Slave Quarters To Be Rebuilt At Madison's VA Home

President James Madison’s Montpelier estate in Virginia.

WASHINGTON (ASSOCIATED PRESS) -- Homes of slaves who served President James Madison at his Montpelier estate in Virginia will be rebuilt for the first time over the next five years, along with other refurbishments to the home of one of the nation's Founding Fathers, thanks to a $10 million gift announced Saturday, November 1, 2014. David Rubenstein, a leading Washington philanthropist and history buff, pledged the $3.5 million needed to rebuild the slave quarters next to the mansion in the foothills of the Blue Ridge Mountains. Another $6.5 million will be devoted to refurnishing parts of the home where Madison drafted ideas that would become the U.S. Constitution and the Bill of Rights. 

After widow Dolley Madison sold the estate in 1844, many family belongings were dispersed or sold, leaving some rooms mostly empty of period furnishings after the estate opened to visitors in 1987. Now, curators hope to recover or borrow artifacts from the fourth president's family life to bring the estate back to life, said Montpelier Foundation President and CEO Kat Imhoff.

Rubenstein told The Associated Press he wanted to help make the estate more authentic. Montpelier could draw more visitors to learn about history, he said, if the house is fully restored and its slave quarters built out. It currently draws about 125,000 visitors a year. Last year, Rubenstein gave funds to recreate slave quarters on Thomas Jefferson's plantation.

"It's this dichotomy. You have people who were extraordinarily intelligent, well-informed, educated; they created this incredible country — Jefferson, Washington, Madison — yet they lived with this system of slavery. Jefferson, Washington and Madison all abhorred slavery, but they didn't do, they couldn't do much about it," he said. "We shouldn't deify our Founding Fathers without recognizing that they did participate in a system that had its terrible flaws."

The donation marks a trifecta of gifts totaling $30 million to projects at Virginia's oldest presidential sites. Last year Rubenstein gave $10 million gifts to both Jefferson's Monticello estate and George Washington's home at Mount Vernon.

Recreating Montpelier's South Yard, where domestic slaves lived, as well as the basement areas of the mansion where they worked, will help tell a fuller version of history, Imhoff said. "For folks that have been coming to any of these presidential sites, the fact that we're bringing this complete American story back into the landscape I think is very important," she said. "It is challenging, but I also think it's that wonderful tension that we as Americans are embracing, that this is our history, that making the invisible visible is very important to us as a nation, and it will make a stronger American story."

The slave quarters at Montpelier were cleared away 165 years ago and planted over with grass, but the site has not been disturbed since. Archaeologists plan to excavate the South Yard in public view to recover remnants of slave life to help illustrate new stories.

One of the slaves who lived in a cramped dwelling was Paul Jennings. He was born at Montpelier in 1799, and at the age of 10 moved with the Madisons to serve in the White House. He later wrote a book about his experience, which is considered the first White House memoir. Jennings recalled helping Dolley Madison save curtains, silver, documents and a famous portrait of George Washington when the British burned the White House in 1814.

Jennings returned to Montpelier as Madison's personal manservant. After Madison's death, Jennings purchased his freedom and moved to Washington. Matt Reeves, Montpelier's director of archaeology, said his team can recreate the slave quarters close to their original construction through research from documents and excavations.

"By bringing the slave quarters back, what we're able to do is tell the stories of the slave families that lived here and tell their more personal stories that allow visitors to imagine the enslaved community not as just workers, but as people, as mothers, fathers, aunts and uncles," Reeves said.

Visitors now get an authentic experience at the front of the mansion and see the home inside as it was when Madison lived there, after a major $25 million architectural restoration completed in 2008, Reeves said. But as visitors leave the back porch, they see a 20th-century landscape of grass and trees, void of any evidence of the plantation where more than 100 slaves lived.

"It's really going to bring this larger community back to life," Reeves said. "It will really help define Mr. Madison as who he was — as a Virginia planter, as a slave owner."

Online:

Montpelier: http://www.montpelier.org/

Follow Brett Zongker on Twitter at https://twitter.com/DCArtBeat.

Driver Sought In Crash That Killed 3 On Halloween

Mourners gather at the street-side memorial at North Jacaranda Street and Fairhaven Avenue in Santa Ana, Calif. on Saturday, Nov. 1, 2014 for three teenage trick-or-treaters killed in a Friday night hit-and-run accident.

LOS ANGELES (AP) — Authorities searched Saturday for the driver and passenger of an SUV who fled the scene after the vehicle struck three teenage girls who were out for a night of trick-or-treating in Southern California.

Witnesses said the black Honda was abandoned a short distance from the Santa Ana crosswalk where the 13-year-old girls were hit. On Saturday investigators tracked the SUV to the address where it was registered, but the owner has since moved, Santa Ana police spokesman Anthony Bertagna said.

"At this point, we don't know where the registered owner lives," Bertagna said. A witness told the Los Angeles Times the girls were wearing costumes with black leggings and dark clothing when they were hit in a crosswalk near an elementary school about 6:45 p.m. Friday.

Two of them were declared dead immediately, and a third died as paramedics prepared to take her to a hospital, Orange County fire Capt. Steve Concialdi said. The twin sisters were Lexi and Lexandra Perez, and the third victim was Andrea Gonzalez, the Orange County Sheriff's Department said.

The front of the vehicle was heavily damaged, Bertagna said. Authorities are seeking video-surveillance footage from nearby property owners while interviewing witnesses. Investigators also collected evidence from the SUV, including fingerprints and DNA samples, he said.

"It was Halloween. There were a lot of people out there," Bertagna said. "These guys fled this car. Did they call somebody to pick them up? Did they live in the neighborhood? Did they run into a house?"

Sharon Stewart, who cuts hair at a nearby barber shop, told the Times that she was eating outside when she heard what sounded "like a terrible crash. A couple of thumps. Then I heard screaming. I turned, and I saw a car leaving and people yelling. So I thought, 'It's a hit-and-run.' "

The vehicle passed her, so she got in her car and followed, she said. Stewart saw a young man run from the scene and heard him yelling at what she thought was his companion. "I only saw one guy, but I know there was somebody else," she said.

Maria Ramirez, 14, who lives about a half block from where the hit-and-run occurred, told the Orange County Register that she attended middle school with the twins. She last saw them at school Friday, she said.

"I can't believe it happened," Ramirez said of the deaths of her friends, while she gathered late Friday night on the sidewalk with dozens of onlookers. "They were fun, good girls." In the nearby city of Irvine, police said a man was struck and killed while trick-or-treating with his 4-year-old son. The Register reports the child suffered significant injuries and remained in critical condition Saturday. The driver of a Mazda 3 remained at the scene and cooperated with investigators.

Also Friday night, authorities in Washington state said two 7-year-old girls and a 20-year-old woman sustained life-threatening injuries when they were hit by a car while trick-or-treating in Vancouver.

The Columbian reported that police said a car jumped a curb and hit the trio. A 33-year-old woman with them and the car's 47-year-old driver, who remained at the scene, had less serious injuries. In New York state, a 3-year-old boy was killed and a 16-year-old girl was seriously injured Friday night when they were hit by a car while trick-or-treating. The car struck the children as they crossing a two-lane road in Greece about 9:40 p.m., police said. They said the driver is cooperating in the investigation and has not been charged.

A 2-year-old in Florida trick-or-treating with a group died when he was hit by a bus Friday evening. He was in a stroller with two other children when the adult pushing them across a street realized he had dropped his cellphone. The man stopped the stroller in the median and told the children to stay while he retrieved the phone. The child got out of the stroller and was hit by a driver who did not see him in the street, authorities said.

Women Are The Target On Campaign's Final Weekend

Kentucky democratic senatorial candidate Alison Lundergan Grimes , left, and former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton wave to a group of supporters during a rally in Highland Heights, Ky., Saturday, Nov. 1, 2014.

WASHINGTON (AP) — Their grip on the Senate majority slipping, anxious Democrats aggressively courted female voters Saturday on the final weekend of a midterm campaign that will decide the balance of power in Congress and statehouses during President Barack Obama's final years in office.

At the same time, some Republicans offered a softer tone as party leaders began to outline plans for a GOP-controlled Congress even with polls suggesting more than a half dozen Senate contests are deadlocked.

"We want to engage members from both parties in the legislative process, to get our democracy working again the way it was designed," said Senate Republican leader Mitch McConnell, who would ascend to majority leader if he holds his seat and his party gains six more.

Without getting specific, McConnell predicted that Republicans would "be able to work with the president to ensure solid, pro-middle-class ideas are signed into law." Plagued by poor poll numbers, Obama has avoided the most competitive elections, but he used his last radio and Internet address before Tuesday's election to seek support from women, who are expected to play a pivotal role in races from New Hampshire to Iowa.

"When women succeed, America succeeds," the president said. "And we should be choosing policies that benefit women — because that benefits all of us." Obama made a similar pitch Saturday night in Detroit while appearing at a rally for the Democratic candidates for the Senate, Gary Peters, and for governor, Mark Schauer. The rare Senate candidate who's asked Obama to campaign with him, Peters also has a comfortable lead in polls.

Republicans "don't have an agenda for the middle class. They don't have an agenda for Detroit. They don't have an agenda for Michigan," Obama said. "The good news is that Mark and Gary have a different vision, a vision rooted in the conviction that in America prosperity does not trickle down from the top, it comes up from folks who are working every single day."

The election three days away will decide control of the Senate, the House and 36 governors' seats. Republicans appear certain of at least three new seats in the Senate — in West Virginia, Montana and South Dakota. There are nine other competitive races, including six for seats in Democratic hands.

The head of the Democratic National Committee, Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz of Florida, said she was optimistic despite polls showing her party struggling just to maintain the status quo. "Democrats will hold the Senate," she said Saturday.

Her GOP counterpart, Reince Priebus, was campaigning with Gov. Scott Walker, R-Wis., and pointed to increasing signs that Republicans will have a good election night. "I'm feeling pretty confident about where we are across the country," he said in an interview, citing Democrats' shrinking advantage with women in key races.

"I don't think they ought to be bragging," Priebus said, asserting that "even Mitch McConnell" was outperforming Democratic challenger Alison Lundergan Grimes among female voters. Women were the focus in Kentucky on Saturday as Hillary Rodham Clinton, appearing with Grimes, endorsed a higher minimum wage and equal pay for women in remarks to more than 1,000 people at Northern Kentucky University.

"It's not, as Alison rightly said, only a woman's issue," said Clinton, a possible 2016 presidential candidate. "It's a family issue. It's a fairness issue." In New Hampshire, Democratic Sen. Jeanne Shaheen is trying to win a second term and facing a strong challenge from former Sen. Scott Brown, R-Mass.

Shaheen planned to campaign with EMILY's List president Stephanie Schriock, whose organization is spending millions to elect Democratic women. "There isn't a race is this country where the women vote isn't critical," Schriock said. She acknowledged that Democrats' traditional advantage with women would shrink considerably because women typically vote in smaller numbers in midterm elections.

Public research polls suggest that women have moved in the GOP's direction since September. In last month's Associated Press-GfK poll, 47 percent of likely female voters said they favored a Democratic-controlled Congress while 40 percent wanted the Republicans to take over. In a poll released last week, the two parties were about even among women — 44 percent prefer the Republicans, 42 percent the Democrats.

Speaking on a conference call with volunteers, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., described Iowa Rep. Bruce Braley's Republican Senate opponent, Joni Ernst, as "a woman who is afraid to come and tell people how she feels."

"If we win Iowa, we're going to be just fine," Reid said. "Iowa is critical." Women's votes have shifted sharply between presidential years and midterm elections. In 2012, women broke for Obama by an 11-point margin, according to exit polls. In 2010, when few candidates raised social issues as a major campaign theme, female voters split evenly between Democratic and Republican House candidates.

Democrats have put women's health and reproductive rights at the center of Senate campaigns in Alaska, Iowa, North Carolina and especially Colorado. Half the ads aired by Sen. Mark Udall, D-Colo., and those who are backing his re-election have criticized GOP Rep. Cory Gardner on women's health issues.

Some ads have claimed that Gardner wants to ban certain kinds of birth control. Gardner has tried to nullify the attack by proposing that birth control pills be available over the counter, instead of requiring a prescription.

In other developments:

POPULAR COACH ENTERS POLITICAL SCRUM

An endorsement for Republican Sen. Pat Roberts by popular Kansas State football coach Bill Snyder has turned into a political pileup.

Asked on camera whom he was voting for in the Senate race, the coach of the 11th-ranked Wildcats responded, "My good friend Pat Roberts, of course." That clip ended up in a political ad aired by the Roberts campaign, which brought a rebuke of sorts from Kansas State President Kirk Schulz, who reminded school employees not to endorse political candidates.

Schulz instructed staff to contact the Roberts campaign to take down the ad, according to an email given to The Associated Press and other news outlets. The Roberts campaign said it hasn't been contacted by the university.

In the email, Schulz described Snyder as "unaware it was going to be used in such a fashion" and that he was "apologetic for the resulting issues."

University officials in Schulz's office did not immediately reply to messages left by the AP.

Asked about the flap, independent candidate Greg Orman told the AP, "That's just once again another demonstration of how the Roberts campaign is willing to distort the record and ultimately use people as they have with coach Snyder."

KASICH, CHRISTIE AND THE LEAST FORTUNATE

Ohio Gov. John Kasich's re-election effort got a boost from New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie during a rally in Columbus. Christie, a potential GOP presidential contender, said one of the most special things about Kasich is that "the least fortunate in Ohio are not forgotten. Those folks who are facing challenges in their lives, not ignored by government, not looked past by government, but a hand extended to help them up so they have a chance to reclaim their lives." Kasich, like Christie, decided to expand the Medicaid coverage to low-income residents under the federal health care overhaul. Numerous other Republican governors have resisted such an expansion.

BIDEN THE GRANDMOTHER

In Colorado, Jill Biden joined Udall for a bus tour of four Denver suburbs, trying to rally Democratic activists whose well-regarded ground game is seen as the only hope for the incumbent. The race has hinged on women's issues. "I'm here as a mother and a grandmother and a woman," Biden, wife of Vice President Joe Biden, told dozens of volunteers in Longmont. "Women of my generation — and I see a couple of you here — you know how hard we had to fight to get here today," Biden continued and added, "We cannot go back and fight those battles that we had to fight so long ago."

Associated Press writers Adam Beam in Highland Heights, Kentucky; Thomas Beaumont in Shanee, Kansas; John Hanna in Manhattan, Kansas; Catherine Lucey in Des Moines, Iowa, and Julie Carr Smyth in Columbus, Ohio, contributed to this report.

Protests Push Burkina Faso President From Power

Burkina Faso's new interim leader Gen. Honore Nabere Traore, third from left in front, speaks during a press conference held in Ouagadougou, Burkina Faso, Friday, Oct. 31, 2014

OUAGADOUGOU, BURKINA FASO (AP) — The president of Burkina Faso stepped down Friday after protesters stormed parliament and set the building ablaze, ending the 27-year reign of one of Africa's longest-serving rulers who had survived previous attempts to topple him.

An army general quickly stepped into the vacuum left by departing President Blaise Compaore. Gen. Honore Traore, the joint chief of staff, told a packed room of reporters that he would assume the presidency until elections were called.

It was not clear if the military was unified behind Traore or if he had the support of the opposition. Army spokesman Col. Yacouba Zida said the constitution had been suspended and a transitional government formed to organize elections. He made no mention of Traore.

When he resigned, Compaore had said a vote would be held in 90 days, but Zida said the "length and makeup of the transitional body will be decided later." Over the course of several dramatic hours, Compaore went from looking likely to jam through parliament a bill that would let him seek a fifth term to agreeing to step down next year to abandoning office immediately.

The quick succession of events took many by surprise, since Compaore had long out-maneuvered his adversaries and has in recent years become an important regional mediator. Burkina Faso hosts French special forces and serves as an important ally of both France and the United States in the fight against Islamic militants in West Africa.

But French President Francois Hollande was quick to "salute" his decision to resign. While he was respected on the international stage, critics noted that, under Compaore's semi-authoritarian rule, the country of 18 million people remained mired in poverty. The landlocked country's fortunes rise and fall with gold and cotton prices — and adequate rain in a region plagued by drought.

Compaore's exit will have significance throughout the region, where many leaders have pushed through constitutional changes to prolong their rule and others are attempting to, said Africa expert Philippe Hugon.

"It's obvious that what happened will have an echo in other countries," said Hugon of the Institute for Strategic and International Relations. In the end, Compaore was pushed from power by violent protests and an emboldened opposition that would accept nothing short of his resignation.

Opposition protesters gathered in a square in the capital on Friday and burst into cheers when they heard the announcement of his resignation on hand-held radios. "I declare that I'm leaving power," Compaore said in a statement. "For my part, I think I have fulfilled my duty."

Compaore, 63, was headed south to the city of Po, near the border with Ghana, a French diplomatic official said on condition of anonymity, citing the sensitivity of the situation. The outgoing president was still in Burkina Faso on Friday afternoon, and it was not clear if he was trying to cross the border, the official said. He had not asked the French, who were once the country's colonial rulers, for any help.

For months, an opposition coalition had been urging Compaore not to seek re-election. But Compaore and his ruling party appeared ready on Thursday to push through a bill that would have allowed him to run again.

Determined to block the vote, protesters stormed the building, setting part of it on fire. At least three people were killed in the protests, according to Amnesty International, and dozens of demonstrators were shot.

Images of flames enveloping the legislature, cars burning in the streets and protesters massing in the capital raised the specter of a long standoff. But events moved swiftly, with the government suspending the vote and the military announcing that the legislature had been dissolved and an interim government would be formed.

After that, Compaore said he would lead until the new elections. Protesters rejected that plan and gathered again Friday, demanding that Compaore step down immediately. It was a sharp about-face for a ruler who had survived other attempts to overthrow his regime.

Compaore first came to power following the October 1987 coup against then-President Thomas Sankara, Compaore's longtime friend and political ally who was killed in the power grab. For many, his legacy begins and ends with the death of Sankara, a well-regarded statesman whose death was widely viewed as a setback for the entire continent.

Compaore has reinvented himself many times over the years. As a young man, he was in the military. He became justice minister when troops marched on Ouagadougou, the capital, in 1983 and installed Sankara as president. After he took power in his own coup, he developed a reputation as a meddler and a supporter of regional conflicts.

He openly supported Charles Taylor, the Liberian warlord turned president, though he denied active involvement in the Liberian conflict. Compaore also was accused of supporting rebel groups in Ivory Coast and Angola.

More recently, he has refashioned himself as an elder statesman who brokered electoral disputes and hostage releases throughout West Africa. Domestically, he kept a tight leash on any opposition, never groomed a viable political heir and fought off threats to his power. In 2011, waves of protests washed over Burkina Faso, challenging Compaore's rule, and mutinous soldiers occupied the palace at one point, forcing the president to flee.

But what would have spelled the end for many presidents was a temporary problem for Compaore. He maneuvered to stay in power by removing his security chiefs and appointing himself defense minister before returning to Ouagadougou.

Associated Press writers Sylvie Corbet and Elaine Ganley in Paris contributed to this report.

Africans Worst Responders In Ebola Crisis

Nkosazana Dlamini Zuma, chairperson of the African Union Commission, speaks at United Nations headquarters in New York

JOHANNESBURG (AP) — The head of Africa's continental body did not get to an Ebola-hit country until last week — months after alarm bells first rang and nearly 5,000 deaths later.

Pledges to deploy 2,000 African health workers have remained largely that — promises. No African countries are on the United Nations list of contributors to fight the epidemic. The E-word did not even figure on the agenda of a session on peace and security at the Pan-African Parliament in South Africa last week — more than a month after the U.N. Security Council declared the Ebola outbreak a "threat to international peace and security."

Angry legislators from Sierra Leone and Liberia got up to protest. "They said as far as they are concerned, nobody wants to talk about Ebola," said Jeggan Grey-Johnson, a governance expert who watched the session.

"They said countries like Liberia feel totally abandoned by the rest of Africa and shut off from the rest of the continent," he told The Associated Press. With few exceptions, African governments and institutions are offering only marginal support as the continent faces its most deadly threat in years, once again depending on the international community to save them.

Ebola "caught us by surprise," the chairwoman of the 53-nation African Union, Nkosazana Dlamini-Zuma, said this week at a meeting with the U.N. secretary-general and the World Bank president in Ethiopia.

"With the wisdom of hindsight, our responses at all levels - continental, global and national - were slow, and often knee-jerk reactions that did not always help," she said. She is a medical doctor from South Africa, where mining magnate Patrice Motsepe Tuesday announced he has donated $1 million to the fight against Ebola in Guinea, where the outbreak started.

Motsepe's gift, the largest donation by far from any African individual, came after the World Food Program lashed out at China's billionaires, saying their contributions lagged behind their companies' huge economic interests in the mineral-rich region. Motsepe's office said his company has no interests in any of the countries where Ebola is raging out of control — Guinea, Sierra Leone and Liberia. China's government has sent many health workers and given more than $8 million with a promise of $6 million more to the U.N. Ebola fund.

"Ebola is first and foremost our problem," the president of the African Development Bank, Donald Kaberuka, told a business forum in Brussels this month. "Before relying on international aid, we must first encourage Africans to take action."

The African Development Bank is the second largest institutional contributor to the U.N. fund to fight Ebola, second only to the World Bank, having given $45.4 million and promised another $17.4 million. In addition it has given loans and grants individually to the most affected countries.

By contrast, the African Union has made an "uncommitted pledge" of just $700,000. Africa's equivalent of the Organization of America States, it is the body many believe should have taken the lead from the start.

No finger has been pointed at the Africans, even as rich countries have blamed each other for delays in responding to the crisis and the lack of financing. WHO chief Margaret Chan has said that governments have the first responsibility for taking care of their citizens, including in West Africa.

The WHO identified the first Ebola case in Guinea on March 21; on March 30 the virus crossed the border into Liberia; Sierra Leone reported its first two cases on May 30. On June 20, with some 330 recorded deaths, Doctors Without Borders warned that the outbreak was "totally out of control."

Yet it was only on Sept. 20 that the first team of 30 military and civilian volunteers were deployed by a newly designated African Union Support to the Ebola Outbreak in West Africa. Most costs for that mission are being paid by the U.S. and other governments.

Jacob Enoh Eben, spokesman for the AU chairwoman, said more than 2,000 volunteers have been pledged to date: 1,000 from Congo, 600 from the East African Community, 500 from Ethiopia and 506 from Nigeria.

But he said they still need to know "when the first of these pledges will materialize." Those promised volunteers are only a tiny fraction of the number needed to stem the outbreak. The European Union said this week it is looking to put 40,000 local and European workers into place in the affected countries.

Uganda and Congo, which both have experienced Ebola outbreaks in the past, already have medical teams deployed in Liberia, under contract to WHO and not funded by their governments. It is difficult to say how many Africans are deployed on the front lines of the Ebola battle.

In Uganda, Dr. Anthony Mbonye, the commissioner for community health services at Uganda's Health Ministry, said he believes up to 40 Ugandan health workers are on the ground but that most traveled privately. He said the Ministry of Health had officially approved the deployment of about 10 doctors to Sierra Leone, Liberia and Guinea.

South Africa has been the most responsive African country and has budgeted $3.2 million, according to the Department of Health. That includes funding for a mobile testing lab operating in Sierra Leone since August.

The continental body's lack of a robust response "showed the fragility of our African Union, so heavily dependent on the international community to rescue us from catastrophe," said Isata Kabia, a Sierra Leonean legislator at the Pan-African Parliament.

"We cannot blame the WHO for their lack of knowledge; we can't blame the EU for lack of interest," she told The Associated. "But I think the AU should not only have led the response but also the requests to the international community."

Associated Press writer Rodney Muhumuza contributed to this report from Kampala, Uganda, and AP medical writer Maria Cheng contributed from London.

Liberia Opens 1 Of Largest Ebola Treatment Centers

Hearth workers spray disinfectant around a man suspected of dying from the Ebola virus on the outskirts of Monrovia, Liberia, Friday, Oct. 31, 2014

MONROVIA, LIBERIA (AP) — Remembering those who have died in the world's deadliest Ebola outbreak, Liberia's president opened one of the country's largest Ebola treatment centers in Monrovia on Friday amid hopes that the disease is finally on the decline in this West African country.

American and U.N. officials as well as Cuban doctors were in the crowd as President Ellen Johnson Sirleaf opened the treatment center, which is set up to hold 200 patients and can eventually treat as many as 300. With the opening of the center, an Ebola treatment unit at JFK Medical Center has been closed. Many people with other diseases had been nervous about going to the nation's largest referral hospital, and officials hope they will now come back.

The opening of the center, built out of white plastic sheeting with USAID written across it, comes as fewer people are showing up for treatment at various centers. Officials are not sure how to interpret that. Some believe it's a sign that the Ebola outbreak is finally on the wane in Liberia.

"It is heartening to see that we are finally perhaps catching up with that boulder if not in front of it. It was rolling down the hill at a speed that we were never going to catch, we thought, two months ago, but we're starting to make progress," said U.S. Ambassador Deborah Malac.

Others believe Sirleaf's order that the bodies of Ebola victims in the capital be cremated has led to people with symptoms hiding at home, because cremation violates traditions. Doctors Without Borders, known as MSF, said that as of Tuesday there were around 80 patients in its 250-bed facility.

"MSF teams are looking into the reasons for this; a widespread aversion to the government's mandatory cremation policy, poor ambulance and referral systems, changes in behavior, and other factors may play a role," the aid group said.

Assistant Health Minister Tolbert Nyenswah, who heads the government's Ebola response, told The Associated Press the JFK Ebola medical team and a team of Cuban doctors will be in charge of the new center, located in Congo Town in eastern Monrovia.

The World Health Organization said this week that the rate of infection in Liberia appears to be falling but warned that the response effort must be kept up or the trend could be reversed. The international community's response was late and figures were mostly wrong, Peter Maurer, president of the International Committee of the Red Cross, told reporters in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia. He said he is concerned about the "huge discrepancy" between announcements and the situation on the ground in the Ebola-affected countries.

More than 13,500 people have been sickened by the disease, and nearly 5,000 have died, the World Health Organization said Friday. That toll has about 130 fewer cases than the one released by WHO two days ago, mostly because a number of suspected cases in Guinea were determined to not be Ebola, the agency said.

The outbreak has hit Liberia, Sierra Leone and Guinea hardest and all three countries have resorted to extraordinary measures to combat it. Sierra Leone has had a state of emergency in place for three months that bans public gatherings and, at one point, the entire country was locked down for three days to seek out hidden cases. There have been rumors that the emergency measures would be lifted, but Attorney General and Justice Minister Franklyn Bai Kargbo told AP on Friday that they are still in force. By law, they can last for 12 months and parliament put no time limit on them, he said.

While the disease is beginning to let up in some of Sierra Leone's eastern districts, infections are continuing in the capital and surrounding areas. Despite some signs of hope in Liberia, many officials warn that the fight cannot be let up. Sirleaf said the memory of sick and dying people with no place to go is still too fresh.

"We can all imagine those early days when journalists .. went into the streets and into the communities and took those pictures that were put on all the television screens all over the world of the dying, the sick, the dead who could not be picked up on time," she said.

Despite those dark days, Liberia health workers fought on, she said. "To our health workers," she said, "we owe you a lot for the courage you continue to bring forth."

Clarence Roy-Macaulay in Freetown, Sierra Leone and Elias Meseret in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia contributed to this report.

Questions, Answers About California's Ebola Policy

SACRAMENTO, CALIF. (AP) — The California Department of Public Health has issued a 21-day quarantine order for people traveling from Ebola-stricken areas who have had contact with infected patients, but the restrictions will be determined by county health officers depending on the individual's level of risk exposure.

California health officials are trying to strike a balance between public safety and individual rights after New York, New Jersey and Maine received heavy criticism for imposing blanket quarantines, including a nurse who has shown no symptoms of Ebola. There are currently no reported or confirmed cases of Ebola in California.

Here's an explanation of what California's policy means for health workers traveling from affected parts of West Africa and how it compares to other states:

WHAT IS CALIFORNIA DOING TO STOP THE POTENTIAL SPREAD OF EBOLA?

Anyone who travels to California from an Ebola-affected area and had contact with a confirmed patient shall be quarantined for 21 days under an order issued Wednesday by Dr. Ron Chapman, the state's health officer. Failure to comply may result in civil detention and a misdemeanor punishment.

However, the state has defined quarantine loosely to include "observation and monitoring of the Ebola contact and/or limitations on his or her freedom of movement." Local county health officers will decide the specific requirements on a case-by-case basis.

Dr. Kristi L. Koenig, director of the Center for Disaster Medical Sciences at University of California at Irvine, said the state's broad definition of quarantine could be interpreted differently from county to county, meaning someone who arrives in San Francisco may be treated differently than a person with the same criteria who arrives in Los Angeles

"I have a concern about that because I think it will be confusing to the public and there could be unintended consequences," Koenig said. "This is a public health emergency of international concern. So we should have international standards."

IS ANYONE IN CALIFORNIA QUARANTINED?

Yes, sort of. San Mateo County health officials said Wednesday that Dr. Colin Bucks, a Stanford School of Medicine professor who recently returned from treating Ebola patients in Liberia, has been directed to stay away from work and away from close contact with others for 21 days. He is allowed limited activities outside his home, such as jogging alone.

Bucks, who has no symptoms, is taking his temperature twice a day and communicating with health officials. He is considered to have "some risk."

IS ANYONE ELSE BEING MONITORED IN CALIFORNIA?

Yes. State public health officials have been notified by the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention of 19 people who recently traveled to an Ebola-affected country. The state plans to update the number every Friday.

Riverside County's health department announced Tuesday that two people who recently returned from West Africa but said they did not have contact with Ebola patients were being monitored for 21 days by having them take their temperatures twice a day. They are considered low risk.

Orange County health officials are monitoring two recent travelers as well.

HOW DOES CALIFORNIA'S POLICY DIFFER FROM NEW YORK, NEW JERSEY AND MAINE?

California's quarantine order is more nuanced and flexible than the blanket quarantines in New Jersey, New York and Maine. The amount of restriction will be determined by county health officials on a case-by-case basis, based on the risk of exposure. That means some people could be isolated at home, while others deemed lower risk are free to move about while being monitored.

New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo and New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie announced mandatory 21-day quarantines last week for travelers who have come in close contact with Ebola patients. They issued the mandates after Dr. Craig Spencer, a Harlem resident, tested positive after returning home from treating Ebola patients in Guinea.

Those quarantines have been criticized by health experts and scientists who say health care decisions should be based on established science. They fear that the move will discourage other health care professionals from volunteering in West Africa.

WHO WON'T BE QUARANTINED IN CALIFORNIA?

A person who traveled to an Ebola-affected area as identified by the CDC but did not come into contact with a person with Ebola will not be quarantined.

---------Judy Lin

Read more here: http://www.thestate.com/2014/10/30/3779286/questions-answers-about-californias.html#storylink=cpy

Syrian Official Slams Turkey Aggression,

Bouthaina Shaaban, Syrian President Bashar Assad's political adviser, speaks during an interview with The Associated Press in Damascus, Syria, Thursday, Oct. 30, 2014.

DAMASCUS, SYRIA (AP) — Syrian President Bashar Assad's political adviser accused Turkey on Thursday of committing "aggression" against the country by allowing rebels to cross into the Syrian Kurdish border town of Kobani to battle the Islamic State group.

In an interview with The Associated Press in Damascus, Bouthaina Shaaban said the move was intended for Turkey to expand its influence in Syria by sending in anti-Assad fighters. "I see that Turkey is continuing in its role of aggression against Syria and its very dangerous role in the region," Shaaban said.

The remarks came a day after Turkey allowed 50 armed Free Syrian Army members to cross into embattled Kobani in a push to help Kurdish fighters turn the tide against militants of the Islamic State group besieging the town.

The FSA is a very loose coalition of rebels groups fighting to topple Assad. The group's political leadership is based in Turkey, where fighters often seek respite from the fighting. There are various factions within the group whose ideologies are constantly shifting, but generally range from mainstream moderates to deeply conservative Muslims.

Turkey is also allowing some 150 Iraqi Kurdish peshmerga fighters into Kobani, where they are expected by the end of the day. A first group of ten fighters entered the town Thursday. Shaaban suggested Turkey was trying to revive the influence it once enjoyed as the dominant power of the 600-year-old Ottoman Empire that collapsed early last century.

"It's very dangerous role in the region is motivated by their Ottoman ambition. (It) does not really target saving the Kurds," she said. Shaaban's comments suggested the deep bitterness between the once-friendly neighbors that they could not even see eye-to-eye on a policy for fighting militants of the Islamic State group, which both Syria and Turkey see as a problem.

Syria's government for years had characterized the rebellion against Assad as a problem of fighting terrorism, a point they made repeatedly in Geneva where two international conferences were held this year to try and resolve the crisis.

"It was the Syrian government, who in January and February 2014 called on the international (community) to fight terror inside and outside Syria, so that we reach stability and security," Shaaban said.

Critics say the issue of terrorism only emerged years after the crisis began, and that the Syrian government has refused to make any serious political reforms that might have addressed the people's demands.

The uprising began in March 2011 as largely peaceful demonstrations against Assad's rule, but plunged into armed rebellion after the government violently cracked down on protests. Since then, regional governments and the West have helped arm and train rebels. Iran and Russia have chiefly helped Assad's government.

Hard-line Islamic militants, including from al-Qaida and the extremist Islamic State group have also entered the messy, layered conflict with regional and international undertones. Shaaban described the Kurds as fighting terrorism, saying the Islamic State was "part of the terrorism that we warned against for years now."

The adviser said the Syrian government still welcomed a negotiated solution to the conflict, but said so far, there were no political initiatives being discussed.

The remarks came a day after Turkey allowed 50 armed Free Syrian Army members to cross into embattled Kobani in a push to help Kurdish fighters turn the tide against militants of the Islamic State group besieging the town.

The FSA is a very loose coalition of rebels groups fighting to topple Assad. The group's political leadership is based in Turkey, where fighters often seek respite from the fighting. There are various factions within the group whose ideologies are constantly shifting, but generally range from mainstream moderates to deeply conservative Muslims.

Turkey is also allowing some 150 Iraqi Kurdish peshmerga fighters into Kobani, where they are expected by the end of the day. A first group of ten fighters entered the town Thursday. Shaaban suggested Turkey was trying to revive the influence it once enjoyed as the dominant power of the 600-year-old Ottoman Empire that collapsed early last century.

"It's very dangerous role in the region is motivated by their Ottoman ambition. (It) does not really target saving the Kurds," she said. Shaaban's comments suggested the deep bitterness between the once-friendly neighbors that they could not even see eye-to-eye on a policy for fighting militants of the Islamic State group, which both Syria and Turkey see as a problem.

Syria's government for years had characterized the rebellion against Assad as a problem of fighting terrorism, a point they made repeatedly in Geneva where two international conferences were held this year to try and resolve the crisis.

"It was the Syrian government, who in January and February 2014 called on the international (community) to fight terror inside and outside Syria, so that we reach stability and security," Shaaban said.

Critics say the issue of terrorism only emerged years after the crisis began, and that the Syrian government has refused to make any serious political reforms that might have addressed the people's demands.

The uprising began in March 2011 as largely peaceful demonstrations against Assad's rule, but plunged into armed rebellion after the government violently cracked down on protests. Since then, regional governments and the West have helped arm and train rebels. Iran and Russia have chiefly helped Assad's government.

Hard-line Islamic militants, including from al-Qaida and the extremist Islamic State group have also entered the messy, layered conflict with regional and international undertones. Shaaban described the Kurds as fighting terrorism, saying the Islamic State was "part of the terrorism that we warned against for years now."

The adviser said the Syrian government still welcomed a negotiated solution to the conflict, but said so far, there were no political initiatives being discussed.

Funding To Tame An Ebola Outbreak Has Fallen Short

Workers from BioRecoveryCorp carry equipment from the apartment building of Ebola patient Dr. Craig Spencer in New York. Even small clusters of Ebola cases could overwhelm parts of US medical care system, according to an Associated Press review of readiness at hospitals and other components of the emergency medical network.

(ASSOCIATED PRESS) -- The nation's preparedness effort to fight outbreaks of Ebola and other infectious diseases has been under-funded and lacking in political will and commitment.

"We don't really have a pharmaceutical response for Ebola," said retired Air Force Col. Randall Larsen, the former executive director of the Congressional Commission on the Prevention of Weapons of Mass Destruction. "But could you imagine if there were 20,000 sick people in 10 cities and we did not have a pharmaceutical response? We would be completely overwhelmed."

Emergency preparedness programs ramped up significantly in the U.S. after the Sept. 11 attacks and the 2001 anthrax scare, said Dr. Gerald Parker, a former principal deputy assistant secretary in the U.S. Health and Human Services preparedness office. Those efforts included research and development of vaccines and anti-viral drugs.

"It was recognized that there would be a dual benefit from research on vaccines, therapeutics and diagnostics to counter bioterror threats and emerging infectious diseases," said Parker, now a vice president at Texas A&M Health Science Center.

But a combination of budgetary constraints and politics has delayed many of those plans. Larsen said the setbacks are partly the result of an inefficient, fragmented federal system, which leaves no single agency in charge.

Both the Clinton and George W. Bush administrations had a senior position in the White House to lead response efforts to biological attacks and natural pandemics. The Obama administration eliminated the position.

President Barack Obama appointed Democratic operative Ron Klain as Ebola response coordinator on Oct. 17. But there are currently about two dozen presidentially appointed officials who have some emergency response responsibility for infectious disease outbreaks, Larsen said.

Budget cuts also have slowed progress at the local level. Since 2002, the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has given states and territories more than $10 billion to help public health care systems ramp up when faced with a major disease outbreak. The CDC program has been cut more than 30 percent since reaching $897 million in fiscal year 2007, which led to thousands of layoffs by state and local health departments, according to the National Association of County and City Health Officials.

All 50 states and several major cities receive additional annual money through HHS's Hospital Preparedness Program, which helps private hospitals develop plans to better handle surging emergency room volume. The program has handed out a total of $5 billion since 2002, but annual funding has fallen by about 50 percent since it peaked in 2003 at $515 million as Congress lost enthusiasm for funding biodefense.

Over that same period, state-level budget cuts and the congressional sequester have forced many states to eliminate emergency preparedness positions. "I do believe we are lot more prepared than we were a decade ago, but we still have work to do," Parker said.

In an interview Wednesday with the Associated Press, Dr. Nicole Lurie, the HHS assistant secretary for preparedness and response, acknowledged that funding limitations had contributed to some of the delay in vaccine development.

In the meantime, a flurry of Ebola-related work is further straining resources, even when such efforts turn out to be false alarms — or worse, based on rumor. Members of West Virginia's Kanawha-Charleston Health Department were recently called to Yeager Airport to investigate four passengers on a plane from Atlanta — three who started their journey in Dallas, one who started out in Houston. "Someone on the plane overheard a conversation that a passenger or passengers were coming from a Dallas hospital. No one in the meeting had any idea if these people were ill," according to a summary report.

The four passengers were isolated, interviewed and subjected to a complete screening evaluation by staff equipped with gloves, respirator and protective gowns. Other staffers collected contact information from all other passengers.

It was determined that none of the four from Texas met any CDC Ebola travel criteria, and were not symptomatic. All passengers and crew were cleared to depart the airport. The incident cost taxpayers more than $2,350 in staff time — 60 man-hours, according to records.

"That's a real drain on the system every time these things happen," said Dr. Rahul Gupta, the health department's executive director. "If you have to spend that kind of money three or four times a week, it builds up."

AP national investigative reporters Garance Burke, Jeff Donn and David B. Caruso also contributed to this story.

The AP National Investigative Team can be reached at investigate@ap.org