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Ebola hasn't been in the news much lately.

That's because the number of new cases has plummeted since the height of the epidemic late last year. In fact, the turnaround has been so dramatic that Liberia, once the hardest-hit country, is now on the brink of declaring itself Ebola-free.

But two headlines from Sierra Leone this week caught our attention.

According to reports, a boat with sick fishermen sparked a new outbreak in the capital. Meanwhile, the vice-president of Sierra Leone was under quarantine after his bodyguard died of Ebola.

To get the full scoop, we spoke with Umaru Fofana, a reporter with Reuters who's based in the capital, Freetown.

What's the latest with the vice president, Samuel Sam-Sumana?

One of his bodyguards had become infected with [and died of] Ebola, so he imposed a 21-day quarantine on himself. It's the first time that a high-level government official has been in quarantine because of Ebola. But he really had no choice. It was public knowledge [that his bodyguard had Ebola], and I think he would have looked really bad if he hadn't followed the rules.

The president of Sierra Leone is out of the country [in Europe], so the vice president is in charge. He says he's working from home, that he's running the country online.

How exactly does one run a country from a laptop?

It's difficult because some of the work he has to do requires giving a signature. If he has documents that he needs to sign, how does he sign them? Even if someone were to slip a document under his door, no one can come in contact with the envelope, so I don't know how all that works.

What happened in this fishing community? How bad was the outbreak there?

The community is called Aberdeen. It's a slum in the capital [Freetown], by the beach, filled with lots of shanties. One area of the slum actually borders a boundary wall of the most expensive hotel in the city.

From what I understand, a man who was sick or dead with Ebola arrived there on a boat. A few residents were infected, and one of them traveled to the north, and ultimately several dozen people there became infected because of him. At first, there was a sense of panic over the new cases in this fishing slum, because of the set-up [many people packed close together]. But the WHO response was very fast, and the slum itself had very few cases. The area had been quarantined but now that quarantine is about to be lifted.

In late November, Sierra Leone was seeing over 500 new cases of Ebola each week. By late January, that number had plummeted to fewer than 100 hundred a week. Now things are stagnant: approximately 60 to 80 new cases a week for the past month. What's the mood on the ground?

I think complacency has crept in, to be honest. You don't see the kind of vigilance that used to exist, where there were buckets [of chlorinated water] all over the place [for hand-washing]. You don't see that these days, because the sense is that the virus has been defeated.

But in the more recent times there has been a resurgence and there is now some concern with the figures coming in, ebbing and flowing. People are a bit worried again, particularly when they compare themselves with neighboring Liberia [which saw no new cases this past week]. So the idea that Liberia is doing well while we are not has led to some frustration and some amount of hopelessness. But overall, people do feel like the worst is over.

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Did you take a lunch break yesterday? Are you planning to take one today?

Chances are the answer is no. Fewer American workers are taking time for lunch. Research shows that only 1 in 5 five people step away for the midday meal. Most workers are simply eating at their desks.

But studies have also found that the longer you stay at work, the more important it is to get outside of the office, even if it's just for a few minutes, because creativity can take a hit when you don't change environments.

"We know that creativity and innovation happen when people change their environment, and especially when they expose themselves to a nature-like environment, to a natural environment," says Kimberly Elsbach, a professor at the University of California, Davis Graduate School of Management, who studies workplace psychology.

"So staying inside, in the same location, is really detrimental to creative thinking. It's also detrimental to doing that rumination that's needed for ideas to percolate and gestate and allow a person to arrive at an 'aha' moment," Elsbach tells Jeremy Hobson, host of Here & Now.

And in a knowledge-based economy, where innovation is what your workers produce, that can also be detrimental to the bottom line.

To reap the benefits of a lunch break, "you don't actually need to go eat," Elsbach says, "you just need to get out. And it doesn't have to be between 12 p.m. and 1 p.m. to have a positive impact. It can be just going outside and taking a walk around the block. That in itself is really restorative."

Elsbach's own research has found that "mindless" work — which can include tasks like walking — can enhance creativity, she tells The Salt.

Interview Highlights:

On why the lunch hour is disappearing

"The work day runs now from much earlier in the morning to late at night, and it's also not a standard 9 to 5. So ... when you eat or when you take a break to get some sustenance is not going to be the same [as it used to be]. Also, there's just this demand to be forever available, so people are reluctant to leave their desk in case they miss something. And so people are eating at their desk — if they're eating at all — and are just there for longer periods of time."

On lunch breaks and labor laws

"People who are in more staff or line jobs that are unionized or regulated by labor rules, [those] are the people who are left taking lunch – because it's mandated. But for white-collar workers and managers it's not, and so they're the group who are least likely to take lunch."

On making sure you take a break by creating a lunch culture at work

"It's tough. One of the things I think helps is ... creating a community around it. So you can set up an online forum where you say, OK, these are the different activities we're doing. There's one group that's going to meet and eat sack lunch outside. There's another group that's going to go for a walk around the local environment. There's another group that's going to go to a favorite restaurant. And so you create community around it, and you're not doing it by yourself and being seen as the odd person out. ...

"You need to get the top managers to be part of this community of taking time off in the middle of the day to eat lunch, to go for a walk, to have a coffee break. They need to be included in the community and model that behavior for the rest of the workforce."

This story comes to us via Here & Now, a show produced by NPR and member station WBUR in Boston. You can listen to an audio version of this story on WBUR's website.

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Lunch

With yet another do-or-die test of Obamacare before the U.S. Supreme Court on Wednesday, the justices were sharply divided.

By the end of the argument, it was clear that the outcome will be determined by Chief Justice John Roberts and Justice Anthony Kennedy. The chief justice said almost nothing during the argument, and Kennedy sent mixed signals, seeming to give a slight edge to the administration's interpretation of the law.

Judging by the comments from the remaining justices, the challengers would need the votes of both Roberts and Kennedy to win.

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The challengers hinge their argument on six words in the 1,000-plus-page law. Those words stipulate that for people who cannot afford health insurance, subsidies are available through "an exchange established by the state." Only 16 states run their own exchanges. The federal government runs the exchanges for the remaining 34 states that opted out of running their own.

Representing the challengers was lawyer Michael Carvin, whose florid-faced passion prompted Justice Sonia Sotomayor to tell him gently at one point, "Take a breath!"

Carvin took incoming shots from all of the court's more liberal members.

Justice Stephen Breyer noted that the statute says that if a state does not itself set up an exchange, then the federal "Secretary [of Health and Human Services] shall establish and operate such exchange."

"Context matters," added Justice Elena Kagan. And "if you look at the entire text, it's pretty clear that you oughtn't to treat those five words in the way you are."

Justice Sotomayor, looking at the law through a different lens, asked how the challengers' reading of the law would affect the federal-state relationship.

"The choice the state had was, establish your own exchange or let the federal government establish it for you," she said. "If we read it the way you're saying, then ... the states are going to be coerced into establishing their own exchanges."

With all eyes on Justice Kennedy, he seemed to agree with Sotomayor's point.

It does seem "that if your argument is accepted," he told Carvin, "the states are being told, 'Either create your own exchange, or we'll send your insurance market into a death spiral.' " By "death spiral," Kennedy was referring to the consequence of having no subsidies in 34 states, leading to a collapse of the individual insurance market.

That, Kennedy suggested, is a form of coercion. So "it seems to me ... there's a serious constitutional problem if we adopt your argument."

Justice Antonin Scalia, a leader of the court's conservative wing, jumped in to help Carvin.

"Do we have any case which says that when there is a clear provision, if it is unconstitutional, we can rewrite it?" Scalia asked.

Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, however, pointed to what she called the familiar patterns of federal aid, in which the federal government says to the states: Here's a grant; take it or leave it. Or, a pattern like the one at issue here, which says to a state, "you can have your program if you want it, and if you don't," the fallback is a federal program.

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But, said Ginsburg, "I have never seen anything" such as you are suggesting, where a state's failure to set up a program results in "these disastrous consequences."

If Carvin got a hostile reception from the court's liberals, Solicitor General Donald Verrilli Jr. got equal treatment from some of the court's conservatives.

"Is it not the case," asked Scalia, "that if the only reasonable interpretation of a particular provision produces disastrous consequences in the rest of the statute, it nonetheless means what it says? Is that true or not?"

Verrilli replied that it isn't just a question of onerous consequences, but that the states had no notice of disastrous consequences when they chose to let the federal government run the state exchanges.

"It's not too late for a state to establish an exchange if we adopt" the challengers' interpretation of the law, interjected Justice Samuel Alito. "So going forward, there would be no harm."

Verrilli replied that the tax credits would "be cut off immediately," and millions of people in many states would be unable to afford their insurance. Even if the court were to somehow delay the effect of its ruling for six months, it would be "completely unrealistic" to set up the exchanges by May of this year, as required by law, so that they could begin operating in 2016.

"You really think Congress is just going to sit there while all of these disastrous consequences ensue?" asked Scalia. How often have we come out with a problematic decision and "Congress adjusts, enacts a statute that takes care of the problem. It happens all the time. Why is that not going to happen here?"

Verrilli paused, eyebrows raised. "This Congress, your honor?" he asked, as laughter filled the courtroom.

Justice Kennedy once again raised the question of the federal government impinging on state sovereignty.

That's why our reading is far preferable, replied Verrilli. If a state doesn't want to participate, it can "decide not to participate without having any adverse consequences visited upon the citizens of the state."

Chief Justice Roberts, who remained quiet through most of the argument, finally had this question: If we decide the language of the law is ambiguous and we thus defer to the administration's interpretation, he asked, could the next administration "change that interpretation?"

Some court observers thought that comment set a way out for the chief. But by the end of the argument, nobody was making any predictions.

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Affordable Care Act

U.S. Supreme Court

America's oil boom is going through some growing pains. But despite the recent dip in oil prices, some segments of the industry are focused on long-term growth.

In southwestern Washington state, oil companies want to build the largest oil-by-rail terminal in the country at the Port of Vancouver, on the banks of the Columbia River.

Vancouver, a suburb of Portland, Ore., which lies just across the river, is the most direct rail route from the Bakken oil fields to the Pacific Ocean. But the proposal has raised tensions in this city between concerns over safety and the desire to create jobs.

'There's No Benefit To Us'

Linda Garcia has called a working class part of Vancouver home for almost 20 years. "My neighborhood is my family," she says.

But Garcia is concerned about how her neighborhood could change if the terminal is built. Many of the homes here, along with an elementary school, are less than a mile from where trains filled with crude oil would unload at the port.

Right now, about three oil trains pass through the region every day. If the oil terminal is built, that traffic would more than double.

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Proponents of the terminal plan say it would bring economic development to the Vancouver area, just over Columbia River from Portland, Ore. Conrad Wilson/OPB News hide caption

itoggle caption Conrad Wilson/OPB News

Proponents of the terminal plan say it would bring economic development to the Vancouver area, just over Columbia River from Portland, Ore.

Conrad Wilson/OPB News

"If there were any type of incident, explosion, over-release of chemicals, spill, earthquake — anything that will cause a safety issue — we're not entirely convinced that our neighborhood will be safe from that," she says.

Garcia points to the 2013 oil train derailment in Quebec, Canada, which killed 47 people and destroyed part of a town.

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Not far from Garcia's neighborhood, Barry Cain, president of Gramor Development, is showing off a video rendering of a different kind of project: the City of Vancouver's planned $1.5 billion mixed-use development, The Waterfront. Cain is the developer behind the swanky 32-acre project, right on the Columbia River.

"We've got a half-mile long park and we'll have great restaurants. It'll be just a beautiful environment," he says.

Cain hopes that environment does not include the nation's largest oil-by-rail terminal. "We're fighting it, because there's no benefit to us," he says.

'We Need It For Jobs'

But Jared Larrabee, general manager for the Vancouver Energy Project, says the proposed terminal will be "a great benefit to the area."

The project is a joint venture by the oil company Tesoro Corp. and Savage Companies, which specializes in supply chain management.

Larrabee says the terminal will create more than 300 construction jobs in the short term and about 200 additional jobs once it's up and running.

"This is a facility designed from the ground up, specifically to handle this and specifically for this type of operation," he says. "So what that means is we can design all of the state-of-the-art safety features in right from the get-go."

Just upriver, Chris Hickey lives on three acres with his wife, son and two massive dogs. "We get salmon and steelhead up here in the creek," he says. "It's one of the cool things about the house."

Hickey says he'd like to see the region's economy grow, so he's all for the proposed oil terminal at the Port of Vancouver — even if it means more oil trains.

"I worked in Portland for years. So many people work in Portland. And I would love to see more industry here in the Vancouver area. I mean, we need it for jobs," he says.

Hickey is certainly walking his talk. He doesn't mind that Burlington Northern Santa Fe Railway already runs trains carrying crude oil along the tracks that cut right across his driveway. "I don't worry about it," he says.

And neither does Burlington Northern. The rail company says it's not only up to the task of delivering more crude oil safely, but that it's also well aware of the risks.

The state is reviewing oil terminal proposal at the Port of Vancouver, and several other oil terminals are also being considered along the Washington coast.

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oil spills

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Jobs

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