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: “I’d love to be in the bush, but I get more cases here,” said veterinary rehabilitation specialist Nicci Wright. Wright founded the hospital two years ago with veterinarian Dr. Karin Lourens and since then has treated about 4,000 animals. With the expansion of Pretoria and Johannesburg, South Africa’s capital city and its economic center, the animals indigenous to the region are being squeezed out by the rapid urbanization. The wildlife hospital mainly treats small mammals and raptors that are injured. There are about 160 animals on the small premises now, including half a dozen leopard tortoises, a toothless 12-foot python and an otter that was taken far from her natural habitat when someone tried to domesticate her as a pet. A Johannesburg resident arrives at the hospital, carrying a gray lourie in a cage made for much smaller domesticated bird. He found the large bird in the garden, attacked by his dogs, unable to fly after its tail and wing feathers were plucked out. Like in any hospital, nurse Alicia Abbott opens a file and transfers the new patient to a more comfortable setting so its treatment may begin. Most of the cages in the hospital are covered with towels to block the electric light from disturbing the animals. Along with physical injuries, many of them also suffer from trauma. Some species, like the endangered pangolin, show visible signs of post-traumatic stress disorder when they hear a male human voice or smell cigarettes smoke, a reminder of the poachers who hunt them, said Wright. “Everything is terrifying for them,” she said. In a wooden crate on the hospital floor, a juvenile pangolin begins to stir, scratching against the box. It is feeding time and a volunteer will walk him on a nearby hill where the pangolin, which is a scaly anteater, animal to search for ants. Pangolins are one of the world’s most heavily trafficked mammals because of demand for their scales in Asia. Another pangolin was recently sedated and checked by a sonogram scan to find that she was pregnant. Along with five staffers, the hospital relies on volunteers like Lauren Beckley, who lives nearby. Beckley cares for young primates like baboons and vervet monkeys, who cling to her after their own mothers have been shot or run over by humans. Other wildlife at the hospital include two newly born bush babies which are small nocturnal primates. One had been attacked by a cat and the other had fallen out of its nest. Once the animals are ready to return to the bush, Wright and her team work with nature reserves around the country to slowly introduce the animals into a new, safer, habitat.

SOLUTION: Johannesburg wildlife clinic saves animals hurt in city.

PROBLEM: "Lt. Gov. David Dewhurst, campaigning for re-election, tweeted a parody of President Barack Obama promoting his signature health-care law. Around midday Dec. 12, 2013, the official White House Twitter account posted a photo of Obama holding a sign urging Americans to get health coverage because ""nobody should go broke just because they get sick."" Social media denizens started creating versions that rewrote the sign’s text; Dewhurst’s had Obama saying, ""I want more of Texans’ private data."" Some perspective: Texas in 2012 had approximately 19.5 million insured residents and 5.2 million legal residents without insurance according to a March 18, 2013, report by the state Health and Human Services Commission. Does the Obamacare law demand private data on them that wasn't known to the government before? PolitiFact reporters have checked out several claims about how the Affordable Care Act’s online marketplaces will handle personal information. Many of the concerns addressed are about how government agencies will share information they already collect -- and how secure that information will be. As part of a May 2013 fact-check, PolitiFact in Washington, D.C., reported that a federal ""data hub"" resulting from the 2010 law would pull information from government agencies, but not expand federal data collection. For example, the Social Security Administration is asked to verify a person's Social Security number, and the IRS confirms financial data to see if a person is eligible for a subsidy. PolitiFact in D.C. gave a False rating Sept. 19, 2013, to a claim by former New York Lt. Gov. Betsy McCaughey that ""Obamacare will question your sex life,"" finding that nothing in the health care law required such questions. So what information does the government collect under the Obamacare law? If you apply to shop in the federal online insurance marketplace or the marketplace for your state, you’ll supply information on yourself and perhaps family members, some of which the government already has. Healthcare.gov offers a checklist for people preparing to fill out applications, whether online or printed: Social Security number, employer, income, current insurance policy numbers and information about your employer’s insurance plans (if any). Such answers will help determine whether you’re eligible to buy insurance through the marketplaces and if you can get free- or reduced-cost coverage via tax credits, Medicaid or the Children's Health Insurance Program. The standardized family application asks for information on you and everyone who lives with you, including whether you are pregnant and how many babies you’re expecting, whether you have a health condition that limits daily activities, whether you live in a nursing home and whether you were in foster care after age 18. Other questions concern employment, military service, sources of income, tax deductions taken and whether you are American Indian or Alaska Native. A Sept. 18, 2013, fact sheet from the federal Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services said, ""Personal health information (PHI) will be requested only when it is needed to complete the application and make an eligibility determination for health coverage options."" Health privacy expert Deven McGraw told us by email that the applications do collect some information the government did not already have, but said it’s the same type of information gathered when people apply for public coverage such as Medicaid. ""They are questions that are specifically designed to match eligibility criteria. So none of it is extraneous,"" said McGraw, director of the health privacy project at the Center for Democracy and Technology, which advocates for Internet freedom. And, she said, the data can’t be used for any purposes other than the marketplaces’ functions. More information about you could come, the fact sheet says, from ""common federal data sources including the Social Security Administration (SSA), Internal Revenue Service (IRS), and Department of Homeland Security (DHS)."" Wait -- Homeland Security? According to the National Immigration Law Center’s website, applicants who are not U.S. citizens will have their status verified through a Homeland/U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Service database. Agencies already use the web service, called Systematic Alien Verification for Entitlements (SAVE), to determine immigrants’ eligibility for benefits including Medicaid, housing loans and unemployment. Via email, Social Security spokeswoman Kia Anderson told us her agency can, when CMS needs the information to determine eligibility, provide applicants’ ID numbers, citizenship data, death or disability indicators and Social Security income and coverage earned. So the application process puts together some information the government already had with some it didn’t have. People who aren’t applying to shop in the marketplaces but are subject to the Obamacare law’s mandate will also be sharing some new information with Uncle Sam. The mandate to have or get insurance applies, according to the immigration law center, to all U.S. citizens, naturalized citizens and legal immigrants. Via email, IRS spokeswoman Lea Crusberg said 2014 tax returns will ask whether you have health coverage that meets the new standards or an exemption, whether you got coverage through an Obamacare marketplace and whether you got a tax credit to help defray the cost. The law’s new tax payments and credits will also be on returns, of course. In 2015, Crusberg said, the IRS will start collecting coverage information from insurance providers. Employers who insure their own workers in-house will report which employees are enrolled and give enough information so the IRS can tell if those workers are due a tax credit. Self-insuring employers will also put the cost of the plan they’re providing on W-2 forms so workers can see it. Is the new data ""private"" information? Per the CMS fact sheet, Obamacare applicants could be asked to cough up some personal health information. But the fact sheet also says the marketplaces’ systems ""will not store this information"" -- which casts some doubt on whether the government is really ""collecting"" it, but serves as an indication that it’s considered sensitive. How about when the IRS asks where your insurance comes from, whether you got a tax credit for it and whether it meets the Obamacare law’s standards? Generally, the IRS regards what you put on your tax return as private. For example, tax preparers who disclose such information without your consent can face criminal charges. Final IRS regulations governing who can disclose what tax return information to HHS under the Obamacare law were issued Aug. 13, 2013. An FAQ posted by the IRS that day said that ""officers and employees of the IRS will disclose to HHS, the Marketplace, and state agencies only, upon written request and subject to strict privacy and security rules, certain return information ... for the purpose of determining eligibility for certain health care affordability programs."" Our ruling Dewhurst said Obama wants ""more of Texans’ private data."" The subset of Texans shopping for coverage through the online marketplace are providing additional private data for a reason: to ensure they’re qualified. Dewhurst's statement overlooks these aspects. Regardless, many more Texans will be asked to give the IRS information about their health coverage that was previously not requested. The statement is accurate but needs clarification or additional information."

SOLUTION: "In altered photo, says Barack Obama wants ""more of Texans’ private data"" via health care."

PROBLEM: The lung cancer rate dropped by 2.6 percent per year among men and 1.1 percent per year among women, between 2005 and 2009, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention found, using the most recent available data. The largest decline was seen in adults aged 35 to 44, with a 6.4 percent drop per year among men and a 5.9 percent decrease for women in that age group, the study said. “This is a big deal,” said Clifford Hudis, president of the American Society of Clinical Oncology. But Hudis added that there is still much more work to be done to reduce smoking given all the health problems it creates in addition to lung cancer. More than half of American men and over a third of women were smokers on January 11, 1964, when Dr. Luther Terry delivered the Surgeon General’s Report on Smoking and Health outlining the links between tobacco use, lung cancer and death. Since the surgeon general’s 1964 report, the prevalence of smoking by U.S. adults has been cut by half, the CDC said. “I’m not satisfied with reducing smoking,” Hudis said. “It should be eliminated. There’s no upside to it.”  Up to 90 percent of lung cancer cases are linked to cigarette smoking and second-hand smoke, the CDC said. The CDC, whose officials call the fight to reduce tobacco use a “winnable battle,” promotes increased funding for anti-smoking campaigns. In 2007, the CDC recommended spending $3.7 billion on state-level anti-smoking campaigns. But in 2010, states spent $640 million, only 2.4 percent of the money they received from settlements in lawsuits against tobacco companies, the CDC said. More than half of American men and over a third of women were smokers on January 11, 1964, when Dr. Luther Terry delivered the first Surgeon General’s Report on Smoking and Health outlining the links between tobacco use, lung cancer and death.

SOLUTION:
Lung cancer rates decline for U.S. men, women: study.