An assault is the act of inflicting physical harm or unwanted physical contact upon a person or, in some specific legal definitions, a threat or attempt to commit such an action. It is both a crime and a tort and, may result in either criminal and/or civil liability; the common law definition is the same in criminal and tort law. Traditionally, common law legal systems had separate definitions for battery; when this distinction is observed, battery refers to the actual bodily contact, whereas assault refers to a credible threat or attempt to cause battery. Some jurisdictions combined the two offences into assault and battery, which became referred to as "assault"; the result is that in many of these jurisdictions, assault has taken on a definition, more in line with the traditional definition of battery. The legal systems of civil law and Scots law have never distinguished assault from battery. Legal systems acknowledge that assaults can vary in severity. In the United States, an assault can be charged as either a felony.

In England and Wales and Australia, it can be charged as either common assault, assault occasioning actual bodily harm or grievous bodily harm. Canada has a three-tier system: assault, assault causing bodily harm and aggravated assault. Separate charges exist for sexual assaults and assaulting a police officer. Assault may overlap with an attempted crime. In jurisdictions that make a distinction between the two, assault accompanies battery if the assailant both threatens to make unwanted contact and carries through with this threat. See common assault; the elements of battery are that it is a volitional act, done for the purpose of causing a harmful or offensive contact with another person or under circumstances that make such contact certain to occur, which causes such contact. Aggravated assault is, in some jurisdictions, a stronger form of assault using a deadly weapon. A person has committed an aggravated assault when that person attempts to: cause serious bodily injury to another person with a deadly weapon have sexual relations with a person, under the age of consent cause bodily harm by recklessly operating a motor vehicle during road rage.

Aggravated assault can be charged in cases of attempted harm against police officers or other public servants. Although the range and precise application of defenses varies between jurisdictions, the following represents a list of the defenses that may apply to all levels of assault: Exceptions exist to cover unsolicited physical contact which amount to normal social behavior known as de minimis harm. Assault can be considered in cases involving the spitting on, or unwanted exposure of bodily fluids to others. Consent may be a partial defense to assault. In some jurisdictions, most notably England, it is not a defense where the degree of injury is severe, as long as there is no recognized good reason for the assault; this can have important consequences when dealing with issues such as consensual sadomasochistic sexual activity, the most notable case being the Operation Spanner case. Recognized good reasons for consent include surgery, activities within the rules of a game, bodily adornment, or horseplay.

However, any activity outside the rules of the game is not recognized as a defense of consent. In Scottish law, consent is not a defense for assault. Police officers and court officials have a general power to use force for the purpose of performing an arrest or carrying out their official duties. Thus, a court officer taking possession of goods under a court order may use force if reasonably necessary. In some jurisdictions such as Singapore, judicial corporal punishment is part of the legal system; the officers who administer the punishment have immunity from prosecution for assault. In the United States, the United Kingdom and Canada, corporal punishment administered to children by their parent or legal guardian is not considered to be assault unless it is deemed to be excessive or unreasonable. What constitutes "reasonable" varies in both statutory law and case law. Unreasonable physical punishment may be charged as assault or under a separate statute for child abuse. Many countries, including some US states permit the use of corporal punishment for children in school.

In English law, s. 58 Children Act 2004 limits the availability of the lawful correction defense to common assault under s. 39 Criminal Justice Act 1988. This may or may not involve self-defense in that, using a reasonable degree of force to prevent another from committing a crime could involve preventing an assault, but it could be preventing a crime not involving the use of personal violence; some jurisdictions allow force to be used in defense of property, to prevent damage either in its own right, or under one or both of the preceding classes of defense in that a threat or attempt to damage property might be considered a crime subject to the need to deter vigilantes and excessive self-help. Furthermore, some jurisdictions, such as Ohio, allow residents in their homes to use force when ejecting an intruder; the resident needs to assert to the court that they felt threatened by the intruder's presence. This defe

The Broadway Tunnel is a roadway tunnel in San Francisco, California. The tunnel opened in 1952, serves as a high-capacity conduit for traffic between Chinatown and North Beach to the east and Russian Hill and Van Ness Avenue to the west. In a proposal of the city's 1948 Transportation Plan, the tunnel was to serve as a link between the Embarcadero Freeway and the Central Freeway. Abner Doble and his associates in the Folsom St. and Fort Point Railroad and Tunnel Co. were granted "the right to construct a tunnel through Russian Hill, on the line of Broadway, from Mason to Hyde or Larkin" by the California State Assembly on April 22, 1863. Fifty years Bion J. Arnold submitted a report to the City of San Francisco in March 1913, calling for a tunnel on Broadway to supplement the Stockton Street Tunnel, under construction; the general route of a tunnel for Broadway was described in April 1913, extending from Mason to Larkin. A landowner protested against the proposed tunnel, calling it "absolutely as unnecessary as a bridge to the moon."

In 1913, a railway tunnel was proposed for Broadway as part of an extension for the Municipal Railway to carry passengers to and from the Panama-Pacific Exposition. Arnold's proposal called for a combined rail and road tunnel with a single arch for Broadway through Russian Hill, 2,338 feet long and 60 feet wide, carrying two tracks each 11 feet wide. Plans were elaborated in brief by City Engineer M. M. O'Shaughnessy as one of ten potential tunnel projects in San Francisco at the October 1917 meeting for the San Francisco Association of the members of the American Society of Civil Engineers. O'Shaughnessy proposed a 2,300-foot long bore, but the article reporting the meeting described it as "investigated and not to be soon built." In 1948, voters in the City of San Francisco passed a $5 million bond measure to fund the construction of the Broadway Tunnel. Site preparations, including the move of an apartment building from 1453 Mason to Vallejo Street, were underway by October 1949, the construction contract was anticipated to be bid in January 1950.

In February, Morrison-Knudsen was awarded the contract after submitting the low bid of $5,243,355 and construction began in May 1950. The final cost was some $7.3 million. Completion was projected for May 1952, but unanticipated loose rock meant that shoring was required; the tunnel opened to traffic on December 21, 1952. Mayor Elmer Robinson cut a ceremonial ribbon to mark the occasion; the Broadway Tunnel was named in honor of Robert C. Levy in January 1986. Mr. Levy was the City Engineer and Superintendent of Building Inspection for the City and County of San Francisco. A plaque outside the tunnel reads, "He devoted his life to high standards of professionalism in engineering and to the City which he loved." The east portal is just east of the Mason Street overpass. The west portal is just east of the Hyde Street overpass. Combined with these two overpasses, the tunnel provides for uninterrupted traffic flow along Broadway for a stretch of six blocks, between Powell on the east and Larkin on the west.

There are each carrying two lanes of one-way traffic. The northern tunnel carries westbound traffic, the southern tunnel carries eastbound traffic; each tunnel is 1,616 feet long. The vertical clearance throughout much of the tunnel is nearly 20 feet, but there is an overhanging concrete slab at the eastern end, which reduces vertical clearance to 13 ft 6 in. There are narrow sidewalks on the outboard side of each tunnel. Bicyclists tend to use the sidewalk, but signal lights triggered by an inductive loop were installed in 2011 to alert motorists to the presence of bicycles in the tunnel. A stylized dragon relief sculpture by Patti Bowler, rendered in bronze, has been mounted above the eastern portal of the tunnel since 1969; the building atop the eastern portal is the Chinatown Public Health Center, a public health clinic operated by the San Francisco Department of Public Health. It was built in the 1970s and remodeled in 2010. In 2008, the artist Moose, sponsored by a company, executed a 140-foot long mural by cleaning dirt from the side of the approach to the western portal of the tunnel using pressure washing and cardboard stencils, a technique known as reverse graffiti.

The Broadway Tunnel has been used as a filming location for several motion pictures, including: Hells Angels on Wheels Invasion of the Body Snatchers Magnum Force The Princess Diaries War What Dreams May Come Stockton Street Tunnel A trip through Broadway Tunnel on YouTube De Leuw and Company. A Report to the City Planning Commission on a Transportation Plan for San Francisco. City Planning Commission, San Francisco. OCLC 7431642. Rhodes, Michael. "The Broadway Tunnel: One of SF's Meanest Streets for Biking and Walking". Streetsblog SF. Retrieved 16 April 2018. "Broadway Tunnel East Mini Park". San Francisco Department of Recreation and Parks. Retrieved 16 April 2018. "Broadway Tunnel West Mini Park". San Francisco Department of Recreation and Parks. Retrieved 16 April 2018. San Francisco County Transportation Authority. Chinatown Neighborhood Transportation Plan. San Francisco Municipal Transportation Agency. Retrieved 16 April 2018. DDB. "Reverse graffiti". Ads of the World. Retrieved 16 April 2018. "Best Tunnel: Broadway Tunnel".

SF Weekly. 2003. Retrieved 17 April 2018. "

Fixed at Zero is the first, only studio album by American experimental rock band VersaEmerge, released through Fueled by Ramen on June 22, 2010. The album was made available for pre-order on iTunes and the Fueled by Ramen store on May 11, 2010; the first single off the album, "Fixed At Zero", was released on July 13, 2010. The second single, "Your Own LoV. E." was released on January 12, 2011. The third single, "Figure It Out", was released on April 6, 2011. Fixed at Zero received positive reviews. Alternative Press gave the album 4 out of 5 stars. AbsolutePunk praised the band's work on the album, stating "In a time where a lot of similar acts care more about style rather than substance, VersaEmerge is a breath of fresh air." Sputnik Music gave the album 3.5 out of 5 stars, stating "If you haven’t given Versa a shot, either because pop-rock’s not your thing, or you feel obligated to hate everything Fueled By Ramen touches, consider this a dare. The band is a breath of ingenuity in a pretty stale parade of warped tour schlock."

The Sound Alarm gave the album a score of 8 out of 10, stating "These guys have a bright future in the music industry, it couldn’t be more relevant in this release, Fixed at Zero." Fixed at Zero album personnel as listed on Allmusic