title: DashCon

text: In September 2014, "The Daily Dot" published an article where they reported on concerns that DashCon had renamed/rebranded itself Emoti-Con (aka Emoti-Con Indy) which was being led by Cain Hopkins, a co-creator of DashCon. Hopkins's company, So Attacked Entertainment LLC, then created a webpage for the con. The writer noted that the two conventions were nearly identical in their themes, that Emoti-Con was to be held in the same venue that the second DashCon was to be hosted at, the Emoti-Con website contained much of the same text as the DashCon website, and that it was being organized by one of the co-creators of DashCon. DashCon later denied that the two cons were the same via a post on their official Tumblr account, where they stated that while Emoti-Con was being organized by two of the three owners of DashCon, the two events are otherwise unrelated to one another. They also stated that Emoti-Con would be "functioning under a very different infrastructure than DashCon did, with a more experienced and well-rounded staff". Emoti-Con was later canceled, with their official Tumblr account citing "personal, financial, and safety" issues.


title: Orthoptera

text: Orthoptera () is an order of insects that comprises the grasshoppers, locusts, and crickets, including closely related insects, such as the bush crickets or katydids and wētā. The order is subdivided into two suborders: Caelifera – grasshoppers, locusts, and close relatives; and Ensifera – crickets and close relatives.


title: Orthoptera

text: More than 20,000 species are distributed worldwide. The insects in the order have incomplete metamorphosis, and produce sound (known as a "stridulation") by rubbing their wings against each other or their legs, the wings or legs containing rows of corrugated bumps. The tympanum, or ear, is located in the front tibia in crickets, mole crickets, and bush crickets or katydids, and on the first abdominal segment in the grasshoppers and locusts. These organisms use vibrations to locate other individuals.


title: Orthoptera

text: Grasshoppers and other orthopterans are able to fold their wings (i.e. they are members of Neoptera).


title: Orthoptera

text: The name is derived from the Greek ὀρθός "orthos" meaning "straight" and πτερόν "pteron" meaning "wing".


title: Orthoptera

text: Orthopterans have a generally cylindrical body, with elongated hindlegs and musculature adapted for jumping. They have mandibulate mouthparts for biting and chewing and large compound eyes, and may or may not have ocelli, depending on the species. The antennae have multiple joints and filiform type, and are of variable length.


title: Orthoptera

text: The first and third segments on the thorax are larger, while the second segment is much smaller. They have two pairs of wings, which are held overlapping the abdomen at rest. The forewings, or tegmina, are narrower than the hindwings and hardened at the base, while the hindwings are membranous, with straight veins and numerous cross-veins. At rest, the hindwings are held folded fan-like under the forewings. The final two to three segments of the abdomen are reduced, and have single-segmented cerci.


title: Orthoptera

text: Orthopterans have a paurometabolous lifecycle or incomplete metamorphosis. The use of sound is generally crucial in courtship, and most species have distinct songs. Most grasshoppers lay their eggs in the ground or on vegetation. The eggs hatch and the young nymphs resemble adults, but lack wings and at this stage are often called 'hoppers'. They may often also have a radically different coloration from the adults. Through successive moults, the nymphs develop wings until their final moult into a mature adult with fully developed wings.


title: Orthoptera

text: The number of moults varies between species; growth is also very variable and may take a few weeks to some months depending on food availability and weather conditions.


title: Orthoptera

text: The Orthoptera are divided into two suborders, Caelifera and Ensifera, that have been shown to be monophyletic.


title: Orthoptera

text: Taxonomists classify members of the Caelifera and Ensifera into infraorders and superfamilies as follows:


title: Orthoptera

text: Several species of Orthoptera are considered pests of crops and rangelands or seeking warmth in homes by humans. The two groups of Orthoptera that cause the most damage are grasshoppers and locusts. Locust are historically known for wiping out fields of crops in a day. Locust have the ability to eat up to their own body weight in a single day. Individuals gather in large groups called swarms, these swarms can range up to 80 million individuals that stretch 460 square miles. Grasshoppers can cause major agricultural damage but not to the documented extent as locust historically have. These insects mainly feed on weeds and grasses, however, during times of drought and high population density they will feed on crops. They are known pest in soybean fields and will likely feed on these crops once preferred food sources have become scarce.


title: Orthoptera

text: Most orthopterans are edible, making up 13% of all insects including some 80 species of grasshoppers being regularly consumed worldwide. In Madagascar and Oaxaca, grasshoppers and locusts are usually collected early in the morning when it is cooler as the orthopterans are less mobile due to being cold-blooded. In Thailand, house crickets are commonly reared and eaten; as of 2012, around 20,000 cricket farmers had farms in 53 of their 76 provinces.


title: Orthoptera

text: In the second century BCE in Ancient Greece, Diodorus Siculus is known to have called people from Ethiopia "Acridophagi", meaning "eaters of locusts."


title: Orthoptera

text: In Judaism, the Orthoptera include the only insects considered kosher. The list of dietary laws in the book of Leviticus forbids all flying insects that walk, but makes an exception for certain locusts. Notably, the dragonfly and crane fly are not considered kosher even though they are helpless when unable to fly. The Torah states the only kosher flying insects with four walking legs have knees that extend above their feet so that they hop.


title: Orthoptera

text: With new research showing promise in locating alternative biofuel sources in the gut of insects, grasshoppers are one species of interest. The insect's ability to break down cellulose and lignin without producing greenhouse gases has aroused scientific interest.


title: Zaynab bint Ali

text: Zaynab bint Ali (, ", ), was the eldest daughter of Ali, the fourth Rashidun caliph () and the first Shia Imam, and Fatima, the daughter of the Islamic prophet Muhammad. Zaynab is best known for her role in the aftermath of the Battle of Karbala (680), in which her brother Husayn and his family and companions were massacred by the forces of Yazid I (). The women and children were taken captive after the battle and marched to Kufa and then Damascus, where Zaynab gave impassioned speeches, condemning Yazid and spreading the news of Karbala. She was later freed and died shortly afterward in 682, though her burial site is uncertain.


title: Zaynab bint Ali

text: The two shrines associated with Zaynab in Damascus and Cairo are destinations for Muslim pilgrimage. She is considered to be a figure of sacrifice, strength, and piety in Islam, and a role model for Muslim women, typifying courage, leadership, and defiance against oppression.


title: Zaynab bint Ali

text: The name 'Zaynab' can be translated as 'adornment of father'. She is also known as Zaynab al-Kubra () to distinguish her from her younger sister Umm Kulthum or Zaynab al-Sughra (). Another title of Zaynab is Aqilatu Bani Hashim (), where literally means 'the secluded one' or 'pearl'. She is also recognized as Batalatu al-Karbala () for her role in that event. She is also known simply as al-Sayyida (), and in Egypt as al-Tahira () and Umm al-Yat'am'a (), among others.


title: Zaynab bint Ali

text: Zaynab was the third child of Ali and Fatima, and their eldest daughter, though there is no clarity about the other details of her early life. In particular, the year of her birth is given variously by different sources as 4-6/626-8 or 9/631. Shia Muslims celebrate her birthday annually on 5 Jumada al-Awwal.


title: Zaynab bint Ali

text: The name 'Zaynab' was chosen by her grandfather Muhammad, who attributed the name to divine inspiration. When she was born, Gabriel is said to have forewarned Muhammad about her difficult life. The prophet was very fond of his granddaughter, saying that she resembled his wife Khadija (). Shia sources also emphasize the intense devotion of the young Zaynab to her brother Husayn. Unlike her parents and her two brothers, namely, Hasan and Husayn, Zaynab is not among the Fourteen Infallibles in Twelver Shia. As she was raised with and by infallibles, she is nevertheless believed to have had "minor infallibility" in Twelver Shia.


title: Zaynab bint Ali

text: As a young child, she might have foreseen her future trials: The young Zaynab is said to have seen in a dream that she was caught in a large tree amidst a storm. When the tree was uprooted by the strong winds, she grasped for branches and twigs, which also broke one after another, and she woke us as she began to fall. Muhammad told her that the tree, the branches, and the twigs represented her grandfather, parents, and brothers, respectively, who would all die before her.


title: Zaynab bint Ali

text: Muhammad died in 11/632 and Zaynab thus lost her grandfather at an early age. As his family prepared for the burial, a group of Muslims gathered at the Saqifa and appointed Abu Bakr () as Muhammad's successor in the absence of his family and the majority of the Muhajirun (Meccan Muslims). Ali, Fatima, and some supporters did not recognize the caliphate of Abu Bakr, saying that Muhammad had appointed Ali as his successor at the Ghadir Khumm shortly before his death.


title: Zaynab bint Ali

text: Soon after the Saqifa affair, Umar () is known to have led an armed mob to Ali's residence and threatened to set the house on fire if Ali and his supporters did not pledge their allegiance to Abu Bakr. The confrontation then grew violent, but the mob retreated without securing Ali's pledge."


title: Zaynab bint Ali

text: Fatima died in the same year, within six months of Muhammad's death, and at the age of about eighteen or twenty-seven years old. Shia Islam alleges that she miscarried her child and died from the injuries she suffered in an attack on her house to subdue Ali, instigated by Abu Bakr and led by his aide Umar. These allegations are rejected by Sunnis, who believe that Fatima died from grief after Muhammad's death and that her child died in infancy of natural causes.


title: Zaynab bint Ali

text: Zaynab thus lost her mother at the age of about five. The Sunni Abd al-Rahman () writes that Fatima on her deathbed entrusted Zaynab with a white garment for Husayn to wear as his shroud () when leaving for the battlefield in Karbala.


title: Zaynab bint Ali

text: Zaynab married her paternal cousin Abd Allah, whose father Ja'far al-Tayyar ibn Abi Talib was Muhammad's cousin and a prominent early Muslim who fell in the Battle of Mu'ta (629) against the Byzantines.


title: Zaynab bint Ali

text: Abd Allah was a narrator of prophetic hadiths, thirteen of which appear in the canonical Sunni collection "Musnad Ibn Hanbal". He also narrated hadiths from Shia Imams and might have lived long enough to be a companion to the Shia Imam Muhammad al-Baqir (), though this is not reported by the Shia Shaykh Tusi (). Abd Allah was wealthy and known for his generosity, though he is said to have lived modestly, and their marriage ceremony is described as a simple affair. The Shia Eshtehardi writes that Zaynab married Abd Allah on the condition that she would be allowed to visit Husayn daily and travel with him.


title: Zaynab bint Ali

text: The couple had four sons, named Ali, Awn, Abbas, and Muhammad, and a daughter named Umm Kulthum. Esposito differs here, saying that the couple had three sons and two daughters, without naming them. Awn and Muhammad were killed in the Battle of Karbala. There is no information about Abbas at hand but Zaynab's lineage continued through Ali, also known as Ali al-Zaynabi.


title: Zaynab bint Ali

text: For her knowledge of prophetic hadiths, Ibn Abbas () referred to Zaynab as Aqilatu Bani Hashim (). According to Hamdar, her reputation among the hadith scholars was such that they cited Ali as the 'father of Zaynab' during the Umayyad's ban on speaking about Ali. She also taught Quranic exegesis to women in Medina and later in Kufa, and was likely trained in this by her father Ali, whom Qutbuddin considers "the most learned of [Islamic] sages."


title: Zaynab bint Ali

text: Zaynab is described as eloquent, reputedly reminding the listeners of his father Ali. A sermon attributed to Zaynab after the Battle of Karbala is recorded by Ibn Abi Tahir Tayfur () in his "Balaghat al-nisa'", an anthology of eloquent speeches by women"." The book also contains another sermon, attributed to Zaynab's sister Umm Kulthum, which has been nevertheless ascribed to Zaynab by most later authors, including Ibn A'tham. Qutbuddin considers this latter attribution a strong possibility.


title: Zaynab bint Ali

text: Ali was elected caliph in 656 and established himself in Kufa as his "de-facto" capital in 656-7. Zaynab and Abd Allah accompanied him to Kufa. Ali was later assassinated during the morning prayers at the Mosque of Kufa in January 661, during the month of Ramadan. The Shia "Al-irshad" details that Ali spent his last night as Zaynab's guest for Iftar and Suhur, and that the wounded Ali was brought back to her house after the attack. Ali's eldest son Hasan was soon elected caliph after Ali but abdicated in favor of Mu'awiya () in August 661, facing the latter's overwhelming military superiority and the weak support of the Iraqis for war. The peace treaty with Mu'awiya stipulated that he should not appoint a successor.


title: Zaynab bint Ali

text: Hasan returned to Medina after abdication, accompanied by the family, where he kept aloof from politics in compliance with the peace treaty with Mu'awiya. Early sources are nearly unanimous that Hasan was later poisoned at the instigation of Mu'awiya in 669, possibly to pave the way for the succession of his son Yazid (). Zaynab is said to have attended her brother Hasan in his final days. Hasan was thus succeeded as the head of Muhammad's family by his brother Husayn, who upheld the treaty with Mu'awiya.


title: Zaynab bint Ali

text: Mu'awiya designated his son Yazid as his successor in 676, violating his earlier agreement with Ali's eldest son Hasan. Yazid is often remembered by Muslim historians as a debaucher who openly violated the Islamic norms, and his nomination was met with resistance from the sons of Muhammad's prominent companions, including Husayn ibn Ali.


title: Zaynab bint Ali

text: On Mu'awiya's death and Yazid's succession in 60/680, the latter instructed the governor of Medina to secure Husayn's pledge of allegiance by force, and Husayn thus fled to Mecca at night to avoid recognizing Yazid as the caliph. He was accompanied by some relatives, including Zaynab and two of his sons, namely, Awn and Muhammad.


title: Zaynab bint Ali

text: Zaynab's husband Abd Allah did not accompany Husayn even though he was sympathetic to Husayn's cause, writes the Sunni al-Tabari (). The Shia Eshtehardi suggests that Abd Allah's absence must have been due to his poor health or old age and that sending his sons to fight for Husayn was an indication of his support. In contrast, the Sunni Abd al-Rahman writes that Zaynab must have divorced Abd Allah before leaving and that he later married Zaynab's sister Umm Kulthum, though her views have been criticized by some. As the husband's permission is normally necessary in such cases, some have suggested that a condition of her marriage to Abd Allah was that Zaynab could accompany Husayn in all his travels or specifically to Karbala.


title: Zaynab bint Ali

text: After receiving letters of support from Kufans, whose intentions were confirmed by his cousin Muslim ibn Aqil, Husayn left Mecca for Kufa on 8 or 10 Dhu al-Hijja (10 or 12 September 680) with some relatives and supporters. In the canonical Shia "al-Irshad", Husayn is reported to have said that his intention was to fight the tyranny of Yazid, even though he knew he was going to be killed. He similarly wrote in his will for his brother Ibn Hanafiyya that he had not set out to seek "corruption or oppression" but rather to "enjoin what is right and forbid what is wrong," as reported by "Maqtal al-awalim" and "al-Maqtal". On his way to Kufa, Husayn's small caravan was intercepted by Yazid's army and forced to camp in the desert land of Karbala on 2 Muharram 61 (2 October 680) away from water and fortifications. The promised support of the Kufans did not materialize as the new governor of Kufa, Ubayd Allah ibn Ziyad (), killed Husayn's envoy and intimidated the Kufan tribal chiefs.


title: Zaynab bint Ali

text: On 7 Muharram, acting on orders of Ibn Ziyad, the Umayyad commander Umar ibn Sa'd () cut off Husayn's access to the nearby Euphrates. Husayn's (half) brother Abbas and some fifty companions were nevertheless able to bring back some water to Husayn's camp in a night sortie. Despite this attempt, Veccia Vaglieri () believes that Husayn's camp suffered from thirst for three days, while Adibzadeh notes the hot desert climate of Karbala. Pinault similarly writes that the camp suffered from hunger and thirst during the siege, and the opinion of Hamdar is close.


title: Zaynab bint Ali

text: Ibn Sa'd was instructed by Ibn Ziyad not to let Husayn leave unless he pledged his allegiance to Yazid. Husayn did not submit to Yazid, but negotiated with Ibn Ziyad through Ibn Sa'd to be allowed to retreat and avoid bloodshed, but the governor did not relent, finally ordering Ibn Sa'd to fight, kill, and disfigure Husayn and his supporters unless they pledged allegiance to Yazid, in which case Ibn Ziyad would later decide whether to punish or forgive them.


title: Zaynab bint Ali

text: Having received his final orders from Ibn Ziyad, Ibn Sa'd prepared to attack in the afternoon of Tasu'a (9 Muharram). As the Umayyad's army approached, Husayn sent his brother Abbas and some companions to Ibn Sa'd, convincing the Umayyad commander to delay the confrontation until the following day. Husayn then besieged his followers in a speech to leave under the cloak of night and not risk their lives for his sake, after which nearly all of his followers renewed their pledges of support. Husayn also revived and consoled Zaynab who had fainted in despair from the news, writes Veccia Vaglieri.


title: Zaynab bint Ali

text: Husayn and his companions spent the night praying and reading the Quran, reports the Shia Ibn Tawus () and most works. On this night, Zaynab is said to have reminded her brother Abbas of their father's wish for the latter to be the reserves of Karbala, and to be to Husayn as Ali was to Muhammad. This Abbas confirmed and swore to do.


title: Zaynab bint Ali

text: On the morning of Ashura (10 Muharram), Husayn organized his supporters, some seventy-two men, and then spoke to the enemy lines and asked them why they considered it lawful to kill Muhammad's grandson. The Umayyad commander al-Hurr ibn Yazid al-Tamimi defected to Husayn's side after this speech. The Umayyad army then showered the camp with arrows, thus commencing the battle which lasted from morning till sunset and consisted of incidents of single combat, skirmishes, assaults, and retreats. The Umayyad army also set Husayn's tents on fire, though al-Tabari writes that the tent of Husayn's wives (and children) was spared, adding that Shamir ibn Dhi al-Jawshan was dissuaded by others from setting that tent aflame.


title: Zaynab bint Ali

text: The companions all perished by the early afternoon and were followed by the Banu Hashim, including two sons of Husayn, three sons of Hasan, and the two sons of Zaynab present at Karbala, whom she is said to have encouraged to fight. For the Shia, Zaynab's motive in sacrificing her children was the survival of (Shia) Islam, even more so than her love for Husayn. A well-known account by the Shia Ibn Tawus and others states that Husayn's standard-bearer Abbas was killed during a desperate attempt on the evening of Ashura to bring water from the Euphrates to quench the unbearable thirst of the besieged family of Muhammad.


title: Zaynab bint Ali

text: Zaynab consoled the families of the fallen warriors throughout the day, cared for the wounded, and witnessed the battle from a platform () made of saddles, though she is said to have remained in her tent when it was the turn of her sons to fight. There is a report that she rushed to the battlefield to help at some point on Ashura but was called back by Husayn who instructed her to care for the women, the children, and the wounded. Al-Tabari similarly writes that Zaynab ran to the scene and threw herself on her nephew Ali al-Akbar ibn Husayn crying when the latter was killed in the fight. Husayn walked her back to the camp.


title: Zaynab bint Ali

text: As Husayn's last remaining warrior thus fell, the Umayyad army converged on the lone Imam, who fought until the end. Before he left for the battlefield one last time, Zaynab kissed him on behalf of their mother Fatima to fulfill her wish, writes the Shia Eshtehardi on the authority of Zaynab. According to al-Tabari, Husayn in turn asked Zaynab not to lament after his imminent death. When the wounded Husayn finally fell from his horse and was surrounded, Zaynab is said to have run towards him, beseeching Ibn Sa'd to spare his brother's life, but the Umayyad commander ignored her request.


title: Zaynab bint Ali

text: Al-Tabari writes that Husayn's family witnessed as he was repeatedly stabbed and slashed by the Umayyad soldiers. Husayn was then decapitated by Shamir or Sinan ibn Anas or Khawali ibn Yazid Asbahi, though the common narratives of the battle hold Shamir responsible for this. Some sources add that Zaynab had returned to the camp, urged by the dying Husayn, and did not witness the beheading of his brother, though al-Tabari differs here. The modern narratives about Karbala often emphasize that Zaynab did not break down as she witnessed the murder of his brother, following Husayn's earlier wishes. Standing over Husayn's body, she reputedly uttered, "O God! Accept from us this offering," to the bewilderment of the enemy soldiers.


title: Zaynab bint Ali

text: After the death of Husayn, the Umayyad soldiers stole his garments and personal belongings, pillaged the camp, and severed the heads of his killed companions, which they then raised on spears for display. There are also reports of children's death during the stampede. Acting upon earlier orders of Ibn Ziyad, the body of Husayn was trampled by ten horsemen who volunteered to "inflict this final indignity" upon him. Some seventy-two bodies of Husayn and his companions were later buried by the Banu Asad men of the nearby al-Ghadiriyya village.


title: Zaynab bint Ali

text: The women and children were taken captive, including Zaynab and Umm Kulthum. Among the captives was also Husayn's only surviving son Ali, who had been too ill to fight. Often known by the honorific titles al-Sajjad and Zayn al-Abidin, Ali ibn al-Husayn was later recognized as the fourth of the Twelve Imams and it was through him that the line of Shia Imams continued. Shamir attempted to kill Ali too, but Zaynab successfully pleaded to him to spare his life, saying that she had to be killed first. The captives mourned Husayn shortly after the battle.


title: Zaynab bint Ali

text: The captives were marched back to Kufa, arriving there on 12 Muharram, and there are reports that the women were dishonored and ogled, and the captives were humiliated, carried on unsaddled camels and, according to al-Tabari, bound in ropes and shackles. The captives were then paraded in shackles and unveiled around the city alongside the heads of Husayn and his companions on spears. Deeb believes that the captives regarded Zaynab as their leader.


title: Zaynab bint Ali

text: The Sunni Ibn Tayfur records two speeches about Karbala in his "Balaghat al-nisa"', one attributed to Umm Kulthum in the market of Kufa and the other given by Zaynab at the court of Yazid in Damascus. Most later Shia authors, however, have attributed both sermons to Zaynab, which Qutbuddin considers highly likely. Ibn Tayfur writes that the Kufans wailed and wept when they saw the prophet's family in captivity. Zaynab then addressed the crowd and chastised them for their role in Husayn's death and recounted the events of Karbala.


title: Zaynab bint Ali

text: As reported by the Sunni al-Tabari and the Shia Shaykh al-Mufid (), the captives were then brought to Ibn Ziyad, who boasted to Zaynab about killing Husayn and his family. She countered with the Verse of Purification (33:33) and the elevated status of Muhammad's family in the Quran, adding that murder was ordained for Husayn and his supporters, and that God will soon judge between them and Ibn Ziyad. Her response angered the governor who nevertheless restrained himself after his men told him that a woman could not be blamed for what she said. Ibn Ziyad also ordered the lone male survivor of the battle to be executed but was dissuaded when Zaynab protected his nephew Ali ibn Husayn and asked to be killed before him, as reported by Abu Mikhnaf (), Ibn Sa'd (), and al-Tabari. After releasing the non-Hashemite captives, Ibn Ziyad imprisoned the rest for a while and then sent them to Damascus.


title: Zaynab bint Ali

text: The caravan's route to Damascus is uncertain, though Pinault believes that they were taken through the desert path. Al-Khawrazmi (tenth century) in his "al-Maqtal" writes that the captives were taken from "village to village" and displayed, while al-Ya'qubi () reports that Ibn Abbas reprimanded Yazid in a letter for parading the women of Muhammad's family from Kufa to Damascus to show his victory, adding that this was worse in his view than the massacre of Husayn and his family.


title: Zaynab bint Ali

text: The captives were paraded in the streets of Damascus and then imprisoned for an unspecified period of time. When brought to the caliph, Veccia Vaglieri writes that Yazid treated the captives kindly after an initial harsh interview. Similar accounts have been offered by Madelung and Halm. In contrast, Momen writes that Yazid insulted the captives but was forced to release them later as the public opinion began to sway in their favor, fearing unrest in his territory. Similar views are expressed in the works of Esposito, Osman, Aghaie, Pinault, Tabatabai (), and Munson.


title: Zaynab bint Ali

text: According to the Shia Tabarsi () and the Sunni Abu Mikhnaf, the captives were brought in a ceremony to the caliph, who recited poetry and gloated about avenging his pagan family members killed at the Battle of Badr (624) over the severed head of Husayn. By some accounts, Yazid also dishonored the severed head with blows from a cane, though other reports attribute this episode to Ibn Ziyad, including the account of Veccia Vaglieri in which a respectful Yazid blames and curses his governor for killing Husayn. Recounting this account, Madelung adds that the early (Sunni) sources tend to exonerate the caliph at the cost of Ibn Ziyad, and argues that the prime responsibility for killing Husayn rests with Yazid.


title: Zaynab bint Ali

text: Ibn Tayfur in his "Balaghat al-nisa"' attributes to Zaynab a speech in the court of Yazid, where she is said to have interrupted Yazid's insults and addressed his court harshly, lamenting Husayn, castigating Yazid, and defending the family of Muhammad. She addressed the caliph as "the son of " (, those who were pardoned by Muhammad upon his victorious return to Mecca), and asked him if it was just to keep his women guarded and parade the daughters of Muhammad in the streets.


title: Zaynab bint Ali

text: As with the Kufa speech, this second sermon attributed to Zaynab is infused with several Quranic references, as she called Yazid's victory temporary, his efforts futile, and his shame eternal, quoting verse 3:179, "Let not disbelievers think that our respite is a good thing. Indeed, we give them respite so that they may increase in trespass, and a shameful punishment awaits them," and verse 11:18, "The curse of God be upon the oppressor," among others.


title: Zaynab bint Ali

text: There are reports by the Sunni al-Tabari and the Shia Ibn Babawayh () that a Syrian at one point asked the caliph to give her a daughter of Husayn as a slave but Zaynab challenged and dissuaded Yazid from granting permission. The Shia jurisprudent Mughniyya () writes that Zaynab in Damascus was asked sarcastically how she perceived the events of Karbala, to which she replied, "I have not seen anything except that it was beautiful" (). This response in that hostile environment, contends Mughniyya, highlights Zaynab's political strength and vision. A young child of Husayn is said to have died in Damascus, often identified as Sakina or Ruqayye. The narrative emphasizes her suffering and death in captivity. In Damascus, the captives continued to mourn Husayn, possibly joined by some women from Yazid's court.


title: Zaynab bint Ali

text: The captives were eventually freed and allowed to return to Medina or escorted back. Pinault and Adibzadeh write that the caravan returned by way of Karbala, where they halted to mourn their dead. In the narrative, the family of Muhammad was assisted by a man named Bashir, who was generously compensated by Zaynab and others from the little that was left after the looting on Ashura.


title: Zaynab bint Ali

text: The Shia view is that Zaynab's words must have swayed some in Yazid's court, especially his women, and thus compelled the caliph to disassociate himself from the events in Karbala and blame his governor for them. Similar views have been voiced by some contemporary authors.


title: Zaynab bint Ali

text: Zaynab died in 682 at the age of about fifty-six, not long after returning to Medina from Damascus. Adamec () gives the year 681 instead. The Shia annually commemorate the most frequently cited date of 15 Rajab for this occasion, though other dates found in the sources are 11 and 21 of Jumadi al-Thani, 24 Safar, and 16 Dhu al-Hijja.


title: Zaynab bint Ali

text: Little is known about Zaynab's life after returning to Medina, though the silence of al-Tabari about it suggests that she was not involved with the uprising of Abd-Allah ibn al-Zubayr. Some reports state that she died in Medina, others say that she travelled with her husband to his Syrian estates, where she died, and yet other sources write that she was exiled, possibly to Egypt, for publicizing the events of Karbala. As such, her burial place is uncertain, with claims made both for Sayyida Zaynab Mosque in the suburbs of Damascus and another mosque at the heart of Cairo with the same name. While the Sunni al-Tabari placed her grave in Cairo and the Shia Muhsin al-Amin () considered Damascus unlikely, the key evidence offered in favor of Cairo is the existence of the shrine itself, which officially dates back to the third century AH, supplemented by the testimonies of travellers and notables who lived at least two centuries after Zaynab. The shrines in Damascus and Cairo are both destinations for Muslim pilgrimage, the former often visited by the Shia and the latter often by the Sunni.


title: Zaynab bint Ali

text: Following the precedents of Zaynab and Shia Imams in mourning Husayn, Shia Muslims commemorate the Karbala events throughout the months of Muharram and Safar, particularly during the first ten days of Muharram, culminating on Ashura with processions in major Shia cities. The main component of these ritual ceremonies (, sing. ) is the narration of the stories of Karbala, intended to raise sympathy and move the audience to tears. It is in these ceremonies that Zaynab and other women of Karbala are also commemorated.


title: Zaynab bint Ali

text: Qutbuddin identifies Zaynab as a role model for Muslim women and a symbol of "courage, fortitude, leadership, eloquence, devotion, and faith." This view is common, and her steadfast stance against tyranny and oppression has been widely emulated by Muslim female activists, particularly in the recent histories of Iran and Lebanon. Zaynab's birthday is recognized as Nurses Day in Iran, possibly because she cared for the wounded in Karbala.


title: Zaynab bint Ali

text: The Karbala event is the single most important episode in the history of Shia. The Shia view it is as the ultimate struggle between justice and truth against oppression and falsehood, in which Husayn offered all that was dear to him in the righteous struggle () in God's cause. Zaynab is described as Husayn's partner in his , whose activism transformed Karbala from a tragedy to a victory, writes Osman. Without her " of words," the events of Karbala would have been forgotten, contends Hamdar.


title: Venus Butterfly

text: The Venus Butterfly is a term used for various sexual techniques, one of which was the subject of the 1988 book "The One Hour Orgasm." It was first publicly mentioned in a 1986 episode of the American television drama "L.A. Law," although a technique of the same name appears in the book "The Sensuous Woman," which was first published in 1969.


title: Venus Butterfly

text: In an episode of "L.A. Law" titled "The Venus Butterfly", which first aired on November 21, 1986, a man who is unimpressive in appearance and personality, but who nevertheless has tremendous success with women, claims to have a sexual technique that has caused this success, and reveals it to his lawyer, Stuart Markowitz (Michael Tucker). The technique itself is never described to the audience. In a hotel bedroom scene it is implied that Markowitz uses the technique on his girlfriend, Ann Kelsey (Jill Eikenberry), with great positive effect. According to authors Tim Brooks & Earle Marsh, the Venus Butterfly was pivotal in Kelsey and Markowitz becoming a long-term couple.


title: Venus Butterfly

text: The writer of that section of the episode, Terry Louise Fisher, stated that she had just made it up. The show received many letters and phone calls from viewers asking what it was, as well as two requests to license the term. "Playboy" magazine did a feature speculating on what the technique was and included suggestions from readers. Years later, actors on the show reported still being asked about it.


title: Venus Butterfly

text: As described by writer and sex educator Sue Johanson in 2005, the Venus Butterfly is a variant of cunnilingus. It involves using one's tongue on a woman's clitoris, using one's fingers on her vagina and using the other hand in the perineal area, "even penetrating the rectum [i.e. anus] if that is pleasurable for her." A similar description was given in a 2004 episode of the TV series "Rescue Me."


title: Venus Butterfly

text: The 1988 book "The One Hour Orgasm: How to Learn the Amazing "Venus Butterfly" Technique," written by Leah and Bob Schwartz, is dedicated to educating readers on how to perform the technique. In this variation either the woman or man is lying down, and their partner, sitting next to them with their legs positioned around each other, very gently, with just the minimal amount of pressure (the "touch" of a butterfly's wing, at least on the clitoris) stimulates the clitoris or the hood, with the penis at the two-o'clock or ten-o'clock position. The book suggests keeping the clitoral shaft steady with one thumb laid gently along and beside it, with the other thumb lying lengthwise just within the vagina but not moving deep within it. (All of this is done using a lubricant.) The light pressure continues using the same speed throughout until a peak is reached close to orgasm but not quite (although it can be continued if multiple orgasms are the goal), then the speed is slowed down even further or stopped, but very soon continued again and the person is brought back near orgasm or given a second or third orgasm. This orgasm control on the part of the person providing the technique can be learned over time with a particular partner. The technique can be sustained, "surfing" near the orgasm but stopping occasionally, for a very long time, hence the term "One Hour Orgasm".


title: Venus Butterfly

text: The book is mentioned in the film "Meet the Fockers." A set of video-tapes (for him, and for her) were later made by the Schwartz's, showing how the technique is performed.


title: Wentworth Woodhouse

text: Wentworth Woodhouse is a Grade I listed country house in the village of Wentworth, in the Metropolitan Borough of Rotherham in South Yorkshire, England. It is currently owned by the Wentworth Woodhouse Preservation Trust. The building has more than 300 rooms, although the precise number is unclear, with of floorspace ( of living area). It covers an area of more than , and is surrounded by a park, and an estate of .


title: Wentworth Woodhouse

text: The original Jacobean house was rebuilt by Thomas Watson-Wentworth, 1st Marquess of Rockingham (1693–1750), and vastly expanded by his son, the 2nd Marquess, who was twice Prime Minister, and who established Wentworth Woodhouse as a Whig centre of influence. In the 18th century, the house was inherited by the Earls Fitzwilliam who owned it until 1979, when it passed to the heirs of the 8th and 10th Earls, its value having appreciated from the large quantities of coal discovered on the estate.


title: Wentworth Woodhouse

text: Wentworth Woodhouse comprises two joined houses, forming west and east fronts. The original house, now the west front, with the garden range facing northwest towards the village, was built of brick with stone details. The east front of unsurpassed length is credibly said to have been built as the result of a rivalry with the Stainborough branch of the Wentworth family, which inherited Thomas Wentworth, 1st Earl of Strafford's minor title of Baron Raby, but not his estates (including the notable series of Strafford portraits by Anthony van Dyck and Daniel Mytens), which went to Watson who added Wentworth to his surname. The Stainborough Wentworths, for whom the Strafford earldom was revived, lived at nearby Wentworth Castle, which was purchased in 1708 in a competitive spirit and strenuously rebuilt in a magnificent manner.


title: Wentworth Woodhouse

text: The English Baroque, brick-built, western range of Wentworth Woodhouse was begun in 1725 by Thomas Watson-Wentworth, (after 1728 Lord Malton) after he inherited it from his father in 1723. It replaced the Jacobean structure that was once the home of Thomas Wentworth, 1st Earl of Strafford, whom Charles I sacrificed in 1641 to appease Parliament. The builder to whom Wentworth's grandson turned for a plan for the grand scheme that he intended was a local builder and country architect, Ralph Tunnicliffe, who had a practice in Derbyshire and South Yorkshire. Tunnicliffe was pleased enough with this culmination of his provincial practice to issue an engraving signed "R. Tunniclif, "architectus"" which must date before 1734, as it is dedicated to Baron Malton, Watson-Wentworth's earlier title. However the Baroque style was disliked by Whigs, and the new house was not admired. In c. 1734, before the West Front was finished, Wentworth's grandson Thomas Watson-Wentworth commissioned Henry Flitcroft to build the East Front "extension", in fact a new and much larger house, facing the other way, southeastward. The model they settled on was Colen Campbell's Wanstead House, illustrated in "Vitruvius Britannicus" in 1715.


title: Wentworth Woodhouse

text: That same year the rebuilding was already well underway. In a letter from the amateur architect Sir Thomas Robinson of Rokeby to his father-in-law Lord Carlisle of 6 June 1734, Sir Thomas reports that he found the garden front "finished" and that a start had been made on the main front: "when finished 'twill be a stupendous fabric, infinitely superior to anything we have now in England", and he adds "The whole finishing will be entirely submitted to Lord Burlington, and I know of no subject's house in Europe will have 7 such magnificent rooms so finely proportioned as these will be." In the 20th century, Nikolaus Pevsner would agree, but the mention of the architect-earl Burlington, arbiter of architectural taste, boded ill for the provincial surveyor-builder, Tunnicliffe. It is doubtless to Burlington's intervention that about this time, before the West Front was finished, the Earl of Malton, as he had now become, commissioned Henry Flitcroft to revise Tunnicliffe's plan there and build the East Front range. Flitcroft was Burlington's professional architectural amanuensis— "Burlington Harry" as he was called; he had prepared for the engravers the designs of Inigo Jones published by Burlington and William Kent in 1727, and in fact Kent was also called in for confabulation over Wentworth Woodhouse, mediated by Sir Thomas Robinson, though in the event the pedestrian Flitcroft was not unseated and continued to provide designs for the house over the following decade: he revised and enlarged Tunnicliffe's provincial Baroque West Front and added wings, as well as temples and other structures in the park. Contemporary engravings of the grand public East Front give Flitcroft as architect. Flitcroft, right-hand man of the architectural "dilettanti" and fully occupied as well at the Royal Board of Works, could not constantly be on-site, however: Francis Bickerton, surveyor and builder of York, paid bills in 1738 and 1743.


title: Wentworth Woodhouse

text: The grand East Front is the more often illustrated. The West front, the "garden front" that Sir Thomas Robinson found to be finished in 1734, is the private front that looked onto a "giardino segreto" between the house front and the walled kitchen garden, intended for family enjoyment rather than social and political ambitions expressed in the East Front. Most remnants of it were redesigned in the 19th century.


title: Wentworth Woodhouse

text: Wentworth Woodhouse was inherited by Charles Watson-Wentworth, 2nd Marquess of Rockingham, briefly Prime Minister in 1765–66 and again in 1782. He received Benjamin Franklin here in 1771. The architect he employed at the house was John Carr of York, who added an extra storey to parts of the East Front and provided the porticoes to the matching wings, each the equivalent of a moderately grand country house. James "Athenian" Stuart contributed designs for panels in the Pillared Hall. The Whistlejacket Room was named for George Stubbs' portrait that hung in it of Whistlejacket, one of the most famous racehorses of all time. The additions were completed in 1772. The second Marquess envisaged a sculpture gallery at the house, which never came to fruition; four marbles by Joseph Nollekens were carried out to his commission, in expectation of the gallery; the "Diana", signed and dated 1778, is now at the Victoria and Albert Museum, the "Juno", "Venus" and "Minerva", grouped with a Roman antique marble of "Paris", are at the J. Paul Getty Museum.


title: Wentworth Woodhouse

text: Wentworth Woodhouse, with all its contents, subsequently passed to the family of the Marquess's sister, the Earls Fitzwilliam.


title: Wentworth Woodhouse

text: Having finished the course of alterations in the hands of John Carr, Lord Fitzwilliam turned in 1790 to the most prominent landscape gardener, Humphry Repton, for whom this was the season's most ambitious project, one that he would describe in detail while the memory was still fresh, in "Some Observations of the Theory and Practice of Landscape Gardening" (1803). A terrace centred on the main block effected a transition between the house and the rolling grazing land. Four obelisks stood on the bowling green, dwarfed by the scale of the house; Repton re-sited them. Though the parkland had accumulated numerous eye-catchers and features ("see below"), Repton found there were few trees, the house being surrounded by "coarse grass and boulders" which Repton also removed, before the large-scale earth-moving operations began, effected by men with shovels and donkey-carts, to reshape the lumpy ground into smooth swells. Two large pools, visible from the East Front and the approach drive, were excavated into a serpentine shape. Some of Flitcroft's outbuildings were demolished, though not Carr's handsome stable court (1768), entered through a pedimented Tuscan arch. Many trees were planted.


title: Wentworth Woodhouse

text: The grounds (and surrounding area) contain a number of follies and other garden structures, many with associations in the arena of 18th-century Whig politics. They include:


title: Wentworth Woodhouse

text: Many of the structures built by the Rockingham family on and around the Wentworth Woodhouse estate are listed by Historic England. Buildings are listed at one of three grades, I, II* and II, for their architectural and/or historical importance. The house, the stable block and the Rockingham Mausoleum are listed Grade I. Seven structures are listed at Grade II*; the Camellia House, the Needle's Eye, the gateway into the South Court of the house, Keppel's Column, the Hoober Stand and the Ionic and Doric Temples. The park itself is also listed at Grade II* on the Register of Historic Parks and Gardens of Special Historic Interest in England. Structures listed at Grade II include: the run of lampstands on the east front of the house; the Octagon, North, Mausoleum, Peacock and Doric lodges, together with the gates at the Doric Lodge; a number of farm buildings including a dovecote and a duck house; water features including two bridges, a causeway, a cascade and two fountains in pools; three ranges of walls; the Bear Pit and two adjacent statues of Roman soldiers; a garden house, a milestone, a pair of gate piers a Ha-ha and an array of garden statuary including four sets of urns; a pair of vases and the bases of two sundials, the sundials themselves having been removed.


title: Wentworth Woodhouse

text: King George V and Queen Mary visited South Yorkshire from 8 to 12 July 1912, and stayed at Wentworth Woodhouse for four days. The house party consisted of a large number of guests, including: Dr Cosmo Gordon Lang, the then-Archbishop of York; The 5th Earl of Harewood and The Countess of Harewood; The Marchioness of Londonderry; The 1st Marquess of Zetland and Lady Zetland; The 10th Earl of Scarborough and Lady Scarborough; The 5th Earl of Rosse and Lady Rosse; Admiral Lord Charles Beresford and Lady Mina Beresford; Mr Walter Long and Lady Doreen Long; and Lord Helmsley and Lady Helmsley.


title: Wentworth Woodhouse

text: The visit concluded on the evening of 11 July with a torchlight tattoo by miners, and a musical programme by members of the Sheffield Musical Union and the Wentworth Choral Society. A crowd of 25,000 gathered on the lawn to witness the King and Queen in the balcony of the portico, from which the King gave a speech.


title: Wentworth Woodhouse

text: During the Second World War the house acted as a Training Depot and Headquarters of the Intelligence Corps, although by 1945 conditions for trainee intelligence soldiers had deteriorated to such a state that questions were asked in the House of Commons. Some of the training involved motorcycle dispatch rider skills, as Intelligence Corps personnel often used motorcycles. The grounds of the house and surrounding road network were used as motorcycle training areas.


title: Wentworth Woodhouse

text: In April 1946, on the orders of Manny Shinwell (the then Labour Party's Minister of Fuel and Power) a "column of lorries and heavy plant machinery" arrived at Wentworth. The objective was the mining of a large part of the estate close to the house for coal. This was an area where the prolific Barnsley seam was within of the surface and the area in front of the Baroque West wing of the house became the largest open-cast mining site in Britain at that time: 132,000 tons of coal were removed solely from the gardens. Ostensibly the coal was desperately needed in Britain's austere post-war economy to fuel the railways, but the decision has been widely seen as useful cover for an act of class-war spite against the coal-owning aristocracy. A survey by Sheffield University, commissioned by Peter Wentworth-Fitzwilliam, the 8th Earl, found the coal to be "very poor stuff" and "not worth the getting"; this contrasted with Shinwell's assertion that it was "exceptionally good-quality."


title: Wentworth Woodhouse

text: Shinwell, seemingly intent on the destruction of "the privileged rich", decreed that the mining would continue right up to Wentworth Woodhouse. What followed saw the mining of of lawns and woods, the renowned formal gardens and the show-piece pink shale driveway (a by-product of the family's collieries). Ancient trees were uprooted and the debris of earth and rubble was piled high in front of the family's living quarters.


title: Wentworth Woodhouse

text: Local opinion supported the earl. Joe Hall, President of the Yorkshire Area of the National Union of Mineworkers, said that the "miners in this area will go to almost any length rather than see Wentworth Woodhouse destroyed. To many mining communities it is sacred ground". In an industry known for harsh treatment of workers, the Fitzwilliams were respected employers known for treating their employees well. The Yorkshire branch later threatened a strike over the Labour government's plans for Wentworth, and Joe Hall wrote personally to Clement Attlee in a futile attempt to stop the mining. This spontaneous local activism, founded on the genuine popularity of the Fitzwilliam family among locals, was dismissed in Whitehall as "intrigue" sponsored by the earl.


title: Wentworth Woodhouse

text: The open-cast mining moved into the fields to the west of the house and continued into the early 1950s. The mined areas took many years to return to a natural state; much of the woodland and the formal gardens were not replaced. The current owners of the property allege that mining operations near the house caused substantial structural damage to the building due to subsidence, and lodged a claim in 2012 of £100 million for remedial works against the Coal Authority. The claim was heard by the Upper Tribunal (Lands Chamber) in April 2016. In its decision dated 4 October 2016 the Tribunal found that the damage claimed for was not caused by mining subsidence (2016 UKUT 0432 (LC)).


title: Wentworth Woodhouse

text: Two sets of death duties in the 1940s, and the nationalization of their coal mines, greatly reduced the wealth of the Fitzwilliams, and most of the contents of the house were dispersed, in auction sales in 1948, 1986 and 1998. In the Christies sale in 1948, "Rinaldo conquered by Love for Armida" by Anthony van Dyck raised 4,600 Guineas (equivalent to £ in ).


title: Wentworth Woodhouse

text: Many items still remain in the family, with many works lent to museums by the "Trustees of the Fitzwilliam Estates".


title: Wentworth Woodhouse

text: The Ministry of Health attempted to requisition the house as "housing for homeless industrial families". To prevent this, the Earl attempted to donate the house to the National Trust, but the Trust declined to take it. In the end, Lady Mabel Fitzwilliam, sister of the 7th Earl and a local alderman, brokered a deal whereby the West Riding County Council leased most of the house for an educational establishment, leaving forty rooms as a family apartment. Thus, from 1949 to 1979, the house was home to the Lady Mabel College of Physical Education, which trained female physical education teachers. The college later merged with Sheffield City Polytechnic (now Sheffield Hallam University), which eventually gave up the lease in 1988 as a result of high maintenance costs.


title: Wentworth Woodhouse

text: The period 1979 to 1988 saw students from Sheffield City Polytechnic (now Sheffield Hallam University) based at Wentworth Woodhouse. Two departments, Physical Education and B.A. Geography and Environmental Studies were based on site. The mansion building housed student accommodation and a dining room and kitchens for lunch and dinner for students living on site. Four separate blocks of modern student accommodation were built in the grounds of the deer park. The Stable Block became the centre of student life, housing offices, lecture rooms, laboratories, squash courts, a swimming pool, and a student bar.


title: Wentworth Woodhouse

text: By 1989, Wentworth Woodhouse was in a poor state of repair. With the polytechnic no longer a tenant, and with the family no longer requiring the house, the family trustees decided to sell it and the surrounding it, but retained the Wentworth Estate's of land. The house was bought by locally born businessman Wensley Grosvenor Haydon-Baillie, who started a programme of restoration, but a business failure saw it repossessed by a Swiss bank and put back on the market in 1998. Clifford Newbold (July 1926 – April 2015), an architect from Highgate, bought it for something over £1.5 million. Newbold progressed with a programme of renovation and restoration, as described in "Country Life" magazine dated 17 and 24 February 2010. The surrounding parkland is owned by the Wentworth Estates.


title: Wentworth Woodhouse

text: In 2014, the house was informally offered for sale by Newbold, with no price specified, but a figure of around £7 million was thought to be sought according to "The Times". The house was reported to need works of around £40 million. Following Newbold's death, the house was advertised for sale in May 2015 via Savills with an asking price of £8 million. In February 2016, it was sold to the Wentworth Woodhouse Preservation Trust for £7 million after a potential sale to the Hong Kong-based Lake House Group fell through.


title: Wentworth Woodhouse

text: On 23 November 2016, in the United Kingdom Chancellor's budget statement of November 2016, it was announced that the Trust was to receive a grant of £7.6 million for restoration work; the Chancellor Philip Hammond noted a claim that the property had been Jane Austen's inspiration for Pemberley in her novel "Pride and Prejudice". It was thought that there might have been a connection to the house because Austen uses the name Fitzwilliam in her novel, but following the Chancellor's Autumn Statement the Jane Austen Society dismissed the likelihood, given the absence of any evidence that she had visited the estate. Austen does, however, name a character Frederick Wentworth in "Persuasion", and the eponymous heroine of "Emma" has the surname Woodhouse.


title: Wentworth Woodhouse

text: Welcoming the grant, Conservative MP Jacob Rees-Mogg dismissed a widely circulated meme claiming that his family benefited from it (His mother-in-law, Lady Juliet Tadgell, inherited the estate in 1948 on the death of her father, the 8th Earl, but left the house shortly afterwards.)


title: Wentworth Woodhouse

text: As of 2022, the National Trust was working in partnership with the WWPT to support their ambitions for the site as a visitor attraction; the Trust does not own the property.


title: Wentworth Woodhouse

text: The 2011 BBC series entitled "The Country House Revealed" was accompanied by a full-length illustrated companion book, published by the BBC, which featured a dedicated chapter on Wentworth Woodhouse (Chapter Four). The six chapters of the book corresponded to the six episodes of the television series.


title: Wentworth Woodhouse

text: "Shadow of the Noose" (1980s), "Wives and Daughters" (1999), "Pride and Prejudice" (2005), "The Thirteenth Tale" (2013), "Mr. Turner" (2014), "Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell" (2015), "Victoria (2016), "Most Haunted" (2015, 2017), "Darkest Hour" (2018) and "Downton Abbey" (2019).


title: Brutal (song)

text: "Brutal" (stylized in all lowercase) is a song recorded by American singer-songwriter Olivia Rodrigo. It was released to Italian radio through Geffen Records on September 3, 2021, as the fifth single from Rodrigo's debut album "Sour". "Brutal" was written by Rodrigo and its producer Dan Nigro.


title: Brutal (song)

text: An alternative rock, grunge, and pop-punk tune, "Brutal" is driven by rock instrumentation consisting of brash electric guitars and drums. Its lyrics express Rodrigo's fear, worries and frustrations as a teenager entering adulthood. An accompanying music video to the song was released on August 23, 2021. It incorporates heavy visuals elements from the 1990s–2000s, especially the era's video games, while illustrating "teen angst". Commercially, the song reached the top 20 in various countries. In the United States, it landed at number 12 on the "Billboard" Hot 100, and topped the Hot Rock & Alternative Songs chart.


title: Brutal (song)

text: "Brutal" is one of eleven songs from Olivia Rodrigo's debut album "Sour". The song resents the idea that one's teenage years are their best years and shares a sentiment of teenage frustration. It was written on a whim by Rodrigo and song's producer Dan Nigro. It has been described as a pop-punk, pop rock, alt-rock, and grunge song with elements of indie rock and punk.


title: Brutal (song)

text: "Brutal" features a guitar riff similar to that of Elvis Costello's 1978 song "Pump It Up", leading to accusations of plagiarism. Costello—who cited Bob Dylan's "Subterranean Homesick Blues" as inspiration for "Pump It Up"—replied to a tweet about the topic, "This is fine by me ... It's how rock and roll works. You take the broken pieces of another thrill and make a brand new toy. That's what I did."


title: Brutal (song)

text: Brutal received positive reviews from critics". Billboard" Larisha Paul described "Brutal"'s opening as "shimmering" and "brilliant", and the rest of the song as "grungy rock". Jules Lefevre, writing for "Junkee", described the song as "infinitely enjoyable", and described Rodrigo's vocals as "kiss-off". "Rolling Stone" Angie Martoccio likened Rodrigo in the song to "an excited teenager relaying gossip on a rotary phone". Olivia Horn of "Pitchfork" speculated on whether "Brutal" is "[b]ucking expectations about the kind of sounds [Rodrigo] might gravitate toward" and describes that as just "part of the fun". AllMusic reviewer Heather Phares called "Brutal" "a surprisingly punky blast of angst", likening the guitars to "the musical equivalent of an eyeroll."


title: Brutal (song)

text: "Entertainment Weekly" called "Brutal" the best song of 2021, describing it as "like stepping through a Lollapalooza looking glass, the alt-nation swagger and blown-out guitar fuzz of the Breeders and Elastica reborn in one dimpled Gen-Z teen."


title: Brutal (song)

text: Following the release of "Sour", "Brutal" debuted at number 12 on the US "Billboard" Hot 100, and atop the "Billboard" Hot Rock & Alternative Songs chart.


title: Brutal (song)

text: "Brutal" appeared in the opening montage of "Hockey Night in Canada" coverage of Game Two of the 2021 Stanley Cup Finals between the Montreal Canadiens and the Tampa Bay Lightning. The song also served as the soundtrack for the first trailer of Amazon Prime Video's "I Know What You Did Last Summer" and in the opening scene of the season one finale of HBO Max's "Gossip Girl." "Brutal" was also heavily featured during episode 4 of HBO's Hard Knocks season which chronicled the training camp for the 2021 Dallas Cowboys season. The song also appeared in Netflix’s “Do Revenge” "The Imperfects" and “The School for Good and Evil”.


title: Brutal (song)

text: A music video for "Brutal" was released on August 23, 2021, directed by Canadian director Petra Collins. The video features cameo appearances from actors Lukas Gage and Nico Hiraga, as well as model Salem Mitchell. Rodrigo's hairstyles in the video were styled by Clayton Hawkins. The video depicts Rodrigo's "teenage angst", using various visual elements of 1990s-2000s pop culture.


title: Brutal (song)

text: It opens in a "glitchy, throwback dimension", where an array of Rodrigo avatars appear, each adorning a stylized wig and exaggerated personality; an 8-bit version of "Brutal" plays in the background. One of the costumes is a reference to Leeloo from the 1997 movie and 1998 video game "The Fifth Element". It is a "choose-your-player" selection, channeling Adobe Flash web games of the early 2000s. The various attires Rodrigo adopts in the video include a slicked ballet bun, plaited pigtails with a newsboy cap, low-slung space twists reminiscent of Mandy Moore's "Candy" music video, and two partial pigtails with wavy brunette and burgundy hair. A cursor clicks on Rodrigo dressed in a pastel blue ballet outfit and a matching wig, before changing to a scene where she squirms on a ballet studio floor after breaking her ankle while trying to perform en pointe. It is followed by scenes such as anchoring an oddly vivacious morning news program with gossips (whose logo is the same as the 1990s logo for UK news program News at Ten), a dull high school classroom, crying on an Instagram livestream, a stressed-out pop star shooting a commercial, and being physically dragged through an abandoned Westfield Santa Anita by "two real friends", among others. Right after the line "I can't even parallel park", the music stops briefly and Rodrigo is stuck in the crowded mall parking lot with cars beeping and she mouthes the words "What the fuck". Near the end of the video, Rodrigo climbs to the top of a Cadillac while the lyric "and God, I don't even know where to start" plays. The video concludes with her standing on the car, with a set of ballet dancers perform "en pointe," while surrounded by other cars loudly beeping.


title: Brutal (song)

text: "Vogue" described the video as a "visual treat" and a compendium of "Y2K beauty", incorporating various looks that marked the 1990s-2000s era, alongside "playfully brash rebellion". "Vulture" and "Insider" noted similarities to Rina Sawayama's music video for "XS" (2020).


title: Mario Kart Wii

text: The game received positive reviews upon release, with praise for the online mode, coupled with its characters, innovative gameplay, tracks, and karts, but received criticism for its item balancing and rubber-band difficulty adjustment. The game sold over 37 million copies, making it the second best-selling "Mario Kart" game after "Mario Kart 8 Deluxe" and one of the best-selling video games of all time.


title: Mario Kart Wii

text: "Mario Kart Wii" is a kart racing game featuring single-player and multiplayer modes. The players control one of many selectable "Mario" franchise characters and participate in races or battles using go-karts or bikes on courses thematically based on locations from the "Mario" franchise. During gameplay, the player views the action from a third-person perspective that tracks the player from behind their kart.


title: Mario Kart Wii

text: "Mario Kart Wii" supports four different control schemes. The primary control scheme is the Wii Remote, optionally used in conjunction with the plastic Wii Wheel accessory, which uses the controller's motion-controls to simulate operating a steering wheel. The other supported control schemes are the Wii Remote with the Nunchuk attachment; the Classic Controller; and the GameCube controller. While driving, the player collects power-ups from item boxes placed in various points on the track. These power-ups allow the player to attack opponents, causing them to slow down or spin out of control; defend against such attacks, or gain boosts in speed. These include the series staple items, such as the Mushroom, Koopa Shell projectiles, the Super Star, banana peels and lightning bolts, as well as new items such as the Mega Mushroom and POW Block.


title: Mario Kart Wii

text: "Mario Kart Wii" features twenty-four playable characters from the "Mario" series, which was the largest roster of any "Mario Kart" game until the release of "Mario Kart 8" in 2014. The game features characters who have appeared in previous installments, including Mario, Luigi, Princess Peach, Yoshi, Toad, Donkey Kong, and Bowser, in addition to characters such as Rosalina and Dry Bowser who are playable for the first time. Unlike "Mario Kart DS", where characters can drive a kart exclusive to that character and the standard go-kart, each character is assigned to one of three different weight classes, which affects the selection of vehicles the character can drive. In addition to this, "Mario Kart Wii" introduced two different classes of vehicles, Karts and Bikes, with the latter being a new addition to the series (their addition came with special outfits for Peach, Daisy, and Rosalina to wear when racing them). Bikes were also subdivided further into two categories: regular and sports bikes, with sports bikes featuring an alternate drift type known as inside drifting. Mii characters saved in the console's Mii Channel are also playable. Thirty-six vehicles, which include both karts and bikes, are available in "Mario Kart Wii", each of which has different properties that affect how the vehicle handles while driving. Half the characters and vehicles are initially unavailable to the player; certain objectives must be completed to unlock each one. For example, the Jetsetter (also known as the Aero Glider in PAL regions) must be unlocked by earning a 1 star rank or higher on all 150cc Retro Cups in Grand Prix mode.


title: Mario Kart Wii

text: The tracks in "Mario Kart Wii" are based on locations seen in the "Mario" series, such as Bowsers Castle, as well as some being thematically based around characters and locations, such as Coconut Mall and Wario's Gold Mine. Each of the eight cups features four different tracks for a total of 32 unique tracks, 16 of which are new to the series (found in the Mushroom, Flower, Star, and Special Cups), while the other 16 are graphically updated tracks ported from the previous five "Mario Kart" installments (found in the Shell, Banana, Leaf, and Lightning Cups). There are ten arena courses available for Battle mode, which include five original courses and five retro courses.


title: Mario Kart Wii

text: "Mario Kart Wii" features multiple game modes: Grand Prix, Time Trials, Versus, and Battle. All modes support single-player gameplay; Versus and Battle support local multiplayer for up to four players, with or without computer-controlled players. In Grand Prix, the player participates in four three-lap races from one of eight cups against eleven opponents. The player is awarded points at the end of each race based on their ranking. The total number of points collected, among other factors, determines the player's overall rank. Versus mode is similar to Grand Prix, but the presented courses and items are configurable. In Time Trials, the player must quickly complete the race in the fastest time possible—there are no opponents or items except for three Mushrooms given at the start of each race. The player can compete against a ghost character, which mimics a player's movements from an earlier race. Ghost data can be saved in the Wii console memory.


title: Mario Kart Wii

text: "Mario Kart Wii"s Battle mode is similar to that seen in previous installments in which players drive around an enclosed arena and attack each other using items. The players are divided into two teams, red and blue, and teammates cannot harm each other with their items. There are two variants of Battle mode available: Balloon Battle and Coin Runners. In Balloon Battle, each player's kart has three attached balloons. A player gains a point each time they pop or steal a balloon belonging to an opposing team player but loses a point each time they lose all balloons. In Coin Runners, the players collect coins scattered throughout the arena and attack opposing team members to make them drop coins. The team that has accumulated the most points or coins total when the three-minute time limit expires wins.


title: Mario Kart Wii

text: "Mario Kart Wii" supported online play via Nintendo Wi-Fi Connection until its discontinuation on May 20, 2014. Versus and Battle modes were available and supported up to twelve participants, and up to two players could connect and play from the same Wii console. Players could compete against random players from within the same region or from any continent, or could compete only against players registered as friends. At the end of each race or match, each player's VR (versus rating) or BR (battle rating) would change based on their final ranking.


title: Mario Kart Wii

text: "Mario Kart Wii" featured the ""Mario Kart Channel"", which was available as an optionally selectable channel on the Wii Menu, that presented current regional or worldwide rankings for Time Trials, and the option of sending or receiving ghost data via WiiConnect24 (it is no longer supported and does not function as of June 28, 2013). Mario Kart Channel also offered worldwide tournaments from Nintendo, which were modified courses that sometimes had special objectives. There were two tournaments hosted each month.


title: Mario Kart Wii

text: "Mario Kart Wii" is the sixth game in the "Mario Kart" series, following "Mario Kart DS". Hideki Konno, who worked with the Software Development Department of Nintendo's Entertainment Analysis & Development (EAD) division and had previously worked on the first two "Mario Kart" games as well as "Mario Kart DS", served as the game's producer. Shigeru Miyamoto acted as “General Producer” and gave miscellaneous advice on various aspects of the game.


title: Mario Kart Wii

text: Producer Konno wanted to include online features for "Mario Kart DS", but they were left out due to time constraints. These features would, however, be implemented in "Mario Kart Wii". The developers wanted to avoid races becoming more deserted as they progressed, thus altering the online matchmaking to allow players to join a race once it is finished for participation in the next one. The game was the first in the series to feature BMX motorbikes as drivable vehicles, an idea which Konno had proposed since "Double Dash" out of his passion for extreme sports but was rejected due to the seemingly bizarre image of Mario riding a bike. The concept of extreme sports elements was considered in "Mario Kart DS", but due to the difficulty in including the concept in a handheld game, it wasn't able to be implemented until "Wii". Because of the feature's inclusion, the game was briefly known internally under the name ""Mario Kart X"" before its final name was decided upon, referring to the "X" in the word "extreme".


title: Mario Kart Wii

text: "Mario Kart Wii" was officially announced at E3 2007; the online features and the first footage of the game were shown at the Expo. During Nintendo of America CEO Reggie Fils-Aimé's presentation, he unveiled the game via a trailer that showed some of the new characters and tracks. The trailer also displayed that the game would include up to twelve simultaneous racers. Additional details of the game were later released in conjunction with the Nintendo Fall 2007 Conference held in October 2007, where it was revealed that it would include bikes and the Wii Wheel. New gameplay footage from the game was also shown, and the release date was revealed to be set for spring 2008.


title: Mario Kart Wii

text: To complement "Mario Kart Wii"'s unique motion controls, a wheel-shaped plastic casing for the Wii Remote was included with some versions of the game. The designers tested roughly 30 different prototypes of the wheel with different shapes, colors, and weights based on real-life go-karts. The final design for the wheel was made to be as lightweight as possible for it to suit long-term periods of gameplay, and it was made entirely white despite experimentation with two-colored designs for it to fit with the color scheme of previous peripherals such as the Wii Zapper and the Wii Balance Board. A blue ring with the Wii logo inside of it was also placed on the backside of the wheel to give spectating players something interesting to look at; as a result, this blue ring ended up being featured in the game's logo.


title: Mario Kart Wii

text: The game's music was composed by Asuka Hayazaki (maiden name Ohta) and Ryo Nagamatsu, who both used new interpretations of the familiar melodies from earlier games alongside original material. A 43-track official soundtrack was released in December 2011 as a Club Nintendo reward in Japan. The speaker on the Wii Remote is frequently used during gameplay, with sound effects being emitted from it. During the extensive testing of the different Wii Wheel prototypes, the developers decided to have the voice actors play the game during recording sessions.


title: Mario Kart Wii

text: "Mario Kart Wii" received "generally favorable" reviews according to Metacritic. Reviewers deemed the gameplay to be familiar and more safe and predictable than that of "". Tae K. Kim of "GamePro" admired the variety of the character roster, though Bryn Williams of "GameSpy" felt that some of the unlockable characters were bland. Although Shane Bettenhausen of "Electronic Gaming Monthly" and Ryan Davis of "Giant Bomb" acknowledged that some of the new tracks were inventive, they and Williams determined the track roster to be weaker and less creative than in previous entries. "Official Nintendo Magazine" commented that the Wii Wheel worked very effectively and loved the different multiplayer modes. Lark Anderson of "GameSpot" praised the game for being easy to jump into for players of any skill level and stated that motorcycles provide a great alternative to go-karts. The additions of motorcycles and an online multiplayer mode were welcomed. The unbalanced items and rubber band AI, which were said to result in chance-influenced gameplay, were a common point of criticism, as was the truncation of the battle mode from previous titles.


title: Mario Kart Wii

text: Kim was unimpressed by the graphics, and observed that their quality lowered in the split-screen multiplayer mode. Williams described the game as a "480p widescreen treat, delivering crisp, colorful graphics". Greg Nicksarlian of "GameZone" complimented the visuals as sharp and vibrant, but acknowledged their simplicity. Bozon of "IGN" summarized the visuals as basic but charming and polished. The music was generally considered to be unremarkable, and the voice acting was derided as repetitive and annoying.


title: Mario Kart Wii

text: In 2010, "Mario Kart Wii" was included in the book "1001 Video Games You Must Play Before You Die". Anthony John Agnello and David Roberts of "GamesRadar+" ranked "Mario Kart Wii" #11 in their 2017 list of best "Mario Kart" games, the second-lowest ranking behind the cancelled Virtual Boy "Mario Kart". They described the game as "a bloated, populist mess attempting to please everyone" that "feels like the most "Mario Kart" rather than the best "Mario Kart", and as a result, it's as if it's missing the series' soul". The staff of "IGN" ranked the game #18 in their 2019 list of "Top 25 Favourite Kart Racers", deeming it "yet another solid entry in the series" and saying that its expanded track roster and inclusion of both online and splitscreen multiplayer gameplay made it "one of the system’s go-to party games". Luke Plunkett of "Kotaku" ranked the game at #7 out of the nine best "Mario Kart" games; he felt that there was little reason to play the game after the improvements made by "Mario Kart 7" and "8", and that the motion controls were "straight garbage". The tracks Maple Treeway and Coconut Mall have been ranked among the series' best, while Matthew Wilkinson of "Screen Rant" respectively ranked Rainbow Road, Wario's Gold Mine and Moonview Highway as the first, eighth and ninth most difficult tracks in the series.


title: Mario Kart Wii

text: CTGP is a mod that can be run on a homebrew-enabled Wii or Wii U console. It allows players to connect to the Wiimmfi custom server and adds over 200 community-created new tracks (as well as two raceable ghosts for each track) to the game. These new tracks can be played locally, online, or as a time trial. The mod also adds various minor improvements and custom game modes such as the 200cc engine class introduced in "Mario Kart 8" and 24 player races.


title: Mario Kart Wii

text: "Mario Kart Wii" had a successful launch and sold 300,000 copies on the launch day in Japan alone, compared to "Mario Kart DS" which sold 160,000 copies on its first day and "Mario Kart: Double Dash" which sold 180,000 on its first day. In the week ending May 4, 2008, "Mario Kart Wii" had sold over a million copies in Japan alone, less than a month since its release in the region. In the UK, "Mario Kart Wii" was the best-selling video game in the week ending April 12, 2008, having "the eighth biggest opening sales week in UK software history," according to GfK Chart-Track/ELSPA. The game dwarfed all other five "Mario" Wii games released up until then for the Wii combined when comparing first week sales. In the United States, "Mario Kart Wii" was the second-best-selling video game in April 2008, selling 1.12 million copies, according to the NPD Group; putting it behind the Xbox 360 version of "Grand Theft Auto IV" and ahead of the PlayStation 3 version, both released in the same week. It ranked the fourth-best-selling game of December 2008 in the United States, selling more than 979,000 copies. According to the NPD Group, GfK Chart-Track, and Enterbrain, the game has sold 2.409 million copies in the United States, 687,000 in the United Kingdom, and 1.601 million in Japan, respectively, for a total of 4.697 million copies sold by August 1, 2008. As of March 2009, Nintendo has sold 15.4 million copies of "Mario Kart Wii" worldwide. As of January 4, 2009, it has sold 2,133,000 copies in Japan. It is also the fourth best-selling game of Japan in 2008. According to the NPD Group, GfK Chart-Track, and Enterbrain, the game has sold 856,000 copies in the United States, 394,000 in the United Kingdom, and 218,000 in Japan, respectively, for a total of 1.468 million copies sold in the third quarter of 2008 (July–September). It was the second-best-selling game of 2008 in the United States, selling more than 5 million copies. In France, it sold 4.8 million units, which is more than it sold in Japan (3.7 million).


title: Mario Kart Wii

text: With 37.38 million copies sold worldwide as of March 31, 2021, the game is the best-selling "Mario" game for the Wii, the 2nd best-selling racing game, and the 2nd best-selling game for the Wii behind "Wii Sports".


title: Mario Kart Wii

text: The game won multiple Wii-specific awards from "IGN" in its 2008 video game awards, including Best Racing Game and Best Online Multiplayer Game. "IGN" also nominated it for Best Family Game for the Wii. The game was ranked ninth in "Nintendo Power"s "Best of the Decade." It also won the award for "Favorite Video Game" at the 2010 Kids' Choice Awards. Guinness World Records has awarded "Mario Kart Wii" with a record for being the best-selling racing video game of all time. In 2009, "Official Nintendo Magazine" placed the game fourth in a list of the greatest Nintendo games of all time.


title: Saban Capital Group

text: Saban Capital Group LLC is an American investment firm based in Los Angeles, California focused on media, entertainment, and communications investments. Formed in 2010 by Haim Saban, Saban Capital Group owns Saban Films, part of Univision Communications, and part of Celestial Tiger Entertainment.


title: Saban Capital Group

text: In October 2006, SCG's Saban Entertainment Group division announced the beginning of its virtual studio program for starting up and developing family entertainment. In March 2007, Univision Communications was sold to Broadcasting Media Partners which includes Saban Capital Group, Madison Dearborn Partners, Providence Equity Partners, TPG Capital, and Thomas H. Lee Partners. On October 17, 2011, Saban Capital Group acquired 7.5% stake in Jakarta-based Indonesian largest integrated media company, Media Nusantara Citra. In July 2012, Saban Capital Group acquired minority stake in PT MNC Sky Vision Tbk, the largest pay-TV operator in Indonesia which owns Indovision and Top TV. In June 2012, Kidsco Media Ventures LLC, a SCG affiliate, jointly with Konami's 4K Acquisition Corp. purchased some of the key assets of 4Kids Entertainment with Kidsco getting the "Dragon Ball Z Kai", "Cubix", "Sonic X" and The CW Network's Saturday Morning programming block contract rights. In August 2012, Saban Capital Group launched a new music publishing division called "Music Ventures".


title: Saban Capital Group

text: On September 13, 2018, "Saban Capital Acquisition Corp." announced the purchase of "Panavision" and "Sim Video International" in a $622 million cash and stock deal. The transaction was aimed at creating a comprehensive production and post-production entity. Saban Capital Acquisition Corp. proposed a change of name to Panavision Holdings Inc., but expected to continue to trade on the Nasdaq stock exchange. Saban ended up terminating its deal to acquire Panavision on March 1, 2019.


title: Saban Capital Group

text: On May 5, 2010, Saban Capital Group announced that it would start Saban Brands (SB), a successor company to Saban Entertainment dedicated to acquiring entertainment and consumer brands. On May 12, 2010, it was announced that Saban Brands bought back the "Power Rangers" franchise from Disney for $43 million and would produce a new nineteenth season of Power Rangers that began airing on Nickelodeon on February 7, 2011, with the previous 700 episodes being rerun on Nicktoons. It was also announced that Saban Brands is in negotiations to buy three other brands. On August 17, 2010, it was announced that Saban Brands bought Paul Frank Industries.


title: Saban Capital Group

text: On May 1, 2012, Kidsco Media Ventures LLC, an affiliate of Saban Capital Group, placed a bid to acquire some of 4Kids Entertainment's assets, including the US rights to the "Yu-Gi-Oh!" franchise and The CW4Kids block, for $10 million. 4K Acquisition Corp, a subsidiary of Konami, then placed a bid. On June 5, 2012, 4Kids commenced an auction between Kidsco and 4K Acquisition which was then adjourned so 4Kids, Kidsco, and 4K Acquisition could consider an alternative transaction. On June 15, 2012, 4Kids filed a notice outlining a proposed deal in which its assets would be divided between Kidsco and 4K Acquisition which was finalized on June 26, 2012. The deal saw 4K Acquisition acquire the US rights to the "Yu-Gi-Oh!" franchise and Kidsco acquire 4Kids' other assets including the agreements for "Dragon Ball Z Kai", "Cubix: Robots for Everyone", "Sonic X" and The CW Network's Saturday morning programming block. On July 2, 2012, it was announced that Saban Brands, via Kidsco Media Ventures, would begin programming the block in the fall, and on July 12, 2012, it announced that the block would be named Vortexx, which launched on August 25, 2012, and ended on September 27, 2014.


title: Saban Capital Group

text: On June 12, 2012, it was announced that Saban Brands plans to reintroduce the Popples franchise with new merchandise in fall 2013. On August 3, 2012, it was announced that Saban Brands acquired The Playforge, the development team behind App Store success stories Zombie Farm and Zombie Life. On September 19, 2012, Saban Brands announced that they acquired Zui provider of Kid-Safe Online content. On September 25, 2012, Saban Brands announced that they re-acquired the "Digimon" franchise and its most recent season, "Digimon Fusion" with Toei Animation handling Asian licensing & distribution and MarVista Entertainment handling all other global licensing & distribution.


title: Saban Capital Group

text: On July 3, 2013, it was announced that Saban Brands signed a deal to manage the distribution, licensing, and merchandising of Sendokai Champions in North America and Israel and be broadcast on the Vortexx. In October 2013, Saban Brands shut down The Playforge because of poor game sales.


title: Saban Capital Group

text: Saban Brands and Lionsgate Films announced in May 2014 that they are planning to produce a new "Power Rangers" feature film, and would hopefully launch a "Power Rangers" film franchise. By August 4, 2014, Saban Brands sold KidZui to Leapfrog Enterprises. Later on, Macbeth Footwear was acquired by Saban Brands, and in December, Saban Brands formed two divisions Saban Brands Lifestyle Group and Saban Brands Entertainment Group to expand their holdings. On January 6, 2014, it was announced that Saban Brands Lifestyle Group acquired Mambo Graphics. On March 24, 2015, it was announced that Saban Brands Lifestyle Group had acquired Piping Hot. Saban Brands developed its first two properties, "Kibaoh Klashers" and "Treehouse Detectives", as animated series which were picked up by Netflix in October 2016.


title: Saban Capital Group

text: In February 2018, Saban Brands appointed Hasbro as the global master toy licensee for "Power Rangers" in April 2019 with a future option to purchase the franchise. On May 1, 2018, Saban agreed to sell "Power Rangers" and other entertainment assets to Hasbro for US$522 million in cash and stock, with the sale expected to close in the second quarter. Other properties in the deal include "My Pet Monster", "Popples", "Julius Jr.", "Luna Petunia", and "Treehouse Detectives". (the deal excluded "Rainbow Butterfly Unicorn Kitty, , Shinzo, Digimon" and "Sonic X", which were sold to different companies) Only nine existing employees out of sixty would be retained by SCG, and the Saban Brands subsidiary ended operations upon the closure of business on December 1, 2018.


title: Saban Capital Group

text: On May 6, 2014, Saban Capital announced the launch of Saban Films (SF), a distribution company that will acquire yearly 8 to 10 feature films for the North American market.


title: Saban Capital Group

text: The Saban Group is a top contributor to the Democratic Party. It has donated to former President Barack Obama's campaign and was one of the top donors of the Clinton Campaign of 2016 with a contribution of approximately 12 million dollars.


title: Saban Capital Group

text: On August 12, 2021, a lawsuit was filed against Haim Saban, Saban Capital Group, and Saban Real Estate by a Penn State University student and his mother. According to the 89-page Complaint, which was filed in U.S. District Court - Chicago, Haim Saban was the owner of off-campus student apartments, "The Bryn", located in State College, Pennsylvania, that targeted low-income college students to lure them into leasing apartments that are uninhabitable, with no working appliances. Per the Complaint, ""the students are not allowed to view the apartments before paying the Defendants and signing leases, they're required to pay several months rent in advance, and the management Cardinal Group Management, makes false representations and omissions about the true conditions of the apartments, and sends the victims to collections if they refuse to pay or try to end their leases due to the fraud. The apartments are infested with black mold. The true conditions of the apartment, and the fraud is discovered at the time of move-in."" The Complaint states that Haim Saban was fully aware of the fraud scheme during the time it was going on and not only failed to stop it, but instead tried to extort more money from the victims via a local State College attorney. "Rossetti vs. Haim Saban et al", (2021)


title: Gwangju Inhwa School

text: Gwangju Inhwa School () was a school for hearing-impaired students founded in 1961 and located in Gwangju, South Korea. The school made national headlines after its decades-long record of sexually abusing students was uncovered in 2005. Following a series of investigations and amid public outcry, the school was closed in November 2011. The school was also accused of child murder.


title: Gwangju Inhwa School

text: The school was initially founded as the Jeonnam Deaf-Mute Welfare Center before becoming a junior high school. The senior high school section was opened in 1993.


title: Gwangju Inhwa School

text: According to a 2005 investigation, six teachers, including the principal, sexually molested or raped at least nine of their deaf-mute students between 2000 and 2003. A newly appointed teacher alerted human rights groups in 2005, for which he was subsequently fired from his job. Nine victims came forward, but more victims were believed to have concealed additional crimes in fear of repercussions or because of trauma. The police began an investigation four months later, only after former students talked to a national TV station. As the Gwangju city government and school board tossed the case back and forth, students and parents staged a sit-in for eight months outside their offices, calling for justice.


title: Gwangju Inhwa School

text: Of the six perpetrators, four received prison terms, while the other two were freed immediately because the statute of limitations for their crimes had expired. The local court sentenced the principal (son of the school founder) to a five-year term in prison, and four others received relatively heavy penalties. But the appellate court reduced the initial court ruling, giving probation and a fine for the principal and lighter verdicts to the rest. Among those jailed, two were released after less than a year in jail after their terms were suspended. Four of the six teachers were reinstated in the school. The case didn't draw much media attention when it went on trial in 2005, but at the time, human rights activists and victims criticized the lax legal action taken against the abusers.


title: Gwangju Inhwa School

text: The real-life events inspired bestselling novelist Gong Ji-young to write a book entitled "The Crucible" (), which was published in 2009 and was later adapted into the 2011 film of the same name (the film adaptation was also released internationally under the title "Silenced"). "The Crucible" depicted the sexual and physical violence against minors and the court proceedings marred by corruption, bribery, and "Jeon-gwan ye-u." The film adaptation


title: Gwangju Inhwa School

text: became a box office hit, drawing 4.7 million viewers, almost one-tenth of South Korea's population, and among its viewers was then-President Lee Myung-bak.


title: Gwangju Inhwa School

text: The film adaptation drew renewed interest to the case. Reacting to criticisms of leniency, Gwangju High Court judge Jang Jung-hee said, "The court could not sentence them to harsh punishments because the victims dropped the charges against the perpetrators." A law that had barred the prosecution of a child sex offender unless the victim made the complaint himself or herself, was only revised in 2010. Massive public outcry prompted the police to reopen and reinvestigate the case in 2011. One of the witnesses, 71-year-old ex-teacher Kim Yeong-il, claimed that he was beaten and forced to resign in 1968 by the school's principal and his brother, the vice principal, after Kim discovered that two children were beaten and starved to death then secretly buried in 1964. Other alumni claimed that the son of the school's chairman of the board of directors forced two female students to undress and drew nude paintings of them in 1975, adding that the offender was currently teaching art at another school in the city. Two months after the film's release, the city of Gwangju officially closed the school in November 2011.


title: Gwangju Inhwa School

text: Amid the nation's collective fury and mounting pressure on politicians, the South Korean parliament unanimously passed the "Dogani Bill" in October 2011, which eliminates the statute of limitations for sex crimes against children under 13 and disabled women; the bill also increases the maximum penalty to life in prison. However, many members of human rights organizations who have worked for a long time to promote the welfare of disabled people said the public backlash should lead to more profound, long-term solutions to tackle prevalent human rights violations against disabled people.


title: Gwangju Inhwa School

text: In the subsequent criminal cases following the release of the book and movie, several of the teachers pleaded guilty to sexual molestation charges. Among the guilty included the 63-year-old former administrator, who in July 2012 was sentenced by the Gwangju District Court to 12 years in prison for sexually assaulting an 18-year-old student in April 2005.


title: All About Steve

text: All About Steve is a 2009 American comedy film directed by Phil Traill and starring Sandra Bullock, Thomas Haden Church, and Bradley Cooper as the eponymous Steve. The film is the winner of two Golden Raspberry Awards and has a 6% approval rating at Rotten Tomatoes.


title: All About Steve

text: Mary Horowitz, a crossword puzzle writer for the "Sacramento Herald", is socially awkward and considers her pet hamster her only true friend. Her parents decide to set her up on a blind date.


title: All About Steve

text: Mary's expectations are low, as she tells her hamster. Mary is pleasantly surprised when her date turns out to be handsome and charming Steve Miller, a cameraman for the television news network CCN. Steve does not reciprocate her feelings.


title: All About Steve

text: After an attempt at an intimate moment fails, in part because of her awkwardness and inability to stop talking about vocabulary, Steve fakes a phone call about covering the news out of town. Trying to get Mary out of his truck, he tells her he wishes she could be there.


title: All About Steve

text: Mary believes Steve, so decides to pursue him. Her obsession gets her fired when she creates a crossword titled "All About Steve". Following her termination, Mary decides to track him around the country in the hopes of winning his affection. She is encouraged by CCN news reporter Hartman Hughes, who hopes to use Mary's encyclopedic knowledge in his reports to help get promoted to news anchor.


title: All About Steve

text: On the road, Mary annoys some bus passengers so much, the driver abandons her. She hitchhikes with a trucker named Norm, then meets and travels with a pair of protesters: Elizabeth, a ditzy but sweet and likeable girl, and Howard, who sells apples he carves into celebrities. She gradually grows close to the two.


title: All About Steve

text: Steve and crew end up covering a breaking news story: an old mine collapsed with numerous deaf children stuck inside. Initially, it appears that the children are rescued. Mary, who arrives on the scene, accidentally falls into the mine shaft as well while making a beeline for Steve.


title: All About Steve

text: It turns out that not all the children have been rescued, and Mary is trapped with one left behind. Steve begins to realize that Mary, in her own unique way, is a beautiful person. Just as she figures a way out, the two are joined by Hartman, who is made to feel guilty by Elizabeth and Howard for getting Mary into this predicament. Mary's rescue plan works, but she lets Hartman take the credit. She finally realizes she does not need Steve to be happy. In a voiceover she says, "If you love someone, set him free; if you have to stalk him, he probably wasn't yours in the first place."


title: All About Steve

text: After the end credits, a competitive TV reporter, in despair that Hartman got popularity by jumping into the sinkhole to save Mary, also jumps into it.


title: All About Steve

text: Production began in July 2007. Parts of the film were shot at Mayfield Senior School in Pasadena, California. Scenes featuring the collapsed mine and sink hole were filmed at The Walt Disney Company's Golden Oak Ranch near Santa Clarita, California. Originally scheduled for release on March 6, 2009, the film was not released until September 4, 2009.


title: All About Steve

text: "All About Steve" opened at #3 behind the previous two weeks' #1 openers, "The Final Destination" and "Inglourious Basterds" with $11.2 million. The film grossed $33.8 million at the North American box office and has a worldwide total of $40.1 million.


title: All About Steve

text: Rotten Tomatoes assigned the film an approval rating of 6% based on 140 reviews with a rating average of 3.1/10. The site's critics consensus states: ""All About Steve" is an oddly creepy, sour film, featuring a heroine so desperate and peculiar that audiences may be more likely to pity than root for her." Another review aggregator, Metacritic, gave the film an average score of 17 out of 100 based on 27 critics, indicating "overwhelming dislike". Audiences polled by CinemaScore gave the film an average grade of C+ on an A+ to F scale.


title: All About Steve

text: Roger Ebert gave the film 1 and a half stars out of 4. "Time" named it one of the top ten worst chick flicks.


title: All About Steve

text: The film was nominated for five Golden Raspberry Awards in 2010, including Worst Picture, Worst Director (Phil Traill), Worst Actress (Sandra Bullock), Worst Screenplay (Kim Barker) and Worst Screen Couple (Sandra Bullock and Bradley Cooper). "All About Steve" ultimately won Worst Actress and Worst Screen Couple. Sandra Bullock accepted the Razzie for Worst Actress, giving out a copy of "All About Steve" to each member of the audience, promising to attend next year if they all watched to consider if it was "truly the worst performance". When an audience member thanked her for the copies, Bullock replied "You say that now". She won the Academy Award for Best Actress for "The Blind Side" the next day, making Bullock one of the few performers to win an Academy Award and a Razzie Award in the same year.


title: ZaSu Pitts

text: Zasu Pitts (; January 3, 1894 – June 7, 1963) was an American actress who starred in many silent dramas, including Erich von Stroheim's epic 1924 silent film "Greed", and comedies, transitioning successfully to mostly comedy films with the advent of sound films. She also appeared on numerous radio shows. Her career as an entertainer spanned nearly 50 years, and she was awarded a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame in 1960.


title: ZaSu Pitts

text: ZaSu Pitts was born in Parsons, Kansas, to Rulandus and Nelly ("née" Shay) Pitts; she was the third of four children. Her father, who had lost a leg while serving in the 76th New York Infantry in the Civil War, had settled the family in Kansas by the time ZaSu was born.