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.
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Question: Paragraph: A day after Australia recorded its hottest day on record, thick smoke blanketed the harbor city, shrouded the Opera House and brought many outdoor activities to a halt. The state of emergency declaration gave firefighters broad powers to control government resources, force evacuations, close roads and shut down utilities across New South Wales, which is home to more than 7 million people. Authorities said nearly 120 fires remained ablaze by late afternoon, more than half of which are uncontrolled, and with temperatures forecast to top 45 degrees Celsius (113°F) in some areas, officials warned residents to be on high alert. “The firefront has been spreading very quickly and intensely,” NSW Rural Fire Service (RFS) Commissioner Shane Fitzsimmons told reporters in Sydney, adding that two firefighters had been airlifted to hospital with burns to their faces and airways. “It’s still a very difficult and dangerous set of circumstances.”  Days out from Christmas, a time when many Australians head to the coast for the holidays, NSW Premier Gladys Berejiklian advised people to make sure “you are prepared to change your plans should circumstances change.”  In Shoalhaven, a popular coastal destination some 190 km (120 miles) south of Sydney, local mayor Amanda Findley said people were poised to evacuate. “There is a large amount of smoke looming over the city, which shows how close the fire is,” Findley told Reuters by telephone. “It is extremely hot and windy now so we are all worried the fire could spread. People are really worried that they may lose everything.”  The RFS posted footage on its official Twitter account showing firefighters tackling one of the three blazes ringing Sydney. A waterbomber aircraft was dwarfed by thick grey and black billowing cloud as it attempted to douse flames in bushland just meters away from homes. Australia has been battling wildfires across much of its east coast for weeks, leaving six people dead, more than 680 homes destroyed and nearly 3 million acres (1.2 million hectares) of bushland burnt. Berejiklian said as many as 40 homes had been destroyed on Thursday. Australia on Wednesday broke all-time heat records for the second day running, with maximum temperatures reaching an average of 41.9 degree Celsius, the Bureau of Meteorology said. Some 1,700 firefighters have been deployed across NSW, but officials warned that was still not enough to cover every potential danger and urged people in high risk areas to evacuate while it was still safe to do so. The current state of emergency will last for seven days, while a total fire ban that has been in place since Tuesday will remain until midnight on Saturday. The major fires around Sydney, which is home to more than 5 million people, have resulted in days of heavy pollution in the city usually known for its sparkling harbor and blue skies. One megafire in the Kanangra Boyd National Park to the city’s southwest had crept to the very outskirts of Campbelltown, a suburb of 157,000 people. By late afternoon, Sydney was sitting at No.4 on the IQAir AirVisual live rankings of pollution in global cities, above Dhaka, Mumbai, Shanghai and Jakarta. Many commuters have donned breathing masks in recent weeks as air quality has plunged to hazardous levels not previously seen in the city. NSW Ambulance Commissioner Dominic Morgan said the service had experienced a 10% surge in call-outs for patients suffering respiratory conditions over the past week and urged susceptible people to remain indoors and keep their medication close. Prime Minister Scott Morrison has weathered a storm of criticism on social media in recent days for going on an overseas holiday during the emergency, adding to criticism that his government is failing to deliver adequate climate change policies. As local media reported Morrison was in Hawaii on a family holiday, about 500 protesters gathered outside his official Sydney residence to demand urgent action on climate change. Morrison’s office refused to confirm his whereabouts. One protestor, wearing an Hawaiian shirt, carried a sign reading, “ScoMo, where the bloody hell are you?” referencing the leader’s nickname and a decade-old international advertisement for Tourism Australia that was banned in several countries because the language was deemed offensive. Australia’s low-lying Pacific neighbors have been particularly critical of the coal-rich nation’s climate policies following modest progress at the U.N. climate talks in Madrid. “It was particularly disappointing to see our Pacific cousins in Australia actively standing in the way of progress at a time when we have been watching in horror as their own country is ablaze,” Marshall Islands president Hilda Heine said in a statement on Wednesday. Claim: Ring of fire: Australian state declares emergency as wildfires approach Sydney.

Answer: Australia’s most populous state declared its second emergency in as many months on Thursday as extreme heat and strong winds stoked more than 100 bushfires, including three major blazes on Sydney’s doorstep.


Question: Paragraph: While Vice President Mike Pence runs the White House coronavirus task force, his wife is leading a parallel effort to help people deal with anxiety and other unsettling emotions brought on by the pandemic. Two months into the crisis, millions of Americans are struggling to cope with the fallout, whether it’s losing loved ones, losing a job or staying at home more than they ever have. “This is something we’re all going through together, and it’s not like anything we’ve ever gone through before,” Karen Pence told The Associated Press in a recent interview. She is lead ambassador for the PREVENTS task force, an acronym for the President’s Roadmap to Empower Veterans and End the National Tragedy of Suicide. It was created in 2019 to focus on veterans’ suicides but recently launched a social media campaign called “More Than Ever Before” to help reach Americans before they get to “the end of their rope,” she said. “We want them to know there’s help out there, and there are things that we can do to prevent some of the effects that this is having on our mental health as a nation,” Mrs. Pence said. She joined the PREVENTS effort early this year, before the extent of the coronavirus threat in the U.S. became clear. A majority of Americans say they have felt at least one negative emotional reaction in the last seven days, according to a new poll  conducted by NORC at the University of Chicago for the Data Foundation. At least a third of Americans reported feeling nervous, depressed, lonely or hopeless at least one day in the past week. But taken together, 61% of Americans say they have felt at least one of those emotions at one point throughout the week. Nine percent also reported having a physical reaction, such as sweating, nausea or hyperventilating, when thinking about their experience with the pandemic on one or more days. The new poll, conducted last week, is the second wave of the COVID-19 Household Impact Survey. Thirty-eight percent of Americans say they felt lonely at least one of the last seven days. Sixteen percent said they felt that way on three or more days. And 38% said they felt hopeless about the future at least once, with 14% saying they felt that way on three or more days. Those patterns are similar for feelings of anxiety and depression. Mrs. Pence says there are four basic things people can do to help them cope with the situation, beginning with a daily “check in” with themselves to gauge how they’re feeling and then reach out to a friend or other individual if they need someone to hear them out. They should also figure out what puts them at ease, whether it’s reading, cooking or another activity, and schedule time for it. Mrs. Pence, a watercolor artist, said she’s been working on a painting of a friend’s house and is designing her family’s Christmas card. People should also talk about their struggles and successes and include children in those conversations. And if they’re concerned about themselves or someone else, they should feel comfortable calling the national suicide prevention lifeline at 1-800-273-TALK. “It’s OK to not be OK,” said Mrs. Pence. She posts tips and information about available resources on her Twitter page. Among those grappling with the new dynamics is Jody Garrison, who works from her Milwaukee home, turning old books into journals and selling them online. It’s the rare trip to the grocery store — or to the auto mechanic shop later this week to pick up her car after a repair — that brings on the anxiety. “You worry about, ‘Am I going to catch something from touching something?’ so I truly don’t go out in public much at all,” she said by telephone. Being retired helps, as Garrison had long settled into a routine. The 68-year-old plays with her grandchildren online and meets friends there, and is exercising and reading more, too. “I think what’s kept my sanity is that I’ve tried really hard to stay focused on things that kept me happy in the past to sustain the thought of being alone,” she said. “I’m trying to stay focused on the positive, and when you do that, it doesn’t seem quite so bad.” Anxious to see the U.S. economy humming again, President Donald Trump has pushed back against those who warn that coronavirus cases will spike after state lockdowns are lifted. He says more people will die from suicide and substance abuse the longer schools, businesses and workplaces remain closed and people stay at home. Experts say rates of suicide and substance abuse were rising before the pandemic, but it’s too soon to know how much they may have increased during the outbreak. Suicide prevention and mental health advocates said they welcome the PREVENTS effort but would like to see more spending on a more coordinated effort to reduce deaths caused by despair. “You don’t have to be a mental health expert to know we’re in deep trouble,” said former Rep. Patrick Kennedy, D-R.I., co-chair of a new public-private effort to respond to mental health and suicide prevention needs both during and after the coronavirus. Suicide is the 10th leading cause of death in the U.S., with 48,000 deaths reported in 2018, said Jerry Reed, who serves with Kennedy on the executive committee of the National Action Alliance for Suicide Prevention, which is separate from the virus-related initiative. Reed, a longtime suicide prevention advocate, said he’d like to see the same amount of effort that went into combating the coronavirus put into responding to mental health needs. “I like the fact that we all came together to flatten the physical curve of the virus,” Reed said. “I would suggest we all come together to flatten the mental health curve.” ___ Associated Press writers Tammy Webber in Chicago and Hannah Fingerhut in Washington contributed to this report. ___ Follow Darlene Superville on Twitter: http://www.twitter.com/dsupervilleap ___ This story has been corrected to show that Kennedy represented Rhode Island, not Massachusetts. Claim: Karen Pence: ‘It’s OK to not be OK’ during pandemic.

Answer: Karen Pence says it’s OK to not be OK during the coronavirus pandemic.


Question: Paragraph: "When you close out the year by ditching America’s 50-year isolation of Cuba, you can expect a few broader questions about your style on the international stage. President Barack Obama said in a year-end interview with CNN’s Candy Crowley that he has been ""consistent in saying that where we can solve problems diplomatically, we should do so."" Crowley pressed Obama to respond to the charge that he is too willing to cut deals that produce little in return for the United States. ""The gist of it is that you're naive and they're rolling you,"" Crowley said, speaking of other world leaders. Obama shot back that on a couple of major fronts, his track record is looking pretty good. Russia now has a crisis on its hands as its economy stalls and the value of the ruble tumbles. On Iran, the president said there have been real gains. ""Over the last year and a half, since we began negotiations with them, that's probably the first year and a half in which Iran has not advanced its nuclear program in the last decade,"" Obama said. The fear that Iran is developing nuclear weapons, a charge that Iran denies, has bedeviled the international community for over 15 years. We decided to take a closer look at whether Iran’s program has advanced or not. We found general agreement that in terms of curtailing the means to produce enriched uranium and plutonium, the essential fuels needed for an atomic bomb, negotiations between the United States, Iran and other United Nations countries contributed to real progress. However, some analysts define Iran’s nuclear program more broadly to include suspected efforts to design nuclear weapons and ballistic missiles. The negotiations don’t address those elements, however, and what Iran is doing or has done in that area is subject to much debate. By way of refresher, in November 2013, the five permanent members of the United Nations Security Council, plus Germany, and Iran signed an agreement that temporarily stopped or rolled back Iran’s production of potentially weapons grade nuclear material. In November 2014, that agreement was extended by four months, with some additional restrictions on Iran. In exchange, Iran has been able to sell more of its oil and gain access to millions of dollars that had been frozen in overseas bank accounts. The key elements in the agreements Negotiators focused on nuclear fuel. This had three main aspects. Stopping the production and accumulation of uranium enriched to the 20 percent level of the isotope U-235 and converting a large fraction of what it had to a form harder to use in a weapon. Stop the installation of additional centrifuge machines at Iran’s two enrichment facilities. Centrifuges are essential to the enrichment process. Put the brakes on construction of Iran’s heavy water reactor in Arak. If it were operational, this reactor could produce enough plutonium in its spent fuel for one to two nuclear warheads. Importantly, Iran agreed to inspections by the International Atomic Energy Agency. That agency has found that Iran complied with the terms of the original November 2013 agreement. In its November 2014 report, the agency said, ""All of the enrichment related activities at Iran’s declared facilities are under Agency safeguards, and all of the nuclear material, installed cascades, and feed and withdrawal stations at those facilities are subject to Agency containment and surveillance."" To be clear, Iran continues to enrich uranium, but only to the level of 5 percent of U-235, a form that falls well short of the needs of weapon makers. Regarding heavy water facilities, the IAEA said that Iran had not stopped all work across all of its heavy water projects, but it had not installed any major components. What the experts say As far as nuclear material is concerned, the experts we reached said the agreements successfully, though perhaps only temporarily, curtailed production. ""When President Obama says that for the first time in the past decade Iran has not advanced its nuclear program he is correct,"" said Daryl Kimball, executive director of the Arms Control Association, a research group that advocates for arms control policies. ""Leading up to the interim deal, Iran had nearly amassed enough 20 percent enriched uranium gas, which when further enriched to weapons grade is enough for one bomb."" That material is no longer available, Kimball said. Matthew Bunn, a principal investigator with the Project on Managing the Atom at Harvard University’s Kennedy School, also said Obama basically has it right on Iran. ""They don’t have any more equipment in place for producing bomb material than they had a year and a half ago,"" Bunn said. David Albright, president of the Institute for Science and International Security, a Washington-based group that aims to stop the spread of nuclear weapons, offered a more qualified view. Albright called progress on enrichment, centrifuges and the heavy water facilities in Arak, a ""great accomplishment."" But Albright noted that, ""Iran continues to run almost 10,000 centrifuges, enriching and stockpiling 3.5 percent low enriched uranium."" And Iran’s research on advanced centrifuges, with limits, is ongoing. Albright is also concerned that Iran has so far not allowed the international inspectors the access they need to learn more about any nuclear weapons research Iran had in the past. Matthew Kroenig, a professor of international relations at Georgetown University, also focused on the weapons side of the equation. Kroenig noted that the agreements that limited and rolled back the production of nuclear-grade material were silent on this front. ""Iran's missile production continues, and we are uncertain about the nuclear weapons design work, although many experts believe that continues as well,"" Kroenig said. But Kroenig also described curtailing the production of nuclear fuel as the ""most important"" piece of the nonproliferation effort with Iran. Two notes on the time elements mentioned in Obama’s comments. He said this is the first time in a decade that Iran’s nuclear program did not advance. Iran restarted its uranium enrichment program in 2005. That would mean it has been a bit over nine years. Also, the president’s year and a half is a bit of a stretch. The first agreement with Iran was signed barely over a year ago, although the terms were announced earlier. Our ruling Obama said that we have seen ""probably the first year and a half in which Iran has not advanced its nuclear program in the last decade."" The agreement signed in November 2013 has made it harder for Iran to produce weapons-grade nuclear material. International observers report that Iran complied with the terms of the temporary agreement. The amount of enriched uranium is less, and the country’s facilities to produce weapons-grade material has been curtailed. But that does not mean the country has completely stopped all activities that could produce nuclear weapons material in the future. There is also concern about broader aspects of a nuclear weapons program, such as weapons design and missile development." Claim: "Since the United States began negotiations with Iran, ""that's probably the first year and a half in which Iran has not advanced its nuclear program in the last decade."

Answer:
"Obama said that we have seen ""probably the first year and a half in which Iran has not advanced its nuclear program in the last decade."" The agreement signed in November 2013 has made it harder for Iran to produce weapons-grade nuclear material. International observers report that Iran complied with the terms of the temporary agreement. The amount of enriched uranium is less, and the country’s facilities to produce weapons-grade material has been curtailed. But that does not mean the country has completely stopped all activities that could produce nuclear weapons material in the future. There is also concern about broader aspects of a nuclear weapons program, such as weapons design and missile development."