Dallas Ebola patient had contact with children, school chief says
By Ashley Fantz, Holly Yan and Dana Ford
CNN NEWS WIRE
Some school-age children were reported to have been in contact with Thomas Duncan, the Ebola patient who was treated in Dallas and subsequently died.
Five students at four different schools came into contact with Duncan, Dallas Superintendent Mike Miles said, but none exhibited symptoms of the deadly virus. The children were monitored at home, and the schools they attended remained open, Miles said. Between 80 and 100 people were identified as having come in contact with Duncan, who was the first to be diagnosed with Ebola in the United States, officials said.
Concern about the possible spread of the killer virus came less than a day after the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) announced that, for the first time, a person with Ebola was diagnosed on American soil.
Duncan walked into an emergency room at Texas Health Presbyterian Hospital in Dallas on Sept. 26. A nurse asked him about his recent travels while he was in the emergency room, and he said he had traveled to Africa, said Dr. Mark Lester, executive vice president of Texas Health Resources.
But that information was not “fully communicated” to the medical team, Lester said.
Duncan had flown from Liberia to the U.S. about a week earlier, underwent basic blood tests, but not an Ebola screening, and was sent home with antibiotics, said Dr. Edward Goodman with Texas Health Presbyterian Hospital.
Two days later, on Sept. 28, he returned to the facility, where it was determined that he probably had Ebola. He was then isolated. He tested positive for the virus the following Tuesday, health officials said.
It’s possible that others were infected because of the lapse of time between his return and diagnosis. People who have Ebola are contagious—but only through contact with the bodiy fluids of that individual—when they display active symptoms of the virus, such as a high fever, severe headache, diarrhea and vomiting, among others. The disease is not like a cold or the flu, which can be spread before symptoms show up, and it doesn’t spread through the air.
The CDC ramped up a national effort to stem the spread of Ebola, and in September President Barack Obama spoke at CDC headquarters in Atlanta and called the virus a global health and security threat. He pledged U.S. assistance to the affected countries to try to stem the tide of the disease.
JET magazine ending print edition
By CNN Staff
JET magazine in June stopped publishing a print edition and switched to a digital-only format.
“We are not saying goodbye to JET. We are embracing the future as my father did in 1951 and taking it to the next level,” Linda Johnson Rice, chairman of Johnson Publishing Co., said in a statement last May.
Rice said the African American publication is living up to its name.
“Almost 63 years ago, my father, John Johnson, named the publication JET because, as he said in the first issue, ‘In the world today, everything is moving faster. There is more news and far less time to read it,’” she said. “He could not have spoken more relevant words today.”
JET is not the first magazine to shift its focus to the online market.
Newsweek ended its print edition in 2012, but returned to newsstands this year. In December 2013, New York Magazine announced it was scaling back publication of its print edition to a biweekly format.
“As long as the (publishing) business model in the United States is based on revenue from advertising and not on circulation, we are going to see more decisions as such,” Samir Husni, a professor at the University of Mississippi who directs its Magazine Innovation Center, told CNN last year.
While readers increasingly gravitate toward electronic versions of magazines on tablets and phones, magazines in print are increasingly “collector’s items,” Husni added.
CNN’s Brian Stelter contributed to this report.
Steve Ballmer takes over
ownership of L.A. Clippers
City News Service
After months of legal wrangling, the $2 billion sale of the Los Angeles Clippers to former Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer was completed in August, ending Donald Sterling’s 33-year tenure as the team’s owner.
In a brief statement, the NBA confirmed the deal. Attorneys for Sterling had previously filed a petition with a state appeals court asking for an emergency order blocking the sale. The court declined to take any action since a ruling by Los Angeles Superior Court Judge Michael Levanas, allowing Shelly Sterling to move ahead with the sale, had not been finalized.
Ballmer said he was “humbled and honored” to be the Clippers owners.
“Clipper fans are so amazing,” he said. “They have remained fiercely loyal to our franchise through some extraordinary times. I will be hard-core in giving the team, our great coach, staff and players the support they need to do their best work on the court. And we will do whatever is necessary to provide our fans and their families with the best game-night experience in the NBA.”
“This is an amazing new day in Clippers history,” said Doc Rivers, coach of the Clippers and the team’s president of basketball operations. “I couldn’t be more excited to work together with Steve as we continue to build a first-class, championship organization. I am already inspired by Steve’s passion for the game, his love of competition and desire to win the right way, and I know our players and fans are going to be inspired as well.”
Donald Sterling, who purchased the Clippers in 1981 for $12.5 million, had been under pressure to sell the team since the release of recorded conversations between him and companion V. Stiviano. In those conversations, Sterling criticized Stiviano for having her picture taken with Black people and told her not to bring them to Clippers games.
The comments earned Sterling a lifetime ban from the NBA, which initiated actions to strip the Clippers from him.
City breaks ground on new light rail project
City News Service
Local and federal officials broke ground in January on a light rail line project that will connect the Expo and Green lines, crossing Leimert Park, Baldwin Hills and Inglewood.
“Bringing light rail to this community will spur local economic development and make it easier than ever for residents to access downtown Los Angeles and beyond,” U.S. Transportation Secretary Anthony Foxx said during the ceremony at the Expo/Crenshaw light rail station.
The Metropolitan Transportation Authority board of directors approved in June 2103 a nearly $1.3 billion contract for construction of the 8.5-mile Crenshaw/LAX rail line. The board also approved a $160 million contingency fund for the project, for a total budget of nearly $2.06 billion, according to Metro.
The project is one of 12 funded by Measure R, the half-cent sales tax approved by local voters in 2008.
The U.S. Transportation Department’s Infrastructure Finance and Innovation Act program also made a $545.9 million loan toward the project.
“The Obama Administration is committed to investing in good transportation projects like the Crenshaw/LAX line to create ladders of opportunity for millions of Americans, and we are proud to help make this project possible with a $545 million loan,” Foxx said.
The line will stretch from the Expo Line station at Crenshaw Boulevard and travel south, eventually connecting with the Metro Green Line’s Aviation/LAX station. Construction is scheduled to be completed by 2019.
“This has been a decades-long, monumental effort by an array of elected officials, community advocates and Metro staff,” county Supervisor and Metro board member Mark Ridley-Thomas said when the board approved the project last year.
He noted that the line would include sites such as the Forum, Baldwin Hills Crenshaw Plaza and Leimert Park Village.
However, not everyone is happy about plans for the line. A group known as the Crenshaw Subway Coalition contends that the portions of the line being built at street level instead of underground “will devastate the last Black business corridor.”
Metro officials countered that a larger portion of the line will be built below ground than other light rail lines, including the Expo Line.
