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: Activists in Arkansas accused Republican Sen. Tom Cotton of sending constituents “cease-and-desist” letters. But while it’s true that at least one member of the group received one, it is unclear how many constituents at large have as well. A spokesperson for Cotton’s office, Caroline Rabbitt Tabler, confirmed the existence of the letters, saying that they were issued “under extreme circumstances.” She also said that it was rare to send any constituent such a letter. There has been no confirmed tally of how many times it has happened. The letters began getting attention when the liberal group Ozark Indivisible posted a picture of one on Twitter on 17 January 2018, along with a message taunting the senator: #TraitorTommy @TomCottonAR scared of his constituents calling so he’s sending out cease and desist letters. You’re too [chicken] to lead CIA if you can’t even listen to constituents! #arpx #TraitorTommy @TomCottonAR scared of his constituents calling so he’s sending out cease and desist letters. You’re too 🐔 to lead CIA if you can’t even listen to constituents! #arpx pic.twitter.com/N1HAGCmbW6 — Ozark Indivisible (@OZRKIndivisible) January 18, 2018  The letter stated: This letter is immediate notification that all communication must cease and desist immediately with all offices of US Senator Tom Cotton. All other contact will be deemed harassment and will be reported to the United States Capitol Police. The letters themselves, however, are not recent; the one posted by Ozark Indivisible was dated 17 October 2017. A Fayetteville resident, Stacey Lane, identified herself as the recipient of the letter posted online. Rabbitt Tabler said Cotton’s office did not accuse her of saying anything threatening but did not go into detail on why it sent her the letter. Ozark Indivisible confirmed to us on 19 January 2018 that Lane is a member of their organization. They also disputed reports that Lane threatened anyone or called a staffer a “cunt.” The group added: There have been others who have received the letters, but they do not want to come forward. They are not OI members. According to reports, “an unspecified number of individuals” received letters that month. Rabbitt Tabler said in a statement that they are “only used under extreme circumstances”: Senator Cotton is always happy to hear from Arkansans and encourages everyone to contact his offices to express their thoughts, concerns, and opinions. In order to maintain a safe work environment, if an employee of Senator Cotton receives repeated communications that are harassing and vulgar, or any communication that contains a threat, our policy is to notify the U.S. Capitol Police’s Threat Assessment Section and, in accordance with their guidance, send a cease and desist letter to the individual making the harassing or threatening communication. Another person, who did not identify themselves, told the Arkansas Times that they received a similar letter. They said: I believe if Tom Cotton’s office were to respond as to why they sent this letter, I think they just honestly don’t want to listen to any citizen’s opposing view or hear the numerous grave concerns U.S. citizens have about the serious & ongoing attack on our Democracy and past election cycle in which a foreign, hostile Russian government interfered, they don’t want U.S. citizens to call and speak their mind and truth in a very direct manner and they obviously don’t want to be held accountable for their words and actions while serving all the people in this nation. I may have used unprofessional and unbecoming language at times as the anxiety and stress of what I’m witnessing is at times too great a burden to control and I have vehemently expressed my righteous anger at Senator Cotton’s complicitness with this harmful regime. Cotton, whose current term in office runs through 2020, has come under criticism from his constituents in the past. During February and April 2017 town hall events, he was pelted with questions regarding various issues and hit with chants that included, “Do your job.”

SOLUTION: "Sen. Tom Cotton's office has sent ""cease-and-desist"" letters to constituents ordering them not to contact him."

PROBLEM: Health officials will conduct tests to determine whether the latest case is related to the previous seven that have been identified since March. Officials at the New Jersey school could not provide the current health status of the student. The latest case comes shortly after the U.S. Food and Drug Administration allowed the university to use an imported vaccine to help control the disease’s spread. The past cases at the Ivy League school were caused by the meningococcal bacteria known as serogroup B. State law requires all Princeton students living in dormitories to receive a meningitis vaccine that protects against most strains but not the serogroup B variety, Princeton spokesman Martin Mbugua said in an email. The outbreak of serogroup B meningitis is rare but not the first of its kind in the United States, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Bexsero, made by Swiss drugmaker Novartis AG, will be provided to all undergraduate students, graduate students who live in university housing on or off campus, and students and faculty with certain illnesses, such as sickle cell disease, Princeton officials said earlier this week. The FDA has allowed the use of the vaccine at Princeton under an Investigational New Drug application. The federal CDC considers the drug to be safe. “Everyone involved is working hard to organize a potential serogroup B meningococcal disease vaccine campaign as quickly as possible that fits into Princeton University’s academic calendar,” said CDC spokeswoman Sharon Hoskins. The Princeton inoculation campaign is set to be voluntary for students and is expected to begin in early December, with another event in February, according to the school’s website. Federal and New Jersey state health officials have not advised visitors or students to avoid the campus, Mbugua said. Meningitis is a serious disease that is spread through coughing and exchanges of saliva, and people living in dormitories or other crowded living quarters are especially at risk. The most severe cases can result in death, hearing loss, brain damage, kidney disease or amputation of limbs. Symptoms include fever, headaches and stiff neck.

SOLUTION: Eighth Princeton student diagnosed with meningitis.

PROBLEM: “He’s not one of those owners who wants to be seen everywhere. He’s just one of the fans,” said Bryant. The NBA star gives his owner a hug before every game for luck “and maybe some of the success” of the slender Los Angles surgeon who built a fortune exceeding $7 billion as a biotechnology entrepreneur. For all Soon-Shiong’s success, the South African emigre and son of a Chinese herbal doctor remains relatively unknown in Los Angeles, a city that thrives on status and celebrity. That’s likely to change soon. In recent weeks, he emerged as a likely bidder for fellow billionaire Philip Anschutz’s sports and entertainment unit AEG, owner of 100 venues worldwide and sports teams like the Los Angeles Kings hockey franchise and the L.A. Galaxy soccer team, not to mention a 20 percent stake in the Lakers. And on Wednesday in Washington DC, Soon-Shiong and his L.A.-based NantHealth will unveil a joint venture with Verizon, Intel, Blue Shield of California and others to create a nationwide system for doctors to share DNA and other data on cancer patients. It will enable doctors to do genetic analysis of a patient’s tumor in less than a minute — a job that now can take from eight to 10 weeks. “This is something the federal government should have done, but we waited and waited for them,” Soon-Shiong told Reuters in an interview. “It’s unconscionable that cancer patients get the wrong diagnosis 30 percent of the time and that it takes so long to treat them with appropriate drugs for their cancer.”  Soon-Shiong emigrated to the United States more than three decades ago with his wife Michele Chan, an actress who had a starring role in 80’s show “Danger Bay” that aired on CBS and the Disney Channel and guest roles on “ MacGyver.” Since then, he has methodically climbed the ladder of success by adroitly mixing science and business. He created drugs to fight diabetes and breast cancer and then sold the companies that produced them for a combined $8.6 billion. In the four years since selling those companies, he quietly spent more than $400 million of his own money to build a national fiber optic network that would link cancer clinics throughout the country — the groundwork for the health superhighway. Soon-Shiong’s philanthropy was in evidence at his West Los Angeles office. The new superhighway was illustrated on a flow chart in a conference room where staffers edited a video of it on a nearby TV set. In the lobby was a model of the campus surrounding the Saint John’s Health Center, to which he has given $135 million to build a biotech research center and sports medicine clinic. “There are few Patrick Soon-Shiongs in this world,” said retired General Wesley Clark, who has served with him on non-profit boards. “A brilliant doctor, a great businessman and someone who is very patriotic. He understands what it means to give back to his country.”  Elsewhere, Los Angeles bears the mark of Soon-Shiong’s largesse and his fixation on healthcare. He and his wife operate the Chan Soon-Shiong Family Foundation, which last year endowed a chair at the University of Southern California Viterbi School of Engineering to support research in engineering and medicine. In 2009, after watching TV footage of a woman dying on the emergency room floor because doctors didn’t notice her, he guaranteed $100 million to underwrite efforts to reopen Martin Luther King Hospital. The hospital, which has since reopened, serves the city’s low-income population. The coming months may mark the public convergence of his private passions: health, sports, philanthropy and his adopted city. He wants to buy AEG in large part because he plans to build a $1.2 billion football stadium to return pro football to the nation’s second largest city. Owning a National Football League team, he said, would give him a platform to promote wellness by having players mentor younger fans on exercise and healthy eating, and sharing training and medical techniques with local doctors. Until recently, Soon-Shiong kept a low profile. He and his wife did not want their name in a press release when they first donated $23 million to Saint John’s in 2007 to build a biomedical facility, recalled medical center president Lou Lazatin. “Finally, they agreed when I told them it would help my marketing,” Lazatin said. Soon-Shiong’s business career started in the early 1980s with the help of the National Aeronautics and Space Administration, which gave him $2 million for stem cell research that could one day help treat injuries during space travel. At the time, he was a surgeon at a hospital affiliated with the University of California, Los Angeles. With the money, he opened a small lab near a veteran’s hospital, where he developed treatments to reduce diabetes in pancreatic transplant patients and a cancer-fighting drug that doubled the response rate for the treatment of breast cancer. His climb was not without bumps. In 1999, his brother Terrence filed a complex suit claiming Patrick Soon-Shiong neglected work on a diabetes drug being developed by a startup in which Terrence had invested. But an arbitrator found in Patrick Soon-Shiong’s favor, and he declined to answer questions about the matter. By 2008, Patrick Soon-Shiong controlled 82 percent of APP Pharmaceuticals, the company he started to develop injectable drugs to treat cancer and other illnesses. Soon-Shiong sold the company for $5.6 billion to Germany’s Fresenuis Kabi Pharmaceuticals, netting him $4.6 billion. In 2010, he sold Abraxis BioScience, which he had spun off from APP in 2007, to pharmaceutical company Celgene Corp. for $2.9 billion. His 82 percent stake was worth $2.4 billion. Soon-Shiong paid Celgene $135 million for NantWorks, where he had begun the work of creating his planned high-tech health delivery network. He contacted potential partners for the venture, including meeting AEG owner Anschutz, with whom he spent a day in the Denver suburb of Aurora touring the Anshutz Medical Campus. Soon-Shiong also bought or provided seed money to small technology companies to aid in that effort. He paid $20 million to buy a controlling interest in KeyOn Communications, which provides wireless broadband service for rural markets, and another $10 million to a stake in Raptor Networks Technology, which makes switching equipment for high speed networks. “He watches every detail. I get emails from him at 2:30 in the morning, said Stephen Berman, CEO of toy maker JAAKS Pacific, which is licensing technology from one of Soon-Shiong’s companies to make interactive toys. He gives more than just money, says songwriter Burt Bacharach, whose son went to private school with Soon-Shiong’s daughter. Soon-Shiong showed up unannounced at Cedars Sinai Hospital one day, says Bacharach, to help doctors find the right combination of drugs to treat the musician’s son, who had a persistent staph infection. For L.A.’s richest man, that patient visit was a brief return to the role of physician that he insists he one day will resume.

SOLUTION:
L.A.'s richest man ups the ante for city, cancer fight.