title: Eton College controversies

text: In 1995, the National Lottery granted £3 million towards a new sports complex, estimated to cost £4.6m, to add to Eton's existing facilities of two swimming pools, thirty cricket pitches, twenty-four football and hockey pitches, tennis courts, a gymnasium, and so on. The school was to pay £200,000 and contribute 4.5 hectares of land, in return for exclusive use of the facilities during the daytime only, and there would be community use at other times. The Sports Council defended the deal, on the grounds that the whole community would benefit, while the Eton College bursar stated that the Windsor, Slough, and Eton Athletic Club was deprived and local people who were not pupils at the College did not have a world-class running track and facilities for training. Steve Osborn, director of the Safe Neighbourhoods Unit, described the decision as "staggering", given the background of a substantial reduction in youth services by councils across the country, a matter over which, however, neither Eton nor the Sports Council had any control. The facility, which became the Thames Valley Athletics Centre, opened in April 1999.


title: Eton College controversies

text: In October 2004, Sarah Forsyth claimed that she had been bullied by senior staff and had been unfairly dismissed by Eton College. She also claimed that she had been instructed to complete some of Prince Harry's coursework, to enable him to pass his A Level Art examination. As evidence, Forsyth provided secretly recorded conversations with both Prince Harry and her Head of Department, Ian Burke.


title: Eton College controversies

text: An employment tribunal in July 2005 found that she had been unfairly dismissed and criticised Burke for bullying her and for repeatedly changing his story. The tribunal also criticised the school for failing to produce its capability procedures. and criticised the Head Master, Tony Little, for not reviewing the case independently. However, it also criticised Forsyth's action in recording a conversation with Prince Harry as an abuse of teacher–student confidentiality and said "It is clear whichever version of the evidence is accepted that Mr Burke did ask the claimant to assist Prince Harry with text for his expressive art project... It is not part of this tribunal's function to determine whether or not it was legitimate." In response to the tribunal's ruling concerning the allegations about Prince Harry, the School issued a statement saying that Forsyth's claims "were dismissed for what they always have been—unfounded and irrelevant." A spokesperson from Clarence House said, "We are delighted that Harry has been totally cleared of cheating."


title: Eton College controversies

text: Sarah Forsyth asserted that Prince Harry was a "weak student" and that staff at Eton had conspired to help him cheat on examinations. Both Eton and Harry denied the claims. While the tribunal made no ruling on the cheating claim, it "accepted the prince had received help in preparing his A-level 'expressive' project, which he needed to pass to secure his place at Sandhurst."


title: Eton College controversies

text: Ms Forsyth told the tribunal that "I assumed I had been asked to do this because Prince Harry was a weak student." She said Harry's failings as a student were well known at Eton and she had been told that a teacher who marked Harry's entrance exam [to get into Eton] had been "desperate" to find points for which he could award marks.


title: Eton College controversies

text: In June 2003, Harry completed his education at Eton with two A-Levels, achieving a grade B in art and a grade D in geography. According to the BBC's September 2003 story entitled "Prince Harry: 'worst A-level grade at Eton' ", he "reportedly got the worst A-level grade of all the pupils at ... Eton. He got a D in his geography A-level, a grade no-one else in his year got."


title: Eton College controversies

text: In 2005, the Office of Fair Trading found fifty independent schools, including Eton, to have breached the Competition Act by "regularly and systematically" exchanging information about planned increases in school fees, which was collated and distributed among the schools by the bursar at Sevenoaks School. Following the investigation by the OFT, each school was required to pay around £70,000, totalling around £3.5 million, significantly less than the maximum possible fine. In addition, the schools together agreed to contribute another £3m to a new charitable educational fund. "The Guardian" questioned whether the charitable status of independent schools such as Eton should be reconsidered.


title: Eton College controversies

text: Jean Scott, the head of the Independent Schools Council, said the schools were following a long-established procedure in sharing the information with each other because independent schools were previously exempt from anti-cartel rules applied to business and that they were unaware of the change to the law, on which they had not been consulted. She wrote to John Vickers, the OFT director-general, saying, "They are not a group of businessmen meeting behind closed doors to fix the price of their products to the disadvantage of the consumer. They are schools that have quite openly continued to follow a long-established practice because they were unaware that the law had changed."


title: Eton College controversies

text: A Freedom of Information request in 2005 revealed that in 2004 Eton had received £2,652 in farm subsidies, under the European Union's Common Agricultural Policy. Asked to explain what the subsidy was for, the school told "The Guardian" it was "a bit of a mystery". It then asked the Rural Payments Agency to explain the payment, but no information was received. The "Panorama" television programme stated in March 2012 that the subsidies granted to Eton were for 'environmental improvements', in effect "being paid without having to do any farming at all".


title: Eton College controversies

text: Figures obtained by "The Daily Telegraph" had revealed that in 2010 thirty-seven applicants from Eton were accepted by Oxford, while most state schools had difficulty obtaining entry even for pupils with the country's most impressive exam results. According to "The Economist", Oxford and Cambridge admitted more Etonians each year than applicants from the whole country who qualify for free school meals. In April 2011, the Labour politician David Lammy said it was unfair that the University of Oxford had organised nine outreach events at Eton in 2010, although he admitted that it had, in fact, held fewer such events for Eton than for another public school, Wellington College. Nick Clegg, the Liberal Democrat leader, then accused Oxford and Cambridge of being "biased against poor students".


title: Eton College controversies

text: In May 2013, Eton College was criticised in several newspaper editorials about having asked potential scholarship students in 2011 how, if they were Prime Minister, they might defend the use of lethal force against twenty-five civilians by the Army, after two days of violent protests in which several policemen had been killed.


title: Eton College controversies

text: In July 2015, Eton accidentally sent emails to 400 prospective students, offering them conditional entrance to the school in September 2017. The email was intended for nine students, but an IT glitch caused it to be sent to 400 additional families, who did not all have a place. In response, the school issued the following statement: "This error was discovered within minutes and each family was immediately contacted to notify them that it should be disregarded and to apologise. We take this type of incident very seriously indeed and so a thorough investigation, overseen by the headmaster Tony Little and led by the tutor for admissions, is being carried out to find out exactly what went wrong and ensure it cannot happen again. Eton College offers its sincere apologies to those boys concerned and their families. We deeply regret the confusion and upset this must have caused."


title: Eton College controversies

text: In August 2017, the college's head of economics left after a breach of security in the "pre-U" exams, for which he was the principal examiner for his subject on behalf of Cambridge Assessment International Examinations (CAIE), which set the paper. As a result, CAIE gave Eton's candidates an "assessed mark" for the paper concerned, a procedure which adjusted their marks for an acceptable reason. In a letter to parents, the headmaster of Eton said "I am very sorry to be writing with this extremely unwelcome news. Regrettably this decision has had to be taken by the examination board because of the actions of a member of Eton's staff. This is a matter that, as headmaster, I have taken very seriously and Mr Tanweer has now left Eton's employment."


title: Eton College controversies

text: CAIE also disallowed papers written in the Art History examination, when it was discovered that one boy had been sent details in advance of the contents of the paper. He had shared this information with most of the boys taking the exam. This time, Eton's headmaster, Simon Henderson, said in a statement: “Following an investigation by Cambridge International Examinations, pupils at Eton who sat Pre-U art history this summer were deemed to be inadvertent recipients of confidential information in relation to one paper." He claimed that none of the boys had done anything wrong, and none of the staff at Eton were involved. CAIE confirmed that this case was linked to the scandal at Winchester, and that the exam material obtained by Winchester pupils had been shared with pupils at Eton. Following the allegations, the Schools minister asked for a review of rules for teachers who write exam questions.


title: Eton College controversies

text: In November 2020, English teacher Will Knowland was dismissed by the Eton Head Master, Simon Henderson, over a video talk entitled 'The Patriarchy Paradox', which questioned "current radical feminist orthodoxy" and “why woke just don’t work”. The video was originally meant to be an official school lecture by Knowland but when staff asked him not to make it he turned it into a video. On the basis of legal advice he was dismissed from the school for gross misconduct after he refused six times a request by the headmaster to remove it. Some current and old Etonians have petitioned for his reinstatement on the grounds of free speech; others published an open letter calling the video “intellectually feeble, misogynistic and vitriolic”. Luke Martin, the head of the Perspectives course, resigned from that role after Knowland's dismissal, taking issue with what he described as "so-called progressive ideology" and "indoctrination" being promoted at the school.


title: Eton College controversies

text: Professor Steven Pinker of Harvard University originally supported Knowland but when he saw the video withdrew his support, saying "Only after watching the video later did I discover that his lecture went well beyond citing science and instead was a polemical and tendentious defense of masculine virtues." Despite withdrawing full support, however, Pinker did not identify any factual inaccuracies in the lecture, said he could "imagine a pedagogical rationale" for it and added "I don't think he should be fired".


title: Eton College controversies

text: Knowland appealed his dismissal to the Eton Board of Governors which upheld his dismissal on 14 December 2020. The Free Speech Union wrote to the governing body of Eton warning them it intended to "make a complaint to the Charity Commission requesting a statutory inquiry into the College under s.46 of the Charities Act 2011", adding that "it is not enough merely for the College to say that it advances education through freedom of thought in a politically balanced way. It must actually do so." Lord Bellingham wrote to "The Times" to say that Old Etonians would be withholding over £2 million in donations to the College as long as Henderson remained in post because of his 'woeful handling of this issue'. Eton College has since regarded this incident as "a real kerfuffle."


title: Eton College controversies

text: In November 2022, Nigel Farage gave a talk at the school, to which a group of girls from a nearby state school had been invited. Farage later said the atmosphere during his talk was "riotous". Several reliable news sources reported allegations that the girls were subjected to misogynistic language and racial slurs and were booed, and that Eton College pupils had cheered Farage's "worst comments on migrants and Covid". The school apologised "unreservedly" for the "totally unacceptable" behaviour and said a number of its pupils had been "sanctioned" after an investigation.


title: Atlantic voyage of the predecessor of Mansa Musa

text: In 1324, while staying in Cairo during his hajj, Mansa Musa, the ruler of the Mali Empire, told an Egyptian official whom he had befriended that he had come to rule when his predecessor led a fleet in an attempt to cross the Atlantic Ocean and never returned. This account, recorded by the Arab historian al-Umari, has attracted considerable interest and speculation as a possible instance of pre-Columbian trans-oceanic contact. The voyage is popularly attributed to a Mansa Abu Bakr II, but no such mansa ever reigned. Rather, the voyage is inferred to have been undertaken by Mansa Muhammad ibn Qu.


text: A precise date for the suggested voyage is not known, though it is interpreted as having occurred in or shortly before 1312, the year Musa is inferred to have become mansa. No clear evidence of the fate of the voyage has been found.


text: Mansa Musa stayed in Cairo for three months in 1324 while en route to Mecca for the hajj. While there, he befriended an emir named Abu al-Hasan Ali ibn Amir Hajib, who was the governor of the district of Cairo Musa was staying in. Ibn Amir Hajib later recounted to the scholar al-Umari what he had learned of Mali from his conversations with Musa. In one such conversation, Ibn Amir Hajib had asked Musa how he had become king, and Musa responded:


text: Al-Umari’s record of this conversation is the only account of this voyage, as it is not mentioned by other medieval Arab historians or West African oral tradition. Nonetheless, the possibility of such a voyage has been taken seriously by several historians.


text: The identity of the mansa responsible for the voyage has been subject to some confusion. Al-Umari’s record of Musa’s account does not mention mansa’s name, giving no indication of his identity other than that he was Musa’s predecessor. According to the Arab historian Ibn Khaldun, writing several decades later, Musa’s predecessor as mansa was Muhammad ibn Qu. As such, several historians have attributed the voyage to Mansa Muhammad.


text: Many sources call the mansa in question Abu Bakr II. However, the inclusion of a Mansa Abu Bakr II in the list of Malian rulers is an error that originated in a mistranslation of Ibn Khaldun’s text by the 19th-century European historian Baron de Slane. De Slane translated Ibn Khaldun as saying that the kingship passed from Muhammad to Abu Bakr, then to Musa. However, in the original Arabic text, Abu Bakr is only mentioned in his role as the progenitor of Musa's lineage, not as a ruler. The Abu Bakr in question was a brother of Sunjata, the founder of the Mali Empire, and apparently never himself ruled. Another figure named Abu Bakr did rule as mansa, but he was the predecessor of Sakura, not Musa.


text: Additionally, some historians have suggested without elaboration that the voyage should be attributed to Mansa Qu, who was the father and predecessor of Muhammad ibn Qu according to Ibn Khaldun.


text: No uncontroversial evidence of pre-Columbian contact between Africa and the Americas has ever been found. Regardless of whether any of the Malian ships ever reached the Americas, they apparently never returned to Africa and there were not any long-term economic consequences of the voyage.


text: The river on the sea described by the survivor of the first expedition is presumably the Canary Current. The inclusion of this fact in Musa's account indicates that Musa had some awareness of the oceanographic conditions of the open Atlantic. The Canary Current flows from West Africa to the Americas, which would have facilitated travel from Africa to the Americas but prevented it in the opposite direction.


text: Ivan van Sertima and Malian researcher Gaoussou Diawara proposed that the voyage reached the New World. Van Sertima cites the abstract of Columbus's log made by Bartolomé de las Casas, according to which the purpose of Columbus's third voyage was to test both the claims of King John II of Portugal that "canoes had been found which set out from the coast of Guinea [West Africa] and sailed to the west with merchandise" as well as the claims of the native inhabitants of the Caribbean island of Hispaniola that "from the south and the southeast had come black people whose spears were made of a metal called guanín ... from which it was found that of 32 parts: 18 were gold, 6 were silver, and 8 copper."


text: However, scholars dispute evidence of any such voyage reaching the Americas, and that there are insufficient evidentiary grounds to suppose there has been contact between Africa and the New World at any point in the pre-Columbian era., Haslip-Viera et al. noted in particular that "no genuine African artifact has ever been found in a controlled archaeological excavation in the New World". Karl Taube, a professor at UC Riverside specializing in pre-Columbian Meosamerican history writes there "simply is no material evidence of any Pre-Hispanic contact between the Old World and Mesoamerica before the arrival of the Spanish in the sixteenth century".


text: Mansa Musa himself appears to have considered his predecessor's plan to be impractical. The main point he appears to have been trying to make to Ibn Amir Hajib is that his predecessor's failed voyage paved the way to his becoming king. Likewise, it has been speculated that the lack of information in oral tradition about the voyage reflects a view that the mansa's voyage was a shameful abdication of duty.


text: In modern times, the voyage has become more celebrated. The Malian historian Gaoussou Diawara has remarked that the mansa should be looked up to by modern politicians as an example of a ruler who valued science and discovery over holding onto power.


title: Kaide Gordon

text: Kaide Gordon (born 5 October 2004) is an English professional footballer who plays as a winger or attacking midfielder for club Liverpool.


title: Kaide Gordon

text: Gordon joined Derby County in 2013 at under-9 level and went onto to make his senior debut on 29 December 2020, as a substitute in a 4–0 win against Birmingham City.


title: Kaide Gordon

text: On 5 February 2021, it was announced that Gordon had joined Liverpool. Derby County received an undisclosed compensation fee, reported to be in the region of £1 million, rising to £3 million with add-ons. Gordon made his Liverpool debut in an EFL Cup tie at Carrow Road where Liverpool beat Norwich City 3–0 on 21 September 2021. He scored his first goal for Liverpool against Shrewsbury in his second match for Liverpool in the third round of the FA Cup, becoming Liverpool's second youngest goalscorer in all competitions, and their youngest ever scorer in the FA Cup. He made his English Premier League debut on 16 January as a second-half substitute against Brentford.


title: Kaide Gordon

text: Having represented England at U16 level, Gordon made his England U18s debut during a 1–1 draw with Wales at Newport International Sports Village on 3 September 2021.


title: Xcel Energy

text: Xcel Energy Inc. is an American utility holding company based in Minneapolis, Minnesota, serving more than 3.7 million electric customers and 2.1 million natural gas customers in Colorado, Texas, and New Mexico in 2019. It consists of four operating subsidiaries: Northern States Power-Minnesota, Northern States Power-Wisconsin, Public Service Company of Colorado, and Southwestern Public Service Co.


title: Xcel Energy

text: In December 2018, Xcel Energy announced it would deliver 100 percent clean, carbon-free electricity by 2050, with an 80 percent carbon reduction by 2035 (from 2005 levels). This makes Xcel the first major US utility to set such a goal.


title: Xcel Energy

text: Xcel Energy was built on three companies: Minneapolis-based Northern States Power Company (NSP), Denver-based Public Service Company of Colorado (PSCo), and Amarillo-based Southwestern Public Service (SPS). Southwestern Public Service Co. (SPS) dates its origins to 1904 and the Pecos Valley in New Mexico when Maynard Gunsell received an electricity franchise for the city of Roswell, New Mexico and its 2,000 residents. The financial strain of creating this new enterprise soon overwhelmed him and he sold the franchise to W.H. Gillenwater, who named his utility the Roswell Electric Light Co. He later sold the company to an investment firm in Cleveland, Ohio, which already owned the Roswell Gas Co.


title: Xcel Energy

text: Northern States Power Company's timeline begins with the organization of the Washington County Light & Power Co. in 1909. When H. M. Byllesby began building his utility holding company across the Northwestern region of the US, he renamed it the Consumers Power Co. in 1910 and which was renamed the Northern States Power Co. in 1916. While the bulk of NSP's territory grew across central and southern Minnesota (starting from the Twin Cities), it acquired territory in North Dakota (centering on Fargo, Grand Forks, and Minot) and extended southwest into South Dakota (centering on Sioux Falls). NSP's system also extended east into Wisconsin, but because of utility ownership laws in that state, it was operated as an entity separate from the rest of the company.


title: Xcel Energy

text: Public Service Company of Colorado (PSCo) was formed in 1923 to provide an electric generating station for the Denver area. By 1924, it had acquired most of the electric companies in northern and central Colorado. Originally a subsidiary of Cities Service Company, it became an independent autonomous operation in November 1943. By this time, it served 80 percent of Colorado's gas and electricity needs. As demand for energy continued to grow, so did PSCo. Eventually, the company merged with SPS to form New Century Energies (NCE) in 1995.


title: Xcel Energy

text: Northern States Power and Wisconsin Energy Corporation had planned to merge into a new outfit that was to be called Primergy - but in 1997, the merger fell through because of the time it was taking to gain the required approvals from state and federal agencies. After the failed Primergy merger, NSP (both the Minnesota and Wisconsin companies) merged with New Century Energies to form Xcel Energy. In 2005, Xcel sold Cheyenne Light, Fuel and Power to Black Hills Corporation. Cheyenne Light, Fuel and Power had been a subsidiary of PSCo since the 1920s, and had become an operating company of NCE after the merger with SPS.


title: Xcel Energy

text: In December 2018, Xcel Energy became the first major US utility to pledge to go carbon-free, aiming for 80% carbon reduction by 2030, and 100% reduction by 2050.


title: Xcel Energy

text: Utility industry magazine "Utility Dive" awarded Xcel Energy its 2018 "Utility of the Year" award for its plans for add 12 wind farms, its project with Google to develop new ways for customers to personalize energy management, and its plan to retire 50 percent of its coal-powered capacity by 2026 (and replacing it with a combination of renewable energy, efficiency, and natural gas).


title: Xcel Energy

text: On May 20, 2019, Xcel Energy announced its intent to close all of its remaining coal-fired plants in Minnesota by 2030 while compensating by increasing solar production capacity by 1,400%. It also declared its plans to continue operating its Monticello nuclear plant near Monticello, Minnesota until at least 2040.


title: Xcel Energy

text: Xcel Energy currently has 13 coal plants with a capacity of 7,697 MW. Seven of those plants are operated in Colorado. Xcel Energy owns and operates three wind farms. In October 2011, Xcel Energy set a world record for electricity from wind power, with an hourly penetration of 55.6% of production from wind.


title: Xcel Energy

text: Xcel Energy generates over 500 megawatts of hydroelectric power from 27 plants in Wisconsin, Minnesota, and Colorado. This accounts for only four percent of their electricity generation. They also purchase large amounts of hydro-generated electricity from Manitoba Hydro.


title: Xcel Energy

text: Biomass electricity comes from organic fuel sources. Xcel Energy has contracts for about 110 megawatts of electricity from biomass generators. Two in northern Minnesota are fueled by forest harvest residue, such as treetops and limbs. A third facility, brought on line in 2007 in western Minnesota, generates power using turkey litter.


title: Xcel Energy

text: Xcel Energy's Bay Front plant in Ashland, Wisconsin, is a three-unit generating station that has become a model for the creative use of fuels: coal, waste wood, railroad ties, discarded tires, natural gas, and petroleum coke. Two of the three Bay Front operating units already use biomass as their primary fuel. Xcel Energy recently proposed a plan to install biomass gasification technology at Bay Front. The waste-to-energy facilities use waste that would otherwise end up in landfills. The Wisconsin waste-to-energy plant burns wood waste in combination with refuse-derived fuel (RDF).


title: Xcel Energy

text: and stores the spent fuel from these nuclear plants on site in independent spent fuel storage installations. (ISFSIs).


title: Xcel Energy

text: Xcel Energy operates the fourth largest transmission system in the United States, spanning 10 states. In 2011, Xcel Energy's transmission system was worth $3.3 billion.


title: Xcel Energy

text: The transmission system is operated on a non-discriminatory basis under the open access requirements of the Federal Government. This means that all wholesale buyers and sellers of electricity can use the transmission system under the same terms and conditions used to serve Xcel Energy's own retail customers. The transmission lines are utilized to carry 115,000 volts, 230,000 volts, and 345,000 volts. There is also a 500,000 volt transmission line that runs from the Dorsey Substation outside of Winnipeg, Manitoba in Canada to the Chisago Substation located in Chisago County just north of St. Paul, Minnesota.


title: Xcel Energy

text: In 2017, Xcel Energy partnered with the Financial Services Information Sharing and Analysis Center to create a new "threat information sharing community" intended to share cyber and physical security intelligence with the energy sector. The new community is called the Energy Analytic Security Exchange (EASE). It is run by the FS-ISAC Sector Services team; FS-ISAC is an organization that gathers cyber and physical risk intelligence for the financial services industry. Additionally, the North American Electric Reliability Council (NERC) manages the Electricity Information Sharing and Analysis Center, which is another resource that the energy sector uses to gather threat intelligence.


title: Xcel Energy

text: In 2016, Xcel Energy announced the Advanced Grid Intelligence and Security (AGIS) initiative, a long-term effort related to power reliability, distributed generation, and information sharing with customers. Through the initiative, Xcel would build an "intelligent grid" in Colorado in order to improve grid security. The company filed a request for permission with the Colorado Public Utilities Commission for the program, which would cost $500 million.


title: Xcel Energy

text: Since 1998, Xcel Energy's Windsource program has allowed customers to designate that part or all of their electricity comes from a renewable energy source. In 2015, about 96,000 people were enrolled in Windsource. In 2011, more than 2.3 million electric and 261,800 natural gas customers took part in Xcel Energy's energy efficiency programs for homes and businesses.


title: Xcel Energy

text: Xcel Energy also offers customers incentives to install solar panels. At the end of 2011, more than 10,600 photovoltaic systems had been installed, with a capacity of about 121 megawatts (DC). In early 2011, Xcel Energy suspended the solar rebate program before reaching a settlement a month later with representatives of solar power companies to restore the solar incentive program until it is fully reviewed by the Public Utilities Commission.


title: Xcel Energy

text: On August 1, 2002, Xcel Energy Inc. was sued because of engaging in "round-trip" energy trades that provided no economic benefit for the company, and because the company lacked the necessary internal controls to adequately monitor the trading of its power. Xcel paid $80,000,000 in a settlement.


title: Xcel Energy

text: The Cabin Creek Fire occurred on October 2, 2007, at Xcel Energy's Hydropower Generation plant in Georgetown, Colorado. On June 1, 2011, Federal prosecutors opened their charges that Xcel Energy was criminally liable for the deaths of the five RPI workers. On June 28, the jury found Xcel Energy not guilty. On December 19, 2011, RPI Coating pleaded guilty to workplace safety violations and paid $1.55 million in a cash settlement. The company took responsibility for the deaths of five workers and the injuries to three. The U.S. Chemical Safety and Hazard Investigation Board conducted an investigation of the incident. Its report can be found on the CSB website. It is considered one of the worst unmitigated incidents to occur in a permit-required confined space.


title: Xcel Energy

text: The parent company to Xcel Energy, and later Xcel Energy itself have operated the Prairie Island Nuclear Power Plant since 1973. Over that time, nuclear waste produced by the power plant has been stored adjacent to the Prairie Island Indian Community. The homes of some members of the community are within 600 yards of the nuclear waste containment site and, sitting within the banks of the Mississippi River, the island is very vulnerable to seasonal flooding. While in 1991, the Minnesota Public Utilities Commission capped the storage of nuclear waste on the island to 17 casks, the legislature has since permitted this number to increase. Environmentalists and members of the Prairie Island Indian Community have been working since 1994 to have this nuclear waste transported away from their reservation due to the combined risk of the temporary design of the storage facility, unpredictable flooding and single evacuation road in the event nuclear waste is released from containment.


title: Ruth Madoc

text: Ruth Madoc (born Margaret Ruth Llewellyn Baker; 16 April 1943 – 9 December 2022) was a British actress who had a career on stage and screen spanning over 60 years. She was best known for her role as Gladys Pugh in the BBC television comedy "Hi-de-Hi!" (1980–1988), for which she received a BAFTA TV award nomination for Best Light Entertainment Performance.


title: Ruth Madoc

text: Madoc was born Margaret Ruth Llewellyn Baker on 16 April 1943 in Norwich, daughter of George Baker and Iris (née Williams), who worked in healthcare, her father as an administrator and her mother as a nurse. They ran a "poor law" institution for people with severe learning difficulties. On her father's side she was a distant cousin of British Prime Minister David Lloyd George; having starred in "The Life and Times of David Lloyd George" in 1981, she learned of this connection in 2010 on the BBC Wales programme "Coming Home". Her parents travelled around Britain for much of her childhood, and she was brought up by her Welsh grandmother Etta Williams and her English grandfather at Llansamlet in Swansea. She later trained at the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art (RADA) in London.


title: Ruth Madoc

text: In 1971, Madoc played Fruma Sarah in the film version of the musical "Fiddler on the Roof", and in 1972 she appeared as Mrs Dai Bread Two in the film version of "Under Milk Wood". She also appeared regularly in the entertainment programme "Poems and Pints" on BBC Wales. She provided one of the alien voices in the Cadbury's Smash commercials in the 1970s, and made a brief appearance in the 1977 film "The Prince and the Pauper" (aka "Crossed Swords").


title: Ruth Madoc

text: Madoc appeared in many theatre productions, including the stage version of "Under Milk Wood", "Steel Magnolias", Agatha Christie thrillers ("And Then There Were None..."), the musical "Annie," and many pantomime parts. She appeared twice at the Royal Variety Performance, once in 1982 and again in 1986.


title: Ruth Madoc

text: Madoc was best known for her portrayal of Gladys Pugh, one of the lead roles in the television sitcom "Hi-de-Hi", for which she received a BAFTA TV award nomination for Best Light Entertainment Performance. The comedy was set in the fictional 1950s-type holiday camp Maplins. Madoc's recurring role centred on her unrequited love for the camp entertainment manager Professor Jeffrey Fairbrother (Simon Cadell) and she was notable for her announcements on the camp tannoy with her signature three notes played on a mini xylophone.


title: Ruth Madoc

text: In 1984, Madoc was the subject of "This Is Your Life" when she was surprised by Eamonn Andrews. In 1993 she played Mrs Bardell in "Pickwick" at the Chichester Festival Theatre. In 2004 she appeared in the reality television programme "Cariad@Iaith" on S4C, in which celebrities went on an intensive course in the Welsh language. She also appeared in the fourth series of LivingTV reality show "I'm Famous and Frightened!" which she went on to win. In 2005 she appeared as Daffyd Thomas's mother in the second series of BBC sketch show "Little Britain".


title: Ruth Madoc

text: She also appeared in "Annie" as Miss Hannigan on tour. In 2007 she appeared as a fictional version of herself in episode 2 of the BBC Radio 2 comedy "Buy Me Up TV". In 2008 she appeared at the Pavilion Theatre in Rhyl, playing the Bad Fairy in the pantomime 'Sleeping Beauty', with Sonia and Rebecca Trehearn.


title: Ruth Madoc

text: Madoc returned to situation comedy in 2009 and appeared in "Big Top" on BBC1, alongside Amanda Holden, John Thomson and Tony Robinson.


title: Ruth Madoc

text: In 2010, Madoc investigated her family history for the BBC Wales programme "Coming Home" and learned that she was related to David Lloyd George.


title: Ruth Madoc

text: In January 2015, Madoc appeared as the Fairy Godmother in the pantomime "Cinderella" at the Palace Theatre, Mansfield. In September 2019 she rejoined the cast in the autumn tour of "Calendar Girls The Musical" after recovering from an injury earlier in the year; the show opened at Bournemouth Pavilion on 17 September and ended on 23 November at Chichester Festival Theatre.


title: Ruth Madoc

text: Madoc's first husband was the actor Philip Madoc, with whom she appeared in the 1981 TV serial "The Life and Times of David Lloyd George". They had a son, Rhys, and a daughter, Lowri, and were married for twenty years, but divorced in 1981.


title: Ruth Madoc

text: In 1982, she married her second husband, John Jackson, with whom she bought a home in Glynneath in 2002. They were married until his death in September 2021.


title: Ruth Madoc

text: In December 2022, Madoc was set to appear in the pantomime "Aladdin" at the Princess Theatre, Torquay. However, on 8 December, a statement posted to Madoc's Instagram account confirmed she had suffered a fall earlier in the week and was unable to appear in the production. After undergoing surgery, Madoc died the following day, 9 December, in hospital, at the age of 79.


title: Demographic history of Palestine (region)

text: The demographic history of Palestine refers to the study of the historical population of the region of Palestine, which approximately corresponds to modern Israel and the Palestinian territories.


text: A study by Yigal Shiloh of The Hebrew University suggests that the population of Palestine in the Iron Age could have never exceeded one million. He writes: "... the population of the country in the Roman-Byzantine period greatly exceeded that in the Iron Age..." Shiloh accepted Israeli archaeologist Magen Broshi's estimates of Palestine's population at 1,000,000-1,250,000 and noted that Iron Age Israel's population must have been less considering population growth. "...If we accept Broshi's population estimates, which appear to be confirmed by the results of recent research, it follows that the estimates for the population during the Iron Age must be set at a lower figure."


text: One study of population growth from 1,000 BCE to 750 BCE estimated the Jewish population of Palestine (Judah and Israel) had an average natural growth of 0.4 per cent per annum.


text: Both the Babylonian conquest and the period of Achaemenid rule witnessed notable drops in the population of Jerusalem, the Shephelah and the Negev region, while a continuity is maintained in the northern Judean and Benjamin areas. As early as the fall of Judah, a substantial Edomite population is attested in southern Judah. When the kingdom of Edom itself succumbed, those people continued its traditions in the south, which the Arabic-speaking Qedarites controlled. Along the coastal region the Phoenician presence expanded, while the Cisjordan underwent demographic change with the inflow of Moabite and Ammonite refugees, while the southern part of Judea underwent substantive change with the settlement of Edomites. The exilic returnees resettled, perhaps with a heightened sense of their ethnic identity.


text: The Achaemenid Empire was conquered by Alexander the Great in the 330s BC. By this time, an administrative unit (ὕπαρχεία) called Idumea, which appears to link the Iron Age kingdom of Edom with the area west of the Dead Sea, extended over the Arad and Beersheba valleys, the southern Shephelah and the southern Judean hills In 160 BCE the continuing Hellenisation of Palestine led to the Maccabean revolt. The composition of the population, from the end of the Hasmonean dynasty had a large preponderance of Jewish elements compared to strictly localized Greek (pagan) centres, together with a dominant Samaritan enclave in Samaria.


text: The Roman conquest of Judea led by Pompey took place in 63 BC. The Roman occupation encompassed the end of Jewish independence in Judea, the last years of the Hasmonean kingdom, the Herodian age and the rise of Christianity, the First Jewish–Roman War, and the fall of Jerusalem and the destruction of the Second Temple. The total population of Pharisees, the forerunners of modern Rabbinic Judaism, was around 6,000 ("exakischilioi"), according to Josephus.


text: Local population displacements occurred with the expulsion of the Jews from Jerusalem – "In the earlier revolt in the previous century, 66–73 CE, Rome destroyed the Temple and forbade Jews to live in the remaining parts of Jerusalem; for this reason, the Rabbis gathered instead on the Mediterranean coast in Yavneh near Jaffa". Dispersal to other parts of the Roman Empire occurred:


text: "No date or origin can be assigned to the numerous settlements eventually known in the west, and some may have been founded as a result of the dispersal of Palestinian Jews after the revolts of AD 66–70 and 132-5, but it is reasonable to conjecture that many, such as the settlement in Puteoli attested in 4 BC, went back to the late republic or early empire and originated in voluntary emigration and the lure of trade and commerce."


text: Modern estimates vary: Applebaum argues that in the Herodian kingdom, there were 1.5 million Jews, a figure Ben David says covers the numbers in Judea alone. Salo Wittmayer Baron estimated the population at 2.3 million at the time of Roman emperor Claudius (reigned 41–54). According to Israeli archeologist Magen Broshi, west of the Jordan River the population did not exceed 1 million:


text: "... the population of Palestine in antiquity did not exceed a million persons. It can also be shown, moreover, that this was more or less the size of the population in the peak period – the late Byzantine period, around AD 600"


text: Broshi made calculations based on the grain-producing capacity of Palestine and on its role in the indigenous diet, assuming an average annual per-capita consumption of 200 kg. (with a maximum of 250 kg.), which would work out to the limit of a sustainable population of 1,000,000 people, a figure which, Broshi states, remained roughly constant down to the end of the Byzantine period (600 CE). The proportion of Jews to gentiles is also unknown.


text: Three events caused the Jewish population dominance to change after AD 70 (in the Late Roman period). The first was the rise of Christianity. The second involved the Jewish Diasporas resulting from a series of Jewish rebellions against the Roman occupation, starting in AD 66 which resulted in the destruction of the Second Temple and of Jerusalem in AD 70 to the subsequent expulsion of the Jews from Jerusalem, and followed by the rebellion against Hadrian in AD 132 – the Bar Kokhba revolt.


text: The Bar Kokhba revolt in the 2nd century saw a major shift in the population of Palestine. The sheer scale and scope of the overall destruction, according to a late epitome of Dio Cassius's "Roman History", where he states that Roman war operations in the country had left some 580,000 Jews dead, with many more dying of hunger and disease, while 50 of their most important outposts and 985 of their most famous villages were razed to the ground. "Thus," writes Dio Cassius, "nearly the whole of Judaea was made desolate." It would take many years before the Judaean Jewish community recovered from the Bar Kochba war, seeing that for nearly 1850 years Jews no longer formed the majority in Palestine.


text: The third event was the 'ascension' of Constantine the Great in 312 and Christianity becoming the official state religion of Rome in 391. Already by the mid-3rd century the Jewish majority had been reported to have been lost, while others conclude that a Jewish majority lasted much longer – "What does seem clear is a different kind of change – immigration of Christians and the conversion of pagans, Samaritans, and Jews eventually produced a Christian majority".


text: After the Bar Kokhba revolt of 132-136 CE the make-up of the population of Palestine remains in doubt due to the sparsity of data in the historical record. Figures vary considerably as to the demographics of Palestine in the Christian era.


text: No reliable data exist on the population of Palestine in the pre-Muslim period, either in absolute terms or in terms of shares of total population. Although many Jews were killed, expelled or sold off into slavery after the AD 66–70 and the 123–125 rebellions, the degree to which these transfers affected the Jewish dominance in Palestine is rarely addressed. What is certain is that Palestine did not lose its Jewish component. Goldblatt concludes that the Jews may have remained a majority into the 3rd century AD and even beyond. He notes that 'Jewish followers of Jesus' (Jewish Christians) would not have taken part in the rebellions'. Non-Christian conversions from Judaism after the Bar Kochba revolt were not given much attention.


text: "Indeed, many must have reacted to the catastrophe with despair and total abandonment of Judaism. Apostates from Judaism (aside from converts to Christianity) received little notice in antiquity from either Jewish or non-Jewish writers, but ambitious individuals are known to have turned pagan before the war, and it stands to reason that many more did so after its disastrous conclusion. It is impossible to determine the number who joined the budding Christian movement and the number who disappeared into the polytheist majority."


text: The highest population of the 3rd to 7th centuries probably occurred in the Byzantine period. Most scholars consider that the proportion of Jews decreased during these centuries, a loss of dominance not related to any specific diaspora and at dates not agreed to by historians. For instance, by counting settlements, Avi-Yonah estimated that Jews comprised half the population of the Galilee at the end of the 3rd century, and a quarter in the other parts of the country, but had declined to 10–15% of the total by 614. On the other hand, by counting churches and synagogues, Tsafrir estimated the Jewish fraction at 25% in the Byzantine period. Stemberger, however, considers that Jews were the largest population group at the beginning of the 4th century, closely followed by the pagans. In contrast to Avi-Yonah, Schiffman estimated that Christians only became the majority of the country's population at the beginning of the 5th century, confirmed by DellaPergola who estimates that by the 5th century Christians were in the majority and Jews were a minority.


text: The Christian-majority population of Byzantine Palestine, having been formed by conversions plus various migrations, was to undergo yet another upheaval. In 629 Palestine was invaded by Arabs from the Hejaz. By 635 AD, Palestine, Jordan and Southern Syria, with the exception of Jerusalem and Caesarea, were in Muslim hands. Jerusalem capitulated in 637.


text: Unlike the Byzantine era which saw forced conversions of Jews and Samaritans to Christianity, Levy-Rubin advocated that conversion was not commonplace during the early period of the Islamic empire (the Umayyad Caliphate [661 – 750] and the Abbasid Caliphate [750 – 1258]) – "It has been presumed until now that [the presence of Muslims in Samaria] was solely a result of immigration of Arab Muslims into the area. ... a small part of this Muslim population originated in Samarian population which converted to Islam during the early Muslim period mainly as a result of difficult economic conditions for non-Muslims. As of now, this is the only evidence we have of mass conversion to Islam in Palestine during the early Muslim period.". Arabization of the Levant involved the realm's new subjects adopting the Arabic language and Islam.


text: "Very few Arabs were productive settlers of the land, an activity they despised; a few were great landlords who used native tenants to cultivate their estates; but generally they were nomadic tribesmen, soldiers and officials all of whom lived off the jizya (or poll tax) and the kharaj (or land tax) paid by the occupied peoples in return for the protection of their lives and property and for the right to practice their own religion. Because the jizya and the kharaj could be imposed only on non-Muslims, the Arabs had little interest in making converts to Islam, a contributory reason why Syria, Palestine and Egypt would remain overwhelmingly Christian for centuries to come."


text: According to Amitai and Ellenblum the Islamization of Palestine had its beginnings in the early Islamic period (ca. 640–1099 C.E.), but had halted and apparently even been reversed during the time of Frankish rule (Kingdom of Jerusalem). In the aftermath of the Muslim reconquest, which began in 1187, and the advent of Ayyubid rule (1187–1260) in parts of Palestine and then the Mamluk rule, it appears that the process of religious conversion was accelerated. With the beginning of the Ottoman period in 1516, it is commonly assumed, and may well be that the Muslim majority in the country was more-or-less like that of the mid-19th century.


text: During the first century of the Ottoman rule, i.e., 1550, Bernard Lewis in a study of Ottoman registers of the early Ottoman Rule of Palestine reports:


text: From the mass of detail in the registers, it is possible to extract something like a general picture of the economic life of the country in that period. Out of a total population of about 300,000 souls, between a fifth and a quarter lived in the six towns of Jerusalem, Gaza, Safed, Nablus, Ramle, and Hebron. The remainder consisted mainly of peasants, living in villages of varying size, and engaged in agriculture. Their main food-crops were wheat and barley in that order, supplemented by leguminous pulses, olives, fruit, and vegetables. In and around most of the towns there was a considerable number of vineyards, orchards, and vegetable gardens.


text: In the late nineteenth century, prior to the rise of Zionism, Jews are thought to have comprised between 2% to 5% of the population of Palestine, although the precise population is not known.


text: According to Alexander Scholch, Palestine in 1850 had about 350,000 inhabitants, 30% of whom lived in 13 towns; roughly 85% were Muslims, 11% were Christians and 4% Jews.


text: The Ottoman census of 1878 indicated the following demographics for the three districts that best approximated what later became Mandatory Palestine; that is, the Mutasarrifate of Jerusalem, the Nablus Sanjak, and the Acre Sanjak. In addition, some scholars estimate approximately 5,000-10,000 additional foreign-born Jews at this time:


text: According to Ottoman statistics studied by Justin McCarthy, the population of Palestine in the early 19th century was 350,000, in 1860 it was 411,000 and in 1900 about 600,000 of which 94% were Arabs.


text: The estimated 24,000 Jews in Palestine in 1882 represented just 0.3% of the world's Jewish population. In 1914 Palestine had a population of 657,000 Muslim Arabs, 81,000 Christian Arabs, and 59,000 Jews. McCarthy estimates the non-Jewish population of Palestine at 452,789 in 1882, 737,389 in 1914, 725,507 in 1922, 880,746 in 1931 and 1,339,763 in 1946.


text: According to Dr. Mutaz M. Qafisheh, the number of people who held Ottoman citizenship prior to the British Mandate in 1922 was just over 729,873, of which 7,143 were Jews. Qafisheh calculated this using population and immigration statistics from the 1946 Survey of Palestine, as well as the fact that 37,997 people acquired provisional Palestinian naturalization certificates in September 1922 for the purpose of voting in the legislative election, of which all but 100 were Jews.


text: In 1920, the British Government's "Interim Report on the Civil Administration of Palestine" stated that there were hardly 700,000 people living in Palestine:


text: There are now in the whole of Palestine hardly 700,000 people, a population much less than that of the province of Gallilee alone in the time of Christ. Of these 235,000 live in the larger towns, 465,000 in the smaller towns and villages. Four-fifths of the whole population are Moslems. A small proportion of these are Bedouin Arabs; the remainder, although they speak Arabic and are termed Arabs, are largely of mixed race. Some 77,000 of the population are Christians, in large majority belonging to the Orthodox Church, and speaking Arabic. The minority are members of the Latin or of the Uniate Greek Catholic Church, or—a small number—are Protestants.


text: The Jewish element of the population numbers 76,000. Almost all have entered Palestine during the last 40 years. Prior to 1850 there were in the country only a handful of Jews. In the following 30 years a few hundreds came to Palestine. Most of them were animated by religious motives; they came to pray and to die in the Holy Land, and to be buried in its soil. After the persecutions in Russia forty years ago, the movement of the Jews to Palestine assumed larger proportions. Jewish agricultural colonies were founded. They developed the culture of oranges and gave importance to the Jaffa orange trade. They cultivated the vine, and manufactured and exported wine. They drained swamps. They planted eucalyptus trees. They practised, with modern methods, all the processes of agriculture. There are at the present time 64 of these settlements, large and small, with a population of some 15,000.


text: By 1948, the population had risen to 1,900,000, of whom 68% were Arabs, and 32% were Jews (UNSCOP report, including Bedouin).


text: Report and general abstract of the Jewish agriculture was taken by the Palestine Zionist Executive in April 1927.


text: (p 85) Demography: to enumerate all Jewish inhabitants living in the agricultural and semi-agricultural communities.


text: (p 86) Number of Settlements: 130 places have been enumerated. If we consider the large settlements and the adjacent territories as one geographical unit, then we may group these places into 101 agricultural settlements, 3 semi-agricultural places (Affule, Shekhunath Borukhov and Neve Yaaqov) and 12 farms scattered throughout the country. In addition, there were a few places which, owing to technical difficulties, were not enumerated in the month of April. (Peqiin, Meiron, Mizpa and Zikhron David, numbering in the aggregate 100 persons).


text: Of these agricultural settlements, 32 are located in Judea, 12 in the Plain of Sharon, 32 are located in the Plain of Jesreel, 16 in Lower Galilee, and 9 in Upper Galilee. Most of them have a very small population - about one half being inhabited by less than 100 persons each. In 42 settlements there are from 100 to 500 persons, and in only five does the population exceed 1.000. viz.


text: (p 86) Number of Inhabitants: The aggregate population living in the agricultural and semi-agricultural places were 30.500.


text: (p 87 & p 98)The pre-war population accounts for 9,473 persons, which is slightly less than one-third of the present population, whereas the rest are post-war immigrants. Some 10.000 persons settled since 1924, since the so-called middle-class immigration.


text: Whether there was significant Arab immigration into Palestine during the 19th and 20th centuries, especially after the beginning of Zionist settlement there in the late 19th century has become a matter of some controversy. It is known that the Arab population of Palestine doubled during the British Mandate era, from 670,000 in 1922 to over 1.2 million in 1948, and there has been considerable debate over the subject on how much of this growth was due to natural increase, as opposed to immigration. Estimates on the scope of Arab immigration to Palestine during this period vary.


text: Some Egyptian migration to Palestine happened at the end of the 18th century due to a severe famine in Egypt, and several waves of Egyptian immigrants came even earlier to escape natural disasters such as droughts and plagues, government oppression, taxes, and military conscription. Although many Palestinian Arabs also moved to Egypt, Egyptian immigration to Palestine was more dominant. In the 19th century, large numbers of Egyptians fled to Palestine to escape the military conscription and forced labor projects in the Nile Delta under Muhammad Ali. Following the First Egyptian-Ottoman War, which saw the Egyptian conquest of Palestine, more Egyptians were brought to Palestine as forced laborers. Following the Second Egyptian-Ottoman War, which saw Egyptian rule in Palestine terminated, massive numbers of soldiers deserted during the Egyptian army's retreat from Palestine to permanently settle there. Egyptians settled mainly in Jaffa, the Coastal plain, Samaria and in Wadi Ara. In the southern plain there were 19 villages with Egyptian populations, while in Jaffa there were some 500 Egyptian families with a population of over 2,000 people. The largest rural concentration of Egyptian immigrants was in the Sharon region. According to David Grossman, statistics show the number of Egyptian immigrants to Palestine between 1829 and 1841 exceeded 15,000, and he estimated that it was at least 23,000 and possibly up to 30,000. According to Grossman, an even larger number of Egyptians migrated to Palestine between the late 19th century and 1948, with the number of Egyptians increasing substantially after 1882. Palestine also accommodated numerous waves of Algerian immigration between the French conquest in 1830 and 1920. In 1860, there was significant immigration to Safed by Moorish (i.e. Arab-Berber) tribes from Algeria and a small number of Kurds, while some 6,000 Arabs from the Beni Sakhr tribe immigrated to Palestine from what is now Jordan to settle in Tiberias. In addition, considerable numbers of Turks stationed in Palestine to garrison the land settled there.


text: Some Bosnian Muslims migrated to Palestine in 1864. In 1878, following Austro-Hungarian occupation of Bosnia and Herzegovina, many Bosnian Muslims, apprehensive of living under Christian rule, emigrated to the Ottoman Empire, and significant numbers went to Palestine, where most adopted the surname Bushnak. Bosnian Muslim immigration continued throughout the following decades and increased after Austria-Hungary formally annexed Bosnia in 1908. To this day, Bushnak remains a common surname among Palestinians of Bosnian origin.


text: The number of Bedouins who started settling the Negev region from the 7th century considerably increased during Ottoman rule as a result of immigration of both Bedouin tribes from south and east and peasant farmers (fellahins) from Egypt. The Egyptian fellahins settled mostly in the region around Gaza and received protection from Bedouins, in return for goods. Bedouins brought African slaves (abid) from Sudan who worked for them. To reduce frictions and to stabilize the boundaries between Bedouin tribes, the Ottomans established an administrative center in Beersheba around 1900, as the first planned settlement in Negev since the Nabatean and Byzantine times. In the beginning of the 20th century, most of the population of Hebron were descendants of Bedouins who migrated to Palestine from Transjordan in the 15th and 16th century. According to the 1922 census of Palestine, "The Ottoman authorities in 1914 placed the tribal population of Beersheba at 55,000, and since that date there has been a migration of tribes from the Hejaz and Southern Transjordan into the Beersheba area mainly as a result of succession of adequate rainfalls and of pressure exerted by other tribes east of the River Jordan." For 1922, the census gives a figure of 74,910 including 72,998 in the tribal areas.


text: Demographer Uziel Schmelz, in his analysis of Ottoman registration data for 1905 populations of Jerusalem and Hebron "kazas", found that most Ottoman citizens living in these areas, comprising about one quarter of the population of Palestine, were living at the place where they were born. Specifically, of Muslims, 93.1% were born in their current locality of residence, 5.2% were born elsewhere in Palestine, and 1.6% were born outside Palestine. Of Christians, 93.4% were born in their current locality, 3.0% were born elsewhere in Palestine, and 3.6% were born outside Palestine. Of Jews (excluding the large fraction who were not Ottoman citizens), 59.0% were born in their current locality, 1.9% were born elsewhere in Palestine, and 39.0% were born outside Palestine.


text: According to Roberto Bachi, head of the Israeli Institute of Statistics from 1949 onwards, between 1922 and 1945 there was a net Arab migration into Palestine of between 40,000 and 42,000, excluding 9,700 people who were incorporated after territorial adjustments were made to the borders in the 1920s. Based on these figures, and including those netted by the border alterations, Joseph Melzer calculates an upper boundary of 8.5% for Arab growth in the two decades, and interprets it to mean the local Palestinian community's growth was generated primarily by natural increase.


text: According to a Jewish Agency survey, 77% of Arab population growth in Palestine between 1914 and 1938, during which the Arab population doubled, was due to natural increase, while 23% was due to immigration. Arab immigration was primarily from Lebanon, Syria, Transjordan, and Egypt (all countries that bordered Palestine).


text: The overall assessment of several British reports was that the increase in the Arab population was primarily due to natural increase. These included the Hope Simpson Enquiry (1930), the Passfield White Paper (1930), the Peel Commission report (1937), and the Survey of Palestine (1945). However, the Hope Simpson Enquiry did note that there was significant illegal immigration from the surrounding Arab territories, while the Peel Commission and Survey of Palestine claimed that immigration played only a minor role in the growth of the Arab population. The 1931 census of Palestine considered the question of illegal immigration since the previous census in 1922. It estimated that unrecorded immigration during that period may have amounted to 9,000 Jews and 4,000 Arabs. It also gave the proportion of persons living in Palestine in 1931 who were born outside Palestine: Muslims, 2%; Christians, 20%; Jews, 58%. The statistical information for Arab immigration (and expulsions when the clandestine migrants were caught), with a contrast to the figures for Jewish immigration over the same period of 1936–1939, is given by Henry Laurens in the following terms


text: According to Mark Tessler, at least some of the Arab population growth was the result of immigration, mostly from the Sinai, Lebanon, Syria, and Transjordan, stimulated by the relatively favorable economic conditions in Palestine, but he noted differing opinions among scholars over how substantial it was. He cited one study as putting the Arab population growth attributable to immigration between 1922 and 1931 at 7%, meaning that 4% of the Arab population in 1931 was foreign-born, while noting another estimate put the growth in the Arab population attributable to immigration at 38.7%, which would mean that 11.8% of the Arab population in 1931 was foreign-born. Tessler wrote that "Israeli as well as Palestinian scholars have disputed this assertion, however, concluding that it is at best a theory and in all probability a myth."


text: In a 1974 study, demographer Roberto Bachi estimated that about 900 Muslims per year were detected as illegal immigrants but not deported. He noted the impossibility of estimating illegal immigration that was undetected, or the fraction of those persons who eventually departed. He did note that there was an unexplained increase in the Muslim population between 1922 and 1931, and he did suggest, though qualifying it as a "mere guess", that this was due to a combination of unrecorded immigration (using the 1931 census report estimate) and undercounting in the 1922 census.


text: While noting the uncertainty of earlier data, Bachi also observed that the Muslim population growth in the 19th century appeared to be high by world standards:


text: "[B]etween 1800 and 1914, the Muslim population had a yearly average increase of an order of magnitude of roughly 6–7 per thousand. This can be compared to the very crude estimate of about 4 per thousand for the "less developed countries" of the world (in Asia, Africa, and Latin America) between 1800 and 1910. It is possible that some part of the growth of the Muslim population was due to immigration. However, it seems likely that the dominant determinant of this modest growth was the beginning of some natural increase."


text: According to Justin McCarthy, "... evidence for Muslim immigration into Palestine is minimal. Because no Ottoman records of that immigration have yet been discovered, one is thrown back on demographic analysis to evaluate Muslim migration." McCarthy argues that there is no significant Arab immigration into mandatory Palestine:


text: From analyses of rates of increase of the Muslim population of the three Palestinian sanjaks, one can say with certainty that Muslim immigration after the 1870s was small. Had there been a large group of Muslim immigrants their numbers would have caused an unusual increase in the population and this would have appeared in the calculated rate of increase from one registration list to another... Such an increase would have been easily noticed; it was not there.


text: The argument that Arab immigration somehow made up a large part of the Palestinian Arab population is thus statistically untenable. The vast majority of the Palestinian Arabs resident in 1947 were the sons and daughters of Arabs who were living in Palestine before modern Jewish immigration began. There is no reason to believe that they were not the sons and daughters of Arabs who had been in Palestine for many centuries.


text: McCarthy also concludes that there was no significant internal migration to Jewish areas attributable to better economic conditions:


text: Some areas of Palestine did experience greater population growth than others, but the explanation for this is simple. Radical economic change was occurring all over the Mediterranean Basin at the time. Improved transportation, greater mercantile activity, and greater industry had increased the chances for employment in cities, especially coastal cities... Differential population increase was occurring all over the Eastern Mediterranean, not just in Palestine... The increase in Muslim population had little or nothing to do with Jewish immigration. In fact the province that experienced the greatest Jewish population growth (by .035 annually), Jerusalem Sanjak, was the province with the lowest rate of growth of Muslim population (.009).


text: Fred M. Gottheil has questioned McCarthy's estimates of immigration. Gottheil says that McCarthy didn't give proper weight to the importance of economic incentives at the time, and that McCarthy cites Roberto Bachi's estimates as conclusive numbers, rather than lower bounds based on detected illegal immigration.


text: Gad Gilbar has also concluded that the prosperity of Palestine in the 45–50 years before World War I was a result of the modernization and growth of the economy owing to its integration with the world economy and especially with the economies of Europe. Although the reasons for growth were exogenous to Palestine the bearers were not waves of Jewish immigration, foreign intervention nor Ottoman reforms but "primarily local Arab Muslims and Christians." However, Gilbar did attribute the rapid growth of Jaffa and Haifa in the final three decades of Ottoman rule in part to migration, writing that "both attracted population from the rural and urban surroundings and immigrants from outside Palestine."


text: Yehoshua Porath believes that the notion of "large-scale immigration of Arabs from the neighboring countries" is a myth "proposed by Zionist writers". He writes:


text: As all the research by historian Fares Abdul Rahim and geographers of modern Palestine shows, the Arab population began to grow again in the middle of the nineteenth century. That growth resulted from a new factor: the demographic revolution. Until the 1850s there was no "natural" increase of the population, but this began to change when modern medical treatment was introduced and modern hospitals were established, both by the Ottoman authorities and by the foreign Christian missionaries. The number of births remained steady but infant mortality decreased. This was the main reason for Arab population growth. ... No one would doubt that some migrant workers came to Palestine from Syria and Trans-Jordan and remained there. But one has to add to this that there were migrations in the opposite direction as well. For example, a tradition developed in Hebron to go to study and work in Cairo, with the result that a permanent community of Hebronites had been living in Cairo since the fifteenth century. Trans-Jordan exported unskilled casual labor to Palestine; but before 1948 its civil service attracted a good many educated Palestinian Arabs who did not find work in Palestine itself. Demographically speaking, however, neither movement of population was significant in comparison to the decisive factor of natural increase.


text: Daniel Pipes responded to Porath by granting that "From Time Immemorial" quoted carelessly, used statistics sloppily, and ignored inconvenient facts. Nonetheless, he explained that:


text: Miss Peters's central thesis is that a substantial immigration of Arabs to Palestine took place during the first half of the twentieth century. She supports this argument with an array of demographic statistics and contemporary accounts, the bulk of which have not been questioned by any reviewer, including Porath.


text: Porath replied with an array of demographic data to support his position. He also wrote that Peters's demographic statistics were inexplicable:


text: ...nowhere in her main text or in the methodological appendices (V and VI) did Mrs. Peters bother to explain to her readers how she managed to break down the Ottoman or Cuinet's figures into smaller units than subdistricts. As far as I know no figures for the units smaller than subdistricts (Nahia; the parallel of the French commune), covering the area of Ottoman Palestine, were ever published. Therefore I can't avoid the conclusion that Mrs. Peters's figures were, at best, based on guesswork and an extremely tendentious guesswork at that.


text: , Israeli and Palestinian statistics for the overall numbers of Jews and Arabs in the area west of the Jordan, inclusive of Israel and the Palestinian territories, are similar and suggest a rough parity in the two populations. Palestinian statistics estimate 6.1 million Palestinians for that area, while Israel's Central Bureau of Statistics estimates 6.2 million Jews living in sovereign Israel. Gaza is estimated by the Israeli Defense Forces (IDF) to have 1.7 million, and the West Bank 2.8 million Palestinians, while Israel proper has 1.7 million Arab citizens. According to Israel's Central Bureau of Statistics, as of May 2006, of Israel's 7 million people, 77% were Jews, 18.5% Arabs, and 4.3% "others". Among Jews, 68% were Sabras (Israeli-born), mostly second- or third-generation Israelis, and the rest are olim – 22% from Europe and the Americas, and 10% from Asia and Africa, including the Arab countries.


text: According to these Israeli and Palestinian estimates, the population in Israel and the Palestinian territories stands at from 6.1 to 6.2 million Palestinians and 6.1 million Jews. According to Sergio DellaPergola, if foreign workers and non-Jewish Russian immigrants in Israel are subtracted, Jews are already a minority in the land between the river and the sea. DellaPergola calculates that Palestinians as of January 2014 number 5.7 million as opposed to a "core Jewish population" of 6.1 million.


text: The Palestinian statistics are contested by some right-wing Israeli think-tanks and non-demographers such as Yoram Ettinger, who claim they overestimate Palestinian numbers by double-counting and counting Palestinians who live abroad. The double-counting argument is dismissed by both Arnon Soffer, Ian Lustick and DellaPergola, the latter dismissing Ettinger's calculations as 'delusional' or manipulated for ignoring the birth-rate differentials between the two populations (3 children per Jewish mother vs 3.4 for Palestinians generally, and 4.1 in the Gaza Strip). DellaPergola allows, however, for an inflation in the Palestinian statistics due to the counting of Palestinians who are abroad, a discrepancy of some 380,000 individuals.


text: The latest Israeli census was conducted by Israel Central Bureau of Statistics in 2019. Israeli census excludes the Gaza Strip. It also excludes all West Bank Palestinian localities, including those in Area C, while it includes the annexed East Jerusalem. It also includes all Israeli settlements in the West Bank. The census also includes the occupied Syrian territory of Golan Heights.


text: As per this census, the total population in 2019 was 9,140,473. Israeli population consists of 7,221,442 "Jews and others", and 1,919,031 Arabs, almost all of which Palestinians, with 26,261 in Golan Subdistrict, being Syrian, mostly Druze, and a small number Alawite. The population includes the Druze community of Israel (i.e. not Syrian Druze) as well, who generally self-identify as Israeli, and are the only Arab-speaking community that has mandatory military service in the IDF.


text: The latest Palestinian Census was conducted by Palestinian Central Bureau of Statistics in 2017. The Palestinian census covers the Gaza Strip and the West Bank, including East Jerusalem. The Palestinian census does not cover Israeli settlements in the West Bank including those in East Jerusalem. The census does not provide any ethnic or religious distinction. However, it is reasonable to assume that almost everyone counted is Palestinian Arab.


text: As per this census, the total population of the Palestinian territories was 4,780,978. The West Bank had a population of 2,881,687, whereas the Gaza Strip had a population of 1,899,291.


text: The combined population of the territory of Historic Palestine in 2019, including the occupied Golan Heights, was 14,121,893. This is based upon an estimation of a population of 13,868,091 in Israel, the West Bank and Gaza Strip, assuming a growth rate of 2.5% in the Palestinian territories, as estimated by the World Bank. Since the Palestinian Arab population of East Jerusalem was counted in both censuses, the more recent and more accurate number from Israel Central Bureau of Statistics was chosen. (East Jerusalem is under Israeli jurisdiction and the Palestinian Central Bureau of Statistics doesn't have access to the territory, and thus its count would be less reliable.)


title: SS Canberra

text: SS "Canberra" was an ocean liner, which later operated on cruises, in the P&O fleet from 1961 to 1997. She was built at the Harland and Wolff shipyard in Belfast, Northern Ireland at a cost of £17 million. The ship was named on 17 March 1958, after the federal capital of Australia, Canberra. She was launched on 16 March 1960, sponsored by Dame Pattie Menzies, wife of the then Prime Minister of Australia, Robert Menzies. She entered service in May 1961, and made her maiden voyage starting in June. She appeared in the 1971 James Bond film "Diamonds Are Forever". In the 1982 Falklands War she served as a troopship. In 1997 the singer and songwriter Gerard Kenny released the single "Farewell Canberra" which was specially composed for the last voyage.


title: SS Canberra

text: P&O commissioned "Canberra" to operate the combined P&O–Orient Line service between the United Kingdom and Australasia and designed her to carry 548 first-class passengers and 1,650 tourist class. Too big for Tilbury she was based at Southampton. Her first voyage set out on 2 June 1961 through the Suez Canal and called at Colombo, Fremantle, Melbourne, Sydney, Auckland, Suva, Honolulu, San Francisco and Los Angeles returning to Southampton by the same ports. By mid-1963 she had spent many months in dry dock in Southampton and in the builder's yard for repairs to her electrical and mechanical systems.


title: SS Canberra

text: The era of mass air travel had begun by the time the "Canberra" was laid down and air travel prices fell relentlessly in the early 1960s to challenge P&O's lowest fares. In the second half of 1962 "Canberra" made a short cruise from Southampton followed by two more to New York. More cruises followed but nevertheless most of the ship's first decade was spent on the Australia run.


title: SS Canberra

text: At the end of 1972 she was withdrawn and refitted to carry 1,500 single-class passengers on cruises. Unusually, this transition from an early life as a purpose-built ocean liner to a long and successful career in cruising, occurred without any major external alterations, and with only minimal internal and mechanical changes over the years. One of her public rooms included a 'Cricketers Tavern', which contained a collection of bats and ties from cricket clubs all over the world; she also had the "William Fawcett" reading/writing room, named for the first P&O ship.


title: SS Canberra

text: In 1961, while still a student at the Royal College in London, the now famous British artist David Hockney (born 1937) was commissioned to create a mural for the ‘Pop Inn’, a special lounge for teenagers onboard. Hockney graffitied and drew on the walls for five days and the fee earned assisted him to travel to New York for the first time.


title: SS Canberra

text: Like and that she replaced on the Tilbury–Brisbane route, "Canberra" had turbo-electric transmission. Instead of being mechanically coupled to her propeller shafts, "Canberra"s steam turbines drove large electric alternators that provided current for electric motors that, in turn, drove the vessel's twin propellers. They were the most powerful steam turbo-electric units ever installed in a passenger ship; at per shaft, they surpassed 's on each of her four shafts. This would give her a speed of about . She also had a bow propeller for manoeuvring in port and docking manoeuvres. She was also the first British passenger liner to use alternating current as power.


title: SS Canberra

text: There are several operational and economical advantages to such electrical de-coupling of a ship's propulsion system, and it became a standard element of cruise ship design in the 1990s, over 30 years after "Canberra" entered service. However, diesel engine- and gas turbine-driven alternators are the primary power source for most modern electrically propelled ships.


title: SS Canberra

text: "Canberra" had a bulbous bow, two sets of stabilizers, and two funnels side-by-side. The lifeboats, which were made from glass fibre, were placed three decks lower than usual for ships of her type, and were recessed into the hull to allow improved view from the passenger decks.


title: SS Canberra

text: On 2 April 1982, Argentina invaded the Falkland Islands, which initiated the Falklands War. At the time, "Canberra" was cruising in the Mediterranean. The next day, her captain Dennis Scott-Masson received a message asking his time of arrival at Gibraltar, which was not on his itinerary. When he called at Gibraltar, he learnt that the Ministry of Defence (MoD) had requisitioned "Canberra" for use as a troopship. "Canberra" sailed to Southampton, Hampshire where she was quickly refitted, sailing on 9 April for the South Atlantic.


title: SS Canberra

text: Nicknamed the Great White Whale, "Canberra" proved vital in transporting 3 Commando Brigade to the islands more than from the United Kingdom. "Canberra" was sent to the heart of the conflict.


title: SS Canberra

text: "Canberra" anchored in San Carlos Water on 21 May as part of the landings by British forces to retake the islands. Although her size and white colour made her an unmissable target for the Argentine Air Force, "Canberra", if sunk, would not have been completely submerged in the shallow waters at San Carlos. However, the liner was not badly hit in the landings as the Argentine pilots tended to attack the warships instead of the supply and troop ships. After the war, Argentine pilots said they were told not to hit "Canberra", as they mistook her for a hospital ship. Hospital ships must be painted white, as "Canberra" always had been, but must also have a green stripe and fly a Red Cross flag.


title: SS Canberra

text: "Canberra" then sailed to South Georgia, where 3,000 troops were transferred from "Queen Elizabeth 2". They were landed at San Carlos on 2 June. When the war ended, "Canberra" was used as a cartel to repatriate captured Argentine soldiers, landing them at Puerto Madryn, before returning to Southampton to a rapturous welcome on 11 July. Captain Scott-Masson, who had started his apprenticeship on the Shaw, Savill & Albion Line troopship in the late 1940s, was awarded a CBE and made an aide-de-camp to Queen Elizabeth II.


title: SS Canberra

text: After a lengthy refit, "Canberra" returned to civilian service as a cruise ship. Her role in the Falklands War made her very popular with the British public, and ticket sales after her return were elevated for many years as a result. In March 1986, the Golden Cockerel trophy was transferred from the old "Oriana" to the "Canberra" due to Oriana's retirement. Age and high running costs eventually caught up with the "Canberra" though, as she had much higher fuel consumption than most modern cruise ships. As refitting her to meet the new 1997 SOLAS regulations would have been very expensive, P&O opted to retire the old vessel.


title: SS Canberra

text: On 25 June 1996 P&O Cruises announced that the "Canberra" would be retired at the end of 1997. Although Premier Cruise Line had made a bid for the old ship, P&O had already decided that they did not want "Canberra" to operate under a different flag and refused to sell her to Premier (as a result, Premier bought the similar looking Rotterdam). A replacement for the "Canberra", the 1988-built "Star Princess" was transferred to P&O Cruises and was renamed "Arcadia". On 25 September 1997 the Golden Cockerel trophy was transferred from "Canberra" to the new "Oriana" while both ships were docked at Cannes, France.


title: SS Canberra

text: "Canberra" was withdrawn from P&O service on 30 September 1997 and sold to ship breakers for scrapping on 10 October 1997, leaving for Gadani ship-breaking yard, Pakistan on 31 October 1997. Her deep draft meant that she could not be beached as far as most ships, and due to her solid construction the scrapping process took nearly a year instead of the estimated three months, being totally scrapped by the end of 1998.


title: Omri Casspi

text: Omri Moshe Casspi (, born June 22, 1988) is an Israeli former professional basketball player. He mainly played at the small forward position, but could play also at the power forward position.


title: Omri Casspi

text: Casspi was drafted 23rd overall in the 2009 NBA draft by the Sacramento Kings, making him the first Israeli to be selected in the first round of an NBA draft. With his Kings debut in 2009, Casspi became the first Israeli to play in an NBA game. As a rookie, Casspi was chosen to participate in the NBA All-Star Weekend Rookie Challenge. The Cleveland Cavaliers traded for him in June 2011, and he signed with the Houston Rockets in July 2013. In July 2014, Casspi was traded to the New Orleans Pelicans as part of a three-team trade, but was later waived. He then returned to Sacramento prior to the 2014–15 season. In February 2017, he was traded to the Pelicans alongside DeMarcus Cousins, and signed with the Warriors during the offseason. Waived after an April injury, he signed with Memphis in July 2018.


title: Omri Casspi

text: One of the few Jewish players to reach the NBA after Dolph Schayes, Ernie Grunfeld, Danny Schayes and Jordan Farmar and the first Israeli-born, Omri Casspi was born in Holon, Israel. He was raised in the city of Yavne, Israel. He is the son of Shimon and Ilana, and has an older brother, Eitan, and a younger sister, Aviv. Both of Casspi's parents are Israeli-born and of Moroccan-Jewish descent. As an adult, he added the middle name "Moshe" in memory of his grandfather.


title: Omri Casspi

text: As a child, Casspi played for junior programs at Elitzur Yavne and Maccabi Rishon LeZion. When he was 13, he moved to the Maccabi Tel Aviv youth team, winning the State Youth championship in 2005.


title: Omri Casspi

text: Having previously played for Maccabi Tel Aviv youth team, Casspi made his professional debut at age 17 with Maccabi Tel Aviv during the 2005–06 season. In his rookie season as a professional player, he had averages of 4.2 points and 2.1 rebounds in 9.4 minutes per game in the Israeli Premier League.


title: Omri Casspi

text: In 2006, Casspi was loaned to Hapoel Galil Elyon for the 2006–07 season, going on to have a breakthrough season behind him. He averaged 11.1 points and 3.1 rebounds over 28 games. In April 2007, he scored 14 points for the World Select team at the Nike Hoop Summit in Memphis.


title: Omri Casspi

text: Casspi returned to Maccabi for the 2007–08 season. The team reached the EuroLeague Finals in 2008. Casspi received the 2008 Israeli League Sixth Man of the Year award, averaging 10.4 points and 4 rebounds per game. In February 2009, he finished in fourth place in voting for the FIBA Europe Young Men's Player of the Year Award for the 2008–09 season, behind Ricky Rubio, Danilo Gallinari and Kosta Koufos. Maccabi won a state championship in 2009. In the same season, Casspi's role in the team increased in the Israeli League, as well as in the EuroLeague. Over 27 league games, Casspi averaged 12.8 points, 4.8 rebounds and 1.8 assists, all career-highs.


title: Omri Casspi

text: In 2008, Casspi declared himself eligible for the 2008 NBA draft, but he withdrew before the declaration deadline after failing to receive a first-round draft guarantee from any NBA club.


title: Omri Casspi

text: On June 25, 2009, Casspi was selected with the 23rd overall pick by the Sacramento Kings in the 2009 NBA draft, becoming the first Israeli player selected as a first-round draft pick. Not since Oded Kattash agreed to a contract with the New York Knicks in 1999 had an Israeli player come so close to playing in the NBA. On July 10, 2009, he signed a multi-year deal with the Kings.


title: Omri Casspi

text: On October 28, 2009, Casspi made his NBA debut for the Kings against the Oklahoma City Thunder, scoring 15 points. On December 16, 2009, Casspi made his first NBA start. Scoring 22 points against the Washington Wizards, he tied the most points scored by any Kings player in his first start since the team moved to Sacramento in 1985.


title: Omri Casspi

text: On January 1, 2010, Casspi scored a then career-high 23 points against the Los Angeles Lakers (along with 6 rebounds, 1 steal, and 3 assists) as the Kings lost, 109–108. On January 2, 2010, he grabbed a career-high 11 rebounds against the Dallas Mavericks (along with 22 points, 1 steal, and 4 assists) as the Kings lost, 99–91. On January 5, 2010, Casspi set a new career-high with 24 points against the Phoenix Suns (along with 7 rebounds, 1 assist, no turnovers, and 10–19 from the field) as the Kings lost, 113–109.


title: Omri Casspi

text: In February 2010, Casspi was chosen to participate in the NBA All-Star Weekend Rookie Challenge, as well as the NBA All-Star Weekend H–O–R–S–E Competition against Kevin Durant and Rajon Rondo.


title: Omri Casspi

text: In 2010–11, Casspi played in 71 games for Sacramento (starting 27 of them). He averaged 8.6 points, shot .412 shooting (including .372 from three-point range), and averaged 4.3 rebounds and 1.0 assists in 24.1 minutes per game. In his two seasons for Sacramento, he averaged 9.5 points on .431 shooting, 4.4 rebounds, and 1.1 assists in 24.6 minutes per game.


title: Omri Casspi

text: On June 30, 2011, Casspi was traded, along with a 2012 first round draft pick, to the Cleveland Cavaliers in exchange for JJ Hickson.


title: Omri Casspi

text: On July 16, 2013, Casspi signed a multi-year deal with the Houston Rockets. On November 1, 2013, for the first time Israelis on opposing NBA teams faced each other, as the Rockets played Gal Mekel and the Dallas Mavericks; the two were teammates on the Israelis Under 16, Under 18, and Under 20 teams, and on the Maccabi Tel Aviv junior team.


title: Omri Casspi

text: On July 15, 2014, Casspi was traded from the Rockets to the New Orleans Pelicans in a three-team trade that also involved the Washington Wizards. On July 23, 2014, he was waived bye the Pelicans.


title: Omri Casspi

text: On September 18, 2014, Casspi signed with the Sacramento Kings, returning for a second stint. On April 7, 2015, he scored a then career-high 31 points on 12-of-20 shooting in a 116-111 win over the Minnesota Timberwolves.


title: Omri Casspi

text: On July 14, 2015, Casspi re-signed with the Kings. On December 28, 2015, he scored a career-high 36 points in a loss to the Golden State Warriors. He also tied Mike Bibby's team record with nine three-pointers.


title: Omri Casspi

text: While shooting 44.8 percent from outside of the arc, he was being mentioned as a candidate for the All-Star Three-Point Contest.


title: Omri Casspi

text: On February 20, 2017, Casspi and teammate DeMarcus Cousins were traded to the New Orleans Pelicans in exchange for Tyreke Evans, Buddy Hield, Langston Galloway, and 2017 first round and second round draft picks. In his only game for the Pelicans three days later, Casspi broke his right thumb after scoring 12 points in the 129–99 loss to the Houston Rockets. He was subsequently waived by the Pelicans on February 25 after being ruled out for four to six weeks.


title: Omri Casspi

text: On July 12, 2017, Casspi signed with the Golden State Warriors. On December 14, 2017, he posted his 17th career double-double with 17 points and a season-high 11 rebounds in a 112–97 win over the Dallas Mavericks. On February 12, 2018, Casspi posted a season-high 19 points and 10 rebounds in a 129–83 win over the Phoenix Suns. On April 7, 2018, Casspi, being injured, was waived by the Warriors to make room for Quinn Cook on their playoff roster. Coach Steve Kerr explained that “We love Omri and what he brought to the team...It was difficult to sit with him and tell him we were going to do this." Without Casspi, the Warriors went on to win the NBA championship in 2018. Casspi subsequently received a championship ring from the Warriors for his contribution during the 2017–18 season.


title: Omri Casspi

text: On July 11, 2018, Casspi signed with the Memphis Grizzlies. Entering the 2018–19 season, Casspi had yet to participate in the NBA playoffs, the NBA's longest active tenured player to have never played in a playoff game, ranking him number five overall in league history, he finished the season ranking fourth on that list. On February 1, 2019, Casspi suffered from a meniscus tear in his right knee and surgery would be scheduled accordingly. On February 7, he was waived by the Grizzlies.


title: Omri Casspi

text: On August 13, 2019, Casspi returned to Maccabi Tel Aviv for a second stint, signing a three-year deal after playing ten seasons in the NBA. On November 1, 2019, Casspi was named Israeli Player of the Month after averaging 11.3 points, 5.5 rebounds, 3.0 assists and 1.8 steals in four games played in October.


title: Omri Casspi

text: Casspi plays for the senior Israeli national team in international competition, and he was the team's captain at the 2015 EuroBasket.


title: Omri Casspi

text: Casspi runs the Omri Casspi Foundation, which every year sponsors trips backed by the National Basketball Players Association, for NBA players, WNBA players, and other celebrities, to Israel. The goal of the foundation is reach populations and show to the world what Israel is really like. In 2015, those joining Casspi included DeMarcus Cousins, Caron Butler, Chandler Parsons, Iman Shumpert and Tyreke Evans. The 2016 delegation included Jeremy Piven, Shawn Marion, Amar'e Stoudemire, Beno Udrih, Rudy Gay, Donald Sloan, Chris Copeland, Georges St-Pierre, Alysha Clark, Mistie Bass and Maria Ho.


title: Omri Casspi

text: On July 6, 2017, Casspi was one of seven athletes to have been honored with participation in the torch lighting ceremony of the 2017 Maccabiah Games.


title: Sara Aldrete

text: Sara María Aldrete Villareal (born September 6, 1964) is a convicted Mexican serial killer who headed a drug-smuggling and human sacrifice cult with Adolfo Constanzo. The members of the cult, dubbed by the media as The Narcosatanists (Spanish: "Los Narcosatánicos"), called her The Godmother ("La Madrina"), with Constanzo as "The Godfather" ("El Padrino"). The cult was involved in multiple ritualistic killings in Matamoros, Tamaulipas, including the murder of Mark Kilroy, an American student killed in Matamoros in 1989. She received a sentence of 62 years.


title: Sara Aldrete

text: Born in Matamoros, Tamaulipas, she attended high school in Brownsville, Texas, while still living south of the border, and gained resident alien status so she could attend Texas Southmost College. She was known among her peers as a good student. She is tall and studied physical education, preparing to transfer to a university to earn a teaching certification in physical education.


title: Sara Aldrete

text: Adolfo Constanzo, a Cuban American fortune-teller and religious cult leader, introduced her to witchcraft and dark magic. He gave her the nickname "La Madrina", Spanish for "godmother", and initiated her into his cult, which was a conglomeration of Santería, Aztec warrior ritual, and Palo Mayombe, complete with blood sacrifices. Constanzo sexually assaulted and killed drug dealers and used their body parts for religious sacrifice ceremonies in an old warehouse near Matamoros. Many of his victims' body parts were cooked in a large pot called a "nganga". Constanzo made Sara Aldrete second-in-command of his cult, and directed her to supervise his followers while he was shipping marijuana over the border into the U.S.


title: Sara Aldrete

text: In 1989, the killings grew more frequent and gained attention when American tourist Mark J. Kilroy, a University of Texas student on Spring Break, was abducted. Constanzo, Aldrete and the rest of the cult went on the run when detectives discovered their 'shrine'. They found human hair, brains, teeth, and skulls at the site of the murders. Eventually, the police found their hideout in Mexico City on May 6, 1989. After a shootout, Constanzo and one of his accomplices were shot and killed by another member of the cult, apparently at Constanzo's behest. Aldrete was convicted of criminal association in 1990 and jailed for six years. In a second trial, she was convicted of several of the killings at the cult's headquarters, and sentenced to 30 years in prison. If Aldrete is ever released from prison, American authorities plan to prosecute her for the murder of Mark Kilroy.


title: Mariah Angeliq

text: Mariah Angelique Pérez (born August 7, 1999), known professionally as Mariah Angeliq, is an American singer.


title: Mariah Angeliq

text: Angeliq was born Mariah Angelique Pérez in Miami, Florida, to a Cuban father and Puerto Rican mother. She was named after Mariah Carey and Aaliyah. Her first language was Spanish, but she quickly learned English when she was enrolled in school in New Jersey.


title: Mariah Angeliq

text: Mariah Angeliq began writing music at the age of 16, and ran away from her home to follow her music career. She crossed paths with the reggaeton producer Nely who guided the artist and introduced Spanish music to her repertoire. She signed with Universal Music Group in 2018. She released her first single "Blah" on June 28, 2018. On July 31, 2020, Angeliq released her first EP, "Normal". Angeliq released a single with J Álvarez and Marie Monti titled "Billete" on March 5, 2021. She was a guest artist on Karol G's 2021 album KG0516, singing in the song "El Makinon". Puerto Rican rapper Ivy Queen is Angeliq’s musical idol.


title: Mariah Angeliq

text: Angeliq was reported to be dating actor Max Ehrich in November 2020. As of May 2021, she is currently dating actor and musician Roshon Fegan.


title: Say Nothing (book)

text: Say Nothing: A True Story of Murder and Memory in Northern Ireland is a 2018 book by writer and journalist Patrick Radden Keefe. It focuses on the Troubles in Northern Ireland. It spent six weeks on "The New York Times" Best Seller list and received widespread critical acclaim.


title: Say Nothing (book)

text: "Say Nothing" focuses on The Troubles in Northern Ireland, beginning with the 1972 abduction and murder of Jean McConville. Keefe began researching and writing the book after reading the obituary for Dolours Price in 2013.


title: Say Nothing (book)

text: The book's title is taken from the poem "Whatever You Say, Say Nothing" by Irish Nobel laureate Seamus Heaney from his collection "North" (1975).


title: Say Nothing (book)

text: "Say Nothing" was first published by the William Collins imprint of HarperCollins on November 1, 2018. It was later published in the US by Doubleday on February 26, 2019.


title: Say Nothing (book)

text: The book debuted at number seven on "The New York Times" Hardcover Nonfiction best-sellers list on March 17, 2019. It spent six weeks on the list. "Say Nothing" also debuted at number five on "The New York Times" Combined Print & E-Book Nonfiction best-sellers list on March 17, 2019. It spent six weeks on the list.


title: Say Nothing (book)

text: On the review aggregator website Book Marks, which assigns individual ratings to book reviews from mainstream literary critics, the book received a cumulative "Rave" rating based on 21 reviews: 11 "Rave" reviews and 10 "Positive" reviews. Jennifer Szalai of "The New York Times" wrote, "Keefe's narrative is an architectural feat, expertly constructed out of complex and contentious material, arranged and balanced just so."


title: Say Nothing (book)

text: Maureen Corrigan of NPR enthusiastically wrote, "Keefe is a "storyteller" who captures the complexities of a historical moment by digging deep into the lives of people on all sides of the conflict." Corrigan concludes, "At the end of his panoramic book, which gathers together history, politics and biography, Keefe tightens the focus back to the mystery of McConville's abduction and murder. And, as in the most ingenious crime stories, Keefe unveils a revelation — lying, so to speak, in plain sight — that only further complicates the moral dimensions of his tale."


title: Say Nothing (book)

text: Devlin Barrett of "The Washington Post" described how "Say Nothing" is "a cautionary tale, [that] speaks volumes — about the zealotry of youth, the long-term consequences of violence and the politics of forgetting."


title: Say Nothing (book)

text: "The Economist" noted, "The discerning skill with which Mr. Radden Keefe gets inside these characters' minds may unsettle some readers, but it is also his book's strength. He shows how people who in peacetime might just have been strong-willed or colourful types came to condone or perpetrate the unspeakable."


title: Say Nothing (book)

text: Stephen Phillips of "The Los Angeles Times" praised the book saying, "'Say Nothing' powerfully documents a society benumbed by trauma attempting to reckon with the abyss that engulfed it."


title: Say Nothing (book)

text: The book was named one of the top ten books of 2019 by both the "New York Times Book Review" and the "Washington Post". It won the 2019 National Book Critics Circle Award for nonfiction.


title: The Ambiguously Gay Duo

text: The Ambiguously Gay Duo is an American animated comedy sketch that debuted on "The Dana Carvey Show" before moving to its permanent home on "Saturday Night Live". It is created and produced by Robert Smigel and J. J. Sedelmaier as part of the "Saturday TV Funhouse" series of sketches. It follows the adventures of Ace and Gary, voiced by Stephen Colbert and Steve Carell, respectively, two superheroes whose sexual orientation is a matter of dispute, and a cavalcade of characters preoccupied with the question.