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Update, 12:55 p.m.: The Boston Globe reports that the federal government has ordered Fung Wah to stop all service immediately:

BREAKING: US government orders Fung Wah bus line to immediately cease passenger service. — The Boston Globe (@BostonGlobe) February 26, 2013

Update, 1:10 p.m.: Citing a Department of Transportation statement, the Globe clarifies that the Massachusetts Department of Public Utilities petitioned the DOT to order the total shutdown of Fung Wah's bus service, since state authorities lack the authority to do so themselves. The bus company is required to submit its entire fleet (totaling 28 motorcoaches) for safety inspections before resuming business.

Original post, 12:03 p.m.: Penny-pinching travelers may want to think twice — actually, 21 times — before hopping aboard the infamously, almost impossibly cheap network of so-called Chinatown buses, which transport passengers daily between the Chinatown neighborhoods of Manhattan, Boston, and other cities on the East Coast. The popular bus company Fung Wah decommissioned 21 of its 28 buses on Saturday after the Department of Public Utilities in Massachusetts discovered extensive cracking in some of the fleet's metal frames. Though the cracks were found only in Fung Wah's older buses — their newer ones appeared to be fine — this isn't even the worst of the company's recent safety incidents. Earlier this year, a Fung Wah bus hit two pedestrians on Canal Street in New York, sending both to a nearby hospital.