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 YouTube video is real according to an  October 12, 2012 news article by ABC News Nightline. The article said, “Amanda Todd, 15, posted the video called ‘My story: Struggling, bullying, suicide, self harm’ on Sept. 7 and was found dead in her home town of Port Coquitlam, British Columbia, just over a month later.”    The article also said that Todd had been coaxed by a stranger on the internet to flash her chest via webcam. After about a year of prompting by the stranger she eventually gave in and the events that followed escalated into a teen’s nightmare. A photo of the session was posted on the Internet and someone contact her though Facebook threatening her that if she did not “put on a show” that the photo would be released. The article went on to say, “Over Christmas break, Todd said police came to her house at 4 a.m. to tell her that the photo had been sent to everyone. ‘I then got really sick and got anxiety, major depression and panic disorders,’ she wrote. ‘I then moved and got into drugs and alcohol. '” The cyber-bullies followed her move to a new school in another city and eventually the attacks not only came from the Internet but also from her new classmates who prompted her to find another school. The article said that in the early evening of October 10th law enforcement were called to a home in Port Coquitlam, British Columbia, “to investigate the sudden death of the tormented teenager.”  Investigators found no evidence of foul play but the Royal Canadian Mounted Police have yet to rule her death a suicide. updated 10/15/12 Comments

SOLUTION:  This is a YouTube video that is circulating the Internet allegedly by a 15 year old girl called Amanda Todd.   She tells how someone on the Internet coaxed her into flashing her chest in a webcam session and how the events that followed led to depression, addiction and her suicide. 

PROBLEM: "Retired neurosurgeon Ben Carson stuck to his story about being offered a scholarship to West Point after a Politico article blasted him for ""fabricating"" the account. Carson has highlighted the offer to the prestigious military academy — allegedly made by Gen. William Westmoreland in 1969 when Carson was a ROTC student leader in Detroit — in his books and comments throughout the years. But Carson never applied to West Point nor does Westmoreland’s schedule place him in Detroit at the time Carson said he was, according to Politico. What’s more, there’s no such thing as a ""full scholarship"" to West Point, as everyone accepted to the five federal service academies receives free tuition in exchange for their service. When asked about discrepancy on ABC’s This Week by host George Stephanopoulos, Carson said the academy itself uses the terminology. ""Wait a minute George, go look on the West Point website, and you’ll see those specific words, ‘full scholarship to West Point,’ "" Carson said Nov. 8. ""So even though it is, you know, given as a grant for anybody who gets in, those words are used. And if a recruiter or somebody who’s trying to get you to come there or trying to get you to do that, those are the very words they will use. It’s on their website."" We wondered if the words really are advertised on West Point’s website. We could not reach the military academy. Searching for the ""specific words ‘full scholarship to West Point’"" turned up no results on West Point’s own website or on Google. The official admissions page also makes no mention of a scholarship of any kind. Instead, it simply notes that  tuition, room and board, and expenses are fully paid for those who are selected to attend West Point. The academy’s diversity page, however, states that ""this four-year college experience is a fully funded scholarship."" Carson’s spokesperson told us that West Point has referred to their benefits as a full scholarship in publications, a point Carson made in a Nov. 8 Facebook post. He uploaded two West Point recruitment ads targeted at African-Americans that contain the word ""scholarship,"" including one from the 1960s, when he was a student. We also found examples of the words ""full scholarship"" used in publications that are linked on West Point’s website, as well as some old recruiting advertisements: • A dataset from 2014: ""At the United States Military Academy all students receive a full scholarship, including room & board and medical- and dental-care are provided by the U.S. Army."" • A prospectus from 2012: ""As a cadet, you are a member of the U.S. Army and receive a full scholarship and an annual salary of more than $10,000 from which you pay for your uniforms, textbooks, a laptop computer, and incidents."" • An ad in a 1991 issue of Black Enterprise magazine: ""Each year about 1,400 young men and women take advantage of the opportunity to attend West Point on a full government scholarship, which includes tuition, room and board and medical care. • An ad that appeared in a few issues of Ebony magazine in 1990: ""You receive a full scholarship, earn a degree from one of the country’s finest colleges, and build a foundation for a challenging career of service to the nation."" The financial benefits to attending military academies have been essentially described as scholarship-like or equivalent to a scholarship by USA Today, a West Point spokesperson in Forbes, and the Naval Academy. But the term ""full scholarship"" is an inaccurate description, experts told us. The phrase typically refers to a college providing financial aid to allow a candidate to attend a college free of charge, but that doesn’t really apply to West Point’s across-the-board zero-tuition policy, said Antonio Buehler, a West Point alumnus who founded the admissions coaching service Abrome. ""No such scholarship is named, every cadet is treated the same and there is an eight-year military commitment after graduation. Hence, not free,"" Buehler said. The proper terminology is ""appointment,"" said Vu Tran, a graduate of the United States Air Force Academy who runs the Denver-based admissions consulting firm Service Academy Coach. But because that’s not apparent from the get-go, Tran says he can’t fault Carson for using the term loosely, albeit incorrectly. ""I can definitely see where parents and students who are beginning the process can misconstrue it to be a scholarship,"" he said. ""But for those who have gone through the admission process and through the nomination process, they would never call it a scholarship."" Carson’s use of the words ""full scholarship"" is even more inaccurate if he’s describing his own experience, experts agreed. Tran told us it’s conceivable a ROTC commander or even a general would encourage a student to apply to West Point, touting the free tuition, but noted that anyone familiar with the process understands that that’s contingent upon nomination and acceptance. ""(Carson) would not have been ‘offered’ the opportunity to attend West Point at no cost, like all other cadets, until he applied and received an appointment, which he never did,"" Buehler said. Our ruling Carson defended his use of the word scholarship in discussing his recruitment to West Point, saying, ""Go look on the West Point website and you’ll see those specific words, ‘full scholarship to West Point.’"" The military academy has used the words ""full scholarship"" a few times in admissions literature and advertisements and in one place on its website. However, experts say Carson’s use of the word scholarship doesn’t properly explain the application and appointment process to West Point. Carson’s statement is accurate but needs clarification or additional information. That meets our definition of . Correction: After this story was published, we found an additional instance of the words ""full scholarship"" on West Point’s website. The article has been updated to reflect that. The ruling remains ."

SOLUTION: Go look on the West Point website and you’ll see those specific words, ‘full scholarship to West Point.’ So even though it is, you know, given as a grant for anybody who gets in, those words are used.

PROBLEM: The Miami-based hurricane center issued a tropical storm warning for islands including hurricane-hit Abacos and Grand Bahama, saying the system could become a tropical depression or storm before making landfall as early as Friday. Hurricane Dorian slammed into the Bahamas on Sept. 1 as a Category 5 storm, one of the strongest Atlantic hurricanes on record to hit land, packing top sustained winds of 185 miles per hour (298 km per hour). The tropical cyclone was not expected to bring anywhere near that level of devastation, but was capable of winds of 30 miles per hour and 2 to 4 inches of rain through Sunday, according to the hurricane center. Aid groups rushed shelter material to residents living in the shells of former homes or whose homes had been stripped of their roofs. “We’re seeing plastic tarps go out all over the islands, and that’s extremely important because now you’ve got another tropical storm coming,” said Ken Isaacs, vice president of programs for U.S. relief organization Samaritan’s Purse. The prime minister of the Bahamas, Hubert Minnis, on Wednesday said the official death toll was 50 but was expected to rise. Former Prime Minister Hubert Ingraham said he believed “hundreds” were dead on Abaco “and significant numbers on Grand Bahama,” the Nassau Guardian newspaper reported on Thursday. Minnis said there were problems coordinating aid due to the level of devastation and he was trying to remove “bureaucratic roadblocks.”  With 1,300 people still missing, according to the Bahamian government, relief services are focused on search and rescue as well as providing life-sustaining food, water and shelter. Officials have erected large tents in Nassau to house those made homeless by Dorian and plan to erect tent cities on Abaco capable of sheltering up to 4,000 people. A flood of aid has caused bottlenecks at docks and airports, creating “a lot of delays” in relief supplies, said Nat Abu-Bonsrah of the Adventist Development and Relief Agency, the global humanitarian organization of the Seventh-day Adventist Church. Due to a shortage of functioning vehicles and facilities on Grand Bahama, the group turned to church members to lend their cars and kitchens for its program providing hot meals to over 400 people a day in Freeport. “We’ve not been able to reach them as much as we want,” he said of efforts to get hundreds of hygiene kits to survivors. Groups like Samaritan’s Purse, with their own aircraft or logistics chains, said they had not encountered issues with coordination or government red tape. “I think we’re accomplishing our mission, any roadblocks we have right now are our own,” said Dennis Clancey, a field operations manager for relief group Team Rubicon, which has deployed mobile medical units to treat patients.

SOLUTION:
Tropical storm warning issued for Bahamas; 1,300 still missing.