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 University of Kansas will have what it says is the smallest four-year medical education site in the country when eight students begin taking classes on Monday on a satellite campus in Salina, Kansas. The move is in response to a shortage of rural doctors in the United States. "By training physicians in a nonmetropolitan area, we are showing young medical students that life can be good, and practice can be stimulating, outside of the big city," said Dr. William Cathcart-Rake, the physician who directs the University of Kansas School of Medicine-Salina. Students will get some course work via tele-video and podcasts from the school's other campuses, but they will also train through visits to doctors' offices in small communities and at the hospital in Salina, school officials said. "It's a bold and innovative move," said Dr. Roland Goertz, president of the American Academy of Family Physicians. He said students at rural clinics will be exposed to a potential medical career they wouldn't see in urban hospital settings. Cathcart-Rake said six of the eight students being taught at Salina, as part of their scholarships, have committed to practicing in a rural area. Seven of the eight students are from rural areas to begin with, he said. "They see the value of living in wide open spaces and going back to where their friends are," Cathcart-Rake said. Attending medical school in a place such as Salina reduces chances they will change their minds, which could happen if they went to a big-city school, he said. Salina, with 46,000 residents, is about 175 miles west of the Kansas City metropolitan region where the university's main medical school is located. Small-town America has become increasingly under-served by doctors. About 21 percent of U.S. residents live in rural regions but only about 10 percent of physicians practice there, according to data cited by the family physicians group. In Kansas, 12 counties don't have a full-time doctor at all, said Barbara Atkinson, executive dean of the University of Kansas School of Medicine. Several factors are often cited for a shortage of rural doctors. Rural doctors tend to be paid less, partly because they are more likely to treat patients on Medicare and Medicaid, which reimburses at rates below standard insurance. General practitioners make up the largest share of rural doctors, but until recent years fewer medical students were going into general medicine, putting a strain on rural care. Older doctors who practice in small towns and retire are sometimes not replaced because younger doctors may prefer the greater cultural amenities urban regions tend to offer. Recent changes in federal healthcare laws are intended to make rural practice more acceptable to doctors. Doctors who practice in certain underserved areas will get bonuses beyond the 10 percent boost in Medicare reimbursements they were already receiving, Goertz said. He said another reason why there are fewer rural doctors is that the large majority of medical students come from urban areas, where medical schools are usually located, making them less like to consider rural medicine. "You tend to gravitate to where you grew up," Goertz said. Cathcart-Rake is optimistic that the Salina medical school will be a success and that in future years admissions may grow from eight to 12 students.

SOLUTION: Rural doctor shortage prompts opening of medical school.

PROBLEM: The shutdown began in late March in the Pacific nation of about 5 million, and a state of national emergency was declared to stifle local transmissions of the respiratory disease. "No one goes home, everyone goes into a managed facility," Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern said, adding that 14 days spent in a government-approved facility would be a prerequisite for all foreign travellers. "Even one person slipping through the cracks and bringing the virus in can see an explosion in cases, as we have observed with some of our bigger clusters," she told a media briefing in Wellington on Thursday. Ardern added that her cabinet would decide whether to extend the nationwide curbs on April 20, two days before the lockdown is set to end. The lockdown has reduced domestic transmissions, authorities said, with a steady fall this week in the daily rise in infections. The tally of infections rose by 29 to stand at 1,239 on Thursday, for the lowest daily rise since March 21, a sign the epidemic could be on the retreat since the lockdown began 15 days ago. Overnight, 35 people were declared to have recovered. New Zealand, like neighbouring Australia, has fewer infections than many countries and the pace of infections in both nations has slowed dramatically in the past week. Despite some signs of a plateau in infections, the government said it had no plans to relax the curbs over the Easter weekend and warned of hefty fines for non-essential travel then. Police will step up activity around holiday spots during the Easter holidays, authorities said, with some roadblocks planned. Interactive graphic tracking global spread of coronavirus: open tmsnrt.rs/3aIRuz7 in an external browser.

SOLUTION: New Zealand orders quarantine for returning citizens in coronavirus battle.

PROBLEM: "Opponents of a 1 percent sales tax to overhaul the region's roads and rail are saying the plan will make it harder for metro Atlantans to buy the things they need the most. It's downright unfair, said state Sen. Vincent Fort, a Democrat who represents a district that stretches from East Point through parts of Atlanta. The proposal goes before voters on Tuesday. ""We shouldn't be putting a sales tax on people's food and medicine,"" Fort said in a television news story that aired on CBS Atlanta (WGCL-TV) on July 21. Your PolitiFact Georgia reporters have vetted nearly two dozen claims about the upcoming penny-per-dollar tax, which would raise an estimated $8.5 billion (after inflation) for transportation projects over the next 10 years. But we hadn't heard Fort's claim. Will the transportation tax really increase taxes on food and medicine? ""It's not in dispute,"" Fort told PolitiFact Georgia. Fort said his statement referred to groceries and over-the-counter medicine, and that he was uncertain whether prescription drugs would be taxed under the plan. Later, he called us back to say that a legislative staffer informed him that prescription drugs were exempt. We reviewed state law and consulted with a spokesman for the Georgia Department of Revenue to check Fort's account. The tax referendum was born out of Georgia's Transportation Investment Act of 2010, otherwise known as House Bill 277. The bill divided the state into 12 regions so that voters could decide whether to add a 1 percent sales tax to pay for local transportation system upgrades. These regional taxes would have to meet certain criteria, the bill said. One is that the tax would apply to the sale of food and beverages. The sale of ""food and food ingredients to an individual consumer for off-premises human consumption"" is exempted from the state's sales tax, but local governments may tax it. Another criteria is that other existing sales tax exemptions would apply. Under current state law, prescription drugs are exempt. The transportation plan would therefore impose a regional tax on groceries such as a loaf of bread or bananas. It also would tax over-the-counter medications such as the aspirin you took for the headache you got from listening to the transportation debate rhetoric. But prescription drugs would remain tax-free. While the bill specifies that groceries will be taxed, it makes sure other items are not. Jet fuel is exempt, as is fuel used for off-road, heavy-duty equipment or locomotives. So are motor fuel and energy used during manufacturing. Fort's claim holds up well. ""Food and medicine"" would be taxed under the new plan, just not prescription drugs. Fort got the important stuff right, but he could have been a little more precise and said ""non-prescription medicine."" Still, he earns a ."

SOLUTION:
Taxes on groceries and medicine will rise under a plan to improve roads and rail for metro Atlanta.