Sarah Hasted is an American curator and art dealer. Hasted was the founder and co-owner of contemporary art galleries, Hasted Hunt and Hasted Kraeutler, and has been a curator and art dealer for over 25 years. She has consulted for private collectors, and placed works of art with major Museums as well as corporate collections worldwide. Hasted has also been an adjunct professor at Parson's School of Design since 2003. In January 2017, Hasted was elected President of the Board of a not for profit organization, Moving Mountains Theater Company], founded by actor Jamie Hector from The Wire.<PIC> Hasted was raised in Santa Fe, New Mexico, the daughter of John D. Hasted, a professor of English literature, Shakespeare, and creative writing at The College of Santa Fe ( Santa Fe University of Art and Design: New Mexico Art College). Her mother, Donna Clair, is a traditional landscape painter, living in Taos, New Mexico. Hasted attended Santa Fe Public High School. After high school she attended college and graduated with honors, receiving her Bachelor of Fine Arts Degree in Photography from The College of Santa Fe in 1991. After college, she had a brief career as
a working artist. Her artworks were acquired by the Intel Corporation and one was acquired by and is in the permanent collection of the Art Institute of Chicago. Hasted's career in the arts began in 1991, with her first position in an art gallery immediately post graduation, as an assistant at the Scheinbaum & Russek gallery for 5 years, where she worked with her photography teacher, David Scheinbaum and his wife, artist and photographer, Janet Russek. There she assisted in the curating of exhibitions by Sebastiao Salgado, Beaumont Newhall and Eliot Porter and many more. Hasted was hired in 1997, as the Associate Director of the Howard Greenberg gallery and moved to New York, where she worked with vintage photography and contemporary artists, assisting in curating exhibitions by Gilles Peress, Imogen Cunningham and Iwao Yamawaki. In 1999, Hasted became the co-director of Photography at Ricco/Maresca Gallery, alongside W.M.Hunt where she instituted and directed the photography department, until they founded and opened their own gallery, Hasted Hunt, in 2005.  There she discovered, mentored and strategized the careers of artists, Paolo Ventura,    Andreas Gefeller Erwin Olaf   as well as many others. Hasted Hunt secured world wide exclusive representation of most of the artists, specifically, Albert Watson  and Jean-Paul Goude.  In the middle of the economic recession of 2008, Hasted motivated her colleagues in the photography community to band together to survive the difficult economy. A total of 13 photography galleries held exhibitions simultaneously, all photographs were images of New York and they send out a joint press release The show was reviewed by WNYC.  In 2009, Hasted moved the gallery to a ground floor space on 24th Street in the heart of New York's art district.  In 2011, the gallery became Hasted Kraeutler, and there Hasted discovered the works of Awol Erizku, Pierre Gonnord and many others. Over the years, Hasted has curated hundreds of exhibitions in all mediums and become an expert in her field.
   The gallery was regarded as a showcase for emerging and established artists, and a recognized venue for contemporary art worldwide.  After her brother, John A. Hasted died suddenly on Christmas Eve in 2014, Hasted semi-retired from the art business. In August 2015, the gallery closed with the partnership ending acrimoniously.  In 2015, Hasted was hired as a consultant by Edelman Companies, focusing on the resale of blue chip artworks such as Pablo Picasso, Joseph Cornell, Keith Haring and Frank Stella. Sarah Hasted founded International Art Advisory LLC, founded in 2015. International Art Advisory represents artists from across the globe. Hasted was hired in 2003 as an adjunct professor by Parsons the New School of Design to develop and create a new class for their cirriculum focused on Editing and Curating in Photography. In 2008, Hasted became part-time assistant professor. For the past 18 years, she has taught the BFA and MFA thesis class in photography, in addition to the original editing class. From 2005 to 2007, Hasted served on the Benefit Arts Committee for In Motion (Her Justice), an organization that provides legal services for domestically abused women.  In January 2017, Hasted was elected as President of the Board of a not for profit organization, Moving Mountains Theater Company, founded by Jamie Hector an actor in the recognized series by HBO The Wire.


Eastwell Park is a large area of parkland and a country estate in the civil parish of Eastwell, adjoining Ashford, Kent, in England. Over time, successive buildings have served as homes to Sir Thomas Moyle, the Earls of Winchilsea and Nottingham, Prince Alfred, Duke of Edinburgh, and others.
The estate is now mainly a farming concern, raising crops and sheep. Part of the estate is landscaped to include a large shallow lake which can be fished and the distinctive Eastwell Towers. The largest building on the site today is Eastwell Manor, a stately home which is now operated as a country house hotel. The Manor and Towers are Grade II listed. The original country house at Eastwell was built for Sir Thomas Moyle between 1540 and 1550. One of the men employed on the estate was the bricklayer Richard Plantagenet, who claimed to be an illegitimate son of Richard III.
The first house was replaced by one built in the neo-Elizabethan style between 1793 and 1799 for George Finch-Hatton to designs by Adam's former draughtsman, Joseph Bonomi (1739-1808).
A Victorian Tudor-style wing was later added; the house had seven bays and wings of three bays each.
In the mid-1860s, the 11th Earl of Winchilsea experienced serious financial difficulties, which eventually forced him to leave the property. On 4 December 1868 trustees appointed under the Winchilsea Estate Act (1865) entered into a contract to let Eastwell Park, together with its furnishings and effects, to the Duke of Abercorn for a period of five years. Lord Winchilsea had been obliged to vacate the property sometime prior to December 1868, and he was formally adjudged bankrupt on 5 October 1870.
Eastwell was next occupied by Prince Alfred, Duke of Edinburgh, the second son of Queen Victoria. He lived here with his family until 1893, when he inherited the duchy of Saxe-Coburg and Gotha in Germany. During that time, Queen Victoria was a frequent visitor and there are photographs of her skating on the lake. Prince Alfred's older brother, the future Edward VII, was also a visitor. In 1875, Prince Alfred's daughter Princess Marie - who later became queen of Romania - was born at the house. In her memoirs, she recalls "beautiful Eastwell with its great gray house, its magnificent park, with its herds of deer and picturesque Highland cattle, its lake, its woods, its garden with the old cedar tree which was our fairy mansion." In 1884, another of Alfred's children, Princess Beatrice - who later married into the Spanish Royal Family - was also born at Eastwell.
After the First World War, the Eastwell estate faced the same economic problems that also affected many other English stately homes. In the 1920s the main house was severely damaged by fire. A smaller house in a similar style was built on the same site in 1926–1928.
After many changes, Eastwell Manor is now operated as a country house hotel. There is an indoor swimming pool and a Champneys spa, and a nine-hole golf course has been laid out in the grounds. The rest of the estate is used for farming. The distinctive structure now known as Eastwell Towers stands a mile south-south west of the manor. It was the original main gatehouse to Eastwell Park and was built in 1848.<PIC> Home Farm at Eastwell Park was built at a distance from the main stately home. The large residence is surrounded by fields and lies close to the church of St Mary the Virgin. Next to the large shallow lake at Eastwell Park is the ruined church of St Mary the Virgin, which is now cared for by the Friends of Friendless Churches. The church dates to the 14th century but became unused after First World War. A storm in 1951 caused severe damage:  parts of the nave and the choir fell down. The tower remains reasonably intact. Marble monuments once found in the church are now on view in the Victoria and Albert Museum. A memorial located in the former choir commemorates the grave of Richard Plantagenet, alleged to be the illegitimate son of Richard III.
George Finch-Hatton, 11th Earl of Winchilsea (1815–1887), his second wife Lady Elizabeth Georgiana (d. 1904, daughter of Francis Conyngham, 2nd Marquess Conyngham) as well as his only son George William Finch-Hatton, Viscount Maidstone (1852–1879) are buried in a simple grave in the overgrown part of the church cemetery.


The Knockando Woolmill is a historic woolmill in Moray, Scotland. Wool production has taken place at the site since at least the eighteenth century, and the surviving buildings house a number of pieces of historic machinery which are still in operation. It was designated a Category A listed building in 1995, still operates as a working mill, and is open to the public from April to September.<PIC> The overall site comprises several buildings, all dating to the nineteenth or early twentieth centuries. The mill itself was originally a single-storey rectangular building, but the addition of a two-storey carding and spinning mill led to its current L-plan design. Both parts of the building are rubble-built with corrugated iron roofs, and there is a large weatherboarded lean-to extension, also with a corrugated iron roof, added in the late nineteenth century to house equipment. This building contains a number of pieces of historic machinery, including two Victorian looms, made by Hutchinson, Hollingworth & Co., which are thought to be the oldest looms still to be in use.
There are two dwellings on the site. The mill house, where the miller's family would have lived, was built around 1910. Rubble-built, with two storeys, it features an elegant staircase with cast iron balusters, indicative of the relative wealth of the owner. There is also a cottage, the oldest remaining building on the site, dating from the early nineteenth century. Harled, with a corrugated iron roof, it has an adjoining square-plan dairy and, diagonally opposite, a winter drying shed.
There is a shop, built for that purpose in the late nineteenth century and still used as such. It is a single-storey square-plan rubble-built structure, to the south-east of the main mill. The building currently used as a visitor centre was originally a byre. Built in the late nineteenth-century, it is a simple, rectangular building, with plain weatherboarding and a corrugated iron roof. An early twentieth-century sawmill is attached at the west gable, and a modern extension is attached to the north wall. Wool production has taken place at the Knockando site since at least the eighteenth century. William Roy's map of Scotland, dated 1749, depicts buildings at the site, and records from 1784 make reference to a waulk mill, operated by the Grant family at Knockando. The Grants and their mill are mentioned again in the 1851 census, which also records the presence of a wool carder, a spinner and a weaver on the site.
By the 1860s, the mill was owned by Alexander Smith, who established the company A Smith and Son. The company built a new building for the mill, which had some water-powered machinery, but most work at this point was still done by hand. In the 1870s, a second-hand water wheel, with a diameter of fourteen feet, was installed, and in the 1880s a weaving shed was built to house the water-powered loom. The late nineteenth century was a high-point for the mill's commercial success, as evidenced by the construction of the dwelling house for the miller's family, and the shop to sell the mill's produce.
In the early twentieth century, Knockando Woolmill primarily served the local market for blankets, tweeds and yarn, although it benefited from contracts from the Ministry of Defence during the first world war for blankets for the services, and it was during this period that the drying shed was built. In the years following the war, the mill entered a period of decline. In 1945, a flood destroyed the weaving shed, and in the late 1940s the waterwheel was disconnected and electric motors were installed to power the machinery.
By the 1960s, most small district mills had either expanded to serve a larger market, or had gone out of business. Unusually, Knockando continued to operate as a local mill, still owned by the company A Smith and Son established in 1860, now under the management of Duncan Stewart, a nephew of the Smith family who continued working at the mill into the 1970s. In 1976, the mill was purchased by Hugh Jones, who, acting as the sole miller, continued to operate it in the traditional manner for thirty years.
In 1995 the mill, including the machinery, water power system and various outhouses, was designated a Category A listed building, but by 2000 the buildings and machinery were in a poor state of repair, so a charity, the Knockando Woolmill Trust, was established to renovate and maintain them. By 2009, the trust had raised £3.3 million for renovations, including a grant of £1.3 million from the National Lottery Heritage Fund, and the ownership of the mill was transferred to the trust. Renovation work was completed in 2012, and production of fabric on the site resumed. In 2016, Knockando Woolen Mill won the Europa Nostra EU Prize for Cultural Heritage, in the Conservation category, and in 2017 it was awarded funding by Highlands and Islands Enterprise to allow it to expand its production and workforce. The Knockando Woolmill produces a unique tartan. Designed in 2010 by John B Gillespie to commemorate the renovation of the mill, the Knockando Woolmill Tartan is primarily composed of red, blue and green, intended to represent the rust from the iron roof of the mill, water from the burn, and grass from the surrounding fields. The tartan is registered with the Scottish Register of Tartans, and may only be manufactured at the Knockando Woolmill. The mill continues to make fabrics on its historic machinery. It is open to visitors each year from 18 April to 26 September.


Iuliia Sergeevna Artemeva (Russian: Юлия Сергеевна Артемьева, born 16 March 2005) is a Russian pair skater. With her former partner, Mikhail Nazarychev, she is the 2021 Gran Premio d'Italia bronze medalist.
On the junior level, Artemeva/Nazarychev are the 2020 World Junior bronze medalists, the 2020 Russian junior national bronze medalists, the 2019 JGP Croatia champions, the 2019 JGP Russia silver medalists, and 2019–20 Junior Grand Prix Final qualifiers.  Artemeva began learning how to skate in 2008 at the age of three. Up until the end of 2017–18 figure skating season she trained as a single skater in her hometown of Kazan at the Strela Youth Sports School. Coached by Svetlana Romanova and Rezeda Sibgatullina, she finished 14th at 2018 Russian Younger Age Nationals. Artemeva made the transition to pairs at the beginning of the 2018–19 figure skating season, teaming up with current partner Mikhail Nazarychev and relocating to Perm. Artemeva/Nazarychev only competed domestically during the 2018–19 season and finished 10th at 2019 Russian Elder Age Nationals. Artemeva/Nazarychev made their international junior debut in September at the 2019 JGP Russia. The team placed second in both their short program and their free skate to earn a silver medal on the all Russian podium between teammates Kseniia Akhanteva / Valerii Kolesov and Diana Mukhametzianova / Ilya Mironov. At their second Junior Grand Prix assignment, 2019 JGP Croatia, Artemeva/Nazarychev won gold and set new personal bests after placing second in the short program and first in the free skate, thus qualifying to the 2019–20 Junior Grand Prix Final. In qualifying to the Final, Artemeva/Nazarychev secured byes into the 2020 Russian Championships on both the senior and junior levels. They placed fourth at the Final.
Seventh at the senior nationals, they were bronze medalists at junior nationals, securing a place at the 2020 World Junior Championships in Tallinn, Estonia. Artemeva/Nazarychev were third in the short program, narrowly behind second-place finishers Akhanteva/Kolesov.  The free skate proved a struggle, Artemeva falling on both throw jumps as well as her side-by-side double Axel attempt. They nevertheless remained in bronze medal position, aided by errors by fourth-place finishers Hocke/Kunkel of Germany.<PIC> Artemeva/Nazarychev made their Grand Prix debut at the 2020 Rostelecom Cup, where they finished fifth.  They placed eighth at the 2021 Russian Championships, and then won the Russian junior national title. Artemeva/Nazarychev were initially assigned to the 2021 Cup of China as their first Grand Prix, but following the event's cancellation they were reassigned to the 2021 Gran Premio d'Italia. Fourth in the short program, they rose to third in the free skate to win the bronze medal behind Chinese teams Sui/Han and Peng/Jin. At their second event, the 2021 Internationaux de France, they placed second in both programs to take the silver medal, making only one error in their free skate when Artemeva doubled and stepped out of her planned triple toe loop. Nazarychev said afterward "overall it was a good performance. We set goals for ourselves to do well on the Grand Prix and I think we fulfilled that."
At the 2022 Russian Championships, Artemeva/Nazarychev finished in fifth. They also competed at the junior edition, losing to Natalia Khabibullina / Ilya Knyazhuk. On 2 June 2022, it was announced that Artemeva/Nazarychev had ended their partnership. Artemeva teamed up with Aleksei Briukhanov.     Small medals for short and free programs awarded only at ISU Championships. Personal bests highlighted in bold.


WASP-15b, formally named Asye, is an extrasolar planet discovered in 2008 by the SuperWASP collaboration, which seeks to discover exoplanets that transit their host stars. The planet orbits its host star at a distance of 0.05 AU every four days. The mass of this planet is about one half that of Jupiter, but its radius is nearly 50% larger than Jupiter's, making the density of this planet only one quarter that of water; it is thought that some other form of heating must explain its extremely low density. WASP-15b's discovery was published on April 29, 2009. WASP-15 was first observed by the WASP-South branch of the SuperWASP project, which operates from the South African Astronomical Observatory, between May 4, 2006, and July 17, 2006. It was later observed by WASP-South from January 31, 2007, to July 17, 2007, and from January 31, 2008, to May 29, 2008. Further analysis taken from 24,943 collected data points revealed eleven full or partial transits.
Follow-up observations were conducted by a European and American science team at the 1.2 m Leonhard Euler Telescope at La Silla Observatory in Chile, which further raised the possibility of the existence of a planet in WASP-15's orbit; use of the CORALIE spectrograph on the Euler Telescope between March 6, 2008, and July 17, 2008, revealed that the variations in radial velocity measurements were not because of an eclipsing binary star system.
CORALIE and the High Resolution Echelle Spectrometer (HIRES) revealed the spectrum of WASP-15, which was used to derive the star's characteristics. The science team studying WASP-15 found that, after running best-fit models, WASP-15's radial velocity and transit shifts were most likely due to the existence of a planet.
WASP-15's planet, WASP-15b, had one of the lowest densities known amongst extrasolar planets when it was discovered. Its discovery paper was published by the American Astronomical Society on April 29, 2009, in the Astronomical Journal. WASP-15 is an F-type star located in the Hydra constellation. It is located approximately 290 parsecs (900 light years) from Earth and has an apparent magnitude of 10.9, making it invisible to the unaided eye. The star is 1.18 times more massive than the Sun, and has a radius that is 1.477 times larger than that of the Sun, making it more diffuse. WASP-15 has an effective temperature of 6300 K, and is thus hotter than the Sun, although at 3.9 billion years, it is also younger. WASP-15 has a metallicity of [Fe/H] of -0.17, which means that it has 68% of the iron found in the Sun. WASP-15b has a mass of 0.542 times Jupiter's mass and a radius that is 1.428 times Jupiter's radius. Due in part to its proximity to its host star, a distance of 0.0499 AU (7,500,000 km), WASP-15b is greatly inflated, with a density of 0.247 g/cm³. Another factor, such as an internal heat source, is suspected to add to this extremely high radius and extremely low density. WASP-15b orbits its host star every 3.7520656 days. It also has an orbital inclination of 85.5º, making it almost edge-on as seen from the Earth's perspective.
The study in 2012, utilizing a Rossiter–McLaughlin effect, have determined the planetary orbit is strongly misaligned with the equatorial plane of the star, misalignment equal to -139.6+4.3
−5.2°. This spin-orbit angle is making orbit of WASP-15b retrograde.<PIC> In 2019 the IAU announced as part of NameExoWorlds that WASP-15 and its planet WASP-15b would be given official names chosen by school children from The Ivory Coast.


Gareth "Gaz" O'Brien (born 31 October 1991) is an English professional rugby league footballer who plays as a fullback, scrum-half or stand-off for the Castleford Tigers in the Betfred Super League.
He previously played for the Warrington Wolves and the Salford Red Devils in the Super League, and on loan from Warrington at the Widnes Vikings, Castleford Tigers and St Helens in the Super League, the Swinton Lions in the Championship and the North Wales Crusaders in League 1. O'Brien has also played for the Toronto Wolfpack in the Championship and the top flight, and on loan from Toronto at Castleford in Super League XXV. O'Brien was born in Warrington, Cheshire, England. He is of Irish descent.
He is a product of the Warrington academy; he was seen as the long-term replacement for Lee Briers.
O'Brien is the ambassador for the Rett syndrome research trust Reverse Rett, even posing as Mr. July in their Natural Wire Calendar, in which several players posed nude.  In the 2011 Season, O'Brien made his début in the 80-0 Challenge Cup win over Keighley; he marked his début with a try. He made his Super League début in Round 14 against Castleford, partnering Lee Briers as the half-backs. O'Brien steered the team to a 62–0 win, crossing the line for a try himself. He then featured in the record-breaking 112–0 home victory over the Swinton Lions in the 4th Round of the Challenge Cup. An injury prevented him from playing for the rest of the season.
In the 2012 Season, O'Brien featured in Round 10 (Widnes) then in Round 12 (Castleford) to Round 20 (Catalans) then in Round 22 (Bradford). He also featured in Round 4 and 5 and the quarter final of the Challenge Cup against Keighley, Bradford and Catalans. He scored against Salford (8 goals), Widnes (10 goals), Hull KR (1 try), Leeds (2 tries, 1 goal), Hull F.C. (6 goals), Catalans (1 goal) and Bradford (2 goals).
In the 2013 Season, O'Brien featured in Round 7 (Salford) and Round 9 (Widnes). He featured in Round 5 of the Challenge Cup against Keighley. He scored against Salford (1 goal), Widnes (3 goals) and Keighley (1 try).
In the 2014 Season, O'Brien featured in Round 1 (St. Helens) to Round 6 (Wigan) then in Round 9 (Widnes) to Round 11 (Bradford Bulls) and in Round 18 (Bradford Bulls) to Round 27 (Wigan). O'Brien played in Round 5 (Doncaster) of the Challenge Cup. He also featured in the playoffs in the Elimination Play Off (Widnes) to the Qualifying Semi Final (Wigan). He scored against Widnes (1 try), Bradford Bulls (2 tries), Castleford (2 tries), Huddersfield (1 try, 4 goals) and St. Helens (1 try, 1 goal).
In the 2015 Season, O'Brien featured in the World Club Series against St George Illawarra Dragons. He scored against the Dragons (1 try, 2 goals). O'Brien featured in Round 1 (Salford) to Round 9 (Castleford). He played in Round 17 (Catalans Dragons) to Round 18 (Huddersfield) then in Round 20 (Wigan Warriors) to Round 23 (Castleford Tigers). O'Brien also featured in the Challenge Cup in Round 6 (Dewsbury) to the Semi Final (Hull Kingston Rovers). He scored against Hull F.C. (1 goal, 1 drop goal), Catalans Dragons (6 goals), St. Helens (6 goals), Huddersfield (2 tries, 4 goals, 1 drop goal), Widnes (1 goal), Castleford (1 try, 5 goals), Leigh Centurions (4 goals), Wigan Warriors (1 try, 2 goals, 1 drop goal), Wakefield Trinity Wildcats (6 goals) and Hull Kingston Rovers (3 goals).
O'Brien was released by Warrington at the end of the 2015 season, alongside teammates Joel Monaghan and Roy Asotasi, as the club continue their on and off-field changes. In March 2012, O'Brien was sent out on loan for a month to Super League side Widnes Vikings. He made his début in Round 6 against Wigan where he kicked 6 goals to help the Chemics to a 37–36 victory. He played in Round 7 against Hull F.C. but could only manage a goal as Widnes slipped to a 58–10 defeat. He featured in Round 8 (London Broncos) and kicked 7 goals to help Widnes to a 38–30 win. O'Brien converted Widnes' only try in the 76–6 loss against Catalans Dragons in Round 9. In 2013 and 2014, O'Brien played for the Swinton Lions in the Championship through their dual registration arrangement with Warrington. He made 7 appearances and scored 6 goals for the Lions in 2013, and made a further 8 appearances and scored 2 tries, 34 goals and 2 drop goals for the club in 2014. In February 2013, O'Brien joined the Castleford Tigers on a one-month loan deal. He was signed as cover for Tigers half-back Rangi Chase, who was serving a suspension. He made his début in Round 3 against the Bradford Bulls, and then featured in Round 4 against the Catalans Dragons when his final-moment drop goal earned a draw for Castleford. O'Brien's time at Castleford was cut short when he was recalled by Warrington following an injury to half-back Lee Briers. In May 2013, O'Brien joined St. Helens on a one-month loan deal. He made his début against Huddersfield, and kicked 2 goals in the 25–16 loss. He then featured against Bradford Bulls (5 goals). O'Brien then kicked 8 goals against the Salford City Reds, and 1 goal against the Hull Kingston Rovers. He then kicked 6 goals in the 40–24 victory over the Castleford Tigers. O'Brien helped the Saints to a famous 22–16 victory over arch rivals Wigan Warriors by kicking 2 goals. He also kicked a goal in the 26–6 victory over the Catalans Dragons. In May 2015, O'Brien played for the North Wales Crusaders in League 1 through their dual registration arrangement with Warrington. He made 2 appearances and scored 1 try.<PIC> O'Brien joined the Salford Red Devils for the 2016 season and was assigned squad number 14. In the Million Pound Game against Hull KR, he scored an incredible near-halfway drop goal in golden-point extra time to secure Salford's place in Super League. In his first season with the club, he made 32 appearances and scored 6 tries, 87 goals and 1 drop goal.
On 1 March 2017 he signed a new three-year deal with Salford. In the 2017 season, O'Brien made 29 appearances and scored 9 tries, 47 goals and 3 drop goals. On 12 March 2018, having made 4 appearances and scored 1 try and 9 goals in the 2018 season, it was announced that O'Brien would leave Salford to join Toronto Wolfpack with immediate effect. O'Brien joined Toronto Wolfpack in the Championship for an undisclosed fee on 12 March 2018. He said he "was really impressed" by the club and that joining the Wolfpack was an opportunity he couldn't afford to turn down. He made his début against Rochdale in a 17–18 victory. In his first season at the club, he made 24 appearances and scored 12 tries, 68 goals and 2 drop goals.
In the 2019 season, O'Brien made 27 appearances and scored 20 tries and 99 goals. This included 2 conversions in the Championship play-off final victory over Featherstone Rovers, to win promotion to Super League.
O'Brien had made 5 appearances and scored 1 try and 7 goals for Toronto when the 2020 season was suspended due to the COVID-19 pandemic. After Toronto were forced to withdraw from the 2020 competition, players were allowed to find new clubs for the rest of the season so he joined Castleford on loan. On 10 August 2020, Castleford Tigers announced the signing of O'Brien on a loan deal for the remainder of the 2020 season. He arrived as a direct replacement for full-back Jordan Rankin who had been released during the season suspension to allow him to return to Australia. Head coach Daryl Powell likened his abilities to those of Castleford fan favourite Luke Dorn: "he can see things very quickly, his communication is great, he has got pace and his decision-making is excellent."
O'Brien made 8 appearances throughout the remainder of the season, playing at fullback and scrum-half. He scored 3 tries, 7 goals and 1 drop goal in this time. Castleford announced the permanent signing of O'Brien on a three-year deal on 15 November 2020, after Toronto were denied readmission to Super League. His addition provided tough competition for the full-back and half-back positions occupied by Niall Evalds, Jake Trueman and Danny Richardson - O'Brien said, "I'll be putting everyone on their toes, it's healthy and helps the competition that a squad needs. I'm looking forward to it."
O'Brien was originally assigned squad number 16 for 2021, but he requested that this was changed to number 31 for personal reasons prior to the beginning of the season. In Castleford's round 3 Challenge Cup match against Hull KR, O'Brien kicked a 99th-minute drop goal to secure a victory for the Tigers in the fourth period of golden point extra time.
On 17 July 2021, he played for Castleford in their 2021 Challenge Cup Final loss against St. Helens. In 2016 he was called up to the Ireland squad for the 2017 Rugby League World Cup European Pool B qualifiers.


Björn Ragnar Weckström (born February 8, 1935) is a Finnish sculptor and jewelry designer. He graduated from Helsinki Goldsmith’s school in 1956. Since the very beginning of his career Weckström has been a highly ambitious designer and artist. At first his works represented clean Scandinavian style, but in 1960s Weckström found his own, totally new style which is closer to sculpture than traditional goldsmithing.<PIC> Rough matt surfaces, uncut semi-precious stones and asymmetrical forms are typical to his massive golden jewelry. Inspiration comes often from nature. When working in silver, Weckström can for example portray the snowy, Finnish winter landscape with its frozen lakes. Weckström considers jewelry as an art form and his designs as miniature sculptures.
In 1963 Björn Weckström started co-operation with jewelry manufacturer Kruunu-Koru Oy (later Lapponia Jewelry) and its owner Pekka Anttila. Weckström became company’s designer and art director. In 1965 Weckström took part in the International Jewelry Contest in Rio de Janeiro, where his yellowgold and tourmaline necklace “Flowering wall” won the Grand Prix. Through this distinguished award, the company received worldwide recognition, launching Lapponia’s international success. His designs have been in continuous production with Lapponia ever since.
Probably the best-known piece of Weckström’s jewelry is necklace Planetoid Valleys which Princess Leia (Carrie Fisher) wore in George Lucas’ film Star Wars in 1977. Necklace was designed for Lapponia in 1969.
Björn Weckström was the first designer who radically combined silver and acrylic in jewelry. Especially silver-acrylic ring Petrified lake achieved international attention when Yoko Ono was filmed wearing it on the Dick Cavett Show in 1975
For Nuutajärvi glass factory Weckström has designed, inter alia, glassware series “Kanerva” and “Fortuna” and produced dozens of unique glassworks together with factory’s glassblowers. In 2010s he has worked together with glassblower master Kari Alakoski. The artistic walk of life of sculptor Bjorn Weckstrom is characterised by impressive series of work, shaped in materials such as bronze, marble, glass and acrylic resin, as well as in often surprising combinations of the above.
The invitation to become a lecturer at the University of Pisa in 1979, led to an important change in his life: thereafter Weckström spent the majority of his time in Italy for 30 years. Inspired by Riace bronzes 1980 Weckström started to make narrative bronze sculptures. His distinctive language of expression ranges from abstract form to an individualistic interpretation of realism. Central to the bronze sculptures has been the reinterpretation of classic Greek mythology. Furthermore, the large sculptures, exploring the interaction between man and machine, outline a profound analysis of the current state of Mankind. HYY Group, Kaivopiha, Helsinki: sculpture “Together” 2018
"The whistling City-dweller"-sculpture, Helsinki 1995
YLE Headquarters, Helsinki 1993: sculpture "Narcissos" 1993
Monument in honour of Fazer's 100th Anniversary, Helsinki: "Fazer's rooster" 1991
Fazer Headquarters, Vantaa: sculpture "Domina" 1989
Wallrelief for Rettig Strengberg, Turku 1986 Cavaliere Ordine della Stella d’Italia 2017
Espoo City Medal 2016
Professor’s title 1986
Pro Finlandia medal 1971
Medal for merit no. 22 of the Finnish Goldsmiths' Association 1967
Winner of the Lunning Prize More than 60 exhibitions in Europe, USA, Australia and Asia in 1963–2016
Björn Weckström is said to be one of the most charismatic and cosmopolitan personalities of the Finnish art world. Nowadays Björn Weckström lives in Espoo, Finland, but travels to Italy several times a year. He has an atelier both in Finland and in Italy. Bazar publishers has published Weckström’s autobiography Mitt liv som Björn in 2018.


Codex Purpureus Beratinus (Albanian: Kodiku i Beratit, Kodiku i Purpurt i Beratit) designated by Φ or 043 (in the Gregory-Aland numbering), ε 17 (von Soden), is an uncial illuminated manuscript Gospel book written in Greek. Dated palaeographically to the 6th-century, the manuscript is written in an uncial hand on purple vellum with silver ink. The codex is preserved at the Albanian National Archives (Nr. 1) in Tirana, Albania. It was formerly possessed by the St. George Church in the town of Berat, Albania, hence the 'Beratinus' appellation. Codex Beratinus contains only the Gospel of Matthew and the Gospel of Mark, with several considerable lacunae (Matthew 1:1-6:3, 7:26-8:7, 18:23-19:3, and Mark 14:62-end). The codex contains 190 extant parchment leaves measuring 31.4 × 26.8 cm, or approximately the same size as those of Codex Alexandrinus, and have two columns per page, but the letters are much larger. It is written with 17 lines per page, 8-12 letters per line, in very regular letters, in silver ink. The title and the first line in Mark are written in gold. The writing is continuous in full lines without stichometry. Quotations from the Old Testament are marked with an inverted comma (<).
The text is divided according to the κεφαλαια (chapters) and according to the Ammonian Sections (smaller than κεφαλαια). On the left margin are inserted the numerals of the κεφαλαια and above the pages are inserted the τιτλοι (titles) of the κεφαλαια. The numerals of the Ammonian sections are given on the left margin, and a references to the Eusebian Canons were added by a later hand in the 8th century. A note in the manuscript states that the loss of the other two Gospels is due to "the Franks of Champagne", i.e. some of the Crusaders, who may have seen it while at Patmos, where it was believed formerly to have been.<PIC> The Greek text of the codex is generally of the Byzantine text-type, but it contains the long Western addition after Matthew 20:28, occurring also in Codex Bezae: Aland gave for it the following textual profile: 131¹, 831/2, 11², 18ˢ.
"But seek to increase from that which is small, and to become less from which is greater. When you enter into a house and are summoned to dine, do not sit down at the prominent places, lest perchance a man more honorable than you come in afterwards, and he who invited you come and say to you, "Go down lower"; and you shall be ashamed. But if you sit down in the inferior place, and one inferior to you come in, then he that invited you will say to you, "Go up higher"; and this will be advantageous for you."
In Matthew 21:9, the following interpolation occurs, sharing affinity only with syrᶜᵘʳ:
και εξελθον εις υπαντησιν αυτω πολλοι χαιροντες και δοξαζοντες τον θεον περι παντων ων ειδον
And many went out to meet him; all who were seeing [him] round about were rejoicing and glorifying God.
In Matthew 27:9, in the phrase επληρωθη το ρηθεν δια Ιερεμιου του προφητου (fulfilled what was spoken by Jeremiah the prophet) the word Ιερεμιου (Jeremiah) is omitted, as in Minuscule 33, a, b, syrˢ, syrᵖ, and copᵇᵒ.
In Matthew 27:16 it has additional reading ος δια φονον και στασιν ην βεβλημενοις εις φυλακην (who for murder and insurrection had been thrown in prison).
In Matthew 27:35, it includes ἵνα πληρώθη τὸ ῤηθὲν διὰ τοῦ προφήτου, Διεμερίσαντο τὰ ἱμάτια μου ἑαυτοῖς καὶ ἐπὶ τὸν ἱματισμὸν μου ἔβαλον κλῆρον along with 0250, 037, 038, 1424, 1582, 124, 348, 788, 1279, 1579, and 517.
According to B. H. Streeter, Codex Beratinus is a tertiary witness of the Caesarean text. It is grouped with N, O, Σ, and Uncial 080 to constitute the Purple Uncials. Aland categorized the first four into Category V, and it is certain that they are more Byzantine than anything else. Aland did not categorize Uncial 080. Formerly it was believed to have been at Patmos. According to Xhevat Lloshi it came from Ballsh. It was held in Berat, Albania from 1356. The text of the codex was published by Pierre Batiffol in 1887. "During World War II, Hitler learned of it and sought it out. Several monks and priests risked their lives to hide the manuscript." Since 1971, it has been preserved at the National Archives of Albania in Tirana.
Oscar von Gebhardt designated it by siglum Φ, which is often used in critical editions. The Codex Purpureus Beratinus was inscribed on the UNESCO’s Memory of the World Register in 2005 in recognition of its historical significance. The two Beratinus codices preserved in Albania are very important for the global community and the development of ancient biblical, liturgical and hagiographical literature and are part of the "seven purple codices", which were written over a period of 13 centuries, i.e. from the sixth to the eighteenth centuries. The other five "purple codices" are in Italy (two), France (one), England (one), and Greece (one).


SN 2008ha was a type Ia supernova which was first observed around November 7, 2008 in the galaxy UGC 12682, which lies in the constellation Pegasus at a distance of about 21.3 megaparsecs (69 Mly) from Earth.
SN 2008ha was unusual in several ways: with an absolute V band magnitude of −14.2 it is one of the faintest supernovae ever observed; its host galaxy type very rarely produces supernovae. Another unusual feature of SN 2008ha was its low expansion velocity of only ~2000 km/s at maximum brightness, which indicates a very small kinetic energy released in the explosion. For comparison, SN 2002cx expanded at a velocity of ~5000 km/s whereas typical
SN Ia expand at around ~10,000 km/s. The low expansion velocity of SN2008ha resulted in relatively small Doppler broadening of spectral emission lines and this led to higher quality data.
The supernova was studied with ultraviolet, optical, and near-infrared photometry as well as optical spectra, using the Magellan telescopes in Chile, the MMT telescope in Arizona, the Gemini and Keck telescopes in Hawaii, and NASA's Swift satellite. Spectroscopically, SN 2008ha was identified as a SN 2002cx-type, a peculiar sub-class of SN Ia. SN 2008ha had a brightness period of only 10 days, which is significantly shorter than that of other SN 2002cx-like objects (~15 days) or normal Ia supernovas (~20 days). From the peak luminosity and the brightness time it was estimated that SN 2008ha generated (3.0 ± 0.9) × 10⁻³ M⊙ of ⁵⁶Ni, had a kinetic energy of 2 × 10⁴⁸ ergs, and ejected 0.15 M⊙ of material.<PIC> SN 2008ha was co-discovered by Caroline Moore, Jack Newton and Tim Puckett, members of the Puckett Observatory World Supernova Search. The 14-year-old Moore received considerable attention for her role in the discovery because at the time, she was the youngest person to have discovered a supernova. Moore is currently majoring in Political Science at Georgetown University. She was born and raised in Warwick, NY. To make the discovery she spent almost 7 months sifting through Puckett Observatory Supernova Search (POSS) images. Incredibly, she made her discovery using a relatively small, low-powered telescope.
In July 2009, she discovered her second supernova named SN2009he.
From a young age, Moore had practiced amateur astronomy with the assistance of her father. Early on she was very familiar with telescopes because of her scientific upbringing. She even converted her tree house into an observatory. Following her discovery, Moore was awarded $384,000 in grants from the University of California-Berkeley.
Moore has since traveled across the US to promote the field of astronomy to children and discuss her discovery at astronomy events. She also used fundraising to construct an observatory in her former elementary school.
Moore's discovery has allowed scientists to better understand the nature of the death of stars. It challenged the assumptions of the then current model for the explosive nature of supernovas. This is because 2008ha's low energy and low luminosity during the death of the star could not be explained with the current scientific model at the time due to it not being able to be distinctly classified as either a type Ia or type II Supernova. Despite being one of the weakest observed supernova on record, it was up to 1000 times brighter than the sun at one point and is approximately 70 million light years away from earth. Some scientists suggested that the supernova may have failed in exploding completely which is why the light emitted from it is so weak compared to other supernovas.
In reference to Moore, one astrophysicist remarked that "the youngest person to ever discover a supernova found one of the most peculiar and interesting supernovae ever." President of the United States Barack Obama and First Lady Michelle Obama met with Moore after her discovery.


Mar Ammo was a 3rd-century Manichean disciple of the prophet Mani. According to Manichaen tradition he spread Manichaeism eastward into Sogdiana during the time period when Mani was living. Mar Ammo is well known as the apostle of the east in Manichean literature nevertheless his exact origins are unknown. His Syriac name (from ʿAmmānūēl) may denote that he was Aramaic in origin. However, a Parthian origin may also be seen and is mentioned by some scholars, especially due to his outstanding role in establishing the Parthian language as the official language of the eastern Manichean Church, later to be replaced by Sogdian in the sixth century. Furthermore, Mar Ammo is widely regarded as the composer of the Manichaean Parthian hymn-cycles (Huwīdagmān and Angad Rōšnan). On his way to eastern Iran, Mar Ammo was accompanied by the Parthian prince Ardavan. According to Manichaean tradition, when he reached the river Oxus on the Sogdian frontier the spirit who guarded it denied Mar Ammo entry across it. Mar Ammo fasted and prayed for two days and he either was confronted by Mani or had a vision of him who told him to read a chapter from his book The Treasury of Life which is generally believed to be a component of the Manichaean canon. When the spirit returned she asked why he was on a journey he responded that he wished to teach fasting and absentation from wine, flesh and woman. The spirit responded that there were similar men in her lands  perhaps referring to Buddhists in Sogdiana. However, when Mar Ammo read from one of Mani's books she realized he was a bringer of the "true religion" and allowed him to pass. The spirit can be identified with the goddess Ardvakhsh who has associations with the river. However fragmentary texts from Turpan tell a slightly different story in which Mani himself encounters the frontier spirit. Because of Mar Ammo, Manichaeism became established in Sogdiana. He was also closely associated with Mani. Mani also spent his last hours of his life with Mar Ammo whom he called "his dearest son". Following the death of Mani in 276 CE, at the command of the Sassanid King Bahram I, Sogdiana became home to a large Manichaean Community. This was dually because of the work of Mar Ammo and the eastward migrations of Manichaeans due to their persecution in Persia. Although Manichaeism was a fairly unified religious phenomenon, three hundred years after the death of Mar Ammo there was a schism between the Manichaean church in Babylonia and the Sogdian Manichaeans. The Sogdian Manichaeans, known as the Denawars (Middle Persian Dēnawar), viewed Mar Ammo as the founder of their sect and called themselves the "Pure Ones". However, another head of the Manichaean community, Shad Ohrmazd, is mentioned as the actual founder of the Denawari School (Dīnāvarīya). The rift between the eastern and western Manichaeans was not caused by any doctrinal matters. The capital of the sect by the 8th century was centered in Kocho, on the northern Silk road. At the time it was at least active from Samarkand to Chang'an. The schism between the eastern and western churches was worked out and ended by the eighth century. Manichaeism, following its introduction into Sogdiana, would be spread in part by Sogdians eastward into the Tarim basin and China. Manichaeism would last at least for another six hundred years, fading away after the fourteenth century.<PIC>


Royal Air Force Faldingworth or more simply RAF Faldingworth is a former Royal Air Force station used during and after the Second World War. It was located close to the village of Faldingworth in Lincolnshire, England.<PIC> By 1936 the RAF Expansion Scheme had overseen a period of rapid increases both in terms of aircraft operated and the development of new stations. The Faldingworth site was one of several earmarked under the expansion programme.
As it developed, it made an increasingly dramatic imposition on the surrounding rural landscape such as to the Lincolnshire Edge, a Jurassic limestone ridge, which forms the distinctive backbone of the county from Whitton on the Humber Estuary in the north, down to Grantham in the south.
It provides a continuous homogenous landscape of high quality agricultural land, with a number of local variations. To the west of the Edge, the gently undulating Trent Vale eventually flows into the moors and levels of Humberhead, draining to the Humber Estuary.
To the east there is a gentle transition into the Central Lincolnshire Vale between the Humber and Lincoln, while south of Lincoln the Edge is bounded by a narrow finger of Fenland, which follows the River Witham into Lincoln. To the south, the Edge merges into the more undulating Kesteven Uplands.
Along the top of the Edge a series of airfields were developed. They lie within an open landscape, consisting of rectilinear fields and few boundaries. Faldingworth entered service life as Toft Grange decoy airfield and later as a satellite airfield of RAF Lindholme. Late in 1943 it became a satellite of RAF Ludford Magna. After the war the base was used for storage of weapons.
In 1957 the site became a nuclear weapons store for the RAF's V bomber force. In times of crisis nuclear weapons from the site would be distributed to the nearby V-bomber airfields such as RAF Scampton, RAF Finningley and RAF Coningsby. With the transfer of the UK nuclear deterrent role to the Royal Navy's  Resolution-class submarines in 1968 the site was run down and finally deactivated in 1972.
In 1959 there was an oxygen production unit operating on the opposite side of the airfield to the nuclear weapons storage site.  Two BA1D air separation units were operated on a 24-hour basis to provide a ready supply of breathable oxygen for the aircrew of the V-bombers.  At that time RAF Faldingworth was a satellite station of RAF Scampton.
Current Ordnance Survey maps show the remains of a typical wartime bomber airfield, with the former storage site overlaying the southwestern part of the airfield, about 1.25 miles (2 km) east of Spridlington.
There is a cluster of 127 RAF-built houses northeast of the airfield area, sold to Roger Byron-Collins' Welbeck Estate Group in 1979 and renamed The Virginia Estate. A group of RAF buildings is used as an industrial estate. The following units were here at some point:
No. 300 Polish Bomber Squadron (1944-1947) - Vickers Wellington X, Avro Lancaster I & III
No. 305 Polish Bomber Squadron (1946-1947) - de Havilland Mosquito VI
No. 1546 (Beam Approach Training) Flight RAF
No. 1667 Heavy Conversion Unit RAF
No. 1 Lancaster Finishing School RAF
No. 92 Maintenance Unit RAF (No. 92 MU)
No. 93 MU
No. 2797 Squadron RAF Regiment A memorial is now in place at the end of the main runway commemorating 300 (Polish) Squadron.


Balaji Sampath (born 17 January 1973) is an Indian educationist, social activist, the founder and secretary of a non-profit Organization, Association for India's Development, India chapter, an India-based NGO that carries out science teaching and primary school programs for children to aid their educational development.
AidIndia trains teachers in government schools with the goal of improving the quality of teaching, especially for science and mathematics by using innovative techniques and devising educational aids . The mission of AidIndia is to empower socially disadvantaged and often forgotten sections of the society through socio-economic development programs, education, providing micro credit, and imparting training in the areas of health, human rights and utilization of resources for income generation.
Balaji is also the founder and CEO of Ahaguru. A pioneer education start-up in online coaching that engages in providing training courses on different subjects online. Balaji has written many science books for primary and higher-level education to explain very complex concepts in a simple and easy to understand language for students.<PIC> Balaji was born in Chennai, India on 17 January 1973 into a family where both of his parents were government workers. Because his parents were often transferred to different locations for their government jobs, as a child Balaji was exposed to a number of schools across India. But one thing remained constant: his problem understanding scientific subjects because of ineffective teaching. Early in life, he devised his own system of analysis and arriving at solutions. Balaji appeared for IIT JEE and obtained All India Rank 4 in 1990, considered one of the most competitive exams in India. He completed his B.Tech. degree in Electrical Engineering from Indian Institute of Technology Madras in 1994, and his doctorate in Electronics and communication Engineering from University of Maryland, College Park. Balaji started his career as a volunteer for AID United States chapter from 1994 while he was doing his doctorate. After completing his PhD degree, he returned to India to work full-time on social issues in 1997 and founded AID India. He worked with the Centre for Ecology and Rural Development and the Peoples Science Movement on Health and Education Programs. Balaji organized Peoples Health assembly campaign in 2000 at a national level and began campaigning for better public education and access to healthcare, especially in the rural areas.
In 2011, Balaji started Ahaguru.com, an online education portal to enhance science and math learning and problem-solving skills of middle and high school students. Yahoo! News said: "This education startup, www.AhaGuru.com, a pioneer in online coaching, provides training courses completely online. From CBSE to NEET and JEE Advanced, it covers physics, chemistry and math courses from class 7 to 12.Their best seller is the full year course, which is modelled like a classroom with an expert teacher explaining the key concepts and showing how to solve different types of questions.". In 2021 his ahaguru platform became a very big hit, he is also known to be a predicter of future, with his ahaguru developing online from 2013 itself IIT Madras Distinguished Alumnus Award 2012.
Times of India Social Impact Award for AID, 2011 from Prime Minister, Dr. Manmohan Singh in 2011.
Ashoka Fellowship for innovative work on Science Education.
Lemelson Inventor Certificate for Science Education.
MIT Indus Technovator's Award 2005 for Village Libraries and Science Education.
Rotary Distinguished Service Award by the Rotary Club of Madras South.
Pratham USA Achievement Award 2006 for improving reading skills in Tamil Nadu.
Association for India's Development JS Fellowship, 1998.
All India Rank 4 in the IIT JEE, 1990.


Pagan's Mind is a power metal band from Skien, Norway. They have released five studio albums, and the current line-up only features original members.<PIC> Founded in 2000 from the band Silverspoon by Nils K. Rue, Thorstein Aaby, and Stian Kristoffersen. Pagan's Mind released their first album, Infinity Divine, that same year. The following album, Celestial Entrance, was released in 2002 and was a relatively big success even outside of Norway. A re-recorded version of Infinity Divine was released in 2004. Their third album, Enigmatic: Calling, was released in 2005 and debuted at number 15 on the Norwegian albums chart.
In February 2008, power metal band Power Quest announced that Pagan's Mind guitarist Jørn Viggo Lofstad will be providing guest instrumentation for the upcoming album Master of Illusion.
In 2008, Pagan's Mind toured with Sonata Arctica on their Unia tour.
In 2009, Pagan's Mind played ProgPower USA.
On 2 March 2011, Pagan's Mind announced Heavenly Ecstasy as the title of their forthcoming album. The band also released a new song called "Intermission" as a premiere for the online radio show "The Metal Madman". The album was released on SPV/Steamhammer on 20 May in Germany, 23 May in other parts of Europe and in June in USA/Canada.
On 11 August 2014 Pagan's Mind launched a crowdfunding campaign to fund their next live release called Full Circle - Live At Center Stage, which ran till 20 September and was successfully funded by 163% through their Indiegogo campaign. On 31 July the release date of Full Circle - Live At Center Stage was announced to be on 16 October 2015 in a Blu-ray+2CD, DVD+2CD and 2LP+CD format through SPV Steamhammer GmbH.
Between 2014 and 2017, the band was inactive due to health issues from the members of the bands. They resumed their activities in late 2017, and started working on a new album. On January 22, they announced that due to a family situation, K. Rue would not be featured on the three shows planned in March, and would be replaced by Ole Aleksander Wagenius from the band Withem; the band stated that K. Rue's situation would not interfere with his involvement in the upcoming album. Nils K. Rue was the vocalist for Canadian power metal Band Eidolon for their final album as well as a single before the band disbanded.
On 28 November 2016 it was announced that Nils K. Rue would play a character named The Prophet in the next Ayreon album The Source.
On 22 February 2018 Northward, a hard rock project by Jørn Viggo Lofstad and singer Floor Jansen, was unveiled. The two created the project in 2007, writing an entire album worth of music in 2008 but being unable to record previously due to their busy schedules; they ultimately reunited in 2017 to finally record their self-titled debut album, which was released in 2018. Their music is influenced by Stargate, especially the theatrical film. In an interview, frontman Nils K. Rue said: "I wouldn't say I like the TV series Stargate, because I never saw an entire episode of that. But I really like the film Stargate. Of course, I took some inspiration from that..." Nils K. Rue – lead vocals (2000–present)
Jørn Viggo Lofstad – guitar, backing vocals (2000–present)
Steinar Krokmo – bass, backing vocals (2000–present)
Ronny Tegner – keyboards (2000–present)
Stian Kristoffersen – drums (2000–present) Thorstein Aaby – guitar  (2000–2003; died 2007) Ole Aleksander Wagenius – vocals (2018)   Infinity Divine (2000, re-recorded in 2004)
Celestial Entrance (2002)
Enigmatic: Calling (2005)
God's Equation (2007)
Heavenly Ecstasy (2011) Live Equation (2009) (DVD)
Full Circle: Live at Center Stage (2015) (Blu-Ray, DVD)  New World Order Live and Supremacy Our Kind Live (ProgPower USA VIII Concert DVD)
God Equation Live 2009 (Promo/Concert Sale DVD) "Through Osiris' Eyes" (Celestial Entrance)
"Aegean Shores" (Celestial Entrance)
"Enigmatic Mission" (Enigmatic: Calling)
"Atomic Firelight" (God's Equation)
"Intermission" (Heavenly Ecstasy)


682 Hagar (prov. designation: A909 MA or 1909 HA) is an Eunomia asteroid from the central regions of the asteroid belt. It was discovered on 17 June 1909, by German astronomer August Kopff at the Heidelberg-Königstuhl State Observatory. The presumed S-type asteroid has a short rotation period of 4.9 hours and measures approximately 19 kilometers (12 miles) in diameter. Possibly inspired by the asteroid's provisional designation "1909 HA", it was named for the biblical woman Hagar. When applying the hierarchical clustering method to its proper orbital elements, Hagar is a core member of the Eunomia family (502), a prominent family of stony S-type asteroids and the largest one in the intermediate main belt with more than 5,000 known members. It orbits the Sun in the central main-belt at a distance of 2.2–3.1 AU once every 4 years and 4 months (1,579 days; semi-major axis of 2.65 AU). Its orbit has an eccentricity of 0.17 and an inclination of 12° with respect to the ecliptic. The body's observation arc begins at Vienna Observatory on 28 June 1909, just eleven nights after prior to its official discovery observation by August Kopff at Heidelberg. This minor planet was named after the biblical woman Hagar from the Book of Genesis. She was an Ancient Egyptian servant of Sarah and the mother of Abraham's firstborn, Ishmael. The asteroid's name may have been inspired by the two letters of its provisional designation, "1909 HA". It is also speculated that the name comes from a list created in 1913 by the Astronomisches Rechen-Institut (ARI) containing suggestions of female names from history and mythology for the naming of minor planets (AN 196, 137). At the time, the naming process was not well developed and the ARI feared inconsistencies and potential confusion. The list was sent to several German astronomers, including Kopff, with the invitation to name all of their made discoveries up to number 700. Based on the overall spectral type of the Eunomia family, Hagar is possibly a common, stony S-type asteroid. However, observations by Pilcher (see below) found a V–R color index of 0.400±0.040, which rather suggest a low albedo of a carbonaceous C-type asteroid. In August 2013, a rotational lightcurve of Hagar was obtained from nine nights of photometric observations by Frederick Pilcher at the Organ Mesa Observatory (G50) in Arizona. Analysis gave a well-defined, classically shaped bimodal lightcurve with a rotation period of (4.8503±0.0001) hours and a high brightness variation of 0.52±0.03 magnitude (U=3). At the same time, Alexander Kurtenkov at Sofia University, and a team of Bulgarian students obtained a concurring period of 4.854±0.011 hours with an amplitude of 0.49±0.03 magnitude (U=3). In July 2017, French and Swiss astronomers René Roy and Raoul Behrend confirmed the period measuring a nearly identical rotation of (4.8516±0.0003) hours and an amplitude of 0.51±0.02 magnitude (U=3).<PIC> Two lightcurves, published in 2016, using modeled photometric data from the Lowell Photometric Database (LPD) and other sources, gave a concurring sidereal period of (4.850417±0.000001) and (4.85042±0.00005) hours, respectively. Each modeled lightcurve also determined two spin axes of (93.0°, −71.0°) and (277.0°, −35.0°), as well as (56.0°, −78.0°) and (255.0°, −57.0°) in ecliptic coordinates (λ, β), respectively. American photometrist Frederick Pilcher also determined a diameter of 19±4 kilometers based on a visual absolute magnitude of 12.27±0.07, and an albedo of 0.057 derived from its measured V–R color index (see above). The Collaborative Asteroid Lightcurve Link adopts Pilcher's albedo of 0.057 and derives a diameter of 19.57 kilometers.


Donna Leon (/ˈliːɒn/; born September 28, 1942, in Montclair, New Jersey) is the American author of a series of crime novels set in Venice, Italy, featuring the fictional hero Commissario Guido Brunetti. In 2003, she received the Corine Literature Prize.
Leon lived in Venice for over 30 years and now resides in the small village of Val Müstair in the mountains of Grisons in Switzerland. She also has a home in Zurich. In 2020 she became a Swiss citizen. She was a lecturer in English literature for the University of Maryland University College – Europe (UMUC-Europe) in Italy and taught English from 1981 to 1990 at an American military base in Italy. She has stopped teaching and concentrated on writing and other cultural activities in the field of music (especially baroque music).
Her Commissario Brunetti novels all take place in or around Venice. They are written in English and have been translated into many foreign languages, but – at Leon's request – not into Italian. The ninth Brunetti novel, Friends in High Places, won the Crime Writers' Association Silver Dagger in 2000. German television has produced 26 Commissario Brunetti episodes for broadcast.<PIC> Donna Leon was born to Catholic parents, who had strong leanings to the Democratic party. Her paternal grandparents were Spanish and her maternal grandparents were Irish and German. She grew up in Bloomfield, New Jersey. Her parents put a strong focus on education for their daughter.
The Guardian reports: "Leon was teaching in Iran while attempting to complete a PhD about Jane Austen when the revolution of 1978-79 interrupted her studies and her life. When her trunks were returned to her months later, following her hasty evacuation (part of it at gunpoint, on a bus), her papers were gone." She returned to the US and worked in New York City writing advertising copy. When she visited Italy for the first time, she fell in love with the country.
In 2015, she left Venice as her full-time home and began to split her time between the homes she owns in Switzerland, one in Zurich and another in the mountains. She returns to Venice approximately one week each month. Leon wrote a crime novel after seeing a scene she thought belonged in such a novel. She wrote it in 8 months and stuck it in a drawer until a friend persuaded her to submit to a writing contest, which she won. The police commissioner Guido Brunetti confronts crime in and around his home town of Venice. Each case is an opportunity for the author to reveal another aspect of the seamy underside of society and another facet of Venetian life. Brunetti reports to the vain and self-serving buffoon, Vice-Questore Patta, while Sergente (later Ispettore and with the inspector per tu) Vianello and the all-knowing and well-connected Signorina Elettra, Patta's secretary, assists Brunetti on the ground and through research.
These novels are successful in Germany and translated into many languages, except Italian. Leon's Commissario Brunetti novels have spawned multiple spin-off enterprises, including:
A travel guidebook: Sepeda, Dr. Toni (author) & Leon, Donna (Introduction) (April 2009). Brunetti's Venice: Walks with the City's Best-Loved Detective (Paperback ed.). New York: Grove Press. ISBN 978-0802144379. OCLC 259266590.
Walking Tours of Guido Brunetti's Venice with accompanying maps: Dr. Toni Sepeda,"the only lecturer authorized by Donna Leon to conduct events in Brunetti's Venicea", leads individual and group tours of the locations and routes noted in Leon's Commissario Guido Brunetti novels.


Spanish is the most-widely spoken language in Ecuador, though great variations are present depending on several factors, the most important one being the geographical region where it is spoken. The three main regional variants are:
Equatorial Pacific Spanish or Equatorial Coastal Spanish
Andean Spanish
Amazonic Spanish
Additionally to the characteristics described below, Ecuadorian Spanish shares many characteristics that are widespread in Spanish in the Americas.
Other sociolinguistic factors that influence in the way of speaking are the ethnic or social class of the speaker, and whether the speaker lives in an urban or rural area. Since the Coast and the Highlands are the most populous areas, these are the country's most widely used dialects, despite being quite different from each other. For instance, there are many idioms specific to each region or province, and others that are used and understood nationwide.<PIC> This Spanish variant is classified within the Equatorial Spanish dialect, which extends from the south Pacific coastal Colombia to the northern coast of Peru, crossing the Ecuadorian seacoast. The influential linguistic center of this dialectal region is the port city of Guayaquil.
The most remarkable feature of this variant, is the aspiration of the letter "s" at the end of words or when preceded by another consonant, often being pronounced as a smooth English "h". Likewise, letter "j" is not pronounced as strongly as in other variants [x] but rather smoothly and aspirated [h]. These features are shared with many coastal Latin American Spanish dialects along with Canary Islands.
Thus, this dialect set the phonemical axis of accentual-tonal transition throughout the American varieties of Spanish, which extends geographically from the northern semi-low intonation of Central American and the Caribbean dialects (since only the European variants of Spanish are  particularly low-pitched) to the sharp high intonation characteristic of the lands located south, typical of Peru, Chile and Argentina.
Therefore, the variant of Spanish spoken in the Ecuadorian coast and its neighboring western Andean plains, shares many features of both Caribbean dialects of northern Colombia and Venezuela, as well as some southern features of the Peruvian seaboard, making identification of this dialect difficult to the ears of an outsider.
In addition, this variant has incorporated into its lexicon a number of words shared with other dialects of Ecuador which are understood only within the country. These words come mostly from the Andean Spanish dialects of Ecuador, with strong influences from Quichua (Northern Quechua), although Quechua had no historical presence in the Ecuadorian coast. This is the case of the Quechua-origin word "ñaño" (brother) which is widespread throughout the country.
Guayaquil accent: One of the most outstanding accents of the region is the one from the city of Guayaquil, the largest city in the country. Being an important large city that has grown demographically through immigration, both national and international, many dialectal variations may be found mainly associated with social class, ethnicity and schooling level. In general, the "s" sound is dropped or aspirated when it is at the end of the syllables while women tend to overpronounce the letter "s"  by saying a deaf elongated sound, especially in the beginning of the syllables. Among the higher-schooled classes, the tendency is to correct the accent towards a more standard Spanish, as well as to incorporate foreign words -especially from English- into its lexicon. Amongst the lower-schooled people, other variations may be found. There is a group of people who tend to share their intonation with the coastal farmers (known as "montubio"). Another group of people tend to have a stronger intonation, which is generally known as "street language" featured by pronouncing letter "s" as an English "sh" [ʃ], in addition to a series of words in their lexicon that are not always understood by other speakers in the region.
Montubio accent:  This the dialect spoken by the local peasants of the rural areas of the Guayas, Los Rios and Manabi provinces, known as montubio. They tend to emphasize the first syllable of most words  and to pronounce both the "s" and the "z" like the sound [θ] (like th in think). This phonological type is called ceceo which is also common in some Andalusian Spanish dialects; while some montubios do not pronounce the "s" at all at the end of the words.
Esmeraldas accent: The province of Esmeraldas, on the other hand, presents a very different variant noticeable to the rest of the region, with a strong African component, which closely resembles the accent spoken in the bordering coastal region of Colombia (known there as "Chocoano" dialect). Since this region has a majority of people of African origin, this dialect tends to be a little stronger, featuring both lexical and intonation differences.
Manabí accent: The accent spoken in the province of Manabí is somewhat similar to the dialect spoken in Guayaquil, though slight variations in intonation and lexicon make it distinct and easily identifiable as a separate variety within the Ecuadorian coastal dialect.
Other regions in the Coast tend to speak a very similar dialect to the one spoken in the city of Guayaquil, due to its influence, specially in urban areas. Slight local variations may be found, however. In the highlands of Ecuador, a variant of Spanish is spoken, often confused by foreigners with Chilango Spanish—the dialect spoken in Mexico City—due to its similarities. However, it can be subdivided in four dialects:
Pastuso Spanish (spoken in the Carchi Province, at the border with Colombia and similar to the one spoken at the other side of the border, in the Colombian department of Nariño)
 Chota Valley dialect, spoken only amongst the people of African descent that live in this valley between the provinces of Imbabura and Carchi. It is a mix of the Highland Central dialect with African influences, and different from the accent spoken in the coastal province of Esmeraldas. The Chota dialect is phonetically a highlands variety, with only slightly higher rates of s-reduction than surrounding varieties. Final /s/ is often lost in the Chota variety when it's not morphologically significant, as in the first person plural ending -mos.  This treatment of /s/ is consistent with creolized or African-influenced varieties of Spanish and Portuguese. The current Chota dialect has absorbed some popular Andean syntactic formations, including those typical of Spanish-Quechua bilinguals. The Chota dialect, especially among its older and least-educated speakers, manifests an occasional lack of grammatical agreement, changes to prepositional usage, and constructions typical of creolized Spanish. Normally redundant subject pronouns which would be dropped in other varieties are usually retained in Chotas, as in Esmeraldas and several other areas such as the Caribbean. The current dialect in Chotas offers a window into an earlier stage, when a dialect with more features of Bozal Spanish was widely spoken.
Central Andean, the dialect spoken in Quito and most of the Highlands.
Morlaco Spanish, the dialect spoken in the city of Cuenca and the surrounding areas (provinces of Azuay and Cañar). Its main feature is the "singing" accent they have, many syllables being stressed where they don't correspond. As in the native languages of the region, the phoneme /r/ tends to be realized as a fricative trill [r̝], akin to the letter ⟨ř⟩ in Czech. Plus, this zone has a lot of own idiomatic expressions not used elsewhere in the country.
Southern Highlander, the one spoken in the province of Loja.  This variant is maybe the most neutral from the Highlands region, but with a special feature, known in Spanish as lleísmo (the ancient Castilian way of pronouncing ⟨ll⟩ [ʎ] as opposed to the yeísmo that is widespread in the rest of the Spanish speaking world where the sounds for ll and y are pronounced as y [ʝ]). For instance, the word "pollo" (chicken) would be pronounced akin to "polio".
The Spanish spoken in the Ecuadorian Andes tends to have many idioms borrowed from Quechua, the native language spoken by the indigenous from this region. Words such as ñaño (which is used by many to refer to brother or "bro", while ñaña would mean sister) or choclo (corn) are widely used by people of any ethnicity or social class in this area.
Voseo (the substitution of the second-person pronoun tú for vos) is also very common in this region of the country, used only for informal conversations between friends or relatives. Word-final /s/ is often voiced to [z] before a vowel, in addition to voicing before voiced consonants (found also in other dialects). The Amazonian region has a variant similar to the Central Andean dialect, though there are little differences. For instance, the quijo population from the northern areas, use the 2nd pronoun tú but conjugate the following verb with the 3rd person,  usted. At the islands, a dialect very similar to the one from Guayaquil is spoken, with no major variations, since it is a very low-populated region if compared to the rest of the country.
Annex: Spanish Language
Annex: South American Spanish


Tudor Zbârnea (born 29 December 1955, Nisporeni region, Moldavian SSR) is a Moldavian painter.
Zbârnea has contributed to the assertion, in Chișinău, of an original artistic thinking stream that was against "artistic vigilance" mentality, which was too hostile to the spectacular innovations in plastic art. Currently, he is the director of the National Museum of Fine Arts of Moldova.  He participated as chairman or member of the juries in various national and international competitions in the field of fine arts. He traveled on studies and documentaries in Germany, Italy, Turkey, Georgia, Russia, France, the Netherlands, Belgium, Switzerland, Poland, Austria.
He is the author and curator of the visual art projects such as:
"Neighbors from the East", Utrecht,  The Netherlands, 2006;
"Moldova, Contemporary Art" – Brussels, Belgium, 2006;
Curator of the International Painting Biennial, Chișinău, 2009, 2011, 2013.<PIC> He is a graduate of the Republican College of Fine Arts "Ilya Repin" from Chișinău and from the George Enescu National University of Arts in Iași, the painting division of the Faculty of Fine Arts, in Professor Corneliu Ionescu’s class. The member of the Union of Artists of Moldova. Member of the Romanian Artists' Union. Member of IAA (UNESCO). The member founder of the "Group of ten". In 1984, he debuted in a republican exhibition of contemporary art organized in Chișinău. He has participated in over 300 exhibitions organized in the country and abroad. To date he has had over 30 personal exhibitions in Belgium, Belarus, France, Italy, Moldova, Romania, Ukraine, Russia, and numerous relevant collective exhibitions in Belgium, Cyprus, Finland, France, Georgia, Germany, the Netherlands, Italy, Lithuania, Russia, Turkey and Poland. He is a winner of numerous prizes, medals, trophies and other mentions at different international and national art competitions and salons, among them:
The Prize of the Union of Artists of Romania, 2015;
The Prize of the Bacău City Hall, awarded for the "Salons of Moldova", 2015;
National Award, granted by the Government of the Republic of Moldova, for outstanding merits in the arts development arts awarded in 2014;
Ministry of Culture Award, National Art Competition, Chișinău, 2010;
Grand Gold Medal, M. C. A. at the Cannes International Prestige Grand Prix, 2009, 2010;
Honorary Master of Arts, 2009; Vicolo Poldo Trophy, 35th Edition, Como, Italy, 2009;
The prize of the Union of Artists of Moldova, 2001, 2008;
The Prize of the Union of Artists of Romania, 2007;
Diploma of the Ministry of Culture, National Competition in the field of Fine Arts, Chișinău, 2009, 2008, 2005;
Silver medal "Eureca" World Show (Brussels), 1998;
Honorary Diploma of the Flemish Artists (Brussels), 1998;
Honorary Diploma of the European Academy of Art, Brussels, 1997. The artist's works are exhibited in several museums:
The National Museum of Art of Moldova;
National Museum of Contemporary Art, Bucharest, Romania;
State Museum of Art, Ankara, Turkey;
National Museum of Art, Beijing, China;
The Art Museum, Baia Mare, Romania;
The Art Museum, Bacău, Romania;
Museum of Art, Prahova County, Romania;
Cluj-Napoca Art Museum, Romania;
Brukenthal National Museum, Sibiu, Romania;
Crișurii Country Museum, Oradea, Romania;
Museum of Comparative Art, Sângeorz-Băi, Romania;
Belarus National Museum of Art, Minsk;
National Museum of Art, Bishkek, Kyrgyzstan;
Museum of History and Art, Bacău, Romania;
A.Mateevici Museum, Căinari, Moldova;
The Contemporary Art Collection of the Romanian Ministry of Culture;
The collection of the Parliament of the Republic of Moldova;
The collection of the Union of Artists of Moldova;
The collection of the Romanian Embassy in Moldova;
AgroindBank Moldova Collection;
Collection of the STURZA Family Foundation;
The Cannes Public Collection;
Capo d'Orlando Public Collection, Italy;
Private collections in Australia, Austria, Belgium, Cyprus, Finland, France, Italy, Israel, Germany, Lithuania, Moldova, Netherlands, Russia, United States, Turkey, Venezuela, and other countries. Dan Grigorescu, Bucharest, 1995.
***
"Zbârnea deliberately cultivates the equivocation and the gloom, the neutral observation and its own projection, not so much as to create states of insecurity in the exercise of reading, but to understand what are the mechanisms by which matter is organized and the spiritual task over-determines the world of substance. He starts from the premise of the genuine creator who, in a moment of clairvoyance, has the intuition of a harmony beyond the senses that must be transferred from the virtuality into the act or, in other words, from the latent existence in the manifest of the reality. After this long negotiation with the delusions of the form, with the chromatic matter and with its consubstantial light, a new age of the image seems to set itself. The mist of ambiguity dissipates, the color leaves the practice of its own confession, the image diverges from the context and the eye begins to discern and recognize objects, faces, events and episodes isolated from a narrative covered by oblivion. What was originally a story about the birth of form (the world) in a generic version and under a globalizing view, now becomes an eposome of the form (world) ready made. Tudor Zbârnea follows this odyssey of creation both from the perspective of the witness fascinated by the miracle and overwhelmed by his greatness, as well as from the creator himself whose gesture mixes the tenderness and the harshness, the paternal love and the lucidity of the master."
Pavel Șușară, Bucharest, 1998.


Avi Benedi (Hebrew: אבי בנדי, born April 2, 1980) is an Israeli singer and songwriter. He has released three albums: Avi Benedi & Diamond Band in 2001 (in Austria), We Met Late (Встретились поздно) in 2012 (in Russia). and Loco in 2017.<PIC> Avi Benedi was born in Israel on 2 April 1980. When he was four years old, his family moved to Vienna, Austria. His parents have Russian roots. His father, Eduard Babadost, is a famous tenor in Austria, and his grandfather is a folk artist in Tajikistan. Benedi has two brothers: one is a jewelry and fashion designer, and the other is the music video director Lior Babadost.
Benedi speaks and sings in Hebrew, English, German, Russian, Bulgarian, Persian, Bukhori, Slovakian and Romanian.  Benedi graduated from the College of Photography and Film Arts in Vienna. From 1999 until 2008, he worked as operator-in-charge at the Austrian TV channel ATV.
He began writing his own music and working professionally with his band, which was called Diamond Band. Together, they became very popular and, in the period 2003–2006, performed many concerts across the world. In Israel, Avi Benedi and the Diamond Band had their breakthrough hit with the song Live Like In A Movie, which was at the top of the music charts for four weeks.
In 2006, Benedi launched his solo career in Russia, where he moved to live for several years working together with Philipp Kirkorov for several projects. Since the beginning of 2014, Benedi has been working with the Bulgarian record label Payner. As a singer and composer, he became well-known in Bulgaria for his two collaborations with the singer Emilia: "Кой ще му каже" ("Boi Tegali Li") and "Balkania".
After the success of his two duets with Emilia, Benedi gained popularity in Bulgaria and has been a special guest at concerts broadcast by TV channel Planeta and of many TV shows. His duets with Emilia also led to his involvement in the Planeta Summer 2014 national tour. In February 2015, Who Will Tell Him won the Best Duet of 2014 prize at Planeta’s Annual Music Awards.
On 29 October 2014, Benedi launched his first solo project: "Боже, пази" ("God Help Them"). It was dedicated to the human tragedy resulting from the catastrophic floods in Bulgaria in 2014.
In 2015 he released two more solo songs "За теб, Любов" ("Forou, Love"), written by him and the poet Doni Vasileva, and "Хубав е Живота" ("Life is Beautiful") with Anelia performing the backing vocals.  He announced his new song "Истинска Жена" ("True Woman") together with Maria and Gumzata.  Benedi wrote the Hebrew part of the song and the Bulgarian part was written by Marieta Angelova. The video was released on 15 February 2016.
In May 2016, Benedi released a new song featuring the young Armenian star Alex, "Ekel em Yerevan" ("Ekel in Yerevan").
In June 2016 Benedi wrote the music for and arranged three songs. For Serbia, Andreana Cekic presented "300 svatova", and her colleague Jelena Paunovic presented the song "Zeni Me". For Israel, rapper Subliminal presented "Tzeva Lahaim", which became a hit in just a few days.
Benedi began 2017 by releasing a new single, "Войната в мен" ("The war within me") on 4 January, written by Anastasiya Mavrodieva, with the video directed by his brother, Lior Babadost.
On 8 March 2017 Benedi promoted his new single "La Vida Amiga" with the video directed by Ivaylo Petkov, and announced that a Spanish album was in production. The song itself became a hit in Germany, trending on YouTube Germany, MTV Germany and Switzerland and Viva Germany. On 9 June 2017 he realised his new single "Oye Señorita" written by Benedi and Sevdalina Dyakova with video directed by Lior Babadost; a week later the song was released for the Bulgarian public. His Spanish album was released in late 2017 and the song "La Vida Amiga" is reported to have attracted the attention of Universal Music.    2013 Аnnual „Planeta“ awards – perf. „Кой ще му каже/Boi tegali li“
„Planeta“ Summer Tour 2014 – perf. „Балкания“ и „Кой ще му каже/Boi tegali li“
13 years television „Planeta“ – perf. „Боже, пази“
Television „Planeta“ Awards 2014 – perf. „Кой ще му каже/Boi tegali li“
Television „Planeta“ Awards 2015 – perf. „Истинска жена/Zug yonim“ Christmas Concert „Една нощ в Приказките“ 2014 – perf. „Боже, пази“


John Brown (born April 3, 1990), nicknamed "Smokey" or "Smoke," is an American football wide receiver who is a free agent. He played college football at Pittsburg State and was drafted by the Arizona Cardinals in the third round of the 2014 NFL Draft. He has also played for the Baltimore Ravens, the Buffalo Bills, and the Jacksonville Jaguars. A native of Homestead, Florida, Brown attended Homestead High School, where he played high school football. He was named an All-Dade County selection as a senior in 2007. In 2008, Brown enrolled at Mars Hill College in Mars Hill, North Carolina. Brown was named the SAC Freshman of the Year, after catching 27 passes for 619 yards and seven touchdowns while leading the team with 1,472 all-purpose yards. Due to academic troubles, he sat out the 2009 season before transferring to Coffeyville Community College in 2010, but he was redshirted.
Unable to play at Coffeyville, Brown considered a transfer to MidAmerica Nazarene University, where his half-brother James Walker had played. Before Brown and Walker could play together, however, Walker was shot multiple times in July 2010 and died in April 2011 from his injuries. Walker's ailing condition and eventual demise motivated Brown to keep playing football despite his past hardships, and he eventually earned a scholarship to play for Pittsburg State University.
In 2011, he was a second-team AP Little All-American as all-purpose player while leading Pittsburg State to the NCAA Division II National Championship.  He was named first-team All-MIAA as kick returner and second-team All-MIAA as a wide receiver after he led his team with 61 receptions for 1,216 yards and 12 touchdowns. In 2012, he was named a first-team AP Little All-American as an all-purpose player, and first-team All-MIAA as kick returner and wide receiver. He was named the MIAA and the NCAA Division II National Special Teams Player of the Year. Brown started 10 games and led team with 63 receptions for 973 yards and eight touchdowns. In 2013, he was named 2013 MIAA Special Teams Player of the Year as well as the NCAA Division II National Special Teams Player of the Year. He was also named a second-team AP Little All-American as all-purpose player and first-team All-MIAA player as kick returner and wide receiver. He caught 61 passes for 1,198 yards and 14 touchdowns.
He finished as Pitt State’s all-time leader in receptions (185), receiving yards (3,380) and receiving touchdowns (34). His 3,380 receiving yards ranks fifth in MIAA history. Between receiving, rushing and return yards, Brown finished his career with 7,716 all-purpose yards, 6,244 at Pitt State.   Brown was drafted by the Arizona Cardinals in the third round (91st overall) of the 2014 NFL Draft. Brown was the first Pittsburg State Gorilla drafted since Ronald Moore in 1993.
In his debut for the Arizona Cardinals, Brown caught his first professional touchdown on a 13-yard pass from Carson Palmer against the San Diego Chargers in Week 1 of the 2014 season. He followed that performance with his first multi-touchdown game two weeks later against the San Francisco 49ers. On October 26, 2014, he caught a 75-yard game-winning touchdown pass to beat the Philadelphia Eagles. In Week 10 of the 2014 NFL season, John Brown became the first rookie in NFL history to have four-game-winning touchdowns in a season. Brown finished the season with 48 receptions on 103 targets for 696 yards and five touchdowns. An injury to the Cardinal's QB, Carson Palmer, caused a sharp decline in the team's offense. On January 3, 2015, in the NFC wild card game against the Carolina Panthers, on the game's final offensive play, Brown was the final recipient of a multiple lateral play which lost 20 yards. The loss caused the Cardinals to finish the game with just 78 total offensive yards, the lowest total in NFL playoff history which broke a 56-year-old league record.<PIC> Brown and the Cardinals enjoyed a terrific season, finishing the regular season at 13–3. Brown concluded the regular season with 65 receptions on 101 targets for 1,003 yards and seven touchdowns. The Cardinals ultimately lost in the NFC Championship game to the Carolina Panthers. Plagued with hamstring issues throughout the season, Brown posted 39 receptions on 72 targets for 517 yards and two touchdowns in 2016. Brown's 2017 season was also plagued with injuries, dealing with quadriceps, back, and toe injuries. He played in 10 games with five starts, recording 21 catches for 299 yards and three touchdowns. On March 13, 2018, Brown signed a one-year, $5 million contract with the Baltimore Ravens.
After scoring his first Ravens touchdown in the season-opener against the Buffalo Bills, he would go on to record 92 yards and his second touchdown (a 21-yard reception) against the Cincinnati Bengals the next game. In Week 4, against the Pittsburgh Steelers, he recorded three receptions for 116 yards and a touchdown in the victory. He finished the season with 42 receptions for a team-leading 715 yards and five touchdowns.  On March 13, 2019, Brown signed a three-year, $27 million contract with the Buffalo Bills.
During the season opener against the New York Jets on September 8, 2019, Brown finished with seven receptions for 123 yards, including the go-ahead 38-yard touchdown reception in a 17–16 win after trailing 16–0. In a Week 7 matchup against the Miami Dolphins, Brown caught a go-ahead touchdown from Josh Allen in the fourth quarter, giving Buffalo a 17–14 lead. The Bills would go on to win 31–21 as Brown caught five passes for 83 yards and the touchdown. During the rematch with the Dolphins in Week 11, Brown finished with 137 receiving yards and two touchdowns as the Bills won 37–20.  During the Thanksgiving Series against the Dallas Cowboys in Week 13, Brown completed one pass for a 28 yard touchdown to rookie running back Devin Singletary. Brown also finished with 26 receiving yards himself as the Bills won 26–15. During a 17–10 Week 15 win over the Pittsburgh Steelers, Brown helped the Bills to victory with seven catches for 99 yards, as the Bills clinched a playoff berth for the second time in three seasons. In Week 16 against the New England Patriots, Brown caught one pass for a 53-yard touchdown during the 24–17 loss.  Brown's touchdown reception was the first one allowed by All-Pro cornerback Stephon Gilmore all season. Overall, he finished the 2019 season with 72 receptions for 1,060 receiving yards and six receiving touchdowns.
In the AFC Wild Card game against the Houston Texans, Brown caught four passes for 50 yards and threw a 16-yard touchdown pass to Josh Allen during the 22–19 overtime loss. In a season opening 27–17 victory over the New York Jets, Brown was targeted ten times, catching six passes for 70 yards and a touchdown. In his third game of the year, Brown suffered an injury to his calf. In Week 10, Brown suffered a high ankle sprain and was placed on injured reserve on November 28, 2020. He was activated from injured reserve and subsequently placed on the reserve/COVID-19 list by the team on December 28, 2020. He was activated from the COVID list four days later. He played in Buffalo's season finale against the Dolphins, catching four passes for 72 yards a one touchdown in Buffalo's 56–26 win. Overall, Brown finished the 2020 season with 33 receptions for 458 receiving yards and three receiving touchdowns.
In the Divisional Round of the playoffs, Brown received eight receptions for a total of 62 yards in the 17–3 victory over the Baltimore Ravens.
On March 10, 2021, Brown was released by the Bills. On March 19, 2021, Brown signed a one-year contract with the Las Vegas Raiders. He was released on August 31, 2021. On October 12, 2021, the Denver Broncos signed Brown to their practice squad. He was released on October 26, 2021. On November 8, 2021, the Jacksonville Jaguars signed Brown to their practice squad. He was released on November 29, 2021. On January 13, 2022, the Tampa Bay Buccaneers signed Brown to their practice squad. On January 22, 2022, he was elevated to the active roster. His contract expired when the teams season ended on January 23, 2022.  All of Brown's family and friends refer to him by his nickname, Smokey. The name was bestowed upon him at birth by the boyfriend of his grandmother. “She nicknamed me Smokey because when I first came out, I was blacker than what I am now,” Brown said, referring to his skin color. “Most people are like, ‘Why they call you Smokey? Because you are fast?’ But no.”
Brown was diagnosed with sickle cell trait in 2016 after suffering from soreness in his hamstrings. He insisted a cyst on his spine that he had treated during the 2016 season was the root cause of his leg issues, and that the sickle cell trait will not affect his football career.