title: Château

text: A château was historically supported by its "terres" (lands), composing a demesne that rendered the society of the château largely self-sufficient, in the manner of the historic Roman and Early Medieval villa system, (cf. manorialism, hacienda). The open villas of Rome in the times of Pliny the Elder, Maecenas, and Emperor Tiberius began to be walled-in, and then fortified in the 3rd century AD, thus evolving to "castellar" "châteaux". In modern usage, a château retains some enclosures that are distant descendants of these fortifying outworks: a fenced, gated, closeable forecourt, perhaps a gatehouse or a keeper's lodge, and supporting outbuildings (stables, kitchens, breweries, bakeries, manservant quarters in the "garçonnière"). Besides the "cour d'honneur" (court of honour) entrance, the château might have an inner "cour" ("court"), and inside, in the private residence, the château faces a simply and discreetly enclosed park.


title: Château

text: In the city of Paris, the Louvre (fortified) and the Luxembourg Palace (the latter originally suburban) were originally referred to as châteaux, but became "palaces" when the city enclosed them. In other French-speaking European regions, such as Wallonia (Belgium), the word "château" is used with the same definition as in France. In Belgium, a strong French architectural influence is evident in the seventeenth-century Château des Comtes de Marchin and the eighteenth-century Château de Seneffe.


title: Château

text: In the United States, the word "château" took root selectively – in the Gilded Age resort town of Newport, Rhode Island, large manor homes were called "cottages", but north of Wilmington, Delaware, in the rich, rural "Château Country" centred upon the powerful Du Pont family, the word château is used with its original definition. In Canada, especially in English, château usually denotes a hotel, not a house, and applies only to the country's most elaborate railway hotels, built during the Canadian railroad golden age, such as the Château Lake Louise in Lake Louise, Alberta, the Château Laurier in Ottawa, the Château Montebello in Montebello, Quebec, and most famously, the Château Frontenac in Quebec City.


title: Château

text: There are many estates with true châteaux on them in the Bordeaux wine regions, but it is customary for any wine-producing estate since the 19th century, no matter how humble, to prefix its name with "Château". This term became the default way of designating an estate in Bordeaux, in the same way that "Domaine" did in Burgundy. Both "Château" and "Domaine" are aristocratic in implication, but Bordeaux had a better claim to the association: nobles had owned Bordeaux's best vineyards for centuries. Most of Burgundy's best vineyards, in contrast, had been owned by the Church. The term "Château" became a permanent verbal fixture in Bordeaux, and it was emulated in other French regions and outside France.


title: Château

text: The winery denomination "Château" is now protected by French law, and confirmed in 1981 by European Union law, as "traditional appellation". The term Château may be used only if two conditions are fulfilled:


title: Château

text: The Loire Valley (Vallée de la Loire) is home to more than 300 châteaux. They were built between the 10th and 20th centuries, firstly by the French kings followed soon thereafter by the nobility; hence, the Valley is termed ""The Valley of the Kings"". Alternatively, due to its moderate climate, wine-growing soils and rich agricultural land, the Loire Valley is referred to as ""The Garden of France"". The châteaux range from the very large (often now in public hands) to more 'human-scale' châteaux such as the Château de Beaulieu in Saumur or the medieval Château du Rivau close to Chinon which were built of the local tuffeau stone.


title: Château

text: The Château de Chenonceau is a French château spanning the River Cher, near the small village of Chenonceaux in the Indre-et-Loire department of the Loire Valley in France. It is one of the best-known châteaux of the Loire valley. The estate of Chenonceau is first mentioned in writing in the 11th century. The current château was built in 1514–1522 on the foundations of an old mill and was later extended to span the river. The bridge over the river was built from 1556 to 1559 to designs by the French Renaissance architect Philibert de l'Orme, and the gallery on the bridge, built from 1570 to 1576 to designs by Jean Bullant.


title: Château

text: Built by Jules Hardouin-Mansart, 1675–1683 for the duc de Chevreuse, Colbert's son-in-law, the Château de Dampierre is a French Baroque château of manageable size. Protected behind fine wrought iron double gates, the main block and its outbuildings ("corps de logis"), linked by balustrades, are ranged symmetrically around a dry paved and gravelled "cour d'honneur". Behind, the central axis is extended between the former parterres, now mown hay. The park with formally shaped water was laid out by André Le Notre.


title: Château

text: The Château de Montsoreau is the only Château of the Loire Valley to have been built directly in the Loire riverbed. It is also one of the first example of a renaissance architecture in France. Montsoreau was built in 1453 by Jean II de Chambes (first counsellor of Charles VII of France and ambassador of France to Venice and to Turkey) by order of the king soon after the end of the Hundred's years war. The French dramatist Alexandre Dumas made the château de Montsoreau world famous with his trilogy on the French Wars of Religion of which "the lady of Monsoreau" is the second volume.


title: Château

text: The Château de Vaux-le-Vicomte is a baroque French château located in Maincy, near Melun, 55 km southeast of Paris in the Seine-et-Marne département of France. It was built by Louis Le Vau from 1658 to 1661 for Nicolas Fouquet, Marquis de Belle-Isle (Belle-Île-en-Mer), Viscount of Melun and Vaux, the superintendent of finances of Louis XIV. The interior was lavishly decorated by painter Charles Le Brun. Louis Le Vau as well as Charles Le Brun were later called by Louis XIV to work at Versailles.


title: Château

text: The Palace of Versailles, or in French "Château de Versailles", is a royal château in Versailles, in the Île-de-France region of France. When the château was built, Versailles was a country village; today, however, it is a wealthy suburb of Paris, some 20 kilometres (12 miles) southwest of the French capital. The court of Versailles was the centre of political power in France from 1682, when Louis XIV moved from Paris, until the royal family was forced to return to the capital in October 1789 after the beginning of the French Revolution. Versailles is therefore famous not only as a building but as a symbol of the system of absolute monarchy of the "Ancien Régime".


title: Matt Barkley

text: Matthew Montgomery Barkley (born September 8, 1990) is an American football quarterback for the Buffalo Bills of the National Football League (NFL). He played college football at USC, and was drafted by the Philadelphia Eagles in the fourth round of the 2013 NFL Draft. He has also played for the Chicago Bears, Arizona Cardinals, San Francisco 49ers, Cincinnati Bengals, Tennessee Titans, and Carolina Panthers.


title: Matt Barkley

text: Barkley was born in Newport Beach, California, and attended Mater Dei High School in Santa Ana. In 2005, he became the first freshman quarterback to start at Mater Dei since Todd Marinovich. As a freshman, he passed for 1,685 yards and 10 touchdowns, but suffered a season-ending injury (broken collarbone) during the playoffs in a quarterfinal win over Colton High School. The injury was caused by future University of Southern California (USC) teammate, running back Allen Bradford, who played linebacker in high school.


title: Matt Barkley

text: Barkley's high school coach, Bruce Rollinson, permitted him to call his own plays, something he had never allowed a player to do during two decades at Mater Dei. As a sophomore, he passed for 1,349 yards and 11 touchdowns in 2006. Barkley passed for 3,576 yards and 35 touchdowns in 2007, completing 63 percent of his passes with nine interceptions. In three seasons, he passed for 6,994 yards and 57 touchdowns.


title: Matt Barkley

text: Barkley was named 2007 football Gatorade National Player of the Year, and then the 2007 Gatorade national male athlete of the year, becoming the first non-senior to win both awards. Barkley also won the 2007 Glenn Davis Award, given to the best high school football player in Southern California, and the inaugural Joe Montana Award as the nation's top high school quarterback.


title: Matt Barkley

text: Barkley was rated as the top prospect in the nation for the Class of 2009 by ESPN. He was rated the top prospect by Rivals.com. Quarterback coach Steve Clarkson described Barkley as a cross between Joe Montana and Tom Brady.


title: Matt Barkley

text: As a top high school player, Barkley was heavily recruited. On January 23, 2008, Barkley verbally committed to USC, ending speculation that he might join UCLA, which had just hired coaches Rick Neuheisel and Norm Chow. Barkley's father, Les Barkley, was an All-American water polo player at USC from 1976 to 1979. He made his decision more than a year before his National Signing Day, telling his family and coaches and then calling USC coach Pete Carroll on his cell phone. The previous quarterback to go to USC from Mater Dei was Heisman Trophy-winner Matt Leinart (the school had also graduated fellow Heisman winner John Huarte). After committing to USC, Barkley began recruiting other elite high school players to join him.


title: Matt Barkley

text: His 2008 senior season started slow, with Barkley throwing nearly as many interceptions as touchdown passes and the Monarchs barely keeping above .500; however, his performance turned around and Mater Dei rallied to 7–3 and entered the playoffs. The Monarchs made it to the quarterfinal, falling to Tesoro High School and ending the season 8–4. Barkley finished his Mater Dei High School career as the all-time passing yardage leader in Orange County, surpassing the record set by Todd Marinovich in 1987. He graduated from high school on December 18, 2008.


title: Matt Barkley

text: On January 4, 2009, Barkley participated in Under Armour All-America Game at the Florida Citrus Bowl. After a strong performance, where he completed 11-of-22 passes for 237 yards and two touchdowns and led the White team to a 27–16 victory over the Black team, he was named the game's co-MVP. Soon afterward, he was moved back to the number one high school prospect in America by ESPN, having dropped to tenth during his senior season.


title: Matt Barkley

text: After graduating from high school a semester early, Barkley enrolled in the University of Southern California in January 2009 so he could participate in spring practice with the USC Trojans football team. He would play for the Trojans for the next four seasons, from 2009 to 2012.


title: Matt Barkley

text: With the early departure of the Trojans' previous starting quarterback, Mark Sanchez, for the NFL, and with no clear successor, a three-way quarterback battle emerged during spring practices between Barkley and quarterbacks Aaron Corp and Mitch Mustain, both of whom had held the second quarterback spot at various times throughout the season; the latter had been the starting quarterback at Arkansas for eight games in 2006.


title: Matt Barkley

text: Barkley adapted to the Trojans offense and gave strong performances during spring practices: trying for and making big plays but also throwing several key interceptions. Impressing his coaches, Barkley climbed to the number two spot at the end of Spring behind Corp. Afterward, ESPN NFL Draft analyst Mel Kiper Jr. stated he believed that in "three years Matt Barkley—who will be a true freshman this year—will be the No. 1 pick in the draft."


title: Matt Barkley

text: On August 27, during fall practices, Carroll named Barkley the starter for the 2009 season opener against San Jose State. Barkley is the first true freshman quarterback to ever start an opener for the Trojans, and the first true freshman to start the opener for a preseason top-five team since Rick Leach did it for #3 Michigan in 1975. After a slow first quarter, Barkley finished his college debut 233 yards, throwing 15-for-19 with one touchdown in a 56–3 victory.


title: Matt Barkley

text: Barkley's second game brought his first major test and first road game, against the highly ranked Ohio State Buckeyes. Before a sold-out, raucous crowd at Ohio Stadium, Barkley led a game-winning, 86-yard drive late in the fourth quarter, earning significant praise from the sports media.


title: Matt Barkley

text: Barkley suffered a shoulder bruise in the Ohio State game, and had to sit out the following week's game at Washington. With Aaron Corp at the helm, the Trojans struggled in a major upset loss, falling to the unranked Huskies 16–13 while putting up the lowest number of passing yards for a USC team since Carroll took over the program in 2001. Carroll had Barkley, who wasn't fully recovered from his injury, start the next game against Washington State. Barkley contributed to a 27–6 victory, passing for 247 yards and two touchdowns. He followed this up with 282 passing yards in a 30–3 win over California on October 3. The next week against Notre Dame, he was 19 for 29 with two touchdowns. He followed that up with a 15–25 two touchdown game against Oregon State. Against Stanford he threw three interceptions and only one touchdown. Two weeks later he went one touchdown and one interception in a 28–7 victory over UCLA. The following week, he also, went 1–1 in a 21–17 loss to Arizona. He closed his freshman season by throwing for 350 yards and two touchdowns against Boston College in the 2009 Emerald Bowl.


title: Matt Barkley

text: On September 2, 2010, Barkley led the Trojans to an opening week victory at Hawaii by a score of 49–36. Barkley contributed five passing touchdowns (three to wide receiver Ronald Johnson) on 17-of-23 passing for 257 yards. The win marked a successful debut for new USC head coach Lane Kiffin and the first win under USC's 2010 NCAA probation and sanctions. Both teams amassed over 500 yards of total offense. Barkley said, "I'm just trying to be as perfect as I can be. Last week was pretty close, but that perfect game is kind of a goal and that's no incompletions." Coach Kiffin added, "We'll see if he can continue to do it again. Great quarterbacks put together good games every week." Matt Barkley continued a solid sophomore campaign. With notable performances against Stanford and Cal. Barkley sprained his ankle during a loss to Oregon State and was forced to the sideline for the Notre Dame game. He returned to lead the Trojans to a gutsy 28–14 victory over UCLA.


title: Matt Barkley

text: Barkley began 2011 by setting the USC single-game record for completions with 34 against Minnesota. On October 1, against Arizona, he passed for a USC single-game record for 468 yards. On November 4, he passed for a USC single-game record for touchdowns in a game with six, against the Colorado Buffaloes, one of the two additions to the Pac-12 in its inaugural season; the game was the first against Colorado since 2002. He had previously tied the single-game touchdown record three times, sharing it with Rodney Peete, Carson Palmer, Matt Leinart and Mark Sanchez. On November 26, against the UCLA, he tied the single-game touchdown record again in a 50–0 shutout of the Bruins. On national television, Barkley stated the best moment of the UCLA game was his pass to his cousin Robbie Boyer. Over the 2011 season, Barkley accumulated 39 touchdowns, an all-time Pac-12 record, and helped end the season with a 10–2 record. Barkley had the 6th most votes for the Heisman Trophy. He finished with a 39–7 touchdown-to-interception ratio while completing 69.1% of his passes. He won the 2011 CFPA National Performer of the Year Trophy with his record-breaking season.


title: Matt Barkley

text: On December 22, 2011, at a press conference convened at Heritage Hall, Barkley announced he would return for his senior year with the USC Trojans rather than entering the 2012 NFL Draft. Barkley announced his return to USC in his own unique way by giving Coach Kiffin a homemade ornament for Christmas with a picture of them at the Colorado game, but on the back revealing the text "One more year." Barkley has described his decision to stay at University of Southern California in his senior as "unfinished business", as he wanted to be part of a team that would be aiming for the BCS championship after a two-year postseason ban.


title: Matt Barkley

text: Going into his senior season, Barkley was widely considered a favorite to win the Heisman Trophy. At the beginning of the season, USC was ranked #1 in the preseason poll, but a 21–14 loss to then-#21 Stanford ended USC's potential BCS national championship run. USC then went on to lose five games that year, including a late-season loss to rival UCLA for the first time in six years. Barkley was knocked out of that game by UCLA's Anthony Barr with a shoulder separating hit, thus ending his regular season abruptly. On December 27, 2012, head coach Lane Kiffin announced Barkley wouldn't play in the Sun Bowl because of his shoulder injury, effectively ending his college football career.


title: Matt Barkley

text: Despite being projected as a first-round selection for the 2012 NFL Draft by midseason of 2011, Barkley decided to return to USC for his senior season. As early as April 2012, he was projected the No. 1 overall pick for the 2013 NFL Draft. However, one month prior to the draft, Barkley's draft stock had fallen with ESPN draft analysts Mel Kiper Jr. and Todd McShay projecting Barkley to fall out of the first round. Due to his shoulder injury, Barkley did not throw at the NFL Scouting Combine and instead took medical tests on his shoulder.


title: Matt Barkley

text: The Philadelphia Eagles selected Barkley in the fourth round with the 98th overall pick of the 2013 NFL Draft. Going into training camp, it was announced that he would be given a chance to compete for the starting quarterback job, facing off against the two starting quarterbacks from the previous season, Nick Foles and Michael Vick. On October 20, 2013, he saw his first NFL action against the Dallas Cowboys as he came in to relieve Nick Foles, who left early in the fourth quarter due to a head injury. In that game, Barkley completed 11 of his 20 pass attempts for 129 yards and threw three interceptions. Barkley's second game came the following week in relief of Foles (concussion) and Vick (quadriceps) on October 27 versus the New York Giants. Barkley completed 17 of 26 passes for 158 yards and one interception to go along with recording one fumble inside their red zone.


title: Matt Barkley

text: The Eagles traded Barkley to the Arizona Cardinals for a conditional seventh-round pick in the 2016 NFL Draft on September 4, 2015. The terms said that he needed to be on the roster for six games, which were fulfilled on October 17, 2015. On September 3, 2016, Barkley was released by the Cardinals.


title: Matt Barkley

text: Barkley was signed to the Chicago Bears' practice squad on September 4, 2016. He was elevated to the active roster on September 22, 2016.


title: Matt Barkley

text: Following an injury to the Bears' backup quarterback Brian Hoyer against the Green Bay Packers on October 20, Barkley made his first appearance as a member of the Chicago Bears, going 6 of 15 for 81 yards; he threw for zero touchdowns and two interceptions. After Jay Cutler suffered a shoulder injury against the Giants, Barkley started the following week's game against the Tennessee Titans. Barkley completed 28 of 54 passes for 316 yards with three touchdowns, two interceptions, and a 72.8 passer rating, nearly rallying the Bears from a 20-point deficit in the fourth quarter before losing 27–21. Barkley earned his first NFL win the very next week on December 4, a 26–6 win over the San Francisco 49ers at Soldier Field. This was the Bears' third and last victory of the season. He completed 11 for 18 passes for 192 yards, no touchdowns, no interceptions, and a 97.5 passer rating.


title: Matt Barkley

text: On December 18, Barkley completed 30 passes for 362 yards, two touchdowns and three interceptions as the Bears nearly upset the Green Bay Packers, ultimately losing 30–27 on a last-second field goal. It was the most yards by a Bears quarterback in a game against Green Bay in the rivalry's history.


title: Matt Barkley

text: Barkley struggled in the following week's game against the Washington Redskins, a 41–21 loss; although he threw for 323 yards and two touchdown passes, he also threw five interceptions, including on four consecutive drives in the second half. The five interceptions were the most by a Bears quarterback since Cutler threw five in 2009.


title: Matt Barkley

text: In Week 17, Barkley caught a touchdown from wide receiver Cameron Meredith on a trick play; while Barkley was calling at the line of scrimmage, the ball was snapped to running back Jeremy Langford, who handed it off to Meredith before throwing it to a wide-open Barkley for the touchdown. He ended the 2016 season with eight touchdown passes and 14 interceptions. Of his 216 pass attempts, 89 went for a first down (41.2 percent), the second-highest percentage in the NFL behind the Atlanta Falcons' Matt Ryan (44.6).


title: Matt Barkley

text: On March 10, 2017, Barkley signed a two-year contract with the San Francisco 49ers. On September 1, 2017, he was released by the 49ers at the end of the preseason after throwing for just 197 yards with no touchdowns or interceptions. He was beaten out by veteran Brian Hoyer and rookie C. J. Beathard.


title: Matt Barkley

text: On November 13, 2017, Barkley re-signed with the Cardinals due to Drew Stanton possibly missing playing time as a result of a knee sprain. However, Barkley was inactive for the entire season.


title: Matt Barkley

text: On March 17, 2018, Barkley signed a two-year contract with the Cincinnati Bengals. He was placed on injured reserve on September 1, 2018, after suffering a knee injury in the preseason. Barkley was released on September 12, 2018, with an injury settlement.


title: Matt Barkley

text: On October 31, 2018, Barkley was signed by the Buffalo Bills. On November 11, it was announced that he would start for the Bills against the New York Jets over Nathan Peterman with starter Josh Allen injured. Barkley, making his first NFL start in two years, threw for 232 yards and two touchdown passes as Buffalo beat the Jets 41–10, snapping the team's four-game losing streak. On December 21, 2018, Barkley signed a two-year contract extension with the Bills through the 2020 season.


title: Matt Barkley

text: In Week 4 of the 2019 season, Barkley came into the game against the New England Patriots to relieve Josh Allen, who had experienced an in-game head injury. He passed for 127 yards and one interception in the 16–10 loss. He made one other appearance in Week 17 against the New York Jets, where he passed for 232 yards and two interceptions in relief of Allen in the 13–6 loss.


title: Matt Barkley

text: During the 2020 season, Barkley saw action in five regular season games and threw his first touchdown pass since the 2018 season, a 56-yard completion to wide receiver Gabe Davis, during the final game of the season against the Miami Dolphins. Barkley finished the regular season completing 11 of 21 passes for 197 yards, one touchdown, and one interception.


title: Matt Barkley

text: Barkley was signed a two-year contract with the Tennessee Titans on August 5, 2021. He was released on September 1, 2021, and re-signed to the practice squad.


title: Matt Barkley

text: On November 10, 2021, Barkley was signed by the Carolina Panthers off the Titans' practice squad. He was waived on December 28.


title: Matt Barkley

text: On December 29, 2021, Barkley was claimed off waivers by the Atlanta Falcons. He was waived on January 4, 2022, and re-signed to the practice squad. His contract expired when the team's season ended on January 9, 2022.


title: Matt Barkley

text: On August 26, 2022, in the Bills' last preseason game against the Carolina Panthers, Barkley served as the team's punter in addition to seeing substantial playing time at quarterback. Barkley punted four times in the game, including a 53-yard punt. He was released on August 30, 2022, and signed to the practice squad the next day.


title: Matt Barkley

text: Barkley's cousin, Robbie Boyer, was a walk-on at USC during Barkley's freshman, sophomore, and junior years. Barkley's younger siblings, twins Sam and Lainy, also attended USC.


title: Matt Barkley

text: Barkley is a Christian. During Christmas 2008, Barkley went with a group of friends and family to help run an orphanage in South Africa. For Christmas 2010, he spent his winter break in Nigeria "visiting orphans, widows, villagers and prisoners, doing construction work, distributing supplies and gifts and sharing daily fellowship." In 2012, Barkley led a group of 16 USC football teammates to Haiti, where they built houses and delivered more than 2,000 pounds of supplies for orphanages and schools. He appears on I Am Second, sharing the story of his Christian faith and personal relationship with Jesus Christ. At the beginning of his USC career, Barkley befriended former USC Olympian, World War II prisoner of war and inspirational speaker Louis Zamperini.


title: Matt Barkley

text: Barkley married his high school sweetheart Brittany Langdon, a year after he graduated from USC, in July 2013. In December 2014, she announced via Twitter she was pregnant. Their son was born in 2015.


title: Gordon Getty

text: Gordon Peter Getty (born December 20, 1933) is an American businessman and classical music composer, the fourth child of oil tycoon J. Paul Getty. His mother, Ann Rork, was his father's fourth wife. When his father died in 1976, Gordon assumed control of Getty's US$2 billion trust. His net worth was $2.1 billion in September 2020, making him number 391 on the Forbes 400 list of the wealthiest Americans.


title: Gordon Getty

text: Getty was raised in San Francisco, California, where he attended St. Ignatius College Preparatory and the University of San Francisco. He would also earn a B.A. in music from the San Francisco Conservatory of Music.


title: Gordon Getty

text: He joined the oil business to please his father; however, he eventually sold the family's Getty Oil to Texaco in 1986 for US$10 billion. In 1983, "Forbes" magazine ranked him the richest person in America with a net worth of a little over $2 billion. His net worth was cited as $2.1 billion in 2020, making him the 391st richest person in the United States.


title: Gordon Getty

text: In 2002, Getty founded ReFlow, a company which temporarily purchases shares in mutual funds to save funds taxes and commissions.


title: Gordon Getty

text: Among several professions, Getty is a classical music composer whose compositions include the opera "Plump Jack", "Joan and the Bells", piano pieces, and a collection of choral works. His one-act opera "Usher House" was performed by the San Francisco Opera in 2015. Aspiring to become an opera singer, Getty studied in the mid-1970s with Louise Caselotti, a mezzo-soprano who had been Maria Callas' voice teacher (1946–47). He and his wife have supported the fine arts, especially underwriting productions of the San Francisco Opera and the Russian National Orchestra.


title: Gordon Getty

text: On April 1, 2015, it was reported that Getty's son Andrew Rork Getty died at his home in Hollywood Hills of what was initially classified as natural causes, although coroner's officials needed to wait for the results of further examination and toxicology tests before making a final determination. The coroner eventually ruled the death as accidental.


title: Gordon Getty

text: Gordon Getty's life as a composer was chronicled in Peter Rosen's documentary "Gordon Getty: There Will be Music" which premiered on February 5, 2016, at Cinema Village in New York City and has been broadcast on PBS in the U.S. and Europe on ARTE, and also appeared in film festivals, and programs across the country.


title: The Pirates (2014 film)

text: The Pirates (; lit. "Pirates: Bandits Going to the Sea") is a 2014 South Korean period adventure film starring Son Ye-jin and Kim Nam-gil.


title: The Pirates (2014 film)

text: On the eve of the founding of the Joseon Dynasty, a whale swallows the Ming Emperor's Seal of State being brought to Joseon by envoys from China. With a big reward on whoever brings back the royal seal, mountain bandits led by Jang Sa-jung go out to sea to hunt down the whale. But he soon clashes with Yeo-wol, a female captain of pirates, and unexpected adventure unfolds.


title: The Pirates (2014 film)

text: "The Pirates" sold 272,858 tickets during its first two days of release, placing second on the box office chart behind "". After 17 days in theaters, it became the third Korean film in 2014 to reach 5 million admissions. At the end of its run, the film reached 8,665,269 admissions, and also grossed .


title: The Pirates (2014 film)

text: The film received mixed reviews from critics and currently holds a 57% rating on Rotten Tomatoes. Martin Tsai of "The Los Angeles Times" described the film as a "derivative trove of swashbuckling action, romance, comedy, special effects and revisionist history" which contains typical Hollywood devices, while Nicolas Rapold of "The New York Times" notes that "Neither the action nor the comedy in this action comedy is consistently strong." Frank Scheck of "The Hollywood Reporter" criticizes the film for its "endless slapstick fight scenes" and the film's special effects but praised the underwater scenes with the whales which he says have a "hauntingly ethereal quality."


title: The Pirates (2014 film)

text: A sequel of the film titled as "", directed by Kim Jeong-hoon, produced with new cast of Kang Ha-neul and Han Hyo-joo was released on January 26, 2022 by Lotte Entertainment.


title: Cuban Revolutionary Armed Forces

text: The Cuban Revolutionary Armed Forces (; FAR) are the military forces of Cuba. They include ground forces, naval forces, air and air defence forces, and other paramilitary bodies including the Territorial Troops Militia ("Milicias de Tropas Territoriales" – MTT), Youth Labor Army ("Ejército Juvenil del Trabajo" – EJT), and the Defense and Production Brigades ("Brigadas de Producción y Defensa" – BPD), plus the Civil Defense Organization ("Defensa Civil de Cuba" – DCC) and the National Reserves Institution ("Instituto Nacional de las Reservas Estatales" – INRE). All these groups are subordinated to the "Ministro de las Fuerzas Armadas Revolucionarias" ("Ministry of the Revolutionary Armed Forces" – MINFAR).


title: Cuban Revolutionary Armed Forces

text: The armed forces have long been the most powerful institution in Cuba. The military manages many enterprises in key economic sectors representing about 4% of the Cuban economy. The military has also served as former Cuban Communist Party First Secretary, as well as former President of Cuba, Raúl Castro's base. In numerous speeches, Raúl Castro emphasized the military's role as a "people's partner".


title: Cuban Revolutionary Armed Forces

text: The Cuban Army in its original form was first established in 1868 by Cuban revolutionaries during the Ten Years' War. It joined the Allies in the World War I in April 1917 and supplied sugar to several countries, mainly the United States of America. Was involved in the Battle of the Caribbean during World War II when it was part of the Allies supported by the United States. After the Cuban Revolution had overthrown Fulgencio Batista's government, the Cuban Rebel Army under Fidel Castro's leadership was reorganized into the current armed forces of Cuba.


title: Cuban Revolutionary Armed Forces

text: During the Cold War, the Soviet Union granted both military and financial aid to Cuba. From 1966 until the late 1980s, Soviet Government military assistance enabled Cuba to upgrade its military capabilities to number one in Latin America and project power abroad. The first Cuban military mission in Africa was established in Ghana in 1961. Cuba's military forces appeared in Algeria, in 1963, when a military medical brigade came to support the government. Since the 1960s, Cuba sent military forces to African and Arab countries – Syria in 1973, Ethiopia in 1978, Angola from 1975 to 1989, and Nicaragua and El Salvador during the 1980s. The tonnage of Soviet military deliveries to Cuba throughout most of the 1980s exceeded deliveries in any year since the military build-up during the 1962 Cuban Missile Crisis.


title: Cuban Revolutionary Armed Forces

text: In 1989, the government instituted a clean-up of the armed forces and the Ministry of Interior, convicting army Major General and Hero of the Republic of Cuba Arnaldo Ochoa, Ministry of Interior Colonel Antonio de la Guardia (Tony la Guardia), and Ministry of Interior Brigadier General Patricio de la Guardia on charges of corruption and drug trafficking. This judgment is known in Cuba as "Causa 1" (Cause 1). Ochoa and Antonio de la Guardia were executed. Following the executions, the Army was drastically downsized, the Ministry of Interior was moved under the informal control of Revolutionary Armed Forces chief General Raúl Castro (Fidel Castro's brother), and large numbers of army officers were moved into the Ministry of Interior.


title: Cuban Revolutionary Armed Forces

text: The U.S. Defense Intelligence Agency reported in 1998 that the country's paramilitary organizations, the Territorial Militia Troops, the Youth Labor Army, and the Naval Militia had suffered considerable morale and training degradation over the previous seven years but still retained the potential to "make an enemy invasion costly." Cuba also adopted a "war of the people" strategy that highlights the defensive nature of its capabilities.


title: Cuban Revolutionary Armed Forces

text: Cuban military power was sharply reduced by the loss of Soviet subsidies following the end of the Cold War, and today the Revolutionary Armed Forces number 39,000 regular troops.


title: Cuban Revolutionary Armed Forces

text: In April 2021, longtime Chief of Staff Álvaro López Miera took over as the Minister of the Revolutionary Armed Forces.


title: Cuban Revolutionary Armed Forces

text: The Central Intelligence Agency wrote in May 1979 that when "the economy took a downturn in 1970, the Castro regime, partly at Soviet urging, reduced its forces by some 60 per cent, eventually freeing more than 150,000 people for full-time civilian employment. All branches of the armed services except the Air Force were affected noticeably. The Air Defence Force shrank from six brigades and 24 occupied SA-2 surface-to-air missile sites to three brigades and 18 sites, leaving eastern Cuba unprotected by surface-to-air missiles. The Navy lost a number of radar surveillance posts, again to the detriment of eastern Cuba. The Army was more than halved in size and reorganised." (PA79-10173D)


title: Cuban Revolutionary Armed Forces

text: In 1984, according to "Jane's Military Review", there were three major geographical commands, Western, Central, and Eastern. There were a reported 130,000 all ranks, and each command was garrisoned by an army comprising a single armored division, a mechanized division, and a corps of three infantry divisions, though the Eastern Command had two corps totaling six divisions. There was also an independent military region, with a single infantry division, which garrisoned the Isle of Youth.


title: Cuban Revolutionary Armed Forces

text: A U.S. Defense Intelligence Agency assessment in the first half of 1998 said that the army's armor and artillery units were at low readiness levels due to 'severely reduced' training, generally incapable of mounting effective operations above the battalion level, and that equipment was mostly in storage and unavailable at short notice. The same report said that Cuban special operations forces continue to train but on a smaller scale than beforehand, and that while the lack of replacement parts for its existing equipment and the current severe shortage of fuel were increasingly affecting operational capabilities, Cuba remained able to offer considerable resistance to any regional power.


title: Cuban Revolutionary Armed Forces

text: The Cuban Revolutionary Air and Air Defence Force (DAAFAR) was used in the 1980s with the help of the Soviet Union to be able to project power abroad, especially in Africa. During that time Cuba sent jet fighters and transports for deployment in conflict zones such as Angola and Ethiopia.


title: Cuban Revolutionary Armed Forces

text: In 1990, Cuba's Air Force was the best equipped in Latin America. In all, the modern Cuban Air Force had approximately 230 fixed-wing aircraft. Although there is no exact figure available, Western analysts estimate that at least 130 (with only 25 operational) of these planes are still in service spread out among the thirteen military airbases on the island.


title: Cuban Revolutionary Armed Forces

text: In 1996, fighters from the DAAFAR shot down two Cessna aircraft based in Florida which were incorrectly suspected of dropping leaflets into Cuban airspace. The air force was criticised for not giving the pilots of the aircraft options other than being shot down. One aircraft escaped.


title: Cuban Revolutionary Armed Forces

text: In 1998, according to the same DIA report mentioned above, the air force had "fewer than 24 operational Mikoyan-Gurevich (MiG) fighters; pilot training barely adequate to maintain proficiency; a declining number of fighter sorties, surface-to-air missiles and anti-aircraft guns to respond to attacking air forces."


title: Cuban Revolutionary Armed Forces

text: By 2007 the International Institute for Strategic Studies assessed the force as 8,000 strong with 41 combat capable aircraft and a further 188 stored. DAAFAR is known now to have acquired another MiG-29 and a few MiG-23s, giving it 58 combat aircraft in active service. These are listed as 6 MiG-29s, 40 MiG-23s, and 12 MiG-21s. IISS also estimated DAAFAR had 12 operational transport aircraft, plus trainers which include 8 L-39C, and helicopters, mainly Mil Mi-8, Mil Mi-17, and Mil Mi-24 Hind. Raúl Castro ordered in 2010 that all MiG-29 pilots had to have full training, they now have from 200–250 hours of flight annually together with real dogfight training and exercises. Up to 20 MiG-23 units also have this kind of training but the other 16 MiG-23 units spend more time in simulators than real flight. MiG-21 units have limited time in these training exercises and spend more time in simulators and maintain their skills flying with Aerogaviota, the commercial brand of the air force.


title: Cuban Revolutionary Armed Forces

text: In 1988, the Cuban Navy boasted 12,000 men, three submarines, two modern guided-missile frigates, one intelligence vessel, and a large number of patrol craft and minesweepers. However, most of the Soviet-made vessels have been decommissioned or sunk to make reefs. By 2007, the Cuban Navy was assessed as being 3,000 strong (including up to 550+ Navy Infantry) by the IISS with six Osa-II missile boats and one . The Cuban Navy also includes a small marine battalion called the "Desembarco de Granma". It once numbered 550 men, though its present size is not known.


title: Cuban Revolutionary Armed Forces

text: After the old Soviet submarines were put out of service, Cuba searched for help from North Korea's experience in midget submarines. North Korean defectors claimed to have seen Cubans in mid to late 1990s in a secret submarine base. Years later, a single picture became public of a small black native submarine in Havana harbor. It is rumored to be called 'Delfin' and is to be armed with two torpedoes. Only a single boat is in service and the design appears original, even if influenced both by North Korea and Soviet designs.


title: Cuban Revolutionary Armed Forces

text: The Cuban Navy rebuilt one, large ex-Spanish "Rio Damuji" fishing boat. "BP-390" is now armed with two C-201W missiles, one twin 57 mm gun mount, two twin 25 mm gun mounts and on 14.5 mm machine gun. This vessel is larger than the , and it is used as a helicopter carrier patrol vessel. A second unit ("BP-391") was converted and entered service in 2016.


title: Cuban Revolutionary Armed Forces

text: The Cuban Navy today operates its own missile systems, the made-in-Cuba Bandera (a copy of the dated Styx Soviet missiles) and Remulgadas anti-ship missile systems, as well as the nationally produced Frontera self-propelled coastal defence multiple rocket launcher. The navy's principal threats are drug smuggling and illegal immigration. The country's geographical position and limited naval presence has enabled traffickers to utilise Cuban territorial waters and airspace.


title: Cuban Revolutionary Armed Forces

text: The Cuban Navy's air wing is an ASW helicopter operator only and is equipped with 2 Mi-14 Haze helicopters.


title: Cuban Revolutionary Armed Forces

text: The Avispas Negras (), also known formally as the Mobile Brigade of Special Troops (BMTE) is a special forces unit in the Cuban Revolutionary Armed Forces. It is often identified as Military Unit 4895


title: Cuban Revolutionary Armed Forces

text: The Territorial Troops Militia is composed exclusively of civilian volunteers, under the command of MINFAR. It reinforced the notion of the popular will to defend the Revolution. In general, the militia is a part-time force with only light arms that are issued only on occasion.


title: Cuban Revolutionary Armed Forces

text: The "Ejercito Juvenil del Trabajo" ("Youth Labor Army" – EJT) is, by law, a paramilitary organization under the direct control of MINFAR. It was formally established on 3 August 1973 by combining the Centennial Youth Column (CJC) and the Permanent Infantry Divisions (DIP). Cuba's compulsory service laws require all male citizens to serve for three years in the EJT. The formation of the EJT allowed the army to devote itself full time to military matters. The EJT served as a reserve force in its first 20 years. In 1993, it was assigned the responsibility of managing the state farms.


title: Cuban Revolutionary Armed Forces

text: The Border Troops of the Republic of Cuba () is a branch that ensures the protection of the state borders and territorial waters. They are subordinate to the Interior Ministry (MININT). The official date of the establishment of this service was on September 23, 1970. In the second half of the 1970s, several agreements were signed, according to which some changes were made to border protection, including a 1976 agreement was signed between Cuba and Mexico on the delimitation of the exclusive economic zone in the sector of the Cuban-Mexican maritime border and a 1977 agreement was signed on the maritime border between Cuba and Haiti. The Border Troops are de facto both a border guard and a coast guard force, and all new officers are commissioned from the Granma Naval Academy.


title: Friday prayer

text: In Islam, Friday prayer or Congregational prayer (, "") is a prayer ("ṣalāt") that Muslims hold every Friday, after noon instead of the Zuhr prayer. Muslims ordinarily pray five times each day according to the sun's sky path regardless of time zones. "Jumu’ah" means Friday in the Arabic language. In many Muslim countries, the weekend is inclusive of Fridays, while in others, Fridays are half-days for schools and some workplaces.


title: Friday prayer

text: There is consensus among Muslims regarding the Friday prayer ("salat al-jum‘ah") being "wajib" - required - in accordance with the Quranic verse, as well as the many traditions narrated both by Shi’i and Sunni sources. According to the majority of Sunni schools and some Shiite jurists, Friday prayer is a religious obligation, but their differences were based on whether its obligation is conditional to the presence of the ruler or his deputy in it or if it is "wajib" unconditionally. The Hanafis and the Twelver Imamis believe that the presence of the ruler or his deputy is necessary; the Friday prayer is not obligatory if neither of them is present. The Imamis require the ruler to be just ("‘adil"); otherwise his presence is equal to his absence. To the Hanafis, his presence is sufficient even if he is not just. The Shafi‘is, Malikis and Hanbalis attach no significance to the presence of the ruler.


title: Friday prayer

text: Moreover, it has been stated that Jum'ah is not obligatory for old men, children, women, slaves, travellers, the sick, blind and disabled, as well as those who are outside the limit of two "farsakhs".


title: Friday prayer

text: Muslim ibn al-Hajjaj an-Naysaburi relates that the Islamic prophet Muhammad used to read Surah 87 (Al-Ala) and Surah 88, (Al-Ghashiya), in Eid Prayers and also in Friday prayers. If one of the festivals fell on a Friday, Muhammad would have made sure to read these two Surahs in the prayers.


title: Friday prayer

text: Muhammad is quoted as saying "The best day the sun rises over is Friday; on it Allah created Adam. On it, he was made to enter paradise, on it he was expelled from it, and the Last Hour will take place on no other day than Friday." [Ahmad and at-Tirmithi].


title: Friday prayer

text: Aws ibn Aws, narrated that Muhammad said: “Whoever performs Ghusl on Friday and causes (his wife) to do ghusl, then goes early to the mosque and attends from the beginning of the Khutbah and draws near to the Imam and listens to him attentively, Allah will give him the full reward of fasting all the days of a year and observing night-vigil on each of its nights for every step that he took towards the mosque.” [Ibn Khuzaymah, Ahmad].


title: Friday prayer

text: The "Jum'ah" prayer is half the "Zuhr" (dhuhr) prayer, for convenience, preceded by a "khutbah" (a sermon as a technical replacement of the two reduced "rakaʿāt" of the ordinary "Zuhr" (dhuhr) prayer), and followed by a congregational prayer, led by the imām. In most cases the khaṭīb also serves as the imam. Attendance is strictly incumbent upon all adult males who are legal residents of the locality. The muezzin "(muʾadhdhin)" makes the call to prayer, called the adhan, usually 15–20 minutes prior to the start of Jum'ah. When the khaṭīb takes his place on the minbar, a second adhan is made. The khaṭīb is supposed to deliver two sermons, stopping and sitting briefly between them. In practice, the first sermon is longer and contains most of the content. The second sermon is very brief and concludes with a dua, after which the muezzin calls the iqāmah. This signals the start of the main two rak'at prayer of Jum'ah.


title: Friday prayer

text: In Shia Islam, Salat al-Jum'ah is Wajib Takhyiri (at the time of Occultation), which means that we have an option to offer Jum'ah prayers, if its necessary conditions are fulfilled, or to offer Zuhr prayers. Hence, if Salat al-Jum'ah is offered then it is not necessary to offer Zuhr prayer. It is also recommended by Shiite Scholars to attend Jum'ah as it will become Wajib after the appearance of Imam al-Mahdi and Jesus Christ (Isa).


title: Friday prayer

text: Shiite (Imamite) attach high significance to the presence of a just ruler or his representative or Faqih and in the absence of a just ruler or his representative and a just faqih, there exists an option between performing either the Friday or the zuhr prayer, although preference lies with the performance of Friday prayer.


title: Friday prayer

text: According to the history of Islam and the report from Abdullah bn 'Abbas narrated from the Prophet saying that: the permission to perform the Friday prayer was given by Allah before hijrah, but the people were unable to congregate and perform it. The Prophet wrote a note to Mus'ab b. Umair, who represented the Prophet in Madinah to pray two raka'at in congregation on Friday (that is, Jumu'ah). Then, after the migration of the Prophet to Medina, the "Jumu'ah" was held by him.


title: Friday prayer

text: For Shiites, historically, their clergy discouraged Shiites from attending Friday prayers. According to them, communal Friday prayers with a sermon were wrong and had lapsed (along with several other religious practices) until the return of their 12th Imam, Muhammad al-Mahdi. However, among others, Shiite modernist Muhammad ibn Muhammad Mahdi al-Khalisi (1890–1963) demanded that Shiites should more carefully observe Friday prayers in a step to bridge the gap with Sunnis. Later, the practice of communal Friday prayers was developed, and became standard there-afterwards, by Ruhollah Khomeini in Iran and later by Mohammad Mohammad Sadeq al-Sadr in Iraq. They justified the practice under the newly promoted "Guardianship of the Islamic Jurists" doctrine. When al-Sadr installed Friday prayer imams in Shia-majority areas—a practice not traditional in Iraqi Shiism and considered "revolutionary, if not heretical"—it put him at odds with the Shia religious establishment in Najaf. Under both Khomeini and al-Sadr, political sermons would be heard.


title: Friday prayer

text: The world's largest Muslim population can be found in Indonesia, where over 240 million Muslims live making up nearly 90% of Indonesia's total population. In the country, according to the World Values Survey conducted in the country in 2018, 62.0% of Indonesians attend religious services at least once a week (including 54.0% of the population under the age of 30 and 66.1% of men). Most of these presumably would fall under the category of attending jumuah prayers. These numbers are stable from the same survey conducted in 2006, where 64.5% of Indonesians attended religious services at least once a week (including 56.0% of the population under 30 and 64.3% of men).


title: Friday prayer

text: The number of regular attendees is somewhat lower in the next largest Muslim-majority country, Pakistan, which has over 210 million Muslims making up over 95% of the population. The 2018 World Values Survey conducted there found that 46.1% of Pakistanis attended religious services at least once a week (including 47.0% of Pakistanis under the age of 30 and 52.7% of men). However, this was a large increase from the same survey conducted in 2012, where it was reported that only 28.9% of Pakistanis attended religious services at least once a week (including 21.5% of Pakistanis under the age of 30 and 31.4% of men). This is a testament to increasing religiosity in Pakistan, especially among the youth, who have gone from attending jumuah at rates far below that of the total population to attending at rates higher than the total population.


title: Friday prayer

text: A different pattern is seen in the Muslim-majority country of Bangladesh (which has over 150 million Muslims making up over 90% of the population). There the 2002 World Values Survey found that 56.1% of Bangladeshis attended religious services at least once a week (including 50.6% of Bangladeshis below the age of 30 and 61.7% of men), whereas sixteen years later in 2018, the survey found that the number had dropped to 44.4% (including 41.3% of those under 30 and 48.8% of men).


title: Friday prayer

text: Meanwhile, in the Arab country of Egypt, jumuah attendance has risen massively in recent years. The 2012 World Values Survey found that 45.2% of Egyptians attended at least once a week (including 44.9% of Egyptians under the age of 30 and 60.1% of Egyptian men), but six years later the 2018 World Values Survey found that the number of Egyptians attended at least once a week had risen to 57.0% (including 52.9% of those under 30 and 89.4% of men).


title: Friday prayer

text: However, different patterns are found in the Non-Arab Middle Eastern countries of Iran and Turkey. In these two countries, jumuah attendance is among the lowest in the world. The 2005 World Values Survey in Iran found 33.8% of the population attending (including 27.3% of Iranians under 30 and 38.9% of Iranian men). By 2020, all these numbers had fallen, as only 26.1% of the population attended at least once a week (including 19.1% of Iranians under 30 and 29.3% of men). In Turkey, the 2012 World Values Survey found 33.2% of the population attending (including 28.6% of Turks under 30 and 54.0% of men). Similarly, According to a 2012 survey by Pew Research Center, 19% of Turkish Muslims say that they attend Friday prayer once a week and 23% say they never visit their local mosque. However, six years later in 2018, the World Values Survey reported that 33.8% of Turks attended (including 29.0% of those under 30 and 56.4% of men). This shows that even though both countries have relatively low religious attendance, religiosity is stronger in Turkey than in Iran, especially among the youth.


title: Friday prayer

text: In several countries, such as in Central Asia and Balkans, self-reported Muslims practice the religion at low levels. According to a 2012 survey by Pew Research Center, about 1% of the Muslims in Azerbaijan, 5% in Albania, 9% in Uzbekistan, 10% in Kazakhstan, 19% in Russia and 22% in Kosovo said that they attend mosque once a week or more. This was largely due to the religious restriction of Islam under communist rule, and attendance levels have been rising rapidly since the fall of the Soviet Union.


title: Friday prayer

text: Mosque attendance rates in Kazakhstan and Kyrgyzstan have seen precipitous increases over the last decade. According to the World Values Survey, weekly attendance in Kazakhstan went from 9.0% in 2011 (including 8.7% among those under 30 and 9.6% among men) to 15.3% in 2018 (including 14.6% of those under 30 and 17.1% among men), while weekly attendance in Tajikistan climbed from 29.3% in 2011 (including 35.1% of those under 30 and 58.1% of men) to 33.2% in 2020 (including 35.1% of those under 30 and 58.1% of men). Generational replacement is in effect here as a more religious youthful contingent replaced a less religious contingent that grew up under the Soviet Union.


title: Friday prayer

text: In the Middle East and North Africa, mosque attendance at least once a week ranges from 35% in Lebanon to 65% in Jordan. Sub-Saharan African Muslim communities tend to have a high rates of mosque attendance, and ranges from 65% in Senegal to nearly 100% in Ghana. In South Asia, home to the largest Muslim communities in the world, mosque attendance at least once a week ranges from 53% in Bangladesh to 61% in Afghanistan.


title: Friday prayer

text: Surveys conducted in 1994 and in 1996 observed a decrease in religiosity among Muslims in Belgium based on lowering mosque participation, less frequent prayer, dropping importance attached to a religious education, etc. This decrease in religiosity was more visible in younger Muslims. A study published in 2006, found that 35% of the Muslim youth in Germany attend religious services regularly. In 2009, 24% of Muslims in the Netherlands said they attended mosque once a week according to a survey. According to a survey published in 2010, 20% of the French Muslims claimed to go regularly to the mosque for the Friday service. Data from 2017 shows that American Muslim women and American Muslim men attend the mosque at similar rates (45% for men and 35% for women).


title: The Babys

text: The Babys are a British rock group best known for their songs "Isn't It Time" and "Every Time I Think of You". Both songs were composed by Jack Conrad and Ray Kennedy, and each reached No. 13 on the U.S. "Billboard" Hot 100 and No. 8 on the "Cashbox" chart in the late 1970s. The original Babys line-up consisted of founding member keyboardist/guitarist Michael Corby, and, in order of joining the group, vocalist/bassist John Waite, drummer Tony Brock, and guitarist Wally Stocker.


title: The Babys

text: The group signed a contract with Chrysalis Records that was the highest ever for a new music act at the time. Two studio albums, "The Babys" and "Broken Heart", were well received. After recording their third album, "Head First", in August 1978, co-founder Michael Corby was replaced by Jonathan Cain as keyboardist and Ricky Phillips took over as bassist. From late 1978 until the breakup in 1981, The Babys line-up consisted of vocalist Waite, drummer Brock, bassist Phillips, guitarist Stocker, and keyboardist Cain.


title: The Babys

text: Founding member Mike Corby places the origin of the idea for the band at Smalls Café on the Fulham Road in London in 1973, during a chance meeting with Adrian Millar. An agreement was signed between Corby and Millar on 4 September 1974, and auditions were held to fill out the remaining members.


title: The Babys

text: Tony Brock was an established rock drummer, having played with Strider and Spontaneous Combustion. Financial difficulties with Strider, and the opportunity to join a group with sound financial backing, made him decide to take a chance with this group instead. The last member to join the line-up was Wally Stocker. In 1977, the band purchased a 24 track mobile unit with which to record their music. They went to a ranch house in the Malibu mountains and laid down the tracks in six weeks. However, the record sleeve says it was recorded at the famous Sound City in Southern California. The influences of the songs came about from their first year in Los Angeles and the culture shock of their relocation there.


title: The Babys

text: Adrian Millar's girlfriend suggested The Babys and the unusual spelling stuck, Corby liked it because "it would piss mindless critics off."


title: The Babys

text: "The name was meant to be a joke. We took the name simply because the record companies wouldn't listen to any bands they thought were rock & roll. I mean, they wanted sure-fire teen bands, pre-teen bands. We couldn't get anybody down to hear us to get a record deal, so we called ourselves The Babys. We thought we'd keep the name just for two weeks. Then, the word got around in London that there was a band playing rock & roll called The Babys and it seemed so off the wall, so completely crazy, that it was worth taking a shot with. It really appealed to everyone's sense of humour."


title: The Babys

text: Music videos were produced by Mike Mansfield for Supersonic, and Chrysalis Records signed the band in 1976.


title: The Babys

text: The Babys eponymous first album (highlighted by the single "If You've Got the Time"), was recorded in Toronto, Ontario, Canada, with producers Brian Christian and Bob Ezrin and released in January 1977, although it appears that Millar and Corby were unhappy with the production.


title: The Babys

text: Their second album, "Broken Heart," (released in September 1977) featured production by Ron Nevison and resulted in gaining the group a Top 20 U.S. hit, "Isn't It Time" (written by Jack Conrad and Ray Kennedy), that peaked at No. 13 on the Billboard chart. The song was a departure from the group's desire to only play their own material. Other writers' material, such as Mike Japp and Chas Sandford's "A Piece of the Action" was included. The album featured unique acoustic openings on "I'm Falling" and "Wrong or Right". Nevison's production techniques enhanced Waite's emerging talent as a vocalist and highlighted Brock's drumming, Stocker's guitar work, and Corby's instrumental abilities.


title: The Babys

text: The band continued to tour the U.S. successfully with The Babettes, which included singers from Andrae Crouch and the Disciples: Lisa Freeman Roberts, Myrna Matthews and Pat Henderson. The album spent two weeks at #1 in Australia and produced a #1 single with "Isn't It Time". Disputes with Chrysalis management resulted in the firing of original manager Millar in 1978. Corby exited shortly thereafter. Equipment Manager Ray Sheriff states:


title: The Babys

text: "Almost immediately after Michael's leaving, the remainder of the band went into auditions for a replacement. Jonathan Cain, in fact, became Mike’s successor, but I am sure he had not been selected until after Mike left. The other musician was Ricky Phillips, who played bass. I think from what John, Wally and Tony said that it was they, and not Chrysalis, who selected these two successors, and I think that at about this same time Lookout Management ceased to be the band’s managers."


title: The Babys

text: Two American musicians became a part of the lineup following the release of the third album, "Head First". Keyboardist/guitarist/vocalist Jonathan Cain replaced Corby, and bassist Ricky Phillips (of Nasty Habit) joined in the late fall of 1978, making it a five-piece band. The new quintet made their debut at the Whisky a Go Go on 31 December 1978. The band's fourth album, "Union Jacks," (released in January 1980), produced by Keith Olsen, had a more punchy sound; the single, "Back on My Feet Again," spent a short time in the Top 40. Anne Marie Leclerc, who guested on "Union Jacks", appeared as a backup singer on tour with the band in 1979–1980. During an extensive tour in 1980, The Babys opened for Journey, the band that Jonathan Cain would soon join. The band's fifth album, "On the Edge", was made during the 1980 tour, and released in October 1980. The single, "Turn and Walk Away", reached the Top 100.


title: The Babys

text: During a performance in Cincinnati on 9 December 1980 (the day after John Lennon had been murdered), John Waite was pulled from the stage by an overzealous fan during an encore and seriously injured his knee. Following a subsequent final performance by the group in Akron, Ohio, the remainder of the tour was cancelled, and the group disbanded following the tour. Although different members of the group have given various reasons for the band's demise, the general issue seems to have been disillusionment that the group never really achieved the success they felt they deserved given the quality of their albums and live shows.


title: The Babys

text: Within four years of leaving the band, John Waite had a U.S. Number One hit with Chas Sandford and Mark Leonard's "Missing You" in 1984 from his second solo album "No Brakes". Stocker and Brock worked with Rod Stewart and other mainstream artists including Elton John and Air Supply. Cain joined Journey, becoming one of its primary songwriters. Waite, Cain and Phillips formed Bad English in the late 1980s. Phillips currently plays for Styx.


title: The Babys

text: Jonathan Cain joined Journey just as that band was on the verge of mainstream success. John Waite embarked on a successful solo career, peaking with a number one American hit in 1984 with "Missing You." Waite and Cain would reunite with Ricky Phillips at the end of the 1980s to form the hard rock/glam rock-infused supergroup Bad English, scoring several hits from their 1989 self-titled album. Tony Brock spent many years drumming for Rod Stewart, as well as drumming and co-producing for Jimmy Barnes and producing for Keith Urban. Wally Stocker went on to join Brock in Rod Stewart's band and briefly joined Air Supply in the mid-1980s, later playing in a reformed version of Humble Pie in the 1990s.


title: The Babys

text: In 2013 The Babys reformed with originals Tony Brock and Wally Stocker, and two new members - American John Bisaha (The Nameless, Azure Blue, Hall of Souls, BISAHA) on vocals and bass, along with American guitarist Joey Sykes (Boystown, Coward, Meredith Brooks), who replaced J. P. Cervoni after his brief tenure. The new look Babys debuted in the summer of 2013 at The Canyon Club in Agoura Hills, California. In June 2014, their latest album, "I'll Have Some of That!", was released.


title: The Babys

text: Live, the band currently features a keyboardist (at time of writing Walter Ino is playing) and 'The Babettes' - Holly Bisaha and Elisa Chadbourne.


title: Passenger 57

text: Passenger 57 is a 1992 American action thriller film directed by Kevin Hooks. The film stars Wesley Snipes and Bruce Payne, with Snipes portraying a security consultant who finds himself forced to foil a plot to free a captive terrorist during a commercial airline flight. Critical reviews were mixed, but the film was a box-office success, and made Snipes a popular action hero icon. It also introduced Snipes's famous line: "Always bet on black."


title: Passenger 57

text: British international terrorist Charles Rane, whose career has been dubbed as "The Rane of Terror" by the media, is arrested by the FBI and local authorities in Miami, just as he is about to undergo plastic surgery in order to evade law enforcement. The FBI make plans to return Rane to Los Angeles for him to stand trial.


title: Passenger 57

text: Widowed and reputed police officer, decorated soldier, and retired U.S. Secret Service agent John Cutter is constantly haunted by the memories of his wife's death in a convenience store robbery and has launched a course specializing in training flight attendants in self-defense. After one class, Cutter is approached by an old friend, Sly Delvecchio, who offers Cutter the vice presidency of a new antiterrorism unit for his company, Atlantic International Airlines. Cutter is reluctant, but Delvecchio and the company's president, Stuart Ramsey, eventually convince him to accept the offer.


title: Passenger 57

text: Cutter boards as the 57th passenger on an Atlantic International flight to Los Angeles (a Lockheed L-1011 TriStar), where one of his students, Marti Slayton, is one of the flight attendants. Rane and his two FBI escorts are also aboard. After the flight takes off, several henchpersons in Rane's employ, posing as flight attendants and passengers, kill the FBI agents, release Rane, and secure the plane by also killing the captain. Cutter, in the lavatory at the time, manages to use the plane's on-board phone to warn Delvecchio of the situation, but Cutter is soon caught by one of Rane's henchmen.


title: Passenger 57

text: Cutter overpowers the henchman and takes his weapon; he then uses the agent (in a chokehold) as a shield to confront Rane, but an indifferent Rane shows his ruthlessness by mercilessly murdering a passenger in cold blood. Cutter realizes he is outmatched and escapes with Marti to the cargo hold, while Rane kills the henchman that Cutter overpowered, ranting his "incompetence". Cutter dispatches another of Rane's men, Vincent, who is disguised as a caterer. Cutter trips circuitry to dump the plane's fuel, forcing Rane to order the surviving pilots to land at a small Louisiana airfield. As Cutter and Marti prepare to escape upon touchdown, Marti is caught by Forget and he kicks Cutter out of the plane. The local sheriff, Leonard Biggs and his deputies arrest Cutter, thinking he is a terrorist, and takes him to the airport building.


title: Passenger 57

text: Rane contacts the field's tower and demands refueling, for which he promises half the passengers will be freed. For every five minutes of resistance or indecision, Rane will order five passengers to be executed. Rane also falsely asserts that Cutter is one of his own men turned against him. Biggs gives the go-ahead for refueling, and as the passengers are freed, Rane and some of his men escape from the plane. Cutter recognizes the passenger release as a diversion, escapes from the sheriff, and chases Rane and his men into a local county fair. FBI agents arrive and confirm Cutter's true identity to Biggs. Cutter is able to kill one of Rane's men and gets into a fight with Rane before police arrive and capture him.


title: Passenger 57

text: Back at the tower, Rane announces that if he does not contact the plane and give flight clearance, his men aboard have been instructed to kill the rest of the hostages. The FBI agents arrange to return Rane to the plane, escorted by two agents, with plans to have a sniper take down Rane and allow them to storm the plane to save the hostages. However, the sniper is Vincent, who kills the escorts, but is shot dead by Cutter, and Rane makes it inside safely. Rane orders the pilots to take off, while Cutter, with Biggs' help, manages to jump from a car onto the speeding plane (through the nose landing gear) before it takes off.


title: Passenger 57

text: Inside, Cutter deals with more of Rane's accomplices before getting into a fight with Rane. A bullet blows one of the plane's windows causing explosive decompression, and a door blows out. Cutter manages to get Rane close to the open door and kicks him out of the plane, which sends Rane, screaming in terror, out into the night sky where he falls to his death. The plane quickly returns to the airfield, where the FBI agents secure Sabrina Ritchie, Rane's only remaining agent, and the remaining hostages are freed. Amid congratulations and celebration, Marti and Cutter make their quiet escape into the distance hand-in-hand, but not before Chief Biggs offers them a ride.


title: Passenger 57

text: The film was based on a script by Stewart Raffill. It was written as an action film for a guy like Clint Eastwood, about a man going to bury his son in Spain who sat next to an Iranian terrorist on the plane. The terrorist hijacks the plane and takes the passengers to Iran. Then the Clint Eastwood type character escapes, captures the Mullahs and holds them as prisoners in exchange for American prisoners.


title: Passenger 57

text: Raffill says "The head of the studio said to me, “If I make that movie, they’ll blow up the theaters.” So I did a couple of re-writes for them, for Warner Bros who owned it, then I got another picture and came back and then it became a black movie."


title: Passenger 57

text: Raffill could not think of a title for the film but noticed a bottle of ketchup and was inspired by the Heinz 57 mark to call the film Passenger 57.


title: Passenger 57

text: Although supposedly set partly at a small airport in Louisiana, filming took place in Snipes's hometown of Orlando, Florida, with Orlando-Sanford International Airport standing in for "Lake Lucille" airport in Louisiana. The airport's former combination main hangar and control tower from its time as Naval Air Station Sanford was used for many key scenes just prior to its demolition after filming.


title: Passenger 57

text: DVD was released in Region 1 in the United States on May 27, 1998, and Region 2 in the United Kingdom on April 26, 1999; it was distributed by Warner Home Video.


title: Passenger 57

text: "Passenger 57" was released on November 6, 1992, and opened at number one rank in 1,734 theaters. The opening weekend receipts were $10,513,925. The film's final US domestic gross receipts were $44,065,653. Internationally, the film grossed $22,437,000, for a worldwide total of $66,502,653. "Passenger 57" is one of the films that launched Wesley Snipes's career in the action genre. Because of this film's success, Wesley Snipes was cast in lead roles of other features, including "Money Train", "Drop Zone", "Demolition Man", "The Art of War", and the "Blade" trilogy.


title: Passenger 57

text: The film received mixed reviews. Critics praised Wesley Snipes and Bruce Payne's performances, but panned the script. On Rotten Tomatoes it has an approval rating of 24% based on 25 reviews, with an average rating of 4.3/10. The consensus states: "Wesley Snipes tries to pilot "Passenger 57" away from turbulence, but even he can't help this implausible couch-class action bomber from nose-diving." Audiences polled by CinemaScore gave the film an average grade of "B" on an A+ to F scale.


title: Passenger 57

text: Marcus Trower, of "Empire" magazine, stated that Bruce Payne was "a brilliantly disconcerting madman. With his flowing blond Jesus locks, armor-piercing stare and casual sadism, he makes Hannibal Lecter look like a social worker – and like Sir Anthony Hopkins's serial killer, part of the man's menace is in the apparent contradiction between his articulate, well-spoken English and his off-hand brutality." The "Radio Times" stated that Payne and Snipes both gave 'charismatic turns' in the film. "The New York Times" stated that Payne brought a 'tongue-in-cheek humor to the psychopathic fiend' that he played. A reviewer for "People" magazine stated that "Bruce Payne steals the plane—and the movie".


title: 2018 Major League Baseball draft

text: The 2018 Major League Baseball (MLB) First-Year Player Draft began on June 4, 2018. The draft assigned amateur baseball players to MLB teams. The draft order was determined based on the reverse order of the 2017 MLB season final standings. In addition, compensation picks were distributed for players who did not sign from the 2017 MLB Draft and for teams who lose qualifying free agents. The first 43 picks, including the first round and compensatory picks, were broadcast by MLB Network on June 4. The remainder of the draft was streamed on MLB.com on June 5 and 6.


title: 2018 Major League Baseball draft

text: With a tie for the worst record in the 2017 MLB season at 64–98, the Detroit Tigers received the first overall pick ahead of the San Francisco Giants via a tiebreaker. The Detroit Tigers selected Casey Mize with the first overall pick in the draft. There were a total of 40 rounds in the draft, with 1,214 players selected.


title: 2018 Major League Baseball draft

text: On September 9, 2019, the Chicago Cubs promoted Nico Hoerner to the big leagues, making him the first player to reach the MLB in this draft.


title: Mary Williams (activist)

text: Mary Luana Williams (born October 13, 1967) is an American social activist and author who wrote "The Lost Daughter: A Memoir" about her life. The memoir details being adopted by Jane Fonda and Tom Hayden in her adolescence, as well as growing up as a daughter of Black Panthers before Fonda adopted her. She works with Sudanese refugees through the organization she founded, the Lost Boys Foundation.


title: Mary Williams (activist)

text: Mary Luana "Lulu" Williams was born on October 13, 1967, the fifth daughter to Randy and Mary Williams. Both of her parents were members of the Black Panther Party, an organization dedicated to stopping police brutality toward African-Americans, and helping African Americans who lacked employment, education, and healthcare. The family lived at the heart of the movement in East Oakland, California, during the height of the Vietnam War, and Civil Rights Movement, in an era Williams would later describe as "violent and frenzied". Mary's father Randy was a captain within the Panthers militaristic hierarchy and participated in the controversial Armed Citizens' Patrol, where Panthers would tail police and patrol neighborhoods, ready to defend any black people they saw being threatened by police. In April 1970, Williams' father and other Panthers witnessed several police officers arresting four black marijuana suspects and they intervened, ambushing and wounding three of the officers before fleeing. Thirty patrol cars pursued them on a high speed car chase while the Panthers tried to discourage pursuit by throwing molotov cocktails. Randy Williams was apprehended, charged with assault with intent to murder and given a seven-year sentence at a Correctional Training Facility near Soledad, California. At the time, Williams was four. Her mother was left to care for Williams and her five siblings, eventually becoming physically abusive while descending into alcoholism.


title: Mary Williams (activist)

text: Williams's family further deteriorated when one of her siblings ran away and another turned to street prostitution as well as crack cocaine. Williams and her siblings were signed up for Laurel Springs Children’s Camp, a camp started by Fonda that was located on 160 acres near Santa Monica, California. She got to know Fonda while at the camp, and returned over successive years even when her siblings did not.


title: Mary Williams (activist)

text: With aspirations to be an actor and escape Oakland, Williams went on an "open casting call" at age 14 at a theatre director's house. The man, named David, raped her. Over a number of weeks David continued the assaults, even driving to pick her up and take Williams back to his house. When he no longer wanted to be part of the "relationship" when school began again, Williams felt relieved and abandoned: "It took a long time for me to understand how it was that I had switched so quickly from a self-assured girl into a passive victim." After returning to Laurel Springs Children’s Camp the next summer, she eventually told counselors about the rape, who relayed that information to Fonda. Jane had a long heart-to-heart talk with Williams, and made her promise to tell her family about the rape, and said that if she worked on getting her grades up the next year, she could come to live with her for as long as she needed to. Williams stated, "I had given up on myself and my grades at school suffered, but Jane’s proposal renewed my interest in school. She threw me a lifeline and I grabbed it." In 1982, Mary moved in with Fonda at her Santa Monica home.


title: Mary Williams (activist)

text: There was no formal discussion of adoption within the Fonda household. Troy Garity, Fonda's biological son with activist Tom Hayden, stated, "She just sort of came down [to live with us] and it was fine and happy for me because it was somebody that I had a connection with. She was older, which is always cool when you have a teenager who's actually listening to you!"


title: Mary Williams (activist)

text: No formal adoption papers were drawn up, and on Williams's mother's blessing, she lived with Fonda for the rest of her adolescence and into young adulthood. She was raised with Vanessa Vadim and brother Troy as one of the children, with everyone involved feeling that she was part of the family. It took time for Mary to transition to the affluence of Fonda's world. Mary attended house parties with many celebrities, including Robert DeNiro, Oprah Winfrey, Quincy Jones, Desmond Tutu; Sophia Loren taught Mary how to cut ripe cactus.


title: Mary Williams (activist)

text: Williams wrote "The Lost Daughter: A Memoir" about her life experiences, focusing on her life with two families. Kirkus Reviews called the book "A tender memoir of love and redemption" as well as "A compassionate tale of soul-searching and family love."


title: Mary Williams (activist)

text: Williams worked as a fund-raiser for the International Rescue Committee in their Atlanta office. When she saw refugees coming in from Sudan, she developed a passion for working with them, eventually leaving her job with IRC in 2001 to work more closely with Sudanese refugees through her own organization.


title: Mary Williams (activist)

text: She founded the Lost Boys Foundation, a group that works with the Lost Boys of Sudan to help them after they have been displaced by Sudan's wars and turbulence. At her urging, writer Dave Eggers began talking to Valentino Achak Deng, a Sudanese refugee and member of the Lost Boys Foundation program, about Deng writing a memoir. The work eventually became "".


title: Mary Williams (activist)

text: Williams wrote her own book about the lost boys of Sudan, the children's book "Brothers in Hope: The Story of the Lost Boys of Sudan". It was published by Lee & Low Books in 2005.


title: Mary Williams (activist)

text: She was a supporter of Barack Obama when he was running for reelection as President of the United States in 2012. Writing from Buenos Aires, Williams stated, "As a child of the Black Power Movement I can’t deny that I’m happy to see a Black man in the White House, but my politics are more than skin deep. The thought of entrusting our national environmental treasures to folks who only seek to exploit them keeps me up at night. I’m voting for Obama in November because we have too much to lose."


title: MicroRNA

text: MicroRNA (miRNA) are small, single-stranded, non-coding RNA molecules containing 21 to 23 nucleotides. Found in plants, animals and some viruses, miRNAs are involved in RNA silencing and post-transcriptional regulation of gene expression. miRNAs base-pair to complementary sequences in mRNA molecules, then gene silence said mRNA molecules by one or more of the following processes: (1) cleavage of mRNA strand into two pieces, (2) destabilization of mRNA by shortening its poly(A) tail, or (3) translation of mRNA into proteins. This last method of gene silencing is the least efficient of the three, and requires the aid of ribosomes.


title: MicroRNA

text: miRNAs resemble the small interfering RNAs (siRNAs) of the RNA interference (RNAi) pathway, except miRNAs derive from regions of RNA transcripts that fold back on themselves to form short hairpins, whereas siRNAs derive from longer regions of double-stranded RNA. The human genome may encode over 1900 miRNAs, although more recent analysis suggests that the number is closer to 2,300. However, only about 500 human microRNAs represent bona fide miRNA in the manually curated miRNA gene database MirGeneDB.


title: MicroRNA

text: miRNAs are abundant in many mammalian cell types and as extracellular circulating miRNAs. Circulating miRNAs are released into body fluids including blood and cerebrospinal fluid and have the potential to be available as biomarkers in a number of diseases. MiRNAs appear to target about 60% of the genes of humans and other mammals. Many miRNAs are evolutionarily conserved, which implies that they have important biological functions. For example, 90 families of miRNAs have been conserved since at least the common ancestor of mammals and fish, and most of these conserved miRNAs have important functions, as shown by studies in which genes for one or more members of a family have been knocked out in mice.


title: MicroRNA

text: The first miRNA was discovered in the early 1990s. However, miRNAs were not recognized as a distinct class of biological regulators until the early 2000s. miRNA research revealed different sets of miRNAs expressed in different cell types and tissues and multiple roles for miRNAs in plant and animal development and in many other biological processes. Aberrant miRNA expression are implicated in disease states. MiRNA-based therapies are under investigation.


title: MicroRNA

text: The first miRNA was discovered in 1993 by a group led by Ambros and including Lee and Feinbaum. However, additional insight into its mode of action required simultaneously published work by Ruvkun's team, including Wightman and Ha. These groups published back-to-back papers on the "lin-4" gene, which was known to control the timing of "C. elegans" larval development by repressing the "lin-14" gene. When Lee et al. isolated the "lin-4" miRNA, they found that instead of producing an mRNA encoding a protein, it produced short non-coding RNAs, one of which was a ~22-nucleotide RNA that contained sequences partially complementary to multiple sequences in the 3' UTR of the "lin-14" mRNA. This complementarity was proposed to inhibit the translation of the "lin-14" mRNA into the LIN-14 protein. At the time, the "lin-4" small RNA was thought to be a nematode idiosyncrasy.


title: MicroRNA

text: In 2000, a second small RNA was characterized: "let-7" RNA, which represses "lin-41" to promote a later developmental transition in "C. elegans". The "let-7" RNA was found to be conserved in many species, leading to the suggestion that "let-7" RNA and additional "small temporal RNAs" might regulate the timing of development in diverse animals, including humans.


title: MicroRNA

text: A year later, the "lin-4" and "let-7" RNAs were found to be part of a large class of small RNAs present in "C. elegans", "Drosophila" and human cells. The many RNAs of this class resembled the "lin-4" and "let-7" RNAs, except their expression patterns were usually inconsistent with a role in regulating the timing of development. This suggested that most might function in other types of regulatory pathways. At this point, researchers started using the term "microRNA" to refer to this class of small regulatory RNAs.


title: MicroRNA

text: The first human disease associated with deregulation of miRNAs was chronic lymphocytic leukemia. In this disorder, the miRNAs have a dual role working as both tumor suppressors and oncogenes.


title: MicroRNA

text: Under a standard nomenclature system, names are assigned to experimentally confirmed miRNAs before publication. The prefix "miR" is followed by a dash and a number, the latter often indicating order of naming. For example, miR-124 was named and likely discovered prior to miR-456. A capitalized "miR-" refers to the mature form of the miRNA, while the uncapitalized "mir-" refers to the pre-miRNA and the -miRNA. The miRNAs encoding genes are also named using the same three-letter prefix according to the conventions of the organism gene nomenclature. For examples, the official miRNAs gene names in some organisms are ""mir-1" in "C. elegans" and "Drosophila," "Mir-1" in "Rattus norvegicus and MIR-25" in human.


title: MicroRNA

text: miRNAs with nearly identical sequences except for one or two nucleotides are annotated with an additional lower case letter. For example, miR-124a is closely related to miR-124b. For example:


title: MicroRNA

text: Pre-miRNAs, -miRNAs and genes that lead to 100% identical mature miRNAs but that are located at different places in the genome are indicated with an additional dash-number suffix. For example, the pre-miRNAs -mir-194-1 and -mir-194-2 lead to an identical mature miRNA (-miR-194) but are from genes located in different genome regions.


title: MicroRNA

text: Species of origin is designated with a three-letter prefix, e.g., -miR-124 is a human ("Homo sapiens") miRNA and oar-miR-124 is a sheep ("Ovis aries") miRNA. Other common prefixes include "v" for viral (miRNA encoded by a viral genome) and "d" for "Drosophila" miRNA (a fruit fly commonly studied in genetic research).


title: MicroRNA

text: When two mature microRNAs originate from opposite arms of the same pre-miRNA and are found in roughly similar amounts, they are denoted with a -3p or -5p suffix. (In the past, this distinction was also made with "s" (sense) and "as" (antisense)). However, the mature microRNA found from one arm of the hairpin is usually much more abundant than that found from the other arm, in which case, an asterisk following the name indicates the mature species found at low levels from the opposite arm of a hairpin. For example, miR-124 and miR-124* share a pre-miRNA hairpin, but much more miR-124 is found in the cell.


title: MicroRNA

text: Plant miRNAs usually have near-perfect pairing with their mRNA targets, which induces gene repression through cleavage of the target transcripts. In contrast, animal miRNAs are able to recognize their target mRNAs by using as few as 6–8 nucleotides (the seed region) at the 5' end of the miRNA, which is not enough pairing to induce cleavage of the target mRNAs. Combinatorial regulation is a feature of miRNA regulation in animals. A given miRNA may have hundreds of different mRNA targets, and a given target might be regulated by multiple miRNAs.


title: MicroRNA

text: Estimates of the average number of unique messenger RNAs that are targets for repression by a typical miRNA vary, depending on the estimation method, but multiple approaches show that mammalian miRNAs can have many unique targets. For example, an analysis of the miRNAs highly conserved in vertebrates shows that each has, on average, roughly 400 conserved targets. Likewise, experiments show that a single miRNA species can reduce the stability of hundreds of unique messenger RNAs. Other experiments show that a single miRNA species may repress the production of hundreds of proteins, but that this repression often is relatively mild (much less than 2-fold). The first human disease discovered to be associated with deregulation of miRNAs was chronic lymphocytic leukemia. Other B cell malignancies followed.


title: MicroRNA

text: As many as 40% of miRNA genes may lie in the introns or even exons of other genes. These are usually, though not exclusively, found in a sense orientation, and thus usually are regulated together with their host genes.


title: MicroRNA

text: The DNA template is not the final word on mature miRNA production: 6% of human miRNAs show RNA editing (IsomiRs), the site-specific modification of RNA sequences to yield products different from those encoded by their DNA. This increases the diversity and scope of miRNA action beyond that implicated from the genome alone.


title: MicroRNA

text: miRNA genes are usually transcribed by RNA polymerase II (Pol II). The polymerase often binds to a promoter found near the DNA sequence, encoding what will become the hairpin loop of the pre-miRNA. The resulting transcript is capped with a specially modified nucleotide at the 5' end, polyadenylated with multiple adenosines (a poly(A) tail), and spliced. Animal miRNAs are initially transcribed as part of one arm of an ∼80 nucleotide RNA stem-loop that in turn forms part of a several hundred nucleotide-long miRNA precursor termed a pri-miRNA. When a stem-loop precursor is found in the 3' UTR, a transcript may serve as a pri-miRNA and a mRNA. RNA polymerase III (Pol III) transcribes some miRNAs, especially those with upstream Alu sequences, transfer RNAs (tRNAs), and mammalian wide interspersed repeat (MWIR) promoter units.


title: MicroRNA

text: A single pri-miRNA may contain from one to six miRNA precursors. These hairpin loop structures are composed of about 70 nucleotides each. Each hairpin is flanked by sequences necessary for efficient processing.


title: MicroRNA

text: The double-stranded RNA (dsRNA) structure of the hairpins in a pri-miRNA is recognized by a nuclear protein known as DiGeorge Syndrome Critical Region 8 (DGCR8 or "Pasha" in invertebrates), named for its association with DiGeorge Syndrome. DGCR8 associates with the enzyme Drosha, a protein that cuts RNA, to form the Microprocessor complex. In this complex, DGCR8 orients the catalytic RNase III domain of Drosha to liberate hairpins from pri-miRNAs by cleaving RNA about eleven nucleotides from the hairpin base (one helical dsRNA turn into the stem). The product resulting has a two-nucleotide overhang at its 3' end; it has 3' hydroxyl and 5' phosphate groups. It is often termed as a pre-miRNA (precursor-miRNA). Sequence motifs downstream of the pre-miRNA that are important for efficient processing have been identified.


title: MicroRNA

text: Pre-miRNAs that are spliced directly out of introns, bypassing the Microprocessor complex, are known as "Mirtrons." Originally thought to exist only in "Drosophila" and "C. elegans", mirtrons have now been found in mammals.


title: MicroRNA

text: As many as 16% of pre-miRNAs may be altered through nuclear RNA editing. Most commonly, enzymes known as adenosine deaminases acting on RNA (ADARs) catalyze adenosine to inosine (A to I) transitions. RNA editing can halt nuclear processing (for example, of pri-miR-142, leading to degradation by the ribonuclease Tudor-SN) and alter downstream processes including cytoplasmic miRNA processing and target specificity (e.g., by changing the seed region of miR-376 in the central nervous system).


title: MicroRNA

text: Pre-miRNA hairpins are exported from the nucleus in a process involving the nucleocytoplasmic shuttler Exportin-5. This protein, a member of the karyopherin family, recognizes a two-nucleotide overhang left by the RNase III enzyme Drosha at the 3' end of the pre-miRNA hairpin. Exportin-5-mediated transport to the cytoplasm is energy-dependent, using guanosine triphosphate (GTP) bound to the Ran protein.


title: MicroRNA

text: In the cytoplasm, the pre-miRNA hairpin is cleaved by the RNase III enzyme Dicer. This endoribonuclease interacts with 5' and 3' ends of the hairpin and cuts away the loop joining the 3' and 5' arms, yielding an imperfect miRNA:miRNA* duplex about 22 nucleotides in length. Overall hairpin length and loop size influence the efficiency of Dicer processing. The imperfect nature of the miRNA:miRNA* pairing also affects cleavage. Some of the G-rich pre-miRNAs can potentially adopt the G-quadruplex structure as an alternative to the canonical stem-loop structure. For example, human pre-miRNA 92b adopts a G-quadruplex structure which is resistant to the Dicer mediated cleavage in the cytoplasm. Although either strand of the duplex may potentially act as a functional miRNA, only one strand is usually incorporated into the RNA-induced silencing complex (RISC) where the miRNA and its mRNA target interact.


title: MicroRNA

text: While the majority of miRNAs are located within the cell, some miRNAs, commonly known as circulating miRNAs or extracellular miRNAs, have also been found in extracellular environment, including various biological fluids and cell culture media.


title: MicroRNA

text: miRNA biogenesis in plants differs from animal biogenesis mainly in the steps of nuclear processing and export. Instead of being cleaved by two different enzymes, once inside and once outside the nucleus, both cleavages of the plant miRNA are performed by a Dicer homolog, called Dicer-like1 (DL1). DL1 is expressed only in the nucleus of plant cells, which indicates that both reactions take place inside the nucleus. Before plant miRNA:miRNA* duplexes are transported out of the nucleus, its 3' overhangs are methylated by a RNA methyltransferaseprotein called Hua-Enhancer1 (HEN1). The duplex is then transported out of the nucleus to the cytoplasm by a protein called Hasty (HST), an Exportin 5 homolog, where they disassemble and the mature miRNA is incorporated into the RISC.


title: MicroRNA

text: The mature miRNA is part of an active RNA-induced silencing complex (RISC) containing Dicer and many associated proteins. RISC is also known as a microRNA ribonucleoprotein complex (miRNP); A RISC with incorporated miRNA is sometimes referred to as a "miRISC."


title: MicroRNA

text: Dicer processing of the pre-miRNA is thought to be coupled with unwinding of the duplex. Generally, only one strand is incorporated into the miRISC, selected on the basis of its thermodynamic instability and weaker base-pairing on the 5' end relative to the other strand. The position of the stem-loop may also influence strand choice. The other strand, called the passenger strand due to its lower levels in the steady state, is denoted with an asterisk (*) and is normally degraded. In some cases, both strands of the duplex are viable and become functional miRNA that target different mRNA populations.


title: MicroRNA

text: Members of the Argonaute (Ago) protein family are central to RISC function. Argonautes are needed for miRNA-induced silencing and contain two conserved RNA binding domains: a PAZ domain that can bind the single stranded 3' end of the mature miRNA and a PIWI domain that structurally resembles ribonuclease-H and functions to interact with the 5' end of the guide strand. They bind the mature miRNA and orient it for interaction with a target mRNA. Some argonautes, for example human Ago2, cleave target transcripts directly; argonautes may also recruit additional proteins to achieve translational repression. The human genome encodes eight argonaute proteins divided by sequence similarities into two families: AGO (with four members present in all mammalian cells and called E1F2C/hAgo in humans), and PIWI (found in the germ line and hematopoietic stem cells).


title: MicroRNA

text: Additional RISC components include TRBP [human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) transactivating response RNA (TAR) binding protein], PACT (protein activator of the interferon-induced protein kinase), the SMN complex, fragile X mental retardation protein (FMRP), Tudor staphylococcal nuclease-domain-containing protein (Tudor-SN), the putative DNA helicase MOV10, and the RNA recognition motif containing protein TNRC6B.


title: MicroRNA

text: Gene silencing may occur either via mRNA degradation or preventing mRNA from being translated. For example, miR16 contains a sequence complementary to the AU-rich element found in the 3'UTR of many unstable mRNAs, such as TNF alpha or GM-CSF. It has been demonstrated that given complete complementarity between the miRNA and target mRNA sequence, Ago2 can cleave the mRNA and lead to direct mRNA degradation. In the absence of complementarity, silencing is achieved by preventing translation. The relation of miRNA and its target mRNA can be based on the simple negative regulation of a target mRNA, but it seems that a common scenario is the use of a "coherent feed-forward loop", "mutual negative feedback loop" (also termed double negative loop) and "positive feedback/feed-forward loop". Some miRNAs work as buffers of random gene expression changes arising due to stochastic events in transcription, translation and protein stability. Such regulation is typically achieved by the virtue of negative feedback loops or incoherent feed-forward loop uncoupling protein output from mRNA transcription.


title: MicroRNA

text: Turnover of mature miRNA is needed for rapid changes in miRNA expression profiles. During miRNA maturation in the cytoplasm, uptake by the Argonaute protein is thought to stabilize the guide strand, while the opposite (* or "passenger") strand is preferentially destroyed. In what has been called a "Use it or lose it" strategy, Argonaute may preferentially retain miRNAs with many targets over miRNAs with few or no targets, leading to degradation of the non-targeting molecules.


title: MicroRNA

text: Decay of mature miRNAs in "Caenorhabditis elegans" is mediated by the 5'-to-3' exoribonuclease XRN2, also known as Rat1p. In plants, SDN (small RNA degrading nuclease) family members degrade miRNAs in the opposite (3'-to-5') direction. Similar enzymes are encoded in animal genomes, but their roles have not been described.


title: MicroRNA

text: Several miRNA modifications affect miRNA stability. As indicated by work in the model organism "Arabidopsis thaliana" (thale cress), mature plant miRNAs appear to be stabilized by the addition of methyl moieties at the 3' end. The 2'-O-conjugated methyl groups block the addition of uracil (U) residues by uridyltransferase enzymes, a modification that may be associated with miRNA degradation. However, uridylation may also protect some miRNAs; the consequences of this modification are incompletely understood. Uridylation of some animal miRNAs has been reported. Both plant and animal miRNAs may be altered by addition of adenine (A) residues to the 3' end of the miRNA. An extra A added to the end of mammalian miR-122, a liver-enriched miRNA important in hepatitis C, stabilizes the molecule and plant miRNAs ending with an adenine residue have slower decay rates.