The U.S.-led coalition in Afghanistan dropped more bombs during the first quarter of 2018 than it has in the same period in any of the last 15 years, according to Pentagon data. The increased bombing is the latest evidence the 17-year-old war in Afghanistan is significantly intensifying since U.S. President Donald Trump announced his new military strategy for the country in August. Coalition planes dropped 1,186 weapons on Afghanistan during the first three months of 2018, according to figures released by U.S. Air Forces Central Command. The previous record (1,083) was set during the height of the war in 2011. The U.S. has not released 2001 to 2003 airstrike data. Those figures do not include activity by the Afghan Air Force (AAF), which has stepped up its aerial bombardment since gaining the ability to conduct airstrikes two years ago. The AAF carries out between 4 to 12 airstrikes every day, according to the Afghan Ministry of Defense. If recent trends are any indication, 2018 is likely to get even more violent. Fighting traditionally picks up during the warmer months, and the coalition has expanded its bombing campaign against the Islamic State group, as well as narcotic labs and other Taliban revenue sources. But there is little indication the expanded airstrikes are helping end the conflict, says Thomas Johnson, an Afghanistan specialist who teaches national security affairs at the Naval Postgraduate School in Monterey, California. "It's basically a tactic of desperation," said Johnson, author of Taliban Narratives: The Use of Power and Stories in the Afghanistan Conflict. "There's never been an insurgency in history that's been defeated purely through air power." Even high-level U.S. military officials concede the conflict remains a stalemate. According to the latest U.S. military estimate, the Afghan government controls 56 percent of Afghanistan's districts, with insurgents controlling or contesting the rest. Insurgent attacks also have continued. Nearly 60 people died Sunday when an Islamic State... When did the war in Afghanistan begin? - 15 years ago - not enough information - seventeen years ago - eighteen years ago
seventeen years ago

Thank you kindly for A2A, Jill! October 25, 2017. I woke up feeling extremely empty. I had no courage to drag my feet out of bed and I thought: this is it this is going to be the day that I am completely done! I got out of bed knowing I am going to commit suicide.I don't know where, but I do know how. I didn't want to do it at home. I printed out my suicide notes for everybody and hid it somewhere in my room. As I got ready, I took one last glanced to my dad. I gathered all my medications shoved it in to my bag and went out outside caught the bus that goes to college. I had no plans on going into my classes; I sat onto the college bus stop contemplating if I am going to do it. I did it. I chugged down the whole bottle of my anti-depressant. I closed my eyes for a brief moment, I felt like I was about to faint; I checked my phone to see what time was it and I saw my daughter's face on my home screen. I said to myself, "How can you be so stupid?! You have a daughter!" Trying my best to be conscious I caught the bus that goes to the hospital and checked in as a crisis patient in need to see a psychiatrist right away. I told my psychiatrist I tried to kill myself, and he escorted me down to the emergency room and I instantly became a 5150 patient. After 8 hours in the emergency room having full blown panic attacks I got transferred to a psychiatric ward 35 miles away from home. And for 4 days that psychiatric ward became my home. Where did the narrator send the next four days? - not enough information - Psychiatric ward - She send it with daughter - Home
Psychiatric ward

Q: WHITE HOUSE A day after U.S. President Donald Trump reversed a policy of separating migrant families at the U.S.-Mexico border, the House of Representatives is set to vote Thursday on a pair of immigration bills that address the separations as well as other issues that have divided the country's major political parties. The outcome of the votes is uncertain. One measure is more hard-line, while the other represents a compromise between the Republican Party's conservative and moderate wings. The compromise bill includes a provision requiring children and their parents to be detained together if they cross the border illegally. It would also provide $25 billion in funding for Trump's much-promised border wall, change the existing visa lottery into a merit-based system and provide a path to citizenship for the young undocumented immigrants who came to the United States as children. Republicans hold a majority in both houses of Congress. Party leaders, including President Trump and House Speaker Paul Ryan, have lobbied lawmakers this week in hopes of securing their support for the legislation. "We can enforce our immigration laws without breaking families apart," Ryan said Wednesday before Trump announced he would sign an executive order to end breaking up families. The president's policy retreat followed a withering attack by Republican and Democratic officials who characterized the family separations as inhumane. The actions left parents with little or no information about where their children were being taken or when or how they would be reunited. "It's about keeping families together while at the same time making sure that we have a very powerful, very strong border," Trump said as he signed the document just before departing the White House for a political rally in the state of Minnesota. Later, at the political rally, the president defended his position saying the executive order he signed hours earlier would not weaken his border strategy: "The border is going to be just as tough as it's been" despite... At the end of this story, Trump probably is: - Still at his policy retreat - Being attacked by Democrats for his policies - Still at his rally - not enough information
A: Being attacked by Democrats for his policies

(Q).
WASHINGTON In 2004, Desmond Meade, while serving a 15-year prison sentence for a drug offense in Florida, got a break. An appeals court returned his conviction to the original trial bench, allowing him to plead guilty to a lesser charge and get out of prison in three years, most of which he had already served. But his freedom came with a price, something that didn't quite register with him at the time: as part of his plea agreement with prosecutors, Meade agreed to give up his civil rights: the right to vote, to serve on a jury and to run for office. "At the time, when I first accepted the plea deal, I didn't understand the consequences," Meade says. Fourteen years and a pair of college and law degrees later, Meade, now 50, still can't vote; his application to regain his civil rights was rejected in 2011. The reason: a new Florida law that requires felons like him to wait for seven years before they could apply for rights restoration. Home to nearly a quarter of the nation's disenfranchised felons, Florida has become a battleground in a national debate over felony disenfranchisement laws. With lawmakers deeply divided over the issue, Meade says he wants the state's voters to change the system when they head to the polls on Nov. 6. He's promoting a ballot initiative that would amend the state's constitution, restoring the voting rights of all felons in Florida (except those convicted of murder and sexual assault) after they've completed the terms of their sentence. The measure enjoys broad voter support. A Quinnipiac University poll conducted in February showed that 67 percent of Floridians were in favor of restoring the voting rights of felons other than those convicted of murder and sexual assault. Another poll showed support at 71 percent. "We're going to change the system," Meade says confidently. "What we're doing is taking the power out of the hands of politicians and we're allowing the citizens of the state of Florida to decide whether or not folks should have a second chance, to be able to vote." How much time had Desmond Meade already served when he was released from prison? - not enough information - Three months - 14 years - At least 18 months
(A).
At least 18 months