text:
NINEVEH GOVERNORATE (,[1] ,[2][3] [4][5]) is a governorate in northern Iraq that contains the ancient Assyrian city of Nineveh. It was an integral part of Assyria from the 25th century BC to the seventh century AD. It has an area of and an estimated population of 2,453,000 people in 2003. Its chief city and provincial capital is Mosul, which lies across the Tigris river from the ruins of ancient Nineveh. Tal Afar is the second-biggest city. Before 1976, it was called _Mosul Province_ and included the present-day Dohuk Governorate, which is now part of the autonomous Kurdistan Region.[6]

An ethnically, religiously and culturally diverse region, it was partly conquered by the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant, with Mosul and the surrounding area being captured in 2014.[7] Iraqi government forces retook the city in 2017.[8][9]

Recent history and administration

[Former governor al-Nujaifi 2014 in the Yezidian Academy, Hanover, Germany] Its two cities endured the 2003 Invasion of Iraq and emerged unscathed. In 2004, however, Mosul and Tal Afar were the scenes of fierce battles between US-led troops and Iraqi insurgents. The insurgents moved to Nineveh after the Battle of Fallujah in 2004.

After the invasion, the military of the province was led by (then Major General) David Petraeus of the 101st Airborne Division and later by (then Brigadier General) Carter Ham as the multi-national brigade for Iraq. During the time, the American civil head of the local office of the Coalition Provisional Authority was a US Foreign Service Officer and former Kurdish refugee to the States. Mustafa administered her nominees on the provincial council and through members of the Kashmoula family.

In June 2004, Osama Kashmoula became the interim governor of the province and in September of the same year he was assassinated en route to Baghdad. He was succeeded as interim Governor by Duraid Kashmoula, who was elected governor in January 2005. Duraid Kashmoula resigned in 2009.[10] In April 2009, Atheel al-Nujaifi, a hardline Arab nationalist and member of Al-Hadba, became governor.[11] While al-Nujaifi's Arab Muttahidoon bloc lost its majority to the Kurdish Brotherhood and Coexistence Alliance List in the 2013 provincial election, al-Nujaifi was reelected as governor by a larger Sunni Arab coalition[12] that was later formalized as the Nahda Bloc.

In June 2014, insurgents from the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (known as ISIS or ISIL) overran the capital Mosul, forcing an estimated 500,000 refugees to flee the area,[13] including governor al-Nujaifi,[14] who was subsequently deposed by the Iraqi Parliament.[15]

While the Kurdish list proposed Hassan al-Allaf, an Arab affiliated with the Islamic Party,[16] the provincial council elected Nofal Hammadi (formerly Loyalty to Nineveh List) with the votes of the Nahdha bloc.[17]

An offensive to retake Mosul from ISIL control began in October 2016, with Iraqi and Kurdish soldiers supported by a U.S.-led coalition of 60 nations.[18]

Provincial elections

Human geography

Borders

Neighboring Iraqi regions are Dohuk Governorate to the north, Erbil Governorate which are a part of the autonomous region of Kurdistan and Kirkuk Governorate to the east, Saladin Governorate to the south-east, and Al Anbar Governorate to the south. In the west it shares a border with Syria, mostly Al-Hasakah Governorate, and also Deir ez-Zor Governorate in the south.

Administrative districts

Nineveh Governorate comprises 30 districts, listed below with their areas[19] and populations as estimated in 2003:[20]

+-----------------+-----------------+-----------------+-----------------+
| District        | Name            | Area in         | Population      |
|                 | in Arabic       | sq. km          | in 2003         |
+=================+=================+=================+=================+
| Sinjar          |                 | 2,928           | 166,466         |
+-----------------+-----------------+-----------------+-----------------+
| Al-Ba'aj        |                 | 9,172           | 88,401          |
+-----------------+-----------------+-----------------+-----------------+
| Al-Hadar        |                 | 9,738           | 37,655          |
| (Hatra)         |                 |                 |                 |
+-----------------+-----------------+-----------------+-----------------+
| Al-Mosul        |                 | 4,471           | 1,432,230       |
+-----------------+-----------------+-----------------+-----------------+
| Tel Afar        |                 | 4,453           | 300,878         |
+-----------------+-----------------+-----------------+-----------------+
| Tel Kaif        |                 | 1,244           | 167,647         |
+-----------------+-----------------+-----------------+-----------------+
| Al-Hamdaniya    |                 | 1,155           | 125,665         |
+-----------------+-----------------+-----------------+-----------------+
| Al-Shikhan      |                 | 1,333           | 58,132          |
+-----------------+-----------------+-----------------+-----------------+
| _TOTAL_         |                 | _37,323_        | _2,453,116_     |
+-----------------+-----------------+-----------------+-----------------+

Demographics

Nineveh Province is multiethnic. There are significant numbers of Arabs, Turkmens, Assyrians, Kurds as well as Yazidis both in towns and cities, and in their own specific villages and regions. There are also many Armenians, Kawliya, Mandeans and Shabaks.

The majority are Sunni Muslim. 80% of the Arabs are Sunni Muslim, the Turkmens mostly are Sunni Muslim, and the Kurds are mostly Sunni Muslim. About 5–10% of the population is Christian. Generally, Yazidis, Shabaks and Mandeans are followers of their respective heritage religions, Yazidism, Shabakism, and Mandaeism.

The primary spoken language is Arabic. Minority languages include Turkman, Neo-Aramaic dialects spoken by the Assyrian People, Kurdish (predominately Kurmanji), Shabaki, and Armenian.

Proposed Assyrian autonomous region

Many Assyrian leaders advocate an autonomous Assyrian homeland within Nineveh Province for the indigenous Assyrians.[21] Most National Iraqi leaders have not taken this plan seriously.

[1]

[2]

[3] Gregorius bar Hebraeus, “” based upon Jean Baptiste Abbeloos and Thomas Joseph Lamy (eds.), Gregorii Barhebræi (Louvain: Peeters, 1872-1877), Digital Syriac Corpus, last modified May 4, 2018, https://syriaccorpus.org/373.}}

[4]

[5]

[6]

[7]

[8]

[9]

[10]

[11]

[12]

[13]

[14]

[15]

[16]

[17]

[18]

[19] COSIT (Central Organization for Statistics and Information Technology), Baghdad.

[20] NGO Co-ordination Committee.

[21]

title: Nineveh Governorate

question: What would have been prevented if Mosul wasn't overran by ISIS insurgents?

answer: The fleeing of 500,000 refugees


split: train

text:
The only thing legible on the newspaper was January 12th, 2012, as it was ripped apart by the tires of a speeding car on West Avenue. West Avenue was the street Melanie Smith used on her way to and from school every day.

The clock struck three, and the school bell rang. All the children ran out of their classrooms full of liberation with the afternoon now their own. The students came bursting out of the front door of the school as if it were a competition to see who could leave first. After escaping the crowd, Melanie took her normal route home down West Avenue. She noticed a large white van, the type stereotypically used for kidnapping, had been following her since she left school. She wasn’t nervous though. Melanie was full of the adolescent spirit, and she held firmly to the idea that nothing bad could happen to her. The van sped up, and stopped about 30 yards in front of Melanie. As she walked by she was quickly taken into the van by a masked and an unmasked man. The scene was oddly anticlimactic. Real life isn’t much like the movies. There isn’t any considerable competition in terms of strength when it comes to a twelve year old girl and two fully grown men. Once back in the van, the masked man said, “Don’t worry young lady. We aren’t going to hurt you. We’re just trying to get your father’s attention.”
The unmasked driver remained silent.

The idea was the masked and the unmasked man would kidnap Melanie Smith, and by using her Father’s love for her against him they could get leverage over his hefty bank account. At least that was the plan.
Finally the van stopped, and the unmasked driver let out a deep sigh. He turned the van off, unbuckled himself, and got out without saying a word. The ground crunched under his weight as he walked to the sliding side door of the van. His walking stopped and the sound of a gun being cocked pierced the silent air. A moment later a loud echoing shot blew through the van’s door. The masked man inside went limp and slouched over. A dark pool of blood began diffusing from his body. Melanie wasn’t quite sure how to respond. She managed to put up a bigger fight when the unmasked man grabbed her, but she was easily overpowered and carried into a house.
The man chuckled at Melanie’s fear. In a very calm and controlled voice he said, “I was just like you when I was a kid. I was so full of ignorance. Then one day, I came home from school, just like you were a little while ago, and found both of my parents dead. The man who had murdered them was sitting on our couch watching television and drinking beer.” The unmasked man smiled at Melanie and continued, “The man stood up from the couch and walked towards me. I was paralyzed with fear. He grabbed my head, and he said he wanted me to remember him for the rest of my life. So he did this.” The man pointed at his scar which resided from the edge of his lip all the way to his ear. He looked at Melanie with a blank gaze for a few moments, and then he turned and walked to the refrigerator and grabbed a beer. “You want one?” he asked.
Melanie remained silent.

“Yeah, I didn’t like the taste of beer when I was your age either, but it grows on you.” He laughed. “Anyway, let’s get down to business.” The unmasked man grabbed his cell phone and dialed a number. It rang until it went to voicemail.

“Hello, this is Richard Smith. I can’t get to the phone right now. Please leave your name and your number. I’ll get back to you as soon as I can.”

The unmasked man sighed and said, “I have your daughter. Call me back at 567-9845, or I’ll kill her.” The phone rang almost as soon as he hung up. The unmasked man was quick and to the point. He demanded that Richard come to the house. Richard Smith was a nice man. He provided for his family the best he could, and he encouraged Melanie in everything she found interest in. Richard even donated a significant amount of money to the local food bank every month, because he thought everyone deserved to be helped. He was the change he wanted to see in the world.

Filled with fear and anger Richard rushed to get all his money that he expected a kidnapper to want, and he went to the address the man had given him. He arrived at the house and ran to the front door. He was greeted with the sight of a man holding a gun to his daughter’s head.

The unmasked man said, “Come in Richard. Have a seat.”

Richard walked across the room and sat down.

“Very good Richard. Can I offer you a beer?”

Richard obviously growing angrier by the moment threw the bag of money to the middle of the room and asked, “Can I please take my daughter and leave? That’s all my money.”

The unmasked man laughed and said, “It’s not about money. Money was my partner’s desire.” He then commanded, “Go into the last room at the end of the hall or I’ll blow your daughter’s brain all over the fucking wall.”

As Richard arrived in the room he was struck in the back of the head with the butt of a gun which knocked him out.

“You back with us Richard?” The unmasked man laughed with glee. Richard came to, and he found himself ducked taped to a metal chair in the middle of a room. In front of him was his daughter.

“Do you know why the nice and peaceful life just doesn’t work Richard? It’s because a nice, relaxing picnic is too easily ended with a machinegun. That’s the reason you’re taped to a chair in some stranger’s house.” The unmasked man let out a sigh. “But don’t worry Richard. When it comes right down to it, I’m no better off than you.” The unmasked man began pacing behind Richard and said, “You see a guy like me, a real bad guy, has the same fate as a good guy like you and a naïve child like Melanie. What we do in life has no meaning in the scheme of it all Richard. It always ends the same.”

Richard began struggling trying to break the tape but his efforts were futile. He looked at his daughter and said, “Everything is going to be alright. I promise.”

The unmasked man stopped pacing and faced Melanie, “Oh no Melanie. Everything is not going to be alright. Things are not alright in the slightest.”

A loud click could be heard from below the floor, and the vents opened.

The unmasked man said, “You’ll be gazing down the yawning void in no time.”

The room gradually filled with poisonous fumes, and Richard, the unmasked man, and Melanie all expired.

title: The Good, Bad, and the Naïve

question: What was following Melanie down West Avenue after school?

answer: A stereotypical, unmarked white van.

question: Why does Melanie Smith get kidnapped?

answer: The kidnappers want to use her as leverage to get access to her father's bank account.

question: What happened to the unmasked man when he was a child?

answer: A man murdered both of his parents, drank a beer on his couch, and gave the man a scar along his cheek to remember him by.

question: What happens as the masked man is about to kill Richard?

answer: A poisonous gas fills the room, and they all "expire".

question: Write a ~4 sentence summary.

answer: Melanie Smith is a young girl walking home from school when she gets kidnapped. The kidnappers call her wealthy father Richard, demanding cash and wanting to meet at a specific location. When Richard arrives the money is refused, and he is knocked unconscious and duct taped to a chair. When he awakes, the unmasked kidnapper monologues about futility and right and wrong and is about to kill Richard in front of Melanie, much how his own parents were killed when he was a boy, when a poisonous gas fills the room and all three "expire".


text:
e if people felt offended.”

In a front-page headline, Le Parisian newspaper described Ibrahimovic’s behaviour as “unacceptable”.

Ibrahimovic scored twice but PSG’s defeat mean they trail Lyon by two points at the top of Ligue 1. The striker was angered when Jaffredo failed to award PSG a free-kick after the Bordeaux goalkeeper Cédric Carrasso picked up a back pass from the defender Ludovic Sané.

His outburst came less than a week after he accused Chelsea players of acting “like babies” after he was sent off during PSG’s Champions League victory on away goals.

On France-Info radio, Le Pen refused to comment further except to suggest Ibrahimovic could leave France, saying there were “more important things to discuss”.

In the past, the FN leader has said “football’s not really my thing”, but that has not stopped her making remarks about the players in the national “black, blanc, beur” (black, white, Arab) team, that have caused outrage.

In 2010, Le Pen told BFMTV that she did not “identify with” the French national football team because certain players had “another nationality at heart”.

“If they behave correctly … if we hear, even occasionally, from the mouths of these players talk of [their] patriotism, if a few stop refusing to sing the Marseillaise, if we don’t see them wrapped in the flags of other countries than our own, maybe things will change, but I have to say that I don’t identify particularly with this team,” she said.

question: Why are Le Pen's comments controversial?

answer: They're xenophobic and racist.

question: What sport is the article talking about?

answer: Soccer/futbol/football

question: According to Le Pen, what are Black and Arab player's doing that's so offensive?

answer: Having another nationality in their hearts besides France.

question: What did Ibrahimovic do that was considered "unacceptable?"

answer: He had an outburst over the PSG not getting a free-kick.

question: Write a ~3 sentence summary.

answer: Ibrahimovic threw a fit after PSG not getting a free-kick. The FN leader, Le Pen, said there were more important things to discuss. Namely, that Black and Arab players on the French national football team weren't French enough.


text:
_COMME UN AIMANT_ (released in the USA as _THE MAGNET_) is a 2000 French film by Kamel Saleh and Akhenaton. It depicts eight young people living in the district of Panier, in Marseille.

The film's title means 'like a magnet', and is a reference to a line in the film accusing two characters of being lazy and 'sitting there with your asses stuck to that bench like a magnet'.

Cast

-   Akhenaton as Sauveur
-   Kamel Saleh as Cahouètte
-   Brahim Aimad as Bra-Bra
-   Freeman as Kakou
-   Houari Djerir as Houari
-   Kamel Ferrat as Fouad
-   Titoff as Santino
-   Sofiane Madjid Mammeri as Christian
-   Khalil Mohamed as Kader
-   Virginie Gallo as Nathalie
-   Nadège Mignien as Béatrice
-   Bérangère Topart as Sylvie
-   Ahamed Abdou as Jackson

Soundtrack

The film's soundtrack is written by Bruno Coulais and Akhenaton, and it includes songs by IAM, Millie Jackson, Dennis Edwards of the Temptations, Isaac Hayes and Cunnie Williams.

In popular culture

The film's title “Comme un aimant” is also a song by IAM, a French hip hop band from Marseille which Akhenaton and Freeman, two of the actors, belong to.

title: Comme un aimant

question: Looking at the passage, what seems to be the theme of The Magnet?

answer: Youth and laziness.


text:
WOLF CREEK is a stream in eastern St. Francois County in the U.S. state of Missouri.[1] It is a tributary of the St. Francis River.

The stream headwaters arise just northeast of Farmington at at the confluence of Camp Creek and Taylor Branch. The stream flows south passing under Missouri Route 32. It flows southwest to its confluence with the St. Francis at at an elevation of 814 feet.[2][3]

Wolf Creek was so named due to the presence of wolves in the area.[4]

[1]

[2]

[3] _Missouri Atlas & Gazetteer,_ DeLorme, 1998, First edition, pp. 49 and 57,

[4]

title: Wolf Creek (St. Francis River tributary)

question: Where is Wolf Creek?

answer: It is located in eastern St. Francois County in Missouri, U.S..

question: What are some of the features of Wolf Creek?

answer: It flows southwest to its confluence with the St.Francis River at an elevation of 814 feet.

question: Is Wolf Creek a popular destination?

answer: That information can't be found in the article.

question: How was Wolf Creek named?

answer: It was named due to the presence of wolves in the area.

question: Write a ~1 sentence summary.

answer: This article details Wolf Creek, a tributary of the St.Francis River in St.Francis County, Missouri.


text:
Exceeded expectations, especially given the middling reviews and cheesy trailer. Solid Christmas flick, even though I watched it over the summer. It's hard to say what makes a movie good, but it works. It's not hilariously funny, and you shouldn't go into it looking for belly laughs, butExceeded expectations, especially given the middling reviews and cheesy trailer. Solid Christmas flick, even though I watched it over the summer. It's hard to say what makes a movie good, but it works. It's not hilariously funny, and you shouldn't go into it looking for belly laughs, but it does make you smile and give you a few feels along the way.… Expand

 __ 2 of 2 users found this helpful20

 This is a Christmas classic. For the millionth time, this only proves that Critics stick their noses so high in the air, they can't even watch the movies the review. I never have, nor never will, have ANY respect for movie Critics. Some of the best movies get the worst reviews, all This is a Christmas classic. For the millionth time, this only proves that Critics stick their noses so high in the air, they can't even watch the movies the review. I never have, nor never will, have ANY respect for movie Critics. Some of the best movies get the worst reviews, all because the Critics are too busy receiving bribes to give horrible movies great reviews, and great movies horrible reviews. They also lack the ability to say WHY it's a bad movie. New York Times and Los Angeles Times = Epic Fail.… Expand

 __ 3 of 3 users found this helpful

 A 38 rating? Seriously? This is one of the funniest movies I've ever seen. For the first half of the film, the jokes are fast, sharp, and timeless. It's dark humor at its best, and Bill Murray's best role by a landslide. The critics were out of their damned minds.

 __ 5 of 5 users found this helpful

Disconnected so called "critics"who just didn't get it. This movie has become a classic as one of the best Xmas films of all time. Has become a must during the holidays.

 __ 1 of 1 users found this helpful10

Late 80s version of A Christmas Carol with Bill Murray as the President of a TV network.
Not as good as some of Murray's other stuff but certainly some funny moments here & there.
I'd also forgot how awful that Annie Lennox/Al Green song was.

 __ 1 of 2 users found this helpful11

A good black comedy ... that will displease a lot of people.

The problem with black humor is that it does not appeal to many people. Maybe that's why this movie is one of the least known of Bill Murray's extensive filmography. In this case, the film traces back and updates the story "A

A good black comedy ... that will displease a lot of people.
The problem with black humor is that it does not appeal to many people. Maybe that's why this movie is one of the least known of Bill Murray's extensive filmography. In this case, the film traces back and updates the story "A Christmas Carol," a timeless classic of every Christmas since Dickens wrote it.

This time the protagonist is a media tycoon who mistreats all the people around him and is deeply materialistic. However, the intervention of three humorous spirits will change the way they are, giving the film a very emotional ending and giving Murray a beautiful and profound monologue. The film has a joke, but being black humor will certainly displease many people. Murray made an excellent interpretation, I can hardly think of an actor more suitable for that character. The remaining cast is limited to give him the indispensable support, giving Murray all the space needed to shine.

… Expand

 __ 0 of 0 users found this helpful00

A Christmas Carol has been done to death on both television and the big screen. Back in the 80s, Bill Murray teamed up with Richard Donner to make this wildly successful version of the tale. The films these two were a part of, defined the 1980s, so I was expecting magic. instead I gotA Christmas Carol has been done to death on both television and the big screen. Back in the 80s, Bill Murray teamed up with Richard Donner to make this wildly successful version of the tale. The films these two were a part of, defined the 1980s, so I was expecting magic. instead I got something that was the definition of overrated. Frank Cross (Bill Murray) is a television executive, one that's known for never being happy and quick to the pull the trigger on his employees. While planning a big Christmas spectacle, things aren't going his way and he is on the war path, until he fall asleep in his office and those three ghosts pay him a visit. This film begs to be raunchy, the whole story is designed around this outrageous man, but Scrooged never seems to pull that trigger. The story we know, it's easy to predict what is going to happen, but when you add an uneven performance by Murray, infantile jokes, and a cast that doesn't quite fit their roles, the result is a film that's just lame. Was this supposed to be for adults or children? That question is never answered and we end up with a film that really isn't suitable for either. I like Bill Murray, I love Richard Donner, but the film Scrooged, simply misses the mark on so many different levels.… Expand

 __ 0 of 0 users found this helpful00

question: What kind of website is this from?

answer: Given the format (especially with the 'x of y users found this helpful') and subject matter (movies) this is likely from IMDB or a similar movie reviewing/rating site.

question: What kind of film are the reviews about?

answer: 'Scrooged', a late 80s version of A Christmas Carol, starring Bill Murray

question: What are the opinions expressed by the reviewers?

answer: The reviewers generally enjoyed the film. Those who liked the film thought it was very funny and appreciated the dark humour, and were critical of critics who had responded poorly. Some reviewers thought the film was not as good as it could be.

question: Who is the intended audience?

answer: Individuals with an interest in movies, who may be considering watching the film and want an audience's perspective on it (potentially as opposed to critics' perspectives)

question: Write a ~2 sentence summary.

answer: This webpage covers a series of audience reviews for the Bill Murray film 'Scrooged'. Most of the reviewers enjoyed the film and felt the black comedy had been judged unfairly by critics.


text:
On desolate hill above a small town there stands a house. It is old and disheveled, with shingles missing from the roof, and the white paint is faded. As one approaches the house, they must first walk up a paved stoned path, made of river-rock taken from a small creek several miles west. The path is not completely even, though it is even enough to not cause trouble for the inhabitant of the house. There is no road connection to the small, lonely building, as the owner never cared for the hustle and bustle of the post-war society. No, he preferred instead to use the legs his maker had given him, taking a pleasant half-mile or so walk down to the town below.

Once one is on the stone path, and at the top of the hill, they come across a waist high dry stone wall, with a plain brown picket fence style gate. Past the gate, there is a space for a large garden, one that has not existed for some time. Now all that remains is a jungle of dandelions and chickweed and clovers. In the tangle of green lie patches of yellow celandine and white daisies. Slow worms can be seen slithering in the high grass, though they keep to themselves.

Once one is through the garden, one will find themselves at the front door of the house. Upon rapping on the door with a small brass knocker, one will find themselves facing an old man wearing a tan woolen sweater with gray tweed pants and jacket. He is hunched over slightly, and in his left hand is a dark-stained birch derby cane. He smiles warmly, crooked, yellow teeth visible. He has thin, wire-framed glasses over his kind blue eyes. His name is Thomas Evans, and this is the story of his end.

* * *

It was a warm summer's afternoon when it happened. The sun was nearing the end of its arc through the sky, as Apollo prepared to end his day of labour. Warblers and larks could be heard chirping away happily, minding their own business. In his house, Thomas Evans is making tea. He takes his pot of boiling water off of the stove, and begins to pour it into a small teacup. A sharp pain in the chest strikes Thomas, and he sets the pot down. He stands there, doubled over in his kitchen, clutching his chest. Then, there comes a series of raps at the door.

Thud.

Thud.

Thud.

Still hunched over, Thomas makes his way over to the front door, opening it. As he did, all of the lights in his house went out, like the flame of a candle blown out at night. At his door is a tall, skinny man dressed in an all black suit. His skin is pale, and the only color he has is a single red rose in the breast pocket of his jacket. He carries a candle lantern in one hand, and in the other he holds a black pocket-watch inlaid with gold in the shape of skull. On his shoulder is perched a jet-black raven, which calmly stares at Thomas.

“Who are you?”

“I am Michael.”

“How can I help you Michael?”

Michael grins, “Oh Thomas Evans, I am not here for your help. I am here to help you. Come, let us walk together.”

Thomas trusted this stranger, though he did not know why. He felt as if Michael was a good person, and that he meant no ill will. Closing his door, Thomas followed Michael into his garden, through the brown picket-fence like gate, and down the paved stone road. The trail made its way into a small wood that bordered the town below Thomas' house. They were about halfway down the trail when Michael turned onto a dirt path, one that Thomas had never seen before. But he followed the man in black anyway. There was just something about the man, something that compelled Thomas to follow him.

Finally, after many twists and turns, they came to a large stone wall at the wood's edge. The wall was of the same dry stone that he had at his home, though it was several heads taller than he. In the center of the wall was a large iron gate, which Michael opened. Beyond the gate was the blinding light of the sun. It was so bright that Thomas could not see beyond the wall. Michael gestured for him to continue. Bowing his head slightly, he thanked Michael, stepping into the light.

* * *

Several days later, when people in the town noticed that Thomas had not been down for a good while, a constable was dispatched to check on him. They found him lying on his kitchen floor, teapot fallen, its contents strewn over the floor. They tore down his home, replacing it with a cemetery, where they buried him. While they built a new road to service it, the city kept the old stone road. More often than not, you can still see the people of the town walking up the weathered stone road to visit the cemetery to this day, bringing flowers for the departed.

title: [MF] The Old Man on the Hill

question: What does the story say about the old man on the hill?

answer: On top of a hill lives an old man who wears a tan woolen sweater with gray tweed pants and a jacket. He is hunched over slightly, and in his left hand is a dark-stained birch derby cane. His name is Thomas Evans. A man named Michael knocks on his door and he opens it. He follows Michael who leads him into heaven.

question: What does the story say about the hill?

answer: An old man lives in an isolated house on the hill. His name is Thomas Evans. This is the story of how he died.

question: What does the story say about time?

question: What does the story say about cemeteries?


text:
We’ve become accustomed to seeing leaked documents, stolen from governments and corporations but we never expected to get our hands on the raw intelligence treasure trove known as “The ISIS Files.” The man who gave us the files was hardly a classic whistleblower.

By his own account, the man, who calls himself "Abu Mohammed," is an accomplice to murder and a thief. He claims to be an ISIS defector and says that he stole a memory stick from ISIS, so he’d have something to trade and that he had no idea what was on the memory drive when he stole it, only that it was valuable.

To help us understand the files, experts from the Combating Terrorism Center at the U.S. Military Academy at West Point extensively reviewed them. Their conclusion was that the files are genuine, and collectively represent the biggest database on ISIS foreign fighters outside of government hands. An official at the Combating Terrorism Center said that they compared the documents with another collection of similar forms which the Department of Defense obtained from another source.

"This comparison found that approximately 98 percent of the NBC documents could be corroborated," said Brian Dodwell, the deputy director of the CTC.

RELATED:LEAKED ISIS PERSONNEL FILES PAINT PICTURE OF GROUP'S RECRUITS

The leaked files include thousands of entry forms which appear to have been filled out by foreign recruits upon arriving in ISIS territory in Syria. The entry forms list personal details about the fighters, including their full names, emergency contacts, nationalities, countries of residency, countries visited, special skills and, critically the name of the person who vouched for each fighter.

The files include the details of more than 4,000 men who entered Syria from Turkey in 2013 and 2014.

[]

NBC News can’t verify the story Abu Mohammed told us about how he stole the documents, only that that this is how he claims he obtained them.

Abu Mohammed, a burly man in his mid 30s, or perhaps early 40s, covered his face with a scarf and asked for his voice to be disguised. He then described, on camera, how he joined the popular uprising against Syrian President Bashar al-Assad five years ago. Like many protesters, he said, he was arrested by Syrian officials and released after paying a bribe.

After that, he says, he took up arms, joining one of a loose network of rebel factions collectively known as the Free Syrian Army. As protests gave way to a civil war, Abu Mohammed said he switched between several different armed groups. He said he eventually joined the Nusra front, a radical Islamist faction linked to al-Qaeda but which has often fought alongside more moderate rebel groups.

He says he was in the city of Raqqa when ISIS took over. Although ISIS is also a radical Islamist group, it does not tolerate rivals, even other jihadists. Abu Mohammed said he was jailed by ISIS and forced to join their ranks. He says his role was to hunt down other rebels like him. He says at times, he was helping ISIS find his old friends.

“Any wanted person, we would go and get him. I knew some people that were wanted, and their end was slaughter,” Abu Mohammed said.

A man who claims to be a disillusioned ISIS fighter who recently defected meets with NBC News' Chief Foreign Correspondent Richard Engel near Turkey's border with Syria on March 9, 2016.NBC News
Abu Mohammed says he eventually earned the trust of ISIS officials and assigned to ISIS’s internal intelligence division known as the Amniaat.

A senior U.S. official told NBC NEWS the Amniaat division is also responsible for “external attacks,” outside ISIS controlled areas in Iraq and Syria.

Abu Mohammed says that, while he never truly supported the ISIS ideology, his resentment grew even stronger over time.

He said the group’s systematic rape and enslavement of Yazidi women had a strong impact on him. Yazidis are members of a small religious group who mostly live in Northern Iraq. ISIS claims Yazidis are devil worshipers and has bragged about turning Yazidi women into slaves and concubines for the fighters who killed their husbands.

“I saw women raped. I saw them butchering children in front of their mothers ... they rape them in turns, one would pass her to the next guy and so on,” Abu Mohammed said.

RELATED: YAZIDI WOMEN TELL OF RAPE AND ENSLAVEMENT AT HANDS OF ISIS

Abu Mohammed said he decided to become a deserter, but before he snuck out of Syria, he says he stole a flash drive from the office of one of ISIS’s senior leaders. He didn’t exactly know what was on the drive.

Just that it was top secret. He thought having something of value from ISIS would be useful for him to trade or sell as he tried to set up a new life in Turkey or elsewhere. He said he also wanted to do as much harm to ISIS as he could.

  "Any wanted person, we would go and get him. I knew some people that were wanted, and their end was slaughter"

“I took the flash drive and gave it to my wife. I asked her to go to Turkey.”

Abu Mohammed said his wife wrapped the little flash drive in plastic and hid it inside their baby’s diaper. He said he didn’t think ISIS guards at checkpoints would search a baby’s diaper, fearing it might be soiled and impact their ability to pray. They couldn’t pray as long as they were unclean.

“I knew where they would search and where they wouldn't search,” he said. To cover his tracks, Abu Mohammed says, he showed up for work for several more days after his wife left.

“As soon as it went missing, they turned the offices upside down, they investigated the people in charge,” he said. To keep the ruse going, Abu Mohammed says, he participated in the beating of several people ISIS suspected of stealing the flash drive with the documents.

Abu Mohammed eventually escaped to Turkey which is where we met and interviewed him. We asked him why he decided to have the documents made public, which was bound to make him an even bigger target for ISIS retaliation.

“The goal was to hurt ISIS," he said. "My goal was to hurt them."

question: What is the main topic of the article?

answer: A man who calls himself Abu Mohammed claims to be an ISIS defector who stole a memory stick containing important ISIS information.

question: What organization concluded the information on the memory stick appeared to be genuine?

answer: Combating Terrorism Center at the US Military Academy at West Point

question: What is one reason that Abu claims his resentment toward ISIS grew stronger?

answer: The group's systematic rape and enslavement of Yazidi women, and the killing of their children.

question: How was Abu able to sneak the flashdrive through the checkpoint?

answer: They placed the flashdrive in their baby's diaper, knowing the guards wouldn't check the diaper for fear of becoming unclean.

question: Write a ~2 sentence summary.

answer: A man who calls himself Abu Mohammed claims to be an ISIS defector who stole a memory stick containing important ISIS information. Experts from Combating Terrorism Center at the US Military Academy at West Point concluded the information on the memory stick was geniune.


text:
**In this broken city, friends are hard to come by.**

It is night. Bolt slowly walks through the alleys, hiding in the darkness whenever he hears anything. Eventually, he instinctively makes his way back to his own territory. He finds an open tent; it is a dirty tent with only a blanket inside. By now his arm has stopped bleeding, but he now has a new scar. He crawls into the tent and curls into a ball under the blanket. His body rests on the warm dirt floor as he silently cries. “I’m sorry.” He whispers. “I’m so sorry.”

He had failed. He goes into a deep and dreamless sleep.

Bolt awakes to the sound of someone approaching his tent. He clutches his new knife, ready to spring into action. He turns to stare into the morning sunlight. It is Sasha. “Hey Bolt!” she says smiling. She is fair-skinned around the age of 13. She grins as she approaches Bolt. “I’ve been looking everywhere for you.” Her most distinctive quality is her eyes, they are red. Her skinny body approaches Bolt as her long dark hair waves back and forth.

“Hello Sasha,” Bolt grumbles as he throws his blanket off.

“How was the drop?” she asks him cheerily.

Bolt looks away. He can’t look her in the eye. He is ashamed and disappointed in himself. Sasha’s smile immediately fades. She gets a defeated look on her face and sighs. “It happens.” she says quietly to Bolt.
Failing a drop is the same as failing your gang. It is making a mockery of all the risks they were put through in order to get you so far. Bolt was the last leg of the drop, he was supposed to make the delivery. Failing such a crucial step is inexcusable.

“Are you okay?” Sasha asks him. She steps towards him and puts a hand on his shoulder.

Bolt looks further away from her ashamed. He understands exactly what everyone had to do to get him so far. Especially Sasha, she is the leader of his gang, and she is the most scarred out of any of them. Not only that, because she’s a girl, she runs much more risk than any of them can imagine. To fail a drop is to disregard all the risk she takes every time they conduct a drop. “I got caught and scarred by Hawks.”
Sasha grabs his hand and lifts up his sleeve to reveal a scabbed arm. “We need to get you medicine before your arm gets infected.”

They walk together side-by-side. Sasha understands what Bolt is going through. Every single member of their gang has failed a drop before, but the feeling never gets any better. They have each other and that’s it. They are family and every time they go on a drop, they could lose their family. So failing a drop is the same as rejecting your family. They are in friendly territory, from here, they don’t need to hide, nor do they need to run, they can walk. After an hour of weaving through crowds they reach their usual hideout in the back of an alley.

“Flower!” Sasha calls. “We need you.” A young girl appears from under a tent in the corner of the alley. “We need some clean water. Bolt was scarred.”

Flower just nods. She is around 10 years old with long blonde hair. She is the supplier of drops; she takes the orders and payments from someone else. With the money, they are able to survive. She pulls out a crinkled water bottle with just a sliver of water left. “This is all we have left.” She says.
Sasha takes the water and pours the rest onto Bolt’s scabs. “We failed the drop.” She says while gently cleaning the wound with her sleeve.

Flower just sighs. She has the safest job of them all because she has a single ability that none of them do. She is able to read and write. The rest of them can only read if even that. None of them know how to write. Flower finds a beat up notebook and a pencil to record the failure of the drop.

The notebook consists of a single T-chart on every page. On one side is written either success or failure, and on the other side there is a paragraph long description of the patient. Next to “bacterial infection, needs antibiotics or will die”, Flower writes “failure”. It takes her a while but her words are legible. Every single description in her notebook ends with “or will die”. Half of the drops have been failures.

title: [AA] This Broken City (Chapter 3)

question: Summarize the theme of this story.

answer: The theme seems to be struggle. The characters are not at any sort of war that is defined or pronounced; rather, they are at war with poverty. They are illiterate with the exception of Sarah, and they reside in meager tents. The characters also lack access to healthcare and medicine-which is why these drops can be so dangerous.

question: Summarize what has led society to this point in the world of this story.

question: Summarize the importance of "the drop".

answer: The drop is something every single member of the gang has to do. It is difficult to complete; Sasha notes that every single member has, at one point, failed a drop. It's also a dangerous endeavor, as the scars on the skin of the members are noted. The drop is of utmost importance.

question: Summarize the character of Flower.

answer: Flower is a young girl whose power in the gang lies in her ability to read and write. Therefore, she is able to conduct record-keeping, which seems to be crucial in how the gang works. She seems to be pliant yet solid and reliable, as she does not get scared off when she's summoned to tend to a man who is freshly wounded. She has knowledge of medicine.


text:
Just 5 months after our last major release, I’m happy to announce the release of WP Migrate DB Pro 1.7 and CLI addon 1.3. In the past, we’ve struggled with limiting the scope of each release and getting releases out more often (e.g. version 1.6 took 10 months and version 1.5 took 12 months!) but I believe we finally have a handle on it now. I’ll save the details of what we changed in our development processes to make that happen for another post. For now, let’s take a look at what’s new.

Run a Find & Replace on the Current Site

You may recall that Matt Shaw joined us as a full-time product developer in February this year. What you probably don’t know is that we also acquired Matt’s plugin when we hired him: Better Search Replace Pro. I was impressed with the work Matt did on that plugin and its rapid rise in popularity. It just made sense to reach out to him and see if he was interested in selling it and maybe working with us as well.

Matt has been working on incorporating one of Better Search Replace Pro’s features into this latest release of WP Migrate DB Pro. It’s a feature that we’ve had planned for ages: in-place search and replace. Here’s the original GitHub issue:

[in-place-find-replace-github-issue]

In the above feature request, Damon lays out a very common use-case for in-place search and replace: changing the domain on a staging site that’s becoming the live site. I ran into this plenty when I was a freelance developer and I’m sure many of you have as well.

When you update to 1.7, the first thing you should notice is the new “Find & Replace” option:

[mdb-find-replace-screenshot-1]

As you can see, you have all of the usual controls: which tables are operated on, which post types are excluded, whether a backup should be saved before running the find and replace, etc. You also get the same progress UI as with the other migration options:

[mdb-find-replace-screenshot-2]

As you can see, there’s even still a “Pause before finalizing the updates” option, which is a hint of how it works. We duplicate all the tables, run the find and replace on the duplicates, then drop the live tables and rename the duplicates. It’s the same way push and pull works. This makes for a much safer find and replace than operating on live tables.

CLI find-replace Subcommand

We’ve added a new WP-CLI find-replace subcommand to WP Migrate DB Pro (no need to install the CLI addon) that runs the same code as the UI:

    $ wp migratedb find-replace --find=http://dev.samueljacksonbeer.com,/Users/bradt/Sites/samueljacksonbeer.com/public --replace=https://samueljacksonbeer.com,/sites/samueljacksonbeer.com/public

See our documentation for more details.

You may be wondering why you would ever use this over WP-CLI’s search-replace command and there’s a few reasons:

1.  MULTIPLE VALUES: As you can see in the example above, you can provide a comma separated list of strings to find and a comma separated list of strings to replace.
2.  SAFETY: We run the find & replace on duplicate tables first, then replace the live tables with the duplicates.
3.  SAVED PROFILES: If you often run the same find & replace you can save it as a profile and just run the profile from the command line.

Auto HTTPS Handling

Most developers don’t bother configuring HTTPS on a dev site. Besides the best practice of having the dev site mirror the production site as closely as possible, there’s really no point. And with so many sites moving to HTTPS these days, it’s common to have a dev site on HTTP and a production site on HTTPS. Before WP Migrate DB Pro 1.7, you had to manually add an additional find and replace to run a migration with WP Migrate DB Pro:

[Screen Shot 2016-07-04 at 2.17.48 PM]

Not anymore. In 1.7, we detect the protocols of the origin and destination and handle this all in the background.

“Copy to Clipboard” Button

[copy-to-clipboard]

Prior to 1.7, it was pretty easy to select the contents of the Connection Info box and copy the connection info, but if you were copying it for use on the command line it was really annoying. You essentially had to do it twice, once for the URL and once for the key. Now you can can simply use the “Copy to Clipboard” button and it will copy both to the clipboard with a space between, ready for use on the command line. The UI also now supports pasting the connection info with a space instead of a newline character, so you can use the “Copy to Clipboard” button for both the UI and the command line.

[cli-addon-1-3]

We also made a couple of nice improvements to the CLI addon in this release. There’s now a setting subcommand modelled after WP-CLI’s option command:

    wp migratedb setting update license
    wp migratedb setting update push
    wp migratedb setting update pull

    wp migratedb setting get license
    wp migratedb setting get push
    wp migratedb setting get pull
    wp migratedb setting get connection-key

This will satisfy quite a few people who’ve requested a way of setting the license key from the command line and being able to automate the setup of new installs of WordPress. See our documentation for more details.

We’ve also added a profiles subcommand to list saved profiles so you don’t have to load the UI to view them:

[cli-profiles-subcommand]

See the documentation for more details.

And More

There are lots of other little bug fixes and improvements that were made to WP Migrate DB Pro and its addons for this release, so I highly recommend checking out the full changelogs.

What’s Next?

The main feature planned for WP Migrate DB Pro 1.8 is another Better Search Replace Pro feature: importing SQL files. Again we’ve had this in GitHub for a long time and I know it’s been discussed even further back.

[sql-import-github-issue]

The plan is for Matt to tackle that SQL import feature. Peter will be reworking some of the code, paving the way for later work on the highly requested Themes & Plugins addon. And in addition to helping Matt and Peter, Jeff will be working on setting up automated acceptance testing so that we can spend less time testing and more time developing.

If you’re as happy as I am with work done on this release, I invite you to thank Matt, Jeff, and Peter in the comments as well as the rest of the team for putting in hours of testing.

question: What does the article say about Matt Shaw?

answer: Matt Shaw is a relatively new addition to the WP development team. His add-on, Better Search Replace Pro, is being integrated into WP. The first feature that will be released in the 1.7 update is in-place search and replace. Shaw is the one doing the work. His next item for the 1.8 update is another feature from his add-on, importing SQL files.

question: What does the article say about the newly implemented find and replace functionality?

answer: The feature is implemented by the new addition to the team, Matt Shaw. He sold his add-on to the WP team and joined them to work on it as well. The feature is long-awaited since a user requested it on GitHub, outlining a common use-case: changing domain on a staging site that's becoming a live site. The implementation works safely, doing its work on duplicate data before putting it in the right place. In addition to the functionality being available on the UI, there's also a CLI version.

question: What does the article say about WordPress comment functionality?


text:
There's a little neglected drag of cobble half a mile up from the banks of Possible's stream, where the eddies gurgle rapturous and wide making glee faces at men that dangle their little heads over the edge of possible's bridge.  The little cobble streets that bob and teeter like a broad with a gut full of beer have become otiose, wringing not person, other than the cheese maker of hungry french memories.

Horny lads, feet clicking, cluck, cluck, as they sauntered sheepishly in the evening, searching for a lass to loosen their wallets for.  The new age saunterers in their barely worn pea-coats, pry grimaces from the cheese maker.  The sound of flats and flimsy conversation bouncing off the old street and into the cheese maker's ears.  He hated them.

The cheese maker had lived alone since his wife had died 8 years ago.  I would see him now and then as he stopped in the diner I worked at and had a cup of coffee.  Nobody really knew his name.  Nobody really cared enough to inquire.  His presence seemed to go unnoticed as he strolled through town.  Maybe he likes it that way.

I called him the cheese maker because that had been his profession.  He owned a small farm outside of town that he had purchased after returning home from WWII.  His sons ran the farm now and they routinely delivered the cheese and milk we used in the diner.  They had booted their father out into a nursing home.  I learned all of this because they would engage in small talk with my manager who was an old childhood friend of theirs.

I can't tell you exactly why I had become so infatuated with his life story.  I would get off work and walk past his nursing home.  Sometimes I would see him out and about, smoking a cigar outside a grocery store, or rummaging through a thrift store.  I never had the audacity to approach him.

It's been a few weeks since I last seen him, sipping on his coffee.  I wondered where he had been.  What he had been doing since he left the diner.  I finished my shift without one sight of him.  As I was walking home, I heard a yelling sound coming from the yard of the nursing home.  I moved in closer to get a look.

It was the cheese maker and another elderly man yelling back and forth at each over the white picket fence built around the nursing home.  "You filthy fucking rat!" stammered the cheese maker.  "Don't call me a rat, you goddamn wrinkled shit."  I hid behind a tree and listened as best I could.  "She loved me, Chester.  She was married to me.  She had my children." said the cheese maker.  "You only stole her from me!  She was going to marry me, if I hadn't thrown my ring into that goddamn stream!" yelled chester in fury.

"I go to her grave every morning.  And you, the guy she married won't even bother to visit her!" "FUCK YOU, CHESTER, FUCK YOU, you sniveling little fuck."  The cheese maker picked up a rock from the ground and hurled it at chester.  The rock missed chester and landed in the street behind him.  By this time, the care taker's had come out and were ushering the cheese maker, who was mumbling curses, back to the house.

Chester inched his way down the sidewalk past me.  He had a cane in his left hand and leaned half his body on it as he walked.  He didn't see me and I passed him and went home.  I was so fascinated.  The two men, in this perpetual state of conflict all over a woman that had passed away years ago.

A few weeks had passed since their last quarrel.  I couldn't pacify my intrigue.  The sullen moments at work and the blandness of the regular social interactions between people left me craving their passion, their hatred.  I began cutting by the nursing home more and more often.  Checking to see if they would be there yet again, like a rerun of an old show.

Then one day he appeared.  The cheese maker himself.  He waddled into the diner and sat in his regular spot and ordered a black coffee with two sugars.  I brought it out to him.  He didn't look at me.  He stared straight out the window, almost as though he was expecting someone to walk in.  He finished his coffee and left.

Chester had died that day.  I read it in the obituary later that night.  He had a bad heart they said.  I thought this was ironic.  I went to the burial.  I stood in the back away from everyone else.  I took a cigarette out and puffed on it.  I looked over to my left and noticed the cheese maker walk up beside me.  "You got another one of those?" he asked motioning towards my pocket.  "Yeah, sure."  I handed him a cigarette and we both stood there silently.

title: The cheese maker's wife.

question: What is the nature of the relationship between the cheese maker and Chester?

answer:
The cheese maker is a man with a farm outside of town. With him being old and decrepit, his sons took over managing the farm. After taking over, they shipped the cheese maker off to the old people's home, where an old acquaintance, Chester, also lives.

Both men always argue about something, mostly about the cheese maker's deceased wife, who Chester also loved. Chester would accuse the cheese maker of not visiting her grave while the cheese maker would remind Chester he was married to her. After Chester died, the cheese maker would often be seen staring into a distance as if waiting for someone. One could say the men were rivals or some kind of frenemies who thrived on their conflict as a way of relating with each other.


text:
ERLACH ABBEY (ABBAYE SAINT-JEAN DE CERLIER) also known as ST. JOHANNSEN ABBEY (KLOSTER ERLACH, otherwise ABTEI ST. JOHANNSEN), was a Benedictine monastery in Gals, Canton of Bern, Switzerland.

It was founded between 1093 and 1103 by Kuno, Count of Fenis and Bishop of Lausanne, on land that was then an island in the river Thielle. After Kuno's death, the abbey church was completed by his brother, Burchard, bishop of Basel. The new monastery was settled by monks from Saint Blaise Abbey. The _Vogtei_, initially the property of the Counts of Fenis, passed from them to the Counts of Neuchâtel-Nidau, and from them at the end of the 14th century to the city of Bern, which in took over the domain of Erlach in 1474, definitively acquiring it in 1476.

The abbey was secularised between 1528 and 1529. The nave of the abbey church was demolished, but the choir and transept remained to be used for grain storage. These structures were demolished in 1961 after they had become unsafe, but the choir was rebuilt between 1970 and 1971. The other buildings remained standing, and in the 19th century were put to various industrial uses, until in 1883 the Canton of Bern bought the site back and turned it into a prison. Since 1978, it has served as an adjustment centre for young men.

Sources and external links

-

:de:Kloster Erlach

Category:Benedictine monasteries in Switzerland Category:Prisons in Switzerland Category:Buildings and structures in Bern

title: Erlach Abbey

question: Where is Erlach Abbey located?

answer: It is located in Gais, Canton of Bern, Switzerland.

question: When was the abbey founded?

answer: It was founded between 1093 and 1103

question: When was the abbey secularized?

answer: It was secularized between 1528 and 1529.

question: What purpose does the building serve in present day?

answer: Since 1978, the building has served as an adjustment center for young men.

question: Write a ~3 sentence summary.

answer: This article is about the Erlach Abbey, which was a Benedictine monastery in Gais, Canton of Bern, Switzerland. It was founded between 1093 and 1103, and was secularized between 1528 and 1529. It now serves as an adjustment center for young men.


text:
The CHURCH OF ST JAMES in Winscombe, Somerset, England, has 12th- or 13th-century origins but the present building dates from the 15th century. It is a Grade I listed building.[1][2]

There are no records remaining of the Norman church on the site, though the font and a single lancet window date from the period, and a Deed of Gift survives confirming that the church was consecrated by Bishop Jocelin on 26 August 1236. It was given by him to the Dean and Chapter of Wells Cathedral three years later.[3] The four-stage tower (“one of the most elegant” in Somerset[4]) was added around 1435,[5][6] by Bishop John Harewell, and at the same time stained glass was added.[7]

The church was restored and a new chancel added in 1863.[8] The rebuilding of the chancel was undertaken by William Burges.[9] He was commissioned by the Reverend John Augustus Yatman, whose brother had been Burges's main client for painted furniture.[10] Burges and his team, including Fred Weekes and Gualbert Saunders, also undertook the design of three stained-glass lancet windows in the chancel, in memory of Yatman's mother.[11] Pevsner appreciated their quality, “much better aesthetically is the glass in the chancel,”[12] but erroneously attributes them as “one of the best examples of Morris glass in existence and quite unrecorded.”[13] The Carsleigh Window in the north wall of the chancel () is decorated with silver stain, “marking the close of the Middle Ages and the arrival of the Renaissance”. There is medieval glass in the two windows in the north wall of the side chapel, and in the window next to the organ.[14]

The bells of St James have long called people to worship, the original bells being cast in 1773 by local founders the Bilbie family.[15] Two newer bells were added in 1903 by Taylors Founders. The eight bells are in the key of E flat and the tenor weighs 18–1–8 (18 hundredweight, 1 quarter of a hundredweight and 8 lb, or 930 kg). St James holds regular services on Sundays, with bell ringing being provided for both the morning service and evensong.

[1]

[2]

[3]

[4]

[5]

[6] Chambers (church guide) states that the tower was built “in the late 1300s”.

[7]

[8]

[9]

[10]

[11]

[12]

[13]

[14]

[15]

title: Church of St James, Winscombe

question: Where is the church?

answer: Winscombe, Somerset, England

question: When was the current church building constructed?

answer: In the 15th century

question: What happened to the church in 1863?

answer: It was restored and a new chancel was added

question: What happened to the church in 1903?

answer: Two new bells were added by Taylors Founders

question: Write a ~4 sentence summary.

answer: The Church of St. James is a church in Wincombe, Somerset, England. The building dates to the 15th century, but the church's origins are from the 12th or 13th. It has been restored and added to since then, and today it is a Grade I listed building. It still hosts regular services on Sundays.


text:
[_View of the entrance to Lincoln's Inn Fields in Duke Street_ by John Crowther.]

SARDINIA STREET, formerly DUKE STREET, was a street that ran from Prince's Street in the south to the western side of Lincoln's Inn Fields in the north. It was joined on its western side by King's Head Yard and Great Wild Street, and on its eastern side by Vere Street. On the eastern side at the northern end was a Roman Catholic chapel and Chapel Yard.

History

[Sardinia Street on an 1870s Ordnance Survey map when it was still known as Duke Street.] Duke Street was built up from the mid 1600s. The land it is built on came into the ownership of Humphrey Weld in 1652 who built a house which he let in 1661 on a 21 years' lease. By 1658, Wenceslas Hollar's plan showed Duke Street fully built.[1]

The street had a distinctive arch at its northern end which provided access to Lincoln's Inn Fields, the western side of the fields being called Arch Row for that reason. The house to the immediate south of the archway was the home of the Sardinian Ambassador and his house was originally the only entrance to the Sardinian Chapel in Duke Street.[2]

The street was renamed Sardinia Street during the late nineteenth century.

Sardinia Street was demolished during the construction of Kingsway which was officially opened by King Edward VII in 1905.[3] The arch at the northern end survived until later. A new Sardinia Street, much shorter than the original, was constructed south of the old street and connected Kingsway to the south-west corner of Lincoln's Inn Fields.

Gallery

File:Extract from Hollar's map of c. 1658.jpg|Extract from Hollar's map of c. 1658. File:Entrance to Sardinia Street from Lincoln' Inn Fields by James Lawson Stewart c. 1890.jpg|Entrance to Sardinia Street from Lincoln' Inn Fields by James Lawson Stewart c. 1890.

[1] No. 1, Sardinia Street. British History Online. Retrieved 26 December 2016.

[2] Heckethorn, Charles William. (1896) _Lincoln's Inn Fields and the localities adjacent: Their historical and topographical associations_. London: Elliott Stock. p. 69.

[3] Kingsway and Aldwych. Architecture.com Retrieved 24 December 2016.

title: Sardinia Street, Lincoln's Inn

question: What was Sardinia Street formerly called?

answer: Duke Street.

question: Where did Sardinia Street run?

answer: From Prince's Street in the south to the western side of Lincoln's Inn Fields in the north.

question: When was Duke Street built up?

answer: Around the mid 1600s.

question: Who came into the ownership of the land in 1652?

answer: Humphrey Weld.

question: Write a ~2 sentence summary.

answer: This article is about Sardinia Street, formerly Duke Street. It discusses the history of the street from the 17th century to the present day.


text:
The purpose of prototyping in Xcode is to be able to create a super high fidelity flow using the exact same software that builds iOS Apps. In Xcode, there is no limit. You can embed beautiful interactions, transitions, animations and sounds to produce a true native experience. In this tutorial, I will focus on the Storyboard feature, a powerful tool in Xcode that allows you to build an App without a single line of code. You will be able to create a functional prototype in a matter of hours.

[Intro]

The end goal is to eventually be able to implement your own designs for iOS. Just like learning CSS for the Web, this will immensely help developers overcome their struggle with UI work and push the collaborative work between designers and developers. Design is how it works, Steve Jobs said. Designing static images is not enough, you need to bring them to life.

Get Xcode

[appstore]

Head to the App Store and download Xcode.

Start A New Project

-   1) Open Xcode, then “Create a new Xcode Project”.
-   2) Select “Single View Application”.
-   3) Set up project name and company name.

[Start]

Setup Up App

-   1) Only enable Portrait orientation.
-   2) Drag and drop your app icons.
-   3) Drag and drop your launch images. It’s the image that shows up when your app first loads.

[SetupApp]

The Xcode UI

The user interface is overwhelming at first, so let’s focus on the crucial parts that apply to Storyboard.

[XcodeUI]

Add Images

Have your App screens ready without the status bar. To add them, create a “Group”, then “Add Files To…”. You can also drag and drop images to that folder.

[NewGroup]

Make sure you have “Copy items into destination group’s folder” and “Add to targets” enabled.

[AddFiles]

[AddImages]

First Screen

Now that we have the basic setup done and the images added, we can finally start Storyboarding. Go to Storyboard and drag and drop a Button from the Object library.

[FileManager]

[ObjectLibrary]

Why a button? Because it allows you to link to a second screen. It acts as a clickable image. Resize the button to fit the entire dimension of the screen.

When you select the button, you should see properties appearing in the ATTRIBUTES inspector. The properties we’re interested in are TYPE, TITLE and IMAGE. Set Type to Custom, Title to nothing and Image to your first screen (type the name of your image and it will autocomplete).

[AttributesInspector]

Second Screen

Screens are called “Controllers” in Xcode. To create a second screen, simply drag and drop a View Controller, then repeat the previous step.

[ViewController]

Connecting Screens

Xcode connects screens by a link they call “segue”. To create a segue, hold the “Control” key on your keyboard with your mouse pointer on the first screen and drag and drop on the second screen. Select “modal”. This will create a transition that slides the second screen from the bottom.

[Segue]

You can customize the transition by clicking on the segue (circle symbol between the two screens) and set the TRANSITION to Cover Vertical, Flip Horizontal, Cross Dissolve or Partial Curl. Or, you can uncheck “Animate” if you don’t want any animation.

[Modal]

The Push Segue

The Push segue doesn’t work without a Navigation Controller. To create one, select the first screen’s View Controller and go to Editor > Embed In > Navigation Controller. A header bar will appear on every screen connected.

[Embed]

To remove that bar, select the Navigation Controller, then set the TOP BAR property to None.

[TopBarRemove]

Now, you can use the Push segue and it will do a horizontal sliding transition.

Testing Your App

Xcode comes with an iOS Simulator that allows you to preview your App. To do that, select iPhone 6.1 Simulator and click on the RUN button in the far top left. An iPhone will appear and you will be able to interact with the App you’ve just built.

[Run]

Clicking on the first screen will lead to the second screen. It’s not much, but it’s a major step in understanding how Storyboard works.

-   Download Prototype 1.0. It’s what we have so far.

Header And Content

This is where it gets a lot more interactive. Inside a View Controller, you can have all kinds of Objects from the Object Library. A typical screen has a sticky header, multiple buttons and a scrollable content.

First, you must separate your header and content assets in Photoshop or Sketch. Let’s remove the button we created earlier and drag in an Image Object for the header. In ATTRIBUTES, set the image name. For the dimensions, go to the SIZE tab and set the height according to your header image.

[SizeInspector]

Note that Xcode uses pt and not px units (1pt = 2px). Make sure that you use pair numbers in your assets.

On top of the header, you can drag in Button and Label objects.

Scrollable Content

To create a scrollable content, drag in a Table View and set the dimension to fill the rest of the screen. Inside that Table view, drag in a button and set the size according to your image’s dimension. From that button, you can create a segue to the second screen. Make sure that you have the button selected when you do the HOLD CTRL + DRAG AND DROP trick.

[Layers]

You will need to make sure that the Table View layer has less priority than the header. Xcode works in reverse order where the layers below take priority.

The Back Button

I’m including this function because it’s really useful. I will explain it more in a future tutorial, but for now, create a Group and drag and drop these Objective-C category files. Make sure to check “Add to Targets” during import.

Once imported, you should be able to link your back button to the Exit green icon and an option called backButton will appear. Click on it.

[Backbutton]

Views and Objects

Here’s a schema of how Views and Objects can be structured:

[XcodeViews]

Once you understand how Views and Objects work, you will be able to customize your Controllers the way you want.

Previewing On Your Phone

Xcode allows you to preview your App on your iPhone. Unfortunately, it’s a complicated process and requires an iOS developer account. Once you have an account, you must follow their instructions on how to create a Certificate and a Provisioning Profile on your Mac so that your device has permission to install the App.

Download The Template

This template should help you get started:

[XcodePrototype]

-   Download Prototype 1.1

Simply replace the images with your own, tweak the Inspector settings, add new View Controllers and connect them using segues.

Resources

Just like in Sketch, experimenting with other people’s Xcode projects is crucial part to learning. Here are some resources you may find useful:

-   Cocoa Controls – You’ll find great open source controls to play with.
-   Search on Github for Xcode projects.
-   More to come…

Final Thought

As a designer, I would never have thought that I’d be writing a tutorial about Xcode. It’s traditionally an application that appeals to developers as the barrier to entry is huge because of its complex UI and Objective-C knowledge requirement. But since Xcode 4, the addition of Storyboard allows designers to overcome their fear of writing codes and directly use an intuitive interface to produce meaningful interactions.

This tutorial wouldn’t have been possible without the help of Max Tagher, our iOS developer at Heyzap who helped me through countless road blocks. If you have someone knowledgeable about iOS development, I suggest that you start getting friendly with that person and ask for help whenever you run into a problem.

This is the first tutorial of a series. In the next tutorial, I will include custom fonts, more complex flows, animations and sounds. Finding good Xcode resources is a massive endeavor, so if you have any, please do share.

question: What is the purpose of prototyping in Xcode?

answer: It is to create a high fidelity flow.

question: What is the end goal of creating a functional prototype?

answer: The purpose is to implement your own designs for iOS.

question: What is one of the benefits of using Xcode?

answer: It helps developers overcome their struggle with UI interface work, bridging the gap between designers and developers.

question: Where can anyone download the Xcode?

answer: It can be found in the Apple app store.

question: Write a ~3 sentence summary.

answer:
Xcode is Apple's integrated development environment for developing iOS apps and software. Its storyboard feature speeds up the process of prototyping, making creating an app possible within hours.

Because of the ease of transitions and animation embedding, developers who previously have problems with UI work do find it easier to collaborate with designers.


text:
_PURE SHIT_ (censored as _PURE S_) is a 1975 Australian drama film directed by Bert Deling.[1]

When the film premiered at Melbourne’s Playbox in May 1976, the Vice Squad raided the theatre.[2] It was initially banned, then given an R certificate, and the title was changed from _Pure Shit_ to _Pure S_.

The low-budget film provoked a hostile reaction from the mainstream media on its initial release. It is now considered an “underground” classic.[3]

Plot summary

A young woman dies of a heroin overdose. Four junkies who knew her commandeer her car and spend 24 hours searching the streets of Melbourne for good quality heroin, and excitement.

Cast

-   Gary Waddell as Lou
-   Ann Hetherington as Sandy
-   Carol Porter as Gerry
-   John Laurie as John
-   Max Gillies as Dr Wolf
-   Tim Robertson as TV interviewer
-   Helen Garner as Jo
-   Phil Motherwell
-   Russell Kirby as Shoplifter / TV Interviewee
-   Greig Pickhaver as Record shop worker
-   Vicki Heal as Girl on Phone

Production

The film's budget was partly provided by the Film, Radio and Television Board of the Australia Council and partly by the Buoyancy Foundation, an organisation to help drug takers.[4] Bert Deling says he was particularly influenced by Jean Renoir and Howard Hawks.[5]

Lead actor Garry Waddell says he helped with the script:

  It was really good having Bert there because he helped me a lot. If you weren't sure of anything you could always get reassurance from him or the cameraman, Tom Cowan. It wasn't a hard movie to work on because it was so enjoyable. The relationships between people on the film were always good.[6]

Writer Helen Garner has a small role as a speed-addled woman named Jo. Garner starred in the film shortly before she published _Monkey Grip_ (1977), which is set in a similar milieu of communal drug use.[7]

Release

The Commonwealth film censors initially banned the movie but allowed it to be released with an “R” rating provided the title was changed from _Pure Shit_ to _Pure S_.[8] Deling later said that the film “played two weeks at Melbourne’s Playbox and had a short Sydney run … but very few people got to see it, and we didn’t make a cent from it.”[9] The movie was polarising, with the critic of the _Herald_ calling it “the most evil film that I've ever seen”[10] but others such as Bob Ellis championing it.[11]

The film was released on DVD in 2009.

Accolades

+-----------------+-----------------+-----------------+-----------------+
| Award           | Category        | Subject         | Result          |
+=================+=================+=================+=================+
| AACTA Awards    | Best Film       | Bob Weis        |                 |
| (1975 AFI       |                 |                 |                 |
| Awards)         |                 |                 |                 |
+-----------------+-----------------+-----------------+-----------------+
| Best Direction  | Bert Deling     |                 |
+-----------------+-----------------+-----------------+-----------------+
| Best Supporting | Helen Garner    |                 |
| Actress         |                 |                 |
+-----------------+-----------------+-----------------+-----------------+
|  |
+-----------------+-----------------+-----------------+-----------------+

[1] Beryl Donaldson & John Langer, “Bert Deling”, _Cinema Papers_, April 1977 p 316-319, 377

[2] SBS Online Article by Peter Galvin _A junkie film whose reputation precedes it_

[3] Australian screen; curator’s notes by Paul Byrnes

[4]

[5] Luke Buckmaster, 'Interview with Bert Deling', _Crikey_, 5 June 2009 accessed 2 October 2012

[6] “Garry Waddel”, _Cinema Papers_, June–July 1976, p55

[7]

[8]

[9] 'Deling, Bert - Pure Shit', _Urban Cinefile_, 14 May 2009 accessed 2 October 2012

[10] David Stratton, _The Last New Wave: The Australian Film Revival_, Angus & Robertson, 1980 p278

[11]

title: Pure Shit

question: When did Pure Shit premiere?

answer: Pure Shit premiered in May 1976.

question: Who raided the theatre on Pure Shit's premiere?

answer: The Vice Squad raided the theatre on Pure Shit's premiere.

question: Who played the character Gerry?

answer: Carol Porter played the character Gerry.

question: What character did Greig Pickhaver play?

answer: Greig Pickhaver played the character of Record shop worker.

question: Who was one of the cameramen?

answer: Tom Cowan was one of the cameramen.

question: When was Pure Shit released to DVD?

answer: Pure Shit was released on DVD in 2009.

question: Write a ~4 sentence summary.

answer: Pure Shit is an Australian drama film. It was controversial in its subject matter and its premiere was raided by the Vice Squad. The Commonwealth film censors banned the movie at first, then changed the rating and the title before allowing release. It was released on DVD in 2009.


text:
THE COEXISTENCE TRUST is an organisation founded in 2005 by Lord Janner of Braunstone and Prince Hassan of Jordan. The body was originally named THE POLITICAL COUNCIL FOR COEXISTENCE.

Purpose and mission

A network of senior Muslim and Jewish political leaders worldwide[1] with its headquarters in London, UK, the Trust provides a bridge across the political spectrum to combat Islamophobia and Anti-Semitism wherever it may be found in the world.[2] The Trust uses its level of access to intervene at the highest levels of government whenever and wherever there are racist attacks against Muslims or Jews.

The Trust believes that with political authority comes the responsibility to be sensitive to the role of religion in public life. Therefore, the Trust regularly arranges private meetings between leaders from the spheres of religion and politics to discuss contemporary issues. In addition to its membership, The Trust has a distinguished group of patrons. These are among others, eminent personalities from the Abrahamic faiths.

The Coexistence Trust’s mission is to strengthen mutual understanding between Jewish and Muslim communities worldwide and to provide an enlightened centrist platform for Muslim and Jewish political leaders to combat Islamophobia and Anti-Semitism at senior levels. It envisions a world in which the dialogue between Muslim and Jewish leaders is collaborative, open, respectful and focused on the benefit of society as a whole.

Patrons, trustees and members

Presidents

-   Prince Hassan bin Talal

Chairperson

-   2005 - 2008: Baron Janner of Braunstone.
-   2008–2013: Baron Mitchell.

Directors

-   Alan Senitt[3]
-   Samuel Klein

Deceased

-   Baron Janner of Braunstone (former President)

Activities

Autumn 2008 Roadshow

-   coexistence-trust-starts-work-lse
-   article5073757.ece

[1]

[2]

[3]

title: The Coexistence Trust

question: What is The Coexistence of Trust?

answer: The Coexistence of Trust is an organisation founded in 2005 by Lord Janner of Braunstone and Prince Hassan of Jordan.

question: List the organization's most important members.

answer:
Presidents
- Prince Hassan bin Talal

Chairperson
- 2005 - 2008: Baron Janner of Braunstone.
- 2008–2013: Baron Mitchell.

Directors
- Alan Senitt
- Samuel Klein

question: What is the organization's mission?

answer: The Trust believes that political authority comes with the responsibility to be sensitive to the role of religion in public life. The Trust uses its level of access to intervene at the highest levels of government whenever and wherever there are racist attacks against Muslims or Jews.

question: Why was its name changed?

answer: Information can't be found.

question: Write a ~3 sentence summary.

answer: The Coexistence of Trust is an organization founded in 2005 by Lord Janner of Braunstone and Prince Hassan of Jordan. The Trust believes that political authority comes with the responsibility to be sensitive to the role of religion in public life. The Trust uses its level of access to intervene at the highest levels of government whenever and wherever there are racist attacks against Muslims or Jews.


text:
WESTEND-NORD and WESTEND-SÜD are two city districts of Frankfurt am Main, Germany. The division into a northern and a southern part is mostly for administrative purposes as the WESTEND is generally considered an entity. Both city districts are part of the _Ortsbezirk Innenstadt II_.

The Westend with its Wilhelminian style buildings is a beloved residential quarter and has the highest real estate prices in Frankfurt. Many old villas serve as offices for law firms and companies of the financial community. Along with the Bahnhofsviertel, the Nordend and the Ostend, it is part of Frankfurt's dense inner city districts.

History

Western Boundaries

[Borders of the Westend highlighted in green] Like the other districts constructed in the Wilhelminian period the Westend has been within the town walls of Frankfurt since the building of the _Frankfurter Landwehr_ . Largely consisting of fields and heathland, it was area made up of isolated farming estates. Streets in the area still carry the names of these estates which were called Hellerhof, Hynsperghof and Kettenhof.

Classicism and the Wilhelminian period

At the beginning of the nineteenth century the old Frankfurt fortifications were razed. Soon numerous classic suburban villas with generous gardens sprang up along the Bockenheimer Landstraße, the arterial road in the neighbouring town of Bockenheim. Among them were the Gontardsche garden house and the Villa Leonhardi designed by the architect Nicolas Alexandre Salins de Montfort, as well as the Rothschildpalais of Friedrich Rumpf. Around the middle of the nineteenth century the area through the town was divided up and the streets and Squares were laid out. The narrow, built-up Frankfurter Neustadt was bursting at the seams and so people were continuously moving to the outer western town. Paris became an archetype for street construction, therefore wide boulevards as well as squares with radial streets leading outwards began to appear.

[The quarter surrounding the Palmengarten (1893). The street network in the north of the Westend is still not finished.] In 1858 the first Frankfurt Zoo was laid out on the Bockenheimer Landstraße, which was later moved to the Ostend. The Westend then became a residential quarter for the affluent, as in other towns and cities with a Westend. Many villas and grand residential houses sprouted, of which many still stand today. At the end of the nineteenth century nearly the whole southern part of the Westend was built-up. In the northern part was the newly laid Palmengarten, the Grüneburgweg with its emerging Grüneburgpark as well as the _Irrenanstalt_ (the so-called _Irrenschloß_, a psychiatric hospital) founded by Heinrich Hoffmann on the Affenstein. Around the well-contained development Mayor Franz Adickes had the Alleenring built at the beginning of the twentieth century, which at the same time bound all the new boroughs of the city together.

The northern borough was less densely built-up due primarily to the generously laid borders of the Grüneburgpark. In 1930 Hans Poelzig erected the IG Farben Building. Until the Second World War nothing else changed much. In the Third Reich the borough was abolished and the Westend became part of Frankfurt-Nord. Police station nine in Lindenstraße 27 was the center of the Frankfurt Gestapo. The Westend was spared from carpet bombing during the airraids of the second world war. Initially, after the war almost the whole Westend-Nord (from Wolfgangstraße) was declared a restricted zone. The American military set up their headquarters in the I.G. Farben building. Surrounding boroughs were converted into housing estates for GIs. In 1948 barbed wire was removed from the restricted zones.

Skyscrapers and street riots

In the 1950s the Westend was still a clean residential area for around 40,000 people. The houses had only four floors as a general rule.

The first skyscraper

In 1938 Frankfurt came upon the chance to purchase a 58 hectare area between Bockenheimer Landstraße, Unterlindau, Staufenstraße and Reuterweg at a very reasonable price, which had previously belonged to the well-established Jewish Rothschild family, land which the Nazi government had put into probation. Although the 1950 selling price was later improved, the return of a third of this area was demanded to be returned as part of the Rothschild inheritance. After this, approval of the construction of a multi-storey development on the Rothschild's returned land was received (they sold it to Schweizer Zürich-Versicherung and Berliner Handelsgesellschaft) and office towers were established directly opposite the old opera house.

The Zurich building built in 1960, and demolished again soon after was the first multi-storied building in Frankfurt Westend. The city transformed the remaining part of the area into the Rothschildpark, which is accessible to everyone.

The abolition of housing space

After the abolishment of control of living space in 1960, Hans Kampffmeyer, the head of the social democratic planning department developed the concept of decentralising the inner city. The adjacent boroughs were to become an extension of the Westend. The so-called Fünf-Fingerplan of 1967 designated that through the Westend five leading axles - Mainzer Landstraße, Bockenheimer Landstraße, Reuterweg, Grüneburgweg and Eschersheimer Landstraße - should be developed under an intensive construction plan. From this came a wave of property speculation, numerous nineteenth century building were demolished in the following years, their long established tenants driven out by rough methods. Several hundred houses stood empty in the Westend of 1970, often in completely shabby condition.

The development soon encountered resistance by the population. The middle classes reacted with the creation of the first _Bürgerinitiativen_ (citizen's initiative), the _Aktionsgemeinschaft Westend_ (AGW). The AGW put together a land register of monuments and buildings worthy of preservation and by 1970 obtained a modification ban for Westend. Henceforward, the city wanted to turn around the development plans for any newly introduced developments. 1972 saw the federal state of Hesse issue a regulation against dwelling misuse.

At the same time the _Frankfurter Häuserkampf_ (house squatting) developed, which was mainly driven by students at the University situated in the Westend. Many houses were occupied, which received constant supplies to demonstrate on the streets with the police. Joschka Fischer was also involved in this. The high point of the Häuserkampf was between 1970 and 1974.

In 1972 an attack on the American headquarters in the I.G Farben building was carried out by the Red Army Fraction, in which a soldier died.

In the 1970s yet another row of multi-storey buildings were built in Westend such as the AfE-Turm on the university grounds. The City-Hochhaus at Platz der Republik, in those days the highest skyscraper in Germany (and burned down in 1973 to the jubilation of several students) was however finished later.

Although in 1976 a construction plan was decreed that no more skyscrapers would be planned, exceptions were approved in the southern part of Westend along Mainzer Landstraße and the Alleenring. Today the southern part of Westend has grown together extensively with the Bankenviertel. On the edge of Westend the second highest skyscraper in Germany, the Messeturm, rose up to 257 metres.

Situation and demarkation

Westend lies at the northwestern border of the inner city and north of Bahnhofsviertel and Gallus. Its longest border separated it from Bockenheim to the west. To the north the Westend meets the borough of Dornbusch, and to the east of is Nordend. The northern border of Westend is identical to that of the former Frankfurter Landwehr, which protected the territory of the free city of Frankfurt for centuries.

Normally the people of Frankfurt say Westend is hemmed in by Reuterweg, the Bockenheimer Anlage at the Opernplatz, the Taunusanlage, Mainzer Landstraße up to Platz der Republik, Friedrich-Ebert-Anlage, Senckenberganlage, a small piece of Zeppelinallee, then from the southern boundary of the Palmengarten, Siesmayerstraße, Grüneburgweg up to its bend in the south east and Fürstenbergerstraße to the corner of Reuterweg.

The official urban districts of Frankfurt are not covered completely by these borders. According to these the whole Messe (fair) grounds, except in the west border area of Bockenheim and in the east of the district up to Eschersheimer Landstraße, also belongs to Westend.

Townscape

Skyscrapers in Westend-Süd

The western part of the Innenstadt, the eastern part of the Bahnhofsviertel and the southern part of the Westend form Frankfurt's central business district, the Bankenviertel. The concentration of skyscrapers here is higher than anywhere else in Germany. The skyscrapers which are located in the Westend line up from the Bockenheimer Anlage via the Taunusanlage and Mainzer Landstraße to Platz der Republik. From east to west along this stretch are the Parktower (115 m), the Opernturm (170 m) the Deutsche Bank Twin Towers (each 155 m), the Trianon (186 m), the Frankfurter Büro Center (142 m), the Westend Tower (208 m) and the City-Haus (142 m).

There are more tall buildings at the Messe grounds: the world-renowned Messeturm (257 m, the tallest skyscraper in Europe between 1991–1997), the Westend Gate (159 m, the tallest skyscraper in Germany between 1976–1977).

Infrastructure

Traffic

[One-way street in the Westend] As a predominantly residential area the Westend mainly has narrow roads, which are calm in relation to traffic. Apart from a few exceptions all the roads are one-way streets, which change directions at cross roads. Therefore, the Westend is much loved by driving schools. The exceptions are streets which lead out of the Westend borough into other parts of the city. Initially these streets are Eschersheimer Landstraße, the Anlagenring and the Alleenring, which carry a majority of the rush-hour and Messe traffic. Other important traffic-bearing streets are Bockheimer Landstraße as the main street to the Messe lying in an east-west direction, and the fairway made up of Reuterweg, Bremer Straße and Hansaallee as an arterial road in the North and Grüneburgweg as another east-west connection. Apart from that Grüneburgweg is also the Westend-Nord Westend-Süd border.

[U-Bahnhof _Westend_] The Westend was one of the first boroughs with a connection to the tram network. In those days the main route lead through Bockenheimer Landstraße. Since the building of the C-route of the Frankfurt U-Bahn the Westend still only had Messe line 16, which travels through the western edge and over the Alleenring. The Westend was also attached to the underground from its very beginning. The A-route traffic ran through a tunnel under Eschersheimer Landstraße. The Westned had another U-Bahn route since 1986 underneath Bockenheimer Landstraße. The C-route runs from the Alte Oper to Bockenheimer Warte. A third U-Bahn route was added in 2001. The D-route runs underneath the Alleenring and serves the eastern Messe grounds. A railway junction developed at Bockenheimer Warte. Through the stations at Taunusanlage in the east and Messe in the west, the Westend is also linked into the Network of the Rhine-Main S-Bahn.

Public services

Despite the high population density and the good traffic infrastructure the Westend has no hospitals, fire departments or police stations. All emergency services are however located close by in Nordend. In contrast the Westend has many superior educational facilities available. Near to the university the Westend has the Frankfurter Musikhochschule and the Sigmund-Freud-Insitut. Numerous schools can be found in the Westend of which several of primary schools (Elsa Brandström-Schule, Engelbert Humperdinck-Schule und Holzhausenschule), the I.E. Lichtigfeld-Schule of the Jewish community, a private school (Anna-Schmidt-Schule) and several grammar schools:

:* Bettinaschule is a grammar school with an emphasis on modern languages. It was founded in 1898 under the name Viktoriaschule as a higher girls school and renamed after Bettina von Arnim in 1947.

:* The Goethe grammar school was separated in 1897 as a Realgymnasium (an old special type of grammar school which no longer exists) from the urban high school created in 1520.

:* The classical Lessing grammar school likewise developed in 1897. It continues the humanistic tradition of the old Frankfurt grammar schools. The school building has been situated in Hansaallee in the Westend since 1902.

Economy

Korean Air operates its Germany office in the district.[1]

Places of interest

Campus Bockenheim of Goethe University and Senckenberg Museum

[Senckenberg Museum] Along the Senckenberganlage from Georg-Voigt-Straße to Bockenheimer Warte lies the Campus Bockenheim of Johann Wolfgang Goethe University. The buildings still date from the start of the university or further back in time.

The construction of the Senckenberg Museum is also impressive. It was erected for the Senckenberg natural sciences society from 1904 to 1907 from plans by Ludwig Neher. The museum was erected in the tradition of the baroque castles. The full, representative facade, which captivates through the building of wings for the Physical Association and the Senckenberg library in the form of open arcades, is worth seeing.

Amerikahaus

The building, (known as “Haus der Völkerfreundschaft” to the locals) inaugurated in 1958 on the corner of Reuterweg and Staufenstraße, was supposed to bring the American culture in the form of books, films and music, closer to the people of Frankfurt.

Messeturm, Festhalle and Hammering Man

[Messeturm] The Messeturm is the second tallest building in the European Union. It is located on the western end of Westend-Süd at the fairground. Alongside is the Festhalle, a civic center, with a freely supported dome construction of glass and steel between stone corner-towers. It belongs to the first building which were constructed on the fairground. Regular exhibitions and concerts take place here. On the forecourt of both buildings stands the Hammering Man, a moving statue by American artist Jonathan Borofsky.

Campus Westend of Goethe University at IG Farben Building and Grüneburgpark

The established corporate headquarters of IG Farben were erected at Grüneburgpark in Westend-Nord in 1928. After World War II the IG Farben Building became the main location of the American armed forces in Europe. Since 2001 it serves as the new campus for the Goethe University. The surrounding Grüneburgpark lies in the curve of Miquelallee and is one of the biggest parks in Frankfurt.

Horse stables

One of the few original, preserved buildings remaining is the former Livingstonsche Pferdestall in Ulmenstraße. It is the only building left of a magnificent mansion complex of Max Livingston.

Westend Synagogue

The Westend synagogue, located in Freiherr-vom-Stein-Straße 30, is the largest synagogue in Frankfurt and one of three currently used synagogues in Frankfurt. Built originally during 1908–1910, it served the liberal community until its closing partial demolition in 1938. However, on account of the buildings close proximity to residential buildings, firemen sped to extinguish the fire sparked by non-Jewish German civilians and Sturmabteilung troops. After the war the synagogue was reinaugurated on 6 September 1950, this time by Orthodox Jews.
The synagogue's original design resembled Assyrian–Egyptian architecture. Throughout the various renovations that took place this orientation was preserved.

Suhrkamp Haus

The functional structure of the Suhrkamp publishing house is located in Lindenstraße, the architectural reputation of the residence corresponds inversely to its literary importance.

[1] “Überblick / Kontakt Info.” Korean Air. Retrieved on 30 August 2011. “Niderlassung in Deutschland An der Welle 4, 60322 Frankfurt am Main”

title: Westend (Frankfurt am Main)

question: What would have happened if the old Frankfurt fortifications hadn't been razed at the beginning of the nineteenth century?

answer: The suburban villas might not have sprung up along the Bockenheimer Landstraße.

question: If someone in Westend has a medical emergency, where can they find help?

answer: They will have to travel to Nordend.

question: If a tourist were to visit Westend, where might they go?

answer: They might visit the Senckenberg Museum.