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Home / News & Cause / Police Dogs Won't Die Alone In Animal Shelters Anymore
Police Dogs Won't Die Alone In Animal Shelters Anymore
June 28, 2016 News & Cause 3083
Recently, Ramu – one of the police dogs that retired last month, died a lonely death at an animal shelter. He spent 12 years of his life fighting criminals and sniffing out bombs. In his death, he's turned savior for his fellow canines.
Ramu was sent to an animal shelter as are all retiring dogs, to enable them to lead a peaceful autumnal life. But Ramu missed his handler's love and affection and struggled to cope with his new surroundings. He pined for his handler and he died within two weeks.
"Most police dogs who miss their handlers are depressed once they retire," says KM Puttaswamy, a handler in Bengaluru since 1987.
However, Ramu's ordeal managed to draw the attention of the higher-ups in the department. Bhaskar Rao, ADGP (crime and technical wing), who has himself adopted two strays, said Ramu's death left him distraught and led him to decide that dogs should be left in their care post retirement too.
Police dogs gets their handlers back
"We made a new rule on June 17, empowering handlers to look after their dogs after they retire from service. The department will bear their expenses," Rao said.
Puttaswamy, who's trained more than 50 dogs since 1987 and been a handler for four dogs, said, "These dogs develop an emotional relationship with their handlers and suffer from depression when separated." Police dogs literally come of age under their handlers. The department adopts German Shepherds, Dobermans and Labradors when they are three months old, from reputed agencies after vetting their pedigree.
Once a dog is enlisted for a squad, it is assigned a handler. The dog spends the rest of its years with the same handler. The relationship between a handler and a dog is similar to a master-disciple or a parent-child.
"A police dog's routine is known only to its handler, who can sense when the dog is hungry and needs to be taken out to attend nature's call. Dogs taken away from their handlers are like fish out of water and lose the battle for survival. In their old age, it is better they remain with their handlers," says Ninga Reddy Patil, inspector, dog squad.
Source: The Times Of India
Share your thoughts on this story in the comments below!
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Justia › US Law › Case Law › Georgia Case Law › Supreme Court of Georgia Decisions › 1975 › State v. Houston
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State v. Houston
234 Ga. 721 (1975)
218 S.E.2d 13
THE STATE v. HOUSTON.
Supreme Court of Georgia.
Decided July 2, 1975.
*725 Lewis R. Slaton, District Attorney, R. David Petersen, Gordon H. Miller, Assistant District Attorneys, for appellant.
B. L. Spruell, for appellee.
NICHOLS, Chief Justice.
Certiorari was granted in this case to review the holding of the Court of Appeals in State v. Houston, 134 Ga. App. 36 (213 SE2d 139). On July 23, 1974, Otis Willie Houston was indicted for the offense of robbery. Prior to indictment, on July 15, 1974, a preliminary hearing was held and as a result thereof, the defendant was bound over to the grand jury.
The decision of the Court of Appeals states (Hn. 2): "The simple issue presented is whether the right to counsel extends to the accused at the preliminary hearing. Stated another way, the issue is whether the preliminary hearing is a `critical stage' so as to entitle the accused to the right to counsel." The opinion thereafter is based on the proposition that any preliminary hearing without counsel voids a subsequent indictment.
This case does not involve an unlawful waiver of the commitment hearing as did Manor v. State, 221 Ga. 866 (148 SE2d 305). Nor does this case involve the failure to hold a commitment hearing as was the situation in Phillips v. Stynchcombe, 231 Ga. 430 (202 SE2d 26). On the contrary, this case involves the question of whether a commitment hearing is a critical stage of a criminal proceeding, the effect of holding a commitment hearing where the defendant is not represented by counsel and whether an accused may waive the right to counsel at such a commitment hearing.
The decision of the Court of Appeals properly held that a defendant may competently and intelligently waive a constitutional right of counsel.
In Phillips, supra, it was held: "The holding of a commitment hearing is not a requisite to a trial for commission of a felony ... We know that cross examination of the state's witnesses at a commitment *722 hearing often results in an accused obtaining valuable information for trial of the case. However, it should be remembered that the purpose of a commitment hearing is to authorize the keeping in custody of one accused with probable cause of committing a crime until the grand jury determines whether he should stand trial. See Code § 27-407; Cannon v. Grimes, 223 Ga. 35, 36 (153 SE2d 445); Smith v. Brown, 228 Ga. 584, 585 [187 SE2d 142]."
Code § 27-210 requires that every officer arresting under a warrant shall exercise reasonable diligence in bringing the person arrested before a magistrate for hearing within 72 hours of arrest, and Code § 27-212 requires that those arrested without a warrant be formally charged within 48 hours after arrest.
In Gerstein v. Pugh, ____ U. S. ____ (95 SC 854, 43 LE2d 54), the Supreme Court held: "[W]e do not imply that the accused is entitled to judicial oversight or review of the decision to prosecute. Instead, we adhere to the court's prior holding that a judicial hearing is not prerequisite to prosecution by information. Beck v. Washington, 369 U.S. 541, 545 (82 SC 955, 8 LE2d 98) (1962); Lem Woon v. Oregon, 229 U.S. 586 (33 SC 783, 57 LE 1340) (1913). Nor do we retreat from the established rule that illegal arrest or detention does not void a subsequent conviction. Frisbie v. Collins, 342 U.S. 519 (72 SC 509, 96 LE 541) (1952); Ker v. Illinois, 119 U.S. 436 (7 SC 225, 30 LE 421) (1886). Thus, as the Court of Appeals [Fifth Circuit] noted below, although a suspect who is presently detained may challenge the probable cause for that confinement, a conviction will not be vacated on the ground that the defendant was detained pending trial without a determination of probable cause. 483 F2d, at 786-787. Compare Scarbrough v. Dutton, 393 F2d 6 (CA5 1968), with Brown v. Fauntleroy, ____ U. S. App. D. C. ____, 442 F2d 838 (1971), and Cooley v. Stone, ____ U. S. App. D. C. ____, 414 F2d 1213 (1969)." 43 LE2d 68.
Thus, there is no material difference in the prior holdings of this court and the recent decision of the Supreme Court in Gerstein v. Pugh, supra. See also Jones v. State, 232 Ga. 771, 775 (208 SE2d 825), and cits.
The Supreme Court then held in Gerstein that under Florida procedure the probable cause hearing was not a *723 critical phase in the prosecution that would require appointed counsel. The distinctions between Florida's procedure and that of Alabama, dealt with in Coleman v. Alabama, 399 U.S. 1 (90 SC 1999, 26 LE2d 387), was then dealt with. It was held: "In Coleman v. Alabama, where the court held that a preliminary hearing was a critical stage of an Alabama prosecution, the majority and concurring opinions identified two critical factors that distinguish the Alabama preliminary hearing from the probable cause determination required by the Fourth Amendment. First, under Alabama law the function of the preliminary hearing was to determine whether the evidence justified charging the suspect with an offense. A finding of no probable cause could mean that he would not be tried at all. The Fourth Amendment probable cause determination is addressed only to pretrial custody. To be sure, pretrial custody may affect to some extent the defendant's ability to assist in preparation of his defense, but this does not present the high probability of substantial harm identified as controlling in Wade and Coleman. Second, Alabama allowed the suspect to confront and cross examine prosecution witnesses at the preliminary hearing. The court noted that the suspect's defense on the merits could be compromised if he had no legal assistance for exploring or preserving the witnesses' testimony. This consideration does not apply when the prosecution is not required to produce witnesses for cross examination." 43 LE2d 70.
A comparison of the above holding with Chapter 27-4 of the Georgia Code, as amended, requires a holding that in Georgia a commitment hearing is a critical stage of the criminal proceedings and that the defendant is entitled to counsel.
The failure to provide counsel, however, does not void further proceedings in the case and, as was held in Coleman v. Alabama, supra (p. 10), "[O]n the record it cannot be said whether or not petitioners were otherwise prejudiced by the absence of counsel at the preliminary hearing ... The test to be applied is whether the denial of counsel at the preliminary hearing was harmless error ... We accordingly vacate the petitioner's convictions and remand the case to the Alabama courts for such *724 proceedings not inconsistent with this opinion as they may deem appropriate to determine whether such denial of counsel was harmless error ... and therefore whether the conviction should be reinstated or a new trial ordered."
The effect of a void "probable cause" hearing is to make the detention under such hearing illegal. Under decisions exemplified by Stynchcombe v. Hardy, 228 Ga. 130 (184 SE2d 356), the legality of such confinement may be tested by habeas corpus petition. Such illegal confinement, however, will not preclude action by the grand jury.
Accordingly, it is now well settled that illegal detention (without a valid probable cause hearing) does not preclude indictment by the grand jury. It is equally well settled that an illegal arrest or detention does not void a subsequent conviction, and that the failure to provide counsel at a probable cause hearing may not be raised after conviction by petitioners for writ of habeas corpus.
This case, for the first time, raises the question of whether a defendant can be placed on trial after indictment where counsel was not appointed on the probable cause hearing without providing the defendant with a second probable cause hearing.
As was held in Coleman v. Alabama, supra, it is only where harmful error has occurred during the trial that a conviction will be set aside. In the present case there has been no trial and accordingly, no harm could be demonstrated at the pretrial hearing of the defendant's motion.
That part of the judgment of the Court of Appeals which holds that a preliminary hearing is a critical stage in the criminal prosecution in Georgia is affirmed; however, that part of the judgment of the Court of Appeals which affirmed the judgment of the trial court quashing the indictment and requiring a second commitment hearing is reversed.
Judgment affirmed in part and reversed in part. All the Justices concur, except Undercofler, P. J., Jordan and Hall, JJ., who dissent.
INGRAM, Justice, concurring.
I fully agree with the majority's conclusion that a preliminary hearing is a critical stage of a criminal proceeding in Georgia and that the defendant is entitled to counsel at that hearing unless there is a waiver. The difficulty I have with the majority opinion is that it authorizes the prosecution of the case to go forward without pointing out the serious risk of reversal that may result if there is a conviction.
The majority opinion does acknowledge that the failure to provide counsel to an indigent defendant, where there is no waiver, will require a new trial if the absence of counsel causes harm to the defendant. See, also, Hunt v. Hopper, 232 Ga. 53, 55 (205 SE2d 303). I would add that there is always a very real possibility, where counsel has been denied at a preliminary hearing, for prejudice to ensue in the conduct of the defense at a subsequent trial. See Hightower v. State, 135 Ga. App. 92, 93.
If the denial of counsel at a preliminary hearing causes prejudice to the defendant at a subsequent trial, resulting in conviction, I believe a reversal is required. My conclusion is grounded upon the reasoning of Coleman v. Alabama, 399 U.S. 1, and the Georgia Commitment Statutes. A preliminary hearing is an adversary proceeding and "the guiding hand of counsel" is one of the basic ingredients of any fair adversary hearing. To permit retained counsel but deny appointed counsel at a preliminary hearing results in unequal protection of the law.
Therefore, the appendage I would add to the majority opinion is simply this admonition: Why run the risk of a subsequent reversal by proceeding with the trial of this case in its present posture? If there is a conviction, the defendant needs only to show that his defense was prejudiced by the denial of counsel to him at the *726 preliminary hearing but this built-in possibility of reversible error can be avoided by furnishing a preliminary hearing with counsel when there is no waiver of a preliminary hearing or counsel.
I am authorized to state that Justice Gunter and Justice Hill join in this concurrence.
UNDERCOFLER, Presiding Justice, dissenting.
The question here is whether Georgia's statute providing for a preliminary hearing is a critical stage of a criminal prosecution. Code Ann. § 27-401 et seq. If it is, counsel must be appointed for an indigent accused. Coleman v. Alabama, 399 U.S. 1 (90 SC 1999, 26 LE2d 387).
The nature of the preliminary hearing determines whether it is a critical stage. If it is a limited nonadversary proceeding, it is not a critical stage. Gerstein v. Pugh, ___ U. S. ___ (95 SC 854, 43 LE2d 54) states, "Because of its limited function and its nonadversary character, the probable cause determination is not a `critical stage' in the prosecution that would require appointed counsel ... In Coleman v. Alabama, where the court held that a preliminary hearing was a critical stage of an Alabama prosecution, the majority and concurring opinions identified two critical factors that distinguish the Alabama preliminary hearing from the probable cause determination required by the Fourth Amendment. First, under Alabama law the function of the preliminary hearing was to determine whether the evidence justified charging the suspect with an offense ... Second, Alabama allowed the suspect to confront and cross examine prosecution witnesses at the preliminary hearing." 43 LE2d 70.
The Alabama code provides, "The magistrate before whom any person is brought, charged with a public offense, must, as soon as may be, examine the complainant and the witnesses for the prosecution on oath, in the presence of the defendant; and after the testimony for the prosecution is heard, the witnesses for the defendant must be sworn and examined." Code of Alabama, Title 15, § 133. "It shall be the duty of the magistrate to examine all witnesses having any knowledge *727 of any facts relevant to such investigation, whether such witnesses were summoned in behalf of the state or the defendant." Code of Alabama, Title 15, § 138. "If upon the whole evidence it appears to the magistrate that no offense has been committed, or that there is no probable cause for charging the defendant therewith, he must be discharged." Code of Alabama, Title 15, § 139. Coleman v. Alabama, supra, held: "... that the Alabama preliminary hearing is a `critical stage' of the state's criminal process at which the accused is `as much entitled to such aid (of counsel) ... as at the trial itself.'" 399 U.S. 10. As stated in Gerstein v. Pugh, supra, "A full preliminary hearing of this sort is modeled after the procedure used in many states to determine whether the evidence justified going to trial under an information or presenting the case to a grand jury. See Coleman v. Alabama, 399 U.S. 1 (90 SC 1999, 26 LE2d 387) (1970) ... The standard of proof required of the prosecution is usually referred to as `probable cause,' but in some jurisdictions it may approach a prima facie case of guilt. . . When the hearing takes this form, adversary proceedings are customarily employed. The importance of the issue to both the state and the accused justifies the presentation of witnesses and full exploration of their testimony on cross examination. This kind of hearing also requires appointment of counsel for indigent defendants. Coleman v. Alabama, supra. And, as the hearing assumes increased importance and the procedures become more complex, the likelihood that it can be held promptly after arrest diminishes ... These adversary safeguards are not essential for the probable cause determination required by the Fourth Amendment. The sole issue is whether there is probable cause for detaining the arrested person pending further proceedings. This issue can be determined reliably without an adversary hearing. The standard is the same as that for arrest. That standard probable cause to believe the suspect has committed a crime traditionally has been decided by a magistrate in a nonadversary proceeding on hearsay and written testimony, and the court has approved these informal modes of proof." 43 LE2d 68.
In my opinion Georgia's preliminary hearing in criminal proceeding is a traditional limited nonadversary *728 proceeding. The statute only requires the magistrate to hear, "... all legal evidence submitted by either party ..." Code Ann. § 27-405 (Ga. L. 1962, pp. 453, 454; 1973, pp. 292, 293). "The duty of the court of inquiry is simply to determine whether there is sufficient reason to suspect the guilt of the accused, to require him to appear and answer before the court competent to try him; and whenever such probable cause exists, it is the duty of the court to commit." Code Ann. § 27-407. I note that Code Ann. § 27-403 provides, "... in no event shall the defendant be forced to trial without the aid of counsel, if there be a reasonable probability of his securing counsel without too great delay." In my opinion this refers to retained counsel. It does not elevate the hearing to an adversary proceeding requiring the appointment of counsel for indigents. This construction comports with the holdings of this court that: "... the purpose of a commitment hearing is to authorize the keeping in custody of one accused with probable cause of committing a crime until the grand jury determines whether he should stand trial." Hunt v. Hopper, 232 Ga. 53 (2) (205 SE2d 303); Jackson v. State, 225 Ga. 39, 42 (165 SE2d 711). The federal courts have acknowledged that a preliminary hearing in Georgia is not a critical stage. Ardister v. Smith, 433 F2d 931 (5th Cir., 1970); Donlavy v. Smith, 426 F2d 800, 801 (5th Cir., 1970); Worts v. Dutton, 395 F2d 341, 342 (5th Cir., 1968).
The majority ruling here that Georgia's preliminary hearing is a "critical stage" departs from Georgia's traditional concept of the proceeding and further taxes the already overburdened district attorneys and criminal courts. As noted in Gerstein v. Pugh, supra, footnote 23, "Criminal justice is already overburdened by the volume of cases and the complexities of our system. The processing of misdemeanors, in particular, and the early stages of prosecution generally are marked by delays that can seriously affect the quality of justice. A constitutional doctrine requiring adversary hearings for all persons detained pending trial could exacerbate the problem of pretrial delay."
All that is required to satisfy Fourth Amendment rights on a preliminary hearing is "... a fair and reliable *729 determination of probable cause as a condition for any significant pretrial restraint on liberty, and this determination must be made by a judicial officer either before or promptly after arrest." Gerstein v. Pugh, 43 LE2d 71, supra. In my opinion that is all the Georgia statute contemplates.
I am authorized to state that Justice Jordan and Justice Hall join in this dissent.
of Supreme Court of Georgia opinions.


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Road upkeep expected to rule state budget 11/19/2016
11/19/2016, Eau Claire Leader-Telegram – Wisconsin's road problems will finally reach the "boiling point" in the upcoming state budget after the issue had been simmering for two decades, said the president of the Wisconsin Taxpayers Alliance in a Friday morning visit to Eau Claire.
"In this budget, clearly what will preoccupy them will be transportation funding," Todd Berry, leader of the nonpartisan advocacy group, said to about 65 local business and government leaders during the Eau Claire Area Chamber of Commerce's monthly "Eggs and Issues" breakfast gathering.
The state's roads are aging, he said, but revenue from the gasoline tax and vehicle registration fees historically used to pay for them is flat or falling. Retiring baby boomers driving fewer miles and millennials moving to metropolitan areas where owning a vehicle is not a necessity have been underlying factors in that trend, Berry noted.
Both Republican Gov. Scott Walker and his predecessor, Democrat James Doyle, borrowed to pay for roads and it's gotten to the point where 22 percent of the transportation fund goes to debt payments, Berry noted.
"It's pretty much to the boiling point," he said of the state's transportation funding situation.
And Berry said that road conditions declining in rural areas were a factor in the Nov. 8 election. He viewed President-elect Donald Trump's margin of victory among voters in several counties not necessarily as support for Republicans, but a message to the entrenched leaders in Madison and Washington, D.C., to pay attention to economic woes in rural areas.
"I would argue that what's going on is sort of the wilderness crying out," he said.
Berry mentioned Buffalo and Trempealeau counties as an example. Voters there ousted incumbent state Rep. Chris Danou, a Democrat, to make Mondovi Mayor Treig Pronschinske, a Republican, the new District 92 Assembly representative.
When reached by phone, Pronschinske agreed with Berry's assessment that rural voters swung the way they did because they felt their voices hadn't been heard by incumbent state politicians. And the representative-elect noted that much of his campaign was about fixing roads, which had taken a pummeling in recent years from a few major floods.
"I'm all about lower taxes, but you still have to provide good infrastructure so we can be prosperous," he said.
And though many of his Republican colleagues oppose raising the gas tax, Pronschinske said he'd entertain hearings on it as long as the additional revenue goes only to fixing roads.
In addition to aging roads, Berry said other pressures faced especially by rural Wisconsin areas are stagnant population growth and declining school enrollments. Pronschinske said those also are indeed issues for the 92nd District.
State agencies made their budget requests in September, and Walker is required to deliver his version of the 2017-19 budget by late January.
The state Legislature has until July 1 to get the biennial budget to the governor for his signature.


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Q: Cross Entopy Loss for classification Suppose I have a neural network, which classifies pictures of cats, dogs and fishes. The neural network uses Softmax as an activation function of the output layer.
Let's say I feed a picture of dog and the output I got is:
Cat  : $0.09$
Dog  : $0.90$
Fish : $0.01$
If I calculate the loss using Cross-Entropy I got:
$$
-\sum_{c=1}^3y_{c}*\ln(\hat{y_{c}}) = -(0 * \ln(0.09) + 1 * \ln(0.90) + 0 * \ln(0.01)) = 0.105
$$
However I would get the same loss value, if the output of my network were:
Cat  : $0.01$
Dog  : $0.90$
Fish : $0.09$
or
Cat  : $0.05$
Dog  : $0.90$
Fish : $0.05$
In another words, if I feed the picture of a dog the only thing that Cross-Entropy cares about is the output of the dog's neuron.
It seems to me, that if the network assigns $.09%$ probability to a fish and $.01%$ to a cat, while the correct answer is dog, is much worse than assigning $.09$ to cat and $.01%$ to fish, however the Cross Entropy does not penalize for that.
If I use Mean Squared Error, the loss of the network would depend on the output of each neuron from the output layer, for these reasons would it be better to use MSE instead of Cross Entropy Loss in my example ?

A: With MSE, you have the same problem you described in your post.
Your intuition that mistaking a dog for a cat is less of an bad thing than mistaking a dog for a fish can be made part of the loss function by adding a cross-entropy term for whether the image is of a quadruped or not. You can use the sum of your estimated dog and cat probability as the network's prediction of quadruped or not.

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A driver who is accused of driving into a horse and rider in Ocala and leaving the scene was arrested November 13. The Florida hit-and-run accident happened around 4 p.m. at Northwest 35th Street and Northwest 130th Avenue in the town of Fellowship, according to a report in The Ocala Star-Banner. Unfortunately, the crash broke the horse's leg and he had to be euthanized. The rider is hospitalized with minor injuries including a sprained ankle and bruises.
The story of what actually happened depends on who is recounting the events.
According to the Florida Highway Patrol, the 35-year-old suspect said he loaned his car to another driver and was not behind the wheel, but when police stopped him, he failed a field sobriety test. His blood alcohol measured .223, nearly three times the legal limit for intoxication and was taken hours after the accident. Law enforcement tracked him down after seeing a car with front-end damage and a shattered windshield. The driver then said he was distracted and hit the horse, but when the rider fell and got back on he drove off.
However, witnesses say the car was heading directly east when it hit the horse and rider who were riding in a westbound direction and neither the horse nor rider stood back up.
The Ocala auto accident attorneys of Farah & Farah law firm have learned that the horse had a value of about $8,500, according to the newspaper.
The driver has been charged with driving under the influence (DUI) and DUI with bodily injury. Because he left the crash scene he also was charged with leaving the scene of an accident with property damage and two counts of DUI with property damage. Had the rider been serious injured or killed, this driver could be facing up to 30 years in prison for leaving the scene of an auto accident.


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Kim Clijsters John Sullivan Mark McGwire Robby Ginepri Randy Johnson Marat Safin Novak Djokovic Roy Emerson Ndamukong Suh Jiyai Shin Muhammad Ali Paula Creamer Billie Jean King Roger Federer Andre Agassi Rohan Bopanna Andy Murray Rod Laver Jack Crawford John Newcombe Tomasz Adamek Bjorn Borg Andy Roddick Boris Becker Mike Bryan Aisam-Ul-Haq Qureshi Eli Manning Ilie Nastase Steffi Graf Brett Favre Thomas Bach Jacques Rogge Peyton Manning Sports NFL football Professional football Football Tennis Women's sports U.S. Open Tennis Championships Men's tennis Men's sports Women's tennis International basketball Basketball
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By The Associated Press - Sep. 09, 2020 10:58 AM EDT
1933 — Fred Perry wins his first U.S. men's singles title with a 6-3, 11-13, 4-6, 6-0, 6-1 victory over Australian Jack Crawford.
1961 — Australia's Roy Emerson upsets countryman Rod Laver to win the U.S. Lawn Tennis Association championship. Darlene Hard wins the women's title for the second straight year.
1962 — Rod Laver becomes the first man since Don Budge in 1938 to win the Grand Slam beating Roy Emerson 6-2, 6-4, 5-7, 6-4, at the U.S. Open. Margaret Smith becomes the first Australian woman to win the U.S. Open with a 9-7, 6-4 win over Darlene Hard.
1966 — Muhammad Ali knocks out Karl Mildenberger in the 12th round in Frankfurt, Germany, to retain his world heavyweight title.
1967 — John Newcombe beats Clark Graebner to win the men's title in the U.S. Lawn Tennis Association championships. Billie Jean King wins the singles, doubles and mixed doubles championships. King, who also swept the three titles at Wimbledon, is the first to accomplish the feat of two sweeps in the same year since Alice Marble in 1939.
1972 — The United States men's basketball team loses its first game in Olympic competition. The Soviet Union wins 51-50 with the help of a controversial ending. Dr. William Jones, secretary general of the International Amateur Basketball Federation, tells the referees to have the players replay the final three seconds and the Soviets score a last-second bucket. The Americans, who had the lead when the buzzer sounded the first time, protest in vain. The U.S. team later refuses to accept the silver medal.
1972 — Ilie Nastase trailing two sets to one and facing break point at 1-3 in the fourth set, comes back to defeat Arthur Ashe, 3-6, 6-3, 6-7, 6-4, 6-3, for the U.S. Open men's singles title.
1977 — Chris Evert beats Wendy Turnbull 7-6, 6-2 to capture the U.S. Open title for the third straight year.
1978 — Jimmy Connors becomes the only player to win the U.S. Open on three different surfaces, with a 6-4, 6-2, 6-2 win over Bjorn Borg. Connors wins the first men's final played on the Deco Turf II courts at the new USTA National Tennis Center. Connors had won the 1974 U.S. Open on grass and the 1976 U.S. Open on clay courts.
1983 — Martina Navratilova wins her first U.S. Open women's singles championship, beating Chris Evert Lloyd 6-1, 6-3.
1988 — Steffi Graf becomes the third women to complete the Grand Slam, defeating Gabriela Sabatini 6-3, 3-6, 6-1 in the U.S. Open.
1989 — Boris Becker wins his first U.S. Open by beating top-seeded Ivan Lendl 7-6, 1-6, 6-3, 7-6 in a four-hour struggle in sweltering heat. Lendl, who won three straight Open titles from 1985-87, tied an Open record with his eighth consecutive final, something Bill Tilden did from 1918-25.
1993 — Pernell Whitaker and Julio Cesar Chavez fight to a majority draw. Two judges score the fight 115-115 and the third scores the fight 115-113 for Whitaker. It's the first blemish on Chavez's record who was 87-0 entering the bout.
1994 — Arantxa Sanchez-Vicario becomes the first Spanish woman to win the U.S. Open when she beats Steffi Graf, 1-6, 7-6 (3), 6-4.
1995 — Pete Sampras wins his third U.S. Open men's singles title, taking down the No. 1 seed and defending champion Andre Agassi, 6-4, 6-3, 4-6, 7-5.
1995 — Fuad Reveiz of the Minnesota Vikings sets an NFL record for consecutive field goals, converting from 32 and 27 yards to give him 30 in a row.
1997 — Mark McGwire joins Babe Ruth as the only players in major league history with consecutive 50-homer seasons by hitting a 446-foot shot off Shawn Estes in the third inning of St. Louis' game against at San Francisco. Ruth's 50-homer seasons came in 1927 and 1928.
1998 — The NBA calls off a game because of a labor dispute for the first time in its history. The Oct. 12 exhibition in Tel Aviv between the Miami Heat and Israel's No. 1 team, Maccabi Elite, is called off because of the lockout imposed by the owners.
2000 — Arizona's Randy Johnson becomes the 12th player to reach the 3,000 strikeout plateau, fanning a season-high 14 in seven innings as the Diamondbacks lost to Florida 4-3 in 12 innings.
2000 — Marat Safin stuns four-time U.S. Open champion Pete Sampras, 6-4, 6-3, 6-3, to become the first Russian to win the U.S. Open men's singles championship.
2004 — Zippy Chippy, thoroughbred racing's lovable loser, makes it 0-for-100 when he finishes last in an eight-horse field at the Three-County Fairgrounds in Northampton, Mass.
2005 — Andre Agassi, 35, outlasts 22-year-old baseliner Robby Ginepri in five sets at the U.S. Open and become the oldest Grand Slam finalist in 31 years. Kim Clijsters captures the first Grand Slam singles title in her fifth appearance in a Grand Slam final, defeating Mary Pierce, 6-3, 6-1.
2006 — Roger Federer defeats Andy Roddick 6-2, 4-6, 7-5, 6-1 in the U.S. Open final for his third major championship this year and ninth of his career. Federer becomes the first man ever to win back-to-back Wimbledon and U.S. Open crowns for three straight years.
2006 — Peyton Manning and the Indianapolis Colts make fewer mistakes than Eli Manning and the New York Giants in the first NFL game to feature two brothers starting at quarterback. Big brother Peyton is 25-of-41 for 276 yards and a touchdown and the Colts score on five of their first seven possessions to defeat Eli and the Giants 26-21.
2006 — Chicago barely lets Brett Favre touch the ball, shutting out the three-time MVP for the first time in his 16-year pro career, in a 26-0 win over Green Bay.
2010 — The Bryan brothers win their ninth Grand Slam title, derailing the "Indo-Pak Express" doubles team of India's Rohan Bopanna and Pakistan's Aisam-Ul-Haq Qureshi in the men's doubles final at the U.S. Open. Bob and Mike Bryan capture their third title at Flushing Meadows and 65th overall with a 7-6 (5), 7-6 (4) victory.
2011 — Vitali Klitschko defeats Polish challenger Tomasz Adamek by technical knockout to retain his WBC heavyweight title in Wroclaw, Poland. The fight is stopped 2 minutes, 20 seconds into the 10th round.
2011 — Alan Moore, a 61-year-old Vietnam veteran and grandfather of five, becomes the oldest player ever to get in a college football game when he kicks an extra point for NAIA Faulkner in its season-opener.
2012 — Andy Murray wins the U.S. Open in five grueling sets to become the first British man since 1936 to capture a Grand Slam title. Murray beats defending champion Novak Djokovic 7-6 (10), 7-5, 2-6, 3-6, 6-2 in his fifth try in the final of a major tournament.
2012 — Jiyai Shin makes a two-putt par on the ninth hole of a playoff and beats Paula Creamer to win the Kingsmill Championship, ending the longest playoff between two players in LPGA Tour history. The players play the 18th hole eight times trying to break the tie before darkness forced suspension of play a day eralier.
2013 — Thomas Bach is elected president of the International Olympic Committee, keeping the powerful sports body in European hands. Bach, a 59-year-old German lawyer, succeeds Jacques Rogge, the Belgian who is stepping down after 12 years.
2013 — Detroit defensive tackle Ndamukong Suh is fined $100,000 by the NFL for his illegal low block on Minnesota center John Sullivan in the Lions' season-opening victory on Sept. 8.
By Joe Reedy 6 minutes ago


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Pryce, Thomas Oliver, Kyaw, Aung Aung, Kyaw, Myo Min, Win, Tin Tin, Win, Thu Thu, Win, Khin Htwe, Mon, May Myat, Aye, Mar Mar, Htay, Su Hlaing, Mar, Aye Aye, Bellina, Bérénice, Bentley, R. Alexander, Champion, Louis, Colonna, Camille, Cook, Amanda J., Favereau, Aude, Fuller, Dorian Q., Georjon, Cloe, Higham, Charles, Htwe, Kalayar Myat Myat, Iizuka, Yoshiyuki, Innanchai, Jitlada, Le Meur, Clemence, Peixoto, Xavier, Petchey, Peter, Pinhasi, Ron, Pradier, Baptiste, Valentin, Frederique, Willis, Anna, and Zazzo, Antoine (2018) A first absolute chronology for Late Neolithic to Early Bronze Age Myanmar: new AMS C-14 dates from Nyaung'gan and Oakaie. Antiquity, 92 (363). pp. 690-708.
This list was generated on Sat Apr 20 16:12:50 2019 AEST.


The democratization of science in fact implied a general and even radical transformation of society. The aim was to reorient science toward the social needs of workers and disadvantaged groups and to fight the vested interest of the establishment and the so-called military-industrial complex. In those early days, the political Left pushed science shops as one means of transforming both science and society in radical ways. Unions, targeting issues such as occupational health, social security, and working conditions; environmentalists; patients' groups; third-world activists; and, slightly later, women's liberation groups considered themselves as partners in pursuit of a new and better society.
I read about the science shops for the first time over the holidays in Making Genes, Making Waves, Jon Beckwith's autobiography about his research in molecular biology and his political activism. Given the current fad for "democratizing science" I was surprised that I'd never heard them mentioned before.
We're about getting the word of something we love to people who might not hear about it anywhere else, in the hopes that maybe, just maybe, they'll love it a little too. We're about taking tough scientific concepts and teasing out what matters. We're about taking the latest in scientific progress and relate it to people like our friends and our families, and our communities, and our society.
Other efforts seem similarly pale when you begin to examine their claims about democratization in light of what democratization meant to more political generations of scientists. Like the Science for the People radio program, many of these efforts are focused on the one-way transmission of science from the academy to the public, rather than a radical transformation of science itself to address public interests.
Open access publishing has made it easier to publish and read scientific articles, and is gradually (hopefully) chipping away at the tyranny of the impact factor in academic career advancement. These are worthy goals which I support whole-heartedly—I've published most of my papers in open access journals—but making papers open to download doesn't necessarily make science democratic and open to everyone.
Likewise, recent efforts to get more people involved in scientific research have been branded "citizen science," but unlike the science shops where the citizens dictated research directions, citizen science projects simply allow non-scientists to volunteer their time collecting or analyzing data for professional researchers. These projects can be great learning experiences, allowing non-scientists to get a better picture of the scientific process, as well as great research experiences, allowing scientists to explore topics that they couldn't have done without the expanded team. But letting people do free work for you isn't the same as doing work for people.
The contemporary projects that seems most like the 70s Dutch science shops are today's hackerspaces and community labs, where non-expert scientists can explore techno-scientific questions on their own time (and usually on their own dime). While there are a huge variety of projects and educational goals in these spaces, a particular kind of "hacker" has gone mainstream (and even received DARPA funding). Tinkering in a garage is now seen as the first step towards starting the next multibillion dollar Silicon Valley company. Hackerspaces can be the site of anti-establishment thinking, but they are also becoming part of the military-industrial complex.
None of these projects are necessarily bad. By and large, they all point towards a broader positive shift happening in the scientific community towards more transparency, accountability, diversity, and public involvement. But we shouldn't let something as important as democratization become an empty label. We need to be critical of self-proclaimed democratizers—who is benefitting and who remains left out? Who is calling the shots and who is working for whom? Where does the money come from? How can we do science better?"
In his new documentary, Teenage, Matt Wolf weaves together an unbelievable collection of archival footage to produce a breathless visual collage. Overlaid on top of this visual eye candy are historical notes and diary entries that bring to life the voices and experiences of teens in the first half of the 20th century. Although this film invites the viewer to reflect on the past, doing so forces a reflection on the present. I can't help but wonder: what will historians think of our contemporary efforts to isolate young people "for their own good"?
This film is making its way through US independent theaters so it may take a while until you can see it, but to whet your appetite, watch the trailer: [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n8bNqD9YhkM ]"
"an interactive exploration of the historical soundscape of New York City"
"In 1927 Dora and Bertrand Russell opened their own progressive boarding school, Beacon Hill, in West Sussex. The school reflected Bertrand's view that children should not be forced to follow a strictly academic curriculum. Other aspects of the school illustrated Dora's ideas on education. The school was run on the principle that freedom, if understood early enough, would result in maturity and self-discipline. Dora also emphasized co-operation rather than competition and believed that the best way to teach the benefits of democracy was to run the school on democratic lines. Dora's educational philosophy was expressed in her book In Defence of Children (1932)."


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in: Trope, Characters As Device, Character Witness
Character Witness
Quotes • Headscratchers • Playing With • Useful Notes • Analysis • Image Links • Haiku • Laconic
Sokka: At first they didn't believe me. The Fire Nation soldiers assumed I was a spy. But one man vouched for me: the old man you attacked. He urged them to trust me, and we got everyone out in time.
Like Androcles' Lion, but with people. The hero goes out of their way to help an "inconsequential" Innocent Bystander, often at personal risk either to himself or reputation. Later on, if he's set up by the villain and it looks just like the Untrusting Community of Crazy Survivalists is really going to kill him... out pops Androcles' Lion the Character Witness ready to repay their kindness with life saving timing. Usually, they're a Wasteland Elder or a Reasonable Authority Figure whose voice has weight, or just a child he befriends who is adept at Shaming the Mob.
A common variation is that the hero just needs a second to escape The Chase, or a distraction so the Big Bad goes the wrong way.
Subtrope of A Friend in Need. Compare Chekhov's Gunman.
Contrast Disproportionate Reward and Zombie Advocate.
Examples of Character Witness include:
1 Anime
4 Folklore
5 Literature
6 Live Action TV
8 Web Comic
9 Western Animation
The little fox kid in XxxHolic who vouches for Watanuki in the Demon Parade. Earlier, Watanuki had given him an arrow tail, which is a powerful ward against evil (and the "demons" in the parade are of the Dark Is Not Evil variety). So when the demons threaten to eat him and his friend, the fox kid steps up and proves his good nature by showing them the arrow piece.
In the first episode of Samurai Champloo, we see an arrogant noble standing in the middle of a crowded road, harassing and threatening a commoner who had bumped into him, until Jin effortlessly cuts through his bodyguards for standing in his way. By the end of the episode, he has been captured and is about to be executed for the offense. Fuu has some fireworks she plans to use to free him, but she doesn't have anything with which to light them. No points for guessing who reaches up from the crowd with a match.
Early in Mobile Suit Gundam 00, Allelujah disobeys orders and rescues people at a space station, and during this time aids the governmental forces which are his group's enemies, impressing the antagonist, Sergei Smirnoff. This comes to Allejuah's aid later in the show, as Smirnoff lets an injured Allejuah go and take Marie/Soma Peres, Sergei's adopted daughter/Allejuah's love interest with him, since he recognizes Allejuah's voice and knows he's a nice guy.
Spider-Man is always boggled when he runs into someone who he helped once, because J. Jonah Jameson is always working to make him a pariah in New York. But in a city of millions, all the people the wallcrawler has helped are ready to stand up for him if the situation calls for it.
It hasn't happened in recent memory, but the mutants of X-Men fare have had people give them cross country rides, duck them away from mutant hating authorities, etc, all because one X-Man helped someone else at some point, so anybody legitimately wearing the (X) is considered a good guy worth assisting.
Superman's main defense against Lex Luthor? It's not his powers, it's the city of Metropolis, which completely loses its collective shit whenever people attack their mascot, and will permanently destroy Luthor's Villain with Good Publicity status if he ever gets caught openly hurting Supes without a really good loophole to escape the blame. It's also been implied at various times (particularly in the Elseworlds JLA: The Nail) that Metropolis is responsible for setting the trend for the citizens of the DC universe to not be suspicious, fickle, ungrateful assholes to their heroes like their Marvel counterparts, due to Superman's altruism towards them.
The 1999 movie Election: the same janitor whom Mr. McAllister unknowingly offends during the opening credits is also the person who reveals McAllister's tampering with the election at the end of the movie.
In the Adam Sandler film Billy Madison, Billy calls one of his old classmates to apologize for bullying him when they were in school. The classmate reacts calmly, but after he's hung up the phone, he crosses Billy's name off of his "People to Kill" list. At the end of the movie, he shows up when Eric, the villain of the movie, is trying to kill Billy and shoots Eric (not fatally).
"Boy, I'm glad I called that guy."
In the infamous Steel movie, the titular character starts his crime fighting career by saving a couple from some muggers. Later on, when Steel is wanted by the police the same couple is called to pick Steel from a line up where John Henry Irons is present. The couple recognizes him, but they claim they had never seen him before. Likewise, a police officer Steel saved from an explosion by jumping on him claims John Henry Irons isn't Steel when taking a close look at him.
Edward The Black Prince, in A Knight's Tale, declares William a knight due Edward seeing the kind of spirit in him. He also mentions that the fact his apparent servants love him would have been enough on its own.
Crops up memorably in Scent of a Woman. Charlie Simms has been dragged around New York City by the retired, blind, and terminally irritable Colonel Slade who he is supposed to be babysitting. His fortitude pays off, however, when Slade unexpectedly intercedes before the school's disciplinary committee which has been convened to force Charlie Simms to testify against his classmates or be expelled. The colonel's speech is the paradigmatic movie speech, beginning a bit roughly, moving into a withering indictment against the establishment, and ending in thunderous applause.
In "The Tinderbox," a soldier has a magical tinderbox which enables him to summon large-eyed dogs to do his bidding. He uses the dogs to get a look at the princess of the kingdom, with whose beauty he falls deeply in love, but is captured and sentenced to be burned at the stake. While in prison, he catches the attention of a boy and recruits him to retrieve the tinderbox from his room at the inn, which he later uses to escape. The boy does this for him, because he remembers the soldier buying food for his family when they were impoverished.
Interestingly, a novel within a novel in Slaughterhouse-Five said the story of Jesus delivered the wrong aesop, in that it showed that the Romans made the mistake of picking on the wrong man, one who was the son of God, so the message came across as, "Make sure that whoever you pick on isn't important". Instead, it says that Jesus should have been a nobody, a bum, and when the Romans crucified him, God should have appeared and decided to adopt this worthless bum as his son.
Going Postal. The first letter delivered after years of no service brings unexpected benefits for the hero after a huge catastrophe.
Prior Philip in The Pillars of the Earth is betrayed by a monk named Remigius, the former deputy prior, as part of a plot by the prior's enemies. Later on, he forgives Remigius and allows him to return to the monastery rather than live in poverty (Remigius' allies having since discarded him). And a good thing, too, as Remigius is the only person in the world with the information that can save Philip from a witch hunt at the climax.
The Hollows: Rachel Morgan, shunned, gets assistance in the unlikely person of a TSA operative since Rachel helped out his grandmother once.
October Daye: There's a cab driver named Danny that doesn't let Toby Daye pay because Toby helped his sister once.
Thursday Next doesn't have to pay a diner waitress because of her heroic actions in a war in the past.
Don Quixote: Hiliarously subverted by Andres and Tosilos, who come back Laser-Guided Karma not in defense, but against our protagonist.
Andres, a boy that Don Quixote thinks has rescued at chapter IV part I shows up again at Chapter XXXI part I. Don Quixote wants him to defend his Chivalric Romance delusions, but instead Andres denounces him with a Nice Job Breaking It, Hero speech and left with a bitter Stop Helping Me!.
Lacquey Tosilos appear at chapter LVI of the second part when Don Quixote is trying to We Help the Helpless, and comes back in chapter LXVII to inform Don Quixote that all was a Shaggy Dog Story.
Live Action TV
The Seinfeld finale offered a parade of previously-wronged guest stars testifying about what horrible people the protagonists were as an excuse to end with a clip show.
A similar example happened in the earlier episode "The Cadillac": Jerry's dad Morty is being accused of embezzling funds from the office of condo president with Morty's new Cadillac being cited as proof (the Cadillac was given to Morty by Jerry as a gift, but the guy accusing Morty doesn't believe Jerry is talented enough to make that much money). Morty's sole favorable testimony is from an old woman who, unbeknown to Morty, Jerry had stolen a marble rye bread from in an earlier episode. Once she remembers that incident, she withdraws her support and Morty is impeached from condo president. That lady would once again show up in the aforementioned finale.
In several episodes of The Pretender, starting with the pilot, Jarod takes time out from his mission to help somebody in trouble, and they repay him at the end of the episode by helping him evade the Centre operatives hunting him.
Turns up, oddly enough, in The Mighty Boosh, albeit in a uniquely absurd fashion. While looking for Howard, who left his job to become a binman, Vince gives £58.30 (via credit card) as well as his beautiful cape to a hobo who thinks Vince is a lady. Later on, when Vince and Howard are fighting a magic-fueled, crack-addicted fox in the sewers, the hobo shows up out of nowhere, attacking the Crack Fox long enough to allow Vince and Howard to run away. Yeah...
Chrono Trigger has this in the trial scene, and also its inversion - you can get random bystanders to testify against you if you've done something bad. It doesn't matter anyway, though, since if you get declared not guilty, you still get arrested for a minor crime, and the chancellor uses creative paperwork to get you scheduled for execution anyway. Getting cleared just gets you a bag from sympathizers with one to six eithers depending on how many jurors voted guilty.
In Conquests of the Longbow, whether or not Robin Hood ends up with Maid Marian, ends up alone, or gets hanged in the ending depends partly on how many Character Witnesses he manages to impress.
An indirect example occurs in City of Heroes when a member of a villain group gives you the information you're seeking because you once saved his cousin, though he doesn't tell you who that person was.
Quest for Glory II ends with the hero (your character) having a formal audience with the Sultan of Shapeir, surrounded by people he's helped throughout the game. Everyone has some very nice things to say about the hero, making it a good Crowning Moment of Heartwarming. At the end of it, the Sultan publicly adopts the hero as his own son and therefore the Prince of Shapeir, as an Awesome Moment of Crowning. Now that is gratitude that more heroes should receive.
There are two seemingly inconsequential quarians Shepard meets in Mass Effect 2: the first, Veetor'Nara, is a traumatized adolescent who just witnessed the abduction of an entire colony; the second, Kal'Reegar, is a marine who was sent out to protect Tali from being captured by geth. If you send Veetor home to the Migrant Fleet instead of having Cerberus interrogate him, and if you make sure Reegar survives the mission on Haestrom, during the trial you will have the option to "Rally the Crowd" and they will speak up to vouch for Tali's innocence in a Crowning Moment of Awesome (Reegar in particular has a few very choice words for the Admiralty Board about their attitudes).
Gets lampshaded if you talk to the Admiralty Board afterward, as one of them points out that you didn't actually prove anything.
In Tales of the Questor, Quentyn is found by a poor farmer's family and he treats them with the utmost courtesy and kindness while he bunks with them. Later, when the hero is presented by the region's duke to help with the Unseelie crisis and the public incorrectly scoffs that he is one of the enemy too, that farmer steps up to praise Quentyn's character and that wins over the crowd.
In Love and Capes Mark got a ride home from a planet where he'd been stranded by hitchhiking. The aliens who picked him up don't generally pick up hitchhikers, but they were glad to do it for him because he'd saved their planet from being destroyed.
Avatar: The Last Airbender:
In the episode "Jet", Sokka helps an old Fire Nation man, who later helps him convince his village to evacuate before it is flooded.
Subverted with Haru in the episode "Imprisoned". He saves an old man with his illegal earthbending. Old man turns him in...
When army officers are about to arrest Rogue and Kitty on X-Men: Evolution, the major tells his troops to stand down as Rogue had saved him from being hit by a car.
There's a Jamaican cab driver who goes by "Mouse" on Spider-Man: The Animated Series" who tries to be available for the webslinger because he saved her from a mugging.


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Case of the Day: Agudas Chasidei Chabad v. Russian Federation
The Case of the Day is Agudas Chasidei Chabad of the United States v. Russian Federation (D.D.C. 2011). Chabad, a Hasidic Jewish organization, was "the incorporated entity and successor to a worldwide organization of Jewish religious communities having origins in Eastern Europe and Russia." During the first half of the twentieth century, the Hasidic movement in Europe lost two important sets of records. First, its library was taken by the Soviet Department of Scientific Libraries after the Russian Revolution. Second, its archive was left in Poland in 1939 when leaders of the movement fled to America, and the Soviet Army eventually seized the archive from the defeated Germans. In the 1990s, the courts of the Soviet Union determined that the library and the archives "were not the national property of the Soviet Union" and ordered them returned to Chabad. But before the items were returned, the Soviet Union collapsed, and the Russian Federation "nullified" the decisions.
In 2004, Chabad sued Russia, the Russian State Library, and the Russian State Military Archive under the FSIA. Russia and the agencies moved to dismiss for lack of jurisdiction and on forum non conveniens grounds. The court granted the motion in part, dismissing all claims concerning the library (a decision later reversed by the D.C. Circuit) but refusing to dismiss the claims relating to the archive. Nevertheless, Russia withdrew from participation in the litigation, stating:
The Russian Federation views any continued defense before this Court and, indeed, any participation in this litigation as fundamentally incompatible with its rights as a sovereign nation.
Russia also sent a diplomatic note protesting the continued litigation. The court then entered a default judgment against Russia, the RSL, and the RSMA, finding that Chabad had made out a prima facie case. The judgment required the defendants to return the library and the archive.
The judgment was served on all of the defendants first by Fedex (which was refused), and then on Russia through the diplomatic channel. The Russian Ministry of Justice "returned" the documents "without judicial review":
The documents are being returned due to nonexistence of an international treaty between the United States and Russia which would regulate legal provisions pertaining to civil, family and trade matters.
Chabad then sought a writ of execution and sanctions for failure to comply with the judgment. Meanwhile, Russia announced that it was suspending exchanges of art and cultural artifacts with US museums and universities until the Chabad case was resolved, and Russia sought "legal assurances" that art and artifacts would be immune from attachment or execution. As the case of the day for June 10, Rubin v. Islamic Republic of Iran, shows, Russia's concern (which the United States joined in its briefs) is not unreasonable on its face. In Rubin, a plaintiff in a FSIA case succeeded in the District Court, though not on appeal, in attaching art owned by Iran on exhibit in the United States in aid of its judgment.
Judge Lamberth first focused on Section 1610(c) of the FSIA, which requires that the defendant be given notice and an adequate opportunity to respond before the plaintiff may begin to enforce a judgment. The notice must be served using the methods prescribed for service of the complaint in Section 1608.With regard to Russia itself, the governing provision is § 1608(a), which governs service on foreign states. With regard to the RSL and the RSMA, the governing provision is § 1608(b), which governs service on agencies and instrumentalities of foreign states.
Chabad argued that because the defendants had provided mailing addresses before they withdrew from the litigation, the parties had a "special arrangement" for service by mail, and that the first attempt at service, by Fedex, was therefore effective under § 1608(a)(1) and (b)(1). But the court rejected this assertion on account of the defendants' withdrawal from the litigation, which occurred months before the defendants' former lawyer provided the addresses, as he was required to do under the court's local rules. Because Russia had unilaterally suspended cooperation with the United States under the Hague Service Convention (a fact noted in the discussion of the case of the day from March 4, Baldiga v. Joint Stock Co.), the court found that service by international convention, as permitted by § 1608(a)(2) and (b)(2), was unavailable.
Judge Lamberth held that the attempt at service on Russia via Fedex was insufficient, because the package was dispatched by the plaintiff rather than by the clerk, as § 1608(a)(3) requires. However, the court held that the service through the diplomatic channel was proper under § 1608(a)(4), and that Russia had thus been served.
Service on RSL and the RSMA, which Chabad attempted only by Fedex, was not within the strict letter of the statute, because the package was dispatched by the plaintiff rather than the clerk. However, the judge noted that while even technical defects invalidate service of process on a foreign state, the statute governing service on agencies or instrumentalities "may be satisfied by technically faulty service that gives adequate notice," citing Transaero v. La Fuerza Aerea Boliviana, 30 F.3d 148, 154 (D.C. Cir. 1994). The improper method of transmitting the papers was a mere technicality, and it was clear from the defendants' actions (according to the judge) that they understood the import of the documents.
The court dismissed the US government's concerns about the effect of the proposed order. The proposed order would establish only that a reasonable time since entry of judgment had elapsed, that the defendants had received proper notice of the entry of judgment, and that the plaintiffs are entitled to proceed to enforce the judgment. But as the Rubin case shows, Russia would still be able to argue that its property in the US is immune from attachment or execution. So the order Chabad sought "creates no risk to Russian art or artifacts on loan to American institutions that otherwise would not exist." The court also included in the order a provision specifically exempting from attachment or execution any property within the scope of the federal Mutual Educational and Cultural Exchange Program, which divests courts of jurisdiction to issue or enforce any process that would have the effect of depriving the museums or institutions exhibiting the works of custody or control of the objects.
Tagged: FSIA, Russia
Moishe says:
US judge Royce Lamberth must be insane on many different levels. How can he make a judgement against a sovereign nation. Especially when the case is about articles that belong to that sovereign nation.
freaking insanity, this is why we look bad on international stage.
Moishe, thanks for the comment. This decision is only about the technicalities of service of documents in the lawsuit against Russia, not whether it's okay to sue Russia or whether a judgment against Russia could be enforced. If you want to read about a decision that's closer to your concerns, check out my post on later developments in the Chabad case.
The Voice of Russian bonds says:
French holders of Russian government bonds remind investors that the Russian Federation is still in default today (April 2010) on their estimate of some US$ 90 billion owed to them since the Bolshevik, then the Soviet, and now the Russian Federation governments have all unilaterally repudiated Tsarist debt and refused any form of contact or dialogue with their legitimate bona fide creditors.
They also remind investors that in its Sep. 15th 2006 report entitled "Governance matters: a decade of measuring the quality of governance", the WORLD BANK has rated Russia's governance comparable to that of Swaziland, Zambia and Kazakhstan. Russia came 151st out of 208 countries in terms of (…) accountability, quality of regulatory bodies, and rule of law, (…). In particular, rule of law (i.e. the courts and the quality of contract enforcement) was judged as effective in Russia as it is in Ecuador, Indonesia, and Bangladesh. Nicaragua, East Timor, and China's ability to control corruption was judged similar to Russia's.
On February 26th 2007 the St. Petersburg Times, quoting a report from Vedomosti, wrote that "Surgutneftegaz managers covertly hold 72 % of the secretive oil firm" and that Deutsche UFG analysts had had to "raise its estimate number of outstanding shares from less than 26 billion to (…) 43 billion" which "implies a 40% dilution in the value of the stock".
In Paris on April 3rd 2007 to launch the merged NYSE-EURONEXT entity Mr. John Thain, the New York Stock Exchange CEO, warned that he was "very concerned about the quality of corporate governance, the transparency of company financials and the protection of minority shareholders. A number of Russian companies raise serious questions around these issues."
Despite these findings, and the main rating agencies' knowledge that Russia is in default on US$ 90 billion of Tsarist debt, Russia is rated "INVESTMENT GRADE" whereas it should clearly be in "SELECTIVE DEFAULT".
French bondholders intend to pursue their claim until full settlement at present value, by any legal means and in any jurisdiction they deem appropriate.
EVERY POTENTIAL INVESTOR IN RUSSIA MUST BE MADE AWARE OF THESE RISKS.
FRENCH CREDITORS OF THE RUSSIAN FEDERATION STRONGLY ADVISE AGAINST ANY FORM OF INVESTMENT IN A COUNTRY WHOSE SOLVENT GOVERNMENT HAS IN THEIR VIEW SYTEMATICALLY REFUSED TO FULFIL ITS NATIONAL AND INTERNATIONAL CONTRACTUAL OBLIGATIONS, REFUSES ALL CONTACT AND DIALOGUE WITH ITS LEGITIMATE BONA FIDE CREDITORS, AND REFUSES TO DISCLOSE LIABILITIES WORTH US$ 90 BILLION.
Case of the Day: Ambritz Trading Corp. v. URALSIB Financial Corp. | Letters Blogatory
Case of the Day: Semtek International v. Information Satellite Systems | Letters Blogatory
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Waimalu () is a census-designated place (CDP) in Honolulu County, Hawaii, United States. The population was 13,817 at the 2020 census.

Geography
Waimalu is located at  (21.399150, -157.948432).

According to the United States Census Bureau, the CDP has a total area of , of which  is land and , or 4.62%, is water.

Demographics

As of the census of 2000, there were 29,371 people, 10,524 households, and 7,514 families residing in the CDP.  The population density was .  There were 10,999 housing units at an average density of .  The racial makeup of the CDP was 17.08% White, 2.33% African American, 0.26% Native American, 55.32% Asian, 5.63% Pacific Islander, 1.10% from other races, and 18.27% from two or more races. Hispanic or Latino of any race were 5.97% of the population.

There were 10,524 households, out of which 29.2% had children under the age of 18 living with them, 55.9% were married couples living together, 11.1% had a female householder with no husband present, and 28.6% were non-families. 21.0% of all households were made up of individuals, and 3.4% had someone living alone who was 65 years of age or older.  The average household size was 2.78 and the average family size was 3.26.

In the CDP the population was spread out, with 21.4% under the age of 18, 9.5% from 18 to 24, 31.5% from 25 to 44, 27.5% from 45 to 64, and 10.1% who were 65 years of age or older.  The median age was 38 years. For every 100 females, there were 102.6 males.  For every 100 females age 18 and over, there were 102.7 males.

The median income for a household in the CDP was $61,210, and the median income for a family was $70,740. Males had a median income of $40,949 versus $32,090 for females. The per capita income for the CDP was $25,913. About 4.1% of families and 5.9% of the population were below the poverty line, including 7.9% of those under age 18 and 3.0% of those age 65 or over.

Education
Waimalu is within the Hawaii Department of Education.

Public elementary schools in the 2010 CDP include Pearl Ridge Elementary School. Three other  elementary schools (Momilani, Waimalu, and Waiau Elementary School) were in the Waimalu CDP as of the 2000 U.S. Census, but as of the 2010 U.S. Census are now in the Pearl City CDP.

Pearl City High School was located in the Waimalu CDP in 2000, but as of 2010 it is in Pearl City CDP.

Our Savior Lutheran School, a K-8 private school, is in the Waimalu CDP.

Legends
There are several geographic legends of Waimalu in the Ewa Area between the East Loch of Pearl Harbor and the terraces in the Waimalu Stream, Waipi Stream which is east of Waiua Pond. Accounts of Heiau, the Waimalu Burial Cave, Paul Marin, and Paunana- loa Huewai-pi, are also included.

References

Census-designated places in Honolulu County, Hawaii

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaWikipedia


Despite its relatively abundant water resources, Lebanon is significantly water-stressed with water availability falling short of international standards by over 150 m3 per person every year. According to the government's plans, to alleviate the country's water problems, the Janna dam project was approved as part of a wider strategy across the country in 2009 and its construction effectively began in 2013. The dam will have a capacity of 38 cubic meters and will supply the region of Byblos as well as the northern part of Beirut and its suburbs. In addition, the site will also include a hydroelectric power plant supplying the grid with electricity. The project will take place in a region called the Adonis valley, where the Abraham river passes. Home to many natural springs and more than 700 species of animals and plants, some of them endemic, it's considered to be one of the most biodiverse areas of the Middle-East. In addition to its high ecological value, the Adonis valley has always been an area of important cultural significance. The valley, named after the Phoenician deity Adonis, has many temples and Ottoman-era water mills scattered along the banks of the Abraham river passing through. The project is said to have impacts on various levels. Hydrologically-speaking, the dam will affect river flow and disrupt the vast underground network of aquifers feeding the Jeita spring and significantly draining it. This spring is Beirut's main water source and of utmost importance for the underground rivers passing through the Jeita caverns. In addition, the carbonate rocks of the area form karst containers, a permeable geological structure that makes water retention very difficult and is hence not suitable for building a dam. Thousands of trees have already been chopped down and hundreds of thousands more are projected to follow suit, causing erosion, destruction of habitats and whole ecosystems including the 16,000 acre Jabal Moussa Biosphere Reserve, a few miles downstream of where the dam is being built. The reserve, a UNESCO-recognized biosphere, is recognized as a protected by the Ministry of Agriculture.
The whole process has been very ambiguous and secretive, as information about the project was not made public or easily accessible including the two Environmental Impact Assessments Reports on which the construction decision was based. The construction also began before the presentation of these reports to the public during a consultation that took place on September 25, 2014. Lebanon Eco Movement, a network of Lebanese environmental associations, has been the front runner in campaigning against the construction of this dam. Using drone footage, the movement could show the extend of the destruction caused by the construction works. On May 31 2016, they were able to fly a drone above the construction site showing the public that the construction works have not stopped despite the order of cessation issued a few days before. Under pressure, the construction was suspended in May 2016 pending a final decision, only to resume a few days later despite the order of cessation.
Project Details The dam is expected to have a fixed storage capacity of 38 million cubic meters and a mobile storage capacity of between 80 and 90 million cubic meters. The dam will provide around 700,000 people (Within the Jbeil and Northern Beirut areas) with drinking and irrigation water as well as generating 4 MW of Energy.
Why? Explain briefly. Not enough pressure was exerted for the project to be stopped completely. The cessation order was not applied. In addition, no serious alternatives were proposed by activists. The project also had a lot of proponents even from the region where it is being built, including mayors. It is also important to note that the whole process was very shady and secretive, making it difficult for activists and opponents to get information about the project.