White House names Ebola czar

Updated at 9:52 a.m.

President Barack Obama is naming Ron Klain, a former chief of staff to Vice President Joe Biden and a trusted adviser at the Obama White House, as the point man on the U.S. government's response to the Ebola crisis.

• Full Ebola coverage from MPR News

Obama has been under pressure to name an Ebola "czar" to oversee health security in the U.S. and actions to help stem the outbreak in West Africa.

Klain has been out of government since leaving Biden's office during the Obama's first term. The White House said that Klain would report to national security adviser Susan Rice and to homeland security and counterterrorism adviser Lisa Monaco.

Klain, a lawyer, also served as chief of staff for Vice President Al Gore. He previously served under Attorney General Janet Reno in the Clinton administration.

WHO admits mistakes

The World Health Organization is admitting that it botched attempts to stop the Ebola outbreak in West Africa.

The U.N. agency blames factors including incompetent staff and a lack of information.

In a draft internal document obtained by The Associated Press, WHO says that "nearly everyone involved" in responding to the outbreak "failed to see some fairly plain writing on the wall."

The document says experts should have realized that traditional containment methods wouldn't work in a region with porous borders and broken health systems.

The agency acknowledges that, at times, even its own bureaucracy was a problem. It notes that the heads of WHO country offices in Africa are "politically motivated appointments" made by the agency's regional director for Africa -- who doesn't answer to the WHO's chief in Geneva.

One of the researchers who discovered the Ebola virus agrees that WHO acted far too slowly. And Dr. Peter Piot says it's largely because of the agency's Africa office. He says, "They didn't do anything." He says the Africa office is "really not competent."

GOP adviser challenges travel ban idea

A former HHS secretary under President George W. Bush says he sees "lots of problems" with using travel bans to contain diseases like Ebola.

Republican Mike Leavitt was in charge of bird flu preparedness under Bush. He says that at the time, officials studied a travel ban intensely but concluded such an approach might not work.

Leavitt tells The Associated Press that a travel ban is intuitively attractive and seems so simple.

But would the U.S. expand the ban to European countries if people there got exposed? And what to do about Americans who want to come home?

Congressional Republicans are urging the Obama administration to impose a travel ban on West African countries at the epicenter of the Ebola outbreak.