KINSHASA (AP) – Nearly six months into the Ebola outbreak in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC), the epidemic remains deeply concerning, with transmission intensifying in parts of the country’s conflict-hit east, persistent gaps in disease surveillance and medical care, and the risk of further cross-border spread threatening efforts to bring the crisis under control. “The overall picture remains concerning,” Marie Roseline Belizaire, World Health Organization’s (WHO) regional emergency director for Africa, told an online press briefing Thursday, warning that around 400 to 500 new cases were still being reported every week despite progress in some initial hotspots. The outbreak, declared on May 15, has become the largest Ebola epidemic in the DRC’s history and the second-largest ever recorded worldwide.

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BERLIN (Reuters) - Germany’s parliament on Friday approved a major overhaul of the country’s intelligence services, granting agencies expanded powers to intervene against security threats, including conducting sabotage operations abroad. The legislation passed with 309 votes in favor, 190 against and 71 abstentions. Interior Minister Alexander Dobrindt called these changes “the reform of the century.” “We need to strengthen democracy against those who attack it – from both within and without,” said Dobrindt during his speech in parliament. The reform expands the authority of the Federal Intelligence Service (BND), responsible for foreign intelligence, and the Federal Office for the Protection of the Constitution (BfV), Germany’s domestic intelligence agency.

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NEW YORK (AFP) - New York authorities said Thursday that eight people, including two children, were killed after a residential building collapsed a day earlier, prompting a frantic overnight search by firefighters to pull people from the rubble. The three-storey property in Brooklyn fell Wednesday afternoon into a neighboring excavation site where construction workers had been preparing foundations for a planned development. “This has been a devastating morning and evening for our city,” said New York Mayor Zohran Mamdani, who announced the latest death toll and said over a dozen more were injured. One of those killed was Ecuadoran national Gabriel Siguencia, 22, whose stepsister said in a tearful interview that he was working overtime at the construction site when the building collapsed.

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ROME (AP) - Severe weather hit Italy’s Tuscany region, causing rivers and streams to overflow and prompting the evacuation of around 100 people on Thursday, according to Italian daily La Repubblica. Heavy rainfall affected the areas of Massa, Carrara and parts of the Tyrrhenian coast as the Tuscany region remained under a red weather alert until midnight Thursday. In Massa, the Frigido River overflowed, while around 100 people from the hamlets of Casette and Forno remained evacuated after a landslide cut off road access to the villages. Several smaller streams and the Serchio River overflowed in the province of Lucca, while homes in the Serchio floodplain in San Giuliano Terme, Pisa, remained evacuated and a bridge in the Ripafratta area remained closed.

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MOSCOW (AP) - A car bombing on Friday in Moscow injured an adviser to Ukraine’s former prime minister in the second such attack in as many days and part of a series linked to the conflict with Russia’s neighbor. The explosion struck a car driven by Sergei Zavorotnyi, who previously worked as an adviser to former Prime Minister Mykola Azarov, according to Russia’s Investigative Committee. Zavorotnyi was hospitalized with injuries, the committee added. It didn’t identify possible suspects pending a criminal inquiry. Azarov served as prime minister under Ukraine’s Moscow-friendly President Viktor Yanukovych, who was forced from office by protesters and fled to Russia in February 2014. Azarov also lives in Russia.