ABORTION REPRIEVE -- FOR NOW

The Supreme Court Stops Parts Of  Abortion Law.

The U.S. Supreme Court on Tuesday blocked key parts of a 2013 law in Texas that had closed all but eight facilities providing abortions in America's second most-populous state.

In an unsigned order, the justices sided with abortion rights advocates and health care,positive thinking providers in suspending an Oct. 2 ruling by a panel of the New Orleans-based U.S. 5th Circuit Court of Appeals that Texas could immediately apply a rule making abortion clinics statewide spend millions of dollars on hospital-level upgrades.

The court also put on hold a provision of the law only as it applies to clinics in McAllen and El Paso that requires doctors at the facilities to have admitting privileges at nearby hospitals. The admitting privileges rule remains in effect elsewhere in Texas.

Justices Samuel Alito, Antonin Scalia and Clarence Thomas said they would have ruled against the clinics in all respects.

The 5th Circuit is still considering the overall constitutionality of the sweeping measure overwhelmingly passed by the GOP-controlled Texas Legislature and signed into law by Gov. Rick Perry last year.

Even as it weighs the merits of the law, the appeals court had said it could be enforced — opening the door for the emergency appeal to the Supreme Court.

"We're seeing the terrible impact these restrictions have on thousands of Texas women who effectively no longer have access to safe and legal abortion," said Cecile Richards, president of Planned Parenthood Federation of America. "We're relieved that the court stepped in to stop this, and we hope this dangerous law is ultimately overturned completely."

Abortion opponents predicted they will ultimately prevail.

"This does not protect the health and safety of women who are undergoing abortion," said Joe Pojman, executive director of Texas Alliance for Life. ""This is definitely a short-term loss, but not necessarily a long- term loss."

The 5th Circuit decision had blocked an August ruling by Austin-based U.S. District Judge Lee Yeakel, who had found that requiring hospital-style upgrades was less about safety than making access to abortion difficult. Yeakel's ruling temporarily suspended the upgrade rules before they could go into effect Sept. 1 — and the order from the Supreme Court means they are on hold again.

Allowing the rules on hospital-level upgrades to be enforced — including mandatory operating rooms and air filtration systems — shuttered more than a dozen clinics across Texas.

Until the nation's highest court intervened, only abortion facilities in the Houston, Austin, San Antonio and the Dallas-Fort Worth areas remained open. And none was left along the Texas-Mexico border or outside any of the state's largest urban areas.

Some other clinics had closed even earlier amid enforcement of the rule on admitting privileges at nearby hospitals. That portion has already been upheld twice by the appeals court.

The fight over the Texas law is the latest over tough new abortion restrictions that have been enacted across the country. The office of Texas Attorney General Greg Abbott, a Republican who is the favorite in next month's governor's race, is leading the defense of the law.

Democrat Wendy Davis launched her campaign for governor behind the celebrity she achieved through a nearly 13-hour filibuster last summer that temporarily blocked the law's passage. Davis said she was "thankful that women can continue to make their own personal decisions." Abbott's office said he would continue to defend the law.

Attorneys for the state have denied that Texas women would be burdened by fewer abortion facilities, saying nearly 9 in 10 would still live within 150 miles of a provider. The law's opponents note that leaves nearly a million Texas women embarking on drives longer than three hours to get an abortion.

NIH HEAD: BUDGET CUTS KILLED EBOLA VACCINE

Ebola Vaccine Would Likely Have Been Found By Now If Not For Budget Cuts: NIH Director.

BETHESDA, Md. -- As the federal government frantically works to combat the Ebola outbreak in West Africa, and as it responds to a second diagnosis of the disease at home, one of the country's top health officials says a vaccine likely would have already been discovered were it not for budget cuts.

Dr. Francis Collins, the head of the National Institutes of Health, said that a decade of stagnant spending has "slowed down" research on all items, including vaccinations for infectious diseases. As a result, he said, the international community has been left playing catch-up on a potentially avoidable humanitarian catastrophe.

"NIH has been working on Ebola vaccines since 2001. It's not like we suddenly woke up and thought, 'Oh my gosh, we should have something ready here,'" Collins told The Huffington Post on Friday. "Frankly, if we had not gone through our 10-year slide in research support, we probably would have had a vaccine in time for this that would've gone through clinical trials and would have been ready."

It's not just the production of a vaccine that has been hampered by money shortfalls. Collins also said that some therapeutics to fight Ebola "were on a slower track than would've been ideal, or that would have happened if we had been on a stable research support trajectory."

"We would have been a year or two ahead of where we are, which would have made all the difference," he said.

Speaking from NIH's headquarters in Bethesda, Maryland, the typically upbeat Collins was somber when discussing efforts to control the Ebola epidemic. His days are now spent almost exclusively on the disease. But even after months of painstaking work, a breakthrough doesn't seem on the immediate horizon.

Money, or rather the lack of it, is a big part of the problem. NIH's purchasing power is down 23 percent from what it was a decade ago, and its budget has remained almost static. In fiscal year 2004, the agency's budget was $28.03 billion. In FY 2013, it was $29.31 billion -- barely a change, even before adjusting for inflation. The situation is even more pronounced at the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, a subdivision of NIH, where the budget has fallen from $4.30 billion in FY 2004 to $4.25 billion in FY 2013. (Story continues below.)

The growing severity of the Ebola crisis in West Africa and the fear of an outbreak in America haven't loosened the purse strings. NIH has not received any additional money. Instead, Collins and others have had to "take dollars that would've gone to something else" -- such as a universal influenza vaccine -- "and redirect them to this."

Collins said he'd like Congress to pass emergency supplemental appropriations to help with the work. But, he added, "nobody seems enthusiastic about that."

Several Democratic lawmakers have in fact introduced legislation that would increase NIH funds by up to $46.2 billion in 2021. But there is no indication that such a bill will move forward any time soon.

Under the existing budget, NIH officials have rushed to find a breakthrough. Though health officials were already "cutting corners" in an effort to produce an Ebola vaccine, Collins said that a best-case scenario would be for a clinical trial to start in December, and it would take until February or March to know if the drug worked.

"If we wait that long to solve this, we will have basically failed with the more traditional measures of contact-tracing to get this epidemic under control," said Collins.

An Ebola vaccine, in short, would be an insurance policy, worth pursuing if other means fail and for possible future epidemics. Currently, NIH is working on a fifth-generation Ebola vaccine that has had positive results. But the tests are being done on monkeys, not people. To set up a clinical trial for humans takes time and resources, and doubly so in a country whose social and political fabric is as frayed as Liberia's. Even so, limited trials have already begun.

A second vaccine is being designed in Canada, just weeks behind NIH's schedule. But recipients have exhibited fever symptoms, which could prove problematic because elevated temperature is also a symptom of Ebola.

Collins says his "dream" is to set up a trial using those two vaccines and involving 30,000 people. But even with the current heightened demand, he cautioned that such a dream couldn't be rushed.

"Sometimes vaccines not only don't work, they make things worse," Collins told HuffPost. "Look at the HIV step trial, where that vaccine not only did not protect HIV, it increased susceptibility because it did something to the immune system that made it more vulnerable. That could happen here too." (The private sector, it should be noted, hasn't developed an Ebola vaccine for a variety of reasons, primarily financial ones.)

Collins was more bullish about the prospects of developing a therapy, as opposed to a vaccine, because it would be possible to conduct a test trial among people already in treatment units, rather than among the uninfected.

So far, much of the focus has been on an experimental cocktail of three monoclonal antibodies known as ZMapp. But the current stockpile is not nearly great enough. Collins, a touch exasperated, said it would be all but impossible to have significant doses available by the end of the calendar year -- with a lack of funding once again playing a disruptive role.

"Had it not been for other shortages, we might very well by now know that it works and have a large stock of it," he said.

There are other potential therapies. Brincidofovir has been used on an Ebola patient brought to Nebraska and on the late Thomas Eric Duncan, who was diagnosed with the disease after traveling to Dallas from his native Liberia. Unlike ZMapp, there is a large stockpile of Brincidofovir available, and the doses required are small. "So you could imagine you have enough drug now to treat 16,000 people," said Collins. But, again, a clinical trial is needed in Liberia.

With more than 4,000 people having died from Ebola -- the majority of them in West Africa -- the clock is already ticking fast for the biomedical research community. On Sunday morning, it sped up even more as news broke that a second patient in the United States had tested positive for the disease. The patient, a nurse who had treated Duncan, is the first person to contract the disease on U.S. soil. Officials at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) say they're looking into how it happened. Though the patient, who works at the Texas Health Presbyterian Hospital in Dallas, had been wearing protective gear during her encounters with Duncan, officials indicated that a procedural lapse likely caused the transmission.

Speaking two days before that second diagnosis, Collins urged for calm when contemplating the possibility of an outbreak. Ebola is a disease that is highly lethal. But it is also only transmitted through direct contact with bodily fluids or objects contaminated with the virus.

"Certainly there's been a lot of fear [in the] response from people who are probably at essentially zero risk, that this might somehow take over our country, which is really not going to happen," said Collins. "And despite all the assurances [...] it still hasn't quite sunk in. There's still the cable news people who are whipping this up, and frankly sometimes using it for political purposes to sort of shoot at the government."

Collins didn't downplay the severity of the disease, noting that its rapid spread in Africa, and the humanitarian disaster it has left in its wake, should rattle people. He also agreed with the comparison made by Tom Frieden, head of the CDC, who recently said the current Ebola crisis is the worst epidemic since the outbreak of AIDS. But, Collins added, perspective was still needed.

"More people will die today of AIDS than have died so far in the entire Ebola epidemic," said Collins. "We've somehow gotten used to that, and it doesn't seem to be so threatening or frightening. Certainly in the United States, another 50,000 people will get infected with HIV this year, because that's been sort of the steady number."

"How many more people will get infected with Ebola this year in the U.S.?" he went on. "I would guess you could count among the fingers of two hands, depending on what contacts of the guy in Dallas actually turned out to get infected See More

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SHOCKING NEWS GAY MARRIAGE

Federal Judge Strikes Down Alaska Gay Marriage Ban.

A federal judge struck down Alaska’s ban on same-sex marriage Sunday evening.

The U.S. District Court for the District of Alaska ruled that the state's ban was unconstitutional under the Due Process and Equal Protection Clauses of the U.S. Constitution.

U.S. District Judge Timothy M. Burgess wrote that any relationship between the ban and government interests was "either nonexistent or purely speculative."

"Alaska’s same-sex marriage laws are a prime example of how 'the varying treatment of different groups or persons is so unrelated to the achievement of any combination of legitimate purposes that we can only conclude that the legislature’s actions were irrational,'” Burgess wrote, citing an earlier court ruling.

"Refusing the rights and responsibilities afforded by legal marriage sends the public a government-sponsored message that same-sex couples and their familial relationships do not warrant the status, benefits, and dignity given to couples of the opposite sex," the Alaskan court decision continued.

Alaska Gov. Sean Parnell (R) released a statement on Sunday saying that he would appeal the ruling to the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, though that court has already struck down similar bans in Idaho and Nevada.

“As Alaska’s governor, I have a duty to defend and uphold the law and the Alaska Constitution,” Parnell said in the statement. “Although the district court today may have been bound by the recent Ninth Circuit panel opinion, the status of that opinion and the law in general in this area is in flux. I will defend our constitution See More

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CDC BRACES FOR MORE CASES

Texas Health Worker Tests Positive For Ebola.

DALLAS, Texas, Oct 12 (Reuters) - A Texas health worker has contracted Ebola after treating a Liberian who died of the disease at a Dallas hospital last week, raising concern about how U.S. medical guidelines aimed at stopping the spread of the disease were breached.

The infected worker, identified as a woman but not named by authorities as they announced the case on Sunday, is believed to be the first person to contract the disease in the United States.

Health officials said the worker at the Texas Health Presbyterian Hospital had been wearing protective gear during treatment of Thomas Eric Duncan. Duncan was a Liberian who died on Wednesday after being exposed to Ebola in his home country and developing the disease while visiting the United States.

The outbreak in West Africa, the worst outbreak on record of Ebola, has killed more than 4,000 people, mostly in Liberia, Sierra Leone and Guinea.

The new case in Texas indicated a professional lapse that may have caused other health workers at the hospital to also be infected, said the director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC).

"We don't know what occurred in the care of the index patient, the original patient, in Dallas, but at some point there was a breach in protocol, and that breach in protocol resulted in this infection," CDC director Dr. Thomas Frieden told a news conference.

"We are evaluating other potential healthcare worker exposures because if this individual was exposed, which they were, it is possible that other individuals were exposed," he said.

The worker was in close contact with Duncan and initial testing shows that the level of virus in her system is low. The CDC will conduct a secondary test to confirm the results from a lab in Austin that showed Ebola infection, he said.

"Unfortunately it is possible in the coming days that we will see additional cases of Ebola," he said.

Frieden said there was one person who may have had contact with the infected health worker when she could possible transmit the disease and that person is being monitored.

Frieden said the intubation of Duncan and use of a dialysis machine - measures taken while trying to save his life - posed high risk for transmission of the virus.

Duncan died in an isolation ward on Oct. 8, 11 days after being admitted. More than 50 people attended to his care. The hospital said it was decontaminating its isolation unit while health officials said Duncan's body had been cremated.

'FULL CDC PRECAUTIONS'

Dan Varga, the hospital's chief clinical officer told a news conference that the infected worker "was following full CDC precautions ... so gown, glove, mask and shield."

The hospital has already faced criticism for at first turning away Duncan when he first showed up there on Sept. 25, saying he had been in Liberia and had a fever. About two days after he was discharged, he grew much sicker and was taken back by ambulance and put in an isolation unit.

None of the 10 people who had close contact with him or 38 people who had contact with that group have shown any symptoms, state health officials said.

Texas officials did not identify the health worker or give any details about the person, but CNN said it was a woman nurse.

The Texas case is not the first outside badly hit West Africa in which a health care worker contracted the disease after contact with a patient.

In Spain, a nurse who contracted Ebola after caring for two infected priests repatriated to Spain remained seriously ill but is showing signs of improvement. Teresa Romero, 44, is so far the only person who has tested positive for Ebola through a transmission in the country.

Fifteen people were being monitored in a Madrid hospital for signs of Ebola on Sunday, as the Spanish government tries to contain recriminations over how it has handled the case. None have so far shown any symptoms.

EBOLA PAMPHLETS

In Dallas, there was a yellow hazardous material drum on the lawn of the brick apartment where the Texas health worker lived and information pamphlets about the Ebola virus were stuffed in the doors in the surrounding blocks of the apartment.

Neighbor Cliff Lawson, 57, said he was woken at 6:00 a.m. by two Dallas police officers who told him "don't panic."

"I went back to bed after that. There's nothing you can do about it. You can't wrap your house in bubble wrap," Lawson said.

A team is decontaminating the patient's apartment and car, Dallas Mayor Mike Rawlings said.

The hospital said in a statement that the new patient, who had not been working for two days, had been taking her own temperature twice a day. The worker informed the hospital of a fever and was isolated immediately upon arrival there.

A union for registered nurses said the Ebola case in Dallas shows that not enough is being done to educate health workers on how to manage patients who show signs of infection.

"Handing out a piece of paper with a link to the Centers for Disease Control, or telling nurses just to look at the CDC website - as we have heard some hospitals are doing - is not preparedness," said Bonnie Castillo, a registered nurse and senior official with National Nurses United.

SCREENING AT JFK AIRPORT

News of the second patient in Dallas came as U.S. authorities step up efforts to stop the spread of the virus. New York's John F. Kennedy Airport on Saturday began the screening of travelers from the three hardest hit West African countries.

Liberia is the country worst affected by the virus with 2,316 victims, followed by 930 in Sierra Leone, 778 in Guinea, eight in Nigeria and one in the United States, the World Health Organization said on Friday. Some 4,033 people are known to have died in seven countries from the outbreak, it said.

Ebola is spread through contact with  fluids of an affected person or contamination from objects such as needles. People are not contagious before symptoms such as fever develop See More

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THIS HOW?

Texas Health Worker Tests Positive For Ebola.

DALLAS (AP) — A Texas health care worker tested positive for Ebola even though she wore full protective gear while caring for a hospitalized patient who later died from the virus, health officials said Sunday. If the preliminary diagnosis is confirmed, it would be the first known case of the disease being contracted or transmitted in the U.S.

Dr. Tom Frieden, head of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, said the diagnosis shows there was a clear breach of safety protocol and all those who treated Thomas Eric Duncan are now considered potentially exposed.

The worker wore a gown, gloves, mask and shield while she cared for Duncan during his second visit to Texas Health Presbyterian Hospital, said Dr. Daniel Varga of Texas Health Resources, which runs the hospital. Frieden said the worker has not been able to identify a specific breach of protocol that might have led to her being infected.

Duncan, who arrived in the U.S. from Liberia to visit family on Sept. 20, first sought medical care for fever and abdominal pain on Sept. 25. He told a nurse he had traveled from Africa, but he was sent home. He returned Sept. 28 and was placed in isolation because of suspected Ebola. He died Wednesday.

Liberia is one of the three West African countries most affected by the ongoing Ebola epidemic, which has killed more than 4,000 people, according to World Health Organization figures published Friday. The others are Sierra Leone and Guinea.

Texas health officials have been closely monitoring nearly 50 people who had or may have had close contact with Duncan in the days after he started showing symptoms.

The health care worker reported a fever Friday night as part of a self-monitoring regimen required by the CDC, Varga said. He said another person is in isolation, and the hospital has stopped accepting new emergency room patients.

"We knew a second case could be a reality, and we've been preparing for this possibility," said Dr. David Lakey, commissioner of the Texas Department of State Health Services. "We are broadening our team in Dallas and working with extreme diligence to prevent further spread."

Dallas officials knocked on doors, made automated phone calls and passed out fliers to notify people within a four-block radius of the health care worker's apartment complex about the situation, though they said there was no reason for neighbors to be concerned.

Dallas police officers stood guard outside the complex Sunday and told people not to go inside. One said an industrial barrel outside contained hazardous waste taken from inside the building. Nearby residents periodically came out of their homes to ask about the commotion.

Kara Lutley, who lives a half-block from the complex, said she never received a call or other emergency notice and first heard about it on the news. She said the infected worker seemed to have taken all necessary precautions.

"I'm not overly concerned that I'll get Ebola," she said.

Officials said they also received information that there may be a pet in the health care worker's apartment, and they have a plan in place to care for the animal. They do not believe the pet has signs of having contracted Ebola.

Frieden on Sunday raised concerns about the possible breach of safety protocol and told CBS' "Face the Nation" that among the things CDC will investigate is how the workers took off protective gear, because removing it incorrectly can lead to contamination. Investigators will also look at dialysis and intubation, procedures with the potential for spreading infectious material.

Health care workers treating Ebola patients are among the most vulnerable, even if wearing protective gear. A Spanish nurse assistant recently became the first health care worker infected outside West Africa during the ongoing outbreak. She helped care for a missionary priest who was brought to a Madrid hospital. More than 370 health care workers in west Africa have fallen ill or died in west Africa since epidemic began earlier this year.

Ebola spreads through close contact with a symptomatic person's bodily fluids, such as blood, sweat, vomit, feces, urine, saliva or semen. Those fluids must have an entry point, like a cut or scrape or someone touching the nose, mouth or eyes with contaminated hands, or being splashed. The World Health Organization says blood, feces and vomit are the most infectious fluids, while the virus is found in saliva mostly once patients are severely ill. The whole live virus has never been culled from sweat.

Duncan, the first person in the U.S. diagnosed with Ebola, came to Dallas to attend the high school graduation of his son, who was born in a refugee camp in Ivory Coast and brought to the U.S. as a toddler when his mother successfully applied for resettlement.

The trip was the culmination of decades of effort, friends and family members said. But when Duncan arrived in Dallas, though he showed no symptoms, he had already been exposed to Ebola. His neighbors in Liberia believe Duncan become infected when he helped a pregnant neighbor who later died from it. It was unclear if he knew about her diagnosis before traveling See More

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Shocking news "GAY MARRIAGE" Equality Comes To North Carolina

Judge Strikes Down North Carolina Gay Marriage Ban.

RALEIGH, N.C. (AP) — A federal judge in North Carolina has struck down the state's gay marriage ban, opening the way for the first same-sex weddings in the state to begin immediately.

U.S. District Court Judge Max O. Cogburn, Jr., in Asheville issued a ruling Friday shortly after 5 p.m. declaring the ban approved by state voters in 2012 unconstitutional.

Buncombe County Register of Deeds Drew Reisinger kept his Asheville office open late to begin issuing marriage licenses to waiting couples.

Cogburn's ruling follows Monday's announcement by the U.S. Supreme Court that it would not hear any appeal of a July ruling by the 4th Circuit Court of Appeals in Richmond striking down Virginia's ban. That court has jurisdiction oover North Carolina See More

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Gut-Wrenching Images Show The Reality Of The Ebola Outbreak In Liberia

Gut-Wrenching Images Show The Reality Of The Ebola Outbreak In Liberia.

Grim news emerged in the battle against Ebola on Friday as the World Health Organization announced that more than 4,000 people have died from the disease since the outbreak began. Most cases were recorded in Liberia, Guinea and Sierra Leone. The U.N. special envoy for Ebola, David Nabarro, explained the number of cases is probably doubling every three-to-four weeks and warned that it will be impossible to quickly combat the disease without mass mobilization of international support.

Photographers John Moore and Mohammed Elshamy have been working on the front lines of the fight against the disease, documenting its brutal effects on patients and their loved ones in West Africa. Their gut-wrenching pictures from the Liberian capital Monrovia reveal the devastating impact of the disease.

A woman throws a handful of soil towards the body of her sister as Ebola burial team members take her Mekie Nagbe, 28, for cremation on October 10, 2014 in Monrovia, Liberia. Nagbe, a market vendor, collapsed and died outside her home earlier in the morning while leaving to walk to a treatment center, according to her relatives. The burial of loved ones is important in Liberian culture, making the removal of infected bodies for cremation all the more traumatic for surviving family members. (John Moore/Getty Images) See More

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U.S. BOMBS BACKFIRE

U.S.-led air war in Syria is off to a difficult start, with moderate rebels disenchanted.

REYHANLI, Turkey — The U.S.-led air war in Syria has gotten off to a rocky start, with even the Syrian rebel groups closest to the United States turning against it, U.S. ally Turkey refusing to contribute and the plight of a beleaguered Kurdish town exposing the limitations of the strategy.

U.S. officials caution that the strikes are just the beginning of a broader strategy that could take years to carry out. But the anger that the attacks have stirred risks undermining the effort, analysts and rebels say.

The main beneficiary of the strikes so far appears to be President Bashar al-Assad, whose forces have taken advantage of the shift in the military balance to step up attacks against the moderate rebels designated by President Obama as partners of the United States in the war against extremists see more

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THE CHAMPIONS OF CHILDREN'S RIGHTS

 The Nobel Peace Prize 2014: Pakistani Malala Yousafzai, Indian Kailash Satyarthi Honored For Fighting For Children's Rights.

The 2014 Nobel Peace Prize was awarded on Friday to Pakistani Malala Yousafzai and Indian Kailash Satyarthi for "their struggle against the suppression of children and young people and for the right of all children to education."

"Children must go to school and not be financially exploited," The Norwegian Nobel Committee stated in a press release. "In the poor countries of the world, 60% of the present population is under 25 years of age. It is a prerequisite for peaceful global development that the rights of children and young people be respected."

Yousafzai, 17, was shot in the head by Taliban militants in 2012 for having the temerity to seek an education. The Islamist militant group also took issue with her for publishing a blog in 2009 that promoted the right to education.

"I think of it often and imagine the scene clearly. Even if they come to kill me, I will tell them what they are doing is wrong, that education is our basic right," Yousafzai said on her website.

After receiving treatment for her injuries in a British hospital, Yousafzai dedicated herself to the cause of education for all. She said being shot had only strengthened her resolve.

"They can only shoot a body, they cannot shoot my dreams," Yousafzai said. "They shot me because they wanted to tell me that, 'we want to kill you and to stop you campaigning', but they did the biggest mistake: they injured me, and they told me through that attack, that even death is supporting me, even death does not want to kill me."

Yousafzai penned the bestselling book, "I Am Malala: The Girl Who Stood Up For Education And Was Shot By The Taliban," and launched The Malala Fund, a nonprofit organization focused on helping girls go to school and promoting their right of education. For her efforts, she has received the Sakharov Prize for Freedom of Thought, the European Union's annual human rights award. Previous winners include Nobel Peace Prize laureates Aung San Suu Kyi and Nelson MandelaSee More

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THE SHUTDOWN SEQUEL IN THE WORKS?

Republicans Hint At Another Government Shutdown Over Obamacare. Seriously.

WASHINGTON -- Less than a year after House Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio) called the 2013 government shutdown over funding for Obamacare a “predictable disaster,” Republicans are hinting they might be willing to do it again in a few months.

A group of 14 Republicans, led by Sen. Marco Rubio (R-Fla.) wrote to Boehner on Wednesday identifying a provision of the Affordable Care Act that a Government Accountability Office report concluded would require an additional appropriation from Congress in the next fiscal year. According to ThinkProgress, the provision allows the federal government to reimburse insurance companies that underestimate claims they will have to pay with profits from insurance companies that overestimated. In their letter to Boehner, the Republicans wrote that the program “puts taxpayers at risk of a large bailout if insurers systematically lose money on exchange plans.”

The Republicans, including Sens. Rand Paul of Kentucky and John McCain of Arizona, urge Boehner to end the program when Congress votes to fund the government during the lame-duck session after the November elections.

The letter notes that the current continuing budget resolution expires Dec. 11. "Congress will undoubtedly have its feet held to the fire by the American people to pass another stop-gap appropriations bill avoiding a government shutdown,” the Republicans write.

“The American people expect us, as Members of Congress, to fulfill our Oath of Office and defend the Constitution. Therefore, we must act to protect Congress’ power of the purse and prohibit the Obama administration from dispersing unlawful risk corridor payments providing for an Obamacare taxpayer bailout.”

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अगले 36 घंटों में आने वाला खतरनाक रूप में होगा चक्रवात

odisa मे काल ,आने की संभावना देखिये  अगले 36 घंटो मे

खतरनाक चक्रवाती तूफान 'हुदहुद' रविवार को आंध्र प्रदेश और ओडिशा के तटों पर दस्तक दे सकता है. राज्य सरकार के अधिकारियों ने बताया कि 'हुदहुद' से निपटने के लिए राज्य सरकार ने जरूरी तैयारी कर ली है.

भारत मौसम विज्ञान विभाग (आईएमडी) के मुताबिक, 'उत्तरी अंडमान सागर और इसके नजदीकी इलाके में तीव्र दबाव ने 'हुदहुद' चक्रवाती तूफान का रूप ले लिया है. यह तूफान बुधवार को उत्तरी अंडमान सागर और इसके पास बंगाल की खाड़ी तक पहुंच गया है. अगले 36 घंटों में यह चक्रवात खतरनाक रूप ले सकता है.

मुख्यमंत्री नवीन पटनायक ने कहा कि राज्य चक्रवाती तूफान की आशंका के खतरे से निपटने के लिए पूरी तरह तैयार है. सभी संबंधित विभागों के साथ चक्रवात के हालात की समीक्षा की गई है. आईएमडी के मुताबिक, 'हुदहुद' उत्तरी आंध्र प्रदेश और इसके समीप ओडिशा के समुद्र तट को 12 अक्टूबर की दोपहर तक पार कर लेगा. इसकी वजह से मछुआरों को समुद्र में नहीं जाने की सलाह दी गई है.

जानिए क्या है हुदहुद चक्रवात...

1. हुदहुद इजरायल की चिड़िया का नाम है. 

2. इसी के नाम पर इस चक्रवात को हुदहुद का नाम दिया गया. 

3. ओमान ने तूफान का नाम हुदहुद दिया है. 

4. बंगाल की खाड़ी में हुदहुद तूफान सक्रिय हुआ है. 

5. अंडमान सागर पर कम दबाव के क्षेत्र से हुदहुद तूफान बना है.

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197 रन पर सिमट गई टीम इंडिया:---

वेस्‍टइंडीज की धमाकेदार जीत:-

197 रन पर सिमट गई टीम इंडिया, वेस्‍टइंडीज की धमाकेदार जीत:--

वेस्टइंडीज ने कोच्चि वनडे मैच में भारत को 124 रनों के बड़े अंतर से हरा दिया और पांच मैचों की सीरीज में 1-0 से बढ़त हासिल कर ली. भारतीय टीम 322 रनों के विशाल लक्ष्य का पीछा करते हुए 41 ओवरों में 197 रनों पर ढेर हो गई. भारतीय टीम की तरफ से शिखर धवन (68) और अजिंक्य रहाणे (24) ने सधे अंदाज में शुरुआत की, हालांकि यह सलामी जोड़ी अभी पूरी तरह टिक भी नहीं पाई थी कि रहाणे रन आउट होकर पवेलियन लौट गए. रहाणे 49 रनों के कुल योग पर दूसरा रन भागने के चक्कर में रन आउट हुए. रहाणे के जाने के बाद भारत कभी भी मैच में वापस आता नजर नहीं आया और लगातार गिरते विकेटों के बीच रन गति भी बरकरार नहीं रख सका.see more

मार्लिन सैमुअल्स की शानदार शतकीय पारी के बूते कोच्चि वनडे मैच में पहले बल्लेबाजी करते हुए वेस्टइंडीज ने 6 विकेट पर 321 रन बनाए. सैमुअल्स ने ताबड़तोड़ बल्लेबाजी करते हुए 116 गेंदों में नाबाद 126 रन का योगदान दिया.

देखें मैच का स्कोरकार्ड...

विराट कोहली (2) और सुरेश रैना (0) ने सर्वाधिक निराश किया. कोहली को जेरोम टेलर ने डारेन सैमी के हाथों कैच आउट करवाया, जबकि सुरेश रैना ड्वायन ब्रावो की गेंद पर क्लीन बोल्ड हो गए.

अंबाती रायडू (13) ने जरूर इस बीच धवन के साथ 27 रनों की साझेदारी कर टीम को संभालने की कोशिश की, लेकिन वह भी 82 के कुल योग पर पवेलियन लौट चुके थे. कप्तान महेंद्र सिंह धोनी (8) और धवन ने इसके बाद बेहद संभलकर खेलते हुए 53 गेंदों में 31 रन जोड़े. लेकिन सैमी ने धोनी को क्लीन बोल्ड कर भारत की कमर ही तोड़ दी. धोनी के रूप में 25.1 ओवर में 114 के कुल योग पर भारत का पांचवां विकेट गिरा और जीत की उम्मीद लगभग खत्म हो गई.

इसके बाद बल्लेबाजी करने आए रविंद्र जडेजा (नाबाद 33) ने धवन के साथ संभलकर पारी को बढ़ाने की कोशिश की, लेकिन इस बार धवन खुद सैमुअल्स का शिकार हो पवेलियन लौट गए और इसके साथ ही भारत की आखिरी विशेषज्ञ बल्लेबाजों की जोड़ी भी टूट गई. धवन ने बेहद धैर्य के साथ खेलते हुए 92 गेंदों का सामना किया और नौ चौके लगाए.

अगले 7.2 ओवरों में भारत के स्कोर में 21 रनों का इजाफा हुआ, जबकि तीन विकेट और गिर गए.

जडेजा ने मोहम्मद समी (19) के साथ आखिरी विकेट के लिए 42 रनों की साझेदारी की, हालांकि यह साझेदारी सिर्फ भारत के हार के अंतर को कम करने वाली साबित हुई. वेस्टइंडीज के सभी गेंदबाजों ने बेहद कसी हुई गेंदबाजी की. रवि रामपॉल, ड्वेन ब्रावो और सैमुअल्स ने दो-दो विकेट चटकाए, जबकि जेरोम टेलर, आंद्रे रसेल और सैमी को एक-एक विकेट मिले.

विंडीज पारी

टॉस हारने के बाद पहले बल्लेबाजी करने उतरी विंडीज टीम की शुरुआत कुछ खास नहीं रही. टीम ने महज 34 रन के स्कोर पर अपना पहला विकेट ड्वेन ब्रावो के रूप में खोया. इसके बाद ड्वेन स्मिथ ने डैरन ब्रावो के साथ संभलकर बल्लेबाजी की. जैसे ही दोनों बल्लेबाजों ने दूसरे विकेट के लिए 64 रन जोड़े, टीम को एक और झटका लगा. स्मिथ 46 रन के स्कोर पर क्लीन बोल्ड हो गए. ये विकेट रवींद्र जडेजा ने झटका. डैरन ब्रावो भी ज्यादा देर क्रीज पर टिके नहीं रह सके, वह 28 रन के निजी स्कोर पर अमित मिश्रा का शिकार बने. इसके बाद मार्लिन सैमुअल्स का साथ देने क्रीज पर आए दिनेश रामदीन. दोनों खिलाड़ियों ने पहले सिंगल-डबल के दम पर टीम को मजबूती प्रदान की, फिर मौका मिलते ही भारतीय गेंदबाजों पर धावा बोल दिया. चौथे विकेट के लिए 165 रनों की साझेदारी हुई. इस दौरान सैमुअल्स ने अपने वनडे करियर का 6वां शतक जड़ा और रामदीन ने अर्धशतक पूरा किया. इस साझेदारी को मोहम्मद शमी ने तोड़ा. पार्टनरशिप के टूटते ही भारतीय गेंदबाजों ने जोरदार वापसी की, खासकर शमी ने विंडीज को लगातार झटके दिए. उन्होंने कीरोन पोलार्ड और आंद्रे रसेल को एक ही ओवर में चलता किया. हालांकि सैमुअल्स क्रीज पर डटे रहे. उन्होंने 11 चौकों और 4 छक्के की मदद से नाबाद 126 रन बनाए. रामदीन ने 61 रन का योगदान दिया. भारतीय गेंदबाजी की बात करें तो शमी ने 66 रन खर्चकर 4 विकेट झटके. इसके अलावा रवींद्र जडेजा और अमित मिश्रा के खाते में 1-1 विकेट गए.

                                                                                

THE REPUBLICANS BRACE FOR ANOTHER BLOODY PRIMARY

The message from Republican officials has been crystal clear for two years: The 2016 Republican primary cannot be another prolonged pummeling of the eventual nominee. Only one person ultimately benefited from that last time — Barack Obama — and Republicans know they can’t afford to send a hobbled nominee up against Hillary Clinton.

Yet interviews with more than a dozen party strategists, elected officials and potential candidates a month out from the unofficial start of the 2016 election lay bare a stark reality: Despite the national party’s best efforts, the likelihood of a bloody primary process remains as strong as ever.
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The sprawling, kaleidoscope-like field that’s taking shape is already prompting Republican presidential hopefuls to knock their likely rivals in private and, at times, publicly. The fact that several candidates’ prospects hinge in part on whether others run only exacerbates that dynamic. Ultimately, the large pack won’t be whittled for many months: Republicans have no idea who will end up running, and insiders don’t expect the field will gel in any way until at least the spring of next year See More
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SENATE HANGS BY A THREAD

Battle For The Senate Close And Competitive In Latest Polling.

The battle to control the Senate remains deeply competitive, according to new data from CBS/New York Times/YouGov polling conducted nationwide and NBC/Marist surveys in three key swing states.

"The fight for control of the Senate is stable and tight, with Republicans maintaining the inside track to a majority. ... Nonetheless, the data suggests that the Democrats retain a clear, if difficult, path to victory," The New York Times' Nate Cohn wrote, summarizing the CBS/NYT/YouGov results.

While the two sets of surveys differ on some individual states, their results are largely in line with other recent polling. Other forecasters have similarly found little change in their predictions as a result of the latest polls.

The GOP's chance of retaking the Senate ticked down on HuffPost Pollster's Senate forecast, which incorporates all publicly available polling. One reason for the change: the newest surveys push Sen. Kay Hagan (D-N.C.) up to a 61 percent chance of winning, edging North Carolina out of the tossup camp. Hagan's advantage, though sometimes small, has been consistent over the past month. The 13 most recent polls in the state, including those by partisan pollsters, have all shown her ahead by at least 1 See More

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CATASTROPHE THE WORLD SLEPT THROUGH

Out of control

How the world’s health organizations failed to stop the Ebola disaster.

Tom Frieden remembers the young woman with the beautiful hair, dyed a rusty gold and braided meticulously, elaborately, perhaps by someone who loved her very much. She was lying facedown, half off the mattress. She had been dead for hours, and flies had found the bare flesh of her legs.

Two other bodies lay nearby. Bedridden patients who had not yet succumbed said of the dead, "Please, get them out of here."

Frieden, the director of the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), knew it was no simple matter to properly carry away a body loaded with Ebola virus. It takes four people wearing protective suits, one at each corner of the body bag. On that grim day near the end of August, in a makeshift Ebola ward in Monrovia, Liberia, burial teams already had lugged 60 victims to a truck for the trip to the crematorium.

ABOVE: A sick child, Cynthia, waits outside Redemption Hospital in Monrovia, Liberia, for health workers to remove dead bodies before she can enter.

Frieden had seen plenty of death over the years, but this was far worse than he expected, a plague on a medieval scale. "A scene out of Dante," he called it.

Shaken, he flew back to the United States on Aug. 31 and immediately briefed President Obama by phone. The window to act was closing, he told the president in the 15-minute call.

That conversation, nearly six months after the World Health Organization (WHO) learned of an Ebola outbreak in West Africa, was part of a mounting realization among world leaders that the battle against the virus was being lost. As of early September, with more than 1,800 confirmed Ebola deaths in Guinea, Liberia and Sierra Leone, there was still no coordinated global response. Alarmed U.S. officials realized they would need to call in the military.

Obama eventually ordered 3,000 military personnel to West Africa; about 200 had arrived by the beginning of this month. They will be joined by health workers from countries such as Britain, China and Cuba. Canada and Japan are sending protective gear and mobile laboratories. Nonprofit organizations such as the Gates Foundation also are contributing. But it's not at all clear that this belated muscular response will be enough to quell the epidemic before it takes tens of thousands of lives.

This is an open-ended crisis involving a microscopic threat on the move. This week came the unsettling news that the Ebola epidemic has now reached across the Atlantic Ocean to a hospital in Texas, where a Liberian man has tested positive for the virus.

So how did the situation get so horribly out of control?

The virus easily outran the plodding response. The WHO, an arm of the United Nations, is responsible for coordinating international action in a crisis like this, but it has suffered budget cuts, has lost many of its brightest minds and was slow to sound a global alarm on Ebola. Not until Aug. 8, 4 1 ⁄ 2 months into the epidemic, did the organization declare a global emergency. Its Africa office, which oversees the region, initially did not welcome a robust role by the CDC in the response to the outbreak.

Previous Ebola outbreaks had been quickly throttled, but that experience proved misleading and officials did not grasp the potential scale of the disaster. Their imaginations were unequal to the virulence of the pathogen.

"In retrospect, we could have responded faster. Some of the criticism is appropriate," acknowledged Richard Brennan, director of the WHO's Department of Emergency Risk Management and Humanitarian Response. But he added, "While some of the criticism we accept, I think we also have to get things in perspective that this outbreak has a dynamic that's unlike everything we've ever seen before and, I think, has caught everyone unawares."

The epidemic has exposed a disconnect between the aspirations of global health officials and the reality of infectious disease control. Officials hold faraway strategy sessions about fighting emerging diseases and bioterrorism even as front-line doctors and nurses don't have enough latex gloves, protective gowns, rehydrating fluid or workers to carry bodies to the morgue.

"We cannot wait for those high-level meetings to convene and discuss over cocktails and petits fours what they're going to do," exclaimed Joanne Liu, international head of Doctors Without Borders, when she heard about another U.N. initiative. Her group was among the first to respond to the viral conflagration, and it kept its staff in West Africa throughout the crisis.

West Africa was ill-equipped for an Ebola disaster because civil war and chronic poverty had undermined local health systems and there were few doctors and nurses. Health workers in the region had never experienced an Ebola outbreak and didn't know what they were seeing in those first critical months. In the spring the outbreak seemed to fade, making officials overconfident. And then the virus made the leap from rural villages to crowded cities.

Local customs in handling the dead led to further infections. Some West Africans believe that the day you die is one of the most important days of your life. The final farewell can be a hands-on, affectionate ritual in which the body is washed and dressed, and in some villages carried through the community, where friends and relatives will share a favorite beverage by putting the cup to the lips of the deceased before taking a drink.

And finally, the virus itself played a critical role in accelerating the crisis. Ebola, although not nearly as contagious as some viruses, is unusually lethal and commensurately terrifying. Many foreign health workers and volunteers fled the region, and few people rushed in to take their place.

This is both a biological plague and a psychological one, and fear can spread even faster than the virus.

'This is relatively small still'

A virus is not really alive, in the formal sense of the word, as it cannot do anything outside of a host. Ebola is a filovirus, and looks like a piece of spaghetti. The protein envelope surrounds a strand of RNA, the simpler cousin of DNA. You could say it is pure information with instructions for replication.

Ebola is one of a number of viruses that cause "viral hemorrhagic fever." What makes it so deadly is that it can take over the machinery of many kinds of cells, replicating quickly. It shuts down or misdirects parts of the immune system and sends the rest into hyperdrive, causing the victim to suffer fever, headaches, vomiting, diarrhea and dehydration. Death can come within days from multiple organ failure.

Ebola isn't nearly as contagious as, say, measles or influenza. It is transmitted only through bodily fluids after the fever and other symptoms have occurred. But the incubation period, after infection and before the person becomes symptomatic, typically lasts about a week, or as long as three weeks. People who are infected can travel a great distance before they begin to shed the virus. Initial symptoms are similar to those caused by malaria and influenza, confounding a proper diagnosis.

The first Ebola cases surfaced in late 2013 in Guinea, in the rain forest in the district of Guéckédou, close to borders with Liberia and Sierra Leone. No one knows exactly when the virus jumped into the human population, or from which animal species - a fruit bat is one possibility - but the first victim is believed to have been a 2-year-old girl or someone close to her.

Doctors at first assumed they were looking at Lassa fever, a viral hemorrhagic fever similar to Ebola, as dozens of people began falling sick and more than half of them were dying. But then on March 23, the WHO posted a notice on its Web site:

"The Ministry of Health (MoH) of Guinea has notified WHO of a rapidly evolving outbreak of Ebola virus disease (EVD) in forested areas of south-eastern Guinea. As of 22 March 2014, a total of 49 cases including 29 deaths (case fatality ratio: 59%) had been reported."

The virus spread from Guinea to Liberia, where two people died in late March. On April 1, Sierra Leone reported that two of its citizens had died in Guinea, probably from Ebola, and that their bodies had been returned to their native country See More

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REPORT: ISIS NEARS BAGHDAD

The Islamic State reportedly on Baghdad’s outskirts after week of victories.

REPORT: ISIS NEARS BAGHDAD

Islamic State reportedly on Baghdad’s outskirts after week of victories

IRBIL, IRAQ — Islamic State militants have taken control of key cities in Iraq’s western province of Anbar and have begun to besiege one of the country’s largest military bases in a weeklong offensive that’s brought them within artillery range of Baghdad.

The Islamic State and its tribal allies have dominated Anbar since a surprise offensive last December, but this week’s push was particularly worrisome, because for the first time this year Islamist insurgents were reported to have become a major presence in Abu Ghraib, the last Anbar town on the outskirts of the capital.

“Daash is openly operating inside Abu Ghraib,” according to an Iraqi soldier, who used a common Arabic term for the Islamic State. “I was at the 10th Division base there two days ago, and the soldiers cannot leave or patrol,” he said, asking that he be identified only as Hossam because Iraqi soldiers are barred from speaking with foreign reporters. “Daash controls the streets.”

Hundreds of miles to the west, Islamic State forces continued their push into the Syrian Kurdish city of Kobane, where it appeared unlikely that Turkey would intervene to stop the advance. Kurdish officials from the town said the Turkish government had yet to respond to their pleas for weapons, and reports from the Turkish-Syrian border said there was no evidence Turkey was preparing to take action.

Hossam, whom a McClatchy special correspondent interviewed in Baghdad, said he’d had a difficult time leaving Abu Ghraib for Baghdad to mark the Eid al Adha holiday Saturday. “I had to use a fake ID card that said I was Sunni,” he said, reflecting the concern among Shiite Muslim Iraqi soldiers about the Islamic State’s execution of Shiites it’s captured. “Daash controls the entire area except the army bases and prisons. They’re just a few (miles) from Baghdad.”

His account was backed by Hamad Hussein, a resident of the Saadan section of Abu Ghraib, who said the Islamic State had taken control of virtually all the southern sections of the area, including the villages of Saadan, al Nuaymiya and Kan Tari.

A diplomat in Irbil, the capital of the autonomous Kurdistan region, said an Islamic State presence in Abu Ghraib would put Baghdad International Airport within artillery range of the militants.

“We know they have captured substantial numbers of 155 mm howitzers,” said the diplomat, whose country is participating in the U.S.-led anti-Islamic State coalition. The diplomat spoke only on the condition of anonymity, lacking permission to brief the news media. “These have a range of about (20 miles) and if they are able to hold territory in Abu Ghraib then the concern they can shell and ultimately close BIAP becomes a grave concern.”

The airport is a key lifeline for Western embassies and holds a joint operations center staffed by U.S. military advisers.

Anbar is a predominantly Sunni Muslim province that remains deeply suspicious of the Shiite-dominated government in Baghdad, and the Islamic State has pressed to expand its control there since last winter’s initial offensive. In the past week, the militants have scored a string of other victories in the province.

Islamic State militants seized control of most of Hit, a key pipeline town north of the provincial capital of Ramadi, on Thursday and were pressing an assault on Ramadi itself, according to Iraqi news accounts. At least 74 soldiers were killed and dozens were missing after the militants overran Hit, state news media reported late Thursday.

Islamic State militants also captured an entire regiment of Iraqi tanks, the reports said, though it was unclear how many vehicles that represented. In a Western military, regiments generally have 38 to 55 tanks, but Iraqi regiments have long been undermanned due to corruption and problems with maintenance.

The advance on Hit may have been in preparation for an assault on the Asad air base nearby, Iraq’s largest military facility and the main base for American troops in Anbar during the U.S.-led occupation. Reports indicated the base had come under harassing attacks.

Islamic State militants also have besieged a military base that belongs to the 30th Mechanized Brigade at Albu Aytha, north of Ramadi. The outcome of the battle was unclear, with some reports saying the assault had trapped 300 to 600 soldiers, while government media reported that the base had withstood a major attack.

Two smaller outposts in Anbar have been overrun in a similar fashion in the last two weeks, and residents of Fallujah, which fell to the Islamic State last winter, have reported seeing militants parading hundreds of captured soldiers through that city’s streets as recently as last weekend.

Although the fate of those prisoners remains unknown, the Islamic State typically conducts mass executions of Iraqi army prisoners, particularly if the captured men are Shiites, whom the group considers apostates. The group has repeatedly released mass execution videos a few days or weeks after such events.

The biggest concern for Western military advisers was the report that Islamic State militants were moving freely in Abu Ghraib, which controls the western approaches to Baghdad from Anbar, Jordan and Syria. Its loss would severely limit the Iraqi government’s ability to send reinforcements to a small number of bases in Anbar that remain in government control, including at Ramadi and Haditha as well as Asad air base, which lies north of Ramadi.

Already, Islamic State forces’ influence stretches from Fallujah through Abu Ghraib to Yusufiya, Baghdad’s westernmost suburb. So far, the highway that links those locations remains in government hands, as does the infamous Abu Ghraib prison, where U.S. soldiers abused Iraqi prisoners in the early years of the Iraq War. But while the government has dispatched more soldiers to reinforce its hold on the highway, the Islamic State’s control of the surrounding areas makes the government’s hold appear tenuous.

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