title: Northern Ontario

text: The mining boom of the early twentieth century attracted many francophones to Northeastern Ontario, and French is still widely spoken there. While the Canadian constitution never required the province of Ontario to recognize French as an official language, the government provides full services in the French language to any citizen, resident, or visitor wishing it including communications, schools, hospitals, social services, and in the courts, under the French Language Services Act of 1986. Bilingualism is higher than the Canadian average – in 2011, 180,020 people, or 24.6% of the population, spoke both English and French. There were also 8,910 people, or 1.2% of the population, who only spoke French. All of Northeastern Ontario, with the technical exception of Manitoulin Island, is designated as a French language service area, as are a few individual municipalities in the Northwest; Manitoulin Island, while not officially designated as a French language service area, effectively functions as one anyway since it receives most provincial government services from the designated Sudbury District seat in Espanola rather than functioning as its own jurisdictional area.


title: Northern Ontario

text: The government of Canada provides French and English equally in all matters. In 2011, 10.2% of people in Northern Ontario spoke French most often at home, mostly in Northeastern Ontario.


title: Northern Ontario

text: The 2016 Canadian Census found that the population of Northern Ontario was 780,140. During the Canada 2011 Census, data was not included from 17 incompletely enumerated Indian Reserves across the region. Four reserves were not counted due to permission not being given, and another 13 in Northwestern Ontario were not counted due to evacuations caused by forest fires. The census was later adjusted with the figures for these reserves showing a total population of 11,435. The median age for Northern Ontario in 2011 was 43.9. There were 43,670 immigrants in 2011, representing 5.8% of the population, down from 6.8% in 2006.


title: Northern Ontario

text: The region also has a significant First Nations population, primarily of the Ojibwe, Cree and Oji-Cree nations, with smaller communities of Nipissing, Algonquin, Odawa and Saulteaux.


title: Northern Ontario

text: In 2016, Northwestern Ontario was 71% white, 26.2% indigenous and 2.8% visible minorities. The largest visible minority groups in the region were South Asian (0.5%), Black (0.4%), Chinese (0.4%), Filipino (0.4%) and Southeast Asian (0.3%) Northeastern Ontario was 82.5% white, 15% indigenous and 2.5% visible minorities. The largest visible minority groups were South Asian (0.6%), Black (0.6%) and Chinese (0.4%).


title: Northern Ontario

text: A 2001 census showed Catholicism as the most commonly practiced religion in Northern Ontario (50.8%). The Precious Blood Cathedral in Sault Ste. Marie is the official cathedral for the diocese. However, the Pro-Cathedral of the Assumption in North Bay acts as the unofficial Episcopal See for the Diocese of Sault Sainte Marie.


title: Northern Ontario

text: The languages that had at least 1,000 native speakers (single mother-tongue response) in Northern Ontario in 2006 were:


title: Northern Ontario

text: Out-migration from Northern Ontario especially of young and working-age adults, either intraprovincially to Southern Ontario or interprovincially especially to Western Canada, has been a prominent public issue since the 1990s.


title: Northern Ontario

text: Television series "The Red Green Show" (1991–2005) and its spinoff theatrical film "Duct Tape Forever" (2002) are set in the fictional town of Possum Lake. The animated sitcom "Chilly Beach" (2003–2008, CBC), set in a fictional town of unspecified location in Northern Canada, was produced in Sudbury.


title: Northern Ontario

text: In the comic strip "For Better or For Worse", Elizabeth Patterson attended North Bay's Nipissing University, and subsequently taught school in the fictional reserve of Mtigwaki on Lake Nipigon. Lynn Johnston, the strip's cartoonist, lives in Corbeil, near North Bay in real life, although the strip is set primarily in Southern Ontario.


title: Jawed Sheikh

text: Jawed Sheikh (also spelled Javaid and Javed; born 8 October 1954) is a Pakistani actor, film director and producer who works in Lollywood and Bollywood. He is best known for working in the Hindi films "Om Shanti Om", "My Name Is Anthony Gonsalves ", "Namastey London", etc.


title: Jawed Sheikh

text: Born in Rawalpindi, Jawed Sheikh made his acting debut in the Lollywood film "Dhamaka", written by Pakistani writer Ibn-e-Safi released on 14 December 1974. He acted in over 100 films in Urdu, Sinhala and Punjabi. He has also appeared in many television serials which have aired on PTV, Hum TV, Geo Entertainment and A-Plus. The first film he directed was "Mushkil", released in 1995. In 2002, he directed "Yeh Dil Aap Ka Huwa", in which he also played a supporting role.


title: Jawed Sheikh

text: In 2005, he switched to acting in Bollywood films and appeared in films like "Shikhar" (2005) and "Jaan-E-Mann" (2006). In 2007 he appeared in "Namaste London", "Om Shanti Om" and the Pakistani film "Mein Ek Din Laut Kay Aaoon Ga". In 2008, he played a supporting role in "Jannat". His most recent film as director was "Khulay Aasman Ke Neechay", a big-budget film shot in four countries (Pakistan, India, United Arab Emirates and Australia). The production failed at the box-office, resulting in a net loss of . He has continued to appear in television series in Pakistan and recently appeared in many hit films in Pakistan such as "Na Maloom Afraad" (2014), "Bin Roye" (2015), "Wrong No." (2015), "Jawani Phir Nahi Ani" (2015), "Mehrunisa V Lub U" (2017) and "Na Maloom Afraad 2" (2017). He has occasionally returned to Bollywood as well appearing with Ranbir Kapoor in the Bollywood film "Tamasha" (2014) and with his daughter Momal Sheikh in "Happy Bhaag Jayegi" (2016). In 2018, Sheikh directed and acted in the film "Wujood" and appeared as a ghost named Dwarka Prasad in successful comedy film "Saat Din Mohabbat In". His latest release is the hugely successful action comedy "Teefa in Trouble".


title: Jawed Sheikh

text: Sheikh's first marriage was with, a television and film supporting actress of that era, with whom he has a daughter, Momal Sheikh and a son Shehzad Sheikh. His second marriage was to a British singer and actress, Salma Agha. Since his second divorce, he is still officially single but has been linked to several Lollywood film actresses. He is the brother of Saleem Sheikh and Safeena Sheikh, brother-in-law of Behroze Sabzwari and uncle of Shehroz Sabzwari. In news media interviews, he has a reputation of speaking frankly and candidly.


title: Famous Amos

text: Famous Amos is a brand of cookies founded in Los Angeles in 1975 by Wally Amos, a former talent agent with William Morris Agency.


title: Famous Amos

text: Wallace "Wally" Amos was born in Tallahassee, Florida, United States, on July 1, 1936. In 1948 he moved to New York City to live with his aunt where they often baked cookies together. As an adult, Amos, an Air Force veteran who worked as a talent agent with the William Morris Agency, would send his home-baked chocolate chip cookies to celebrities to entice them to meet and perhaps sign a deal with his agency. Amos hit a plateau working for the William Morris Agency and decided to strike out on his own.


title: Famous Amos

text: On March 10, 1975, Amos took the advice of some friends, and with $25,000 from singers Marvin Gaye and Helen Reddy, he opened a cookie store at 7181 Sunset Blvd., Hollywood, in Los Angeles, California, naming it "Famous Amos". In the first year he sold $300,000 worth of cookies, followed by more than $1,000,000 in sales in the store's second year of operation. By 1982 the company's revenues reached $12 million. The store proved so popular that the "Famous Amos" brand eventually branched out to sell cookies in supermarkets, a move that would later be emulated by other specialty stores such as Baskin-Robbins, T.G.I. Fridays, and Starbucks.


title: Famous Amos

text: However, by 1984 sales had begun to slow and Amos started to sell parts of the business. In March of the following year, Amos sold 51% interest to Bass Brothers Enterprises in an attempt to salvage the business. That year the company had lost $300,000 as revenues slipped to $10 million. Investors got involved to try to stop the downward spiral, but according to Amos, they took more of an equity stake each time and did not stay long enough to get the company back on track. By August 1985, Bass Brothers had sold a majority share to an investor group, who planned a major expansion. By 1988 the company lost $2.5 million. That year the Shansby Group purchased Famous Amos for $3 million. After one year as a paid spokesman for his sold company, Amos quit in frustration.


title: Famous Amos

text: The Famous Amos brand has gone through a number of owners since inception. Between 1988 and 2001, the Famous Amos company went through more than five different owners. In 1992 the President Baking Company purchased the brand from The Shansby Group. In 1998, Keebler purchased the President Baking Company. It was owned by Keebler until the Kellogg Company purchased Keebler in 2001.


title: Famous Amos

text: There is a sign commemorating the first Famous Amos store in Los Angeles, located at West Sunset Boulevard and North Formosa Avenue in Hollywood.


title: Famous Amos

text: Wally Amos has created another brand of cookie called "Chip and Cookie", named after two characters he created in the 1980s. The Chip and Cookie brand is owned by Amos, and has a slightly different recipe than the one used by Kellogg's.


title: Famous Amos

text: On July 29, 2019, it was announced that the Kellogg company had completed the sale of Keebler cookies (including Famous Amos) to Ferrero SpA, maker of Nutella. The Keebler brand will be manufactured by the Ferrero Groups US subsidiary Ferrara, maker of Butterfinger.


title: Famous Amos

text: The Famous Amos cookie brand has gone through four package designs. The original package consisted of a round, tin metal box, similar to the blue packages of a European brand of cookies, except that Famous Amos's package was white, and with a photo of what seemed to be a large chocolate chip cookie spinning on Wally Amos's finger. Amos himself was pictured on these packages, wearing his trademark straw hat and cotton shirt.


title: Famous Amos

text: The 1980s packages consisted of small plastic bags that resembled the larger bags of the same material used by supermarkets during that period. They had the brand's name inscribed in small letters, and once again, with a photo of Amos apparently spinning a large chocolate chip cookie on his finger, in a way that was similar to the basketball-spinning trick made famous by the Harlem Globetrotters.


title: Famous Amos

text: The 1990s packages were much larger than those of the 1980s, with the name "Famous Amos" prominently displayed on the cover. These packages marked the end of Wally Amos's cover appearances, and featured a number of small cookies pictured instead, with a blue ribbon reading "chocolate chip".


title: Famous Amos

text: The 2000s Famous Amos packages are very similar to the ones used during the 1990s, except for a couple of differences, such as the ribbon's color (almond has replaced blue). Part of Wally Amos's biography is featured on the back of the newest packages.


title: Famous Amos

text: The design of the 2000s Famous Amos package does not have the biography on the back of the Not for Resale editions, or packages that come in large boxes or packs, usually found at Sam's Club and Costco.


title: Famous Amos

text: International franchise owners in franchise locations overseas sometimes design their own cookie bags printed with 3D ribbons.


title: Racism in Russia

text: Racism in Russia appears mainly in the form of negative attitudes and actions by some Russians toward non-ethnic Russian citizens, immigrants or tourists. Traditionally Russian racism includes anti-Semitism, anti-Ukrainian sentiment, and Tatarophobia, as well as hostility towards the various peoples of the Caucasus, Central Asia, East Asia and Africa.


title: Racism in Russia

text: According to the United Nations, Russia's immigrant population is the world's third-largest, numbering over 11.6 million. Due to the country's declining population, and the low birth rates and high death rates of ethnic Russians, the Russian government has tried to increase immigration to the country in the last decade; which has led to millions of migrants flow into Russia from mainly post-Soviet states, many of whom are illegal and remain undocumented.


title: Racism in Russia

text: Under serious police pressure, the number of racist acts started to decline in Russia from 2009. In 2016, it was reported that racism in Russia has seen "impressive" decrease in hate crimes.


title: Racism in Russia

text: In the late 19th century, especially after nationalistic uprisings occurred in Poland, the government expressed xenophobia in its hostility towards ethnic minorities which did not speak Russian. The government decided to reduce the use of other languages, and it insisted that minorities which did not speak Russian should be Russified.


title: Racism in Russia

text: By the beginning of the 20th century, most European Jews lived in the so-called Pale of Settlement, the Western frontier of the Russian Empire which generally consisted of the modern-day countries of Poland, Lithuania, Belarus and neighboring regions. Many pogroms accompanied the Revolution of 1917 and the ensuing civil war, an estimated 70,000 to 250,000 Jewish civilians were killed in atrocities which were committed throughout the former Russian Empire; the number of Jewish orphans exceeded 300,000.


title: Racism in Russia

text: In the 2000s, tens of thousands of people joined neo-Nazi groups inside Russia. Racism against both the Russian citizens (peoples of the Caucasus, indigenous peoples of Siberia and Russian Far East, etc.) and non-Russian citizens of Africans, Central Asians, East Asians (Vietnamese, Chinese, etc.) and Europeans (Ukrainians, etc.) is a significant problem.


title: Racism in Russia

text: In 2016, Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty reported that "Researchers who track xenophobia in Russia have recorded an "impressive" decrease in hate crimes because the authorities appear to have stepped up pressure on far-right groups".


title: Racism in Russia

text: Using information which was collected during surveys which were conducted in 1996, 2004, and 2012, Hannah S. Chapman, et al. reports a steady increase in Russians' negative attitudes towards seven outgroups. Muscovites especially became more xenophobic.


title: Racism in Russia

text: In 2006, Amnesty International reported that racism in Russia was "out of control." Russia also has one of the highest immigration rates in Eastern Europe.


title: Racism in Russia

text: Between 2004 and 2008, there were more than 350 racist murders, and Verkhovsky, the leader of the anti-racist SOVA organization, estimated that around 50% of Russians thought that ethnic minorities should be expelled from their region. Vladimir Putin meanwhile was deeply critical of the view that Russia should be "for ethnic Russians", citing the need to maintain harmony in a multiethnic federation. Western commentators have noted that during this period, racist and ultranationalist groups may have been the most significant right-wing opposition to Putin's government.


title: Racism in Russia

text: On 20 April 2011, Konstantin Poltoranin, spokesman for Federal Migratory Service, was fired after saying the "survival of the white race was at stake."


title: Racism in Russia

text: On 24 October 2013, speaking during the "Poedinok" programme on the Rossia 1 television channel, the leader of Russia's extreme nationalist Liberal Democratic Party of Russia, Vladimir Zhirinovsky, known for his headline-grabbing outbursts, called for imposing limits on the birth rate in the Muslim-dominated North Caucasus region of Russia, and restricting the movement of people from that region across the country. These outbursts occurred shortly after the terrorist attack in Volgograd, which left several Russians dead. Zhirinovsky later apologized for his words.


title: Racism in Russia

text: During the programme, there was a live population poll conducted via text messaging and the internet. Zhirinovsky won that popular vote, with over 140 thousand Russians voting in favour of him. Some Russian nationalists believe the best way to stop the uptick in Muslim migration is by using oppressive tactics to "stem the tide". In 2006, in the town of Kondopoga, Karelian republic, a brawl in a café involving Chechen migrants and local Russians turned into a massive riot that lasted for several days.


title: Racism in Russia

text: Official attitudes towards African people were generally neutral during the Soviet Union, because of its internationalist agenda. As a part of its support of decolonization of Africa, the Soviet Union offered free education for citizens of African states. African students (as well as other international students) were placed in many higher education institutions throughout the country, most famously at Peoples' Friendship University of Russia, then known as the Patrice Lumumba Peoples' Friendship University, after the Congolese revolutionary and prime minister.


title: Racism in Russia

text: In 2006, some exchange students claimed, "monkey" insults were so frequent that students ceased reporting them.


title: Racism in Russia

text: In 2010, Jean Sagbo became the first black man in Russia to be elected to government. He is a municipal councillor in the village of Novozavidovo, north of Moscow.


title: Racism in Russia

text: In 2013, Member of Duma Irina Rodnina has publicly posted a picture showing Obama with a banana on Twitter.


title: Racism in Russia

text: A Tatar owned supermarket in Tatarstan sold calendars with images of American president Obama depicted as a monkey and initially refused to apologize for selling the calendar. They were then forced to issue an apology later.


title: Racism in Russia

text: In mid-2016, after tensions rose between the US and Russia, a Tatarstan ice cream factory produced "Obamka" (little Obama) ice cream with packaging showing a black child wearing an earring; the move was seen as an illustration of both anti-Americanism in Russia and enduring, Soviet-era racism in the country. The company, which stated that the ice cream was not intended to be political, halted production of the line shortly after the controversy arose.


title: Racism in Russia

text: Tatarophobia towards Crimean Tatars was state-enforced during the Soviet era through the racially-based special settlement system, which confined the deported Crimean Tatar nation in small perimeters within Central Asia and the Mari ASSR and deprived them of a variety of civil liberties that other peoples had. While no longer officially a state-mandated institution, prejudice and negative attitudes against Crimean Tatars remain pervasive throughout government and society; a notable example being when Russian consul Vladimir Andreev demanded that none of the invited Russian citizens attend the debut of "Haytarma", a film about Crimean Tatar twice Hero of the Soviet Union Amet-khan Sultan, claiming that the film could not possibly be accurate because it was directed by a Crimean Tatar.


title: Racism in Russia

text: In Russia, the word "Caucasian" is a collective term referring to anyone descended from the native ethnic groups of the Caucasus. In Russian slang, Peoples of the Caucasus are called "black"; this name-calling comes from their relatively darker features. While the word "black" in itself is not racist, the racist synonym for it is "chernozhopy" (черножо́пый, trans. "black ass"). (This word is also used against Black African peoples) Since the dissolution of the Soviet Union, the rise of the Muslim population in Russia and the Second Chechen War, many Russian radical nationalists have associated Islam and Muslims with terrorism and domestic crimes. In 2010 Julia Ioffe wrote that this was similar to stereotyping faced by Italian Americans in historical eras.


title: Racism in Russia

text: On 21 April 2001, there was a pogrom in a market in Moscow's Yasenevo District against merchants from the Caucasus. Ethnically motivated attacks against Armenians in Russia have grown so common that the president of Armenia, Robert Kocharyan, raised the issue with high-ranking Russian officials. In September 2006, major ethnic tensions between Russians and Caucasians took place in Kondopoga. In 2006, the crisis in Georgia–Russia relations resulted in the deportation of Georgians from Russia. The Russian side explained the process as law enforcement towards illegal immigrants, whereas the Georgian government accused Russia of ethnic cleansing. The European Court of Human Rights concluded that the detention and collective expulsion of Georgian nationals in 2006 violated the European Convention of Human Rights and ruled, in 2019, that Russia had to pay 10 million Euros in compensation.


title: Racism in Russia

text: In December 2010, there was a massive outbreak of hostility towards Caucasians, culminating in nationalist protests at Manezhnaya Square in Moscow and in other cities. The trigger was the murder of Egor Sviridov, a Russian association football fan, in a street fight on 6 December. On 11 December, thousands of nationalist rioters, outside the Moscow Kremlin building, screamed racist phrases, cried for a "Russia for Russians" and a "Moscow for Muscovites," attacked Caucasians and other minority groups who passed by, and some – including children as young as fourteen – made the Nazi salute. The next day, a similar riot was held in Rostov-on-Don, and afterwards, the city's government banned Caucasians from performing Lezginka, their traditional dance, in the city. Later, the police chief in Moscow said that civil liberties were a hindrance in security and that migration should be restricted. Vladimir Kvachkov, a major Russian nationalist leader of the organization People's Liberation Front of Russia (which says its major goal is to "free" Russia from Caucasian and Hebrew "occupiers"), made the following statement: "We Russian nationalists, the initiators of the people's front, we are telling you that the events of 11 December are the beginning of the revolutionary changes in Russia, the first outbursts of the approaching Russian revolution... You are the ones who can participate in it."


title: Racism in Russia

text: In 2016, Kyrgyzstan's President Almazbek Atambayev urged Russians to show respect to his countrymen after an assault on two migrants in Moscow. Racial discrimination of work-migrants from Central Asians (called "gastarbeiters", rus. гастарбайтеры) became a systematic norm after the fall of the Soviet Union.


title: Racism in Russia

text: On 11 January 2006, Alexander Koptsev burst into Bolshaya Bronnaya Synagogue in Moscow and stabbed eight people with a knife. In March, he was sentenced to 13 years in prison. In 2008, allegations of blood libel appeared in posters in Novosibirsk. The Federation of Jewish Communities of Russia expressed their concern about a rising number of attacks targeting Jews, calling it part of "a recent surge in anti-Semitic manifestations" in Russia.


title: Racism in Russia

text: In 2019, Ilya Yablogov wrote that many Russians were keen on antisemitic conspiracy theories in 1990s but it declined after 2000 and many high-ranking officials were forced to apologize for the antisemitic behavior.


title: Racism in Russia

text: The 2019 Pew Research poll found that 18% of Russians held unfavorable views of Jews, the number has dropped from 34% in 2009.


title: Racism in Russia

text: Amid hostility towards migrant workers, around 600 Vietnamese were rounded up in Moscow and placed in tents while waiting to be deported from Russia in August 2013.


title: Racism in Russia

text: On 9 January 2009 a group of strangers in Moscow stabbed a Vietnamese student named Tang Quoc Binh who was 21 years old and the wounds were fatal resulting in his death on 10 January.


title: Racism in Russia

text: In October 2004 Russian skinheads stabbed and beat a Vietnamese student named Vu Anh Tuan, killing him. Vu Anh Tuan was 20 years old when he was killed in St. Petersburg. In October 2006 the 17 skinheads who were on trial for his murder were acquitted by a court.


title: Racism in Russia

text: In Moscow on in 2008 group of young men stabbed a Vietnamese woman who was 35 years old and she died of her wounds.


title: Racism in Russia

text: A protest was held by 100 Vietnamese against the murder of Vu Anh Tuan, and a protestor said "We came to study in this country, which we thought was a friend of Vietnam. We do not have drunken fights, we do not steal, we do not sell drugs and we have the right to protection from bandits".


title: Racism in Russia

text: In Moscow on 25 December 2004 a crowd of people used clubs and knives to attack 2 Vietnamese students at the Moscow Energy Institute, Nguyen Tuan Anh and Nguyen Hoang Anh and they suffered severe injuries and were hospitalized.


title: Racism in Russia

text: After it was announced that Russia will host 2018 FIFA World Cup, a head of UEFA FARE Monitoring Centre, Dr. Rafał Pankowski, accused the Russian Football Union of downplaying racist chants in stadiums, saying: "Nazi slogans are common in many Russian stadiums. Matches are often interrupted with racist chants aimed at black players." More than 100 incidents took place 2012–2014.


title: Racism in Russia

text: Cameroonian player André Amougou constantly suffered racism while playing for Lokomotiv Moscow. As Zenit Saint Petersburg kicked off their 2006/2007 Russian Premier League campaign against visitors Saturn Moscow Oblast, Brazilian footballer Antônio Géder was received with a chorus of monkey chants at Petrovsky Stadium. In March 2008, black players of French side Marseille — including André Ayew, Charles Kaboré and Ronald Zubar — were targeted by ultras of Zenit Saint Petersburg. Zenit ultras were later warned by police in Manchester not to repeat their behaviour ahead of the 2008 UEFA Cup Final. Zenit's coach Dick Advocaat revealed that when they attempted to sign Mathieu Valbuena, a Frenchman, many fans asked "Is he a negro?" Also Serge Branco, who played for Krylia Sovetov Samara, accused Zenit's staff of racism, saying: "Each time I play in St Petersburg I have to listen to racist insults from the stands. Zenit bosses do not do anything about it which makes me think they are racists too." On 20 August 2010, Peter Odemwingie of Lokomotiv Moscow signed a 3-year contract with Premier League team West Bromwich Albion. Later, photographs showed Lokomotiv Moscow fans celebrating the sale of Odemwingie through the use of racist banners, including the image of a banana with the text "Thanks West Brom".


title: Racism in Russia

text: On 21 March 2011, during a game away at Zenit Saint Petersburg, a banana was held by one of the fans near Roberto Carlos of Russian Premier League club Anzhi Makhachkala as the footballer was taking part in a flag-raising ceremony. In June, in a match away at Krylia Sovetov Samara, Roberto Carlos received a pass from the goalkeeper and was about to pass it when a banana was thrown onto the pitch, landing nearby.


title: Racism in Russia

text: Lokomotiv Moscow was involved in another incident on 18 March 2012, when a banana was thrown at Anzhi Makhachkala defender Christopher Samba during at a match at the Lokomotiv Stadium.


title: Racism in Russia

text: In October 2013, during the second half of the match, between Manchester City and PFC CSKA Moscow, Yaya Touré, a star midfielder for City from Ivory Coast, walked up to the referee, Ovidiu Hategan, and angrily pointed at CSKA fans making monkey chants and shouting abuse toward him and his black teammates. The game continued and, according to Touré, so did the abuse.


title: Racism in Russia

text: On 9 February 2004, a group of neo-Nazi skinheads stabbed a nine-year-old Tajik girl, Khursheda Sultanova, to death in Saint Petersburg. In 2006, the Saint Petersburg Agency for Journalistic Investigations revealed suspected perpetrators among the members of the "Mad Crowd" gang.


title: Racism in Russia

text: On 14 June 2011, the Saint Petersburg City Court sentenced 12 members of the gang led by Alexei Voevodin and Artyom Prokhorenko for their roles in dozens of racist attacks.


title: Racism in Russia

text: On 15 December 2008, Artur Ryno and Pavel Skachevsky were sentenced to penal labour for 10 years each for the murder of 19 foreigners. They were placed on the list of people banned from entering the United Kingdom, remaining the only Russians on the list. The reason given is that they are "Leaders of a violent gang that beat migrants and posted films of their attacks on the internet. Considered to be engaging in unacceptable behaviour by fomenting serious criminal activity and seeking to provoke others to serious criminal acts." A judge who conducted the trial, Eduard Chuvashov, was gunned down on 12 April 2010, four days after he added two years to the 20-year prison sentence of a member of their gang.


title: Racism in Russia

text: On 21 August 2006, a home-made bomb exploded in Moscow at the Cherkizovsky Market, which is frequented by foreign merchants. On 15 May 2008, eight people of Russian radical nationalist organization Spas were found guilty for their roles in the attack that left 14 dead. Semyon Charny from the Moscow Bureau for Human Rights says: "The fact that this case found its way to court, and the example of people sentenced to life for the Cherkizovo market blast shows that we are moving in the right direction – but there's still a lot to do."


title: Racism in Russia

text: "Execution of a Tajik and a Dagestani" () is a video clip that was distributed in the Russian Internet segment in August 2007, showing the beheading of a Russian citizen of Dagestani origin and the shooting of a Tajik immigrant by Russian neo-nazis.


title: Racism in Russia

text: The video sparked active discussions in the Russian media. On 17 March 2008, the District Court of Novgorod ruled the video as extremist, and banned its distribution in the Russian Federation.


title: Racism in Russia

text: The video was posted on behalf of the National Socialist Party of Rus' () on the personal livejournal blog of Adygean college student Viktor Milnikov.


title: Racism in Russia

text: After a few days, he was arrested and later sentenced to one year of corrective labour by Maykop court.


title: Racism in Russia

text: On 5 June 2008, scenes of decapitation on video were identified as authentic by the Russian Investigation Committee. On the same day, one of the victims on the footage was identified by his relatives as Shamil Odamanov, a native of Dagestan.


title: Billy Woods (rapper)

text: Billy Woods (stylized as billy woods) is an American rapper based in New York. He is also the founder of the record label Backwoodz Studioz. Woods has been a member of Armand Hammer, Super Chron Flight Brothers, and The Reavers.


title: Billy Woods (rapper)

text: Billy Woods was born in Washington, D.C. His mother was an English literature professor from Jamaica. His father was a PhD Marxist writer, active in the Zimbabwe War of Liberation and then member of the government in Zimbabwe. In 1980, the family moved to Zimbabwe. After the death of Woods' father, they returned to the United States in 1989. Woods briefly attended Howard University before getting involved in New York City's hip hop scene. He started making music in the late 1990s. He wrote his "first real rhyme" at a laundromat in Kennebunk, Maine in 1997.


title: Billy Woods (rapper)

text: Billy Woods released his debut solo album, "Camouflage", on his record label Backwoodz Studioz in 2003. In 2012, he released "History Will Absolve Me". In 2013, he released "Dour Candy", which was entirely produced by Blockhead. In 2017, he released "Known Unknowns". It was included on "Rolling Stone"s "15 Great Albums You Probably Didn't Hear in 2017" list. In 2019, he released a collaborative album with producer Kenny Segal, titled "Hiding Places", as well as a solo album, "Terror Management". 2020 brought "Brass", a collaborative album with Moor Mother. Woods released "Aethiopes" and "Church" in 2022.


title: Hadhramaut

text: Hadhramaut (; Hadramautic: 𐩢𐩳𐩧𐩣𐩩, "Ḥḍrmt") is a region in South Arabia, comprising eastern Yemen, parts of western Oman and southern Saudi Arabia. The name is of ancient origin, and is retained in the name of the Yemeni Governorate of Hadhramaut. The people of Hadhramaut are called Hadhrami. They formerly spoke Hadramautic, an old South Arabian language, but they now predominantly speak Hadhrami Arabic, which has much influence from Hadramautic.


title: Hadhramaut

text: The origin of the name of "Ḥaḍramawt" is not exactly known, and there are numerous competing hypotheses about its meaning. The most common folk etymology is that the region's name means "death has come," from and , though there are multiple explanations for how it came to be known as such. One explanation is that this is a nickname of 'Amar ibn Qaḥṭān, a legendary invader of the region, whose battles always left many dead. Another theory is that after the destruction of Thamūd, the Islamic prophet Ṣāliḥ moved with about 4000 of his followers to the region and there he died, thus lending the region its morbid name "death has come." A third related etymology posits that refers to the inhabitants of the area, themselves, and hints that the way of life of the ancient Hadhrami people was severe and ascetic in the eyes of the bordering kingdoms situated in today's North Yemen.


title: Hadhramaut

text: Ḥaḍramawt has also been identified with Biblical Hazarmaveth (; Genesis 10:26 and 1 Chronicles 1:20). There, it is the name of a son of Joktan (who is identified with Qahtan in Islamic tradition), the purported ancestor of the South Arabian kingdoms. According to various Bible dictionaries, the name "Hazarmaveth" means "court of death," reflecting a meaning similar to the Arabic folk etymologies.


title: Hadhramaut

text: Scholarly theories of the name's origin are somewhat more varied, but none have gained general acceptance. Juris Zarins, rediscoverer of the city claimed to be the ancient Incense Route trade capital Ubar in Oman, suggested that the name may come from the Greek word , i.e. enclosed (and often fortified) watering stations in wadis. In a "Nova" interview, he described Ubar as:


title: Hadhramaut

text: Though it accurately describes the configuration of settlements in the pre-7th century Wadi Ḥaḍramawt, this explanation for the name is anachronistic and has gained no wider scholarly acceptance. Already in the period before the advent of Islam in the 7th century CE, variations of the name are attested as early as the middle of the First Millennium BC. The names "ḥḍrmt" (𐩢𐩳𐩧𐩣𐩩) and "ḥḍrmwt" (𐩢𐩳𐩧𐩣𐩥𐩩) are found in texts of the Old South Arabian languages (Ḥaḍramitic, Minaic, Qatabanic, and Sabaean), though the second form is not found in any known Ḥaḍramitic inscriptions. In either form, the word itself can be a toponym, a tribal name, or the name of the kingdom of Ḥaḍramawt. In the late fourth or early third century BC, Theophrastus gives the name Άδρραμύτα, a direct transcription of the Semitic name into Greek.


title: Hadhramaut

text: As Southern Arabia is the homeland of the South Semitic language subfamily, a Semitic origin for the name is highly likely. Kamal Salibi proposed an alternative etymology for the name which argues that the diphthong "aw" in the name is an incorrect vocalization. He notes that "-ūt" is a frequent ending for place names in the Ḥaḍramawt, and given that "Ḥaḍramūt" is the colloquial pronunciation of the name, and apparently also its ancient pronunciation, the correct reading of the name should be "place of ḥḍrm." He proposes, then, that the name means "the green place," which is apt for its well-watered wadis whose lushness contrasts with the surrounding high desert plateau.


title: Hadhramaut

text: Narrowly, Hadhramaut refers to the historical Qu'aiti and Kathiri sultanates , which were in the Aden Protectorate overseen by the British Resident at Aden until their abolition upon the independence of South Yemen in 1967. The current governorate of Hadhramaut roughly incorporates the former territory of the two sultanates It consists of a narrow, arid coastal plain bounded by the steep escarpment of a broad plateau (, averaging ), with a very sparse network of deeply sunk wadis (seasonal watercourses). The undefined northern edge of Hadhramaut slopes down to the desert Empty Quarter. Where the Hadhramaut Plateau or Highlands () meets the Gulf of Aden in the Arabian Sea, elevation abruptly decreases.


title: Hadhramaut

text: In a wider sense, Hadhramaut includes the territory of Mahra to the east all the way to the contemporary border with Oman. This encompasses the current governorates of Hadramaut and Mahra in their entirety as well as parts of the Shabwah Governorate.


title: Hadhramaut

text: The Hadhramis live in densely built towns centered on traditional watering stations along the wadis. Hadhramis harvest crops of wheat and millet, tend date palm and coconut groves, and grow some coffee. On the plateau, Bedouins tend sheep and goats. Society is still highly tribal, with the old Seyyid aristocracy, descended from the Islamic prophet Muhammad, traditionally educated, strict in their Islamic observance, and highly respected in religious and secular affairs.


title: Hadhramaut

text: The Hadhramaut Mountains () also known as the "Mahrat Mountains" (), are a mountain range in Yemen. They are contiguous with the Omani Dhofar Mountains to the northeast, and James Canton considered Aden in the southwest to be in the mountains' recesses.


title: Hadhramaut

text: The Hadhrami are referred to as Chatramotitai in ancient Greek texts. Hadhramautic texts come later than Sabaean ones, and some Sabaean texts from Hadhramaut are known. Greek, Latin, Sabaean and Hadhramautic texts preserve the names of a large number of kings of Hadhramaut, but there is as yet no definitive chronology of their reigns. Their capital was Shabwa in the northwest corner of the kingdom, along the Incense Route. Eratosthenes called it a "metropolis". It was an important cult centre as well. At first the religion was South Arabian polytheism, distinguished by the worship of the Babylonian moon god Sin. By the sixth century the monotheistic cult of Raḥmān was followed in the local temple.


title: Hadhramaut

text: The political history of Hadhramaut is not easy to piece together. Numerous wars involving Hadhramaut are referenced in Sabaean texts. From their own inscriptions, the Hadhrami are known to have fortified Libna (modern-day ) against Himyar and to have fortified Mwyt (Ḥiṣn al-Ghurāb) against the Aksumites in the period following the death of Dhū Nuwās (525/7). The kingdom ceased to exist by the end of the third century AD, having been annexed by the Himyarite Kingdom. Hadhramaut continued to be used in the full titulature of the kings of Sabaʾ and Dhu Raydān (Himyar).


title: Hadhramaut

text: Early Islamic authors believed the nomadic Kinda tribe that founded a kingdom in central Arabia were originally from Hadhramaut, although distinct from the settled Hadhrami population.


title: Hadhramaut

text: Miqdad ibn Aswad al-Bahrani, a companion of the Islamic prophet Muhammad, was reportedly from Hadhramaut. A number of prophets before them are believed to have dwelt here, including Houd of ʿAad. He is thought to be buried at Qabr Hud, which is also called "Shiʿb Hud", but this is not universally accepted.


title: Hadhramaut

text: The Qu'aiti sultans ruled the vast majority of Hadramaut, under a loose British protectorate, the Aden Protectorate, from 1882 to 1967, when the Hadhramaut was annexed by South Yemen. The Qu'aiti dynasty was founded by 'Umar bin Awadh al-Qu’aiti, a Yafa’i tribesman whose wealth and influence as hereditary Jemadar of the Nizam of Hyderabad's armed forces enabled him to establish the Qu'aiti dynasty in the latter half of the 19th century, winning British recognition of his paramount status in the region, in 1882. The British Government and the traditional and scholarly sultan Ali bin Salah signed a treaty in 1937 appointing the British government as "advisors" in Hadhramaut. The British exiled him to Aden in 1945, but the Protectorate lasted until 1967.


title: Hadhramaut

text: In 1967, the former British Colony of Aden and the former Aden Protectorate including Hadramaut became an independent Communist state, the People's Republic of South Yemen, later the People's Democratic Republic of Yemen. South Yemen was united with North Yemen in 1990 as the Republic of Yemen. See History of Yemen for recent history.


title: Hadhramaut

text: The capital and largest city of Hadhramaut is the port Mukalla. Mukalla had a 1994 population of 122,400 and a 2003 population of 174,700, while the port city of Ash Shihr has grown from 48,600 to 69,400 in the same time. One of the more historically important cities in the region is Tarim. An important locus of Islamic learning, it is estimated to contain the highest concentration of descendants of the Prophet Muhammad anywhere in the world.


title: Hadhramaut

text: Among Western explorers, British travellers Theodore and Mabel Bent ventured into the region on multiple occasions in the 1890s. “A few months before the Bents arrived in Southern Arabia, a German scholar, Leo Hirsch, reached Wadi Hadhramaut in search of Himyaritic inscriptions. He was the first European to penetrate so far inland. Although the Bents followed, Mabel could justly claim to be the first European woman to visit the Wadi (preceding Doreen Ingrams who went there in 1934, and Freya Stark in 1935).” The Bents published these explorations in their monograph "Southern Arabia" (1900).


title: Hadhramaut

text: Historically, Hadhramaut was known for being a major producer of frankincense, which in the early 20th century was mainly exported to Mumbai. The region has also produced senna and coconut. Currently, Hadhramout produces approximately 260,000 barrels of oil per day; one of the most productive fields is Al Maseelah in the strip (14), which was discovered in 1993. The Yemeni government is keen to develop its oil fields to increase oil production in order to increase national wealth in response to the requirements of economic and social development in the country. Oil contributes 30-40% of the nation's GDP, over 70% of total state revenues, and more than 90% of the value of the country's exports.


title: Hadhramaut

text: Since the early 19th century, large-scale Hadhramaut migration has established sizable Hadhrami minorities all around the Indian Ocean, in South Asia, Southeast Asia and East Africa including Hyderabad, Aurangabad, Maharashtrian Konkan, Mangalore, Bhatkal, Gangolli, Malabar, Sylhet, Tanzania, the Malay Archipelago, Sri Lanka, southern Philippines and Singapore. In Hyderabad and Aurangabad, the community is known as Chaush and resides mostly in the neighborhood of Barkas. There are also settlements of Hadhrami in Gujarat, such as in Ahmadabad and Surat.


title: Hadhramaut

text: In older history, several Sultans in the Malay Archipelago, such as the Sultanate of Malacca, Sultanate of Pontianak or Sultanate of Siak Indrapura, were descents of Hadhrami. In the 19th century, Hadhrami businessmen owned many of the maritime armada of barks, brigs, schooners and other ships in the Malay archipelago. In modern times, several Indonesian ministers, including former Foreign Minister Ali Alatas and former Finance Minister Mar'ie Muhammad are of Hadhrami descent, as is the former Prime Minister of East Timor, Mari Alkatiri (2006).


title: Hadhramaut

text: Hadhramis have also settled in large numbers along the East African coast, and two former ministers in Kenya, Shariff Nasser and Najib Balala, are of Hadhrami descent. It has been claimed that genetic evidence links the Lemba people of Zimbabwe and South Africa, to the people of the Hadramaut region.


title: Merrick Garland Supreme Court nomination

text: On March 16, 2016, President Barack Obama nominated Merrick Garland for Associate Justice of the Supreme Court of the United States to succeed Antonin Scalia, who had died one month earlier. At the time of his nomination, Garland was the Chief Judge of the United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit.


text: This vacancy arose during Obama's final year as president. Hours after Scalia's death was announced, Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell said he would consider any appointment by the sitting president to be null and void. He said the next Supreme Court justice should be chosen by the next president—to be elected later that year. Senate Democrats criticized the move as being unprecedented, and responded saying that there was sufficient time to vote on a nominee before the election.


text: Scalia's death brought about an unusual, but not unprecedented, situation in which a Democratic president had the opportunity to nominate a Supreme Court justice while the Republicans controlled the United States Senate. Before 2016, such a situation had last arisen in 1895, when a Republican-led Senate confirmed Democrat Grover Cleveland's nomination of Rufus Wheeler Peckham to the Court in a voice vote; conversely, in 1988 a Democratic-led Senate had confirmed Republican Ronald Reagan's nomination of Anthony Kennedy and in 1991, a Senate held 57–43 by Democrats nevertheless confirmed Justice Clarence Thomas. Political commentators at the time widely recognized Scalia as one of the most conservative members of the Court, and noted that—while many considered Merrick Garland a centrist, and he had been called "essentially the model, neutral judge"—a replacement less conservative than Scalia could have shifted the Court's ideological balance for many years into the future. The confirmation of Garland would have given Democratic appointees a majority on the Supreme Court for the first time since the 1970 confirmation of Harry Blackmun.


text: The 11 members of the Senate Judiciary Committee's Republican majority refused to conduct the hearings necessary to advance the vote to the Senate at large, and Garland's nomination expired on January 3, 2017, with the end of the 114th Congress, 293 days after it had been submitted to the Senate. This marked the first time since the Civil War that a nominee whose nomination had not been withdrawn had failed to receive consideration for an open seat on the Court. Obama's successor, Donald Trump (a Republican), nominated Judge Neil Gorsuch to fill the vacancy on January 31, 2017, soon after taking office.


text: On February 13, 2016, Associate Justice Antonin Scalia died unexpectedly while at the Cibolo Creek Ranch in Shafter, Texas. He was the second of three Supreme Court justices to die in office during the 21st century: following Chief Justice William Rehnquist in 2005; and followed by Associate Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg in 2020. Before him, the last incumbent justice to die was Robert H. Jackson in 1954.


text: Scalia had been appointed associate justice by President Ronald Reagan in September 1986 to fill the vacancy caused by the elevation of William Rehnquist to chief justice, and was unanimously confirmed by the Senate. He went on to become a part of the court's conservative bloc, often supporting originalist and textualist positions on the interpretation of the Constitution.


text: The vacancy on the Court created by Scalia's death came during a U.S. presidential election year, the seventh time since 1900 that this has happened. Article II, Section 2, Clause 2 of the United States Constitution grants plenary power to the president to nominate, and with the advice and consent of the Senate, appoint justices to the Supreme Court. At the time of Scalia's death, the incumbent president was Barack Obama, a member of the Democratic Party, while the Republican Party held a 54–46 seat majority in the Senate. Because of the ideological composition of the Court at the time of Scalia's death, and the belief that President Obama could replace Scalia with a much more liberal successor, some concluded that an Obama appointee could potentially swing the Court in a liberal direction for many years to come, with potentially far-reaching political consequences.


text: Scalia's election-year death triggered a protracted political battle that did not end until 2017 after a new president had been inaugurated. The Senate's Republican leadership was quick to assert that the vacancy should not be filled until after the 2016 presidential election. They cited a June 1992 speech by then-senator Joe Biden, in which Biden argued that President Bush should wait until after the election to appoint a replacement if a Supreme Court seat became vacant during the summer or should appoint a moderate acceptable to the then-Democratic Senate, as a precedent. Republicans later began to refer to this idea as the "Biden rule". Biden responded that his position was and remained that the president and Congress should "work together to overcome partisan differences" regarding judicial nominations.


text: The "Biden rule" has never been a formal rule of the Senate. PolitiFact noted that Biden's speech was later in the election year than when the GOP blocked Garland, there was no Supreme Court vacancy, there was no nominee under consideration, the Democratic-led Senate never adopted this as a rule, and that Biden did not object to Bush nominating judicial nominees after Election Day.


text: Democrats also countered that the U.S. Constitution obliged the president to nominate and obliged the Senate to give its advice and consent in a timely manner. Republicans argued in response that the Senate was fulfilling its obligation of advice and consent by saying that the next president should make the appointment. There were, however, 11 months left to President Obama's term at the time of Scalia's death, and the Democrats argued that no precedent existed for such a lengthy delay and that previous presidents had nominated individuals in election years. Democrats also argued that even if such a precedent existed, President Obama's term had sufficient time remaining that such a precedent would not apply. The precedent, known as the Thurmond rule, dated back to President Lyndon B. Johnson's 1968 nomination of Abe Fortas to become chief justice, but had since been inconsistently applied.


text: On February 23, the 11 Republican members of the Senate Judiciary Committee signed a letter to Senate majority leader Mitch McConnell stating their unprecedented intention to withhold consent on any nominee made by President Obama, and that no hearings would occur until after January 20, 2017, when the next president took office. This position subsequently became known as the "McConnell rule" though also not a formal rule of the Senate. That August, McConnell, who played an instrumental role in keeping Merrick Garland from filling Scalia's vacant seat, declared to a crowd in Kentucky, "One of my proudest moments was when I looked at Barack Obama in the eye and I said, 'Mr. President, you will not fill the Supreme Court vacancy."


text: McConnell later called the question of whether the rule should become Senate policy "absurd", stating that "neither side, had the shoe been on the other foot, would have filled [the vacant seat]".


text: On February 24, 2016, a group of progressive-leaning U.S. constitutional-law scholars sent an open letter to President Obama and the U.S. Senate urging the president to nominate a candidate to fill the vacancy and the Senate to hold hearings and vote on the nominee. The letter, which was organized by the progressive American Constitution Society, stated that it would be "unprecedented" for the Senate to fail to consider a Supreme Court nominee, and "would leave a vacancy that would undermine the ability of the Supreme Court to carry out its constitutional duties." The signatories wrote that "the Senate's constitutional duty to 'advise and consent'—the process that has come to include hearings, committee votes, and floor votes—has no exception for election years. In fact, over the course of American history, there have been 24 instances in which presidents in the last year of a term have nominated individuals for the Supreme Court and the Senate confirmed 21 of these nominees." Among the 33 professors signing the letter were Dean Erwin Chemerinsky of the University of California, Irvine School of Law; Adam Winkler of the UCLA School of Law; Kermit Roosevelt III of the University of Pennsylvania School of Law, and Gene Nichol of the University of North Carolina School of Law.


text: In a letter sent to President Obama on March 3, 2016, a different group of predominantly progressive scholars of American history, politics, and the law wrote to President Obama to "express our dismay at the unprecedented breach of norms by the Senate majority in refusing to consider a nomination for the Supreme Court made by a president with eleven months to serve in the position." The scholars wrote:


text: It is technically in the power of the Senate to engage in aggressive denial on presidential nominations. But we believe that the Framers' construction of the process of nominations and confirmation to federal courts, including the Senate's power of "advice and consent," does not anticipate or countenance an obdurate refusal by the body to acknowledge or consider a president's nominee, especially to the highest court in the land. The refusal to hold hearings and deliberate on a nominee at this level is truly unprecedented and, in our view, dangerous ...


text: The Constitution gives the Senate every right to deny confirmation to a presidential nomination. But denial should come after the Senate deliberates over the nomination, which in contemporary times includes hearings in the Judiciary Committee, and full debate and votes on the Senate floor. Anything less than that, in our view, is a serious and, indeed, unprecedented breach of the Senate's best practices and noblest traditions for much of our nation's history.


text: Signatories to this letter included, among others, Thomas E. Mann, senior fellow at the Brookings Institution; Norman J. Ornstein, resident scholar at the American Enterprise Institute; presidential historian Doris Kearns Goodwin; Pamela S. Karlan of Stanford Law School; Yale Law School professor Harold Hongju Koh; Geoffrey R. Stone of the University of Chicago Law School; and historian James M. McPherson of Princeton University.


text: On March 7, 2016, a group of 356 law professors and other legal scholars released a letter (organized through the progressive judicial advocacy group Alliance for Justice) to the Senate leadership of both parties urging them "to fulfill your constitutional duty to give President Obama's Supreme Court nominee a prompt and fair hearing and a timely vote." The letter writers argued that Senate Republicans' announcement that they would refuse to consider any Obama nominee was a "preemptive abdication of duty" that "is contrary to the process the framers envisioned in Article II, and threatens to diminish the integrity of our democratic institutions and the functioning of our constitutional government." Among the signatories to this letter were prominent law professors Charles Ogletree, Kenji Yoshino, and Laurence Tribe.


text: On March 9, 2016, in a letter to Obama and Senate leadership, a group of almost 250 prominent corporate lawyers urged the Senate to hold hearings on the president's nominee. The letter stated that "When a vacancy on the court arises, the Constitution is clear ... Article II, Section 2 states that the President 'shall nominate, and by and with the advice and consent of the Senate, shall appoint ... judges of the Supreme Court' ... Though the Senate may ultimately choose not to consent to the president's nominee, it would be unprecedented for the Senate to refuse to perform its 'advice and consent' role in this context. Not only does the Constitution direct the sitting president to nominate an individual to fill a vacancy on the court no matter whether it is an election year, nearly one third of all presidents have nominated a justice in an election year who was eventually confirmed." The letter, organized by the Lawyers' Committee for Civil Rights Under Law, also expressed concern about the "profound effect" of an under-staffed Court on the national economy, particularly in close cases. Signatories to the letter came from a number of national law firms, as well as counsel for Google Inc.


text: On March 10, 2016, the Democratic attorneys general of 19 states, Puerto Rico, and the District of Columbia released a letter to Obama and Senate leadership in both parties calling for prompt Senate action on the president's (then yet-to-be-named) nominee. The letter stated that "the states and territories have a unique and pressing interest in a full and functioning Supreme Court" and that refusal to consider a nominee would "undermine the rule of law and ultimately impair the functioning of state governments."


text: In March 2016, former Utah governor Jon Huntsman Jr., a Republican, and former Connecticut U.S. senator Joseph Lieberman, an independent, both co-chairs of the problem-solving group No Labels, wrote that "there is no modern precedent for the blockade that Senate Republicans have put in place. Even highly-contentious nomination battles in the past, including those over Robert Bork and Justice Clarence Thomas, followed the normal process of hearings and an up-or-down vote. Leaving the current blockade in place could leave a seat on the Court vacant for the remainder of this term and perhaps the next as well, which could leave major cases in limbo until 2018. That is simply not acceptable. We cannot let today's crisis of leadership turn into a full-blown constitutional crisis."


text: That same month, John Joseph Gibbons and Patricia Wald, the former chief judges of the Third Circuit and D.C. Circuit, respectively, warned that the Senate's refusal to act on a Supreme Court nomination "would set a dangerous precedent, and invite attempts to extend it to other situations where the Executive and the Legislative branches are in political conflict with one another." Gibbons was appointed by a Republican president, while Wald was appointed by a Democratic president.


text: Law professors Robin Bradley Kar and Jason Mazzone, in a May 2016 study published in the "NYU Law Review Online", called the situation "unprecedented," noting that the Senate had never before transferred a president's appointment power in comparable circumstances to an unknown successor.


text: George Mason University law professor Ilya Somin argued the Constitution imposes no such duty upon the Senate to hold confirmation hearings and to give a nominee an up-or-down vote. Jonathan H. Adler agreed, writing that while he personally has "long argued that the Senate should promptly consider and vote on every presidential judicial nominee, ... there is no textual or historical basis" for the contention that the Senate has a constitutional obligation to do so. Eugene Volokh argues that there has not been a "constant practice of Senators agreeing that every nominee should be considered without regard to there being a looming election" and that "in the absence of such a practice, we come down to more results-oriented politics." George Mason University law professor David Bernstein argued that while "preexisting constitutional norms" would suggest that "hearings and eventual votes on Supreme Court nominees" were mandatory, this norm is not required by the constitutional text and has been undermined by recent political practice.


text: Bernstein also noted that a Democratic-controlled Senate in 1960, in reaction to President Eisenhower's 1956 recess appointment of William J. Brennan Jr., passed a Senate resolution "Expressing the sense of the Senate that the president should not make recess appointments to the Supreme Court, except to prevent or end a breakdown in the administration of the Court's business." Noah Feldman, a constitutional law professor at Harvard Law School, has said "it's hard to argue that [the Constitution] requires the [Senate] to put a nominee to a vote." Vikram Amar, constitutional law professor and dean of the University of Illinois College of Law, wrote that "the text of the Constitution certainly does not use any language suggesting the Senate has a legal obligation to do anything," but that the "absolutist position" taken by Senate Republicans presents "grave risks" of escalating the judicial-appointment process into "extreme moves and countermoves."


text: Prior to Obama's nomination of Merrick Garland, media commentators speculated about who might be nominated to fill the vacancy on the Court. A number of writers argued that the Senate Republicans would continue to block the confirmation process regardless of the nominee, and suggested that Obama may as well choose a candidate for political motives. For instance, Michael Tomasky suggested that a nomination of Mariano-Florentino Cuéllar may encourage Latinos to vote in the November 2016 election and "alter the presidential race dramatically as well." Tom Goldstein, arguing that "[t]he nomination itself is part of the president's legacy, even if partisan politics prevents confirmation," recommended nominating a black woman to encourage black and female voters to participate in the election. Goldstein concluded that the most likely candidate of such description was Ketanji Brown Jackson.


text: Other commentators suggested that Obama should compromise by selecting a centrist or even moderate conservative candidate. After analyzing voting trends for Supreme Court nominees since the confirmation of Hugo Black in 1937, political scientists Charles Cameron and Jonathan Kastellec explained that "even an ideological twin of Justice Stephen Breyer—the most moderate of the court's current liberals—would fail to get even a majority of votes in the current Senate". Without naming potential nominees, Cameron and Kastellec concluded that the Senate would only approve "a highly qualified moderate." In that vein, Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid suggested the nomination of Republican Governor Brian Sandoval. However, Sandoval soon withdrew his name from consideration. Zachary A. Goldfarb and Jeffrey Toobin speculated that Obama might nominate Sri Srinivasan because he "has the sort of impeccable credentials that are much beloved by the Supreme Court bar" and that his reputation as a moderate liberal may appeal to conservatives in the Senate.


text: By early March 2016, Obama reportedly scheduled interviews with five candidates—Merrick Garland, Ketanji Brown Jackson, Jane L. Kelly, Sri Srinivasan, and Paul J. Watford—before narrowing the list down to three candidates: Srinivasan, Garland, and Watford. Garland had been interviewed for a seat on the Court in 2010, when Justice Elena Kagan was selected to succeed the retiring John Paul Stevens. Back in 2010, Republican Senator Orrin G. Hatch publicly said that he had urged Obama to nominate Garland as "a consensus nominee" who would easily win Senate confirmation. On March 11, 2016, Hatch said that refusal to now consider any Obama nominee to the high court was "the chickens coming home to roost", and he cited historical episodes as well as old quotations from Democratic senators to explain why.


text: On March 16, 2016, President Obama nominated Merrick Garland, the Chief Judge of the United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit, to fill the vacant seat on the Court. In a formal Rose Garden ceremony, Obama, flanked by Garland and Vice President Joe Biden, declared: "I have selected a nominee who is widely recognized not only as one of America's sharpest legal minds, but someone who brings to his work a spirit of decency, modesty, integrity, even-handedness and excellence. Presidents do not stop working in the final year of their term; neither should a Senator." He went on to say: "To suggest that someone as qualified and respected as Merrick Garland does not even deserve a hearing, let alone an up-or-down vote, to join an institution as important as our Supreme Court, when two-thirds of Americans believe otherwise—that would be unprecedented." Garland then briefly spoke, stating that "fidelity to the Constitution and the law have been the cornerstone of my professional life" and promising to "continue on that course" if confirmed for the Supreme Court.


text: The White House simultaneously released a biographical video of Garland, featuring old photographs of Garland and his family, an interview with the judge, and archival footage of him at the scene of the Oklahoma City bombing, which Garland investigated. In the video, Garland states: "When I am standing with the President and he announces my nomination, I actually think it is going to feel a little bit like it is an out-of-body experience."


text: The selection of the year old Garland, the oldest Supreme Court nominee since Lewis F. Powell Jr. in 1971 at age , caught prediction markets by surprise. On the PredictIt market, traders predicted that Srinivasan would be the nominee, trading as high as 97% on this outcome.


text: Immediately following the president's announcement of Garland, Senate Majority Leader, Mitch McConnell, announced a firm refusal to consider nominees to the Supreme Court until the next presidential inauguration. Citing what he called "the Thurmond Rule", McConnell argued that there should not be a nomination so close to the next presidential and congressional election, but rather that the nomination should await the outcome of that election (which was 8 months away, and 10 months to the next presidential and congressional inaugurations):


text: Senator Orrin Hatch said: "I think well of Merrick Garland. I think he is a fine person. But his nomination does not in any way change current circumstances." Soon thereafter, Senator Jeff Flake said that Garland should not be confirmed unless Hillary Clinton wins the November presidential election. He argued that should Clinton win, Garland should be confirmed in the Senate's lame-duck session because he is less liberal than any nominee Clinton might put forward. After meeting with Garland in April, Flake reiterated this position. Hatch echoed this sentiment, saying that he was "open to resolving this [Garland's nomination after a Clinton win] in a lame-duck [session in December]."


text: By the beginning of April however, a total of 29 Republicans had announced that even after election, regardless of its outcome, they would not consider the Garland nomination. In April, two Republican Senators, Jerry Moran and Lisa Murkowski, after weeks earlier expressing support for proceeding with hearings as a part of the nomination process, had reversed their positions, saying that they now opposed hearings on Garland's nomination. Two other Republicans, Mark Kirk and Susan Collins, expressed their support for hearings and an up-or-down vote on Garland, with Collins also supporting Garland's nomination. Some Republicans, including Ted Cruz and John McCain, suggested that the Senate might not confirm any nominee to replace Scalia, particularly if Democrats retain control of the presidency.


text: Donald Trump, a candidate in the 2016 Republican Party presidential primaries at the time of Scalia's death, declared his opposition to the Garland nomination when it was announced, maintaining that picking a successor to Scalia should be done by the next president. Trump later released two lists of potential Supreme Court nominees which he would use to guide his Supreme Court nominations if elected president.


text: In April 2016, a letter signed by sixty-eight of Garland's former law clerks urging his confirmation was delivered to Senate leaders. The "Washington Post" summarized the letter as painting "a familiar portrait of Garland as a careful judge, a hardworking public servant and a devoted family man." The former clerks wrote: "There are not many bosses who so uniformly inspire the loyalty that we all feel toward Chief Judge Garland. Our enthusiasm is both a testament to his character and a reflection of his commitment to mentoring and encouraging us long after we left his chambers."


text: On May 2, eight former Solicitors General of the United States endorsed Garland as "superbly qualified", including Republicans Paul Clement, Gregory G. Garre, Theodore Olson, and Ken Starr. On June 21, the American Bar Association's Standing Committee on the Federal Judiciary granted Garland its "well-qualified" rating. Commenting on his integrity, the ABA noted: "Most remarkably, in interviews with hundreds of individuals in the legal profession and community who knew Judge Garland, whether for a few years or decades, not one person uttered a negative word about him."


text: In August 2016, Steve Michel, a New Mexico lawyer, filed a lawsuit in federal court seeking to compel Republican leaders in the Senate to take a vote on the nomination. On November 17, U.S. District Judge Rudolph Contreras dismissed the lawsuit, finding that the plaintiff, who had simply alleged he was a voter, had no standing to sue.


text: Over 150,000 people signed a "We the People" petition posted in November 2016 on the White House website asking President Obama to independently appoint Garland to the Supreme Court, espousing the theory that the Senate had waived its advise and consent role. The petition received an official White House response, but the administration did not embrace the petitioners' point of view.


text: Under long-standing Senate rules, nominations still pending when the Senate adjourns at the end of a session are returned to the president (unless the Senate, by unanimous consent, waives the rule). Garland's nomination expired on January 3, 2017, at the end of the 114th Congress, after languishing 293 days.


text: Barack Obama was succeeded by Donald Trump on January 20, 2017. Shortly afterward, President Trump nominated Neil Gorsuch to fill the Scalia vacancy. Gorsuch was confirmed by the Senate on April 7, 2017.


text: Two years later, in May 2019, Senator McConnell was asked what he would do if a Supreme Court justice were to die in 2020, an election year. He stated that the Senate would fill such a vacancy. McConnell repeated the statement in September 2020, following the death of associate justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, citing a 2018 midterm elections mandate "to work with President Trump and support his agenda, particularly his outstanding appointments to the federal judiciary."


text: On September 26, 2020, Trump announced that he would nominate Amy Coney Barrett as Ginsburg's successor. Though many Democrats and some commentators contended that Republicans violated the precedent they had established for Garland, her appointment to the court was confirmed by Senate on October 26, eight days before the 2020 presidential election.


text: On January 21, 2021, Trump's newly inaugurated successor Joe Biden announced Garland's nomination to the post of US Attorney General, and after approval by the US Senate by a vote of 70-30, Garland was sworn into office on March 11.


text: Scalia's death left the court with eight judges for a majority of its 2015 term and the beginning of its 2016 term, and the vacancy was the second-longest since 1900. With the vacancy persisting for some time, the Court showed a reluctance to accept new cases. The Court's slow pace in accepting new cases reflected "an increased cautiousness considering the real possibility of 4–4 deadlocks on anything ideologically divisive". From the time of Scalia's death in late February 2016 until the first week of April 2017, the Court accepted only three cases, none likely to be controversial. By contrast, over the previous five years the Court took up an average of eight cases over the same period.


text: For cases that were not decided before his death, Justice Scalia's votes were not counted, with the cases decided by the remaining eight members of the Court. When the Court issues any ruling with votes split 4–4, the Court does not publish a written opinion with respect to the merits of the case and the ruling of the lower court is affirmed, although the Court's affirmance has no effect as precedent in future cases.


text: Citing the Court's practices following the death of Justice Robert H. Jackson in 1954, Tom Goldstein of SCOTUSblog suggested in February 2016 that the Court was more likely to set evenly-divided cases for reargument after a new justice is appointed to the Court. However, the Court split 4–4 in at least five cases of the 2015 term:


title: Aldershot Town F.C.

text: Aldershot Town Football Club is a professional association football club based in Aldershot, Hampshire, England. The team competes in the National League, the fifth tier of the English football league system. The club was founded in the spring of 1992 after the closure of debt-ridden Fourth Division club Aldershot. Aldershot Town play at the Recreation Ground, which had also been the home ground of the previous club.


title: Aldershot Town F.C.

text: Initially placed in the Isthmian League Third Division, Aldershot Town won the league in their debut 1992–93 season and won promotion out of the Second Division the following season. They won the First Division title in 1997–98 and the Premier Division in 2002–03 to gain a place in the Conference. They spent five seasons in the Conference, losing twice in the play-offs, before winning promotion into the Football League as Conference National and Conference League Cup champions under Gary Waddock's stewardship in 2007–08. They spent five seasons in League Two, reaching the play-offs in 2010, though were relegated back into non-league football and entered administration in May 2013. They reached the National League play-offs in 2017 and 2018.


title: Aldershot Town F.C.

text: In March 1992, the town of Aldershot was without a football club after Aldershot F.C. became the first Football League team to fold during the football season since Accrington Stanley in 1962. The original Aldershot club had been in the Football League since 1932 and competed in the Third and Fourth Divisions. Promotion had been achieved as recently as 1987, but relegation followed two years later and debts well into six figures had almost brought about the club’s demise in the summer of 1990. Despite a rescue package allowing the original winding-up order to be rescinded, the club’s debts remained high and the club finally went bust just over 18 months later.


title: Aldershot Town F.C.

text: Aldershot Town was born later the same year, and began life competing in the Isthmian League Division Three. Despite Aldershot Town playing five divisions lower than the Football League, the attendance for their first competitive fixture was higher than the old team's last home tie, with attendances that season averaging around 2,000 at a level where attendances normally averaged around 100.


title: Aldershot Town F.C.

text: Ten successive victories were recorded under the guidance of former player Steve Wignall and Aldershot won the championship by an 18-point margin.


title: Aldershot Town F.C.

text: A further promotion and an FA Vase quarter-final placing was achieved in the 1993–94 season. When Steve Wignall departed to take charge of Colchester United midway through the 1994–95 season, former Nottingham Forest winger Steve Wigley took over. The club finished the 1994–95 season with a run of six successive victories, but missed out on promotion by goal difference. After narrowly missing out during the next two seasons Wigley left in July 1997 to become Youth Development Officer at Nottingham Forest. He was replaced by George Borg, another former Aldershot FC player.


title: Aldershot Town F.C.

text: Attendances continued to rise during this period and the final fixture of the 1997–98 Isthmian League First Division championship-winning season, at home to Berkhamsted Town, attracted 4,289 fans to the Recreation Ground – a league record and an attendance comparable to that of many fourth and even third tier clubs at the time.


title: Aldershot Town F.C.

text: The success under Borg continued with an Isthmian League Cup, two Hampshire Senior Cups and a runners-up spot in the Isthmian League Premier Division.


title: Aldershot Town F.C.

text: The club's reserves were reinstated in 2000–01 and entered the Suburban League. The FA Cup in 2000–01 saw Aldershot take on league opposition at The Recreation Ground for the first time since reforming, when Brighton & Hove Albion visited for a 1st Round tie in November and a record attendance of 7,500 saw the league team win. In the following season's FA Cup the Shots held Bristol Rovers to a home draw in the First Round, but again missed out on the Second Round after losing the replay in Bristol.


title: Aldershot Town F.C.

text: George Borg resigned as manager in November 2001 after pressure from supporters and was replaced by Terry Brown. He won his first game in charge beating Newport IOW 1–0 in the Hampshire Senior Cup Semi-final Second Leg, taking The Shots on to win the final against Havant & Waterlooville. In Brown's first full season in charge he overhauled the squad, and by mid-November the Shots were top of the table, a position they did not relinquish for the remainder of the season, winning promotion to the Football Conference. After just 11 years, four promotions had now been achieved and just one more promotion was required for league football to return to Aldershot.


title: Aldershot Town F.C.

text: A crowd of 3,680 saw Aldershot's first game in the Conference, a 2–1 win over Accrington Stanley. The club went on to stay in the play-off positions in the league table for all but 3 days of the season. The Shots equalled their best ever run in the FA Cup, reaching the 2nd Round and losing 1–0 to Colchester United at Layer Road. The club reached their first FA Trophy semi-final, losing to eventual winners Hednesford Town and the average attendance for league matches at The Rec ended on a record high of 3,303.


title: Aldershot Town F.C.

text: A 1–1 draw against Tamworth on the last day of the season carried the Shots into the play-offs for a place in the Football League. Over two legs the Shots held their own against favourites Hereford United, drawing 1–1 at The Rec and 0–0 at Edgar Street. Extra time finished without any further score and the tie was concluded on penalties with the Shots winning 4–2. The 2004 Conference play-off Final against Shrewsbury Town finished 1–1 after extra time. Shrewsbury returned to the league with a 3–0 win in the penalty shoot-out.


title: Aldershot Town F.C.

text: In May 2004 the club officers made the decision to convert Aldershot Town to full-time professional status from the following July. In 2004–05 the Shots once again equalled their best ever run in the FA Cup as they reached the 2nd Round proper, where they lost 5–1 to Hartlepool United. After a slow start in the league, Aldershot improved their form and reached the play-offs after beating Scarborough in the last game of the season. The Shots won the first leg against Carlisle United 1–0 at home, but lost the away leg 2–1, giving a 2–2 aggregate score. Extra time could not separate the sides and the tie went to penalties, with Carlisle winning the shootout.


title: Aldershot Town F.C.

text: The next two seasons were less successful for the Shots. 2005–06 saw Aldershot's team suffer numerous injuries, and they struggled to 13th in the table. The team made it to the 2nd round of the FA Cup, losing 1–0 at home to Scunthorpe United. The next season was equally disappointing, with the side never really getting close enough to the aim of finishing in the playoff positions. The club eventually made it to 9th in the reformed 24 club Conference Premier, finishing 13 points off the playoffs. Terry Brown resigned, citing the poor health of his wife as the primary reason, although his position may have been untenable with regards to the season's performance. Martin Kuhl took over as caretaker manager. They made it to the Third round of the FA Cup for the first time, losing 4–2 at Bloomfield Road to Blackpool


title: Aldershot Town F.C.

text: In May 2007 Gary Waddock was appointed the new manager, with Martin Kuhl reverting to his coaching position. The Shots started the season strongly, losing few games before the turn of the year. Jonny Dixon was sold to Brighton and Hove Albion in the January Transfer window for a then club record of £56,000. The Shots finished top of the Conference Premier with a record 101 points, and were promoted to the Football League, for the first time since the club was reformed ending the season on an 18-match undefeated run.


title: Aldershot Town F.C.

text: The Shots also made it to the Conference League Cup Final after a 4–3 penalty shoot out victory over near neighbours Woking in the semi-final. The final, played at the Recreation Ground on 3 April, was against Rushden & Diamonds. With the scores 1–1 at full-time, then 3–3 after extra time, Aldershot won 4–3 on penalties.


title: Aldershot Town F.C.

text: Sixteen years after the demise of Aldershot F.C., the town of Aldershot had a Football League team again. The club retained much of the 2007–08 promotion winning team, and added several signings, both permanent and on loan. Gary Waddock and Martin Kuhl also committed their futures to the club by signing new three-year contracts. Joel Grant was sold to Crewe Alexandra for £130,000, a club record. On the opening day of the 2008–09 season, Aldershot Town won their first league game on their return to the Football League at Accrington Stanley 1–0. This was followed four days later by the club's first ever EFL Cup game, against Coventry City at the Ricoh Arena, which the Shots lost 3–1. The Shots finished fifteenth in League Two in their first season in the Football League.


title: Aldershot Town F.C.

text: Two months into the 2009–10 season, manager Gary Waddock and assistant Martin Kuhl accepted offers to join Wycombe Wanderers. Jason Dodd was appointed as Caretaker Manager, assisted by Paul Williams before Kevin Dillon, the former first-team coach of Reading, was appointed as Waddock's permanent successor in November 2009. Two days later Dillon appointed Gary Owers as his assistant manager. Under the new management team Aldershot finished the season in sixth place, qualifying them for the play-offs, where they lost 3–0 on aggregate to Rotherham United.


title: Aldershot Town F.C.

text: In January 2011 Kevin Dillon and assistant Gary Owers had left the club by mutual agreement, with the club lying 20th in League Two, after winning just 6 out of 22 league games. Dillon was replaced by Newport County manager Dean Holdsworth. Holdsworth succeeded in removing the threat of relegation, eventually guiding the club to 14th position in a run which included only 4 defeats in the second half of the season.


title: Aldershot Town F.C.

text: Aldershot finished 11th in the 2011–12. A good run in the League Cup saw Aldershot take on Manchester United at home, which ended in a 3–0 victory for the Red Devils. Holdsworth was sacked by Aldershot on 20 February 2013 with the team in 20th place in League Two.


title: Aldershot Town F.C.

text: In the summer 2012, a major shareholder suffered a major stroke, debilitating him and creating a financial insecurity that would prove dangerous come the following year. In May 2013, Aldershot Town announced that they were in financial difficulties, with players' wages going unpaid. The Chief Executive, Andrew Mills, announced his resignation saying that there was no evidence that the major shareholder Kris Machala had the ability to fund the club. Director Tony Knights admitted that the club has been "haemorrhaging money". On 2 May 2013, just five days after their relegation from the Football League, Aldershot Town officially entered administration. The club fell with debts of over £1 million.


title: Aldershot Town F.C.

text: On 1 August 2013, Aldershot Town confirmed the takeover of the club by a consortium led by former chairman Shahid Azeem. In conjunction, the club announced the agreement of a lucrative deal with Chelsea to host a significant number of matches played by the Chelsea Academy and Reserves over the next two years.


title: Aldershot Town F.C.

text: Aldershot were relegated from the National League in 2019 after finishing 21st. However, they were reprieved from relegation after Gateshead were administratively relegated.


title: Aldershot Town F.C.

text: Aldershot Town play their home games at The Recreation Ground, which has a capacity of 7,100. The stadium was previously the home of Aldershot F.C. The stadium's current sponsor is EBB Paper, therefore the ground is advertly known as The EBB Stadium at The Recreation Ground, however is affectionately known as 'The Rec'.


title: Aldershot Town F.C.

text: In March 2018, Aldershot Town presented proposals for the redevelopment of the EBB Stadium to Rushmoor Borough Council which would see the potential development of a new stadium, containing both seating and standing areas, that will give the club a 'long-term home from which to build our ambitions on the pitch'.


title: Aldershot Town F.C.

text: Jason Chewins holds the record for the most number of appearances for the club, playing 489 times between August 1994 and May 2004. This led to the left-back being the first and, to date, only player to receive a testimonial match, which was played against Portsmouth in July 2004.


title: Aldershot Town F.C.

text: Before Chewins, the record was held by Mark Butler, who joined the club at its inception in 1992. Butler played 303 times between August 1992 and May 1998, also holding the all-time goal scoring record by netting 155 times, a record he still currently holds. Former goalkeeper Nikki Bull made his 300th appearance for the Shots in November 2008 and eventually made 313 appearances before moving to Brentford in July 2009. Five others have played more than 200 times for the club, including Stuart Udal, whose cousin Shaun was an England international cricketer. Winger Jimmy Sugrue has also reached the landmark. More recently, three members of the 2007–08 title winning squad, namely Anthony Charles, Anthony Straker and Danny Hylton reached the landmark.


title: Aldershot Town F.C.

text: Gary Abbott is, apart from Butler, the only Shots player to have ever scored over 100 goals for the club. Over the course of three seasons, between August 1998 and May 2001, he scored 120 goals.


title: Aldershot Town F.C.

text: Aldershot Town's home kit is red with blue and white trim. The club have always played in a predominantly red kit with blue features, including stripes and quarters. The club's chosen colours of red and blue reflect the garrison town's association with the British Army.


title: Aldershot Town F.C.

text: Errea were the kit supplier for the 2011–12 season. Adidas has been the kit supplier from the 2013–14 season.


title: Aldershot Town F.C.

text: Aldershot Town's local rivals are Rushmoor neighbours Farnborough and Surrey side Woking. Fixtures against these sides attract larger than average crowds, including 5,961 for a Hampshire Senior Cup Semi Final, a league record 5,518 in an Isthmian League Premier Division match against Farnborough and 6,870 for an FA Cup 1st round match against Woking.


title: Aldershot Town F.C.

text: The original Aldershot were rivals with Reading until their demise in 1992 but are still considered the main rival of the club by supporters. The only meeting between the two clubs was in a friendly in 2001.


title: Leslie Thompkins

text: Leslie Maurin Thompkins (sometimes spelled Tompkins) is a fictional character appearing in comic books published by DC Comics, usually as a supporting character in stories featuring Batman, of whom she is an ally. Created by writer Dennis O'Neil and artist Dick Giordano, she first appeared in "Detective Comics" #457 (March 1976).


title: Leslie Thompkins

text: She debuted in-live action in 2015 on Fox's television series "Gotham", where she was portrayed by Morena Baccarin. On the HBO Max series "Titans", she was portrayed by Krista Bridges in the third season.


title: Leslie Thompkins

text: Created by writer Dennis O'Neil and artist Dick Giordano, she first appeared in "Detective Comics" #457 (March 1976). She was based on the Catholic pacifist Dorothy Day.


title: Leslie Thompkins

text: A close friend and medical colleague of Thomas Wayne, Leslie serves as a surrogate parent to his son Bruce after his parents are murdered, and later becomes a confidant in his crusade as Batman. In addition to being one of Batman's allies, Leslie is also a renowned medical professional who has dedicated her considerable skills toward helping Gotham City's less fortunate.


title: Leslie Thompkins

text: Leslie Thompkins made her first appearance in "Detective Comics" #457, in which she is depicted as comforting the young Bruce Wayne on the night that his parents were murdered. Inspired, she dedicates her life to helping slum kids avoid a life of crime. Every year on the anniversary of his parents' murder, Batman visits Leslie in Park Row (which was now referred to as Crime Alley). However, Leslie has no idea he is the boy she had helped decades before.


title: Leslie Thompkins

text: In later years, Leslie is portrayed as having been a close friend and colleague of Thomas Wayne, Bruce's father. She takes it upon herself to look after Bruce after the boy's parents are murdered, often acting with the family butler Alfred Pennyworth as a parental figure and guardian. In "Batman Special" #1 (1984), after costumed cop-killer Wrath dies in combat with Batman, Leslie comforts Wrath's grieving girlfriend much as she had young Bruce. She also eventually learns that Bruce is Batman.


title: Leslie Thompkins

text: Wrath's girlfriend, former Mafioso Gayle Hudson, becomes a close friend to Leslie. At one point this protects Leslie from two attackers, who fear what retribution Gayle might bring.


title: Leslie Thompkins

text: Leslie disapproves of Bruce's vigilantism, and feels partly responsible for his transformation into Batman, fearing that somehow she failed him as a role model. She has also been linked to Alfred romantically on more than one occasion.


title: Leslie Thompkins

text: She runs a clinic for criminals and drug addicts in Gotham City. While the majority of her patients are repeat offenders, she continues to do her job with great perseverance and determination. During the "No Man's Land" storyline, she runs Gotham's only medical clinic, operating under a strict 'No Violence' policy regardless of her patients' actions and intent. Even Killer Croc respects the rule and stays out.


title: Leslie Thompkins

text: Sometime after No Man's Land, it is revealed she has a brother named Jeremiah. She asks Jean Paul Valley to find him.


title: Leslie Thompkins

text: Stephanie Brown suffers serious injuries at the hands of Black Mask during the "War Games" crossover, and is taken to Leslie's clinic for treatment. Initially thinking Stephanie died of her injuries, Batman later discovers, during the "War Crimes" storyline, that Leslie deliberately treated her improperly, resulting in her death while hoping that it would teach Batman the lesson that his constant use of children as partners was only putting their lives in danger.


title: Leslie Thompkins

text: After liquidating her assets and giving them to Stephanie's daughter, she flees to Africa. Batman follows her and forces a confession, coldly informing her that he may not stop violence, but he had never thrown another body onto the pile in the hopes of making a statement. He warns her that she is now just another murderer in his eyes, and if she ever returned to the United States or practiced medicine again, he would bring her to justice.


title: Leslie Thompkins

text: A mysterious familiar figure has been stalking Tim Drake wearing Stephanie's Spoiler costume, which at one point Tim thinks he imagined it to be Stephanie herself. The stalker indeed turns out to be Stephanie. It was revealed that Leslie faked the girl's death and switched the body with an overdose victim who had a similar body type.


title: Leslie Thompkins

text: A 2008 "Robin"/"Spoiler" one-shot special shows both Leslie and Stephanie alive and in exile, protecting a village somewhere in Africa.


title: Leslie Thompkins

text: After the events of "" Leslie Thompkins has once again set up shop in Gotham, attempting to start over and continue to help unfortunates. She gained the Cavalier as her bodyguard and has, along with Barbara Gordon, begun helping a former associate of the Teen Titans named Wendy Harris deal with the loss of the use of her legs. Leslie has been welcomed back warmly by Alfred and Dick Grayson. Tim Drake, however, maintains a frosty attitude towards her due to her actions regarding Stephanie.


title: Leslie Thompkins

text: In 2011, The New 52 rebooted the DC universe. Leslie Thompkins appears, younger than she is usually depicted, in the pages of "Red Hood and the Outlaws". She is featured in Jason Todd's flashbacks as the Red Hood: she took him in at her clinic in Gotham City after he was beaten within an inch of his life by Joker.


title: Leslie Thompkins

text: At the offices of Gotham Child Services, Killer Croc makes a violent entrance, startling Leslie and demanding that Jade be returned to him so that he can give her the things he never had. Leslie admits that Jade has been returned to the Ibanescu family.


title: Leslie Thompkins

text: In 2016, DC Comics implemented another relaunch of its books called DC Rebirth, which restored its continuity to a form much as it was prior to The New 52. Leslie has a secret clinic set up in an abandoned building previously used as a base by Azrael (Jean-Paul Valley), where she is treating his injuries from a bombing earlier in the story. She is shown to disapprove of Batman's plan to "get teenagers involved" meaning the team Batman and Batwoman had assembled in the recent "Detective Comics".


title: Leslie Thompkins

text: She was attacked and apparently killed after being infected with a variation of Joker Toxin. It is revealed that the whole event was only a simulation.


title: Leslie Thompkins

text: During the 2015 "Convergence" storyline, the Pre-Crisis version of Leslie Thompkins is established to have spent a year inside a struggling Gotham City under a strange dome. She is devoting her time as a therapist. One of her patients is Guy Gardner; Leslie tries to help Guy understand that his devotion to the city's children is just as heroic as his past exploits as Green Lantern.


title: Leslie Thompkins

text: Dr. Leslie Thompkins appears in several episodes of "", voiced by Diana Muldaur. She is depicted as a lifelong friend of Bruce Wayne, having attended medical school with his father, Thomas. She knows Batman's secret identity and serves as his on-site doctor, confidentially treating injuries that Bruce Wayne could not be publicly known to have without raising suspicion. When the series was retooled as "The New Batman Adventures", Leslie was absent except for a cameo appearance in the episode "Chemistry".


title: Leslie Thompkins

text: In Marco Palmieri's short story "Best of All", featured in the non-canonical anthology "The Further Adventures of The Joker", the Joker tells Batman that Leslie is his mother. He says that she committed him to a mental institution as a child after he murdered his father, who was abusing her. The story is ambiguous as to whether the Joker is telling the truth, with Leslie attributing the story to her habit of referring to various orphans she cared for in the past as her 'children'.


title: Stephen Fung

text: Fung Tak-lun (born 9 August 1974), known professionally as Stephen Fung, is a Hong Kong actor, singer, writer, and film director.


title: Stephen Fung

text: Fung Tak-lun was born in Hong Kong and studied at German Swiss International School. He is a graduate of the University of Michigan.


title: Stephen Fung

text: Fung made his acting debut in "Forbidden Nights" (1990). Since then he has starred in more than 40 films and became a household name in China. In 2004, Fung wrote, directed, and starred in his feature film directorial debut, "Enter the Phoenix", for Jackie Chan's newly formed company JCE Movies Limited; it became an instant hit. His second directing and starring feature, "House of Fury", Fung's first collaboration with legendary action director Yuen Woo-ping, proved to be a success. "House of Fury" was the opening selection for the Hong Kong International Film Festival 2005, official selection for the 18th Tokyo International Film Festival, and the highest grossing Hong Kong film for the first half of 2005.


title: Stephen Fung

text: Besides continuing with his acting career, Fung directed "Jump", written and produced by Stephen Chow for Sony Columbia Pictures Asia. In 2012, Fung directed the first two installments, "Tai Chi 0" and "Tai Chi Hero", in the "Taichi Trilogy."


title: Stephen Fung

text: Fung currently serves as executive producer, director and action director of the AMC original series "Into the Badlands", which stars Daniel Wu, Nick Frost, Sarah Bolger, Marton Csokas. In 2017, "The Adventurers", Fung's sixth film as director, was released. The movie stars Andy Lau, Jean Reno and Shu Qi.


title: Stephen Fung

text: Currently, Fung serves as executive producer and directed the first two episodes of "Wu Assassins" for Netflix.


title: Stephen Fung

text: Fung's production company Film Magic Pictures invested in the new company Cool Style, which was an entertainment company set up by Media Asia and Louis Koo's One Cool Group in 2021. Cool Style's business scope includes artist management and related businesses aiming to cultivate new forces with abundant resources and platforms.


title: Stephen Fung

text: Fung's mother, Julie Sek Yin (石燕), was a famous actress during Shaw Brothers' golden era of dramatic films during the 1960s.


title: Stephen Fung

text: Fung married Taiwanese actress Shu Qi in September 2016. The two met on the set of the gay romance drama "Bishonen" in 1997, and dated for four years before marrying.