title: Eleanor Worthington Cox

text: Eleanor Winifred Worthington Cox (born 21 June 2001) is an English actress from Merseyside best known for portraying Matilda Wormwood in "Matilda the Musical" for which 10-year-old Eleanor won a 2012 Laurence Olivier Award for Best Actress in a Leading Role in a Musical, becoming the youngest Olivier Award winner in any category at the time. She received a nomination for a British Academy Television Award for playing Janet Hodgson in "The Enfield Haunting". She is also known for portraying Polly Renfrew in the CBBC TV adaptation of Jacqueline Wilson's "Hetty Feather". She currently stars in the Sky Atlantic series "Britannia".


title: Eleanor Worthington Cox

text: From 2003, at the age of two, until 2012, Worthington Cox trained at the Formby School of Performing Arts.


title: Eleanor Worthington Cox

text: Before starring in "Matilda", Worthington Cox was in the chorus for a Bill Kenwright production of "Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat" at the Liverpool Empire.


title: Eleanor Worthington Cox

text: In September 2011, Worthington Cox was announced as one of four girls who would be playing the lead role of Matilda in "Matilda the Musical" along with: Cleo Demetriou; Kerry Ingram; and Sophia Kiely. She made her debut in October 2011 and performed in the show two nights a week. It was a critical success, and "Matilda" was nominated for 10 Olivier awards. Among the nominations was Best Actress in a Musical, for which Demetriou, Ingram, Kiely, and Cox were all nominated. On awards night, "Matilda" won seven out of the ten nominations. Cox won Best Actress in a Musical along with her co-stars and currently holds the record for the youngest winner of an Olivier award.


title: Eleanor Worthington Cox

text: Worthington Cox continued to appear in "Matilda" until 19 August 2012, later sharing the role with Demetriou, Hayley Canham, Jade Marner, and Isobelle Molloy.


title: Eleanor Worthington Cox

text: In May 2013, Worthington Cox played Scout in a stage production of "To Kill a Mockingbird" at Regent's Park Open Air Theatre, sharing her role with Lucy Hutchinson and Izzy Lee.


title: Eleanor Worthington Cox

text: After finishing Matilda, Worthington Cox filmed the role of Young Princess Aurora in the film "Maleficent" (2014).


title: Eleanor Worthington Cox

text: From April to August 2015, Worthington Cox played the role of Blousey Brown in a production of Bugsy Malone at the Lyric Hammersmith. This was the debut production following the theatre's reopening after a £16.5 million redevelopment project.


title: Eleanor Worthington Cox

text: In October 2015, Worthington Cox played Jess in "Tomcat", a new play by James Rushbrooke, at Southwark Playhouse, London.


title: Eleanor Worthington Cox

text: In 2016, Worthington Cox received a British Academy Television Award nomination for her performance in the Sky One mini-series "The Enfield Haunting". She was also featured as one of Screen International's "Stars of Tomorrow", the film magazine's annual showcase highlighting outstanding young actors from the UK and Ireland.


title: Florianus

text: Marcus Annius Florianus (died 276), also known as Florian, was Roman emperor from the death of his half-brother, Emperor Tacitus, in July 276 until his own murder in September of that year.


title: Florianus

text: Florianus was the maternal half-brother of Tacitus, who was proclaimed emperor in late 275 after the unexpected death of Emperor Aurelian. After Tacitus died the following year, allegedly assassinated as a consequence of a military plot, Florianus proclaimed himself emperor, with the recognition of the Roman Senate and much of the empire. However, the new emperor soon had to deal with the revolt of Probus, who rose up shortly after Florianus ascended the throne, with the backing of the provinces of Egypt, Syria, Palestine, and Phoenicia. Probus took advantage of the terrain of the Cilician Gates, and the hot climate of the area, to which Florianus' army was unaccustomed, to chip away at their morale. Florianus' army rose up against him and killed him.


title: Florianus

text: In late 275, Florianus' maternal half-brother, Tacitus, was proclaimed Roman Emperor after the unexpected death of Emperor Aurelian. Soon after, Tacitus appointed Florianus as praetorian prefect. Tacitus then ordered Florianus to lead troops to Pannonia, in order to repel raids into Roman territory by the Goths. After Tacitus died suddenly in July 276, allegedly as a consequence of a military plot, Florianus swiftly proclaimed himself emperor, and was recognized as such by the Roman Senate and the western provinces. Florianus then continued to campaign against the Goths, winning a major victory before the news reached him of the revolt of Probus, who had served successfully as a commander under both Aurelian and Tacitus. Probus' revolt was supported by the provinces of Egypt, Syria, Palestine, and Phoenicia.


title: Florianus

text: Probus took advantage of his control of Egyptian grain, which he used to swiftly cut off the supply of grain to the rest of the empire. He led his troops to Asia Minor, in order to defend the Cilician Gates, allowing him to utilize guerrilla tactics to wage a war of attrition rather than a straightforward confrontation. Florianus led his troops to Cilicia, and billeted his forces in Tarsus. However, many of his troops, who were unaccustomed to the hot climate of the area, fell ill due to a summer heat wave. Upon learning of this, Probus launched raids around the city, in order to weaken the morale of Florianus' forces. This strategy was successful, and Florianus lost control of his army, which in September rose up against him and killed him. Florianus' reign lasted less than three months, 88 days according to the Chronograph of 354 and 80 days according to Eutropius.


title: Godi media

text: Godi media (; ; idiomatic equivalent: 'lapdog media';) is a pejorative term coined and popularized by NDTV journalist Ravish Kumar, for the sensationalist and biased Indian print and TV news media, which supports the ruling NDA government. The term has become a common way to refer to television and other media that are perceived as mouthpieces of the ruling party in India.


title: Godi media

text: As per an opinion piece by Debasish Roy Chowdhury for "Time" magazine, Modi's ascension to national power in 2014 led to the taming of India's media. His rise coincided with a reorganization of the editorial authority of some of India's most important news institutions, particularly national television networks. The previous generation of senior editors, who were viewed as more devoted to India's liberal outlook than the BJP's Hindu nationalist ideology, were moved out, and new channels and news leaders with devotion to the BJP and Modi were developed. Because of their large state and party advertising budgets, India's state and central governments hold considerable control over media companies. In the 2019-20 fiscal year, the central government alone spent roughly on advertisements per day. Access to power and business favours are additional incentives for the media to continue with the pro-BJP messages. This ensures that bad news never affects the government or goes public. With a few exceptions, the government has made sure that the media outlets that seek government approval for their reporting.


title: Godi media

text: The term was coined and popularized by NDTV journalist Ravish Kumar, in reference to the sensationalist and biased Indian print and TV news media supporting the ruling NDA government. The term literally translates to "media sitting on the lap". In one of his shows, Kumar used silent actors to mime "godi media". This was accompanied by miming what the ruling party leaders wanted to listen to, using the Hindi film song "Bago Mein Bahar Hai".


title: Godi media

text: In 2018, on World Press Freedom Day, many journalists and social activists held a demonstration which protested, among other things, against the "godi media". The term was also widely used at the time of the Citizenship Amendment Act protests, and the 2020–2021 Indian farmers' protest, with the claim that the protest and the farmers were not being represented fairly.


title: Godi media

text: Detractors of godi media allege that instead of practicing honest journalism, such media publishes fake news and inflammatory stories, which are often untrue, working in the interest of BJP government, corporate and elite sources for their own benefit.


title: Godi media

text: Such media has also routinely exaggerated the BJP government's achievements and either brushed aside over its failures or found ways to blame them on Modi's discontents: the opposition, activists, Muslims, liberals, protesters, leftists, non-governmental organisations, and other assorted "anti-nationals".


title: Godi media

text: Rajdeep Sardesai, one of India's leading news anchors, said "A large section of the Indian media", "has become a lap dog, not a watchdog".


title: Godi media

text: The term also made it to the Press Freedom Index 2022, which ranked India at its lowest-ever rank of 150 out of 180 countries.


title: Valley of Tears

text: The Valley of Tears (, "Emek HaBakha") is the name given to an area in the Golan Heights after it became the site of a major battle in the 1973 Yom Kippur War, known as the Valley (or Vale) of Tears Battle, which was fought from 6 October to 9 October. Although massively outnumbered, the Israeli forces managed to hold their positions and on the fourth day of the battle the Syrians withdrew, just as the Israeli defenses were almost at the point of collapse.


title: Valley of Tears

text: On Yom Kippur eve (5 October), the Israeli 7th Brigade was ordered to move one battalion to the Golan Heights to strengthen the Barak Armored Brigade, under the command of Yitzhak Ben Shoham. The brigade commander Avigdor Ben-Gal concluded that something would happen on Yom Kippur. He ordered his artillery troops to survey the area and prepare targets and firing tables. He held a meeting with his battalion commanders to go over the main points of the operational plans that were previously implemented in the Israeli Northern Command. Without notifying his superiors, he took them on a tour of the front line. By 12:00 on Yom Kippur, 6 October, the brigade was concentrated in the Nafakh area. Nafakh was an important military base at the junction of the Petroleum Road, which crosses diagonally the northern Golan Heights, and a road which leads down to the strategic Bnot Yaakov Bridge over the Jordan River and into northern Israel.


title: Valley of Tears

text: Israeli Intelligence estimated that Syria had more than 900 tanks and 140 batteries of artillery immediately behind the Syrian line. The Syrian 7th Division was one of the units ready to attack. The actual number of Syrian tanks was about 1,260. Each Syrian infantry division had one infantry brigade, one mechanized infantry brigade, and one armored brigade. The infantry and mechanized infantry brigades each had three infantry battalions, a battalion of forty tanks, an anti-aircraft (AA) artillery battalion and a field artillery battalion. The armored brigade had three battalions of forty tanks each. The division also had a regiment of division field artillery, a divisional AA field artillery regiment, a reconnaissance regiment with a company attached to each brigade and a chemical company with a section attached to each brigade. The total force of the division was about 10,000 men, 200 tanks, 72 artillery pieces and 72 anti-aircraft guns and surface to air missiles (SAMs). The 7th Division, under the command of Brigadier-General Omar Abrash, had about 80% of its tanks and armored personnel carriers (APCs). There were also independent armored brigades with about 2,000 men and 120 tanks each. One of the independent brigades attached to Abrash's division was a Moroccan brigade. In the rear were the 1st and 3rd Armored Divisions, with 250 tanks each. The Syrian attack force was backed by at least 1,000 artillery pieces.


title: Valley of Tears

text: The Syrian plan was for the 7th Division to break through near Ahmadiyeh in the north while the 5th Division did the same near Rafid in the south. This would lead to the double envelopment of most of the Israeli forces in the Golan. Each division was to advance in two echelons, the 7th Division to strike westward through El Rom and Wassett while the 5th Division advanced to the Arik Bridge north of the Kinneret. If the 5th Division broke through, or if both the 5th and 7th did, the 1st Division would drive between the 5th and 9th for Nafakh to attack the Israeli forces caught between the pincers of the 5th and 7th. The Israeli forces in the Golan were 170 tanks and 60 artillery pieces divided between the 7th and the Barak brigades.


title: Valley of Tears

text: At 10:00 on Yom Kippur (6 October), Ben-Gal and other brigade commanders convened with General Yitzhak Hofi in Nafakh, where Hofi told them that Intelligence was estimating the Syrians would attack that day, at around 18:00. The 7th Brigade was assigned as a reserve force around Nafakh and was to prepare for a counterattack in either the north or south sector, or to split and support both. Ben-Gal then drove to meet one battalion in Sindiana and address the officers. He called an orders group at Nafakh for 14:00, assuming it would give his second Battalion enough time to organize. As they gathered to wait for him, the Syrian artillery and planes began to attack. Ben-Gal's men ran back to their battalions while Ben-Gal moved the headquarters out of the camp. After an hour, he was ordered to move to the northern sector in the Kuneitra area and to transfer the 2nd battalion to the southern sector, under command of the Barak Brigade. The 7th Brigade was left in charge of the northern sector from Kuneitra northwards with two battalions.


title: Valley of Tears

text: As part of his usual strategy, Ben-Gal decided to maintain a reserve force, and began building a third battalion. He transferred a company from one battalion and placed it under the command of his armored infantry battalion, thus creating a third battalion framework with tanks. With reinforcements, the new battalion gradually became a proper one: Ben-Gal now had three battalions available for maneuvering purposes. He received Lieutenant-Colonel Yair Nafshi's 74th Battalion, which was in the line with the fortifications in the northern sector. With Nafshi's battalion, the brigade had about 100 tanks. The first battalion was stationed on the Purple Line. The line began at the fortification A1, directly east of Mas'ade on the foothills of Mount Hermon, and ran south about six kilometres to Mount Hermonit.


title: Valley of Tears

text: At 13:55, while Nafshi's sector came under a heavy artillery barrage, several soldiers along the Purple Line reported that the Syrians were removing the camouflage nets from their tanks and artillery. Ben Shoham ordered his battalion commanders, Nafshi and Oded Erez, to deploy their nearly seventy Centurion tanks in prepared battle positions. Nafshi was at Kuneitra when the order came to deploy his platoons and move his headquarters somewhere safer. He immediately ordered his troops to leave the town, and the tanks to advance while the soft vehicles fell back. Erez's 53rd Battalion was moved to the southern Golan. One of Nafshi's platoons of three tanks was near the Wassett crossroads when Syrian jets attacked Tel Abu Nida. When the jets departed, the crews began moving to the bunker line. After one kilometre, they came under large-caliber artillery fire. Before 14:00, Nafshi reported to his brigade headquarters that his battalion was ready for combat and was manning the Booster ridge.


title: Valley of Tears

text: The Syrian 85th Infantry Brigade assault column reached the Israeli anti-tank ditch before its officers noticed that the engineers were not in the vanguard. They decided to dismount tank crewmen and mechanized infantrymen and rush them on foot to improvise crossings. This halted the attack in full Israeli view and exposed the men to Israeli fire. Nafshi ordered his men to destroy the bridging tanks. During the afternoon the Israelis destroyed most of the Syrian bridging tanks within sight, putting them out of action with shots fired at a range of . Only two of the bridging tanks managed to reach the anti-tank ditch north of A3. The Syrians threw two bridges and a company of ten tanks crossed the ditch. The Israeli Air Force (IAF) was called into action, but many planes were shot down.


title: Valley of Tears

text: The first close combat commenced in the 74th Battalion's northernmost sector, against the Moroccan Brigade of thirty tanks. One Israeli Centurion was hit, and an Israeli platoon that was sent northward to guard the Dan Road was caught between the Moroccans moving against Tel Shaeta and a Syrian battalion closing in from the west. Avner Landau's company, now with seven Centurions, was also threatened and could not help. Nafshi delegated the area north of Hermonit to his deputy, Major Yosef Nissim, and reinforced the sector with Captain Eyal Shaham's company, leaving a company from the Armor School Tank Battalion as a tactical reserve. In forty minutes, every Barak Brigade Centurion in the northern Golan was committed. Nissim ordered Shaham to reinforce the trapped platoon around Tel Shaeta, and ordered his deputy, Lieutenant Asaf Sela, to cover the area south of Tel Shaeta, which could provide easy access to Hermonit, with one platoon. The Moroccans continued to fire at Tel Shaeta, but did not advance, and the Syrian battalion was stopped when its leading vehicles were destroyed on the roadway. The Syrian battalion commander decided to move southward and try to penetrate between the Dan Road and Hermonit. He was unaware that he was moving between the forces of Shaham and Sela, who prepared a trap. They opened fire just before 15:00, using superior positions. After a little more than two hours, the Syrians withdrew, leaving behind their bridging tanks, a bulldozer tank, two BRDMs and six main battle tanks. Shaham's company lost two Centurions. Just before nightfall, Shaham noticed three SU-100 gun carriers and a truck close to Nissim's position, from which Nissim could not engage them. Shaham directed Sela, who could not see the Syrians, to intercept them. Sela, accompanied by one other Centurion, opened fire at the rear of the Syrian force and destroyed them at a range of 200 to 300 meters. Two Syrian tanks attempted to cross the open ground to the anti-tank ditch in the unguarded area south of Nissim's sector. The Syrian companies began moving toward that area, hoping to cross just before nightfall. As darkness fell, Nafshi ordered one company to move forward towards the Syrian bridges across the ditch to destroy the tanks that had crossed. The Syrian company that crossed was hit by Landau's tanks and destroyed after half an hour. The bridgehead was sealed.


title: Valley of Tears

text: In late afternoon, Hofi decided that the Barak Brigade's 65 tanks could not contain the Syrian attack alone, and committed the 7th Brigade's 105 Centurions. Believing that the northern sector was more crucial than the southern sector because of the Kuneitra Gap, he ordered Ben Gal to assume command of the area from Bunker 107 northward. The Barak Brigade was now put in charge of the southern sector, already occupied by Erez's 53rd Battalion. The 74th Battalion was transferred to the 7th Brigade, while the newly arrived 82nd Battalion, under the command of Captain Meir "Tiger" Zamir, and two companies from the newly arrived 75th Armored Infantry Battalion from the 7th Brigade to the Barak Brigade. Avigdor Kahalani's 77th Battalion, which was familiar with the terrain after having worked there for a week, was returned to the 7th Brigade. Ben Gal decided to create a personal reserve by attaching one company of the 82nd Battalion to the 7th Brigade's headquarters. After an hour, the 82nd Battalion was transferred to the Barak Brigade.


title: Valley of Tears

text: By nighttime, Nafshi was placed under the command of the 7th Brigade. The Syrians kept advancing in columns, using colored lights and flags to distinguish units. Some of them struck Israeli minefields. The Israeli forces did not have adequate optical equipment for night fighting, and had to gauge the position of the Syrian forces by their noise and artillery flares. Nafshi's battalion kept changing positions to avoid tank hunters. The fortifications were under heavy attack by tanks and infantry and were calling for help. Nafshi told them to go underground and provided them with supporting artillery fire.


title: Valley of Tears

text: Abrash committed his division's 78th Armored Brigade in the northern sector at 22:00. He was behind schedule, but expected to make up for it if the 78th Brigade could reach and secure the Kuneitra-Mas'ade Road, four and a half kilometres west of its starting line. It was believed that achieving this mission would cause the Israeli defenses to collapse. Each of the 82nd Brigade's ninety-five T-55 tanks was equipped with a specially designed infrared nightscope. The night was brightly moonlit. The 82nd Brigade moved up the valley just two and a half kilometres from the Kuneitra-Masada Road. Ben Gal used his artillery for illumination, and ordered his men to remain silent until the Syrians were well within range. By 22:00, the Syrian tanks were within 800 meters of the Israeli positions. Both sides lost tanks to the terrain. Captain Yair Swet, a 77th Battalion company commander, was ordered to move to Booster and lost two tanks as a result. One crew managed to extricate its tank and use it to pull the other, but the delay distracted the battalion.


title: Valley of Tears

text: Lieutenant-Colonel Yosef Eldar, commander of the 75th Armored infantry Battalion and responsible for the area penetrated by the 78th Brigade, was wounded, and Ben Gal ordered Kahalani to assume responsibility. At this point, Kahalani's companies were scattered across seventeen kilometres between Hermonit and Bunker 109. One Syrian tank was discovered only after Kahalani ordered one of the companies to turn off their lights. A Syrian anti-tank unit tried to advance down the Bnot Yaakov Road, in front of Bunker 107, not knowing it was occupied. The Israelis opened fire and after a brief battle the Syrians retreated. The 78th Brigade and its supporting units hunkered down.


title: Valley of Tears

text: Some may surmise this was due to the swift reaction time of the Israeli crews compared to the Syrian tank crews. As the Israelis were often firing at least two or more shells to the Syrians one, this would prove a major factor in offsetting the disparity of the forces.


title: Valley of Tears

text: On the dawn of 7 October, the area between Hermonit and Booster was named "Valley of Tears" because of the great number of burning tanks lying across it. At 07:00, IAF Skyhawks began flying over the southern Golan. The first four came down from the southwest and within seconds, they were hit by Syrian SAMs. Several minutes later, another foursome approached and two were shot down. At 08:00, the 78th Tank Brigade of the 7th Division launched a second attack. It advanced along a 4-kilometre wide front in the valley in the direction of Wassett. The 75th Battalion was fighting a Syrian brigade, at ranges varying from . Meanwhile, the 74th Battalion in the north was attacked by two Syrian battalions, supported by an armored infantry force in APCs, most of which were destroyed. The Syrian objective in this attack was a wadi running in the direction of Wassett along the base of Hermonit. Shaham was killed just before 13:00, a short time before the Syrians withdrew.


title: Valley of Tears

text: The 77th Battalion was moved from south of Kuneitra to the central sector at Hermonit. Kahalani was ordered to leave a small force to the south to protect the brigade flank. The 74th Battalion, having lost about ten tanks, remained in the north. The company Kahalani left behind was attacked in the afternoon, but the attacking Syrian force of about twenty tanks was destroyed. The 7th Brigade lost three company commanders in the morning fighting, and over a dozen tanks were damaged or destroyed, none of which were replaced. Late in the day, Ben Gal met with Kahalani and Eldar, who was wounded, on the southern slope of Booster to review the events. Meanwhile, Kahalani's deputy, Major Eitan Kauli, supported the forces fighting in that sector. With troops from the 75th Battalion, he began rearming, refueling, and salvaging tanks and APCs. Three Centurions at a time were withdrawn from the front-line positions and worked over at Wassett. This gave the crewmen a chance to eat, drink, and rest and improved the brigade's morale.


title: Valley of Tears

text: The Syrians attacked the central sector again at 22:00 with artillery. The 7th Division was joined by the 64th and 66th Field Artillery Regiments with the 81st Brigade, led by T-62 tanks, which were turned over from the General Headquarters to allow Abrash to mount a new offensive around the Tapline-Wassett crossroads in the north-central Golan. The 81st Brigade arrived five hours after it was ordered out of the Kiswe, Syria Military Base. With 400 artillery pieces, the 85th Infantry Brigade was to commit a company each of tanks and infantry to its divisional northern sector. The 78th and 81st Brigades were to commit over a hundred infantry-supported tanks in the divisional central sector, and the 121st Mechanized Brigade was to press some of its assault on Kuneitra with the help of BRDM-mounted Sagger anti-tank missiles. All units were to be equipped with anti-tank weapons, mostly Rocket-propelled grenades (RPGs). In total, about 500 tanks were to attack at 22:00.


title: Valley of Tears

text: Nafshi's force of five tanks at Bunker 107 was the first to report the new Syrian attack. Given the small size of his force, Nafshi's position was vulnerable when faced with this heavy attack, and his tank's turret was damaged. He decided to allow the T-62s to close in on his position in order to reduce the Syrian advantages of numbers and night-vision. Close to 22:00, the Syrians approached within 450 meters of the bunker. He hit two tanks and whispered commands through his microphone. After four minutes, 25 Syrian tanks were destroyed and their attack disturbed. Nafshi's force suffered no casualties. Most of the Syrian artillery fire fell on the Israeli units in the north. Kahalani warned his men to remain on the lookout for antitank squads.


title: Valley of Tears

text: The Israeli brigade, with fewer than 40 tanks, was facing approximately 500 Syrian tanks. Due to the Israelis' lack of night-fighting equipment, the Syrians reached within close range, and a battle commenced at ranges of . The Syrian tanks and commandos bypassed the Israelis and destroyed many tanks with RPGs. At 01:00, the Syrians retreated, trying to evacuate damaged tanks and wounded. Ben-Gal struck the area with artillery and used the interval to refuel and reload. At 04:00, the Syrians renewed their attacks. This time, they attacked mainly with artillery and did not renew any major tank assaults. Only in the 7th Brigade's southern sector, the 7th Syrian Division 121st Mechanized Brigade was able to hold on.


title: Valley of Tears

text: At dawn, 130 Syrian tanks and many APCs were lying in the valley, many of them behind or between the Israeli positions. During the night, two Syrian infantry battalions attacked the position on Hermonit and were fought off by fewer than twenty Israeli infantry troops from the Golani Brigade. Dozens of bodies were left lying on the battlefield.


title: Valley of Tears

text: On 8 October, the Israeli 7th Brigade fought against elements of the Syrian 7th Division, the 3rd Armored Division and independent units, including the Republican Guard. On the brigade's southern flank, Zamir's company fought an armored force that had entered the area during the night. Zamir's force of seven tanks held the attack and eliminated about thirty Syrian tanks, two APC companies and twenty vehicles. In the afternoon, three individual Syrian tank battalion concentrations with armored infantry tried to break through in the Hermonit area. The Syrian artillery identified the Israeli positions and inflicted most of its casualties. The 7th Brigade lost about 50 dead and many wounded, and were left with fewer than 45 working tanks. Ben-Gal decided to create a reserve of five tanks under the command of his operations officer, whom he ordered to move back about half a kilometre away and prepare to block a Syrian breakthrough.


title: Valley of Tears

text: At dusk, Abrash's tank was hit just as he was getting it ready for a new attack, and he was killed. At night, the Syrians attacked the central sector towards Booster. Ben-Gal ordered Zamir's company to counterattack from the flank and the rear of the enemy. Zamir's seven tanks managed to break the attack.


title: Valley of Tears

text: The Israeli Northern Command was trying to put together a command reserve, but could only assemble the survivors of the 53rd Battalion. The Barak Brigade had almost ceased to exist: Its commander and key staff officers were dead, and almost all of its troops and equipment were absorbed into other brigades. Lieutenant-Colonel Yossi Ben Hanan arrived the night before to take command of what was left of it. He had been the commander of the 53rd Battalion until two weeks earlier, and was on his honeymoon when the war started. He was sent to reorganize the brigade. He teamed with Erez, who had escaped from Tel Faris on Monday morning, and Shmuel Askarov, the 53rd Battalion's deputy commander, to start repairing tanks. At 18:00, he reported to his division commander, General Rafael Eitan that he was ready to bring forward the thirteen Centurions he had repaired thus far, and was ordered to head for Nafakh. He was on his way when the IAF confirmed that about 100 Syrian tanks were headed toward the 7th Brigade's sector. One air photo depicted a complete Syrian battalion of thirty-eight T-62s and four BMPs.


title: Valley of Tears

text: At dawn on 9 October, the Syrians launched the heaviest artillery barrage thus far, using Katyusha rockets and MiG-17s. Seven Syrian helicopters flew over the Israeli positions to Buq'ata, where four of them discharged commando forces. At 08:00, a Syrian force of 100 tanks and a large number of APCs began to advance. The Israelis opened fire at maximum range but the Syrian advance continued. The Israeli commanders were exposed in their turrets and the artillery caused the number of casualties among them to grow significantly. Ben-Gal ordered his force to leave the high ramps and withdraw some to escape the artillery concentrations.


title: Valley of Tears

text: Nafshi was ordered to join the 7th Brigade's area. He entered the battle with six tanks and was hit. He joined another tank and left A3. He ordered all the men under cover and requested Israeli artillery shelling of the position for protection. Later that day, he organized a supply convoy to A3. His tank was hit by a Syrian bazooka near Kuneitra and the tank behind him reported him dead. Nafshi continued with three APCs past Booster and entered A3 with the supplies.


title: Valley of Tears

text: When the Israeli 7th Brigade withdrew from the hill, the artillery stopped and Syrian tanks mounted the hill to fire at them. Ben-Gal's 7th Battalion had only six tanks and was acting as a brigade reserve, Nafshi had six tanks, and the operations officer was patrolling Buq'ata for the commandos. Zamir was fighting on Tel Git and was running out of ammunition, so he asked for permission to withdraw and reload. Ben-Gal refused at first, but relented when he was told there was only one shell per tank. Ben-Gal consulted Eitan and decided to counterattack. The 7th Battalion began to move up the hill and saw the Syrian tanks. Kahalani called the other Israeli tanks behind the ramp and got little response, since they were from different units and were operating on different frequencies. The brigade communications officer cut into every company's net, but they still did not respond to Kahalani. Kahalani's gunner knocked out the Syrian tank at the top of the hill, and another one was hit by an Israeli tank from the rear of the ramp.


title: Valley of Tears

text: In the north, the 74th Battalion was fighting with fewer than half its tanks. Ben-Gal feared that it might not be able to hold out, and ordered it to leave three tanks in the sector and move to the northern flank of the battle to face the Assad Republican Guard, which was trying to use the dead ground to move towards El Rom. The battalion commander was killed in this battle. Ben-Gal ordered the 77th Battalion to take command of the 74th Battalion. The 77th Battalion then fought two battalions of T-62 tanks that got by the 7th Brigade and were about behind it. The 77th Battalion moved to the high ground around the valley and destroyed the Assad Republican Guard force. All the forces in the central sector, down to only about fifteen tanks, were at this point under Kahalani's command, fighting at ranges of from their original positions on the ramps. The Syrians passed them and fired on them from behind. The 7th Brigade was fighting in all directions. Tanks from both sides got mixed up with the other side and struck by both sides' artillery fire. Several Syrian Mi-8 helicopters flew over the valley toward El Rom. At this point, Eitan heard that Syrian infantry was approaching Buq'ata, north of El Rom. If the 7th Division were to break through, it could join the infantry force and proceed to Dan and Kiryat Shmona, inside Israel.


title: Valley of Tears

text: Ben-Gal described the battle to Eitan and told him he was not sure he could hold on. Eitan asked him to hold on for another half-hour. At this point, the remaining eleven tanks of the Barak Brigade arrived, and Eitan directed them to Ben-Gal. Eitan told Ben-Gal of Ben-Hanan's force. Kahalani called Captain Emi Palant, the senior officer behind the ramps, to use a signal flag to get the tank commanders' attention and direct them to the ramp, but waving the flag got no response. Palant fired his machine gun at the side of the nearest tank to get the commander to look out, and the message was passed. He ran from tank to tank and rapped on their turrets to get their attention before returning to his own tank and starting to move forward. No tank followed. Kahalani heard a sergeant from the 74th Battalion and ordered him to take his position and guard the wadi. The sergeant replied he did not have any shells left. Zamir, who was flanking his position to the south, reported a massive Syrian attack and asked for permission to move the remaining tanks to Zamir's company to a better position slightly to the south. Ben-Gal refused. Kahalani reported that he was unable to control the tanks, which kept drifting to the rear. Ben-Gal said he would try to get him more tanks. Kahalani ordered the sergeant to take his place, saying the Syrians would not try to attack if they saw his tank.


title: Valley of Tears

text: Kahalani moved towards the tanks behind the rampart and told their commanders to raise their flags if they heard him. He saw ten tanks, and most raised their flags. Two IAF planes accidentally bombed them, but none of the tanks were hit. On the southern sector, Zamir reported that he was out of ammunition and could no longer hold out on Booster. His force was left with two shells per tank. He radioed Ben-Gal that he could no longer hold on. Ben-Gal asked him for ten more minutes. Zamir's tank ran out of shells, and he began to fill his pockets with grenades and withdraw. Kahalani reached the tanks behind the ramps and told them they were going to retake the ramp. He started moving and a few other tanks slowly followed. Two Syrian tanks were knocked out, but the tanks behind him began to pull back. Ben-Gal informed him on the radio that several tanks, under the command of Eli Geva, were on their way.


title: Valley of Tears

text: Kahalani managed to convince the other tanks to follow him. The tank next to him hit a Syrian tank that came over the ramp. The tanks' hatches were open, and eventually they could see the valley. Syrian tanks were moving forward, away. The Israeli tanks opened fire. Kahalani ordered them to shoot only at moving tanks. Geva's force reached the ramp and joined the battle. The Syrians fired a heavy artillery barrage. When it subsided, Kahalani could see no Syrian tanks moving ahead. Zamir had two tanks left and requested permission to withdraw, but Ben-Gal turned him down. He began to withdraw just as a force from the south, under the command of Ben Hanan, was arriving. Askarov took a position near Ben Hanan and the rest of the unit formed a battle line. Ben Hanan's face was wounded and he passed command to Askarov to get treatment. The force then destroyed about thirty Syrian tanks.


title: Valley of Tears

text: The Israeli 7th Brigade was left with seven tanks, and Ben-Gal told Eitan he could no longer hold on. Suddenly A3, surrounded by Syrian forces, reported that the Syrian supply trains were turning around and withdrawing. Dennie Agmon, Eitan's intelligence officer, told him that the Syrian General Staff had decided to retreat. The Syrian forces, having lost over 500 tanks and APCs, began to withdraw.


title: Valley of Tears

text: The Israeli 7th Brigade, including reinforcements, totaled some twenty tanks. It began to pursue the Syrians but stopped at the anti-tank ditch. About 260 tanks were lying in the valley. The Syrians lost over 500 tanks and APCs and the Israelis lost 60 to 80 armored vehicles. One brigade from the 7th Division was taken out of action for three days and then reorganized as a battalion. Eitan told the 7th Brigade over the radio: "You have saved the people of Israel". Ben Gal told Kahalani: "You are the true savior of the people of Israel". In the afternoon, the brigade's tanks pulled back a few at a time for ammunition and fuel. Ben Gal told Kahalani that the brigade has been ordered to counterattack into Syria. Eitan asked him to attack the next day, so as not to allow the Syrians time to reorganize, but Ben Gal asked for a day to allow his men to rest and refill the ranks. Kahalani was later awarded the Medal of Valor for his performance in the battle.


title: Valley of Tears

text: Decades after the battle, analysts were still presenting differing reasons for the Syrian withdrawal. In 1990, Patrick Seale argued that the reason why the Syrians were stopped was the superiority of the IAF, which was free to devote all of its attention to the Syrian front. In 2002, Kenneth Pollack wrote that the Syrian forces did not look for an alternative axis of advance and rolled forward without defending their flanks. In 1998, Martin Van Creveld suggested the explanation that on October 8 (though the Syrians did not withdraw until more losses on October 9), when Israel felt that the battle was being lost, it threatened Syria with a nuclear strike.


title: Valley of Tears

text: However, a historical review by Avner Cohen and others found no evidence of a nuclear threat by Israel.


title: Nonce word

text: A nonce word (also called an occasionalism) is a lexeme created for a single occasion to solve an immediate problem of communication.


title: Nonce word

text: Some nonce words may acquire a fixed meaning inferred from context and use, possibly even becoming an established part of the language, at which point they stop being nonce words. Some nonce words may be essentially meaningless and disposable, but they are useful for exactly that reason—the words "wug" and "blicket" for instance were invented by researchers to be used in exercises in child language testing.


title: Nonce word

text: The term is used because such a word is created "for the nonce" (i.e., for the time being, or this once). All nonce words are also neologisms, that is, recent or relatively new words that have not been fully accepted into mainstream or common use. The term "nonce word" in this sense is due to James Murray, the first editor of the "Oxford English Dictionary."


title: Nonce word

text: Nonce words are sometimes used to study the development of language in children because they allow researchers to test how children treat words of which they have no prior knowledge. This permits inferences about the default assumptions children make about new word meanings, syntactic structure, etc. "Wug" is among the earliest known nonce words used in language learning studies, and is best known for its use in Jean Berko's "Wug test", in which children were presented with a novel object, called a wug, and then shown multiple instances of the object and asked to complete a sentence that elicits a plural form—e.g., "This is a wug. Now there are two of them. There are two...?" The use of the plural form "wugs" by the children suggests that they have applied a plural rule to the form, and that this knowledge is not specific to prior experience with the word but applies to most English nouns, whether familiar or novel.


title: Nonce word

text: Nancy N. Soja, Susan Carey, and Elizabeth Spelke used the nonce words "blicket," "stad," "mell," "coodle," "doff," "tannin," "fitch," and "tulver" when testing to see if children's knowledge of the distinction between non-solid substances and solid objects preceded or followed their knowledge of the distinction between mass nouns and count nouns.


title: Nonce word

text: A poem by Seamus Heaney entitled "Nonce Words" is included in his collection "District and Circle". "Fluddle" was reported by David Crystal, which he understood to mean a water spillage between a puddle and a flood, invented by the speaker because no suitable word existed. Crystal speculated in 1995 that it might enter the English language if it proved popular. "Bouba" and "kiki" is used to demonstrate a connection between the sound of words and their meaning. "Grok", coined by Robert Heinlein in "Stranger in a Strange Land", is now used by many to mean "deeply and intuitively understand". The poem "Jabberwocky" is full of nonce words, with two of them, "chortle" and "galumph", entering into common use. The novel "Finnegans Wake" used "quark" as a nonce word; the physicist Murray Gell-Mann adopted it as the name of a subatomic particle.


title: Izz ad-Din al-Qassam Brigades

text: The Izz ad-Din al-Qassam Brigades (; also spelt Izzedine or Ezzedeen Al-Qassam Brigades; often shortened to Al-Qassam Brigades, IQB or EQB), named after Izz ad-Din al-Qassam, is the military wing of the Palestinian organization Hamas. Currently led by Mohammed Deif and his deputy, Marwan Issa, IQB is the largest and best-equipped group operating within Gaza today.


title: Izz ad-Din al-Qassam Brigades

text: Created in mid-1991, it was at the time concerned with blocking the Oslo Accords negotiations. From 1994 to 2000, the Al-Qassam Brigades has claimed responsibility for carrying out a number of attacks against Israelis.


title: Izz ad-Din al-Qassam Brigades

text: At the beginning of the Second Intifada, the group became a central target of Israel. The group's strength and its ability to carry out complex and lethal attacks surprised many observers. The Al-Qassam Brigades operated several cells in the West Bank, but most of them were destroyed by 2004 following numerous operations of the Israeli Defense Forces (IDF) in the region. In contrast, Hamas retained a forceful presence in the Gaza Strip, generally considered its stronghold. Yahya Sinwar, Hamas political leader in the Gaza Strip since February 2017, is a military leader in the Brigades in Gaza.


title: Izz ad-Din al-Qassam Brigades

text: The Al-Qassam Brigades are explicitly listed as a terrorist organization by the European Union, Australia, New Zealand, Egypt, and the United Kingdom. Though not explicitly mentioning IQB, the United States and Canada have designated its parent entity, Hamas, as a terrorist organization; Brigade leader Mohammed Deif has also been classified as a Specially Designated Global Terrorist by the US under Executive Order 13224. As the Brigades undertake military activity on behalf of Hamas, "organized terrorist activities associated with Hamas can be reliably attributed to the Brigades."


title: Izz ad-Din al-Qassam Brigades

text: The Izz ad-Din al-Qassam Brigades is the military wing of the Palestinian organization Hamas, operating in the Gaza Strip. It is currently led by Mohammed Deif and its deputy, Marwan Issa.


title: Izz ad-Din al-Qassam Brigades

text: The Al-Qassam Brigades is named after Izz ad-Din al-Qassam, a Muslim preacher and "mujahid" in Mandatory Palestine. In 1930, al-Qassam organised and established the Black Hand, a militant organisation that was opposed to Zionism and British and French rule in the Levant.


title: Izz ad-Din al-Qassam Brigades

text: In summary, the Brigades seek to establish an Islamist state of Palestine, comprising Gaza, the West Bank, and Israel—ending Israel as a political entity in the process.


title: Izz ad-Din al-Qassam Brigades

text: The Izz al-Din al-Qassam Brigades are an integral part of Hamas. While they are subordinate to Hamas's broad political goals and its ideological objectives, they have a significant level of independence in decision making. In 1997, political scientists Ilana Kass and Bard O'Neill described Hamas' relationship with the Brigades as reminiscent of Sinn Féin's relationship to the military arm of the Irish Republican Army and quoted a senior Hamas official: "The Izz al-Din al-Qassam Brigade is a separate armed military wing, which has its own leaders who do not take their orders [from Hamas] and do not tell us of their plans in advance." Carrying the IRA analogy further, Kass and O'Neill stated that the separation of the political and military wings shielded Hamas' political leaders from responsibility for terrorism while the plausible deniability this provided made Hamas an eligible representative for peace negotiations as had happened with Sinn Féin's Gerry Adams.


title: Izz ad-Din al-Qassam Brigades

text: The fighters' identities and positions in the group often remain secret until their death; even when they fight against Israeli incursions, all the militants wear a characteristic black hood on which the group's green headband is attached. The Brigades operate on a model of independent cells and even high-ranking members are often unaware of the activities of other cells. This allows the group to consistently regenerate after member deaths. During the Al-Aqsa Intifada, the leaders of the group were targeted by numerous airstrikes that killed many members, including Salah Shahade and Adnan al-Ghoul. The current leader of the Brigades, Mohammed Deif, remains at large and is said to have survived at least five assassination attempts.


title: Izz ad-Din al-Qassam Brigades

text: In 1984, Sheikh Ahmed Yassin, Ibrahim al-Makhadmeh, Sheikh Salah Shehada, and others began preparing for the establishment of an armed organization to resist Israeli control, with a focus on acquiring weapons for future resistance activities. Members of the group were, however, arrested and the weapons were confiscated.


title: Izz ad-Din al-Qassam Brigades

text: In 1986, Shehada formed a network of resistance cells, called "al-Mujahidun al-Filastiniun" ('Palestinian fighters'), who targeted Israeli troops and "traitors." This network operated until 1989, with their most famous operation being the kidnapping and killing of two Israeli soldiers: Avi Sasportas and Ilan Saadon.


title: Izz ad-Din al-Qassam Brigades

text: Hamas was officially established soon after, on 14 December 1987, forming other similar networks as "al-Mujahidun al-Filastiniun", such as the Abdullah Azzam Brigades. In mid-1991, in during the First Palestinian Intifada (1987-1994), the Izz ad-Din al-Qassam Brigades was established to provide Hamas with a paramilitary capability, thereafter becoming known as the armed branch of Hamas.


title: Izz ad-Din al-Qassam Brigades

text: The international community, and more specifically the United Nations, considers the practice of war combatants to turn civilians into human shields as a violation of the Geneva Conventions standards of war, and considers indiscriminate attacks (e.g., by rockets or suicide bombers) on civilian populations as illegal under international law.


title: Izz ad-Din al-Qassam Brigades

text: The IQB's transition into a recognised militant organisation began during the establishment of the Oslo Accords to assist Hamas efforts in blocking them. In 2003 and 2004, the Brigades in Gaza resisted incursions by the Israel Defense Forces (IDF), including the siege of Jabalya in October 2004. However, these battles took a heavy toll in the IQB's ranks, which suffered heavy losses. The group, however, continued to gain strength and remained capable of carrying out attacks in the following years. The Brigades can count on a large pool of people willing to join them , smuggle in supplies and provide the fighters with homemade weapons such as the al-Bana, the Batar, the Yasin and the Qassam rocket.


title: Izz ad-Din al-Qassam Brigades

text: In early 2005, the Al-Qassam Brigades appeared to stand by a truce negotiated between the government of Israel and the Palestinian Authority. However the Brigades took advantage of the truce to regroup. Following Israel's withdrawal from the Gaza Strip in August 2005, the Al-Qassam Brigades staged several rallies in which they displayed thousands of fighters and an assortment of weaponry in Gaza. These celebrations ended abruptly when, on 23 September, twenty Palestinians were killed as a car carrying Qassam rockets exploded among a dense crowd. Since this incident, the brigades refrained from staging public displays of force as well as launching attacks at Israel, which, in turn, refrained from targeting Hamas members in assassinations and raids. Despite occasional and brief flare-ups of violence, the brigades generally respected this truce until the beginning of June 2006. The Palestinian Authority has been, during this period, under intense pressure from Israel and the Middle East Quartet to disarm Hamas, but fears of heavy resistance from the Al-Qassam Brigades and a possible civil war, coupled with a victory of the movement in the 2006 legislative elections, prevented any such attempts. As a result, it is widely believed that the brigades stockpiled thousands of homemade weapons and projectiles during 2005 and 2006 and were actively attempting to rebuild their destroyed cells in the West Bank.


title: Izz ad-Din al-Qassam Brigades

text: Also in 2005, President Mahmoud Abbas had taken direct control of the PA security forces which was loyal to the president's Fatah movement, and the Hamas government formed a separate 3,000-strong paramilitary police force in the Gaza Strip, called Executive Force, which was made up of members of the Al-Qassam Brigades.


title: Izz ad-Din al-Qassam Brigades

text: In May 2006, a police force was formed in Gaza, consisting of thousands of Brigade fighters. It aimed to restore law and order in the city but instead broke out into clashes with Fatah militias. On 10 June 2006, after the Gaza beach blast in which seven civilians died, the Brigades announced a cessation of the 2005 truce with Israel. In the following hours, they claimed responsibility for launching Qassam rockets at the Israeli town of Sderot, and threatened to step up their attacks.


title: Izz ad-Din al-Qassam Brigades

text: In June and July 2006, the Al-Qassam Brigades were involved in the operation which led to the capture of Israeli soldier Gilad Shalit, and in the subsequent heavy fighting in the Gaza Strip following Operation Summer Rains, launched by the IDF. It was the first time in over 18 months that the brigades were actively involved in fighting against Israeli soldiers. In May 2007, the brigades acknowledged they lost 192 fighters during the operation.


title: Izz ad-Din al-Qassam Brigades

text: In January 2007, Abbas outlawed the Executive Force and ordered that its then-6,000 members be incorporated into the PA security forces under his command. The order was resisted by the Hamas government, which instead announced plans to double the size of the force to 12,000 men. The Al-Qassam Brigades and the Executive Force took part in the Hamas takeover of Gaza in June 2007.


title: Izz ad-Din al-Qassam Brigades

text: In June 2008, Egypt brokered a ceasefire, which lasted until 4 November when Israeli forces crossed into Gaza and killed six Hamas fighters; this resulted in an increase in rocket attacks on Israel, going from two in September and October to 190 in November. Both sides claimed the other had broken the truce. The continuing rocket fire into Israel led to the Gaza War (2008–09) in late December 2008.


title: Izz ad-Din al-Qassam Brigades

text: Since its establishment in December 1987, the military capability of the Brigades has increased markedly, from rifles to Qassam rockets and more.


title: Izz ad-Din al-Qassam Brigades

text: The Brigades have a substantial inventory of light automatic weapons and grenades, improvised rockets, mortars, bombs, suicide belts, and explosives. The group engages in military-style training, including training that takes place in Gaza itself on a range of weapons designed to inflict significant casualties on civilian and military targets.


title: Izz ad-Din al-Qassam Brigades

text: The Brigades also have a variety of anti-tank guided missiles including the Kornet-E, Konkurs-M, Bulsae-2 (North Korean version of Fagot), 9K11 Malyutka and MILAN missiles, as well as shoulder-launched anti-aircraft missiles (MANPADS), such as the SA-7B, SA-18 Igla missiles, and it is believed a number of SA-24 Igla-S that it received from Libya.


title: Izz ad-Din al-Qassam Brigades

text: While the number of members is known only to the Brigades leadership, in 2011 Israel estimated that the Brigades have a cadre of several hundred members who receive military-style training, including training in Iran and Syria. Additionally, the Brigades have an estimated 30,000 operatives "of varying degrees of skill and professionalism" who are members of the internal security forces, Hamas, and their supporters. These operatives can be expected to reinforce the Brigades in an "emergency situation." Other sources estimate their strength at 30,000-50,000.


title: Izz ad-Din al-Qassam Brigades

text: According to a statement by CIA director George Tenet in 2000 possibly referring to the Brigades, Hamas has pursued a capability to conduct attacks with toxic chemicals. There have been reports of Hamas operatives planning and preparing attacks incorporating chemicals. In one case, nails and bolts packed into explosives detonated by a Hamas suicide bomber in a December 2001 attack in the Ben-Yehuda street in Jerusalem were soaked in rat poison. In 2014 they launched the first Palestinian reconnaissance (UAV) aircraft called Ababeel1.


title: Izz ad-Din al-Qassam Brigades

text: On 5 January 1996, Israel's Shin Bet arranged for a cell phone that was both bugged and contained explosives be given to Yahya Ayyash. When it was confirmed that it was Ayyash on the phone, Shin Bet remotely detonated it, killing Ayyash instantly.


title: Izz ad-Din al-Qassam Brigades

text: On 3 September 2005, after Israel's withdrawal from settlements in the Gaza Strip, the Al-Qassam Brigrades revealed for the first time the names and functions of its commanders on its website as well as in a printed bulletin distributed to Palestinians. Most of the information published, including pictures of three leaders, was reportedly already known by Israel's intelligence services. According to the bulletin, in 2006 Mohammed Deif was overall commander with Ahmed Ja'abari as second in command. Other sub-commanders controlled Gaza City (Raid Said), the northern Gaza Strip and Jabalya refugee camp (Ahmad al-Ghandur), southern Gaza Strip (Muhammad Abu Shamala), and Khan Younis (Muhammad al-Sanwar).


title: Izz ad-Din al-Qassam Brigades

text: On 12 July 2006, the Israeli Air Force bombed a house in the Sheikh Radwan neighborhood of Gaza City, where Mohammed Deif, Ahmad al-Ghandur and Raid Said were meeting. The three-story house was completely leveled, killing Hamas official Nabil al-Salmiah, his wife, their five children and two other children. Two of the three brigades leaders present escaped with moderate wounds while Deif received a spinal injury that required four hours of surgery.


title: Izz ad-Din al-Qassam Brigades

text: On 1 January 2009, Nizar Rayan, a top Hamas leader who served as a liaison between the Palestinian organization's political leadership and its military wing, was killed in an Israeli Air Force strike during Operation Cast Lead. The day before the attack, Rayan had advocated renewal of suicide attacks on Israel, declaring, "Our only language with the Jew is through the gun". A 2,000-pound bomb was dropped on his house, also killing his 4 wives (Hiam 'Abdul Rahman Rayan, 46; Iman Khalil Rayan, 46; Nawal Isma'il Rayan, 40; and Sherine Sa'id Rayan, 25) and 11 of their children (As'ad, 2; Usama Ibn Zaid, 3; 'Aisha, 3; Reem, 4; Miriam, 5; Halima, 5; 'Abdul Rahman, 6; Abdul Qader, 12; Aaya, 12; Zainab, 15; and Ghassan, 16).


title: Izz ad-Din al-Qassam Brigades

text: On 3 January 2009, Israeli aircraft attacked the car in which Abu Zakaria al-Jamal, a leader of Izz ad-Din al-Qassam armed wing, was traveling. He subsequently died of the wounds suffered in the bombing. The following day, the Israeli Air Force struck and killed in Khan Yunis two senior Brigrade leaders, Hussam Hamdan and Muhammad Hilo, both of whom the Israelis blamed for attacks against Israel. According to Israeli authorities Hamdan was in charge of rocket attacks against Beersheba and Ofakim, while Hilo was reportedly behind Hamas' special forces in Khan Yunis.


title: Izz ad-Din al-Qassam Brigades

text: On 15 January 2009, the Israeli Air Force bombed a house in Jabaliya, killing a prominent Brigades commander named Mohammed Watfa (the strike targeted the Palestinian Interior Minister Said Seyam, who was also killed).


title: Izz ad-Din al-Qassam Brigades

text: On 30 July 2010, one of the leaders Issa Abdul-Hadi Al-Batran, aged 40, was killed at the Nuseirat refugee camp in the central Gaza Strip by an Israeli airstrike.


title: Izz ad-Din al-Qassam Brigades

text: On 14 November 2012, Ahmed Jaabari, the head of the Al-Qassam Brigade, was killed along with seven others in Gaza marking the beginning of Israel's "Operation Pillar of Defense".


title: Izz ad-Din al-Qassam Brigades

text: On 21 August 2014, an Israeli air strike killed Muhammad Abu Shamala, the sub-commander of Southern Gaza Strip; Raed al Atar, the commander of the Rafah company and member of the Hamas high military council; and Mohammed Barhoum.


title: Izz ad-Din al-Qassam Brigades

text: On 30 January 2018, Imad Al-Alami died as a result of injuries sustained while he was inspecting his personal weapon in Gaza City.


title: Izz ad-Din al-Qassam Brigades

text: The international community, and more specifically the United Nations, considers the practice of war combatants to turn civilians into human shields as a violation of the Geneva Conventions standards of war, and considers indiscriminate attacks (e.g., by rockets or suicide bombers) on civilian populations as illegal under international law.


title: Izz ad-Din al-Qassam Brigades

text: As the Brigades undertake military activity on behalf of Hamas, "organized terrorist activities associated with Hamas can be reliably attributed to the Brigades."


title: Izz ad-Din al-Qassam Brigades

text: The Al-Qassam Brigades are explicitly listed as a terrorist organization by the European Union, Australia, New Zealand, Egypt, and the United Kingdom. Though not explicitly mentioning IQB, the United States and Canada have designated its parent entity, Hamas, as a terrorist organization; Brigade leader Mohammed Deif has also been classified as a Specially Designated Global Terrorist by the US under Executive Order 13224.


title: TD Canada Trust

text: TD Canada Trust, frequently shortened to simply TD, is the commercial banking operation of TD Bank Group in Canada. TD Canada Trust offers a range of financial services and products to more than 10 million Canadian customers through more than 1,100 branches and 2,600 ATMs.


title: TD Canada Trust

text: In addition to the countrywide network of TD branches and ATMs in Canada, the bank has a network of mobile mortgage specialists, financial planners, private bankers, investment advisors, and portfolio managers.


title: TD Canada Trust

text: The current TD Canada Trust division was formed after TD's acquisition of Canada Trust in 2000; prior to this merger, the institution's retail operations were branded TD Bank. All new and most existing accounts are officially issued by Toronto-Dominion Bank (Institution Number: 004), although Canada Trust (Institution Number: 509) remains a separate subsidiary entity, and it remains the issuer of accounts opened at that institution prior to the merger.


title: TD Canada Trust

text: Since 2012, TD has been phasing out the "Canada Trust" part of its name from its logo online, in advertisements, and on stationery.


title: TD Canada Trust

text: Canada Trust was formerly an independent company that was founded in 1864 in London, Ontario, as Huron and Erie Savings and Loan Society.


title: TD Canada Trust

text: The company was acquired by TD Bank in 2000, which adopted the new brand name "TD Bank Financial Group". Canada Trust's retail division was merged with TD's existing retail banking operations over the course of 2000 to 2001 to collectively form "TD Canada Trust". Canada Trust's president and CEO, W. Edmund Clark, was made President and COO of TD, and he became president and CEO of TD Bank Financial Group in 2002.


title: TD Canada Trust

text: Toronto-Dominion Bank has come under fire due to a series of articles published by CBC News that question its banking practices. The first article written to the "Go Public" portion of the CBC Business section was posted on 10 March 2017, under the title "'We do it because our jobs are at stake': TD bank employees admit to breaking the law for fear of being fired".


title: TD Canada Trust

text: On 15 March 2017, another article was released by CBC News that reported thousands of banking employees from the top-five banks in Canada (RBC, BMO, CIBC, TD and Scotiabank) being pressured to meet unreasonable sales targets.


title: TD Canada Trust

text: TD Canada Trust markets itself as having longer hours than most major banks. Since late 2007, most branches are open 8–6 Monday to Wednesday (some until 8pm), 8–8 Thursday and Friday, and 8–4 on Saturday, with some exceptions for very low-traffic branches. As of February 2011, over 300 branches are open 11–4 on Sundays. All branches are closed on most statutory holidays.


title: TD Canada Trust

text: TD customers are able to do online banking through TD's EasyWeb system. EasyWeb allows users to perform transactions, manage bills, update personal information, manage investments, and view banking histories.


title: TD Canada Trust

text: In 2010, TD Canada Trust launched a mobile banking app for iOS, Android and BlackBerry platforms, allowing clients to perform many of the same transactions that are available through EasyWeb online banking.


title: TD Canada Trust

text: In June 2012, TD Canada Trust introduced an enhanced Access Card with the new VISA Debit / Interac Flash Access Card which allows customers to use it via phone/online and at international merchants through the Visa network.


title: TD Canada Trust

text: TD provides over 200 different languages on phone service for customers in Canada, including English, French, Mandarin and Cantonese. Five languages (English, French, Italian, Cantonese and Portuguese) are provided on ATMs.


title: David X. Cohen

text: David Samuel Cohen (born July 13, 1966), better known as David X. Cohen, is an American television writer. He began working on "Beavis and Butt-Head", has written for "The Simpsons", and served as the head writer, showrunner and executive producer of "Futurama" and a producer of "Disenchantment".


title: David X. Cohen

text: Cohen was born in New York City as David S. Cohen. He changed his middle initial around the time "Futurama" debuted due to Writers' Guild policies prohibiting more than one member from having the same name. Both of his parents were biologists, and growing up Cohen had always planned to be a scientist, though he also enjoyed writing and drawing cartoons. Cohen is of Jewish background.


title: David X. Cohen

text: Cohen graduated from Dwight Morrow High School in Englewood, New Jersey, where he wrote the humor column for the high school paper and was a member of the school's state champion mathematics team. Cohen graduated from Harvard University with a B.A. in physics, and the University of California, Berkeley, with a M.S. in computer science. At Harvard, he wrote for and served as President of the "Harvard Lampoon".


title: David X. Cohen

text: In high school Cohen wrote in MOS 6502 assembly language an Apple II compiler and computer game, and unsuccessfully tried to publish the latter through Broderbund. His most notable academic publication concerned the theoretical computer science problem of pancake sorting.


title: David X. Cohen

text: After three years of graduate school, Cohen took a leave of absence and started writing sample TV scripts. In 1992, this landed him a job writing two of the earliest "Beavis and Butt-Head" episodes. In 1993, Cohen began working on "The Simpsons", writing or co-writing thirteen episodes. Nearly five years later, Cohen would team with Matt Groening to develop "Futurama", where he served as writer or co-writer of seven episodes and executive producer, head writer, and showrunner of the series' entire run. Cohen has won four Primetime Emmy Awards: Two for "Futurama" and two for "The Simpsons".


title: David X. Cohen

text: Cohen co-developed "Futurama", along with "The Simpsons" creator Matt Groening. Cohen served as head writer, executive producer, showrunner, and voice director of the series. He was also the voice director of the "Futurama" video game. After spending a few years researching science fiction, Groening got together with Cohen in 1997 and developed "Futurama", an animated series about life in the year 3000. By the time they pitched the series to Fox in April 1998, Groening and Cohen had composed many characters and storylines; Groening claimed they had "gone overboard" in their discussions. Groening described trying to get the show on the air as "by far the worst experience of [his] grown-up life". The show premiered on March 28, 1999.


title: David X. Cohen

text: After four years on the air, the series was canceled by Fox. In a situation similar to the animated "Family Guy", however, strong DVD sales and very stable ratings on Comedy Central brought Futurama back to life. When Comedy Central began negotiating for the rights to air "Futurama" reruns, Fox suggested that there was a possibility of also creating new episodes. When Comedy Central committed to sixteen new episodes, it was decided that four straight-to-DVD films—"" (2007), "" (2008), "" (2008) and "" (2009)—would be produced. Since no new "Futurama" projects were in production, the movie "Into the Wild Green Yonder" was designed to stand as the Futurama series finale. However, Groening had expressed a desire to continue the "Futurama" franchise in some form, including as a theatrical film. In an interview with CNN, Groening said that "we have a great relationship with Comedy Central and we would love to do more episodes for them, but I don't know... We're having discussions and there is some enthusiasm but I can't tell if it's just me."


title: David X. Cohen

text: Cohen told "Newsday" in August 2009 that the reported 26-episode order means "[i]t will be up to 26. I can't guarantee it will be 26. But I think there's a pretty good chance it'll be exactly 26. Fox has been a little bit cagey about it, even internally. But nobody's too concerned. We're plunging ahead." Two episodes were in the process of being voice-recorded at that time, with an additional "six scripts ... in the works, ranging in scale from 'it's a crazy idea that someone's grandmother thought of' to 'it's all on paper'. ..."The first episode is tentatively titled 'Rebirth' — and in a surprisingly literal fashion, as things turn out". It aired June 24 on Comedy Central.


title: David X. Cohen

text: Cohen designed one of the robots in the robot strip club which he said was "his one artistic contribution to the show". The robot's waist gyrated sexily using a planetary gear. In an episode's commentary, this artistic contribution is discussed by "Futurama" co-creator Matt Groening, who describes Cohen as being very particular about how the animators used his design, and that Cohen's original drawing is still framed in his office.


title: David X. Cohen

text: He makes some brief cameo appearances in cartoon form, first in the "Futurama" episode "A Bicyclops Built for Two", along with several other people who worked on the show, and second on "I Dated a Robot" as a member of the eBay audience. Both appearances are pointed out during DVD commentaries.


title: David X. Cohen

text: When the FOX primetime animated shows unionized in 1998, Cohen was forced to use a different name for professional purposes as there was already another member credited as David S. Cohen (who worked on "Courage the Cowardly Dog"). The Writers Guild of America does not allow multiple members to use the same name for onscreen credits. Instead of using his full middle name, he chose to use the middle initial "X"—because it sounded "sci-fi-ish"—and has jokingly said that the "X" would make him "the David Cohen people would remember". The "X" does not actually stand for anything, but Cohen included a period "so people don't think it's some mathematical formula: 'David times Cohen' or something".


title: David X. Cohen

text: Cohen has also been credited with inventing the word "cromulent", meaning "valid" or "acceptable" in "The Simpsons" episode "Lisa the Iconoclast". Since that time the word was included in Webster’s New Millennium Dictionary. The meaning of "cromulent" is inferred only from its usage, which indicates that it is a positive attribute. Webster's Dictionary defines it as meaning "fine" or "acceptable".


title: Casper Meets Wendy

text: Casper Meets Wendy is a 1998 American fantasy comedy film based on the Harvey Comics cartoon characters Casper the Friendly Ghost and Wendy the Good Little Witch. The film is a sequel to "", and is the second spin-off/prequel of "Casper". Saban Entertainment, co-produced the project. The film also marks the second "Casper" film to co-star Cathy Moriarty, who played the villainess in the 1995 film.


title: Casper Meets Wendy

text: This was the first major film for Hilary Duff, who was 10 years old when the film was released on September 22, 1998, six days before her 11th birthday. The film itself was met with mostly negative reviews from critics, but was considered an improvement to its predecessor. Its television premiere was October 24, 1999 on Fox Family.


title: Casper Meets Wendy

text: A mysterious object floats over a baseball game eventually revealing Stretch, Stinkie, and Fatso, the Ghostly Trio, who cause panic in the ballpark. Their nephew Casper attempts to settle the terrified crowd, but they are just as scared of him. The park empties, and after watching their effect with satisfaction, Casper's uncles plan a vacation.


title: Casper Meets Wendy

text: Meanwhile, a malevolent warlock named Desmond Spellman believes himself to be the greatest warlock to have existed until he receives an unwelcome message from the Oracle in the Mirror, who tells him that in the future, none other than Wendy the Good Little Witch will surpass him. To avoid this, Desmond plans to get rid of her once and for all with the advised "Mystic Abyss", a dimensional rift that can destroy living beings. He then creates a pair of spies: Jules and Vincent, and assigns them to bring Wendy to him where she is living in the country with her three mischievous aunts: Gert, Gabby, and Fanny.


title: Casper Meets Wendy

text: Jules and Vincent arrive at Wendy's house to escort the young witch to Desmond, but she narrowly escapes with her aunts. To keep Wendy safe from Desmond, her aunts hide and vacation at a resort hotel which happens to be the same place in which Casper and his uncles are vacationing. Casper and Wendy meet in a barn and become great friends. Unfortunately, they fear that their guardians will not get along because ghosts and witches are natural enemies. In order to make the guardians get along, Casper and Wendy devise a plan to make them meet at a party. Casper gets the Ghostly Trio to possess three men who happen to resemble them. Wendy convinces her aunts to go to the party to meet men. Thanks to their plotting, they meet and soon the Trio are flirting with the three witches, who are posing as regular women.


title: Casper Meets Wendy

text: Though everything goes well at first, the plan is spoiled when the possession wears off and the Trio's real selves are revealed to Wendy's aunts, who, in turn, reveal their real selves and threaten them with magic. However, as Wendy explains to Casper, she and her aunts cannot use any high-level magic or else Desmond will be able to track them down. She begs Casper not to tell anyone about this, but when the Trio suspects that Casper is protecting the witches, they pressure him into blurting out that the witches cannot use their powers, prompting the Trio to terrorize Wendy and her aunts. Wendy feels she has no choice but to cast a high-level spell to cover the Trio in plaster, thus alerting Desmond of her location.


title: Casper Meets Wendy

text: Distraught that Casper broke his promise, Wendy ends their friendship. Casper soon confronts his uncles and tells them that Desmond is coming after the witches and they should help, at which the Trio scoff and refuse. Before the witches can evacuate the resort, Desmond and his spies arrive. After finding and confronting the witches, Desmond explains the Oracle's prediction, and after she tries to resist him, summons the Mystic Abyss and casts Wendy into it, with Casper diving inside in an attempt to rescue her. Wendy's aunts battle Desmond but are no match for him. Before Desmond can turn the witches into fertilizer, a giant three-eyed monster appears and frightens the warlock who trips over Wendy's broom and falls into the Abyss himself. The monster turns out to be the Ghostly Trio, who had a change of heart. While they hold the door to the Abyss open, Wendy's aunts pull her and Casper out.


title: Casper Meets Wendy

text: Both Casper and Wendy are unconscious from being inside the Abyss; but with encouragement and comfort from their guardians, Casper is restored by his uncles, and Wendy is treated by her aunts. After a touching reunion between the witches and an awkward one between the ghosts, the witches thank the Trio for helping them. The Oracle then proclaims that Wendy is the greatest witch because she did something no other witch ever could; she befriended a ghost. Later, Casper, his uncles, Wendy, and her aunts, all bid each other goodbye. Before flying back home with her aunts, Wendy gives Casper a goodbye kiss, causing him to blush.


title: Casper Meets Wendy

text: "Casper Meets Wendy" received mostly negative reviews from critics, with a total of 6 reviews from critics on the review aggregator Rotten Tomatoes, 17% gave the film a positive review, with an average score of 4.05/10, which gives the film a slight improvement over its predecessor, but still low compared to the 1995 theatrical film.


title: Casper Meets Wendy

text: In the original airing and VHS release of the film, the Casper theme can be heard in the opening sequence performed by Shana Halligan. In the subsequent DVD releases the lyric is muted though the melody and sound effects remain intact. However, Halligan is still credited with performing the theme song.


title: Casper Meets Wendy

text: Despite the film's negative reviews from critics, "Casper Meets Wendy" won the Children's Programming - Electronic Visual Effects award. Hilary Duff was nominated for a Young Artist Award.


title: Story of the Year

text: Story of the Year is an American rock band formed in St. Louis, Missouri, in 1995 under the name 67 North. The band eventually changed their name to Big Blue Monkey in 1998, and then subsequently changed it again to Story of the Year in 2002, after the release of their EP titled "Story of the Year" on the indie label Criterion Records. At the time, they claimed they discovered that a blues group named Big Blue Monkey had already existed. Later, on their podcast "Page Avenue Crew", they clarified that they just didn't care for the name and made up the excuse of another band having the same name.


title: Story of the Year

text: It would not be until three years after forming that Story of the Year saw its first piece of commercial success in its major label debut, "Page Avenue", containing the popular singles "Until the Day I Die" and "Anthem of Our Dying Day". A second album, "In the Wake of Determination", followed in 2005, but did not achieve the commercial success of its predecessor. The band released their third album, "The Black Swan", on April 22, 2008, which was their first release on Epitaph Records, followed by 2010's "The Constant".


title: Story of the Year

text: On August 11, 2017, Story of the Year teased a 90-second clip of a new song off their crowd-funded fifth studio album. The pledge campaign began in November 2016 and was completely funded in less than 3 days. The band used high-profile producer Aaron Sprinkle and mixers Tom Lord Alge & J Hall to complete their fifth studio album. They confirmed via the pledge site that the new album will be titled "Wolves", which was released on PledgeMusic on December 1, 2017. The album's wide release was on December 8, 2017. On February 2, 2019, Story of the Year held their annual hometown show at the Pageant in St. Louis, Missouri to promote "Wolves".


title: Story of the Year

text: The band were formed in 1995 under the name "67 North" by guitarist Ryan Phillips of the bands Means Well and Locash, drummer Dan Marsala, vocalist John Taylor and bassist Perry West. They changed their name to "Big Blue Monkey" in 1998 before releasing the first EP "Three Days Broken" that same year. In 1999, they released another EP called "Truth in Separation", their last under the line-up. In 2000, West and Taylor would both depart from the group, leading to Marsala moving to vocal duties, and the recruitment of Means Well drummer Josh Wills as well as the members' long time friend Adam Russell on bass duties, despite him never having played bass prior (previously a guitarist prior to joining the band). It was at this point that the band relocated to Orange County, California, where the final Big Blue Monkey EP was released in 2002 titled "Story of the Year", which they would then change their name to later that year.


title: Story of the Year

text: After spending many years as a local band with different line-ups, recording three EPs and multiple demos, Story of the Year signed a deal with Maverick Records in 2002, then recorded and released their first album, "Page Avenue", in September 2003. The first single from that album was "Until The Day I Die". It first received radio airplay around July–August 2003 on stations like KPNT. The second single, "Anthem of Our Dying Day", featured a music video directed by Joe Hahn of Linkin Park. Pushed by the success of both singles, "Page Avenue" was a success and was certified Gold by the RIAA in 2004, and went on to sell 846,000 copies in the US by 2007.


title: Story of the Year

text: "MTV News" reported on their website that during a radio show in May 2004, the band members of Story of the Year got into a fight with the roadies of metal band Godsmack. Pictures of the band members' bruised faces were posted on their homepage. The members of Godsmack were not involved in the fight.


title: Story of the Year

text: "Live in the Lou/Bassassins" (a CD/DVD combo of live performances and touring video) was released on May 10, 2005. It was certified Gold by the RIAA in late 2005, indicating shipment of over 50,000 units as it is video longform format.


title: Story of the Year

text: After the "Page Avenue" tour ended in late 2004, Story of the Year returned to the studio with producer Steve Evetts in 2005, to record their second studio album. "In the Wake of Determination", released on October 11, 2005, is much heavier sounding than the previous album. As of October 2007, the album had sold 180,000 units and failed to achieve the same success that the band's two previous releases had. Although not as successful as its predecessor, the album debuted at No. 19 on the "Billboard" 200.


title: Story of the Year

text: Story of the Year released "The Black Swan" in 2008. For the album, they brought back producer John Feldmann and Elvis Baskette. The album received praise from music critics and achieved decent commercial success, more so than the previous album. The success was led by the first single off album, "Wake Up".


title: Story of the Year

text: For the recording of "The Black Swan", Story of the Year decided to end their five-year relationship with Maverick and signed with Epitaph Records.


title: Story of the Year

text: In May 2009, Story of the Year began work on another album. On December 31, the band released "I'm Alive" to radio airplay.


title: Story of the Year

text: "The Constant", was released on February 16, 2010, through Epitaph Records. The Deluxe Edition, available on iTunes, has two bonus tracks, "Your Unsung Friend" and "Tonight We Fall."


title: Story of the Year

text: Story of the Year recorded a cover of Waterproof Blonde's song "Just Close Your Eyes" for the WWE wrestling star Christian Cage. Their cover version was included in WWE Music album that was released on January 28, 2010.


title: Story of the Year

text: Bassist Adam Russell was announced to be the bassist of post-hardcore band Destroy Rebuild Until God Shows, along with Craig Owens (lead vocalist, Chiodos), Matt Good (guitarist, From First to Last), Nick Martin (guitarist, Underminded), and Aaron Stern (drummer, Matchbook Romance). Russell left Destroy Rebuild Until God Shows in 2012.


title: Story of the Year

text: Singer Dan Marsala formed a fun, comedy punk rock side-project in 2009 named The Fuck Off And Dies. The band has gone on to release two full-length albums, "Songs In The Key Of Fuck" (2011) and "Dear Liver" (2015).


title: Story of the Year

text: Guitarists Ryan Phillips and Philip Sneed continued to pursue their side project, Greek Fire. They have released a debut EP and two independent albums, "Deus Ex Machina" and "Lost/Found".


title: Story of the Year

text: Bassist Adam Russell and guitarist Ryan Phillips set out to make a movie about rise and fall of the music industry and where it stands today called "Who Killed (Or Saved!) The Music Industry". Funded by Kickstarter, they were filming in 2013.


title: Story of the Year

text: On February 4, 2011, at The Pageant in their hometown of St. Louis, the band performed their first album, "Page Avenue", in its entirety, as well as other fan favorites. They posted that this was a "thank you" show to all their dedicated fans for 10 years together. City Spud, of the St. Louis rap group St. Lunatics, made a guest appearance during the show.


title: Story of the Year

text: On March 8, 2013, the band announced they reunited for a world tour to celebrate the tenth anniversary of their debut album "Page Avenue". It was also stated that the band has re-recorded "Page Avenue," entitled "Page Avenue: 10 Years and Counting" with release date on October 8, 2013. Originally they planned it to be a full acoustic version of the album, but after the collaboration with City Spud during their concert in 2011 they decided to re-record the album with a different feel to each song rather than just acoustic versions.


title: Story of the Year

text: On September 30, 2014, the band announced on their Facebook page that bass player Adam Russell left the band. The band also said they were writing a fifth album. On November 7, 2016, the band announced via their PledgeMusic page that they would be releasing a new album sometime in 2017 entitled "Wolves". On October 25, 2017, via their Facebook page, the band confirmed the PledgeMusic exclusive release date of "Wolves" on December 1, with the album's wide release taking place on December 8. According to Wall of Sound, the album has hints of the band's earlier work scattered throughout and a vintage feel, akin to that of Stranger Things.


title: Story of the Year

text: In March 2018, Philip Sneed announced his departure from the band citing he was let go via management, and not long after, the band announced the return of Adam Russell.


title: Story of the Year

text: Beginning in October 2020, during the COVID-19 pandemic, Story of the Year performed their first three albums in three individual livestreams under the title Ghost Signal.


title: Story of the Year

text: In January 2022 it was announced that Story of the Year would join the When We Were Young festival among over 60 other emo bands including My Chemical Romance and Paramore. The band released their new single "Real Life" on August 24, alongside the announcement they'd signed with SharpTone Records and a new set of tour dates alongside Hawthorne Heights and Escape the Fate. In October it was announced that Story of the Year's sixth album would be called "Tear Me to Pieces", with a new music video for the title track.


title: Story of the Year

text: Story of the Year has been categorized under several genres, especially emo, screamo, post-hardcore, and pop punk. AllMusic describe the band as "emo punk" and "emo-inflected post-grunge" and the band has also been labeled as alternative rock and melodic hardcore. Story of the Year's early material as Big Blue Monkey is considered nu metal.


title: Story of the Year

text: The band's influences include Skid Row, Guns N' Roses, Nirvana, Pearl Jam, NOFX, Pennywise, Sick of It All, and HO.


title: Radium Girls (film)

text: Radium Girls is a 2018 American drama film directed by Lydia Dean Pilcher and Ginny Mohler and starring Joey King and Abby Quinn. Lily Tomlin and Jane Wagner serve as executive producers. Originally screened at the Tribeca Film Festival in 2018, the film was supposed to be released to North American theaters in early April 2020, with a wider release later in the month. The release was postponed due to the COVID-19 pandemic. On October 23, 2020, the film was released in select theaters and virtual cinemas.


title: Radium Girls (film)

text: Bessie and Josephine "Jo" Cavallo are sisters who live with their grandfather in New Jersey. Both sisters work at American Radium, where they paint watch dials.


title: Radium Girls (film)

text: One day, Bessie meets Walt, a young communist and photographer, who comes to take pictures of the young women at work in the factory. Bessie and Walt fall for each other, each involving the other more and more into each other's lives. Walt brings Bessie into his world of subversive political thought and counter-culture, at one point directing her to Ms. Wiley, who leads the Consumer's League of New Jersey.


title: Radium Girls (film)

text: Jo eventually falls ill, and Bessie seeks out help. When Mr. Roeder, the foreman, sends along the company doctor, Dr. Flint, the latter finds no problem with Jo. After the sisters ask for him to run more tests, he returns with a diagnosis of syphilis, which was the same diagnosis given to the eldest Cavallo sister, Mary, before she died two years prior.


title: Radium Girls (film)

text: The Cavallo sisters refuse to accept this diagnosis, especially as Jo is a virgin. They seek help from Wiley, who is willing to go against American Radium, but she warns them that the process won't be easy. Bessie tries to warn the other girls at the factory of the dangers and urges them to get tested for radium poisoning, but most are reluctant to quit or get tested. Once Mary's body is exhumed and tested, her bones are found to be radioactive, strengthening the case against American Radium. Eventually two more girls join the Cavallo sisters, but American Radium responds to this momentum by trying to coerce the Cavallo sisters into silence, and then intimidating them by following them around when they walk alone.


title: Radium Girls (film)

text: Eventually, Mr. Henry Berry agrees to represent the case of the dial painters. The trial proceeds and seems to be going well, but Bessie knows she needs stronger support for her side, so she seeks out Mr. Leech, the branch supervisor, who also had a secret relationship with Mary before her death. Bessie eventually finds Leech in the hospital, suffering of radium poisoning. After much convincing, Leech agrees to testify on behalf of the dial painters, because of the love he held for Mary. Yet, when he is called to the stand, he lies, saying he never had a relationship with Mary, and that he had never warned her of the dangers of radium. When Bessie asks him why he changed his testimony, he says that his sister died of cancer, and while he wasn't able to help or cure her, at least American Radium would provide for her children and grandchildren, so he had to help it survive.


title: Radium Girls (film)

text: After the state trial judge grants American Radium a long extension on the negotiations, a federal judge who had taken an interest in the case negotiates a deal on behalf of the victims (by now dubbed the "Radium Girls"). The girls are granted $10,000, each, and the factory in New Jersey will be shut down. The girls, with the exception of Bessie, are delighted. Bessie is reluctant to accept this deal, because she wants the impacts of the case to be further reaching - but, as Wiley says, "It is never over." All the girls end up signing the settlement.


title: Radium Girls (film)

text: The epilogue states that radium was used to paint luminous clocks until the 1970s, that the judge who had negotiated the settlement was a stockholder in American Radium, that the Radium Girls case impacted labor law in the United States, and that if you place a Geiger counter over the grave of a Radium Girl, it will click for more than a thousand years.


title: Radium Girls (film)

text: The film has rating on Rotten Tomatoes based on reviews, with an average rating of . Metacritic reports a score of 52 out of 100 based on six critic reviews, indicating "mixed or average reviews".


title: Radium Girls (film)

text: Roxana Hadadi of RogerEbert.com awarded the film one and a half stars. Kate Erbland of IndieWire graded the film a C+.


title: Radium Girls (film)

text: Jessica Kiang of "Variety" gave the film a negative review and wrote, "...the film aims for inspirational true story, but is sadly uninspired, and its relationship to real history is obscured by the schematic way it is fictionalized."


title: Radium Girls (film)

text: Frank Scheck of "The Hollywood Reporter" gave the film a positive review and wrote, "Although its low-budget cinematic execution feels a bit lacking at times, the film fulfills a vital function with its dramatization of an important chapter in America's history of labor reform."


title: Basildon

text: Basildon ( ) is the largest town in the borough of Basildon, within the county of Essex, England. It has a population of 107,123. In 1931 the parish had a population of 1159.


title: Basildon

text: It lies east of Central London, south of the city of Chelmsford and west of Southend-on-Sea. Nearby smaller towns include Billericay to the north-west, Wickford to the north-east and South Benfleet to the south-east. It was created as a new town after World War II in 1948, to accommodate the London population overspill from the conglomeration of four small villages, namely Pitsea, Laindon, Basildon (the most central of the four) and Vange.


title: Basildon

text: The local government district of Basildon, which was formed in 1974 and received borough status in 2010, encapsulates a larger area than the town itself; the two neighbouring towns of Billericay and Wickford, as well as rural villages and smaller settlements set among the surrounding countryside, fall within its borders. Basildon Town is one of the most densely populated areas in the county. The parish of Basildon was abolished to create Billericay on 1 January 1937.


title: Basildon

text: Some of Basildon's residents work in Central London, due to the town being well connected in the county to the City of London and the Docklands financial and corporate headquarters districts, with a 36–58 minute journey from the three Basildon stations on the C2c to London Fenchurch Street. Basildon also has access to the City via road, on the A127 and A13.


title: Basildon

text: The first historical reference to Basildon is in records from 1086. It is mentioned in the Domesday Book as 'Belesduna'. The name 'Basildon' may be derived from the Anglo-Saxon personal name 'Boerthal' and the Anglo-Saxon word 'dun', meaning hill. In historical documents, this name had various forms over the centuries, including Berdlesdon, Batlesdon and Belesduna.


title: Basildon

text: Railway service started in the 19th century to Pitsea (1856) and Laindon (1888) but it was only later that proposals to provide service to the new town of Basildon, shelved for many years because of concerns that it would simply become a commuter suburb of London, were eventually forced through. A significant number of modern-day residents do commute to London.


title: Basildon

text: By the beginning of the 1900s, Basildon had evolved with much of the land having been sold in small plots during a period of land speculation and development taking placed haphazardly with building by plot owners ranging from shelters created from recycled materials to brick-built homes and with amenities such as water, gas, electricity and hard-surfaced roads lacking.


title: Basildon

text: In the 1940s, Billericay Urban District Council and Essex County Council, concerned by lack of amenities in the area and by its development, petitioned the Government to create a New Town. Basildon was one of eight 'New Towns' created in the South East of England after the passing of the New Towns Act. On 4 January 1949 Lewis Silkin, Minister of Town and Country Planning, officially designated Basildon as a 'New Town'. Basildon Development Corporation was formed in February 1949 to transform the designated area into a modern new town. The New Town incorporated Laindon and Pitsea and was laid out around small neighbourhoods with the first house being completed in June 1951. The masterplan was published in 1951, with the landscaping proposed by Sylvia Crowe with open space and playing fields distributed throughout the developed area to preserve the best landscape features. The first tenants moved into homes in Redgrave Road in Vange. A large, illuminated town sign "Basildon Town Centre Site" at was erected in 1956 by the railway and stood until early construction was completed. The Basildon Centre, which incorporates the local council offices, was officially opened by Jack Cunningham on 14 November 1989.


title: Basildon

text: Since March 2010 Basildon has a miniature famous white Hollywood sign, reading "Basildon": at five feet tall, the new sign is one-ninth of the height of the Hollywood original. part of a plan of landscaping and infrastructure improvements funded by £400,000 from the Prescott-spearheaded Thames Gateway. Opponents from all parties believe spending could have been directed toward social problems.


title: Basildon

text: The former constituency of Basildon was considered a barometer of public opinion in general elections. The results of the constituency elections were the same as the overall result of general elections from 1983 to its abolition in 2010. Basildon was said to epitomise the working class conversion to Thatcherism during the 1980s, though the town did not vote Conservative in 1979; nor did the Conservative Party ever hold an absolute majority in the town – its success was due to the split between the SDP and the Labour Party. "Basildon Man" or "Essex Man" was coined to describe an aspirational working class voter.


title: Basildon

text: Boundary changes, which came into force from the 2010 general election, mean that the area is politically represented by two MPs, from the constituencies of Basildon and Billericay and South Basildon and East Thurrock. The current MPs are John Baron and Stephen Metcalfe, both of the Conservative party.


title: Basildon

text: In terms of local politics, Basildon District elects five councillors to Essex County Council. Following the 2017 election, the seats were split: 2 to the Conservatives, 2 to Labour and 1 Independent. Noak Bridge has a parish council.


title: Basildon

text: Basildon was built like many new towns with each area being a planned community. These communities are now the local areas of the town:


title: Basildon

text: Basildon has a heavily developed industrial base. During the construction of the New Town, government grants were given to companies to set up their businesses in Basildon. Amongst the companies that took up these grants were Ford Motor Company (opened 1964), Carreras Tobacco Company (1959–1984), Yardley of London (1966–1998), Gordon's Gin (1984–1998) and GEC-Marconi (now home to Leonardo MW).


title: Basildon

text: Basildon has industrial areas situated in Laindon, Cranes Farm Road and Burnt Mills. Cranes Farm Road is currently home to CNH Tractor Plant, formerly owned by Ford. Argos opened a regional warehouse on Pipps Hill Industrial Estate in the 1990s. In 2015, an Amazon delivery base was opened in Christopher Martin Road.


title: Basildon

text: A datacentre hosting the European matching engine of the Intercontinental Exchange is located in Gardiners Lane, Basildon on the site of the former York International factory.


title: Basildon

text: In 2017, Costa Coffee opened their new coffee roastery in Basildon. It is said to be Europe's biggest coffee roastery – quadrupling Costa's roasting capacity from 11,000 tonnes per year to 45,000 tonnes. The facility, which is dubbed "Paradise Street", can handle around 24 tonnes of coffee beans per hour.