Washington state officials have confirmed a woman’s death from measles, the first person in the U.S. to die of the disease in 12 years.
The Washington State Department of Health said it was likely the woman became exposed during an outbreak in Clallam County, just northwest of Seattle. The disease was reported in six people in the county versus a total of 11 in the state.
The woman visited a medical facility at the same time as a person later diagnosed with measles. She had a variety of health issues that depressed her immune system which caused death via pneumonia from measles.
“This tragic situation illustrates the importance of immunizing as many people as possible to provide a high level of community protection against measles,” the state health department’s statement read. “People with compromised immune systems often cannot be vaccinated against measles.”
The CDC said that measles were effectively eliminated in the United States in 2000 but are making a comeback due to adults who are delaying or avoiding vaccinations for their children.
The CDC said that 178 people have been diagnosed with measles in the United States this year with many connected to an outbreak at Disneyland during the 2014 holiday season.
More than a thousand people were forced to flee in Wenatchee, Washington due to a raging wildfire that burned as many as two dozen buildings.
Officials said as of Monday morning the fire was partially contained but is still threatening homes in the path of the flames.
The fire is being called the Sleepy Hollow Fire and is located about 140 miles east of Seattle. It started Sunday afternoon and quickly consumed over 3,000 acres. Dry conditions and gusting winds were key factors in the accelerated spread of the fire according to local officials.
Among the destruction was a cardboard recycling plant. One firefighter’s car was partially destroyed when embers flew through the window and ignited the car’s back seat.
The eastern part of Washington has been experiencing temperatures over 100 degrees and the governor issued an emergency proclamation that allows state resources to be used to battle wildfires.
The fire was stopped by firefighters before it could reach multiple residential subdivisions, saving hundreds of homes.
However, that wasn’t the only problem in the Wenatchee area; an ammonia leak at a nearby fruit packaging plant had officials playing “shelter in place” warnings on social media. The cloud dissipated without causing further damage to residents.
A woman with extremely hard to treat tuberculosis has been sent to the National Institutes of Health in Washington as health officials are tracking down hundreds who may have had contact with her.
“The patient was transferred to the NIH via special air and ground ambulances,” the NIH said in a statement.
The woman reportedly traveled to three states before she felt ill enough to seek medical attention.
“The patient traveled in April from India to the United States through Chicago O’Hare airport,” the CDC said in a statement provided to NBC News. “The patient also spent time in Missouri and Tennessee. Seven weeks after arriving in the United States, the patient sought treatment for and was diagnosed with active TB.”
The woman is now isolated at the NIH after her initial isolation in Chicago.
“The patient is staying in an isolation room in the NIH Clinical Center specifically designed for handling patients with respiratory infections, including XDR-TB. The National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID), part of the NIH, is providing care and treatment for the patient in connection with an existing NIH clinical protocol for treating TB, including XDR forms. NIAID has treated other XDR-TB patients in the past under this protocol,” the NIH said.
The patient, whose identity is being kept secret, is facing months or years of treatment. XDR-TB sometimes requires surgery to remove pockets of infection. Up to half the people infected with the strain cannot be cured.
A 9-year-old Washington girl believes “everyone should have a place to live.”
For Hailey Ford, it’s more than something she says. It’s something that she lives out every day.
Hailey is building 8 foot by 4 foot wooden structures designed to give one homeless person a place to sleep.
“It just doesn’t seem right that there are homeless people,” Hailey told the King 5 News. “I think everyone should have a place to live.”
But a home is not where Hailey started…it was with a garden.
Hailey met a homeless man named Edward who found himself on the street after losing his job at a grocery store. Hailey’s mother provided Edward with a sandwich on the day they met but Hailey wanted to do more. So she started a garden, Hailey’s Harvest, which donated 128 pounds of produce to feed the homeless in 2014.
Hailey teamed with Together Rising, a non profit who gave Hailey a $3,000 grant toward her project.
“We can’t think of a better example than our Hailey — she’s proof that no person – or act of kindness — is too small to change the world,” Together Rising founder Glennon Doyle Melton said in a statement provided to The Huffington Post.
Hailey says the first completed shelter will go to Edward.
A federal judge delivered a major victory for the religious freedom of students when he ordered a Washington school to erase the suspension records of a student who preached at school.
Cascade High School senior Michael Leal had been suspended by the school three times last October saying that his handing out of Gospel literature and preaching violated school policy. The school told him that if he continued his actions he would be expelled for causing a “disruption” on campus.
The Pacific Justice Institute stepped in after the third suspension to defend Leal’s rights. Now, a federal judge says the school was wrong.
“Plaintiff’s suspensions on October 2, 9, and 31, 2014, are vacated. Defendant shall remove the Notices of Disciplinary Action or Short Term Suspension dated October 2, 9, and 31, 2014, from his record,” US District Court Judge Thomas Zilly wrote in his decision and awarded Leal $1 as nominal damage.
The judge also declared the school’s policy against non-student written handouts unconstitutional.
“Defendant is hereby enjoined from enforcing the requirement that materials be ‘written and/or produced by students.’ That language is severed from the Policy and Procedure of the Everett Public Schools,” the court ordered.
The school now has a “free speech zone” where students can express views.
“Everyone needs to hear the Gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ. It’s absolutely necessary,” Leal said. He is scheduled to graduate on June 10th.
A journalism student from Seattle has been uncovered by authorities as a prominent female ISIS recruiter.
Rawdah Abdisalaam reportedly ran a twitter account called “@_UmmWaqqas” that had over 8,000 followers. The account called on all Muslims to join the Islamic terrorist group.
“This is all I do pretty much,” one post stated, which included a photograph of Abdisalaam’s laptop–sitting on an Islamic State flag—playing Islamic lecture videos. “My aspiration is to become like A’isha Radi Allahu Anha (the wife of Mohammed) in every sense.”
“May Allah bless our Mujahideen in Dawlatul Islam,” she wrote in another Tweet. “May Allah grant them victory over their enemies and bless the Islamic State!”
Friends of Abdisalaam were shocked to discover she was working with ISIS. They say that she has fled Seattle and could have left the country. She also reportedly had contact with Keonna Thomas, a Philadelphia woman arrested earlier this year for attempting to join ISIS.
FBI Director James Comey said that social media is a growing path for the terrorists to recruit members.
“It’s almost as if there is a devil sitting on the shoulder saying, ‘Kill, kill, kill, kill’ all day long,” he said. “[They are] recruiting and tasking at the same time. … In a way, the old paradigm between ‘inspired’ and ‘directed’ breaks down here.”
A group of Satanists are outraged that a county in Washington is hanging a sign in their public hearing room that has the national motto of “In God We Trust.”
The Satanic Temple of Seattle is saying the sign is advocating Christian “tyranny”.
“We see Satan as our symbol of the rebel against tyranny,” said Satanic Temple’s Lillith Starr, who founded the Seattle chapter in late 2014, according to KING 5 News.
The sign was donated to the county by a local non-profit group, so there is no taxpayer dollars going to the sign.
The Satanists are demanding that they be able to place a sign of their own with any message they choose to add. They said most likely the sign would say “E Pluribus Unum” meaning “From the Many, One.”
Clark County’s manager said he doubted the council would welcome such a sign.
A church in Washington state is taking a place one home to stripping and prostitution and turning it into a center to show the light of Christ to the world.
Bethany Community Church, a multi-site Seattle-based church, rents a former strip club called “Sugars.” The building has been turned into a site for the church to launch missions and serve the surrounding community.
Pastor Scott Sund told the Christian Post they found the building available when a staff member saw a sign for rental in their neighborhood.
“A local businessman purchased the property from the federal government which had seized it because of money laundering and prostitution charges against the strip club in the facility,” explained Sund.
“When it came up for rent, our children’s ministry director Anna Guerrero, who lived in the same neighborhood, brought it to my attention. At the time we were looking for a full time rental in order to facilitate our Sunday worship services.”
The building now has offices in the back portion for seven staff members and the bulk of the rest of the building is “One Cup”, a coffee house where all profits go to charity.
We now serve breakfast from out front of the Café every Tuesday to homeless and drug addicted people. From that outreach ministry we’ve started a Bible study,” Sund said. “We have a great relationship with the methadone clinic and nearby neighbors have begun work to clean up and transform their own spaces.”
The American Civil Liberties Union of Washington is attempting to force a hospital to perform abortions in their facility.
The lawsuit claims that Skagit Regional Health is violating a state law that requires medical facilities that provide maternity care to also kill babies via abortion. The lawsuit was filed on behalf of a woman who is doctoral nursing student.
“As a woman and a health care provider, I care deeply about reproductive health issues. I want to make sure that women throughout Washington have access to the full range of reproductive health care services,” Kevan Coffey said in a statement. “And I personally want to have all options, including abortion, available to me.”
“The right of women to choose or to refuse to have an abortion is fundamental and has long been recognized under Washington law,” said ACLU Executive Director Kathleen Taylor. “We want to ensure that all women in our state can access the full range of reproductive health care at public health facilities in their communities.”
The state has said numerous times that hospitals have to provide abortion services if they want to provide maternity services.
Scientists across the Pacific Northwest are investigating a rain that left a residue on cars in two states.
The “milky rain” fell on both Oregon and Washington states, leaving a powdery resident on vehicles and buildings. Samples have been collected by the Pacific Northwest National Laboratory and the Benton Clean Air Agency in an attempt to discover what was in the rain.
So far the scientists have competing theories. One is that a volcanic eruption in Japan has resulted in volcanic ash mixing with clouds to create the rain. The other is that dust from central Oregon somehow mixed with a storm.
The National Weather Service has taken a mostly impartial view, stating dust storms were the likely cause but it could not rule out volcanic ash. The NWS says they do not have the equipment necessary to analyze the rain and discover its origin.
Robin Priddy of Benton Clean Air says that air monitoring stations detected nothing during the rain but that they don’t feel it poses a health risk.
“We don’t have any reason to think there’s anything wrong, but there’s no reason not to be cautious if you’re concerned,” she added. “You may want to wash it off your car with water, rather than with your hands, and avoid touching it and breathing it in.”
