CHICAGO (Reuters) – The Illinois Department of Public Health said on Wednesday that five more people had died after being infected with Elizabethkingia, a disease linked to the deaths of 15 people in neighboring Wisconsin.
The cause of death was not identified as Elizabethkingia because many of those people had underlying health conditions, the department said. Ten Illinois residents have been diagnosed with Elizabethkingia, and six have died.
Symptoms of Elizabethkingia can include fever, shortness of breath and chills or cellulitis, but officials have said that the bacteria are rarely reported to cause illness in humans.
Officials said the Illinois strain of Elizabethkingia differed from the Wisconsin one. The department has asked hospitals to report all cases of Elizabethkingia and save any specimens for possible laboratory testing.
The patients who died in Wisconsin had serious underlying conditions, health officials have said, and it remains unclear whether the bacteria caused all the fatalities.
Wisconsin, Michigan and Illinois investigators are working with the Atlanta-based Centers for Disease Control and Prevention to determine the source of the bacteria.
(Reporting by Mark Weinraub; Editing by Lisa Von Ahn)
(Reuters) – A northern Illinois resident who died after being diagnosed this year with a blood infection known as Elizabethkingia had the same strain of the bacteria linked to more than a dozen deaths in Wisconsin, health officials said on Tuesday.
Neither the resident’s age nor many other details were released, but Melaney Arnold, spokeswoman for the Illinois Department of Public Health (IDPH), said the individual had suffered from underlying health issues.
IDPH officials have sent alerts to hospitals requesting they report all cases of Elizabethkingia and save any specimens for possible laboratory testing, Arnold added in a statement.
The infection has infected 48 mostly elderly people in Wisconsin, killing 15. Both Michigan and Illinois have each reported one death and one person infected, the statement said.
The patients who died in Wisconsin had serious underlying conditions, health officials have said, and it remains unclear whether the bacteria caused all the fatalities.
Wisconsin, Michigan and Illinois investigators are working with Atlanta-based The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention to determine the possible source of the bacteria.
Elizabethkingia bacteria are rarely reported to cause illness in humans, and can sometimes be found in the respiratory tract. Symptoms can include fever, shortness of breath and chills or cellulitis. Confirmation of the illness requires a laboratory test.
(Reporting by Justin Madden; Editing by Daniel Wallis and James Dalgleish)
A state law requiring abortion providers in Wisconsin to obtain the ability to admit patients at nearby hospitals has been declared unconstitutional.
The United States Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit issued the 2-to-1 ruling on Monday, multiple news agencies reported, upholding the ruling of a lower court judge.
The Associated Press reported Planned Parenthood and Affiliated Medical Services had challenged the 2013 state law, arguing the law was essentially an illegal impediment on the procedures, which are currently legal in the United States under Roe v. Wade.
Proponents of the Wisconsin legislation argued it was designed to protect women whose procedures did not go smoothly and needed hospitalization. Those against it countered that some doctors could not obtain the required privileges, which would force some clinics to shut.
A district court judge in March sided with the providers, Reuters reported. The law had been on hold since.
Richard Posner, one of the Seventh Circuit judges who voted to declare the law unconstitutional, said it could have placed women in danger. If clinics shut down, women would have to wait longer for the procedures at other clinics. That could push their pregnancy into another trimester.
Many national abortion issues may be decided next year when the United States Supreme Court weighs challenges to a Texas state law regarding the procedures.
Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker has signed a bill that would ban abortions after 20 weeks.
The bill banning late-term abortions includes a provision to protect the mother’s life or health. The ban is similar to those in 14 other states.
“For people, regardless of where they might stand, when an unborn child can feel pain I think most people feel it’s appropriate to protect that child,” Walker said, according to Al Jazeera America.
Any doctor caught performing an abortion after 20 weeks in Wisconsin could face 3 1/2 years in prison and $10,000 in fines.
The bill will likely be challenged by pro-abortion groups in light of a federal court ruling in May striking down Idaho’s 20-week ban. Arizona had similar ban struck down and the U.S. Supreme Court refused to hear the appeal from the state.
In my past four years as governor, we have made substantial progress in the fight for our pro-life values in Wisconsin,” Walker wrote on March 3rd about the abortion issue. “We defunded Planned Parenthood. We prohibited abortion from being covered by health plans in a health exchange. We passed legislation assuring the women and their unborn child are better protected under law – through placing stringent requirements on medical professionals and requiring the provision of thorough and vital information to the mother.
I was raised to believe in the sanctity of life and I will always fight to protect it.”
The National Weather Service says that Monday could bring afternoons and evenings of severe weather to almost 50 million Americans.
The predictions for heavy rain, damaging winds and lightning stretches from the deep south through Wisconsin.
The storms struck some parts of the Midwest early Monday as Chicago’s O’Hare airport had to close for a short period during the morning rush hour. Additional storms are expected through the evening at O’Hare.
Weather Channel lead forecaster Kevin Roth said “quite a few states” will be affected and that while many will not see a tornado, severe thunderstorms with damaging winds could be a distinct possibility.
Straight-line wind damage was seen in Belleville, Wisconsin where a home weather station reported a 74 m.p.h. gust. At least one roof was taken off a home in that town. WE Energies reported 30,000 customers without power in the region.
All weather experts reviewed for this story urge anyone who receives a weather warning tonight or tomorrow to seek shelter immediately as the storms are very dangerous.
Family and friends of three Wisconsin sisters are praising God after they were found alive after going missing in the Wyoming wilderness.
“They’re tired, cold (and) hungry, but otherwise healthy and happy to be on their way out,” U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service spokeswoman Lori Iverson said.
The sisters, Megan, Erin, and Kelsi Andrews-Sharer, left June 28th for an extended camping trip in Grand Teton National Park and were supposed to return home on Tuesday. When the ladies didn’t arrive and made no contact with the family, authorities began a search.
The women’s car was found 15 miles south of Jackson. A ground search began Wednesday with dogs and helicopters.
Thursday morning, a local guide heard of the search and remembered seeing a person wearing a white raincoat in a part of the park that has no trails the previous day. Local officials say the detailed description given by the guide allowed them to focus their search pattern and the women were found 20 minutes later.
Fish and Wildlife Service officials credited the girls for preparing for unexpected conditions and staying together as being a key to quickly finding and rescuing them.
A Madison, Wisconsin man has been arrested on charges that he tried to travel to the middle east to join Islamic terrorist group ISIS.
Joshua Van Haften, 34, made his first appearance in federal court Thursday and did not attempt to contest his being held without bond.
Van Haften was arrested Wednesday night at O’Hare International Airport in Chicago and returning from Turkey. Federal investigators said that Van Haften talked to people about his desire to join ISIS before he left for Instanbul, Turkey in August.
The federal complaint says that Van Haften posted on Facebook that he was not able to cross the border from Turkey into Syria. He also said that the people who claimed to be able to help him just stole his money and left him on a country road.
Van Haften has a long criminal record, including convictions for battery and sexual assault. He spent over seven years in prison on the sexual assault conviction after his eight year probation was revoked in 2000.
Van Haften’s lawyer says that his client looks forward to “having all the facts brought to light.”
Pro-Abortionists are celebrating a judge’s ruling striking down a law in Wisconsin that would have helped protect the health and welfare of women.
U.S. District Judge William Conley, struck down Senate Bill 206, which calls for increased health standards at abortion facilities. The bill also requires anyone who wants an abortion to have admitting privileges at a local hospital to help women who suffer injury or complications from the process.
The lawsuit was brought by Planned Parenthood and the ACLU.
“While the court agrees with the State that sometimes it is necessary to reduce access to ensure safety, this is decidedly not one of those instances,” Conley wrote. “In particular, the state has failed to meet its burden of demonstrating through credible evidence a link between the admitting privileges requirement and a legitimate health interest.”
“The only reasonable conclusion is that the legislation was motivated by an improper purpose, namely to restrict the availability of abortion services in Wisconsin,” Conley said.
A spokeswoman for Governor Scott Walker said the state will appeal the decision.
A new report from the Milwaukee Jewish Federation shows a significant increase in anti-Semitic incidents in Wisconsin in 2014.
The report shows 33 confirmed incidents of anti-Semitism in 2014 compared to 13 in the previous year.
“America is a great place to be Jewish. There is less anti-Semitism in this country than in many places across the globe,” Elana Kahn-Oren said. “[However] hatred is hatred. And wherever it goes unchecked, it harms us all.”
The report gave examples of confirmed incidents:
- At least nine swastikas were drawn, carved or painted at various places, including public streets, the driveway of a Jewish high school student’s home and in an elevator of a Jewish institution. Swastikas and a Star of David were carved at two golf greens, causing $5,000 in damage. Another included a reference to “1488,” a known white supremacist symbol.
- A man entered a Jewish facility shouting “All Jews will (expletive) burn.”
- At one business, a hairdresser told a potential client that she doesn’t cut “Jewish hair.” At another, an employee called his boss a “stingy Jew” when he refused to give him a raise.
Also a rally during the Hamas attacks on Israel this summer had protesters comparing Jews to Nazis and making anti-Semitic chants.
The group says despite the increase, it’s very likely the number of cases are under-reported as people do not want to deal with the hassle of police or the possibility of retribution for reporting the incident.
Pro-abortion groups in Wisconsin are in a tizzy after the sheriff of Milwaukee spoke out in a very pro-life way.
Sheriff David Clarke said that anyone who is protesting with the statement “black lives matter” should be protesting abortion as vigorously as they are supporting Michael Brown or Eric Garner.
“If only these faux protesters were asked by media about all the black on black killing or black babies aborted in US every year,” Clarke told a New York Times journalist.
Clarke didn’t back down when CNN came after him for the statement.
“When I hear these things that black lives matter, the only people who really believe that statement are American police officers who go into American ghettos every day to keep people from killing each other. Alright, so, yes I did send that and I meant it,” Clarke said. “Look, the abortions? If black lives—if they really mattered, that’s where the outrage would be that’s where we’d see protests…”
Clarke, a rare conservative voice in the black community, is not the only black leader speaking out regarding abortion and the “black lives matter” movement.
“Mainstream media does everything it can to protect the most racist institution in America that actually kills for a living—the abortion industry,” said Ryan Bomberger of the Radiance Foundation. “How sincere is the mantra that #BlackLivesMatter if the violent act of abortion and the disproportionate slaughter of unborn minority children is praised as ‘reproductive justice’?”
