Responding to terrorism

• Canada's prime minister says rampage was terrorism

OTTAWA, Ontario - A masked gunman killed a soldier standing guard at Canada's war memorial Wednesday, then stormed Parliament in an attack that was stopped cold when he was shot to death by the ceremonial sergeant-at-arms. Canada's prime minister called it the country's second terrorist attack in three days.

"We will not be intimidated. Canada will never be intimidated," Prime Minister Stephen Harper vowed in an address to the nation.

Unfolding just before 10 a.m., while lawmakers were meeting in caucus rooms, the assault rocked Parliament over and over with the boom of gunfire, led MPs to barricade doors with chairs and sent people streaming from the building in fear. Harper was addressing a caucus when the attack began outside the door, but he safely escaped.

Investigators offered little information about the gunman, identified as 32-year-old petty criminal Michael Zehaf-Bibeau. But Harper said: "In the days to come we will learn about the terrorist and any accomplices he may have had."

A government official told AP that Zehaf-Bibeau was a recent convert to Islam. The official spoke on condition of anonymity because the person was not authorized to discuss the case publicly.

Canada was already on alert because of a deadly hit-and-run assault Monday against two Canadian soldiers by a man Harper described as an "ISIL-inspired terrorist." ISIL, or Islamic State, has called for reprisals against Canada and other Western countries that have joined the U.S.-led air campaign against the extremist group in Iraq and Syria.

• New plan will monitor travelers coming from 3 Ebola nations

ATLANTA - All travelers who come into the U.S. from three Ebola-stricken West African nations will now be monitored for three weeks, the latest step by federal officials to keep the disease from spreading into the country.

Starting Monday, anyone traveling from Guinea, Liberia and Sierra Leone will have to report in with health officials daily and take their temperature twice a day.

The measure applies not only to visitors from those countries but also returning American aid workers, federal health employees and journalists. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention announced the new step Wednesday.

CDC Director Tom Frieden said monitoring will provide an extra level of safety. Passengers already get screened and temperature checks before they leave West Africa and again when they arrive in the United States.

"We have to keep our guard up," Frieden told reporters on a conference call.

• Teens' travel plans raise concern over appeal of terror in youths

DENVER - Three teenage girls being investigated for trying to join Islamic State forces in Syria were victims of an "online predator" who encouraged them, a school official said Wednesday, as U.S. officials tried to determine how they made it to Europe without anyone knowing and whether terrorists' appeal is deepening among vulnerable youth.

The Denver-area girls - two sisters ages 17 and 15, and their 16-year-old friend - were detained at the airport in Frankfurt, Germany, and sent home over the weekend. They were interviewed by the FBI and returned to their parents in suburban Aurora. Those in the tight-knit east African community where they live said the sisters are of Somali descent and their friend is of Sudanese descent.

The episode posed vexing questions for U.S. officials, including about the use of social media by terror groups to recruit people inside the United States and what can be done about it.

"Social media has played a very significant role in the recruitment of young people," said FBI spokesman Kyle Loven in Minneapolis, home to the largest Somali community in the U.S. Authorities there have been concerned about terror recruiting of the young for years.

"What it indicates is we have to be really careful about people in impressionable years and what they're doing on the Internet," said Jim Davis, former special agent in charge of the FBI in Denver.

• Camel maker snuffing out smoking in workplaces

RICHMOND, Va. - Camel cigarette maker Reynolds American Inc. is snuffing out smoking in its offices and buildings.

The nation's second-biggest tobacco company informed employees Wednesday that beginning next year, the use of traditional cigarettes, cigars or pipes will no longer be permitted at employee desks or offices, conference rooms, hallways and elevators. Lighting up already is prohibited on factory floors and in cafeterias and fitness centers.

The no-smoking policy will go into effect once Reynolds builds indoor smoking areas for those still wanting to light up indoors, spokesman David Howard said.

"We believe it's the right thing to do and the right time to do it because updating our tobacco use policies will better accommodate both non-smokers and smokers who work in and visit our facilities," Howard said. "We're just better aligning our tobacco use policies with the realities of what you're seeing in society today."

While Reynolds will no longer allow smoking, it will allow the use of smokeless tobacco products, including electronic cigarettes, moist snuff and pouches of finely milled tobacco called snus (pronounced "snoose").

• Concerns about medical care in at least 15 NYC jail deaths

NEW YORK - These are the deaths in New York City's Rikers Island jail that don't make headlines - prisoners with diseases, disorders and addictions who succumb to heart attacks, infections and other causes officially filed away as "medical."

But hundreds of documents obtained by The Associated Press through public records requests raise serious questions about the quality and timeliness of the medical care many of these inmates received, with the treatment, or lack of it, cited as a factor in at least 15 deaths over the past five years.

They include:

n A 36-year-old man with a severe seizure disorder who died two days after he was placed in solitary confinement and denied his medication. Witnesses said they heard him screaming for his medication.

n A 59-year-old drug addict who wasn't properly assessed for a common side effect of methadone - constipation - and died of complications from an infected bowel.

- The Associated Press