers and an Ethyl lab test, and concluded that while leaded gasoline should not be banned, it should continue to be investigated. The low concentrations present in gasoline and exhaust were not perceived as immediately dangerous. A U.S. Surgeon General committee issued a report in 1926 that concluded there was no real evidence that the sale of TEL was hazardous to human health but urged further study. In the years that followed, research was heavily funded by the lead industry; in 1943, Randolph Byers found children with lead poisoning had behavior problems, but the Lead Industries Association threatened him with a lawsuit and the research ended.


title: Tetraethyllead

text: In the late 1920s, Robert A. Kehoe of the University of Cincinnati was the Ethyl Corporation's chief medical consultant and one of the lead industry's staunchest advocates, who would not be discredited until decades later by Dr. Clair Patterson's work on human lead burdens (see below) and other studies. In 1928, Dr. Kehoe expressed the opinion that there was no basis for concluding that leaded fuels posed any health threat. He convinced the Surgeon General that the dose–response relationship of lead had "no effect" below a certain threshold. As the head of Kettering Laboratories for many years, Kehoe would become a chief promoter of the safety of TEL, an influence that did not begin to wane until about the early 1960s. But by the 1970s, the general opinion of the safety of TEL would change, and by 1976 the U.S. government would begin to require the phaseout of this product.


title: Tetraethyllead

text: In the late 1940s and early 1950s, Clair Cameron Patterson accidentally discovered the pollution caused by TEL in the environment while determining the age of the earth. As he attempted to measure lead content of very old rocks, and the time it took uranium to decay into lead, the readings were made inaccurate by lead in the environment that contaminated his samples. He was then forced to work in a cleanroom to keep his samples uncontaminated by environmental pollution of lead. After coming up with a fairly accurate estimate of the age of the earth, he turned to investigating the lead contamination problem by examining ice cores from countries such as Greenland. He realized that the lead contamination in the environment dated from about the time that TEL became widely used as a fuel additive in gasoline. Being aware of the health dangers posed by lead and suspicious of the pollution caused by TEL, he became one of the earliest and most effective proponents of removing it from use.


title: Tetraethyllead

text: In the 1960s, the first clinical works were published proving the toxicity of this compound in humans, e.g. by Mirosław Jan Stasik.


title: Tetraethyllead

text: In the 1970s, Herbert Needleman found that higher lead levels in children were correlated with decreased school performance. Needleman was repeatedly accused of scientific misconduct by individuals within the lead industry, but he was eventually cleared by a scientific advisory council. Needleman also wrote the average US child's blood lead level was 13.7 μg/dL in 1976 and that Patterson believed that everyone was to some degree poisoned by TEL in gasoline.


title: Tetraethyllead

text: In the U.S. in 1973, the United States Environmental Protection Agency issued regulations to reduce the lead content of leaded gasoline over a series of annual phases, which therefore came to be known as the "lead phasedown" program. EPA's rules were issued under section 211 of the Clean Air Act, as amended 1970. The Ethyl Corp challenged the EPA regulations in Federal court. Although the EPA's regulation was initially invalidated, the EPA won the case on appeal, so the TEL phasedown began to be implemented in 1976. Additional regulatory changes were made by EPA over the next decade (including adoption of a trading market in "lead credits" in 1982 that became the precursor of the Acid Rain Allowance Market, adopted in 1990 for SO), but the decisive rule was issued in 1985. Then EPA mandated that lead additive be reduced by 91 percent by the end of 1986. A 1994 study had indicated that the concentration of lead in the blood of the U.S. population had dropped 78% from 1976 to 1991. The U.S. phasedown regulations also were due in great part to studies conducted by Philip J. Landrigan.


title: Tetraethyllead

text: From 1 January 1996, the U.S. Clean Air Act banned the sale of leaded fuel for use in on-road vehicles although that year the US EPA indicated that TEL could still be used in aircraft, racing cars, farm equipment, and marine engines. Thus, what had begun in the U.S. as a phasedown ultimately ended in a phase-out for on-road vehicle TEL. Similar bans in other countries have resulted in lowering levels of lead in people's bloodstreams.


title: Tetraethyllead

text: Taking cue from the domestic programs, the U.S. Agency for International Development undertook an initiative to reduce tetraethyl lead use in other countries, notably its efforts in Egypt begun in 1995. In 1996, with the cooperation of the U.S. AID, Egypt took almost all of the lead out of its gasoline. The success in Egypt provided a model for AID efforts worldwide.


title: Tetraethyllead

text: By 2000, the TEL industry had moved the major portion of their sales to developing countries whose governments they lobbied against phasing out leaded gasoline. Leaded gasoline was withdrawn entirely from the European Union market on 1 January 2000, although it had been banned much earlier in most member states. Other countries also phased out TEL. India banned leaded petrol in March 2000.


title: Tetraethyllead

text: By 2011, the United Nations announced that it had been successful in phasing out leaded gasoline worldwide. "Ridding the world of leaded petrol, with the United Nations leading the effort in developing countries, has resulted in $2.4 trillion in annual benefits, 1.2 million fewer premature deaths, higher overall intelligence and 58 million fewer crimes," the United Nations Environmental Programme said. The announcement was slightly premature, as a few countries still have leaded gasoline for sale as of 2017. On 30 August 2021 the United Nations Environment Programme announced that leaded gasoline had been eliminated. The final stocks of the product were used up in Algeria, which had continued to produce leaded gasoline until July 2021.


title: Tetraethyllead

text: Reduction in the average blood lead level is believed to have been a major cause for falling violent crime rates in the United States. A statistically significant correlation has been found between the usage rate of leaded gasoline and violent crime: the violent crime curve virtually tracks the lead exposure curve with a 22-year time lag. After the ban on TEL, blood lead levels in U.S. children dramatically decreased. Researchers including Amherst College economist Jessica Wolpaw Reyes, Department of Housing and Urban Development consultant Rick Nevin, and Howard Mielke of Tulane University say that declining exposure to lead is responsible for an up to 56% decline in crime from 1992 to 2002. Taking into consideration other factors that are believed to have increased crime rates over that period, Reyes found that the reduced exposure to lead led to an actual decline of 34% over that period.


title: Tetraethyllead

text: Although leaded gasoline is largely gone in North America, it has left high concentrations of lead in the soil adjacent to roads that were heavily used prior to its phaseout. Children are particularly at risk if they consume this.


title: The Skeleton Key

text: The Skeleton Key is a 2005 American Southern Gothic supernatural horror film directed by Iain Softley, written by Ehren Kruger, and starring Kate Hudson, Gena Rowlands, John Hurt, Peter Sarsgaard, and Joy Bryant. The narrative follows a New Orleans hospice nurse who begins a job at a Terrebonne Parish plantation home, and becomes entangled in a supernatural mystery involving the house, its former inhabitants, and Hoodoo rituals and spells that took place there.


title: The Skeleton Key

text: Caroline Ellis, a hospice aide, quits her position at a nursing home and is hired as the caretaker of an isolated plantation house in Terrebonne Parish, Louisiana. The aging matron of the house, Violet Devereaux, needs help looking after her husband Benjamin, who was mostly paralyzed by an apparent stroke. At the insistence of the family's estate lawyer, Luke Marshall, Caroline accepts the position.


title: The Skeleton Key

text: After Ben attempts to escape his room during a storm, Caroline investigates the house's attic, where Violet said Ben suffered his stroke; she uses a skeleton key which Violet gave her. She discovers a secret room filled with ritual paraphernalia. Caroline confronts Violet, who reveals that the room used to belong to two African American servants who were employed at the house 90 years before. The servants, Mama Cecile and Papa Justify, were renowned hoodoo practitioners; they were lynched after conducting a ritual with the owners' two children, from whom Violet and Ben later bought the house. Violet tells Caroline that they keep no mirrors in the house because they see reflections of Cecile and Justify in them. Caroline borrows a phonograph record from the attic: "Conjure of Sacrifice," a recording of Papa Justify reciting a hoodoo ritual.


title: The Skeleton Key

text: Caroline surmises that Ben's stroke was caused by hoodoo, but believes that his paralytic state is a nocebo effect induced by his own belief, rather than something supernatural. Taking advice from her friend Jill, Caroline visits a hidden hoodoo shop in a nearby laundromat, where a hoodoo woman gives her tools and instructions to cure Ben. After she conducts the ritual, Ben regains some ability to move and speak and he begs Caroline to get him away from Violet.


title: The Skeleton Key

text: Caroline tells Luke she is suspicious of Violet, but he remains skeptical. They travel to a gas station that Caroline previously noted was lined with brick dust, which she was told is a hoodoo defense; supposedly, no one who means one harm can pass a line of brick dust. She asks one of the proprietors, a blind woman, about the "Conjure of Sacrifice", which she learns is a spell wherein the caster steals the remaining years of life from the victim. Increasingly convinced of hoodoo's authenticity, Caroline fears that Violet will soon cast the spell on Ben.


title: The Skeleton Key

text: Caroline discovers that Violet is unable to pass a line of brick dust laid across one of the house's doorways, confirming her suspicions. She incapacitates Violet and attempts to escape the house with Ben, but the front gate is chained shut. Caroline hides Ben on the property and enters Luke's office for help. Luke, revealed to be Violet's accomplice, brings Caroline back to the house. Caroline escapes, gets into a fight with Violet, and violently pushes her down the stairs, breaking her legs in the process. With strategic use of brick dust, Caroline flees to the attic, calls 9-1-1 and Jill for help, and casts what she believes is a protective spell. Violet, having caught up with her, reveals she actually trapped herself inside a protective circle. Violet pushes a full-length mirror at Caroline, which reflects the original owner's daughter, then Violet, and lastly Mama Cecile. A recording of the "Conjure of Sacrifice" plays, and the two switch bodies.


title: The Skeleton Key

text: Violet (revealed to be Mama Cecile, who had been occupying Violet's body through the Conjure) wakes up in Caroline's body, and force-feeds Caroline (now in Violet's body) a potion that induces a stroke-like paralytic state like Ben's. Luke (actually Papa Justify) arrives upstairs, revealing that Mama Cecile and Papa Justify have been conducting the Conjure of Sacrifice on new people since their supposed deaths; they had swapped places with the two children just before the lynching. Because hoodoo is supposedly only effective on those who believe in it, Cecile and Justify had to wait for Caroline to come to believe in hoodoo through her own investigation.


title: The Skeleton Key

text: Emergency services arrive the next morning and take Caroline and Luke away, trapped in the paralyzed dying bodies of Violet and Ben; when Jill arrives, "Luke" tells her that the Devereauxes left the house to Caroline, ensuring that Cecile and Justify will continue to occupy the house.


title: The Skeleton Key

text: "The Skeleton Key" was filmed at the Felicity Plantation, located on the Mississippi River in Saint James Parish, Louisiana.


title: The Skeleton Key

text: "The Skeleton Key" was released in the U.S. on August 12, 2005, after having received an earlier release date of July 29, 2005 in the United Kingdom. It grossed $92 million worldwide. In the U.S., it took in $16.1 million in its first weekend, reaching number 2 at the box office; the total US gross was $47.9 million.


title: The Skeleton Key

text: Review aggregator Rotten Tomatoes reports that 38% of 149 surveyed critics gave the film a positive review; the average rating is 5.3/10. The site's consensus reads: "Thanks to its creaky and formulaic script, "The Skeleton Key" is more mumbo-jumbo than hoodoo and more dull than scary." Metacritic rated it 47/100 based on 32 reviews.


title: The Skeleton Key

text: Most of the reviews were mixed. Roger Ebert's review wrote, ""The Skeleton Key" is one of those movies that explains too much while it is explaining too little, and leaves us with a surprise at the end that makes more sense the less we think about it. But the movie's mastery of technique makes up for a lot." "The Guardian"s Peter Bradshaw awarded the film three out of five stars, noting: "It's a pretty thankless role for poor John Hurt, and there are some plot holes. But there's some shrewd satire of racism as the modern south's persistent, dirty little secret and screenwriter Ehren Kruger's third act conjures up a neat little shiver." Carina Chocano of the "Los Angeles Times" praised the film, calling it "tightly plotted and suspenseful enough to keep you guessing until the satisfying, unexpected end, which is worth suspending disbelief for," adding that "Hudson holds her own among impressive company. Not that Hurt has a whole lot to do other than grab an occasional wrist and recoil at his face in the mirror, and the usually measured Sarsgaard oversells it a bit, but Rowlands takes to the part like a fly to a shucked oyster."


title: The Skeleton Key

text: Manohla Dargis of "The New York Times" criticized the film for its plot, describing it as "enjoyably inane," and also noted that the film "indulges in almost every conceivable regional and [Southern Gothic] genre cliché." "USA Today" wrote that the film "employs intriguing camera angles to heighten some of the suspense. It's too bad the movie goes over the top and falls apart in the last third." Stephanie Zacharek wrote in "Salon": "Softley, working from a script by Ehren Kruger, puts so much care into layering moods and textures that he doesn't always scoot the action along as briskly as he should." In "The Seattle Times", Moira McDonald wrote that the film is "occasionally scary but more often silly." In her review for "The Austin Chronicle", Marjorie Baumgarten wrote: "Director Softley again shows his gifts for creating atmospheric milieus...Yet the movie, overall, lacks tension and suspense. In "Film Journal International", Edward Alter wrote that, "Iain Softley ("K-Pax") and cinematographer Dan Mindel make the most of the setting," but concluded that the film was, "a paint-by-numbers supernatural thriller that's more interesting for its locations than for its story."


title: The Skeleton Key

text: Connie Ogle in "The Miami Herald" wote "it's reasonably entertaining despite an abundance of haunted-house cliches, the usual inexplicable scary-movie behavior, and an almost-naked John Hurt." Jennie Punter in "The Globe and Mail" called the film, "stylishly made but disappointingly lightweight." Writing for the "Chicago Tribune", Jessica Reeves called the film "serviceable but ultimately disappointing". In his annual film guide, Leonard Maltin rated the film mediocre, stating that it was "well-produced and occasionally suspenseful, but populated by unpleasant characters and a story that moves too slowly." In the annual "DVD & Video Guide", Marsha Porter wrote, "A few good scares can't compensate for a sluggish pace, and the climactic twist comes as a surprise only because it doesn't make sense."


title: Harman International

text: Harman International Industries, commonly known as Harman (stylized in all-uppercase as HARMAN), is an American audio electronics company. Since 2017, the company has been an independent subsidiary of Samsung Electronics.


title: Harman International

text: Headquartered in Stamford, Connecticut, US, Harman maintains major operations in the Americas, Europe and Asia. Harman markets its products under various brands, including AKG, AMX, Arcam, Bang & Olufsen Automotive, Becker, BSS Audio, Crown, dbx, DOD Electronics, DigiTech, Harman Kardon, Infinity, JBL, Lexicon, Mark Levinson, Martin, Revel, Soundcraft and Studer.


title: Harman International

text: Sidney Harman and Bernard Kardon founded the predecessor to Harman International, Harman Kardon, in 1953. Both Harman and Kardon were engineers by training and had worked at the Bogen Company, which was a manufacturer of public address systems. They developed high-fidelity audio together. Harman bought out his partner in 1956 and then expanded Harman Kardon into an audio powerhouse, according to a biography written by the Consumer Electronics Hall of Fame.


title: Harman International

text: In the 1960s, Harman Kardon grew larger and acquired other audio houses (such as JBL). In the 1970s, Harman accepted an appointment in the Carter administration as deputy secretary of the Department of Commerce. When Harman took office in 1976 as head in charge, he sold his company to conglomerate Beatrice Foods to avoid a conflict of interest. Beatrice promptly sold many portions of the company, including the original Harman Kardon division, and by 1980 only 60% of the original company remained.


title: Harman International

text: After he left his government position in 1978, he created Harman International Industries and reacquired a number of businesses he sold to Beatrice. The company continued its growth plan with a string of acquisitions throughout the 1980s that pushed Harman International's sales from about $80 million in 1981 to more than $200 million by 1986, and then to more than $500 million by 1989. Harman International went public in 1986 with a stock offering on the New York Stock Exchange. Cash from that sale was used to, among many other purchases, buy Soundcraft, a UK producer of professional mixing boards, in 1988 and later – Salt Lake City digital electronics producer DOD Electronics Corp. By 1994, Harman International was selling consumer audio gear under such brands as JBL, Harman Kardon, Infinity and Epicure loudspeakers, as well as professional audio systems with such brands as JBL Professional, UREI, Soundcraft, Allen & Heath, dbx, Studer, DOD, Lexicon, AKG, BSS, Orban, Quested and Turbosound (the last one now under the control of Music Group).


title: Harman International

text: In March 2015, Harman acquired the automotive division of Bang & Olufsen for 145 million euros ($156 million) for the unit as well as technology license fees. The purchase didn't include Bang & Olufsen's consumer-electronics business.


title: Harman International

text: In 2015, recognizing the increasing role of software and services in the markets it served, Harman expanded its capabilities around cloud, mobility and analytics with the acquisitions of Symphony Teleca, a software services company based in Mountain View, CA, and Redbend, an Israeli-based provider of software management technology for connected devices, and over-the-air (OTA) software and firmware upgrading services. With these additions, Harman announced the formation of a fourth division, which they called Connected Services.


title: Harman International

text: In March 2016, Harman acquired the automotive cyber-security firm TowerSec. This acquisition increased Harman's competencies in the emerging automotive cyber-security field. This was evidenced by the subsequent launch of the company's '5+1 security framework' incorporating TowerSec's 'ECU shield' technology. This acquisition was notable for further demonstrating Harman's desire to expand beyond its traditional business areas of in-car audio and entertainment systems.


title: Harman International

text: In February 2017, Harman International shareholders voted in favor of the acquisition by Samsung. On March 10, 2017, the acquisition was completed, with Harman becoming the independent subsidiary of Samsung.


title: Harman International

text: In March 13, 2018 Harman International announced strategic association with Samsung SmartThings, a wholly owned and independent subsidiary of Samsung.


title: Harman International

text: Through this collaboration, Harman will work with SmartThings to design and develop of the SmartThings app, integrate third-party sensors and drive initiatives for IoT platform hub.


title: Harman International

text: As of early April, 2022 the DOD and DigiTech brands appeared to have been discontinued or sold to another company. Tom Cram, former Product Development Manager, speaking of rumors about him rejoining the company stated, "you need to push those rosy thoughts right out of your heads.” On April 25 2022 Cor-Tek Corporation stated they acquired those brands and their intellectual assets.


title: Harman International

text: Harman International Industries was to delist from NYSE in Q3/2007 due to a buy-out by KKR and Goldman Sachs Capital Partners. However, as of mid September 2007, KKR announced they would back out of the deal. On the news, Harman shares plummeted by more than 24%.


title: Harman International

text: Coincident with the buy-out deal, Dinesh Paliwal was hired as company president and CEO in July 2007. On July 1, 2008, Sidney Harman was succeeded by Dinesh Paliwal as chairman of the board. In April 2020 he was succeeded by Michael Mauser, who has been working 22 years for Harman.


title: Franklin Graham

text: William Franklin Graham III (born July 14, 1952) is an American evangelist and missionary. He frequently engages in Christian revival tours and political commentary. He is president and CEO of the Billy Graham Evangelistic Association (BGEA) and of Samaritan's Purse, an international Christian relief organization. Graham became a "committed Christian" in 1974 and was ordained in 1982, and has since become a public speaker and author. He is a son of the American evangelist Billy Graham.


title: Franklin Graham

text: William Franklin Graham III was born in Asheville, North Carolina, on July 14, 1952, to evangelist Billy Graham and Ruth Graham. He is the fourth of their five children. As a teenager, Graham attended The Stony Brook School, a Christian private school on Long Island, New York, but dropped out. He finished high school in North Carolina.


title: Franklin Graham

text: In 1970, Graham attended LeTourneau College in Longview, Texas, and was expelled from the school for keeping a female classmate out past curfew. In 1973, Graham joined Bob Pierce, founder of Samaritan's Purse, on a six-week mission to Asia. During this trip, Graham decided to focus on world relief. In 1974, he graduated from Montreat-Anderson College, now Montreat College, with an A.S. That same year on a trip to Jerusalem and he repented and experienced a new birth. In 1978 he graduated from Appalachian State University with a B.A.


title: Franklin Graham

text: He was ordained in 1982 by the Grace Community Church in Tempe, Arizona, a non-denominational church.


title: Franklin Graham

text: In 1995, he became vice-president of the Billy Graham Evangelistic Association and became the CEO in 2000.


title: Franklin Graham

text: Graham has said in interviews and social media posts that he believes Jesus would approve of the COVID-19 vaccine, saying "that's what Jesus Christ would want us to do, to help save life. It's just a tool to help save life." He has compared the vaccine to the oil and wine the Good Samaritan used to treat the wounds of the injured traveler, saying "Now the oil and wine were the medicines of that day." He told ABC News, "I think for a pastor to tell someone not to take the vaccine is problematic because what would happen if that person got coronavirus and died?"


title: Franklin Graham

text: Graham has also cited the work of Samaritan's Purse in describing his support for the vaccine. "We have seen what COVID can do," said Graham, citing Samaritan's Purse work to help during the outbreaks in Cremona, Italy; Los Angeles; North Carolina and the Bahamas.


title: Franklin Graham

text: Graham has also spoken of seeing the effects of the virus in his own organization. "I've had some of my own staff, one of them was on a ventilator for three months, Graham said in an interview with CBS News, "...from what I have seen and experienced myself, I don't want COVID and I don't want anybody else to get it." Graham stated that he and his wife are both vaccinated. He also stated, "I want people to know that COVID-19 can kill you. But we have a vaccine out there that could possibly save your life. And if you wait, it could be too late."


title: Franklin Graham

text: Graham came under criticism for comments he made about Islam in the wake of the September 11, 2001 attacks when he referred to Islam as "a very evil and wicked religion". Further criticism came on April 18, 2003, when he preached at a Good Friday service at the Pentagon. Graham has made controversial remarks against Islam saying "True Islam cannot be practiced in this country", to CNN's Campbell Brown in December 2009. "You can't beat your wife. You cannot murder your children if you think they've committed adultery or something like that, which they do practice in these other countries." On April 22, 2010, after objections from the Military Religious Freedom Foundation and the Muslim group Council on American–Islamic Relations (CAIR), the Pentagon rescinded his invitation from the Christian conservative National Day of Prayer Task Force to speak at a Pentagon National Day of Prayer event.


title: Franklin Graham

text: In September 2010, Graham stated on ABC's "This Week" with Christiane Amanpour that building churches and synagogues is forbidden in most countries in the Islamic world.


title: Franklin Graham

text: Franklin Graham drew scrutiny in 2009 for drawing a full-time salary from Samaritan's Purse, while simultaneously receiving a full-time salary from Billy Graham Evangelistic Association (BGEA). This was called into question after his 2008 compensation from both organizations totaled $1.2 million. (Most of this was the result of a new IRS rule that required him to re-report deferred retirement contributions that had already been reported over the previous three years.) Some experts on non-profit organisations have questioned whether one person can perform two full-time jobs leading organizations that employ hundreds and spend hundreds of millions around the world. In response to the questions about his compensation, Graham decided to give up his salary from BGEA, stating his calling to the ministry "was never based on compensation". He also had contributions to his retirement plans suspended until the economy bounced back. However, Graham was again criticized in 2015 when it was revealed he had again taken up his salary from BGEA, and that his annual compensation was significantly higher than that of the CEO's of similar but much larger non-profit organisations


title: Franklin Graham

text: According to 2014 data, Graham is the highest paid Samaritan's Purse employee at $622,252 annually and leads other charities in compensation. The preacher gave up a salary at the evangelistic association during the late economic downturn, but the leaders urged him to accept compensation again and he now receives increased retirement contributions as well as a regular salary. The evangelistic association reported 2013 revenues as $106.5 million and 2014 as $112,893,788.


title: Franklin Graham

text: In the August 30, 2010, issue of "Time" magazine, "Does America Hate Islam?", Graham reportedly said that Islam "is a religion of hatred. It's a religion of war." Building the cultural center near Ground Zero, he says, means Muslims "will claim now that the World Trade Center property ... is Islamic land."


title: Franklin Graham

text: On August 19, 2010, when asked by CNN correspondent John King if he had doubts that President Barack Obama is a Christian, Graham stated, "I think the president's problem is that he was born a Muslim; his father was a Muslim. The seed of Islam is passed through the father like the seed of Judaism is passed through the mother. He was born a Muslim, his father gave him an Islamic name." Graham continued, "Now it's obvious that the president has renounced the prophet Mohammed, and he has renounced Islam, and he has accepted Jesus Christ. That's what he says he has done. I cannot say that he hasn't. So I just have to believe that the president is what he has said." In a March 2011 interview with the conservative Internet publication "Newsmax", Graham claimed officials in the Obama administration had connections to the Muslim Brotherhood:


title: Franklin Graham

text: The Muslim Brotherhood is very strong and active in our country. It's infiltrated every level of our government. Right now we have many of these people that are advising the US military and State Department on how to respond in the Middle East, and it's like asking a fox, like a farmer asking a fox, "How do I protect my henhouse from foxes?" We've brought in Muslims to tell us how to make policy toward Muslim countries. And many of these people we've brought in, I'm afraid, are under the Muslim Brotherhood.


title: Franklin Graham

text: In an open letter response, Graham apologized to President Obama, saying, "I regret any comments I have ever made which may have cast any doubt on the personal faith of our president, Mr. Obama. The president has said he is a Christian and I accept that." In the open letter closing Graham stated, "In this election season and challenging economic time I am praying for our country and for those who lead it—for we are commanded in Scripture to do so."


title: Franklin Graham

text: Graham has commented on Hinduism as well, saying, "no elephant with 100 arms can do anything for me. None of their 9,000 gods is going to lead me to salvation".


title: Franklin Graham

text: When Sudanese president Omar Hassan al-Bashir was indicted by the International Criminal Court in March 2009, Graham argued in an op-ed in "The New York Times" that Bashir should not be indicted for alleged genocidal acts because the indictment would lead to the collapse of the 2005 peace agreement.


title: Franklin Graham

text: In April 2011, Graham told ABC's "This Week" program that Donald Trump, who had recently declared an interest in the Republican nomination for the 2012 U.S. presidential race, was his preferred candidate. During an MSNBC "Morning Joe" interview on February 21, 2012, Graham said that Rick Santorum was most closely aligned to Christian values in his words and deeds and that Senator Santorum was certainly a Christian at heart. On President Obama, Graham said that he is "a fine man" but could not know whether the president was a Christian in his heart. Asked about Mitt Romney, Graham said that most Protestants do not view Mormonism as a Christian faith.


title: Franklin Graham

text: On February 28, 2012, Graham responded to a one-page letter sent by the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) as an: "Open Letter from Leaders of Faith Regarding Statements by Franklin Graham". In the introduction to the one-page letter, the fourteen signatories stated: "we are greatly troubled by recent attempts by some religious leaders to use faith as a political weapon. We were disturbed and disappointed by statements made by Rev. Franklin Graham during an interview on MSNBC that questioned whether President Obama is a Christian." In closing, the open-letter stated: "We call on Rev. Graham and all Christian leaders to exemplify this essential teaching of Jesus and refrain from using Christianity as a weapon of political division."


title: Franklin Graham

text: In June 2016, Graham told a crowd, "I have zero hope for the Democratic Party; I have no hope for the Republican Party. I am running a campaign to put God back in the political process." Nevertheless, in November 2016, Graham told "The Washington Post" that God had played a role in Donald Trump's election as U.S. president, saying: "I could sense going across the country that God was going to do something this year. And I believe that at this election, God showed up." The same newspaper noted that the day after Trump's victory, Graham had posted a comment on Facebook in which he wrote, "Did God show up? […] In watching the news after the election, the secular media kept asking 'How did this happen?' 'What went wrong?' 'How did we miss this?' Some are in shock. Political pundits are stunned. Many thought the Trump/Pence ticket didn't have a chance. None of them understand the God-factor." At the Inauguration of Donald Trump on January 20, 2017, Graham chose to read a passage from Paul's First Epistle to Timothy, chapter 2, which calls for prayers for all people, including "kings and for all those in authority, that we may live peacefully quiet lives in all godliness and holiness."


title: Franklin Graham

text: Since the 2016 election, Graham has "become known, above all, as the most vociferous evangelical ally" of Trump. He has strongly opposed the impeachment process, calling it an "unjust inquisition". In a November 21, 2019, interview with Eric Metaxas, Graham suggested opposition to Trump was the work of a "demonic power". In December, when "Christianity Today" magazine, founded by Graham's father Billy, published an editorial calling Trump "profoundly immoral" and supporting his removal from office, Graham responded by saying his father had voted for Trump and saw him as the "man for this hour in history for our nation" and that the magazine was "representing the elitist liberal wing of evangelicalism".


title: Franklin Graham

text: In mid-December 2020, Graham wrote about the Trump presidency on Facebook, saying that "President Trump will go down in history as one of the great presidents of our nation, bringing peace and prosperity to millions here in the U.S. and around the world."


title: Franklin Graham

text: In January 2021, Graham compared the ten Republican members of the House of Representatives who voted to impeach Trump to Judas Iscariot, suggesting that the Democrats had promised them "thirty pieces of silver".


title: Franklin Graham

text: In 2017 Graham spoke against a bill proposing to ban conversion therapy. Referencing the biblical text of Leviticus 18:22, he said, "Homosexuality is defined by God as sin, an abomination to Him". He also compared conversion therapy to Conversion to Christianity.


title: Franklin Graham

text: Graham supported North Carolina Amendment 1, which was passed by a voter referendum on May 8, 2012, prohibiting same-sex marriage and all domestic partnerships. Graham responded to Obama's May 9, 2012, statement of support for same-sex marriage, saying, "President Obama has, in my view, shaken his fist at the same God who created and defined marriage. It grieves me that our president would now affirm same-sex marriage, though I believe it grieves God even more."


title: Franklin Graham

text: In December 2017, several British MPs urged the Home Secretary to consider refusing UK entry to Graham from speaking at an event due to take place in Blackpool in September 2018. As Graham represents the evangelical community, critics argued that those who want to ban Graham which means that individuals who have different opinions of LGBT rights would be banned in the UK. Gordon Marsden, an openly gay Labour MP suggested that Graham's comments may have contravened British laws on hate speech. As of February 2018, a petition against Graham being granted a visa had gathered more than 7,500 signatures. The pastor of Liberty Church in Blackpool, who organized the petition, said: "As a Christian and as a leader of a church that particularly welcomes LGBT people, I'm horrified that other local churches are inviting someone with this record of hate speech." The pastor said that Graham's visit had triggered an "enormous amount of protest from Christians in the north-west" of England, and his presence would be "extremely destructive in the area".


title: Franklin Graham

text: After South Bend, Indiana mayor Pete Buttigieg became the first openly gay man to announce a run for the 2020 Democratic nomination for President against President Donald Trump, Graham attacked Buttigieg for his homosexuality and marriage to another gay man in April 2019, tweeting "Mayor Buttigieg says he's a gay Christian. As a Christian I believe the Bible which defines homosexuality as sin, something to be repentant of, not something to be flaunted, praised or politicized. The Bible says marriage is between a man & a woman—not two men, not two women." The tweet was one of three in a thread.


title: Franklin Graham

text: The tweet was met with a strong negative response against Graham, much of which condemned Graham as a hypocrite for selective criticism of a Democratic candidate's perceived wrongdoings while remaining silent on those perceived of the incumbent Republican. MSNBC host Joe Scarborough denounced Graham on his "Morning Joe" program, saying, "Just shut up Franklin Graham! You are a disgrace! You are a disgrace for normalizing Donald Trump's behavior." "The Washington Post" columnist Jennifer Rubin rebuked Graham as a "hypocritical bigot" who "has rationalized Trump's infidelity and racism, ignored his lies, cheered his inhumane immigration policy and behaved as a political hack rather than a religious leader," also writing "Buttigieg gets the benefit of being attacked by a right-winger whom progressives revile, gets to underscore a message of generational change and acceptance and gets to demonstrate what a class act he is. The other candidates must be wondering why some GOP hatemonger doesn't attack them." Opinion pieces in the "National Review", "The Charlotte Observer", and "The Arizona Republic" were also critical of Graham's comments.


title: Franklin Graham

text: Graham defended Russian President Vladimir Putin's "gay propaganda" law and has praised his leadership for "protecting children from any homosexual agenda or propaganda."


title: Franklin Graham

text: All venues booked for Franklin Graham's planned eight-city 2020 UK tour cancelled his booking after protests by LGBTQ+ activists, petitions and requests from local councils. Mayor of Liverpool, Joe Anderson, stated Liverpool is proud of its LGBT+ community and would challenge hatred and intolerance. Graham's organisation said it would seek other venues. Many opponents said statements Graham had made were incompatible with their values, and that his appearance would be divisive, could be disruptive or lead to a breach of the peace. After threatening legal action for breach of contract and giving assurances to venues that his preaching would not be discriminatory, Graham's tour was rescheduled for mid-2022.


title: Franklin Graham

text: Graham married Jane Austin Cunningham of Smithfield, North Carolina, in 1974. They have four children: William Franklin Graham IV (Will), born in 1975, Roy Austin Graham (1977), Edward Bell Graham (1979) and Jane Austin Graham Lynch (Cissie) (1986). Graham and his wife have eleven grandchildren.


title: Direct-shift gearbox

text: A direct-shift gearbox (DSG, ) is an electronically-controlled, dual-clutch, multiple-shaft, automatic gearbox, in either a transaxle or traditional transmission layout (depending on engine/drive configuration), with automated clutch operation, and with fully-automatic or semi-manual gear selection. The first dual-clutch transmissions were derived from Porsche in-house development for the Porsche 962 in the 1980s.


title: Direct-shift gearbox

text: In simple terms, a DSG automates two separate "manual" gearboxes (and clutches) contained within one housing and working as one unit. It was designed by BorgWarner and is licensed to the Volkswagen Group, with support by IAV GmbH. By using two independent clutches, a DSG can achieve faster shift times and eliminates the torque converter of a conventional epicyclic automatic transmission.


title: Direct-shift gearbox

text: At the time of launch in 2003, it became the world's first automated dual-clutch transmission in a series-production car, in the German-market Volkswagen Golf Mk4 R32, and shortly afterwards worldwide, in the original Audi TT 3.2. and the 2004+ New Beetle TDI. For the first few years of production, this original DSG transmission was only available in transversely oriented front-engine, front-wheel-drive and Haldex Traction-based four-wheel-drive vehicle layouts.


title: Direct-shift gearbox

text: The first DSG transaxle that went into production for the Volkswagen Group mainstream marques had six forward speeds (and one reverse) and used wet/submerged multi-plate clutch packs (Volkswagen Group internal code: DQ250, parts code prefix: 02E). It has been paired to engines with up to of torque. The two-wheel-drive version weighs . It is manufactured at Volkswagen Group's Kassel plant, with a daily production output of 1,500 units.


title: Direct-shift gearbox

text: At the start of 2008, another world-first seven-speed DSG transaxle (Volkswagen Group internal code: DQ200, parts code prefix: 0AM) became available. It differs from the six-speed DSG, in that it uses two single-plate dry clutches (of similar diameter). This clutch pack was designed by LuK Clutch Systems, Gmbh. This seven-speed DSG is used in smaller front-wheel-drive cars with smaller-displacement engines with lower torque outputs, such as the latest Volkswagen Golf, Volkswagen Polo Mk5, and the new SEAT Ibiza. It has been paired to engines with up to . It has considerably less oil capacity than the six-speed DQ250; this new DQ200 uses just of transmission fluid.


title: Direct-shift gearbox

text: In late 2008, an all-new seven-speed longitudinal S tronic version of the DSG transaxle went into series production (Volkswagen Group internal code: DL501, parts code prefix: 0B5). Initially, from early 2009, it is only used in certain Audi cars, and only with longitudinally mounted engines. Like the original six-speed DSG, it features a concentric dual wet multi-plate clutch. However, this particular variant uses notably more plates – the larger outer clutch (for the odd-numbered gears) uses 10 plates, whereas the smaller inner clutch (driving even-numbered gears and reverse) uses 12 plates. Another notable change over the original transverse DSGs is the lubrication system – Audi now utilise two totally separate oil circuits. One oil circuit, consisting of , lubricates the hydraulic clutches and mechatronics with fully synthetic specialist automatic transmission fluid (ATF), whilst the other oil circuit lubricates the gear trains and front and centre differentials with of conventional hypoid gear oil. This dual circuit lubrication is aimed at increasing overall reliability, due to eliminating cross-contamination of debris and wear particles. It has a torque handling limit of up to , and engine power outputs of up to . It has a total mass, including all lubricants and the dual-mass flywheel of .


title: Direct-shift gearbox

text: This was initially available in their quattro all-wheel-drive variants, and is very similar to the new ZF Friedrichshafen-supplied "Porsche Doppel-Kupplung" (PDK).


title: Direct-shift gearbox

text: The internal combustion engine drives two clutch packs. The outer clutch pack drives gears 1, 3, 5 (and 7 when fitted), and reverse – the outer clutch pack has a larger diameter compared to the inner clutch, and can therefore handle greater torque loadings. The inner clutch pack drives gears 2, 4, and 6. Instead of a standard large dry single-plate clutch, each clutch pack for the six-speed DSG is a collection of four small wet interleaved clutch plates (similar to a motorcycle wet multi-plate clutch). Due to space constraints, the two clutch assemblies are concentric, and the shafts within the gearbox are hollow and also concentric. Because the alternate clutch pack's gear-sets can be pre-selected (predictive shifts enabled via the unloaded section of the gearbox), un-powered time while shifting is avoided because the transmission of torque is simply switched from one clutch-pack to the other. While the DSG has one of the fastest shift times on the market, the claim that the DSG takes only about 8 milliseconds to upshift is un-proven with 3-party data nor claimed by the manufacturer.


title: Direct-shift gearbox

text: The direct-shift gearbox uses a floor-mounted transmission shift lever, very similar to that of a conventional automatic transmission. The lever is operated in a straight 'fore and aft' plane (without any 'dog-leg' offset movements), and uses an additional button to help prevent an inadvertent selection of an inappropriate shift lever position.


title: Direct-shift gearbox

text: P position of the floor-mounted gear shift lever means that the transmission is set in park. Both clutch packs are fully disengaged, all gear-sets are disengaged, and a solid mechanical transmission lock is applied to the crown wheel of the DSG's internal differential. This position must only be used when the motor vehicle is stationary. Furthermore, this is the position which must be set on the shift lever before the vehicle ignition key can be removed.


title: Direct-shift gearbox

text: N position of the floor-mounted shift lever means that the transmission is in neutral. Similar to P above, both clutch packs and all gear-sets are fully disengaged; however, the parking lock is also disengaged.


title: Direct-shift gearbox

text: Whilst the motor vehicle is stationary and in neutral (N), the driver can select D for drive (after first pressing the foot brake pedal). The transmission's outer clutch K2 engages at the "start" of the bite point, while on the alternate gear shaft the reverse gear clutch K1 is also selected. The clutch pack for second gear (K2) gets ready to engage. When the driver releases the brake pedal, the K2 clutch clamping force is increased, allowing the transmission to drive the wheels. Depressing the accelerator pedal engages the clutch and causes an increase of forward vehicle speed. Pressing the throttle pedal to the floor (hard acceleration) will cause the gearbox to "kick down" to first gear to provide the acceleration associated with first, although there will be a slight hesitation while the gearbox deselects second gear and selects first gear. As the vehicle accelerates, the transmission's computer determines when the second gear (which is connected to the second clutch) should be fully used. Depending on the vehicle speed and amount of engine power being requested by the driver (determined by the position of the throttle pedal), the DSG then up-shifts. During this sequence, the DSG disengages the first outer clutch whilst simultaneously engaging the second inner clutch (all power from the engine is now going through the second shaft), thus completing the shift sequence. This sequence in a fraction of a second (aided by pre-selection), and can be performed without lifting off the throttle, resulting in minimal power loss.


title: Direct-shift gearbox

text: Once the vehicle has completed the shift to second gear, the first gear is immediately de-selected, and third gear is pre-selected. Once the time comes to shift into 3rd, the second clutch disengages and the first clutch re-engages. This sequence repeats through the gear changes.


title: Direct-shift gearbox

text: Downshifting is similar to up-shifting but in reverse order. At 600 milliseconds downshifting is necessarily slower, due to the engine's Electronic Control Unit (ECU) needing to 'blip' the throttle so that the engine crankshaft speed can match the appropriate gear shaft speed. A downshift occurs when the ECU senses the car slowing down, or when more power is required.


title: Direct-shift gearbox

text: The actual shift points are determined by the DSG's transmission ECU, which controls a hydro-mechanical unit. The transmission ECU, combined with the hydro-mechanical unit, are collectively called a "mechatronics" unit or module. Because the DSG's ECU uses fuzzy logic, the operation of the DSG is said to be "adaptive"; that is, the DSG will "learn" how the user drives the car, and will progressively tailor the shift points accordingly to suit the habits of the driver.


title: Direct-shift gearbox

text: In the vehicle instrument display, between the speedometer and tachometer, the available shift-lever positions are shown, the current position of the shift-lever is highlighted (emboldened), and the current gear ratio in use is also displayed as a number.


title: Direct-shift gearbox

text: Under "normal", progressive and linear acceleration and deceleration, the DSG shifts in a sequential manner; i.e., under acceleration: 1st → 2nd → 3rd → 4th → 5th → 6th, and the same sequence reversed for deceleration. However, the DSG can also skip the normal sequential method, by missing gears, and shift two or more gears. This is most apparent if the car is being driven at sedate speeds in one of the higher gears with a light throttle opening, and the accelerator pedal is then pressed down, engaging the "kick-down" function. During kick-down, the DSG will skip gears, shifting directly to the most appropriate gear depending on speed and throttle opening. This kick-down may be engaged by any increased accelerator pedal opening, and is completely independent of the additional resistance to be found when the pedal is pressed fully to the floor, which will activate a similar kick-down function when in Manual operation mode. The seven-speed unit in the 2007 Audi variants will not automatically shift to 6th gear; rather, it stays at 5th to keep power available at a high RPM while cruising.


title: Direct-shift gearbox

text: When the floor-mounted gear selector lever is in position D, the DSG works in fully automatic mode, with emphasis placed on gear shifts programmed to deliver maximum fuel economy. That means that shifts will change up and down very early in the rev-range. As an example, on the Volkswagen Golf Mk5 GTI, sixth gear will be engaged around , when initially using the DSG transmission with the default ECU adaptation; although with an "aggressive" or "sporty" driving style, the adaptive shift pattern will increase the vehicle speed at which sixth gear engages.


title: Direct-shift gearbox

text: The floor selector lever also has an S position. When S is selected, sport mode is activated in the DSG. Sport mode still functions as a fully automatic mode, identical in operation to D mode, but upshifts and downshifts are made much higher up the engine rev-range. This aids a more sporty driving manner, by utilising considerably more of the available engine power, and also maximising engine braking. However, this mode does have a detrimental effect on the vehicle fuel consumption, when compared to D mode. This mode may not be ideal to use when wanting to drive in a sedate manner; nor when road conditions are very slippery, due to ice, snow or torrential rain – because loss of tire traction may be experienced (wheel spin during acceleration, and may also result in road wheel locking during downshifts at high engine rpms under closed throttle). On 4motion or quattro-equipped vehicles this may be partially offset by the drivetrain maintaining full-time engagement of the rear differential in S mode, so power distribution under loss of front-wheel traction may be marginally improved.


title: Direct-shift gearbox

text: S is highlighted in the instrument display, and like D mode, the currently used gear ratio is also displayed as a number.


title: Direct-shift gearbox

text: R position of the floor-mounted shift lever means that the transmission is in reverse. This functions in a similar way to D, but there is just one reverse gear. When selected, R is highlighted in the instrument display.


title: Direct-shift gearbox

text: Additionally, the floor shift lever also has another plane of operation, for manual mode, with spring-loaded + and − positions. This plane is selected by moving the stick away from the driver (in vehicles with the driver's seat on the right, the lever is pushed to the left, and in left-hand drive cars, the stick is pushed to the right) when in D mode only. When this plane is selected, the DSG can now be controlled like a manual gearbox, albeit only under a sequential shift pattern.


title: Direct-shift gearbox

text: In most (VW) applications, the readout in the instrument display changes to 6 5 4 3 2 1, and just like the automatic modes, the currently used gear ratio is highlighted or emboldened. In other versions (e.g., on the Audi TT) the display shows just M followed by the gear currently selected; e.g., M1, M2, etc.


title: Direct-shift gearbox

text: To change up a gear, the lever is pushed forward (against a spring pressure) towards the +, and to change down, the lever is pulled rearward towards the −. The DSG transmission can now be operated with the gear changes being (primarily) determined by the driver. This method of operation is commonly called "tiptronic". In the interests of engine preservation, when accelerating in Manual/tiptronic mode, the DSG will still automatically change up just before the redline, and when decelerating, it will change down automatically at very low revs, just before the engine idle speed (tickover). Furthermore, if the driver calls for a gear when it is not appropriate (e.g., requesting a downshift when engine speed is near the redline) the DSG will not change to the driver's requested gear.


title: Direct-shift gearbox

text: Current variants of the DSG will still downshift to the lowest possible gear ratio when the kick-down button is activated during full throttle whilst in manual mode. In Manual mode this kick-down is only activated by an additional button at the bottom of the accelerator pedal travel; unless this is pressed the DSG will not downshift, and will simply perform a full-throttle acceleration in whatever gear was previously being utilised.


title: Direct-shift gearbox

text: Initially available on certain high-powered cars, and those with a "sporty" trim level—such as those using the 2.0 T FSI and 3.2/3.6 VR6 engines—steering wheel-mounted paddle shifters were available. However, these are now being offered (either as a standard inclusive fitment, or as a factory optional extra) on virtually all DSG-equipped cars, throughout all model ranges, including lesser power output applications, such as the 105 PS Volkswagen Golf Plus.


title: Direct-shift gearbox

text: These operate in an identical manner as the floor mounted shift lever when it is placed across the gate in manual mode. The paddle shifters have two distinct advantages: the driver can safely keep both hands on the steering wheel when using the Manual/tiptronic mode; and the driver can temporarily manually override either of the automatic programmes (D or S), and gain instant manual control of the DSG transmission (within the above described constraints).


title: Direct-shift gearbox

text: If the paddle-shift activated manual override of one of the automatic modes (D or S) is used intermittently the DSG transmission will default back to the previously selected automatic mode after a predetermined duration of inactivity of the paddles, or when the vehicle becomes stationary. Alternatively, should the driver wish to immediately revert to fully automatic control, this can be done by activating and holding the + paddle for at least two seconds.


title: Direct-shift gearbox

text: After originally using the "DSG" moniker, Audi subsequently renamed their direct-shift gearbox to "S tronic".


title: Direct-shift gearbox

text: The 7-speed DQ200 and 6-speed DQ250 gearboxes sometimes suffer from power-loss (gear disengaging) due to short-circuiting of wires caused by a build-up of sulphur in the transmission oil.


title: Direct-shift gearbox

text: In August 2009, Volkswagen of America issued two recalls of DSG-equipped vehicles. The first involved 13,500 vehicles, and was to address unplanned shifts to the neutral gear, while the second involved similar problems (by then attributed to faulty temperature sensors) and applied to 53,300 vehicles. These recalls arose as a result of investigations carried out by the US National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA), where owners reported to the NHTSA a loss of power whilst driving. This investigation preliminary found only 2008 and 2009 model year vehicles as being affected.


title: Direct-shift gearbox

text: In November 2009, Volkswagen recalled certain Golf, Jetta, EOS, Passat & Caddy models equipped with 6-speed DQ250 DSG transmission because the gearbox may read the clutch temperature incorrectly, which leads to clutch protection mode, causing a loss of power.


title: Direct-shift gearbox

text: Since 2009 there have been widespread concerns from Chinese consumers particularly among the online community, who expressed that Volkswagen has failed to respond to complaints about defects in its DSG-equipped vehicles. Typical issues associated with 6-speed DSG include abnormal noise and inability to change gear; while issues associated with 7-speed DSG include abnormal noise, excessive shift shock, abnormal increase in engine RPM, flashing gear indicator on the dashboard as well as inability to shift to even-numbered gears. In March 2012 China's quality watchdog the General Administration of Quality Supervision, Inspection and Quarantine (AQSIQ) said that it had been in contact with Volkswagen (China) and urged the carmaker to probe the issues. In a survey held by Gasgoo.com (China) of 2,937 industry experts and insiders, 83% of respondents believed that the carmaker should consider a full vehicle recall. In March 2012 Volkswagen Group China admitted that there could be an issue in its seven-speed DSG gearboxes that may affect approximately 500,000 vehicles from its various subsidiaries in China. A software upgrade has since been offered for the affected vehicles in an attempt to repair the problem.


title: Direct-shift gearbox

text: According to 163.com - one of China's most popular web portals - in March 2012 about a quarter of the complaints about problems found in cars in China's automotive market were made against DSG-equipped vehicles manufactured by Volkswagen. The top five models that dominate those complaints were:


title: Direct-shift gearbox

text: On 15 March 2013, China Central Television aired a program for the World Consumer Rights Day. The program criticized the issue associated with DSG-equipped vehicles manufactured by Volkswagen. On 17 March 2013 Volkswagen Group China announced on its official Weibo that it will voluntarily recall vehicles equipped with DSG boxes. Some sources have estimated the failure rate of DSG-equipped vehicles sold in China to be greater than 20,000 per million sold.


title: Direct-shift gearbox

text: VW Sweden stopped selling the Passat EcoFuel DSG as a taxi after many cars had problems with the 7 speed DSG gearbox. They instead offered the Touran EcoFuel DSG, which uses an updated version of the same DSG gearbox.


title: Direct-shift gearbox

text: 13 days after the Singapore recall, Volkswagen Malaysia also announced a recall for the 7-speed DSG. No official statement was released by the company, but it was stated that a total of 3,962 were involved in the unit recall exercise - units produced between June 2010 and June 2011, with affected vehicles being Golf, Polo, Scirocco, Cross Touran, Passat and Jetta models equipped with the transmission.


title: Direct-shift gearbox

text: If the pressure accumulator cracks, oil and pressure is lost in the hydraulic system of the gearbox. As a result, the transmission of engine power via the gearbox is interrupted. The experience of this symptom would be comparable to depressing the clutch in a vehicle fitted with a manual transmission. This could increase the likelihood of an accident affecting the occupants of the vehicle and other road users.


title: Neal Brennan

text: Neal Brennan (born October 19, 1973) is an American comedian, writer, producer, director, and podcaster. He is best known for co-creating and co-writing the Comedy Central series "Chappelle's Show" (2003–2006) with Dave Chappelle and for his Netflix stand-up comedy special "3 Mics" (2017).


title: Neal Brennan

text: Brennan was born in Villanova, Pennsylvania, on October 19, 1973, the youngest of 10 children born into a family of Irish Catholic descent. He lived in Villanova until the age of six, moving with his family in 1978 to Wilmette, Illinois. According to Brennan, his father's side of the family was funny, as were his five older brothers. He has said that he realized he was funny and liked comedy at about 8 or 9 years of age, and had already been performing material for his classmates in a style that emulated comedians David Brenner, Richard Lewis, and Jerry Seinfeld. He watched a large amount of comedy on TV during his high school years, often staying up late to see "Late Night with David Letterman" and "The Arsenio Hall Show".


title: Neal Brennan

text: Brennan's older brother Kevin became a comedian and writer who started doing stand-up comedy while Brennan was still in high school. Brennan would spend weekends attending Kevin's performances at The Improv in New York City, where he would meet comedians such as Dave Attell, David Juskow, Ray Romano, and Mike Royce. He said in an interview with Independent Film Channel (IFC) that after watching his brother do stand-up, he realized it was possible to make a living in comedy. He moved to New York to attend film school at NYU, but he dropped out after a year. He began as a doorman at the now-defunct Boston Comedy Club in Greenwich Village where he met frequent performer Dave Chappelle. The two became friends and Brennan would often pitch jokes to Chappelle. Brennan also shared an apartment with comedian Jay Mohr while living in New York.


title: Neal Brennan

text: After six months of working as a doorman at the Boston Comedy Club, Brennan first performed stand-up in 1992, at 18 years of age. He later recounted that he "got no laughs" and did not perform stand-up again for five years. He also wrote for "The Source" magazine in 1992.


title: Neal Brennan

text: In the mid-1990s Brennan moved to Los Angeles. In 1995, he became a writer for the dating show "Singled Out" which was hosted by Jenny McCarthy and Chris Hardwick. This was followed by writing jobs for the game show "Bzzz!" in 1996, the sketch comedy-variety show "All That" from 1996 to 1997, and the teen sitcom "Kenan & Kel" in 1997.


title: Neal Brennan

text: In 1997, Brennan and Dave Chappelle collaborated for the first time on the screenplay for the film "Half Baked". The film was released in January 1998 and starred Chappelle, Jim Breuer, Harland Williams, and Guillermo Díaz. "Half Baked" was a commercial failure and received mainly negative reviews but has become a cult classic.


title: Neal Brennan

text: In a 2006 interview, Brennan referred to the period of the film's release as "probably the worst year of my life, creatively and personally." In an interview that same year on "Inside the Actors Studio", Chappelle recounted how he and Brennan lost touch with each other after the release of "Half Baked", saying that it was "like leaving a crime scene".


title: Neal Brennan

text: Brennan and Chappelle came together to co-create, co-write, and co-executive produce the eponymous sketch comedy "Chappelle's Show" which premiered in January 2003. Brennan said that he and Chappelle read the book "Live from New York: An Uncensored History of Saturday Night Live" (2002), by Tom Shales when they started writing sketches for the show, and found the book very helpful. The duo wrote the show's sketches with minimal outside help and agreed never to divulge who was responsible for writing which sketch.


title: Neal Brennan

text: Brennan directed some sketches in the show's second season, including the sketch featuring Chappelle as musician Rick James. Brennan was nominated for three Emmy Awards in 2004 for his work on the show as a director, writer and producer. By the end of its second season "Chappelle's Show" was Comedy Central's highest-rated program.


title: Neal Brennan

text: Members of the musical group the Roots worked as music directors on the second and third seasons of the show. Brennan later recommended the band to Jimmy Fallon as his house band on "Late Night with Jimmy Fallon".


title: Neal Brennan

text: "Chappelle's Show" was doing well and Chappelle had signed a $50 million deal in 2004 to produce two more seasons, but he abruptly left the show in April 2005 prior to the premiere of the show's third season. He left without warning Brennan or others of the show's crew. As a result, the premiere of season three was delayed; Brennan compiled the remaining sketches and aired them in July 2006 as the "."


title: Neal Brennan

text: In 2011, Brennan, comedian Moshe Kasher, and DJ Douggpound (Doug Lussenhop) started a podcast called "The Champs". Kasher said of the podcast: "It's Doug dropping sound effects and beats over me and Neal kind of hosting an hour of ridiculous chat. We have a rotating black guy guest, there's a different black guest every week." Guests on the show included actor/comedians Wayne Brady, Chris Rock, Mario Joyner, Shawn and Marlon Wayans, David Alan Grier, adult film star Lexington Steele, rapper Too $hort, and professional basketball player Blake Griffin. On occasion the show has strayed from its regular format with guests such as comedian and actor Bobby Lee, former pornographic actress Sasha Grey, former Major League Baseball player Jose Canseco, and comedian/actor Aziz Ansari. In 2014 "The Champs" was named "Best Podcast" as part of "LA Weekly"s "Best of L.A." issue. The podcast ended in 2016.


title: Neal Brennan

text: In 2015, Brennan developed and performed a comedy show, "3 Mics", in Los Angeles. He brought it to New York City in 2016, opening on March 3 at the Lynn Redgrave Theater. The show features Brennan alternating between three microphones; he uses the first microphone to read one-liners from index cards, the second microphone to talk about dealing with depression and his relationship with his father, and the third microphone to perform traditional stand-up comedy. In 2017, "3 Mics" was released as a Netflix original comedy special.


title: Neal Brennan

text: In 2019, Brennan and his friend, actress Bianca Siavoshy, started a podcast called "How Neal Feel". The duo have interviewed several of Brennan's personal friends including Jimmy Carr, Blake Griffin, Adam Levine, and Chris Rock on the weekly podcast that largely consists of the duo talking about current events and their personal lives. Features on the show include Doc Watch, in which they discuss documentaries they've recently watched; Neal's Gon' 'Pologize, in which Neal apologizes for saying something offensive; Dumb Purchase, where Neal shows the viewers something he frivolously purchased, and Emails, a segment in which listeners ask Bianca and Neal for advice and opinions.


title: Neal Brennan

text: In August 2021, Brennan's one-man show "Unacceptable" debuted at New York City's Cherry Lane Theater with acclaimed magician, author, artist Derek DelGaudio as director. Upon the close of the show in November 2021, Brennan announced that the show would tour in 2022 and implied that it will also be released as a special on Netflix.


title: Neal Brennan

text: In 2006, Brennan directed and co-wrote the made-for-TV movie "Totally Awesome". He directed the 2009 film "". In 2011, he directed a series of commercials for the ESPYs.


title: Neal Brennan

text: As an actor, Brennan had small roles in the films "Half Baked" and "Get Him to the Greek". He also appeared in various sketches on "Chappelle's Show". Brennan has also written comedy material for the 83rd Academy Awards, as well as for Seth Meyers's speech at the White House Correspondents' Dinner in 2011.


title: Neal Brennan

text: Brennan continues to perform stand-up regularly in the Los Angeles area as well as nationally. He has also appeared on "Last Call with Carson Daly", "Late Night with Jimmy Fallon", "Lopez Tonight", and "Conan".


title: Neal Brennan

text: On October 10, 2019, he was featured in a 30-minute YouTube documentary created by SoulPancake in collaboration with Funny or Die called "Laughing Matters", wherein a variety of comedians discuss mental health.


title: Neal Brennan

text: Brennan has said that his comedy influences are Chris Rock, Mort Sahl, Dave Attell, Mike Royce, and David Juskow.


title: Neal Brennan

text: Brennan described himself as an atheist in July 2011, but stated in November 2020 that he is no longer an atheist after using ayahuasca several times.


title: Jovenel Moïse

text: Jovenel Moïse (; ; 26 June 1968 – 7 July 2021) was a Haitian entrepreneur and politician, who served as the 43rd President of Haiti from 2017 until his assassination in 2021. He was sworn in as president in February 2017 after winning the November 2016 election. In 2019, protests and unrest in Haiti became a crisis. In the early morning of 7 July 2021, Moïse was assassinated, and his wife Martine was injured during an attack on their private residence in Pétion-Ville. Claude Joseph took control of the country as acting president following his assassination.


title: Jovenel Moïse

text: Jovenel Moïse was born on June 26, 1968, in Trou du Nord, Nord-Est, Haiti. His family moved to Port-au-Prince in July 1974, where he continued his primary education at École Nationale Don Durélin. He continued his secondary education at Lycée Toussaint Louverture and then at the Centre Culturel du Collège Canado-Haïtien. He married his classmate Martine Marie Étienne Joseph in 1996. They left the capital that same year and settled in Port-de-Paix to develop rural areas.


title: Jovenel Moïse

text: Moïse started his first business, Jomar Auto Parts, with little money and it is still in operation today. The following year, he began working on an agricultural project involving organic banana production from a plantation covering more than 10 hectares (25 acres) in the Nord-Ouest department. Moïse collaborated with Culligan Water in 2001 to build a drinking water plant for the Nord-Ouest and Nord-Est departments.


title: Jovenel Moïse

text: In 2012, he founded Agritrans SA, introduced the agricultural project Nourribio to Trou du Nord, and helped create Haiti's first agricultural free trade zone, a 1,000-hectare (2,500-acre) banana plantation in Nord-Est. This project was supposed to export bananas to Germany for the first time since 1954; however, only two containers were ever sent. This nonetheless led him to being nicknamed "Nèg Bannann" (Banana Man). The government granted tax-free access to the land, 15 years' exemption from income tax and from customs duties on the purchase of capital equipment, and a $6 million loan to a new company, Agritrans, owned by Moïse, the president of the local chamber of commerce. Anonymous investors contributed at least another $10 million. Agritrans promised to create about 3,000 jobs; however, as of March 2015, it had employed only 600.


title: Jovenel Moïse

text: In 2015, President Michel Martelly designated Moïse as the presidential candidate of the political party Martelly had founded, the center-right Haitian Tèt Kale Party (PHTK). In his campaign, Moïse promoted bio-ecological agriculture as an economic engine for Haiti, whose population was over 50% rural. He also expressed support for policies pursued by Martelly: universal education and health care, energy reform, rule of law, the creation of sustainable jobs, environmental protection, and the development of Haiti as a destination for ecotourism and agritourism.


title: Jovenel Moïse

text: Moïse received 32.8% of votes in the first round of the elections held on 15 October 2015, with 54 candidates competing, qualifying for a runoff with the second-place finisher, Jude Célestin. However, an exit poll conducted by the "Haiti Sentinel" reflected Moïse receiving only 6% of the vote, and Célestin and many observers called the results fraudulent. Thousands of people took to the streets in violent protests, forcing the postponement of the runoff election. In their wake, the ballot was ultimately annulled in June 2016. In February 2016, after incumbent President Michel Martelly stepped down at the end of his term, special elections were held by parliament, and Jocelerme Privert was then installed as interim President until new elections could be held.


title: Jovenel Moïse

text: On 20 November 2016, a new election was held; a week later, election officials declared, based on preliminary results, that Moïse had won the election with 55.67% of the vote and with an estimated voter turnout of 21%, beating out 26 other candidates — four of whom claimed victory, before the official results were announced. Moïse secured the presidency without having to compete in a second-round election. In second, third, and fourth place were mechanical engineer Jude Celestin of LAPEH with 19.52%, leftist senator Jean-Charles Moïse of the Platfòm Pitit Dessalines (PPD) with 11.04 percent, and Maryse Narcisse of Fanmi Lavalas (FL) with 8.99 percent. Jovenel Moïse was sworn in on 7 February 2017 for a five-year term.


title: Jovenel Moïse

text: Moïse faced challenges to his mandate, from opposition leaders who believed that Moïse's five-year mandate should end from the date of the inconclusive 2015 elections — that is, on 7 February 2021, five years to the day since his predecessor in office stepped down, though Moïse, counting from the date of his swearing in, had claimed that his term would not end till 2022.


title: Jovenel Moïse

text: In November 2019, Moïse met at the Haiti National Palace with U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations, Kelly Craft, about ways to implement a consensual resolution of Haiti's political crisis through inclusive dialogue. Craft later met with several political leaders from other parties, listened to their different views, and urged an inclusive solution with Moïse. She also urged the Haitian government to fight corruption, investigate and prosecute human rights abusers, and combat narcotics and human trafficking.


title: Jovenel Moïse

text: President Moïse built the second-largest hydropower plant and agricultural water reservoir in Haiti after Peligue. He built the "Barrage Marion" in Marion, Haiti, which has the ability to produce electricity and water the farmers land in the North of Haiti. He rebuilt another water reservoir "barrage la Tannerie" to make more water available for farmers to increase agricultural production in that area. He built several water pumping stations using solar power for the same purpose. President Moise was in the process of building a deviation of water from the Dajabón River when he was assassinated.


title: Jovenel Moïse

text: President Moïse did a lot of work in the Artibonite department, where he leveraged the ministry of public work to curate the water channel system to make it easier for the farmers to grow rice.


title: Jovenel Moïse

text: President Moïse built numerous roads in towns like Jeremie, Port-de-Paix, roads that include Carrefour Joffre/Anse-à-Foleur, Carrefour Trois-Rivières to name a few. He rebuilt an upgraded airport in Jérémie. He built power plants to provide electricity to many small towns that never had any since independence, including in towns like Jérémie and Port-de-Paix.


title: Jovenel Moïse

text: President Moïse built several asphalt plants in several provinces in Haiti, including in Gros Mornes, Les Cayes, Trou-du-Nord. He repaved roads in Les Cayes and rebuilt the town after it had suffered significant damage from Hurricane Matthew.


title: Jovenel Moïse

text: Presidential elections were held in Haiti on 25 October 2015, alongside local elections and the second round of the legislative elections.


title: Jovenel Moïse

text: As no candidate received more than 50% of the vote, a second round was mandated by law. However, this was repeatedly postponed, and eventually cancelled, with an interim president appointed indirectly by the legislature in the February 2016 Haitian presidential election and fresh elections scheduled for 2016.


title: Jovenel Moïse

text: On 7 July 2021, Moïse was assassinated when gunmen attacked his residence in Pèlerin 5, a district of Pétion-Ville around 1 a.m. Martine Moïse, the first lady of Haiti, was airlifted to Jackson Memorial Hospital in Miami to be treated for wounds she sustained during the attack and continues to recuperate at an undisclosed location in Florida. A press release issued later that day from the office of acting Prime Minister Claude Joseph blamed the attack on "a group of unidentified individuals, some of whom spoke in Spanish."


title: Jovenel Moïse

text: In December 2021, "The New York Times" reported that Moïse's assassination might be linked to Moïse's efforts to curb narcotics trafficking and plans to publicly expose high-ranking Haitian officials involved in the Haitian drug trade.


title: Jovenel Moïse

text: Ariel Henry, who had been selected as the Prime Minister by Moïse shortly before his death, was later accused by several officials of being connected to Joseph Felix Badio, an alleged mastermind of the assassination, and being involved in the planning. One of the alleged masterminds Rodolphe Jaar also stated that Henry was close to Badio and had protected him after the assassination. Judge Garry Orélien, who was previously the top judicial official in Haiti overseeing the case, stated that Henry was friends with Badio and planned the assassination with him.


title: Jovenel Moïse

text: Widely perceived as uncompromising and headstrong, Moïse was criticized for his vehement intolerance of dissent and political opposition, and for his attempts to consolidate and remain in power. He also received praise for his robust efforts to rein in corruption and his courage in being willing to stand up against oligarchs and the Haitian elite.


title: Jovenel Moïse

text: Moïse was awarded the Order of Brilliant Jade with Grand Cordon by the president of Taiwan, Tsai Ing-wen, in May 2018. Tsai commended the economic initiatives undertaken by Moïse's government.


title: Khrushchyovka

text: Khrushchyovka () or (a derogatory nickname) Khrushchoba () is an unofficial name for a type of low-cost, concrete-paneled or brick three- to five-storied apartment building which was developed in the Soviet Union during the early 1960s, during the time its namesake Nikita Khrushchev directed the Soviet government. They are sometimes compared to the Japanese "danchi", similar (often government-sponsored) housing projects from the same period, which by some accounts were directly inspired by them. Preceding this type of housing, the majority of the Soviet housing stock was of low-rise communal apartments.


title: Khrushchyovka

text: An updated high rise version, termed "Brezhnevkas", were built in the 1970s and 1980s and included many upgrades including larger apartments (particularly, larger kitchens), elevators, and garbage disposals. This was then followed by what are known unofficially as "Novostroikas," which in English means "new construction," and are still built in the panel house type structure used in the Soviet Union, but are taller, have 21st century amenities, parking, more colorful and decorative themes, and are built over a much larger space area. These however are not government-built, instead they are built by private contractors on behalf of local governments. An example of this is Kudrovo in Leningrad Oblast, Russia


title: Khrushchyovka

text: Traditional masonry is labor-intensive; individual projects were slow and not scalable to the needs of overcrowded cities. To ameliorate a severe housing shortage, during 1947–1951 Soviet architects evaluated various technologies attempting to reduce costs and completion time. During January 1951, an architects' convention, supervised by Khrushchev (then the party director of Moscow), declared low-cost, quick technologies the objective of Soviet architects.


title: Khrushchyovka

text: Two concrete plants were later established in Moscow (Presnensky, 1953; Khoroshevsky, 1954). By this time, competing experimental designs were tested by real-life construction, and prefabricated concrete panels were considered superior. Other possibilities, like in situ concrete, or encouraging individual low-rise construction, were discarded.


title: Khrushchyovka

text: During 1954–1961, engineer Vitaly Lagutenko, chief planner of Moscow since 1956, designed and tested the mass-scale, industrialized construction process, relying on concrete panel plants and a quick assembly schedule. During 1961, Lagutenko's institute released the K-7 design of a prefabricated 5-story building that became typical of the Khrushchyovka. 64,000 units (3,000,000 m (32,000,000 sq ft)) of this type were built in Moscow from 1961 to 1968. The Khrushchyovkas were cheap, and sometimes an entire building could be constructed within two weeks.


title: Khrushchyovka

text: In Moscow, space limitations forced a switch to 9 or 12-story buildings; the last 5-story Khrushyovka was completed there during 1971. The rest of the USSR continued building Khrushyovkas until the fall of the Soviet Union; millions of such units are now past their design lifetime.


title: Khrushchyovka

text: The Khrushchyovka design represented an early attempt at industrialised and prefabricated building, with elements (or panels) made at concrete plants and trucked to sites as needed. Planners regarded elevators as too costly and as too time-consuming to build, and Soviet health/safety standards specified five stories as the maximum height of a building without an elevator. Thus almost all Khrushchyovkas have five stories.


title: Khrushchyovka

text: Khrushchyovkas featured combined bathrooms. They had been introduced with Ivan Zholtovsky's prize-winning "Bolshaya Kaluzhskaya" building, but Lagutenko continued the space-saving idea, replacing regular-sized bathtubs with 120 cm (4 ft) long "sitting baths". Completed bathroom cubicles, assembled at a Khoroshevsky plant, were trucked to the site; construction crews would lower them in place and connect the piping.


title: Khrushchyovka

text: Kitchens were small, usually 6 m (65 sq ft). This was also common for many non-élite class Stalinist houses, some of which had dedicated dining rooms.


title: Khrushchyovka

text: Typical apartments of the K-7 series have a total area of 30 m (323 sq ft) (one-room), 44 m (474 sq ft) (two-room) and 60 m (646 sq ft) (three-room). Later designs further reduced these meager areas.


title: Khrushchyovka

text: Rooms of K-7 are "isolated", in the sense that they all connect to a small entrance hall, not to each other. Later designs (П-35, et al.) disposed with this "redundancy": residents had to pass through the living room to reach the bedroom.


title: Khrushchyovka

text: Some apartments had a "luxurious" storage room. In practice it often served as another bedroom, albeit one without windows or ventilation.


title: Khrushchyovka

text: These apartments were planned for small families, but in reality it was not unusual for three generations of people to live together in two-room apartments.