The situation the President described as “unlikely” and officials at the CDC doubted would happen has come true.
The first American case of Ebola has been confirmed.
“We received in our laboratory today specimens from the individual, tested them and they tested positive for Ebola,” Dr. Tom Frieden of the CDC said. “The State of Texas also operates a laboratory that found the same results.”
The Centers for Disease Control has confirmed that a Liberian man who came to the United States to visit relatives tested positive for the virus. He arrived in the U.S. on September 20th but did not show symptoms until four days later. He went to a hospital on Friday and was admitted on Sunday.
Dr. Frieden said that he is certain there will be no major outbreak.
“It does not spread from someone who doesn’t have fever and other symptoms,” Frieden outlined. “So, it’s only someone who is sick with Ebola who can spread the disease. I have no doubt that we will control or contain this case of Ebola so it does not spread throughout the country.”
A second Muslim in Oklahoma has been arrested after threatening to behead a co-worker.
Jacob Mugambi Muriithi was taken into custody on Friday after he threatened a woman at Bellevue Nursing Home in Oklahoma City with beheading. The 30-year-old reportedly had a blade that he used to make the threat.
“The victim said Jacob asked her what time she got off work and she replied by asking him in a joking manner if he was going to kill her,” a police report outlines. “Jacob told the victim, ‘Yes,’ he was going to cut her head off. The victim asked Jacob what he was going to cut her head off with and he said, ‘A blade,’ then told her after he did it he was going to post it on Facebook.”
Muriithi is behing held on one million dollars bail.
The arrest comes on the heels of a Muslim man entering his former employer and beheading a woman while chanting “Allahu Akbar” and other Islamic phrases.
Two women who have been on the front lines of the battle for religious freedom in the world took center stage at the Values Voter Summit in Washington, D.C.
Meriam Ibrahim, the woman who had been sentenced to death in Sudan for her Christian faith, appeared to accept the “Cost of Discipleship” award at the Summit and used her speech to encourage the wife of American pastor Saeed Abedini, who is imprisoned in Iran for his Christian faith.
“Do not fear; be strong. Take care of your kids and the Lord will be with you,” she said to Naghmeh Abedini, who addressed the Summit in her own address. Ibrahim called Abedini “her sister” and encouraged her to stand strong no matter what evil the Iranians may throw her husband’s way.
Ibrahim, who gave birth to her daughter Maya while shackled in chains to a wall of the prison, spoke of the weight the imprisonment had on her young son Martin, who was also kept in the prison.
“That was the most difficult time for me because Martin would want to go with him and grab on to him and I would stand there unable to do anything because he’s a child. He didn’t understand why he was in jail through no fault of his. He didn’t understand why kids were able to play outside and enjoy themselves and be with their parents, their fathers and mothers,” described Ibrahim.
Ibrahim thanked everyone who prayed and worked to obtain her release and her family’s escape from Sudan.
A panel at the Values Voter Summit says that the national media is missing the boat when it comes to young people and sex.
“When young adults are asked what they are looking for, they’re not looking for hook-ups. They’re preferring romance over sex, relationships over sex. But most people don’t recognize that,” Valerie Huber, president and CEO of the National Abstinence Education Association said.
She cited a survey from the Centers for Disease Control that showed a 15 percent increase in the number of young people waiting to have sex until marriage.
Huber added that many young people are looking to the media to portray reality rather than pushing a hyper-sexualized agenda on the community.
“Here is what this generation wants: they want the media to show more youth not having sex. They want to hear more reasons to wait for sex — and this is according to a very broad national study — and they want to hear that waiting for sex is realistic; and they want to know waiting for sex is, in fact, quite normal,” said Huber.
David Knopp of Summit Ministries said parents, mentors and peers need to step up and take back control of sex education from those who want to make sex appear as something just for fun or something insignificant to the larger parts of life.
Chelsen Vicari of the Institute on Religion and Democracy said that young Christians need to better defend the Biblical view on sexuality to those inside and outside the church and strive for the purity that God calls for everyone before marriage.
Scott Brown, the Republican candidate for the Senate in New Hampshire, has rejected the party’s stance of standing for the life of unborn children.
Scott Brown said he supports a woman’s “right” to kill her baby via abortion.
The New Hampshire Republican Party announced over the weekend they are supporting “the pre-born child’s fundamental right to life and personhood under the Fourteenth Amendment,” as well as its support for the “Life at Conception Act.” Pro-abortion Democrat Senator Jeanne Shaheen immediately condemned the move and tried to say Brown supported the position.
“I’m a pro-choice, independent Republican,” Brown said Monday at the UNH School of Law. “So I don’t agree with that particular part of the platform, however I have always felt that we are a big tent party, we have the opportunity to agree or disagree.”
Those fighting for the lives of unborn children were outraged by Brown’s comments.
“Can you imagine a Democratic Senate candidate doubling down on his unqualified hostility for the Democratic Party platform on such an important issue?” Keith Mason of Personhood USA asked. “There’s no way the Democratic party bosses would allow it to happen. This is a clarion call for the Republican Party to stand up to poseurs in its own party who undermine principles of human rights and dignity.”
“Scott Brown has staked out an extreme position on abortion that contradicts the conservative values of his electorate. I commend the New Hampshire Republican Party for following in the steps of President Reagan by taking this principled stand on the most important human rights issue facing our nation.”
President Obama acknowledged the administration completely misjudged ISIS and the strength and will of the Islamic terrorist group.
However, the President put the blame on the former Iraqi government and U.S. intelligence services rather than accepting any of the blame himself. In January, the President called ISIS a Junior Varsity terrorist outfit.
“Our head of the intelligence community Jim Clapper has acknowledged that I think they underestimated what had been taking place in Syria,” the president said.
Intelligence service officials say the President has been receiving daily briefings on ISIS and their rise for the last 18 months. The White House refused to act on those intelligence reports.
Sen. John McCain said he was “puzzled” by the President’s claim and underestimating the threat of Islamic terrorists.
“The intelligence comments — intelligence people are pushing back hard,” McCain said. “We predicted this and watched it. It was like watching a train wreck and warning every step of the way that this was happening … It is a direct result of our failure to leave a residual force behind.”
Reverend Franklin Graham is making a call to Christians across America to shake off their apathy and begin to work to help persecuted Christians around the world.
“I don’t think we’re doing enough. No, I don’t. There is much more we can do,” Graham told The Christian Post.
“The greatest thing we can do is to pray — to pray for the Christians who are suffering. Saeed Abedini is on the poster behind us, but there are thousands upon thousands of Christians in Syria and Iraq who are suffering because of the name of the Lord Jesus Christ.”
Graham spoke at the Washington vigil for Saeed Abedini, whose plight has been largely ignored by the State Department and Obama administration.
Graham was also critical of Muslims around the world that have not taken steps to stop Islamic extremism. Graham believes if they truly are against the movements of groups like ISIS or Boko Haram, they would be taking action.
“Followers of a peaceful religion do not cut off the heads of innocent people in the barbaric action the world has been watching,” said Graham before those gathered.
“Believers in a peaceful religion do not kidnap 300 young school girls as Boko Haram did in Northeastern Nigeria in April. … Men who practice a peaceful religion do not detonate bombs on American streets during a marathon race to kill and to maim.”
The mysterious viral illness that has been striking children has now spread to 38 states.
The Centers for Disease Control has confirmed 226 cases of enterovirus 68. However, the CDC admits that many other children have likely been infected with the virus and was not severe enough to seek medical attention at a hospital.
Doctors say the reports of the CDC are the “tip of the iceberg” for the mysterious virus.
University of Chicago’s Medicine Comer Children’s Hospital has been forced to divert ambulances to other hospitals because the emergency room was filled with children suffering from severe respiratory illness. It was the first time in 10 years the hospital had to divert ambulances.
Doctors say that while enteroviruses are common illnesses, enterovirus 68 is rare.
“Parents would love to know why this virus is causing severe disease and why there are more cases,” Rafal Tokarz, an associate research scientist at Columbia University who has studied the virus, told the New York Times, “but we won’t be able to answer that until a lot more research is done.”
The Prime Minister of Iraq says he has credible information regarding an ISIS plot to attack the United States.
Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi surprised intelligence and transit security officials in the U.S. who said they had no knowledge of the PM’s claims. New York City officials quickly took to the media to assure citizens the subway system was safe.
“They plan to have attacks in the metros of Paris and the U.S.,” Abedi told reporters after a meeting of the U.N. General Assembly. “I asked for more credible information. I asked for names. I asked for details, for cities, you know, dates. And from the details I have received, yes, it looks credible.”
Iraqi intelligence officials would not specifically comment on the PM’s statements other than to say a full assessment of the plans discovered is ongoing. U.S. officials said they had not confirmed any “specific threat.”
“We want to increase the number of willing countries who would support this,” PM Abedi said. “This is not military. This is intelligence. This is security. The terrorists have a massive international campaign. Don’t underestimate it.”
In a move that has critics split on whether it’s good marketing for churches or a way to segregate Christians online, the .church domain is now available for purchase.
The domain was first made available last week and many churches have been snapping up the domains.
“I saw this as an opportunity to take advantage of important geographic branding opportunities domains that immediately and easily identify my church with the Brookhaven and greater Atlanta area have long been taken,” said Pastor Wesley Sanders of Brookhaven United Methodist. “I had been planning on doing a redesign of our church’s website for a while, and the release of the new dot church domain names gave me a good opportunity to implement a new online presence.”
The domain is part of what is called “generic top-level domains” or gTLDs. As of Monday, Hover.com says .church is number 8 on the top 20 list of gTLDs.
Experts at Hover.com say it’s too early to tell if the new domain is a success. They say you will need to wait at least a year to see the number of .church domains in use before saying they were a success.
The domains are available from all domain registrars.