TASK DEFINITION: Given a paragraph and a claim, classify it this way: If the claim contradicts the evidence present in the paragraph, classify the claim as '0'. If the claim has multiple supporting *AND* contradicting evidences, classify the claim as '1'. If the claim has supporting evidence and the paragraph is in overall favor of the claim, then classify the claim as '2'.
PROBLEM: Paragraph: In October 2018, a warning appeared and made its way around the usual internet circles to warn against eating meat from deer afflicted with “bovine tuberculosis.” The warning was accompanied by a rather unappetizing photograph of a lesion-studded hunk of meat that showed what people should avoid:Since 1995, Michigan has been testing white-tailed deer for bovine tuberculosis year-round. Michigan has the longest- running continuous wildlife TB surveillance program in the world.“Most Michiganders, and even most policymakers, don’t realize how much we’ve learned about bTB in the last 20 years”, said Dan O’Brien, veterinary specialist with DNR’s wildlife disease lab. “The research we’ve done here in Michigan is respected around the world.“Other countries dealing with similar outbreaks of bTB continue to watch our situation with great interest. At this point, we know what it will take to get rid of bTB. Whether we as a state will choose to make that happen though is still an open question.”The original warning was belched back into the public consciousness in October 2018 because a large cattle herd in Alcona County was found to be infected with bovine tuberculosis, the 73rd herd so infected since 1998:Bovine TB is a bacterial disease that also has infected free-ranging whitetail deer in parts of the northeastern Lower Peninsula.Cattle in Alcona, Alpena, Montmorency and Oscoda counties must be tested before they are moved off the farm, which can help prevent the illness from spreading.Assistant State Veterinarian Nancy Barr says farmers in that area should do all they can to prevent deer from having contact with cattle feeding and watering areas.The original warning simply urges hunters to get the wild deer they kill tested free of charge before consumption, even if it looks healthy. Humans as well as cattle can potentially contract bovine tuberculosis, which is relatively rare, but potentially fatal if left untreated. Claim: "Bovine tuberculosis"" has appeared in a herd of cattle in Michigan."

SOLUTION: 2

PROBLEM: Paragraph: "Lies, truth, honesty: Anytime campaign literature shows up peppered with these words, we perk up. So it was when a reader, Randall Horton, passed along a recent mailer from state Rep. Dwayne Bohac, R-Houston, which opens: ""Honesty matters, especially in politics."" The Truth-O-Meter kicked in at Bohac's reference to Annie's List, a Texas group dedicated to electing pro-choice Democratic women. His leaflet calls the group ""a liberal special-interest group who supports third-trimester abortion on demand."" Is that so? Some background: Annie's List was founded in 2003, its website says. According to Robert Jones, its political director, the group was modeled on the nationally established EMILY's List, which describes itself as ""dedicated to electing pro-choice Democratic women to office."" EMILY is an acronym: Early Money Is Like Yeast. And, as Bohac's mailer says, Annie's List backs Bohac's Democratic challenger, Kendra Yarbrough Camarena. Through Sept. 23, state records show, Camarena had received about $77,000 from Annie's List, accounting for about 26 percent percent of her contributions since March 2009. UPDATE, 10:45 a.m. Oct. 21, 2010: After we published this article, a Bohac campaign consultant, Bryan Eppstein, pointed to information backing up another Bohac claim that Annie's List has contributed more than $100,000 to Camarena's cause. His figure takes into account both the group's direct contributions to Camarena's campaign, which we tallied for our original article, and indirect contributions that to date have been reported only by Annie's List; these include expenditures for pro-Camarena direct mail, campaign staff and software. Also, the reader who forwarded Bohac's mailer gave us permission to include his name in this article. How to regulate late-term abortions has proved to be a simmering national issue. In 2003, Congress passed the Partial-Birth Abortion Ban Act outlawing a procedure known medically as ""intact dilation and extraction."" The U.S. Supreme Court later upheld the law, which had been challenged by physicians and abortion-rights activists who said the procedure is often the safest to use late in a pregnancy because it ""minimizes the chances of injury to the uterus,"" according to an April 2007 recap by The New York Times. When does a pregnancy become ""late-term""? Elizabeth Nash — a public policy expert at the Guttmacher Institute, which studies and advocates on issues related to reproductive health — told us that the term ""is more of a political or layperson term"" and that ""people have all sorts of ideas about its definition."" Generally speaking, she said, any point past the 18th week of pregnancy, counting from the last menstrual period, could be considered ""late term."" The third trimester is typically thought to begin at the 28-week mark. Late-term abortions are rare. Nationally, according to the Guttmacher Institute, 1.5 percent of U.S. abortions in 2006 occurred at the 21st week or later. According to the most recent data available from the Texas Department of State Health Services, 13 out of 81,591 Texas abortions (about 0.02 percent) in 2008 occurred in the 25th week or later. When we asked Bohac's campaign officials for evidence that Annie's List supports third-trimester abortion ""on demand,"" it referred us to his political consultant, Keats Norfleet. Norfleet told us that Annie's List only supports ""pro-choice, progressive Democratic women candidates who favor late-term abortions."" Norfleet sent us several news articles describing Annie's List as backing Democratic women candidates who are ""pro-choice,"" though none explicitly mentions third-trimester or late-term abortions. We wondered if Annie's List had clearly stated its position on third-trimester abortions anywhere. The group's website says it wants to elect more women who are ""pro-choice"" and who favor ""reproductive rights,"" without mention of third-trimester abortions. In an e-mail, Jones said Annie's List doesn't advocate specific stands on issues. ""We don't advocate for late-term procedures 'on demand,' "" Jones said. ""We simply provide resources to progressive Democratic women candidates to help them get elected. And one of the many tenets of what we consider to be progressive is to be pro-choice."" Generally, Jones said, the group backs Democratic women who ""support things like funding for sexual assault and domestic violence prevention, fully funded public schools, clear air and water, access to quality health care, and a woman’s right to choose."" As for a candidate's position on third-trimester abortions, Jones said: ""If there was a bill in Texas to ban so-called partial-birth or late-term abortions, we wouldn't kick a woman off our list just because she supported it"" as long as she also supported an exclusion for the health and safety of the woman. Jones told us that the group assumes that a candidate's ""pro-choice"" position means that she's aligned with the 1973 U.S. Supreme Court decision in Roe v. Wade and subsequent case law. That ruling established a constitutional right to an abortion before viability, the time at which a fetus can survive outside a woman's body. According to a report issued this month by the Guttmacher Institute, the court held in Roe that ""a woman’s right to an abortion is not absolute and that states could restrict or ban abortions after fetal viability, provided their policies meet certain requirements,"" including an exception to protect the life of the woman. Since then, other Supreme Court rulings have affirmed states' rights to approve further restrictions. Texas has two laws restricting third-trimester abortions — one enacted in 1987 and the other in 2005. According to an Austin American-Statesman report, the 2005 law — attached as an amendment to a proposal maintaining the Texas State Board of Medical Examiners, now the Texas Medical Board — made it so that serious risk ""to a woman's mental and physical health would no longer be a reason for an abortion in the last few months of pregnancy. An abortion could still be performed to prevent her death, but otherwise could not be performed unless she is diagnosed with a significant likelihood of suffering imminent severe, irreversible brain damage or paralysis. In addition, a fetus' abnormalities, other than severe, irreversible brain damage, would no longer be an acceptable factor."" Mindful that Annie's List is supportive of pro-choice Democratic women but doesn't spell out a position on third-trimester abortions, we looked at what ""pro-choice"" means to others who work on abortion-related issues. Nash called that ""a toughie,"" adding that ""sometimes organizations still support a legislator if they vote for a 'partial-birth' abortion ban but are otherwise supportive of abortion rights and work to increase access to family planning and other reproductive health services."" Sara Cleveland, executive director of NARAL Pro-Choice Texas, told us that the group defines ""pro-choice"" as ""the original vision of Roe v. Wade,"" under which ""states are permitted to ban abortion in the third trimester as long as there are exceptions to the ban for cases of a woman’s life or health endangerment."" But Joe Pojman, executive director of an anti-abortion group, Texas Alliance for Life, said he would define ""pro-choice"" based on the positions taken by groups that use the term to describe themselves. He used NARAL Pro-Choice Texas as an example, saying correctly that it opposed the 2005 third-trimester measure as well as parental consent requirements for minors seeking abortions. Pojman said Annie's List backs candidates who support ""abortions rights without limits,"" singling out state Rep. Senfronia Thompson, D-Houston, who voted against the 2005 amendment increasing restrictions on third-trimester abortions as well as the final version of the bill containing the ban. We took a closer look at the vote on that amendment, which passed 118-16. We determined that Reps. Alma Allen of Houston and Yvonne Gonzales Toureilles of Alice, both backed this year by Annie's List, voted for the amendment, while Rep. Veronica Gonzales of McAllen, also supported by the group, voted against the amendment. So how about truth, lies and honesty? It's true that Annie's List backs ""pro-choice"" Democratic women. And Bohac's politically potent statement rests on the assumption that ""pro-choice"" means ""supports third-trimester abortion on demand."" That's a premise that he fails to back up. Annie's List makes no bones about being comfortable with candidates who oppose further restrictions on late-term abortions. Then again, this year it’s backing two House candidates who voted for more limits. Honestly? Bohac's sweeping, unsupported statement is ." Claim: Dwayne Bohac Says the Annie's List political group supports third-trimester abortions on demand.

SOLUTION: 0

PROBLEM: Paragraph: "On April 20 2020, purported “hot mic” footage from a White House coronavirus press briefing appeared and quickly began circulating — involving discussion of what seemed to be fudged case-fatality rate numbers as well as the existence of a vaccine for the well-connected:Very Interesting exchange Caught on (GST HOT MIC) between FAKE NEWS @FoxNews @johnrobertsFox and a FAKE NEWS Tech at Todays White House Press Briefing!#coronavirus #WhiteHousePressBriefing #TrumpPressConf @realDonaldTrump @DanScavino FULL pic.twitter.com/D624MnmgcL— Golden State Times 🇺🇸 (@Goldstatetimes) April 21, 2020""Everybody here has been vaccinated anyway"" — caught on tape. https://t.co/ziXR8525yI— Cheri Jacobus (@CheriJacobus) April 21, 2020BOMBSHELL: Hot Mic At White House CoronaVirus Press Briefing ‘Everybody Here’s Already Been Vaccinated’ and MORE Bombs Inside https://t.co/CZahiuogYA pic.twitter.com/QtoOCCmbaK— Matt Couch 🎙 (@RealMattCouch) April 21, 2020“Everyone here has been vaccinated” What in the world? Hot Mic before @realDonaldTrump press conference #coronavirusbriefing #coronavirus #vaccine #AnthonyFauci #CDC pic.twitter.com/7HK6T3euyb— Nate Medeiros (@NateMedeiros_) April 21, 2020Omg !!! Please retweet’s and share away please !!! https://t.co/St6uEsH6H8— Rebecca Martin (@therealblondie7) April 21, 2020“So It Was A Hoax?” – Fox News’ John Roberts Caught On Hot Mic Discussing COVID-19 Mortality Rate With Technician #coronavirus #covid19 #foxnews #johnroberts #hotmic #hoax #vaccine #whitehousebriefinghttps://t.co/8Vl1v27rwm— The Clover Chronicle (@CloverChron) April 21, 2020When, Where, Who, and WhatAccording to the rumors, a “hot mic” recording the period prior to April 20 2020’s White House coronavirus briefing captured a “very interesting” exchange. One of the two people speaking was Fox News Chief White House Correspondent John Roberts.What’s a Hot Mic?A “hot mic” in this context is “a microphone which amplifies the remarks of someone who does not know that it is on.”As such, the exchange in question was interpreted by the above Twitter users as one intended to be private, inadvertently amplified to an audience without the speakers’ awareness the discussion was recorded.Source for the VideoOne of several streams recording the daily White House briefing about COVID-19 — accessible in a lengthy Facebook video — included the exchange. Shorter clips became available, but WPMI‘s clip below included the exchange, roughly twelve minutes in.Roberts is seen conversing with a man wearing a facemask for several seconds in that clip.The Man in the Mask on the Coronavirus Hot Mic VideoPer Mediate, the second individual was New York Times photographer Doug Mills.Coronavirus Hot Mic Video TranscriptionDue to the informal nature of the exchange, no formal transcription existed.However, a forum user endeavored to transcribe the discussion, which began with Roberts addressing Mills’ mask; Mills quipped that “everyone here has been vaccinated anyway”:You can take off the mask Doug, the base mortality rate’s like point 1 to point 3 according to USC.”“Is it really? That’s reassuring … Everybody here’s been vaccinated anyway.”Roberts continued, referencing a recent study with controversial and preliminary findings:“USC in LA county public health has come out with a study. They found that there’s 7,000 cases in California, but they really believe that there are anywhere between 221,000 to 442,000 people who were infected.“Really?”“Yeah.”“So that makes it zero point 1 to zero point 3?”“Yup.”“Is the study come out < inaudible > ?”“Yeah, just came in today.”“So it suggests that the case fatality rate is about of a tenth of what it seems to be.”“Puts it right in line with the flu.”“Yeah exactly that’s what it is, the flu.”“So it’s a hoax!”“I don’t think it’s a hoax.”“Ha ha ha.”“Ha ha ha ha.”Roberts and the Coronavirus Case-Fatality Rate StudyIncidentally, Roberts tweeted about the same research that day — April 20 2020:New @USC and ⁦@lapublichealth⁩ study suggests a coronavirus case fatality rate of .1 to .3 pic.twitter.com/th8Sld0ifl— John Roberts (@johnrobertsFox) April 20, 2020Again, the research was preliminary and novel:By April 7 [2020], 55 (98.2%) of the 56 jurisdictions reporting COVID-19 cases also reported at least one related death (Table); however, approximately half (52.7%) of all deaths (12,757) were reported from three jurisdictions: NYC (4,111), New York (1,378), and New Jersey (1,232) (Figure 3). Other jurisdictions reporting ≥300 deaths included Michigan (845), Louisiana (582), Washington (394), Illinois (380), California (374), Massachusetts (356), and Georgia (351). Case-fatality ratios ranged from 0.7% in Utah to 5.7% in Kentucky.“Everybody Here’s Been Vaccinated Anyway.”Perhaps one of the most discussed elements of the viral coronavirus hot mic video was the snippet “everybody here’s been vaccinated anyway,” interpreted as an allusion to a vaccine for COVID-19 available only to the well-connected.The timeline for an anticipated COVID-19 vaccine is a major part of coronavirus news, and we discussed it on our page about the influential Imperial College London report; that report was published on March 16 2020, and it informed the introduction of “stay at home” or “shelter in place” orders:Imperial College London’s COVID-19 Report, ExplainedThat report went into the wait for a vaccine — and why there was any wait at all. Those non-negotiable elements were again discussed in U.S. News and World Report‘s April 7 2020 article, “Why Will It Take So Long for a COVID-19 Vaccine?”In short, it was in the best interests of everyone that the general public be vaccinated at the earliest moment possible. But the realities of vaccine development meant it would take a significant amount of time to actually produce a vaccine:Public health officials have been warning that a COVID-19 vaccine will not be available to the public for 12 to 18 months, dampening hopes that there will be a quick end to the global pandemic nightmare.But Chinese researchers cracked the virus’ genetic code within weeks of its emergence late last year, and two vaccine candidates are already in early human trials — one in China and the other in the United States.What’s the holdup?Essentially, you can speed up the vaccine development process to respond to a pandemic, but you don’t want to speed it up so much that you allow a bad vaccine to enter the market, explained Dr. Greg Poland, director of the Mayo Clinic’s Vaccine Research Group.“The process of developing, testing and licensing a vaccine for widespread population use is designed to be slow, deliberative, peer-reviewed, reflective, evidence-based, so that we don’t make mistakes,” Poland said.Going too fast could lead to a vaccine that’s not effective or, worse, can cause serious health problems, Poland said.That means that the vaccine’s early recipients would also be its test subjects — the delay in introducing a new vaccine was safety-related. The wealthy and well-connected might get first crack at a viable vaccine, but a viable vaccine was still months away when Mills and Roberts had their sarcastic exchange.Further, the well-connected and famous are unlikely to be the same people on which any new COVID-19 vaccine is tested.White House Coronavirus ‘Hot Mic’ Video, in SummationOn April 20 2020, White House coronavirus pre-briefing streams captured a clearly sarcastic “hot mic” exchange between Roberts (of Fox News) and Mills (a Times photographer); arguably Mills and Roberts were well aware the briefing room was wired and the pair were not exchanging closely-guarded state secrets. Roberts referenced a study about which he also tweeted, but the study in no way altered the known case-fatality rate for COVID-19. Mills’ joke about reporters and White House staffers being “vaccinated anyway” seemed to play to the room and the setting, a quip squarely satirizing COVID-19 conspiracies. In any event, the clip read as a covert conversation captured and disseminated before it could be “scrubbed,” when in actuality it was clearly two journalists employing dark humor during a tongue-in-cheek discussion about a global pandemic.Comments" Claim: "Hot mic"" video from a White House coronavirus briefing revealed a far lower ""real"" case-fatality rate, as well as the existence of a vaccine provided to the government and the press corps (but not you.)"

SOLUTION:
0