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.

Firefighters were battling to control more than 40 wild fires that remained ablaze across NSW, the state's Rural Fire Service (RFS) said. There were no reports of injuries caused by the fires by mid-afternoon local time, though 45 homes were destroyed. The strong winds have blown the dangerous smoke across large parts of NSW. The RFS said the smoke was unlikely to clear for at least 24 hours, while hot, dry conditions are expected to linger for several days more - exacerbating the threat of more fires as authorities try to access the damage of blazes now extinguished. "Dust may aggravate existing heart and lung conditions and cause symptoms like eye irritation and cough," said Richard Broome, director of environmental health, NSW Health. "Symptoms can occur for several days after dust is inhaled, so people with the chronic conditions need to be vigilant with their treatment programs." One of the biggest fires in recent days was recorded in Lake Cathie, 379 kilometers (235.5 miles) north of Sydney - which has destroyed more than 2,000 hectares (4,942 acres) of a national park. The fire is now contained, though the area is a prime breeding ground for koalas, stoking fears that hundreds will have been killed by the fires. "Based on our calculations, with a minimum 60% mortality rate about 350 koalas will be lost," Sue Ashton, president of the Port Macquarie Koala Hospital told Reuters. "It's terrible, it's absolutely devastating. It's a national tragedy." Ashton said seven rescuers on Thursday attempted to enter the worst affected areas but were advised to leave as strong winds stoked fears of the fires spreading.
Hazardous smoke blankets Sydney as winds fan Australia bushfires.

The study tracked about 20,000 severely obese patients with Type 2 diabetes. Those who had weight loss surgery had a 40 percent lower chance of developing a heart attack or stroke in the five years following surgery compared to those who got usual care with diabetes medicines or insulin. For every 1,000 patients in the study who had surgery there were roughly 20 heart attacks or strokes compared to 40 such events per 1,000 who got regular care. More than 30 million Americans have diabetes, mostly Type 2 where the body loses the ability to produce or use insulin to turn food into energy. Other research has shown obesity surgery can reverse and even prevent diabetes. Taken together, it means doctors should discuss weight loss surgery more often, said study co-author Dr. David Arterburn of Kaiser Permanente Washington Health Research Institute in Seattle. Doctors usually mention insulin and pills, "but it's not always brought up that weight loss surgery is another available treatment option," Arterburn said. Researchers analyzed records from four U.S. health care systems: HealthPartners in Minnesota and Kaiser Permanente in Washington state, Northern California and Southern California. Results were published Tuesday in the Journal of the American Medical Association. The study can't prove cause and effect because patients weren't randomly assigned to get surgery. The researchers tried to match patients for gender, age, blood sugar levels and other factors. But other things they didn't account for could have contributed to the surgery patients' better results. Everyone in the study had a BMI, or body mass index, of at least 35. For instance, someone who is 5-foot-8-inches and weighs 230 pounds has a BMI of 35. Of the more than 5,300 who had surgery, most had gastric bypass, the most common type of stomach-shrinking operation. Some had gastric sleeve or gastric band procedures. The rest, nearly 15,000 people, had usual care. Obesity surgery can cost $20,000 to $25,000. Insurers are increasingly covering it, but some impose strict limits. The new findings suggest insurance coverage should be expanded for the right patients, Dr. Sayeed Ikramuddin of the University of Minnesota wrote in an accompanying editorial. Surgery is thought to help by affecting hormones, gut bacteria and other substances that affect how the body handles insulin and blood sugar. Weight loss without surgery also helps, but is difficult for many people to achieve. Most weight loss surgery today is done through small incisions. The dangers are similar to other surgeries, including a small chance of life-threatening complications, and some people need to have their surgeries repeated. ___ Follow AP Medical Writer Carla K. Johnson on Twitter: @CarlaKJohnson ___ The Associated Press Health & Science Department receives support from the Howard Hughes Medical Institute's Department of Science Education. The AP is solely responsible for all content.
Obesity surgery may lower heart attack danger in diabetics.

"When President Obama announced that Central Intelligence Agency Director Leon Panetta would replace Robert Gates as Defense secretary, Rep. Marcy Kaptur took the the pages of ""Politico"" to offer him advice. In suggesting that the Defense Department needs to cut back on its use of petroleum products, the Toledo Democrat said: ""Even before the oil companies and Wall Street speculators drove up the price of gasoline close to $4 a gallon, the landed cost of a gallon delivered to the front lines for our troops in Afghanistan cost more than $400."" PolitiFact Ohio already thought gas prices in Ohio were outrageous, but the idea of spending $400 per gallon boggles the mind. So we decided to look into the claim by Kaptur, a member of the House Appropriations subcommittee that funds the Pentagon. We started with Kaptur's office. Her staff said she gleaned her information from testimony delivered to her subcommittee. A 2009 report in The Hill, a Washington publication, recounted some of that testimony. The Pentagon comptroller's office gave appropriators that statistic to explain the high cost of keeping troops in Afghanistan. It factors in the transportation and security costs of transporting the fuel into areas with a lack of infrastructure, challenging geography and increased roadside bomb attacks. ""It turns out that when you factor in the cost of transportation to a coastal facility in Pakistan, or airlifting it to Kandahar - and then you add the cost of putting it in a truck, guarding it, delivering it to the battlefield, and then transferring that one gallon into a piece of equipment that needs it - in extreme cases that gallon of gasoline could cost up to $400,"" Navy Secretary Ray Mabus told a 2009 Naval Energy Forumin Virginia. One U.S. Army official has said the ""fully burdened"" cost of transporting fuel into remote areas can be as high as $1,000 per gallon. ""In some places you have to fly it in by plane or by helicopter and drop off bladders of fuel,"" Kevin T. Geiss, program director for energy and partnerships in the Office of the Assistant Secretary of the Army for Installations and Environment told Army News Service. ""Those costs can be an additional $20, $40 or even $200 a gallon."" High fuel costs in military battlegrounds predate U.S. military actions in Iraq and Afghanistan. A May 2001 Defense Science Board report cites the true cost of military fuel at ""$17.50 per gallon for USAF worldwide tanker-delivered fuel, and hundreds of dollars per gallon for Army forces deep into the battlespace."" Retired Army Brigadier General Steven M. Anderson, who handled military logistics operations for Gen. David Petraeus in Iraq during 2006 and 2007, offers a slightly different picture -- that the cost of bringing gasoline to troops in Afghanistan actually works out to be at least $30 per gallon, and is possibly as high in the mid-40s. He told a Capitol Hill Briefing on fuel convoys in Afghanistan and Iraq that it cost about $13.88 per gallon to transport a gallon of gas to troops in Iraq when he worked there in 2007, and the amount has risen since then to $17.44 cents per gallon. He explained that it's more expensive to bring gas to Afghanistan because ""Iraq is a land of six lane highways from one end to the other"" while ""Afghanistan is perhaps the most isolated country in the entire world."" He said the $400 per gallon figure for gas that others have cited for Afghanistan applies only when fuel must be brought by aircraft to the most remote areas. ""If we're flying water up there, it's $400 per gallon, or toothpaste or whatever,"" Anderson said. ""Anything that flies is expensive."" Retired Air Force Lt. General Norman R. Seip, who spoke at the same event, described the $400 per gallon cost as a ""worst case scenario,"" that accounts for a tanker providing airborne refueling to a cargo plane. He said the lower figures are more reasonable. So where does that leave Kaptur's statement? Numerous sources have said it can cost as much as $400 per gallon to provide gas for troops in Afghanistan. That the statistic seems to be a high end number is a piece of information that provides clarification."
A gallon (of gasoline) delivered to the front lines for our troops in Afghanistan cost more than $400.