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EBOLA
BORDER BRIDGE CROSSING PROGRAM
Unsure results HICKOX
VINSON
Bridge operators say wait times are shorter By JULIAN AGUILAR TEXASTRIBUNE.ORG
Two nurses fight back against confinement
Nine months into a federal pilot program created
to reduce wait times at international ports of entry, operators of bridges on the Texas-Mexico border say it appears to be accomplish-
ing that goal. But they also say it’s difficult to measure whether cars, trucks and pedestrians are moving faster across the border.
Launched in late January, the project allows local governments and private
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IMMIGRATION
NO TO CITIZENSHIP
Both object to quarantine rules, hire lawyers to challege isolation By RAY HENRY ASSOCIATED PRESS
ATLANTA — A nurse who fueled Ebola fears by flying to Cleveland after being infected by her dying patient was released Tuesday from a hospital isolation unit, where doctors defended her as a courageous front-line caregiver. Another nurse, held for days in a medical tent in New Jersey after volunteering in West Africa, was in an undisclosed location in Maine, objecting to quarantine rules as overly restrictive. While world leaders appeal for more doctors and nurses on the front lines of the Ebola epidemic, health care workers in the United States are finding themselves on the defensive. Lawyers now represent both Amber Vinson, who contracted the virus while caring for a Liberian visitor to Texas, and Kaci Hickox, who is challenging the mandatory quarantines some states are imposing on anyone who came into contact with Ebola victims. The virus is still spread-
ing faster than the response, killing nearly half of the more than 10,000 people it has infected in West Africa. World Bank President Jim Yong Kim said Tuesday that at least 5,000 more health workers are urgently needed in Liberia, Sierra Leone and Guinea. U.N. Secretary-General Ban Kimoon, traveling with him in Africa, said mandatory quarantines for health care workers, Ebola-related travel restrictions and border closings are not the answer. The Pentagon announced Tuesday that the Joint Chiefs of Staff recommended to Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel that he require all U.S. troops returning from Ebola-fighting missions in West Africa to be kept in supervised isolation for 21 days. Balancing that and similar quarantines announced by several state governors, President Barack Obama said the Ebola response needs to be “based on science.” “We’ve got to make sure that those workers who
Photo by Chris Carson| AP
Luis Sanz, a multimedia and design specialist at the University of California-Riverside, poses with a photo of his family in Riverside, Calif. “When I came to the US, I didn’t speak any English,” Sanz said. “And with all the process with my papers, I felt very mistreated, and I felt like a secondhand person.”
Reasons many some won’t become citizens By LAURA WIDES-MUÑOZ ASSOCIATED PRESS
MIAMI — More than an estimated 8.5 million immigrants living in the U.S. were eligible for citizenship in 2012. Yet fewer than 800,000 took the leap, ac-
cording to the latest Department of Homeland Security numbers. If statistics hold, nearly 60 percent of the remainder eventually will — a percentage that has been slow-
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PAGE 12A
Photo by Wilfredo Lee | AP
Lena Dyring poses at PortMiami in Miami. Dyring came to the U.S. in 2005, and has no plans of becoming an American citizen.
See EBOLA PAGE 11A
2010 GULF OIL SPILL
Official: Program to help spill-affected states By JANET MCCONNAUGHEY ASSOCIATED PRESS
NEW ORLEANS — A new $40 million partnership will give money for conservation projects to landowners in states affected by BP’s 2010 oil spill in the
Gulf of Mexico, U.S. Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack says. He said the department’s Natural Resources Conservation Service and the National Fish and Wildlife Foundation could eventually provide a total of up to
$100 million over five years, each giving half the money. “We know some private landowners who would love to be part of that recovery, but because of restrictions or requirements have been left out,” Vilsack said in a brief phone interview Mon-
day with The Associated Press. Thomas Kelsch, the foundation’s vice president for the Gulf, noted that it’s helping to pay for Mississippi’s restoration planning, which is expected to identify potential ways to im-
prove areas such as Biloxi’s Back Bay and the Mississippi Sound. Should that study identify private lands that need wetlands restoration or invasive species control, those might be “great candidate projects,” Kelsch said. He said some of the foun-
dation’s share will come from plea deals with Transocean Ltd, which owned the Deepwater Horizon drilling rig, but money for Louisiana projects must come from other sources. Settlement
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