TASK DEFINITION: Write a question from the passage such that it identifies a character (a person or a thing) in the passage.
PROBLEM: The rate of incarceration in the U.S. is the world's highest, leading to what many lawmakers and policy analysts say is a nationwide imprisonment epidemic. But the beginning of the end of that epidemic started Tuesday, Rep. Hakeem Jeffries, a Democrat from New York, told VOA.
A bipartisan prison reform bill that passed the U.S. House of Representatives by a 360-59 vote "strikes an opening blow against the overcriminalization of the nation," Jeffries, one of the bill's co-sponsors, said.
U.S. President Donald Trump said "the strong bipartisan vote paces the way for action by the Senate." Last week, Trump endorsed the bill at a White House summit on prison reform, saying, "Our whole nation benefits if former inmates are able to reenter society as productive, law-abiding citizens."
If the bill reaches the president's desk for a signature, it would provide $50 million in funding for five years to provide job training, education and substance abuse treatment for prisoners as well as a number of quality-of-life measures aimed at reducing chronically high rates of recidivism among former inmates.
But the contentious issue of criminal justice reform has split Democrats and Republicans within their own parties, possibly jeopardizing the bill's chances of passage as it heads to the U.S. Senate.
In a letter to colleagues last week, Democratic Senators Kamala Harris, Dick Durbin and Cory Booker joined two House Democratic colleagues, Representatives John Lewis and Sheila Jackson Lee, in saying the bill could not be implemented effectively and could possibly lead to prison privatization.
Jeffries told VOA many of the arguments against the First Step Act "were anchored in falsehoods."
He added the legislation passed today "is a first step towards eradicating the cancer of mass incarceration" a move also welcomed by many House Republicans.
"Rather than allowing the cycle of crime to continue, this legislation takes a practical, intelligent approach to rehabilitation," House Judiciary Chairman Bob Goodlatte, a Republican from Virginia, said, speaking of the bill's reform measures on the House floor Tuesday.

SOLUTION: Who argued that the First Step Act was the initial act needed to wipe out the scourge of  mass incarceration in the US?

PROBLEM: When we got married we thought it was going to be all bliss and happiness for life. By about week two we both had an awakening.
Something about being exact opposites and together 24/7.
We clashed about something so important I can't even remember what it was. We hadn't really ever had that happen while engaged.
Suddenly we realized that the bliss and excitement was growing into, well, everyday life.
And all that passionate romance that had driven our relationship was growing, well, less passionate.
We both realized our marriage had entered a new phase, one of many, through the years.
And we needed to be much more purposeful about making sure it worked. Purposeful because the blinding emotional love some days seemed to be asleep.
Yet, we both had committed to our marriage. For better or worse. So we decided we had the potential for either. We needed to make it better or it would become worse.
We learned to really talk. Even when it was difficult.
We learned to argue without hurting each other.
We purposefully expressed love even in those times we didn't especially feel it.
We built romance into our relationship even when we didn't feel romantic.
And through the years our relationship has grown. Sometimes through difficult times.
Heck, sometimes through difficult eras.
Yet, we both never gave up the dream of making our marriage great. We never gave up the ideal of living together in love for a lifetime.
And because of that, through all the trials and triumphs. Through all the frustration and bliss. Through all the sameness and romance.
We still everyday enjoy our love and each other. And can't imagine life without the other.
Well actually, there have been probably a couple of those days for my wife. She's just too nice to say it.
A great marriage isn't built because it's perfect. Only because you keep trying to make it perfect.

SOLUTION: Who is too nice to say something?

PROBLEM: Six weeks after arriving in the United States, Hassan Abduraheem takes a seat in the back pew of Tar Wallet Baptist Church. Tucked into the woods along a country road in rural Virginia, the church holds about 50 worshippers.
On this cold November Sunday, Abduraheem and his family of eight noticeably increase the congregation's size. They do their best to follow the unfamiliar English of the old Baptist hymns, which are very familiar to their new neighbors. And they share the hymns from their former home — Sudan.
Standing in a single line in front of the altar, the family fills the church with Arabic song.
"Unbelievable," Abduraheem says repeatedly, as he describes his journey from a crowded prison cell in Sudan to a fixed-up house on the farm of his new pastor. "Unbelievable" seems like the only word that could describe the turn his life took, thanks to a Facebook post and a U.S. congressman.
Abduraheem's work as a former pastor is not outlawed in his native Sudan, but Christians are a minority in a diverse country that has suffered through multiple civil wars. According to the United States Commission on International Religious Freedom, there has been "an escalation in the Sudanese government's persecution of Christians," since the 2011 secession of South Sudan.
Abduraheem says his work was spreading the gospel; the Sudanese government accused him of espionage, and he was detained along with two other pastors in December 2015.
"The first day when they took us to the prison, they beat us," he says softly.

Abduraheem was shifted from prison to prison. For five months, he wore the same clothes he was wearing when he was arrested. His eyes became damaged from the harsh prison light. Yet, despite constant interrogations, just two meals of beans a day and a tiny cell with barely enough room to sleep, he says the worst part of prison was not knowing.

SOLUTION:
Who is singing Arabic songs in the English Baptist church?

