title: Chris Cunningham

text: Chris Cunningham (born 15 October 1970) is a British video artist and music video director, best known for his music videos for electronic musicians such as Autechre, Squarepusher, and most notably Aphex Twin on videos for "Windowlicker" and "Come to Daddy", and Björk's "All is Full of Love". All were used in Chris' chapter in Director's Label. He has also created art installations and directed short movies. He was approached to direct a movie version of William Gibson's cyberpunk novel "Neuromancer"; the project has been in development hell for more than two decades. In the 2000s, Cunningham began doing music production work, and has also designed album artwork for a variety of musicians.


title: Chris Cunningham

text: After seeing Cunningham's work on the 1995 film version of "Judge Dredd", Stanley Kubrick head-hunted Cunningham to design and supervise animatronic tests of the central robot child character in his version of the film "A.I. Artificial Intelligence". Cunningham worked for over a year on the film before leaving to pursue a career as a director.


title: Chris Cunningham

text: Earlier work in film included model-making, prosthetic make-up and concept illustrations for "Hardware" and "Dust Devil" for director Richard Stanley, work on "Nightbreed" for Clive Barker, and on "Alien" for David Fincher. Between 1990 and 1992, he contributed the occasional cover painting and strip to "Judge Dredd Megazine", working under the pseudonym "Chris Halls"; Halls is his stepfather's surname.


title: Chris Cunningham

text: Cunningham has had close ties to Warp Records since his first video for Autechre, "Second Bad Vilbel", which received airplay on MTV's "Amp". Videos for Aphex Twin's "Come to Daddy" and "Windowlicker" are perhaps his best known. His video for Björk's "All Is Full of Love" won multiple awards, including an MTV music video award for Breakthrough Video and was nominated for a Grammy for Best Short Form Music Video. It was also the first ever music video to win a Gold Pencil at the D&AD Awards. It can still be seen at the Museum of Modern Art in New York. His video for Aphex Twin's "Windowlicker" was nominated for the "Best Video" award at the Brit Awards 2000. He also directed Madonna's "Frozen" video which became an international hit and won the award for Best Special Effects at the 1998 MTV Music Video Awards. Cunningham also came out of a seven-year hiatus from making music videos to direct the video for "Sheena Is a Parasite" by the Horrors.


title: Chris Cunningham

text: His video installation "Flex" was first shown in 2000 at the Royal Academy of Arts, and subsequently at the Anthony d'Offay Gallery and other art galleries. "Flex" was commissioned by the Anthony d'Offay Gallery for the exhibition curated by Norman Rosenthal and Max Wigram at the Royal Academy of Arts in 2000.


title: Chris Cunningham

text: The Anthony d'Offay Gallery also commissioned "Monkey Drummer", a 2½ minute piece intended for exhibition as a companion to "Flex" at the 2000 "Apocalypse" exhibition at the Royal Academy of Arts: however, the piece was not finished in time. In it an automaton with nine appendages and the head of a monkey plays the drums to "Mt Saint Michel + Saint Michaels Mount", the 10th track on Aphex Twin's 2001 album "drukqs". "Monkey Drummer" debuted as part of Cunningham's installation at the 49th International Exhibition of Art at the 2001 Venice Biennale, which consisted of a loop of "Monkey Drummer", "Flex", and his video for Björk's "All Is Full of Love". In 2002 both "Flex" and "Monkey Drummer" were exhibited by 5th Gallery in Dublin, Ireland, in an exhibition curated by Artist/Curator Paul Murnaghan,


title: Chris Cunningham

text: In 2007, an excerpt from "Flex" was shown in the Barbican's exhibition Seduced: Art and Sex from Antiquity to Now curated by Martin Kemp, Marina Wallace and Joanne Bernstein. alongside other pieces by Bacon, Klimt, Rembrandt, Rodin and Picasso.


title: Chris Cunningham

text: In 2005, Cunningham released the short film "Rubber Johnny" as a DVD accompanied by a book of photographs and drawings. "Rubber Johnny", a six-minute experimental short film cut to a soundtrack by Aphex Twin remixed by Cunningham, was shot between 2001 and 2004. Shot on DV night-vision, it was made in Cunningham's own time as a home movie of sorts, and took three and half years of weekends to complete. "The Telegraph" called it "like a Looney Tunes short for a generation raised on video nasties and rave music".


title: Chris Cunningham

text: During this period Cunningham also made another short film for Warp Films, "Spectral Musicians", which remains unreleased. The short film was set to Squarepusher's "My Fucking Sound" from his album "Go Plastic"; and to a piece called "Mutilation Colony" which was written especially for the short, and was released on the EP "Do You Know Squarepusher".


title: Chris Cunningham

text: Cunningham has directed a handful of commercials for companies and brands, including Gucci, Sony (PlayStation), Levi's, Telecom Italia, Nissan, and Orange.


title: Chris Cunningham

text: In 2004/2005, Cunningham took a sabbatical from filmmaking to learn about music production and recording and to develop his own music projects. In December 2007 Cunningham produced two tracks, "Three Decades" and "Primary Colours", for "Primary Colours", the second album by the Horrors. In the summer of 2008, due to scheduling conflicts with his feature film script writing he could not work on the rest of the album which was subsequently recorded by Geoff Barrow from Portishead.


title: Chris Cunningham

text: In 2008, he produced and arranged a new version of 'I Feel Love' for the Gucci commercial that he also directed. He travelled to Nashville to work with Donna Summer to record a brand new vocal for it.


title: Chris Cunningham

text: In 2005, Cunningham played a 45-minute audio visual piece performed live in Tokyo and Osaka in front of 30,000+ fans over the two nights at the Japanese electronic music festival . These performances evolved into "Chris Cunningham Live", a 55-minute long performance piece combining original and remixed music and film. It features remixed, unreleased and brand new videos and music dynamically edited together into a new live piece spread over three screens. The sound accompanying these images includes Cunningham's first publicly performed compositions interspersed with his remixes of other artist's work. "Chris Cunningham Live" debuted as one of the headline attractions at Warp 20 in Paris on 8 May 2009 with other performances scheduled at festivals in UK, and a number of European cities later in the year. "Chris Cunningham Live" continued in June 2011, with performances in London, Barcelona, and Sydney, Australia.


title: Chris Cunningham

text: Cunningham has created photography and cover artwork for various people including Björk's "All Is Full of Love", Aphex Twin's "Windowlicker" and "Come to Daddy".


title: Chris Cunningham

text: In 2008, Cunningham produced a fashion shoot for "Dazed & Confused" using Grace Jones as a model to create "Nubian versions" of Rubber Johnny. In an interview for BBC's "The Culture Show", it was suggested that the collaboration may expand into a video project. In regards to the collaboration, Cunningham stated "For me, Grace has the strongest iconography of any artist in music. She’s definitely the most inspiring person I’ve worked with so far".


title: Chris Cunningham

text: In an August 1999 "Spike Magazine" interview, cyberpunk author William Gibson stated "He (Chris) was brought to my attention by someone else. We were told, third-hand, that he was extremely wary of the Hollywood process, and wouldn't return calls. But someone else told us that "Neuromancer" had been his "Wind in the Willows", that he'd read it when he was a kid. I went to London and we met." Gibson is also quoted in the article as saying "Chris is my own 100 percent personal choice...My only choice. The only person I've met who I thought might have a hope in hell of doing it right. I went back to see him in London just after he'd finished the Bjork video, and I sat on a couch beside this dead sex little Bjork robot, except it was wearing Aphex Twin's head. We talked."


title: Chris Cunningham

text: In 2000, Cunningham and William Gibson began work on the script for Gibson's 1984 novel "Neuromancer". However, because "Neuromancer" was due to be a big budget studio film, it is rumoured that Cunningham pulled out due to being a first time director without final cut approval. He also felt that too much of the original book's ideas had been cannibalised by other recent films.


title: Chris Cunningham

text: Cunningham was married to Warpaint's bassist Jenny Lee Lindberg. They are currently no longer together.


title: Chris Cunningham

text: The video collection "The Work of Director Chris Cunningham" was released in November 2004 as part of the Directors Label set. This DVD includes selected highlights from 1995 to 2000.


title: Hot Sauce Committee Part Two

text: Hot Sauce Committee Part Two is the eighth and final studio album by American hip hop band Beastie Boys, released on May 3, 2011, through Capitol Records. The project was originally planned to be released in two parts, with Hot Sauce Committee, Pt. 1 originally planned for release in 2009. The release was delayed after band member Adam "MCA" Yauch's cancer diagnosis. After a two-year delay, only one collection of tracks, "Part Two", was released and the plan for a two-part album was eventually abandoned after Yauch's death on May 4, 2012.


title: Hot Sauce Committee Part Two

text: The album was critically acclaimed upon release, with the energetic rapping, experimental production, and disregard for contemporary hip hop trends being praised. It also performed well commercially, debuting at No. 2 on the "Billboard" 200 chart. The release was supported by four singles – "Lee Majors Come Again", "Too Many Rappers" featuring Nas, "Make Some Noise", and "Don't Play No Game That I Can't Win" featuring Santigold.


title: Hot Sauce Committee Part Two

text: The album was previously known by the working title "Tadlock's Glasses", which was stated to refer to a former bus driver named Tadlock, who used to drive for Elvis Presley's back-up singers. Presley once gave Tadlock a pair of glasses which he was proud of. It was later speculated that the "Tadlock's Glasses" story was simply a joke misinterpreted by the media.


title: Hot Sauce Committee Part Two

text: A large amount of material was recorded, and the plan was to release the album, now called "Hot Sauce Committee", in two parts as the Beastie Boys revealed to Drowned in Sound. Regarding the album's structure, Yauch stated, "It’s a combination of playing and sampling stuff as we’re playing, and also sampling pretty obscure records. There are a lot of songs on the record and there are a lot of short songs and they kind of all run into each other." A commentary track included with the "Check Your Head" re-release mentions that Bob Dylan would appear on the album.


title: Hot Sauce Committee Part Two

text: The first part of the album was intended to be called "Hot Sauce Committee, Pt. 1" and was prepared for release, with artwork revealed and a planned release date of September 15, 2009. In an interview, the trio stated that the album was completed and that they would tour the United Kingdom to support the new record. This was delayed after Adam "MCA" Yauch was diagnosed with cancer. On July 20, 2009, Yauch announced the cancellation of tour dates, and assured fans that he should be fine after surgery. In October 2009, Adam Yauch announced that the band had not yet decided a new release date, but was quoted saying he was hoping to release it in the first half of 2010.


title: Hot Sauce Committee Part Two

text: Drowned in Sound also gave a review of the first part on 28, June 2009, the same time they did the interview with the Beastie Boys for the album. It features most of the tracks which appeared on Part Two in a different order with the additional skit "Bundt Cake" which was described as "Another skit, this time a mere 21 seconds over a crisp drum break with snatches of cyber vocals".


title: Hot Sauce Committee Part Two

text: An email sent out on October 17, 2010, from the Beastie Boys announced that "Hot Sauce Committee Pt. 1" would be shelved indefinitely, and "Hot Sauce Committee Pt. 2" would be released in 2011. An email sent the following week now clarified that Pt. 2 would be released with almost exactly the same track list as was announced for Pt. 1, excluding the track "Bundt Cake." No date was set for Part 1. The project was finally released in May 2011 under the title "Hot Sauce Committee Part Two", with a slightly altered track listing including a new version of "Too Many Rappers".


title: Hot Sauce Committee Part Two

text: According to Andrew Eastwick from "Tiny Mix Tapes", "Long Burn the Fire" paid homage to the 1970s soul-rock band Black Merda with its fuzz-inflected guitar riffs. Its song title, Eastwick continued, "may also be a sly nod" to music critic Robert Christgau, who recommended the band's 1972 record of the same name to the Beastie Boys in his review of their 1994 album "Ill Communication".


title: Hot Sauce Committee Part Two

text: On April 6, 2011, "Make Some Noise" was leaked online five days ahead of its release date and subsequently made available via their blog. It was released on time as a digital download and as a limited edition 7" vinyl single for Record Store Day five days later with a Passion Pit remix of the track as a B-side. To promote the album, the Beastie Boys released clips of two songs: "Lee Majors Come Again" features hardcore punk, while the "B-Boys in the Cut" is an a cappella piece. The tracks were previously released with a select few copies of the "Check Your Head" vinyl edition package.


title: Hot Sauce Committee Part Two

text: "Lee Majors Come Again" and "Here's a Little Something for Ya" are featured in remixed form on the Activision video game, "DJ Hero". "Lee Majors Come Again" also appears in "Skate 3". A clean version of "Pop Your Balloon" was released on the soundtrack to "NBA Live 10" in mid-2009. The album was launched on April 23, 2011 by live-streaming the album online via boombox inside Madison Square Garden; two days later, they streamed the explicit album version via SoundCloud to combat the leaking of the clean promo version over the previous weekend. The online launch had been announced with the cryptic message "This Sat, 10:35 a.m. EST - Just listen, listen, listen to the beat box" sent by email on April 22, 2011.


title: Hot Sauce Committee Part Two

text: "Lee Majors Come Again" was released as the album's first single in 2009. It was released as a 7" single, and some of these singles were distributed with select copies of a reissue box set of the group's third studio album "Check Your Head" A version of the song "Too Many Rappers", featuring Nas, was released as the album's second single in July 2009. It peaked at #93 on the "Billboard" Hot 100, becoming the Beastie Boys' first single in five years to chart on the Hot 100, after 2004's "Ch-Check It Out", which peaked at #68. "Too Many Rappers" has also been nominated for a Grammy Award for Best Rap Performance by a Duo or Group. This may not be regarded as belonging to this album as at the time it was intended for and promoted as part of the (never released) Hot Sauce Committee Pt 1 album. A revised version of "Too Many Rappers" was included on the Hot Sauce Committee Pt 2 album.


title: Hot Sauce Committee Part Two

text: The next single, "Make Some Noise" was released as a download on April 11, 2011 and five days later as 7" vinyl single for Record Store Day. "Make Some Noise" reached at #7 in Alternative Songs chart, #15 in Rock Songs, #18 in Japan Hot 100 and #76 in Canadian Hot 100. On July 26, 2011, "Don't Play No Game That I Can't Win" was released as the fourth single. It debuted at #80 on Billboard's R&B/Hip-Hop Songs chart, marking the group's first appearance on the chart in 24 years, after 1987's "Brass Monkey" which peaked at #83.


title: Hot Sauce Committee Part Two

text: Upon its release, "Hot Sauce Committee Part Two" received acclaim from music critics. At Metacritic, which assigns a normalized rating out of 100 to reviews from mainstream critics, the album received an average score of 83, based on 42 reviews, which indicates "universal acclaim". Stephen Thomas Erlewine of AllMusic gave the album four and a half stars out of five, saying ""The Hot Sauce Committee, Pt. 2" does find the Beastie Boys at their best." Dave Simpson of "The Guardian" gave the album four out of five stars, saying "Now in their fourth decade of working together, the Beasties' eighth studio album revisits their old-skool roots. However, their wit and invention transforms such tired cliches into their freshest offering in years."


title: Hot Sauce Committee Part Two

text: Rob Sheffield of "Rolling Stone" gave the album four out of five stars, saying "We get the sound of master musicians in their comfort zone, doing everything their own way. Nobody would want to hear the Beasties try anything else." Matt Diehl of the "Los Angeles Times" gave the album four out of four stars, saying "This is vintage Beasties, all exuberant pass-the-mike battle rhymes and gritty break-beats so funky, it’s near impossible not to head-bob through the entire record." Mark Richardson of Pitchfork Media gave the album a 7.0 out of 10, saying "Taken together, these 16 songs, which seem to touch on just about everything the Beastie Boys have said and done, may not add up to something amazing, but they do the job."


title: Hot Sauce Committee Part Two

text: "Hot Sauce Committee Part Two" debuted at number 2 on the "Billboard" 200, selling 128,000 copies in its first week.


title: Volyn Oblast

text: Volyn Oblast (; also referred to as Volyn or Lodomeria) is an oblast (province) in northwestern Ukraine. Its administrative centre is Lutsk. Kovel is the westernmost town and the last station in Ukraine on the rail line running from Kyiv to Warsaw. The population is


title: Volyn Oblast

text: Volyn was once part of the Kyivan Rus' before becoming an independent local principality and an integral part of the Halych-Volynia, one of Kyivan Rus' successor states. In the 15th century, the area came under the control of the neighbouring Grand Duchy of Lithuania, in 1569 passing over to Poland and then in 1795, until World War I, to the Russian Empire where it was a part of the Volynskaya Guberniya. In the interwar period, most of the territory, organized as Wołyń Voivodeship was under Polish control.


title: Volyn Oblast

text: In 1939 when Poland was invaded and divided by Nazi Germany and the Soviet Union following the Molotov-Ribbentrop pact, Volyn was joined to Soviet Ukraine, and on December 4, 1939, the oblast was organized.


title: Volyn Oblast

text: Many Ukrainians rejoiced at the "reunification", but the Polish minority suffered a cruel fate. Thousands of Poles, especially retired Polish officers and intelligentsia were deported to Siberia and other areas in the depths of the Soviet Union. A high proportion of these deportees died in the extreme conditions of Soviet labour camps and most were never able to return to Volyn again.


title: Volyn Oblast

text: In 1941 Volyn along with the Soviet Union was invaded by the Nazi Germany's Barbarossa Offensive. Nazis alongside Ukrainian collaborators completed their holocaust of the Jews of Volhynia in late 1942.


title: Volyn Oblast

text: Partisan activity started in Volyn in 1941, soon after German occupation. Partisans were involved in the Rail war campaign against German supply lines and were known for their efficiency in gathering intelligence and for sabotage. The region formed the basis of several networks and many members of the local population served with the partisans. The Poles in the area became part of the Polish Home Army, which often undertook operations with the partisan movement.


title: Volyn Oblast

text: UPA initially supported Nazi Germany which had in turn supported them with financing and weaponry before the start of World War II. Many served in the various RONA and SS units. Once they became disillusioned with the Nazi program, they independently began to target all non-Ukrainians (Poles, Jews, Russians, among others) for extermination. Some 30,000 to 60,000 Poles, Czechs, remaining Jews, and Ukrainians who tried to help others escape (Polish sources gave even higher figures) and later, around 2,000 or more Ukrainians were killed in retaliation (see Massacres of Poles in Volhynia).


title: Volyn Oblast

text: In the immediate aftermath of World War II the Polish-Soviet border was redrawn based on the Curzon line. Volyn, along with the neighbouring provinces became an integral part of the Ukrainian SSR. Most Poles who remained in the eastern region were forced to leave to the Recovered Territories of western Poland (the former easternmost provinces of Germany) whose German population had been expelled. Some of the Ukrainians on the western side, notably around the city of Kholm (Chełm in Polish), were also forcibly relocated to Ukraine.


title: Volyn Oblast

text: The area underwent rapid industrialisation including the construction of the Lutskiy Avtomobilnyi Zavod. Nevertheless, the area remains one of the most rural throughout the former Soviet Union.


title: Tom Ridge

text: Thomas Joseph Ridge (born August 26, 1945) is an American politician and author who served as the Assistant to the President for Homeland Security from 2001 to 2003, and the first United States Secretary of Homeland Security from 2003 to 2005. A member of the Republican Party, he was the 43rd Governor of Pennsylvania from 1995 to 2001 and a member of the United States House of Representatives from 1983 to 1995.


title: Tom Ridge

text: Ridge was born in Munhall, Pennsylvania and raised in veterans' public housing in Erie, Pennsylvania. After graduating from Harvard University with honors, he served in the U.S. Army during the Vietnam War where he was awarded the Bronze Star. He then returned to Pennsylvania and completed his Juris Doctor (J.D.) degree at the Dickinson School of Law, graduating in 1972, and entered private practice.


title: Tom Ridge

text: As assistant district attorney in Erie, Ridge ran for Congress in his district, where he served six terms. He then ran for governor in 1994, despite being little-known outside of northwest Pennsylvania. He won the election, and was reelected in 1998 with the most votes for a Republican governor in Pennsylvania (where Democrats outnumbered Republicans by almost 500,000) in more than half a century. As Governor of Pennsylvania, he is credited for statewide advances in economic development, education, health care and the environment. As of , he is the last Republican to win reelection as Pennsylvania's governor.


title: Tom Ridge

text: Following the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks, U.S. President George W. Bush named Ridge the first director of the newly created Office of Homeland Security. In January 2003, the Office of Homeland Security became an official Cabinet-level Department, the Department of Homeland Security, and Ridge became the first Secretary of Homeland Security. He served in these roles for Bush's first term as president, then retired and returned to the private sector.


title: Tom Ridge

text: Since reentering the private sector, Ridge has served on the boards of The Home Depot, The Hershey Company and Exelon Corporation and as a senior advisor to Deloitte & Touche and TechRadium. He is also the founder and chairman of Ridge Global, a Washington, D.C.-based security consulting firm. He spent time campaigning with Senator John McCain during his 2008 presidential bid and was believed by some to have been on the short list of potential running mates.


title: Tom Ridge

text: Ridge was born in Munhall, Pennsylvania, in Pittsburgh's Steel Valley, the eldest of three children. His parents were Laura (née Sudimack) and Thomas Regis Ridge, who was a traveling salesman and Navy veteran. Ridge's maternal grandparents were Rusyn immigrants from the former Czechoslovakia (now Slovakia), and his paternal great-grandparents emigrated from Great Britain. He was raised in veterans' public housing in Erie, Pennsylvania. He was educated at St. Andrews Elementary School and Cathedral Preparatory School and did well both academically and in sports. He attended Harvard College, where he paid his way through with construction work, played intramural baseball and football, and graduated with honors in 1967. In 1968, after his first year at the Dickinson School of Law, he was drafted into the United States Army.


title: Tom Ridge

text: Ridge waived an opportunity for officer training school because it would have required a longer service commitment. In November 1969, Ridge arrived as a sergeant in South Vietnam where he would serve for six months as a staff sergeant with Bravo Company, 1st Battalion, 20th Infantry, 11th Infantry Brigade, 23rd Infantry Division (Americal Division) during the Vietnam War.


title: Tom Ridge

text: In May 1970, a ruptured appendix cut short his tour of duty in Vietnam and he was sent home; his service also aggravated a childhood ear infection which caused him afterwards to have a hearing aid in his left ear.


title: Tom Ridge

text: For his service in Vietnam, Ridge received the Bronze Star with "V" Device, National Defense Service Medal, Vietnam Service Medal, Republic of Vietnam Gallantry Cross Unit Citation with Palm, Republic of Vietnam Campaign Medal, and the Combat Infantryman Badge.


title: Tom Ridge

text: After returning to Pennsylvania, he completed his Juris Doctor (J.D.) degree at the Dickinson School of Law, graduating in 1972, and entered private practice.


title: Tom Ridge

text: Ridge became assistant district attorney in Erie County, Pennsylvania in 1980 and prosecuted 86 cases in two years.


title: Tom Ridge

text: In 1982 he won a seat in Congress from northwestern Pennsylvania by the margin of only 729 votes, and was re-elected five times.


title: Tom Ridge

text: In 1994, despite being little-known outside of northwest Pennsylvania, Ridge ran for governor. He won the election as a pro-choice Republican. He was reelected in 1998 with 57 percent of the vote in a four-way race. His share of the vote in that election was the highest for a Republican governor in Pennsylvania (where Democrats outnumber Republicans by almost 500,000) in more than half a century.


title: Tom Ridge

text: During his time as governor, Ridge promoted "law and order" policies, supporting a three-strikes law and a faster death penalty process. A death penalty supporter, Ridge signed more than 224 execution warrants – five times the number signed over a 25-year period by the two previous governors – but only three voluntary executions were carried out. On social issues, he opposed same-sex marriage but supported abortion rights.


title: Tom Ridge

text: Over Ridge's tenure, the Commonwealth's budget grew by two to three percent per fiscal year and combined tax reductions totaled over $2 billion. Ridge created and grew a "Rainy Day" Fund balance to over $1 billion to be utilized during an economic downturn or recession.


title: Tom Ridge

text: Ridge pushed for legislation permitting competition among electric utilities and enhanced federal and state support for the Children's Health Insurance Program (CHIP). He separated the Commonwealth's environmental regulatory and conservation programs into two new agencies; the Department of Environmental Protection and the Department of Conservation and Natural Resources.


title: Tom Ridge

text: Ridge proposed the creation of public charter schools in Pennsylvania and in establishing alternate schools for disruptive students. He launched new academic standards that established academic expectations for what students were expected to know in different grades. He proposed a school choice demonstration program.


title: Tom Ridge

text: Ridge oversaw a number of e-government projects including renewing drivers' licenses and vehicle registrations to viewing historical documents and library catalogs. The Commonwealth's portal won several national awards. One of the nation's first electronic grant systems was put into place at the Pennsylvania Department of Education. He created the Link-to-Learn initiative to increase the effective use of technology in public schools and universities.


title: Tom Ridge

text: Ridge signed two death warrants for African-American civil rights activist Mumia Abu-Jamal, who was convicted of killing a police officer at a traffic stop.


title: Tom Ridge

text: Ridge served as governor until he resigned to become the Director of Homeland Security in 2001, following the September 11 attacks.


title: Tom Ridge

text: Ridge was a potential running mate for Bob Dole in 1996, and served as a close advisor to Republican presidential nominee George W. Bush, a close friend from their simultaneous tenures as governors, during the 2000 presidential campaign. In return, Bush named Ridge to his short list for possible running mates, along with New York Governor George Pataki, Michigan Governor John Engler, Oklahoma Governor Frank Keating, former Missouri Senator John Danforth, and former American Red Cross President Elizabeth Dole.


title: Tom Ridge

text: Following the September 11, 2001, terrorist attacks, U.S. President George W. Bush created the Office of Homeland Security within the White House, and named Ridge to head it. The charge to the nation's new director of homeland security was to develop and coordinate a comprehensive national strategy to strengthen the United States against terrorist threats or attacks. Ridge formally resigned as Pennsylvania's governor on October 5, 2001.


title: Tom Ridge

text: In January 2003 and after the passage of the Homeland Security Act of 2002, the Office of Homeland Security split into a Cabinet-level Department, the Department of Homeland Security, and the White House Homeland Security Advisory Council. Ridge left the White House and became the first Secretary of Homeland Security. The department's mission "is to (A) prevent terrorist attacks within the United States; (B) reduce the vulnerability of the United States to terrorism; and (C) minimize the damage, and assist in the recovery, from terrorist attacks that do occur within the United States" (From H.R. 5005-8 the Homeland Security Act of 2002). The newly created department was the most comprehensive reorganization of the Federal government since the National Security Act of 1947.


title: Tom Ridge

text: The Department of Homeland Security consolidates 22 agencies and 180,000 employees, unifying once-fragmented Federal functions in a single agency dedicated to protecting America from terrorism. Ridge worked with the employees from combined agencies to strengthen borders, provide for intelligence analysis and infrastructure protection, improve the use of science and technology to counter weapons of mass destruction, and to create a comprehensive response and recovery division.


title: Tom Ridge

text: In January 2004, Ridge was named among others in a lawsuit filed by a Syrian-born Canadian Maher Arar who said he was tortured in Syria after being deported by American authorities.


title: Tom Ridge

text: On November 30, 2004, Ridge submitted his resignation to the President, saying, "After more than 22 consecutive years of public service, it is time to give personal and family matters a higher priority."


title: Tom Ridge

text: In his book "The Test of Our Times: America Under Siege...and How We Can Be Safe Again", Ridge says his resignation was due to an effort by senior Bush administration officials to raise the nation's terror alert level in the days before the 2004 presidential vote.


title: Tom Ridge

text: Ridge served on a state-appointed incident review panel that investigated the Virginia Tech shooting.


title: Tom Ridge

text: In 2010, Ridge's two former Chiefs of Staff, Mark Campbell and Mark Holman, opened a lobbying firm after Ridge lent the firm his name. The full-service government affairs firm has offices in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, and Washington, D.C.


title: Tom Ridge

text: In July 2010, companies seeking to use hydraulic fracturing to extract natural gas from the Marcellus Shale formation engaged Ridge and Ridge Policy Group at $75,000 a month to help them gain support.


title: Tom Ridge

text: Ridge has served on a variety of corporate boards of directors and in other roles. In 2005, he was named to the board of Home Depot, with an expected annual compensation of about $100,000. and in the same year was appointed to the board of the RFID company Savi Technology. He was appointed to the board of directors of the Exelon Corporation electric utility in 2006, with starting director compensation of $35,000 annual retainer plus a $1,500 meeting fee or per diem fee and (at the time) $60,000 in annual deferred stock units. In 2006, Ridge was announced as a senior advisor for Deloitte & Touche USA LLP. He was named to serve on the executive board of The Hershey Company in 2007, and was named senior advisor to Texas-based security technology company TechRadium, Inc. in 2008. In 2009, antimicrobial company PURE Bioscience named Ridge, along with former Wisconsin governor Tommy Thompson, to its advisory board. He currently sits on the bipartisan advisory board of States United Democracy Center.


title: Tom Ridge

text: Ridge served as a senior aide to Republican presidential candidate Senator John McCain of Arizona, and was considered by some as a possible running mate for McCain.


title: Tom Ridge

text: According to Fox News, many Republicans hoped Ridge would run for the United States Senate against the newly turned Democrat Arlen Specter, who stated he would seek re-election in 2010 in the Democratic primary. Already seeking the Republican nomination was former Representative Pat Toomey, who narrowly lost to Specter in the Republican primary in 2004. Some Republicans thought Ridge would have a better chance against Specter than would Toomey. A Quinnipiac University Polling Institute poll conducted between April 30, 2009, and May 3, 2009, placed Ridge within three points of Specter in a hypothetical matchup between the two men.


title: Tom Ridge

text: Some Toomey supporters criticized the idea of a Ridge candidacy because, although Ridge was still registered to vote in Pennsylvania, he was actually living in Chevy Chase, Maryland. On May 7, 2009, Ridge announced that he would not be a candidate for the U.S. Senate in 2010.


title: Tom Ridge

text: Ridge originally endorsed former Utah Governor Jon Huntsman for president, in September 2011. Mitt Romney announced an endorsement from Ridge on March 14, 2012.


title: Tom Ridge

text: In 2013, Ridge was a signatory to an "amicus curiae" brief submitted to the Supreme Court in support of same-sex marriage during the "Hollingsworth v. Perry" case.


title: Tom Ridge

text: Ridge spoke at a conference in support of the removal of the People's Mujahedin of Iran (MEK, also PMOI, MKO) from the United States State Department list of Foreign Terrorist Organizations. The group was listed on the State Department list from 1997 until September 2012. They were placed on the list for killing six Americans in Iran during the 1970s and attempting to attack the Iranian mission to the United Nations in 1992. Ridge, along with other former government officials and politicians Ed Rendell, R. James Woolsey, Porter Goss, Louis Freeh, Michael Mukasey, James L. Jones, Rudy Giuliani, and Howard Dean, were criticized for their involvement with the group. Some were subpoenaed during an inquiry about who was paying the prominent individuals' speaking fees. Ridge and others wrote an article for the conservative publication "National Review" stating their position that the group should not be classified as a terrorist organization, raising the point that, at the time, only the United States and Iran still listed it as a terrorist group.


title: Tom Ridge

text: In 2015, Ridge served as co-chair of the Blue Ribbon Study Panel on Biodefense, a commission that recommended changes to U.S. policy regarding biodefense. In order to address biological threats facing the nation, the Blue Ribbon Study Panel on Biodefense created a 33-step initiative for the U.S. Government to implement. Tom Ridge headed the organization with former Senator Joe Lieberman, and the Study Panel assembled in Washington D.C. for four meetings concerning current biodefense programs. The Study Panel concluded that the federal government had little to no defense mechanisms in case of a biological event. The Study Panel's final report, "The National Blueprint for Biodefense", proposes a string of solutions and recommendations for the U.S. Government to take, including items such as giving the vice president authority over biodefense responsibilities and merging the entire biodefense budget. These solutions represent the Panel's call to action in order to increase awareness and activity for pandemic related issues.


title: Tom Ridge

text: In 2016, Ridge endorsed Jeb Bush and subsequently John Kasich after Bush's withdrawal from the 2016 Republican presidential primaries. Ridge stated he would not endorse Donald Trump, following Trump becoming the presumptive nominee, or Hillary Clinton in the general election.


title: Tom Ridge

text: In July 2020, Ridge criticized President Trump for saying in June that vote-by-mail leads to widespread voter fraud, responding that it is not a threat and that voters need a safe way to cast a ballot in the 2020 election, amid the COVID-19 pandemic. Ridge also said that it was "sad" that the President wants to quash the legitimacy of the election. In response to Ridge's comments, the RNC said lawsuits by Democrats to strip ballot safeguards are an attempt to delegitimize the election. Ridge is a co-chair of VoteSafe, a bi-partisan group that promotes safe voting by mail and in person.


title: Tom Ridge

text: Also in July 2020, Ridge slammed his former Department for sending in federal agents to detain rioters allegedly committing federal crimes in Portland, Oregon, after more than 50 days of protests and riots there. He also said, during an interview with radio host Michael Smerconish, that it would be a "cold day in hell" before he "would consent to an uninvited, unilateral intervention" in one of his cities in Pennsylvania. The White House cited federal law to support this use of federal law enforcement. Trump later slammed Ridge on Twitter, calling him "a failed RINO" and saying he "loved watching pathetic Never Trumpers squirm!".


title: Tom Ridge

text: In September 2020, Ridge endorsed former Vice President Joe Biden for president in a "Philadelphia Inquirer" op-ed. He confirmed to CNN on November 6, 2020, it was the first time he ever voted for a Democratic presidential candidate.


title: Tom Ridge

text: Ridge, along with more than 100 Republican former national security officials, signed a letter in November that stated that the delay of the presidential transition imperiled the security of the nation. The 9/11 Commission finding that the shortened transition to the administration of George W. Bush during the disputed 2000 presidential election "hampered the new administration in identifying, recruiting, clearing, and obtaining Senate confirmation of key appointees" was mentioned in the statement.


title: Tom Ridge

text: In August 2022, Ridge described the January 6 United States Capitol attack as "conduct you’d see in a Third World country, not in the United States of America" and described current politics in America as "distressing", "personal, vengeful, [and] mean-spirited."


title: Tom Ridge

text: In 2022, Ridge endorsed fellow Republican Mehmet Oz in the 2022 United States Senate election in Pennsylvania.


title: Tom Ridge

text: Tom Ridge's book "The Test of Our Times" was published in September 2009. Written with Larry Bloom, it concerns Ridge's time as the head of the Department of Homeland Security. He explains the challenges and decision-making processes of the newly formed department, and gives his own views as to the future of the security of the United States of America. The book further discusses


title: Tom Ridge

text: Ridge wrote in his memoir that then-Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld and then-Attorney General John Ashcroft pressured him to raise the terror alert level, running up to the 2004 elections, because of a pre-election message critical of President Bush from Osama Bin Laden.


title: Tom Ridge

text: Tom's wife, Michele Ridge, is the former executive director of the Erie County Library System. Married since 1979, they have two children: Lesley and Tommy.


title: Tom Ridge

text: On June 16, 2021, Ridge suffered a stroke while at his home in Bethesda, Maryland. He was hospitalized and underwent a successful procedure to remove a blood clot. Discharged in late June, Ridge began rehabilitation therapy in the Washington, D.C. area.


title: Finnish paganism

text: Finnish paganism is the indigenous pagan religion in Finland and Karelia prior to Christianisation. It was a polytheistic religion, worshipping a number of different deities. The principal god was the god of thunder and the sky, Ukko; other important gods included Jumo (Jumala), Ahti, and Tapio. Jumala was a sky god; today, the word "Jumala" refers to all gods in general. Ahti was a god of the sea, waters and fish. Tapio was the god of forests and hunting.


title: Finnish paganism

text: Finnish paganism shows many similarities with the religious practices of related cultures, such as Estonian, Mordvin, Mari, Sami and other Eurasian paganism. It shares some features with its neighbouring Baltic, Norse and Germanic paganisms.


title: Finnish paganism

text: The organic tradition was sidelined due to Christianization starting from ca. 12th century and finally broken by the early 20th century, when folk magic and oral traditions went extinct. Finnish paganism provided the inspiration for a contemporary pagan movement Suomenusko (Finnish: "Finnish faith"), which is an attempt to reconstruct the old religion of the Finns. It is nevertheless based on secondary sources.


title: Finnish paganism

text: The Finnish pagans were polytheistic, believing in a number of different deities. Most of the deities ruled over a specific aspect of nature; for instance, Ukko was the god of the sky and thunder ("ukkonen" and "ukonilma" ("Ukko's air") are still used in modern Finnish as terms for thunderstorms). These deities were often pan-Finnic, being worshipped by many different tribes in different regions. The Finnish pagans were also animists, worshipping local nature deities at site-specific shrines to that particular deity. These shrines are thought to be mainly "tree-gods": wooden statues or carvings done in trees or treestumps, depicting human figures, and have been scarcely preserved. One confirmed Stone Age wooden statue has been found in Pohjankuru, and folklore about worshipping tree-gods has been documented. Another kind of shrine are "cup-stones" (Finnish: ""), large natural stones into which cup-sized recesses have been drilled. Votive offerings of food or drink were left into these cups. Despite Christianization, offerings on these cup-stones continued up to the early 20th century.


title: Finnish paganism

text: Several key deities were venerated across nearly all of Finland and Karelia. These pan-Finnic deities controlled many aspects of nature.


title: Finnish paganism

text: Local animistic deities, known as haltijas or haltias, were also worshipped. These haltijas could be male or female, and could take a human or another animal's form. Haltijas could be found everywhere in nature, both in the biotic and abiotic parts. Every human has a haltija, usually called haltijasielu (haltija soul) or luontohaltija (nature haltija), which is one of the three parts of a person's soul. The tradition blends with the Swedish tomte: the Finnish "tonttu" was a being analogous to haltija, but which lives in a building, like a home ("kotitonttu") or a sauna ("saunatonttu").


title: Finnish paganism

text: Certain "haltiat", known as "maan haltija" (literally "tutelary of land"), guarded the property of an individual, including their house and livestock. Votive offerings would be given to these haltijas at a shrine, as thanks for the help given and also to prevent the haltija from causing harm.


title: Finnish paganism

text: Sometimes haltijas of certain families and farms acted against other families and their farms by stealing their wealth or making the animals infertile, for instance.


title: Finnish paganism

text: Many local haltijas were believed to have originally been the sacred spirits of ancestors. In some cases a haltija was the first inhabitant of house. Sometimes while making a new house a local spirit of nature could be "employed" to work as a maan haltija.


title: Finnish paganism

text: Different elements and environments had their own haltijas. Haltijas were grouped into types or races called väki. "Väki" has multiple connected meanings of "strength", "force", "throng", "military troop"; in the magical context, it referred ambiguously to magical strength and numbers. There were, for instance, different väki of water, forests, and graveyards.


title: Finnish paganism

text: Väkis could become angry if people acted in a disrespectful manner in their area. For example, cursing close to water made the väki of water angry. When angry, väkis could cause diseases and other misfortune to befall the human victim. Some väkis were always angry, like the väki of fire, explaining why every time you touch fire it burns, no matter how respectful you are around it.


title: Finnish paganism

text: Each tribe of väkis belonged to specific environments and if they were misplaced, problems occurred. For example, most väkis were misplaced if they attached to a human being, and they made the human being ill because they were in the wrong place. Illnesses were removed by sending väkis back to their right places. Shamans who cured diseases were returning the cosmic balance. For example, it was believed that on contact with the ground, as in falling on one's face, diseases could spread to the human, caused by the "väki" of the earth. Similarly, löyly (sauna steam) was believed to contain a väki spirit (löylyn henki), which could cause open wounds to get infected.


title: Finnish paganism

text: According to the concept of väki being divided in two (into power and folk of haltijas) the ancient Finns believed that the world was totally animistic in that no force of nature or intelligent life existed without väkis or haltijas. In other words, nothing happened in the universe without it being caused by a group of spirits. Even a person's soul consisted of many spirits.


title: Finnish paganism

text: The pagan Finnish belief about the soul dictated that the human soul is composed of three different parts: "henki", "luonto" and "itse". Each of the three were autonomous beings on their own. Similar beliefs about multiple autonomous souls are found amongst other peoples speaking Uralic languages, such as the Khanty and Mansi, who believe in two souls: the shadow and the "lili" (löyly).


title: Finnish paganism

text: "Henki" (translated as "life", "breath" or "spirit", sometimes also referred to as "löyly") was a person's life force, which presented itself as breathing, the beating of one's heart and the warmth of their body. "Henki" was received prior to birth and it left at the moment of death. The word "hengetön" (lit. "one without henki") can be used as a synonym for dead in the Finnish language even now.


title: Finnish paganism

text: "Luonto" (translated as "nature") was a guardian spirit or protector. "Luonto" has also been referred to as the "haltija" of a person. A strong willed, artistic or otherwise talented person was believed to have a strong "haltija" who granted them good luck and skills to complete their tasks well. A weak "luonto" could be strengthened by various spells and rituals. "Luonto" could leave a person's body without the person dying, but its lengthened absence would cause problems, such as alcoholism and other addictions. Unlike "henki", "luonto" was not received prior to birth but instead either at the time of getting the first teeth or being given a name. A newborn child was thus considered to be particularly vulnerable. These concepts share similar basics with the idea of "hamr" (life force) and "Hamingja" (luck) in Norse belief.


title: Finnish paganism

text: "Itse" was a spirit received at the time of birth or a few days after. It was believed to define one's personality and receiving "itse" made one a person. In modern-day Finnish the word "itse" means "self", but in old days "itse" was different from one's self, "minuus". Like "luonto", "itse" could leave one's body without the person dying but long absence would cause illnesses and misery. Depressions, for instance, was seen as a result of having lost one's "itse". If a person was diagnosed to be "itsetön" or "luonnoton" (without one's "itse" or without one's "luonto"), a shaman or a sage could try locating the missing part of the soul and bring it back. Although "itse" and "luonto" were usually lost after a traumatising event, it was possible to purposefully separate one's "itse" from their body. This was required if a missing part of the soul needed to be found. "Itse" could also leave the body to appear as an "etiäinen" (a sort of false arrival apparition). At the time of a person's death their "itse" joined the other deceased of the family or, in some cases, stayed among the living as a ghost; much like the Norse concept of "Fylgja" (follower).


title: Finnish paganism

text: In some traditions, it was a habit to pause at a half-way point while transporting the dead body, from the dwelling to the graveyard. Here, a karsikko-marking was made on a big pine tree. The marking was for people to remember the person; and in the event that the spirit were to awaken and try to make its way back home from the graveyard, it would see its own karsikko-marking, then realize that it is dead and instead try to find the path to the spirit realm. A forest with karsikko-marked trees was a kind of supernatural barrier between dwellings of the living and the burial grounds.


title: Finnish paganism

text: After a person died there was a transitional period of thirty to forty days while their soul searched Tuonela, the land of dead, and tried to find their place there. During this period, the soul could visit its living relatives either as a ghost or in the form of an animal.


title: Finnish paganism

text: The soul visited relatives especially if it was unhappy. To please an unhappy soul, one would show respect by not speaking ill of the deceased or by having a sacrifice in


title: Finnish paganism

text: After this transitional period, the soul moved permanently into Tuonela. However, the soul could still come back if it were unhappy, or if it were asked to return by its relatives who needed help.


title: Finnish paganism

text: Some souls were not able to settle down or were not welcomed in Tuonela, and they continued haunting, i.e. bastard children who were killed and buried outside a cemetery usually ended up as permanent haunters of some place, typically screaming in terror, until someone digs up their bodies, blesses them, and buries them in a graveyard.


title: Finnish paganism

text: People were afraid of ghosts, but spirits of ancestors could also help their living relatives, and they were asked to help. A shaman could be sent to Tuonela to ask for knowledge of spirits or even to take a spirit to the world of living as luonto. A Spirit of the dead had to be honoured by giving him/her sacrifices. Places where sacrifices were given to ancestors were called Hiisi ( = "sacred forest", also a kind of open air temple, often included the Offering-stone, "uhrikivi", collective monument for the dead of the family). Christianity held hiisi to be evil creatures and places. The old sacred places were often desecrated by being used as the building sites for the churches of the new religion, and the old sacred trees were hacked down.


title: Finnish paganism

text: The Finns believed in a place of afterlife called Tuonela, or sometimes Manala. In most traditions it was situated underground or at the bottom of a lake, though sometimes it was said to exist on the other side of a dark river. Tuonela was ruled over by the god Tuoni, and his wife, the goddess Tuonetar.


title: Finnish paganism

text: Tuonela was a dark and lifeless place, where the dead were in a state of eternal sleep. Shamans were sometimes able to reach the spirits of their dead ancestors by traveling to Tuonela in a state of trance created by rituals. He had to make his way over the Tuonela river by tricking the ferryman. While in Tuonela, the shaman had to be careful not to get caught: the living were not welcome there. Shamans who were caught could end up decaying in the stomach of a giant pikefish with no hope of returning to normal life. If the shaman died during the trance ritual, it was believed that he had been caught by the guards at Tuonela.


title: Finnish paganism

text: The pagan Finns had many myths about their gods and their great heroes. Because they lived in a non-literate society, the stories were taught orally as folklore, and they were not written down. Finnish mythology survived Christianisation by being told as myths. Many of these myths were later written down in the 19th century as the "Kalevala", which was created to be a national epic of Finland by Elias Lönnrot.


title: Finnish paganism

text: Because of the very nature of life in prehistoric, ancient, and medieval Finland, the Finns relied heavily on hunting for survival. As such the animals that they hunted became vital to their survival, and they were treated with respect.


title: Finnish paganism

text: The bear was considered sacred in the pre-Christian beliefs of the Finns. As noted by DuBois, "the Finno-Ugric ceremonial bear hunt sought to remove a fierce competitor from the local environment, while winning its power for the hunter." After the flesh was eaten, the bones were buried, and the skull placed on a venerated pine tree known as kallohonka. Peijaiset are also an important part of other Uralic cultures, such as the Khanty-Mansi.


title: Finnish paganism

text: In Karelia and Eastern Finland, before going hunting, hunters would pray to the emuu, the ancestral mother of the animal species being hunted, for help. The word "emuu" is Karelian and is related to the word "emo" "animal mother". Each species had its own emuu.


title: Finnish paganism

text: From ancient drawings, petroglyphs, it is clear that the elk was a very important animal. Elk is also very important to other peoples of the region, such as the Komis, who depict their sky god Jenmar as half-human and half-elk. It appears much more than bears do, and it is theorised that the bear was such a holy animal that it was forbidden to depict it. Also, the bear's name was almost forbidden to say, so many euphemisms were developed. The most usual Finnish word for bear in modern language, "karhu", is just one of the many euphemisms, and it means "rough fur." Among the many names of bear "otso" is probably the original "real" name, as suggested by the wide spread of the word otso and related words among many of the Uralic languages. Many euphemisms for bear are local.


title: Finnish paganism

text: Many water birds were holy for Finns and other Baltic Finns. They were often depicted on petroglyphs. It was believed that if you killed a water bird, you would die soon after. The holiest water bird was the swan. With its long neck, it could look to all the levels of the world, including "Tuonela", the land of the dead. Birds are found often in Uralic mythology. For example, there are many stories about a bird creating the world. A very common Uralic myth is where a hunter (Finnish Lemminkäinen, Mari Salij) travels to the underworld in order to marry a woman and comes across the primordial waterbird on the river of the underworld, the hunter shoots the waterbird with his bow, but the waterbird escapes and terrible things happen to the hunter. In many traditions it was believed that the world was created by the egg of a bird. In other traditions it was believed that the world was created on mud that bird took in its beak while diving.


title: Finnish paganism

text: In Karelia it was believed that a bird brings the soul to a newborn baby, and that the same bird takes the soul with it when that person dies. This soul-carrying bird was called "sielulintu", "soul-bird". In some traditions people carried artifacts depicting their sielulintu. Sielulintu was believed to guard their souls while they slept. After the person died, the artifact-bird was inserted to sit on the cross at the person's grave. Such crosses with soul birds still exist in graveyards in Karelia. This is one example how Christian and Pagan beliefs still existed side by side hundreds of years after the Christianisation of the Finnish and Karelian people.


title: Finnish paganism

text: It is believed by some scholars that shamanism played a big part in Finnish paganism, as it did (and still does) in the Siberian paganism to the east of Finland. A "tietäjä" (shaman, literally "one who knows") is a wise and respected person in the community, believed to have a special relationship with the spirit world. Shamans go into a trance to commune with spirits and ancestors or to take a journey into the spirit realm. In trances shamans may ask their ancestors or various nature spirits for guidance. They believe that nature has the answers to all questions. "Tietäjä"s or healers were typically men of high standing in the local society, often landed peasants; it was thought that wealth was evidence of magic powers.


title: Finnish paganism

text: Among the Finns' western neighbours, the Norse of Scandinavia, it was a common belief that the Finns were wizards. In the Norse sagas, inclusion of a Finnish element almost always signifies a supernatural aspect to the story. Finns were also called Kvens. However, "Finn" in some Norse sagas could also mean the Sami and not the Finns. In the iron age, the nomadic Sami people inhabited much of the same lands as Finns, and the Sami warlocks ("Lapin noita") were a parallel and coexisting tradition. Sami warlocks inherited their position and traditions through a paternal line.


title: Finnish paganism

text: According to tales, foreign seafarers bought ropes tied in knots from Finns. By opening the knot a bit, a seaman could raise a wind to make his ship go faster. However, opening it too fast would raise a storm. Finnish wizards were known and feared by neighbouring peoples around the Baltic Sea.


title: Finnish paganism

text: Christian missionaries entered Finland in the 11th century. The native pagan religion still persisted, until Christianity was strengthened under Swedish influence in the 12th century. In the 13th century a crusade was launched against the last pagans in the country by Birger Jarl. However, old traditions were only slowly rooted out and elements of it long persisted alongside the new faith. Particularly, the cult of Ukko remained popular: there are records from the 17th century of peasants holding festives to honour Ukko, and in some places these traditions may have persisted until the 19th century.


title: Finnish paganism

text: In the seventeenth to nineteenth centuries, Finnish folk magic often incorporated chanted or sung incantations. These incantations might bring healing or presage a tietäjä's ecstatic trance. In the twentieth century, an American researcher in Minnesota reported sung charms for summoning cattle, avoiding hiccups, and avoiding cold based on interviews with a Finnish immigrant.


title: Finnish paganism

text: In the 20th century, with the rise of the Neopagan movement across the world, Finnish Neopaganism arose as a reconstructed form of the old religion. It is mainly practiced in Finland where it has had an official minority religion status since 2013. Finnish neopaganism accounts for a relatively small percentage of the population, the majority being members of the state Lutheran Church or professing no religion. In 2020, the registered religious community of Finnish neopaganism, Karhun kansa ("The Folk of the Bear"), had approximately 80 members.


title: United States Department of Labor

text: The United States Department of Labor (DOL) is one of the executive departments of the U.S. federal government. It is responsible for the administration of federal laws governing occupational safety and health, wage and hour standards, unemployment benefits, reemployment services, and occasionally, economic statistics. It is headed by the Secretary of Labor, who reports directly to the President of the United States and is a member of the president's Cabinet.


title: United States Department of Labor

text: The purpose of the Department of Labor is to foster, promote, and develop the well being of the wage earners, job seekers, and retirees of the United States; improve working conditions; advance opportunities for profitable employment; and assure work-related benefits and rights. In carrying out this mission, the Department of Labor administers and enforces more than 180 federal laws and thousands of federal regulations. These mandates and the regulations that implement them cover many workplace activities for about 10 million employers and 125 million workers. Marty Walsh is the current secretary, having been confirmed by the United States Senate on March 22, 2021.


title: United States Department of Labor

text: The department's headquarters is housed in the Frances Perkins Building, named in honor of Frances Perkins, the Secretary of Labor from 1933 to 1945.


title: United States Department of Labor

text: In 1884, the U.S. Congress first established a Bureau of Labor Statistics with the Bureau of Labor Act, to collect information about labor and employment. This bureau was under the Department of the Interior. The Bureau started collecting economic data in 1884, and published their first report in 1886. Later, in 1888, the Bureau of Labor became an independent Department of Labor, but lacked executive rank.


title: United States Department of Labor

text: In February 1903, it became a bureau again when the Department of Commerce and Labor was established. United States President William Howard Taft signed the March 4, 1913, bill (the last day of his presidency), establishing the Department of Labor as a Cabinet-level department. William B. Wilson was appointed as the first Secretary of Labor on March 5, 1913, by President Wilson. In October 1919, Secretary Wilson chaired the first meeting of the International Labour Organization even though the U.S. was not yet a member.


title: United States Department of Labor

text: In September 1916, the Federal Employees' Compensation Act introduced benefits to workers who are injured or contract illnesses in the workplace. The act established an agency responsible for federal workers’ compensation, which was transferred to the Labor Department in the 1940s and has become known as the Office of Workers' Compensation Programs.


title: United States Department of Labor

text: Frances Perkins, the first female cabinet member, was appointed to be Secretary of Labor by President Roosevelt on March 4, 1933. Perkins served for 12 years, and became the longest-serving Secretary of Labor.


title: United States Department of Labor

text: During the John F. Kennedy Administration, planning was undertaken to consolidate most of the department's offices, then scattered around more than 20 locations. In the mid‑1960s, construction on the "New Labor Building" began and construction was finished in 1975. In 1980, it was named in honor of Frances Perkins.


title: United States Department of Labor

text: President Lyndon B. Johnson asked Congress to consider the idea of reuniting Commerce and Labor. He argued that the two departments had similar goals and that they would have more efficient channels of communication in a single department. However, Congress never acted on it.


title: United States Department of Labor

text: In the 1970s, following the civil rights movement, the Labor Department under Secretary George P. Shultz made a concerted effort to promote racial diversity in unions.


title: United States Department of Labor

text: In 1978, the Department of Labor created the Philip Arnow Award, intended to recognize outstanding career employees such as the eponymous Philip Arnow. In the same year, Carin Clauss became the department's first female solicitor of the department.


title: United States Department of Labor

text: In 2010, a local of the American Federation of Government Employees stated their unhappiness that a longstanding flextime program reduced under the George W. Bush administration had not been restored under the Obama administration. Department officials said the program was modern and fair and that it was part of ongoing contract negotiations with the local.


title: United States Department of Labor

text: In August 2010, the Partnership for Public Service ranked the Department of Labor 23rd out of 31 large agencies in its annual "Best Places to Work in the Federal Government" list.


title: United States Department of Labor

text: In December 2010, then–Department of Labor Secretary Hilda Solis was named the chair of the U.S. Interagency Council on Homelessness, of which Labor has been a member since its beginnings in 1987.


title: United States Department of Labor

text: In July 2011, Ray Jefferson, Assistant Secretary for VETS resigned due to his involvement in a contracting scandal.


title: United States Department of Labor

text: In July 2013, Tom Perez was confirmed as Secretary of Labor. According to remarks by Perez at his swearing-in ceremony, "Boiled down to its essence, the Department of Labor is the department of opportunity."


title: United States Department of Labor

text: In April 2017, Alexander Acosta was confirmed as the new Secretary of Labor. In July 2019, Acosta resigned due to a scandal involving his role in the plea deal with Jeffrey Epstein. He was succeeded on September 30, 2019, by Eugene Scalia. Scalia served until the beginning of the Biden administration on January 20, 2021. The present Secretary is Marty Walsh.


title: United States Department of Labor

text: In the latest Center for Effective Government analysis of 15 federal agencies which receive the most Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) requests, published in 2015 (using 2012 and 2013 data, the most recent years available), the Labor Department earned a D by scoring 63 out of a possible 100 points, i.e., did not earn a satisfactory overall grade.


title: May 2022 lunar eclipse

text: A total lunar eclipse occurred on 15–16 May 2022, the first of two total lunar eclipses in 2022. the event occurred near lunar perigee; as a result, this event was referred to some in media coverage as a "super flower blood moon" and elsewhere as a "super blood moon", a supermoon that coincides with a total lunar eclipse. This was the longest total lunar eclipse visible from nearly all of North America since August 17, 1989 until the next eclipse on November 8.


title: May 2022 lunar eclipse

text: The eclipse was a dark one with the northern limb of the Moon passing through the center of Earth's shadow. This was the first central eclipse of Lunar Saros 131.


title: May 2022 lunar eclipse

text: This lunar eclipse was the third of an "almost tetrad", the others being 26 May 2021 (T), 19 Nov 2021 (P) and 08 Nov 2022 (T).


title: May 2022 lunar eclipse

text: The eclipse was completely visible over most of North and South America, seen rising over Northwest North America, and the Pacific Ocean, and setting over Africa and Europe. It was the longest eclipse in prime time on the US west coast this century. Because of thunderstorms, clouds covered regions of the US.


title: May 2022 lunar eclipse

text: This is the first of the series that passes through the center of the Earth's shadow. The last occurrence was on May 2004 lunar eclipse. The next occurrence is May 2040 lunar eclipse.


title: May 2022 lunar eclipse

text: This eclipse is the third of four Metonic cycle lunar eclipses on the same date, 15–16 May, each separated by 19 years.


title: May 2022 lunar eclipse

text: The Moon's path through the Earth's shadow near its descending node progresses southward through each sequential eclipse. The second and third are total eclipses.


title: May 2022 lunar eclipse

text: A lunar eclipse will be preceded and followed by solar eclipses by 9 years and 5.5 days (a half saros). This lunar eclipse is related to two annular solar eclipses of Solar Saros 138.


title: Banzai Pipeline

text: The Banzai Pipeline, or simply Pipeline or Pipe, is a surf reef break located in Hawaii, off Ehukai Beach Park in Pupukea on O'ahu's North Shore. A reef break is an area in the ocean where waves start to break once they reach the shallows of a reef. Pipeline is known for huge waves that break in shallow water just above a sharp and cavernous reef, forming large, hollow, thick curls of water that surfers can tube ride. There are three reefs at Pipeline in progressively deeper water farther out to sea that activate according to the increasing size of approaching ocean swells.


title: Banzai Pipeline

text: The location's compound name combines the name of the surf break (Pipeline) with the name of the beach fronting it (Banzai Beach). It got its name in December 1961, when surfing legend producer Bruce Brown was driving up north with Californians Phil Edwards and Mike Diffenderfer. Brown stopped at the site to film Edwards catching several waves. At the time, there was a construction project on an underground pipeline on adjacent Kamehameha Highway, and Diffenderfer made the suggestion to name the break "Pipeline". The name was first used in Bruce Brown's movie "Surfing Hollow Days." It also lent its name to a 1963 hit "Pipeline" by surf music rockers The Chantays.


title: Banzai Pipeline

text: The reef at Pipe is a flat tabletop reef, with several caverns on the inside, creating a giant air bubble that pops on the front of the wave when the wave lurches upwards just before breaking. There are also several jagged, underwater lava spires that can injure fallen surfers. When sand accumulates on the reef at Pipeline, the waves can become unpredictable and violently "close out," (break all at once instead of peeling in a way that allows a surfer to ride the wave). A strong swell (a formation of long-wavelength surface waves) from the west clears out the sand in the reef, and after that, a strong north swell can give rise to the best waves.


title: Banzai Pipeline

text: There are four waves associated with Pipeline. The left (which means the wave breaks from left to right from the perspective of a watcher on shore) known as Pipeline (a.k.a. First Reef) is the most commonly surfed and photographed. When the reef is hit by a north swell, the peak (the highest tipping-point of the wave where it begins to curl) becomes an A-frame shaped wave, with Pipe closing out a bit and peeling off left, and the equally famous Backdoor Pipeline peeling away to the right at the same time. As the size at Pipe increases, over 12 feet usually, Second Reef on the outside (further out into the deeper ocean waters) starts breaking, with longer walls (the unbroken face of the wave that the surfer slides across), and more size. At an extreme size, an area called Third Reef even further outside starts to break with giant waves.


title: Banzai Pipeline

text: Numerous surfers and photographers have been killed at Pipeline, including Jon Mozo and Tahitian Malik Joyeux, who was famous for his heavy charging (gutsy surfing) at Teahupo'o. Many people have died or been seriously injured at Pipeline. Pipeline has been called one of the world's deadliest waves. Its average wave is 9 feet (3 m), but it can be as tall as 20 feet. Especially perilous are sections of shallow reef known as "Off the Wall" and "Backdoor".


title: Banzai Pipeline

text: A few of the notable surfers at Pipeline are Phil Edwards (who is credited as the first person to surf it), Butch Van Artsdalen, Gerry Lopez, Mike Stewart, Shaun Tomson, Mark Richards, Wayne 'Rabbit' Bartholomew, Peter Townend, Michael Ho, Simon Anderson, Tom Carroll, Sunny Garcia, Kelly Slater, Danny Fuller, Jamie O'Brien, Rob Machado, Andy Irons, Mick Fanning, Gabriel Medina, John John Florence and Italo Ferreira.


title: Banzai Pipeline

text: The top surfing competitions at this spot include the Pipe Masters (board surfing), the Volcom Pipe Pro, the IBA Pipeline Pro (bodyboarding), and the Pipeline Bodysurfing Classic. Surfers can also submit videos to Surfline's "Wave of the Winter" competition. The competition focuses on beaches on Oahu's north shore, including Pipeline.


title: Influenza pandemic

text: An influenza pandemic is an epidemic of an influenza virus that spreads across a large region (either multiple continents or worldwide) and infects a large proportion of the population. There have been six major influenza epidemics in the last 140 years, with the 1918 flu pandemic being the most severe; this is estimated to have been responsible for the deaths of 50–100 million people. The most recent, the 2009 swine flu pandemic, resulted in under 300,000 deaths and is considered relatively mild. These pandemics occur irregularly.


title: Influenza pandemic

text: Influenza pandemics occur when a new strain of the influenza virus is transmitted to humans from another animal species. Species that are thought to be important in the emergence of new human strains are pigs, chickens and ducks. These novel strains are unaffected by any immunity people may have to older strains of human influenza and can therefore spread extremely rapidly and infect very large numbers of people. Influenza A viruses can occasionally be transmitted from wild birds to other species, causing outbreaks in domestic poultry, and may give rise to human influenza pandemics. The propagation of influenza viruses throughout the world is thought in part to be by bird migrations, though commercial shipments of live bird products might also be implicated, as well as human travel patterns.


title: Influenza pandemic

text: The World Health Organization (WHO) has produced a six-stage classification that describes the process by which a novel influenza virus moves from the first few infections in humans through to a pandemic. This starts with the virus mostly infecting animals, with a few cases where animals infect people, then moves through the stage where the virus begins to spread directly between people, and ends with a pandemic when infections from the new virus have spread worldwide.


title: Influenza pandemic

text: One strain of virus that may produce a pandemic in the future is a highly pathogenic variation of the H5N1 subtype of influenza A virus. On 11 June 2009, a new strain of H1N1 influenza was declared to be a pandemic (Stage 6) by the WHO after evidence of spreading in the southern hemisphere. The 13 November 2009 worldwide update by the WHO stated that "[a]s of 8 November 2009, worldwide more than 206 countries and overseas territories or communities have reported [503,536] laboratory confirmed cases of pandemic influenza H1N1 2009, including over 6,250 deaths."


title: Influenza pandemic

text: Influenza, commonly known as the flu, is an infectious disease of birds and mammals. It was thought to be caused by comets, earthquakes, volcanoes, cosmic dust, the rising and setting of the sun, vapors arising from the air and ground, or a blast from the stars. Now we know that it is caused by an RNA virus of the family Orthomyxoviridae (the influenza viruses). In humans, common symptoms of influenza infection are fever, sore throat, muscle pains, severe headache, coughing, and weakness and fatigue. In more serious cases, influenza causes pneumonia, which can be fatal, particularly in young children and the elderly. While sometimes confused with the common cold, influenza is a much more severe disease and is caused by a different type of virus. Although nausea and vomiting can be produced, especially in children, these symptoms are more characteristic of the unrelated gastroenteritis, which is sometimes called "stomach flu" or "24-hour flu."


title: Influenza pandemic

text: Typically, influenza is transmitted from infected mammals through the air by coughs or sneezes, creating aerosols containing the virus, and from infected birds through their droppings. Influenza can also be transmitted by saliva, nasal secretions, feces, and blood. Healthy individuals can become infected if they breathe in a virus-laden aerosol directly, or if they touch their eyes, nose or mouth after touching any of the aforementioned bodily fluids (or surfaces contaminated with those fluids). Flu viruses can remain infectious for about one week at human body temperature, over 30 days at 0 °C (32 °F), and indefinitely at very low temperatures (such as lakes in northeast Siberia). Most influenza strains can be inactivated easily by disinfectants and detergents.


title: Influenza pandemic

text: Flu spreads around the world in seasonal epidemics. Ten pandemics were recorded before the Spanish flu of 1918. Three influenza pandemics occurred during the 20th century and killed tens of millions of people, with each of these pandemics being caused by the appearance of a new strain of the virus in humans. Often, these new strains result from the spread of an existing flu virus to humans from other animal species, so close proximity between humans and animals can promote epidemics. In addition, epidemiological factors, such as the WWI practice of packing soldiers with severe influenza illness into field hospitals while soldiers with mild illness stayed outside on the battlefield, are an important determinant of whether or not a new strain of influenza virus will spur a pandemic. (During the 1918 Spanish flu pandemic, this practice served to promote the evolution of more virulent viral strains over those that produced mild illness.) When it first killed humans in Asia in the 1990s, a deadly avian strain of H5N1 posed a great risk for a new influenza pandemic; however, this virus did not mutate to spread easily between people.


title: Influenza pandemic

text: Vaccinations against influenza are most commonly given to high-risk humans in industrialized countries and to farmed poultry. The most common human vaccine is the trivalent influenza vaccine that contains purified and inactivated material from three viral strains. Typically this vaccine includes material from two influenza A virus subtypes and one influenza B virus strain. A vaccine formulated for one year may be ineffective in the following year, since the influenza virus changes rapidly over time and different strains become dominant. Antiviral drugs can be used to treat influenza, with neuraminidase inhibitors being particularly effective.


title: Influenza pandemic

text: Variants of "Influenza A virus" are identified and named according to the isolate that they are like and thus are presumed to share lineage (example Fujian flu virus like); according to their typical host (example Human flu virus); according to their subtype (example H3N2); and according to their deadliness (e.g., Low Pathogenic as discussed below). So, a flu from a virus similar to the isolate A/Fujian/411/2002(H3N2) is called Fujian flu, human flu, and H3N2 flu.


title: Influenza pandemic

text: Variants are sometimes named according to the species (host) the strain is endemic in or adapted to. Some variants named using this convention are:


title: Influenza pandemic

text: Avian variants have also sometimes been named according to their deadliness in poultry, especially chickens:


title: Influenza pandemic

text: The Influenza A virus subtypes are labeled according to an H number (for hemagglutinin) and an N number (for neuraminidase). Each subtype virus has mutated into a variety of strains with differing pathogenic profiles; some pathogenic to one species but not others, some pathogenic to multiple species. Most known strains are extinct strains. For example, the annual flu subtype H3N2 no longer contains the strain that caused the Hong Kong flu.


title: Influenza pandemic

text: Influenza A viruses are negative sense, single-stranded, segmented RNA viruses. "There are 16 different HA antigens (H1 to H16) and nine different NA antigens (N1 to N9) for influenza A. Until recently, 15 HA types had been recognized, but recently two new types were isolated: a new type (H16) was isolated from black-headed gulls caught in Sweden and the Netherlands in 1999 and reported in the literature in 2005." "The other, H17, was isolated from fruit bats caught in Guatemala and reported in the literature in 2013."


title: Influenza pandemic

text: Some pandemics are relatively minor such as the one in 1957 called Asian flu (1–4 million dead, depending on source). Others have a higher Pandemic Severity Index whose severity warrants more comprehensive social isolation measures.


title: Influenza pandemic

text: The 1918 pandemic killed tens of millions and sickened hundreds of millions; the loss of this many people in the population caused upheaval and psychological damage to many people. There were not enough doctors, hospital rooms, or medical supplies for the living as they contracted the disease. Dead bodies were often left unburied as few people were available to deal with them. There can be great social disruption as well as a sense of fear. Efforts to deal with pandemics can leave a great deal to be desired because of human selfishness, lack of trust, illegal behavior, and ignorance. For example, in the 1918 pandemic: "This horrific disconnect between reassurances and reality destroyed the credibility of those in authority. People felt they had no one to turn to, no one to rely on, no one to trust."


title: Influenza pandemic

text: It is only a matter of a few hours then until death comes [...]. It is horrible. One can stand it to see one, two or twenty men die, but to see these poor devils dropping like flies [...]. We have been averaging about 100 deaths per day [...]. Pneumonia means in about all cases death [...]. We have lost an outrageous number of Nurses and Drs. It takes special trains to carry away the dead. For several days there were no coffins and the bodies piled up something fierce [...].


title: Influenza pandemic

text: Flu pandemics typically come in waves. The 1889–1890 and 1918–1920 flu pandemics each came in three or four waves of increasing lethality. But within a wave, mortality was greater at the beginning of the wave.


title: Influenza pandemic

text: In U.S. Army camps where reasonably reliable statistics were kept, case mortality often exceeded 5 percent, and in some circumstances exceeded 10 percent. In the British Army in India, case mortality for white troops was 9.6 percent, for Indian troops 21.9 percent. In isolated human populations, the virus killed at even higher rates. In the Fiji islands, it killed 14 percent of the entire population in 16 days. In Labrador and Alaska, it killed at least one-third of the entire native population.


title: Influenza pandemic

text: A 1921 book lists nine influenza pandemics prior to the 1889–1890 flu, the first in 1510. A more modern source lists six.


title: Influenza pandemic

text: The 1889–1890 pandemic, often referred to as the "Asiatic flu" or "Russian flu", killed about 1 million people out of a world population of about 1.5 billion.


title: Influenza pandemic

text: It was the last great pandemic of the 19th century, and is among the deadliest pandemics in history. The most reported effects of the pandemic took place from October 1889 to December 1890, with recurrences in 1891 to 1895.


title: Influenza pandemic

text: The 1918 flu pandemic, commonly referred to as the Spanish flu, was a category 5 influenza pandemic caused by an unusually severe and deadly Influenza A virus strain of subtype H1N1.


title: Influenza pandemic

text: The Spanish flu pandemic lasted from 1918 to 1920. Various estimates say it killed between 17 million and 100 million people This pandemic has been described as "the greatest medical holocaust in history" and may have killed as many people as the Black Death, although the Black Death is estimated to have killed over a fifth of the world's population at the time, a significantly higher proportion. This huge death toll was caused by an extremely high infection rate of up to 50% and the extreme severity of the symptoms, suspected to be caused by cytokine storms. Indeed, symptoms in 1918 were so unusual that initially influenza was misdiagnosed as dengue, cholera, or typhoid. One observer wrote, "One of the most striking of the complications was hemorrhage from mucous membranes, especially from the nose, stomach, and intestine. Bleeding from the ears and petechial hemorrhages in the skin also occurred." The majority of deaths were from bacterial pneumonia, a secondary infection caused by influenza, but the virus also killed people directly, causing massive hemorrhages and edema in the lung.


title: Influenza pandemic

text: The Spanish flu pandemic was truly global, spreading even to the Arctic and remote Pacific islands. The unusually severe disease killed between 10 and 20% of those infected, as opposed to the more usual flu epidemic mortality rate of 0.1%. Another unusual feature of this pandemic was that it mostly killed young adults, with 99% of pandemic influenza deaths occurring in people under 65, and more than half in young adults 20 to 40 years old. This is unusual since influenza is normally most deadly to the very young (under age 2) and the very old (over age 70). The total mortality of the 1918–1920 pandemic is estimated to be between 17 and 100 million people, constituting approximately 1–6% of the world's population. As many as 25 million may have been killed in the first 25 weeks; in contrast, HIV/AIDS has killed 25 million in its first 25 "years".


title: Influenza pandemic

text: The Asian flu was a category 2 flu pandemic outbreak caused by a strain of H2N2 that originated in China in early 1957, lasting until 1958. The virus originated from a mutation in wild ducks combining with a pre-existing human strain. The virus was first identified in Guizhou in late February; by mid-March it had spread across the entire mainland. It was not until the virus had reached Hong Kong in April, however, that the world was alerted to the unusual situation, when the international press began to report on the outbreak. The World Health Organization was officially informed when the virus arrived in Singapore, which operated the only influenza surveillance laboratory in Southeast Asia, in early May. From that point on, as the virus continued to sweep the region, the WHO remained attuned to the developing outbreak and helped coordinate the global response for the duration of the pandemic.


title: Influenza pandemic

text: This was the first pandemic to occur during what is considered the "era of modern virology". One significant development since the 1918 pandemic was the identification of the causative agent behind the flu. Later, it was recognized that the influenza virus changes over time, typically only slightly (a process called "antigenic drift"), sometimes significantly enough to result in a new subtype ("antigenic shift"). Within weeks of the report out of Hong Kong, laboratories in the United States, the United Kingdom, and Australia had analyzed the virus and concluded that it was a novel strain of influenza A. Chinese researchers had already come to a similar conclusion in March, but as China was not a member of the WHO nor a part of its network of National Influenza Centers, this information did not reach the rest of the world, a fact which the WHO would lament after the pandemic.


title: Influenza pandemic

text: The virus swept across the Middle East, Africa, and the Southern Hemisphere in the middle months of the year, causing widespread outbreaks. By the end of September, nearly the entire inhabited world had been infected or at least seeded with the virus. Around this time, extensive epidemics developed in the Northern Hemisphere following the opening of schools, generally peaking in North America and Europe in October. Some countries experienced a second wave in the final months of the year; Japan experienced a particularly severe resurgence in October. Influenza activity had largely subsided by the end of the year and remained apparently low during the first months of 1958, though some countries, such as the United States, experienced another rise in mortality from respiratory disease, of unclear origin.


title: Influenza pandemic

text: The disease tended to resemble seasonal influenza in its presentation; the WHO described it at the time as "uniformly benign". However, there was the potential for complications, of which there was some variability. Most deaths were a result of bacterial pneumonia, though cases of this condition were attenuated through the use of antibiotics that did not exist in 1918. There were also detailed accounts of fatal primary influenza pneumonia, with no indication of bacterial infection. Those with underlying conditions such as cardiovascular disease were at greater risk of developing these pneumonias; pregnant women were also vulnerable to complications. In general, the elderly experienced the greatest rates of mortality. Estimates of worldwide deaths vary widely depending on the source, ranging from 1 million to 4 million. Mortality in the US has been estimated between 60,000 and 80,000 deaths. Pandemic impact continued over several years in many countries, with Latin America experiencing considerable excess mortality through 1959. Chile experienced notably severe mortality over the course of two waves during this period.


title: Influenza pandemic

text: This was the most publicized influenza epidemic at the time of its occurrence. As the first pandemic to occur in the context of a global surveillance network, it was also the first time that preparations could be made ahead of an anticipated epidemic. Vaccination efforts were undertaken in some countries such as the US, though it is doubtful how successful such campaigns were with altering the courses of individual epidemics, mainly due to the timing of when the vaccines became widely available and how many people were able to be effectively immunized before the peak.


title: Influenza pandemic

text: The Hong Kong flu was a category 2 flu pandemic caused by a strain of H3N2 descended from H2N2 by antigenic shift, in which genes from multiple subtypes reassorted to form a new virus. This pandemic killed an estimated 1–4 million people worldwide. Those over 65 had the greatest death rates. In the US, there were about 100,000 deaths.


title: Influenza pandemic

text: The 1977 Russian flu was a relatively benign flu pandemic, mostly affecting population younger than the age of 26 or 25. It is estimated that 700,000 people died due to the pandemic worldwide. The cause was H1N1 virus strain, which was not seen after 1957 until its re-appearance in China and the Soviet Union in 1977. Genetic analysis and several unusual characteristics of the pandemic have prompted speculation that the virus was released to the public through a laboratory accident.


title: Influenza pandemic

text: An epidemic of influenza-like illness of unknown causation occurred in Mexico in March–April 2009. On 24 April 2009, following the isolation of an A/H1N1 influenza in seven ill patients in the southwest US, the WHO issued a statement on the outbreak of "influenza like illness" that confirmed cases of A/H1N1 influenza had been reported in Mexico, and that 20 confirmed cases of the disease had been reported in the US. The next day, the number of confirmed cases rose to 40 in the US, 26 in Mexico, six in Canada, and one in Spain. The disease spread rapidly through the rest of the spring, and by 3 May, a total of 787 confirmed cases had been reported worldwide.


title: Influenza pandemic

text: On 11 June 2009, the ongoing outbreak of Influenza A/H1N1, commonly referred to as swine flu, was officially declared by the WHO to be the first influenza pandemic of the 21st century and a new strain of Influenza A virus subtype H1N1 first identified in April 2009. It is thought to be a mutation (reassortment) of four known strains of influenza A virus subtype H1N1: one endemic in humans, one endemic in birds, and two endemic in pigs (swine). The rapid spread of this new virus was likely due to a general lack of pre-existing antibody-mediated immunity in the human population.


title: Influenza pandemic

text: On 1 November 2009, a worldwide update by the WHO stated that "199 countries and overseas territories/communities have officially reported a total of over 482,300 laboratory confirmed cases of the influenza pandemic H1N1 infection, that included 6,071 deaths." By the end of the pandemic, declared on 10 August 2010, there were more than 18,000 laboratory-confirmed deaths from H1N1. Due to inadequate surveillance and lack of healthcare in many countries, the actual total of cases and deaths was likely much higher than reported. Experts, including the WHO, have since agreed that an estimated 284,500 people were killed by the disease, about 15 times the number of deaths in the initial death toll.


title: Influenza pandemic

text: "Human influenza virus" usually refers to those subtypes that spread widely among humans. H1N1, H1N2, and H3N2 are the only known Influenza A virus subtypes currently circulating among humans.


title: Influenza pandemic

text: "About 52 key genetic changes distinguish avian influenza strains from those that spread easily among people, according to researchers in Taiwan, who analyzed the genes of more than 400 A type flu viruses." "How many mutations would make an avian virus capable of infecting humans efficiently, or how many mutations would render an influenza virus a pandemic strain, is difficult to predict. We have examined sequences from the 1918 strain, which is the only pandemic influenza virus that could be entirely derived from avian strains. Of the 52 species-associated positions, 16 have residues typical for human strains; the others remained as avian signatures. The result supports the hypothesis that the 1918 pandemic virus is more closely related to the avian influenza A virus than are other human influenza viruses."


title: Influenza pandemic

text: Highly pathogenic H5N1 avian influenza kills 50% of humans that catch it. In one case, a boy with H5N1 experienced diarrhea followed rapidly by a coma without developing respiratory or flu-like symptoms.


title: Influenza pandemic

text: The Influenza A virus subtypes that have been confirmed in humans, ordered by the number of known human pandemic deaths, are:


title: Influenza pandemic

text: H1N1 is currently endemic in both human and pig populations. A variant of H1N1 was responsible for the Spanish flu pandemic that killed some 50 million to 100 million people worldwide over about a year in 1918 and 1919. Controversy arose in October 2005, after the H1N1 genome was published in the journal, "Science". Many fear that this information could be used for bioterrorism.


title: Influenza pandemic

text: When he compared the 1918 virus with today's human flu viruses, Dr. Taubenberger noticed that it had alterations in just 25 to 30 of the virus's 4,400 amino acids. Those few changes turned a bird virus into a killer that could spread from person to person.


title: Influenza pandemic

text: In mid-April 2009, an H1N1 variant appeared in Mexico, with its center in Mexico City. By 26 April the variant had spread widely; with cases reported in Canada, the US, New Zealand, the UK, France, Spain and Israel. On 29 April the WHO raised the worldwide pandemic phase to 5. On 11 June 2009 the WHO raised the worldwide pandemic phase to 6, which means that the H1N1 swine flu has reached pandemic proportions, with nearly 30,000 confirmed cases worldwide. A 13 November 2009 worldwide update by the WHO states that "206 countries and overseas territories/communities have officially reported over 503,536 laboratory confirmed cases of the influenza pandemic H1N1 infection, including 6,250 deaths."


title: Influenza pandemic

text: The Asian Flu was a pandemic outbreak of H2N2 avian influenza that originated in China in 1957, spread worldwide that same year during which an influenza vaccine was developed, lasted until 1958 and caused between one and four million deaths.


title: Influenza pandemic

text: H3N2 is currently endemic in both human and pig populations. It evolved from H2N2 by antigenic shift and caused the Hong Kong flu pandemic that killed up to 750,000."An early-onset, severe form of influenza A H3N2 made headlines when it claimed the lives of several children in the United States in late 2003."


title: Influenza pandemic

text: The dominant strain of annual flu in January 2006 is H3N2. Measured resistance to the standard antiviral drugs amantadine and rimantadine in H3N2 has increased from 1% in 1994 to 12% in 2003 to 91% in 2005.


title: Influenza pandemic

text: [C]ontemporary human H3N2 influenza viruses are now endemic in pigs in southern China and can reassort with avian H5N1 viruses in this intermediate host.


title: Influenza pandemic

text: H7N7 has unusual zoonotic potential. In 2003 in Netherlands 89 people were confirmed to have H7N7 influenza virus infection following an outbreak in poultry on several farms. One death was recorded.


title: Influenza pandemic

text: H1N2 is currently endemic in both human and pig populations. The new H1N2 strain appears to have resulted from the reassortment of the genes of the currently circulating influenza H1N1 and H3N2 subtypes. The hemagglutinin protein of the H1N2 virus is similar to that of the currently circulating H1N1 viruses and the neuraminidase protein is similar to that of the current H3N2 viruses.


title: Influenza pandemic

text: The World Health Organization (WHO) developed a global influenza preparedness plan, which defines the stages of a pandemic, outlines WHO's role and makes recommendations for national measures before and during a pandemic.