• New concerns as nurse in Spain gets Ebola

WASHINGTON - Raising fresh concern around the world, a nurse in Spain on Monday became the first person known to catch Ebola outside the outbreak zone in West Africa. In the U.S., President Barack Obama said the government was considering ordering more careful screening of airline passengers arriving from the region.

In dealing with potential Ebola cases, Obama said, "we don't have a lot of margin for error."

Already hospitalized in the U.S., a critically ill Liberian man, Thomas Duncan, began receiving an experimental drug in Dallas. But there were encouraging signs for an American video journalist who returned from Liberia for treatment. Ashoka Mukpo, 33, was able to walk off the plane before being loaded on a stretcher and taken to an ambulance, and his father said his symptoms of fever and nausea appeared mild.

"It was really wonderful to see his face," said Dr. Mitchell Levy, who talked to his son over a video chat system at Nebraska Medical Center.

In Spain, the stricken nurse had been part of a team which treated two missionaries flown home to Spain after becoming infected with Ebola in West Africa. The nurse's only symptom was a fever, but the infection was confirmed by two tests, Spanish health officials said. She was being treated in isolation, while authorities drew up a list of people she had contact with.

• Islamic State group assaults Syrian town

MURSITPINAR, Turkey - Islamic State fighters backed by tanks and artillery pushed into an embattled Syrian town on the border with Turkey on Monday, touching off heavy street battles with the town's Kurdish defenders.

Hours after the militants raised two of their Islamic State group's black flags on the outskirts of Kobani, the militants punctured the Kurdish front lines and advanced into the town itself, the Local Coordination Committees activist collective and the Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said.

"They're fighting inside the city. Hundreds of civilians have left," said Observatory director Rami Abdurrahman. "The Islamic State controls three neighborhoods on the eastern side of Kobani. They are trying to enter the town from the southwest as well."

The center of the town was still in Kurdish hands, Abdurrahman said. Kurdish officials could not be immediately reached for comment.

Since it began its offensive in mid-September, the Islamic State group has barrelled through one Kurdish village after another as it closed in on its main target - the town of Kobani, also known as Ayn Arab. The assault has forced some 160,000 Syrians to flee and put a strain on Kurdish forces, who have struggled to hold off the extremists even with the aid of limited U.S.-led airstrikes.

• Veterans agency moves to fire 4 senior executives

WASHINGTON - The Veterans Affairs Department said it is firing four senior executives as officials move to crack down on wrongdoing following a nationwide scandal over long wait times for veterans seeking medical care, and falsified records covering the delays.

The dismissals are the first since Congress passed a law this summer making it easier for veterans who experience delays to get care outside VA's nationwide network of hospitals and clinics. The law also made it easier for the agency to fire senior officials suspected of wrongdoing, shortening their appeals process to 28 days.

Among those being fired were a top purchasing official at the Veterans Health Administration, directors of VA hospitals in Pittsburgh and Dublin, Georgia, and a regional hospital director in central Alabama, the VA said.

- The Associated Press