Birds are a group of warm-blooded vertebrates constituting the class Aves, characterized by feathers, toothless beaked jaws, the laying of hard-shelled eggs, a high metabolic rate, a four-chambered heart, a strong yet lightweight skeleton. Birds range in size from the 5 cm bee hummingbird to the 2.75 m ostrich. There are about ten thousand living species, more than half of which are passerine, or "perching" birds. Birds have wings. Wings, which evolved from forelimbs, gave birds the ability to fly, although further evolution has led to the loss of flight in some birds, including ratites and diverse endemic island species; the digestive and respiratory systems of birds are uniquely adapted for flight. Some bird species of aquatic environments seabirds and some waterbirds, have further evolved for swimming. Birds are a group of feathered theropod dinosaurs, constitute the only living dinosaurs; the closest living relatives of birds are the crocodilians. Birds are descendants of the primitive avialans which first appeared about 160 million years ago in China.

According to DNA evidence, modern birds evolved in the Middle to Late Cretaceous, diversified around the time of the Cretaceous–Paleogene extinction event 66 mya, which killed off the pterosaurs and all non-avian dinosaurs. Some birds corvids and parrots, are among the most intelligent animals. Many social species pass on knowledge across generations, considered a form of culture. Birds are social, communicating with visual signals and songs, participating in such behaviours as cooperative breeding and hunting and mobbing of predators; the vast majority of bird species are monogamous for one breeding season at a time, sometimes for years, but for life. Other species have breeding systems that are polygynous or polyandrous. Birds produce offspring by laying eggs, they are laid in a nest and incubated by the parents. Most birds have an extended period of parental care after hatching. Many species of birds are economically important as food for human consumption and raw material in manufacturing, with domesticated and undomesticated birds being important sources of eggs and feathers.

Songbirds and other species are popular as pets. Guano is harvested for use as a fertiliser. Birds figure throughout human culture. About 120 to 130 species have become extinct due to human activity since the 17th century, hundreds more before then. Human activity threatens about 1,200 bird species with extinction, though efforts are underway to protect them. Recreational birdwatching is an important part of the ecotourism industry; the first classification of birds was developed by Francis Willughby and John Ray in their 1676 volume Ornithologiae. Carl Linnaeus modified that work in 1758 to devise the taxonomic classification system in use. Birds are categorised as the biological class Aves in Linnaean taxonomy. Phylogenetic taxonomy places Aves in the dinosaur clade Theropoda. Aves and a sister group, the order Crocodilia, contain the only living representatives of the reptile clade Archosauria. During the late 1990s, Aves was most defined phylogenetically as all descendants of the most recent common ancestor of modern birds and Archaeopteryx lithographica.

However, an earlier definition proposed by Jacques Gauthier gained wide currency in the 21st century, is used by many scientists including adherents of the Phylocode system. Gauthier defined Aves to include only the crown group of the set of modern birds; this was done by excluding most groups known only from fossils, assigning them, instead, to the Avialae, in part to avoid the uncertainties about the placement of Archaeopteryx in relation to animals traditionally thought of as theropod dinosaurs. Gauthier identified four different definitions for the same biological name "Aves", a problem. Gauthier proposed to reserve the term Aves only for the crown group consisting of the last common ancestor of all living birds and all of its descendants, which corresponds to meaning number 4 below, he assigned other names to the other groups. Aves can mean all archosaurs closer to birds than to crocodiles Aves can mean those advanced archosaurs with feathers Aves can mean those feathered dinosaurs that fly Aves can mean the last common ancestor of all the living birds and all of its descendants Under the fourth definition Archaeopteryx is an avialan, not a member of Aves.

Gauthier's proposals have been adopted by many researchers in the field of palaeontology and bird evolution, though the exact definitions applied have been inconsistent. Avialae proposed to replace the traditional fossil content of Aves, is used synonymously with the vernacular term "bird" by these researchers. Most researchers define Avialae as branch-based clade. Many authors have used a definition similar to "all theropods closer to birds than to Deinonychus." Avialae is occasionally defined as an apomorphy-based clade. Jacques Gauthier, who named Avialae in 1986, re-defined it in 2001 as all dinosaurs that possessed feathe

This is a list of members of the Western Australian Legislative Assembly between the 1943 election and the 1947 election, together known as the 18th Parliament. In January 1945, the Nationalists known as the National Party of Western Australia, reformed as the Liberal Party under the leadership of Robert McDonald, all Nationalist MLAs' allegiances changed accordingly. 1 On 9 December 1943, John Tonkin, the member for North-East Fremantle, was appointed as Minister for Education and Social Services in the Willcock Ministry. He was therefore required to resign and contest a ministerial by-election on 17 December 1943, in which he was returned unopposed. 2 On 16 February 1944, the Country member for Swan, Richard Sampson, died. Independent Country candidate Ray Owen won the resulting by-election on 29 April 1944. 3 At the 1943 state election, Labor candidate William Telfer defeated the sitting Country member Ignatius Boyle by 15 votes. The Court of Disputed Returns ordered a fresh election for 1 July 1944, at which Telfer won a 298-vote majority against Boyle.

4 On 9 December 1944, the Labor member for Victoria Park, Howard Raphael, died. Independent candidate William Read won the resulting by-election on 10 February 1945. 5 At the 1943 election, the Labor candidate for Greenough, John Newton, a farmer from Mingenew who had enlisted in the RAAF as a Flight Lieutenant in 1941 and left for the United Kingdom in 1942, unexpectedly defeated the sitting Country member, William Patrick. On 14 January 1944, he was reported missing after a raid on Germany. On 31 July 1945, a panel of members was appointed to enquire whether a vacancy existed, on 27 September 1945, the seat was declared vacant. Liberal candidate David Brand won the resulting by-election on 27 October 1945, becoming the first person to win an Australian election under the new Liberal banner. 6 On 3 August 1945, William Marshall, the member for Murchison, was appointed as a Minister in the Wise Ministry. He was therefore required to resign and contest a ministerial by-election on 17 August 1945, in which he was returned unopposed

Tom Clancy's Ghost Recon Breakpoint is an online tactical shooter video game developed by Ubisoft Paris and published by Ubisoft. The game was released worldwide on 4 October 2019 for Microsoft Windows, PlayStation 4 and Xbox One, on 18 December 2019 for Stadia; the game is the eleventh installment in the Tom Clancy's Ghost Recon franchise and is a narrative sequel to the 2017 video game Tom Clancy's Ghost Recon Wildlands. The game is set in an open world environment called Auroa, a fictional island chain in the Pacific Ocean; the player takes on the role of Lieutenant Colonel Anthony "Nomad" Perryman a U. S. Special Operation Forces service member sent to the island to investigate a series of disturbances involving Skell Technology, a military contractor based on Auroa. Upon release, Tom Clancy's Ghost Recon Breakpoint received mixed reviews from critics and underperformed commercially. Like its predecessor Wildlands, Breakpoint is a tactical shooter game set in an open world environment, it is played from a third-person perspective and uses an optional first-person view for aiming weapons.

Players take on the role of Lieutenant Colonel Anthony "Nomad" Perryman, a member of the Delta Company, First Battalion, 5th Special Forces Group known as "Ghosts", a fictional elite special operations unit of the United States Army under the Joint Special Operations Command. The game world, Auroa, is an open world environment that features a variety of landscapes, these can be used for tactical advantages. For instance, players can use mud to camouflage themselves. According to Ubisoft, Auroa is larger. Players have a variety of ways to traverse the open world, controlling various air and sea vehicles; the game was planned to launch with four character classes. Ubisoft announced plans to make more classes available through post-launch updates; each class has its own abilities. The player will be able to switch between classes in-game. Players have to gather intelligence in order to progress through the game and can use a variety of methods to approach missions; as in previous titles in the franchise, they can utilize a variety of weapons in combat, with the player's repertoire expanded to include combat drones and rocket launchers to kill enemies.

Alternatively, the player can use stealth to silently neutralize opponents. In Breakpoint, players can equip a variety of new weapons and gear such as a blowtorch to cut through fences, sulphur gas grenades to kill enemies, electromagnetic pulse grenades to disable drones and vehicles. Players can hide them so that enemies would not become alerted. Fallen enemies will leave loot for players to collect. Fallen teammates can be carried away so as to revive them safely. Many of the new features added to Breakpoint were developed based on player feedback in Wildlands; the game places a larger emphasis on survival than Wildlands. Enemies will be more numerous and the game will feature a wider range of enemy archetypes; these enemies will have access to many of the same weapons and equipment that are available to the player. Enemies will respond more realistically to player actions and patrols wander the game world searching for the player. Ubisoft introduced these changes to give the player the sense that they were "no longer the most dangerous thing in the game world".

Players need to collect different resources in the game's world and use them to craft resources such as bandages. Regular weapon maintenance checks are necessary to keep the weapons functional and the player will need to manage their character's fatigue and hydration. Failing to do so may slow the player down, limit their ability to regenerate health, or cause them to make more noise while moving; the game uses a regenerative health system whereby the player character recovers health, but serious injuries will impede the player character's performance, as they will start limping and can no longer aim their weapon accurately. Players can set up a bivouac shelter in order to heal themselves; the shelter is the site where players can manage their weapons and inventory, customize their character and change the character's classes. The game can be played in single-player; the game was announced to have no AI squadmates, but the addition of AI squadmates was amended as post-release content based due to negative feedback from players.

Unlike previous Ghost Recon titles, Breakpoint will require a constant internet connection to play, in-part due to the game's single-character progression system. The game's story features dialogue choices; these will not affect the main narrative, but instead enable players to gain intelligence that may aid in their missions. The game features a mode called "Exploration", first used in Assassin's Creed Odyssey. Unlike most open-world games where the player is given an objective marker to guide their progress, Breakpoint's Exploration mode gives the player a rough approximation of the area where an objective may be located, their approximation can be refined through investigating intelligence. A competitive multiplayer mode will be released at launch, end-of-game content such as raids are set to be introduced post-release; the game is set in four years after the events of Wildlands. The story takes place on Auroa, an island in the South Pacific owned by billionaire entrepreneur and philanthropist Jace Skell.

Skell is the founder of Skell Technology, a blue chip company producing drones for commercial applications, but the company has found success as a military contractor developing cutting-edge equipment