After two years of confinement at the Coos County Jail in West Stewartstown, and three denials of a bail hearing by Coos County Superior Court Justice Peter Bornstein, 25-year-old Volodymyr Zhukovskyy is hoping the New Hampshire Supreme Court will order a hearing on whether he has to remain in preventive detention for allegedly causing the deaths of the so-called “Fallen 7” motorcyclists following a collision in Bartlett.
Chief Appellate Defender Christopher Johnson said Zhukovskyy’s trial is set for early December, meaning he faces another six months in detention after having already spent two years in jail. The Supreme Court has scheduled oral arguments for June 29.
Johnson said the state can hold a person who is charged with a crime in preventive detention, without bail, “only if the court determines by clear and convincing evidence that release will endanger the safety of that person or the public.” Johnson said his client is entitled to an evidentiary hearing to determine whether the evidence supports Zhukovskyy remaining in preventive detention.
Senate Backs R&D
The United States Senate adopted a $250 billion bipartisan bill to expand federally financed research and development efforts on Tuesday, in response to China’s aggressive investments in science. The proposal commits more than $50 billion in immediate funding to U.S. businesses that manufacture computer chips for consumer and military devices. Currently China is the main source of the microchips.
The money may not immediately ease the supply crunch, experts say, but Andy Halataei, the executive vice-president of government affairs at the Information Technology Industry Council, called it “a long-term solution.”
The New York Times reported that federal spending on research and development between the 1950s and the 1970s equaled at least 1 percent of the nation’s gross domestic product, peaking above 2 percent in the 1960s. “The government made these R. & D. investments because the private sector often did not do so on its own. The investments involved basic science and early commercial development, which tend to be unprofitable for any single company. But the returns for society can be enormous,” wrote the authors of “The Morning,” the Times’ daily newsletter. Those “returns” included jet airplanes, satellites, semiconductors, the internet, MRIs, and lifesaving drugs.
Today, with sentiment having shifted away from government’s role in scientific research, the federal government spends less than 0.7 percent of GDP on R&D. The new bill would lift annual R&D spending between 0.05 percent and 0.2 percent of G.D.P. While some critics argue that the sum is unacceptably small, The Economist magazine has called the bill “a down payment on innovation in America.”
China, meanwhile, is leading the world in both absolute terms and as a share of GDP. It has been spending about 1.3 percent of its GDP for research and development, helping to support several major industries there and raising alarm both here and abroad.
Corrected Information
Yesterday’s discussion at the News Café included a report about the international coalition of law enforcement officials who used an FBI-controlled encrypted messaging app to eavesdrop on criminals around the world. The information led to the arrests of alleged drug syndicates, contract killers, and weapons dealers in several countries, after they openly discussed drug deals and swapped photos of their methods of concealing drugs. The News Café incorrectly listed computer hackers as being among the targeted criminals.
A detailed article in the Washington Post provided a clearer picture of the effort that combined the efforts of the FBI, Australian police, and a several European law enforcement agencies to tap into the conversations of criminal networks.
The three-year effort was “one of the largest and most sophisticated law enforcement operations to date in the fight against encrypted criminal activities,” said Jean-Philippe Lecouffe, the deputy executive director for operations of Europol, the agency that coordinates police activity among the 27 European Union countries. The global operation, known as Special Operation Ironside in Australia and Trojan Shield in the United States and Europe, allegedly led to the exposure of criminals linked to South American drug cartels, triad groups in Asia, and criminal syndicates based in the Middle East and Europe. A total of 17 countries took part in the effort.
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