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WEDNESDAY • OCTOBER 15 • 2014
KU patient’s initial test is negative for Ebola By Giles Bruce Twitter: @GilesBruce
Kansas University Hospital announced Tuesday that a preliminary test of a patient with Ebola-like symptoms came back negative. Chief medical officer Lee Norman said at a news conference that the initial screening is a positive step but that the definitive answer will come from
a test being conducted by the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in Atlanta. Those results are expected today or Thursday. The patient, a Kansas City, Kan., man who worked as a medical officer on a commercial vessel off the west coast of Africa, came to the hospital Monday complaining of a high fever and other symptoms that resembled Ebola. He remains
in an isolation unit at the Kansas City, Kan., hospital, though Norman said his condition is imHEALTH proving and that he probably has a different, less severe tropical illness. “It’s highly unlikely that he does (have Ebola), but we can’t say that with 100 percent
certainty,” Norman said. Either way, Norman predicted that the Kansas City area would eventually see a case of Ebola. “With the amount of travel back and forth ... it’s just the mathematical, statistical probability,” he said. An Ebola outbreak in West Africa over the past several months has claimed the lives of more than 4,000 people out of the roughly 9,000 who
have been infected, the World Health Organization reported Tuesday. So far, one person has died from Ebola in the U.S., a Liberian man who traveled to Texas last month. A nurse who caring for him recently became the first person to contract Ebola on American soil. Texas Health Presbyterian Hospital Dallas on Please see EBOLA, page 2A
Police vote haunted by rec center
Birds of a feather
By Chad Lawhorn Twitter:@clawhorn_ljw
Richard Gwin/Journal- World Photo
THOUSANDS OF MIGRATING GULLS gather Monday on a field of winter wheat north of Lawrence.
Doctors killed in plane crash mourned By Peter Hancock Twitter: @LJWpqhancock
Topeka — Three Lawrence-area doctors who died Sunday in a plane crash outside Chicago are being remembered by friends and colleagues as an energetic and fun-loving trio who were dedicated to their patients, active in their communities and known for taking spontaneous trips for pleasure and excitement.
Rehman
Kanchwala
Drs. Tausif Rehman, 34, Ali A. Kanchwala, 38, and Kanchwala’s wife, Maria Javaid, 39, died when Rehman’s twin-engine Beech-
craft 58 Baron crashed shortly after takeoff from Chicago’s Midway Airport Sunday night. All three Javaid were originally from Pakistan, but they ended up practicing in northeast Kansas and living in Lawrence. Rehman was a neurosur-
geon and Kanchwala was a pulmonologist at StormontVail HealthCare in Topeka. Javaid was a cardiologist at Providence-Saint John’s Hospital in Kansas City, Kan. Dr. Aman Kahn, also of Providence-Saint John’s, worked with Javaid and through her came to know Kanchwala. “Of all the people we
The battle is on, and it appears it won’t just be about whether the city needs a new $28 million police headquarters. It also may end up being about Rock Chalk Park. Opponents of a 0.2 percent sales tax to pay for the police headquarters repeatedly urged a crowd of about 100 at a Tuesday evening forum to vote against the plan because the city’s controversial decision last year to build Rock Chalk Park showed the City Commission isn’t responsible with the city’s dollars. The commission agreed to spend $22.5 million on Rock Chalk Park and agreed to waive the bidding process for a portion of the project. Opponents argued the city could have used that money for a police headquarters facility instead. “I feel sympathy for (Police) Chief Khatib that he has to go out begging for a regressive sales tax because the City Commission didn’t give him what he needed,” said Greg Robinson, a Lawrence attorney and former police officer who is part of the group opposing the police plan. “Instead, they gave him an eight-basketball court facility. “This is not us against the police department. We have a commission that is out of control and wants to waste our tax dollars.” Voters go to the polls on Nov. 4. Supporters of the sales tax plan said they understand some of the frustration the public Please see POLICE, page 6A
Please see CRASH, page 2A
City responds to concerns about access at Rock Chalk rec center By Chad Lawhorn @clawhorn_ljw
In a little less than two weeks, city officials have handed out more than 2,500 key cards to local residents who want to use the fitness areas,
walking track and other amenities at the city’s new recreation center at Rock Chalk Park. But there’s one group who has had difficulty getting access to the free key cards: students at Kansas University, the institution that served as a
Business Classified Comics Crave
Low: 39
Today’s forecast, page 6A
rence apartment complexes as proof that a person resided in the county. Since the center opened earlier this month, the city has had a policy that any resident of Douglas County was entitled to have a free key
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High: 66
partner in developing the Rock Chalk Park complex. On Tuesday, city officials made a quick change of policy to rectify that problem, after the Journal-World raised questions about why the city was not accepting leases from Law-
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card to access areas of the 181,000 square-foot center that are behind locked doors, such as the weight room, fitness room, cardio room and the indoor walking track. Please see CITY, page 6A
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Vol.156/No.288 44 pages