Selena Gomez

 

 

Selena Marie Gomez (born July 22, 1992) is an American actress and singer. Born and raised in Grand Prairie, Texas, she was first featured on the children's series Barney & Friends in the early 2000s. In 2007, Gomez came to prominence after being cast in the Disney Channel television series Wizards of Waverly Place. She portrayed the starring character Alex Russo until its conclusion in 2012. She formed her band Selena Gomez & the Scene after signing a recording contract with Hollywood Records in 2008; they released the studio albums Kiss & Tell (2009), A Year Without Rain (2010), and When the Sun Goes Down (2011) before beginning a hiatus in 2012.
Gomez entered the film industry with star billings in feature films including Ramona and Beezus (2010), Monte Carlo (2011), and Hotel Transylvania (2012). She embraced an increasingly mature public image with her star billing in the controversial film Spring Breakers (2013) and her debut solo studio album Stars Dance (2013). The latter project debuted at number one on the U.S. Billboard 200 and spawned the Billboard Hot 100 top-ten single "Come & Get It". Gomez was released from her recording contract with Hollywood Records following the completion of her greatest hits album For You (2014). She subsequently signed with Interscope Records to continue work on her second studio album.
Beyond entertainment, Gomez has ventured into other endeavors. She has worked with numerous organizations for charitable causes, and has most notably worked with UNICEF for several years. She formed her own production company, July Moon Productions, in 2008. In Fall of 2010, Gomez launched her clothing line "Dream Out Loud" through Kmart; the brand features all material that was made from eco-friendly or recycled material. In 2011, she released a self-titled perfume.

 

Rachel Weisz

 

Rachel Hannah Craig  professionally known as Rachel Weisz (born 7 March 1970), is an Anglo-American film and theatre actress as well as a former fashion model.
Weisz began her acting career at Trinity Hall, Cambridge in the early 1990s, then started working in television, appearing in the detective drama Inspector Morse, the British mini-series Scarlet and Black and the television film Advocates II. She made her film debut in the science fiction film Death Machine (1994). Her breakthrough role came in the action film Chain Reaction  (1996), opposite Keanu Reeves and Morgan Freeman.
Next, she appeared as Evelyn Carnahan-O'Connell in the adventure films The Mummy (1999) and The Mummy Returns (2001). Other notable films featuring Weisz are the war film Enemy at the Gates (2001), opposite Jude Law; the comedy-drama About a Boy (2002), opposite Hugh Grant; the supernatural action-thriller Constantine (2005), pairing her once again with Keanu Reeves; and in the Darren Aronofsky-directed romantic drama The Fountain, opposite Hugh Jackman. For her supporting role in the drama thriller The Constant Gardener (2005), opposite Ralph Fiennes, she received an Academy Award, a Golden Globe and a Screen Actors' Guild award. In 2006, Weisz received the BAFTA Britannia Award for British Artist of the Year. She played the Wicked Witch of the East, Evanora, in the fantasy adventure Oz the Great and Powerful (2013).

Early life

Weisz was born in Westminster, London, and grew up in Hampstead Garden Suburb. Her father, George Weisz, was an inventor from Hungary. Her mother, Edith Ruth (née Teich), is a teacher-turned-psychotherapist from Vienna, Austria. Her parents fled to the United Kingdom before the outbreak of the Second World War, to escape the Nazis. Her father is Jewish; her maternal grandfather, Alexander Teich, was also Jewish, and had been a secretary of the World Union of Jewish Students.Her mother's ancestry is Austrian Jewish, "Catholic Viennese" and Italian. Weisz's mother was brought up as a Roman Catholic, and, according to Vogue, later converted to Judaism. Weisz has a younger sister, Minnie, who is a photographer and curator.
Weisz's parents valued the arts and encouraged her and her sister to form opinions of their own by introducing them to family debates. Her parents later divorced. Weisz left North London Collegiate School and attended Benenden School for one year completing A-levels at St Paul's Girls School. Weisz claimed that she was a bad pupil until an English Literature teacher inspired her at the age of 16.
Known for being an "English rose" due to her appearance, Weisz started modelling when she was 14. In 1984, she gained public attention when she turned down an offer to star in King David with Richard Gere.
After leaving school, she entered Trinity Hall, Cambridge, where she graduated with a second-class honours, upper division  Bachelor of Arts degree in English. During her university years, where she was a contemporary of Sacha Baron Cohen, Alexander Armstrong, Sue Perkins, Mel Giedroyc, Richard Osman and Ben Miller (whom she briefly dated), she appeared in various student productions, co-founding a student drama group called Cambridge Talking Tongues. It won a Guardian Student Drama Award at the 1991 Edinburgh Fringe Festival for an improvised piece called Slight Possession, directed by David Farr. The group existed until 1993

The Rock (Dwayne Johnson)

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Dwayne Douglas Johnson (born May 2, 1972), also known by his ring name The Rock, is an American and Canadian actor, producer and professional wrestler.

Johnson was a college football player for the University of Miami, winning a national championship on the 1991 Miami Hurricanes football team. He later played for the Calgary Stampeders in the Canadian Football League, and was cut two months into the 1995 season. This led him to become a professional wrestler like his grandfather, Peter Maivia, and his father, Rocky Johnson (from whom he also inherited his Canadian citizenship Originally billed as "Rocky Maivia", he gained mainstream fame in the World Wrestling Federation (WWF/E) from 1996 to 2004 as a major figure in the company's Attitude Era, and was the first third-generation wrestler in the company's history. He returned to wrestling part-time for WWE from 2011 to 2013 and continues to make sporadic non-wrestling appearances for the company.

Johnson is widely considered one of the all-time greatest professional wrestlers.Headlining numerous pay-per-views over his career and one of the top box office draws of all time, he headlined five WrestleManias  and wrestled in five additional WrestleManias in non headlining matches, and was the host of WrestleMania XXVII. As of May 2015, he has had seventeen championship reigns in WWE, including ten as a world champion, winning the WWF/E Championship eight times and the WCW/World Championship twice. He won the WWF Intercontinental Championship twice and the WWF Tag Team Championship five times. He is the sixth WWF/E Triple Crown Champion, and won the 2000 Royal Rumble.

Johnson's autobiography The Rock Says..., co-written with Joe Layden, was published in 2000. It debuted at No. 1 on The New York Times Best Seller list and remained on the list for several weeks. Johnson's first leading film role was in The Scorpion King in 2002. For this role, he was paid US $5.5 million, a world record for an actor in his first starring role. He has since appeared in several films, including The Rundown, The Game Plan, Get Smart, The Other Guys and Faster. As an actor, he is perhaps best known for his portrayals of Luke Hobbs in The Fast and the Furious franchise. He also hosted and produced The Hero, a reality competitionseries.

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Blake Lively

Blake Lively (born Blake Ellender Brown August 25, 1987) is an American actress, model and celebrity homemaker. She starred as Serena van der Woodsen in the CW drama Gossip Girl, and has co-starred in such films as The Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants, The Private Lives of Pippa Lee, The Town, Green Lantern, Accepted and Savages. Following her 2012 marriage to actor Ryan Reynolds, the couple relocated to Bedford, a suburb in Westchester County, New York.

Early life

Lively was born Blake Ellender Brown in Tarzana, Los Angeles, California, to actor Ernie Lively (né Ernest Wilson Brown, Jr.) and his wife, Elaine (née McAlpin), a talent scout. She was named after her grandmother's brother. Blake and her four older siblings/half-siblings were raised as Southern Baptists. She has an older brother, Eric, two half-sisters, Lori and Robyn, and a half-brother, Jason. Both of her parents and all of her siblings are, or have been, in the entertainment industry. During her childhood, her parents took her with them to acting classes that they taught because they did not want to leave her with a babysitter. Lively said that watching her parents teach acting classes helped her learn the "drills" of acting and gain confidence as she got older.

Lively was initially not particularly interested in acting; she wanted to attend Stanford University. During the summer between her junior and senior years of high school, her brother Eric asked his agent to send her on a few auditions over a period of a few months. From these few auditions, she got the role of Bridget for The Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants. Lively filmed her scenes in The Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants between her junior and senior years at Burbank High School.

Superman

Spider-Man is a fictional superhero appearing in American comic books published by Marvel Comics. Created by writer-editorStan Lee and writer-artist Steve Ditko, Spider-Man first appeared in Amazing Fantasy *15 (Aug. 1962). Lee and Ditko conceived the character as an orphan being raised by his Aunt May and Uncle Ben, and as a teenager, having to deal with the normal struggles of adolescence in addition to those of a costumed crime-fighter. Spider-Man's creators gave him super strength and agility, the ability to cling to most surfaces, shoot spider-webs using wrist-mounted devices of his own invention, which he calls "web-shooters," and react to danger quickly with his "spider-sense," enabling him to combat his foes.

When Spider-Man first appeared in the early 1960s, teenagers in superhero comic books were usually relegated to the role ofsidekick to the protagonist. The Spider-Man series broke ground by featuring Peter Parker, the high school student behind Spider-Man's secret identity and with whose "self-obsessions with rejection, inadequacy, and loneliness" young readers could relate. Unlike previous teen heroes such as Bucky and Robin, Spider-Man had no superhero mentor like Captain America andBatman; he thus had to learn for himself that "with great power there must also come great responsibility"—a line included in a text box in the final panel of the first Spider-Man story but later retroactively attributed to his guardian, the late Uncle Ben.

Marvel has featured Spider-Man in several comic book series, the first and longest-lasting of which is titled The Amazing Spider-Man. Over the years, the Peter Parker character has developed from shy, nerdy high school student to troubled but outgoing college student, to married high school teacher to, in the late 2000s, a single freelance photographer, his most typical adult role. In the 2010s, he joins the Avengers and the Fantastic Four, Marvel's flagship superhero teams. In a 2012–2014 storyline, Peter Parker dies while his mind is in the body of his enemy Doctor Octopus; Doctor Octopus then lives on inside of Parker's body, taking the role of Spider-Man in The Superior Spider-Man. However, Parker returned to his body in April 2014. Separately, Marvel has also published books featuring alternate versions of Spider-Man, including Spider-Man 2099, which features the adventures of Miguel O'Hara, the Spider-Man of the future; Ultimate Spider-Man, which features the adventures of a teenaged Peter Parker in an alternate universe; and Ultimate Comics Spider-Man, which depicts the teenager Miles Morales, who takes up the mantle of Spider-Man after Ultimate Peter Parker's supposed death.

Spider-Man is one of the most popular and commercially successful superhero. As Marvel's flagship character and company mascot, he has appeared in many forms of media, including several animated and live-action television shows, syndicatednewspaper comic strips, and a series of films

 starring Tobey Maguire as the hero in the first three movies. Andrew Garfield took over the role of Spider-Man in a reboot of the films \Reeve Carney starred as Spider-Man in the 2010 Broadway musicalSpider-Man: Turn Off the Dark. Spider-Man placed 3rd on IGN's Top 100 Comic Book Heroes of All Time in 2011, behind DC Comics characters Superman

 and Batman.

Audi cars

Audi

Audiis a German automobile manufacturer that designs, engineers, produces, markets and distributes luxury automobiles. Audi oversees worldwide operations from its headquarters in Ingolstadt, Bavaria, Germany. Audi-branded vehicles are produced in nine production facilities worldwide.

Audi has been a majority owned (99.55%) subsidiary of Volkswagen Group since 1966, following a phased purchase of Audi AG's predecessor, Auto Union, from Daimler-Benz. Volkswagen relaunched the Audi brand with the 1965 introduction of the Audi F103series.

The company name is based on the Latin translation of the surname of the founder, August Horch. "Horch", meaning "listen" inGerman, becomes "audi" in Latin. The four rings of the Audi logo each represent one of four car companies that banded together to create Audi's predecessor company, Auto Union. Audi's slogan is Vorsprung durch Technik, meaning "Advancement through Technology". However, since 2007 Audi USA has used the slogan "Truth in Engineering". Audi is a member of the "German Big 3" luxury automakers, along with BMW and Mercedes-Benz, which are the three best-selling luxury automakers in the world.

History

Birth of the company and its name

Originally in 1885, automobile company Wanderer was established, later becoming a branch of Audi AG. Another company, NSU, which also later merged into Audi, was founded during this time, and later supplied the chassis for Gottlieb Daimler's four-wheeler.

On 14 November 1899, August Horch (1868–1951) established the company A. Horch & Cie. in the Ehrenfeld district of Cologne. Three years later in 1902 he moved with his company to Reichenbach im Vogtland. On May, 10th, 1904 he founded the August Horch & Cie. Motorwagenwerke AG, a joint-stock company in Zwickau (State of Saxony).

After troubles with Horch chief financial officer, August Horch left Motorwagenwerke and founded in Zwickau on 16 July 1909, his second company, the August Horch Automobilwerke GmbH. His former partners sued him for trademark infringement. The German Reichsgericht (Supreme Court) in Leipzig, eventually determined that the Horch brand belonged to his former company.

Since August Horch was banned from using "Horch" as a trade name in his new car business, he called a meeting with close business friends, Paul and Franz Fikentscher from Zwickau, Germany. At the apartment of Franz Fikentscher, they discussed how to come up with a new name for the company. During this meeting, Franz's son was quietly studying Latin in a corner of the room. Several times he looked like he was on the verge of saying something but would just swallow his words and continue working, until he finally blurted out, "Father –audiatur et altera pars... wouldn't it be a good idea to call it audi instead of horch?" "Horch!" in German means "Hark!" or "hear", which is "Audi" in the singular imperative form of "audire" – "to listen" – in Latin. The idea was enthusiastically accepted by everyone attending the meeting. On 25 April 1910 the Audi Automobilwerke GmbH Zwickau (from 1915 on Audiwerke AG Zwickau) was entered in the company's register of Zwickau registration court.

Ducati Motor History

Ducati Motor Holding S.p.A. is an Italian company that designs and manufactures motorcycles. Headquartered in Bologna, Italy, Ducati is owned by German automotive manufacturer Audi through its Italian subsidiary Lamborghini, which is all owned by theVolkswagen Group.

History

In 1926 Antonio Cavalieri Ducati and his three sons, Adriano, Marcello, and Bruno Cavalieri Ducati; founded Società Scientifica Radio Brevetti Ducati in Bologna to produce vacuum tubes, condensers and other radio components. In 1935 they had become successful enough to enable construction of a new factory in the Borgo Panigale area of the city. Production was maintained during World War II, despite the Ducati factory being a repeated target of Allied bombing......

Meanwhile, at the small Turinese firm SIATA (Societa Italiana per Applicazioni Tecniche Auto-Aviatorie), Aldo Farinelli began developing a smallpushrod engine for mounting on bicycles. Barely a month after the official liberation of Italy in 1944, SIATA announced its intention to sell this engine, called the "Cucciolo" (Italian for "puppy," in reference to the distinctive exhaust sound) to the public. The first Cucciolos were available alone, to be mounted on standard bicycles, by the buyer; however, businessmen soon bought the little engines in quantity, and offered complete motorized-bicycle units for sale.....

In 1950, after more than 200,000 Cucciolos had been sold, in collaboration with SIATA, the Ducati firm finally offered its own Cucciolo-based motorcycle. This first Ducati motorcycle was a 48 cc bike weighing 98 lb (44 kg) with a top speed of 40 mph (64 km/h) had a 15 mmcarburetor giving just under 200 mpg_-US (1.2 L/100 km; 240 mpg_-imp). Ducati soon dropped the Cucciolo name in favor of "55M" and "65TL".

When the market moved toward larger motorcycles, Ducati management decided to respond, making an impression at an early-1952 Milan show, introducing their 65TS cycle and Cruiser (a four-stroke motor scooter). Despite being described as the most interesting new machine at the 1952 show, the Cruiser was not a great success, and only a few thousand were made over a two-year period before the model ceased production.

In 1953, management split the company into two separate entities, Ducati Meccanica SpA and Ducati Elettronica, in acknowledgment of its diverging motorcycle and electronics product lines. Ducati Elettronica became Ducati Energia SpA in the eighties. Dr. Giuseppe Montano took over as head of Ducati Meccanica SpA and the Borgo Panigale factory was modernized with government assistance. By 1954, Ducati Meccanica SpA had increased production to 120 bikes a day.

In the 1960s, Ducati earned its place in motorcycling history by producing the fastest 250 cc road bike then available, the Mach 1. In the 1970s Ducati began producing large-displacement V-twin motorcycles and in 1973, released a V-twin with the trademarked desmodromic valve design. In 1985, Cagiva bought Ducati and planned to rebadge Ducati motorcycles with the Cagiva name. By the time the purchase was completed, Cagiva kept the "Ducati" name on its motorcycles. Eleven years later, in 1996, Cagiva accepted the offer from Texas Pacific Group and sold a 51% stake in the company for US$325 million; then, in 1998, Texas Pacific Group bought most of the remaining 49% to become the sole owner of Ducati. In 1999, TPG issued an initial public offering of Ducati stock and renamed the company Ducati Motor Holding SpA. TPG sold over 65% of its shares in Ducati, leaving TPG the majority shareholder. In December 2005, Ducati returned to Italian ownership with the sale of Texas Pacific's stake (minus one share) to Investindustrial Holdings, the investment fund of Carlo and Andrea Bonomi.

In April 2012, Volkswagen Group's Audi subsidiary announced its intention to buy Ducati for €860 million (US$1.2 billion). Volkswagen chairman Ferdinand Piëch, a motorcycle enthusiast, had long coveted Ducati, and had regretted that he passed up an opportunity to buy the company from the Italian government in 1984. Analysts doubted a tiny motorcycle maker would have a meaningful effect on a company the size of Volkswagen, commenting that the acquisition has "a trophy feel to it," and, "is driven by VW's passion for nameplates rather than industrial or financial logic". Italian luxury car brand Lamborghini was strengthened under VW ownership. AUDI AG's Automobili Lamborghini S.p.A. subsidiary acquired 100 percent of the shares of Ducati Motor Holding S.p.A. on July 19, 2012 for €747 million (US$909 million).

Snowy Owl

Description

This yellow-eyed, black-beaked white bird is easily recognizable. It is 52–71 cm (20–28 in) long, with a 125–150 cm (49–59 in) wingspan. Also, these owls can weigh anywhere from 1.6 to 3 kg (3.5 to 6.6 lb). It is one of the largest species of owl and, in North America, is on average the heaviest owl species. The adult male is virtually pure white, but females and young birds have some dark scalloping; the young are heavily barred, and dark spotting may even predominate. Its thick plumage, heavily feathered taloned feet, and colouration render the snowy owl well-adaptedfor life north of the Arctic Circle.

Snowy owl calls are varied, but the alarm call is a barking, almost quacking krek-krek; the female also has a softer mewling pyee-pyee or prek-prek. The song is a deep repeated gahw. They may also clap their beak in response to threats or annoyances. While called clapping, it is believed this sound may actually be a clicking of the tongue, not the beak.

Ecology

The snowy owl is typically found in the northern circumpolar region, where it makes its summer home north of latitude 60º north. However, it is a particularly nomadic bird, and because population fluctuations in its prey species can force it to relocate, it has been known to breed at more southerly latitudes. During the last glacial, there was a Central Europe Bubo scandiacus gallicus, but no modern subspecies are recognized........

This species of owl nests on the ground, building a scrape on top of a mound or boulder. A site with good visibility is chosen, such as the top of a mound with ready access to hunting areas and a lack of snow. Gravel bars and abandoned eagle nests may be used. The female scrapes a small hollow before laying the eggs. Breeding occurs in May to June, and depending on the amount of prey available, clutch sizes range from 3 to 11 eggs, which are laid singly, approximately every other day over the course of several days. Hatching takes place approximately five weeks after laying, and the pure white young are cared for by both parents. Although the young hatch asynchronously, with the largest in the brood sometimes 10 to 15 times as heavy as the smallest, there is little sibling conflict and no evidence of siblicide. Both the male and the female defend the nest and their young from predators, sometimes by distraction displays. Males may mate with two females which may nest about a kilometre apart. Some individuals stay on the breeding grounds while others migrate.....

Range

Snowy owls nest in the Arctic tundra of the northernmost stretches of Alaska, Canada, and Eurasia. They winter south through Canada and northern Eurasia, with irruptions occurring further south in some years. Snowy owls are attracted to open areas like coastal dunes and prairies that appear somewhat similar to tundra. They have been reported as far south as the American states of Texas, Georgia, the American Gulf states, southernmost Russia, and northern China. In the Late Pleistocene the range expanded southward to Bulgaria(80,000–16,000 years, Kozarnika Cave, W Bulgaria).

In February 1886, a snowy owl landed on the rigging of the Nova Scotia steamship Ulunda on the edge of the Grand Banks, over 600 kilometres from the nearest land. It was captured and later preserved at the Nova Scotia Museum.

Between 1967 and 1975, snowy owls bred on the remote island of Fetlar in the Shetland Isles north of Scotland. Females summered as recently as 1993, but their status in theBritish Isles is now that of a rare winter visitor to Shetland, the Outer Hebrides and the Cairngorms.

In January 2009, a snowy owl appeared in Spring Hill, Tennessee, the first reported sighting in the state since 1987. Also notable is the mass southern migration in the winter of 2011/2012, when thousands of snowy owls were spotted in various locations across the United States. This was then followed by an even larger mass southern migration in 2013/2014 with the first snowy owls seen in Florida for decades.

In December 2014, a snowy owl appeared in Berkeley Township, New Jersey at Island Beach State Park.