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 debut crop of around 100 kilos (221 lbs) of prime cannabis bud - with a value of $2 million on the street - was harvested this month from the farm in La Florida, a middle-class Santiago neighborhood, and sent to a laboratory for processing. The project is the brainchild of a curious alliance between Rodolfo Carter, a right-wing municipal mayor with progressive tendencies, and a privately-funded foundation ran by Ana Maria Gazmuri, a 1980s TV soap star who is now an advocate for alternative "holistic" medicine. Scientists plan to extract the active ingredients from the cannabis for use in the treatment of 200 cancer patients who signed up via the local healthcare system or through the foundation. "If there is a therapeutic property to cannabis that relieves pain it would be a criminal irresponsibility as a leader not to give it to citizens who need it," Carter said at the farm, where the strong smell of marijuana lingers and security staff keep a watchful eye. Although Chile has not followed Uruguay's lead in legalizing marijuana, it allows the cultivation and use of the plant for medicinal purposes. Cannabis-derived treatments have been found to relieve pain and stimulate hunger in cancer patients, as well as help children with epilepsy. Demand in Chile for medicinal marijuana has far outstripped supply, Gazmuri said. Municipalities from Arica in the country's far north to Punta Arenas in Patagonia have show interest in setting up a larger farm, she said. "We are working with around 20 local governments, looking at a large plantation to optimize resources," she said. Besides dealing with the logistical issues of growing a crop attractive to drug traffickers and only legal under certain conditions, the project had to overcome a social stigma attached to marijuana. For some years following the 1974-1990 dictatorship of Augusto Pinochet, Chile remained an extremely conservative country, where abortion and divorce were outlawed and illicit drug use heavily punished. But left-wing governments have taken baby steps in recent years towards a more liberal path, legalizing gay and lesbian civil partnerships and proposing a loosening of abortion rules, as well as giving the nod to start up the La Florida project. "I belong to a generation that considered marijuana was linked to people who lived on the margins of the law, but it's not like that," said Carter, 43. "It's a change of mentality that began with me."

SOLUTION: Medical marijuana farm blooms in conservative Chile.

PROBLEM: In July 2020, readers asked us about news articles claiming that a couple in Radcliff, Kentucky, had been placed under house arrest for refusing to sign an agreement to self-isolate and quarantine, after one of them tested positive for COVID-19. Elizabeth Linscott told WAVE 3 News that, although she had no symptoms, she got tested for COVID-19 as a precaution before a planned visit to her parents in Michigan in July. According to Linscott, after she tested positive the "health department" sent her a document for her signature, in which she was asked to "agree to comply to call the health department prior to leaving my house for any reason." Linscott told WAVE 3 that she refused to sign the document because of a provision that she said required her to notify public health officials in advance of traveling to the hospital for care, but that she was not refusing to self-isolate in principle, adding "I have to go to the ER, if I have to go to the hospital, I'm not going to wait to get the approval to go." Linscott's husband Isaiah said that a few days after his wife refused to sign the agreement, officers from the Hardin County's Sheriff's Department and a public health official visited the family's home and produced three written orders, for the couple and their daughter, effectively forcing each of them to quarantine at home. WAVE 3 reported that the Linscotts were "ordered to wear ankle monitors." The family's story was covered by national news outlets including The Associated Press, Fox News, and the New York Post. In response to our inquiries, the Hardin County Sheriff's Office confirmed, without naming the Linscotts, that on July 16 its officers had "delivered Notices and Orders to Isolate and Quarantine," as a result of a court order. In response to our inquiries about the Linscott case, the Hardin County District Court provided Snopes with a copy of the three isolation orders that the Sheriff's department served upon the Linscott family. The isolation orders, dated July 16 and signed by Hardin Circuit Court Judge Ken Howard, specify that each of the Linscotts were ordered to isolate at home for 14 days, by virtue of a petition from the Lincoln Trail District Health Department, which covers several counties including Hardin County. That petition outlined the following: The "Self-Isolation and Controlled Movement Agreed Order" asks the recipient to agree to several provisions, including: "As long as I do not require hospitalization, I will self-isolate at home, reducing contact with all others as much as is practicable" as well as "I will not leave my house without the approval of the Department for Public Health" and "I will not travel by any public, commercial or healthcare conveyance such as ambulance, bus, taxiwithout the prior approval of the Department for Public Health." On July 15, the district health department filed its petition with Hardin Circuit Court, and the following day Judge Howard issued an injunction ordering the Linscotts to comply with the provisions of the order. The ruling was based in part on the "nature of the disease," as well as Linscott's positive diagnosis, of course, but Howard also specified that his decision to grant the isolation order was also partially based on Linscott's "conduct," noting that she had "declined to voluntarily agree to isolate and has conveyed that she will leave her home to get supplies and do errands which she considers necessary." Howard also ordered the couple to wear ankle monitors, to be installed by a company called Envivo Health, and ordered the district health department to pay for the monitors and ensure the family has "adequate provisions of food, medicine or other necessities during the period of confinement." The isolation order issued by the district health department, and the injunction signed by Howard, were both based on Kentucky state law. Specifically, Chapter 212, Section 245(6) of the Kentucky Revised Statutes states that: "County, city-county, and district health departments may: [] Issue written orders directed to the owner or occupant of any property, or to any person, firm, or corporation whatever, commanding, within the time and manner specified in the order, compliance with applicable public health laws of this state and all regulations of the Cabinet for Health and Family Services or the county board of health. Notwithstanding the provisions of this section andKRS 212.210, any health officer may institute and maintain mandatory or prohibitory injunction proceedings in the appropriate Circuit Courts of this state to abate nuisances that are or may be a menace to the health of the people of the state or community, and to compel compliance with the public health laws of this state and the rules and regulations of the Cabinet for Health and Family Services and the county board of health and the orders described in this section or inKRS 212.210." Title 902, Chapter 2, Section 50 of the Kentucky Administrative Regulations further states that: "Whenever any person has been implicated as a possible reservoir or possible source of infection of any communicable disease, the local health department or the Cabinet for Human Resources shall employ such measures as are necessary to secure adequate isolation, restriction of employment or other control procedures that may be necessary to insure cessation of transmission of infection." Based on the evidence provided to Snopes by the Hardin County Sheriff's Office and Hardin Circuit Court, it's true that the Linscotts were indeed ordered to remain confined to their home for 14 days, after Elizabeth Linscott contracted COVID-19 and subsequently refused to sign a "Self-Isolation and Controlled Movement Agreed Order." Hardin Circuit Court did indeed order the couple to be fitted with ankle monitors to ensure their compliance, and the isolation order papers were given to Isaiah Linscott during a visit from the Hardin County Sheriff's Office. Most of the basic facts of the case were therefore accurately reported in the news articles mentioned above.

SOLUTION: A Kentucky couple were placed under house arrest in July 2020 after a woman diagnosed with COVID-19 refused to agree to self-isolate because it would require her to get prior approval to go to the hospital.

PROBLEM: The powerful magnitude 7.1 earthquake rocked the Mojave Desert town of Ridgecrest south of Death Valley National Park as darkness fell on Friday, jolting the area with eight times more force than a 6.4 quake that struck the same area 34 hours earlier. California Governor Gavin Newsom placed the state Office of Emergency Services (OES) on its highest alert and requested federal assistance. He told a news conference in Ridgecrest on Saturday that he had just got off a phone call with U.S. President Donald Trump, seeking a presidential emergency declaration. "I have full confidence that the president will be forthcoming, in immediate terms, with the formal declaration," Newsom said, flanked by first responders. There were several minor to moderate injuries, OES Director Mark Ghilarducci told reporters. "No reports of any fatalities, so I think we're very lucky there," he said. There were reports of building fires, mostly as a result of gas leaks or gas-line breaks, Ghilarducci said. State officials said all roads damaged by the quakes had been repaired and reopened. Violent shaking also caused water-main breaks and knocked out power and communications to parts of Ridgecrest, home to about 27,000 people some 125 miles (200 km) northeast of Los Angeles. Officials warned there was sure to be a significant number of aftershocks, including possible powerful ones, and advised residents to ensure they had necessary supplies. "I've said this ad nauseam: be prepared for the worst," said Newsom, who on Saturday met victims in the hospital and visited a hardware store where the earthquake hurled products from shelves and left ceiling tiles scattered across the aisles. Standing outside her damaged home in Ridgecrest, life-long resident Sierra Wood said it was heartbreaking and scary. "This is the first time I've ever seen anything like this," she said. "I mean - they say that it's happened and you've heard about it. But once you're in it, it's completely different, it's terrifying. It's terrifying." Her husband, Keith Wood, said the aftershocks were grueling. "It's like when, when do we get a break from it?" he said. "When is enough enough? Mother Nature has had her way. Give us a break now, OK?" The sprawling U.S. Naval Air Weapons Station China Lake just northwest of Ridgecrest was evacuated of all non-essential personnel following the quake. The facility, which at more than 1.1 million acres (445,000 hectares) is larger than the state of Rhode Island, reported no injuries. Authorities were assessing any damage to buildings or other infrastructure, according to a post on the base's Facebook page. Friday's earthquake was widely felt across Southern California, including greater Los Angeles, where shaking in some areas lasted about 40 seconds. Low-level rumbling extended as far north as the San Francisco Bay area and beyond to Reno, Nevada, and as far east as Phoenix, Arizona. Seismologists said the initial quake on Thursday, and scores of smaller ones that followed it, proved to be foreshocks to Friday's larger temblor, which now ranks as Southern California's most powerful since a 7.1 quake that struck near a U.S. Marine Corps base in the Mojave Desert in 1999. The U.S. Geological Survey said Friday's quake was immediately followed by at least 16 aftershocks of magnitude 4 or greater and warned of a 50 percent chance of another magnitude 6 quake in the coming days. Geologists put the chance of another magnitude 7 tremor at 10 percent over the next week. There were hundreds of aftershocks of 2.5 magnitude or greater in the area surrounding the epicenter, according to USGS data. Victor Abdullatif was helping clean up broken bottles and other debris inside his father's liquor store, the Eastridge Market, which sustained damage to its ceiling, and found the periodic aftershocks unnerving. "They're still scary because you almost don't know, 'Is this going to be a full earthquake?' You have to kind of have faith that it's just an aftershock," he told Reuters. The last major destructive quake to hit Southern California was the 6.7 magnitude Northridge quake in 1994, which struck a densely populated area of Los Angeles. It killed 57 people and caused billions of dollars in property damage. The comparatively limited damage from Friday's quake, which packed greater force than the Northridge event, was a function of its location in a remote, less developed area. Its ground motion, however, startled seismically jaded Southern Californians over a wide region. Pools in Los Angeles sloshed wildly, and TV cameras at Dodger Stadium were shaking as they filmed the night Major League Baseball game between the Los Angeles Dodgers and San Diego Padres. A television anchorwoman ducked out of sight during a local newscast as shouts of "get under a desk" were heard in the background.

SOLUTION:
Shaken communities take stock of damage after Southern California quakes.