A total of 2,231 people have died out of 3,373 declared cases of Ebola in the current epidemic in the DR Congo, according to the agency overseeing the response, health officials said Sunday.Deadly unrest in the fragile state has hampered the fight against the disease during the latest epidemic, which broke out on August 1, 2018, with the eastern provinces of North Kivu and Ituri particularly badly hit.Both areas, beset by violence for two decades, have seen repeated attacks on Ebola health workers by dozens of armed groups as well …

2019 was the year of Greta Thunberg, Extinction Rebellion and an uptick in climate action pledges by governments across the globe.    From Britain to Germany, Europe’s mainstream party leaders scrambled to respond to a surge in electoral support for Green parties — and to growing public anxiety about the possible impact of climate change.    During European Parliament elections in June, 48 percent of voters identified climate change as their top worry. Opinion polls in Germany for some weeks of 2019 put the Greens ahead of Chancellor Angela Merkel’s …

Scientists are scrambling to understand why thousands of dead mussels are turning up in several rivers across the United States, including one of the world’s biodiversity hotspots. The rapid decline of the pheasant shell mussel in Appalachia’s Clinch River may be part of a mass die-off, with consequences for entire ecosystems.Like White-nose syndrome, which has devastated North American bats, or chytrid disease, which has ravaged amphibian populations around the world, experts worry that the mussel deaths could be the beginning of a widespread species collapse. In this Oct. 17, 2019 photo provided …