Author Archives: Pat Turnbaugh

Guinea, Origin of West Africa Ebola Outbreak, Now Free of Virus

Health officials say that Guinea is officially free of Ebola, a milestone achievement for the nation that was the original source of a deadly outbreak of the disease about two years ago.

The World Health Organization (WHO), an arm of the United Nations, made the announcement on Tuesday, saying it had been 42 days since test results on the West African nation’s final confirmed Ebola patient came back negative. The WHO said the outbreak that ravaged Guinea and the neighboring nations of Sierra Leone and Liberia, killing thousands of people and sickening scores more, originally began in Gueckedou, Guinea, late in 2013 before spreading.

According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), the rare-but-often-fatal disease killed 2,536 people in Guinea, the vast majority of people who fell ill with it. The virus also killed 3,955 in Sierra Leone and more than 4,800 in Liberia. In isolated instances, Ebola arrived in seven other nations and killed 15 more people, including one in the United States.

Though the outbreak received widespread coverage from around the globe, 11,300 of the 11,315 Ebola deaths occurred in the three West African nations most severely impacted by the virus. Likewise, CDC data show 28,601 of the 28,637 suspected ebola cases occurred in those nations.

The WHO deemed Sierra Leone free of the disease in November, according to a statement at the time. The WHO had also declared Liberia free of the disease in September, according to the CDC, though three additional cases of the Ebola virus have surfaced in the past few weeks.

The WHO says that Ebola can linger in the bodies of some male survivors for up to one year, making monitoring important. The organization said officials would be on high alert for the next 90 days to ensure any potential new infections are rapidly discovered to prevent transmission.

Destructive Winter Storm Reaches New England

A powerful and deadly winter storm that brought heavy snow and widespread flooding to the United States continued to travel east on Tuesday morning, leaving more destruction in its path.

The National Weather Service issued winter weather advisories and winter storm warnings in parts of Pennsylvania, New York and New England as the storm was poised to finally exit the country. But the storm’s fury was still being felt across the nation, particularly in the Great Plains and Ohio and Mississippi valleys, where numerous flood warnings remained in effect.

The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) said 438 river gauges across the nation were in flood stage on Tuesday morning, 53 of which were experiencing “major flooding.” Most of them were clustered in the central United States, though a few were in the southeast. In many locations, floodwaters had already reached or were threatening to surpass historic levels.

Fueled by 10 inches of rainfall in the vicinity, the Illinois River near Tahlequah, Oklahoma, reached an all-time high crest of 30.69 feet on Monday, more than 2.5 feet above the previous record that was set 65 years ago, the NOAA reported. The floodwaters had receded to about 21 feet there on Tuesday morning, though that was still more than three feet above the threshold for what is considered major flooding. The NOAA said parts of Texas, Arkansas and Missouri also saw 10 or more inches of rain, including a storm-high 12.25 inches near Union, Missouri. The storm also packed a powerful punch in Illinois, dumping 9.98 inches of rain near Roxana.

Rising waters prompted the mayor of St. Louis to declare a city emergency. Just south of the city in Arnold, the NOAA reported Meramec River was already experiencing major flooding, and was expected to surpass its all-time high level of 45.3 feet later this week. That water flows into the Mississippi River, and the NOAA projected that the further-south riverside communities of Chester, Illinois, and Cape Girardeau, Missouri, were also expected to tie or break local crest records.

That’s just a sampling of the storm’s flooding, and the 438 river gauges do not necessarily cover the lakes or other water bodies causing floods. In southern Missouri, for example, the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers reported that waters at Table Rock Lake rose approximately 17 feet between Monday and Tuesday, fueling a massive release of water into flood-prone Lake Taneycomo. The United States Geological Survey reported that waters at Ozark Beach Dam in Forsyth, some 20 miles away from Table Rock Lake, rose three feet between Monday and Tuesday.

The storm brought more than just flooding and heavy rains.

More than three inches of sleet fell in Iowa and Illinois, the NOAA reported. But an inch was enough to snarl traffic at Chicago O’Hare International Airport, one of the world’s busiest.

Flight monitoring website FlightAware.com reported that 1,366 flights to or from the airport were cancelled on Monday, more than half of the airport’s scheduled traffic. Another 303 flights involving Chicago Midway International Airport were also cancelled, according to FlightAware, and lingering effects of the storm caused an additional 236 cancellations at O’Hare on Tuesday.

According to NOAA data, no place came close to receiving the 41 inches of snow the storm dumped on Bonito Lake, located in a mountain range in New Mexico. But the storm did produce more than nine inches of snow in Oklahoma, Iowa, Michigan, Minnesota, Wisconsin and Texas.

The storm knocked out power to tens of thousands in Oklahoma, according to utility companies.

While the storm appears seems to have weakened considerably, it’s still packing a punch. According to the National Weather Service, parts of Maine could receive up to a foot of snow.

Earthquakes Cause Minor Damage, Knock Out Power in Oklahoma

Early-morning earthquakes caused some damage in one Oklahoma community on Tuesday.

According to the United States Geological Survey (USGS), a magnitude 4.3 earthquake occurred at 5:39 a.m. local time about five miles outside of Edmond, Oklahoma, one of the state’s most populous cities. A magnitude 3.4 aftershock followed nearby exactly 10 minutes later.

Edmond is located about 15 miles northeast of Oklahoma City.

The earthquakes caused about 4,400 customers in Edmond to lose power, officials wrote on the city’s Twitter page. However, crews restored service to every customer within about 90 minutes.

One Edmond resident shared a picture on Twitter showing a broken mirror inside a bathroom, though there weren’t published reports indicating the quake caused severe damage or injuries.

Another magnitude 2.9 earthquake shook the ground 17 miles outside of Fairview, Oklahoma, at 6:48 a.m., according to the USGS. Fairview is roughly 100 miles northwest of Oklahoma City.

The three earthquakes were the latest to hit the state of Oklahoma, which has seen a dramatic rise in seismic activity since 2009, according to the USGS. Wastewater from the oil and gas companies who operate in the state have been linked to the uptick, and officials at the regulatory Oklahoma Corporation Commission have implemented steps to reduce wastewater production.

However, the earthquakes continue.

USGS data indicates Oklahoma has experienced about 123 earthquakes of magnitude 2.5 or greater in the past 30 days. That includes dozens of quakes of at least magnitude 3.0. Before 2009, the USGS says the state traditionally only saw one to three magnitude 3.0 quakes a year.

Tuesday’s earthquakes came at a time when Oklahoma was still reeling from a powerful storm that brought ice, snow and flooding to the state, which the state Department of Health said led to at least 50 people suffering injuries. The entire state remains under a state of emergency, and the National Weather Service issued flood and flash flood warnings across eastern Oklahoma.

Close to 200,000 customers across Oklahoma lacked power on Monday afternoon, Governor Mary Fallin’s office said in a news release announcing the state of emergency. However, utility companies said their crews were busy restoring power to those who had been left in the dark.

The Public Service Company of Oklahoma reported about 17,000 customers were without power on Tuesday morning. Another utility company, OG&E, reported it had restored service to about 60,000 of its customers, though about 19,000 were experiencing outages. The Oklahoma Electric Cooperative reported approximately 54,000 people near Oklahoma City lacked power.

Twin Explosions Kill At Least 19 in Syrian City

At least 19 people were killed and another 43 were severely injured when two coordinated explosions rocked a Syrian city on Monday, the nation’s official news agency reported.

According to the Syrian Arab News Agency, or SANA, a car bomb exploded in Homs, a city in western Syria. As people gathered around site of the initial explosion, apparently to survey the blast’s damage, a suicide bomber entered the crowd and detonated another explosive device.

The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, a British organization that monitors the ongoing conflict in Syria, reported a higher death toll of 32 and said at least 90 people had been injured.

It wasn’t immediately clear who was responsible for the attacks.

The explosions come about two weeks after 16 people died and 54 more were injured in other blasts in Homs. The Islamic State said it was behind the Dec. 12 attacks, Reuters reported.

Both terrorist attacks came after the United Nations helped implement a Dec. 5 ceasefire truce that allowed 700 people to evacuate the final rebel-controlled part of the city, one of the most heavily damaged in the bloody civil war that has caused millions of people to flee their homes.

Monday’s blasts came as at least 300 families were being evacuated from three other Syrian communities under similar United Nations-backed agreements, according to SANA. Two of the cities are located in Idleb province and another is located near the Syrian capital of Damascus.

United Nations officials have publicly said the organization hopes such agreements, aimed at getting relief to particularly embattled Syrian communities, will foster a nationwide ceasefire.

Up to 2,000 People Involved in ‘Riot’ at Kentucky Shopping Mall

Anywhere between 1,000 and 2,000 people — a large percentage of them middle-school- and high-school-aged kids — were involved in multiple altercations during a chaotic scene at a Kentucky shopping mall on Saturday evening, according to multiple published reports.

The disturbances happened at Mall St. Matthews in St. Matthews, Kentucky, a Louisville suburb.

Police told the Louisville Courier-Journal that most of the children were unsupervised. Law enforcement was still working to determine what exactly touched off the altercations, which began in the shopping center and later spilled out into nearby parking lots and businesses.

Speaking to NBC News, St. Matthews Police Spokesman Dennis McDonald described the situation as “a riot.” He said “a series of brawls” broke out across “the entire mall,” adding that he had not seen anything like the events of the evening in his 33 years as a police officer.

The mall has 130 stores and more than 23 acres of leasable space, according to its website.

The Courier-Journal reported that police initially received a single call for assistance to break up disorderly conduct, but got “dozens of others” as more people joined in and the altercations became more violent. McDonald told the newspaper the conflicts appeared to fuel each other, and “kind of a mob mentality” developed. Officers from at least four agencies responded to the situation.

Police were still trying to determine if the fights were gang-related or pre-planned, the Courier-Journal reported. But McDonald told the newspaper that parents and guardians of many kids appeared to be using the mall as a “babysitter,” noting that police believe most of Saturday’s troublemakers took public transportation to the mall or were dropped off there.

McDonald told the Courier-Journal that the mall should consider adopting a policy that would bar children below a certain age from visiting the mall without a parent accompanying them. He told the newspaper that could ultimately help prevent other disturbances from occurring there.

Local television station WLKY reported there weren’t any reports of injuries or arrests stemming from the confrontations. However, the mall decided to close more than an hour early, and one business manager told the station he lost more than $1,000 because of shutting his doors.

The mall was open Sunday, WLKY reported, though police stepped up their security presence there.

Journalist Who Chronicled ISIS Atrocities Killed in Turkey

A Syrian journalist and filmmaker who chronicled the atrocities committed by Islamic State insurgents was brazenly gunned down on Sunday in Turkey, according to his organization.

Naji Jerf was “assassinated” in Gaziantep, according to a statement from Raqqa is Being Slaughtered Silently, which covers how the Islamic State treats civilians in its so-called capital.

Jerf was the group’s movie director and a father of two, according to the statement.

In its own statement, the European Federation of Journalists (EFJ) said Jerf was also the editor-in-chief of Hentah, an independent monthly publication. The EFJ statement indicated Jerf was killed in broad daylight near a building that is home to Syrian media organizations.

It wasn’t immediately clear if the Islamic State was behind the killing, though the Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) notes that ISIS has claimed responsibility for killing two journalists, both of whom had worked for Raqqa is Being Slaughtered Silently, in Urfa, Turkey, in October.

“Syrian journalists who have fled to Turkey for their safety are not safe at all,” Sherif Mansour, CPJ’s Middle East and North Africa program coordinator, said in a statement. “We call on Turkish authorities to bring the killers of Naji Jerf to justice swiftly and transparently, and to step up measures to protect all Syrian journalists on Turkish soil.”

According to the CPJ, Jerf had also recently helped create a documentary that highlighted the Islamic State’s actions against Syrian citizens when the group was occupying the city of Aleppo.

Iraqi Military Scores Big Victory Against Islamic State in Ramadi

The Iraqi military has scored another pivotal victory in the fight against the Islamic State insurgency, retaking control of a government complex in the important city of Ramadi.

Anbar Governor Sohaib Alrawi announced on Twitter on Monday that the Iraqi flag is now flying above the government compound in the city, which had been captured by Islamic State insurgents in May.

Ramadi is the capital of Anbar, Iraq’s largest province in terms of land area.

Iraqi forces had been aggressively working to recapture Ramadi, and had made major inroads in recent weeks. But the Islamic State insurgency continues to put up a fight, and The Washington Post reported that a military leader said about 30 percent of the city remains under ISIS control.

The military victory drew a mixture of celebration and caution, as the fight is still ongoing.

Col. Steve Warren, the spokesman for the United States-led coalition against the Islamic State, issued a statement congratulating the Iraqi Security Forces for the “significant accomplishment” of clearing and recapturing the government center, which he called “a proud moment for Iraq.”

Warren noted the coalition has conducted more than 630 airstrikes supporting the Iraqi efforts, as well as provided training and equipment to the forces working to defeat the Islamic State.

Warren, who shared photographs of the flag over the complex, said the coalition would continue to support Iraqi forces as they “move forward to make Ramadi safe for civilians to return.”

More Flooding, Tornadoes, Snow Expected to Impact United States

More extreme weather was threatening the United States on Monday morning, as the remnants of the devastating and deadly Winter Storm Goliath continued to move eastward.

The storm system produced the floods and tornadoes that caused at least 43 deaths in recent days, according to Reuters. On Monday, thunderstorms, flooding and winter precipitation was affecting a widespread stretch of the nation, and there were even additional tornado warnings.

The National Weather Service (NWS) issued winter storm warnings in parts of eight states: Michigan, Wisconsin, Illinois, Minnesota, Iowa, South Dakota, Missouri and Kansas. Flood warnings or flash flood watches were in effect in parts of 15 states, and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) reported 378 river gauges were in flood stage nationwide.

There were also active tornado watches in central Alabama and the Florida panhandle as heavy rain and storms continued their push through the area. The more serious tornado warnings had been issued in parts of those states, as well as portions of Mississippi, earlier in the morning.

Most of the 34 gauges with “major flooding” indicated were in the Great Plains, where rainfall was particularly heavy. The NWS reported that certain parts of Texas, Oklahoma, Arkansas and Missouri received more than 10 inches of rain between noon Saturday and 8 a.m. Monday.

That’s led to record flooding in some locations.

The NOAA reported the Illinois River near Tahlequah, Oklahoma, was at 29.92 feet, already two feet above its previous record that was set back in 1950. The river was expected to rise to 31 feet.

More rain was expected to fall later in the day, which could spur additional flooding.

The Mississippi River in Chester, Illinois, is expected to see a record crest of 49.9 feet on New Year’s Day. Cape Girardeau, Missouri, is also forecast to hit a record crest of 45.5 feet that day.

In areas with colder temperatures, that precipitation was falling as snow or freezing rain.

The NWS reported that 18 different locations in New Mexico received more than a foot of snow, including a whopping 41 inches near Bonito Lake in the Sierra Blanca mountains. Many roads in the state remained closed Monday and there were “numerous” people still stranded in vehicles.

Governors in Missouri and New Mexico have declared states of emergency.

On Monday, the snow was expected to fall in the northern United States. Some regions of Wisconsin, Minnesota and Michigan could see 10 inches of snow, the NWS said.

Parts of New York, Pennsylvania, New Jersey and New England were under winter weather advisories as the storm was expected to travel there later Monday and into Tuesday.

California, Minnesota Health Officials Warn of Norovirus Outbreaks

Public health officials in California and Minnesota are warning about norovirus outbreaks, cautioning that the intestinal disease could sicken lots of people in those states this winter.

The California Department of Public Health announced last week that there had been 32 confirmed outbreaks of the disease since October, a number that greatly exceeds the total reported in the same window last year. Hundreds likely fell ill from the disease, officials said.

In Minnesota, the state Department of Health cautioned that the arrival of a new strain of the disease could cause some additional norovirus illnesses this winter. The department said it has investigated at least 20 outbreaks of the GII.17 Kawasaki strain since September. The strain is the same one that spurred many outbreaks in Asia last winter, officials said in a news release.

“Every few years, a new strain of norovirus emerges and causes many illnesses,” Amy Saupe, a foodborne disease epidemiologist with the department, said in a statement. “We don’t know yet if this new strain will lead to an increase in the number of outbreaks reported, but it could.”

According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), norovirus is the top cause of stomach flu in the United States. The highly contagious virus sickens between 19 million and 21 million people, hospitalizes 56,000 to 71,000 and kills between 570 and 800 every year. Common symptoms include fever, diarrhea and vomiting. Most people recover within 1 to 3 days.

People get norovirus from eating tainted food or touching contaminated surfaces, making it relatively easy for the disease to spread in places like schools, daycares and nursing homes.

The Boston Globe reported a sick employee came to a Chipotle restaurant in the city earlier this month and 136 people — including some Boston College students — fell ill. There were some initial fears that outbreak was linked to an E. Coli outbreak at Chipotle restaurants in nine states, but the paper reported health officials ultimately determined that norovirus was at fault.

The CDC and other public health officials say proper disinfection, hand hygiene and food-handling techniques are vitally important to help prevent norovirus from spreading.

“One of the most important things you can do to avoid norovirus and other illnesses this holiday season is to wash your hands frequently with soap and running water for at least 20 seconds,” Dr. Karen Smith, the director of the California Department of Public Health, said in a statement. “This is especially important after using the bathroom, changing diapers, and before preparing or eating food. Hand sanitizers are not effective against norovirus.”

Arson Survivor Receives 480,000-plus Christmas Cards, Disney Trip

The 8-year-old arson survivor whose story about her desire for Christmas cards prompted an outpouring of holiday cheer from around the world is getting a lot more than she ever asked for.

Sa’fyre Terry was the only survivor of a May 2013 blaze in Schenectady, New York, that killed her father and three siblings. Family friends say Terry suffered burns on more than 75 percent of her body and had her right hand and left foot amputated as a result of her extensive injuries.

This Christmas, she received a tree-shaped Christmas card holder and wanted to receive enough cards to fill up the tree. After family friends shared Terry’s photo and story on Facebook, the story went viral and she began receiving cards, donations and support from around the globe.

In a Facebook post on a page monitoring Terry’s recovery, supporters wrote she received more than 480,000 Christmas cards through Monday, a number that has undoubtedly increased. Supporters wrote she had received a card from all 50 states — including one from the Obama family — as well as countries like Dubai, Malaysia, Australia, France, Brazil, China and India.

Students at the nearby University of Albany also presented her with a robotic right hand.

According to a Facebook posting, Terry also recently learned that she’ll be spending part of February at Walt Disney World, courtesy of Baking Memories 4 Kids. The nonprofit organization sells chocolate chip cookies online at BakingMemories4Kids.com and uses the proceeds to send children with life-threatening illnesses to amusement parks in Florida.

A crowdsourced fundraising page that had been established to help Terry’s caregivers with a host of expenses had a goal of $15,000, but had generated more than $398,000 as of Thursday.