American Business and Politics: With Liberty and Justice for Some

On Thursday, Attorney General Eric Holder, the country’s first African American AG, announced he was leaving the Department of Justice after five and half years in the role, Ryan Gorman reports, US Attorney General Eric Holder to step down. The 63 year old will remain with the Justice Department until his successor is named, but is certain about his departure , according to NPR. While the Obama administration wanted him to stay the full eight years, the final decision was Holder’s to make. According to the source who told NPR, Holder is leery about remaining much longer over fears he “could be locked in to stay for much of the rest of President Obama’s second term.” The decision was made over the Labor Day weekend by Holder and Obama. Possible successors include former White House counsel Kathryn Ruemmler and Solicitor General Donald Verrilli, according to the Wall Street Journal. Manhattan U.S. Attorney Preet Bharara’s name has also been mentioned in reports. Holder is the 82nd AG and worked as the deputy attorney general under President Clinton in the 1990s. His troublesome tenure, the fourth longest in history, was riddled with political infighting and racial divided across the nation, culminating with the Michael Brown shooting last month in Ferguson, Missouri. The AG was dispatched directly to the St. Louis suburb to handle he inquiry into the unarmed black teen’s death at the hands of white police officer Darren Wilson. Nedra Pickler reports, Holder resigning: Attorney general backed rights, in an emotional ceremony at the White House, Obama said Holder did a superb job and credited him with driving down both the nation’s crime and incarceration rate for the first time in 40 years. Obama said, “He believes as I do that justice is not just an abstract theory. It’s a living and breathing principal. It’s about how our laws interact with our daily lives.” In a speech earlier this week, Holder described the dual personal perspective he brought to the job and how it applies to the Ferguson shooting. He said he has the utmost respect for police as a former prosecutor and the brother of an officer, but added, “As an African-American man who has been stopped and searched by police in situations where such actions were not warranted, I also carry with me an understanding of the mistrust that some citizens harbor.” Holder told the Associated Press in an interview that he’s not sure whether the Justice Department will finish its investigation into the shooting before he leaves. Holder said “I don’t want to rush them” and once out of office, he will direct attention to “issues that have animated me” during his tenure, including criminal justice and civil rights. Holder said his biggest regret was “the failure to pass any responsible and reasonable gun safety legislation after the shootings in Newtown and thought after the Connecticut shooting that the nation would embrace change that was “not radical but really reasonable” on gun ownership. As the article reports: “He was a lightning rod for conservative critics and faced a succession of controversies over, among other things, an ultimately abandoned plan to try terrorism suspects in New York City, a botched gun-running probe along the Southwest border that prompted Republican calls for his resignation, and what was seen as a failure to hold banks accountable for the financial system’s near-meltdown. Stung by criticism that the department hadn’t been aggressive enough in targeting financial misconduct, Holder in the past year and a half secured criminal guilty pleas from two foreign banks and multibillion-dollar civil settlements with American banks arising from the sale of toxic mortgage-backed securities. Even then, critics noted that no individuals were held accountable.” Jim Kuhnhenn sums up the legacy of the nation’s first black attorney general and one of President Barack Obama’s longest servicing Cabinet member in his article Holder’s legacy: counterterrorism to civil rights:

TERRORISM

“Holder declared that waterboarding was torture, ordered a review of CIA interrogations, and defended the use of drone strikes overseas. His Justice Department successfully prosecuted terrorism suspects, including Osama bin Laden’s son-in-law. He was widely criticized by Republicans and some Democrats for his plan to try professed Sept. 11 mastermind Khalid Sheikh Mohammed and other alleged co-conspirators in New York, a plan he ultimately dropped.”

CIVIL RIGHTS

“He fought against voter ID laws, urged federal prosecutors to shy away from seeking mandatory minimum prison sentences for nonviolent criminals, introduced new clemency criteria and backed proposals to give leniency to certain drug convicts. He also advanced legal protections for gay couples, declaring in 2011 that the Justice Department no longer would defend the constitutionality of a 1996 law that prohibits federal recognition of same-sex marriage.”

DEATH PENALTY

“Though not a proponent of the death penalty, Holder approved pursuing capital punishment in numerous federal cases. But in the aftermath of a botched execution earlier this year in Oklahoma, Obama asked Holder to study the protocols used by states in applying the death penalty. The Justice Department already was reviewing practices used by the Bureau of Prisons and had placed a moratorium on federal executions.”

FERGUSON

“Holder became the administration’s point man in the federal response to the police shooting of an unarmed black 18-year-old in Ferguson, Missouri. He ordered a civil rights investigation into the Ferguson Police Department. In the shooting’s aftermath, Holder also enlisted a team of criminal justice researchers to study racial bias in law enforcement.”

FAST AND FURIOUS

“Holder became the first Cabinet member to be held in contempt of Congress amid a dispute over document production in a long-running congressional investigation of a flawed law enforcement gun-smuggling probe along the Southwest border.”

MEDIA CRACKDOWN

“Under Holder’s watch, the Justice Department cracked down on news media reporting on national security matters. The department secretly subpoenaed phone records from Associated Press reporters and editors and used a search warrant to obtain some emails of a Fox News journalist as part of a separate leak investigation.”

While Obama has received several blows in recent years to his Cabinet that ended with resignations, the fight for fairness and accountability in America seems to be on an upswing regarding business practices in the public and private sector. Janet McConnaughey reports, Businesses won’t have to return BP spill payouts, a federal judge Wednesday said that the oil giant BP must stand by its agreement with companies to compensate them for losses blamed on the 2010 Gulf oil spill. BP argues that the flawed funding formula enabled nearly 800 businesses to overestimate their spill related claims. Attorney Kevin Downey argued about 150 claimants should return a total of $185 million and overpayments to the rest haven’t been calculated. U.S. District Judge Carl Barbier agreed weeks ago to change the compensation formula for any future payments, but ruled Wednesday that a deal is a deal when it comes to the money BP has already paid out. Under that deal, claimants agreed not to sue, and BP agreed that no future court action could change their payments. Company spokesman Geoff Morrell said, “BP disagrees with today’s decision and will appeal it. We asked the Court, as a matter of equity and fairness, to order the return of excessive payments.” Barbier said he would rule later on the issue of compensation for cleanup workers whose chronic medical problems weren’t diagnosed until after the deal’s cutoff date of April 16, 2012. The settlement entitled cleanup workers with chronic conditions including rashes and breathing problems to receive up to $60,700 if the problems first surfaced within days of their cleanup work. Pavel Molchanov, an energy analyst for Raymond James, said, “In 2010 and 2011, BP was willing to cut any deal necessary with anyone to reduce its legal risk. Now the company is taking a more assertive approach.” The judge’s ruling this month that BP showed gross negligence and willful misconduct added a new level of uncertainty around BP’s spill-related expenses, reducing its market value by $9 billion in a single day. BP’s total potential liabilities now include up to $18 billion in fines and penalties that could be imposed for violating federal pollution laws, and more than $27 billion BP says it has already paid to restore the coast and settle damage claims. The claims office said it has paid $4.1 billion to more than 50,700 people and businesses as of Wednesday, and it’s not done yet – the settlement fund is not capped. Meanwhile, the U.S. must pay $554 million to the Navajo Nation for mismanaging reservation resources and leaving the largest Native American tribe in the country at incredible disadvantages for decades, according to the AOL article, U.S. Will Pay $554M Settlement to Navajo Nation. The payout negotiated earlier this year is the largest payout to a tribe in U.S. history and tribal leaders say the payout is much needed, reports Ben Shelly via YouTube. Spread across Arizona, New Mexico and Utah, the Navajo Nation has more than 300,000 members. The region is rich with natural resources like oil, gas and coal, other resources like water and agriculture land are scarce, the Navajo Tourism Department state. In a video via Indian Country Today, the Navajo lawsuit from 1946 to 2012 said the U.S. didn’t negotiate the best deals from companies mining natural resources from the region and didn’t make sure the Navajos were compensated properly. A CCTV investigation in 2012 found that more than 40 percent of the nation’s members lived without running water or electricity. This is another in a long line of settlements by the Obama administration with Native Americans, who had tried in vain for generations to battle government practices and a system that dated back to the 1800s. The Washington Post reports many tribes with pending litigation wrote to President Obama in 2009 asking the administration to expedite settlements instead of going to court. On the minimum wage front, Claire Zillman reports, 101-year-old law puts minimum wage at heart of Wisconsin governor’s race, a complaint filed with thew state’s department of workplace development Wednesday, by 100 low wage workers and the group Wisconsin Jobs Now, argues that the state’s $7.25 minimum wage violates a 1913 law unique to Wisconsin that requires that the state minimum wage “shall not be less than a living wage,” which is defined as one that ensures “reasonable comfort, reasonable physical well-being, decency, and moral well-being.” The filing is an attempt to force the hand of Governor Scoot Walker on the state’s minimum wage and by law required the administration’s department of workplace development, whose secretary was appointed by Walker, must determine if there’s a basis for a minimum wage hike within 20 day. The timing of the filing comes amidst a fierce race between Walker, who opposes a minimum wage hike, and his opponent in the race for governor, Democrat Mary Burke. A Marquette Law School poll from late August showed Walker leading narrowly by three points. In a statement to Fortune, Walker’s office said the workplace development department is reviewing the complaint: “Governor Walker wants jobs in Wisconsin that pay two or three times the minimum wage. He is focused on finding ways to help employers create jobs that pay far more than the minimum wage or any other proposed minimum.” While the “living wage” law is unique to Wisconsin, there are four other states—California, Connecticut, New Jersey, and Massachusetts—that give the governor the power to increase the minimum wage, according to NELP. On Thursday, Tom Huddleston Jr. reported, Dow Jones plunges more than 260 points amid massive market sell-off, all 30 Dow companies lost value making it one of the worst trading days this year amid investor concern about global instability and the possibility of higher interest rates. The Dow Jones Industrial Average fell 264 points, or 1.5%, to close below the 17,000-point mark at 16,945.80. All 30 companies on the blue-chip index saw their shares drop. JPMorgan Chase JPM and UnitedHealth Group UNH saw the biggest declines among Dow Jones companies, dropping 2.4% and 2.3%, respectively. The S&P 500 and the Nasdaq fell 1.6% and 1.9%, respectively, as each index has now declined in four of the past five days of trading. The reason for the fall as Huddleston Jr. reports is due the Obama administration announcement of regulations aimed at fighting corporate tax inversions and the U.S.-led airstrikes conducted in Syria. In addition, reports of a leadership change in China’s central bank and the announcement on Thursday by Richard Fisher, president of the Federal Reserve Bank of Dallas, that the U.S. Federal Reserve could start raising interest rates in spring 2015 sooner than expected has created uncertainty among investors.

While big names in the political and business arena suffered minor set back this week, the people in the trenches so to speak have been dealt an even bigger blow only adding to the already heightened racial tensions and well deserved criticism of the justice system. CNN reports, No indictment in police shooting death of Ohio man carrying air rifle, the grand jury in Ohio has decided not to indict police officers for an August shooting death of a 22 year old man carrying an air rifle at a Walmart store in Beavercreek, Ohio. On Wednesday, prosecutor Mark Piepmeier said, “The grand jury listened to all the evidence, voted on it and decided that the police officers were justified in their use of force that day.” In a statement, Ohio Attorney General Mike DeWine said the U.S. Justice Department will review the shooting of Cincinnati resident John Crawford III: “Now that the state criminal investigation has finished, it is an appropriate time for the United States Department of Justice to look into whether any federal laws were violated during this shooting.” In a statement, Michael Wright, attorney representing the Crawford family, said: “It makes absolutely no sense that an unarmed 22-year-old man would be killed doing what any American citizen does every day: Shopping at a Walmart store. The Crawford family is extremely disappointed, disgusted and confused. They are heartbroken that justice was not done in the tragic death of their only son. The Crawford family feels they have been victimized all over again and once again request that the U.S. Department of Justice conduct an independent investigation into the tragic death of John H. Crawford, lll.” According to the report: “Crawford was shot and killed by police at a Walmart in Beavercreek on August 5 while carrying an air rifle through the store. Police responded to the scene after a witness called 911 and told dispatchers that Crawford was walking around with a rifle and ‘waving it back and forth.’ According to police, when officers arrived, Crawford did not comply with their commands to drop his weapon. He was shot twice, once in the elbow and once in the torso, Piepmeier said. Crawford died shortly after being transported to a nearby hospital. His death was ruled a homicide by gunshot wound to the torso, according to the local coroner’s office.” Prosecutors showed surveillance video from inside the store, which was made public on Wednesday. The two police officers involved, Sgt. David Darkow and Officer Sean Williams, have been on paid administrative leave after the shooting, but Darkow returned to active duty, according to Beavercreek city attorney Stephen McHugh. Williams will be assigned to administrative desk duty until a federal review of the circumstances surrounding Crawford’s death is complete, according to a statement. Wright said Walmart surveillance video and eyewitness accounts prove Williams “shot and killed Mr. Crawford while his back was turned and without adequate warning.” Beavercreek City Manager Michael Cornell and Police Chief Dennis Evers have requested that the FBI review the case to determine whether there were civil rights violations, the statement said. The nine-member grand jury, which convened on Monday, heard from 18 witnesses. An indictment on charges of murder, reckless homicide or negligent homicide would have required seven votes, Piepmeier said. Meanwhile, Ryan Gorman reports, White SC Trooper faces 20 years in prison for shooting unarmed black male, a newly released video shows a white South Carolina A State Trooper shooting an unarmed black male who was reaching for his driver’s license. Lance Corporal Sean Groubert, 31, was fired from the force and has been charged with a felony in the wrongful shooting of Levar Jones, who luckily survived the incident. Groubert pulled Jones over September 4 for a seat belt violation and shot the man without any provocation, according to The State. The former cop faces 20 years in prison if convicted. Jones was not armed and showed no aggression toward Groubert. Luckily, Jones was shot in the hip, but not seriously hurt and was released from the hospital by the time Groubert was fired last Friday. The disgraced officers was arrested Wednesday and charged with assault and battery of a high and aggravated nature with a bond set at $75,000, records showed. Unfortunately, the incident comes on the heels of other high profile cases that involved the shooting of unarmed black men by police this summer, most notably the killing of Michael Brown in Ferguson, Missouri.

As for the Ferguson, Missouri case, 47 days after the incident, Ferguson Police Chief Thomas Jackson has apologized to the parents of the unarmed black teen shot dead by one of his cops, Ryan Gorman reports, Ferguson police chief apologizes for Michael Brown shooting — 47 days later. During a Thursday morning press conference, according to St. Louis television station KMBC, Jackson said, “I’m truly sorry for the loss of your son. I’m also sorry that it took so long to remove Michael from the street.” He added his investigators had to secure the crime scene and collect evidence, but the four hours Brown’s body laid in the street was unacceptable. Jackson ended by saying that the investigating officers meant no disrespect to the Brown family, the African American community or the people of Canfield, where Brown lived and was shot. The aftermath of the Brown shooting brought national attention as civil rights leaders and protesters took the streets to express their anger and clashed with police in the process. Regarding this matter, Jackson apologized for the inadequate protection for peaceful protesters as riots raged around them. He said, “The right of the people to peacefully assemble is what the police are here to protect. If anyone was exercising that right and is upset or angry, I feel responsible.” Things had calmed down in the weeks after Brown was laid to rest, however, flared again this week when his memorial caught fire. This lead to violence as protestors armed with guns, rocks and bottles attacked police, according to reports. Thieves vandalized and looted stores with one store was almost set on fire with gasoline. On Thursday, several protestors were arrested after Ferguson police chief Tom Jackson began marching with he crowd and a scuffle broke out near him, CNN and St. Louis television station KMOV reported. Carey Gillam reports, Police, protesters clash at rally in Ferguson, protestors have pledged continued civil unrest until Wilson is arrested and charged in Brown’s death, while a grand jury in St. Louis County is examining the case and the U.S. Justice Department. Benjamin Crump, an attorney for Brown’s parents, declined to comment on Jackson’s apology. Brown’s parents were in Washington on Thursday calling for federal legislation requiring police officers to wear body cameras to document their activities.

Ukraine at War Despite Ceasefire with Rebels and the U.S. Continues to Rally Support Against an Ever Growing Islamic State

On Saturday, despite a ceasefire between Kiev’s forces and Moscow backed rebels in the east, Ukraine is ‘still in a state of war” with Russia, according to the country’s prime minister shortly after a second convoy of Russian trucks rolled into Ukraine, the Associated Press reports, Ukraine Prime Minister says country still in ‘state of war’. Speaking to a conference of politicians and business leaders in Kiev, Arseniy Yatsenyuk said Russian President Vladimir Putin’s goal is to take all of Ukraine: “He cannot cope with the idea that Ukraine would be a part of a big EU family. He wants to restore the Soviet Union.” The second convoy of Russian trucks that entered through rebel held territory in eastern Ukraine on Saturday with 2,000 tons of humanitarian aid. The last truck crossed early Saturday from the Russian border town Donetsk, 120 miles east of the Ukrainian city with the same name, Rayan Farukshin, a spokesman for Russia’s custom agency, told the Associated Press via phone. News Agency ITAR TASS reported 250 trucks were heading toward the city of Luhansk. Col. Andriy Lysenko, a spokesman for the Ukrainian National Security and Defense Council, told journalist Saturday the trucks entered illegally: “Ukraine border guards and customs were not allowed to examine the cargo and vehicles. Representatives of the Red Cross don’t accompany the cargo, nobody knows what’s inside.” President Petro Poroshenko has tried to since last week’s ceasefire to prove that improvements on the ground have happened in eastern Ukraine, but Friday, he admitted that the deal has been riddled with violations. Galina Balzamova, a representative of the ICRC’s Moscow office said, “We were not officially notified of an agreement between Moscow and Kiev to ship the cargo.” Lysenko said 6 Ukrainian servicemen have died since the truce and 12 rebel fighters have been killed by Ukrainian forces near Seas of Azov city of Mariupol. A Saturday statement from the Donetsk city council said that fighting occurred throughout the night near the airport with two shells hitting a residential building in the area and reported no causalities. Laura Mills and Peter Leonard report, Ukraine government repels rebel attack on airport, the convoy of 200 white trucks crossed the border with humanitarian aid to Ukraine on Saturday without Kiev’s consent but was met with silence by Ukraine’s leaders. Yury Stepanov, a Russian overseeing the convoy, said: “Early in the morning, we entered Ukraine to bring aid to Luhansk. We came in around 215 vehicles.” The aid arrived as fighting continued between pro-Russian rebels and government forces. Stepanov said the goods consisted mainly of food such as rice sugar and canned fish and beef, but included medicine, technical equipment and clothes. While local workers unloaded boxes, several carloads of armed militiamen in camouflage arrived to inspect the scene. Stepanov said his team was responsible for delivery, while distribution will be handled by local authorities which means the separatist leaders of the self proclaimed Luhansk People’s Republic. Gennady Tsepkalo, a senior separatist officials, said, “The militia will feed itself separately. This is for the residents of the Luhansk People’s Republic.” The Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe’s observer mission to the Russian-Ukrainian border said Saturday that ed220 trucks cross into Ukraine, none of which were inspected by the Ukrainian side or accompanied by the ICRC. Allowing more humanitarian aid into the region was one component of the 12-point deal.

Meanwhile, across the world, ISIS continues to grow stronger as the U.S. continue to rally support internationally in the fight to stop the Islamic extremist, while some neighboring Arab countries in the Middle East choose not to participate. On Sunday, Prime Minister David Cameron summoned military and security chiefs for an emergency meeting in response to the beheading of a British hostage and a threat against another, Gregory Katz reports, UK’s Cameron calls emergency meeting after killing. The meeting was in response to the release of a video showing the beheading of British aid worker David Haines and the threat of another with death by Islamic extremists. Britain’s Foreign and Commonwealth Office said it saw no reason to doubt the authenticity of the video. Haines is the third Westerner to be executed with the first two being U.S. journalists. President Barack Obama said the United would stand with Britain in an expanded effort against terror groups. “We will work with the United Kingdom and a broad coalition of nations from the region and around the world to bring the perpetrators of this outrageous act to justice, and to degrade and destroy this threat to the people of our countries, the region and the world,” he said. Germany and France also condemned the killing during their international conference Monday to combat IS. French President Francois Hollande said, “The odious assassination of David Haines shows once more the need for the international community to mobilize against the base and cowardly Daesh.” German Foreign Minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier called the Haines killing “an abhorrent act of barbaric violence beyond all limits of human civilization” and said the Paris meeting comes at the right time. Some British lawmakers called for Britain to launch air strikes against Islamic State forces after the killing. Desmond Butler reports, Turkey seeks behind-the-scene role in NATO coalition, that Turkey has decided to take a behind the scenes role in the war with the Islamic State group as it wants to keep its soldiers out of combat operations and declined to allow NATO to use its bases or territories to launch air attacks. The reason is rooted in two dilemmas: the Islamic State groups has dozens of Turkish hostages including diplomats and Turkey is wary of boosting its rebellious Kurdish minority in the battle against Islamic State enemies in Iraq. Even though NATO allies have shown publish support for Turkey, they would like more action from heir ally. Butler reports: “They would chiefly like to see Turkey tighten its border controls, stem the flow of fighters transiting Turkey from Western Countries and the Middle East, and crack down on oil smuggling from Syria that finances the Islamic State group. They could also benefit from closer intelligence cooperation and possibly the use of Incirlik Airbase in southern Turkey as a base from which to launch strikes against the group.” Western governments are alarmed by the Islamic State’s ability to smuggle Iraqi and Syrian oil across Turkey’s borders and while Turkey has cracked down, analysts say that Turkey is not able to police the smuggling across its 750 mile border with Iraq and Syria. Both U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry and Secretary of Defense Chick Hagel were in Ankara last week on successive trips to press Turkey on its role, but failed to get a pledge of support in combating IS. In addition, Turkey decline to sign a U.S. brokered statement by Middle Eastern countries last week denouncing the Islamic State group and pledging to fight it. Another reason for hesitation is a three decade long conflict with the Kurdish minority that has cost tens of thousands of lives. Last year, Kurdish rebels declared a ceasefire and began withdrawing fighters from Turkey into bases in norther Iraq, but tensions rose again as the Kurdish Workers’ Party, or PKK, accused Turkey of not boosting Kurdish rights quickly enough. Government officials say there are signs that Kurds from Turkey are crossing the border to help PKK militants in Iraq and Syria fight the Islamic State group. Teams of security officials operating at Turkish airports and bus stations have interrogated more than 500 people over the last four months and have deported 107 to their countries of origin, according to one official in the Turkish prime minister’s office. Officials also say they are fighting oil smuggling, but face challenges across a more than 550 mile border with Syria. Lori Hinnant reports, Iran says rejects US call to fight IS militants, Iran will not join the international coalition to fight the militant group. Neither Iran nor Syria, who share most of their borders with Iraq, was invited Monday to the international conference in Paris. Opening the diplomatic conference intended to discuss how to combat the group, French President Francois Hollande said, “The terrorist threat is global and the response must be global. There is no time to lose.” The killing of David Haines, a British aid worker, added to the urgency for a clear strategy to fight the well organized Sunni group who has amassed members from all over the world and makes $3 million a day from oil smuggling, human trafficking, theft and extortion, according to U.S. intelligence officials and private experts. Iraq’s President Fouad Massoum called for a coordinated military and humanitarian approach, as well as regular strikes against territory in the hands of the extremists and the elimination of their funding. According to Hinnant: “Western officials have made clear they consider Syrian President Bashar Assad part of the problem, and U.S. officials opposed France’s attempt to invite Iran, a Shiite nation, to the conference in Paris.” Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, on Iranian state television, said his government refused American requests for cooperation, warning that another U.S> incursion would result “in the same problems they faced in Iraq in the past 10 years.” Ahead of the conference, France’s foreign minister acknowledged many of the countries at the meeting Monday probably financed Islamic State’s advances, while Haider al-Abadi, in his first interview aired Sunday as Iraqi prime minister, told state run al-Iraqiyya that he has given France approval to use Iraq airspace and said all such authorizations must come from Baghdad.

How to Stop Ebola, NATO and the E.U. Try to Deter Russia As Ukraine Signs Ceasefire Deal, NATO Allies Join Forces to Fight Militants as Militants Vow Revenge and the Impact of NO Net Neutrality on the World

The United Nations on Wednesday, said $600 million in supplies were needed to fight West Africa’s Ebola outbreak that has killed 1,900 people and entered new territory within Guinea, Reuters reports, U.N. says $600 million needed to tackle Ebola as deaths top 1,900. The pace of the infection has accelerated with 400 deaths in the past week, officials reported Wednesday. The current outbreak was first identified in March in Guinea and spread to Liberia, Sierra Leone, Guinea, Nigeria, and Senegal, and has killed more people than all outbreaks since Ebola was first uncovered in 1976. Though there are no approved Ebola vaccines or treatments, Ottawa on Aug. 12 said it would donate 1,000 doses of an experimental Ebola vaccine being held at Canada’s National Microbiology Lab in Winnipeg for use in Africa. In a statement, Health Canada spokesman Sean Upton said: “We are now working with the WHO to address complex regulatory, logistical and ethical issues so that the vaccine can be safely and ethically deployed as rapidly as possible. For example, the logistics surrounding the safe delivery of the vaccine are complicated.” Human safety trials will begin this week on a vaccine from GlaxoSmithKline Plc and later this year on one from NewLink Genetics Corp. The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services on Tuesday said a federal contract worth up to $42.3 million will help accelerate testing for an experimental Ebola treatment being developed by Mapp Biopharmaceutical Inc. Senior U.N. Coordinator for Ebola, Dr. David Nabarro, said the cost for supplies needed by West Africa to control the crisis will cost $600 million which is higher than the $490 million estimated by the WHO last week. Nabarro explained, “We are working intensively with those governments to encourage them to commit to the movement of people and planes and at the same time deal with anxieties about the possibility of infection.” Ivory Coast, which closed its borders with Liberia and Guinea last month, said on Tuesday it would open humanitarian and economic corridors to its two western neighbors. With more than 3,500 cases across Guinea, Liberia and Sierra Leone, Dr. Margaret Chan, director-general of the World Health Organization (WHO) told a press conference in Washington, “This Ebola epidemic is the longest, the most severe and the most complex we’ve ever seen.” While a shortage of equipment and trained staff plague West Africa and the virus has claimed more than 120 healthcare workers, the Liberian government now offers $1,000 bonus to any healthcare workers who will agree to work in Ebola treatment facilities. Meanwhile in Guinea, Aboubacar Sikidi Diakité, head of Guinea’s Ebola task force, said: “There has been a new outbreak in Kerouane, but we have sent in a team to contain it.” Guinea has recorded 489 deaths and 749 Ebola cases as of Sept.1, and the epicenter has shifted to neighboring Liberia and Sierra Leone. In a television broadcast, Guinean President Alpha Conde said: “Even for a simple malaria (case), you have to protect yourselves before consulting any sick person until the end of this epidemic. We had started to succeed, but you dropped the ball and here we go again.” Nigeria, Senegal and the Democratic Republic of Congo , though not linked to the West African cases, have all reported cases of Ebola. Since Ebola was first detected in Congo in 1976, WHO reports more than 20 outbreaks in Africa and 1,590 victims. The WHO warned last week the Ebola epidemic could spread to 10 countries and infect more than 20,0000 people. Dr. Thomas Kenyon, director of the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) Centre for Global Health, said on Wednesday: “Guinea did show that with action, they brought it partially under control. But unfortunately it is back on the increase now. It’s not under control anywhere.” He warns that the longer the disease goes uncontained, the greater the possibility it will mutate with suspected cases of airborne infection already being reported in monkeys in laboratories. In a conference call, Gayle Smith, Special Assistant to the President and Senior Director for Development and Democracy on the National Security Council, said: “I don’t think at this point deploying biological incident response teams is exactly what’s needed.” Regarding a rapid increase in Ebola treatment centers in affected countries and other required staff and equipment, Smith added: “We will see a considerable ramp-up in the coming days and weeks. If we find it is still moving out of control, we will look at other options.” Margery A. Beck reports, US doctor infected with Ebola arrives in Nebraska, the third American aid worker to become sickened with the disease, Dr. Rick Sacra, arrived Friday at the Nebraska Medical Center in Omaha and officials said he will be treated at the hospital’s 10 bed special isolation unit on the seventh floor which is the largest of four in the U.S. Sacra delivered babies but was not involved in treating Ebola patients, so how he contracted the disease is unclear. Dr. Phil Smith, medical director of the Omaha unit, said a team of 35 doctors, nurses and other medical staffers will provide Sacra with basic care, including ensuring he is hydrated and keeping his vital signs stable. He added, “We’ve been trying to collect as much information on possible treatments as we can.” Sacra was in stable condition in Liberia ans was able to board the plane to the U.S. under his own power.

While West Africa fights a microscopic enemy, the U.S., E.U. and other NATO allies try to ensure Ukraine’s ceasefire between pro-Russian rebels and the Kiev government remains in place with no inference from Russia. Nataliya Vasilyeva and Peter Leonard report, Ukraine signs cease-fire with pro-Russian rebels, the Ukrainian president declared the ceasefire Friday to end the five month long war in the eastern Ukraine after representatives reached a deal with the Russian backed rebels at peace talks in Minsk. President Petro Proshenko said he ordered government forced to stop fighting at 11 am EDT following a protocol signed by representatives of Ukraine, Russia, the rebels and the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe. In a statement, Poroshenko said: “Human life is of the highest value. And we need to do everything that is possible and impossible to stop bloodshed and end people’s suffering.” Heidi Tagliavini of the OSCE told reporters the deal focused on 12 separate points, while Poroshenko said a prisoner exchange would begin Saturday and international monitors would keep watch over the ceasefire. Since April, Moscow backed separatists and government forces have been fighting in eastern Ukraine that has killed nearly 2,600 people, according to U.N> estimates. The rebel leader, Alexander Zakharchenko, said from Donetsk: “The cease-fire will allow us to save not only civilians lives, but also the lives of the people who took up arms in order to defend their land and ideals.” However, Igor Plotnitsky, leader of the separatist Luhansk region, told reporters “this doesn’t mean that our course for secession is over.” A plan approved Friday in Wales by NATO leaders will create a rapid response force with a headquarters in Eastern Europe that could quickly mobilize if an alliance country is attacked. Even though Ukraine is not a member, the entire alliance has been alarmed by Russia’s actions in Ukraine causing U.S. and E.U. sanctions to go into effect due to Russia’s backing of the rebels. German Chancellor Angela Merkel said Friday from Wales at the NATO summit: “We have to see whether this cease-fire is being applied. Do Russian troops withdraw, so far as they’re there? Are there buffer zones and things like that – a lot of things will have to be sorted out. These sanctions certainly could be put into force – this is all in flux – but with the proviso that they can be suspended again if we see that this process really yields results.” As of late Friday, Associate Press reporters heard heavy shelling north and east of the key southeastern port of Mariupol suggesting the rebels had partially surrounded the area. Tatyana Chronovil, a Ukrainian activist at a mustering point for the volunteer Azov Battalion on the eastern edge of the city, said, “Mariupol is a strategic point. If we lose it then we could lose the entire coastline, the whole south of Ukraine.” Col. Andriy Lysenko, a spokesman for Ukraine’s national security council in Kiev, said seven servicemen had been killed over the past day, bringing the Ukrainian forces’ death toll to 846. As of Saturday, the Associate Press reports Cease-fire in Ukraine appears to hold, National Guard Commander Stepan Poltorak was quoted by Interfax news agency as saying that some shooting took place 45 miniutes after the cease-fire, “as of this morning there haven’t been any violations, either from our side, of course, or from the terrorists.” Alexander Zakharchenko, top separatist leader from Donetsk, told the Russian news agency RIA Novosti that the ceasefire had been violated by two rounds of shelling in Amvrosiivka, 50 miles southeast of Donetsk. Earlier Saturday, the mayor’s office in Donetsk said there were no reports of shooting or shelling with some shelling late Friday afternoon.

While battle may be over, the United States and other world leaders are taking on the Islamic State. Reuters reports, Obama To Meet Congressional Leaders On ISIS: Source, U.S. president Barack Obama will meet with four leaders of U.S. Congress Tuesday to discuss rising concerns over the advancement of the Islamic State, a senior congressional source said Friday. Lawmakers return Monday after their five week August recess. The meeting will include Harry Reid, the Democratic leader of the U.S. Senate, and Mitch McConnell, the chamber’s top Republican, as well as John Boehner, the speaker of the House of Representatives and Nancy Pelosi, the House’s top Democrat. Julie Pace reports, US and UK seeks partners to go after Islamic State, President Obama and British Prime Minister David Cameron on Thursday asked NATO leaders to confront the Islamic State militants who have taken large parts of Syria and Iraq, urging regional partners like Jordan and Turkey to join the effort. IN a joint editorial published as the meeting began, they wrote: “Those who want to adopt an isolationist approach misunderstand the nature of security in the 21st century. Developments in other parts of the world, particularly in Iraq and Syria, threaten our security at home.” NATO Secretary-General Anders Fogh Rasmussen said he believed the broader international community “has an obligation to stop the Islamic State from advancing further” and would seriously consider requests for assistance, particularly from the Iraqi government. The Islamic State became an international priority after taking large parts of Syria and Iraq to create a caliphate and is considered more merciless than al-Qaida with intelligence officials warning that the violence could spread beyond its declared borders as hundreds of Westerners join. The U.S. launched airstrikes against militant targets in Iraq last month with Britain joining American forces in humanitarian airdrops to minority populations. The militants’ killing of two American journalists inside Syria has raised questions about targeting the group there as well. Beyond direct military action, the White House said it was also seeking commitments from allies to send weapons, ammunition and other assistance to Western-backed Syrian rebels and to Iraqi forces. Pace reports: “Germany moved in that direction Thursday, with the government announcing that it had sent a first planeload of military equipment to the Kurds in Iraq’s north, including helmets, protective vests, field glasses and mine-searching devices. The German government also said it had decided to send assault rifles, ammunition, anti-tank weapons and armored vehicles to the Kurdish forces, but it hadn’t yet set a date for the arms deliveries.” In between sessions on Afghanistan and Ukraine, Obama and Cameron met with Jordan’s King Abdullah II Thursday, and both plan to meet Friday with Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan. Secretary of State John Kerry and Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel, who are both with Obama in Wales, plan to travel to the Middle East next week to rally more support from regional partners. Cameron told the British network ITV: “We need to show real resolve and determination; we need to use every power and everything in our armory with our allies – with those on the ground – to make sure we do everything we can to squeeze this dreadful organization out of existence.” Lolita C. Baldor reports, NATO allies agree to take on Islamic State threat, on Friday the U.S. and 10 of its allies agreed that the Islamic State group posed a significant threat to NATO countries and they will take them on by squeezing their financial resources and going after them with military might. Obama said the new NATO coalition will mount a sustained effort to push back the militants.At the summit conclusion, Obama said: “I did not get any resistance or push back to the basic notion that we have a critical role to play in rolling back this savage organization that is causing so much chaos in the region and is harming so many people and poses a long-term threat to the safety and security of NATO members. So there’s great conviction that we have to act, as part of the international community, to degrade and ultimately destroy ISIL, and that was extremely encouraging. I think it is absolutely critical that we have Arab states and specifically Sunni-majority states that are rejecting the kind of extremist nihilism that we’re seeing out of ISIL, that say that is not what Islam is about and are prepared to join us actively in the fight. What we can accomplish is to dismantle this network, this force that has claimed to control this much territory, so that they can’t do us harm. They have been, to some degree, outgunned and outmanned. And that’s why it’s important for us to work with our friends and allies to support them more effectively.” In a meeting with the foreign and defense ministers from the coalition countries, Secretary of State John Kerry said: “We very much hope that people will be as declarative as some of our friends around the table have been in order to be clear about what they’re willing to commit, because we must be able to have a plan together by the time we come to (the United Nations General Assembly). We need to have this coalesce.” Along with the United States, the coalition comprises the United Kingdom, France, Australia, Germany, Canada, Turkey, Italy, Poland and Denmark. One prong of a Western coalition approach would be for nations’ law enforcement and intelligence agencies to work together to go after the group’s financing in banks and more informal funding networks; however, U.S. intelligence officials say oil revenue will keep them well funded. NATO agreed to increase cooperation among nations on sharing information about foreign fighters. Denmark’s Foreign Minister Martin Lidegaard said the effort against the militants “is not only about a military effort, it is also about stopping the financial contributions to ISIS, to coordinate intelligence, it is about stopping foreign fighters, young people from our own societies. It is decisive that we get more countries along.”

While a solid plan seems to be forming for dealing with ISIS, Somalian government is warning terrorists could strike back after the death of an Islamic Insurgent group who was killed in a U.S. air strike Monday in southern Somalia, the Associated Press reports, Somalia warns of attacks to revenge Godane death. In televised speech Friday night, Gen. Khalif Ahmed Ereg, Somalia’s national security minister, said based on credible intelligence that militants plan to attack key targets including medical and educational institutions following the death of Ahmed Abdi Godane. Godane had publicly claimed al-Shabab was responsible for the deadly Westgate Mall attack in Nairobi, Kenya almost a year ago that left 67 people dead. President Barrack Obama confirmed Friday that Godane was killed by the U.S. airstrike. Robert Burns and Lolita C. Baldar report, Al Shabab Leader Ahmed Godane Killed In U.S. Strike: Pentagon, it took the Pentagon four days to conclusively determine that Godane had not survived Monday’s strike, according to Navy Rear Adm. John Kirby, the Pentagon’s press secretary, via written statement. Al-Shabab has not publicly confirmed Godane’s death. In a statement Somali President Hassan Sheikh Mohamud said, “While an extreme hardcore may fight over the leadership of al-Shabab, this is a chance for the majority of members of al-Shabab to change course and reject Godane’s decision to make them the pawns of an international terror campaign.” The Somali president said the U.S. operation was carried out “with the full knowledge and agreement of” his government and that Somalis “greatly value the support of our international allies” in the fight against al-Shabab. The Associated Press reports: “Obama, speaking at the conclusion of a NATO summit in Newport, Wales, told reporters the success against al-Shabab should leave no doubt about his determination to degrade and eventually destroy the Islamic State group in Iraq and Syria. The U.S. military announced later Friday that a mix of fighter jets, drones, attack planes and bombers launched four airstrikes Thursday and Friday in northern Iraq, destroying a host of Islamic State targets including an observation post, an armed vehicle and three mortar positions.” Army Col, Steven Warren, a Pentagon spokesman, said, “The individual who takes his place will live in fear.” Matt Bryden, the head of Sahan Research in Nairobi, Kenya, said due to Godane weakening and effectively dismantling the al-Shabab council of leaders known as shura, a meeting of regional commanders will have to take place to pick his successor which will be difficult and dangerous to organize. Terrorism analyst J.M. Berger predicted a significant splintering between al-Shabab’s domestically focused insurgents and internationally aspiring terrorists. Abdi Aynte, a Somali analyst who runs a Mogadishu-based think tank called the Heritage Institute for Policy Studies, predicted that Godane’s death “will almost certainly be the beginning of the end of the organization.”

While biological and man made wars are continually fought through out the world, the war over who owns the internet has just begun and may lead to catastrophic consequences for internet users. Ryan Gorman reports, The ‘Battle for the Net’: Companies fighting to save free and open Internet access, several brand name websites are banding together to protest the end of net neutrality which allows equal access to the net. Net neutrality is what keeps the internet free and open from corporate interest, however recent deals by Netflix to secure bandwidth from cable companies are bringing that to an end. Activist group Battle for the Net is organizing a September 10 Internet protest and has been joined by the likes of Etsy, Foursquare, General Assembly Imgur, Kickstarter, Namecheap, Reddit, Vimeo, WordPress and others. The sites are will use animations to simulate the slower loads times on their websites and sevices in a way similar to how activists and experts believe cable companies will if net neutrality ends. “Cable companies want to slow down (and break!) your favorite sites, for profit,” Battle for the Net claims on its website. The group is urging people to put these GIFs on websites as well as email regulators and politicians protesting what it says is the end of open and free Internet. The Federal Communications Commission first introduced net neutrality rules in 2010. They require Internet Service Providers (ISPs) to provide fair and equal “lanes” for all web traffic regardless of content. Earlier this year, a U.S. appeals court tossed out this rule that could change the world forever as the court ruled that ISPs are not utilities like phone and electric companies and are free to charge for their services how they see fit. This brought a wave of deals between bandwidth-hungry Netflix and Comcast, Time Warner Cable, Verizon and others. Experts claimed immediately after the ruling in a Wall Street Journal report that tiered web access, in which sites who pony up the most money are afforded the fastest loading times, would soon become the norm. The fear is the cost will be passed to the web surfers leading to a barrier to entry for less prosperous people. In a Wired op-ed announcing Etsy’s participation in the September 10 protest, site founder and CEO Chad Dickerson wrote that “the FCC has proposed an end to the open Internet… If internet users find it too difficult to load our websites and see our products, it will be impossible for us to grow or succeed. Companies would succeed because of deals struck with cable companies, not because of superior products.” That sentiment is being echoed not only in forums and article comments, but also in the more than one million comments sent to the FCC in response to a recent proposal basically bringing an end to net neutrality. The Washington Post reports less than one percent of the comments received support the end of net neutrality with 500,000 coming from individuals concerned about internet access and the rest from foundations, law firms, companies and other organizations.

Minimum Wage Debate Intensifies As Election Nears, Ferguson Shooting Appears Black and White and Ku Klux Klan Finds a New Way to Recruit

With re-elections and elections on the minds of many political hopefuls and political veterans, the minimum wage debate continues to heat up among incumbents and their would be opponents. As Jim Kuhnhenn reports, Obama: ‘Revving’ up economy calls for higher wages, President Obama on Monday renewed his push for a minimum wage increase from Congress delivering the speech on behalf of Democrats opening their fall campaigns for midterm congressional elections. He told a union crowd in Milwaukee: “America deserves a raise. By almost every measure the American economy and American workers are better off than when I took office. The engines are revving a little louder.” The purpose of his pep talk was to help Democrats facing tough races and draw campaign contrasts with Republicans who maintain an increase would hurt small business and slow hiring. Despite no federal increase, 13 states raised their minimum wages at the beginning of this year and adding jobs faster than those that did not. Obama gave his Labor Day speech in Wisconsin where the fight over collective bargaining rights of public employees has taken center stage. The Republican Governor, Scott Walker, recently stripped most public sector union members of their ability to collectively bargain and faces a tight re-election campaign with Democrat Mary Burke with election over two months away. The White House is encouraging Democrats to talk about the recovery as they head into November mid-term elections. The numbers for August included more than 200,000 jobs created per month for six consecutive months, a six-year high in auto sales, second-quarter economic growth that exceeded expectations and an expanding manufacturing sector, unemployment rate stands at 6.2 percent, dropping 1.1 points over the past year, and the stock market has nearly tripled in five years. According to the liberal Economic Policy Institute, there are significant weakness in the labor market including the long term unemployed, lower labor participation and real hourly wages fell from the first half of 2013 to the first half of 2014 for all income groups, except for a 2-cent increase for the lowest income level. A new survey by Rutgers University found that Americans are more anxious about the economy now than right after the recession ended. Meanwhile, Biden, speaking at the annual Labor Day parade in Detroit, said: “A job’s about a lot more than a paycheck. It’s about your dignity, it’s about your place in the community, it’s about who you are. It’s about being able to look your kid in the eye and say, ‘Honey, it’s going to be OK.’ That’s what a job is about. You can’t do that unless you get a fair wage. If the middle class is doing fine, everybody does fine,” he said. “The wealthy get very wealthy, and the poor have a way up. Middle class … means you get to own your home. It means you get to send your kid to a decent school, that if they do well and they want to go to college, you can afford to send them to college. It means being able to take care of your parents if they get sick. it means maybe being able to save enough so you hope your kids never have to take care of you. The American people have not stopped dreaming. The American people have not walked away from what they believe they are entitled to. Just give them a chance — no handout, just give them a chance,” Biden said. “Once you give Americans a chance, they have never, never, never, never ever let their country down.” While the president and vice president talk about the minimum wage issue to people who deal with it everyday, Illinois Gov. Pat Quinn has decided two months ahead of the midterm elections to live on Illinois’ minimum wage which is $8.25 an hour, according to AOL, Why Is Gov. Pat Quinn Living Off Minimum Wage For A Week? In addition, he said $79 is what someone living on minimum wage has left over after expenses such as taxes and housing. This is ahead of a November referendum to increase the state’s minimum wage to $10 per hour. ​The governor, who WFLD reports made $177,000 last year, has been supporting an increase in the minimum wage. Other Democrats who also support this cause include Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel, Vice President Joe Biden and President Obama. Many believe this is election motivated, according to the Chicago Sun Times, a recent poll found 38 percent of voters in Illinois support Quinn for re-election while nearly 51 percent of voters say they support his Republican challenger. Eleven percent of voters remain undecided. Gallup’s poll last year found 76 would vote for a hike. His Republican opponent, Bruce Rauner is also in favor of an increase with “pro-business reforms” that the Chicago Tribune reports would include tort reform, worker’s compensation reform and a cut in taxes for businesses.

While candidates worry about re-election, McDonald’s. Wendy’s and other fast food restaurants are expected to be targeted with acts of civil disobedience on Thursday as labor organizers escalate their campaign to unionize the industry’s workers, Candice Choi reports, Civil disobedience expected in fast-food pay fight. Kendall Fells, an organizing director for Fast Food Forward, said workers in a couple of dozen cities were trained to peacefully engage in civil disobedience ahead of this week’s planned protests. A spokesman for the Service Employees International Union, which has been spearheading the protests, said home health care aides will join the actions in some locations. The “Fight for $15” campaign has gained national attention at a time when growing income disparities have become a hot political issue with many workers only making $7.25 per hour equating to $15,000 a year for 40 hours a week. Catherine Fisk, a professor of labor law at the University of California in Irvine, said, “The goal is to persuade workers that it doesn’t have to be this way. The goal is to persuade consumers that it doesn’t have to be this way. This is about getting attention to the issue.” The National Restaurant Association, in a statement, said that the fast food protests are attempts by unions “to boost their dwindling membership.” The industry lobbying group said it hopes organizers will be respectful to customers and workers during the protests this week. Several lawsuits claiming wage theft by McDonald’s and its franchises have been filed in three states on behalf of workers. McDonald’s Corp. has said it would investigate the claims.

As the fight for fair wages continues, another fight for racial equality continues in the suburb of Ferguson as many do not see a gray area in the shooting of Michael Brown. Jesse Washington reports, No gray area: Beliefs shape view of Brown killing, many Americans see the Michael Brown killing in Ferguson as black and white with no gray area with many convinced there was no justification for Wilson to kill Brown because he was unarmed and others see it as justified because Brown threatened Wilson. In a CBS News and New York Times poll, 64 percent said they didn’t know enough to say if the shooting was justified and only half said they paid attention to the case. About 100 Wilson backers nearly all white gathered outside Barney’s Sports Pub in St. Louis late last month carrying signs like “Heroes Have A Right To Protect Themselves,” while a multiracial group of about a dozen Brown supporters stood across the street. Passing drivers honked in support of one side or the other, screamed obscenities, or raised middle fingers out of windows, Washington reports. Lou Manza, chair of the psychology department at Lebanon Valley College in Pennsylvania, said in an email: “If one were to view a police officer pointing a gun at someone, and they also view police negatively, they may very well ignore whatever events precipitated the officer drawing his/her weapon, even though that action may have been entirely justifiable. On the other side, if one has a favorable view of police, they’re going to ignore the alleged assailant’s behavior, and simply assume that the police officer is correct, despite the fact that the officer may very well be wrong and unjustified in their actions. Confirmation bias is a subtle but strong effect and once a belief is established, it can be VERY difficult to change it.” The same can be said for others cases filled with racial controversy such as O.J. Simpson, Rodney King and Trayvon Martin where people loked at the same information and came to different conclusions.

Meanwhile, one of the most infamous and oldest hate groups in the country, the Ku Klux Klan, appears to have stepped up its recruitment using the hot top of immigration as its platform, according to an AOL report, Ku Klux Klan steps up recruitment, focuses on immigration. Multiple CNN affiliated report the Ku Klux Klan spreads its new message using flyers and candy stuff ziploc bags to attract recruits in the past couple of month around the U.S. including the Hamptons in New York and neighborhoods in South Carolina, Texas and Orange County, California. According to KTLA, the flyers include “SAVE OUR LAND. JOIN THE KLAN.” According to WHNS, the KKK hotline recording say, “Be a man, join the Klan. Illegal immigration is the story of America. Always remember: if it ain’t white, it ain’t right. White power.” Robert Jones, head of one of New York’s KKK chapters told the New York Times: “A lot of Americans are fed up with immigration right now. … This immigration problem… is destroying this place. I have never seen the Klan expanding the way it is now.” Despite those claims, the Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC) says since the 1970s, the historically violent group has been “weakened” due to internal problems, court cases and from the government stepping in.

Ebola Crisis Faces New Problems, Gaza Talks Continue as Deadline Looms, While Iraqi and Ukrainian Forces Continue to Make Progress

Scientists and health officials see an even bigger threat than the current Ebola outbreak: The fact that no one knows where the virus came from or how ti stop it from starting new outbreaks. Mike Stobbe and Marilyn Marchione report, Another Ebola problem: Finding its natural source, since 1976, two dozen outbreaks of the deadly virus has occurred in Africa with its possible origin beginning in bats, but experts don’t know exactly its origins in nature. The current outbreak has claimed 1,100 people in four countries making it the highest death toll in history of Ebola. Jonathon Towner, a scientist who helped to find the bat source of another Ebola like disease called Marburg, said: “First and foremost get the outbreak under control. Once that piece is resolved, then go back and find what the source is.” Towner works for the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Dr. Richard Wenzel, a Virginia Commonwealth University scientist formerly a lead for the International Society for Infectious Diseases, says, “confirming the source would definitely be important.” Throughout history, halting a deadly infections not only involved limiting person to person contact but finding and controlling the source of the infection in nature. Stobbe and Marchione explain: “Plague was halted after the germ was tied to rat-riding fleas. With the respiratory disease SARS, civet cats played a role. With typhus it was lice, and with bird flu, live poultry markets. Efforts to control MERS, a virus causing sporadic outbreaks in the Middle East, include exploring the role of camels.” Health experts think the initial cases in each outbreak began with eating or handling infected animals such as certain bats that in parts of Africa are considered a delicacy. The World Health Organization lists chimpanzees, gorillas, monkeys, forest antelope and porcupines as possibly playing a role and pig farms where fruit bats may reside. Part of the puzzle is how long the virus has been in West Africa as previous outbreaks have been in the east and central regions of Africa. However, some scientist believe the virus had been in the are for years pointing to a case of a lone scientist who got sick in 1994 after doing an autopsy on a wild chimp in the Ivory Coast and to a recent study exploring the possibility that past Ebola cases in the region were undiagnosed. On Saturday, armed protestors raided an Ebola clinic in Liberia’s capital stealing blood stained bedding and forcing 20 infected patients to flee into the densely populated city, according to the article, Ebola isolation clinic looted in Liberia, patients flee. According to the United Nation’s Integrated Regional Information Networks, the West Point shantytown of 70,000 residents suffer from debilitating sanitary conditions with access to only four public toilets meaning defecation in the street is common. A senior Liberia police official told BBC: “This is one of the stupidest things I have ever seen in my life” and that the looting of blood-stained mattresses and bedding could spread the virus to all of West Point. Front Page Africa reports the assistant health minister on Thursday said there are plans to quarantine the area, but food and water must be brought into the township. The looting came the same day the Kenyan government banned travel to West African countries afflicted with the deadly Ebola virus. According to WHO, more than 400 people have died in Liberia from Ebola with more than 1,100 in total between Liberia, Guinea, Nigeria and Sierra Leone. Adam Schrek reports Monday, Nigerian woman suspected of Ebola dies in UAE, that a Nigerian woman who arrived in Abu Dhabi, United Arab Emirates, suspected of being infected with the Ebola virus, later died in the city, according to health officials. In a statement carried by the Emirati state news agency WAM Sunday, the health authority said the 35 year old woman was traveling to India from Nigeria fro treatment of advanced metastatic cancer. Her health deteriorated in transit at the Abu Dhabi International Airport as medics tried to resuscitate her and found signs of possible infection. The medical staff who treated the woman followed the measures outlined by the World Health Organization, however, the woman’s husband, who sat newt to her on the place, and the five medics who treated her were isolated pending test results on the deceased woman. All are in good health and show no signs of illness, health officials reported.

Meanwhile, as the clock winds down in the Gaza truce, the Palestinians remain divided Sunday on the latest Gaza ceasefire with Hamas opposed to a compromise Egyptian proposal to ease closure of the territory and other factions including delegates for President Mahmoud Abbas were inclined to accept, Mohammed Daraghmeh reports, Palestinian Divisions Emerge In Gaza Truce Talks. Hamas officials said they wanted more concessions in the Egypt mediated talks as the temporary truce expires late Monday. The outcome if a deal is not reached would be a return to fighting bringing more devastation to Gaza, an unofficial understanding falling short of a formal negotiated deal or another extension to negotiations. Nearly 2,000 Palestinians have been killed and more than 10,000 people wounded since July 8, according to United Nations figures. In Israel, 67 people have been killed with all but three soldiers. A Palestinian and Israeli negotiators returned to Cairo on Sunday following a weekend of consultations across the Middle East as the gap remained wide. The current five day ceasefire will end at midnight Monday. According to negotiators, the Egyptian proposal calls for compromise on both sides as it seeks to ease the blockade by allowing more imports and exports for Gaza and increase movement of people in and out of the territory’s Israeli controlled crossing. However, Hamas’ demands for Gaza’s air and seaports to be reopened are to be left until later. Gaza will not be forced to disarm rather Gaza’s border crossing will be controlled by forces loyal to Abbas and international reconstruction efforts in Gaza will also be controlled by Western backed Abbas to make sure money and materials don’t fall into the hands of Hamas. One member of the delegation said even if Hamas refuses the deal, Abbas’ forces are prepared to oversee the crossings and reconstruction. Other members said both Israel and Hamas appeared to agree on one thing which is neither wants to return to heavy fighting like in the past month. One official said, under conditions of anonymity: “The proposed agreement is not bad and can be amended a little bit. That prevents bloodshed and opens the way for rebuilding Gaza.” On Monday, Israeli troops destroyed the home of two Palestinians suspected of the abduction and killing of three teenagers in the occupied West Bank in June, the army said, according to Reuters, Israel destroys homes of Palestinians suspected of killing Israeli teens. Troops set charges to destroy the homes of Hussam Kawasme and Amar Abu Aysha in the southern West Bank before dawn and sealed off the home of a third suspect, Marwan Kawasme. Israeli accused Hamas militants, however, Hamas will not confirm or deny the accusations. Hussam Kawasme, a 40 year old resident Hebron, was arrested July 11 and the other two suspects remained at large. The killings sparked the current cycle of violence that led to a month long offensive between Israel and militants in Hamas dominated Gaza. The military statement said Israel’s supreme court affirmed the military’s wish to demolish the homes and rejected three appeals by the suspects’ families against their destruction.

In a turn of events, on Sunday, Ukraine’s government said separatists shot down a Ukrainian fighter plane after troops entered into the rebel controlled city in the east marking a possible turning point in the four month long conflict, Peter Leonard reports, Ukraine says troops entered rebel-held city. Ukraine’s national security council said government forces captured a district police station in Luhansk after intense clashes in the Velika Vergunka neighborhood. Weeks of fighting in Luhansk has left the city on the verge of humanitarian catastrophe as the siege mounted by government forces has prevented delivery of basic provisions and cut off power and running water. Ukrainian military spokesman Oleksiy Dmitrashkovsky on Sunday said the separatists shot down a Ukrainian fighter plane over the Luhansk region after launching an attack on rebels. Fortunately, the pilot ejected and was taken to a secure place. Meanwhile Sunday, part of the Russian convoy carrying food and supplies for Luhansk and other afflicted zones headed to the section of border closest to the city, but stopped short of the frontier crossing in early afternoon. The Red Cross, responsible for distributing the aid, on Saturday said the main holdup was the lack of security guarantees from both sides of the conflict. In a video posted online this weekend, the leader of the self-proclaimed rebel government in Donetsk region, Alexander Zakharchenko, said new military equipment was on its way from Russia including tanks and some 1,200 fighters who undergone training in Russia. Lysenko said the government had information that separatists have received reinforcements from Russia, but not all the equipment allegedly promised. Russia has denied the accusations of supporting the rebels with equipment and training, however, Ukraine’s President on Friday said that Ukraine had destroyed a large number of military vehicles crossing from Russia recently.

Meanwhile, back in the Middle East on Monday, following two days of U.S. airstrikes, Iraqi and Kurdish forces took back control of the country’s largest dam from Islamic militants, according to a military spokesman in Baghdad as fighting was underway for the rest of the strategic complex, Sinan Salaheddin reports, Iraq forces retake Mosul Dam; militants deny claim. Soon after the announcement, the Islamic State group, controlling the Mosul Dam for two weeks from the Tigris River just north of the city of Mosul, denied the claims insisting it was still in control. The retaking would be the first victory for the Iraqi and Kurdish forces battling the group since the airstrikes started earlier this month. The dam and its broader complex hold a strategic advantage as they supply electricity and water to a large part of the country. Army spokesman Lt. Gen. Qassim al-Moussawi said the dam itself was secured by Kurdish peshmerga troops and Iraqi security forces on Monday, but the southern side of the complex remains contested and fierce fighting is underway. Al-Moussawi said the Iraqi and Kurdish forces “hoisted the Iraqi flag over” the dam adding that the troops were backed by joint aerial support. Iraq’s Ministry of Defense said security forces “liberated a large part of the Mosul Dam” with the help of U.S. airstrikes, while U.S. Central Command would not confirm their involvement. In an internet statement, the Islamic State denied losing the dam and dismissing the government claim as propaganda. The U.S. military said U.S. forces conducted nine strikes Saturday and another 16 on Sunday. The decision to launch the airstrikes was the first direct U.S. military intervention in Iraq since the last American troops left in 2011 and reflect growing international concern about the extremist group. In a letter to Congress Sunday, the White House said that its air campaign in Iraq “is consistent with the president’s directive that the U.S. military protect U.S. personnel and facilities in Iraq, since the failure of the Mosul Dam could threaten the lives of large numbers of civilians and threaten U.S. personnel and facilities – including the U.S. Embassy in Baghdad.” It also stated that the failure of the dam could “prevent the Iraqi government from providing critical services” to the Iraqi people.

Ebola Crisis Worsens, Gaza Talks Continue, Fighting Continues in Ukraine, Russia Retaliates Against Sanctions, Islamic State Pushes through Iraq and War Crime Charges for Former Cambodian Leaders

On Wednesday, President Barack Obama called on African leaders to attack the health crisis, security challenges and government corruption that has crippled the continents economic advancement as he concluded the White House African Summit, the Associated Press reported, Obama, African Leaders Confront Continent’s Crises. Also in attendance was former President George W. Bush who launched a $15 billion HIV/AIDS initiative while in office and made public health issues in Africa a priority since leaving office. Bush’s institute partnered with first lady Michelle Obama to host a daylong event for the African leaders’ spouses. Bush, who lives in Dallas, said: “There’s not many things that convince me to come back to Washington. The first lady’s summit, of course, is one.” While Bush has his African legacy in his initiative, Obama has been trying to build his own and the U.S. African summit is seen as a symbol of that start as he brought 50 countries together for three days of talks. Moving away from humanitarian aid, Obama announced $33 billion in new U.S. commitment to bolster investments in Africa fr0m the private sector. According to the Associated Press: “African nations are still struggling with the HIV epidemic, malaria, and the current outbreak of the deadly Ebola virus. Government corruption remains a persistent problem. And a surge in violent extremism, particularly in North Africa and the Sahel region, has sparked international concern.” Obama added: “Today we can focus on how we can continue to strengthen Africa’s capacity to meet transitional threats and in so doing make all of our nations more secure.” During the private security session, leaders were expected to talk about Boko Haram, the Violent Islamic group that kidnapped 300 schoolgirls in Nigeria earlier this year. Meanwhile, Mrs. Obama and Mrs. Bush, who hosted an event last summer in Tanzania, met with the African first ladies to talk about investments in education, health and economic development.

Meanwhile, back in Western Africa, on Tuesday global health experts stated that the Ebola outbreak is “out of control” and the international community has no organized plan to address it, Kathlenn Miles reports, Health Expert: ‘No Strategic Plan’ For Controlling Ebola Outbreak. Laurie Garrett, senior global health fellow for the Council on Foreign Relations, said Tuesday during a CFR conference call: “We’re now in a perfect storm. There is no strategic plan for how this epidemic will be brought under control. People believe that there’s a giant World Health Organization office in Geneva stocked full of specialized equipment and talented health care workers. Not only do we not have any such thing –- the WHO is essentially bankrupt.” Garrett added that the largest response group, Médecins Sans Frontières (Doctors Without Borders) who has 550 staff member on the ground, has issued plea after plea in recent days for assistance due to fatigue as more than 60 health workers have been infected with the virus. Garret said: “(health workers) in a state of seige — feeling that the population despises and loathes them. Rumors are rife that they are actually deliberately infecting people, cutting off people’s arms and selling them on some alleged international market, and even that there are health care workers who are cannibals.” The need now is for an agreed upon international leader to fight the epidemic and tale on the $1.2 billion deficit or face possible chaos, according to Garrett. WHO spokeswoman Christy Feig confirmed the deficit to HuffPost, while on Monday, the World Bank pledged $200 million to fight the epidemic leaving the WHO short $78 million. Garrett criticized the African Summit in Washington due to the act the 50 leaders at the summit should be discussing how to mobilize more health workers, and consider closing borders and canceling flights adding: “We should be taking advantage of this remarkable coincidental moment, but as far as I can tell, it’s not on the agenda.” The WHO will meet on Wednesday in Geneva at a special summit where experts will decide if the epidemic should be called an international public health emergency which, if designated, will force the international community to try to develop vaccines, implement border checks, give instructions to flight carriers and more. The Ebola virus, which is spread through bodily fluids, has killed 932 people since February in four West African countries and caused 1,711 cases making it the largest outbreak of the virus in history with no cure. The death rate is at 70 percent and its epicenter has shifted to Liberia and Sierra Leone from its outbreak in the forests of Guinea with two confirmed cases in Nigeria, according to Garrett. Additionally, Saudi Arabia officials said a man who tested for the Ebola virus died on Sunday after returning from Sierra Leone, where 286 people have died from Ebola, while hospitalized in Jiddah after showing signs of the viral hemorrhagic fever. While on Wednesday, Spain’s Defense Ministry said a medically equipped Airbus 310 is ready to fly to Liberia to recover a Spanish missionary priest who has the virus, but it is not known when the plane will leave, Bashir Adigun and Krista Larson report, WHO: Ebola death toll reaches 932; 1,700 cases. According to Dan Kedmey, Sierra Leone Dispatches Troops to Enforce Ebola Quarantine, Sierra Leone has dispatched 750 soldiers Wednesday to enforce new quarantine measures as the virus’ global death toll increase. Liberia’s president orders a 30 day state of emergency due to the Ebola outbreak late Wednesday, according to a radio broadcast. A Reuters reports in Monrovia reported that relatives of Ebola victims dumped infected bodies in the streets to avoid quarantines as forces are deployed to maintain order. While some of the numerous untested Ebola drugs will go into human trials to test safety and effectiveness this years, none will be available for widespread production for several years.

Switching to the ongoing Middle East crisis, talks in Cairo for an long term truce continued between Israel and the Palestinian side (Hamas, Islamic Jihad and the Palestine Liberation Organization) as many Palestinians returned to devastation in Gaza but no fighting, according to CNN, Talks to extend Gaza truce under way in Cairo. From Jerusalem. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu praised his country’s troops for their performance, blamed Hamas for civilian casualties and hoped that the Cairo talks could allow for broader peace. On Wednesday, a Palestinian delegate, Qais Abdelkarim, told CNN that the delegations had yet to reach an agreement to extend the ceasefire. An Israeli government official, who asked to remain anonymous, told CNN Thursday regarding a ceasefire extension: “The current one is unconditional, and from our point of view, it can be extended unconditionally.” On Wednesday Obama weighed in on the matter: “I’m very glad that we have, at least temporarily, achieved a cease-fire. The question now is, how do we build on this temporary cessation of violence and move forward in a sustainable way? I have no sympathy for Hamas. I have great sympathy for ordinary people who are struggling within Gaza.” Nasser Judeh, the foreign ministers of Jordan, which borders Israel and the West Bank, told CNN’s Wolf Blitzer: “The problem is that — regardless of the blame game that’s taking place right now and it usually does happen after every Gaza escalation — it’s the people of Gaza who are suffering from the siege, from a disastrous humanitarian situation, civilian deaths, destruction. I think we all have to collectively think about how we can rescue them from this.” The United Nations reports around 520,000 Gaza residents were displaced which is 29% of the territory’s 1.8 million inhabitants, more than 10,00 homes were destroyed or severely damaged and the Palestinian Health Ministry reports nearly 1,900 Palestinians were killed in Gaza during the conflict with the U.N. estimating that about 70% of the dead were civilians. The immediate challenge for residents is to secure water, food and shelter. The U.N. says water is scarce and there is only two to four hours of electricity a day. Pierre Krahenbuhl, UNRWA’s commissioner general, told CNN: “We will be very closely following not only the needs of people who stay at our schools (which house about 270,000), but also those who are returning to their home and may find themselves in very difficult situations in the days and weeks to come.” Nachman Shai, an opposition member of the Israeli parliament, said talking isn’t the only thing Israel needs to do referring to the idea of disarming Hamas: “I’m not sure that we accomplished the mission. I think we have to do much more. If you ask me, the next phase in this mission is to build new relations between us and the Palestinians.” Netanyahu did agree with U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry that realignment could present opportunities to use the Cairo talks fro broader discussions: “I think he’s right that there are opportunities now, perhaps opportunities that we’ve not seen before with the realignment of important parties in the Middle East, to be able to fashion a new reality, one more conducive to the end of violence, the establishment of calm, sustainable peace, or at least a sustainable quiet that can lead to other things.” Palestininan negotiator Saeb Erakat told CNN Wednesday that the conflict cannot be resolved through violence and Mohammed Shtayyeh, a senior negotiator for the PLO, states Israeli’s call to demilitarize Gaza is balckmail. Hamas leaders want to negotiate an end to the Israeli blockade of Gaza or find another body to control the borders. U.S. State Department Spokeswoman Jen Psaki told CNN’s Tapper: “We don’t negotiate with Hamas. We don’t talk to Hamas. But we certainly want to be there to support an effort to negotiate over these key issues that have been so troubling in the region for so many years.”

On Wednesday, as fighting continues not far from the Malaysian Flight 17 crash site in Eastern Ukraine, the Dutch prime minster has halted recovery efforts to find the remaining bodies as it is too dangerous. Donetsk City Council confirmed three people were killed and five wounded on overnight shelling in eastern Ukraine as government forces tighten their hold on the pro-Russian rebel stronghold, the Associated Press reported, 3 killed, 5 wounded in east Ukraine fighting. On the council’s website Thursday, a statement detailed that several residential buildings were damage 4 miles from the city’s center due to shelling. As rebels are pushed back by Kiev forces, many fear that Russian may intervene as Western Leader accuse Russia of massing troops at the border, a claim Russia denies. Meanwhile, Toby Sterling reports, Dutch premier halts search for Ukraine victims, Wednesday Mark Rutte, at a news conference, praised the efforts of the international recovery mission and promised victims’ families the search will resume when Ukraine is more stable. Rutte added that before the international team was able to reach the site due to fighting in the area the local authorities immediately after the crash conducted a thorough search of the area with 800 volunteers and found many bodies in the first days and have been identified in the Netherlands. As for the cause of the crash, Rutte said the investigation is continuing as the Dutch Safety Board spokesman on Wednesday states the preliminary findings due Aug. 17 won’t be ready for several weeks after that date. The reason, according to Wim van der Weegen via phone interview, is due to the difficulty investigators had reaching the site.

While Ukraine continues to struggles to end the fighting and the families of Flight 17 must wait longer to find their loved ones, Russia, who has been sanctions over its alleged action in Ukraine, has banned all Western Food imports in retaliation. Jim Heintz reports, Report: Russia to block US agricultural imports, the Russian state news agency RIA Novosti quoted an official of Russia’s sanitary oversight agency as saying all imports of agricultural product from the U.S. to Russia will be banned. President Vladimir Putin on Wednesday ordered state authorities to make a list of agricultural products from countries who imposed the sanctions on Russia with a ban or limit for up to one year. On Thursday, Russia officially banned most food imports from the West in retaliation that will cost Western farmers billions of dollars and lead to empty shelves in Russian cities, the Associate Press reports, Russia bans Western food over Ukraine sanctions. The decisions by President Vladimir Putin shows he will no bow to international pressure over Ukraine and will strike back as Russia pursues its course in Ukraine. Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev said in a televised Cabinet meeting that the ban covers all imports of meat, fish, milk and milk products and fruit and vegetables from the United States, the European Union, Australia, Canada and Norway. He said: “Until the last moment, we hoped that our foreign colleagues would understand that sanctions lead to a deadlock and no one needs them. But they didn’t and the situation now requires us to take retaliatory measures.” Large cities may be hit the hardest like Moscow where imported food fills 60 to 70 percent of the market. Medvedev said Russia may carry their ban further and prevent Western carriers from flying over Russia on flights from Asia which would significantly swell the costs and increase flight times. The move is retaliation against EU sanctions levied on the low cost Russian airline Dobrolet. Medvedev hopes the ban will make the West revise their policy and stop trying to pressure Russia with sanctions. Another import from the U.S. will not be banned , according to Heintz, Edward Snowden Gets Permission To Stay In Russia For 3 More Years: Lawyer, as NSA whistle blower Edward Snowden on Thursday was granted permission to stay in Russia for three more years. Analtoly Kucherena, his lawyer, quoted by the Russian news agency as saying Snowden was not granted political asylum but residency for three more years.

Back in the Middle East, the Islamic State made another push into Northern Iraq leaving many Iraq’s the only two options, to flee their towns and villages or face Sunni militants who are notorious for beheading. According to Ahmed Rasheed and Michael Georgy, Iraq’s Yazidis Face Extremist Militants Or Perilous Mountains, the Yazidis of Sinjar are especially concerned since the Islamic state, deemed excessive by al Qaeda, see the minority ethnic group as devil worshipers making them prime targets for the sword. Witnesses and the United Nations reports that tens of thousands fled the weekend assault on Sinjar and are now surrounded after Sunni militants inflicted a humiliating defeat on Kurdish forces who held the town for three years. Residents said 50 people were killed after the Sunni militants, who declared parts of Iraq and Syria a caliphate, arrived in Sinjar late Saturday and 20 were killed trying to defend the town. Many panicked Yazidis tried to find water and food for their children before leaving in a rush to the surrounding mountains, while some did not escape. Vian Dakheel, a member of the Yazidi community parliament, said tearfully: “The innocent people of Sinjar were slaughtered. Men were killed and women have been taken as slaves by Islamic State fighters.” Dakheel said some could not withstand the weekend offensive and 70 children between one month and four died of thirst and hunger. The U.N. children’s agency said families fleeing the area needed assistance including the 25,000 children stranded in the mountains. While the Islamist State sets its sights on new territory, no sign Iraq’s bickering politicians will be able to share power anytime soon leaving the government powerless in countering the insurgency. Fortunately, as Reuters reported, UN Rescues Some Refugees From Sinjar Mountain, some of the thousands trapped by Islamic State militants on Sinjar mountain in northern Iraq have been rescued in the last 24 hours leading up to Thursday announcement by a spokesman for the U.N. Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs. David Swanson via phone from Iraq said: “We’re just receiving the information right now. We’ve just heard that people over the last 24 hours have been extracted and the U.N. is mobilizing resources to ensure that these people are assisted on arrival. This is a tragedy of immense proportions, impacting the lives of hundreds of thousands of people. Over the past couple of days, almost 200,000 people have made their way northwards to Iraq’s Kurdistan region, Dohuk governorate, or to disputed border areas inside Ninewah. We have also received reports that thousands more may have fled across the border into Syria, and are waiting to cross back into Iraq, but I have no concrete confirmation of that. Many of the displaced are in immediate need of essential life-saving humanitarian items, including water, food, shelter and medicine.” A spokesman for the U.N. children’s agency UNICEF in Geneva, Christopher Tidey, said: “We have received reports of dehydrated children and we know that at least 40 children have died.” Another group, Iraqi Christians, have long suffered more than any other group since the Islamic State took power as the region’s Christian population is around 5% and dropping, according to Yasmin Hafiz, ‘Vicar Of Baghdad’ Canon Andrew White Refuses To Leave Iraq, Despite Christian Persecution By ISIS. In Mosul, Iraq, Islamic State distributed flyers in July giving them three options: convert to Islam, pay a fine, or be killed. Many of their abandoned homes now say in black lettering, “Property of the Islamic State.” Canon Andrew White refuses to leave Baghdad, despite the danger, as St. George’s is Iraq’s last Anglican church. He estimates his numbers at 6,000 people, but in the last decade over 1,200 have been killed, CNN’s Arwa Damon reports.

On Thursday, a long over due ruling three and a half decades after the genocidal rule of Cambodia’s Khmer Rouge ended has finally been handed down Thursday by a U.N. backed tribunal. Todd Pitman and Sopheng Cheang report, Cambodia tribunal convicts Khmer Rouge leaders, two top leaders of the former regime received life sentences for crimes against humanity during the country’s 1970s terror period that left 2 million people dead. The histroic verdicts were announced against Khieu Samphan, the regime’s 83-year-old former head of state, and Nuon Chea, its 88-year-old chief ideologue – the only two surviving leaders of the regime left to stand trial, Pitman and Cheang. The tribunal’s chief judge said both men were guilty of “extermination encompassing murder, political persecution, and other inhumane acts comprising forced transfer, enforced disappearances and attacks against human dignity.” The rulings can be appeals, however, Nil Nonn told the court that “given the gravity of the crimes” both would remain in detention. Nearly a quarter of the population died under the Khmer Rouge about 1.7 million people through a combination starvation, medical neglect, overwork and execution when the group held power in 1975-79. Tribunal spokesman Lars Olsen called it “a historic day for both the Cambodian people and the court. The victims have waited 35 years for legal accountability, and now that the tribunal has rendered a judgment, it is a clear milestone.” According to the article: “The current trial began in 2011 with four senior Khmer Rouge leaders; only two remain. Former Foreign Minister Ieng Sary died in 2013, while his wife, Social Affairs Minister Ieng Thirith, was deemed unfit to stand trial due to dementia in 2012. The group’s top leader, Pol Pot, died in 1998.” khieu Samphan acknowledged the mass killings, but testified in 2011 he was a figure head with no authority. Nuon Chea, bother no.2 for Pol Pot’s trusted deputy, denied responsibility claiming Vietnamese soldiers killed Cambodians en masse. Due to poor health and advanced age, the case was divided into two trials in an effort to render justice before they die. Both men will be tried in September or October for charges of genocide, according to Olsen, and could take a year to complete. Survivors of the regime had mixed reactions to the verdicts. 54 year old Chea Sophon, whose brother was killed during the Khmer Rouge era and spend years in a hard labor camp building dams and working in rice fields, said: “The crimes are huge, and just sentencing them to life in jail is not fair. But what can I do? I just accept the verdict. Even if they die many times over, it would not be enough.” While a 58 year old female survivor, Khuth Vouern, said she felt a sense of relief that justice was served: “I have been waiting for this day for many years. Now, for the first time, my mind feels at least some degree of peace.”

Obama and Congress Facing New Challenges, While the Auto Industry is Dealt Another Blow

Officials on Tuesday said the Obama administration is trying to find ways to sidestep Congress in order to prevent American companies from reincorporating overseas to avoid paying U.S. taxes, Josh Lederman reports, Obama Seeks Executive Ways To Limit Tax Inversions. President Barack Obama has condemned so called tax inversions as unpatriotic and urged Congress to stop them, but Republicans and Democrats disagree about the best solution making congressional action unlikely. Messing with inversions without Congressional approval would further open up Obama to charges he’s unilaterally rewriting tax codes as House Republicans are already suing Obama for exceeding his authorities. Treasury Secretary Jacob Lew, last month, stated that the administration had examined the tax code and without new laws its option were limited. However, on Tuesday, the Treasury Department said in a statement: “Treasury is reviewing a broad range of authorities for possible administrative actions that could limit the ability of companies to engage in inversions, as well as approaches that could meaningfully reduce the tax benefits after inversions take place.” As Lederman explains it, “In an inversion, a U.S. business merges with or is acquired by a foreign company in a country with a lower tax rate, allowing the company to lower its tax bill. Frequently the companies maintain their U.S. headquarters and operations, and the U.S. entity often maintains control of the company. Obama argues that amounts to companies attempting to choose which tax laws they want to follow — a luxury not granted to individual taxpayers.” Both parties generally agree that inversions are a problem, but do not agree on the causes and the solutions. While Democrats want to make it harder for U.S. firms to reincorporate overseas, Republicans argue that Congress needs to lower the corporate tax rate to keep businesses in the U.S. The united States has the highest corporate tax rate at 35 percent in the industrialized world and taxes income that’s earned overseas and brought back to the U.S. Sen. Elizabeth Warren, D-Mass., one of the three Senator Democrats who wrote to Obama Tuesday urging him to take immediate executive action on inversions, stated, “It would be an important first step toward treating companies that renounce America the same way we treat people who renounce America — as freeloaders who get cut off from other benefits.” A House Speaker John Boehner spokesman said Tuesday that Obama should work with Congress on adding inversions rather than action on his own, while the U.S. Chamber of Commerce warned that actions taken by Obama could make the situation worse. The Congressional Research Service confirmed that 50 U.S. based companies have merged with or acquired foreign businesses over the past decade in inversions.

Meanwhile, Congress according to a Washington Post/ ABC News poll released Tuesday, found that 51 percent of Americans disapprove of their own congressional representative, Ariel Edwards Levy reports, A Record Number Of Americans Don’t Like Their Own Member Of Congress. This is the first time in a quarter century that the poll has had a disapproval rating higher than 50 percent and even higher than the 47 percent disapproval rating of last year’s government shutdown. Terrible ratings are nothing new since Congress has an average approval rating of under 12 percent, however, in the past, Americans approved more of their district’s representative than the legislative branch as a whole, but that number took a dive as well. In June before Republicans took back the House in 2010, 40 percent of Americans told Gallup their represented didn’t deserve to be re-elected, yet 85 percent of members seeking re-election held their seat. The poll also found among the 1,029 adults from both parties surveyed via phone between July 30 and Aug. 3 disapproved of their representative equally at 46 Democrats and 44 percent Republicans. This also differs from the past two midterms as polls found higher anti-incumbent sentiments among the party that would go on to win the House.

An even bigger threat to Congress and the White House, according to what U.S. officials told CNN, is a new leaker that exposed national security documents in the aftermath of surveillance disclosures by former NSA contractor Edward Snowden, Evan Perez reports, New leaker disclosing U.S. secrets, government concludes. The Intercept, a news site launched by Glenn Greenwald who also published Snowden’s leaks, published Tuesday a news story based on national security documents shows proof of the newest leak. The article focuses on the growth in the U.S. government databases of known or suspected terrorist names during the Obama administration citing documents prepared by the National Counterterrorism Center dated August 2013 which was after Snowden left the U.S. to avoid criminal charges. Government officials are trying to find out the identity of the person, while Greenwald, in a February interview with CNN’s Reliable Sources, said: “I definitely think it’s fair to say that there are people who have been inspired by Edward Snowden’s courage and by the great good and virtue that it has achieved. I have no doubt there will be other sources inside the government who see extreme wrongdoing who are inspired by Edward Snowden.” It is not clear how many documents the new leakers shared or how much damage it caused as the documents shard are labeled “Secret” and “NOFORN” which means it was not shared with foreign government. That’s a lower classification than most of the documents leaked by Snowden. Government officials said he stole 1.7 million classified documents many of which were labeled “Top Secret” a higher classification for most important government secrets.

On Tuesday, Democratic Senator Claire McCaskill of Missouri has proposed a new bill called the Motor Vehicle and Highway Safety Enhancement Act aimed to improve automotive safety following the high profile recalls of General Motors and Toyota, Autoblog reports, Senator Pushes For Up To Life Sentence For Auto Execs Found To Delay Recalls. The plan includes doubling the budget for the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration over the next six years, removing the $35-million limit for fining automakers, and most importantly a provision to punish auto executives who knowingly delay recalls with a life sentence. McCaskill’s office told the Detroit News: “(The bill) gives federal prosecutors greater discretion to bring criminal prosecutions for auto safety violations and increases the possible penalties, including up to life in prison for violations that result in death.” If a delayed recall ends in serous injuries, execs could face a 15 year stint behind bars. By removing the limit on per-vehicle fines, the fine structure can be increased from $5,000 to $25,000 e.g. GM could have been hooked for $55 billion in fines for its ignition switch recall rather than just $35 million. According to The News, McCaskill said: “With millions of Americans behind the wheel every day, and more than 33,000 killed on our roads each year, we’ve got to do more to keep our cars and the roads we drive them on safe. Painful recent examples at Toyota and GM have shown us we also must make it easier to hold accountable those who jeopardize consumers’ safety. For too long, auto safety resources have remained virtually stagnant while cars and the safety challenges they present have become more complex.”

Eboal Crisis Deepens Further, Immigration Problem Worsens, Environmental Disasters in Ohio, California and the Gulf of Mexico

On Tuesday, two American aid workers infected with Ebola are receiving an experimental drug that has never been tested for safety in humans and was only identified earlier this year as a potential treatment due to research programs by the U.S. government and military, Marilynn Marchione reports, U.S. gov’t had role in Ebola drug given to aid workers. Nancy Writebol and Dr. Kent Brantly are improving even though ti is not know if the treatment is the reason for the recovery or they are recovering on their own as other victims have done. Both are being treated at Atlanta’s Emory University Hospital in a special isolation unit. They were both infected in Liberia, one of four West African countries crippled by the disease outbreak which is the largest on record. On Monday, the World Health Organization estimated the death toll at 887 from 729 in Guinea, Sierra Leone, Liberia and Nigeria with more than 1,600 people infected. The Nigerian Health Minister said a doctor who helped treat Patrick Sawyer, the Liberian American who died July 25 after reaching Nigeria, has contracted the disease. Tests are pending for three other people who treated Sawyer and are showing symptoms. There is no cure or current treatment for Ebola, while several are under development including the treatment the U.S. aid workers are getting called ZMapp made by Mapp Biopharmaceuticals Inc. of San Diego. The drug aims at boosting the immune response to fight off Ebola and is made from antibodies produced in lab animals exposed to parts of the virus. Kentucky BioProcessing complied with a request from Emory and the international relief group Samaritan’s Purse to provide a limited amount of ZMapp to Emory, even though it will take several months. The United States Food and Drug Administration granted permission to use the drug in the U.S., but the FDA does not have the authority over its use in other countries where the aid workers were first treated in Liberia. In the meantime, dozens of African heads of state met in Washington for the U.S.-Africa Leaders Summit for a three day gathering hosted by President Barack Obama. On Monday, U.S. health officials spoke with Guinean President Alpha Conde and senior officials form Liberia and Sierra Leone about the outbreak. Ann Flaherty reports, Feds watch airplane passengers for ebola symptoms, as the delegations from 50 countries arrive in the nation’s capital for the leadership summit this week, officials said Monday that federal agents at U.S. airports especially Washington’s Dulles International and New York’s JFK airport are watching travelers from Africa for flu-like symptoms tied to the Ebola outbreak. If passengers are suspected of carry the virus then they must be quarantined immediately and evacuated by medical personnel, according to the CDC which provided the training to local airports. A person exposed to the virus can take up to 21days to exhibit symptoms making it possible for infected travelers to enter the U.S. without knowing it.

Meanwhile the U.S. on Monday closed three emergency shelters established on military bases to temporarily house children crossing the Mexican border alone explaining that fewer children are being caught and other shelters area adequate, Alicia Caldwell reports, Gov’t closing emergency child immigrant shelters. According to Kenneth Wolfe, a Health and Human Services Department spokesman, a shelter in Oklahoma at Fort Sill is expected to close as early as Friday, Shelters in Texas at Joint Base San Antonio-Lackland and in California at Naval Base Ventura County-Port Hueneme will wrap up operations in the next two to eight weeks. About 7,700 children have been housed at these three bases since the shelters opened in May and early June with stays averaging 35 days. Since Oct. 1 more than 57,000 unaccompanied minors, mostly from Honduras, El Salvador and Guatemala, have been caught crossing the Mexican border illegally. Just before leaving for summer recess, the House approved a pair of bills to provide the administration with $694 million and end a program protecting young immigrants from deportation up to two years. The Senate blocked its version of the border bill and left the problem unresolved before leaving Washington for its five week recess. Last month, Homeland Security Department said the number of child immigrants crossing the border alone declined from 2,000 per week in June to 500 per week in mid-July. Administration officials said as many as 90,000 child immigrants could cross the border by the end of the budget year in September. Wolf said the military may reopen the shelters if the numbers spike again.

While the U.S. deals with some pressing international crisis, California, Ohio and the area around the Gulf of Mexico suffered ecological disasters affecting thousands of peoples. On Tuesday, firefighters fought two wildfires near each other in Northern California that has consumed more than a 100 square miles of terrain threatening a small town and prompting the evacuation of a long term care hospital, according to the Associate Press, State Of Emergency Declared Over California Wildfires. On Saturday, Shasta County sheriff had Burney on evacuation watch after ordering residents of three small neighboring communities to leave. The state Department of Forestry and Fire Protection said more than 700 residences were threatened. The two out of 14 currently burning in the state started within a day of each other in Lassen National Forest expanding into private property. In all, 102 square miles have been burned as of late Sunday. In Burney, officials at Mayer Memorial Hospital were forced to evacuate their 49 bed annex for patients with dementia and other conditions that need nursing care. the patients were taken to Redding about 55 miles away. Officials said evacuations also remain in effect for a community on the edge of the second fire which was sparked by lightning. State Department of Forestry and Fire Protection spokesman Dennis Mathisen said Sunday: “Today we are looking at slightly cooler temperatures, but Northern California continues to be hot and dry and breezy in some areas, and in fact we are looking at a fire weather watch going into effect Monday morning for a large portion of Northern and northeast California and possible thunderstorms, which could mean more lightning.” On Saturday, Gov. Jerry Brown declared a state of emergency due to the circumstances and magnitude of the wildfires beyond the control of any single local government. Siskiyou County, across the border in Oregon, was contending with two fires started by lightning last week threatening 58 square miles in both states late Sunday. A fire in Ellensburg, Washington, started during a lightning storm Saturday night burned 3 square miles and evacuation notices were going out to the residents of the 180 homes in the area. In Ohio’s fourth largest city, two days after warning 400,000 people in Ohio and Michigan not to drink their tap water, the mayor declared Monday that the water was safe and took a sip, John Seewer reports, Ohio Water Ban Lifted; Toledo Mayor Says City’s Water Is Safe. The city lifted the advisory after dozens of tests over the weekend showed an algae induced toxin contaminating Lake Erie dropped to safe levels following chemical treatment. Ohio Gov. John Kasich said the state will conduct a full review of what happened and look at Toledo’s aging water system to figure out how to reduce pollution feeding algae in the western end of the lake. The weekend warning led Kasich to declare a state of emergency in three counties forcing the Ohio National Guard to deliver bottled water and operate purification systems to produce drinkable water. After the ban was lifted, city officials told the residents to flush their systems if they had not used their water since Saturday. The Gulf of Mexico, as Melodi Smith reports, Gulf of Mexico ‘dead zone’ is the size of Connecticut, has a dead zone the size of Connecticut. Environmental Protection Agency scientists and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration found that 5,052 square miles of low oxygen water or hypoxia in their annual survey caused by nutrients washing into the Gulf’s waters allowing algae blooms to suck up all the oxygen. According to both agencies, these nutrients are from “human activities, such as agriculture and wastewater.” The survey taken from July 27 to August 2 found this year’s dead zone is right in line with predictions and is smaller than the five year average at 5,500 square miles. Nancy Rabalais with the Louisiana Universities Marine Consortium said, “The number of Dead Zones throughout the world has been increasing in the last several decades and currently totals over 550.” With the dead zone marine life struggling to find enough oxygen to grow e.g. crabs, mussels and other crustaceans on the ocean floor who cannot leave, the lack of oxygen causes them to die. NOAA estimates the annual cost of algae blooms to U.S. seafood and tourism industries at $82 million or more.

What does the Future Hold for Israeli-Palestinian Relations and for Ukrainian-Russian-U.S. Relations?

The United Nations and United States announced a 72 hour humanitarian ceasefire beginning Friday morning with no guarantees the lull in violence will bring an end to the 24 day Gaza War according to Secretary of State John Kerry, Ian Deitch and Ibrahim Barzak report, US, UN announce deal on Gaza cease-fire. The announcement happened hours after Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu vowed to destroy Hamas tunnels with or without a ceasefire and the Palestinian death toll reached 1,400. Kerry said, “This is not a time for congratulations or joy or anything except a serious determination – a focus by everybody to try to figure out the road ahead. This is a respite. It is a moment of opportunity, not an end.” At least four humanitarian ceasefires have been announced during the conflict and all have been broken by renewed fighting. A statement by Kerry and U.N. assures both parties agreed, which Hamas leaders and Israel confirmed, to the unconditional ceasefire and would send delegates to Cairo for negotiations to reach a lasting truce. During the ceasefire Kerry said Israel will continue to destroy Hamas tunnels that are behind its territorial lines and Palestine will receive food, medicine and humanitarian assistance, bury their dead, treat the wounded and travel to their homes. In addition, repairs will be made to water and energy systems. Kerry said, “Israel has to live without terror and tunnels and rockets and sirens going on through the day. Palestinians have to be able to live freely and share in the rest of the world and live a life that is different from the one they have long suffered.” U.N. spokesman Stephane Dujarric said the ceasefire was a result of Secretary General Ban Ki-moon’s trip to the region “but also 48 hours of extremely active diplomacy at all levels from the secretary-general to his senior advisers talking to key regional players.”

Unfortunately, the ceasefire did not last long as Israel and Hamas accused each other of violating the truce that resulted in four Palestinians being killed in heavy fire in the southern town of Rafah, Ibrahim Barzak and Daniel Estrin report, 4 Palestinians killed after Gaza truce begins. Two hours after the ceasefire went into effect, Israeli tanks shelled the eastern part of Rafah killing four people and wounding 15, according Health Ministry official Ashraf al-Kidra and Gaza police spokesman Ayman Batniji. In a statement, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s office explained, “Once again, Hamas and the terror organizations in Gaza have blatantly broken the cease-fire to which they committed, this time before the American Secretary of State and the U.N. Secretary General.” Reuters reports, Gaza Death Toll Soars As Israel Presses Offensive, Gaza health officials said 19 Palestinians were killed in Israeli assaults on Thursday, while Israeli military said more than 60 rockets were fired from the Palestinian enclave into Israel with one person being wounded by the Gaza projectile striking Kiryat Gat, a southern town. Washington has allowed Israel to use local U.S. arms stockpiles in the past few weeks to replenish grenades and mortar rounds, a U.S. defense official said Thursday. On India’s NDTV, Kerry said during an interview: “No country can sit there and live with tunnels being dug under its border, out of which jump people who are carrying handcuffs and tranquilizer drugs in order to kidnap their citizens and hold them for ransom.” Reuters reports: “Gaza officials say at least 1,410 Palestinians, most of them civilians, have been killed in the battered territory and nearly 7,000 wounded. Fifty-six Israeli soldiers have been killed in Gaza clashes and more than 400 wounded. Three civilians have been killed by Palestinian shelling in Israel.” On Thursday, the United Nation’s senior human rights official, Navi Pillay, said that Israel has attacked homes, schools, hospitals, and U.N. premises in apparent violation of the Geneva Conventions. The assault on residential areas by Israel has lead to mass evacuations and more than 200,000 displaced Palestinians in a population of just 1.8 million in Gaza leaving the infrastructure ruined with power and water outages. Diplomacy to end the conflict is complicated due to the fact Israel and the United States shun Hamas as a terrorist groups, while the go betweens of Egypt, Qatar and Turkey disagree on Gaza policy.

Meanwhile, on Thursday, a top U.N. envoy told the United Nationals Security Council that Israel will be required under international law to take responsibility for helping Palestinian civilians if more large scale displacements take place in Gaza, Michelle Nichols reports, UN Envoy: Israel May Be Required To Take Responsibility For Displaced In Gaza. The United Nations struggles to cope with a flood of 220,000 Palestinian civilians into shelters to due to the fighting and have come under fire during the three weeks of fighting between Israel and Hamas. Pierre Krähenbühl, the Swiss-born chief of the U.N. Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA), via phone told the 15 member Security Council: “Should further large-scale displacement indeed occur, the occupying power, according to international humanitarian law, will have to assume direct responsibility to assist these people. With as many as 2,500 displaced people residing in (each U.N.) school and an average of 80 people to a classroom, we have exceeded the tolerable limits we can accommodate.” U.N. aid chief Valerie Amos told the Security Council via video link: “The reality of Gaza today is that no place is safe. We have all watched in horror the desperation of children, of civilians as they have come under attack.” After meeting behind closed doors for four hours after the briefing, Nichols reports, the Security Council once again called for an “immediate and unconditional humanitarian ceasefire.”

In Ukraine, a team of international investigators reached the Malaysia Airlines Flight 17 site Friday to begin combing for evidence in the area now designated a crime scene while fighting continued less than 20 kilometers from the site, the Associated Press reports, Ukrainian troops suffer heavy loss in ambush. Despite both sides in the ongoing conflict in east Ukraine agreeing to a ceasefire around the crash zone, a deadly attack by rebels on government troops Friday morning took place less than 20 kilometers south of the crash site in Shakhtarsk, a rebel stronghold where sustained battles over several days has taken place. The town links Donetsk and Luhansk, two large rebel controlled cities, which Ukrainian forces are focusing on in their strategy to drive a wedge into the area. Mstyslav Chernov reports, Ukraine MH17 Wreckage Site Finally Accessed By Investigators, two investigators from the Netherlands and Australia made an initial survey of the crash area after lunch, while fighting raged on between government forces and pro-Russian separatist rebels with mortar shells falling in a nearby village. Despite the dangers, the team called the one hour inspection a success. Ukrainian President Petro Proshenko’s office urged rebels to comply with the ceasefire 20 kilometers around the wreckage site in a statement, while the European Union and U.S. formed a united front in accusing Russia of ramping up the unrest in eastern Ukraine by supplying weapons to rebels which Russia denies. In Brussels, the EU formally adopted economic sanctions, which will take effect Friday, designed to pressure Russia to bring a peaceful end to the Ukraine crisis.

Meanwhile, Russia is dealing with another old but familiar problem of what to do with former NSA contractor and whistle-blower Edward Snowden who received temporary asylum a year ago, which expired Thursday, following disclosure of classified NSA documents, according to an AOL report, As asylum expires, Snowden’s expulsion from Russia unlikely. Snowden has submitted his request for an extension of his asylum. While he waits, Snowden has a job and is learning Russian which are two requirements for an extension to be granted, Anatoly Kucherena, Snowden’s Russian lawyer, explained. Another member of his legal team has this to say on Australian radio (From ABC Australia): “PM with Mark Colvin”: “For now he is in the safest place that he can be, and Russia has indicated that it intends to plan on having him, allowing him to continue to stay.” This was said in response to the German justice minister’s suggestion to turn him over to the U.S. to face prosecution. Journalist Glenn Greenwald explained to MSNBC why Russia took Snowden in and why they did not turn him over this past year: “There’s no legal basis to turn him over to the U.S. because the U.S. and the Russians don’t have an extradition treaty. … And secondly, that he faces persecution.” Euronews points out Snowden has asked for amnesty from prosecution if he ends up stateside and told Brian Williams in an Exclusive NBC interview that he would like to go home. Right now though, Snowden faces espionage charges in the U.S. that could lead to prison time. Snowden’s Russian attorney said the decision on his asylum could be made this week.

Republican Border Bill Passes, Court Deals Blow to Unions, Ebola Comes to the U.S. and the U.S. Fails Internationally

Late Friday, House Republicans passed a bill to address the U.S. Mexico border crisis by sending migrant youths back home without hearings meaning that more than half a million immigrants could be deported even though the Obama administration granted temporary work permits, according to Erica Werner, House OKs bill to address border crisis. President Barack Obama condemned the Republican action saying he would act unilaterally as best he could. The new bill, which tea party lawmakers enthusiastically support, provides $694 million and carries a companion measure to shut off a program created by Obama granting work permits to immigrants brought here illegally as kids. The second bill prevents the more than 700,00 people who’ve already gotten work permits under the program from renewing them making them subject to deportation. The sending bill passed Friday 223-189 with four Republicans voting no and one Democrat voting yes. Rep. Michele Bachmann, R-Minn. explained, “It’s dealing with the issue that the American people care about more than any other, and that is stopping the invasion of illegal foreign nationals into our country. And we got to yes.” While Obama said no adding, “They’re not even trying to solve the problem. I’m going to have to act alone, because we do not have enough resources.” The move in the House came as the first day of lawmakers’ five week summer recess happened and Senators had already left Washington after killing their own legislation on the crisis. Chairman of the Appropriations Committee, Rep. Hal Rogers, R-Ky., said, “It would be irresponsible and unstatesmanlike to head home for the month without passing a bill to address this serious, present crisis on the border.” According to Werner: “In the end Republicans only lost four of the most conservative members on the vote: Reps. Thomas Massie of Kentucky, Paul Broun of Georgia, Stephen Fincher of Tennessee and Walter Jones of North Carolina. The only Democrat to support the bill was moderate Rep. Henry Cuellar of Texas.”The GOP plans met with protest from immigration advocates and Democrats with Rep. Luis Gutierrez, D-Ill., saying, “If you tell people that you think they’re criminals, that you think they’re simply bringing diseases, that they’re bringing drugs, then you treat them as invaders, they kind of think you don’t like them. They’re going to believe you don’t like them, and they’re not going to vote for you.” The bill adds $35 million more for the National Guard as well as increase spending for overwhelmed border agencies, add more immigration judges and detention spaces, and alter a 2008 anti-trafficking law to permit Central American kids to be sent back home without deportation hearings.

Meanwhile in Wisconsin, the state Supreme Court upheld the 2011 law that ended collective bargaining for most public workers, sparked massive protests and led to Republican Gov. Scott Walker’s recall election and rise to national prominence, Scott Walker reports, Wisconsin Supreme Court Upholds Anti-Collective Bargaining Law. Thursday’s 5-2 ruling is a victory for Walker who is considering a 2016 run for president and re-election this year and marks the end of a three year legal fight over union laws prohibiting public worker unions from collectively bargaining for anything beyond base wage increases based on inflation. A federal appeal court twice upheld the law as constitutional and the high court ruled in a lawsuit, filed by Madison teachers union and a union representing Milwaukee public workers, that the law violated workers’ constitutional rights to free assembly and equal protection. Walker introduced the proposal shortly after taking office in 2011 causing teachers, public workers and their supporters to flood the Capitol for weeks in order to block the passage. In addition, Democratic state senators fled the state for two weeks in a failed attempt to block the bill’s passage. The law bars automatic withdrawal from members’ checks, require annual elections to see if members want their unions to represent them and requires public employees to contribute to their health insurance and pension costs, which help local governments and schools save money to deal with cuts to balance the state’s shortfall, according to Walker. Walker faced a recall in 2012, but became the first governor ever in U.S. history to defeat a recall. The union law has been challenged on several fronts since it was introduced, but withstood them all. The state Supreme Court decided to take the case on Thursday after a Dane County judge sided with the unions and ruled in September 2012 that major portion were unconstitutional.

Internationally, on Thursday and Saturday, hospital officials said a U.S. humanitarian aid worker and two American doctors who contracted Ebola in West Africa will be transferred to the United States and treated in a special high security ward at Emory University Hospital in Atlanta, Reuters reports, US aid worker infected with Ebola to be moved to Atlanta hospital: official. The aid worker will be moved in the next several days to a special isolation unit set up in collaboration with the U.S. Center for Disease Control and Prevention, which is one of only four in the United States. An American doctor infected with Ebola arrived in Atlanta on Saturday landing in a specially equipped plane at a military base then took to the isolation unit at Emory, Ray Henry reports, US doctor with Ebola arrives in Atlanta for treatment. it marks the first time a patient with Ebola has entered the country for treatment with a second American aid workers expected to arrive at Emory in days. U.S. based Samaritan’s Purse paid for the transport and confirmed to the Associated Press the patient was Dr. Kent Brantly. The ambulance took him to the hospital among a wide open Interstate with no traffic flanked by SUVs and police cars then the patient was taken into the building at Emory by people in white protective clothing. The hospital is down the hill from the CDC. Dr. Jay Varney, an infectious disease specialist at Emory charged with Brantley’s care, said the hospital’s isolation unit is well equipped to handle patients with the disease. He added, “Ebola is only transmitted through blood and bodily fluids. Unlike the flu, like influenza, which we deal with every winter, Ebola cannot be spread through the air.” Ebola has no cure. Dr. Philip Brachman, an Emory University public health specialist who for many years headed the CDC’s disease detectives program, said Friday: “That’s all we can do for such a patient. We can make them feel comfortable” and let the body try to beat back the virus.”

While treatment for the infected begins, the U.S. has issued a travel warning for Americans going to the three West African countries hit by the Ebola outbreak and the World Health Organization deals with the spread in West Africa. On Thursday, U.S. health officials warned Americans not to travel to the area, Mike Stobbe reports, US warns against traveling to Ebola-hit countries. The advisory applies to nonessential travel to Guinea, Liberia and Sierra Leone, where the deadly disease has killed more than 700 people this year. Dr. Tom Frieden, director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, who announced the warning, said “The bottom line is Ebola is worsening in West Africa” adding that Ebola is “a tragic, dreadful and merciless virus.” The purpose of the warning is to limit U.S. travelers use of overburdened hospitals and clinics for injuries or other illnesses. Stobbe reports that the outbreak has a 60 percent fatality rate so far with no vaccines or specific treatment available. The CDC has 20 staffers at U.S. airports and border crossing to evaluate any traveler showing signs of dangerous infectious diseases, and isolate them when necessary. The agency is prepared to increase that staffing if needed, he said. Back in West Africa, World Health Organization chief Margaret Chan said Friday that the outbreak is out of control but can be stopped, Tom Miles reports, Ebola Out Of Control But Can Be Stopped: WHO Chief. Chan told the presidents of Guinea, Liberia, Sierra Leone and Ivory Coast at a meeting in Guinea’s capital Conakry: “This outbreak is moving faster than our efforts to control it. If the situation continues to deteriorate, the consequences can be catastrophic in terms of lost lives but also severe socioeconomic disruption and a high risk of spread to other countries. This meeting must mark a turning point in the outbreak response.” The death toll so far is at 729 including 60 healthcare workers and 1,323 cases overall. Chan added that “Constant mutation and adaptation are the survival mechanisms of viruses and other microbes. We must not give this virus opportunities to deliver more surprises. Moreover, public attitudes can create a security threat to response teams when fear and misunderstanding turn to anger, hostility, or violence.” The reason for the quick spread is due to cultural practices such as traditional burials and deep seated beliefs.

In Washington, while the CDC tackles a potential international debacle, President Barack Obama acknowledged on Friday that the United States conducted torture in the aftermath of 9/11 terror attacks, the AOL article reports, Obama: ‘We Tortured Some Folks’ After 9/11 And We Have To Take Responsibility For It. Obama said, “I was very clear that in the immediate aftermath of 9/11, we did some things that were wrong. We did a whole lot of things that were right, but we tortured some folks. We did some things that were contrary to our values. We crossed the line and that needs to be understood and accepted. And we have to, as a country, take responsibility for that so we don’t do it in the future.” In addition, Obama told reporters at the White House that a Senate investigation into interrogation techniques used by thew CIA would be declassified in August. According to the new CIA Inspector General’s Office report, agency employees in 2009 hacked Senate computers used to compile the investigation leading many lawmakers on the Hill to call for CIA Director John Brennan’s resignations over the matter.

Meanwhile, former President Bill Clinton confessed he could of killed Osama bin Laden, but decided against it due to the number of civilians who also would be killed just hours before the 9/11 attacks, Mollie Reilly reports, Bill Clinton, Hours Before 9/11 Attack, Said He ‘Could Have Killed’ Bin Laden. On Wednesday, Sky News host Paul Murray released a previously unreleased audio recording of Clinton talking to Australian businessmen on September 10, 2001: “Osama bin Laden — he’s a very smart guy, I’ve spent a lot of time thinking about him, and I nearly got him once,” Clinton says in the tape, answering a question about terrorism. “I nearly got him. And I could have gotten, I could have killed him, but I would have to destroy a little town called Kandahar in Afghanistan and kill 300 innocent women and children. And then I would have been no better than him. And so I didn’t do it.” The 9/11 Commission Report in 2004 identifies several operations targeting bin Laden in the 90s which prompted critics to accuse Clinton of not doing enough. During a 2006 interview with “Fox News Sunday,” Clinton defended his administration’s efforts saying: “I got closer to killing him than anybody has gotten since. And if I were still president, we’d have more than 20,000 troops [in Afghanistan] trying to kill him.”