Meridian National Corp. said it sold 750,000 shares of its common stock to the McAlpine family interests, for $1 million, or $1.35 a share. The sale represents 10.2% of Meridian's shares outstanding. The McAlpine family, which operates a number of multinational companies, including a London-based engineering and construction company, also lent to Meridian National $500,000. That amount is convertible into shares of Meridian common stock at $2 a share during its one-year term. The loan may be extended by the McAlpine group for an additional year with an increase in the conversion price to $2.50 a share. The sale of shares to the McAlpine family along with the recent sale of 750,000 shares of Meridian stock to Haden MacLellan Holding PLC of Surrey, England and a recent public offering have increased Meridian's net worth to $8.5 million, said William Feniger, chief executive officer of Toledo, Ohio-based Meridian.

To whom did Meridian sell 10.2% of its shares?

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.

Can you name two attorneys mentioned?

Allan crouched over his desk once more, pen in hand and mind blank. He contemplated a story, an outline he had laboriously constructed some time ago. He had filled his pen and raised it, the nib descending towards the paper, before the sound came: the gentle, persistent tapping of the gnarled, primeval willow touching the window with long, insistent fingers. His eyes awoke with a passionate, determined flame, though the only light came from the glutted moon. Allan filled page after page, the words escaping from his mind onto the paper. Where before they had marched in regiments, practiced in ranks and followed their leaders' commands, the words now escaped in their true forms, unhindered by any stricture. He continued long into the night, until the eldritch orb had sunk into the waiting hands of the willow, raised perpetually skyward. Arthur looked up from the results of a night's frenzied labors and looked Allan in the eye. "What is this?" he queried, indicating the pages he held in his left hand. "I decided that since I wasn't having much success with more traditional stories, I might see what sort of work I produced if I let my imagination go freely," Allan replied, somewhat less self-assured than he had been the previous night. "What in G-d's name could have possessed you to do such a thing," cried Arthur, nearly raising his voice. "After all I said the day before, why have you abandoned centuries of literary progress for some self-indulgent fantasy?" He shook the papers at Allan, raising them like a belt above the head of a disobedient son. "This is nothing but a glorified Grimm's tale, a miscarried child of Stoker, a creation less fit to be published than to be told around an open fire at the hovel of some peasant!" He spoke the last word with such heavy intonation that Allan shrank back before the physical wave of sound emanating from Arthur's throat. "Do you hate the modern system of literature? Do you personally despise the works the Enlightenment or the progress made since Shakespeare?" For a moment, Allan could hardly do more than shake his head. "No, of course not I " "Then why," Arthur barreled on, "do you disregard them all and return to this superstitious babble, this morbid, paganistic drivel?
Did Arthur grab Allan's paper?