instruction:
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.
question:
The chamber’s top Republican, who said he was making enactment of the bill “one of my highest priorities,” issued his proposal at a time when the use of e-cigarettes is growing and underage vaping has soared, raising concerns by health expert s. The measure would apply to all tobacco products, e-cigarettes and vapor products and was co-sponsored by Sen. Tim Kaine, D-Va., whose state has also been a major tobacco producer. “Kentucky farmers don’t want their children to get hooked on tobacco products while they’re in middle school or high school any more than any parents anywhere want that to happen,” McConnell said on the Senate floor. Fourteen states, including Arkansas, California and Virginia, have enacted laws raising the minimum age for tobacco sales to 21, according to the anti-smoking Campaign for Tobacco-Free Kids. So have 470 municipalities, including New York City, Chicago, Boston and Minneapolis. Even so, the use of e-cigarettes and vaping has surged, with much of the increase among teenagers. The CDC says most e-cigarettes contain highly addictive nicotine, which can harm the development of young people’s brains and may them likelier to smoke cigarettes later in life. “Youth vaping is a public health crisis,” McConnell said. “It’s our responsibility as parents and public servants to do everything we can to keep these harmful products out of high schools and out of youth culture.” A government survey found that last year 1 in 5 U.S. high school students reported vaping the previous month. “Today, we are coming together to side with young people’s health,” said Kaine, acknowledging the rarity for bipartisan legislation at a time when the two parties can seldom find middle ground. The bill quickly won the endorsement of the American Cancer Society. Its advocacy organization, the Cancer Action Network, said the measure was a “welcome indication that Congress is taking the alarming crisis of increased youth tobacco use seriously and is committed to taking action.” The group also warned the sponsors to resist amendments that could let the federal government pre-empt stronger measures by states and municipalities, exempt some young people or exclude certain products. A similar bill was introduced last month by Sens. Brian Schatz, D-Hawaii, Todd Young, R-Ind., Dick Durbin, D-Ill., and Mitt Romney, R-Utah. Most experts agree e-cigarettes are less harmful than the paper-and-tobacco variety because they don’t produce all the cancer-causing byproducts found in smoke. But researchers say they are only beginning to understand the risks of e-cigarettes, which they think may damage the lungs and contribute to precancerous growths. McConnell has long been involved in tobacco issues. He helped pass the 2004 tobacco buyout, when the government provided billions of dollars for growers who lost money with the end of federal price supports. Kentucky has the highest cancer mortality rate in the country, with nearly 186 deaths per 100,000 residents in 2017, according to the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. As health concerns about tobacco have grown in the U.S., demand and production of the crop have fallen in Kentucky, where it had long been a pillar of the state’s economy. Growers have been relying increasingly on industrial hemp, which McConnell has helped legalize. The CDC calls tobacco products the country’s top cause of preventable disease and death, with almost 40 million adult cigarette smokers. The agency says around 4.7 million middle school and high school students use at least one tobacco product, including e-cigarettes. Treating adults with smoking-related diseases costs the country nearly $170 billion annually for medical care. The country’s biggest tobacco company, Altria Group, has invested in the e-cigarette company Juul and has backed bills raising the minimum age for buying tobacco and vaping products to 21. Critics have suggested that support is aimed at forestalling tougher restrictions such as banning flavored vaping products and menthol cigarettes. ___ AP Health Writer Matthew Perrone contributed to this report.
answer:
Senate GOP leader would raise age for buying tobacco to 21.


question:
Financial markets had their worst day in 30 years despite emergency action by global central banks to try to prevent a recession, with U.S. stock markets falling 12% to 13%, wiping out trillions of dollars in market value. Just a month ago, financial markets were hitting record highs on the assumption the outbreak would largely be contained in China and not cause disruptions beyond what was seen with earlier viral outbreaks of Ebola, SARS and MERS. There have now been more cases and more deaths outside mainland China than inside, with 180,000 cases worldwide and over 7,000 deaths. Canada, Chile and other countries closed their borders to visitors. Peru deployed masked military personnel to block major roads, while Ireland launched a campaign to recruit more healthcare workers. Airlines slashed flights, shed jobs and asked governments for billions of dollars in loans and grants. In contrast to much of the world, Mexico and Brazil still held large political rallies and the United Kingdom kept its schools open. GRAPHIC: Track the spread of coronavirus - here  U.S. states pleaded with the Trump administration on Monday to coordinate a national response to the outbreak, saying patchwork measures enacted by state and local authorities were insufficient to confront the coast-to-coast emergency that has killed at least 74 Americans. A few hours later, President Donald Trump urged Americans to halt most social activities for 15 days and not congregate in groups larger than 10 people in a newly aggressive effort to reduce the spread of the coronavirus. Calling the highly contagious virus an “invisible enemy,” Trump said the worst of the outbreak could be over by July, August or later and warned a recession was possible. However, the United States was not yet closing its borders or mandating curfews or business closures on a national scale. Many states and cities had already taken those steps or were preparing to. San Francisco area residents will be urged to shelter in place for three weeks starting on Tuesday, the San Francisco Chronicle reported. A White House adviser said the United States could pump $800 billion or more into the economy to minimize economic damage. EU finance ministers were planning a coordinated economic response to the virus, which the European Commission says could push the European Union into recession. The World Health Organization (WHO) called on all countries on Monday to ramp up testing programs as the best way to slow the advance of the pandemic. “We have a simple message to all countries - test, test, test,” WHO Director General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus told a news conference in Geneva. “All countries should be able to test all suspected cases. They cannot fight this pandemic blindfolded.”    In Italy, another 349 people died on Monday, taking the total to 2,158, with nearly 28,000 cases, after 368 deaths were reported on Sunday, a daily toll more dire than even China was reporting at the peak of the outbreak. “Many children think it is scary,” Norwegian Prime Minister Erna Solberg told a news conference dedicated to answering children’s questions about the pandemic. “It is OK to be scared when so many things happen at the same time,” Solberg said. Several countries banned mass gatherings such as sports, cultural and religious events to combat the fast-spreading respiratory disease that has infected nearly 179,000 people globally and killed more than 7,000. Spain and France, where cases and fatalities have begun surging at a pace just days behind that of Italy, imposed severe lockdowns over the weekend. The Middle East business and travel hub of Dubai said it was closing all bars and lounges until the end of March. Thailand plans to close schools, bars, movie theaters and popular cockfighting arenas. Public health experts in the United States and elsewhere are hoping the measures will help spread out the number of new cases over time so as not to overwhelm hospitals and healthcare systems as has happened in Italy. Italy’s Prime Minister Giuseppe Conte told daily Corriere della Sera that the outbreak was still getting worse, though the governor of Lombardy, the northern region that has suffered the worst, said he saw the first signs of a slowdown. The International Olympic Committee will hold talks with heads of international sports organizations on Tuesday, a source close to a federation briefed on the issue said, amid doubts the Tokyo 2020 Olympics set to start on July 24 can proceed.
answer:
Coronavirus causes historic market drop, global scramble to contain 'invisible enemy'.


question:
"Picking a favorite holiday is almost like picking a favorite child, but PolitiFact Ohio admits to particular fondness for the Fourth of July. We enjoy the invocations of history, especially when they're factually accurate. We like the annual cookout with old friends. And we love fireworks. So we were especially interested to read a newspaper commentary by Bill Weimer, vice president of Youngstown-based Phantom Fireworks, the nation’s largest retailer of consumer fireworks. ""Fireworks have never been safer, and their use continues to increase each year,"" he wrote. ""This alone provides a strong case for the regulated and sensible use of consumer fireworks."" Really? Safer than ever? In 1994, Weimer said, the United States imported 117 million pounds of fireworks, and the U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission reported 12,500 fireworks-related injuries. By 2010,  fireworks imports grew more than 75 percent to 205.9 million pounds, but the number of fireworks-related injuries dropped by more than 30 percent to 8,600. ""This is phenomenal progress in safety,"" Weimer wrote, calling on Ohio's General Assembly to relax state laws and legalize consumer fireworks. PolitiFact Ohio looked at the law and checked the numbers. Ohio law, which now permits the use of only ""novelty and trick"" fireworks, is among the more restrictive nationally. Three other states have similar laws, and four ban all consumer fireworks. Forty-one states and Washington, D.C., allow some or all types of consumer fireworks permitted by federal regulations, according to the American Pyrotechnics Association. We found that Weimer's numbers, as reported by the U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission and the American Pyrotechnics Association, a trade group, are accurate. The same day Weimer’s column was published, the federal Consumer Product Safety Commission, which set standards for consumer fireworks in 1976, issued its annual fireworks report last week. It confirmed the injury number Weimer used -- 8,600 for 2010. CPSC spokeswoman Nikki Fleming said the injury rate as measured by injuries per 100,000 persons has leveled off. The Massachusetts-based National Fire Protection Association takes the position that ""using consumer fireworks is simply not worth the risk,"" division manager Guy Colonna said. ""We don't seem to be trending that rapidly toward zero,"" he said of the injury numbers. ""You haven't moved the needle so much in terms of saying it's safe for consumers to use."" The NFPA -- which coordinates the national Alliance to Stop Consumer Fireworks -- said in its annual report in June that there are more fires on a typical July 4th than any other day of the year, and that fireworks account for 40 percent. Colonna acknowledged statistics showing that the rate of injury per 100,000 pounds of imported fireworks has declined, but said it is ""still a significant number."" The American Pyrotechnics Association, a trade group, cites the latter statistic. It shows that the rate of injuries dropped from 38 per 100,000 pounds of fireworks in 1976 to 7 in 2000 and to 4 per 100,000 pounds of fireworks in 2010. The trade group considers that significant because U.S. fireworks consumption has skyrocketed. It more than doubled between 2000, when the trade group says ""the trend in relaxing (state) consumer fireworks laws was first initiated,"" and 2011, when 212 million pounds were sold. The trade group credits ""safety education efforts and the ever improving quality of its products."" It says that injuries and fires most typically result from illegal fireworks and from improper use, especially involving children. But does that mean that fireworks themselves are safer? We asked Weimer what he had to support his statement. He immediately credited the work of the CPSC and the American Fireworks Standards Laboratory. In the 1970s, the CPSC set federal requirements for consumer fireworks that cover cautionary labeling, the burn time of fuses, explosive powder content, stability for both ground-based and aerial devices and proper performance. In 1988, the CPSC started an inspection and enforcement program for Chinese-manufactured fireworks. China -- which now supplies 98 percent of the fireworks in the United States -- began exporting fireworks to this country in 1973. Initially, 75 percent of fireworks tested  by the CPSC failed to comply with the regulations. ""The quality truly wasn't very good,"" Weimer said. ""The quality was inconsistent. The industry knew that if it didn't so something there would be big issues."" Working with the CPSC, importers established the American Fireworks Standards Laboratory to set additional, stricter requirements for consumer fireworks. The AFSL went to factories in China, conducted seminars, worked with manufacturers and started a testing program in China in 1994. ""The linchpin of the system is the testing,"" Weimer said. The testing is conducted by an independent laboratory hired from outside China by the AFSL. Each fireworks shipment is tested for compliance with 15 quality standards, Weimer said. If any standard is not met by any of the randomly selected cases, the entire case lot fails. In the program's first year, 1994, 36 percent of the random lots of tested fireworks were rejected. By 2002, that number was less than 10 percent. The compliance rate exceeded 90 percent. CPSC Chairman Inez Tenenbaum, speaking at a symposium in China last January, noted that the agency has been working for years with manufacturers and with China's General Administration of Quality Supervision, Inspection and Quarantine. ""While AQSIQ and CPSC may work to improve product safety with somewhat different motivations, everyone benefits from the end result, which is improved product safety,"" she said, adding that ""we have increased the frequency, scope, and depth of our training in China."" Weimer thinks that the availability of regulated consumer fireworks diminishes the use of the ""really lethal"" illegal and homemade variety. So what's the grand finale? PolitiFact Ohio is not ruling on the advisability of maintaining, relaxing or tightening Ohio laws regulating fireworks. And we’re not taking a position on whether consumer use of fireworks is even a good idea. Weimer’s statement addressed legal and proper use of fireworks by consumers -- not use of homemade or illegal products. And fireworks are -- as Weimer told us -- a ""product with risk associated with it."" But, the statistical record shows that the rate of injury from fireworks declined nationally while their use increased dramatically, and while laws governing their consumer use loosened. There still are injuries, but the annual rate has plateaued even while consumption continues to grow. We found no stronger explanation than the concurrent regulatory and policing work of the Consumer Product Safety Commission and the American Fireworks Standards Laboratory to make fireworks safer. Weimer’s claim is accurate. On the Truth-O-Meter it rates ."
answer:

Fireworks have never been safer, and their use continues to increase each year.