BUNIA, Congo — Congo will receive 70,000 doses of the Ervebo vaccine, which has been effective in past Ebola outbreaks, the World Health Organization and partners said Thursday, announcing a step seen as a major boost to efforts to contain what officials have described as the fastest Ebola outbreak in history.
The Ervebo vaccine is licensed for use against Ebola virus, one of the viruses that cause Ebola disease, but not for Bundibugyo virus, which is responsible for the current outbreak which has so far killed 2,476 people out of the 5,208 confirmed cases
WHO said in a statement that while it’s not known whether Ervebo may protect against the Bundibugyo virus, “early laboratory and animal data suggest it may provide some protection.”
The allocation includes 20,000 doses for a Phase 3 clinical trial to understand the impact of the vaccine on the Bundibugyo virus, the agency said. The remaining 50,000 doses will be used for front-line and health workers as recommended by WHO experts.
The outbreak raging in six provinces in eastern Congo has infected and killed more people at a greater speed than any other Ebola outbreak in history, and is spreading about three times faster compared to the 2014-2016 outbreak across West Africa — the deadliest Ebola outbreak on record with more than 11,000 deaths.
The International Coordinating Group on Vaccine Provision, which includes WHO and other partners, said the doses will be released immediately following a request from Congo’s government.
WHO Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus called the approval “an important example of global solidarity in action.” He said the agency and its partners remain committed to supporting strengthened surveillance, rapid detection, quality care, community engagement and vaccination efforts to bring the outbreak under control.
The lack of approved vaccines or treatments for the rare Bundibugyo virus has been a major issue for responders. Most new cases have been reported outside of the people being monitored, showing the virus continues to spread faster than efforts to track it. That has been a key contributor to the recorded deaths.
The case fatality rate so far is 47.5% although it is far worse in some places where response efforts are more challenging, such as in North Kivu province where the fatality rate is up to 70%.
Experts believe the virus began spreading from the mining town of Mongbwalu as early as February, months before authorities declared the outbreak on May 15.
KYIV, Ukraine — Russia pounded the Ukrainian capital of Kyiv and the surrounding region with scores of missiles and drones in a nighttime aerial attack that lasted for hours and killed at least 16 people, officials said Thursday.
Large-scale Russian missile strikes have become a regular occurrence this summer. Just over two weeks ago, a Russian attack on Kyiv and its surrounding region killed 17 people, and nine were killed in the city two days before that. The United Nations said last week that Kyiv was one of the hardest hit cities in July, with at least 54 civilians killed and 202 injured.
At the same time, Ukraine has shifted the war onto Russian soil through long-range drone strikes on oil facilities that have caused fuel shortages across the country. It has also unsettled the Russian public by striking warehouses of Wildberries, the country’s biggest online retailer.
Zelensky repeats his appeals for more air defense
President Volodymyr Zelensky has pleaded for countries to send more Patriot interceptors for defense, but international stockpiles are low amid the Iran war and Kyiv’s more than four-year fight against Russia’s all-out invasion.
Russia’s overnight barrage also included cruise missiles and jet-powered drones that further strain air defenses, Ukraine’s air force said.
Explosions boomed across Kyiv in the dark, but the air force said hits were recorded at 28 locations across the country. Emergency services said 15 people were killed in the capital, with another death in the wider Kyiv region. About 40 people were wounded, Zelensky said, as air raid warnings lasted until after dawn.
More than 38,000 people, including over 2,000 children, sheltered in Kyiv’s subway stations overnight, the system’s operator said.
“It was a massive attack,” Zelensky said on social media, adding that Russia “had been preparing [it] for a long time, combining different types of ballistic missiles, cruise missiles and drones, aiming to cause as much damage as possible to civilian infrastructure.”
The Russian Defense Ministry said it struck a Kyiv industrial site manufacturing components for Flamingo cruise missiles. Sites involved in the production and storage of drones, an ammunition depot and a logistics center were also hit, it said.
Russia is able to produce more than 200 cruise and ballistic missiles per month, Ukraine’s intelligence agency told news outlet Ukrainska Pravda in comments published Thursday. It has stockpiled more than 1,100 cruise missiles and about 130 Iskander-M ballistic missiles, as well as hundreds of missiles of other types, the agency was quoted as saying.
It was not possible to independently verify the report, and Russian officials do not routinely answer questions about the country’s arsenal.
Ukraine says it struck more Russian oil facilities
Russia and Ukraine have battered each other with drones and missiles as their armies struggle to gain the upper hand on the 780-mile front line.
Ukraine’s General Staff said its forces struck an oil refinery in Nizhnekamsk, in Russia’s Tatarstan region, starting a fire, and the Tamanneftegaz oil terminal in Volna, in Russia’s Krasnodar region, where there was also a blaze. Ukraine has hit both facilities in recent months as part of its campaign to disrupt Russia’s vital oil industry.
Tatarstan leader Rustam Minnikhanov confirmed there had been a “massive attack” in the region, state news agency Tass reported, citing his press service. Many of the drones targeted Nizhnekamsk’s Zakamsk economic area, disrupting production at industrial sites and damaging residential buildings, Tass quoted him as saying.
The Russian Defense Ministry said air defenses shot down 726 drones overnight over a number of Russian regions, annexed Crimea and the Black and Azov seas, in one of Ukraine’s biggest aerial attacks of the war.
Ukraine’s neighbors are on alert
Russia’s relentless onslaught has spooked other European countries, especially those bordering Ukraine, which fear spreading attacks from Moscow.
Amid the attack on Kyiv, the Polish Armed Forces Operational Command activated its military aviation operations, ground-based air defense systems and radar reconnaissance. Polish and other NATO military aircraft were deployed to monitor its airspace, Polish news agency PAP reported.
Romania’s Defense Ministry said an unidentified drone crashed and burned in an uninhabited area near the Ukrainian border. Two Spanish F-18 jets, deployed on a policing mission in Romania, were scrambled overnight to monitor a group of “air targets” near the border, the ministry said.
In addition, two Romanian F-16 fighter jets were deployed to destroy a naval drone seen near a major Black Sea gas project, Romania’s acting Defense Minister Radu Miruta said.
Moldova’s Defense Ministry also said its airspace was breached by at least one drone.
Russia “is increasingly testing the resolve of NATO and its partners, violating the sovereignty of neighboring states and deliberately expanding the risks posed by its war far beyond Ukraine,” Ukrainian Foreign Minister Andrii Sybiha said on social media.
European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen saw a broad threat to the European Union. “An escalating campaign of threats is underway, unsettling our citizens and seeking to divide our Union,” she said on X.
Explosions shatter windows and screams fill the air
Russia’s overnight strikes hit 12 locations across Kyiv’s Darnytskyi, Sviatoshynskyi and Solomianskyi districts, damaging 30 apartment blocks, a school, a children’s hospital and a kindergarten, Zelensky said.
Larysa Bondaruk, 60, sat on the ground, holding her cat, Chanel, which had been rescued by firefighters. With tears in her eyes, she said her neighbor’s grandson had been trapped by the rubble and died. Her apartment was badly damaged.
“A rocket hit the roof. It was incredibly loud. Immediately, debris and doors were blown out. There were columns of smoke, columns of fire, screams, crying and despair,” she said. “Two people were killed in our building, but the rescuers responded quickly and professionally. I am grateful to them for that.”
In Solomianskyi district, the top two floors of a nine-story residential building were destroyed and fires broke out on other floors. People were also trapped in two residential buildings and a school shelter.
TOKYO — Christopher Bodeen, a tenacious, old-school wire service reporter who brought a keen analytical eye and a wry sense of humor to decades of work in China, Taiwan, and in war zones and natural disasters across the globe for the Associated Press, has died. He was 55.
Mr. Bodeen died Monday after a struggle with cancer and complications from a stroke, his daughter, Ingrid, said Thursday by telephone from Taiwan.
Mr. Bodeen, who spoke fluent Mandarin with a proud Taiwan accent, spent much of his career detailing China’s rise to an economic, political, and military superpower — and the accompanying friction from what critics have long called Beijing’s heavy-handed efforts to establish dominance in Asia and beyond.
“Chris was a reporter who would go anywhere and do anything for the story,” said Charles Hutzler, AP’s former bureau chief in Beijing. After a huge quake flattened a swath of Sichuan Province in 2008, Mr. Bodeen composed his account from one devastated town sentence by sentence over text messages because of damaged telecommunications networks. “It was one of the first eyewitness reports the AP and the world received about one of the worst earthquakes in decades,” Hutzler recalled.
He was an expert on politics and Chinese military issues
From AP bureaus in Shanghai, Beijing and Taipei, Mr. Bodeen was for years the news agency’s go-to person on Chinese politics and military issues, able to quickly determine the newsworthiness of the government’s often abstruse statements.
“A chat with Chris would inevitably turn into a remarkable history lesson,” said Emily Wang Fujiyama, former Greater China news director. “He had astounding knowledge of the region and would be writing about China’s military presence in the South China Sea, pivot to Taiwan’s intricate politics, and just as deftly write about the political sensitivities of Tibet, Mongolia, and China.”
Mr. Bodeen was born in Missouri on Sept. 9, 1970, but he spent parts of his childhood in the Middle East, Europe, Africa, and Asia. His father was a foreign service officer and his mother a former diplomat, his daughter, Ingrid, said. Friends and colleagues remembered his love of the Boston Red Sox, esoteric punk rock — and his contagious enthusiasm for the job of journalism.
“He was the blondest, palest person you’ll ever meet” yet also spoke pitch-perfect Chinese, said Ted Anthony, AP’s former China news editor and news director for Asia. “So when the earthquake in Sichuan happened in 2008, he went out there, put on one of his ever-present ball caps to cover his hair, and slouched down. He passed as Chinese, started interviewing people and sailed under the scrutiny of the authorities.”
He was ‘always ready for adventure’
Mr. Bodeen joined the AP in 1996, in Taiwan, the self-governing democratic island China claims as its own, before working as an editor on the agency’s international desk in New York and then joining the AP bureau in Beijing as a correspondent, in 2000. He majored in history and Asian studies at Tufts University, graduating in 1993.
“Chris Bodeen was always ready for adventure. Hiding in the hills of Hainan Island, China, to try to report on the return of an American Air Force plane forced down in 2001, he was the best colleague to be with,” said Raf Wober, a video journalist in the AP’s Hong Kong bureau.
In a 2017 story on efforts to burnish the image of Chinese leader Xi Jinping, Mr. Bodeen described state broadcaster China Central Television leading its evening national news bulletin “with more than four minutes of uninterrupted clapping for Xi as he met with adoring citizens,” and a Russian translator who “was so engrossed with reading a recent speech by Xi, Xinhua [the official news agency] said, that he skipped lunch and dinner just to finish studying it.”
While much of this might have seemed amusing to outsiders, Mr. Bodeen was careful to note that “the domination of [Xi’s] image in official propaganda evokes, for some, the painful memories of the upheaval of the 1960s and ’70s, when Mao [Zedong] was accorded the status of a near deity.”
Julie Pace, AP’s executive editor, remembered Mr. Bodeen as not only an effective China correspondent but as a fellow journalist whose knowledge elevated those around him.
“Chris cared deeply about his work and the value of on-the-ground reporting in such an important region of the world,” she said. ”His expertise informed AP’s audiences for so many years, but also helped lift up so many colleagues.”
Passion for family and work was his hallmark
Mr. Bodeen was deeply proud of his two daughters and loved showing off their artwork and achievements — and creative Halloween costumes — to colleagues. “Every parent thinks their kids are the best, but, hand to God, these girls are both adorable and seriously tough cookies,” he wrote of his children.
“He truly, passionately loved what he did, as much as he loved being a dad,” Ingrid Bodeen said. She recalled that when her father spent long stints reporting from Afghanistan during her childhood, “he would always have my mom fax over my spelling lists and homework so we could work on them together. He never missed a spelling test week.”
Mr. Bodeen was also beloved by colleagues for his sharp sense of humor, his knowledge of good local food, and an encyclopedic knowledge of movie and TV comedies from the ’70s and ’80s.
Kanis Leung, an AP reporter in Hong Kong, said that Mr. Bodeen once told her about an old correspondent’s description of news reporting as “the art of shoving 50 pounds of oatmeal into a 10-pound sack.”
“Except,” Mr. Bodeen told Leung, “he didn’t say oatmeal.”
Mr. Bodeen is survived by his wife, Yen Ling, daughters Ingrid, 26, and Naomi, 22, his parents and a sister.
HOUSTON — For years, travelers passing through Texas’ two biggest airports have had access to small washing stations for a ritual called wudu, in which Muslims clean their hands, arms, head and feet before the five daily prayers.
Such facilities have become more common in states with the largest Muslim populations, including Texas, where on Wednesday travelers and others popped in and out of washing stations at Houston’s George Bush Intercontinental Airport. The tiled wudu room sits along an airport hall just past a vending machine, with a small sign showing a draped person kneeling.
Public wudu stations are also open at places including the University of Minnesota, the University of Michigan, LaGuardia Airport in New York, and O’Hare International Airport in Chicago.
Now, amid rising attacks on Muslims by Republican elected officials, Texas Gov. Greg Abbott is making the stations a target. He sent a letter Friday to the heads of the Houston airport and Dallas-Fort Worth International Airport that said facilities aimed at serving one religious group are discriminatory against everyone else.
Abbott said he has asked the U.S. Department of Transportation to investigate both airports and warned that his office is “reviewing all grants to any local governmental entities involved in these schemes.”
Later that day, DFW announced it had scrapped plans to add additional washing stations in men’s and women’s restrooms that are available to passersby outside the security perimeter.
Airport spokesman Heath Montgomery wrote in an email that officials “determined the originally anticipated benefit may not be achieved” if the stations were built.
Asked if the decision was a response to Abbott’s letter, Montgomery said it was made before the letter was issued, but that airport officials “were aware of his and other public officials’ emerging concerns.”
Muslim leaders and experts in religious liberties rejected Abbott’s claim that the facilities would discriminate against non-Muslims. Several said opposition to the washing stations is the latest example of GOP leaders, perhaps most visibly in Texas, railing against Islam.
“If there is one thing all religious liberty scholars and advocates across the ideological spectrum have agreed on, it is that the Free Exercise Clause forbids government discrimination because of religion,” Steven T. Collis, a University of Texas at Austin law professor, said in an email. “Although Gov. Abbott’s letter characterized what the airports were providing as discriminating in favor of Muslims, this newest saga is actually part of a much broader pattern of state officials targeting Muslims and trying to make Texas an inhospitable place for them.”
Asma Uddin, a constitutional law scholar who writes about Islam in America, said the Supreme Court has long ruled that neutrality “does not mean that every religion gets treated exactly equally; it means the government cannot coerce, endorse, or exclude based on religious identity.”
The experts noted a range of public services targeted to specific groups, from kosher food served at airports to special low-sensory hours at museums or parks for autistic people. The public-private Texas waterpark chain Hawaiian Falls has hosted events for Christians including “Modesty Matters” and mass baptisms. President Donald Trump this summer hosted a massive evangelical Christian worship event on the National Mall in D.C.
“We can choose to be coy about it and pretend like there are actually sophisticated ideas or sincere concerns here about discrimination, religious encroachment, public safety or spending,” said Imam Omar Suleiman, who leads the think tank Yaqeen Institute outside Dallas. “Or we can embrace the fact that bigotry toward Muslims is alive and well and being fanned, funded and fueled to increase, in Texas and across the country. And people like Governor Abbott are at the center of that phenomenon.”
Abbott’s office declined to comment Wednesday, referring The Washington Post to social media posts in which he repeated his claim that the washing stations were religious discrimination.
The office also noted a Sunday interview on Fox News in which Abbott was asked why he opposes the stations but supports a new state law mandating the posting of a Protestant version of the Ten Commandments in every classroom.
Abbott called the two things “apples and oranges.” The biblical commandments, he said, were part of Texas history all the way up until “who we are today,” while “other faiths” don’t have “the same applications over the course of history of the state of Texas and hence don’t need to be recognized.”
Suleiman, who uses airport wudu stations when he’s traveling, called the washing facilities an important part of making Muslims comfortable and described Abbott’s letter as part of a movement looking to curtail that group’s religious freedoms.
“Putting one’s foot in the nasty sink of a public restroom — often trying to carefully ensure that no part of the body touches some yucky bathroom surface while balancing on one leg — isn’t really something Muslims are thrilled to be doing,” he said.
There are about 4.6 million Muslims in the United States and about 313,000 in Texas, according to the World Population Review. Muslims have become more visible in American public life in recent years, with milestones including the election of Mayor Zohran Mamdani (D) in New York and the Michigan Democratic primary win of Abdul El-Sayed, who would become the nation’s first Muslim U.S. senator if he defeats his Republican opponent this fall.
At the same time, anti-Muslim sentiment has become more public and more pointed.
“The blatant and mainstreaming of Islamophobia is worse than after [the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks],” said Haris Tarin, vice president of the Muslim Public Affairs Council, an advocacy group that focuses on policies of interest to U.S. Muslims.
Trump, who has declined to condemn anti-Islam comments from members of his party, last week described Democratic candidates in the midterm elections as “jihadists.” Earlier this month, Rep. Nancy Mace (R, South Carolina) said “every single Muslim holding public office in America is a Trojan horse.”
The growth of Muslim communities in Texas is impossible to miss.
The Houston area is now home to Texas’s largest Muslim community, with more than 200 mosques and Islamic centers. The Muslim population in the Dallas-Fort Worth area doubled in a decade, and Muslim state lawmakers represent suburban districts in both the Dallas and Houston metro areas.
Houston Mayor John Whitmire released a statement in response to Abbott’s letter saying 22 percent of all international travelers departing from Terminal D — where the wudu station is — are flying on airlines based in Muslim-majority countries. “IAH is a global gateway,” Whitmire wrote. “The ablution room was created in response to passenger requests and serves a practical need.”
Abbott, who is running for reelection, and Attorney General Ken Paxton — a Trump ally who is waging a competitive race for the Senate — have both embraced Islamophobic rhetoric on the campaign trail.
Last year, Abbott designated the Council on American-Islamic Relations, a Muslim civil rights and advocacy organization, as a foreign terrorist group. He and Paxton fought to revoke the group’s nonprofit status, a move that CAIR has challenged in court.
Abbott has also led GOP efforts to block a residential development planned around a large mosque complex in the Dallas area.
Texas officials denied Islamic schools access to the state voucher program until a judge ordered them not to. At the Texas GOP convention in Houston in June, Republicans added to their platform a provision banning “sharia,” or Islamic law, even though sharia law does not apply under U.S. civil law.
At the airport in Houston on Wednesday, people came in and out of the wudu rooms ahead of Dhuhr, the midday prayers. A man and woman wearing airport employee tags — she also wore a blue head scarf — slipped into their respective rooms shortly before 1:30 p.m. A mother and her teenage son, traveling home to Toronto after visiting family, said ablution stations are common in Canada.
Ubaid Mian, who manages several airport restaurants, said he uses the prayer and wudu rooms multiple times each day.
“The airport is a place where everybody travels. Diversity should be appreciated,” he said, shaking his head at the controversy. Texas “has so many people here who have so many different beliefs. There’s no harm in it. It should be respected.”
Mian said he would be back at the wudu room to prepare for evening prayer before heading home.
“Who’s running now?” Krasner said at a Thursday news conference where investigators announced they had identified the suspect as 22-year-old Zymire Hughes — and said it was possible he had already fled Pennsylvania.
It was the latest development in a nightmare-fueled story that has garnered national attention as images and videos of a man harassing pedestrians in the babylike mask went viral on social media this week.
Krasner said his office has issued a warrant for Hughes’ arrest for assault and related crimes.
The charges stem from the Aug. 12 morning that a man in a Chucky mask harassed and scared more than a dozen people near City Hall, including a 40-year-old woman who Krasner said was “severely injured” when she fell while running from Hughes in fear.
In all, investigators said, Hughes is accused of harassing around 16 people between 5 and 5:30 a.m. that morning.
Police documented the behavior through a host of camera angles due to the large number of security cameras monitoring Center City streets.
They saw a masked Hughes begin the harassment near 10th and Chestnut Streets that morning, where he approached a man who appeared to cower on his knees in fear, said Capt. Jason Smith of the Central Detective Division.
After Hughes harassed others in the Center City area, authorities said, his behavior culminated when he chased the woman as she jogged near City Hall.
Hughes asked the woman if she was “ready to die” during the confrontation, according to Smith.
After the woman fled, Hughes went into a Dunkin’ Donuts store near 13th and Chestnut Streets. He then entered Suburban Station, Smith said, where two SEPTA transit officers told Hughes to remove the mask.
He lifted the mask slightly but did not remove it. He calmly walked away from the officers, surveillance footage shows.
“He does successfully evade them,” the captain said.
Hughes later rode SEPTA’s 33 bus to his apartment near 23rd and Venango Streets, surveillance footage shows.
But Smith said investigators believe Hughes may have already fled the state.
Detectives learned he left his apartment with packed bags two nights ago. It is possible he may have gone to Los Angeles or Las Vegas, where he has connections through an employer, Smith said.
Meanwhile, they continue to consider whether Hughes was motivated to film the stunt and post content on social media.
Detectives have linked two TikTok and one Instagram accounts to Hughes. But the accounts do not include posts related to his alleged behavior from last week.
Investigators also do not believe Hughes intended to physically harm those he harassed, they said, given that he did not produce a weapon during any of the interactions.
Krasner said that Hughes could not run forever, and that additional charges could come as investigators urge anyone harassed by Hughes that morning to come forward.
The young man is currently on probation in Philadelphia for a criminal case out of Montgomery County, Krasner said, adding that he considered Hughes’ behavior last week to be a violation of those conditions.
“You think it’s funny to scare people?” the district attorney said in a message directed to Hughes. “Well, get ready to get scared by us.”
It was another sizzling summer day in late July, with temperatures nearing 100 degrees, when one of the main roads cutting through Greenville, Texas, finally just gave up.
The stretch of U.S. Highway 69 kept expanding in the extreme heat until it exploded, creating a sharp, two-foot-tall ramp where it broke at the pavement joint. Most of the traffic in this Dallas exurb drove around it.
But then a black pickup hit the ramp going about 30 mph, sending the truck airborne, Dukes of Hazzard-style, flying several feet in the air and slamming down on its front tires.
“Oh, my God!” an onlooker said, as the scene was being recorded. “That’s crazy!”
It was a dramatic example of what has been playing out repeatedly this summer along the nation’s roadways, railroad tracks and bridges: Intense heat is causing surfaces to expand to the point that they break.
The failures illustrate how the nation’s transportation networks, built for a different era, increasingly struggle to handle hotter modern-day summers. And this summer has been brutal. July, federal scientists have said, was the single hottest month on record in the contiguous United States.
Heat waves melt asphalt into goo. Train tracks twist. Overhead power lines sag. Concrete snaps into pieces in what are known as “blowups” — the technical term for what the Pennsylvania Department of Transportation defines as “a heave in a concrete or brick pavement caused by pavement expansion from excessive heat.”
The entire state of Wisconsin was cautioned earlier this summer to “watch for pavement buckles.” A blowup last month closed part of Interstate 97 near Severna Park, Maryland, clogging traffic for a quick repair and then for three straight nights. Interstate 49 in Shreveport, Louisiana, was also shut for hours while crews raced to deal with a blowup. After a bike path next to U.S. 36 buckled, officials in Boulder County, Colorado, warned residents to prepare for more.
“You start seeing them in early summer, and then they surge as the heat builds,” said David North, a district engineer with Louisiana’s transportation department.
Blowups, he said, are “unpredictable and instant.”
In New Jersey, a vertical-lift bridge over the Point Pleasant Canal has been forced to close to boat traffic four different times this summer — on June 11, June 30, July 14 and Aug. 7 — because unrelenting heat kept cooking bridge components and preventing the span from moving.
The bridge, which opened in 1972, was built for a different climate.
State officials now “are working with our consultants to see if there can be any modifications made to mitigate these issues,” Steve Schapiro of the New Jersey Department of Transportation said in a statement.
In Wisconsin, the rate of pavement buckling had been increasing over the last decade, with higher temperatures partly to blame, according to a 2022 state report.
The Federal Highway Administration in 2023 warned against relying on historical climate records when designing new roads and suggested looking instead to predictive climate models.
“I do think there is a recognition that [road] specifications and standards are static, but weather patterns are changing,” said Shane Underwood, an engineering professor at North Carolina State University and president of the Academy of Pavement Science and Engineering.
He was the lead author on a 2017 paper that warned that failing to change methods “significantly threatens” the nation’s roads.
Underwood said he’s seen some progress. He pointed to an online tool developed by federal officials that uses site-specific climate data to help engineers select the correct blend of binders for asphalt pavement. Roads in Arizona, for example, need to be stiffer than those in Minnesota to survive the high temperatures.
The regional recipes for new roads have changed over the years, like how the U.S. Agriculture Department updated its plant hardiness zone map to account for warm-weather plants surviving farther north these days.
Road engineers also are experimenting with other ways to protect the nation’s infrastructure.
“It’s really taken off in the last 10 to 20 years,” said Kim Roddis, professor emerita of civil and environmental engineering at George Washington University.
Some asphalt roads — which can soften like chocolate chip cookies — are now dusted with plastic polymers for better rigidity, Roddis said.
Several cities have tested out what is essentially white asphalt, to reflect more heat. San Antonio, Phoenix and Los Angeles have launched “cool pavement” pilot programs.
New Jersey has stopped building concrete roads with asphalt on top due to hotter temperatures, calling it an outdated design, Schapiro said. Next year, it plans to repair concrete pavement slabs along 11 miles of Interstate 287, in part to get ahead of potential future blowups caused by the heat.
Railroads are struggling with hotter days, too.
Metal tracks can bend in extreme summer heat, creating what’s known as a “sun kink” as rails exert force against the ties. That can cause trains to derail.
Train operators have responded by stepping up rail inspections and going slower during heat waves.
Washington’s Metro uses “heat ride” inspections to look for rails reaching 135 degrees, the trigger for speed restrictions. Amtrak runs into the problem so often that it offers an explainer page on its website so customers understand why trains might run slower during heat waves.
In February, a trade group for public transit agencies issued new guidelines “to improve its resilience to climate hazards,” with ideas such as replacing wood ties with concrete ones.
Union Pacific, one of the nation’s largest freight railroads, said this summer it was spraying white paint on its rail network in some places to cool the metal, borrowing a page from European railroads.
In Greenville, that flying pickup truck was not the first time extreme summer heat caused problems on U.S. Highway 69.
Just three weeks earlier and 10 miles away, a different section of the highway also succumbed to the heat when the asphalt pavement softened and vehicles pulled up the roadway in chunks.
It was a mess. But it was no match for what was to come.
The viral video of the pavement blowup was the talk of the town, said Greenville spokesman Daniel Starks.
“I was shocked,” he said. “You don’t ever want your road buckling — and definitely not like that.”
Cheltenham’s new pool wasn’t on the agenda, but that didn’t stop residents from bringing up their concerns about it in a marathon four-hour commissioners’ meeting Wednesday night.
Board President Matthew Areman paused at every agenda item to allow input from residents in a boisterous meeting that included the swearing in of Cheltenham’s new police chief, Richard Schaffer.
But many of the remarks concerned a topic residents say they haven’t been given a chance to discuss: The Melrose pool project, which the township secured by leasing 2.7 acres for $10 per year to a private developer, who agreed to build a public pool complex for up to $4.5 million next to a new housing and commercial development.
The township had received those acres for free last winter from the same developer, an LLC associated with BG Capital, for the purpose of building the pool, Cheltenham’s solicitor, Ed Diasio, said at a July committee meeting.
Areman said at the commissioners’ meeting last month that Cheltenham would have limited input on the pool design, since a private company is building it. The pool is slated to open in 2027.
That lack of input isn’t sitting right with some residents. While they’d long known the Conklin Pool that Melrose is replacing needed work, the agreement with a private developer to build a public pool next to new apartments came too quickly and too quietly.
“I remember when we first were discussing the Glenside and the Conklin pools. The conversation felt open,” said Jessica Tkacs of Glenside, adding that she’s worried about the town’s image.
“If we do not handle these issues right now as democratically as possible, we will continue down the path of being looked at as a slimy township that covers up things,” she said.
Sam Thacker, who is suing the township because he believes the contract violates Cheltenham’s bidding rules, spoke multiple times on Wednesday and also shouted out from the crowd, which was standing room-only at the start of the 7:30 p.m. meeting before dwindling to a handful near 11 p.m., with more on Zoom.
Several residents said that although they trust the commissioners and their intentions, they could’ve handled the Melrose project better.
“Accessibility, walkability, connectedness is being built into the Melrose redevelopment plan. Its location will provide significant value to the community,” said John Raisch, who chairs the town’s transportation committee. “I personally trust you, and other residents also trust you. That doesn’t mean we’re perfect, though.”
The commissioners offered new details about the pool project. Both Areman and the finance committee chair, Daniel Norris, said they aim to pay for the pools in full once finished rather than up to $382,500 per year in rent, which is another option in the contract. The two also clarified that the township has already budgeted for the pools in Cheltenham’s capital fund.
But they left other questions unanswered. The developer was required to submit a final pool plan last week to the township, which has two weeks to approve it under the contract. Township officials said they couldn’t disclose whether Cheltenham had the final plan in their possession this week because of Thacker’s lawsuit.
Cheltenham has until Friday to submit their legal argument in that suit, which a Montgomery County judge could rule on as early as next week.
Attendee Amy Fried pointed to a petition Thacker started demanding the township halt the project over transparency and legal concerns as evidence that the worry is widespread.
“You have a fiduciary duty to the township. You also have a duty to the historic value of the township, and the green beauty of the township,” Fried said. “And you have almost 600 people who have signed a petition who are telling you you’re shirking that duty.”
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SEOUL, South Korea — North Korea launched a barrage of ballistic missiles toward the sea on Thursday, South Korea’s military said, a day after the North shrugged off a U.S. decision to scale back military drills with South Korea in an apparent bid to resume diplomacy.
The Joint Chiefs of Staff said the launches of about 10 short-range ballistic missiles happened from North Korea’s capital region around 5 p.m. local time on Thursday. The military said the missiles flew about 185 miles each toward North Korea’s eastern waters.
The military said South Korea has bolstered its surveillance posture and was closely coordinating information on the launches with the U.S. and Japan. South Korea’s presidential national security council issued a statement urging North Korea to halt ballistic missile launches.
The Japanese prime minister’s office had earlier said that it detected a suspected missile launch.
President Donald Trump earlier ordered the Pentagon to “substantially reduce” the Ulchi Freedom Shield exercises, just before they began Monday. Trump cited what he said was a good relationship with Kim and South Korea’s refusal to support him over the war in Iran.
On Wednesday, the South Korean and U.S. militaries confirmed they shortened the 11-day drills by shortening their duration by about half and canceling some field training exercises. The reduction of the exercises raised worries about the allies’ joint defense posture.
Kim Yo Jong, the influential sister of North Korean leader Kim Jong Un, dismissed Trump’s overture later Wednesday, saying “the provocative, aggressive nature of the drills won’t change even though their duration and size were reduced.”
“If the U.S. calculates that it can propagate its recent measure as the one of so-called good faith, they will not get the desired answer,” she said in a statement.
She denied Trump’s claim that Kim Jong Un had responded to his request for a conversation.
Kim Yo Jong still refrained from the typical North Korean reaction of fiery rhetoric and said personal relations between her brother and Trump are “still excellent.” That signals North Korea would want to wait for Trump to make bigger concessions before returning to talks.
When asked by reporters Wednesday if he would be meeting with Kim Jong Un this year, Trump said that “Yeah, I will be.” He wouldn’t answer a question about whether he is exchanging letters with Kim but said he gets along with him.
The Ulchi Freedom Shield is one of the main military exercises conducted by the U.S. and South Korea annually to enhance their ability to cope with potential North Korean aggression. Washington and Seoul say their drills are defensive in nature, but North Korea calls them an invasion rehearsal and often reacts with weapons tests.
Before this month’s drills started, North Korea accused the U.S. and South Korea of plotting more provocative exercises this summer and vowed to respond with “a new level of a deterrent.” Days before the drills’ start, North Korea fired two ballistic missiles into the sea in its first such launches since late June.
Trump’s earlier diplomacy with Kim Jong Un collapsed in 2019 due to disputes over how much sanctions relief North Korea should be given in return for dismantling its main nuclear complex, a limited denuclearization step. Kim has since shunned any talks with the U.S., pushed to modernize weapons arsenals and expanded cooperation with Russia.
Kim has said he won’t place his nuclear program back on the negotiating table. Experts say Kim has more leverage than when he first held talks with Trump in 2018 and 2019. They say Kim likely hopes to eventually win international recognition as a nuclear state and extensive sanctions relief in exchange for only limited steps toward denuclearization.
And in November, the residents of the same borough will settle a separate debate: Lift its liquor ban or keep its longstanding status as a dry town.
Plus, the U.S. Justice Department is accusing a New Jersey family of using several hotels that are in poor condition to fraudulently obtain loans in a $100 million Ponzi scheme, and more news of the day.
There’s a chaotic debate in Collingswood with the Scottish Rite Theater at the center.
Collingswood is looking to transfer management of the theater to Camden County after paying millions in expenses to keep it afloat in recent years, particularly since the pandemic.
Commissioner Jim Maley, a former mayor, cofounded the nonprofit that manages the Scottish Rite property, Collingswood Foundation for the Arts, in 1999. The foundation, according to Maley, was created to secure arts grants for the borough.
It has routinely received funds without pushback.
But now, the public is demanding answers. They want to know who actually runs it, if it’s even part of the borough, and why taxpayers are paying for it if it’s not.
This November, Collingswood voters will decide if the borough will lift its ban on alcohol sales.
The borough’s board of commissioners passed a resolution Wednesday to add the question to the general election ballot after years of debate over its long-standing dry-town status.
If voters lift the ban, that means Collingswood could either:
🍷 Award licenses in a bidding process, which would mean onetime revenue for the borough’s budget.
Or:
🍷 Enact an application and review process that would require annual fees and prospective licensees to make public presentations.
The Justice Department is accusing a New Jersey-based father, son, and other family members who own several hotels of a $100 million Ponzi scheme that lasted more than 30 years. The lawsuit alleges they used hotels in chronic disrepair and various business entities to fraudulently obtain government-secured loans.
A skunk found in Cherry Hill has tested positive for rabies, according to Camden County officials and the state health department. Officials advise residents to avoid direct contact with unfamiliar animals and to make sure pets are up to date on vaccinations.
According to a Morning Consult poll, Gov. Mikie Sherrill is one of the country’s most popular governors: She is in a four-way tie for 12th with a 55% approval rating versus a 30% disapproval. South Jersey Democrat U.S. Sen. Andy Kim has a 49% approval versus a 27% disapproval.
😂 Laugh at Your Expense with Joe Bartnick: Joe Bartnick headlines this comedy show fresh off appearances on Netflix’s Old Dads and Bill Burr: Friends Who Kill. Other performers include Steve Trevelise from New Jersey 101.5 and rising comic Andy Picarro. ⏰ Thursday, Aug. 20, 7:30-9:30 p.m. 💵 $30 📍 The Broadway Theatre of Pitman, 43 S. Broadway, Pitman.
📚 Philly Bookstore Crawl: The annual book crawl is back. More than 50 participating independent bookstores in the Greater Philadelphia area, including Kiss & Tale in Collingswood, will host special events with discounted sales, giveaways, author signings, and more. ⏰ Saturday, Aug. 22, various times 💵 Pay as you go 📍 Kiss & Tale, 688 Haddon Ave. Floor 1, Collingswood and Inkwood Books, 106 Kings Hwy. E, Haddonfield.
🎉 Women’s Equality Day Festival: The fest is back for its fifth year featuring craft vendors, live music, performances, and family-friendly activities. The Alice Paul Center for Gender Justice hosts at historic Paulsdale, the birthplace of the women’s rights activist and suffragist. ⏰ Saturday, Aug 22, 1-5 p.m. 💵 Pay as you go 📍 Paulsdale, 128 Hooton Rd., Mount Laurel.
Armando Roberto Perez goes by many names. Armand. Bob. Opa. Mr. Soupy.
Perez, 70, is the longtime caretaker for Soupy Island, a public pool and park in West Deptford, best known for its century-old carousel, free soup, and the tall, enclosed slide guests glide down, crashing into sand.
Before Perez took the job 28 years ago, his father-in-law was caretaker, and before that, his grandfather-in-law. Managing the former 25-acre haven for sick and hungry kids has long been a family affair.
Soupy Island is open and free to the public three days a week from July to mid-August. For the rest of the year, it’s Perez’s job to keep the tuberculosis treatment center-turned-playground standing come summertime.
Lifeguard Alexandria Bright, 22, watches over swimmers in the main pool at Soupy Island. She is a niece of caretaker Bob Perez.Tom Gralish / Staff Photographer
He puts the picnic tables away, disconnects the piping and toilets, drains the pool, boards up the carousel, collects leaves, cuts the grass, weed-whacks, handles repairs, and takes on whatever else happens.
“If you’re not self-motivating, nothing’s going to get done,” Perez said.
On Wednesday, the second-to-last day of Soupy Island’s summer and what could be one of Perez’s last seasons as caretaker, 329 people had arrived by lunchtime.
At 11:45 a.m., the park’s amenities close like clockwork for lunch, until 1 p.m. Its 18 staff members ushered children and their families toward the middle of the park for Soupy Island’s controversial intermission: free hot soup, crackers, and milk, enjoyed (or not) in the August heat.
Syreeta Minor, 47, brought her daughter and her group of friends to Soupy Island for the first time after hearing about the destination on YouTube. Minor had no idea the park existed despite living in West Deptford, but she said she’ll likely be back.
A soupy history
Driving his golf cart across Soupy’s campus, Perez explained the park’s complicated history, in brief.
He pointed out the old European carousel, an early 20th-century relic that the National Carousel Association has been working to restore, and all the structures he’s fixed over the years. A chalk drawing made by his granddaughter, Izzy, on the wall of the soup house depicts Perez, “Opa,” at the top of a family tree with his wife, Denise.
Perez with a family tree drawn in chalk by his granddaughter Izzy when she was young.Tom Gralish / Staff Photographer
The park’s roots trace back to 1877, when the Sanitarium Association of Philadelphia purchased land to create a playground and treatment center for kids with tuberculosis.
The hospital no longer exists, but remnants of its history remain. A public pool has replaced the hospital’s former basement. A brick building from the late 19th century still serves hot soup and snacks from its three windows. The medical staff quarters is where Perez now lives with his wife, free-of-charge, different from the life Perez imagined growing up in North Philly. He graduated from Frankford High School, didn’t go to college, and moved to Jersey when he got married in 1976.
“I came from nothing,” Perez said. “We had government food. We had government housing.”
Perez’s home is an old five-bedroom white house at the front of the park, paid for through an endowment set up by Soupy Island doctors more than a century ago. It’s spacious enough for Perez’s grand and great-grandkids when they visit.
The endowment is what keeps the park alive and has kept it going through decades of turmoil.
During the Great Depression, the Sanitarium Playground fed thousands per day. It was often the only place city children could get a hot meal, by taking a river boat from Penn Treaty pier down the Delaware River. For fun, Perez said, children swam on the river in wool bathing suits and overalls.
In the 1940s, during World War II, the U.S. military took over Soupy Island to protect the nearby shipyard, before the playground returned to its park and soup kitchen roots.
‘Working with my hands’
Despite its history, Perez said the island (which isn’t an island at all) has kept under the radar. When staff have to call the police to report vandalism or an incident, they don’t always know where to go.
“A lot of people don’t know about it. They say, ‘I never knew you were here,’” Perez said. “I got people around the corner who don’t even know we’re here.”
In many ways, that has been to Soupy’s benefit. The summer playground doesn’t have the staffing or space to accommodate huge crowds, and Perez does much of his work solo. Over the years, he’s had to keep up certifications as an amusement ride operator, a pool manager, a lifeguard, and a diver, on top of the mechanical skills he developed over his 24 years at Cherry Hill Volvo.
It was his father-in-law who pestered him to apply for Soupy Island, a career he didn’t want.
“I like working with my hands,” Perez said.
His grandson, Lucas Ngo, plans to take over when Perez retires. A mural of Ngo, now 22, is on the wall over by the big kid pool, painted by Perez when Ngo was still a child.
Lucas Ngo, now 22, and an employee at the at Soupy Island in West Deptford, N.J. is depicted on a mural at the swimming pool Wednesday, Aug. 12, 2026. Tom Gralish / Staff Photographer
On Wednesday, Ngo, who originally planned to pursue car mechanic work, prepared the daily soup, chicken noodle, in a giant vat as visitors trickled toward the house. An unfamiliar clanging came from the soup area.
“Now that noise? Open the valve,” Perez instructed, then laughed. “There you go. You get to know the sounds of the things.”
‘A rite of passage’
Lifeguard Ali Bright, 22, placed spoons as Perez scooped soup during Soupy Island’s daily lunchtime ritual. Fellow lifeguard Madi Hogan, 17, carried the trays to a cooling rack, then to the windows to serve a line of people outside.
“It’s like a rite of passage in this family,” said Bright, Perez’ niece. She’s worked at Soupy every summer since she was 14. “This is my little oasis away from my real life.”
Perez in the kitchen of the original building where the camp still serves free soup lunches every day. The kettles are at right and the same shelves for cooling the soup are at left. Kids still line up for lunch at the windows in rear. Tom Gralish / Staff Photographer
The lifelong connection to the playground is typical for staff. Hogan’s great-grandmother used to come to Soupy Island as a child. Marielle Lewis, 17, used to come to the park for soup when she was little, since her aunt lives nearby. Now, she’s worked as a lifeguard for two years.
“It’s kind of weird now that I get to see everything that I wanted to see when I was a kid,” Lewis said.
For now, the group is using their remaining soup supply donated by The Campbell’s Company last year. In the 2000s, the company paid for a new jungle gym, volleyball court, basketball court, and more at Soupy Island and continued its contributions through food since, even though Campbell’s has no true affiliation with the playground despite its name.
But this season, Campbell Soup didn’t donate goods, Perez said, who added that one season’s worth of soup costs the park more than $8,000.
The Food Pantry of South Jersey in Pennsauken has stepped up, though, by providing Soupy Island with thousands of shelf-stable meals to distribute to visitors.
“Sometimes a lot of these people go through trials, and come in here just to chill a little bit,” Perez said. “You don’t know what the other person’s going through.”
Once Ngo takes over, Perez still plans to help out where he can, just with less physical labor. Plus, he’ll hopefully get to do more home remodeling on the side, and take more consistent naps, his favorite part of the day.
“I try to do it around three,” Perez said, a dream. “But it doesn’t happen.”
