June 10, 1993

Deported as an illegal alien and a felon, a man who the authorities say is a major smuggler of Chinese immigrants sneaked back into the United States, was arrested and then used a common ploy to stay in the country: He applied for political asylum. The man, Guo Liang Chi, 27, is believed to have participated in the smuggling attempt that ended early Sunday, when a rusty freighter ran aground off the Queens shore with nearly 300 Chinese aboard. The authorities say Mr. Guo heads the Fuk Ching gang, which has forced payments from thousands of Chinese immigrants after they were brought illegally to the United States.

David S. Weaver, a lobbyist from Handgun Control Inc. who marched the halls of Connecticut's Capitol preaching the virtues of a ban on the sale of assault weapons, in the end likened the issue to "a bad cough that just wouldn't go away." Others who watched the gun bill stagger from near-defeat to near-defeat, leading up to Tuesday night's hairbreadth victory in the Senate, said the medical analogy was apt. Connecticut's law, only the third in the nation after New Jersey and California, was seen today more as a symbol of tenacity than triumph. It wouldn't go away.

James M. Fail, once a favored buyer of failed banks and savings-and-loan institutions from the Government, is being sued by Federal regulators trying to rescind the multibillion-dollar assistance package given him in 1988. The suit filed by the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation, charges Mr. Fail with fraud. It represents the first time the Government has tried to undo any of the $50 billion in assistance it promised wealthy private investors like Mr. Fail in 1988 when it sold or merged failed institutions in hopes of resolving the savings-and-loan crisis.

Once again, George Soros is putting his mouth where his money is. He published a letter in The Times of London yesterday saying that the German mark is bound to fall, causing Europe's mightiest currency to do just that. Mr. Soros has no seat on the boards of the German Bundesbank or the Federal Reserve, but central bankers might well envy his power to make currency markets rattle and quake.

WHEN Zena Oglesby sat down with his 14-year-old son to explain the facts of life, he began with the shopping mall. "I told him that store detectives will follow him and assume that he has no money and is a shoplifter," said Mr. Oglesby, a social worker who lives in Los Angeles. "I also told him what to do if he is arrested. Why should I have to worry about this? White parents don't even think about it."