Word: less
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Dates: during 2000-2000
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...families in China. She proved more efficient than the bank across the street. Says a female immigrant who patronized Ping's service: "The Bank of China took three weeks, charged a bad foreign-exchange rate and delivered the cash in yuan. Sister Ping delivered the money in hours, charged less and paid in American dollars. It was a better service." Steven Wong, an outspoken critic of snakeheads, says that things became so bad that the bank began offering color televisions and prizes to those who used them to transfer money. "Still," he says, "no one came...
...boom in Ping's business. The amnesty granted by President George Bush to Chinese living in the U.S. established a huge legal population that could afford to pay to bring family and relatives over. As demand skyrocketed, larger criminal gangs learned that smuggling people was more profitable and legally less risky than smuggling drugs. Quickly the nature of the game changed. Gangs with bases in Hong Kong and China entered the field. Immigrants were recruited en masse, even if they couldn't afford a down payment. And when they couldn't keep up the payments or find jobs...
Chardin became that man. There was nothing extraordinary about his career except the beauty of the works it produced. His field of social vision was narrow. But by painting what he knew, neither more nor less, he became the standard-bearer of visual truth to a generation of French intellectuals, the Encyclopedists, led by the philosopher Denis Diderot. To them, Chardin's refusal of the highfalutin theme seemed exemplary. He showed that a jar of apricots on a table could be just as important and freighted with meaning as a battle scene in an epic of Alexander, the impregnation...
...still believe that Republicans base all their tax-cut proposals on the same principle: if rich people pay less in taxes, we'll all be better off. In the debate over the current inheritance tax, those against the repeal believe the burden falls only on people they call the "stinking rich." But Chris Cox, a Republican Congressman from California, actually said the real burden is borne by the "low-wage workers" who might lose their jobs when farms and small businesses have to fold because heirs can't pay the tax on the estate...
...type of strep, which if transmitted to a newborn during childbirth can cause pneumonia, blood poisoning and even meningitis. Screening for the bacteria used to take days. Now doctors have come up with a speedier test, called a rapid PCR. It can determine on the day of delivery--in less than an hour--whether strep is present. If so, the bug can be wiped out with intravenous antibiotics a few hours before the baby is born...