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 coronavirus, which emerged in China late last year, has decimated global markets as it quickly moves around the world. It appeared poised for a spike in the United States, in part because of more testing to confirm cases. Florida late Sunday declared a public health emergency as it confirmed its first two cases. Trump administration officials worked Sunday to soothe nerves and calm fears that a global recession was looming, arguing that the public and media were over-reacting and saying that stocks would bounce back because the American economy was fundamentally strong. The total number of confirmed cases in the United States is more than 75 with two reported deaths, both in Washington state. Globally there have been more than 87,000 cases and nearly 3,000 deaths in 60 countries, according to the World Health Organization. In the United States, a cluster of cases is centered on a nursing home near Seattle. The Seattle and King County public health department confirmed late Sunday that a man in his 70s who was a resident of the LifeCare long-term care facility in Kirkland and had coronavirus had died the day before. On Saturday, the department had reported the first death of a coronavirus patient in the United States, a man in his 50s who was living in Kirkland - the same city where the nursing home is located. Six of the 10 confirmed coronavirus cases in Washington state have been residents or workers at LifeCare. State officials said an additional 27 residents of the nursing home and 25 staff members were reporting symptoms of the virus, which can be similar to that of the common flu. New York Governor Andrew Cuomo confirmed on Twitter his state’s first coronavirus case, a woman in her 30s who caught the virus during a recent trip to Iran and was now in home quarantine. Cuomo did not say where the woman lived, but the New York Times reported she was in the Manhattan borough of New York City, citing state officials. “The patient has respiratory symptoms, but is not in serious condition and has been in a controlled situation since arriving in New York,” Cuomo said. Stock markets plunged last week, with an index of global stocks setting its largest weekly fall since the 2008 financial crisis, and more than $5 trillion wiped off the value of stocks worldwide. A key energy conference in Houston that brings together oil ministers and energy firms was canceled on Sunday with the organizers of CERAWeek noting that border health checks were becoming more restrictive and companies had begun barring non-essential travel to protect workers. A world economy conference with Pope Francis due to take place in Italy later this month was also canceled. Trump said on Sunday that travelers to the United States from countries at high risk of coronavirus would be screened before boarding and on arrival, without specifying which countries. Delta Air Lines Inc said on Sunday it was suspending until May flights to Milan in northern Italy, where most of that country’s coronavirus cases have been reported. Flights will continue to Rome. American Airlines Group Inc announced a similar move late on Saturday. The United States has 75,000 test kits for coronavirus and will expand that number “radically” in coming weeks, U.S. Health and Human Services Secretary Alex Azar told ABC’s “This Week” on Sunday. Vice President Mike Pence, appointed last week to run the White House’s coronavirus response, said the government had contracted 3M Co to produce an extra 35 million respiratory masks a month. He urged Americans not to buy the masks, which he said were only needed by healthcare workers. Honeywell International Inc is the other major U.S. mask producer. He also told Fox News that clinical trials of a coronavirus vaccine would start in six weeks but that a vaccine would likely not be available this season. Democrats, who will challenge Trump for the presidency in the Nov. 3 election, have criticized his administration for downplaying the crisis and not preparing for the disease to spread in the United States. Pence said Americans should brace for more cases but that the “vast majority” of those who contracted the disease would recover. “Other than in areas where there are individuals that have been infected with the coronavirus, people need to understand that for the average American, the risk does remain low. We’re ready,” Pence told NBC’s “Meet the Press.”

SOLUTION: Washington state confirms second U.S. coronavirus death; New York reports first case.

PROBLEM: On June 21 2020, the Facebook page “The Runic Witch” shared the following meme, which described a garden in England “dedicated entirely to plants that … can kill you”:At the bottom of the meme was a photograph of a black gate, the archway of which read “The Poison Garden.” Both doors featured a skull and crossbones symbol and the words “these plants can kill.” Text at the top read:There’s a garden in England dedicated entirely to plants that are deadly and can kill you. It’s the most dangerous garden in the world. It holds over 100 killers [such as hemlock], strychnine, and nightshade.The Alnwick Garden is a “complex of formal gardens” not far from the Scottish border. It contains a number of sub-sections, including a massive treehouse, a cherry orchard, a bamboo labyrinth, and water features:Number nine on the above “Map Key” is marked to the left of the center fountain, and a rendering of the iron gates seen in the meme is visible.The Poison Garden was added in 2005, and a page on the Garden’s visitor site says of the deadlier plant section:The Alnwick Garden plays host to the small but deadly Poison Garden—filled exclusively with around 100 toxic, intoxicating, and narcotic plants. The boundaries of the Poison Garden are kept behind black iron gates, only open on guided tours.Visitors are strictly prohibited from smelling, touching, or tasting any plants, although some people still occasionally faint from inhaling toxic fumes while walking in the garden.An archived version of the page shed a bit more light onto the garden’s creation:It’s not often that the Home Office becomes involved with plants in the setting of a public garden, but in this instance a number of the ‘inmates’ have to have their very own license in order to be there at all.Many of the plants are already well-known for their medicinal properties, but as its creator, the Duchess of Northumberland said:‘I wondered why so many gardens around the world focused on the healing power of plants rather than their ability to kill… I felt that most children I knew would be more interested in hearing how a plant killed, how long it would take you to die if you ate it and how gruesome and painful the death might be.’Another since updated section, titled “Intoxicating inhabitants,” described some of the plants growing in the garden as the ones mentioned in the meme:There are over 100 plants of varying deadliness grown in the Poison Garden. Some of the plants are beautiful despite being deadly, and other look so harmless it is hard to imagine their dangerous, even fatal, qualities.Nux vomica’s Latin name implies much, but it perhaps rings more bells as strychnine. Interestingly, hemlock, a poison in its own right, can be used as an antidote to Strychnine, but don’t tell Socrates, who was sent to his death with a cup of hemlock.Those of a certain age will be familiar with Castor Oil, which is made from the plant Ricinus communis, but a single seed from the same plant will kill an adult in the most horrible way. Ricin causes nausea, severe vomiting, convulsions and subsequent disintegration of the kidneys, liver and spleen…In 2014, Smithsonian Magazine profiled the Poison Garden and spoke to Jane Percy, the Duchess of Northumberland about the macabre project’s inspiration:The duchess thought she might want to include an apothecary garden, but a trip to Italy set her on a slightly different course. After visiting the infamous Medici poison garden, the duchess became enthralled with the idea of creating a garden of plants that could kill instead of heal. Another trip—this one to the archeological site of the largest hospital in medieval Scotland, where the duchess learned about soporific sponges soaked in henbane, opium and hemlock used to anesthetize amputees during 15th-century surgeries—reinforced her interest in creating a garden of lethal plants.“I thought, ‘This is a way to interest children,'” she says. “Children don’t care that aspirin comes from a bark of a tree. What’s really interesting is to know how a plant kills you, and how the patient dies, and what you feel like before you die.”[…]“What’s extraordinary about the plants is that it’s the most common ones that people don’t know are killers,” the duchess says. Visitors are often surprised to learn that the laurel hedge, nearly ubiquitous in English gardens, can be highly toxic. But some visitors have had experience with laurel’s sinister side—the duchess has heard a few talk about how, after loading up their cars with pruned laurel leaves to take to the dump, drivers have fallen asleep behind the wheel of their car from the toxic fumes the branches emit.In the meme, plants in the nightshade family (which also contains potatoes, tomatoes, and eggplant) were mentioned. In the article, a more specific explanation appeared alongside a detail about the garden’s other interesting inhabitants:As part of the Poison Garden’s educational mission, the duchess grows a variety of drugs, from cannabis to cocaine (derived from the leaves of the coca plant), which she and garden guides use as a jumping-off point for drug education. “It’s a way of educating children without having them realize they’re being educated,” she says.Other poisonous plants might be less well-known to visitors, but are no less potent. One of the duchess’s favorite plants is Brugmansia, or angel’s trumpet, a member of the Solanaceae family (which includes deadly nightshade) that grows in the wild in South America. “It’s an amazing aphrodisiac before it kills you,” she says, explaining that Victorian ladies would often keep a flower from the plant on their card tables and add small amounts of its pollen to their tea to incite an LSD-like trip. “[Angel’s trumpet] is an amazing way to die because it’s quite pain-free,” the duchess says. “A great killer is usually an incredible aphrodisiac.”As such, the “Poison Garden” meme was both popular and largely accurate. The Poison Garden is a sub-attraction as part of the larger Alnwick Garden, and it is grown behind the depicted, imposing iron gates. Among the deadly plants in it are hemlock, Nux vomica (strychnine), and Ricinus communis (ricin).Comments

SOLUTION: There's a garden in England dedicated entirely to plants that are deadly and can kill you. It's the most dangerous garden in the world. It holds over 100 killers [such as hemlock], strychnine, and nightshade.

PROBLEM: "At a minimum, the reporter could have found out how much the master used in the study typically charges and how much the DVD costs. Still, unlike most of the stories, this reporter did write, ""Dr. Shmerling said that though tai chi is inexpensive compared with other treatments, some patients would reject such an alternative therapy."" The story presents the evidence in relative terms. It would have been nice to see the absolute numbers. Still, it’s easy to calculate roughly what one third of 33 would be and one sixth would be. Essentially about 11 people stopped taking drugs after tai chi, and 5 or 6 stopped using other therapies. That’s not a huge difference, but, because there was any improvement, the researchers and the journal were understandably curious and hoping the study might spark more research. A big point of the story is that tai chi would be a much less onerous therapy with no harmful side effects. It is difficult to imagine that twice-weekly tai chi, like any other form of moderate exercise, would be harmful, but, at a minimum, the story could have reported upon the study’s adverse events registry. The journal article on which the story is based clearly discussed this. The story makes it clear early that the study is small and that more research would be needed in order to recommend tai chi as a therapy. There is no disease mongering and the description of the syndrome is the best of the five stories we reviewed. Most of the quotes in the story are from people not affiliated with the study. The story talks about how the study compared different alternatives, and it mentions, at least in passing, several other therapies. The story makes it clear that there are multiple versions of tai chi. It could have been more clear about how widely available it might be, especially in sparsely populated areas. The story says, ""Recent studies have suggested that tai chi, with its slow exercises, breathing and meditation, could benefit patients with other chronic conditions, including arthritis. But not all of these reports have been conclusive, and tai chi is hard to study because there are many styles and approaches."" This is all important context, succinctly presented. This story shows that you can pull together a lot of information and still keep the story tight. The story is very well reported and goes well beyond the original study, the editorial and any supporting materials. We were unable to locate a press release about the study."

SOLUTION:
Tai Chi Reported to Ease Fibromyalgia