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EL PASO, Texas — Two former Border Patrol agents convicted of shooting a drug smuggler and trying to cover it up have been denied a request for a new hearing. The 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in New Orleans denied the request by Ignacio Ramos and Jose Alonso Compean on Wednesday. The same court upheld the men's convictions in July. No reason was given for the Wednesday's denial. Ramos and Compean are each serving sentences of more than 10 years for shooting Osvaldo Aldrete Davila in the buttocks while he was fleeing from an abandoned marijuana load in 2005....

People started queuing before 7am for a front row spot at John McCain's campaign rally in Lebanon, Ohio, this week. By the time the senator appeared with Sarah Palin, his running mate, three hours later, more than 5,000 people had crammed into the town centre, with hundreds more locked outside the security cordon. Similar scenes have greeted the Republican presidential ticket at events across the country this week, marking the first time that Mr McCain has rivalled Barack Obama for pulling power. Scanning the crowd in Lebanon, a commuter town of 17,000 people outside Cincinnati, the catalyst for surging Republican...

A federal appeals court yesterday refused to reconsider the decision denying a new trial for Mumia Abu-Jamal in the 1981 murder of Philadelphia Police Officer Daniel Faulkner. In a two-page decision, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit denied Abu-Jamal's request for a rehearing of his appeal in the controversial case, which has helped fuel an international debate about the death penalty. Abu-Jamal's lawyer, Robert R. Bryan of San Francisco, said he planned to ask the U.S. Supreme Court to consider the case. In March, a three-judge panel of the Third Circuit left intact Abu-Jamal's conviction but said...

Obama advisers say bin Laden can appeal to U.S. civilian courts Barack Obama has expressed support for the Supreme Court’s decision in favor of civilian prosecution of terrorism suspects, and his advisers said Tuesday that if Osama bin Laden were captured, he too should face civilian prosecution. – AP Bill Sammon, The Examiner 2008-06-18 07:00:00.0 Current rank: # 13 of 6,452 WASHINGTON - Barack Obama’s foreign policy advisers said Tuesday that Osama bin Laden, if captured, should be allowed to appeal his case to U.S. civilian courts, a privilege opposed by John McCain. Responding to questions from The Examiner, Sen....

I have been a member since 1999. I have been suspended at least twice and kicked off "for good" once. I deserved to be suspended once. I believe that FR is a force for good in the world. Debate between people who consider themselves conservative, right or wrong, is a good thing. I believe that FR would prosper more, that more would donate, if they really believed that they had a stake in the site. The risk, that I now expose myself to, that you can be booted forever for speaking your honestly conservative mind in accordance with the rules,...

LOS ANGELES (Reuters) - A federal appeals court on Thursday left in place a lower court's ruling that allowed Washington state pharmacists to refuse to sell emergency contraceptive "morning after" pills on religious grounds. A federal judge in Seattle suspended state rules that required pharmacies to dispense "Plan B" and other emergency contraceptives that prevent fertilized eggs from implanting, which some people believe is the same as abortion.The case was brought by Stormans Inc, doing business as Ralph's Thriftway, and pharmacists Rhonda Mesler and Margo Thelen.

In the community of Shady Grove Woods, trees are becoming more and more scarce. Residents and other anti-Intercounty Connector activists marched through the neighborhood on Saturday, pointing out the trees that were cut down to make way for the six-lane highway. ‘‘It’s just that we didn’t have a say in it in so many ways and we’re not talking about a two-lane road, we’re talking about a major highway running through here,” resident Sam Chim said of the ICC. ‘‘We have a lot of nice, private woods back here and now we’re going to have a highway running through instead....

The Supreme Court denied an appeal today from a conservative group that wants to run ads promoting an unflattering documentary about Hillary Rodham Clinton. Citizens United's appeal was rejected for jurisdictional reasons. Now, the group must either wait for district court action or run ads that comply with current campaign finance laws by disclosing who paid for the ads. Citizens United's lawyer said that he will be waiting for the Federal District Court to make its decision before taking any other action. "Hillary: The Movie," has had one-night shows in a handful of movie theaters and is available on DVD....

NASHUA, N.H. – At a rally with some 1,500 people here on Sunday afternoon, Hillary Rodham Clinton had separate comments about the current president and his predecessor. Referring to the personal appeal that Senator Barack Obama enjoys among many Democrats, Mrs. Clinton said: “I think it’s good to have a likable president. But if I remember right, many people said they wanted to have a beer with George W. Bush. Maybe they should’ve left it at that – have a beer, don’t vote him in as our president.” Minutes later, an audience member asked what Bill Clinton would be called...

Why Do People Support Underdogs And Find Them So Appealing? ScienceDaily (Dec. 19, 2007) — In a series of studies, researchers from the University of South Florida tested the scope of people's support for those who are expected to lose, seeking to understand why people are drawn to the Rocky Balboas and the Davids (versus Goliaths) of the world. Using both sports and political examples, the researchers* asked study participants to react to various scenarios presenting different competitors with an advantage or disadvantage. For instance, in one study using the Israeli and Palestinian conflict, the participants were given the same...

MINNEAPOLIS - Embattled Sen. Larry Craig asked the Minnesota Court of Appeals on Monday to overrule a county judge who refused to allow him to withdraw his guilty plea in connection with an arrest in an airport bathroom sex sting. Craig's appeal was filed at the court in St. Paul less than two weeks after Hennepin County District Court Judge Charles Porter refused to overturn the guilty plea, saying it "was accurate, voluntary and intelligent, and ... supported by the evidence." Craig, a Republican from Idaho, pleaded guilty to disorderly conduct in August after he was accused of soliciting sex...

Under pressure from a newspaper investigation, Sen. Larry Craig "panicked" and pleaded guilty to disorderly conduct in a Minneapolis-St. Paul International Airport men's room, according to court papers filed Monday. The plea constitutes a "manifest injustice" and should be set aside, his lawyers say. The 50-page filing in Hennepin County District Court said Craig feared his arrest in the airport sting would prompt the Idaho Statesman to publish a story examining his sexual orientation. The Republican, who has represented Idaho in the U.S. Senate for 17 years, "felt compelled to grasp the lifeline offered to him by the police officer,...

11th Circuit rules school was in its power to suspend teen in light of other incidents of school violence across nation. CITING SCHOOL SCHOOTINGS from Columbine to Virginia Tech, a federal appeals court has ruled against a local student suspended in 2003 after a teacher saw a story the student had written in which the narrator dreams of shooting her math teacher. Rachel Boim, who was a ninth-grader at Roswell High School when the incident occurred, sued the Fulton County School District and school officials, asking the courts to force school officials to remove the suspension from her disciplinary record....

Two dangerous Libyan terror suspects will be freed to walk Britain's streets after the Home Office's attempts to deport them were thrown out by senior judges yesterday. John Reid is trying to send the men home to using a controversial "memorandum of understanding" - by which Colonel Gadaffi's government promised not to torture or kill them on their return. The aim was to overcome objections to their removal to Libya on human rights grounds. But yesterday the Special Immigration Appeals Commission [SIAC] in London ruled that the Libyan government could not be trusted and blocked the deportation order, despite a...

MEXICO CITY - Mexican President Felipe Calderon won't be fighting for migration reform when he meets with President Bush next week. Instead, he will be be spelling out what he intends to do to keep Mexicans at home. Calderon, who was inaugurated on Dec. 1, has pledged to take 100 actions in his first 100 days in office, many of which represent the first steps toward "curing" Mexico's long tradition of illegal migration to the U.S. If implemented, his proposals could help transform Mexico from a labor-exporting country with relatively low growth, productivity and wages into an investment-rich, job-producing economy...

NASHVILLE, Tenn. - That dusty stack of records in your parents' basement? They're not as retro as you might think. Many record collectors, DJs and music junkies still consider vinyl to be the gold standard of recorded music — scratches, pops and all. That enduring appeal has helped Nashville's United Record Pressing, which cranks out 20,000 to 40,000 records a day, making it one of the largest — and last — vinyl record manufacturers in the country. "Folks thought we had disappeared," owner and CEO Cris Ashworth said. Started in 1962, the plant is as much a throwback as the...

We're not talking about Ramos and Compean. This is another agent that was railroaded out of years of his life.  But the similarities are astounding!   After the article is some of the decision to grant another trial and some information about the Asst. Atty General in the case ,R. Alexander Acosta,  who handles the "civil rights" division of the justice department.    He's bragged before congress about how many suits they've brought against small counties because they didn't have enough Spanish language poll workers!  They have quite a foreigner protection racket going in the DC 'justice' department!   At the end...

CHICAGO -- Looking around at the overwhelmingly white audience that was applauding Sen. Barack Obama's luncheon speech on Iraq at a downtown hotel recently, the Rev. B. Herbert Martin expressed both satisfaction and concern. Martin, who said he was the only black person in the crowd, was thrilled that Obama, the only African American in the Senate, could engender such enthusiasm from a white audience because it offered further proof that the Illinois Democrat would be a formidable presidential candidate. But Martin also worried that in order to run successfully Obama would have to become a different kind of politician...

UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, Louise Arbour, today renewed her call for restraint by the Government of Iraq in the execution of sentences of death imposed by the Iraqi High Tribunal. On 28 December 2006, alongside the confirmation of the death sentence of Saddam Hussein, the death sentences of two other co-defendants, Awad Hamad Al-Bandar and Barzan Ibrahim Al-Hassan, were also upheld on appeal. "International law, as it currently stands, only allows the imposition of the death penalty as an exceptional measure within rigorous legal constraints. The concerns that I expressed just days ago with respect to the fairness...

Daily Herald Suspect had a murder conviction overturned Like slaying of restaurant manager he's accused of, 1982 case involved strangulation BY TONY GORDON Daily Herald Legal Affairs Writer Posted Monday, December 04, 2006 http://www.dailyherald.com/story.asp?id=256490 The man accused of killing a Lindenhurst restaurant manager last week was once convicted of killing four members of a Chicago family. But James Ealy's conviction for the 1982 murders in Chicago was thrown out by an appellate court that ruled police acted improperly in questioning him. Ealy is held without bond in the Nov. 28 strangulation murder of Mary Hutchison, 45, of Trevor, Wis., a...

CHICAGO -- Former Gov. George Ryan can remain free while he appeals his racketeering and fraud conviction, a federal appeals court has ruled. The decision by the 7th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals was issued without explanation Tuesday. Ryan, 72, was convicted in April of steering lucrative state contracts and leases to lobbyists and friends and using state employees and tax dollars to operate his political campaigns. He was sentenced in September to 6 1/2 years in federal prison. U.S. District Judge Rebecca L. Pallmeyer had refused to grant bail to Ryan. But the appeals court overruled her and said...

The Supreme Court refused to intervene Tuesday in a legal fight over same-sex marriage, declining an appeal from a gay California couple who were denied a license to wed. The justices declined without comment to take the case of Arthur Smelt and Christopher Hammer of Mission Viejo, Calif. The men had sought a marriage license in Southern California's Orange County in 2004 and, after they were turned down, filed a federal lawsuit that challenged federal and state laws against same-sex marriage. A U.S. District judge said the federal Defense of Marriage Act was constitutional but declined to rule on the...

WASHINGTON, Oct. 6, 2006 -- Jeff Klare put his bicycle where his heart is Oct. 1, and set out on a 300-mile trip to raise awareness of the need for more corporations to hire workers with disabilities. Eric Madaus, 8, leads Jeff Klare, chief executive officer of Hire Disability Solutions, to the finish of a 300-mile bike ride at the Franklin Delano Roosevelt Memorial in Washington, D.C., Oct. 6. Klare began his ride at the foot of the Brooklyn Bridge in New York to bring attention to the need for more corporations to hire workers with disabilities. Madaus suffers...

If seeing Arab, Pakistani, or other “ethnic” Muslims menacingly wave their hands while lambasting the West is nothing strange, seeing homegrown, non-accented Western converts doing the same thing is. Along with John Walker Lindh, Richard Reid, Jose Padilla, and Germaine Lindsay — all Western converts to Islam and all terrorists — in the spotlight today are Abu Abdullah, the native Briton turned Muslim cleric, who makes no secret of his vitriolic hatred of the West and who was just arrested for terrorist-related charges, and Azzam “the American” (formerly Adam Gadahn), who after receiving a gracious introduction by Dr. Aymin Zawahri...

BISBEE — A Minuteman-built border fence planned for a local ranch cleared its final legal hurdle this week when a 30-day waiting period expired Thursday without any appeals filed to stop it. On Friday, however, the status of the project seemed unclear, with the Minutemen and the ranch owner offering conflicting reports on the fence’s progress. “We are very much moving forward,” Minuteman spokeswoman Connie Hair said. “They’ve got the architects, the contractor and the surveyor down there, they brought bulldozers out, and I am told they are beginning to prepare the ground.” But the owner of the land said...

A federal appeals court on Thursday refused to let Texas Republicans replace Tom DeLay's name on the November congressional ballot. The 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals upheld a ruling by U.S. District Judge Sam Sparks, who said in July that DeLay's name had to stay on the ballot even though he quit Congress and moved to Virginia. DeLay won a March primary before resigning from Congress on June 9. He is awaiting trial in Texas state court on money laundering and conspiracy charges alleging that illegal corporate cash helped pay for legislative campaigns in 2002.

Hamza wins go-ahead to appeal over 'unfair' trial By Duncan Gardham (Filed: 29/07/2006) The radical Islamic cleric Abu Hamza was given leave to appeal yesterday against his conviction for soliciting to murder on the grounds of the bad publicity he had received before and during the trial. Hamza's lawyers claimed he was unable to get a fair trial because he had become the most notorious person in Britain after the attacks of September 11, 2001 and July 7, 2005. Abu Hamza: ‘adverse publicity’ Edward Fitzgerald, QC, said putting Hamza on trial six years after the last of the speeches was...

Texas’ two major political parties both want a federal appeals court to quickly decide whether retired congressman Tom DeLay is or is not eligible to run again for the office from which he recently resigned. But filings with the 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals show lawyers for state Democrats don’t want the appeal to proceed quite as quickly as GOP lawyers do. It’s the latest development in an unlikely case that finds Texas Democrats fighting to keep longtime Sugar Land Republican congressman DeLay on the ballot, where he would face Democratic challenger Nick Lampson and Libertarian Bob Smither. The...

The city will petition the U.S. Supreme Court in a drive to exhaust every legal avenue before removing a giant concrete cross from public property on Aug. 1, the city attorney said Thursday. The city will ask the high court to review Wednesday's decision by a 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals panel to turn down the city's request to stay a federal court decision against the cross. U.S. District Court Judge Gordon Thompson Jr. found in May that the city was demonstrating an unconstitutional endorsement of one religion over others by maintaining the 29-foot cross in a municipal hilltop...

SAN DIEGO A three-judge federal panel on Wednesday rejected a last-ditch appeal by the city of San Diego to keep a giant cross standing on city property after a 17-year legal tussle. The city is under federal court order to move the 29-foot-tall cross from a La Jolla hilltop before Aug. 2 or face $5,000 daily fines. The failed appeal to the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals was intended to stay that order and allow the cross to remain standing until appeals currently pending in state courts can be heard. City Attorney Michael Aguirre said that Wednesday's ruling, issued...

WASHINGTON - The Supreme Court rejected an appeal from news organizations fighting to protect confidential sources, refusing to consider the case of four reporters in legal trouble over their stories about former nuclear weapons scientist Wen Ho Lee The court's action, released Monday, was taken without comment. Late last week, Lee settled his privacy lawsuit, and he will receive $1.6 million from the government and five news organizations. Journalists had been in civil contempt of court for refusing to disclose who leaked them information about an espionage investigation of Lee, a nuclear weapons scientist fired from his job at Los...

A former U.S. solicitor general will help Kennedy cousin Michael Skakel appeal his murder conviction to the U.S. Supreme Court, saying Monday the case will focus on when the charges were filed. Theodore B. Olson has argued 43 cases before the nation's highest court, including representing George W. Bush in the disputed presidential race of 2000. Skakel, 45, is serving a sentence of 20 years to life for his 2002 conviction in the 1975 beating death of his Greenwich neighbor, Martha Moxley, when the two were teenagers. Skakel appealed his conviction to the Connecticut Supreme Court last year, arguing among...

Kenneth Starr, the former Whitewater special prosecutor, will represent the city school board in appealing a court ruling that favored a high school student who displayed a "Bong Hits 4 Jesus" banner during an Olympic torch relay. The school board wants the U.S. Supreme Court to hear the case. In April, an appeals court said school officials violated the student's free speech rights when they suspended him for 10 days. Starr, who is dean at Pepperdine Law School in Malibu, Calif., has agreed to take the case for free, said Phyllis Carlson, president of the school board. "Federal law requires...

A federal appeals court ruled Tuesday that Rep. Jim McDermott violated federal law by turning over an illegally taped telephone call to reporters nearly a decade ago. In a 2-1 opinion, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia upheld a lower court ruling that McDermott violated the rights of House Majority Leader John Boehner, who was heard on the 1996 call involving former House Speaker Newt Gingrich. The lower court had ordered McDermott to pay Boehner more than $700,000 for leaking the taped conversation. The figure includes $60,000 in damages and at least $600,000 in legal costs....

WASHINGTON — The Supreme Court today refused to hear an appeal by two North Carolina-based tobacco companies who claimed California's tough anti-smoking ads smeared their reputations. R.J. Reynolds Tobacco Co., now Winston-Salem, N.C.-based Reynolds American Inc., and Lorillard Tobacco Co. of Greensboro, N.C., had asked the justices to overturn a 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals decision that rejected the companies' claims that their First Amendment rights were violated by California's ad campaign. California uses part of an 87-cent tax on every package of cigarettes to fund health education that includes a campaign to discourage smoking. The ads included a...

SAN FRANCISCO (AP) - State and local prosecutors said Friday that former Whitewater independent counsel Kenneth Starr and another lawyer representing a death row inmate submitted to the governor forged letters from jurors who were falsely portrayed as wishing the condemned man would be spared. "We showed each person the declaration on their behalf and they all said they didn't say that," said Nathan Barankin, spokesman for Attorney General Bill Lockyer. Starr and Los Angeles attorney David Senior are the clemency lawyers for Michael Morales, a 46-year-old Stockton man on death row for murdering and raping a 17-year-old San Joaquin...

The disciplinary arm of the N.C. State Bar dropped charges of felonious misconduct against two former Union County prosecutors Friday because of a 1999 clerical error at the state Supreme Court. The State Bar had charged Kenneth Honeycutt and Scott Brewer with lying, cheating and withholding evidence in a 1996 death penalty case. The ruling Friday marks the second time that Honeycutt and Brewer won on procedural grounds before the bar's Disciplinary Hearing Commission, which sits as judge and jury in disciplinary cases. . . . Prosecutors around the state are concerned that the case is damaging their reputation and...

MODESTO, Calif. - The parents of condemned murderer Scott Peterson hired two noted attorneys to begin his appeals. "Since he is innocent, we don't want him sitting there any longer than he has to," Lee Peterson, the former fertilizer salesman's father, said Tuesday. Peterson was convicted Nov. 12, 2004, in the murders of his pregnant wife, Laci, and the fetus she carried. Death sentences are automatically appealed in California, but it can sometimes take several years for inmates to receive a state-appointed attorney. Peterson's trial lawyer Mark Geragos could have handled the appeals but said he felt the case warrants...

SEATTLE POST-INTELLIGENCER http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/national/1152AP_Military_Antrax.html Thursday, December 1, 2005 · Last updated 10:01 a.m. PT _Anthrax shots may be required in military_ By PETE YOST ASSOCIATED PRESS WRITER * WASHINGTON -- The Bush administration asked a federal appeals court Thursday to reinstate mandatory anthrax inoculations for many military personnel, while a lawyer for soldiers who refused the shots said anti-anthrax vaccine was never intended for the purpose the Pentagon is using it. * The government is appealing a decision by U.S. District Judge Emmet Sullivan, who suspended anthrax vaccinations after he found fault in the Food and Drug Administration's process for...

Judge nullified citizens' 75% vote to maintain landmark The city of San Diego will appeal a court ruling that nullified an overwhelming vote by its citizens to save a historic cross that sits on public land. Attorney Charles LiMandri, who represented the city in the case, told WorldNetDaily yesterday that newly elected Mayor Jerry Sanders informed him of the decision to appeal the Oct. 7 ruling by San Diego Superior Court Judge Patricia Yim Cowett. Cowett's decision effectively overturned Proposition A, passed by 75 percent of voters in July, which would donate the cross to the federal government as the...

New Haven, Sep. 16, 2005 (CNA) - The national office of the Knights of Columbus has announced that the group plans to immediately appeal a decision, given earlier this week by a California judge, that the words “under God” render the Pledge of Allegiance unconstitutional.The Knights were among the defendants in the case of Newdow vs. Congress of the United States, et al--the decision of which has angered religious groups nationwide.District Judge Lawrence Karlton said in his Wednesday decision that the phrase violates a student’s right to be ``free from a coercive requirement to affirm God.'' The ruling effects three...

It's official. There will not be a Republican primary for mayor today. A federal court has refused to hear an expedited appeal from Thomas Ognibene to restore him to the ballot. The Board of Elections threw him off last month after Mayor Michael Bloomberg said Ognibene did not have enough valid signatures on his nominating petitions.

Diocese to appeal court decision that parishes can be liquidated; claims breach of church/state separation Spokane, Aug. 30, 2005 (CNA) - Bishop William Skylstad of Spokane, Washington has announced that his diocese will appeal a federal court ruling which, on Friday, declared all parishes in the diocese assets which can be liquidated to pay for claims by alleged victims of sexual abuse by priests. Bishop Skylstad, who also holds the post of president of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops, said in a statement released from Eastern Europe, where he is currently traveling, that"The court's decision has national consequences.” “Its...

After the denial of a second appeal of a ticket issued in 2003 for a Lambertville accident, former U.S. senator Robert Torricelli will accept his six-month loss of driving privileges.

Clinton Library's universal appeal seen in its 365,000 visitors By DAVID HAMMER Associated Press Writer July 15, 2005, 7:07 PM EDT LITTLE ROCK -- The everyman appeal that Bill Clinton peddled in his political campaigns lives on at his presidential library. Among the more than 365,000 visitors who have passed through the library since November, no single demographic stands out. "I just think he is the only president I'll ever see who will really understand me as a person, and that's why I wanted to see more," said Ava Carter, 48, a black Democrat traveling with James D. Stearns, 55,...

List of Characteristics Important to Black Americans Cited Today's announcement of a vacancy on the U.S. Supreme Court provides President George W. Bush with an important duty that has the potential to affect judicial decision-making for generations to come. Members of the black leadership network Project 21 are calling upon the President to ensure that all nominees under consideration will preserve and protect the U.S Constitution. Peter Kirsanow, a Project 21 member and commissioner on the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights, said: "I'm confident that the President will nominate someone with integrity and wisdom who understands that the proper role...

Capano's execution date delayed Another delay for the execution of Tom Capano. Superior Court Judge Henley Graves today stayed the June seventh execution date he set nearly two months ago. The stay will allow Capano's appeal to the Delaware Supreme Court to be considered. Capano was sentenced to death for the murder of Anne Marie Fahey in 1996. Prosecutors said Capano killed Fahey, the scheduling secretary for then-governor Tom Carper, because she was breaking off an affair with him. The Delaware Supreme Court is still also considering a motion by Capano's attorney, Joseph Bernstein, to appoint a lawyer to represent...

WASHINGTON (AP) - A federal appeals court on Tuesday ordered dismissal of a lawsuit seeking to force Vice President Dick Cheney to reveal details about the energy policy task force he headed and the pro-industry recommendations it made. The Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit unanimously found that two private groups that sued Cheney failed to establish that the federal government had a legal duty to produce documents detailing the White House's contacts with business executives and lobbyists. The lawsuit, filed by the Sierra Club and Judicial Watch, alleged that energy industry officials effectively became members of...

LOS ANGELES (AP) - Federal prosecutors are appealing a judge's dismissal of a Chinese-American business woman accused of copying classified intelligence documents. Katrina Leung, 60, is accused of taking documents from the briefcase of her longtime FBI handler, James J. Smith, with whom she was having an affair. Prosecutors accused Leung of secretly working for the Chinese government but never charged her with giving the documents to a foreign government. In January, U.S. District Judge Florence-Marie Cooper dismissed the case, saying prosecutors engaged in misconduct by keeping Smith from communicating with Leung and her attorneys. A notice of appeal was...