TASK DEFINITION: Generate an explanation for the given claim using the provided supporting material from the paragraph. Please consider the following points while generating an output. 1) The claim will always have supporting proof in the paragraph, and the paragraph will have a clear point of view supporting the claim. 2) There can be instances where direct correlation to the claim is not available. Make use of the sentences in the paragraph to provide a corresponding output supporting the claim. 3) The explanation should be at least one and at most twelve sentences long.
PROBLEM: Paragraph: Half of EU states have designated long lists of drugs that cannot be exported during the coronavirus emergency. The lists include medication used to treat COVID-19 patients such as muscle relaxants, painkillers and hydroxychloroquine. “We ask that national governments lift any export ban on medicines. Such restrictions can lead to shortages elsewhere in the EU,” von der Leyen said in a statement. She also called on governments to avoid stockpiling. Bans are usually justified with the need to fulfil national needs, but Europe has so far faced only limited supply problems from the coronavirus crisis. Temporary shortages have been recorded mostly for drugs used to treat critically ill COVID-19 patients, such as anaesthetics, antibiotics and muscle relaxants that allow people to receive breathing support from ventilators. But national lists comprise many more drugs, including some that have wider uses such as the painkiller paracetamol and insulin, used by diabetics. The European Commission on Wednesday adopted new guidance on drugs supplies, which calls on governments to refrain from export bans and from requisitioning medicines. “Whilst it is understandable that countries wish to ensure the availability of essential medicines nationally, export bans are detrimental to the availability of medicines for European patients even when they are legally justifiable,” the non-binding document says. France, Poland, Belgium and the Czech Republic are among the EU countries with the longest lists of drugs which are temporarily banned from export. The bans apply mostly to distributors, which cover a large part of the EU market and provide the biggest share of supplies to pharmacies. The new guidelines also called on states to stop excessive stockpiling, which the Commission said could contribute to supply shortages. It warned the worst effects on supplies from stockpiling emerge when countries compete among themselves. The Commission is setting up an EU reserve of critical medicines and medical gear to address future needs. Claim: EU urges states to lift drug export bans to prevent shortages.

SOLUTION: The head of the European Commission, Ursula von der Leyen, on Wednesday urged European Union states to lift export bans on medicines to avoid causing shortages in the bloc as it tackles the coronavirus crisis.

PROBLEM: Paragraph: According to two studies published on Wednesday, DNA from these pre-modern humans may play a role in the appearance of hair and skin as well as the risk of certain diseases. Although Neanderthals became extinct 28,000 years ago in Europe, as much as one-fifth of their DNA has survived in human genomes due to interbreeding tens of thousands of years ago, one of the studies found, although any one individual has only about 2 percent of caveman DNA. “The 2 percent of your Neanderthal DNA might be different than my 2 percent of Neanderthal DNA, and it’s found at different places in the genome,” said geneticist Joshua Akey, who led one of the studies. Put it all together in a study of hundreds of people, and “you can recover a substantial proportion of the Neanderthal genome.”  Both studies confirmed earlier findings that the genomes of east Asians harbor more Neanderthal DNA than those of Europeans. This could be 21 percent more, according to an analysis by Akey and Benjamin Vernot, published online in the journal Science. Still, “more” is a relative term. According to the paper by geneticists at Harvard Medical School, published in Nature, about 1.4 percent of the genomes of Han Chinese in Beijing and south China, as well as Japanese in Tokyo come from Neanderthals, compared to 1.1 percent of the genomes of Europeans. Anthropologists expressed caution about the findings. Fewer than half a dozen Neanderthal fossils have yielded genetic material, said Erik Trinkaus of Washington University in  St. Louis, one of the world’s leading experts on early humans. Using this small sample to infer how much Neanderthal DNA persists in today’s genome is therefore questionable, he said. As expected, since Neanderthals never existed in Africa, Africans and those who trace their ancestry to that continent have almost no Neanderthal DNA, the Harvard team found. Human ancestors began migrating out of humanity’s natal continent as early as 1 million years ago, paleoanthropologists infer from fossil evidence, and between 500,000 and 200,000 years ago evolved into the robust, large-browed Homo neanderthalensis in Western Europe. Ever since scientists extracted DNA from the remains of Neanderthals, they have known that people today carry snippets of cavemen genes, in the amounts of 2 percent to 3 percent. That clinched the case that Neanderthals and modern humans interbred, probably 40,000 to 80,000 years ago, soon after the latter arrived in Europe from Africa. The new studies add details about how much DNA and of what kind we inherited. “The story of early human evolution is captivating in itself, yet it also has far-reaching implications for understanding the organization of the modern human genome,” Irene Eckstrand of the National Institutes of Health’s National Institute of General Medical Sciences, which partially funded the research, said in a statement. “Every piece of this story that we uncover tells us more about our ancestors’ genetic contributions to modern human health and disease.”  The Harvard team used a novel genetic algorithm to estimate the probability that a particular genetic variant arose from Neanderthals. Basically, they started with the genome of a 50,000-year-old Neanderthal, and determined whether pieces of it also appeared in some non-Africans but not in sub-Saharan Africans. The algorithm identified remnants of Neanderthal DNA, called alleles, in genes associated with type 2 diabetes, Crohn’s disease, lupus, biliary cirrhosis and smoking behavior. “But we can’t tell if the Neanderthal alleles are contributing to disease,” said Harvard’s Sriram Sankararaman, lead author of the paper in Nature. Areas “with increased Neanderthal ancestry tend to be higher the farther away you go from genes,” sitting, instead, in regions of the genome that do not actually produce the proteins, enzymes and other working molecules of the body. Neanderthal DNA does sit within some genes, however, such as those for keratin, a fibrous protein that makes skin, hair and nails tough and can be beneficial in colder environments by providing thicker insulation. The endurance of this Neanderthal DNA suggests that our caveman inheritance was adaptive, picked by natural selection to persist in our genome, generation after generation, because it conferred a survival advantage in individuals who carried it. The Harvard team analyzed the genomes of 1,004 people to estimate which populations got more or fewer Neanderthal DNA. Confirming a 2013 study, they found more in the genomes of east Asians than in Europeans. But they also dug deeper. Puerto Ricans and Spaniards have the least Neanderthal DNA, 1.05 percent and 1.07 percent respectively. That is curious because Neanderthals made their last stand on the Iberian peninsula, finally dying out there 28,000 years ago. Across all populations, Neanderthal DNA is conspicuously low in regions of the X chromosome and in testes-specific genes. The paucity of Neanderthal genes among those active in the testes suggests that interbreeding wasn’t a resounding success: It produced viable children, but the males were infertile. Although as much as 20 percent of Neanderthal DNA persists in modern genomes, according to the Washington scientists, vast regions of the latter are Neanderthal deserts. Among them is a region of chromosome 7 that includes a gene called FOXP2. “FOXP2 has previously been implicated in speech and language and may be an example of a gene that influences a uniquely human trait, which is why we find no Neanderthal sequences in these regions,” said Akey. Claim: Modern humans more Neanderthal than once thought, studies suggest.

SOLUTION: It’s getting harder and harder to take umbrage if someone calls you a Neanderthal.

PROBLEM: Paragraph: Social networks like Facebook and Twitter are often where the public expresses concern and even outrage over perceived miscarriages of justice. In recent years, internet users have been especially prolific in promoting awareness of a perceived tendency among some judges and prosecutors to seek and accept insufficient punishments for sexual crimes particularly against women and children. One such case emerged in 2018 and 2019 and involved the prosecution of Justin Schneider of Anchorage, Alaska who, according to one internet meme, served no jail time despite having seriously assaulted a woman he picked up outside a gas station in August 2017. On October 2018, Facebook user Ed Stonick posted a widely shared meme that contained a photograph of Schneider along with the following text, which some readers might find disturbing: GENOCIDE JUSTIN SCHNEIDER This is Justin Schneider, he is 34 years old and lives in Anchorage, Alaska. He is a white male who picked up a hitch-hiking indigenous female. He strangled her unconscious, masturbated over her body, and left her to die. This week he pled guilty in an Anchorage District Court. Because his victim survived he was given a plea deal. The kidnapping and sexual assault charges were dropped. He was given no time in jail and only received one year of probation. This is the face of American justice. This is the face of white privilege. This is the face of genocide. This fact check won’t examine the broader cultural issues raised by the meme and in other coverage of the Schneider case, namely the extent to which the American criminal justice system is relatively indifferent to crimes experienced by indigenous women, such as the woman at the center of this case. Rather, our article will evaluate the factual claims made in the meme. Much of the content of the meme is quite accurate, though it contains some errors. On 8 August 2017, Schneider pulled up in his vehicle and approached a woman who was standing outside a gas station in Anchorage. She entered his van and some time later, he attacked her, strangled her, masturbated over her and ejaculated on her, acts that Schneider later admitted in a subsequent civil case brought against him by the woman. Using a license plate number provided by the woman, police tracked down Schneider and arrested him on suspicion of first-degree kidnapping, first-degree harassment and second-degree assault. Schneider initially pleaded not guilty to all three charges. The woman claimed that Schneider had invited her into his vehicle under false pretenses, calling himself “Dan” and claiming to be an acquaintance of hers, allegations Schneider continues to deny. She also claimed that he had strangled her to the point of unconsciousness. Schneider has admitted strangling her, but denies doing so to the point of her losing consciousness. Despite facing three criminal charges, Schneider and his attorneys were able to persuade the office of Anchorage District Attorney Rick Allen to drop the charges of kidnapping and harassment, in exchange for Schneider pleading guilty to second-degree assault. On 19 September 2018, Alaska Superior Court Judge Michael Corey sentenced Schneider to two years in prison, with one year suspended, and three years of probation, as a result of the plea agreement with prosecutors. However, because Alaska law allows for time spent under house arrest to effectively be regarded as “time served,” Schneider was not required to serve the 12 months remaining on his prison sentence. After the sentencing, the state of Alaska’s Department of Law provided the following explanation for the plea agreement and sentence: Although Mr. Schneider received one year of jail time, Alaska law allows an offender to receive credit for any time spent on an ankle monitor or under house arrest against any jail sentence imposed. The Department of Law heard from a number of concerned citizens that the sentence imposed was too lenient. Criminal Division Director John Skidmore independently reviewed the case and concluded the sentence was consistent with, and reasonable, under current sentencing laws in Alaska. Mr. Schneider plead guilty to one count of assault in the second degree, a class B felony in Alaska, in exchange for the State’s dismissal of the remaining charges – notably, first-degree kidnapping and first-degree harassment. The State dismissed the most serious charge based on the conclusion that the State would be unable to prove the kidnapping at trial. Kidnapping requires that the victim be “restrained” or moved against his or her will. Additional investigation determined that the victim willingly got into Mr. Schneider’s vehicle and willingly drove with him to the location of the assault. Under these circumstances, the criminal charge of kidnapping (as defined under Alaska law) could not be proven beyond a reasonable doubt. Mr. Schneider was convicted of the remaining most serious crime: second-degree assault. Based on Mr. Schneider’s lack of criminal history, the sentencing range for the offense was zero to two years in jail. “Though it is understandable that some feel his sentence was not sufficiently harsh,” Director Skidmore explained, “All prosecutors are ethically required to follow the law, no matter how disturbing the facts may be.” While the facts of this case were particularly disturbing, Mr. Schneider’s offensive physical contact with bodily fluid such as semen is not categorized as a sex crime under Alaska law. Despite this limitation, the prosecutor felt Mr. Schneider needed sex offender treatment. The only way to achieve that result was to have Mr. Schneider agree to the probation conditions. Thus, the prosecutor required Mr. Schneider to undergo sex offender treatment and comply with other monitoring conditions as a condition of the plea agreement. In November 2018, Alaskans voted to recall Corey from the bench, after a campaign that criticized his sentencing of Schneider. Speaking in March 2019, Corey said he and the prosecutors in the case were constrained by sentencing guidelines and Alaska state law, and described the outcome of the case as “a horrible result.” Also in November 2018, the woman filed a lawsuit against Schneider, seeking damages, compensation and legal fees and accusing him of assault and battery, negligence and inflicting emotional distress. In his response to the civil complaint, Schneider requested the case be dismissed but admitted to “tackling, strangling and ejaculating on” the woman, and accepted that he had “intentionally or recklessly caused  physical injury or emotional distress.” He denied having tricked the woman into entering his vehicle, and denied that she lost consciousness as a result of his strangling her. As of March 2019, the woman’s civil case against Schneider was still before the Alaska Superior Court. The meme was accurate in stating that Schneider had assaulted, strangled and masturbated over the woman — the core allegations against Schneider, all of which he has admitted. However, Schneider disputes the specific claim that the woman lost consciousness as a result of his strangling her, so we cannot definitively rule on the veracity of that particular allegation. While the meme claimed that Schneider was given one year’s probation, in fact Judge Corey gave him three years’ probation. That’s a significant discrepancy, even if it does not change the view, held by many observers, that Schneider’s punishment was woefully inadequate. Finally, Schneider did serve some jail time in August 2017, after his arrest and before his release on bail, but the principal claim in relation to his case is that his punishment did not include jail time. So the meme’s claim that “he was given no time in jail” is mostly accurate, since Corey did sentence Schneider to two years in prison, but he suspended one year and credited the remainder of the prison sentence with the time Schneider spent under house arrest while on bail. Thus, the actual effect of Schneider’s sentencing was that he did not have to go to jail as part of his punishment. Claim: "Justin Schneider was ""given no jail time,"" despite having strangled and assaulted a hitchhiker in Anchorage, Alaska, in 2017."

SOLUTION:
What's true: Schneider admitted to assaulting and strangling the woman, but his sentence was structured so that he didn't have to go to jail. What's false: The judge in the case did give Schneider a two-year prison sentence, but one year of that was suspended, and he was credited with time served for spending a year under house arrest while on bail.