Thomas Clare ’92, ’95J.D. defends clients against reputational attacks. That put the attorney for Clare Locke LLP, a firm he co-founded with his wife, Libby Locke, in a high-profile position as one of the lead litigators for Dominion Voting Systems in its defamation case against Fox News. Dominion sued the network over its claims that the company rigged its voting machines to alter the outcome of the 2020 presidential election. The result? A $787.5 million settlement for Dominion. The judge praised the legal team’s work as among the best he had encountered in his career. “We recognized right away how momentous an issue this was, not only for Dominion but for the entire country and the integrity of elections,” Clare told Reuters after the settlement. . . .
Three years ago, Iran launched a missile attack on the Ain al-Asad Air Base in Iraq in retaliation for the killing of a general. United States Air Force helicopter pilot Michael Madden ’11, a captain at the time, had been evacuating civilians from the U.S. embassy in Baghdad when the attack occurred. Madden ordered his unit members aboard three aircraft to assist with the rescue at the base. For his efforts, Madden, now a major, received the Distinguished Flying Cross with a V for Valor, alongside awards for his crew and the other airmen, at a ceremony late last year. “After 13.2 flight hours under exceptionally hazardous conditions and narrowly avoiding certain death, and while heroically committing his crew and team to extreme danger after two missile strikes, Captain Madden’s actions helped secure the well-being of his crew, his team, and thousands of Al Asad airbase personnel,” the award citation read. . . .
During the pandemic, face masks made it impossible to read lips for a friend who is hard of hearing, which gave Danny Fritz ’22M.S. an idea. “Movies and TV shows all have subtitling,” he told Inside Indiana Business, “so why can’t that be done in a real-time fashion with smart glasses?” Fritz and Riley Ellingsen ’22M.S., a friend from Notre Dame’s ESTEEM graduate program in science entrepreneurship, launched heARsight to create an alternative to expensive hearing aids or speech-to-text phone apps that require a user to look away from a speaker. The co-founders’ South Bend-based startup, developed at Notre Dame’s Idea Center, has created a prototype with a microphone embedded in eyeglasses. Their app, currently in development, would convert speech to text and project the words onto the lens. The company had raised more than $300,000 as of January and had a waiting list of 800 people interested in the product. . . .
Julie Moore, an English professor at a Christian college in Indiana, lost her job over complaints about her teaching the work of Jemar Tisby ’02, a historian and bestselling author of The Color of Compromise, a book about race and religion in America. Moore, who had taught at Taylor University since 2017, told Religion News Service, “I felt I was in the twilight zone,” when she learned of her dismissal. Citing a recording from a meeting with the school’s provost, RNS reported that Moore insisted that, while she had quoted and admires Tisby, she had not assigned his work to students. Tisby, a Christian, has become controversial in some Christian circles. In another case, the board of Grove City College in Pennsylvania issued a report last year criticizing “woke” diversity training at the school, adding that it had been a mistake to invite Tisby to speak at a chapel service. “My disappointment is for the professors who are the casualties of these cancel-culture models,” Tisby said. “They’re faithful teachers and they don’t deserve this.” . . .
In 1966, Samuel Hazo ’49 founded the International Poetry Forum in his native Pittsburgh. When Hazo retired in 2009, the forum ceased operations — forever, its only director then presumed. Last year, Hazo met fellow Pittsburgh native Jake Grefenstette ’16, a poetry scholar with a doctorate from the University of Cambridge and experience studying the subject in multiple languages, including a year at Peking University in China as a Yenching scholar. Hazo calls Grefenstette “the first person I have met in 14 years that I trust to carry on the legacy” of the organization, which is relaunching this year under Grefenstette’s leadership as president and executive director. . . .
Taichi Kho ‘22 turned pro in January and won his first title in March. The golfer, who ranks third all-time on the men’s varsity career stroke average list, became the first player from Hong Kong to win on the Asian Tour when he captured the World City Championship held in his native city. The victory made him an automatic qualifier for The Open Championship, which starts July 16 at Royal Liverpool. “It feels like a dream — don’t wake me up,” Kho said after his two-shot win.