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: But as other Democrats already in the race endorse “Medicare-for-all,” Hickenlooper told a crowd at a New Hampshire college that it was more important now to get behind the general idea rather than argue over a specific approach. “I reject the notion that it should become a litmus test of what it takes to be a good Democrat,” said Hickenlooper, who expanded Medicaid while governor and has teamed with former Gov. John Kasich, R-Ohio, on a health care overhaul. The onetime Denver mayor, who’s considered a centrist politician, said after holding a town hall that he will not decide for several more weeks whether to join the crowded 2020 contest. He took questions mostly from students and faculty on topics including student debt, the ballooning national debt and relations with American allies around the world. Hickenlooper said he was concerned that the push for “Medicare-for-all” calls for dismantling the current system when less disruptive measures may achieve universal health care. “There are so many different ways to cut the pie and work on the issue that we too often are trying to say, ‘You’re wrong, I’m right,’ and this is even within the Democrat Party,” he said. “It’s more important to be unified and say we want universal coverage. We are not going to stop until we get universal coverage.” With Sens. Kamala Harris of California and Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts already running, the challenge for Hickenlooper is showing he is liberal enough to compete. He cited liberal policies he enacted as governor dealing with methane emissions and teenage pregnancies and abortion. “In many ways, I’m a lot more progressive than a lot of these other folks,” he asserted. Hickenlooper also insisted he would have no problem going up against President Donald Trump. “I grew up the skinny kid with thick glasses and a funny last name. I’ve dealt with bullies my whole life,” he said. “The way to deal with a bully is you don’t punch back and take them head on. You take what they say to you and ... you reframe it in a way that reveals the foolishness of what they’re saying and the weakness and insecurity that they’re demonstrating.” After his New Hampshire swing, Hickenlooper is scheduled to give an address at the Global Security Conference in Munich this weekend about trade and the trans-Atlantic partnership. The trip would help burnish the former governor’s foreign policy credentials ahead of any possible presidential campaign.

SOLUTION: Ex-Colorado Gov. Hickenlooper supports universal health care.

PROBLEM: A debut crop of around 100 kilos (221 lbs) of prime cannabis bud - with a value of $2 million on the street - was harvested this month from the farm in La Florida, a middle-class Santiago neighborhood, and sent to a laboratory for processing. The project is the brainchild of a curious alliance between Rodolfo Carter, a right-wing municipal mayor with progressive tendencies, and a privately-funded foundation ran by Ana Maria Gazmuri, a 1980s TV soap star who is now an advocate for alternative “holistic” medicine. Scientists plan to extract the active ingredients from the cannabis for use in the treatment of 200 cancer patients who signed up via the local healthcare system or through the foundation. “If there is a therapeutic property to cannabis that relieves pain it would be a criminal irresponsibility as a leader not to give it to citizens who need it,” Carter said at the farm, where the strong smell of marijuana lingers and security staff keep a watchful eye. Although Chile has not followed Uruguay’s lead in legalizing marijuana, it allows the cultivation and use of the plant for medicinal purposes. Cannabis-derived treatments have been found to relieve pain and stimulate hunger in cancer patients, as well as help children with epilepsy. Demand in Chile for medicinal marijuana has far outstripped supply, Gazmuri said. Municipalities from Arica in the country’s far north to Punta Arenas in Patagonia have show interest in setting up a larger farm, she said. “We are working with around 20 local governments, looking at a large plantation to optimize resources,” she said. Besides dealing with the logistical issues of growing a crop attractive to drug traffickers and only legal under certain conditions, the project had to overcome a social stigma attached to marijuana. For some years following the 1974-1990 dictatorship of Augusto Pinochet, Chile remained an extremely conservative country, where abortion and divorce were outlawed and illicit drug use heavily punished. But left-wing governments have taken baby steps in recent years towards a more liberal path, legalizing gay and lesbian civil partnerships and proposing a loosening of abortion rules, as well as giving the nod to start up the La Florida project. “I belong to a generation that considered marijuana was linked to people who lived on the margins of the law, but it’s not like that,” said Carter, 43. “It’s a change of mentality that began with me.”

SOLUTION: Medical marijuana farm blooms in conservative Chile.

PROBLEM: While Vice President Mike Pence runs the White House coronavirus task force, his wife is leading a parallel effort to help people deal with anxiety and other unsettling emotions brought on by the pandemic. Two months into the crisis, millions of Americans are struggling to cope with the fallout, whether it’s losing loved ones, losing a job or staying at home more than they ever have. “This is something we’re all going through together, and it’s not like anything we’ve ever gone through before,” Karen Pence told The Associated Press in a recent interview. She is lead ambassador for the PREVENTS task force, an acronym for the President’s Roadmap to Empower Veterans and End the National Tragedy of Suicide. It was created in 2019 to focus on veterans’ suicides but recently launched a social media campaign called “More Than Ever Before” to help reach Americans before they get to “the end of their rope,” she said. “We want them to know there’s help out there, and there are things that we can do to prevent some of the effects that this is having on our mental health as a nation,” Mrs. Pence said. She joined the PREVENTS effort early this year, before the extent of the coronavirus threat in the U.S. became clear. A majority of Americans say they have felt at least one negative emotional reaction in the last seven days, according to a new poll  conducted by NORC at the University of Chicago for the Data Foundation. At least a third of Americans reported feeling nervous, depressed, lonely or hopeless at least one day in the past week. But taken together, 61% of Americans say they have felt at least one of those emotions at one point throughout the week. Nine percent also reported having a physical reaction, such as sweating, nausea or hyperventilating, when thinking about their experience with the pandemic on one or more days. The new poll, conducted last week, is the second wave of the COVID-19 Household Impact Survey. Thirty-eight percent of Americans say they felt lonely at least one of the last seven days. Sixteen percent said they felt that way on three or more days. And 38% said they felt hopeless about the future at least once, with 14% saying they felt that way on three or more days. Those patterns are similar for feelings of anxiety and depression. Mrs. Pence says there are four basic things people can do to help them cope with the situation, beginning with a daily “check in” with themselves to gauge how they’re feeling and then reach out to a friend or other individual if they need someone to hear them out. They should also figure out what puts them at ease, whether it’s reading, cooking or another activity, and schedule time for it. Mrs. Pence, a watercolor artist, said she’s been working on a painting of a friend’s house and is designing her family’s Christmas card. People should also talk about their struggles and successes and include children in those conversations. And if they’re concerned about themselves or someone else, they should feel comfortable calling the national suicide prevention lifeline at 1-800-273-TALK. “It’s OK to not be OK,” said Mrs. Pence. She posts tips and information about available resources on her Twitter page. Among those grappling with the new dynamics is Jody Garrison, who works from her Milwaukee home, turning old books into journals and selling them online. It’s the rare trip to the grocery store — or to the auto mechanic shop later this week to pick up her car after a repair — that brings on the anxiety. “You worry about, ‘Am I going to catch something from touching something?’ so I truly don’t go out in public much at all,” she said by telephone. Being retired helps, as Garrison had long settled into a routine. The 68-year-old plays with her grandchildren online and meets friends there, and is exercising and reading more, too. “I think what’s kept my sanity is that I’ve tried really hard to stay focused on things that kept me happy in the past to sustain the thought of being alone,” she said. “I’m trying to stay focused on the positive, and when you do that, it doesn’t seem quite so bad.” Anxious to see the U.S. economy humming again, President Donald Trump has pushed back against those who warn that coronavirus cases will spike after state lockdowns are lifted. He says more people will die from suicide and substance abuse the longer schools, businesses and workplaces remain closed and people stay at home. Experts say rates of suicide and substance abuse were rising before the pandemic, but it’s too soon to know how much they may have increased during the outbreak. Suicide prevention and mental health advocates said they welcome the PREVENTS effort but would like to see more spending on a more coordinated effort to reduce deaths caused by despair. “You don’t have to be a mental health expert to know we’re in deep trouble,” said former Rep. Patrick Kennedy, D-R.I., co-chair of a new public-private effort to respond to mental health and suicide prevention needs both during and after the coronavirus. Suicide is the 10th leading cause of death in the U.S., with 48,000 deaths reported in 2018, said Jerry Reed, who serves with Kennedy on the executive committee of the National Action Alliance for Suicide Prevention, which is separate from the virus-related initiative. Reed, a longtime suicide prevention advocate, said he’d like to see the same amount of effort that went into combating the coronavirus put into responding to mental health needs. “I like the fact that we all came together to flatten the physical curve of the virus,” Reed said. “I would suggest we all come together to flatten the mental health curve.” ___ Associated Press writers Tammy Webber in Chicago and Hannah Fingerhut in Washington contributed to this report. ___ Follow Darlene Superville on Twitter: http://www.twitter.com/dsupervilleap ___ This story has been corrected to show that Kennedy represented Rhode Island, not Massachusetts.

SOLUTION:
Karen Pence: ‘It’s OK to not be OK’ during pandemic.