title: Raghuram Rajan

text: Assigned to the Intelligence Bureau, R Govindarajan, his father, was posted to Indonesia in 1966. In 1968 he joined the newly created external intelligence unit of the Intelligence Bureau, the Research and Analysis Wing (R&AW) where he served as staff officer under R. N. Kao and became part of the "Kaoboys". In 1970 he was posted to Sri Lanka, where Rajan missed school one year because of political turmoil. After Sri Lanka, R Govindarajan was posted to Belgium where the children attended a French school. In 1974 the family returned to India. Throughout his childhood, Rajan presumed his father to be a diplomat since the family traveled on diplomatic passports. He was a half-term student of Campion School, Bhopal until 1974.


title: Raghuram Rajan

text: From 1974 to 1981 Rajan attended Delhi Public School, R. K. Puram, In 1981 he enrolled at Indian Institute of Technology Delhi for a bachelor's degree in electrical engineering. In the final year of his four-year degree, he headed the Student Affairs Council. He graduated in 1985 and was awarded the Director's Gold Medal as the best all-round student. In 1987, he earned a Master of Business Administration from the Indian Institute of Management Ahmedabad, graduating with a gold medal for academic performance. He joined the Tata Administrative Services as a management trainee, but left after a few months to join the doctoral program at the Sloan School of Management at Massachusetts Institute of Technology.


title: Raghuram Rajan

text: In 1991, he received a PhD for his thesis titled "Essays on Banking" under the supervision of Stewart Myers, consisting of three essays on the nature of the relationship between a firm or a country, and its creditor banks. The nature of financial systems had witnessed widespread changes in the 1980s, with markets getting deregulated, information becoming more widely available and easier to process, and competition having increased. The established orthodoxy claimed that deregulation must necessarily increase competition, which would translate into greater efficiency. In his thesis, Rajan argued that this might not necessarily be the case. The first essay focused on the choice available to firms between arm's length credit and relationship-based credit. The second focused on the Glass-Steagall Act, and the conflict of interest involved when a commercial lending bank enters into investment banking. The final essay examined why indexation of a country's debt, despite offering potential advantages, seldom featured in debt reduction plans.


title: Raghuram Rajan

text: He was awarded an honorary doctorate degree by the London Business School in 2012, the Hong Kong University of Science and Technology in 2015. and Université catholique de Louvain in 2019 .


title: Raghuram Rajan

text: In 1991, Rajan joined as an assistant professor of finance at the Booth School of Business at the University of Chicago, and became a full-time professor in 1995. He has taught as a visiting professor at Stockholm School of Economics, Kellogg School of Management, MIT Sloan School of Management, and Indian School of Business.


title: Raghuram Rajan

text: Rajan has written extensively on banking, corporate finance, international finance, growth and development, and organisational structures. He is a regular contributor to Project Syndicate. He has collaborated with Douglas Diamond to produce much-cited work on banks, and their interlinkages with macroeconomic phenomena. He has worked with Luigi Zingales on the effect of institutions on economic growth, their research showing that development of free financial markets is fundamental to economic modernisation. Rajan and Zingales built on their work to publish "Saving Capitalism from the Capitalists" in 2003. The book argued that entrenched incumbents in closed financial markets stifle competition and reforms, thereby inhibiting economic growth. Rajan's 2010 book "" examined the fundamental stresses in the American and the global economy that led to the financial crisis of 2007–2008. He argued that widening income inequality in the US, trade imbalances in the global economy, and the clash between arm's length financial systems, were responsible for bringing about the crisis. The book won the Financial Times and Goldman Sachs Business Book of the Year Award.


title: Raghuram Rajan

text: The Research Papers in Economics project ranks him among the world's most influential economists, featuring him among the top 5% of authors. He was awarded the inaugural 2003 Fischer Black Prize, given biennially by the American Finance Association to the best finance researcher under the age of 40, for his "path-breaking contributions to our knowledge of financial institutions, the workings of the modern corporation, and the causes and consequences of the development of the financial sector across countries."


title: Raghuram Rajan

text: He became a member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences in 2009, and served as the president of the American Finance Association in 2011. He is a member of the Group of Thirty international economic body. He has served as a founding member of the academic council of the Indian School of Business since 1998.


title: Raghuram Rajan

text: In the aftermath of the 1997 Asian financial crisis, the International Monetary Fund was facing criticism for its imposition of fiscal austerity and tighter monetary policies on developing nations. Critics, including Nobel laureate and former chief economist at the World Bank, Joseph Stiglitz, held the IMF's policies responsible for increased economic volatility and destabilisation. While the role of the chief economist had previously always been held by a leading macroeconomist, the IMF wanted to strengthen its financial expertise. American economist Anne Krueger, then the IMF's first deputy managing director, had recently read Rajan's book "Saving Capitalism from the Capitalists", and reached out to him to understand if he would be interested. Although Rajan seemed to harbour reservations initially, reportedly telling her, "Well, Anne, I don't know any macroeconomics", he appeared for an interview, and was subsequently appointed. In announcing his appointment, IMF managing director Horst Köhler noted that Rajan's "particular experience in financial sector issues will help strengthen the IMF's role as a centre of excellence in macroeconomic and financial sector stability." At 40, he was the youngest individual, and the first born in an emerging-market nation, to be appointed the chief economist at the IMF. He served in the position from October 2003 to December 2006.


title: Raghuram Rajan

text: At the IMF, Rajan laid the groundwork for integrating financial sector analysis into the IMF's economic country models. He also led a team to assist some major economies in reducing balance of payments imbalances. During his tenure the Research Department, which Rajan led, contributed to a complete review of the IMF's medium-term strategy, worked on introducing modern modelling and exchange rate assessment techniques to the IMF's consultations with member countries, and analysed the growth and integration of China and India into the world economy. While he largely kept fiscal austerity policies intact, on occasions he also published research that went against the prevailing orthodoxy at the IMF. A 2005 paper, published with Arvind Subramanian, questioned the efficacy of foreign aid, arguing that aid inflows have adverse effects on growth in developing economies. A 2006 paper, published with Eswar Prasad and Arvind Subramanian, concluded that while growth and the extent of foreign financing were positively correlated in industrial countries, non-industrial countries that had relied on foreign finance had grown slower than those that had not.


title: Raghuram Rajan

text: While he was asked to stay on as the chief economist for a second term, Rajan left after one term as the University of Chicago indicated that his leave could not be extended.


title: Raghuram Rajan

text: In 2007, then Deputy Chairman of the Planning Commission, Montek Singh Ahluwalia, drafted Rajan to write a report proposing the next generation of financial sector reforms in India. A High Level Committee on Financial Sector Reforms was constituted consisting of twelve members, with Rajan as chairman. The committee, in its report titled "A Hundred Small Steps", recommended broad-based reforms across the financial sector, arguing that instead of focusing "on a few large, and usually politically controversial steps", India must "take a hundred small steps in the same direction".


title: Raghuram Rajan

text: In November 2008, Indian Prime Minister Dr Manmohan Singh appointed Rajan as an honorary economic adviser, a role that involved writing policy notes at Singh's request. On 10 August 2012 Rajan was appointed as chief economic adviser to India's Ministry of Finance, succeeding Kaushik Basu in the role. He prepared the Economic Survey of India for the year 2012–13. In the annual survey, he urged the government to reduce spending and subsidies, and recommended the redirection of Indians from agriculture to service and skilled manufacturing sector. He was also skeptical of the Food Security Bill in light of the rising fiscal deficits.


title: Raghuram Rajan

text: On 6 August 2013 it was announced that Rajan would take over as the Governor of the Reserve Bank of India for a term of 3 years, succeeding Duvvuri Subbarao. On 5 September 2013 he took charge as the 23rd governor, at which point he took a leave of absence from the University of Chicago Booth School of Business.


title: Raghuram Rajan

text: In his first speech as RBI governor, Rajan promised banking reforms and eased curbs on foreign banking, following which the BSE SENSEX rose by 333 points or 1.83%. After his first day at office, the rupee rose 2.1% against the US dollar. As Governor of the RBI, Rajan made curbing inflation his primary focus, bringing down retail inflation from 9.8% in September 2013 to 3.78% in July 2015 – the lowest since the 1990s. Wholesale inflation came down from 6.1% in September 2013 to a historic low of -4.05% in July 2015.


title: Raghuram Rajan

text: In a 2014 interview, Rajan said his major targets as governor of the Reserve Bank of India were to lower inflation, increase savings and deepen financial markets, of which he believed reducing inflation was the most important. A panel he appointed proposed an inflation target for India of 6% for January 2016 and 4%(+-2%) thereafter. Under Rajan, the RBI adopted consumer price index (CPI) as the key indicator of inflation, which is the global norm, despite the government recommending otherwise. Foreign exchange reserves of India grew by about 30% to the tune of $380 billion in two years. Under Rajan, the RBI licensed two universal banks and approved eleven payments banks to extend banking services to the nearly two-thirds of the population who are still deprived of banking facilities.


title: Raghuram Rajan

text: During his tenure, he enforced two-factor authentication of domestic credit card transactions to ensure the safety of customers. However, in an apparent contradiction of his previous stance of encouraging customers to use banks, he also permitted banks to charge customers for conducting ATM transactions beyond a certain number of times per month, at a time when the Indian Government was actively attempting to promote financial inclusion through its Pradhan Mantri Jan Dhan Yojana scheme, which effectively prevented people from easily accessing their own savings and discouraged them from using formal banking channels.


title: Raghuram Rajan

text: Media reports positioned Rajan as a prospective successor to Christine Lagarde as head of the IMF when her term expired in 2016, even as Rajan himself countered such speculation. This did not eventually come to bear, as Lagarde was nominated for a second term at the end of her tenure. On 9 November 2015, Rajan was appointed as Vice-Chairman of the Bank for International Settlements (BIS).


title: Raghuram Rajan

text: In May 2016, in a letter to Prime Minister Narendra Modi, Rajya Sabha MP Subramanian Swamy leveled several allegations against Rajan. He accused Rajan of raising interest rate to the detriment of small and medium industries. He also claimed that Rajan has been sending confidential and sensitive financial information using his University of Chicago unsecured personal email address. But Rajan said that these allegations are fundamentally wrong and baseless and addressing them would amount to giving them legitimacy.


title: Raghuram Rajan

text: On 18 June 2016, Rajan announced that he would not be serving a second term as RBI Governor, and planned to return to academia. In September 2017, Rajan revealed that though he was willing to take an extension and serve a second term as RBI Governor, the government had not extended any offer to him which left him with no choice but to return to the University of Chicago. He also denied claims that the University of Chicago had, at that time, refused to accept his leave of absence to continue for a second term.


title: Raghuram Rajan

text: Rajan's economic and political views were influenced by his experience of the Indian economy during The Emergency. As an economist, he was therefore wary of the risks of both unnecessary government intervention as well as unregulated financial markets, while remaining a champion of capitalism.


title: Raghuram Rajan

text: Rajan advocates giving financial markets a greater role in the economy. In the book "Saving Capitalism from the Capitalists: Unleashing the Power of Financial Markets to Create Wealth and Spread Opportunity" co-authored with Luigi Zingales, the two authors argue in favour of deregulated financial markets in order to facilitate access of the poor to finance: "Capitalism, or more precisely, the free market system, is the most effective way to organise production and distribution that human beings have found … healthy and competitive financial markets are an extraordinarily effective tool in spreading opportunity and fighting poverty. …Without vibrant, innovative financial markets, economies would ossify and decline." (p  1)


title: Raghuram Rajan

text: In 2005, at a celebration honouring Alan Greenspan, who was about to retire as chairman of the US Federal Reserve, Rajan delivered a controversial paper that was critical of the financial sector. In that paper, "Has Financial Development Made the World Riskier?", Rajan "argued that disaster might loom." Rajan argued that financial sector managers were encouraged to "take risks that generate severe adverse consequences with small probability but, in return, offer generous compensation the rest of the time. These risks are known as tail risks. But perhaps the most important concern is whether banks will be able to provide liquidity to financial markets so that if the tail risk does materialise, financial positions can be unwound and losses allocated so that the consequences to the real economy are minimised."


title: Raghuram Rajan

text: The response to Rajan's paper at the time was negative. For example, former U.S. Treasury Secretary and former Harvard President Lawrence Summers called the warnings "misguided" and Rajan himself a "luddite". However, following the financial crisis of 2007–2008, Rajan's views came to be seen as prescient; by January 2009, "The Wall Street Journal" proclaimed that now, "few are dismissing his ideas." In fact, Rajan was extensively interviewed on the global crisis for the Academy Award-winning documentary film "Inside Job". Rajan wrote in May 2012 that the causes of the ongoing economic crisis in the US and Europe in the 2008–2012 period were substantially due to workforce competitiveness issues in the globalisation era, which politicians attempted to "paper-over" with easy credit. He proposed supply-side solutions of a long-term structural or national competitiveness nature: "The industrial countries should treat the crisis as a wake-up call and move to fix all that has been papered over in the last few decades... Rather than attempting to return to their artificially inflated GDP numbers from before the crisis, governments need to address the underlying flaws in their economies. In the United States, that means educating or retraining the workers who are falling behind, encouraging entrepreneurship and innovation, and harnessing the power of the financial sector to do good while preventing it from going off track. In southern Europe, by contrast, it means removing the regulations that protect firms and workers from competition and shrinking the government's presence in a number of areas, in the process eliminating unnecessary, unproductive jobs."


title: Raghuram Rajan

text: During May 2012, Rajan and Paul Krugman expressed differing views on how to reinvigorate the economies in the US and Europe, with Krugman mentioning Rajan by name in an opinion editorial. This debate occurred against the backdrop of a significant "austerity vs stimulus" debate occurring at the time, with some economists arguing one side or the other or a combination of both strategies. In an article in "Foreign Affairs" magazine, Rajan advocated structural or supply-side reforms to improve competitiveness of the workforce to better adapt to globalisation, while also supporting fiscal austerity measures (E.g., raising taxes and cutting spending), although he conceded that austerity could slow economies in the short-run and cause significant "pain" for certain constituencies. Krugman rejected this focus on structural reforms combined with fiscal austerity. Instead he advocated traditional Keynesian fiscal (government spending and investment) and monetary stimulus, arguing that the primary factor slowing the developed economies at that time was a general shortfall in demand across all sectors of the economy, not structural or supply-side factors that affected particular sectors.


title: Raghuram Rajan

text: As far as his position on India is concerned, Rajan stayed away from the Bhagwati vs. Sen debate, and has tended to sympathize with both sides of the so-called "growth vs. welfare" argument. While Rajan's views in general align with Bhagwati's (with respect to how growth is seen as the main source of development), he has also argued for government involvement in health and education like Sen, and has pointed to the resultant threat of oligarchy or alienation of the poor.


title: Raghuram Rajan

text: In 2019, Rajan said that, following the financial crisis of 2007–2008 and the imposition of austerity, contemporary capitalism "is under serious threat" because it has stopped providing opportunities for the many and is now facing a possible revolt from the masses.


title: Raghuram Rajan

text: In interviews in September 2017, Rajan said the Government of India had consulted the Reserve Bank of India, during his Governorship, on the issue of demonetization but never asked to take a decision. He said the RBI was against the move and warned the government of the potential negative effects. Rajan also termed the currency notes ban exercise as, "One cannot in any way say it has been an economic success". In addition to his work at the University of Chicago and RBI, Raghuram is also a member of the Berggruen Institute's 21st Century Council.


title: Raghuram Rajan

text: Rajan has also published numerous articles in finance and economics journals including the "American Economic Review", "Journal of Economic Perspectives", "Journal of Political Economy", "Journal of Financial Economics", "Journal of Finance" and "Oxford Review of Economic Policy".


title: Raghuram Rajan

text: Raghuram Rajan is an Indian citizen and holds a USA Green Card. He is married to Radhika Puri Rajan, whom he met while they were both students at IIM Ahmedabad. Radhika teaches at University of Chicago Law School. She is also an Adjunct Associate Professor of Behavioral Science at the University of Chicago Booth School of Business. They have a daughter and a son.


title: Raghuram Rajan

text: Rajan's elder brother works for a solar company in the United States. Rajan's sister is a French teacher in New Delhi, and is married to an Indian Administrative Service officer. Rajan's younger brother, Mukund Rajan, was born in Chennai in 1968. He was the Brand Custodian and Chief Ethics Officer of Tata Sons


title: Raghuram Rajan

text: Rajan is a vegetarian. He likes the outdoors and plays tennis and squash. He enjoys reading Tolstoy, J. R. R. Tolkien and Upamanyu Chatterjee. Rajan appeared on Siddharth Basu's quiz show "Quiz Time", telecasted on the national television channel Doordarshan, in 1985, teaming up with his batchmate Jayant Sinha to represent IIT Delhi. He has also participated in various marathons, such as the Standard Chartered Mumbai Marathon 2015.


title: Roger Smith (actor)

text: Roger LaVerne Smith (December 18, 1932 – June 4, 2017) was an American television and film actor, producer, and screenwriter. He starred in the television detective series "77 Sunset Strip" and in the comedy series "Mister Roberts". Smith went on to manage the career of Ann-Margret, his wife of 50 years.


title: Roger Smith (actor)

text: Smith was born in South Gate, California, the son of Leone Irene (Adams) and Dallas L. Smith. When he was six, his parents enrolled him into a stage school, where he took singing, dancing, and elocution lessons. He grew up in Nogales, Arizona, where his family moved when he was 12. He was educated at the University of Arizona at Tucson on a football scholarship. He won several amateur talent prizes as a singer and guitarist.


title: Roger Smith (actor)

text: Smith served with the Naval Reserve and was stationed in Hawaii with the Fleet All-Weather Training Unit-Pacific, a flight-training unit near Honolulu. After a chance meeting with actor James Cagney, he was encouraged to try a career in Hollywood. (Cagney had also encouraged other young actors for whom he found roles in two 1956 films.) He later played Cagney's character's son in "Man of a Thousand Faces".


title: Roger Smith (actor)

text: Smith signed with Columbia Pictures in 1957 and made several films, then moved to Warner Bros. in 1958. On April 16, 1958, Smith appeared with Charles Bickford in "The Daniel Barrister Story" on NBC's "Wagon Train". His greatest film exposure was the role of the adult Patrick Dennis in "Auntie Mame", with Rosalind Russell.


title: Roger Smith (actor)

text: His signature television role was private detective Jeff Spencer in "77 Sunset Strip". Smith appeared in 74 episodes of the Warner Bros. Television series. Due to his popularity on the show, Warner Bros. Records released one LP album by Smith titled, "Beach Romance" on Warner Bros. Records WS 1305, in June 1959. He left the popular ABC program in 1962 because of a blood clot in his brain. He recovered from this after surgery.


title: Roger Smith (actor)

text: Before he obtained a role in another television series, Smith said he had to "fight my way back from a point where I had almost decided to give up acting." He then starred as Lt. Douglas Roberts in the Warner Bros. Television series "Mister Roberts", a comedy-drama series on NBC-TV in 1965–1966.


title: Roger Smith (actor)

text: He produced two films with Allan Carr, "The First Time" (1969) and "C.C. and Company" (1970), which he also wrote.


title: Roger Smith (actor)

text: His health declined, and in 1980, according to wife Ann-Margret, he was diagnosed with myasthenia gravis, a neuromuscular disease.


title: Roger Smith (actor)

text: His condition went into remission in 1985. Following his retirement from performing, he managed his wife's career and produced her popular Las Vegas stage shows. In an interview with the "New York Post", Ann-Margret said that he had Parkinson's disease. He appeared rarely on television after his health deteriorated, although he participated on "This Is Your Life", when host Ralph Edwards devoted an episode to Ann-Margret. In addition to the appearances credited below, Smith appeared on several game shows.


title: Roger Smith (actor)

text: Smith married twice. His first wife (1956–1965) was Australian-born actress Victoria Shaw with whom he had three children: daughter Tracey (b. 1957), and sons Jordan (b. 1958) and Dallas (b. 1961). Smith and Shaw divorced in 1965.


title: Roger Smith (actor)

text: He married Ann-Margret on May 8, 1967. He became her manager, but he largely retired due to his myasthenia gravis.


title: Roger Smith (actor)

text: Smith died at age 84 on June 4, 2017, at Sherman Oaks Hospital in Sherman Oaks, Los Angeles, of complications from myasthenia gravis.


title: Helen Slater

text: Helen Rachel Slater (born December 15, 1963) is an American actress and singer-songwriter. She played the title character in the 1984 film "Supergirl", and returned to the 2015 TV series of the same title, this time as Supergirl's adoptive mother, Eliza Danvers. In the intervening years, she starred in several films including "The Legend of Billie Jean" (1985), "Ruthless People" (1986), "The Secret of My Success" (1987), and "City Slickers" (1991). She additionally found work as an actress in television, and stage projects, including three guest appearances on the series "Smallville" (2007–2010).


title: Helen Slater

text: Slater was born in Bethpage, New York. She is Jewish. Her parents, Alice Joan (née Citrin), a lawyer and nuclear disarmament peace activist based in New York City, and Gerald Slater, a television executive, divorced in 1974. She has a brother, David, who is a lawyer in New York City. Slater attended Great Neck South High School and then transferred to the High School of Performing Arts from which she graduated in 1982.


title: Helen Slater

text: A common misconception is that she is related to actor Christian Slater, who played her character's brother in "The Legend of Billie Jean".


title: Helen Slater

text: In 1987, Slater co-founded the New York theater group, "The Naked Angels", with Gina Gershon. In 1991, she also co-founded, with her husband, Robert Watzke, the L.A. based theater group "The Bubalaires".


title: Helen Slater

text: Slater appeared in two off-Broadway plays: "Almost Romance" and "Responsible Parties". She also starred in "The Big Deal" at the Pasadena Playhouse.


title: Helen Slater

text: In 2003, she released the album, "One of These Days," consisting of her original songs. The tracks were real-time recordings with Slater singing and playing piano, accompanied by six other musicians; no multitracking, editing, or dubbing was employed. In 2005, she released a second album, "Crossword," which used the same recording approach as her first album. Both albums were produced by Phillip Swann. In 2008, Cortes Alexander recorded Slater's "Any Day Now" and "Love'll Come & Do Just That" on his album "Swell."


title: Helen Slater

text: In 2010, Slater wrote a Supergirl story titled "A Hero's Journey" which appeared in the fiftieth issue of the fifth volume of the "Supergirl" comic book.


title: Helen Slater

text: In 1985, DC Comics named Slater as one of the honorees in the company's 50th anniversary publication "Fifty Who Made DC Great" for her work on the Supergirl film.


title: Ronna McDaniel

text: Ronna McDaniel (' Romney; born March 20, 1973) is an American politician and political strategist serving as chair of the Republican National Committee (RNC) since 2017. A member of the Republican Party and the Romney family, she was chair of the Michigan Republican Party from 2015 to 2017.


title: Ronna McDaniel

text: A granddaughter of Michigan Governor and businessman George W. Romney and a niece of Massachusetts Governor and U.S. Senator Mitt Romney of Utah, McDaniel has been known for her prolific fundraising and staunch support for President Donald Trump as RNC chair. Under her leadership, the RNC ran ads for Trump's 2020 campaign as early as 2018, put numerous Trump campaign workers and affiliates on the RNC payroll, spent considerable funds at Trump-owned properties, covered his legal fees in the Russian interference investigation, hosted Trump's Fake News Awards, and criticized Trump critics within the Republican Party.


title: Ronna McDaniel

text: After Joe Biden won the 2020 election and Trump refused to concede, McDaniel and the RNC made disproven claims of voter fraud, and attempted to overturn Biden's victory. In 2022, she orchestrated a censure of Republicans who participated in a bipartisan committee to investigate the January 2021 attack on the U.S. Capitol. The censure characterized the violent pro-Trump mob as having engaged in "legitimate political discourse". During its fourth public hearing, the United States House Select Committee on the January 6 Attack presented a video excerpt of a deposition from McDaniel where she revealed that, at the request of Trump and John Eastman, she had the RNC help organize fake electors for the Trump fake electors plot.<ref name="Breuninger_6/22/2022"></ref>


title: Ronna McDaniel

text: McDaniel was born Ronna Romney on March 20, 1973, in Austin, Texas. The third of five children born to Ronna Stern Romney and Scott Romney, the older brother of Mitt Romney, McDaniel is a granddaughter of three-term Michigan Governor George W. Romney. Her mother ran for the U.S. Senate in 1996 against Carl Levin, served on the Republican National Committee, and was a delegate to the 1988 Republican National Convention. Romney's grandmother, Lenore Romney, ran for the U.S. Senate in 1970. McDaniel has said her career in politics was inspired by her family.


title: Ronna McDaniel

text: She attended Lahser High School in Bloomfield Township, Oakland County, Michigan, and earned an undergraduate degree in English from Brigham Young University.


title: Ronna McDaniel

text: McDaniel worked for SRCP Media as a production manager. She also worked for the production company Mills James as a business manager and as a manager at the staffing firm Ajilon.


title: Ronna McDaniel

text: McDaniel worked in Michigan for her uncle Mitt's 2012 campaign for President of the United States. She was elected Michigan's representative to the Republican National Committee (RNC) in 2014. In 2015, McDaniel ran to be chairwomen of the Michigan Republican Party, receiving support from both the party establishment and Tea Party activists. At the party's convention in February 2015, she defeated Norm Hughes and Kim Shmina, receiving 55% of the vote in the first ballot. She succeeded Bobby Schostak as chairwomen and stepped down from her position at the RNC.


title: Ronna McDaniel

text: During the 2016 U.S. presidential election, McDaniel served as a delegate to the 2016 Republican National Convention for Donald Trump. Following the 2016 presidential election, McDaniel became a candidate to chair the Republican National Committee. McDaniel was an early supporter of Donald Trump. McDaniel had activist Wendy Day removed from her party position as grassroots vice-chair due to her refusal to support Trump.


title: Ronna McDaniel

text: On November 13, 2016, Reince Priebus, chair of the RNC, was announced as the new White House Chief of Staff, thereby turning the RNC chair election into an open seat election. Soon afterward, several candidates were reported as likely to seek the position, including McDaniel. On December 14, 2016, McDaniel was chosen by then president-elect Trump as his recommendation to replace Priebus. She served as deputy chair before her formal election. She was officially elected as RNC chair on January 19, 2017, becoming the second woman (after Mary Louise Smith) in RNC history to hold the post. According to "The Washington Post", Trump requested that she stop using her maiden name, and McDaniel subsequently did not use it in official communications. McDaniel denies that Trump pressured her to change the name.


title: Ronna McDaniel

text: In 2018, McDaniel spent up to six hours daily calling donors. Under McDaniel's leadership, the RNC had what "The Washington Post" described as "a huge financial edge heading into the 2018 midterm elections". As of January 2018, the RNC had almost $40 million banked while the Democratic National Committee had $6.3 million. As of July 17, the Republican National Committee had raised about $213 million for the election cycle with $50.7 million in cash on hand and no debt. In comparison, the Democratic National Committee raised $101 million during the same period. After many white suburban female voters switched to vote for Democrats in the 2018 midterm elections, McDaniel said that the party would engage in a "deep data dive" to learn why.


title: Ronna McDaniel

text: "The New York Times" described McDaniel as "unfailingly loyal to Trump". According to a 2018 study in "The Journal of Politics," under her leadership the RNC has sought to consistently promote Trump and his policies. This includes running ads for Trump's 2020 campaign as early as in 2018, putting a considerable number of Trump campaign workers and affiliates on the RNC payroll, spending considerable funds at Trump-owned properties, covering Trump's legal fees in the Russian interference investigation, hosting Trump's "Fake News Awards", and harshly criticizing Trump critics within the Republican Party. The day after Republican congressman Mark Sanford, known for his criticism of Trump, lost his primary against a pro-Trump candidate, McDaniel tweeted that those who do not embrace Trump's agenda "will be making a mistake". In April 2018, McDaniel praised Trump as a "moral leader".


title: Ronna McDaniel

text: "Politico" reported that after Trump endorsed Republican Senate candidate Roy Moore just days before the special Alabama Senate election, the White House influenced McDaniel to resume RNC funding for Moore, who lost in a narrow election to Democrat Doug Jones in December 2017. According to two people close to McDaniel, she privately complained about spending time and money on Moore's behalf. McDaniel was reportedly shocked by Trump's decision to endorse Moore but felt that she had little choice but to follow the president's wishes.


title: Ronna McDaniel

text: In January 2019, Mitt Romney penned an editorial for "The Washington Post" criticizing President Trump's moral character. McDaniel said the editorial by her uncle, "an incoming Republican freshman senator", "feeds into what the Democrats and mainstream media want" and was "disappointing and unproductive". In March 2019, McDaniel stated she would not support "the nicest, most moral person in the world" to be president if they were not "aligned with [her] politics".


title: Ronna McDaniel

text: In May 2019, when House Representative Justin Amash became the first Republican member of Congress to call for Trump's impeachment, citing the evidence of obstruction of justice in the Mueller Report, McDaniel criticized Amash, saying he was "parroting the Democrats' talking points on Russia". While she did not explicitly express support for a primary challenge against Amash, she tweeted, "voters in Amash's district strongly support this president".


title: Ronna McDaniel

text: In September 2020, following the release of audio recordings from February 2020 where President Trump said he was intentionally downplaying the coronavirus, McDaniel defended Trump's handling of the coronavirus. She said, "history will look back on him well as how he handled this pandemic."


title: Ronna McDaniel

text: By November 2021, RNC was still covering the legal fees for former president Trump related to investigations into his financial practices in New York.


title: Ronna McDaniel

text: By May 2020, the RNC had allocated $20 million to oppose Democratic lawsuits to make voting easier during the coronavirus pandemic, in particular expanding vote-by-mail to states that had not adopted it previously. McDaniel accused Democrats of trying to "destroy" and "assault" the integrity of elections. McDaniel said, "a national vote by mail system would open the door to a new set of problems, such as potential election fraud." According to "Deseret News", "Election experts say while voting by mail can be abused, it's rare and inconsequential." In general, research has found no evidence of widespread voter fraud in the United States.


title: Ronna McDaniel

text: In June 2020, McDaniel shared a RNC video warning about extensive voter fraud in the upcoming 2020 election due to expansions of vote-by-mail related to the coronavirus pandemic. "The Washington Post" fact-checker wrote that the video "tortures the facts to create a narrative of an election about to be stolen. The illegality being satirized here is a phantom. State election officials, in many cases Republicans, are expanding vote-by-mail as a public health precaution to prevent the risk of spreading the coronavirus — not to rig the outcome."


title: Ronna McDaniel

text: After Joe Biden won the 2020 election, McDaniel claimed without evidence that there was large-scale electoral fraud and voter fraud, and had the RNC promote falsehoods and conspiracy theories about the election. At the same time that she was making baseless claims of fraud, President Trump endorsed her to continue to lead the RNC in the January 2021 RNC chair election.


title: Ronna McDaniel

text: In 2022, McDaniel led efforts within the RNC to censure Republican members of Congress Liz Cheney and Adam Kinzinger who had voted to impeach Trump over his incitement of a pro-Trump mob in the U.S. Capitol attack and served on a bipartisan committee to investigate the attack. Within the Republican Party, Cheney had a consistently conservative record, aside from her criticisms of Trump. The censure that McDaniel orchestrated characterized the U.S. Capitol attack as "legitimate political discourse".


title: Ronna McDaniel

text: In October 2017 after Harvey Weinstein, a major donor to the Democratic Party, was accused of sexual abuse, McDaniel said that "returning Weinstein's dirty money should be a no-brainer"; the Democratic Party did give away some of Weinstein's contributions. In January 2018, Steve Wynn resigned as RNC finance chairman after he was accused of sexual misconduct and McDaniel came under pressure to return his donations. McDaniel said that Wynn should be allowed "due process" and that his donations would only be returned after the allegations were investigated by the Wynn Resorts board of directors. In May 2019, it was reported that Wynn had donated nearly $400,000 to the national Republican Party, most of it to the RNC, the previous month. In 2017, Wynn and his wife donated $375,000 to the RNC. As of May 2019, none of the money has been returned by the RNC. Steve Wynn has never been convicted of the allegations.


title: Ronna McDaniel

text: In September 2019, McDaniel emailed Doug Manchester, whose nomination to become Ambassador to the Bahamas was stalled in the Senate, asking for $500,000 in donations to the Republican Party. Manchester responded, noting that his wife had given $100,000 and that his family would "respond" once he was confirmed by the Republican-led Senate to the ambassadorship. Manchester copied the email to aides of two U.S. senators whose support he needed to win confirmation. CBS News described McDaniel's action as a "possible pay-for-play scheme" for the ambassadorship. "The San Diego Union-Tribune" reported in May 2021 that a federal grand jury had issued a subpoena in a criminal investigation into Manchester's nomination, apparently focused on the RNC, McDaniel and RNC co-chair Tommy Hicks, and possibly members of Congress. "The" "Union-Tribune" reported the investigation began in 2020.


title: Ronna McDaniel

text: Under McDaniel's leadership, the RNC set up a website in April 2018 which attacked and sought to undermine former FBI Director James Comey and called him "Lyin' Comey". McDaniel said Comey was a liar and a leaker, and said that the RNC would "make sure the American people understand why he has no one but himself to blame for his complete lack of credibility".


title: Ronna McDaniel

text: In late July 2018, McDaniel falsely claimed that Twitter was shadow banning Republicans, including herself. Twitter did not shadowban Republicans, but due to a glitch, several prominent conservative and left-leaning Twitter accounts were not automatically suggested in the site's drop-down search results. Twitter responded, saying it would fix the bug.


title: Ronna McDaniel

text: "Politico" reported in November 2018 that McDaniel called on the Republican candidate Martha McSally to be more aggressive during the ballot counting process in the Arizona Senate race. The Arizona Senate race remained undecided for several days after election night while all ballots were being accounted in a close contest. McSally held a lead by the end of election night, but her lead narrowed over the next few days, as more ballots were counted. Reportedly, the McSally campaign was being pressured from McDaniel for not being aggressive enough.


title: Ronna McDaniel

text: On May 13, 2020 "ProPublica" reported that big RNC contracts were awarded by McDaniel to companies closely connected to her. Contracts went to her husband's company and companies that supported her 2015 run for the chairmanship of the Republican Party in Michigan.


title: Ronna McDaniel

text: On October 27, 2022, McDaniel openly mocked prominent Democratic politicians such as then-Lieutenant Governor of Pennsylvania and U.S. Senate candidate John Fetterman and President Joe Biden for suffering speech impediments. Fetterman was recovering from a stroke at the time.


title: Ronna McDaniel

text: A member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, she has two children with her husband, Patrick McDaniel. They live in Northville, Michigan.


title: Ronna McDaniel

text: On September 30, 2020, McDaniel tested positive for COVID-19. She and the Republican National Committee disclosed the diagnosis publicly two days later, on October 2. She had been staying at her home in Michigan since September 26 after one of her relatives tested positive.


title: Yuba County Five

text: The Yuba County Five were a group of young men from Yuba City, California, with mild intellectual disabilities or psychiatric conditions, who attended a college basketball game at California State University, Chico, on the night of February 24, 1978. Four of them—Bill Sterling, 29; Jack Huett, 24; Ted Weiher, 32; and Jack Madruga, 30—were later found dead; the fifth, Gary Mathias, 25, has never been found.


title: Yuba County Five

text: Several days after their initial disappearance, the group's Mercury Montego was found, abandoned, in a remote area of Plumas National Forest on a high mountain dirt road that was far out of their way back to Yuba City. Investigators could not determine why the car was abandoned, as it was in good working order and could easily have been pushed out of the snowpack it was in. At that time, no trace of the men was found.


title: Yuba County Five

text: After the snow melted in June 1978, four of the men's bodies were found in and near a trailer camp used by backpackers as shelter, deep in the forest, from the car. Only bones were left of the three bodies in the woods, a result of scavenging animals; but the one in the trailer, Ted Weiher, had apparently lived for as long as three months after the men were last seen, starving to death despite an ample supply of food and heating materials nearby. Weiher was missing his shoes, and investigators found Mathias' own shoes in the nearby woods, suggesting Mathias also survived for some time beyond the last night they were seen alive.


title: Yuba County Five

text: A witness later came forward, a local man who said he had spent the same night in his own car, a short distance away from where the Montego was found after having a mild heart attack trying to push it out of the snow. This witness told police that he had seen and heard people around the car that night, and twice called for help, only for them to grow silent and turn off their flashlights. This, and the considerable distance from the car to where the bodies were found, has led to suspicions of foul play.


title: Yuba County Five

text: While he was stationed in West Germany as part of his United States Army service in the early 1970s, Gary Mathias, a native of Yuba City, California, developed drug problems. This eventually led to him being diagnosed with schizophrenia and being psychiatrically discharged. Mathias returned to his parents' home in Yuba City and began treatment at a local mental hospital. While it had been difficult at first—he was nearly arrested for assault twice and often experienced psychotic episodes that landed him in a local Veterans Administration hospital—by 1978, Mathias was being treated on an outpatient basis with Stelazine and Cogentin and was considered by his physicians to be "one of our sterling success cases".


title: Yuba County Five

text: Mathias supplemented his Army disability pay by working in his stepfather's gardening business. Off the job, outside of his family, he was close friends with four slightly older men who either had slight intellectual disabilities (Sterling and Huett) or were informally considered "slow learners" (Weiher and Madruga, also an Army veteran). The men lived in Yuba City and nearby Marysville. Like Mathias, each man lived with his parents, all of whom referred to them collectively as "the boys".


title: Yuba County Five

text: The five men's favorite leisure activity was sports. Their families said that when they got together, it was usually to play a game or to watch one. They played basketball together on a team called the Gateway Gators. This team was supported by a local program for people with mental disabilities.


title: Yuba County Five

text: On February 25, the Gators were due to play their first game in a weeklong tournament sponsored by the Special Olympics for which the winners would get a free week in Los Angeles. The five men had prepared the night before, some even laying out their uniforms and asking their parents to wake them up on time. They decided to drive to Chico that night to cheer on the UC Davis basketball team in an away game against Chico State. Madruga, the only member of the group besides Mathias who had a driver's license, drove the group north to Chico in his turquoise and white 1969 Mercury Montego. The men wore only light coats against the cool temperatures in the upper Sacramento Valley at night that time of year.


title: Yuba County Five

text: After the Davis team won the game, the group got back into Madruga's car and drove a short distance from the Chico State campus to Behr's Market in downtown Chico. There they bought snacks along with sodas and cartons of milk to drink. It was shortly before the store's 10 p.m. closing time; the clerk later remembered the men because she was annoyed that such a large group had come in and delayed her from beginning the process of closing the store for the night.


title: Yuba County Five

text: None of the men were seen alive again after that point. At their homes, some of their parents stayed up to make sure they returned. When morning came and they had not, the police were notified.


title: Yuba County Five

text: Police in Butte and Yuba counties began searching along the route the men took to Chico. They found no sign of them, but a few days later, a Plumas National Forest ranger told investigators that he had seen the Montego parked along Oroville-Quincy Road in the forest on February 25. At the time, he had not considered it significant, since many residents often drove up that road into the Sierra Nevada on winter weekends to go cross-country skiing on the extensive trail system, but after he read the missing persons bulletin, he recognized the car and led the deputies to it on February 28.


title: Yuba County Five

text: Inside the car was evidence suggesting the men had been inside it between when they were last seen and when it was abandoned. The wrappers and empty cartons and cans they had purchased in Chico were present, along with programs from the basketball game they had watched and a neatly folded road map of California. However, the discovery of the car raised more questions than it answered.


title: Yuba County Five

text: One question was its location, from Chico, far off any direct route to Yuba City or Marysville. None of the men's families could speculate as to why they might have driven up a long and winding dirt road on a winter night deep into a high-elevation remote forest, without any extra clothing and on the night before a basketball game they had been discussing excitedly for several weeks. Madruga's parents said he did not like the cold weather and had never been up into the mountains. Sterling's father had once taken his son to the area near where the car was found for a fishing weekend, but the younger man had not enjoyed it and remained at home when his father took later trips there.


title: Yuba County Five

text: Police could not figure out why the men had abandoned the car. They had reached in elevation along the road, about where the snow line was at that time of year, just short of where the road was closed for the winter. The car had become stuck in some snow drifts, and there was evidence that the men had tried to spin the wheels to get out of it; police noted that the snow was not so deep that five healthy young men would not have been able to push it out. The keys were not present, suggesting at first that the car had been abandoned because it might not have been functioning properly, with the intention of returning later with help; when police hot-wired the car, the engine started immediately, and the fuel gauge indicated the gasoline tank was one quarter full.


title: Yuba County Five

text: The mystery deepened after police towed the car back to the station for a more thorough examination. The Montego's undercarriage had no dents, gouges, or even mud scrapes, not even on its low-hanging muffler, despite having been driven a long distance up a mountain road with many bumps and ruts. Either the driver had been extremely careful, or it was someone familiar with the road, a familiarity Madruga was not known to have; his family said that Madruga would not have let someone else drive the car. The car was unlocked and had a window rolled down when it was found; his family indicated it was unlike him to leave the car so unsecured.


title: Yuba County Five

text: Efforts to search the vicinity were hampered by a severe snowstorm that day. Two days later, after searchers in Snowcats nearly became lost themselves, further search efforts were called off due to continuing bad weather. No trace of the men was found other than the car.


title: Yuba County Five

text: In response to local media coverage of the case, police received several reports of some or all of the men being sighted after they had left Chico, including some reports of them being seen elsewhere in California or the country. Most of the reports were easily dismissed, but two of the sightings stood out. Joseph Schons of Sacramento told police he inadvertently wound up spending the night of February 24–25 near where the Montego was found. He had driven up there, where he had a cabin, to check the snowpack in advance of a weekend ski trip with his family. At 5:30 p.m., about up the road, he, too, had gotten stuck in the snow. In the process of trying to free it, he realized he was beginning to experience the early symptoms of a heart attack and went back in, keeping the engine running to provide heat.


title: Yuba County Five

text: Six hours later, lying in the car and experiencing severe pain, he saw headlights coming up behind him. Looking out, he saw a car parked behind him, headlights on, with a group of people around it, one of which seemed to him to be a woman holding a baby. He called to them for help, but they stopped talking and turned their headlights out. Later, he saw more lights from behind him, this time flashlights, that also went out when he called to them.


title: Yuba County Five

text: After that, Schons said at first, he recalled a pickup truck parking behind him briefly, and then continuing on down the road. Later, he clarified to police that he could not be sure of that, since at the time he was almost delirious from the pain he was in. After Schons' car ran out of gas in the early morning hours, his pain subsided enough for him to walk down the road to a lodge, where the manager drove him back home, passing the abandoned Montego at the point where he had recalled hearing the voices originate from. Doctors later confirmed that he had indeed experienced a mild heart attack.


title: Yuba County Five

text: Weiher's mother said ignoring someone's pleas for help was not like her son, if indeed he had been present. She recalled how he and Sterling had helped someone they knew get to the hospital after overdosing on Valium.


title: Yuba County Five

text: The other notable report was from a woman who worked at a store in the small town of Brownsville, from the point where the car had been abandoned, which they would have reached had they continued down the road from where the car had been found. On March 3, the woman, who saw fliers that had been distributed with the men's pictures and information about the $1,215 ($ in dollars), reward the families had put up, told deputies that four of them had stopped at the store in a red pickup truck, two days after the disappearance. The store owner corroborated her account.


title: Yuba County Five

text: The woman said she immediately realized that the men were not from the area because of their "big eyes and facial expressions". Two of the men, whom she identified as Huett and Sterling, were in a telephone booth outside the store, while the other two went inside. The police said she was "a credible witness" and they took her account seriously.


title: Yuba County Five

text: Additional details came from the store owner, who told investigators that men whom he believed to be Weiher and Huett came in and bought burritos, chocolate milk and soft drinks. Weiher's brother told the "Los Angeles Times" that while driving to Brownsville in a different car in apparent ignorance of the basketball game seemed completely out of character for them, the owner's description of the two men's behavior seemed consistent with them, as Weiher would "eat anything he could get his hands on" and was often accompanied by Huett more than any of the other four. Huett's brother said Jack hated using telephones to the point that he would answer calls for Jack whenever he received any from the other men in the group.


title: Yuba County Five

text: With the evidence not pointing to any clear conclusion about what happened the night the five men disappeared, police and the families were not ruling out the possibility that they had met with foul play. The eventual discovery of four of the five men's bodies seemed to suggest otherwise, but raised even more questions about what had happened that night, and whether at least one of them might have been rescued.


title: Yuba County Five

text: On June 4, with most of the higher-elevation snow melted, a group of motorcyclists went to a trailer maintained by the Forest Service at a campsite off the road about from where the Montego had been found. The front window of the trailer had been broken. When they opened the door, they were overcome by the odor of what turned out to be a decaying body inside. It was later identified as Weiher's.


title: Yuba County Five

text: Searchers returned to Plumas, following the road between the trailer and the site of the Montego. The next day, they found remains that were later identified as those of Madruga and Sterling on opposite sides of the road from where the car had been. Madruga's body had been partially consumed by scavenging animals; only bones remained of Sterling, scattered over a small area. Autopsies showed that they both died of hypothermia. Deputies think that one of them may have given in to the need to sleep that comes with the last stages of hypothermia, while the other stayed by his side and died the same way.


title: Yuba County Five

text: Two days later, as part of one of the other search parties, Jack Huett's father found his son's backbone under a manzanita bush northeast of the trailer. His shoes and jeans nearby helped identify the body. The next day, a deputy sheriff found a skull downhill from the bush, away, confirmed by dental records later to have been Huett's. His death, too, was attributed to hypothermia.


title: Yuba County Five

text: In an area to the northwest of the trailer, roughly a quarter-mile () from it, searchers found three Forest Service blankets and a rusted flashlight by the road. It could not be determined how long those items had been there. Since Mathias had presumably not taken his medication, pictures of him were distributed to mental institutions all over California. However, no trace of him has ever been found.


title: Yuba County Five

text: Weiher's body was on a bed with eight sheets wrapped around it, including the head. The autopsy showed that he had died of a combination of starvation and hypothermia. Weiher had lost nearly half his ; the growth of his beard suggested he had lived as long as thirteen weeks from when he had last shaved. His feet were badly frostbitten, almost gangrenous. On a table next to the bed were some of Weiher's personal effects, including his wallet (with cash), a nickel ring with "Ted" engraved on it, and a gold necklace he also wore. Also on the table was a gold watch, without its crystal, which Weiher's family said was not his, and a partially melted candle. He was wearing a velour shirt and lightweight pants, but his shoes could not be found.


title: Yuba County Five

text: Most puzzling to the investigators was how Weiher had come to his fate. No fire had been set in the trailer's fireplace, despite an ample supply of matches and paperback novels to use as kindling. Heavy forestry clothing, which could have kept the men warm, also remained where it had been stored. A dozen C-ration cans from a storage shed outside had been opened and their contents consumed, but a locker in the same shed that held an even greater assortment of dehydrated foods, enough to keep all five men fed for a year if that had been necessary, had not even been opened. Similarly, another shed nearby held a butane tank with a valve that, had it been opened, would have fed the trailer's heating system. Weiher's family members said that he lacked common sense because he had a mental disability. For example, he often asked why he should stop at a stop sign, and one night he had to be dragged out of bed while the ceiling of his bedroom was burning in a house fire because he was afraid he would miss his job if he got up.


title: Yuba County Five

text: It also seemed that Weiher had not been alone in the trailer, and that Mathias and possibly Huett had been there with him. Mathias's tennis sneakers were in the trailer, and the C-rations had been opened with a P-38 can opener, with which only Mathias or Madruga would have been familiar from their military service. Mathias, his feet perhaps also swollen from frostbite, could have decided to put Weiher's shoes on instead if he had ventured outside. The sheets all over Weiher's body also suggested that one of the others had been there with him, as his gangrenous feet would have been in too much pain for him to pull them over his body himself.


title: Yuba County Five

text: Even knowing that four of the five men had died in the Sierra, investigators still could not completely explain what had led to their deaths. They still had found no explanation for why the men were there, although they learned that Mathias had friends in the small town of Forbestown, and police believed it was possible that, in an attempt to visit them on the way back home, the men may have taken a wrong turn near Oroville that put them on the mountain road. For whatever reason, the men had left the Montego; they had, instead of going back down the road (where they had passed the lodge that Schons later returned to), continued along the road in the direction they were originally going. Purposeful motion like that is not consistent with the circular patterns traveled by those who genuinely believe themselves lost.


title: Yuba County Five

text: The day before the men went missing, a Forest Service Snowcat had gone along the road in that direction to clear snow off the trailer roof so it would not collapse. It was possible, police believed, that the group had decided to follow the tracks it left, through snowdrifts high, to wherever they led, in the belief that shelter was not too far away. Most likely, Madruga and Sterling died of hypothermia about halfway through the long walk to the trailer.


title: Yuba County Five

text: It is assumed that once they found the trailer, the other three broke the window to enter. Since it was locked, they may have believed it was private property, and may have feared arrest for theft if they used anything else they found there. After Weiher died, or after the others thought he had died, they may have decided to try to get back to civilization by different ways, such as walking over land.


title: Anthony Minghella

text: Anthony Minghella, (6 January 195418 March 2008) was a British film director, playwright and screenwriter. He was chairman of the board of Governors at the British Film Institute between 2003 and 2007.


title: Anthony Minghella

text: He won the Academy Award for Best Director for "The English Patient" (1996). In addition, he received three more Academy Award nominations; he was nominated for Best Adapted Screenplay for both "The English Patient" and "The Talented Mr. Ripley" (1999), and was posthumously nominated for Best Picture for "The Reader" (2008), as a producer.


title: Anthony Minghella

text: Minghella was born in Ryde, on the Isle of Wight, an island off the south coast of England that is a popular holiday resort. His family are well known on the Island, where they ran a café in Ryde until the 1980s and have run an eponymous business making and selling Italian-style ice cream since the 1950s. His parents were Edoardo Minghella (an Italian immigrant) and Leeds-born Gloria Alberta (née Arcari). His mother's ancestors originally came from Valvori, a small village in southern Lazio, Italy. He was one of five children, his sisters Gioia Minghella-Giddens, Edana Minghella and Loretta Minghella, and a brother Dominic Minghella who would also become a screenwriter and producer.


title: Anthony Minghella

text: Minghella attended St. Mary's Catholic Primary School, Ryde, Sandown Grammar School, and St John's College, Portsmouth. Early interests suggested a possible career as a musician, with Minghella playing keyboards with local bands Earthlight and Dancer. The latter recorded an album titled "Tales of the Riverbank" in 1972, although it was not released until 2001.


title: Anthony Minghella

text: He attended the University of Hull, studying drama. As an undergraduate he had arrived at university with an EMI contract for the band, in which he sang and played keyboards; while at university he wrote words and music for an adaptation of Gabriel Josipovici's "Mobius the Stripper" (1975) .


title: Anthony Minghella

text: Minghella graduated after three years and stayed on to pursue a PhD. He also taught at the university for several years, on Samuel Beckett and on the medieval theatre. Ultimately, he abandoned his pursuit of a PhD to work for the BBC.


title: Anthony Minghella

text: Minghella's debut work was a stage adaptation of Gabriel Josipovici's "Mobius the Stripper" (1975) and it was his "Whale Music" (1985) that brought him notice. His double bill of Samuel Beckett's "Play" and "Happy Days" was his directorial debut and debut feature film as a director was "A Little Like Drowning" (1978). During the 1980s, he worked in television, starting as a runner on "Magpie" before moving into script editing the children's drama series "Grange Hill" for the BBC and later writing "The Storyteller" series for Jim Henson. He wrote several episodes of the ITV detective drama "Inspector Morse" and an episode of long-running ITV drama "Boon". "Made in Bangkok" (1986) found mainstream success in the West End.


title: Anthony Minghella

text: Radio success followed with a Giles Cooper Award for the radio drama "Cigarettes and Chocolate" first broadcast on BBC Radio 4 in 1988. It was revived on 3 May 2008 as a tribute to its author director following his death. His production starred Juliet Stevenson, Bill Nighy and Jenny Howe. His first radio play "Hang Up", starring Anton Lesser and Juliet Stevenson, was revived on 10 May 2008 as part of the BBC Radio 4 Minghella season.


title: Anthony Minghella

text: "Truly, Madly, Deeply" (1990), a feature drama written and directed for the BBC's "Screen Two" anthology strand, bypassed TV broadcast and instead had a cinema release. He turned down an offer to direct another Inspector Morse to do the project, even though he believed that the Morse episode would have been a much higher-profile ll assignment. "The English Patient" (1996) brought him two Academy Awards nominations, Best Director (which he won) and Adapted Screenplay. He also received an Adapted Screenplay nomination for "The Talented Mr. Ripley" (1999).


title: Anthony Minghella

text: "The No. 1 Ladies' Detective Agency", a pilot episode television adaptation which he co-wrote and directed, was broadcast posthumously on BBC One (23 March 2008); watched by 6.3 million viewers. He vocally supported "I Know I'm Not Alone", a film of musician Michael Franti's peacemaking excursions into Iraq, Palestine and Israel. He directed a party election broadcast for the Labour Party in 2005. The short film depicted Tony Blair and Gordon Brown working together and was criticised for being insincere: "The Anthony Minghella party political broadcast last year was full of body language fibs", said Peter Collett, a psychologist at the University of Oxford. "When you are talking to me, I'll give you my full attention only if I think you are very high status or if I love you. On that party political broadcast, they are staring at each other like lovers. It is completely false."


title: Anthony Minghella

text: With Samuel Beckett's 100th birthday celebrations, he returned to radio on BBC Radio 3 with "Eyes Down Looking" (2006), with: Jude Law, Juliet Stevenson and David Threlfall. An operatic directorial debut came with Puccini's "Madama Butterfly". Premiered at the English National Opera (London, 2005), then at the Lithuanian National Opera and Ballet Theatre (Vilnius, March 2006) and at the Metropolitan Opera (New York City, September 2006). The latter was transmitted live into cinemas worldwide (7 March 2009) as part of the Met's HD series and is now available on DVD. The ENO work was to have led to other operatic projects, directing again at English National Opera and collaborating with Osvaldo Golijov on a new opera for the Met and ENO, writing the libretto and directing the production.


title: Anthony Minghella

text: He was honoured with the naming of The Anthony Minghella Theatre at the Quay Arts Centre (Isle of Wight). He made an appearance in the 2007 film "Atonement" as a television host interviewing the novelist central to the story.


title: Anthony Minghella

text: His last work was the screenplay of the film adaptation of the Tony Award-winning musical "Nine" (1982); Arthur Kopit (book) and Maury Yeston (score). It is based on the film "8½". He shared credit with Michael Tolkin on the screenplay.


title: Anthony Minghella

text: The department of Film, Theatre & Television at the University of Reading, opened in 2012, was named in his honour.


title: Anthony Minghella

text: Minghella met his first wife, Yvonne Miller, when they were students. They had one daughter, Hannah, who is currently the Head of Motion Pictures at J. J. Abrams' Bad Robot. Minghella and Miller eventually divorced and in 1985 Minghella married Hong Kong–born choreographer and dancer Carolyn Jane Choa. They had one son, Max, an actor, screenwriter and director. Max is best known for his role as Nick Blaine in the Hulu drama series "The Handmaid's Tale".


title: Anthony Minghella

text: Minghella's younger brother, Dominic Minghella, is the creator of the popular British television series "Robin Hood" and "Doc Martin", and a scriptwriter. His sister, Loretta Minghella, is First Church Estates Commissioner at the Church Commissioners, having previously been Director of Christian Aid. His sister Edana participated in a jazz event on the Isle of Wight, and his nephew Dante is one of the participants in Channel 4's "Child Genius" series.


title: Anthony Minghella

text: Minghella was a fan of Portsmouth F.C., and appeared in the Channel 4 documentary, "Hallowed Be Thy Game". His home had two double bedrooms dedicated to the display of Portsmouth memorabilia dating back to the club's founding in 1898.


title: Anthony Minghella

text: Minghella died of a haemorrhage on 18 March 2008 in Charing Cross Hospital, Hammersmith, following an operation the previous week to remove cancer of the tonsils and neck.


title: Anthony Minghella

text: A memorial plaque to Minghella was unveiled on 2 March 2016 by Jude Law, at Western Gardens, Ryde, Isle of Wight.


title: Anthony Minghella

text: He is commemorated with a green plaque on The Avenues, Kingston upon Hull. The 2009 film "Nine" is dedicated in his memory.


title: B-Real

text: Louis Mario Freese (born June 2, 1970), known by his stage name B-Real, is an American rapper. Since 1991, he has been one of two lead rappers in the hip hop group Cypress Hill, along with Sen Dog. He has also been a part of the rap metal band Kush (2000–2002), the hip hop supergroup Serial Killers (2013-present) and the rap rock supergroup Prophets of Rage (2016–2019). He has released a variety of solo mixtapes, as well as two solo albums: "Smoke n Mirrors" (2009) and "Tell You Something" (2020).


title: B-Real

text: Born in Los Angeles to a Mexican father and a Cuban mother, B-Real moved with his sister and mother out of his father's home to South Gate, California at the age of five. He later lived in Bell, California. Before dropping out of Bell High School, he befriended future Cypress Hill members Sen Dog and Mellow Man Ace (who later left the group to go solo) and became an active member of the Family Swan Bloods, known as the Neighborhood Family Bloods at that time. At the age of 17, Freese was shot in a gang-related shooting with a hollow-point .22 caliber bullet, which punctured his lung.


title: B-Real

text: After being introduced to DJ Muggs by Julio G the KDAY Mixmaster, B-Real and Sen gained interest in Muggs's concept of an album based on experiences from Cypress Ave in South Gate. The group was signed with Ruffhouse/Columbia records in 1991 and released their influential debut album, "Cypress Hill", that year. B-Real would use fictional stories telling of life-threatening experiences as material for the group's debut album, and subsequent releases.


title: B-Real

text: While working on their first album, B-Real developed his distinctive high-pitched, nasal rap style. Previously, he had rapped with something like his normal voice, but DJ Muggs told him that his rap delivery was boring and warned him that, unless he changed it, he would be overshadowed by Sen Dog. B-Real took inspiration from hip hop pioneer Rammellzee, who had occasionally rapped in a high-pitched voice. B-Real initially saw the high voice as a silly gimmick, but was surprised at the positive feedback he got for his new style and decided to keep going with it.


title: B-Real

text: Cypress Hill's self-titled debut album was a critical and commercial hit, selling 2 million copies, and their follow-up album, 1993's "Black Sunday", was an even bigger hit, debuting at #1 on the "Billboard" 200 and eventually selling 3.4 million copies. They became the first Latin rap group to have platinum and multi-platinum albums, and remain the best-selling Latin rap group of all time. In a 2010 interview, B-Real stated: "Fortunately I guess the fact we were able to achieve what we achieved, being Latino but without really exploiting that side of it, showed like a whole generation behind us how you could have that success without being labeled as just one thing. Because back in the day, when you were labeled 'a Latino rapper', the record companies would only try to market you to that Latin fan-base which didn't really exist yet!... So yeah, it feels good to see people recognizing us as some of the pioneers that opened the doors for a lot of these other Latino rappers to come through."


title: B-Real

text: Aside from Cypress Hill, B-Real has been involved in several other musical projects. In 1996, he contributed to the soundtrack for the movie "Space Jam". In 2002, he teamed up with Mellow Man Ace and Son Doobie for the short-lived Serial Rhyme Killas, which released one 12" single in 2002. The group recorded a full-length debut album, entitled "Deluxe Rapture", but it was never released. B-Real formed a rap metal group, Kush, with Deftones guitarist Stephen Carpenter and Fear Factory members Christian Olde Wolbers and Raymond Herrera. According to B-Real, Kush is more aggressive than other bands in the genre. He was also previously a member of the group The Psycho Realm, and in 2007 announced that he would collaborate with Sick Jacken once again on a new album. He revealed in an interview that he plans on recording a "vs." album with Cypress Hill member DJ Muggs.


title: B-Real

text: From 2005 to 2007, B-Real released three mixtapes as a solo artist: "The Gunslinger", "" and "The Gunslinger Part III: For a Few Dollars More". He released his first solo album, entitled "Smoke N Mirrors", in 2009. He was a guest artist on the Snoop Dogg single "Vato", from Snoop Dogg's 2006 album "Tha Blue Carpet Treatment". In 2017, he was featured on the Hollywood Undead song "Black Cadillac" from the band's fifth album "Five."


title: B-Real

text: From 2016 to 2019, he was part of the group Prophets of Rage, along with Chuck D and former members of Rage Against the Machine.


title: B-Real

text: In addition to his career as an MC, B-Real has worked as a music producer for six years, with clients ranging from Proof of D12 to the WWE. He intentionally kept his production for Cypress Hill down to a minimum, as not to interfere with DJ Muggs' involvement in the group, but has produced several tracks for his own solo projects. B-Real also manages a team of music producers known as the 'Audio Hustlaz'. B-Real produced three of the tracks on his solo album "Smoke N Mirrors": "Don't Ya Dare Laugh", "Fire" and "Dr. Hyphenstein". B-Real and his production worked alongside DJ Muggs and others on the 2010 Cypress Hill album "Rise Up".


title: B-Real

text: In 1998, B-Real voiced the part of a newborn baby for the song "This World Is Something New to Me" in "The Rugrats Movie".


title: B-Real

text: In the early 2000s B-Real and DJ Muggs co-founded and co-captained a professional paintball team, the Stoned Assassins. They competed regionally, nationally, and internationally, usually in the second-level divisions. B-Real and the Assassins also appeared in the console game Greg Hastings Tournament Paintball.


title: B-Real

text: His live streaming site Breal.tv features live interactive programming over the internet. He is the host of the video podcasts "The Dr. Greenthumb Podcast", "The Smokebox" and "Meditation".


title: B-Real

text: In 2018, B-Real partnered with marijuana subscription box company Daily High Club to craft a B-Real-themed smoking supply box for the month of March.


title: James Ward-Prowse

text: James Michael Edward Ward-Prowse (born 1 November 1994) is an English professional footballer who plays as a central midfielder for club Southampton and the England national team.


title: James Ward-Prowse

text: Originally a member of Southampton's youth teams, Ward-Prowse made his first-team debut for the club in October 2011, and signed his first professional contract in May 2012. He became a regular for Southampton, and was appointed as captain in June 2020. In January 2021, he played his 300th game for the club.


title: James Ward-Prowse

text: He has represented England at under-17, under-19 and under-20 levels and earned 31 caps and scored 6 goals at under-21 level, also serving as captain. He made his senior international debut in March 2017 in a 1–0 away defeat to then World champions Germany.


title: James Ward-Prowse

text: Ward-Prowse was born in Portsmouth, Hampshire and is the son of John Ward-Prowse, a barrister. Although his family are Portsmouth supporters, Ward-Prowse joined their rivals Southampton at the age of eight.


title: James Ward-Prowse

text: After playing locally for East Lodge from the age of 6, Ward-Prowse joined the Southampton Academy at the age of eight, later featuring in every match for the under-18 team in the 2010–11 season before becoming a full-time scholar in 2011. While at the Southampton academy, he secretly trained with non-league Havant & Waterlooville in order to "toughen" himself.


title: James Ward-Prowse

text: Ward-Prowse was first called up to the Southampton first team in October 2011, when he made his debut at the age of 16 in the League Cup against Crystal Palace. In his second starting appearance for the team, Ward-Prowse scored Southampton's first goal in a 2–1 win over Coventry City to help his side through to the fourth round of the FA Cup. Following the club's promotion to the top flight in May 2012, Ward-Prowse was one of four youth players offered a professional contract for their return to the Premier League, along with Jack Stephens, Luke Shaw, and Calum Chambers.


title: James Ward-Prowse

text: Ward-Prowse made his Premier League debut for Southampton on the opening day of the 2012–13 season, playing the first 65 minutes of a 3–2 loss against reigning champions Manchester City. After the match, his performance was described by manager Nigel Adkins as "outstanding". After a substitute appearance against Wigan Athletic, the 17-year-old returned to the starting line-up for the third match of the campaign against Manchester United, continuing to draw praise from commentators. In November, shortly after his 18th birthday, Ward-Prowse signed a five-year contract with Southampton, amidst speculation that he might leave the club in the near future.


title: James Ward-Prowse

text: In a home match against Queens Park Rangers in March 2013, Ward-Prowse was involved in a late attack which could have saved the hosts a point when he provided a cross to be headed at goal by centre-back Maya Yoshida, only for substitute goalkeeper Robert Green to save and secure the win for the visitors. He later provided the assist for a Jason Puncheon equaliser in the penultimate match of the season against fellow strugglers Sunderland on 12 May, picking up play from strikers Jay Rodriguez and Rickie Lambert to cross for Puncheon to secure an important point for Southampton in the 75th minute of play.


title: James Ward-Prowse

text: Despite making 15 league appearances for his club throughout the season, many of these came as a substitute, and as a result it was reported at the end of the season that Ward-Prowse was "not content sitting on the bench". The midfielder did, however, win the Scholar of the Season accolade at the Southampton club awards ceremony in May, beating academy teammates Luke Shaw and Dominic Gape to the title.


title: James Ward-Prowse

text: At the beginning of the 2013–14 season, Ward-Prowse came into favour with manager Mauricio Pochettino to start the first match of the season against West Bromwich Albion, almost scoring in one of the few attacking moves of an otherwise uneventful encounter which ended 1–0 to Southampton thanks to a last-minute penalty from Lambert. The midfielder also played the full 90 minutes of the following match against Sunderland, registering an assist with a free kick in the 88th minute which was headed in for a late equaliser by centre-back José Fonte.


title: James Ward-Prowse

text: Ward-Prowse was an ever-present at the start of the 2014–15 season, until on 20 September, when he fractured his foot in a win over Swansea City. He was subsequently ruled out for 10 weeks.


title: James Ward-Prowse

text: He signed a new five-and-a-half-year contract in January 2015. On 11 April, he scored his first Premier League goal, opening the scoring in a 2–0 win against Hull City with a penalty kick. He was given a straight red card on 2 May for a foul on Sunderland's Jermain Defoe, conceding a penalty from which Jordi Gómez scored the winning goal.


title: James Ward-Prowse

text: On 3 October 2015, Ward-Prowse was a half-time substitute for Oriol Romeu in a 3–1 win at reigning champions Chelsea. This was his 100th Southampton appearance, making him the fourth-youngest player to reach that figure.


title: James Ward-Prowse

text: Ward-Prowse was praised by manager Ronald Koeman after scoring two goals in a 3–0 home win against West Bromwich Albion on 16 January 2016: a free kick and a penalty. He amassed 39 appearances and scored twice during the 2015–16 season. On 13 May 2016, he signed a new six-year contract, keeping him at the club until 2022.


title: James Ward-Prowse

text: Ward-Prowse scored his first goal of the 2016–17 season on 25 September with an injury-time strike to seal a 3–0 away win over West Ham United. He doubled his tally on 22 January 2017, opening the scoring in a 3–0 home victory over reigning Premier League champions Leicester City as Southampton ended a run of four successive league defeats.


title: James Ward-Prowse

text: In June 2020, Ward-Prowse replaced Pierre-Emile Højbjerg as Southampton captain, initially until the end of the 2019–20 season, after the Dane publicly expressed a desire to leave the club. On 17 August 2020, Ward-Prowse signed a new contract until June 2025.


title: James Ward-Prowse

text: On 26 January 2021, Ward-Prowse played his 300th Southampton game, assisting a goal by Stuart Armstrong in a 3–1 home defeat by Arsenal. After Southampton rejected a reported offer from Aston Villa of £25 million for Ward-Prowse, he signed a new five-year contract on 19 August 2021.


title: James Ward-Prowse

text: On 2 October 2021, Ward-Prowse scored a penalty in Southampton’s 3–1 loss to Chelsea at Stamford Bridge, but he also got a red card after Martin Atkinson went to the VAR monitor to review a late challenge he made on Jorginho.


title: James Ward-Prowse

text: On 15 January 2022, Ward-Prowse scored a free-kick goal in Southampton's 3–1 loss to Wolves at Molineux Stadium. The goal placed him joint second in the list of most free-kick goals in Premier League history (12), only behind David Beckham (18). He was then described by Pep Guardiola as the greatest free-kick taker in the world.


title: James Ward-Prowse

text: Ward-Prowse began his international career with the England under-17 team, gaining seven caps for the team in two tournaments between 2010 and 2011. In 2012, he made the step up to the under-19 team, for whom he played four times, and in 2013 joined the under-20s for the 2013 FIFA U-20 World Cup in Turkey; the midfielder played all three matches in the tournament, none of which England won.


title: James Ward-Prowse

text: In August 2013, at the age of 18, Ward-Prowse received his first call-up to the England under-21 team, for the 2015 UEFA European Under-21 Championship qualification matches against Moldova and Finland. He played for 64 minutes in the first match, and for the full 90 against Finland, in which he had some of England's clearest goal-scoring opportunities. He scored his first under-21 goal on 15 October, scoring a free kick from 20 yards in a 5–0 win against Lithuania. During the 2014 Toulon Tournament, he scored a "stunning" free kick against Brazil during the group stages. This was later voted "Goal of the Tournament"; Ward-Prowse was also voted as one of the best three players in the tournament.


title: James Ward-Prowse

text: In April 2015, Roy Hodgson called Ward-Prowse a "big prospect" and hinted at a possible senior team call-up by saying "he'll be in our thoughts because we like him very much."


title: James Ward-Prowse

text: On 29 May 2016, he captained England under-21s to their first Toulon Tournament victory since 1994, by beating hosts France 2–1. Ward-Prowse was nominated for the Vauxhall England Under-21 Player of the Year award, but eventually lost out to Southampton teammate Nathan Redmond.


title: James Ward-Prowse

text: In June 2017, he captained the under-21s at that year's edition of the European Under-21 Championship where England reached the semi-finals, eventually losing to Germany in a penalty shoot-out.


title: James Ward-Prowse

text: On 16 March 2017, he earned his first call-up to the senior England squad for a friendly against Germany and a World Cup qualifying match against Lithuania. Six days later, he made his senior debut along with teammate Nathan Redmond in a 1–0 away loss to Germany, replacing West Bromwich Albion's Jake Livermore after 82 minutes.


title: James Ward-Prowse

text: In March 2019, Ward-Prowse was recalled to the senior national team for England's first two matches of UEFA Euro 2020 qualifying. He was brought on after 82 minutes in England's 5–1 away win over Montenegro on 25 March. This was Ward-Prowse's first competitive appearance for England with his first start coming away to Iceland during a 1–0 win on 5 September 2020. On 25 March 2021, he scored his first international goal in a 5–0 win over San Marino.


title: James Ward-Prowse

text: On 25 May 2021, he was named in England's 33-man provisional squad for UEFA Euro 2020, although he did not make the final squad. He was again called up on 5 October as a replacement for the injured Kalvin Phillips for the forthcoming for the 2022 FIFA World Cup qualification fixtures against Andorra and Hungary on 9 and 12 October 2021.


title: James Ward-Prowse

text: Mainly playing as a central midfielder, Ward-Prowse can also play as an attacking midfielder and right midfielder, and can also be deployed as a right-back. He is particularly known for his skill and accuracy at taking free kicks. He holds the Southampton F.C. record for Premier League free-kick goals, has the league's best free-kick conversion rate since 2003, when Opta started recording them, and is considered one of the top set-piece specialists in the game. Manchester City manager Pep Guardiola remarked that Ward-Prowse is "the best free-kick taker I have seen in my life". Ward-Prowse is also acclaimed for his exceptional fitness levels and stamina; in 2021, he became the first Premier League player to play every single minute of two consecutive Premier League seasons. He is known for celebrating his goals by mimicking a golf swing.


title: George Mason University

text: George Mason University (George Mason, Mason, or GMU) is a public research university in Fairfax County, Virginia with an independent City of Fairfax, Virginia postal address in the Washington, D.C. Metropolitan Area. The university was originally founded in 1949 as a Northern Virginia regional branch of the University of Virginia. Named after Founding Father of the United States George Mason in 1959, it became an independent university in 1972. The school has since grown into the largest public university in the Commonwealth of Virginia. Mason operates four campuses in Virginia (Fairfax, Arlington, Front Royal, and Prince William), as well as a campus in Incheon, South Korea. The flagship campus is in Fairfax.


title: George Mason University

text: The university is classified among "R1: Doctoral Universities – Very high research activity". Two professors were awarded the Nobel Memorial Prize in Economics during their time at George Mason University: James M. Buchanan in 1986 and Vernon L. Smith in 2002.


title: George Mason University

text: EagleBank Arena, a 10,000-seat arena and concert venue operated by the university, is located on the Fairfax campus. The university recognizes 500 student groups as well as 41 fraternities and sororities.


title: George Mason University

text: In 1949, the University of Virginia created an extension center to serve Northern Virginia. The extension center offered both for credit and non-credit informal classes in the evenings at various pre-existing venues. The first for credit classes offered were: "Government in the Far East, Introduction to International Politics, English Composition, Principles of Economics, Mathematical Analysis, Introduction to Mathematical Statistics, and Principles of Lip Reading." By the end of 1952, enrollment was 1,192 students.


title: George Mason University

text: A resolution of the Virginia General Assembly in January 1956 changed the extension center into University College, the Northern Virginia branch of the University of Virginia. John Norville Gibson Finley served as director. Seventeen freshmen students attended classes at University College in a small renovated elementary school building in Bailey's Crossroads starting in September 1957. In 1958 University College became George Mason College.


title: George Mason University

text: The City of Fairfax purchased and donated of land just south of the city limits to the University of Virginia for the college's new site, which is now referred to as the Fairfax Campus. In 1959, the Board of Visitors of the University of Virginia selected a permanent name for the college: George Mason College of the University of Virginia. The Fairfax campus construction planning that began in early 1960 showed visible results when the development of the first of Fairfax Campus began in 1962. In the Fall of 1964 the new campus welcomed 356 students.


title: George Mason University

text: During the 1966 Session of the Virginia General Assembly, Alexandria delegate James M. Thomson, with the backing of the University of Virginia, introduced a bill in the General Assembly to make George Mason College a four-year institution under the University of Virginia's direction. The measure, known as H 33, passed the Assembly easily and was approved on March 1, 1966, making George Mason College a degree-granting institution. During that same year, the local jurisdictions of Fairfax County, Arlington County, and the cities of Alexandria and Falls Church agreed to appropriate $3 million to purchase land adjacent to Mason to provide for a Fairfax Campus with the intention that the institution would expand into a regional university of major proportions, including the granting of graduate degrees.


title: George Mason University

text: In 1972, Virginia separated George Mason College from the University of Virginia at Charlottesville and renamed it George Mason University.


title: George Mason University

text: In 1978, George W. Johnson was appointed to serve as the fourth president. Under his eighteen-year tenure, the university expanded both its physical size and program offerings at a tremendous rate. Shortly before Johnson's inauguration in April 1979, Mason acquired the School of Law and the new Arlington Campus. The university also became a doctoral institution. Toward the end of Johnson's term, Mason would be deep in planning for a third campus in Prince William County at Manassas. Major campus facilities, such as Student Union Building II, EagleBank Arena, Center for the Arts, and the Johnson Learning Center, were all constructed over the course of Johnson's eighteen years as University President. Enrollment once again more than doubled from 10,767 during the fall of 1978 to 24,368 in the spring of 1996.


title: George Mason University

text: Dr. Alan G. Merten was appointed president in 1996. He believed that the university's location made it responsible for both contributing to and drawing from its surrounding communities—local, national, and global. George Mason was becoming recognized and acclaimed in all of these spheres. During Merten's tenure, the university hosted the World Congress of Information Technology in 1998, celebrated a second Nobel Memorial Prize-winning faculty member in 2002, and cheered the Men's Basketball team in their NCAA Final Four appearance in 2006. Enrollment increased from just over 24,000 students in 1996 to approximately 33,000 during the spring semester of 2012, making Mason Virginia's largest public university and gained prominence at the national level.


title: George Mason University

text: Dr. Ángel Cabrera officially took office on July 1, 2012. Both Cabrera and the board were well aware that Mason was part of a rapidly changing academia, full of challenges to the viability of higher education. In a resolution on August 17, 2012, the board asked Dr. Cabrera to create a new strategic vision that would help Mason remain relevant and competitive in the future. The drafting of the Vision for Mason, from conception to official outline, created a new mission statement that defines the university.


title: George Mason University

text: On March 25, 2013, university president Ángel Cabrera held a press conference to formally announce the university's decision to leave the Colonial Athletic Association to join the Atlantic 10 Conference (A-10). The announcement came just days after the Board of Visitors' approval of the university's Vision document that Dr. Cabrera had overseen. Mason began competition in the A-10 during the 2013–2014 academic year, and Mason's association with the institutions that comprise the A-10 started a new chapter in Mason athletics, academics, and other aspects of university life. "The Chronicle of Higher Education" listed Mason as one of the "Great Colleges to Work For" from 2010 to 2014. "The Washington Post" listed Mason as one of the "Top Workplaces" in 2014. The WorldatWork Alliance for Work-Life Progress awarded Mason the Seal of Distinction in 2015. The AARP listed Mason as one of the Best Employers for Workers Over 50 in 2013. Phi Beta Kappa established a chapter at the university in 2013.


title: George Mason University

text: In 2018, a Freedom of Information Act lawsuit revealed that conservative donors, including the Charles Koch Foundation and Federalist Society, were given direct influence over faculty hiring decisions at the university's law and economics schools. GMU President Ángel Cabrera acknowledged that the revelations raised questions about the university's academic integrity and pledged to prohibit donors from sitting on faculty selection committees in the future.


title: George Mason University

text: Dr. Ángel Cabrera resigned his position on July 31, 2019, and became president of Georgia Tech. Following Cabrera's resignation, Anne B. Holton served as interim president until June 30, 2020.


title: George Mason University

text: On February 24, 2020, the Board of Visitors appointed Gregory Washington as the eighth president. He started at George Mason on July 1, 2020. Washington is the university's first African-American president.


title: George Mason University

text: On March 23, 2020, George Mason shifted to exclusively online instruction during the COVID pandemic. Hybrid instruction occurred for the Fall 2020, Spring 2021, and Fall 2021 semesters. The university offered a combination of online and in-person instruction.


title: George Mason University

text: George Mason University has four campuses in the United States, all within the Commonwealth of Virginia. Three are in the Northern Virginia suburbs of the Washington, D.C. metropolitan area, and one is in Virginia's Blue Ridge Mountains. The university also has one campus in South Korea, in the Songdo International Business District of Incheon. Between 2005 and 2009 the university had a campus at Ras al-Khaimah, United Arab Emirates. The Blue Ridge campus, just outside Front Royal, is run in cooperation with the Smithsonian Institution.


title: George Mason University

text: The university's Fairfax Campus is situated on of landscaped land with a large pond in a suburban environment in George Mason, Virginia, just south of the City of Fairfax in central Fairfax County. The District of Columbia is approximately from campus. Notable buildings include the student union building, the Johnson Center; the Center for the Arts, a 2,000-seat concert hall; the Long and Kimmy Nguyen Engineering Building; Exploratory Hall for science, new in 2013; an astronomy observatory and telescope; the Art and Design Building; the newly expanded Fenwick Library, the Krasnow Institute; and three fully appointed gyms and an aquatic center for student use. The stadiums for indoor and outdoor track and field, baseball, softball, tennis, soccer and lacrosse are also on the Fairfax campus, as is Masonvale, a housing community for faculty, staff and graduate students.


title: George Mason University

text: This campus is served by the Washington Metro Orange Line at the Vienna-GMU station as well as Metrobus routes. The CUE Bus Green One, Green Two, Gold One, and Gold Two lines all provide service to this campus at . This campus is served by the Virginia Railway Express Manassas Line at the Burke Center station. Fairfax Connector Route 306: GMU–Pentagon provides service to this campus. Mason provides shuttle service between this campus and Vienna, Fairfax, GMU Metro station, the Burke Center VRE station, the Science and Technology Campus, West Campus, and downtown City of Fairfax.


title: George Mason University

text: The bronze statue of George Mason on campus was created by Wendy M. Ross and dedicated on April 12, 1996. The 7 foot statue shows George Mason presenting his first draft of the Virginia Declaration of Rights which was later the basis for the U.S. Constitution's Bill of Rights. Beside Mason is a model of a writing table that is still in the study of Gunston Hall, Mason's Virginia estate. The books on the table—volumes of Hume, Locke and Rousseau—represent influences in his thought.


title: George Mason University

text: The Arlington Campus is situated on in Virginia Square, a bustling urban environment on the edge of Arlington County, Virginia's Clarendon business district and from downtown Washington, D.C. The campus was founded in 1979 with the acquisition of a law school. In 1998, Hazel Hall opened to house the George Mason University School of Law (now Antonin Scalia Law School); subsequent development created Van Metre Hall (formerly Founders Hall), home of the Schar School of Policy and Government, the Center for Regional Analysis, and the graduate-level administrative offices for the School of Business. Vernon Smith Hall houses the Jimmy and Rosalynn Carter School for Peace and Conflict Resolution, the Mercatus Center, and the Institute for Humane Studies. The campus also houses the 300-seat Founders Hall Auditorium.