Background and education.

Selborne was the son of Lord Chancellor Roundell Palmer, 1st Earl of Selborne, and Lady Laura, daughter of Vice-Admiral William Waldegrave, 8th Earl Waldegrave. He was educated at Temple Grove School, Winchester and University College, Oxford, where he took a first class degree in history.

Political career.

1882–1910.

Selborne was assistant private secretary to the Chancellor of the Exchequer, Hugh Childers, from 1882 to 1885, when he was elected Liberal Member of Parliament for East Hampshire. Like his father, he became a Liberal Unionist in 1886 when William Ewart Gladstone proposed Irish Home Rule. He retained his seat till 1892, when he was elected for Edinburgh West. In 1895 he was appointed Under-Secretary of State for the Colonies by his father-in-law Lord Salisbury, where he became junior to the Colonial Secretary Joseph Chamberlain. During the difficult period before the outbreak of the Second Boer War he progressed rapidly.  In November 1900 Selborne was sworn of the Privy Council and made First Lord of the Admiralty under Salisbury, with a seat in the cabinet, an office he retained when Arthur Balfour became Prime Minister in 1902. In 1905 he succeeded Lord Milner as High Commissioner for Southern Africa and governor of the Transvaal and Orange River colonies. He assumed office at Pretoria in May of that year. He had gone out with the intention of guiding the destinies of South Africa during a period when the ex-Boer republics would be in a transitional state between crown colony government and self-government, and letters patent were issued granting the Transvaal representative institutions.  But the Liberal Party came into office in Britain the following December, before the new constitution had been established, and, the decision was now taken to give both the Transvaal and Orange River colonies self-government without delay. Lord Selborne accepted the changed situation, and the experiment proved successful. He ceased to be governor of the Orange River Colony on its assumption of self-government in June 1907, but retained his other posts until May 1910, retiring on the eve of the establishment of the Union of South Africa.  The despatch, dated 7 January 1907 and known as the Selborne Memorandum, in which he reviewed the situation in its economic and political aspects, was a comprehensive statement of the dangers inherent in the existing system and of the advantages likely to attend union. The document had in fact been compiled by Lionel Curtis and other members of Milner's Kindergarten. The force of its appeal had a marked influence on the course of events, while the loyalty with which Lord Selborne co-operated with the Botha administration was an additional factor in reconciling the Dutch and British communities.

1910–1942.

He returned to England with his reputation, according to the 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica, "as a statesman enhanced by the respect of all parties, and with a practical experience, second only to that of Lord Milner, of British imperialism in successful operation." His experience made him a valuable ally in the movement among the Unionist party at home for Tariff Reform and Colonial Preference, to which he could now give his full support.  In 1915 Selborne returned to government during the First World War when he became President of the Board of Agriculture in the war time coalition of Liberal prime minister H. H. Asquith. He resigned from Cabinet in June 1916 because of Lloyd George's handling of the botched Home Rule negotiations (May–July) and the Prime Minister's failure to bring Lloyd George to task while the negotiations were still in progress. Selborne did not hold high political office again. The Selborne Committee on Church and State from 1914 to 1916 was chaired by Lord Selborne.  Apart from his political career Selborne served as Master of the Worshipful Company of Mercers in 1910 and 1933, as his father had done before him, in 1875. In 1916 he was elected a member of the Society for Psychical Research. He was also Warden of Winchester College between 1920 and 1925 and High Steward of Winchester between 1929 and 1942. He was made a Knight of the Garter in 1909.

Family.

Lord Selborne married Lady Maud Cecil, elder daughter of future Prime Minister Robert Cecil, 3rd Marquess of Salisbury, in 1883. A Suiderberg, Pretoria district, Lady Selborne, is named after her.  They had three sons and one daughter.  His second son, the Hon. Robert Palmer, was a Captain in the Hampshire Regiment and was killed on active service in Mesopotamia in 1916. His daughter was Lady Mabel Laura Georgiana Palmer, who became Countess Grey as the wife of Charles Grey, 5th Earl Grey. His letters home were privately published as "Letters from Mesopotamia". Lord Selborne died in February 1942, aged 82, and was succeeded by his eldest son, Roundell, Viscount Wolmer, who had already the previous year been summoned to the House of Lords by writ of acceleration in his father's junior title of Baron Selborne. The Countess of Selborne died in April 1950.

William Waldegrave Palmer, 2nd Earl of Selborne, (17 October 1859 – 26 February 1942), styled Viscount Wolmer between 1882 and 1895, was a British politician and colonial administrator, who served as High Commissioner for Southern Africa.


Plot.

Clary Fray has just enrolled at Brooklyn Academy of Arts. On her eighteenth birthday, she learns that she is a Shadowhunter, a human born with angelic blood who protects humans from demons and rogue downworlders. That night, Clary's mother, Jocelyn, is abducted by a group of rogue Shadowhunters called the Circle. Their leader is Jocelyn's ex-husband, Valentine Morgenstern, who is also Clary's father.  With her mother missing, Clary turns to Luke, a person she trusted, only to be betrayed. Clary joins up with a group of Shadowhunters to save her mother and discovers powers she never knew she possessed. Clary is thrown into the world of demon hunting with the mysterious, narcissistic, and attractive Shadowhunters Jace, Isabelle and Alec along with her loyal and geeky friend Simon. Now living amongst the fair folk, warlocks, vampires, and werewolves, Clary begins a journey of self-discovery as she learns more about her past and what her future may hold.

Production.

Development.

In 2010, Screen Gems announced that they were going into production on the of "City of Bones", the first book in "The Mortal Instruments" series, with hopes of starting a successful film franchise. Production on a film adaptation of the second book, "City of Ashes", was due to start in September 2013, but was delayed to 2014, and eventually cancelled, after the first film failed to recoup its budget.  On October 12, 2014, at Mipcom, Constantin confirmed that "The Mortal Instruments" will return as a television series with Ed Decter as showrunner. Constantin Film and TV head Martin Moszkowicz told "The Hollywood Reporter" that, "It actually makes sense to do [the novels] as a TV series. There was so much from the book that we had to leave out of the "Mortal Instruments" film. In the series we'll be able to go deeper and explore this world in greater detail and depth." The producers hope to adapt the entire book series if the TV adaptation proves successful. In February 2015, book series author Cassandra Clare announced via Twitter that the television series would be called "Shadowhunters" rather than "The Mortal Instruments". In March 2015, ABC Family picked up "Shadowhunters" straight-to-series. The series was renewed for a second season in March 2016, consisting of 20 episodes, which premiered on January 2, 2017. In April 2017, it was announced that the series was renewed for a third season of 20 episodes. The first half of ten episodes premiered on March 20, 2018. On June 4, 2018, Freeform canceled the series after three seasons, but ordered two extra episodes to properly conclude the series' story; the second half of the third season premiered on February 25, 2019.  In August 2016, soon before filming on the second season was to begin, showrunner Ed Decter exited the series over "creative differences". Todd Slavkin and Darren Swimmer, who were former showrunners on "Smallville", were announced as Decter's replacements in August 2016.

Casting.

On Twitter, Cassandra Clare announced that she would not be part of casting decisions, and would not be expecting any of the original film cast to return. On April 20, 2015, ABC revealed Dominic Sherwood as the first member of the "Shadowhunters" cast. On May 1, 2015, it was announced that Emeraude Toubia would be taking the role of Isabelle Lightwood and Alberto Rosende would be joining the cast as Simon Lewis. On May 6, it was reported that Katherine McNamara landed the lead role of Clary Fray. Two days later, on May 8, Matthew Daddario and Isaiah Mustafa were cast as Alec Lightwood and Luke Garroway, respectively. Harry Shum, Jr. and Alan van Sprang later joined the cast on May 15, as Magnus Bane and Valentine Morgenstern. On May 18, it was announced that Maxim Roy would be playing Jocelyn Fray.  On May 28, Jon Cor was announced to play Hodge Starkweather, a Shadowhunter and former member of the Circle. David Castro was reported to be portraying vampire Raphael Santiago on June 4. Shortly after, on June 9, Lisa Marcos announced she would be joining the cast as Captain Vargas, a new character created for the series by Ed Decter. On June 12, producer McG's official Twitter account stated that Kaitlyn Leeb had been cast to play the vampire, Camille Belcourt. On June 16, Jade Hassouné was reported to be portraying the faerie, Meliorn. On August 8, Stephanie Bennett was cast as the new character Lydia Branwell, a rule-following Shadowhunter. On September 2, 2016, Alisha Wainwright was announced to play Maia Roberts in the second season, and soon promoted to series regular beginning on season 3.

Filming.

The series began filming in Mississauga, Canada on May 25, 2015. The fictional New York Police Department's 89 Precinct was filmed in the Science Wing at the University of Toronto Scarborough.

Music.

Soundtrack.

"Shadowhunters (Original Television Series Soundtrack)" was released on platforms including iTunes, Spotify and Apple Music on July 21, 2017, featuring six original songs from the show. Ben Decter composed the instrumental music score for the first season. Trevor Morris and Jack Wall composed the instrumental music score for the second and third seasons. Their music was released as a soundtrack album in 2018. The opening theme song is "This Is The Hunt" performed by Ruelle, which was written for "Shadowhunters" by Maggie Eckford (Ruelle's real name) and Jeff Bowman. Other Ruelle songs have featured in the series.

Broadcast.

The series premiered on January 12, 2016, in the U.S. on Freeform. The second episode, "The Descent into Hell Is Easy", was released online that same day, following the premiere of the first episode. In December 2015, Netflix acquired global rights to "Shadowhunters", excluding the U.S., making the series available as an original series a day after the U.S. premiere, with the first episode having launched globally on January 13, 2016, and subsequent episodes having been released on a weekly basis.

Reception.

Critical response.

The debut season of "Shadowhunters" received mixed responses from critics. Metacritic gave it a 45 out of 100 rating, based on 9 reviews, indicating "mixed or average reviews". Rotten Tomatoes gave the series a 44% rating, based on 25 reviews, with an average rating of 5.81/10. The site's consensus states, ""Shadowhunters" boasts visual thrills and a potential-rich premise, but they're not enough to overcome the show's self-serious silliness and dull, convoluted plots."  According to James Poniewozik of "The New York Times", the series "has its assets, especially its popular source material. But it might become more fun if it learns to enjoy being the empowerment fantasy it really is."

Shadowhunters, also known as Shadowhunters: The Mortal Instruments, is an American supernatural drama television series developed by Ed Decter, based on the popular book series "The Mortal Instruments" written by Cassandra Clare. It premiered in North America on Freeform on January 12, 2016. Primarily filmed in Toronto, Ontario, Canada, the series follows Clary Fray (Katherine McNamara), who finds out on her eighteenth birthday that she is not who she thinks she is, but rather comes from a long line of Shadowhunters, human-angel hybrids who hunt down demons.


Early life.

A Russian citizen, Pavlov was born in Ukhta, Komi ASSR. It is unknown if he was an ethnic Komi. He lived in Rostov-on-Don and spent some time in the Russian army. According to a newspaper report by "Georgian Journal" he had serious problems with Rostov's police while working there at a car wash, since he allegedly went on a drunken joyride in a car stolen from there. In an interview, Pavlov states that he had left behind a wife and 5-year-old son in Russia before going to Ukraine, where he then remarried to 21-year-old Olena Kolenkina in Slovyansk.  According to Pavlov, he got his nickname "Motorola" after working with Motorola-manufactured equipment while serving for four years as a wireman in the army or due to his role as the chief radioman for the commanding officer in the marine infantry.

Activities in Ukraine.

On 16 March 2014, he participated in protests in Kharkiv, Ukraine that called for Russia's intervention. He was caught on camera in video footage of the events by the city's internet news publisher. Calling himself 'Motorola', he became the leader of the Sparta Battalion, a pro-Russian armed group fighting in the war in Donbass against the Ukrainian government. He declared the region to be "Russian land".  Pavlov led his battalion in both the Battle of Ilovaisk and the Second Battle of Donetsk Airport. The government of Ukraine placed him on its wanted list for the creation of illegal paramilitary and military formations (Article 260, part 5). In February 2015, the European Union added him to its list of sanctioned individuals.  On 2 October 2014 Pavlov threatened to go to Poland after the plane of Russian defense minister was not allowed to fly over Polish airspace on 29 August 2014.  On 24 June 2016, an assassination attempt was made on him in Donetsk after he left a traumatological center when a car bomb exploded. A few cars were damaged in the area but no casualties or wounds were reported. Head of the self-proclaimed Donetsk People's Republic (DPR) Alexander Zakharchenko condemned this attack, adding that "to do this in the territory of a hospital where women and children walk, this crime is beyond all measures."

War crimes.

In April 2015, the "Kyiv Post" released a recording in which Pavlov discussed killing fifteen Ukrainian prisoners of war. Motorola and his battalion are also accused of torturing captured Ukrainian soldiers. After Ukrainian soldier Ihor Branovytsky had been captured near Donetsk and was in custody of Pavlov's group, Pavlov is alleged to have deliberately killed the prisoner on 21 January 2015 with two headshots.

Family.

He publicly married Olena Kolenkina on 11 July 2014, in a wedding amid the war. The wedding was attended by Igor Girkin and Pavel Gubarev. In a June 2014 interview to Russian newspaper "Zavtra", Pavlov stated that he was already married and had a five-year-old son. He and his bride were featured in a caricature by Donetsk artist Serhiy Zakharov, who was subsequently held prisoner and tortured for several months by pro-Russian separatists.He rented an apartment in Donetsk for 2,500 hryvnias per month and owned a Lada Niva given as a gift by Russian politician Vladimir Zhirinovsky.

Death.

Arsen Pavlov was killed on 16 October 2016 by an IED explosion in his apartment's elevator in Donetsk. Pavlov's bodyguard was also killed in the blast. Donetsk People's Republic officials claimed the IED explosion was activated from a distance by a Ukrainian neo-nazi group, the self-styled "Misanthropic Division". The leader of the group, however, denied any involvement in the assassination. Ukrainian officials also denied the allegations, stating that Arsen Pavlov was "lucky" to be killed so he would not have to face justice for his crimes, further suggesting the rebel leader was likely assassinated by Russia's special forces as part of a wider purge against the early leaders of the rebel movement, pointing to the fact that about half dozen rebel commanders have been assassinated. DPR head Alexander Zakharchenko declared the killing a violation of the ceasefire and a "declaration of war" by Ukraine. DPR authorities declared a three-day mourning commemorating "DPR hero, Colonel Arseny Pavlov".  Following his death, the Ukrainian hacking group Cyber Junta disclosed information from Pavlov's phone, including personal photos and videos, legal documents, and correspondence. In the weeks leading up to his assassination, Pavlov expressed worry over a conflict with Russian officers, and believed he had become expendable. On 15 October, Pavlov instructed his wife to not trust Russian FSB agents. Shaun Walker, the Moscow correspondent of "The Guardian" reported that Pavlov was extremely paranoid about his security, and that it is likely that such an attack would require aid from someone within his inner circle.  The assassination of Arsen Pavlov followed a string of high-profile deaths within the ranks of Ukraine's separatists, starting with the assassination of Alexander Bednov, the leader of the "Batman Battalion" and Aleksey Mozgovoy, the leader of the "Prizrak Brigade" in May 2015. The death of Arsen Pavlov came within a month of the death of Yevgeny Zhilin, the founder of "Oplot Battalion", which would later form into the "Oplot Brigade".  Ukrainian officials have stated that Arsen Pavlov was assassinated by Russia's special forces as part of a drive to purge early separatist leaders that took part in the original insurgency of 2014, who may be charismatic but are often unpredictable. Moreover, most of the separatist leaders assassinated headed their own units, which would often engage in infighting over territory or control of the black market, suspecting that the assassinations are part of a drive to form a more uniform chain of command. Another theory behind the assassination has been that there is a drive to get rid of the first generation of rebels who were implicated in war crimes, therefore giving the separatist forces a more acceptable public face. Indeed, Amnesty International has called for an investigation into Arsen Pavlov executing 15 unarmed Ukrainian prisoners. Moreover, Arsen Pavlov's alleged war crimes have been one of the sticking points of the implementations of the Minsk II agreement, with Ukrainian authorities stating that he would not be granted amnesty. Furthermore, Arsen Pavlov was not a Ukrainian citizen, being born and raised in Russia, and serving in the Russian military during the Chechen conflict. Thus, his involvement as the leader of a Ukrainian separatist movement was pointed to as an example of Russian interference in the conflict, Ukrainian member of Parliament, Maksym Burbak claimed that the assassination may have been a ploy to replace Russian born separatist leaders with Ukrainian born ones, making the War in Donbass look more like an internal affair. Ukrainian military spokesman Andriy Lysenko suggested the assassination could be used as cover for Russian separatists to carry out terrorist attacks within Ukraine.

Arsen (Arseny) Sergeyevich Pavlov (; 2 February 1983 – 16 October 2016), known by his "nom de guerre" Motorola (Моторо́ла), was a Russian citizen who led the Sparta Battalion, an armed group fighting the Ukrainian army, in the ongoing War in Donbass.


Etymology.

The modern English word "spirit" comes from the Latin, but also "spirit, soul, courage, vigor", ultimately from a Proto-Indo-European. It is distinguished from Latin, "soul" (which nonetheless also derives from an Indo-European root meaning "to breathe", earliest form ). In Greek, this distinction exists between (), "breath, motile air, spirit," and (), "soul" (even though the latter term, =, is also from an Indo-European root meaning "to breathe":, zero grade devoicing in proto-Greek to "*phs-", resulting in historical-period Greek in, "to breathe", whence, "spirit", "soul").  The word "spirit" came into Middle English via Old French. The distinction between soul and spirit also developed in the Abrahamic religions: Arabic () opposite (); Hebrew "neshama" ( ) or "nephesh" ( ) (in Hebrew comes from the root or "breath") opposite ( ). (Note, however, that in Semitic just as in Indo-European, this dichotomy has not "always" been as neat historically as it has come to be taken over a long period of development: Both (root ) and (root ), as well as cognate words in various Semitic languages, including Arabic, also preserve meanings involving miscellaneous air phenomena: "breath", "wind", and even "odour".)

Usage.

"Spirit" has acquired a number of meanings:

Related concepts.

Similar concepts in other languages include Greek "pneuma", Chinese "Ling" and "hun" (靈魂) and Sanskrit "akasha / atman" (see also "prana"). Some languages use a word for spirit often closely related (if not synonymous) to "mind". Examples include the German "Geist" (related to the English word "ghost") or the French "l'esprit". English versions of the Bible most commonly translate the Hebrew word "ruach" (רוח; "wind") as "the spirit", whose essence is divine.  Alternatively, Hebrew texts commonly use the word "nephesh". Kabbalists regard "nephesh" as one of the five parts of the Jewish soul, where "nephesh" (animal) refers to the physical being and its animal instincts. Similarly, Scandinavian, Baltic, and Slavic languages, as well as Chinese (气 "qi"), use the words for "breath" to express concepts similar to "the spirit".

In folk belief, spirit is the vital principle or animating force within all living things. As far back as 1628 and 1633 respectively, both William Harvey and René Descartes speculated that somewhere within the body, in a special locality, there was a ‘vital spirit’ or 'vital force', which animated the whole bodily frame, such as the engine in a factory moves the machinery in it. Spirit has frequently been conceived of as a supernatural being, or non-physical entity; for example, a demon, ghost, fairy, or angel. In ancient Islamic terminology however, a "spirit" ("rūḥ"), applies only to pure spirits, but not to other invisible creatures, such as jinn, demons and angels.


Bidding process.

Paris, Hamburg, Budapest, Rome, and Los Angeles were the five candidate cities. However, the process was hit by withdrawals, with political uncertainty and cost cited as deterring bidding cities. Hamburg withdrew its bid on 29 November 2015 after holding a referendum. Rome withdrew on 21 September 2016 citing fiscal difficulties. On 22 February 2017, Budapest withdrew after a petition against the bid collected more signatures than necessary for a referendum.  Following these withdrawals, the IOC Executive Board met in Lausanne, Switzerland to discuss the 2024 and 2028 bid processes on 9 June 2017. The International Olympic Committee formally proposed electing the 2024 and 2028 Olympic host cities at the same time in 2017, a proposal which was approved by an Extraordinary IOC Session on 11 July 2017 in Lausanne. The IOC set up a process whereby the LA 2024 and Paris 2024 bid committees met with the IOC to discuss who would host the Games in 2024 and 2028, and whether it was possible to select the host cities for both at the same time.  Following the decision to award the two Games simultaneously, Paris was understood to be the preferred host for 2024. On 31 July 2017, the IOC announced Los Angeles as the sole candidate for 2028, enabling Paris to be confirmed as host for 2024. Both decisions were ratified at the 131st IOC Session on 13 September 2017.

Host city election.

Paris was elected as the host city on 13 September 2017 at the 131st IOC Session in Lima, Peru. The two French IOC members, Guy Drut and Tony Estanguet were ineligible to vote under the rules of the Olympic Charter.

Sports.

In 2007, the IOC established the concept of Olympics including 28 sports: 25 permanent 'core' sports with three additional sports selected for each individual Games. On 8 September 2013, IOC added wrestling to the Olympic programme for the 2020 and 2024 Games, representing one of these additional sports. FILA (now known as United World Wrestling) changed freestyle and Greco-Roman wrestling weight classes for men and decreased to six categories in order to add more weights for women. However, in August 2016, the IOC added five sports to the 2020 Olympics, with plans separately to evaluate the existing 28 sports. During the 131st IOC Session in September 2017, the IOC approved the 28 sports of the Rio 2016 program for Paris 2024, while also inviting the Paris Organising Committee to submit up to five additional sports for consideration.  In August 2017, the organising committee announced that it would hold talks with the IOC and professional esports organisations about the possibility of introducing competitive video gaming in 2024. However, in July 2018, the IOC confirmed that it would not consider esports for the 2024 Olympics.  On 21 February 2019, the Paris Organising Committee announced they would propose breakdancing as a new sport, along with surfing, sport climbing, and skateboarding, which will debut at the 2020 Summer Olympics. In June, breakdancing was approved. At the 134th IOC Session in Lausanne, Switzerland, IOC members approved all four sports for inclusion for 2024, subject to final approval by the IOC Executive Board in December 2020.  The 2024 Summer Olympic programme is scheduled to feature 28 sports encompassing 319 events, though this is likely to change depending on IOC approval of additional sports in the programme. The number of events in each discipline is noted in parentheses.

Venues.

Most of the Olympic events will be held in and around Paris, including the suburbs of Saint-Denis, Le Bourget, Nanterre, Versailles, and Vaires-sur-Marne which is just outside the city environs. The sailing and surfing events will be held in the remote coastal resorts of Marseille and Teahupo'o respectively. Football will be hosted in various cities around France.

Participating National Olympic Committees.

On 9 December 2019, the World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA) banned Russia from all international sport for four years, after it found that the Russian government had tampered with lab data that it provided to WADA in January 2019 as a condition of its reinstatement of the Russian Anti-Doping Agency. As at the 2018 Winter Olympics, WADA will allow individual cleared Russian athletes to compete neutrally under a title to be determined. WADA Compliance Review Committee head Jonathan Taylor stated that the IOC would not be able to use "Olympic Athletes from Russia" (OAR) as it did in 2018, specifically emphasizing that neutral athletes are to not to be portrayed as representing Russia.

Concerns and controversies.

Call for hijab ban.

In February 2019, a French feminist group called on the organisers of the 2024 Olympic and Paralympic Games in Paris to ban the hijab and other items of Islamic clothing during the Games, to ensure female Muslim athletes can compete free from religious restrictions. Annie Sugier, a prominent member of the group, highlighted that the Olympic Charter states no kind of "religious propaganda" is permitted in any Olympic sites, venues or other areas. In 2010, the French government passed a law banning full face veils such as the niqab in public, imposing fines to everyone who break the law. The law caused significant controversy and was challenged at the European Court of Human Rights (ECHR), which upheld the ban in 2014. Despite the ECHR ruling, in October 2018, the United Nations Human Rights Council declared the law a violation of human rights that risked confining Muslim women to their homes.

2020 COVID-19 Pandemic effect.

After the COVID-19 pandemic led to the postponement of the 2020 Olympics in Tokyo in March 2020, the head of the organising committee for the Paris Games said they would go ahead as planned in "summer 2024". However the devastating effects of the coronavirus in many IOC countries including France have caused speculation towards the idea of delaying the 2024 Olympics to 2025.

Broadcasting rights.

In France, domestic rights to the 2024 Summer Olympics are owned by Discovery Inc. via Eurosport, with free-to-air coverage sub-licensed to the country's public broadcaster France Télévisions.  These will be the final Olympics to be broadcast by SBS in North and South Korea, with JTBC assuming broadcast rights beginning with the 2026 Winter Olympics.

The 2024 Summer Olympics (), officially known as the Games of the XXXIII Olympiad (), and commonly known as Paris 2024, is a forthcoming international multi-sport event that is scheduled to take place from 26 July to 11 August 2024 in Paris, France.


History.

NASA originally considered the idea of inflatable habitats in the 1960s, and developed the TransHab inflatable module concept in the late 1990s. The TransHab project was canceled by Congress in 2000, and Bigelow Aerospace purchased the rights to the patents developed by NASA to pursue private space station designs. In 2006 and 2007, Bigelow launched two demonstration modules to Earth orbit, Genesis I and Genesis II.  NASA re-initiated analysis of expandable module technology for a variety of potential missions beginning in early 2010. Various options were considered, including procurement from commercial provider Bigelow Aerospace, for providing what in 2010 was proposed to be a torus-shaped storage module for the International Space Station. One application of the toroidal BEAM design was as a centrifuge demo preceding further developments of the NASA Nautilus-X multi-mission exploration concept vehicle. In January 2011, Bigelow projected that the BEAM module could be built and made flight-ready 24 months after a build contract was secured.  On December 20, 2012, NASA awarded Bigelow Aerospace a contract to construct the Bigelow Expandable Activity Module under NASA's Advanced Exploration Systems (AES) Program. Sierra Nevada Corporation built the $2 million Common Berthing Mechanism under a 16-month firm-fixed-price contract awarded in May 2013. NASA plans made public in mid-2013 called for a 2015 delivery of the module to the ISS. During a press event on March 12, 2015, at the Bigelow Aerospace facility in North Las Vegas, the completed ISS flight unit, compacted and with two Canadarm2 grapple fixtures attached, was displayed for the media.

Deployment and status.

In early 2015, BEAM was scheduled for deployment on the next available ISS transport vehicle, SpaceX CRS-8, which was scheduled for launch in September 2015. Due to a rocket failure during the SpaceX CRS-7 launch in June 2015, the delivery of BEAM was delayed. The successful launch of SpaceX CRS-8 took place on April 8, 2016, and the Dragon cargo vehicle was berthed to the nadir port of "Harmony" node on April 10. On April 16, British astronaut Tim Peake extracted BEAM from Dragon's trunk using Canadarm2, and installed it on the aft port of "Tranquility" node.  The first attempt at module inflation took place on May 26, 2016, and was suspended after higher-than-expected air pressure inside BEAM was detected with minimal expansion of the module. The attempt was called off after two hours. The failure to expand and unfold is thought to have been the result of the unanticipated 10-month delay in module inflation, which may have caused the fabric layers to stick together. The module was expanded on May 28 over the course of seven hours, with air being injected 25 times for a total of 2 minutes 27 seconds. Its length was extended from its stowed configuration, less than expected. After expansion was complete, air tanks aboard BEAM were opened to equalize air pressure in the module with that of the ISS. The module will be monitored for two years.  On June 6, 2016, astronaut Jeff Williams and cosmonaut Oleg Skripochka opened the hatch to BEAM and entered to collect an air sample, download expansion data from sensors, and install monitoring equipment. The hatch to BEAM was re-sealed on June 8 after three days of tests. A second round of tests took place on September 29 of that same year when astronaut Kathleen Rubins entered the module to install temporary monitoring equipment.  NASA noted in May 2017 that, after spending one year in space, the BEAM instrumentation had recorded "a few probable micrometeoroid debris impacts" but that the module's protective layers had resisted any penetration. Early results from monitors inside the module have shown that galactic cosmic radiation levels are comparable to those in the rest of the space station. Further testing will try to characterize whether the inflatable structure is any more resilient to radiation than traditional metal modules.  In October 2017, it was announced that the module would stay attached to the ISS until 2020, with options for two further one-year extensions. The module will be used to store up to 130 cargo transfer bags in an effort to free up additional space aboard the station. The ISS crew began work in November 2017 to prepare BEAM for use as storage space.  In July 2019, an engineering assessment certified BEAM's ability to remain attached to the station until 2028, as it has exceeded performance expectations and become a core cargo storage module on the volume-constrained station. A contract extension will still be required to allow BEAM to serve out its extended operational lifetime.  At the end of BEAM's mission, it will be removed from the ISS and burn up during reentry.

Objectives.

The BEAM is an experimental program in an effort to test and validate expandable habitat technology. If BEAM performs favorably, it could lead to development of expandable habitation structures for future crews traveling in deep space. The two-year demonstration period will:

Characteristics.

BEAM is composed of two metal bulkheads, an aluminum structure, and multiple layers of soft fabric with spacing between layers, protecting an internal restraint and bladder system; it has neither windows nor internal power. The module was expanded about a month after being attached by its Common Berthing Mechanism to the space station. It was inflated from its packed dimensions of long and in diameter to its pressurized dimensions of long and in diameter. The module has a mass of, and its interior pressure is, the same as inside of the ISS.  BEAM's internal dimensions provide of volume where a crew member will enter the module three to four times per year to collect sensor data, perform microbial surface sampling, conduct periodic change-out of the radiation area monitors, and inspect the general condition of the module. The hatch to the module will otherwise remain closed. Its interior is described as being "a large closet with padded white walls", with various equipment and sensors attached to two central supports.

Radiation shielding.

The flexible Kevlar-like materials of construction are proprietary. The multiple layers of flexible fabric and closed-cell vinyl polymer foam in the BEAM structural shell are expected to provide impact protection (see Whipple shield) as well as radiation protection, but model calculations need to be validated by actual measurements.  In a 2002 NASA study, it was suggested that materials that have high hydrogen contents, such as polyethylene, can reduce primary and secondary radiation to a greater extent than metals, such as aluminum. Vinyl polymer may also be used in laboratories and other applications for radiation shield garments.

BCSS airlock.

In 2013, Bigelow mentioned a concept to build a second BEAM module for use as an airlock on its planned Bigelow Commercial Space Station. The module's inflatable nature would provide room for up to three crew or tourists to spacewalk simultaneously, compared with a maximum of two that can operate outside the ISS.

The Bigelow Expandable Activity Module (BEAM) is an experimental expandable space station module developed by Bigelow Aerospace, under contract to NASA, for testing as a temporary module on the International Space Station (ISS) from 2016 to at least 2020. It arrived at the ISS on April 10, 2016, was berthed to the station on April 16, and was expanded and pressurized on May 28, 2016.


Life.

He was born in Newtownstewart, County Tyrone, Ireland, the eldest son of Rev James Maclear and Mary Magrath. In 1808 he was sent to England to be educated in the medical profession. After passing his examinations, in 1815 he was accepted into the "Royal College of Surgeons" of England. He then worked as house-surgeon in the Bedford Infirmary.  In 1823 he went into partnership with his uncle at Biggleswade, Bedfordshire. Two years later in 1825 he was married to Mary Pearse, the daughter of Theed Pearse, Clerk of the Peace for the county of Bedford.  Maclear had a keen interest in amateur astronomy, and would begin a long association with the Royal Astronomical Society, to which he would be named a Fellow. In 1833, when the post became vacant, he was named as Her Majesty's Astronomer at the Cape of Good Hope, and arrived there aboard the "Tam O'Shanter" with his wife and five daughters, to take up his new duties in 1834. He worked with John Herschel until 1838, performing a survey of the southern sky, and continued to perform important astronomical observations over several more decades. The Maclears and Herschels formed a close friendship, the wives drawn together by the unusual occupations of their husbands and the raising of their large families. Mary Maclear, like Margaret Herschel, was a noted beauty and intelligent, though suffering from extreme deafness. In 1750, Abbé Nicolas Louis de Lacaille had measured a triangulation meridian arc northwards from Cape Town, to determine the figure of the earth, and found that the curvature of the earth was less in southern latitudes than at corresponding northern ones. Sir George Everest visited the Cape in 1820 and visited the site of La Caille's measurements. From his experience in the Himalayas he believed that the presence of considerable mountain masses in the Cape could have caused false measurements to be made by La Caille. Between 1841 and 1848, Maclear would be occupied in performing a geodetic survey for the purpose of recalculating the figure of the Earth (its dimensions and shape). He caused a beacon to be erected on top of Table Mountain which was used as a triangulation station for the checking of de Lacaille's calculations.  He became close friends with David Livingstone, and they shared a common interest in the exploration of Africa. He performed many other useful scientific activities, including collecting meteorological, magnetic and tide data.  In 1861 his wife died. Two years later he was granted a pension, but did not retire from the observatory until 1870. He lived thereafter at Grey Villa, Mowbray. By 1876, he had lost his sight, and he died three years later in Cape Town, South Africa. He is buried next to his wife in the grounds of the Royal Observatory.

Sir Thomas Maclear (17 March 1794 – 14 July 1879) was an Irish-born South African astronomer who became Her Majesty's astronomer at the Cape of Good Hope.


Victor Bulwer-Lytton, 2nd Earl of Lytton

Early life.

He was born in Simla in British India on 9 August 1876, during the time when his father was Viceroy of India. Lytton was the fourth, but eldest surviving, son of Robert Bulwer-Lytton, 1st Earl of Lytton and Edith Villiers, daughter of Edward Ernest Villiers and granddaughter of George Villiers. His six siblings were Edward Rowland John Bulwer-Lytton (who died young), Lady Elizabeth Edith "Betty" Bulwer-Lytton (wife of Gerald Balfour, 2nd Earl of Balfour, the brother of the future Prime Minister Arthur Balfour), Lady Constance Bulwer-Lytton (a prominent suffragette), Henry Meredith Edward Bulwer-Lytton (who died young), Lady Emily Bulwer-Lytton (who married architect Edwin Lutyens), and Neville Bulwer-Lytton, 3rd Earl of Lytton.  He was educated at Eton and Trinity College, Cambridge, where he was secretary of the University Pitt Club. In 1905 he was President of the Edinburgh Sir Walter Scott Club and gave the Toast to Sir Walter at the club's annual dinner.

Career.

Lytton started off his official career by filling up various posts in the Admiralty between 1916 and 1920, before being appointed Under-Secretary of State for India, a post which he held between 1920 and 1922. He was also made a Privy Counsellor in 1919. On 16 February 1922 he was posted as Governor of Bengal, remaining there until 3 March 1927.  For a short while, when there was a vacancy caused by change in incumbents in 1926, he also functioned as Viceroy, his father's old post. After this he filled miscellaneous positions in various capacities, when matters concerning India came up. He wrote two books, the first being a life of his grandfather Lord Lytton, while the other book dealt with his experiences in India and was called "Pundits and Elephants", published in 1942. He was made a Knight of the Garter in 1933.  Lytton is best known for his chairmanship of the Lytton Commission, which was sent by the League of Nations on a fact-finding mission to determine who was to blame in the 1931 war between Japan and China. The commission's Lytton Report, officially issued on 1 October 1932, blames Japanese aggression. In response Japan withdrew from the League of Nations.

Personal life.

On 3 April 1902, Lord Lytton was married to Pamela Chichele-Plowden (1874–1971) at St Margaret's, Westminster. Pamela was a daughter of Sir Trevor Chichele Plowden and Millicent Frances Foster (eldest daughter of Gen. Sir Charles John Foster KCB). Her elder brother was Alfred Chichele Plowden. She had been an early flame of Winston Churchill, but that relationship was amicably broken off when she decided to marry Lytton instead. Together, the couple were the parents of two sons, both of whom predeceased Lytton, and two daughters:  Lord Lytton died in October 1947, aged 71. As neither of his sons had left a son, Lytton's titles were inherited upon his death by his younger brother Neville Bulwer-Lytton. Knebworth House passed to his daughter Lady Hermione Cobbold.

Victor Alexander George Robert Bulwer-Lytton, 2nd Earl of Lytton, (9 August 1876 – 25 October 1947), styled Viscount Knebworth from 1880 to 1891, was a British politician and colonial administrator. He served as Governor of Bengal between 1922 and 1927 and was briefly Acting Viceroy of India in 1926. He headed the Lytton Commission for the League of Nations, in 1931-32, producing the Lytton Report which condemned Japanese aggression against China in Manchuria.


History.

The Linux kernel started to include binary blobs in 1996. The work to clear out the binary blobs began in 2006 with gNewSense's find-firmware and gen-kernel. This work was taken further by the BLAG Linux distribution in 2007 when deblob and Linux-libre was born.  Linux-libre was first released by the Free Software Foundation Latin America (FSFLA), then endorsed by the Free Software Foundation (FSF) as a valuable component for the totally free Linux distributions. It became a GNU package on March 2012. Alexandre Oliva is the project maintainer.

Proprietary firmware removal.

Methods.

The removal process is achieved by using a script called "deblob-main". This script is inspired by the one used for gNewSense. Jeff Moe made subsequent modifications to meet certain requirements for its use with the BLAG Linux and GNU distribution. There is another script called "deblob-check", which is used to check if a kernel source file, a patch or a compressed sources file still contains software which is suspected of being proprietary.

Benefits.

Aside from the primary intended effect of running a system with only free software, the practical consequences of removing device firmware that a user is not allowed to study or modify has both positive and negative effects.  Removal of device firmware can be considered an advantage for security and stability, when the firmware cannot be audited for bugs, for security problems, and for malicious operations such as backdoors), or when the firmware cannot be fixed by the Linux kernel maintainers themselves, even if they know of problems. It is possible for the entire system to be compromised by a malicious firmware, and without the ability to perform a security audit on manufacturer-provided firmware, even an innocent bug could undermine the safety of the running system.

Side effects.

The downside of removing proprietary firmware from the kernel is that it will cause loss of functionality of certain hardware that does not have a free software replacement available. This affects certain sound, video, TV tuner, and network (especially wireless) cards, as well as some other devices. When possible, free software replacement firmware is provided as a substitute, such as the openfwwf for b43, carl9170 and ath9k_htc wireless card drivers.

Availability.

The source code and precompiled packages of the deblobbed Linux kernel are available directly from the distributions which use the Linux-libre scripts. Freed-ora is a subproject which prepares and maintains RPM packages based on Fedora. There are also precompiled packages for Debian and derived distributions such as Ubuntu.

Distributions.

Distributions in which Linux-libre is the default kernel.

Historical

Distributions that compile a free Linux kernel.

These distros don't use the packaged Linux-libre but instead completely deblob the proprietary Linux kernel with some of the tools to make Linux-libre. The source is then compiled and the resulting free Linux kernel is used by default in these systems:  Historical

Linux-libre as an alternative kernel.

Distributions in which Linux is the default kernel used and which propose Linux-libre as an alternative kernel:

Linux-libre () is an operating system kernel and a GNU package. The GNU Project attempts to keep Linux-libre in synchronization with upstream development of the Linux kernel while removing any software that does not include its source code, has its source code obfuscated, or is released under a proprietary license.


Function.

HLA-G may play a role in immune tolerance in pregnancy, being expressed in the placenta by extravillous trophoblast cells (EVT), while the classical MHC class I genes (HLA-A and HLA-B) are not. As HLA-G was first identified in placenta samples, many studies have evaluated its role in pregnancy disorders, such as preeclampsia and recurrent pregnancy loss. Its downregulation is related to HLA-A and -B downregulation results in protection from cytotoxic T cell responses, but would in theory result in a "missing self" response by natural killer cells. HLA-G is a ligand for NK cell inhibitory receptor KIR2DL4, and therefore expression of this HLA by the trophoblast defends it against NK cell-mediated death.  However, a large family with several members bearing only "null" HLA-G alleles has been found. None of these homozygous subjects have pregnancy or birth difficulties; nor do they present immunodeficiencies, autoimmune diseases, or tumors. It is striking that this "null" allele (HLA-G*01:05N), while it is quite frequent in some populations, like in Iranians, it is almost absent in some Amerindian populations. Also, some higher primates do not show all MHC-G isoforms. In addition, Cercopithecinae middle-sized Old World monkeys do not bear full MHC-G molecules since all of these monkeys present stop codons at MHC-G DNA. All of these anomalies must be studied.  The presence of soluble HLA-G (sHLA-G) in embryos is associated with better pregnancy rates. In order to optimize pregnancy rates, there is significant evidence that a morphological scoring system is the best strategy for the selection of embryos. However, presence of soluble HLA-G might be considered as a second parameter if a choice has to be made between embryos of morphologically equal quality.

Interactions.

HLA-G has been shown to interact with CD8A.

HLA-G histocompatibility antigen, class I, G, also known as human leukocyte antigen G (HLA-G), is a protein that in humans is encoded by the "HLA-G" gene.


History.

Shay Banon created the precursor to Elasticsearch, called Compass, in 2004. While thinking about the third version of Compass he realized that it would be necessary to rewrite big parts of Compass to "create a scalable search solution". So he created "a solution built from the ground up to be distributed" and used a common interface, JSON over HTTP, suitable for programming languages other than Java as well. Shay Banon released the first version of Elasticsearch in February 2010.  Elastic NV was founded in 2012 to provide commercial services and products around Elasticsearch and related software. In June 2014, the company announced raising $70 million in a Series C funding round, just 18 months after forming the company. The round was led by New Enterprise Associates (NEA). Additional funders include Benchmark Capital and Index Ventures. This round brought total funding to $104M.  In March 2015, the company "Elasticsearch" changed their name to "Elastic".  In June 2018, Elastic filed for an initial public offering with an estimated valuation of between 1.5 and 3 billion dollars. On 5 October 2018, Elastic was listed on the New York Stock Exchange.

Features.

Elasticsearch can be used to search all kinds of documents. It provides scalable search, has near real-time search, and supports multitenancy. "Elasticsearch is distributed, which means that indices can be divided into shards and each shard can have zero or more replicas. Each node hosts one or more shards, and acts as a coordinator to delegate operations to the correct shard(s). Rebalancing and routing are done automatically". Related data is often stored in the same index, which consists of one or more primary shards, and zero or more replica shards. Once an index has been created, the number of primary shards cannot be changed.  Elasticsearch is developed alongside a data collection and log-parsing engine called Logstash, an analytics and visualisation platform called Kibana, and Beats, a collection of lightweight data shippers. The four products are designed for use as an integrated solution, referred to as the "Elastic Stack" (formerly the "ELK stack").  Elasticsearch uses Lucene and tries to make all its features available through the JSON and Java API. It supports facetting and percolating, which can be useful for notifying if new documents match for registered queries. Another feature is called "gateway" and handles the long-term persistence of the index; for example, an index can be recovered from the gateway in the event of a server crash. Elasticsearch supports real-time GET requests, which makes it suitable as a NoSQL datastore, but it lacks distributed transactions.  On 20 May 2019, Elastic made the core security features of the Elastic Stack available free of charge, including TLS for encrypted communications, file and native realm for creating and managing users, and role-based access control for controlling user access to cluster APIs and indexes. The corresponding source code is available under the “Elastic License”, a source-available license. In addition, Elasticsearch now offers SIEM and Machine Learning as part of its offered services.

Managed services.

Developed from the Found acquisition by Elastic in 2015, Elastic Cloud is a family of Elasticsearch-powered SaaS offerings which include the Elasticsearch Service, as well as Elastic App Search Service, and Elastic Site Search Service which were developed from Elastic’s acquisition of Swiftype. In late 2017, Elastic formed partnerships with Google to offer Elastic Cloud in GCP, and Alibaba to offer Elasticsearch and Kibana in Alibaba Cloud.  Elasticsearch Service on Elastic Cloud is the official hosted and managed Elasticsearch and Kibana offering from the creators of the project since August 2018 Elasticsearch Service users can create secure deployments with partners, Google Cloud Platform (GCP) and Alibaba Cloud.  AWS offers Elasticsearch as a managed service since 2015. Such managed services provide hosting, deployment, backup and other support. Most managed services also include support for Kibana.  Elasticsearch is the basis of Pangeanic's contribution to the EU's Marie Curie research project "EXPERT" called ActivaTM. Pangeanic built a bilingual database compatible with Computer-Assisted Translation tools, which could offer real-time access via API from a variety of tools. The project received further funding from the EU as the National and European Central Translation Memory project under the Connecting Europe Facility (CEF) programme. NEC TM aims to centralise national translation assets in all the EU's Member States so countries can re-use bilingual translation data produced as a result of public procurement contracts.

Elasticsearch is a search engine based on the Lucene library. It provides a distributed, multitenant-capable full-text search engine with an HTTP web interface and schema-free JSON documents. Elasticsearch is developed in Java. Following an open-core business model, parts of the software are licensed under various open-source licenses (mostly the Apache License), while other parts fall under the proprietary ("source-available") "Elastic License". Official clients are available in Java,.NET (C#), PHP, Python, Apache Groovy, Ruby and many other languages. According to the DB-Engines ranking, Elasticsearch is the most popular enterprise search engine followed by Apache Solr, also based on Lucene.


Origins.

Michael Barkun, professor of political science at Syracuse University, posits that the idea of a reptilian conspiracy originated in the fiction of Conan the Barbarian creator Robert E. Howard. The first appearance of "serpent men" in literature was in Howard's story "The Shadow Kingdom", published in "Weird Tales" in August 1929. This story drew on theosophical ideas of the "lost worlds" of Atlantis and Lemuria, particularly Helena Blavatsky's "The Secret Doctrine" written in 1888, with its reference to dragon-men' who once had a mighty civilization on a Lemurian continent".  Howard's "serpent men" were described as humanoids (with human bodies and snake heads) who were able to imitate humans at will, and who lived in underground passages and used their shapechanging and mind-control abilities to infiltrate humanity. Clark Ashton Smith used Howard's "serpent men" in his stories, as well as themes from H. P. Lovecraft, and he, Howard and Lovecraft together laid the basis for the Cthulhu Mythos.  In the 1940s, Maurice Doreal (also known as Claude Doggins) wrote a pamphlet entitled "Mysteries of the Gobi" that described a "serpent race" with "bodies like man but...heads...like a great snake" and an ability to take human form. These creatures also appeared in Doreal's poem "The Emerald Tablets", in which he referred to Emerald Tablets written by "Thoth, an Atlantean Priest king". Barkun asserts that "in all likelihood", Doreal's ideas came from "The Shadow Kingdom", and that in turn, "The Emerald Tablets" formed the basis for David Icke's book, "Children of the Matrix".

Alien abduction.

Alien abduction narratives sometimes allege contact with reptilian creatures. One of the earliest reports was that of Ashland, Nebraska police officer Herbert Schirmer (born 1945), who under hypnosis recalled being taken aboard a UFO in 1967 by humanoid beings with a slightly reptilian appearance, who wore a "winged serpent" emblem on the left side of their chests. Skeptics consider his claims to be a hoax.

David Icke.

According to British conspiracy theorist David Icke, who first published on this theme in his 1999 work "The Biggest Secret", tall, blood-drinking, shape-shifting reptilian humanoids from the Alpha Draconis star system, now hiding in underground bases, are the force behind a worldwide conspiracy against humanity. He contends that most of the world's ancient and modern leaders are related to these reptilians, including the Merovingian dynasty, the Rothschilds, the Bush family and the British Royal family. Icke's conspiracy theories now have supporters in up to 47 countries and he has given lectures to crowds of up to 6,000. American writer Vicki Santillano included it in her list of the 10 most popular conspiracy theories, describing it as the "wackiest theory" she had encountered.  A poll of Americans in 2013 by Public Policy Polling indicated that 4% of registered voters (±2.8%) believed in David Icke's ideas.

Politics.

In the closely fought 2008 U.S. Senate election in Minnesota between comedian and commentator Al Franken and incumbent Senator Norm Coleman, one of the ballots challenged by Coleman included a vote for Franken with "Lizard People" written in the space provided for write-in candidates. Lucas Davenport, who later claimed to have written the gag ballot, said, "I don't know if you've heard the conspiracy theory about the Lizard Men; a friend of mine, we didn't like the candidates, so we were at first going to write in'revolution', because we thought that was good and to the point. And then, we thought 'the Lizard People' would be even funnier."  "Evil reptilian kitten-eater from another planet" was a pejorative used to refer to then Ontario Liberal Party opposition leader Dalton McGuinty in a press release disseminated by the Progressive Conservative Party of Ontario on September 12, 2003, during the provincial election campaign in Ontario, Canada.  In February 2011, on the "Opie and Anthony" radio show, the comedian Louis C.K. jokingly asked former U.S. Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld a number of times if he and Dick Cheney were lizard people who enjoyed the taste of human flesh. Amused by Rumsfeld's refusal to directly answer the question, C.K. suggested it as a possible admission of guilt. He went on to further muse that perhaps those who are lizard people cannot lie about it; when asked if they are lizards, they either have to avoid answering the question or say yes.  On March 4, 2013, a video depicting a security agent with unusual features guarding a speech by U.S. President Barack Obama was spotlighted in a "Wired" report about shapeshifting reptilian humanoids, leading to a tongue-in-cheek response from chief National Security Council spokeswoman Caitlin Hayden that "any alleged program to guard the president with aliens or robots would likely have to be scaled back or eliminated in the sequester".

Reptilians (also called reptoids, lizard people, reptiloids, saurians, draconians) are purported reptilian humanoids that play a prominent role in fantasy, science fiction, ufology, and conspiracy theories. The idea of reptilians was popularised by David Icke, a conspiracy theorist who claims shape-shifting reptilian aliens control Earth by taking on human form and gaining political power to manipulate human societies. Icke has stated on multiple occasions that many world leaders are, or are possessed by, so-called reptilians.


Host bids.

The application process for the 2015–16 as well as the 2017–18 editions, i.e. two hosts, each hosting two years, began in February 2014. Member associations interested in hosting had to submit a declaration of interest by 30 March 2014, and provide the complete set of bidding documents by 25 August 2014. The FIFA Executive Committee was to select the hosts at their meeting in Morocco in December 2014. However, no such decision regarding the 2015–2016 host was made until 2015.  The following countries expressed an interest in bidding to host the tournament: Japan was officially confirmed as hosts of the 2015 and 2016 tournaments on 23 April 2015.

Venues.

On 9 June 2016, Suita City Football Stadium in Osaka and International Stadium Yokohama in Yokohama were named as the two venues of the tournament.

Match officials.

The appointed match officials were:  Video assistant referees were tested during the tournament. The system was used for the first time when a penalty was awarded by referee Viktor Kassai in the first half of the semi-final between Atlético Nacional and Kashima Antlers after a review of video replay.

Squads.

Each team had to name a 23-man squad (three of whom must be goalkeepers). Injury replacements were allowed until 24 hours before the team's first match. The official squads (excluding the host team, who was yet to be determined) were announced on 1 December 2016.

Matches.

The schedule of the tournament was announced on 15 July 2016.  A draw was held on 21 September 2016, 11:00 CEST (), at the FIFA headquarters in Zürich, Switzerland, to determine the positions in the bracket for the three teams which enter the quarter-finals.  If a match was tied after normal playing time:  On 18 March 2016, the FIFA Executive Committee agreed that the competition would be part of the International Football Association Board's trial to allow a fourth substitute to be made during extra time.  All times are local, JST ().

Awards.

The following awards were given at the conclusion of the tournament.

The 2016 FIFA Club World Cup (officially known as the FIFA Club World Cup Japan 2016 presented by Alibaba YunOS Auto for sponsorship reasons) was the 13th edition of the FIFA Club World Cup, a FIFA-organised international club football tournament between the winners of the six continental confederations, as well as the host nation's league champions. The tournament was hosted by Japan. Real Madrid won their second Club World Cup, defeating hosts Kashima Antlers in the final.


Club career.

Early years.

Born in Valls, Tarragona, Catalonia, and raised in neighbouring Puigpelat, Vidal started his career as a forward. He signed for Espanyol in 2007 to further his development after having already made his senior debut with Reus, but never appeared for the former's first team, finishing his only senior season with the club on loan to Panthrakikos from Greece.  On 31 August 2009, Vidal moved to Segunda División side Gimnàstic de Tarragona, but spent the vast majority of the season with Pobla de Mafumet, the farm team. He joined Mallorca in the middle of 2010, being assigned to the reserves in Segunda División B.

Almería.

In mid-June 2011, after suffering relegation, Vidal joined another reserve team also in that tier, Almería B. He made his debut for the Andalusians' main squad on 27 August 2011, against Córdoba. Shortly after, he was promoted to the first team and received the No. 8 jersey following the departure of Albert Crusat to Wigan Athletic.  In his second season, Vidal scored four goals in 37 games – 30 starts, nearly 2,600 minutes of action – helping to a return to La Liga after two years. On 6 August 2013, he renewed his link with Almería until 2017, making his top flight debut on 19 August by starting in a 2–3 home loss to Villarreal, and scored his first goal roughly a month later, in a 2–4 defeat at Atlético Madrid.

Sevilla.

On 16 June 2014, Vidal signed with Sevilla for a €3 million fee, penning a four-year contract. He made his competitive debut on 12 August in the 2014 UEFA Super Cup at the Cardiff City Stadium, playing 66 minutes before being substituted for fellow debutant Iago Aspas in a 0–2 defeat to Real Madrid; he found the net on his league debut 11 days later, opening the scoring in a 1–1 home draw against Valencia.  On 7 May 2015, in a game in which he featured as right back until Coke entered the field in the 58th minute – he was often used by manager Unai Emery in that position during the campaign– Vidal scored twice and also provided an assist to Kevin Gameiro, in a 3–0 home win over Fiorentina for the semi-finals of the UEFA Europa League. He started in the final 20 days later, a 3–2 victory over Dnipro Dnipropetrovsk in Warsaw.

Barcelona.

On 7 June 2015, Vidal signed a five-year contract with Barcelona, for an €18 million fee plus four in add-ons. He underwent a medical on the following day, being also officially presented. Due to an embargo placed on the club by FIFA for breaking rules on signing under-age foreign players, he was not permitted to appear in competitive games until January 2016.  Vidal made his official debut for the "Blaugrana" on 6 January 2016, replacing Dani Alves midway through the second half of a 4–1 home win over former club Espanyol for the season's Copa del Rey. Subsequently, he was completely ostracized by manager Luis Enrique.  On 14 January 2017, profiting from the absence of habitual starting right-back Sergi Roberto, Vidal opened his league account for Barcelona, contributing to a 5–0 success over Las Palmas at the Camp Nou. On 11 February, in the last minutes of a 6–0 away win against Alavés, he dislocated his ankle following a challenge by Theo Hernandez, being ruled out for the rest of the campaign.

Return to Sevilla.

On 4 August 2018, Vidal returned to Sevilla for a fee of €8.5 million plus 2 million in variables. However, he struggled to settle in the first team, being also deemed surplus to requirements by new manager Julen Lopetegui in July 2019.  On 28 July 2019, Vidal was loaned out to fellow top tier club Alavés in a season-long deal.

International career.

Vidal made his debut for Catalonia on 30 December 2013, playing the second half of a 4–1 win over Cape Verde at the Estadi Olímpic Lluís Companys. On 26 May 2015, he and Sevilla teammate Sergio Rico were the two players called up to the Spanish national team for the first time, ahead of a friendly against Costa Rica and a UEFA Euro 2016 qualifying match against Belarus. He made his debut in the 2–1 victory against the former at the "Estadio Reino de León", playing the entire first half before being substituted for his former Sevilla partner Vitolo.

Honours.

Club.

Sevilla  Barcelona

Aleix Vidal Parreu (born 21 August 1989) is a Spanish professional footballer who plays for Alavés on loan from Sevilla. Mainly a right-back and a player of great speed, he can also operate as a right winger.


Overview.

Godot aims to offer a fully integrated game development environment. It allows developers to create a game from scratch, needing no other tools beyond those used for content creation (art assets, music, etc). The engine's architecture is built around the concept of a tree of nested "scenes". All game resources, including scripts and graphical assets, are saved as part of the computer's file system (rather than in a database). This storage solution is intended to facilitate collaboration between game development teams using software version control systems.  The engine supports deployment to multiple platforms and allows specification of texture compression and resolution settings for each platform. Currently, supported platforms include Linux, macOS, Windows, BSD, Android, iOS, BlackBerry 10, HTML5, and WebAssembly. There is also Windows Runtime (WinRT) and Universal Windows Platform (UWP) support.

Scripting.

Games using Godot can be created with a variety of programming languages including C++, C#, and any other language with GDNative bindings such as Rust, Nim, and D.  Godot also has its own built-in scripting language, GDScript, a high-level, dynamically typed programming language very similar to Python. Unlike Python, GDScript features strict typing of variables and is optimized for Godot's scene-based architecture. Godot's developers have stated that many alternative third-party scripting languages such as Lua, Python, and Squirrel were tested before deciding that using a custom language allowed for superior optimization and editor integration. The engine also supports visual coding via its own built-in visual programming language VisualScript.  Godot includes a script editor with auto indentation, syntax highlighting and code completion. It also features a debugger with the ability to set breakpoints and program stepping.

Rendering.

Godot's graphics engine uses OpenGL ES 3.0 for all supported platforms; otherwise, OpenGL ES 2.0 is used. Future support for Vulkan is being developed. The engine supports normal mapping, specularity, dynamic shadows using shadow maps, and full-screen post-processing effects like bloom, DOF, HDR, and gamma correction. A simplified shader language, similar to GLSL, is also incorporated. Shaders can be used for materials and post-processing. Alternatively, they can be created by manipulating nodes in a visual editor.  Godot also includes a separate 2D graphics engine that can operate independently of the 3D engine. The 2D engine supports features such as lights, shadows, shaders, tile sets, parallax scrolling, polygons, animations, physics and particles. It is also possible to mix 2D and 3D using a 'viewport node'.

Other features.

Godot contains an animation system with a GUI for skeletal animation, blending, animation trees, morphing, and real-time cutscenes. Almost any variable defined or created-on-a-game entity can be animated. The engine uses Bullet for 3D physics simulation.  Additional features include:

History.

Godot's development was started by Juan'reduz' Linietsky and Ariel 'punto' Manzur in 2007. Linietsky stated in a presentation that the name "Godot" was chosen due to its relation to Samuel Beckett's play "Waiting for Godot", as it represents the never-ending wish of adding new features in the engine, which would get it closer to an exhaustive product, but never will. In February 2014, the source code for Godot was released to the public on GitHub under the MIT License.  On 15 December 2014, Godot reached version 1.0, marking the first stable release and the addition of lightmapping, navmesh support, and more shaders. Version 1.1 was released on 21 May 2015, adding improved auto-completion in the code editor, a visual shader editor, a new API to the operating system for managing screens and windows, a rewritten 2D engine, new 2D navigation polygon support, a much improved Blender Collada exporter, and a new dark theme. The then-new 2D engine included shaders, materials, independent Z ordering per node, lights, shadows with polygonal occluders, normal mapping, and distance-field font support. Godot joined the Software Freedom Conservancy on 4 November 2015.  Godot 2.0 was released on 23 February 2016. New features included better scene instancing and inheritance, a new file system browser, multiple scene editing, and an enhanced debugger. This was followed by version 2.1 in August 2016, which introduced an asset database, profiler, and plugin API.  On 22 June 2016, Godot received a $20,000 Mozilla Open Source Support (MOSS) “Mission Partners” award to be used to add WebSockets, WebAssembly and WebGL 2.0 support. Later, with Miguel de Icaza's support, Godot received a $24,000 donation from Microsoft to implement C# as a scripting language in Godot.  Version 3.0 was released on 29 January 2018, adding a brand new PBR renderer implemented inOpenGL ES 3.0, virtual reality compatibility, and C# support (via Mono). Version 3.0 also replaced the engine's built-in 3D physics back end with the Bullet physics engine and was the first version of Godot to be included in Debian.  On 3 February 2020, Godot received a $250,000 Epic Games award to improve graphics rendering and the engine's built-in game development language, GDScript.

Usage.

Many games by OKAM Studio have been made using Godot, including "Dog Mendonça & Pizza Boy", which uses the Escoria adventure game extension. Additionally, it has been used in West Virginia's high school curriculum, due to its ease-of-use for non-programmers and what is described as a "wealth of learning materials that already exist for the software".

Godot is a 2D and 3D, cross-platform, free and open-source game engine released under the MIT license. It was initially developed for several companies in Latin America prior to its public release. The development environment runs on multiple operating systems including Linux, macOS, and Windows. Godot can create games targeting PC, mobile, and web platforms.


Issues.

In logic, the formal properties of verbs like "assert", "believe", "command", "consider", "deny", "doubt", "imagine", "judge", "know", "want", "wish", and a host of others that involve attitudes or intentions toward propositions are notorious for their recalcitrance to analysis. (Quine 1956).

Indiscernibility of identicals.

One of the fundamental principles governing identity is that of "substitutivity", also known as fungibility — or, as it might well be called, that of "indiscernibility of identicals". It provides that, "given a true statement of identity, one of its two terms may be substituted for the other in any true statement and the result will be true". It is easy to find cases contrary to this principle. For example, the statements:  are true; however, replacement of the name 'Giorgione' by the name 'Barbarelli' turns (2) into the falsehood: Quine's example here refers to Giorgio Barbarelli's sobriquet "Giorgione", an Italian name roughly glossed as "Big George." The basis of the paradox here is that while the two names signify the same individual (the meaning of the first statement), the names are not themselves identical; the second statement refers to an attribute (origin) that they do not share.

Overview.

What sort of name shall we give to verbs like 'believe' and 'wish' and so forth? I should be inclined to call them 'propositional verbs'. This is merely a suggested name for convenience, because they are verbs which have the "form" of relating an object to a proposition. As I have been explaining, that is not what they really do, but it is convenient to call them propositional verbs. Of course you might call them 'attitudes', but I should not like that because it is a psychological term, and although all the instances in our experience are psychological, there is no reason to suppose that all the verbs I am talking of are psychological. There is never any reason to suppose that sort of thing. (Russell 1918, 227). What a proposition is, is one thing. How we feel about it, or how we regard it, is another. We can accept it, assert it, believe it, command it, contest it, declare it, deny it, doubt it, enjoin it, exclaim it, expect it. Different attitudes toward propositions are called "propositional attitudes", and they are also discussed under the headings of "intentionality" and "linguistic modality".  Many problematic situations in real life arise from the circumstance that many different propositions in many different modalities are in the air at once. In order to compare propositions of different colours and flavours, as it were, we have no basis for comparison but to examine the underlying propositions themselves. Thus we are brought back to matters of language and logic. Despite the name, propositional attitudes are not regarded as psychological attitudes proper, since the formal disciplines of linguistics and logic are concerned with nothing more concrete than what can be said in general about their formal properties and their patterns of interaction.

A propositional attitude is a mental state held by an agent toward a proposition. Linguistically, propositional attitudes are denoted by a verb (e.g. "believed") governing an embedded "that" clause, for example, 'Sally believed that she had won'.


Towns and landmarks on the trail.

The trail starts in Świeradów Zdrój in the Jizera Mountains. In Szklarska Poręba it enters Karkonosze, the highest mountain range on its way. For the next 20 km it merges with the Polish - Czech Friendship Trail at Szrenica and runs on the main ridge along Polish and Czech border, to reach its culminating point, the highest peak in the Sudetes - Śnieżka. The path then descends to Karpacz and leads through another mountain range - Rudawy Janowickie. Having passed Krzeszów, the Stone Mountains and Owl Mountains the trail enters the area of the Kłodzko Valley and runs along the ridge of the Table Mountains with its reserves, spas such as Polanica-Zdrój, Duszniki-Zdrój and Kudowa-Zdrój and the Table Mountains National Park, one of the youngest national parks in Poland. Then it inclines to the north to run through the Śnieżnik Mountains, the second highest point on the route, then along the Golden Mountains. The trail finishes in Paczków, although for several years there has been a detached part in Prudnik (Opawskie Mountains).

Tourism and hiking.

The trail is accessible the whole year, although parts of it may be closed in winter due to the possibility of avalanches (Karkonosze) as well as dangerous marshes (Table Mountains). It does not involve any kind of advanced climbing, neither the mountain ranges are steep; nevertheless the long-distance hiking requires advance preparations. In the most difficult parts climbing aids are provided. The trail has numerous junctions with other trails and public paths In Karkonosze it is accessible through chairlifts from both the Polish and Czech sides.  There are many mountain huts and small hotels, especially in the western and middle parts, although some of them offer only common sleeping rooms and refreshments. Polish mountain huts are obliged to overnight each person who is not able to find any other place before sunset or in an emergency. Booking in advance is recommended. Most of the huts are run by the PTTK (Polish National Tourist Society). Refreshments and organised forms of catering are available on each part of the trail, although it is recommended to bring one's own food.

Główny Szlak Sudecki (full name Główny Szlak Sudecki im. Mieczysława Orłowicza, which means "Mieczysław Orłowicz Main Sudetes Trail" in Polish) is a public hiking trail in Poland running along the Sudetes. The total length of this route is 350 km and the approximate time to cover it varies between 87 and 90 hours. The trail was constructed in 1947 and throughout its history has been several times modified. It is blazed red.


Early life.

Jussie Smollett was born in Santa Rosa, California, the third of six children of Janet ( Harris) and Joel Smollett (1956–2014). He has three brothers and two sisters: Jake, Jocqui, Jojo, Jurnee, and Jazz, several of whom are also actors. Smollett is biracial; his mother is African-American and his father was a Jewish man whose family emigrated from Russia and Poland. He has said that his father would "kill you if you called him white". His father was absent from his life for a significant portion of his childhood. He graduated from Paramus Catholic High School in Paramus, New Jersey. Smollett told his parents he was gay when he was 19.

Career.

Smollett began his acting career as a child, appearing in the films "The Mighty Ducks" (1992) and Rob Reiner's "North" (1994). On television, he starred alongside his five real-life siblings in the short-lived ABC sitcom "On Our Own" in 1994–1995. In 2012, Smollett returned to acting with the leading role in Patrik-Ian Polk's LGBT-themed comedy-drama "The Skinny". Also that year, he released an EP titled "The Poisoned Hearts Club". He later guest-starred in "The Mindy Project" (2012) and "Revenge" (2014).  In 2014, Smollett was cast as Jamal Lyon—a gay musician struggling to gain the approval of his father Lucious—opposite Taraji P. Henson and Terrence Howard in the Fox drama series "Empire". His role was hailed as "groundbreaking" for its positive depiction of a black gay man on television. Smollett reprised his role in subsequent seasons, and directed an episode of the fourth season in 2017. Smollett’s character was removed from the final two episodes of season five because of the assault controversy.  In February 2015, Smollett confirmed that he had signed a recording contract with Columbia Records and would be releasing an album in the future. Smollett co-wrote the songs "I Wanna Love You" and "You're So Beautiful" on the "" album, which was released in March 2015.  In June 2015, it was announced that Smollett would guest-star alongside his younger sister Jurnee in "Underground", which aired in 2016. Smollett released his debut album, "Sum of My Music", in March 2018. "Sum of My Music" is an R&B album that features elements of electronic music and hip hop. Smollett self-released it through his own label, Music of Sound.  On April 30, 2019, it was announced that although Fox Entertainment had extended Smollett's contract for the sixth season of "Empire", there were no plans for the character to appear during the season.

Personal life.

Smollett came out as gay during a televised interview with Ellen DeGeneres in March 2015.  In a 2016 interview with "Out", he clarified his sexual orientation by stating, "If I had to label myself, I would label myself as a gay man." However, he stated his belief that openness to love is more important than gender, revealing that "If I fall in love down the road with a woman, I'm going to love that woman." When Smollett's gay character from "Empire" engaged in a tryst with a female character, Smollett defended the plot development by stating that he and "Empire" creator Lee Daniels were trying to create a conversation about sexual fluidity in the gay community. Daniels has stated that while he and Smollett are gay, they both occasionally want to have sex with women. Daniels stated that "We're showing life on "Empire"", in that both he and Smollett were incorporating their own sexual fluidity as gay men into the show.  Smollett lives in Chicago.

2007 Misdemeanor.

According to the Los Angeles City Attorney's Office, Smollett pleaded no contest to providing false information to law enforcement in a 2007 misdemeanor case resulting from a DUI stop in which Smollett gave police a false name and signed his brother's name on the summons promising to appear in court. Smollett also pleaded no contest to driving with a blood alcohol level over the legal limit and driving without a valid driver's license, and was sentenced to a fine and two years of probation.

2019 Hate crime hoax and indictment.

On January 29, 2019, Smollett told police that he was attacked outside his apartment building by two men in ski masks who called him racial and homophobic slurs, and said "This is MAGA country", referencing President Donald Trump's slogan "Make America Great Again" and used their hands, feet, and teeth as weapons in the assault. According to a statement released by the Chicago Police Department, the two suspects then "poured an unknown liquid" on Smollett and put a noose around his neck. Smollett said that he fought them off. Smollett was treated at Northwestern Memorial Hospital; not seriously injured, he was released "in good condition" later that morning. The police were called after 2:30 am; when they arrived around 2:40 am, Smollett had a white rope around his neck. Smollett said that the attack may have been motivated by his criticism of the Trump administration and that he believed that the alleged assault was linked to the threatening letter that was sent to him earlier that month.  On February 20, 2019, Smollett was charged by a grand jury with a class 4 felony for filing a false police report. The next day, Smollett surrendered himself at the Chicago Police Department's Central Booking station. Shortly thereafter, CPD spokesman Anthony Guglielmi stated that Smollett "is under arrest and in the custody of detectives". On March 26, 2019, all charges filed against Smollett were dropped, with Judge Steven Watkins ordering the public court file sealed. First Assistant State's Attorney Joseph Magats said the office reached a deal with Smollett's defense team in which prosecutors dropped the charges upon Smollett performing 16 hours of community service and forfeiting his $10,000 bond.  On April 12, 2019, the city of Chicago filed a lawsuit in the Circuit Court of Cook County against Smollett for the cost of overtime authorities expended investigating the alleged attack, totalling $130,105.15. In November 2019 Smollett filed a counter-suit against the city of Chicago alleging he was the victim of "mass public ridicule and harm" and arguing he should not be made to reimburse the city for the cost of the investigation. On February 11, 2020, after further investigation by a special prosecutor was completed, Smollett was indicted again by a Cook County grand jury on six counts pertaining to making four false police reports.

Jussie Smollett (, born June 21, 1982) is an American actor and singer. He began his career as a child actor in 1987 acting in films including "The Mighty Ducks" (1992) and Rob Reiner's "North" (1994). In 2015, Smollett portrayed musician Jamal Lyon in the Fox drama series "Empire", a role that was hailed as groundbreaking for its positive depiction of a black gay man on television. Smollett has also appeared in Ridley Scott's science fiction film "" (2017) as Ricks and in "Marshall" (2017) as Langston Hughes.


Early years and education.

Szydło was born in Oświęcim and raised near Brzeszcze, where her father was a miner. She graduated from Jagiellonian University in Kraków in 1989 where she completed studies at the Department of Ethnography. In the years 1989 – 1995, she was a PhD student at the Philosophy and History Faculty of that university. In 1997, she completed post-graduate studies for managers of culture at Warsaw School of Economics, whereas in 2001 at Kraków University of Economics - management of local government in the European Union.

Early political career.

Szydło was elected Mayor of Gmina Brzeszcze at the age of 35, holding this position for seven years. During her campaign, along with locals she helped renovate the school in a small town of Pcim, which lost its roof in a storm. In 2004, she participated in International Visitor Leadership Program. In September 2005, she was elected to the Sejm, the lower house of the Parliament of the Republic of Poland receiving 14,499 votes in 12 Chrzanów district, as a candidate of the conservative Law and Justice party. She was elected member of the 5th, 6th, 7th and 8th Parliament of the Republic of Poland. She was appointed vice-chairman of the Law and Justice Party On 24 July 2010, and later in September 2014, she succeeded Stanisław Kostrzewski as the treasurer of the Law and Justice party.  Following her successful leadership of Andrzej Duda's presidential campaign, at the Law and Justice party convention on 20 June 2015 Szydło was named as Law and Justice's candidate for Prime Minister in the Polish parliamentary election. She was widely seen as being more moderate than Law and Justice chairman Jarosław Kaczyński.  At the October 2015 election, Law and Justice won a decisive victory, becoming the first Polish party to win an outright majority since the end of Communism. Szydło was sworn in as prime minister on 16 November 2015.

Prime Minister of Poland, 2015–2017.

On 18 October 2015 she made her keynote address (), further receiving 236 votes in favour of her government. One of her first decisions was to remove the European Union flag from press conferences at the Chancellery of the Prime Minister and to replace the clock in the meeting hall of the Council of Ministers with a Cross. In meetings with voters, she promised to reduce the retirement age and raise the minimum wage. She declared introducing the 500+ programme will be her priority as Prime Minister. The programme was introduced on 1 April 2016, supplying families with 500PLN for every child, starting from the second child. It is intended to serve as a demographic stimulus, and enhance population growth.  One of the biggest controversies during her administration, the Polish Constitutional Court crisis, 2015 was officially criticized by the European Parliament, which, on 13 April 2016, passed a resolution declaring that the Parliament "is seriously concerned that the effective paralysis of the Constitutional Tribunal in Poland endangers democracy, human rights and the rule of law".  Beata Szydło's government was strongly opposed to the UK's effort to stop EU immigrants claiming in-work benefits for four years if they moved to Britain. Increasing the support for Brexit, Beata Szydło did offer support in return for a permanent base of NATO troops on Polish territory.  In December 2017, Jarosław Kaczyński, the Chairman of the Law and Justice party, declared Szydło's position untenable. This had followed a deterioration in relations between Poland and the rest of the European Union. In a state, Law and Justice stated that: “This shows us how we are perceived outside of our borders, the state of our relations with our partners, why we are supported, why we get attacked, and how the actions of our government and of our organisations are perceived by the other Member States. All of this had an impact on the government’s decision (to replace Szydło).”  On 7 December, she resigned from office, along with all members of her cabinet. The next day her resignation was accepted by the President Andrzej Duda, who at the same time designated Finance Minister and Deputy Prime Minister Mateusz Morawiecki as the new Prime Minister.

Later career.

Szydło was appointed Deputy Prime Minister of Poland by her former deputy, Mateusz Morawiecki, several days after her resignation as Prime Minister.  Szydło later stood for the European Parliament at the 2019 European Parliament elections, and was elected to represent the constituency of Lesser Poland and Świętokrzyskie. In that election, she received the highest number of individual votes of any European Parliamentary candidate in Poland's history. She resigned as Deputy Prime Minister on 4 June in order to take her seat in the European Parliament.

Personal life.

Szydło is married to Edward Szydło. The couple has two sons: Tymoteusz (born 1992), a Catholic priest, and Błażej (1994). She is a devout Catholic and declares her adherence to conservative Christian values.

Security incident.

On 21 November 2016, Szydło's vehicle was involved in a 5 vehicle crash in Israel which included a police car and ambulance. She was in Israel for government to government talks and to meet with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. Just a few months later, on 10 February 2017, Szydło and 2 security officials were injured in a car crash in her hometown, Oświęcim. Her Audi limousine swerved and hit a tree to avoid a small Fiat whose driver was later charged with involuntary violation of traffic safety. She suffered bruises and was hospitalised in Warsaw.

Beata Maria Szydło (; ; born 15 April 1963) is a Polish politician who has been a Member of the European Parliament since 2019, and who previously served as Prime Minister of Poland from 2015 to 2017, as a member of the Law and Justice party. She was the third woman to hold the office, after Hanna Suchocka and her immediate predecessor Ewa Kopacz.


Law regarding same-sex sexual activity.

Ottoman Empire.

In 1858, the Ottoman Empire, then in control of Kosovo, legalized same-sex intercourse.

Yugoslavia.

The Yugoslav Criminal Code of 1929 banned "lewdness against the order of nature" (anal intercourse). The Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia also restricted the offense to same-sex anal intercourse with a maximum sentence reduced from 1 to 2 years imprisonment in 1959.  In 1994, male same-sex sexual intercourse became legal in the Autonomous Province of Kosovo and Metohija when it was a part of the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia.

UNMIK period.

In 2004, during the United Nations Interim Administration Mission in Kosovo (UNMIK) period, the legal age of consent was established as 14 regardless of the individual's gender or sexual orientation, and all sexual offenses were made gender-neutral.

Independent era.

Kosovo declared independence from Serbia in 2008. Same-sex sexual intercourse has remained legal. This period has also seen an increasing visibility for the LGBT community, and discussing surrounding such issues have become more mainstream. In 2008, the Constitution of Kosovo was promulgated, containing provisions outlawing discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation, amongst others.

Recognition of same-sex relationships.

In 2014, the President of the Constitutional Court said that Kosovo "de jure" allows same-sex marriage. Article 144(3) of the Constitution of Kosovo requires the Constitutional Court to approve any amendments to the Constitution so as to ensure they do not infringe upon the civil rights previously guaranteed. Article 14 of the "Law on Family" (; Serbian: "Zakon o porodici") defines marriage as a "legally registered community of two persons of different sexes," though Kosovo gay rights activists have argued this contradicts the wording of the Constitution and have called on same-sex couples to challenge the law in court.

Discrimination protections.

Article 24 of the Constitution of Kosovo bans discrimination on a number of grounds, including sexual orientation. Kosovo is thus one of the few states in Europe with a constitutional ban on discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation. The wording states:

Anti Discrimination Law.

The "Anti-Discrimination Law of 2004" (; Serbian: "Zakon protiv diskriminacije") passed by the Kosovo Assembly, bans discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation in a variety of fields, including employment, membership of organizations, education, the provision of goods and services, social security and access to housing. The definition of discrimination in this law explicitly includes direct and indirect discrimination, as well as harassment, victimization and segregation.  On 26 May 2015, the Parliament Assembly approved amendments adding gender identity to Kosovo's anti-discrimination law. The amendments took effect in July 2015.  Despite these legal protections, LGBT people tend to avoid reporting discrimination or abuse cases to the police.

Gender identity and expression.

Transgender people are not allowed to legally change their gender in Kosovo, even if they have undergone sex reassignment surgery.  In 2017, a Kosovar citizen, Blert Morina, submitted a court case, seeking to change his name and gender on official identification documents. His request was rejected by Kosovo's Civil Registration Agency. His lawyer, Rina Kika, said he had requested a constitutional review of the agency's decision in July 2018. In December 2019, the Basic Court of Pristina ruled in Morina's favour, affirming his right to change both his name and sex marker on his identification documents. Kika said that "for the first time the court has decided to recognize the right to gender identity without offering evidence for surgical intervention or any medical change".

Military service.

Lesbian, gay, and bisexual people are allowed to serve openly in the military. However, they may face discrimination by peers when serving openly.

Blood donation.

According to a 2018 guideline for "Blood Donation Week", those who have "intimate relationships with the same sex" cannot donate blood.

Living conditions.

An LGBT rights group, the Center for Social Emancipation, describes gay life in Kosovo as being "underground" and mostly secretive. There are no known gay clubs or bars in Kosovo, though one briefly opened in Pristina in 2011.  According to a 2015 survey conducted by the National Democratic Institute, 81% of LGBT Kosovars said they had been subject to psychological abuse, and 29% reported being victim of physical violence.

LGBT rights movement in Kosovo.

There are currently several local LGBT rights organisations in Kosovo. Among the most notable are the Center for Equality and Liberty (CEL; ), the Center for Social Group Development (CSGD; ), and the Center for Social Emancipation (QESh; ).

Lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender (LGBT) rights in Kosovo have improved in recent years, most notably with the adoption of the new Constitution, banning discrimination based on sexual orientation. However, homosexuality is still viewed by Kosovar society as a taboo topic.