Vitis rotundifolia, or muscadine, is a grapevine species native to the southeastern and south-central United States. The growth range extends from Florida to New Jersey coast, west to eastern Texas and Oklahoma, it has been extensively cultivated since the 16th century. The plants are well-adapted to their native humid climate. Muscadine berries may be dark purple or black when ripe. Wild varieties may stay green through maturity. Muscadines have tough skin, making eating raw fruit similar to eating a plum. Muscadines are used in making artisan wines and jelly, they are rich sources of polyphenols. In a natural setting, muscadines provide wildlife habitat as shelter and food for many birds and animals, it is a larval host for the Mournful Sphinx Moth. Although in the same genus Vitis with the other grapevine species, muscadines belong to a separate subgenus and some have suggested giving it standing as a genus of its own; some taxonomists have suggested splitting two additional species off from Vitis rotundifolia, Vitis munsoniana and Vitis popenoei.

All have 40 chromosomes, rather than 38, are not cross-compatible with Euvitis species, most hybrids between the subgenera are sterile. A few are moderately fertile, have been used in breeding. A commercially available Euvitis x Muscadinia hybrid is the Southern Home cultivar. Although muscadines are hearty grapes with tough skin that protects them from many plant diseases, these grapes appear to be susceptible to parasitic nematodes. There are about 152 muscadine cultivars grown in the Southern states; these include bronze and red varieties and consist of common grapes and patented grapes. Unlike most cultivated grapevines, many muscadine cultivars are pistillate, requiring a pollenizer to set fruit. A few, such as'Carlos' and'Noble', are perfect-flowered, produce fruit with their own pollen, may pollinate pistillate cultivars. Muscadine grape cultivars may have low or inconsistent yields, small berries and thick skin unsuitable to consumer acceptance, disease susceptibility. Cultivars tend to be developed either for winemaking.

For consumer acceptance, fresh market grapes need to be large and with thin skin, whereas those for wine, juice or jelly need high yields of high-sugar, color-stable berries. Fresh-market cultivars include Black Beauty, Cowart, Fry, Granny Val, James, Magnolia, Mish, Noble, Summit and Thomas. Produced by the University of Florida, the cultivar,'Southern Home', contains both muscadine and subgenus Vitis in its background. Crops can be started in 3–5 years. Commercial yields of 20–45 tonnes per hectare are possible. Muscadines grow best in alluvial soils, they grow wild in well-drained bottom lands that are not subject to extended drought or waterlogging. They are resistant to pests and diseases, including Pierce's disease, which can destroy other grape species. Muscadine is one of the grape species most resistant to Phylloxera, an insect that can kill roots of grapevines. Appellations producing Muscadine wines: America Alabama Arkansas Florida Georgia Louisiana Mississippi North Carolina South Carolina Tennessee Texas Virginia 100 grams of muscadine grapes contain the following nutrients according to the USDA: Energy: 57 kilocalories Fats: 0.47 g Carbohydrates: 13.93 g Dietary Fiber: 3.9 g Protein: 0.81 g Calcium: 37 mg Phosphorus: 24 mg Potassium: 203 mg Sodium: 1 mg Vitamin C: 6.5 mg Riboflavin: 1.5 mg Consumer research indicates that the thick skins and variable in-season quality of fresh muscadine grapes are significant deterrents to retail acceptance.

As muscadine grapes are notable for their pigmented, thick skins in which the content of polyphenols is known to be high, there is active research interest to define these phytochemicals. One report indicated that muscadine grapes contained high concentrations of resveratrol, but subsequent studies have found no or little resveratrol in muscadine grapes. Other muscadine polyphenols include: anthocyanins such as delphinidin and petunidin tannins quercetin flavan-3-ols gallic acid ellagic acid ellagic acid glycosides ellagitannins myricetin kaempferolThe rank order of total phenolic content among muscadine components was found to be seeds higher than skins higher than leaves higher than pulp; the Muscadine Experience: Adding Value to Enhance Profits 2004 – 80 page technical resource for growers and processors, University of Arkansas

The Fountain of Bakhchisarai is a full-length ballet in four acts, choreographed by Rostislav Zakharov to music by Boris Asafyev. The libretto by Nikolai Volkov is based on the 1823 poem of the same title by Alexander Pushkin; the ballet premiered on 28 September 1934 at the Kirov Academic Theatre of Opera and Ballet, with Galina Ulanova as Maria, Olga Iordan as Zarema, Mikhail Dudko as Khan Girey, Konstantin Sergeyev as Vaslav. Bakhchysarai is near Yalta; the Bakhchisaray Palace was built in the sixteenth century and has been destroyed and rebuilt since. The fountain, which still stands in a courtyard, is called the Fountain of Tears; the ballet opens at Bakhchisarai Palace. Dancers try to entertain him but he is oblivious to his surroundings, staring at water trickling from a fountain; the scene shifts back in time to the palace of a Polish nobleman, where a ball is being held for the engagement of Maria, the daughter of the house, to the young noble Vaslav. Lurking Tartars led by Khan Girey scale the walls and attack the guests.

After a vicious fight in which the Khan kills Vaslav, the palace is looted and torched and the women carried away as part of the booty. Maria hides her face; the Khan and his warriors return to Bakhchisarai Palace where he is greeted by Zarema, his harem favorite. While Zarema, who loves him, is overjoyed at his return, the Khan ignores her in his preoccupation with Maria, he visits her there. Laying his heart at her feet he tries to make her love him. In their brief struggle the Khan's hat falls to the floor; the Khan returns to the court where Zarema tries to win his attention by dancing for him, but he rejects her and she collapses in despair. During the night Zarema steals out of the harem and past the guards to visit Maria in her chamber, she tries to tell Maria how she loves the Khan drawing a concealed dagger to stab her unwilling rival. At first afraid, Maria stands before Zarema and opens her arms wide, showing Zarema that she would welcome death. Zarema falls to the ground. Maria tries to comfort her.

Fearing the worst, she is again inflamed with jealousy. As the Khan and his guards rush in to try and stop her, Zarema breaks stabs Maria to death; the Khan draws his own dagger to kill Zarema, but she kneels down in front of him and offers her chest to the knife, just as Maria did. The Khan cannot kill her, but commands the guards to take her away to be flung to her death from the palace walls. In the court, Khan Girey sits and stares at the Fountain of Tears, as his orders are carried out; the Stars of the Russian Ballet is a 1953 Soviet film production that includes Swan Lake, The Fountain of Bakhchisarai and the Flames of Paris. In the film version the roles were danced by Galina Ulanova, Maya Plisetskaya, Pyotr Gusev, Yuri Zhdanov; this is the only known footage of Ulanova and Plisetskaya, who succeeded Ulanova as prima ballerina assoluta of the Bolshoi Theatre, dancing together. NY Times, by Anna Kisselgoff, July 10, 1999 NY Times, September 6, 1954 NY Times by Jennifer Dunning,: January 29, 1984 YouTube: Ulanova and Plisetskaya in excerpts from the ballet

Erin Markey is an American writer and performance artist. Markey's work combines elements of cabaret theater and comedy and incorporates stories of their childhood in the Midwest; the New York Times has described Markey as having "a cult following as an alt-cabaret star with swaggering confidence and off-kilter sense of humor." Markey was born in Michigan in 1981. They were raised Catholic, their father was a marketer in telecommunications and their mother was a medical assistant. In high school, Markey flirted with being a "Bible Belt Christian," due to the influence of friends and their sense that " it felt like impassioned speaking, to Catholicism." In high school, Markey informed their parents that they wanted to become a performer, rather than a veterinarian, which made their mother "really mad." Markey studied performance in college at the University of Michigan, taking a class taught by well-known performance artist Holly Hughes. After college, Markey worked for five months at a strip club, an experience that, according to a New York Times profile, was "helpful in developing her confidence and stage presence."

Markey drew upon this experience in several performance works. Markey has described, in an interview published in Bomb, their self-imposed separation from their family after they came out as gay, a period they described as a "wonderful break of me being able to just develop artistically outside the bounds of me feeling as accountable to them." In the same interview, Markey described their misgivings and anxieties about their family seeing their work, which draws upon their family life. Markey explained: "It’s not dirty laundry, but just things that feel private are like, being made into a show where tons of people are watching it." In 2010, Markey's show "Puppy Love: A Stripper's Tail" was produced at Performance Space 122 in New York City. Based on Markey's experiences working as a stripper after college, "Puppy Love" was praised as "a must-see tale/tail for all you ladies and gents who work in the gray area between theater and erotic arts in New York. It’s worth seeing if you don’t work in that lovely, glistening niche of the alternative entertainment world."

Michelle Tea praised "Puppy Love," calling it a sex work narrative, but in the form of a musical. The problem with most sex work narratives is that they are not musicals... they don’t innovate on a story that we’ve now heard a lot, a story that doesn’t change up all that much. But Erin brings into it her voices, her singular artistic voice of course, but her singing voice, good. Like, she could go on something. In 2013, Markey starred in Progressive Theatre Workshop's "God Hates This Show: Shirley Phelps-Roper in Concert, Live From Hell," a musical written and directed by John J. Caswell, Jr. satirizing Westboro Baptist Church. Markey played daughter of Fred Phelps, the founder of Westboro Baptist Church. In the play, Phelps-Roper has died and gone to hell, sings songs expressing the hateful beliefs of the church; as one account described their performance, "acked by a full rock band, Markey as Phelps-Roper sing such'hits' as'Death in Your Window,' a parody of Melissa Etheridge’s'Come to My Window,' and'Stinky Freak,' known in non-helllish circles as'Super Freak.'

She’s accompanied by a trio of backup singers and dancers in full-on cabaret mode."In 2013-14, Markey's show "Erin Markey" ran at Joe's Pub. Jarrett Earnest, writing about the show, observed that Erin Markey’s energy, her sensibility, is so singularly constructed for herself that it couldn’t be transferred to another person, maybe, one thing people mean in calling her a performance artist, she plays "Erin Markey" as an outsized persona through autobiographical sketches interlaced with musical numbers—a tried and true nightclub strategy. The songs contemporary pop songs, are performed with an intensity that unravels them. Asked about their work in "Erin Markey," Markey explained: It’s funny to be making this show right now where I’m supposed to be Erin Markey the whole time because I feel like I work best when I’m in character. That's. So that’s not difficult for me to go back and forth between characters either, because you know different situations call for different folks. Not that that’s made so explicit in my life, in my practical life I mean.

I do think we’re going through this time where identity is not as … people aren’t as interested in being one singular thing anymore. I just had trouble writing a bio because I was like, "I don’t want to be called a performance artist. I don’t wanna be called a comedian, I don’t want to be called an actor, or a singer or a cabaret artist," because none of those things seem to describe who I am. In 2015, Markey's play "Deleted Scenes from Fun Home," based on the Broadway adaptation Alison Bechdel's graphic novel Fun Home, was produced at the Duplex Cabaret Theatre in New York City. A one-person show written by and starring Markey, the show purported to present deleted scenes from the Broadway musical Fun Home. Asked about the inspiration for "Deleted Scenes from Fun Home," Markey described how they became obsessed with the score to the Broadway musical Fun Home, saying that "for unnameable or unknowable reasons, I was activated in a strange way that I had no control over." Markey went on to explain the appeal that the Broadway musical Fun Home had for them: The fact that I was having this sensation was a huge revelation to me—or a prior absence of these feelings was the revelation.

The fact that the story of a butch lesbian was being supported on a Broadway budget level was a huge part of it. The money. Or maybe it was the fact that

The sixth season of HaMerotz LaMillion is an Israeli reality television game show based on the American series, The Amazing Race. The sixth installment of the series features 12 teams of two with a pre-existing relationship in a race around the world to win ₪1,000,000; this season premiered on October 21, 2017 on Channel 2 until November 1, 2017 when the show moved to Reshet 13, one of two new stations launched following a split of the former, is hosted by Ron Shahar. Married parents Evelin and Tohar Haimovich were the winners of this season. Unlike the previous two seasons, which featured 14 teams split into two groups of seven teams and eliminated one team per group at the end of the first leg, this season's first leg returned to a single leg format; the Race visited four continents and eight countries including a franchise first visit to Kyrgyzstan, a country which has not been visited by the original American edition. The show featured a special episode in the ninth country of Greece, where eliminated teams competed in challenges while sequestered.

Former New York Jets Flight Crew and The Amazing Race 27 contestant Krista DeBono was the Pit Stop greeter on Leg 2 in New York City. For the first time in the show's history, the eliminated teams would receive a chance to return to the Race. After the conclusion of Leg 9, all the eliminated teams, with the exception of the team eliminated in Leg 1 and a team medically not cleared to compete, would compete in a leg with the winner being able to return to the Race. Starting with this season, episodes began with a shortened intro. After the Race, Neta Barazani appeared on the ninth season of the Israeli edition of Big Brother along with Season 2 contestant Adele Bespalov and Season 4 contestant Liron "Tiltil" Orfeli as part of a second wave of houseguests with a secret assignment in order to earn their way into the Big Brother house. Neta and "Tiltil" were unable to earn a spot in the house. Harel Group, Spring and Partner Communications Company served as sponsors for this season; the following teams participated with their relationships at the time of filming.

Note that this table is not reflective of all content broadcast on television due to inclusion or exclusion of some data. Placements are listed in finishing order: A red team placement means the team was eliminated. An orange + indicates that there was a Double Battle on this leg of the Race, while an orange − Indicates the team that lost the Double Battle and received a 15-minute penalty. A yellow < or orange "indicates the team. A blue team placement indicates that the team was the last to arrive at a pit stop in a non-elimination leg of the Race. A brown ⊂ indicates the team. A fuchsia ß indicates that a team was brought back into the competition after winning the Return Ticket. Italicized results indicate the position of the team at the midpoint of a two-episode leg. Teams may vote to choose either Yield; the team with the most votes received the Yield penalty, depending on the respective leg. Translated from Hebrew from the official website: Airdate: 21 October 2017 Tzukei Yam, Central District, Israel Netanya Netanya Central District Tel Aviv District Additional tasksAt Winter Lake Park, teams had to walk across an I-beam suspended high above the park, using a short length of rope to balance each other.

Once across, they had to sit on the end of the beam and pick up a nearby metal lunchbox to have their photograph taken with it, recreating the famous Lunch atop a Skyscraper photograph. At the Netanya IKEA store, teams had to choose a display inside the store to memorize make their way to a matching display outside, missing certain items, they had to figure out and search the store for the items that the outdoor display was missing, show them to a judge. If the items were correct, they received their next clue. At the Yavneh Food Products Group in Kvutzat Yavne, teams had to balance on opposite ends of a seesaw and had to make their way toward the middle to empty cups of olive oil into a bucket without either end touching the ground, otherwise they had to go back and try again. Once teams filled the bucket, they received their next clue. After receiving their clue, teams were directed to the Pit Stop, described as the Mikveh in the center of the country, teaching agriculture for 150 years, leaving them to figure out that this referred to the Mikveh Israel near Tel Aviv.

Airdate: 25 & 28 October, 1 November 2017 Tel Aviv to Newark, New Jersey, United States Manhattan, New York City, New York Manhattan Brooklyn Brooklyn Manhattan Manhattan Manhattan Manhattan Brooklyn Manhattan Manhattan For the first Double Battle of the Race atop two adjacent rooftops in the Industry City complex, teams competed against each other in a tug of war match. The first team to pull the other off of their rooftop received their next clue; the team that fell would have to wait for t

The Basin Reserve is a cricket ground in Wellington, New Zealand, used for Test, first-class and one-day cricket. The Basin Reserve is the only cricket ground in New Zealand to have Historic Place status as it is the oldest test cricket ground in New Zealand; the ground has been used for events other than cricket, such as concerts, sports events and other social gatherings, but now it is used for cricket Test matches. It is the main home ground for Wellington Firebirds; the Basin Reserve is two kilometres south of the Wellington CBD at the foot of Mount Victoria. Government House, St Marks Church School, the Wellington College boys' school are to the south of the Basin, across the street. At the eastern end of the basin is the Mount Victoria Tunnel, which increased the traffic flow around the Basin Reserve when it was built in 1931; the New Zealand Cricket Museum is located in the Old Grandstand. It houses a reference library; the Basin Reserve is surrounded by numerous other Wellington landmarks, including Mount Cook Barracks, the National War Memorial, several colleges and high schools, the Caledonian Hotel and the former Dominion Museum.

A fire station is located across the street from the ground: traditionally its occupants would watch ongoing matches during their down-time, would set off the station's siren to mark New Zealand wickets taken or when a batsman reached a milestone like a 50 or century. The Basin Reserve is the intersection point for the Wellington suburbs of Mount Cook and Mount Victoria; the area, now Basin Reserve was a lake, there were plans to connect it to the sea by a canal to make it an alternative inner city harbour, with major warehouses and factories alongside it. However, the massive 1855 Wairarapa earthquake uplifted the area nearly 1.8 m and turned the lake into a swamp. Due to the colonists' English roots, sport cricket, was a vital part of the community's way to relax. However, no land had been allocated by the city planners for recreational reserves. Although natural grounds, such as the Te Aro flat, provided a small area for matches, the colonists wanted more recreational land than what they had.

The matter became more dire as buildings began to be erected on these flat plains, as flat land was hard to find in the mountainous Wellington. So after the 1855 earthquake, which historians estimate measured magnitude 8, influential citizens seized the chance in 1857 to suggest that the new land be drained and made into a recreational reserve; the Wellington council accepted the proposal and beginning on 3 February 1863 prisoners from the Mount Cook Gaol began to level and drain the new land. The swamp was drained by September and a fence was placed around the entire area along with hedges. However, massive population influxes from 1863 until 1866 hampered construction on the Basin Reserve as workers were pulled to other areas. After a council meeting on 11 December 1866 the Basin Reserve became Wellington's official cricket ground. No cattle or horses were allowed in the ground and only small hedges and shrubs were allowed to be planted so as not to hamper cricket games. Soon after, on 11 January 1868, the first game of cricket was played, although the ground had numerous stones and thistles on it, which the umpire apologised for as some players got injured from them.

Although it was the opening day, no ceremony or music was played, nor was the opening advertised with banners. Soon after that first event, the Highland Games began being held at the Basin Reserve; the games were organised by the Wellingtonian Caledonian Society, of which their headquarters, The Caledonian Hotel, still stands towards the south of the Basin Reserve. The society offered up prize money. Due to their success, the society petitioned to have new grandstands built at the western end of the Basin Reserve, they would measure 44 by 20 ft and would cost £250–£300. The stands would hold food stalls and ground keepers. However, for the following years up until 1872, the Basin Reserve grounds were still swampy, with small pools of swamp water and various weeds and shrubs sprouting over the fields. In late 1872, horses were used to level the playing field and this improved the conditions. In 1882, the William Wakefield Memorial was erected at the Basin Reserve; the monument had been in storage for many years, it was erected to commemorate one of the city's founders, William Wakefield, at the main sports ground.

The pavilion has been a Category II registered Historic Place since 1982, the entire Basin Reserve has been a registered Historic Area since 1998. The William Wakefield Memorial has a Category I registration; the first event played on the Basin Reserve was a one-day cricket match on 11 January 1868 between the Wellington Volunteers and the crew of HMS Falcon, docked in Wellington. However, the game was hampered with injuries from numerous stones and thistles in the grass, which led to the injury of some players; the umpire apologised after the game to the players for the poor conditions of play. After that first event, local societies began organising athletic and sport meetings at the Basin Reserve; these meetings were called the Highland Games and it was their success which led to the construction of the ground's grand stand. The events included athletics, racing and wood-chopping and cycling. However, the ground was still swampy in some areas, but was remedied in late 1872; this allowed the first first-class game, Wellington against Auckland, to be played on 30

The L118 Light Gun is a 105 mm towed howitzer. It was produced for the British Army in the 1970s and has been exported since, including to the United States, where a modified version is known as the "M119 howitzer". From 1961 until the mid-1970s, the British Army used the 105 mm pack howitzer L5 with L10 ordnance as its light artillery weapon, variously replacing the 75mm howitzer, 4.2 inch mortar and 25-pounder gun in some eight regular artillery regiments. It fires the US M1 type ammunition; the Mod 56, a used howitzer, was designed in Italy for the mountain artillery units. It is light enough to be towed by Land Rovers, it could be dismantled into several separate pieces, none heavier than 128 kg, to be transported by mules or horses. However, it lacked range, was not notably robust, had poor sights and was not popular. Nor was its rate of fire and time to prepare for opening fire satisfactory. In 1965, a general staff requirement was approved for a new 105 mm weapon system because the pack howitzer "lacked range and lethality".

Key characteristics included 6400 mil traverse by one soldier, maximum weight of 3,500 pounds, dimension limits imposed by internal carriage in new Chinook helicopters and Andover transport aircraft, the ability to fire after being under water for 30 minutes. The ammunition to be used was the 105 mm Fd Mk 2 ammunition used in the L13 ordnance of the gun equipment 105 mm L109; this ammunition uses electrical instead of percussion primers and is an different design from the US M1 type ammunition as used in the L5 pack howitzer. The two types are not interchangeable. An early requirement was for the new weapon to use 105mm Fd Mk 1 ammunition, which uses the M1 shell, in training. However, in 1968, this was changed to allow a different version of the weapon, which subsequently became the L119, to fire US 1935 pattern ammunition; the new gun, soon designated'light gun', was designed by the government Royal Armament Research and Development Establishment, Fort Halstead, Kent. Prototypes were tested in 1968.

However, it soon emerged that some increase in weight was needed for a gun with the requisite robustness, several assemblies were redesigned. Original production, authorised in late 1975, was by Royal Ordnance Factory, ROF Nottingham, which has since been incorporated into BAE Systems Land and Armaments. Deliveries started in 1976; the light gun entered service with the British Army in 1976. The new weapon was heavier than its predecessor, but new and more capable helicopters such as the Puma and Westland Sea King, which could carry the new weapon, were entering service at the same time. A new vehicle, the Land Rover 101 Forward Control are equipped with the light gun; those University Officer Training Corps with "gun troops" train with the L118. On 30 November 2001, an L118 light gun replaced a 25-pounder as the One O'Clock Gun in Edinburgh Castle. By tradition, this fires every day at one o'clock, except on Good Friday and Christmas Day; the light gun is fired by 14 Regiment Royal Artillery on Remembrance Sunday and Armistice Day each year.

As of July 2017, there were 126 L118 light guns in service with the British Army. The L118 uses the L19 ordnance on the L17 carriage; the L19 ordnance is shorter than the L13 used by the Abbot and hence has a shorter maximum range. Unlike the Abbot, the barrel is autofrettaged and hence lighter; the light gun appears to owe a number of its features to the QF 25 pounder, unsurprisingly since RARDE was the successor to the design department, Woolwich Arsenal. Among these features are its vertically sliding block breech, a box trail instead of a split trail, its comparatively light weight is attributed to the nature of the steel used in the carriage and ordnance, other weight-reducing features, including its narrow wheelbase. The narrow wheelbase prevents; because of this, the gun features a knock-off hub on one side allowing the ordnance to be rotated by removing one wheel. With a well trained gun crew, this contributes 30 seconds to the time required to deplo