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: "Former state Rep. Nicholas Gorham made a surprising claim last month in a commentary in The Providence Journal. ""The fact is that we have a General Assembly that has no explicit constitutional authority to impose income, sales, estate and the myriad of other taxes upon us, yet it taxes the people as if there were no limitations on its authority to tax the people,"" he wrote in the piece, published Dec. 30. The legislature can’t legally levy taxes? This called for a PolitiFact audit. First, a history lesson. When King Charles II granted a royal charter to the colony in 1663, the document, preserved in a metal and glass case at the State House, established ""a form of pure government by an elected assembly presided over by a nearly powerless, elected governor,"" according to an account on the General Assembly’s website. The Assembly’s supremacy continued when Rhode Island became a state, and was reaffirmed in the state’s first Constitution, adopted in 1842. Article VI, Section 10 spelled it out, saying ""the General Assembly shall continue to exercise the powers it has heretofore exercised, unless prohibited in this Constitution."" The state Supreme Court consistently interpreted that to mean the power of the General Assembly was unlimited unless authority to do something was specifically given to another branch of government. Things changed in 2004, when the General Assembly, responding to pressure from good government groups, passed ""separation of powers"" legislation, a set of proposed amendments to the state Constitution. The amendments made it clear the government is divided into three separate branches, banned legislators from serving on any executive-branch boards or commissions, and gave the governor power to appoint members of agency boards. And they eliminated the catch-all Section 10. Voters approved the amendments 2-to-1. So is Gorham right that, because of 2004 vote, the General Assembly lost its ""explicit"" authority to tax? On a literal level, yes. The only reference to setting taxes in the current Constitution is a section that says that the Assembly can set the manner in which property valuations are conducted. But legal experts say on a practical level, implicit can be as good as explicit. Former state Supreme Court Justice Robert G. Flanders Jr., who stepped down in early 2004, says that although much was changed by the 2004 amendments, much abides. From the days of Parliament and the English kings, he said, the power to levy taxes has rested in the legislative body, a legal tradition that was carried on in England’s colonies in the Americas. ""Inherent in the legislative power is the power to tax,"" Flanders said. ""You wouldn’t need an explicit grant."" Richard Raspallo, legal counsel to House Majority Leader Nicholas A. Mattiello, agreed, saying there are several examples of legislative power that is assumed despite a lack of specific language in the Constitution. ""Where is it explicitly stated in the Constitution that the General Assembly has the authority to require Rhode Island citizens to follow traffic rules, or have a license, or grant people the right to marry, or require people to have certain educational standards in order to work in certain fields?"" he said. ""At some point, the General Assembly has been granted power by the people to legislate for the common good,"" he said. ""That includes the imposition of taxes to pay for the welfare of the citizenry."" Gorham indirectly acknowledged that, but said the ambiguity shows the need for a state constitutional convention to settle the matter definitively. (Voters will be asked in November whether a convention should be convened.) As he wrote in his commentary: ""Of course, I plan to pay my taxes, but you really have to wonder sometimes. If the people really wanted to get taxes — and, yes, borrowing — under control and on the people’s terms, the Constitution, just the way it is, would be a great place to start. Let the revolution begin!"" Our ruling Nicholas Gorham said the Rhode Island General Assembly ‘‘has no explicit constitutional authority’’ to levy taxes. History tells us he’s right. Had he suggested that the lack of explicit language meant no one had to pay taxes, we’d view his claim in a far different light. But he didn’t, so we rule it . (If you hear a claim you'd like us to check, email us at [email protected] And follow us on Twitter: @politifactri.)" Claim: "The General Assembly ""has no explicit constitutional authority to impose income, sales, estate and the myriad of other taxes upon us."

SOLUTION: Nicholas Gorham said the Rhode Island General Assembly ‘‘has no explicit constitutional authority’’ to levy taxes. History tells us he’s right. Had he suggested that the lack of explicit language meant no one had to pay taxes, we’d view his claim in a far different light. But he didn’t, so we rule it True. (If you hear a claim you'd like us to check, email us at [email protected] And follow us on Twitter: @politifactri.)

PROBLEM: Paragraph: "Atlanta Mayor Kasim Reed has made no secret of wanting to close the homeless shelter at Peachtree and Pine streets. Reed, who has been active in downtown’s post-Recession resurgence, says he’ll push for the city to acquire the property through eminent domain and turn it into a police precinct and fire station. Health concerns are a major reason for closing the Peachtree-Pines shelter, Reed said during a lunchtime speech to Atlanta’s Commerce Club on Tuesday, Aug. 11. ""Peachtree and Pine is one of the leading sites for tuberculosis in the nation,"" he told the crowd. Reed said top officials with the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention recently asked to meet with him and ""laid out how tuberculosis cases, not in Georgia, but across America, are being traced back to Peachtree and Pine."" Could Peachtree-Pine, billed as the largest homeless shelter in the Southeast, be a leading site for tuberculosis in the nation? PolitiFact decided to do some checking. First a little background. The homeless are prime candidates for tuberculosis because they typically have greater exposure to cold weather, are in crowded conditions when they stay in shelters and lack proper nutrition and medical care. That means shelters, such as Peachtree-Pine, have to be vigilant to avoid becoming breeding grounds for TB, which is spread person to person through the air and caused by the bacteria Mycobacterium tuberculosis. TB normally attacks the lungs, but also can strike the kidney, spine, brain or another body part. In most cases, tuberculosis is treatable and curable, although people can die if they don’t receive the proper treatment. Most people live with the bacteria, or latent TB infection, without feeling sick or showing symptoms. In 2014, 9,412 new tuberculosis cases were reported in the U.S., 334 in Georgia, according to the CDC. A new drug-resistant strain of TB was discovered in 2008 at the shelter at Peachtree and Pine, which is run by the Metro Atlanta Task Force for the Homeless. The strain was labeled G05625 TB by the CDC. The research To fact check Reed’s statement, we reached out to Fulton County government, the CDC, the mayor’s office and the Georgia Department of Public Health, as well as shelter management. Anita Beaty, Peachtree-Pine’s executive director, rejects Reed’s assessment of the shelter and says it is ""100 percent compliant"" with CDC protocol for spotting, treating and avoiding the spread of TB. She said Reed and the business community have conspired for years to force the shelter to close so they can take over its prime location, just south of Midtown and in sight of the Fox Theatre. Tuberculosis has been a worry at all Atlanta and Fulton County shelters, not just Peachtree-Pine, for years. But alarm bells apparently really started going off after an uptick in TB cases last year. ""At a time when the incidents of tuberculosis has been declining across the metropolitan Atlanta area and the rest of Georgia, it has actually increased in Fulton County,"" Brenda Fitzgerald, commissioner of the Georgia Department of Public Health, wrote Fulton County Commission Chair John Eaves in April. A month later, officials with the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention were sitting down for the first of two meetings with Reed about the ongoing TB problem generally, and Peachtree-Pine specifically. ""Our inability to control (the Peachtree-Pine) outbreak has led to infections in multiple other states,"" Philip A. LoBue and Jonathan Mermin, doctors with the National Center for HIV/AIDS, Viral Hepatitis, STD, and TB Prevention, wrote Reed after they met in May. Based on interviews, data and documents that PolitiFact reviewed, here’s a summary of the major points. -- Since 2008, new cases of the drug-resistant strain of TB that originated at the Peachtree-Pine shelter have turned up in metro Atlanta and Georgia as well as eight other states -- Alabama, California, Florida, Illinois, New York, North Carolina, Pennsylvania and South Carolina. (Genotype evidence, similar to a fingerprint, exists for every strain of TB, and that’s how every new case of G05625 in the state and nation can be traced to the Peachtree-Pine shelter. Similarly, that’s how the Ebola outbreak in west Africa in 201, was traced back to a 2-year-old from a small village in Guinea who died in 2013 and who became known around the world as Patient Zero.) -- At Fulton County’s four shelters, the number of TB cases rose by 230 percent, from 13 in 2013 to 43 in 2014. Twenty-two of the 43 cases, or slightly more than 50 percent, were at Peachtree-Pine. (The CDC defines a large outbreak as being 10 or more cases, CDC spokesman Brian Katzowitz said.) -- The number of drug-resistant G05625 tuberculosis cases, those linked to Peachtree-Pine, grew 10-fold from 2013 to 2014, from two to 23. -- Fulton County accounted for 82 percent of all cases of that strain of tuberculosis in Georgia and 69 percent of all cases of the strain in the United States. -- At least four clients of the Peachtree-Pine shelter, according to Fitzgerald, have died of tuberculosis since early 2014. In her letter to Eaves, Fitzgerald said, public health researchers identified the homeless shelter at the corner of Peachtree and Pine Streets ""as a major source of the current outbreak. ""If it [tuberculosis]  gains a foothold in the community, then the cost in healthcare and human suffering will be incalculable,"" she wrote. Jessica A. Corbitt-Dominguez, director of external affairs for Fulton County government, said Fulton health workers, in conjunction with officials from the Georgia Department of Public Health and CDC, responded to the outbreak with an aggressive campaign of education, testing and treatment. Anyone with active disease was relocated from the shelters while in treatment under the supervision of Fulton Health and Wellness. The county set up special teams that make daily visits to shelters to perform screenings and administer medicines, Corbitt-Dominguez said. In June 2015, the county health department also signed memorandums of understanding (MOUs) with four shelters, including Peachtree and Pine. This was considered a significant step since a lack of administrative controls and protocols is considered a likely contributor to the spread of TB. As of this month, the number of 2015 confirmed TB cases at Fulton homeless shelters is 13, Corbitt-Dominguez said. Beaty’s attorney last week provided reporters with a certificate showing the shelter is fully in compliance with the CDC’s TB protocol, and Beaty told PolitiFact ""it’s ludicrous to think we wouldn’t be on it."" Corbitt-Dominguez confirmed that the shelter has never been cited by the county, although Eaves has said there have been concerns about the shelter’s TB safeguards. In a letter to Fitzgerald, he wrote that the shelter’s administration ""routinely exhibits sub-optimal administration of the procedures required to control the spread of this disease."" Beaty said Reed’s statement makes clear he ""is just not getting good information."" ""We have been cleared by Fulton County, which is on site every day to monitor. And we’ve got 100 percent clearance from the CDC’s requirements,"" she said. ""We resent those easy headlines that have no basis in fact and that marginalize homeless people in our facilities."" Tom Andrews, president of the non-profit Mercy Care, which operates 14 clinics, some associated with shelters, said the strain of TB originating at Peachtree-Pine has to be a major concern. Since it is medicine-resistant, it requires a more expensive and longer treatment program, Andrews said. The CDC estimates that the costs of treating a person with TB increases with greater resistance. Direct costs in 2010 U.S. dollars average from $17,000 to treat drug-susceptible TB to $430,000 to treat the most drug-resistant form, according to the agency’s website. So is it a national leader in TB? We asked the mayor’s office for evidence to back up Reed’s statement that Peachtree-Pine ""is one of the leading sites for tuberculosis in the nation."" Anne Torres, his spokeswoman, provided us copies of the letters from Fitzgerald and the doctors, as well as a highly technical report from the CDC. We reached out to the CDC. A spokesperson said agency officials would not comment on the mayor’s public statements. CDC officials also would not identify the states where they said the TB strain from Peachtree-Pine had spread. We were able to obtain that list from the Georgia Department of Public Health, as well as the number of cases of G05625 strain TB in each state from 2008 to 2014. The most were in Florida (14), followed by California (8) and North Carolina and Alabama (2 each). New York, Illinois, Pennsylvania and South Carolina each reported one case in the five years -- for a total of 30 in the eight states in five years. But do 30 cases over a several-year period raise Peachtree-Pine to a leading site of TB in the nation? We posed that question to Philip Hopewell, a leading tuberculosis expert and professor of medicine at the University of California, San Francisco. ""Peachtree and Pine is clearly  a major site for transmission of Mycobacterium tuberculosis, and it may be one of the leading sites in the nation,"" Hopewell said. ""However, there are not data from every such facility in the country,"" he added. ""To say that the Atlanta facility is one of the leading sites in the country -- it probably is -- implies that there are data with which to compare the Atlanta facility. Thus, strictly speaking, what he said can't be backed with evidence. Even so, I wouldn't fault the mayor for saying this."" Our ruling Mayor Kasim Reed said ""Peachtree and Pine is one of the leading sites for tuberculosis in the nation."" Thirty cases of a medicine-resistant strain of TB in eight states have been traced back to the shelter at Peachtree and Pine. The shelter also had a large share of the cases in a recent TB outbreak in Fulton County and four TB deaths, according to state data. CDC officials clearly believe it’s a concern, but a leading tuberculosis expert says there’s a dearth of comparative data." Claim: Peachtree and Pine is one of the leading sites for tuberculosis in the nation.

SOLUTION: "Mayor Kasim Reed said ""Peachtree and Pine is one of the leading sites for tuberculosis in the nation."" Thirty cases of a medicine-resistant strain of TB in eight states have been traced back to the shelter at Peachtree and Pine. The shelter also had a large share of the cases in a recent TB outbreak in Fulton County and four TB deaths, according to state data. CDC officials clearly believe it’s a concern, but a leading tuberculosis expert says there’s a dearth of comparative data."

PROBLEM: Paragraph: “The best thing the tobacco industry can do to fight COVID-19 is to immediately stop producing, marketing and selling tobacco,” Gan Quan, a public health specialist and a director at the International Union Against Tuberculosis and Lung Disease, said in a statement. The group, which links international respiratory and lung specialists, officials and health agencies, said it is “deeply concerned” about COVID-19’s impact on the world’s 1.3 billion smokers, in particular those in poorer countries whose health systems are already overburdened. Smoking is known to weaken the immune system, making it less able to respond effectively to infections. Smokers may also already have lung disease or reduced lung capacity which would greatly increase the risk of serious illness. Quan said governments around the world had a “moral imperative” to advise smokers to stop. “This is the absolute best time to quit smoking,” Quan said. The Union’s statement cited emerging evidence from preliminary studies of COVID-19 patients in China and elsewhere that suggest smokers infected with the new coronavirus become more severely ill and suffer more serious complications such as breathing difficulties. It said a study of more than 1,000 COVID-19 patients published in the New England Journal of Medicine in February found that smokers - both past and present - fared poorly, with smokers comprising more than 25% of those that needed mechanical ventilation, admission to an intensive care unit, or who died. The World Health Organization and the European Centre for Disease Control and Prevention have also warned that smoking can expose people to serious complications from COVID-19. Claim: Experts urge smokers and tobacco firms to quit for COVID-19.

SOLUTION:
Health experts on Monday urged smokers to quit and cigarette companies to stop producing and selling tobacco products to help reduce the risks from COVID-19.