Comment on this article
Updates
July/August 2009
Koh
still not approved for State Department post
President
Obama’s appointment of Law School dean Harold Hongju Koh to run the State
Department’s Office of Legal Counsel ("Law School Dean Named to State Department Post") was still awaiting confirmation by the Senate as this magazine went to press.
Koh was approved by the Senate Foreign Relations Committee in a 12-5 vote on
May 12, but a pair of Republican senators placed a "hold" on the nomination in
June, making it uncertain when action would be taken. Koh has been criticized
for his views on the relevance of international law in the U.S. legal system.
Jovin
Reuniongoers
in the Class of 1999 this June each received a letter from Vice President and
Secretary Linda Koch Lorimer '77JD, asking for help in the investigation of the
1998 murder of their classmate Suzanne Jovin. No one has ever been charged in
the Jovin killing. A team of retired state police detectives took over the case
in 2006 ("New Leads in a Cold Case") and has been
revisiting old evidence and seeking new information.
Mory’s
Mory’s,
which closed in December due to financial problems ("Struggling Mory’s Closes its Doors"), recently received two boosts in its effort to reopen. In June, the city
approved the club’s remodeling plans, and the university agreed that alumni who
contribute to Mory’s before December 31 can count the donation toward their
next reunion class gift. The Mory’s board hopes to reopen the club in November.
Counterclaim
Two
months after Yale filed a lawsuit seeking to protect its title to the famous
Van Gogh painting The Night Cafe ("Yale Sues to Protect its Van Gogh"), the man who says the painting is his has filed a counterclaim. Pierre
Konowaloff, great-grandson of the man who owned the work before it was taken by
the Soviet government in 1918, says Yale exercised "willful ignorance" of the
Van Gogh’s status as "Bolshevik looted art" when it accepted the painting as a
donation in 1961. For more coverage, and to read Yale’s and Konowaloff's
complaints, see "Counterclaim in Night Cafe Lawsuit." |