title: Silent Hill: Downpour

text: After deciding on the concept of a criminal protagonist, the thematic elements of his Otherworld were considered, with water eventually chosen. Rain was decided on as a "scary" manifestation of water, because of the darkness that comes during a storm and that as a result, "[y]our eyes might play tricks on you". The history and atmosphere of Brno, Czech Republic, the location of Vatra Studios, influenced "Downpour". According to design director Brian Gomez, the surrounding markers of the "macabre" history of the Czech Republic, such as its seventeenth-century mummies in the Capuchin Crypt or material reminders of the Soviet regime in the mid-twentieth century, lent the game a "certain heaviness". A nearby gorge, Propast Macocha ("Stepmother Abyss"), provided the inspiration for the "Devil's Pit" level of the game.


title: Silent Hill: Downpour

text: With "Downpour", long-time composer for the "Silent Hill" series Akira Yamaoka was replaced by Daniel Licht. Licht studied the music from previous games to allow him to score the game's soundtrack with musical themes in line with the traditional sound of the series but which also had his personal touch. He worked with regular series vocalist Mary Elizabeth McGlynn on several tracks and considered her voice crucial to the music. Despite the influence of water on the narrative of the game, he avoided musical instruments that incorporated water, such as the waterphone, in favor of vocals, strings, guitar, mandolin, and "industrial sounds and ambiences". The mandolin in particular was chosen as a musical nod to the theme of the first "Silent Hill" game.


title: Silent Hill: Downpour

text: "Downpour's" main theme, "Silent Hill", was performed by the American nu metal band Korn. Konami selected the band from the options available to them, and the theme song did not comprise a significant part of "Downpour"s gameplay; in response to the announcement of Korn's work on the game, a group of fans created an online petition for the removal of the main theme from "Downpour". The soundtrack was published on 13 March 2012 by Milan Records.


title: Silent Hill: Downpour

text: "Silent Hill: Downpour" was initially slated to be released in October 2011, but the release date was later pushed back to March 2012. In 2012, Konami published "Downpour" for the Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3 on 13 March in North America, on 30 March in Europe, and on 5 April in Australia. The PlayStation 3 version was released on 8 November 2012 in Japan. An official patch for the frame rate and saving issues for both consoles was released later that year. In 2016, "Downpour" was made backwards compatible with the Xbox One gaming console.


title: Silent Hill: Downpour

text: As part of a promotion for the game, video game publisher Konami held a Facebook contest from 10–16 February 2011, which invited its "Silent Hill" fans to design an original graveyard sculpture that would appear in the finished game.


title: Silent Hill: Downpour

text: A spin-off comic, "Anne's Story", was written by Tom Waltz and illustrated by Tristan Jones. Based on downloadable content for "Downpour" that was never released, it centers on Anne and her parallel journey through Silent Hill as she attempts to capture Murphy. IDW Publishing released the four issues in print from September to December 2014, and reprinted them as part of the second volume of the "Silent Hill Omnibus" in October 2015.


title: Silent Hill: Downpour

text: "Silent Hill: Downpour" received "mixed or average" reviews, according to review aggregator Metacritic. In general, most critics praised the game's story and atmosphere but criticized the combat and technical performance.


title: Silent Hill: Downpour

text: "Game Informer" gave it a 7/10, stating: "I don't regret my time with "Silent Hill: Downpour", but mediocrity hung over most of my playthrough". Destructoid gave it an 8/10, stating: "When it's not forcing a sub-par combat system on players, and when it allows itself to be as imaginative as it can be, "Silent Hill: Downpour" is a stylish, slickly produced, beautifully foreboding game". Games Radar gave it a 7/10, writing: "In spite of its flaws, "Silent Hill: Downpour" does manage to be smart and imaginative in bursts ... The actual gameplay leaves a lot to be desired, but as recent "Silent Hill"s go, this is one of the better ones". GameSpot gave the game a 7.5/10, saying ""Downpour" makes some questionable tweaks to the established formula, but those decisions distinguish it from the rest of the series". "Official Xbox Magazine" summed up its review with "the game's many puzzles and open-world areas did leave us aimlessly wondering and wandering. But varied gameplay, solid combat, and an effective mix of psychological scares and freaky encounters make "Downpour" a worthwhile trip", giving the game a 7.5/10.


title: Silent Hill: Downpour

text: One of the most negative reviews came from IGN, which gave it 4.5/10. The review said that "the most frustrating thing about "Silent Hill: Downpour" isn't the lousy combat, dull exploration, or even the technical gaffes. It's the fact that every now and then while playing through the game's story, you'll see signs of brilliance; sunlight hinted from behind the overcast sky".


title: Silent Hill: Downpour

text: Several reviews singled out the soundtrack for praise, although one criticized the overall sound design, saying dead silence too often made combat commonplace instead of terrifying. The Joystiq review stated Licht did an "admirable job" with the score, yet lamented that "the loss of longtime series composer Akira Yamaoka may be "Downpour"'s biggest detriment."


title: Silent Hill: Downpour

text: Ben "Yahtzee" Croshaw of "Zero Punctuation" fame, who is often vocally critical of past Western "Silent Hill" titles, reviewed the game more favorably. He noted improvements in the survival aspects of the combat, praising its fluidity in its use of random items as weapons and the ability to avoid enemies. He also praised the exploration as a step in the right direction. He was more critical of the monster designs, as well as describing the game as lacking horror. He was especially critical of how the protagonist's crimes are dependent on the multiple endings. Nonetheless, he described the title as his "favorite Western-developed "Silent Hill" thus far".


title: Charlie Ward

text: Charlie Ward Jr. (born October 12, 1970) is a former American professional basketball player. Ward was an exceptional football player as well, winning the Heisman Trophy, Davey O'Brien Award, and College Football National Championship while quarterbacking the Florida State Seminoles. Despite his college football success, he was not drafted to the NFL, opting instead to play in the National Basketball Association (NBA).


title: Charlie Ward

text: Ward played for nine years with the New York Knicks and started in the 1999 NBA Finals. He later had short spells with the San Antonio Spurs and Houston Rockets, before retiring in 2005. He was inducted into the College Football Hall of Fame in 2006.


title: Charlie Ward

text: Ward won the 1993 Heisman Trophy, Maxwell Award, and Davey O'Brien Award as a quarterback for The Florida State University, and subsequently led the Seminoles to their first-ever National Championship when FSU defeated Nebraska 18–16 in the 1993 Orange Bowl. The Seminoles had suffered their only defeat of the season to a second-ranked Notre Dame team, but their path to the National Championship was cleared a week later when the Irish were upset at home by Boston College. Ward holds the fourth-largest margin of victory in the history of Heisman trophy balloting, with a 1,622-point difference, fourth only to Joe Burrow's 1,846 point win in 2019, O. J. Simpson's 1,750-point win in 1968 and Troy Smith's 1,662-point win in 2006. He was also the only Heisman winner to play in the NBA. In 1993, Charlie Ward won the James E. Sullivan Award from the Amateur Athletic Union (AAU) as the most outstanding amateur athlete in the United States.


title: Charlie Ward

text: Ward also played basketball for four years at The Florida State University (FSU). Former teammates included future NBA players Bob Sura, Doug Edwards, and Sam Cassell. His 1993 team made it to the Southeast Regional Final where they lost to Kentucky 106–81 with the winner advancing to the Final Four. Ward's 1992 team made the Sweet Sixteen. He made the game-winning shot in its Metro Conference Tournament Championship game win over Louisville in 1991. Ward still holds FSU basketball records for career steals at 236 and steals in one game at 9, and ranks sixth all-time in assists at 396. He played a shortened season his senior year, joining the basketball team just 15 days after winning the Heisman Trophy. He started 16 games at the point guard position that year, and averaged a college career high of 10.5 points and 4.9 assists for the season.


title: Charlie Ward

text: Upon graduation, Ward stated he was undecided about professional basketball or football and made it clear that he would not consider playing in the NFL unless selected in the first round of the 1994 NFL Draft. Ward proclaimed that he "deserved to" be a first-rounder. Ward's mother reported that the family was told he "was probably a third- to fifth-round pick." Due to his smaller stature and uncertainty about whether he would play in the NBA, Ward was not selected in the first round of the NFL Draft. Having been chosen in the 1st round (26th overall) of the 1994 NBA Draft by the New York Knicks, he began his career in the NBA as a point guard. An inquiry was made during Ward's rookie year with the Knicks for him to become the backup quarterback for Joe Montana of the Kansas City Chiefs, but Ward declined. Ward is the only Heisman Trophy winner to play in the NBA, and besides Bo Jackson (MLB), the only winner of that award to play professionally in another Big 4 league.


title: Charlie Ward

text: Ward played sparingly in his rookie year under head coach Pat Riley, but the Knicks organization referred to him as "the point guard of the future." When assistant coach Jeff Van Gundy took over the head coaching position, Ward's time on the floor began to increase, becoming the primary backup for point guard Derek Harper. He became a fan favorite in New York for his hard work ethic and unselfish play. During his NBA career, Ward established himself as a good three-point shooter, a reliable ball distributor, and a respected floor leader. Ward was selected to participate in the 1998 NBA All-Star three-point competition, finishing fourth in the event. He soon helped the Knicks reach the 1999 NBA Finals before falling to the San Antonio Spurs. Ward was traded to the Phoenix Suns in February 2004 as part of the blockbuster trade that brought Stephon Marbury to the Knicks and was promptly cut by the Suns for salary purposes. Ward spent the remainder of the season with the Spurs and signed a contract with the Houston Rockets the following summer. After maintaining relatively good health over his first decade in the league, injuries caused Ward to miss most of the 2004–05 season. Because of his injuries Ward retired.


title: Charlie Ward

text: During his time with the Knicks, Ward was often called the "best quarterback in New York" due to the struggles that the New York Jets and New York Giants had at the position. Dubiously, Ward was the last Knicks draft pick to sign a multiyear contract with the team after the expiration of their rookie deal expired for 23 years.


title: Charlie Ward

text: Off the court, Ward became known for his extensive charitable work through groups like the Fellowship of Christian Athletes. In 2011, at the NCAA Final Four, Ward received the John Wooden Keys to Life award given for continued excellence and integrity on and off the court.


title: Charlie Ward

text: Ward established The aWard Foundation to enhance the lives of young people through sports based mentoring and educational programs.


title: Charlie Ward

text: In Game 5 of the 1997 Eastern Conference Semifinals against the Miami Heat, with the Knicks holding a 3–1 series lead, Ward tried to box out P. J. Brown. When he tried to get inside after the free throw shot, Brown became frustrated, then retaliated by lifting Ward up and body-slamming him. This caused a bench-clearing brawl to ensue. After Miami won the game 96–81, Patrick Ewing, John Starks, Larry Johnson, Allan Houston, and Ward himself, were suspended by the NBA. Ewing, Houston, Johnson, and Starks left the bench during the brawl, which was mandatory cause for suspension according to NBA rules. Brown was suspended for the rest of the series; Ewing, Ward and Houston were suspended for Game 6, and Johnson and Starks were suspended for Game 7. Due to the suspensions, the Knicks were shorthanded and lost Games 6 and 7 to Miami 95–90 and 101–90, respectively, failing to advance to the Eastern Conference Finals. Miami would go on to lose to the Chicago Bulls in five games.


title: Charlie Ward

text: In 2001, while playing for the Knicks, it was discovered that Ward had made comments about Jews during a Bible-study session, comments that were eventually leaked to the press. Among the comments made: "Jews are stubborn...tell me, why did they persecute Jesus unless He knew something they didn't want to accept...They had His blood on their hands."


title: Charlie Ward

text: There was outrage directed at Ward from Jewish groups, the public, as well as the Knicks organization itself. Ward defended himself by saying "I didn't mean to offend any one group because that's not what I'm about. I have friends that are Jewish. Actually, my friend is a Jewish guy, and his name is Jesus Christ." He also said the quotes were taken out of context, as he stated that "Jews are stubborn" in speaking to what he perceived to be their disinclination to convert to Christianity.


title: Charlie Ward

text: Ward eventually apologized for those statements, with his apology being accepted by the Anti-Defamation League.


title: Charlie Ward

text: Ward is a member of Omega Psi Phi fraternity. He and his wife Tonja have three children: Caleb, Hope, and Joshua In June 2007, Ward was hired as an assistant coach for the varsity boys basketball team by Westbury Christian School in Houston, Texas, having passed on many professional sports opportunities. He was previously an assistant coach for the Houston Rockets. In addition, in November 2007, he accepted the job as head coach for the varsity football team at Westbury Christian School, stating that his desire is to help prepare young minds for Christ. In February 2014, it was announced that Ward accepted the head coaching position at Booker T. Washington High School in Pensacola, Florida, where his son Caleb would be attending and playing football. As of March 8, 2018, Charlie is the Ambassador of Football for Florida State University. In March 2018, Ward became the head Boys' Basketball coach for Florida State University Schools (FSUS or Florida High) in Tallahassee, Florida. Currently Florida High's Boys Basketball program has improved since Ward's arrival. Charlie is also the host of a web series, Chalk Talk with Charlie Ward, where he discusses his thoughts on Florida State Seminole Football.


title: Charlie Ward

text: In June 2018, while on a church mission trip to Ensenada, Mexico, Ward suffered a stroke. He has since made a full recovery. Ward switched to a vegan diet and began a more consistent workout regimen to improve his health and prevent another stroke in the future.


title: Charlie Ward

text: Charlie Ward made his acting debut on the Netflix comedy series "Family Reunion" episode "Remember M'dear's Fifteen Minutes?" playing himself in 2020.


title: Derek Morgan (Criminal Minds)

text: Derek Morgan is a fictional character on the CBS crime drama "Criminal Minds", portrayed by Emmy Award winner Shemar Moore. Morgan specializes in fixations and obsessive behaviors. He is a Supervisory Special Agent of the FBI's Behavioral Analysis Unit, briefly serving as interim unit chief. He first appeared in the series' pilot episode, "Extreme Aggressor", which was originally broadcast on September 22, 2005. Before he left in season 11, he was one of only three main characters to appear since the first season as "starring" while also becoming the only character to appear in all episodes.


title: Derek Morgan (Criminal Minds)

text: Morgan and his sisters Sarah and Desirée grew up on the South Side, Chicago, in a crime-ridden neighborhood. He is the son of an African American father and a white mother. He rarely speaks of his immediate family, but he is close to his mother and sisters and returns every year for his mother Fran's birthday. In season 2 it was stated that he was around age 33, putting his birth year around 1973; this is retconned in season 11, wherein the passing of Derek's father is stated to have happened on November 7, 1985, and Derek was stated to have been 10 years old at that time, putting his birth date closer to 1975. Another explanation for this seeming discrepancy would be if his birthday was in late November or December, meaning he would've turned 11 soon after his father's death, making his birth year 1974, also allowing him to be 33 in season 2. He attended Northwestern University on a football scholarship, graduating "summa cum laude". Although it was stated that he had graduated from law school, there has never been any mention of him practicing law. He was the star quarterback until a left knee injury ended his career.


title: Derek Morgan (Criminal Minds)

text: At the age of 10, Morgan was a witness to the shooting death of his father, who was a police officer. Left without a father figure, he had behavioral problems as an adolescent and earned himself a juvenile record for fighting. He was taken under the wing of a local youth center coordinator, Carl Buford (Julius Tennon). Buford acted as a surrogate father to Morgan, helping expunge Morgan's juvenile criminal record and him to obtain the aforementioned football scholarship. However, Buford also sexually abused him, a fact which Morgan only admitted years later, under extreme duress. As a teen he discovered the body of an unidentified boy, which had a profound effect on him (he went door to door in order to collect money to buy the boy a headstone and visited the boy's grave every time he came home to Chicago). Due to his difficult past, he has no sympathy for criminals who attempt to use their traumatic childhoods as an excuse for their crimes. Prior to joining the FBI, Morgan was a Chicago Police Department officer and served in their bomb squad. At one time he spent 18 months doing deep undercover work.


title: Derek Morgan (Criminal Minds)

text: Years later, Morgan's past comes back to haunt him when he is arrested by the Chicago Police Department for the murder of the unidentified boy and two others. The lead detective, who had arrested Morgan several times for juvenile misdemeanors when the latter was young, believes Morgan is guilty and uses a BAU profile created by team leader Jason Gideon (Mandy Patinkin) to support his case. Believing Morgan is being framed by the real killer, the BAU searches through his life and background to prove him innocent. They later identify Carl Buford as the man who set Morgan up to take the fall (Buford was friends with the lead detective). Morgan then escapes police custody and speaks to a local boy who was friends with the latest victim. The boy reveals that Buford molested him, and that the latest victim knew about it. Morgan confronts Buford, who at first denies that anything happened between them, and tells Morgan the other boy is lying. Morgan eventually gets Buford to admit to the abuse, which is overheard by Chicago PD detectives lying in wait nearby, who arrest Buford. Buford pleads with Morgan to help him, to which Morgan replies, "You go to Hell."


title: Derek Morgan (Criminal Minds)

text: Characterized as a "jock", Morgan is the most athletic of the BAU team members, often being tasked with the more physical aspects of the job, such as taking down intimidating suspects or chasing a runaway on foot. He holds a black belt in judo and has occasionally been asked to train other FBI agents for fitness tests and in SWAT tactics. Due to his past as a juvenile delinquent and experience with gangsters in Chicago, he is rarely intimidated by suspects, even those belonging to criminal syndicates.


title: Derek Morgan (Criminal Minds)

text: Morgan often appears to be happy-go-lucky and is frequently seen teasing or playing pranks on colleagues Penelope Garcia (Kirsten Vangsness) and Spencer Reid (Matthew Gray Gubler). As his background is revealed, it becomes apparent that Morgan is putting on a facade to bury the painful memories of his past. He looks up to Supervisory Special Agent Aaron Hotchner (Thomas Gibson) and senior agent David Rossi (Joe Mantegna), Gideon's successor, as mentors. They are usually the ones to calm Morgan down when a case gets to him. Hotchner at one point says of Morgan, "There are very few people he truly trusts", but Morgan is extremely loyal to those "few" (the BAU team).


title: Derek Morgan (Criminal Minds)

text: Morgan bears an especially intense grudge against serial killer George Foyet (C. Thomas Howell). In season 5, Foyet attacks Morgan, steals his FBI credentials, and nearly kills Hotchner. Morgan temporarily takes over Hotchner's position as Unit Chief while Foyet is on the loose on the condition that Hotchner be reinstated once Foyet is captured.


title: Derek Morgan (Criminal Minds)

text: Morgan is good with children, which becomes apparent when the team is assigned to cases involving minors. Morgan is frequently tasked with interviewing children or adolescents, especially boys, for information.


title: Derek Morgan (Criminal Minds)

text: Morgan is at one point a candidate to replace SSA Kate Joyner (Sienna Guillory) as Unit Chief of the New York FBI field office. Hotchner does not recommend him for the position, however, due to concerns that Morgan does not have enough trust in his coworkers. However, after Joyner is killed by an IED in the fourth-season premiere, Hotchner tells Morgan that the job is his if he wants it. Nevertheless, Morgan chooses not to take the position, and remains with the BAU.


title: Derek Morgan (Criminal Minds)

text: Because of his experiences as a teenager, Morgan seems to bear a lingering hostility towards organized religion, but he still prays, even going so far as to visit a church. He is very charming, and has been seen flirting with many women, even dancing with several at a time in a bar. In one episode, Morgan asks out Jordan Todd (Meta Golding), only later realizing that she is about to be his coworker. However, as with most BAU agents, a long-term stable romantic relationship has eluded him, until Season 11, where he announces his engagement to his girlfriend, Savannah Hayes (Rochelle Aytes). They eventually have a son named Hank Spencer Morgan, naming him after Derek's father and Reid.


title: Derek Morgan (Criminal Minds)

text: Morgan is intensely devoted to his coworkers, especially Technical Analyst Penelope Garcia. Morgan often calls her "baby girl", "doll face" or "sweetness"—having first used the term when he did not know her name, he continued doing so when she seemed to like it. In the aftermath of Joyner's death, Morgan tells Garcia that she is his "God-given solace" after jumping out of an ambulance which was about to blow up. Morgan's close relationship with Garcia is made especially clear after she is shot by a serial killer the team is investigating; while taking her home from the hospital, Morgan tells Garcia, "I love you, you know that, right?". He then insists on staying with her to protect her, eventually saving her life.


title: Derek Morgan (Criminal Minds)

text: Morgan has a close friendship with SSA Dr. Spencer Reid, akin to that of a protective older brother figure. Morgan frequently exchanges friendly banter with Reid, and attempts to help him with his love life. In the episode "Revelations," he is particularly distressed after he witnesses Reid's torture live while Reid is held prisoner by serial killer Tobias Hankel (James Van Der Beek); he even goes as far as stating that he would like to put Hankel's "head on a stick" as revenge for hurting Reid. Morgan often calls him "Doc", "Kid", "Genius", or "Pretty Boy" and they frequently tease each other and exchange banter, even going as far as having a "joke war" in the episode "Painless". Morgan also gives Reid advice on how to pick up women at a bar, and he is one of few people who know that Reid is experiencing extremely painful headaches that he fears are signs of schizophrenia.


title: Derek Morgan (Criminal Minds)

text: He also has a close friendship with Agent Emily Prentiss (Paget Brewster). After she joined the team in season 2, they immediately bond due to their mutual love of Kurt Vonnegut novels. In the episode "Valhalla", Morgan tells Prentiss that she can trust him, and that he is there for her no matter what. In Prentiss' final episode as a series regular, 6x18 "Lauren", she disappears after walking out of the BAU to go and confront her nemesis, IRA terrorist Ian Doyle (Timothy V. Murphy). At the end of the episode, after Doyle stabs her in the abdomen, Morgan rushes to her side to try to save her. At the hospital, Jareau tells the team that Prentiss died in surgery, and Morgan is especially devastated; he is unaware that she faked her death in order to enter the Witness Protection Program. In season seven, Morgan is the first to discover that Prentiss is alive. When she returns to the BAU, they share an emotional moment and an embrace. Later, Morgan tells her he was never upset at her, nor does he feel betrayed. In "Dorado Falls", Morgan signs them up for takedown re-certification without telling her and lets her believe Hotchner was responsible. He does not want her to know that he signed her up because he does not want to acknowledge that he needs to make sure she can still take care of herself. Later, he tells her he did it because losing her was "seven months of hell" and he worried that his fear of losing her would be so great it would interfere with his job. She tells him she understands and agrees to 10 hours of training.


title: Derek Morgan (Criminal Minds)

text: In "Big Sea", Morgan's aunt Yvonne (Denise Dowse) calls him when a number of bodies are found on the ocean floor off of Jacksonville, Florida, fearing that her missing daughter, Cindi (Shanola Hampton), is one of the victims. After Morgan catches the killer, Blake Wells (Karl Makinen), he shows him a picture of Cindi while interrogating him. Wells claims that she cried for Morgan before he cut her throat. Morgan soon realizes that Wells is lying to him, however, and that Cindi is not one of his victims; nevertheless, Morgan tells his aunt that Cindi is dead to give her closure. Cindi turns up, alive, in season seven's "The Company", having been held captive for seven years by Malcolm Ford (Chad L. Coleman), the leader of a sexual slavery ring.


title: Derek Morgan (Criminal Minds)

text: In season 9 love interest Savannah is introduced for Morgan. Savannah was introduced to the show because Shemar Moore, the actor who portrays Morgan, had requested that his character should get a romantic partner. While they initially struggle with the demands of having busy demanding careers they appear to make a compromise.


title: Derek Morgan (Criminal Minds)

text: At the beginning of the episode "A Badge and a Gun", Savannah texts Morgan, telling him that they need to talk, but she doesn't offer an explanation, worrying him. By the end of the episode, the two have a conversation on the phone, and Savannah clarifies that she plans to tell him something good. At that moment, he is abducted by a group of men. He tells her to call Hotchner before one of his attackers grabs his cellphone and destroys it.


title: Derek Morgan (Criminal Minds)

text: Six months later, she and Morgan have gotten married. She shows up at his work for a surprise party; however, this celebration is cut short as the BAU have received a new case. She is mentioned near the end of the episode by Morgan, who states that the two of them are attending a Lamaze class in preparation for their upcoming child. At the end of the episode, Morgan goes to pick her up from Bethesda General Hospital, and they discuss who the child's godparents should be. A sniper is then seen aiming between her and Morgan, and as a gunshot is fired, she cries out Morgan's name. it is revealed that Savannah was shot and she is rushed to the hospital by Morgan to be given medical treatment. During the investigation, it is revealed that Chazz Montolo shot Savannah and was the one who hired Morgan's abductors, having hoped to avenge his son Giuseppe, who was arrested by Morgan and later killed in front of him. Savannah survives the surgery and goes into labor. After the conclusion of the case, Savannah gives birth to a baby boy, who they name Hank Spencer Morgan. She is last seen resting in a hospital bed with Morgan by her side.


title: Derek Morgan (Criminal Minds)

text: As the team celebrates with Morgan, he talks with Hotchner about his departure from the team in order to protect his family and to be around for his son. Morgan says goodbye to Jareau, Reid, and Garcia. Before he leaves the building, he looks into the conference room and watches his team work one last time.


title: Wong Fei-hung

text: Wong Fei-hung (born Wong Sek-cheung with the courtesy name Tat-wun; 9 July 1847 – 17 April 1925) was a Chinese martial artist, physician, and folk hero. His recent fame was due to becoming the subject of numerous martial arts films and television series. Even though he was considered an expert in the Hung Ga style of Chinese martial arts, his real public fame was as a physician, who practiced and taught acupuncture, Dit Da and other forms of traditional Chinese medicine in the now famous Po Chi Lam (), a medical clinic in Canton (Guangzhou), Kwangtung Province (Guangdong). A museum dedicated to him was built in his birthplace in Fatshan (Foshan), Kwangtung.


title: Wong Fei-hung

text: Wong's original given name was Sek-cheung or Xixiang () before it was changed to Fei-hung (Feihong). His courtesy name was Dat-wan or Dayun ().


title: Wong Fei-hung

text: Wong was born in Luzhou Hamlet, Lingxi Village, Xiqiao Country, Fatshan, Nanhai County, which is a present day part of Foshan City, Guangdong Province, during the reign of the Daoguang Emperor in the Qing dynasty. His ancestral home was in Luzhou Hamlet, Lingxi Village, Xiqiao Country, Fatshan, Nanhai County, Canton Prefecture, Kwangtung Province, which is now part of Xiqiao Town, Nanhai District, Foshan City.


title: Wong Fei-hung

text: At the age of five, Wong started learning Hung Ga from his father, Wong Kei-ying. He often accompanied his father on trips from Foshan to Guangzhou, the provincial capital of Guangdong Province, where his father peddled medicine and performed martial arts in the streets. When he was 13, he encountered Lam Fuk-sing (林福成; Lin Fucheng), an apprentice of "Iron Bridge Three" Leung Kwan, in Douchi Street in Foshan Town. Lam taught him how to use the sling and the essential moves of the martial art Iron Wire Fist. Later, he learned the Shadowless Kick from Sung Fai-tong (宋輝鏜; Song Huitang).. Wong Fei Hung was very personable like his father and made many friends in the Martial and Medical World i.e. 10 Tigers of Guandong etc. With these friendships and chance meetings he was able to be exposed to vast amounts of knowledge that were openly shared with him. For this reason he was able to enhance his father's teachings to formulate a style that included much of what is seen in Southern Chinese Styles today.


title: Wong Fei-hung

text: In 1863, Wong started a martial arts school in Shuijiao () in Saikwan (Xiguan), which is a present day location of Liwan District, Guangzhou City. His students were mainly metal labourers and street vendors. In 1886, Wong opened his family's medical clinic, Po Chi Lam (寶芝林; Baozhilin), in Ren'an (), which is a present day part of Xiaobei Road, Yuexiu District, Guangzhou City. In legend, around the 1860s or 1870s, Wong was recruited by Liu Yongfu, the commander of the Black Flag Army, to be the medical officer and martial arts instructor for the regular soldiers and the local militia in Guangzhou. He also followed the Black Flag Army to fight the Imperial Japanese Army during the Japanese invasion of Taiwan in 1895.


title: Wong Fei-hung

text: In 1912, the Republic of China was established following the collapse of the Qing dynasty. During the chaotic early years of the Republican era, many businessmen who operated places of entertainment in Guangzhou decided to hire guards (or bouncers) to protect their businesses on-site in case trouble broke out. As Wong was trained in martial arts, he was hired by various businesses to be one of such guards.


title: Wong Fei-hung

text: In 1919, when the Chin Woo Athletic Association opened a branch in Canton, Wong was invited to perform at the opening ceremony. In the same year, Wong Hon-sam, one of Wong's sons, who was working as a bodyguard in Wuchow (Wuzhou), Kwangsi (Guangxi), was murdered by a rival known as "Devil Eye" Leung (), who was apparently jealous that Wong Hon-sam was better than him in martial arts. Wong was so affected by this incident that he stopped teaching his other sons martial arts.


title: Wong Fei-hung

text: Between August and October 1924, Wong's medical clinic, Po Chi Lam, was destroyed when the Nationalist government was suppressing the uprising by the Guangzhou Merchant Volunteers Corps. Wong felt so dejected and saddened by the loss of Po Chi Lam that he fell into depression and became ill. He died from illness on 17 April 1925 in Chengxi Fangbian Hospital (), which is the present day location of the Guangzhou First People's Hospital () at Panfu Road in Guangzhou's Yuexiu District. He was buried at the foot of Baiyun Mountain.


title: Wong Fei-hung

text: Wong's fourth wife, Mok Kwai-lan, and his sons, along with his students Lam Sai-wing and Dang Sai-king (鄧世瓊; Deng Shiqiong), moved to Hong Kong and opened martial arts schools there.


title: Wong Fei-hung

text: Wong's grave location is currently unknown. It is also believed that his grave, along with others within the cemetery were long expunged for future developments.


title: Wong Fei-hung

text: Wong was a master of Hung Ga. He systematised the predominant style of Hung Ga and choreographed its version of the Tiger Crane Paired Form Fist, which incorporates his Ten Special Fist techniques. Wong is famous for using the Shadowless Kick. He named the techniques of his skills when he performed them.


title: Wong Fei-hung

text: Wong was adept at using weapons, such as the staff and southern tiger fork. One tale, possibly fictional, recounts how Wong defeated a group of 30 gangsters on the docks of Guangzhou with a staff.


title: Wong Fei-hung

text: Among Wong's students, the more notable ones include Lam Sai-wing (林世榮; Lin Shirong), Leung Foon (梁寬; Liang Kuan), Dang Fong (Deng Fang), and Ling Wan-kai (凌雲階; Ling Yunjie).


title: Wong Fei-hung

text: Wong is sometimes incorrectly identified as one of the "Ten Tigers of Canton". His father, Wong Kei-ying, was one of the ten but Wong himself was not. Wong is also sometimes referred to as the "Tiger after the Ten Tigers".


title: Wong Fei-hung

text: After his first wife died of illness in 1871, Wong was widowed for 25 years. In 1896, he married his second wife and had two sons and two daughters with her. Some time after she died of illness, Wong remarried again in 1902. His third wife bore him two sons before falling victim to a deadly illness. His fourth and final wife stayed with him from 1915 up till his death. The personal names of his first three wives are unknown. He had four known children.


title: Wong Fei-hung

text: Wong had at least three grandsons and six granddaughters. His descendants currently live in Australia, Latin America and Southeast Asia.


title: Wong Fei-hung

text: A Wong Fei-hung Memorial Hall was built in 2000 and was officially opened in January 2001 in his honour in Foshan, Chancheng District.


title: Wong Fei-hung

text: The first alleged photo was said to have been provided by his fourth spouse Mok Kwai-lan to Leung Ting of the "Real Kung Fu" () magazine in 1976. Decades later, it was first exhibited at the Wong Fei-hung Memorial Hall in 2000 and was controversially seen and even promoted by martial artists as a photo of Wong Fei-hong. This was dismissed in 2009 by "New Martial Hero"'s article that the man in the photo was of that of his fourth son, Wong Hon-hei.


title: Wong Fei-hung

text: In 2005, another alleged photo of Wong Fei-hung once in procession by one of his students Kwong Kei-tim () was discovered by the museum staff in Hong Kong. The man in the photo bears a close resemblance to his son, whose photo was the first to be often mistaken for his own father's back then. According to his fourth spouse Mok, who once said that her husband was quite superstitious, who believed that taking self photos would shorten one's lifespan, so Wong had a picture of himself taken by his student Kwong, the only one in his lifetime.


title: Wong Fei-hung

text: Over 100 films and television series featuring Wong have been produced since 1949, mostly in Hong Kong. The Hong Kong actor Kwan Tak-hing starred as Wong in over 70 films between the 1940s and 1980s and earned himself the nickname "Master Wong". Other prominent actors who portrayed Wong on screen include Jet Li in the "Once Upon a Time in China" film series, and Vincent Zhao in the television series "Wong Fei Hung Series".


title: Wong Fei-hung

text: The Chinese folk song "On the General's Orders" () is popularly associated with Wong Fei-hung because it was used as the theme song in various Wong Fei-hung movies. It was the opening theme of the 1978 film "Drunken Master", starring Jackie Chan. In the "Once Upon a Time in China" film series, the song's title was changed to A Man Should Better Himself (). It was sung in Cantonese by George Lam and its lyrics were written by James Wong. Jackie Chan sang the song in Mandarin in the second film. The version "A Man Should Better Himself" is the best known rendition of the song to date.


title: Mezzanine (album)

text: Mezzanine is the third studio album by English electronic music group Massive Attack, released on 20 April 1998 by Circa and Virgin Records. For the album, the group began to explore a darker aesthetic, and focused on a more atmospheric style influenced by British post-punk, industrial music, hip hop and dub music.


title: Mezzanine (album)

text: "Mezzanine" topped the charts in the United Kingdom, Australia, Ireland, and New Zealand, becoming the group's most commercially successful album to date. It ranked highly on many year-end lists. The album spawned four singles, "Risingson", "Teardrop", "Angel" and "Inertia Creeps", which also variously charted in the United Kingdom.


title: Mezzanine (album)

text: "Mezzanine" was conceptualized by lead Massive Attack member Robert Del Naja in 1997, who wanted to focus on exploring a darker audiovisual aesthetic with distinct influences. The production of the album was a stressful process; with tensions arising, it led to disagreements that almost split the group, including discouragement from Andrew Vowles. As a demonstration of the project's sound, Del Naja initially produced instrumental demos sampling songs by British post-punk bands such as Wire and Gang of Four, who had been familiar to him as artists he had enjoyed as a teenager. Grant Marshall supported this direction as he wanted to depart from the "urban soul" of their previous album, "Protection", but Vowles was sceptical.


title: Mezzanine (album)

text: The sessions continued with Vowles and Marshall working on bass and drum loops, while Del Naja continued to produce demos. The album was originally set to be released in December 1997, but was delayed by four months, with Del Naja spending most of the time in the studio "making tracks, tearing them apart, them up, panicking, then starting again." Before the album's release, the group released "Superpredators", a non-album song extensively sampling Siouxsie and the Banshees' song "Metal Postcard", for the soundtrack to the 1997 film "The Jackal"; the track was subsequently included on the Japanese version of "Mezzanine".


title: Mezzanine (album)

text: The album marked the later parting of Vowles due to creative conflicts, while reggae artist and Massive Attack collaborator Horace Andy contributed to the album on multiple songs. The album's working title was "Damaged Goods", which was the name of Gang of Four's 1978 debut single.


title: Mezzanine (album)

text: The cover art depicts a black stag beetle on a white background, photographed by Nick Knight at the Natural History Museum in London.


title: Mezzanine (album)

text: "Mezzanine" has been described as a trip hop and electronica album with moods of "dark claustrophobia" and melancholy. Musically, the album is a major departure from the jazzy and laidback sound of the first two albums, "Blue Lines" and "Protection", invoking the dark undercurrents which had previously only been vaguely present in the group's music. The album's textured and deep tone relies heavily on abstract and ambient sounds, heavy emphasis on bass, and influences from alternative rock.


title: Mezzanine (album)

text: Similar to their previous albums, several songs use one or more samples, which range from artists typically sampled in trip hop such as Isaac Hayes and various drum breaks, to bands like the Cure and the Velvet Underground. In particular, "Inertia Creeps" samples Turkish çiftetelli music which Del Naja recorded after partying in Istanbul, with his recorded tape subsequently becoming the rhythmic base for the song. In 1998, Manfred Mann sued Massive Attack for unauthorised use of a sample of the song "Tribute" from Manfred Mann's Earth Band's eponymous 1972 album, used on "Black Milk". The song has subsequently appeared as "Black Melt" on later releases and at live performances, with the sample removed. Later digital editions of "Mezzanine" have retained the original song, with Mann being added to the songwriting credits.


title: Mezzanine (album)

text: "Mezzanine" entered the UK Albums Chart at number one, and was certified platinum by the British Phonographic Industry (BPI) on 4 September 1998 and then double platinum on 22 July 2013. However, it failed to share the same success in North America, peaking at number 60 on the "Billboard" 200 and number 51 on the Canadian Albums Chart.


title: Mezzanine (album)

text: The album received significant critical acclaim, which praised the collective's new sound. "Rolling Stone"s Barney Hoskyns, although praising the album, pointed to its flaws: "Sometimes rhythm and texture are explored at the expense of memorable tunes, and the absence of the bizarre Tricky [...] only highlights the flat, monotonous rapping of the group's 3-D." Robert Christgau of "The Village Voice" gave the album a two-star honorable mention rating and selected "Risingson" and "Man Next Door" as highlights.


title: Mezzanine (album)

text: John Bush of AllMusic also had positive words for the album's song "Inertia Creeps", saying it "could well be the highlight, another feature for just the core threesome. With eerie atmospherics, fuzz-tone guitars, and a wealth of effects, the song could well be the best production from the best team of producers the electronic world had ever seen."


title: Mezzanine (album)

text: Years after the album was released, it was placed on several best-of lists in the UK and the United States. In 2000, "Q" magazine placed "Mezzanine" at number 15 on its list of "The 100 Greatest British Albums Ever". In 2013, it was placed at 215 on "NME"s list of "The 500 Greatest Albums of All Time". In 2003, the album was ranked number 412 on "Rolling Stone" magazine's list of "The 500 Greatest Albums of All Time", and while it was not included in the 2012 update of the list, it reentered the 2020 update ranked at number 383.


title: Mezzanine (album)

text: By April 2000, the album had sold 2.5 million copies worldwide. As of February 2010, it had sold 560,000 copies in the United States, according to Nielsen SoundScan.


title: Mezzanine (album)

text: On the 20th anniversary of "Mezzanine" release, the record was encoded into synthetic DNA—a first for an album. The project was in collaboration with TurboBeads Labs in Switzerland; the digital audio of the album was stored in the form of genetic information. The audio was then compressed using Opus, coded in DNA molecules—with 920,000 short DNA strands containing all the data—and then poured into 5,000 tiny glass beads.


title: Mezzanine (album)

text: The album was remastered and reissued for its 20th anniversary. The two-CD anniversary edition was released on 23 August 2019, and comes with a bonus disc of previously unreleased dub mixes by the Mad Professor, which were originally intended to be released on a "Mezzanine" remix album. A triple-LP vinyl version was also slated to be released; initially delayed from its proposed release date, the triple-LP version was eventually canceled altogether.


title: Mezzanine (album)

text: In lieu of the vinyl reissue, the Mad Professor remixes were released as a pink-coloured 12-inch vinyl single entitled "Massive Attack v Mad Professor Part II (Mezzanine Remix Tapes '98)" on 20 September 2019.


title: Mezzanine (album)

text: The Mad Professor remixes include "Metal Banshee" (an unreleased dub version of "Superpredators", which was a reworked cover of "Metal Postcard" originally by Siouxsie and the Banshees), and "Wire", a track recorded for the soundtrack to the film "Welcome to Sarajevo".


title: West Texas

text: West Texas is a loosely defined region in the U.S. state of Texas, generally encompassing the arid and semiarid lands west of a line drawn between the cities of Wichita Falls, Abilene, and Del Rio.


title: West Texas

text: No consensus exists on the boundary between East Texas and West Texas. While most Texans understand these terms, no boundaries are officially recognized and any two individuals are likely to describe the boundaries of these regions differently. Walter Prescott Webb, American historian and geographer, suggested that the 98th meridian separates East and West Texas; Texas writer A.C. Greene proposed that West Texas extends west of the Brazos River. Use of a single line, though, seems to preclude the use of other separators, such as an area—Central Texas. Unlike East Texas, West Texas is not generally considered to be part of the American South, and the dry, desert climate is often more associated with the American Southwest.


title: West Texas

text: West Texas is often subdivided according to distinct physiographic features. The portion of West Texas that lies west of the Pecos River is often referred to as "Far West Texas" or the "Trans-Pecos", a term first introduced in 1887 by Texas geologist Robert T. Hill. The Trans-Pecos lies within the Chihuahuan Desert, and is the most arid portion of the state. Another part of West Texas is the Llano Estacado, a vast region of high, level plains extending into Eastern New Mexico and the Texas Panhandle. To the east of the Llano Estacado lies the “redbed country” of the Rolling Plains and to the south of the Llano Estacado lies the Edwards Plateau. The Rolling Plains and the Edwards Plateau subregions act as transitional zones between eastern and western Texas.


title: West Texas

text: West Texas receives much less rainfall than the rest of Texas and has an arid or semiarid climate, requiring most of its scant agriculture to be heavily dependent on irrigation. This irrigation, and water taken out farther north for the needs of El Paso and Juarez, Mexico, has reduced the once mighty Rio Grande to a stream in some places, even dry at times. Much of West Texas has rugged terrain, including many small mountain ranges, while most parts of the state are near sea level. The northern parts of West Texas (notably the Texas Panhandle) and the higher elevations of the mountain ranges of the Trans-Pecos region are prone to occasional heavy snowfall during winter, while snow is less common in other areas of West Texas.


title: West Texas

text: The counties included in the West Texas region vary depending on the organization. The "Texas Counties.net" website acknowledges the variations, and includes 70 counties in its definition, based on the five principal metropolitan areas it contains: El Paso, Lubbock, Abilene, Midland/Odessa, and San Angelo.


title: West Texas

text: The counties included are Andrews, Bailey, Borden, Brewster, Brown, Callahan, Castro, Cochran, Coke, Coleman, Comanche, Concho, Crane, Crockett, Crosby, Culberson, Dawson, Deaf Smith, Dickens, Eastland, Ector, El Paso, Fisher, Floyd, Gaines, Garza, Glasscock, Hale, Haskell, Hockley, Howard, Hudspeth, Irion, Jeff Davis, Jones, Kent, Kimble, King, Knox, Lamb, Loving, Lubbock, Lynn, Martin, Mason, McCulloch, Menard, Midland, Mitchell, Motley, Nolan, Parmer, Potter, Pecos, Presidio, Randall, Reagan, Reeves, Runnels, Schleicher, Scurry, Shackelford, Stephens, Sterling, Stonewall, Sutton, Taylor, Terrell, Terry, Throckmorton, Tom Green, Upton, Val Verde, Ward, Winkler, and Yoakum.


title: West Texas

text: Some of the smaller West Texas cities and towns include: Alpine, Andrews, Anthony, Brownfield, Canutillo, Canyon, Coyanosa, Crane, Dalhart, Fort Davis, Fabens, Fort Bliss, San Elizario, Fort Stockton, Hale Center, Hereford, Iraan, Kermit, Lamesa, Levelland, Littlefield, Marathon, Marfa, McCamey, Mertzon, Monahans, Muleshoe, Ozona, Pampa, Pecos, Horizon City, Post, Rankin, Seminole, Slaton, Snyder, Sweetwater, and Van Horn.


title: West Texas

text: Major industries include livestock, petroleum and natural gas production, textiles such as cotton, grain, and because of very large military installations such as Fort Bliss, the defense industry. West Texas has become notable for its numerous wind turbines producing clean and alternative electricity.


title: West Texas

text: As of 2018, the West Texan economy was in a prosperous economic period, which has been described as the "West Texas oil boom".


title: West Texas

text: West Texas does not have major league sports teams. Instead, the region has college teams such as Texas Tech Red Raiders, UTEP Miners, and Abilene Christian University Wildcats, which play in NCAA Division I, and NCAA Division II teams of the West Texas A&M Buffaloes, the Texas–Permian Basin Falcons, and the Lubbock Christian Chaparrals and Lady Chaps. El Paso also hosts the El Paso Chihuahuas, a AAA baseball team, and El Paso Locomotive FC which plays in the USL Championship, the second tier of the American soccer pyramid. The Midland RockHounds and Amarillo Sod Poodles represent the region in double-A baseball. In 2019, the West Texas Rumbleweeds of the U.S. Arena Professional Soccer League began play. Junior hockey is also present in the region, with the Odessa Jackalopes of the Tier II North American Hockey League.


title: West Texas

text: Except for the Trans-Pecos region, West Texas has become well known as a stronghold for conservative politics. Some of the most heavily Republican counties in the United States are located in the region. Former U.S. President George W. Bush spent most of his childhood in West Texas.


title: West Texas

text: The Panhandle and several counties in the Midland-Odessa area were some of the first parts of Texas to abandon the state's "Solid South" Democratic roots; nine counties have not supported a Democrat for president since 1948. The Rolling Plains to the east remained Democratic for substantially longer: although Walter Mondale's 1984 campaign lost Texas by 27.50%, he won five counties in this region. However, since 2000 this region has swung very rapidly towards the Republican Party due to its population's intransigent opposition to the liberal social policies of the Democratic Party and by 2016, has nearly the same Cook PVI as the Panhandle.


title: West Texas

text: "West of the Pecos" has become a metaphor for the universe of Westerns. "Fastest draw west of the Pecos" and similar superlatives are a cliche, and the title character of "Chisum" observed "There’s no law west of Dodge, and no God west of the Pecos”.


title: Fantastic Mr Fox

text: Fantastic Mr Fox is a children's novel written by British author Roald Dahl. It was published in 1970, by George Allen & Unwin in the UK and Alfred A. Knopf in the U.S., with illustrations by Donald Chaffin. The first Puffin paperback, first issued in 1974, featured illustrations by Jill Bennett. Later editions have featured illustrations by Tony Ross (1988) and Quentin Blake (1996). The story is about Mr Fox and how he outwits his farmer neighbours to steal their food from right under their noses.


title: Fantastic Mr Fox

text: In 2009, it was adapted into a stop-motion animated film by Wes Anderson and included the voice of George Clooney as Mr Fox. The novel was also adapted into a musical in 2016, and an opera in 1998 which in 2019 was recorded by the Boston Modern Orchestra Project and Odyssey Opera.


title: Fantastic Mr Fox

text: In 2012, Mr Fox appeared on a Royal Mail commemorative postage stamp. Two audio readings of the novel were released, one with the author narrating, and another with actor Martin Jarvis narrating.


title: Fantastic Mr Fox

text: Mr Fox is an anthropomorphic, tricky, and clever fox who lives underground beside a tree with his wife and four children. To feed his family, he makes nightly visits to local farms owned by three cruel, rude, wicked and dim-witted farmers named Boggis, Bunce and Bean, whereupon he seizes the livestock available on each man's farm; chickens from Boggis, ducks or geese from Bunce, and turkeys from Bean. Tired of being outsmarted by Mr Fox, the triumvirate devise a plan to ambush him as he leaves his burrow, but they succeed only in shooting off his tail.


title: Fantastic Mr Fox

text: The three farmers then dig up the Foxes' burrow using spades and then excavators. The Foxes manage to escape by burrowing further beneath the ground to safety. The farmers are ridiculed for their persistence, but they refuse to give up and vow not to return to their farms until they have caught Mr Fox. They then choose to lay siege to the fox, surrounding Mr Fox's hole and waiting until he is hungry enough to come out. Cornered by their enemies, Mr Fox and his family, and all the other underground creatures that live around the hill, begin to starve.


title: Fantastic Mr Fox

text: After three days trapped underground, Mr Fox devises a plot to acquire food. Working from his memory of the routes he has taken above ground, he and his children tunnel through the ground and wind up burrowing to one of Boggis's four chicken houses. Mr Fox kills several chickens and sends his son to carry the animals back home to Mrs Fox. On the way to their next destination, Mr Fox runs into his friend Badger and asks him to accompany him on his mission, as well as to extend an invitation to the feast to the other burrowing animals - Badger and his family, as well as the Moles, the Rabbits and the Weasels - to apologize for getting them caught up in the farmers' hunt. Aided by Badger, the animals tunnel to Bunce's storehouse for ducks, geese, hams, bacon and carrots, and then to Bean's secret cider cellar. Here, they are nearly caught by Bean's servant Mabel and have an unpleasant confrontation with the cellar's resident, Rat. They carry their loot back home, where Mrs Fox has prepared a great celebratory banquet for the starving underground animals and their families.


title: Fantastic Mr Fox

text: At the table, Mr Fox invites everyone to live in a secret underground neighbourhood with him and his family, where he will hunt on their behalf daily and where none of them will need to worry about the farmers anymore. Everyone joyfully cheers for this idea, while Boggis, Bunce, and Bean are left waiting in vain for the fox to emerge from his hole.


title: Fantastic Mr Fox

text: In 1994, "Fantastic Mr Fox" was awarded the Read Aloud BILBY Award from the Children's Book Council of Australia.


title: Fantastic Mr Fox

text: The book was adapted into a stop-motion animated film by director Wes Anderson. It was released in 2009 and features the voices of George Clooney as Mr Fox, Meryl Streep as Mrs Fox, Bill Murray as Badger, Robert Hurlstone as Boggis, Hugo Guinness as Bunce and Michael Gambon as Bean. The movie's plot focuses more on Mr Fox's relationship with Mrs Fox and his son, which is pitted against Mr Fox's desire to steal chickens as a means of feeling like his natural self. The movie adds scenes before Mr Fox attacks the three farmers and after they bulldozed the hill, as well as a slightly altered ending and more background on Mr Fox's past life as a thief of food. The Foxes' four children are replaced by Ash, a small and insecure fox who seeks his father's approval and Mrs. Fox's nephew Kristofferson, who excels in athletics and is a source of jealousy for Ash.


title: Fantastic Mr Fox

text: The book was adapted into a play of the same name by David Wood and was first performed at the Belgrade Theatre in Coventry in 2001. The play is licensed (in the U.K. only) through Casarotto Ramsay Ltd. for repertory performances and Samuel French Ltd. for amateur performances.


title: Fantastic Mr Fox

text: A musical adaptation of the book ran at the Nuffield Theatre in Southampton during Christmas 2016 before touring the U.K. in early 2017.


title: Fantastic Mr Fox

text: Tobias Picker adapted the book into an opera which had its world premiere at the Los Angeles Opera performing 9–22 December in 1998. the Opera starred Gerald Finley as Mr Fox and Suzanna Guzman as Mrs Fox. A specially commissioned new version of this opera by Opera Holland Park was performed in the gardens and natural scenery of Holland Park in the summer of 2010 staged by Stephen Barlow. This version starred Grant Doyle as Mr. Fox, Olivia Ray as Mrs. Fox, Henry Grant Kerswell, Peter Kent and John Lofthouse as Farmers Boggis, Bunce and Bean.


title: Fantastic Mr Fox

text: In 2019, "Fantastic Mr. Fox" was recorded by the Boston Modern Orchestra Project and Odyssey Opera who were subsequently awarded the Grammy Award for Best Opera Recording.


title: 2020 Nashville bombing

text: On December 25, 2020, Anthony Quinn Warner detonated a recreational vehicle (RV) bomb in downtown Nashville, Tennessee, United States, killing himself, injuring eight people and damaging dozens of buildings in the surrounding area. It took place at 166 Second Avenue North between Church Street and Commerce Street at 6:30 am, adjacent to an AT&T network facility, resulting in days-long communication service outages.


title: 2020 Nashville bombing

text: People near the RV heard gunshots, and loudspeakers on the RV warned them to evacuate before the bombing, which was felt miles away. The Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) determined that Warner, a Nashville resident, was the bomber and acted alone.


title: 2020 Nashville bombing

text: The explosion was caused by a car bomb carried in a Thor Motor Coach Chateau RV that was parked outside an AT&T network facility on Second Avenue North in downtown Nashville at 1:22 am on December 25, 2020. Four to five hours after the RV arrived, people nearby were awakened by the sound of rapid gunfire in at least three bursts, followed by a computerized female voice broadcasting over a public address system: "All buildings in this area must be evacuated now. If you can hear this message, evacuate now." "Stay clear of this vehicle", "Do not approach this vehicle", and "Your primary objective is to evacuate these buildings now" were also among the messages broadcast from the RV. The broadcast warned that there was a bomb in the vehicle, a 15-minute countdown elapsed, and the speakers switched to snippets from the 1964 song "Downtown" by Petula Clark.


title: 2020 Nashville bombing

text: Responding to reports of shots being fired at around 5:30 am, two police officers arrived at the area. Though they did not hear any shots, they discovered the parked vehicle and heard the warning. They and three other responding officers subsequently evacuated homes in the area and called in reinforcements, including the hazardous devices unit (bomb squad), while a sixth officer stayed on the street to redirect pedestrians. Two of the officers investigated the RV at one point and observed a camera positioned above its rearview mirror. The vehicle exploded at 6:30 am, while the bomb squad was on its way to the area.


title: 2020 Nashville bombing

text: Eight people were treated at hospitals for injuries and later discharged. Three of them sustained non-critical injuries, including two of the officers who had been evacuating residents. The bomber died at the scene, while no other fatalities were reported.


title: 2020 Nashville bombing

text: One video posted to social media appeared to show debris from the bombing landing on a building about two blocks away from the initial location. At least three vehicles burned after the bombing, at least 41 businesses were damaged, and one building located across the street, away from the site of the bombing, collapsed. Structural engineers deemed some of the buildings in the area to be safe by December 29.


title: 2020 Nashville bombing

text: The bombing caused structural and infrastructure damage to a nearby AT&T service facility, which contained a telephone exchange with network equipment in it, resulting in AT&T service outages across the U.S., primarily in Middle Tennessee. Although the facility's backup generators were rendered nonfunctional because of fire and water damage, communication services initially remained uninterrupted while the facility was able to run on battery power. However, outages were reported hours after the explosion, with significant service disruptions in the area by around noon. Cellular, wireline telephone, internet, and television service were affected, as were multiple local and non-emergency phone networks in the region, along with Nashville's community hotline and some hospital systems. T-Mobile also reported interruptions to its service. The Memphis Air Route Traffic Control Center experienced communication issues, leading the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) to ground flights from Nashville International Airport for about an hour.


title: 2020 Nashville bombing

text: Outages continued to affect communication services, including Internet, phone, and services, for days after the bombing. Some stores reported switching to a cash-only policy because credit card systems were out of service, and issues with ATMs were reported. AT&T mentioned deploying two mobile cell sites downtown by the next morning, with additional ones deployed throughout Nashville by evening, but it gave no specific timeline in regard to a full restoration of service, adding that a fire that reignited during the night led to an evacuation of the building. Officials later said a full service restoration could take days.


title: 2020 Nashville bombing

text: After the bombing, a bomb squad, along with police and federal investigators, arrived at the site to gather evidence and determine what type of explosive was used in the blast. Authorities swept the area and did not find any additional explosives. Investigators found shell casings in the area but believed they were remnants of unfired ammunition that was destroyed in the explosion. No evidence was found confirming gunshots were fired in the area despite the initial calls.


title: 2020 Nashville bombing

text: Human remains found near the site of the explosion matched DNA found on gloves and a hat found in a car owned by Anthony Quinn Warner; a 17-digit vehicle identification number (VIN) reconstructed from the remains of the RV was also linked to Warner. Investigators determined the act was a suicide bombing, and Mayor John Cooper called it an attack on infrastructure. Hours of surveillance camera footage indicated that no one other than Warner was involved. Warner's friends and family cooperated with investigators.


title: 2020 Nashville bombing

text: The FBI field office in Memphis led the investigation, which also involved the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives, the Tennessee Bureau of Investigation, and local law enforcement agencies. More than 250 FBI personnel from at least seven field offices were involved. A reward for any information about the bombing was announced shortly into the investigation; more than 500 tips and leads were received.


title: 2020 Nashville bombing

text: Authorities concluded that 63-year-old Anthony Quinn Warner (January 17, 1957 – December 25, 2020), a longtime resident of Nashville, was the bomber, that his remains were found in the wreckage, and that there was no indication anyone else was involved.


title: 2020 Nashville bombing

text: Warner was raised in Nashville's Antioch neighborhood and graduated from Antioch High School in the mid-1970s. His late father, Charles Bernard Warner (1932-2011), had been a BellSouth employee in Nashville, which merged with AT&T in 2006. Anthony Warner worked in a series of information technology jobs, including as an independent computer technician contracted with a real estate firm, and he had also owned a company licensed to produce burglar alarms from 1993 to 1998. He served two years' probation for felony marijuana possession in 1978 but had no other arrests or criminal record. Late in his life, Warner was involved in a family dispute that went to court after he had transferred ownership of a family home to himself directly before his brother's death in 2018; the case was dismissed the following year.


title: 2020 Nashville bombing

text: In the weeks leading up to the bombing, Warner quit his job, gave away his car, and executed a quitclaim deed transferring his Nashville duplex home to a Los Angeles woman for $0. He had previously executed a quitclaim deed for a different Nashville house in 2019, transferring his interest in the home to the same woman. Reportedly, Warner had told the woman to whom he gave his car that he had cancer, although whether he actually had cancer is not known. A neighbor said that just before Christmas, Warner had said that "Nashville and the world is never going to forget me." Credit card and receipt records examined by investigators showed that Warner had purchased components that could be used to make bombs.


title: 2020 Nashville bombing

text: Authorities initially said that Warner had not attracted the attention of police prior to the bombing. However, it was later revealed that Warner's girlfriend, as well as her attorney, had met with police on . The girlfriend said that Warner had been making bombs in the RV, and her attorney, who previously represented Warner, indicated that he believed her. Police were unable to make contact with Warner; did not enter Warner's home, yard, or RV; and eventually closed the case as unfounded after an officer observing the home for a few days reported no evidence of bomb-making. Following the visit, police forwarded an incident report to and requested a database check from the FBI. Neither the FBI nor the Department of Defense found anything suspicious regarding Warner.


title: 2020 Nashville bombing

text: Investigators searched Warner's home in Nashville after the bombing, and several items were seized, including a computer and a portable storage device. Google Street View images of his address appeared to show an RV similar to the one that was used in the bombing. Neighbors of the property told WKRN-TV news that they recognized the RV in the image released by police, saying it had sat unused for years until its owner began giving it renewed attention about a month before the bombing, with it disappearing from the property days before the bombing. Neighbors called him reclusive and said they never discussed politics or religion with him.


title: 2020 Nashville bombing

text: Warner is also "believed to have spent time hunting for alien life forms in a nearby state park." The FBI said that, prior to the bombing, he "sent materials which espoused his viewpoints to several acquaintances throughout the country." The packages, which the FBI is investigating, included writings in which he expresses belief in 9/11 conspiracy theories, moon landing conspiracy theories, and the reptilian conspiracy theory. He also referenced a UFO conspiracy theory in which space aliens had purportedly begun to attack Earth in September 2011, which was covered up by the media. He wrote, in part, "Everything is an illusion" and "there is no such thing as death".


title: 2020 Nashville bombing

text: Warner was a former AT&T employee, according to his former girlfriend's lawyer, Jim Roberts. "She knew that he harbored some animosity toward AT&T for some bizarre reason. He worked there, was familiar with the building and knew what they did there."


title: 2020 Nashville bombing

text: On March 15, 2021, investigators eventually came to the conclusion that Warner had acted alone in the bombing, and that the bombing was not connected to terrorism. The bombing was a result of wanting to end his own life, driven by life stresses. He was also fueled by paranoia, conspiracy theories, and the deterioration of interpersonal relationships. Warner picked the area to make an impact on the city, while also trying to minimize injury. The FBI also stated that there was no evidence of Warner wanting to bring social or political change, or that any person or business was specifically targeted.


title: 2020 Nashville bombing

text: The Nashville Fire Department evacuated the downtown riverfront, and Mayor Cooper issued a curfew for the affected area, which was lifted by December 28. The FAA issued a notice declaring a circular area with a radius of , centered around the site of the bombing, as "National Defense Airspace", effective that afternoon and lasting for five days. The bombing adversely affected many small business owners operating in the area, who were already dealing with the effects of the COVID-19 pandemic in the state and the aftermath of a tornado that passed through the city in March 2020.


title: 2020 Nashville bombing

text: The bombing revived a debate in the U.S. about which acts are labeled as terrorism and why. Former national security prosecutor Alex Little and Nashville city councilor Bob Mendes said the bombing fit the definition of domestic terrorism. Federal investigators avoided using the term in the days following the bombing, with Special Agent in Charge Doug Korneski saying they had not yet established whether Warner had used violence to promote political or social beliefs.


title: 2020 Nashville bombing

text: Addressing the terrorism classification debate, a "USA Today" December 2020 op-ed by Max Abrahms and Joseph Mroszczyk stated that the bombing exhibited an unprecedented combination of features, each of which could be found in different modern attacks labeled as "terrorist": the intentional minimization of casualties as exhibited by "left-wing groups... targeting... property instead of humans", the perpetrator's suicide as a method "uncommonly employed... by those like Warner who are trying to minimize human suffering", no clear motive or manifesto, and the use of a car bomb as seen in Islamic terrorist attacks. The Nashville bombing was unique in that it combined all of these traits, which the authors stated was without precedent. National security expert Dr. Erroll Southers told local news outlet WKRN-TV he saw similarities to the Provisional Irish Republican Army, given how Warner warned the public about the bomb and allowed the area to be evacuated before detonation.


title: 2020 Nashville bombing

text: On the same day as the bombing, police in Cincinnati, Ohio, shut down streets downtown for a few hours while investigating an RV that appeared to have its engine running outside of a federal building, citing the Nashville incident as a reason for the high level of caution. The RV turned out to have a generator mounted to it in operation, which produced a sound reminiscent of a running vehicle engine.


title: 2020 Nashville bombing

text: On December 27, a section of U.S. Highway 231 in nearby Wilson County, Tennessee, was shut down because a box truck was playing audio "similar to what was heard" before the bombing. The truck was travelling north from the Walterhill community in Rutherford County along Highway 231 when it was pulled over. The driver was arrested by the Rutherford County Sheriff's Department, and no explosives were found. He was charged with two felony counts of filing a false report and one of tampering with evidence, and held on $500,000 bail.


title: 2020 Nashville bombing

text: On December 31, police evacuated and cordoned off downtown Lexington, Kentucky, because of a suspicious RV parked in the area. An officer spotted the RV and, citing concerns ensuing from the Nashville bombing, brought in an explosives-sniffing dog to inspect it. The dog indicated that the RV contained explosives, prompting the evacuations. The scene was declared clear two hours later after no explosives were found and police had located the driver.


title: 2020 Nashville bombing

text: Over 60 different buildings, including both commercial and residential properties, were affected by the blast. Over 1,000 people were left jobless, and over 400 local residents were displaced from their homes. Over a third of all directly affected buildings remained temporarily or permanently closed as of one year later. Of those that were shuttered, several cited hardship from both the blast and the COVID-19 pandemic as factors in doing so. Among those closed included the George Jones Museum and Bar, the Old Spaghetti Factory, a Hooters restaurant, and a franchise location for The Melting Pot. Some affected businesses, such as the Coyote Ugly Saloon remained temporarily closed for extended periods, while others were forced to relocate out of their 2nd Ave venues.


title: Gray whale

text: The gray whale (Eschrichtius robustus), also known as the grey whale, gray back whale, Pacific gray whale, Korean gray whale, or California gray whale, is a baleen whale that migrates between feeding and breeding grounds yearly. It reaches a length of , a weight of up to and lives between 55 and 70 years, although one female was estimated to be 75–80 years of age. The common name of the whale comes from the gray patches and white mottling on its dark skin. Gray whales were once called devil fish because of their fighting behavior when hunted. The gray whale is the sole living species in the genus "Eschrichtius". It was formerly thought to be the sole living genus in the family Eschrichtiidae, but more recent evidence classifies members of that family in the family Balaenopteridae. This mammal is descended from filter-feeding whales that appeared during the Neogene.


title: Gray whale

text: The gray whale is distributed in an eastern North Pacific (North American), and an endangered western North Pacific (Asian), population. North Atlantic populations were extirpated (perhaps by whaling) on the European coast before 500 CE, and on the American coast around the late 17th to early 18th centuries. However, in the 2010s there have been a number of sightings of gray whales in the Mediterranean Sea and even off Southern hemisphere Atlantic coasts.


title: Gray whale

text: The gray whale is traditionally placed as the only living species in its genus and family, "Eschrichtius" and Eschrichtiidae, but an extinct species was discovered and placed in the genus in 2017, the Akishima whale ("E. akishimaensis"). Some recent studies place gray whales as being outside the rorqual clade, but as the closest relatives to the rorquals. But other recent DNA analyses have suggested that certain rorquals of the family Balaenopteridae, such as the humpback whale, "Megaptera novaeangliae", and fin whale, "Balaenoptera physalus", are more closely related to the gray whale than they are to some other rorquals, such as the minke whales. The American Society of Mammalogists has followed this classification.


title: Gray whale

text: John Edward Gray placed it in its own genus in 1865, naming it in honour of physician and zoologist Daniel Frederik Eschricht. The common name of the whale comes from its coloration. The subfossil remains of now extinct gray whales from the Atlantic coasts of England and Sweden were used by Gray to make the first scientific description of a species then surviving only in Pacific waters. The living Pacific species was described by Cope as "Rhachianectes glaucus" in 1869. Skeletal comparisons showed the Pacific species to be identical to the Atlantic remains in the 1930s, and Gray's naming has been generally accepted since. Although identity between the Atlantic and Pacific populations cannot be proven by anatomical data, its skeleton is distinctive and easy to distinguish from that of all other living whales.


title: Gray whale

text: Many other names have been ascribed to the gray whale, including desert whale, devilfish, gray back, mussel digger and rip sack. The name "Eschrichtius gibbosus" is sometimes seen; this is dependent on the acceptance of a 1777 description by Erxleben.


title: Gray whale

text: A number of 18th century authors described the gray whale as "Balaena gibbosa", the "whale with six bosses", apparently based on a brief note by :


title: Gray whale

text: The gray whale was first described as a distinct species by based on a subfossil found in the brackish Baltic Sea, apparently a specimen from the now extinct north Atlantic population. Lilljeborg, however, identified it as ""Balaenoptera robusta"", a species of rorqual. realized that the rib and scapula of the specimen was different from those of any known rorquals, and therefore erected a new genus for it, "Eschrichtius". were convinced that the bones described by Lilljeborg could not belong to a living species but that they were similar to fossils that Van Beneden had described from the harbour of Antwerp (most of his named species are now considered nomina dubia) and therefore named the gray whale "Plesiocetus robustus", reducing Lilljeborg's and Gray's names to synonyms.


title: Gray whale

text: Things got increasingly confused as 19th century scientists introduced new species at an alarming rate (e.g. "Eschrichtius pusillus", "E. expansus", "E. priscus", "E. mysticetoides"), often based on fragmentary specimens, and taxonomists started to use several generic and specific names interchangeably and not always correctly (e.g. "Agalephus gobbosus", "Balaenoptera robustus", "Agalephus gibbosus"). Things got even worse in the 1930s when it was finally realised that the extinct Atlantic population was the same species as the extant Pacific population, and the new combination "Eschrichtius gibbosus" was proposed.


title: Gray whale

text: The gray whale has a dark slate-gray color and is covered by characteristic gray-white patterns, scars left by parasites which drop off in its cold feeding grounds. Individual whales are typically identified using photographs of their dorsal surface and matching the scars and patches associated with parasites that have fallen off the whale or are still attached. They have two blowholes on top of their head, which can create a distinctive heart-shaped blow at the surface in calm wind conditions.


title: Gray whale

text: Gray whales measure from in length for newborns to for adults (females tend to be slightly larger than adult males). Newborns are a darker gray to black in color. A mature gray whale can reach , with a typical range of , making them the ninth largest sized species of cetacean.


title: Gray whale

text: Notable features that distinguish the gray whale from other mysticetes include its baleen that is variously described as cream, off-white, or blond in color and is unusually short. Small depressions on the upper jaw each contain a lone stiff hair, but are only visible on close inspection. Its head's ventral surface lacks the numerous prominent furrows of the related rorquals, instead bearing two to five shallow furrows on the throat's underside. The gray whale also lacks a dorsal fin, instead bearing 6 to 12 dorsal crenulations ("knuckles"), which are raised bumps on the midline of its rear quarter, leading to the flukes. This is known as the dorsal ridge. The tail itself is across and deeply notched at the center while its edges taper to a point.


title: Gray whale

text: The two populations of Pacific gray whales (east and west) are morphologically and phylogenically different. Other than DNA structures, differences in proportions of several body parts and body colors including skeletal features, and length ratios of flippers and baleen plates have been confirmed between Eastern and Western populations, and some claims that the original eastern and western groups could have been much more distinct than previously thought, enough to be counted as subspecies. Since the original Asian and Atlantic populations have become extinct, it is difficult to determine the unique features among whales in these stocks. However, there have been observations of some whales showing distinctive, blackish body colors in recent years. This corresponds with the DNA analysis of last recorded stranding in China. Differences were also observed between Korean and Chinese specimens.


title: Gray whale

text: Two Pacific Ocean populations are known to exist: one population that is very low, whose migratory route is presumed to be between the Sea of Okhotsk and southern Korea, and a larger one with a population of about 27,000 individuals in the eastern Pacific traveling between the waters off northernmost Alaska and Baja California Sur. Mothers make this journey accompanied by their calves, usually hugging the shore in shallow kelp beds, and fight viciously to protect their young if they are attacked, earning gray whales the moniker, devil fish.


title: Gray whale

text: The western population has had a very slow growth rate despite heavy conservation action over the years, likely due to their very slow reproduction rate. The state of the population hit an all-time low in 2010, when no new reproductive females were recorded, resulting in a minimum of 26 reproductive females being observed since 1995. Even a very small number of additional annual female deaths will cause the subpopulation to decline. However, as of 2018, evidence has indicated that the western population is markedly increasing in number, especially off Sakhalin Island. Following this, the IUCN downlisted the population's conservation status from critically endangered to endangered.


title: Gray whale

text: The gray whale became extinct in the North Atlantic in the 18th century. Other than speculations, large portions of historical characteristic of migration and distribution are unclear such as locations of calving grounds and existences of resident groups.


title: Gray whale

text: They had been seasonal migrants to coastal waters of both sides of Atlantic, including the Baltic Sea, Wadden Sea, the Gulf of St. Lawrence, the Bay of Fundy, Hudson Bay (possibly), and Pamlico Sound. Radiocarbon dating of subfossil or fossil European (Belgium, the Netherlands, Sweden, the United Kingdom) coastal remains confirms this, with whaling the possible cause. Remains dating from the Roman epoch were found in the Mediterranean during excavation of the antique harbor of Lattara near Montpellier, France, in 1997, raising the question of whether Atlantic gray whales migrated up and down the coast of Europe from Wadden Sea to calve in the Mediterranean. A 2018 study utilizing ancient DNA barcoding and collagen peptide matrix fingerprinting confirmed that Roman era whale bones east of the Strait of Gibraltar were gray whales (and North Atlantic right whales), confirming that gray whales once ranged into the Mediterranean. Similarly, radiocarbon dating of American east coastal subfossil remains confirm that gray whales existed there at least through the 17th century. This population ranged at least from Southampton, New York, to Jupiter Island, Florida, the latest from 1675. In his 1835 history of Nantucket Island, Obed Macy wrote that in the early pre-1672 colony a whale of the kind called "scragg" entered the harbor and was pursued and killed by the settlers. A. B. Van Deinse points out that the "scrag whale", described by P. Dudley in 1725 as one of the species hunted by the early New England whalers, was almost certainly the gray whale.


title: Gray whale

text: During the 2010s there have been rare sightings of gray whales in the North Atlantic Ocean or the connecting Mediterranean Sea, including one off the coast of Israel and one off the coast of Namibia. These apparently were migrants from the North Pacific population through the Arctic Ocean. A 2015 study of DNA from subfossil gray whales indicated that this may not be a historically unique event. That study suggested that over the past 100,000 years there have been several migrations of gray whales between the Pacific and Atlantic, with the most recent large scale migration of this sort occurring about 5000 years ago. These migrations corresponded to times of relatively high temperatures in the Arctic Ocean. In 2021, one individual was seen at Rabat, Morocco, followed by sightings at Algeria and Italy.


title: Gray whale

text: Researchers used a genetic approach to estimate pre-whaling abundance based on samples from 42 California gray whales, and reported DNA variability at 10 genetic loci consistent with a population size of 76,000–118,000 individuals, three to five times larger than the average census size as measured through 2007. NOAA has collected surveys of gray whale population since at least the 1960s. They state that "the most recent population estimate [from 2007] was approximately 19,000 whales, with a high probability (88%) that the population is at 'optimum sustainable population' size, as defined by the Marine Mammal Protection Act. They speculate that the ocean ecosystem has likely changed since the prewhaling era, making a return to prewhaling numbers infeasible. Factors limiting or threatening current population levels include ship strikes, entanglement in fishing gear, and changes in sea-ice coverage associated with climate change.


title: Gray whale

text: Several whales seen off Sakhalin and on Kamchatka Peninsula are confirmed to migrate towards eastern side of Pacific and join the larger eastern population. In January 2011, a gray whale that had been tagged in the western population was tracked as far east as the eastern population range off the coast of British Columbia. Recent findings from either stranded or entangled specimens indicate that the original western population have become functionally extinct and possibly all the whales appeared on Japanese and Chinese coasts in modern times are vagrants or re-colonizers from the eastern population.


title: Gray whale

text: In mid-1980, there were three gray whale sightings in the eastern Beaufort Sea, placing them further east than their known range at the time. Recent increases in sightings are confirmed in Arctic areas of the historic range for Atlantic stocks, most notably on several locations in the Laptev Sea including the New Siberian Islands in the East Siberian Sea, and around the marine mammal sanctuary of the Franz Josef Land, indicating possible earlier pioneers of re-colonizations. These whales were darker in body color than those whales seen in Sea of Okhotsk. In May 2010, a gray whale was sighted off the Mediterranean shore of Israel. It has been speculated that this whale crossed from the Pacific to the Atlantic via the Northwest Passage, since an alternative route around Cape Horn would not be contiguous to the whale's established territory. There has been gradual melting and recession of Arctic sea ice with extreme loss in 2007 rendering the Northwest Passage "fully navigable". The same whale was sighted again on May 30, 2010, off the coast of Barcelona, Spain.


title: Gray whale

text: In May 2013, a gray whale was sighted off Walvis Bay, Namibia. Scientists from the Namibian Dolphin Project confirmed the whale's identity and thus provides the only sighting of this species in the Southern Hemisphere. Photographic identification suggests that this is a different individual than the one spotted in the Mediterranean in 2010. As of July 2013, the Namibian whale was still being seen regularly.


title: Gray whale

text: In March 2021, a gray whale was sighted near Rabat, the capital of Morocco. In April, additional sightings were made off Algeria and Italy.


title: Gray whale

text: Genetic analysis of fossil and prefossil gray whale remains in the Atlantic Ocean suggests several waves of dispersal from the Pacific to the Atlantic related to successive periods of climactic warming – during the Pleistocene before the last glacial period and the early Holocene immediately following the opening of the Bering Strait. This information and the recent sightings of Pacific gray whales in the Atlantic, suggest that another range expansion to the Atlantic may be starting.


title: Gray whale

text: Breeding behavior is complex and often involves three or more animals. Both male and female whales reach puberty between the ages of 6 and 12 with an average of eight to nine years. Females show highly synchronized reproduction, undergoing oestrus in late November to early December. During the breeding season, it is common for females to have several mates. This single ovulation event is believed to coincide with the species' annual migration patterns, when births can occur in warmer waters. Most females show biennial reproduction, although annual births have been reported. Males also show seasonal changes, experiencing an increase in testes mass that correlates with the time females undergo oestrus. Currently there are no accounts of twin births, although an instance of twins "in utero" has been reported.


title: Gray whale

text: The gestation period for gray whales is approximately 13  months, with females giving birth every one to three years. In the latter half of the pregnancy, the fetus experiences a rapid growth in length and mass. Similar to the narrow breeding season, most calves are born within a six-week time period in mid January. The calf is born tail first, and measures about 14–16 ft in length, and a weight of 2,000 lbs. Females lactate for approximately seven months following birth, at which point calves are weaned and maternal care begins to decrease. The shallow lagoon waters in which gray whales reproduce are believed to protect the newborn from sharks and orcas.


title: Gray whale

text: On 7 January 2014, a pair of newborn or aborted conjoined twin gray whale calves were found dead in the Laguna Ojo de Liebre (Scammon's Lagoon), off the west coast of Mexico. They were joined by their bellies.


title: Gray whale

text: The whale feeds mainly on benthic crustaceans, which it eats by turning on its side and scooping up sediments from the sea floor. This unique feeding selection makes gray whales one of the most strongly reliant on coastal waters among baleen whales. It is classified as a baleen whale and has baleen, or whalebone, which acts like a sieve, to capture small sea animals, including amphipods taken in along with sand, water and other material. Off Vancouver Island, gray whales commonly feed on shrimp-like mysids. When mysids are abundant gray whales are present in fairly large numbers. Despite mysids being a prey of choice, gray whales are opportunistic feeders and can easily switch from feeding planktonically to benthically. When gray whales feed planktonically, they roll onto their right side while their fluke remains above the surface, or they apply the skimming method seen in other baleen whales (skimming the surface with their mouth open). This skimming behavior mainly seems to be used when gray whales are feeding on crab larvae. Gray whales feed benthically, by diving to the ocean floor and rolling on to their side, (gray whales, like blue whales seem to favor rolling onto their right side) and suck up prey from the sea floor. Gray whales seem to favor feeding planktonically in their feeding grounds, but benthically along their migration route in shallower water. Mostly, the animal feeds in the northern waters during the summer; and opportunistically feeds during its migration, depending primarily on its extensive fat reserves. Another reason for this opportunistic feeding may be the result of population increases, resulting in the whales taking advantage of whatever prey is available, due to increased competition. Feeding areas during migration seem to include the Gulf of California, Monterey Bay and Baja California Sur. Calf gray whales drink of their mothers' 53% fat milk per day.


title: Gray whale

text: The main feeding habitat of the western Pacific subpopulation is the shallow ( depth) shelf off northeastern Sakhalin Island, particularly off the southern portion of Piltun Lagoon, where the main prey species appear to be amphipods and isopods. In some years, the whales have also used an offshore feeding ground in depth southeast of Chayvo Bay, where benthic amphipods and cumaceans are the main prey species. Some gray whales have also been seen off western Kamchatka, but to date all whales photographed there are also known from the Piltun area.


title: Gray whale

text: Predicted distribution models indicate that overall range in the last glacial period was broader or more southerly distributed, and inhabitations in waters where species presences lack in present situation, such as in southern hemisphere and south Asian waters and northern Indian Ocean were possible due to feasibility of the environment on those days. Range expansions due to recoveries and re-colonization in the future is likely to be happen and the predicted range covers wider than that of today. The gray whale undergoes the longest migration of any mammal.


title: Gray whale

text: Each October, as the northern ice pushes southward, small groups of eastern gray whales in the eastern Pacific start a two- to three-month, trip south. Beginning in the Bering and Chukchi seas and ending in the warm-water lagoons of Mexico's Baja California Peninsula and the southern Gulf of California, they travel along the west coast of Canada, the United States and Mexico.


title: Gray whale

text: Traveling night and day, the gray whale averages approximately per day at an average speed of . This round trip of is believed to be the longest annual migration of any mammal. By mid-December to early January, the majority are usually found between Monterey and San Diego such as at Morro bay, often visible from shore. The whale watching industry provides ecotourists and marine mammal enthusiasts the opportunity to see groups of gray whales as they migrate.


title: Gray whale

text: By late December to early January, eastern grays begin to arrive in the calving lagoons and bays on the west coast of Baja California Sur. The three most popular are San Ignacio, Magdalena Bay to the south, and, to the north, Laguna Ojo de Liebre (formerly known in English as Scammon's Lagoon after whaleman Charles Melville Scammon, who discovered the lagoons in the 1850s and hunted the grays).


title: Gray whale

text: Gray whales once ranged into Sea of Cortez and Pacific coasts of continental Mexico south to the Islas Marías, Bahía de Banderas, and Nayarit/Jalisco, and there were two modern calving grounds in Sonora (Tojahui or Yavaros) and Sinaloa (Bahia Santa Maria, Bahia Navachiste, La Reforma, Bahia Altata) until being abandoned in 1980s.


title: Gray whale

text: These first whales to arrive are usually pregnant mothers looking for the protection of the lagoons to bear their calves, along with single females seeking mates. By mid-February to mid-March, the bulk of the population has arrived in the lagoons, filling them with nursing, calving and mating gray whales.


title: Gray whale

text: Throughout February and March, the first to leave the lagoons are males and females without new calves. Pregnant females and nursing mothers with their newborns are the last to depart, leaving only when their calves are ready for the journey, which is usually from late March to mid-April. Often, a few mothers linger with their young calves well into May. Whale watching in Baja's lagoons is particularly popular because the whales often come close enough to boats for tourists to pet them.


title: Gray whale

text: A population of about 200 gray whales stay along the eastern Pacific coast from Canada to California throughout the summer, not making the farther trip to Alaskan waters. This summer resident group is known as the Pacific Coast feeding group.


title: Gray whale

text: Any historical or current presence of similar groups of residents among the western population is currently unknown, however, whalers' logbooks and scientific observations indicate that possible year-round occurrences in Chinese waters and Yellow and Bohai basins were likely to be summering grounds. Some of the better documented historical catches show that it was common for whales to stay for months in enclosed waters elsewhere, with known records in the Seto Inland Sea and the Gulf of Tosa. Former feeding areas were once spread over large portions on mid-Honshu to northern Hokkaido, and at least whales were recorded for majority of annual seasons including wintering periods at least along east coasts of Korean Peninsula and Yamaguchi Prefecture. Some recent observations indicate that historic presences of resident whales are possible: a group of two or three were observed feeding in Izu Ōshima in 1994 for almost a month, two single individuals stayed in Ise Bay for almost two months in the 1980s and in 2012, the first confirmed living individuals in Japanese EEZ in the Sea of Japan and the first of living cow-calf pairs since the end of whaling stayed for about three weeks on the coastline of Teradomari in 2014. One of the pair returned to the same coasts at the same time of the year in 2015 again. Reviewing on other cases on different locations among Japanese coasts and islands observed during 2015 indicate that spatial or seasonal residencies regardless of being temporal or permanental staying once occurred throughout many parts of Japan or on other coastal Asia.