Liberia to end Ebola state of emergency; Mali reports 4th suspected death in capital
MONROVIA, Liberia — Liberia’s president said Thursday she is lifting a state of emergency imposed to control an Ebola outbreak that has ravaged the country, as Mali reported a fourth person now believed to have died of Ebola in its capital.
Also Thursday, Doctors Without Borders announced that accelerated clinical trials will be launched in West Africa to speed the search for a treatment for the virus that has killed more than 5,000 people.
In a nationwide address, Liberian President Ellen Johnson Sirleaf said enough progress has been made to lift emergency measures but added that the move does not mean the outbreak is over. There have been fewer Ebola cases in Monrovia, the capital, though fresh hotspots have emerged. One of those is near the border with Sierra Leone, which along with Guinea has also been hit hard by the disease.
Trooper ambush suspect charged with terrorism; he wanted to ‘wake people up’
BLOOMING GROVE, Pa. — Authorities have added terrorism charges against a man accused of ambushing a Pennsylvania State Police barracks and killing a trooper, and they say he told them he wanted to “wake people up.”
State police say Eric Frein called the Sept. 12 slaying of Cpl. Bryon Dickson an “assassination” in an interview after his capture.
Police filed the additional counts on Thursday. He was already charged with first-degree murder. Prosecutors are seeking the death penalty.
In court papers, police say they found a letter addressed to “Mom and Dad” on a thumb drive belonging to Frein. They quote the letter as saying that only a revolution “can get us back the liberties we once had.”
Frein is accused of opening fire outside the Blooming Grove barracks, killing Dickson and seriously wounding another trooper.
Ex-CEO who oversaw deadly W. Va. mine explosion indicted on federal charges
CHARLESTON, W. Va. — The former CEO who oversaw the West Virginia mine that exploded, killing 29 people, was indicted Thursday on federal charges related to a safety investigation that followed the worst U.S. coal mining disaster in 40 years.
Massey Energy CEO Don Blankenship is accused of conspiring to violate safety and health standards at Upper Big Branch Mine and became the highest-ranking executive to face charges in the blast. The explosion and investigation led to the overhaul of the way the federal government oversees mine safety.
U.S. Attorney Booth Goodwin said a federal grand jury indicted Blankenship on several charges.
The indictment said: “Blankenship knew that UBB was committing hundreds of safety-law violations every year and that he had the ability to prevent most of the violations that UBB was committing. Yet he fostered and participated in an understanding that perpetuated UBB’s practice of routine safety violations, in order to produce more coal, avoid the costs of following safety laws, and make more money.”
Blankenship could face up to 31 years in prison if convicted.
Utah truck driver accused of keeping 2 sex slaves in semi had 4 more victims
SALT LAKE CITY — A Utah truck driver accused of keeping two women as sex slaves in his semitrailer as he traveled the country had four more victims, federal prosecutors said in court documents.
Some of the new accusations against defendant Timothy Jay Vafeades date back 20 years.
In two of the new incidents detailed in the documents filed Monday, prosecutors say Vafeades, now 54, lured the women to his truck, then forcibly altered their appearances and ground down their teeth while holding them prisoner for months.
Vafeades met one of the women when he was a hospice patient and married her. He began assaulting her after she agreed to go to Utah with him and continued until she escaped about six months later, the documents state.
Vafeades is accused of meeting the other woman while she worked at a retail store and inviting her to join him in his truck for more than a week in 2005, then keeping her on board for about three months before she got away.
By wire sources
