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.

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

“They are heroic, I think there is no other way to describe what they are doing at this moment,” said Howard Catton, a British nurse who is the ICN’s chief executive officer. Infection rates of 9% and 12-14% have been reported among health workers in Italy and Spain, respectively, and deaths among nurses there and in Iran and Indonesia, he said. “We have no doubt that the rate of infections is related in part to the lack of PPE - personal protective equipment,” he told Reuters at the ICN offices along Lake Geneva. “There is a global shortage and nurses obviously are at a higher risk given the people that they are caring for.”  The federation represents 130 national associations and more than 20 million registered nurses. The World Health Organization has called repeatedly for countries and manufacturers to step up production of masks, gloves, gowns and other equipment for vulnerable health workers amidst critical shortages. Nearly 700,000 people have been infected worldwide in the outbreak that began last December in China and has claimed more than 33,000 lives, according to the WHO. Catton said there had been problems with supply chains in hard-hit Italy and Spain, describing their health systems as “very close to being overwhelmed”. Nurses worldwide take samples from COVID-19 patients, give them medicines and oxygen, and help incubate those in serious condition. “They are working under intense pressure, often long hours, some working back-to-back shifts for days on end, even sleeping over in the hospital, the facility, in which they work.”  Some nurses have been forced to re-use their gear or make their own masks and gowns, he added. “Wearing personal protective equipment when it is available is not easy either...Simple things like going to the loo and eating are of course much more difficult,” he said. Nurses across Africa and South Asia could be at greater risk as the virus moves to poorer settings. “We are very concerned that those countries that have weaker, more fragile health care systems could very quickly become overwhelmed by this virus if it takes hold in their countries,” Catton said. Nurses in Zimbabwe, fearing for their own safety, have been on strike due to a lack of information and protective gear, he said.
Heroic nurses need full protection against coronavirus, association says.

Amid increasing concern over the United States Postal Service’s efficiency leading up to the 2020 U.S. elections, a CBS News host’s tweet warned voters seeking to take part by mail.“USPS says you should give mail in ballots at least 14 days round trip,” Tony Dokoupil wrote on July 26 2020. “No guarantees. So if you plan to vote by mail, election day isn’t November 3rd. It’s October 20th. Or sooner. Don’t be one of the *tens of thousands* of people whose vote wasn’t counted in 2016.”. @USPS says you should give mail in ballots at least 14 days round trip. No guarantees.So if you plan to vote by mail, election day isn’t November 3rd.It’s October 20th.Or sooner.Don’t be one of the *tens of thousands* of people whose vote wasn’t counted in 2016.— Tony Dokoupil (@tonydokoupil) July 24, 2020The postal service has in fact made that statement to not only Dokoupil but other news organizations and reporters; the advisory appeared in a Washington Post story published on July 15 2020:Local elections offices are hiring temporary workers to process absentee ballots, and some local elections boards are adding options for voters to do curbside drop-offs of their mail ballots on Election Day.The Postal Service is also recommending that voters request their ballots at least 15 days before Election Day and mail their completed ballots at least one week before the due date.The advisory was also mentioned in a story republished on news sites for local Fox TV network affiliates on July 27 2020:“We recommend that jurisdictions immediately communicate and advise voters to request ballots at the earliest point allowable but no later than 15 days prior to election date,” USPS told FOX via email. “The Postal Service also recommends that voters contact local election officials for information about deadlines.”Dokoupil himself reported on the potential problem for mail-in ballots in a story for CBS This Morning; CBS created two batches of 100 mock mail-in ballots apiece from around several zip codes in Philadelphia and sent them to the same local P.O. box, which served as a stand-in for an actual election office.A week after sending his mock ballots from mailboxes around the city, Dokoupil went to retrieve them at the P.O. box to find that most of them were not inside. Postal staff later retrieved several of them, telling him that “they had them somewhere else.”However, Dokoupil did note that official mail-in ballots carry an official logo differentiating them from the regular mail CBS used for its reporting. According to the story:Out of the initial batch mailed a week earlier, 97 out of 100 votes had arrived. Three simulated persons, or 3 percent of voters, were effectively disenfranchised by mail by giving their ballots a week to arrive. In a close election, 3 percent could be pivotal.Four days after mailing the second batch of mock ballots, 21 percent of the votes hadn’t arrived.According to Postal Service recommendations, “voters should mail their return ballots at least one week prior to the due date.”However, nearly half of all states still allow voters to request ballots less than a week before the election.A USPS spokesperson, Martha Johnson, told us that the agency is asking both voters and election officials to be mindful of how long it takes postal workers to transport, process and deliver ballots as well as “the time that it takes for voters to consider and prepare their ballots, and the time that it takes for a ballot to be transported, processed, and delivered back to the election official.” The agency’s delivery standards, she said, have not changed. She also reiterated the agency’s guidance for requesting mail-in ballots:We recommend that customers who opt to vote through the U.S. Mail must understand their local jurisdiction’s requirements for timely submission of absentee ballots, including postmarking requirements. Voters must use First-Class Mail or an expedited level of service to return their completed ballots. In order to allow sufficient time for voters to receive, complete and return ballots via the mail, and to facilitate timely receipt of completed ballots by election officials, we strongly recommend that jurisdictions immediately communicate and advise voters to request ballots at the earliest point allowable but no later than 15 days prior to the election date. The Postal Service recommends that domestic, non-military voters mail their completed ballots back to the election officials at least one week prior to their state’s due date. The Postal Service also recommends that voters contact local election officials for information about deadlines.Tammy Patrick, a senior advisor for the advocacy group Democracy Fund, told CBS that her group estimated that between 80 million and 100 million United States voters would receive their ballots via mail in 2020. Prior to joining the non-profit organization, Patrick served on the Commissioner on the Presidential Commission on Election Administration under Barack Obama’s presidential administration.“States like Ohio, you can request your ballot on Saturday up until noon for Tuesday’s election,” said Patrick, who has also served as a former federal compliance officer for the elections department in Maricopa County, Arizona. “That is the worst possible thing. You are setting up the voters with false expectations, and you’re setting them up to fail.”A separate analysis published by NPR in July 2020 found that 65,000 absentee or mail-in ballots cast in primary elections until that point had been rejected because they arrived after the deadline.“That’s the sort of thing that makes me wary about what’s going to happen in November when we get an even larger influx of people who haven’t voted, or haven’t voted by mail in the past,” said Charles Stewart, a political scientist at the at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.Obama himself added to the discussion about mail-in voting on July 28 2020, when he tweeted a graphic supplied by another group, Vote Save America, displaying the state-by-state deadlines for requesting a ballot. According to that graphic, the deadline for every state not exclusively voting by mail falls after the fifteen-day advisory issued by the U.S. Postal Service:The USPS told CBS in a statement:We employ a robust and proven process to ensure proper handling of all Election Mail, including ballots. This includes close coordination and partnerships with election officials at the local and state levels. As we anticipate that many voters may choose to use the mail to participate in the upcoming elections due to the impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic, we are conducting and will continue to proactively conduct outreach with state and local election officials and Secretaries of State so that they can make informed decisions and educate the public about what they can expect when using the mail to vote. As part of these outreach efforts, we will discuss our delivery processes and will consult with election officials about how they can design their mailings in a manner that comports with postal regulations, improves mailpiece visibility, and ensures efficient and cost-effective processing and delivery.Dokoupil’s story also followed reported concerns over the appointment of Louis DeJoy — a businessman and fundraiser for U.S. President Donald Trump — to oversee the USPS as Postmaster General in June 2020.“On the surface, there’s a real worry about cronyism and patronage and whether someone is being put into place to carry out an agenda,” American Postal Workers Union president Mark Dimondstein told the Post. “We hope that’s not the case.”The newspaper also reported:DeJoy told employees to leave mail behind at distribution centers if it delayed letter carriers from their routes, according to internal USPS documents obtained by The Washington Post and verified by the American Postal Workers Union and three people with knowledge of their contents, but who spoke on the condition of anonymity to avoid retribution.“If the plants run late, they will keep the mail for the next day,” according to a document titled, “New PMG’s [Postmaster General’s] expectations and plan.” Traditionally, postal workers are trained not to leave letters behind and to make multiple delivery trips to ensure timely distribution of letters and parcels.Trump himself has repeatedly claimed — falsely — that voting by mail is inherently suspect and vulnerable to fraud, to the point that Twitter flagged two of his tweets on the issue in May 2020 for containing “potentially misleading information.”Update, July 29 2020 9:19 a.m. PST: Updated with comment from the US Postal Service.Comments

The U.S. Postal Service has advised people hoping to vote by mail to request the required envelopes by October 20 2020.