Rousey felt she needed to avoid wasting females’s MMA from ‘that dishonest ass b*tch’ Cyborg; Cyborg responds
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Ronda Rousey became finest two fights into her MMA occupation when she signed with Strikeforce. Quickly after, she grew to turn into one among the faces of the sport and helped usher females into UFC.
It’s been documented frequently over that UFC CEO Dana White famously talked about females would never fight in the octagon, but Rousey grew to turn into the game-changer that altered his imaginative and prescient for the promotion. Nonetheless the total skill aid in 2011, Rousey became correct an up-an-coming fighter hoping she would possibly perchance perchance web ample of an affect for any individual esteem White to peek her.
Taking a gaze aid now, Rousey admits she felt a responsibility to web White’s attention, seriously with the accelerate bet that females had been potentially on the decreasing block after UFC bought Strikeforce.
“Of us omit how fragile that enviornment became and how closing-minute I became ready to web us in,” Rousey knowledgeable Chris Van Vliet. “Strikeforce became the suitable organization that became truly showcasing females and that became on myth of Gina Carano, because her dad became alive to with the Nevada Athletic Payment and became ready to sanction fights for her and all these objects.
“When she became long previous, Cris Cyborg’s pumped to the f*cking gills with steroids. No one needs to see that dishonest ass bitch. The whole lot correct tanked. The division became loss of life. The UFC bought Strikeforce and it became assumed they had been correct going to absorb the total male skill that they loved and fold the overall organization, because that’s what they did with PRIDE, that’s what they did with WEC, that became their industrial model. So there became a matter of time.”
Earlier than Rousey’s arrival, Carano became positively the largest enormous establish in females’s MMA, but she successfully left the sport in 2009 after she suffered a first-spherical TKO loss to Cris Cyborg. Her departure from MMA didn’t stop Strikeforce from selling females’s fights, but Rousey knew UFC shopping for the organization became going to potentially swap all the things.
From that moment forward, Rousey made it her mission to web attention by any manner needed, and her devastating finishes combined with her penchant for the dramatic every time she touched a microphone helped her turn into a large establish.
“I became the predominant lady signed to Strikeforce because it got bought by Zuffa, and I became brought in to substitute Gina Carano because she became alleged to are accessible in for a comeback but she wasn’t medically cleared to come aid for her match,” Rousey talked about. “So she pulled out they in most cases signed me to fight that identical chick, Sarah D’Alelio. So I knew the clock became ticking.
“It became correct a matter of time sooner than they closed the overall thing and there would be nowhere that would possibly perchance perchance perchance showcase females’s MMA, so I had that phenomenal time to be definite that that Dana [White] couldn’t scuttle a single day with out seeing my establish somewhere. The rest is history.”
Even after White decided to promote females’s fights in UFC, Rousey restful didn’t feel esteem she became standing on solid ground.
On the starting, females finest had one UFC division and it became headed up by Rousey along with her phenomenal skill to scheme a crowd. Even after UFC dedicated to a deeper roster for females and 2 divisions, Rousey restful wasn’t definite what would happen if she correct decided one day to stroll away.
“As soon as females had been dropped on the UFC, [Dana] talked about, ‘Right here’s an experiment, right here’s to evaluation the very best contrivance it goes,’” Rousey talked about. “It got to a degree where we needed to evaluation the very best contrivance it would scuttle with out me because it became so reckoning on me.
“Whereas, I mediate if I retired undefeated and left, I don’t know what it would possibly perchance maybe well be esteem. Due to they’ve already brought in the [145-pound] division and closed it. They’re not against closing divisions.”
In the intervening time, UFC promotes three varied females’s divisions, and whereas no female fighter has reached stratospheric levels of fame esteem Rousey, there’s numerous females’s skill on the tip of the sport.
Rousey issued a reminder to the fresh reduce of UFC opponents — male and feminine — that they all fragment a responsibility that goes beyond correct coaching stressful and exhibiting up to compete.
Phase of the explanation she became ready to convince White to bring her and the females’s division into UFC became because she commanded so phenomenal attention. Rousey believes extra opponents must shield shut peek that their job goes to this level beyond correct combating.
“I mediate one thing people don’t perceive now as opponents — and these that make perceive it make extraordinarily successfully — it’s esteem, it’s indispensable to promote your fight as stressful as you practice for it,” Rousey talked about. “Slightly a few people feel so precise of their space that they’re going to correct dispute up and fight they in most cases would possibly perchance have to restful web all the things thrown at them. It’s not the firm that promotes you. You shouldn’t be trying forward to the firm to utilize all this money to promote you. What are they going to make? Make extra commercials? That you just must to head accessible and promote your self. That you just must to head accessible and be a personality and web your fights correct into a narrative, and the things that I discovered from professional wrestling.
“Earlier than I even got into there, I became trying to bring that into females’s MMA, and I mediate one contrivance of them omit they’re not alleged to correct be athletes but entertainers. It’s not one thing you make on the facet. It’s one thing you make equally as stressful and put correct as phenomenal effort and time and focal level into. Slightly a few people correct mediate of it as a difficulty or one thing they’ve to make for the explanation that firm makes them make it. That’s why you review some those that are absolutely wonderful and no one exterior of MMA has ever heard of them.”
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Beloved actor’s autopsy indicated “acute effects of ketamine” as a cause of death
Matthew Perry’s death is being investigated by the Los Angeles Police Department and the Drug Enforcement Administration following the Los Angeles Medical Examiner’s autopsy report findings, which stated he died of “acute effects of ketamine,” the LAPD confirmed to Rolling Stone.
The Friends star died on Oct. 28 at the age of 54. The autopsy report filed in December said the “high levels of ketamine” found in Perry’s blood at the time of his death likely resulted in the beloved actor lapsing “into unconsciousness,” which in turn caused him to drown. Coronary artery disease and buprenorphine effects were also cited as contributing conditions.
In January, the Los Angeles Police Department confirmed that its investigation into Perry’s death had concluded, and the Los Angeles County Medical-Examiner-Coroner’s website listed the case status for Perry’s death as “closed.”
Now, five months after the initial investigation and nearly seven months after Perry’s death, the investigation is now focusing on how much ketamine was in his system and how it may have been obtained. In addition to the LAPD, with the assistance of the DEA, the United States Postal Inspection Service is also involved in investigating the circumstances surrounding the actor’s death.
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Perry had reportedly been undergoing ketamine infusion therapy to treat his depression and anxiety, which was noted in the autopsy report. “His last known treatment was 1 1/2 weeks prior to death, and the ketamine in his system at death could not be from that infusion therapy, since ketamine’s half-life is 3 to 4 hours, or less,” the medical examiner wrote.
Perry was open about his addiction to alcohol and drugs during his life, and he had served several stints in rehab. Perry candidly addressed his struggles in his memoir, Friends, Lovers, and the Big Terrible Thing, which opened with the line: “Hi, my name is Matthew, although you may know me by another name. My friends call me Matty. And I should be dead.” Among the unvarnished details he shared about his addiction, he admitted to taking up to 55 Vicodin a day during the filming of the third season of Friends.
Thirty-five years ago, a misguided AIDS activist developed a portion of malware that encrypted a laptop’s filenames—and asked for US $189 to fill the main that unlocked an troubled system. This “AIDS Trojan” holds the doubtful distinction of being the world’s first portion of ransomware. Within the intervening decades the encryption behind ransomware has change into more sophisticated and tougher to crack, and the underlying criminal endeavor has most productive blossomed adore a dreadful weed. Among the most shady of online shady firms, ransomware has now crossed the $1 billion stamp in ransoms paid out final 300 and sixty five days. Equally unfortunately, the risk on the present time is on the upward thrust, too. And within the identical manner that the “as a service” trade model has sprouted up with instrument-as-a-service (SaaS), the ransomware subject has now spawned a ransomware-as-a-service (RaaS) trade.
How has the ransomware ache changed lately? Was as soon as there an inflection point?
Christensen: I would train, [starting in] 2022, which the defining feature of is the Russian invasion of Eastern Ukraine. I see that as a roughly a dividing line within the most modern ache.
[Ransomware threat actors] contain shifted their manner in the direction of the core infrastructure of firms. And specifically, there are teams now that contain had famous success encrypting the expansive-scale hypervisors, these programs that usually fill fraudulent computer programs, digital machines that ride on servers that can also furthermore be mountainous in scale. So by being in a arrangement to assault those resources, the risk actors are in a arrangement to fabricate big damage, usually taking down a total firm’s infrastructure in a single assault. And a majority of these are attributable to the truth that this roughly infrastructure is sturdy to retain as much as this point to patch for vulnerabilities and things adore that.
Earlier than 2022, many of these teams did not must assault obvious forms of targets. Shall we train, when the Colonial Pipeline firm [was attacked], there changed into as soon as tons of chatter afterwards that presumably that changed into as soon as a mistake because that assault purchased tons of attention. The FBI assign tons of resources into going after [the perpetrators]. And there changed into as soon as a feeling amongst many of the ransomware teams, “Don’t fabricate this. We contain an infinite trade right here. Don’t mess it up by making it so more likely that the U.S. government’s going to fabricate something about this.”
How fabricate the risk actors were announcing these forms of things?
Christensen: Because we work with tons of risk intelligence consultants. And a risk intelligence expert does tons of things. However one in every of the things they fabricate is that they fight to inhabit the identical criminal forums as these teams—to gain intelligence on what are they doing, what are they rising, and things adore that. It’s moderately bit adore espionage. And it entails creating fraudulent personas that you insert info, and you fill credibility. The opposite aspect is that the Russian criminal teams are relatively boisterous. They’ve wide egos. And they also furthermore focus on loads. They focus on on Reddit. They focus on over with journalists. So that you gain info from a differ of sources. In most cases we’ve viewed the teams, let’s train, if truth be told contain codes of ethics, as soon as you will, about what they can or received’t fabricate. Within the event that they inadvertently assault a sanatorium, when the sanatorium tells them, “Hiya, you attacked the sanatorium, and you’re purported to not fabricate that,” in those circumstances, a majority of these teams contain decrypted the sanatorium’s networks with out charging a price sooner than.
“There changed into as soon as a feeling amongst many of the ransomware teams, ‘Don’t fabricate this. We contain an infinite trade right here.’”
However that, I judge, has changed. And I judge it changed sometime of the struggle in Ukraine. Because I judge many of the Russian teams usually now realize we are successfully at struggle with every other. Surely, the Russians judge the USA is at struggle with them. Even as you occur to explore at what’s occurring in Ukraine, I would train we are. No person declares struggle on every other anymore. However our weapons are being historical in combating.
And so how are of us responding to ransomware attacks since the Ukraine invasion?
Christensen: So now, they’ve taken it to a worthy better level, and they’re going after firms and banks. They’re going after expansive teams and taking down all of the infrastructure that runs the entirety from their endeavor programs, their ERP programs that they expend for all their firms, their emails, et cetera. And they’re furthermore stealing their info and keeping it hostage, in a approach.
They’ve long gone support to, basically, the excellent ache point, which is, you would possibly possibly possibly well possibly presumably also’t fabricate what your trade is purported to fabricate. Understanding to be one of the crucial first questions we query after we gain smitten by one in every of these eventualities—if we don’t know who the firm is—is “What is successfully the burn rate on your trade each day that you’re not in a arrangement to expend these programs?” And some of them take relatively of effort to fill how worthy it’s far. Usually, I’m not attempting to search out a true quantity, accurate a overall number. Is it a million greenbacks a day? Is it 5 million? Is it 10? Because no topic that quantity is, that’s what then you definately initiate defining as an endpoint for what you would possibly possibly possibly well possibly presumably also must pay.
What is ransomware-as-a-service? How has it stepped forward? And what are its implications?
Christensen: In most cases, is it’s nearly adore the ransomware teams created a platform, very professionally. And if of a technique to atomize correct into a firm’s programs, you manner them and you train, “I contain gain admission to to this methodology.” They furthermore can contain of us which will be proper at navigating the community when they’re inside of. Because as soon as you’re inside of, strive to be very careful now to not tip off the firm that something’s took arrangement. They’ll grab the [company’s] info. Then there’ll be both the identical crew or any person else in that crew who will fill a bespoke or customized version of the encryption for that firm, for that sufferer. And they deploy it.
Since you’re doing it at scale, the ransomware can also furthermore be relatively sophisticated and as much as this point and made better at any time when from the classes they learn.
Then they’ve a negotiator who will negotiate the ransom. And they usually contain an escrow system for the money. So after they gain the ransom money, the money comes into one digital pockets—usually a pair, but on the total one. And then it will get split up amongst of us who participated within the tournament. And the of us that ride this platform, the ransomware-as-a-service, gain the bulk of it because they did the work to arrangement up your total aspect. However then everyone will get a minimize from that.
And since you’re doing it at scale, the ransomware can also furthermore be relatively sophisticated and as much as this point and made better at any time when from the classes they learn. In disclose that’s what ransomware as a service is.
How fabricate ransomware-as-a-service firms continue to fabricate trade?
Christensen: Successfully, they’re untouchable moral now, because they’re largely based entirely in Russia. And they operate the expend of infrastructure that is highly sturdy to take down. It’s nearly bulletproof. It’s not something you would possibly possibly possibly well possibly presumably also budge to a Google and train, “This website online is criminal, take it down.” They operate in a obvious form of environment. That said, we contain had success in taking down about a of the infrastructure. So the FBI specifically working with international guidelines enforcement has had some famous successes not too prolonged ago because they’ve been placing tons of effort into this in taking down a majority of these teams. One specifically changed into as soon as known as Hive.
They were very, very proper, caused tons of damage. And the FBI changed into as soon as in a arrangement to infiltrate their system, gain the decryption keys successfully, give those to tons of victims. Over a interval of nearly six months, many, many firms that reported their assault to the FBI were in a arrangement to gain free decryption. Various firms didn’t, which is truly, basically silly, and they paid. And that’s something that I on the total accurate am amazed that there are firms available that don’t document to the FBI because there’s no downside to doing that. However there are tons of attorneys who don’t must document for his or her clients to the FBI, which I judge is highly short-sighted.
However it undoubtedly takes months or years of effort. And the moment you fabricate, these teams pass in other places. You’re not placing them in penitentiary very on the total. So usually, they accurate fade after which attain collectively in other places.
What’s an example of a up to date ransomware assault?
Christensen: One who I judge is truly fascinating, which I changed into as soon as not eager with, is the assault on a firm known as CDK. This one purchased relatively relatively of publicity. So well-known parts are relatively successfully-known. CDK is a firm that offers the support office services for tons of car sellers. And so as soon as you were attempting to amass a vehicle within the final couple of months, or were attempting to gain your vehicle serviced, you went to the dealer, and they were doing nothing on their computer programs. It changed into as soon as all on paper.
It appears to be like the risk actor then came support in and attacked a 2d time, this time, harming broader programs, in conjunction with backups.
And this has if truth be told had relatively an raise out within the auto trade. Because as soon as you interrupt that system, it cascades. And what they did in this particular case, the ransomware crew went after the core system shimmering that this firm would then usually take down all these other firms. In disclose that it changed into as soon as a basically serious whisper. The firm, from what we’ve been in a arrangement to learn, made some serious errors on the front stop.
The first aspect is rule #1, for folks who can also merely contain a ransomware or any roughly a compromise of your system, you first contain to originate certain you’ve ejected the risk actor from your system. Within the event that they’re aloof inside of, you’ve purchased an infinite whisper. So what it appears to be like is that they realized they [were being attacked] over a weekend, I judge, and they realized, “Boy, if we don’t gain these programs support up and working, tons of our customers are going to be basically, basically upset with us.” So they decided to revive. And after they did that, they aloof had the risk actor within the system.
And it appears to be like the risk actor then came support in and attacked a 2d time, this time, harming broader programs, in conjunction with backups. So after they did that, they basically took the firm down fully, and it’s taken them after all a month plus to enhance, costing hundreds of millions of dollars.
So what can also we take as classes learned from the CDK assault?
Christensen: There are tons of stuff you would possibly possibly possibly well possibly presumably also fabricate to substantiate out to decrease the danger of ransomware. However the #1 at this point is you’ve purchased to contain a proper belief, and the belief has purchased to be examined. If the day you gain hit by ransomware is the first day that your management crew talks about ransomware or who’s going to fabricate what, you would possibly possibly possibly well possibly presumably also very successfully be already so behind the curve.
It’s the planning that is terribly well-known, not the belief.
And tons of of us judge, “Successfully, a belief. Okay. So we contain a belief. We’re going to appear at this checklist.” However that’s not proper. You don’t observe a belief. The point of the belief is to gain your of us ready with a notion to take care of this. It’s the planning that is terribly well-known, not the belief. And that takes tons of effort.
I judge tons of firms, frankly, don’t contain the imagination at this put see what can also occur to them in this roughly assault. Which is a pity because, in tons of ways, they’re gambling that other of us are going to gain hit sooner than them. And from my perspective, that’s not a predominant trade strategy. For the reason that incidence of this risk is highly serious. And everyone’s roughly the expend of the identical system. So that you if truth be told are accurate gambling that they’re not going to make a choice you out of one other 10 firms.
What are about a of the fresh applied sciences and tactics that ransomware teams are the expend of on the present time to evade detection and to bypass security features?
Christensen: So by and expansive, they largely aloof expend the identical tried and proper tactics. And that’s miserable because what that must expose you is that many of these firms contain not improved their security in accordance with what they contain to contain learned. So about a of the most standard assault vectors, so the ways into these firms, is the truth that some half of the infrastructure isn’t very staunch by multi-aspect authentication.
Companies on the total will train, “Successfully, we contain multi-aspect authentication on our emails, so we’re proper, moral?” What they put out of your mind is that they’ve tons of different ways into the firm’s community—largely things adore digital non-public networks, faraway instruments, a total bunch things adore that. And folks are not staunch by multi-aspect authentication. And after they’re learned, and it’s not complex for a risk actor to search out them. Because on the total, as soon as you explore at, train, a itemizing of instrument that a firm is the expend of, and you will also scan these items externally, you’ll see the version of a particular form of instrument. And that that instrument does not strengthen multi-aspect authentication presumably, or it’s very easy to see that for folks who assign in a password, it doesn’t suggested you for a multi-aspect. Then you definately merely expend brute pressure tactics, which will be very efficient, to bet the password, and you gain in.
All americans, almost talking, makes expend of the identical passwords. They reuse the passwords. So it’s very frequent for these criminal teams that hacked, train, a expansive firm on one level, they gain the total passwords there. And then they resolve out that that particular person is at one other firm, and they expend that identical password. In most cases they’ll strive diversifications. That works nearly 100% of the time.
Is there a technology that anti-ransomware advocates and ransomware fighters are trying ahead to on the present time? Or is the game more about public awareness?
Christensen:Microsoft has been very efficient at taking down expansive bot infrastructures, working with the Division of Justice. However this must be completed with more independence, because if the government has to bless every body of this stuff, successfully, then nothing will occur. So we contain to arrangement up a program. We allow a obvious crew of firms to keep this. They’ve ideas of engagement. They’ve to assert the entirety they fabricate. And they originate money for it.
I suggest, they’re going to be taking a risk, so that they must originate money off it. Shall we train, be allowed to retain half the Bitcoin they grab from these teams or something adore that.
However I judge what I would favor to see is that these risk actors don’t sleep comfortably at night, the identical manner that the of us combating protection moral now don’t gain to sleep comfortably at night. Otherwise, they’re sitting over there being in a arrangement to fabricate no topic they need, after they need, at their initiative. In a militia mindset, that’s the worst aspect. When your enemy has the total initiative and can belief with out any ache of repercussion, you’re basically in a hideous arrangement.
PHOENIX (AP) — Blas Sanchez was nearing the end of a 20-year stretch in an Arizona prison when he was leased out to work at Hickman’s Family Farms, which sells eggs that have ended up in the supply chains of huge companies like McDonald’s, Target and Albertsons. While assigned to a machine that churns chicken droppings into compost, his right leg got pulled into a chute with a large spiraling augur.
“I could hear ‘crunch, crunch, crunch, crunch,’” Sanchez said. “I couldn’t feel anything, but I could hear the crunch.”
He recalled frantically clawing through mounds of manure to tie a tourniquet around his bleeding limb. He then waited for what felt like hours while rescuers struggled to free him so he could be airlifted to a hospital. His leg was amputated below the knee.
Nationwide, hundreds of thousands of prisoners are put to work every year, some of whom are seriously injured or killed after being given dangerous jobs with little or no training, The Associated Press found. They include prisoners fighting wildfires, operating heavy machinery or working on industrial-sized farms and meat-processing plants tied to the supply chains of leading brands. These men and women are part of a labor system that – often by design – largely denies them basic rights and protections guaranteed to other American workers.
The findings are part of a broader two-year AP investigation that linked some of the world’s largest and best-known companies – from Cargill and Walmart to Burger King – to prisoners who can be paid pennies an hour or nothing at all.
Prison labor began during slavery and exploded as incarceration rates soared, disproportionately affecting people of color. As laws have steadily changed to make it easier for private companies to tap into the swelling captive workforce, it has grown into a multibillion-dollar industry that operates with little oversight.
Laws in some states spell it out clearly: Prisoners aren’t classified as employees, whether they’re working inside correctional facilities or for outside businesses through prison contracts or work-release programs. That can exclude them from workers’ compensation benefits, along with state and federal laws that set minimum standards for health and safety on the job.
It’s almost impossible to know how many incarcerated workers are hurt or killed each year, partly because they often don’t report injuries, fearing retaliation or losing privileges like contact with their families. Privacy laws add to the challenges of obtaining specific data. In California, for instance, more than 700 work-related injuries were recorded between 2018 and 2022 in the state’s prison industries program, but the documents provided to the AP were heavily redacted.
At Hickman’s Family Farms, logs obtained by the AP from Arizona’s corrections department listed about 250 prison worker injuries during the same time frame. Most were minor, but some serious cases ranged from deep cuts and sliced-off fingertips to smashed hands.
An Associated Press investigation into prison labor in the United States found that prisoners who are hurt or killed on the job are often being denied the rights and protections offered to other American workers. (AP video: Robert Bumsted, Eugene Garcia)
“They end up being mangled in ways that will affect them for the rest of their lives,” said Joel Robbins, a lawyer who has represented several prisoners hired by Hickman’s. “If you’re going to come out with a good resume, you should come out with two hands and two legs and eyes to work.”
The AP requested comment from the companies it identified as having connections to prison labor. Most did not respond, but Cargill — the largest private company in the U.S. with $177 billion in revenue last year — said it was continuing to work “to ensure there is no prison labor in our extended supplier network.” Others said they were looking for ways to take action without disrupting crucial supply chains.
Prisoners across the country can be sentenced to hard labor, forced to work and punished if they refuse, including being sent to solitary confinement. They cannot protest against poor conditions, and it’s usually difficult for them to sue.
Most jobs are inside prisons, where inmates typically earn a few cents an hour doing things like laundry and mopping floors. The limited outside positions often pay minimum wage, but some states deduct up to 60% off the top.
In Arizona, jobs at Hickman’s are voluntary and often sought after, not just for the money, but also because employment and affordable housing are offered upon release.
During a daylong guided tour of the company’s egg-packaging operations and housing units, two brothers who run the family business stressed to an AP reporter that safety and training are top priorities. Several current and formerly incarcerated workers there praised the company, which markets eggs with brand names like Land O’ Lakes, Eggland’s Best and Hickman’s, and have been sold everywhere from Safeway to Kroger.
“We work on a farm with machinery and live animals, so it is important to follow the instructions,” said Ramona Sullins, who has been employed by Hickman’s for more than eight years before and after her release from prison. “I have heard and seen of people being hurt, but when they were hurt, they weren’t following the guidelines.”
AP reporters spoke with more than 100 current and former prisoners across the country – along with family members of workers who were killed – about various prison labor jobs. Roughly a quarter of them related stories involving injuries or deaths, from severe burns and traumatic head wounds to severed body parts. Reporters also talked to lawyers, researchers and experts, and combed through thousands of documents, including the rare lawsuits that manage to wind their way through the court system.
While many of the jobs are hidden, others are in plain view, like prisoners along busy highways doing road maintenance. In Alabama alone, at least three men have died since 2015, when 21-year-old Braxton Moon was hit by a tractor-trailer that swerved off the interstate. The others were killed while picking up trash.
In many states, laws mandate that prisoners be deployed during emergencies and disasters for jobs like hazardous material cleanup or working on the frontlines of hurricanes while residents evacuate. They’re also sent to fight fires, filling vital worker shortage gaps, including in some rural communities in Georgia where incarcerated firefighters are paid nothing as the sole responders for everything from car wrecks to medical emergencies.
California currently has about 1,250 prisoners trained to fight fires and has used them since the 1940s. It pays its “Angels in Orange” $2.90 to $5.12 a day, plus an extra $1 an hour when they work during emergencies.
When a brush fire broke out in 2016, Shawna Lynn Jones and her crew were sent to the wealthy Malibu beach community near California’s rugged Pacific Coast Highway, which was built by prisoners a century ago. The 22-year-old, who had just six weeks left on her sentence for a nonviolent crime, died after a boulder fell 100 feet from a hillside onto her head – one of 10 incarcerated firefighters killed in the state since 1989.
Unlike many places, California does offer workers’ compensation to prisoners, which Jones’ mother, Diana Baez, said covered hospital expenses and the funeral.
Baez said her daughter loved being a firefighter and was treated as a fallen hero, but noted that even though she was on life support and never regained consciousness, “When I walked behind the curtain, she was still handcuffed to that damn gurney.”
The California corrections department said prisoners must pass a physical skills test to participate in the program, which “encourages incarcerated people to commit to positive change and self-improvement.” But inmates in some places across the country find it can be extremely difficult to transfer their firefighting skills to outside jobs upon their release due to their criminal records.
In most states, public institutions are not liable for incarcerated workers’ injuries or deaths. But in a case last year, the American Civil Liberties Union represented a Nevada crew sent to mop up a wildfire hotspot. It resulted in a $340,000 settlement that was split eight ways, as well as assurances of better training and equipment going forward.
Rebecca Leavitt said when she and her all-woman team arrived at the site with only classroom training, they did a “hot foot dance” on smoldering embers as their boss yelled “Get back in there!” One crew member’s burned-up boots were duct-taped back together, she said, while others cried out in pain as their socks melted to their feet during nine hours on the ground that paid about $1 an hour.
Two days later, Leavitt said the women finally were taken to an outside hospital, where doctors carved dead skin off the bottoms of their feet, which had sustained second-degree burns. Because they were prisoners, they were denied pain medicine.
“They treated us like we were animals or something,” said Leavitt, adding that the women were afraid to disobey orders in the field or report their injuries for fear they could be sent to a higher-security facility. “The only reason why any of us had to tell them was because we couldn’t walk.”
Officials at Nevada’s Department of Corrections did not respond to requests for comment.
Chris Peterson, the ACLU lawyer who brought the women’s lawsuit, said Nevada’s Legislature has passed laws making it harder for injured prisoners to receive compensation. He noted that the state Supreme Court ruled five years ago that an injured firefighter could receive the equivalent of only about 50 cents a day in workers’ compensation based on how much he earned in prison, instead of the set minimum wage.
“At the end of the day,” Peterson said, “the idea is that if I get my finger lopped off, if I am an incarcerated person working as a firefighter, I am entitled to less relief than if I am a firefighter that’s not incarcerated.”
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A loophole in the 13th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution passed after the Civil War makes forced labor legal, abolishing slavery except “as punishment for a crime.” Efforts are underway to challenge that language at the federal level, and nearly 20 states are working to bring the issue before voters.
Today, about 2 million people are locked up in the U.S. – more than almost any country in the world – a number that began spiking in the 1980s when tough-on-crime laws were passed. More than 800,000 prisoners have some kind of job, from serving food inside facilities to working outside for private companies, including work-release assignments everywhere from KFC to Tyson Foods poultry plants. They’re also employed at state and municipal agencies, and at colleges and nonprofit organizations.
Prisoners are among America’s most vulnerable workers. Since they are not “employees,” the AP found they are denied basic workplace rights and protections. (AP Video)
Few critics believe all prison jobs should be eliminated, but they say work should be voluntary and prisoners should be fairly paid and treated humanely. Correctional officials and others running work programs across the country respond that they place a heavy emphasis on training and that injuries are taken seriously. Many prisoners see work as a welcome break from boredom and violence inside their facilities and, in some places, it can help shave time off sentences.
In many states, prisoners are denied everything from disability benefits to protections guaranteed by the federal Occupational Safety and Health Administration or state agencies that ensure safe conditions for laborers. In Arizona, for instance, the state occupational safety division doesn’t have the authority to pursue cases involving inmate deaths or injuries.
Strikes by prisoners seeking more rights are rare and have been quickly quashed. And the U.S. Supreme Court has ruled that inmates cannot join or form unions. They also can’t call an ambulance or demand to be taken to a hospital, even if they suffer a life-threatening injury on the job.
The barriers for those who decide to sue can be nearly insurmountable, including finding a lawyer willing to take the case. That’s especially true after the federal Prison Litigation Reform Act was passed almost three decades ago to stem a flood of lawsuits that accompanied booming prison populations.
Kandy Fuelling learned that all too well after being gravely injured in 2015 while assigned to work at a Colorado sawmill. She said her lawyer never met with her face-to-face and her suit was dismissed after a court ruled she could not sue state entities, leaving her with zero compensation.
Fuelling, who said she received only a few hours of training at the Pueblo mill, was feeding a conveyor belt used to make pallets when a board got stuck. She said she asked another prisoner if the machinery was turned off, but was told by her manager to “hurry up” and dislodge the jam. She crawled under the equipment and tugged at a piece of splintered lumber. Suddenly, the blade jolted back to life and spiraled toward her head.
“That saw went all the way through my hard hat. … I’m screaming ‘Help me! Help me!’ but no one can hear me because everything is running,” Fuelling said. “All I remember is thinking, ‘Oh my God, I think it just cut my head off.’”
With no first aid kit available, fellow prisoners stuck sanitary pads on her gushing wound and ushered her into a van. But instead of being driven to a nearby emergency room, she was taken to the prison for evaluation. The 5-inch gash, which pierced her skull, eventually was sewn up at an outside hospital.
Despite being dizzy and confused, she said she was put back to work soon after in the prison’s laundry room and received almost no treatment for months, even when her wound oozed green pus. She said she had privileges stripped and eventually was diagnosed with MRSA, an antibiotic-resistant infection. She still suffers short-term memory loss and severe headaches, she said.
The blood was in my eyes, it was gushing, and I didn’t know where I was. I couldn’t figure out what was going on.”
— Kandy Fuelling
The Colorado Department of Corrections had no comment when asked about prisoner training and medical treatment for those injured on the job.
While prisoners have access to low-cost care in correctional facilities nationwide, a typical co-pay of $2 to $5 per visit can be unaffordable for those earning next to nothing. Many inmates say it’s not worth it because the care they receive is often so poor.
Class-action lawsuits have been filed in several states – including Illinois, Idaho, Delaware and Mississippi – alleging everything from needless pain and suffering to deliberate medical neglect and lack of treatment for diseases like hepatitis C.
Some prisoners’ conditions worsened even after getting care for their injuries.
In Georgia, a prison kitchen worker’s leg was amputated after he fell on a wet floor, causing a small cut above his ankle. He was susceptible to infection as a diabetic, but doctors in the infirmary did not stop the wound from festering, according to a lawsuit that was handwritten and filed by the prisoner. It was an unusual case where the state settled – for $550,000 – which kept the prison medical director from going to trial.
In the first part of a sweeping two-year investigation, The Associated Press found that goods these prisoners produce wind up in the supply chains of a dizzying array of products found in most American kitchens, from Frosted Flakes and Ball Park hot dogs to Coca-Cola.
Noah Moore, who lost a finger while working at Hickman’s egg farm in Arizona, had a second finger later amputated due to what he said was poor follow-up treatment in prison after surgery at a hospital. That’s in a state where a federal judge ruled two years ago that the prison medical care was unconstitutional and “plainly, grossly inadequate.”
“I think the healing hurt worse than the actual accident,” Moore said.
The Arizona corrections department would not comment on injuries that occurred during a previous administration, but said prisoners have access to all necessary medical care. The department also stressed the importance of workplace safety training.
Prisons and jails can struggle to find doctors willing to accept jobs, which means they sometimes hire physicians who have been disciplined for misconduct.
A doctor in Louisiana, Randy Lavespere, served two years in prison after buying $8,000 worth of methamphetamine in a Home Depot parking lot in 2006 with intent to distribute. After his release, his medical license was reinstated with restrictions that banned him from practicing in most settings. Still, he was hired by the Louisiana State Penitentiary, the country’s largest maximum-security prison. His license has since been fully reinstated, and he now oversees health care for the entire corrections department.
Over the years, physicians who have worked at Louisiana prisons have had their medical licenses restricted or suspended following offenses ranging from sexual misconduct and possessing child pornography to self-prescribing addictive drugs, according to the state Board of Medical Examiners.
Lavespere could not be reached for comment, but corrections department spokesman Ken Pastorick said all prison doctors are licensed and that the board does not allow physicians to return to work unless they are “deemed competent and have the ability to practice medicine with skill and safety.”
Www.oeisdigitalinvestigator.com: NO REMEDY FOR HARM
Across the country, it’s not uncommon for the relatives of prisoners who died on the job to struggle with determining who’s liable. When workers’ compensation is offered, the amount awarded is typically determined by the size of the worker’s paycheck and usually closes the door on future wrongful death suits.
The few cases that make their way to court can result in meager settlements compared to what the survivors of civilian workers might receive, in part because those behind bars are seen as having little or no future earning potential.
Matthew Baraniak was on work release in 2019 when he was killed at a Pennsylvania heavy machinery service center while operating a scissor lift. He was using a high-heat torch on a garbage truck that was rigged precariously with chains when its weight shifted, causing Baraniak to hit his head and lose control of the burning torch. His body was engulfed in flames.
Ashley Snyder, the mother of Baraniak’s daughter, accepted a workers’ comp offer made to benefit their then 3-year-old child, paying about $700 a month until the girl reaches college age. Family members said their claim against the county running the work-release program was dismissed, and their lawyer told them the best they could hope for was a small settlement from the service center.
“There are no rules,” Holly Murphy, Baraniak’s twin sister, said of the long and confusing process. “It’s just a gray area with no line there that says what’s acceptable, what the laws are.”
Michael Duff, a law professor at Saint Louis University and an expert on labor law, said some people think, “Well, too bad, don’t be a prisoner.” But an entire class of society is being denied civil rights, Duff said, noting that each state has its own system that could be changed to offer prisoners more protections if there’s political will.
“We’ve got this category of human beings that can be wrongfully harmed and yet left with no remedy for their harm,” he said.
Laws sometimes are amended to create even more legal hurdles for those seeking relief.
That’s what happened in Arizona. In 2021, a Hickman’s Family Farms lawyer unsuccessfully tried to get the corrections department to amend its contract to take responsibility for prisoner injuries or deaths, according to emails obtained by the AP. The next year, a newly formed nonprofit organization lobbied for a bill that was later signed into law, blocking prisoners from introducing their medical costs into lawsuits and potentially limiting settlement payouts.
Billy Hickman, one of the siblings who runs the egg company, was listed as a director of the nonprofit. He told the AP that the farm has hired more than 10,000 incarcerated workers over nearly three decades. Because they aren’t eligible for protections like workers’ comp, he said the company tried to limit its exposure to lawsuits partially driven by what he described as zealous attorneys.
“We’re a family business,” he said, “so we take it very seriously that people are safe and secure.”
At the height of the pandemic – when all other outside prison jobs were shut down – Crystal Allen and about 140 other female prisoners were sent to work at Hickman’s, bunking together in a large company warehouse. The egg farm is Arizona Correctional Industries’ biggest customer, bringing in nearly $35 million in revenue in the past six fiscal years.
Allen was earning less than $3 an hour after deductions, including 30% for room and board. She knew it would take time, but hoped to bank a few thousand dollars before her release.
One day, she noticed chicken feeders operating on a belt system weren’t working properly, so she switched the setting to manual and used her hand to smooth the feed into place.
“All of a sudden, the cart just takes off with my thumb,” said Allen, adding she had to use her sock to wrap up her left hand, which was left disfigured. “It’s bleeding really, really bad.”
She sued before the new state law took effect and settled with the company last year for an undisclosed amount. In legal filings, Hickman’s denied any wrongdoing.
Www.oeisdigitalinvestigator.com: THE PAIN LIVES ON
When a 2021 tornado flattened a Kentucky factory that made candles for Bath & Body Works and other major companies, Marco Sanchez risked his life to pull fellow employees from the debris. Eight people were killed, including the correctional officer overseeing Sanchez and other prisoners on a work-release program.
Sanchez fractured ribs and broke his foot and, after being treated at a hospital, was taken to the Christian County Jail. According to an ongoing civil rights lawsuit filed last year, he was sent to solitary confinement there and beaten by guards frustrated by his repeated requests for medical attention, which he said went unmet.
“They were retaliating against me,” said Sanchez , who was homeless when he talked to the AP. “They were telling me, ‘It should have been you … instead of one of ours.’”
Christian County Jail officials would not comment, citing the pending litigation. But attorney Mac Johns, who is representing the correctional officers, disputed Sanchez’s characterization of the care and treatment he received while incarcerated, without elaborating.
A few months after the tornado, Sanchez was portrayed on national television as a hero and given a key to the city, but he questions why he was treated differently than the civilian workers he was employed alongside.
He noted that they got ongoing medical attention and support from their family members at a difficult time. “I didn’t get that,” he said, adding that strong winds and sirens still leave him cowering.
The man who lost his leg while working at the composting chute in Arizona said he, too, continues to struggle, even though nearly a decade has passed since the accident.
Blas Sanchez settled for an undisclosed amount with Hickman’s, which denied liability in court documents. He now runs a motel in Winslow along historic U.S. Route 66 and said he’s still often in agony – either from his prosthetic or shooting pains from the nerves at the end of his severed limb.
And then there’s the mental anguish. Sometimes, he wonders if continuing to live is worth it.
“I wanted to end it because it’s so tiring and it hurts. And if it wasn’t for these guys, I probably would,” he said, motioning to his step-grandchildren playing around him. “End it. Finished. Done. Buried.”
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The Associated Press receives support from the Public Welfare Foundation for reporting focused on criminal justice. This story also was supported by Columbia University’s Ira A. Lipman Center for Journalism and Civil and Human Rights in conjunction with Arnold Ventures. The AP is solely responsible for all content.