A New York doctor who had been treating Ebola patients in Guinea has been confirmed to have contracted the virus.
Dr. Craig Spencer was rushed to isolation after reporting to the hospital with a fever on Thursday.
New York health officials are trying to calm the public after news that Dr. Spencer was seen out on the town with friends the night before the reported to the hospital, had taken a cab, visited a bowling alley and rode two subway lines.
“He did not have a stage of disease that creates a risk of contagiousness on the subway,” Dr. Mary Bassett, the city health commissioner, said. “We consider it extremely unlikely, the probability being close to nil, that there will be any problem related to his taking the subway system.”
The concern is that doctors can not say for sure that Dr. Spencer did not have a fever when he was out on the town, and if he had the fever then he could have been infectious with the virus.
At least three people have been placed into isolation because of close contact with Dr. Spencer. The subway he rode, the cab and the bowling alley are all undergoing intense sanitization.
The United States will force all flights from countries that have Ebola outbreaks to five airports to allow more through screening for the virus.
Anyone flying into the U.S. from Liberia, Sierra Leone or Guinea will now have to travel through JFK in New York, Newark in New Jersey, Dulles in Washington, D.C., Atlanta or Chicago. The move goes into effect immediately according to the Department of Homeland Security.
“We are working closely with the airlines to implement these restrictions with minimal travel disruption,” Homeland Security Secretary Jeh Johnson said in a statement. “If not already handled by the airlines, the few impacted travelers should contact the airlines for rebooking, as needed.”
Johnson said that 94% of passengers from those areas reportedly already come through those airports, so it should have minimal impact on the worldwide airline flight schedules.
“We currently have in place measures to identify and screen anyone at all land, sea and air ports of entry into the United States who we have reason to believe has been present in Liberia, Sierra Leone or Guinea in the preceding 21 days,” Johnson said.
A Washington-based travel group told Reuters that an average of 150 per day come into the U.S. from those countries.
A New York high school that was caught discriminating against a Christian club last year and tried it again this year has reversed course.
Ward Melville High School in Long Island tried for the second straight year to deny the Christian group Students United in Faith permission to meet on campus. After pressure from Christian rights groups, they reversed course.
“Please be advised the district has decided to alter its position on this issue,” wrote John Sheahan, an attorney for the Three Village Central School District. “In light of this change, the district will grant SUIF recognition as a student group for the 2014-15 school year and reverses any contrary decision.”
The school denied accusations they violated the Equal Access Act.
Hiram Sasser of the Liberty Institute praised the teens who stood up to their school in a statement to Fox News.
“John Raney and Jeremy Johnson may just be high school students, but they did more for liberty than all of Washington, D.C.,” he said.
Officials with a high school in Long Island, New York that was caught discriminating against Christian students last year has been caught doing it again.
Ward Melville High School told John Raney, 17, that he could not have a Christian club as part of the clubs at the school last year. Raney had founded Students United In Faith, a service-oriented Christian group. When the Liberty Institute stepped in, the school Superintendent Cheryl Pedisich reversed the decision and apologized.
Now that the spotlight was off, the school is trying to discriminate against Christian students again.
The school’s Assistant Principal, ironically named Christian Losee, is trying to keep the Christians from having a group this year because of alleged lack of interest and “financial limitations.” However, the school approved four new clubs.
The Liberty Institute was surprised the school would try again to discriminate against Christian students and is taking action.
“This is not a complicated issue,” Sasser wrote. “Simply put, public schools cannot discriminate against religious clubs and must treat them equally, and provide them equal access to school facilities, as non-religious clubs.”
A New York man has been charged with actively supporting the Islamic terrorist group ISIS.
Mufid Elfgeeh, 30, is a Yemeni born man who had been living in New York City. Elfgeeh ran a halal food market in the city and used the profits to help fund terrorism activities for the group. He also was arranging for the purchase and shipment of weapons.
Reports say that Elfgeeh attempted to buy guns from undercover FBI agents and worked with another undercover agents to help them travel to Syria to take the weapons to ISIS. He even accompanied an undercover agent to Buffalo, New York to pick up a passport for the trip to Syria.
Most disturbing was plans to murder members of the U.S. military.
“Elfgeeh also plotted to shoot and kill members of the United States military who had returned from Iraq,” prosecutors state. “As part of the plan to kill soldiers, Elfgeeh purchased two handguns equipped with firearm silencers and ammunition from a confidential source.”
Attorney General Eric Holder said this is just one of many operations currently underway.
“We will remain aggressive in identifying and disrupting those who seek to provide support to ISIL and other terrorist groups that are bent on inflicting harm upon Americans,” stated Attorney General Eric Holder, according to USA Today. “We are focused on breaking up these activities on the front end, before supporters of ISIL can make good on plans to travel to the region or recruit sympathizers to this cause.”
Western intelligence agencies are scrambling after discovering that 11 commercial aircraft have disappeared from the airport in Tripoli airport.
Islamist militias took control of the airport last month as they continue to take over the country. There have been continual battles around the airport between the rival Islamist groups that have resulted in intelligence agencies not being able to confirm which groups may have flown the aircraft to other locations.
The fear is that many of the planes will be used to make attacks on September 11th, the 13th anniversary of the attacks on New York and the 2nd anniversary of the attack on the Benghazi embassy assault.
The airport still has seven aircraft in various states of damage sitting around the terminal. However, Libyan Airlines had 14 planes this summer and state-owned Afriqiyah Airways had 13 aircraft. All but 11 have been found since the airport was closed in mid-July.
Military forces all across North Africa have been placed on a heightened alert because of the missing planes.
NYPD has told reporters that the knockout game is back in the city.
A 34-year-old Brooklyn woman who is six months pregnant was struck in the back of the head while walking down a sidewalk with her sister. The pregnant woman was immediately rendered unconscious and fell to the ground. Fortunately, she was not seriously injured and her child was not hurt.
Willie Stephens, 33, has been arrested for the attack.
Police say that Jannatul Ferdous’ sister immediately called 911 after the attack and gave such a strong description that Stephens was quickly found three blocks away. Police say it’s strange that Stephens would make such an attack because he had no criminal record.
A federal appeals court has told a group of anti-Christianists that “the cross at Ground Zero” is not an unconstitutional endorsement of religion.
The group American Atheists had demanded the cross be removed because it violated the Establishment Clause of the Constitution.
“American Atheists contend that the Port Authority and the foundation impermissibly promote Christianity in violation of the Establishment Clause and deny atheists equal protection of the laws by displaying the cross at Ground Zero in the museum unaccompanied by some item acknowledging that atheists were among the victims and rescuers on September 11,” read the opinion.
“American Atheists acknowledge that there is no historic artifact that speaks particularly to the loss of atheists’ lives or to atheists’ rescue efforts … we conclude that American Atheists’ challenge fails on the merits. Accordingly, we hereby affirm the judgment in favor of appellees.”
The president of American Atheists says it’s not fair that a cross is in the 9/11 Museum and his group can’t put up some kind of tribute to atheists, even though the “cross” wasn’t given by any Christian group but rather discovered as part of the debris of the Twin Towers.
“They’re trying to Christianize 9/11 with this cross and it’s not American and it’s not fair,” said David Silverman.
The anti-Christianist group will likely appeal the decision.
A New York woman pushed her baby from a subway car onto a platform and then casually turned and got back on the train, leaving her child defenseless on the subway platform.
New York police arrested the woman about 12 hours later thanks to a tip from a person who passed the woman on the street and recognized her from security footage aired on local television news.
Police have not released the name of the woman and charges had not been flied as of Tuesday morning. Police sources say that the women attributed her abandoning of the child to not being able to handle the amount of care a child required.
The 6-month-old girl was taken to St. Luke’s hospital after she was found and determined to be in good health and condition. She’s currently in the care of the Administration for Children’s Services.
Christian teachers now have fewer rights to express their faith after a ruling form a New York judge.
Joelle Silver, a teacher who had displayed Bible verses in her classroom on motivational posters, a painting that included three crosses on a hill and a prayer box on her desk placed by the school’s Bible Study Club, has been told all of those items must be removed from the classroom.
Judge Leslie G. Foschio ruled that she could not proceed in her lawsuit against the Cheektowaga Central School District that her rights were being violated. The judge did, however, leave open the possibility she could move forward in her suit on the basis of equal protection discrimination because only Christian items were forced to be removed.
The removal of her items came when the virulent anti-Christian group Freedom From Religion Foundation sent a letter to the school complaining about the Christian teacher.
