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Music Sales Group is Europe's largest printed music publisher, with headquarters in Berners Street, London. It owns the rights to hundreds of thousands of songs, imprints both for books and sheet music, operates the UK's largest chain of music shops, and sells sheet music, instruments and accessories.^{[citation needed]}

The group, privately owned and run by Robert Wise, includes Wise Publications, Chester Music, Novello & Co and Omnibus Press.^{[citation needed]}

Music Sales is also owner of the G. Schirmer catalog, and publishes printed music for Sony/ATV, Universal.^{[citation needed]}

Novello & Co[link]

Advertisement for Novello, Ewer & Co. circulating music library, London, 1890

Novello & Co is a London-based printed music publishing company specializing in classical music, particularly choral repertoire. It was founded in 1811 by Vincent Novello.

Chester Music[link]

Chester Music is a British publisher of printed music specializing in classical composition and educational music of the 20th and 21st centuries.^[1]

References[link]

External links[link]

• Music Sales Group consumer website

This article about a publishing company is a stub. You can help Wikipedia by expanding it. v t e

Karen Carpenter
Karen Carpenter, early 1970s
Background information
Birth name	Karen Anne Carpenter
Born	(1950-03-02)March 2, 1950 New Haven, Connecticut, United States
Origin	Los Angeles, California, United States
Died	February 4, 1983(1983-02-04) (aged 32) Downey, California, United States
Genres	Pop, soft rock
Occupations	Musician, singer
Instruments	Vocals, drums, percussion
Years active	1965–1983
Labels	A&M
Associated acts	Carpenters, Richard Carpenter
Website	Richard and Karen Carpenter
Notable instruments
Ludwig Drums

Karen Anne Carpenter (March 2, 1950 – February 4, 1983) was an American singer and drummer. She and her brother, Richard, formed the 1970s duo Carpenters, commonly called The Carpenters. She was a drummer whose skills earned her admiration from her peers, although she is most well known for her vocal performances of idealistic romantic ballads.

Carpenter suffered from anorexia nervosa, an eating disorder of extreme weight loss dieting, which was a little-known illness at the time. She died at the age of 32 from heart failure, caused by complications related to her illness which caused her to believe mistakenly that she needed to lose weight.^[1]

Early life[link]

Carpenter was born in New Haven, Connecticut, to Agnes Reuwer Tatum and Harold Bertram Carpenter.^[2] When she was young, she enjoyed playing baseball with other children on the street. On the TV program This Is Your Life, she stated that she liked pitching.^[3] In the early 1970s, she went on to play as the pitcher on the Carpenters' official softball team.^[4] Karen's brother, Richard, had developed an interest in music at an early age, becoming a piano prodigy. Karen showed less interest in music as a young child. The family moved in June 1963 to the Los Angeles suburb of Downey.

When Karen entered Downey High School, she joined the school band. The conductor (who had previously taught her older brother) gave her the glockenspiel, an instrument she disliked. After admiring the performance of a friend named Frankie Chavez, she asked the conductor if she could play the drums instead. She and her brother made their first recordings in 1965 and 1966. The following year Karen began dieting. Under a doctor's guidance she went on the Stillman Diet. She rigorously ate lean foods, drank 8 glasses of water a day, and avoided fatty foods. Karen was 5'4" (165 cm) in height and before dieting weighed 145 pounds (66 kg). By September 1975, her weight was 91 pounds (41 kg).^[5]

Music career[link]

From 1965 to 1968, Karen, her brother Richard, and his college friend Wes Jacobs, a bassist and tuba player, formed The Richard Carpenter Trio. The band played jazz at numerous nightclubs and also appeared on a TV talent show called Your All-American College Show. Karen, Richard, and other musicians, including Gary Sims and John Bettis, also performed as an ensemble known as Spectrum. Spectrum focused on a harmonious and vocal sound, and recorded many demo tapes in the garage studio of friend and bassist Joe Osborn. Many of those tapes were rejected. According to former Carpenters member John Bettis, those rejections "took their toll."^[6] The tapes of the original sessions were lost in a fire at Joe Osborn's house, and the surviving versions of those early songs exist as acetate pressings.^[7] Finally, in April 1969, A&M Records signed the Carpenters to a recording contract. Karen Carpenter sang most of the songs on the band's first album, Offering (later retitled Ticket to Ride). The issued single (later the title track), which was a cover of a Beatles song, became their first single; it reached #54 on the Billboard Hot 100 Charts. Their next album, 1970's Close to You, featured two massive hit singles: "(They Long to Be) Close to You" and "We've Only Just Begun." They peaked at #1 and #2, respectively, on the Hot 100.

Karen and Richard Carpenter, at the White House on August 1, 1972.

Karen started out as both the group's drummer and lead singer, and she originally sang all her vocals from behind the drum set. Eventually, she was persuaded to stand at the microphone to sing the band's hits while another musician played the drums, although she still did some drumming. (Former Disney Mouseketeer Cubby O'Brien served as the band's other drummer for many years.) After the release of Now & Then in 1973, the albums tended to have Karen singing more and drumming less. At this time her brother Richard developed an addiction to Quaaludes. The Carpenters frequently canceled tour dates, and they stopped touring altogether after their September 4, 1978, concert at the MGM Grand in Las Vegas. In 1981, after the release of the Made in America album (which turned out to be their last), the Carpenters returned to the stage and did some tour dates, including their final live performance in Brazil.

Recognition of drumming skills[link]

Karen's drumming was praised by fellow drummers Hal Blaine, Cubby O'Brien, Buddy Rich^[8] and by Modern Drummer magazine.^[9] According to Richard Carpenter in an interview, Karen always considered herself a "drummer who sang." Carpenter started playing the drums in 1964. She was always enthusiastic about the drums and taught herself how to play complicated drum lines with "exotic time signatures," according to Richard Carpenter.^[6]

Solo album[link]

In 1979, Richard Carpenter took a year off to cure a dependency on Quaaludes,^[10] and Karen decided to make a solo album with producer Phil Ramone. Her solo work was markedly different from usual Carpenters fare, consisting of adult-oriented and disco/dance-tempo material with more sexual lyrics and the use of Karen's higher vocal register. The project met a tepid response from Richard and A&M executives in early 1980. The album was shelved by A&M CEO Herb Alpert, in spite of Quincy Jones' attempts to talk Alpert into releasing the record after some tracks had been remixed.^[11] A&M made the Carpenters pay $400,000 to cover the cost of recording Karen's unreleased solo album, an amount which was to be charged against the duo's future royalties.^[12][13] Carpenters fans got a taste of the album in 1989 when some of its tracks (as remixed by Richard) were mixed onto the album Lovelines, the final album of Carpenters' new unreleased material. Seven years later, in 1996, the entire album, featuring mixes approved by Karen before her death and one unmixed bonus track, was finally released.

Personal life[link]

Karen lived with her parents until she was 26 years old. After the Carpenters became successful in the early 1970s, she and her brother bought two apartment buildings in Downey as a financial investment. Formerly named the "Geneva," the two complexes were renamed "Close To You" and "Only Just Begun" in honor of the duo's first smash hits. Both apartment buildings can still be found at 8356 and 8353 (respectively) 5th Street, Downey, California.^[14] In 1976, Karen bought two Century City apartments, gutted them, and turned them into one condominium. Located at 2222 Avenue of the Stars, the doorbell chimed the first six notes of "We've Only Just Begun." As a housewarming gift, her mother gave her a collection of leather-bound classic works of literature. Karen collected Disney memorabilia, loved to play softball and baseball, and listed Petula Clark, Olivia Newton-John and Dionne Warwick among her closest friends.

Karen dated a number of well-known men, including Mike Curb, Tony Danza, Mark Harmon, Steve Martin and Alan Osmond.^[11] After a whirlwind romance, Karen married real-estate developer Thomas James Burris on August 31, 1980, in the Crystal Room of the Beverly Hills Hotel. Burris, divorced with an 18-year-old son, was nine years her senior. A new song performed by Karen at the ceremony, "Because We Are In Love," was released in 1981.

Final months[link]

The song "Now," recorded in April 1982, was the last song Karen Carpenter recorded. She recorded it after a two-week intermission in her therapy with psychotherapist Steven Levenkron in New York City for her anorexia, during which she had lost a considerable amount of weight. In September 1982, her treatment took a negative, downward slope of events when Carpenter called her psychotherapist to tell him she felt dizzy and that her heart was beating irregularly. She was admitted to Lenox Hill Hospital in New York and hooked up to an intravenous drip, which was the cause of her much debated^{[by whom?]} 30-pound weight gain in eight weeks.

Carpenter returned to California in November 1982, determined to reinvigorate her career, finalize her divorce, and begin a new album with Richard. She had gained 30 pounds over a two-month stay in New York, and the sudden weight gain (much of which was the result of intravenous feeding) further strained her heart, which was already weak from years of crash dieting. During her illness, in order to lose weight, she had taken thyroid replacement medication (to speed up her metabolism)^[15] and laxatives.^[16] On December 17, 1982, she made her final public appearance in the "multi-purpose" room of the Buckley School in Sherman Oaks, California, singing for her godchildren and their classmates who attended the school. She sang Christmas carols for friends.^[1]

Death[link]

On February 4, 1983, less than a month before her 33rd birthday, Karen suffered heart failure at her parents' home in Downey, California. She was taken to Downey Community Hospital, where she was pronounced dead twenty minutes later. The Los Angeles coroner gave the cause of death as "heartbeat irregularities brought on by chemical imbalances associated with anorexia nervosa."^[17] Under the anatomical summary, the first item was heart failure, with anorexia as second. The third finding was cachexia, which is extremely low weight and weakness and general body decline associated with chronic disease. Her divorce was scheduled to have been finalized that day. The autopsy stated that Carpenter's death was the result of emetine cardiotoxicity due to anorexia nervosa, revealing that Carpenter had poisoned herself with ipecac syrup, an emetic often used to induce vomiting in cases of overdosing or poisoning.^[17] Carpenter's use of ipecac syrup was later disputed by Agnes and Richard, who both stated that they never found empty vials of ipecac in her apartment and have denied that there was any concrete evidence that Karen had been vomiting.^[18] Richard also expressed that he believes Karen was not willing to ingest ipecac syrup because of the potential damage it presented to her vocal cords and that she relied on laxatives alone to maintain her low body weight.

Her funeral service took place on February 8, 1983, at the Downey United Methodist Church. Dressed in a rose colored suit, Carpenter lay in an open white casket. Over 1,000 mourners passed through to say goodbye, among them her friends Dorothy Hamill, Olivia Newton-John, Petula Clark, and Dionne Warwick. Carpenter's estranged husband Tom attended her funeral, where he took off his wedding ring and threw it into the casket.^[11] She was buried at the Forest Lawn Memorial Park in Cypress, California. In 2003, Richard Carpenter had Karen re-interred, along with their parents, in a Carpenter family mausoleum at the Pierce Brothers Valley Oaks Memorial Park in Westlake Village, California, which is closer to his Southern California home.

After death[link]

Carpenter's star at the Hollywood Walk of Fame.

Carpenter's death brought lasting media attention to anorexia nervosa and also to bulimia. In the years after Carpenter's death, a number of celebrities decided to go public about their eating disorders, among them actress Tracey Gold^{[citation needed]} and Diana, Princess of Wales.^[19] Medical centres and hospitals began receiving increased contacts from people with these disorders^{[citation needed]}. The general public had little knowledge of anorexia nervosa and bulimia prior to Carpenter's death, making the condition difficult to identify and treat.^[20] Her family started the "Karen A. Carpenter Memorial Foundation," which raised money for research on anorexia nervosa and eating disorders. Today the name of the organization has been changed to the "Carpenter Family Foundation." In addition to eating disorders, the foundation now funds the arts, entertainment and education.

On October 12, 1983, the Carpenters received a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame. It is located at 6931 Hollywood Blvd., a few yards from the Kodak Theater.^[21] Richard, Harold and Agnes Carpenter attended the inauguration, as did many fans. In 1987, movie director Todd Haynes used songs by Richard and Karen in his movie Superstar: The Karen Carpenter Story. In the movie, Haynes portrayed the Carpenters with Barbie dolls, rather than live actors. The movie was later pulled from distribution after Richard Carpenter won a court case involving song royalties; Haynes had not obtained legal permission to use the Carpenters' recordings. On January 1, 1989, the similarly titled made-for-TV movie The Karen Carpenter Story aired on CBS with Cynthia Gibb in the title role. Gibb lip-synced the songs to Carpenter's recorded voice. Both films use the song "This Masquerade" in the background while showing Karen's marriage to Burris.

Lists containing Karen Carpenter[link]

• 1975 – In Playboy magazine's annual opinion poll, its readers voted Karen Carpenter the Best Rock Drummer of the year. Apparently this greatly displeased John Bonham from Led Zeppelin as he came in second. He was quoted as saying: "I'd like to have it publicised that I came in after Karen Carpenter in the Playboy drummer poll! She couldn't last ten minutes with a Zeppelin number."^[22]

• 1999 – VH1 ranked Karen Carpenter at #29 on its list of the 100 Greatest Women of Rock and Roll.^[23]

• 2008 – Rolling Stone Magazine ranked Karen Carpenter number 94 on its list of the 100 Greatest Singers of All Time.^[24]

Discography[link]

Studio albums[link]

• Offering (later reissued as Ticket to Ride) (1969)
• Close to You (1970)
• Carpenters (1971)
• A Song for You (1972)
• Now & Then (1973)
• The Singles: 1969–1973 (1973)
• Horizon (1975)
• A Kind of Hush (1976)
• Passage (1977)
• Christmas Portrait (1978)
• The Singles: 1974–1978 (1978)
• Made in America (1981)
• Voice of the Heart (1983)
• An Old-Fashioned Christmas (1984)
• Lovelines (1989)
• As Time Goes By (2003)

Solo albums[link]

• Karen Carpenter (1996)

Notes[link]

References[link]

• Coleman, Ray. The Carpenters: The Untold Story. An Authorized Biography (HarperCollins, 1994)
• VH1, Behind the Music: Carpenters (1998)

External links[link]

Biography portal

• Richard and Karen Carpenter - Official site
• Make Your Own Kind of Music - 1971 Summer Television Series
• Karen Carpenter at the Internet Movie Database
• The Karen Carpenter Story at the Internet Movie Database
• Superstar: The Karen Carpenter Story at the Internet Movie Database

Mark Kirk
United States Senator from Illinois
Incumbent
Assumed office November 29, 2010 Serving with Dick Durbin
Preceded by	Roland Burris
Member of the U.S. House of Representatives from Illinois's 10th district
In office January 3, 2001 – November 29, 2010
Preceded by	John Porter
Succeeded by	Robert Dold
Personal details
Born	Mark Steven Kirk (1959-09-15) September 15, 1959 (age 52) Champaign, Illinois
Political party	Republican
Spouse(s)	Kimberly Vertolli (2001–2009; divorced)
Residence	Highland Park, Illinois[1]
Alma mater	Cornell University (B.A.) London School of Economics Georgetown University Law Center (J.D.)
Occupation	Attorney, Navy Officer
Religion	United Church of Christ[2]
Website	kirk.senate.gov
Military service
Service/branch	United States Navy United States Navy Reserve
Years of service	1989–present
Rank	Commander
Unit	Navy Intelligence

Mark Steven Kirk (born September 15, 1959) is the junior United States Senator from Illinois and a member of the Republican Party. Previously, Kirk was a member of the United States House of Representatives, representing Illinois's 10th congressional district.

Born in Champaign, Illinois, he graduated from Cornell University, London School of Economics, and Georgetown University Law Center. He practiced law throughout the 1980s and 1990s. He joined the United States Navy Reserve in 1989 and was recalled to active duty for the 1999 NATO bombing of Yugoslavia. He participated in Operation Northern Watch in Iraq the following year. He remains a member of the Navy Reserve, now holding the rank of Commander.

Kirk was elected to the House in 2000. During his fifth term in November 2010 he won two concurrent elections: to finish the final months of former Senator Barack Obama's term and to serve the next six-year term. He was sworn in on November 29, 2010^[3], and then began a six-year Senate term in January 2011.

In January 2012, Kirk suffered a stroke; he has been hospitalized, and his physicians expect long-term physical impairments but not cognitive ones.^[4]

Early life and education[link]

Kirk was born in Champaign, Illinois, the son of Judith Ann (née Brady) and Francis Gabriel "Frank" Kirk.^[5][6][7] After graduating from New Trier East High School in 1977 he attended Blackburn College in Carlinville, Illinois for two years, before transferring to Cornell University, where he graduated cum laude with a B.A. in History.^[8] Kirk later obtained a masters degree from the London School of Economics and a Juris Doctor (J.D.) from Georgetown University Law Center.^[9][10]

Teaching career[link]

While Kirk was an undergraduate student at Cornell University he held a work study job supervising a play group at the Forest Home Chapel nursery school. After getting his masters degree, Kirk taught for one year at a private school in London.^[11][12] He later stated in speeches and interviews that he had been a nursery and middle school teacher. For example, Kirk claimed in a speech to the Illinois Education Association, "As a former nursery school and middle school teacher, I know some of what it takes to bring order to class." However, a member of the Forest Home Chapel said, "He was never, ever considered a teacher [at the nursery school]."^[11]

In discussing problems in the educational system early in his congressional career, Kirk addressed the brevity of his teaching career: “I did leave the teaching profession, but if we had addressed some of the teacher development issues, which I want to raise with you, I might have stayed.”^[11][13]

Military service[link]

Kirk was commissioned as an intelligence officer in the United States Navy Reserve in 1989.^[10]

In 1999 Kirk was recalled to active duty in Operation Allied Force for the bombing of Yugoslavia. He served from to April 10 to June 6, 1999 as the intelligence officer of VAQ-209.^[14] VAQ-209 was combined with three other EA-6B squadrons to form an ad hoc unit called Electronic Attack Wing Aviano, Italy. VAQ-140 had tactical command of the combined unit.^[15] In May, 2000, the National Military Intelligence Association bestowed the organization's Vice Admiral Rufus L. Taylor Award to Intelligence Division Electronic Attack Wing Aviano, Italy.^[16]

In March and April, 2000 Kirk trained with an EC-130 squadron based in Turkey. Kirk took a flight over Iraq as part of Operation Northern Watch, which enforced a no fly zone over the northern section of Iraq.^[17]

Kirk has served three, two-week reserve deployments in Afghanistan, with the latest concluding in September 2011.^[18]

Awards[link]

During his military career, Kirk has been awarded the following medals: the Navy and Marine Corps Commendation Medal, Navy Achievement Medal, National Defense Service Medal, and the Global War on Terrorism Service Medal, as well as the Joint Meritorious Unit Award, the Navy Unit Commendation, and the Navy Meritorious Unit Commendation. He continues his service in the United States Navy Reserve holding the rank of Commander.^[19]

Kirk corrected claims he had made about being awarded "Navy Intelligence Officer of the Year" after it was brought to the media's attention by his Democratic opponent, Alexi Giannoulias.^[20] In a 2002 House committee hearing recorded by C-Span, Kirk said, "I was the Navy's Intelligence Officer of the Year," an achievement he said gave him special qualifications to discuss national security spending.^[19] However, in May 2010, the Washington Post reported that Kirk's claim to having been named the Navy's “Intelligence Officer of the Year” was erroneous.^[21] The National Military Intelligence Association gave the Vice Admiral Rufus L. Taylor Award to the entire Intelligence Division Electronic Attack Wing at Aviano.^[19] Kirk was the lead intelligence officer for VAQ-209, one of the four squadrons assigned to the Electronic Attack Wing. VAQ-140 had tactical command.^[15] Kirk later apologized for this and other errors, including claims of having been fired upon during an aerial reconnaissance mission in Iraq, about which there is no official record, and of having participated in Operation Desert Storm when in fact he did not.^[22]

On June 7, 2010, Medal of Honor recipient and advocate of Veteran's benefits, Allen Lynch, deemed Mark Kirk's apologies adequate, and further commented: “To me, in my opinion, it's just a bunch of nit picking. Plus, he's done a christ ton for veterans. So I think this is being blown way out of proportion".^[23]

Service under fire[link]

Controversy regarding Kirk's military record continued as other statements surfaced, such as Kirk stating “the last time I was in Iraq I was in uniform, flying at 20,000 feet, and the Iraqi Air Defense network was shooting at us.” Kirk has since clarified his previous statements, admitting that he was never fired on as he flew over Iraq or Kosovo.^[24] “I simply misremembered [sic] it wrong,” he told The Chicago Sun-Times, referring to his military record.^[25]

Military politicking[link]

On December 18, 2009, Undersecretary of Defense Gail H. McGinn noted in a memo that Kirk had on two previous active duty periods engaged in politicking—violation of military policy by participating in political activities while on active duty, per Department of Defense regulations. On one occasion Congressman Kirk commented on Rod Blagojevich's arrest and posted a tweet while on duty with the Navy in Afghanistan.^[26] According to the Pentagon, Kirk was required to sign a statement acknowledging he knew the rules and wouldn't break them again.^[27]

Early political career[link]

Kirk worked on the staff of John Porter, the former holder of Illinois’s 10th congressional district. From 1991 to 1993, Kirk was the Special Assistant to the Assistant Secretary of State in the U.S. State Department. Kirk was an attorney for Baker & McKenzie from 1993 to 1995. In 1995, Kirk was named as a counsel to the House International Relations Committee. He remained counsel to the House International Relations Committee until 1999.^[10]

U.S. House of Representatives[link]

Kirk as a Congressman.

Elections[link]

Kirk was originally elected in 2000 with 51%. He won re-election with comfortable margins in 2002 and 2004. He defeated Dan Seals by a five point margin in 2006, and defeated him again by the same margin in a rematch in 2008.^[28]

Tenure[link]

Kirk was a member of the House Iran Working Group, the founder and co-chair of the House U.S.-China Working Group,^[29] the co-chair of the Congressional Caucus on Armenian Issues,^[10] the co-chair of the Albanian Issues Caucus in ex Yugoslavia,^[30] and a member of the GOP Tuesday Group.^[31] During his House tenure, he was a member of the House Appropriations Committee.^[32] Before leaving for the Senate, Kirk had been named to the Appropriations Committee.

During his tenure in the House, Kirk voted for the Waxman-Markey "Cap-and-Trade" bill.^[33][34]

Immigration[link]

Kirk attracted controversy by stating that he was not opposed if the immigration process in the United States discriminates against Arab males from certain countries. He stated, "I’m OK with discrimination against young Arab males from terrorist-producing states. I’m OK with that."^[35]

U.S. Senate[link]

2010 election[link]

On July 20, 2009, Kirk announced his candidacy for the U.S. Senate election for the seat held by Roland Burris, which had been held by Barack Obama before his election as president. On February 2, 2010, Kirk won the Republican primary with 56.6 percent of the vote; no other candidate had as much as 20 percent.^[36] He ran against Democratic nominee Alexi Giannoulias, Green Party nominee LeAlan Jones, and Libertarian nominee Mike Labno. During the Illinois U.S. Senate election campaign in 2010, Kirk and Giannoulias were in a hotly contested debate. Kirk (R) defeated Giannoulias in the election for the full 6-year term, getting 48% to Giannoulias's 46%. Kirk changed his position on Cap and Trade legislation during the campaign saying he voted for it "because it was in the narrow interests of my Congressional district," but that as a representative of the entire state of Illinois, "I will vote No on that bill.”^[37]

Tenure[link]

On December 18, 2010, Kirk voted in favor of the Don't Ask, Don't Tell Repeal Act of 2010.^[38] He was one of only two Republicans to oppose legislation to detain American citizens indefinitely.^[39] Kirk sits at the Senate's coveted candy desk.^[40]

Caucus memberships[link]

• Albanian Issue Caucus (Co-Chair)
• Congressional Diabetes Caucus (Vice-Chair)
• International Conservation Caucus

Committee assignments[link]

• Committee on Appropriations
  • Subcommittee on Financial Services and General Government
  • Subcommittee on Labor, Health and Human Services, Education and Related Agencies
  • Subcommittee on Military Construction, Veterans Affairs, and Related Agencies (Ranking Member)
  • Subcommittee on State, Foreign Operations, and Related Programs
  • Subcommittee on Transportation, Housing and Urban Development, and Related Agencies
• Committee on Banking, Housing, and Urban Affairs
  • Subcommittee on Housing, Transportation, and Community Development
  • Subcommittee on Security and International Trade and Finance
  • Subcommittee on Securities, Insurance, and Investment
• Committee on Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions
  • Subcommittee on Children and Families
  • Subcommittee on Employment and Workplace Safety
• Special Committee on Aging

Personal life[link]

In February 1998, Kirk met his future wife, Kimberly Vertolli, a Naval Intelligence Officer, by chance, while the two were on duty together at the Pentagon.^[41] “It was supposed to be my weekend off ... but Saddam had just thrown out the weapons inspectors and we were preparing for a strike on Baghdad,” Vertolli said, according to Capitol File magazine.^[42][43] The two married in August 2001, when Kirk was 41.^[44] After eight years of marriage, the two separated, finalizing their divorce in the summer of 2009. Reports have noted that the divorce was an amicable one and the two remain close friends.^[45]

Kirk was earlier engaged to Virginia Hurt Johnson, whom he met while both were practicing law in Washington, DC, in 1994.^[46] Johnson became the Republican candidate for the U.S. House of Representatives in the 13th congressional district of North Carolina in 2004. She was Counsel to the House Armed Services Committee and was the Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense for House Legislative Affairs under Secretaries Rumsfeld and Gates.^[46]

Stroke and Recovery[link]

On January 23, 2012, Senator Kirk underwent surgery at Northwestern Memorial Hospital in Chicago following a stroke; he underwent neurosurgery to remove two small pieces of brain tissue rendered dysfunctional by the stroke and he had a piece of his cranium temporarily removed to lessen any danger from the brain swelling process. His neurosurgeon, Dr. Fessler,^[47] expected him to have to spend a lengthy period in inpatient and outpatient stroke rehabilitation, but his cognitive functions, motor skills, and vital functions were largely unaffected by the stroke, save for the fact that his left side has a marked degree of weakness, which may improve during the healing process. Even barring any complications or further cerebrovascular incidents, it would still be months before any decision can be made about returning to the Senate.^[4]

On May 1, 2012, Kirk was sent home from a rehabilitation center. A statement from his family said the Illinois Republican would continue to work on rehabilitation on an outpatient basis, but that he has progressed enough to be able to move home with his family.^[48] On May 8, 2012, Kirk’s staff released a video showing Kirk walking on a treadmill and down a hallway at the Rehabilitation Institute of Chicago as doctors work with him to help fully regain the use of his left side.^[49]

Electoral history[link]

References[link]

External links[link]

Wikimedia Commons has media related to: Mark Kirk

• U.S. Senator Mark Kirk official U.S. Senate site
• Kirk for Senate official campaign site
• Biography at WhoRunsGov.com at The Washington Post
• Biography at the Biographical Directory of the United States Congress
• Voting record maintained by The Washington Post
• Biography, voting record, and interest group ratings at Project Vote Smart
• Congressional profile at GovTrack
• Congressional profile at OpenCongress
• Issue positions and quotes at On the Issues
• Financial information at OpenSecrets.org
• Staff salaries, trips and personal finance at LegiStorm.com
• Campaign finance reports and data at the Federal Election Commission
• Appearances on C-SPAN programs
• Appearances at the Internet Movie Database
• Collected news and commentary at The New York Times
• Works by or about Mark Kirk in libraries (WorldCat catalog)
• Profile from SourceWatch
• Mark Kirk's file at PolitiFact.com
• Mark Kirk and Dodie McCracken photo caption available at September 12, 2011 slideshow of Adler Planetarium fete.

v t e United States Senators from Illinois Class 2 Thomas McLean Baker Robinson McRoberts Semple S. Douglas Browning Richardson Yates Logan Davis Cullom Lewis McCormick Deneen Lewis Slattery Brooks P. Douglas Percy Simon Durbin Class 3 Edwards McLean Kane Ewing Young Breese Shields Trumbull Oglesby Logan Farwell Palmer Mason Hopkins Lorimer Sherman McKinley Glenn Dieterich Lucas Dirksen Smith Stevenson III Dixon Moseley Braun Fitzgerald Obama Burris Kirk

Jay Carney
29th White House Press Secretary
Incumbent
Assumed office February 11, 2011
President	Barack Obama
Deputy	Jennifer Psaki
Preceded by	Robert Gibbs
Personal details
Born	James Carney (1965-05-22) May 22, 1965 (age 47) Washington, D.C., U.S.
Political party	Democratic Party
Spouse(s)	Claire Shipman
Children	2
Alma mater	Yale University
Profession	Journalist
Website	White House Briefing Room

James "Jay" Carney (born May 22, 1965) is President Barack Obama's second White House Press Secretary.^[1] Prior to his appointment as Press Secretary, replacing Robert Gibbs, he was director of communications to Vice President Joe Biden.^[2] Carney previously served as Washington Bureau Chief for Time magazine, a post he held from September 2005 until December 2008, and as a regular contributor in the "roundtable" segment of ABC News' This Week with George Stephanopoulos.