Associated Press

Sacra plans to return to the same clinic where he contracted Ebola in August

(BOSTON) — A Massachusetts doctor cured of Ebola said Tuesday that he’s returning to Liberia, the West African country where he contracted the virus, in January to resume working at a medical mission.

Dr. Richard Sacra said that he plans to spend four weeks at ELWA Hospital, a clinic outside Monrovia where he had contracted the deadly virus in August.

Sacra spent weeks in treatment at an Omaha, Nebraska, hospital before returning home on Sept. 25. The University of Massachusetts Medical School faculty member has worked in medical missions in Liberia for more than 20 years, including the North Carolina-based charity SIM, which founded ELWA Hospital.

Sacra, who was one of at least 10 people so far treated for Ebola in the U.S., says he “feels great” and that doctors have said he’s now effectively immune to Ebola, which has no vaccine.

“I’m not hearing a lot of pushback from home,” Sacra said. “I’ve been working there for years, and my risk at this point is no different than it was before because I’m immune to Ebola.”

Sacra has said he’s not sure exactly when he became infected. He had been caring for pregnant women not suspected to have Ebola and delivering babies, including performing several cesarean sections.

He said ELWA Hospital, which stands for Eternal Love Winning Africa, has changed its protocols following his illness.

“Even if we haven’t suspected Ebola in that patient, we’re now wearing full protective gear at our facility for deliveries,” he said. “When we’re doing surgeries, we’re now getting bleached down at the end, which we weren’t doing before.”

Sacra, who expressed a desire to return to Liberia almost as soon as he recovered, made the comments following a Tuesday news conference at the Statehouse announcing a $1 million state grant to help develop a faster, more accurate test for diagnosing Ebola.

Gov. Deval Patrick said the investment, made through the Massachusetts Life Sciences Center, a quasi-public state agency, will assure the state and its major research institutions will play a central role in saving many lives from Ebola, which has killed 6,400 people during the most recent outbreak in West Africa.

He was shot Aug. 5 inside the store in the Dayton suburb

(CINCINNATI) — The family of a black man fatally shot by a white police officer as he held an air rifle inside a Wal-Mart filed a federal lawsuit Tuesday charging negligence and violation of the man’s civil rights.

The lawsuit was filed in U.S. District Court in Dayton against the city of Beavercreek in suburban Dayton, the two Beavercreek officers involved, the police chief and Wal-Mart Stores Inc.

John Crawford III was shot Aug. 5 inside the store in the Dayton suburb. Police responded after a 911 caller reported Crawford was waving what appeared to be a firearm.

A grand jury concluded the shooting was justified.

“All we want is justice for John Crawford,” the family’s attorney, Michael Wright said at a news conference Tuesday.

Crawford’s family has said previously that it was “incomprehensible” that police weren’t indicted.

Wright said the criminal justice system has so far refused to hold the officers accountable and it is necessary for the civil justice system to do so.

Messages left seeking comment from Bentonville, Arkansas-based Wal-Mart and Beavercreek city attorney Steve McHugh, who has served as a spokesman for the city and police, were not immediately returned.

The lawsuit charges that all the parties were guilty of negligence and that the officers were guilty of recklessness and depriving Crawford of his constitutional rights, including the right to be free of unreasonable seizures and excessive use of force. The lawsuit also alleges that Wal-Mart was negligent in the placement of guns at its store and for failing to secure the air rifle.

The lawsuit seeks at damages of at least $75,000, but that amount could change as the case proceeds, the attorneys said.

Evin Cosby says her dad "is the FATHER you thought you knew"

(NEW YORK) — A day after Camille Cosby released a statement in defense of her embattled husband, one of the comedian’s four daughters is defending her father.

Evin Cosby, 38, says Bill Cosby “is the FATHER you thought you knew” in a statement, obtained Tuesday by “Access Hollywood.” She also defended her father on Facebook where she wrote “Men and Women need to stand up and say something. There are plenty of them that have experienced being accused of a major crime that they NEVER committed.”

In recent weeks, a different picture of Cosby has emerged as at least 15 women accused him of drugging and sexually assaulting them. He has never been charged in connection with the accusations. His lawyers have denied many of the allegations.

Taliban stormed a military school and started shooting at random

(PESHAWAR, PAKISTAN) — A top Pakistani official says that 84 students have been killed in a Taliban attack on a military-run school in the northwestern city of Peshawar.

Pervez Khattak, the chief minister of the province where the attack is underway, says that roughly the same number of students have been wounded.

According to Khattak, the 84 killed in the Tuesday attack were all “children” but hospital officials earlier said at least one of the fatalities was a teacher and one security official were also among the dead.

Khattak says the fighting is still unfolding at the school.

The attack began in the morning hours, with the gunmen entering the school — which has students in grades 1-10 — and shooting at random, said police officer Javed Khan. Army commandos quickly arrived at the scene and exchanged fire with the gunmen, he said.

Outside the school, shooting was initially heard along with one loud bang of unknown origin. Details were sketchy in the unfolding situation and it was unclear what was going on inside and if there were any hostages among the students.

Pakistani television showed soldiers surrounding the area and pushing people back.

Jamil Shah, a spokesman for Lady Reading Hospital, said tt was not clear whether the soldier was already on the scene when the violence began or was part of the troops who arrived later. The spokesman said that 36 people were also wounded, including two teachers. The rest of the wounded were students, he said.

The Pakistani military said in a statement that a rescue operation was underway and that most of the students and the staff had been evacuated. The school is located on the edge of a military cantonment in Peshawar, but the bulk of the students are civilian.

Later, one of the wounded students, Abdullah Jamal, said that he was with a group of 8th, 9th and 10th graders who were getting first-aid instructions and training with a team of Pakistani army medics when the violence began for real.

When the shooting started, Jamal, who was shot in the leg, said nobody knew what was going on in the first few seconds.

“Then I saw children falling down who were crying and screaming. I also fell down. I learned later that I have got a bullet,” he said, speaking from his hospital bed.

“All the children had bullet wounds. All the children were bleeding,” Jamal added.

Taliban spokesman Mohammed Khurasani claimed responsibility for the attack in a phone call to media, saying that six suicide bombers had carried out the attack in revenge for the killings of Taliban members at the hands of Pakistani authorities.

Peshawar has been the target of frequent militant attacks in the past but has seen a relative lull recently.

The objects for sale included religious masks, dozens of Hopi kachina dolls and several striking Pueblo masks embellished with horse hair, bone and feathers

(PARIS)— When diplomacy and a plea to return sacred ceremonial masks to an American Indian tribe in the United States failed, officials from the Navajo Nation traveled to the Paris auction house selling the items and started bidding for them.

They fended off a French art collector Monday, winning seven masks for more than $9,000. Navajo Vice President Rex Lee Jim said the Navajo delegation was unable to determine the exact provenance of the artifacts but said they had to face the reality of the auction and buy them.

“They are sacred masks … and unfortunately they end up here. Whether that is legal or illegal … we don’t know,” said Jim, a medicine man who offered prayers to the masks that embody Navajo deities. “What we do know is that they are for sale.”

The Navajo Nation took a different approach than its Hopi neighbor in northeastern Arizona, which has seen losses of ceremonial items at auctions in France that were deemed legal to private collectors.

The objects for sale at the Drouot auction house included religious masks, colored in pigment, that are believed to be used in Navajo wintertime healing ceremonies. It also included dozens of Hopi kachina dolls and several striking Pueblo masks embellished with horse hair, bone and feathers, thought to be from the late 19th and early 20th centuries.

The U.S. Embassy in Paris asked Drouot to suspend the sale to allow Navajo and Hopi representatives to determine if they were stolen from the tribes. But Drouot refused, arguing that the auction was in accordance with the law — and that a French tribunal had previously ruled that a similar sale was legal.

Sales from the auction totaled 929,000 euros ($1.12 million).

The Hopi saw the sale as sacrilege and did not travel to Paris for the auction, said Pierre Schreiber, a lawyer representing the tribe. Only a member of the tribe has the right to possess the items that represent the spirits of their ancestors, tribal officials have argued.

“Hopis were opposed to buying back their artifacts as they did not want to engage in the auction,” Servan-Schreiber said.

Hopi Chairman Herman Honanie said he was appalled by the latest sale.

The Navajo Nation delegation was authorized to spend up to $20,000 to retrieve the masks that typically are disassembled after a nine-day ceremony and returned to the earth, said Deswood Tome, a spokesman for the tribe.

Jim said the objects were not art but “living and breathing beings” that should not be traded commercially. He was set to return to the United States on Tuesday, with the masks to be shipped later to the tribe.

French art collector Armand Hui bid for several masks at the auction but told The Associated Press hebacked down when he saw that tribal members had come in person to buy them.

“I wanted to respect that,” he said.

Tome said it would incumbent upon the leaders of the Navajo and Hopi tribes to discuss how to approach any future sales of sacred items in foreign countries.

“If there are religious items that are sacred in the future, the leadership will have to determine what steps they will take,” said Tome. “Buying these masks here today is a precedent that we’ve set.”

The Associated Press is not transmitting images of the objects because both the Navajo and Hopi have strict rules against recording and photographing ceremonies featuring the items that otherwise are kept entirely out of public view. The Navajo Nation initially included a photo of the masks in a news release but later replaced the photo with one of Jim, saying it was a mistake. The Hopi tribe considers it sacrilegious for any of the images of the objects to appear.

The Kremlin wants to maintain leverage over its neighbor as a means of keeping it from ever joining NATO

(KIEV, UKRAINE) — Fighting in eastern Ukraine between government troops and Russian-backed separatist forces has ground almost to halt. That should be good news for Ukraine, but Russia looks intent to pile on the economic misery.

In a detailed op-ed piece Monday, Russian Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev painted a grim forecast of Russian economic blockades ahead as Ukraine embarks on closer integration with Europe.

“The Ukrainian government has made its choice. And even if our neighbors have a poor understanding of the ultimate price they will have to pay, that is their right,” Medvedev said.

Those ominous words came as a renewed truce in east Ukraine called for by President Petro Poroshenko isholding — barring sporadic violations — since it began last week.

More than 4,700 people have been killed since the conflict broke out in mid-April, U.N. rights investigators estimate — and more than a quarter of those deaths came after a cease-fire in September that was routinely ignored.

Ukrainian authorities are hopeful, saying more peace talks are on the horizon.

The intensity of attacks on government-held areas has reduced notably and is now limited to mortar and small arms fire, military spokesman Andriy Lysenko said Monday. Separatists who have often accused government forces of breaking the truce agreed that violence has reduced dramatically.

Changes on the ground appear to reflect shifts on the diplomatic front.

While supporting the separatists, Moscow has said it accepts the rebellious east should remain part of Ukraine. Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov told the state news agency RIA-Novosti last week that pro-Russian separatists were prepared to re-enter a “common economic, humanitarian and political space” withUkraine.

That position reflects the Kremlin’s desire to maintain leverage over its neighbor as a means of keeping it from ever joining NATO.

Although the separatist leadership in Ukraine’s eastern Donetsk and Luhansk regions publicly deny that they taking orders from Moscow, rebel officials privately concede the Kremlin plays a direct role in their decision-making. Lavrov’s comments suggest an easing of staunch secessionist positions.

A few weeks ago, rebel leaders were vowing to expand the territory under their control. But last week, separatists in Luhansk made a show of withdrawing heavy weaponry from the front line.

The next expected development is a prisoner exchange, which a senior rebel leader in Donetsk, Alexander Khodakovsky, suggested Monday could begin on Dec. 25.

Poroshenko has expressed satisfaction with the reduced carnage.

“I positively assess the cease-fire regime. This has enabled the strengthening of Ukrainian positions and resupply of servicemen on the line of defense,” he said.

But peace on the military front may serve only as prelude to economic hostility.

In his 5,600-word opinion piece Monday in the Moscow-based newspaper Nezavisimaya Gazeta, Medvedev outlined a new “pragmatic” chapter in relations with Ukraine.

“In plain Russian, dealing with Ukraine ‘pragmatically’ means giving it no quarter. Russia’s economicapproach to Ukraine will get tougher,” Dmitry Trenin, who heads the Carnegie Moscow Center, wrote in a Twitter post.

Medvedev wrote that Ukraine has been unhealthily reliant on Moscow for too long; adding that as of last spring, Russian orders from Ukrainian companies were valued at $15 billion, or 8.3 percent of Ukraine’sGross Domestic Product.

“Nobody in Ukraine has explained to us, or themselves, how these orders will be replaced,” he wrote.

Ukraine remains heavily dependent on Russian natural gas and industries in eastern Ukraine are still tightly intertwined with those in western Russia. Ukraine has had to go cap in hand to Russia recently for electricity supplies, as its power plants lack enough coal.

Medvedev also said a closer eye will be paid to Ukrainian citizens traveling to Russia for work — an ominous suggestion that this economic lifeline could be drastically tightened.

Ukrainian officials have put a brave face on those veiled threats.

“Everything that was possible to cut off has already been cut off by Russia,” said Valeriy Chaliy, deputy head of the Ukrainian presidential administration.

He said Ukraine has been pressing hard to diversify the markets for its exports.

“Not all roads lead to Russia,” Chaliy said. “Ukraine has other neighbors with which collaboration is possible without fear of getting stabbed in the back at any moment.”

U.S. Vice President Joe Biden spoke by phone with Poroshenko on Monday to discuss “Ukraine’s financial and energy situation and developments in eastern Ukraine,” according to a readout released by Biden’s office.

Biden said the United States remains committed to working with international partners “to ensure thatUkraine will have the macroeconomic support it needs” to implement its reform program.

The fighting has been marked by vicious atrocities, largely ethnic in nature

(NAIROBI, Kenya) — Tens of thousands of people have died in South Sudan during one year of warfare and the country’s leaders are putting their “personal ambitions” ahead of the young nation’s future, the U.N. secretary-general said Monday.

A year ago Monday fighting broke out in South Sudan’s capital, Juba, and spiraled across the country. The U.N. says more than 1.9 million people have been displaced by the warfare, battles that often pit fighters loyal to President Salva Kiir, an ethnic Dinka, against those who support former Vice President Riek Machar, an ethnic Nuer.

U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon called on South Sudan’s leaders to agree to an inclusive power-sharing arrangement that would address the root causes of the conflict and ensure accountability for any crimes committed on the battlefield.

There is no official death toll for the conflict, but Ban said “tens of thousands” of South Sudanese have died. The fighting has been marked by vicious atrocities, largely ethnic in nature.

The two sides have signed several peace deals brokered by neighboring governments, but none has succeeded in stopping the fighting in the oil-rich country.

The U.N. Security Council blamed South Sudan’s “man-made political, security and humanitarian catastrophe” and the threat of famine on its feuding leaders. In a presidential statement issued Monday, it again threatened targeted sanctions against those impeding the peace process.

South Sudan’s civilians face a “dreadful” situation and have been victims of targeted killings and looting, said the U.N. High Commissioner for Human Rights, Zeid Ra’ad Al Hussein.

“The people of South Sudan are living in a tinderbox, with emotions high, an abundant flow of weapons and with both sides recruiting fighters, often forcefully and including children,” Al Hussein said.

Government troops and armed youths have been battling in Upper Nile state in recent days, a sign that widespread violence could return now that the six-month rainy season has ended.