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Several hours before dawn on June 6, 1993, two Park Service police officers were patrolling the road next to Jacob Riis Park, a long stretch of beach on the Rockaway peninsula, in Queens, when they were startled by two Asian men flagging them down. As the officers got out of their car, they heard the sound of screams coming from the beach. The moon was full, and about a hundred yards offshore the officers saw a hundred-and-fifty-foot tramp steamer that had run aground. The ship's deck was crowded with people, and, as the officers watched, men and women jumped over the side, falling twenty feet into the surging waves below. Dozens of figures bobbed in the water, some managing to clamber ashore, others flailing wildly, apparently unable to swim. The officers radioed for backup.
The ship's name, stencilled in white block letters on the bow, was the Golden Venture. Its cargo was nearly three hundred illegal Chinese emigrants. Before reaching the Rockaways, the ship had sailed some seventeen thousand miles, from Thailand to Kenya, around the Cape of Good Hope, then across the Atlantic to New York.
The passengers—mostly adults, but a few children—were emaciated. They had been confined in the ship's hold for months, subsisting on rice, peanuts, and purified salt water. It had been uncomfortably hot, and many passengers wore only underwear; when they hit the water, which was fifty-three degrees, some went into cardiac arrest. One Coast Guard officer who performed CPR on two men onshore recalled, "I could feel the gristle of their bodies, the cartilage. They walked up out of the water, collapsed on the beach, and died."
Six bodies were recovered from the surf; four others were found later. By dawn, news helicopters were capturing live footage of the disaster. The Golden Venture accident was not an isolated incident: in the preceding year, more than a dozen ships had dropped human cargo from China on American shores. In April, a ship called the Mermaid 1, carrying two hundred and thirty-seven illegal Chinese, had been intercepted by the Coast Guard near the Bahamas. In May, the Pai Sheng had slipped beneath the Golden Gate Bridge at night, depositing two hundred and fifty passengers on a San Francisco pier. An internal Department of Justice report declared an "immigration emergency"; the San Francisco Chronicle heralded a " SMUGGLER SHIP INVASION ."
Several miles from the beach, in a small shop at 47 East Broadway, in Manhattan's Chinatown, a middle-aged woman named Cheng Chui Ping watched the story unfold on television. Short and stout, with cropped black hair, wide-set dark eyes, and a hangdog expression, she was known in the neighborhood as Ping Jia—Sister Ping. Her gruff demeanor and simple clothes gave her the appearance of a Chinese peasant; she had little formal education, spoke almost no English, and spent most of her waking hours managing the shop, which sold clothes and goods from China, and a restaurant in the basement. But Sister Ping was also an extraordinarily wealthy businesswoman who owned the restaurant and the shop, as well as the building that housed them. She was what the Chinese call a shetou, or "snakehead"—an underworld entrepreneur who charges tens of thousands of dollars to shepherd undocumented migrants from one country to another. She helped purchase the Golden Venture, and two of its passengers owed her fees. One of them had died.
Last summer, twelve years after the Golden Venture ran aground, Sister Ping—now fifty-six, and a grandmother—was tried in a federal courtroom in New York City. She became the twenty-third person to be convicted in connection with the voyage. Described by the authorities as "the mother of all snakeheads," she was charged with operating what prosecutors called "a conglomerate built upon misery and greed." Moving people illegally from one country to another requires an extensive network of international contacts and an ability to outwit immigration and law-enforcement officers. With a well-connected family, acute entrepreneurial instincts, and a callous, life-is-cheap attitude toward the poor migrants who were her customers, Sister Ping was well suited to the job. Working with associates in China, Hong Kong, Thailand, Belize, Kenya, South Africa, Guatemala, Mexico, and Canada, she helped create the China-to-Chinatown route in the early nineteen-eighties and ushered thousands of undocumented Chinese emigrants to America. According to the F.B.I., over the course of two decades she made some forty million dollars.
Not long ago, I visited a man named Michael Chen, who arrived in America on the Golden Venture and had agreed to talk with me about the journey. Chen is now thirty-two. He is short and slight, with a boyish face and thick, expressive eyebrows. We met in the spotless Chinese restaurant that he owns in a strip mall in suburban Columbus, Ohio; in the lull between lunch and dinner, he related his ordeal.
The first Chinese who came to America, in the mid - nineteenth century, originated from a few counties on the Pearl River delta, around the southern city of Guangzhou. Michael Chen was part of another great wave of emigrants, who came from a series of villages along the Min River in Fujian Province, a mountainous sliver of coast across the straits from Taiwan.
Chen grew up outside Fuzhou, the regional capital. His father was a produce farmer who fished at night to supplement his income. Several of his uncles had gained entry to New York in the nineteen-eighties by paying snakeheads. These smugglers had emerged during the nineteen-sixties and seventies, when many mainland Chinese were fleeing to Hong Kong, which was then still in British hands. At Sister Ping's trial, one Fujianese snakehead explained that when smuggled emigrants slither through the wire fences strung along borders "the shape of it looks like a snake."
The Fujianese (sometimes called Fukienese) had various reasons for leaving home—what demographers call "push factors"—ranging from political repression to China's policies of sterilization and forced abortion. But interviews with numerous Fujianese who entered the United States illegally indicate that many were prompted by the "pull factor" of America's capitalist system. "In their life here, they're working like slaves, but there is hope for them to change everything," said Justin Yu, a veteran reporter for the World Journal, a Chinese-language daily. "But over there, for a fisherman? For a farmer with a little piece of land? They'll never change their life."
As a teen-ager, Michael Chen was admitted to a school for talented children, but a local Party official stole Chen's identity in order to enroll his son. Provincial Party bosses govern more or less unchecked in Fujian, and soon afterward, in 1991, when Chen was sixteen, his parents borrowed enough money to make a five-thousand-dollar down payment to a local "little snakehead"—a recruiter who drums up business for "big snakeheads." The total fee was thirty thousand dollars, with the balance due upon Chen's safe arrival in America. Chinese snakeheads had Bangkok immigration officials on the payroll, and furnished their clients with "photo-sub" passports, which required only the substitution of the passenger's picture. "They told us, 'Easy: you just go on the bus, or motorcycle, to Thailand,' " Chen told me with a bitter smile. " 'In Thailand, maybe one week or two weeks, they will arrange you by plane to the U.S.A.' "
During the nineteen-eighties and nineties, the demography of New York's Chinatown was changing significantly. The 1960 census showed twenty thousand Chinese living in the city; by the mid-eighties, the population had swelled to more than two hundred thousand. The arriving Fujianese settled on Chinatown's grubby eastern frontier—along East Broadway, under the Manhattan Bridge, and on Eldridge and Division Streets—and established restaurants and small businesses. As soon as a new arrival paid off his snakehead debt (which often took years), he began saving money to bring over another family member. In this manner, whole clans made the journey, and, eventually, entire villages. Men of working age abandoned once-bustling rural Chinese communities. Emigrants who prospered sent money back for the construction of multistory houses, which rose incongruously from the rice paddies—monuments to the filial loyalty of "overseas Chinese." In status-conscious small towns, this inspired other villagers to emigrate, and within several years many of the houses emptied out—becoming lavish, tenantless temples to the good life in America.
New York's established Cantonese community saw the Fujianese as strivers and peasants. The Fujianese dialect is incomprehensible to Cantonese and Mandarin speakers, so the fledgling community was doubly isolated—a ghetto within a ghetto. East Broadway became known as "Fuzhou Street," and the Chinatown shorthand for new arrivals was "eighteen-thousand-dollar men," after the snakehead rate in the eighties.
Some of the Cantonese disapproval stemmed from the fact that the influx of Fujianese coincided with a rise in violent crime in the neighborhood. Chinatown had long been home to street gangs, which managed illegal gambling and massage parlors and extorted money from local businesses. But during the eighties a new kind of gang emerged which was conspicuously more violent.
These gangs embraced human smuggling, initially by working as strongmen for sophisticated international syndicates. Illegal migrants typically have a grace period of two or three days after arriving in America, and borrow a large sum of money to pay their snakeheads—thereby indenturing themselves to friends, family, or loan sharks. The gangs began holding delinquent arrivals hostage, occasionally beating, torturing, or raping them when they failed to come up with the money. Soon the gangsters established their own smuggling networks. "It was a better business than drug trafficking," Steven Wong, a Fujianese community leader in Chinatown, told me. "More profit. Less risk. You get caught and plead guilty right away, you only go to jail for six months." He added, "Another thing is, your merchandise can walk."
The snakehead trade was further fuelled by changes in U.S. immigration policy. A 1986 federal law declared that green-card status could be provided for undocumented aliens who demonstrated that they had lived in the country since 1982 or earlier. This policy was surprisingly useful to those who had not yet left China, as neighborhood businesses could forge backdated records to satisfy the residency requirement. After the 1989 massacre at Tiananmen Square, President George H. W. Bush issued one executive order granting amnesty to Chinese students in the United States and another giving "enhanced consideration" to asylum applications from Chinese nationals who resisted the country's family-planning policies. These orders effectively meant that any Chinese adult could be classified as a refugee. According to Peter Kwong, a professor at Hunter College and an authority on American Chinatowns, the largest influx of illegal Chinese in the country's history entered the United States between 1988 and 1993. A United Nations study estimated that by the mid-nineties the snakehead trade from China to the United States was a three-and-a-half-billion-dollar industry.
Among emigrant Chinese in New York, Sister Ping is widely revered both as an immigrant success story and as an extraordinarily capable professional. "The Fujianese thank two people: one is Cheng Chui Ping, and one is George Bush the father," Philip Lam, a Chinatown real-estate agent who emigrated in the nineteen-eighties, told me. Even as she became more powerful within the neighborhood, Sister Ping cultivated a modest image, avoiding any gaudy trappings of success and working hours that were considered long even in Chinatown. Although she had learned little English during her years in America, she encouraged young Chinatown residents to study the language, arguing that it was an important precondition for success. She developed a tendency to refer to herself in the third person.
This was perhaps understandable: Chinatown residents describe the name "Sister Ping" as an international brand. It is taken for granted that people-smuggling is a perilous business, and that some level of failure is inevitable even for the best brokers—so much so that the disaster which befell the Golden Venture did not particularly diminish Sister Ping's reputation. In fact, she handled accidents in a way that drew more customers: when passengers were caught by immigration officials, she would forgive the balance of her fee; when passengers died, she paid for their burial. Sister Ping's name became so highly esteemed that other snakeheads fraudulently claimed to be affiliated with her in order to attract business.
Cheng Chui Ping was born in 1949, in the Fujianese farming village of Shengmei; according to the authorities, her father was rumored to be a prominent snakehead. She married a fisherman from a neighboring village, Cheng Yick Tak. In the nineteen-seventies, the couple left China for Hong Kong, where Sister Ping opened a convenience store and gained a reputation as a clever businesswoman. They had four children. In 1981, she went to the U.S. consulate in Hong Kong to apply for a visa, saying that she wished to work in America as a housekeeper. A consular official asked why she wanted to go to America to be a servant. She told him that as a child in school she had learned that the United States was "a civilized country," and that "one could make a living" there. She explained, "It's for the sake of my children's future that I am willing to be a servant."
It is unclear whether the visa was granted, or how she made it to the United States, but shortly after her interview Sister Ping entered the country—leaving her husband and young children behind. Upon arriving in New York, she opened a small variety store on Hester Street, and sent for her family. Chinatown's Fujianese community was still new, and the shop became a gathering place for displaced villagers.
During her first years in the city, Sister Ping established a remittance business that helped emigrants send money back to China. Her network of associates in Fujian was so extensive that a New York waiter could bring her a thousand dollars, pay her a ten-dollar commission, and be certain that the next day someone would travel by motorbike to his mother's remote village and deliver the Chinese cash equivalent to her door. Immigrants who worked in the restaurants and garment factories of New York tended to live frugally and send most of their earnings home, and Sister Ping's service was often cheaper and faster than the Bank of China.
At the same time, Sister Ping began developing her smuggling operation. Initially, it was a meticulously run family business. During her trial, it emerged that one of her sisters met passengers in Hong Kong, provided them with false documents, and took them shopping, so that they would look more like international travellers. Her brother managed a staging post in Guatemala; her husband ferried the large amounts of cash that the family had accumulated out of the country; and Sister Ping met new arrivals in California and escorted them to New York. In 1984, when a young Fujianese man, Weng Yu Hui, wanted to come to America, he had a relative get in touch with Sister Ping, who arranged for him to travel from China to Mexico. He and several others hid in the false floor of a truck and were driven to Los Angeles, where Sister Ping was waiting for them. "Congratulations," she told the group. "You have arrived in the United States." She took them to Los Angeles International Airport and flew with them to Newark, sitting several rows away.
As demand for her services grew, Sister Ping was unable to supervise the process as carefully as she had originally. She began to subcontract her operations to various freelancers and affiliates, some of whom were not particularly reliable. In January, 1989, a Canadian snakehead loaded four passengers—one of them a six-year-old Chinese girl—onto a flimsy vinyl raft on the Niagara River so that they could row across to the United States. The raft sank, and all four passengers drowned. U.S. authorities recovered a phone number on one of the bodies, which they eventually connected to Sister Ping's husband. No definite link to Sister Ping was ever established, but officials have long believed that she was behind the operation. Cheng Yick Tak, her husband, is meek by temperament, and "kind of married into a smuggling family," one official told me; over the course of two decades of smuggling activity, he never acted alone.
Even before the Niagara River incident, Canadian authorities had begun investigating the emerging cross-border smuggling trade. In the spring of 1989, a small-time Canadian criminal named Terry Honesburger, who had befriended snakeheads while working at a Chinese restaurant, agreed to help an undercover member of the Royal Canadian Mounted Police set up a sting. Honesburger and the Canadian cop, Larry Hay, went to Toronto International Airport and stood by a bank of pay phones. After a few minutes, Sister Ping approached, wearing a gray knit sports jacket and looking impatient. "What took you?" she demanded, in broken English. With her were four Chinese people: two men, a pregnant woman, and a teen-age girl in a brown leather jacket.
"Are all four to go?" Hay asked her.
"No," she said, indicating the teen-ager. "This one is my daughter."
Sister Ping slid several hundred dollars into a newspaper and handed it to Hay, with the understanding that he and Honesburger would drive the passengers over the border. Several months later, she was arrested in connection with the incident, and pleaded guilty to alien smuggling in Buffalo Federal Court, claiming that the pregnant woman was her cousin. She told the judge, "With my Chinese family background, I had to give family loyalty high priority."
Sister Ping was sentenced to six months in prison in Butler County, Pennsylvania. Her lack of English isolated her from the guards and inmates. When the F.B.I. sent a young Chinese-American agent, Peter Lee, to Pennsylvania to see if she would coöperate in exchange for a reduced sentence, she immediately agreed and happily provided Lee with details about various adversaries in Chinatown's underworld. After serving four months, she was released.
Back in Chinatown, Sister Ping continued to meet Lee periodically and give him information. Lee estimates that they met in person more than ten times. They grew close enough that, when one of Sister Ping's daughters was engaged to be married, Lee was invited to the wedding. When, in 1992, the F.B.I. discovered that Sister Ping was still involved in smuggling, the agency terminated the relationship.
The F.B.I.'s New York field office occupies several floors of a federal building in downtown Manhattan, not far from Fujianese East Broadway. I went there recently to see agents Konrad Motyka and Bill McMurray, who oversaw the bureau's decade-long investigation of Sister Ping's organization. We met in a small conference room. Motyka is forty-two and formidably built, with a clipped mustache and small, intense eyes. He started working on Asian organized crime in the early nineteen-nineties. At about this time, he said, Sister Ping joined forces with a brutal criminal group: the Fuk Ching gang. Although she had no history of violence, her decision suggested a willingness to make almost any concession for the sake of her business, which had begun to resemble an empire. (She had recently purchased the five-story brick building at 47 East Broadway for a reported three million dollars.)
The leader of the Fuk Ching was a charismatic young murderer named Guo Liang Qi, who was better known as Ah Kay. Short but muscular, with a pompadour of black hair, Ah Kay left Fujian in 1981 and was smuggled to Los Angeles via Ecuador. He then made his way to New York, where he joined the fledgling gang. Fuk Ching is an abbreviation of Fukien Chingnian —"young Fujianese"—and many of the members were teen-agers. In March, 1984, a superior ordered Ah Kay to kill an insubordinate colleague. It was the first of five murders to which he pleaded guilty a decade later.
Fuk Ching gang members wore black, streaked their hair with bright colors, and loitered on street corners in black BMWs. "They would always be in knots of three or four, like mushrooms," Motyka told me. "They weren't around in the daytime, but as soon as the sun started going they'd sort of sprout out of the storefronts and the restaurants." Wary of shakedowns, they had girlfriends hold their guns in backpacks, but their preferred weapons for street violence were knives, hammers, and ice picks.
In 1985, Ah Kay, then a Dai Ma , or low-level leader, in the gang, encountered Sister Ping for the first time. He and several others robbed her house, holding her daughter at gunpoint. They didn't find as much cash as Ah Kay had hoped, and some months later he sent several followers to rob the house again. This time they found twenty thousand dollars stashed in the fridge. (In Sister Ping's 2005 trial, a prosecutor asked the jury to consider "whether a legitimate businesswoman keeps her profits in her refrigerator.")
Shortly afterward, in March, 1986, Ah Kay was convicted on an unrelated count of attempted grand larceny. He served two and a half years in prison, and was deported to China, but he soon returned, pursuing a typically circuitous route, from Hong Kong to Thailand to Belize to Mexico to Guatemala, and, finally, to San Diego. Remarkably, in 1991, Ah Kay, who had committed multiple homicides, was granted political asylum in the United States. By that time, he had become a snakehead and the leader of the Fuk Ching gang.
"My underlings were in China," Ah Kay later testified. "They recruited aliens who wanted to come. They then shipped those people to Thailand." As demand grew, the snakeheads could not channel people through Thailand quickly enough. The influx of Chinese passengers arriving at J.F.K. from Thailand with false documents prompted a crackdown by the authorities at the Bangkok airport.
At this point, Chinese snakeheads shifted their operations to the sea. According to Ko-lin Chin, a criminologist at Rutgers University who has interviewed dozens of snakeheads, ships were first used on the short trip from Fujian Province to Taiwan, but longer routes quickly emerged. As Chin explained, the ships made economic sense, since hundreds of passengers could be moved at once, without the need for plane tickets or forged documents.
Ah Kay developed a particular specialty: as the ships approached the coast of America—still safely in international waters—he dispatched fishing boats, piloted by Vietnamese fishermen and manned by Fuk Ching strongmen, to meet them. "Off-loading" was a crude and dangerous affair. "The two boats got closer to one another," Ah Kay later explained. "The fishing boat was very small; the big boat was rather big. So we would wait until the big wave rise and then, you know, the level of the fishing boat came up and . . . the people from the big boat would jump over to the small boat." In rough seas, people occasionally fell short and clung to the smaller boat, running the risk of being crushed when the two boats slammed together.
In the summer of 1992, one of Sister Ping's business partners visited Ah Kay at his apartment, on Hester Street, telling him that Sister Ping had heard of his success with boats and could use his expertise. Ah Kay said that he would be happy to collaborate, and, some time later, he received a phone call from Sister Ping. He immediately apologized for the burglaries.
"That's what happened in the past," Sister Ping replied. "We're talking business now."
A boat was due to arrive soon, and Sister Ping offered to pay him seven hundred and fifty thousand dollars to off-load it. A few weeks later, Ah Kay's men met the ship, off the coast of Massachusetts. There were more than a hundred passengers, and the gang transported them to shore, loaded them into U-Haul trucks, and drove them to a Brooklyn warehouse. Ah Kay and Sister Ping decided to work together again.
Once Michael Chen had made his down payment in Fuzhou, in 1991, he set off with several others from his village, travelling by bus and train to the city of Kunming, a day's drive from China's southern border with Burma. They stayed in a cheap hotel for a week; then, one night, snakeheads hid them among bags of rice in the back of a truck and drove them closer to the border.
"At the beginning, we weren't scared," Chen told me. But when they reached the border they realized that their situation was perilous: the checkpoint was closely monitored by armed guards. During the night, the snakeheads led Chen and a dozen others across the border into Burma.
A forbidding mountain range separates Burma from Thailand, and the travellers bought supplies for the month- long trek. "In the daytime it was hot," Chen said. "At night it's freezing. . . . We could not light a fire, because if you light in the mountains people will see it." Along the way, the group passed the remains of other Chinese who did not survive the mountains, their decomposing bodies covered with banana leaves. The smugglers' route led directly through the Golden Triangle, where much of the world's heroin supply is produced. Chen recalls crossing this territory at night, dodging the drug harvesters' spotlights, which panned across the poppy fields.
After arriving in Bangkok, in early 1992, Chen was kept in a safe house. The American crackdown at the Bangkok airport had begun, so the safe houses were uncomfortably crowded. On three occasions, Chen's snakeheads failed to bribe local Thai officials, and the house was raided. Once, he was arrested and thrown into a Thai prison for a month, until the snakeheads could reach his parents and get them to bail him out. They had to take out a loan, and his father worked "day and night, like a machine," to pay it off, Chen told me. He was stuck in Thailand for more than a year.
While Chen languished in Bangkok, preparations were under way in New York to purchase the ship that would transport him to America. Weng Yu Hui, the man Sister Ping had smuggled to Los Angeles in 1984, was coming into his own as a snakehead. When Weng first told Sister Ping of his ambitions, she joked, "Oh, now you're my competitor!" But in early 1992, along with several other snakeheads, they jointly chartered a cruise ship called the Najd II to transport three hundred passengers from Bangkok to the United States. The ship stopped in Mombasa, Kenya, where the captain decided that he wasn't being paid enough to transport the seven-million-dollar human cargo, and quit. It fell to Weng to devise a way of retrieving the stranded passengers, only twenty of whom were customers of Sister Ping. He met with Ah Kay and a Taiwanese snakehead, Lee Peng Fei, at a midtown Manhattan restaurant. It was agreed that Ah Kay would provide some of the capital to buy a new ship, and that, in exchange, he would be awarded the lucrative job of off-loading the passengers when they arrived. As it happened, Ah Kay was still owed three hundred thousand dollars for his first job with Sister Ping. He asked her to wire the money to Lee Peng Fei on his behalf.
She did so, and Lee used the money to purchase a Panama-registered tramp steamer, the Tong Sern, in Singapore. Lee hired a crew and a captain, Amir Tobing, as well as a young Chinese man, Kin Sin Lee, to act as an onboard enforcer. The snakeheads had decided that it would be wasteful to send the Tong Sern to Mombasa empty, so they arranged to pick up ninety Chinese passengers, including Michael Chen, in Thailand. " This is the boat?" Chen thought when he first saw the dilapidated steamer, in February, 1993. That night, snakeheads had transported him from the safe house to a beach not far from Bangkok. They loaded Chen and a dozen others onto a speedboat and headed for international waters. Some of the passengers, having worked as sailors in China, deemed the ship too small to cross the Atlantic. But they had little choice, and were ushered into the hold by Kin Sin Lee and his armed associates. At sea, the Panamanian flag was lowered and a Honduran flag was raised; the name Tong Sern, painted on the bow, was replaced by a new one: Golden Venture. After a stop off Pattaya, Thailand, to take on more passengers, the ship steamed through the Strait of Malacca and across the Indian Ocean to Mombasa.
When Sister Ping's customers in Kenya saw the Golden Venture, all but two refused to board, preferring to try their luck in Mombasa to risking passage on so rickety a vessel. The remaining stranded emigrants were crammed into the twenty-by-forty-foot hold, alongside Michael Chen and the others who were already on board. The space was dark and sweltering, rank with cigarette smoke and sweat. One bathroom serviced the nearly three hundred passengers. As the journey wore on, supplies dwindled, and the passengers were given only a small portion of rice and peanuts, or dried vegetables, each day.
During the months at sea, a society of sorts emerged. A pudgy young man who had been a village doctor in China tended to the sick; a teen-ager became known for giving good massages. Chen helped crew members prepare meals, which earned him an extra allotment of water. When the weather was clear and the ship was in international waters, Kin Sin Lee occasionally allowed the passengers to go up on deck. They fished with makeshift rods.
Ah Kay planned to off-load the Golden Venture in the Atlantic. But by early 1993 his gang had fallen into disarray. An ambitious deputy, Dan Xin Lin, had been running the gang's day-to-day smuggling operations, and he became frustrated because Ah Kay was growing rich from the proceeds and he wasn't. He decided to split from the Fuk Ching and start his own snakehead business, taking some of the gang members with him. The defection angered Ah Kay, and on January 8, 1993, he instructed a Fuk Ching member to kill Dan Xin Lin.
The assassin found Dan Xin in a beeper store on Allen Street, with two associates. He fired several shots, killing the two men. Then he pointed his .380 automatic at Dan Xin's head and pulled the trigger. But the clip was empty, or the gun jammed—and Dan Xin fled the store.
Worried that the police would link him to the shootings, Ah Kay went into hiding in China. He left management of the gang's activities to his two younger brothers, who would be responsible for meeting the Golden Venture when it reached the United States.
Dan Xin was eager for revenge. On the evening of May 24, 1993, two weeks before the Golden Venture arrived, Ah Kay's brothers were at a safe house in Teaneck, New Jersey. Shortly after 7 P . M ., a van pulled up around the corner. Dan Xin, dressed in black and carrying an Uzi submachine gun, led four men into the house, where they shot and stabbed one of Ah Kay's brothers and two other Fuk Ching members. The other brother escaped, but the men caught up with him on a nearby street and shot him repeatedly.
The killers were stopped by the police about five miles from Teaneck, as they sped toward the George Washington Bridge. All five were smeared with blood. At the ensuing trial, one of the assailants, when asked about the motive, testified that Dan Xin's faction planned to retrieve the Golden Venture's passengers and collect their fees.
With Ah Kay's brothers dead, and Dan Xin's gang in police custody, there was no one to meet the ship. When Lee Peng Fei, the Taiwanese snakehead, learned of the Teaneck massacre, he radioed the Golden Venture to say that the small boats would not be coming. The crew decided to run the ship aground in the Rockaways.
The following night, the snakeheads aboard the Golden Venture informed Michael Chen and the others that they were about to land. The ship jolted when it plowed into the sandbar, and dozens of passengers mobbed the single ladder leading to the deck. "I almost squeezed to death on the bottom," Chen told me. By the time he emerged from the hold, there were sirens in the distance, and a helicopter hovered overhead.
In June, 1993, federal prosecutors indicted the crew of the Golden Venture on charges of conspiracy and smuggling, and the F.B.I. intensified its investigation of the Fuk Ching gang. Ah Kay was reportedly holed up in a walled compound in Fujian, accompanied by his most trusted bodyguard, whose gang nickname was Stupid. In late August, Ah Kay made his way to Hong Kong, where, acting on a tip, the Royal Hong Kong Police arrested him at a restaurant. With Ah Kay in custody, F.B.I. teams in New York were raiding buildings and rounding up the rest of the gang. All the major figures were eventually indicted on charges of racketeering, conspiracy, murder, extortion, robbery, kidnapping, assault, gun possession, gambling, and alien smuggling.
Ah Kay waived extradition and came to the United States, where he pleaded guilty to the murder charges, was imprisoned in New York, and volunteered to coöperate with the F.B.I. Those who debriefed him say that he was an exceptionally intelligent turncoat, who came to meetings equipped with legal pads outlining the information he was able to supply. "The cream rises to the top, even in gangs," one official who dealt with him told me. "It was like having a good Fujianese F.B.I. agent on the case." The snakehead Weng Yu Hui was arrested in New York in April, 1994. The following November, his Taiwanese associate, Lee Peng Fei, was polishing a Mercedes outside his Bangkok apartment when he was arrested by the Royal Thai Police.
Law-enforcement officials carefully amassed evidence against Sister Ping. Several months after the Golden Venture incident, Konrad Motyka and other F.B.I. agents raided the building at 47 East Broadway and recovered a laminating machine, passports, driver's licenses, Social Security cards, and employment-authorization cards, all in other people's names—a trove that prosecutors later described as the "tools of the alien-smuggling trade." But by the fall of 1993 Sister Ping had already gone "out of pocket," Motyka said. On September 20, 1994, she entered Hong Kong, using her own passport for the last time. After that trip, a prosecutor later observed, "Sister Ping, at least on paper, ceased to exist."
As the organizers of the Golden Venture fled or were arrested, about half of the ship's passengers were deported; others were held in I.N.S. detention facilities across the country. The majority of the detainees, including Michael Chen, ended up in York, Pennsylvania. The passengers were under the impression that they would not be held long; they had heard that it was not difficult for Chinese migrants to obtain asylum in America. But the Golden Venture scandal had embarrassed the Clinton Administration—critics charged that America's policy on asylum had become a magnet for illegal Chinese—and all but a few passengers had their claims denied.
A number of lawyers in York appealed the immigration-court decisions on the passengers' behalf. The Golden Venture's passengers were being made an example of in the United States, the lawyers argued, but they would also be made an example of in China. Meanwhile, Michael Chen and others remained in prison, where, the York County warden told me, they were exemplary inmates. Chen swept and mopped the wing where the Chinese detainees were held, prepared meals, and became the inmates' barber. He asked a local church group for a Chinese-English dictionary, and when the guards finished reading their newspapers he would say, "Gee, don't throw that away." Occasionally, there were stories about the Golden Venture in the papers, and the detainees worked through the articles, word by word.
On February 3, 1997, the Times ran a front-page story, by Celia Dugger, which noted that many of the Golden Venture's passengers were still being detained, and observed that they might have won asylum "had they come ashore a year earlier—when George Bush was President." Eleven days later, Bill Clinton pardoned the final fifty-three Golden Venture passengers. They had served forty-two months in prison. Soon after their release, several were approached by snakeheads demanding the balance of their fees.
In the four years during which the passengers were detained in York, Sister Ping continued her smuggling business from the village of Shengmei, in Fujian. She settled into her family's four-story, yellow-and-white house, which had hand-painted balconies and a pagoda on the roof. After the Golden Venture incident, it was no longer feasible to send ships directly to U.S. shores, but she continued shipping people to Central and South America. In 1998, she sent a shipload of passengers to the coast off Guatemala. The off-loading went awry, and fourteen people drowned.
Though U.S. authorities knew where Sister Ping was, they could not arrest her, because America does not have an extradition agreement with China. F.B.I. agents, assuming that she might be travelling with false papers, worked with Fujianese informants to assemble a family tree. In April, 2000, U.S. authorities in Hong Kong received a tip that Sister Ping's son had entered the city and would soon be departing on a Korean Air jet.
Dozens of Hong Kong police officers went to the airport, and detectives staked out the Korean Air desk. A woman who resembled Sister Ping appeared near the desk, and the officers arrested her. When they searched her purse, they found three Belizean passports that did not belong to her, several loose passport photos, and thirty-one thousand dollars in three neat stacks.
It turned out that Sister Ping had a luxury apartment in Hong Kong, and had been passing in and out of the city. Detectives searched the apartment and found two customers, presumably waiting to be flown to their next destination, and several plane tickets bearing the name "Lilly Zhang." They recovered a Belizean passport, also in the name of Lilly Zhang; the photograph in the passport was of Sister Ping. The authorities later determined that, as Lilly Zhang, Sister Ping had made more than fifty trips to foreign countries—including the United States—in the three months prior to her arrest.
Sister Ping fought extradition for three years. Finally, in 2003, Becky Chan, a legal attaché to the F.B.I., accompanied her on a United Airlines flight back to the United States. Exchanging her Rolex watch for plastic flexicuffs, Sister Ping was reserved and polite, and, as Chan recalled, "she was adamant that she didn't do anything wrong, and that as soon as she hit New York the judge would release her."
Initially, F.B.I. officials hoped that Sister Ping would offer to coöperate with them, as she had in the past. When she was taken into custody, she was carrying a black address book that listed immigration contacts in Thailand, Malaysia, Belize, and Russia. "The potential for uncovering international corruption would have been tremendous," Bill McMurray told me. "But she chose to fight it instead."
The trial began in May, and lasted for a month. David Burns, an assistant U.S. attorney, described Sister Ping as "one of the most powerful and most successful alien smugglers of our time." The prosecution's case relied heavily on former snakeheads, among them Ah Kay and Weng Yu Hui. Sister Ping's lawyer, Lawrence Hochheiser, repeatedly returned to the credibility of these men, and suggested that they were testifying in exchange for reduced sentences. "These men are killers," Burns was quick to concede. "But they're killers she's hired."
Hochheiser insisted that his client was primarily a businesswoman—that running an underground bank was the extent of her criminal activity. "We've got the tail wagging the dog here," he said. "This is a money business that is being used to tie Cheng Chui Ping to the alien-smuggling business." In his closing remarks, he invoked Arthur Miller's play "The Crucible."
On June 22, 2005, the jury found Sister Ping guilty of conspiracy to smuggle aliens and take hostages, money laundering, and trafficking in ransom proceeds. The verdict may have come as a surprise to her: the F.B.I. had informants in the Metropolitan Detention Center in Brooklyn, who said that leading up to the trial she had packed her bags, telling people that she would be going home any day.
The press took evident satisfaction in the conviction (" EVIL INCARNATE " ran a typical trial headline, from the Daily News ), but the Fujianese community in Chinatown was less enthusiastic. "A lot of people in Chinatown are saying that we're putting Robin Hood on trial," Steven Wong, the Fujianese community leader, told me. The World Journal reported that villagers in Shengmei had volunteered to do prison time on Sister Ping's behalf; they described her as a living Buddha.
Sister Ping was sentenced on March 16, 2006. That morning, two dozen family members and supporters entered the courtroom. Sister Ping appeared, dressed in a long-sleeved gray T-shirt and blue pants, and looking thin, her hair grown long and streaked with gray, and solemnly acknowledged her family. After a few preliminary arguments by the lawyers, the judge, Michael Mukasey, asked Sister Ping if there was anything she wanted to say. Hochheiser replied that because his client would be appealing the verdict, and might accidentally say something to prejudice the appeal, he had advised her not to speak.
But when he sat down Sister Ping slowly rose. She gestured for her interpreter, a tall Chinese woman who sat against one wall, and proceeded to deliver a strange, extended monologue. "I only cried once in court," she began, and explained that it was when witnesses recounted how Ah Kay had robbed her house. "I was a small businesswoman in Chinatown," she went on. "If Ah Kay had come and robbed me those times, you can imagine how many other people took advantage of me." Huddled next to the interpreter, she spoke in a deep, assertive voice, slowly at first, and then more quickly, so that the interpreter could hardly keep up. She explained that in every major episode discussed at trial she was the victim: at the Toronto airport, she had not been smuggling the Chinese passengers but simply bringing them money; she had been extorted and intimidated by Ah Kay and Weng Yu Hui; snakeheads had lied when they testified that they were affiliated with her; the evidence in the trial had been faked. "Everybody can tell you that Sister Ping is working in the store every day," she said. How could she have been a snakehead as well?
As she rambled on, she stared at Judge Mukasey; her hands remained clasped in front of her, and occasionally she gestured for emphasis, sometimes leaning forward to scribble Chinese ideographs on scrap paper so that her interpreter could better understand her. "When I had my trial, I didn't want to say anything," she continued. "All these tainted witnesses have families, and I also want them to get benefits and go home. So whatever they said, I did not attack them." She emphasized that she had done the things she did out of concern for her family. One of the prosecutors, Leslie Brown, was pregnant, and Sister Ping turned to her. "Ms. Brown is about to be a mother," she said in an icy tone. "I congratulate you. Once you become a mother you will understand me."
After more than an hour, Sister Ping sat down. Judge Mukasey, visibly irritated, said that it was not his custom to deliver lectures when he handed out sentences, but in light of Sister Ping's "lengthy exercise in self-justification" he would make an exception. Her version of events "defies belief," he said, and pointed out that while the witnesses who testified against her may have committed brutal crimes, they had also pleaded guilty to those crimes and coöperated with the government. He delivered the maximum sentence: thirty-five years in prison. As Sister Ping was led out of the courtroom, she smiled at her family and waved.
When I asked Michael Chen about Sister Ping, he echoed the positive views that many Fujianese express about her. "She's a very nice lady," Chen told me. "Even if some of her customers died by accident, it was not her fault." He compared her favorably to Ah Kay, whom he called "a monster." (After testifying, Ah Kay, who was described by one of the prosecutors who put him on the stand as "an incredibly violent man with zero regard for human life," was deemed to have satisfied his sentence with time served. He is now a free man.)
When Bill Clinton pardoned the last of the Golden Venture passengers, he placed them on "humanitarian parole." Parolees can apply for renewable work permits, but they have none of the privileges associated with asylum or green-card status. Moreover, in the absence of a Presidential or congressional grant, this parole creates an indefinite legal limbo: there is no process for graduating to permanent-resident status.
Upon being released from the York detention center, the passengers of the Golden Venture fanned out across the country. Michael Chen moved to Columbus, Ohio, and eventually opened his restaurant. But he worries that he could be deported at any time. In May, 2001, Zeng Hua Zheng, another passenger, who was living in Aurora, Colorado, was suddenly deported; soon afterward, the York lawyers who represent the Golden Venture's passengers introduced a "private bill" to Congress which would obtain permanent status for the parolees. Private bills pass only by unanimous congressional approval, and so far the bill has failed twice. But the lawyers continue to resubmit it: as long as the parolees' status is under consideration by Congress, they cannot be deported.
Perhaps the most telling illustration of the allure this country has for the Fujianese is the number of Golden Venture passengers who endured the voyage, imprisonment, and deportation, only to return to the United States. In 1998, Wang Wu Dong, who had been imprisoned and deported, was re-apprehended when a snakehead powerboat—the Oops II—ran aground off the Jersey shore. According to Peter Cohn, a filmmaker who has interviewed several of the passengers for a new documentary, scores of those who were deported have returned illegally.
Justin Yu, the journalist for the World Journal, says that disasters like the Golden Venture do not discourage emigrants, because, considering the stakes, such calamities represent an acceptable risk. "Acceptable risk, acceptable cruelty, acceptable lousy treatment, acceptable long trip, there's no toilet. It's acceptable," he said. "Because of the comparison: the life there, and the life here."
While ships no longer deposit smuggled Fujianese directly on U.S. shores, officials say that there is no evidence to indicate that the total number of Fujianese entering the country illegally has diminished in the years since the Golden Venture incident. China is certainly more prosperous today than it was a decade ago, but a study by Zai Liang, an expert in migration at SUNY Albany, found that the snakehead trade is driven less by absolute poverty than by "relative deprivation"—and China's new prosperity has only widened the gap between the rich and the poor. A recent report from the Government Accountability Office noted that between 1997 and 1999 the number of aliens apprehended while being smuggled into the United States increased by nearly eighty per cent. The price for passage has risen to seventy thousand dollars, and new organizations have devised routes through Canada and Mexico. According to a federal indictment in the late nineties, a consortium of Fujianese and Mohawk Indians smuggled thousands of people through a sovereign reservation, which straddles the border with Canada. The group made an estimated hundred and seventy million dollars in two years.
Sister Ping is appealing her conviction. Meanwhile, the restaurant at 47 East Broadway still does a brisk business, and Sister Ping's husband and one of her daughters, Monica, are there every day. F.B.I. officials suspect that they could potentially take over the family's smuggling operation; however, while Cheng Yick Tak was previously convicted of alien smuggling, no one in the family is under investigation. Along Allen Street, some way from 47 East Broadway, a modest white structure houses the Church of Grace for the Fujianese. Recently, I spoke with the pastor and with a member of the congregation. They told me that, every week, they take a moment during the Sunday service to welcome new arrivals to the city. Every Sunday, five or ten congregants stand up. ♦


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Girl Overboard by Justina Chen Headley
The Boxer and the Spy by Robert B. Parker
Heat by Mike Lupica
Front and Center by Catherine Gilbert Murdock
Yellow Flag by Robert Lipsyte
Out of Reach by V.M. Jones
The Girl Who Threw Butterflies by Mick Cochrane
Down and Out by Alex Kuskowski
Kick by Walter Dean Myers and Ross Workman
The Big Game of Everything by Chris Lynch
Payback Time by Carl Deuker
Ice Claw by David Gilman
Leverage by Joshua C. Cohen
Last Shot by John Feinstein
Game by Walter Dean Myers
Deadline by Chris Crutcher
Center Field by Robert Lipsyte
Saturday Night Dirt by Will Weaver
One Good Punch by Rich Wallace
Rebound by Bob Krech
*Parents are responsible for the reading materials of their own minor children.
Updated: 11/2012

subset: commoncrawl


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Olympia correspondent Austin Jenkins of the Northwest News Network updates us on the state budget battle as a special session looms in the legislature. We also talk with attorney Jeffrey Clements, author of "Corporations Are Not People." And our Insiders Roundtable weighs in on the state Senate Republicans budget power play, the state Republican party caucuses, and who will run for Norm Dicks's Congressional seat now that he is not seeking re-election.
Enrique Cerna:
It's been a little more than two years since the U.S. supreme court ruled in the case of the Citizens United versus the federal election commission. In a controversial 5-4 decision, the high court ruled in favor of Citizens United, which allows for unlimited corporate and union spending in elections. The ruling has since led to the creation of super PACs, independent expenditure political action committees. They accept unlimited contributions from individuals, unions, and corporations. And since the ruling, they've been pouring huge amounts of money into our elections. Jeff Clements says it is a threat to our democracy. He's a Massachusetts attorney and the co-founder of free speech for people, a nonprofit, nonpartisan group, that's calling for a constitutional amendment to overturn Citizens United. Clements has also authored a book "corporations are not people, why they have more rights than you do and what you can do about it." Jeff, how much money do you think is going to be spent by these super PACs and along with corporations and unions in this election period?
Jeffrey Clements:
You know, the 2012 election, Enrique, is just off to an early start. And they're already over $50 million on the super PACs, it's quickly moving towards $100 million, and we're in the very earliest stages. It's unclear exactly how much of that is corporate money because there's no disclosure requirement. So we're not able to know for sure. But I've seen estimates at least 30%, maybe more. And I think before this is done, we're likely to see hundreds of millions of dollars of unsourced, undisclosed, or corporate money, or some variety of there from the super PACs and billions of dollars spent overall on this campaign.
Corporations are people too. And you are saying, oh no, they aren't?
Unfortunately, five folks think corporations are people and they sit on the supreme court. And that's what lies underneath Citizens United, the supreme court case that ruled that we the people aren't allowed to regulate corporate money in elections, we can't prevent corporations from spending unlimited money in elections. We've had the power to do that since the republic started. We have had 100 years of keeping corporate money out of elections or trying to with our laws. And because the supreme court said in the Citizens United case that corporations are just like people, corporate money is like speech, we can't restrict it, because that would be restricting speech. And that is the grave fallacy, that if we just pretend that corporations are like people and corporate cash is like speech, we will have a very hard time seeing a government by and for the people. As we've seen already, the voice of the people, the real speech, gets shut out and the corporate money dominates the process.
What was behind this ruling? What had been brewing for years really to then lead up to this change?
On the one hand, we've had a sustained attack on the campaign finance laws, going back to Buckley versus Vallejo, that just ruled, as a matter of fact, rather than a legal interpretation, that independent spending, so called, not corp. coordinated with the candidates, can't have a corrupting effect. It defies logic, it defies what we all know. It can't be really independent if PACs are spending money, if people are spending money, it's not like the candidate doesn't know. But the court ruled in Buckley that campaigns are not allowed to restrict that kind of spending. There's been an attack on any kind of reasonable spending limits. And so it's this dominating idea that money is the same as speech, which really has an effect of saying that values like equality of voices, equal voting, that all of our representation should be equal in an election, that's out the window now. But the other trend, the second one that came together with that in Citizens United, is this notion of corporate speech. It's a fabricated, constitutional doctrine, never existed before 1978, created by a sustained attack on the notion that we have the ability, we the people, to decide amongst ourselves after debate, and legislation, that what kind of public interest laws do we want? What kind of balance between corporate prerogatives and the environment or wages, things like that. This corporate speech doctrine was created and it struck down laws in the public health area, it struck down laws in the environmental area, Monsanto, for example. I tell the story in my book of a dairy farmer in Vermont, Dexter Randall, 65 years old. He heard about Monsanto's genetically modified growth hormone. We got a law passed with his neighbors and doing the thing that we're supposed to do as citizens. At least disclose it on the label, so when you buy milk, or yogurt, or cheese, so you can look and see that this comes from cows that have been treated with this genetically modified drug. Again, illegal in most democracies but at least we should know. It got struck down as a violation of corporate speech. This time, the corporations argue you can't make us say something we're not allowed to say. So we want to know.
One of the things you point out in the book is a former supreme court justice, that is Powell, who is known as a moderate but yet had a lot of impact on this.
In fact, Louis Powell created this doctrine of corporate speech. He was a lawyer in Virginia, Richmond, Virginia. He was on the board of the Phillip Morris tobacco corporation, he was on the board of a dozen other corporations. He was an adviser to the U.S. Chamber of Commerce. And he looked around in April 1970, when we had 20 million Americans coming out into the streets on that first earth day of all walks of life to say, enough of externalizing corporate toxins and poisons, we have to have some balance. And Louis Powell looked at that and he wrote a memo to the chamber of commerce outlining the game plan. He called it the attack on the free enterprise system, that's what he thought of democracy in my view, working to get some balance in our economic and environmental and social policies. He outlined a game plan. He even used the word activist minded supreme court can be the best vehicle for social, legal, and economic change. He said in this memo to the chamber, corporations have to fund a multi-year campaign, corporations have to work together to fund this sustained campaign to change the legal, economic, and social structure of America. And then amazingly enough, six months later, Richard Nixon appoints him to the supreme court. And he gets his chance. Louis Powell wrote four of the decisions that created the corporate speech doctrine that I talked about. And really set the pattern of corporations being described in supreme court cases not as corporations, but as speakers or voices, and created the sort of metaphors that Citizens United used. They used the Louis Powell chamber of commerce play book.
So you say that our democracy is at stake here?
Yeah, I do. Bill Moyers, who I was grateful, did a forward to my book, says that democracy in America has been a series of close calls. We've had close calls where it's been on the line. And I don't think it's an exaggeration to say we're at one of those points where it is on the line. There's a real question right now. Not just in elections, but what happens between elections. I think most Americans know there's a disconnect right now between what most people know we need to be doing, what people expect our government to work on, and what's actually happening. And who actually gets a response out of our government and who doesn't.
Well, let's talk about what you are promoting in the book, and trying to encourage people to get behind what you call a people's rights amendment.
And the people's rights amendment overturns the supreme court and says, no, we're going back to the constitution that it was supposed to be, and that democracy in government were supposed to have of the people. And I want to say, you know, people think, oh, constitutional amendment, that's hard. Well, you're right, it is hard. Democracy's hard sometimes, but we've done it 27 times before. Six of those times overruled supreme court cases. The supreme court ruled that women don't get the right to vote. The supreme court ruled that African-Americans have no rights under our constitution. The supreme court ruled that the congress has no power to enact a progressive income tax. Imagine being the folks who had to get the income tax amendment to the constitution, but they did it. And so, you know, we need every now and then in our country to decide what kind of people are we.
One last thing. What's your time line?
Well, time lines with constitutional amendments are hard to say. Because there is no time line set out. We need eventually two thirds of a vote of the house and Senate and congress, and then that has to be ratified by three quarters of the states. So some amendments have happened very fast. The amendment in 1970 that lowered the voting age to 18, that took only a few months. I would hope that this election is really showing people we have to move fast. And then I would hope that we'll get this amendment in the next few years.


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CHARLTON — While investigators worked Thursday to determine the cause of an accidental fire that destroyed the Karas home at 44 A.F. Putnam Road, the family was sifting through the ashes looking for anything salvageable.
Living in the home, and present when the fire started, were owners Charles and Jane Karas, their 28-year-old daughter, Juliann Karas, and their 8-year-old granddaughter, Athena.
Everyone, including the family dog, escaped unharmed.
Assistant Fire Chief Curtis J. Meskus said the 911 call came at 3:54 p.m. Wednesday.
He arrived nine minutes later to find the garage engulfed in flames. Four minutes later, the first Charlton firetruck arrived.
With no municipal water available, the three-alarm fire was extinguished about 50 minutes after the 911 call with water trucked to the site.
Wednesday night, Lt. Brian Ouellette, lead fire investigation officer for the department, said the two-story Colonial was a total loss and uninhabitable.
"It is an accidental fire so it's not suspicious in nature at all. We're currently looking at a heating appliance and the investigation is continuing," Lt. Ouellette said Thursday.
The Karases' daughter Kristin Raymond drove from her home in Albany, N.Y., to Charlton Wednesday night.
Speaking to a reporter from a mobile phone while walking through the house, Ms. Raymond said, "We're going through the ashes right now, looking for anything salvageable. We really haven't found anything."
Ms. Raymond said all was lost in what was the childhood home of her and her three sisters, Beth, Pam and Juliann. Mr. and Mrs. Karas also lost their cars, which were parked in the garage, where the fire started.
"I think my mom is still in shock," Ms. Raymond said. "I think that with everything that happened with the stroke, this was the breaking point."
Juliann suffered a debilitating stroke on Dec. 10. On a Facebook page titled "Juli's Journey," her sister Beth recounted the morning of her stroke.
"After three days of having a stiff neck, and not feeling 'quite right,' Juli was driving home from work and suddenly lost her peripheral vision and felt numbness and tingling in her right arm. She called her mother and the doctor and went home for the day."
She was found later on the bathroom floor. Hospital tests determined the 27-year-old had suffered a tear in the inner lining of the vertebral artery, which supplies blood to the brain.
Late in February, after more than three months of rehabilitation to regain her ability to walk and speak, the single mother was sent home to her parents' house, where her daughter, Athena, was living.
Neighbor Melissa Borgeson was driving by Wednesday when she noticed the smoke and flames.
"The garage was fully involved and there were a lot of booms and bangs from the garage," she said.
The first firetruck had not yet arrived but the family was safe in the front yard, being comforted by neighbor Felice Kleya, whose house across the street had been damaged in a three-alarm fire six weeks earlier.
"We went out that night and brought Athena some clothing and a backpack," Ms. Borgeson said. "They don't know what they need yet. They are overwhelmed by it all."
Ms. Raymond said folks from Heritage School dropped off clothing for Athena, a second-grader, Thursday morning.
"Prayers are what we need right now," Ms. Raymond said. But those wishing to help the family can donate via www.gofundme.com/5t80kw a website established to help with Juli's medical expenses.
Assistant Chief Meskus said wind, manpower and water were the challenges faced in combating the fire.
Wind was a factor in spreading the fire from the garage to the adjoining kitchen and roof. Fifteen firefighters were needed off the first truck to combat a fire that size, he said; there were five. And firefighters ran out of water three times when truck stores were exhausted before the next truck carrying water arrived.
Mutual aid was received from Auburn, Dudley, Oxford, Leicester, Webster EMS and Southbridge.
Ms. Raymond said the family is staying with relatives.
Insurance company inspectors were at the home Thursday morning but it was too early to value the loss.
According to town records, the home was built in 1992 and was most recently valued at $206,800.
Lt. Ouellette said there was no connection between the two recent fires on A.F. Putnam Road.
"They are independent fires. The only connection is they happened to be across the street from each other," he said.


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(1966- )
Although no one in Joseph Wilson's immediate family made art, the Kwakwaka'wakw artist, born in Alert Bay in 1966, was interested in art from a very young age. He says, "I have drawn many different styles of art. I felt that I was going to be an artist in one way or another." At twelve, he took a design course from Doug Cranmer. The class, a birthday gift from his sister, was his "first formal exposure to art." Alert Bay was an important learning ground for Wilson, as he worked with and was inspired by older carvers such as Wayne Alfred and Beau Dick. "There is no substitute for working with experienced artists that have been taught by older, more experienced artists that came before them," he notes.
Spirit Wrestler Gallery
101-1669 West 3rd Ave.
Vancouver, BC
Canada V6J 1K1
Toll Free: 1-888-669-8813
Phone: 604-669-8813
one block West of the Granville Island gates
Between Pine St. and Fir St.
Tuesday to Saturday, open 10-5
Sunday and Holidays, open 12-5
© 2019 Spirit Wrestler Gallery. All Rights Reserved.


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New Feature:
Bug Fixes:
You may have noticed that when utilizing Google Maps or any other GPS guidance system on your mobile device that your location is represented by a Circular Dot on a graph. This circular dot has a circular proximity ring which appears to be very small and a specific representation of your latitude and longitude.
This update has taken us some time to get out, but we are moving away from an MVP (Minimum Viable Product) to a polished product. We are a few more updates away from a public release to the app store. Android users, we are in development and working in tandem to get your version up sooner rather than later.
This is a new blog series that will showcase and highlight new features that were not available on the latest iOS release, but will be available in future iterations. Learn more about the feature that broke Metron's iOS and delayed Beta.
Welcome to Metron 2.0 Beta iOS. We wanted to prepare you for the bugs you'll inevitably encounter while testing the first iteration of beta. Although not all bugs are uncovered yet, here are a few common issues and solutions that you can try to make sure the issue you are experiencing is a known bug.
I met Steph (Not Stephanie) earlier this year during an Adaptive Athlete "Wheelchair Gang" Seminar at MBFit in San Jose, California. I learned that Steph was born with a mild case of cerebral palsy (CP). CP is a result of the loss of oxygen to the brain causing it to affect motor skills. For Steph, certain messages sent from the brain to the rest of the body don't connect as quickly [...]
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9484 Hello St
San Jose, CA 94795
United States


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If you are seeking a world-class educational experience within a vibrant, Christ-centered learning community, Cedarville is the place for you. Step up to the challenge of our arts, sciences, professional and graduate programs, and achieve more than you ever imagined. Be challenged and transformed by professors who are experts in their fields and invest their lives at Cedarville to mentor and guide students like you.
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The AXIS ActiveX Camera Control, which enables you
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Acura ZDX Prices Paid and Buying Experience
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carbuyer90 Posts: 3I recently test drove this vehicle and it felt very heavy. I personally don't think that the engine its strong enough to carry such a heavy vehicle. The bmw x6 feels a lot more powerful.0
hbornack Posts: 1Got one about a week ago. Our first Acura. Plenty of great fit and finish - good power too. Drove the X6 and it does somethings better (twin turbo 6 300 HP, more space in the back seat) but when overall value is considered, the X6 will set you back 55K as an entry point, and 65K equipped like the ZDX with tech.
Leasing experience was good. Took the 599 deal and bumped the lease to 12K. Also gave me the most for our 8 year old Boxs
Karen_S Posts: 5,092A reporter is hoping to speak with anyone who has purchased or seriously considered the Acura ZDX. Please respond to [email protected] no later than Tuesday, April 27, 2010.0
infamousnyc Posts: 29The best price I have received over the phone was $40K even for a new 2010 with tech in the NY area? Anyone else have any pricing information on this?0
Hugo_Stiglitz Posts: 167Not one post since 4/2011 What a hot car!0
deepstar Posts: 15
Thought I'd share my ZDX experience here. Was originally looking at a BMW X6 but found it insanely overpriced. I Bought a 2010 ZDX Tech in 2011 while they had a factory rebate. I think I did pretty well. Vey happy with the car. No Problems at all. Handles Much better than an MDX, as it has less body roll and shake. Runs great, and love the Tech options. Navi is still one of the best in the industry at the moment IMHO.I pretty much LOVE this car, & I hope they keep making it!
2010 ZDX Tech SH-AWD:
leased for 36 months
$575.00 /month
15,000 miles/yr
Selling Price $43,910.00
Cap cost Red - $230.00
FIrst Month Payment - $575.00
Initial Reg Fee - $377.00 (Of which I received $90 Refund once complete)
Acquisition Fee - $595.00
Tire Fee - $7.50
Title Fee - $168.00
Total Out of Pocket/Drive Away $1952.50
I've owned it for 3 years now, and definitely considering to purchase it.
It's definitely unique, and not for everyone. But it still turns heads. Super Luxe interior. And has a great design Story by an American Designer. Check it out on Youtube:


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Nebraska Governor Takes a Pass on Senate Bid
(WASHINGTON) -- Gov. Dave Heineman of Nebraska said Saturday he would not be a candidate for the Senate seat in his state that will become vacant next year because Sen. Mike Johanns is not running for a second term.
"After careful consideration of all of the issues involved in a race for the United States Senate, I have decided to keep my focus on being the best governor that I can for the citizens of Nebraska," Heineman said in a letter to his supporters. "Every day, I enjoy the challenges and opportunities of being the governor of the best state in America."
Heineman, a popular Republican governor who could have almost certainly waltzed to victory in 2014, is the latest in a string of prominent elected officials who are taking a pass on running for the Senate. Several veteran incumbent senators have also announced their retirements, with some saying they are frustrated by the dysfunction in Washington.
Senate Republican leaders in Washington have spent months trying to persuade Heineman to run. While there is little danger that the seat could slip into Democratic hands in the deeply-conservative state, there is no room for error in the GOP's quest to win control of the Senate next year.
Even the prospect of serving as a senator in the Republican majority, should the party pick up six seats and assume control from Democrats, was not attractive enough to Heineman, aides said. He is among a long list of governors who have taken a pass on joining Congress after being a chief executive of a state.
Johanns, a former governor and agriculture secretary in the administration of President George W. Bush, announced in February that he would not run for a second term next year. The decision from Heineman opens the door to a wide-open race in Nebraska, where there is also a competitive governor's race next year.
Copyright 2013 ABC News Radio


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After announcing our support for Initiative 1130, some activists have expressed concern that this measure, which regulates the treatment of egg-laying chickens, is inconsistent with our other campaigns (ending the use of primates and other animals at University of Washington, freeing the elephants at the Woodland Park Zoo, vegan education and outreach) and our stated position of ending the use and exploitation of all animals.
One concern raised is that this measure would promote the "humane" myth, the idea that the passage of this measure means egg-laying hens would be treated humanely, leaving the buying consumer to buy so-called "cage-free" eggs in good conscience. That is a valid point, one which we have addressed when crafting our original post of our support with the qualification, "While this initiative will take a step towards alleviating some of the suffering, it does not ensure that the hens will be treated humanely." We also listed the kind of treatments the measure does not address that will still occur, such as de-beaking.
In addition to qualifying our support, we will not allow to go unchallenged animal industries misleading the public into thinking that the new measure, if passed, would mean humanely-treated eggs. Our activism includes education on the inherent exploitative nature of farm production, among other animal industries, in all of its forms and practices. We have always advocated that to truly treat animals in a humane and respectful way, one should practice ethical veganism, the living practice of animal rights, and we will continue to do so.
But while we educate as many people as possible about ethical veganism, allowing industries to remain as cruel as possible is in our minds not a morally defensible position. While we will always advocate for the rights inherent to all sentient beings to live a full life, to be free, to not to be used and exploited, the hard fact is that until the majority of people believe that animals shouldn't be raised for food, fashion, research or entertainment, billions of animals each year will continue to be bred, raised in torturous conditions, made to suffer at the hands of humans, and be killed in the prime of their life under the worst of abuses without any protections whatsoever.
We see this measure as just the start, a step to end some of the worst abuses while we continue to advocate for the end of the use of animals. This will serve as a building block upon which other measures can be passed, until there is a foundation of legal precedent for other measures recognizing the rights of animals to be built upon.
Our position is calling for both the end of the abuse and use of animals. Our approach is one of animal rights pragmatism; we must always strive for what is best for sentient beings at all times. What is better now is further progress to what is best. The converse cannot be true, that what is worse now can somehow progress to what is best. To allow the worst of abuses unchallenged while we work to secure the ultimate rights of animals puts the animals through needless suffering.
We do not see as inconsistent working to ensure better treatment for, in this case, chickens, while we also advocate for their rights and freedom; we work ultimately for the animals, not ultimately for an abstraction. Animal rights, while it is the goal we all wish for the animals, is merely a means to an end, not the end itself. The end is the sentient being. In fighting for the rights of animals, the animals themselves should be the primary focus in deciding what we can achieve now.


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Writing Macros Intermission
I spent two hours yesterday on what was supposed to be today's lesson – planning my normal hour of finish. Yes, I take two to three hours to do these, and the errors still creep in. But I digress. See, I lost it, 100%. I was blaming WordPress in my mind, but I finally figured out where to place the blame. ahem, mea culpa.
So, I'm rewriting. But it's going to be late. Teasers, though: troubleshooting, castsequence, and the confusion that is "target".


text: Corruption pollutes the African business environment. Shutterstock November 28, 2017 Business schools have a role to play in fighting corruption in Africa Tahiru Azaaviele Liedong, University of Bath Public sector corruption is a major challenge to doing business in Africa and players are mostly ill-equipped to deal with it. Business schools can teach the skills to tackle it.


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glibmm is a set of C++ bindings for glib, including cross- platform
APIs such as a std::string-like UTF8 string class, string utility
methods, such as a text encoding converter API, file access,
and threads.
This requires: libsigc++
Maintained by: paul wisehart
Keywords: glibmm,glib,c++,bindings
ChangeLog: glibmm
Download SlackBuild:
glibmm.tar.gz.asc (FAQ)
(the SlackBuild does not include the source)
|Individual Files:
| glibmm.SlackBuild
| glibmm.info
| slack-desc
© 2006-2019 SlackBuilds.org Project. All rights reserved.
Slackware® is a registered trademark of Patrick Volkerding
Linux® is a registered trademark of Linus Torvalds
Web Design by WebSight Designs | Managed Hosting by OnyxLight Communications


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Visualizing critical data that informs local leaders and organizations of their region's unique characteristics.
Building trusting relationships among key players that spur the movement of ideas into action in an agile manner.
Promoting the development of a high quality multi-year plan that builds on the economic strengths of the region.
Suite of programs that foster a balanced investment in the economic development activities of a region.
The mission of the Purdue Center for Regional Development (PCRD) is to pioneer new ideas and strategies that contribute to regional collaboration, innovation and prosperity. Founded in 2005, the Center partners with public, private, nonprofit and philanthropic organizations to identify and enhance the key drivers of innovation in regions across Indiana, the U.S. and beyond. These drivers include a vibrant and inclusive civic leadership, a commitment to collaboration, the application of advanced data support systems to promote sound decision-making and the pursuit of economic development investments that build on the competitive assets of regions. As such, the four goals of the PCRD align with major contributors to healthy and sustainable regions.
Economic development is the identification of local assets for growth and leveraging them through collaboration. The best methodology I've seen in 20 years for achieving this is called Strategic Doing.
Paul Collits, President
Australia New Zealand Regional Science Association
I was blown away by the candidness and willingness of groups that have been competitors to continue to build on the collaboration begun by this SET process.
SET Regional Team Member


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Hospitalist Physician (Providence St. Mary Medical Center)
- Employer
- Providence Health & Services
- Location
- Walla Walla, Washington
- Posted
- Jan 04, 2019
- Closes
- Jan 04, 2020
- Ref
- 1968249
- Specialty
- Hospital Medicine (MD)
- Hours
- Full Time
- Position Type
- Permanent
Facility Name: Providence St. Mary Medical Center
Location Name: Walla Walla, WA
Brand Name: Providence Health & Services
Provider Profession: Physician/Surgeon
Medical Specialty: Hospitalist
Medical Specialty: Internal Medicine
Job Setting: Hospital
Type of Role: Clinical
Schedule: Full Time
Walla Walla, Washington - Providence St. Mary Medical Center is seeking a BC/BE Internal Medicine physician to join our exceptional team on our campus in beautiful Walla Walla. This full-time opportunity offers a desirable 7 on / 7 off schedule, rotating between nights and days, open ICU and manageable patient loads that will allow you to enjoy the many outdoor activities the community has to offer. Ideal candidate will have a passion for inpatient care and demonstrated evidence of problem solving abilities, comprehensive assessment, and expert clinical skills. Must also be comfortable with vent management. Competitive compensation and comprehensive benefits, with loan repayment options available, in sunny southeast Washington.
Where You'll Work
Providence St. Mary Medical Center is a regional leader in quality, safety and customer service. A Level III Trauma Center, Providence St. Mary Emergency Center is a primary receiving hospital for the region. Our Regional Cancer Center is a leader in the field, serving Washington, Oregon, and beyond, while our Neuroscience Institute houses the Regional Spine Center. Our state-of-the-art Intensive Care Unit boasts the area's largest number of critical-care-certified nurses, as well as pulmonologists board-certified in critical care. Our providers consistently earn high provider engagement scores, and our tightly integrated medical network boasts a broad range of specialties including Cardiology, Family Medicine, Gastroenterology, General Surgery, Hospital Medicine, Internal Medicine, Nephrology, Neurology, Neurosurgery, Otolaryngology, Occupational Medicine, Oncology, Orthopedics, Plastic Surgery, Physiatry, Pulmonary, Radiology, Sleep Medicine, Urology and Vascular Surgery.
Where You'll Live
In sunny southeast Washington, Walla Walla is a city where scenic beauty, western history and outdoor adventure blend with small town friendliness, taste-tempting restaurants and more than 140 local wineries. The city has several public parks, theatres, galleries and boutiques to peruse year-round. From the scenic beauty of the Blue Mountains to the educational opportunities of Whitman College and Walla Walla University, Walla Walla has opportunities and entertainment for all ages.
Who You'll Work For
Providence Health & Services (PH&S) is a not-for-profit system of 34 hospitals, more than 600 clinics and hundreds of locally driven programs across five western states: Alaska, California, Montana, Oregon and Washington. Providence is committed to improving the health of the communities it serves, with a special emphasis on its mission to serve the poor and vulnerable. PH&S is a partner organization of the Providence St. Joseph Health family and is proud to be an Equal Employment Opportunity organization.
IS: No
YM: No
Let's Talk!
You've got questions? I've got answers! Reach out today, and together, we'll find a job that checks all your boxes.
Express Interest
Heather Swayze
Provider Recruiter509-942-2129
Apply for Hospitalist Physician (Providence St. Mary Medical Center)
Already uploaded your resume? Sign in to apply instantly


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'Motown at the Downs' winter gala at Vernon Downs Feb. 8
VERNON -- The Oneida Healthcare Foundation will present "Motown at the Downs" on Friday evening, Feb. 8. The second annual "Winter Gala" event will take place from 6:30-11 p.m. at the Vernon Downs Casino Hotel.
Musical entertainment will be provided by "The Soul Mine Band." Dr. Matthew and Suzette McKay will be hosting the event and Dr. Patrick Costello will serve as emcee. Motown themed contests and prizes will be offered throughout the night. Black tie is optional and theme attire is highly encouraged.
The dance follows in the footsteps of last year's successful Valentini Gala attended by nearly 200 guests. Tickets are available at $75 per person, which includes a full menu of dining. A cash bar will be available.
A raffle is also being sponsored by the OHC Foundation to coincide with the event. Prizes include a NYC weekend getaway to "Motown the Musical," $1000 cash or a Toyota Prius rental or auto detailing through the Nye Auto Group.
Net proceeds from the event will benefit "Fun Fit With Friends," a collaborative program of health and fitness for youth, targeting obesity and associated childhood diseases.
To purchase tickets contact Joanne Ernenwein at 361-2169 or Terry Welcher at 361-2049 by Thursday, Jan. 31.


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Real Name: No Minwoo (노민우, ノ・ミヌ, 盧珉玗)
Nick Name : Mr. Short, Wet Minwoo, Pollutant Minwoo
Position: Rapper/Dancer/ Maknae
Birthday: July 31, 1995
Star Sign: Leo
Blood Type: A
Height: 174cm
Family : Parents and Younger Sister (No EunBin)
Birth Place (Home) : Gyunggi-do, Ahnyang
Educational Background : Hwangchang Elementary School (Gyunggi-do), Ahnyang Middle School (Gyunggi-do)*change middle school, Bangbae Middle School (Seoul, Seocho), Seoul Performing Arts High School (Seoul, Guro)
Specialities: Acting, Hapikdo & Swimming
Experience: KBS1′s "My Sweetheart, My Darling" (2005), SBS's "Ghost Pang Pang" (2007), KBS2′s "Wife and Woman" [AKA Windy City] (2008), SBS's "Amnok River Flows / Yalu River Flows" (2008), Eleventh Mom (2007) (Movie), Mother (2007) (Movie)
Training period: 3 Years
Facts & Quotes:
01. Minwoo and Donghyun have the most fluent english among the members
02. Minwoo has bad temper but he has a tough leadership soul
03. Once, after their practice, Minwoo used up all the tissues to wipe his sweat
04. Minwoo has a sister named Eun Bin
05. Jeongmin said that Minwoo copied a lot of girl groups
06. Minwoo is a fan of SNSD's Jessica
07. At first, people called Minwoo "moist", but now it changed into "wet" because he's always sweating
08. People said that when Minwoo is bored, he ran up and down the stairs just for fun
09. Minwoo is a 1st year student in Seoul School of Performing Arts along with twins Youngmin and Kwangmin
10. Minwoo was one of the characters acting in KBS "All My Love" along with members Youngmin and Kwangmin
11. Minwoo was one of the back-up dancer for K.Will before debuting
12. Minwoo was a child actor back then
13. According to Kwangmin, Minwoo is good at winks
14. Minwoo is not good at games with gambling and other stuff
15. Minwoo calls all the members "Hyung" except Kwangmin
16. Minwoo got a cute image even though he wanted a cool one
17. When a fan says "I love you" Minwoo will blush
18. Donghyun and Minwoo like Korean cabbage
19. While shooting for BoyFriend's album jacket, Minwoo held a bear and asked "Do bears usually have a mouth?"
20. Minwoo's role model is SHINee's Taemin because he can dance very well while singing
21. Minwoo never took dancing lessons
22. Minwoo once shared a room with Hyunseong and Donghyun in the dorm
23. Minwoo wants to be a boyfriend that has manly personality
24. Minwoo wants to hug his girlfriend on the road that is filled with people
25. Minwoo would like to travel overseas, the mountain or the beach if he has a date with their fans
26. Minwoo usually goes to Youngmin but then goes to Kwangmin right afterwards
27. Sometimes, Minwoo likes to play them off against each other.
28. Minwoo is a little strict when it comes to getting the choreography right – even towards his older members
29. Minwoo once mention that his english name is "Jeremy"
30. Minwoo doesn't use perfume, but he uses lotion
31. Minwoo has been a Starship trainee for 3 years
32. According to Kwangmin, Minwoo is really bad at making Ramyun
33. Minwoo said that he will still sweat even in winter
34. Minwoo respects SHINee's Taemin sunbaenim
35. Minwoo's dream used to be an actor, but he likes the feeling to be on the stage and changed it to be a singer/rapper
36. Minwoo spends his free time listening to music, discuss something with the other members and he likes to share some videos with them.
37. If there is a chance, Minwoo wants to act as a bad boy in the movie.
38. Minwoo once said: "There's a lot of beautiful memories, but this is our first overseas event since debuted, in China. We are so touched about it~ it's an honour for us to perform here.
39. "I want to be a singer that it liked by everyone. If I have the chance, I want to act as well." -Minwoo
40. According to Donghyun, Minwoo is the member which has the most popularity
41. As a child, Minwoo acted as the lead character in the movie "Ghost Pang Pang" by the name Kim CheolDu
42. Minwoo appeared in K.Will's "My Heart Beating" music video as singer IU's younger lover
43. Minwoo received an award for "Best Actor" for his role in a short film
44. "My mother knew what I wanted and supported me all the way, thanks to her I could stand where I am now. Being infront of the camera and standing on stage, I like my position is right now and I'm happy." -Minwoo
45. Minwoo got interested in dancing after seeing other people dance.
46. Minwoo sleeps in the lower bunk while Jeongmin sleeps on the upper bunk
47. If Minwoo were to get married to one of the members of Boyfriend, he'd picked Jeongmin. (cr: JW @ No Min Woo 노민우 | Facebook)
48. In an interview with Star Interview, they were asked what they are in charge of in BoyFriend and Minwoo questioned himself but then the members all agreed that he is in charge of "aegyo" of the group.
49. Minwoo would like to try out for a role of a cool guy in a movie.
50. Minwoo picked Hyunseong as the person with the most manly charm and he stated that Hyunseong is cool.
51. Minwoo's ideal type is 'a girl who shows her beauty to me, who is cute and thinks about me often.'
52. According to Kwangmin, Minwoo occasionally says some strange things while sleeptalking.
53. According to Donghyun, Minwoo would be the most frightened if they watch a horror movie together and said that it's cute. (48-53, cr: boyfriend-champion)
54. Minwoo admitted that for their pre-recording of their 3rd single comeback, "I'll Be There" on M! Countdown, he ripped his pants
55. To Minwoo, the way for him to release stress is to sit around with all the company [staff] and sing their lungs out. [Elle Girl Interview]
56. Minwoo favourite female idol is Brown Eyed Girls' Gain. [Elle Girl Interview]
57. With the reason of wanting to know himself better, Minwoo picked himself as the member he wanted to date if he was a girl [Allkpop]
58. Minwoo picked his lips as the most attractive part of his body because his lips are thick. [Allkpop Interview]
59. Minwoo would want to act again if he has the chance. [Allkpop Interview]
60. Minwoo said that he was frustrated to see all those articles and video clips on the issue of his pants ripping (on Dec 8th live recording of Mnet M! Coundown) flooding in after the airing.
61. Minwoo's bed has a small square pillow and a yellow doll [W Academy]
62. Minwoo likes to munch or eat something when he has the food.
63. Minwoo is really good at cleaning. [W Academy]
64. Minwoo sleeps on the lower bunk [W Academy]
65. The members reveals that Minwoo has the most unique sleeping habit [@star1 Magazine. Facts 65 – 71]
66. According to Youngmin, because Boyfriend is preparing for their concert, Minwoo cheers "Let's go!" loudly when he sleeps.
67. According to Donghyun, Minwoo wakes up the hardest
68. Minwoo picked 'Go Back' as his favorite Boyfriend song in JANUS Album.
69. Minwoo said JANUS's choreography is really hard. To the point where he feels like collapsing, throwing up and dying the first few times dancing to it.
70. "Minwoo (is the best dancer). He dances with all his heart." -Jeongmin
71. Minwoo wishes to try a manly concept like DBSK's Mirotic in the future; something girls want in a romance.
72. Minwoo would like to open a coffee shop for his parents. {from DongA interview}
73. In Boyfriend, only Donghyun, Jeongmin, Youngmin and Minwoo have dating experiences in the past.
74. Minwoo revealed that he dated a classmate for about 70-80 days in the 6th grade, but he never managed to kiss her, "I did want to but I didn't have the courage back then." {ep 73-74 from Beatles Code 2 article trans by rieona.tumblr.com}


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Filing Claims
The Provider's Responsibilities
If you're the first doctor to diagnose a worker for an occupational injury or disease, you're responsible for reporting to L&I or the self-insured employer.
If the claim might be federal, tribal, or another insurer, find out how to file claims and bill the correct entity (373 KB PDF).
If you aren't sure whether you need to file, see "Deciding whether to file a claim for a patient".
To file a claim here in Washington State, follow these 4 steps:
Step 1: Find out if your patient is insured through L&I or a self-insured employer
There are 3 ways you can find out:
- Ask the patient.
- Check the self-insured employer list.
- Call L&I's Self-Insurance Section at 360-902-6901.
Step 2: File a claim right away
To initiate a claim for your patient, fill out one of the following forms:
If your patient is insured through You should fill out a L&I
Report of Industrial Injury or Occupational Disease (ROA), either:
- Online (recommended) - you can bill an additional $10 (code 1040M).
Find out why we recommend online claim filing, how it works, and how it helps your patients.
- Fax a paper copy within 2 days to 1-800-941-2976 or 360-902-6690. Order forms online.
A self-insured employer Providers Initial Report (PIR)
Step 3: Get paid
If your patient is insured through You should L&I
Find out about billing L&I, including how to submit reports.
A self-insured employer Find out about billing self-insured employers.
Step 4: Get the worker further treatment if necessary
Starting January 2013, to treat an injured worker beyond the initial visit, you must be in our network.
If you are not, you should apply to join, or refer the worker to another provider that is in our network.
Rules and laws related to filing a claim
- WAC 296-20-025(2) (app.leg.wa.gov) — Initial treatment and report of accident.
- RCW 51.28.020 (app.leg.wa.gov) — Worker's application for compensation — Physician or licensed advanced registered nurse practitioner to aid in.
- RCW 51.48.025 (app.leg.wa.gov) — Duty of employer to report injury or disease — Contents — Penalty.
- Title 51 RCW (app.leg.wa.gov) — Industrial Insurance.


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March 2, 2003
SANTA CLARA, Calif. - The Santa Clara University baseball team dropped its series finale with Cal Poly by a score of 9-6 Sunday afternoon in front of 352 fans at Buck Shaw Stadium.
The early 1-0 lead that the Broncos (8-11) took in the first inning on a Jack Headley RBI double was quickly eliminated by the Mustangs (9-8) who tallied four runs in the top of the second inning and never relinquished the lead.
Unfortunately for Santa Clara, the runs probably should have never happened. With one out and runners on first and second, Cal Poly left fielder Pat Breen grounded a ball weakley to second baseman A.J. LaBarbera. What should have been a routine double play was mishandled by the senior from Whittier, Calif., allowing Breen to reach first base and the two runners ahead to move up. Leadoff hitter Sam Herbert made the Broncos pay for their error by taking a John Redmond pitch deep over the left center field wall for a grand slam.
Another fielding error in the fifth inning allowed another run as Cal Poly tacked on three more runs in the inning for a 7-1 lead after 4 1/2 innings of play.
The Broncos cut a big chunk out of the Mustang lead in the last half of the sixth inning, scoring four times on only two hits. The big blow came from leadoff hitter Scott Dierks who hammered a towering three-run home run over the batter's eye, which stands at least 40 feet high in straightaway center field.
Cal Poly added an insurance run in each of the next two inning to take a 9-5 lead heading into the bottom of the eighth inning.
In the Bronco half of the eighth inning, they plated one run but stranded three base runners as LaBarbera gounded out to second base with the bases loaded.
Andrew McDaniel evened his season record at 1-1 for Cal Poly after hurling five full innings on the mound, allowing only one run on six hits while walking none and striking out three. Matt McLevich allowed five runs on three hits in 2 2/3 innings of relief before giving way to Dennis LeDuc whom recorded the final four outs while facing only six Bronco batters.
John Redmond fell to 1-3 on the season after allowing seven runs, five of which were earned, on four hits to go along with three walks and three strikeouts. Chad Fillinger had a good relief outing for Santa Clara, allowing only one hit in two full innings of relief.
Dierks finished the day 2-for-3 at the plate with two runs scored and the three RBI. Hack Headley went 2-for-4 with two RBI, while LaBarbera, Will Thompson, Jason Matteucci, Michael Thompson and Michael Lange each picked up one hit apiece.
Herbert finished the day in a big way for Cal Poly, connecting on his second home run of the day in the eighth inning, giving him two runs scored and five RBI. Cory Taillon went 3-for-5 at the plate with one run scored and one RBI, while Adam Leavitt and Alex Chavarria chipped in two hits apiece for the Mustangs.
Santa Clara returns to action next week with a midweek game at the University of the Pacific, and a three-game series with cross-town rival San Jose State. The SJSU series will be played at San Jose's Municipal Stadium on Friday and Sunday, while Saturday's game will be played at Buck Shaw Stadium.