A former Minnesota resident infected with the Ebola virus who traveled from Liberia to Nigeria before he died from the disease had planned to visit family back in the United States next month.

Patrick Sawyer, a 40-year-old father of three, sparked a global health scare when it was discovered that he had transported the virus across borders in Africa, and news of his plans to travel back to the Minnesota town where his wife and children still live ratcheted up fears that the virus could spread to North America.

"Patrick could've easily come home with Ebola," Decontee Sawyer, his wife, told KSTP-TV. She lives in Coon Rapids, Minn., with the couple's three daughters. "Easy. Easy. It's close; it's at our front door. It knocked down my front door."

Patrick Sawyer, a Liberian national who moved from Minnesota to Liberia to work for the country's ministry of finance, collapsed in an airport in Lagos last week after showing symptoms of the disease. He died Friday in what health officials determined to be the first probable case of the Ebola virus in Nigeria.

Sawyer's death has rocked the West African community in Minnesota, home to the largest Liberian immigrant population in the United States.

"Everyone knows Patrick," Decontee Sawyer told KARE-TV. "It's hit everyone's front door, and they feel like they've lost a best friend and brother, and they are awake now."

Decontee said Patrick had been caring for his sister, who had fallen ill with what later turned out to be Ebola.

There have been 1,201 reported cases and 672 deaths from the virus in Guinea, Liberia and Sierra Leone since the recent Ebola outbreak began in March, according to the World Health Organization.

According to Decontee Sawyer, her husband was scheduled to travel to Minnesota in mid-August for two of his daughters' birthdays.

Minnesota health officials met with community members Monday. Coon Rapids is home to a large West African community, and officials have warned residents to be on extra alert since Sawyer's death. A memorial service for Sawyer is scheduled on Sept. 14 in Coon Rapids.

"This can't happen anymore," Decontee Sawyer told KSTP-TV. "I don't want any more families going through what I'm going through. So I pray, and then I'm ready to fight."

The 34-year-old widow says she is working to raise awareness about the dangers of an Ebola outbreak in the United States.

"Patrick was coming here. What if he still wasn't displaying symptoms yet and came?" Sawyertold the Pioneer Press. "He could have brought Ebola here. Someone else could bring Ebola here.

"I don't want all of this to be for nothing," she said. "I have three girls who will never get to know their father."


http://news.yahoo.com/ebola-virus-victim-american-patrick-sawyer-135554312.html?soc_src=copy

WARNING: TRIBULATION PERIOD STARTED SINCE 70 AD! 

SEE MORE EVIDENCE FROM THE MOST HIGH YAH! I HIGHLY DOUBT THIS WAS FOOD COLORING...

A waterway in eastern China has mysteriously turned a blood red color.

Residents in Zhejiang province said the river looked normal at 5 a.m. Beijing time on Thursday morning. Within an hour, the entire river turned crimson. Residents also said a strange smell wafted through the air.

“The really weird thing is that we have been able to catch fish because the water is normally so clear,” one local villager commented on China’s microblogging site Weibo.

Photos: Strange and Mysterious Happenings in China

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Inspectors from the Wenzhou Environmental Protection Bureau said they have not found the cause of the incident, although water samples seem to indicate the suspicious color was a result of illegal dumping in the river.

Newscom
PHOTO: The river in Xinmeizhou village in eastern China's Zhejiang province quickly filled up with the red colored liquid which had a strange smell, according to villagers, July 25, 2014.

“We suspect that somebody dumped artificial coloring in the water because he thought the typhoon yesterday would cause heavy rain, and nobody would notice [the color],” Jianfeng Xiao, Chief of the bureau told China News.

“It turned out there wasn’t heavy rainfall yesterday, so the evidence is left behind,” Xiao said.

Xiao said there is a paper manufacturer, a food coloring company and clothing-maker a long the river. The bureau is still investigating the incident.

http://abcnews.go.com/International/river-china-mysteriously-turns-bloody-red-overnight/story?id=24715670

Toxic algae blooms that deplete the water of essential oxygen are killing a record number of manatees in Florida this year, biologists say. 

A total of 769 manatees have died, making 2013 the deadliest year ever for the blubbery denizens of the deep found off the Florida coast, Save the Manatee Club announced. 

With more than two months left this year, nearly twice the number of manatees have already died compared to all of 2012, which saw 392 confirmed manatee deaths. 

The last record -- 766 dead manatees -- was set in 2010, when an unusually cold winter and spring killed hundreds of the delicate creatures, according to the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission. 

Manatees live near the coastline, and when the weather turns cold, they often shelter near springs or in warmer discharge canals at power plants to avoid the condition known as "cold stress," which can weaken and eventually kill the aquatic mammals. 

"With 2013's catastrophic loss of manatee lives coming so close on the heels of the mass mortality suffered during 2010, the already difficult job to ensure the survival of these gentle and defenseless marine mammals has been made all the more challenging, and it's not over yet," said the club's executive director Patrick Rose. - 

Unwilling to wait for Congress to pass the Employee Non-Discrimination Act, Obama signed an executive order Monday prohibiting organizations with federal contracts from discriminating against employees who identify themselves as gay, lesbian, or transgender.

For religious freedom advocates, that could pose a major problem. Obama’s order does not provide an exemption for religious organizations, whereas the ENDA bill before Congress does.

Carmen Fowler LaBerge — president of the Presbyterian Layman Committee – set aside her ordination in the Presbyterian Church U.S.A. after the General Assembly opened the door for gays and lesbians to be ordained as ministers in 2010. LaBerge, who defines herself as pro-traditional marriage, believes Obama’s executive order for LGBT non-discrimination will actually discriminate against religious organizations with federal contracts.

“Clearly nobody is in favor of discrimination, so using that language is intended to stir the pot,” LaBerge said in an interview with The Daily Caller Monday. “The question is how do you hold  sincerely held religious beliefs that limit sexual expression to certain relationships and forms in balance with what the government now views as its legitimate role and in defending the rights of a particular group of people. You have a special interest group on both hands, and you have the government clearly favoring one group over another.”

Obama signed an executive order to get what he wanted without waiting for Congress, and that is troubling, LaBerge told TheDC.

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