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: "In his address to a joint session of Congress, President Barack Obama brought up the most explosive charge to emerge in the health care debate: the specter of ""death panels."" ""Some of people’s concerns (about the health care legislation) have grown out of bogus claims spread by those whose only agenda is to kill reform at any cost,"" Obama told lawmakers and a national television audience on Sept. 9, 2009. ""The best example is the claim, made not just by radio and cable talk show hosts, but by prominent politicians, that we plan to set up panels of bureaucrats with the power to kill off senior citizens. Now, such a charge would be laughable if it weren’t so cynical and irresponsible. It is a lie, plain and simple."" The president was referring to a notion most prominently raised by former Alaska Republican Gov. Sarah Palin in a note posted on her Facebook page on Aug. 7, 2009. ""And who will suffer the most when they ration care?"" Palin wrote. ""The sick, the elderly, and the disabled, of course. The America I know and love is not one in which my parents or my baby with Down Syndrome will have to stand in front of Obama's 'death panel' so his bureaucrats can decide, based on a subjective judgment of their 'level of productivity in society,' whether they are worthy of health care. Such a system is downright evil."" We have read all 1,000-plus pages of the Democratic bill and examined versions in various committees. There is no panel in any version of the health care bills in Congress that judges a person's ""level of productivity in society"" to determine whether someone is ""worthy"" of health care. When we first  assessed  Palin's claim on Aug. 7, 2009, we gave it our lowest rating — . Palin may have jumped to a conclusion about the Obama administration's efforts to promote comparative effectiveness research. Such research has nothing to do with evaluating patients for ""worthiness."" Rather, comparative effectiveness research finds out which treatments work better than others. The health reform bill being considered in the House of Representatives says that a Comparative Effectiveness Research Center shall ""conduct, support, and synthesize research"" that looks at ""outcomes, effectiveness, and appropriateness of health care services and procedures in order to identify the manner in which diseases, disorders, and other health conditions can most effectively and appropriately be prevented, diagnosed, treated, and managed clinically."" The idea here, which Obama and his budget director Peter Orszag have discussed many times, is to make it easier for doctors, health care workers, insurance companies and patients to find out which treatments are the most effective, as determined by clinical studies and other research. The House bill states in the section creating the Comparative Effectiveness Research Center and an oversight commission that ""nothing in this section shall be consd to permit the Commission or the Center to mandate coverage, reimbursement, or other policies for any public or private payer."" In other words, comparative effectiveness research will tell you whether treatment A is better than treatment B. But the bill as written won't mandate which treatment doctors and patients have to select. Nothing has emerged to suggest to us that the death panels claim is any more  today than it was when Palin first floated it. We still rate it as  today. In our book, that counts as a ""lie, plain and simple."" So we find Obama's claim ."

SOLUTION: The claim ... that we plan to set up panels of bureaucrats with the power to  kill off senior citizens ... is a lie, plain and simple.

PROBLEM: Modi, who imposed a three-week long nationwide lockdown on March 25, asked all citizens to turn out their lights for nine minutes at 9 p.m. local time on Sunday, and to display lamps and candles in a show of solidarity. Modi’s call was met with a huge response, with many people lighting up their balconies. Others lit firecrackers, played musical instruments, and sang patriotic songs. Grid data showed India’s national power consumption plunging more than a quarter in a matter of minutes. The show of unity came as the total number of coronavirus cases in India increased to 3,577, while the death toll rose to 83. Some officials have warned that lockdowns could continue beyond April 14 in parts of India where new cases have been detected. With the number of cases continuing to increase daily, India restricted the export of most diagnostic testing kits. The government, which in recent weeks already banned the export of certain medicines, along with ventilators, masks and other protective gear needed by both patients and medical staff, issued the latest directive late on Saturday. The move came even as U.S. President Donald Trump urged Modi in a phone call to release supplies of anti-malaria drug hydroxychloroquine, which is being tested as a possible treatment for patients with COVID-19, the disease caused by the novel coronavirus. “The two leaders agreed to remain in touch on the issue of global supply chains for critical pharmaceuticals and medical supplies and to ensure they continue to function as smoothly as possible during the global health crisis,” White House spokesman Judd Deere said on Saturday. In a briefing note on the conversation, India said the two leaders “agreed to deploy the full strength of the India–U.S. partnership to resolutely and effectively combat COVID-19.”  The total number of confirmed COVID-19 cases in South Asia, home to roughly 1.9 billion people, topped 7,000 on Sunday, even as the death toll from the respiratory disease rose to 149 in the region. While the figures are relatively low in comparison with the United States, China, Italy and Spain, health experts fear that the spread of the pandemic in South Asia could overwhelm already weak public health systems in the region. Bangladesh’s Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina on Sunday unveiled a 727.50 billion taka ($8.56 billion) stimulus package to help the economy weather the impact of the coronavirus outbreak. “The amount is equivalent to 2.52 percent of gross domestic product,” Hasina said in a televised address. Reuters reported earlier this month that Bangladesh, the world’s second-largest apparel producer after China, was set to lose roughly $6 billion in export revenue this financial year amid order cancellations from some of the world’s largest brands and retailers. Bangladesh has recorded 88 cases of the disease, with nine deaths. Following are government figures on the spread of the coronavirus in South Asia:  * India has 3,577 cases, including 83 deaths  * Pakistan has 3,059 cases, including 45 deaths  * Afghanistan has 349 cases, including 7 deaths  * Sri Lanka has 175 cases, including 5 deaths  * Bangladesh has 88 cases, including 9 deaths  * Maldives has 19 cases and no deaths  * Nepal has nine cases and no deaths  * Bhutan has five cases and no deaths

SOLUTION: Indians light lamps to heed Modi's call for coronavirus comradeship.

PROBLEM: "Don't mess with Charlie Crist when it comes to open government. It was Crist, as Florida governor, who created something called the Office for Open Government. And we've heard stories of the governor himself ordering agency heads to hand over public records requested by nosy reporters. Now Crist is taking up the cause of the nation's people in a debate over transparency when it comes to the health care reform bill. ""It seems that a bill that was crafted in a closed-door, backroom meeting in the White House will end the same way,"" Crist, who is running for U.S. Senate, said in a statement released Jan. 5, 2010. ""President Obama has broken his pledge to the American people to be transparent throughout this process, and (Senate Majority Leader) Harry Reid and (House Speaker) Nancy Pelosi have only aided in the secrecy with sweetheart deals and dead of the night votes."" Crist is claiming that Obama broke a promise when it comes to transparency and health care reform. Lucky for us, we have this thing at PolitiFact called the  Obameter  , where we are tracking Obama's more than 500 campaign promises. If you'll now turn to  Promise No. 517  . To achieve health care reform, Obama said in August 2008, ""I'm going to have all the negotiations around a big table. We'll have doctors and nurses and hospital administrators. Insurance companies, drug companies -- they'll get a seat at the table, they just won't be able to buy every chair. But what we will do is, we'll have the negotiations televised on C-SPAN, so that people can see who is making arguments on behalf of their constituents, and who are making arguments on behalf of the drug companies or the insurance companies. And so, that approach, I think is what is going to allow people to stay involved in this process."" If it only happened ... While the Senate and House floor debates have been televised on C-SPAN, negotiations have almost always been away from television cameras. ABC's Jake Tapper put the discrepancy in front of White House press secretary Robert Gibbs this week, to see if the final negotiations between the House, the Senate and the president would be televised. ""There have been a countless number of public hearings,"" Gibbs said. ""The Senate did a lot of their voting at 1 and 2 in the morning on C-SPAN ... I think what the president promised and pledged was so that you could see who was fighting for their constituents and who was fighting for drug and insurance companies."" But, Tapper pressed, the president was talking about negotiations, not votes -- which would hardly be a campaign promise since they would have been televised regardless. ""Well, but the bill gets put together on the floor of the Senate,"" Gibbs said. ""That's where the bill got augmented. And I think if you watched that debate ... you'd have seen quite a bit of public hearing and public airing."" Despite the action on the House and Senate floors, most of the serious negotiations on the health care bill have been done in the same fashion as other major initiatives in the past -- behind closed doors. From negotiations with the drug companies and health care interests to final assembly of the delicate compromise on abortion, the bulk of the big deliberations and discussions have occurred out of the public eye. The debate over the resulting bill may have been on C-SPAN as Gibbs claims, but the real sausagemaking took place in a private kitchen. 517 a Promise Broken. On top of that, C-SPAN CEO Brian Lamb  wrote  to House and Senate leaders last week inviting negotiations on the channel. ""President Obama, Senate and House leaders, many of your rank-and-file members, and the nation’s editorial pages have all talked about the value of transparent discussions on reforming the nation’s health care system,"" Lamb wrote. ""Now that the process moves to the critical stage of reconciliation between the Chambers, we respectfully request that you allow the public full access, through television, to legislation that will affect the lives of every single American."" Obama promised an end to closed-door negotiations and complete openness for the health care talks. But he has failed to deliver. When Crist says ""President Obama has broken his pledge to the American people to be transparent throughout this process,"" he's right."

SOLUTION:
President Obama has broken his pledge to the American people to be transparent throughout (health care reform negotiations).