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: A crowdfunding initiative by the finance minister amid reports of government spending on new vehicles for Cabinet members has only swelled public anger. Some local non-governmental organizations on Friday blamed the government for the deaths in an outbreak that is spreading beyond the capital and raising fears of a repeat of the 2008 epidemic that killed over 4,000 people. “It is alarming and quite unusual for such a medieval and preventable disease to continue to claim such valuable lives in this day and age,” said the Civil Society Health Emergency Response Coordinating Committee in a statement. It warned that government failure to “guarantee the right to health is a serious violation of both local and international law.” The government, which this week declared an emergency, has said it is committed to ending the outbreak. Health Minister Obadiah Moyo, while visiting a suburb identified as the epicenter of the outbreak on Friday, said it is not time “for a blame game.” United Nations agencies such as the World Health Organization say they have intervened to assist the southern African country whose economy collapsed under former leader Robert Mugabe, who resigned in November under military pressure. Finance Minister Mthuli Ncube used Twitter to announce a crowdfunding initiative to help fight the outbreak, infuriating some Zimbabweans long frustrated by the country’s currency crisis and high unemployment rate. ___ Follow Africa news at https://twitter.com/AP_Africa Claim: Zimbabwe’s government criticized over cholera outbreak.

SOLUTION: Zimbabwe’s new government is battling criticism over a cholera outbreak that has killed at least 25 people.

PROBLEM: Paragraph: "Campaigning for president in the liberal oasis of Madison, U.S. Sen. Bernie Sanders of Vermont rose to the defense of marijuana. Critical of the nation’s war on drugs, Sanders said the lives of millions of Americans have been ""ruined"" because they got a police record for possessing marijuana. ""Today, under the federal Controlled Substance Act, marijuana is listed in the same Schedule I as heroin. That is nuts,"" Sanders declared March 26, 2016, 10 days before he defeated Hillary Clinton in Wisconsin’s Democratic primary. ""Now people can argue -- although I suspect in this audience there may not be much of an argument -- about the pluses and minuses of marijuana,"" he said, drawing cheers from some of the thousands in attendance at the Alliant Energy Center. ""But everybody knows marijuana is not a killer drug like heroin."" Sanders then noted he had introduced legislation to remove marijuana from the Controlled Substance Act because possession of it ""should not be a federal crime."" We found that Sanders wasn’t smoking anything funny in claiming that both marijuana and heroin are Schedule I drugs, which he has continued to say while campaigning in New York and Pennsylvania. But his claim is somewhat misleading: That classification is based on a drug’s acceptable medical use and the drug’s abuse or dependency potential, not on criminal statutes. The law The Controlled Substance Act, adopted in 1970, uses five schedules to classify drugs and narcotics by medical use and potential to incite substance abuse. On the low end is Schedule V, which includes substances such as cough medicines with small amounts of the narcotic codeine. At the high end is Schedule I, which lists the ""most dangerous"" drugs -- those that have ""no currently accepted medical use and a high potential for abuse."" Marijuana is stronger than when the Controlled Substance Act was adopted (as ex-GOP presidential candidate Carly Fiorina correctly stated). Nevertheless Schedule II includes some drugs often considered more dangerous than marijuana. Here’s a look at some of the drugs in the two schedules: Schedule I Schedule II Marijuana Cocaine Heroin Methamphetamine LSD Methadone Ecstasy OxyContin Peyote Fentanyl The Huffington Post in April 2016, citing figures from the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, said the nation recorded no marijuana overdose deaths in 2015. Likewise, there were zero in 2014. It’s possible marijuana might soon be moved off of Schedule I. A week after Sanders’ speech, the Washington Post reported that the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration said it hopes to decide by July 2016 whether to change the federal status of marijuana. Now let’s get to Sanders’ implication that the schedule relates to criminal law enforcement. Marijuana treated differently Distribution, manufacturing or possession of a Schedule I substance is indeed a federal offense. Additionally, marijuana being on Schedule I, drug policy experts told us, makes it more difficult for licensed dealers in states that have legalized marijuana or medical marijuana to get bank accounts and to deduct business expenses on their taxes. And the classification makes it more difficult for researchers to study marijuana in clinical trials. But judges come down harder on heroin possession than marijuana possession. And when it comes to enforcement of criminal statutes, the federal government to some extent has looked the other way when it comes to marijuana. As PolitiFact National stated in a related fact check: Schedule I substances cannot legally be used for medical purposes, however, 20 states and the District of Columbia have passed laws legalizing medical marijuana. In 2009, the administration of President Barack Obama, a Democrat, told federal law enforcement agencies to stop targeting medical marijuana dispensaries, signaling a change from the approach of Obama’s predecessor, Republican President George W. Bush. Similarly, in 2013, the Department of Justice said it would not target new laws in Colorado and Washington legalizing recreational marijuana. While Sanders equates the handling or marijuana and heroin, it’s difficult to imagine the federal government not enforcing the law if states started legalizing heroin. Our rating Criticizing the nation’s war on drugs, Sanders says that under the federal Controlled Substance Act, ""marijuana is listed in the same Schedule I as heroin,"" even though ""marijuana is not a killer drug like heroin."" Like heroin, marijuana is indeed listed as a Schedule I drug, the federal designation given to drugs considered the most dangerous. But at least under the Obama administration, the federal government doesn’t treat it as one under the law. For a statement that is accurate but needs clarification, our rating is . Claim: "Under the federal Controlled Substance Act, marijuana is listed in the same Schedule I as heroin,"" even though ""marijuana is not a killer drug like heroin."

SOLUTION: "Criticizing the nation’s war on drugs, Sanders says that under the federal Controlled Substance Act, ""marijuana is listed in the same Schedule I as heroin,"" even though ""marijuana is not a killer drug like heroin."" Like heroin, marijuana is indeed listed as a Schedule I drug, the federal designation given to drugs considered the most dangerous. But at least under the Obama administration, the federal government doesn’t treat it as one under the law. For a statement that is accurate but needs clarification. 

PROBLEM: Paragraph: "Mayor Jim Kenney’s administration recently released a report stuffed with the good news that happened during his first year in office. It notes how the DNC was better for local businesses than the pope and contains plenty about the soda tax and the upcoming education initiatives it will fund. But the report first discusses crime, consistently one of the biggest concerns for Philadelphians who flirt with leaving the city. ""While many urban areas across the country saw a sharp increase in crime over the last year,"" the report reads, ""the Philadelphia Police Department successfully lowered part one crimes and increased drug seizures."" So what’s part one crime, and did Philly’s part one crime rate drop? And did other cities have difficulty keeping their overall crimes rates low? We decided to check. And for fun we’ll look into how this year’s change in the crime rate compares to the years of former Mayor Michael Nutter. First, Philly’s crime rate. Part one crimes are defined by the Uniform Crime Reporting Act as forcible rape, homicide, robbery, aggravated assault, burglary, larceny-theft, motor vehicle theft and arson. The mayor’s report states that of part one crimes as of Dec. 11, homicide is down 1 percent, burglaries are down 14 percent, reports of rape down 10 percent and robberies down 8 percent. The administration said it obtained its data from the Uniform Crime Reporting Act. If you look at year-to-date statistics directly from the police department on Dec. 11, they’re slightly different. Homicide, for instance, was up 2 percent. But either way, part one crime was down 1 percent on Dec. 11 and violent part one crime was down about 5 percent, according to statistics from the police. The decrease follows a years-long trend for Philadelphia. Under the Nutter administration, violent crime decreased about 20 percent from when he took office in 2008 to the end of 2015. Most of the decrease took place in his last four years, but Philly experienced a slight decrease in violent crime in his first year before slight increases the next three years. Not every city can tell the same story as Philadelphia about a reduction in crime and violent crime this year. Throughout 2016, national publications have hyped a rise in violent crime, particularly murder rates, for reasons unclear to experts. Among big cities that have experienced a surge in violent crime are Dallas, Chicago and Los Angeles. As of last week, Dallas’ part one crime rate had increased .1 percent and Los Angeles’ 5.4 percent. Nearby big cities like New York and Baltimore have seen a decrease in part one crime, like Philadelphia, according to statistics from their police departments. A recent study by the Brennan Center looked at 21 of the 30 largest U.S. cities and compared projections of crime rates from 2016 to 2015, based on numbers it collected in September. It found the projected crime rate up 1.3 percent overall, a projection the Brennan Center described as ""nearly unchanged,"" the violent crime rate up 5.5 percent and the murder rate up 13.1 percent. The Brennan Center notes most of the fluctuations in the crime rate fall within expected ranges and there has been no national wave of crime. The main reasons for stories about an unclear increase in murder and violent crime nationally are outliers like Chicago and San Antonio, which have seen their murder rates go up about 47 percent and 50 percent, respectively, this year. For overall crime rate, Los Angeles, Chicago, San Antonio, Charlotte and Oklahoma City were the only cities with increases in crime above 4 percent. Philadelphia is one of 13 of the 21 cities to experience a reduction in total crime and one of eight to see a reduction in violent crime." Claim: While many urban areas across the country saw a sharp increase in crime over the last year, the Philadelphia Police Department successfully lowered part one crimes.

SOLUTION:
Did major crimes drop in Philly compared to other cities in 2016?