(Reuters) – Canada will stop issuing visas to people from the three West African nations where Ebola is widespread, the government said on Friday. The federal citizenship ministry, explaining the move, said in an official document that “the introduction or spread of the disease would pose an imminent and severe risk to public health”. About 5,000 people have died in Guinea, Liberia and Sierra Leone this year in the worst Ebola outbreak on record. Fears […]
North America
Third victim in Washington state school shooting rampage dies
BY ERIC M. JOHNSON (Reuters) – A girl shot during a rampage at a Washington state high school last week that left two other girls dead along with the gunman has died from her wounds, Providence Regional Medical Center in Everett said on Friday. Shaylee Chuckulnaskit, 14, died at 4:45 p.m. at the hospital as a result of severe injuries after being shot in the head during last Friday’s incident in a cafeteria at Marysville-Pilchuck […]
Test flight of Virgin Galactic spaceship ends in fatal crash in California
(Reuters) – A passenger spaceship being developed by Richard Branson’s Virgin Galactic company crashed during a test flight on Friday near the Mojave Air and Space Port in California, killing one pilot and seriously injuring the other, officials said. The crash of the suborbital vehicle, undergoing its first powered test flight since January over the Mojave Desert, 95 miles (150 km) north of Los Angeles, came days after another private space company, Orbital Sciences Corp, […]
Bike-riding nurse defies Ebola quarantine
BY JOSEPH AX AND JEFF MASON (Reuters) – A nurse who treated Ebola patients in Sierra Leone but has tested negative for the virus went for a bike ride on Thursday, defying Maine’s order that she be quarantined in her home and setting up a legal collision with Governor Paul LePage. Attorneys for Kaci Hickox, 33, said they had not yet been served with a court order to enforce the 21-day quarantine – matching the virus’s […]
U.S. CDC says returning Ebola medical workers should not be quarantined
(Reuters) – Federal health officials on Monday revamped guidelines for doctors and nurses returning home to the United States from treating Ebola patients in West Africa, stopping well short of controversial mandatory quarantines being imposed by some U.S. states. Dr. Thomas Frieden, director of the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), called for voluntary home quarantine for people at the highest risk for Ebola infection but said most medical workers returning from the […]
Washington school shooting suspect left unhappy tweets
BY BILL RIGBY (Reuters) – A high school student believed to have shot to death a classmate and wounded four others on Friday at his campus north of Seattle was a popular homecoming prince but appeared on social media as a heart broken and sometimes angry adolescent. Police offered no motive for why Jaylen Fryberg, a freshman at Marysville-Pilchuck High School in Marysville, walked into his school cafeteria and shot his fellow students. Rebecca Cooley, the […]
Police seek motive in fatal Washington state school shooting
(Reuters) – Authorities in Washington state worked on Saturday to find out what led a popular high school student to open fire on a group of classmates seated at a cafeteria table, killing one and wounding four others, including a pair of his cousins, before killing himself. The Friday incident at Marysville-Pilchuck High School in the city of Marysville, north of Seattle, sent students fleeing from the building and sheltering under desks in the latest […]
Doctor with Ebola in Manhattan hospital after return from Guinea
(Reuters) – A doctor who worked in West Africa with Ebola patients was in an isolation unit in New York on Friday after testing positive for the deadly virus, becoming the fourth person diagnosed with the disease in the United States and the first in its largest city. The worst Ebola outbreak on record has killed at least 4,900 people and perhaps as many as 15,000, mostly in Liberia, Sierra Leone and Guinea, according to […]
New York tests doctor who was in West Africa for Ebola
(Reuters) – A physician with Doctors without Borders who returned from West Africa recently and developed potential symptoms was being tested for Ebola at a New York City hospital, health officials said on Thursday, setting off fresh fears about the spread of the virus. The doctor was identified as Craig Spencer, who was working for the humanitarian organization in Guinea, one of three West African nations hardest hit by Ebola. Spencer, 33, developed a fever […]
U.S. Ebola czar seeks to reverse government mistakes, step up response
(Reuters) – U.S. Ebola czar Ron Klain faces a hefty to-do list when he begins his new role: soothe Americans’ jitters about the virus, fix federal coordination with states, and restore a sense of control over the crisis that the White House had lost. Klain, a former senior aide in two Democratic administrations who is known for his keen political antenna, also must smooth over tensions with lawmakers who are angry about the government’s missteps and mixed […]
Obama names Ebola ‘czar’ as West Africa death toll rises
BY JEFF MASON (Reuters) – President Barack Obama appointed a former White House adviser as U.S. Ebola “czar” on Friday as the global death toll from the disease that has ravaged three West African countries rose to more than 4,500. Amid growing concerns about the spread of the virus in the United States, authorities said a Texas health worker, who was not ill but may have had contact with specimens from an Ebola patient, was quarantined on a […]
Obama open to appointing Ebola ‘czar,’ opposes travel ban
BY STEVE HOLLAND AND DAVID MORGAN (Reuters) – President Barack Obama said he was considering appointing an Ebola “czar” to coordinate the fight against the virus in the United States, but he remained opposed to a ban on travel from West Africa. Obama’s administration is facing sharp criticism from lawmakers over its efforts to contain the disease at home. Obama authorized calling up military reservists for the U.S. fight against Ebola in West Africa on Thursday. U.S. concerns have intensified […]
