Vivian Ho
The Lily
United Kingdom
Contact Vivian
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Past articles by Vivian:
A silly photo of my mom went viral. But it made me reflect on her immigrant story — and my own.
Within a week of moving to London, I was inundated by the image of my smiling mother and a bag of rice. → Read More
Opinion: Cutting CHI St. Luke’s may raise Blue Cross Blue Shield insurance costs
According to the available data, CHI St. Luke’s is the lowest cost of the three large hospital systems in Houston. → Read More
Beware the hospital ads: Let's get to the root of the fight with insurers [Opinion]
Houstonians care disrupted because fewer hospital systems can bargain with more insurers. → Read More
Kate Steinle trial: Garcia Zarate acquitted in San Francisco pier killing
A homeless man whose undocumented immigration status intensified a national debate over the ethics of sanctuary laws was acquitted of murder and manslaughter charges Thursday in the shooting of Kate Steinle as she strolled with her father on Pier 14 to take in a view of San Francisco Bay. In returning its verdict on the sixth day of deliberations, the San Francisco Superior Court jury also found… → Read More
Steinle case defense lawyer: Trump may need presumption of innocence, too
Trump administration officials critical of a San Francisco jury's acquittal of an undocumented Mexican immigrant in the killing of Kate Steinle should reflect that they may need to "avail themselves of the presumption of innocence" someday, the defendant's lead attorney said Thursday. President Trump cited the July 2015 killing of Steinle several times during last year's presidential campaign as… → Read More
Jury reaches verdict in killing of Kate Steinle on Pier 14 in San Francisco
A San Francisco jury reached a verdict Thursday afternoon in the trial of a homeless undocumented immigrant in the fatal shooting of Kate Steinle as she strolled with her father on Pier 14 to take in a view of San Francisco Bay. The jury was expected to issue the verdict at about 4 p.m. Jose Ines Garcia Zarate, a 45-year-old Mexican citizen who was released from San Francisco jail before the… → Read More
No verdict yet as jurors weigh San Francisco pier killing of Kate Steinle
Jurors wrapped up a second full day of deliberations Tuesday without reaching a verdict in the trial of the man accused of killing Kate Steinle on a San Francisco pier. The panel must decide whether Jose Ines Garcia Zarate intentionally fired a gun toward Steinle on Pier 14, as prosecutors allege, or whether Steinle's death on July 1, 2015, was an accident, as defense attorneys contend. Steinle… → Read More
Jury in Kate Steinle case sent home for the weekend, to resume Monday
Jurors broke for the holiday Wednesday without reaching a verdict in the trial of the man accused of killing Kate Steinle on a San Francisco pier. Deliberations are expected to resume Monday. The jurors must decide whether Jose Ines Garcia Zarate intentionally and willfully fired a gun on Pier 14, as prosecutors allege, or whether Steinle's death on July 1, 2015, was simply a tragic accident, as… → Read More
Circumstantial evidence looming over closing arguments in Steinle murder trial
With no eyewitnesses or surveillance video providing a clear picture of the shooting of Kate Steinle on San Francisco Pier 14, the trial of the stranger accused of murdering her could hinge on how jurors regard circumstantial evidence that the killing was intentional and not, as the defense asserts, an accident. The jury in the trial of Jose Ines Garcia Zarate, a 45-year-old undocumented… → Read More
Steinle murder trial: Defense attacks crime-scene inspector over earlier case
Attorneys for the man accused of killing Kate Steinle on San Francisco's Pier 14 said Monday they should have been told that a former city police inspector who is a key prosecution witness in the second-degree murder trial had been sued over purportedly false testimony he gave in a separate murder case. But the district attorney's office said claims made in a lawsuit do not necessarily reflect… → Read More
In Steinle murder trial, jurors must seek truth within tragic and ‘bizarre’ shooting
As the trial in the San Francisco killing of Kate Steinle draws to a close, jurors must sift between dueling evidence and experts to settle whether the waterfront shooting that ignited a national debate over immigration enforcement was an intentional act by a violent gunman or a freak accident that befell a hapless homeless man. Prosecutors pressing for a second-degree murder conviction sought… → Read More
Canadian expert says Steinle shooting could have been accidental
The fatal shooting of Kate Steinle on San Francisco's Pier 14 had the characteristics of an unintentional discharge, a forensic firearms expert said in court on Wednesday. Alan Voth, a former officer of the Royal Canadian Mounted Police, testified as part of 45-year-old Jose Ines Garcia Zarate's defense that the killing that sparked a political firestorm around immigration policy had been an… → Read More
Crime lab expert supports theory of Steinle killing being accident; or not
The homeless man accused of fatally shooting Kate Steinle on San Francisco's Pier 14 had just one gunshot residue particle on his hands when he was arrested an hour after the incident - which could possibly mean the gun he handled went off accidentally when picked it up in a cloth, a forensic consultant testified in court Monday. However, James Norris, a former head of the San Francisco police… → Read More
San Francisco Police Commission to weigh in on whether officers should carry Tasers
The San Francisco Police Commission could vote Friday night whether to equip officers with Taser electroshock weapons, a proposal that has been debated and repeatedly rejected for nearly a decade. Though the police officers' union and several past city chiefs have called for arming officers with Tasers, which are made by Arizona-based Axon as a less-lethal alternative to guns, the San Francisco… → Read More
Attorney for accused killer of Kate Steinle takes aim at police interrogation
To believe that the man accused of killing Kate Steinle on San Francisco's Pier 14 confessed to intentionally firing toward her, jurors will have to accept that he understood the questions police asked him, his attorney said Thursday. As the murder trial of 45-year-old Jose Ines Garcia Zarate entered its eighth day, defense attorney Matt Gonzalez attacked the four-hour interrogation of his… → Read More
Kate Steinle killer’s rambling account: He fired at ‘sea animal,’ or stepped on the gun
Under police questioning hours after Kate Steinle was fatally shot on San Francisco's Pier 14, the accused killer at one point said he had aimed at a "sea animal." At another point, he said the gun had been under a rag that lay on the ground near the waterfront, that it fired when he stepped on it, and that he quickly tossed the weapon into the bay so it would stop "shooting on its own." The… → Read More
Trigger of gun that killed Kate Steinle had to be pulled, criminologist testifies
The handgun that fired a single bullet into Kate Steinle on San Francisco's Pier 14 would not have discharged without a pull of the trigger, a criminologist testified Tuesday as San Francisco prosecutors sought to prove the killing was no accident. Gerald Andrew Smith, a supervising criminologist at the San Francisco Police Department crime lab, took the stand on the sixth day of the trial of… → Read More
Kate Steinle murder trial: San Francisco inspector describes ricochet of fatal shot
The bullet that killed Kate Steinle skipped off the concrete of San Francisco's Pier 14 before striking her in the back, jurors were told Monday, but what that means is a crucial point of contention between city prosecutors trying to prove murder and defense attorneys who say the infamous 2015 shooting was an accident. Assistant District Attorney Diana Garcia introduced the ricochet evidence on… → Read More
Ranger whose stolen gun was used in Steinle killing testifies in trial
A federal ranger, tasked with patrolling a swath of land along the California-Mexico border, parks his car on the Embarcadero across from San Francisco's Pier 5, where the vehicle is broken into and his secondary service gun is stolen. Four days later, the gun is found less than a mile away on the Embarcadero by a homeless Mexican citizen who had come into the country illegally and was being… → Read More
Police witnesses detail aftermath of Steinle killing: Defendant ‘a deer in the headlights’
San Francisco police Officer Scott Hurley of the department's dive team had veered off course in his search of the bay floor south of Pier 14. With zero visibility, he had to feel his way back toward the correct course over large boulders and debris. It was then, on July 2, 2015, that his hand slipped through a crevice between two rocks. "And my hand touched something that felt unique," Hurley… → Read More