Most viewed Wikipedia articles on August 20 , 2021

The Taliban or Taleban, who refer to themselves as the Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan (IEA), are a Sunni Islamic fundamentalist political movement and military organisation in Afghanistan currently waging war within that country. Since 2016, the Taliban's leader is Mawlawi Hibatullah Akhundzada.

Afghanistan, officially the Islamic Republic of Afghanistan, is a landlocked country at the crossroads of Central and South Asia. Afghanistan is bordered by Pakistan to the east and south; Iran to the west; Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan, and Tajikistan to the north; and China to the northeast. Occupying 652,000 square kilometers (252,000 sq mi), it is a mountainous country with plains in the north and southwest. Kabul is the capital and largest city. The population is around 32 million, composed mostly of ethnic Pashtuns, Tajiks, Hazaras, and Uzbeks.

Captain Vikram Batra, PVC was an officer of the Indian Army, awarded with the Param Vir Chakra, India's highest and most prestigious award for valour, for his actions during the 1999 Kargil War.

The Bible is a collection of religious texts or scriptures sacred to Christians, Jews, Samaritans, Rastafari and others. It appears in the form of an anthology, a compilation of texts of a variety of forms that are all linked by the belief that they are collectively revelations of God. These texts include theologically-focused historical accounts, hymns, prayers, proverbs, parables, didactic letters, erotica, poetry, and prophecies. Believers also generally consider the Bible to be a product of divine inspiration.

Cleopatra VII Philopator was the last active ruler of the Ptolemaic Kingdom of Egypt. As a member of the Ptolemaic dynasty, she was a descendant of its founder Ptolemy I Soter, a Macedonian Greek general and companion of Alexander the Great. After the death of Cleopatra, Egypt became a province of the Roman Empire, marking the end of the second to last Hellenistic state and the age that had lasted since the reign of Alexander. Her native language was Koine Greek, and she was the only Ptolemaic ruler to learn the Egyptian language.

Sean Lock is an English comedian and actor. He began his comedy career as a stand-up comedian, won the British Comedy Award in 2000 in the category of Best Live Comic, and was nominated for the Perrier Comedy Award.

The following deaths of notable individuals occurred in 2021. Names are reported under the date of death, in alphabetical order by surname or pseudonym. A typical entry reports information in the following sequence:

• Name, age, country of citizenship at birth, subsequent nationality, what subject was noted for, cause of death, and reference.

The Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan was an Islamic state established in September 1996, when the Taliban began their governance of Afghanistan after the fall of Kabul. At its peak, the Taliban government controlled approximately 90% of the country, whereas remaining regions in the northeast were held by the Northern Alliance, which maintained broad international recognition as a continuation of the Islamic State of Afghanistan. After the September 11 attacks and subsequent declaration of a "War on Terror" by the United States, international opposition to the regime drastically increased, with diplomatic recognition from the United Arab Emirates and Pakistan being rescinded. The Islamic Emirate ceased to exist on 17 December 2001 after being overthrown by the Northern Alliance, which had been bolstered by the ISAF coalition established after a U.S.-led invasion of the country two months prior. The Taliban has continued to refer to itself as the Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan in official communications.

Nine Perfect Strangers is an upcoming American drama streaming television miniseries based on the 2018 novel of the same name by Liane Moriarty. The series is created by David E. Kelley and John Henry Butterworth that is slated to be released in 2021 on Hulu.

Bell Bottom is an upcoming Indian Hindi-language spy thriller film directed by Ranjit M Tewari. The film is written by Aseem Arrora and Parveez Sheikh, with production by Jackky Bhagnani, Deepshikha Deshmukh and Nikkhil Advani under their respective banners Pooja Entertainment and Emmay Entertainment. It stars Akshay Kumar as the lead character, with Vaani Kapoor, Lara Dutta and Huma Qureshi in other prominent roles. Bell Bottom is inspired from real life hijacking events in 1980s in India, for instance the 1984 Indian Airlines Airbus A300 hijacking.

Eternals is an upcoming American superhero film based on the Marvel Comics race of the same name. Produced by Marvel Studios and distributed by Walt Disney Studios Motion Pictures, it is intended to be the 26th film in the Marvel Cinematic Universe (MCU). The film is directed by Chloé Zhao and written by Kaz and Ryan Firpo. It stars an ensemble cast including Angelina Jolie, Richard Madden, Kumail Nanjiani, Lauren Ridloff, Brian Tyree Henry, Salma Hayek, Lia McHugh, Don Lee, Kit Harington, Gemma Chan, and Barry Keoghan. In the film, the Eternals, who have hidden themselves for thousands of years, must re-unite to protect Earth from their enemies, the Deviants.

Dato' Sri Ismail Sabri bin Yaakob is a Malaysian politician who served as the Senior Minister for Security and Minister of Defence in the Perikatan Nasional (PN) administration under Prime Minister Muhyiddin Yassin since March 2020 and Member of Parliament (MP) for Bera since March 2004. He served as the 15th Leader of the Opposition in the Pakatan Harapan (PH) administration from March 2019 to the collapse of the PH administration in February 2020, Minister of Rural and Regional Development, Minister of Agriculture and Agro-based Industry, Minister of Domestic Trade, Cooperatives and Consumerism and Minister of Youth and Sports in the Barisan Nasional (BN) administration under former Prime Ministers Abdullah Ahmad Badawi and Najib Razak from March 2008 to the collapse of the BN administration in May 2018. He is a member and Vice-President of the United Malays National Organisation (UMNO), a component party of the BN coalition which is aligned with the ruling PN coalition.

YouTube is an American online video-sharing platform headquartered in San Bruno, California. The service, created in February 2005 by three former PayPal employees—Chad Hurley, Steve Chen, and Jawed Karim—was bought by Google in November 2006 for US$1.65 billion and now operates as one of the company's subsidiaries. YouTube is the second most-visited website in the world after Google Search, according to Alexa Internet rankings.

Shershaah is an upcoming Indian Hindi-language biographical war action film directed by Vishnuvardhan and co-produced by Karan Johar. Tracing the life journey of Param Vir Chakra awardee and army captain Vikram Batra, it stars Sidharth Malhotra in a double role, as Batra and his identical twin brother Vishal; Kiara Advani plays the role of Dimple Cheema. The official announcement for film was made in May 2019; principal photography commenced in the same month and wrapped up in January 2020. Initially scheduled to be released on 3 July 2020, the film was postponed due to the COVID-19 pandemic. This also marks Vishnuvardhan's directorial debut in Bollywood and Hindi film. The film is scheduled to release on 12 August 2021 on Amazon Prime Video.

Sean Justin Penn is an American actor, director, screenwriter, and producer. He has won two Academy Awards, for his roles in the mystery drama Mystic River (2003) and the biopic Milk (2008).

OnlyFans is a content subscription service based in London, United Kingdom. Content creators can earn money from users who subscribe to their content—the "fans". It is popular with sex workers but also hosts content creators from other genres such as physical fitness experts, musicians and other creators who post regularly online. It allows content creators to receive funding directly from their fans on a monthly basis as well as one-time tips and the pay-per-view (PPV) feature.

The White Lotus is an American satire comedy television miniseries created, written and directed by Mike White that premiered on HBO on July 11, 2021.

The Green Knight is an upcoming American epic medieval fantasy film written and directed by David Lowery. It stars Dev Patel, Alicia Vikander, Joel Edgerton, Sarita Choudhury, Sean Harris, Kate Dickie, Barry Keoghan and Ralph Ineson, and is based on the poem of Sir Gawain and the Green Knight.

The Suicide Squad is an upcoming American superhero film based on the DC Comics team of the same name. Produced by DC Films, Atlas Entertainment, and The Safran Company, and set for distribution by Warner Bros. Pictures, it is intended to be a standalone sequel to Suicide Squad (2016) and the tenth film in the DC Extended Universe (DCEU). Written and directed by James Gunn, the film stars an ensemble cast including Margot Robbie, Idris Elba, John Cena, Joel Kinnaman, Peter Capaldi, Sylvester Stallone, and Viola Davis. In the film, a task force of imprisoned convicts are sent to destroy a Nazi-era prison and laboratory.

Michael G. Richards, is an American television personality and producer.

Sweet Girl is a 2021 American action thriller film directed by Brian Andrew Mendoza in his feature directorial debut and written by Philip Eisner and Gregg Hurwitz. It stars Jason Momoa, Isabela Merced, Manuel Garcia-Rulfo, Adria Arjona, Raza Jaffrey, Justin Bartha, Lex Scott Davis, Michael Raymond-James and Amy Brenneman.

Solar Power is the upcoming third studio album by New Zealand singer-songwriter Lorde, scheduled for release in 2021.

Aaliyah Dana Haughton was an American singer, actress and model. She has been credited for helping to redefine contemporary R&B, pop and hip hop, earning her the nicknames the "Princess of R&B" and "Queen of Urban Pop".

Beckett is a 2021 thriller film directed by Ferdinando Cito Filomarino. The film stars John David Washington as an American tourist vacationing in Greece who becomes the target of a manhunt after an accident, and must reach the embassy to clear his name; Boyd Holbrook, Vicky Krieps, and Alicia Vikander also star.

Shinichi Chiba , also known as Sonny Chiba, is a Japanese actor, singer, film producer, film director, and martial artist.

XXXX may refer to:

Free Guy is an upcoming American science fiction action comedy film directed by Shawn Levy from a screenplay by Matt Lieberman and Zak Penn and a story by Lieberman. The film stars Ryan Reynolds, Jodie Comer, Joe Keery, Lil Rel Howery, Utkarsh Ambudkar and Taika Waititi.

Skathi, or Saturn XXVII, is a natural satellite of Saturn. It was discovered by Brett Gladman, Kavelaars and colleagues in 2000, and given the temporary designation S/2000 S 8. Skathi is about 8 kilometres in diameter and orbits Saturn at an average distance of 15.576 Gm in 725.784 days, at an inclination of 149° to the ecliptic, in a retrograde direction and with an eccentricity of 0.246. Its rotation period is 11.1±0.02 hours.

Ella Marija Lani Yelich-O'Connor, known professionally as Lorde, is a New Zealand singer and songwriter. Taking inspiration from aristocracy for her stage name, she is known for employing unconventional musical styles and introspective songwriting. Lorde's music is primarily electropop and contains elements of subgenres such as dream pop and indie-electro.

Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings is an upcoming American superhero film based on the Marvel Comics character Shang-Chi. Produced by Marvel Studios and distributed by Walt Disney Studios Motion Pictures, it is intended to be the 25th film in the Marvel Cinematic Universe (MCU). The film is directed by Destin Daniel Cretton from a screenplay by David Callaham and stars Simu Liu as Shang-Chi, alongside Awkwafina, Tony Leung, Fala Chen, Meng'er Zhang, Florian Munteanu, Ronny Chieng, and Michelle Yeoh. In the film, Shang-Chi is forced to confront his past after he is drawn into the Ten Rings organization.

Reminiscence is an upcoming American science fiction thriller film written and directed by Lisa Joy in her feature directorial debut. The film stars Hugh Jackman, Rebecca Ferguson, Thandiwe Newton, Daniel Wu, and Cliff Curtis.

Martin Ødegaard is a Norwegian professional footballer who plays as an attacking midfielder for Premier League club Arsenal, on loan from Real Madrid, and the Norway national team.

What If...? is an upcoming American animated anthology series created by A.C. Bradley for the streaming service Disney+, based on the Marvel Comics series of the same name. It explores what would happen if major moments from the films of the Marvel Cinematic Universe (MCU) occurred differently. The series is produced by Marvel Studios, their first animated series since becoming their own production company. Bradley serves as head writer of the series, with Bryan Andrews directing.

Ahmad Shah Massoud was an Afghan politician and military commander. He was a powerful guerrilla commander during the resistance against the Soviet occupation between 1979 and 1989. In the 1990s, he led the government's military wing against rival militias and, after the Taliban takeover, was the leading opposition commander against their regime until his assassination in 2001.

XXX is a 2002 American action film directed by Rob Cohen, produced by Neal H. Moritz and written by Rich Wilkes. The first installment in the XXX film series, the film stars Vin Diesel as Xander Cage, a thrill-seeking extreme sports enthusiast, stuntman and rebellious athlete-turned reluctant spy for the National Security Agency. Cage is sent on a dangerous mission to infiltrate a group of potential Russian terrorists in Central Europe. The film also stars Asia Argento, Marton Csokas and Samuel L. Jackson. Cohen, Moritz and Diesel had previously worked on The Fast and the Furious (2001) as director, producer and cast member respectively.

Dennis Andrew Nilsen was a Scottish serial killer and necrophile who murdered at least twelve young men and boys between 1978 and 1983 in London, England. Convicted at the Old Bailey of six counts of murder and two of attempted murder, Nilsen was sentenced to life imprisonment on 4 November 1983, with a recommendation that he serve a minimum of twenty-five years. This recommendation was later changed to a whole life tariff. In his later years, Nilsen was imprisoned at Full Sutton maximum security prison.

The 2021 Taliban offensive is an ongoing military offensive by the Taliban and allied militant groups, including al-Qaeda, against the government of Afghanistan and its allies that began on 1 May 2021, simultaneous with the withdrawal of most U.S. troops from Afghanistan. As of 15 July 2021, over a third of Afghanistan's 421 districts were controlled by the Taliban, and by 21 July, half of Afghanistan was under Taliban control.

Kabul, the capital city of Afghanistan, fell to Taliban forces on 15 August 2021 in the culmination of a military offensive that began in May 2021 against the Afghan government. The capture took place hours after President Ashraf Ghani fled the country and abandoned the city's presidential palace. Most of the provincial capitals of Afghanistan had fallen one after the other in the midst of a U.S. troop withdrawal that was to be completed by the end of August.

Joseph Jason Namakaeha Momoa is an American actor. He is widely known for portraying Arthur Curry / Aquaman in the DC Extended Universe films Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice (2016), Justice League (2017), and Aquaman (2018).

The BBC World Service is an international broadcaster owned and operated by the BBC. It is the world's largest of any kind. It broadcasts radio news, speech and discussions in more than 40 languages to many parts of the world on analogue and digital shortwave platforms, internet streaming, podcasting, satellite, DAB, FM and MW relays. In 2015, The World Service reached an average of 210 million people a week. In November 2016, the BBC announced that it would start broadcasting in additional languages including Amharic and Igbo, in its biggest expansion since the 1940s.

Dylan Frances Penn is an American model and actress. She is the daughter of Sean Penn and Robin Wright. Her early public roles included modeling campaigns for Gap Inc., a magazine cover for treats!, a music video appearance in Nick Jonas' "Chains" and an acting role in Elvis & Nixon.

SummerSlam is an upcoming professional wrestling pay-per-view and WWE Network event produced by WWE for their Raw and SmackDown brand divisions. It is scheduled to take place on August 21, 2021, at Allegiant Stadium in the Las Vegas suburb of Paradise, Nevada. It will be the 34th event under the SummerSlam chronology and the first to take place on a Saturday since the 1992 event, although it will be the first to air live on a Saturday.

Scarlett Ingrid Johansson is an American actress and singer. She was the world's highest-paid actress in 2018 and 2019, and has featured multiple times on the Forbes Celebrity 100 list. Her films have grossed over $14.3 billion worldwide, making Johansson the ninth-highest-grossing box office star of all time. She is the recipient of several accolades, including a Tony Award and a BAFTA Award, as well as nominations for two Academy Awards and five Golden Globe Awards.

Osama bin Mohammed bin Awad bin Laden, also rendered Usama bin Ladin, was a founder of the pan-Islamic militant organization al-Qaeda, designated as a terrorist group by the United Nations Security Council, the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO), the European Union, and various countries.

Aaron Christopher Ramsdale is an English professional footballer who plays as a goalkeeper for Premier League club Sheffield United and the England U21s.

The United States of America (USA), commonly known as the United States, or America, is a country primarily located in North America, consisting of 50 states, a federal district, five major self-governing territories, and various possessions. At 3.8 million square miles, it is the world's third- or fourth-largest country by total area. With a population of more than 328 million people, it is the third most populous country in the world. The national capital is Washington, D.C., and the most populous city is New York City.

Ashraf Ghani Ahmadzai is an Afghan politician, academic, and economist who is serving as President of Afghanistan. He was first elected on 20 September 2014 and was re-elected in the 28 September 2019 presidential election. He was announced the winner after a protracted process in February 2020 and was sworn in for a second term on 9 March 2020. An anthropologist by education, he previously served as Minister of Finance and the Chancellor of Kabul University.

Val Edward Kilmer is an American actor. Originally a stage actor, Kilmer became popular in the mid-1980s after a string of appearances in comedy films, starting with Top Secret! (1984) and Real Genius (1985), as well as the military action film Top Gun (1986) and the fantasy film Willow (1988).

The Islamic Republic of Afghanistan was an Islamic republic that governed most of Afghanistan between 2004 and 2021 during the War in Afghanistan. It was established after the United States invasion of Afghanistan toppled the Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan in 2001.

India, officially the Republic of India, is a country in South Asia. It is the second-most populous country, the seventh-largest country by land area, and the most populous democracy in the world. Bounded by the Indian Ocean on the south, the Arabian Sea on the southwest, and the Bay of Bengal on the southeast, it shares land borders with Pakistan to the west; China, Nepal, and Bhutan to the north; and Bangladesh and Myanmar to the east. In the Indian Ocean, India is in the vicinity of Sri Lanka and the Maldives; its Andaman and Nicobar Islands share a maritime border with Thailand and Indonesia.

Microsoft Office, or simply Office, is a family of client software, server software, and services developed by Microsoft. It was first announced by Bill Gates on August 1, 1988, at COMDEX in Las Vegas. Initially a marketing term for an office suite, the first version of Office contained Microsoft Word, Microsoft Excel, and Microsoft PowerPoint. Over the years, Office applications have grown substantially closer with shared features such as a common spell checker, OLE data integration and Visual Basic for Applications scripting language. Microsoft also positions Office as a development platform for line-of-business software under the Office Business Applications brand. On July 10, 2012, Softpedia reported that Office was being used by over a billion people worldwide.

Muḥarram is the first month of the Islamic calendar.

Zoë Isabella Kravitz is an American actress, singer and model. The daughter of actor-musician Lenny Kravitz and actress Lisa Bonet, Kravitz achieved recognition for her portrayal of Angel Salvadore in the 2011 superhero film X-Men: First Class, which was followed by supporting roles in The Divergent Series (2014–2016) and Mad Max: Fury Road (2015).

F5, Inc. is an American company that specializes in application services and application delivery networking (ADN). F5 is headquartered in Seattle, Washington, with additional development, manufacturing, and administrative offices worldwide.

Elon Reeve Musk is a business magnate, industrial designer and engineer. He is the founder, CEO, CTO and chief designer of SpaceX; early investor, CEO and product architect of Tesla, Inc.; founder of The Boring Company; co-founder of Neuralink; and co-founder and initial co-chairman of OpenAI. In 2018, he was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society (FRS) and ranked 25th on the Forbes list of The World's Most Powerful People, and was ranked joint-first on the Forbes list of the Most Innovative Leaders of 2019. A centi-billionaire, Musk became the richest person in the world in January 2021, surpassing Jeff Bezos.

Mullah Mohammed Omar, widely known as Mullah Omar, was an Afghan mujahideen commander who led the Taliban, and founded the Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan in 1996.

The Eternals are a fictional race of humanoids appearing in American comic books published by Marvel Comics. They are described as an offshoot of the evolutionary process that created sentient life on Earth. The original instigators of this process, the alien Celestials, intended the Eternals to be the defenders of Earth, which leads to the inevitability of war against their destructive counterparts, the Deviants. The Eternals were created by Jack Kirby, and made their first appearance in The Eternals #1.

Al-Qaeda is a militant Sunni Islamist multi-national organization founded in 1988 by Osama bin Laden, Abdullah Azzam, and several other Arab volunteers during the Soviet–Afghan War.

The Internet is the global system of interconnected computer networks that uses the Internet protocol suite (TCP/IP) to communicate between networks and devices. It is a network of networks that consists of private, public, academic, business, and government networks of local to global scope, linked by a broad array of electronic, wireless, and optical networking technologies. The Internet carries a vast range of information resources and services, such as the inter-linked hypertext documents and applications of the World Wide Web (WWW), electronic mail, telephony, and file sharing.

XXX is an American action film series created by Rich Wilkes. It consists of three full-length feature films: XXX (2002), XXX: State of the Union (2005) and XXX: Return of Xander Cage (2017), and a short film: The Final Chapter: The Death of Xander Cage. The series has grossed $694 million worldwide.

Ted Lasso is an American sitcom television series developed by Bill Lawrence, Jason Sudeikis, Joe Kelly and Brendan Hunt, based on a character of the same name that Sudeikis first portrayed in a series of promos for NBC Sports' coverage of the Premier League. The series premiered with the first three episodes on Apple TV+ on August 14, 2020, and was renewed for a second season consisting of ten episodes five days after its premiere. In October 2020, the series was renewed for a third season.

Google LLC is an American multinational technology company that specializes in Internet-related services and products, which include online advertising technologies, a search engine, cloud computing, software, and hardware. It is considered one of the Big Five technology companies in the U.S. information technology industry, alongside Amazon, Facebook, Apple, and Microsoft.

Snake Eyes: G.I. Joe Origins is an upcoming American superhero film and spin-off of the G.I. Joe film series directed by Robert Schwentke. Henry Golding portrays the title character, replacing Ray Park who portrayed him in the previous films, while Andrew Koji, Haruka Abe, Samara Weaving, Úrsula Corberó, Peter Mensah, and Iko Uwais also star.

The War in Afghanistan is a conflict following the 2001 United States invasion of Afghanistan when the United States and its allies drove the Taliban from power in order to deny al-Qaeda a safe base of operations in Afghanistan. After the initial objectives were completed, a coalition of over 40 countries formed a security mission in the country called International Security Assistance Force of which certain members were involved in military combat allied with Afghanistan's government. The war mostly consisted of Taliban insurgencies fighting against the Afghan Armed Forces and allied forces; the majority of ISAF/RS soldiers and personnel are American. The war was code-named by the US as Operation Enduring Freedom (2001–14) and Operation Freedom's Sentinel (2015–2021).

Amrullah Saleh is an Afghan politician who is serving as the 1st Vice President of Afghanistan. He served as the Minister of Interior Affairs of Afghanistan until January 19, 2019, and as head of the National Directorate of Security (NDS) from 2004 until his resignation in 2010.

The Panjshir resistance is an alliance of former Northern Alliance members and other anti-Taliban figures, created amidst the 2021 Taliban offensive, under the leadership of the Afghan politician and military leader Ahmad Massoud and the de jure Afghan Vice President Amrullah Saleh, operating in the remaining area still under the control of the Islamic Republic of Afghanistan. Following the loss of Kabul, the Panjshir-based alliance constitutes the primary organized resistance to the Taliban in Afghanistan.

Joseph Robinette Biden Jr. is an American politician serving as the 46th and current president of the United States. A member of the Democratic Party, he served as the 47th vice president from 2009 to 2017 under Barack Obama and represented Delaware in the United States Senate from 1973 to 2009.

Gmail is a free email service developed by Google. Users can access Gmail on the web and using third-party programs that synchronize email content through POP or IMAP protocols. Gmail started as a limited beta release on April 1, 2004 and ended its testing phase on July 7, 2009. By October 2019, Gmail had 1.5 billion active users worldwide.

Sharia, Islamic law, or redundantly Sharia law, is a religious law forming part of the Islamic tradition. It is derived from the religious precepts of Islam, particularly the Quran and the hadith. In Arabic, the term sharīʿah refers to God's immutable divine law and is contrasted with fiqh, which refers to its human scholarly interpretations. The manner of its application in modern times has been a subject of dispute between Muslim fundamentalists and modernists.

The sixth season of RuPaul's Drag Race All Stars will premiere on June 24, 2021. On August 20, 2020, VH1 renewed the series for its sixth season. On February 24, 2021, ViacomCBS announced that the sixth season of the show would move to Paramount+.

Twelve Minutes is an adventure game developed by Luis Antonio and published by Annapurna Interactive for Microsoft Windows, Xbox One, and Xbox Series X/S in August 2021. The game, taking place in a small apartment suite and areas around it, requires the player to repeatedly play through events of a 12-minute cycle to try to solve a mystery.

Mawlawi Hibatullah Akhundzada is a hardline religious scholar and the leader of the Taliban, an armed militant group that was the former government of Afghanistan.

Kylie Kristen Jenner is an American media personality, socialite, model, and businesswoman. She has starred in the E! reality television series Keeping Up with the Kardashians since 2007 and is the founder and owner of cosmetic company Kylie Cosmetics.

Shuttle-Centaur was a version of the Centaur upper stage rocket designed to be carried aloft inside the Space Shuttle and used to launch satellites into high Earth orbits or probes into deep space. Two variants were developed: Centaur G-Prime, which was planned to launch the Galileo and Ulysses robotic probes to Jupiter, and Centaur G, a shortened version planned for use with United States Department of Defense Milstar satellites and the Magellan Venus probe. The powerful Centaur upper stage allowed for heavier deep space probes, and for them to reach Jupiter sooner, prolonging the operational life of the spacecraft. However, neither variant ever flew on a Shuttle. Support for the project came from the United States Air Force (USAF) and the National Reconnaissance Office, which asserted that its classified satellites required the power of Centaur. The USAF agreed to pay half the design and development costs of Centaur G, and the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) paid the other half.

The September 11 attacks, often referred to as 9/11, were a series of four coordinated terrorist attacks by the Wahhabi terrorist group Al-Qaeda against the United States on the morning of Tuesday, September 11, 2001. The attacks resulted in 2,977 fatalities, over 25,000 injuries, and substantial long-term health consequences, in addition to at least $10 billion in infrastructure and property damage. It is the deadliest terrorist attack in human history and the single deadliest incident for firefighters and law enforcement officers in the history of the United States, with 343 and 72 killed, respectively.

Arsenal Football Club is a professional football club based in Islington, London, England that plays in the Premier League, the top flight of English football. The club has won 13 league titles, a record 14 FA Cups, two League Cups, 16 FA Community Shields, the League Centenary Trophy, one European Cup Winners' Cup, and one Inter-Cities Fairs Cup.

Varalakshmi Vratam is a festival to propitiate the Goddess Lakshmi. Varalakshmi is one who grants boons ("Vara"). It is an important pooja performed by many women in the states of Karnataka, Andhra Pradesh, Telangana, Kerala, and Tamil Nadu. The Hindu festival going by the name 'Vara MahaLakshmi Vrata' is celebrated on the Second Friday or the Friday before the day of the full moon - Poornima - in the month of Shravana, which corresponds to the Gregorian months of July–August.

The Soviet–Afghan War was a conflict wherein insurgent groups, as well as smaller Maoist groups, fought a nine-year guerrilla war against the Soviet Army and the Democratic Republic of Afghanistan government throughout the 1980s, mostly in the Afghan countryside. The Mujahideen were variously backed primarily by the United States, Pakistan, Iran, Saudi Arabia, China, and the United Kingdom; the conflict was a Cold War-era proxy war. Between 562,000 and 2,000,000 civilians were killed and millions of Afghans fled the country as refugees, mostly to Pakistan and Iran. The war caused grave destruction in Afghanistan and contributed to the Soviet collapse, in hindsight leaving a mixed legacy to people in both territories.

BF may refer to:

Mayim Chaya Bialik is an American actress, neuroscientist, and author. From 1991 to 1995, she played the title character of the NBC sitcom Blossom. She later played neurobiologist Amy Farrah Fowler on the CBS sitcom The Big Bang Theory from 2010 to 2019. For her role as Fowler, Bialik was nominated four times for the Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Supporting Actress in a Comedy Series and won the Critics' Choice Television Award for Best Supporting Actress in a Comedy Series in 2015 and 2016.

A chief executive officer (CEO), chief administrator, or just chief executive (CE), is one of a number of corporate executives in charge of managing an organization – especially an independent legal entity such as a company or nonprofit institution. CEOs find roles in a range of organizations, including public and private corporations, non-profit organizations and even some government organizations. The CEO of a corporation or company typically reports to the board of directors and is charged with maximizing the value of the business, which may include maximizing the share price, market share, revenues or another element. In the non-profit and government sector, CEOs typically aim at achieving outcomes related to the organization's mission, such as reducing poverty, increasing literacy, etc.

The Afghan Northern Alliance, officially known as the United Islamic Front for the Salvation of Afghanistan, was a united military front that came to formation in late 1996 after the Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan (Taliban) took over Kabul. The United Front was assembled by key leaders of the Islamic State of Afghanistan, particularly president Burhanuddin Rabbani and former Defense Minister Ahmad Shah Massoud. Initially it included mostly Tajiks but by 2000, leaders of other ethnic groups had joined the Northern Alliance. This included Karim Khalili, Abdul Rashid Dostum, Abdullah Abdullah, Mohammad Mohaqiq, Abdul Qadir, Asif Mohseni and others.

Big Brother 23 is the twenty-third season of the television reality program Big Brother. The season premiered on July 7, 2021, with a live move-in on CBS in the United States and Global in Canada. The show chronicles a group of contestants living in a house together while being constantly filmed and having no communication with the outside world as they competed to be the last HouseGuest remaining. Each week, the HouseGuests competed in challenges for power and safety before voting each other out of the house. When only two HouseGuests remain, a Jury of previously evicted Houseguests decided which finalist will win the grand prize of $750,000.

Bryan Sidney Pata was an American football defensive lineman for the Miami Hurricanes and was majoring in criminology. After leaving a football practice during his fourth year at the school, Pata was murdered.

Robin Gayle Wright is an American actress and director. She is the recipient of eight Primetime Emmy Award nominations and has earned a Golden Globe Award and a Satellite Award for her work in television.

Husayn ibn Ali ibn Abi Talib was a grandson of the Islamic prophet Muhammad and a son of Ali ibn Abi Talib and Muhammad's daughter Fatimah. He is an important figure in Islam as he was a member of the Household of Muhammad and the People of the Cloak, as well as the third Shia Imam.

The Kargil War, also known as the Kargil conflict, was an armed conflict fought between India and Pakistan from May to July of 1999 in the Kargil district of Kashmir and elsewhere along the Line of Control (LoC). In India, the conflict is also referred to as Operation Vijay, which was the name of the Indian military operation to clear out the Kargil sector. The Indian Air Force's role in acting jointly with Indian Army ground troops during the war was aimed at flushing out regular and irregular troops of the Pakistan Army from vacated Indian positions along the LoC. This particular operation was given the codename Operation Safed Sagar.

Charles Thomas Close is an American painter, artist and photographer. He makes massive-scale photorealist portraits. Close often paints abstract portraits of himself and others, which hang in collections internationally. Close also creates photo portraits using a very large format camera. Even though a catastrophic spinal artery collapse in 1988 left him severely paralyzed, he has continued to paint.

YouTube Music is a music streaming service developed by YouTube, a subsidiary of Google. It provides a tailored interface for the service oriented towards music streaming, allowing users to browse through songs and music videos on YouTube based on genres, playlists, and recommendations.

Amazon.com, Inc. is an American multinational technology company based in Seattle, Washington, which focuses on e-commerce, cloud computing, digital streaming, and artificial intelligence. It is one of the Big Five companies in the U.S. information technology industry, along with Google, Apple, Microsoft, and Facebook. The company has been referred to as "one of the most influential economic and cultural forces in the world", as well as the world's most valuable brand.

Lionel Andrés Messi is an Argentine professional footballer who plays as a forward and captains both the Spanish club Barcelona and the Argentina national team. Often considered as the best player in the world and widely regarded as one of the greatest players of all time, Messi has won a record six Ballon d'Or awards and a record six European Golden Shoes. He has spent his entire professional career with Barcelona, where he has won a club-record 33 trophies, including ten La Liga titles, four UEFA Champions League titles and six Copas del Rey. A prolific goalscorer and creative playmaker, Messi holds the records for most goals in La Liga (455), a La Liga and European league season (50), most hat-tricks in La Liga (36) and the UEFA Champions League (8), and most assists in La Liga (185), a La Liga and European league season (21) and the Copa América (12). He has scored over 700 senior career goals for club and country.

Pakistan, officially the Islamic Republic of Pakistan, is a country in South Asia. It is the world's fifth-most populous country with a population exceeding 212.2 million. It has the world's second-largest Muslim population. It is the 33rd-largest country by area, spanning 881,913 square kilometres. Pakistan has a 1,046-kilometre (650-mile) coastline along the Arabian Sea and Gulf of Oman in the south and is bordered by India to the east, Afghanistan to the west, Iran to the southwest, and China to the northeast. It is separated narrowly from Tajikistan by Afghanistan's Wakhan Corridor in the northwest, and also shares a maritime border with Oman.

Samara Weaving is an Australian actress and model. Weaving began her career in her home country, landing her first role on the series Out of the Blue (2008). She came to prominence with her portrayal of Indi Walker on the soap opera Home and Away (2009–2013), for which she received an Australian Academy of Cinema and Television Arts (AACTA) nomination for Best Female Performance in 2011.

Susan Diane Wojcicki is the CEO of YouTube. She has been in the tech industry for over 20 years.

When an HTTP client requests a URL that points to a directory structure instead of an actual web page within the directory, the web server will generally serve a default page, which is often referred to as a main or "index" page.

Wikipedia is a multilingual open-collaborative online encyclopedia created and maintained by a community of volunteer editors using a wiki-based editing system. It is one of the 15 most popular websites as ranked by Alexa, as of January 2021 and The Economist newspaper placed it as the "13th-most-visited place on the web". Featuring no advertisements, it is hosted by the Wikimedia Foundation, an American non-profit organization funded primarily through donations.

The Marvel Cinematic Universe (MCU) films are a series of American superhero films produced by Marvel Studios based on characters that appear in publications by Marvel Comics. The MCU is the shared universe in which all of the films are set. The films have been in production since 2007, and in that time Marvel Studios has produced and released 23 films, with at least 14 more in various stages of development. It is the highest-grossing film franchise of all time, having grossed over $22.5 billion at the global box office. This includes Avengers: Endgame, which is the highest-grossing film of all time.

Ahmad Massoud is an Afghan politician, the son of anti-Soviet military leader Ahmad Shah Massoud. He was appointed as the Massoud Foundation's CEO in November 2016. On September 5, 2019, he was declared his father's successor at his mausoleum in the Panjshir Valley.

The Panjshir Valley is a valley in north-central Afghanistan, 150 kilometres (93 mi) north of Kabul, near the Hindu Kush mountain range. It is divided by the Panjshir River. The valley is home to more than 100,000 people, including Afghanistan's largest concentration of ethnic Tajiks. In April 2004, it became the heart of the new Panjshir Province, having previously been part of Parwan Province.

Ryan Rodney Reynolds is a Canadian-American actor, film producer, and entrepreneur. He began his career starring in the Canadian teen soap opera Hillside (1991–1993), and had minor roles before landing the lead role on the sitcom Two Guys and a Girl between 1998 and 2001. Reynolds then starred in a range of films, including comedies such as National Lampoon's Van Wilder (2002), Waiting... (2005), and The Proposal (2009). He also performed in dramatic roles in Buried (2010), Woman in Gold (2015), and Life (2017), starred in action films such as Blade: Trinity (2004), Deadpool (2016), and 6 Underground (2019) and provided voice acting in the animated features The Croods (2013), Turbo (2013), and Pokémon: Detective Pikachu (2019).