(VIA NBC) The AirAsia passenger jet that disappeared with 162 people on board during a flight from Indonesia to Singapore Sunday is assumed to have crashed into the sea, the head of the rescue effort told reporters Monday.
“Based on the coordinates that we know, the evaluation would be that any estimated crash position is in the sea, and that the hypothesis is the plane is at the bottom of the sea,” National Search and Rescue chief Henry Bambang Soelistyo told a news conference, according to The Associated Press.
Navy ships, helicopters and aircraft fanned out to scour parts of the Java Sea Monday for any sign of AirAsia Indonesia Flight QZ8501, which lost contact with air traffic controllers in Indonesia Sunday morning after the pilot requested a course change due to bad weather, officials have said. (more…)

 11:00am 12/28 – The search for the missing plane has been called off due to darkness.  Ships will remain at sea, but air searches have been called off.  Here’s the latest bulletin from AirAsia:

(more…)

Sheesh.  A woman brought a 70 lb “emotional support animal”, a pig, on board an American Airlines flight.

[…] Jonathan Skolnik, a professor at the University of Massachusetts Amherst and a passenger on the flight, told ABC News today he thought the woman with the pig was carrying a duffel bag when she got on the plane and headed straight for the empty seat next to him.

“But it turns out it wasn’t a duffel bag. We could smell it and it was a pig on a leash,” he said. “She tethered it to the arm rest next to me and started to deal with her stuff, but the pig was walking back and forth.”

“I was terrified, because I was thinking I’m gonna be on the plane with the pig,” (read what happened)

At 100 or more new reported cases a day
(and, obviously, an unquantified number of unreported cases) coupled with the deliberate “removal” of dead victims from the official tally, it is apparent that the Ebola outbreak continues to rage and is far from contained.
As has been mentioned here and elsewhere in the Realism Blogosphere,  Math Just Is.  As the Daily Mail UK reports, scores of orphaned children left to care for themselves after close contact and sustained exposure to a parent or other caregiver who has died from Ebola are  “ticking timebombs”.
(more…)

The U.S. State Dept has finally issued a travel warning about the Bahamas.
[scribd id=245891412 key=key-KWiUt2sk186zqZnyR0eQ mode=scroll]
The short version – DON’T GO. It’s jaw dropping dangerous.
(more…)

Citing the experiences gleaned from responding to the SARS outbreak which impacted Singapore economically, the health ministy of Singapore announced the new restrictions which will become effective on Wednesday.
Singapore has negligible direct trade/ethnic ties to the affected west African nations, but did open a “trade and investment” outreach  office in Accra Ghana in an effort to secure a place as a clearing house/launching pad for west African trade with Asia and position itself at the head of the expected bow wave of development.
Citizens of Guinea, Liberia and Sierra Leone will need a visa to enter Singapore as part of measures against the spread of Ebola, the city-state’s health ministry said Monday.
 
(more…)

Another suspected (non-insured) Ebola patient is receiving expensive, time consuming medical attention after landing at Newark International Airport on Friday, clearing US Border and Customs Inspection and taking a long bus ride from New Jersey to a relative’s home in North Carolina before spiking a fever and contacting the CDC which triggered the hospital admission:
“….A male patient, age unknown, was transported today to Duke University Medical Center in Durham, North Carolina, and is being tested this evening for Ebola virus infection.
The individual flew into Newark Liberty International Airport on Friday after traveling from Liberia through an unknown destination, then traveled to the Durham area on a commercial bus, according Aldona Wos, MD, secretary of the NC Department of Health and Human Services.
On Saturday, the individual was picked up by a relative and taken to the family’s home in Person County, north of Durham. After spiking a fever this morning, temperature unknown, the individual was transported to Duke Hospital and is currently isolated in a contained unit designated previous during training as the site for treatment of a potential Ebola patient.
(more…)

The erosion of state’s rights, and the triumph of optics over common sense continues:

FORT KENT Maine (Reuters) – Declaring Ebola fears in the United States “not entirely rational,” a judge rejected Maine’s bid for a quarantine on a nurse who treated victims of the disease in West Africa but tested negative for it, and instead imposed limited restrictions.

Samantha Power