One Person Diagnosed with Ebola in Dallas
September 30th, 2014Update: Initially Sent Home from Hospital
Via: Bloomberg:
A man with Ebola in Dallas was initially sent home from the hospital with antibiotics after seeking treatment for an unknown illness, officials said.
The man, whose name wasn’t released, is the first case of the deadly viral infection to be diagnosed outside of Africa. He traveled from Liberia and arrived in the U.S. on Sept. 20, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said yesterday.
The man is being kept in isolation in an intensive care unit. He had no symptoms when he left Liberia and began to show signs of the disease on Sept. 24, the CDC said. He sought care on Sept. 26, was hospitalized two days later at Texas Health Presbyterian Hospital and is critically ill, said CDC Director Thomas Frieden. The agency is working to identify anybody who had contact with the man and track them down, he said.
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Via: Guardian:
Medical officials in the United States announced on Tuesday the first case of Ebola to be diagnosed outside Africa during the latest outbreak, which has killed more than 3,000 people this year.
The patient, who has not yet been identified, is being treated in Dallas, Texas.
The Centers for Disease Control (CDC) said the patient left Liberia in west Africa on 19 September, but did not develop symptoms until a few days after arriving in the US. He was admitted to the Texas Health Presbyterian hospital in Dallas on Sunday.
Thomas Frieden, the director of the CDC, said the patient was being treated in strict isolation, and that all measures would be taken to ensure that the disease would not spread in the US.
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September 30th, 2014Thanks to Blacklisted News for sending $25 and DS for sending $25.
One-Fifth of U.S. Workers Were Laid Off in Past Five Years
September 30th, 2014Remember the green shoots?
Via: Los Angeles Times:
One in five U.S. workers was laid off in the past five years and about 22% of those who lost their jobs still haven’t found another one, according to a new survey that showed the extent Americans have struggled in the sluggish labor market since the Great Recession ended.
Those who did find work had a difficult time with their job search and the effects of unemployment, the survey by the John J. Heldrich Center for Workforce Development at Rutgers University found.
Nearly 40% said it took more than seven months to find employment and about one in five of laid-off workers said all they could find was a temporary position.
Almost half — 46% — of the estimated 30 million layoff victims who found new jobs said they paid less then their old ones, according to the survey of 1,153 U.S adults done over the summer.
California Governor Vetoes Bill Limiting Drone Surveillance
September 30th, 2014Via: CBS:
Gov. Jerry Brown has vetoed a bill that would have placed strict limits on law enforcement agencies using unmanned aerial drones for surveillance.
The governor’s office announced that the bill was one of more than a dozen pieces of legislation he vetoed Sunday.
AB1327 by Republican Assemblyman Jeff Gorrell of Camarillo would have required government agencies to get warrants before conducting surveillance with drones and would have required that they publicly announce their intent to buy and use them.
Los Angeles County Planning Massive Biometric Database
September 30th, 2014Via: KPCC:
Without notice to the public, Los Angeles County law enforcement officials are preparing to widen what personal information they collect from people they encounter in the field and in jail – by building a massive database of iris scans, fingerprints, mug shots, palm prints and, potentially, voice recordings.
The new database of personal information – dubbed a multimodal biometric identification system – would augment the county’s existing database of fingerprint records and create the largest law enforcement repository outside of the FBI of so-called next-generation biometric identification, according to county sheriff’s department documents.
On Sept. 15, the FBI announced that the Next Generation Identification System was fully operational. Now that the central infrastructure is in place, the next phase is for local jurisdictions across the country to update their own information-gathering systems to the FBI’s standards.
When the system is up and running in L.A., any law enforcement official working in the county, including the Los Angeles Police Department, would collect biometric information on people who are booked into county jails or by using mobile devices in the field.
This would occur even when people are stopped for lesser offenses or pulled over for minor traffic violations, according to documents obtained by The Center for Investigative Reporting through a public records request.
Officials with the sheriff’s department, which operates the countywide system, said the biometric information would be retained indefinitely – regardless of whether the person in question is convicted of the crime for which he or she was arrested.
The system is expected to be fully operational in two or three years, according to the sheriff’s department.
All of this is happening without hearings or public input, yet technology companies already are bidding to build the system, interviews and documents show. Officials would not disclose the expected cost of the project or which companies are bidding but said it would be a multimillion-dollar undertaking.
Research Credit: winstonsmith
Hong Kong Protesters Stockpile Supplies, Prepare for Long Haul
September 30th, 2014Via: Reuters:
Tens of thousands of pro-democracy protesters extended a blockade of Hong Kong streets on Tuesday, stockpiling supplies and erecting makeshift barricades ahead of what some fear may be a push by police to clear the roads before Chinese National Day.
Riot police shot pepper spray and tear gas at protesters at the weekend but withdrew on Monday to ease tension as the ranks of demonstrators swelled. Protesters spent the night sleeping or holding vigil unharassed on normally busy roads in the global financial hub.
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September 29th, 2014Thank you, RL.
Colorado, CDC Probing 10 Cases of Virus-Related Paralysis in Kids
September 29th, 2014Via: Reuters:
U.S. health officials are investigating at least 10 cases of children in Colorado who developed limb weakness or paralysis after testing positive for a respiratory virus, state health officials said on Monday.
Of the 10, four children tested positive for Enterovirus D68 (EV-D68), a virus that is causing severe respiratory infections in 40 U.S. states and the District of Columbia.
From mid-August to September 26, 2014, the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention or state public health laboratories have confirmed a total of 277 people infected with the virus, according to the CDC website.
Dr. Larry Wolk, chief medical officer of the Colorado Department of Public Health and Environment, said some of the children have been ruled out for Enterovirus D68 infection and others are awaiting test results.
All of those experiencing limb weakness have recently been diagnosed with either some form of enterovirus or rhinovirus, two large classes of common viruses that cause respiratory infections. The common cold, for example, is caused by a rhinovirus.
Unmasking the Five Eyes’ Global Surveillance Practices
September 29th, 2014Via: GIS Watch:
The Five Eyes alliance – comprised of the United States National Security Agency (NSA), the United Kingdom’s Government Communications Headquarters (GCHQ), Canada’s Communications Security Establishment Canada (CSEC), the Australian Signals Directorate (ASD), and New Zealand’s Government Communications Security Bureau (GCSB) – is the continuation of an intelligence partnership formed in the aftermath of the Second World War. The patchwork of secret spying programmes and intelligence-sharing agreements implemented by parties to the Five Eyes arrangement constitutes an integrated global surveillance arrangement that now covers the majority of the world’s communications. Operating in the shadows and misleading the public, the Five Eyes agencies boast in secret how they “have adapted in innovative and creative ways that have led some to describe the current day as ‘the golden age of SIGINT [signals intelligence]’.”
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The Five Eyes agencies are playing a dirty game. They have found ways to infiltrate all aspects of modern communications networks: forcing companies to hand over their customers’ data under secret orders, and secretly tapping fibre optic cables between the same companies’ data centres anyway; accessing sensitive financial data through SWIFT, the world’s financial messaging system; spending years negotiating an international agreement to regulate access to the data through a democratic and accountable process, and then hacking the networks to get direct access; threatening politicians with trumped-up threats of impending cyber war while conducting intrusion operations that weaken the security of networks globally; and sabotaging encryption standards and standards bodies, thereby undermining the ability of internet users to secure information.
Mississippi Sued Over ‘Hellish’ Conditions in For-Profit Prison
September 29th, 2014Via: CommonDreams:
Denial of food and medical care. Cells and floors soiled with blood, urine, and feces. Excessive force by prison guards. Weeks, months, and years in solitary confinement.
These are the conditions found at a “special needs” for-profit prison, the East Mississippi Correctional Facility, which is tasked by the state’s department of corrections with incarcerating 1,200 people, approximately 1,000 of whom have severe psychiatric disorders, according to a legal motion filed Friday.
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“Taken as a whole, the conditions in solitary confinement at EMCF are the worst I have witnessed in my 40 years as a forensic psychiatrist investigating jail and prison conditions,” Dr. Terry A. Kupers wrote in a report on the prison’s mental health care system. “These conditions can accurately be described as torture according to international human rights agreements and standards. They press the outer bounds of what most humans can psychologically tolerate.”
Referring to the EMCF as a “cesspool,” the ACLU says Mississippi state officials have for years known of the prison’s horrific conditions for years yet have done nothing to address them.
