Question: Thomas Simpson (30 November 1937 - 13 July 1967) was one of Britain's most successful professional cyclists. He was born in Haswell, County Durham and later moved to Harworth, Nottinghamshire. Simpson began road cycling as a teenager before taking up track cycling, specialising in pursuit races. He won a bronze medal for track cycling at the 1956 Summer Olympics and a silver at the 1958 British Empire and Commonwealth Games.

In April 1959, Simpson left for France with PS100 savings and two Carlton bikes, one road and one track, given in appreciation of his help promoting the company. His last words to his mother before the move were, "I don't want to be sitting here in twenty years' time, wondering what would have happened if I hadn't gone to France". The next day, his National Service papers were delivered; although willing to serve before his move, he feared the call-up would put his potential career at risk. His mother returned them, with the hope they would understand this.  He applied to local cycling clubs, and joined Club Olympique Briochin, racing with an independent (semi-professional) licence from the British Cycling Federation. When settled with the Murphy family, 21-year-old Simpson met 19-year-old Helen Sherburn, an au pair from Sutton, Yorkshire. Simpson began attracting attention, winning races and criteriums. He was invited to race in the eight-day stage race Route de France by the Saint-Raphael VC 12e, the amateur club below the professional team Saint-Raphael-R. Geminiani-Dunlop. Simpson won the final stage, breaking away from the peloton and holding on for victory. After this win, he declined an offer to ride in the Tour de France for the professional team. Simpson had contract offers from two professional teams, Mercier-BP-Hutchinson and Saint-Raphael-R. Geminiani-Dunlop, which had a British cyclist, Brian Robinson; opting for the latter team, on 29 June he signed a contract for 80,000 francs (PS80 a month).  On Simpson's return to Harworth for Christmas, the RAF were notified and the press ran stories on his apparent draft avoidance. He passed a medical in Sheffield, but history repeated itself and the papers arrived the day after his departure for his team's training camp in Narbonne in southern France. The French press, unlike the British, found the situation amusing.

Using a quote from the above article, answer the following question: What professional team did he decide to sign a contract with?
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Answer: Saint-Raphael-R. Geminiani-Dunlop,


Question: Arundhati Roy was born in Shillong, Meghalaya, India, to Mary Roy, a Malayali Syrian Christian women's rights activist from Kerala and Rajib Roy, a Bengali Hindu tea plantation manager from Calcutta. When she was two, her parents divorced and she returned to Kerala with her mother and brother. For a time, the family lived with Roy's maternal grandfather in Ooty, Tamil Nadu. When she was five, the family moved back to Kerala, where her mother started a school.

Roy has campaigned along with activist Medha Patkar against the Narmada dam project, saying that the dam will displace half a million people, with little or no compensation, and will not provide the projected irrigation, drinking water, and other benefits. Roy donated her Booker prize money, as well as royalties from her books on the project, to the Narmada Bachao Andolan. Roy also appears in Franny Armstrong's Drowned Out, a 2002 documentary about the project. Roy's opposition to the Narmada Dam project was criticised as "maligning Gujarat" by Congress and BJP leaders in Gujarat.  In 2002, Roy responded to a contempt notice issued against her by the Indian Supreme Court with an affidavit saying the court's decision to initiate the contempt proceedings based on an unsubstantiated and flawed petition, while refusing to inquire into allegations of corruption in military contracting deals pleading an overload of cases, indicated a "disquieting inclination" by the court to silence criticism and dissent using the power of contempt. The court found Roy's statement, which she refused to disavow or apologise for, constituted criminal contempt and sentenced her to a "symbolic" one day's imprisonment and fined Roy Rs. 2500. Roy served the jail sentence for a single day and opted to pay the fine rather than serve an additional three months for default.  Environmental historian Ramachandra Guha has been critical of Roy's Narmada dam activism. While acknowledging her "courage and commitment" to the cause, Guha writes that her advocacy is hyperbolic and self-indulgent, "Ms. Roy's tendency to exaggerate and simplify, her Manichaean view of the world, and her shrill hectoring tone, have given a bad name to environmental analysis". He faulted Roy's criticism of Supreme Court judges who were hearing a petition brought by the Narmada Bachao Andolan, as careless and irresponsible.  Roy counters that her writing is intentional in its passionate, hysterical tone: "I am hysterical. I'm screaming from the bloody rooftops. And he and his smug little club are going 'Shhhh... you'll wake the neighbours!' I want to wake the neighbours, that's my whole point. I want everybody to open their eyes".  Gail Omvedt and Roy have had fierce yet constructive discussions, in open letters, on Roy's strategy for the Narmada Dam movement. The activists disagree on whether to demand stopping the dam building altogether (Roy) or searching for intermediate alternatives (Omvedt).

Using a quote from the above article, answer the following question: Did this help in any way?
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Answer: 


Question: James Buchanan Jr. was born in a log cabin in Cove Gap, Pennsylvania (now Buchanan's Birthplace State Park), in Franklin County, on April 23, 1791, to James Buchanan, Sr. (1761-1821), a businessman, merchant, and farmer, and Elizabeth Speer, an educated woman (1767-1833). His parents were both of Ulster Scottish descent, the father having emigrated from Milford, County Donegal, Ireland, in 1783. One of eleven siblings, Buchanan was the oldest child in the family to survive infancy.

In March 1860, the House created the Covode Committee to investigate the administration for evidence of offenses, some impeachable, such as bribery and extortion of representatives in exchange for their votes. The committee, with three Republicans and two Democrats, was accused by Buchanan's supporters of being nakedly partisan; they also charged its chairman, Republican Rep. John Covode, with acting on a personal grudge (since the president had vetoed a bill that was fashioned as a land grant for new agricultural colleges, but was designed to benefit Covode's railroad company). However, the Democratic committee members, as well as Democratic witnesses, were equally enthusiastic in their pursuit of Buchanan, and as pointed in their condemnations, as the Republicans.  The committee was unable to establish grounds for impeaching Buchanan; however, the majority report issued on June 17 exposed corruption and abuse of power among members of his cabinet, as well as allegations (if not impeachable evidence) from the Republican members of the Committee, that Buchanan had attempted to bribe members of Congress in connection with the Lecompton constitution. (The Democratic report, issued separately the same day, pointed out that evidence was scarce, but did not refute the allegations; one of the Democratic members, Rep. James Robinson, stated publicly that he agreed with the Republican report even though he did not sign it.)  Buchanan claimed to have "passed triumphantly through this ordeal" with complete vindication. Nonetheless, Republican operatives distributed thousands of copies of the Covode Committee report throughout the nation as campaign material in that year's presidential election.

Using a quote from the above article, answer the following question: Who was the Covode Committee named after?
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Answer:
was designed to benefit Covode's railroad company