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: "Florida leads the nation in deaths from lightning strikes. But State Farm, one of the nation’s major insurers, says it is Georgia residents who file the most claims for lightning strikes in the country, WSB-TV reported Friday, June 5. PolitiFact Georgia was intrigued and decided to dig a little deeper. We began by contacting Justin Tomczak, a State Farm spokesman. He sent us data showing Georgia was No. 1 in 2014 for lightning-related claims both in number (3,709) and total dollar value ($16.3 million). Texas was second, Alabama at third, Louisiana at fourth and Illinois at fifth. STATE Reported Count Paid Indemnity  Georgia 3,709 $16,301,952 Texas 2,201 $14,160,258 Alabama 1,902 $10,930,264 Louisiana 1,707 $10,930,264 Illinois 1,669 $8,030,507 . ""This is the third year in a row that Georgia has been ranked No. 1,"" Tomczak said. Most of the lightning claims were surge- or power-related, the spokesman said. Damages generally resulted from power surges in electrical wiring, TV cable or phone lines in homes or businesses, he said. As to why Georgia has the most claims, Tomczak said, ""there is no simple answer. However, many of the lightning claims are concentrated in the Southeastern United States, and Georgia has one of the highest populations in this area."" John Jensenius, lightning safety specialist with the National Weather Service, said the population density in metro Atlanta may be a factor in Georgia’s high claim rate. The denser the population the more likely lightning will strike a house, Jensenius said. The Insurance Information Institute, in conjunction with State Farm, compiles a list each year of the top 10 states for homeowners insurance lightning losses by number of claims. In 2013, the institute listed Georgia as highest with 11,184 lightning-related insurance claims from homeowners. Its 2014 report is due out within days, a spokeswoman said. (Georgia was No. 1 for 2012 with 3,844 claims totalling $21.5 million and for 2013 with 2,969 claims totalling $14.9 million, according to State Farm). Nationwide, lightning strikes cost about $674 million in homeowners insurance losses in 2013, down 30.5 percent from 2012, according to the institute. From 2007 to 2011, local fire departments across the country responded to an average of 22,600 fires a year that were started by lightning, according to the National Fire Protection Association. These fires caused an average of $451 million in direct property damage and nine civilian deaths a year, an NFPA analysis shows. Lightning deaths  Florida led the nation for lightning deaths in 2014 with six, followed by Wisconsin with three. Georgia, Arizona, Arkansas, Colorado and Massachusetts each had two deaths. Seven additional states -- California, Michigan, Missouri, Mississippi, New Mexico, Pennsylvania and Texas -- reported one lightning death in the year. The 26 lightning deaths in 2014 followed a record low of 23 set in 2013. The National Weather Service said deaths from lightning strikes averaged 33 a year from 2004 to 2013 and, going back over the last 30 years, an average of 51 people died each year after being hit by lightning. The significant decline in lightning deaths has been attributed to fewer farmers working in the fields, technological advances, improved safety standards and protection. As of the June 1, 2015 there have been six lightning fatalities, two in North Carolina and one each in Iowa, Florida, New Mexico and West Virginia, according to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA). WSB-TV meteorologist Brian Monahan said lightning strikes occur most often in Georgia during the summer months when the high pressure area out in the Atlantic around Bermuda pumps in warm, humid air, creating those all-too-familiar afternoon and evening thunderstorms. A secondary spike of lightning strikes also occurs in the severe weather seasons of March to early May and around October and November, when the air is still warm and humid enough to support storms, Monahan said. Our ruling State Farm says Georgia residents file the most claims for lightning strikes in the country. There’s evidence this has been the case last year and the two previous years."

SOLUTION: Georgia residents file the most insurance claims for lightning strikes in the country.

PROBLEM: Peebles, a 30-year-old black man who’s skeptical of what he hears from the news media and government, initially didn’t see the need for alarm over the virus. “I felt it was a complete hoax,” Peebles said. “This thing happens every two or four years. We have an outbreak of a disease that seems to put everybody in a panic.” Peebles is among roughly 40 million black Americans deciding minute by minute whether to put their faith in government and the medical community during the coronavirus pandemic. Historic failures in government responses to disasters and emergencies, medical abuse, neglect and exploitation have jaded generations of black people into a distrust of public institutions. “I’ve just been conditioned not to trust,” said Peebles, who is now obeying the state’s stay home order and keeping his distance from others when he goes out. Some call such skepticism the “Tuskegee effect” — distrust linked to the U.S. government’s once-secret study of black men in Alabama who were left untreated for syphilis. Black people already suffer disproportionately from chronic conditions like diabetes and heart disease and are far more likely to be uninsured. How the government and medical community responds to the crisis will be especially crucial for outcomes among black Americans, civil rights advocates and medical experts say. “We are right to be paranoid and to ask tough questions,” said U.S. Rep. Ayanna Pressley of Massachusetts who joined other congressional leaders in asking the government to collect and release information about the race and ethnicity of people who are tested or treated for the virus that causes COVID-19. “History has shown us, when we do not” ask questions, said Pressley, who is black, “the consequences are grave, and in fact life and death.”  NAACP President Derrick Johnson, who hosted a coronavirus tele-town hall with U.S. Surgeon General Jerome Adams last month, said black and brown communities need reliable information about the crisis. “Now that this has been deemed a pandemic, I am most concerned with inequities in who’s provided tests, who’s provided treatment and how those tests and the treatments are administered, in a way that is open, transparent, and equitable,” Johnson said. For most people, the virus causes mild or moderate symptoms, such as fever and cough. But for some, especially older adults and people with existing health problems, it can cause more severe illness, including pneumonia and death. Cities with large black populations like New York, Chicago, Detroit, Milwaukee and New Orleans have emerged as hot spots for the coronavirus. Figures released by Michigan’s Department of Health and Human Services show 40% of those who have died from COVID-19 are black in a state where African-Americans are just 14% of the population. And many Southern states with large black populations have been slow to mandate statewide restrictions shown to slow virus spread. According to the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, black adults are 60% more likely than non-Hispanic white adults to be diagnosed with diabetes, 40% more likely to have high blood pressure and are less likely to have those conditions under control. Additionally, in 2015, black women were 20% more likely to have asthma than non-Hispanic whites. Those disparities make the availability of a treatment or vaccine urgent, even as the virus is currently projected to claim tens of thousands of lives. But given history, Peebles said he wouldn’t rush to accept a remedy. “If we got to a place where the government says, ‘OK, now it’s time to take a vaccine,’ then I’m definitely going to be skeptical of their intentions,” he said. Launched in 1932 by the U.S. Public Health Service, the Tuskegee study involved roughly 600 poor black men in Alabama who weren’t treated for the sexually transmitted disease so researchers could track its progress. The program was exposed and ended in 1972, and then-President Bill Clinton formally apologized in 1997. The Tuskegee legacy has helped pollute the black community’s relationship with American medical science. A 2016 paper found the fallout included mistrust of medicine among black men, along with fewer interactions with doctors and higher mortality rates. In Tuskegee, where many families include descendants of victims, many residents don’t trust government health information, said Lucenia Dunn, a former Tuskegee mayor. So volunteers trying to get the word out about coronavirus have gone door-to-door distributing fliers with cartoon-like illustrations that don’t look “too official,” she said. “We have a general distrust in this community,’” Dunn said. “I call it ‘subconscious rejection.’ The attitude is, ‘I’m going to rebel against this. You people have been telling us lies for years. Why should I believe you now?’” In Los Angeles, Jahmil Lacey helped found a public health group for black men and boys, TRAPMedicine, that educates black barbers and organizes workshops to address health disparities among their customers. “People will quote the Tuskegee experiment as the reason why black people don’t trust health care, but there’s so much more than just that one example,” Lacey said. “We don’t trust systems that are connected to white supremacy. So, we have to do the work to repair it.” Indeed, Tuskegee didn’t happen in a vacuum. In the 1950s, doctors at the John Hopkins Hospital used cervical cancer cells from Henrietta Lacks, a black mother of five, to pioneer medical advances and research that continue globally today. Lacks, who died in 1951, never gave her consent and her family has never been compensated. One way to begin healing the mistrust is to increase black representation in the medical field, said Dr. Nicollette Louissaint, executive director of the Washington-based emergency response advocacy group Healthcare Ready. “We have to make sure that ... the message itself and the messengers are being adapted to the appropriate audience,” said Louissaint, who is black. “It’s going to be really important that we get that right.” ___ Reeves reported from Birmingham, Alabama. Both are members of the AP’s Race and Ethnicity team. Follow Morrison on Twitter at http://twitter.com/aaronlmorrison. Follow Reeves on Twitter at https://twitter.com/Jay_Reeves

SOLUTION: Amid coronavirus pandemic, black mistrust of medicine looms.

PROBLEM: The N.C. Department of Health and Human Services said in a news release on Tuesday that it’s working with the Buncombe and Henderson County health departments to track down additional information. Legionella bacteria can become a health concern when they grow and spread in human-made water systems like hot water tanks, air conditioning systems and other sources that are not properly maintained. State Epidemiologist Dr. Zack Moore said it’s not yet known if people attending the fair might have been exposed to Legionella bacteria. Moore says people who attended the fair and are experiencing cough, fever or shortness of breath should call their health care provider right away.

SOLUTION:
2 health departments investigate Legionnaires’ disease.