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.

Ex Input:
The American, Walter James Palmer, a Minnesota dentist who paid $50,000 to kill the lion, has left Zimbabwe. He says he did kill the animal but believed the hunt was legal and that the necessary permits had been issued. Local hunter Theo Bronkhorst appeared in a courthouse in Hwange, 800 km (500 miles) west of Harare, and was charged with “failing to supervise, control and take reasonable steps to prevent an unlawful hunt”. He pleaded not guilty to the charge and was set free after posting $1,000 bail and depositing his passport with the court. He will return to court on Aug. 5 for trial. Game park owner Honest Ndlovu, who is also accused of assisting Palmer, was not charged on Wednesday and parks officials said he would first testify for the state and be charged later. While Bronkhorst appeared in court in Zimbabwe, Palmer, who is accused of killing Cecil with a bow and arrow, was being pilloried on the Internet, with many people wishing him dead. “This is disgusting. I hope you get thrown in a cage with hungry lions,” Julie Lu wrote on the Facebook page of his dental practice. Palmer said on Tuesday he had hired professional guides who secured hunting permits and deeply regretted taking the lion. He added that he had not been contacted by authorities in Zimbabwe or the United States and would assist in any inquiries. The Zimbabwe police and government have not commented. If found guilty, Bronkhorst could be fined $20,000 and possibly jailed for up to 10 years. The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service expressed its concern about the killing. “We are currently gathering facts about the issue and will assist Zimbabwe officials in whatever manner requested,” said Vanessa Kauffman, a spokeswoman for the government agency. “It is up to all of us - not just the people of Africa - to ensure that healthy, wild populations of animals continue to roam the savanna for generations to come.”  Cecil was fitted with a GPS collar for a research project by scientists from Oxford University and was one of the oldest and most famous lions in Zimbabwe. The British university’s Wildlife Conservation Research Unit said it had been tracking Cecil since 2008 and was “deeply saddened” by his death. “Insofar as this happened illegally we consider it deeply reprehensible,” it said in a statement. It was working closely with Zimbabwe’s National Parks authorities to support their “meticulous work” in prosecuting the case. The unit also said Cecil’s death would be likely to trigger a power struggle in the pride, resulting in the death of other male lions as well as Cecil’s offspring. “When a male lion is killed, because of the way their society works, a likely consequence is the overthrow and death of other adult male members of his weakened coalition, and the subsequent infanticide of his cubs,” it said. Palmer’s hunting has attracted scrutiny in the past. In 2008, he pleaded guilty to lying to a U.S. wildlife agent about a black bear he killed in Wisconsin two years before. He was accused of killing it 40 miles outside a permitted zone, hauling the carcass back into the approved area and certifying falsely that it was killed there. He was  sentenced to one year probation and fined $2,938. In the Hwange case, Zimbabwe Conservation Task Force chairman Johnny Rodrigues said Cecil was lured out of the park with bait before being shot. The incident has triggered fierce debate over the commercial ‘trophy’ hunting of African big game. Like many countries, Zimbabwe issues annual permits that allow foreign hunters to kill wildlife such as elephant, buffalo and lion legally, arguing that the funds raised allow the government to fund conservation efforts. “Sustainable trophy hunting is part of well-managed wildlife conservation. It creates incentives for people to look after wildlife,” said Adri Kitshoff, chief executive of the Professional Hunters’ Association of South Africa. “It’s easy to fall into the trap of emotions and not focus on facts.”  However, Edward Bourke, chairman of the Australia-based Saving The Lion Foundation, said Cecil’s death showed the dangers of legal hunting. “There is enough global pressure to push for change. There is an opportunity to offer alternatives, including international aid for establishing safe haven environments like national parks or eco-tourism zones,” he said. One of the few countries to avoid Cecil hysteria was Zimbabwe, where most people are more preoccupied with putting food on the table and finding work in an economy suffering 80 percent unemployment. To the state-run Herald newspaper, the most remarkable aspect of the case was the lion’s name, which it linked to British imperialist Cecil Rhodes, after whom the former Rhodesia named. “How someone thought it such a good idea to christen a lion after the infamous plunderer and murderer who roamed dangerously across Africa can only be a matter of conjecture,” it said in an editorial.

Ex Output:
Zimbabwean charged over killing of Cecil the lion.


Ex Input:
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention on Wednesday posted data showing nearly 68,000 drug overdose deaths were reported last year. The number may go up as more investigations are completed, but the agency expects the tally will end up below 69,000. Overdose deaths had been climbing each year since 1990, topping 70,000 in 2017. The numbers were celebrated by the U.S. secretary of health and human services. “Lives are being saved, and we’re beginning to win the fight against this crisis,” Alex Azar wrote in a tweet. But the overdose death rate is still about seven times higher than it was a generation ago. “We’re still in a pretty sad situation that we need to address,” said Rebecca Haffajee, a University of Michigan researcher. Researchers do not believe this is the start of a dramatic decline. Data from the first months of this year likely will show that the decrease is not gaining steam, said Farida Ahmad of the CDC’s National Center for Health Statistics. The improvement was driven by a drop in deaths from heroin and prescription painkillers. Those falls were offset somewhat by continuing growth in deaths involving a different opioid, fentanyl, as well as other drugs such cocaine and methamphetamines. Overdose deaths often involve more than one drug. The improvement is not uniform: Some states seem to be making dramatic progress, while deaths continue to rise in others. The preliminary CDC data suggested deaths last year were down by as many as 1,000 or more in Ohio and Pennsylvania — each seeing declines of about 20%. Meanwhile, deaths increased by about 17% in Missouri, which had more than 200 additional deaths. It can take months for authorities to complete toxicology tests and other elements of a death investigation involving drugs. And some states report faster than others. The CDC is expected to report more complete data later this year. The current overdose epidemic has killed more people than any other in U.S. history, and it had been on a soaring trajectory. From 2014 to 2017, overdose deaths jumped by 5,000 or more each year. Experts trace the epidemic’s origins to 1995 and the marketing of the prescription painkiller OxyContin. It was meant be safer and more effective than other prescription opioids, but some patients got hooked and found they could crush the tablets and snort or inject them to get high. Gradually, many turned to cheaper street drugs such as heroin and fentanyl. In 2015, heroin began causing more deaths than prescription painkillers or other drugs. In 2016, fentanyl and its close cousins became the biggest drug killer, and in 2018 they were involved in about 46% of the reported overdose deaths, according to the preliminary CDC data. Strategies to reduce drug overdose deaths have included tougher policing, treatment program expansions, policies to limit opioid painkiller prescriptions and wider distribution of the overdose-reversing drug naloxone. Haffajee and other researchers are trying to figure out what measures are most responsible for the slight improvement. “It’s complicated because there are so many policies going on, and as an evaluator it’s very hard to separate them out and determine which is working,” she said. Valerie Hardcastle, a Northern Kentucky University administrator who oversees research and other work on local health issues, has seen the overdose epidemic play out in her region, near Cincinnati. She believes a major factor is Narcan, a nasal spray version of naloxone, that has been widely distributed through the efforts of philanthropists and local, state, and federal officials. “It’s fantastic that we have fewer deaths, don’t get me wrong,” she said. “But I’m not sure it’s an indication that the opioid problem per se is diminishing. It’s just that we have greater availability of the drugs that will keep us alive.” ___ The Associated Press Health and Science Department receives support from the Howard Hughes Medical Institute’s Department of Science Education. The AP is solely responsible for all content. ___ This story has been corrected to show Ahmad’s first name is Farida, not Farid.

Ex Output:
Number of US overdose deaths appears to be falling.


Ex Input:
Lt. Gen. Todd Semonite on Thursday approved the plan to install defenses at the Brandon Road Lock and Dam near Joliet, Illinois, about 40 miles from Lake Michigan. The site is a crucial choke point in an aquatic pathway between the lake and the carp-infested Illinois River. The plan represents a compromise between proposals to erect barriers that would seal off Lake Michigan from the river and less drastic measures such as stepped-up commercial fishing. Environmentalists and states including Michigan had argued for physical separation, while Illinois and Indiana contended that it would disrupt cargo shipping and that a Chicago-area electric barrier was keeping the carp at bay. Although only a few live Asian carp have been found past the barrier, the fish’s DNA has turned up there as recently as April, when water samples were taken from Chicago’s Lake Calumet. The Corps says the leading edge of adult bighead and silver carp — the most feared of several Asian species because they gorge on plankton that other fish need — is about four miles from the Brandon Road complex. “The Brandon Road project is the only shot we have to get additional protections in place to stop the carp,” said Marc Smith of the National Wildlife Federation. “It will significantly reduce the risk.” The plan calls for installing a gantlet of technologies intended to repel approaching fish, including additional electric barriers and underwater speakers that would blast loud noises, plus an “air bubble curtain.” A specially designed “flushing lock” would wash away carp that might be floating on the water as vessels pass through. Semonite’s endorsement came more than five years after the Army Corps offered a series of options for blocking the carp’s advance. It’s now up to Congress to decide whether to authorize the project and provide most of the funding. A pending House bill recommends $3.8 million for preconstruction, engineering and design work in 2020. The expected completion date is March 2027. “With the Asian Carp on the doorstep of our region’s most vital natural resource, we have a small window of time to stop this invasive species before it inflicts irreparable damage on our Great Lakes and our $7 billion fishing industry and equally important tourism industry,” said Rep. Marcy Kaptur, an Ohio Democrat who chairs the Appropriations Subcommittee on Energy and Water Development. Republican Reps. Paul Mitchell and Bill Huizenga of Michigan also pledged support. Bipartisan teamwork will be essential, particularly given the plan’s escalating cost, said Molly Flanagan of the Alliance for the Great Lakes. A draft released in 2017 estimated that the project would cost $275 million. The final version put the price tag at $778 million, and that would be under an “expedited” scenario in which the various technologies would be installed at the same time. It could reach $832 million under an alternative “phased” strategy, spokesman Allen Marshall said. Another key will be getting financial support from Great Lakes states. The Army Corps generally requires non-federal partners to pay 35 percent of a project’s construction costs, although Congress could waive some or all of the requirement. Illinois Gov. J.B. Pritzker last month authorized his state’s cooperation with initial phases of the program but said he wouldn’t commit to long-term support without efforts to limit costs and contributions from other states. Sens. Dick Durbin and Tammy Duckworth, both Illinois Democrats, said Friday that they would seek congressional approval “under a cost-share agreement that will ensure Illinois isn’t left footing the bill for a project that will benefit the entire Great Lakes region.” ___ Follow John Flesher on Twitter: http://twitter.com/johnflesher

Ex Output:

Army Corps approves $778M plan to block Asian carp advance.