Most Recent Posts

Updated at 2:30 p.m. ET

Here's a roundup of the latest developments on Ebola. We'll update this post as news happens.

White House press secretary Josh Earnest confirmed that the U.S. will conduct additional screenings of passengers arriving from the Ebola-infected region of West Africa. JFK, Newark, Chicago O'Hare, Dulles and Atlanta's Hartsfield airports will implement measures that would affect about 150 passengers a day.

The World Health Organization today also updated its Ebola figures, reporting a total of 8,033 cases and 3,879 deaths from the disease in West Africa.

In Spain, Teresa Romero Ramos, the nurse who was admitted to a hospital in Madrid after caring for an infected priest who'd returned from West Africa, reportedly told health authorities three times that she had a fever before she was placed in quarantine.

There were also reports that she may have become infected by touching gloves to her face while she was removing a protective suit she wore while caring for an Ebola patient.

Her dog, Excalibur, was euthanized, reportedly inside the apartment she lived in with her husband. The dog's body was then transported to an incinerator, reporter Lauren Frayer tells NPR's Goats and Soda blog.

Earlier, The Guardian reported:

"In a note distributed on social media by several animal protection organisations, Javier Limn Romero said health officials had asked for his consent to put down the dog Exclibur.

" 'I said no. And they told me that they would ask for a court order to enter my house and put him down,' Romero said in the note.

"The appeal was sent from Limn Romero's isolation ward in the Carlos III Hospital where his wife, Teresa Romero Ramos, is also in quarantine."

i i

This is an undated image released Wednesday by animal rights organization PACMA of a dog named Excalibur who is owned by Javier Limon and his wife, a nurse who was infected with Ebola in Madrid. Authorities said they planned to euthanize the dog as a precaution. AP hide caption

itoggle caption AP

This is an undated image released Wednesday by animal rights organization PACMA of a dog named Excalibur who is owned by Javier Limon and his wife, a nurse who was infected with Ebola in Madrid. Authorities said they planned to euthanize the dog as a precaution.

AP

A social media campaign to save the dog had been running with the Twitter hashtag #excalibur.

The Guardian newspaper cited the Spanish paper El Pais as saying that the nurse first contacted health authorities on Sept. 30. The Guardian writes:

" ... she complained of a slight fever and fatigue. Romero Ramos called a specialised service dedicated to occupational risk at the Carlos III hospital where she worked and had treated an Ebola patient, said Antonio Alemany from the regional government of Madrid. But as the nurse's fever had not reached 38.6C, she was advised to visit her local clinic where she was reportedly prescribed paracetamol [aspirin].

"Days later, according to the El Pas newspaper, Romero Ramos called the hospital again to complain about her fever. No action was taken.

"On Monday, she called the Carlos III hospital again, this time saying she felt terrible. Rather than transport her to the hospital that had treated the two missionaries who had been repatriated with Ebola, Romero Ramos was instructed to call emergency services and head to the hospital closest to her home. She was transported to the Alcorcn hospital by paramedics who were not wearing protective gear, El Pas reported."

Reuters quotes Spanish health authorities as saying today that another person being monitored in Madrid for Ebola had tested negative for the disease:

i i

Hospital workers attend a prayer vigil outside Texas Health Presbyterian Hospital on Tuesday. LM Otero/AP hide caption

itoggle caption LM Otero/AP

Hospital workers attend a prayer vigil outside Texas Health Presbyterian Hospital on Tuesday.

LM Otero/AP

"The man, a Spaniard who had travelled from Nigeria, was one of several people hospitalised after authorities confirmed on Monday that a Spanish nurse had caught the disease in Madrid.

"A second nurse was also cleared of Ebola. A third nursing assistant was hospitalised late on Tuesday for monitoring, a source at La Paz hospital said — bringing the number of people examined in hospital for Ebola to five, two of whom tested negative."

The chief medical officer at La Paz University Hospital, Dr. German Ramirez, was quoted in El Mundo as saying that Romero contracted Ebola when she touched her face with gloves she had used in the room where she was treating Manuel Garcia Viejo, a priest who had worked in Liberia. Viejo later died from the disease.

In Dallas, as we reported in another post, Thomas Eric Duncan, the man who traveled from Liberia and was the first person diagnosed with the disease in the U.S., has died at Texas Health Presbyterian Hospital.

Hospital officials say Duncan "succumbed to an insidious disease, Ebola," this morning.

In a statement, the hospital said: "He fought courageously in this battle. Our professionals, the doctors and nurses in the unit, as well as the entire Texas Health Presbyterian Hospital Dallas community, are also grieving his passing. We have offered the family our support and condolences at this difficult time."

Health officials are still watching a group of people who had contact with Duncan after he developed symptoms of the disease but before he was placed in isolation at the hospital.

Duncan first sought hospital care on Sept. 26 and was admitted on Sept. 28. Before his hospitalization, 10 of the 48 people being monitored had close contact with him and are being most closely watched. Since the first symptoms of the disease can begin in eight to 10 days after exposure, "this is a very critical week," said Dr. David Lakey, the Texas health commissioner. "We're at a very sensitive period when a contact could develop symptoms. We're monitoring with extreme vigilance."

In Omaha, Neb., a freelance cameraman, Ashoka Mukpo, who contracted Ebola in West Africa and is being treated at Nebraska Medical Center, will reportedly receive blood donated by Dr. Kent Brantly, who earlier survived the disease. Antibodies against Ebola in Brantly's blood could help Mukpo fight off the infection, officials say.

In Freetown, Sierra Leone, burial teams reportedly refused to collect bodies of Ebola victims in the capital and went on strike, apparently demanding more money, though officials there told The Associated Press that the situation has been "resolved."

The AP says: "In neighboring Liberia, health workers said they planned to strike if their demands for more money and safety equipment were not met by the end of the week."

And in Geneva, as NPR's Marilyn Geewax reports, the World Bank issued an estimate of the projected cost of the Ebola outbreak, saying it could reach $32.6 billion by the end of 2015 if the virus spreads significantly beyond worst-hit West Africa.

"The enormous economic cost of the current outbreak to the affected countries and the world could have been avoided by prudent ongoing investment in health systems-strengthening," World Bank President Jim Yong Kim said in a statement.

Sierra Leone

ebola

World Bank

Liberia

Spain

Banks have made it tougher for people to get mortgages after the Great Recession. Just how hard is it? Former Fed Chairman Ben Bernanke told an audience in Chicago Thursday that he was unable to refinance his home loan.

"Just between the two of us," he told moderator Mark Zandi of Moody Analytics, "I recently tried to refinance my mortgage and I was unsuccessful in doing so."

The audience at a conference of the National Investment Center for Seniors Housing and Care laughed, prompting Bernanke to add: "I'm not making that up."

The comments were reported by Bloomberg.

The former Fed chairman added that "it's entirely possible" lenders "may have gone a little bit too far on mortgage credit conditions."

Bernanke, who stepped down as Fed chairman in January after navigating the U.S. economy through its worst crisis since the Great Depression, now earns at least $250,000 per speech, and has a book deal worth at least $1 million. So, why would he have trouble refinancing his mortgage? The New York Times explains that while Bernanke's earning potential is vast — through speeches, books and other means — it is now irregular.

It adds: "The problem probably boils down to this: Anybody who knows how the world works may know that Ben Bernanke has vast earning potential, and that he is as safe a credit risk as one could imagine. But he just changed jobs a few months ago. And in the thoroughly automated world of mortgage finance, having recently changed jobs makes you a steeper credit risk."

Ben Bernanke

mortgage

Updated at 1 p.m. ET

The U.S. unemployment rate dipped below 6 percent for the first time since July 2008, with nonfarm payrolls adding 248,000 new jobs in September, the Bureau of Labor Statistics reports.

The jobless rate fell 0.2 percentage points to 5.9 percent. Employment increased in professional and business services, retail trade and health care, BLS says. The data were stronger than expected. Employers also added about 69,000 more jobs in July and August than the government first reported.

The median forecast among economists surveyed by Bloomberg had called for 215,000 new jobs in September.

Jason Furman, chairman of the Council of Economic Advisers, said in a statement that the report extends the "longest streak of private-sector job growth on record.

"The data underscore that six years after the Great Recession — thanks to the hard work of the American people and in part to the policies the President has pursued — our economy has bounced back more strongly than most others around the world," Furman said.

Many economists consider 5.5 percent unemployment a "healthy number," and as the unemployment rate moves closer to that figure, The Associated Press says it "could ratchet up pressure on the Federal Reserve to raise its benchmark interest rate."

As NPR's John Ydstie reports, "Over the past few years, much of the decline in the unemployment rate has been attributed to people leaving the labor force. But, Jim O'Sullivan of High Frequency Economics says in 2014 it's largely job growth that's has pushed unemployment down."

Dean Maki, chief U.S. economist at Barclays PLC in New York, is quoted by Bloomberg as calling the latest data "strong across the board.

"The labor market continues to grow fast enough to keep pushing the unemployment rate down," Maki told Bloomberg.

Even with the new jobs, nearly 100,000 people stopped looking for work. The number of Americans working or looking for work was at 62.7 percent, the lowest proportion since February 1978, The Associated Press says.

Economy

Unemployment

As times got tough in the recent recession, the less well-off of America's citizens became more generous when giving to charity. But at the same time, wealthy Americans cut the proportion of their incomes they donated, according to a new study that analyzed data from tax returns.

NPR's Pam Fessler reports for our Newscast unit:

"The study was done by the Chronicle of Philanthropy, which looked at IRS data showing charitable deductions in 2006 and 2012. The study found that Americans who earned $200,000 a year or more cut the share of income they gave to charity by 4.6 percent, while Americans earning less than $100,000 a year gave 4.5 percent more of their income to charity.

"Those with incomes of $25,000 or less saw the biggest increase. The share of their income that went to charity rose almost 17 percent. Low-income Americans primarily give to religious organizations."

While the wealthiest Americans cut how much of their incomes they sent to charity, the total amount of their donations rose, with the Chronicle saying their donations "increased by $4.6 billion, to hit $77.5 billion in 2012, using inflation-adjusted dollars."

For the study, researchers used data about gifts to charity from taxpayers who itemized deductions, compiled by the organization Giving USA. They based their observations on donors' adjusted gross income, not their net worth.

To put the numbers in a wider perspective, consider that in 2012, individual Americans donated $228.93 billion to charity, or 72 percent of the total, according to the National Center for Charitable Statistics.

Beyond income levels, the Chronicle's study also highlights geographical differences in giving. For starters, Las Vegas, where the recession was sharply felt, surpassed its reputation as Sin City to show the largest increase in giving, with people shelling out nearly 15 percent more of their income for charity between 2006 and 2012.

The city's generosity helped make Nevada the state whose residents boosted the rate of their giving the most during the recession. Here's the top five:

Nevada
Idaho
Georgia
Connecticut
Florida

"Residents of Utah remain by far the nation's most generous," the Chronicle reports. "For every $1,000 they earned, they donated $65.60 to charity. New Hampshire remains the least generous. Those residents gave $17.40 for every $1,000 they earned."

charities