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: The Michigan Department of Health and Human Services says it’s working with the Macomb County Health Department to investigate the illnesses at McLaren Macomb Hospital in Mount Clemens. The departments say six of the seven Legionnaires’ cases have been reported at the hospital since mid-September. Both agencies are investigating the source of the disease and whether there are more infected people. The hospital is cooperating with the investigation and plans to increase water testing to look for any signs of the Legionella bacteria that causes the illness. Legionnaire’s is a flu-like illness contracted when infected water vapor is inhaled. The elderly and people with weakened immune systems can be particularly susceptible.

SOLUTION: Michigan probes Detroit-area hospital’s 7 Legionnaires cases.

PROBLEM: The American, Walter James Palmer, a Minnesota dentist who paid $50,000 to kill the lion, has left Zimbabwe. He says he did kill the animal but believed the hunt was legal and that the necessary permits had been issued. Local hunter Theo Bronkhorst appeared in a courthouse in Hwange, 800 km (500 miles) west of Harare, and was charged with “failing to supervise, control and take reasonable steps to prevent an unlawful hunt”. He pleaded not guilty to the charge and was set free after posting $1,000 bail and depositing his passport with the court. He will return to court on Aug. 5 for trial. Game park owner Honest Ndlovu, who is also accused of assisting Palmer, was not charged on Wednesday and parks officials said he would first testify for the state and be charged later. While Bronkhorst appeared in court in Zimbabwe, Palmer, who is accused of killing Cecil with a bow and arrow, was being pilloried on the Internet, with many people wishing him dead. “This is disgusting. I hope you get thrown in a cage with hungry lions,” Julie Lu wrote on the Facebook page of his dental practice. Palmer said on Tuesday he had hired professional guides who secured hunting permits and deeply regretted taking the lion. He added that he had not been contacted by authorities in Zimbabwe or the United States and would assist in any inquiries. The Zimbabwe police and government have not commented. If found guilty, Bronkhorst could be fined $20,000 and possibly jailed for up to 10 years. The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service expressed its concern about the killing. “We are currently gathering facts about the issue and will assist Zimbabwe officials in whatever manner requested,” said Vanessa Kauffman, a spokeswoman for the government agency. “It is up to all of us - not just the people of Africa - to ensure that healthy, wild populations of animals continue to roam the savanna for generations to come.”  Cecil was fitted with a GPS collar for a research project by scientists from Oxford University and was one of the oldest and most famous lions in Zimbabwe. The British university’s Wildlife Conservation Research Unit said it had been tracking Cecil since 2008 and was “deeply saddened” by his death. “Insofar as this happened illegally we consider it deeply reprehensible,” it said in a statement. It was working closely with Zimbabwe’s National Parks authorities to support their “meticulous work” in prosecuting the case. The unit also said Cecil’s death would be likely to trigger a power struggle in the pride, resulting in the death of other male lions as well as Cecil’s offspring. “When a male lion is killed, because of the way their society works, a likely consequence is the overthrow and death of other adult male members of his weakened coalition, and the subsequent infanticide of his cubs,” it said. Palmer’s hunting has attracted scrutiny in the past. In 2008, he pleaded guilty to lying to a U.S. wildlife agent about a black bear he killed in Wisconsin two years before. He was accused of killing it 40 miles outside a permitted zone, hauling the carcass back into the approved area and certifying falsely that it was killed there. He was  sentenced to one year probation and fined $2,938. In the Hwange case, Zimbabwe Conservation Task Force chairman Johnny Rodrigues said Cecil was lured out of the park with bait before being shot. The incident has triggered fierce debate over the commercial ‘trophy’ hunting of African big game. Like many countries, Zimbabwe issues annual permits that allow foreign hunters to kill wildlife such as elephant, buffalo and lion legally, arguing that the funds raised allow the government to fund conservation efforts. “Sustainable trophy hunting is part of well-managed wildlife conservation. It creates incentives for people to look after wildlife,” said Adri Kitshoff, chief executive of the Professional Hunters’ Association of South Africa. “It’s easy to fall into the trap of emotions and not focus on facts.”  However, Edward Bourke, chairman of the Australia-based Saving The Lion Foundation, said Cecil’s death showed the dangers of legal hunting. “There is enough global pressure to push for change. There is an opportunity to offer alternatives, including international aid for establishing safe haven environments like national parks or eco-tourism zones,” he said. One of the few countries to avoid Cecil hysteria was Zimbabwe, where most people are more preoccupied with putting food on the table and finding work in an economy suffering 80 percent unemployment. To the state-run Herald newspaper, the most remarkable aspect of the case was the lion’s name, which it linked to British imperialist Cecil Rhodes, after whom the former Rhodesia named. “How someone thought it such a good idea to christen a lion after the infamous plunderer and murderer who roamed dangerously across Africa can only be a matter of conjecture,” it said in an editorial.

SOLUTION: Zimbabwean charged over killing of Cecil the lion.

PROBLEM: Sweeping testing for the coronavirus among the entire crew of the Roosevelt has already yielded a curious result: The majority of the positive cases so far are among sailors who are asymptomatic. With so many of the crew symptom-free, it is unclear how many of them had been infected and recovered without anyone realizing they had contracted the virus. Many of these infections could have finished their cycle before testing of the crew began. The extent of the infections aboard the vessel should become more clear with results of the new “outbreak investigation” the Navy announced that will use serology testing developed by the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). The serology tests look for the presence of specific antibodies that are created by the immune system’s attack response to the presence of the virus and remain in the blood for a period of time. “We are seeking crew member volunteers,” Navy Surgeon General Rear Admiral Bruce Gillingham told reporters. The roughly thousand volunteers who are being sought for testing over the next week or so will also be swabbed again for COVID-19, the respiratory disease caused by the virus, as well as asked to answer a short survey, officials said. The U.S. coronavirus death toll - the highest in the world - surged past 35,000 on Friday. It also claimed the life of a sailor from the Theodore Roosevelt this week. The Navy’s testing of the entire 4,800-member crew of the aircraft carrier - which is about 94% complete - was an extraordinary move in a case that already has led to the firing of the ship’s captain and the resignation of the Navy’s top civilian official. It has also given scientific researchers a case study about how the virus spreads asymptomatically in a confined environment among mostly younger adults. That cohort has been somewhat underrepresented in the epidemiological data so far. As of Friday, some 660 sailors - nearly 14% of the crew - had tested positive for the coronavirus. The Navy has said that about 60% of those positive tests were among sailors who were symptom-free. The Navy said medical staff on the island of Guam, where the ship pulled into port, would take the samples and collect questionnaire results. The actual serology tests will be sent to the CDC in Atlanta for analysis. The data could further shed light on how the coronavirus spreads undetected, which could help inform the U.S. national response to the pandemic and efforts to restart the economy. “We will also be sharing that with the White House task force so that that information can be used for the benefit of the nation,” Gillingham said.

SOLUTION:
U.S. to start antibody testing of sailors on coronavirus-hit aircraft carrier.