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: The local money will be added to $56 million already appropriated for the new clinic, which will be part of the VA’s Nebraska/Western Iowa Health Care System. The $86 million facility will be built on the campus of the current VA hospital in Omaha. “This project will lay the groundwork for future public-private partnerships aimed at providing veterans access to state-of-the-art facilities and will significantly improve the quality of care we are able to provide to our nation’s veterans,” said Veterans Affairs Secretary David Shulkin in a news release. President Barack Obama in December signed a measure, dubbed the Chip In for Vets Act, that allows the public-private partnership. It was sponsored by U.S. Rep Brad Ashford, who represented Nebraska’s 2nd Congressional District until losing his bid for re-election in November. VA officials have said the clinic that will be called the Veterans Affairs Ambulatory Center will offer primary, specialty and ambulatory care and operate radiological and surgical facilities. The current hospital will remain standing, and once the ambulatory care center is built, the hospital will be used primarily for administrative operations with some medical services, said Nebraska/Western Iowa Health Care System spokesman William Ackerman. He couldn’t immediately say where the four other pilot projects will occur. VA officials in Washington didn’t immediately return messages. Design work on the Omaha project will continue through 2017, and officials anticipate site work and construction will begin in early 2018, said Sue Morris, president of Heritage Services, a nonprofit civic group involved in the project. A 2007 study found the current Omaha hospital was plagued by problems in its electrical, heating and cooling systems. In 2011, the VA unveiled plans for a $560 million replacement. Congress approved $56 million to start the project planning, and the new structure tentatively was scheduled to open in 2018. But the plans and work were delayed by funding shortages and changing VA priorities. The public-private project had been projected to cost $136 million — $56 million from federal sources, $80 million from local benefactors. But Ackerman said the figure was decreased after details were refined since the number was discussed after Obama signed the legislation. The local corporation, the Veterans Ambulatory Center Development Corp., which will oversee design, construction and fundraising, was created by Heritage Services. Heritage Services was instrumental in creating major Omaha projects such as the Holland Performing Arts Center and TD Ameritrade Park, where the College World Series is held. ___ Information from: Omaha World-Herald, http://www.omaha.com

SOLUTION: Nonprofit group commits $30M for new Omaha VA facility.

PROBLEM: The health department said at least 16 patients admitted to the 210-bed Mount Carmel Grove City hospital after its opening April 28 have been diagnosed with Legionnaires’. The disease is a severe form of pneumonia that’s caused by inhaling tiny water droplets containing the legionella bacteria. One of the patients, a 75-year-old woman, died. Hospital president Sean McKibben said in a statement Thursday that the disease outbreak happened because of inadequate disinfection of the hot water system prior to the hospital’s opening. He said a permanent supplemental disinfection system with constant monitoring and controls has been installed. ___ Information from: The Columbus Dispatch, http://www.dispatch.com

SOLUTION: Outbreak of Legionnaire’s blamed on hot water system.

PROBLEM: Farmers from southern Italy presenting their wares at a London food festival this week say their hemp pasta, oil and bread won’t get you high, but do provide a healthy, tasty alternative to the traditional, wheat variety. “Hemp food is truly organic,” said Marzio Ilario Fiore, 30, whose farm in the Molise region produces hemp oil and flour. “Hemp requires no pesticides, no fertilizers, and only moderate amounts of water.”    Cannabis is most often associated with the psychoactive effects of marijuana, but some strains of the plant can also be cultivated for food. High-growing varieties called hemp, which contain negligible levels of the drug THC, have long been grown to produce food and other products. Italy lifted a ban on hemp cultivation in 1998. “My crop gets regularly checked by Italian police inspectors to ensure that THC is within the legal limit,” said Fiore, one of some 200 Italian food artisans in London for the three-day Bellavita (“Beautiful Life”) Expo. As well as spaghetti made from hemp flour, he provided tastings of hemp taralli - hard savory biscuits from southern Italy - and hemp oil, which has a distinctive, nutty flavor. Hemp seeds are one of the richest sources of vegetarian protein, with high concentrations of omega fatty acids, growers say. While most pasta makers have yet to venture into the hemp market, they are finding new ways to present the staple, patenting new pasta shapes and sizes. La Molisana, for example, showed off its square-shaped variety of spaghetti, the so-called ‘spaghetto quadrato’. Wine makers, too, are looking for ways to differentiate their products, with one producer aging its bottles on the sea bed for up to a year before selling them, encrusted with algae. “The lack of light and constant temperature combined with the ‘massage’ effect of the tides produces great results,” said Gianluca Grilli, co-founder of the Tenuta del Paguro which won Bellavita’s best beverage business award, worth 10,000 euros. Tenuta del Paguro uses the wreck of the Paguro oil drilling platform, which sank in the Adriatic Sea in 1965, to store its wine underwater. The three reds and one white are produced in Riolo Terme, near Ravenna, in central Italy, before being sent to mature under the waves. The bottles sell in Italy for 100-150 euros  ($110-160) each, Grilli said. Bellavita offered a maze of hanging salami and cheese from across Italy, including provolone from the milk of the Agerolese cow, a protected crossbreed from the south, as well as cookies flavored with lavender and rosewood extract called ‘Furezze’, from the Venetian dialect word ‘sfureso’, meaning delicacy.

SOLUTION:
High on the menu: cannabis spaghetti features at Italian foodfest.