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.
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Question: Dr. Ann McKee, director of Boston University’s CTE Center, stressed she could not “connect the dots” between the brain disease chronic traumatic encephalopathy and the behavior of the 27-year-old who hanged himself in April while serving life in prison for murder. But McKee said CTE had significantly impacted key parts of Hernandez’s brain, including the hippocampus — which is associated with memory — and the frontal lobe, which is involved in impulse control, judgment and behavior. “We can say collectively, in our collective experience, that individuals with CTE — and CTE of this severity — have difficulty with impulse control, decision-making, inhibition of impulses or aggression, often emotional volatility and rage behaviors,” said McKee, who has studied hundreds of brains from football players, college athletes and even younger players, donated after their deaths. Hernandez hanged himself in prison days after he was acquitted in the 2012 drive-by shootings of two men in Boston and just hours before his former teammates visited the White House to celebrate their latest Super Bowl victory. Prosecutors contended he gunned the two men down after one accidentally spilled a drink on him in a nightclub — and then got a tattoo of a handgun and the words “God Forgives” to commemorate the crime. He had been serving a life sentence without parole in the 2013 killing of semi-professional football player Odin Lloyd when he killed himself. Hernandez, who said he was innocent, did not raise CTE in his defense at either trial. CTE, which can only be diagnosed in an autopsy, has been found in former members of the military, football players and boxers and others who suffered repeated head trauma. BU researchers confirmed in September that Hernandez was diagnosed with Stage 3, out of 4, of the disease. But McKee had not publicly discussed her findings until a conference at the university on Thursday. After Hernandez’s CTE diagnosis, his attorneys filed a lawsuit against the NFL and football helmet maker Riddell, accusing them of failing to warn Hernandez about the dangers of football. The lawsuit, which seeks damages for Hernandez’s young daughter, said he experienced a “chaotic and horrendous existence” because of his disease. While the outside of Hernandez’s brain appeared normal, the inside was riddled with CTE, said McKee, who showed images of Hernandez’s brain next to those of a typical 27-year-old. In Hernandez’s brain, there was evidence of previous small hemorrhages, which is associated with head impacts, she said. Other parts, like the hippocampus, had begun to shrink and large holes were found in his brain’s membrane, McKee said. Before Hernandez, the youngest brain they’ve examined that showed such severe CTE damage was 46 years old, McKee said. “These are very unusual findings to see in an individual of this age,” McKee said. “We’ve never seen this in our 468 brains, except in individuals some 20 years older,” she said. Hernandez inherited a genetic profile that may have made him more susceptible to the disease, McKee said. ___ Follow Alanna Durkin Richer @aedurkinricher . Read more of her work here .

Answer: Doctor: Hernandez’s brain was severely damaged by disease.


Question: The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention on Wednesday posted data showing nearly 68,000 drug overdose deaths were reported last year. The number may go up as more investigations are completed, but the agency expects the tally will end up below 69,000. Overdose deaths had been climbing each year since 1990, topping 70,000 in 2017. The numbers were celebrated by the U.S. secretary of health and human services. “Lives are being saved, and we’re beginning to win the fight against this crisis,” Alex Azar wrote in a tweet. But the overdose death rate is still about seven times higher than it was a generation ago. “We’re still in a pretty sad situation that we need to address,” said Rebecca Haffajee, a University of Michigan researcher. Researchers do not believe this is the start of a dramatic decline. Data from the first months of this year likely will show that the decrease is not gaining steam, said Farida Ahmad of the CDC’s National Center for Health Statistics. The improvement was driven by a drop in deaths from heroin and prescription painkillers. Those falls were offset somewhat by continuing growth in deaths involving a different opioid, fentanyl, as well as other drugs such cocaine and methamphetamines. Overdose deaths often involve more than one drug. The improvement is not uniform: Some states seem to be making dramatic progress, while deaths continue to rise in others. The preliminary CDC data suggested deaths last year were down by as many as 1,000 or more in Ohio and Pennsylvania — each seeing declines of about 20%. Meanwhile, deaths increased by about 17% in Missouri, which had more than 200 additional deaths. It can take months for authorities to complete toxicology tests and other elements of a death investigation involving drugs. And some states report faster than others. The CDC is expected to report more complete data later this year. The current overdose epidemic has killed more people than any other in U.S. history, and it had been on a soaring trajectory. From 2014 to 2017, overdose deaths jumped by 5,000 or more each year. Experts trace the epidemic’s origins to 1995 and the marketing of the prescription painkiller OxyContin. It was meant be safer and more effective than other prescription opioids, but some patients got hooked and found they could crush the tablets and snort or inject them to get high. Gradually, many turned to cheaper street drugs such as heroin and fentanyl. In 2015, heroin began causing more deaths than prescription painkillers or other drugs. In 2016, fentanyl and its close cousins became the biggest drug killer, and in 2018 they were involved in about 46% of the reported overdose deaths, according to the preliminary CDC data. Strategies to reduce drug overdose deaths have included tougher policing, treatment program expansions, policies to limit opioid painkiller prescriptions and wider distribution of the overdose-reversing drug naloxone. Haffajee and other researchers are trying to figure out what measures are most responsible for the slight improvement. “It’s complicated because there are so many policies going on, and as an evaluator it’s very hard to separate them out and determine which is working,” she said. Valerie Hardcastle, a Northern Kentucky University administrator who oversees research and other work on local health issues, has seen the overdose epidemic play out in her region, near Cincinnati. She believes a major factor is Narcan, a nasal spray version of naloxone, that has been widely distributed through the efforts of philanthropists and local, state, and federal officials. “It’s fantastic that we have fewer deaths, don’t get me wrong,” she said. “But I’m not sure it’s an indication that the opioid problem per se is diminishing. It’s just that we have greater availability of the drugs that will keep us alive.” ___ The Associated Press Health and Science Department receives support from the Howard Hughes Medical Institute’s Department of Science Education. The AP is solely responsible for all content. ___ This story has been corrected to show Ahmad’s first name is Farida, not Farid.

Answer: Number of US overdose deaths appears to be falling.


Question: New Jersey’s governor followed four other states - California, New York, Illinois and Connecticut - that have imposed unprecedented restrictions to slow the spread of infections, which have risen exponentially. Governors in other states urged citizens to avoid large gatherings, even if restrictions were not in place. “It’s like we are all lost in a movie that we can’t relate to in any way,” West Virginia Governor Jim Justice said, as he urged residents of his state to take the threat more seriously. At least 23,941 cases of the novel coronavirus have been reported in the United States and 306 people have died from the COVID-19 disease as of Saturday evening, according to a Reuters tally of state and local government websites. In Washington, Republican and Democratic leaders appeared to be nearing a deal to pump more than $1 trillion into the economy, adding to the hundreds of billions of dollars in fiscal and monetary stimulus that has already been deployed to prop up the world’s largest economy. “I think we’re clearly going to get there,” said Senate Republican Leader Mitch McConnell, who scheduled a vote for Monday. Hard-hit airlines are pressing for $29 billion in cash, promising in return not to furlough employees before September. But lawmakers said they were inclined to offer loans instead. Two members of the U.S. House of Representatives have tested positive, and U.S. Vice President Mike Pence and his wife tested negative after an unidentified aide was diagnosed with the virus. Pence staffers said the aide had mild symptoms and had not had close contact with Pence or President Donald Trump. Trump tested negative for the virus last week, according to his doctor. Graphic: Tracking the spread of the global coronavirus - here  As hospitals braced for an influx of patients, Dr. Anthony Fauci, the U.S. government’s top infectious disease expert, urged Americans to postpone non-essential surgeries to keep beds available. The Trump administration has struggled to line up tests to diagnose the disease, masks to slow its transmission, and medical equipment to treat those who have contracted it. The U.S. Food and Drug Administration approved a test that can deliver a result in 45 minutes, rather than days, according to Cepheid, its maker. At the White House, officials said they were delivering more tests and equipment where they were needed, but declined to say whether they had met benchmarks they had laid out earlier in the week. Graphic: The novel coronavirus in the United States - here  State and local officials say they are scrambling for supplies. “We’ve gotten no help from the federal government, or limited help,” Illinois Governor J.B. Pritzker said at a news briefing. New York Governor Andrew Cuomo said the state had identified 6,000 ventilators to help sick patients keep breathing, but needed 30,000 more. He said the state is sending 1 million N95 respirator masks to New York City - short of the 3 million city officials are seeking. “We are literally scouring the globe for medical supplies,” Cuomo said. In New York City, where more than 6,000 cases have been diagnosed, about a dozen people waited for a test in the parking lot of the Brooklyn Hospital Center. “That’s insane,” city council member Mark Levine said in a phone interview. “If they’re well enough to stand in a line, they should be home resting, they don’t need a test, and they need to get out of the way.”       Federal authorities briefly stopped flights arriving at New York City-area airports after a trainee at an air traffic control center tested positive. Neighboring New Jersey became the latest state on Saturday to adopt a statewide directive requiring residents to remain indoors except for trips to grocery stores, pharmacies, gas stations and other “essential businesses.”  Stay-at-home orders now apply to 84 million people in states that account for a third of the nation’s economy. Other states encouraged residents to reduce activity but did not put restrictions in place. Missouri went in a different direction, allowing child-care providers to take on more children. The state directives were for the most part issued without strict enforcement mechanisms to back them up. Cuomo said New York would fine and close businesses that defy the order. Chicago Mayor Lori Lightfoot said police would “admonish” people to go home. In Ridgefield, Connecticut, where six new cases were reported on Saturday, town official Rudy Marconi said he would dispatch the police to break up a teenagers’ basketball game. “We have no other tools in our toolbox. We have to rely on the social distancing,” he said.

Answer:
One in four Americans told to stay home as Congress nears $1 trillion stimulus.