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​Plunkett, John. "Sorrell accuses Murdoch of panic buying", The Guardian, London, 27 October 2005. Retrieved on 27 October 2005.​

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http://blogs.westword.com/latestword/2011/12/crowley_prison_riot_new_detail.php

Crowley prison riot: New details of unheeded warnings emerge in epic lawsuit By Alan Prendergast Wed., Dec. 21 2011

The 2004 riot at the Crowley County Correctional Facility, operated by the Corrections Corporation of America, has emerged as a kind of case study in the multiple ways things can go wrong in a for-profit prison. The night of the incident, the prison had only 47 employees on duty, including eight trainees, to supervise 1,122 inmates. There had been growing tension at the facility for weeks over issues ranging from food and rec privileges to the presence of numerous disgruntled inmates recently shipped in from Washington and Wyoming to fill beds.

The Colorado Department of Corrections' after-action report would later blast CCA officials for inadequate training and emergency response procedures -- but the DOC's own monitoring of the prison up to the night of the riot had been cursory at best, marked by a distinct failure to follow up on report after report of inmate complaints and indications that the place could "go off" soon.

Yet some of the most telling details about the riot and its aftermath have emerged slowly, over the course of an epic lawsuit filed against CCA on behalf of close to 200 Crowley prisoners. The plaintiffs, who claim to be among the majority of prisoners who "sat out" the riot by quietly lying down in the yard or in their units, contend that CCA could have prevented the riot by responding promptly to trouble signs -- and that they were abused and injured by corrections officers in the aftermath of the incident.

A recently filed court document includes excerpts of depositions by several current and former Crowley officers, who acknowledge having numerous discussions with inmates and among themselves about brewing trouble in the days and hours leading up to the riot on July 20, 2004. A body-slamming use of force on a Washington inmate earlier that day prompted several inmates to inform guards that the Washington group was going to seek payback that night. One told staffer Wanona Wyker that "he had been trying to tell staff that there was going to be a riot...that someone needed to listen, that Washington inmates were saying they were going to tear the place up."

Despite numerous warnings, Crowley's commanders failed to lock down the facility or stagger the recreational time. Instead, the warden left at five, and a skeleton crew remained when all 1100 inmates were released for recreation. A confrontation between a group of officers and Washington inmates quickly led to a staff evacuation; emboldened inmates poured into the housing units and began to help themselves to free weights. Once they realized no one was going to stop them, they started breaking windows and doors, smashing electronic control centers, busting fixtures and flooding tiers, setting fires and rifling case managers' records.

Parking tools for athletic articles And Activist, thanks so much for adding that table, I was hoping to get around to that soon. It looks great, but I added some prose, plus a source for the results. For athletes that already have a wiki article of the same name I've just been adding wikilinks like X instead, so I did that for the remaining athletes in the table. And for E. Michigan, the colors are all from Module:College color so you can just look in that page for the right string to use (you can always add "track and field" after it), so I made it Eastern Michigan Eagles. P.S. I've been backlogged on emails recently but will get back to everything after I finish the new Wikidata bot run and some new IRL commitments. Thanks again though! --Habst (talk) 19:19, 15 June 2018 (UTC)

No staff writer byline template
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December 2008
Welcome to Wikipedia. The recent edit you made to Frank Prewitt has been reverted, as it appears to be unconstructive. Use the sandbox for testing; if you believe the edit was constructive, please ensure that you provide an informative edit summary. You may also wish to read the introduction to editing. Thank you. Alansohn (talk) 02:50, 21 December 2008 (UTC)

Dear Alansohn:

There was nothing "unconstructive" about my edit. The original article was apparently placed by the subject of the article. It is blatant self-promotion. It represents his continuing attempt to favorably distort his role in the prosecution of a network of corruption in Alaska in which he played a central role. It also promotes his self-published book that seeks the same end, to turn a participant in an illegal scheme into the hero of the sordid affair. In fact it contains the entire text of his book jacket. I'm guessing his intent is to sell the movie rights to the book.

Corporate departures from ALEC membership
As of September 14, 2012, 40 corporations and four non-profits -- for a total of 44 private sector members -- have publicly announced that they are cutting ties with the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC). They include:
 * Coca-Cola Company: Gave a statement to the Washington Examiner on April 4th stating that it had "elected to discontinue its membership with the American Legislative Exchange Council"
 * Pepsi: Informed Color of Change in a letter dated January 25th that they would not renew their membership in ALEC in 2012.
 * Kraft: Announced in an email on April 6th, 2012, that "Our membership in ALEC expires this spring and for a number of reasons...we have made the decision not to renew."
 * Intuit: Told the Center for Media and Democracy on April 6th that they did not renew their membership when it expired in 2011.
 * McDonald's: Initially defended its membership in ALEC *** Announced on April 10th that they had made the decision to withdraw from ALEC at the end of March.
 * Wendy's: Sent an email to the Center for Media and Democracy on April 11th confirming that it is no longer a member of ALEC
 * Mars: Sent an email to Color of Change on April 12th, stating that they had ended their membership with ALEC [8]
 * Arizona Public Service: Told the Arizona Capitol Times on April 12th that their membership expired that summer and they would not renew it. [9]
 * Reed Elsevier: Told Reuters on April 12th that they had withdrawn "after considering the broad range of criticism being leveled at ALEC," [10]
 * American Traffic Solutions: Told the Arizona Capitol Times on April 13th that they would not renew their ALEC membership. [11]
 * Blue Cross Blue Shield: Announced on April 19th that it had not renewed its membership in February 2012.[12]
 * YUM! Brands: Told Color of Change that they would not renew their membership on April 19th. [13]
 * Procter & Gamble: Told Color of Change that it would not renew its membership on April 20th.[14]
 * Kaplan: Wrote Republic Report on April 26th, 2012 to confirm that they were no longer a member of ALEC[15]
 * Scantron Corporation: Told CMD in May 2012 that it was no longer a member of ALEC.[16]
 * Amazon.com: Announced at a shareholder meeting on May 24, 2012 that it had decided not to renew its membership in ALEC this year.[17]
 * Medtronic: Medtronic did not renew its ALEC membership in 2011 or 2012, according to a spokesperson.[18]
 * Wal-Mart: Wal-Mart told Reuters on May 30 that it is suspending its ALEC membership because "we feel that the divide between these activities and our purpose as a business has become too wide," according to Wal-Mart vice president of public affairs and government relations and ALEC corporate board secretary Maggie Sans.[19]
 * Johnson & Johnson: A Johnson & Johnson spokesperson told CMD on June 12, "We have been in dialogue with the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC) for some time, and while we acknowledge ALEC’s recent decision to focus only on innovation and growth-supporting policies, we have decided to suspend our participation and membership.”[20]
 * Dell Computers: Dell confirmed on June 21, 2012, that it would not be renewing its ALEC membership.[21]
 * John Deere & Company told ColorOfChange.org in July 2012 that it is leaving ALEC.[22]
 * CVS Caremark told ColorOfChange.org in July 2012 that it had discontinued its ALEC membership.[22]
 * MillerCoors told ColorOfChange.org in July 2012 that it had not renewed its ALEC membership in 2012, nor does it plan to.[22]
 * Hewlett-Packard (HP) told ColorOfChange.org in July 2012 that it is not currently an ALEC member.[22]
 * Best Buy told ColorOfChange.org in July 2012 that it had not renewed its ALEC membership in 2012.[22]
 * Express Scripts/Medco (two ALEC members that merged in April 2012) told the Center for Media and Democracy and ColorOfChange.org in July 2012 that it had dropped its ALEC membership.[23][24]
 * EnergySolutions, which had been a member of ALEC's Energy, Environment and Agriculture Task Force, told CMD in July 2012 that it had been an ALEC member but was no longer "in a position to contribute at this time."[25]
 * Connections Academy, which had been co-chair of ALEC's Education Task Force, told CMD in July 2012 that it withdrew from ALEC's Education Task Force in mid-May 2012 in order to align "our affiliations with organizations whose central focus is education."[25]
 * General Motors (GM), which had been a member of ALEC's Commerce, Insurance and Economic Development Task Force and its Energy, Environment and Agriculture Task Force, told CMD in July 2012 that it had "decided to discontinue relations with ALEC at this time."[26]
 * Walgreens, which had been a member of ALEC's Health and Human Services Task Force, told ColorOfChange.org in July 2012 that it "will not be renewing its membership in the American Legislative Exchange Council."[26]
 * Louis Dreyfus, which sponsored ALEC's 2012 annual meeting, told CMD it had decided not to fund ALEC this year.[27]
 * Amgen, which was a member of ALEC's Health and Human Services Task Force, announced its determination not to renew its ALEC membership on August 3 in response to a letter from a group of concerned shareholders and advocates led by Walden Asset Management and the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees (AFSCME).[28]
 * General Electric (GE), which was a member of ALEC's Tax and Fiscal Policy Task Force as of March 2011,[29] told ColorOfChange.org (CoC) that it decided not to renew its ALEC membership in July 2012.[30]
 * Western Union, which was a member of ALEC's Commerce, Insurance and Economic Development Task Force as of June 2011,[31] told CoC that the company was only an ALEC member in 2011 and chose not to renew in May 2012.[30]
 * Sprint Nextel, which was a member of ALEC's Communications and Technology Task Force in July 2011, told CoC in August 2012 that it did not renew its ALEC membership in 2012.[30]
 * Symantec, which was a member of ALEC's Communications and Technology Task Force, told CoC in August 2012 that the company's membership expired June 2010 and was not renewed.[30]
 * Reckitt Benckiser Group, which was a member of ALEC's Health and Human Services Task Force as of June 2011,[32] told CoC in August 2012 that it is no longer an ALEC member.[30]
 * Entergy, which was a member of ALEC's Civil Justice Task Force as of June 2011, told Walden Asset Management in August 2012 that it did not renew its ALEC membership in 2012.[30]
 * Wells Fargo, which was a member of ALEC in 2011, told CMD in September 2012 that it declined to renew its ALEC membership in 2012.[33]
 * Merck, which told the New Jersey Star-Ledger in September 2012 that it would not renew its ALEC membership after 2012.[33]

Editorial correspondence
Personal Life The education and employment and affiliations of West's wife is certainly germane to the article. I assume she got her PhD when he was serving at Ft. Riley, near K-State. She got the FAU board political appointment because of her husband's position in Congress, from his political ally, on a board that has been receiving considerable recent public scrutiny. If you think these well-sourced details need deletion, I suggest you first undertake a more extensive task on the Clarence Thomas page which reads: Thomas's wife remained active in conservative politics, serving as a consultant to the Heritage Foundation, a conservative think tank, and as founder and president of Liberty Central, an advocacy group associated with the Tea Party movement.[172] As of 2011, Thomas's wife stepped down from Liberty Central to open a conservative lobbying firm touting her "experience and connections", meeting with newly elected Republican congressmen, and describing herself as an "ambassador to the tea party".[173][174] In January 2011, the liberal advocacy group Common Cause reported that between 2003 and 2007 Thomas failed to disclose $686,589 in income earned by his wife from the Heritage Foundation, instead reporting "none" where "spousal noninvestment income" would be reported on his Supreme Court financial disclosure forms.[180] The following week, Thomas stated that the disclosure of his wife's income had been "inadvertently omitted due to a misunderstanding of the filing instructions".[181] Thomas amended reports going back to 1989.[182] — Preceding unsigned comment added by Activist (talk • contribs) 05:37, 25 February 2013 (UTC) What we "assume" isn't that important. It's worth noting that her bachelors is from K-State and she was a professor there as well. We could just as easily assume that she has strong ties to the school. I removed the "appointed by Rick Scott" part because, aside from the fact that the source doesn't say that (yeah, I know it's true, but it's not sourced, is it?), who appointed her really isn't that important. This isn't her bio. Nor is the identity of her current employer so notable that it belongs in her husband's bio. Her membership on the board is, however, notable and should stay in the article. Niteshift36 (talk) 13:50, 25 February 2013 (UTC) What the source notes is that she was appointed by the governor of Florida in May, 2011. That governor of course was Rick Scott, a close political ally of her husband's. The FAU board of trustees is a subject that is drawing considerable attention at the moment, in large part because of the stadium naming controversy of which she is a part, but also because of an examination of all of the qualifications of board members (some of whom should have been disqualified by their respective histories of litigation). She certainly was qualified for the appointment, but it is difficult to believe that she was not chosen over perhaps 10,000 other qualified persons because, in large part, she is married to West, a sitting congressman at the time. I think it belongs there and if you want me to post a source that confirms that Scott was the Florida governor in 2011, I'd be glad to do so, but it seems excessive. I'm assuming we don't want to burden this or any other pages with an unnecessary abundance of citations. I think it belongs there and I'm going to check on some sources this past week which will make it crystal clear why it's germane and should remain. I'm not looking for an edit war, and I hope you're not as well, but in my opinion, your view that the information is not notable does not comport with the facts in the case. Activist (talk) 02:36, 4 March 2013 (UTC) First off, this is NOT an article about her. It's about Allen West. Second, just because a source says something doesn't mean it belongs in an encyclopedia entry. If I find a source that mentions that Allen West like chocolate cake, should that go in here to? Third, most of what you are doing here is simply presumption. You are simply guessing about why she was appointed. This is a bio of Allen West. If you have some conspiracy theory about why his wife was appointed, put it in her bio. Additionally, when BLP material is challenged as contentious, it normally stays out of the article while being discussed. Please don't force it back in until this is concluded. Niteshift36 (talk) 14:23, 4 March 2013 (UTC) No one seems to have "discussed" the article except you and I. You originally contended that I did not provide a source. In fact I had; you simply overlooked it. You also suggested that I put the info on "her" page, or add it to "her" bio. She does not have a page or a bio. If you want to create one, feel free, but I'm not building it, just like I'm not about to build one for Clarence Thomas's wife, the dynamics of whose political activity, covered on the Justice's page, has a marked similarity to that of Angela West's. The position of the FAU Trustees is gaining an extraordinary amount of national attention since they sold the naming rights to the Owl's stadium to the controversial GEO Group for a paltry $6 million. The student body is more enraged to find it will be named after a for-profit prison corporation almost entirely in the absence of student input. They have been upset with the prior conduct, both personal and financial, of the Trustees, for the past couple of years. After Abraham Cohen, a former FAU Trustee, who works for GEO Group, scrubbed the corporation's Wikipedia page of its "Controversies" section and made many other edits, the subject drew national attention. (GEO spokesperson Pablo Paez has also been editing the page, and others associated with the corporation seem to have but are identified only by their IPNs.) George Zoley, the GEO Board Chair, also chaired the FAU presidential search committee and he only made two federal campaign contributions this past election cycle. One, for $500, was to Allen West. Angela West was appointed by Scott as a Trustee. GEO Group gave $82,000 as a contribution to Scott's inauguration celebration which you can see at: http://www.tampabay.com/news/business/banking/republican-party-rick-scotts-inaugural-committee-rake-in-big-bucks/1146029 GEO major investor Bank of America was the second largest contributor to the inaugural. GEO also gave Scott $100,000 for his "Let's Get To Work" Committee. http://www.letsgettowork.net/?page_id=3 That's tied for the 8th largest contribution from any source. Scott has also tried to privatize every state prison in South Florida, 30 this past year, 29 the year before that, almost certainly a contract intended for GEO, headquartered in Boca Raton. The legislative effort to do so was led by the Florida state Senate President Mike Haridopolos who had gotten huge contributions from GEO Group's PAC and many of its executives. After backing another Republican gubernatorial candidate, in 2010, GEO gave the Florida Republican party $455,500 only after Scott won the primary, a vast amount when compared to the still generous $55,000 it gave the party in 2010 before the primary, and $70,000 in all of 2009. The numbers are at: http://www.followthemoney.org/database/StateGlance/contributor_details.phtml?c=3798&t=1&d=1282931187 So I haven't claimed on Allen's page that there is any "conspiracy" as you've speculated. However, there is a legitimate interest in how Angela West wound up on the FAU board of trustees which seems quite obviously related to her husband's former position, therefore germane to the page. I'm not looking to include the original research you've just impelled me to endeavor, just the simple fact that she was appointed to the board by Scott that you seem so anxious to eliminate. If you think this needs to be referred to a notice board, by all means do so, but in the absence of your taking that initiative, I'll restore your deletion tomorrow. The name of her employer doesn't particularly interest me, though I could do some research on that as well, if you'd like. Meanwhile I'll let your deletion of that employer identificaton stand. However, I've thoroughly answered your objections, I think. This issue will not be "concluded" if this simply remains a disagreement between us. Activist (talk) 02:01, 6 March 2013 (UTC) Perhaps if you looked at the archives, you'd see the other dicussions. You did a lot of typing and unfortunately, almost none of it deals with the topic at hand. This is the bio of ALLEN WEST. It is about him. It's not about his wife. It's not about the naming rights of a stadium, GEO Group or all this other silliness. You need to understand this basic principle. No, she currently doesn't have an article. If you want to talk about here then YOU write an article. It's not my responsibility to create a space for you to engage in your conspiracy theories and WP:SYNTH. Botton line: You've shown no policy or guideline based reason for including the info. Fact is, you haven't even tried to use policy to support it.Niteshift36 (talk) 13:01, 6 March 2013 (UTC) I'm not engaging in any conspiracy theories. I'm merely noting a pertinent fact. You've claimed that anyone should know that Scott appointed her because he appoints everyone to the board. In fact there are only six gubernatorial appointments to a 13-member board, three of whom were appointed by Charlie Christ, it seems. I am baffled by your determination to erase this information from West's page and by your behavior in this matter. I wouldn't begin to speculate on your motivation. However, it seems that you are not abiding by Wikipedia guidelines, in your efforts to exclude this relevant, but hardly negative, information. I only discovered your uncivil comments about me today. Twelve hours ago I requested you communicate with me on my Talk page but instead you attacked me, without giving notice, on the Noticeboard. Then I went to your Talk page and saw that you have removed my collegial request to discuss the matter. Activist (talk) 17:37, 6 March 2013 (UTC)
 * Um, not exactly. You've failed to address the issue based on policies, namely why this info about the wife belongs in the husband's bio. Fact is, you haven't "discussed" anything. You've just flooded a lot of info and never addressed the actual issue. Also, if you want to start making allegations about "vested interests", even on talk pages, be aware that 1)BLP applies to talk pages, 2) I am a living person and 3) you'd better bring some proof before shooting off your mouth. Now you're here, canvassing support for something you haven't really addressed in the correct manner. Niteshift36 (talk) 13:02, 7 March 2013 (UTC)

Test edit
In February 2013, for-profit prison company GEO Group received major media coverage when a Wikipedia user under the name Abraham Cohen edited the entry on the company regarding naming rights to Florida Atlantic University (FAU) Stadium. GEO Group's Manager of Corporate Relations at the time was named Abraham Cohen, who is an FAU alumnus, former FAU student body president and former ex-officio member of the FAU board of trustees. The majority of these edits had been made under a Wikipedia account named "Abraham Cohen".

Reverts by whitewasher I'm stunned by your accusations regarding the Rafael Bienvenido Cruz article. You've reverted many of my edits, without justification as far as I can tell, many in what seems to be an entirely arbitrary manner. I've extensively discussed the reasoning behind my original edits and reversions. So you appear to have adopted a position of dismissively claiming that I'm the one engaging in the edit war. You've been repeatedly erasing some very basic information about Rafael Cruz's family history, and changed descriptions to those that suit you in the absence of any logic that I can discern. How can his relationship with his first ex-wife and stepdaughters not be germane to the article? The particulars are repeatedly well sourced in the article. You've edited the Ted Cruz article and no doubt have noted the mention of his half-brother who died before Ted was born. Ted was not even aware of his existence, until his mid-teens. Conversely, the edits you've erased from his father's article concern his two half-sisters who spent some summers with him in Canada beginning when he was a toddler and who even accompanied them on dates when they were in their mid-teens, at his father's insistence, by his father's own account. I'm just as puzzled by your repeated changing of the description of his very basic and public views of religion and government. He's clearly a Dominionist and an evangelical and those are core to whom he is, not just some trivial matters. He's quite open about it. Those are very precise definitions, with a consensus as to their meaning that can be found across a wide range of denominations. When you substitute "born again" for those terms, or delete them entirely, you're insisting on a much more vague descriptor. Please refer to the Born again (Christianity) article, particularly the "Disagreements between denominations" section. If you would, before you get to scrubbing the article once again, at least read the articles on the terms you're removing, such as Dominionism and Evangelism, and the cited sources in the Cruz article. You've substantially pared down the section on his personal life, but you've retained text for which there is zero sourcing, such as "In 1969, at his new job..." I've furnished citations which you seem to disregard. I don't know if you've bothered to read the source material. I also don't know why you are quick to describe my behavior in a manner that misrepresents it, but ignores your own clearly autonomous decision making. I don't see you seeking any efforts at achieving consensus on these issues but you have seemed to assume a dictatorial posture. Probably the biggest problems with the article is that many contentions in it are based solely on Rafael's own narrative, and are simply impossible. I've tried to at least qualify them, especially since for years many fact checkers have examined actual reliable sources and have found his accounts to be wanting. The New York Times article is only the latest (so far as I know) in a long series that cast doubt on elements of his story, but the publication has added weight thanks to its journalistic reputation. The Cruz campaign has increasingly insulated him (and Eleanor) from reporters, but I expect the media will be increasingly motivated to examine his accounts of his life in Cuba (and perhaps his sister's) much more closely and scrupulously. Rafael cannot be the sole, uncorroborated source for the purported details of his life. Activist (talk) 19:27, 23 November 2015 (UTC)

Disappeared text from Noticeboard discussion
 * That's awesome..... should we tally your reverts and hear you explain how you didn't "really" edit war? Beware of the WP:BOOMERANG. Niteshift36 (talk) 02:04, 2 July 2016 (UTC)


 * While you were bickering I was looking up articles and making some EXTENSIVE revisions, which I've put on the page. Provided I don't get too exasperated with what happens next, I won't be interested in pursuing what I hope is a moot edit war. Wnt (talk) 00:01, 2 July 2016 (UTC)

+
 * I'm very pleased with Wnt's substantial efforts to resolve this impasse, the amount of time and quality of the thought this editor put into reaching some resolution, and accept it as a very professional compromise to a difficult situation. Activist (talk) 06:44, 2 July 2016 (UTC)

-

Marshall County Correctional Center (MCCF) is a for-profit prison in unincorporated Marshall County, Mississippi, managed by Management and Training Corporation (MTC) on behalf of the Mississippi Department of Corrections.

The prison facility has an authorized capacity of 1,076 and is on 17 acre of enclosed area. The prison property is in total 47 acre.

History
MCCF opened in 1996.[1] It was originally a low to medium security prison managed by Wackenhut Corrections Corporation (WCC). Wackenhut was sold in 2002 to G4S plc (formerly Group 4 Securicor), a British multinational security services company headquartered in Crawley, England. In 2003, GEO Group was spun off as a separate entity from G4S.

MCCF was intended to provide jobs for persons living in the Holly Springs area. In 2013 MDOC commissioner Chris Epps gave MTC the contract for managing WCCC.[2] This was effective July 1 that year, with a duration of

Accreditations
Accreditation - American Correctional Association, January 1998, June, 2000, September 2003, January 2007, January 2010, March 2014.

Costs and changes of operators
Taxpayers would have to pay about $6 million a year to private and regional prison for "ghost inmates" under bill the Legislature approved Monday, the state's corrections commissioner said. The Mississippi department of Corrections funding bill includes a provision to subsidize the regional and private facilities, despite the absence of need. The state doesn't have the inmates to fulfill the obligations under the bill, Corrections Commissioner Robert Johnson said. Taxpayers would have to pay about $2 million a year to private prisoners and $4 million to regional prisoners for these :ghost inmates," he said. "I guess that's where the old saying 'politics make strange bedfellows' comes from. Anytime you find a group of Mississippi legislators agreeing to guarantee a private enterprise a profit with taxpayers' money, you know there's got to be strange happenings," Johnson said. State prisoners have about 2,600 empty beds. (The Clarion-Ledger) March 27, 2001    Retrieved 24 September 2016.

Wayne Calabrese, president and COO of Wackenhut Correction Corp. running Marshall County Correctional Facility says Mississippi should honor its commitment to fill the 1,000-bed private prison--even though the Corrections Commissioner Robert Johnson says it doesn't have enough the inmates to do so. "The state invited private companies into Mississippi to design, build and operate facilities. The price we gave the state was based on full or nearly full occupancy," he said. Johnson said taxpayers would have to pay about $2 million a year to private prisons and about $4 million to 10 regional prisons for "ghost inmates." March 28, 2001. Retrieved 24 September 2016.

Corrections officials will be asking sheriffs how many inmates they're willing to give up to fill regional jails and two private prisons. The Legislature expanded the number of inmates that will go into those prisons over the veto of Gov. Ronnie Musgrove. "I want to see from the sheriffs how many (inmates) they actually have that they need to move," Musgrove said Wednesday. The Department of Corrections budget bill increased the state's financial obligation to regional jails and privately run prisons starting July 1. Meeting the obligation will require either shuffling of some the 1,500 state inmates that are now in local jails or paying for what MDOC Commissioner Robert Johnson calls "ghost" inmates in unfilled beds at the private prisons and regional jails. "You are paying $20 a day to house a prisoner in an approval jail and you're going to move that prisoner to a private facility that costs you somewhere between $24 and $30 a day, " the governor told reporters. "Now, my simple math tells me that is not saving money." (AP) April 5, 2001 Retrieved 24 September 2016.

Some Mississippi sheriffs say they don't know how they'll cope if the Corrections Department follows through on a proposal to remove 500 state inmates from county work programs. Corrections Commissioner Robert Johnson on Monday said he's considering the shuffle because legislators told his department it must increase the number of inmates it keeps in regional jails and private prisons. On the Coast, Harrison County stands to lose the most state inmates, with 46 of 72 slated to be moved. the inmates pick up litter on the highways and beach, work on public vehicles, help with public events and perform other chores. Hancock County Sheriff Steve Garber is not happy about the possibility of losing six of 10 state prisoners in the county's work program. Lauderdale County Sheriff Billy Sollie uses state inmates to cook jail meals and pick up roadside litter. He said taking away the free labor could hurt his county. "It appears there's a big political fight in Jackson and the citizens of the state of Mississippi are the ones that's going to be impacted," Sollie said Monday. A dispute over the placement of inmates erupted in March, during the final days of the 2001 legislative session. Lawmakers wanted to increase the number of state inmates going to 10 regional jails and privately run prisons in Marshall County and Leflore County. The private prisons and regional jails have provided jobs in many legislators' districts in recent years. Johnson said it's cheaper to keep inmates in state prisons or county jails than in private prisons or regional jails. He also said the state could end up with "ghost inmates" by paying private or regional facilities for unfilled beds. Lawmakers mandated the increases to regional jails and private prisons over the objections of Johnson and Gov. Ronnie Musgrove. In his letter to sheriffs, Johnson quoted a March 28 letter Attorney General Mike Moore had sent him. "It makes no financial sense to pay $20 a day to house these inmates in county jails and also pay for 'ghost inmates' at a much higher rate for no service at all, " Moore had written to Johnson. (AP) June 12, 2001 Retrieved 24 September 2016.

A legislative report released Thursday shows the Mississippi Department of Corrections does not need to remove inmates from sheriff's work programs, Attorney General Mike Moore said. "Common sense has won the day," said Sheriff George H. Payne, Jr. "The winners are the taxpayers of Harrison County." Payne and other sheriffs have been at odds with lawmakers over their decision to guarantee higher numbers of inmates at private and regional prisons. Officials at those prisons said they need more inmates to break even on housing costs. The report shows that the private at Holly Springs in Marshall County and at Greenwood in Leflore County need about $28 per day to house an inmate, instead of $36 per day. The private prisons, instead of needing at least 900 each, require 843 beds in Leflore County and 871 in Marshall County. The state has to pay for the beds even if they are empty. Lawmakers set the guarantees last year after learning that prison population had dwindled, giving the state more prison beds than prisoners. (The Sun Herald) June 15, 2001 Retrieved 24 September 2016.

Legislators didn't like comments Gov. Ronnie Musgrove made earlier in the year when he criticized them for putting more money into prisons than education. On Thursday, they unleashed their anger at state Department of Corrections Commissioner Robert Johnson when he appeared before them to talk about his budget request for the new year beginning July 1, 2002. Lawmakers say they passed legislation requiring 230 inmates at 10 regional prisons and 900 inmates at two private facilities because Johnson asked for them initially, but MDOC revised those numbers downward before the session ended. Johnson, who told the committee he has a problem with looking at inmates as economic development, was only minutes into his presentation when Senate Finance Chairman Bill Minor took issue with Johnson saying inmates can be housed cheaper at state facilities than at regional and private prisons. Minor argued the same PEER report showed just the opposite. Johnson said he read the same report, and it didn't support that. "You must have not known how to read," Minor said. "Yes sir, I do. I read very well," Johnson responded. (The Clarion-Ledger) September 14, 2001 Retrieved 24 September 2016.

Funding going to private prisons in Mississppi should be diverted into less costly, more effective rehabilitation programs, according to a study examining how much Mississippi spends on prisons vs. education. "This will free up taxpayer dollars for education and prevention programs that have been shown to deter individuals from committing criminal acts," states the report by a Charlotte, N.C-based nonprofit group. The report, "Education v. Incarceration: A Mississippi Cases Study," is scheduled to be released today at a 1:30 p.m. news conference at the Capitol. The study by the Grassroots Leadership is one of the many examining Southern states and their policies on spending taxpayer dollars for corrections and education. (Mississippi News) May 20, 2002 Retrieved 24 September 2016.

Millions of dollars cut from public schools. Too few social workers struggling to keep up with hundreds of cases of abused and neglected children. And Medicaid services reduced. Lawmakers also plowed $9 million more into the private prison budget than the state Department of Corrections estimated was needed for 3,400 prisoners for fiscal 2003. In all, the Legislature is paying $54.7 million to put inmates in private prisons and $21.1 million to put them in regional jails — while 2,621 state-owned beds remain empty. Why? Communities where the 11 regional jails and five private prisons have sprung up regard the facilities as economic development to counteract high unemployment. Contractual obligations. The state is bound by 20-year contracts with 3 percent annual increases for private prisons and regional jails. Private prison companies are contributing money to lawmakers' campaigns. During the 1999 elections 37 politicians split $41,085 from Corrections Corporation of America, Wackenhut Corrections, Carothers Construction and other prison industry sources, according to a nonpartisan, nonprofit institute that compiles campaign contribution information on a national level. Politics. The corrections commissioner is battling lawmakers for control of the prison system, saying he can spend more efficiently with less restrictions. So far, he's losing the fight. The combined result of those factors is money being poured into the state's corrections system — which Attorney General Mike Moore, an architect of the private prison-regional jail plan, said amounts to funding society's failures at the expense of other needs, such as education. Vincent Schiraldi, president of the Justice Policy Institute in Washington, D.C., has another description for it: astounding. "It is astounding that during such a time of fiscal crisis, the Legislature could be that careless with that much money," Schiraldi said of the $9 million in the private prison budget. "The trend nationally is that as crime decreases and the economy is down, private prisons are being closed." Gov. Musgrove would agree. "The state does not have an obligation to be a charity for private prisons," he said. Sen. Willie Simmons, D-Cleveland, Corrections Committee vice chairman and a Senate Appropriations Committee member, fears safety may be compromised by overfunding private prisons. (Clarion Ledger) June 23, 2002   Retrieved 24 September 2016.

Delta Correctional Facility has given Cassandra Swims' family a brighter future. But dark days may be ahead for Delta and other privately run prisons where inmate numbers have declined and some jobs have already been eliminated. Corrections Commissioner Robert Johnson says construction of too many beds for medium-security male inmates and a trend toward less jail time for first-time, nonviolent offenders may mean further reductions or a possible state takeover of private prisons. Too few inmates to fill beds also cut into the profits for companies in the prison business in Mississippi. "Private prisons were not promised a certain number of inmates," said Johnson, who says an MDOC study shows the state can run Marshall County Correctional Facility, another private prison, for less than Wackenhut Corrections. "It was a business decision, and like any business, conditions change." Steve Owen, spokesman for Nashville-based Corrections Corp. of America, which runs Delta, is surprised at Johnson's comments. ""It was also an opportunity for the company," Owen said. "What the state does now is a policy decision for the Correction Department and state legislators."  Not everyone, however, has welcomed private prisons as an answer to economic woes.   Hollandale Mayor Robert Burford thanks Gov. Ronnie Musgrove for last year's veto of a bill that would have put a private prison the state's sixth, in his town.   "Most people didn't want it here," said Burford, although his predecessor, Mayor Oscar Peace Jr., pushed for the prison in Washington County, where   unemployment was 12.7 percent in April. "We need jobs here, but our feeling is that if we get a prison, it might prevent other businesses or industries from coming."   Delta's per diem, which began at $25.13 in 1996, will remain at $28.29 for another year. "It has really created a bad situation for us," said Delta's assistant warden, Phillip McLaurin. "We are trying to cut costs without depriving inmates of their essentials and programs. (Clarion Ledger) June 24, 2002  Retrieved 24 September 2016.

The state says it doesn't have the money to pay private companies to run prisons and is terminating management contracts at five facilities. In letters sent to the prisons Friday, the Mississippi Department of Corrections said Gov. Ronnie Musgrove on April 9 vetoed a $54.7 million appropriation, part of a larger bill, for the private prisons. The contracts between MDOC and the management companies say the state has the right to terminate the agreements without penalty if funds are not appropriated. But Attorney General Mike Moore said governor's partial veto is meaningless because he never had the power to issue it, and the money is still there. He called the reasoning behind the attempt to take over management of the prisons "bogus." Musgrove said he issued the veto — which the Legislature never moved to override — because language in the appropriations bill prevented Corrections Commissioner Robert Johnson from moving money to other areas of the budget. MDOC spokeswomen Jennifer Griffin said MDOC staff had been planning all day how to take over operation of the private prisons, but MDOC will not do so until after Musgrove finishes talks with private officials. And in 2001, legislators appropriated $6 million more than was needed for private prisons, overriding Musgrove's veto. A subsequent report by a legislative watchdog lowered the number of prisoners that private and regional prisons need to break even, leading many to say the state would otherwise pay for "ghost inmates." (Clarion Ledger) July 2, 2002 Retrieved 24 September 2016.

Gov. Ronnie Musgrove said Tuesday that renegotiating private prison contracts would save Mississippi taxpayers between $6 million and $12 million in 2003. Musgrove defended notices sent out Friday notifying five private prisons that their contracts were being terminated. He called the overfunding of private prisons by the Legislature "unconscionable." The Legislature appropriated $54.7 million for private prisons, which includes money to pay off construction debt. "We hope to negotiate new contracts by the end of the month," said Musgrove, who described private prison officials as receptive. "I will include it in a special session I plan to call," Musgrove said. Private prison executives leaving the meeting at 3 p.m. Tuesday refused to comment. But Louise Green, a spokeswoman for Corrections Corp. of America in Nashville that runs Delta Correctional Facility in Greenwood and Wilkinson County Correctional Facility, looks forward to more negotiations. (Clarion Ledger)July 3, 2002 Retrieved 24 September 2016.

Mississippi officials need to preserve vocational and education programs for inmates as they renegotiate private prison contracts, a lawmaker says. Gov. Ronnie Musgrove is holding closed-door negotiations with three companies that operate five private prisons in Mississippi. The governor said discussions will conclude sometime this month and he expects to save the state $6 million to $12 million a year. Negotiations began after the Mississippi Department of Corrections sent letters saying that as of July 1, the first day of the budget year, state lacked the money to pay for private prison operations. Provisions of the private prison contracts say Mississippi can break the contracts if there's no money available. At the end of the legislative session in April, Musgrove vetoed $54.7 million for private prisons. Attorney General Mike Moore said last week he still believes the veto was invalid. Moore said prison companies had called his office to complain. "Some of these (corporate) people said, 'If they think they're going to hold us up, they've got another thing coming,' " Moore said. "This is a show. This is politics." (Clarion Ledger) July 9, 2002 Retrieved 24 September 2016.

Crime and politics drive the private prison industry, and Wilkinson County may have climbed aboard at the right time. But how long will the ride last? It is a question many people in the county are asking after state actions put the private prison industry's future in doubt. Five privately operated prisons were built in Mississippi during the late 1990s, including the Wilkinson County Correctional Facility (WCCF), which opened in 1998. The state's prison population soared then due to "truth in sentencing" laws, which required inmates to serve 85 percent of their sentences before parole eligibility. However, lower crime rates, shorter sentences for nonviolent first-time offenders an alternative sentencing options - such as drug courts and house arrests - have slowed the boom in private prison construction. Last week, Gov. Ronnie Musgrove announce plans to renegotiate state contracts with private prisons  The result, he said, will save between $6 million and $12 million. The governor said he will call a special session of the Legislature to approve the smaller private prison budgets. Despite more than 2,500 empty state prison beds, the Legislature budgeted $54.7 million for private prison operations in the 2003 fiscal year, which began July 1. Shortly after the legislative session ended in April, Musgrove exercised a line-item veto power to cut the $54.7 million out of a larger appropriations bill. Corrections Commissioner Robert Johnson has suggested closing or taking over privately run facilities in Greenwood and Holly Springs which house routine, medium-security inmates. Wilkinson County Chancery Clerk Thomas Tolliver said the prison has been "nothing but beneficial to the county." Tolliver also serves on the Wilkinson County Industrial Development Authority, a non-profit entity that was formed to recruit the prison and oversee its management. The Development Authority subcontracts the actual operation of the prison to Corrections Corporation of America (CCA). "The Development Authority receives $200,000 each year from CCA as a Community Impact Fee for economic development," he said, adding that the money is used to help recruit and support new industries. Wilkinson County and CCA are profiting from WCCF, but the taxpayers are paying the bill. WCCF's per diem is higher than some other private facilities are paid. The state is also paying the cost of building the prison. M. Binford Williams, a Jackson attorney who represents the Development Authority, said $31.4 million was raised to fund the construction in 1996. Williams said certificates of participation, which are similar to bonds, were sold to investors. (The Democrat) July 15, 2002  Retrieved 24 September 2016.

Why are 2,600 state-owned prison beds empty while two state private prisons are being guaranteed an inmate population sufficient to make them profitable? And what role does $269,301 in lobbying expenditures and campaign contributions to state elected officials by the private prison industry play determining the state's corrections policies? State legislative leaders say that private prisons made an investment in the state at a time when in the early 1990s when Mississippi was under federal court pressure to relieve massive overcrowding in the system. Lawmakers say that those corporations now should not be left holding the financial bag. But the state's top corrections official says that the state should not "subsidize" private prisons at a time when there is an estimated Department of Corrections budget deficit of $$19.2 million. Currently there are 843 state prisoners housed at $28.29 per inmate per day in the Delta Correctional Facility at Greenwood-- owned by Corrections Corporation of America (CCA). There are 871 state prisoners housed at $28.28 per inmate per day in the private Marshall County Correctional Facility in Holly Springs-- owned by Wackenhut Corporation. Some 2,600 state-owned prison beds currently are empty. Johnson said that the legislative claims that the private prison companies came into the state at a time when the sates needed more prison beds and that they should be protected is "baloney." "Those companies came into Mississippi because they saw an opportunity to make a profit," said Johnson. CCA, Wackenhut and other private prison companies had made a total of $41,000 to lawmakers during the 1999 statewide elections. The National Institute on Money in State Politics described the situation as "a major shift in prison-privatization policy." "No longer were advocates in Mississippi arguing over how much money privatization would save taxpayers," an institute report said. "Instead they argued that taxpayer subsidies were necessary in hard economic times to keep existing prison jobs. The fact these subsidies would ensure corporate profits went unspoken.  In a scathing April 2002, report by the institute entitled "A Contributing Influence: The Private Prison Industry and Political Giving in the South," lobbying the political giving were linked to the following Mississippi political figures.  *Musgrove received $7,300 in private prison industry campaign contributions, including $4,750 from Carothers Construction, a prison builder,.  Failed GOP gubernatorial nominee Mike parker also received $5,250 from private prison donors.  *Attorney General Mike Moore, who backed the Legislature's override of Musgrove's "ghost inmate" veto, received $5,000 in private prison industry contributions, including $1,000 from Wackenhut.  *Senate Appropriations Committee Chairman Sen. Jack Gordon, D-Okolona, received $1,000 from CCA lobbyist Buddy Medlin in 2001. The report stated that Gordon and State Sen. Bunky Huggins, R-Greenwood-- in whose district Wackenhut's Delta Correctional Facility is located--met with private prison officials the night before the "ghost inmate" appropriation override: "Senators Jack Gordon and Bunky Huggins had dinner with Wackenhut executive Wayne Calabrese and Wackenhut lobbyist Al Sage at the Parker House restaraunt the evening before the override vote," the report said. Records in the secretary of state's office also show that in 2001 Lt. Gov. Amy Tuck and House Speaker Tim Ford were recipients of $1,000 and $1,100 respectively in donations from the state's private prison corporations or their lobbyist. Senate Finance Committee Chairman Sen. Bill Minor, D-Holly Springs- also a Senate Corrections Committee member-received a $500 donation from Wackenhut in 1999. Wackenhut's Marshall County Correctional Facility is located in Minor's district. Additional state records show that CCA has paid lobbyist Buddy Medlin a total of $138,126 to represent its interests since 1998. Those same records reflect that Wackenhut had paid lobbyist Al Sage $90,000 to represent its interests since 1998. (Clarion Ledger) July 23, 2002 Retrieved 24 September 2016.

The Mississippi Department of Corrections says GEO Group Inc., one of the country's largest private prison operators, will no longer manage three facilities in Mississippi. Company officials said it had nothing else to say. Commissioner Christopher Epps told the AP on Friday that the department felt it might get a better price if all three prisons were presented as a package to other corrections management companies. Epps said he would expect GEO Group to end its ties to the Walnut Grove Youth Correctional Facility in Walnut Grove and Marshall County Correctional Facility in Holly Springs by July 20. "We feel this may be a golden opportunity to provide a better price for the taxpayers of the state and at the same time maybe do a better job in the operation of the facilities," Epps said. Epps said that local authority boards deal with management contracts at EMCF and Walnut Grove with MDOC help. He said MDOC works directly with vendors at Marshall County. "We're reaching out to those private operators to see what the best proposal is we might get," he said. GEO chairman and CEO George C. Zoley said EMCF was "financially underperforming," and GEO's vice president Pablo E. Paez said Friday the company would have no other comment. April 20, 2012 AP     Retrieved 24 September 2016.

Management & Training Corporation of Centreville, Utah, signed a 10-year operating contract for the Marshall County Correctional Facility in Holly Springs on Aug. 13, 2016. Corrections Commissioner Chris Epps had told the AP that the department felt it might get a better price if all three prisons were presented as a package to other corrections management companies. A Utah-based private prison operator will take over management of three Mississippi correctional institutions beginning in July. Management & Training Corporation of Centreville, Utah, has signed 10-year operating contracts for the East Mississippi Correctional Facility near the Lost Gap community beginning July 2; Walnut Grove Youth Correctional Facility in Walnut Grove on July 9; and the Marshall County Correctional Facility in Holly Springs on Aug. 13. Financial details of the contracts were not made public. "The Mississippi Department of Corrections is looking forward to a great partnership with MTC." "There is a need for different types of prisons, including state and regional as well as private facilities in Mississippi. MTC will be held to the same high standards as set by MDOC." "I feel extremely confident that MTC will do a great job." "We have partnered with state and federal governments in operating correctional facilities for the past 25 years, and have a strong record of providing safe, secure and well-run facilities." "We look forward to the opportunity to work in Mississippi," said MTC senior vice president of corrections Odie Washington in the statement.

Controversies
An autopsy showed a 24-year-old inmate died of head injuries apparently inflicted during a confrontation with other prisoners. Chris Epps, the MDOC deputy commissioner of institutions, said Monday an investigation showed Daniel Underwood was attacked by another inmate at the MCCF on March 27, and a second inmate apparently assisted in the attack by standing in a position that kept security personnel from seeing the incident. The prison is managed by Wackenhut Corrections Corporation. E.L. Sparkman, the prison warden, declined Monday to discuss the death, referring questions to the Corrections Department.

The Mississippi Supreme Court has reinstated a lawsuit filed by a former inmate at the Marshall County Correctional Facility over conditions at the private prison. The Supreme Court said Thursday that a Marshall County judge erred in dismissing the lawsuit. The justices said the judge erroneously considered Dennis Dobbs' lawsuit as an appeal of his assault conviction in Clay County. Dobbs has completed his sentenced and has been released, according to court records. Dobbs had sued in 2006 over conditions at the prison near Holly Springs. He complained of a lack of air conditioning and fire safety concerns. The Supreme Court says Dobbs' lawsuit for what he characterized as "inhumane" conditions at the Marshall County prison should be heard. April 19, 2009 AP

Corrections officials conducted a shakedown at the Marshall County Correctional Facility, seizing weapons, cell phones and other contraband at the private prison that could lead to criminal prosecutions. “We believe there were some staff complicit in bringing in contraband,” Corrections Commissioner Marshall Fisher said. “One has already resigned. We think as many as four are involved.” Corrections officials seized 23 shanks from the 991-inmate MCCF, which is run by the Management and Training Corporation. Officials seized 60 shanks at the 885-inmate Wilkinson County Correctional Facility, 50 shanks at the 1,180-inmate East Mississippi Correctional Facility, also run by MTC. Former U.S. Attorney Brad Pigott of Jackson said the numbers so far suggest the problem of weapons is worse at private prisons. “This makes clear that corporate prisons are much more dangerous places to work.” He said the number of shanks seized per capita from the Wilkinson County Correctional Facility was eight times higher than those seized at the State Penitentiary at Parchman. Private prisons are taking money, “which could have gone into hiring enough guards to find and remove knives from prisoners, and they are sending those tax dollars instead to their corporate headquarters,” he said. According to MTC spokesperson Issa Arnita, "Employees caught attempting to bring contraband into our facilities will not only be terminated but will be criminally prosecuted to the highest extent of the law.” [ ], Clarion Ledger, Mar 24, 2015. Retrieved 24 September 2016.

Individuals involved
Except for 's case, which is being tried in, all court proceedings have been before the U.S. federal court:

In a 2017 survey, Fallin polled as the fifth least popular governor in the U.S. with 35% approving, and 55% disapproving. She ran the xxx meters at the 2016 United States Olympic Trials and placed Xth, and also ran 1500m in 4:11.01 at the 2012 World Junior Championships in Athletics, where she broke the American high school girl's outdoor record, surpassing the 4:14.74 record set by Jordan Hasay in the 2008 United States Olympic Trials. In order to qualify to the World Championships, she won the United States Junior Championships in the 1500. She had taken second in the same event the year before.

Personal life
was born in in 199, the daughter of  and. She for  High School and at the NCAA Division I Willamette University,

In high school xxx stood out in academics and track and field. Her main events were in cross country and distance running. She graduated from in 2015. She began competing in the steeplechase while running for B.

High school career
201, her senior year, she the Nike National Cross-Country high school championship.

2015
On November 21, she finished as the runner up in the 2015 NCAA Division I Cross Country Championships in 19:33.6, a performance others called remarkable for a freshman.

2016
In xxx set a personal record (PR) for 5000 m, with a 15.21.85 second-place performance at the University of Washington Invitational indoor meet. At the Husky Classic in February she set another PR, running 8:54.27 for 3,000 meters. Later that month she anchored her Broncos distance medley team to a first-place finish at the Mountain West Indoor Track and Field Championships, but was sidelined with an injury soon afterward. In July she finished in 8th place in the Olympic Trials 5,000 meters.

201
Erica returned to form by

Honors
2019 NCAA Outdoor Track and Field First-Team All-America- 3000m steeplechase, NCAA Outdoor Track and Field Second-Team All-America- 5,000m, Mountain West Outdoor Track and Field Champion- 5,000m, First-Team All-America- Indoor 3000m, First-Team All-America- Indoor 5000m, NCAA Elite 90 Award Winner- Indoor Track and Field, Mountain West Champion- Distance Medley Relay, Mountain West Conference Champion- Indoor 3000m 2018 Cross Country NCAA All-American, NCAA West Region Cross Country Champion, NCAA Outdoor Track and Field First-Team All-America- 5,000m, Mountain West Outdoor Track and Field Champion- 5,000m, NCAA Indoor Track and Field First-Team All-American- 3,000m, NCAA Indoor Track and Field First-Team All-American, Distance Medley Relay, Mountain West Champion- Distance Medley Relay, 2017 Honda Sports Award Finalist- Cross Country, NCAA Elite 90 Award Winner- Cross Country, NCAA 5,000m First-Team All-American

Erica Birk 3rd Place Women's 3000m Steeplechase Semifinal Heat 1 - NCAA D1 Outdoor Championships 2019 604 Views Erica Birk 1st Place Women's 3000m Steeplechase Quarterfinal Heat 1 - NCAA D1 West Outdoor Preliminary Heat 1 1301 Views Erica Birk 1st Place Women's 3000m Steeplechase Section 1 - Azusa Pacific Bryan Clay Outdoor Invitational 2019 5296 Views Erica Birk 4th Place Women's 5000m - Stanford Invitational 2019 4379 Views Erica Birk 1st Womens Mile - MPSF Indoor Track & Field Championships 2019 5307 Views Erica Birk-Jarvis and Courtney Wayment 3rd and 9th Place Women's 6K Race - NCAA D1 XC Mountain Regional 2018 16207 Views Erica Birk-Jarvis 1st Place Women's 6K Race - WCC West Coast Conference Cross Country Championships 2018 15607 Views Event 408 Girls 1600 Invitational - Mt. SAC Relays 2012 22092 Views 2011 Bob Firman Elite Girls Race (Enhanced Version) 48696 Views Elite Varsity Girls Race - Bob Firman Invite 2011

Physician template
Jonas Edward Salk (born Jonas Salk; October 28, 1914 – June 23, 1995) was an American virologist and medical researcher who developed one of the first successful polio vaccines. He was born in New York City and attended the City College of New York and New York University School of Medicine.

In 1947, Salk accepted a professorship in the School of Medicine at the University of Pittsburgh. It was there that he undertook a project to determine the number of different types of poliovirus, starting in 1948. For the next seven years Salk devoted himself towards developing a vaccine against polio.

Salk was immediately hailed as a "miracle worker" when the vaccine's success was first made public in April 1955, and chose to not patent the vaccine or seek any profit from it in order to maximize its global distribution. An immediate rush to vaccinate began in both the United States and around the world. Many countries began polio immunization campaigns using Salk's vaccine, including Canada, Sweden, Denmark, Norway, West Germany, the Netherlands, Switzerland, and Belgium. By 1959, the Salk vaccine had reached about 90 countries. Less than 25 years later, domestic transmission of polio had been completely eliminated in the United States.

In 1963, Salk founded the Salk Institute for Biological Studies in La Jolla, California, which is today a center for medical and scientific research. He continued to conduct research and publish books in his later years, focusing in his last years on the search for a vaccine against HIV. Salk also campaigned vigorously for mandatory vaccination throughout the rest of his life, calling the universal vaccination of children against disease a "moral commitment". Salk's personal papers are today stored in Geisel Library at the University of California, San Diego.

Early life and education
Jonas Salk was born in New York City to Daniel and Dora (née Press) Salk. His parents were Ashkenazi Jewish; Daniel was born in New Jersey to immigrant parents and Dora, who was born in Minsk, emigrated when she was twelve. Salk's parents did not receive extensive formal education. Jonas had two younger brothers, Herman and Lee, a renowned child psychologist. The family moved from East Harlem to 853 Elsmere Place, the Bronx, with some time spent in Queens at 439 Beach 69th Street, Arverne.

When he was 13, Salk entered Townsend Harris High School, a public school for intellectually gifted students. Named after the founder of City College of New York (CCNY), it was, wrote his biographer, Dr. David Oshinsky, "a launching pad for the talented sons of immigrant parents who lacked the money—and pedigree—to attend a top private school." In high school "he was known as a perfectionist ... who read everything he could lay his hands on," according to one of his fellow students. Students had to cram a four-year curriculum into just three years. As a result, most dropped out or flunked out, despite the school's motto "study, study, study." Of the students who graduated, however, most had the grades to enroll in CCNY, noted for being a highly competitive college.

Education
Salk enrolled in CCNY, from which he earned a Bachelor of Science degree in chemistry in 1934. Oshinsky writes that "for working-class immigrant families, City College represented the apex of public higher education. Getting in was tough, but tuition was free. Competition was intense, but the rules were fairly applied. No one got an advantage based on an accident of birth."

At his mother's urging, he put aside aspirations of becoming a lawyer and instead concentrated on classes necessary for admission to medical school. However, according to Oshinsky, the facilities at City College were "barely second rate." There were no research laboratories. The library was inadequate. The faculty contained few noted scholars. "What made the place special," he writes, "was the student body that had fought so hard to get there... driven by their parents.... From these ranks, of the 1930s and 1940s, emerged a wealth of intellectual talent, including more Nobel Prize winners—eight—and PhD recipients than any other public college except the University of California at Berkeley." Salk entered CCNY at the age of 15, a "common age for a freshman who had skipped multiple grades along the way."

As a child, Salk did not show any interest in medicine or science in general. He said in an interview with the Academy of Achievement, "As a child I was not interested in science. I was merely interested in things human, the human side of nature, if you like, and I continue to be interested in that."

Medical school
After City College, Salk enrolled in New York University to study medicine. According to Oshinsky, NYU based its modest reputation on famous alumni, such as Walter Reed, who helped conquer yellow fever. Tuition was "comparatively low, better still, it did not discriminate against Jews... while most of the surrounding medical schools—Cornell, Columbia, University of Pennsylvania, and Yale—had rigid quotas in place." Yale, for example, accepted 76 applicants in 1935 out of a pool of 501. Although 200 of the applicants were Jewish, only five got in. During his years at New York University Medical School, Salk worked as a laboratory technician during the school year and as a camp counselor in the summer.

During Salk's medical studies, he stood out from his peers, according to Bookchin, "not just because of his continued academic prowess—he was Alpha Omega Alpha, the Phi Beta Kappa Society of medical education—but because he had decided he did not want to practice medicine." Instead, he became absorbed in research, even taking a year off to study biochemistry. He later focused more of his studies on bacteriology, which had replaced medicine as his primary interest. He said his desire was to help humankind in general rather than single patients. "It was the laboratory work, in particular, that gave new direction to his life."

Salk has said: "My intention was to go to medical school, and then become a medical scientist. I did not intend to practice medicine, although in medical school, and in my internship, I did all the things that were necessary to qualify me in that regard. I had opportunities along the way to drop the idea of medicine and go into science. At one point at the end of my first year of medical school, I received an opportunity to spend a year in research and teaching in biochemistry, which I did. And at the end of that year, I was told that I could, if I wished, switch and get a Ph.D. in biochemistry, but my preference was to stay with medicine. And, I believe that this is all linked to my original ambition, or desire, which was to be of some help to humankind, so to speak, in a larger sense than just on a one-to-one basis."

Concerning his last year of medical school, Salk said: "I had an opportunity to spend time in elective periods in my last year in medical school, in a laboratory that was involved in studies on influenza. The influenza virus had just been discovered about a few years before that. And, I saw the opportunity at that time to test the question as to whether we could destroy the virus infectivity and still immunize. And so, by carefully designed experiments, we found it was possible to do so."

Postgraduate research and early laboratory work
In 1941, during his postgraduate work in virology, Salk chose a two-month elective to work in the Thomas Francis' laboratory at the University of Michigan. Francis had recently joined the faculty of the medical school after working for the Rockefeller Foundation, where he had discovered the type B influenza virus. According to Bookchin, "the two-month stint in Francis's lab was Salk's first introduction to the world of virology—and he was hooked." After graduating from medical school, Salk began his residency at New York's prestigious Mount Sinai Hospital, where he again worked in Francis's laboratory. Salk then worked at the University of Michigan School of Public Health with Francis, on an army-commissioned project in Michigan to develop an influenza vaccine. He and Francis eventually perfected a vaccine that was soon widely used at army bases, where Salk discovered and isolated one of the strains of influenza that was included in the final vaccine.

Polio research


In 1947, Salk became ambitious for his own lab and was granted one at the University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine, but the lab was smaller than he had hoped and he found the rules imposed by the university restrictive. In 1948, Harry Weaver, the director of research at the National Foundation for Infantile Paralysis, contacted Salk. He asked Salk to find out if there were more types of polio than the three then known, offering additional space, equipment and researchers. For the first year he gathered supplies and researchers including Julius Youngner, Byron Bennett, L. James Lewis, and secretary Lorraine Friedman joined Salk's team, as well. As time went on, Salk began securing grants from the Mellon family and was able to build a working virology laboratory. He later joined the National Foundation for Infantile Paralysis's polio project established by President Franklin D. Roosevelt.

Extensive publicity and fear of polio led to much increased funding, $67 million by 1955, but research continued on dangerous live vaccines. Salk decided to use the safer 'killed' virus, instead of weakened forms of strains of polio viruses like the ones used contemporaneously by Albert Sabin, who was developing an oral vaccine.

After successful tests on laboratory animals, on July 2, 1952, assisted by the staff at the D.T. Watson Home for Crippled Children, Salk injected 43 children with his killed-virus vaccine. A few weeks later, Salk injected children at the Polk State School for the retarded and feeble-minded. He vaccinated his own children in 1953. In 1954 he tested the vaccine on about one million children, known as the polio pioneers. The vaccine was announced as safe on April 12, 1955.



The project became large, involving 100 million contributors to the March of Dimes, and 7 million volunteers. The foundation allowed itself to go into debt to finance the final research required to develop the Salk vaccine. Salk worked incessantly for two-and-a-half years.

Salk's inactivated polio vaccine was the first vaccine for the disease; it came into use in 1955. It is on the World Health Organization's List of Essential Medicines, the safest and most effective medicines needed in a health system.

Celebrity versus privacy
Salk preferred not to have his career as a scientist affected by too much personal attention, as he had always tried to remain independent and private in his research and life, but this proved to be impossible. "Young man, a great tragedy has befallen you—you've lost your anonymity", the television personality Ed Murrow said to Salk shortly after the onslaught of media attention. When Murrow asked him, "Who owns this patent?", Salk replied, "Well, the people I would say. There is no patent. Could you patent the sun?" The vaccine is calculated to be worth $7 billion had it been patented. However, lawyers from the National Foundation for Infantile Paralysis did look into the possibility of a patent, but ultimately determined that the vaccine was not a patentable invention because of prior art.

Salk served on the board of directors of the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation.

Author Jon Cohen noted, "Jonas Salk made scientists and journalists alike go goofy. As one of the only living scientists whose face was known the world over, Salk, in the public's eye, had a superstar aura. Airplane pilots would announce that he was on board and passengers would burst into applause. Hotels routinely would upgrade him into their penthouse suites. A meal at a restaurant inevitably meant an interruption from an admirer, and scientists approached him with drop-jawed wonder as though some of the stardust might rub off."

For the most part, however, Salk was "appalled at the demands on the public figure he has become and resentful of what he considers to be the invasion of his privacy", wrote The New York Times, a few months after his vaccine announcement. The Times article noted, "at 40, the once obscure scientist ... was lifted from his laboratory almost to the level of a folk hero." He received a presidential citation, a score of awards, four honorary degrees, half a dozen foreign decorations, and letters from thousands of fellow citizens. His alma mater, City College of New York, gave him an honorary degree as Doctor of Laws. But "despite such very nice tributes", The New York Times wrote, "Salk is profoundly disturbed by the torrent of fame that has descended upon him. ... He talks continually about getting out of the limelight and back to his laboratory ... because of his genuine distaste for publicity, which he believes is inappropriate for a scientist."

During a 1980 interview, 25 years later, he said, "It's as if I've been a public property ever since, having to respond to external, as well as internal, impulses. ... It's brought me enormous gratification, opened many opportunities, but at the same time placed many burdens on me. It altered my career, my relationships with colleagues; I am a public figure, no longer one of them."

Maintaining his individuality
"If Salk the scientist sounds austere", wrote The New York Times, "Salk the man is a person of great warmth and tremendous enthusiasm. People who meet him generally like him." A Washington newspaper correspondent commented, "He could sell me the Brooklyn Bridge, and I never bought anything before." Award-winning geneticist Walter Nelson-Rees called him "a renaissance scientist: brilliant, sophisticated, driven ... a fantastic creature."

He enjoys talking to people he likes, and "he likes a lot of people", wrote the Times. "He talks quickly, articulately, and often in complete paragraphs." And "He has very little perceptible interest in the things that interest most people—such as making money." That belongs "in the category of mink coats and Cadillacs—unnecessary", he said.

Establishing the Salk Institute
In the years after Salk's discovery, many supporters, in particular the National Foundation, "helped him build his dream of a research complex for the investigation of biological phenomena 'from cell to society'." Called the Salk Institute for Biological Studies, it opened in 1963 in the San Diego neighborhood of La Jolla, in a purpose-built facility designed by the architect Louis Kahn. Salk believed that the institution would help new and upcoming scientists along in their careers, as he said himself, "I thought how nice it would be if a place like this existed and I was invited to work there."

In 1966, Salk described his "ambitious plan for the creation of a kind of Socratic academy where the supposedly alienated two cultures of science and humanism will have a favorable atmosphere for cross-fertilization." Author and journalist Howard Taubman explained:

"Although he is distinctly future-oriented, Dr. Salk has not lost sight of the institute's immediate aim, which is the development and use of the new biology, called molecular and cellular biology, described as part physics, part chemistry and part biology. The broad-gauged purpose of this science is to understand man's life processes.

There is talk here of the possibility, once the secret of how the cell is triggered to manufacture antibodies is discovered, that a single vaccine may be developed to protect a child against many common infectious diseases. There is speculation about the power to isolate and perhaps eliminate genetic errors that lead to birth defects.

Dr. Salk, a creative man himself, hopes that the institute will do its share in probing the wisdom of nature and thus help enlarge the wisdom of man. For the ultimate purpose of science, humanism and the arts, in his judgment, is the freeing of each individual to cultivate his full creativity, in whichever direction it leads. ... As if to prepare for Socratic encounters such as these, the institute's architect, Louis Kahn, has installed blackboards in place of concrete facings on the walls along the walks."

The New York Times, in a 1980 article celebrating the 25th anniversary of the Salk vaccine, described the current workings at the facility:

"At the institute, a magnificent complex of laboratories and study units set on a bluff overlooking the Pacific, Dr. Salk holds the titles of founding director and resident fellow. His own laboratory group is concerned with the immunologic aspects of cancer and the mechanisms of autoimmune disease, such as multiple sclerosis, in which the immune system attacks the body's own tissues."

In an interview about his future hopes at the institute, he said, "In the end, what may have more significance is my creation of the institute and what will come out of it, because of its example as a place for excellence, a creative environment for creative minds."

Francis Crick, codiscoverer of the structure of the DNA molecule, was a leading professor at the institute until his death in 2004.

The institute also served as the basis for Bruno Latour and Steve Woolgar's 1979 book Laboratory Life: The Construction of Scientific Facts.

AIDS vaccine work
Beginning in the mid-1980s, Salk engaged in research to develop a vaccine for AIDS. He cofounded The Immune Response Corporation (IRC) with Kevin Kimberlin and patented Remune, an immunologic therapy, but was unable to secure liability insurance for the product. The project was discontinued in 2007, twelve years after Salk's death.

Salk's "biophilosophy"
In 1966, The New York Times referred to him as the "Father of Biophilosophy." According to Times journalist and author Howard Taubman, "he never forgets ... there is a vast amount of darkness for man to penetrate. As a biologist, he believes that his science is on the frontier of tremendous new discoveries; and as a philosopher, he is convinced that humanists and artists have joined the scientists to achieve an understanding of man in all his physical, mental and spiritual complexity. Such interchanges might lead, he would hope, to a new and important school of thinkers he would designate as biophilosophers." Salk told his cousin, Joel Kassiday, at a meeting of the Congressional Clearinghouse on the Future on Capitol Hill in 1984 that he was optimistic that ways to prevent most human and animal diseases would eventually be developed. Salk said people must be prepared to take prudent risks, since "a risk-free society would become a dead-end society" without progress.

Salk describes his "biophilosophy" as the application of a "biological, evolutionary point of view to philosophical, cultural, social and psychological problems." He went into more detail in two of his books, Man's Unfolding, and The Survival of the Wisest. In an interview in 1980, he described his thoughts on the subject, including his feeling that a sharp rise and an expected leveling off in the human population would take place and eventually bring a change in human attitudes:

"I think of biological knowledge as providing useful analogies for understanding human nature. ... People think of biology in terms of such practical matters as drugs, but its contribution to knowledge about living systems and ourselves will in the future be equally important. ... In the past epoch, man was concerned with death, high mortality; his attitudes were antideath, antidisease', he says. 'In the future, his attitudes will be expressed in terms of prolife and prohealth. The past was dominated by death control; in the future, birth control will be more important. These changes we're observing are part of a natural order and to be expected from our capacity to adapt. It's much more important to cooperate and collaborate. We are the co-authors with nature of our destiny."

His definition of a "biophilosopher" is "Someone who draws upon the scriptures of nature, recognizing that we are the product of the process of evolution, and understands that we have become the process itself, through the emergence and evolution of our consciousness, our awareness, our capacity to imagine and anticipate the future, and to choose from among alternatives."

Just prior to his death, Salk was working on a new book along the theme of biophilosophy, privately reported to be titled Millennium of the Mind.

Personal life
The day after his graduation from medical school in 1939, Salk married Donna Lindsay, a master's candidate at the New York College of Social Work. David Oshinsky writes that Donna's father, Elmer Lindsay, "a wealthy Manhattan dentist, viewed Salk as a social inferior, several cuts below Donna's former suitors." Eventually, her father agreed to the marriage on two conditions: first, Salk must wait until he could be listed as an official M.D. on the wedding invitations, and second, he must improve his "rather pedestrian status" by giving himself a middle name."

They had three children: Peter (who also became a physician and is now a part-time professor of infectious diseases at the University of Pittsburgh), Darrell, and Jonathan Salk. In 1968, they divorced and, in 1970, Salk married French painter Françoise Gilot.

Jonas Salk died from heart failure at the age of 80 on June 23, 1995, in La Jolla, and was buried at El Camino Memorial Park in San Diego.

Honors and recognition

 * 1955, one month after the vaccine announcement, he was honored by the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, where he was given their "highest award for services" by Governor George M. Leader, Meritorious Service Medal, where the governor added,

"... in recognition of his 'historical medical' discovery ... Dr. Salk's achievement is meritorious service of the highest magnitude and dimension for the commonwealth, the country and mankind.' The governor, who had three children, said that 'as a parent he was 'humbly thankful to Dr. Salk,' and as Governor, 'proud to pay him tribute'."


 * 1955, City University of New York creates the Salk Scholarship fund which it awards to multiple outstanding pre-med students each year
 * 1956, awarded the Lasker Award
 * 1957, the Municipal Hospital building, where Salk conducted his polio research at the University of Pittsburgh, is renamed Jonas Salk Hall and is home to the university's School of Pharmacy and Dentistry.
 * 1958, awarded the James D. Bruce Memorial Award
 * 1958, elected to the Polio Hall of Fame, which was dedicated in Warm Springs, Georgia
 * 1975, awarded the Jawaharlal Nehru Award and the Congressional Gold Medal
 * 1976, awarded the Academy of Achievement's Golden Plate Award
 * 1976, named the Humanist of the Year by the American Humanist Association
 * 1977, awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom from President Jimmy Carter, with the following statement accompanying the medal:

"Because of Doctor Jonas E. Salk, our country is free from the cruel epidemics of poliomyelitis that once struck almost yearly. Because of his tireless work, untold hundreds of thousands who might have been crippled are sound in body today. These are Doctor Salk's true honors, and there is no way to add to them. This Medal of Freedom can only express our gratitude, and our deepest thanks."


 * 1981, decorated by the Italian government on January 3 as a Grand Officer of the Order of Merit of the Italian Republic
 * 1996, the March of Dimes Foundation created an annual $250,000 cash "Prize" to outstanding biologists as a tribute to Salk.
 * 2006, the United States Postal Service issued a 63-cent Distinguished Americans series postage stamp in his honor.
 * 2007, California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger and First Lady Maria Shriver inducted Salk into the California Hall of Fame.
 * 2009, BBYO boys chapter chartered in his honor in Scottsdale, Arizona, Named "Jonas Salk AZA #2357"
 * Schools in Mesa, Arizona; Spokane, Washington; Tulsa, Oklahoma; Bolingbrook, Illinois; Levittown, New York; Old Bridge, New Jersey; Merrillville, Indiana; Sacramento, California ; and Mira Mesa, California ; are named after him.
 * 2012, October 24, in honor of his birthday, has been named "World Polio Day", and was originated by Rotary International over a decade earlier.
 * 2014, On the 100th anniversary of Salk's birth, a Google Doodle was created to honor the physician and medical researcher. The doodle shows happy and healthy children and adults playing and going about their lives with two children hold up a sign saying, "Thank you, Dr. Salk!"

Documentary films

 * In early 2009, the American Public Broadcasting Service aired its new documentary film, American Experience: The Polio Crusade. The documentary, available on DVD, can also be viewed online at PBS's website.
 * On April 12, 2010, to help celebrate the 55th anniversary of the Salk vaccine, a new 66-minute documentary, The Shot Felt 'Round the World, had its world premiere. Directed by Tjardus Greidanus and produced by Laura Davis, the documentary was conceived by Hollywood screenwriter and producer Carl Kurlander to bring "a fresh perspective on the era."
 * In 2014, actor and director Robert Redford, who was once struck with a mild case of polio when he was a child, directed a documentary about the Salk Institute in La Jolla.
 * In Chapter 10 of the 2018 season of Genius Michael McElhatton portrays Salk in a short cameo where he is on a date with Françoise Gilot.

Salk's book publications

 * Man Unfolding (1972)
 * Survival of the Wisest (1973)
 * World Population and Human Values: A New Reality (1981)
 * Anatomy of Reality: Merging of Intuition and Reason (1983)

Dentist
Walter J. Palmer (born 1960) is a Minnesota dentist and  big game hunter whose bowhunting has drawn United States and international repercussions, most notably generated by his killing of the iconic Cecil the lion in Zimbabwe in 2015.

Africa
Cecil (c. 2002 – 2 July 2015) was a lion who lived primarily in the Hwange National Park in Matabeleland North, Zimbabwe. He was being studied and tracked by a research team of the University of Oxford as part of a long-term study. On the night of 1 July 2015, Cecil was wounded with an arrow by Walter Palmer, an American recreational big-game hunter, then tracked and killed with a bow and arrow the following morning, between 10 and 12 hours later. Cecil was 13 years old when killed. Palmer had a permit and was not charged with any crime.

The killing resulted in international media attention, caused outrage among animal conservationists, criticism by politicians and celebrities and a strong negative response against Palmer. According to Wayne Pacelle, then President of the ], Cecil had "changed the atmospherics on the issue of [[trophy hunting around the world," adding "I think it gave less wiggle room to regulators."

The lions in the park, including Cecil, have been studied by scientists from the Wildlife Conservation Research Unit at the University of Oxford as part of a scientific project that has run since 1999, and his movements had been followed since 2008.

One of the researchers on the project suggested that Cecil had become so popular because he was accustomed to people, allowing vehicles sometimes as close as 10 m, making it easy for tourists and researchers to photograph and observe him. Cecil was the park's main attraction.

Death
During June 2015, Walter J. Palmer, an American recreational game hunter, reportedly paid US$50000 to a Zimbabwean professional hunter-guide, Theo Bronkhorst, to enable him to kill a lion. In the late afternoon of 1 July, Bronkhorst and tracker Cornelius Ncube built a hunting blind in Atoinette Farm, a private property owned by Honest Ndlovu. Between 9 pm and 11 pm, Palmer shot and wounded Cecil with an arrow. The hunters tracked the wounded lion and killed him with a second arrow the next morning (about 10 to 12 hours later) at a location less than 250 metres from the initial shot. The hunt took place outside Hwange National Park, a protected area, but within the lion's normal range. Cecil's body was then skinned and his head removed. Cecil wore a GPS tracking collar. When his headless skeleton was found by park investigators, his tracking collar was missing.

Bronkhorst said during July 2015, "We had obtained the permit for bow hunting, we had obtained the permit for the lion from the council." Two Zimbabweans (Bronkhorst and Ndlovu) were arrested by Zimbabwe police. Palmer had already returned to the United States, where he issued a statement that he had "relied on the expertise of my local professional guides to ensure a legal hunt" and "deeply regret that my pursuit of an activity I love and practice responsibly and legally resulted in the taking of this lion".

In Zimbabwe
Cecil's killing went largely unnoticed in the animal's native Zimbabwe. The country's The Chronicle newspaper wrote: "It is not an overstatement that almost 99.99 percent of Zimbabweans didn’t know about this animal until Monday. Now we have just learnt, thanks to the British media, that we had Africa’s most famous lion all along, an icon!" The BBC's Farai Sevenzo wrote: "The lion's death has not registered much with the locals". At the same time, Zimbabwean officials stated that the killing of Cecil had already caused a decrease of tourism revenues. A significant decrease was noted in Hwange, where the lion had lived. Many international tourists, who had planned to see the lion, had cancelled their trips. "This killing is a huge loss to our tourism sector that was contributing immensely to the national wealth", said Emanuel Fundira, the president of the Safari Operators Association of Zimbabwe. "We had a lot of people, in terms of visitors, coming in to the country to enjoy and view Cecil, so really this was a great loss," Fundira said, and that Cecil's presence was "a draw card," and compared his death to "the demise of an icon". The director of the Zimbabwe Tourism Authority, Karikoga Kaseke, said that tourism had been booming, but that Zimbabwe was now perceived as a country which was not interested in protecting and promoting animal rights, and this had also had a negative effect on the tourism sector.

Bryan Orford, a professional wildlife guide who worked in Hwange, calculates that with tourists from a single nearby lodge collectively paying US$9800 per day, the revenue generated by having Cecil's photograph taken during five days would have been greater than someone paying a one-off fee of US$45000 to hunt and kill the lion, with no hope of future revenue.

On 1 August 2015, in response to Cecil's killing, the hunting of lions, leopards and elephants along with all bow-hunting was immediately suspended in areas outside of Hwange National Park by Zimbabwe's environment minister, Oppah Muchinguri, who said, "All such hunts will only be conducted if confirmed and authorized in writing by the Director-general of the Zimbabwe Parks and Wildlife Management Authority, and only if accompanied by parks staff whose costs will be met by the landowner". The moratorium was lifted after 10 days.

At a press conference on 31 July 2015, Zimbabwe's environment minister, Opa Muchinguri, said the hunter violated Zimbabwean law and needs to be held accountable. "We are appealing to the responsible authorities for his extradition to Zimbabwe". Muchinguri said in a press release that Palmer's actions had tarnished the image of Zimbabwe and placed further strain on the relationship between Zimbabwe and the U.S. She suggested conservationists and animal lovers provide resources to help decrease poaching and other environmental concerns in Zimbabwe.

Non-governmental


Cecil's killing created an outrage among animal conservationists, and prompted responses from politicians and many other people. A number of celebrities publicly condemned Cecil's killing.

After Mia Farrow received criticism for tweeting Palmer's office address, Bob Barker defended her action, saying, "The animal rights movement has just made humongous strides. Why? Awareness. That is what it takes, we have to make people aware," he told ET. "They don't realize how much suffering is going on in the animal world." Palmer received a large number of death threats, hate messages, and activists posted his private details online. The words "Lion Killer" were also spray-painted on the garage door at Palmer's Florida vacation home. In addition, at least seven pickled pigs feet were left at the residence. Artists from around the world dedicated art to Cecil, including Aaron Blaise, a former artist of Walt Disney Feature Animation. Musicians composed original works to honor Cecil.

Not all overseas reactions were sympathetic to Cecil. Goodwell Nzou, an African PhD student in the U.S., wrote in The New York Times: "In my village in Zimbabwe, surrounded by wildlife conservation areas, no lion has ever been beloved, or granted an affectionate nickname. They are objects of terror [...] Americans care more about African animals than about African people."

The killing of Cecil sparked a discussion among conservation organisations about the ethics and business of big-game hunting and a proposal for bills banning imports of lion trophies to the U.S. and European Union. These discussions convinced three of the largest airlines in the U.S., American, Delta and United, to voluntarily ban the transport of hunting trophies. Activists also asked African countries to ban bow hunting, lion baiting, and hunting from hunting blinds. Global media and social media reaction resulted in close to 1.2 million people signing the online petition "Justice for Cecil", which asked Zimbabwe's government to stop issuing hunting permits for endangered animals.

Safari Club International responded by suspending both Palmer's and Bronkhorst's memberships, stating: "those who intentionally take wildlife illegally should be prosecuted and punished to the maximum extent allowed by law." Late-night talk-show host Jimmy Kimmel helped raise US$150000 in donations in less than 24 hours for Oxford's Wildlife Conservation Research Unit, which had been "responsible for tracking Cecil's activity and location".

Palmer's hunting continued to attract international condemnation in 2020 when it was revealed that he had paid almost $100,000 in 2019 to kill an endangered Altai argali, the world's largest species of ram, one which is considered a national treasure in Western Mongolia. According to Humane Society International wildlife Vice President Dr. Teresa Telecky, "For trophy hunters to travel to Mongolia to kill a beautiful and ­endangered ram is an absolute outrage."

Government officials
Some government officials publicly condemned the killing of Cecil. David Cameron, then Prime Minister of the United Kingdom, told reporters that the United Kingdom plays "a leading role in preventing illegal wildlife trade", when he was asked about Cecil's death. Grant Shapps, his Minister of State at the Department for International Development, described the incident as "barbaric hunting".

U.S. Congresswoman Betty McCollum, co-chair of the United States Congressional International Conservation Caucus, suggested an investigation of Palmer and the killing.

U.S. Senator Bob Menendez introduced the Conserving Ecosystems by Ceasing the Importation of Large (CECIL) Animal Trophies Act, which "extend[s] the import and export protections for a species listed under the Endangered Species Act to those that have been proposed for listing, thereby prohibiting the import of any trophies gleaned from Cecil's killing without explicitly obtaining a permit from the Secretary of the Interior." The bill was cosponsored by Senators Cory Booker, Richard Blumenthal, and Ben Cardin.

On 30 July 2015, the United Nations General Assembly adopted a non-binding resolution to strengthen the efforts to address illicit wildlife poaching and trafficking. Germany and Gabon were the sponsors of the resolution. Harald Braun, Germany's U.N. Ambassador, associated the resolution with the killing and said: "Like most people in the world we are outraged at what happened to this poor lion." Gabon's Foreign Minister Emmanuel Issoze-Ngondet said that Cecil's killing was "a matter of deep concern for all countries in Africa".

Under the premise that profits from trophy hunts help animal conservation efforts, Pohamba Shifeta, the Namibian environment and tourism minister, said that these measures by foreigners to curtail prize hunting would "be the end of conservation in Namibia."

Jacob Zuma, the president of South Africa at the time, declared on 11 August 2015: "What it sounds like from a distance [is] that the hunter did not know that Cecil was so popular, just saw a lion, and killed a lion, and it's Cecil, and Cecil is very well loved and it caused a problem, because everyone wants to go and see Cecil. I think it's just an incident."

Jean Kapata, Zambia's minister of tourism, said "the West seemed more concerned with the welfare of a lion in Zimbabwe than of Africans themselves", and added that "In Africa, a human being is more important than an animal. I don't know about the Western world."

Criminal investigations
On 7 July 2015, law enforcement officers of the Zimbabwe Parks and Wildlife Management Authority commenced an investigation after receiving information that a lion had been killed illegally on a farm near Hwange National Park. The investigation discovered that a lion had been killed illegally on the farm on 1 July 2015.

On 29 July 2015, Bronkhorst appeared in court at Victoria Falls and pleaded not guilty to a charge of "failing to prevent an unlawful hunt". He was granted bail at US$1000 and was ordered to appear back in court on 5 August. Bronkhorst stated: "Palmer is a totally innocent party to this whole thing, and he has conducted and bought a hunt from me that was legitimate." Zimbabwe National Parks said in a statement that quotas are assigned to given areas and that Cecil was shot in an area without a quota for lion kills. On 5 August 2015, the case was adjourned until 28 September, when Bronkhorst's barrister was next available. On 11 November 2016, the High Court in the city of Bulawayo threw out the charges against Bronkhorst, agreeing with the defense that it could not have been a crime under the country's wildlife laws if Palmer had a legal permit to hunt.

While one account said Honest Ndlovu, who occupies the land on which Cecil was killed, was charged on 29 July 2015 with allowing an illegal hunt on his land, his attorney said two days later that Ndlovu had not been, with parks officials saying days afterward that he would be charged after first testifying for the state. On 18 August 2015, prosecutors brought an illegal-hunting charge against Ndlovu. The charges against Ndlovu were dismissed.

Palmer left Zimbabwe for the United States after the hunt. He indicated that he would cooperate with authorities in the investigation. On 30 July 2015, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service was searching for Palmer as part of its investigation. He contacted them voluntarily through a representative on the same day.

On 6 September 2015, Palmer said he would return to his dental practice on 9 September, and that he had not been charged in the United States or Zimbabwe with any crime related to Cecil's killing nor had he been contacted by authorities. However, he had previously been convicted of fish and game violations in Minnesota. On 12 October, Zimbabwe government officials said Palmer's papers were in order and Palmer would not be charged with any crime. They said he was free to return to Zimbabwe as a tourist but not as a hunter.

Subsequent conservation measures
Five months after the killing of Cecil, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service added the Panthera leo leo subspecies of lions, in India and western and central Africa, to the endangered species list. The listings made it more difficult (though not impossible) for US citizen hunters to kill these protected lions. According to Wayne Pacelle, president of the Humane Society of the United States and who petitioned for the new listing, Cecil had "changed the atmospherics on the issue of trophy hunting around the world," adding "I think it gave less wiggle room to regulators." Pacelle added that he thought the killing of Cecil was "a defining moment" resulting in the new protections. Jeff Flocken, regional director of the International Fund for Animal Welfare, said that while the U.S.F.W.S. decision was not the direct result of the death of Cecil, "it would be impossible to ignore the public outcry" and its effect on worldwide opinion. The New York Times, writing about the new regulations, said "the killing of Cecil .. seemed to galvanize public attention."

After Cecil's killing, France banned the importation of lion trophies. The Netherlands did so in 2016. Britain said it will do so during 2017. More than 40 airlines have also said they will no longer transport hunting trophies.

Andrew Loveridge, in his book Lion Hearted (2018), suggests that the hunters allowed Cecil to suffer for more than 10 hours, without hastening his death with a firearm, possibly to allow Palmer to submit the game to a hunting record book as an archery-hunted animal. Loveridge further suggests that Bronkhost, knowing that he had no quota to hunt in the area, attempted to deliberately conceal the hunt by removing Cecil's skinned carcass and disabling his collar. . However, the High Court threw out all charges against Bronkhorst and ruled there was no illegal act.

On May 19, 2021, Palmer and all the other seven Republican House leaders in the `117th Congress voted against establishing a National Commission to Investigate the January 6, 2021 Attack on the United States Capitol Complex to investigate the storming of the capitol. Thirty-five Republican House members and all 217 Democrats present voted to establish such a commission.

Draft
On June 28, 2020, about 500 Black Lives Matter protesters entered Portland Place, a private gated neighborhood, in an attempt to walk to the home of St. Louis Mayor Lyda Krewson on an adjacent neighborhood street. The crowd aimed to demonstrate against Mayor Krewson and demand her resignation

As the crowd approached, McCloskey shouted "private property" and "get out" multiple times at protesters. Protesters marched past his home; others marched closer to his home. Mark and Patricia stood


 * At a candidates' forum in Osage Beach in mid-October 2021, McCloskey said he believes rape and incest victims as young as 13 should be prohibited from obtaining abortions. He didn't explicitly say whether his no-exceptions view included abortions necessary to save the life of the mother. ***

(However, Mark) McCloskey McCloskey has donated to Democratic candidates in the past, including former Sen. Claire McCaskill, who defeated Akin in 2012.

In Osage Beach, in mid-October 2021, McCloskey told a candidate's forum that he believes rape and incest victims as young as 13-year-old should be prohibited from obtaining abortions. Said he had a client rape victim client that young who had the child but who obtained a master's degree. He stated he doesn't "believe in any exceptions." He said he had been asked recently, "So you would force a 13-year-old who's raped by a family member to keep that baby?" "Yes, and more than that, I've got that client. I've got a client who was raped by an uncle when she was 13 years old, had the child; she finished high school, finished college, and got a master's degree. That child she would have aborted finished high school, finished college, and now has a master's degree." He didn't explicitly discuss whether his no-exceptions view included abortions necessary to save the life of the mother. Part of his response was recorded and given to the Kansas City Star by a Democratic research organization American Bridge. The 90-minute forum had been posted online. Former Senator Jane Cunningham, a Republican who attended the forum, said the audience was inspired by his response. "The 'right to life' is a key part in the decision-making of primary voters," Cunningham said. "It's one of the litmus tests if you're running in a Republican primary," Cunningham said. In Osage Beach, McClusky said it had bothered him "as long ago as when I was in grade school" that some death penalty opponents also support abortion rights. His comments were applauded by the audience. "The justice of the Supreme Court in the most heinous crimes don't have the right to decide who should live and die," he continued. "But every 13-year-old girl on the street should be able to decide the fate of the life of their child?"

...to suspend the law licenses of the McCloskeys... https://www.nytimes.com/2021/04/26/opinion/mark-mccloskey-senate.html

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Draft Fierro
https://www.atrevidabeerco.com/home

Richard M. Fierro is a former U.S. Army major, a 15-year veteran who served in Afghanistan and did three tours of duty in Iraq, earning two Bronze Stars. He is best known for stopping a mass shooting in a Colorado Springs nightclub that killed five patrons and injured 19 more in November 2022.

Early life and military service
Fierro was born and grew up in San Diego, California, the son of Richard Sr. and Frances Fierro. He attended Mira Mesa High School, where he became the boyfriend of his future wife, Jessica. He matriculated to San Diego State University and in 1999 he was the Army ROTC's distinguished military graduate and was commissioned as a field artillery officer. Over the next 15 years, he served in the Army as a platoon leader, battery commander, battalion operations officer, brigade plans officer, and corps counterfire officer. He completed four combat tours, three in Iraq, and then another in Afghanistan. He earned four Bronze Stars, including two for valor. He lost two friends in his unit who were killed in combat and he subsequently suffered from PTSD as a result.

Civilian career
Following his discharge, Fierro worked as a defense contractor with Northrop Grumman instructing Army unit level leaders regarding the military decision-making process and tracking of current operations. He became a manager and deputy site lead at the Fort Carson Mission Training complex managing exercises and collective training. In 2017 he received the 2017 Northrop Grumman Quality in Personal Ethics award and 2019 Culture Builder Award.

He continued his education, enrolling in a Master of Business Administration program at the University of Colorado Colorado Springs. He graduated in 2021.

In 2018, the Fierros founded a boutique brewery, Atrevida Beer Co. (Spanish, for "daring"), in Colorado Springs, winning numerous civic and industry awards. Their Dolores Huerta lager garnered a first prize. In 2019 they were awarded the Colorado Governor’s Minority Small Business Award.

Actions at Club Q
During the 2022 Colorado Springs nightclub shooting, Fierro charged across the room and tackled the gunman to the ground, then wrested the semi-automatic rifle and a pistol from the attacker's hand and used the handgun to strike the killer repeatedly in the head. He recruited and directed two other patrons to assist him, subduing the 300+ pound killer.

As they were dancing, and the chaos began, Fierro's daughter Kassandra's longtime boyfriend, 22-year-old Raymond Green Vance, was among the five patrons who were killed. Kassandra broke her kneecap, with 19 others also being injured. Fierro obtained tourniquets from a police officer and applied them to the wounded. As he was covered in blood, the Colorado Springs police department handcuffed Fierro and detained him for over an hour, locking him in a squad car.

Colorado Springs Mayor John Suthers said regarding Mr. Fierro that he was struck by his humility. "I have never encountered a person who engaged in such heroic actions and was so humble about it." Colorado Governor Jared Polis said, "We are eternally grateful for the brave individuals who blocked the [shooter] likely saving lives in the process." President Joseph Biden added to the accolades, personally calling Fierro. The president's press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre said, “He offered his condolences ... and thanked him for his bravery and again for his just instinct to act and the ability — by him doing that, saving maybe dozens of lives.” On November 23, 2022, LULAC, the oldest Hispanic advocacy organization in the U.S. awarded Fierro its presidential medal and $5,000 for his courageous intervention. In response to Fierro's actions, far right wing social media platforms had contributors questioning his sexual identity, motivation, and even whether the shooting had happened at all.

Subsequent accolades
On November 29, Fierro was awarded $50,000, as its first-ever Community Advocate Award by the Ent Federal Credit Union for his actions which likely saved many more lives. [Veteran who subdued Club Q shooter receives $50,000 Community Advocate Award], The Denver Gazette, O’Dell Isaac, December 1, 2022. Retrieved December 3, 2020.

The Fierros were also gifted tickets by the Los Angeles Chargers to the 2023 Super Bowl Championship between the Kansas City Chiefs and the Philadelphia Eagles, held in Phoenix, Arizona.

Fierro was honored as a self-effacing American Red Cross "Military Hero of the Year" award, bestowed in Denver on March 18, 2023.

Personal life
Fierro and Jessica Martinez married in 1999; they have two children, Kassandra and Ricardo.