which earth does injustice 2 take place on

In addition to the campaign, online, and arcade modes, Injustice 2 introduces a new "Multiverse" mode.[17] Similar to the "Living Towers" mode from NetherRealm's previous title, Mortal Kombat X, the Multiverse allows players to travel through series of parallel worlds within the DC Universe and battle against opponents with various handicaps, stipulations, and goals.[17] Online multiplayer will feature the option to disable Gear System upgrades and modifications, reducing all base stats to their default levels, turning any equipped gear into purely cosmetic items, and providing more balanced gameplay for competitive matches.[11][18][19] Players can also form online "guilds" with up to 50 other players.[20] Guild members can collaborate to complete daily and weekly cooperative objectives to earn and share gear exclusive to guild gameplay and climb the worldwide leaderboards.[20]

Injustice 2

Injustice 2 is a fighting video game developed by NetherRealm Studios and published by Warner Bros. Interactive Entertainment. It is the sequel to 2013's Injustice: Gods Among Us. The game was released in May 2017 for the PlayStation 4 and Xbox One. Similar to the previous installment, a companion mobile app was released for iOS and Android devices.

The core gameplay remains similar to its predecessor, albeit with minor adjustments to returning game mechanics. Injustice 2 introduces a new feature called the Gear System, a loot-dropping system that rewards players with costume pieces and equipment that can be used to customize characters' appearances and modify their abilities and stats. According to developers, the idea for implementing an RPG-style progression system into a fighting game had existed since before the fall of Midway Games, the original publisher for the Mortal Kombat series. Director Ed Boon also sought to incorporate gameplay mechanics used by multiplayer shooter games, such as personalization, character creation, loot, and leveling up, into the fighting game genre, which led to the development of the Gear System.

Injustice 2's storyline centers around Batman and his insurgency's attempt to restore society after the fall of Superman's regime; however, the arrivals of the newly formed supervillain group "The Society" and the alien Brainiac forces Batman to consider freeing the imprisoned Superman to help combat the threats. The game received positive reviews from critics, who praised its story, presentation, improved gameplay mechanics, abundance of in-game content, and character customization options, while criticizing its random loot and microtransaction systems.

Injustice 2 retains numerous gameplay mechanics from Injustice: Gods Among Us, including environment interaction, stage transitions, clashes, and character traits.[4][5][6] The trait system, like before, provides a temporary buff or ability that compliments each character's playstyle.[4] The super meter, which allows players to execute enhanced special moves and unlock powerful "super moves" when fully charged, also returns.[7] Players can expend meter to perform new techniques, such as an evasive forward roll, which provides a way to overcome enemy keep-away tactics, or an air recovery, which lets characters escape an opponent's combo early.[4][8] Most environmental attacks, which were completely unavoidable in the first Injustice game, can now be blocked; however, certain environmental attacks with large amounts of startup, such as throwing a car, will remain unblockable.[8]

Injustice 2 introduces a loot-dropping system, known as the "Gear System", which offers character-specific costume pieces and equipment with status-altering effects.[9] The Gear System uses RPG-like mechanics to reward players with experience and loot after every match.[10][11] Every playable fighter is given four base stats: strength, defense, health, and ability, the latter of which impacts special attacks.[11] As players collect experience points and subsequently level up, their characters' base stats will increase.[11] Players can enhance their base stats even further by equipping gear obtained through loot drops, which also lets players customize the look of their characters.[11][12] Rarer gear can include one or more bonus augmentations, which range from new visual effects for special moves to higher yields of in-game currency or experience points.[11] Players can receive additional bonuses by equipping their characters with all five pieces of a single gear set.[11] Gear comes in three varieties: equipment, shaders, and abilities.[13] Besides the random loot earned at the end of a fight, all three types of gear are available to purchase in loot crates, known as "Mother Boxes", using in-game currency.[13] Each character has five equipment slots for donning new costume pieces, which include their head, torso, arms, legs, and an accessory; two ability slots for equipping new or modified special attacks; and one shader slot for altering their color scheme.[13][14] The game will also include five separate gear loadouts for each character, allowing players to switch between their setups at the beginning of each match.[14]

The game also includes a microtransaction system.[15][16] Players can buy "Source Crystals" using real-world money to purchase cosmetic adjustments for fighters, such as premier skins and shaders, instead of waiting to obtain them through normal play.[15] Source Crystals can also be used to buy "Transform Gear".[15] Transform Gear lets players apply the visuals of one piece of gear to another, allowing them to match their preferred stat modifiers with their preferred costume pieces.[15] Lastly, once players have reached Level 20 with at least one character, Source Crystals can be used to level up other characters to their maximum levels.[16] NetherRealm representatives clarified that any purchases made with Source Crystals are strictly cosmetic and offer no gameplay advantages.[15][16]

Injustice 2 continues the storyline established in Injustice: Gods Among Us.[21] Unlike the previous game, which centered on a multi-universe conflict, the plot for Injustice 2 takes place entirely within the alternate, dystopian universe.[17] According to Injustice: Gods Among Us Cinematic Director Dominic Cianciolo, the story from the first installment provided a solid foundation for adapting the canonical histories of the game's newer cast, allowing the writers to fit their stories within the Injustice universe.[22] The biggest challenge presented to the writers was extending the series' narrative without repeating the core Batman versus Superman conflict.[22] This led to the inclusion of Brainiac as the game's central antagonist, as there were few characters in the DC Universe that could top "Dictator Superman" as a foe for Batman.[22] The story campaign in Injustice 2 is also the first in the series to feature multiple endings.[23]

Five years after Superman's defeat, Batman and his collaborators attempt to piece the world back together. However, a new faction, the Society, composed of villains spearheaded by Gorilla Grodd, emerges and plans for world domination. With several of his allies either victims of or collaborators with Superman's failed regime, Batman is forced to create a new team to combat the Society. He sends Black Canary, an alternate Green Arrow, and Harley Quinn to combat them in Gorilla City, where Doctor Fate warns Green Arrow and Black Canary of an incoming threat towards the planet. After defeating Grodd, the two are abducted by Brainiac, the true mastermind behind the Society. Having previously collected and destroyed Krypton, he had intended to reclaim Superman, but became interested in adding Earth to his collection. After Brainiac takes over Batman's communications hub, Brother Eye, Batman searches for allies to combat him.

Catwoman, Batman's double agent within the Society, frees Harley from Gorilla City. Flash and a reformed Green Lantern reunite before joining Batman, who sends Hal to Atlantis to gain Aquaman's assistance. Aquaman refuses to cooperate at first, but relents after Brainiac attacks Atlantis. Meanwhile, Black Adam, Wonder Woman, and Supergirl plan to free the Regime. When they witness Brainiac's forces attacking Earth, they attempt to revive the Regime. Desperate to stop Brainiac, Batman releases Superman from custody and forms an alliance with the Regime.

Cyborg, Catwoman, and Harley Quinn return to the Batcave to free Brother Eye from Brainiac's control and coordinate civilian evacuation efforts. Wonder Woman takes Supergirl to Metropolis, and openly challenges Batman's plan. When she comes close to killing Cheetah and Harley Quinn, Supergirl stops her and heads to the Fortress of Solitude to confront Superman on the matter, learning the truth of her cousin's tyranny. With several of Earth's cities abducted, Brainiac prepares to eradicate the planet. The alliance attempts to take on Brainiac's ship, but his shields are too strong and he seemingly kills Superman in the process. They concoct a plan to weaken Brainiac's shields by using Aquaman's trident as a conduit for the magic of the Rock of Eternity.

Grodd pursues Aquaman and Black Adam with a brainwashed Black Canary, Green Arrow, and Blue Beetle. After Aquaman kills Grodd, the pair successfully weakens Brainiac's shields enough for Batman and Supergirl to break in. The two are captured, but Batman is rescued by Superman. He and Batman defeat a brainwashed Firestorm and Swamp Thing, they are confronted by Doctor Fate who is turned into Brainiac's servant by the Lords of Order. Fate is defeated and his helmet is destroyed, removing the Lords' influence. However, he is impaled and killed by Brainiac. After incapacitating Brainiac, Superman takes control of the ship. He manages to restore most of the cities back to their original locations, while Metropolis and Coast City are lost permanently.

The heroes are divided over Brainiac's fate: Batman, Flash, Green Lantern, and Supergirl want to spare him in order to restore the rest of the cities; Superman, Aquaman, Black Adam, and Wonder Woman want to kill him to eliminate his potential threat and use his ship to re establish the Regime's control over Earth. Batman attacks Superman with a gold kryptonite-laden dagger and a battle ensues. Batman and Superman defeat each other's teammates before engaging in a final battle against each other in the Batcave. The final battle has two endings, depending on which side the player chooses.

The base roster for Injustice 2 includes 28 playable characters, consisting of both new and returning heroes and villains.[21][24] The game will also feature 10 additional characters available as downloadable content (DLC).[25][26] According to Senior Marketing Game Manager Brian Goodman, the playable characters were decided upon by NetherRealm Studios in collaboration with DC Comics, similar to the previous title.[27][28] The developers considered the characters' lore, personalities, abilities, popularity, participation in the story, and relationships with other characters during the roster selection process.[27][28] Creative Director Ed Boon stated that Injustice 2's roster would contain more relatively obscure characters, since Injustice: Gods Among Us had covered most of DC Comics' most notable figures.[29] He teased the possibility of third-party DLC characters, which were well-received in Mortal Kombat X, eventually resulting in the inclusion of Dark Horse Comics' Hellboy.[29][30] Due to the success of Scorpion in the previous installment, who was the most downloaded DLC fighter, Boon also entertained the likelihood of NetherRealm including other Mortal Kombat characters as downloadable content, leading to the inclusions of Sub-Zero and Raiden.[31][32][30] As with Scorpion, Sub-Zero and Raiden were given new costume designs by comic book artist Jim Lee.[33][34]

New playable characters are listed below in bold.[35]

Additionally, several characters are playable as "premier skins", which transform characters from the existing roster into other DC Comics characters with unique voices and dialogue.[36] Below, the character each premier skin replaces is listed in parentheses.

^aÂ : Available as downloadable content.

Injustice 2 was announced by NetherRealm Studios and Warner Bros. Interactive Entertainment on June 8, 2016.[41] Following the release of Injustice: Gods Among Us, NetherRealm Studios sought to do "something unexpected and long-term" for its sequel, as well as give players "a level of control that makes playing [their] games a truly personal experience."[10][9] Ed Boon also wanted to infuse various gameplay mechanics used by recent multiplayer shooter games, such as personalization, character creation, loot, and leveling up, into the fighting game genre.[9] According to Producer Adam Urbano, the idea of creating a fighting game utilizing a role playing game-like progression system had been floating around the studio since before the fall of Midway Games, the original publisher for the Mortal Kombat series.[42] Due to the success of the original Injustice, which earned NetherRealm Studios the trust of Warner Bros. and DC Comics, the development team decided to pitch their progression concept for the sequel, which was approved, leading to the implementation of the Gear System.[42]

The Gear System was designed to encourage players to develop unique personal playstyles, while consistently rewarding them for investing time into the game.[11] According to Goodman, the developers wanted the Gear System to cater to both the casual and hardcore audiences.[27] They hoped that hardcore players would appreciate the different mechanics offered by the system and create new strategies and fighting styles for each character, while casual players would enjoy the variety of visual customization options.[27] NetherRealm also foresaw the potential issue with newer players being dominated by veteran players who have obtained rarer gear sets.[11] To address this, the developers attempted to implement various solutions, such as giving players the option to disable stat modifiers during matches and the ability to buy rarer gear through the assorted tiers of Mother Boxes.[11] A "balance team" was also consulted during development to try to prevent players from clustering around a small number of optimal builds.[43]

NetherRealm Studios collaborated with DC Comics throughout Injustice 2's entire development process, including conceptualizing characters and determining the direction of the story.[44] As with Injustice: Gods Among Us, NetherRealm was afforded a lot of freedom with DC Comics' properties when designing characters.[11] Lead Designer John Edwards stated that all of their design ideas had to pass through DC Comics' approval process; though, the company had rarely rejected them.[13] This allowed the developers to create a large variety of costume variations and visually distinct items inspired by decades of source material.[11][13] “It's a mutual respect,” explained Art Director Steve Beran. “They respect what we do, and we respect all their characters. We are fans of their characters and, I think, art-wise and design-wise, we put a lot of detail that hardcore fans will like. We tried to really honor every character.”[13]

Characters' facial animations were created with a custom photogrammetry facial scanner, which utilized 44 DSLR cameras with 50 mm fixed lenses.[45] Character Art Lead Brendan George stated that 16 facial expressions were captured to create a single character; the 16 scans then took two to three days to process through their workstations.[45] The data from their new scanner allowed the artists to produce a more advanced facial rig.[45] All motion capture was performed in-house at NetherRealm Studios in Chicago, Illinois.[45] According to Senior Technical Artist for Cinematics Andy Senesac, the animation team used four head-mounted camera systems in its motion capture shoots, each equipped with a choice of three different 4 mm, 5 mm, or wide-angled lenses that were used depending on the actor's head shape.[45] The motion capture was then tweaked with manual animations in order to obtain the final result.[45]

The online infrastructure for Injustice 2 utilizes the same rollback-based netcode used in Mortal Kombat X.[46] An online multiplayer beta test for both the PlayStation 4 and Xbox One versions was announced on January 19, 2017, which began soon afterwards on January 24 and lasted until February 21.[29][47][48] The game's original soundtrack was composed primarily by Christopher Drake, with additional compositions from Richard Carle, Dan Forden, and Dynamedion.[49]

Injustice 2 released in North America on May 16, 2017; Australia on May 17, 2017; and the United Kingdom on May 19, 2017, for PlayStation 4 and Xbox One.[10][50][51][52] Aside from the standard edition of the game, a Digital Deluxe Edition and an Ultimate Edition were available for purchase.[36] The Digital Deluxe Edition included three DLC characters, the Power Girl premier skin, and one exclusive gear shader pack; the Ultimate Edition included nine DLC characters, the Reverse-Flash, John Stewart, and Power Girl premier skins, and two exclusive gear shader packs.[36] Pre-orders of the game featured Darkseid as a playable DLC fighter.[36][53]

On May 8, 2017, Warner Bros. Interactive Entertainment announced the Injustice 2 Championship Series, a global eSports program.[54] The series will offer amateur and professional players throughout North America, Europe, and Latin America a chance to compete in different programs for a portion of a US$600,000 prize pool.[54] These include the Injustice 2 Pro Series, an international tournament; the GameStop Hometown Heroes tournament, set in the United States; the Path to Pro tournament, set in Europe; and the Liga Latina, set in Argentina, Chile, Mexico, and Peru.[54] The top players from each program will qualify for the Championship Series grand finals.[54]

Like its predecessor, a free-to-play mobile app based on Injustice 2 was released for iOS and Android devices on May 11, 2017.[55][56] The app was soft launched in the Philippines App Store in February 2017.[57][58] It maintains several gameplay features from the original, including the swipe-based fighting mechanics, card collection, and three-on-three battles, but introduces various changes to the game's overall formula.[59][60] Players are now given the ability to move around the stage freely during combat, as well as use jumping and crouching attacks.[61] The stamina management system returns; however, instead of each character receiving their own allotment of stamina, the player is given a single pool of stamina which depletes after every match.[59] Fights also require higher levels of stamina than the previous game.[59] The app includes login bonuses; daily objectives, which offer experience and coins; and achievements, which are long-term goals that reward players with premium gems and "hero shards" used for unlocking and leveling up characters.[59] It also features game mechanics similar to those found in the console versions, such as ability and gear upgrades.[59] The app includes a story mode, which will be released chapter by chapter in subsequent updates.[60] According to Google Play, the Android version of the app has been downloaded at least five million times since its release.[62]

According to Boon, NetherRealm Studios planned to take a more "aggressive approach" for downloadable content in Injustice 2 compared to their previous games.[25] "One of the things we’ve been doing, trying to do more and more with every game...is to support it for a longer period of time," Boon stated, "With DLC characters, we’ve had four with Mortal Kombat, six with Injustice, eight with Mortal Kombat X, and with Injustice 2 we plan on continuing that pattern."[25] On May 5, 2017, NetherRealm Studios announced Fighter Pack 1, which includes three DLC characters: Red Hood, Starfire, and Mortal Kombat's Sub-Zero.[63] Red Hood was released on June 13, 2017; Sub-Zero was released on July 11, 2017; and Starfire was released on August 8, 2017.[64][65][66] Fighter Pack 2, consisting of Black Manta, Mortal Kombat's Raiden, and Dark Horse Comics' Hellboy, was revealed on August 23, 2017, at Gamescom.[67] Black Manta was released on September 12, 2017.[68] Raiden is scheduled for release in October, while Black Lightning will be available as a premiere skin for players who purchased the Ultimate Edition.[69]

Injustice 2 received generally favorable reviews, according to Metacritic, which assigned aggregated scores of 87% and 89% for the PlayStation 4 and Xbox One versions, respectively.[70][71]

Reviewers lauded Injustice 2's story and presentation. Eurogamer's Wesley Yin-Poole praised the game's narrative and visuals, describing them as "impressive" and a "significant step up" from Injustice: Gods Among Us.[72] Yin-Poole commended the story mode on a technical level, praising the motion capture, action choreography, voice acting, and facial animations.[72] Destructoid's Nick Valdez shared similar views, stating that the visuals were "leagues above the first title".[86] Valdez also complimented the game's improved writing and "more engaging narrative".[86] Metro claimed it had "probably the best single-player experience ever in a fighting game".[79] In contrast, while Game Revolution's James Kozanitis said the visuals were "absolutely jaw-dropping" and "set a new high bar for the [fighting game] genre", he lambasted the story campaign, which he labeled as "poorly written" and "contrived".[74]

Reviewers also praised Injustice 2's improved gameplay mechanics and abundance of in-game content. Game Informer's Andrew Reiner praised the game's faster walk speed, the additions of the evasive roll and air recovery maneuvers, and the ability to block environmental attacks, stating that the game "[felt] tighter as a whole" and "offers a higher level of strategy".[75] The Games Machine's Danilo Dellafrana stated that "the subtle changes to the combat system made for deeper gameplay".[80] These points of praise were mirrored by IGN's Darry Huskey, who remarked that Injustice 2 "[struck] a fine balance between retaining the strengths of Gods Among Us and making smart changes to improve mechanics."[24] Huskey applauded the "incredible amount of content", declaring that "hour for hour, Injustice 2 may have more content for solo players than any fighting game ever released."[24] Reiner also praised the amount of content, acknowledging its "lengthy story-based campaign...great fighting experience, and...nearly endless supply of notable loot."[75] Yin-Poole wrote that NetherRealm Studios "once again [proved] it's the best in the business at that old chestnut: content."[72]

While the customization options offered by the Gear System received praise, critics expressed frustration with receiving random, undesired gear through loot drops and the game's microtransaction system. GameSpot's Peter Brown found collecting gear and outfitting characters to be enjoyable, stating that "watching a character's traditional outfit transform into something fresh or unexpected, and seeing their stats grow through leveling up and equipping gear, grants a satisfying sense of ownership over your accomplishments and possessions."[76] On the other hand, Brown criticized the Gear System's use of currency, particularly Source Crystals, saying that spending real money seemed to be a "necessary evil" for players to have complete control over their inventories.[76] Kotaku's Mike Fahey described the ability to create custom versions of characters as "quite satisfying"; however, he found the Gear System to be "complicated" and criticized the randomness in receiving desired costume pieces and equipment, uttering "sometimes random chance really sucks."[87] Videogamer.com's Alice Bell also called the microtransaction and loot systems "needlessly complex", which require players to keep track of several different types of currency.[78] In contrast, Polygon's Michael McWhertor called the interface "elegant", enjoying the simplicity of managing and selling of gear for each character.[77]

Injustice 2 topped the United Kingdom's multi-platform physical sales chart during its first two weeks after launch, with the PlayStation 4 and Xbox One versions simultaneously taking the first and second spots, respectively.[88][89] This marked the first time a fighting game had taken the top spot since Mortal Kombat X in April 2015.[88] Launch sales for the game in the United Kingdom were also roughly one-third higher than the debut of Injustice: Gods Among Us.[88] Likewise, Injustice 2 was the top-selling game across all platforms in Australia and New Zealand during its first two weeks, and the best-selling game in the United States for the month of May 2017.[90][91][92] It became the PlayStation Store's most downloadeded PlayStation 4 title for May 2017, with Darkseid being the third best-selling DLC of the month.[93] The Ultimate Pack and Fighter Pack 1 were both in the Top 10 downloads in June 2017.[94] By the end of May, Injustice 2 was the ninth best-selling game of 2017.[95] Time Warner declared the game as ""the highest-grossing console game in the second quarter of 2017."[96]

In June 2016, Injustice 2 received "Best of E3 2016" awards for "Best Fighting Game" from the Game Critics Awards, IGN, Game Informer, and GamesRadar.[81][82][83][84]

During NetherRealm Studios' Injustice 2 panel at San Diego Comic-Con International on July 22, 2016, Boon announced a digital comic book series which will detail the backstory to the events of the game.[97] The series is written by Tom Taylor, who had previously worked on the tie-in comic books for Injustice: Gods Among Us.[97] Bruno Redondo is its lead artist, with contributing artwork from Juan Albarran, Daniel Sempere, and Mike Miller.[98] Beginning on April 11, 2017, the series was released in weekly chapters through various digital retailers, including ComiXology, Google Play Books, the Kindle Store, and DC Comics' own mobile app.[97][98][99] Print versions became available for purchase on May 3, 2017, each containing multiple digital chapters.[99][100]


who does the song x's and o's

Tanner Elle Schneider (born July 3, 1989), known professionally as Elle King, is an American singer, songwriter, and actress. Her musical style encompasses country, soul, rock and blues.[6] In 2012, King released her debut EP, The Elle King EP, on RCA. The EP track "Playing for Keeps" is the theme song for VH1's Mob Wives Chicago series.[6] She released her debut album, Love Stuff on February 17, 2015.[6] The album produced the US top 10 single "Ex's & Oh's," which earned her two Grammy Award nominations. King has also toured with acts such as Of Monsters and Men, Train and Michael Kiwanuka. She is the daughter of comedian Rob Schneider and former model London King. She currently resides in Los Angeles.

Elle King

King was born in Los Angeles, California, United States, to mother London King, a former model; and father, former SNL cast member Rob Schneider.[7] Her parents divorced and her mother remarried. She grew up living in southern Ohio, between Wellston and Columbus. When she was nine, her stepfather, Justin Tesa,[8] gave her a record by all-girl hard-rock band The Donnas; she views this as the pivotal moment when she decided she wanted to be a musician. Around this time, she also started listening to The Runaways and Blondie, and she made her acting debut alongside her father in the movie Deuce Bigalow: Male Gigolo.[6]

At the age of 13, King started playing guitar, immersing herself in the music of Otis Redding, the Yeah Yeah Yeahs, Etta James, Aretha Franklin, Al Green, Hank Williams, Johnny Cash, AC/DC (she has the band's logo tattooed on her bicep), and Earl Scruggs.[6] Her interest in the country and bluegrass of Hank Williams and Earl Scruggs inspired her to learn the banjo. During her teenage years, she attended Buck's Rock camp in Connecticut, where she starred successfully in a number of musicals. King plays guitar and banjo.[7]

King spent her teenage years in New York City, but she has also lived in Los Angeles, Philadelphia, and Copenhagen, Denmark. Upon graduating from Elisabeth Irwin High School,[9] she moved to Philadelphia to matriculate at University of the Arts, studying painting and film.[9] During these college years, she had an artistic epiphany seeing a live show where the band onstage used a banjo purely for accompaniment purposes, eschewing the bluegrass and country musical vocabulary traditionally associated with the instrument. King then began to use the banjo as a compositional tool. After college, she briefly lived in Copenhagen and Los Angeles, before moving back to New York where she currently resides in Bushwick, Brooklyn.[6]

In 1999, she debuted as an actress in Deuce Bigalow: Male Gigolo.[9] In 2005, at age 16, she started gigging around New York City, using a fake ID to gain entry to the local nightclubs.[6] King immersed herself in the local songwriting scene and honed her performance skills by busking around town. King was then signed by newly appointed RCA Chairman Peter Edge.[10] Her debut single "Good To Be A Man," was released on March 13, 2012, as a digital download and also as a 7" vinyl single.[10] On June 12, 2012, the four-song The Elle King EP was released on RCA.[10] The EP was recorded in New York and was produced by Andy Baldwin and Chris DeStefano, with King herself producing a track. The EP's lead track, "Playing for Keeps," was chosen as the theme song for VH1's Mob Wives Chicago series that premiered on June 10, 2012, on VH1.[6]

King was spotlighted as an "Artist to Watch in 2012" by Esquire Magazine[11] and made television appearances on VH1 Big Morning Buzz Live and the Late Show with David Letterman.[12] King has played Austin, Texas, at the South by Southwest Festival, as well as the Hammersmith Apollo.[6] She has also taped her own PBS Arts In Context special for KLRU Austin at the Austin City Limits recording studio.[13] She toured with Of Monsters and Men, Train and Michael Kiwanuka and has opened for Dashboard Confessional, Dropkick Murphys, Dry the River, James Bay and Ed Sheeran.[citation needed]

In September 2014, King released "Ex's & Oh's," which serves as the lead single off her debut album. She released the album, Love Stuff on February 17, 2015.[6] She performed "Ex's & Oh's" the next day on The Today Show to promote it.[14] The song has reached number 10 on the Billboard Hot 100, becoming King's first top 10 single in the United States.[15] "Ex's & Oh's" received two nominations at the 58th Grammy Awards: Best Rock Performance and Best Rock Song.[16] In July 2015, King supported Modest Mouse on their UK tour. Afterwards, "Under the Influence" and "America's Sweetheart" were released as singles for rock radio[17] and mainstream radio,[18] respectively. In 2016, her single "Good Girls" featured on the Ghostbusters soundtrack and played over the movie's credits.[19] In 2016, she teamed up with country singer Dierks Bentley for the song "Different for Girls". They performed this song at the 50th CMA Awards on November 2, 2016 where she and Bentley won the award for Musical Event of the Year.[20]

In March 2017, she premiered a new single "Wild Love" featuring a sparse electronic production, marking a slight departure from her previous style in music.[21]

She started dating Andrew (Fergie) Ferguson in January 2016. The couple got engaged in February 2016, on a sailing trip around the San Francisco Bay two weeks after they started dating.[22] They married on February 14, 2016, after 3 weeks of dating and confirmed their intent to divorce on May 15, 2017.[23]

Elle was featured on TLC's "Say Yes to the Dress" in February 2017.

She has several tattoos on her body (both arms and her left breast). She also worked at a tattoo company called East Side Ink.[24][25]


when did hardee's stop serving roast beef

For a few years after acquiring the Roy Rogers Restaurants fast food chain in the early 1990s, Hardee's outlets sold the popular Roy Rogers Restaurant fried chicken recipe, hoping it could compete with Kentucky Fried Chicken.[citation needed] In addition to Roy Rogers, Hardee's also owned Rax Roast Beef for a period of time and sold roast beef sandwiches throughout the Hardeeâ€™s system.

Hardee's

Hardee's Food Systems Inc. is an American-based fast-food restaurant chain operated by CKE Restaurants Holdings, Inc. ("CKE") with locations primarily in the Southern and Midwestern United States. The company has evolved through several corporate ownerships since its establishment in 1960 in North Carolina.

In April 1997, CKE Restaurants Holdings, Inc., the parent company of Carl's Jr., paid $327 million to Montreal-based Imasco Limited for Hardee's.[3] The merger created a chain of 3,828 restaurants â€“ 3,152 Hardee's outlets in 40 states and 10 foreign countries and 676 Carl's Jr. outlets, primarily in California.

Hardee's founder, Wilber Hardee, opened his first restaurant in Greenville, North Carolina, on September 3, 1960.[4] After a year of success, Wilber decided to look into expanding his restaurant and opening another location so he met with James Gardner and Leonard Rawls to discuss doing so.[5] Shortly thereafter, the first company store was opened in Rocky Mount, North Carolina, in May 1961 by James Carson Gardner and Leonard Rawls on McDonald Street in on North Church Street in Rocky Mount, known within the chain as building number 1. That location was demolished in 2007 and replaced with a veterans' park named for Jack Laughery, a former Hardee's chairman and military veteran.[6]

According to Wilber Hardee, Gardner and Rawls won a controlling share of the company from him in a game of poker. After realizing that he had lost control over his namesake company, Hardee sold his remaining shares to them as well.[7]

Rawls and Gardner sold their first franchises to a small group of longtime friends and acquaintances who formed their own companies and over time, built hundreds more franchised locations. Hardeeâ€™s Food Systems went public in 1963 with Rawls as president. Gardner, who was vice president, had political ambitions and left the company when he was elected to the United States House of Representatives in 1966.[5]

The 1964 menu included: hamburger-15 cents, cheeseburger-20 cents, fries-10 cents, apple turnovers-15 cents, milk-12 cents, coffee-10 cents, Coke, Pepsi, root beer and orange soda-15 cents and 10 cents, and milkshakes (chocolate-strawberry-vanilla)-20 cents. Strawberry shakes were created from vanilla by addition of a berry syrup which had to be mixed with a spindle.[5]

At the end of the 1960s, the corporation operated nearly 200 restaurants in the Midwest and Southwestern U.S., as well as its first international locations in Germany.[8] Around this same time, Hardee's began an expansion into the mid-Atlantic states, notably Southeastern Pennsylvania, southern New Jersey, and Delaware.  The expansion was done via the franchisee Hardee Northern, Inc, which was a subsidiary of Acme Markets, a prominent grocery store chain based in Philadelphia.

Hardee's purchased Sandy's in 1972 with the last of the restaurants converting to Hardee's by 1979.[citation needed] During the mid-and-late 1970s, Hardee's saw rapid chain growth and high profits on the strength of its two key sandwiches: the "Big Twin" and the "Big Deluxe".[citation needed] Another acquisition occurred in the late 1970s when Hardee's purchased the Utah-based burger chain Dee's Drive-In.

Hardee's was purchased by Canadian company Imasco Limited in 1981. In 1982, General Foods sold Burger Chef to Imasco for $44 million.[9] Imasco converted many locations to Hardee's restaurants and let franchises and locations near existing Hardee's locations convert to other brands. Remaining restaurants that did not convert to Hardee's or new names and branding simply closed.

A new management team, in the early 1980s, seeking to cut costs, changed the signature burger recipe and eliminated the flagship menu item, the Big Twin. The Big Deluxe continued to be offered throughout the 1990s.

In April 1997, CKE Restaurants Holdings, Inc., the parent company of Carl's Jr., bought Hardee's from Imasco for $327 million. The merger created a chain of 3,828 restaurants â€“ 3,152 Hardee's outlets in 40 states and 10 foreign countries and 676 Carl's Jr. outlets primarily in California.[citation needed]

In 2001, Hardee’s headquarters moved to St. Louis, Missouri. In 2005, Hardee’s introduced Hand-Scooped Ice Cream Shakes & Malts.

In September 2013, it was announced that Hardee's would expand into the Northeastern United States. In April 2015, Hardee's announced the opening of its 300th restaurant in the Middle East with longtime franchisee, The Americana Group.

In 2015, Nation's Restaurant News ranked Hardee's as the No. 28 foodservice chain by sales in the United States through 2011. Carl's Jr. was ranked at No. 37. Combined sales would rank the two at No. 15. In 2013, QSR listed Hardee's at No. 20 and Carl's Jr. at No. 24; if combined they would have been listed at No. 14.[10]

In July 2015, Hardee’s announced that it would be offering The All-Natural Burger, which launched at sister-chain Carl’s Jr. restaurants in December 2014.[11]

As of March 2016, CKE has a total of 3,664 franchised or company-operated restaurants in 44 states and 37 foreign countries and U.S. territories.[12]

In January 2007, Hardee's had a challenge filed against it with the U.S. Patents and Trademarks Office by River West Brands, LLC of Chicago for the use of the Burger Chef trademark and name. Shortly thereafter, Hardee's reissued the Burger Chef Big Shef sandwich in Terre Haute, Indiana, as a trial offering and later in additional Indiana markets and Dayton, Ohio for a limited time. The reissue of the Big Shef has also utilized the Burger Chef name and logo in advertisements in the markets in which it is offered, and claimed to provide Burger Chef fans with their Big Shef "fix". On April 16, 2009, River West Brands dropped their petition for cancellation and both parties agreed to pay their own attorney's fees.[13]

Due to a trademark dispute with Canada's Harvey's burger chain, the Hardee's brand name cannot be used in the country. Instead, CKE Restaurants operates exclusively under the Carl's Jr. banner.[14]

A new Hardee's logo was unveiled in 2006 that featured script lettering and retained the iconic Happy Star, further unifying the Hardee’s and Carl’s Jr. brands. Hardee's also marketed special Super Bowl celebratory pins in the early 1990s.[citation needed]

Several Hardee's ad campaigns in the 2000s have been criticized by groups including Parents Television Council for their sexually suggestive nature. A campaign titled "More Than a Piece of Meat" featured scantily clad women appearing to receive sexual gratification from consuming Hardee's products, and "Name Our Holes" â€” an ad campaign and website promoting Hardee's Biscuit Holes.[15][16]

In January 2015, Carl's Jr. released a commercial online featuring model Charlotte McKinney advertising its new All Natural Burger to air regionally during Super Bowl XLIX. The ad features McKinney walking around a farmers' market, implying that she is "all natural" and uses double entendres to suggest that she is naked with strategically placed items in the market until it reveals McKinney in a bikini eating the All Natural Burger. Critics suggest that the ad "sets feminism back four decades," while others, including McKinney's elderly grandfather, enjoyed the ad.[17][18][19] The ad now features Hardee's cobranding, as the All Natural Burger is now offered by Hardee's. As of March 2016, the ad has received over 4.5 billion media impressions worldwide and more than 12 million views on the chainsâ€™ YouTube channel.[citation needed]

In March 2017, Hardee's began to move away from the sexualized ads by releasing a commercial featuring a white bearded character played by Charles Esten as "Carl Hardee Sr." who had come back into the office (much to the delight of the employees) to find his son (Drew Tarver), a.k.a. "Carl Jr." who was focusing on sex appeal over its food. The commercial marked a turning point in CKE's advertising, as the company wanted to move away from its provocative ads and focus more on food and as a competitor to Five Guys, Steak 'n Shake, and In-N-Out Burger. "Carl Hardee Sr." was also expected to become the new company spokesperson.[20]

In April 2018, Hardee's began their new campaign Tastes Like America with music by Big Wet. For this campaign, Hardee's restored its 1976 logo, now in white; however, the Happy Star still appears, replacing the A in "Tastes". The previous logo will also continue to be used as well.

Many international Hardee's franchises are located in countries in the Middle East and Pakistan, most being owned and operated by Americana Group.[21] The Americana Group opened the Middle East’s first Hardee’s restaurant in Kuwait in June 1980.[12] As of 2016, there are over 300 Hardee’s restaurants throughout Latin America, Asia and the Middle East, specifically in Bahrain, Curaçao, Egypt, El Salvador, Guatemala, Hong Kong, Iraq, Jamaica, Jordan, Kazakhstan, Kuwait, Lebanon, Oman, Pakistan, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, South Korea, Taiwan and the United Arab Emirates.[12][22] Specifically, in the Middle East, the Hardee’s menu does not include any pork items and each beef is certified Halal due to religious and cultural beliefs. The same menu is offered at Hardee's locations in Pakistan. Hardee's currently has ten locations in Pakistan, with four in Lahore, two in Islamabad and one each in Karachi, Faisalabad, Rawalpindi, Peshawar and Multan. It also opened a restaurant in Erbil, Iraqi Kurdistan.


when did the farm security administration hire a group of photographers

The FSA is famous for its small but highly influential photography program, 1935â€“44, that portrayed the challenges of rural poverty.

Farm Security Administration

Initially created as the Resettlement Administration (RA) in 1935 as part of the New Deal in the United States, the Farm Security Administration (FSA) was an effort during the Depression to combat American rural poverty.[1]

The FSA stressed "rural rehabilitation" efforts to improve the lifestyle of sharecroppers, tenants, very poor landowning farmers, and a program to purchase submarginal land owned by poor farmers and resettle them in group farms on land more suitable for efficient farming. Critics, including the Farm Bureau, strongly opposed the FSA as an experiment in collectivizing agricultureâ€”that is, in bringing farmers together to work on large government-owned farms using modern techniques under the supervision of experts. After the Conservative coalition took control of Congress it transformed the FSA into a program to help poor farmers buy land, and that program continues to operate in the 21st century as the Farmers Home Administration.

The projects that were combined in 1935 to form the RA started in 1933 as an assortment of programs tried out by the Federal Emergency Relief Administration. The RA was headed by Rexford Tugwell, an economic advisor to President Roosevelt.[2] However, Tugwell's goal moving 650,000 people into 100,000,000 acres (400,000 km2) of exhausted, worn-out land was unpopular among the majority in Congress.[2] This goal seemed socialistic to some and threatened to deprive influential farm owners of their tenant workforce.[2] The RA was thus left with only enough resources to relocate a few thousand people from 9 million acres (36,000 km2) and build several greenbelt cities,[2] which planners admired as models for a cooperative future that never arrived.[2]

The main focus of the RA was to now build relief camps in California for migratory workers, especially refugees from the drought-struck Dust Bowl of the Southwest.[2] This move was resisted by a large share of Californians, who did not want destitute migrants to settle in their midst.[2] The RA managed to construct ninety-five camps that gave migrants unaccustomed clean quarters with running water and other amenities,[2] but the 75,000 people who had the benefit of these camps were a small share of those in need and could only stay temporarily.[2] After facing enormous criticism for his poor management of the RA, Tugwell resigned in 1936.[2] On January 1, 1937,[3] with hopes of making the RA more effective, the Resettlement Administration was transferred to the Department of Agriculture through executive order 7530.[3]

On July 22, 1937,[4] Congress passed the Bankhead-Jones Farm Tenant Act.[4] This law authorized a modest credit program to assist tenant farmers to purchase land,[4] and it was the culmination of a long effort to secure legislation for their benefit.[4] Following the passage of the Bankhead-Jones Farm Tenant Act, Congress passed the Farm Security Act into law. The Farm Security Act officially transformed the Resettlement Administration into the Farm Security Administration (FSA).[2] The FSA expanded through funds given by the Bankhead-Jones Farm Tenant Act.[2]

One of the activities performed by the RA and FSA was the buying out of small farms that were not economically viable, and the setting up of 34 subsistence homestead communities, in which groups of farmers would live together under the guidance of government experts and work a common area. They were not allowed to purchase their farms for fear that they would fall back into inefficient practices not guided by RA and FSA experts.[5]

The Dust Bowl in the Great Plains displaced thousands of tenant farmers, sharecroppers, and laborers, many of whom (known as "Okies" or "Arkies") moved on to California. The FSA operated camps for them, such as Weedpatch Camp as depicted in The Grapes of Wrath.

The RA and the FSA gave educational aid to 455,000 farm families during the period 1936-1943. In June, 1936, Roosevelt wrote: "You are right about the farmers who suffer through their own fault... I wish you would have a talk with Tugwell about what he is doing to educate this type of farmer to become self-sustaining. During the past year his organization has made 104,000 farm families practically self-sustaining by supervision and education along practical lines. That is a pretty good record!"[6]

The FSA's primary mission was not to aid farm production or prices. Roosevelt's agricultural policy had, in fact, been to try to decrease agricultural production in order to increase prices. However, when production was discouraged, the tenant farmers and small holders suffered most by not being able to ship enough to market to pay rents. Many renters wanted money to buy farms, but the Agriculture Department realized there already were too many farmers, and did not have a program for farm purchases. Instead they used education to help the poor stretch their money further. Congress however demanded that the FSA help tenant farmers purchase farms, and purchase loans of $191 million were made, which were eventually repaid. A much larger program was $778 million in loans (at effective rates of about 1% interest) to 950,000 tenant farmers. The goal was to make the farmer more efficient so the loans were used for new machinery, trucks, or animals, or to repay old debts. At all times the borrower was closely advised by a government agent. Family needs were on the agenda, as the FSA set up a health insurance program and taught farm wives how to cook and raise children. Upward of a third of the amount was never repaid, as the tenants moved to much better opportunities in the cities.[7]

The FSA was also one of the authorities administering relief efforts in the U.S. Virgin Islands and Puerto Rico during the Great Depression. Between 1938 and 1945, under the Puerto Rico Reconstruction Administration (PRRA) it oversaw the purchase of 590 farms with the intent of distributing land to working and middle class Puerto Ricans.[8]

The FSA resettlement communities appear in the literature as efforts to ameliorate the wretched condition of southern sharecroppers and tenants. However, those evicted to make way for the new settlers are virtually invisible in the historic record. The resettlement projects were part of larger efforts to modernize rural America. "Modernization" is a complex process whereby a relatively specific set of assumptions and behaviors make other assumptions and behaviors "wrong," both morally and pragmatically. The removal of former tenants and their replacement by FSA clients in the lower Mississippi alluvial plain—the Delta—reveals core elements of New Deal modernizing policies. The key concepts that guided the FSA's tenant removals were: the definition of rural poverty as rooted in the problem of tenancy; the belief that economic success entailed particular cultural practices and social forms; and the commitment by those with political power to gain local support. These assumptions undergirded acceptance of racial segregation and the criteria used to select new settlers. Alternatives could only become visible through political or legal action—capacities sharecroppers seldom had. However, in succeeding decades, these modernizing assumptions created conditions for Delta African Americans on resettlement projects to challenge white supremacy.[9]

The Documentary photography genre describes photographs that would work as a time capsule for evidence in the future or a certain method that a person can use for a frame of reference. Facts presented in a photograph can speak for themselves after the viewer gets time to analyze it. Documentary photography does not just stop there by taking pictures of human beings in poor conditions; it also runs in the veins of several aspects of society. Photographs of revolutions, accidents, or speeches all fall under that same style, as we could tell from the picture what went on because it simply was taken in order to let others be aware of what was happening during that period.[10]

Not only that, but also the concept of manipulating the picture is available in documentary photography and it all falls at the end of the day under the decision of the photographer. For example, lining up the characters in the picture may strengthen the message of the photograph. Camera angle might also play a crucial part in sending the message more clearly, for example if a photographer is trying to take a photograph of a march of protestors during a revolution, the camera angle will play a major role in defining the situation.[11]

The FSA started the tradition by contributing to the society through their pictures during the Great Depression, and their motto was simply as Beaumont Newhall insists, "not to inform us, but to move us."[citation needed] Those photographers wanted the government to move and give a hand to the people as they were completely neglected and overlooked and thus they decided to start taking photographs in a style that we today call "documentary photography." The FSA photography has been influential thanks to its realist point of view, and the fact that it works as frame of reference and an educational tool for later generations to learn from. Society has benefited and will benefit from it for more years to come, as this photography can unveil the ambiguous and question the conditions that are taking place.[12]

The RA and FSA are well known for the influence of their photography program, 1935â€“1944. Photographers and writers were hired to report and document the plight of poor farmers. The Information Division of the FSA was responsible for providing educational materials and press information to the public. Under Roy Stryker, the Information Division of the FSA adopted a goal of "introducing America to Americans." Many of the most famous Depression-era photographers were fostered by the FSA project. Walker Evans, Dorothea Lange, and Gordon Parks were three of the most famous FSA alumni.[13] The FSA was also cited in Gordon Parks' autobiographical novel, "A Choice of Weapons."

The FSA photography group consisted of Theodor Jung, Edwin Rosskam, Louise Rosskam, Ben Shahn, John Collier, Sheldon Dick, Ann Rosener and

Marion Post Wolcott

Eleven photographers would come to work on this project (listed in order in which they were hired): Arthur Rothstein, Theo Jung, Ben Shahn, Walker Evans, Dorothea Lange, Carl Mydans, Russell Lee, Marion Post Wolcott, Jack Delano, John Vachon, and John Collier. These eleven photographers all played a significant role, not only in producing images for this project, but also in molding the resulting images in the final project through conversations held between the group members. The photographers produced images that breathed a humanistic social visual catalyst of the sort found in novels, theatrical productions and music of the time. Their images are now regarded as a "national treasure" in the United States; which is why this project is regarded as a work of art.[14]

Together with John Steinbeck's The Grapes of Wrath (not a government project) and documentary prose (for example Walker Evans and James Agee's Let Us Now Praise Famous Men), the FSA photography project is most responsible for creating the image of the Depression in the United States. Many of the images appeared in popular magazines. The photographers were under instruction from Washington as to what overall impression the New Deal wanted to portray. Stryker's agenda focused on his faith in social engineering, the poor conditions among tenant cotton farmers, and the very poor conditions among migrant farm workers; above all he was committed to social reform through New Deal intervention in people's lives. Stryker demanded photographs that "related people to the land and vice versa" because these photographs reinforced the RA's position that poverty could be controlled by "changing land practices." Though Stryker did not dictate to his photographers how they should compose the shots, he did send them lists of desirable themes, for example, "church," "court day," "barns." Stryker sought photographs of migratory workers that would tell a story about how they lived day-to-day. He asked Dorothea Lange to emphasize cooking, sleeping, praying and socializing.[15] RA-FSA made 250,000 images of rural poverty. Fewer than half of those images survive and are housed in the Prints and Photographs Division of the Library of Congress. The Library has placed all 164,000 developed negatives online.[16] From these some 77,000 different finished photographic prints were originally made for the press, plus 644 color images from 1600 negatives.

The Resettlement Administration also funded two documentary films by Pare Lorentz, The Plow That Broke the Plains about the creation of the Dust Bowl and The River about the importance of the Mississippi River. The films were deemed "culturally significant" by the United States Library of Congress and selected for preservation in the National Film Registry.

During World War II the Farm Security Administration was assigned to work under the purview of the Wartime Civil Control Administration (WCCA), a sub-agency of the War Relocation Authority (WRA). These agencies were responsible for relocating Japanese Americans from their homes on the West Coast to Internment camps. The FSA controlled the agricultural part of the evacuation. Starting in March, 1942 They were responsible for transferring the farms owned and operated by Japanese Americans to alternate operators. They were given the dual mandate of ensuring fair compensation for Japanese Americans, and for maintaining correct use of the agricultural land. During this period Lawrence Hewes, Jr was the Regional Director and in charge of these activities.[17]

After the war started and there were millions of unfilled factory jobs in the cities, there was no need for FSA.[citation needed] In late 1942 Roosevelt moved the housing programs to the National Housing Agency, and in 1943, Congress greatly reduced FSA's activities. The photographic unit was subsumed by the Office of War Information for one year then disbanded. Finally in 1946 all the social reformers had left and FSA was replaced by a new agency, the Farmers Home Administration, which had the goal of helping finance farm purchases by tenants—and especially by war veterans—with no personal oversight by experts. It became part of Lyndon Johnson's war on poverty in the 1960s, with a greatly expanded budget to facilitate loans to low-income rural families and cooperatives, injecting $4.2 billion into rural America.[18]


short duration gamma-ray bursts are thought to be caused by

The true nature of these objects was initially unknown, and the leading hypothesis was that they originated from the mergers of binary neutron stars[53] or a neutron star with a black hole. Such mergers were theorized to produce kilonovae,[54] and evidence for a kilonova associated with GRB 130603B was seen.[55][56][57] The mean duration of these events of 0.2 seconds suggests (because of causality) a source of very small physical diameter in stellar terms; less than 0.2 light-seconds (about 60,000 km or 37,000 miles—four times the Earth's diameter). This further suggests a very compact object as the source.[citation needed] The observation of minutes to hours of X-ray flashes after a short gamma-ray burst is consistent with small particles of a primary object like a neutron star initially swallowed by a black hole in less than two seconds, followed by some hours of lesser energy events, as remaining fragments of tidally disrupted neutron star material (no longer neutronium) remain in orbit to spiral into the black hole, over a longer period of time.[47] A small fraction of short gamma-ray bursts are probably produced by giant flares from soft gamma repeaters in nearby galaxies.[58][59]

Gamma-ray burst

In gamma-ray astronomy, gamma-ray bursts (GRBs) are extremely energetic explosions that have been observed in distant galaxies. They are the brightest electromagnetic events known to occur in the universe.[1] Bursts can last from ten milliseconds to several hours.[2][3][4] After an initial flash of gamma rays, a longer-lived "afterglow" is usually emitted at longer wavelengths (X-ray, ultraviolet, optical, infrared, microwave and radio).[5]

The intense radiation of most observed GRBs is thought to be released during a supernova or hypernova as a rapidly rotating, high-mass star collapses to form a neutron star, quark star, or black hole. A subclass of GRBs (the "short" bursts) appear to originate from a different process: the merger of binary neutron stars. The cause of the precursor burst observed in some of these short events may be the development of a resonance between the crust and core of such stars as a result of the massive tidal forces experienced in the seconds leading up to their collision, causing the entire crust of the star to shatter.[6]

The sources of most GRBs are billions of light years away from Earth, implying that the explosions are both extremely energetic (a typical burst releases as much energy in a few seconds as the Sun will in its entire 10-billion-year lifetime)[7] and extremely rare (a few per galaxy per million years[8]). All observed GRBs have originated from outside the Milky Way galaxy, although a related class of phenomena, soft gamma repeater flares, are associated with magnetars within the Milky Way. It has been hypothesized that a gamma-ray burst in the Milky Way, pointing directly towards the Earth, could cause a mass extinction event.[9]

GRBs were first detected in 1967 by the Vela satellites, which had been designed to detect covert nuclear weapons tests. Following their discovery, hundreds of theoretical models were proposed to explain these bursts, such as collisions between comets and neutron stars.[10] Little information was available to verify these models until the 1997 detection of the first X-ray and optical afterglows and direct measurement of their redshifts using optical spectroscopy, and thus their distances and energy outputs. These discoveries, and subsequent studies of the galaxies and supernovae associated with the bursts, clarified the distance and luminosity of GRBs, definitively placing them in distant galaxies.

Gamma-ray bursts were first observed in the late 1960s by the U.S. Vela satellites, which were built to detect gamma radiation pulses emitted by nuclear weapons tested in space. The United States suspected that the Soviet Union might attempt to conduct secret nuclear tests after signing the Nuclear Test Ban Treaty in 1963. On July 2, 1967, at 14:19 UTC, the Vela 4 and Vela 3 satellites detected a flash of gamma radiation unlike any known nuclear weapons signature.[11] Uncertain what had happened but not considering the matter particularly urgent, the team at the Los Alamos Scientific Laboratory, led by Ray Klebesadel, filed the data away for investigation. As additional Vela satellites were launched with better instruments, the Los Alamos team continued to find inexplicable gamma-ray bursts in their data. By analyzing the different arrival times of the bursts as detected by different satellites, the team was able to determine rough estimates for the sky positions of sixteen bursts[11] and definitively rule out a terrestrial or solar origin. The discovery was declassified and published in 1973.[12]

Most early theories of gamma-ray bursts posited nearby sources within the Milky Way Galaxy. From 1991, the Compton Gamma Ray Observatory (CGRO) and its Burst and Transient Source Explorer (BATSE) instrument, an extremely sensitive gamma-ray detector, provided data that showed the distribution of GRBs is isotropic—not biased towards any particular direction in space.[13] If the sources were from within our own galaxy they would be strongly concentrated in or near the galactic plane. The absence of any such pattern in the case of GRBs provided strong evidence that gamma-ray bursts must come from beyond the Milky Way.[14][15][16][17] However, some Milky Way models are still consistent with an isotropic distribution.[14][18]

For decades after the discovery of GRBs, astronomers searched for a counterpart at other wavelengths: i.e., any astronomical object in positional coincidence with a recently observed burst. Astronomers considered many distinct classes of objects, including white dwarfs, pulsars, supernovae, globular clusters, quasars, Seyfert galaxies, and BL Lac objects.[19] All such searches were unsuccessful,[nb 1] and in a few cases particularly well-localized bursts (those whose positions were determined with what was then a high degree of accuracy) could be clearly shown to have no bright objects of any nature consistent with the position derived from the detecting satellites. This suggested an origin of either very faint stars or extremely distant galaxies.[20][21] Even the most accurate positions contained numerous faint stars and galaxies, and it was widely agreed that final resolution of the origins of cosmic gamma-ray bursts would require both new satellites and faster communication.[22]

Several models for the origin of gamma-ray bursts postulated that the initial burst of gamma rays should be followed by slowly fading emission at longer wavelengths created by collisions between the burst ejecta and interstellar gas.[23] This fading emission would be called the "afterglow". Early searches for this afterglow were unsuccessful, largely because it is difficult to observe a burst's position at longer wavelengths immediately after the initial burst. The breakthrough came in February 1997 when the satellite BeppoSAX detected a gamma-ray burst (GRB 970228[nb 2]) and when the X-ray camera was pointed towards the direction from which the burst had originated, it detected fading X-ray emission. The William Herschel Telescope identified a fading optical counterpart 20 hours after the burst.[24] Once the GRB faded, deep imaging was able to identify a faint, distant host galaxy at the location of the GRB as pinpointed by the optical afterglow.[25][26]

Because of the very faint luminosity of this galaxy, its exact distance was not measured for several years. Well before then, another major breakthrough occurred with the next event registered by BeppoSAX, GRB 970508. This event was localized within four hours of its discovery, allowing research teams to begin making observations much sooner than any previous burst. The spectrum of the object revealed a redshift of z = 0.835, placing the burst at a distance of roughly 6 billion light years from Earth.[27] This was the first accurate determination of the distance to a GRB, and together with the discovery of the host galaxy of 970228 proved that GRBs occur in extremely distant galaxies.[25][28] Within a few months, the controversy about the distance scale ended: GRBs were extragalactic events originating within faint galaxies at enormous distances. The following year, GRB 980425 was followed within a day by a bright supernova (SN 1998bw), coincident in location, indicating a clear connection between GRBs and the deaths of very massive stars. This burst provided the first strong clue about the nature of the systems that produce GRBs.[29]

BeppoSAX functioned until 2002 and CGRO (with BATSE) was deorbited in 2000. However, the revolution in the study of gamma-ray bursts motivated the development of a number of additional instruments designed specifically to explore the nature of GRBs, especially in the earliest moments following the explosion. The first such mission, HETE-2,[30] launched in 2000 and functioned until 2006, providing most of the major discoveries during this period. One of the most successful space missions to date, Swift, was launched in 2004 and as of 2016 is still operational.[31][32] Swift is equipped with a very sensitive gamma ray detector as well as on-board X-ray and optical telescopes, which can be rapidly and automatically slewed to observe afterglow emission following a burst. More recently, the Fermi mission was launched carrying the Gamma-Ray Burst Monitor, which detects bursts at a rate of several hundred per year, some of which are bright enough to be observed at extremely high energies with Fermi's Large Area Telescope. Meanwhile, on the ground, numerous optical telescopes have been built or modified to incorporate robotic control software that responds immediately to signals sent through the Gamma-ray Burst Coordinates Network. This allows the telescopes to rapidly repoint towards a GRB, often within seconds of receiving the signal and while the gamma-ray emission itself is still ongoing.[33][34]

New developments since the 2000s include the recognition of short gamma-ray bursts as a separate class (likely from merging neutron stars and not associated with supernovae), the discovery of extended, erratic flaring activity at X-ray wavelengths lasting for many minutes after most GRBs, and the discovery of the most luminous (GRB 080319B) and the former most distant (GRB 090423) objects in the universe.[35][36] The most distant known GRB, GRB 090429B, is now the most distant known object in the universe.

The light curves of gamma-ray bursts are extremely diverse and complex.[37] No two gamma-ray burst light curves are identical,[38] with large variation observed in almost every property: the duration of observable emission can vary from milliseconds to tens of minutes, there can be a single peak or several individual subpulses, and individual peaks can be symmetric or with fast brightening and very slow fading. Some bursts are preceded by a "precursor" event, a weak burst that is then followed (after seconds to minutes of no emission at all) by the much more intense "true" bursting episode.[39] The light curves of some events have extremely chaotic and complicated profiles with almost no discernible patterns.[22]

Although some light curves can be roughly reproduced using certain simplified models,[40] little progress has been made in understanding the full diversity observed. Many classification schemes have been proposed, but these are often based solely on differences in the appearance of light curves and may not always reflect a true physical difference in the progenitors of the explosions. However, plots of the distribution of the observed duration[nb 3] for a large number of gamma-ray bursts show a clear bimodality, suggesting the existence of two separate populations: a "short" population with an average duration of about 0.3 seconds and a "long" population with an average duration of about 30 seconds.[41] Both distributions are very broad with a significant overlap region in which the identity of a given event is not clear from duration alone. Additional classes beyond this two-tiered system have been proposed on both observational and theoretical grounds.[42][43][44][45]

Events with a duration of less than about two seconds are classified as short gamma-ray bursts. These account for about 30% of gamma-ray bursts, but until 2005, no afterglow had been successfully detected from any short event and little was known about their origins.[47] Since then, several dozen short gamma-ray burst afterglows have been detected and localized, several of which are associated with regions of little or no star formation, such as large elliptical galaxies and the central regions of large galaxy clusters.[48][49][50][51] This rules out a link to massive stars, confirming that short events are physically distinct from long events. In addition, there has been no association with supernovae.[52]

The origin of short GRBs in kilonovae was confirmed when short GRB 170817A was detected only 1.7 s after the detection of gravitational wave GW170817, which was a signal from the merger of two neutron stars.[60][53]

Most observed events (70%) have a duration of greater than two seconds and are classified as long gamma-ray bursts. Because these events constitute the majority of the population and because they tend to have the brightest afterglows, they have been observed in much greater detail than their short counterparts. Almost every well-studied long gamma-ray burst has been linked to a galaxy with rapid star formation, and in many cases to a core-collapse supernova as well, unambiguously associating long GRBs with the deaths of massive stars.[61] Long GRB afterglow observations, at high redshift, are also consistent with the GRB having originated in star-forming regions.[62]

These events are at the tail end of the long GRB duration distribution, lasting more than 10,000 seconds. They have been proposed to form a separate class, caused by the collapse of a blue supergiant star,[63] a tidal disruption event[64][65] or a new-born magnetar.[64][66] Only a small number have been identified to date, their primary characteristic being their gamma ray emission duration. The most studied ultra-long events include GRB 101225A and GRB 111209A.[65][67][68] The low detection rate may be a result of low sensitivity of current detectors to long-duration events, rather than a reflection of their true frequency.[65] A 2013 study,[69] on the other hand, shows that the existing evidence for a separate ultra-long GRB population with a new type of progenitor is inconclusive, and further multi-wavelength observations are needed to draw a firmer conclusion.

Gamma-ray bursts are very bright as observed from Earth despite their typically immense distances. An average long GRB has a bolometric flux comparable to a bright star of our galaxy despite a distance of billions of light years (compared to a few tens of light years for most visible stars). Most of this energy is released in gamma rays, although some GRBs have extremely luminous optical counterparts as well. GRB 080319B, for example, was accompanied by an optical counterpart that peaked at a visible magnitude of 5.8,[70] comparable to that of the dimmest naked-eye stars despite the burst's distance of 7.5 billion light years. This combination of brightness and distance implies an extremely energetic source. Assuming the gamma-ray explosion to be spherical, the energy output of GRB 080319B would be within a factor of two of the rest-mass energy of the Sun (the energy which would be released were the Sun to be converted entirely into radiation).[35]

No known process in the universe can produce this much energy in such a short time. Rather, gamma-ray bursts are thought to be highly focused explosions, with most of the explosion energy collimated into a narrow jet.[71][72] The approximate angular width of the jet (that is, the degree of spread of the beam) can be estimated directly by observing the achromatic "jet breaks" in afterglow light curves: a time after which the slowly decaying afterglow begins to fade rapidly as the jet slows and can no longer beam its radiation as effectively.[73][74] Observations suggest significant variation in the jet angle from between 2 and 20 degrees.[75]

Because their energy is strongly focused, the gamma rays emitted by most bursts are expected to miss the Earth and never be detected. When a gamma-ray burst is pointed towards Earth, the focusing of its energy along a relatively narrow beam causes the burst to appear much brighter than it would have been were its energy emitted spherically. When this effect is taken into account, typical gamma-ray bursts are observed to have a true energy release of about 1044 J, or about 1/2000 of a Solar mass (M☉) energy equivalent[75]—which is still many times the mass-energy equivalent of the Earth (about 5.5 × 1041 J). This is comparable to the energy released in a bright type Ib/c supernova and within the range of theoretical models. Very bright supernovae have been observed to accompany several of the nearest GRBs.[29] Additional support for focusing of the output of GRBs has come from observations of strong asymmetries in the spectra of nearby type Ic supernova[76] and from radio observations taken long after bursts when their jets are no longer relativistic.[77]

Short (time duration) GRBs appear to come from a lower-redshift (i.e. less distant) population and are less luminous than long GRBs.[78] The degree of beaming in short bursts has not been accurately measured, but as a population they are likely less collimated than long GRBs[79] or possibly not collimated at all in some cases.[80]

Because of the immense distances of most gamma-ray burst sources from Earth, identification of the progenitors, the systems that produce these explosions, is challenging. The association of some long GRBs with supernovae and the fact that their host galaxies are rapidly star-forming offer very strong evidence that long gamma-ray bursts are associated with massive stars. The most widely accepted mechanism for the origin of long-duration GRBs is the collapsar model,[81] in which the core of an extremely massive, low-metallicity, rapidly rotating star collapses into a black hole in the final stages of its evolution. Matter near the star's core rains down towards the center and swirls into a high-density accretion disk. The infall of this material into a black hole drives a pair of relativistic jets out along the rotational axis, which pummel through the stellar envelope and eventually break through the stellar surface and radiate as gamma rays. Some alternative models replace the black hole with a newly formed magnetar,[82][83] although most other aspects of the model (the collapse of the core of a massive star and the formation of relativistic jets) are the same.

The closest analogs within the Milky Way galaxy of the stars producing long gamma-ray bursts are likely the Wolf–Rayet stars, extremely hot and massive stars, which have shed most or all of their hydrogen to radiation pressure. Eta Carinae and WR 104 have been cited as possible future gamma-ray burst progenitors.[84] It is unclear if any star in the Milky Way has the appropriate characteristics to produce a gamma-ray burst.[85]

The massive-star model probably does not explain all types of gamma-ray burst. There is strong evidence that some short-duration gamma-ray bursts occur in systems with no star formation and no massive stars, such as elliptical galaxies and galaxy halos.[78] The favored theory for the origin of most short gamma-ray bursts is the merger of a binary system consisting of two neutron stars. According to this model, the two stars in a binary slowly spiral towards each other because gravitational radiation releases energy[86][87] until tidal forces suddenly rip the neutron stars apart and they collapse into a single black hole. The infall of matter into the new black hole produces an accretion disk and releases a burst of energy, analogous to the collapsar model. Numerous other models have also been proposed to explain short gamma-ray bursts, including the merger of a neutron star and a black hole, the accretion-induced collapse of a neutron star, or the evaporation of primordial black holes.[88][89][90][91]

An alternative explanation proposed by Friedwardt Winterberg is that in the course of a gravitational collapse and in reaching the event horizon of a black hole, all matter disintegrates into a burst of gamma radiation.[92]

This new class of GRB-like events was first discovered through the detection of GRB 110328A by the Swift Gamma-Ray Burst Mission on 28 March 2011. This event had a gamma-ray duration of about 2 days, much longer than even ultra-long GRBs, and was detected in X-rays for many months. It occurred at the center of a small elliptical galaxy at redshift z = 0.3534. There is an ongoing debate as to whether the explosion was the result of stellar collapse or a tidal disruption event accompanied by a relativistic jet, although the latter explanation has become widely favoured.

A tidal disruption event of this sort is when a star interacts with a supermassive black hole shredding the star, and in some cases creating a relativistic jet which produces bright emission of gamma ray radiation. The event GRB 110328A (also denoted Swift J1644+57) was initially argued to be produced by the disruption of a main sequence star by a black hole of several million times the mass of the Sun,[93][94][95] although it has subsequently been argued that the disruption of a white dwarf by a black hole of mass about 10 thousand times the Sun may be more likely.[96]

The means by which gamma-ray bursts convert energy into radiation remains poorly understood, and as of 2010 there was still no generally accepted model for how this process occurs.[97] Any successful model of GRB emission must explain the physical process for generating gamma-ray emission that matches the observed diversity of light curves, spectra, and other characteristics.[98] Particularly challenging is the need to explain the very high efficiencies that are inferred from some explosions: some gamma-ray bursts may convert as much as half (or more) of the explosion energy into gamma-rays.[99] Early observations of the bright optical counterparts to GRB 990123 and to GRB 080319B, whose optical light curves were extrapolations of the gamma-ray light spectra,[70][100] have suggested that inverse Compton may be the dominant process in some events. In this model, pre-existing low-energy photons are scattered by relativistic electrons within the explosion, augmenting their energy by a large factor and transforming them into gamma-rays.[101]

The nature of the longer-wavelength afterglow emission (ranging from X-ray through radio) that follows gamma-ray bursts is better understood. Any energy released by the explosion not radiated away in the burst itself takes the form of matter or energy moving outward at nearly the speed of light. As this matter collides with the surrounding interstellar gas, it creates a relativistic shock wave that then propagates forward into interstellar space. A second shock wave, the reverse shock, may propagate back into the ejected matter. Extremely energetic electrons within the shock wave are accelerated by strong local magnetic fields and radiate as synchrotron emission across most of the electromagnetic spectrum.[102][103] This model has generally been successful in modeling the behavior of many observed afterglows at late times (generally, hours to days after the explosion), although there are difficulties explaining all features of the afterglow very shortly after the gamma-ray burst has occurred.[104]

Gamma ray bursts can have harmful or destructive effects on life. Considering the universe as a whole, the safest environments for life similar to that on Earth are the lowest density regions in the outskirts of large galaxies. Our knowledge of galaxy types and their distribution suggests that life as we know it can only exist in about 10% of all galaxies. Furthermore, galaxies with a redshift, z, higher than 0.5 are unsuitable for life as we know it, because of their higher rate of GRBs and their stellar compactness.[106][107]

All GRBs observed to date have occurred well outside the Milky Way galaxy and have been harmless to Earth. However, if a GRB were to occur within the Milky Way and its emission were beamed straight towards Earth, the effects could be harmful and potentially devastating for the ecosystems. Currently, orbiting satellites detect on average approximately one GRB per day. The closest observed GRB as of March 2014 was GRB 980425, located 40 megaparsecs (130,000,000Â ly)[108] away (z=0.0085) in an SBc-type dwarf galaxy.[109] GRB 980425 was far less energetic than the average GRB and was associated with the Type Ib supernova SN 1998bw.[110]

Estimating the exact rate at which GRBs occur is difficult; for a galaxy of approximately the same size as the Milky Way, estimates of the expected rate (for long-duration GRBs) can range from one burst every 10,000 years, to one burst every 1,000,000 years.[111] Only a small percentage of these would be beamed towards Earth. Estimates of rate of occurrence of short-duration GRBs are even more uncertain because of the unknown degree of collimation, but are probably comparable.[112]

Since GRBs are thought to involve beamed emission along two jets in opposing directions, only planets in the path of these jets would be subjected to the high energy gamma radiation.[113]

Although nearby GRBs hitting Earth with a destructive shower of gamma rays are only hypothetical events, high energy processes across the galaxy have been observed to affect the Earth's atmosphere.[114]

Earth's atmosphere is very effective at absorbing high energy electromagnetic radiation such as x-rays and gamma rays, so these types of radiation would not reach any dangerous levels at the surface during the burst event itself. The immediate effect on life on Earth from a GRB within a few parsecs would only be a short increase in ultraviolet radiation at ground level, lasting from less than a second to tens of seconds. This ultraviolet radiation could potentially reach dangerous levels depending on the exact nature and distance of the burst, but it seems unlikely to be able to cause a global catastrophe for life on Earth.[115][116][unreliable source?]

The long-term effects from a nearby burst are more dangerous. Gamma rays cause chemical reactions in the atmosphere involving oxygen and nitrogen molecules, creating first nitrogen oxide then nitrogen dioxide gas. The nitrogen oxides cause dangerous effects on three levels. First, they deplete ozone, with models showing a possible global reduction of 25â€“35%, with as much as 75% in certain locations, an effect that would last for years. This reduction is enough to cause a dangerously elevated UV index at the surface. Secondly, the nitrogen oxides cause photochemical smog, which darkens the sky and blocks out parts of the sunlight spectrum. This would affect photosynthesis, but models show only about a 1% reduction of the total sunlight spectrum, lasting a few years. However, the smog could potentially cause a cooling effect on Earth's climate, producing a "cosmic winter" (similar to an impact winter, but without an impact), but only if it occurs simultaneously with a global climate instability. Thirdly, the elevated nitrogen levels in the atmosphere would wash out and produce nitric acid rain. Nitric acid is toxic to a variety of organisms, including amphibian life, but models show that it cannot reach levels that would cause a serious global effect. The nitrates might in fact be of benefit to some plants.[115][116][unreliable source?]

All in all, a GRB within a few parsecs, with its energy directed towards Earth, will mostly damage life by raising the UV levels during the burst itself and for a few years thereafter. Models show that the destructive effects of this increase can cause up to 16 times the normal levels of DNA damage. It has proved difficult to assess a reliable evaluation of the consequences of this on the terrestrial ecosystem, because of the uncertainty in biological field and laboratory data.[115][116][unreliable source?]

Ordinary supernova explosions can have the same effects as GRBs on Earth's atmosphere if they are close enough.[further explanation needed] Locally, supernovas are much more frequent events than GRBs, with a possibility of occurring closer to Earth. In the field of astrobiology, the rate and distribution of supernovas are used to define what is known as the Galactic Habitable Zone.[116][unreliable source?]

GRBs close enough to affect life in some way might occur once every five million years or so â€” around a thousand times since life on Earth began.[117]

The major Ordovician–Silurian extinction events 450 million years ago may have been caused by a GRB. The late Ordovician species of trilobites that spent portions of their lives in the plankton layer near the ocean surface were much harder hit than deep-water dwellers, which tended to remain within quite restricted areas. This is in contrast to the usual pattern of extinction events, wherein species with more widely spread populations typically fare better. A possible explanation is that trilobites remaining in deep water would be more shielded from the increased UV radiation associated with a GRB. Also supportive of this hypothesis is the fact that during the late Ordovician, burrowing bivalve species were less likely to go extinct than bivalves that lived on the surface.[9]

A case has been made that the 774–775 carbon-14 spike was the result of a short GRB,[118][119] though a very strong solar flare is another possibility.[120]

A Wolf–Rayet star in WR 104, about 8,000 light-years (2,500 pc) away, is considered a nearby GRB candidate that could have destructive effects on terrestrial life. It is expected to explode in a core-collapse-supernova at some point within the next 500,000 years and it is possible that this explosion will create a GRB. If that happens, there is a small chance that Earth will be in the path of its gamma ray jet.[121][122][123]

No gamma-ray burst from within our own galaxy, the Milky Way, has been observed, and the question of whether one has ever occurred remains unresolved. In light of evolving understanding of gamma-ray bursts and their progenitors, the scientific literature records a growing number of local, past, and future GRB candidates. Long duration GRBs are related to superluminous supernovae, or hypernovae, and most luminous blue variables (LBVs), and rapidly spinning Wolf–Rayet stars are thought to end their life cycles in core-collapse supernovae with an associated long-duration GRB. Knowledge of GRBs, however, is from metal-poor galaxies of former epochs of the universe's evolution, and it is impossible to directly extrapolate to encompass more evolved galaxies and stellar environments with a higher metallicity, such as the Milky Way.[124][125][126]


how many players are on a nba basketball team

A team may have a maximum of 15 players on its active roster, and at least eight active players must suit up for every game. Any remaining players are placed in the Inactive List, and cannot play in games.[5][6] Teams may have a maximum of two players on the Inactive List; this can drop to zero for up to two weeks at a time, and additional, temporary inactive positions may be added with league approval in hardship cases. The Inactive List can change up to 60 minutes before opening tip by informing the official scorer of the game. A player can be inactive for as little as one game.[6] Players sent to the NBA Development League will continue to count on a teamâ€™s inactive list.[7][8] While individual teams must carry a minimum of 13 (12 active plus one inactive) players, the NBA guarantees a league-wide average of at least 14 players per team. The league is surcharged if they do not meet the average.[6]

NBA Collective Bargaining Agreement

The NBA Collective Bargaining Agreement (CBA) is the contract between the NBA (the commissioner and the 30 team owners) and the NBA Players Association that dictates the rules of player contracts, trades, revenue distribution, the NBA Draft, and the salary cap, among other things. In June 2005, the NBA's 1999 CBA expired, meaning the League and the players' union had to negotiate a new agreement; in light of the 2004–05 NHL lockout, the two sides quickly came to an agreement, and ratified a new CBA in July 2005. This agreement expired following the 2010–11 season, leading to the 2011 NBA lockout. A new CBA was ratified in December 2011, ending the lockout.[1]

Little changed in terms of the salary cap between the 1999 and 2005 versions of the CBA. In exchange for agreeing to the controversial player age minimum, the players received a slightly higher percentage of the League's revenues over the course of the new agreement. Additionally, the League's maximum salary decreased slightly in comparison to the 1999 CBA. Under the 2011 CBA, the players will receive a lower percentage of league revenues.

In 2005, players received 57% of the income, and as of the new CBA, they are receiving about 49–50% of revenue. At that time, the next CBA discussion was set for ten years. or if necessary, in 2017.[2] In 2016, the NBA and NBA Players Association met to work on a new CBA, which both sides approved in December of that year. This most recent agreement will start with the 2017–18 season and run through 2023–24, with a mutual opt-out after 2022–23.[3][4]

Prior to the 2005 CBA, injured players could be placed on an injured list but were forced to sit out a minimum of five games.[7]

The NBA's latest CBA proposal reportedly includes an "amnesty clause" â€“ a one-time opportunity for teams to remove their worst contracts from the books.[9]

Players can be traded between teams in exchange for other players, draft picks and/or a limited amount of cash. Coaches may only be traded for draft picks or cash. Trades are not allowed to be contingent on the completion of other trades.[10]


where are the world athletic championships being held

The 2017 IAAF World Championships was the 16th edition of the global athletics competition organised by the International Association of Athletics Federations and was held in London from 4 to 13 August 2017. London was officially awarded the championships on 11Â November 2011.[1]

2017 World Championships in Athletics

When the seeking deadline passed on 1Â September 2011, two candidate cities (London and Doha) had confirmed their candidatures.[2] Barcelona, which investigated a bid, withdrew citing a lack of support from the local population and financial difficulties.[3]

On 5Â September 2011, Doha launched its marketing bid for the 2017 World Championships.[4] The slogan of the bid was "The RIGHT PARTNER for a stronger World Championships." The bid was led by Abdullah Al Zaini and Aphrodite Moschoudi. Moschoudi successfully led Qatar's bid for the 2015 Handball World Championships. Doha also brought in Brian Roe, a member of the IAAF Technical Committee. The bid was for the championships to be held in the renovated, climate-controlled Khalifa Stadium.[5] The Corniche promenade was to hold the road races, with the committee proposing to hold the marathon at night after the opening ceremony.[6]

On 6 September 2011, London unveiled its bid for the 2017 championships with the slogan "Ready to break records." This was London's fourth bid in less than 15 years to host the event.[7][8] The London bid team said that if their bid was successful they would introduce the "Women in World Athletics" programme.[9]

The IAAF Evaluation Commission visited London on 2−4 October and Doha on 4−6 October. On 11 November 2011, the winner was officially announced as London.[10]

The championships were held in the London Stadium in Stratford, London, which hosted the 2012 Summer Olympics, and has a capacity of 60,000.

Six days before the events were due to begin, it was reported that more than 660,000 tickets had been sold, which was a new record for the World Championships, surpassing the previous record of 417,156 tickets sold for Berlin 2009.[11]

Rights to televise the championships in the United Kingdom were held by the BBC.[12] NBCUniversal was the rights holder in the United States.[13][14][15] In Canada, rights to televise the championships belonged to the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation.[16]

The mascots for the IAAF Championships and World ParaAthletics Championships were unveiled in April 2017, and chosen through a children's design contest organised by the BBC programme Blue Peter. The mascots represent "everyday" endangered species of the UK; the IAAF Championships mascot is an anthropomorphic hedgehog named Hero the Hedgehog, and for the ParaAthletics, Whizbee the Bee.[17]

The qualification period for the 10,000 metres, marathon, race walks, relays, and combined events runs from 1 January 2016 to 23 July 2017. For all other events, the qualification period runs from 1 October 2016 to 23 July 2017.

The Women's 50 kilometres walk was held for the first time.[18]

WR world record | AR area record | CR championship record | GR games record | NR national record | OR Olympic record | PB personal best | SB season best | WL world leading (in a given season)

* Indicates the athlete only competed in the preliminary heats and received medals.

*   Host nation

In the IAAF placing table the total score is obtained from assigning eight points to the first place and so on to one point for the eight placed finalists. Points are shared in situations where a tie occurs.[19]

Below is the list of countries and other neutral groupings who participated in the championships and the requested number of athlete places for each.

Russia is currently indefinitely suspended from international competition due to a doping scandal, and will therefore not be present at the Championships. Nevertheless, 19 Russian athletes have been allowed to participate in international competition included as "authorised neutral athletes" at London 2017 following a long process to show that they were not directly implicated in Russia's state doping program.[20] These athletes include Mariya Lasitskene (high jump), Sergey Shubenkov (110Â metres hurdles), Ilya Shkurenev (decathlon), Aleksandr Menkov (long jump) and Anzhelika Sidorova (pole vault) plus names from 2016 such as Darya Klishina (long jump) [21][a]

An outbreak of norovirus occurred at a local hotel affecting 30 athletes and officials.[23]