TASK DEFINITION: Given a paragraph and a claim, classify it this way: If the claim contradicts the evidence present in the paragraph, classify the claim as '0'. If the claim has multiple supporting *AND* contradicting evidences, classify the claim as '1'. If the claim has supporting evidence and the paragraph is in overall favor of the claim, then classify the claim as '2'.
PROBLEM: Paragraph: There is also the revival of the humble foam roller, which experts say, like old-time push-ups, squats and planks, has never been more popular. Anita Golden, fitness manager at a Crunch gym in New York City, said she’ll be giving clients a foam roller called the GRID. “We’ve always had foam rollers in the club but now more people are using them as a way to ease post-workout muscles, prevent injuries and exercise the core,” Golden said. When it comes to big-ticket items, Colleen Logan of Icon Health and Fitness, which manufactures a number of fitness brands, said the treadmill remains the most popular gift. “Treadmills continue to lead the industry in terms of home fitness purchases,” said Logan. They account for about 57 percent of fitness purchases, while elliptical trainers and stationary bicycles are a distant second and third place at about 8 percent each. The average home treadmill costs about $700, said Logan, but the technology revolution has transformed even this stalwart at the high end. The ultimate splurge, at $4,000, she said, is the Boston Marathon Treadmill, which allows users to adjust speed in 1/10 of a mile per hour increments without touching the console. It also lets users run a virtual Boston Marathon. For people on a smaller budget, there is the iFit app that lets the iPhone capture a favorite vacation run or bike ride in Hawaii, store it in data centers all over the world which collectively are referred to as the “cloud,” and download it to an iFit-enabled treadmill at home. “You’ll view the exact route and experience the same terrain again,” Logan explained. Devices, gadgets and apps proliferate as tech-savvy fitness becomes more accessible, according to Jessica Matthews of the American Council on Exercise (ACE). “There’s a lot of interest in on-body monitoring devices as ways to motivate and track progress,” she said. “They run the gamut from basic devices to track hours, steps, and caloric expenditure to full-body tracking.”  Nike+ Sportsband has a series of small lights on the wrist band that change from red to green as the runner nears his goal, while the BodyMedia FIT Armband tracks everything from the number of calories burned to the quality and quantity of sleep. ACE also studied fitness DVDs released for the holidays. “We evaluated them for quality of instruction, safety, effectiveness and design of workout,” Matthews said. Among the best were “Amy Dixon’s Breathless Body Vol.2: The Edge.” Matthews called it a challenging cardio workout best suited to those on your list with “an established base of fitness.”  “Jessica Smith’s 10 Pounds Down Better Body Blast” also got a thumbs up for its well-rounded routine and clarity of instruction. For people seeking a mind-body approach, Matthews praised “STOTT Pilates Intense Body Blast: Pilates Interval Training: Level I,” which she said is accessible for someone new to fitness. “They do a great job queuing movements and creating flow,” she said. Richard Cotton of the American College of Sports Medicine suggests giving the fitness novice the gift of a personal trainer. “The best is human assistance,” he said. “Another way is a beginner group exercise class.”  He also suggests a gift certificate for shoes at a running store equipped with a treadmill. “You need shoes that fit your gait,” he said. “People should always get their gait analyzed.”  Golden likes to cite the law of reciprocity to the personal trainers she manages. “I always tell them to get their clients something,” she said. And what does the personal trainer want for Christmas? “I like the roller, or a new jump rope,” she said. “Fitness people aren’t hard to please. Get me a new yoga mat and I’m happy.” Claim: Holiday fitness gifts trend from high-tech to basic.

SOLUTION: 2

PROBLEM: Paragraph: "At this year’s March for Life -- the annual anti-abortion rally in Washington -- Sen. Joni Ernst, R-Iowa, decried a federal rule implemented in the waning days of President Barack Obama's administration. Ernst told the crowd on Jan. 27, 2017, that she would ""introduce a bill Monday to stop what some have referred to as ‘President Obama’s last gift to Planned Parenthood.’ "" Ernst referred to Title X of the United States Public Health Service Act, which covers family planning. She said that her effort, in cooperation with Rep. Diane Black, R-Tenn., ""would scrap the Obama administration’s 11th-hour rule that entrenches federal family planning funding for Planned Parenthood."" We wondered if Ernst had accurately described the Obama administration’s action. Our conclusion: Ernst was essentially on target. About Title X Title X, as the federal rule notes, is the only federal program focused solely on providing family planning and related preventive services. In 2015, the rule says, more than 4 million individuals received services through more than 3,900 Title X-funded health centers. Planned Parenthood says its affiliates served approximately 1.5 million patients that year under Title X, about one-third of the federal program’s yearly total. Planned Parenthood has drawn criticism from anti-abortion advocates because in addition to providing uncontroversial women’s health services, the group also performs abortions. By law, abortions performed by Planned Parenthood are paid for by private money, not federal dollars. But anti-abortion advocates argue that money is fungible and that the federal government is effectively supporting a major provider of abortions. Supporters of Planned Parenthood counter that the money flows are separated and that barring federal dollars from being spent on Planned Parenthood would have dire negative consequences for women’s health, especially among poor Americans. The Obama administration rule On Sept. 7, 2016, the Department of Health and Human Services announced a ""notice of proposed rulemaking"" -- the first step in formulating a new federal rule. The proposed rule would make clear that the decision to fund an organization under Title X cannot be based on ""reasons other than its ability to provide Title X services."" The effect would be that the fact of providing abortion services couldn’t be used against a group that seeks Title X funding. After the notice of proposed rulemaking was issued, the rule went through a series of required steps, including a public comment period. Ultimately, HHS acted to finalize the rule while the Obama administration was still in charge, but after Donald Trump had won the 2016 presidential election. HHS made the rule effective Jan. 18. Though the proposal was framed broadly, it was widely perceived as having a significant impact on Planned Parenthood. Both sides essentially agreed on that. After the notice of proposed rulemaking, Ernst and other lawmakers immediately expressed concern to HHS about its impact on Planned Parenthood. And after the rule was finalized, Planned Parenthood president Cecile Richards said in a statement that ""President Obama has cemented his legacy as a champion for women's health. This rule protects birth control, cancer screenings, (sexually-transmitted infection) testing and treatment and other health care for millions of people."" Evaluating Ernst’s description So how well does Ernst’s characterization stack up? We’ll take her statement phrase by phrase. • ""11th-hour rule."" While all relevant procedures were followed in the formulation of the rule, the final rule did materialize quicker than many federal rules do, experts said. ""The rule was proposed in September and finalized in December,"" said Columbia Law School professor Gillian Metzger. ""In practice, that's a pretty fast turnaround."" And of course, by making the effective date Jan. 18, 2017, it took effect in the final 48 hours of the Obama administration. All told, Ernst has a strong case for calling it an ""11th-hour"" rule. • ""Entrenches federal family planning funding."" Experts told PolitiFact that the Obama rulemaking did make the policy harder to overturn, although either Congress or Trump’s HHS department could take steps to do so. ""I would not quibble about the use of ‘entrench’ in this context,"" said Boston University law professor Gary S. Lawson. ""Rules are not that easy to change. There are degrees of entrenchment, of course, depending on the procedures required for change, but if someone wants to apply the term to a substantive agency rule, I would let them do it."" Metzger agreed. ""As a practical matter, reversing a rule takes resources and time by the agency, and there would likely be a court challenge and the possibility that a court would repeal the reversal as arbitrary."" • ""For Planned Parenthood."" As we noted earlier, both sides in the abortion debate publicly linked the rule to Planned Parenthood. That said, the rule did not exclusively target Planned Parenthood. The rule itself does not mention the organization by name, although the accompanying material does mention the group specifically in a question-and-answer section summarizing public comments. ""While Planned Parenthood might be one of the affected applicants, the rule is actually written in a neutral manner,"" said Jeffrey S. Lubbers, an American University law professor. Our ruling Ernst said the Obama administration issued an ""11th-hour rule that entrenches federal family planning funding for Planned Parenthood."" It may be a slight exaggeration to use the word ""entrench,"" since there are ways to overturn the rule within a matter of months, and it should be noted that the rule would affect a variety of other health care providers, not just Planned Parenthood, Still, it’s hard to argue that this was not an 11th-hour rule, and in general we find that Ernst has characterized pretty accurately what the Obama administration did." Claim: "The Obama administration issued an ""11th-hour rule that entrenches federal family planning funding for Planned Parenthood."

SOLUTION: 2

PROBLEM: Paragraph: There was no discussion of costs. Were people to begin taking B vitamins in the quantities necessary to show improvement along the lines of what has been seen in some of the studies mentioned, B vitamins could become a lifelong treatment with significant cumulative costs. The slant of the story was to question the wisdom in augmenting vitamin B intake in light of the studies failing to demonstrate benefit. The story itself, however, reported on several pieces of evidence over time rather than reporting on the results of a specific study or studies. Where it did provide numbers on benefits, it did so in a clear and cautious way. For example, it noted “a recent study in which brain atrophy (or shrinkage, which occurs in older people who are losing brain function) slowed by 30% in elderly patients with both high homocysteine levels and mild cognitive impairment who took a B vitamin pill daily for two years. Brain shrinkage occurred at a rate of about 0.75% in the people taking B vitamins in the study, compared with a rate of 1.1% per year in a group that took a placebo.” By including the actual percentages for people in both groups, the story shows the reader that the shrinkage was not dramatic to begin with and that the difference between the two groups could also be described as a 0.26 percentage point difference. The story did include information about possible side effects and harms associated with excessive consumption of B vitamins. The story provided a reasonable description of several studies in which outcomes were not changed with vitamin B supplementation. There was a useful quote by one of the researches indicating that only a minority of studies showed any indication of benefit from increasing vitamin B intake. We wish it had taken a little more care in making clear distinctions between the different populations being studied. In some cases, the studies were focused on anyone of advanced age, while in others they were focused specifically on Alzheimer’s patients, but there was no discussion in the story about whether these differences may also have accounted for the different findings among the studies. The story did not engage in disease mongering. The story detailed several studies of the relation between the B vitamins and cognitive impairment; it included quotes from two researchers  (Haan and Miller) in the field who are at different institutions but have several studies that they have worked on and published together. There was no discussion of how the fortification of common foods in the supply chain, such as grains, flour, cereal, energy bars and drinks, has affected the levels of B vitamin. There was also no mention of other specific therapies to stop cognitive decline. The story described the urge to rush out and purchase B vitamins, which is suggestive of their ready availability. The story neglected to mention that many foods are already fortified with B vitamins, which may already cover the recommended intake levels for many readers. This story provided a nice overview of what is known about B vitamins in relation to age- and disease- related cognitive decline. The story does not appear to rely solely on a news release. It is not clear why this information about the long-term research interest of two local scientists is news right now, but it is an interesting piece nonetheless. Claim: Vitamin B and its role in improving memory

SOLUTION:
2