The National Cherry Blossom Festival is a spring celebration in Washington, D.C. commemorating the March 27, 1912, gift of Japanese cherry trees from Mayor Yukio Ozaki of Tokyo to the city of Washington. Mayor Ozaki donated the trees in an effort to enhance the growing friendship between the United States and Japan and also celebrate the continued close relationship between the two nations.

History

In a ceremony on March 27, 1912, First Lady Helen Herron Taft and Viscountess Chinda, wife of the Japanese ambassador, planted the first two of these trees on the north bank of the Tidal Basin in West Potomac Park. By 1915, the United States government had responded with a gift of flowering dogwood trees to the people of Japan.[2] In 1927, a group of American school children re-enacted the initial planting; the first festival was held in 1935, sponsored by civic groups in the nation’s capital. Suspended during World War II because of hostilities between the United States and the Empire of Japan, the festival resumed in 1947 with the support of the Washington, D.C. Board of Trade and the D.C. Commissioners. In 1948, the Cherry Blossom Princess and U.S. Cherry Blossom Queen program were started by the National Conference of State Societies.

Later, 3,800 more trees were accepted in 1965 by First Lady Lady Bird Johnson. In 1981, the cycle of giving came full circle. Japanese horticulturalists came to take cuttings from the trees in Washington, D.C. to replace Yoshino cherry trees in Japan that had been destroyed in a flood. With this return gift, the trees again fulfilled their roles as a symbol and agent of friendship. The most recent event in this cycle occurred in the fall of 1999. It involved the formal planting in the Tidal Basin of a new generation of cuttings from a famous Japanese cherry tree in Gifu Prefecture reputed to be over 1,500 years old.
A Close up of one of the Cherry Trees in Full Bloom.In 1994 the Festival was expanded to two weeks to accommodate the many activities that happen during the trees’ blooming.[3] Today the National Cherry Blossom Festival is coordinated by the National Cherry Blossom Festival, Inc., an umbrella organization consisting of representatives of business, civic, and governmental organizations. More than 700,000 people visit Washington each year to admire the blossoming cherry trees that herald the beginning of spring in the nation’s capital.

The two-week festival is kicked off with an opening ceremony, followed by an array of activities and cultural events. Every day there is a sushi/sake celebration, classes about cherry blossoms, and a bike tour of the Tidal Basin. Other events include art exhibits (photography, sculpture, animation), cultural performances, rakugo, kimono fashion shows, dance, singing, martial arts, merchant-sponsored events, and a rugby union tournament.

The Cherry Blossom 10-Mile Run is held as part of the festival on the first Sunday in April. Because the festival must be planned long in advance, it sometimes fails to be celebrated during the peak of the cherry blooms. On the last Saturday of the festival, there is the Parade of the National Cherry Blossom Festival, followed by the Sakura Matsuri-Japanese Street Festival, a celebration of Japan presented by the Japan-America Society of Washington, D.C.

Johnny Reid “John” Edwards[2] (born June 10, 1953) is an American politician who served as a U.S. Senator from North Carolina. He was the Democratic nominee for Vice President in 2004, and was a candidate for the Democratic presidential nomination in 2004 and 2008.

He defeated incumbent Republican Lauch Faircloth in North Carolina’s 1998 Senate election. Towards the end of his single six-year term, he sought the Democratic presidential nomination in the 2004 presidential election. He eventually became the 2004 Democratic candidate for vice-president, the running mate of presidential nominee Senator John Kerry of Massachusetts. In 2010, Edwards publicly revealed that he had an affair with aide Rielle Hunter and fathered a child out of wedlock while his wife was fighting metastatic breast cancer.

After Edwards and Kerry lost the election to President George W. Bush and Vice-President Dick Cheney, Edwards began working full-time at the One America Committee, a political action committee he established in 2001, and was appointed director of the Center on Poverty, Work and Opportunity at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill School of Law. He was also a consultant for Fortress Investment Group LLC.

Personal life

Early life and education

Edwards was born June 10, 1953, to Wallace Reid Edwards and Catharine Juanita “Bobbie” Edwards (née Wade) in Seneca, South Carolina. The family moved several times during Edwards’ childhood, eventually settling in Robbins, North Carolina, where his father worked as a textile mill floor worker, eventually promoted to supervisor; his mother had a roadside antique finishing business and then worked as a postal letter carrier when his father left his job.

A football star in high school,[4] Edwards was the first person in his family to attend college. He attended Clemson University and transferred to North Carolina State University. Edwards graduated with high honors earning a bachelor’s degree in textile technology in 1974, and later earned his Juris Doctor from the University of North Carolina School of Law (UNC) with honors.
Family

While at UNC, he met Elizabeth Anania, who is four years his senior. They married in 1977 and had four children (Wade in 1979, Cate in 1982, Emma Claire in 1998, and Jack in 2000). Edwards also has a child named Frances Quinn Hunter, a child conceived in an adulterous affair with his former mistress Rielle Hunter. Edwards denied being the father of Frances Quinn Hunter for over two years before finally admitting to it.

Wade was killed in a car accident when strong winds swept his Jeep off a North Carolina highway in 1996. Three weeks before his death, Wade Edwards was honored by First Lady Hillary Clinton at The White House as one of the 10 finalists in an essay contest sponsored by the National Endowment for the Humanities and the Voice of America for an essay he wrote on entering the voting booth with his father.Wade, accompanied by his parents and sister, went on to meet North Carolina Sen. Jesse Helms, who entered Wade’s essay and his obituary into the Congressional Record.Edwards and his wife began the Wade Edwards Foundation in their son’s memory; the purpose of the non-profit organization is “to reward, encourage, and inspire young people in the pursuit of excellence.” The Foundation funded the Wade Edwards Learning Lab at Wade’s high school, Broughton High School in Raleigh, along with scholarship competitions and essay awards.

On November 3, 2004, Elizabeth Edwards revealed that she had been diagnosed with breast cancer. She was treated via chemotherapy and radiotherapy,[8] and continued to work within the Democratic Party and her husband’s One America Committee. On March 22, 2007, during his campaign for the 2008 Democratic nomination for the presidency, Edwards and his wife announced that her cancer had returned; she was diagnosed with stage IV breast cancer, with newly discovered metastases to the bone and possibly to her lung.[9][10] They said that the cancer was “no longer curable, but is completely treatable” and that they planned to continue campaigning together with an occasional break when she requires treatment.After John’s January 21, 2010, admission that he fathered a child with his mistress, Elizabeth has legally separated from him and intends to file for divorce after a mandatory one-year waiting period.

Extramarital affair

In October 2007, The National Enquirer began a series of reports alleging an adulterous affair between Edwards and former campaign worker Rielle Hunter. By July 2008, several news media outlets speculated that Edwards’ chances for the Vice Presidency as well as other positions such as the Attorney General were harmed by the allegations, which now included that he fathered a child with Hunter and had visited her and the baby girl at the Beverly Hilton Hotel in Beverly Hills, California. However, the story was not widely covered by the press for some time, until, after initially denying the allegations,Edwards admitted the affair.On January 21, 2010, John Edwards issued a press release to admit that he fathered Hunter’s child.

In an August 8, 2008, statement, and an interview with Bob Woodruff of ABC News, Edwards admitted the affair with Hunter in 2006, but denied being the father of her child. He acknowledged that he had been dishonest in denying the entire Enquirer story, admitting that some of it was true, but said that the affair ended long before the time of the child’s conception. He further said he was willing to take a paternity test, but Hunter responded that she would not be party to a DNA test “now or in the future”.[22] Initially, campaign aide Andrew Young claimed that he, not Edwards, was the child’s father.Young has since renounced that statement, and told publishers in a book proposal that Edwards knew all along that he was the child’s father; Edwards pleaded with him to accept responsibility falsely.

In the proposal, which The New York Times examined, Young claims to have set up private meetings between Edwards and Hunter. He wrote that Edwards once calmed an anxious Hunter by promising her that after his wife died, he would marry her in a rooftop ceremony in New York with an appearance by the Dave Matthews Band.[24] ABC News reports that Young stated that Edwards asked him to “Get a doctor to fake the DNA results…and to steal a diaper from the baby so he could secretly do a DNA test to find out if this [was] indeed his child.”On February 2, 2010, Young released a book detailing the affair.

In May 2009, newspapers reported that Edwards’ campaign was being investigated for conversion of campaign money to personal use related to the affair. Edwards said that the campaign was complying with the inquiry. The relevant US attorney refused to comment.In the same month, George Stephanopoulos of ABC News reported that members of Edwards’ staff had told him that they had planned a “doomsday strategy” to derail Edwards’ campaign if he got close to the nomination.Joe Trippi, a senior advisor to the campaign, said the report was “complete bullshit”.[29] In August 2009, Rielle Hunter appeared before the grand jury investigating this matter.On March 15th 2010, Rielle broke her silence during an interview with GQ magazine and provided new details about the affair.

Legal career

Four Trials by John Edwards

After law school, Edwards clerked for a federal judge and in 1978 became an associate at the Nashville law firm of Dearborn & Ewing, doing primarily trial work, defending a Nashville bank and other corporate clients. The Edwards family returned to North Carolina in 1981, settling in the capital of Raleigh where he joined the firm of Tharrington, Smith & Hargrove.[33]

In 1984 Edwards was assigned to a medical malpractice lawsuit that had been perceived to be unwinnable; the firm had only accepted it as a favor to an attorney and state senator who did not want to keep it. Nevertheless, Edwards won a $3.7 million verdict on behalf of his client, who had suffered permanent brain and nerve damage after a doctor prescribed an overdose of the anti-alcoholism drug Antabuse during alcohol aversion therapy.In other cases, Edwards sued the American Red Cross three times, alleging transmission of AIDS through tainted blood products, resulting in a confidential settlement each time, and defended a North Carolina newspaper against a libel charge.

In 1985, Edwards represented a five-year-old child born with cerebral palsy - a child whose mother’s doctor did not choose to perform an immediate Caesarean delivery when a fetal monitor showed she was in distress. Edwards won a $6.5 million verdict for his client, but five weeks later, the presiding judge sustained the verdict, but overturned the award on grounds that it was “excessive” and that it appeared “to have been given under the influence of passion and prejudice,” adding that in his opinion “the evidence was insufficient to support the verdict.”He offered the plaintiffs $3.25 million, half of the jury’s award, but the child’s family appealed the case and received $4.25 million in a settlement.[33] Winning this case established the North Carolina precedent of physician and hospital liability for failing to determine if the patient understood the risks of a particular procedure.

After this trial, Edwards gained national attention as a plaintiff’s lawyer. He filed at least twenty similar lawsuits in the years following and achieved verdicts and settlements of more than $60 million for his clients. Similar lawsuits followed across the country. When asked about an increase in Caesarean deliveries nationwide, perhaps to avoid similar medical malpractice lawsuits, Edwards said, “The question is, would you rather have cases where that happens instead of having cases where you don’t intervene and a child either becomes disabled for life or dies in utero?”

In 1993, Edwards began his own firm in Raleigh (now named Kirby & Holt) with a friend, David Kirby. He became known as the top plaintiffs’ attorney in North Carolina.The biggest case of his legal career was a 1996 product liability lawsuit against Sta-Rite, the manufacturer of a defective pool drain cover. The case involved Valerie Lakey, a five-year-old girl [35] who was disemboweled by the suction power of the pool drain pump when she sat on an open pool drain whose protective cover had been removed by other children at the pool, after the swim club had failed to install the cover properly. Despite 12 prior suits with similar claims, Sta-Rite continued to make and sell drain covers lacking warnings. Sta-Rite protested that an additional warning would have made no difference because the pool owners already knew the importance of keeping the cover secured.

In his closing arguments, Edwards spoke to the jury for an hour and a half and referenced his son, Wade, who had been killed shortly before testimony began. Mark Dayton, editor of North Carolina Lawyers Weekly, would later call it “the most impressive legal performance I have ever seen.”The jury awarded the family $25 million, the largest personal injury award in North Carolina history. The company settled for the $25 million while the jury was deliberating additional punitive damages, rather than risk losing an appeal. For their part in this case, Edwards and law partner David Kirby earned the Association of Trial Lawyers of America’s national award for public service.[34] The family said that they hired Edwards over other attorneys because he alone had offered to accept a smaller percentage as fee unless the award was unexpectedly high, while all of the other lawyers they spoke with said they required the full one-third fee. The size of the jury award was unprecedented, and Edwards did receive the standard one-third-plus-expenses fee typical of contingency cases. The family was so impressed with his intelligence and commitment that they volunteered for his Senate campaign the next year.

After Edwards won a large verdict against a trucking company whose worker had been involved in a fatal accident, the North Carolina legislature passed a law prohibiting such awards unless the company had specifically sanctioned the employee’s actions.

In December 2003, during his first presidential campaign, Edwards (with John Auchard) published Four Trials, a biographical book focusing on cases from his legal career. According to this book, the success of the Sta-Rite case and his son’s death (Edwards had hoped his son would eventually join him in private law practice) prompted Edwards to leave the legal profession and seek public office.

Public career

Political positions

Edwards promotes programs to eliminate poverty in the United States, including arguing in favor of creating one million housing vouchers over five years in order to place poor people in middle-class neighborhoods. Edwards has stated, “If we truly believe that we are all equal, then we should live together too.”He also supports “College for Everyone” initiatives.

Although Edwards initially supported the Iraq War, he later changed his position and in November 2005 wrote an op-ed in The Washington Post in which he said he regretted voting for the Iraq War Resolution, and discussed three solutions for success in the conflict.[38] He has denounced the “troop surge” in Iraq, is a proponent of withdrawal, and has urged Congress to withhold funding for the war without a withdrawal timetable.

On social policy, Edwards supports abortion rights and has a universal healthcare plan that requires all Americans to purchase healthcare insurance,”requires that everybody get preventive care,”and requires employers to provide health care insurance or be taxed to fund public health care.[42] He supports a pathway to citizenship for illegal immigrants, is opposed to a constitutional amendment banning same-sex marriage;and supports the repeal of the Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA).

He has endorsed efforts to slow down global warming[45] and was the first presidential candidate to make his campaign carbon neutral.

Senate tenure

Edwards won election to the U.S. Senate in 1998 as a Democrat running against incumbent Republican Senator Lauch Faircloth. Despite originally being the underdog, Edwards beat Faircloth by 51.2% to 47.0% - a margin of some 83,000 votes.

During President Bill Clinton’s 1999 impeachment trial in the Senate, Edwards was responsible for the deposition of witnesses Monica Lewinsky and fellow Democrat Vernon Jordan, Jr. During the 2000 presidential campaign, Edwards was on Democratic nominee Al Gore’s vice presidential nominee short list (along with John Kerry and Joe Lieberman, Gore’s eventual pick).

In his time in the Senate, Edwards co-sponsored 203 bills.Among them was Lieberman’s 2002 Iraq War Resolution (S.J.Res.46), which he co-sponsored along with 15 other senators, but which did not go to a vote.He voted for replacement resolution (H.J Res. 114) in the full Senate to authorize the use of military force against Iraq, which passed by a vote of 77 to 23, On October 10, 2002, he stated that:

“Almost no one disagrees with these basic facts: that Saddam Hussein is a tyrant and a menace; that he has weapons of mass destruction and that he is doing everything in his power to get nuclear weapons; that he has supported terrorists; that he is a grave threat to the region, to vital allies like Israel, and to the United States; and that he is thwarting the will of the international community and undermining the United Nations’ credibility.”

He defended his vote on an October 10, 2004, appearance on Meet the Press, saying “I would have voted for the resolution knowing what I know today, because it was the right thing to do to give the president the authority to confront Saddam Hussein…I think Saddam Hussein was a very serious threat. I stand by that, and that’s why [John Kerry and I] stand behind our vote on the resolution”.[52] However, he subsequently changed his mind about the war and apologized for that military authorization vote. Edwards also voted in favor of the Patriot Act.

Among other positions, Edwards was generally pro-choice and supported affirmative action and the death penalty. One of his first sponsored bills was the Fragile X Research Breakthrough Act of 1999.[53] He was also the first person to introduce comprehensive anti-spyware legislation with the Spyware Control and Privacy Protection Act.[54] He advocated rolling back the Bush administration’s tax cuts and ending mandatory minimum sentencing for non-violent offenders.Edwards generally supported expanding legal immigration to the United States while working with Mexico to provide better border security and stop illegal trafficking.

Edwards served on the U.S. Senate Select Committee on Intelligence, the U.S. Senate Committee on Judiciary, and was a member of the New Democrat Coalition.

Before the 2004 Senate election, Edwards announced his retirement from the Senate and supported Erskine Bowles, former White House Chief of Staff, as the successor to his seat; Bowles, however, was defeated by Republican Richard Burr in the election.
Post-Senate activities

The day after his concession speech, he announced his wife Elizabeth had been diagnosed with breast cancer. Edwards told interviewer Larry King that he doubted he would return to practice as a trial lawyer and showed no interest in succeeding Terry McAuliffe as the Democratic National Committee chairman.

In February 2005, Edwards headlined the “100 Club” Dinner, a major fundraiser for the New Hampshire Democratic Party. That same month, Edwards was appointed as director of the Center on Poverty, Work and Opportunity at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill for studying ways to move people out of poverty. That fall, Edwards toured ten major universities in order to promote “Opportunity Rocks!”, a program aimed at getting youth involved to fight poverty.

On March 21, 2005, Edwards recorded his first podcast[57] with his wife. Several months later, in August, Edwards delivered an address to a potential key supporter in the Iowa caucus, the AFL-CIO in Waterloo, Iowa.

In the following month, Edwards sent an email to his supporters and announced that he opposed the nomination of Judge John G. Roberts to become Chief Justice of the United States. He was also opposed to the nomination of Justice Samuel Alito as an Associate Justice and Judge Charles Pickering’s appointment to the Federal bench.

During the summer and fall of 2005, he visited homeless shelters and job training centers and spoke at events organized by ACORN, the NAACP and the SEIU. He spoke in favor of an expansion of the earned income tax credit; in favor of a crackdown on predatory lending; an increase in the capital gains tax rate; housing vouchers for racial minorities (to integrate upper-income neighborhoods); and a program modeled on the Works Progress Administration to rehabilitate the Gulf Coast following Hurricane Katrina. In Greene County, North Carolina, he unveiled the pilot program for College for Everyone, an educational measure he promised during his presidential campaign, in which prospective college students would receive a scholarship for their first year in exchange for ten hours of work a week. The College for Everyone program was cancelled in July 2008.

Edwards was co-chair of a Council on Foreign Relations task force on United States-Russia relations alongside Republican Jack Kemp, a former congressman, Cabinet official and vice presidential nominee.[59] The task force issued its report in March 2006.[60] On July 12, the International Herald Tribune published a related op-ed by Edwards and Kemp.

On April 6, 2006, Edwards joined Ted Kennedy at a rally for raising the minimum wage.

In October 2005, Edwards joined the Wall Street investment firm Fortress Investment Group as a senior adviser, later working with them as a consultant.[63] Fortress owned a major stake in Green Tree Servicing LLC, which rose to prominence in the 1990s selling subprime loans to mobile-home owners and now services subprime loans originated by others, but in an interview Edwards said he was unaware of this.Subprime loans allow buyers with poor credit histories to be funded, but they charge higher rates because of the risk, and sometimes carry hidden fees and increased charges over time.[64] In August 2007, The Wall Street Journal reported that a portion of the Edwards family’s assets were invested in Fortress Investment Group, which had, in turn, invested a portion of its assets in subprime mortgage lenders, some of which had foreclosed on the homes of Hurricane Katrina victims.Upon learning of Fortress’ investments, Edwards divested funds and stated that he would try to help the affected families.Edwards later helped set up an ACORN-administered “Louisiana Home Rescue Fund” seeded with $100,000, much of it from his pocket, to provide loans and grants to the families who were foreclosed on by Fortress-owned lenders.
Political campaigns

Electoral history

North Carolina United States Senate election, 1998 (Democratic primary)
* John Edwards - 277,468 (51.39%)
* D.G. Martin - 149,049 (27.59%)
* Ella Butler Scarborough - 55,486 (10.28%)

North Carolina United States Senate election, 1998[70]

* John Edwards (D) - 1,029,237 (51.15%)
* Lauch Faircloth (R) (inc.) - 945,943 (47.01%)
* Barbara Howe (Lib.) - 36,963 (1.84%)

2004 Democratic presidential primaries[71]

* John Kerry - 9,930,497 (60.98%)
* John Edwards - 3,162,337 (19.42%)
* Howard Dean - 903,460 (5.55%)
* Dennis Kucinich - 620,242 (3.81%)
* Wesley Clark - 547,369 (3.36%)
* Al Sharpton - 380,865 (2.34%)
* Joe Lieberman - 280,940 (1.73%)

United States presidential election, 2004

* George W. Bush/Dick Cheney (R) (inc.) - 62,040,610 (50.7%) and 286 electoral votes (31 states carried)
* John Kerry/John Edwards (D) - 59,028,111 (48.3%) and 251 electoral votes (19 states and D.C. carried)
* John Ewards [sic] (D) - 1 electoral vote (faithless elector)

2008 Democratic presidential primaries

* Barack Obama - 17,869,542 (48.2%)
* Hillary Clinton - 17,717,698 (47.8%)
* John Edwards - 1,006,289 (2.65%)

2004 presidential campaign

In 2000, Edwards unofficially began his presidential campaign when he began to seek speaking engagements in Iowa, the site of the nation’s first party caucuses. On January 2, 2003, Edwards began fundraising without officially campaigning by forming an exploratory committee. On September 15, 2003, Edwards fulfilled a promise he made a year earlier as a guest on The Daily Show with Jon Stewart to unofficially announce his intention to seek the 2004 Democratic Presidential nomination. The next morning, Edwards made the announcement officially from his hometown. He declined to run for reelection to the Senate in order to focus on his presidential run. Edwards’ campaign was chaired by North Carolina Democratic activist Ed Turlington.

As Edwards had been building support essentially since his election to the Senate, he led the initial campaign fundraising, amassing over $7 million during the first quarter of 2003 - more than half of which came from individuals associated with the legal profession, particularly Edwards’ fellow trial lawyers, their families, and employees.

Edwards’ “stump speech” spoke of two Americas, with one composed of the wealthy and privileged, and the other of the hard-working common man,causing the media to often characterize Edwards as a populist.

Edwards struggled to gain substantial support, but his poll numbers began to rise steadily weeks before the Iowa caucuses. Edwards had a surprising second-place finish with the support of 32% of delegates, behind only John Kerry’s 39% and ahead of former front-runner Howard Dean at 18%. One week later in the New Hampshire primary, Edwards finished in fourth place behind Kerry, Dean and Wesley Clark, with 12%. During the February 3 primaries, Edwards won the South Carolina primary, lost to Clark in Oklahoma, and lost to Kerry in the other states. Edwards garnered the second largest number of second-place finishes, again falling behind Clark.

Edwards on the campaign trail in 2004

Dean withdrew from the contest, leaving Edwards the only major challenger to Kerry. In the Wisconsin primary on February 17, Edwards finished second to Kerry with 34% of the vote.

Edwards largely avoided attacking Kerry until a February 29, 2004, debate in New York, where he characterized him as a “Washington insider” and mocked Kerry’s plan to form a committee to examine trade agreements.

In the Super Tuesday primaries on March 2, Kerry finished well ahead in nine of the ten states voting, and Edwards’ campaign ended. In Georgia, Edwards finished only slightly behind Kerry but, failing to win a single state, chose to withdraw from the race. He announced his official withdrawal at a Raleigh, North Carolina press conference on March 3. Edwards’ withdrawal made major media outlets relatively early on the evening of Super Tuesday, at about 6:30 p.m. CST, before polls had closed in California and before caucuses in Minnesota had even begun. It is thought that the withdrawal influenced many people in Minnesota to vote for other candidates, which may partially account for the strong Minnesota finish of Dennis Kucinich.[original research?] Edwards did win the presidential straw poll conducted by the Independence Party of Minnesota.

After withdrawing from the race, he went on to win the April 17 Democratic caucuses in his home state of North Carolina,[making him the only Democratic candidate besides Kerry to win nominating contests in two states.
2004 vice presidential nomination

Kerry/Edwards campaign logo

On July 6, 2004, Kerry announced that Edwards would be his running mate; the decision was widely hailed in public opinion polls and by Democratic leaders. Though many Democrats supported Edwards' nomination, others criticized the selection for Edwards' perceived lack of experience. In the vice-presidential debate, Dick Cheney told Edwards they had never met because of Edwards' frequent absences from the Senate, but videotape later surfaced of Cheney and Edwards shaking hands at an official event.

Kerry's campaign advisor Bob Shrum later reported in Time magazine that Kerry said he wished he'd never picked Edwards, and the two have since stopped speaking to each other.[79] Edwards said in his concession speech, “You can be disappointed, but you cannot walk away. This fight has just begun.”
2008 presidential campaign
John Edwards campaigning in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania on Labor Day in 2007

On December 28, 2006, John Edwards officially announced his candidacy for President in the 2008 election from the yard of a home in New Orleans, Louisiana, that was being rebuilt after Hurricane Katrina destroyed it.Edwards stated that his main goals were eliminating poverty, fighting global warming, providing universal health care, and withdrawing troops from Iraq.

National polls had Edwards placing third among the Democratic field beginning in January 2007, behind Senator Hillary Clinton and Senator Barack Obama.[83] By July 2007, the Edwards campaign had raised $23 million from nearly 100,000 donors, placing him behind Obama and Clinton in fundraising.

Edwards was first to boycott a Fox News-sponsored presidential debate in March 2007.Hillary Clinton, Bill Richardson, and Barack Obama followed suit.

That year, another defective pool-drain-related accident similar to the one that disemboweled Valerie Lakey (see “Legal career” above) occurred in Minnesota. The victim was six-year old Abigail Taylor. Edwards pushed to have federal pool-safety laws strengthened and played a part in the passage of the Virginia Baker Pool Safety Act.
John Edwards with Bonnie Raitt, Jackson Browne, and Peter Coyote at a campaign event in Manchester, New Hampshire

On January 3, 2008, in the Iowa caucuses, the first contest of the nomination process, Edwards placed second with 29.75 percent of the vote to Obama (37.58 percent), with Clinton coming in third with 29.47 percent of the vote.[86] On January 8, Edwards placed a distant third in the New Hampshire Democratic primary with just under 17% (48,818 votes). On January 26, Edwards again placed third in the primary in South Carolina - his birth state - which he had carried in 2004, and he placed third in the non-binding January 29 vote in Florida.
In a speech given at the Musicians’ Village in New Orleans, Edwards announced his withdrawal from the 2008 United States presidential race.

On January 30, 2008, following allegations of an extra-marital affair, Edwards announced that he was suspending his campaign for the Presidency.[87][88] He did not initially endorse either Clinton or Obama, saying they both had pledged to carry forward his central campaign theme of ending poverty in America.In April 2008, he stated that he would not accept the 2008 Vice Presidential slot if asked.On May 14, 2008, Edwards officially endorsed Senator Obama at a rally in Grand Rapids, Michigan.

On June 15, 2008, Edwards stepped back from his initial outright denial of interest in the position of the Vice President, saying, “I’d take anything he asks me to think about seriously, but obviously this is something that I’ve done and it’s not a job I’m seeking.”On June 20, 2008, The Associated Press reported that according to a member of the Congressional Black Caucus, the names of Edwards and Sam Nunn were on Obama’s vice presidential shortlist.Ultimately, Senator Joe Biden of Delaware was tapped to become Obama’s running mate.

 

The term college tuition refers to fees which students have to pay to colleges in the United States. Pay increases in the U.S. have caused chronic controversy since shortly after World War II. Except for its military academies, the U.S. national government does not directly support higher education. Instead it has offered programs of loans and grants, dating back to the Morrill Act during the U.S. Civil War and the “G.I. Bill” programs implemented after World War II. Developed countries whose national governments directly support higher education tend toward more moderate patterns of change in college tuitions and different forms of controversy.

Historical trends

The first chart compares standard undergraduate annual tuition and fees charged by major U.S. public, U.S. private and Canadian public 4-year college, showing both current U.S. dollars during the years from 1940 to 2000 and U.S. dollars adjusted to the year 2000 by using the U.S. Consumer Price Index series.

Tuition at the University of Toronto tracked close to inflation rates during the entire period.The University of Iowa had rapid increases in tuition during the 1950s and then tracked close to inflation rates since that time.The Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), among the most expensive of the private U.S. educational institutions throughout the 20th century,had continual large tuition increases, dipping slightly below inflation rates only during the World War II years.

Over the 60-year period charted, the inflation-adjusted, long term, annual increases in tuition at these institutions were 0.4 percent for the University of Toronto, 1.4 percent for the University of Iowa, and 2.1 percent for MIT.Other institutions in the same categories differ in details but not in general patterns.The results of the trends are that over the 60 years shown, adjusted for inflation, the tuition at the University of Iowa increased by a factor of 2.3 and that at MIT by a factor of 3.6, while tuition at the University of Toronto rose only about 30 percent.

Recent trends

This chart compares average undergraduate tuition and fees charged by about 600 U.S. public and 1,350 U.S. private, non-profit 4-year colleges during years from 1993 through 2004.[12], both unadjusted and adjusted to the year 2004 by using the U.S. Consumer Price Index series. Data were not available for years 1994, 1995 and 1999.

During the 11-year period charted, both public and private, nonprofit colleges regularly posted tuition increases well above inflation rates. Peak increases for private colleges were in 1997, after the U.S. economy began booming growth. Peak increases for public colleges were in 2003, after state budgets supporting most of them were crimped by a sharp economic recession. Over this period, annual, inflation-adjusted tuition increases at public colleges averaged 4.0 percent, while those at private, non-profit colleges averaged 3.5 percent. Cumulative results over this period are average public tuitions growing 53 percent above inflation, and average private, nonprofit tuitions growing 47 percent above inflation. As of 2004, private, nonprofit colleges cost on average 3.3 times as much as public colleges attended by residents of their states.

Hyperinflation of college costs

Hyperinflation refers to inflation in a particular economic sector that is substantially greater than inflation in general costs of living. Hyperinflation of medical costs in recent decades is well known. However hyperinflation of college tuition and fees exceeds that of medical costs.

The following graph shows the inflation rates of general costs of living (for urban consumers; the CPI-U), medical costs (medical costs component of the consumer price index (CPI)), and college and tuition and fees for private four-year colleges (from College Board data) from 1978 to 2008. All rates are computed relative to 1978.

“Excess inflation of college tuition illustrated”

Cost of living increased roughly 3-fold during this time; medical costs inflated roughly 6-fold; but college tuition and fees inflation approached 10-fold. Another way to say this is that whereas medical costs hyperinflated at twice the rate of cost-of-living, college tuition and fees hyperinflated at three times the rate of cost-of-living inflation. Thus, even after controlling for the effects of general inflation, 2008 college tuition and fees posed three times the burden as in 1978.

According to “College Board”, the average tuition price for a 4-year public college in 2008-2009 is now $6,585 compared to 2004 where the price was slightly above $5,000. The average price of in-state tuition vs out-of-state tuition for 2008-2009 was $6,585 for a in-state 4-year college to $17,452 for out-of-state 4 year college (collegeboard.com).

Economic and social concerns

Long term price trends make higher education an especially inflationary sector of the U.S. economy, with tuition increases in recent years sometimes outpacing even explosive health care sectors.These trends are the sources of continuing controversy in the United States over costs of higher education and their potential for limiting the country’s achievements in democracy, fairness and social justice.Today some companies offer tuition reimbursement to students.

Student loan debt

A closely related issue is the alarming increase in student borrowing to finance college education and resulting student loan debt. In the 2007-2008 National Postsecondary Student Aid Study (NPSAS), the median cumulative debt among graduating 4-year undergraduate students was $19,999; one quarter borrowed $30,526 or more, and one tenth borrowed $44,668 or more [Source: http://www.finaid.org/loans/]. Students are unaware that this is a relatively new phenomenon; a generation ago students could easily pay for public universities without loans simply by taking a part-time job. Students today are arguably an exploited minority, being taken economic advantage of because they lack the historical perspective to appreciate the inequity. In any case, strong questions must be raised about placing young adults, who ought to be seen as be agents of change and progress, into society already burdened with debt and enmeshed in the status quo. Students are often forced to take unsatisfactory jobs immediately after graduation to repay loan debts.

 

Allen Ezail Iverson (born June 7, 1975, in Hampton, Virginia[1]) is an American professional basketball player who is on leave from the Philadelphia 76ers for the remainder of the 2009-10 NBA season. The 76ers selected Iverson with the number one pick in the 1996 NBA Draft.[2] He was named the NBA Rookie of the Year in 1996-97 season. Iverson is an eleven-time NBA All-Star which includes winning the All-Star MVP award in 2001 and 2005.

Winning the NBA scoring title during the 1998-99, 2000-01, 2001-02 and 2004-05 seasons, Iverson has become one of the most prolific scorers in NBA history, despite his small (listed at 6 feet, 0 inches) stature, with a career scoring average of 26.7 points per game, being sixth all-time. Iverson was also the NBA Most Valuable Player of the 2000-01 season and led his team to the 2001 NBA Finals the same season.

Iverson represented the United States at the 2004 Summer Olympics, winning the Bronze medal.

Iverson also played for the Denver Nuggets, Detroit Pistons and the Memphis Grizzlies, before returning to Philadelphia for part of the 2009-10 NBA season.

Early life

As a high school junior, Iverson played quarterback for the Bethel High School football team,leading the team to the state championship.

On February 14, 1993, Iverson and several of his friends became involved in an altercation with a group of white teenagers at the Circle Lanes bowling alley in Hampton, Virginia. Iverson’s crowd was raucous and had to be asked to quiet down several times, and eventually a shouting duel began with another group of youths. Shortly thereafter, a huge fight erupted, pitting the white crowd against the blacks. During the fight, Iverson allegedly struck a woman in the head with a chair. He, along with three of his friends who are also African-American, were the only people arrested. Iverson, who was 17 at the time, was convicted as an adult of the felony charge of maiming by mob, a rarely used Virginia statute that was designed to combat lynching.[5] Iverson and his supporters maintained his innocence, claiming that he left the alley as soon as the trouble began. Iverson said, “For me to be in a bowling alley where everybody in the whole place know who I am and be crackin’ people upside the head with chairs and think nothin’ gonna happen? That’s crazy! And what kind of a man would I be to hit a girl in the head with a damn chair? I rather have ‘em say I hit a man with a chair, not no damn woman.”

After Iverson spent four months at Newport News City Farm, a correctional facility in Newport News, Virginia, he was granted clemency by Virginia Governor Douglas Wilder, and the Virginia Court of Appeals overturned the conviction in 1995 for insufficient evidence.

College basketball

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In spring 1994, Georgetown basketball coach John Thompson visited Iverson at Hampton’s Bethel High School.

Iverson said of Thompson, “Coach was like a father figure to me, right off hand…it just clicked… Ninety percent of having a relationship with him is things that occur off-court. He helped me through last year. I didn’t want to come here and just do anything. Any problems that I have, I can go to him and he’ll sit down and listen. It is a lot more than player-coach between us. I don’t think I could have made it through last year without him.” Thompson said of Iverson, “He did all I expected him to do last year. When he didn’t, we sat down and talked.”

At Georgetown, Iverson won two Big East Defensive Player of the Year awards, All Rookie Tournament 1st Team, and a gold medal for his win at the World University Games in Japan in 1995. Iverson led all USA players in scoring and assists, averaging 16.7 points per game and 6.1 assists per game. He ended his college career as the Hoyas’ all-time leader in career scoring average, at 23.0 ppg.

Iverson was the first of just two basketball players, Victor Page being the other, to leave Georgetown early for the NBA under Thompson.
NBA career

After two seasons at Georgetown, Iverson was selected first overall by the Philadelphia 76ers in the 1996 NBA Draft. He played with the Sixers for 10 years. During his tenure he was Rookie of the Year, League MVP, 2x All-Star MVP, and led the league in scoring for four years. After his rookie season, during which he led the 76ers in points, assists and minutes, Iverson was named the 1996 NBA Rookie of the Year and was a member of the NBA All-Rookie First Team.

During the offseason, Iverson and his friends were stopped by policemen for speeding late at night and was arrested for carrying a concealed weapon and for possession of marijuana. He pleaded no contest and was sentenced to community service.

After the 1998-1999 season, during which he averaged 26.8 points, earned his first scoring title and was named to his first All NBA first team., Iverson made his first trip to the playoffs. He started all ten playoff games and averaged 44.4 minutes per game despite being hampered by a number of nagging injuries. Iverson led the Sixers to an upset over the Orlando Magic, before losing to the Indiana Pacers in the second round.

Prior to the next season, Iverson signed a six-year, $70 million contract extension.[10] That year, Iverson averaged 28.4 points and again led the 76ers into the playoffs. In the process, Iverson was selected to the Eastern Conference All-Star team for the first time of what would be 11 straight appearances. In the playoffs, Iverson averaged 26.2 points, 4.8 assists, 4 rebounds and 1.3 steals per game, with a high of 40 points in the first round opener at Charlotte on April 22, 2000. Philadelphia advanced past Charlotte, but was eliminated again by Indiana in the second round. That season, he was the only player other than Shaquille O’Neal to receive a NBA Most Valuable Player vote.
MVP season (2000-01)

In the 2000 off-season, the 76ers actively tried to trade Iverson, and had agreed to terms with the Detroit Pistons before Matt Geiger, who was included in the deal, refused to forfeit his $5 million trade kicker.

During the same offseason, Iverson recorded a rap single named 40 Bars. However, after being criticized for its controversial lyrics, he eventually was unable to release it. Going under his moniker, “Jewelz”, the album was alleged to have made derogatory remarks about homosexuals. After criticism from activist groups and NBA Commissioner David Stern, he agreed to change the lyrics, but ultimately never released the album.

That season, Iverson led his team to wins in the first ten games of the season, and was named starter at the 2001 NBA All-Star Game, where he won the game MVP. The Sixers also posted a 56-26 record, the best in the Eastern Conference that season. He also averaged a then-career high 31.1 points, winning his second NBA scoring title in the process. Iverson won the NBA steals title at 2.5 a game. Iverson was named NBA Most Valuable Player, and named to the All NBA First team for his accomplishments.

In the playoffs, Iverson and the Sixers defeated the Indiana Pacers in the first round, before meeting Vince Carter-led Toronto Raptors in the Eastern Semifinals. The series went the full seven games. In the next round, the Sixers defeated the Milwaukee Bucks, also in seven games, to advance to the 2001 NBA Finals against the defending champion Los Angeles Lakers.

Iverson led the Sixers to their first finals since their 1983 championship. In game one of the 2001 NBA Finals, Iverson scored a playoff high 48 points and beat the heavily favored Lakers 107-101. In the game he notably stepped over Tyronn Lue after hitting a crucial shot.Iverson would go on to score 23, 35, 35, 37 in games 2-5, all losing efforts though the Sixers were not swept like many predicted. Iverson enjoyed his most successful season as an individual and as a member of the Sixers during the 2000-01 NBA season. In the 2001-02 season, the Sixers failed to repeat their success. Iverson and others struggled with injury, and despite Iverson averaging a league high 31.4 points per game the Sixers fell to the sixth seed in the 2002 Playoffs, where they fell to the Boston Celtics in the first round.

Iverson began using a basketball sleeve during this season during his recovery from bursitis in his right elbow. Other players, including Carmelo Anthony, and Kobe Bryant,have adopted the sleeves as well, as did fans who wore the sleeve as a fashion statement. Iverson continued wearing his sleeve long after his elbow had healed, leading to speculation among fans[who?] over its purpose. Some fans believed[citation needed] that the sleeve improved Iverson’s shooting ability, while Steven Kotler of Psychology Today suggested that the sleeve may act as a placebo to prevent future injuries.

Relationship with Larry Brown

For most of the early portion of Iverson’s career, his head coach with the Sixers was Larry Brown. Iverson often praised Brown, saying that he would not have achieved so much in the sport without Brown’s guidance.[Need quotation on talk to verify] However, the two frequently clashed; for example, when the 76ers were defeated in the first round of the 2002 NBA Playoffs, Brown criticized Iverson for missing team practices. Iverson responded by saying, “We’re sitting here, I’m supposed to be the franchise player, and we’re in here talking about practice,” and went on a rant that included the word “practice” 14 times.

In the 2002-2003 season, Iverson once again put up stellar scoring numbers (27.6 points per game), was named an NBA All-Star and led the Sixers to the playoffs. This time they were eliminated by the Detroit Pistons in the second round after a 6-game series. Brown left the 76ers in 2003, following the playoff loss. After his departure from the 76ers, both he and Iverson indicated that the two were on good terms and genuinely fond of one another.[Need quotation on talk to verify] Iverson later reunited with Brown when Iverson became a member and co-captain of the 2004 United States Olympic men’s basketball team.
Fallout with Sixers

During the latter part of the 2003-2004 season, Iverson bristled under the disciplinarian approach of the Sixers’ new head coach Chris Ford. This led to a number of contentious incidents, including Iverson being suspended for missing practice, fined for failing to notify Ford that Iverson would not attend a game because he was sick, and refusing to play in game because he felt “insulted” that Ford wanted Iverson to come off the bench as he worked his way back from an injury.

On February 24, 2004, Iverson urinated in a trash can at Bally’s Atlantic City casino in full view of staff and patrons. He was told by casino management not to return.

In 2005, league commissioner David Stern instituted a dress code that required “business casual” attire for players on league or team business, and banned, among other items, t-shirts, jeans, and large jewelry worn over clothes.Iverson criticized the dress code, saying that it “would not change a person’s character regardless of what type of clothing they wore”, and that “associating hip-hop styles of dress with violent crime, drugs, or a bad image is racist.”[cite this quote] Iverson also said that the advertising of many prominent NBA sponsors, such as Nike, Reebok, Puma and Adidas were heavily influenced by hip-hop culture.

The 2005-06 NBA season would be the last full season for Iverson in a Sixers uniform. He averaged a career high 33.0 points per game, but the Sixers missed the playoffs for the second time in three years. He had also begun to clash with coach Jim O’Brien, who was fired after the season.

On December 9, 2005 after the Sixers defeated the Charlotte Bobcats, Iverson paid a late-night visit to the Trump Taj Mahal. After winning a hand at a three-card-stud poker table, Iverson was overpaid $10,000 in chips by a dealer. When the dealer quickly realized the mistake and requested the chips back, Iverson refused and a heated head-turning argument between him and casino staff began. Atlantic City casino regulations reportedly state that when a casino makes a payout mistake in favor of the gambler, he or she must return the money that they did not legitimately win by playing.

Also in 2005, Iverson’s bodyguard Jason Kane was accused of assaulting a man at a Washington DC nightclub after the man, Marlin Godfrey, refused to leave the club’s VIP section so Iverson’s entourage could enter. Godfrey suffered a concussion, a ruptured eardrum, a burst blood vessel in his eye, a torn rotator cuff, cuts and bruises, and emotional injuries. Although Iverson did not touch Godfrey himself, Godfrey sued Iverson for the injuries caused by his bodyguard. In 2007 a jury awarded Godfrey $260,000. The U.S. Court of Appeals upheld the verdict in 2009.

On April 18, 2006, Iverson and Chris Webber arrived late to the Sixers’ fan appreciation night and home game finale. Players are expected to report 90 minutes before game time, but both Iverson and Webber arrived around tipoff. Coach Maurice Cheeks notified the media that neither would be playing and general manager Billy King announced that Iverson and Webber would be fined.During the 2006 off-season, trade rumors had Iverson going to Denver, Atlanta, or Boston. None of the deals were completed. Iverson had made it clear that he would like to stay a Sixer.

On November 29, 2006, following a conflict at practice, Iverson stormed out of the gymnasium. That same evening, Iverson missed a corporate sponsor night at Lucky Strike Lanes in Philadelphia. All the 76ers besides Iverson attended this mandatory event. Iverson was fined an undisclosed amount by the 76ers. Iverson claimed he overslept after taking medication for pain related to having two abscessed teeth pulled but it was reported that Iverson told teammates earlier in the day he planned to blow off the event and was simply going to take the fine.

On December 8, 2006, Iverson reportedly demanded a trade from the Sixers (although he would deny that).As a result of the demand and missing practice prior to a matchup against the Washington Wizards, Iverson was told not to play nor attend any further games. During that game, which was televised nationally on ESPN, Sixers Chairman Ed Snider confirmed the trade rumors by stating “We’re going to trade him. At a certain point, you have to come to grips with the fact that it’s not working. He wants out and we’re ready to accommodate him.”
Denver Nuggets
Allen Iverson during his tenure with the Nuggets

On December 19, 2006, the Philadelphia 76ers sent Iverson and forward Ivan McFarlin to the Denver Nuggets for Andre Miller, Joe Smith, and two first-round picks in the 2007 NBA Draft. At the time of the trade, Iverson was the NBA’s number two leading scorer with teammate Carmelo Anthony being number one.
On December 23, 2006, Iverson played his first game for the Nuggets. He had 22 points and 10 assists in a losing effort to the Sacramento Kings.[29] In Iverson’s first year as a Nugget they made the playoffs. They won the first game and lost the next four to the San Antonio Spurs.

Iverson was fined $25,000 by the NBA for criticizing referee Steve Javie following a game between the Nuggets and Iverson’s former team, the Philadelphia 76ers, played January 2, 2007. During the course of the game, Iverson committed two technical fouls and was ejected from the game. After the game, Iverson said, “I thought I got fouled on that play, and I said I thought that he was calling the game personal I should have known that I couldn’t say anything anyway. It’s been something personal with me and him since I got in the league. This was just the perfect game for him to try and make me look bad.”

Former referee Tim Donaghy supported the claim that Javie had a longstanding of hated for Iverson in his book, Personal Foul: A First-Person Account of the Scandal that Rocked the NBA, which a Florida business group published through a self-publishing arm of Amazon.com[32] after it was dropped by a division of Random House, who cited liability issues after reviewing the manuscript.

In a December 2009 interview with 60 Minutes, Donaghy said he and fellow referees thought the punishment was too light. Before Iverson’s Nuggets played the Utah Jazz on January 6, 2007, Donaghy said he and the two other officials working the game agreed not to give Iverson favorable calls as a way to “teach him a lesson”. Iverson attempted 12 free throws, more than any other player on either team. On 12 drives to the basket, he drew five fouls, three of which Donaghy whistled himself, and did not receive a call on one play in which he was obviously fouled by Utah’s Mehmet Okur.

Iverson returned to Philadelphia on March 19, 2008 to a sell-out crowd and received a standing ovation in a 115-113 loss.
Detroit Pistons

On November 3, 2008, Iverson was dealt from the Denver Nuggets to the Detroit Pistons for guard Chauncey Billups, forward Antonio McDyess and center Cheikh Samb.

Iverson, who had worn a number 3 jersey his entire NBA career, switched to number 1 for the Pistons. The number 3 was being worn by Rodney Stuckey, and although Stuckey stated that he would be willing to give up the number, the NBA ruled that a change in numbers could not take place until after the season.

On April 3, 2009, it was announced by Pistons President of Basketball Operations Joe Dumars that Iverson would not play the remainder of the 2008-09 season. Dumars cited Iverson’s ongoing back injury as the reason for his deactivation, although two days prior Iverson stated publicly that he’d rather retire than be moved to the bench as Piston’s coach Michael Curry had decided.

Memphis Grizzlies

On September 10, 2009, Iverson signed a one-year contract with the Memphis Grizzlies. Iverson stated that “God chose Memphis as the place that I will continue my career,” and that “I feel that they are committed to developing a winner.”

However, Iverson again expressed his displeasure at being a bench player,and left the team on November 7, 2009 for “personal reasons.” On November 16, the Grizzlies announced the team terminated his contract by “mutual agreement”.Iverson played three games for the Grizzlies.

The New York Knicks initially showed interest in signing Iverson, but team president Donnie Walsh announced on November 20 that he would not offer Iverson a contract.
Return to the 76ers
Iverson in December 2009, after his return to the 76ers.

On November 25, 2009, commentator Stephen A. Smith published on his blog a statement attributed to Iverson announcing plans for retirement, which also said, “I feel strongly that I can still compete at the highest level.”

Less than a week later on November 30, Iverson and his representatives met with a Philadelphia 76ers delegation about returning to his former team,[46] and accepted a contract offer two days later. General manager Ed Stefanski declined to go into the terms of the agreement, but an unnamed source told the Associated Press that Iverson agreed to a one-year non-guaranteed contract at the league minimum salary. Iverson would receive a prorated portion of the $1.3 million minimum salary for players with at least 10 years of experience, and the contract would become guaranteed for the remainder of the 2009-10 season if he remained on the roster on January 8, 2010, and with a portion of his salary coming from a league pool, the 76ers would pay Iverson up to around $650,000. Stefanski said the team made the decision to pursue Iverson after starting guard Louis Williams suffered a broken jaw and was expected to miss at least 30 games.

On February 22, 2010, Iverson left the 76ers indefinitely to deal with his 4-year-old daughter, Messiah’s health issues.[49] He had missed five games earlier in February and missed the All-Star Game after he was voted in as starter.[50] On March 2, Stefanski announced Iverson would not return to the 76ers for the rest of the season.

International career
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Iverson was a member of the gold medal winning 1995 World University Games Team that finished 7-0 in Fukuoka, Japan. Part of a team that included future NBA stars Ray Allen, Tim Duncan, Kerry Kittles, Othella Harrington, Austin Croshere and others. Iverson led the USA in scoring, assists and steals averaging 16.7 points, 6.1 assists and 2.9 steals a game, while shooting 56.0 percent from the field overall and 37.5 percent from beyond the 3-point line.

On being selected to playing for USA Basketball in 2003, Iverson said,”It’s a great feeling to be able to represent the USA. It’s an honor. It’s a tribute to all the coaches I’ve had in my life - Coach (Larry) Brown, Coach (John) Thompson and my high school coach, Mike Bailey. I feel good about being able to make a team like this - it’s really one of the great things I’ve done in my life. It makes me feel good about the person my mom raised.”[cite this quote]

Iverson helped the USA to a 10-0 record, the gold medal and a qualifying berth for the 2004 Olympics at the August 20-31 FIBA Americas Olympic Qualifying Tournament in Puerto Rico. Started all eight games he played in, and averaged a team second best 14.3 ppg., 3.8 apg., 2.5 rpg., 1.6 spg., while shooting 56.2 percent (41-73 FGs) from the field and 53.6 percent (15-28 3pt FGs) from 3-point and 81.0 percent (17-21 FTs) from the foul line.

In the USA’s 111-71 victory over Canada on August 25, he accounted for an USA Olympic Qualifying single game record 28 points and made a single game record seven 3-pointers. Playing just 23 minutes, he shot 10-for-13 overall, 7-for-8 from 3-point, 1-for-1 from the foul line and added three assists, three steals and one rebound. All seven of his 3-point field goals were made during the final 7:41 of the third quarter.

He finished the tournament ranked overall tied for 10th in scoring, tied for fourth in steals, fifth in 3-point percentage, tied for seventh in assists, and ninth in field goal percentage (.562). Iverson also missed the USA’s final two games because of a sprained right thumb which was suffered in the first half of the August 28 Puerto Rico game. In a game against Puerto Rico, he recorded 9 points on 4-for-6 shooting from the field overall, and added five assists and three rebounds in 26 minutes of action in the USA’s 101-74 exhibition game victory on August 17 in New York, N.Y. He was also named to the 2003 USA Senior National Team on April 29, 2003.

The team’s performance at the Olympic Games, however, would ultimately prove to be a disappointment. During the exhibition period prior to the Games, Iverson and LeBron James were benched for a game for having arrived late at a practice session.[52] The United States’ team had played a dismal game versus Germany, which had failed to qualify for the Olympic competition. Iverson did succeed in keeping the game from going into overtime with a half-court shot in the closing seconds. Despite the win, the team continued to struggle. After losing to the Puerto Rican team during round robin play, they would ultimately claim a bronze medal.

 

John Christopher “Johnny” Depp II (born June 9, 1963) is an American actor and musician known for his portrayals of offbeat, eccentric characters such as Jack Sparrow in the Pirates of the Caribbean film series, Raoul Duke in Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas, and Sam in Benny & Joon.

Depp rose to prominence in a lead role on the television series 21 Jump Street and quickly became regarded as a teen idol. Uncomfortable with that characterization, he turned his focus to film roles that he felt were right. He initially came to film prominence as the titular character of Edward Scissorhands, and later found box office success in roles such as Ichabod Crane in Sleepy Hollow, Jack Sparrow in the Pirates of the Caribbean film series and his role as the quirky Willy Wonka in Charlie and the Chocolate Factory.

He has collaborated with director and close friend Tim Burton in seven films, the most recent of which are Alice in Wonderland and Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street (2007). Depp has garnered acclaim for his portrayals of real life figures such as Edward D. Wood, Jr., in Ed Wood, Joseph D. Pistone in Donnie Brasco and George Jung in Blow (2001). More recently, he portrayed legendary bank robber John Dillinger in Michael Mann’s 2009 film Public Enemies.

Films featuring Depp have grossed over $2.3 billion at the United States box office and over $4.8 billion worldwide.Nominated for the Academy Award for Best Actor three times, Screen Actors Guild Awards four times and Golden Globe Awards eight times, Depp won the Best Actor Awards from the Golden Globes for his role in Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street and from the Screen Actors Guild for Pirates of the Caribbean: The Curse of the Black Pearl.

Early life

Depp was born in Owensboro, Kentucky, the son of Betty Sue Palmer (née Wells), a waitress, and John Christopher Depp, Sr., a civil engineer.He has one brother, Daniel who is a novelist, and two sisters, Christie (now his personal manager) and Debbie. Depp has German, Cherokee (mostly from a great-grandmother), and Irish ancestry.According to biographies, the Depp family originated with a French Huguenot, Pierre Deppe or Dieppe, who settled in Virginia around 1700.[5] Depp stated he did not know the origin of his surname and joked about the name translating to “idiot” in German.The family moved frequently during Depp’s childhood, and he and his siblings lived in more than 20 different locations, settling in Miramar, Florida, in 1970. In 1978, Depp’s parents divorced. He engaged in self-harm as a child, due to the stress of dealing with family problems and his own insecurity. He has seven or eight scars from practicing self-harm. In a 1993 interview, he explained his self-injury by saying, “My body is a journal in a way. It’s like what sailors used to do, where every tattoo meant something, a specific time in your life when you make a mark on yourself, whether you do it yourself with a knife or with a professional tattoo artist”.
1980s

Depp’s mother bought her son a guitar when he was 12, and Depp began playing in various garage bands. His first band was in honor of his girlfriend, Meredith. A year after his parents’ divorce, Depp dropped out of high school to become a rock musician. As he once explained on Inside the Actors Studio, he attempted to go back to school two weeks later, but the principal told him to follow his dream of being a musician. He played with The Kids, a band that enjoyed modest local success. The Kids set out together for Los Angeles in pursuit of a record deal, changing their name to Six Gun Method. The group split before signing a record deal. Depp subsequently collaborated with the band Rock City Angels[9] and co-wrote their song “Mary”, which appeared on Rock City Angels’ debut for Geffen Records titled Young Man’s Blues.

On December 24, 1983, Depp married Lori Anne Allison, a makeup artist and sister of his band’s bass player and singer. During Depp’s marriage, his wife worked as a makeup artist while he worked a variety of odd jobs, including a telemarketer for ink pens. Later, his wife introduced him to actor Nicolas Cage, who advised Depp to pursue an acting career. In 1985, Depp and Allison divorced. After his marriage ended, Depp dated and was engaged to Sherilyn Fenn (whom he met on the set of the 1985 short film Dummies).
1990s and 2000s

In 1994, Depp was arrested and questioned by police for allegedly causing serious damage to a New York City hotel suite.[10] Since 1998, following a relationship with British supermodel Kate Moss, Depp has had a relationship with Vanessa Paradis, a French actress and singer whom he met while filming The Ninth Gate.He was arrested again in 1999 for brawling with paparazzi outside a restaurant while dining in London with Paradis.

The couple have two children. Daughter Lily-Rose Melody Depp was born May 27, 1999, and son John “Jack” Christopher Depp III was born April 9, 2002.In 2007, his daughter recovered from a serious illness, an E. coli infection that began to cause her kidneys to shut down and resulted in an extended hospital stay.[14] To thank Great Ormond Street Hospital, Depp visited the hospital in November 2007 dressed in his Captain Jack Sparrow outfit and spent 4 hours reading stories to the children. He later donated £1 million (about $2 million) to the hospital in early 2008.

Although Depp has not remarried, he has stated that having children has given him “real foundation, a real strong place to stand in life, in work, in everything.”"You can’t plan the kind of deep love that results in children. Fatherhood was not a conscious decision. It was part of the wonderful ride I was on. It was destiny; kismet. All the math finally worked.” The family divides its time between their home in Meudon, located in the suburbs of Paris, Los Angeles, and their villa in Le Plan-de-la-Tour, a small town an hour and a half from Saint-Tropez, in the south of France.Depp also acquired a vineyard estate in the Plan-de-la-Tour area in 2007.

Depp has 13 tattoos, many of them signifying important persons or events in his life. They include a Native American in profile and a ribbon reading “Wino Forever” (originally “Winona Forever”, altered after his breakup with Winona Ryder) on his right biceps, “Lily-Rose” (his daughter’s name) over his heart, “Betty Sue” (his mother’s name) on his left biceps, and a sparrow flying over water with the word “Jack” (his son’s name; the sparrow is flying towards him rather than away from him as it is in Pirates of the Caribbean) on his right forearm.

In 2003, Depp comments about the United States appeared in Germany’s Stern magazine, commenting that “America is dumb, is something like a dumb puppy that has big teeth - that can bite and hurt you, aggressive.”Although he later asserted that the magazine misquoted him and the quotation was taken out of context, Stern stood by its story, as did CNN.com in its coverage of the interview. CNN added his remark that he would like his children “to see America as a toy, a broken toy. Investigate it a little, check it out, get this feeling and then get out.”The July 17, 2006 edition of Newsweek reprinted the “dumb puppy” quotation, verbatim, within the context of a Letter to the Magazine. Depp has also disagreed with subsequent media reports that he says paint him as a “European wannabe”, saying that he just likes the anonymity of living in France and his simpler life there.

Career

Television

Depp starred in a lead role on the Fox TV television series, 21 Jump Street, which premiered in 1987. Depp accepted this role because he was not getting much work in the business and wanted to work with actor Frederic Forrest, who inspired him. Later in the season, Depp’s long time friend Sal Jenco joined the cast as a semi-co-star as the janitor named Blowfish. The series’ success turned Depp into a popular teen idol during the late 1980s. He found the teen-idol status irritating, noting that he felt “forced into the role of product”[22] and that it was “a very uncomfortable situation and I didn’t get a handle on it and it wasn’t on my terms at all.”[23] Depp promised himself that after his contract on the series expired, he would only appear in films that he felt were right for him.[22]
Film roles

Depp’s first major role was in the 1984 horror film A Nightmare on Elm Street, playing the heroine’s boyfriend and one of Freddy’s victims. In 1986, he also appeared in a secondary role as a Vietnamese-speaking private in Oliver Stone’s Platoon. Depp then left his teen idol image in 1990, playing the quirky title role in the Tim Burton film, Edward Scissorhands. The film’s success began a long association with Burton. Depp, an avid fan and long-time friend of writer Hunter S. Thompson, played a version of Thompson (named Raoul Duke) in 1998’s Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas, based on the writer’s pseudobiographical novel of the same name. Depp also accompanied Thompson as his road manager on one of the author’s last book tours.In 2006, Depp contributed a personal foreword to Gonzo by Hunter S. Thompson, a posthumous visual biography of the writer’s legacy published by ammobooks.com. A close friend of Thompson’s, Depp paid for most of Thompson’s memorial event, complete with fireworks and the shooting of Thompson’s ashes by a cannon, in Aspen, Colorado, where Thompson lived.

Depp with longer hair, mustache and goatee similar to the style used in Pirates of the Caribbean: The Curse of the Black Pearl film.

Depp’s film characters have been described by the press as “iconic loners,” and Depp has noted that this period of his career was full of “studio defined failures” and films that were “box office poison,” stating that he believes film studios never “understood” the films he appeared in and did not know how to market them properly.Depp has also said that he specifically chose to appear in films that he found personally interesting, rather than those he thought would succeed at the box office.

Depp’s status as a major star was solidified with the success of the 2003 Walt Disney Pictures film Pirates of the Caribbean: The Curse of the Black Pearl,[26] for which his lead performance as the suave pirate Captain Jack Sparrow was highly praised. The performance was initially received negatively by the studio bosses who saw the film, but the character became popular with the movie-going public.[26] In 2006, Depp’s co-star from the sequel to Pirates of the Caribbean, Bill Nighy, described the role as probably being “one of the most popular performances of recent times.”[27] According to a survey taken by Fandango, Depp was also considered to be one of the main reasons audiences wanted to see the movie.[28] The film’s director, Gore Verbinski, has said that Depp’s Jack Sparrow character closely resembles Depp’s own personality, although Depp himself said that he modelled the character after Rolling Stones guitarist Keith Richards.[29] Depp, who has noted that he was “surprised” and “touched” at the positive reception given to the film,[26] was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Actor for the role. In 2004, he was again nominated for an Academy Award for Best Actor, this time for playing Scottish author J. M. Barrie in the film Finding Neverland. Depp next starred as Willy Wonka in the 2005 film Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, which was a major success at the box office.[29]

Depp returned to the character of Jack Sparrow for the sequel Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man’s Chest, which opened on July 7, 2006 and grossed $135.5 million in the first three days of its U.S. release, breaking a box office record in reaching the highest weekend tally ever.[30] The next sequel to Pirates of the Caribbean, At World’s End, was released May 24, 2007; Depp has mentioned his attachment to his Captain Jack Sparrow character, specifying that Sparrow is “definitely a big part of me”, and expressing his desire to portray the character in further sequels.[16] Depp voiced Sparrow in the video game, Pirates of the Caribbean: The Legend of Jack Sparrow.[31] Johnny Depp’s swashbuckling sword talents as developed for the character of Jack Sparrow, were highlighted in the documentary film Reclaiming The Blade. Within the film Swordmaster Bob Anderson shared his experiences working with Depp on the choreography. Anderson who also trained Errol Flynn, another famous Hollywood pirate, described in the film Depp’s ability as an actor to pick up the sword to be, “about as good as you can get.”[32]

Depp and Gore Verbinski were executive producers of the album Rogues Gallery, Pirate Ballads, Sea Songs and Chanteys. Depp played the title role of Sweeney Todd in Tim Burton’s film adaptation of the musical,[33] for which he won a Golden Globe Award for Best Actor - Motion Picture Musical or Comedy. The traditional ceremony for the 65th Golden Globe Awards did not take place due to the 2007-2008 Writers Guild of America strike. Depp thanked the Hollywood Foreign Press Association and praised Tim Burton for his “unwavering trust and support.”[34]

As a child, Depp was obsessed with Dark Shadows, a gothic-themed soap opera that aired on ABC from 1966 to 1971. As a result, he accepted Warner Bros. proposal to make a film version of the show. In July 2007, a rights deal was struck with the estate of Dan Curtis, the show’s producer/director. Depp and Graham King will produce the movie with David Kennedy, who ran Dan Curtis Productions inc. until Curtis died in 2006. Depp will also appear in a film version of writer Hunter S. Thompson’s book, The Rum Diary,[24] portraying the main character Paul Kemp. Depp signed on to play one incarnation of the Heath Ledger character in the 2009 film, The Imaginarium of Doctor Parnassus along with Jude Law and Colin Farrell. All three actors gave their salaries from the film to Ledger’s daughter, Matilda.[35] In upcoming films, he will portray the Mad Hatter in Burton’s Alice in Wonderland and Tonto in a future Lone Ranger film.[36] Disney Studios also announced that a fourth installment of the Pirates series is in development, in which Depp would reprise his Captain Jack Sparrow role.[36]
Collaboration with Tim Burton

Depp has collaborated with director and close friend Tim Burton in seven films, beginning with his breakout role in Edward Scissorhands (1990), opposite Winona Ryder and Vincent Price. His next role with Burton was in the 1994 film, Ed Wood. Depp later said that “within 10 minutes of hearing about the project, I was committed.”[37] At the time, the actor was depressed about films and filmmaking. By accepting this part it gave him a “chance to stretch out and have some fun”, and working with Landau, “rejuvenated my love for acting”.[37]

Producer Scott Rudin once said, “Basically Johnny Depp is playing Tim Burton in all his movies,”[38] although Burton personally disapproved of the comment. Depp, however agrees with Rudin’s statement. According to Depp, Edward Scissorhands represented Burton’s inability to communicate as a teenager. Ed Wood reflected Burton’s relationship with Vincent Price (very similar with Edward D. Wood, Jr. and Béla Lugosi).
Depp’s Hollywood Walk of Fame star received on November 19, 1999.

Depp’s next venture with Burton was the role of Ichabod Crane in the dark Sleepy Hollow (1999), opposite Christina Ricci. Sleepy Hollow showcased Ichabod’s feelings that reflects Burton’s battle with the Hollywood studio system.[39] For his performance, Depp took inspiration from Angela Lansbury, Roddy McDowall and Basil Rathbone.[38] Depp stated, “I always thought of Ichabod as a very delicate, fragile person who was maybe a little too in touch with his feminine side, like a frightened little girl.”[40]

Depp did not work with Burton again until the 2005 release of two films, the first of which was Charlie and the Chocolate Factory. Depp modeled the character’s hair on Anna Wintour.[41] The film was a box office success and received positive critical reaction,[42][43] although Gene Wilder, who played Willy Wonka in the 1971 film, initially opposed this version.[44] Charlie and the Chocolate Factory was released in July, followed by Corpse Bride, for which Depp voiced the character Victor Van Dort, in September.

Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street (2007) followed, bringing Depp his second major award win, the Golden Globe for Best Actor in a Musical or Comedy as well as his third nomination for the Academy Award for Best Actor. Burton first gave him an original cast recording of the 1979 stage musical in 2000. Although not a fan of the genre, Depp grew to like the tale’s musical treatment, commenting “How many chances do you get at a musical about a serial killer?”[45] He cited Peter Lorre in Mad Love (1935) as his main influence for the role, and practiced the songs his character would perform while filming Pirates of the Caribbean: At World’s End.[46] Although he had performed in musical groups, Depp was initially unsure that he would be able to sustain Stephen Sondheim’s lyrics.[45] Depp recorded demos of himself in West Hollywood, working with Bruce Witkin to shape his vocals without a qualified voice coach.[45] In the DVD Reviews section, EW’s Chris Nashawaty gave the film an A-minus, stating, “Depp’s soaring voice makes you wonder what other tricks he’s been hiding… Watching Depp’s barber wield his razors… it’s hard not to be reminded of Edward Scissorhands frantically shaping hedges into animal topiaries 18 years ago… and all of the twisted beauty we would’ve missed out on had [Burton and Depp] never met.”[47]

He has referred to working with Burton as “coming home”, and he wrote the introduction to Burton on Burton, a book of interviews with the director, in which he called Burton “…a brother, a friend,…and [a] brave soul”.[48] The next Depp-Burton collaboration is Alice in Wonderland (2010). Depp plays the Mad Hatter alongside long time collaborator Helena Bonham Carter, Anne Hathaway and Alan Rickman.
Other interests
Music
Depp backstage at the Ahmanson Theatre on December 31, 2006

As a guitar player, Depp has recorded a solo album, played slide guitar on the Oasis song “Fade In-Out” (from Be Here Now, 1997), as well as on “Fade Away (Warchild Version)” (b-side of the “Don’t Go Away” single). He also played acoustic guitar in the movie Chocolat and on the soundtrack to Once Upon a Time in Mexico. He is a friend of The Pogues’ Shane MacGowan, and performed on MacGowan’s first solo album. As well, he was a member of P, a group featuring Butthole Surfers singer Gibby Haynes and Red Hot Chili Peppers bassist Flea. He has appeared in Tom Petty & The Heartbreakers’ music video “Into the Great Wide Open”.
Winemaker and restaurateur

Depp and Paradis grow grapes and have wine making facilities in their vineyard in Plan-de-la-Tour north of Saint-Tropez.[19][49][50] Known for a fondness of French wines, among Depp’s favorites are the Bordeaux wines Château Calon-Ségur, Château Cheval-Blanc and Château Pétrus, and the Burgundy wine Domaine de la Romanée-Conti. Interviewed in Madame Figaro, Depp stated, “With those wines, you reach nirvana”.[51] Along with Sean Penn, John Malkovich and Mick Hucknall, Depp co-owns the Parisian restaurant-bar Man Ray, located near the Champs-Élysées.[52]
Awards and nominations
Main article: List of awards and nominations received by Johnny Depp

Some of the awards that Depp has won include honors from the London Film Critics Circle (1996), Russian Guild of Film Critics (1998), Screen Actors Guild Awards (2004) and a Golden Globe for Best Actor. At the 2008 MTV Movie Awards, he won the award for “Best Villain” for his portrayal of Sweeney Todd and “Best Comedic Performance” for Jack Sparrow. Depp has been nominated for three Academy Awards, in 2004 for Pirates of the Caribbean: The Curse of the Black Pearl, in 2005 for Finding Neverland, and in 2008 for Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street. Depp won his first Golden Globe for his portrayal of Sweeney Todd in 2008.