The Domestic Violence Legal Assistance Program fills the gap of legal resources for domestic violence survivors who can't afford an attorney. Domestic violence survivors in Jackson, Vicksburg, Hattiesburg, Oxford and Pascagoula can all get help. Julia Crockett, deputy director of Central Southwest Mississippi Legal Services Corp., said the program expects to help nearly 1,000 domestic violence victims. Crockett said legal help gives domestic abuse survivors a way to rebuild their lives. "They have been made to feel by the abuser that no one is going to help them do anything, so when they come to us they are desperate," she said. "Those who need legal help and don't get it feel totally lost. Because then they feel like they are forced to stay in that situation." Crockett said the program, funded by a $300,000 grant from the U.S. Justice Department, has no economic restrictions on who can get help. Legal services typically helps the poor. Gladys Bunzy, who said she was in an abusive relationship with a boyfriend for eight years, said such a program is long overdue and could be a lifeline for those escaping violent relationships. "When I finally made up my mind to leave, I had a restraining order put against him and that was $50 but that was $50 well spent to me," said Bunzy, 40. "For people who can't afford it, this will be a godsend ... If a woman knows she is going to get some help that will be a burden off her mind, if the law will help her keep that person away from her." Gwen Bouie-Haynes, project director of the Domestic Violence Services Center for Catholic Charities Inc., said often domestic violence survivors do not have the money to seek legal representation. "Legal assistance is a major issue for women fleeing a domestic violence situation," she said. "Often times women are in need of immediate legal assistance services for the protection of the mother and the child. To get a protective order you need to be represented by an attorney." Crockett said the pilot program was launched in 1998 at the Haven House Family Shelter Inc., a domestic violence shelter for women and children in Vicksburg. The program has helped victims in 90 court cases, and 150 legal counseling sessions have been held there.

What are some ways the Domestic Violence Legal Assistance Program can help a domestic violence survivor?

The Principals Committee had its first meeting on al Qaeda on September 4. On the day of the meeting, Clarke sent Rice an impassioned personal note. He criticized U.S. counterterrorism efforts past and present. The "real question" before the principals, he wrote, was "are we serious about dealing with the al Qida threat? Is al Qida a big deal? Decision makers should imagine themselves on a future day when the CSG has not succeeded in stopping al Qida attacks and hundreds of Americans lay dead in several countries, including the US," Clarke wrote. "What would those decision makers wish that they had done earlier? That future day could happen at any time." Clarke then turned to the Cole." The fact that the USS Cole was attacked during the last Administration does not absolve us of responding for the attack," he wrote. "Many in al Qida and the Taliban may have drawn the wrong lesson from the Cole: that they can kill Americans without there being a US response, without there being a price."

What two things did Clarke urge decision makers to do because the future could happen at any time?

To make certain the U.S. was aware of the danger, in July 1939, a few months before the beginning of World War II in Europe, Szilard and Wigner visited Einstein to explain the possibility of atomic bombs, which Einstein, a pacifist, said he had never considered. He was asked to lend his support by writing a letter, with Szilard, to President Roosevelt, recommending the U.S. pay attention and engage in its own nuclear weapons research. A secret German facility, apparently the largest of the Third Reich, covering 75 acres in an underground complex, was being re-excavated in Austria in December 2014 and may have been planned for use in nuclear research and development. The letter is believed to be "arguably the key stimulus for the U.S. adoption of serious investigations into nuclear weapons on the eve of the U.S. entry into World War II". In addition to the letter, Einstein used his connections with the Belgian Royal Family and the Belgian queen mother to get access with a personal envoy to the White House's Oval Office. President Roosevelt could not take the risk of allowing Hitler to possess atomic bombs first. As a result of Einstein's letter and his meetings with Roosevelt, the U.S. entered the "race" to develop the bomb, drawing on its "immense material, financial, and scientific resources" to initiate the Manhattan Project. It became the only country to successfully develop an atomic bomb during World War II. For Einstein, "war was a disease ... [and] he called for resistance to war." By signing the letter to Roosevelt he went against his pacifist principles. In 1954, a year before his death, Einstein said to his old friend, Linus Pauling, "I made one great mistake in my life--when I signed the letter to President Roosevelt recommending that atom bombs be made; but there was some justification--the danger that the Germans would make them ..."
Who was asked to send a letter to President Roosevelt, recommending the U.S. pay attention and engage in its own nuclear weapons research?