Federal Prosecution of State and Local Officials Using Honest Services Mail Fraud: Where\u27s the Line?

Although there is little dispute that the mail fraud statute has become a valuable part of a federal prosecutor\u27s arsenal, for years legal scholars have debated the extent to which the mail fraud statute should be used to prosecute corrupt state and local officials. In recent years, largely in response to the large number of high profile honest services fraud prosecutions, even members of the mainstream news media are beginning to seek guidance regarding the definition of honest services mail fraud. As noted by Professor George Brown, though the controversy over whether the national government should be responsible for prosecuting state and local corruption is not new, it seems increasingly important as the Supreme Court expands the reach of its federalism decisions, sometimes applying the \u27new federalism\u27 with a vengeance. In recent months, the Supreme Court has broken its silence on this issue and appears poised to consider this issue for the first time in twenty-two years

Assessing Butterflies in Europe. Executive summary

1. The Assessing Butterflies in Europe (ABLE) project was an EU Parliamentary Pilot project with a duration of two years (beginning of December 2019 to the end of November 2020) and received €800,000 of funding via a service contract with Directorate General Environment. 2. The mandate and rationale from the EU Parliament was: “The project aims at developing a suite of EU Lepidoptera indicators which can help improve conservation measure and assess progress in implementing EU policies and legislation such as the EU Biodiversity Strategy to 2020 and the EU Habitats Directive. Besides providing a highly relevant indicator for measuring progress in terms of managing and restoring Natura 2000 sites, it would also contribute to monitoring progress on Target 3 of the EU Biodiversity Strategy, which aims to increase the contribution of agriculture and forestry to maintaining and enhancing biodiversity. In particular, the pilot should deliver a representative indicator to help monitor the impact of the Common Agricultural Policy on grassland biodiversity. It will also provide data to produce a climate change indicator, thereby contributing to the ongoing revision of climate change adaptation strategies. Indicators will also be possible for woodland, wetland and urban habitats.” 3. The ABLE project was delivered by a consortium of the UK Centre for Ecology & Hydrology, Butterfly Conservation Europe, Butterfly Conservation UK, De Vlinderstichting and HelmholtzZentrum für Umweltforschung GmbH – UFZ. Considerable in-kind contributions were provided by Butterfly Conservation partners across Europe. 4. There is mounting evidence of widespread declines in the diversity and abundance of insects across the globe. The ABLE project is particularly timely in helping to develop capacity for monitoring of insects and assessing the status of butterflies in the EU. 5. There are 482 butterfly species in Europe (451 occurring within the EU27), breeding in a wide range of habitats. Butterflies react quickly to change and are considered to be good biological indicators, especially of other insects and pollinators. Monitoring butterflies can help shed light on changes in these important groups. 6. The main aims of the ABLE project were to collate butterfly monitoring data across Europe, to facilitate the start of new schemes in the EU, and to develop indicators to help policy design and evaluation. 7. Following the mandate from the EU Parliament for this Pilot project, we make the following key recommendations: i. Use Butterfly Monitoring Scheme (eBMS) data and indicators for EU policy design; to inform resource planning, especially for Member State’s Prioritised Action Frameworks (PAFs); and to track, evaluate and adjust EU and MSs policy implementation, including the EU Green Deal, EU Biodiversity Strategy 2030 and the EU Farm to Fork Strategy, to help reverse pollinator declines. ii. Use Member State and Article 17 data on butterflies to inform the design, implementation and evaluation of the EU CAP and MS’s CAP Strategic Plans; to ensure Forestry plans include more grassland refuges and herb rich rides and edges; and that urban planning and regional developments invest in pollinator habitats. Butterfly Conservation Europe 2020 \textbar ASSESSING BUTTERFLIES IN EUROPE – EXECUTIVE SUMMARY 6 iii. Use available Butterfly Monitoring Scheme data to strengthen the quality of assessments of conservation Status of Habitats Directive listed habitats and species in meeting mandatory reporting requirements under Art 17 of the Directive iv. Invest in linking butterfly data with land use and management data, including implementation of Natura 2000 Management Plans, Land Parcel Information system and Satellite data to help evaluate conservation effectiveness v. Support additional monitoring of rare and vulnerable butterflies (including endemics and those not listed on the Habitats Directive) and designate some additional Protected Areas to sustain and enhance the quality of remaining areas that are important for these Red Listed butterflies and so prevent further extinctions vi. Invest in further capacity building and cooperation among citizen scientists, professionals, farmers and authorities to monitor and record abundance of butterflies, moths and other pollinators, including supporting coordination, training and growth of citizen science eBMS schemes (as recommended by EU Pollinator Expert Group); filling data gaps and developing tools and expertise to gather and integrate data from various sources. vii. ABLE shows that Citizen Science eBMS are cost effective, delivering very good value for money. New citizen science Butterfly Monitoring Schemes are needed in Denmark, Greece, Latvia, Romania and Slovakia. Together with further support to sustain and increase transects across most EU MSs, especially in the ten schemes newly created during the ABLE project. The ten EU27 countries where new Citizen Science butterfly monitoring schemes were begun in 2019/2020, with the support of ABLE, BCE partners and active volunteers, are Austria, Bulgaria, Croatia, Cyprus, Czech Republic, Hungary, Italy, Malta, Poland and Portugal. Together with Belgium, Estonia, Finland, France, Germany, Ireland, Luxemburg, Lithuania (currently dormant), Netherlands, Slovenia, Spain, Sweden, there are now 22 EU(27) Member States with butterfly monitoring schemes. With several more outside the EU, including Norway, Switzerland and the UK (which has the longest running scheme). 8. This Executive Summary accompanies detailed technical reports on the three project tasks: development of butterfly indicators, development of butterfly monitoring networks, and tools to support butterfly monitoring and analysis

Measurement of the polarisation of W bosons produced with large transverse momentum in pp collisions at sqrt(s) = 7 TeV with the ATLAS experiment

This paper describes an analysis of the angular distribution of W->enu and W->munu decays, using data from pp collisions at sqrt(s) = 7 TeV recorded with the ATLAS detector at the LHC in 2010, corresponding to an integrated luminosity of about 35 pb^-1. Using the decay lepton transverse momentum and the missing transverse energy, the W decay angular distribution projected onto the transverse plane is obtained and analysed in terms of helicity fractions f0, fL and fR over two ranges of W transverse momentum (ptw): 35 < ptw < 50 GeV and ptw > 50 GeV. Good agreement is found with theoretical predictions. For ptw > 50 GeV, the values of f0 and fL-fR, averaged over charge and lepton flavour, are measured to be : f0 = 0.127 +/- 0.030 +/- 0.108 and fL-fR = 0.252 +/- 0.017 +/- 0.030, where the first uncertainties are statistical, and the second include all systematic effects.Comment: 19 pages plus author list (34 pages total), 9 figures, 11 tables, revised author list, matches European Journal of Physics C versio

Observation of a new chi_b state in radiative transitions to Upsilon(1S) and Upsilon(2S) at ATLAS

The chi_b(nP) quarkonium states are produced in proton-proton collisions at the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) at sqrt(s) = 7 TeV and recorded by the ATLAS detector. Using a data sample corresponding to an integrated luminosity of 4.4 fb^-1, these states are reconstructed through their radiative decays to Upsilon(1S,2S) with Upsilon->mu+mu-. In addition to the mass peaks corresponding to the decay modes chi_b(1P,2P)->Upsilon(1S)gamma, a new structure centered at a mass of 10.530+/-0.005 (stat.)+/-0.009 (syst.) GeV is also observed, in both the Upsilon(1S)gamma and Upsilon(2S)gamma decay modes. This is interpreted as the chi_b(3P) system.Comment: 5 pages plus author list (18 pages total), 2 figures, 1 table, corrected author list, matches final version in Physical Review Letter

Search for displaced vertices arising from decays of new heavy particles in 7 TeV pp collisions at ATLAS

We present the results of a search for new, heavy particles that decay at a significant distance from their production point into a final state containing charged hadrons in association with a high-momentum muon. The search is conducted in a pp-collision data sample with a center-of-mass energy of 7 TeV and an integrated luminosity of 33 pb^-1 collected in 2010 by the ATLAS detector operating at the Large Hadron Collider. Production of such particles is expected in various scenarios of physics beyond the standard model. We observe no signal and place limits on the production cross-section of supersymmetric particles in an R-parity-violating scenario as a function of the neutralino lifetime. Limits are presented for different squark and neutralino masses, enabling extension of the limits to a variety of other models.Comment: 8 pages plus author list (20 pages total), 8 figures, 1 table, final version to appear in Physics Letters

Measurement of the inclusive isolated prompt photon cross-section in pp collisions at sqrt(s)= 7 TeV using 35 pb-1 of ATLAS data

A measurement of the differential cross-section for the inclusive production of isolated prompt photons in pp collisions at a center-of-mass energy sqrt(s) = 7 TeV is presented. The measurement covers the pseudorapidity ranges |eta|<1.37 and 1.52<=|eta|<2.37 in the transverse energy range 45<=E_T<400GeV. The results are based on an integrated luminosity of 35 pb-1, collected with the ATLAS detector at the LHC. The yields of the signal photons are measured using a data-driven technique, based on the observed distribution of the hadronic energy in a narrow cone around the photon candidate and the photon selection criteria. The results are compared with next-to-leading order perturbative QCD calculations and found to be in good agreement over four orders of magnitude in cross-section.Comment: 7 pages plus author list (18 pages total), 2 figures, 4 tables, final version published in Physics Letters

The state of Britain’s larger moths 2021

This report summarises current knowledge of the state of Britain’s c.900 species of larger moths, presenting analyses of long-term change based on millions of records gathered through the Rothamsted Insect Survey (RIS) and National Moth Recording Scheme (NMRS)

Measurement of the production cross section of prompt j/psi mesons in association with a W (+/-) boson in pp collisions root s=7 TeV with the ATLAS detector

The process pp → W±J/ψ provides a powerful probe of the production mechanism of charmonium in hadronic collisions, and is also sensitive to multiple parton interactions in the colliding protons. Using the 2011 ATLAS dataset of 4.5 fb-1 of p s = 7TeV pp collisions at the LHC, the first observation is made of the production of W± + prompt J/ events in hadronic collisions, using W± → μ and J/ψ → μ+μ-. A yield of 27.4±7.5 -6.5 W± + prompt J/ψ events is observed, with a statistical significance of 5.1. The production rate as a ratio to the inclusive W± boson production rate is measured, and the double parton scattering contribution to the cross section is estimated. Copyright CERN, for the benefit of the ATLAS Collaboration

Measurement of D*+/- meson production in jets from pp collisions at sqrt(s) = 7 TeV with the ATLAS detector

This paper reports a measurement of D*+/- meson production in jets from proton-proton collisions at a center-of-mass energy of sqrt(s) = 7 TeV at the CERN Large Hadron Collider. The measurement is based on a data sample recorded with the ATLAS detector with an integrated luminosity of 0.30 pb^-1 for jets with transverse momentum between 25 and 70 GeV in the pseudorapidity range |eta| < 2.5. D*+/- mesons found in jets are fully reconstructed in the decay chain: D*+ -> D0pi+, D0 -> K-pi+, and its charge conjugate. The production rate is found to be N(D*+/-)/N(jet) = 0.025 +/- 0.001(stat.) +/- 0.004(syst.) for D*+/- mesons that carry a fraction z of the jet momentum in the range 0.3 < z < 1. Monte Carlo predictions fail to describe the data at small values of z, and this is most marked at low jet transverse momentum.Comment: 10 pages plus author list (22 pages total), 5 figures, 1 table, matches published version in Physical Review