Ebola and Ebola fear recede

February 02, 2015 - Daily News Briefing

Dire predictions did not pan out -- both because of local and international action and because the predictions may have been hyped.

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The $4 trillion budget that President Barack Obama sends Congress on Monday proposes higher taxes on wealthier Americans and corporations, and an ambitious $478 billion public works program for highway, bridge and transit upgrades. The grab-bag of proposals, many recycled from past Obama budgets, already is generating fierce objections from Republicans, who control both chambers of Congress for the first time in his presidency. They will move ahead on their own, mindful they eventually must strike a deal with Obama, whose signature is needed for the budget to become law.

Thousands of immigrants seeking legalization through the U.S. court system have had their hearings canceled and are being told by the government that it may be 2019 or later before their futures are resolved. Some immigration lawyers fear the delay will leave their clients at risk of deportation as evidence becomes dated, witnesses disappear, sponsoring relatives die and dependent children become adults. The increase in cancellations began late last summer after the Justice Department prioritized the tens of thousands of Central American migrants crossing the U.S.-Mexico border, most of them mothers with children and unaccompanied minors.

An online video released Saturday night purported to show an Islamic State group militant behead Japanese journalist Kenji Goto, ending days of negotiations by diplomats to save the man. The news of his killing by Islamic State militants sent Japan into shock and mourning early Sunday morning, days after his plight as a hostage in Syria united many people in praying for his release. "I want to cuddle with the people. That's the best way to express my approach," Goto, 47, said about his work. "By cuddling with them, I can talk with the people. I can hear their views — their pain and their hopes."

Thousands of pro-democracy demonstrators marched through Hong Kong's streets Sunday in the first major rally since mass protests last year. Chanting "No fake universal suffrage. I want genuine universal suffrage," the demonstrators held yellow umbrellas, which became a symbol of the earlier protests when the activists wielded them as a defense against police using pepper spray. The event appeared orderly and peaceful throughout the day. The annual march usually is held on Jan. 1 but was delayed for a month this year to coincide with the government's second round of consultations on electoral reform.

Sheriff's investigators are reviewing a video of an incident in which hip-hop music mogul Marion "Suge" Knight hit two men with his pickup truck, killing one, that may help provide clarity on whether Knight was the victim or attacker in his most serious run-in with the law to date. Sheriff's deputies said Knight hit and killed his friend Terry Carter, 55, with his pickup truck Thursday in the parking lot of a Compton fast-food restaurant, also injuring Cle "Bone" Sloan, 51, an actor and film consultant who was hospitalized and in stable condition late Friday. Meanwhile, Knight remained jailed on suspicion of murder after turning himself in early Friday. He's being held on $2 million bail.

Government and aviation industry officials from dozens of countries are meeting in Montreal this week to try to find consensus on how to keep from losing airliners like the one that vanished without a trace in Asia and another shot down in Eastern Europe. It is only the second high-level safety conference in the 70-year history of the International Civil Aviation Organization, a U.N. agency, but last year was calamitous. A Malaysia Airlines flight disappeared in March and has not been found. In July, another Malaysia Airlines flight was down shot down while flying over an area of Ukraine where ethnic Russian rebels are trying to secede.

Two pilots in a helium-filled balloon landed safely off the coast of Mexico early Saturday after an audacious, nearly 7,000-mile-long trip across the Pacific Ocean that shattered two long-standing records for ballooning. The pilots landed 4 miles offshore in Baja California about 300 miles north of the popular beach destination of Cabo San Lucas, greeted by a team of balloon enthusiasts who assisted with the landing. The pilots came in low and dropped thick trailing ropes into the ocean to help slow the balloon before setting down in a controlled water landing. The balloon will be towed to the coast.

“The object of the Monitor is to injure no man, but to bless all mankind.” – Mary Baker Eddy

The Daily News Briefing is published Monday through Friday by The Christian Science Publishing Society in Boston, Massachusetts.

To send a comment to the Editor, email editor@csmonitor.com.

“The object of the Monitor is to injure no man, but to bless all mankind.” – Mary Baker Eddy

The Daily News Briefing is published Monday through Friday by The Christian Science Publishing Society in Boston, Massachusetts.

To send a comment to the Editor, email editor@csmonitor.com.

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