"I look at you, in being nominated for this, as someone who has almost led their entire life, if you will, for this moment, being able to serve in this capacity," said Senator Bob Corker of Tennessee, the top Republican on the panel.
But pearl hunting, pollution and habitat destruction have almost led to the mussel's extinction.
Elise Christie, the British speed skater who has endured a miserable Olympics, at last found redemption on the track before admitting that her twin disqualifications and vicious online abuse had almost led her to quit the Games.
How, I had to wonder, had she ever moved from this almost unintelligible childhood, with its chaos, its fixations, its inaccessibility, its violence — this fierce and desperate state, which had almost led to her institutionalization at the age of three — to the successful biologist and engineer I was going to see?
How, I had to wonder, had she ever moved from this almost unintelligible childhood, with its chaos, its fixations, its inaccessibility, its violence this fierce and desperate state, which had almost led to her institutionalization at the age of three to the successful biologist and engineer I was going to see?
The fallout from this sleeplessness is hardly eyebrow-raising either: half the respondents said that the sleeplessness had caused rows with their partners, 13% that it had almost led to them splitting up, and 3% that it had actually laid waste to the relationship entirely.
However, his delayed growth and neurodevelopment was progressively more evident, and his swallowing disability had almost led to malnourishment (Table 1).
In the past, federal pre-emption of state laws has almost invariably led to a lowering of consumer protection standards.
Pochettino has almost certainly led Tottenham back into the Champions League, while they are on course to finish above Arsenal for the first time in 21 years.
Research by the thinktank Policy Exchange suggests that, whereas in other countries cutting deficits has sometimes strengthened political support for governments, in the UK implementing significant spending cuts has almost always led to governments being ejected.
But there is no argument that slow growth has hit tax revenues - and that, in turn, has almost certainly led to a situation in which Mr Osborne is either going to have to abandon his promise to have the stock of debt falling in 2015, or announce fresh spending measures or tax rises for the next two years.
