The World Health Organization on Friday declared the Ebola outbreak in West Africa to be an international public health emergency that requires an extraordinary response to stop its spread.

It is the largest and longest outbreak ever recorded of Ebola, which has a death rate of about 50 percent and has so far killed at least 932 people. WHO declared similar emergencies for the swine flu pandemic in 2009 and for polio in May.

The WHO chief, Dr. Margaret Chan, said the announcement is "a clear call for international solidarity" although she acknowledged that many countries would probably not have any Ebola cases.

LOS ANGELES, CA (Catholic Online) - "There is a park in Mosul," Mark Arabo told CNN during a Skype interview from San Diego, "where they actually beheaded children and put their heads on a stick and have them in the park."

Arabo, who is a prominent Chaldean-American businessman and met with other leaders of his community in the White House last week, has called upon American political leaders to grant asylum to about 300,000 Christians fleeing the ISIS invasion.

In the name of mercy, please give today to help these people.

"The world hasn't seen this kind of atrocity in generations," he told CNN. He's mostly correct. Although genocides have happened repeatedly throughout history, including famous genocides in Rwanda and the former Yugoslavia, as well as Cambodia, the genocide perpetrated against Christians and other minorities is extreme, partly because it is being gleefully publicized.

 Pope Francis, who last week joined Vatican workers for lunch at their cafeteria, slipped out of the Vatican for his second drop-in, surprise luncheon, visiting his fellow Jesuits at their headquarters on the feast day of their founder, St. Ignatius Loyola.

Your Bottled Water Might Be Draining California’s Last Drops of H2O

Despite the Golden State’s drought emergency, Nestlé-owned Arrowhead continues its regulation-free sourcing from the region’s mountains.

Americans have a bottled water problem, and it’s sucking California dry.
The Nestlé-owned water bottling plant in the drought-stricken desert of Cabazon, Calif., 80 miles east of Los Angeles, produces more than 1 billion bottles of Arrowhead spring water every year, according to researcher Peter Gleick. In 2010, in his book Bottled and Sold, he detailed the operations of the plant, which is the size of seven football fields. On Monday, The Desert Sun published a report investigating the manufacturing spot’s controversial activities.

According to the paper, local water agencies don’t oversee the plant because it’s on land owned by the Morongo Indians, a sovereign nation. So nobody knows just how much water the corporation is taking from streams flowing through the adjacent mountains.
“Why is it possible to take water from a drought area, bottle it, and sell it?” questioned Linda Ivey, a Palm Desert real estate appraiser. “It’s hard to know how much is being taken. We’ve got to protect what little water supply we have.”
The Morongo tribe doesn’t disclose what it earns from its agreement with Nestlé, the biggest bottled water company in the nation.