iStock/Thinkstock(NEW YORK) — As New York City hosts the nation’s sole Ebola patient, city and state officials have announced a program to encourage health care professionals to travel to West Africa to treat Ebola patients.

The initiative would be modeled on benefits and rights provided to military reservists.

New York state and the city will work to ensure that health care workers who travel to West Africa would have their pay, health care and employment statuses continue seamlessly when they get back.

“The depth of the challenge we face in containing Ebola requires us to meet this test in a comprehensive manner on multiple fronts, and part of that is encouraging and incentivizing medical personnel to go to West Africa,” New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo said in a statement Friday.

State officials would also provide necessary reimbursements to health care workers and their employers for any quarantine that are needed upon their return to New York.

New York state is coordinating the program with New Jersey and the Greater New York Hospital Association.

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iStock/Thinkstoc(WASHINGTON) — Jobless claims were higher last week, increasing by 3,000, according to the latest figures released Thursday by the Labor Department.

For the week ending Oct. 25, the number of people filing for benefits jumped to 287,000. The previous week claims stood at 284,000, revised up from 283,000.

The Labor Department said there were no “special factors” impacting that week’s figures.

The four-week moving average decreased, however, falling by just 250 to 281,000.

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iStock/Thinkstock(KANSAS CITY, Mo.) — A man claims he was under a sort of exorcism when he confessed to killing a fellow member of a religious group in Kansas City, Missouri, whose death was originally ruled a suicide.

The body of Bethany Deaton was found Oct. 30, 2012, in the back seat of her minivan with the doors locked and a note inside.

“My name is Bethany Deaton. I chose this evil thing,” the note read, according to court documents. “I did it because I wouldn’t be a real person and what is the point of living if it is too late for that? I wish I had chosen differently a long time ago. I knew it all and refused to listen. Maybe Jesus will still save me.”

Deaton, 27, was a member of a religious group called the International House of Prayer, which was led by her husband, Tyler Deaton. A few weeks after her death, Micah Moore, another member of the group, confessed to her slaying.

Tyler Deaton had a cult-like following within the group and controlled virtually every aspect of some members’ lives, according to court documents.

When Moore confessed, he told police Deaton ordered him to kill his wife to stop her from telling anyone about sexual assaults against her in the house, according to police records. The three lived in a communal house with other male members of the group.

“This is a horrible, horrible crime,” Jackson County Prosecutor Jean Peters Baker said. “A young woman lost her life. She lost her life in a very violent way and today, we do know what happened to her.”

Now Moore claims he only confessed to killing Deaton because he was under the influence of what some have called an exorcism. Moore, who is scheduled for trial next month, has pleaded not guilty.

“They were the statements of a distraught and confused young man,” his attorney, Melanie Morgan, said.

The medical examiner has also changed the manner of Deaton’s death to undetermined.

“We are aware of no evidence that a crime has occurred,” Morgan said.

The International House of Prayer denied any affiliation with Deaton’s group in a statement to ABC News.

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AndreyPopov/iStockphoto/Thinkstock(FERGUSON, Mo.) — Saint Louis County prosecutor Robert McCulloch announced on Wednesday that five felony cases in Ferguson in which Officer Darren Wilson — the officer who fatally shot Michael Brown, 18, in August — was an indispensable witness for the prosecution will be dismissed.

The announcement was made in a press release, which noted Wilson is a witness in “approximately ten of the nearly 4200 pending felony cases in the Circuit Court of St. Louis County.” The five cases in which he is an indispensable witness will be dismissed, while the remaining will proceed without Wilson as a witness.

“Neither the cases being dismissed nor the prosecution of those remaining will in any manner effect the investigation or the presentation of the evidence to the Grand Jury in the shooting death of Michael Brown,” McCulloch said in the press release.

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Pete Souza / The White House(WASHINGTON) — President Obama is trying to lead by example as he works to calm public fears about Ebola in the U.S.

Obama has come into contact with more American Ebola patients, and the doctors and nurses who treated them, than just about any other American.

For weeks, the president has repeatedly assured the American people that the risks of a widespread outbreak are “very, very low.” To hammer home the point, the president has gone beyond words to hugs, kisses, and hand-shakes.

“I want to use myself as an example, just so that people have a sense of the science here. I shook hands with, hugged and kissed not the doctors, but a couple of the nurses at Emory, because of the valiant work that they did in treating one of the patients. They followed the protocols, they knew what they were doing, and I felt perfectly safe doing so,” Obama told reporters last month.

From meeting with health care professionals who have come in close contact with the deadly virus to hugging survivors, Obama is using these images to show the public that his administration’s response to the Ebola crisis is working.

Obama greeted the first ever American Ebola patient, Dr. Kent Brantly, in the Oval Office less than a month after he was declared virus-free. He then flew to Emory University Hospital to hug and kiss the nurses and doctors who treated Brantly.

In late September, Obama hosted at the White House leaders of Ebola “hot zone” countries and embraced a Liberian who contracted the disease.

Dr. Tom Frieden, the director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention who has toured the Ebola wards in West Africa, gets a prime seat next to Obama for Oval Office briefings.

And the same day she was released from a high-level containment unit for Ebola treatment, nurse Nina Pham gave Obama a bear-hug in the Oval Office.

The public seems to be getting the message. The latest ABC News/Washington Post poll shows an eight-point increase in the president’s approval rating for his handling of the issue.

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