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: When the Mercyhurst team arrives at a crime scene, members are tasked with telling the story of how human remains arrived there, how long they were in place, and whether the remains were affected by weather, animals or other humans. “It’s all about reconstructing past events,” said Dennis Dirkmaat, department chairman of the Mercyhurst University forensic science program. Dirkmaat, a forensic anthropologist, has led his students to scenes across Pennsylvania and beyond to help coroners and medical examiners answer questions crucial to each case. With forensic anthropology, he said, investigators don’t bring bones to a lab to be identified, at least not at first. Vital information exists at the scene where a body is found, including the origin and spatial distribution of the remains. “Each particular case is a new scenario,” he said. DNA can easily provide the identity of human remains, Dirkmaat said. But his students are educated in identifying trauma in bone and gathering information at each scene that could show whether the individual died from homicide, suicide, accidental or natural causes, as well as whether remains were moved or scattered by animals, gravity, water, wind or human activity. “We always search for where the body was originally,” Dirkmaat said, and look at whether remains are still articulated - together in the proper order or pattern - or if there are signs of decomposition. “The police or coroners, when they call us in, they have some idea of who this might be and how long ago it occurred, and so we start with that hypothesis and we try to prove or disprove it from the evidence.” Dirkmaat said he’s seen an average of 100 cases each year in the nearly two decades that he and his students have assisted police and coroners at outdoor crime scenes. “In an academic setting, I don’t think anyone’s come close to that number,” he said. ‘Processing the scene’ Cambria County Coroner Jeff Lees called Dirkmaat in May concerning human remains discovered near a Johnstown trail. The Mercyhurst team helped local officials identify the remains of Nancy Giles, who had gone missing in October. “Dealing with the remains is one process, but the entire scene has to be cleared methodically,” Lees said. “It’s a diligent and slow process, but one that must be done. (Dirkmaat) and his team are second to none. Processing the scene will have a long-term impact on the investigation.” Somerset County Coroner Wallace Miller said Dirkmaat was the first person he called last September, when the remains of two homicide victims were found along Ligonier Pike in Conemaugh Township. “Anytime you have skeletal remains, you have to have (the Mercyhurst University team),” Miller said. “They’re qualified as experts in court. (Dennis) is well-known and well-respected.” Rusty Styer, Bedford County coroner, has called in Dirkmaat and his students several times. The latest instance was last October, when remains were located by a hunter near Route 30 in Snake Spring Township. The recovery and mapping capabilities are “top notch,” Styer said, and the Mercyhurst team accurately captures the location of every bone and piece of evidence, which he said is vital to the work of coroners and the police. “It’s essential to have it,” he said. “They turn over every leaf and every rock.” ‘Practical experience’ Dirkmaat said he enjoys his work for a variety of reasons: including seeing his students graduate from the program and earn their own success in the field, while navigating the challenges each case brings. He arrived at Mercyhurst University in 1991 with a doctoral degree from the University of Pittsburgh. One of his first assignments was to help then-Cambria County Coroner John Barron with a case involving human remains, coincidentally found near the site off Roosevelt Boulevard where Giles’ remains were found in May. From there, “it just expanded,” Dirkmaat said, as coroners spoke with each other about these types of cases they were working through, and the resources he and his team could provide. Dirkmaat said he and his students have worked on cases all over Pennsylvania and in parts of New York and Ohio. “It’s a pretty big territory,” he said. “And I attribute it to the fact that we can do the forensic archaeology. We can process a scene for the police and for the coroner’s office.” The hands-on experience has given the program its good reputation, Dirkmaat said. “The students that I’ve produced are well-trained forensic anthropologists,” he said. “There are really very few, if any, programs that give as much hands-on practical experience as we do. Some of the graduate students that just recently graduated have 15 to 20 forensic cases under their belts.” Dirkmaat recalled getting a call about a plane crash in Westmoreland County the day before that year’s classes started, before he’d even met his new students. On the first day of the semester, he took the students to the scene of that crash. “The first day of classes, they were working a scene,” he said, “right off the bat.” Career opportunities Dr. Erin Chapman, forensic anthropologist with the Erie County Medical Examiner’s Office, is one of Dirkmaat’s former students. During a recent lecture at Mercyhurst, Chapman said she is assigned 40 to 50 cases each year, 60 percent of which are trauma-related. Chapman said real-world scenarios encountered at Mercyhurst make that master’s degree program in forensic anthropology stand above similar options at other schools. “I think it’s the difference between having a job and not,” she said. Mercyhurst’s program is an attractive commodity, Dirkmaat said, due to the hands-on experience his students receive in assisting with cases. The approach involves applied learning, because there’s only so much forensic anthropologists can gain from a textbook, Chapman said. Over the past five years, Dirkmaat has seen more of his students explore careers in investigation, he said. About half graduate from the Mercyhurst program and get their doctorate degrees, he said, while the other half go into investigatory positions with coroners’ and medical examiners’ offices. “There’s a lot they can do,” he said of his students. Dirkmaat envisions a day when police will be able to collect DNA from human remains at outdoor scenes with the click of a device. Although the capabilities of forensic anthropology continue to expand - almost daily - through technology and research, Dirkmaat said bone identification will continue to be the tip of the iceberg when it comes to processing a scene. “If you just say, ‘I only work with bones,’ you’ll become extinct,” he said. ?___ Glossary of terms . Forensic anthropology: The examination and excavation of human remains to assist law enforcement with identification, signs of trauma, estimated time of death and historical context of a crime scene. . Forensic taphonomy: The study of postmortem changes to human remains, including decomposition of soft tissue, animal activity, bone modification or human interference. . Forensic pathology: The examination of corpses through autopsy to determine a medical cause of death, collect medical evidence, order further laboratory tests such as X-rays, toxicology screens and samples of tissues or organs. . Total Station: A surveying instrument used to map and reconstruct accidents or crime scenes to preserve the locations of evidence and the context in which a death or accident occurred. ___ Local scenes worked by Mercyhurst team . 2010: An unmarked cemetery near site of 1800s location of Somerset Hospital, where an addition to SCI-Laurel Highlands was planned. Tribune-Democrat archives show workers realized they were uncovering rows of coffins during excavation, and officials with the Pennsylvania Department of Corrections postponed work while Mercyhurst graduate students conducted research on each coffin’s contents. The remains were later relocated to a burial place away from the construction site. . November 2011: Dirkmaat and several of his students responded to Bedford Township near the Midway Travel Plaza of the Pennsylvania Turnpike, where skeletal remains were found by hunters in a wooded area. The remains were later identified as 30-year-old Audrey Rock Phoenix, of Portland, Oregon, who was entered as an endangered missing person by the Portland Police Department six months prior. . November 2012: The discovery of human remains along the Great Allegheny Passage hiking trail in Larimer Township, Somerset County, were quickly identified by Dirkmaat and his team as 19-year-old Justine Jackson and led to the arrest of her boyfriend, Jonathan Beal. Beal eventually admitted to strangling and killing Jackson, then burying her, and was sentenced in 2013 to serve 10 to 24 years in state prison for voluntary manslaughter. . December 2015: Mercyhurst University students helped investigate the scene of a fatal fire in Shade Township, Somerset County. Investigators and Dirkmaat’s students determined that Helen Kalanish, 56, died from smoke inhalation and her death was ruled accidental. . September 2017: Human remains found along Ligonier Pike in Conemaugh Township, Somerset County; later identified as homicide victims Damian Michael Staniszewski, 19, of Duncansville, and James Edward Smith, 32, of Portage, who were both reported missing in March 2017. State police then charged two Ohio men in the murder and allege it was retaliation for allegedly stealing drugs from a “stash house” in Johnstown. Devon Lee Wyrick and Samson Ezekiel Washington are both being held without bond at the Somerset County Jail awaiting trial. . October 2018: Human remains discovered near Route 30 in Bedford County, later identified as Robert E. Cochran, 27, of Canajoharie, New York, who had gone missing in 2013. Investigators said Cochran’s cause of death and the details of why he was in the area may never be determined, but the information from his family and Dirkmaat’s team did not include evidence of anything suspicious. . May 2019: Human remains found in shallow grave near the James Wolfe Sculpture Trail in Johnstown, later determined to be those of 40-year-old Nancy Giles, a city woman who had gone missing in October. According to Cambria County Coroner Jeff Lees, Giles’ body was found “approximately two feet off the trail and two feet down,” by a man who was searching for metal objects in the area. Dental records were used to identify the remains, and, to confirm the identification, investigators used the serial number of a medical device found with the remains that matched Giles’ medical records. Lees has called Giles’ death highly suspicious, but has not released her cause or manner of death. Police are still investigating and have not yet made any arrests in the case. ___ Online: https://bit.ly/31YjAC5 https://bit.ly/2NqbvTw ___ Information from: The Tribune-Democrat, http://www.tribune-democrat.com

SOLUTION: University forensic science team reveals stories of the dead.

PROBLEM: Helicopters whirred above the turbid, red-brown flood waters searching for people to ferry back to the port city of Beira, headquarters of the huge rescue operation in Mozambique. The death toll in that country was now 242, Land and Environment Minister Celso Correia said, adding that the number of dead was rising as rescue workers found bodies that had been hidden by Cyclone Idai’s now-receding floodwaters. Correia told a news conference that around 15,000 people, many of them very ill, still needed to be rescued. “Our biggest fight is against the clock,” he said, adding that 3,000 had been rescued so far. In neighbouring Zimbabwe, the confirmed death toll jumped to 139. President Emmerson Mnangagwa, declaring two days of national mourning from Saturday, described scenes of “unmitigated despair” in Rusitu, near the border with Mozambique. In Malawi, 56 people were confirmed dead. “This is a human catastrophe of the highest order,” businessman Graham Taylor told Reuters, saying he had seen “hundreds of bodies that had been washed up by the floodwater” while trying to return home after visiting his son in Beira. “What struck me first was the number of people on the rooftops and in trees. You could hear communities shouting for help - for hours, for days,” said Taylor, who also described meeting people on the badly damaged highways heading towards the devastated areas in search of family members. “It was a humbling experience,” he said. “I saw no sign of government assistance.”  Even when people are safely out of the floods, the situation is dire. Some 30 percent of the 88 centres set up by the Mozambican government for displaced people still have no food, Environment Minister Correia said. Idai lashed Beira with winds of up to 170 km per hour (105 miles per hour) a week ago, then moved inland to Zimbabwe and Malawi, flattening buildings. The storm’s torrential rains caused the Buzi and Pungue rivers, whose mouths are in the Beira area, to burst their banks. The United Nations World Food Programme (WFP), which is coordinating food drops, said as many as 1.7 million people in Mozambique would need food aid in the next three months. The scale of the flooding is huge - the U.N. satellite agency says floodwaters covered 2,165 sq km (835 sq miles) on March 20. Some 90 percent of the city of Beira was damaged, the WFP said, while aerial assessments over the Buzi valley showed “entire villages wiped out”. Mozambique’s National Disasters Management Institute (INGC) said some 358,000 hectares (885,000 acres) of crops had been destroyed. Thirty-nine hospitals had been damaged, it said. With more rain forecast for Beira on Thursday, Christian worshippers sang hymns on an empty patch of land where a pulpit was all that remained of their Pentecostal church. “Here in Beira, all the churches have collapsed from this cyclone ... Oh my dear brothers, please pray for us,” said Pastor Luis Semente. “Only God can restore this.”   A priority for Thursday was pushing into flooded areas that had not yet been surveyed, said Connor Hartnady, leader of a South African rescue task force. The International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies (IFRC) said it was sending two emergency units to Beira that would provide drinking water for up to 15,000 people and sanitation facilities for 20,000, as well as shelter kits. “More help is needed, and we are continuing to do all we can to bring in more resources and to reach more people,” said Jamie LeSueur, the IFRC’s operations head in Mozambique. The WFP stepped up airdrops of high-energy biscuits and water purification tablets to isolated pockets of people stranded by the floodwaters. Mnangagwa said in a televised address that in Rusitu he had seen big boulders strewn over what had been a settlement, a banana market and a police post. Floods had washed away police officers and prisoners, he said. The Christian charity Tearfund said the timing of the floods was disastrous, with harvesting due to start in coming weeks. Even before the floods, 5.3 million people had been experiencing food shortages, said its Zimbabwe director, Earnest Maswera. Mozambican President Filipe Nyusi has said the eventual death toll from the cyclone and ensuing floods could be more than 1,000. Mozambique’s tiny $13 billion (£9.9 billion) economy is still recovering from a currency collapse and debt default. The cyclone knocked out Mozambican electricity exports to South Africa, exacerbating power cuts that were already straining businesses in Africa’s most industrialised economy.

SOLUTION: Aid workers rush to rescue African cyclone victims amid mounting death toll.

PROBLEM: Health Ministry spokesman Kianush Jahanpur, speaking on  state television, said the death toll had risen by 92, while the total number of cases of infection reached 77,995. However, a report by the Iranian parliament’s research centre suggested that the coronavirus tolls might be almost twice as many as those announced by the health ministry. “The assessment is that the actual mortality which has not been accounted for is 0.8 times the official figures. The number of infected cases could be 8 to 10 times the official figures,” the report said. The report said that Iran’s official coronavirus figures were only based on the number of deaths in hospitals and those who had already tested positive for the coronavirus. “To narrow the gap between the officially announced figures and the estimated figures, it is necessary to improve the laboratory capacity of the country,” it said. Iranian health ministry officials have not commented on the report, which was published online. The government is worried that measures to limit public activities could wreck an economy which has already been battered by sanctions. On Saturday, low-risk business activities resumed across the country, including many shops, factories and workshops, with the exception of Tehran. They will re-open in the capital from Saturday. Health experts have criticised easing of the limitations, warning about the new wave of the disease. Deputy Health Minister Iraj Harirchi called on people to stay at home, saying: “We are expecting the epidemic to pick up in autumn”, state TV reported. On social media, Iranians posted pictures of busy streets, packed branches of banks and crowded buses in Tehran and other cities. Iran is the Middle Eastern country worst-affected by the COVID-19 respiratory disease and has one of the world’s highest death tolls.

SOLUTION:
Iran coronavirus death toll up as official warns of autumn rise in cases.