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: A new generation of hoop activists is putting another spin on the hoop, which ancient Greeks fashioned from grapevines and used to exercise the hips. Circus hooper Marawa Ibrahim, known professionally as Marawa the Amazing, lives a nomad’s life performing and teaching hula hooping around the world. “Fitness hooping is what I’m really into. Even at circus school I developed a workout using core muscles to push the hoop,” said Ibrahim, who can spin 133 hoops simultaneously and has appeared on the UK reality show “Britain’s Got Talent.”  The 32-year-old Australian said anyone, regardless of age or fitness level, can keep the hoop spinning but choosing the right size hoop is essential. “You can’t hoop with a kid’s hoop. When you were a kid you were half as tall,” she said, adding that a hoop should reach to the hips, at least. “I used to teach a gym class of overweight women. I made hoops that were almost up to their armpits and they could do it.”  Proper technique also means balance. Even the pros can develop lopsidedness, she said, so spin in both directions in order to tone the body evenly, head to toe. Kelly Strycker is the director of Chicago Hoop Dance, a community-based collection of performers, teachers and students who practice hooping as a form of moving meditation similar to Yoga, or Chi-gong, the Chinese system of exercise and breath control. “There definitely is a circus overlay in hoop dance,” said Strycker, adding toned muscles and weight loss are common benefits. “It tends to be a fitness workout because of the nature of the movement.”  Strycker said hoop dancing, which includes elements of yoga, attracts mainly women between 25 and 60 who want a fitness routine they will do. Her classes, held at venues including parks and beaches around Chicago, include 20 to 25 minutes of yoga moves, lunges and squats, and hooping for the wrists, hands, shoulders, legs, hips and waists. “The meditative aspect is in the rhythm, the rocking movement that stimulates the heartbeat, the back and forth,”  she said. Dr. Cedric X. Bryant, chief science officer at the American Council on Exercise (ACE), said a 2011 ACE-sponsored study found that hooping could burn up to 600 calories an hour. “We found that just by the nature of movement it did a pretty effective job,” Bryant said. “The only downside is if one had difficulty mastering movement. But larger hoops reduce the learning curve.”  Ibrahim said a hoop, unlike a trapeze, is portable and fun. “Walk up to any kid and they’ll have a go at it,” she said. “Everyone’s happy.”

SOLUTION: Hoopsters put circus-inspired spin on cardio workout.

PROBLEM: "The annual effort to raise public awareness about the environment and inspire actions to clean it up marks its 41st anniversary on Friday, coinciding with the Christian Good Friday and Judaism’s celebration of Passover. In an effort dubbed ""A Billion Acts of Green,"" organizers are encouraging people to observe Earth Day 2011 by pledging online at act.earthday.org/ to do something small but sustainable in their own lives to improve the planet's health -- from switching to compact fluorescent light bulbs to reducing the use of pesticides and other toxic chemicals. “Millions of people doing small, individual acts can add up to real change,” said Chad Chitwood, a spokesman for the umbrella group coordinating efforts. There will be hundreds of rallies, workshops and other events around the United States, where Earth Day was born, and hundreds more overseas, where it is now celebrated in 192 countries. In the United States the activities range from the premiere of the new film from the director of “Who Killed the Electric Car?” (it’s called “Revenge of the Electric Car”) at the Tribeca Film Festival in New York to a discussion about creating a green economy in 12 cities along the Gulf Coast, where this time last year residents were reeling from the effects of the BP oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico. In the years since the first Earth Day was celebrated in 1970 the environmentalist movement made great strides with passage of the Clean Air Act, Clean Water Act, the Endangered Species Act and other groundbreaking laws. But the bipartisanship that marked the birth of Earth Day — it was sponsored in Congress by a Wisconsin Democrat named Gaylord Nelson and a California Republican named Pete McCloskey — is often missing in discussions about environmental policy today. Efforts to fight climate change by regulating greenhouse gases, for instance, face fierce resistance from many Republicans and members of the business community, who dispute the science supporting global warming and warn new rules to regulate emissions will kill jobs and raise energy costs."

SOLUTION: "Earth Day organizers call for ""a billion acts of green""."

PROBLEM: After Germany’s top administrative court on Tuesday allowed local authorities to bar heavily polluting diesel cars in major cities, the federal government is scrambling to find ways to avert driving bans that would hurt consumers and automakers. Environmental and motorist lobbies are raising the pressure on Volkswagen (VW) and its peers to modify the exhaust systems of older diesels which they say are a major source of toxic nitrogen oxide emissions that can cause respiratory disease. “I don’t want to say now that I’m ruling it out,” VW Chief Executive Matthias Mueller said on Friday at an auto industry event. But he voiced misgivings. Hardware changes would cost between 1,500 ($1,845.30) and 7,000 euros per car, and the development as well as testing of new exhaust cleaning systems would take 2-3 years, Mueller said. Also, retrofitted vehicles might consume more fuel and emit more carbon dioxide, which would affect the level of car tax, he added. Of the 15 million diesel cars on Germany’s roads, only 2.7 million are equipped with the latest Euro-6 emissions technology. Research firm Evercore ISI has estimated that upgrading the exhaust cleaning of the 6 million Euro-5 vehicles could cost up to 14.5 billion euros ($17.9 billion). “I would compare hardware changes on a Euro-5 vehicle to an open-heart surgery,” Mueller said. There is no way that VW could shoulder major costs for such modifications as it is stretched by the costs and fines related to its “Dieselgate” emissions scandal, he said. “We had to pay about 25 billion in America, we cannot again pay 17 billion for hardware refits,” Mueller said. “That is simple not possible.”

SOLUTION:
Diesel vehicle refits costly and could affect performance, Volkswagen says.