QUES: Neighborhood Legal Services, which provides free legal services to the poor, has expanded into the San Gabriel and Pomona valleys, areas with large Asian populations, many of whom speak limited or no English. Language is their biggest obstacle, but the Asian communities' cultural isolation and service providers' lack of cultural expertise also play a part, said NLS executive director Neal Dubovitz. And with 13 percent to 15 percent of the Asian population in the U.S. living below the poverty line, NLS services are badly needed, Dubovitz said. "Although it is a significant part of the poverty population, Asians historically have not been able to participate in the services and programs available to the poor," he said. From simple telephone advice to complete legal representation in court, the agency provides free consumer, health, family, immigration, housing, public benefits and labor legal services to people who earn under $1,380 per month. Legal service providers have long served large Latino populations, who have cultural diversity but share a common language. "I remember the days when there were only a handful of people in the legal offices who spoke Spanish," Dudovitz said. "Now Spanish and English are interchangeable. Our goal is to have that for the major Asian languages as well." Before the expansion, only a few NLS lawyers spoke Asian languages, said attorney Rebecca Yee, who was hired by NLS in April 2002 to design and head the project. "Now we have people speaking Cantonese, Mandarin, Thai, Khmer (from Cambodia), Korean, Vietnamese, Japanese and Tagalog," Yee said. One of the 13 attorneys hired to work with the program is Irene Mak, a family law attorney who speaks Cantonese, Mandarin and Thai. Mak was a partner at a private law firm before she went to work for NLS two years ago, earning up to $20,000 less a year working on domestic violence cases. "The job is more satisfying than the money," said Mak, who grew up in Hong Kong and Thailand before coming to the United States. "I could use my language skills and wanted to give back to the Asian community." NLS expanded when Legal Services Corp., the federal agency that funds providers of free legal services nationwide, reduced the number of grantees in the Los Angeles area from five to three, Dudovitz said. NLS won the competitive grant over the Legal Services Program for Pasadena, San Gabriel-Pomona valleys. That boosted its client base from 16,000 to around 25,000, and NLS opened an office in El Monte.
Do you have any questions?
MY QUESTION: What obstacles does Neighborhood Legal Services face? Name at least one

QUES: Electric charge is a physical property. It occurs between particles or objects. It causes them to attract or repel each other. They do not even have to touch. This is unlike the typical push or pull you may be familiar with. All electric charge is based on the protons and electrons in atoms. A proton has a positive electric charge. An electron has a negative electric charge. Forces on Charged Objects Most atoms are balanced electrically. They have the same number of positive and negative charges. Therefore, the number of protons equals the number of electrons. Neutrons do not matter as they have no charge. When an object loses some electrons, it becomes positively charged. There are now more protons than electrons inside the atom. The lost electrons may remain free. Or, they may attach to another object. The new object now has more electrons than protons. It then becomes negatively charged.
Do you have any questions?
MY QUESTION: What kind of charge does an atom with more electrons than protons have?

QUES: Here the omnibus came up, and I rode back to Manchester. The whole conversation took up very little more time than it will take to read it; but I thought it worth recording, as characteristic of the people now suffering in Lancashire from no fault of their own. I know the people well. The greatest number of them would starve themselves to that degree that they would not be of much more physical use in this world, before they would condescend to beg. But starving to death is hard work. What will winter bring to them when severe weather begins to tell upon constitutions lowered in tone by a starvation diet--a diet so different to what they have been used to when in work? What will the 1s. 6d. a-head weekly do for them in that hard time? If something more than this is not done for them, when more food, clothing, and fire are necessary to everybody, calamities may arise which will cost England a hundred times more than a sufficient relief--a relief worthy of those who are suffering, and of the nation they belong to--would have cost. In the meantime the cold wings of winter already begin to overshadow the land; and every day lost involves the lives, or the future usefulness, of thousands of our best population.
Do you have any questions?
MY QUESTION: What was discovered about the nature of the Lancashire people from the conversations on the bus ride back to Manchester?

QUES: Not until 1998 did al Qaeda undertake a major terrorist operation of its own, in large part because Bin Laden lost his base in Sudan. Ever since the Islamist regime came to power in Khartoum, the United States and other Western governments had pressed it to stop providing a haven for terrorist organizations. Other governments in the region, such as those of Egypt, Syria, Jordan, and even Libya, which were targets of some of these groups, added their own pressure. At the same time, the Sudanese regime began to change. Though Turabi had been its inspirational leader, General Omar al Bashir, president since 1989, had never been entirely under his thumb. Thus as outside pressures mounted, Bashir's supporters began to displace those of Turabi. The attempted assassination in Ethiopia of Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak in June 1995 appears to have been a tipping point. The would-be killers, who came from the Egyptian Islamic Group, had been sheltered in Sudan and helped by Bin Laden. When the Sudanese refused to hand over three individuals identified as involved in the assassination plot, the UN Security Council passed a resolution criticizing their inaction and eventually sanctioned Khartoum in April 1996. A clear signal to Bin Laden that his days in Sudan were numbered came when the government advised him that it intended to yield to Libya's demands to stop giving sanctuary to its enemies. Bin Laden had to tell the Libyans who had been part of his Islamic army that he could no longer protect them and that they had to leave the country. Outraged, several Libyan members of al Qaeda and the Islamic Army Shura renounced all connections with him. Bin Laden also began to have serious money problems. International pressure on Sudan, together with strains in the world economy, hurt Sudan's currency. Some of Bin Laden's companies ran short of funds. As Sudanese authorities became less obliging, normal costs of doing business increased. Saudi pressures on the Bin Laden family also probably took some toll. In any case, Bin Laden found it necessary both to cut back his spending and to control his outlays more closely.
Do you have any questions?
MY QUESTION:
When did the Sudanese regime begin to change?