title: Scooter Libby

text: Given current federal sentencing guidelines, which are not mandatory, the conviction could have resulted in a sentence ranging from no imprisonment to imprisonment of up to 25 years and a fine of $1,000,000; yet, as Sniffen and Apuzzo observe, "federal sentencing guidelines will probably prescribe far less." In practice, according to federal sentencing data, three-fourths of the 198 defendants found guilty of obstruction of justice in 2006 served jail time. The average length of jail time on this charge alone was 70 months.


title: Scooter Libby

text: On June 5, 2007, Judge Walton sentenced Libby to 30 months in prison and fined him $250,000, clarifying that Libby would begin his sentence immediately. According to Apuzzo and Yost, the judge also "placed him on two years probation after his prison sentence expires. There is no parole in the federal system, but Libby would be eligible for release after two years." In addition, Judge Walton required Libby to provide "400 hours of community service" during his supervised release. On June 5, 2007, after the announcement of Libby's sentencing, CNN reported that Libby still "plans to appeal the verdict".


title: Scooter Libby

text: That day, in response to the sentencing, Vice President Cheney issued a statement in Libby's defense on The White House website. The statement concluded: "Speaking as friends, we hope that our system will return a final result consistent with what we know of this fine man."


title: Scooter Libby

text: Joseph and Valerie Wilson posted their statement on Libby's sentencing in "United States v. Libby" on their website, "grateful that justice has been served."


title: Scooter Libby

text: After the June 5 sentencing, Walton said he was inclined to jail Libby after the defense laid out its proposed appeal, but the judge told attorneys he was open to changing his mind"; however, on June 14, 2007, Walton ordered Libby to report to prison while his attorneys appealed the conviction. Libby's attorneys asked that the order be stayed, but Walton denied the request and told Libby that he would have 10 days to appeal the ruling. In denying Libby's request, which had questioned Fitzgerald's authority to make the charges in the first place, Walton supported Fitzgerald's authority in the case. He said: "Everyone is accountable, and if you work in the White House, and if it's perceived that somehow (you're) linked at the hip, the American public would have serious questions about the fairness of any investigation of a high-level official conducted by the attorney general." The judge was also responding to an Amicus curiae brief that he had permitted to be filed, which had not apparently convinced him to change his mind, as he subsequently denied Libby bail during his appeal. His "order grant[ing] the [legal academic] scholars permission to file their brief ..." contained a caustic footnote questioning the motivation of the legal academics and suggesting he might not give a great deal of weight to their opinion[:]


title: Scooter Libby

text: Moreover, when the hearing started, "in the interest of full disclosure," Walton informed the court that he had "received a number of harassing, angry and mean-spirited phone calls and messages. Some wishing bad things on me and my family ... [T]hose types of things will have no impact ... I initially threw them away, but then there were more, some that were more hateful ... [T]hey are being kept."


title: Scooter Libby

text: "New York Times" reporters Neil Lewis and David Stout estimated subsequently that Libby's prison sentence could begin within "two months", explaining that


title: Scooter Libby

text: Judge Walton's decision means that the defense lawyers will probably ask a federal appeals court to block the sentence, a long-shot move. It also sharpens interest in a question being asked by Mr. Libby's supporters and critics alike: Will President Bush pardon Mr. Libby? ... So far, the president has expressed sympathy for Mr. Libby and his family but has not tipped his hand on the pardon issue. ... If the president does not pardon him, and if an appeals court refuses to second-guess Judge Walton's decision, Mr. Libby will probably be ordered to report to prison in six to eight weeks' time. Federal prison authorities will decide where. "Unless the Court of Appeals overturns my ruling, he will have to report", Judge Walton said.


title: Scooter Libby

text: On June 20, 2007, Libby appealed Walton's ruling in federal appeals court. The following day, Walton filed a 30-page expanded ruling, in which he explained his decision to deny Libby bail in more detail.


title: Scooter Libby

text: On July 2, 2007, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit denied Libby's request for a delay and release from his prison sentence, stating that Libby "has not shown that the appeal raises a substantial question under federal law that would merit letting him remain free," increasing "pressure on President George W. Bush to decide soon whether to pardon Libby ... as the former White House official's supporters have urged."


title: Scooter Libby

text: Soon after the verdict several people including Christopher Hitchens, Byron York, and Dick Cheney called for Libby to be pardoned by President George W. Bush. Some of those who called for pardon were posted online by the Libby Legal Defense Trust (LLDT). U.S. Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid issued a press release about the verdict, urging Bush to pledge not to pardon Libby, and other Democratic politicians followed his lead.


title: Scooter Libby

text: Surveying "the pardon battle" and citing both pro and con publications, "The Washington Post" online columnist Dan Froomkin concludes that many U.S. newspapers opposed a presidential pardon for Libby. Much of this commentary obscured the fact that the clemency power provided the President with several options short of a full, unconditional pardon. In an op-ed published in "The Washington Post", former federal prosecutor and conservative activist William Otis argued the sentence was too stringent and that, instead of pardoning Libby, Bush should commute his sentence.


title: Scooter Libby

text: After the sentencing, Bush stated on camera that he would "not intervene until Libby's legal team has exhausted all of its avenues of appeal ... It wouldn't be appropriate for me to discuss the case until after the legal remedies have run its course." Ultimately, less than a month later, on July 2, 2007, Bush chose Otis's 'third option' — "neither prison nor pardon" — in commuting Libby's prison sentence.


title: Scooter Libby

text: After Libby was denied bail during his appeal process on July 2, 2007, Bush commuted Libby's 30-month federal prison sentence, calling it "excessive", but he did not change the other parts of the sentence and their conditions. That presidential commutation left in place the felony conviction, the $250,000 fine, and the terms of probation. Some have criticized the move, as presidential commutations are rarely issued, but when granted they have generally occurred after the convicted person has already served a substantial portion of his or her sentence: "We can't find any cases, certainly in the last half-century, where the president commuted a sentence before it had even started to be served," said former Justice Department pardon attorney Margaret Colgate Love. Others, notably Cheney himself who argued that Libby was unfairly charged by a politically motivated prosecution, believed that the commutation fell short, as Libby would likely never practice law again.


title: Scooter Libby

text: Bush's explanation was written by Fred F. Fielding, White House Counsel during the last two years of Bush's presidency. According to a "Time" article published six months after Bush left office, Fielding worded the commutation "in a way that would make it harder for Bush to revisit it in the future ... ; [the] language was intended to send an unmistakable message, internally as well as externally: No one is above the law." The article suggested that there was a fundamental difference between how Bush and Cheney viewed the "War on Terror", with aides close to Bush feeling that Cheney had misled the President and damaged the administration's moral character with the Plame leak.


title: Scooter Libby

text: Libby's lawyer, Theodore V. Wells, Jr. "issued a brief statement saying Mr. Libby and his family 'wished to express their gratitude for the president's decision ... We continue to believe in Mr. Libby's innocence'. ... "


title: Scooter Libby

text: Prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald, however, took issue with Bush's description of the sentence as 'excessive', saying it was "[i]mposed pursuant to the laws governing sentencings which occur every day throughout this country ... It is fundamental to the rule of law that all citizens stand before the bar of justice as equals ... [T]hat principle guided the judge during both the trial and the sentencing," Fitzgerald said.


title: Scooter Libby

text: The day after the commuting of Libby's sentence, James Rowley (Bloomberg News) reported that Bush had not ruled out pardoning Libby in the future and that Bush's press spokesman, Tony Snow, denied any political motivation in the commutation. Quoting Snow, Rowley added: The president is getting pounded on the right because he didn't do a full pardon.' If Bush were 'doing the weather-vane thing' he 'would have done something differently.


title: Scooter Libby

text: Democratic politicians' responses stressed their outrage at what they called a disgraceful abrogation of justice, and, that evening CNN reported that Representative John Conyers, Jr., Democrat of Michigan, announced that there would be a formal Congressional investigation of Bush's commutation of Libby's sentence and other presidential reprieves.


title: Scooter Libby

text: The hearing on "The Use and Misuse of Presidential Clemency Power for Executive Branch Officials" was held by the United States House Judiciary Committee, chaired by Rep. Conyers, on July 11, 2007.


title: Scooter Libby

text: Just a few days later, however, Judge Walton questioned "whether ... [Libby] will face two years of probation, as [President Bush] said he would," because the supervised release time is conditioned on Libby's serving the prison sentence, and he "directed the special prosecutor, Patrick J. Fitzgerald, and ... [Libby's] lawyers to file arguments on the point. ... " "If Judge Walton does not impose any supervised release, it could undercut ... [Bush's] argument that ... Libby still faced stiff justice." That issue was resolved on July 10, 2007, clearing the way for Libby to begin serving the rest of his sentence, the supervised release and 400 hours of community service.


title: Scooter Libby

text: In response to Bush's justifications for clemency, liberal commentator Harlan J. Protass noted that in "Rita v. United States", the case of a defendant convicted of perjury in front of a grand jury which had been decided two weeks earlier by the U.S. Supreme Court, the U.S. government had successfully argued that sentences that fall within Federal Sentencing Guidelines are presumed to be "reasonable", regardless of individual circumstances.


title: Scooter Libby

text: Reportedly outraged by Bush's commutation of Libby's prison sentence, on July 2, 2007, Wilson told CNN: "I have nothing to say to Scooter Libby ... I don't owe this administration. They owe my wife and my family an apology for having betrayed her. Scooter Libby is a traitor. Bush's action ... demonstrates that the White House is corrupt from top to bottom." He reiterated this perspective on the commutation in the House Judiciary Committee hearing on July 11, 2007, vehemently protesting that a Republican congressman was engaging in "yet a further smear of my wife's good name and my good name."


title: Scooter Libby

text: According to a "USA Today"/Gallup Poll conducted from July 6 to July 8, 2007, "most Americans disagree with President George W. Bush's decision to intervene" on Libby's behalf in the case.


title: Scooter Libby

text: Several months after Bush's action, Judge Walton commented publicly on it. He spoke in favor of applying the law equally, stating: "The downside [of the commutation] is there are a lot of people in America who think that justice is determined to a large degree by who you are and that what you have plays a large role in what kind of justice you receive. ... "


title: Scooter Libby

text: Bush took no further action with respect to Libby's conviction or sentence during his presidential term, despite entreaties from conservatives that he should be pardoned. Two days after their term expired, former Vice President Cheney expressed his regret that Bush had not pardoned Libby on his last day in office.


title: Scooter Libby

text: Blogs played a prominent role in the press coverage of Libby's trial. Scott Shane, in his article "For Liberal Bloggers, Libby Trial Is Fun and Fodder", published in "The New York Times" on February 15, 2007, quotes Robert Cox, president of the Media Bloggers Association, who wrote that the trial was "the first federal case for which independent bloggers have been given official credentials along with reporters from the traditional news media." The trial was followed in the mass media and engaged the interest of both professional legal experts and the general public. While awaiting the judge's ruling pertaining to supervised release and the "400 hours of community service that Judge Walton imposed", for example, bloggers discussed the legal issues involved in these non-commuted parts of Libby's sentence and their effects on Libby's future life experiences.


title: Scooter Libby

text: On August 28, 2006, Christopher Hitchens asserted that Richard Armitage was the primary source of the Valerie Plame leak and that Fitzgerald knew this at the beginning of his investigation. This was supported a month later by Armitage himself, who stated that Fitzgerald had instructed him not to go public with this information. "Investor's Business Daily" questioned Fitzgerald's truthfulness in an editorial, stating "From top to bottom, this has been one of the most disgraceful abuses of prosecutorial power in this country's history ... The Plame case proves [Fitzgerald] can bend the truth with the proficiency of the slickest of pols."


title: Scooter Libby

text: In a September 2008 "Wall Street Journal" editorial, attorney Alan Dershowitz cited the "questionable investigation[s]" of Scooter Libby as evidence of the problems brought to the criminal justice process by "politically appointed and partisan attorney[s] general". In April 2015, also writing in "The Wall Street Journal", Hoover Institution fellow Peter Berkowitz argued that statements by Judith Miller, in her recently published memoir, raised anew contentions that her testimony was inaccurate and that Fitzgerald's conduct as prosecutor was inappropriate.


title: Scooter Libby

text: On July 13, 2006, Joseph and Valerie Wilson filed a civil lawsuit against Libby, Dick Cheney, Karl Rove, and other unnamed senior White House officials (among whom they later added Richard Armitage) for their role in the public disclosure of Valerie Wilson's classified CIA status. Judge John D. Bates dismissed the Wilsons' lawsuit on jurisdictional grounds on July 19, 2007. The Wilsons appealed Bates's district-court decision the next day. Agreeing with the Bush administration, the Obama Justice Department argued that the Wilsons had no legitimate grounds to sue. Melanie Sloan, one of the Wilsons' attorneys, said: "We are deeply disappointed that the Obama administration has failed to recognize the grievous harm top Bush White House officials inflicted on Joe and Valerie Wilson. The government's position cannot be reconciled with President Obama's oft-stated commitment to once again make government officials accountable for their actions."


title: Scooter Libby

text: Libby's voting rights were restored on November 1, 2012 by then-Governor of Virginia Bob McDonnell. Libby was part of a larger group of individuals who had their voting rights restored by McDonnell, all of whom were non-violent offenders. Three years later, on November 3, 2016, the District of Columbia Court of Appeals granted Libby's petition for reinstatement to the D.C. Bar. On April 13, 2018, President Donald Trump pardoned Libby.


title: Roy Lee

text: Roy Lee (born March 23, 1969) is an American film producer. Lee's production company, Vertigo Entertainment, has a first-look deal with Warner Bros.


title: Roy Lee

text: Lee was born in 1969 at Wyckoff Heights Hospital, in Brooklyn, New York, to Korean parents. His father, a doctor, and his mother, had been in America for just three years and were still acclimating. Lee's mother, a devout Christian, nurtured hopes that he would become a minister.


title: Roy Lee

text: During his undergraduate studies at George Washington University, Lee interned at the law firm Fried, Frank, Harris, Shriver & Jacobson. After graduating GWU, Lee attended law school at American University Washington College of Law where he prepared for a career in corporate law.


title: Roy Lee

text: In 1996, after graduating law school at American University and working at Fried Frank for eight months, he moved to Los Angeles and worked as a "tracker" at a production company called Alphaville. Trackers monitor spec material and dealmaking. At the time, trackers shared information over the phone, constantly updating each other in an endless cycle of calls.


title: Roy Lee

text: One of Lee's "tracker" friends, Polly Cohen Johnsen, had been updating the story department at Jersey Films and had the idea to put their tracking group online. Lee joined forces with Johnsen and Glenn Gregory of Propaganda Films to convert their daily phone calls into an online tracking group. In 1997 Lee set up an Internet bulletin board called Tracker for twenty of his friends, who rated scripts and posted pertinent tracker information for each.


title: Roy Lee

text: Within six months, Lee had established twenty-five online groups for other trackers at production companies and studios in Hollywood. Since he was the only member who belonged to every group, he had the best information. Lee's project changed the spec script market forever. While spec scripts and pitches continued to sell, weaker material was dismissed more quickly, often within a single day, to the frustration of many agents. Online tracking accelerated the market, brought more honesty, allowed development execs to sift for material more effectively and put more pressure on agents and producers to represent better material.


title: Roy Lee

text: In 1999, Lee went to work with BenderSpink, a talent-management company owned by two of his friends, Chris Bender and JC Spink. He was charged with finding Internet content: short films that would play on personal computers. In this same year, Ed Kashiba, Sean Connolly and Lee developed the company Scriptshark.com, an online method for novice screenwriters to have their scripts assessed and potentially marketed. Scriptshark eventually sold to The New York Times and closed in 2016.


title: Roy Lee

text: In the fall of 2001, after setting up film projects at all the major studios, Lee left BenderSpink and joined Doug Davison to create Vertigo Entertainment. When working on a project together, Lee did the selling and Davison handled the follow-up work. Lee noted that in the beginning, the hardest thing was making contacts abroad.


title: Roy Lee

text: Lee's approach to making deals involved explaining to Asian distributors that their films would probably not sell in America because of their subtitles and that they would make more money by selling remake rights. Then he assured the rights holder that he would protect them by representing them for free (the American studio would pay his fee when the film was made). Once Lee had secured the right to negotiate for an Asian company, he told the studios to regard the film as a script that someone had taken the trouble to film, and that had been tested and proved a hit in its home country.


title: Roy Lee

text: Lee earned his first motion picture producing credit on Gore Verbinski's 2002 blockbuster "The Ring". He went on to produce the 2004 haunted house horror film "The Grudge", which starred Sarah Michelle Gellar and was based on the 2002 Japanese film "", which was directed by Takashi Shimizu. The box office hit held the record for biggest horror opening weekend following its October 2004 release.


title: Roy Lee

text: "The Grudge 2" was released in October 2006, starring Amber Tamblyn and Gellar, and directed by Shimizu. It topped the box office at $22 million on its opening weekend. Also in October 2006, "The Departed", a crime thriller from Warner Bros., directed by Martin Scorsese and starring Leonardo DiCaprio, Matt Damon and Jack Nicholson, was released, grossing $27 million in its opening weekend. It was Scorsese's biggest opening ever. "The Departed" later went on to win Best Picture at the 79th Academy Awards.


title: Roy Lee

text: He worked as executive producer of the Uruguay short film "Ataque de Pánico!" alongside Doug Davison.


title: Cressida Dick

text: Dame Cressida Rose Dick (born 16 October 1960) is a British retired senior police officer who served as Commissioner of Police of the Metropolis from 2017 to 2022. She is both the first female and first openly homosexual officer to lead the Metropolitan Police Service (MPS), or the Met, in London.


title: Cressida Dick

text: Dick joined the Met in 1983. From 1995 to 2000, she was a high-ranking officer in the Thames Valley Police. After earning a master's degree in criminology, she returned to the Met in 2001, and subsequently held senior roles in the force's diversity directorate, in anti-gang and anti-gun crime operations, and in counterterrorism operations. In June 2009, she was promoted to the rank of assistant commissioner, the first woman to hold this rank substantively. She briefly served as acting deputy commissioner in late 2011 and 2012 during a vacancy in the office. She oversaw the Met's security preparations for the security operations for the 2012 London Olympics. Dick retired from the Met in 2015 to accept a role in the Foreign Office, but returned in 2017 on being selected by the Home Office to succeed Bernard Hogan-Howe as MPS Commissioner, becoming the first woman to hold this post.


title: Cressida Dick

text: Dick's career has included several significant crises and controversies, as well as a series of career comebacks. In 2005, she headed the operation which led to the fatal shooting of Jean Charles de Menezes. A subsequent review faulted the MPS for lapses, but Dick was cleared of personal blame in a 2007 trial. As commissioner, she has overseen a service affected by cuts to police budgets and staffing levels. Controversial aspects of Dick's tenure include the Met's use of stop and search tactics, the handling of recommendations made after the botched Operation Midland, and arrests of attendees at a candlelight vigil for Sarah Everard and complaints by the Daniel Morgan Independent Panel that she obstructed their inquiry into police corruption in 2021. On 10 February 2022, Dick announced she would be leaving the role after losing the confidence of Sadiq Khan, the Mayor of London, over her response to racism and misogyny in the force. Dick left office on 10 April 2022.


title: Cressida Dick

text: Dick was born on 16 October 1960 in Oxford, where she was brought up. She is the third and youngest child of Marcus William Dick (1920–1971), Senior Tutor at Balliol College, Oxford, and Professor of Philosophy at the University of East Anglia, and Cecilia Rachel Dick (née Buxton, 1927–1995), a University of Oxford historian, daughter of Wing Commander Denis Alfred Jex Buxton, granddaughter of the banker and politician Alfred Fowell Buxton, and great-granddaughter of Thomas Jex-Blake, headmaster of Rugby School.


title: Cressida Dick

text: Dick was educated at the Dragon School and Oxford High School, then in 1979 she was admitted to Balliol College, Oxford, from where she graduated with a Bachelor of Arts degree in Agriculture and Forest Sciences. While at Oxford, Dick was a wicketkeeper on a cricket team.


title: Cressida Dick

text: Before joining the police, Dick briefly worked in a large accountancy firm. Some years later, she took a course in criminology at Fitzwilliam College, Cambridge, gaining a Master of Studies degree in 2000 and graduating at the top of her class.


title: Cressida Dick

text: In 1983, Dick joined the Metropolitan Police as a constable, patrolling a beat in the West End of London. Within a decade she had been promoted to chief inspector. In 1995, she transferred to Thames Valley Police, where she was initially a superintendent and then chief superintendent and area commander for Oxford.


title: Cressida Dick

text: She returned to the MPS in 2001 as a commander and head of the diversity directorate. In 2003, she became the head of Operation Trident, which then numbered 300 officers. Operation Trident investigates gang- and gun-related crime; as head of the unit, Dick was credited with progress in reducing crime among "Yardie" drug gangs.


title: Cressida Dick

text: Dick was commander of Operation Kratos, and in the immediate aftermath of 21 July 2005 London bombings, she was the gold commander in the control room during the operation which led to the police fatally shooting Jean Charles de Menezes, an innocent Brazilian man who had been wrongly identified as a potential suicide bomber. In a 2008 statement to the inquest investigating de Menezes's death, Dick expressed deep personal regret over de Menezes' death, and said, "If you ask me whether I think anybody did anything wrong or unreasonable on the operation, I don't think they did." The inquest jury recorded an open verdict. In a separate trial, the Met was found to have committed catastrophic errors that had led to de Menezes's death, but Dick was cleared of any "personal culpability" for the tragedy. The affair nevertheless almost derailed Dick's career. In 2019, Dick said, "The events of that day stay with one; I think about it quite often. It was a traumatic period. It was an awful time for so many people, obviously and most of all Jean Charles's family, the people who were there when it happened, the firearms officers, the surveillance officers." De Menezes's family opposed Dick's later appointment as Met commissioner.


title: Cressida Dick

text: In 2006, the Metropolitan Police Authority (led by Len Duvall) promoted her to Deputy Assistant Commissioner Security and Protection. In 2009, the Metropolitan Police Authority promoted her to Assistant Commissioner Specialist Crime, in charge of the Specialist Crime Directorate. She became the first woman to become an assistant commissioner. Within the specialist crime directorate, Dick was trained as a hostage negotiator.


title: Cressida Dick

text: In July 2011, Dick was appointed assistant commissioner, specialist operations (responsible for the MPS's counter-terrorism operations) following the resignation of John Yates in the wake of the News International phone hacking scandal. In this role, Dick oversaw security operations for the 2012 London Olympics.


title: Cressida Dick

text: In 2011 Dick was appointed acting deputy commissioner, and held the post between the retirement of Tim Godwin and the commencement of the new deputy commissioner Craig Mackey's term at the beginning of 2012. She held the rank until 23 January 2012.


title: Cressida Dick

text: Commissioner Bernard Hogan-Howe subsequently ousted her from her position as the MPS's counterterrorism head after their relationship became strained. In mid-2014, Dick had been one of three short-listed candidates for the position of chief constable of the Police Service of Northern Ireland, but George Hamilton was selected for the role instead. It was announced in December 2014 that she would retire from the police in 2015 to join the Foreign Office, in an unspecified director-general level posting. The Foreign Office refused Freedom of Information requests for information on her job title, role and responsibilities, or her wage. In the "Daily Telegraph", Martin Evans wrote that she had "an unspecified and rather shadowy security role" at the Foreign Office.


title: Cressida Dick

text: On 22 February 2017, the Home Office and the MPS jointly announced that Dick would be appointed as the next Commissioner of the Metropolitan Police. Her appointment was supported by the Home Secretary Amber Rudd. The appointment was formally made by Queen Elizabeth II, via a warrant under the royal sign-manual, on the recommendation of Rudd. (MPS commissioners are selected by the Home Secretary with input from the mayor of London.) Dick was selected over three other short-listed contenders: Sara Thornton, the chair of the National Police Chiefs' Council; Mark Rowley, an assistant commissioner for counterterrorism at the Met, and Stephen Kavanagh, the chief constable of the Essex Police. The term of the police commissioner is five years, although two of Dick's last three predecessors were ousted early.


title: Cressida Dick

text: Dick assumed office on 10 April 2017; her first official engagement was the funeral of PC Keith Palmer, the officer killed in a terrorist attack at the Westminster Bridge, outside the Palace of Westminster, the previous month.


title: Cressida Dick

text: As commissioner, Dick has criticised police budget cuts, saying that they inhibit the MPS's operations, including counterterrorism efforts; she has attributed rising violent crime in London in part due to budget cuts. In June 2017, after the terrorist attacks at Westminster, London Bridge, and Finsbury Park, Dick called for the government to give more resources for police; budgets and police force strength had declined from a peak in 2009–2010. In 2018, the number of MPS police officers fell below 35,000 for the first time in 15 years; Dick sought to "get to well over 30,500 officers, more than 500 more than we currently have" by the end of 2019. Dick blamed "the glamorisation of violence" and "social media being used to taunt other gangs" as additional factors fueling an increase in violent crime.


title: Cressida Dick

text: Dick expressed concern in 2018 about the impact of a no-deal Brexit, saying that it would be costly and place the public at risk by reducing or eliminating the UK's access to databases, quick extradition processes, and law enforcement cooperation with other EU member states.


title: Cressida Dick

text: To combat an increase in moped crime in London (in which criminals on scooters perpetrated "snatch and grab" phone thefts, other robberies, and acid attacks), Dick allowed pursuing police officers to ram moped-riding suspects off the road. The "tactical contact" manoeuvre was criticised by some as unduly risky, but Dick defended the practice, citing a decrease in moped-facilitated crime since police began to use the technique. Dick said that "tactical contact" was used to end moped pursuits on rare occasions by well-trained police who assessed all the risks, adding, that police aimed to "put the fear back into the criminal." In late 2018, the Met under Dick approved plans to allow police officers to conduct armed foot patrols of high-crime residential areas, a break from the usual practice of British police not routinely carrying firearms. The plan was controversial; the Met stated that the plan would not be a precursor to routine armed patrols, but rather was a limited measure to combat violent, often gang-related crime in London. Dick stated that such patrols would be deployed only in "extreme circumstances" to support the unarmed officers.


title: Cressida Dick

text: Dick's official portrait as commissioner was unveiled in July 2019. The oil painting, which Dick paid for from her salary, depicts the commissioner in front of a map of London, wearing a police shirt rather than full tunic uniform. Dick sat for twenty hours for the portraitist Frances Bell. The painting hangs at the Hendon Police College alongside portraits of her 26 male predecessors. While portraits are usually unveiled after a commissioner has stepped down, Dick's portrait was unveiled as part of celebrations marking the centenary of the first woman joining the Met.


title: Cressida Dick

text: Criticism of Dick's tenure has focused on the MPS's actions in the aftermath Operation Midland, a botched MPS investigation into alleged child sex abuse. The investigation, triggered by the false allegations of a fantasist who was later convicted of perverting the course of justice and fraud, collapsed in 2016. An inquiry led by Sir Richard Henriques identified 43 mistakes by the MPS and made 25 urgent recommendations for the MPS to adopt, but a Her Majesty's Inspectorate of Constabulary and Fire & Rescue Services (HMICFRS) report concluded that the MPS had delayed implementing most of the recommendations, with the MPS starting to adopt most reforms in 2019 under pressure from the Home Office. Six former home secretaries said that the police operation undermined public confidence in the police, and Dick faced pressure to resign over the matter. In 2020, however, the Independent Office for Police Conduct cleared Dick of allegations relating to the investigation, finding no evidence that she had "deliberately misled the public regarding her role" in the operation, in which Dick had been briefly involved in 2014, before leaving the Met to join the Foreign Office.


title: Cressida Dick

text: During Dick's tenure, racial disparities in the MPS's use of stop and search were also controversial; black and ethnic minority Britons are many times more likely than white Britons to be stopped and searched by police. Critics contend that the disparity is caused by racial discrimination among police, and that the tactic alienates minority communities. Dick, with the support of Home Secretary Amber Rudd, staunchly defended the use of stop and search, contending that the measure effectively combats knife crime and saves lives.


title: Cressida Dick

text: In 2018, Dick launched a campaign to increase the proportion of female officers in the MPS. At the time, 27% of Met officers were women; Dick aimed to increase that figure to 50% over time, although she did not set a target date. In 2020, London Mayor Sadiq Khan and the MPS announced that that police force would aim to have at least 40% of their recruits be from Black, Asian and minority ethnic backgrounds by 2022; Dick said that the MPS was "not free from racism or discrimination" and the MPS was "committed to eliminating the disproportionate use of force on Black Londoners."


title: Cressida Dick

text: Dick has defended the controversial police use of live facial recognition systems. In 2018, Dick said that police were "hamstrung" by legal limitations over the use of facial recognition. in 2020, after the Royal United Services Institute issued a report recommending regulations on police use of the technology, Dick said that privacy campaigners were "ill-informed" and that facial recognition was a valuable tool to apprehend "the criminals, the rapists, the terrorists and all those who want to harm you, your family and friends."


title: Cressida Dick

text: Dick has been critical of the depiction of police in the television drama "Line of Duty"; in 2019, while accepting that the police procedural was "good drama" and could raise public interest in the police, Dick said she was "absolutely outraged" at the show depicting "casual and extreme corruption" as a common occurrence in policing.


title: Cressida Dick

text: In March 2021, Dick was criticised for Metropolitan Police's handling of a vigil for Sarah Everard, who was abducted and murdered by a Met officer in south London. At the vigils, officers arrested four attendees, alleging violations of COVID-19 restrictions on public gatherings. Liberal Democrat leader Ed Davey led calls for her resignation. Dick defended the MPS's conduct; said that policing was "fiendishly difficult"; and criticised what she called "armchair" critics. She also suggested that if women felt unsafe when approached by officers they should resist arrest, run away, then "wave down a bus" or call 999; these remarks prompted criticism that Dick and the Met were not taking the matter seriously. Opposition Leader Keir Starmer, London mayor Sadiq Khan, campaigners and backbench MPs all criticised the Metropolitan Police. Dick retained the confidence of Prime Minister Boris Johnson and Home Secretary Priti Patel. Patel directed Her Majesty's Inspectorate of Constabulary and Fire & Rescue Services (HMICFRS) to look into the police response to the incident. HMICFRS reported in March 2021 that the police "reacted appropriately and were not heavy handed" and were "justified" in their handling of the vigil. A whistleblower within HMICFRS, however, filed a formal complaint alleging that the inspectorate's review of the vigil, as well as other demonstrations, had been marred by a repeated pro-police bias, anti-demonstrator bias in violation of the Civil Service Code. Reclaim These Streets, which organised the vigil, subsequently prevailed in a lawsuit against the Met; the High Court ruled in March 2022 that the police force had violated participants' human rights to freedom of speech and assembly, and had failed to conduct a proper proportionality assessment when determining what actions to take.


title: Cressida Dick

text: In the 2021 report into the murder of Daniel Morgan, Dick was criticised for hampering efforts to gain access to important information, causing delays in the report's release.


title: Cressida Dick

text: In February 2022 a report was released by the Independent Office for Police Conduct (IOPC) accusing officers at Charing Cross Police Station of misogyny, racism, discrimination, bullying and sexual assault and suggesting these were not isolated cases within the police force.


title: Cressida Dick

text: On 10 February 2022, Dick announced her resignation as Met Commissioner, stating that "the Mayor no longer has sufficient confidence in my leadership". Ian Blair, a former Met police commissioner, has said Boris Johnson should not be involved in appointing Dick's successor due to being subject to a police investigation over possible breaches of COVID regulations. Dick left office on 10 April 2022.


title: Cressida Dick

text: Sir Stephen House took over the role as Acting Commissioner until a successor, Sir Mark Rowley, was appointed in July 2022.


title: Cressida Dick

text: Dick came out as lesbian in April 2017, making her the highest-ranked openly gay officer in British police history. Her partner, Helen, was an Inspector in the MPS in South London before retiring in 2017.


title: Cressida Dick

text: Dick was awarded the Queen's Police Medal for Distinguished Service in the 2010 New Year Honours. She was appointed a Commander of the Order of the British Empire (CBE) in the 2015 New Year Honours for services to policing. In September 2019, she was promoted to Dame Commander of the Order of the British Empire (DBE) in Theresa May's resignation honours.


title: Cressida Dick

text: In 2013, she was named one of the 100 most powerful women in the United Kingdom by "Woman's Hour" on BBC Radio 4.


title: Sackboy: A Big Adventure

text: Sackboy: A Big Adventure is a 2020 platform game developed by Sumo Digital and published by Sony Interactive Entertainment. A spinoff of the "LittleBigPlanet" series, it follows Sackboy, and features 3D platforming as opposed to 2.5D in previous entries. It was released for PlayStation 4 and PlayStation 5 in November 2020 and Windows in October 2022.


title: Sackboy: A Big Adventure

text: "Sackboy: A Big Adventure" is a platform game. Unlike previous "LittleBigPlanet" entries with 2.5D platforming, it features a range of perspectives and 3D movement. Players control Sackboy on world maps which give access to a multitude of platforming levels and bonus content. As Sackboy completes each stage new ones unlock allowing him to progress further. All levels contain collectable objects called Dreamer Orbs which must be collected en-masse to progress to the end of the game.


title: Sackboy: A Big Adventure

text: Sackboy’s move set is greatly expanded from previous entries and players can now slap at will, roll around, nosedive, pick-up objects and flutter jump, to name a few. Moves can be chained together to create combos that allow skilled players to travel greater distances. Each level in the game employs a series of interactable objects that require at least one of Sackboy’s moves to progress.


title: Sackboy: A Big Adventure

text: Sackboy also has access to multiple stages where he can use new powerups. The Grappling Hook, now called the Clawstring, returns from "LittleBigPlanet 2", allowing Sackboy to grab onto object from afar, the Whirltool is a boomerang-like device that can be thrown to defeat enemies and break objects and finally the Plasma Pumps allow Sackboy to hover in the air and fire energy blasts.


title: Sackboy: A Big Adventure

text: The game does not feature any Create Mode akin to "LittleBigPlanet" entries, only making certain nods to it through collectables.


title: Sackboy: A Big Adventure

text: Players can still customize their Sackboy via ZomZom’s Shop. ZomZom is a travelling haberdasher that returns after his appearance in LittleBigPlanet 3. In his shop players can buy new costumes, try on collected outfits and even paint costume pieces. Costumes created by the player can be saved and are then available to choose when a level is entered.


title: Sackboy: A Big Adventure

text: The game is fully playable in both local and online multiplayer allowing up to 4 players to experience the game together. There are stages in each world that require multiple players to enter and are specifically designed so players must work together to progress. The game originally did not ship with online functionality. The feature was added in a patch a month later on 17 December 2020.


title: Sackboy: A Big Adventure

text: In Craftworld, in the village of Loom, the Sackpeople are enjoying their lives when the villain Vex (Richard E. Grant) rips through the sky and begins to suck everything up with his machines in order to enslave the Sackpeople to make his Topsy-Turver machine to take over Craftworld with his evil Uproar. Sackboy manages to avoid being enslaved and steals the plans to the Topsy-Turver, escaping into a rocket. He uses the plans to travel all around Craftworld with the help of an elder sackperson, Scarlet (Dawn French) and tries to prevent Vex from getting the final materials he needs to finish the Topsy-Turver and take over the world, solving many of the issues Vex caused and gathering Dreamer Orbs along the way.


title: Sackboy: A Big Adventure

text: Later on the journey, Vex ambushes Sackboy and steals the latter's Dreamer Orbs, revealing that he manipulated him into gathering them to fuel the Topsy-Turver. Encouraged by Scarlet, Sackboy ventures to the center of Craftworld, where Vex intends to replace the Tree of Imagination with his machine. There he confronts Vex again and rendezvous with Scarlet who reveals a plan to destroy the machine when Vex suddenly knocks her unconscious. Venturing into the Topsy-Turver, Sackboy confronts Vex once more, defeating him and destroying the machine. Afterwards, Scarlet knights Sackboy as a Knitted Knight as peace is restored in Loom and Craftworld.


title: Sackboy: A Big Adventure

text: "Sackboy: A Big Adventure" was developed by Sumo Digital who previously developed "LittleBigPlanet 3", and published by Sony Interactive Entertainment. It is the most recent installment in the "LittleBigPlanet" series.


title: Sackboy: A Big Adventure

text: "Sackboy: A Big Adventure" was announced at the PlayStation 5 reveal event on 11 June 2020. The game was released for the PlayStation 4 and PlayStation 5 in North America and Oceania on 12 November 2020 and most other regions on 19 November 2020. A Windows version was released on 27 October 2022.


title: Sackboy: A Big Adventure

text: "Sackboy: A Big Adventure" received "generally favorable" reviews across all platforms according to review aggregator Metacritic.


title: SPG-9

text: The SPG-9 Kopyo ("Spear") (Russian: СПГ-9 Копьё) is a tripod-mounted man-portable, 73 millimetre calibre recoilless gun developed by the Soviet Union. It fires fin-stabilised, rocket-assisted HE and HEAT projectiles similar to those fired by the 73 mm 2A28 Grom low pressure gun of the BMP-1 armored vehicle. It was accepted into service in 1962, replacing the B-10 recoilless rifle.


title: SPG-9

text: The projectile is launched from the gun by a small charge, which gives it an initial velocity of between 250 and 400 metres per second. The launch charge also imparts spin to the projectile by a series of offset holes. Once the projectile has traveled approximately 20 meters (65.6 feet) from the launcher, a rocket motor in its base ignites. For the PG-9 projectile, this takes it to a velocity of 700 metres per second (2,297 feet per second) before the motor burns out.


title: SPG-9

text: The SPG-9 is heavy (~60 kg), and is normally transported by vehicle, and carried into position by its two crew. It can be deployed in around a minute. The weapon is in service with a large number of armed forces, and a variety of ammunition is produced; however, they are mostly copies of the original Soviet PG-9 HEAT and OG-9 FRAG-HE rounds.


title: SPG-9

text: The SPG-9 is widely available to terrorists and maritime pirates such as in the Horn of Africa region, as well as in other regions to a lesser degree. It is not as popular as the RPG-7 because it has to be mounted on a vehicle or boat and cannot be easily carried and shoulder fired. The SPG-9 requires much more skill to fire accurately than the RPG-7. There have been reports of these mounted in skiffs and larger "mother ships". The SPG-9 can typically be found mounted on a wide variety of vehicles known as "technicals" in Somalia.


title: SPG-9

text: The SPG-9 was used by both sides during the Transnistria War, with at least one combat kill: a Moldavian T-64BV was destroyed using an SPG.


title: Spider-Man: Web of Shadows

text: Spider-Man: Web of Shadows is a 2008 action-adventure video game based on the Marvel Comics character Spider-Man. The game was released in October 2008 across multiple platforms, and encompasses three drastically different versions: one released for Microsoft Windows, the PlayStation 3, Wii, and Xbox 360, which features an open world and non-linear gameplay; one for the PlayStation 2 and PlayStation Portable (titled Spider-Man: Web of Shadows – Amazing Allies Edition), which is a 2.5D side-scrolling beat 'em up; and one for the Nintendo DS, a Metroidvania-style beat 'em up. All three versions have several common elements, such as moral choices that alter the narrative, the ability to summon allies during fights, and a similar plot, despite different characters being featured. "Web of Shadows"' storyline is significantly darker than most previous Spider-Man games, as it revolves around a symbiote invasion threatening Manhattan, which Spider-Man must stop with the help of several unlikely allies.


title: Spider-Man: Web of Shadows

text: Upon release, the game received generally mixed to positive reviews from critics, who singled out the boss fights, destructive combat, original story, gameplay and open-ended nature. However, the game's choice system received mixed reviews; although some praised how the player is able to create a dynamic experience with their choices, others were critical of the system's limitations. In addition, reviewers criticized the storyline's poor execution, bothersome camera controls, the inability to free-roam after completing the main storyline, lip-syncing issues and the subpar graphics.


title: Spider-Man: Web of Shadows

text: "Spider-Man: Web of Shadows", along with most other games published by Activision that had used the Marvel license, was de-listed and removed from all digital storefronts on January 1, 2014. It was the last Spider-Man game developed by Treyarch, as the license was then passed to Beenox, who went on to develop several Spider-Man games of their own, beginning with "" in 2010.


title: Spider-Man: Web of Shadows

text: "Spider-Man Web of Shadows" is a third-person action-adventure video game set in an open-world Manhattan. The gameplay is very similar to that of previous Spider-Man titles (mainly "Spider-Man 2", "Spider-Man 3" and "Ultimate Spider-Man"), as it revolves around combat and exploration. Players control Spider-Man and can web swing, web zip, crawl walls, and use the 'spider-sense' to identify and lock onto enemies. The combat has been significantly improved compared to previous games, with players now able to fight enemies not only on the ground, but also on walls and in the air. The game introduces a "web strike" mechanic, which allows Spider-Man to attach a web line to the nearest enemy and pull himself towards them to deal damage.


title: Spider-Man: Web of Shadows

text: While free roaming, players may stumble upon various random events, such as gang fights, injured civilians that need to be taken to thehospital, and, in the later stages of the game, symbiote nests that must be destroyed. While entirely optional and not required for completing the game, these events reward the player with XP, which can be used to unlock new fighting moves/combos for Spider-Man. Players can also earn XP from simply playing through the main story, completing challenges (such as defeating a given number of enemies), and finding collectibles hidden around the map. Collectibles also increase Spider-Man's health bar and web swinging speed.


title: Spider-Man: Web of Shadows

text: The player is able to switch between Spider-Man's traditional red and blue suit and the black symbiote suit at any time during gameplay. Each suit provides a different gameplay style, and features individual upgrades. Chris Scholz from Shaba Games commented that the developers ""worked on really separating the black and red suits to give the player a different feel"". For example, while wearing the red suit, Spider-Man is faster and more agile with his attacks, whereas symbiote black suit Spider-Man is stronger and more destructive.


title: Spider-Man: Web of Shadows

text: At specific points in the story, the player is presented with choices that affect Spider-Man's morality. This is reflected in the 'reputation bar', which becomes red when Spider-Man has a positive reputation, and black when the reputation is negative. At higher reputation levels, Spider-Man is viewed as a hero, and civilians will act friendly towards him and cheer him on; at lower reputation levels, civilians will cower in fear in Spider-Man's presence or run away. The reputation bar also affects which allies Spider-Man can summon during fights: at high reputation levels, superheroes such as Luke Cage, Moon Knight, and Wolverine can be summoned, whereas at low reputation levels, only villains like Black Cat, Vulture, Rhino, and Electro will come to Spider-Man's aid.


title: Spider-Man: Web of Shadows

text: The mini-map on the screen is also different from the style used in previous Spider-Man games. The traditional 2-D overhead view has been removed, replaced by a new 3D map with an "X", "Y" and "Z" axis which shows the player's position in three-dimensional space (north and south, as well as vertical position). Also, as a Wii exclusive, there are 6 alternate costumes (Spider-Carnage for the black suit, and Spider-Armor, Ben Reilly, Spider-Man 2099, Cosmic Spider-Man, and Iron Spider for the red suit).


title: Spider-Man: Web of Shadows

text: Although the player is unable to free-roam after the storyline's completion, this can be achieved through a secret method, which has the player watch the credits twice. Afterwards, when they select to continue the game, the player will start a new game, but will retain all their previous upgrades; this essentially acts as a New Game Plus mode.


title: Spider-Man: Web of Shadows

text: The PlayStation 2 and PlayStation Portable versions were released as "Spider-Man: Web of Shadows – Amazing Allies Edition" and are drastically different from the console and PC version. These versions do not feature an open world, and are instead 2.5D side-scrolling brawlers. Players can alternate between Spider-Man's two costumes at any time during gameplay, with the game providing several scenarios in which one suit is more useful than the other. For example, there are several weak walls which can only be destroyed by the black suited Spider-Man. Each suit has individual upgrades, which unlock new combos or increase Spider-Man's health bar.


title: Spider-Man: Web of Shadows

text: Like its title suggests, this version puts more emphasis on the ally system than the other versions, providing the biggest variety of allies and consumable power-ups. Instead of cutscenes, the game features dialogue trees, during which the player must select Spider-Man's replies from several different options, which can make Spider-Man appear respectful, mean, or neutral. Depending on which reply is chosen, the player will receive upgrade points for Spider-Man's red suit, black suit, or both. These sections function similarly to the moral choices in the console and PC version, and can have a major impact on the game's story.


title: Spider-Man: Web of Shadows

text: The Nintendo DS version is also a 2.5D scrolling beat 'em up. Like in the other versions, Spider-Man has both his traditional red and blue suit and his symbiote black suit, which the player can switch between at any time during gameplay and which offer different playstyles (the red suit provides faster movement and attacks, whereas the black suit is slower, but has more devastating attacks). Players earn XP from defeating enemies, which can be used to unlock new combos for both suits. As the players progress through the story, they will also obtain upgrades that will allow them to explore more of the open world map and eventually reach the end of the game, similarly to the "Castlevania" and "Metroid" franchises.


title: Spider-Man: Web of Shadows

text: The choice system has been redesigned to only consist of players choosing which mission to undergo next. This version features the fewest allies out of all the versions, with a total of four allies: Black Cat, the Green Goblin, Nightcrawler, and Venom. It also features an exclusive revival system where, if the player's health depletes, they can spend one "life point" to attempt to revive the fallen Spider-Man by using the Touch Screen to draw health orbs to him, while poking at poison orbs to destroy them. The revival will be successful if Spider-Man receives enough health orbs before a time limit is reached.


title: Spider-Man: Web of Shadows

text: The game begins with Spider-Man (Michael Vaughn) looking for Mary Jane Watson (Dana Seltzer) amidst the symbiote invasion in Manhattan. After finding her with Luke Cage (Robert Wisdom), he is attacked by an unknown assailant. Four days prior, Spider-Man has an encounter with Venom (Keith Szarabajka), during which part of the latter's symbiote attaches itself to Spider-Man, recreating his black suit. Spider-Man discovers he has more control over the symbiote, and easily defeats Venom, who flees afterward. Later, while helping Luke Cage deal with a gang war in Harlem, Spider-Man finds evidence that the Kingpin (Gregg Berger) is responsible for the war. During a parley between the two gangs' leaders (James C. Mathis III and Isaac C. Singleton Jr.) and Cage, Spider-Man can either present the evidence in order to end the war peacefully, or let the gangs finish each other off.


title: Spider-Man: Web of Shadows

text: Afterwards, Spider-Man heads to Fisk Tower to confront the Kingpin, only to witness Black Cat (Tricia Helfer) leaving and begin chasing her. With assistance from Moon Knight (Robin Atkin Downes), Spider-Man defeats Black Cat, who reveals she is working as a double agent to bring down the Kingpin in an attempt to gain Spider-Man's affection. Returning or rejecting Black Cat's feelings, Spider-Man join forces with either her or Moon Knight to dismantle the Kingpin's operations, including his production of Goblin gliders, overseen by the Vulture (Kristoffer Tabori). During a fight with the Kingpin's men, Spider-Man is attacked by several symbiote-infected civilians, and decides to investigate. He encounters Wolverine (Steve Blum), who is also hunting symbiotes and mistakes Spider-Man for one, but the two settle their differences after a brief fight. Spider-Man's investigation leads him to Venom, who has been abducting and infecting civilians with his symbiote, but he escapes once again. As more people become infected, a S.H.I.E.L.D. team led by Black Widow (Salli Saffioti) sets up quarantine camps across Manhattan. Electro (Liam O'Brien) rampages through them in search of his sister but is defeated by Spider-Man, and escapes after being infected by a symbiote.


title: Spider-Man: Web of Shadows

text: Unable to contact any scientific genius, Spider-Man reluctantly breaks the Tinkerer (William Utay) out of Ryker's Island, with help from an incarcerated Rhino (Fred Tatasciore), so that he would create a device to destroy the symbiotes without harming the hosts. However, by this point the symbiotes have taken over Manhattan, forcing S.H.I.E.L.D. to isolate it from the rest of New York. While S.H.I.E.L.D. constructs the Tinkerer's device, Spider-Man assists with various operations, such as persuading the Kingpin to aid S.H.I.E.L.D. and defeating Symbiote Electro, who also agrees to help after Spider-Man removes his symbiote. Spider-Man also defends the S.H.I.E.L.D. base at Stark Tower from a symbiote attack, assists Moon Knight in protecting Spector Tower, and aids Wolverine with a civilian evacuation. During the evacuation, Wolverine gets infected by a symbiote, but Spider-Man defeats and rescues him, potentially ripping him in half under the black suit's influence.


title: Spider-Man: Web of Shadows

text: After assisting Mary Jane and Luke Cage with escorting civilians from Harlem to Fisk Tower, Spider-Man is devastated to learn the two have gone missing, and heads off to find them, leading to the game's opening sequence. The person who attacked him is revealed to be Symbiote Black Cat, whom he defeats with Mary Jane's help. However, Black Cat is severely injured in the process, forcing Spider-Man to leave her in Mary Jane's care, or infect her with a symbiote to heal her, which upsets Mary Jane. Meanwhile, S.H.I.E.L.D. installs the Tinkerer's completed device, but Symbiote Vulture leads an aerial assault to destroy it. After defeating Symbiote Vulture, Spider-Man either activates the device, which eliminates all the symbiotes in Manhattan, including his black suit, or destroys it at Vulture's urgings, who encourages him to rule over the symbiotes.


title: Spider-Man: Web of Shadows

text: Either way, Spider-Man learns Venom is attacking the Helicarrier and proceeds to plant explosives across the doomed aircraft, before being confronted by a giant, five-headed Venom. After destroying four heads and failing to kill Venom with a Helicarrier turret, Spider-Man persuades Eddie Brock to come out of Venom and pay for his actions. After Brock dies, either at Spider-Man's hands or by committing a heroic sacrifice, Spider-Man escapes from the Helicarrier, just as the explosives detonate, destroying the aircraft and Venom.


title: Spider-Man: Web of Shadows

text: In the aftermath, Spider-Man either oversees Manhattan's return to normal, while reconciling with Mary Jane or hoping that she will forgive him; or takes over the island as the new symbiote leader, alone or with Black Cat at his side. In the latter scenario, Black Widow, the Kingpin, the Tinkerer, and Symbiote Wolverine strike an alliance to eliminate Spider-Man.


title: Spider-Man: Web of Shadows

text: After an encounter between Spider-Man and Venom, the latter inexplicably explodes, leaving no trace of Eddie Brock and causing Spider-Man to regain his symbiote black suit. Later, Spider-Man is surprised when Nick Fury calls him and reveals that Venom has infested Manhattan with his symbiote, forcing S.H.I.E.L.D. to quarantine the city. He also explains that Spider-Man's previous encounters with the symbiote gives him more control over it, though he warns him that the symbiote can still influence his behavior. Tasked with collecting pieces for a sonic generator that can counter the symbiotes, Spider-Man first goes after the Shocker (Liam O'Brien) to obtain his vibro gauntlets. Next, having been informed by the Kingpin, who is also trying to stop the symbiotes, that Spencer Smythe and A.I.M. are working on a secret project involving vibranium, Spider-Man infiltrates A.I.M.'s underground lab through the sewers. Along the way, he must avoid traps set by Kraven the Hunter (Dwight Schultz) and eventually confront him. Inside A.I.M.'s lab, Spider-Man encounters J. Jonah Jameson (Daran Norris), who was captured and cloned as part of a plot by Smythe to discredit both him and Spider-Man. After releasing either Jameson or his clone, Spider-Man defeats Rhino, who was hired to guard the lab, and escapes with the vibranium.


title: Spider-Man: Web of Shadows

text: Returning to Manhattan, Spider-Man encounters Luke Cage, who suggests teaming up to fight the symbiotes. While doing so, Spider-Man learns of the Tinkerer's plan to spread the infestation to other countries, and has the option to redirect a train full of symbiotes towards Cage to make his own travel through the city easier. After defeating Cage, who was either infected by a symbiote or is trying to remove Spider-Man's black suit, believing it has corrupted him, Spider-Man infiltrates the Tinkerer's lab, encountering a brainwashed Venom, who was captured by the Tinkerer for experimentation. Eventually, Spider-Man defeats the Tinkerer and foils his plan, despite the villain's escape.


title: Spider-Man: Web of Shadows

text: Afterwards, Spider-Man arrives on a symbiote-infested Helicarrier to build the sonic generator, but is forced to assist with the evacuation and reactivate the ship's defense systems. He encounters the Jackal (Greg Baldwin), hired by S.H.I.E.L.D. out of desperation for someone to analyze the symbiotes, who reveals that S.H.I.E.L.D. plans to weaponize the symbiotes and that he is in league with Spencer Smythe, who aims to control the symbiotes. However, Jackal betrays Smythe and tries to take Spider-Man's symbiote for his own ends. After defeating Jackal, Spider-Man escapes from the Helicarrier as it crashes in the city. Making his way to the crash site, Spider-Man finds a symbiote-infected Jessica Drew (Mary Elizabeth McGlynn), whom he defeats, and the blueprints for the sonic generator. He is then informed by Nick Fury that the sonic generator is on the top of Fisk Tower, so he goes there to combine the parts he collected to a super-computer, completing the generator. However, it is stolen by the Jackal while Spider-Man is busy fighting A.I.M. agents dispatched by Smythe. Claiming that he had nothing to do with the generator's theft and that it's too late to stop the symbiotes, Smythe then unleashes a mind-controlled Black Cat to kill Spider-Man, who either frees her from Smythe's control, or lets the mind-controlling device kill her so that he can take it for himself.


title: Spider-Man: Web of Shadows

text: Spider-Man finds the stolen generator in Central Park and confronts Jackal, who reveals that he has modified it to control the symbiotes. After defeating Jackal, Spider-Man recovers the generator and programs it to either destroy or control the symbiotes. As the generator is powered up, Spider-Man finds a symbiote-filled fountain containing seven serpent heads with Venom's consciousness. Using the generator to supply energy that weaken the heads, Spider-Man defeats Venom, allowing him to stop the invasion or take over Manhattan as the new symbiote leader.


title: Spider-Man: Web of Shadows

text: The game begins with the symbiote invasion already in progress. After an encounter with several symbiotes, Spider-Man is infected by one, but is able to maintain control over it, leading to the re-creation of his black suit, which he can now remove at will. Afterwards, thinking Venom is responsible for the invasion, Spider-Man searches for him. Along the way he encounters Black Cat (Valerie Arem), who informs him that both Nightcrawler (Yuri Lowenthal) and the Green Goblin (Roger L. Jackson) require his assistance: the former is helping out with civilian evacuations, while the latter is setting up bombs to defeat the symbiotes.


title: Spider-Man: Web of Shadows

text: After choosing to help either of them twice or both once, and defeating several "super-symbiotes", Spider-Man arrives at a symbiote hive, where he finds and defeats Venom. However, the villain claims that he is not behind the invasion, but rather is trying to stop it as well. With Venom now too weak to accompany him, Spider-Man ventures deeper into the hive by himself and encounters the Symbiote Leader. After defeating him, the hive begins to collapse, but Spider-Man is able to escape in time. The ending of the game depends on who the player helped earlier.


title: Spider-Man: Web of Shadows

text: On April 17, 2008, Activision confirmed that "Spider-Man: Web of Shadows" was in development, and that the game would be released on the Microsoft Windows, Nintendo DS, PlayStation 2, PlayStation 3, PlayStation Portable, Wii, and Xbox 360 systems, and they confirmed that the story would center around an invasion on New York that Spider-Man and the other heroes and villains would have to deal with. Venom was confirmed as the main antagonist in June. Voice casting and direction was done by the husband and wife team of Keith and Valerie Arem.


title: Spider-Man: Web of Shadows

text: "Web of Shadows" received generally average to positive reviews. GameRankings and Metacritic gave it a score of 79% and 77 out of 100 for the DS version; 54% and 52 out of 100 for the Microsoft Windows version; 69% and 69 out of 100 for the PlayStation 2 version; 70% and 67 out of 100 for the PlayStation 3 version; 77% for the PlayStation Portable version; 68% and 68 out of 100 for the Xbox 360 version; and 65% and 63 out of 100 for the Wii version.


title: Spider-Man: Web of Shadows

text: IGN criticized the story, and also pointed out that the lock-on camera has a tendency to detach itself, making mid-air battles difficult. 1UP.com praised the PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360 versions of the game as having "plenty of cool "Spider-Man" moments throughout thanks to the basic locomotion and combat", which "settles into a rhythm of repetition", summing up with ""Shadows" might be the best "Spider-Man" game yet, but that's just a testament to the series' now-mediocre standards". GameSpot mentioned occasional technical issues with the graphics, sound, and camera, while praising the story, combat system, variety and "memorable" boss fights. GameSpy commented that ""Web of Shadows" manages to provide a good deal of fun even if it doesn't bring much new to the table", praising the animation and combat, and mentioning camera problems and visual glitches along with a repetition of objectives. "Game Informer" criticized the voice acting, camera, and animation, claiming, "as explosive as the new combat is, it's all this game has to offer". "X-Play" gave the PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360 versions three stars out of five and said, "there's enough great gameplay here to make "Web of Shadows" recommendable for "Spider-Man" fans. The sheer level of glitches in the game, however, manages to take the fun factor down several notches".


title: Spider-Man: Web of Shadows

text: The DS version of the game, in contrast to the console versions, was relatively well-received, with reviewers praising level design similar to the "Castlevania" and "Metroid" franchises while criticizing the short length.


title: LeMat Revolver

text: The Lemat revolver was a .42 or .36 caliber cap & ball black powder revolver invented by Jean Alexandre LeMat of France, which featured an unusual secondary 20 gauge smooth-bore barrel capable of firing buckshot. It saw service with the armed forces of the Confederate States of America during the American Civil War of 1861–65 and the Army of the Government of National Defense during the Franco-Prussian War.


title: LeMat Revolver

text: This unique sidearm was also known as the "Grape Shot Revolver." It was developed in in 1856 by Jean Alexandre Le Mat, whose manufacturing effort was backed by P. G. T. Beauregard, who became a general in the Confederate States Army. Fewer than 100(?) were made by John Krider of Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, in 1859, including the first 250 prototypes. It is estimated that 2,900 were produced in Liège, Belgium and Paris, France. The European-made pistols were shipped through Birmingham, England, where they were proofmarked.


title: LeMat Revolver

text: Approximately 900 revolvers were shipped to the Confederate States Army and 600 to the Confederate States Navy through Bermuda to avoid the Southern Naval Blockade.


title: LeMat Revolver

text: The distinguishing characteristic of LeMat's revolver is that its 9-shot cylinder revolves around a separate central barrel of larger caliber than the chambers in the cylinder proper. The central barrel is smooth-bore and can function as a short-barreled shotgun (hence the name "Grape Shot Revolver") with the shooter selecting whether to fire from the cylinder or the smooth-bore barrel by flipping a lever on the end of the hammer. Flipping the lever up caused the movable striker to fall upon the primer set directly under the hammer, discharging the lower barrel, while leaving it in the standard position would fire the chambers in the cylinder, much like any other revolver.


title: LeMat Revolver

text: LeMat originally chambered his pistol for .40 (or .42) caliber revolver bullets, with a .60 (20 gauge) smooth-bore barrel, and had a jointed ramrod (mounted on the right-hand side of the frame), which was used to load both barrels. Later, during the American Civil War, a lighter .35-caliber pistol with a .55 caliber (28-gauge) smooth bore barrel was produced, but as these were non-standard ammunition sizes (.36 or .44 caliber were most common for contemporary revolvers) LeMat owners had to cast their own bullets (as opposed to being issued them from general military stores). The final models of the LeMat were produced in .36 or .44 caliber in response to these criticisms, but too few of them managed to get past the Union blockade of the South during the Civil War to be of any real use.


title: LeMat Revolver

text: LeMat hoped to market his adaptable revolver as a primary sidearm for dragoons and other mounted troops. He entered into a partnership with P. G. T. Beauregard (at that time a major in the U.S. Army) in April 1859 to market his handgun to the U.S. Army. Beauregard, besides being LeMat's cousin, was one of the first U.S. Army officers to resign and join the Confederacy.


title: LeMat Revolver

text: When war broke out, LeMat received Confederate contracts for the production of 5,000 revolvers, and plans were laid to manufacture the gun abroad and then import them into the Confederacy, which lacked the necessary facilities to produce the weapon locally. Confederate gun runners were able to slip shipments of the gun through the Union naval blockade and it is estimated that about 2,500 made it into Confederate service.


title: LeMat Revolver

text: In addition to General Beauregard and Colonel LeMat, LeMat's revolver was used by such famous Confederate officers as Major Generals Braxton Bragg, J. E. B. Stuart, Richard H. Anderson, and Captain Henry Wirz. Confederate Major General J. E. B. Stuart "was known to favor the LeMat revolver". General Beauregard's personal engraved LeMat, which he carried throughout the war, is preserved at the Museum of the Confederacy in Richmond, Virginia.


title: LeMat Revolver

text: The LeMat revolver was manufactured from 1856 to 1865, with approximately 2,900 being produced. The first models were manufactured by John Krider of Philadelphia, with the second model (the first overseas model) being produced by Charles Frederic Girard and Son of Paris. Quality concerns prompted LeMat to consider production at the Birmingham Small Arms Company in Birmingham, England, but production was never mounted there. LeMat revolvers from France were shipped to the Confederate States forces via the United Kingdom, and all firearms landed in the UK were (and still are) required to be proofed. The LeMats which found their way through the Union blockade were stamped with British proof marks from the Birmingham Proof House, leading to the misapprehension that the pistols were actually manufactured in the UK. A handful are known to have been made illegitimately in the UK by an unknown manufacturer, believed to be the London Armoury Company, but only two examples survive to the present day and it is doubtful any of the English-made LeMats ever saw service during the U.S. Civil War.


title: LeMat Revolver

text: The original revolver, constructed of blued steel with grips of checkered walnut, was not considered to be a very accurate weapon although it was deadly at close range. Civil War cavalrymen, particularly in the South, preferred to carry several pistols, as it was faster to draw another loaded weapon than it was to try to reload a cap and ball revolver in combat.


title: LeMat Revolver

text: After the introduction of cartridge-firing firearms, the LeMat system appeared in pinfire, but this version is exceedingly rare. A centerfire version in 12mm Perrin or 11mm Chamelot-Delvigne, with a 24 gauge shot barrel, was made in later years in Belgium. While having better sales than its pinfire relative, the centerfire LeMat also had no real commercial success due to the invention of the double-action system. With both weapons, loading was accomplished via a loading gate located at the 4 o'clock position for the cylinder, and by swinging the breech of the shot barrel up and left.


title: LeMat Revolver

text: The Pietta company of Brescia, Italy has manufactured modern reproductions of the LeMat revolver since 1985. United States distributors include Navy Arms Company, Dixie Gunworks and Cabela's. Canadian distributors include Marstar Canada, among others.


title: Loki (season 2)

text: The second season of the American television series "Loki" is based on the Marvel Comics character of the same name. It is set in the Marvel Cinematic Universe (MCU), sharing continuity with the films of the franchise. The season is produced by Marvel Studios, with Eric Martin serving as head writer and Justin Benson and Aaron Moorhead leading the directing team.


title: Loki (season 2)

text: Tom Hiddleston reprises his role as Loki from the film series, with Gugu Mbatha-Raw, Eugene Cordero, Tara Strong, Owen Wilson, and Sophia Di Martino also starring, reprising their roles from the first season. Development on a second season had begun by November 2020, and was confirmed in July 2021, with Martin, Benson, and Moorhead all hired by late February 2022. Filming began in June 2022 at Pinewood Studios and concluded in October.


title: Loki (season 2)

text: The second season is scheduled to debut on Disney+ in mid-2023, and will consist of six episodes. It will be part of of the MCU.


title: Loki (season 2)

text: All six episodes will be written by Eric Martin, with duo Justin Benson and Aaron Moorhead directing the majority of episodes.


title: Loki (season 2)

text: Additionally, Ke Huy Quan appears as a Time Variance Authority archivist, while Rafael Casal and Kate Dickie are cast in an undisclosed roles.


title: Loki (season 2)

text: Development on a second season of "Loki" had begun by November 2020. In January 2021, the first season's head writer Michael Waldron signed an overall deal with Disney which included his involvement in the second season of "Loki". Marvel Studios producer Nate Moore, who served as an executive producer on the series "The Falcon and the Winter Soldier", believed "Loki" had "really irreverent and clever and cool" storylines that lent to the series having multiple seasons rather than being a one-off event. The second season was confirmed through a mid-credits scene in the first season finale, which was released in July 2021, and star Tom Hiddleston said "deep discussions" about the second season were already underway. First season director Kate Herron said she would not return for the second season as she had always planned to only be involved for one season, while Waldron said it "remain[ed] to be seen" if he would be involved.


title: Loki (season 2)

text: In February 2022, the directing duo Justin Benson and Aaron Moorhead were hired to direct a majority of the episodes for the second season. They previously directed two episodes of another Marvel Studios series, "Moon Knight" (2022), which went so well that the studio wanted them to work on other projects and they were quickly chosen for the second season of "Loki". Eric Martin, a first-season writer who took over some of Waldron's duties during production on that season, was set to write all six episodes of the second season, with Hiddleston and Waldron confirmed to be returning as executive producers. Benson and Moorhead were excited to approach another character in Loki who, like "Moon Knight" Marc Spector / Moon Knight, was defined by being an outcast and had "complexity in being [an] outcast". Pre-production had begun by the end of April 2022.


title: Loki (season 2)

text: Waldron said the season would continue the story of the first season but in a way that felt different, subverted expectations, and explored "new emotional ground" for Loki. Hiddleston explained that Loki is once again with the Time Variance Authority (TVA) and working with Mobius M. Mobius, despite Mobius not remembering Loki, and has confronted Sylvie about her actions at the end of the first season. He added that the second season would be "a battle for the soul of the TVA". The season will help connect the entire Multiverse Saga of the MCU.


title: Loki (season 2)

text: Hiddleston, Gugu Mbatha-Raw, Eugene Cordero, Tara Strong, Owen Wilson, and Sophia Di Martino return from the first season as Loki, Ravonna Renslayer, Casey / Hunter K-5E, Miss Minutes, Mobius M. Mobius, and Sylvie, respectively. In May 2022, Marvel Studios President Kevin Feige stated that the "whole cast" would return from the first season. In July, Rafael Casal was confirmed to be cast in an undisclosed "major role" in the season. In September, Ke Huy Quan was revealed to have been cast as a TVA archivist in the season, and Cordero was confirmed to have been made a series regular for the season. In December, Kate Dickie was revealed to have been cast in an undisclosed role, reportedly as a villain.


title: Loki (season 2)

text: Principal photography began on June 13, 2022, at Pinewood Studios in the United Kingdom, with Benson and Moorhead directing the majority of the episodes, and Isaac Bauman serving as cinematographer. It was previously reported to begin in January 2022, under the working title "Architect". In July 2022, location filming occurred throughout London, including at the Chatham Historic Dockyard in Kent; the set photos indicated a 1970s setting for some of the season. Filming concluded in October.


title: Loki (season 2)

text: Natalie Holt was set to return from the first season as the composer by July 2022, and planned to begin scoring the season in late 2022.


title: Loki (season 2)

text: Hiddleston, Di Martino, and Wilson shared footage from the season at the 2022 D23 Expo along with announcing Quan's casting.


title: Different Seasons

text: Different Seasons (1982) is a collection of four Stephen King novellas with a more dramatic bent, rather than the horror fiction for which King is famous. The four novellas are tied together via subtleties that relate to each of the four seasons. The collection is notable for having nearly all of its novellas turned into Hollywood films, one of which, "The Shawshank Redemption", was nominated for the 1994 Academy Award for Best Picture.


title: Different Seasons

text: At the ending of the book, there is also a brief afterword, which King wrote on January 4, 1982. In it, he explains why he had not previously submitted the novellas (each written at a different time) for publication. Early in his career, his agents and editors expressed concern that he would be "written off" as someone who only wrote horror. However, his horror novels turned out to be quite popular and made him much in demand as a novelist. Conversely, the novellas, which did not deal (primarily) with the supernatural, were very difficult to publish as there was not a mass market for "straight" fiction stories in the 25,000- to 35,000-word format. Thus, King and his editor conceived the idea of publishing the novellas together as "something different", hence the title of the book.


title: Quincy, M.E.

text: Quincy, M.E. (also called Quincy) is an American mystery medical drama television series from Universal Studios that aired on NBC from October 3, 1976, to May 11, 1983. Jack Klugman starred in the title role as a Los Angeles County medical examiner who routinely engages in police investigations.


title: Quincy, M.E.

text: Inspired by the book "Where Death Delights" by Marshall Houts, a former FBI agent, the show also resembled the earlier Canadian television series "Wojeck", broadcast by CBC Television. John Vernon, who played the "Wojeck" title role, later guest-starred in the third-season episode "Requiem for the Living". Quincy's character is loosely modeled on Los Angeles' "Coroner to the Stars" Thomas Noguchi.


title: Quincy, M.E.

text: "Quincy" was originally broadcast as 90-minute telefilms as part of the "NBC Sunday Mystery Movie" rotation in the autumn of 1976, alongside "Columbo", "McCloud" and "McMillan" (formerly "McMillan & Wife"). The series proved popular enough that after four episodes of "Quincy, M.E". had aired during the 1976–1977 season in the extended format, "Quincy" was spun off into its own weekly one-hour series without a typical 60-minute pilot. Instead, a two-hour episode kicked off a thirteen-episode shortened run of the series, which concluded the 1976–1977 season, while the "Mystery Movie" format was discontinued in the spring of 1977.


title: Quincy, M.E.

text: The "Quincy" series often used the same actors for different roles in various episodes, a common occurrence on many Glen A. Larson TV programs. Writers Tony Lawrence and Lou Shaw received an Edgar Award from the Mystery Writers of America in 1978 for the second-season episode "...The Thigh Bone's Connected to the Knee Bone...".


title: Quincy, M.E.

text: The series starred Jack Klugman as Dr. Quincy, a resolute, excitable, ethical and highly proficient Medical Examiner (forensic pathologist) for the Los Angeles County Coroner's Office, working to ascertain facts about and reasons for possible suspicious deaths. His colleagues, friends and wife all address him by his surname or the shortened "Quince". (The character's first name was never fully given, although in the third-season episode "Accomplice to Murder" his name is shown on a business card as "R. Quincy" and in early episodes the name "Dr R. Quincy" appears on his door.


title: Quincy, M.E.

text: While engaged in para-police investigations, Quincy frequently comes into conflict with his boss, Dr. Robert Asten (John S. Ragin), and the police, in particular, LAPD Homicide Lieutenant Frank Monahan (Garry Walberg). Quincy and Asten would usually tussle about halfway into an episode, after which time Quincy would successfully solve the case, outsmarting the LAPD and his argumentative boss. Both Monahan and Asten frequently had their own theories about a particular case which were usually at odds with Quincy's deductions. In early episodes, Quincy's relationship with both men was often volatile and nearly adversarial; this changed markedly in later episodes, where Quincy appears to have much closer professional and personal relationships with the two. Frequently, however, the entire investigation would be handled by Quincy with little or no cooperation from the police. Quincy is assisted in the lab by the faithful and adept Sam Fujiyama (Robert Ito).


title: Quincy, M.E.

text: It is revealed in the episode "The Last of Leadbottom" that Quincy is a retired Captain in the US Navy and remains in the Naval Reserve. In the episode "Crib Job", he notes he originally wanted to be a railroad engineer, after revealing a number of facts about the dangers of the occupation. A well-liked man, Quincy lives on a sailboat permanently moored in Marina Del Rey, California, and frequents Danny's, a restaurant and lounge at the marina owned by his friend Danny Tovo (Val Bisoglio).


title: Quincy, M.E.

text: Quincy is quite successful with women. He was once married, but lost his wife, Helen, to cancer. In the "Mystery Movie" installments and earliest first-season episodes, Quincy has a regular girlfriend, an airline flight attendant


title: Quincy, M.E.

text: named Lee Potter (portrayed by Lynette Mettey) who sometimes accompanies him on his cases (such as in "...The Thighbone's Connected to the Knee Bone..."). After Lee, Quincy dated several women until near the end of the seventh season, when he remarries (Dr. Emily Hanover, played by Anita Gillette who had previously portrayed Helen in a flashback) and sells the sailboat in the episode "Quincy's Wedding". Quincy occasionally drives an antique car (which is shown in Season 4, Episode 1 to be an antique Packard Town Car), but friends sometimes ask why he drives his "work vehicle" (the county coroner's hearse, a 1976 AMC Matador station wagon (reg plate: 999853) in the first two seasons and a 1975 Ford LTD station wagon for the rest of the series) on his day off. In reply to the queries, Quincy claims that his car is being repaired.


title: Quincy, M.E.

text: As originally conceived as part of NBC's "Mystery Movie" format, the early seasons of "Quincy, M.E." contained elements of whodunit or howcatchem and focused primarily on Quincy's own criminal investigation; a typical episode would find Quincy determining the actual murderer (instead of the LAPD) or the true cause of a suspicious or unusual death. Later seasons' episodes began to introduce themes of social responsibilities; Quincy would find himself conducting his own para-police investigation that reveals situations such as a disreputable plastic surgeon and the reasons his botched surgeries are not stopped, flaws in drunk driving laws, lax airline safety, dumping of hazardous waste, the proliferation of handguns, autism, anorexia nervosa, hazing, teenage alcoholism, Tourette's syndrome, orphan drugs, and an infamous episode about the dangers of punk rock.


title: Quincy, M.E.

text: "Quincy, M.E.", was one of the first dramatic series to use a format like this to further a social agenda. Klugman himself even came to testify before the US Congress about some of these issues (such as orphan drugs in 1982), describing what he had learned about a difficult or complex social concern as a result of its use in one of the show's episodes.


title: Quincy, M.E.

text: In 2008, Klugman sued NBC, asserting that the network had concealed profits from the show which were owed to him.


title: Quincy, M.E.

text: While many detective series had depicted rudimentary physical evidence analysis such as fingerprints and bullet comparisons, "Quincy M.E." was the first to regularly present the in-depth forensic investigations which would be the hallmark of later detective shows such as "", "NCIS", "", "Crossing Jordan", et al. Klugman himself made guest appearances on the latter two series as, respectively, Dr. Jeff Everden and Det. Harry Trumble, and Dr. Leo Gelber.


title: Quincy, M.E.

text: A total of 148 episodes were made. Jack Klugman appeared in all but one of them. In the episode "Has Anybody Here Seen Quincy?" (season 2, episode 7), Dr. Asten talks to Quincy twice on the phone, but Quincy's voice is not heard, and he is never seen on screen.The reason Klugman refused to appear in the episode is because he disliked a scene when a body delivered to the morgue turns out to still be living.Klugman thought it ludicrous that a medical examiner of Quincy's expertise would fail to notice it.


title: Quincy, M.E.

text: Conversely, Klugman is the only regular cast member who appears in the final episode of the series ("The Cutting Edge"), which was a backdoor pilot for a proposed series about a revolutionary new clinic. NBC did not pick up the new series.


title: Quincy, M.E.

text: Actor Eddie Garrett portrayed a forensic photographer in approximately 113 episodes of the series. Joseph Roman appeared as Sgt. Brill, Lt. Monahan's partner. Marc Scott Taylor, technical advisor for the series beginning in season four, also appeared in the recurring role of Mark, a lab technician. John Nolan also played the recurring role of John the bartender in 86 episodes. Jonathan Segal played the recurring role of the laboratory technician Jeff Sellers.


title: Quincy, M.E.

text: Anita Gillette portrayed both of Quincy's wives. Until marrying Dr. Emily Hanover near the end of the series, Quincy had been a widower, having lost his first wife, Helen, before the events of the series. Anita Gillette was cast as the late Helen Quincy for the flashback scenes in the episode, "Promises to Keep", before being hired as Dr. Hanover.


title: Quincy, M.E.

text: Universal Studios has released Seasons 1 and 2 of "Quincy, M.E." on DVD in regions 1, 2 and 4. Season 3 was released in Region 1 on June 2, 2009, four years after the release of Seasons 1 and 2.


title: Quincy, M.E.

text: On September 7, 2012, it was announced that Shout! Factory had acquired the rights to the series in Region 1. It subsequently released seasons 4 – 8 on DVD.


title: Quincy, M.E.

text: In June 2011, Madman Entertainment announced that it had acquired the distribution rights to the series in Region 4. It subsequently released seasons 3 – 5 on DVD.


title: Quincy, M.E.

text: The DVDs separate the 90-minute and 60-minute episodes into first and second seasons, although they aired during the same broadcast season (1976–1977). Traditionally, the 1977–1978 season was considered the second, etc.


title: Quincy, M.E.

text: In 2013, Acorn Media acquired the rights to the series in Region 2. It released season 3 on March 4, 2013.


title: Quincy, M.E.

text: "Quincy, M.E." currently airs on the Seven Network's digital-only channel 7mate daily at 11 am and 3 am.


title: Quincy, M.E.

text: The series was first broadcast nationally in the United Kingdom in 1977 on the ITV network (albeit at differing times due to the then regional structure of the network). Repeats of the full series were initially shown on BBC1 on afternoons in the late 1980s and early 1990s, and between the late 1990s and early 2010 it frequently ran daily on ITV and (more recently) ITV3, in various time slots—usually 8 a.m., 2 p.m., and early morning. The show was shown on Universal Channel, with episodes on Sunday morning, and one episode at 8 a.m. (repeating at 4 p.m. and 5 a.m. the following morning) through the week. After a brief appearance on YourTV in the daytime, "Quincy M.E." appeared last as a twice-daily run on ITV4 from May 2016 to July 2020 (afternoon and repeated the following morning).


title: Quincy, M.E.

text: "Quincy M.E." has aired on the TV Asahi network since 1979. Tsuneyuki Serizawa, who supervised the Japanese edition, was a friend of Thomas Noguchi. "Doctor Detective Quincy" was the Japanese title.


title: Quincy, M.E.

text: Thirteen episodes were first aired from 1981 through 1983 by the public broadcaster ARD. Then, in the early 1990s, 133 episodes were aired by the commercial television station RTL. Since April 2010, kabel eins has aired the first five seasons on weekdays. In 2012 and 2013, the episodes were aired by the RTL partner station RTL Nitro. Since 2015 they have been broadcast by Sat.1 Gold, a partner station of kabel eins. All episodes shown on German TV are dubbed into German.


title: Quincy, M.E.

text: The series appeared in Italy in the mid-1980s on the TV channel Italia 1. The first four episodes have never been dubbed into Italian; hence they have never been aired on TV, and can be found only (with subtitles) in DVDs. Moreover, many episodes were shortened to about 50 minutes for the Italian version.


title: House of Flying Daggers

text: House of Flying Daggers (Chinese: 十面埋伏) is a 2004 "wuxia" romance film directed by Zhang Yimou and starring Andy Lau, Zhang Ziyi and Takeshi Kaneshiro. Unlike other "wuxia" films, it is more of a love story than purely a martial arts film.


title: House of Flying Daggers

text: The film opened in limited release within the United States on 3 December 2004, in New York City and Los Angeles, and opened on additional screens throughout the country two weeks later. The film grossed $11,050,094 in United States box office, and then went on to significantly overperform in home video market in the United States.


title: House of Flying Daggers

text: The film was chosen as China's entry for the Academy Award for Best Foreign Language Film for the year 2004, but was not nominated in that category. It did receive a nomination for Best Cinematography.


title: House of Flying Daggers

text: In AD 859, as the Tang Dynasty declines, several rebel groups are established, the largest of which is the House of Flying Daggers, based in Fengtian, who battle the corrupt government that oppresses the people. Its members use special throwing daggers that always hit their targets to steal from the rich and give to the poor, gaining the support of the locals. Two police officers, Leo (Andy Lau) and Jin (Takeshi Kaneshiro), are ordered to kill the leader of the group within ten days, a task that appears to be impossible as no one knows who the leader of the House of the Flying Daggers is.


title: House of Flying Daggers

text: To accomplish this, Leo arrests Mei (Zhang Ziyi), a blind dancer who is suspected of being the previous leader's daughter. Jin proceeds to assault the jail and set Mei free, pretending that he is a rebel sympathizer, an act which gains Mei's trust. As Mei and Jin travel to the Flying Dagger headquarters, Leo trails behind with reinforcements. Unfortunately, Mei and Jin fall in love.


title: House of Flying Daggers

text: To make the deception more realistic, Leo and his policemen pretend to ambush the pair. Later, though, they are ambushed for real by soldiers. At a secret meeting, Leo explains that the military has gotten involved and wants Jin and Mei dead. A few days later, Jin and Mei are ambushed again in a bamboo forest and almost killed, but they are saved by the House of Flying Daggers and taken to their headquarters. At this point, Mei is revealed to have been faking her blindness, and is not the actual former leader's daughter. Furthermore, she is engaged to Leo, who has also been revealed to have been pretending to be an officer, and is really a Flying Daggers member. The Flying Daggers are not afraid of the military and are actually looking forward to an open battle. A heartbroken Leo tells Mei that he waited for her for three years since he went undercover to infiltrate the police, and asks how she could fall in love with Jin after only three days, only to be told she has her heart set on Jin.


title: House of Flying Daggers

text: Leo tries to attack Mei, but their superior Nia throws a dagger into Leo's back and reassigns them to new missions, separating them. Shortly after, Mei is told to execute Jin. She frees him instead but refuses to desert the House to join him. Later, Mei changes her mind and rides after Jin, but is ambushed by Leo, who casts two daggers at her. Mei manages to deflect one of them while the other pierces her and seemingly kills her. At this point, Jin discovers Leo and the two of them fight, but their skills are too evenly matched. A raging blizzard falls upon them, while the military approaches the House.


title: House of Flying Daggers

text: Finally, with both men badly wounded and exhausted, Leo pulls Nia's dagger out of his back and threatens to use it on Jin. Mei reappears and threatens to pull the dagger out of her breast and throw it at Leo, which would cause her to bleed to death, but Jin begs her to save herself. After several tense moments, Leo decides to pretend to throw his dagger, intending to die by Mei's dagger while sparing Jin. However, Mei attempts to use her dagger to intercept Leo's dagger in flight. The result is that neither Leo nor Jin dies, but only Mei. In the end, Leo stumbles away in guilt while Jin cries over Mei's body, singing a song praising her as a "rare beauty", the likes of which he will never see again. Whether the House won against the military is left ambiguous.


title: House of Flying Daggers

text: Anita Mui was originally cast for a major role, which was to be her final film appearance. She died of cervical cancer before any of her scenes were filmed. After her death on 30 December 2003, director Zhang Yimou decided to alter the script rather than find a replacement. The film is dedicated to her memory.


title: House of Flying Daggers

text: To prepare for her role, Zhang Ziyi lived for two months with a blind girl who had lost her sight at the age of 12 because of a brain tumor. Takeshi Kaneshiro injured his leg when he went horseback riding. As a result, Yimou had Kaneshiro spend two scenes sitting or kneeling down to alleviate the pain, which was stated in Zhang Yimou's audio commentary.


title: House of Flying Daggers

text: Most of the film was shot in Ukraine's Carpathian Mountains (the Hutsul Region National Park), such as the scenes in the snow or birch forests. The cast and production team spent 70 days on location from September to October 2003 and were largely based in Kosiv. The notable bamboo forest sequences were filmed in China. However, due to the early snowfall, the filmmakers opted to alter the script and certain sequences rather than wait for the snow to thaw as the leaves were still on the trees. Director Zhang Yimou later stated that despite the unpredictable weather forcing the alterations, he had achieved the desired effect in the scenery and was happy with the final result.


title: House of Flying Daggers

text: Like its predecessor "Hero", "House of Flying Daggers" uses wuxing color theory in both a deliberate and ironic manner.


title: House of Flying Daggers

text: The film features the theme of a beautiful woman who brings woe to two men. This theme is borrowed from a famous poem written by the Han Dynasty poet Li Yannian ():