TASK DEFINITION: Given a paragraph, generate a claim that is supported by the given paragraph. 1) The claim must contain information from within the paragraph. 2) A sentence within the paragraph can be used as a claim. 3) The claim should not have contradictions within the paragraph. 4) The claim should be at most one sentence long.
PROBLEM: That could all change with a controversial Nov. 4 ballot initiative in which voters will get to decide for the first time whether to abolish a 1963 state law designed to protect small businesses. The law requires North Dakota pharmacies to be owned by local pharmacists or run by hospitals with a local pharmacist on staff. Supporters of the initiative argue it will remove an embarrassing anachronism, give consumers more choice and lower prescription drug costs. Opponents say that allowing national chains would destroy North Dakota’s tradition of personalized pharmacy care and be yet another example of how the state’s neighborly way of life is changing too fast. Canada, Germany, France and many other countries, they also note, have similar laws requiring local pharmacy ownership. “Independent pharmacies are more apt to focus on customer service,” said Gabe Gretz, who bought Service Drug Pharmacy in Williston last year with his father. “This is our bread and butter. It’s not just a hobby for us.”  “North Dakota Nice” is a truism here, not an irony, and most retail stores are still prohibited from opening before noon on Sunday - a throwback to laws designed to encourage family time. Yet since the oil boom began around 2010, drawing thousands of new residents to jobs where roughnecks can earn more than $100,000 a year, drug use, assault and other violent crimes have jumped. Recent sex-trafficking charges brought against an oil field worker in Williston, a once quiet town that is now the epicenter of the boom, marked the first charges of that type ever filed in the area and has escalated tension between new and old residents. Many newly arrived oil workers, and even some locals, say they hope the ballot measure passes so that they can use the  same chains they’ve grown accustomed to elsewhere. Rite Aid Corp has no outpost in the state, North Dakota’s Walmarts have no in-store pharmacies and the state’s lone Walgreens, on the Minnesota border, is prohibited from selling prescription drugs. CVS is able to operate only a handful of pharmacies in North Dakota thanks to a 2006 buyout of several Osco Drug stores that operated before the 1963 law. “Honestly, it’s not convenient getting my prescriptions here,” said Jan Anseth, a resident of Williston who spends winters in Arizona where she gets her medications from a national chain. In North Dakota, Anseth says, she runs into problems transferring prescriptions and getting anything more than a 30-day supply. The ballot’s primary sponsor, North Dakotans For Lower Pharmacy Prices, was funded with $168,000 in contributions from Walmart, Walgreens, Kmart and others. In campaign materials, the group cites data the Kaiser Family Foundation compiled in 2009 showing North Dakota has one of the highest per capita costs for prescription drug and medical devices in the country. Walmart says North Dakotans are missing out on its popular $4 prescription program, which makes many generic drugs available at the sharply discounted price. Crying foul, the state’s independent pharmacists say they’re able to often meet or beat prices from national chains, most of whom lose money on pharmacy sales as a way to get customers in the door. A random survey by Reuters of North Dakota’s independent pharmacies showed that a 30-day supply of the generic blood thinning drug clopidogrel ranged in price between $10 and $59.95. A CVS in Bismarck, the state capital, quoted a price of $149.95 for the same dosage. “I get to set the prices here at my pharmacy,” said Jenna Wahlstrom, a pharmacist at Larsen Service Drug, which her grandfather founded in Watford City in 1952. “It’s not a corporate decision.”  Like the big chains, Wahlstrom offers her customers a smartphone app and online refill ordering. Her pharmacy has transferred hundreds of prescriptions from retail chains for workers who have moved to the state, she said. Ahead of the vote, the state’s top politicians are declining to take sides. Governor Jack Dalrymple, a Republican who took office in 2010, says he shops at locally owned Aerohead Plaza Drug while in Bismarck and believes it has been able to compete effectively with the nearby CVS. Yet in the 1990s, as a state legislator, Dalrymple voted to keep the pharmacy law intact. “I don’t know,” he now says, “if that was the right vote.”

SOLUTION: Big pharmacies knock on door of oil-rich North Dakota.

PROBLEM: So far, Somalia has reported only three cases. But if the disease is unleashed, it could spread like wildfire through camps housing malnourished families who huddle under makeshift domes built from sticks and rags. Many of the 2.4 million Somalis displaced by conflict and other disasters live in such camps. Out of a total population of 15 million, around six million Somalis may not have enough to eat this year, the United Nations says, weakening their immune systems and ability to survive the pandemic. Islamist al Shabaab insurgents also hold parts of southern Somalia, making it hard for health workers to visit and impossible to do testing there. “I have witnessed wars, cholera, dysentery,” Ahmed, tall and bespectacled, told Reuters. “A doctor who fears for his life cannot save people. I have learned to forget worrying and instead help rescue people.”  A decade ago, al Shabaab seized him as he was trying to stem a cholera epidemic in territory they held. They had seen a cross inside his ambulance and - wrongly assuming it meant he was a foreign spy - arrested him and his team. A phone call from a high-level contact saved their lives, he said. Right now, Somalia only has about 25 intensive care beds, 110 quarantine beds and 100 treatment beds available, Ahmed said. More are being built. In the capital, patients at the old Italian-built maternity Martini Hospital have been moved out to make way for a new coronavirus ward. The sound of hammering echoes through its wide, tree-lined compound as construction workers rush to finish repairs. The health ministry and prime minister’s office have allocated about $11 million for coronavirus preparation, Ahmed said. Expenses are high - all medical equipment is imported and coronavirus tests are sent to Kenya for processing. The World Health Organisation (WHO) has trained 500 health workers in Somalia since January, said Dr. Mamunur Rahman Malik, the organization’s country representative. The WHO also brought in personal protective equipment to handle the first 300 or 400 cases, Malik added. Ahmed’s biggest worry is that the disease may spread very fast. Somalia has a tradition of physical greetings, and even wealthy people are reluctant to quarantine away from family. Many, like Faduma Abdikadir, simply have nowhere to isolate themselves. The 38-year-old mother is sleeping under a tree in a makeshift camp in the capital Mogadishu with her eight children, having fled fighting in the countryside. “Most of the time we use ashes and sand to wash hands. We are hungry. We beg people to buy water to drink and wash our hands,” she said.

SOLUTION: Somali doctor, veteran of many battles, girds for war with coronavirus.

PROBLEM: "March 7 is the last day the U.S. Department of State will hear public comments on Keystone XL, a proposed pipeline that would carry diluted oil sands from Western Canada to Nebraska and then to refineries on the Gulf Coast. With the closing of the 30-day comment period, six years of contentious debate between environmentalists and pipeline supporters is expected to come to a head when President Barack Obama makes a final decision on whether to proceed. In an attempt to sway public opinion, the American Petroleum Institute relaunched an ad campaign backing the pipeline. The 30-second spot, which is airing in the District of Columbia, Montana, New Mexico and North Carolina, claims that in the land of deadlock, the pipeline is one of few projects to win support from both sides of the spectrum. ""Washington. It’s gridlock, division, bitter partisanship,"" the ad says. ""But one jobs plan brings both sides together. Bill Clinton and George (W.) Bush both say build the Keystone XL."" A ringing endorsement of the Keystone pipeline from 42 and 43? That sounds like something worth looking into. Bush backs it The American Petroleum Institute ad clearly identifies sources backing up their claim for viewers. For Bush, the ad references an article from Bloomberg published in March 2012, in which the former Republican president calls the pipeline ""a no-brainer,"" according to the report. ""The clear goal ought to be how to get the private sector to grow,"" Bush said. ""If you say that, then an issue like the Keystone pipeline becomes an easy issue."" We weren’t surprised Bush supports the plan. Republicans have been overwhelmingly supportive of the proposal and Bush has ties to the oil industry. Heck, he made the aforementioned remarks during the keynote speech of the American Fuel & Petrochemical Manufacturers conference. But what about Clinton? Clinton’s backing of Keystone did cause us to raise an eyebrow. The ad points to a Feb. 29, 2012, article from Politico. In it, Clinton calls for Americans to ""embrace"" the pipeline. We tracked down the original speech. It was given at the 2012 ARPA-E Energy Innovation Summit, a conference held by the U.S. Department of Energy. Here’s what Clinton had to say: ""One of the most amazing things to me about this Keystone Pipeline deal is that they ever filed that route in the first place since they could've gone around the Nebraska Sandhills and avoided most of the danger, no matter how imagined, to the Ogallala (aquifer) with a different route, which I presume we'll get now, because the extra cost of running it is infinitesimal compared to the revenues that will be generated over a long period of time. ""So, I think we should embrace it and develop a stakeholder-driven system of high standards for doing the work modeled on what was done with auto mileage agreement."" Clinton’s remarks are somewhat hard to follow. But he seems to say that Americans should ""embrace"" the Keystone pipeline and the government should work with the oil industry and environmentalists to develop standards for implementing and overseeing the project, similar to how all the stakeholders got together to develop higher standards for gas mileage in new vehicles. That’s how media reports characterized his comments, and Clinton made no attempt to correct them in the two years since. Within a year, Nebraska Gov. Dave Heineman approved a new route for the pipeline that largely avoided the Nebraska Sandhills, as Clinton predicted. If he was not placated by the route change, Clinton never said so publicly. In fact, we couldn’t find any more public statements by Clinton regarding the Keystone XL pipeline. Several environmental groups we contacted said they had no recollection of Clinton speaking on the issue since 2012. We reached out to Clinton through the Clinton Global Initiative to see if his position had changed or could be affirmed for us. We didn’t hear back. Putting Clinton’s speech in context So we’re left with one public comment made two years ago. But we can deduce a few things based off what he said. First, in his remarks, Clinton was largely endorsing an all-of-the-above energy approach that focused on greener and sustainable methods. And while he expressed support for the Keystone project, he also said that tapping into homegrown natural resources was not a panacea. ""There are some hazards to the innovation project, right now,"" Clinton said. ""We have massive new recovery technologies in oil and gas which could lead us down the primrose path of thinking we don't have to keep using less energy and developing clean energy and technologies."" But Clinton’s call to ""embrace"" the pipeline also came as the U.S. State Department was deciding whether to recommend the project’s approval. The State Department, at that time, was headed by his wife. Indeed, not hours after Clinton gave his speech in 2012, then-Secretary of State Hillary Clinton was testifying before the House Committee on Foreign Affairs, where she fielded questions about the State Department’s oversight of the pipeline proposal. In the hearing, Secretary Clinton was even asked about her husband’s comments from earlier that day. Rep. Connie Mack, R-Fla., noted, ""Even the former President, Bill Clinton, says, ‘Embrace it and we need to move forward with the Keystone XL pipeline.’ "" Clinton respond, ""He is a very smart man,"" inciting laughter. She then added, ""But unfortunately he is not bound by the laws and regulations and longer of the United States to make decisions that follow a certain procedure. And that is what we have to do."" ""So is it a mistake for the former president to say, ‘embrace it’?"" Mack then asked. ""Of course not,"" Clinton replied. ""This is America. People say they embrace it, people say they hate it. Our job is to take a very clear-eyed look at what the facts are."" So not only did Bill Clinton come out in favor of the pipeline in 2012, he did so during a public speech hosted by the U.S. Energy Department just hours before his wife, who oversaw the administration’s review of the pipeline, was set to testify in front of a Republican-controlled House committee. For her part, Hillary Clinton has gone back and forth on the pipeline. In 2010 she said she was ""inclined"" to approve the project. But under her command, the State Department also recommended Obama deny approval of the pipeline in 2012 after congressional Republicans forced a decision from the White House within 60 days. At the time, Clinton said the window was too short to review the environmental impact of the project. Our ruling The American Petroleum Institute ad says, ""Bill Clinton and George Bush both say build the Keystone XL"" pipeline. While their evidence is two years old, it’s not fabricated. Since voicing support of the pipeline in 2012, Clinton has not publicly weighed in on the controversy. But his backing of the project was not an offhand comment. It came during a publicized energy speech on the same day his wife was testifying before Congress. It seems unlikely he would endorse the proposal on such an occasion if he did not mean it."

SOLUTION:
"American Petroleum Institute Says ""Bill Clinton and George Bush both say build the Keystone XL."