Seven California churches have filed suit against the state because they are being forced to pay for abortions.
The California Department of Managed Health Care sent letters to seven insurance companies that refused to offer abortion coverage.
“Abortion is a basic health care service,” director Michelle Rouillard wrote to the seven insurance companies that refused to offer coverage.“All health plans must treat maternity services and legal abortion neutrally.”
The Life Legal Defense Foundation and the Alliance Defending Freedom are defending the churches, claiming the state’s mandate is a violation of the federal Weldon Amendment, which says a state can be forfeited of certain funds if they discriminate against a healthcare provider who does not pay for abortions.
“Forcing a church to be party to elective abortion is one of the utmost-imaginable assaults on our most fundamental American freedoms,” ADF Senior Counsel Casey Mattox also stated in a press release about the matter on Thursday. “California is flagrantly violating the federal law that protects employers from being forced into having abortion in their health insurance plans. No state can blatantly ignore federal law and think that it should continue to receive taxpayer money.”
A Dallas County Sheriff’s Deputy who was exhibiting signs of Ebola has been taken into isolation at a Dallas area hospital.
The deputy began to show signs of illness Wednesday morning and went to an urgent care center in Frisco, Texas. The patient said while he didn’t have direct contact with the now-deceased Thomas Eric Duncan, he was in the apartment and had contact with the family and possessions of the “Ebola patient zero.”
The patient has been identified as Sgt. Michael Monnig. He had been monitoring his temperature for the last week as a precaution and went to seek medical help when he had a fever, stomach pain and fatigue.
“We don’t want to cause a panic,” Logan Monnig told The Dallas Morning News. “There is almost no chance my dad would have Ebola. He spent very little time in the apartment, and he did not come in contact with Mr. Duncan or any bodily fluids.”
Doctors say Monnig is a “low risk” Ebola case and that it’s unlikely he or anyone else could have been infected from his visit to the urgent care center.
For the first time, someone has been infected with Ebola outside the African continent.
A Spanish nurse who treated a missionary and priest returned from West Africa after contracting the virus has been confirmed to have the same strain of Ebola as the priest.
“We are working in coordination to give the best care to the patient and to guarantee the safety of all citizens,” Spanish Health Minister Ana Mato told reporters on Monday. The nurse, whose name was not released, is reportedly in stable condition.
The woman’s husband and two others have been placed in isolation and at least two dozen others who had close contact with the woman are under observation by health officials. The hospital where she worked is also examining any other health care workers that had contact with the priest.
Worldwide, at least 370 health care workers have been infected with the disease while treating patients connected to this outbreak.
Journalist Ashoka Mukpo, the fifth American known to have the virus, has arrived in Nebraska and is receiving treatment. Mukpo said that he believes he was infected when he was splashed while spray-washing a vehicle where someone had died from Ebola.
The Dallas area infected patient, Eric Duncan, is in critical condition.
Over a thousand pastors took to their pulpits on Sunday to say that Christ controls what they say to their congregations, not the government.
The Pulpit Initiative, part of the Alliance Defending Freedom, organized the 7th Annual Pulpit Freedom Sunday. The goal is to have pastors “speak truth into every area of life from the pulpit.”
“Pastors should decide what they preach from the pulpit, not the IRS,” said ADF Senior Legal Counsel Erik Stanley, who oversees the observance. “Churches should be allowed to decide for themselves what they want to talk about. The IRS should not be the one making the decision by threatening to revoke a church’s tax-exempt status. There’s a growing chorus of pastors’ voices calling for a solution to this very real constitutional violation.”
The event had pastors participating from all fifty states plus the District of Columbia, Puerto Rico and the Virgin Islands.
The move is to point out the “Johnson Amendment” of 1954 that says churches cannot “participate in or intervene in” political campaigns.
“The real effect of the Johnson Amendment is that pastors are muzzled for fear of investigation by the IRS,” said ADF Litigation Counsel Christiana Holcomb. “Rather than risk confrontation, many pastors have self-censored their speech—afraid to apply the teachings of Scripture to specific candidates or elections. As in years past, the participants in Pulpit Freedom Sunday 2014 are taking a stand against being intimidated into sacrificing their First Amendment freedoms.”
A Federal appeals court has upheld a Texas law that will close many of the state’s abortion facilities.
A three-judge panel of the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals in New Orleans reversed the decision of Judge Lee Yeakel, the second time his rulings to keep abortion clinics from having to meet cleanliness standards for surgical centers had been overturned by the appeals court.
“Without any evidence on these points, plaintiffs do not appear to have met their burden to show that the ambulatory surgical center provision will result in insufficient clinic capacity that will impose an undue burden on a large fraction of women,” the appeals court ruled.
While those standing for the lives of unborn children were pleased with the ruling, they were disappointed that abortions will still continue in the state.
“The reality is that elective abortions will continue to remain readily available in Texas; that’s not our preference, but that’s the reality,” Joe Pojman, executive director of the Alliance for Life, told reporters. “Because there are seven very large ambulatory surgical centers that provide abortion in the major metropolitan cities women will still have ready access to elective abortions.”
A cameraman working for NBC News has tested positive for Ebola while on assignment with the network’s medical reporter.
NBC Chief Medical Editor Dr. Nancy Snyderman had a team of three others working with her in Liberia when the cameraman fell ill with a fever. He self-isolated himself until he could be tested for the virus by Doctors Without Borders who confirmed the infection.
He is being flown to the United States for treatment.
Ashoka Mukpo was the second cameraman for Snyderman and had begun working for the network on Tuesday. He had been working in Liberia and posted on his Facebook page about the situation in Liberia.
“Man oh man i have seen some bad things in the last two weeks of my life,” he wrote. “How unpredictable and fraught with danger life can be. How in some parts of the world, basic levels of help and assistance that we take for granted completely don’t exist for many people. The raw coldness of deprivation and the potential for true darkness that exists in the human experience. I hope that humanity can figure out how we can take care of each other and our world.”
Dr. Snyderman says the amount of virus in Mukpo is low and that he should have a good diagnosis.
The man who brought Ebola into the United States could be facing prosecution in Liberia because he apparently lied on exit forms.
Thomas Eric Duncan told the Liberian Airport Authority “no” when he was asked if he has cared for anyone who had Ebola or touched the body of someone who had died from Ebola. Duncan had multiple contacts with a pregnant woman who died of the killer virus.
“The fact that he knew [he was exposed to Ebola] and he left the country is unpardonable, quite frankly,” Liberian President Ellen Johnson Sirleaf told reporters. “I just hope that nobody else gets infected.”
“With the U.S. doing so much to help us fight Ebola, and again one of our compatriots didn’t take due care, and so, he’s gone there and … put some Americans in a state of fear, and put them at some risk,” she continued. “I feel very saddened by that and very angry with him, to tell you the truth.”
Duncan was not symptomatic when he came to the United States and fell ill days after he arrived in Texas.
The CDC has released a statement saying that Duncan was not symptomatic during his flights to the United States and that passengers on the flight were not at risk for Ebola. However, the airlines are reportedly contacting anyone who was on the flights for their own precautions.
Concerns about the health care system in Dallas is coming into question following reports that the confirmed Ebola patient was sent home initially from the hospital and was seen throwing up outside all over a common area of the apartment complex where he had been staying.
“His whole family was screaming. He got outside and he was throwing up all over the place,” resident Mesud Osmanovic, 21, said on Wednesday to Reuters.
The man, who has been identified by a family friend as Thomas Eric Duncan, reportedly helped transport a pregnant woman who suffered from Ebola to a hospital in Liberia before boarding a flight to the United States. The woman was turned away from the hospital due to lack of space and Duncan transported her back to the family home where she died.
Texas health officials initially said 18 people had contact with the man but now reports say as many as 80 are under observation because of possible contact.
Hospital officials admitted when the man first came into a hospital on Thursday and was then sent home with antibiotics he had told a nurse that he had traveled to West Africa.
“Regretfully, that information was not fully communicated throughout the full teams. As a result, the full import of that information wasn’t factored into the full decision making,” Texas hospital official Mark Lester said.
The entire state of California is in drought conditions.
In addition to the state being 100% in drought, the amount of area considered in “exceptional drought” is just over 58%.
Now, some residents are reporting that their taps have gone dry.
More than 500 households in Tulare County, California cannot receive any water through their taps. They cannot shower, wash dishes or clothing or even wash their hands.
“We don’t have the money to move, and who would buy this house without water?” Angelica Gallegos told the New York Times. “When you wake up in the middle of the night sick to your stomach, you have to think about where the water bottle is before you can use the toilet.”
Some families have received relief from agencies that provided water tanks for the front yard of some homes. However, residents like 54-year-old Yolanda Serrato know life has forever changed in her community.
“You don’t think of water as privilege until you don’t have it anymore,” Serrato told the Times. “We were very proud of making a life here for ourselves, for raising children here. We never ever expected to live this way.”
State officials confirmed to the Times at least 700 households have no water but admit there could be much more.
In their first meeting since the 50-day Israel-Hamas war, President Obama and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu struck a cordial tone.
Netanyahu praised President Obama for his commitment to destroy the Islamic terrorist group ISIS and his willingness to stand with Israel against Islamic terror. Obama said that Israel was dealing with a “turbulent neighborhood.”
Obama said there needs to be new and different efforts to end violence in the region.
“We have to find ways to change the status quo so that both Israeli citizens are safe … but also that we don’t have the tragedy of Palestinian children being killed as well,” Obama said.
Netanyahu also took time to praise Obama and the U.S. Congress for their support of more funding for the Iron Dome rocket defense system. The PM said the system saved “so many lives” during the conflict with Hamas.
However, the PM took a more aggressive tone when he said that further steps need to be taken to keep Iran from becoming a nuclear power.