EoT: Ebola and Terrorism: No Need to Panic

A roundup of news, columns and features about the state, from media around the world.

Fox News’ Elisabeth Hasselbeck compared the Ebola case in Texas to lice and seemed a little panicky during an interview with Dr. Dalilah Restrepo on Fox & Friends, reported Salon.

“You have a very calm tone,” Hasselbeck said. “It must come by nature with what you do professionally, doctor. The rest of us are saying, ‘Wait a minute, there’s a lot of panic when it comes to the flu, to lice.’ As a parent, I’m thinking, ‘Well, there should be a little bit of justification for worry here.’ Am I wrong?”

Restrepo calmly reassured Hasselbeck that Ebola is only transmitted through direct contact with bodily fluids of people showing symptoms. On Tuesday, the Centers for Disease Control confirmed that a man who flew from Liberia to Dallas was diagnosed with Ebola.

The Texas Department of Public Safety’s Pasadena office denied a California woman a driver’s license because same-sex marriage is not legal in the Lone Star State, The Daily Mail reported.

“The employee asked, ‘Is this a same [sex marriage]?’ I knew what she meant, and I knew I would have a problem,’” Wilson told a Houston television station.

DPS officials said the California woman, who adopted her partner’s last name, would have to change it back and her marriage certificate is not a valid form of ID.

Texas Gov. Rick Perry said the beheading of an employee at an Oklahoma food processing plant is “associated with terrorism.”

“At some point in time, I think the administration does have to address this as what it appears to many people that it is — and that is an act of violence that is associated with terrorism,” Perry told Fox News.

Police have accused Alton Nolen, a Muslim convert and ex-employee of Vaughan Foods, of decapitating one employee and stabbing another on Thursday. Federal officials said they haven’t found any motives beyond being fired.