QUES: Mike and Jeff are close friends. Their school is having a guessing game to guess how many gumballs are in a box. If they get the right amount they win $100. If they get close they get a $20 gift card. The box looks like it is missing some gumballs. It turns out some people are eating them when they place their guess. 100 people guessed and took a piece of candy. The box is 10" by 10" by 10". Each gumball is 1" each. Mike guessed 500. Jeff guessed 800. They both said they would split their money they win, if they win.
Do you have any questions?
MY QUESTION: How might someone make an educated guess as to how many gumballs are in the box?

QUES: Tuesday, September 11, 2001, dawned temperate and nearly cloudless in the eastern United States. Millions of men and women readied themselves for work. Some made their way to the Twin Towers, the signature structures of the World Trade Center complex in New York City. Others went to Arlington, Virginia, to the Pentagon. Across the Potomac River, the United States Congress was back in session. At the other end of Pennsylvania Avenue, people began to line up for a White House tour. In Sarasota, Florida, President George W. Bush went for an early morning run. For those heading to an airport, weather conditions could not have been better for a safe and pleasant journey. Among the travelers were Mohamed Atta and Abdul Aziz al Omari, who arrived at the airport in Portland, Maine. Boston: American 11 and United 175. Atta and Omari boarded a 6:00 A.M. flight from Portland to Boston's Logan International Airport. When he checked in for his flight to Boston, Atta was selected by a computerized prescreening system known as CAPPS (Computer Assisted Passenger Prescreening System), created to identify passengers who should be subject to special security measures. Under security rules in place at the time, the only consequence of Atta's selection by CAPPS was that his checked bags were held off the plane until it was confirmed that he had boarded the aircraft. This did not hinder Atta's plans. Atta and Omari arrived in Boston at 6:45. Seven minutes later, Atta apparently took a call from Marwan al Shehhi, a longtime colleague who was at another terminal at Logan Airport. They spoke for three minutes. It would be their final conversation.
Do you have any questions?
MY QUESTION: Were Atta's plans affected by his CAPPS selection?

QUES: Iwasaki's careful respect for the Long Beach program and its lawyers earned him the political capital he needed to complete his takeover in a matter of weeks. "The Long Beach program had strong support in the community so in a situation like that, one has to recognize that it's not like a takeover where I have all the answers and I know best," Iwasaki said. "The people in the community who are working there have the contacts and the knowledge that will allow service to continue." Things have gone less smoothly across town. There, Dudovitz, a longtime poverty lawyer and executive director of the San Fernando Valley's 36-year-old legal aid program, continues to struggle with his hostile takeover of the neighboring San Gabriel-Pomona Valleys service area one year after it was accomplished. On the bright side, Dudovitz has extended his respected program to clients in the San Gabriel-Pomona Valley, and he now operates on a much larger budget, $6.5 million last year. However, his clash with the old San Gabriel program resulted in litigation, bitter feelings and a mission that some say is not clearly focused on serving poor people. "It was a difficult situation that was probably mishandled by everyone," a longtime observer of the public interest community said of the San Fernando Valley-San Gabriel-Pomona Valley merger. "There are very few people who come out as the heroes. Personalities got involved when they shouldn't have. Things were said that caused bad feelings and couldn't be unsaid." Iwasaki's merger with the smaller, 48-year-old Long Beach program was friendly and fast, and no one - not even Long Beach board members - lost a job. When it was over, Iwasaki had $1 million more in federal dollars and two new offices. Long Beach clients regained services they had lost years ago when federal budget cuts and dwindling grants reduced the staff of 15 lawyers to five and cut immigration and consumer law programs. Iwasaki said, "[I judged the transition] better than I could have hoped for."
Do you have any questions?
MY QUESTION: How many people were fired in order for Long Beach clients to regain services?

QUES: After the August missile strikes, diplomatic options to press the Taliban seemed no more promising than military options. The United States had issued a formal warning to the Taliban, and also to Sudan, that they would be held directly responsible for any attacks on Americans, wherever they occurred, carried out by the Bin Laden network as long as they continued to provide sanctuary to it. For a brief moment, it had seemed as if the August strikes might have shocked the Taliban into thinking of giving up Bin Laden. On August 22, the reclusive Mullah Omar told a working-level State Department official that the strikes were counterproductive but added that he would be open to a dialogue with the United States on Bin Laden's presence in Afghanistan. Meeting in Islamabad with William Milam, the U.S. ambassador to Pakistan, Taliban delegates said it was against their culture to expel someone seeking sanctuary but asked what would happen to Bin Laden should he be sent to Saudi Arabia. Yet in September 1998, when the Saudi emissary, Prince Turki, asked Mullah Omar whether he would keep his earlier promise to expel Bin Laden, the Taliban leader said no. Both sides shouted at each other, with Mullah Omar denouncing the Saudi government. Riyadh then suspended its diplomatic relations with the Taliban regime. (Saudi Arabia, Pakistan, and the United Arab Emirates were the only countries that recognized the Taliban as the legitimate government of Afghanistan.) Crown Prince Abdullah told President Clinton and Vice President Gore about this when he visited Washington in late September. His account confirmed reports that the U.S. government had received independently. Other efforts with the Saudi government centered on improving intelligence sharing and permitting U.S. agents to interrogate prisoners in Saudi custody. The history of such cooperation in 1997 and 1998 had been strained. Several officials told us, in particular, that the United States could not get direct access to an important al Qaeda financial official, Madani al Tayyib, who had been detained by the Saudi government in 1997.67Though U.S. officials repeatedly raised the issue, the Saudis provided limited information. In his September 1998 meeting with Crown Prince Abdullah, Vice President Gore, while thanking the Saudi government for their responsiveness, renewed the request for direct U.S. access to Tayyib. The United States never obtained this access. An NSC staff-led working group on terrorist finances asked the CIA in November 1998 to push again for access to Tayyib and to see "if it is possible to elaborate further on the ties between Usama bin Ladin and prominent individuals in Saudi Arabia, including especially the Bin Laden family." One result was two NSC-led interagency trips to Persian Gulf states in 1999 and 2000. During these trips the NSC, Treasury, and intelligence representatives spoke with Saudi officials, and later interviewed members of the Bin Laden family, about Usama's inheritance.
Do you have any questions?
MY QUESTION:
During the two trips taken to the Persian Gulf, the NSC spoke to officials from what country?