France Confirms First Ebola Case as DRC Outbreak Nears Record Scale

France has confirmed its first Ebola case in a doctor who returned from a humanitarian mission in the DRC's Ituri province, where over 1,048 cases and 267 deaths have been recorded from a strain with no vaccine or approved treatment. The spread of a deadly, untreatable plague from Africa into Europe echoes the warnings Jesus gave of pestilences appearing in diverse places as a sign of the approaching end of the age. Scripture specifically lists pestilences among the birth pangs preceding Christ's return, and this outbreak — modelled by the CDC as potentially the largest on record — fits that pattern with sobering precision.