Generate an explanation for the given claim using the provided supporting material from the paragraph. Please consider the following points while generating an output. 1) The claim will always have supporting proof in the paragraph, and the paragraph will have a clear point of view supporting the claim. 2) There can be instances where direct correlation to the claim is not available. Make use of the sentences in the paragraph to provide a corresponding output supporting the claim. 3) The explanation should be at least one and at most twelve sentences long.

Q: Paragraph: NCR Corp. will fund the dredging of contaminated sediments and removal of an aging dam in the Kalamazoo River under an agreement with the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, the U.S. Department of Justice and the state of Michigan, officials told The Associated Press ahead of an official announcement. “This is a big step forward toward cleaning up the river,” said John Irving, a deputy assistant administrator in the EPA’s Office of Enforcement and Compliance Assurance. The Kalamazoo is polluted with polychlorinated biphenyls, or PCBs, from paper recycling mills. Used for ink removal, the chemicals were discharged into the river from the 1950s through the mid-1970s. They also seeped into groundwater and surface waters from landfills where mill waste was dumped. In addition to the river, the contamination zone in Allegan and Kalamazoo counties includes a roughly 3-mile (5-kilometer) section of a tributary called Portage Creek, as well as mill properties, riverbanks and floodplains. It is on the federal Superfund list of hazardous sites. Signs posted along the river warn anglers not to eat the fish they catch. The EPA has overseen the removal of nearly 450,000 cubic yards (344,000 cubic meters) of soil and sediment from the area since 1998, in addition to cleaning up 7 miles (11 kilometers) of the river and riverbanks. Eighty-two acres (33 hectares) of landfills containing PCBs have been covered with layers of clay, topsoil and vegetation to prevent the toxins from leaching into groundwater. But much remains to be done. The agreement between NCR and the government calls for the company to pay at least $135.7 million for cleanup work that is expected to take an additional 10-15 years. Among the tasks: dismantling Trowbridge Dam in Allegan County. The dam, which was built in 1898 to supply electric power to Kalamazoo, is in poor shape and has been over-topped by high water. It is the highest-priority dam removal planned in Michigan, according to the state Department of Natural Resources, which set aside $2.9 million in May to get the project underway. The first step is to stabilize the structure so that it won’t collapse while a contractor dredges PCB-laced sediments from a 2.4-mile (3.9-kilometer) river section upstream, which is expected to take three years, said Paul Ruesch, the EPA’s on-site coordinator. NCR funds will pay for that work and for razing the dam when the sediment removal is complete, Assistant U.S. Attorney General Jeffrey Bossert Clark told the AP. “You want to get that sediment out before taking the dam out, so you’re not letting the sediments wash further downstream,” he said. The removal of tainted soils in several floodplain spots is also funded under the deal. And the company will also pay $76.5 million to the EPA to cover past and future costs of the river cleanup; $27 million to other federal and state agencies for damages to natural resources; and $6 million to the state for past and future costs. The proposed settlement was filed in federal court Wednesday. The public will get 30 days to comment, after which the government agencies could make revisions before requesting final court approval. NCR spokesman Scott Sykes said the company had no comment. The agreement represents a significant milestone in the overall cleanup, which is expected to end up costing about $851 million, Clark said. Payment negotiations are continuing with other companies that share responsibility for the pollution, including Georgia-Pacific, International Paper and Weyerhaeuser. The Kalamazoo River project is among those on the Superfund list designated by the Trump administration for special attention because of cleanup delays, Irving said. “This settlement represents substantial progress in the cleanup and restoration of the Kalamazoo River,” said Liesl Clark, Director of the Michigan Department of Environment, Great Lakes and Energy. In addition to protecting public health and the environment, she said, it will fund “projects to restore natural resources and help compensate the public for lost recreational opportunities within this important Southwest Michigan watershed.” While “extremely welcome,” the deal won’t raise enough money to finish the cleanup and agencies should continue pressing the polluters to do more, said Kenneth Kornheiser, president of the Kalamazoo River Watershed Council, a nonprofit advocacy group. “I appreciate the monumental size of the problem, but somebody created the problem and needs to be responsible for remediating the damage,” he said. ___ Follow John Flesher on Twitter: https://twitter.com/johnflesher Claim: Company to pay $245M toward cleanup of Kalamazoo River PCBs.

A: One of the companies responsible for polluting an 80-mile (129-kilometer) stretch of river and floodplains in southwestern Michigan with toxic chemicals will pay at least $245.2 million to advance a cleanup effort that began more than 20 years ago, federal officials said Wednesday.
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Q: Paragraph: As criticism spread against United States President Donald Trump’s administration for its response to the COVID-19 pandemic in mid-March 2020, one graphic disseminated on social media listed his multiple attempts to downplay the disease:In this case, the graphic is completely accurate. The various statements are correctly attributed to Trump, and each has been verified in independent timelines compiled by news outlets.“We’re ordering a lot of supplies. We’re ordering a lot of, uh, elements that frankly we wouldn’t be ordering unless it was something like this. But we’re ordering a lot of different elements of medical.” — Trump on the coronavirus pic.twitter.com/id6YLzbmRE— Aaron Rupar (@atrupar) February 28, 2020A video with similar content, posted by writer Lindsay Holst and featuring audio of several of Trump’s remarks alongside a graph showing the spread of the disease, has been shared thousands of times on Twitter:57 days later. pic.twitter.com/umsfZHyBuo— Lindsay Holst (@LindsayLHolst) March 17, 2020On March 17 2020, journalists asked Trump why his tone had shifted so quickly and dramatically regarding the epidemic. He told reporters, “I’ve always known this is a real — this is a pandemic. I felt it was a pandemic long before it was called a pandemic. I’ve always viewed it as very serious.” Claim: United States President Donald Trump made several statements downplaying the nature of the COVID-19 pandemic.

A: ‘Timeline of Trump’s COVID-19 Statements’ Meme
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Q: Paragraph: A report from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention shows 46 fewer cases of congenital syphilis in Louisiana last year, down 13 from 2017. Nationally, more than 1,300 babies were born with the disease, up from 935 a year earlier. Congenital syphilis can cause miscarriage, stillbirth, infant death and severe lifelong physical and neurological problems. The rate of that disease was one of three areas where Louisiana’s rankings improved a bit compared with other states as the nation’s combined cases of syphilis, gonorrhea and chlamydia reached an all-time high. Louisiana is still among the top 10 in all four rankings: congenital syphilis, the most infectious stages of syphilis, chlamydia and gonorrhea. But state health officials say the drops show prevention work is paying off. Medicaid expansion, education programs, and individual reviews of each case of congenital syphilis, with an eye to identifying what factors led to each, have helped bring that case total down, said Dr. Alexander Billioux, assistant secretary for the Office of Public Health The state’s congenital syphilis numbers have alternated increasing and decreasing for the past five years. Two programs started this year — home treatment for pregnant women with syphilis and their partners, and doctors getting the form of penicillin used to treat syphilis — should help the drop in cases continue, Billioux said. Both programs were designed in response to the case reviews, he said. Chlamydia, gonorrhea and syphilis are the most commonly reported sexually transmitted diseases. There were 1.76 million cases of chlamydia reported to the CDC in 2018, up 50,000; 583,400 of gonorrhea, up 28,000; and 115,000 of all stages of syphilis, up nearly 13,400. The CDC figures show that Louisiana had 1,500 more chlamydia cases in 2018 than in 2017, with fairly stable numbers for gonorrhea and the most infectious stages of syphilis, called primary and secondary syphilis. Chlamydia cases increased about 4.4%. Gonorrhea cases were up 26, or 0.2% and those of the most infectious stages of syphilis down 10, or about 1.5%. “I would say when it comes to syphilis, we are seeing a decrease — a modest decrease. But if you look at a modest downturn while others are going up, it’s a tremendous win,” Billioux said. The last time Louisiana had congenital syphilis numbers this low was 2014. The totals were 54 in 2015 and 48 in 2016. In 2017, Louisiana led the nation in its rate of congenital syphilis cases, with 93.4 cases for every 100,000 live births. This year’s rate of 72.8 per 100,000 live births brought it down to No. 3. Its rates for primary and secondary syphilis, the most infectious stages, dropped Louisiana’s ranking from No. 3 to No. 7 in that category, and the case rates for gonorrhea brought that ranking down from third to fifth. Its chlamydia rate remained the nation’s second-highest. Claim: Fewer babies born with syphilis in Louisiana, more across US.

A:
The number of babies born with syphilis in Louisiana fell 22% last year, while national numbers rose 40%.
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