The Wall Street Journal
The Wall Street Journal is a U. S. business-focused, English-language international daily newspaper based in New York City. The Journal, along with its Asian and European editions, is published six days a week by Dow Jones & Company, a division of News Corp; the newspaper is published in online. The Journal has been printed continuously since its inception on July 8, 1889, by Charles Dow, Edward Jones, Charles Bergstresser; the Wall Street Journal is one of the largest newspapers in the United States by circulation, with a circulation of about 2.475 million copies as of June 2018, compared with USA Today's 1.7 million. The Journal publishes the luxury news and lifestyle magazine WSJ, launched as a quarterly but expanded to 12 issues as of 2014. An online version was launched in 1996, accessible only to subscribers since it began; the newspaper is notable for its award-winning news coverage, has won 37 Pulitzer Prizes. The editorial pages of the Journal are conservative in their position. The"Journal" editorial board has promoted fringe views on the science of climate change, acid rain, ozone depletion, as well as on the health harms of second-hand smoke and asbestos.
The first products of Dow Jones & Company, the publisher of the Journal, were brief news bulletins, nicknamed "flimsies", hand-delivered throughout the day to traders at the stock exchange in the early 1880s. They were aggregated in a printed daily summary called the Customers' Afternoon Letter. Reporters Charles Dow, Edward Jones, Charles Bergstresser converted this into The Wall Street Journal, published for the first time on July 8, 1889, began delivery of the Dow Jones News Service via telegraph. In 1896, The "Dow Jones Industrial Average" was launched, it was the first of several indices of bond prices on the New York Stock Exchange. In 1899, the Journal's Review & Outlook column, which still runs today, appeared for the first time written by Charles Dow. Journalist Clarence Barron purchased control of the company for US$130,000 in 1902. Barron and his predecessors were credited with creating an atmosphere of fearless, independent financial reporting—a novelty in the early days of business journalism.
In 1921, Barron's, the United States's premier financial weekly, was founded. Barron died in 1928, a year before Black Tuesday, the stock market crash that affected the Great Depression in the United States. Barron's descendants, the Bancroft family, would continue to control the company until 2007; the Journal took its modern shape and prominence in the 1940s, a time of industrial expansion for the United States and its financial institutions in New York. Bernard Kilgore was named managing editor of the paper in 1941, company CEO in 1945 compiling a 25-year career as the head of the Journal. Kilgore was the architect of the paper's iconic front-page design, with its "What's News" digest, its national distribution strategy, which brought the paper's circulation from 33,000 in 1941 to 1.1 million at the time of Kilgore's death in 1967. Under Kilgore, in 1947, the paper won its first Pulitzer Prize for William Henry Grimes's editorials. In 1967, Dow Jones Newswires began a major expansion outside of the United States that put journalists in every major financial center in Europe, Latin America and Africa.
In 1970, Dow Jones bought the Ottaway newspaper chain, which at the time comprised nine dailies and three Sunday newspapers. The name was changed to "Dow Jones Local Media Group".1971 to 1997 brought about a series of launches and joint ventures, including "Factiva", The Wall Street Journal Asia, The Wall Street Journal Europe, the WSJ.com website, Dow Jones Indexes, MarketWatch, "WSJ Weekend Edition". In 2007, News Corp. acquired Dow Jones. WSJ. A luxury lifestyle magazine, was launched in 2008. A complement to the print newspaper, The Wall Street Journal Online, was launched in 1996 and has allowed access only by subscription from the beginning. In 2003, Dow Jones began to integrate reporting of the Journal's print and online subscribers together in Audit Bureau of Circulations statements. In 2007, it was believed to be the largest paid-subscription news site on the Web, with 980,000 paid subscribers. Since online subscribership has fallen, due in part to rising subscription costs, was reported at 400,000 in March 2010.
In May 2008, an annual subscription to the online edition of The Wall Street Journal cost $119 for those who do not have subscriptions to the print edition. By June 2013, the monthly cost for a subscription to the online edition was $22.99, or $275.88 annually, excluding introductory offers. On November 30, 2004, Oasys Mobile and The Wall Street Journal released an app that would allow users to access content from the Wall Street Journal Online via their mobile phones. Many of The Wall Street Journal news stories are available through free online newspapers that subscribe to the Dow Jones syndicate. Pulitzer Prize–winning stories from 1995 are available free on the Pulitzer web site. In September 2005, the Journal launched a weekend edition, delivered to all subscribers, which marked a return to Saturday publication after a lapse of some 50 years; the move was designed in part to attract more consumer advertising. In 2005, the Journal reported a readership profile of about 60 percent top management, an average income of $191,000, an average household net worth of $2.1 million, an average age of 55.
In 2007, the Journal launched a worldwide expansion of its website to include major foreign-language editions. The p
Oblivion (2013 film)
Oblivion is a 2013 American post-apocalyptic science fiction action film based on Joseph Kosinski's unpublished graphic novel of the same name. The film was directed by Kosinski, it stars Tom Cruise, Morgan Freeman, Andrea Riseborough, Olga Kurylenko. The film was released in the U. S. on April 19, 2013. According to Kosinski, Oblivion pays homage to science fiction films of the 1970s. In 2077, sixty years after a war with extraterrestrials that devastated Earth, humanity has relocated to Saturn's moon Titan via a giant space station called the Tet. Gigantic offshore fusion energy generators drain Earth's oceans to power the colonies on Titan. Led by mission controller Sally and guided by his housemate and communications partner Victoria "Vika" Olsen, "Tech-49" Jack Harper leaves his tower post to repair downed combat drones that guard the regions and generators against the alien scavengers. Although his memory has been wiped, he has had recurring dreams and visions of being on the observation deck of the Empire State Building with a dark-haired woman.
He collects the occasional artifact that he finds from humanity's past. Vika is concerned about Jack's curiosity, questioning whether they are still "an effective team," and encouraging him to do his job, so they can join the others on Titan soon. After scavengers destroy a generator, Jack discovers that they have been using the Empire State Building's antenna to transmit coordinates to outer space. While taking a break at his secret lake house retreat, he watches a crash-landing module of a pre-war spacecraft called the Odyssey. Thinking that the ship contains aliens, he investigates, only to find humans in stasis chambers. One of the humans is the woman from his dreams. Jack protects her chamber from a drone that destroys the others, revives the woman, Julia Rusakova, who makes Vika instinctively jealous. Jack and Julia are captured by the scavengers, they are taken to their headquarters at the Raven Rock Mountain Complex, the scavengers are revealed to be human survivors. Their leader, Malcolm Beech, wants Jack to reprogram their captured drone to carry nuclear fuel cells to blow up the Tet.
Although Jack refuses, Beech releases them to seek the truth beyond the boundaries of the forbidden radiation zone. When they reach the Empire State Building, Julia reveals. Jack remembers that he proposed to her there. Julia recalls that she was on a mission to Titan when they were diverted to investigate an alien presence; when the two return to Jack's tower, Vika refuses them entry, reports her findings to Sally, saying they are "no longer an effective team." Sally activates a drone that kills Vika before Julia shoots it down. Jack and Julia are shot down by other pursuing drones; the two eject into the radiation zone. Jack discovers another ship with a technician trying to repair a downed drone, is shocked to see that the tech is a clone of himself who goes by "Tech-52"; the clone is shocked to see Julia. Jack battles and incapacitates his clone. After flying to Tech-52's tower, discovering an inquisitive Vika clone, he returns to treat Julia take her to the lake house. At the scavenger base, Beech reveals to Jack and Julia that the Tet was an alien artificial intelligence that destroyed the Moon, causing massive devastation to the planet, invaded Earth with thousands of Jack clones and drones to wipe out the human race, extracting all of the planet's natural resources before moving on.
As Jack repairs the captured drone, the base is attacked by other drones, gravely injuring Beech, ruining the captured drone except for its fuel cells. Jack agrees to deliver Julia to Sally through the stasis chamber. On the way to the Tet, Jack listens to the Odyssey's flight recorder, learns that he was the mission commander, Vika was his co-pilot, Sally was their mission controller from Earth; when the Tet started to draw in their ship, Jack jettisoned the pod of stasis chambers containing the crew members leaving himself and Vika to be captured. Back in the present, Jack enters a large room full of capsules of Vika clones, he shows Tet the stasis chamber, but it carries Beech and the fuel cells, which they detonate, killing themselves and destroying the Tet. On Earth, Julia awakens at the lake house. Three years she and her daughter meet the resistance members and "Tech-52" Jack. Tom Cruise as Commander Jack Harper Morgan Freeman as Malcolm Beech Olga Kurylenko as Julia Rusakova Harper Andrea Riseborough as Victoria "Vika" Olsen Nikolaj Coster-Waldau as Sergeant Sykes Melissa Leo as Sally/Tet Zoë Bell as Kara Kosinski wanted to film a cinematic adaptation of the graphic novel Oblivion, which he started to co-write with Arvid Nelson for Radical Comics.
The novel, was never finished, as Koskinski now admits that "It was just a stage in the project ". He explained in an interview with Empire that "partnership with Radical Comics allowed me to continue working on the story by developing a series of images and continuing to refine the story more over a period of years. I used all that development as a pitch kit to the studio. So though we never released it as an illustrated novel the story is being told as a film, always the intention."Walt Disney Pictures, which produced Kosinski's previous direction Tron: Legacy, acquired the Oblivion film adaptation rights from Radical Comics and Kosinski after a heated auction in August 2010. The film was a directing vehicle for Kosinski with Barry Levine producing and Je
Fox Sports Networks
Fox Sports Networks known as Fox Sports Net, is the collective name for a group of regional sports channels in the United States. Formed in 1996 by News Corporation, the group was acquired by The Walt Disney Company in March 2019 following its acquisition of 21st Century Fox. Under an agreement with the U. S. Department of Justice, Disney must sell the channels off to third parties by June 18, 2019, 90 days after the completion of its acquisition; each of the channels in the group carry regional broadcasts of sporting events from various professional and high school sports teams, along with regional and national sports discussion and analysis programs. Depending on their individual team rights, some Fox Sports Networks maintain overflow feeds available via digital cable and satellite providers in their home markets, which may provide alternate programming when not used to carry game broadcasts that the main feed cannot carry due to scheduling conflicts. Fox Sports Networks is headquartered in Houston, with master control facilities based in both Houston and Los Angeles.
At the dawn of the cable television era, many regional sports networks vied to compete with the largest national sports network, ESPN. The most notable were the SportsChannel network, which first began operating in 1976 with the launch of the original SportsChannel in the New York City area and branched out into channels serving Chicago and Florida. On October 31, 1995, News Corporation, which ten years earlier launched the Fox Broadcasting Company, a general entertainment broadcast network that formed its own sports division in 1994 with the acquisition of the television rights to the National Football Conference of the National Football League, entered into a joint venture with TCI's Liberty Media, acquiring a 50% ownership interest in the company's Prime Sports affiliates. On July 3, 1996, News Corporation and Liberty Media/TCI announced that the Prime Sports networks would be rebranded under the new "Fox Sports Net" brand; that same year, Fox rebranded that network as Fox Sports South.
On June 30, 1997, the Fox/Liberty joint venture purchased a 40% interest in Cablevision's sports properties including the SportsChannel America networks, Madison Square Garden, the New York Knicks and New York Rangers professional sports franchises, a deal worth $850 million. In early 1998, SportsChannel America was integrated into the Fox Sports Net family of networks. On July 11, 2000, Comcast purchased a majority interest in the Minneapolis-based Midwest Sports Channel and Baltimore-based Home Team Sports from Viacom. News Corporation, a minority owner in both networks, wanted to acquire them outright and integrate the two networks into Fox Sports Net; the company filed a lawsuit against Comcast ten days on July 21, in an attempt to block the sale. On September 7, 2000, as part of a settlement between the two companies, Comcast traded its equity interest in Midwest Sports Channel to News Corporation in exchange for exclusive ownership of Home Team Sports. In September 2004, Fox Sports Net became known as "FSN".
On February 22, 2005, Fox's then-parent company, News Corporation, acquired full ownership of FSN/Fox Sports Local, following an asset trade with Cablevision Systems Corporation, in which Fox sold its interest in Madison Square Garden and the arena's NBA and NHL team tenants in exchange for acquiring sole ownership of Fox Sports Ohio and Fox Sports Florida. Cablevision gained sole ownership of Fox Sports Chicago and Fox Sports New York, a 50% interest in Fox Sports New England. Fox Sports Chicago ceased operations in June 2006, after losing the regional cable television rights to local professional teams two years earlier to the newly launched Comcast SportsNet Chicago. On December 22, 2006, News Corporation sold its interest in four Fox Sports regional networks – FSN Utah, FSN Pittsburgh, FSN Northwest and FSN Rocky Mountain – as well as its 38.5% ownership stake in satellite provider DirecTV to Liberty Media for $550 million in cash and stock, in exchange for Liberty's 16.3% stake in News Corporation.
On May 4, 2009, DirecTV Group Inc. announced it would become a part of Liberty's entertainment unit, with plans to spin off certain properties into a separate company under the
American Express
The American Express Company known as Amex, is an American multinational financial services corporation headquartered in Three World Financial Center in New York City. The company is one of the 30 components of the Dow Jones Industrial Average; the company is best known for its charge card, credit card, traveler's cheque businesses. In 2016, credit cards using the American Express network accounted for 22.9% of the total dollar volume of credit card transactions in the US. As of December 31, 2017, the company had 112.8 million cards in force, including 50 million cards in force in the United States, each with an average annual spending of $18,519. In 2017, Forbes named American Express as the 23rd most valuable brand in the world, estimating the brand to be worth US$24.5 billion. In 2018, Fortune ranked American Express as the 14th most admired company worldwide, the 23rd best company to work for; the company's logo, adopted in 1958, is a gladiator or centurion whose image appears on the company's traveler's cheques, charge cards and credit cards.
In 1850, American Express was started as an express mail business in New York. It was founded as a joint stock corporation by the merger of the express companies owned by Henry Wells, William G. Fargo, John Warren Butterfield. Wells and Fargo started Wells Fargo & Co. in 1852 when Butterfield and other directors objected to the proposal that American Express extend its operations to California. American Express established its headquarters in a building at the intersection of Jay Street and Hudson Street in what was called the Tribeca section of Manhattan. For years it enjoyed a virtual monopoly on the movement of express shipments throughout New York State. In 1874, American Express moved its headquarters to 65 Broadway in what was becoming the Financial District of Manhattan, a location it was to retain through two buildings. In 1854, the American Express Co. purchased a lot on Vesey Street in New York City as the site for its stables. The company's first New York headquarters was an 1858 marble Italianate palazzo at 55–61 Hudson Street, which had a busy freight depot on the ground story with a spur line from the Hudson River Railroad.
A stable was constructed in 1867, five blocks north at 4–8 Hubert Street. The company prospered sufficiently that headquarters were moved in 1874 from the wholesale shipping district to the budding Financial District, into rented offices in two five-story brownstone commercial buildings at 63 and 65 Broadway that were owned by the Harmony family. In 1880, American Express built a new warehouse behind the Broadway Building at 46 Trinity Place; the designer is unknown, but it has a façade of brick arches that are reminiscent of pre-skyscraper New York. American Express has long been out of this building, but it still bears a terracotta seal with the American Express Eagle. In 1890–91 the company constructed a new ten-story building by Edward H. Kendall on the site of its former headquarters on Hudson Street. By 1903, the company had assets of some $28 million, second only to the National City Bank of New York among financial institutions in the city. To reflect this, the company purchased the Broadway buildings and site.
At the end of the Wells-Fargo reign in 1914, an aggressive new president, George Chadbourne Taylor, who had worked his way up through the company over the previous thirty years, decided to build a new headquarters. The old buildings, dubbed by the New York Times as "among the ancient landmarks" of lower Broadway, were inadequate for such a expanding concern. After some delays due to the First World War, the 21-story neo-classical American Express Co. Building was constructed in 1916–17 to the design of James L. Aspinwall, of the firm of Renwick, Aspinwall & Tucker, the successor to the architectural practice of the eminent James Renwick, Jr.. The building consolidated the two lots of the former buildings with a single address: 65 Broadway; this building was part of the "Express Row" section of lower Broadway at the time. The building completed the continuous masonry wall of its block-front and assisted in transforming Broadway into the "canyon" of neo-classical masonry office towers familiar to this dayAmerican Express sold this building in 1975, but retained travel services there.
The building was the headquarters over the years of other prominent firms, including investment bankers J.& W. Seligman & Co. the American Bureau of Shipping, a maritime concern, J. J. Kenny, Standard & Poor's, who has renamed the building for itself. American Express extended its reach nationwide by arranging affiliations with other express companies and steamship companies. In 1857, American Express started its expansion in the area of financial services by launching a money order business to compete with the United States Post Office's money orders. Sometime between 1888 and 1890, J. C. Fargo returned frustrated and infuriated. Despite the fact that he was president of American Express and that he carried with him traditional letters of credit, he found it difficult to obtain cash anywhere except in major cities. Fargo went to Marcellus Flemming Berry and asked him to create a better solution than the letter of credit. Berry introduced the American Express Traveler's Cheque, launched in 1891 in denominations of $10, $20, $50, $100.
Traveler's cheques established American Express as a international compa
New Girl
New Girl is an American television sitcom that premiered on Fox on September 20, 2011. Developed by Elizabeth Meriwether under the working title Chicks & Dicks, the series revolves around a kooky teacher, after she moves into a Los Angeles loft with three men, Nick and Winston; the show combines comedy and drama elements as the characters, who are in their early thirties, deal with maturing relationships and career choices. Produced in Los Angeles as a single-camera comedy, New Girl is an ensemble show aimed at a general audience. Most episodes are anchored around Jess, who according to series creator, would have played a side character on other shows; the show's first marketing push was on Zooey Deschanel and the promotional tagline "Simply Adorkable", a portmanteau of "adorable" and "dork". The producers rejected early criticism of Jess's girlishness, insisting that Jess was not meant to be emblematic of all women. Instead, they aim to portray realistic driven characters, to approach the show from that angle rather than firing off punchlines.
New Girl has received favorable responses from critics and was named one of the best new comedies of the 2011 fall season. The pilot episode drew 10.28 million U. S. viewers and a 4.8 adults 18–49 demo rating, making it the highest-rated fall debut for a Fox scripted show since 2001. Particular praise has been given to the performances of Deschanel, Greenfield and Morris. Max Greenfield was considered the show's breakout star in season 1, before critics named Jake Johnson the breakout star of season 2; the show has been nominated for several awards, including five Golden Globe Awards and five Primetime Emmy Awards. On May 14, 2017, Fox renewed the series for a seventh and final season consisting of eight episodes, which premiered on April 10, 2018; the series finale was aired on May 15, 2018. Jessica "Jess" Day is a bubbly teacher in her early 30s who comes home to find her boyfriend, with another woman and leaves him to look for elsewhere to live. After answering an ad for a new roommate on Craigslist, she finds herself moving into a loft in Los Angeles with three men around the same age as her: Nick and Coach.
After the pilot episode, Winston, a former roommate and Nick's childhood friend, replaces Coach, who had vacated the apartment to live with his girlfriend. Cece, Jess's childhood best friend and a successful fashion model visits Jess and the guys; the series follows the group's interactions with their romantic relationships. Midway through season 1, Schmidt and Cece get involved in a sexual relationship but break up at the end of the season. In Season 2, Jess is laid off from her teaching job. Jess and Nick become attracted to each other, making their relationship official at the end of season 2, it lasts through most of season 3. Coach returns to the loft in season 3 after revealing that he had broken up with his girlfriend and stays through season 4 where he moves out to be with another girl. After bouncing around several random jobs, Winston works to become a police officer with the LAPD, falls in love with his partner Aly. At the end of season 4, Schmidt proposes to Cece, they marry at the end of season 5.
In season 5, while Jess is on jury duty, the group brings in temporary roommate Reagan Lucas, whom Nick becomes interested in. In season 6, Schmidt and Cece buy a house that they have to remodel, living with the gang in the meantime. Season 7 advances the storyline three years where Schmidt and Cece have a three-year-old daughter named Ruth and Aly are expecting their first baby, Nick tries to find the right time to propose to Jess; the principal cast of New Girl includes: Zooey Deschanel as Jessica Day: a bubbly, offbeat teacher in her early thirties, from Portland, Oregon. In the premiere episode, she moves into the guys' apartment where Nick and Coach help her move on from a painful break-up with her boyfriend, Spencer. Jake Johnson as Nick Miller: Jess's roommate who works as a bartender. At the start of the series, he struggles from a break-up with his long-term girlfriend Caroline. Max Greenfield as Schmidt: Jess's roommate, an overly confident ladies' man, he is a successful marketing associate in a female-dominated office.
Damon Wayans Jr. as Coach: a cocky and driven former athlete who works as a personal trainer. He appears in the "Pilot" episode as a roommate, but has left in the second episode. After a break-up with his girlfriend, Coach returns to the loft after two years away and reintegrates himself back into the lives of his former roommates. Wayans once again departed the main cast this time at the end of season 4 but returns as a guest after that. Hannah Simone as Cece Parikh: A first gen- American, a fashion model and Jess' best friend since childhood. In spite of their differences, Cece is a loyal and protective friend to Jess. Skeptical of Jess' new roommates, Cece becomes interested in Schmidt. Lamorne Morris as Winston Bishop: a former basketball player and Nick's childhood friend from Chicago. Losing his post as point guard for a team in the Latvian Basketball League, he returns to America and moves back into the guys' apartment in the second episode. Danielle and Rhiannon Rockoff as Ruth: Schmidt and Cece's three-year-old daughter, appearing in the seventh and final season.
20th Century Fox Television first approached playwright Elizabeth Meriwether in 2008 to
AT&T
AT&T Inc. is an American multinational conglomerate holding company headquartered at Whitacre Tower in Downtown Dallas, Texas. It is the world's largest telecommunications company, the second largest provider of mobile telephone services, the largest provider of fixed telephone services in the United States through AT&T Communications. Since June 14, 2018, it is the parent company of mass media conglomerate WarnerMedia, making it the world's largest media and entertainment company in terms of revenue; as of 2018, AT&T is ranked #9 on the Fortune 500 rankings of the largest United States corporations by total revenue. AT&T began its history as Southwestern Bell Telephone Company, a subsidiary of the Bell Telephone Company, founded by Alexander Graham Bell in 1880; the Bell Telephone Company evolved into American Telephone and Telegraph Company in 1885, which rebranded as AT&T Corporation. The 1982 United States v. AT&T antitrust lawsuit resulted in the divestiture of AT&T Corporation's subsidiaries or Regional Bell Operating Companies, resulting in several independent companies including Southwestern Bell Corporation.
In 2005, SBC purchased its former parent AT&T Corporation and took on its branding, with the merged entity naming itself AT&T Inc. and using its iconic logo and stock-trading symbol. In 2006, AT&T Inc. acquired BellSouth, the last independent Baby Bell company, making their joint venture Cingular Wireless wholly owned and rebranding it as AT&T Mobility. The current AT&T reconstitutes much of the former Bell System, includes ten of the original 22 Bell Operating Companies along with the original long distance division. AT&T can trace its origin back to the original Bell Telephone Company founded by Alexander Graham Bell after his patenting of the telephone. One of that company's subsidiaries was American Telephone and Telegraph Company, established in 1885, which acquired the Bell Company on December 31, 1899, for legal reasons, leaving AT&T as the main company. AT&T established a network of subsidiaries in the United States and Canada that held a government-authorized phone service monopoly, formalized with the Kingsbury Commitment, throughout most of the twentieth century.
This monopoly was known as the Bell System, during this period, AT&T was known by the nickname Ma Bell. For periods of time, the former AT&T was the world's largest phone company. In 1982, U. S. regulators broke up the AT&T monopoly, requiring AT&T to divest its regional subsidiaries and turning them each into individual companies. These new companies were known as Regional Bell Operating Companies, or more informally, Baby Bells. AT&T continued to operate long distance services, but as a result of this breakup, faced competition from new competitors such as MCI and Sprint. Southwestern Bell was one of the companies created by the breakup of AT&T Corp; the architect of divestiture for Southwestern Bell was Robert G. Pope; the company soon started a series of acquisitions. This includes the 1987 acquisition of Metromedia mobile business and the acquisition of several cable companies in the early 1990s. In the half of the 1990s, the company acquired several other telecommunications companies, including some Baby Bells, while selling its cable business.
During this time, the company changed its name to SBC Communications. By 1998, the company was in the top 15 of the Fortune 500, by 1999 the company was part of the Dow Jones Industrial Average. In 2005, SBC purchased AT&T for $16 billion. After this purchase, SBC adopted the better-known AT&T name and brand, with the original AT&T Corp. still existing as the long-distance landline subsidiary of the merged company. The current AT&T claims the original AT&T Corp.'s history as its own, though its corporate structure only dates from 1983. It retains SBC's pre-2005 stock price history, all regulatory filings prior to 2005 are for Southwestern Bell/SBC, not AT&T Corp. In September 2013, AT&T Inc. announced it would expand into Latin America through a collaboration with América Móvil. In December 2013, AT&T announced plans to sell its Connecticut wireline operations to Stamford-based Frontier Communications. AT&T purchased the Mexican carrier Iusacell in late 2014, two months purchased the Mexican wireless business of NII Holdings, merging the two companies to create AT&T Mexico.
In July 2015, AT&T purchased DirecTV for $48.5 billion, or $67.1 billion including assumed debt, subject to certain conditions. AT&T subsequently announced plans to converge its existing U-verse home internet and IPTV brands with DirecTV, to create AT&T Entertainment. In an effort to increase its media holdings, on October 22, 2016, AT&T announced a deal to buy Time Warner for $108.7 billion. AT&T owns a 2% stake in Canadian-domiciled entertainment company Lionsgate. On July 13, 2017, it was reported that AT&T would introduce a cloud-based DVR streaming service as part of its effort to create a unified platform across DirecTV and its DirecTV Now streaming service, with U-verse to be added soon. In October 2018, it was announced that the service Is set to launch in 2019On September 12, 2017, it was reported that AT&T planned to launch a new cable TV-like service for delivery over-the-top over its own or a competitor's broadband network sometime next year. On November 20, 2017, Assistant Attorney General Makan Delrahim filed a lawsuit for the United States Department of Justice Antitrust Division to block the merger with Time Warner, saying it "will harm competition, result in higher bills for consumers and less innovation."
In order for AT&T to acquire Time Warner, the Department of Justice stated that the company must
English literature
See also: British literature This article is focused on English-language literature rather than the literature of England, so that it includes writers from Scotland, the Crown dependencies, the whole of Ireland, as well as literature in English from countries of the former British Empire, including the United States. However, until the early 19th century, it only deals with the literature of the United Kingdom, the Crown dependencies and Ireland, it does not include literature written in the other languages of Britain. The English language has developed over the course of more than 1,400 years; the earliest forms of English, a set of Anglo-Frisian dialects brought to Great Britain by Anglo-Saxon settlers in the fifth century, are called Old English. Middle English began in the late 11th century with the Norman conquest of England. Early Modern English began in the late 15th century with the introduction of the printing press to London and the King James Bible as well as the Great Vowel Shift.
Through the influence of the British Empire, the English language has spread around the world since the 17th century. Old English literature, or Anglo-Saxon literature, encompasses the surviving literature written in Old English in Anglo-Saxon England, in the period after the settlement of the Saxons and other Germanic tribes in England c. 450, after the withdrawal of the Romans, "ending soon after the Norman Conquest" in 1066. These works include genres such as epic poetry, sermons, Bible translations, legal works and riddles. In all there are about 400 surviving manuscripts from the period. Widsith, which appears in the Exeter Book of the late 10th century, gives a list of kings of tribes ordered according to their popularity and impact on history, with Attila King of the Huns coming first, followed by Eormanric of the Ostrogoths, it may be the oldest extant work that tells the Battle of the Goths and Huns, told in such Scandinavian works as Hervarar's saga and Gesta Danorum. Lotte Hedeager argues that the work is far older and that it dates back to the late 6th or early 7th century, citing the author's knowledge of historical details and accuracy as proof of its authenticity.
She does note, that some authors, such as John Niles, have argued the work was invented in the 10th century. The Anglo-Saxon Chronicle is a collection of annals in Old English, from the 9th century, that chronicle is the history of the Anglo-Saxons; the poem Battle of Maldon deals with history. This is a work of uncertain date, celebrating the Battle of Maldon of 991, at which the Anglo-Saxons failed to prevent a Viking invasion. Oral tradition was strong in early English culture and most literary works were written to be performed. Epic poems were popular, some, including Beowulf, have survived to the present day. Beowulf is the most famous work in Old English, has achieved national epic status in England, despite being set in Scandinavia; the only surviving manuscript is the Nowell Codex, the precise date of, debated, but most estimates place it close to the year 1000. Beowulf is the conventional title, its composition is dated between the 8th and the early 11th century. Nearly all Anglo-Saxon authors are anonymous: twelve are known by name from medieval sources, but only four of those are known by their vernacular works with any certainty: Cædmon, Alfred the Great, Cynewulf.
Cædmon is the earliest English poet whose name is known, his only known surviving work Cædmon's Hymn dates from the late 7th century. The poem is one of the earliest attested examples of Old English and is, with the runic Ruthwell Cross and Franks Casket inscriptions, one of three candidates for the earliest attested example of Old English poetry, it is one of the earliest recorded examples of sustained poetry in a Germanic language. The poem, The Dream of the Rood, was inscribed upon the Ruthwell Cross. Two Old English poems from the late 10th century are The Seafarer. Both have a religious theme, Richard Marsden describes The Seafarer as "an exhortatory and didactic poem, in which the miseries of winter seafaring are used as a metaphor for the challenge faced by the committed Christian ". Classical antiquity was not forgotten in Anglo-Saxon England, several Old English poems are adaptations of late classical philosophical texts; the longest is King Alfred's 9th-century translation of Boethius' Consolation of Philosophy.
After the Norman conquest of England in 1066, the written form of the Anglo-Saxon language became less common. Under the influence of the new aristocracy, French became the standard language of courts and polite society; as the invaders integrated, their language and literature mingled with that of the natives, the Norman dialects of the ruling classes became Anglo-Norman. From until the 12th century, Anglo-Saxon underwent a gradual transition into Middle English. Political power was no longer in English hands, so that the West Saxon literary language had no more influence than any other dialect and Middle English literature was written in the many dialects that corresponded to the region, history and background of individual writers. In this period religious literature continued to enjoy popularity and Hagiographies were written and translated: for example, The Life of Saint Audrey, Eadmer's. At the end of the 12th century, Layamon in Brut adapted the Norman-French of Wace to produce the first English-language work to present the legends of King Arthur and the Knights of the Round Table.
It was the first historiography written in English since the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle. Middle English Bible translations, notably Wycliffe's Bible, helped to establish English as
