In this task, you will be presented with a context passage, a question about that paragraph, and a possible answer to that question. The task is to check the validity of the answer. Answer with "Yes" or "No".

During the transition, Bush had chosen John Ashcroft, a former senator from Missouri, as his attorney general. On his arrival at the Justice Department, Ashcroft told us, he faced a number of problems spotlighting the need for reform at the FBI. In February, Clarke briefed Attorney General Ashcroft on his directorate's issues. He reported that at the time, the attorney general acknowledged a "steep learning curve," and asked about the progress of the Cole investigation. Neither Ashcroft nor his predecessors received the President's Daily Brief. His office did receive the daily intelligence report for senior officials that, during the spring and summer of 2001, was carrying much of the same threat information. The FBI was struggling to build up its institutional capabilities to do more against terrorism, relying on a strategy called MAXCAP 05 that had been unveiled in the summer of 2000. The FBI's assistant director for counterterrorism, Dale Watson, told us that he felt the new Justice Department leadership was not supportive of the strategy. Watson had the sense that the Justice Department wanted the FBI to get back to the investigative basics: guns, drugs, and civil rights. The new administration did seek an 8 percent increase in overall FBI funding in its initial budget proposal for fiscal year 2002, including the largest proposed percentage increase in the FBI's counterterrorism program since fiscal year 1997. The additional funds included the FBI's support of the 2002 Winter Olympics in Salt Lake City, Utah (a onetime increase), enhanced security at FBI facilities, and improvements to the FBI's WMD incident response capability. In May, the Justice Department began shaping plans for building a budget for fiscal year 2003, the process that would usually culminate in an administration proposal at the beginning of 2002. On May 9, the attorney general testified at a congressional hearing concerning federal efforts to combat terrorism. He said that "one of the nation's most fundamental responsibilities is to protect its citizens from terrorist attacks." The budget guidance issued the next day, however, highlighted gun crimes, narcotics trafficking, and civil rights as priorities. <sep>Who testified at a congressional hearing that, "one of the nation's most fundamental responsibilities is to protect its citizens from terrorist attacks"?<sep>Ashcroft predecessor
No

The earliest signs of people on Jamaica are the remains of the Arawak, an AmerIndian society that originated on the north coast of South America. Arawak peoples migrated to various Caribbean islands, arriving in Jamaica by the beginning of the eighth century. They were peaceful and lived by "slash-and-burn" farming. For meat, they bred pigs and ate iguana, both native to the island. They were highly skilled in such manual activities as thatching and weaving. In fact, the hammock was an AmerIndian invention that remains with us today; it is an object which, more than any other, evokes an image of a warm sunny day on a tropical isle. The Arawak left a legacy of paintings in places such as Runaway Caves near Discovery Bay, and shards of pottery found at their settlements near Nueva Sevilla and Spanish Town have added a little to our knowledge about them. Over 200 Arawak sites have been identified, and it is said that when the Spanish arrived in Jamaica there were approximately 100,000 Arawak living on the island. They called Jamaica "Xaymaca" ("land of wood and water"). Columbus and the Arrival of Europeans Columbus first arrived in Jamaica on 5 May 1494 at Discovery Bay, where there is now a small park in his honor. He stayed for only a few days but returned in 1502, landing here when the ships of his fleet became unserviceable; he waited at St. Ann's Bay for help to arrive from Cuba. After the death of Columbus in 1505, Jamaica became the property of his son Diego, who dispatched Don Juan de Esquivel to the island as Governor. Esquivel arrived in 1510 and created a base called Nueva Sevilla near St. Ann's Bay, from which he hoped to colonize the rest of the island. The Spanish immediately began subjugating the Arawak population, many of whom died under the yoke of oppression and of diseases carried by the Europeans. A number of them committed suicide rather than live the life created for them by the Spanish. The site of Nueva Sevilla proved to be unhealthy and mosquito-ridden, and in 1534 the Spanish founded Villa de la Vega, today known as Spanish Town. Pig breeding was the main occupation of these early settlers, but they also planted sugar cane and other crops that required large numbers of laborers. The number of Arawak had already fallen dramatically, so the Spanish began to import slaves from Africa to work the land; the first Africans arrived in 1517. <sep>What was the response to Spanish oppression by a large number of Arawak people?<sep>Farming
No

When American 11 struck the World Trade Center at 8:46, no one in the White House or traveling with the President knew that it had been hijacked. While that information circulated within the FAA, we found no evidence that the hijacking was reported to any other agency in Washington before 8:46. Most federal agencies learned about the crash in New York from CNN. Within the FAA, the administrator, Jane Garvey, and her acting deputy, Monte Belger, had not been told of a confirmed hijacking before they learned from television that a plane had crashed. Others in the agency were aware of it, as we explained earlier in this chapter. Inside the National Military Command Center, the deputy director of operations and his assistant began notifying senior Pentagon officials of the incident. At about 9:00, the senior NMCC operations officer reached out to the FAA operations center for information. Although the NMCC was advised of the hijacking of American 11, the scrambling of jets was not discussed. In Sarasota, Florida, the presidential motorcade was arriving at the Emma E. Booker Elementary School, where President Bush was to read to a class and talk about education. White House Chief of Staff Andrew Card told us he was standing with the President outside the classroom when Senior Advisor to the President Karl Rove first informed them that a small, twin-engine plane had crashed into the World Trade Center. The President's reaction was that the incident must have been caused by pilot error. At 8:55, before entering the classroom, the President spoke to National Security Advisor Condoleezza Rice, who was at the White House. She recalled first telling the President it was a twin-engine aircraft-and then a commercial aircraft-that had struck the World Trade Center, adding "that's all we know right now, Mr. President." At the White House, Vice President Dick Cheney had just sat down for a meeting when his assistant told him to turn on his television because a plane had struck the NorthTower of the World Trade Center. The Vice President was wondering "How the hell could a plane hit the World Trade Center" when he saw the second aircraft strike the South Tower. Elsewhere in the White House, a series of 9:00 meetings was about to begin. In the absence of information that the crash was anything other than an accident, the White House staff monitored the news as they went ahead with their regular schedules. <sep>What is the NMCC and when did their senior operations officer discuss scrambling jets?<sep>It stands for National Militia Craft Control and jets were scrambled immediately
No