Neighborhood Legal Services, which provides free legal services to the poor, has expanded into the San Gabriel and Pomona valleys, areas with large Asian populations, many of whom speak limited or no English. Language is their biggest obstacle, but the Asian communities' cultural isolation and service providers' lack of cultural expertise also play a part, said NLS executive director Neal Dubovitz. And with 13 percent to 15 percent of the Asian population in the U.S. living below the poverty line, NLS services are badly needed, Dubovitz said. "Although it is a significant part of the poverty population, Asians historically have not been able to participate in the services and programs available to the poor," he said. From simple telephone advice to complete legal representation in court, the agency provides free consumer, health, family, immigration, housing, public benefits and labor legal services to people who earn under $1,380 per month. Legal service providers have long served large Latino populations, who have cultural diversity but share a common language. "I remember the days when there were only a handful of people in the legal offices who spoke Spanish," Dudovitz said. "Now Spanish and English are interchangeable. Our goal is to have that for the major Asian languages as well." Before the expansion, only a few NLS lawyers spoke Asian languages, said attorney Rebecca Yee, who was hired by NLS in April 2002 to design and head the project. "Now we have people speaking Cantonese, Mandarin, Thai, Khmer (from Cambodia), Korean, Vietnamese, Japanese and Tagalog," Yee said. One of the 13 attorneys hired to work with the program is Irene Mak, a family law attorney who speaks Cantonese, Mandarin and Thai. Mak was a partner at a private law firm before she went to work for NLS two years ago, earning up to $20,000 less a year working on domestic violence cases. "The job is more satisfying than the money," said Mak, who grew up in Hong Kong and Thailand before coming to the United States. "I could use my language skills and wanted to give back to the Asian community." NLS expanded when Legal Services Corp., the federal agency that funds providers of free legal services nationwide, reduced the number of grantees in the Los Angeles area from five to three, Dudovitz said. NLS won the competitive grant over the Legal Services Program for Pasadena, San Gabriel-Pomona valleys. That boosted its client base from 16,000 to around 25,000, and NLS opened an office in El Monte.

Question: "What communities are most well-served by the program?"

Response: "Latino and Spanish communities"

A: no

In Colombia, the drug-financed guerrillas trying to seize the country and destroy democracy include M-19, which Castro has clearly backed. Robert Merkel, a former U.S. attorney handling drug indictments in Florida, doesn't think for a minute that Castro's much publicized trials of high officials engaged in the drug trade mean he has broken off with the Medellin drug cartel. "If the cartel succeeds in blackmailing the Colombian authorities into negotiations, the cartel will be in control and Fidel can exploit his past relationships with them," he told the Journal's David Asman recently. The struggle against the drug lords in Colombia will be a near thing. This week, the government arrested Jose Abello Silva, said to be the fourth-ranking cartel leader. He will probably be extradited to the U.S. for trial under an extradition treaty President Virgilia Barco has revived. Later, another high-ranking trafficker, Leonidas Vargas, was arrested and 1,000 pounds of dynamite seized. Mr. Barco has refused U.S. troops or advisers but has accepted U.S. military aid. President Bush has agreed to meet within 90 days with Mr. Barco, President Alan Garcia of Peru and President Jaime Paz Zamora of Bolivia to discuss the drug problem. It might not be a bad idea to do that sooner, rather than later. After the Panama fiasco, they will need some reassurance. Certainly, the Colombian press is much in need of that.

Question: "Fidel Castro is said to have ties to what cartel in Columbia?"

Response: "M-19 drug cartel"

A: no

Dick was enraged to see how contentedly the men bore the irksome confinement, the meager food, and harsh peremptoriness of the beardless boys set over them as guards. Most of the prisoners passed the time in cards, playing for buttons, trinkets, or what not that formed their scanty possessions. Dick learned that all the commissioned officers of the company with Wesley Boone had been wounded or killed in the charge near the stone bridge. Wesley had been with the prisoners at first. He had been struck on the head, and was in a raging fever when his father and sister came to the prison to take him away. No one could tell where he was now, but Dick knew that he must be in the city, since there were no exchanges, the Confederates allowing no one to leave the lines except women with the dead, or those who came from the North on special permits. Then he visited the provost headquarters, and was shown the complete list of names recorded in the books there; but Barney's was not among them. At the Spottswood Hotel, the day after his coming, he met Elisha Boone, haggard, depressed, almost despairing. Dick had no love for the hard-headed plutocrat, but he couldn't resist making himself known.

Question: "At the Spottswood Hotel, who did Dick met that was the hard-headed plutocrat?"

Response: "Wesley boone"

A:
no