TASK DEFINITION: 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.
PROBLEM: Paragraph: Children watch television in the living room of an apartment that is for sale for $4.5 million in New York in this January 13, 2011 file photo. REUTERS/Lucas Jackson This type of disguised advertising, including high exposure to sugary soft drinks on prime-time TV, is a major contributing factor to childhood obesity, according to the Yale University study released Tuesday. “It is a very subtle message that kids aren’t likely to get,” said Jennifer Harris, a co-author of the study and director of marketing initiatives at Yale’s Rudd Center for Food Policy and Obesity. The Yale study aimed to quantify how many product placements appear on prime-time TV and also determine how many of those that kids actually see. Researchers analyzed Nielsen media data from 2008 and found some 35,000 brand placements had appeared on prime-time television that year. Children tend to see about 14 traditional advertisements for food and beverages each day on television compared to one of these product placements, it said. But children don’t yet have the cognitive ability to understand that the popular soda, candy and snack brands they see on prime-time shows are a means of advertising. “It is even more difficult for younger children to understand this is advertising and that it is persuading them to do something that isn’t the best thing for them,” Harris said. Despite most major food companies pledging not to pay for unhealthy food ads in children’s programing, brand appearances in prime-time shows and sportscasts viewed by a wide audience, including kids, is exposing them to these products anyway, Harris said. Harris said Coca-Cola product placements on popular talent show American Idol was the most viewed brand. Children saw five times as many product placements as they did traditional, paid television commercials for Coca-Cola products. Roughly one-third of children in the United States are overweight or obese, said Harris. Drinking sugar-sweetened beverages puts kids at greater risk for obesity, but also long-term health problems like diabetes, heart disease and high blood pressure, she said. The study will appear in the September issue of the American Journal of Preventive Medicine. Claim: TV product placements termed junk food ad loophole.

SOLUTION: Companies that have pledged not to market unhealthy food and drinks directly to children may be turning to product placement on television shows instead of traditional ads to target youngsters, a new study showed.

PROBLEM: Paragraph: "Editor’s note, July 8, 2016: We originally published this fact check on June 13 and rated the statement False. After that, experts pointed out we left out a step in our calculation of Harris County’s incarceration rate. We have updated our story and the rating has changed. You may read an archived version of the original article here. Equal Justice Under Law, a Washington, D.C., advocacy group, filed a lawsuit against Harris County’s bail system alleging that hundreds of offenders are jailed for minor offenses every day because they cannot afford to make bail. The group says that since 2015, it has filed 10 class action challenges to money bail systems in eight states. The May 2016 suit led state Sen. Rodney Ellis, D-Houston, to issue a press release on May 19, 2016, sharing his support of the legal action, saying, ""Harris County’s overreliance on the inefficient and ineffective use of mass incarceration as a means of dealing with low-level and nonviolent offenses continues to result in some of the highest jailing and incarceration rates in the U.S. and the world."" We’re familiar with incarceration rates. In August 2015, PolitiFact Virginia found  a claim the U.S. has the world’s highest incarceration rate -- meaning the greatest share of the population behind bars. In March 2016, we rated  a claim that Texas has a higher incarceration rate than Russia or Iran. So, does Harris County, the third most populous in the nation, also have one of the highest incarceration rates in the country and world? The federal Bureau of Justice Statistics defines an incarceration rate as the number of inmates per 100,000 residents held in state or federal prisons or local jails. To our request for the senator’s factual backup, Ellis aide David Edmonson emailed a spreadsheet listing incarceration rates for the five most populous counties in the state, based on data from the Texas Department of Criminal Justice. Harris County had a rate of 234 inmates per 100,000, while the four less-populous counties had rates between 152 and 233 people per 100,000. Edmonson also included a link to a Washington Post fact-check stating the United States has the highest incarceration rate in the world, and a link to the website of The Sentencing Project listing Texas as having the seventh highest incarceration rate in the country. Harris County, he said, has the highest prison and state jail rate of the five largest counties in the state, as determined by the Texas Department of Criminal Justice. ""In other words,"" Edmonson wrote, ""Harris County sends the most people to prison and state jail -- in the state with the seventh-highest incarceration -- in the country with the highest incarceration rate."" Checking with TDCJ With Edmonson’s reply in our pocket, we looked to verify figures on our own. First, we checked with TDCJ to see how Harris County’s incarceration rate compares nationally and with other counties in Texas, focusing on the agency’s 2014 annual statistical report tallying newly incarcerated people (receives) and each facility’s on-hand population, which provides a closer look at the incarcerated population on Aug. 31, 2014, all by county of conviction. The data reflect populations in state prisons, state jails and substance abuse felony punishment facilities. By phone, we asked Jason Clark, the director of TDCJ, what the different charts represented in the agency’s report, and which would be most accurate for reflecting each county’s incarcerated population in state facilities. Clark described the on-hand population as the best overall measure, as ""new receives,"" only show the newly admitted population. He added one caveat — the counties listed show where a person was convicted, not necessarily where that person lived before or where that person is being detained. So, according to TDCJ, Harris County’s incarceration rate in state facilities in 2014, the most recent year published, was 599 inmates per 100,000 residents, or 26,647 inmates. By rate alone, that ranked Harris County 134th out of Texas’ 254 counties. However, there are many other prisoners held in local jailhouses. So we turned to the Texas Commission on Jail Standards, which regulates county jails and municipal lockups. The commission’s monthly incarceration rate report reflects the average daily population of county jail inmates, based on a 12-month average of one-day snapshots, taken the first day of each month. According to the commission’s September 2014 report, Harris County in 2014 had a rate of 196.6 inmates per 100,000 residents, or 8,731 inmates in county and municipal lockups. Looking strictly at incarceration rates, regardless of the relative population of different counties, Harris County placed 169th in the state. By adding figures from both sources of data, we get a fuller picture of the number of people behind bars in Harris County, regardless of whether they are in a county jail or state prison. That gives Harris County a 2014 incarceration rate of 796 inmates per 100,000 residents, or 35,378 people who were in county jail, state jail, prison or substance abuse facilities. If we include federal prison inmates, the overall rate increases to 816 per 100,000 residents, or 36,234 people. U.S., world incarceration rates For the same year, the total United States’ incarceration rate was 716 per 100,000, according to the Prison Policy Initiative, a Massachusetts-based nonprofit that advocates against what it calls mass criminalization policies. Worldwide, the Institute for Criminal Policy Research, a London-based nonprofit that conducts research on crime and criminal justice issues, calculated an incarceration rate of 144 per 100,000, based on United Nations data. That is, Harris County had a total incarceration rate exceeding both the world and U.S. rates. There are some Texas-centric wrinkles, however. Out of the five most populous Texas counties, Harris County’s rate came in second place for 2014. Dallas County had an overall incarceration rate of 913 inmates per 100,000, or 23,006 inmates. And far less populous counties had even higher rates. Notably, Kenedy County in South Texas ranked first in the state with an overall rate of 5,000 people per 100,000 residents, though the county accounted for a grand total of 20 inmates. At the time, Kenedy County was home to 400 residents; Harris County’s population was 4.4 million. Experts comment For guidance, we checked with two independent criminal justice experts. Peter Wagner directs the Prison Policy Initiative, which studies incarceration rates closely and often is called upon to explain such figures. Michele Dietch, a senior lecturer in the Lyndon B. Johnson School of Public Affairs, has worked on criminal justice issues since the late 1980s. Wagner said the initiative’s global report, which folds in U.S. states with other countries to make state-to-country incarceration rate comparisons, leaves out countries with populations of less than 500,000. Smaller countries could prove distracting in discussing how the United States differs from its peers, he said. According to the report, Texas had a 2014 incarceration rate of 1,063 per 100,000, which was the fifth highest in the world. Louisiana ranked No. 1 internationally; its rate was 1,341 inmates per 100,000 residents. Louisiana’s population of 4.6 million, according to 2015 Census figures, is comparable to Harris County’s population of 4.5 million for the same time period. The report includes federal prison populations in state incarceration rate calculations, since ""state politics certainly influence whether and where federal prisons are built."" Mississippi, Oklahoma and Georgia also topped Texas, with rates ranging from 1,074 to 1,155 inmates per 100,000 residents. Among countries, the U.S. had the highest rate, 716 prisoners per 100,000 residents. Since we began our research, the PPI came out with a new 2016 global incarceration rate report. While rates have changed (Texas went from a rate of 1,063 inmates per 100,000 to 890), rankings have more or less remained the same. Texas ranks eighth in the world, Louisiana is now second after Washington, D.C. and the United States is still the first country to appear on the list with a rate of 693 per 100,000. Dietch told us by phone that she sees value in both per capita rates and raw counts. Per capita rates, she said, are the best way to make comparisons because they adjust for what can be vast differences in population. ""Per capita rates equalize comparisons across jurisdictions of different sizes,"" she wrote in a follow-up email. ""Otherwise, big jurisdictions will always look worse in terms of absolute numbers."" But, she said, there’s value in looking at absolute numbers, since jurisdictions contributing the largest numbers of inmates will have ""by far the biggest impact on the system."" That is, rural Kenedy County may have the state’s highest incarceration rate and may be sending a higher share of its residents into the criminal justice system, Dietch said, yet its share of all state prisoners remains negligible. ""Those absolute numbers — not the rates — are one of the key drivers of the size of the incarcerated population,"" she said via email. ""And none of this even begins to take into account issues such as the length of sentences, another key driver of incarceration trends in Texas."" ""You need to look at both to understand,"" she said. She explained one of the main reasons a smaller county may have a higher incarceration rate lies in the lack of local sentencing alternatives including support programs, substance abuse treatment or electronic monitoring. People end up in prison or jail, Dietch said, because there isn’t much else as an alternative. In contrast, she said, urban communities like Harris County have more options to keep people out of jail and prison, she said. Our ruling Ellis said Harris County has some of the highest jailing and incarceration rates in the U.S. and the world. Harris County's rate -- calculated as the number of inmates per 100,000 residents -- exceeds the rates for the United States and world though we found jurisdictions including Dallas County with higher rates. To be fair, though, Ellis didn’t say Harris County’s rate is the highest, only that it’s among the highest. – The statement is accurate but needs clarification or additional information. Claim: "Harris County, Texas has ""some of the highest jailing and incarceration rates in the U.S. and the world."

SOLUTION: Ellis said Harris County has some of the highest jailing and incarceration rates in the U.S. and the world. Harris County's rate -- calculated as the number of inmates per 100,000 residents -- exceeds the rates for the United States and world though we found jurisdictions including Dallas County with higher rates. To be fair, though, Ellis didn’t say Harris County’s rate is the highest, only that it’s among the highest.

PROBLEM: Paragraph: Twenty years and more than 12,380 shipments later, tons of Cold War-era waste from decades of bomb-making and nuclear research across the U.S. have been stashed in the salt caverns that make up the underground facility . Each week, several shipments of special boxes and barrels packed with lab coats, rubber gloves, tools and debris contaminated with plutonium and other radioactive elements are trucked to the site. But the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant has not been without issues. A 2014 radiation leak forced an expensive, nearly three-year closure, delayed the federal government’s cleanup program and prompted policy changes at national laboratories and defense-related sites across the U.S. More recently, the U.S. Department of Energy said it would investigate reports that workers may have been exposed last year to hazardous chemicals. Still, supporters consider the repository a success, saying it provides a viable option for dealing with a multibillion-dollar mess that stretches from a decommissioned nuclear weapons production site in Washington state to one of the nation’s top nuclear research labs, in Idaho, and locations as far east as South Carolina. If it weren’t for the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant, many containers of plutonium-contaminated waste would be outside, exposed to the weather and susceptible to natural disasters, said J.R. Stroble, head of business operations at the Department of Energy’s Carlsbad Field Office, which oversees the contractor that operates the repository. “The whole purpose of WIPP is to isolate this long-lived radioactive, hazardous waste from the accessible environment, from people and the things people need in order to live life on Earth,” he told The Associated Press. Stroble and others in the communities surrounding the repository are steadfast in their conviction that the facility is a success. They point to 22 sites around the nation that have been cleaned up as a result of having somewhere to put the waste — including Rocky Flats, a former nuclear weapons plant outside Denver that had a history of leaks, spills and other violations. For critics, that success is checkered at best since the repository is far from fulfilling its mission. “It’s 80 percent through its lifetime, and it has disposed of less than 40 percent of the waste and has cost more than twice as much as it was supposed to,” said Don Hancock with the watchdog group Southwest Research and Information Center. “How great of a success is that?” Officials initially thought the facility would operate for about 25 years. Rather than wrapping up in the next few years, managers have bumped the timeline to 2050. The repository was carved out of an ancient salt formation about a half-mile (0.8 kilometer) below the surface, with the idea that the shifting salt would eventually entomb the radioactive waste. It was the National Academy of Sciences in the 1950s that first recommended disposing of atomic waste in deep geologic formations. Scientists began taking a hard look at the New Mexico site about two decades later. The scientists had to convince themselves and then federal regulators that it was safe. One of their tasks was determining that the ancient seawater trapped between the salt crystals and bound up in thin bands of clay within the salt deposit would pose no problems thousands of years later. “It was exciting to be working on what was then going to be the world’s first deep-geologic repository for that class of waste,” said Peter Swift, a senior scientist at Sandia National Laboratories. “Nothing that radioactive had been put that deep underground before. And that’s still true 20 years later.” While the real test will be what happens generations from now, Swift is confident in the science behind the project. But the wild card in whether the repository is ultimately deemed a success will be the human factor. After all, missteps by management were blamed for the 2014 radiation release. With some areas permanently sealed off due to contamination, more mining will have to be done to expand capacity. The federal government also is spending more than a half-billion dollars to install a new ventilation system, sink more shafts and make other upgrades aimed at returning to “normal business.” Hancock and some former elected leaders involved in early discussions about the facility worry about the subterranean landfill becoming a dumping ground for high-level waste or commercial nuclear waste. But it would take an act of Congress to expand the repository’s mission, and getting consent from New Mexico’s delegates would be a tall order since the federal government still has no long-term plan for dealing with such waste. Nevada’s proposed Yucca Mountain project is mothballed, and no other permanent disposal proposals are on the table. Toney Anaya, who served as New Mexico governor in the 1980s, remembers the heated debates about bringing more radioactive waste to the state. He said there were concerns about safety, but the promise of jobs was attractive. Some also argued New Mexico had a moral obligation given its legacy of uranium mining and its role in the development of the atomic bomb. Another former governor, Bill Richardson, was on both sides of the tug of war — first as a young Democratic congressman who wanted to impose environmental standards and keep 18-wheelers loaded with waste from passing through the heart of Santa Fe. Then, he became U.S. energy secretary during the Clinton administration and pressured the state to clear the way for the repository to open. “For New Mexico, we’ve done our share of storing waste, and we’ve done it safely and effectively,” Richardson said. “It’s provided jobs, but I just think the future of the state is not nuclear.” Southeastern New Mexico’s ties to nuclear run deep and will continue for at least the next 30 years under the plans being charted now. Robust state regulation will be key in ensuring responsible management going forward, said Hancock, with the watchdog group. The problem, he said, is that besides the Cold War-era waste that has yet to be dealt with, the federal government and nuclear power plants keep generating more. “We need to decide what our capacities are actually going to be — how much nuclear power waste are we going to create, how much nuclear weapons waste are we going to create — so that we can then put our arms around the problem,” Hancock said. Claim: First-of-its-kind US nuclear waste dump marks 20 years.

SOLUTION:
In a remote stretch of New Mexico desert, the U.S. government put in motion an experiment aimed at proving to the world that radioactive waste could be safely disposed of deep underground, rendering it less of a threat to the environment.