title: Octavio Paz

text: In July 1937 he attended the Second International Writers' Congress, the purpose of which was to discuss the attitude of intellectuals to the war in Spain, held in Valencia, Barcelona and Madrid and attended by many writers including André Malraux, Ernest Hemingway, Stephen Spender, and Pablo Neruda. Paz showed his solidarity with the Republican side and against the fascists led by Francisco Franco and supported by Adolf Hitler and Benito Mussolini. He also visited Paris while in Europe. There, he encountered the surrealist movement, which left a profound impact upon him. After his return to Mexico, Paz co-funded a literary journal, "Taller" ("Workshop") in 1938, and wrote for the magazine until 1941. In 1937 he married Elena Garro, who is considered one of Mexico's finest writers. They had met in 1935. They had one daughter, Helena, and were divorced in 1959.


title: Octavio Paz

text: In 1943, Paz received a Guggenheim Fellowship and used it to study at the University of California at Berkeley in the United States. Two years later he entered the Mexican diplomatic service, and was assigned for a time to New York City. In 1945, he was sent to Paris, where he wrote "El Laberinto de la Soledad" ("The Labyrinth of Solitude"). "The New York Times" later described it as "an analysis of modern Mexico and the Mexican personality in which he described his fellow countrymen as instinctive nihilists who hide behind masks of solitude and ceremoniousness." In 1952, he travelled to India for the first time. That same year, he went to Tokyo, as chargé d'affaires. He next was assigned to Geneva, Switzerland. He returned to Mexico City in 1954, where he wrote his great poem "Piedra de sol" ("Sunstone") in 1957, and published "Libertad bajo palabra" ("Liberty under Oath"), a compilation of his poetry up to that time. He was sent again to Paris in 1959. In 1962, he was named Mexico's ambassador to India.


title: Octavio Paz

text: In New Delhi, as Ambassador of Mexico to India, Paz completed several works, including "El mono gramático" ("The Monkey Grammarian") and "Ladera este" ("Eastern Slope"). While in India, he met numerous writers of a group known as the Hungry Generation and had a profound influence on them.


title: Octavio Paz

text: In 1965, he married Marie-José Tramini, a French woman who would be his wife for the rest of his life. That fall in 1965 he went to Cornell and taught two courses, one in Spanish and one in English. The magazine LIFE en Español published a piece about his stay at Cornell in their July 4, 1966 issue. There are several pictures in the article. After this he returned to Mexico. In 1968, he resigned from the diplomatic service in protest of the Mexican government's massacre of student demonstrators in Tlatelolco.


title: Octavio Paz

text: After staying in Paris for refuge, he returned to Mexico in 1969. He founded his magazine "Plural" (1970–1976) with a group of liberal Mexican and Latin American writers.


title: Octavio Paz

text: From 1969 to 1970 he was Simón Bolívar Professor at Cambridge University. He was also a visiting lecturer during the late 1960s and the A. D. White Professor-at-Large from 1972 to 1974 at Cornell University. In 1974 he lectured at Harvard University as Charles Eliot Norton Lecturer. His book "Los hijos del limo" ("Children of the Mire") was the result of those lectures. After the Mexican government closed "Plural" in 1975, Paz founded "Vuelta", another cultural magazine. He was editor of that until his death in 1998, when the magazine closed.


title: Octavio Paz

text: He won the 1977 Jerusalem Prize for literature on the theme of individual freedom. In 1980, he was awarded an honorary doctorate from Harvard, and in 1982, he won the Neustadt Prize. Once good friends with novelist Carlos Fuentes, Paz became estranged from him in the 1980s in a disagreement over the Sandinistas, whom Paz opposed and Fuentes supported. In 1988, Paz's magazine "Vuelta" published criticism of Fuentes by Enrique Krauze, resulting in estrangement between Paz and Fuentes, who had long been friends.


title: Octavio Paz

text: A collection of Paz's poems (written between 1957 and 1987) was published in 1990. In 1990, he was awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature.


title: Octavio Paz

text: Guillermo Sheridan, who was named by Paz as director of the Octavio Paz Foundation in 1998, published a book, "Poeta con paisaje" (2004) with several biographical essays about the poet's life up to 1998, when he died.


title: Octavio Paz

text: "The poetry of Octavio Paz", wrote the critic Ramón Xirau, "does not hesitate between language and silence; it leads into the realm of silence where true language lives."


title: Octavio Paz

text: A prolific author and poet, Paz published scores of works during his lifetime, many of which have been translated into other languages. His poetry has been translated into English by Samuel Beckett, Charles Tomlinson, Elizabeth Bishop, Muriel Rukeyser and Mark Strand. His early poetry was influenced by Marxism, surrealism, and existentialism, as well as religions such as Buddhism and Hinduism. His poem, "Piedra de sol" ("Sunstone"), written in 1957, was praised as a "magnificent" example of surrealist poetry in the presentation speech of his Nobel Prize.


title: Octavio Paz

text: His later poetry dealt with love and eroticism, the nature of time, and Buddhism. He also wrote poetry about his other passion, modern painting, dedicating poems to the work of Balthus, Joan Miró, Marcel Duchamp, Antoni Tàpies, Robert Rauschenberg, and Roberto Matta. As an essayist Paz wrote on topics such as Mexican politics and economics, Aztec art, anthropology, and sexuality. His book-length essay, "The Labyrinth of Solitude" (Spanish: "El laberinto de la soledad"), delves into the minds of his countrymen, describing them as hidden behind masks of solitude. Due to their history, their identity is lost between a pre-Columbian and a Spanish culture, negating either. A key work in understanding Mexican culture, it greatly influenced other Mexican writers, such as Carlos Fuentes. Ilan Stavans wrote that he was "the quintessential surveyor, a Dante's Virgil, a Renaissance man".


title: Octavio Paz

text: Paz wrote the play "La hija de Rappaccini" in 1956. The plot centers around a young Italian student who wanders about Professor Rappaccini's beautiful gardens where he spies the professor's daughter Beatrice. He is horrified to discover the poisonous nature of the garden's beauty. Paz adapted the play from an 1844 short story by American writer Nathaniel Hawthorne, which was also entitled "Rappaccini's Daughter". He combined Hawthorne's story with sources from the Indian poet Vishakadatta and influences from Japanese Noh theatre, Spanish "autos sacramentales", and the poetry of William Butler Yeats. The play's opening performance was designed by the Mexican painter Leonora Carrington. In 1972, Surrealist author André Pieyre de Mandiargues translated the play into French as "La fille de Rappaccini " (Editions Mercure de France). First performed in English in 1996 at the Gate Theatre in London, the play was translated and directed by Sebastian Doggart and starred Sarah Alexander as Beatrice. The Mexican composer Daniel Catán adapted the play as an opera in 1992.


title: Octavio Paz

text: Paz's other works translated into English include several volumes of essays, some of the more prominent of which are "Alternating Current" (tr. 1973), "Configurations" (tr. 1971), in the UNESCO Collection of Representative Works, "The Labyrinth of Solitude" (tr. 1963), "The Other Mexico" (tr. 1972); and "El Arco y la Lira" (1956; tr. "The Bow and the Lyre", 1973). In the United States, Helen Lane's translation of "Alternating Current" won a National Book Award.


title: Octavio Paz

text: Along with these are volumes of critical studies and biographies, including of Claude Lévi-Strauss and Marcel Duchamp (both, tr. 1970), and "The Traps of Faith", an analytical biography of Sor Juana Inés de la Cruz, the Mexican 17th-century nun, feminist poet, mathematician, and thinker.


title: Octavio Paz

text: His works include the poetry collections "¿Águila o sol?" (1951), "La Estación Violenta", (1956), "Piedra de Sol" (1957). In English, "Early Poems: 1935–1955" (tr. 1974) and "Collected Poems, 1957–1987" (1987) have been edited and translated by Eliot Weinberger, who is Paz's principal translator into American English.


title: Octavio Paz

text: Originally, Paz supported the Republicans during the Spanish Civil War, but after learning of the murder of one of his friends by the Stalinist secret police, he became gradually disillusioned. While in Paris in the early 1950s, influenced by David Rousset, André Breton and Albert Camus, he started publishing his critical views on totalitarianism in general, and particularly against Joseph Stalin, leader of the Soviet Union.


title: Octavio Paz

text: In his magazines "Plural" and "Vuelta", Paz exposed the violations of human rights in communist regimes, including Castro's Cuba. This brought him much animosity from sectors of the Latin American left. In the prologue to Volume IX of his complete works, Paz stated that from the time when he abandoned communist dogma, the mistrust of many in the Mexican intelligentsia started to transform into an intense and open enmity. Paz continued to consider himself a man of the left, the democratic, "liberal" left, not the dogmatic and illiberal one. He also criticized the Mexican government and leading party that dominated the nation for most of the 20th century.


title: Octavio Paz

text: Politically, Paz was a social democrat, who became increasingly supportive of liberal ideas without ever renouncing to his initial leftist and romantic views. In fact, Paz was "very slippery for anyone thinking in rigid ideological categories," Yvon Grenier wrote in his book on Paz's political thought. "Paz was simultaneously a romantic who spurned materialism and reason, a liberal who championed freedom and democracy, a conservative who respected tradition, and a socialist who lamented the withering of fraternity and equality. An advocate of fundamental transformation in the way we see ourselves and modern society, Paz was also a promoter of incremental change, not revolution."


title: Octavio Paz

text: In 1990, during the aftermath of the fall of the Berlin wall, Paz and his "Vuelta" colleagues invited several of the world's writers and intellectuals to Mexico City to discuss the collapse of communism. Writers included Czesław Miłosz, Hugh Thomas, Daniel Bell, Ágnes Heller, Cornelius Castoriadis, Hugh Trevor-Roper, Jean-François Revel, Michael Ignatieff, Mario Vargas Llosa, Jorge Edwards and Carlos Franqui. The encounter was called "The experience of freedom" (Spanish: "La experiencia de la libertad") and broadcast on Mexican television from 27 August to 2 September.


title: Octavio Paz

text: Paz criticized the Zapatista uprising in 1994. He spoke broadly in favor of a "military solution" to the uprising of January 1994, and hoped that the "army would soon restore order in the region". With respect to President Zedillo's offensive in February 1995, he signed an open letter that described the offensive as a "legitimate government action" to reestablish the "sovereignty of the nation" and to bring "Chiapas peace and Mexicans tranquility".


title: Octavio Paz

text: Paz was dazzled by "The Waste Land" by T. S. Eliot, in Enrique Munguia's translation as "El Páramo" which was published in the magazine "Contemporaries" in 1930. As a result of this, although he maintained his primary interest in poetry, he had an unavoidable outlook on prose: "Literally, this dual practice was for me a game of reflections between poetry and prose".


title: Octavio Paz

text: Worried about confirming the existence of a link between morals and poetry, in 1931, at the age of 16, he wrote what would be his first published article, "Ethics of the Artist", where he planted the question about the duty of an artist among what would be deemed art of thesis, or pure art, which disqualifies the second as a result of the teaching of tradition. Assimilating a language that resembles a religious style and, paradoxically, a Marxist style, finds the true value of art in its purpose and meaning, for which, the followers of pure art, of which he's not one, are found in an isolated position and favor the Kantian idea of the "man that loses all relation with the world".


title: Octavio Paz

text: The magazine "Barandal" appeared in August 1931, put together by Rafael López Malo, Salvador Toscano, Arnulfo Martínez Lavalle and Octavio Paz. All of them were not yet in their youth except for Salvador Toscano, who was a renowned writer thanks to his parents. Rafael López participated in the magazine, "Modern" and, as well as Miguel D. Martínez Rendón, in the movimiento de los agoristas, although it was more commented on and known by the high school students, over all for his poem, ""The Golden Beast"". Octavio Paz Solórzano became known in his circle as the occasional author of literary narratives that appeared in the Sunday newspaper add-in El Universal, as well as Ireneo Paz which was the name that gave a street in Mixcoac identity.


title: WWE 2K19

text: WWE 2K19 is a professional wrestling video game developed by Yuke's and published by 2K Sports. It was released worldwide on October 9, 2018, for Microsoft Windows, PlayStation 4, and Xbox One. It is the twentieth overall game in the "WWE" series, the sixth under the "WWE 2K" banner, and the successor to "WWE 2K18".


title: WWE 2K19

text: "2K19" was the last WWE game to be developed by Yuke's after eighteen years; 2019's "WWE 2K20" would be developed by Visual Concepts.


title: WWE 2K19

text: In an interview with "Hardcore Gamer", WWE 2K creative director Lynell Jinks stated that "WWE 2K19" would be moving away from the simulation-styled gameplay of the last four WWE games, in favor of faster, more fluid gameplay, saying "[The fans] kind of got turned off by the product we were giving them and we had to think outside the box and they never thought that we'd do it. The core was simulation, and people got turned off by that and we were hearing loud and clear that they weren't buying it anymore and that was the driving force behind all of that." He added "We were hearing from the fanbase that it was too slow, too sluggish and it wasn't any fun anymore."


title: WWE 2K19

text: WWE 2K19 features many different returning and new game modes, including the 2K Showcase Mode, focusing on the career of Daniel Bryan. This is the first Showcase to be featured in the series since "WWE 2K17"'s Hall of Fame Showcase DLC. Players take control of 11 different unique models of Daniel Bryan, in 11 matches, including his "Velocity" match against John Cena, as his real name, Bryan Danielson, along with a secret 12th fight, as a fictional fight against his past self at "Wrestlemania 34".


title: WWE 2K19

text: Two new "Tower" modes are present in "2K19". In MyPlayer Towers mode, wrestlers or created superstars can participate in challenges online or offline. Daily, Weekly and Pay-Per-View challenge towers are also introduced. In WWE Towers, There are two types of Towers including the Gauntlet Tower, where players must complete the Tower entirely in one session. Losing a match or quitting resets the progress to square one. In the Steps Tower, the players' progress is saved after each match, so they can play at their own pace.


title: WWE 2K19

text: MyCareer mode has been reinvented with the focus of a more linear storyline that centers the player's created character as an aspiring wrestler named Buzz, working his way up from the independent wrestling promotion, BCW, to the WWE. Barron Blade, a fictional character featured in previous MyCareer modes, also returns and acts as the created player's guide.


title: WWE 2K19

text: The "Road to Glory" mode returns from previous entries, with the ability to now join one of eight different factions.


title: WWE 2K19

text: On June 15, 2018, 2K announced "WWE 2K19". On June 18, 2018, 2K held a press conference, with "The Phenomenal" AJ Styles being announced as the official cover star for the video game; as well as the announcement of the ""WWE 2K19" Million Dollar Challenge", in which players must beat the million dollar tower (by beating 15 opponents in a Gauntlet match at "Wrestlemania 34" under 5 different stipulations, Normal (Standard, Pin Only, and Submission Only), Steel Cage, and Hell in a Cell, based on real matches from his career, as well as fictional matches, along with a gold variation of himself inside Hell in a Cell at the end, with damage carrying over between matches, on Legend difficulty) in the new towers mode and submit a promotional video, after which four semifinalists will be selected. The semifinalists will compete in a tournament to determine who will face Styles for the million dollar prize.


title: WWE 2K19

text: On June 25, 2018, Rey Mysterio was announced as one out of two pre-order bonus characters. On July 9, 2018, "Rowdy" Ronda Rousey was confirmed as the second pre-order bonus character.


title: WWE 2K19

text: On July 25, 2018, 2K revealed the WWE 2K19's Collector's Edition that would be based on Ric Flair, titled the "Wooooo! Edition". Similar to some of the previous games; it includes a Deluxe Edition copy of the game and access to the game four days early and the Season Pass alongside other physical features, including a plaque featuring a fabric piece from Flair's pink or purple robe. In-game features include the access to pre-order bonus characters Ronda Rousey and Rey Mysterio; as well as a 2002 version of The Undertaker, Ricky Steamboat, "Rowdy" Roddy Piper, "The American Dream" Dusty Rhodes and "Macho Man" Randy Savage, Flair's WrestleMania XXIV robe and his daughter, Charlotte Flair's WrestleMania 32 robe as in-game attires, and the 1983 Starrcade arena.


title: WWE 2K19

text: Over three weeks in August and September 2018, 2K streamed roster reveal videos on their YouTube and Twitch channels, hosted by Rusev and Lana with a different tag team as guests each week; The B-Team (Bo Dallas and Curtis Axel) the first week, Gallows and Anderson (Luke Gallows and Karl Anderson) the second week, The Bar (Cesaro and Sheamus) the third week. On September 13, 2018, 2K released the official gameplay trailer, showcasing several new features such as Big Head Mode, a zombie version of Triple H, and Bray Wyatt's House of Horrors match location. One week later, the soundtrack was revealed in a livestream hosted by The New Day, alongside Elias and rapper Wale. Each song on the soundtrack was chosen by a WWE wrestler and includes popular artists such as Eminem, Post Malone, Metallica and Fall Out Boy.


title: WWE 2K19

text: The game was nominated for "Fan Favorite Sports/Racing Game" at the Gamers' Choice Awards, and for "Sports, Racing or Fighting Title of the Year" at the Australian Games Awards.


title: WWE 2K19

text: IGN rated 2K19 a 7.3 out of 10, saying, "It's still held back by a number of longstanding issues. But with the much improved MyCareer mode, and the sheer amount of content available thanks to the return of Showcase Mode and the addition of 2K Towers, it stops the downward spiral of the series and puts it back on track."


title: WWE 2K19

text: "WWE 2K19" was dubbed as "the best WWE 2K that's not 2K14". WWE 2K19 also has the biggest fan-made community, with its over-the-topline Creation Suite, and its PC Mods.


title: WWE 2K19

text: Since the failure of WWE 2K20, the online support for WWE 2K19 has extended to March 2022, where the next game launches on PS5, PS4, and Xbox One/Series X.


title: Clair Cameron Patterson

text: Clair Cameron Patterson (June 2, 1922 – December 5, 1995) was an American geochemist. Born in Mitchellville, Iowa, Patterson graduated from Grinnell College. He later received his Ph.D. from the University of Chicago and spent his entire professional career at the California Institute of Technology (Caltech).


title: Clair Cameron Patterson

text: In collaboration with George Tilton, Patterson developed the uranium–lead dating method into lead–lead dating. By using lead isotopic data from the Canyon Diablo meteorite, he calculated an age for the Earth of 4.55 billion years, which was a figure far more accurate than those that existed at the time, and one that has remained largely unchanged since 1956.


title: Clair Cameron Patterson

text: Patterson first encountered lead contamination in the late 1940s as a graduate student at the University of Chicago. His work on this subject led to a total re-evaluation of the growth in industrial lead concentrations in the atmosphere and the human body, and his subsequent campaigning was seminal in the banning of tetraethyllead in gasoline and lead solder in food cans.


title: Clair Cameron Patterson

text: He was born in Mitchellville, Iowa. His father was a mail carrier and his mother was a member of the school board; Patterson had one brother, Paul, and one sister, Patricia. From a young age he was encouraged by his family to pursue his intellectual curiosity. Patterson graduated from high school in 1939, at the age of 16. He attended Grinnell College—close enough that Patterson would hitchhike home to do laundry—and graduated with a degree in chemistry in 1943. There, he met his future wife, Lorna (Laurie) McCleary. For graduate school, they both attended the University of Iowa, where he was awarded an M.A. in molecular spectroscopy. He also married Lorna McCleary just before leaving the University of Iowa in 1944. Both were then sent to work on the Manhattan Project as civilians, first at the University of Chicago and then at Oak Ridge, Tennessee, where he encountered mass spectrometry.


title: Clair Cameron Patterson

text: After World War II, the Pattersons returned to Chicago, where Laurie took a research job as an infrared spectroscopist to support Patterson while he studied for his Ph.D. at the University of Chicago under Harrison Brown. While studying at an old laboratory, Patterson was able to make discoveries involving the lead that he ended up studying later in his life. He made several different experiments which led to shocking results for the time period involving the lead. After a postdoctoral year at Chicago, Patterson moved with Brown to the Division of Geology (later the Division of Geological and Planetary Sciences) at the California Institute of Technology in 1952, as founding members of its geochemistry program. Patterson remained at Caltech for the rest of his life. He and Laurie had four children.


title: Clair Cameron Patterson

text: Patterson returned to the University of Chicago to work under his research adviser Harrison Brown. Brown, knowing about Patterson's experience with mass spectrometry, teamed him up with George Tilton to do geological aging on zircons. Zircons are extremely useful for dating since, when they are formed, they possess tiny imperfections of uranium, but no lead. Therefore, if any lead is present in the zircon, it must come from the decay of uranium. This process is known as U-Pb dating. The job of the team was to measure the concentration and isotopic compositions of the elements inside the zircon. Tilton was to measure the uranium and Patterson, the amount and type of lead. The goal for Patterson was to figure out the composition of the primordial lead in the Earth. In doing so, it would be possible to figure out the age of the solar system and, in turn, the Earth by using the same techniques on meteorites.


title: Clair Cameron Patterson

text: As Patterson and Tilton began their work in 1948, Patterson quickly became aware that his lead samples were being contaminated. They knew the age of the igneous rock from which the zircon came, and Tilton's uranium measurements aligned with what should be in a zircon at that particular age, but Patterson's data always was skewed with too much lead. After six years, the team published a paper on methods of determining the ages of zircon crystals and Patterson earned his Ph.D., but they were no closer in determining the age of the Earth.


title: Clair Cameron Patterson

text: Brown was able to receive a grant from the United States Atomic Energy Commission to continue work on dating the Earth, but more importantly, to commission a new mass spectrometer in Pasadena, California at Caltech. In 1953, Brown brought Patterson along with him to Caltech, where Patterson was able to build his own lab from scratch. In it, he secured all points of entry for air and other contaminants. Patterson also acid cleaned all apparatuses and even distilled all of his chemicals shipped to him. In essence, he created one of the first clean rooms ever, in order to prevent lead contamination of his data. He then was able to finish his work with the Canyon Diablo meteorite. He used the mass spectrometer at the Argonne National Laboratory on isolated iron-meteorite lead to collect data on the abundance of lead isotopes. With the new data, in 1956 he published “Age of Meteorites and the Earth”, the first paper containing the true age of the solar system's accretion, which was 4.550Gy ± 70My.


title: Clair Cameron Patterson

text: Before the major discovery was made, it was believed by the public that the earth was around 3.3 billion years old. Many were very surprised to find that the actual age of the earth was much more than what they had expected. The publicity that came after the discovery was made was handled quite well by Patterson, who made the statement, "we did it" in several interviews, sharing the honor of the discovery with his fellow scientific minds behind the action.


title: Clair Cameron Patterson

text: Patterson's ability to isolate microgram quantities of lead from ordinary rocks and to determine their isotope composition led him to examining the lead in ocean sediment samples from the Atlantic and the Pacific. Deriving from the different ages at which the landmasses had drained into the ocean, he was able to show that the amount of anthropogenic lead presently dispersed into the environment was more than 100 times the amount naturally leached by streams into the ocean: the geochemical cycle for lead appeared to be badly out of balance.


title: Clair Cameron Patterson

text: The limitations of the analytic procedures led to his use of other approaches. He found that deep ocean water contained up to 20 times less lead than surface water, in contrast to similar metals such as barium. That led him to doubt the commonly held view that lead concentrations had grown by only a factor of two over naturally occurring levels.


title: Clair Cameron Patterson

text: Patterson returned to the problem of his initial experiment and the contamination he had found in the blanks used for sampling. He determined, through ice-core samples from Camp Century in Greenland taken in 1964 and from Antarctica in 1965, that atmospheric lead levels had begun to increase steadily and dangerously soon after tetraethyl lead began to see widespread use in fuel, when it was discovered to reduce engine knock in internal combustion engines. Patterson subsequently identified that, along with the various other uses of lead in manufacturing, as the cause of the contamination of his samples. Because of the significant public-health implications of his findings, he devoted the rest of his life to removing as much introduced lead from the environment as possible.


title: Clair Cameron Patterson

text: Beginning in 1965, with the publication of "Contaminated and Natural Lead Environments of Man", Patterson tried to draw public attention to the problem of increased lead levels in the environment and the food chain from lead from industrial sources. Perhaps partly because he was criticizing the experimental methods of other scientists, he encountered strong opposition from those then recognized as experts, such as Robert A. Kehoe.


title: Clair Cameron Patterson

text: In his effort to ensure that lead was removed from gasoline (petrol), Patterson fought against the lobbying power of the Ethyl Corporation (which employed Kehoe), against the legacy of Thomas Midgley, Jr. (which included tetraethyllead and chlorofluorocarbons), and against the lead additive industry as a whole. Following Patterson's criticism of the lead industry, he was refused contracts with many research organizations, including the supposedly-neutral United States Public Health Service. In 1971, he was excluded from a National Research Council (NRC) panel on atmospheric lead contamination, even though he was then the foremost expert on the subject.


title: Clair Cameron Patterson

text: The United States mandated the use of unleaded gasoline to protect catalytic converters in all new cars starting with the 1975 model year, but Patterson's efforts accelerated the phaseout of lead from all standard, consumer automotive gasoline in the United States by 1986. Lead levels within the blood of Americans are reported to have dropped by up to 80% by the late 1990s.


title: Clair Cameron Patterson

text: Most people, following Kehoe's arguments, referred to "normal levels" of lead in blood, soil, and air, meaning values near the average. They assumed that because these levels were common, they were harmless. "Normal" also carries some of the meaning "natural". Patterson argued that "normal" should be replaced by "typical" and that just because a certain level of lead was commonplace, it did not mean it was without harm. "Natural", he insisted, was limited to concentrations of lead that existed in the body or environment before contamination by humans, which has occurred frequently due to technological advancements and cultural traditions.


title: Clair Cameron Patterson

text: Due to his ultraclean chamber, considered one of the first clean rooms, his measurements of isotopic ratios were free of the contamination that confounded the findings of Kehoe and others. Where Kehoe measured lead in "unexposed" workers in a TEL plant and Mexican farmers, Patterson studied mummies from before the Iron Age and tuna raised from pelagic waters. Kehoe claimed that humans had adapted to environmental lead. Patterson's precise point was that humans only recently had increased their concentration of lead and that the short span of exposure, a few thousand years, was an instant in the Darwinian time scale, nowhere near the time needed to develop adaptive responses.


title: Clair Cameron Patterson

text: Patterson focused his attention on lead in food, for which similar experimental deficiencies also had marked increases. In one study, he showed an increase in lead levels from 0.3 to 1400 ng/g in certain canned fish compared with fresh, while the official laboratory had reported an increase of 400 ng/g to 700 ng/g. He compared the lead, barium, and calcium levels in 1600-year-old Peruvian skeletons and showed a 700- to 1200-fold increase in lead levels in modern human bones, with no comparable changes in the barium and calcium levels.


title: Clair Cameron Patterson

text: In 1978, he was appointed to a National Research Council panel that acknowledged many of the increases and the need for reductions, but other members argued the need for more research before recommending action. His opinions were expressed in a 78-page minority report, which argued that control measures should start immediately, including gasoline, food containers, paint, glazes, and water distribution systems.


title: Clair Cameron Patterson

text: Patterson died in his home in Sea Ranch, California, at the age of 73 on December 5, 1995. The reported cause of his death was a severe asthma attack.


title: Clair Cameron Patterson

text: Patterson was the subject of a 2022 documentary by Derek Muller, "The Man Who Accidentally Killed The Most People In History".


title: Barghest

text: In Northern English folklore, the Barghest or Barguest is a mythical monstrous black dog with large teeth and claws, though in other cases the name can refer to a ghost or household elf, especially in Northumberland and Durham, such as the Cauld Lad of Hylton.


title: Barghest

text: "Ghost" in Northern England was pronounced "guest", and the origin is thought to be of the combination "burh-ghest", "town-ghost". Others explain it as cognate to German "Berg-geist", "mountain ghost" or "Bär-geist", "bear-ghost". Another mooted derivation is "Bahr-Geist", German for the "spirit of the funeral bier".


title: Barghest

text: One notable case is said to frequent a remote gorge named Troller's Gill in the Yorkshire Dales, Yorkshire, England. A ballad entitled "The Legend of the Troller's Gill" can be found in William Hone's "Everyday Book" (1830). It recounts the tale of a man who ventures forth "to the horrid gill of the limestone hill" in order to summon and confront the Barghest in an act of ritual magic. The man's lifeless body is discovered soon after with inhuman marks upon his breast. There is also a story of a Barghest entering the city of York occasionally where, according to legend, it preys on lone travellers in the city's narrow Snickelways. Furthermore, number 1 The Shambles is named Barghest. Whitby is also associated with the spectre.


title: Barghest

text: In the 1870s a shapeshifting Barghest was said to live near Darlington and was said to take the form of a headless man (who would vanish in flames), a headless lady, a white cat, a rabbit, a dog, or a black dog. Another was said to live in an "uncanny-looking" dale between Darlington and Houghton near Throstlenest, and yet another haunted an area of wasteland between Wreghorn and Headingley Hill near Leeds.


title: Barghest

text: The Barghest often serves as an omen of death. At the passing of a notable person the Barghest may appear, followed by all the other dogs of the local area in a kind of funeral procession, heralding the person's death with howling and barking. If anyone were to get in the Barghest's way it would strike out with its paw and leave a wound that never healed.


title: Barghest

text: Besides taking the form of a large black dog with fiery eyes, it may also become invisible and walk about with the sound of rattling chains. It may also foretell the death of an individual by laying across the threshold of his or her house, and like the vampire the Barghest is unable to cross rivers.


title: Barghest

text: Many stories feature ghostly black dogs. Dogs specifically named as barghests appear in the following:


title: 2022 FIFA World Cup qualification – UEFA Group B

text: The 2022 FIFA World Cup qualification UEFA Group B was one of the ten UEFA groups in the World Cup qualification tournament to decide which teams would qualify for the 2022 FIFA World Cup finals tournament in Qatar. Group B consisted of five teams: Georgia, Greece, Kosovo, Spain and Sweden. The teams played against each other home-and-away in a round-robin format.


text: The group winners, Spain, qualified directly for the World Cup finals, while the runners-up, Sweden, advanced to the second round (play-offs).


text: Greece, Georgia and Spain did not recognize Kosovo as an independent country, and therefore, during the match between Spain and Kosovo, the latter team was named "Kosovo Football Federation".


text: The fixture list was confirmed by UEFA on 8 December 2020, the day following the draw. Times are CET/CEST, as listed by UEFA (local times, if different, are in parentheses).


title: Palo Verde Nuclear Generating Station

text: The Palo Verde Generating Station is a nuclear power plant located near Tonopah, Arizona, in western Arizona. It is located about due west of downtown Phoenix, Arizona, and it is located near the Gila River, which is dry save for the rainy season in late summer.


title: Palo Verde Nuclear Generating Station

text: As of 2013, the Palo Verde Generating Station is the largest power plant in the United States by net generation. Its average electric power production is about 3.3 gigawatts (GW), and this power serves about four million people. The Arizona Public Service Company (APS) operates and owns 29.1% of the plant. Its other major owners include the Salt River Project (17.5%), the El Paso Electric Company (15.8%), Southern California Edison (15.8%), PNM Resources (10.2%), the Southern California Public Power Authority (5.9%), and the Los Angeles Department of Water and Power (5.7%).


title: Palo Verde Nuclear Generating Station

text: The Palo Verde Generating Station is located in the Arizona desert, and is the only large nuclear power plant in the world that is not located near a large body of water. The power plant evaporates the water from the treated sewage from several nearby cities and towns to provide the cooling of the steam that it produces.


title: Palo Verde Nuclear Generating Station

text: The Palo Verde Generating Station is located on of land, and it consists of three pressurized water reactors, each with an original capacity to produce 1.27 GW of electric power. After a power up-rate, each reactor is now able to produce 1.4 GW of electric power. The usual power production capacity is about 70 to 95 percent of this. This nuclear power plant is a major source of electric power for the densely populated parts of Southern Arizona and Southern California, e.g. the Phoenix, and Tucson, Arizona, Las Vegas, Nevada, Los Angeles, and San Diego, California metropolitan areas.


title: Palo Verde Nuclear Generating Station

text: The Palo Verde Generating Station produces about 35 percent of the electric power that is generated in Arizona. This power plant became fully operational by 1988, and it took twelve years to build and cost about 5.9 billion dollars. This power plant employs about 2,055 full-time employees.


title: Palo Verde Nuclear Generating Station

text: The Palo Verde Generating Station supplied electricity at an operating cost (including fuel and maintenance) of 4.3 cents per kilowatt-hour in 2015. As of 2002, Palo Verde supplied electricity at 1.33 cents per kilowatt-hour; that price was cheaper than the cost of coal (2.26 cents per kW·h) or natural gas (4.54 cents per kW·h) in the region, but more expensive than hydroelectric power (0.63 cents per kW·h). In 2002, the wholesale value of the electricity produced was 2.5 cents per kW·h. By 2007, the wholesale value of electricity at the Palo Verde Generating Station was 6.33 cents per kW·h.


title: Palo Verde Nuclear Generating Station

text: At the time of its 2011 license renewal, the Arizona Public Service Company noted that since its commissioning, Palo Verde's electricity production had offset the emission of almost 484 million tonnes of carbon dioxide (the equivalent of taking up to 84 million cars off the road for one year); more than 253,000 tonnes of sulfur dioxide; and 618,000 tonnes of nitrogen oxide. The company noted, "If Palo Verde were to cease operation at the end of the original license, replacement cost of natural gas generation—the least expensive alternative—would total $36 billion over the 20-year license renewal period."


title: Palo Verde Nuclear Generating Station

text: Bechtel Power Corporation was the Architect/<wbr>Engineer/<wbr>Constructor for the facility initially under the direction of the Arizona Nuclear Power Project (a joint APS/SRP endeavor), later managed exclusively by Arizona Public Service. Edwin E. Van Brunt was the key APS executive in charge of engineering, construction, and early operations of the plant. William G. Bingham was the Bechtel Chief Engineer for the project. Arthur von Boennighausen was one of the Owner's Representatives for Arizona Public Service.


title: Palo Verde Nuclear Generating Station

text: Due to its location in the Arizona desert, Palo Verde is the only nuclear generating facility in the world that is not located adjacent to a large body of above-ground water. The facility evaporates water from the treated sewage of several nearby municipalities to meet its cooling needs. Up to 26 billion US gallons (~100,000,000 m³) of treated water are evaporated each year. This water represents about 25% of the annual overdraft of the Arizona Department of Water Resources Phoenix Active Management Area. At the nuclear plant site, the wastewater is further treated and stored in an reservoir and a reservoir for use in the plant's cooling towers.


title: Palo Verde Nuclear Generating Station

text: The nuclear steam supply for each unit was designed and supplied by Combustion Engineering, designated the System 80 standard design–a predecessor of the newer standard System 80+ design. Each primary system originally supplied 3.817 GW of thermal power to the secondary (steam) side of each plant. The design is a so-called 2 × 4, with each of four main reactor coolant pumps circulating more than 60,000 gallons per minute of primary-side water through 2 large steam generators.


title: Palo Verde Nuclear Generating Station

text: The main turbine generators were supplied by General Electric. When installed, they were the largest in the world, capable of generating 1.447 GW of electricity each. They remain the largest 60 Hz turbine generators. Unlike most multi-unit nuclear power plants, each unit at Palo Verde is an independent power plant, sharing only a few minor systems. The reactor containment buildings are some of the largest in the world at about enclosed. The three containment domes over the reactors are made of thick concrete.


title: Palo Verde Nuclear Generating Station

text: The facility's design incorporates many features to enhance safety by addressing issues identified earlier in the operation of commercial nuclear reactors. The design is also one of the most spacious internally, providing exceptional room for the conduct of operations and maintenance by the operating staff.


title: Palo Verde Nuclear Generating Station

text: The Palo Verde 500 kV switchyard is a key point in the western states power grid, and is used as a reference point in the pricing of electricity across the southwest United States. Many 500 kV power lines from companies like Southern California Edison and San Diego Gas & Electric send power generated at the plant to Los Angeles and San Diego via Path 46, respectively. In addition, due to both the strategic interconnections of the substation and the large size of the generating station, the Western Electricity Coordinating Council considers a simultaneous loss of 2 of the 3 units the worst case contingency for system stability.


title: Palo Verde Nuclear Generating Station

text: The owners applied for a construction permit for two additional units in the late 1970s. These units were cancelled for economic-risk reasons before the permits were issued. Contrary to popular belief, the two additional units would not have been on the same arc as the three existing units; instead, they would have been arranged south of Unit 3 on a north–south axis.


title: Palo Verde Nuclear Generating Station

text: The existing units are the only commercial reactors currently in use in the United States that were engineered to operate on 100% MOX fuel cores. Because nuclear fuel is not reprocessed in the United States, the reactors have always operated on fresh UOX fuel.


title: Palo Verde Nuclear Generating Station

text: Palo Verde was of such strategic importance, due to a variety of its features, that it and Phoenix were documented by the former Soviet Union as target locations in the event of nuclear conflict during the Cold War. In March 2003, National Guard troops were dispatched to protect the site during the launch of the Iraq War amidst fears of a terrorist attack.


title: Palo Verde Nuclear Generating Station

text: The site team and nearby town of Tonopah remain a key focus of work in regard to homeland security, ranking in importance along with Arizona's major cities, military bases, ports of entry, and tourist sites.


title: Palo Verde Nuclear Generating Station

text: In common with all nuclear power plants in the United States, security guards working for the utility are armed with rifles. They check identification and search vehicles entering the plant. Other security measures protect the reactors, including X-ray machines, explosive "sniffers", and heavy guarded turnstiles that require special identification to open.


title: Palo Verde Nuclear Generating Station

text: On 2 November 2007, a pipe with gunpowder residue was found in the bed of a contract worker's pickup truck during normal screening of vehicles. It was then confirmed by the local police to contain explosives. Arizona Public Service then initiated a seven-hour security lockdown of the plant, allowing no one to enter or exit the plant. The site also declared a Notification of Unusual Event, which is the lowest of four Emergency Plan event classifications.


title: Palo Verde Nuclear Generating Station

text: On the nights of September 29 and September 30, 2019, the airspace over the facility was violated by a number of drones. On the first night, five or six drones were reported to be flying around Unit 3, which houses one of the site's reactors. At least four were reported during the second incursion on September 30. Subsequent investigations involved the Nuclear Regulatory Commission, the FBI, the Department of Homeland Security, the Federal Aviation Administration and local law enforcement. However the identity of the operator or operators, and the purpose of the incursions remains unknown.


title: Palo Verde Nuclear Generating Station

text: In an "Arizona Republic" article dated February 22, 2007, it was announced that the Institute of Nuclear Power Operations (INPO) had decided to place Palo Verde into Category 4, making it one of the most closely monitored nuclear power plants in the United States. The decision was made after the INPO discovered that electrical relays in a diesel generator did not function during tests in July and September 2006.


title: Palo Verde Nuclear Generating Station

text: The finding came as the "final straw" for INPO, after Palo Verde had several citations over safety concerns and violations over the preceding years, starting with the finding of a 'dry pipe' in the plant's emergency core-cooling system in 2004.


title: Palo Verde Nuclear Generating Station

text: During a March 24, 2009, public meeting, the NRC announced that it cleared the Confirmatory Action Letter (CAL), and has returned Palo Verde to Column 1 on the NRC Action Matrix. The commission's letter stated that "The U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission has determined that the Palo Verde Nuclear Generating Station has made sufficient performance improvement that it can reduce its level of inspection oversight." "Performance at Palo Verde has improved substantially and we are adjusting our oversight accordingly," said Elmo E. Collins, NRC's Region IV Administrator. "But we will closely monitor the plant. We are reducing our oversight, but not our vigilance."


title: Palo Verde Nuclear Generating Station

text: To address safety concerns, 58 nuclear sirens were installed within a 10-mile radius of the plant. This area is known to locals as the EPZ (Emergency Planning Zone). The sirens will wail periodically in the event of any nuclear emergency.


title: Palo Verde Nuclear Generating Station

text: The selection of the site for Palo Verde was controversial. Critics claim that the site was not the first choice because it was in the middle of the desert, it had little or no water supply, and it had prevailing westerly winds. These would have put the Phoenix-Mesa metropolitan area into jeopardy in the event of a major accident. Critics claimed that that site was selected over alternatives because it was owned by a relative of Keith Turley, a person who received almost two million dollars for the land. Keith Turley was the president of APS, and also a member of the "Phoenix 40".


title: Palo Verde Nuclear Generating Station

text: On November 18, 2005, the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission announced approval of power up-rates at two of Palo Verde's reactors. According to the NRC press release, "The power up-rates at each unit, located near Phoenix, Arizona, increases the net generating capacity of the reactors from 1,270 to 1,313, and 1,317 megawatts of electric power respectively, for Units 1 and 3.


title: Palo Verde Nuclear Generating Station

text: On April 21, 2011, the NRC renewed the operating licenses for Palo Verde's three reactors, extending their service lives from forty to sixty years.


title: Palo Verde Nuclear Generating Station

text: The Nuclear Regulatory Commission's estimate of the risk each year of an earthquake intense enough to cause core damage to the reactor at Palo Verde was 1 in 26,316, ranking it #18 in the nation according to an NRC study published in August 2010.


title: Palo Verde Nuclear Generating Station

text: The Nuclear Regulatory Commission defines two emergency planning zones around nuclear power plants: a plume exposure pathway zone with a radius of , concerned primarily with exposure to, and inhalation of, airborne radioactive contamination, and an ingestion pathway zone of about , concerned primarily with ingestion of food and liquid contaminated by radioactivity.


title: Palo Verde Nuclear Generating Station

text: The 2010 U.S. population within of Palo Verde was 4,255, an increase of 132.9 percent in a decade, according to an analysis of U.S. Census data for msnbc.com. The 2010 U.S. population within was 1,999,858, an increase of 28.6 percent since 2000. Cities within 50 miles include Phoenix (47 miles to city center).


title: Hwang Bo-ra

text: Hwang Bo-ra (born October 2, 1983) is a South Korean actress. Hwang made her acting debut in 2003 and became popular after she played a quirky-looking "cup noodle girl" in a ramyeon commercial. In 2007, Hwang played the daughter/narrator in black comedy "Skeletons in the Closet" (also known as "Shim's Family"), for which she won Best New Actress at the Busan Film Critics Awards and Director's Cut Awards.


title: Hwang Bo-ra

text: This was followed by supporting roles in films and television dramas such as "Arang and the Magistrate" (2012), "The Eldest" (2013), and "Cunning Single Lady" (2014). Hwang has also played leading roles in ghost romance "Jumunjin" (2010; which reunited her with "Rainbow Romance" co-star Kim Kibum), revenge drama "Dangerous Woman" (2011), and horror movie "Navigation" (2014).


title: Hwang Bo-ra

text: On July 6, 2022, Hwang revealed that she will be marrying , CEO of her management agency Walk House Company whom she had been dating for 10 years, on November 6, 2022, in a private wedding ceremony in Seoul. Kim is also an actor and singer-turned-film producer better known as Cha Hyun-woo and is the younger brother of actor Ha Jung-woo and the second son of actor Kim Yong-gun.


title: Hwang Bo-ra

text: Hwang appeared as a special MC in SBS "" and stated that the couple had already registered their marriage and were a legal couple in March 2022.


title: Hour

text: An hour (symbol: h; also abbreviated hr) is a unit of time conventionally reckoned as of a day and scientifically reckoned between 3,599 and 3,601 seconds, depending on the speed of Earth's rotation. There are 60 minutes in an hour, and 24 hours in a day.


title: Hour

text: The hour was initially established in the ancient Near East as a variable measure of of the night or daytime. Such seasonal, temporal, or unequal hours varied by season and latitude.


title: Hour

text: Equal or equinoctial hours were taken as of the day as measured from noon to noon; the minor seasonal variations of this unit were eventually smoothed by making it of the mean solar day. Since this unit was not constant due to long term variations in the Earth's rotation, the hour was finally separated from the Earth's rotation and defined in terms of the atomic or physical second.


title: Hour

text: In the modern metric system, hours are an accepted unit of time defined as 3,600 atomic seconds. However, on rare occasions an hour may incorporate a positive or negative leap second, making it last 3,599 or 3,601 seconds, in order to keep it within 0.9 seconds of UT1, which is based on measurements of the mean solar day.


title: Hour

text: "Hour" is a development of the Anglo-Norman ' and Middle English ', first attested in the 13th century.


title: Hour

text: It displaced tide tīd, "time" and stound stund, "span of time". The Anglo-Norman term was a borrowing of Old French ', a variant of ', which derived from Latin "" and Greek "hṓrā" ().


title: Hour

text: Like Old English ' and ', "hṓrā" was originally a vaguer word for any span of time, including seasons and years. Its Proto-Indo-European root has been reconstructed as "" ("year, summer"), making "hour" distantly cognate with "year".


title: Hour

text: The time of day is typically expressed in English in terms of hours. Whole hours on a 12-hour clock are expressed using the contracted phrase "o'clock", from the older "of the clock". (10 am and 10 pm are both read as "ten o'clock".)


title: Hour

text: Hours on a 24-hour clock ("military time") are expressed as "hundred" or "hundred hours". (1000 is read "ten hundred" or "ten hundred hours"; 10 pm would be "twenty-two hundred".)


title: Hour

text: Fifteen and thirty minutes past the hour is expressed as "a quarter past" or "after" and "half past", respectively, from their fraction of the hour. Fifteen minutes before the hour may be expressed as "a quarter to", "of", "till", or "before" the hour. (9:45 may be read "nine forty-five" or "a quarter till ten".)


title: Hour

text: The ancient Greeks kept time differently from the way we do today. Instead of dividing the time between one midnight and the next into 24 equal hours, they divided the time from sunrise to sunset into 12 "seasonal hours" (their actual duration depending on season), and the time from sunset to the next sunrise again in 12 "seasonal hours". Initially, only the day was divided into 12 seasonal hours and the night into 3 or 4 night watches.


title: Hour

text: By the Hellenistic period the night was also divided into 12 hours. The day-and-night () was probably first divided into twenty-four hours by Hipparchus of Nicaea. The Greek astronomer Andronicus of Cyrrhus oversaw the construction of a horologion called the Tower of the Winds in Athens during the first century BCE. This structure tracked a 24-hour day using both sundials and mechanical hour indicators.


title: Hour

text: By AD 60, the "Didache" recommends disciples to pray the Lord's Prayer three times a day; this practice found its way into the canonical hours as well. By the second and third centuries, such Church Fathers as Clement of Alexandria, Origen, and Tertullian wrote of the practice of Morning and Evening Prayer, and of the prayers at the third, sixth and ninth hours.


title: Hour

text: In the early church, during the night before every feast, a vigil was kept. The word "Vigils", at first applied to the Night Office, comes from a Latin source, namely the "Vigiliae" or nocturnal watches or guards of the soldiers. The night from six o'clock in the evening to six o'clock in the morning was divided into four watches or vigils of three hours each, the first, the second, the third, and the fourth vigil.


title: Hour

text: The list of twelve "Horae" representing the twelve hours of the day is recorded only in Late Antiquity, by Nonnus. The first and twelfth of the "Horae" were added to the original set of ten:


title: Hour

text: Medieval astronomers such as al-Biruni and Sacrobosco, divided the hour into 60 minutes, each of 60 seconds; this derives from Babylonian astronomy, where the corresponding terms denoted the time required for the Sun's apparent motion through the ecliptic to describe one minute or second of arc, respectively.


title: Hour

text: In present terms, the Babylonian degree of time was thus four minutes long, the "minute" of time was thus four seconds long and the "second" 1/15 of a second.)


title: Hour

text: In medieval Europe, the Roman hours continued to be marked on sundials but the more important units of time were the canonical hours of the Orthodox and Catholic Church. During daylight, these followed the pattern set by the three-hour bells of the Roman markets, which were succeeded by the bells of local churches. They rang prime at about 6am, terce at about 9am, sext at noon, nones at about 3pm, and vespers at either 6pm or sunset. Matins and lauds precede these irregularly in the morning hours; compline follows them irregularly before sleep; and the midnight office follows that. Vatican II ordered their reformation for the Catholic Church in 1963, though they continue to be observed in the Orthodox churches.


title: Hour

text: When mechanical clocks began to be used to show hours of daylight or nighttime, their period needed to be changed every morning and evening (for example, by changing the length of their pendula). The use of 24 hours for the entire day meant hours varied much less and the clocks needed to be adjusted only a few times a month.


title: Hour

text: The minor irregularities of the apparent solar day were smoothed by measuring time using the mean solar day, using the Sun's movement along the celestial equator rather than along the ecliptic. The irregularities of this time system were so minor that most clocks reckoning such hours did not need adjustment. However, scientific measurements eventually became precise enough to note the effect of tidal deceleration of the Earth by the Moon, which gradually lengthens the Earth's days.


title: Hour

text: During the French Revolution, a general decimalisation of measures was enacted, including decimal time between 1793 and 1795. Under its provisions, the French hour () was of the day and divided formally into 100 decimal minutes (') and informally into 10 tenths ('). This hour was only briefly in official use, being repealed by the same 1795 legislation that first established the metric system.


title: Hour

text: The metric system bases its measurements of time upon the second, defined since 1952 in terms of the Earth's rotation in AD1900. Its hours are a secondary unit computed as precisely 3,600 seconds. However, an hour of Coordinated Universal Time (UTC), used as the basis of most civil time, has lasted 3,601 seconds 27 times since 1972 in order to keep it within 0.9 seconds of universal time, which is based on measurements of the mean solar day at 0° longitude. The addition of these seconds accommodates the very gradual slowing of the rotation of the Earth.


title: Hour

text: In modern life, the ubiquity of clocks and other timekeeping devices means that segmentation of days according to their hours is commonplace. Most forms of employment, whether wage or salaried labour, involve compensation based upon measured or expected hours worked. The fight for an eight-hour day was a part of labour movements around the world. Informal rush hours and happy hours cover the times of day when commuting slows down due to congestion or alcoholic drinks being available at discounted prices. The hour record for the greatest distance travelled by a cyclist within the span of an hour is one of cycling's greatest honours.


title: Hour

text: Many different ways of counting the hours have been used. Because sunrise, sunset, and, to a lesser extent, noon, are the conspicuous points in the day, starting to count at these times was, for most people in most early societies, much easier than starting at midnight. However, with accurate clocks and modern astronomical equipment (and the telegraph or similar means to transfer a time signal in a split-second), this issue is much less relevant.


title: Hour

text: Astrolabes, sundials, and astronomical clocks sometimes show the hour length and count using some of these older definitions and counting methods.


title: Hour

text: In ancient and medieval cultures, the counting of hours generally started with sunrise. Before the widespread use of artificial light, societies were more concerned with the division between night and day, and daily routines often began when light was sufficient.


title: Hour

text: "Babylonian hours" divide the day and night into 24 equal hours, reckoned from the time of sunrise. They are so named from the false belief of ancient authors that the Babylonians divided the day into 24 parts, beginning at sunrise. In fact, they divided the day into 12 parts (called "kaspu" or "double hours") or into 60 equal parts.


title: Hour

text: Sunrise marked the beginning of the first hour, the middle of the day was at the end of the sixth hour and sunset at the end of the twelfth hour. This meant that the duration of hours varied with the season. In the Northern hemisphere, particularly in the more northerly latitudes, summer daytime hours were longer than winter daytime hours, each being one twelfth of the time between sunrise and sunset. These variable-length hours were variously known as temporal, unequal, or seasonal hours and were in use until the appearance of the mechanical clock, which furthered the adoption of equal length hours.


title: Hour

text: This is also the system used in Jewish law and frequently called "Talmudic hour" ("Sha'a Zemanit") in a variety of texts. The Talmudic hour is one twelfth of time elapsed from sunrise to sunset, day hours therefore being longer than night hours in the summer; in winter they reverse.


title: Hour

text: The Indic day began at sunrise. The term "hora" was used to indicate an hour. The time was measured based on the length of the shadow at day time. A "hora" translated to 2.5 "pe". There are 60 "pe" per day, 60 minutes per "pe" and 60 "kshana" (snap of a finger or instant) per minute. "Pe" was measured with a bowl with a hole placed in still water. Time taken for this graduated bowl was one "pe". Kings usually had an officer in charge of this clock.


title: Hour

text: In so-called "Italian time", "Italian hours", or "old Czech time", the first hour started with the sunset Angelus bell (or at the end of dusk, i.e., half an hour after sunset, depending on local custom and geographical latitude). The hours were numbered from 1 to 24. For example, in Lugano, the sun rose in December during the 14th hour and noon was during the 19th hour; in June the sun rose during the 7th hour and noon was in the 15th hour. Sunset was always at the end of the 24th hour. The clocks in church towers struck only from 1 to 12, thus only during night or early morning hours.


title: Hour

text: This manner of counting hours had the advantage that everyone could easily know how much time they had to finish their day's work without artificial light. It was already widely used in Italy by the 14th century and lasted until the mid-18th century; it was officially abolished in 1755, or in some regions customary until the mid-19th century.


title: Hour

text: The system of Italian hours can be seen on a number of clocks in Europe, where the dial is numbered from 1 to 24 in either Roman or Arabic numerals. The St Mark's Clock in Venice, and the Orloj in Prague are famous examples. It was also used in Poland and Bohemia until the 17th century.


title: Hour

text: The Islamic day begins at sunset. The first prayer of the day (maghrib) is to be performed between just after sunset and the end of twilight. Until 1968 Saudi Arabia used the system of counting 24 equal hours with the first hour starting at sunset.


title: Hour

text: For many centuries, up to 1925, astronomers counted the hours and days from noon, because it was the easiest solar event to measure accurately. An advantage of this method (used in the Julian Date system, in which a new Julian Day begins at noon) is that the date doesn't change during a single night's observing.


title: Hour

text: In the modern 12-hour clock, counting the hours starts at midnight and restarts at noon. Hours are numbered 12, 1, 2, ..., 11. Solar noon is always close to 12 noon (ignoring artificial adjustments due to time zones and daylight saving time), differing according to the equation of time by as much as fifteen minutes either way. At the equinoxes sunrise is around 6 a.m. (, before noon), and sunset around 6 p.m. (, after noon).


title: Hour

text: In the modern 24-hour clock, counting the hours starts at midnight, and hours are numbered from 0 to 23. Solar noon is always close to 12:00, again differing according to the equation of time. At the equinoxes sunrise is around 06:00, and sunset around 18:00.


title: Hour

text: The ancient Egyptians began dividing the night into "" at some time before the compilation of the Dynasty V Pyramid Texts in the 24thcenturyBC. By 2150BC (Dynasty IX), diagrams of stars inside Egyptian coffin lids—variously known as "diagonal calendars" or "star clocks"—attest that there were exactly 12 of these. Clagett writes that it is "certain" this duodecimal division of the night followed the adoption of the Egyptian civil calendar, usually placed BC on the basis of analyses of the Sothic cycle, but a lunar calendar presumably long predated this and also would have had twelve months in each of its years. The coffin diagrams show that the Egyptians took note of the heliacal risings of 36 stars or constellations (now known as "decans"), one for each of the ten-day "weeks" of their civil calendar. (12 sets of alternate "triangle decans" were used for the 5 epagomenal days between years.) Each night, the rising of eleven of these decans were noted, separating the night into twelve divisions whose middle terms would have lasted about 40minutes each. (Another seven stars were noted by the Egyptians during the twilight and predawn periods, although they were not important for the hour divisions.) The original decans used by the Egyptians would have fallen noticeably out of their proper places over a span of several centuries. By the time of (BC), the priests at Karnak were using water clocks to determine the hours. These were filled to the brim at sunset and the hour determined by comparing the water level against one of its twelve gauges, one for each month of the year. During the New Kingdom, another system of decans was used, made up of 24 stars over the course of the year and 12 within any one night.


title: Hour

text: The later division of the day into 12 hours was accomplished by sundials marked with ten equal divisions. The morning and evening periods when the sundials failed to note time were observed as the first and last hours.


title: Hour

text: The Egyptian hours were closely connected both with the priesthood of the gods and with their divine services. By the New Kingdom, each hour was conceived as a specific region of the sky or underworld through which Ra's solar barge travelled. Protective deities were assigned to each and were used as the names of the hours. As the protectors and resurrectors of the sun, the goddesses of the night hours were considered to hold power over all lifespans and thus became part of Egyptian funerary rituals. Two fire-spitting cobras were said to guard the gates of each hour of the underworld, and Wadjet and the rearing cobra (uraeus) were also sometimes referenced as ' from their role protecting the dead through these gates. The Egyptian word for astronomer, used as a synonym for priest, was ', "one of the "wnwt"", as it were "one of the hours". The earliest forms of "" include one or three stars, with the later solar hours including the determinative hieroglyph for "sun".


title: Hour

text: Ancient China divided its day into 100 "marks" running from midnight to midnight. The system is said to have been used since remote antiquity, credited to the legendary Yellow Emperor, but is first attested in Han-era water clocks and in the 2nd-century history of that dynasty. It was measured with sundials and water clocks. Into the Eastern Han, the Chinese measured their day schematically, adding the 20-"ke" difference between the solstices evenly throughout the year, one every nine days. During the night, time was more commonly reckoned during the night by the "watches" of the guard, which were reckoned as a fifth of the time from sunset to sunrise.


title: Hour

text: Imperial China continued to use "ke" and "geng" but also began to divide the day into 12 "double hours" named after the earthly branches and sometimes also known by the name of the corresponding animal of the Chinese zodiac. The first "shi" originally ran from 11pm to 1am but was reckoned as starting at midnight by the time of the History of Song, compiled during the early Yuan. These apparently began to be used during the Eastern Han that preceded the Three Kingdoms era, but the sections that would have covered them are missing from their official histories; they first appear in official use in the Tang-era Book of Sui. Variations of all these units were subsequently adopted by Japan and the other countries of the Sinosphere.


title: Hour

text: The 12 "shi" supposedly began to be divided into 24 hours under the Tang, although they are first attested in the Ming-era Book of Yuan. In that work, the hours were known by the same earthly branches as the "shi", with the first half noted as its "starting" and the second as "completed" or "proper" "shi". In modern China, these are instead simply numbered and described as "little "shi"". The modern "ke" is now used to count quarter-hours, rather than a separate unit.


title: Hour

text: As with the Egyptian night and daytime hours, the division of the day into twelve "shi" has been credited to the example set by the rough number of lunar cycles in a solar year, although the 12-year Jovian orbital cycle was more important to traditional Chinese and Babylonian reckoning of the zodiac.


title: Hour

text: In Thailand, Laos, and Cambodia, the traditional system of noting hours is the six-hour clock. This reckons each of a day's 24 hours apart from noon as part of a fourth of the day. 7 am was the first hour of the first half of daytime; 1 pm the first hour of the latter half of daytime; 7 pm the first hour of the first half of nighttime; and 1 am the first hour of the latter half of nighttime. This system existed in the Ayutthaya Kingdom, deriving its current phrasing from the practice of publicly announcing the daytime hours with a gong and the nighttime hours with a drum. It was abolished in Laos and Cambodia during their French occupation and is uncommon there now. The Thai system remains in informal use in the form codified in 1901 by King Chulalongkorn.


title: Hour

text: The Vedas and Puranas employed units of time based on the sidereal day ("nakṣatra ahorātram"). This was variously divided into 30 "muhūtras" of 48 minutes each or 60 "dandas" or "nadís" of 24 minutes each. The solar day was later similarly divided into 60 "ghaṭikás" of about the same duration, each divided in turn into 60 "vinadis". The Sinhalese followed a similar system but called their sixtieth of a day a "peya".


title: The Breakfast Club (radio show)

text: The Breakfast Club is an American syndicated radio show based in New York City. It is hosted by DJ Envy and Charlamagne tha God. The Breakfast Club's flagship station is WWPR-FM Power 105.1 and it currently airs in over 90 radio markets around the U.S., including Chicago, Philadelphia, Atlanta and Miami.


title: The Breakfast Club (radio show)

text: Common topics of discussion on the show are celebrity gossip (especially in the hip hop industry), progressive politics, and sexual and dating issues. The program is broadcast live on weekdays from 6 to 10 a.m. Eastern Time, with a recorded Saturday morning version.


title: The Breakfast Club (radio show)

text: In December 2010, "The Breakfast Club" was established on Urban Contemporary station WWPR-FM as a morning drive radio show serving the New York City market.


title: The Breakfast Club (radio show)

text: In April 2013, Premiere Networks (a subsidiary of then Clear Channel Communications, now iHeartMedia) launched a weekend version of the show, "Weekends with the Breakfast Club", as a Top 20 Countdown of urban contemporary hits. Four months later, "The Breakfast Club," as a weekday offering, was rolled out into syndication.


title: The Breakfast Club (radio show)

text: Based on the show's popularity, cameras were installed in the New York studio from where the show is broadcast. From March 2014 until November 2021, "The Breakfast Club" was simulcast on television on Revolt.


title: The Breakfast Club (radio show)

text: In January 2020, "The Breakfast Club" was nominated for an NAACP Image Award in the category of Outstanding News/Information (Series or Special).


title: The Breakfast Club (radio show)

text: In July 2020, "The Breakfast Club" was nominated for induction into the Radio Hall of Fame. Talk radio industry magazine "Talkers" included it in its 2020 "Heavy Hundred" list of top 100 influential talk radio shows, calling the show "appointment listening every day for people of color." During the aftermath of the George Floyd protests, the "Los Angeles Times" called it "a radio forum for the nation’s racial reckoning." As of July 2020 the show reach 8 million listeners a month according to Nielsen.


title: The Breakfast Club (radio show)

text: Angela Yee announced her departure from the show on August 10, 2022 on positive terms, as Premiere will give her a daily mid-day syndicated show which will also originate from WWPR.


title: On Stranger Tides

text: On Stranger Tides is a 1987 historical fantasy supernatural novel by American writer Tim Powers. It was nominated for the World Fantasy Award for Best Novel, and placed second in the annual Locus poll for best fantasy novel.


title: On Stranger Tides

text: "On Stranger Tides" takes place during the Golden Age of Piracy. It features real historical figures like Blackbeard, Stede Bonnet, and Woodes Rogers alongside fictional ones, as actors in the fictional John Chandagnac's quest to reclaim his inheritance and rescue an Englishwoman. Vodun magic is an important plot device.


title: On Stranger Tides

text: The story was also the inspiration for the "Monkey Island" video game series by LucasArts and for the fourth installment in the "Pirates of the Caribbean" film series, "".


title: On Stranger Tides

text: In 1718, French puppeteer John Chandagnac sails to Jamaica on the British ship "Vociferous Carmichael". He aims to confront his uncle Sebastian, who has apparently stolen a fortune that rightfully belonged to John's father and could have prevented his poverty-induced death. On board, he meets an Englishwoman named Elizabeth Hurwood, who complains that her erudite father Benjamin has abandoned his natural philosophy work and begun studying dark magic with her lecherous physician Leo Friend. The pirate sloop "Jenny" menaces the "Carmichael", neutralizing its powerful cannons with vodun magic. Benjamin Hurwood and Friend begin shooting their fellow passengers, revealing them as allies of the pirates, as the assailants board and seize the "Carmichael".


title: On Stranger Tides

text: The pirates allow the passengers to leave on a rowboat, except for Beth, whom Hurwood requires for a vodun ritual, and Chandagnac, enrolled into the crew after wounding pirate captain Philip Davies. Not fond of long words, the pirates change John's name to Jack Shandy. The pirates head for New Providence Island to refit the "Carmichael" for piracy. On the way, they are captured by the Royal Navy, but Shandy breaks them out, thus ingratiating himself with the pirates. On New Providence, Shandy develops a proficiency for cooking and learns about vodun: unlike in the Old World, magic is very strong in the Caribbean, and pirates hire "bocors" to channel "loas" for healing, attacking and protection. Male and female sorcerers control different kinds of magic. Shandy also meets a rambling old sorcerer named Sawney, and develops an affection for Beth.


title: On Stranger Tides

text: Hurwood has concluded an alliance with Blackbeard to lead him to the fabled Fountain of Youth in Florida, a powerful source of magic that will make Blackbeard immortal and allow Hurwood to resurrect his late wife — a process which involves evicting Beth's soul from her body. Davies and Shandy join him, fighting through a hostile, sentient jungle on the way. Davies defends himself from a curse by tossing enchanted soil into the air; Shandy takes note and saves some soil for himself. Shortly after he returns from the Fountain, Shandy finds that Friend has seized the "Carmichael" and abducted Beth. He gives pursuit in the "Jenny", and fights off Friend's magical zombie crew, with assistance from the ghost ship "Nuestra Señora de Lagrimas", which Friend accidentally summoned along with the ghost crew. Davies is killed and Hurwood takes Beth for himself after defeating Friend in a wizards' duel.


title: On Stranger Tides

text: Not knowing where to find Beth, Shandy becomes a drunken wreck and accepts the King's pardon from Woodes Rogers, along with most of the pirates on New Providence, while Hurwood assumes a new identity as Ulysse Segundo and begins pirating. Meanwhile, Blackbeard is killed by the Navy, and Shandy receives an education in magic from old Sawney (actually a 200-year-old Juan Ponce de León) and a vision he gets after using the Fountain of Youth soil during a fight. A survivor of Segundo's raids relates the mannerisms of his undead crew, and Shandy recognizes them as the old "Carmichael" crew. Hearing that Segundo was last seen heading for Jamaica, Shandy sails on the "Jenny", facing a storm and a mutiny on the way.


title: On Stranger Tides

text: Using Sawney's cryptic tips—involving blood and the magic-dampening power of magnetized iron—he defeats Hurwood and destroys his wife's soul. In Jamaica, he barely escapes the Navy and fights his way to the house of Hurwood's accomplice, who turns out to be Sebastian. He frees Beth and makes his way to a harbor, where he is met by Blackbeard, now resurrected and assuming a new identity. Combining his male magic with Beth's female magic, he vanquishes Blackbeard and marries Beth. The book ends as he prepares for the voyage out of Jamaica.


title: On Stranger Tides

text: Orson Scott Card states that the novel "is as good as storytelling ever gets," adding that "Powers writes in a clean, elegant style that illuminates without slowing down the tale. The story promises marvels and horrors, and delivers them all." David Langford wrote that "On Stranger Tides" "immediately hooks you and drags you along in sympathy with one central character's appalling misfortunes on the Spanish Main, [and] escalates from there to closing mega-thrills so determinedly spiced that your palate is left almost jaded."


title: On Stranger Tides

text: Jack Adrian says that "Tim Powers has further refertilized the Sabatini swashbuckler," and describes the novel as a skillful blend of "high seas adventure with sorcery and black magic."


title: On Stranger Tides

text: Kim Newman based the name of a vampire in his "Anno Dracula" series on the main character of "On Stranger Tides".


title: On Stranger Tides

text: Ron Gilbert has been widely quoted that the "Monkey Island" series of adventure games was inspired by Disneyland's "Pirates of the Caribbean" ride. However, he stated in a blog that the ride was mainly his inspiration for the ambience of the series, while his true inspiration was "On Stranger Tides".


title: On Stranger Tides

text: In 2007, after the successful opening weekend of the third "Pirates of the Caribbean" film, "", Walt Disney Studios Chairman Dick Cook said he was interested in a fourth film. The "Los Angeles Times" also reported that Bruckheimer already had rights to a book that could end up as another installment, though had not confirmed what book it was. On September 11, 2009, Walt Disney Pictures announced that the fourth installment would be titled "". The announcement had fueled speculation that the film would follow the plot of the novel. It was later revealed that while making the films, screenwriters Ted Elliott and Terry Rossio found Tim Powers' novel and brought it up to producer Jerry Bruckheimer as an idea to option the book for the new chapter. In a 2011 interview, Tim Powers stated that Disney wanted the film rights as early as before the release of the second "Pirates" film, "", though he thought they already used elements beforehand with skeletal pirates replacing zombies from his book.


title: On Stranger Tides

text: In January 2010, Disney announced that the film would be released on May 20, 2011. Before the film began production, it was speculated that Jack Sparrow would replace Jack Shandy as the story's protagonist. Tim Powers stated that the Fountain of Youth would definitely be in the film because it was teased in "At World's End", but also said that Sparrow and Shandy are "totally different characters", and that Hector Barbossa and Blackbeard might overlap. On March 22, 2010, Jerry Bruckheimer confirmed that both Barbossa and Blackbeard (portrayed by Ian McShane) would be in the film, with Blackbeard as the villain. Additionally, Penélope Cruz would play Angelica, Blackbeard's daughter.


title: On Stranger Tides

text: While making the fourth film, screenwriter Terry Rossio stated Tim Powers' novel was an inspiration for characters, theme, settings, and basic storyline. He also stated that he and co-writer Ted Elliot had considered using Blackbeard and the Fountain of Youth in the story before reading the book, "but whenever you say those words, Powers' novel comes to mind. There was no way we could work in that field without going into territory Tim had explored." However, they denied that it would be a straight version of the novel: "Blackbeard came from the book, and in the book there is a daughter character, too. But Jack Sparrow is not in the book, nor is Barbossa. So I wouldn't call this an adaptation." Powers himself stated that he never consulted with the writers and initially thought they weren't using much of his book at all and aside from Blackbeard and the Fountain of Youth, it'll be a pleasant surprise if the movie involves anything else from the book; noting Angelica, mermaids, and adventures in London. Rossio stated that Blackbeard, Angelica, and the Fountain as examples of how they integrated Powers' book into the film.


title: On Stranger Tides

text: Despite being very different, the film did have some references taken from the book. While stories of ships crewed by zombies were mentioned in the book, and Blackbeard's boatman was a zombie servant, the film features a zombie crew serving as Blackbeard's officers. Although Tim Powers stated mermaids were not in the novel, there was a brief reference to "suck-you-byes" as "female demons that weirdly and erotically occupied the last hours of men marooned on barren islands" in the fourth chapter of the book. In the film, mermaids appear to be siren-like; succubus took the form of a siren in real-world folklore. While Juan Ponce de León was alive in the novel, the film reveals Ponce de León as a skeletal corpse lying on a bed; the latter as a reference to the Disneyland ride. Unlike the novel, the Fountain of Youth was located on an unknown Caribbean island rather than Florida. Appearances include Blackbeard's dark magic, the "Queen Anne's Revenge", and brief mentions of Hispaniola and Saint Dominique.


title: United Conservative Party

text: The United Conservative Party of Alberta (UCP) is a conservative political party in the province of Alberta, Canada. It was established in July 2017 as a merger between the Progressive Conservative Association of Alberta and the Wildrose Party. When established, the UCP immediately formed the Official Opposition in the Legislative Assembly of Alberta. The UCP won a majority mandate in the 2019 Alberta general election to form the government of Alberta. UCP leader Jason Kenney became premier on April 30, 2019, when he and his first cabinet were appointed and sworn in by the lieutenant governor of Alberta, Lois Mitchell.


title: United Conservative Party

text: A leadership election was triggered after Kenney announced his intention to resign in 2022. It was won by Danielle Smith.


title: United Conservative Party

text: In July 2017 the Progressive Conservative Association of Alberta and the Wildrose Party merged to form the United Conservative Party under the leadership of Jason Kenney, a former cabinet member in the Stephen Harper government. Kenney had won the 2017 Progressive Conservative Association of Alberta leadership election on a platform of uniting the two parties. The UCP maintained a large lead in opinion polls, from its formation in 2017, during the two years prior to the 2019 provincial election, and at the beginning of 2020. The UCP won the 2019 election with a large majority.


title: United Conservative Party

text: Under the Premiership of Jason Kenney, their first cabinet of the 30th Alberta Legislature was sworn in by lieutenant governor of Alberta, Lois Mitchell on April 30, 2019.


title: United Conservative Party

text: To maintain their registration and assets, both the PCs and Wildrose ran one paper candidate each in Edmonton-Strathcona (an NDP safe seat held at that time by NDP leader Rachel Notley). On February 7, 2020, after the UCP government passed legislation allowing parties to legally merge, Elections Alberta formally approved the merger of the PCs and Wildrose into the UCP, allowing the UCP to merge the legacy parties' assets and formally wind up their affairs.


title: United Conservative Party

text: When the Alberta New Democratic Party's (NDP) won the 2015 Alberta general election, it ended an uninterrupted period in which the Progressive Conservative Association of Alberta had won provincial elections since 1971, under Premiers Peter Lougheed, Don Getty, Ralph Klein, Ed Stelmach, Alison Redford, Dave Hancock and Jim Prentice. No other government had served for that long at the provincial or federal level in Canadian history. Until the 1990s, when Preston Manning's anti-establishment right-wing populist Reform Party won 52 seats in the 1993 Canadian federal election and became the Official Opposition in the 1997 Federal Election, there were no significant challenges from the political right to the PCs. Other right-wing parties were established in Alberta, including the Alberta First Party in 1999, the Alberta Independence Party in 2001, the Alberta Alliance Party in 2002, the Wildrose Party of Alberta in 2007, and the Wildrose Alliance Party of Alberta in 2008—the Wildrose Party.


title: United Conservative Party

text: Following Manning, the Canadian Conservative movement was led by a series of westerners; Stockwell Day from British Columbia, Stephen Harper from Alberta, and Andrew Scheer in Saskatchewan. When Harper was defeated in the 2015 general election by Justin Trudeau, who succeeded him as prime minister, the new leader of the Conservative Party was Andrew Scheer.


title: United Conservative Party

text: By 2016, with the NDP in power at the provincial level in Alberta, and the federal conservative movement weakened under Scheer, the PCs and Wildrose began to discuss a merger to strengthen the right.


title: United Conservative Party

text: The Wildrose Party had formed in 2008 as a provincial political party in Alberta, Canada with the merger of the Alberta Alliance Party and the unregistered Wildrose Party of Alberta. Its members largely consisted of dissatisfied former Progressive Conservative supporters. Three of the first five Wildrose MLAs were defectors originally elected as Progressive Conservatives.


title: United Conservative Party

text: Danielle Smith, who served as leader of the Wildrose Party from October 2009 until December 2014, made an unsuccessful attempt to merge the Wildrose and the PC party by resigning from the Wild Rose and crossing the floor to join the governing Progressive Conservative Association of Alberta caucus under then Premier Jim Prentice, along with eight other Wildrose MLAs. The remaining Wildrose Party refused to consider the request by Smith to dissolve their party. Then Wildrose President David Yager said at the time "This is not a merger in any way. It is capitulation." When the NDP won in 2015 an "Edmonton Sun" article blamed the mass Wildrose defections for the loss. In the wake of the historical loss, uniting the Wildrose and PC parties became a major issue. In July 2016, federal MP and former minister Jason Kenney announced that he would seek the PC leadership on a platform of seeking a merger with the Wildrose.


title: United Conservative Party

text: At the Wildrose AGM held in Red Deer on October 28, 2016, Brian Jean, then Wildrose Leader of the Opposition, cautioned the caucus against merging just before the 2017 elections; he said the PC party, was "confused about its values" and rife with "instability."


title: United Conservative Party

text: On December 15, 2016, a rift occurred in the Wildrose party when MLA Derek Fildebrandt openly supported a merger with the PCs. Fildebrandt, who was the first Wildrose MLA to break with Jean, said that Albertans wanted "a single conservative option to face against the NDP in the next election."


title: United Conservative Party

text: When the two parties did merge, following an overwhelming vote in favour of the merger, some Wildrosers declined to join the UCP. A group of the former Wildrose constituency association presidents met in July to discuss forming a new party.


title: United Conservative Party

text: Kenney was elected PC leader on March 18, 2017 on a platform of uniting the two parties—"Uniting the Right". Negotiations between Jean and Kenney were successful; the merger agreement was released on May 18, 2017. The results of the July 22, 2017 internal votes on the merger agreement held by both parties supported the merger with 95% of Wildrose and PC members voting in favour.


title: United Conservative Party

text: The second-place PC leadership candidate and MLA for Vermilion-Lloydminster, Richard Starke, announced on July 24 that he would not join the UCP, and will sit in the legislature as an Independent PC MLA. At least 10 directors of the PC Party resigned after Kenney became leader, with some former Tories working to build a centrist alternative to both the United Conservatives and the NDP before the next provincial election.


title: United Conservative Party

text: A joint meeting of the PC and Wildrose caucuses was held on July 24, 2017, to elect Nathan Cooper, Wildrose MLA for Olds-Didsbury-Three Hills, as interim leader—and hence Leader of the Opposition-- over Prasad Panda, Wildrose MLA for Calgary-Foothills, and Richard Gotfried, PC MLA for Calgary-Fish Creek. As well, members of both caucuses approached the Speaker of the Legislative Assembly of Alberta and ask to be recognized as the United Conservative caucus.


title: United Conservative Party

text: Kenney and Jean selected six individuals each to sit on the interim executive board of the new party. Ed Ammar was elected as first chair of the party on July 24, 2017. Cooper also appointed two MLAs to the board as non-voting members. The new party was registered with Elections Alberta as of July 31, 2017.


title: United Conservative Party

text: Although it was generally understood that the PC and Wildrose merged to form the UCP, Alberta electoral law at the time did not permit parties to formally merge or transfer assets between each other. Thus, the PC and Wildrose legally continued to exist, while the UCP was legally reckoned as a newly created party. As a result, on July 24, 2017–the day the new UCP formally came into existence–Cooper and the UCP's interim leadership team formally assumed the leaderships of both the PC and Wildrose parties as well. Also on that date, all members in good standing of the PCs and Wildrose became members of the UCP, with all but a few members withdrawing their memberships in the merging parties. The PCs and Wildrose withdrew from any meaningful public presence, thus "de facto" dissolving them although they continued to exist on paper.


title: United Conservative Party

text: Calgary-South East MLA Rick Fraser, a former PC member, left the caucus on September 21, 2017, to sit as an Independent due to his dissatisfaction with the party's leadership contest and the emphasis put by candidates on spending cuts and austerity.


title: United Conservative Party

text: The leadership election held on October 28, 2017 resulted in former PC leader Jason Kenney defeating former Wildrose leader Brian Jean and Doug Schweitzer, a former aide to Jim Prentice, to become UCP leader. Kenney won more than 60% of the vote on the first ballot. Kenney successfully contested a by-election in Calgary-Lougheed on December 14, 2017, after incumbent MLA Dave Rodney resigned in order to give Kenney an opportunity to enter the Alberta legislature.


title: United Conservative Party

text: The UCP won the 2019 provincial election with a large majority, mainly on the strength of a near-sweep of Calgary (where it won all but three seats) and rural Alberta (where it won all but one seat).


title: United Conservative Party

text: Under the Premiership of Jason Kenney, their first cabinet of the 30th Alberta Legislature was sworn in by lieutenant governor of Alberta, Lois Mitchell, on April 30, 2019.


title: United Conservative Party

text: The UCP raised $6.6 million in funds in 2018, At the end of 2019, after the successful election, the party had $41.1 million in liabilities and a $2.3 million deficit. During the COVID-19 pandemic in Alberta, the UCP faced funding challenges. The party raised $5 million by the end of 2020. In November 2021, caucus members raised concerns about Kenney's leadership, which is up for review in April 2022—Kenney's poll numbers dropped dramatically and fundraising lagged behind the NDP.


title: United Conservative Party

text: The UCP adopted an aggressive pro-fossil fuel stance supported by the establishment of what was commonly referred to as the "War Room" backed by a budget of $30 million using a private corporation structure that is not subject to FOIP. The pro-fossil fuel stance is also supported by a strong opposition to green energy transition which they view as an "ideological scheme". The Canadian Energy Centre was launched in December 2019 with an annual budget of CA$30 million.


title: United Conservative Party

text: The UCP attempted to restructure the Alberta Healthcare system by passing Bill 21, and then using this bill to support tearing up the Master Agreement with the Alberta Medical Association and imposing major fee structure changes.


title: United Conservative Party

text: The UCP under Danielle Smith government passes its Alberta Sovereignty Within a United Canada Act on December 8, 2022.


title: United Conservative Party

text: On March 16, 2019, it came to light that during the UCP leadership election campaign Jason Kenney's leadership campaign collaborated with fellow candidate Jeff Callaway's campaign to undermine the leadership campaign of former Wildrose party leader Brian Jean. A document prepared by Callaway's communication's manager describes how Kenney's campaign provided communications support as well as planned regular strategic direction throughout Callaway's campaign. The Alberta Elections Commissioner levied more than $200,000 in fines relating to the kamikaze campaign prior to the Elections Commissioner's termination by the UCP government and conclusion of open investigations.


title: United Conservative Party

text: The 2017 UCP leadership race remains under investigation by the RCMP for alleged use of identity fraud in the voting process. The UCP supports replacing the RCMP with a provincial police force.


title: United Conservative Party

text: The party drew criticism over Kenney's proposal to allow schools to notify parents when their children joined Gay–Straight Alliance clubs. In response, the Notley government drafted and passed Bill 24, which forbade teachers from outing children who were members of the GSAs. The matter once again caused controversy after the UCP Policy Convention in May 2018, when members of the party voted to adopt the policy whereby schools inform parents when their children have joined a GSA. UCP MLAs Ric McIver, Jason Nixon, and Leela Aheer all opposed the policy, and despite urging members to vote against adopting the policy, it was passed with 57% of the vote.


title: United Conservative Party

text: Some MLA’s, including Drew Barnes, Donna Kennedy-Glans, and Angela Pitt called for greater autonomy for Alberta. Angela Pitt and sixteen other MLAs denounced Kenney's COVID-19 restrictions in April 2021. Pitt and others joined the "End the Lockdowns" national caucus of elected officials.


title: United Conservative Party

text: Drew Barnes, who was MLA for Cypress-Medicine Hat and Todd Loewen, formerly UCP MLA for Grande Prairie-Smoky, were expelled from the UCP caucus in May 2021 for "repeatedly speaking out against government decisions." Kenney evicted Leela Aheer, MLA for Chestermere-Rocky View from cabinet in July 2021 after she criticizing the premier for his response to the pandemic during the fourth wave.


title: United Conservative Party

text: At the September 28, 2021 Free Alberta Strategy initiative conference, three MLAs Angela Pitt, Jason Stephan and Nathan Cooper, who is UCP Speaker of the House and head of the UCP caucus, said they no longer had confidence in Kenney as Premier, in response to their growing dissatisfaction the UCP's response to COVID-19. In spite of their criticism, neither Pitt nor Leela Aheer were expelled from caucus.


title: Pennsylvania Turnpike

text: The Pennsylvania Turnpike (Penna Turnpike or PA Turnpike) is a toll highway operated by the Pennsylvania Turnpike Commission (PTC) in the U.S. state of Pennsylvania. A controlled-access highway, it runs for across the state. The turnpike's western terminus is at the Ohio state line in Lawrence County, where the road continues west as the Ohio Turnpike. The eastern terminus is at the New Jersey state line at the Delaware River–Turnpike Toll Bridge over the Delaware River in Bucks County, where the road continues east as the Pearl Harbor Memorial Extension of the New Jersey Turnpike.


title: Pennsylvania Turnpike

text: The highway runs east–west through the southern part of the state, connecting the Pittsburgh, Harrisburg, and Philadelphia areas. It crosses the Appalachian Mountains in central Pennsylvania, passing through four tunnels. The turnpike is part of the Interstate Highway System; it is designated as part of Interstate 76 (I-76) between the Ohio state line and Valley Forge, I-70 (concurrent with I-76) between New Stanton and Breezewood, Interstate 276 (I-276) between Valley Forge and Bristol Township, and I-95 from Bristol Township to the New Jersey state line. The road uses an all-electronic tolling system; tolls can be paid using E-ZPass or toll by plate (which uses automatic license plate recognition). Historically, cash tolls were collected using a combination of the ticket system and a barrier toll system, but cash tolls were phased out between 2016 and 2020. Along the turnpike are 15 service plazas, providing food and fuel to travelers.