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Health officials race to prevent Congo yellow fever disaster

By Tim Cocks DAKAR (Reuters) – It is the stuff of a disaster movie: an outbreak of yellow fever in Congo's capital city, full of unvaccinated people mostly huddled together in slums with too few drains and the kind of sticky, fetid climate that mosquitoes love. Kinshasa's 12 million people – twice as many as there are doses of yellow fever vaccine anywhere in the world – are largely unprotected against this sometimes deadly but easily preventable illness, which has killed at least 353 in Democratic Republic of Congo and neighbor Angola. With three weeks to go before they start a vaccination campaign for 11.6 million people against the hemorrhagic virus in three Congolese provinces, and only 1.3 million doses of the vaccine on their way to Congo, time is not on their side.

House Speaker Ryan unveils Republican alternative to Obamacare

U.S. House of Representatives Speaker Paul Ryan unveiled a Republican healthcare agenda on Wednesday that would repeal Obamacare but keep some of its more popular provisions. The proposal is part of Ryan's blueprint, titled “A Better Way,” which offers a Republican alternative to the Democratic Party on policy issues ahead of the Nov. 8 election. Earlier this month, Ryan, the country's highest-ranking elected Republican, released initiatives on national security and combating poverty.

Obama budget seeks boost for military, domestic programs

By Jeff Mason PHILADELPHIA (Reuters) – President Barack Obama will call for a 7 percent rise in U.S. domestic and military spending in his budget that would end caps known as “sequestration,” the White House said on Thursday, setting up a new conflict with Republicans in Congress. The fiscal 2016 budget, which the administration plans to unveil on Monday, would fund a host of programs that Republicans are unlikely to support. It is the latest salvo by the Democratic president lobbed at a Congress controlled by the opposition party, and follows a defiant State of the Union address last week that critics said betrayed an unwillingness to seek compromise. Obama maintained that tone during remarks to congressional Democrats in Philadelphia, promising not to remain on the sidelines during the last two years of his presidency and urging lawmakers to be unapologetic about backing progressive policies.