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.

Q: Researchers, who studied about 1,000 teens who said they wanted to quit smoking, wrote in the journal Pediatrics that close to 11 percent of those who got counseling for three months had quit smoking, compared to six percent of those who only received educational pamphlets. “A school nurse-delivered smoking-cessation intervention proved feasible and effective in improving short-term abstinence among adolescent boys and short-term reductions in smoking amount and frequency in both genders,” wrote study author Lori Pbert of the University of Massachusetts Medical School in Worcester. But a year after the sessions, there was no difference in smoking rates based on what kind of assistance teens had gotten from their nurses. In addition, fewer than one in five teens said they hadn’t smoked recently. “It’s nice that there was some effect at three months, what we really care about is sustained cessation,” said Michael Siegel, who studies tobacco control at the Boston University School of Public health but wasn’t involved in the study. “The overwhelming majority of these kids are not quitting.”   In the 35 Massachusetts schools covered in the study, half the nurses were trained to give their students one-on-one counseling based around goal setting and problem solving, including making a plan to quit and then preventing relapses. The other nurses gave students information pamphlets on quitting smoking and volunteered to answer any questions they had about the process. Both groups of nurses saw their students at four weekly sessions, ranging from 10 to 30 minutes. The counseling intervention appeared to especially help boys in the short run. Those who had made goals and tracked progress with the nurses were three times more likely to say they had stopped smoking than boys in the “control” group. But between 13 and 17 percent of both boys and girls reported they had stopped lighting up a year later, regardless of whether or not they had received counseling. Other smoking cessation experts noted that relapsing into smoking is the biggest hurdle at any age, and that teens were especially likely to do so. But they added that the more options teens had for help, the better. SOURCE: bit.ly/o4z0xc

A: Study: can school nurses help teens quit smoking?.
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Q: On 26 January 2018, a Connecticut woman posted video to her Facebook page that was apparently video from a hidden camera showing California high school teacher Gregory Salcido talking pejoratively about the U.S. military:  Salcido is both a long-time teacher at El Rancho High School and a city councilman in Pico Rivera, a working-class city of roughly 63,000 in southeast Los Angeles County. When we contacted him, he declined to comment. In the videos, which were secretly recorded by senior Victor Quinonez, Salcido’s comments were often met with students’ laughter. He criticizes military recruitment on the high school’s campus and derides the glorification of the military, saying statements made by United States President Donald Trump about the its greatness are overblown. In the quote that drew the most outrage, Salcido said: We got all our freaking night vision goggles, all that kind of stuff, and we can’t freaking control these dudes wearing freaking robes and chanclas. Because we got a bunch of dumb shits over there. Think about the people who you know who are over there, your freaking stupid Uncle Louie or whoever, they’re dumb shits. They’re not like high-level thinkers, they’re not academic people, they’re not intellectual people. They’re the freaking lowest of our low. Not morally. I’m not saying they make bad moral decisions. They’re not talented people. […] How come when you go to like the Rose Bowl, Rose Parade, Dodger opening day, why after the national anthem do we have a killing machine fly over the freaking stadium? You know the stealth bomber’s out there and everyone’s like, “Yeah that’s what we kill people with!” Like why would that be something we celebrate? I don’t get it. Anyway, you better not freaking go. The comments drew a rather intense round of what has become a familiar pattern of viral Internet outrage and backlash. In response to the controversy, Salcido has been officially admonished by the Pico Rivera City Council and stripped of his committee assignments. He has been placed on leave by the El Rancho Unified School District while the incident is under scrutiny. Even the United States Department of Defense has weighed in, calling Salcido’s comments “uninformed.” Salcido told the Los Angeles Times he was receiving “vulgar and violent threats” directed against himself and his family. Pico Rivera is a tight-knit, primarily Latino suburb that has a strong tradition of honoring veterans and a large military-serving community, with two Veterans of Foreign Wars posts and two American Legion auxiliaries, said Mayor Gustavo Camacho. Speaking by phone, Camacho told us: I respect the First Amendment and freedom of speech and Mr. Salcido is entitled to his freedom of speech. But I want to remind him that the reason he has that freedom is because of the men and women who lost their lives in order for us to have that freedom of speech. Many folks can listen to an audio and interpret it as they see fit. If you have an opinion about recruitment or a particular college recruiter, why don’t we tell our kids, “These are our options. I think this is a better option and let me help you get there,” rather than saying they’re dumb shits. I and my fellow council members strongly disagree with Mr. Salcido’s statements and viewpoints. Frankly we denounce those statements. But Trinity College sociology professor and U.S. Army veteran Johnny Eric Williams said although Salcido’s comments were delivered clumsily, the teacher shouldn’t be formally punished for making them, calling the response troubling and overblown. Williams himself was the subject of a separate Internet outrage storm in June 2017, when a post on his personal Facebook page intended to criticize structural racism and white supremacy went viral after right-wing web sites interpreted it as racist toward white people. Williams, who is African-American, received death threats and told us that he continues to get them to this day. He added: The classroom is your social space where people can say things they wouldn’t say normally out of the classroom setting so they can seriously interrogate it. It sounds like he was trying to provoke the kids to think about why a student would wear a Marines shirt without thinking about what the Marines do. Clearly it didn’t come across well, but it’s a classroom setting. He’s not doing a major speech, he’s trying to get kids to think about what the role of the military is. It’s not simply to protect freedom, as they say generically. The question is, freedom to do what and whose freedoms? That’s the question that should be asked. Why would a kid record a teacher like that in the first place without him knowing? I think that’s a level of cowardice and of unwillingness to participate that is unfathomable to me. It was done with malice. All education is about integrating people into what it means to be an American. One of the most important things is to be someone who questions, who thinks critically and dissents. That’s the most patriotic thing someone can do. Williams told us that as a veteran, he found Salcido’s comments about the intelligence of service members to be unfounded and an excellent example of intellectual elitism: What happens is the U.S. military is the last option for folks in rural and poverty-stricken areas. There’s no other opportunity for them. But the idea that these folks are not smart, I don’t agree with that at all. That’s how I got through college. I had to do it because I didn’t have money. That’s why you have a voluntary army, because these people have nothing else they can do. Then they go and die while the kids with money go to college and don’t even think about the fact that we’re in eternal war. Nevertheless, Williams cautioned that lacking the freedom to criticize the military is akin to fascism. He added: At this historical moment in time, people are more interested in how something is said, rather than what is said and what it means. Quinonez told local news station KTLA he recorded Salcido because he wants to join the Marine Corps and was tired of the teacher’s negative commentary on the military. Pico Rivera is a thriving community with a growing economy, but it’s no stranger to cut-throat politics and controversy — and neither is Salcido. However, much of the controversy in the city’s past has been contained to the local level. In 2010, he ignited debate when he took the helm in the city’s rotating mayoral position, then removed a Bible from the Council chamber’s dais and put a halt to invocation, saying it was unconstitutional. He was also placed on administrative leave by the school district that year after admonishing a student to be quiet by saying, “Shut up, Kelly, before I kill you.” Salcido said at the time the comment was purposefully over-the-top and intended in jest. The child’s parent, Gerald Kelly, said he was angry because Salcido was talking about marriage equality for LGBTQ people, criticizing organized religion, and (again) speaking critically of the military in class: This is the mayor and he’s out here destroying these kids’ minds. Why allow him to lead this city when he stands for non-religious beliefs and that it’s OK to be against the Bible, [says it’s OK to be] homosexual and defames people in the military? Salcido has clashed with his peers on the city council in the past as well, often as their vocal critic amid allegations of public corruption. Although Salcido has faced widespread criticism for his remarks, he has historically been a popular teacher with students. Some of his current and former students have come to his defense, averring that the teacher also promised to fully support a student if he decided to join the military in spite of Salcido’s discouragement. (This purported gesture of reassurance was not shown in the videos.) More generally, students have described Salcido as “real,” “inspiring” and “loved.” One of Salcido’s current students, a senior at El Rancho High School, spoke to us anonymously. (We have verified the student’s identity.) That student described Salcido as a teacher who “cares greatly about his students’ success” but deliberately provokes debate in his classes and encourages his students to have “deep conversations.” The student also told us that Salcido “sometimes has a very sarcastic sense of humor, and sometimes it may be taken the wrong way,” but offered the opinion that the teacher was expressing his “genuine beliefs” in the video clips: Not a lot of teachers can keep their students captivated as much as he can. He really is one of a kind. He likes to get us thinking and he genuinely cares about what the students think… He’s one of those guys that you would be happy to see every day and a person to always make you laugh. On 20 March 2018, the El Rancho Unified School District Board voted to terminate Salcido’s employment as a teacher at El Rancho High School. As reported by the Whittier Daily News, Salcido has one month in which he can appeal the decision, during which time he will remain on unpaid leave.

A: "California schoolteacher Gregory Salcido called members of the United States military ""the lowest of our low"" during a classroom discussion."
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Q: "Hospital officials from across Virginia flocked to Richmond last week to air concerns about tightening revenues at their facilities. Among them was Mary Mannix, president and CEO of Augusta Health, a rural hospital in Fishersville about 90 miles west of Richmond. Mannix said her facility is on solid financial footing but that many other rural hospitals are not. ""Just about half of rural hospitals operate in the red in Virginia,"" Mannix said at a news conference organized by the Virginia Hospital and Healthcare Association, a lobbying group. ""They operate at a loss."" The struggles of rural hospitals across the nation have been well reported in recent years. Facing declining population bases and tightening Medicaid reimbursements, many have struggled to remain open and some have shut down, including Lee Regional Medical Center in Southwest Virginia in 2013. Many hospital officials hoped the General Assembly would ease the stress by expanding the state’s Medicaid program to reduce the medically uninsured. Under provisions of the Affordable Care Act, or Obamacare, the federal government would pay all of the costs of expanding the program through 2017 and at least 90 percent in the future. Republican lawmakers have blocked the expansion and say Uncle Sam can’t be trusted to pay his promised share. The debate is sure to continue when the General Assembly convenes in January. The hospital association says it will lobby lawmakers to find solutions to financial problems at hospitals -- although what solutions, the group isn’t saying. In the past, the association has backed Medicaid expansion. So we wondered whether Mannix was correct in saying ""just about half"" of Virginia’s rural hospitals are running in the red. We reached out to Lisa Schwenk, a spokeswoman for Augusta Health, to find the source for Mannix’s statistic. Schwenk referred us to Julian Walker, the spokesman for the Virginia Hospital and Healthcare Association. Walker sent us a hospital association chart showing that 17 of 37 rural hospitals in Virginia -- or 46 percent --  had operating losses in 2013, the latest year data are available. The chart listed basic ""acute care hospitals"" - facilities  where people get care for illnesses and injuries. It does not include psychiatric, rehabilitative or other specialized medical centers. The underlying information for the hospital association chart comes from Virginia Health Information, an independent, non-profit group that contracts with the Virginia Department of Health to provide information on the cost and quality of health care in the state. The group releases an annual report looking at the operating margins of all hospitals around the state. Michael Lundberg, executive director at Virginia Health Information, sent us a link to the group’s database showing the fiscal 2013 financial results for the hospitals. It lists 36 rural hospitals, 17 of which had a negative operating margin. That comes to 47 percent. In this database, the hospitals were allowed to determine for themselves whether they should be classified as rural or urban. Lundberg also sent us a second batch of data in which hospitals were sorted as rural or urban based on definitions from the federal Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services. This grouping listed 25 rural hospitals in 2013, 16 of which ran in the red. That comes to 64 percent. By comparison, Lundberg’s figures show that of the 60 urban hospitals in Virginia under the federal definition, 13 had operating losses. That means nearly 22 percent of urban hospitals in the commonwealth had an operating loss in 2013. Our ruling Mannix said about half of the rural hospitals in Virginia are operating at a loss. Figures from the group that tracks hospital finances back her claim and suggest, if anything, her estimate is on the low end."

A:
Just about half of rural hospitals operate in the red in Virginia. They operate at a loss.
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