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Friday, October 31, 2014

Virgin Galactic's SpaceShipTwo Crashes: 1 Dead, 1 Injured - NBCNews.com


Virigin Galactic’s SpaceShipTwo rocket plane exploded and crashed during a test flight on Friday, killing one crew member and seriously injuring another, authorities said.


The explosion scattered debris across a two-mile swath of the desert floor outside Mojave, California, and came after the plane was released from its WhiteKnightTwo carrier airplane. SpaceShipTwo was testing its rocket engine in flight for the first time in more than nine months.


"During the test, the vehicle suffered a serious anomaly resulting in the loss of the vehicle," Virgin Galactic said in a statement. "The WhiteKnightTwo carrier aircraft landed safely. Our first concern is the status of the pilots."


Jesse Borne, an officer at the California Highway Patrol, told NBC News that there was one fatality and one major injury.


The flight originated from the Mojave Air and Space Port, about 95 miles (150 kilometers) north of Los Angeles. The Federal Aviation Administration said two crew members were aboard SpaceShipTwo — which is consistent with Virgin Galactic's practice of having two test pilots who are equipped with parachutes. The pilots have not yet been identified.




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Photographer Ken Brown, who was covering the test flight, told NBC News that he saw an explosion high in the air and later came upon SpaceShipTwo debris scattered across a small area of the desert. The Mojave airport's director, Stuart Witt, said the craft crashed north of Mojave. He deferred further comment pending a news conference that is scheduled for 2 p.m. PT (5 p.m. ET).


Keith Holloway, a Washington-based spokesman for the National Transportation and Safety Board, said "we are in the process of collecting information." The FAA said it was also investigating the incident.


During the nine months since the previous rocket-powered test in January, Virgin Galactic switched SpaceShipTwo's fuel mixture from a rubber-based compound to a plastic-based mix — in hopes that the new formulation would boost the hybrid rocket engine's performance.


Before Friday's flight, the most recent aerial outing was on Oct. 7, when SpaceShipTwo took an unpowered, gliding flight back to the Mojave runway.


The latest test got off to a slow start. SpaceShipTwo spent more than three hours on the Mojave runway, slung beneath its WhiteKnightTwo mothership, while the ground team assessed whether the weather was right for flight. The go-ahead was finally given for takeoff at 9:19 a.m. PT (12:19 p.m. ET).


It took WhiteKnightTwo about 45 minutes to get to 50,000 feet, the altitude at which it released SpaceShipTwo for free flight.


The flight was part of Virgin Galactic's long-running program to test SpaceShipTwo in preparation for suborbital trips to the edge of outer space. Virgin Galactic had said the first trip to an outer-space altitude — usually defined as 100 kilometers, or 62 miles — could have taken place before the end of the year, depending on how the tests went.


The company's billionaire founder, Richard Branson, was hoping to ride on the first commercial flight next year. After the crash, Branson said in a Twitter update that he was "flying to Mojave immediately to be with the team."


More than 700 customers have paid as much as $250,000 for a ride on the rocket plane.


Image: SpaceShipTwo and WhiteKnightTwoJason DiVenere / Scaled Composites

Virgin Galactic's SpaceShipTwo rocket plane is slung beneath the WhiteKnightTwo carrier plane before Friday's takeoff.



NBC News' Julianne Pepitone and James Eng contributed to this report. NBCUniversal has established a multi-platform partnership with Virgin Galactic to track the development of SpaceShipTwo and televise Branson's spaceflight.


First published October 31 2014, 7:23 AM









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'He will face justice': Fugitive Eric Frein arraigned - USA TODAY






Video Keywords law enforcement officer reckless endangerment Attempted murder



Shooting suspect Eric Frein, who led police on a seven-week manhunt after a fatal ambush outside a rural state police barracks, appears gaunt and battered at his Pennsylvania arraignment. (Oct. 31) AP



Video Transcript

Automatically Generated Transcript (may not be 100% accurate)



00:00 Based on the facts and evidence. We have charged mr.
00:04 bringing. With murder in the first degree. Homicide. Of a law
00:10 enforcement officer. Attempted murder in the first degree. Attempted homicide of
00:17 a law enforcement officer. Assault of a law enforcement officer. Possession
00:23 of weapons of mass destruction. Discharging a firearm into an occupied
00:28 structure. Possession of an instrument of crime. And reckless endangerment. My
00:35 understanding he was outside of the hangar and did not go
00:38 back into the hangar at all the team was sweeping through
00:40 the area surprised him. As he was that outside of the
00:44 hangar. Gave him commands to surrender he complied with those commands
00:48 and was taken into custody. You know it's it's difficult for
00:52 everyone in the state police and particularly for the Dixon family.
00:56 But but I think that there's also a sense of relief
00:59 that this is ended. A relief that that there won't be
01:04 anyone else injured in the course of this manhunt that was
01:06 always a big concern. This individual has shown himself to be
01:09 very dangerous both with the rifles that he carried handguns and
01:13 the explosives that does that he had built.






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After 7 weeks living off the land in a rugged state forest, a subdued Eric Frein, showing a small cut on his left forehead, was arraigned Friday in Milford, Pa., on a capital murder charge of killing a state trooper with a high-powered rifle.


For law enforcement in Pennsylvania, the capture of the 31-year-old self-taught survivalist Thursday night by U.S. Marshals was personal. He was put in handcuffs belonging to the state trooper he is accusing of killing, Cpl. Byron Dickson, and placed in Dickson's patrol car.


"Now he will face justice,'' Pennsylvania Gov. Tom Corbett said.


Frein, wearing an orange jumpsuit, arrived at the courthouse in a caravan that included an armored vehicle and police in fatigues carrying weapons.


Handcuffed and subdued, the suspect was taken from a squad car and marched into the courthouse to the cheers and jeers of local residents.


U.S. Marshals – part of a $10 million manhunt over 48 days – stumbled upon Frein unarmed in a field near a hangar at a small abandoned airport in Tannersville on Thursday night in a "routine sweep" of the area, state trooper Lt. Col George Bivens told reporters Friday after the arraignment.




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He said that Frein was interviewed by troopers after his capture, but Bivens declined to elaborate.


Asked why Frein allegedly fired on Dickson in the original shootings, Bivens said, "I have characterized his actions in the past as 'pure evil' and I would stand by that."


Bivens said weapons found in the hangar were being collected and processed.


Asked if they knew how Frein was able to survive in the rugged terrain for almost seven weeks, Bivens said the fugitive had hidden some supplies but was also able to get into cabins and other occupied structures to find food and shelter from the weather.


He had been hiding in the hangar in recent days, officials said, but was surrounded and captured while walking in a nearby field.


"He was definitely surprised,'' state police commissioner Frank Noonan said Thursday night..


He said Frein, who complied when ordered to drop to his knees and surrender, "gave up because he was caught and he had no choice but to give up."


Noonan said authorities had kept up the pressure to try to capture the fugitive in the woods for fear that if he got into populated areas he might try to kill other police officers or civilians.


"We weren't going to stop until this fugitive was arrested," he said. "And I'm glad it ended without any other loss of life, including his."


Dickson's family, as well as wounded Trooper Alex Douglass and his family, expressed "relief and gratitude" over Frein's arrest, Noonan said.


The capture brought widespread relief in the Pocono Mountain communities near the search area, which was on edge during the lengthy manhunt.


Canceled Halloween festivities were back on the schedule Friday.


"We as a town think the kids have gone through enough," said Ralph Megliola, chairman of the township board of supervisors.


Outside the local state police station where Frein was taken after he was caught, local residents waved American flags and signs thanking Pennsylvania State Police.


Frein was captured about 35 miles from where Dickson was shot and killed by a sharpshooter outside the state police barracks in Blooming Grove on Sept. 12. The abandoned airport where he was found was the old Birchwood-Pocono Airpark, which was built in the early 1960s for a local resort and closed in 1998.


Pike county District Attorney Raymond Tonkin said he had filed an array of charges against Frein including first-degree murder, homicide of a law enforcement officer, attempted murder, possession of weapons of mass destruction and reckless endangerment. He said he would seek the death penalty in the case.


Noonan said Frein was in good condition and "looked healthier than I would have expected.''


A local resident, 15-year-old Daniel Margoli, tells the Times-Tribune of Scranton that he saw police bringing the shackled suspect out of the field.


"He looked really not healthy," Margoli told the newspaper. "He was real dirty actually. His hair was just all greasy."


Contacted by phone, Frein's sister, Tiffany said of her brother's capture, "I don't really know how to handle it," the Times-Tribune reports.







Frein is accused of using a high-powered rifle to kill Dickson, a 38-year-old father of two, and wound 31-year-old Douglass during shift change outside the barracks. The exact motive for the shootings has not been announced, but Frein had voiced strong sentiments against government and law enforcement. Authorities have said they do not believe the troopers were specifically targeted.


Frein had only a minor criminal record — a decade-old misdemeanor case involving items stolen from a World War II re-enactors' event in Upstate New York, for which he spent 109 days in jail.


He belonged to a war-simulation group modeled after Cold War-era Eastern European troops. That apparently led to a film credit: He played the "2nd German soldier" in the 2007 movie Lustig, which relates the tale of a concentration camp survivor.


Frein was a member of the Pocono Mountain High School rifle team. A police affidavit said Frein's father, retired Maj. E. Michael Frein, served in the Army for 28 years. He told investigators that he had trained his son in marksmanship — and that his son "doesn't miss."


In the barracks shootings, the sniper, using a .308-caliber rifle, also fired at a civilian dispatcher as she tried to aid the victims, police said. The gunman fired four shots over about a minute and a half, video surveillance indicated.


The relentless search for the suspect began immediately afterward. Authorities found two empty rifle cases, military gear, flashlights, a black hooded sweatshirt, camouflage face paint and information on foreign embassies in the woods near the barracks.


A week later, authorities said they found an AK-47-style weapon, ammunition and other items they believe belonged to Frein. Police also found a U.S. Army manual titled "Sniper Training and Employment" in the suspect's bedroom at his parents' house.


Over the 48 days before his capture, authorities thought they had long-distance glimpses of the fugitive in the thousands of acres of woodland in the Ponocos near the New York and New Jersey borders. But authorities had to tread lightly because of Frein's skills as a sharpshooter.


The first break in the case came a few days after the shooting when a neighbor walking his dog found a Jeep Cherokee partially submerged in a swampy area. The neighbor called 911 and authorities found Frein's driver's license, Social Security card, gaming permit and two spent .308 shell casings, according to a state police affidavit.


In the weeks that followed, other gear, pipe bombs and ammunition linked to Frein was found.


Contributing: Associated Press


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Judge rejects strict limits on US nurse who treated Ebola patients - Reuters




FORT KENT Maine Fri Oct 31, 2014 4:01pm EDT







1 of 8. Nurse Kaci Hickox (L) joined by her boyfriend Ted Wilbur speak with the media outside of their home in Fort Kent, Maine October 31, 2014.


Credit: Reuters/Joel Page





FORT KENT Maine (Reuters) - Declaring Ebola fears in the United States "not entirely rational," a judge rejected Maine's bid for a quarantine on a nurse who treated victims of the disease in West Africa but tested negative for it, and instead imposed limited restrictions.



Nurse Kaci Hickox's challenge of the Maine quarantine became a key battleground for the dispute between officials in some U.S. states who have imposed strict quarantines on health workers returning from three Ebola-ravaged West African countries and the federal government, which opposes such measures.



The most deadly outbreak of the disease on record has killed nearly 5,000 people, all but a handful of them in Liberia, Guinea and Sierra Leone.



Maine Governor Paul LePage said that while he was disappointed by the order from Charles LaVerdiere, the chief judge of Maine District Court, the New England state would abide by it.



Hickox, 33, said she was pleased with the ruling and said people need to "overcome the fear."



On Thursday, the nurse defied the state's quarantine order and went on a bike ride with her boyfriend. That prompted the governor to try to enforce her quarantine at home through the courts.



In Friday's order, LaVerdiere said, "the court is fully aware of the misconceptions, misinformation, bad science and bad information being spread from shore to shore in our country with respect to Ebola.



"The court is fully aware that people are acting out of fear and that this fear is not entirely rational. However, whether that fear is rational or not, it is present and it is real," the judge added, saying Hickox should follow three restrictions even though she is "not infectious."



After a hearing held by telephone, LaVerdiere decided that Hickox must continue direct monitoring of her health, coordinate travel plans with health officials and report any symptoms.



Speaking to reporters alongside boyfriend Ted Wilbur outside her two-story clapboard house in the small town of Fort Kent along the Canadian border, Hickox said she would comply.



"It's just a good day," Hickox said. "I am taking things minute by minute. Tonight, I am going to try to convince Ted to make me my favorite Japanese meal. And I think we're going to watch scary movies since it's Halloween."



Hickox tested negative for Ebola after returning from working for Doctors Without Borders in Sierra Leone. She also objected when the state of New Jersey put her into isolation when she arrived at Newark airport.



She said he hoped to be able to return for more work in West Africa. "I love working overseas. It's been a large part of my life since 2006," Hickox said.



"I know that Ebola is a scary disease. I have seen it face-to-face and I know that we are nowhere near winning this battle," she added.



'HAPPY HALLOWEEN'



Hickox said she has no candy to give to children who may be going house to house for the spooky holiday "because we haven't been shopping for a while" but finished her appearance by wishing reporters, "Happy Halloween."



She had given Maine a deadline of Thursday to lift an order that she remain at home until Nov. 10. The state did not lift the 21-day quarantine. Twenty-one days is the maximum incubation period for Ebola.



In an interview, the nurse's attorney, Norman Siegel, called the decision "a terrific win for Kaci. It validates what she̢۪s been saying."



In a statement, LePage said, "As governor, I have done everything I can to protect the health and safety of Mainers. The judge has eased restrictions with this ruling and I believe it is unfortunate. However, the state will abide by law."



Following the ruling, state troopers who had been stationed outside Hickox's home departed.



The Republican governor has been in a tough, three-way re-election battle that culminates in Tuesday's elections. Nationwide, Ebola has become as much of a political issue as a public health question, with some politicians calling for a ban on travel from the three West African countries.



Medical professionals say Ebola is difficult to catch and is spread through direct contact with bodily fluids from an infected person and is not transmitted by asymptomatic people. Ebola is not airborne.



Public health experts, the United Nations, federal officials and even President Barack Obama have expressed concern that state quarantines for returning doctors and nurses could discourage potential medical volunteers from fighting the outbreak at its source in West Africa.



U.S. public concern about the virus is high even though only one person in the country is currently being treated for it, a New York doctor, Craig Spencer, who cared for patients in West Africa.



In New York on Friday, U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations Samantha Power defended federal guidelines for monitoring healthcare workers returning from the three Ebola-stricken countries.



Power spoke at a Reuters Newsmaker event hours after returning from a four-day trip to Liberia, Guinea and Sierra Leone. She said she believed current federal guidelines for returning healthcare workers balanced "the need to respond to the fears that this has generated" in the United States with the known science on the disease.



(Additional reporting by Joseph Ax, Jonathan Allen, and Brendan O'Brien; Writing by Will Dunham; Editing by Jonathan Oatis and Grant McCool)












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Thursday, October 30, 2014

Accused Pa. cop killer Eric Frein captured - USA TODAY

Michael Winter, John Bacon and William M. Welch, USA TODAY 1:29 a.m. EDT October 31, 2014






After roughly 6 weeks on the run, accused cop killer Eric Frein was captured by police and was arrested using the handcuffs of Cpl. Bryon Dickson, the officer he is accused of killing.





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Eric Frein, suspected of killing one Pennsylvania trooper and wounding another in a September ambush, was captured Thursday after 48 days on the run, the governor and state police officials confirmed.


"Now he will face justice,'' Pennsylvania Gov. Tom Corbett said.


The local district attorney immediately said he would charge Frein with murder and would seek the death penalty.


The 31-year-old Frein, who was one of the FBI's 10-most-wanted fugitives, reportedly was armed when U.S. Marshals found him at a hanger at a small, abandoned airport in Tannersville. That's about 35 miles from the scene of the Sept. 12 attack on the state police barracks in Blooming Grove.


State police commissioner Frank Noonan said a group of U.S. Marshals spotted him in a field near the hangar while searching the area. They ordered him to surrender and fall to his knees, Noonan said, and Frein complied.


"He was definitely surprised,'' Noonan said.


"He gave up because he was caught and he had no choice but to give up,'' Noonan said.


He said Frein "did not have a gun on his person'' when captured.


He said when he was turned over to state police, they placed him in handfuffs belonging to the state trooper he is accused of killing, Cpl. Byron Dickson, and placed him in the trooper's patrol car.


Pike county District Attorney Raymond Tonkin said he had filed an array of charges against Frein including first degree murder, homicide of a law enforcement officer, attempted murder, possession of weapons of mass destruction and reckless endangerment.


Noonan said Frein was in good condition and did not require medical attention: "He looked healthier than I would have expected.''


He said officials believe Frein had been in the area around the hangar for some time. He said they were seeking a search warrant for the hangar and would look for indications Frein may have been using the hangar as a hideout.


Noonan said there was no indication Frein was receiving assistance from anyone.


The airport was the old Birchwood-Pocono Airpark, which was built in the early 1960s for a local resort and closed in 1998.


Law enforcement sources told news organizations Frein surrendered peacefully.


He was photographed in the back of a state police car.


"I can confirm that we have taken Eric Frein into custody. Further information will be released at a later time," state police spokeswoman Connie Devens said in a statement to WPVI.


The capture brought widespread relief in the Pocono Mountain communities near the search. Many had canceled Halloween observances out of fear he was on the loose. Outside the local state police station where he was taken, people waved American flags and signs thanking Pennsylvania State Police.


Frein had eluded capture in the rugged mountain woods since the Sept. 12 attack in the rural hamlet about 25 miles from the Canadensis home where he lived with his parents.


Firing from woods across from the barracks, the gunman used a high-powered rifle to kill Dickson, a 38-year-old father of two, and wound 31-year-old Trooper Alex Douglass during shift change. The exact motive for the shootings has not been announced, but Frein had voiced strong sentiments against government and law enforcement.


Authorities have said they do not believe the troopers were specifically targeted.



Pennsylvania State Police said Eric Frein, wanted for allegedly killing one trooper and wounding another during a sniper ambush on Sept. 12, belongs to a "military simulation unit" that role-plays as soldiers from Eastern Europe.(Photo: Pennsylvania State Police via AP)



Frein was described as a self-trained survivalist, weapons enthusiast and expert marksman who role-played as a Serbian soldier. The FBI said he claimed to have fought with Serbians in Africa, and studied Russian and Serbian languages.


The sniper, using a .308-caliber rifle, also fired at a civilian dispatcher as she tried to aid the victims, police said. The gunman fired four shots over about a minute and a half, video surveillance indicated.


The shooter then vanished into the woods. The barracks, about 35 miles east of Scranton, not far from the borders of New York and New Jersey, sits on the edge of thousands of acres of state woodland in the Pocono Mountains.


While searching the woods, authorities also recovered two empty rifle cases, military gear, flashlights, a black hooded sweatshirt, camouflage face paint and information on foreign embassies. A week later, authorities said they found an AK-47-style weapon, ammunition and other items they believe belonged to Frein. Police also found a U.S. Army manual titled "Sniper Training and Employment" in the suspect's bedroom at his parents' house.The first break in the case came a few days after the shooting when a neighbor walking his dog found a Jeep Cherokee partially submerged in a swampy area. The neighbor called 911 and authorities found Frein's driver's license, Social Security card, gaming permit and two spent .308 shell casings, according to a state police affidavit.


In the weeks that followed, other gear, pipe bombs and ammunition linked to Frein was found. Several unconfirmed sightings were reported.


Trackers also discovered a journal — allegedly kept by Frein and found in a bag of trash at a hastily abandoned campsite — that offered a chilling account of the ambush and his subsequent escape into the woods. The journal's author described Dickson as falling "still and quiet" after being shot twice, the last time in the head.


Amid the manhunt by about 1,000 state, federal and local officers, schools were closed, road blocks disrupted traffic and delayed movement, and residents often were ordered to shelter in place after reported sightings of the fugitive.


Police spotted a man they believed to be Frein at several points during the manhunt, but it was always from a distance, with the rugged terrain allowing him to keep them at bay. Police said he appeared to be treating the manhunt as a game.







During the search, State police Lt. Col. George Bivens had described Frein as a survivalist with strong anti-government feelings. He called him a coward.


Noonan said Frien's violence appeared to be aimed at law enforcement in general rather than the individuals he shot.


Frein had only a minor criminal record — a decade-old misdemeanor case involving items stolen from a World War II re-enactors' event in Upstate New York, for which he spent 109 days in jail.


He belonged to a war-simulation group modeled after Cold War-era Eastern European troops. That apparently led to a film credit: He played the "2nd German soldier" in the 2007 movie Lustig, which relates the tale of a concentration camp survivor.


Frein was a member of the Pocono Mountain High School rifle team. A police affidavit said Frein's father, retired Maj. E. Michael Frein, served in the Army for 28 years. He told investigators that he had trained his son in marksmanship — and that his son "doesn't miss."






Video Keywords Eric Green Salinas Pennsylvania law enforcement Associated Press



Authorities say they have captured a man accused of killing one Pennsylvania State trooper and seriously injuring another during an ambush outside police barracks. (Oct. 30) AP



Video Transcript

Automatically Generated Transcript (may not be 100% accurate)



00:00 The suspect that the senators and intense manhunt is now
00:02 in custody. Authorities say they've captured 31 year old Eric Green
00:06 week Freeney is accused of opening fire outside the blooming grove
00:09 police barracks in Pennsylvania on September 12 an ambush that killed
00:13 corporal Brian Dixon in critically wounded trooper Alex Douglas. Freeing described
00:18 by law enforcement as a survivalist and has been on the
00:21 run for the last seven weeks until his capture on Thursday
00:24 Salinas say eat Associated Press.





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Gonzalez: Quarantined nurse Kaci Hickox is bravely fighting policy not based in ... - New York Daily News


AP PROVIDES ACCESS TO THIS HANDOUT PHOTO TO BE USED SOLELY TO ILLUSTRATE NEWS REPORTING OR COMMENTARY ON THE FACTS OR EVENTS DEPICTED IN THIS IMAGE. THIS IMAGE MAY ONLY BE USED FOR 14 DAYS FROM TIME OF TRANSMISSION; NO ARCHIVING; NO LICENSING.Steven Hyman/AP Prominent New York civil rights attorney Norman Siegel (left) speaks with client Kaci Hickox through the tent where she was quarantined outside a New Jersey hospital.

Civil rights lawyer Norman Siegel has defended countless victims of government abuse over the years, including people swept up in another hysterical call for health quarantines during the early days of the AIDS epidemic.


But even the grizzled Siegel has been struck by the bravery and eloquence of Kaci Hickox, the 33-year-old nurse who telephoned him Saturday from a makeshift tent on the grounds of a New Jersey hospital to seek his legal help.


“She’s terrific, and she knows exactly what her rights are and she explains it all clearly,” Siegel said after visiting Hickox Sunday at the isolation unit where she’d been confined by Gov. Chris Christie.


Hickox was refusing to submit to a mandatory 21-day quarantine first decreed on Friday by Christie and our own Gov. Cuomo for all health care workers returning from West Africa through Port Authority airports.


After risking her life with the group Doctors Without Borders to treat Ebola patients in Guinea, the last thing Hickox expected when she landed at Newark Airport was to be “treated like a criminal” in her own country, she said.


Doctors Without Borders, after all, has more experience fighting Ebola than any government or organization. The group’s leadership immediately objected to the “blanket forced quarantine,” saying “such a measure is not based upon established medical science.”


AP PROVIDES ACCESS TO THIS HANDOUT PHOTO TO BE USED SOLELY TO ILLUSTRATE NEWS REPORTING OR COMMENTARY ON THE FACTS OR EVENTS DEPICTED IN THIS IMAGE. THIS IMAGE MAY ONLY BE USED FOR 14 DAYS FROM TIME OF TRANSMISSION; NO ARCHIVING; NO LICENSING. BEST QUALITYUncredited/AP Hickox is now under a mandatory quarantine at her home in Maine.

The most respected medical publication in the country, the New England Journal of Medicine, called the policy “unfair and unwise” and warned it would dissuade health workers from volunteering to fight the Ebola epidemic in Africa.


“The governors’ action is like driving a carpet tack with a sledgehammer: It gets the job done but overall is more destructive than beneficial,” the medical journal said.


As for the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, it keeps urging monitoring measures that don’t include quarantines for people who show no symptoms of illness.


None of this mattered to “Sit Down and Shut Up” Christie, though he avoided a legal suit by Siegel by allowing Hickox to travel home to Maine.


Cuomo seems a bit more sympathetic. The 21-day quarantine could be served at home, Cuomo said Sunday, but it would still be mandatory.


NYC PAPERS OUT. Social media use restricted to low res file max 184 x 128 pixels and 72 dpiJefferson Siegel/New York Daily News 'She knows exactly what her rights are and she explains it all clearly,' Siegel, a noted civil rights attorney, said of Hickox.

“You better be home when they (health officials) come (to check),” Cuomo said. “If you’re not home, then you violated the quarantine.”


Some 30 health workers a day are arriving at Kennedy Airport from West Africa, Cuomo told The News earlier this week, so the number facing mandatory home quarantine could grow rapidly.


His office did not respond, however, to repeated requests from The News seeking the number of returning health care workers who have already been subjected to the governor’s policy.


Gov. Cuomo, how many people have been quarantined?


Meanwhile, other governors have taken to ignoring the science and making up their own quarantine rules. They include Paul LePage, the Republican governor in Hickox’s home state of Maine who is facing a desperate fight for reelection on Tuesday.


Gov. Cuomo has not responded to requests seeking the number of returning medical workers who have been put in quarantine.Julia Xanthos/New York Daily News Gov. Cuomo has not responded to requests seeking the number of returning medical workers who have been put in quarantine.

LePage keeps trying to keep Hickox quarantined in the home she shares there with her boyfriend.


The couple responded by taking a one-mile bike ride Thursday morning.


They chose the bike ride, Siegel said, because they could challenge the quarantine without upsetting local residents by entering some public spot.


LePage threatened to go to court to enforce his quarantine. Hickox welcomes the chance to have any of these governors — LePage, Christie or Cuomo — explain why they’re taking away rights of medical workers trying to fight the Ebola epidemic.


“You can’t give the government the power to violate the Constitution for a minute, let alone 21 days,” said Siegel, the lawyer who has seen this movie before.









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FBI Most-Wanted Fugitive Eric Frein Captured Alive - ABC News




Copy

Accused cop killer Eric Frein, one of the FBI's 10 most wanted fugitives, has been captured after a 48-day manhunt, police sources said tonight.


It has been "a very good day," a Pennsylvania law enforcement source said.


Gov. Tom Corbett and law enforcement officials will hold a press conference at 11 p.m. on the arrest.


Frein, 31, was captured by U.S. Marshals at an abandoned airplane hanger near Tannersville, a source said. Frein had a long gun and knives but no shots were fired. He was taken to the State Police barracks in Blooming Grove, the same place where he allegedly ambushed two state troopers.


Frein had eluded authorities since Sept. 12, when he allegedly killed one Pennsylvania state trooper and injured another during his attack on the barracks. At times, 1,000 officers searched the rugged mountains for Frein, who police said had planned his attack and hiding for years. The lives of residents in the area were disrupted by the manhunt, including school closings and event cancellations.





Police believed Frein, a self-trained survivalist from nearby Canadensis, had previously hidden supplies in the woods that he could draw from. They found two pipe bombs, an AK-47, ammunition and various food and supplies they believe belong to the suspect.


On Tuesday, police investigated a possible sighting of Frein made by a resident in Barrett Township, said Trooper Connie Devens, a spokesperson for the Pennsylvania State Police. It was one of several such sightings.



PHOTO: Pennsylvania cop shooting suspect Eric Frein in 2009.

Courtesy Roman Kamensky



PHOTO: Pennsylvania cop shooting suspect Eric Frein in 2009.



A Pennsylvania town had banned trick-or-treating this year while hundreds of cops search nearby woods for Frein. Barrett Township said its annual Halloween parade and 5K Scarecrow Race were canceled indefinitely, and trick-or-treating was banned this year. But township officials told ABC News tonight that there will be trick or treating tomorrow though the parade won't happen.


Notes found in the woods, allegedly penned by Frein, offered a "cold-blooded" and "chilling" account of how he shot and killed the trooper last month before escaping into the forest, authorities said.


"Got a shot around 11 p.m. and took it. He dropped. I was surprised at how quick," Lt. Col. George Bivens said at a press conference Oct. 8, reading from the note police believe Frein wrote. "I took a follow-up shot on his head-neck area. He was still and quiet after that."


Police said they linked Frein to the ambush after a man walking his dog discovered his partly submerged SUV three days later in a swamp a few miles from the shooting scene. Inside, investigators found shell casings matching those found at the barracks as well as Frein's driver's license, camouflage face paint, two empty rifle cases and military gear.



PHOTO: Eric Frein is shown in this undated file photo provided by the Pennsylvania State Police.

Pennsylvania State Police/AP Photo



PHOTO: Eric Frein is shown in this undated file photo provided by the Pennsylvania State Police.



His criminal record appeared limited to a decade-old misdemeanor case involving items stolen from a World War II re-enactors event in upstate New York, for which he spent 109 days in jail.


A man and a woman believed to be Frein's parents, reached separately by telephone on Thursday, declined to comment to the Associated Press.









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UPDATE 6-US nurse defies Ebola quarantine with bike ride; negotiations fail - Reuters



Fri Oct 31, 2014 6:59am IST





(Adds Connecticut girl returning to school, Dallas nurse's dog, Cuba health conference)



By Steve Holland



CAPE ELIZABETH, Maine Oct 30 (Reuters) - A nurse who treated Ebola patients in Sierra Leone but has tested negative for the virus went for a bike ride on Thursday, defying Maine's order that she be quarantined in her home and setting up a legal collision with Governor Paul LePage.



Attorneys for Kaci Hickox, 33, said they had not yet been served with a court order to enforce the 21-day quarantine - matching the virus's maximum incubation period - but remained prepared to fight such an order if necessary.



LePage's office said negotiations with Hickox, who worked with Doctors Without Borders in Sierra Leone, "have failed despite repeated efforts by state officials" and that he would "exercise the full extent of his authority allowable by law."



The quarantine showdown between Hickox and Maine has become the focal point of a struggle between several U.S. states opting for stringent measures to guard against Ebola and a federal government wary of discouraging potential medical volunteers.



Mandatory quarantines ordered by some U.S. states on doctors and nurses returning from West Africa's Ebola outbreak are creating a "chilling effect" on Doctors Without Borders operations there, the humanitarian group said on Thursday.



Hickox left her home in the small Maine town of Fort Kent, along the Canadian border, and television news images showed her taking a morning bicycle ride with her boyfriend, Ted Wilbur. Hickox has given the New England state a deadline of Thursday to lift an order that she remain at home until Nov. 10, or she will go to court.



"It's a beautiful day for a bike ride," said Hickox, wearing a helmet and other bike gear as she headed out for her 3-mile (5-km) ride while police stationed outside her house stood by without trying to stop her, according to local media.



LePage's office said he was open to an arrangement in which she could go for walks, runs or bike rides but not go into public places or come within 3 feet (1 meter) of other people.



"I was ready and willing - and remain ready and willing - to reasonably address the needs of healthcare workers meeting guidelines to assure the public health is protected," said LePage, a Republican locked in a tough three-way re-election battle.



President Barack Obama, who has criticized mandatory quarantine policies imposed by some states for returning medical workers like Hickox, flew to Maine on Thursday to campaign in the town of Cape Elizabeth for Democratic candidates, including Mike Michaud, who is trying to unseat LePage in Tuesday's midterm elections.



Asked for comment on Hickox's situation, White House spokesman Josh Earnest told reporters aboard Air Force One en route to Maine that U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention officials have been in regular touch with the health authorities in the state.



"Ultimately, it is their decision," said Earnest, adding that Obama had no plans to see Hickox while in Maine. Cape Elizabeth is at the opposite end of the state, on its southeastern coast. Obama did not address the Ebola issue in public remarks at a voter rally.



One of Hickox's attorneys, Norman Siegel, defended his client's decision to go for a bike ride but noted that she avoided the center of town so as not to "freak people out."



"Since there's no court order, she can be out in public," Siegel said. "Even if people disagree with her position, I would hope they respect the fact that she's taking into account the fear, which is based on misinformation about the way the disease is transmitted."



Medical professionals say Ebola is difficult to catch and is spread through direct contact with bodily fluids from an infected person and is not transmitted by asymptomatic people. Ebola is not airborne.



U.S. concern about the disease is high even though there is only one person in the country currently being treated for it, a New York doctor, Craig Spencer, who cared for patients in West Africa. Spencer, 33, remains in serious but stable condition, New York's Bellevue Hospital said on Thursday.



Hickox tested negative for Ebola after returning from Sierra Leone, one of the three impoverished countries at the heart of the outbreak that has killed about 5,000 people there.



She previously blasted New Jersey Governor Chris Christie after she was taken from Newark's airport and put in isolation in a tent before being driven to Maine to spend the rest of her 21-day quarantine at home.



Such treatment of returning medics is affecting those still in West Africa, said Sophie Delaunay, executive director of Doctors Without Borders in the United States.



"There is rising anxiety and confusion among MSF staff members in the field over what they may face when they return home upon completion of their assignments in West Africa," said Delaunay in a statement emailed to Reuters. Doctors Without Borders is also known by its French name, Médecins Sans Frontières, or MSF.



Elsewhere, there were happier outcomes for people caught in the crossfire in the battle against Ebola.



A 7-year-old girl banned from attending school in Connecticut over fears that she may be carrying the virus after a trip to Nigeria will be allowed back on Friday, according to a joint statement by the school district and the girl's father, who had filed a lawsuit to get the ban lifted.



Dallas nurse Nina Pham, who recovered from an Ebola infection, will be reunited with 1-year-old King Charles Spaniel on Saturday after testing indicated the pet was free of Ebola, a spokeswoman for the city of Dallas said.



With elections coming Tuesday, Republicans aiming to take full control of the U.S. Congress have made criticism of Obama's response to Ebola - which they call inept and too weak - a part of their campaign message.



Some U.S. states have imposed automatic, 21-day quarantines on doctors and nurses returning from treating Ebola patients in Liberia, Sierra Leone and Guinea. Obama and other critics say such steps may discourage American doctors and nurses who are desperately needed there from volunteering.



Confusion over how to treat potential Ebola carriers in the United States is mirrored across the Americas, according to a meeting of health experts in Havana, Cuba, on Thursday.



"Everyone agrees they must be watched. How that is done is up to each country," said Jorge Perez, director of Cuba's Pedro Kouri Tropical Medicine Institute. "Every country is sovereign and can adopt the measures they want."



New York City and state officials on Thursday announced a program to encourage healthcare professionals to work in West Africa, an effort to deflect criticism of the state's mandatory quarantine.



The program will provide financial incentives and employment protections similar to the benefits and rights provided to military reservists, New York Governor Andrew Cuomo and New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio said jointly. (Additional reporting by Joseph Ax, Scott Malone, Jeff Mason, Brendan O'Brien, Ellen Wulfhorst, Susan Heavey, Roberta Rampton, Jon Herskovitz and Daniel Trotta; Writing by Will Dunham and Bill Rigby; Editing by Jonathan Oatis, Grant McCool and Lisa Shumaker)












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FBI Most-Wanted Fugitive Eric Frein Captured Alive - ABC News




Copy

Accused cop killer and one of the FBI's most wanted fugitives Eric Frein has been captured after a 48-day manhunt, police sources said tonight.


It has been "a very good day," a Pennsylvania law enforcement source said.


Gov. Tom Corbett and law enforcement officials will hold a press conference at 11 p.m. on the arrest.


Frein, 31, was captured by U.S. Marshals in an unused hanger at the Pocono Mountain Municipal Airport near Tannersville, a source said. Frein had a long gun and knives but no shots were fired. He was taken to the State Police barracks in Blooming Grove, the same place where he allegedly ambushed the troopers.


Frein had eluded authorities since Sept. 12, when he allegedly killed one Pennsylvania state trooper and injured another during an ambush of the barracks. At times, 1,000 officers searched the rugged mountains for Frein, who police said had planned his attack and hiding for years. The lives of residents in the area were disrupted by the manhunt, including school closings and event cancellations.





Police believed Frein, a self-trained survivalist from nearby Canadensis, had previously hidden supplies in the woods that he could draw from. They found two pipe bombs, an AK-47, ammunition and various food and supplies they believe belong to the suspect.


On Tuesday, police investigated a possible sighting of Frein made by a resident in Barrett Township, said Trooper Connie Devens, a spokesperson for the Pennsylvania State Police. It was one of several such sightings.



PHOTO: Pennsylvania cop shooting suspect Eric Frein in 2009.

Courtesy Roman Kamensky



PHOTO: Pennsylvania cop shooting suspect Eric Frein in 2009.



A Pennsylvania town had banned trick-or-treating this year while hundreds of cops search nearby woods for Frein. Barrett Township said its annual Halloween parade and 5K Scarecrow Race were canceled indefinitely, and trick-or-treating was banned this year. But township officials told ABC News tonight that there will be trick or treating tomorrow though the parade won't happen.


Notes found in the woods, allegedly penned by Frein, offered a "cold-blooded" and "chilling" account of how he shot and killed the trooper last month before escaping into the forest, authorities said.


"Got a shot around 11 p.m. and took it. He dropped. I was surprised at how quick," Lt. Col. George Bivens said at a press conference Oct. 8, reading from the note police believe Frein wrote. "I took a follow-up shot on his head-neck area. He was still and quiet after that."


Police said they linked Frein to the ambush after a man walking his dog discovered his partly submerged SUV three days later in a swamp a few miles from the shooting scene. Inside, investigators found shell casings matching those found at the barracks as well as Frein's driver's license, camouflage face paint, two empty rifle cases and military gear.



PHOTO: Eric Frein is shown in this undated file photo provided by the Pennsylvania State Police.

Pennsylvania State Police/AP Photo



PHOTO: Eric Frein is shown in this undated file photo provided by the Pennsylvania State Police.



His criminal record appeared limited to a decade-old misdemeanor case involving items stolen from a World War II re-enactors event in upstate New York, for which he spent 109 days in jail.


A man and a woman believed to be Frein's parents, reached separately by telephone on Thursday, declined to comment to the Associated Press.









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Four Dead: Plane Slams Into Building at Kansas Airport - NBCNews.com




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A small airplane plowed into the top of a flight safety center at an airport in Kansas after losing engine power on takeoff Thursday, killing at least four people, including the pilot, and injuring five others. Officials said they believe everyone in the building has been accounted for.


The Beechcraft King Air twin-engine plane reported trouble after taking off from Mid-Continent Airport in Wichita, about 9:50 a.m. (10:50 a.m. ET) and hit a two-story FlightSafety International building while trying to return to the runway, the Federal Aviation Administration said. The crash sent up thick plumes of black smoke that could be seen for miles.


The pilot, who was identified as Mark Goldstein, declared an emergency shortly after takeoff, telling the control tower, "We just lost the left engine," according to radio traffic recorded by LiveATC.net. Another person — it remained unclear whether it was an air traffic controller or the pilot of another aircraft — said a few minutes later: "Looks like you guys got a fire going on."


After a long stretch of silence, the tower reports, "We just lost the aircraft."


Brian Youngers

Plane wheels are visible through the smoke at the scene of a small plane crash at an airport Thursday in Wichita, Kansas.



One person was in serious condition at Via Christi Hospital St. Francis in Wichita, the hospital said. Four other people were treated and released.


Brian Youngers was in an office directly across the street, about 100 feet away, when the plane crashed.


"We heard a plane just buzz the top of the building and heard a big, huge crash — a bang. We immediately ran outside and across the street, and the building was already going up in flames. You could see part of the wing hanging off the building, burning, and the landing gear."


Youngers said he ran to the back side of the building to see whether he could help and saw workers streaming out. Soon after, an airport police officer arrived and asked him to move away from the scene.


Jaison Podkanowicz, who works near the airport, told NBC News he heard a noise that sounded like "something falling off a truck" and then saw the airplane "just sitting on the top of the building on fire" as "black, hazy smoke" billowed from a gaping hole.


Wichita Fire Chief Ron Blackwell said only the pilot was on the airplane. Valerie Wise, a spokeswoman for the airport, said about 100 people were in the FlightSafety building at the time of the crash.


Most of the building had been searched, but rescue crews could not get into one simulator room on the north end because of the danger that it could collapse. They were waiting for a structural engineer to advise them on the safest way to bring in heavy machinery.


FAA investigators were at the scene, and the National Transportation Safety Board was on its way.


Image: Plane crashes into Wichita airportBrian Corn / Zuma Press

Firefighters try to put out a fire Thursday after a small plane crashed into a building at Mid-Continent Airport in Wichita, Kansas.



This is a breaking news story. Please refresh this page for updates.


First published October 30 2014, 8:15 AM









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Accused Pa. cop killer Eric Frein captured - USA TODAY

Michael Winter, John Bacon and William M. Welch, USA TODAY 9:50 p.m. EDT October 30, 2014






Frein, who has led police on a 48-day manhunt, was reportedly taken into custody Thursday night without any shots fired. Newslook





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Eric Frein, suspected of killing one Pennsylvania trooper and wounding another in a September ambush, was captured Thursday after 48 days on the run, the state police confirmed.


The 31-year-old Frein, who was one of the FBI's 10-most-wanted fugitives, reportedly was armed when U.S. Marshals found him at a hanger at a small, abandoned airport in Tannersville. That's about 35 miles from the scene of the Sept. 12 attack on the state police barracks in Blooming Grove.


WPVI-TV, citing sources, said marshals on routine patrol found him inside the hangar at the old Birchwood-Pocono Airpark, which was built in the early 1960s for a local resort and closed in 1998. Sources told KYW-TV he was arrested while trying to enter the hangar.


Law enforcement sources told news organizations Frein surrendered peacefully.


He was photographed in the back of a state police car.


"I can confirm that we have taken Eric Frein into custody. Further information will be released at a later time," state police spokeswoman Connie Devens said in a statement to WPVI.


Frein had eluded capture in the rugged mountain woods since the Sept. 12 attack in the rural hamlet about 25 miles from the Canadensis home where he lived with his parents.


Firing from woods across from the barracks, the gunman used a high-powered rifle to kill Cpl. Bryon Dickson, a 38-year-old father of two, and wound 31-year-old Trooper Alex Douglass during shift change. The exact motive for the shootings has not been announced, but Frein had voiced strong sentiments against government and law enforcement.


Authorities have said they do not believe the troopers were specifically targeted.


Frein has been charged with first-degree murder and attempted murder.



Pennsylvania State Police said Eric Frein, wanted for allegedly killing one trooper and wounding another during a sniper ambush on Sept. 12, belongs to a "military simulation unit" that role-plays as soldiers from Eastern Europe.(Photo: Pennsylvania State Police via AP)



He was described as a self-trained survivalist, weapons enthusiast and expert marksman who role-played as a Serbian soldier. The FBI said he claimed to have fought with Serbians in Africa, and studied Russian and Serbian languages.


The sniper, using a high-powered .308-caliber rifle and firing from woods across the road from the barracks, also fired at a civilian dispatcher as she tried to aid the victims, police said. The gunman fired four shots over about a minute and a half, video surveillance indicated.


The shooter then vanished into the woods. The barracks, about 35 miles east of Scranton not far from the borders of New York and New Jersey, sits on the edge of thousands of acres of state woodland in the Pocono Mountains. The search had focused on five square miles of dense forest not far from Fein's Canadensis, Pa., home.


While searching the woods, authorities also recovered two empty rifle cases, military gear, flashlights, a black hooded sweatshirt, camouflage face paint and information on foreign embassies. A week later, authorities conducting their search of the woods said they found an AK-47-style weapon, ammunition and other items they believe belonged to Frein.Police also found a U.S. Army manual titled "Sniper Training and Employment" in the suspect's bedroom at his parents' house.The first break in the case came a few days after the shooting when a neighbor walking his dog found a Jeep Cherokee partially submerged in a swampy area. The neighbor called 911, and authorities found Frein's driver's license, Social Security card, gaming permit and two spent .308 shell casings, according to a state police affidavit.


In the weeks that followed, other gear, pipe bombs and ammunition linked to Frein was found. Several unconfirmed sightings were reported. But Frein remained elusive.


Over the past several weeks, trackers found items they believe Frein hid or abandoned in the woods — including soiled diapers, empty packs of Serbian cigarettes, an AK-47-style assault rifle and ammunition and two pipe bombs that were functional and capable of causing significant damage.


They also discovered a journal — allegedly kept by Frein and found in a bag of trash at a hastily abandoned campsite — that offered a chilling account of the ambush and his subsequent escape into the woods. The journal's author described Dickson as falling "still and quiet" after being shot twice, the last time in the head.


Amid the manhunt by about 1,000 state, federal and local officers, schools were closed, road blocks disrupted traffic and delayed movement, and residents often were ordered to shelter in place after reported sightings of the fugitive.


Police spotted a man they believed to be Frein at several points during the manhunt, but it was always from a distance, with the rugged terrain allowing him to keep them at bay. Police said he appeared to be treating the manhunt as a game.


Frein expressed anti-law enforcement views online and to people who knew him.







During the search, State police Lt. Col. George Bivens had described Frein as a survivalist with strong anti-government feelings. He called him a coward.


State Police Commissioner Frank Noonan said Frien's violence appeared to be aimed at law enforcement in general rather than the individuals he shot.


Frein had only a minor criminal record — a decade-old misdemeanor case involving items stolen from a World War II re-enactors' event in Upstate New York, for which he spent 109 days in jail.


He belonged to a war-simulation group modeled after Cold War-era Eastern European troops. That apparently led to a film credit: He played the "2nd German soldier" in the 2007 movie Lustig, which relates the tale of a concentration camp survivor.


Frein was a member of the Pocono Mountain High School rifle team. A police affidavit said Frein's father, retired Maj. E. Michael Frein, served in the Army for 28 years. He told investigators that he had trained his son in marksmanship — and that his son "doesn't miss."






Video Keywords Eric Green Salinas Pennsylvania law enforcement Associated Press



Authorities say they have captured a man accused of killing one Pennsylvania State trooper and seriously injuring another during an ambush outside police barracks. (Oct. 30) AP



Video Transcript

Automatically Generated Transcript (may not be 100% accurate)



00:00 The suspect that the senators and intense manhunt is now
00:02 in custody. Authorities say they've captured 31 year old Eric Green
00:06 week Freeney is accused of opening fire outside the blooming grove
00:09 police barracks in Pennsylvania on September 12 an ambush that killed
00:13 corporal Brian Dixon in critically wounded trooper Alex Douglas. Freeing described
00:18 by law enforcement as a survivalist and has been on the
00:21 run for the last seven weeks until his capture on Thursday
00:24 Salinas say eat Associated Press.





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