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As here relevant, federal law requires a domestic bank involved in a cash transaction exceeding $10,000 to file a report with the Secretary of the Treasury, 31 U.S.C. 5313(a), 31 CFR 103.22(a); makes it illegal to "structure" a transaction - i.e., to break up a single transaction above the reporting threshold into two or more separate transactions - "for the purpose of evading the reporting requiremen[t]," 31 U.S.C. 5324(3); and sets out criminal penalties for "[a] person willfully violating" the anti-structuring provision, 5322(a). After the judge at petitioner Waldemar Ratzlaf's trial on charges of violating 5322(a) and 5324(3) instructed the jury that the Government had to prove both that the defendant knew of the 5313(a) reporting obligation and that he attempted to evade that obligation, but did not have to prove that he knew the structuring in which he engaged was unlawful, Ratzlaf was convicted, fined, and sentenced to prison. In affirming, the Court of Appeals upheld the trial court's construction of the legislation.
To give effect to 5322(a)'s "willfulness" requirement, the Government must prove that the defendant acted with knowledge that the structuring he or she undertook was unlawful, not simply that the defendant's purpose was to circumvent a bank's reporting obligation. Section 5324 itself forbids structuring with a "purpose of evading the [ 5313(a)] reporting requirements," and the lower courts erred in treating the "willfulness" requirement essentially as words of no consequence. Viewing 5322(a) and 5324(3) in light of the complex of provisions in which they are embedded, it is significant that the omnibus "willfulness" requirement, when applied to other provisions in the same statutory subchapter, Page II consistently has been read by the Courts of Appeals to require both knowledge of the reporting requirement and a specific intent to commit the crime or to disobey the law. The "willfulness" requirement must be construed the same way each time it is called into play. Because currency structuring is not inevitably nefarious, this Court is unpersuaded by the United States' argument that structuring is so obviously "evil" or inherently "bad" that the "willfulness" requirement is satisfied irrespective of the defendant's knowledge of the illegality of structuring. The interpretation adopted in this case does not dishonor the venerable principle that ignorance of the law generally is no defense to a criminal charge, for Congress may decree otherwise in particular contexts, and has done so in the present instance. Pp. 5-15.
976 F.2d 1280, reversed and remanded.
GINSBURG, J., delivered the opinion of the Court, in which STEVENS, SCALIA, KENNEDY, and SOUTER, JJ., joined. BLACKMUN, J., filed a dissenting opinion, in which REHNQUIST, C. J., and O'CONNOR and THOMAS, JJ., joined. [ RATZLAF v. UNITED STATES, ___ U.S. ___ (1994) , 1]
JUSTICE GINSBURG delivered the opinion of the Court.
Federal law requires banks and other financial institutions to file reports with the Secretary of the Treasury whenever they are involved in a cash transaction that exceeds $10,000. 31 U.S.C. 5313; 31 CFR 103.22(a) (1993). It is illegal to "structure" transactions - i.e., to break up a single transaction above the reporting threshold into two or more separate transactions - for the purpose of evading a financial institution's reporting requirement. 31 U.S.C. 5324. "A person willfully violating" this anti-structuring provision is subject to criminal penalties. 5322. This case presents a question on which Courts of Appeals have divided: does a defendant's purpose to circumvent a bank's reporting obligation suffice to sustain a conviction for "willfully violating" the anti-structuring provision? 1 We [ RATZLAF v. UNITED STATES, ___ U.S. ___ (1994) , 2] hold that the "willfulness" requirement mandates something more. To establish that a defendant "willfully violat[ed]" the anti-structuring law, the Government must prove that the defendant acted with knowledge that his conduct was unlawful.
On the evening of October 20, 1988, defendant-petitioner Waldemar Ratzlaf ran up a debt of $160,000 playing blackjack at the High Sierra Casino in Reno, Nevada. The casino gave him one week to pay. On the due date, Ratzlaf returned to the casino with cash of $100,000 in hand. A casino official informed Ratzlaf that all transactions involving more than $10,000 in cash had to be reported to state and federal authorities. The official added that the casino could accept a cashier's check for the full amount due without triggering any reporting requirement. The casino helpfully placed a limousine at Ratzlaf's disposal, and assigned an employee to accompany him to banks in the vicinity. Informed that banks, too, are required to report cash transactions in excess of $10,000, Ratzlaf purchased cashier's checks, each for less than $10,000 and each from a different bank. He delivered these checks to the High Sierra Casino.
Based on this endeavor, Ratzlaf was charged with "structuring transactions" to evade the banks' obligation to report cash transactions exceeding $10,000; this conduct, the indictment alleged, violated 31 U.S.C. 5322(a) and 5324(3). The trial judge instructed the jury that the Government had to prove defendant's knowledge of the banks' reporting obligation and his attempt to evade that obligation, but did not have to prove defendant knew the structuring was unlawful. Ratzlaf was convicted, fined, and sentenced to prison. 2 [ RATZLAF v. UNITED STATES, ___ U.S. ___ (1994) , 3]
Ratzlaf maintained on appeal that he could not be convicted of "willfully violating" the anti-structuring law solely on the basis of his knowledge that a financial institution must report currency transactions in excess of $10,000 and his intention to avoid such reporting. To gain a conviction for "willful" conduct, he asserted, the Government must prove he was aware of the illegality of the "structuring" in which he engaged. The Ninth Circuit upheld the trial court's construction of the legislation and affirmed Ratzlaf's conviction. 976 F.2d 1280 (1992). We granted certiorari, 507 U.S. ___ (1993), and now conclude that, to give effect to the statutory "willfulness" specification, the Government had to prove Ratzlaf knew the structuring he undertook was unlawful. We therefore reverse the judgment of the Court of Appeals.
Congress enacted the Currency and Foreign Transactions Reporting Act (Bank Secrecy Act) in 1970, Pub.L. 91-2508, Tit. II, 84 Stat. 1118, in response to increasing use of banks and other institutions as financial intermediaries by persons engaged in criminal activity. The Act imposes a variety of reporting requirements on individuals and institutions regarding foreign and domestic financial transactions. See 31 U.S.C. 5311-5325. The reporting requirement relevant here, 5313(a), applies to domestic financial transactions. Section 5313(a) reads:
Section 5324 forbids structuring transactions with a "purpose of evading the reporting requirements of section 5313(a)." Ratzlaf admits that he structured cash transactions, and that he did so with knowledge of, and a purpose to avoid, the banks' duty to report currency transactions in excess of $10,000. The statutory formulation ( 5322) under which Ratzlaf was prosecuted, however, calls for proof of "willful[ness]" on the actor's part. The trial judge in Ratzlaf's case, with the Ninth Circuit's approbation, treated 5322(a)'s "willfulness" requirement essentially as surplusage - as words of no consequence. 7 Judges should hesitate so to treat [ RATZLAF v. UNITED STATES, ___ U.S. ___ (1994) , 6] statutory terms in any setting, and resistance should be heightened when the words describe an element of a criminal offense. See Pennsylvania Dept. of Public Welfare v. Davenport, 495 U.S. 552, 562 (1990) (expressing "deep reluctance" to interpret statutory provisions "so as to render superfluous other provisions in the same enactment") (citation omitted); cf. Potter v. United States, 155 U.S. 438, 446 (1894) (word "wilful" used to describe certain offenses but not others in same statute "cannot be regarded as mere surplusage; it means something").
A term appearing in several places in a statutory text is generally read the same way each time it appears. See Estate of Cowart v. Nicklos Drilling Co., 505 U.S. ___ (1992). We have even stronger cause to construe a single formulation, here 5322(a), the same way each time it is called into play. See United States v. Aversa, 984 F.2d 493, 498 (CA1 1993) (en banc) ("Ascribing various meanings to a single iteration of [ 5322(a)'s willfulness requirement] - reading the word differently for each code section to which it applies - would open Pandora's jar. If courts can render meaning so malleable, the usefulness of a single penalty provision for a group of related code sections will be eviscerated and . . . almost any code section that references a group of other code sections would become susceptible to individuated interpretation.").
The United States urges, however, that 5324 violators, by their very conduct, exhibit a purpose to do wrong, which suffices to show "willfulness":
Courts have noted "many occasions" on which persons, without violating any law, may structure transactions [ RATZLAF v. UNITED STATES, ___ U.S. ___ (1994) , 11] "in order to avoid the impact of some regulation or tax." United States v. Aversa, 762 F.Supp. 441, 446 (NH 1991), aff'd in part, 984 F.2d 493 (CA1 1993). This Court, over a century ago, supplied an illustration:
In light of these examples, we are unpersuaded by the argument that structuring is so obviously "evil" or inherently "bad" that the "willfulness" requirement is satisfied irrespective of the defendant's knowledge of the illegality of structuring. Had Congress wished to dispense with the requirement, it could have furnished the [ RATZLAF v. UNITED STATES, ___ U.S. ___ (1994) , 12] appropriate instruction. 16
In 5322, Congress subjected to criminal penalties only those "willfully violating" 5324, signaling its intent to require for conviction proof that the defendant knew not only of the bank's duty to report cash transactions in excess of $10,000, but also of his duty not to avoid triggering such a report. There are, we recognize, contrary indications in the statute's legislative history. 17 [ RATZLAF v. UNITED STATES, ___ U.S. ___ (1994) , 13] But we do not resort to legislative history to cloud a statutory text that is clear. 18 Moreover, were we to [ RATZLAF v. UNITED STATES, ___ U.S. ___ (1994) , 14] find 5322(a)'s "willfulness" requirement ambiguous as applied to 5324, we would resolve any doubt in favor of the defendant. Hughey v. United States, 495 U.S. 411, 422 (1990) (lenity principles "demand resolution of ambiguities in criminal statutes in favor of the defendant"); Crandon v. United States, 494 U.S. 152, 160 (1990) ("Because construction of a criminal statute must be guided by the need for fair warning, it is rare that legislative history or statutory policies will support a construction of a statute broader than that clearly warranted by the text."); United States v. Bass, 404 U.S. 336, 347 -350 (1971) (rule of lenity premised on concepts that "`fair warning should be given to the world in language that the common world will understand, of what the law intends to do if a certain line is passed'" and that "legislatures, and not courts, should define criminal activity") (quoting McBoyle v. United States, 283 U.S. 25, 27 (1931) (Holmes, J.)).
We do not dishonor the venerable principle that ignorance of the law generally is no defense to a criminal charge. See Cheek v. United States, 498 U.S. 192, 199 (1991); Barlow v. United States, 7 Pet. 404, 410-412 (1833) (Story, J.). In particular contexts, however, Congress may decree otherwise. That, we hold, is what Congress has done with respect to 31 U.S.C. 5322(a) and the provisions it controls. To convict Ratzlaf of the crime with which he was charged, violation of 31 U.S.C. 5322(a) and 5324(3), the jury had to find he knew the structuring in which he engaged was unlawful. 19 Because the jury was not properly [ RATZLAF v. UNITED STATES, ___ U.S. ___ (1994) , 15] instructed in this regard, we reverse the judgment of the Ninth Circuit and remand this case for further proceedings consistent with this opinion.
It is so ordered.
[ Footnote 2 ] Ratzlaf's wife and the casino employee who escorted Ratzlaf to [ RATZLAF v. UNITED STATES, ___ U.S. ___ (1994) , 3] area banks were codefendants. For convenience, we refer only to Waldemar Ratzlaf in this opinion.
[ Footnote 3 ] By regulation, the Secretary ordered reporting of "transaction[s] in currency of more than $10,000." 31 CFR 103.22(a) (1993). Although the Secretary could have imposed a report-filing requirement on "any . . . participant in the transaction," 31 U.S.C. 5313(a), the Secretary chose to require reporting by the financial institution, but not by the customer. 31 CFR 103.22(a) (1993).
[ Footnote 4 ] Other portions of this Act make "money laundering" itself a crime. See Pub. L. 99-570, Title XIII, 1352(a), 100 Stat. 3207-18, codified at 18 U.S.C. 1956(a)(2)(b) (prohibiting various transactions involving the "proceeds of some form of unlawful activity"). The Government does not assert that Ratzlaf obtained the cash used in any of the transactions relevant here in other than a lawful manner.
[ Footnote 5 ] Subsequent to Ratzlaf's conviction, Congress recodified 5324(1)-(3) as 5324(a)(1)-(3), without substantive change. In addition, Congress added subsection (b) to replicate the prohibitions of subsection (a) in the context of international currency transactions. See Annunzio-Wylie Anti-Money Laundering Act, Pub. L. 102-550, Tit. XV, 1525(a), 106 Stat. 4064, 31 U.S.C. 5324 (1988 ed., Supp. IV). For simplicity, we refer to the codification in effect at the time the Court of Appeals decided this case.
[ Footnote 6 ] Regarding enforcement of 5324, the Secretary considered, but did not promulgate, a regulation requiring banks to inform currency transaction customers of the section's proscription. See 53 Fed.Reg. 7948 (1988) (proposing "procedures to notify [bank] customers of the provisions to Section 5324" in order to "insure compliance" with those provisions); 54 Fed.Reg. 20398 (1989) (withdrawing proposal).
[ Footnote 7 ] The United States confirmed at oral argument that, in its view, as in the view of the courts below, "the 5324 offense is just what it would be [ RATZLAF v. UNITED STATES, ___ U.S. ___ (1994) , 6] if you never had 5322." Tr. of Oral Arg. 23.
[ Footnote 8 ] Section 5314 provides that "the Secretary of the Treasury shall require a resident or citizen of the United States or a person in, and doing business in, the United States, to keep records, file reports, or keep records and file reports, when the resident, citizen, or person makes a transaction or maintains a relation for any person with a foreign financial agency."
[ Footnote 9 ] Section 5316 requires the filing of reports prescribed by the Secretary of the Treasury when "a person or an agent or bailee of the person . . . knowingly (1) transports, is about to transport, or has transported, monetary instruments of more than $10,000 at one time" into, or out of, the United States.
[ Footnote 10 ] "[S]pecific intent to commit the crime[s]" described in 31 U.S.C. 5313, 5314, and 5316 might be negated by, e.g., proof that defendant relied in good faith on advice of counsel. See United States v. Eisenstein, 731 F.2d 1540, 1543-1544 (CA11 1984).
[ Footnote 11 ] On brief, the United States attempted to link Ratzlaf to other bad conduct, describing at some length his repeated failure to report gambling income in his income tax returns. Brief for United States 5-7. Ratzlaf was not prosecuted, however, for these alleged misdeeds. Tr. of Oral Arg. 35-36. Nor has the Government ever asserted that Ratzlaf was engaged in other conduct Congress sought principally to check through the legislation in question - not gambling at licensed casinos, but laundering money proceeds from drug sales or other criminal ventures. See S. Rep. No. 99-433, p. 1-2 (1986) (purpose of Act creating 5324 is to "provide Federal law enforcement agencies with additional tools to investigate money laundering [and to] curb the spread of money laundering, by which criminals have successfully disguised the nature and source of funds from their illegal enterprises").
[ Footnote 12 ] At oral argument, the United States recognized that, under its reading of the legislation, the entrepreneur in this example, absent special exemption, would be subject to prosecution. Tr. of Oral Arg. 32-34.
[ Footnote 13 ] See United States v. Dollar Bank Money Market Account No. 1591768456, 980 F.2d 233, 241 (CA3 1992) (forfeiture action under 18 U.S.C. 981(a)(1)(A) [involving a cash gift deposited by the donee in several steps to avoid bank's reporting requirement]; court overturned grant of summary judgment in Government's favor, noting that jury could believe donee's "legitimate explanations for organizing his deposits in amounts under $10,000," including respect for donor's privacy and fear that information regarding the donor - an "eccentric old woman [who] hid hundreds of thousands of dollars in her house" - might lead to burglary attempts).
[ Footnote 14 ] See Aversa, 984 F.2d, at 495 (real estate partners feared that "paper trail" from currency transaction reports would obviate efforts to hide existence of cash from spouse of one of the partners).
[ Footnote 15 ] The statute provides that, "[i]n the case of gifts . . . made to any person by [a] donor during [a] calendar year, the first $10,000 of such gifts to such person shall not . . . be included in the total amount of gifts made during such year." 26 U.S.C. 2503(b).
[ Footnote 16 ] Congress did provide for civil forfeiture without any "willfulness" requirement in the Money Laundering Control Act of 1986. See 18 U.S.C. 981(a) (subjecting to forfeiture "[a]ny property, real or personal, involved in a transaction . . . in violation of section 5313(a) or 5324(a) of title 31 . . ."); see also 31 U.S.C. 5317(a) (subjecting to forfeiture any "monetary instrument . . . being transported [when] a report on the instrument under section 5316 of this title has not been filed or contains a material omission or misstatement").
[ Footnote 17 ] The United States points to one of the Senate Reports accompanying the Money Laundering Control Act of 1986, which stated that "a person who converts $18,000 in currency to cashier's checks by purchasing two $9,000 cashier's checks at two different banks or on two different days with the specific intent that the participating bank or banks not be required to file Currency Transaction Reports for those transactions, would be subject to potential civil and criminal liability." S. Rep. No. 99-433, p. 22 (1986), cited in Brief for United States 35. The same Report also indicated that 5324 "would codify [United States v.] Tobon-Builes[, 706 F.2d 1092 (CA11 1983)] and like cases [by] expressly subject[ing] to potential liability a person who causes or attempts to cause a financial institution to fail to file a required report or who causes a financial institution to file a required report that contains material omissions or misstatements of fact." S. Rep. No. 99-433, at 22, cited in Brief for United States 33.
But the legislative history cited by the United States is hardly crystalline. The reference to United States v. Tobon-Builes, 706 F.2d 1092 (CA11 1983), is illustrative. In that case, the defendant was charged under 18 U.S.C. 1001, the False Statements Act, with "conceal[ing] . . . the existence, source, and transfer of approximately $185,200 in cash by purchasing approximately twenty-one cashier's checks in amounts less than $10,000 [and] using a variety [ RATZLAF v. UNITED STATES, ___ U.S. ___ (1994) , 13] of names, including false names . . . ." 706 F.2d, at 1094. The defendant's "main contention," rejected by the Eleventh Circuit, was that he "could not have violated the concealment prohibition of 1001 because he was under no legal duty to report any of his cash transactions." Id., at 1096. No "ignorance of the law" defense was asserted. Congress may indeed have "codified" that decision in 5324 by "expressly subject[ing] to potential liability a person who causes or attempts to cause a financial institution to fail to file a required report or who causes a financial institution to file a required report that contains material omissions or misstatements of fact," S.Rep. No. 99-433, p. 22 (1986), but it appears that Congress did so in the first and second subsections of 5324, which track the Senate Report language almost verbatim. See 31 U.S.C. 5324(1) (no person shall "cause or attempt to cause a domestic financial institution to fail to file a report required under section 5313(a)"); 31 U.S.C. 5324(2) (no person shall "cause or attempt to cause a domestic financial institution to file a report required under section 5313(a) that contains a material omission or misstatement of fact"). Indeed, the Senate Report stated that, "[i]n addition" to codifying Tobon-Builes, 5324 would also "create the offense of structuring a transaction to evade the reporting requirements." S.Rep. No. 99-433, p. 22. The relevance of Tobon-Builes to the proper construction of 5324(3), the subsection under which Ratzlaf was convicted, is not evident.
[ Footnote 18 ] See Barnhill v. Johnson, 503 U.S. ___, ___ (1992) (appeals to legislative history are well taken only to resolve statutory ambiguity). See also United States v. Aversa, 984 F.2d, at 499, n. 8 (commenting that legislative history of provisions here at issue "`is more conflicting than the [statutory] text is ambiguous,'" quoting Wong Yang Sung v. McGrath, 339 U.S. 33, 49 (1950)). As the First Circuit noted, no House, Senate, or Conference Report accompanied the final version of the Anti-Drug Abuse Act of 1986; instead, over 20 separate reports accompanied various proposed bills, portions of which were incorporated into that Act. See 1986 U.S.C.C.A.N. 5393 (listing reports).
The dissent, see post, at 12, features a House Report issued in 1991 in connection with an unenacted version of the Annunzio-Wylie Anti-Money Laundering Act. We do not find that Report, commenting on a bill that did not pass, a secure indicator of congressional [ RATZLAF v. UNITED STATES, ___ U.S. ___ (1994) , 14] intent at any time, and it surely affords no reliable guide to Congress' intent in 1986. See Oscar Mayer & Co. v. Evans, 441 U.S. 750, 758 (1979) (cautioning against giving weight to "history" written years after the passage of a statute).
[ Footnote 19 ] The dissent asserts that our holding "largely nullifies the effect" of 5324 by "mak[ing] prosecution for structuring difficult or impossible [ RATZLAF v. UNITED STATES, ___ U.S. ___ (1994) , 15] in most cases." See post, at 14. Even under the dissent's reading of the statute, proof that the defendant knew of the bank's duty to report is required for conviction; we fail to see why proof that the defendant knew of his duty to refrain from structuring is so qualitatively different that it renders prosecution "impossible." A jury may, of course, find the requisite knowledge on defendant's part by drawing reasonable inferences from the evidence of defendant's conduct, see Spies v. United States, 317 U.S. 492, 499 -500 (1943) (illustrating conduct that can support permissible inference of an "affirmative willful attempt" to evade a tax); United States v. Bank of New England, N.A., 821 F.2d 844, 854 (CA1 1987) (willfulness "is usually established by drawing reasonable inferences from the available facts"), and the Government has not found it "impossible" to persuade a jury to make such inferences in prosecutions for willful violations of 5313, 5314, or 5316. See, e.g., United States v. Dichne, 612 F.2d 632, 636-638 (CA2 1979) (evidence that Government took "affirmative steps" to bring the reporting requirement to the defendant's attention by means of visual notices supports inference that defendant "willfully violated" 5316). [ RATZLAF v. UNITED STATES, ___ U.S. ___ (1994) , 1]
JUSTICE BLACKMUN, with whom THE CHIEF JUSTICE, JUSTICE O'CONNOR, and JUSTICE THOMAS join, dissenting.
On October 27, 1988, petitioner Waldemar Ratzlaf 1 arrived at a Nevada casino with a shopping bag full of cash to pay off a $160,000 gambling debt. He told casino personnel he did not want any written report of the payment to be made. The casino vice president informed Ratzlaf that he could not accept a cash payment of more than $10,000 without filing a report.
Ratzlaf, along with his wife and a casino employee, then proceeded to visit several banks in and around Stateline, Nevada, and South Lake Tahoe, California, purchasing separate cashier's checks, each in the amount of $9,500. At some banks, the Ratzlafs attempted to buy two checks - one for each of them - and were told that a report would have to be filed; on those occasions, they cancelled the transactions. Ratzlaf then returned to the casino and paid off $76,000 of his debt in cashier's checks. A few weeks later, Ratzlaf gave three persons cash to purchase additional cashier's checks in amounts [ RATZLAF v. UNITED STATES, ___ U.S. ___ (1994) , 2] less than $10,000. The Ratzlafs themselves also bought five more such checks in the course of a week.
A jury found beyond a reasonable doubt that Ratzlaf knew of the financial institutions' duty to report cash transactions in excess of $10,000 and that he structured transactions for the specific purpose of evading the reporting requirements.
The Court today, however, concludes that these findings are insufficient for a conviction under 31 U.S.C. 5322(a) and 5324(3), 2 because a defendant also must have known that the structuring in which he engaged was illegal. Because this conclusion lacks support in the text of the statute, conflicts in my view with basic principles governing the interpretation of criminal statutes, and is squarely undermined by the evidence of congressional intent, I dissent.
As the majority explains, 31 U.S.C. 5322(a), originally enacted in 1970, imposes criminal penalties upon "person[s] willfully violating this subchapter." The subchapter (entitled "Records and Reports on Monetary Instruments Transactions") contains several different reporting requirements, including 5313, which requires financial institutions to file reports for cash transactions over an amount prescribed by regulation; 5314, which requires reports for transactions with foreign financial agencies; and 5316, which requires reports for transportation of more than $10,000 into or out of the United States. In 1986, Congress added 5324 to the subchapter to deter rampant evasion by customers of financial institutions' duty to report large cash transactions. See infra, at 14, and n. 13. The new section provides: "No person shall for the purpose of evading the reporting requirements of section 5313(a) . . . (3) structure . . . any transaction with one or more domestic financial institutions."
Unlike other provisions of the subchapter, the anti-structuring provision identifies the purpose that is required for a 5324 violation: "evading the reporting requirements." The offense of structuring, therefore, requires (1) knowledge of a financial institution's reporting requirements, and (2) the structuring of a transaction for the purpose of evading those requirements. [ RATZLAF v. UNITED STATES, ___ U.S. ___ (1994) , 4] These elements define a violation that is "willful" as that term is commonly interpreted. The majority's additional requirement that an actor have actual knowledge that structuring is prohibited strays from the statutory text, as well as from our precedents interpreting criminal statutes generally and "willfulness" in particular.
The Court reasons that the interpretation of the Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit, and that of nine other circuits, 3 renders 5322(a)'s willfulness requirement superfluous. See ante, at 5-6. This argument ignores the generality of 5322(a), which sets a single standard - willfulness - for the subchapter's various reporting provisions. Some of those provisions do not themselves define willful conduct, so the willfulness element cannot be deemed surplusage. Moreover, the fact that 5322(a) requires willfulness for criminal liability to be imposed does not mean that each of the underlying offenses to which it applies must involve something less than willfulness. Thus, the fact that 5324 does describe a "willful" offense, since it already requires "the purpose of evading the reporting requirements," provides no basis for imposing an artificially heightened scienter [ RATZLAF v. UNITED STATES, ___ U.S. ___ (1994) , 5] requirement.
The majority also contends that 5322(a)'s willfulness element, when applied to the subchapter's other provisions, has been read by the courts of appeals to require knowledge of and a purpose to disobey the law. See ante, at 6-8. In fact, the cases to which the majority refers stand for the more subtle proposition that a willful violation requires knowledge of the pertinent reporting requirements and a purpose to avoid compliance with them. 4 Consistent with and in light of that [ RATZLAF v. UNITED STATES, ___ U.S. ___ (1994) , 6] construction, Congress' 1986 enactment prohibited structuring "for the purpose of evading the reporting requirements." The level of knowledge imposed by the term "willfully" as it applies to all the underlying offenses in the subchapter on reporting requirements is "knowledge of the reporting requirements." 5
The Court next concludes that its interpretation of "willfully" is warranted because structuring is not inherently "nefarious." See ante, at 9-10. It is true that the Court, on occasion, has imposed a "knowledge of illegality" requirement upon criminal statutes to ensure that the defendant acted with a wrongful purpose. See, e.g., Liparota v. United States, 471 U.S. 419, 426 (1985). I cannot agree, however, that the imposition of such a requirement is necessary here. First, the conduct at issue - splitting up transactions involving tens of thousands of dollars in cash for the specific purpose of circumventing a bank's reporting duty - is hardly the [ RATZLAF v. UNITED STATES, ___ U.S. ___ (1994) , 7] sort of innocuous activity involved in cases such as Liparota, in which the defendant had been convicted of fraud for purchasing food stamps for less than their face value. Further, an individual convicted of structuring is, by definition, aware that cash transactions are regulated, and he cannot seriously argue that he lacked notice of the law's intrusion into the particular sphere of activity. Cf. Lambert v. California, 355 U.S. 225, 229 (1957). By requiring knowledge of a bank's reporting requirements as well as a "purpose of evading" those requirements, the anti-structuring provision targets those who knowingly act to deprive the Government of information to which it is entitled. In my view, that is not so plainly innocent a purpose as to justify reading into the statute the additional element of knowledge of illegality. 6 In any event, Congress has determined that purposefully structuring transactions is not innocent [ RATZLAF v. UNITED STATES, ___ U.S. ___ (1994) , 8] conduct. 7
In interpreting federal criminal tax statutes, this Court has defined the term "willfully" as requiring the "voluntary, intentional violation of a known legal duty." Cheek v. United States, 498 U.S., at 200 , quoting United States v. Bishop, 412 U.S. 346, 360 (1973); see also United States v. Murdock, 290 U.S. 389, 394-396 (1933). Our rule in the tax area, however, is an "exception to the traditional rule," applied "largely due to the complexity of the tax laws." Cheek, 498 U.S., at 200 ; see also Browder v. United States, 312 U.S. 335, 341 -342 (1941). The rule is inapplicable here, where, far from being complex, the provisions involved are perhaps among the simplest in the United States Code. 8 [ RATZLAF v. UNITED STATES, ___ U.S. ___ (1994) , 9]
Although I believe the statutory language is clear in light of our precedents, the legislative history confirms that Congress intended to require knowledge of (and a purpose to evade) the reporting requirements, but not specific knowledge of the illegality of structuring. 9
Before 1986, the reporting requirements included no provision explicitly prohibiting the structuring of transactions to evade the reporting requirements. The Government attempted to combat purposeful evasion of the reporting requirements through 18 U.S.C. 1001, which applies to anyone who "knowingly and willfully falsifies, conceals or covers up by any trick, scheme, or device a material fact" within the jurisdiction of a federal agency, and 18 U.S.C. 2(b), which applies to anyone who "willfully causes an act to be done which if directly performed by him or another would be an offense" under federal law. Some Courts of Appeals upheld application of those criminal statutes where a report would have been filed but for the defendant's purposeful structuring. See, e.g., United States v. Tobon-Builes, 706 F.2d 1092, 1096-1101 (CA11 1983); United States v. Heyman, 794 F.2d 788, 790-793 (CA2), cert. denied, 479 U.S. 989 (1986). As the leading case explained, a defendant's willfulness was established if he "knew about the currency reporting requirements and . . . purposely sought to prevent the financial institutions from filing required reports . . . by structuring his transactions as multiple smaller transactions under $10,000." Tobon-Builes, 706 F.2d, at 1101. [ RATZLAF v. UNITED STATES, ___ U.S. ___ (1994) , 10]
Other courts rejected imposition of criminal liability for structuring under 1001 and 2(b), concluding either that the law did not impose a duty not to structure or that criminal liability was confined to limited forms of structuring. See, e.g., United States v. Varbel, 780 F.2d 758, 760-763 (CA9 1986); United States v. Denemark, 779 F.2d 1559, 1561-1564 (CA11 1986); United States v. Anzalone, 766 F.2d 676, 679-683 (CA1 1985).
Congress enacted the anti-structuring provision in 1986 "to fill a loophole in the Bank Secrecy Act caused by" the latter three decisions, which "refused to apply the sanctions of [the Act] to transactions `structured' to evade the act's $10,000 cash reporting requirement." S. Rep. No. 99-433, p. 7 (1986). As explained by the Report of the Senate Judiciary Committee:
The Senate Report proceeds to explain the intent required under the anti-structuring provision:
A recent amendment to 5324 further supports the interpretation of the court below. In 1992, Congress enacted the Annunzio-Wylie Anti-Money Laundering Act, creating a parallel anti-structuring provision for the reporting requirements under 31 U.S.C. 5316, which governs international monetary transportation. See Pub. L. 102-550, Tit. XV, 1525(a), 106 Stat. 4064. 11 Like the provision at issue here, the new provision prohibits [ RATZLAF v. UNITED STATES, ___ U.S. ___ (1994) , 13] structuring "for the purpose of evading the reporting requirements" (in that case, the requirements of 5316). At the time Congress amended the statute, every court of appeals to consider the issue had held that a willful violation of the anti-structuring provision requires knowledge of the bank's reporting requirements and an intent to evade them; none had held that knowledge of the illegality of structuring was required. See n. 3, supra. The House Report accompanying an earlier bill containing the pertinent provision explained:
Finally, it cannot be ignored that the majority's interpretation of 5324, as a practical matter, largely nullifies the effect of that provision. In codifying the currency transaction reporting requirements in 1970, "Congress recognized the importance of reports of large and unusual currency transactions in ferreting out criminal activity." California Bankers Assn. v. Shultz, 416 U.S. 21, 38 (1974). Congress enacted the anti-structuring law to close what it perceived as a major loophole in the federal reporting scheme due to easy circumvention. 13 Because requiring proof of actual knowledge of illegality will make prosecution for structuring difficult or impossible in most cases, 14 the Court's decision reopens the loophole that Congress tried to close.
The petitioner in this case was informed by casino officials that a transaction involving more than $10,000 in cash must be reported, was informed by the various banks he visited that banks are required to report cash transactions in excess of $10,000, and then purchased $76,000 in cashier's checks, each for less than $10,000 and each from a different bank. Petitioner Ratzlaf, obviously not a person of limited intelligence, was anything but uncomprehending as he travelled from bank to bank converting his bag of cash to cashier's checks in $9,500 bundles. I am convinced that his actions constituted a "willful" violation of the anti-structuring provision embodied in 31 U.S.C. 5324. As a result of today's decision, Waldemar Ratzlaf - to use an [ RATZLAF v. UNITED STATES, ___ U.S. ___ (1994) , 15] old phrase - will be "laughing all the way to the bank."
The majority's interpretation of the anti-structuring provision is at odds with the statutory text, the intent of Congress, and the fundamental principle that knowledge of illegality is not required for a criminal act. Now Congress must try again to fill a hole it rightly felt it had filled before. I dissent.
[ Footnote 1 ] For convenience, I follow the majority, see ante, at 2-3, n. 2, and refer only to Waldemar Ratzlaf in this opinion.
[ Footnote 2 ] As does the majority, I refer to the codification in effect at the time the Court of Appeals decided this case. See ante, at 4, n. 5.
[ Footnote 3 ] See United States v. Scanio, 900 F.2d 485, 489-492 (CA2 1990); United States v. Shirk, 981 F.2d 1382, 1389-1392 (CA3 1992); United States v. Rogers, 962 F.2d 342, 343-345 (CA4 1992); United States v. Beaumont, 972 F.2d 91, 93-95 (CA5 1992); United States v. Baydoun, 984 F.2d 175, 180 (CA6 1993); United States v. Jackson, 983 F.2d 757, 767 (CA7 1993); United States v. Gibbons, 968 F.2d 639, 643-645 (CA8 1992); United States v. Dashney, 937 F.2d 532, 537-540 (CA10), cert. denied, ___ U.S. ___ (1991); United States v. Brown, 954 F.2d 1563, 1567-1569 (CA11), cert. denied, ___ U.S. ___ (1992).
The only Court of Appeals to adopt a contrary interpretation is the First Circuit, and even that court allows "reckless disregard" of one's legal duty to support a conviction for structuring. See United States v. Aversa, 984 F.2d 493, 502 (1993) (en banc).
[ Footnote 4 ] The dominant formulation of the standard for a willful violation of the related provisions demands "proof of the defendant's knowledge of the reporting requirement and his specific intent to commit the crime." United States v. Granda, 565 F.2d 922, 926 (CA5 1978); see also United States v. Bank of New England, N.A., 821 F.2d 844, 854 (CA1) ("willful" violation of 5313 requires "knowledge of the reporting requirements and [defendant's] specific intent to commit the crime"), cert. denied, 484 U.S. 943 (1987); United States v. Eisenstein, 731 F.2d 1540, 1543 (CA11 1984) (same); United States v. Dichne, 612 F.2d 632, 636 (CA2 1979) (same standard under predecessor to 5316), cert. denied, 445 U.S. 928 (1980); United States v. Schnaiderman, 568 F.2d 1208, 1211 (CA5 1978) (same). The term "specific intent" does not, as the majority appears to assume, import the notion of knowledge of illegality. Rather, that term generally corresponds to the concept of "purpose," see United States v. Bailey, 444 U.S. 394, 405 (1980), and it does not add to the requisite knowledge, which is specified in the first prong of the standard. The majority correctly notes that courts in a few instances have referred to a willful violation of the reporting provisions as involving violation of a "known legal duty." Those courts, however, either applied the standard from Cheek, 498 U.S., at 200 , despite this Court's restriction of that standard's application to the tax context, see United States v. Sturman, 951 F.2d 1466, 1476 (CA6 1991), or were referring simply to the reporting requirements as the "law" that one must know and actually applied the dominant standard from Granda, see Bank of New England, 821 F.2d, at 854; United States v. Warren, 612 F.2d 887, 890 (CA5 1980). This understanding is supported by Granda's statement that "the proper instruction would include some discussion of the defendant's ignorance of the law since the defendant's alleged ignorance of the [ RATZLAF v. UNITED STATES, ___ U.S. ___ (1994) , 6] reporting requirements goes to the heart of his or her denial of the specific intent necessary to commit the crime." 565 F.2d, at 926 (emphasis added).
[ Footnote 5 ] "Knowledge of the reporting requirements" is easily confused with "knowledge of illegality" because, in the context of the other reporting provisions - 5313, 5314, and 5316 - the entity that can "willfully violate" each provision is also the entity charged with the reporting duty; as a result, a violation with "knowledge of the reporting requirements" necessarily entails the entity's knowledge of the illegality of its conduct (that is, its failure to file a required report). In contrast, 5324 prohibits a customer from purposefully evading a bank's reporting requirements, so knowledge of the reporting requirements does not collapse into actual knowledge that the customer's own conduct is prohibited. Under the cases interpreting the statute as well as fundamental principles of criminal law, it is one's knowledge of the reporting requirements, not "knowledge of the illegality of one's conduct," that makes a violation "willful." Moreover, as explained below, Congress in 1992 rejected the majority's construction when it enacted a parallel anti-structuring provision for attempts to evade 5316's reporting requirements. See infra, at 12-14.
[ Footnote 6 ] The question is not whether structuring is "so obviously `evil' or inherently `bad' that the `willfulness' requirement is satisfied irrespective of the defendant's knowledge of the illegality of structuring." Ante, at 11. The general rule is that "willfulness" does not require knowledge of illegality; the inquiry under exceptional cases such as Liparota is whether the statute criminalizes "a broad range of apparently innocent conduct," 471 U.S., at 426 , such that it requires no element of wrongfulness.
The majority expresses concern about the potential application of the anti-structuring law to a business operator who deposits cash twice each week to reduce the risk of an IRS audit. See ante, at 10. First, it is not at all clear that the statute would apply in this situation. If a person has legitimate business reasons for conducting frequent cash transactions, or if the transactions genuinely can be characterized as separate, rather than artificially structured, then the person is not engaged in "structuring" for the purpose of "evasion." See United States v. Brown, 954 F.2d, at 1571; S.Rep. No. 99-433, p. 22 (1986). Even if application of 5324 were theoretically possible in this extreme situation, the example would not establish prohibition of a "broad range of apparently innocent conduct" as in Liparota, 471 U.S., at 426 , and it would not justify reading into the statute a "knowledge of illegality" requirement.
[ Footnote 7 ] "[The anti-structuring provision] requires proof beyond a reasonable doubt that the purpose of the `structured' aspect of a currency exchange was to evade the reporting requirements of the Bank Secrecy Act. It is this requirement which shields innocent conduct from prosecution." Hearing on S. 571 and S. 2306 before the Senate Committee on Banking, Housing, and Urban Affairs, 99th Cong., 2d Sess., 136-137 (1986) (response of Deputy Asst. Atty. Gen. Knapp & Asst. U.S. Atty. Sun to written question of Sen. D'Amato).
[ Footnote 8 ] The majority offers examples of tax "avoidance" as further evidence of the apparent "innocence" of structuring transactions to evade the reporting requirements. See ante, at 11. These examples are inapposite, because Congress specifically has prohibited the structuring of transactions to evade the reporting requirements. Indeed, its use of the word "evading" in 5324 reveals that Congress deemed the intent to circumvent those requirements a "bad purpose." Moreover, the analogy to the tax field is flawed. Tax law involves a unique scheme consisting of myriad categories and thresholds, applied in yearly segments, designed to generate appropriate levels of taxation while also influencing behavior in various ways. Innocent "avoidance" is an established part of this scheme, and it does not operate to undermine the purposes of the tax law. In sharp contrast, evasion of the currency transaction reporting requirements completely deprives the Government of the information that those requirements are designed to obtain, and thus wholly undermines the purpose of the statute.
[ Footnote 9 ] Because the statutory language unambiguously imposes no requirement of knowledge of the illegality of structuring, I would not apply the rule of lenity. Moreover, I am not persuaded that that rule should be applied to defeat a congressional purpose that is as clear as that evidenced here. See Liparota, 471 U.S., at 427 ; United States v. Bramblett, 348 U.S. 503, 509 -510 (1955).
[ Footnote 10 ] Contrary to the majority's suggestion, ante, at 12-13, n. 17, Congress did sanction Tobon-Builes' scienter standard. In that case, which Congress intended to "codify," the Eleventh Circuit clearly addressed the level of knowledge required for a willful violation. See 706 F.2d, at 1101. Moreover, Congress was aware of the standard that the court had adopted, explicitly characterizing Tobon-Builes as imposing criminal liability upon individuals who structure transactions "to evade the reporting requirements." S.Rep. No. 99-433, p. 21.
The majority misreads the Senate Report as stating that 5324 creates the structuring offense "`[i]n addition' to codifying Tobon-Builes." Ante, at 13, n. 17. The phrase "in addition" plainly refers to the previous sentence in the Report, which states that 5324 "would expressly subject to potential liability a person who causes or attempts to cause a financial institution to fail to file a required report or who causes a financial institution to file a required report that contains material omissions or misstatements of fact." S.Rep. No. 99-433, p. 22. The "codification" of Tobon-Builes encompasses both sentences, and thus all three subsections of the original 5324. In any event, there is no doubt that the Report's reference to "codifying Tobon-Builes" is a reference to the creation of the anti-structuring offense, particularly given that Tobon-Builes expressly imposed criminal liability for "structuring" transactions. 706 F.2d, at 1101.
Even more direct evidence of Congress's intent to incorporate the Tobon-Builes scienter standard is found in the response to a question from Senator D'Amato, the Senate sponsor of the anti-structuring provision. He asked Deputy Assistant Attorney General Knapp and Assistant United States Attorney Sun: "Assuming that [the anti-structuring] provision had been on the books, could you have demonstrated a willful violation in the Anzalone, Varbel and Denemark cases?" The written response stated: "Assuming that the terms of [the anti-structuring provision] were in effect at the time of the conduct described in Anzalone, Varbel, and Denemark, the result would, or should, have been markedly different. Statements from defendants in those cases indicated that the structuring conduct was purposely undertaken to evade the reporting requirements of Title 31. As this is expressly what is prohibited under [the anti-structuring provision], a willful violation . . . would have been demonstrated." Hearing on S. 571 and S. 2306 before the Senate [ RATZLAF v. UNITED STATES, ___ U.S. ___ (1994) , 12] Committee on Banking, Housing, and Urban Affairs, 99th Cong., 2d Sess., 141-142 (1986).
[ Footnote 11 ] The new law moved the anti-structuring provision at issue here into a new subsection (a) of 5324 and created subsection (b) for the new anti-structuring provision.
[ Footnote 12 ] The Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit relied on Hoyland in affirming the conviction in this case.
[ Footnote 13 ] See, e.g., S.Rep. No. 99-433, pp. 2-3, 7.
[ Footnote 14 ] See Welling, Smurfs, Money Laundering, and the Federal Criminal Law: The Crime of Structuring Transactions, 41 Fla.L.Rev. 287, 320 (1989). Page I
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Citation: 510 U.S. 135
Docket No: No. 92-1196
Argued: November 01, 1993
Decided: January 11, 1994
Court: United States Supreme Court
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text:
Every day on my way to work, I spend the entire train ride deleting inane press releases from my email inbox. Diet pills? Delete. A series of seminars on how to convince your boyfriend to propose? Delete. The launch of a new cake flavored vodka made especially for tampon soakage? .... Archive. But the other week, one press release intrigued me enough that it cut through the noise. It was for an app designed especially for bros who were interested in both placating their girlfriends and chilling with their bros without damaging their brocred.
The app was called BroApp, and, for the low cost of $1.99, it promised to automatically text a bro's girlfriend at an appointed time every day, freeing users up to spend "more time with the bros." The video explains how it works pretty well.
Note the inclusion of "Germaine Greer" and "Hermione Granger" among the ad brotagonist's contacts. Pretty great Easter Egg, dudes.
I am neither a bro, nor do I have or want a girlfriend, but the existence of this app intrigued me. Would an app like this convey to my loved ones that I care? Or would they see right through my programmed attempts to maintain intimacy? I decided to try it out on my friend and coworker Kate Dries.
I told her what I was going to do before I did it, that I was going to tell BroApp that she was my girlfriend and that she was going to get preprogrammed texts from me at a certain time every day. She acquiesced, and after a quick installation and setup of the app on my phone, the great experiment began.
At first, I didn't realize that users could program their own text messages into the app rather than relying on the app's prefab options — which are almost violently bland — and so 24 hours later, Kate received her first text from me and BroApp, which the app selected at random from the list of acceptable options I'd designated. She'd already forgotten about the experiment and was thus understandably disturbed.
I'd like to say that things between me, BroApp, and my BroApp girlfriend Kate got better. But they most certainly did not.
I realized that I'd have to step up my game to appear more thoughtful. So I changed the time that Kate would receive the messages to on or around 12 noon, an easy toggle in the app's settings.
She was still incredibly creeped out, and definitely did not appreciate being called "darl," which is the pet name that BroApp has decided that Bros give their girlfriends.
I realized — too late — that the app allows users craft texts that are more a reflection of the sending bro's individuality, so I added some texts to the list from which the app would draw in the hopes that Kate would understand how much I care ("Have a blessed Lord's day," to be sent on Sundays only, and "3=====D~~~" which I told the app could be sent on any day of the week). But by this point, the app had already suffocated her with its insincerity. She was having none of it.
After today, I will be Bro-breaking up with Kate. As hilarious as it's been to freak her out for the last week, I'm not a monster.
BroApp isn't a terrible idea in theory; the problem with it is that if you're close enough with someone to call them a close friend or romantic partner, they'd see through it from a mile away, unless you and your partner are literally the most boring people in the world. Kate says the app freaked her out because it seemed so impersonal (also, it's weird when your coworker calls you "babe" and "darl." I don't even hug people unless under duress; I wouldn't assign pet names to anyone unless threatened with blackmail). And if a user wants to head the insincerity off at the pass and make the app into something that reflects their own individuality, the amount of effort it takes to program all new texts into the app and then set specific days on which the texts should go out is about the same as just, you know, manually texting someone once a day to let them know you're thinking of them.
I did appreciate BroApp for a few things, though. First, the app only allows users to program in one "girlfriend" at a time, which means that the app is anti-being-a-shithead (yes, yes, I know that there are plenty of happy self-actualized people in fulfilling polyamorous relationships, but there are far more shitheads who cheat on their girlfriends). The app's literature doesn't nudge-nudge-wink-wink shitheadery, either; it just seems like the sort of tool designed for the modern self-identified bro who might forget to do something he knows he should do from time to time. It's another step in the evolution of the meaning of the word "bro," which in recent years has gone from being synonymous with "date rapey college douchebag" to "floppy, happy, kind of boring guy who just wants to have fun and doesn't mean to hurt anyone in the process." Like a human labrador retriever.
So I know I'll never use BroApp to communicate with anyone who I see on a daily or weekly basis or who I think about or talk to a lot in the course of my everyday comings and goings. But you know where something like BroApp would be completely, almost miraculously useful? Communicating with my mother.
My mother, who is great and who I love very much, has an uncanny knack for, from halfway across the country, texting me at the exact times when there's no feasible way I can talk. While I'm running. When I'm about to go into the subway. When I'm having an IRL conversation with a person who is physically with me. During a brunch showing of The Great Muppet Caper. Leaving all maternal communication to an app would be cruel and kind of awful, but programming BroApp to text my mom something every afternoon will prompt her to text me back, which will remind me, every day, to make an effort to talk to her so she doesn't think her oldest child has forgotten all about her or been eaten by rats. Which I'm pretty sure are legitimate concerns that my mother has about me.
Using an app designed to foster deeper romantic connections between boring people to communicate with my mother is not in the spirit of BroApp, but it's better than nothing. Besides, I paid two bucks for the thing. I've got to get some use out of it besides making Kate hate me a little. After she received her final BroApp message, she texted, "Maybe the lesson here is less about broapp and more about how you'd be a shitty boyfriend."
Maybe indeed, darl.

subset: commoncrawl


text:
It has been a long, long time since Gwyneth Paltrow has been photographed in public with Madonna. It's been exactly 12 hours since Gwyneth Paltrow was photographed with Madonna's ex-husband and Jacqui, the mother of his newborn baby.
GOOP will roll her eyes and say that gossips are making something out of nothing and that a dinner with Guy Ritchie doesn't mean she and Madge are no longer tight. If Jacqui wasn't around, I'd be more inclined to give that explanation some weight. After all, G and Robert Downey are very close. And RDJ and Guy are close too. And, you know, sometimes you can't get around those relationships. But the fact is, Jacqui was there. And Jacqui is over 20 years younger than her predecessor. As such, she's also fertile. And, well, for Madonna, who won't stop fighting it, this kind of thing, it's not received with a simple shrug. Those of you who insist that famous girls can get along without drama and it's not true that they're always stabbing each other in the back...
You do know this blog is about Hollywood, right?
Now ordinarily, when someone busts Madonna's ass, she has the power and the influence to shut them down and make them hurt. With Gwyneth though...Gwyneth has her own very respectable connections. So respectable that she's probably immune to even Madonna's shenanigans. Gwyneth always knew just as many people in the same room. Gwyneth, on that level, was never lesser. If you've followed Madonna through the years, you'll note that in all her female friendships, she has to be the main event. All of her friends are also her fans. They're sycophants. They're part of her entourage. I've seen her several times in social situations. She puts herself in the centre of the circle and everyone else is expected to surround her and amuse her. See Ingrid Casares. To my knowledge, Gwyneth, for a long time, like years and years, was able to roll with that. And then one day she either couldn't anymore or Madonna cut her off. Also, what do you make of the fact that the other girls who used to be part of that little friend situation, like Stella McCartney, are still down with G and have too, over the same period of time, not had much, if any, contact with M? I can't decide what I want to believe - did Gwyneth meangirl Madonna, or did Madonna become intolerable?
PS. If you're wondering about Gwyneth's sweater, Sasha found it here.
It has been a long, long time since Gwyneth Paltrow has been photographed in public with Madonna. It's been exactly 12 hours since Gwyneth Paltrow was photographed with Madonna's ex-husband and Jacqui, the mother of his newborn baby.


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San Diego Mayor Bob Filner announced he will undergo intensive therapy for two weeks following several allegations of inappropriate sexual advances and sexual harassment but did not even mention the word resignation.
In front of reporters and cameras, Filner said he would take responsibility for his conduct. "Words are not enough," he said before a microphone failure interrupted the long-awaited statement.
Special Section: Mayor Under Fire
The mayor has refused to comment publicly on allegations of groping, forceful kissing and crude comments made by seven women including a retired U.S. Navy admiral.
On Aug. 5 he will begin two-weeks of intensive counseling "to begin the process of addressing my behavior," Filner said.
"It is simply not acceptable for me to try and explain away my conduct as the product of standards of a different generation," Filner said, adding that he has apologized to his staff and citizens who have supported him.
"Most of all I apologize to the women I have offended," he said.
He called it a first step in a continuing program that will involve ongoing regular counseling.
"I must become a better person," Filner said.
Filner said he planned to stay updated throughout his rehab with morning and evening updates on city business, and will return to the job on Aug. 19.
Read: Who's in Charge of San Diego?
Attorney Cory Briggs, one of the three longtime supporters who first brought the allegations to the public's attention, told NBC 7 that Filner has not reached out to apologize to any of his clients.
Briggs represents some of the women who claim to have been harassed by the mayor.
On Thursday, an interview with four San Diego women brought new allegations to light. With their stories, Sharon Bernie-Cloward, president of the San Diego Port Tenants Association, businesswoman Patti Roscoe, retired Navy rear-admiral Veronica "Ronne" Froman and Joyce Gattas, Dean of SDSU's College of Professional Studies and Fine Arts, described incidents with the mayor from his time as a Congressman to his run for San Diego's mayor's seat.
The women claimed Filner cornered or isolated them and attempted to kiss them or touch parts of their bodies inappropriately.
The new allegations are in addition to those already made public by political consultant Laura Fink, San Diego Unified School District psychologist Morgan Rose and former communications director Irene McCormack Jackson.
McCormack Jackson filed a lawsuit alleging sexual harassment for comments she said Filner made during her six months on his senior staff. She has accused the mayor of repeatedly asking for a kiss and for sex, as well as suggesting she would do a better job if she worked without underwear.
Fink alleges that Filner grabbed her buttocks when she was working on his campaign. Rose claims Filner blocked her from leaving while attempting to kiss her during a private meeting.
On Thursday night, San Diego County Democrats voted to ask Filner to step down.
The Democratic National Committee Chair Debbie Wasserman-Schultz has also called for the mayor to resign.
"The misconduct Mayor Bob Filner has been accused of is reprehensible and indefensible. I am personally offended by his actions and I firmly believe no employee should face a hostile environment or harassment at their place of employment. There is no place for this type of conduct in the workplace and certainly not in our city halls and public offices. For the good of the City of San Diego, I call on Mayor Filner to resign."
Timeline: Mayor Filner's Term in Office
Filner appeared Friday morning at a meeting of San Diego Association of Governments (SANDAG). The meeting was a regularly scheduled discussion.
As the board was hearing public comment on the South Bay Transit Project, Mayor Filner was falling asleep at the table. At times he would raise his head, open his eyes and then his eyelids would slowly close again. Watch video


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"Robotic Grasping and Manipulation", in Ramsete: Articulated and mobile robots for services and Technology, vol. 270, Berlin Heidelberg, Germany: Springer-Verlag, 2001, pp. 55-74. [PDF] (154.11 KB),
"Robotic Grasping and Contact: A Review", in Proc. IEEE Int. Conf. on Robotics and Automation, San Francisco, CA, 2000, pp. 348-353. [PDF] (827.76 KB),


text:
CRS: AIRPORT FINANCE: A BRIEF OVERVIEW, June 26, 1998
From WikiLeaks
About this CRS report
This document was obtained by Wikileaks from the United States Congressional Research Service.
The CRS is a Congressional "think tank" with a staff of around 700. Reports are commissioned by members of Congress on topics relevant to current political events. Despite CRS costs to the tax payer of over $100M a year, its electronic archives are, as a matter of policy, not made available to the public.
Individual members of Congress will release specific CRS reports if they believe it to assist them politically, but CRS archives as a whole are firewalled from public access.
This report was obtained by Wikileaks staff from CRS computers accessible only from Congressional offices.
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Wikileaks release: February 2, 2009
Publisher: United States Congressional Research Service
Title: AIRPORT FINANCE: A BRIEF OVERVIEW
CRS report number: 98-579
Author(s): Robert S. Kirk, Economics Division
Date: June 26, 1998
- Abstract
- Airports in the U.S. national system are nearly always public sector enterprises that operate under a city, county, regional, or other charter such as a port authority. Although these airports are public enterprises, they are typically managed as businesses. Most airport operating revenues come from airfield revenues, concession agreements, or rent from leased areas at the airport. For capital development needs airports rely on bonds, federal Airport Improvement Program grants, passenger facility charge revenues, state and local grants, and surplus airport revenue. Federal involvement in airport finance is mostly concerned with airport capital improvements intended to support policies concerning capacity, competition, noise, safety, and the availability of air service nationwide.
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text:
India to decide on Dreamliner grounding after Boeing report
India's airline regulator will decide on whether or not to ground national carrier Air India's Boeing Co Dreamliner jets after the U.S. company submits a report on the aircraft's safety, the regulator's head said on Wednesday.
Boeing is expected to submit a report on the Dreamliner by the end of Wednesday, Arun Mishra, Director General of Civil Aviation told reporters, after a series of incidents heightened safety concerns over the plane.
The Indian regulator has formed a team to work with Boeing to judge the safety of the aircraft, Mishra added.
(Reporting by Anurag Kotoky; Editing by Daniel Magnowski)


text:
It's been relatively quiet on the sexting front, but there's some movement afoot that suggests the end to this saga is just beyond the phallus-shaped horizon.
So here's the number: 601-291-6004.
It's disconnected, obviously, but it's basically the bloody glove in one of the allegations pertaining to Brett Favre's inappropriate sexting while he was a member of the New York Jets. I reached out to my old friend, Milton Ahlerich, NFL security gumshoe, to ask about their progress in the investigation and even offered this number up to them, but he was out of town. Instead, Joe Hummel substituted and brought his own cold, clinical style to his email response:
Chilly. They didn't want the number, either, it seems. They must be all set.
I also checked in with Jenn Sterger's lawyer, Joseph Conway to see if they've received any info from the NFL but Team Sterger hasn't heard back from Milt's crew either.
Here's what we do know: Sterger presented her evidence and story to NFL security officials last week. That included some additional material not seen on Deadspin, including more text messages. I know in one of the texts she received, Favre was urging Jenn to send him "the videos" of herself. Sterger didn't send any videos to him. So he may have mixed up her number with another girl not-named Deanna Favre who sent him some other kinky crap.
But until Conway and Sterger hear from the NFL, there will be no definitive answers to my next two questions to him:
1. Are you suing the Jets?
JC: "We'll explore all legal remedies at the appropriate time."
2. Are you suing me?
JC: "Again, as I said, we'll explore any and all legal remedies that may exist at the appropriate time."
Wait, what?
JC: "Not for nothing, but I'd feel a lot more comfortable discussing this issue with your attorney, if you have an attorney and they'd like to get in touch with me."
Fucking shit.
JC: "Well I am the legal representation for Miss Sterger and I don't think it's ethical to be discussing this with you. You understand, right?"
Yes. Fine. We'll talk soon about...something. I'll send your info along to Gaby.
I guess there's a possibility I could get sued for being an asshole, if that's a legal remedy worth exploring. We'll see.
Now, tomorrow: we're gonna throw another name out there who, according to sources, is "the spoke" in the Favre/massage therapist-sexting investigation. Many people are trying to track down this individual and I'll probably need your I-Team assistance to get some more information on her. So rest up.
Now we'll commence with our usual shade-drawing.
Thanks for your continued support of Deadspin. Let's go.


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They're BAAACK!!! https://www.youtube.com/v/s8I_VhSBiP8
There are like one of the BEST team ever to be on TAR. Competitive, but also VERY entertaining. Wish there were teams like that every seasons instead of all those generic couples Hope they come back for an All-Star 3.
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It's a bird. It's a plane. It's a potentially deadly combination.
A Purdue University study of 10 small Indiana airports found that animals can gain easy access to runways and infield areas, increasing the likelihood of planes striking those animals.
Animal strikes received national attention in January. Commercial pilot and Purdue alumnus Charles "Sully" Sullenberger was forced to land in the Hudson River after his plane hit a flock of Canada geese.
The study by Gene Rhodes, a professor of forestry and natural resources, documented that animals found ways through damaged fences or unfenced areas onto airport properties. Spotting deer, coyote and other animals in dangerous places was common.
"Just about every pilot we talked to at these airports said that during a landing they've had to pull up to avoid hitting an animal on the runway," Rhodes said. "With the size of planes using these airports, hitting a rabbit could flip a plane."
While Rhodes' study looked only at Indiana airports, he said there are thousands of airports all over the country that don't have the budgets to adequately fence their properties, endangering countless flights each year.
In the study, only four of the Indiana airports had fences around the entire perimeter, and even those had maintenance problems - such as holes dug under fences, access through culverts and holes in fences - that allowed animals onto the properties.
Despite the desire to keep animals away, Rhodes said airports often are a magnet for wildlife. Airports are required to own property around runways that is often rented to farmers. While that increases airports' meager budgets, those crops can attract animals looking for food.
"What you have planted affects what type of animals will be there," Rhodes said. "Even if you have certain grasses, you have small mammals that eat those, and those attract red-tailed hawks. A red-tailed hawk can bring down a small plane as fast as anything."
Previous studies cited in Rhodes' paper have shown that wildlife strikes cost more than a half a billion dollars each year and have been responsible for more than 350 human deaths in the last century. Travis DeVault, who co-authored the paper as Rhodes' postdoctoral researcher and is now a field station and project leader with the U.S. Department of Agriculture's Wildlife Services, said wildlife strikes have become more common in recent years.
"Many of the most hazardous species are increasing in population size. For example, about two-thirds of the largest bird species have shown population increases during the past 30 years," DeVault said. "Also, air traffic continues to increase. More birds in combination with more flights leads to more bird strikes."
DeVault added that new technology means planes are quieter today, giving birds less time to detect and avoid being struck.
Rhodes' study suggests enclosing 100 percent of airport perimeters with partially buried fencing, which keeps animals from tunneling underneath. Frequent maintenance also is key because many of the animals observed during the study entered the airports through damaged fences.
"If airports can use this study to show their needs, it can allow them to go after federal grants they need to make improvements," Rhodes said.
The Joint Transportation Research Program of the Indiana Department of Transportation and the Aviation Association of Indiana funded the research. Rhodes said the next step is to determine viable economic uses that also will deter wildlife from the land around airports.
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Some big picture questions -
What are some applications of the moduli interpretation for congruence curves? Specifically, the interpretations for congruence curves parametrizing elliptic curves with additional level structure.
(Edit: I know there must be tons, though I'm still having trouble finding good resources on this. I'd appreciate some references or maybe a quick summary)
Are there any known moduli interpretations for noncongruence modular curves? (Ie, either $X/\Gamma$ or $\mathcal{H}/\Gamma$ for some finite index non-congruence subgroup $\Gamma\subseteq\text{SL}_2(\mathbb{Z})$).
Would people be interested if there was one?
I understand that this would depend on the interpretation itself - for example, for any normal subgroup $\Gamma\subset\text{SL}_2(\mathbb{Z})$, you could always trivially say that $\mathcal{H}/\Gamma$ parametrizes isomorphism classes of elliptic curves together with the additional structure of a choice of an element in $\text{SL}_2(\mathbb{Z})/\Gamma$.
This is why I asked my first question. In particular, what kinds of moduli interpretations for non-congruence curves would be interesting, if it existed?


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Volunteer Opportunity
Hello and welcome back to the Hometown Heritage blog readers!
This week I wanted to talk to you all about a great chance to volunteer! I most likely sound like a broken record by now, but Hometown Heritage has moved our office to the Carnegie Library Museum. As part of this move, we are trying to ensure that the Carnegie is open every day, aside from holidays, for people to tour and enjoy! In order to accomplish this goal, we need volunteers for Saturday and Sunday (I am staffing the building during the week) to keep the building open, give tours, and answer any questions people may have. Each volunteer only has one two-hour shift per month. On Saturday, there is a shift from 12 to 2 and from 2 to 4. On Sunday, there is only one shift from 1 to 3. Generally, the volunteers are asked to staff the same shift each month. For example, one volunteer has volunteered to staff the Carnegie from 12 to 2 every third Saturday of each month (excluding holidays). While this may seem like a big commitment, there are back-up volunteers and other people you can call if you sign up for a shift and when the day comes you find that you cannot make it that day.
As of this blog post, we need volunteers for both the 12 to 2 and 2 to 4 shifts on the first and second Saturday of each month, and the 1 to 3 shift on the first Sunday of each month. If you are concerned about giving tours or answering questions, we have a binder full of materials here at the Carnegie to prepare you, and two folders of tour guides that are easy to follow. We hope that some of you are interested in helping us keep the Carnegie Library Museum open so more people can enjoy the great collections and respectful restoration. If you are interested in volunteering, please call 515-465-7713 during business hours (9-5 Monday to Friday) or send an email to firstname.lastname@example.com!
March 2020


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Gambit2016 Suspense/Thriller | Comedy
Harry Deane is a London art curator planning an elaborate scheme to con a wealthy collector into buying a fake Monet painting. In order to dupe the buyer, Deane invents a story and recruits a steer roper from Texas, PJ Puznowski, to play the part of a woman whose grandfather liberated the painting at the end of WWII. When Deane's convoluted con begins to fall apart, it turns out the simple Texan girl isn't so simple after all and so begins a classic battle of the wits. Who will get the money? Who will get the Monet? Who will get the girl?


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Environmental sustainability in Ship: Bio-fuel propulsion marine vessels
Innovation in the ship industry is relentless, making it hard to stay-on top of the dynamically evolving industry landscape and in early identification of profound shifts, posing high risk of being disrupted if detected too late. GlobalData's coherent data-driven approach, using multiple forward-looking alternative datasets, empowers clients by decoding in advance the disruptive innovations in ship industry. Using patents data, GlobalData's proprietary industry innovation s-curve identifies specific innovation areas and their stage of evolution, i.e., whether they are emerging, accelerating or maturing. This report specifically looks at Environmental sustainability innovation in bio-fuel propulsion marine vessels for the ship industry and the leading companies, start-ups and adoption trends. These insights help in making informed strategic decisions for a more durable source of competitive advantage
Decode the key disruptive innovations impacting the ship sector, with specific focus on bio-fuel propulsion marine vessels and its trends in patent filing, identifying the leading companies and start-ups (and those with unicorn potential), key application areas plus examples from real-world scenarios and leading countries driving the innovation. In addition, we gauge the adoption trends in bio-fuel propulsion marine vessels, by analyzing funding/investing trends, demand for human capital/jobs, social media buzz, company filings, and the latest news in the area
Key Highlights
Bio-fuel propulsion marine vessels: innovation landscape, patent filings trend, leading countries innovating, key application areas, top innovators, potential unicorns, real-world innovations, alternative dataset to track adoption trends using deals, jobs, social media, company filings, latest news, plus deep dive on key companies in bio-fuel propulsion marine vessels
Reasons to Buy
• Identify emerging, accelerating, and maturing innovations in the sector likely to be disruptive in the future
• Evaluate key companies at the forefront of these innovations and their disruptive impact
• Discover key start-ups innovating in the area and uncover those with unicorn potential
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Key Players
Wartsila Corp
Samsung Heavy Industries Co Ltd
Hyundai Heavy Industries Holdings Co Ltd
Sumitomo Precision Products Co Ltd
Mitsubishi Heavy Industries Ltd
Hamworthy Combustion Engineering Limited
AFC Mercury Co Ltd
Halla Corp
Kawasaki Heavy Industries Ltd
MEYER WERFT GmbH
Table of Contents
Table of Contents
Environmental sustainability in Ship: Bio-fuel propulsion marine vessels
• Identify key innovations impacting the Ship industry using GlobalData proprietary Innovation S-curves.
• Understand trends in innovation
– trends in patent filing
– leading countries driving the innovation
– % share of innovation across time
• Key players:
– leading companies and their disruptive impact
– start-ups patenting trends
– start-ups with unicorn potential
• Discover real-world innovations
• Decode adoption trends
– analyze trends in funding/ investments
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– track social media engagement/ conversations
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• Deep-dive: key innovating companies
• Appendix
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GlobalData is very customer orientated, with a high degree of personalised services, which benefits everyday use. The highly detailed project intelligence and forecast reports can be utilised across multiple departments and workflow scopes, from operational to strategic level, and often support strategic decisions. GlobalData Analytics and visualisation solutions has contributed positively when preparing management presentations and strategic papers."
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Your daily news has saved me a lot of time and keeps me up-to-date with what is happening in the market, I like that you almost always have a link to the source origin. We also use your market data in our Strategic Business Process to support our business decisions. By having everything in one place on the Intelligence Center it has saved me a lot of time versus looking on different sources, the alert function also helps with this.
Having used several other market research companies, I find that GlobalData manages to provide that 'difficult-to-get' market data that others can't, as well as very diverse and complete consumer surveys.


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Do you have a Costco membership? If not…WHY!?
At this point, the only two good excuses for not being a Costco member are living too far away from one OR living alone and therefore not deriving enough benefit from a having a membership.
So, if you aren't a member of the best warehouse club on earth, here's a list of items that will single-handedly pay for your Costco membership – hopefully this will entice you to check it out. Each one of these items will, by itself, pay for the $60 a year membership fee. And even if you are a member, here's some Costco membership benefits items to take advantage of on your next visit to the value-laden warehouse giant.
These Items Will Pay for your Costco Membership
Tires – Where's the last place you got new tires? If it wasn't a warehouse club you probably paid too much. The service and price offered at Costco for tire purchases are unparalleled. The only other legitimate consideration would be an online purchase through TireRack. The great thing about buying through Costco are the free tire balancing and rotation (plus free flat repairs) that you'll get. That's not normally something we factor in when making a tire purchase, but it keeps those rubber fellas alive for a lot longer which saves you money. Pay attention because Costco often offers $70-80 off certain brand of tires at different times of year. Just one set of tires will more than pay your Costco membership fee.
Lunch – Do you like to eat out? Well Costco is a fantastic place for a date. My friend Wiley takes his wife Jenny there pretty often and it's incredibly romantic. First, they take a stroll around and collect some free samples. Then, they head over to the lunch counter for a hot dog and some frozen yogurt. You'll spend just over $2 and you'll actually get filled up (those hot dogs are ¼ lb!). Costco's lunch lineup isn't super diverse, but it is tasty AND filling. If you save a few bucks on lunch just twice a month it will pay for your membership.
Movie Tickets – I don't often go to the theater for a movie. It's just too dang expensive. We've all got our favorite ways to blow a few dollars though and if going out to the movies is one of yours it'll more than pay for your glorious Costco membership. The regular price for a movie where I live can be anywhere from $11 to $13. Costco will sell you two tickets for $17 (sometimes even cheaper). So if seeing the newest flick on the big screen is important to you, Costco's discount on movie tickets will be well worth the cost of membership. By the way, Godzilla looks amazing!
Kirkland Signature Baby Formula – If you have kids and don't have a Costco membership I just feel sorry for you. You could be saving a lot more money. Baby formula is probably the sickest value proposition Costco offers. It is seriously less than half the price of formula you might purchase at your local grocery store. As you can tell from the picture above, even with the discount at Costco, you'll still pay double for name brand formula. Kirkland signature brand formula is 46 cents an ounce and the name brand, Enfamil, is 89 cents and ounce. You'll pay for your membership quickly with purchase of just this singular item.
My wife and I are using cloth diapers, but if you are going the disposable diaper route, Costco offers the best value in that arena too.
Luggage – I just purchased a new set of luggage, and the value that Costco provided was incredible. The actual cost of the luggage is super competitive, but on top of that, Costco offers the best guarantee in the land. I wouldn't buy luggage anywhere else. My final cost was $100 for two fantastic pieces of luggage and I'll never have to come out of pocket for new ones again. That's unreal.
Guarantees – Speaking of the luggage guarantee. Costco's overall guarantee system is a great reason to shop there, and will single-handedly pay for that Costco membership. In fact, if you're ever dissatisfied, at any point, you can get a free refund for the full cost of the membership itself. That means that if you test out my Costco membership theory and find it lacking, it won't cost you a dime. You can read more about the epic Costco guarantee system – it won't let you down.
Wine – If you've been reading this blog for any amount of time you'll know that I'm not a wine guy. Craft beer is my thing. But if you are a wine connoisseur, Costco is the place for you. That sounds odd, but from everything I've read about Costco wine, the stuff is supposedly really good. And your average savings will be around $5 a bottle. There's a great blog detailing all the great Costco wines. The author even has a "value section." That's where I would be looking…if I drank wine of course. 🙂
Rotisserie Chickens & Pizza – I'm had to add these items to my list. Mostly because I love them and they make dinner really easy sometimes. I'm pretty sure Costco loses money on the rotisserie chickens too, cause $5 is just insane. Fair warning, if you get addicted to their delicious and gargantuan pepperoni pizza, it wasn't my fault. 🙂
Gas – I personally don't use this one much. The line to fill up at the Costco gas station just wastes too much time. But if you get lucky and the line is lacking, make sure to fill up. In some areas of the country you can save almost 30 cents a gallon just by filling up at Costco instead of your local gas station. That means that one or two tanks of gas a month could single-handedly pay for that $55 Costco membership.
I'm a big fan of Costco. And if any of these 9 items are something you buy regularly elsewhere, you should definitely start considering a Costco membership. Because just buying one or two of these things at Costco instead of the retailer you are currently using will save you big money – and you'll find big value throughout the store in other areas. Costco membership is amazing and there's no going back once you've crossed that glorious money-saving threshold.
[photos courtesy of Thomas, Quazie, and Kazuhiko]


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It's predictable that atheists would work themselves into a froth over this. It's silly and petty, of course, but it's also a useful reminder that an increasing number of the God-deniers who walk among us are not content to simply deny the truth and scoff at believers, they are becoming ever more militant and aggressive in their efforts to ramrod their intolerance and narrow-mindedness down everyone else's throats. Catholics! Stand up to these bullies.
An atheist organization is blasting the U.S. Postal Service for its plan to honor Mother Teresa with a commemorative stamp, saying it violates postal regulations against honoring "individuals whose principal achievements are associated with religious undertakings."The Freedom from Religion Foundation is urging its supporters to boycott the stamp -- and also to engage in a letter-writing campaign to spread the word about what it calls the "darker side" of Mother Teresa.The stamp -- set to be released on Aug. 26, which would have been Mother Teresa's 100th birthday -- will recognize the 1979 Nobel Peace Prize winner for her humanitarian work, the Postal Service announced last month."Noted for her compassion toward the poor and suffering, Mother Teresa, a diminutive Roman Catholic nun and honorary U.S. citizen, served the sick and destitute of India and the world for nearly 50 years," the Postal Service said in a press release. "Her humility and compassion, as well as her respect for the innate worth and dignity of humankind, inspired people of all ages and backgrounds to work on behalf of the world's poorest populations."But Freedom from Religion Foundation spokeswoman Annie Laurie Gaylor says issuing the stamp runs against Postal Service regulations."Mother Teresa is principally known as a religious figure who ran a religious institution. You can't really separate her being a nun and being a Roman Catholic from everything she did," Gaylor told FoxNews.com.Postal Service spokesman Roy Betts expressed surprise at the protest, given the long list of previous honorees with strong religious backgrounds, including Malcolm X, the former chief spokesman for the Nation of Islam, and the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., a Baptist minister and co-founder of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference. . . . (continue reading)


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A private cargo capsule's trip home to Earth from the International Space Station has been delayed by one day to Tuesday because of weather concerns near its targeted splashdown site.
SpaceX's unmanned Dragon spacecraft is now scheduled to splash down at 12:36 p.m. EDT (1636 GMT) on Tuesday (March 26) in the Pacific Ocean, 246 miles (396 kilometers) off the coast of Baja California, NASA officials announced Friday (March 22).
Dragon will be carrying about 2,670 pounds (1,210 kilograms) of equipment, hardware and scientific experiments, none of which should be affected by the slight delay, officials said.
"The additional day spent attached to the orbiting laboratory will not affect science samples scheduled to return aboard the spacecraft," NASA officials wrote in a Friday update.
Dragon launched toward the space station on March 1 and arrived two days later with about 1,200 pounds (544 kg) of supplies. The capsule's current mission is the second of 12 cargo deliveries California-based SpaceX is making under a $1.6 billion deal with NASA.
Dragon is slated to be released from the orbiting lab at 7:06 a.m. EDT (1106 GMT) on Tuesday. Its deorbit burn will take place 4 1/2 hours later, setting the stage for its Pacific Ocean splashdown. SpaceX personnel will retrieve the capsule with a crane-equipped boat and return it to shore about 30 hours later, NASA officials said.
SpaceX is one of two companies that hold a commercial cargo deal with NASA. The other is Virginia-based Orbital Sciences, which scored a $1.9 billion contract to make eight unmanned flights with its Antares rocket and Cygnus capsule.
Antares is slated to make its first test flight in the middle of April, and a demonstration mission to the space station should follow later this year if all goes well. Dragon, for its part, first visited the orbiting lab on a demonstration flight in May of last year and made its first contracted cargo run in October.
Follow Mike Wall on Twitter @michaeldwall. Follow us @Spacedotcom, Facebook or Google+. Originally published on SPACE.com.


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As reported yesterday, Gwyneth Paltrow was at the Author's Night fundraiser in the Hamptons this weekend with Chris Martin and her kids to sign copies of her book. Christina Oxenberg was the author placed beside G at the signing table. Oxenberg wrote about the experience here. In short, Gwyneth's fans who waited on line for a long time to meet her, are a pain in the ass. And her bodyguards are even more of a pain in the ass because they blocked Oxenberg from her position and in the end she had to resort to sitting under the table like some kind of urchin. Jay McInerny (Bright Lights, Big City) was also there and tweeted about Oxenberg's post:
Author's night at East Hampton Library highjacked by movie stars with ghost- written cookbooks.
So the other authors hate Gwyneth Paltrow…just like you!
Hard to say if G's bodyguards were dickheads at her direction or whether or not they were just dickheads because, well, a lot of celebrity bodyguards simply are. Even the Brange's bodyguards. Celebrity publicists are often dickheads too. In fact, any member of a celebrity entourage can be a dickhead. Is it the celebrity's fault?
Considering that those people are representing you and that you're the name who gets highlighted for the sh-tty behaviour, I would say even if it's not the celebrity's fault, they should think about making it their concern. Gwyneth Paltrow, for all her properness, should make it her concern. Because at her private dinner after the event, G and Chris made the effort to personally introduce themselves to the kitchen staff etc who were working that night which, apparently, is not the Hamptons standard. I dunno, maybe people in the Hamptons aren't that grateful. The point is, it's not like she doesn't know how to treat people with courtesy and respect. She does. But it doesn't seem like it's a brand message she's communicated across her team.


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The SZ-100 nanopartica series instruments are flexible analytical tools for characterizing the physical properties of small particles.
If you need discussion about this product, please click "Find Solution". Or click the "Order Now" to buy now.
The SZ-100 nanopartica series instruments are flexible analytical tools for characterizing the physical properties of small particles. Depending on the configuration and application the system can be used as a particle size analyzer, or also used to measure zeta potential, molecular weight, (MW) and second virial coefficient (A2). Typical applications for the SZ-100 include nanoparticles, colloids, emulsions, and submicron suspensions.
Particle size analysis is performed by dynamic light scattering (DLS). Depending on the physical properties of the sample, the dynamic range is 0.3 nm – 8 µm. The lower limit is influenced by concentration, how strongly the sample scatters light, and the presence of large, unwanted particles. The upper limit is influenced by the density of the sample since DLS is modeled on all motion coming from Brownian motion, not gravitational settling.
The charge on the surface of particles is characterized by the SZ-100 by measuring the zeta potential of a suspension. The sample is injected into a disposable cell and a measurement of the particle electrophoretic mobility results in the calculated zeta potential. The zeta potential of the sample is most often used as an indicator of dispersion stability. Large magnitude zeta potential values indicate that an electrostatically stabilized suspension will remain stable. The zeta potential is often measured as a function of pH or other change in the chemistry to help formulators create new products with a long shelf life. Conversely identifying conditions at which the zeta potential is zero (that is, the sample is at the isoelectric point) allows one to choose optimum conditions for flocculating and separating particles.
The same instrument can also be used to measure the molecular weight and second virial coefficient of proteins, polymers, and other molecules. The user prepares several solutions with known concentrations and then uses the system in a static light scattering mode to create a Debye plot, which results in a calculation of both MW and A2.
- Particle size, zeta potential, molecular weight, and second virial coefficient all in one instrument
- Wide range of particle sizes and concentrations
- Particles size measurements at both 90° and 173°
- Multiple particle size measurement modes for working with small particles and weak scatterers
- Small volume cells for both particle size and zeta potential