title: Christopher Williams (singer)

text: The single "I'm Dreamin'", from the "New Jack City" soundtrack, became a No. 1 single on Billboard's Hot R&B/Hip-Hop Singles & Tracks charts. After a six-year hiatus from recording music, he returned to the scene with "Real Men Do" on the indie label Renegade, in 2001. It received a glowing, flattering review in "Ebony Magazine" that summer. In between solo pursuits, he has been a contributor to Alex Bugnon's "As Promised", with a smooth-jazz version of Mary J. Blige's "All That I Can Say", featured on "In Your World" with Twista & The Speedknot Mobstas, a very up-tempo track on the soundtrack of "Doctor Dolittle", and on the Cafe Soul All-Stars CD with a single titled "Used to Be". Other soundtrack contributions include: "Tha 2 of Us" from the film "Bulletproof", "Superhero" from the film "Butter", "Boom and the Bang" (featuring R&B songstress Monifah) and "I'm Yours" from the soundtrack of the stage play "Men Cry in the Dark", and "Stranger in My Life" from the film "Gunmen". Additional collaborations throughout his career include: "Round and Round" and "No Sunshine" from the CD "Phuture Flava", "Love You More Than Words Can Say" from the CD "Soul Blitz Allstars", "I Hope That We Can Be Together Soon" (a duet with Miki Howard), "You Are So Fine" (a duet with Shae), "Can't Wait to Be with You" from the DJ Jazzy Jeff & The Fresh Prince release "Code Red", "I Wanna B Ure Lover" from the F.S. Effect release "So Deep It's Bottomless", and "Sexual Healing" (a duet with reggae dancehall queen Patra). At the end of 1994, Williams was also part of the group Black Men United for the hit single "U Will Know" for the film "Jason's Lyric" and its movie's soundtrack album, along with El DeBarge, Al B. Sure!, Gerald Levert and others.


title: Christopher Williams (singer)

text: Williams appeared in the 1991 film "New Jack City" in the role of Kareem Akbar, one of Nino Brown's assistants. He also had a cameo appearance in the 1990s police drama "New York Undercover" as "the singer", performing "Stranger in My Life", in the episode titled "The Shooter". He had another cameo in "Gunmen", starring Christopher Lambert and Mario Van Peebles, singing a song titled "Stranger in My Life". Williams has also starred or co-starred in several successful off-Broadway theatre productions during the 2000s, including "A Good Man Is Hard to Find", "A House Is Not a Home", "Men Cry in the Dark, The Love You Save," and "The Man He Used to Be". Recently, Williams played a main character in the stage play "The Clean-up Woman", written by JD Lawrence, alongside actresses Telma Hopkins and Jackée. Williams also appeared in the stage plays "Guilty Until Proven Innocent" starring K-Ci & JoJo, and "The Man of Her Dreams" starring Shirley Murdock and Dave Hollister of Blackstreet fame. Williams also played the role of "Ned" in the Reuben Rox 2002 B movie comedy/horror/thriller film "Revenge of the Unhappy Campers" (bootleg alternate title "Night of the Unhappy Campers"). This particular work has not been released to DVD for sale, though it can be rented in some larger markets.


title: Christopher Williams (singer)

text: Williams was born August 22, 1967, in Bronx, New York. Williams is the nephew of jazz singer Ella Fitzgerald. Known for his passionate baritone voice, Williams has been called the "Modern Teddy Pendergrass". He attended Purchase College; now known as State University of New York in Harrison, New York. He is an actor, singer, songwriter, and producer. Williams is known for roles in New Jack City (1991), Bulletproof (1996), and Gunmen (1993). After releasing three albums, all of which charted on the Billboard 200, he took a break from recording from 1995–2001. Over the course of Williams' career, he has enjoyed four Top 10 hits on the U.S. R & B charts: "Talk to Myself", "Promises", "I'm Dreamin", and "Every Little Thing You Do". Williams has a son, Christopher Jr, who was born in 1988, from a relationship with a stylist. Williams has another son Austin, who was born in 1990, with actress Stacey Dash. He also has a daughter, Cierra Barnes–Williams, born in 1993 from a relationship with Heather Barnes.


title: Christopher Williams (singer)

text: From 1991 until mid–1992, Williams dated actress Halle Berry. After Halle Berry told interviewers that an abusive ex-boyfriend struck her so hard that she lost most of the hearing in her right ear, many people assumed that Williams was the unnamed ex-boyfriend. Williams defended himself to Eurweb, the entertainment news website, denying that he ever harmed Berry, and suggesting that Berry had been referring to actor Wesley Snipes. He said, "The stuff they wrote about me and Halle was totally false. It's been said I busted her eardrum, and I'm tired of it. I never said it before but I'm so tired of people thinking I'm the guy who did it. Wesley busted her eardrum, not me."


title: Christopher Williams (singer)

text: In October 2017 Williams was arrested and charged with misdemeanor theft, accused of stealing a $99 pair of JBL headphones from a Kohl's department store in McDonough, Georgia.


title: Christopher Williams (singer)

text: Williams made public at a venue in October 2022 that he had been struggling with health issues related to kidney failure and was in a coma November 5, 2021. He openly talked about his illness causing him to lose weight drastically down to 129 pounds and admitted that it was hard to pick up a fork to feed himself. He recently made a special cameo appearance in Washington D.C. on November 12, 2022 during curtain call of the adapted stage play of "New Jack City: Live on Stage" and also expressed his previous update on his health when he was hospitalized weighing 137 pounds and doctors told him he may never be able to walk again. He followed his brief statements with a impromptu performance of his hit song "I'm Dreaming". The video of him discussing this can be seen on New Jack City stage play's producer Je'Caryous Johnson's facebook video post, news outlet sources have yet to update this new information.


title: Environmental Performance Index

text: The Environmental Performance Index (EPI) is a method of quantifying and numerically marking the environmental performance of a state's policies. This index was developed from the Pilot Environmental Performance Index, first published in 2002, and designed to supplement the environmental targets set forth in the United Nations Millennium Development Goals.


title: Environmental Performance Index

text: The EPI was preceded by the Environmental Sustainability Index (ESI), published between 1999 and 2005. Both indices were developed by Yale University (Yale Center for Environmental Law and Policy) and Columbia University (Center for International Earth Science Information Network) in collaboration with the World Economic Forum and the Joint Research Centre of the European Commission. The ESI was developed to evaluate environmental sustainability relative to the paths of other countries. Due to a shift in focus by the teams developing the ESI, the EPI uses outcome-oriented indicators, then working as a benchmark index that can be more easily used by policy makers, environmental scientists, advocates and the general public. Other leading indices like the Global Green Economy Index (GGEI) provide an integrated measure of the environmental, social and economic dynamics of national economies. The GGEI utilizes EPI data for the environmental dimension of the index while also providing a performance assessment of efficiency sectors (e.g. transport, buildings, energy), investment, green innovation and national leadership around climate change.


title: Environmental Performance Index

text: The EPI for the year 2022 ranks 180 countries. The top five countries are Denmark, United Kingdom, Finland, Malta and Sweden. India ranked last at 180 with a score of 18.9.


title: Environmental Performance Index

text: EPI calculation variables change often as can be seen below. This should be taken into account when observing country performance through several reports, as it can lead to score and ranking changes founded just on methodology modification. Apart from variables addressing environmental health and ecosystem vitality, the calculation also takes into account other variables such as rule of law, control of corruption and government effectiveness.


title: Environmental Performance Index

text: The variables in 2018 are largely similar to those from 2016, but have changed in details and some weights.


title: Environmental Performance Index

text: The methodology for the EPI has been criticized for its arbitrary choice of metrics which could introduce bias, and its poor performance as an indicator for environmental sustainability. Additional criticisms center on the EPI's lack of specific policy suggestions, and the index's weighting biases against data deficient countries that has led to the overlooking of ecological progress in developing countries. Below is a quote from the abstract:


title: Environmental Performance Index

text: In 2022, India was ranked last in the list and rejected the low ranking. As per a statement issued by the Ministry of Environment, Forests and Climate Change (MoEF&CC), it claimed that several indicators used in the calculation were based on unfounded assumptions and unscientific methods.


title: John L. Sullivan

text: John Lawrence Sullivan (October 15, 1858 – February 2, 1918), known simply as John L. among his admirers, and dubbed the "Boston Strong Boy" by the press, was an American boxer recognized as the first heavyweight champion of gloved boxing, "de facto" reigning from February 7, 1882, to September 7, 1892. He is also generally recognized as the last heavyweight champion of bare-knuckle boxing under the London Prize Ring Rules, being a cultural icon of the late 19th century America, arguably the first boxing superstar and one of the world's highest-paid athletes of his era. Newspapers' coverage of his career, with the latest accounts of his championship fights often appearing in the headlines, and as cover stories, gave birth to sports journalism in the United States and set the pattern internationally for covering boxing events in media, and photodocumenting the prizefights.


title: John L. Sullivan

text: Sullivan was born in 1858 in the Roxbury neighborhood of Boston, Massachusetts to Irish immigrant parents, Michael Sullivan from Abbeydorney, County Kerry and the former Catherine Kelly from Athlone, County Westmeath.


title: John L. Sullivan

text: He attended public schools in his native Boston, attending the Dwight Grammar School and performing well academically.


title: John L. Sullivan

text: Sullivan's parents aspired for their son to enter the priesthood as a Roman Catholic priest. To this end Sullivan enrolled at Boston College "circa" 1875 but after only a few months he turned to playing baseball professionally, earning the substantial sum of $30 to $40 a week for his efforts. As Sullivan recalled in 1883:


title: John L. Sullivan

text: "...I threw my books aside and gave myself up to it. This is how I got into the base-ball profession and I left school for good and all. From the base-ball business I drifted into boxing and pugilism."


title: John L. Sullivan

text: As a professional fighter Sullivan was nicknamed "The Boston Strongboy". As a youth he was arrested several times for participating in bouts where the sport was outlawed. He went on exhibition tours offering people money to fight him. Sullivan won more than 450 fights in his career.


title: John L. Sullivan

text: There is some controversy among boxing historians over whether Sullivan had sparred with black boxer James Young at Schieffelin Hall in Tombstone, Arizona in 1882. It is significant because Sullivan insisted that he never fought a black boxer. If it did occur, Sullivan possibly had a brief sparring session with the resident from Tombstone, and didn't regard it seriously as a bout.


title: John L. Sullivan

text: In 1883–84 Sullivan went on a coast-to-coast tour by train with five other boxers. They were scheduled to hold 195 fights in 136 different cities and towns over 238 days. To help promote the tour, Sullivan announced that he would box anyone at any time during the tour under the Queensberry Rules for $250. He knocked out eleven men during the tour.


title: John L. Sullivan

text: In Sullivan's era, no formal boxing titles existed. He became a champion after defeating Paddy Ryan in Mississippi City, near Gulfport, Mississippi on February 7, 1882. Modern authorities have retroactively labelled Ryan the "Heavyweight Champion of America", but any claim to Ryan's being a "world champion" would have been dubious; he had never contended internationally as Sullivan had.


title: John L. Sullivan

text: Depending on the modern authority, Sullivan was first considered world heavyweight champion either in 1888 when he fought Charley Mitchell in France, or in 1889 when he knocked out Jake Kilrain in round 75 of a scheduled 80-round bout. Arguably the real first World Heavyweight champion was Jem Mace, who defeated Tom Allen in 1870 at Kenner, Louisiana, but strong anti-British sentiment within the mostly Irish-American boxing community of the time chose to disregard him.


title: John L. Sullivan

text: When the modern authorities write of the "heavyweight championship of the world," they are likely referring to the championship belt presented to Sullivan in Boston on August 8, 1887. The belt was inscribed "Presented to the Champion of Champions, John L. Sullivan, by the Citizens of the United States". Its centerpiece featured the flags of the US, Ireland, and the United Kingdom.


title: John L. Sullivan

text: Mitchell came from Birmingham, England and fought Sullivan in 1883, knocking him down in the first round. Their third meeting took place in 1888 on the grounds of a chateau at Chantilly, France, with the fight held in driving rain. It went on for more than two hours, and by the end of the bout, both men were unrecognisable and had suffered so much damage that neither could lift their arms up to punch. Both men couldn't continue and the contest was considered a draw.


title: John L. Sullivan

text: At this point, the local gendarmerie arrived and arrested Mitchell. He was confined to jail for a few days and later fined by the local magistrate, as bare-knuckle boxing was illegal in France at that time. Swathed in bandages, Sullivan was helped to evade the law and taken across the English Channel to spend the next few weeks convalescing in Liverpool.


title: John L. Sullivan

text: The Kilrain fight is considered to be a turning point in boxing history because it was the last world title bout fought under the London Prize Ring Rules, and therefore was the last ever bare-knuckle heavyweight title bout. It was also one of the first sporting events in the United States to receive national press coverage.


title: John L. Sullivan

text: For the first time, newspapers carried extensive pre-fight coverage which included reporting on the fighters' training and speculating on where the bout would take place. The traditional center of bare-knuckle fighting was New Orleans, but the governor of Louisiana had forbidden the fight in that state. Sullivan had trained for months in Belfast, New York under trainer William Muldoon, whose biggest problem had been keeping Sullivan from liquor. A report on Sullivan's training regimen in Belfast was written by famed reporter Nellie Bly and published in the "New York World."


title: John L. Sullivan

text: Rochester reporter Arch Merrill commented that occasionally Sullivan would "escape" from his guard. In Belfast village, the cry was heard, "John L. is loose again! Send for Muldoon!" Muldoon would snatch the champ away from the bar and take him back to their training camp.


title: John L. Sullivan

text: On July 8, 1889, an estimated 3000 spectators boarded special trains for the secret location, which turned out to be Richburg, a town just south of Hattiesburg, Mississippi. The fight began at 10:30, and at first it looked like Sullivan was going to lose, especially after he vomited during the 44th round. However, the champion got his second wind and was able to turn things around for himself. After a grueling beatdown, Kilrain's manager finally threw in the towel after the 75th round.


title: John L. Sullivan

text: Today, a historical marker is located at the site of the fight, just off Interstate 59, and the fight is immortalised by the Sullivan-Kilrain Road which runs through the site of the event, at the corner of Richburg Road.


title: John L. Sullivan

text: Undefeated at that point, Sullivan did not defend his title for the next three years. During this period, he was a friend and supporter of Irish boxer Ike Weir, who became America's first Featherweight boxing champion in 1889. Both Weir and Sullivan were Boston natives, and Sullivan occasionally appeared at Weir's bouts.


title: John L. Sullivan

text: Sullivan agreed to defend his title in 1892, against challenger "Gentleman Jim" Corbett. The match was on September 7 in New Orleans. It began at 9 p.m. in the electrically illuminated Olympic Club in the upper Ninth Ward neighborhood now known as Bywater section. The venue filled to its 10,000 person capacity despite hefty ticket prices ranging from $5 to $15 (approximately $142 to $426 in 2020). The heavyweight contest occurred under the Marquess of Queensberry Rules, but it was neither the first title fight under those rules nor was it the first title fight using boxing gloves. Corbett was younger and faster, and his boxing technique enabled him to dodge Sullivan's crouch and rush style. In the 21st round, Corbett landed a smashing left "audible throughout the house" that put Sullivan down for good. Sullivan was counted out and Corbett was then declared the new champion. When Sullivan was able to get back to his feet, he announced to the crowd the following: "If I had to get licked, I'm glad I was licked by an American".


title: John L. Sullivan

text: Sullivan is considered the last bare-knuckle champion because no champion after him fought bare-knuckled. However, Sullivan had fought with gloves under the Marquess of Queensberry Rules as early as 1880 and he only fought bare knuckle three times in his entire career (Ryan 1882, Mitchell 1888, and Kilrain 1889). His bare-knuckle image was created because his infrequent fights from 1888 up to the Corbett fight in 1892 had been bare-knuckle.


title: John L. Sullivan

text: Sullivan retired to Abington, Massachusetts but appeared in several exhibitions over the next 12 years, including a three-rounder against Tom Sharkey and a final two-rounder against Jim McCormick in 1905 in Grand Rapids, Michigan. He continued his various careers outside boxing such as being a stage actor, speaker, celebrity baseball umpire, sports reporter, and bar owner. In his later years, Sullivan also gave up his lifelong addiction to alcohol and became a prohibition lecturer.


title: John L. Sullivan

text: The effects of prize fighting along with his being overweight and unhealthy after a long life of overindulging in food and alcohol took its toll on the boxer. Like most boxers of the time, he did not live a very long life. Sullivan died at age 59 at his home in Abington, Massachusetts, supposedly from heart disease. At the time of his death, Sullivan had a young boy named Willie Kelly in his custody. The priest of Sullivan's church had brought Kelly, an orphan, to the front of the parish and encouraged anyone with the means to care for the boy to do so. Sullivan is buried in the Old Calvary Cemetery in Roslindale, a neighborhood of Boston. He died with 10 dollars in his pocket (which is equivalent to almost 180 dollars in 2018). According to the county where Sullivan died he had an estate worth $3,675.


title: John L. Sullivan

text: Sullivan was inducted into the International Boxing Hall of Fame in 1990, as a member of the hall's original class. He had a record of 47 wins, 1 loss and 2 draws, with 38 wins by knockout, though many sources disagree on his exact record.


title: John L. Sullivan

text: The barn where Sullivan trained still stands in the small town of Belfast, New York and is now the Bare Knuckle Boxing Hall of Fame.


title: John L. Sullivan

text: Sullivan and Corbett's landmark 1892 fight is depicted in the 1942 Warner Brothers biopic "Gentleman Jim", a fictionalized account of their relationship. Ward Bond portrayed Sullivan alternately as a fiery peacock of a heavyweight champion and, after his title loss, as a sweet, sentimental good sport. Sixteen years later, actor Roy Jenson played Sullivan in the 1958 episode, "The Gambler and the Lady", of the syndicated television anthology series, "Death Valley Days", hosted by Stanley Andrews. In the story line, Sullivan in his tour of local communities across the country fights an exposition match against Buck Jarrico (Hal Baylor). When the prize money designated to refurbish the school goes missing, both the teacher, Ruth Stewart (Kathleen Case), and the gambler, Brad Forrester (Mark Dana), are falsely accused based on appearances.


title: John L. Sullivan

text: Roy Jenson portrayed John L. Sullivan in the 1958 episode "The Gambler and the Lady" of the television series "Death Valley Days".


title: Frontiers (Journey album)

text: Frontiers is the eighth studio album by the American rock band Journey, released on February 1, 1983 by Columbia Records. This was the band's last album to feature bassist Ross Valory until 1996's "Trial by Fire".


title: Frontiers (Journey album)

text: The album reached No. 2 on the "Billboard" 200 chart and would garner four top 40 singles: "After the Fall" (No. 23), "Send Her My Love" (No. 23), "Faithfully" (No. 12), and "Separate Ways (Worlds Apart)" (No. 8), and a rock radio hit in "Chain Reaction". The album would later achieve the RIAA certification of six times platinum.


title: Frontiers (Journey album)

text: The album had been sequenced and prepped for pressing when, in a last-minute conference with Journey's A&R man Michael Dillbeck, two songs were pulled from the original lineup, "Ask the Lonely" and "Only the Young". These two tracks were replaced with "Back Talk" and "Troubled Child". "Ask the Lonely" was utilized in the soundtrack for the film "Two of a Kind". "Only the Young" would find its way into the Top Ten two years later, as part of the soundtrack of the movie "Vision Quest".


title: Frontiers (Journey album)

text: The band recorded a song called "All That Really Matters," with keyboardist Jonathan Cain singing lead, during the album sessions. It didn't see release until the 1992 release of the "Time" box set.


title: Frontiers (Journey album)

text: "Frontiers" was the band's highest-charting album in the United Kingdom, reaching No. 6 on the UK Albums Chart in 1983.


title: Frontiers (Journey album)

text: Jim Welch designed the album cover. This was the first album cover since "Next" that did not employ the talents of Stanley Mouse and Alton Kelley.


title: Frontiers (Journey album)

text: Welch, who has been Journey's art designer for more than 30 years (as of 2022), commented: ""Frontiers" was a subtle shift. Mouse and Kelley were not involved with that cover. My vision for "Frontiers" was based on "tunnels" and the relativity of time and motion. Light stays the same, but time bends. It was Einstein theories for artist interpretation. The alien in "Frontiers" wasn't really an alien at all, he was a connection to a higher level of listening to Journey."


title: Frontiers (Journey album)

text: In 2005, "Frontiers" was ranked number 363 in "Rock Hard" magazine's book "The 500 Greatest Rock & Metal Albums of All Time".


title: Aluminium foil

text: Aluminium foil (or aluminum foil in North American English; often informally called tin foil) is aluminium prepared in thin metal leaves with a thickness less than ; thinner gauges down to are also commonly used. Standard household foil is typically thick, and heavy duty household foil is typically . The foil is pliable, and can be readily bent or wrapped around objects. Thin foils are fragile and are sometimes laminated with other materials such as plastics or paper to make them stronger and more useful.


title: Aluminium foil

text: Annual production of aluminium foil was approximately in Europe and in the U.S. in 2003. Approximately 75% of aluminium foil is used for packaging of foods, cosmetics, and chemical products, and 25% is used for industrial applications (e.g., thermal insulation, electrical cables, and electronics). It can be easily recycled.


title: Aluminium foil

text: Aluminium foil supplanted tin foil in the mid 20th century. In the United Kingdom and United States it is often informally called "tin foil", just as steel cans are often still called "tin cans". Metallised films are sometimes mistaken for aluminium foil, but are actually polymer films coated with a thin layer of aluminium. In Australia, aluminium foil is widely called "alfoil".


title: Aluminium foil

text: Foil made from a thin leaf of tin was commercially available before its aluminium counterpart. Tin foil was marketed commercially from the late nineteenth into the early twentieth century. The term "tin foil" survives in the English language as a term for the newer aluminium foil. Tin foil is less malleable than aluminium foil and tends to give a slight tin taste to food wrapped in it. Tin foil has been supplanted by aluminium and other materials for wrapping food.


title: Aluminium foil

text: Tin was first replaced by aluminium in 1910, when the first aluminium foil rolling plant, Dr. Lauber, Neher & Cie. was opened in Emmishofen, Switzerland. The plant, owned by J.G. Neher & Sons, the aluminium manufacturers, was founded in 1886 in Schaffhausen, Switzerland, at the foot of the Rhine Falls, whose energy powered the process. In December 1907, Neher's sons, along with Dr. Lauber, had invented the endless rolling process, by which they discovered that aluminium foil could be used as a protective barrier.


title: Aluminium foil

text: In 1911, Bern-based Tobler began wrapping its chocolate bars in aluminium foil, including the unique triangular chocolate bar, Toblerone.


title: Aluminium foil

text: The first use of foil in the United States was in 1913 for wrapping Life Savers, candy bars, and gum.


title: Aluminium foil

text: The continuous casting method is much less energy intensive and has become the preferred process. For thicknesses below , two layers are usually put together for the final pass and afterwards separated which produces foil with one bright side and one matte side. The two sides in contact with each other are matte and the exterior sides become bright; this is done to reduce tearing, increase production rates, control thickness, and get around the need for a smaller diameter roller.


title: Aluminium foil

text: Aluminium foil has a shiny side and a matte side. The shiny side is produced when the aluminium is rolled during the final pass. It is difficult to produce rollers with a gap fine enough to cope with the foil gauge, therefore, for the final pass, two sheets are rolled at the same time, doubling the thickness of the gauge at entry to the rollers. When the sheets are later separated, the inside surface is dull, and the outside surface is shiny. This difference in the finish has led to the perception that favouring a side has an effect when cooking. While many believe (wrongly) that the different properties keep heat out when wrapped with the shiny finish facing out, and keep heat in with the shiny finish facing inwards, the actual difference is imperceptible without instrumentation. Increased reflectivity decreases both absorption and emission of radiation. Foil may have a non-stick coating on only one side. The reflectivity of bright aluminium foil is 88% while dull embossed foil is about 80%.


title: Aluminium foil

text: Aluminum foil is widely sold into the consumer market, often in rolls of width and several metres in length.


title: Aluminium foil

text: Although aluminium is non-magnetic, it is a good conductor, so even a thin sheet reflects almost all of an incident electric wave. At frequencies more than 100 MHz, the "transmitted" electric field is attenuated by more than 80 decibels (dB) (less than 10 = 0.00000001 of the power gets through).


title: Aluminium foil

text: Thin sheets of aluminium are not very effective at attenuating low-frequency magnetic fields. The shielding effectiveness is dependent upon the skin depth. A field travelling through one skin depth will lose about 63 per cent of its energy (it is attenuated to 1/e = 1/2.718... of its original energy). Thin shields also have internal reflections that reduce the shielding effectiveness.


title: Aluminium foil

text: As is the case with all metallic items, aluminium foil reacts to being placed in a microwave oven. This is because of the electromagnetic fields of the microwaves inducing electric currents in the foil and high potentials at the sharp points of the foil sheet; if the potential is sufficiently high, it will cause electric arcing to areas with lower potential, even to the air surrounding the sheet. Modern microwave ovens have been designed to prevent damage to the cavity magnetron tube from microwave energy reflection, and aluminium packages designed for microwave heating are available.


title: Minnesota North Stars

text: The Minnesota North Stars were a professional ice hockey team in the National Hockey League (NHL) for 26 seasons, from 1967 to 1993. The North Stars played their home games at the Met Center in Bloomington, Minnesota, and the team's colors for most of its history were green, yellow, gold and white. The North Stars played 2,062 regular season games and made the NHL playoffs 17 times, including two Stanley Cup Finals appearances, but were ultimately unable to win the Stanley Cup. After the 1992–93 season, the franchise moved to Dallas, and is now known as the Dallas Stars.


title: Minnesota North Stars

text: On March 11, 1965, NHL President Clarence Campbell announced that the league would expand to twelve teams from six through the creation of a new six-team division for the 1967–68 season. In response to Campbell's announcement, a partnership of nine men, led by Walter Bush, Jr., Robert Ridder, and John Driscoll, was formed to seek a franchise for the Twin Cities area of Minnesota. Their efforts were successful, as the NHL awarded one of its six expansion franchises to Minnesota on February 9, 1966. In addition to Minnesota, the five other franchises were awarded to Oakland, Los Angeles, Philadelphia, Pittsburgh, and St. Louis. The expansion fee for all six new clubs was $2 million for each team ($ in dollars). The "North Stars" name was announced on May 25, 1966, following a public contest. The name is derived from the state's motto "L'Étoile du Nord", which is a French phrase meaning "The Star of the North". Months after the naming of the team, ground was broken on October 3, 1966, for a new hockey arena in Bloomington, Minnesota. The home of the North Stars, the Metropolitan Sports Center, was built in 12 months at a cost of US$7 million ($ in dollars). The arena was ready for play for the start of the 1967–68 NHL season, but portions of the arena's construction had not been completed. Spectator seats were in the process of being installed as fans arrived at the arena for the opening home game on October 21, 1967.


title: Minnesota North Stars

text: On October 11, 1967, the North Stars played the first game in franchise history on the road against the St. Louis Blues, another expansion team. The game ended in a 2–2 tie, with former US National Team forward Bill Masterton scoring the first goal in franchise history. On October 21, 1967, the North Stars played their first home game against the California Seals. The North Stars won 3–1. The team achieved success early as it was in first place in the West Division halfway through the 1967–68 season. Tragedy struck the team during the first season on January 13, 1968, when Masterton suffered a fatal hit during a game against the Seals at Met Center. Skating towards the Seals goal across the blue line, Masterton fell backwards, hitting the back of his head on the ice, rendering him unconscious. He never regained consciousness and died on January 15, 1968, at the age of 29, two days after the accident. Doctors described the cause of Masterton's death as a "massive brain injury". To this date, this remains the only death to a player as a result of an injury during a game in NHL history. The North Stars retired his jersey, and later that year, hockey writers established the Bill Masterton Memorial Trophy which would be given annually to a player who best exemplifies the qualities of perseverance, sportsmanship and dedication to hockey. Following the news of Masterton's death, the North Stars lost the next six games.


title: Minnesota North Stars

text: The North Stars would achieve success in their first year of existence by finishing in fourth place in the West Division with a record of 27–32–15, and advancing to the playoffs. During the 1968 playoffs, the North Stars defeated the Los Angeles Kings in seven games after losing the first two in the series. In the next round, the West finals, the North Stars faced the St. Louis Blues in a series which would also go to a seventh game. Minnesota was one game away from advancing to the Stanley Cup Finals, but in the deciding game, they lost in double overtime.


title: Minnesota North Stars

text: The team was led in the early years by the goaltending duo Lorne "Gump" Worsley and Cesare Maniago. Defenseman Ted Harris was the North Stars' captain. The first Stars team also included high-scoring winger Bill Goldsworthy and other quality players such as Barry Gibbs, Jude Drouin, J. P. Parise, Danny Grant, Lou Nanne, Tom Reid and Dennis Hextall.


title: Minnesota North Stars

text: The World Hockey Association (WHA) began play in 1972 with a franchise based in St. Paul, the Minnesota Fighting Saints. While a number of exhibition games were played between teams in the two leagues, the North Stars never played their cross-town rivals. However, the competition for the hockey dollar between these two clubs was fierce. Despite making a good account of themselves on the ice, insurmountable financial difficulties forced the Fighting Saints to fold midway through their fourth season. A second incarnation of the Fighting Saints only lasted half of the following season before folding as well.


title: Minnesota North Stars

text: By 1978 the North Stars had missed the playoffs in five of the previous six seasons, and had only tallied two winning seasons since joining the league. Attendance had tailed off so rapidly that the league feared that the franchise was on the verge of folding. At this point, Gordon and George Gund III, owners of the equally strapped Cleveland Barons, stepped in with an unprecedented solution—merging the North Stars with the Barons. The merged team retained the North Stars name, colors, and history, and remained in Minnesota. However, the wealthier Gunds became majority owners of the merged team, and the North Stars moved from the then-five team Smythe Division to assume the Barons' place in the Adams Division (which would otherwise have been left with only three teams) for the 1978–79 season. The recently retired Nanne was named general manager, and a number of the Barons players – notably goaltender Gilles Meloche and forwards Al MacAdam and Mike Fidler – bolstered the Minnesota lineup. Furthermore, Minnesota had drafted Bobby Smith, who would go on to win the Calder Memorial Trophy as the NHL's top rookie that year, and Steve Payne, who himself would go on to record 42 goals in his second campaign in 1979–80.


title: Minnesota North Stars

text: On January 15, 1979, the North Stars defeated the New York Rangers in Madison Square Garden 8-1. Tim Young became the 2nd player in NHL history to score 5 goals on 5 shots - his 5-goal game remains the best offensive output by a player in the Minnesota/Dallas franchise.


title: Minnesota North Stars

text: In the middle of this transition, a historic night awaited the North Stars. On January 7, 1980, Minnesota was scheduled to play the Philadelphia Flyers, who came to Bloomington sporting the NHL’s and major league sports’ longest undefeated streak, a 35-game run which included 25 wins and 10 ties. An all-time record Met Center crowd of 15,962 squeezed into the arena, which would remain the highest total in all 26 seasons of the North Stars franchise. Minnesota ended the Flyers' streak with a 7–1 win, seven different Stars scoring seven unanswered goals. In the quarter-final round 1980 Stanley Cup playoffs, the North Stars upset the four-time defending champion Montreal Canadiens in seven games before ultimately bowing out to Philadelphia in the following round.


title: Minnesota North Stars

text: With the addition of new players such as Minnesota native and ex-1980 Olympian Neal Broten and sniper Dino Ciccarelli, the North Stars had five straight winning seasons starting in 1979–80, which included back-to-back trips to the Stanley Cup semifinals, first against the Flyers in 1980 and then against the Calgary Flames in 1981. By defeating the Flames in 1981, the North Stars reached their first Stanley Cup Final, only to lose in five games to the heavily favored New York Islanders.


title: Minnesota North Stars

text: On November 11, 1981, the Winnipeg Jets visited Met Center. Fueled by an 8-goal second period, and a 4-goal, 7-point night by Bobby Smith, the North Stars scored the most goals in an NHL game since 1944 in a 15-2 win.


title: Minnesota North Stars

text: Following the 1981 NHL realignment to a more geographically grouped configuration, the North Stars found themselves placed in the Norris Division. Dino Ciccarelli scored a franchise record 55 goals in just his second season in 1981–82, leading Minnesota to its first division title. The team, however, bowed out of the playoffs in the first round against the Chicago Black Hawks.


title: Minnesota North Stars

text: In the summer of 1982, general manager Lou Nanne orchestrated one of the franchise's biggest moves ever, landing a star in the making by drafting highly coveted Brian Bellows. It paid immediate dividends, as Bellows would score 35 goals in his rookie season of 1982–83 and help the team to finish with 40 wins and 96 regular season points – both the most ever recorded in the 26 years the franchise was based in Minnesota. Once again, though, the North Stars fell in the playoffs to the Black Hawks, this time in the second round.


title: Minnesota North Stars

text: Beginning in 1983–84, the team was determined to erase the failures of the previous two campaigns and came close to doing so. This was a season of change for the North Stars and their fans, as Bill Mahoney, a defensive-minded teacher of the game, took over as coach. Very early in the season, a major trade shook the organization, all of Minnesota, and the NHL. The popular Bobby Smith was shipped off to the Montreal Canadiens for a pair of defense-minded forwards, Keith Acton and Mark Napier. The team posted the second-highest victory total in its history with 39, and win its second Norris Division crown in three years. Luckily for the North Stars, the Norris Division was very weak that year; they were the only team in the division to have a winning record that season.


title: Minnesota North Stars

text: In the playoffs, the North Stars finally defeated their rival, the Chicago Black Hawks. Minnesota won the series 3–2, then eliminated the St. Louis Blues in seven games. Only one team remained between the North Stars’ second Stanley Cup Final appearance in four seasons: Wayne Gretzky's Edmonton Oilers. It was a tough, high-scoring series, but Edmonton's star-studded lineup proved too much for the North Stars, and the Oilers swept Minnesota in four games en route to their first Stanley Cup championship.


title: Minnesota North Stars

text: After 1984, the franchise only had one more winning season in Minnesota, in 1985–86. Seemingly, the franchise hit bottom in 1987–88, when it won only 19 games, still the second-fewest wins in franchise history. However, the Norris Division was so weak that year (only the Red Wings finished with a winning record) that the North Stars and Toronto Maple Leafs were fighting it out for the last playoff spot from the division on the last day of the season despite having the two worst records in the league. In those days, the four top teams in each division made the playoffs, regardless of record. A loss to the Calgary Flames not only kept the North Stars out of the playoffs, but also assured them of the worst record in the league. While the late 1980s saw the franchise draft what would turn out to be their greatest player – forward Mike Modano – chronic attendance problems spurred the owners to threaten to move the club to the San Francisco Bay Area, against the league’s wishes.


title: Minnesota North Stars

text: The NHL instituted a compromise for the 1990–91 season whereby the Gund brothers were awarded an expansion team in the Bay Area, the San Jose Sharks, that would receive players from Minnesota via a dispersal draft with the North Stars. Both the Sharks and North Stars would then be able to select players from the other twenty NHL teams in an expansion draft. A group previously petitioning for an NHL team in the Bay Area, led by Howard Baldwin and Morris Belzberg, bought the North Stars as part of the deal. Baldwin and Belzberg purchased the team from the Gund brothers for approximately $38.1 million (including $1 million in liabilities as well as giving the Gunds their share of the fees from the next three expansion teams, expected to be $7.14 million). Norman Green, a former part-owner of the Calgary Flames and a last-minute newcomer to Baldwin and Belzberg's group, purchased 51% controlling interest in the North Stars from them, with Baldwin and Belzberg sharing the remaining 49% stake in the team. Green agreed to purchase Baldwin's 24.5% share, giving him more than 75% control of the team shortly after a dispute with Baldwin arose. Belzberg maintained his share of the rest of the team's stock until October 1990, when Green became the team's sole owner by buying Belzberg's shares.


title: Minnesota North Stars

text: In the 1990–91 season, despite a losing record in the regular season, the North Stars embarked on a Cinderella run to the Stanley Cup Finals. They knocked off the Chicago Blackhawks and St. Louis Blues (the top two teams in the NHL during the regular season) in six games each and the defending Stanley Cup Champion Edmonton Oilers in five games, making it to the finals for the second time in franchise history. The team fought hard against the eventual champion Pittsburgh Penguins, led by Mario Lemieux. They won two out of the first three contests before being obliterated 8–0 in Game 6 of the best-of-seven series. It was the most one-sided defeat in a deciding game of the Stanley Cup Finals since the original Ottawa Senators defeated the Dawson City Nuggets 23–2 in 1905.


title: Minnesota North Stars

text: Following the 1991 Finals run, the North Stars adopted a new logo – the word "STARS" in italicized gold capitals over a green star with a gold outline; the gold now a more metallic shade than the previous yellowish shade. The team also adopted black as their primary color for their road uniforms, and eliminated gold from the uniform, except for the logo. Even before the logo change, it had been speculated that the North Stars would adopt a new logo following the 1990–91 season, as the future primary logo was first painted on the Met Center ice prior to the aforementioned season, albeit in a reverse color scheme than its upcoming incarnation.


title: Minnesota North Stars

text: To celebrate the team's 25th anniversary, the team wore a commemorative patch on the left shoulder of their uniforms. The patch depicted Bill Goldsworthy, wearing a green uniform, facing off against Mike Modano, wearing the new black uniform.


title: Minnesota North Stars

text: The North Stars were allowed to protect fourteen players from selection by to the Sharks as per the 1991 expansion agreement. This meant the core of their 1991 conference championship roster essentially remained intact, with the North Stars only losing four players from their NHL roster to San Jose (the Sharks' remaining selections from Minnesota were minor leaguers). As a result, while the Sharks endured the typical struggles of an expansion team and finished last overall, the North Stars actually modestly improved from the 1990–91 regular season although they nevertheless finished with another losing record. They still made the 1992 playoffs with their new look, and took a 3–2 series lead into Game 6 at the Met Center against the Norris Division champion Detroit Red Wings. The Red Wings won, 1–0, in overtime after a video referee review confirmed that Sergei Fedorov had scored a goal. This was the first use of video replay in the Stanley Cup playoffs. The Wings won the seventh game at home, 5–2.


title: Minnesota North Stars

text: By 1992, Norm Green was arranging a deal to turn the team into the Los Angeles Stars, playing at a new arena (which is now the Honda Center) under construction in Anaheim, California. However, as The Walt Disney Company was already in negotiations with the NHL to create an expansion team in the area, the league instead asked Green to let Disney create the Mighty Ducks of Anaheim while the North Stars would be allowed to relocate to any city of Green's choosing. In January 1993, Green chose Dallas, Texas as the new home of the franchise, and the decision was formally announced on March 10. Several reasons were cited for the relocation, including poor attendance during a string of losing seasons, the failure to reach deals for a new arena in either Minneapolis or Saint Paul, and a sexual harassment lawsuit against Green that resulted in his wife threatening to leave him unless he moved the team. The subsequent decision to relocate the franchise to Texas made Green much reviled in Minnesota, where he derisively came to be known as "Norm Greed".


title: Minnesota North Stars

text: Another factor that also precipitated the move to Dallas was the fact that the team refused to play at the Target Center, where the NBA's Minnesota Timberwolves played, due to the fact that Coca-Cola had advertising and pouring rights at that arena. The North Stars and the Met Center had Pepsi as their sponsor. Despite that, the newly-relocated Stars did play at Target Center on December 9, 1993 against the Ottawa Senators, though only 14,058 fans showed up to watch the Stars defeat the Senators 6–1.


title: Minnesota North Stars

text: Due to mounting financial problems resulting from poor management of his non-hockey business ventures, Green only kept the Stars for three more years before selling them to Tom Hicks in 1996.


title: Minnesota North Stars

text: On the other hand, the Dallas franchise has taken some steps to mend the emotional wounds left in Minnesota. When the Dallas Stars won the 1999 Stanley Cup–three years after Green sold the team–their official video "Nothing Else Matters" not only included their past seasons' disappointments, but also paid tribute to the North Stars' 1991 run to the final, of which star Mike Modano and general manager Bob Gainey had been part.


title: Minnesota North Stars

text: Modano, who retired in 2011, was the last former North Star in the NHL, leaving the Stars franchise after the season. The last active former North Star was Mike Craig, who played in Italy until 2013. After Modano's last game as a Dallas Star, which was in Minnesota playing the Wild, Modano came on the ice as the first star wearing a North Stars jersey, getting a standing ovation from the crowd.


title: Minnesota North Stars

text: With the departure of former North Stars scout Les Jackson from the Dallas Stars franchise on June 30, 2020, there is no longer anyone working for Dallas who had a direct connection to the franchise's time in Minnesota.


title: Minnesota North Stars

text: NHL hockey returned to Minnesota when the NHL announced in 1997 that the state had been awarded an expansion franchise to begin play in the 2000–01 NHL season. In 1998, the team name for the new franchise became the Minnesota Wild.


title: Minnesota North Stars

text: On December 17, 2000, the Wild hosted the Dallas Stars in the latter's first visit to Minnesota since the relocation (excluding the aforementioned neutral-site game at Target Center in 1993). The Wild won that game 6–0 with Darby Hendrickson scoring two goals and Manny Fernandez making 24 saves for a shutout. As of the 2020–21 season, the Stars won 45 of 79 meetings with the Wild, with one tie and six OT/SO losses. The two teams also faced each other in the 2016 first round of the Stanley Cup playoffs, with the Stars prevailing in six games.


title: Minnesota North Stars

text: On April 4, 2017, the Wild honored the North Stars by wearing North Stars jerseys for warmups, despite the North Stars history belonging to the Dallas Stars. Martin Hanzal warmed up with number 91, as the North Stars retired number 19 in honor of Bill Masterton. Zach Parise also warmed up with equipment belonging to his father, the late Jean-Paul Parise, who played for the North Stars.


title: Minnesota North Stars

text: An alumni game pitting the Chicago Blackhawks against Team Minnesota took place the day prior to the 2016 NHL Stadium Series. Team Minnesota featured a mix of former North Stars and Wild players, and wore throwback North Stars jerseys with the former's logo on the right shoulder and the Wild logo on the left shoulder.


title: Minnesota North Stars

text: For the 2020–21 season, the Minnesota Wild introduced a version of the 1978 North Stars jersey, featuring a recolored Wild logo as part of the league-wide "Reverse Retro" jersey program.


title: Minnesota North Stars

text: The team had 17 playoff appearances, a 77–82 playoff record, 2 Norris Division championships, and 2 Campbell Conference championships.


title: Minnesota North Stars

text: "Note: GP = Games played, W = Wins, L = Losses, T = Ties, Pts = Points, GF = Goals for, GA = Goals against, PIM = Penalties in minutes"


title: Minnesota North Stars

text: "Note: Pos = Position; GP = Games played; G = Goals; A = Assists; Pts = Points; P/G = Points per game


title: Minnesota North Stars

text: "Note: This list does not include Dallas Stars, California Golden Seals and Cleveland Barons captains".


title: Minnesota North Stars

text: These numbers remain retired with the Dallas Stars today. In addition to Goldsworthy and Masterton, the Stars have retired the number 7 of Neal Broten, who played with the North Stars from 1981 to 1993, and the number 9 of Mike Modano who played from 1988 to 1993.


title: Minnesota North Stars

text: The North Stars were known for their "classic" green and gold color scheme. For the majority of their existence, the North Stars wore white jerseys with green and gold striping at home and green jerseys with white and gold stripes on the road. Black trim was added to the white jerseys in 1981, and to the green jerseys in 1988. In 1988-89, the pants changed from green to black, with three stars on each side in place of stripes.


title: Minnesota North Stars

text: In 1991, black became the primary color, as the team underwent a complete redesign. The new logo and uniforms were carried over to Dallas after the team moved south.


title: Minnesota North Stars

text: WTCN-TV Channel 11 (now KARE) carried North Stars games from 1967 to 1979. Usually, 27 road games and three home games were televised each season. Frank Buetel was the play-by-play announcer from 1967 to 1970. Hal Kelly took over for the next few years. followed by Joe Boyle in the mid-1970s. Boyle was joined by color commentator Roger Buxton. After the station gained NBC affiliation in 1979, telecasts moved to KMSP-TV (now a Fox owned-and-operated station), with most called by Bob Kurtz and retired North Stars defenseman Tom Reid (incidentally, Kurtz and Reid are the Minnesota Wild's current radio announce team). KITN (now WFTC) televised North Stars games with Frank Mazzocco on play-by-play with color commentator Wally Shaver from the 1984–85 through 1986–87 seasons. The 1987–88 season saw North Stars' games telecast over Saint Cloud-based UHF station KXLI (with Kurtz on play-by-play and former Islander goalie Glenn "Chico" Resch on color). After Kurtz moved on to Massachusetts-based NESN in the summer of 1988, Doug McLeod joined Resch in the broadcast booth beginning with the 1988–89 season. The North Stars' telecasts returned to KMSP in December 1988. The majority of the road games continued to be shown on KMSP, though late in the season some road games were shown on the premium channel Midwest Sports Channel. For the 1989–90 season, Tom Reid joined McLeod in the booth, replacing Resch as color analyst. The 1990–91 season saw first Lou Nanne, then Dave Maloney, and then again, for the playoffs, Nanne paired with McLeod for television broadcasts on both of these same channels. Telecasts were almost exclusively of North Stars' road games, although a handful of home games were televised during that period of time. The 1991 Stanley Cup Finals run saw home games available only on pay-per-view and not available to most hockey fans in Minnesota. Dave Hodge handled TV play-by-play, partnering with color analyst Joe Micheletti in the 1991–92 season.


title: Minnesota North Stars

text: North Stars radio broadcasts originated from WCCO Radio from 1967 to 1978, then moved to another Twin Cities-based clear-channel station, KSTP, where radio broadcasts stayed until the team moved to Dallas in 1993, save a few seasons on a 5,000-watt radio station, WAYL. Al Shaver was the play-by-play radio announcer throughout the Stars' stay in Minnesota. During the WCCO era, Shaver was joined for many home games by WCCO's Larry Jagoe in the early seasons, followed by WCCO personality Steve Cannon. Shaver's partners on KSTP were Russ Small, Ted Robinson, and (during the last three seasons) former Dallas Stars announcer Ralph Strangis. During the Stars' final season (1992–93), Shaver and Strangis called games on KMSP, while the Stars' cable TV game announcer, Doug McLeod, called games over KSTP and the Stars' radio network.


title: Minnesota North Stars

text: Shaver is a ten-time Minnesota Sportscaster of the Year and, as the 1993 Foster Hewitt Memorial Award-winner, a member of the Hockey Hall of Fame. Following the team's departure to Dallas, he called University of Minnesota Golden Gophers hockey games until his retirement in 1996.


title: Minnesota North Stars

text: It was on the night of the Stars' final game at Joe Louis Arena versus the Detroit Red Wings that Shaver first shared the broadcast booth with his son, Wally, who is the current Gopher hockey radio announcer. The elder Shaver's call of the closing moments of the last-ever North Stars game went thus:


title: Minnesota North Stars

text: Al Shaver did all radio play-by-play except in 1992–93, when he did radio play-by-play on non televised games. He also missed some games when he did the high school hockey tournament in a number of years. Shaver's replacements were Bob Kurtz (1979–80), Ted Robinson (1980–81 and 1981–82), Frank Mazzocco (1986–87), Ralph Strangis (1990–91). In 1992–93, Doug McLeod did radio play-by-play on televised games with various analysts including Doug Woog, Tom Vannelli, and Wally Shaver.


title: Minnesota North Stars

text: Shaver did not follow the North Stars when they moved to Dallas in 1993, opting to stay in the Twin Cities. He called University of Minnesota men's hockey for several seasons, then retired in 1996. Shaver came out of retirement for one season in 2000, when the NHL returned to Minnesota with the debut of the Minnesota Wild, calling their games during their inaugural season in 2000-01.


title: Minnesota North Stars

text: After retiring as a player, Reid spent 12 years as color commentator for the North Stars. After the team's move to Dallas, Reid continued as an analyst for NCAA hockey. He and Bob Kurtz have been part of the radio broadcast team for the Minnesota Wild since the team's inaugural season in 2000.


title: Minnesota North Stars

text: Although Strangis had a great deal of broadcast experience, his tryout as color commentator on the Minnesota North Stars radio network was a longshot; other better-known sportscasters received more air time during the auditioning process. The five potential candidates split up a game as guest commentators alongside Al Shaver, then voice of the Minnesota North Stars. The two better-known talents each took a period and then the three longshots split up the third, with Strangis going last. When Al Shaver was asked who he liked the best, he chose Strangis. Ralph shone in his audition, with the perfect ability to complement Shaver's play-by-play with insights from the players and his own intimate knowledge of the game. When the Stars moved to Dallas in 1993, Shaver decided to not to migrate south with the franchise and retired. After three more seasons as color commentator (teaming with Mike Fornes), Strangis migrated to the play-by-play mic, effectively cementing his status as the "Voice of the Stars."


title: Minnesota North Stars

text: In 1979, Kurtz joined KMSP-TV, where he called Minnesota Twins games from 1979–1986 and Minnesota North Stars games from 1979–1984. He was also the North Stars play by play announcer on KXLI-TV during the 1987–88 NHL season. From 1988–1989, he was the sports director at KSTP radio, where he also called University of Minnesota hockey, football and basketball. Kurtz returned to Minnesota in 2000 when he was hired to become the first radio play by play announcer for the Minnesota Wild. He was reunited with Tom Reid, who he previously worked with while calling games for the North Stars as well as University of Minnesota and Michigan State hockey broadcasts.


title: Kinky Boots (film)

text: Kinky Boots is a 2005 British comedy-drama film directed by Julian Jarrold and written by Geoff Deane and Tim Firth. Based on a true story, the film tells of a struggling British shoe factory's young, straight-laced owner, Charlie, who forms an unlikely partnership with Lola, a drag queen, to save the business. Charlie develops a plan to produce custom footwear for drag queens, rather than the men's dress shoes that his firm is known for, alienating many in the process.


title: Kinky Boots (film)

text: In Northampton, in the East Midlands of England, Charlie Price is attempting to save the family shoe factory, which has been floundering since his father died. While on a business trip to London to sell the company's extra stock, Charlie encounters a woman being harassed by drunken hoodlums and intervenes to his detriment. He wakes up backstage, in the dressing room of Lola, a drag queen performer and alter ego of Simon. Charlie is intrigued when he sees that drag queens' high heels snap easily, and wishes to create high heels that can support a greater range of foot sizes and body types. Back in Northampton, while in the process of laying off workers, one employee, Lauren, gives Charlie the idea of looking for a niche market product to save the business. Charlie then recruits Lauren to assist him in designing a high-heeled boot for drag performers.


title: Kinky Boots (film)

text: When their initial designs are met with scorn by Lola, Charlie and Lauren bring her on as a consultant. The road is initially bumpy: many of the male employees are uncomfortable with Lola's presence and the new direction, and Charlie's relationship with his fiancée, Nicola, begins to deteriorate as she encourages him to sell the factory building to a developer. Although things improve when Lola tones down her personality and starts making friends, matters take a turn for the worse when Charlie is invited to showcase the new boots in Milan; the strain he puts on his employees causes most of them, including Lola, to walk out.


title: Kinky Boots (film)

text: Charlie's fiancée arrives at the factory, furious that he took out a second mortgage on their house to save the company. Nicola insists that he sell the company, but Charlie is determined to save it and the jobs of his employees. The argument (which ends with Nicola leaving Charlie) is broadcast on the factory's PA system, which is overheard by Lauren and Lola's bitterest opponent at the factory, Don, a chauvinistic male worker. Don turns over a new leaf after Lola had graciously allowed him to win an arm wrestling match, and rallies the factory workers to make the boots in time for Charlie and Lauren to get to Milan. When Charlie catches Nicola with another man, he angrily takes out his frustrations on Lola, causing Lola to quit. After arriving in Milan with no one to model the boots, Charlie is forced to go onstage and model the boots himself. After he trips and ultimately falls flat on his face, Lola and her posse of drag queens arrive, put on a spectacular runway show, and save the day.


title: Kinky Boots (film)

text: In the film's denouement, Lola headlines her own show and sings a song in honour of the "kinky boots factory" of Northampton. Most of the key workers are in attendance and enjoying themselves, including Charlie and Lauren, who have become a couple.


title: Kinky Boots (film)

text: An episode of BBC2 documentary series "Trouble at the Top", broadcast on 24 February 1999, inspired the film. The former featured Steve Pateman struggling with possible closure of W.J. Brooks Ltd, a family-controlled Earls Barton, Northamptonshire shoe factory, that soon catered to the market of men wearing traditionally women's shoes, such as black patent boots, under the "Divine" brand. Many of the film's scenes were filmed in the factory used by Tricker's in Northampton.


title: Kinky Boots (film)

text: The film received mixed reviews on release, with critics decrying the "formulaic Britcom plot". On the review aggregator website Rotten Tomatoes, the film holds an approval rating of 58% based on 113 reviews, with a weighted average score of 5.8/10. The website's critics consensus reads: ""Kinky Boots" relies heavily on the "Full Monty" formula of Britcoms, while playing it too safe in a desperate attempt not to offend. Ejiofor's performance is its redeeming virtue."


title: Kinky Boots (film)

text: A stage musical adaptation debuted on Broadway in April 2013, following an out-of-town try-out at the Bank of America Theatre in Chicago. The songs were composed by Cyndi Lauper, and the book co-written by Harvey Fierstein, director Jerry Mitchell was also the choreographer. The Chicago cast included eventual Broadway cast members Billy Porter and Stark Sands. At the 67th Tony Awards (2013), the Broadway production won six Tony Awards, including Best Original Score (Lauper, first sole female winner), Best Actor (Porter) and Best Musical.


title: Osage Indian murders

text: The Osage Indian murders were a series of murders of Osage Native Americans in Osage County, Oklahoma, during the 1910s–1930s; newspapers described the increasing number of unsolved murders as the Reign of Terror, lasting from 1921 to 1926. Some sixty or more wealthy, full-blood Osage Native Americans were reported killed from 1918 to 1931. However, newer investigations indicate that other suspicious deaths during this time could have been misreported or covered up murders, including people who were heirs to future fortunes.


title: Osage Indian murders

text: Some of the murders were committed for the purposes of taking over land and wealth of Osage members, whose land was producing valuable oil and who each had headrights that earned lucrative annual royalties. Investigation by law enforcement, including the Bureau of Investigation (BOI; the preceding agency to the Federal Bureau of Investigation, or FBI) also revealed extensive corruption among local officials involved in the Osage guardian program. Most of the murders were never prosecuted, but some men were convicted and sentenced including William Hale, who ordered the murders of his nephew's wife and other members of her family, to gain control of their oil rights.


title: Osage Indian murders

text: The United States Congress changed the law to prohibit non-Osage from inheriting headrights from Osage with half or more Native American ancestry. The U.S. government continued to manage the leases and royalties from oil-producing lands, and the tribe became concerned about these assets. In 2000, the Osage Nation filed a suit against the Department of the Interior, alleging that it had not adequately managed the assets and paid people the royalties they were due. The suit was settled in 2011 for $380 million and commitments to improve program management.


title: Osage Indian murders

text: In 1897, oil was discovered on the Osage Indian Reservation, or present-day Osage County, Oklahoma. The U.S. Department of the Interior managed leases for oil exploration and production on land owned by the Osage Nation through the Bureau of Indian Affairs and later managed royalties, paying individual allottees. As part of the process of preparing Oklahoma for statehood, the federal government allotted to each Osage on the tribal rolls in 1907; thereafter, they and their legal heirs, whether Osage or not, had "headrights" to royalties in oil production, based on their allotments of lands. The headrights could be inherited by legal heirs, including non-Osage. The tribe held the mineral rights communally and paid its members by a percentage related to their holdings.


title: Osage Indian murders

text: By 1920, the market for oil had grown dramatically and brought much wealth to the Osage. In 1923 alone "the tribe took in more than thirty million dollars, the equivalent today of more than four hundred million dollars." People across the U.S. read about the Osage, called "the richest nation, clan or social group of any race on earth, including the whites, man for man." Some Osage used their royalties to send their children to private schools; others bought fancy cars, clothes and jewelry, and traveled in Europe; and newspapers across the country covered their activities. Along with tens of thousands of oil workers, the oil boom attracted many white opportunists to Osage County; as the writer Robert Allen Warrior characterizes them, some were entrepreneurial, while others were criminal, seeking to separate the Osage from their wealth by murder if necessary.


title: Osage Indian murders

text: Believing the Osage would not be able to manage their new wealth, or lobbied by whites who wanted a piece of the action, the United States Congress passed a law in 1921 which required that courts appoint guardians for each Osage of half-blood or more in ancestry, who would manage their royalties and financial affairs until they demonstrated "competency". Under the system, even minors who had less than half-Osage blood had to have guardians appointed, regardless of whether the minors had living parents. The courts appointed the guardians from local white lawyers or businessmen. The incentives for criminality were overwhelming; such guardians often maneuvered legally to steal Osage land, their headrights or royalties; others were suspected of murdering their charges to gain the headrights.


title: Osage Indian murders

text: At that time, eight lawyers were working in Pawhuska, the Osage County seat, which had 8,000 residents; the number of lawyers was said to be as great as Oklahoma City, which had 140,000 residents. In 1924, the Department of the Interior charged two dozen guardians of Osage with corruption in the administration of their duties related to their charges, but all avoided punishment by settling out of court. These guardians were believed to have swindled their charges out of millions of dollars. In 1929, $27 million was reported as still being held by the "Guardian System", the organization set up to protect the financial interests of 883 Osage families in Osage County.


title: Osage Indian murders

text: In the early 1920s, the western U.S. was shaken by the reported murders of eighteen Osage and three non-natives in Osage County within a short period of time. Colorado newspapers reported the murders as the "Reign of Terror" on the Osage reservation. Some murders seemed associated with several members of one family.


title: Osage Indian murders

text: On May 27, 1921, local hunters discovered the decomposing body of 36-year-old Anna Brown in a remote ravine of Osage County. Unable to find the killer, local authorities ruled her death as accidental because of alcohol poisoning and put the case aside. Brown was divorced, so probate awarded her estate to her mother, Lizzie Q. Kyle. Kelsie Morrison, a petty criminal, later admitted to murdering Brown and testified that William Hale, a prominent local cattleman, had asked him to do so. Along with his admission, Morrison implicated Hale's nephew and Brown's ex-boyfriend, Bryan Burkhart, in her murder. Morrison testified that, after meeting Brown earlier at her sister Mollie's home, he and Burkhart took a heavily intoxicated Brown to Three Mile Creek, where Morrison shot and killed her.


title: Osage Indian murders

text: The body of another Osage, Brown's cousin Charles Whitehorn (also known as Charles Williamson), was discovered near Pawhuska on the same day as hers; Whitehorn had been shot to death. Two months later, Lizzie Q. Kyle was killed as well. By that time, Lizzie had headrights for herself and had inherited the headrights from her late husband and two daughters. Her heirs became fabulously wealthy.


title: Osage Indian murders

text: On February 6, 1923, Henry Roan, another cousin of Brown's (also known as Henry Roan Horse), was found in his car on the Osage Reservation, dead from a shot in the head. Roan also had a financial connection with Hale, having borrowed $1,200 from the cattleman. Hale fraudulently arranged to make himself the beneficiary of Roan's $25,000 life insurance policy. Over a month later, on March 10, 1923, a bomb destroyed the Fairfax residence of Anna's sister Rita Smith, killing Rita and her servant, Nettie Brookshire. Rita's husband, Bill Smith, sustained massive injuries from the blast and died four days later. Shortly before his death, Bill gave a statement implicating his suspected murderers and appointed his wife's estate. Later investigations revealed that the bomb contained of nitroglycerin.


title: Osage Indian murders

text: On June 28, 1923, Hale and Burkhart put George Bigheart on a train to Oklahoma City to be taken to a hospital. There, doctors suspected that he had ingested poisoned whiskey. Bigheart called attorney William "W.W." Watkins Vaughan of Pawhuska, asking him to come to the hospital as soon as possible for an urgent meeting. Vaughan complied, and the two men met that night. Bigheart had said he had suspicions about who was behind the murders and had access to incriminating documents that would prove his claims. Vaughan boarded a train that night to return to Pawhuska, but turned up missing the next morning when the Pullman porter went to awaken him; his berth on the train had not been used. Vaughan's body was later found with his skull crushed beside the railroad tracks near Pershing, about five miles south of Pawhuska. Bigheart died at the hospital that same morning.


title: Osage Indian murders

text: Thirteen other deaths of full-blooded Osage men and women, who had guardians appointed by the courts, were reported between 1921 and 1923. By 1925, at least sixty wealthy Osage had died and their land had been inherited or deeded to their guardians, who were local white lawyers and businessmen. The Bureau of Investigation (BOI), the preceding agency to the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), found a low-level market in contract killers to kill the Osage for their wealth. In 1995, the writer Robert Allen Warrior wrote about walking through an Osage cemetery and seeing "the inordinate number of young people who died during that time."


title: Osage Indian murders

text: In 1925, Osage tribal elders, with the help of local law officer James Monroe Pyle, sought assistance from the BOI when local and state officials could not solve the rising number of murders. Pyle presented his evidence of murder and conspiracy and requested an investigation. The BOI sent Tom White to lead an investigation. Because of the large number of leads and the perception that the police were corrupt, White decided he would be the public face of the investigation while most of the agents would work undercover. The other agents recruited were: a former New Mexico sheriff; a former Texas Ranger; John Burger, who had worked on the previous investigation; Frank Smith; and John Wren, an American Indian of the Ute Nation who had previously been a spy for the Mexican revolutionaries.


title: Osage Indian murders

text: The Osage Tribal Council suspected that Hale was responsible for many of the deaths. The Commissioner of Indian Affairs in the Department of the Interior sent four agents to act as undercover investigators. Working for two years, the agents discovered a crime ring led by Hale, known in Osage County as the "King of the Osage Hills". Hale and his nephews, Ernest and Bryan Burkhart, had migrated from Texas to Osage County to find jobs in the oil fields. Once there, they discovered the immense wealth of members of the Osage Nation from royalties being paid from leases on oil-producing lands. Hale's goal was to gain the headrights and wealth of several tribe members, including his nephew's Osage wife, the last survivor of her family.


title: Osage Indian murders

text: To gain part of the wealth, Hale persuaded Ernest to marry Mollie Kyle, a full-blooded Osage. Hale then arranged for the murders of Mollie's sisters, her brother-in-law, her mother, and her cousin, Henry Roan, to cash in on the insurance policies and headrights of each family member. Other witnesses and participants were murdered as investigation of the conspiracy expanded. Mollie and Ernest Burkhart inherited all of the headrights from her family. Investigators soon discovered that Mollie was already being poisoned.


title: Osage Indian murders

text: Hale, his nephews, and one of the ranch hands they hired were charged with the murder of Mollie Kyle's family. Hale was formally charged with the murder of Roan, who had been killed on the Osage Reservation land, making it a federal crime. Two of his accomplices had died before the BOI investigation was completed. Hale and his associates were convicted in state and federal trials from 1926 to 1929, which had changes of venue, hung juries, appeals, and overturned verdicts. In 1926, Ernest pleaded guilty to being part of the conspiracy.


title: Osage Indian murders

text: John Ramsey confessed to participation in the murder of Roan as soon as he was arrested. He said that Hale had promised him five hundred dollars and a new car for killing Roan. Ramsey met Roan on a road outside of Fairfax, and they drank whiskey together. Then Ramsey shot Roan in the head. Subsequently, Ramsey changed his story, claiming that the actual killer was Curly Johnson. His accomplice, Bryan Burkhart, another nephew, had turned state's evidence. The trials received national newspaper and magazine coverage. Sentenced to life imprisonment, Hale, Ramsey, and Ernest Burkhart later received parole despite protests from the Osage.


title: Osage Indian murders

text: Various residents of Pawhuska petitioned Oklahoma Governor Jack C. Walton to conduct a full investigation of the deaths of Charles Bigheart and his attorney, William Vaughan. Walton assigned Herman Fox Davis to the investigation. Shortly after the assignment, Davis was convicted of bribery. Although Walton later pardoned Davis, the investigation of Bigheart and Vaughan was never completed.


title: Osage Indian murders

text: In the case of the Smith murders, Ernest was soon convinced that even his wife's money and his uncle's political influence could not save him. He changed his plea to guilty and asked to be sentenced to life imprisonment rather than receive the death penalty. He turned state's evidence, naming his uncle as responsible for the murder conspiracy. Ernest said that he had used a person named Henry Grammer as a go-between to hire a professional criminal named Asa "Ace" Kirby to perform the killings. Both Grammer and Kirby were killed before they could testify. Ernest Burkhart's attempt to kill his wife failed. Mollie, a devout Catholic, had told her priest that she feared she was being poisoned at home. The priest told her not to touch liquor under any circumstances. He also alerted one of the FBI agents. Mollie recovered from the poison she had already consumed and (after the trials) divorced Ernest. Mollie Burkhart Cobb died of unrelated causes on June 16, 1937. Her children inherited all of her estate.


title: Osage Indian murders

text: In the early 1990s, journalist Dennis McAuliffe of "The Washington Post" investigated the suspicious death of his grandmother, Sybil Beekman Bolton, an Osage with headrights who died in 1925 at age 21. As a youth he had been told she died of kidney disease, then as a suicide. His doubts arose from a variety of conflicting evidence. In his investigation, McAuliffe found that the BOI believed that the murders of several Osage women "had been committed or ordered by their husbands." Most murders of the Osage during the early 1920s went unsolved. McAuliffe found that when Bolton was a minor, the court had appointed her white stepfather, attorney Arthur "A.T." Woodward, as her guardian. Woodward also served as the federally appointed Tribal Counsel, and he had guardianship of four other Osage charges, each of whom had died by 1923. McAuliffe learned that his grandmother's murder had been covered up by a false death certificate. He came to believe that Woodward was responsible for her death. His book about his investigation, "Bloodland: A Family Story of Oil, Greed and Murder on the Osage Reservation" (1994), presents an account of the corruption and murders during this period.


title: Osage Indian murders

text: Osage County officials sought revenge against Pyle for his role in bringing the murders to light. Fearing for his life, Pyle and his wife fled to Arizona, where he again served as an officer of the law. He died there in 1942.


title: Osage Indian murders

text: To try to prevent further criminality and to protect the Osage, in 1925 Congress passed a law prohibiting non-Osage from inheriting headrights from Osage who had half or more Native American ancestry.


title: Osage Indian murders

text: The Department of Interior continued to manage the trust lands and pay fees to Osage with headrights. In 2000, the tribe filed a lawsuit against the department, alleging that federal government management of the trust assets had resulted in historical losses to its trust funds and interest income. This was after a major class-action suit had been filed against the departments of Interior and Treasury in 1996 by Elouise Cobell (Blackfeet) on behalf of other Native Americans, for similar reasons.


title: Osage Indian murders

text: In 2011, the U.S. government settled with the Osage for $380 million. The settlement also strengthened management of the tribe's trust assets and improved communications between the Department of Interior and the tribe. The law firm representing the Osage said it was the largest trust settlement with one tribe in U.S. history.


title: Neil Bush

text: Neil Mallon Bush (born January 22, 1955) is an American businessman and investor. He is the fourth of six children of former President George H. W. Bush and Barbara Bush (née Pierce). His five siblings are George W. Bush, the 43rd President of the United States; Jeb Bush, a former governor of Florida; the late Pauline Robinson Bush; Marvin Bush; and Dorothy Bush Koch.


title: Neil Bush

text: On January 22, 1955, Bush was born in Midland, Texas. Bush was named after a good friend of the family, Henry Neil Mallon, chairman of Dresser Industries, George H. W. Bush's employer. As a child, Bush spent some summers and holidays at his family's estate in Maine, the Bush compound.


title: Neil Bush

text: At age 11, he enrolled in the exclusive St. Albans School in Washington, D.C. He struggled through school; a counselor told his mother that he was doubtful the boy had the potential to graduate. He was later diagnosed as having dyslexia, and his mother spent much time assisting him with his learning disability. Eventually, his grades improved and he graduated from St. Albans in 1973.


title: Neil Bush

text: He settled in the Denver area where he was friends with members of the family of John Hinckley Jr., who shot President Reagan.


title: Neil Bush

text: Bush was a member of the board of directors of Denver-based Silverado Savings and Loan from 1985 to 1988 during the S&L crisis of the 1980s. Since his father George H. W. Bush was Vice President of the United States, his role in Silverado's failure was a focal point of publicity.


title: Neil Bush

text: The U.S. Office of Thrift Supervision investigated Silverado's failure and determined that Bush had engaged in numerous "breaches of his fiduciary duties involving multiple conflicts of interest." Although Bush was not indicted on criminal charges, a civil action was brought against him and the other Silverado directors by the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation; it was eventually settled out of court, with Bush paying $50,000 as part of the settlement.


title: Neil Bush

text: A friend who also donated funds to the Republican Party set up a fund to help defer costs Neil incurred in his S&L


title: Neil Bush

text: In 1999, Bush co-founded Ignite! Learning, an educational software corporation. Bush has said he started Austin-based Ignite! Learning because of his learning difficulties in middle school and those of his son, Pierce. The software uses multiple intelligence methods to provide varying types of content to appeal to multiple learning styles.


title: Neil Bush

text: To fund Ignite!, Bush raised $23 million from US investors, including his parents, as well as businessmen from Taiwan, Japan, Kuwait, the British Virgin Islands and the United Arab Emirates, according to documents filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission. Documented investors included Kuwaiti company head Mohammed Al Saddah, and Chinese computer executive Winston Wong, as well as the late Russian billionaire expatriate Boris Berezovsky, and Berezovsky's partner Badri Patarkatsishvili.


title: Neil Bush

text: Bush's relationship with the late controversial oligarch Boris Berezovsky, a political enemy of Russian President Vladimir Putin who at the time of his death had been under indictment for fraud in Russia and an applicant for asylum in the United Kingdom, has been noted in the media. Berezovsky, who died in 2013, had been an investor in Bush's Ignite! program since at least 2003. Bush met with Berezovsky in Latvia. The meeting caused tension between that country and Russia due to Berezovsky's fugitive status. Bush was also seen in Berezovsky's box at Arsenal's Emirates Stadium for a football game in 2006, which prompted some stateside criticism. There had also been speculation in the English language "Moscow Times" that the relationship may cause tension in U.S.-Russian bilateral relations, "especially since Putin had taken pains to build a personal relationship with the U.S. president," George Bush.


title: Neil Bush

text: In 2002, Neil Bush commended his brother, George, for his efforts on education as president, but he questioned the emphasis on constant testing to keep federal aid coming to public schools: "I share the concerns of many that if our system is driven around assessments, pencil-and-paper tests that test a kid's ability to memorize stuff, I would say that reliance threatens to institutionalize bad teaching practices."


title: Neil Bush

text: As of October 2006, over 13 US school districts (out of over 14,000 school districts nationwide) have used federal funds made available through the No Child Left Behind Act of 2001 to buy Ignite's portable learning centers at $3,800 apiece.


title: Neil Bush

text: A December 2003 Style section article in "The Washington Post" reported that Bush's salary from Ignite! was $180,000 per year.


title: Neil Bush

text: In July 1999, Bush made at least $798,000 on three stock trades in a single day of a company where he had been employed as a consultant. The company, Kopin Corporation of Taunton, Massachusetts, announced on the same day good news about a new Asian client that sent its stock value soaring. Bush stated that he had no inside knowledge and that his financial advisor had recommended the trades. He said, "any increase in the price of the stock on that day was purely coincidental, meaning that I did not have any improper information."


title: Neil Bush

text: When asked in January 2004 about the stock trades, Bush contrasted the capital gains he reported in 1999 and 2000 with the capital losses on Kopin stock he reported ($287,722 in all) in 2001. In 2001 Kopin joined a broad decline in high-tech stock valuations.


title: Neil Bush

text: Bush has often been invited to speak to audiences overseas. Bush says he has courtesy visits with world leaders but has no plans to wade into foreign policy. "Oftentimes because of my father's goodwill, and because of the president being who he is, people might extend an invitation, and it's enjoyable for me," Bush said. "Some of these folks are family friends."


title: Neil Bush

text: Speaking at a Saudi Arabian economic forum in January 2002, Bush referred to growing anti-American sentiment in Arab countries and said the two peoples must communicate better. He said the Arab P.R. machine is not as good as Israel's.


title: Neil Bush

text: Bush frequently travels to the Middle East, Europe and Asia to negotiate deals and raise capital for various businesses. According to court filings from his divorce, in 2000 he was paid $1.3 million for such work. This includes $642,500 as a commission for introducing an Asian investor to the owners of an American high-tech company. The George W. Bush-era White House Administration appeared unfazed by his world travel. "The president knows his brother will always do the right thing," press secretary Ari Fleischer said."


title: Neil Bush

text: In 2002, Bush signed a consulting contract that paid $2 million in stock over five years to work for Grace Semiconductor Manufacturing Corp., a firm backed by Jiang Mianheng, the son of former Chinese President Jiang Zemin, plus $10,000 for every board meeting he attends.


title: Neil Bush

text: Bush serves as co-chairman of a company called Crest Investment. Crest pays him $60,000 a year to provide miscellaneous consulting services.


title: Neil Bush

text: In 2001, Neil Bush incorporated an investment firm called LehmanBush with veteran China lawyer Edward Lehman.


title: Neil Bush

text: Neil Bush is the founder and chairman of the George H.W. Bush Foundation For U.S.-China Relations. Created in 2017, the Foundation serves as a U.S.-China Relations Think Tank, Track 2 Diplomacy Policy Hub and for Business, Trade and U.S. Investment. The organization holds an annual George H.W. Bush Conference on U.S.-China Relations. The purpose of The George H. W. Bush Foundation for U.S.-China Relations seeks to advance U.S.-China relations in ways that reflect the ethos and values of President George H. W. Bush, whose visionary, wise, deft and steady stewardship of the U.S.-China relationship during his tenure as president was exemplary of the highest attributes and values of true statesmanship. Through an active, wide-ranging and highly innovative program of activities, the Bush China Foundation promotes the late president's life-long view that the U.S.-China relationship is the most consequential bilateral relationship in the world and that a positive and constructive relationship between the two countries is in the best interest of both the United States and China as well as the entire global community.


title: Neil Bush

text: Neil Bush is the chairman of Points of Light; an international nonprofit that works to increase volunteerism in the world. Points of Light has approximately 250 affiliates in 22 countries and partnerships with thousands of nonprofits and companies dedicated to volunteer service around the world. In 2012, Points of Light mobilized 4 million volunteers in 30 million hours of service worth $635 million.


title: Neil Bush

text: Bush was a founding director, along with Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger (the future Pope Benedict XVI), of the Foundation for Interreligious and Intercultural Research and Dialogue (FIIRD). The foundation promotes ecumenical understanding and publishes religious texts and was founded in 1999. Bush is no longer on the board of the foundation.


title: Neil Bush

text: In 2002, Neil Bush told the "New York Post" that he "endured his own Ritalin hell seven years ago when educators in a Houston private school diagnosed his son, Pierce, (then) 16, with Attention Deficit Disorder (ADD) and pushed medication."


title: Neil Bush

text: Bush decided "the educators were wrong" about his son. "There is a systemic problem in this country, where schools are often forcing parents to turn to Ritalin," he said. "It's obvious to me that we have a crisis."


title: Neil Bush

text: Also that year, Bush testified before a hearing of the United States Congress to speak out against overmedicating children for learning disorders.


title: Neil Bush

text: He has suggested that many parents believe the ADD and ADHD diagnoses and subsequent medicating of their children because it explains why they aren't doing well in school, saying "it's the system that is failing to engage children in the classroom. My heart goes out to any parents who are being led to believe their kids have a disorder or are disabled."


title: Neil Bush

text: Neil Bush (along with filmmaker Michael Moore) is credited in the cast of a 2005 documentary film, "The Drugging of Our Children" directed by Gary Null. In the film's trailer Bush says: "Just because it is easy to drug a kid and get them to be compliant doesn't make it right to do it."


title: Neil Bush

text: After his brother Jeb dropped out of the 2016 Republican presidential nomination race, Neil and his wife Maria signed on to the finance team of fellow Republican Ted Cruz.


title: Neil Bush

text: Bush was married to Sharon (née Smith) Bush (born May 19, 1952) for 23 years. The couple have three children: Lauren Bush Lauren (born June 25, 1984), Pierce Mallon Bush (born March 11, 1986) and Ashley Walker Bush (born February 7, 1989). The couple divorced in April 2003. Bush's divorce deposition gained public attention when he admitted to several sexual encounters in Thailand and Hong Kong. Sharon gained custody of their minor child Ashley, who for a while was estranged from her father. In addition, Sharon kept their marital home after she collected enough money to pay off the mortgage.


title: Neil Bush

text: In 2004, Bush remarried in Houston, Texas, to Mexican-born Maria (née Manass) Andrews, a volunteer at the Houston literacy-foundation office of Bush's mother, Barbara. Robert Andrews, Andrews' ex-husband, sued Sharon Bush in September 2003 for defamation after she alleged that Neil Bush was the father of Andrews' two-year-old son. DNA testing showed that Andrews was the father, but the suit was dismissed in 2005.


title: Neil Bush

text: Bush's son Pierce was a candidate for the U.S. House of Representatives in 2020 from Texas' 22nd district, but finished third in a fifteen-way primary.


title: Bubba Ho-Tep

text: Bubba Ho-Tep is a 2002 American comedy horror film written, co-produced and directed by Don Coscarelli. It stars Bruce Campbell as Elvis Presley—now a resident in a nursing home. The film also stars Ossie Davis as Jack, a black man who claims to be John F. Kennedy, explaining that he was patched up after the assassination, dyed black, and abandoned.


title: Bubba Ho-Tep

text: It is based on the novella of the same name by Joe R. Lansdale, which originally appeared in the anthology "The King Is Dead: Tales of Elvis Post-Mortem". Originally the film was "roadshowed" by the director across the country. Only 32 prints were made and circulated around various film festivals, though this garnered critical success. By the time it was released on DVD, it had already achieved cult status due to positive reviews, lack of access, and inclusion of (and similar on-the-road hard work by) Campbell.


title: Bubba Ho-Tep

text: While the novella and film revolve around an ancient Egyptian mummy (played by Bob Ivy) terrorizing a retirement home, "Bubba Ho-tep" also deals with the deeper theme of aging and growing old in a culture that only values the young. The film also features a cameo by Reggie Bannister from Coscarelli's "Phantasm" series.


title: Bubba Ho-Tep

text: An elderly man at The Shady Rest Retirement Home in East Texas is known to the staff as Sebastian Haff, but claims to be the real Elvis Presley. He explains that during the 1970s, he grew tired of the demands of his fame and switched places with an Elvis impersonator named Sebastian Haff; he claims it was Haff who died in 1977, while he lived in quiet, happy anonymity and made a living pretending to be himself. After a propane explosion destroyed documentation which was the only proof that he was actually Elvis, he was unable to return to his old life. He also falls into a coma after injuring himself during a performance.


title: Bubba Ho-Tep

text: Twenty years later in the present, Elvis contemplates his age and dignity; his only friend is a man named Jack who insists he is President John F. Kennedy, claiming to have had his skin dyed black after an assassination attempt and abandoned by Lyndon Johnson in a nursing home. Initially skeptical of Jack's story, Elvis does spot a mysterious scar on the back of Jack's head, but is ultimately unsure of its origin.


title: Bubba Ho-Tep

text: Eventually, Elvis and Jack are forced to face off against a re-animated ancient Egyptian mummy that was stolen during a U.S. museum tour, and then lost during a severe storm in East Texas when the thieves' bus veered into a river near the nursing home. The mummy takes on the garb of a cowboy and feeds on the souls of the residents of the home. It is dubbed 'Bubba Ho-Tep' by Elvis, who has a telepathic flashback of the mummy's life and death when he looks into its eyes. Due to their age, Jack and Elvis lack mobility and use a motorized wheelchair and a walker to get around the grounds.


title: Bubba Ho-Tep

text: Elvis and Jack create an elaborate plan to destroy the mummy. Destruction of the mummy would release the trapped souls of the other inhabitants, and they would be able to go to their final resting place. Elvis and Jack battle the mummy in the middle of the night, with Jack in an electric wheelchair and Elvis wielding a makeshift flamethrower. Jack is knocked out of his wheelchair by the mummy and is about to have his soul devoured; Elvis commandeers the wheelchair and crashes into the mummy to save Jack, but damages the flamethrower and suffers a large gash in his abdomen in the process. Meanwhile, Jack dies from a heart attack. Elvis becomes committed to getting rid of the mummy and douses it with gasoline before throwing a match at it, incinerating the mummy.


title: Bubba Ho-Tep

text: Elvis lies on a hill near the riverbank, dying from the blood loss from the gash and broken ribs. He contemplates that he does not fear death, knowing he still has his soul and saved everyone at the Shady Rest Retirement Home. As he reflects upon this, the stars align into a message for Elvis, saying: "all is well". Elvis says, "Thank you, thank you very much", and dies.


title: Bubba Ho-Tep

text: Many of "Bubba Ho-tep"'s crew also worked on the films in Coscarelli's "Phantasm" series. Several actors from the series also have small roles including Heidi Marnhout, Bob Ivy, and Reggie Bannister. Coscarelli kept much of the original short story's exposition, but had some difficulty trying to "integrate Elvis' voice".


title: Bubba Ho-Tep

text: Review aggregator Rotten Tomatoes reports a rating of 79% based on 107 reviews, and an average of 6.8/10. The site's consensus was a tongue-in-cheek statement, "The best movie to star both the King and JFK." Metacritic gives it a weighted average rating of 57/100 based on 28 reviews, indicating "mixed or average reviews".


title: Bubba Ho-Tep

text: Peter Travers of "Rolling Stone" gave the film three out of four stars saying, "This absurdly clever caper is elevated by Bruce Campbell's pensive Elvis into a moving meditation on the diminutions of age and the vagaries of fame." Todd McCarthy of Variety gave a negative review stating, "[The] introduction of the mummy plot basically derails the film at about the 45-minute point, and the silly climax...is so rote and generic that it could have come out of any ordinary horror film.", although McCarthy does admit, "Campbell's Elvis stands as one of the very best screen interpretations of the King seen thus far, even if he's arguably not even playing the real thing."


title: Bubba Ho-Tep

text: Roger Ebert of the "Chicago Sun-Times" gave the film three out of four stars and highlighted the film's "delightful wackiness" and stating, "It has the damnedest ingratiating way of making us sit there and grin at its harebrained audacity, laugh at its outhouse humor, and be somewhat moved (not deeply, but somewhat) at the poignancy of these two old men and their situation."


title: Bubba Ho-Tep

text: Initially Coscarelli never intended to create a sequel to "Bubba Ho-Tep", as the end credits announcement of a second film entitled "Bubba Nosferatu: Curse of the She-Vampires" was meant to be seen as a joke. He eventually changed his mind about this after seeing the positive reception for the first film and after several people inquired about when the sequel would be released. The sequel would center around the production of a 'lost' Elvis movie from the 1950s or 1960s, and would bring in Paul Giamatti as Colonel Tom Parker.