31.   After three years of futile U.N. efforts to broker negotiations, the Croatian army launched its blitz offensive in August.

32.   After three years of futile U.N. efforts to broker negotiations, the Croatian army launched its blitz offensive.

33.   And that might explain why a Miami television reporter held up a piece paper in a futile effort to convince viewers it really was windy.

34.   Any instant solution to the problem, without considering the logic and interest of the New Order state, might be a futile effort.

35.   But it was a futile effort.

36.   Conservative Pat Buchanan, who is seeking the Republican presidential nomination, said the administration was making a futile effort to salvage a bad deal.

37.   Dr. Viktor Klimenko rushed to Chernobyl from Kiev within hours of the explosion and found people washing their hair in a futile effort to get the radiation out.

38.   Hall stayed back in an apparently futile effort to help fellow a fellow climber.

39.   Hours earlier, fighter planes had bombed the ice jam on the Pechora River in a futile effort to prevent flooding.

40.   Inside, ceiling fans whirl in a futile effort to cut the suffocating heat.