The number of reported Ebola cases in western Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) has surpassed the African nation’s 2018 outbreak numbers in the same region, World Health Organization officials said Thursday. “There are now 56 cases, and this is of great concern, particularly as it is now surpassing the previous (2018) outbreak in this area, which was closed off and controlled at a total of 54 cases,” said Dr. Matshidiso Moeti, WHO regional director for Africa, referring to DRC’s Equateur province, a large region bordering the Republic of Congo and the Central African Republic. The challenges of responding to Ebola cases amid the COVID-19 pandemic, he added, are exacerbated by inadequate funding and rough terrain. “The current Ebola outbreak is running into headwinds because cases are scattered across remote areas in dense rain forests,” he said. “This makes for a costly response, as ensuring that responders and supplies reach affected populations is extremely challenging.” Without ramped-up financial support for health education and community engagement, vaccinations, testing, contact tracing and treatment, the $1.75 million in WHO-mobilized funds will last only a few more weeks. WHO also noted some improvements in outbreak response logistics since 2018. Vaccinations began four days after the latest outbreak was announced June 1, in stark contrast to the 2018 outbreak, in which officials waited over two weeks to begin vaccinations. Of the 12,000 vaccinations carried out over the past six weeks, 90% were dispensed in local communities, and over 40,000 homes were visited by health workers — a comparatively intensified local response that health care professional had called for in the wake of prior outbreaks. Of the 56 reported cases in the current outbreak — the central African country’s 11th — 53 are confirmed, and three are probable. Twenty-eight of them were reported in the past three weeks.  The Ebola virus, formerly known as Ebola hemorrhagic fever, is a rare but severe and often fatal illness that spreads through direct contact with bodily fluids, triggering severe vomiting and diarrhea. A separate outbreak of Ebola in Ituri and North Kivu provinces of eastern Congo, which was declared over last month, saw 3,463 confirmed and probable cases, and 2,277 deaths over two years. One of the world’s most impoverished countries, DRC is also facing the world’s largest and fastest-moving measles epidemic, with 310,000 confirmed cases and an estimated 6,000 fatalities — mostly children — since the beginning of 2019. COVID-19 has infected more than 8,199 in the DRC and has claimed 193 lives, according to Johns Hopkins University. 
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Officials from the European Space Agency, ESA, and its U.S. counterpart, NASA Thursday released the first ever pictures from the agencies’ joint Solar Orbiter mission, including the closest pictures ever taken of the sun.The orbiter was about 77 million kilometers from the sun – about halfway between Earth and the star – when it took the stunning high-resolution pictures last month.During a remote news briefing as the pictures were released, ESA’s Solar Orbiter project scientist, Daniel Müller, said the mission was off to an excellent start. He said, “We didn’t expect such great results so early.”The Belgium Royal Observatory’s David Berghmans, the principal investigator for the  “Extreme Ultraviolet Imagers” (EUI) on board the spacecraft, described the very first high-resolution image they saw from the orbiter, which snapped a picture of the sun’s corona, or outer disc. He said they did not expect to see much – the region of the sun is known as the “quiet corona” for that reason.  But he said the pictures revealed activity they did not expect. “We couldn’t believe this when we first saw this and we started giving it crazy names like ‘campfires’ and ‘dark fibrils’ and ‘ghosts’ and whatever we saw.” He said there was so much they had to start “a new vocabulary” to give names to all the new phenomena they saw.The solar orbiter was launched Feb. 9 from the Kennedy Space Center on Florida’s Cape Canaveral. The mission is designed to provide first-ever close-up views of the sun’s polar regions and observe its magnetic activity.The research could answer decades-old burning questions about the inner workings of our nearest star.
 
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NASA astronauts Chris Cassidy and Robert Behnken stepped outside the International Space Station (ISS) Thursday to continue efforts to complete a three-and-a-half-year project to upgrade the station’s batteries, the space agency said.Cassidy and Behnken have been working to replace aging nickel-hydrogen batteries with new lithium-ion batteries delivered to the station on a Japanese cargo ship in May. In all, NASA said 12 spacewalks will have been performed since January 2017 to change out batteries for eight power channels used to route electricity on the station.Thursday’s extravehicular activity is expected to last up to seven hours.NASA Astronauts Take Space Walk to Upgrade ISS BatteriesSpacewalk continues mission begun last week to upgrade ISS batteriesThe final spacewalk to complete the project is scheduled for next Tuesday and it will be somewhat historic. When the two astronauts once again step outside the ISS that day, it will mark the 300th spacewalk involving U.S. astronauts since Ed White stepped out of his Gemini 4 capsule on June 3, 1965.The space agency said the final two spacewalks will be the 230th and 231st spacewalks in the history of space station assembly, maintenance, and upgrades. They also will be the ninth and 10th for Cassidy and Behnken, who will join former NASA astronauts Michael Lopez-Alegria and Peggy Whitson with the most spacewalks by Americans.
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Can a pregnant woman spread the coronavirus to her fetus?
It’s possible, but it seems to be relatively rare and scientists think they know why that is.
Many viruses can cross the placenta and infect a fetus in the womb, and evidence has been growing that the coronavirus sometimes can too.  
Researchers in Italy studied 31 women with COVID-19 who delivered babies in March and April and found signs of the virus in several samples of umbilical cord blood, the placenta and, in one case, breast milk. But this sort of testing can just detect bits of genetic material — it doesn’t mean there is virus capable of causing infection in those places.
In one case, there was strong evidence suggesting the newborn had the virus at birth because signs of it were found in umbilical cord blood and in the placenta. In another, a newborn had certain coronavirus antibodies that are unable to cross the placenta, so they could not have come from the mother.  
A  report from France gave even stronger evidence of in-the-womb infection, and that newborn was very ill at birth.
Meanwhile, research  led by the National Institutes of Health gives a possible reason for why fetuses aren’t infected more often: cells in the placenta rarely make the two tools that the coronavirus typically uses to gain entry. In contrast, they found plenty of what Zika and another type of virus use.  
Most research so far has been on women who were in late stages of pregnancy when they got the virus; more research is needed on what happens if infection occurs earlier in pregnancy.
The advice to pregnant women remains the same: wear a mask in public, wash hands often and stay at least 6 feet away from others to avoid infection.
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U.S. President Donald Trump has unveiled a top-to-bottom overhaul of the review process for infrastructure projects that critics contend causes major cracks in bedrock conservations laws.  “This is something that nobody thought was possible,” Trump said on the outskirts of Atlanta’s airport on Wednesday, contending that “horrible roadblocks” due to environmental regulations had cost “trillions of dollars” over the years.  The president said his new rule “completely modernizes the approval review process under the National Environmental Policy Act of 1969,” which will cut the timeline for major projects, including highways, from up to 20 years down to two years or less.  “You’re not going to devote a lifetime to doing a project that doesn’t get approved,” Trump said of the streamlined process. “It’s going to be very quick — yes or no, after study.” In his remarks at the Hapeville Airport Hub of United Parcel Service, Trump discussed how he had personally experienced frustration with “mountains and mountains of red tape” over the decades in the real estate industry.  He remarked how “years and years of litigation and tumult” in the maze-like approval process had caused massive delays for his projects and those of other developers.  Democratic presidential candidate former Vice President Joe Biden speaks at McGregor Industries in Dunmore, Pa., July 9, 2020.For the second day in a row, Trump pivoted from a presidential announcement to attacking his opponent in this year’s election, former Vice President and presumptive Democratic Party nominee Joe Biden.  “Our past vice president opposes all of our permitting reforms,” the Republican president said.  The rollbacks to the act, known by its acronym, NEPA, could be removed with a simple majority vote in Congress and the president’s signature, something the opposition party is almost certain to attempt, depending on the outcome of the November election.  A number of major polls now give Biden a significant lead over Trump, and some forecast the Democrats could win enough seats in the Senate to take control of both chambers of Congress. FILE – In this March 5, 2020, file photo, Sen. Elizabeth Warren, D-Mass., speaks to the media outside her home in Cambridge, Mass., after she dropped out of the Democratic presidential race.“Trump is once again selling out and silencing communities in favor of giant corporate polluters,” said Senator Elizabeth Warren, who unsuccessfully vied for this year’s Democratic Party nomination to take on Trump.   More than 100 Democrat lawmakers wrote to the administration last week, opposing the planned changes to NEPA, noting that communities facing environment inequality “have been targeted for projects, and, in turn, continue to experience negative environmental and health impacts.”   “NEPA was created to give a voice to those who are often rendered voiceless and has successfully allowed impacted populations to challenge projects that negatively affect their water quality, air quality, economic prosperity, and overall health and safety,” the lawmakers added, predicting the changes will threaten and undermine “years of hard-fought progress.” The changes made by Trump’s administration are dangerous, costly and short-sighted, said Cheryl Wasserman, a former policy official with the enforcement and compliance assurance division of the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency.  NEPA is a “look and listen before you leap” law, she explained, directing “all federal agencies to work together to assess environmental and social impacts of proposed actions and to explore alternatives to avoid irreparable harm to natural and human resources, to avoid adverse and to enhance beneficial outcomes. Wednesday’s announcement by the president, however, is being praised by the National Association of Manufacturers (NAM).  “Amid the COVID-19 pandemic, it is more important than ever to strengthen U.S. manufacturing capabilities and operations. Onshoring manufacturing requires first establishing basic infrastructure — from water and energy delivery to transportation — before ground can ever be broken on a major facility. Obtaining permits for these items can take years, especially when environmental reviews are piecemeal,” Rachel Jones, NAM’s vice president of energy and resources policy, said.  The “bold steps” announced today “utilize existing authority to strengthen reviews, reduce the time necessary to obtain permits and set the stage to incentivize job creation and investment in America,” she added.  
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There has been an alarming decline in the number of children getting vaccinated for such preventable diseases as diphtheria, tetanus and measles, the United Nations warned Wednesday. The U.N.’s World Health Organization and UNICEF blame the decline on the disruption of routine health care caused by the coronavirus pandemic. Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, director general of World Health Organization, attends the virtual 73rd World Health Assembly in Geneva, May 18, 2020.“Vaccines are one of the most powerful tools in the history of public health, and more children are now being immunized than ever before,” WHO chief Dr. Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said. “But the pandemic has put those gains at risk. The avoidable suffering and death caused by children missing out on routine immunizations could be far greater than COVID-19 itself.” The WHO and UNICEF said that even when vaccines are available, many children who need them are afraid to leave their homes because of the coronavirus or the difficulties of traveling because of COVID-19 restrictions.  But even before the pandemic hit, the agencies said, progress in vaccinating children was slipping. They said nearly 14 million children did not get shots against measles and pertussis in 2019. Most of these children live in Africa. Economic hardships also prevented children in Brazil, India, Indonesia, Mexico, Pakistan and the Philippines from getting necessary vaccines. “COVID-19 has made previously routine vaccination a daunting challenge,” UNICEF Executive Director Henrietta Fore said. “We must prevent a further deterioration in vaccine coverage and urgently resume vaccination programs before children’s lives are threatened by other diseases. We cannot trade one health crisis for another.”
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President Donald Trump is ready to roll back a foundational Nixon-era environmental law that he says stifles infrastructure projects, but that is credited with ensuring decades of scrutiny of major projects and giving local communities a say. Trump was in Atlanta to announce changes Wednesday to the National Environmental Policy Act’s regulations for how and when authorities must conduct environmental reviews, making it easier to build highways, pipelines, chemical plants and other projects. The 1970 law changed environmental oversight in the United States by requiring federal agencies to consider whether a project would harm the air, land, water or wildlife, and giving the public the right of review and input. The White House said the final rule will promote the rebuilding of America. Critics call the Republican president’s efforts a cynical attempt to limit the public’s ability to examine and influence proposed projects under one of the country’s bedrock environmental protection laws. “This may be the single biggest giveaway to polluters in the past 40 years,” said Brett Hartl, government affairs director at the Center for Biological Diversity, an environmental group that works to save endangered species. Trump has made slashing government regulation a hallmark of his presidency and held it out as a way to boost jobs. Environmental groups say the regulatory rollbacks threaten public health and make it harder to curb global warming. With Congress and the administration divided over how to increase infrastructure investment, the president is relying on his deregulation push to demonstrate progress. “The United States can’t compete and prosper if a bureaucratic system holds us back from building what we need,” Trump said when first announcing the rollback of National Environmental Policy Act rules. Among the major changes: limiting when federal environmental reviews of projects are mandated, and capping how long federal agencies and the public have to evaluate and comment on any environmental impact of a project. Critics: Toll on minoritiesOpponents say the change will have an inordinate impact on predominantly minority communities. More than 1 million African Americans live within a half-mile of natural gas facilities and face a cancer risk above the Environmental Protection Agency’s level of concern from toxins emitted by those facilities, according to a 2017 study by the Clean Air Task Force and the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People FILE – U.S. Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY) leaves after a news conference on Capitol Hill in Washington, May 19, 2020.”Donald Trump is taking away the last lines of defense for front-line communities, and continues to demonstrate a total disregard for our environment and for those demanding racial and environmental justice,” said Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y. Mustafa Santiago Ali, a former associate administrator in the Obama administration’s EPA environmental justice office, said Black and other minority communities “will pay with their health and ultimately with their lives” for these latest proposed rule changes. Trump in GeorgiaFor his announcement, Trump chose Georgia, a swing state in the general election. Trump won the Republican-leaning state by 5 percentage points in 2016, but some polls show him trailing former Vice President Joe Biden, the presumptive Democratic nominee. This will be Trump’s ninth trip to Georgia and his sixth visit to Atlanta during his presidency. The president’s trip also comes as the state has seen coronavirus cases surge and now has tallied more than 12,000 confirmed cases and more than 3,000 deaths. Jon Ossoff, a Democrat who is running against incumbent Republican Sen. David Perdue, said Trump’s decision to come to Georgia to discuss infrastructure as the state’s coronavirus crisis worsens demonstrates that the president is “in denial and out of control.” “Coming here for a routine photo-op is, frankly, bizarre, surreal against this unprecedented health and economic crisis,” Ossoff said. Judd Deere, a White House spokesman, said that if Ossoff views a major policy announcement to expedite critical infrastructure projects as anything other than about job growth and economic expansion, then it might explain why he lost a congressional race in 2017. FILE – Heavy traffic traveling northbound on Interstate 75 moves slowly, in Forrest Park, south of Atlanta, Sept. 8, 2017.The White House said the administration’s efforts will expedite the expansion of Interstate 75 near Atlanta, an important freight route where traffic can often slow to a crawl. The state will create two interstate lanes designed solely for commercial trucks. The state announced last fall, before the White House unveiled its proposed rule, that it was moving up the deadline for substantially completing the project to 2028. The U.S. Chamber of Commerce cited a North Carolina bridge in its letter as an example of unreasonable delays, saying the bridge that connected Hatteras Island to Bodie Island took 25 years to complete, but only three years to build. “The failure to secure timely approval for projects and land management decisions is also hampering economic growth,” the business group wrote in support of the rule change. Trump’s trip to Georgia comes one day after Biden announced an infrastructure plan that places a heavy emphasis on improving energy efficiency in buildings and housing as well as promoting conservation efforts in the agriculture industry. In the plan, Biden pledges to spend $2 trillion over four years to promote his energy proposals. 
 
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