title: Laser pointer

text: In April 2008, citing a series of coordinated attacks on passenger jets in Sydney, the Australian government announced that it would restrict the sale and importation of certain laser items. The government had yet to determine which classes of laser pointers to ban. After some debate, the government voted to ban importation of lasers that emit a beam stronger than 1 mW, effective from 1 July 2008. Those whose professions require the use of a laser can apply for an exemption. In Victoria and the Australian Capital Territory a laser pointer with an accessible emission limit greater than 1 mW is classified as a prohibited weapon and any sale of such items must be recorded. In Western Australia, regulatory changes have classified laser pointers as controlled weapons and demonstration of a lawful reason for possession is required. The WA state government has also banned as of 2000 the manufacture, sale and possession of laser pointers higher than class 2. In New South Wales and the Australian Capital Territory the product safety standard for laser pointers prescribes that they must be a Class 1 or a Class 2 laser product. In February 2009 South African cricketer Wayne Parnell had a laser pointer directed at his eyes when attempting to take a catch, which he dropped. He denied that it was a reason for dropping the ball, but despite this the MCG decided to keep an eye out for the laser pointers. The laser pointer ban only applies to hand-held battery-powered laser devices and not laser modules.


title: Laser pointer

text: In November 2015 a 14-year-old Tasmanian boy damaged both his eyes after shining a laser pen "... in his eyes for a very brief period of time". He burned his retinas near the macula, the area where most of a persons central vision is located. As a result, the boy has almost immediately lost 75% of his vision, with little hope of recovery.


title: Laser pointer

text: New regulations controlling the importation and sale of laser pointers (portable, battery-powered) have been established in Canada in 2011 and are governed by Health Canada using the Consumer Protection Act for the prohibition of the sale of Class 3B (IEC) or higher power lasers to "consumers" as defined in the Consumer Protection Act . Canadian federal regulation follows FDA (US Food & Drug Administration) CDRH, and IEC (International Electrotechnical Commission) hazard classification methods where manufacturers comply with the Radiation Emitting Devices Act. As of July 2011 three people had been charged under the federal "Aeronautics Act", which carries a maximum penalty of $100,000 and five years in prison, for attempting to dazzle a pilot with a laser. Other charges that could be laid include mischief and assault.


title: Laser pointer

text: The "RESOLUCIÓN 57151 DE 2016" prohibits the marketing and making available to consumers of laser pointers with output power equal to or greater than one milliwatt (>=1 mW). Colombia is the first country in South America to regulate the marketing of these products.


title: Laser pointer

text: Laser pointers are not illegal in Hong Kong but air navigation rules state that it is an offense to exhibit "any light" bright enough to endanger aircraft taking off or landing.


title: Laser pointer

text: During the 2019–20 Hong Kong protests, laser pointers are being used by protesters to confuse police officers and scramble facial recognition cameras. On August 6, 5 off-duty police officers arrested Baptist University student union president Keith Fong Chung-yin after he purchased 10 laser pointers in Sham Shui Po for possession of "offensive weapons". Fong said he would use the pointers for stargazing, but police described them as “laser guns” whose beams could cause eye injuries. In defence of the arrest, police said that under Hong Kong law the pointers can be deemed “weapons” if they are used in or intended for use in an attack. The incident led to a public outcry. Human rights activist Icarus Wong Ho-yin said that going by the police explanation, “a kitchen worker who buys a few knives can be arrested for being in possession of offensive weapons”. Democratic Party lawmaker and lawyer James To Kun-sun criticized the police for abuse of power. Hundreds of protesters gathered outside the dome of Hong Kong's Space Museum to put on a “laser show” to denounce police's claims that these laser pointers were offensive weapons. Fong was released unconditionally two days later.


title: Laser pointer

text: Before 1998 Class 3A lasers were allowed. In 1998 it became illegal to trade Class 2 laser pointers that are "gadgets" (e.g. ball pens, key chains, business gifts, devices that will end up in children's possession, parts of toys, etc.). It is still allowed to trade Class 2 (< 1 mW) laser pointers proper, but they have to meet requirements regarding warnings and instructions for safe use in the manual. Trading of Class 3 and higher laser pointers is not allowed.


title: Laser pointer

text: The use of pointers with output power > 1 mW is regulated in public areas and school yards. From 1 January 2014 it is necessary to have a special permit in order to own a laser pointer with a classification of 3R, 3B or 4, i.e. over 1 mW.


title: Laser pointer

text: In Switzerland, the use of laser pointers is prohibited since 1 June 2019, except for class 1 laser pointers, which may be used only indoors.


title: Laser pointer

text: UK and most of Europe are now harmonized on Class 2 (<1 mW) for General presentation use laser pointers or laser pens. Anything above 1 mW is illegal for sale in the UK (import is unrestricted). Health and Safety regulation insists on use of Class 2 anywhere the public can come in contact with indoor laser light, and the DTI have urged Trading Standards authorities to use their existing powers under the General Product Safety Regulations 2005 to remove lasers above class 2 from the general market.


title: Laser pointer

text: Since 2010, it is an offence in the UK to shine a light at an aircraft in flight so as to dazzle the pilot, whether intentionally or not, with a maximum penalty of a level 4 fine (currently £2500). It is also an offence to negligently or recklessly endanger an aircraft, with a maximum penalty of five years imprisonment and/or an unlimited fine.


title: Laser pointer

text: To assist with enforcement, police helicopters use GPS and thermal imaging camera, together with dog teams on the ground, to help locate the offender; the discarded warm laser pointer is often visible on the thermal camera, and its wavelength can be matched to that recorded by an event recorder in the helicopter.


title: Laser pointer

text: Laser pointers are Class II or Class IIIa devices, with output beam power less than 5 milliwatts (<5 mW). According to U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) regulations, more powerful lasers may not be sold or promoted as laser pointers. Also, any laser with class higher than IIIa (more than 5 milliwatts) requires a key-switch interlock and other safety features. Shining a laser pointer of any class at an aircraft is illegal and punishable by a fine of up to $11,000.


title: Laser pointer

text: All laser products offered in commerce in the US must be registered with the FDA, regardless of output power.


title: Laser pointer

text: In Arizona it is a Class 1 misdemeanor if a person "aims a laser pointer at a police officer if the person intentionally or knowingly directs the beam of light from an operating laser pointer at another person and the person knows or reasonably should know that the other person is a police officer." (Arizona Revised Statutes §13-1213)


title: Laser pointer

text: Public act 257 of 2003 makes it a felony for a person to "manufacture, deliver, possess, transport, place, use, or release" a "harmful electronic or electromagnetic device" for "an unlawful purpose"; also made into a felony is the act of causing "an individual to falsely believe that the individual has been exposed to a... harmful electronic or electromagnetic device."


title: Laser pointer

text: Public act 328 of 1931 makes it a felony for a person to "sell, offer for sale, or possess" a "portable device or weapon from which an electric current, impulse, wave, or beam may be directed" and is designed "to incapacitate temporarily, injure, or kill".


title: Laser pointer

text: Public law 264, H.P. 868 - L.D. 1271 criminalizes the knowing, intentional, and/or reckless use of an electronic weapon on another person, defining an electronic weapon as a portable device or weapon emitting an electric current, impulse, beam, or wave with disabling effects on a human being.


title: Laser pointer

text: Chapter 170 of the Acts of 2004, Section 140 of the General Laws, section 131J states: "No person shall possess a portable device or weapon from which an electric current, impulse, wave or beam may be directed, which current, impulse, wave or beam is designed to incapacitate temporarily, injure or kill, except ... Whoever violates this section shall be punished by a fine of not less than $500 nor more than $1,000 or by imprisonment in the house of correction for not less than 6 months nor more than 2 1/2 years, or by both such fine and imprisonment."


title: Laser pointer

text: In Utah it is a class C misdemeanor to point a laser pointer at a law enforcement officer and is an infraction to point a laser pointer at a moving vehicle.


title: Iron Mountain (company)

text: Iron Mountain Inc. () is an American enterprise information management services company founded in 1951 and headquartered in Boston, Massachusetts. Its records management, information destruction, and data backup and recovery services are supplied to more than 220,000 customers in 58 countries throughout North America, Europe, Latin America, Africa, Asia, and Australia. As of 2020 over 94% of Fortune 1000 companies use Iron Mountain's services to store and manage their information in some capacity.


title: Iron Mountain (company)

text: The company was started by Herman Knaust, who had made his fortune growing and marketing mushrooms. He purchased a depleted iron ore mine and of land in Kingston, New York for $9,000 in 1936, needing more space to grow his product. By 1950, the mushroom market had shifted, and Knaust was looking for alternative uses for his mine, which he had named "Iron Mountain."


title: Iron Mountain (company)

text: Knaust saw a business opportunity, amidst widespread Cold War fears, in protecting corporate information from nuclear attack and other disasters.


title: Iron Mountain (company)

text: The company was originally founded in 1951 as Iron Mountain Atomic Storage Corporation; it opened its first underground "vaults" in 1951 and its first sales office in the Empire State Building, about south. Iron Mountain's first customer was East River Savings Bank, who brought microfilm copies of deposit records and duplicate signature cards in armored cars for storage in the mountain facility. In 1978, the company opened its first above-ground records-storage facility.


title: Iron Mountain (company)

text: This first iteration of Iron Mountain was bankrupt by the early 1970s and was wholly acquired by Vincent J. Ryan through his holdings in Schooner Capital Corporation, Boston, Massachusetts. At the time, it consisted of the original facility in Livingston, New York and IMAR (Iron Mountain at Rosendale), a former limestone mine and mushroom cave outside of Kingston, New York. In 1980, it expanded to Rhode Island through the purchase of a former Industrial National Bank (a precursor to FleetBoston) cold site and data tape repository in Glocester, Rhode Island. It had many Fortune 500 clients at the time, and its revenue was in the $6 million range in the early 1980s.


title: Iron Mountain (company)

text: Its breakthrough came in the mid-1980s, when it convinced Manufacturer's Hanover Bank to move all its paper records out of Manhattan to an above-ground facility, a former strip mall in Port Ewen, New York. This was the first time that bar codes were used by a records management company to allow real time access to shipped boxes and the documents inside.


title: Iron Mountain (company)

text: During the 1980s, the company expanded beyond New York, opening facilities in New York and throughout New England. In 1988, Iron Mountain extended its reach into 12 more U.S. markets by acquiring Bell & Howell Records Management, Inc.


title: Iron Mountain (company)

text: The firm went public on January 31, 1996. In 1997, Iron Mountain became a leading software escrow company with the acquisition of Data Securities International (DSI).


title: Iron Mountain (company)

text: In 1998, Iron Mountain made its first overseas acquisition by buying British Data Management, Ltd. The company reported a $423 million revenues by the end of the same fiscal year of its acquisition.


title: Iron Mountain (company)

text: Since 1980, Iron Mountain grew through acquisitions. Revenue over this period increased from $3 million in 1981 to $2.7 billion at the end of 2007.


title: Iron Mountain (company)

text: In February 2000, Iron Mountain Incorporated announced the completion of its acquisition of Pierce Leahy Corp. (NYSE:PLH) in a stock-for-stock merger valued at approximately $1.1 billion.


title: Iron Mountain (company)

text: In 2004, Iron Mountain formed a digital assets division called "Iron Mountain Digital", following the acquisition of Connected Corporation, a maker of online PC backup software.


title: Iron Mountain (company)

text: A year later, Iron Mountain Digital bought LiveVault, a provider of online backup software for server data. In 2007 Iron Mountain acquired Stratify Inc., one of the larger e-discovery service providers at the production end of the Electronic Discovery Reference Model (EDRM). The acquired businesses of LiveVault and Stratify Inc. were consolidated into Iron Mountain Digital.


title: Iron Mountain (company)

text: Richard Reese became the company's CEO in 1981, and he concurrently assumed the position of chairman in 1995. He remained in the former position until June 2008, when he was replaced by Bob Brennan, but he remained in the chairman's seat. However, the company announced Brennan's departure in April 2011, and Reese resumed his former title.


title: Iron Mountain (company)

text: In February 2010, Iron Mountain acquired a California-based eDiscovery and content archiving software provider, Mimosa Systems. The acquisition too was absorbed into Iron Mountain Digital.


title: Iron Mountain (company)

text: On May 16, 2011, Iron Mountain decided to divest Iron Mountain Digital, which was acquired by the British enterprise search and knowledge management firm Autonomy corporation for $380 million. Shortly thereafter, in August 2011, Hewlett-Packard acquired the Cambridge based Autonomy, and amalgamated the operations of Autonomy (which included Iron Mountain Digital) into HP's enterprise software division.


title: Iron Mountain (company)

text: On May 8, 2012, Iron Mountain expanded its high-security storage facility business through the acquisition of three records storage firms—File House Offsite Record Storage in Fredericksburg, Virginia, and Document Systems Inc. in Columbia, South Carolina and First National Safe Deposit in Philadelphia.


title: Iron Mountain (company)

text: On November 5, 2013, Iron Mountain announced it would be shutting down its Saint John, New Brunswick contact center in 2014. Many of the jobs were transitioned to Convergys.


title: Iron Mountain (company)

text: As of January 1, 2014, Iron Mountain successfully converted to a real estate investment trust after approval of private letter ruling requests by the IRS to classify steel racking structures as qualified real estate assets.


title: Iron Mountain (company)

text: At the end of April 2015, Iron Mountain announced it would acquire Australian data protection services provider Recall Holdings for around $2.2 billion in cash and stock. At the end of March 2016, the Australian Competition & Consumer Commission released a statement saying it would not block the acquisition of Recall pursuant to Iron Mountain's agreement to divest most of its Australian business. At the same time, the Canadian Competition Bureau announced it entered an agreement with Iron Mountain to allow the acquisition as long as Iron Mountain divested records management assets in the markets in which it found the acquisition would limit effective remaining competitors: Toronto, Montreal, Ottawa, Calgary, Edmonton and Vancouver. The US Department of Justice also agreed to allow the acquisition provided Iron Mountain divested records management assets in the 15 markets where Iron Mountain and Recall were two of the top three competitors – these markets include Detroit; Kansas City, Missouri; Charlotte, North Carolina; Durham, North Carolina; Raleigh, North Carolina; Buffalo, New York; Tulsa, Oklahoma; Pittsburgh; Greenville/Spartanburg, South Carolina; Nashville, Tennessee; San Antonio, Texas; Richmond, Virginia; San Diego; Atlanta; and Seattle. Finally, the UK's Competition and Markets Authority approved the acquisition pending an investigation into the acquisition's effect on competition in the UK. In June 2016, the Competition and Markets Authority determined the acquisition would create a "substantial lessening of competition" in Aberdeen and Dundee. In response to this report, Iron Mountain and the Competition and Markets Authority reached an agreement whereby Iron Mountain would sell Recall's existing operations in Aberdeen and Dundee (known as C21 Data Services). On May 2, 2016, Iron Mountain announced the completion of the merger for $2 billion (US), mostly in stock.


title: Iron Mountain (company)

text: In 2016, Fortune magazine listed Iron Mountain at number 729 on its list of the largest 1000 public companies in the United States.


title: Iron Mountain (company)

text: In September 2016, the unpublished recordings of musician Prince, consisting of over $200 million worth of recorded music and film, was moved to an Iron Mountain facility in Los Angeles, due to water damage and poor storage conditions in Prince's Paisley Park recording facility, in Chanhassen, Minnesota.


title: Iron Mountain (company)

text: In December 2017, the company purchased IO Data Centers' US division for $1.3 billion, which includes four colocation data centers in New Jersey, Ohio and two in Arizona.


title: Iron Mountain (company)

text: In February 2021 , the company purchased Infofort' information management solutions provider in the Middle East, North Africa and Turkey (MENAT) region


title: Iron Mountain (company)

text: Iron Mountain has underground storage facilities in the United States and the rest of the world, but most of the company's over 1,500 storage locations are in above-ground leased warehouse space located near customers. Its storage location in Dighton, Massachusetts was once a missile storage battery during the Cold War.


title: Iron Mountain (company)

text: The best-known Iron Mountain storage facility is a 1.7 million sq. ft. high-security storage facility in a former limestone mine at Boyers, Pennsylvania, near the city of Butler in the United States (). The facility features climate controlled storage areas protected by armed guards. It began storing records in 1954 and was purchased by Iron Mountain in 1998. It is here that Bill Gates stores his Corbis photographic collection in a refrigerated cave underground, as well as where Universal Music Group stores its United States masters. Nearby, the U.S. Office of Personnel Management leases another cavern to store, and process government employee retirement papers.


title: Iron Mountain (company)

text: It also houses the original recordings of Frank Sinatra, as well as master recordings from Sony Music Entertainment (over a million recordings; reportedly in Rosendale, New York), Universal Music Group (in Butler), and Warner Music Group (in southern California). In order to protect the masters, Iron Mountain equips some of its music-holding facilities with professional studios so the masters never have to leave the premises.


title: Iron Mountain (company)

text: Over 1,800 cans of unclaimed nitrate film formerly held by Iron Mountain now make up the Iron Mountain Collection at the Academy Film Archive.


title: Iron Mountain (company)

text: "Security Magazine" named Iron Mountain in "Security 500" of 2008, an annual ranking of the United States' 500 most secure companies. Iron Mountain was its industry's sole representative in the category of business services. Published in the magazine's November issue, the Security 500 ranks companies using several metrics such as the percentage of a company's revenue spent on security. The survey tracks 16 vertical markets to serve as a benchmarking tool for companies.


title: Iron Mountain (company)

text: "Fortune" magazine has had Iron Mountain on its list of the "World’s Most Admired Companies" every year from 2006 to 2011. In its category, "diversified outsourcing services", it has every year come in second behind Aramark. The only exception was 2006, when it also ranked below Convergys. The industry rankings reflect feedback from executives, directors, and analysts who rated Iron Mountain and industry peers on nine attributes of reputation, from investment value to quality of management.


title: Iron Mountain (company)

text: In April 2009, Iron Mountain's Digital Record Center for Images was recognized as a "Product of the Year" by the Massachusetts Network Communications Council in the "Cloud Computing, Virtualization and Data Warehousing/Storage category".


title: Iron Mountain (company)

text: The company has received media attention for losing or misplacing customer files and data, particularly tapes containing private information such as home addresses and Social Security numbers.


title: Iron Mountain (company)

text: In 1997, a mysterious fire destroyed a warehouse just off the New Jersey Turnpike (USA) at Exit 8, full of corporate documents. This was two days after a smaller blaze damaged another warehouse several hundred feet away. Both buildings are owned by Iron Mountain Inc.


title: Iron Mountain (company)

text: In May 2005, Time Warner disclosed that a container of 40 unencrypted backup tapes containing the personal information of 600,000 current and former employees had disappeared while being transported in an Iron Mountain van that made 18 other stops in Manhattan that day. After the loss, Time Warner began encrypting its tapes, and Iron Mountain advised its other clients to do the same.


title: Iron Mountain (company)

text: In April 2006, tapes containing personal information for about 17,000 Long Island Rail Road employees were lost while in transit to the railroad's office, along with tapes belonging to the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs being shipped in the same vehicle.


title: Iron Mountain (company)

text: In July 2006, a fire completely destroyed a leased six-story company warehouse in London. The paper records of 600 customers, including client files stored by several prominent London law firms, were lost. Also destroyed were the medical records of up to 240,000 patients of Chelsea and Westminster Hospital. The London Fire Brigade later concluded that the fire was caused by arson.


title: Iron Mountain (company)

text: Also in July 2006, a small fire believed to have been caused by contractors making roof repairs damaged a company warehouse in Ottawa, Ontario, Canada.


title: Iron Mountain (company)

text: In August 2007, the company began retrofitting its unmarked vans and trucks with a new security and alarm system using chain of custody technology to reduce the exposure of customer data to possible loss. Among other security features, the system uses radio frequency authentication and real-time tracking capabilities to help prevent "mysterious disappearances" of tapes, or their actual removal from the vehicle, during transit.


title: Iron Mountain (company)

text: On November 4, 2011, a large fire struck Iron Mountain's document storage warehouse and headquarters in Aprilia, Italy. According to news reports, the entire building was enveloped in flames causing substantial damage to the building and, presumably, to the documents and digital content stored there. Approximately 40 employees worked in the facility but nobody was injured.


title: Iron Mountain (company)

text: On February 5, 2014, an intentional fire completely burned down the company's Buenos Aires warehouse. At least nine firefighters died in the incident while seven others were severely injured.


title: Miscibility

text: Miscibility () is the property of two substances to mix in all proportions (that is, to fully dissolve in each other at any concentration), forming a homogeneous mixture (a solution). The term is most often applied to liquids but also applies to solids and gases. For example, water and ethanol are miscible because they mix in all proportions.


title: Miscibility

text: By contrast, substances are said to be immiscible if there are certain proportions in which the mixture does not form a solution. For one example, oil is not soluble in water, so these two solvents are immiscible. As another example, butanone (methyl ethyl ketone) is significantly soluble in water, but these two solvents are also immiscible because in some proportions the mixture will separate into two phases.


title: Miscibility

text: In organic compounds, the weight percent of hydrocarbon chain often determines the compound's miscibility with water. For example, among the alcohols, ethanol has two carbon atoms and is miscible with water, whereas 1-butanol with four carbons is not. 1-Octanol, with eight carbons, is practically insoluble in water, and its immiscibility leads it to be used as a standard for partition equilibria. The straight-chain carboxylic acids up to butanoic acid (with four carbon atoms) are miscible with water, pentanoic acid (with five carbons) is partly soluble, and hexanoic acid (with six) is practically insoluble, as are longer fatty acids and other lipids; the very long carbon chains of lipids cause them almost always to be immiscible with water. Analogous situations occur for other functional groups such as aldehydes and ketones.


title: Miscibility

text: Immiscible metals are unable to form alloys with each other. Typically, a mixture will be possible in the molten state, but upon freezing, the metals separate into layers. This property allows solid precipitates to be formed by rapidly freezing a molten mixture of immiscible metals. One example of immiscibility in metals is copper and cobalt, where rapid freezing to form solid precipitates has been used to create granular GMR materials.


title: Miscibility

text: There also exist metals that are immiscible in the liquid state. One with industrial importance is that liquid zinc and liquid silver are immiscible in liquid lead, while silver is miscible in zinc. This leads to the Parkes process, an example of liquid-liquid extraction, whereby lead containing any amount of silver is melted with zinc. The silver migrates to the zinc, which is skimmed off the top of the two-phase liquid, and the zinc is then boiled away, leaving nearly pure silver.


title: Miscibility

text: If a mixture of polymers has lower configurational entropy than the components, they are likely to be immiscible in one another even in the liquid state.


title: Miscibility

text: Miscibility of two materials is often determined optically. When the two miscible liquids are combined, the resulting liquid is clear. If the mixture is cloudy the two materials are immiscible. Care must be taken with this determination. If the indices of refraction of the two materials are similar, an immiscible mixture may be clear and give an incorrect determination that the two liquids are miscible.


title: Time in France

text: Metropolitan France uses Central European Time ("heure d'Europe centrale", ) as its standard time, and observes Central European Summer Time ("heure d'été d'Europe centrale", ) from the last Sunday in March to the last Sunday in October. With its overseas territories, France uses 12 different time zones (13 including its claim in Antarctica), more than any other country in the world.


title: Time in France

text: Metropolitan France follows the summer time schedule in Europe. Summer time starts on the last Sunday in March at 01:00 UTC, when local time changes from 02:00 (UTC+01:00) to 03:00 (UTC+02:00), and ends on the last Sunday in October at 01:00 UTC, when local time changes from 03:00 (UTC+02:00) to 02:00 (UTC+01:00).


title: Time in France

text: Saint Pierre and Miquelon follows the daylight saving time schedule of Canada and of the United States. It starts on the second Sunday in March at 02:00 (UTC−03:00), when local time changes to 03:00 (UTC−02:00), and ends on the first Sunday in November at 02:00 (UTC−02:00), when local time changes to 01:00 (UTC−03:00).


title: Time in France

text: Before 1891, each town and city in Metropolitan France had its own time based on local solar time. In 1891, to avoid complications with railway timetables, time was unified in Metropolitan France and based on the solar time of Paris. In detail, the railway companies used a unified time which lagged behind Paris solar time by 5 minutes, for the benefit of non-punctual travellers. In 1911, Metropolitan France adopted GMT+0 (the solar time of Greenwich) as its official time, and used it until 1940 (with GMT+1 used during the summers from 1916 to 1940).


title: Time in France

text: In the summer of 1940, the German military authorities switched the occupied northern part of Metropolitan France to GMT+2 (German summer time), while the non-occupied southern part of Metropolitan France remained at GMT+1 (French summer time). The Vichy authorities kept GMT+1 (French summer time) during the winter of 1940–1941 and adopted GMT+2 (double summer time, which was the same as German summer time) in May 1941 in order to unify the railway timetables between occupied and non-occupied Metropolitan France. In 1942, 1943, and 1944 the whole of Metropolitan France thus used GMT+2 during the summer, and GMT+1 during the winter.


title: Time in France

text: At the Liberation of France in the summer of 1944, Metropolitan France kept GMT+2 as it was the time then used by the Allies (British Double Summer Time). In the winter of 1944–1945, Metropolitan France switched to GMT+1, same as in the United Kingdom, and switched again to GMT+2 in April 1945 like its British ally. In September 1945, Metropolitan France returned to GMT+1 (pre-war summer time), which the British had already done in July 1945. Metropolitan France was officially scheduled to return to GMT+0 on November 18, 1945 (the British returned to GMT+0 in on October 7, 1945), but the French government canceled the decision on November 5, 1945, and GMT+1 has since then remained the official time of Metropolitan France.


title: Time in France

text: In 1976, daylight saving time (summer time) was reintroduced in Metropolitan France for the first time since WW2 because of the oil crisis, and since 1976 Metropolitan France has thus been at GMT+1 (now ) during the winter and GMT+2 (now ) during the summer. In 1996, daylight saving time was harmonized throughout the European Union by Directive 2000/84/EC, which moved the end of DST to the last Sunday in October.


title: Time in France

text: A proposal to repeal this directive and require that member states observe their own choice of time year-round from 2021 is going through the legislative process . A non-binding public consultation showed that approximately 59% of respondents would prefer France to apply year-round summer time (UTC+02:00), with 37% in favour of year-round winter time (UTC+01:00) and 4% expressing no preference.


title: Time in France

text: Since GMT (now UTC) is Metropolitan France's "natural" time zone, its use of in winter can be seen as a form of daylight saving time in winter, while Central European Summer Time () can be seen as a form of "double summer time."


title: RT-2PM Topol

text: The RT-2PM Topol (; NATO reporting name SS-25 Sickle; GRAU designation: 15Ж58 ("15Zh58"); START I designation: RS-12M Topol) is a mobile intercontinental ballistic missile designed in the Soviet Union and in service with Russia's Strategic Missile Troops. , Russia planned to replace all RT-2PM ICBMs with versions of Topol-M.


title: RT-2PM Topol

text: The three stage solid propellant RT-2PM Topol is an improved mobile ICBM which replaced earlier outdated missile complexes. It emerged from the same line of development as mobile missiles such as the RT-21 Temp 2S and the RSD-10 Pioneer, and was deployed as a replacement for the widely deployed UR-100. The United States considered developing their own road-mobile ICBM called the Midgetman, but the program was canceled with the end of the Cold War.


title: RT-2PM Topol

text: Development of the RT-2PM was approved on July 19, 1977 and carried out by the Moscow Institute of Thermal Technology headed by Alexander Nadiradze. Flight tests were conducted on the Plesetsk test site from February through December 1985. The main problem that had to be overcome during this period was the development of battle management system. After the first test series was successfully conducted in April 1985, with the first regiment with Topol missiles put on alert in July 1985. Throughout this time work continued on improving the battle management system. The test missile firings were finally completed in December 1987. The first regiment of "Topol" missiles employing a modernized mobile command center (in the area of Irkutsk) were put on alert on May 27, 1988. After Nadiradze's death in 1988 Boris N. Lapygin continued his work on the Topol missile.


title: RT-2PM Topol

text: The RT-2PM ICBM was designed to be road mobile and is mounted on a heavy truck (MAZ-7310 or MAZ-7917).


title: RT-2PM Topol

text: The RT-2PM is a road mobile 3-stage, single warhead ICBM. Its 21,500 mm length and 1,700 mm diameter are approximately the same size and shape as the U.S. Minuteman ICBM. It has a throw-weight of 1000 kg and carries a single warhead with a yield of 800 kt and accuracy (CEP) of 200m. It can fire from field deployment sites or through sliding roof garage bases. The RT-2PM Topol joined operational Soviet SRF regiments in 1985. A total area of approximately 190,000 square kilometers could be required to deploy a force consisting of 500 road-mobile Topol ICBMs. Mobile units require a much higher number of personnel for maintenance and operation than fixed systems. Consequently, the RT-2PM Topol was significantly more costly to maintain and operate than silo launched systems.


title: RT-2PM Topol

text: All three stages are made of composite materials. During first stage operation the flight control is implemented through four aerodynamic and four jet vanes. Four similar trellised aerodynamic surfaces serve for stabilization. During the second and third stage of flight gas is injected into the diverging part of the nozzle for flight control.


title: RT-2PM Topol

text: The missile is deployed in a Transporter Erector Launcher (TEL) canister mounted on cross-country 7-axle chassis on a mobile launch vehicle. The chassis incorporates jacks, gas and hydraulic drives and cylinders, with a power of several hundred tons, for jacking and leveling of the launcher, speeding up (combat) and slowing down (maintaining) elevation of the container with the missile in the vertical position. The TEL is accompanied by a Mobile command post, carrying support facilities mounted on cross-country 4-axle chassis with unified vans. The complex is equipped with an onboard inertial navigation system which gives the TEL group the capability to conduct the launch independently from its field deployment sites. This topo-geodesic support and navigation subsystem, created by the "Signal" Research Institute, provides a quick and highly precise tie-in of the launcher in a field position and enables its crew to carry out missile launches from any combat patrol route point. The launch can also be carried out at regimental bases from the aforementioned garrison garage.


title: RT-2PM Topol

text: At the time of the signing of the START I Treaty in 1991 the Soviet Union had deployed some 288 Topol missiles. Deployment continued, and at the end of 1996 a total of 360 Topol missiles were deployed.


title: RT-2PM Topol

text: The Topol missile was deployed at previously developed deployment sites. After the INF Treaty was signed in 1987 several RSD-10 Pioneer deployment sites were adapted to launch the Topol missiles. The United States expressed specific concerns during the INF treaty negotiations. When the RT-2PM missile system was deployed in the field, with its missile inside the canister and mounted on the launcher, the US contended that the canister might conceal an RSD-10 Pioneer missile. This was of concern because unlike the single warhead of the RT-2PM Topol, the RSD-10 carried up to 3 warheads. A resolution was reached after the Soviet Union agreed to allow inspection parties to use radiation detection systems to measure fast neutron intensity flux emanating from the launch canister. A launch canister with a missile inside containing a single warhead, such as the RT-2PM Topol, emitted a different pattern of fast neutrons than did one with a missile having three warheads, such as the RSD-10.


title: RT-2PM Topol

text: Provisions of the SALT II agreement prohibited the deployment of more than one new missile (which became RT-23UTTh), it was officially declared by the Soviet Union that the RT-2PM Topol was developed to upgrade the silo based RT-2. The US government disputed this view, contending that the missile was clearly more than 5% larger and had twice the throw-weight as the RT-2 and therefore constituted a new missile system. Marshal Nikolai Ogarkov, Soviet Chief of General Staff cancelled the September 1, 1983 test flight of the RT-2PM Topol which was to be launched from Plesetsk (the launch site in northwest Russia used for test firing of solid fuel propellant ICBMs)- 24 minutes later to land in the Klyuchi target area on the Kamchatka Peninsula. The night of the scheduled launch was the night that Korean Air Lines Flight 007 was shot down after accidentally intruding Soviet airspace over Kamchatka.


title: RT-2PM Topol

text: An RT-2PM Topol with two MIRVs may have been tested in 1991, and the missile was tested at least once with four MIRV warheads, but there has apparently been no further development of a multiple warhead version. This became a point of contention during the conclusion of the 1991 START negotiations, at which time the US pressed for a definition of "downloading" (removing warheads from missiles) that would complicate any Soviet attempt suddenly to deploy multiple warheads on the RT-2PM Topol.


title: RT-2PM Topol

text: Russia plans to reequip approximately 400 silos where obsolete UR-100, RT-2 and MR-UR-100 missiles are located. Under the START II Treaty, which never had and most likely will never have a binding effect, Russia would have been able to place 90 single-warhead solid fuel missiles in reequipped R-36 silos. In order to guard against a break-out scenario involving the rapid reconversion of R-36 silos on-site inspection became a very important aspect of START II verification.


title: RT-2PM Topol

text: The breakup of the Soviet Union had a significant impact on the Topol program. The dispersed manufacturing of ICBM components seriously complicated researching and building new missile systems. For example, the Minsk Wheeled Truck-Tractor Manufacturing Plant in Belarus manufactured the missiles' transporter launchers, and some 90% of the components of the guidance system were manufactured in Ukraine.


title: RT-2PM Topol

text: In Belarus, as of December 1995, 63 RT-2PM Topol ICBMs originally deployed there had been returned to Russia. As of December 1995, Belarus had two operational mobile RT-2PM Topol regiments remaining on its territory, with a total of 18 nuclear warheads. In July 1992, Belarus signed an agreement with Russia placing the regiments under exclusive Russian control. In September 1993, Moscow and Minsk signed an agreement requiring the return of these nuclear missiles and all related missile support equipment to Russia by the end of 1996. A total of 81 RT-2PM Topol ICBMs and associated warheads were returned to Russia from Belarus.


title: RT-2PM Topol

text: By the late 1990s the lack of resources and qualified personnel forced the Strategic Rocket Forces to cut back operations considerably, with no more than one or two regiments of the mobile RT-2PM Topol missiles dispersed in the field. The remaining 40 or so regiments, each with nine single-warhead missiles, remain in garrison.


title: RT-2PM Topol

text: On October 18, 2007, another successful test launch was conducted. One Topol from a mobile launcher at Plesetsk test site reached its target on Kamchatka. As the Strategic Rocket Forces representative reported, it allowed for the extension of Topol's service life to 21 years.


title: RT-2PM Topol

text: Another test of the RT-2PM Topol was carried out on Thursday, August 28, 2008. The launch was said to be specially tasked to test the missile's capability to avoid ground-based detection systems. The test included the use of a new warhead, designed to penetrate missile defense systems.


title: RT-2PM Topol

text: Another test was conducted on October 12, 2008 when a Topol was launched from the Plesetsk test site in northern Russia. The missile, with a dummy warhead, hit a target at the Kura Test Range on the Kamchatka Peninsula. Russian president Dmitry Medvedev observed the test on site.


title: RT-2PM Topol

text: Tests conducted on 28 October 2011 and 3 November 2011, confirmed service life extension to 23 years (to 2019). More tests for extension to 25 years were announced, and on October 30, 2012, an RS-12M Topol Intercontinental Ballistic Missile was launched from the Plesetsk site in northern Russia


title: RT-2PM Topol

text: On 4 March 2014, Russia test fired an RS-12M Topol Intercontinental Ballistic Missile from Kapustin Yar testing ground near the Caspian Sea, successfully hitting its target at a test ground in Kazakhstan. Although the United States had received advanced notice about the test it had coincided with the crisis in the Ukraine.


title: RT-2PM Topol

text: On 20 March 2014, Russia test fired an RS-12M Topol Intercontinental Ballistic Missile from Kapustin Yar testing ground.


title: RT-2PM Topol

text: September 11, 2016 - The Russian Strategic Missile Forces have conducted a successful test launch of a RS-12M Topol intercontinental ballistic missile, the Defense Ministry said Friday.


title: RT-2PM Topol

text: According to the ministry, the missile, launched from the Plesetsk space center in northwestern Russia has hit a designated target on the Kamchatka peninsula "with high precision." The RS-12M Topol is a single-warhead intercontinental ballistic missile, which entered service in 1985. It has a maximum range of 10,000 km (6,125 miles) and can carry a nuclear warhead with a yield of up to 550 kilotons.


title: RT-2PM Topol

text: On 28 November 2019 Russian Strategic Missile Troops performed a missile test with a suborbital launch of a RS-12M Topol missile from Kapustin Yar. The test was successful.


title: RT-2PM Topol

text: US Air Force National Air and Space Intelligence Center estimating that as of June 2017 about 100 launchers were operationally deployed.


title: RT-2PM Topol

text: The Strategic Missile Troops are the only operator of the RT-2PM Topol. As of March 2020, 36 road-mobile RT-2PM Topol missiles are deployed with:


title: Vosges

text: The Vosges ( , ; ; Franconian and ) are a range of low mountains in Eastern France, near its border with Germany. Together with the Palatine Forest to the north on the German side of the border, they form a single geomorphological unit and low mountain range of around in area. It runs in a north-northeast direction from the Burgundian Gate (the Belfort–Ronchamp–Lure line) to the Börrstadt Basin (the Winnweiler–Börrstadt–Göllheim line), and forms the western boundary of the Upper Rhine Plain.


title: Vosges

text: Geographically, the Vosges Mountains are wholly in France, far above the Col de Saverne separating them from the Palatinate Forest in Germany. The latter area logically continues the same Vosges geologic structure but traditionally receives this different name for historical and political reasons. From 1871 to 1918 the Vosges marked for the most part the border between Germany and France, due to the Franco-Prussian War. The elongated massif is divided south to north into three sections:


title: Vosges

text: In addition, the term "Central Vosges" is used to designate the various lines of summits, especially those above in elevation. The French department of Vosges is named after the range.


title: Vosges

text: From a geological point of view, a graben at the beginning of the Paleogene period caused the formation of Alsace and the uplift of the bedrock plates of the Vosges, in eastern France, and those in the Black Forest, in Germany. From a scientific view, the Vosges Mountains are not mountains as such, but rather the western edge of the unfinished Alsatian graben, stretching continuously as part of the larger Tertiary formations. Erosive glacial action was the primary catalyst for development of the highland massif feature.


title: Vosges

text: The Vosges in their southern and central parts are called the "Hautes Vosges". These consist of a large Carboniferous mountain eroded just before the Permian Period with gneiss, granites, porphyritic masses or other volcanic intrusions. The north, south and west parts are less eroded by glaciers, and here Vosges Triassic and Permian red sandstone remains are found in large beds. The "grès vosgien" (a French name for a Triassic rose sandstone) are embedded sometimes up to more than in thickness. The Lower Vosges in the north are dislocated plates of various sandstones, ranging from high.


title: Vosges

text: The Vosges are very similar to the corresponding range of the Black Forest across the Rhine since both lie within the same degrees of latitude, have similar geological formations and are characterized by forests on their lower slopes, above which are open pastures and rounded summits of a rather uniform altitude. Both areas exhibit steeper slopes towards the Rhine and a more gradual descent on the other side. Both the Vosges and the Black Forest were formed by isostatic uplift in response to the opening of the Rhine Graben, a major extensional basin. When such basins form, the thinning of the crust causes uplift immediately adjacent to the basin, decreasing with distance from the basin. Thus, the highest range of peaks rises immediately adjacent to the basin and increasingly lower mountains rise further from the basin.


title: Vosges

text: The highest points are in the "Hautes Vosges": the Grand Ballon, in ancient times called "Ballon de Guebwiller" or "Ballon de Murbach," rises to ; the Storckenkopf to ; the Hohneck to ; the Kastelberg to ; and the Ballon d'Alsace to . The Col de Saales, between the Higher and Central Vosges, reaches nearly , both lower and narrower than the Higher Vosges, with Mont Donon at being the highest point of this Nordic section.


title: Vosges

text: Two nature parks lie within the Vosges: the Ballons des Vosges Nature Park and the Northern Vosges Regional Nature Park. The Northern Vosges Nature Park and the Palatinate Forest Nature Park on the German side of the border form the cross-border UNESCO-designated Palatinate Forest-North Vosges Biosphere Reserve.


title: Vosges

text: In the late 20th century, a wide area of the massif was included in two protected areas, the Parc naturel régional des Vosges du Nord (established in 1976) and the Parc naturel régional des Ballons des Vosges (established in 1989).


title: Vosges

text: Meteorologically, as a consequence of the Foehn effect the difference between the eastern and western mean slopes of the range is very marked. The main air streams come generally from the west and southwest, so the Alsatian central plains just under the Hautes-Vosges receive much less water than the south-west front of the Vosges Mountains. The highlands of the arrondissement of Remiremont receive as annual rainfall or snowfall more than of precipitation yearly, whereas some dry countryside near Colmar receives less than of water in the event of insufficient storms. The temperature is much lower in the west front of the mountains than in the low plains behind the massif, especially in summer. On the eastern slope economic vineyards reach to a height of ; on the other hand, in the mountains, it is a land of pasture and forest.


title: Vosges

text: The only rivers in Alsace are the Ill coming from south Alsace (or Sundgau), and the Bruche d'Andlau and the Bruche which have as tributaries other, shorter but sometimes powerful streams coming like the last two from the Vosges Mountains. The rivers Moselle, Meurthe and Sarre and their numerous affluents all rise on the Lorraine side.


title: Vosges

text: In the High Moselle and Meurthe basins, moraines, boulders and polished rocks testify to the former existence of glaciers which once covered the top of the Vosges. The mountain lakes caused by the original glacial phenomena are surrounded by pines, beeches and maples, and green meadows provide pasture for large herds of cattle, with views of the Rhine valley, the Black Forest and the distant, snow-covered Swiss mountains.


title: Vosges

text: The massif known in Latin as "Vosago mons " or "Vosego silva", sometimes "Vogesus mons", was extended to the vast woods covering the region. Later, German speakers referred to the same region as "Vogesen" or "Wasgenwald".


title: Vosges

text: Over the centuries, settlement population density grew gradually, as was typical for a forested region. Forests were cleared for agriculture, livestock and early industrial factories (such as charcoal works and glassworks) and the water mills used water power. Concentrations of settlement and immigration took place and not only in areas where minerals were found. In the mining area of the Lièpvrette valley, for example, there was an influx of Saxon miners and mining specialists. From time to time, wars, plagues and religious conflicts saw the depopulation of territories – in their wake it was not uncommon for people to be relocated there from other areas.


title: Vosges

text: On the lower heights and buttresses of the main chain on the Alsatian side are numerous castles, generally in ruins, testifying to the importance of this crucial crossroads of Europe, violently contested for centuries. At several points on the main ridge, especially at Sainte Odile above Ribeauvillé (German: Rappoltsweiler), are the remains of a wall of unmortared stone with tenons of wood, about thick and high, called the "Mur Païen" (Pagan Wall). It was used for defence in the Middle Ages and archaeologists are divided as to whether it was built by the Romans, or before their arrival.


title: Vosges

text: During the French Revolutionary Wars, on 13 July 1794, the Vosges were the scene of the Battle of Trippstadt. From 1871 to 1918, they formed the main border line between France and the German Empire. The demarcation line stretched from the Ballon d'Alsace in the south to Mont Donon in the north with the lands east of it being incorporated into Germany as part of Alsace-Lorraine.


title: Vosges

text: The Vosges saw extensive fighting during the world wars. During World War I, there was severe and almost continuous fighting in the mountains. During World War II in October 1944, there was a fierce battle between German forces and the U.S. 442nd Battalion, a segregated unit composed of second-generation Japanese Americans (Nisei), during which the 442nd charged straight up the mountain to rescue the 1st Battalion of the 36th Infantry, formerly the Texas Guard—also known as the "Lost Battalion"—who were cut off and stranded on the mountainside under heavy fire from the Germans. Two previous rescues failed. The 442nd suffered 800 casualties, rescued the Texans, and took the mountain.


title: Vosges

text: On 20 January 1992 Air Inter Flight 148 crashed into the Vosges Mountains while circling to land at Strasbourg International Airport, killing 87 people.


title: Vosges

text: In pre-Roman times, the Vosges was empty of settlements or was colonized and dominated by the Celts. After the Roman era, Alemanni also settled in the east, and Franks in the northwest. Contrary to widespread belief, the main ridge of the Vosges coincided with the historical Roman-Germanic language boundary only in the southern Vosges. Old Romance ("Altromanisch") is spoken east of the main ridge: in the valley of the Weiss around Lapoutroie, the valley of Lièpvrette (nowadays also called the "Val d'Argent"; "Valley of Silver"), parts of the canton of Villé valley ("Vallée de Villé") and parts of the Bruche valley ("Vallée de la Bruche"). By contrast, those parts of the northern Vosges and the whole of the Wasgau, which lie north of the Breusch valley, fall within the Germanic-speaking area because, from Schirmeck the historical linguistic boundary turns to the northwest and runs between Donon and Mutzigfelsen heading for Sarrebourg ("Saarburg"). The Germanic areas of the Vosges mountains are part of the Alemannic dialect region and cultural area and, in the north, also part of the Frankish dialect region and cultural area. The Romance-speaking areas are traditionally part of the Lorrain language region in the west and the Frainc-Comtou region in the south. For a long time the distribution of languages and dialects basically correlated with the pattern of settlement movements. However, the switch from German to French as the lingua franca which took place between the 17th and the 20th century across the whole of Alsace was not accompanied by any further significant movements of population.


title: Martin Barre

text: Martin Lancelot Barre (; born 17 November 1946) is an English guitarist best known for his longtime role as lead guitarist of British rock band Jethro Tull, with whom he recorded and toured from 1968 until the band's initial dissolution in 2011. Barre played on all of Jethro Tull's studio discography except for their 1968 debut album "This Was" and their 2022 album "The Zealot Gene". In the early 1990s he began a solo career, and has recorded several albums as well as touring with his own live band.


title: Martin Barre

text: He has also played the flute and other instruments such as the mandolin, both on stage for Jethro Tull and in his own solo work.


title: Martin Barre

text: Martin Barre was born in Kings Heath, Birmingham, England, on 17 November 1946. His father was an engineer who had wanted to play clarinet professionally. Barre played flute at his grammar school. When Barre bought his first guitar, his father gave him albums by Barney Kessel, Johnny Smith and Wes Montgomery to broaden his musical perspectives.


title: Martin Barre

text: In college he studied architecture at Lanchester Polytechnic (now Coventry University) for three years, but did not complete his studies after failing Spanish and Atomic Science, subjects that he found to have little to do with designing buildings. After designing a road junction in Birmingham, England, he decided that a career in architecture was too boring, and switched to music.


title: Martin Barre

text: In 1966 he moved to London with his friend, Chris Rodger, who had played saxophone in their previous band, the Moonrakers. In London, Barre and Rodger got an audition for a band called the Noblemen, who were looking for two saxophonists. Barre bought a tenor saxophone, and after two days of practice was able to bluff his way through the audition. The band subsequently changed its name to the Motivation, and backed visiting soul artists such as the Coasters, the Drifters and Lee Dorsey. The band evolved through several musical styles, from soul to R&B to pop, and in 1967 changed its name to the Penny Peeps. By this time Barre was playing lead guitar. As the Penny Peeps the band released two singles in 1968, "Little Man With a Stick" backed by "Model Village", and "I See the Morning" backed with "Curly, Knight of the Road". Finally in mid-1968 they became a blues band named Gethsemane, and played in pubs all over England, with Barre playing guitar and flute.


title: Martin Barre

text: When Gethsemane and the band Jethro Tull played at a blues club called the Van Dyke in Plymouth, the members of the two bands got acquainted. Then, four months later, while Gethsemane was playing in London and about to break up because of lack of money, Jethro Tull's manager, Terry Ellis, sent his card up from the audience asking Barre to audition for Jethro Tull. The audition did not go well. Barre was so nervous that he barely played; but he arranged a second audition. This time he was offered the job. He spent the Christmas holidays of 1968 learning material that was to become the album "Stand Up".


title: Martin Barre

text: On the first album that Barre recorded with Jethro Tull, "Stand Up", he said that he was: "terrified because I had just joined the band. It really showed a change in direction for the band and when it was accepted and became a successful album, we gained a lot of confidence. We extended that confidence into the making of "Benefit", in which we were a lot more at ease." On the next album, the world success "Aqualung", Barre was more confident, stating that in the recording: "Everybody [the band] had input into the making of the album."


title: Martin Barre

text: In the following period, his solos blended virtuosity with classical music, such as on "Minstrel in the Gallery", where the opening track has a four-minute solo, or his piece (shared with Barrie Barlow) "Conundrum" and "Quatrain" on "Bursting Out". Barre declared that much of the material from Jethro Tull catalogue was written by himself and Ian Anderson, with Anderson getting the credit for writing the lyrics and having the initial idea for the music: "then I, or someone else in the band, contribute parts to it." Two albums on which Barre is credited with having contributed "additional material", "Songs from the Wood" and "Heavy Horses", are two of those which, he has stated, show his best playing.


title: Martin Barre

text: Barre embraced the new Jethro Tull sound on the album "Under Wraps" (1984), despite its foregrounding of synthesisers and relegation of his own guitar work to the background. The album contains two tracks co-authored by him. On his work with Jethro Tull, Barre also stated: "I'm quite pleased with my playing on "Crest of a Knave", which was basically me, Ian and [bassist] Dave Pegg working in the studio for two months, so I had ample time to put a lot of myself into that album." He is credited on only another two Jethro Tull album tracks: "Hot Mango Flush" from "J-Tull Dot Com" and "Winter Snowscape" from "The Jethro Tull Christmas Album". Concerning his contribution to Jethro Tull music, Barre stated: "I've done bits and pieces on albums. Sometimes it's a riff; sometimes it's a little segment of music ... I don't mind taking a small role in the writing, and a larger input into the arrangement and playing."


title: Martin Barre

text: About the end of his involvement in Tull, Barre stated in 2015 that "It's important that people realize there will never be a Jethro Tull again. There will be two solo bands: the Ian Anderson Band and the Martin Barre Band, and long may they exist, and long may they enjoy playing music. I'm not being pedantic. I always hate to hear, 'Oh, you've left Jethro Tull.' I haven't really. Ian wanted to finish Jethro Tull, wanted to stop the band completely."


title: Martin Barre

text: When Anderson reunited Jethro Tull in 2017 for their 50th anniversary tour, Barre was not asked to return.


title: Martin Barre

text: On one track of 1994's "A Trick of Memory", Barre plays a guitar given to him by friend Mark Mancina. On the album, King Crimson alumnus Mel Collins plays the saxophone, and Fairport Convention's Maartin Allcock and Ric Sanders appear on a couple of tracks, and Andy Giddings plays Hammond organ. According to the AllMusic review: "the dominant sound is Barre's guitars, soaring, crunching, grinding, or noodling gently, either blues or English folk tunes"; to the reviewer, the album is "a decent debut album". "A Summer Band" was released only in limited edition.


title: Martin Barre

text: In 2003, on his album "Stage Left", Barre used an unusual electric guitar style shaped by folk/acoustic and hard rock elements. It was his first album to be released in the United States. In the album, Barre shows his style of playing with "tricky and complicated" melodies, being always "elegant, even when he's rocking hard".


title: Martin Barre

text: In 2012, with the end of Jethro Tull touring, Martin assembled a band to tour and record the compilation/live titled "Martin Barre". The line up included former Tull members Jonathan Noyce and Doane Perry (who split duties with drummer Fred Moreau), John Mitchell, and guitarist Pat O'May.


title: Martin Barre

text: In 2014, Barre announced that he would tour as an acoustic quartet (including Dan Crisp and Alan Bray) to promote "Away With Words", which was well received by the "Prog Magazine", saying that in the album, "Barre has taken an imaginative approach to his own past by readdressing many of his favourite, often more obscure, nuggets from lull's [sic] vast cache, chiefly on acoustic guitar." Later in 2014 a new album was announced to be released that September, called "Order of Play", which was a louder electric record.


title: Martin Barre

text: Barre announced his sixth solo album in 2015. Called "Back to Steel", Barre says the album is a blues rock recording. It was followed by "Roads Less Travelled" in 2018.


title: Martin Barre

text: Martin Barre commenced a tour of the U.S. in the spring of 2019 to celebrate the 50th Anniversary of his joining Jethro Tull and the release of "Stand Up". On the tour he was supported by his band consisting Alan Thomson (bass), Dan Crisp (guitar and vocals) and Darby Todd (drums), along with special guests (former Tull members) Dee Palmer on keyboards and Clive Bunker on drums. The band were completed with Ali Humphries and Becca Langsford on backing vocals. The show was presented with a full multimedia backing show provided by fans from The Jethro Tull Group. A new double CD album release was available at the shows. MLB is a celebration of 50 years of Jethro Tull as arranged and performed by Martin, his band and guests.


title: Martin Barre

text: For 2020, Barre had planned to celebrate 50 years of Jethro Tull music with a world tour. However, most shows were cancelled or rescheduled due to the global COVID-19 pandemic. Adam Wakeman, Clive Bunker and Dee Palmer were scheduled to be guest musicians in several presentations.


title: Martin Barre

text: Barre once said that he tried not to listen to other guitarists so that he would not be influenced by them. He said he never took guitar lessons so that he would not sound like other players. However, one guitarist he has praised and recognized as being an influence is Leslie West, from the American band Mountain.


title: Martin Barre

text: Reviewers have sometimes described Martin Barre's sound as "tricky" and "complicated", highlighting his ability to compose melodies instead of simply soloing.


title: Martin Barre

text: Barre's best-known guitar work includes that on the songs "Aqualung", "Cross-Eyed Mary", and "Locomotive Breath". His signature solo on the 1971 Jethro Tull standard "Aqualung" was voted by the readers of "Guitar Player" magazine as one of the top rock guitar solos of all time. Also, in 2007, this solo was rated one of the 100 Greatest Guitar Solos by "Guitar World" magazine. Authors Pete Brown and HP Newquest named Barre's "Aqualung" solo as the 25th-best solo ever in the USA and 20th-best solo ever in the UK.


title: Martin Barre

text: Dire Straits leader Mark Knopfler, in a 2005 interview, called Barre's work with Ian Anderson "magical". Joe Bonamassa cites Martin Barre as a direct influence, especially in the blues playing of the early albums. Other guitarists like Steve Vai, Joe Satriani and Eric Johnson also cite Martin Barre as influences. Rush's Geddy Lee mentions the "great guitar sounds" of Martin Barre when remembering the album "Thick as a Brick".


Princess Mary, Duchess of Gloucester and Edinburgh (25 April 1776 – 30 April 1857) was the eleventh child and fourth daughter of King George III of the United Kingdom and his consort Charlotte of Mecklenburg-Strelitz.


title: Princess Mary, Duchess of Gloucester and Edinburgh

text: She married her first cousin, Prince William Frederick, Duke of Gloucester and Edinburgh, when both were 40, and was his widow in later life. In her last years, her niece Queen Victoria was on the throne as the fourth monarch during Mary's life, after her father and two of her brothers, George IV and William IV of the United Kingdom. Dying aged 81 at Gloucester House, Weymouth, Mary was the longest-lived and last survivor of George III's fifteen children (of whom thirteen lived to adulthood).


text: Princess Mary was born on 25 April 1776, at Buckingham Palace, London. Her father was the reigning British monarch, George III. Her mother was Queen Charlotte, the daughter of Charles, reigning Duke of Mecklenburg-Strelitz.


text: Mary was baptized on 19 May 1776, in the Great Council Chamber at St. James's Palace, by Frederick Cornwallis, The Archbishop of Canterbury. Her godparents were:


text: The King was a devoted father, finding time to regularly visit the royal nursery. Engaging in active play with his young children, he behaved quite informally in contrast to the dignified Queen Charlotte, who had more difficulty abandoning the formal behaviour expected of their class. Despite her outer reserve, however, Charlotte took a role as conscientious as her husband in their children's upbringing. For the royal princesses, the Queen carefully oversaw their welfare, education, and development of moral values. Faced with less time due to her public duties and close marriage to the King, she appointed Lady Charlotte Finch to manage the royal nursery and administer her ideas.


text: According to Flora Fraser, Mary was considered to be the most beautiful daughter of George III; Fraser calls her a "bland beauty". Mary danced a minuet for the first time in public at the age of sixteen in June 1791, during a court ball given for the king's birthday. In the spring of 1792 she officially debuted at court. Around 1796 Mary fell in love with the Dutch Prince Frederick, while he and his family lived in exile in London. Frederik was a son of William V, Prince of Orange, the Dutch stadholder, and younger brother to the future King William I of the Netherlands. However Frederik and Mary never wed because George III stipulated that her elder sisters should marry first. In 1799 Prince Frederik died of an infection while serving in the army, and Mary was allowed to go into official mourning.


text: Mary's youngest sister and beloved companion Princess Amelia called her "Mama's tool" because of her obedient nature. Amelia's premature death in 1810 devastated her sister, who had nursed her devotedly during her painful illness.


text: Princess Mary was quite close to her eldest brother, and she shared his antipathy toward his wife, their cousin Caroline of Brunswick. When the latter left for Italy, Princess Mary congratulated her brother "on the prospect of a good riddance. Heaven grant that she may not return again and that we may never see more of her."


text: Mary's upbringing was very sheltered and she spent most of her time with her parents and sisters. King George and Queen Charlotte were keen to shelter their children, particularly the girls. Mary, however, married on 22 July 1816, to her first cousin, Prince William Frederick, Duke of Gloucester and Edinburgh, the son of George III's brother, Prince William Henry, Duke of Gloucester and Edinburgh. On their wedding day, Mary's brother, The Prince Regent, raised the bridegroom's style from "Highness" to "Royal Highness", an attribute to which Mary's rank as daughter of the King already entitled her.


text: William Frederick had initially sought to marry Mary's niece Princess Charlotte of Wales. The historian A. W. Purdue suggests that Mary's motive for marrying her cousin sprang from her dislike of Queen Charlotte's restrictive household. Princess Charlotte observed that the duke "is much in love, & and tells me he is the happiest creature on earth. I won't say [Mary] does as much, but being her own mistress, having her own house, & being able to walk in the streets all delights her in their several ways."


text: The couple lived at Bagshot Park, but after William's death she moved to White Lodge in Richmond Park. They had no children together.


text: Princess Mary died on 30 April 1857 at Gloucester House, London, aged 81. She was the last-surviving and longest-lived child of King George III and Queen Charlotte.


text: As of 1789, as a daughter of the sovereign, Mary had use of the arms of the kingdom, differenced by a "label argent of three points, the centre point bearing a rose gules, the outer points each bearing a canton gules".


title: JP Saxe

text: Jonathan Percy Starker Saxe (born March 23, 1993), known professionally as JP Saxe, is a Canadian musician and singer. He is best known for his collaboration with American singer and his now ex-girlfriend Julia Michaels titled "If the World Was Ending" which was released in 2019. The song was nominated for a 2021 Grammy. His "hero" grandfather, noted cellist János Starker, was a multiple nominee and Grammy winner.


title: JP Saxe

text: Between April 2017 and March 2018, JP Saxe released the singles, "Changed", "Anybody Else" and "The Few Things". In November 2018, he released "25 in Barcelona" as the lead single from his debut EP. He released his debut EP, "Both Can Be True: Part 1", on November 8, 2018.


title: JP Saxe

text: He released the singles "Same Room" and "Women Who Look Like You" between June and August 2019. He released "If the World Was Ending" as the lead single from his second EP. He released "Sad Corny Fuck" as the second single from his second EP, in February 2020. He released his second EP, "Hold It Together", on February 7, 2020. It peaked at number 53 on the Canadian Albums Chart. He features on Lennon Stella's single "Golf on TV".


title: JP Saxe

text: In April 2020, JP Saxe and Julia Michaels re-released "If the World Was Ending" with other artists including Sam Smith, H.E.R., Alessia Cara, Sabrina Carpenter, Niall Horan, Keith Urban and Finneas O'Connell, who produced the song. Each artist filmed their part on their phones from their homes while self-isolating and features on the music video. Saxe explained that the collaboration was inspired by covers of the song he saw online, and he then texted the featured artists to ask if they'd want to get involved. All proceeds benefit Doctors Without Borders, where one of Saxe's friends worked, and the video ends with a special message from a participating doctor about the impact of COVID-19 on countries where many of the doctors are stationed. In a statement, Saxe and Michaels said, "We are so grateful for the incredible work being done by those on the frontlines during this global pandemic. At a time when it can sometimes feel like 'the world is ending', we thank all of the healthcare workers, first responders, and essential workers who are helping so many people in need. Please stay home, stay safe (and don't actually go over!)"


title: Chicago Sun-Times

text: The Chicago Sun-Times is a daily newspaper published in Chicago, Illinois, United States. Since 2022, it is the flagship paper of Chicago Public Media, and has the second largest circulation among Chicago newspapers, after the "Chicago Tribune". The modern paper grew out of the 1948 merger of the "Chicago Sun" and the "Chicago Daily Times". Journalists at the paper have received eight Pulitzer prizes, mostly in the 1970s; one recipient was film critic Roger Ebert (1975), who worked at the paper from 1967 until his death in 2013. Long owned by the Marshall Field family, since the 1980s ownership of the paper has changed hands numerous times, including twice in the late 2010s.


title: Chicago Sun-Times

text: The "Chicago Sun-Times" claims to be the oldest continuously published daily newspaper in the city. That claim is based on the 1844 founding of the "Chicago Daily Journal", which was also the first newspaper to publish the rumor, now believed false, that a cow owned by Catherine O'Leary was responsible for the Chicago fire. The "Evening Journal", whose West Side building at 17–19 S. Canal was undamaged, gave the "Chicago Tribune" a temporary home until it could rebuild. Though the assets of the "Journal" were sold to the "Chicago Daily News" in 1929, its last owner Samuel Emory Thomason also immediately launched the tabloid "Chicago Daily Illustrated Times".


title: Chicago Sun-Times

text: The modern paper grew out of the 1948 merger of the "Chicago Sun", founded by Marshall Field III on December 4, 1941, and the "Chicago Daily Times" (which had dropped the "Illustrated" from its title). The newspaper was owned by Field Enterprises, controlled by the Marshall Field family, which acquired the afternoon "Chicago Daily News" in 1959 and launched WFLD television in 1966. When the "Daily News" ended its run in 1978, much of its staff, including Pulitzer Prize-winning columnist Mike Royko, were moved to the "Sun-Times". During the Field period, the newspaper had a populist, progressive character that leaned Democratic but was independent of the city's Democratic establishment. Although the graphic style was urban tabloid, the paper was well regarded for journalistic quality and did not rely on sensational front-page stories. It typically ran articles from "The Washington Post"/"Los Angeles Times" wire service.


title: Chicago Sun-Times

text: Among the most prominent members of the newspaper's staff was cartoonist Jacob Burck, who was hired by the "Chicago Times" in 1938, won a Pulitzer Prize in 1941 and continued with the paper after it became the "Sun-Times", drawing nearly 10,000 cartoons over a 44-year career.


title: Chicago Sun-Times

text: The advice column "Ask Ann Landers" debuted in 1943. Ann Landers was the pseudonym of staff writer Ruth Crowley, who answered readers' letters until 1955. Eppie Lederer, sister of "Dear Abby" columnist Abigail van Buren, assumed the role thereafter as Ann Landers.


title: Chicago Sun-Times

text: Jack Olsen joined the "Sun-Times" as editor-in-chief in 1954, before moving on to "Time" and "Sports Illustrated" magazines and authoring true-crime books. Hired as literary editor in 1955 was Hoke Norris, who also covered the civil-rights movement for the "Sun-Times".


title: Chicago Sun-Times

text: Jerome Holtzman became a member of the "Chicago Sun" sports department after first being a copy boy for the "Daily News" in the 1940s. He and Edgar Munzel, another longtime sportswriter for the paper, both would end up honored by the Baseball Hall of Fame.


title: Chicago Sun-Times

text: Famed for his World War II exploits, two-time Pulitzer Prize-winning cartoonist Bill Mauldin made the "Sun-Times" his home base in 1962. The following year, Mauldin drew one of his most renowned illustrations, depicting a mourning statue of Abraham Lincoln after the November 1963 assassination of John F. Kennedy.


title: Chicago Sun-Times

text: Two years out of college, Roger Ebert became a staff writer in 1966, and a year later was named "Sun-Times"s film critic. He continued in this role for the remainder of his life.


title: Chicago Sun-Times

text: In 1975, a new sports editor at the "Sun-Times", Lewis Grizzard, spiked some columns written by sportswriter Lacy J. Banks and took away a column Banks had been writing, prompting Banks to tell a friend at the "Chicago Defender" that Grizzard was a racist. After the friend wrote a story about it, Grizzard fired Banks. With that, the editorial employees union intervened, a federal arbitrator ruled for Banks, and 13 months later he got his job back.


title: Chicago Sun-Times

text: A 25-part series on the Mirage Tavern, a saloon on Wells Street bought and operated by the "Sun-Times" in 1977, exposed a pattern of civic corruption and bribery, as city officials were investigated and photographed without their knowledge. The articles received considerable publicity and acclaim, but a nomination for the Pulitzer Prize met resistance from some who believed the Mirage series represented a form of entrapment.


title: Chicago Sun-Times

text: In March 1978, the venerable afternoon publication the "Chicago Daily News", sister paper of the "Sun-Times", went out of business. The two newspapers shared the same ownership and office building. James F. Hoge, Jr., editor and publisher of the Daily News, assumed the same positions at the "Sun-Times", which also retained a number of the "Daily News"s editorial personnel.


title: Chicago Sun-Times

text: In 1980, the "Sun-Times" hired syndicated TV columnist Gary Deeb away from the rival "Chicago Tribune". Deeb then left the "Sun-Times" in the spring of 1983 to try his hand at TV. He joined Chicago's WLS-TV in September 1983.


title: Chicago Sun-Times

text: In July 1981, prominent "Sun-Times" investigative reporter Pam Zekman, who had been part of a Pulitzer Prize-winning team with the "Chicago Tribune" in 1976, announced she was leaving the "Sun-Times" to join WBBM-TV in Chicago in August 1981 as chief of its new investigative unit. "Salary wasn't a factor," she told the "Tribune". "The station showed a commitment to investigative journalism. It was something I wanted to try."


title: Chicago Sun-Times

text: Pete Souza left the "Sun-Times" in 1983 to become official White House photographer for President Ronald Reagan until his second term's end in 1989. Souza returned to that position to be the official photographer for President Barack Obama.


title: Chicago Sun-Times

text: Baseball writer Jerome Holtzman defected from the "Sun-Times" to the "Tribune" in late 1981, while Mike Downey also left "Sun-Times" sports in September 1981 to be a columnist at the "Detroit Free Press".


title: Chicago Sun-Times

text: In January 1984, noted "Sun-Times" business reporter James Warren quit to join the rival "Chicago Tribune". He became the "Tribune"s Washington bureau chief and later its managing editor for features.


title: Chicago Sun-Times

text: In 1984, Field Enterprises co-owners, half-brothers Marshall Field V and Ted Field, sold the paper to Rupert Murdoch's News Corporation, and the paper's style changed abruptly to mirror that of its suitemate, the "New York Post". Its front pages tended more to the sensational, while its political stance shifted markedly to the right. This was in the era that the "Chicago Tribune" had begun softening its traditionally staunchly Republican editorial line, blurring the city's clear division between the two newspapers' politics. This shift was made all but official when Mike Royko defected to the "Tribune".


title: Chicago Sun-Times

text: Murdoch sold the paper in 1986 (to buy its former sister television station WFLD to launch the Fox network) for $145 million in cash in a leveraged buyout to an investor group led by the paper's publisher, Robert E. Page, and the New York investment firm Adler & Shaykin.


title: Chicago Sun-Times

text: In 1984, Roger Simon, who had been a "Sun-Times" columnist for a decade, quit to join "The Baltimore Sun", where he worked until 1995. Simon quit the paper because of Murdoch's purchase of it. Beginning in October 1984, Simon's columns from Baltimore began appearing in the rival "Chicago Tribune".


title: Chicago Sun-Times

text: In December 1986, the "Sun-Times" hired high-profile gossip columnist Michael Sneed away from the rival "Chicago Tribune", where she had been co-authoring the "Tribune"s own "Inc." gossip column with Kathy O'Malley. On December 3, 1986, O'Malley led off the "Tribune"s "Inc." column with the heading "The Last to Know Dept." and writing, "Dontcha just hate it when you write a gossip column and people think you know all the news about what's going on and your partner gets a new job and your column still has her name on it on the very same day that her new employer announces that she's going to work for him? Yeah, INC. just hates it when that happens."


title: Chicago Sun-Times

text: In February 1987, the popular syndicated advice column "Ask Ann Landers" (commonly known as the "Ann Landers" column and written at that point by Eppie Lederer) left the "Sun-Times" after 31 years to jump to the rival "Chicago Tribune", effective March 15, 1987. The move sparked a nationwide hunt for a new advice columnist for the "Sun-Times". After more than 12,000 responses from people aged 4 to 85, the paper ultimately hired two: Jeffrey Zaslow, then a 28-year-old "Wall Street Journal" reporter, and Diane Crowley, a 47-year-old lawyer, teacher and daughter of Ruth Crowley, who had been the original Ann Landers columnist from 1943 until 1955. Crowley left to return to the practice of law in 1993 and the paper decided not to renew Zaslow's contract in 2001.


title: Chicago Sun-Times

text: By the summer of 1988, Page and Adler & Shaykin managing partner Leonard P. Shaykin had developed a conflict, and in August 1988, Page resigned as publisher and president and sold his interest in the paper to his fellow investors.


title: Chicago Sun-Times

text: In mid-1991, veteran crime reporter Art Petacque, who had won a Pulitzer Prize in 1974, left the paper. Almost ten years later, Dennis Britton, who had been the paper's editor at the time of Petacque's retirement, told the "Chicago Reader" that Petacque's departure, which was described at the time as a retirement, was involuntary. "I had problems with some of the ways Art pursued his job," Britton told the "Reader".


title: Chicago Sun-Times

text: In September 1992, Bill Zwecker joined the "Sun-Times" as a gossip columnist from the troubled Lerner Newspapers suburban weekly newspaper chain, where he had written the "VIPeople" column.


title: Chicago Sun-Times

text: In September 1992, "Sun-Times" sports clerk Peter Anding was arrested in the "Sun-Times"' newsroom and held without bond after confessing to using his position to set up sexual encounters for male high school athletes. Anding was charged with aggravated criminal sexual assault and possession of child pornography. In September 1993, Anding pleaded guilty to arranging and videotaping sexual encounters with several teenage boys and fondling others. He was sentenced to 40 years in prison.


title: Chicago Sun-Times

text: In 1993, the "Sun-Times" fired photographer Bob Black without severance for dozens of unauthorized uses of the company's Federal Express account and outside photo lab, going back more than three years and costing the company more than $1,400. In February 1994, however, Black rejoined the paper's payroll after an arbitrator agreed with the paper's union that dismissal was too severe a penalty. At the same time, the arbitrator declined to award Black back pay.


title: Chicago Sun-Times

text: In 1993, longtime "Sun-Times" reporter Larry Weintraub retired after 35 years at the paper. Weintraub had been best known for his "Weintraub's World" column, in which he worked a job and wrote about the experience. Weintraub died in 2001 at age 69.


title: Chicago Sun-Times

text: In February 1994, the Adler & Shaykin investor group sold the "Sun-Times" to Hollinger Inc. for about $180 million. Hollinger was controlled, indirectly, by Canadian-born businessman Conrad Black. After Black and his associate David Radler were indicted for skimming money from Hollinger International, through retaining noncompete payments from the sale of Hollinger newspapers, they were removed from the board, and Hollinger International was renamed the Sun-Times Media Group.


title: Chicago Sun-Times

text: In 1994, noted reporter M.W. Newman retired from the "Sun-Times" around the age of 77. Newman, who died of lung cancer in 2001, had been with the "Sun-Times" since the "Chicago Daily News" closed in 1978 and had focused his efforts on urban reporting. Among other things, Newman had been known for coining the term "Big John" to describe the John Hancock Center and the expression "Fortress Illini" for the concrete structures and plazas at the University of Illinois at Chicago.


title: Chicago Sun-Times

text: On March 23, 1995, the "Sun-Times" announced that beginning April 2, 1995, veteran "Sports Illustrated" writer Rick Telander would join the paper and write four columns a week.


title: Chicago Sun-Times

text: On March 24, 1995, the "Sun-Times" published an editorial by Mark Hornung, then the "Sun-Times"' editorial page editor, that plagiarized a "Washington Post" editorial that had appeared in that paper the day before. Hornung attributed the plagiarism to writer's block, deadline pressures and the demands of other duties. He resigned as editorial page editor, but remained with the paper, shifting to its business side and working first as director of distribution and then as vice president of circulation. In 2002, Hornung became president and publisher of Midwest Suburban Publishing, which was a company owned by then-"Sun Times" parent company Hollinger International. In June 2004, Hollinger International placed Hornung on administrative leave just two weeks after Hollinger revealed that the paper's sales figures had been inflated for several years. Hornung resigned from the company four days later.


title: Chicago Sun-Times

text: On May 17, 1995, the "Sun-Times"' food section published a bogus letter from a reader named "Olga Fokyercelf" that "Chicago Tribune" columnist (and former "Sun-Times" columnist) Mike Royko called "an imaginative prank" in a column. In that same column, Royko criticized the paper's food writer, who edited the readers' column at the time, Olivia Wu, for not following better quality control. "The Wall Street Journal" then criticized Royko with an article of its own, titled, "Has a Curmudgeon Turned Into a Bully? Some Now Think So...Picking on a Food Writer." Although the "Sun-Times" began hiring a freelancer to edit the space and look for double entendres, another one made it into the same column on July 26, 1995, when the section published a letter from a "Phil McCraken." "This one was a little more subtle," a reporter outside the food department told the "Chicago Reader".


title: Chicago Sun-Times

text: In 1998, the "Sun-Times" demoted longtime TV critic Lon Grahnke, shifting him to covering education. Grahnke, who died in 2006 at age 56 of Alzheimer's disease, remained with the paper until 2001, when he retired following an extended medical leave.


title: Chicago Sun-Times

text: In 2000, the "Sun-Times" new editors, Michael Cooke and John Cruickshank, tapped longtime staff reporter Mark Brown, who had considered himself an investigative reporter, to write a column that would anchor page two of the paper.


title: Chicago Sun-Times

text: In 2000, longtime investigative reporter Charles Nicodemus retired from the paper at age 69 and died in 2008 at age 77.


title: Chicago Sun-Times

text: In 2001, "Sun-Times" investigative reporter Chuck Neubauer quit the paper to join the "Los Angeles Times"' Washington bureau. Neubauer and Brown had initiated the investigation into U.S. Rep. Dan Rostenkowski that uncovered a variety of misdeeds that ultimately had led to Rostenkowski's indictment, conviction and imprisonment.


title: Chicago Sun-Times

text: In April 2001, "Sun-Times" architecture critic Lee Bey quit to join the administration of then-Chicago Mayor Richard M. Daley as Daley's deputy mayoral chief of staff, responsible for downtown planning, rewriting the city's zoning code and affordable housing issues.


title: Chicago Sun-Times

text: In April 2001, longtime "Sun-Times" horse-racing writer Dave Feldman died at age 85 while still on the payroll.


title: Chicago Sun-Times

text: In 2002, with Kuczmarski & Associates, the "Chicago Sun-Times" co-founded the Chicago Innovation Awards.


title: Chicago Sun-Times

text: In May 2002, "Sun-Times" editors Joycelyn Winnecke and Bill Adee, who were then husband and wife, both quit on the same day to join the rival "Chicago Tribune". Winnecke had been the "Sun-Times" managing editor, and she left for a new post, associate managing editor for national news, while Adee, who had been the "Sun-Times" sports editor for nine years, became the "Tribune"s sports editor/news.


title: Chicago Sun-Times

text: In October 2003, famed "Sun-Times" gossip columnist Irv Kupcinet began including the name of his longtime assistant of nearly 34 years, Stella Foster, as the coauthor of his column. After Kupcinet died the following month at age 91, the "Sun-Times" kept Foster on and gave her the sole byline on the column, which became known as "Stella's Column." Foster retired from the newspaper in 2012.


title: Chicago Sun-Times

text: In 2004, the "Sun-Times" was censured by the Audit Bureau of Circulations for misrepresenting its circulation figures.


title: Chicago Sun-Times

text: In February 2004, longtime "Sun-Times" political columnist Steve Neal died at his home in Hinsdale, Illinois, at age 54, of an apparent suicide.


title: Chicago Sun-Times

text: In August 2004, longtime Chicago broadcast journalist Carol Marin began writing regular columns in the "Sun-Times", mostly on political issues.


title: Chicago Sun-Times

text: In March 2005, the "Chicago Tribune" hired away television critic Phil Rosenthal to become its media columnist. He eventually was replaced as TV critic by Doug Elfman.


title: Chicago Sun-Times

text: On September 28, 2005, "Sun-Times" columnist and editorial board member Neil Steinberg was arrested in his home in Northbrook, Illinois and charged with domestic battery and with interfering with the reporting of domestic battery. With that, Steinberg, who had been at the "Sun-Times" since 1987, entered a treatment facility for alcohol abuse. On November 23, 2005, Cook County prosecutors dropped the charges against Steinberg after his wife said she no longer feared for her safety. On November 28, 2005, Steinberg returned to the "Sun-Times" pages after going through a 28-day rehabilitation program at a nearby hospital, and he gave readers his version of the events that led to his arrest: "I got drunk and slapped my wife during an argument." Steinberg also reported that he and his wife were "on the mend," and that he was working toward sobriety.


title: Chicago Sun-Times

text: In the spring of 2006, a variety of longtime "Sun-Times" writers and columnists took buyouts, including sports columnist Ron Rapoport, sports reporter Joe Goddard, society and gardening columnist Mary Cameron Frey, book editor Henry Kisor, page designer Roy Moody and photographer Bob Black. Classical music critic Wynne Delacoma also took a buyout, and left the paper later.


title: Chicago Sun-Times

text: In August 2006, the "Sun-Times" fired longtime Chicago Cubs beat writer Mike Kiley. Then-"Sun-Times" sports editor Stu Courtney told the "Tribune" that the dismissal of Kiley, who had joined the "Sun-Times" from the "Tribune" in 1996, was a "personnel matter I can't comment on." The "Tribune"s Teddy Greenstein called Kiley "a fierce competitor."


title: Chicago Sun-Times

text: In February 2007, noted "Sun-Times" columnist Debra Pickett quit upon returning from maternity leave. The reasons for her departure were differences with her editors over where her column appeared and the sorts of assignments being handed to her.


title: Chicago Sun-Times

text: On July 10, 2007, newly appointed Editorial Page Editor Cheryl Reed announced: "We [the "Chicago Sun-Times" editorial page] are returning to our liberal, working-class roots, a position that pits us squarely opposite the "Chicago Tribune"—that Republican, George Bush—touting paper over on moneyed Michigan Avenue."


title: Chicago Sun-Times

text: In January 2008, the "Sun-Times" underwent two rounds of layoffs. In its first round, the "Sun-Times" fired editorial board members Michael Gillis, Michelle Stevens and Lloyd Sachs, along with Sunday editor Marcia Frellick and assistant managing editor Avis Weathersbee.


title: Chicago Sun-Times

text: On February 4, 2008, Editorial Page Editor Cheryl Reed resigned saying in a front-page Chicago Tribune story that she was "deeply troubled" that the paper's presidential primary endorsements of Barack Obama and John McCain were subjected to "wholesale rewrites" by editorial board outsiders. Cyrus Freidheim Jr., in his role as Sun-Times publisher, issued a statement reassuring staff that the endorsements didn't change and that the rewrites only "deepened and strengthened the messages."


title: Chicago Sun-Times

text: Later that month, the "Sun-Times" underwent more staff reductions, laying off columnist Esther Cepeda, religion reporter Susan Hogan/Albach, TV critic Doug Elfman, real estate editor Sally Duros, and onetime editor Garry Steckles, while giving buyouts to assistant city editors Robert C. Herguth and Nancy Moffett, environmental reporter Jim Ritter, copy editors Chris Whitehead and Bob Mutter, editorial columnist Steve Huntley (who remained with the paper as a freelance columnist), and special Barack Obama correspondent Jennifer Hunter. Also taking a buyout was longtime health and technology reporter Howard Wolinsky. Two other staffers, business editor Dan Miller and deputy metro editor Phyllis Gilchrist, resigned. Reporter Kara Spak initially was reported to have been laid off, but she wound up staying with the paper.


title: Chicago Sun-Times

text: In August 2008, high-profile sports columnist Jay Mariotti resigned from the "Sun-Times" after concluding that the future of sports journalism was online.


title: Chicago Sun-Times

text: In October 2008, the "Sun-Times" gave buyouts to noted TV/radio writer Robert Feder (a blogger with "Time Out Chicago" and then an independent writer on Chicago media) and longtime auto writer Dan Jedlicka. The paper also laid off two members of its editorial board: Teresa Puente and Deborah Douglas.


title: Chicago Sun-Times

text: In November 2008, the "Sun-Times" dropped its "Quick Takes" column, which "Sun-Times" columnist Zay N. Smith had written since 1995. Smith wrote the column from home, and the "Sun-Times" discontinued the column and informed Smith that it needed him back in the newsroom as a general assignment reporter. The paper's union complained, noting that Smith had permanent physical disabilities that made it difficult for him to be mobile. Smith later left the paper.


title: Chicago Sun-Times

text: On October 9, 2009, the "Sun Times" unions agreed to concessions paving the way for Jim Tyree to buy the newspaper and its 50 suburban newspapers. Of the $25 million purchase price, $5 million was in cash, with the other $20 million to help pay off past debts.


title: Chicago Sun-Times

text: In November 2009, "Sun-Times" sports editor Stu Courtney quit to join the rival "Chicago Tribune"s Chicago Breaking Sports website.


title: Chicago Sun-Times

text: In December 2009, the "Sun-Times" hired sports columnist Rick Morrissey away from the rival "Chicago Tribune".


title: Chicago Sun-Times

text: In April 2010, longtime "Sun-Times" pop music critic Jim DeRogatis resigned from the paper to join the faculty of Columbia College Chicago and to begin blogging at Vocalo.org.


title: Chicago Sun-Times

text: In June 2010, the "Sun-Times" laid off a group of editorial employees, including longtime sports media columnist Jim O'Donnell and features writer Delia O'Hara.


title: Chicago Sun-Times

text: In October 2010, the "Sun-Times" laid off longtime sports columnist Carol Slezak, who by that point had shifted to feature reporting.


title: Chicago Sun-Times

text: At the end of June 2010, longtime "Sun-Times" sportswriter Len Ziehm, who covered many sports but largely focused on golf, retired after 41 years at the paper.


title: Chicago Sun-Times

text: Sun-Times Media group chairman James C. Tyree died under sudden circumstances in March 2011. Jeremy Halbreich, chief executive, said that Tyree's will be greatly missed and that his death will make no changes in the media company's strategy.


title: Chicago Sun-Times

text: Also in March 2011, the "Sun-Times" laid off six editorial reporters and writers: high school sports reporter Steve Tucker, reporter Misha Davenport, general assignment reporter Cheryl Jackson, media and marketing columnist Lewis Lazare, feature writer Celeste Busk and sportswriter John Jackson.


title: Chicago Sun-Times

text: In May 2011, the "Sun-Times" laid off real estate writer Bill Cunniff, features reporter Jeff Johnson and gaming writer John Grochowski, along with graphic designer Char Searl.


title: Chicago Sun-Times

text: In June 2011, the "Sun-Times" fired longtime TV critic Paige Wiser after she admitted to fabricating portions of a review of a Glee Live! In Concert! performance. She admitted to attending much of the concert but leaving early to tend to her children. The paper eventually tapped longtime travel writer Lori Rackl to replace Wiser as TV critic.


title: Chicago Sun-Times

text: The "Sun-Times" announced in July 2011 that it would close its printing plant on Ashland Avenue in Chicago—eliminating 400 printing jobs—and would outsource the printing of the newspaper to the rival "Chicago Tribune". The move was estimated to save $10 million a year. The "Sun-Times" already had been distributed by the Tribune since 2007.


title: Chicago Sun-Times

text: In August 2011, the "Sun-Times" laid off three more reporters and writers: sportswriter Mike Mulligan, "Quick Hits" sports columnist Elliott Harris and photographer Keith Hale.


title: Chicago Sun-Times

text: In October 2011, the "Sun-Times" discontinued the longtime comic strip "Drabble" (syndicated by Newspaper Enterprise Association), which the paper had run since the strip's inception in 1979. The comic strip was the victim of a reduced page size.


title: Chicago Sun-Times

text: At the end of May 2013, the publication's photography department was dissolved as part of a restructuring that involves the use of freelance photographers and non-photographer journalists to provide visual content. Under the terms of a settlement with the paper's union, the "Sun-Times" reinstated four of those photographers as multimedia journalists in March 2014: Rich Chapman, Brian Jackson, Al Podgorski and Michael Schmidt.