California Gov. Gavin Newsom on Thursday announced the expansion of his stay at home order to the entire state in a bid to slow the spread of the novel coronavirus. He said the state needs to "broaden the order to all Californians" and acknowledged it would mean inconvenience and hardship. "If we change this moment, we can truly change the surge," he said in a news conference streamed live on Twitter. "Home isolation is not my preferred choice," Newsom said, "but it's a necessary one" as California officials work to accommodate urgent needs. "This is not a permanent state," Newsom said, adding that people "can still walk their dogs," get groceries and pickup takeout food with proper precautions. He said that among other steps the state has ordered additional ventilators, is talking with the University of California on use of dormitories, and has negotiated for hospital space in Northern and Southern California that will increase the state's capacity by 750 beds. In an effort to quantify and combat hate crimes targeting Asian Americans and Pacific Islanders stemming from people's reaction to the novel coronavirus pandemic, a coalition of civil rights groups has set up a web page where victims can report such incidents. Since the December outbreak of the virus in Wuhan, China, the infection has grown to more than 207,000 confirmed cases and more than 8,500 deaths worldwide, according to numbers reported Thursday by the World Health Organization. As the COVID-19 disease continues to spread with alarming rapidity, countries all over the globe are taking drastic measures to slow its growth and in many places, including the Bay Area, people are responding by panic-buying food and hoarding household supplies. A more sinister trend, however, also appears to be emerging: violence and harassment directed toward people of Asian descent living in the United States. In a particularly harrowing case, a Los Angeles boy was recently attacked at his middle school and accused of having the coronavirus, according to the "Stop AAPI Hate" webpage set up by three organizations -- the Asian Pacific Policy and Planning Council, Chinese for Affirmative Action and the Department of Asian American Studies at San Francisco State University. "We are currently providing support to a child who had to go to the emergency room after he was assaulted and accused by bullies of having the coronavirus, and so that tells us we may need to work with schools to address shunning and school bullying but we need to know how widespread it is," said Manjusha Kulkarni, executive director of A3PICON. The website hosts a form that people who have experienced similar incidents can fill out and includes information such as the victim's ethnicity, the location and date of the incident, the type of discrimination and the suspected reason for it. The information will help advocates push for stronger protections for Asian American and Pacific Islander populations, develop public education campaigns and provide resources to victims of attacks and discrimination, according to a Thursday news release announcing the new website. Alameda County's Meals on Wheels program is asking for financial support to help it feed the county's 2,400 homebound seniors during the novel coronavirus pandemic. Meals on Wheels officials said nearly 40 percent of its volunteers in the county are 65 years of age or older and the county's shelter-in-place order has decreased the number of people available to make deliveries to seniors. Program officials said in a statement, "This means our programs are working harder than ever to limit service interruptions." They said maintaining their meal delivery service for seniors is important because many homebound seniors rely on a daily knock on their door, respond well to continuity and feel safe when their environment and schedule are the same every day. Meals on Wheels officials said that due to an increase in demand, "Our programs need the community's financial support at this time." They said gifts can be made online at www.feedingseniors.org or mailed to Meals on Wheels of Alameda County at 1721 Broadway, #201, Oakland, CA 94612. Most passengers will board buses through the rear door and fares will not be collected under operational changes announced Thursday by the Valley Transportation Authority in Santa Clara County to promote social distancing and lessen the spread of coronavirus. Effective immediately, passengers will board buses via the back door, away from the driver. Front door boarding will be reserved for passengers who need to use the ramp or require priority seating. The area around the operator will be taped off, meaning no access to the farebox or Clipper Card reader. In addition, fares will not be collected for light rail or paratransit service. The transit agency also said that starting Monday, it will suspend its Rapid 500 service from San Jose Diridon Station to Berryessa Transit Center. Its School Tripper service was suspended earlier. A plea to businesses and individuals for "critically needed" supplies to protect against the spread of the COVID-19 coronavirus was made Thursday by the San Jose-based Registered Nurses Professional Association. Nurses and other health care professionals in Santa Clara County are "running dangerously low on basic medical supplies like masks, protective goggles, face shields, hand sanitizers, disinfectant wipes, and infrared thermometers," the association said in an announcement. "County nurses are proud to serve our patients and help our community fight the deadly COVID-19 pandemic," said Debbie Chang, RN and RNPA President. "We are answering the call to service, but we need the basic tools to do our jobs right, and do them safely. At this critical moment nurses are turning to our friends and neighbors for help. If you or anyone you know happens to have a surplus of supplies please consider donating to our frontline healthcare professionals." Supply needs, described as "significant and ongoing" include masks, protective goggles/face shields, hand sanitizers, disinfectant wipes, infrared thermometers, shoe covers and hair covers/surgical caps. San Francisco Supervisor Gordon Mar has announced emergency legislation intended to help close a loophole in the federal paid leave legislation signed by President Donald Trump on Thursday to assisted workers affected by the novel coronavirus. Trump's legislation mandates that small- and mid-sized businesses provide workers an additional two weeks of paid sick leave during public health emergencies. Mar's emergency ordinance would do the same for employees of large companies, or those with 500 employees or more. Mar said federal paid leave expansion is an "important step forward, but it leaves behind millions of workers employed by our nation's largest companies. This is an egregious loophole, and we're taking immediate action to address it locally." Mar is planning on introducing his emergency ordinance at Tuesday's Board of Supervisors meeting. Mar is also pursuing Executive Action to enact the changes as fast as possible. Oakland police on Thursday appealed to the public for help in finding Marcus Allen Tyler, a transient man reported missing by family members on March 4. Tyler is described as a 38-year-old African American male, 5-foot11, 240 pounds, with black hair and hazel eyes. Police said Tyler goes by the nickname Sharky and is known to frequent East Oakland. Investigators are asking anyone who may have seen him to contact the Oakland Police Department Missing Persons Unit at (510) 238-3641. Tyler's family is offering a $5,000 reward for information leading to his whereabouts. One person was killed in a crash Thursday night on southbound Interstate Highway 880 just north of state Route 238 in San Leandro the California Highway Patrol said. The CHP was notified of the crash involving at least one vehicle at 9:20 p.m. and officers arrived to find the driver dead at the scene. The crash blocked the fourth and fifth lanes and a sig alert was issued. Former Uber engineer Anthony Levandowski plans to plead guilty in federal court in San Francisco to one count of stealing a trade secret related to self-driving cars from Google Inc., according to documents filed in the court on Thursday. Levandowski, 40, a Marin County resident, was a lead engineer in Google's self-driving car program for seven years until he resigned in January 2016. He joined Uber seven months later to work on its rival driverless car program. Levandowski won't enter the guilty plea before U.S. District Judge William Alsup until the date he is sentenced, which has not yet been set. The procedure of combining a plea hearing and a sentencing hearing, instead of having two separate court sessions, was announced by the U.S. District Court Monday in response to the COVID-19 coronavirus epidemic. Levandowski faces a possible sentence of up to 10 years in prison and a fine of up to $250,000. He will also pay Google Inc. and a related company, Waymo, $756,500 for their costs in aiding federal prosecutors in the criminal investigation. The count to which Levandowski will plead guilty is one of 33 counts of trade secret thefts that a grand jury charged him with in an indictment in August. That count alleges he stole a trade secret by downloading a weekly report on the Google project to his personal laptop on Jan. 11, 2016. Levandowski abruptly resigned from Google 16 days later. Friday will be sunny. Highs will be in the upper 50s to the mid 60s. East winds will 5 to 10 mph. Gust could reach up to 20 mph in the afternoon. Friday night will be partly cloudy. Lows will be in the upper 40s. Northwest winds will be 5 to 15 mph. Saturday will be partly cloudy in the morning before becoming sunny. Highs will be in the upper 50s to the mid 60s. East winds will be 5 to 10 mph before becoming northwest in the afternoon. Copyright 2020 by Bay City News, Inc. Republication, Rebroadcast or any other Reuse without the express written consent of Bay City News, Inc. is prohibited. Vincent Finazzo, owner and founder of Riverwards Produce, outside his shop, in Philadelphia, March 13, 2020. Read more Riverwards Produce, a trendy grocer in Philadelphias Fishtown neighborhood, has touted itself for cutting out the middleman thus lowering the price of its fruits and vegetables and earned locals acclaim for its organic fare and family-like vibe. Even with a store of just 1,700 square feet, Vincent Finazzo, Riverwards owner, said he managed to pull in robust sales as panic mounted over the coronavirus and neighbors flocked to stock up on his wares. His shop recorded $35,100 in sales last Friday three to four times more than a typical day then $30,600 the next day. Sales dropped Sunday to $9,656.90. It was the busiest day in the history of the company, he said about last Friday. It was absolute chaos. But even with the strong sales figures, profit margins were in the single digits, he said. His 33 employees interacted with a flood of customers over three days. After the weekend, he said, 16 workers submitted a letter with signatures on it employees called it a petition that requested an extra $5 in hazard pay beyond their hourly wage, which started at $15. On Wednesday morning, Finazzo called and emailed 21 of his employees to let them know he had laid them off. Business conditions and employee safety necessitates this layoff," the letter read. "This layoff action is indefinite in duration and should be considered permanent. The letter included two links that explained unemployment compensation and how to file for it. He now has 12 employees left. Those employees have since received an extra $3 an hour as hazard pay. Finazzo, who confirmed he had sent the letter, said he made the decision to lay off staff after he calculated his stores financial situation and determined that its labor model is not sustainable. I was literally shaking and in tears," he said, "and I felt horrible, but I had to do it to stay open. He posted on Instagram to inform the public of the layoffs. It was the most difficult thing I have ever done: All of these people have been family to all of us who remain, the post read. But reducing the cost of floor staff was the only way to ensure that we could keep our doors open for the next two months in a way that keeps our primary promise of delivering quality food at a reasonable price to our customers. READ MORE: Out-of-work restaurant servers cant make ends meet. A community effort offers help. He emphasized that he laid off employees and did not fire them for cause, and that an accusation that he fired his workers was borderline defamation. Theres a pretty clear correlation" between signing the petition and suddenly being laid off, said Ryan Kim, 20, a cashier who signed the petition and is now out of a job. I think at most we expected him to say no to deny the request for hazard pay but we felt that it was worth it to try and assert what we feel we deserve as workers who are putting our health on the line," Kim said Thursday, adding that those who were now out of work are part of a newly organized group, the Riverwards Employee Coalition. It has pushed back against Finazzos actions and started an online fund-raiser to help support its laid-off workers. The coalition, which has created an account on Instagram, posted a chart showing the meteorically high sales figures from last weekend. Finazzo confirmed those numbers were correct. I dont think at this point any of us want to go back given how awful this has been and proven were not really cared for," said Kim, a former barista at Menagerie Coffee in Old City. I cant speak for everyone, but for me, I just personally want to open up a dialogue about workers rights in Philadelphia. Finazzo said his decision to lay off most of his employees was solely for safety and business survival and not as retaliation for workers signing the petition. Four workers who signed the petition remain at the store, he said. The stores vendors were canceling shipments amid the outbreak and that with all the info I had to date with sales decreasing and vendors having supply issues, layoffs were the most sustainable choice." He also had workers safety in mind, he said, after the Trump administration announced Monday that no more than 10 people should gather in public places. Finazzo said he then implemented that practice at his store. He limited the number of customers and employees at Riverwards to five each. There is no connection between the letter and the layoffs," Finazzo said. The laid-off workers, who include cashiers, produce stockers, and managers, had no benefits at Riverwards. Finazzo said they would get no severance pay. He had not, he said, considered decreasing employees pay to avoid layoffs. I strongly believe thats a living wage," he said, referring to his minimum wage of $15, but noted managers and buyers can make up to $20 an hour. He said he had always tried to treat his workers well, but that being a boss is in this climate right now is extremely difficult. After the layoffs Wednesday, he said he had been lambasted online to the point that he disabled commenting on the Instagram post announcing the layoffs. I really felt like I was being attacked not only on Instagram, but my personal cell phone," he said, adding Friday that he received a message from a person hoping Finazzo would contract coronavirus. I had strange numbers texting me and calling me names. I had emails telling me to burn in hell. NEW YORK, N.Y. -- New York City will need a resupply of masks, ventilators and surgical gear from the federal government to be able to fully respond to the coronavirus outbreak by April or will risk dire consequences, Mayor Bill de Blasio said Thursday. By early April, New York City will need 3 million N95 face masks, 50 million surgical masks,15,000 ventilators, and 25 million each of surgical gowns, coveralls, gloves, face masks, the mayor told reporters during a press conference Thursday evening. They may sound like daunting numbers at first but given the extraordinary production capacity of this country, they are very much achievable if our nation is put in a war footing and our president uses the powers he already has to coordinate and to prioritize through the private sector the production we need, de Blasio said. Thats the kind of level production we need to ensure that healthcare in New York City can continue on the level we need to fight this crisis, he continued. De Blasio said he sent a letter to Alex Azar, the secretary of the U.S. Health and Human Services, asking for the supplies and another letter to Robert Wilkie, the secretary of U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs, asking for all available hospital beds and medical personnel to be activated immediately in the citys Veterans Administration facilities to fight the spread of the coronavirus. Earlier on Thursday, Gov. Andrew Cuomo predicted the coronavirus will likely peak in the next five to six weeks in New York State, resulting in 110,000 hospitalizations and anywhere between 25,000 to 37,000 people in need of ICU beds. Cuomo said the state currently has between 5,000 to 6,000 ventilators but will need 30,000 ventilators total to handle the number of coronavirus patients. The governor cautioned that the state cannot get those ventilators on its own and would need the federal government to step in order manufacturers to produce them. On Thursday, City Hall said there are now 3,615 confirmed coronavirus cases citywide including 165 cases on Staten Island. CITY COULD RELEASE 40 AT RISK INMATES FROM RIKERS The mayor said Thursday that the first Rikers Island inmate in his 30s tested positive for the coronavirus, while eight other inmates that were in his housing unit were showing symptoms. The mayor said he had identified at least 40 at-risk inmates who could possibly be brought out of jail as early as Thursday amid the coronavirus outbreak. But that a final decision would not come until receiving sign off from district attorneys and or the State of New York. The mayor and governor have been in discussions about implementing a shelter-in-place order in New York City similar to one San Francisco and five other Bay Area counties enacted earlier this week. But the governor has made it clear in recent days that only the state has the final say in issuing such an order. Cuomo has also been vocal in his opposition to putting New Yorkers under quarantine. On Wednesday, the mayor said he was almost to that point of recommending to the governor to issue a shelter-in-place order. By Thursday, he told reporters he plans to talk to the governor again and update the public on Friday. FOLLOW SYDNEY KASHIWAGI ON TWITTER. *** Be the first to know: Sign up for our newsletters; and get breaking news and top stories pushed to your phone with the SILive.com mobile app. RELATED COVERAGE: Coughs, sneezes, surfaces: Heres how coronavirus is and isnt spread How the coronavirus hit Staten Island: A timeline of the pandemic in our borough Governor seeks to limit coronavirus impact on hospitals NYPD Commissioner: Cooperation, not closures, expected for ban on dining at restaurants and bars Saudi Arabia has suspended all domestic flights, passenger buses, taxi and passenger trains for a period of 14 days starting at 6 am Saturday (March 21) as part of its efforts to combat the spread of Coronavirus (COVID-19), a Saudi Press Agency report said. Flights related to humanitarian and necessary cases, medical evacuation aircraft and private aviation will be exempted. The General Authority of Civil Aviation (GACA) will issue the necessary permits for flights in coordination with the Ministry of Interior and Ministry of Health. Buses of government agencies or public or private health facilities, and commercial establishments transporting their employees, or that are used for health, humanitarian or security purposes will be exempted. Taxis operating the service provided in airports for air transport, as estimated by GACA and the activity of transporting individuals is limited to special vehicles working with applications. The Public Transport Authority (PTA) will coordinate with the Ministry of Interior, the Communications and Information Technology Commission (CITC), and other relevant authorities to urgently block the violating applications of passengers transport, the report said. The security authorities will follow up the suspending of buses and taxis operating until the suspension period ends. The train services suspended include Riyadh-Dammam railroad through Abqaiq and Hofuf, the Riyadh- Al-Jouf railroad through the Majmaah, Qassim and Hail, and the Haramain high-speed railway. However, commercial transport trains, including the freight train between King Abdulaziz Port in Dammam and the Riyadh Dry Port and the mining train of the Saudi Railways Company (SAR) will continue. Transport ferries between Jizan and Farasan Island will continue, while reducing the number of passengers to 100 people per trip, taking into account the employees and residents of Farasan Island. Tourists will not be alllowed to travel through them. Cargo vessels will continue to operate according to their usual programme, taking all precautionary and preventive measures in accordance with the recommendations of the Ministry of Health to reduce infection transmission. The suspension would not include the various means of transportation related to vital sectors such as health, services and basic commodities such as food, energy, water and communications, etc., air freight and necessary security transfers, and this be based on estimations of the committee concerned with dealing of the novel Coronavirus, taking into consideration all necessary precautions, it said. [March 20, 2020] SASOL DEADLINE ALERT: Faruqi & Faruqi, LLP Encourages Investors Who Suffered Losses Exceeding $50,000 In Sasol Limited To Contact The Firm Faruqi & Faruqi, LLP, a leading national securities law firm, reminds investors in Sasol Limited ("Sasol" or the "Company") (NYSE:SSL) of the April 6, 2020 deadline to seek the role of lead plaintiff in a federal securities class action that has been filed against the Company. If you invested in Sasol stock or options between March 10, 2015 and January 13, 2020 and would like to discuss your legal rights, click here: www.faruqilaw.com/SSL. There is no cost or obligation to you. You can also contact us by calling Richard Gonnello toll free at 877-247-4292 or at 212-983-9330 or by sending an e-mail to [email protected]. CONTACT: FARUQI & FARUQI, LLP 685 Third Avenue, 26th Floor New York, NY 10017 Attn: Richard Gonnello, Esq. [email protected] Telephone: (877) 247-4292 or (212) 983-9330 The lawsuit has been filed in the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York on behalf of all those who purchased Sasol securities between March 10, 2015 and January 13, 2020 (the "Class Period"). The case, Moshell v. Sasol Limited et al., No. 20-cv-01008 was filed on February 5, 2020, and has been assigned to Judge Jed S. Rakoff. The lawsuit focuses on whether the Company and its executives violated federal securities laws by making false and/or misleading statements and/or failing to disclose that: (1) Sasol had conducted insufficient due diligence into, and failed to account for multiple issues with, the LCCP, as well as the true cost of the project; (2) construction and operation of the LCCP was consequently plagued by control weaknesses, delays, rising costs, and technical issues; (3) these issues were exacerbated by Sasol's top-level management, who engaged in improper and unethical behavior with respect to financial reporting for the LCCP and the project's oversight; (4) all the foregoing was reasonably likely to render the LCCP significantly more expensive than disclosed and negatively impact the Copany's financial results; and (5) as a result, the Company's public statements were materially false and misleading at all relevant times. Specifically, on June 6, 2016, Sasol reported "that the expected total capital expenditure for the [LCCP] could increase up to US$11 billion, including site infrastructure and utility improvements"; a slower rate of capital "resulted in an extended project schedule and contributed to further project cost increases"; "[t]he expected returns for the project have reduced due to changes in long-term price assumptions and the higher capital estimates"; and "[t]he increase in the estimated LCCP capital cost and extended schedule will reduce the expected project returns by approximately the same amount as the Company's lower long-term price assumptions." On this news, Sasol's American depositary receipt ("ADR") price fell from a closing price of $32.13 per share on June 3, 2016 to $28.60 per share on June 6, 2016-a $3.43 or 10.99% drop. On May 22, 2019, during pre-market hours, Sasol disclosed that "the cost estimate for the LCCP has been revised to a range of $12,6 to $12,9 billion which includes a contingency of $300 million." Sasol cited a $530 million change in the project's cost forecast because of a "[c]orrection for duplication of investment allowances of approximately $230 million"; a "[c]orrection for certain contracts and variation orders managed by Sasol, outside the primary engineering, procurement and construction contract, of approximately $180 million"; and forecast improvements that were "not expected to be realized and adjustments for potential insurance claims and procurement back-charges of approximately $120 million." On this news, Sasol's ADR price fell from a closing price of $30.14 per share on May 21, 2019 to $25.64 per share on May 22, 2019-a $4.50 or 14.93% drop. Later, on August 16, 2019, during pre-market hours, Sasol issued a press release disclosing that it was delaying the announcement of its 2019 financial results because of "possible LCCP control weaknesses." On this news, Sasol's ADR price fell from a closing price of $18.41 per share on August 15, 2019 to $17.67 per share on August 16, 2019-a $0.74 or 4.02% drop. Then, on October 28, 2019, Sasol disclosed that its review of the LCCP control weaknesses had brought to light "errors, omissions, and inaccuracies in the [LCCP] cost estimate," and a number of unethical and improper reporting activities that took place at the highest level of management. Sasol also announced the resignation of, inter alia, its Joint Presidents and Chief Executive Officers ("CEOs"), effective November 1, 2019, and Senior Vice Presidents and others previously in charge of the LCCP. Finally, on January 14, 2020, Sasol issued a press release confirming that on January 13, 2020, the Company "experienced an explosion and fire at its LCCP low-density polyethylene (LDPE) unit." Sasol stated that "[t]he unit was in the final stages of commissioning and startup when the incident occurred" and "has been shut down and an investigation is underway to determine the cause of the incident, the extent of the damage and resulting impact on the LDPE unit's [beneficial operation] schedule." Following these disclosures, Sasol's ADR price fell $1.70 per share, or 7.84%, over the following two trading days, closing at $19.99 per share on January 15, 2020. The court-appointed lead plaintiff is the investor with the largest financial interest in the relief sought by the class who is adequate and typical of class members who directs and oversees the litigation on behalf of the putative class. Any member of the putative class may move the Court to serve as lead plaintiff through counsel of their choice, or may choose to do nothing and remain an absent class member. Your ability to share in any recovery is not affected by the decision to serve as a lead plaintiff or not. Faruqi & Faruqi, LLP also encourages anyone with information regarding Sasol's conduct to contact the firm, including whistleblowers, former employees, shareholders and others. Attorney Advertising. The law firm responsible for this advertisement is Faruqi & Faruqi, LLP (www.faruqilaw.com). Prior results do not guarantee or predict a similar outcome with respect to any future matter. We welcome the opportunity to discuss your particular case. All communications will be treated in a confidential manner. View source version on businesswire.com: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20200320005068/en/ [ Back To TMCnet.com's Homepage ] The most common cause of high calcium blood level is excess parathyroid hormone (PTH) released by the parathyroid glands. This can be attributed to enlargement of one or more parathyroid glands. Denosumab is a humanized monoclonal antibody used in hypercalcemia treatment. It inhibits the receptor activator of nuclear factor-B ligand (RANKL). The global hypercalcemia treatment market is estimated to account for US$ 10,696.6 Mn in terms of value in 2018 and is expected to reach US$ 28,060.0 Mn by the end of 2028. Request Free PDF Research Report Brochure @ https://www.coherentmarketinsights.com/insight/request-pdf/3504 Global Hypercalcemia Treatment Market: Drivers Multiple myeloma is another prominent cause of high calcium levels in the blood. Therefore, high incidence of multiple myeloma is expected to propel growth of the global hypercalcemia treatment market. For instance, according to The American Cancer Society, around 32,270 new cases of multiple myeloma are expected to be diagnosed in 2020 in the U.S. (17,530 in men and 14,740 in women). Moreover, availability of appropriate drug therapy alternative over surgery is also expected to aid in growth of the market. Bisphosphonates normalise serum calcium levels in the blood in over 70% of patients with hypercalcaemia of malignancy within a period of 26 days of treatment. Bisphosphonates significantly reduce skeletal-related events (SREs). Global Hypercalcemia Treatment Market: Opportunities Accurate and definitive diagnosis of severe symptomatic hypercalcemia remains challenging. Etiological discussion of the non-malignant causes of parathyroid hormone-suppressed hypercalcemia can address the issue in this regard. Browse Press Release: https://www.coherentmarketinsights.com/press-release/hypercalcemia-treatment-market-2830 Global Hypercalcemia Treatment Market: Restraints Distribution of hypercalcemia medicines face logistical challenges in terms of manufacturers locating appropriate channels such as independent pharmacies and drug stores to stock these drugs. This in turn is also expected to hamper the market growth. Key Takeaways: Bisphosphonates segment in the global hypercalcemia treatment market was valued at US$ 7,306.2 Mn in 2018 and is expected to reach US$ 19,798.3 Mn by 2027 at a CAGR of 11.7% during the forecast period. Bisphosphonates are standard of care in the management of cancer-associated hypercalcemia. Bisphosphonates such as Clodronate, Zoledronic Acid, and others are widely prescribed medications for hypercalcemia management. High preference to these drugs is expected to support growth of the segment over the forecast period. The hospitals segment held dominant position in the global hypercalcemia treatment market in 2018, accounting for 39.0% share in terms of value, followed by clinics and Independent Pharmacy & Drug Stores, respectively. Patients primarily visit hospitals for treatment of diseases such as hypercalcemia. Moreover, hospitals treat several cancer patients who may also be suffering from hypercalcemia. These factors are expected to support growth of the segment over the forecast period. North America region held dominant position in the global hypercalcemia treatment market in 2018, accounting for 45.5% share in terms of value, followed by Europe. Factors such as favourable reimbursement. high patient population, and presence of leading manufacturers is expected to support growth of the region over the forecast period. Buy This Premium Research Report @ https://www.coherentmarketinsights.com/insight/buy-now/3504 Market Trends Synthetic implant can be used to identify hypercalcemia associated with cancer. For instance, in May 2018, researchers at ETH Zurich (Switzerland) and the University of Basel (Switzerland) reported an early warning system that consists of an encapsulated gene network integrated into human body cells implanted under the skin, which monitors blood calcium levels. Lithium causes long term thyroid problems and can adversely impact the parathyroid glands. Moreover, lithium-induced hyperparathyroidism is four times more likely to occur in women than in men. Global Hypercalcemia Treatment Market: Competitive Landscape Major players operating in the global hypercalcemia treatment market include, Bayer Pharma AG, Sun Pharmaceutical Industries Ltd., Mylan N.V., Pfizer Inc., Amgen Inc., Novartis AG, Dr. Reddys Laboratories Ltd., Cipla Inc., and XOMA Corporation. Global Hypercalcemia Treatment Market: Key Development January 2019: Teva Pharmaceutical Industries Limited announced that it has resolved its ongoing dispute with Amgen over Tevas generic cinacalcet HCl product Segmentation By Product Type Bisphosphonates Clodronate Etidronate Ibandronate Pamidronate Zoledronic Acid Calcitonin Glucocorticoids Denosumab Calcimimetics By Distribution Channel Hospitals Clinics Independent Pharmacy & Drug Stores By Region North America Latin America Europe Asia Pacific Middle East Africa About Coherent Market Insights: Coherent Market Insights is a prominent market research and consulting firm offering action-ready syndicated research reports, custom market analysis, consulting services, and competitive analysis through various recommendations related to emerging market trends, technologies, and potential absolute dollar opportunity. Contact Us: sales@coherentmarketinsights.com U.S. Office: Name: Mr. Shah Coherent Market Insights 1001 4th Ave, # 3200 Seattle, WA 98154, U.S. US : +1-206-701-6702 UK : +44-020-8133-4027 JAPAN : +050-5539-1737 An exclusive Brisbane private school will let students learn from home as public schools report unexplained student absentee rates of up to 40 per cent during the coronavirus pandemic. In a letter to parents, Brisbane Grammar School headmaster Anthony Micallef said the school would remain open but would allow students to stay home and follow the curriculum online from next week. Brisbane Grammar will let its students learn from home. Credit:Glenn Hunt "As I walked around the campus this week, I was reminded of the critical role schools play in the wellbeing of communities," he wrote. "There is a different atmosphere here at present people are nervous, and understandably so. Businesses across the state are having to reduce staff or close altogether as the economic impact of COVID-19 deepens, but there are some sectors looking to hire. Many supermarket chains across the commonwealth have websites advertising openings for various positions to help with increased consumer demand for groceries to keep home pantries stocked. These include Big Y, Stop & Shop and Geisslers. C&S Wholesale Grocers, the largest privately held wholesale grocery supply company in the country, has a number of positions open in Massachusetts, as well as other parts of New England, including in transportation and merchandising in North Hatfield, according to its website. Boston Market is among those in the food industry said to be looking for delivery drivers while restaurants are banned from serving dine-in customers under current state regulations. Amazon recently announced it has more than 100,000 full- and part-time fulfillment and delivery positions open in the U.S., including 1,400 in Massachusetts. CVS, according to its website, has a variety of positions available in a number of its locations in Massachusetts, as does Walgreens, which is looking to hire pharmacy technicians. Health care workers are in increased demand. Many hospital systems, like Baystate Health, have pages on their websites to facilitate reviewing openings within their system. The state has its own job opportunities website. Postings range from a need for an epidemiologist for the Department of Public Health in Boston to a radio maintenance technician for the state police in Northampton. MassMutual has a webpage to search jobs, including call service specialist, at the financial services company. Information for anyone looking to file for unemployment while they look for other work can be found on the MassHire Springfield Career Center website or the state unemployment webpage. The Massachusetts Executive Office of Labor and Workforce Development said it received nearly 20,000 unemployment claims Monday alone. Thats more than it received during the entire month of February. For the week ending March 14, Massachusetts had 7,408 new unemployment claims, up from 4,712 new claims in the same week of last year. The hotel industry has been particularly hard hit. In Massachusetts alone, where the first COVID-19 case was announced on Feb. 1, 17,847 direct hotel-related jobs and 66,799 jobs that support hotels have been cut due to the outbreak, according to the Massachusetts Lodging Association. The association compiled first-hand accounts from nine hotel owners in the state to submit to Congress urging aid for an industry facing significant strain. Nationally, the number of new jobless claims rose by more than 70,000 the week ending March 14, before many of the business shutdowns now racking the economy occurred. Material from the State House News Service was used in this report. Latest Updates: Andhra Pradesh CM YS Jagan Mohan Reddy reiterated that authorities and citizens alike should say No to panic and Yes to precaution in a video conference with all district collectors and SPs on Friday. Strict guidelines were issued to district administrations across the state in order to contain coronavirus in the state after the state recorded its 3rd positive case from Visakhapatnam. The CM laid emphasis on spreading awareness about the dos and donts during this testing phase. He further added that each person who resorts to spreading any sort of fake/unverified news or rumours should be severely punished as per law. IMPORTANT POINTS FROM THE MEETING Say no to panic buying. The government will ensure that there is never a shortage of necessities in the state, so no need to panic. Strict action to be taken against those who see this as an opportunity and increase the prices of essential commodities. CM applauds the work of ASHA workers, health machinery and volunteers. Asks administration to drive home that self precautions are most important. Each gram secretariat to have 2 ASHA workers ( 1/1000 people) , 1 health assistant, 1 ANM and 1 volunteer for every 50 houses. All the volunteers have smartphones with an app to communicate with the health department. Each volunteer responsible for collecting information about symptomatic patients and foreign returnees in each of these 50 houses and report on the app. The health department to take note and rush teams immediately as per need. Anybody who shows symptoms/knows someone who seems to be symptomatic should be advised to call 104. Collectors asked to supervise the process. Collectors should inspect district hospitals, the preparedness of isolation wards, make sure all 21 drugs prescribed by WHO are available in abundance, check equipment availability, training of staff and availability of oxygen cylinders and ventilators. CM asks authorities to educate people on a proper way to dispose of masks as it can be more dangerous to throw around infected masks after use. Attendance of staff at primary health care centers should be personally monitored by collectors to ensure the availability of services. All precautionary measures to be in place till March 31st, subject to review post that. Daily review of the situation to be held by the health department. 140 rapid response teams in 120 cities/towns formed ( mostly with people aged below 40 as older people are vulnerable). For all the latest National News, download NewsX App Imran Khan implores Washington, which issued fresh sanctions this week, to ease action as Iran struggles with COVID-19. Pakistani Prime Minister Imran Khan has called on the US to lift unjust sanctions on Iran so its western neighbour can focus on winning the battle against the coronavirus pandemic. I would stress and insist to the international community to lift the sanctions on Iran, Khan said at a press conference on Friday regarding the coronavirus outbreak. It is very unjust they are dealing with such a large outbreak on one side, and on the other they are facing international sanctions, Khan told reporters in Islamabad. Aisha Farooqui, a spokesperson for Pakistans Ministry of Foreign Affairs, told Al Jazeera that Iranian President Hassan Rouhani had earlier sent a letter to Khan requesting Islamabads help amid the coronavirus outbreak. Pakistan has a principled position that unilateral sanctions against Iran should be lifted. PM Imran Khan and Foreign Minister Mahmood Qureshi both have publicly stated this, she added. Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif tweeted on Friday that the US policy towards the Islamic Republic would live in infamy and that his country wont break. This week, the US imposed fresh sanctions on Iran, arguing that they did not limit the flow of aid to the country in its time of need. US administration gleefully takes pride in killing Iranians citizens on #Nowruzour New Year. The White House takes its "maximum pressure" to a new level of inhumanity with its utter contempt for human life. Iran to US: Your policy will live in infamy. But Iran won't break. pic.twitter.com/2xGWG8xxH8 Javad Zarif (@JZarif) March 20, 2020 Iran has almost 20,000 confirmed cases of coronavirus, with 1,433 deaths. The COVID-19 outbreak there is one of the deadliest outside China, where the disease originated. So far, the US has refused to lift the sanctions against Iran, with Secretary of State Mike Pompeo criticising Tehran for a lack of transparency amid the coronavirus pandemic. Arif Rafiq, president of Vizier Consulting, a New York-based political risk advisory company, told Al Jazeera: It is almost certain that Washington will ignore Khans advice on lifting the sanctions on Iran. This is ultimately a US-Iran bilateral issue, and Pakistan has little influence over American policy toward Iran. Rafiq said Washington was more likely to ease sanctions on Tehran in exchange for the release of Western prisoners. The US has warned that Iran would be directly responsible for the deaths of any Americans held by Tehran. Tensions escalated in January after US President Donald Trump ordered the killing of revered Iranian general Qassem Soleimani, prompting Iran to retaliate against US forces in Iraq days later. Following Soleimanis assassination, Khan urged both the US and Iran to avoid further escalation and offered to mediate. Irans economy was battered after Trump withdrew the US from the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA, a multilateral nuclear deal), reimposing severe sanctions that curb oil and gas exports on which the government in Tehran is heavily dependent for revenues. Easyjet cancelled its flight from Bristol to Gibraltar on Thursday, apparently because of a lack of demand for the service. The airline also contacted passengers due to fly to or from Gatwick and Manchester to say their flights have been cancelled. Royal Air Maroc, which flies from Tangier to Gibraltar, has also suspended all international flights. Eric Adams, holding a picture of his late mother, is sworn in as New York mayor during the New Years celebration in Times Square. (Reuters) In his first 10 days, Eric Adams has veered between swagger and tragedy, praise and criticism, as he begins leading the nations largest city. Unfortunately, our website is currently unavailable in your country. We are engaged on the issue and committed to looking at options that support our full range of digital offerings to your market. We continue to identify technical compliance solutions that will provide all readers with our award-winning journalism. UK prime minister Boris Johnson, right, with chancellor Rishi Sunak during a daily coronavirus briefing inside number 10 Downing Street in London on March 17. (Getty) UK chancellor Rishi Sunak is set to announce a rescue plan to protect millions of jobs, which will include an employment and wage subsidy package. The UK government and worker union leaders had talks that went into the night, according to the BBC. One proposal under discussion is that the government will cover 75% of salaries at private companies for three months, if firms promise not to let staff go. Earlier this week, the Resolution Foundation think tank said that UK government should introduce new rights for workers and pay their wages if firms struggle to do so during the pandemic. It said that employees should be entitled to a new statutory retention pay (SRP) if work dries up because of the virus but employers wish to keep them long-term. Staff would receive at least two-thirds of their wages, with the state refunding much of the costs. Read more: Coronavirus: Prime minister Boris Johnson tells firms 'stand by workers' It would also help prevent a damaging rise in unemployment that could disrupt firms and leave long-term scars. This week, the government unleashed an unprecedented set of financial measures to help the UK economy tackle the impact from the coronavirus. The package is worth 15% of UK GDP, up from a package announced last week worth 1% of GDP, and includes 330bn ($388bn) government-back loans and guarantees. Read more: UK chancellor under fire for promising firms 330bn but families 500m But Resolution Foundation argues that the governments plans to provide bridging loans are unlikely to be sufficient as firms cannot be sure a downturn will only last a few months. Firms are particularly likely to shed jobs and consumers to slash consumption if they have no idea how long disruption will last, which itself risks a much deeper downturn. On 19 March, UK prime minister Boris Johnson said, in a daily coronavirus briefing, urged businesses considering laying off staff to stand by your workers during the coronavirus pandemic. Story continues I say to business stand by your employees, because were going to stand by you, said Johnson. Read more: Coronavirus: New rights for workers could prevent mass job losses He added that previous governments had been accused of bailing out the banks during the 2008-2009 financial crisis but didnt look after the people who really suffer. This time its going to be different, he said at the televised briefing. Were going to make sure we look after the people who really suffer from the economic consequences of what we ask them to do. YEREVAN, MARCH 20, ARMENPRESS. Prime Minister of Armenia Nikol Pashinyan sent a congratulatory message to the Kurdish community of Armenia on the occasion of Nowruz. As ARMENPRESS was informed from the Office of the Prime Minister of Armenia, the message runs as follows, ''I cordially congratulate the Kurdish community of Armenia on the occasion of the Kurdish new year, Nowruz. I wish you peace, love and welfare. I wish this spring holiday symbolizing life to become the start of new initiatives, progress and achievement for the Kurdish citizens of Armenia. I also wish perseverance to the Kurdish community of Armenia in their efforts to preserve their national identity and cultural heritage, as well as in shaping the prosperous and democratic future of our country together with the other citizens of Armenia''. Edited and translated by Tigran Sirekanyan With more than 200,000 coronavirus cases worldwide and thousands of deaths, a striking pattern is appearing in the hardest-hit countries: More men are dying than women. No where is this trend more pronounced than in Italy. Men make up nearly 60% of people with confirmed cases of the virus and more than 70% of those who have died from covid-19, according to the country's main public health research agency. On the other end of the spectrum is South Korea, where about 61% of confirmed infections have been in women. Though far fewer patients have died, the majority of fatalities - 54% -- were again in men. As the pandemic escalates, epidemiologists and public health authorities are scrambling to understand who is most vulnerable and how to protect them. The data from countries such as Italy and South Korea show that the disease can take wildly different paths. Exactly what makes a group vulnerable - and how to protect them - has experts "mystified," said Carlos del Rio, chair of the department of global health at Emory University. "This difference in mortality is creating a lot of anxiety," he added. The outbreak of covid-19 in Italy is the deadliest in the world. As of March 17, more than 40,000 people there have been sickened with the virus, and 3,405 have died. That means that, based on these current and unavoidably incomplete figures, 8.2 percent of people infected in the country have died. That is more than double the global figure presented recently by the WHO. Italy's aging population is probably particularly susceptible to the disease, researchers say. With a median age of 46.5, according to the CIA World Factbook, it is the fifth oldest country in the world. And these elderly citizens are those who have become the sickest: People over the age of 70 represent more than 87% of deaths there. Older people are typically hit harder with respiratory diseases, del Rio said. They are more likely to get pneumonia - an infection that inflames the lungs and fills them with fluid or pus - and to have underlying health conditions that could make them vulnerable to the virus. "With older people," del Rio said, "sometimes it doesn't take very much to push you over the edge." The gender disparity in illness and death is harder to explain. Even before the covid-19 pandemic reached Italy, early reports out of China suggested men were especially at risk. A study of 99 patients at a hospital in Wuhan, where the virus originated, found that men made up two-thirds of patients, and half of all the people who were hospitalized had chronic conditions such as heart disease or diabetes. More recent figures from China's Center for Disease Control, based on tens of thousands of cases, showed a strong gender breakdown of deaths, which were 64% male. But the figures in Italy have been even more staggering. Nearly 60% of diagnoses have been in men, according to Italy's top health research agency, Istituto Superiore di Sanita. Across the first 1,697 coronavirus deaths, 71% - 1,197 - were in men. Just 29%, or 493, were in women. In a recent study published in the Lancet, meanwhile, the figures were even higher. It found that 80% of the deaths were in men and just 20% were in women. It is certainly possible that as death tolls rise in other countries, the pattern of greater male deaths seen so far in Italy, China, and South Korea could shift. But so far, this is what the evidence shows in the two countries with the largest death tolls, Italy and China, and in a third country (South Korea) acclaimed for keeping very good tabs on the disease. "The honest truth is that today we don't know why covid-19 is more severe for men than women or why the magnitude of the difference is greater in Italy than China," said Sabra Klein, a professor at Johns Hopkins' Bloomberg School of Public Health. "What we do know is that in addition to older age, being male is a risk factor for severe outcome and the public should be made aware." The gendered death gap was also seen in the smaller SARS and MERS outbreaks, added Angela Rasmussen, a virologist at Columbia University. "It's clearly something that has happened consistently with coronaviruses, it could inform clinical practices and improve patient outcomes, and it's definitely a question worth investigating," she added. These statistics could be a product of behavior, biology, or both, scientists say. For one thing, demographic figures suggest many men have more health risks to begin with. In China, Italy and South Korea, women tend to live longer than men, according to the World Health Organization. Men also drink and smoke more in all of these countries, particularly in China, where 48% of men above 15 smoke compared with just 2% of women, according to the WHO. Probably not coincidentally, men in these countries also tend to die more frequently from heart disease, cancer, diabetes and respiratory diseases between ages 30 and 70. But there are also underlying biological differences between men and women that may make covid-19 worse in men, several researchers pointed out. Years of research have found that women generally have stronger immune systems than men and are better able to fend off infections. The X chromosome contains a large number of immune-related genes, and because women have two of them, they gain an advantage in fighting disease, according to a recent study in the journal Human Genomics. Studies have also found that estrogen was protective in female mice infected with the virus that caused the 2003 SARs outbreak. During that epidemic, men had a much higher case fatality rate than women. "When [a] severe outcome is caused by an inability to rapidly control the infection, then it is often adult males who suffer worse outcomes than females," Klein wrote in an email. South Korea presents a stark contrast to Italy. Rapid action by public health authorities, who have administered coronavirus tests at a higher rate than any other country in the world, has slowed the spread of the outbreak there. As of March 19, the country had 8,565 confirmed cases and 91 deaths. As a result, its current case fatality rate of 1.06% is far below the global average. That low death rate is testament to the country's aggressive coronavirus response; Korean hospitals were not overloaded, as they are in Italy, and "life treatment centers" were set up for patients with milder symptoms. But it is also a function of who is getting sick, del Rio said. Whereas the typical coronavirus patient in Italy and elsewhere is male and in his 60s, women represent more than 60% of infections in South Korea, and nearly a third of the cases there have been people between the ages of 20 and 29. "What we're beginning to see is that the disease presents in multiple ways and it's pretty mild in people who are young," del Rio said. Young women are overrepresented in South Korea's coronavirus patient figures because of the demographics in the fringe religious sect Shincheonji Church of Jesus, where the country's biggest coronavirus cluster took place. South Korea saw a sudden spike in virus cases after an infection cluster emerged at a local branch of the church mid-February. Later that month, South Korean health authorities launched a testing blitz on more than 200,000 members of the church across the country. In a briefing earlier this month, the country's center for disease control director Jung Eun-Kyeong said the number of young female patients is high "because women in their 20s and 30s make up a big portion of Shincheonji church membership." Experts say the mass testing of the church members possibly gave rise to detection bias in epidemiological statistics surrounding South Korea's coronavirus outbreak. "If you test all members of a church the likelihood of disease detection in that group naturally goes up," said Choi Jae-wook, professor of Preventative Medicine at Korea University in Seoul. The skewed representation of young patients from the church cluster helped make South Korea's case fatality rate so low, Choi said. It may be that more young people are getting sick in Italy as well, but because their symptoms are mild and the country has not been testing aggressively, those cases are not being counted, del Rio said. The age and gender discrepancies could offer important insights into how the coronavirus interacts with hosts' immune systems, said Andrew Pekosz, a virologist at Johns Hopkins. Symptoms like high fever and a bad cough suggest the virus triggers an extreme inflammatory response, in which the body counters attacks with an army of defensive cells. "Sometimes it can be those cells that are driving the disease," Peskov said, "causing more damage than they are controlling infection." Understanding this response, particularly as it unfolds differently in different demographics, may help researchers develop treatments, he added. But Harlan Krumholz, a professor of cardiology and outcomes research at Yale Medical School, cautioned that comparing countries is a tricky endeavor. "We don't know numerators or denominators. The information is not comparable," he said. He said that the best information was probably from South Korea, because it tested so many people. "Everywhere else is biased," he said, depending on who is doing the testing, who is considered severe enough to be hospitalized and how you determine whether a death is related to the virus or not. He worries that insufficient data is hampering doctors, scientists and public officials, making it more difficult to have a real-time understanding of the extent of the disease and the most effective ways to respond. "We should be able to do this," he said. "This is revealing our great ignorance in the midst of an information age." --- Kaplan and Mooney reported from Washington Andy Kim from Seoul. Steven Mufson in Washington contributed to this report. The big picture: A month after filing for bankruptcy due to being ordered to pay Google $179 million in a legal battle over his departure from subsidiary Waymo, Levandowski has chosen to plead guilty to one of several charges of stealing sensitive information from the company before leaving. The agreement may help him get a softer penalty, but he still owes up to $250,000 and will definitely serve at least two years of prison time. Back in August 2019, the US Attorney for the Northern District of California charged one of Silicon Valley's high profile self-driving car engineers with 33 counts of theft and attempted theft of trade secrets that happened before he joined Uber as part of the acquisition of Otto, his autonomous truck company. According to a new report from Reuters, Anthony Levandowski has agreed to plead guilty to stealing trade secrets from Google-owned Waymo where he was lead engineer until he left to go on his own venture. The 40-year-old engineer has been embroiled in the legal battle for three years, and would have normally faced up to 10 years of prison for each of the 33 charges. The agreement will see Levandowski being absolved of all other charges in exchange for admitting that he took 14,000 files from Google including a sensitive document that outlined Waymo's plans, metrics, and technological solutions for its autonomous car project. The engineer declared bankruptcy earlier this month after a court ordered him to pay $179 million to end a legal dispute over his departure from the Alphabet subsidiary. He's still facing a potential 24 to 30 months in prison for the remaining charge and a fine of up to $250,000, not to mention $750,000 to cover Waymo's costs in assisting the investigation. His attorney, Miles Ehrlich, explained that "Mr. Levandowski is a young man with enormous talents and much to contribute to the fast-moving world of AI and AV and we hope that this plea will allow him to move on with his life and focus his energies where they matter most." A Waymo spokesperson said that "Mr. Levandowskis guilty plea in a criminal hearing today brings to an end a seminal case for our company and the self-driving industry, and underscores the value of Waymos intellectual property." As for Uber, the company agreed to pay a financial settlement of over $245 million in Uber equity to Waymo, effectively giving the latter a 0.34 percent stake. Furthermore, Uber will have to either license Waymo's tech or develop its own, but the company is doing well overall, with a continued expansion in the Middle East and supposedly plenty of cash on hand to ride out the coronavirus crisis. Congress member Manish Tewari on Friday demanded a probe into "suicide" by a 23-year-old youth who had returned from Sydney with his mother on March 18, saying that if he was suffering from coronavirus, there was no condition "that a suicide could have taken place". Raising the issue during Zero Hour in the Lok Sabha, he said the youth, Tanveer Singh, hailed from his constituency Anandpur Sahib. Tewari said that Singh was examined at the airport and it was found that "probably he has temperature". The Congress leader said that the mother of the youth was not informed where he was being taken. He said the mother asked from people and informed her family members that probably he had been taken to Safdarjung Hospital. He said they were not told about his whereabouts at the hospital and were told to go to Ram Manohar Lohia Hospital. The Congress MP said that they again returned to Safdarjung Hospital after a struggle and got to know that a person has committed suicide. "His dead body kept lying there for hours. Yesterday, post-mortem was not done the entire day. After I talked to the police, post mortem was done today morning," Tewari said. He asserted the entire matter of a youth getting down at airport, going to hospital and committing suicide should be probed. "If someone felt that he is suffering from coronavirus, there was no condition that a suicide could have happened," he said. "There is need to sensitively probe the issue. Also, because it shows that probably we are not prepared to deal with psychological implications of coronavirus," he said. Devender Arya, Deputy Commissioner of Police (South West), said on Wednesday," A COVID-19 patient committed suicide by jumping from the Safdarjung Hospital. The deceased has been identified as Tanveer Singh. He was admitted at hospital today at 9 pm after returning from Sydney, Australia. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) SAN FRANCISCO (BCN) Former Uber engineer Anthony Levandowski plans to plead guilty in federal court in San Francisco to one count of stealing a trade secret related to self-driving cars from Google Inc., according to documents filed in the court on Thursday. Levandowski, 40, a Marin County resident, was a lead engineer in Google's self-driving car program for seven years until he resigned in January 2016. He joined Uber seven months later to work on its rival driverless car program. Levandowski won't enter the guilty plea before U.S. District Judge William Alsup until the date he is sentenced, which has not yet been set. The procedure of combining a plea hearing and a sentencing hearing, instead of having two separate court sessions, was announced by the U.S. District Court Monday in response to the COVID-19 coronavirus epidemic. Levandowski faces a possible sentence of up to 10 years in prison and a fine of up to $250,000. He will also pay Google Inc. and a related company, Waymo, $756,500 for their costs in aiding federal prosecutors in the criminal investigation. The count to which Levandowski will plead guilty is one of 33 counts of trade secret thefts that a grand jury charged him with in an indictment in August. That count alleges he stole a trade secret by downloading a weekly report on the Google project to his personal laptop on Jan. 11, 2016. Levandowski abruptly resigned from Google 16 days later. Levandowski says in the planned agreement that he intended to use the stolen document "to benefit myself and Uber." While not pleading guilty to any other charges, Levandowski admits in the planned agreement that he also downloaded 14,000 files from a password-protected Google server in December 2015, and downloaded about 20 files from a Google Drive repository between October 2015 and January 2016. Defense attorney Miles Ehrlich stated, "Mr. Levandowski accepts responsibility and is looking forward to resolving this matter. Mr. Levandowski is a young man with enormous talents and much to contribute to the fast-moving world of artificial intelligence and autonomous vehicles and we hope that this plea will allow him to move on with his life and focus his energies where they matter most." The driverless car technology bounces laser beams off surrounding objects to create a three-dimensional picture of the car's environment. Google spun off its self-driving car program in December 2016 as a separate company, Waymo, which is now a subsidiary of Alphabet Inc., Google's parent company. In 2018, a civil lawsuit in which Waymo accused Uber of stealing trade secrets went to trial before a jury in Alsup's court, but was settled midway through the trial with Uber's agreement to pay Waymo about $245 million in stock. Levandowski was not a defendant in that case, although the lawsuit alleged that Uber gained trade secrets through him. Levandowski was fired by Uber in May 2017, after he refused to cooperate with the company's internal investigation following the filing of Waymo's lawsuit in February of that year. Copyright 2020 by Bay City News, Inc. Republication, Rebroadcast or any other Reuse without the express written consent of Bay City News, Inc. is prohibited. California saw a dizzying turn from a dry February to a wet start to March, but federal climate experts say the recent snow and rain wont halt the states continuing slide into drought. The U.S. Spring Outlook, released by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration on Thursday, projects that warm, dry conditions will persist and even expand across much of California over the next three months. Already, nearly half of the state is considered in moderate drought. While water supplies remain at comfortable levels thats the product of several years of precipitation collected in the states big reservoirs federal officials warn that the drying hills and valleys this spring could lead to an early fire season. When you miss out on January and February, the two wettest months of the year, its hard to recover from that, said David Miskus, meteorologist at NOAAs Climate Prediction Center in College Park, Md. Youre heading into your dry season now. The below-average precipitation this winter, including a rainless February for much of California, means that the states wet season will go down as one of the 10 driest in nearly a century, depending on where you measure, according to state records. San Francisco has received 10 inches of rain since October, half of what it usually sees in that time. The forecast for a warm, dry spring comes in contrast to the heavy rain and flooding expected in much of the United States. About 128 million people across 23 states, from the Gulf Coast to the Northern Plains, are at risk of dangerous rainstorms over the next three months, federal officials reported. This comes after parts of the Midwest saw a historically wet 2019. We anticipate that nearly one-third of the country will experience some level of flooding this year, said Ed Clark, director of NOAAs National Water Center in Tuscaloosa, Ala. The sharp difference in weather between the West and the East has been a common refrain in recent years. The drought in California that began around 2012, for example, came as much of the eastern seaboard was socked with rain and snow. Its a pattern that climate experts tie to shifts in the jet stream, which is pushing east-moving storms away from California and into the heart of the country. The change, they suspect, may be caused by warming temperatures in the Arctic. Were actually working to quantify this, said Deke Arndt, chief of NOAAs Climate Monitoring Branch at the National Centers for Environmental Information in Asheville, N.C. In the last decade or so, weve seen more of these stuck patterns, where half the country is experiencing one regime and half is experiencing another. California is expected to see on-and-off rain for the remainder of March. The National Weather Service forecasts isolated showers for the northern part of the state into the weekend with the next significant storm arriving Sunday. Mike Anderson, state climatologist at the California Department of Water Resources, said the soggy weather will do little to change the trajectory toward drought, even as several feet of snow hit the Sierra during this months big storms. As we move into spring, the storm track starts to head north and we shift into our dry season pattern, he said. Drought Map Track water shortages and restrictions across Bay Area Check the water shortage status of your area, plus see reservoir levels and a list of restrictions for the Bay Areas largest water districts. The federal Drought Monitor reported Thursday that nearly 48% of California was in moderate drought, about the same as last week, despite the recent rain and snow. A chunk of Siskiyou County along the Oregon border slipped into severe drought. None of California was categorized as extreme or exceptional drought, which was the case for most of the state during parts of the five-year drought. The snowpack in the Sierra, which helps gauge the amount of water that will drain into reservoirs, measured 49% of average on Thursday. The reservoirs, though, were at near average levels because of runoff from past winters. California fire officials say theyre prepared for whatever the fire season brings this year, though the biggest challenge may not be the weather but the coronavirus outbreak. Emergency officials say evacuation centers set up during wildfires will be clean and offer extra space for evacuees to prevent the spread of the virus. Anderson, the state climatologist, said the key for him is next year. We came into this year in good condition, he said, noting that its been wet enough in California to stave off serious drought problems in the short term. But is this a single dry year or another multi-year (drought)? We dont have the capability to answer that. Kurtis Alexander is a San Francisco Chronicle staff writer. Email: kalexander@sfchronicle.com Twitter: @kurtisalexander Governor Newsom announced he is locking down the residents of California. This is not a strict quarantine, however, as residents can leave their house for exercising, emergencies, and running errands such as going to the grocery store. Most businesses have closed during this time. Newsom made this decision over fears that the medical facilities in California would become overwhelmed. He cited a model that state planners have been using that have suggested the virus will affect 56% of the population of California, about 22 million people. Details of order to lock down California Malls and shopping centers are being forced to close as part of the lockdown. Corporate offices are already closed with employees working from home. All the businesses are not closed because of exemptions for banks, laundromats, and pharmacies. The order is not exclusive and allows residents to go outside and walk with their children or go to the grocery store. I can assure you home isolation is not my preferred choice, I know its not yours, but its a necessary one, Governor Newsom stated during his press conference as reported by AP News. He told the residents when outside, to practice common sense and social distancing.Governor Newsom does not plan now to use law enforcement to make sure they follow the order. He activated 500 soldiers from the National Guard strictly for humanitarian purposes. The expectation is that they will follow the order by social pressure. LA Times reported that the Los Angeles County Sheriffs office will not arrest individuals for disobeying the order. The expectation is that peer pressure will force the residents to stay in their homes. Discuss this news on Eunomia Residents can still go outside for certain activities, so enforcement would be difficult. Governor Newsom took extra steps to combat coronavirus Governor Newsom has taken more steps to stop the spread of the disease. He took these steps to free up more hospital space for Californian citizens. So far, California has 1080 cases confirmed with eighteen deaths. The state has taken over a bankrupt 357-bed hospital in the San Francisco Bay Area. It's unclear if they purchased the hospital or took it over to help combat the virus. There is also a plan to buy a hospital in Southern California, similar size to the hospital in the bay area. They will also use college dormitories at the states colleges and universities. Donald Trump expressed the importance of working together to overcome this epidemic. Governor Newsom also requested a hospital ship from the Navy. They would station this ship in the Los Angeles harbor and it would give California extra capacity for 1000 patients. He also requested a billion dollars for the Coronavirus. This funding would help them set up portable hospitals. They would also use the money for the homeless population to be able to shelter them. He requested to extend unemployment benefits over the twenty-six-week limit which is the normal length of unemployment. The terms of the lockdown in California against coronavirus Governor Newsom did not give a timeline for the end of the lockdown. The hint he gave according to AP News is that many, many months. This is the uncertainty of the length of this epidemic. The officials from across the nation do not know the length and severity of the coronavirus. They are examining how other countries are handling the virus and then making their decisions. This is a new virus and no known procedures were in place to stall the spread of the virus. The good news about this virus is that the majority of individuals get a weak case. They develop a cough or fever and do not need hospitalization and are well within two weeks like the flu. The more severe cases need hospitalization and up to 6 weeks to recover. It is estimated in California that twenty percent of the cases will need hospitalization. The expectation is for 22 million people to be affected. If this percentage is correct, then 4.4 million residents will need hospitalization. These numbers do not show the restrictions that were already in place. The estimate is the rate of growth now. The restrictions will possibly slow down the spread and the new cases of coronavirus. Locking down California is the most drastic step taken by a governor in the United States. New York has more cases, and they have refrained from locking down the state to stop the spread. Now that California has taken this step, it might encourage other states to do the same. Sorry! This content is not available in your region Arresting the accused in the Nirbhaya case was not easy for Delhi police investigators, who had to visit a naxal-affected village in Bihar and keep a low profile to nab one of them. Akshay Kumar Singh, the cleaner of the bus in which the 23-year-old physiotherapy intern was gangraped, had left for his native village in Aurangabad district after committing the ghastly crime. The police traced Singh through a mobile number Ram Singh, the driver of the bus and the first accused to be arrested in the 2012 case, shared with the investigators during interrogation. Singh had used the phone number to speak to his family back home and it was registered with a service provider in Aurangabad, according to "Khaki Files", a book by former Delhi Police Commissioner Neeraj Kumar during whose tenure the crime happened. This breakthrough led the police to believe Singh could be hiding in his village. Delhi police inspector Rituraj and his team rushed to Patna by flight and took the road from there to reach Aurangabad. On December 19, 2012, three days after the gang rape, the Delhi police team contacted the Tandwa police station under whose jurisdiction Singh's village fell. The Delhi police team then learnt that the village area was affected by Left-wing extremism and the team members were required to tread cautiously without drawing undue attention, Rituraj said. "The police station in Tandwa had been attacked four times by naxals and was therefore heavily fortified with personnel from Bihar Military Police deployed on its rooftop, armed with light machine guns," according to the book. Sub-inspector Ajay Kumar from the local police station joined the Delhi police team and they decided to quietly recce Singh's village. Local intelligence gathering suggested that Singh could have escaped to his in-laws' residence, also in a naxal-infested area. Inspector Rituraj's team decided to wait and sought help from watchmen in Singh's village in nabbing him. Soon enough the wait paid off. One of the chowkidars spotted the accused at Tandwa railway station on December 21 and alerted the police who arrested Singh. Rituraj contacted the district magistrate to obtain a transit remand and he introduced the Delhi police official to the district judge. The judge took Rituraj to his residence, called his staff and dictated the order. It was 9 pm on December 21 when the police received the transit remand but Rituraj left for Varanasi the same night in dense fog and low visibility with the accused and his team. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) New Delhi [India], Mar 20 (ANI): The Vishwa Hindu Parishad has cancelled the Shobha Yatras and rath yatras it had planned to celebrate on the first Ram Navami post-Ramjanmbhoomi verdict. The decision has been necessitated by the health hazards social gatherings pose in the wake of the coronavirus outbreak. In addition to this, the Rashtriya Swayamsewak Sangh-affiliate will have a quiet ceremony of shifting Ram Lalla to the new fibreglass structure so that construction of the temple could be expedited. Speaking to ANI, VHP international working president Alok Kumar said that all big processions planned to celebrate Ramjanmbhoomi verdict, mandating construction of Ram temple, have been postponed and cancelled as of now. This would take place on March 25. "We have asked people in small groups to congregate in their local temples and pray. No big gatherings have been planned, " added Kumar. Prime Minister Narendra Modi had on Thursday cautioned against social gatherings as he called the current situation of virus spread as more grave than that World War I and World War II. He also appealed the government to exert self-discipline and observe Janta curfew for a day on March 22. Milind Parande, secretary-general, VHP said that norms set by states as guidelines to combat COVID-19 will be followed in letter and spirit. The duration of the celebration process is between March 25, the first day of the new year by the Hindu calendar till April 8. "We have asked our 'kaaryakartas' not to take out shobha yatras and rath yatras. This is what we had planned before the coronavirus outbreak. It was supposed to take place in two lakh villages. We have downsised the number of people but the maximum number of villages will be covered. Only a small bunch of people would gather to celebrate Rama Navami. We will follow the norms and rules set by each state and we will take care of legal aspect as well for these small gatherings," added Parande. As for the ceremony of shifting Ramlalla to a temporary structure is concerned, it is looked after by Ramjanmbhoomi Teerth Kshetra Trust. There are lakhs of believers who gather every year in Ayodhya to celebrate Ram Navami. And that many are expected to witness the ceremony of shifting Ramlalla to the temporary fibreglass structure. VHP chief Kumar says they have not invited anyone and would respect the guidelines issued by the UP government in wake of the coronavirus spread. "We know people come to Ayodhya but we have not invited anyone. In fact, even I would not be going for the ceremony if Ramlalla being shifted to the nearby place," added Kumar. The Supreme court on November 9 last year delivered the verdict in favour of Ram temple construction and asked the Centre to have a trust in place which would take over the task of temple construction. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) An Auburn man is facing multiple child pornography charges following a two-state investigation. Auburn police Friday identified the suspect as 53-year-old William Matthew Carter. He is charged with five counts of possession of child pornography. The arrest stems from a joint investigation between Blacksburg, Virginia police and Auburn police. On May 10, 2019, Blacksburg investigators contacted their counterparts in Auburn after they had arrested Carter on child pornography possession charges. The arrest in Virginia prompted an investigation in Auburn. Detectives carried out search warrants of Carters electronic devices found in his Auburn residence and at his place of employment. Detectives recovered various electronic devices containing numerous images of child pornography, which was verified by the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children to be those of known victims. None of the victims are from the Auburn area. Carter pleaded guilty and has since been incarcerated in the Virginia Department of Corrections. He was released on March 16, 2020 and was immediately taken into custody on the outstanding felony warrants in Alabama and held pending an extradition hearing. Carter subsequently waived extradition and was transported back to Alabama Thursday and taken into custody by Auburn Police. Carter was booked into the Lee County Jail on bonds totaling $125,000. Additional charges are expected as the investigation is ongoing by Auburn police and the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children. Denise Higney and Daniel Dougherty, both of Philadelphia, are among hundreds of Americans stuck in Peru after the country closed its borders to international travel amid the spread of the coronavirus. Read more As countries around the globe tighten their borders to confront the rapid spread of the coronavirus, a Philadelphia-area family is stuck in a Peruvian hotel with a limited supply of food and medication. Their family is now scrambling to find a way to get them on a flight. Christine Robinson, 34, of Buckingham Township, Bucks County, has been working around the clock this week to bring home four family members, to no avail. They include her parents, Joseph and Rocio Higney both in their 60s and from Doylestown as well as her sister, Denise Higney, and her sisters boyfriend, Daniel Dougherty, both 25 and from Philadelphia. Robinson described Peru as on lockdown, and said her relatives had relayed that they cant leave their hotel in Lima, the nations capital, without encountering the military patrolling the streets. The uncertainty is just unbearable, she said. The four family members, all U.S. citizens, are among hundreds of Americans who have connected with each other on Facebook after becoming stuck in Peru after the countrys move to close its borders. The Peruvian government declared a state of emergency Sunday and closed its border to international travel while also issuing a mandatory 15-day quarantine nationwide. Then, on Thursday, the State Department issued a warning urging Americans abroad to either come back to the United States or prepare to stay where they are indefinitely. Thats left travelers and their families contacting airlines, officials, embassies, and the State Department in a desperate attempt to figure out a path home. A Change.org petition urging the U.S. government to find a way to get hundreds of Americans home from Peru has garnered thousands of signatures. In a statement to NBC News, the State Department said it was aware that the governments of several countries had suspended air travel, and was considering all options to assist U.S. citizens in these countries and are continuously assessing travel conditions in all areas affected by COVID-19. The Higney family had been traveling in Peru, where Rocio Higney was born, for about a week, Robinson said. They monitored the situation before leaving the U.S., she said, and there were no indications of a travel ban at that point. Robinson said she was worried about her parents contracting the coronavirus. Peru has reported more than 200 cases, according to a Johns Hopkins project tracking the disease. I just hope that we can just get it done and just get them home, she said. Im desperate. A days-long journey from Morocco to Jersey While hundreds of Americans have found themselves stranded abroad, others went through days-long ordeals to travel home. Fritz Ward, who works in alumni and parent engagement at Swarthmore College, found himself stuck in Morocco this week with a group of alumni, many in their 60s or older, desperately trying to get home as flights were repeatedly either canceled or full after the country closed its borders last week. Ward, 42, said he and others were scheduled to fly out of Casablanca on Monday, but only four people in their group of 14 could fit on the flight. Wards name was called, but he gave his ticket to an older woman in his group. He and the others spent the next several days working with airlines to try to find a way any way out of Morocco. Finally, on Thursday, they boarded a flight from Marrakesh to London Stansted Airport, then drove to Heathrow Airport, where they stayed overnight ahead of a Friday afternoon flight to Newark, N.J. Ive just spent so much nervous energy trying to figure things out for the group, and trying to be responsible for them and keep everyone safe and calm, he said 20 minutes before boarding. Now that Im at the gate, Im feeling excited. From India to the U.S., comfort in unexpected places Miriam Hill has lived in Australia for the last four years along with her husband, Nicholas Simon, and 12-year-old son, Luke. They planned to travel the world for a few months before returning to the U.S., where Luke would start school in the fall. While traveling in Jodhpur, India, this week, those plans quickly changed, foiled by warnings theyd be stuck as the crisis rapidly spread and countries began closing their borders. A frantic search for a flight yielded tickets to John F. Kennedy International Airport in New York, but the trip would be lengthy. On Tuesday, they traveled from Jodhpur to Delhi, then from Delhi to Dubai, United Arab Emirates, on Thursday. While there, Hill and Simon saw a headline that the State Department was urging Americans to come home or be prepared to stay put. Hill, a former Inquirer reporter, said she had been waffling about leaving India and the State Department guidance confirmed their decision was the right one. It was in Delhi where they found comfort in an unexpected place. Sitting in their hotel room at a Hilton Garden Inn, restaurant staff came to the door to deliver a piece of cake. In chocolate on the plate was a message wishing the family safe travels. Hill, sitting at baggage claim at JFK and waiting to get on a train back to the Philadelphia area, said she nearly cried at the gesture it was something that made the ordeal bearable. As Ive been trying to calm myself down, she said, I just keep thinking, As long as none of us gets sick, as long as the world gets through this, then we are good. Share this article Whatsapp Facebook Twitter Linkedin Yulia Savitri and Belseran Christ (The Jakarta Post) Palembang/Ambon Fri, March 20, 2020 07:14 663 7f440ff09e92db75a02bbad206c12b04 1 National Maluku,COVID-19,coronavirus,outbreak,South-Sumatra,Palembang,foreign-students,Netherlands,India,Japanese-citizens Free Two foreign students attending Sriwijaya University in Palembang, South Sumatra, voluntarily went to the hospital to be tested for the novel coronavirus disease (COVID-19) after one of them had contact with a confirmed COVID-19 patient. A Dutch medical student was tested at Mohammad Hosein Hospital after receiving news that his mother, who had returned to the Netherlands on March 7 after staying in Palembang for ten days, tested positive for COVID-19. He was accompanied by his flatmate, an Indian national, who also took the test. Their test results were negative. Doctors, however, have prohibited them from traveling for the time being. Sriwijaya University Medical School vice dean Irfanuddin confirmed the results of the tests, adding that both foreign students were registered at the university as guest students for an eight-week course. Read also: COVID-19 suspect in Palembang tests negative after second examination The South Sumatra health agency has placed at least 81 people across the province under surveillance between Jan. 30 and March 17. Seventy-six individuals have been declared healthy after passing the 14-day incubation period. Authorities were still monitoring the remaining cases. "None of the cases have been confirmed positive as of today," said Yusri, a health agency official. Separately, two Japanese nationals were isolated in Haulussy Regional General Hospital in Ambon, Maluku. They were admitted to the hospital on Wednesday as they showed symptoms of fever and shortness of breath. "Both individuals, a married couple, are currently under surveillance, Haulussy Hospital director Ritha Taihitu said without revealing further details about the patients. In total, there are three patients quarantined at the hospital. (vny) MOUNT PLEASANT The Wisconsin Humane Society has moved into its new Mount Pleasant building but because of the coronavirus, few people will see its interior any time soon. The move into the new, $6.8 million shelter at 8900 16th St. was performed Tuesday and Wednesday, and was continuing Thursday. The old property, a converted potato plant at 2706 Chicory Road, also in Mount Pleasant, will soon be put up for sale. WHS slightly advanced the date to move into the new, 16,000-square-foot facility which is more than twice the size of the old one because of the coronavirus emergency. The organization was experiencing staffing shortfalls because schools are closed and some people had to stay home, explained Stephanie Nespoli of WHS. In addition, the old, cramped quarters made social distancing difficult. WHS realized it was an ideal time to move into their newly constructed shelter in Mount Pleasant, as many Racine animals had been transferred to Milwaukee for adoption after the closure, lowering in-shelter animal population at Racine, WHS spokeswoman Angela Speed said. WHS staff also recognized that if at any point the shelter experienced further reduced staffing or a lockdown due to the COVID-19 response, the new building was far better equipped to support both people and animals. With all adoptable animals from the old shelter moved out either into foster homes or the Milwaukee WHS center, and the old Racine campus closed, WHS moved into the new building in the span of about 48 hours, Nespoli said. People were working around the clock to make it happen, she added. New WHS shelter The Wisconsin Humane Society earlier in March moved into its new shelter at 8900 16th St. in Mount Pleasant but is not yet doing adoptions fro Thursday, the new WHS building housed only four dogs and about nine cats, none of them adoptable yet. The facility is currently open only to those who have lost or found an animal or those needing to urgently surrender their pet. Adoptions remain suspended. Staff members are onsite daily from 8 a.m. to 6 p.m. to take care of the animals, and they ask that anyone who needs to urgently surrender their pet call ahead at 262-554-6699. If any Racine County residents find a stray animal after WHS business hours, they should call their local non-emergency police line. New and improved The new WHS shelter, built on 5 acres that include a wetland and asphalt walking path, is superior in every way to the existing shelter, organization officials said. For example, just outside the main entrance is a patio that can be used as a staff outdoor lunch area and a waiting area during vaccine clinics. In the old building, People (were) waiting in their cars, and were shouting (to call them in), WHS Chief Operating Officer Matt Witte said previously. There are more cat and dog cages than before, and each one is a double. The new lobby is three or four times larger than the old one and not trying to pull double functions, Witte said. It will serve people wanting to adopt or coming for learning activities. There is a second entrance for people surrendering their animal, dropping off a found animal and other such purposes. Its really, really, really hard to provide the type of service people are seeking when you have people here for what are often very happy reasons and people here for what are often very sad reasons in the same space, Witte explained. Being able to separate those two things out was critical for us. New WHS shelter The Wisconsin Humane Society earlier in March moved into its new shelter at 8900 16th St. in Mount Pleasant but is not yet doing adoptions fro Added community room The new shelter also adds a 900-square-foot community room with kitchen facilities for hosting events such as volunteer orientations, youth programs, canine manners classes and birthday parties. After-hours corporate meetings will also be welcomed, Nespoli said. Unlike the old shelter where everyone public and staff alike shared a single bathroom, the new one has mens and womens public bathrooms and a separate one for the staff and volunteers. Dogs will be held in several separate rooms, which should dramatically reduce barking noise compared with 17 kennels all in one room before, Witte said. And cats wont be able to see each other, which reduces their stress. For the staff veterinarian, there is a dedicated radiology room, surgical preparation room, separate surgical suite, dentistry room, veterinarians office, intensive-care ward and pharmaceutical storage area. And the new building changes the air every six minutes in the animal lodging areas. This building will have the best air quality of any of the ones that we operate, Witte said. At some future, post-coronavirus point in time, Speed said, WHS will hold a grand opening for the new building. As of Thursday, WHS still needed about $250,000 more to finish paying for the new shelter. New Humane Society shelter The Wisconsin Humane Society this week moved into its new shelter at 8900 16th St. in Mount Pleasant but is not yet doing adoptions from there Its really, really, really hard to provide the type of service people are seeking when you have people here for what are often very happy reasons and people here for what are often very sad reasons in the same space. Being able to separate those two things out was critical for us. Matt Witte, Wisconsin Humane Society chief operating officer Concerned about COVID-19? Sign up now to get the most recent coronavirus headlines and other important local and national news sent to your email inbox daily. Sign up! * I understand and agree that registration on or use of this site constitutes agreement to its user agreement and privacy policy. As the COVID-19 panic gets uglier, Indian leather products and footwear exports industry lost about Rs 1,500 crore worth of orders from the USA and Europe in just two days, an official said on Friday. Since March 17, there had been unprecedented and adverse developments in the country's USD 5.5 billion leather goods export which was already grappling with disruptions in the supply chain from China due to the outbreak. "Buyers in the USA and Europe have informed us about cancellations of their orders to the tune of Rs 200 million (Rs 1,5000 crore) in the last two days," Council of Leather Exports (CLE) chairman P R Aqeel Ahmed said. Buyers have also asked to hold shipments, while containers already shipped are stranded at ports of importing countries and payments are withheld, he said. The CLE has sent a representation on March 19 to Union Commerce Minister Piyush Goyal highlighting the situation. Leather goods exporter Rajiv Bhatia of D2 International said there had been problems in input supplies from China that had impacted production. Bantala, West Bengal's leather hub of Rs 6,000 crore exports, is already reeling under production cut by 20-25 per cent due to input supply chain disruptions from China. Now, export hurdles will only add to its owes. Leather is an employment intense sector and any adverse impact will create huge job loss. The CLE has also sought government intervention to protect the sector from this unprecedented concern. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) Dr Geeta Kochhar By Express News Service KOCHI: Recently, I was travelling in a cab with a young girl early in the morning. After a few minutes of the ride, the girl, who seemed to be fresh out of the shower, starts sneezing. Knowing well the global scare of coronavirus, I looked at the action and reaction of the girl. She was very casual in her approach and rather used her hand to wipe off her nose without any consideration of basic hygiene. Interestingly, the girl was a university student, travelling from one university to another. Looking at her basic etiquettes, I had to put a mask on, which seemed to make her amused and angry. I was probably being rude and demeaning without stating a word. This incident might not be a rarity in India, given how little attention this country gives to hygiene and preventing the spread of diseases. Now, lets consider China. Once the news of coronavirus spread, the public was aware and alert. The news of personal care and prevention along with public health dos and donts spread rapidly in all social media platforms. Despite the ongoing Spring festival on January 24, the important Chinese New Year festival, my close Chinese friend in Delhi refused to meet me because she just returned from China. She quarantined herself for two weeks, a visible difference between the Indian and Chinese mindset. Though Coronavirus is spreading fast, a basic consciousness regarding general public health and hygiene goes a long way. India traditionally prioritises hygiene at home. However, over the years, we have become too complacent in our approach. India and China, both being traditional societies, have community as the basic unit, rather than individual. There was a high degree of collectivism embedded in social and cultural construct, which prioritised common goals and aspirations over individual ambitions. However, as the notion of modernisation and western culture is paving a way into Indian life, we have become more individual-centric and the notion of community is gradually fading away. In China, however, the notions of community are well preserved. This is more evident during crises and disasters. Both in nationalistic and patriotic terms, community is above self and individual. Hence, any issue of national importance becomes an issue of collective consciousness and collective effort. Of the total 80,859 cases reported in China, only 3,100 deaths, and 458 new suspected cases have come up. Chinas concept of putting people first (yi ten wei ben) was at the heart of state action, but it was the collective consciousness and effort of the masses that brought hope. If India has to fight against all odds, lessons from Chinas experience could be our starting point. The author is an assistant professor at Jawaharlal Nehru University, New Delhi RACQ is calling on the state government to freeze vehicle registration fees as Queenslanders face financial burdens heightened by the spread of coronavirus. RACQ head of public policy Rebecca Michael said the government needed to deliver relief, including reducing stamp duty. We urge the Queensland government to follow the lead of the West Australian government, where for the first time in 16 years, an increase on all household fees would be frozen until at least July 2021, she said. RACQ is calling on the government to ease pressures for drivers. Dr Michael said the RACQ's transport costs survey showed households in Queensland paid an average of $1320 each year for registration across all vehicles. Metro Manila (CNN Philippines, March 18) There are now 11 Filipinos in Singapore infected with the novel coronavirus disease, or COVID-19, the Department of Foreign Affairs (DFA) confirmedDepartment of Foreign Affairs (DFA) confirmed on Wednesday. The DFA said in a press statement that the total number of Filipinos who tested positive for the viral disease is now 11, but two have already recovered. The 11th confirmed case tested positive Tuesday and is now confined in isolation at a healthcare facility. On the other hand, the first Filipino who tested positive was already discharged on February 28, while another Filipino recovered and was released from the hospital on March 14. The Embassy is in close coordination with the Ministry of Health (MOH) of Singapore and stands ready to extend assistance to the COVID-19-positive Filipino nationals as needed, the DFA statement said. According to the World Health Organization, 80 percent of the confirmed cases of the viral disease only develop mild illness and recover subsequently Baker Hughes reported that the number of oil and gas rigs in the US plummeted this week by 20, falling to 772, with the total oil and gas rigs clocking in at 244 fewer than this time last year. The number of oil rigs decreased for the week, by 19 rigs, according to Baker Hughes data, bringing the total to 664a 160-rig loss year over year. The total number of active gas rigs in the United States fell by 1 according to the report, to 106. This compares to 192 a year ago. The miscellaneous rig count stayed the same this week, for a total of 2 miscellaneous rigs. Oil production in the United States rose to 13.1 million bpd, resuming its all-time high, according to data provided by the Energy Information Administration. The number of rigs in the most prolific basin, the Permian, fell by 13 this week to 405, compared to 459 rigs one year ago. The second largest basin, the Eagle Ford, lost one rig this week, for a total of 67 rigs, compared to 82 a year ago. The WTI benchmark at 12:18 pm was trading at $24.32 (-6.14%) per barrelalmost $7 per barrel below last week levels as the specter of Saudi Arabia flooding the market with cheap oil as of April 1 combines with tangible demand destruction courtesy of the COVID-19. The Brent benchmark was trading at $29.90 (-1.32%)nearly $5 per barrel below last weeks levels. Canadas overall rig count decreased even more, by 77 rigs this week, to a total of just 98 rigs. Oil and gas rigs in Canada are now up 7 year on year. WTI was trading down by 1.31% on the day at 1:09pm EDT, with Brent trading up 1.39%. Julianne Geiger for Oilprice.com More Top Reads From Oilprice.com: Brazil on Thursday announced it was closing land borders and prohibiting entry to people from European and many Pacific Asian countries to prevent the spread of the coronavirus, as Mexico and Peru reported their first virus deaths. And Argentina said it would go on a "preventative and compulsory" lockdown from Friday until March 31 in an effort to contain the virus. Brazil's Rio de Janeiro state also said it would bar people from its world famous beaches including Copacabana and Ipanema. Chile, rocked by months of social protests, unveiled an $11.75 billion economic stimulus package to cope with the effects of the virus on the giant copper producer, but also announced it was postponing a referendum on changing its constitution. Meanwhile, a plane operated by Spanish carrier Iberia sent to Ecuador to pick up stranded foreigners was prevented from landing at an airport in Guayaquil, which is under lockdown. Brazil said its two-week border closure would affect all neighboring countries, with the exception of Uruguay to the south, after shutting its border with Venezuela on Tuesday. Its new restrictions against travelers from Europe and the Asia Pacific are set to last 30 days, according to a ministerial decree. They apply to people coming from the European Union, Britain, Iceland, Norway and Switzerland, as well as China, Japan, South Korea, Australia and Malaysia who are not Brazilian residents or do not have valid work or family reasons to travel. Latin America's largest country, with a population of 210 million, has so far registered 621 cases of the coronavirus, with six deaths. Rio state governor Wilson Witzel said from Saturday he would close all beaches, bars and restaurants. He also announced a measure to cut transport links with other Brazilian states with reported virus cases, although that needs to be ratified by federal authorities. Mexico reported its first coronavirus death -- a 41-year-old man with diabetes who died on Wednesday in Mexico City. Mexico has recorded 118 virus cases. A Mexican federal judge meanwhile ordered President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador to take all preventative measures and necessary actions in order to detect infected persons in the country. Peru, which has a total of 234 confirmed cases, reported its first three deaths. - Chile stimulus plan- Chile's stimulus plan "will strengthen our ability to face the health, economic and social needs that the coronavirus pandemic is signifying and that will probably tend to worsen in the future," President Sebastian Pinera told a press conference. Senate speaker Adriana Munoz said the leaders of the main political parties had agreed to postpone the referendum on changing the dictatorship-era constitution from April 26 to October 25, to give the country time to deal with the virus. Health Minister Jaime Manalich announced a lockdown of Chile's Easter Island, saying no one could enter or leave the remote Pacific island for the next two weeks. Police meanwhile said they had foiled an attempted break-out from Chile's largest jail. Earlier this week, inmates from jails in Brazil and Venezuela managed to escape, motivated by fear that prisons are a breeding ground for the coronavirus. Chile has registered 342 cases of the virus to date. In Ecuador, Cynthia Viteri, mayor of the country's second city Guayaquil, said she ordered vehicles to block the runway of the international airport to prevent the Spanish-operated plane from landing. The flight from Madrid, with only crew aboard, was able to land later in Quito. Ecuador has banned all flights since Monday to stop the spread of the coronavirus. Panama, which hosts Central America's busiest airport, and Colombia both said they were suspending all international air travel for a month from Monday. Colombia's President Ivan Duque said the shutout was necessary because some people who had entered the country had tried to avoid mandatory quarantine regulations. Colombia closed its land and sea borders on Tuesday. - Bogota confinement - Bogota city hall said the capital's seven million people would face confinement from Friday to Monday as part of a trial run for a probable future quarantine. Other cities across Colombia, which has more than 100 cases of the coronavirus, were also under nighttime curfews. Meanwhile, Eduardo Bolsonaro, the lawmaker son of Brazil's president, joined US President Donald Trump in criticizing China over the pandemic, prompting demands from Beijing for an apology. China's embassy accused Bolsonaro of using "irresponsible words" and of having "caught a mental virus." burs-db-bc/bfm/mtp UTICA N.Y.-Congressman Anthony Brindisi announced he will self-quarantine until March 27th, because he was in contact with Ben McAdams, a Utah Congressman who tested positive for Coronavirus. However, the self-quarantine didn't stop him from holding a Telephone Town Hall Thursday night. It was an opportunity for people to call in and ask questions to Doctors from Rome Memorial Hospital and SUNY Upstate, as well as a local Businessman. Topics discussed included Social Distancing, Hospitals not allowing Visitation, as well as ways to keep yourself and your family safe. One Man that called into the Town Hall was a Taxi Driver who drives patients to and from appointments. He wanted to know if the precautions he takes by cleaning his Taxi after dropping off a patient were enough. "You probably should consider weather or not this is the line of work you're willing to continue during this time when this disease is going around as a pandemic. There's really not a way that you can not breathe the air that someone might be emitting in your small car, that you're driving you're in an enclosed environment this is a risk for you." said Dr. Andrew Bushnell from Rome Memorial Hospital in response to the Taxi Driver's concern. There were so many calls into the Town Hall tonight that not everyone that called in could get their questions answered. So Brindisi is encouraging those to call into his office anytime with questions. Brindisi's Office Phone Number is (315) 732-0713. On Wednesday a series of job actions by Fiat Chrysler workers in Ohio and Michigan against continued production during the coronavirus pandemic led to announcements later in the day by most major North American automakers that they would carry out the temporary shutdown of factories. The timing or length of the shutdowns varied. While some companies piously declared their concern over workers health, others stated that shutdowns were at least partially related to the collapse of vehicle sales due to the ongoing health crisis. The announcements, made in the wake of worker job actions, represented a sharp turnaround from statements earlier in the week indicating managements determination to continue production despite the enormous health risk. Fiat Chrysler closed its North American factories Wednesday afternoon after spontaneous job actions broke out, beginning with workers at the Sterling Heights Assembly Plant and spreading to Jefferson North Assembly in Detroit, Dundee Engine Plant south of Ann Arbor and the Toledo North complex in Ohio. The stoppages were carried out independently and in defiance of the pro-company United Auto Workers. In many cases workers defied threats by the UAW and management, who tried to vainly restart production. An autoworker prepares a chassis to receive an engine on a new aluminum-alloy body Ford F-150 truck at the company's Kansas City Assembly Plant in Claycomo, Mo. (AP Photo/Charlie Riedel) In a statement dripping with hypocrisy Fiat Chrysler CEO Mike Manley said, Working with the UAW, and having visited many of our plants yesterday, we need to ensure employees feel safe at work and that we are taking every step possible to protect them. We will continue to do what is right for our people through this period of uncertainty. The UAW, which prior to this weeks job actions had been conspiring with the Detroit auto companies to keep the plants operating during the pandemic, cynically praised the suspension of production. President Rory Gamble declared. UAW members, their families and our communities will benefit from todays announcement with the certainty that we are doing all that we can to protect our health and safety during this pandemic. This will give us time to review best practices and to prevent the spread of this disease. Following the lead of Fiat Chrysler Ford said it will close all North American factories after second shift Thursday March 19 through March 30. On Wednesday it announced the closure of its Wayne Assembly Plant outside of Detroit after an employee tested positive for COVID-19. A Ford worker at the Wayne Assembly plant west of Detroit said as of Thursday afternoon the plant was still operating. Line workers want time off because they are scared for their lives, he reported. General Motors is attempting to stall for as much time as possible before it closes its plants. In a brief announcement March 18, GM confirmed it will begin a systematic orderly suspension of manufacturing operations in North America due to market conditions, to deep clean facilities and continue to protect people. By orderly, GM means a piecemeal drawing down of production lasting several days and extending, in some cases at least, well into next week. This means that some plants will be closed under GMs plan only for a couple of days before potentially re-opening as soon as March 30. As of Thursday evening, most GM plants were still operating However, opposition and anger has appeared to force GM to reconsider its plans at at least some facilities. Only hours after announcing at Lansing Delta Township on Wednesday that the plant would operate through March 27, management backtracked and said the plant would close on March 20 instead. At 5:00 PM last night, workers at the GM Flint Truck Plant received a message that operations would cease at the facility immediately due to growing concerns over the coronavirus. The message said the possible resumption of operations would be reviewed on a weekly basis. At Fort Wayne Assembly workers have received notification that operations would be suspended at the end of the second shift on Friday March 20. A GM worker in Michigan told the WSWS Autoworker Newsletter, Everyone is very uneasy at work and can't understand why we are still working. It's hard to believe we are put in a position of come to work and contribute to the spread of this deadly virus or face discipline or lose our jobs. Many, if not most, of the hundreds of thousands of workers in the US auto parts plants remain on the job. A worker at America Denso Manufacturing in Battle Creek Michigan wrote, They are closing down for a week starting this Monday. They just told us last night at work [there are] three options. 1) We can still work and we would be only cleaning. 2) We could take a week off using our vacation pay. 3) We could take a company op and not get paid at all. It sucks that we are forced to use our vacation pay in order to survive. Because we live paycheck to paycheck. A worker at Allison Transmission in Indianapolis told the Autoworker Newsletter that there had been confirmed cases of coronavirus at his location. The company employs 3,000 at three Indianapolis facilities making parts for major automakers. Its wrong. We should all be shut down. Everyone is angry. The union gave support to the Windsor workers (Canadian Fiat Chrysler who walked out last week.) But when we wanted to walk out they said no. Management went around the floor saying we are taking precautions and that we cant sue them. All they have done is put trash bags over chairs (in the seating areas) but there isnt even hand sanitizer. He said there had been four to five workers taken to medical but the UAW isnt acknowledging anything. If you are ill you must use vacation time. Of conditions in the plant he said, Its a cesspool. We are going to catch it. 1,600 transmissions a day are pumped out of these plants, but there are 5-6 stacked high and 100,000 engines deep sitting in storage. The companys profits are huge. Many Asian and European-based automakers have also announced the temporary suspension of North American production. In a statement on March 19 Nissan said it would close its two US plants starting Friday and continuing through April 6. Areas deemed business essential will operate with enhanced safety measures, said a company press release. It claimed workers would be paid through the closure. The company has large manufacturing facilities in Smyrna, Tennessee and Canton, Mississippi. Hyundai has closed its only US factory, located in Alabama, after an employee tested positive for coronavirus. It said it would clean and disinfect the plant, but did not indicate a date for re-opening the facility. Honda, meanwhile, said it would close its four North American plants for one week starting Monday. Electric carmaker Tesla, meanwhile, maintained its operations this week, despite a declaration by Alameda County, California that it was a nonessential operation under the countys shelter-in-place order. The San Francisco Bay Area has one of the highest COVID-19 infection rates in the US. Tesla claimed it did not have a final word from local and state authorities if it would be allowed to operate. German-based Volkswagen said it would close its Chattanooga, Tennessee facility for just one week starting Saturday March 21 out of COVID-19 concerns while it assesses future production plans and market developments. It said employees would be paid during the closure. German-based BMW said it would maintain operations at its Spartanburg, South Carolina facility. The state of South Carolina earlier issued an advisory calling for non-essential employees to work from home. BMW has closed its European operations. Toyota, the largest Japanese-based automaker in North America, indicated it had no plans for extended closures. Its Georgetown, Kentucky facility is the largest Toyota manufacturing plant in the world, employing more than 8,000 workers who build the Camry, Avalon and other vehicles. On Wednesday the company said it would shut down its North American plants on March 23 and March 24 for a thorough cleaning, supposedly to protect workers from the coronavirus and as a response to the drop-off in sales. A Toyota worker wrote to the WSWS Autoworker Newsletter, I am disgusted with my company Toyota, we have confirmed cases and we are still working! I have a newborn at home and compromised family but I still have to come into work? Unbelievable. Shut down like the rest of them... Australia's borders are now closed to foreigners to slow the spread of coronavirus. As of 9pm on Friday night, only Australian permanent residents and citizens can enter the country. Scott Morrison said he made the drastic move because 80 per cent of Australia's coronavirus cases have come in from abroad. The ban, which has no end date, means for thousands of temporary residents who live and work in Australia, such as people on skilled work visas, cannot leave because they will not be able to come back. The ban does not apply to direct family members of permanent residents and citizens. From 9pm on Friday night, only Australian residents and citizens will be allowed to enter. Pictured: Scott Morrison (right) and Treasurer Josh Frydenberg on Thursday Announcing the ban, the Prime Minister said: 'We will be resolving to move to a position where a travel ban will be placed on all non-residents, non-Australian citizens coming to Australia, and that will be in place from 9pm tomorrow evening. 'For Australians, of course, they will be able to return and they will be subject, as they already are, to 14 days of isolation upon arrival back in Australia.' CORONAVIRUS CASES IN AUSTRALIA: 27,244 Victoria: 20,269 New South Wales: 4,273 Queensland: 1,161 Western Australia: 692 South Australia: 473 Tasmania: 230 Australian Capital Territory: 113 Northern Territory: 33 TOTAL CASES: 27,244 ESTIMATED ACTIVE CASES: 269 DEATHS: 897 Updated: 5.31 PM, 11 October, 2020 Source: Australian Government Department of Health Advertisement Explaining the move, the Prime Minister said: 'About 80 per cent of the cases we have in Australia are someone who has contracted the virus overseas or someone who has had direct contact with someone who has returned from overseas. 'So, the overwhelming proportion of cases in Australia have been imported.' Mr Morrison said the world-wide travel ban was an extension of existing bans on people coming from Italy, South Korea, Iran and China. 'Measures we have put in place have obviously put an impact on that and this is a further measure now that that can be further enhanced,' he said. New Zealand has made the same move, also shutting the border to non-residents. Ms Ardern and Mr Morrison consulted each other before agreeing to shut the borders. After Virgin Australia cancelled all international flights, Mr Morrison said national carrier Qantas would continue to repatriate Australians. 'I want to thank Qantas also, who are offering to work with us to make sure they maintain flights from particular parts of the world that can assist Australians to return to Australia and we will be working closely with them, and those Australians who are overseas, we have been encouraging them to return to Australia. Passengers wait to check-in at the departures hall at the international airport in Sydney on March 18 'Those in remote parts of the world, that can prove challenging but for those in other places, it is our intention to ensure we can maintain flights to enable them to come home as soon as possible.' Mr Morrison also slammed food hoarders for the second time in two days. 'I also want to say to Australians that there are no issues with Australians' food supply. What there is an issue with is the behaviour of Australians at supermarkets. 'Frankly there are some Australians not giving Australia a very good name at the moment with their behaviour. 'I understand they're anxious. But for the next six months we need to work together,' he said. Lauren Marks, 23, shows off her home office in her 14th-floor apartment in Penn Center House at 19th Street and JFK Boulevard. If she has to use the elevator during the coronavirus crisis, she takes a sanitary wipe with her and cleans the buttons first. Read more Philadelphias high-rise dwellers have a particular challenge as the coronavirus spreads: how to press an elevator button. Lauren Marks, 23, lives on the 14th floor of the 20-story Penn Center House at 19th Street and JFK Boulevard, and recommends pulling down your sleeve a little bit or using gloves. "I just really havent left the house very much, to be honest," she said. The city has 773 buildings of seven stories or more, though the Department of Licenses and Inspections could not say Wednesday how many are residential. Those who call high-rises home are suddenly very aware of the amount of public space they are forced to share. Along with elevators, lobbies, gyms, and laundry rooms are practically unavoidable, with surfaces that could be touched by hundreds of others. Many though far from all building managers have responded by beefing up cleaning crews, restricting public spaces, and making hand sanitizers readily available. The hallways and the lobby now smell just like a giant tub of Lysol," said Sarah Hudson, 34, who lives at the Dorchester on Rittenhouse Square and has been working from home for a health center group that serves people on Medicare. But other high-rise residents are realizing how much they rely on the initiative of landlords and management companies to keep their buildings clean and how little power the city has to make them do it. READ MORE: With courts closed by pandemic, Philly police stop low-level arrests to manage jail crowding We need to ensure that [the Philadelphia Housing Authority] and responsible entities are regularly cleaning high-traffic areas in apartment buildings that serve vulnerable populations, said City Councilmember Kendra Brooks. We know the impact of the virus is greater for the elderly, the immuno-compromised, and workers who come into contact with the greatest number of people. Tenant advocates are exploring what protections exist for residents of buildings whose owners or managers arent stepping up sanitation efforts. City code requires landlords to provide clean, safe, and habitable housing, said Rachel Garland, managing attorney at Community Legal Services, which provides legal support for the citys poor. But its unclear what they are obligated to do in a pandemic. This is a situation we havent faced since the flu epidemic" in 1918, she said. As the crisis deepened, she noted, Community Legal Services concentrated on forestalling evictions and foreclosures. Now, with a temporary moratorium on both, the organization is refocusing on other virus-driven issues, including sanitary housing. The Department of Licenses and Inspections acknowledged Wednesday it has no authority to compel building owners to step up their cleaning. For Petes sake, said Karen Guss, a department spokesperson. Cant everyone just go and do the right thing for once? The city must address the lack of specificity about requirements for landlords amid a de facto citywide quarantine, Brooks said. If people become increasingly confined to their living spaces, she said, we must find ways to ensure movement within those living spaces is safe. The citys health department hasnt offered advice for high-rise residents in particular, other than to say that anyone in close contact with others is at risk. General safety recommendations include using a knuckle to push an elevator button, wrapping your hand in a jacket before touching door knobs, and pushing doors open with an elbow. As the coronavirus spread through China, restrictions in high-rise buildings included taping off partitions in elevators so no more than four people could be inside at once. Carolyn C. Cannuscio, a social epidemiologist and associate professor at the University of Pennsylvanias Perelman School of Medicine, recommended closing party rooms, creating laundry room shifts, and limiting elevator use. At Brith Sholom, a 12-story apartment building on Conshohocken Avenue where most of the approximately 300 residents are elderly, the virus is just the latest battle in their long war with the owners to maintain the property. There is no cleaning, resident Jackie Tindel said Wednesday as she waited for Amen Brown, a Democratic candidate for the state House, to drop off sanitizer and cleaning supplies for the people living there. Theres no disinfectant, theres no nothing for the seniors. Calls to Brith Sholoms office and lawyer were not returned. L&I has been called, said Judy Jones, vice president of the Philadelphia Tenants Union. They havent come out yet. I dont even think they can do anything. At the PHAs West Philadelphia triad of high-rises, the West Park Apartments, residents expressed worry about the conditions there, too. So many people touch the elevators and leave trash in the elevators, said Manashia Jones, 29, a home health aide who suffers from asthma. Im a little bit of a germophobe. As of March 10, the PHA has focused its most rigorous cleaning efforts on its buildings housing senior citizens. It is deep-cleaning all common areas once a week, along with daily cleaning, and has installed hand sanitizers at elevators and entrances, said Nichole Tillman, an agency spokesperson. Every PHA-operated building isnt getting the same treatment, though. Others, like the West Philadelphia towers, are deep-cleaned weekly but not provided with sanitizers, she said, in order to ensure enough of a supply for senior citizen housing. We are encouraging residents to wash their hands, as the [Centers for Disease Control and Prevention] said is the best way to fight this virus, Tillman said. The story is quite different at high-rises such as the River West Condos on Chestnut Street. There, in addition to a more stringent cleaning schedule, the gym has been closed and contractors access has been limited, according to Harvey Spear, head of the Homeowners Association of Philadelphia and owner of Centra, a management company that handles about 30 properties citywide. READ MORE: The coronavirus is less deadly for young people, but doctors say they should still care about it Ive never seen anything like this, Spear said. Im not sure anyone has all the answers. At Society Hill Towers in Old City, about two-thirds of the 1,300 residents are 60 and older, said Brett Scioli, general manager of the three-building complex. Elevators are sanitized every two hours, and cleaning has been refocused on heavily trafficked public areas. The efforts are comforting, said Geary Zazoff, 72, who has lived there for a decade. On Tuesday, as maintenance work was being done in her apartment, she had to hang out in the lobby. Despite her age, she said, she wasnt concerned about catching the coronavirus. I think everyone is very aware and really taking things seriously, so I feel comfortable, Zazoff said. The biggest challenge for large residential buildings, Scioli said, is maintaining staff. The towers have 55 full-time employees, and so far there have been no reports of sickness, he said. This is all kind of unknown, he said. I have cleaning companies on standby should I lose part of my staff, but I really dont know what their staffing is going to be. Essentially limited to their apartments, high-rise residents are coping with another health issue: isolation. Hudson said she has a sister who lives near the Dorchester, but theyve decided not to see each other for two weeks because her sister is a flight attendant. When Hudson has to use the elevator, she said, she brings a sanitary wipe and cleans the buttons. Shes also found comfort in the people whose jobs require them to be in the Dorchester with her through the crisis. The front desk person and door person have been their charming selves," she said, "and have been a calming influence, at least on me. Hudson hasnt seen friends, though she has been FaceTiming from her third-floor apartment. It would be a lot harder," she said, "without a cat. OTTAWA, March 19, 2020 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- betterU Education Corp. (TSX VENTURE: BTRU, Frankfurt: 5OGA) (the "Company" or "betterU") has been working with the TSX Venture Exchange to file all necessary outstanding filings and is now pleased to announce the reinstatement of BTRU to trading effective as of March 23rd , 2020. The Company is providing an update on the business and notice of the Annual General Meeting of shareholders. Message from the CEO Our company has gone through a lot of turmoil over the last year, and I want to thank all of you - our shareholders and extended stakeholders - for weathering this storm with us. The good news is that we are emerging stronger - more operationally and commercially focused - than ever. While the companys trading was suspended over the last six-months we redoubled our efforts to build value for the Company and our shareholders. I am pleased to announce the official launch of our enterprise B2B SaaS platform for skills development called Ready-To-Go, which is the first mobile platform on the market to bring together everything an employer needs to continually assess and skill any employee from entry level to executive in an integrated manner. Ready-To-Go is proving valuable to corporate customers globally, and we will be announcing contracts with companies in Canada, US, India and beyond in the coming months. Ready-To-Go completely aligns with our founding vision to provide best in class education-to-employment solutions for individuals and companies globally. What is different from the past was the realization while in stealth mode over the last few months, that we are not in the business of selling courses, we are in the business of building better people (hence our brand betterU). As such we have shifted our business model away from a pay-per-course (transactional) model to a pay-per-employee (software-as-a-service) model whereby employers pay monthly subscriptions per employee for continual skills improvement and tracking. Story continues This simple shift in framing - which is both on brand and on mission - is resonating strongly with public sector partners, private enterprise customers, and with individuals as end-user beneficiaries. While our focus has become more global in nature, we continue to maintain dedicated staff and skilling platforms for India, which inspired all of our hard work up to this point. There is still a lot of hard work ahead of us, but we now have a solid foundation to become a more sustainable company. Brad Loiselle, President and CEO betterU. Business Update - The following are additional updates on the business: Cancelled Shares for Debt As previously reported on July 26th, 2019 and November 29, 2019 as part of ongoing efforts to reduce the Companys debt and operational liabilities that its board of directors had approved the settlement of $125,000 of debt through the issuance of common shares of the Company (the "Debt Settlement"). The Company had since decided not to move forward with the Debt Settlement due to the downward pressure of the stock price and the level of dilution it would have created. The Company continues to look at debt reduction options. Board approved restructuring plan On December 2, 2019 betterUs board of directors approved a plan to restructure the Companys existing debts and liabilities in efforts to deleverage its balance sheet. The restructuring would take place over the course of 2020 i n connection with a planned subordinated secured convertible debenture offering and subsequent private equity placement to fund a global rollout of the Companys Enterprise SaaS skilling platform and also convert or otherwise pay down the Companys currently existing liabilities to a sustainable level. betterU Enterprise SaaS Platform Ready-To-Go is fully operational and has been showcased to multiple corporate clients in Canada, USA, UK and India. The Company has begun contracting with several enterprise users, which will be announced in the week to come. betterU has built over the last several months a database from interested parties of 400+ Directors of Learning and Development, VPs and HR heads from companies around the world. To support such growing demand the Company would first have to raise additional capital through its planned subordinated secured debenture offering. For more details about betterUs recently launched Enterprise SaaS Ready-To-Go platform, please visit https://readytogo.betteru.ca/ Partnerships Adding to our existing content partnerships encompassing tens of thousands of courses from 100+ of the worlds leading online education and training providers, betterU has been expanding its offering of assessment tools required to support employers in determining their employee skill gaps. We are pleased to announce the Company has entered a partnership with Cyprus firm Byrq to support betterUs Enterprise SaaS Platform for pre-hiring candidates. With a proven I/O psychology framework that is scientifically validated and EEOC compliant, betterU will now be able to measure cognitive skills including numerical, verbal, problem solving and attention to detail as well as 16 personality traits. betterU is also pleased to announce they have entered a partnership with USA based firm eSkill, providing betterU with access to 600+ assessments across job roles, subject base and modular. This partnership enables betterU to support entire departments and job roles across organizations in determining the skills required per employee and mapping them to their skills on betterUs Enterprise SaaS Platform Ready-To-Go . Corporate Portal betterU has developed and launched a corporate website https://corporate.betteru.ca/ , that provides access to more details about betterUs history, leadership, 2020 focus, Investor Relations and more information on the Companys ongoing activities. betterUs corporate website will support more visibility, transparency and access to current and relevant details about how the business is moving forward. Please visit the site regularly so that you are kept current. Stock Option Grants - The following stock options were issued to an insider on December 13th 2017, Positive Venture Group for 125,000 at an exercise price of $0.335 for a 5 year term, with 1/3rd allowed to exercise on the 1st, 2nd and 3rd anniversary date. AGORA Internet Relations Corp. - The Company has issued the following number of shares in connection with settlement of $56,500 owed to Agoracom for marketing services according to the terms of the agreement disclosed on April 12, 2017. Marketing Services Price per Share Number of Shares 15-Mar-17 $11,300 0.45 25,111 15-Jun-17 $11,300 0.57 19,824 15-Sep-17 $11,300 0.38 29,736 15-Dec-17 $11,300 0.38 29,736 15-Mar-18 $11,300 0.79 14,303 Total $56,500 118,710 Annual General Meeting (AGM) Notice - Take notice that the annual general meeting (the Meeting) of shareholders of betterU Education Corporation (the Corporation) will be held at 1 Hunt Club Rd, Ottawa, ON K1V 1B9 on Thursday May 28th, 2020 at 11:00 a.m. (Ottawa time) for the following purposes: To receive the financial statements of the Corporation for its fiscal year ended March 31st 2019 and the report of the auditor thereon; To elect directors of the Corporation for the ensuing year; To appoint an auditor of the Corporation for the ensuing year; To consider and if thought fit to pass, with or without variation, an ordinary resolution to approve the Corporations Stock Option Plan allowing the granting of up to 10% of the Corporations issued and outstanding common shares at any time; and To transact such other business as may properly come before the Meeting or any adjournment thereof. The Corporation has elected to use the notice-and-access (Notice-and-Access) provisions under National Instrument 54-101 Communications with Beneficial Owners of Securities of a Reporting Issuer and National Instrument 51-102 Continuous Disclosure Obligations to distribute Meeting materials to shareholders. Notice-and-Access is a new set of rules that allow issuers to post electronic versions of proxy-related materials on SEDAR and on one additional website, rather than mailing paper copies to shareholders. Shareholders have the right to request hard copies of any proxy-related materials posted online by the Corporation under Notice-and-Access. Meeting materials, including the Circular, will be available under the Corporations profile at www.sedar.com and also at https://corporate.betteru.ca/ by April 29th 2020. The Corporation will provide to any shareholder, upon request to the Corporations transfer agent, a paper copy of the Circular and any financial statements or management discussion and analysis of the Corporation filed with the applicable securities regulatory authorities during the past year. In order to allow reasonable time for you to receive and review a paper copy of the Circular or other document prior to the proxy deadline, you should make your request for a paper copy by April 13th 2020. A shareholder who is unable to attend the Meeting in person and who wishes to ensure that such shareholders shares will be voted at the Meeting is requested to complete, date and sign the form of proxy for the Meeting, or voting information form (VIF), and deliver the form of proxy, or VIF, in accordance with its instructions. About betterU Education Corp. betterU is an education-to-employment technology company offering an end-to-end solution leveraging business intelligence to automate skilling, reskilling and upskilling for companies operating on domestic and global scales. betterU has integrated into its platform the content, technology and support for tailored skills assessments, learning pathways and training modules from 100+ of the worlds leading online education providers. betterUs eco-system includes detailed job, skill, employer, and educational profiles spanning 3,000+ standardized jobs. betterUs integrated platform is the most efficient solution to address evolving skilling challenges for employers and employees through the employment lifecycle from entry level to executive. We dont sell content, we help build better people. For more information, please visit https://corporate.betteru.ca/corporate-gov/ Contact: Brad Loiselle, CEO 1-613-695-4100 betterU Education Corp. Investor Relations Email: ir@betteru.ca Neither TSX Venture Exchange nor its Regulation Services Provider (as that term is defined in policies of the TSX Venture Exchange) accepts responsibility for the adequacy or accuracy of this release. Youve got stress, layered with stress with more stress on top of it, says Colleen Curtis, 37, head of community for The Mom Project and mother of an 18-month-old and a 6-year-old; she is working from home in Logan Square with her husband, Nick Fallon, 42, the general manager for Michigan for Cresco Labs. This is not anything anyone is an expert at because working from home with your kids, parenting through a pandemic is not something anybody is prepared for. Theatres may be shut down right now, but when they're back up and running we will need a lot of musical joy to mark the industry's triumphant return! And what better way to celebrate rising from the ashes than to revive some of these highly underrated musicals? Check out our recommendations for shows that we want to see back again on our stages as soon as possible: The Curious Case of Benjamin Button Matt Burns, Philippa Hogg, James Marlowe, Joey Hickman and Rosalind Ford in The Curious Case of Benjamin Button at Southwark Playhouse in 2019 Jethro Compton Productions Jethro Compton and Darren Clark's bewitching, deceptively ambitious British musical transplanted F Scott Fitzgerald's tall tale of the man born old who ages in reverse to Cornwall in the last century and filled it with achingly beautiful music and breathtaking theatrical invention. Having received extraordinary critical acclaim at its Southwark Playhouse premiere last year, this briefly and unexpectedly became the hottest ticket in town, then disappeared without trace. We need it in our lives. The Baker's Wife In between his early successes (Godspell and Pippin) and the global blockbuster Wicked, Stephen Schwartz worked on this little gem inspired by a French film, about a rural boulanger whose wife leaves him for a handsome younger model only to have a change of heart. The disastrous original, starring Patti LuPone, never made it to Broadway while Trevor Nunn's 1989 West End version fared little better. With exquisite songs including the standard "Meadowlark", gentle humour and theme of forgiveness, this could be the perfect time to bring it back. Once on This Island BTA's Once on This Island at Southwark Playhouse in 2019 Eliza Wilmot Another musical driven by the human need for storytelling, this one is a variant of the Little Mermaid legend transported to the French Antilles and with a lilting, propulsive, heart-melting score by Ahrens and Flaherty (Ragtime). The original London production flopped despite winning the 1995 Olivier Award for Best New Musical but the recent Broadway revival was a thing of beauty and joy. Can we have that here soon please? Nine Most people in the UK only know Maury Yeston and Arthur Kopit's ultra-glamorous musical from the poorly received 2009 film version with Daniel Day-Lewis as the Italian film director having a midlife crisis, supported by a clutch of fine actresses including Nicole Kidman, Marion Cotillard, Penelope Cruz, Sophia Loren and Judi Dench. The stage show is cleverer, darker, funnier and has only been seen in London in an all-star one night concert at the Royal Festival Hall and a brief 1996 Donmar production. Memphis Killian Donnelly as Huey and Beverley Knight as Felicia in Memphis in 2015 Johan Persson Set in the titular city during the 1950s, this interracial love story played out against the birth of Rock 'n' Roll is an exhilarating, soul-stirring blast. The original Broadway production won the 2010 Tony Award for Best Musical while the West End version, which starred Beverley Knight and Killian Donnelly, picked up the 2015 WhatsOnstage Award for Best New Musical. It lasted a year first time round, but it would be so good to have another look at it. The Most Happy Fella Happiness is in short supply at the moment, so what better time to revisit this intensely romantic, winningly funny 'Broadway Opera' by Frank Loesser, the man who gave us the better known Guys and Dolls. The demanding score means that it has been revived on almost as many opera stages as musical theatre ones but this delightful, unexpected tale of an epistolary courtship between a middle-aged man and much younger woman has a heart that's pure Broadway. The Drowsy Chaperone John Partridge, Summer Strallen, Bob Martin, Elaine Paige and Joseph Alessi in The Drowsy Chaperone in 2007 Dan Wooller for WhatsOnStage This is the one that got away. Arriving festooned with Tony Awards from New York, the 2007 London production had a starry cast including Elaine Paige, John Partridge and Summer Strallen rave reviews, unanimously positive word-of-mouth, and yet lasted less than 100 performances. It has had a fringe revival but it would be great fun to see a lavish, full-scale mounting of this knowing tribute to light-hearted romantic musical comedies of yesteryear and the simple escapism they provide. Kiss of the Spider Woman Not seen in this country since the 1992 pre-Broadway run at the Shaftesbury starring the legendary Chita Rivera, this groundbreaking musical has a thrilling Latin-inflected score from Kander and Ebb (Cabaret, Chicago). The hard-hitting story, based on Argentinian writer Manuel Puig's play, combines the brutal realities of prison life, a tender gay love story, and the transformative power of fantasy and the imagination. And we could all do with a little fantasy right now. Eugenius! The company of Eugenius! at The Other Palace in 2018 Pamela Raith We may be about to stream it from the comfort of our own homes, but Ben Adams and Chris Wilkin's thunderously tuneful, hyper-caffeinated charmer missed out on its West End run back in 2018, following two successful seasons at The Other Palace. A 'live' new version of this joyful, escapist mixture of comic strip capers, sci-fi, 1980s nostalgia, irresistible comedy and high camp would be a glorious way to reopen the West End. Just So Although they're better known now for the stage version of Mary Poppins, Stiles and Drewe cut their creative teeth on this melodic, witty, wonderfully strange musical adaptation of Rudyard Kipling stories. First presented by Cameron Mackintosh in 1990 up at the Tricycle (now Kiln) Theatre with a cast including Linzi Hateley, Jenna Russell and Clive Rowe, plans for a transfer were shelved. The 2005 Chichester revival didn't come in either, and it really would be a treat to have this adorable, quirky show in the West End. But they pointed out that Teachers are trying and adjust- ing and sharing at warp speed what works and what doesnt. Theres massive energy about how to do this incredibly differ- ent and difficult thing as well as we possibly can. The latest report of Bahrains education ministry confirms these observations in all re- spects. In the past two weeks, the ed- ucation ministry here has gen- erated a tremendous amount of online content which now is being used by students all across Bahrain through various platforms including YouTube channels. As of now, authorities pre- pared and uploaded 333 e-les- sons, including 66 for special education, 37 for technical and vocational education, as well as 62 electronic enrichment materials. Several US senators are under fire for dumping millions of dollars in stock holdings just before coronavirus tanked the markets and after they were briefed on the likely impact of the epidemic. North Carolinas Richard Burr, head of the Senates Intelligence Committee, and Georgias Kelly Loeffler, both Republicans, sold off shares after a closed-door briefing on the epidemic on January 24, well before it became publicly clear how badly coronavirus set to affect the US. As reported by Open Secrets, Mr Burr unloaded thousands of dollars of stocks along with his wife in mid-February, many of them in companies likely to lose value, including hotel chains. Mr Burr, who has represented North Carolina in the Senate since 2005, has long been a leader on legislation designed to help the government prepare for pandemics, specifically the Pandemic and All-Hazards Preparedness Act, first enacted in 2006 and then re-authorised in 2019. This legislative experience makes him one of the Senates go-to authorities on the implications of a fast-spreading and lethal pathogen. At around the same time, he had publicly reassured Americans that the US was better prepared than ever before to stop an advancing epidemic from sweeping the country. However, a recording obtained by NPR reveals that,at a private lunch on February 27, Mr Burr warned members of an elite North Carolina social club that the impact of the virus would be far more dire. Mr Burr called NPRs report a tabloid-style hit piece, saying the message I shared with my constituents is the one public health officials urged all of us to heed as coronavirus spread increased. Mr Burr has also previously voted against insider trading legislation that prohibits members of Congress from using not-yet-public information to inform their stock trading. He was one of only three senators to vote against the 2012 act, dismissing the time spent on it as ludicrous. A spokesperson for Mr Burr told OpenSecrets that Senator Burr filed a financial disclosure form for personal transactions made several weeks before the U.S. and financial markets showed signs of volatility due to the growing coronavirus outbreak. Calls for Mr Burrs resignation have come from all across the political spectrum, including Fox News, whose Tucker Carlson said There is no greater moral crime than betraying your country in a time crisis and that appears to be what happened. Senator Loeffler, meanwhile, sold off multiple shares in various companies while buying shares in another that produces teleworking software. According to records filed with Senate ethics officials, the sold-off stocks came to a value of between $1.275m and $3.1m. In a statement, senator Loeffler denied she had a personal role in the transactions or that they were made based on information she received at the closed-door hearings. This is a ridiculous and baseless attack. I do not make investment decisions for my portfolio. Investment decisions are made by multiple third-party advisors without my or my husbands knowledge or involvement. As confirmed in the periodic transaction report to Senate Ethics, I was informed of these purchases and sales on February 16, 2020 three weeks after they were made. Before and after photos show impact of coronavirus around the world Show all 20 1 /20 Before and after photos show impact of coronavirus around the world Before and after photos show impact of coronavirus around the world Top: Nabi Younes market, Mosul Bottom: Charles Bridge, Prague Reuters Before and after photos show impact of coronavirus around the world Grand Mosque, Mecca Reuters Before and after photos show impact of coronavirus around the world Sagrada Familia, Barcelona Reuters Before and after photos show impact of coronavirus around the world Nabi Younes market, Mosul Reuters Before and after photos show impact of coronavirus around the world Basra Grand Mosque, Iraq Reuters Before and after photos show impact of coronavirus around the world Charles Bridge, Prague Reuters Before and after photos show impact of coronavirus around the world Taj Mahal hotel, India Reuters Before and after photos show impact of coronavirus around the world Dubai Mall, UAE Reuters Before and after photos show impact of coronavirus around the world Beirut March, Lebanon Reuters Before and after photos show impact of coronavirus around the world Gateway of India, Mumbai Reuters Before and after photos show impact of coronavirus around the world Cairo University, Egypt Reuters Before and after photos show impact of coronavirus around the world Amman Citadel, Jordan Reuters Before and after photos show impact of coronavirus around the world Church of the Nativity, Bethlehem Reuters Before and after photos show impact of coronavirus around the world Beirut March, Lebanon Reuters Before and after photos show impact of coronavirus around the world Cairo, Egypt Reuters Before and after photos show impact of coronavirus around the world Cairo University, Egypt Reuters Before and after photos show impact of coronavirus around the world Victoria Memorial, India Reuters Before and after photos show impact of coronavirus around the world Amman Citadel, Jordan Reuters Before and after photos show impact of coronavirus around the world Amman Citadel, Jordan Reuters Before and after photos show impact of coronavirus around the world Sidon, Lebanon Reuters Ms Loeffler is both the youngest member of the Senate and one of its wealthiest, as well as its most recent arrival, having been nominated by her states governor at the end of 2019 to fill the seat vacated by Johnny Isakson. Other Republican senators found for the timing of their stock transactions include Oklahomas Jim Inhofe and Wisconsins Ron Johnson, both of whom have reported large transactions in their favour in the weeks after the briefing. On the Democratic side, Californias Dianne Feinstein sold millions of dollars of shares in two transactions after the briefing. Ms Feinsteins spokesperson told the New York Times that she and her husband kept their stock in a blind trust, meaning they had no role in their multi-million dollar sales. Lois Gibson sizes up a visitors face with a practiced, uncanny eye. I wish I had your chin. If I won the lottery, Id have your chin. Id pay $30,000 for it, dya know what I mean? Its a nice chin. Substantial. She could be the fast-talking protagonist in a pulp-fiction novel. As we sit at the dining table of her home in Tomball, Gibson mentally drills through my skin as if she has X-ray vision. I can see your skull. How much skin is here, here and here? she asks rhetorically, pointing to to my temples and Im not sure what else, without batting her substantial false eyelashes. Almost nothing? I know how much is not much, and it follows the line of your mandible. A self-described super-recognizer of faces, Gibson can accurately fill out an image of a face thats not all there, sketch a face a crime victim only remembers through the fog of terror, or age progress a person who has been missing for a decade, without digital tools. Shes listed in the Guinness Book of World Records as the worlds most successful forensic artist. According to the Guinness website, her drawings have helped the Houston Police Department positively identify 751 criminals and secure more than 1,000 convictions. Gibson says she has made 7,000 portraits, counting likenesses of tourists she made while working on the River Walk some years back and canvases she paints all the time from pictures of family members. The number seems plausible, looking at the filled walls of her home. An easel is always up in the small, chaotic room that serves as her painting studio. About 99 percent of her police work involves witness memory after crimes, she says. During almost 38 years with HPD, Gibson has listened to tons of real-life horror stories while coaxing details out of traumatized and sometimes hospitalized survivors to sketch head shots that lead to arrests. She pulls glossy prints of such jobs from folders, describing them in grisly detail: The guy who raped a pregnant blind woman with a cane. The guy who shot his victim in the back and head and dragged him under a car. The guy who raped a 10-year old girl, nearly cut her head from her body and left her in a field. The guy who slashed the parents of a four year old to death while the child watched. Gibson got that guy caught by asking the child to pick out eyes, noses, chins and so on from a book of facial features she carries around; she compiles the chosen features into a single sketch. She could go on. Prints are now splayed out across the whole table. Gibson is particularly proud of her age progression work, the art of aging people visually from earlier photographs. You know how theyll show babies in Parade Magazine or something of famous movie stars, and theyre sure you cant identify them? she says. I can. I always could, ever since I was 10 or 12. She once helped police capture a murderer who had been on the lam for 30 years, she says. As soon as I made him look older, in 10 days they had him. Wyatt Earp and Billy the Kid That skill has also brought her freelance work outside the crime sphere. Gibson says she has used her process to help verify a figure in a painting by Gustav Klimt that also was studied by conservators, but her biggest freelance notoriety has come from working with images of legendary Wild West characters including Jesse James and Billy the Kid. Most recently, she says, she has helped a client verify that the figures in a vintage portrait he found in an antique mall are Wyatt Earp and his family. To identify the subjects, Gibson compared them with known portraits, including one from another family gathering in 1875. He gets older, he gets more of a mustache, thats all, she says. It looks like Earps face has something distinctive going on that might make him easier to identify. You know what it is? Gibson says. His eyebrows. And his superciliary arch is very narrow, like Tom Cruise. Hes got an eye socket deal. There are nine people in that photo. She believes she has verified three, including Earps parents Nicholas Earp and his second wife, Virginia Cooksey and his little sister, Adelia. Shes confident she also sees Doc Holiday, his wife Mattie Blalock and Earps brothers in the picture, identified through her process of progressive aging. Some historians vehemently dispute this work. Theres artifact envy, Gibson says. They gave me so much trouble about Jesse James and Billy the Kid was even worse. People in New Mexico want to kill you if you think you have Billy the Kid. The issue, says San Francisco lawyer John Boessenecker, the author of the 2016 best-seller Texas Ranger Frank Hamer and other books of Western history, is that the photographs Gibson is working with could be fakes. Selling them can be big business. Facial recognition cannot be used to compare old photos and identify them. That is not how it works. An old photograph needs provenance a history of where it came from and how it is connected to the historic person, Boessenecker says. This photo-faking became commonplace in the last ten years after Bill Koch paid $2.3 million for the only real image of Billy the Kid, he adds. We know it is the Kid is because Pat Garrett, the sheriff who killed the Kid and knew him well, included a wood engraving of it in his book about the Kid, published soon after he killed him. Ever since that world record sale to Bill Koch, photo fakers have been flooding the market with falsely identified images. There are five fake Billy the Kid photos on eBay right now, ranging in price from $4,000 to $10 million. Seeking justice for victims Gibson helped other clients verify a newly-discovered painting by Gustav Klimt featuring his companion, Emilie Floge. (The paintings owners also worked with conservation experts.) And she worked with the late Glenn McDuffie to make his case for being the lustful sailor in Victor Jorgensens iconic Life Magazine picture, Kissing the War Goodbye in Times Square, 1945. Gibson, who was born in Kansas, has a personal thing about setting things right. A native of Kansas, she was strangled and nearly killed during a sexual assault when she was about 20, living in Los Angeles and working as a model and dancer. Thats why I do this job, she says. I wanted justice and I prayed. I couldnt stand that the guy got away with it. She followed her first husband to San Antonio, attending dental school until she realized she could make more money sketching tourists portraits on the River Walk. The police work came naturally after that. Does she have nightmares about the horrific stuff she sees and hears?. No, she says. No hesitation. I have nightmares about my art supplies being ruined. With todays face recognition technology and age-progression software, Gibsons work could be seen as a dying art. But she still mentors young forensic artists who can bring human intuition to the job, and shes not ready to stop. If she has to look at murdered babies to bring justice, so be it. You realize I have cases that never get solved, she says, sniffling. If I didnt go to the morgue, Id wonder the rest of my life, what if Id gone to the morgue? Ultimately though, the constant, close study of faces makes her appreciate diversity in the human race. You see a wider variety of people you think are gorgeous. To be ugly, they have to be ugly inside, she says. It makes you love people more than other people love people. molly.glentzer@chron.com Source: Xinhua| 2020-03-20 15:52:02|Editor: huaxia Video Player Close BEIJING, March 20 (Xinhua) -- China will quicken the construction of 5G networks to crank up the economic engine in the battle against the novel coronavirus outbreak. Here are the latest developments related to the construction of 5G base stations in China: -- The country's top economic planner said Wednesday that it will expedite the construction of "new infrastructure" projects such as 5G networks and data centers, shoring up information services for the new consumption. -- A total of 25 provincial-level regions have put new infrastructure projects in their government work reports so far, with 21 intending to advance 5G network construction. -- Beijing municipal government recently discussed putting forward specific solutions for the construction of 5G base stations in the city's subways. Beijing has put 26,000 5G base stations into operation, with 5G users reaching about 800,000. -- Shenzhen held a video conference Monday focusing on the promotion of major projects, rail transit and 5G infrastructure construction. Shenzhen plans to build a total of 45,000 5G base stations by the end of August 2020. -- Shanghai's telecom operators have optimized their 5G network construction plans, prepared 5G materials supplies in advance, and linked up with the industrial chain, especially equipment manufacturing enterprises and terminal manufacturers in a timely manner to ensure the completion of 30,000 5G base stations by the end of this year. -- North China's Tianjin Municipality will build 20,000 5G base stations by the end of this year. Based on these 5G base stations, the city's urban areas, the core areas of the Binhai New Area and different development zones are expected to be fully covered by the 5G networks. -- South China's Guangdong Province will build 60,000 5G base stations in 2020, with 50,000 to be completed in the first three quarters. Townships of all nine cities in the Pearl River Delta region, as well as county seats in the northern, western and eastern parts of the province, will have 5G network coverage for more than 90 percent of the population by year-end. -- East China's Jiangxi Province will build 20,000 5G base stations by 2020, promote full coverage of 5G networks in Nanchang, the provincial capital and the city of Yingtan, as well as key application areas, and vigorously develop "5G plus Industrial Internet." -- Southwest China's Guizhou Province, the country's first big data comprehensive pilot area, plans to increase its number of 5G base stations to 10,000 by the end of the year. -- Southwest China's Yunnan Province will invest 50 billion yuan (around 7.04 billion U.S. dollars) to build 200,000 5G base stations to fully cover cities, prefectures, county seats and urban districts in the province with the 5G networks. -- Leading telecom operator China Unicom said it will work with China Telecom to finish construction on 250,000 5G base stations across the country by the end of the third quarter. -- China Mobile, one of the country's leading telecommunications operators, has nearly 50,000 5G base stations in use and provides 5G services in 50 cities. The company will increase its number of 5G base stations to 300,000 by the end of the year, and launch more 5G applications to better meet market demand. The eRosary even comes in packaging that resembles the Bible. Click to Pray The Vatican launched a smart, wearable eRosary in October, Engadget reported. The rosary connects to an app on iPhone or Android devices via Bluetooth, and the app takes you through the steps to pray the rosary. Through the app, users can also see intentions from Pope Francis, who has asked for special prayers for the elderly. The Vatican has also started live-streaming the pope's daily mass "to be close to all those who are suffering from the current coronavirus epidemic." Visit Business Insider's homepage for more stories. As COVID-19, the disease caused by the novel coronavirus, spreads around the world and has put Italy under lockdown, the Vatican is livestreaming daily masses from Pope Francis, the head of the Catholic Church. The Vatican also released a wearable smart rosary last year through the Pope's Worldwide Prayer Network, where users can pray for "peace in the world," and connect with other Catholics while social distancing. The device, which can be worn as a bracelet, is made up of 10 black beads, plus a "smart cross" that stores data. The beads allude to the design of a classic rosary: 10 beads traditionally make up one decade, or a set of prayers. When the wearer activates the rosary, they can choose what kind of prayer they'd like within the free app. There is a standard rosary, a contemplative, and thematic rosary, which will be updated periodically. The app shows progress, and keeps track of prayer history. In a press release, the Vatican said that the rosary device is a tool for learning, aimed at the "frontiers of the digital world where the young people dwell." This isn't the first time that the Vatican has directly addressed technology and its impact on young people. In September, Pope Francis attended a Vatican conference about morality and technology, during which he warned Silicon Valley about the dangers of AI. Pope Francis began streaming daily mass on March 9, to be closer to people who are sick or in quarantine. Story continues AP_20068401167479 AP Photo/Andrew Medichini Source: Vatican News Today, the Pope prayed for people who have died from COVID-19, especially health care workers "who have given their life in service of the sick." AP_20075413948449 AP Photo/Alessandra Tarantino Source: Vatican News As Spain goes into lockdown, priests are live-streaming masses. AP_20075478202213 AP Photo/Bernat Armangue A priest on the outskirts of Madrid streamed mass where he praised people for helping vulnerable populations during the pandemic. AP_20075477765059 AP Photo/Bernat Armangue Like other wearables, such as smartwatches, the eRosary is meant to be worn on your wrist. Click To Pray eRosary wearable Click to Pray In addition to tracking prayers, it tracks health information. Click To Pray eRosary Charging station Click to Pray The rosary works by connecting to an iPhone or Android app over Bluetooth. Click to Pray eRosary Click to Pray The app is fairly intuitive and prompts you to connect and charge your device. The Vatican says that the device should be accessible to all ages. Click to Pray eRosary Click to Pray To activate the device, perform the sign of the cross (as indicated in the image) with the eRosary. Click to Pray eRosary Click to Pray Once activated, the app gives instructions to go through the rosary. Click to Pray eRosary Click to Pray It also keeps track of your progress, showing how often you pray and for how long. Click to Pray eRosary Click to Pray By prompting you to hold and move the device, the app mimics the experience of a traditional rosary. Click to Pray eRosary Click to Pray The bracelet is part of the Vatican's "Click to Pray" family, an app where Pope Francis has a profile and lists his personal prayer intentions. eRosary The Vatican Within the app, you can see Pope Francis' prayer intentions, and pray for them yourself. Click to Pray eRosary Click to Pray As the name says, you literally click to pray for an intention. Click to Pray app Click to Pray The Vatican's eRosary is on sale now for 99 euros or $110 on Amazon and from Acer. Currently, its only available in Italy, but a spokesperson told Business Insider that US availability is in the short-term plan. Read the original article on Business Insider To keep its personnel safe from the threat of coronavirus, the CRPF in Jammu and Kashmir has extended the leave of its personnel, presently on vacation outside the Union Territory, by 15 more days, an official said. The officers have also been directed not to sanction leave to any personnel, except in the case of any emergency, during the next fortnight, Public Relations Officer of CRPF (Jammu sector) told PTI. He said the decision to this effect was taken by the top brass in view of the emerging situation due to Coronavirus infection. The medical units at all the camps are alert and also running awareness campaigns to educate the troops of the safety measures against COVID-19, Singh, who is also Deputy Commandant of 166th Battalion, said. He said the free entry of the visitors into the camps has been stopped while masks and sanitisers were distributed among the personnel. "CRPF is also conducting the fumigation exercise with major thrust on the cleanliness at the camps and their surroundings," the officer said. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) Share this article Whatsapp Facebook Twitter Linkedin Markus Makur (The Jakarta Post) Manggarai, East Nusa Tenggara Fri, March 20, 2020 17:13 663 7f440ff09e92db75a02bbad206c42514 1 National COVID-19,novel-coronavirus,coronavirus,paru-paru,penyakit,virus,East-Nusa-Tenggara Free East Nusa Tenggara (NTT) Governor Viktor Bungtilu Laiskodat has instructed 23 regencies in his province to close schools for 14 days starting Friday in a bid to curb the spread of the COVID-19 coronavirus. All schools from early childhood education centers to universities will be closed from March 20 to April 4, the NTT administration spokesperson Marius Jelamu told The Jakarta Post by phone Friday. He added that the national examinations for high school and vocational schools that were scheduled to take place on March 30 would also be postponed. "We wont hold the national examinations. All high schools and vocational schools should adhere to the education and culture ministers instruction to suspend the exams, he said. Marius said the school closings meant that students should study at home with parent supervision. Contacted separately, Manggarai Regent Deno Kamelus said on Thursday that he had received the governors instruction and was ready to implement the measure. Read also: Hundreds attend ordination Mass in East Nusa Tenggara despite COVID-19 warnings There were 38 people under general monitoring for COVID-19 in Tiller Maumere Hospital as of Thursday. Three people have recovered, Marius said. "There is also an English national among the monitored patients. He was on a holiday on Flores but was said to have needed an appendectomy. However, we have sent his blood to be tested in Jakarta, he said. While suspending schools, the East Nusa Tenggara administration still allows business activities to take place with an appeal to people to avoid crowds and practice social distancing. We will monitor business activities. We warn that as stocks of thermometer guns and hand sanitizers are limited, no sellers were allowed to sell [them] at high prices, he said. (aly) People all over Spain are adjusting to the state of alarm that came into force last weekend, a decree that has forced the country into lockdown in an effort to contain the coronavirus (Covid-19). By Monday, the streets and public areas of the Costa del Sol were virtually deserted as business owners and residents appeared to be heeding the government's advice to stay at home. HOTLINES Age Concern Fuengirola, Mijas and Benalmadena. Weekdays 10am - 5pm. 652537615. Age Care Calahonda. 24-hour hotline. 635 407 255. Lux Mundi Fuengirola. 24-hour hotline. 606568145/952 47 48 40. Lux Mundi Torre del Mar. 24-hour hotline. 654506249 / 952543334 The coast is home to thousands of foreign senior citizens (considered the most venerable group) and many of them rely on the assistance and services of local charitable associations. Most of these charities are endeavouring to continue to help those in need during these difficult times, but the disruption is having a direct effect on the services they can offer. Age Concern Fuengirola, Mijas and Benalmadena is one of the charities that has pledged to offer its members a continued service, albeit a limited one. The charity has closed its shop and social clubs, although it will assist with hospital visits and doctor's appointments. Along with the safety of its members, the organisation is also concerned for the welfare of its volunteers "We deal with vulnerable people and, as such, our actions are driven by the need for their safety and welfare. Similarly, our volunteers, who are the lifeblood of the charity, have to be protected. Inevitably this means we are operating a limited service at this time," secretary Steve Marshall explained to SUR in English. The secretary, who is adamant Age Concern will survive the crisis, explained that the helpline, open weekdays between 10am and 5pm, is receiving a "higher volume of calls than normal". The Cudeca Hospice in Benalmadena has also employed special measures to protect both staff and patients. In a statement issued on Monday, the cancer charity said, "We do not know of any confirmed case of infection of the coronavirus disease in any worker, family member or patient, so our current objective is to increase preventive measures. "We believe that we must send a clear and real message of the current situation and extend the protection measures that we have been taking. These measures are temporary, and will be adapted or graduated according to the evolution of the situation." Cudeca has cancelled all training courses, meetings and events, while access to the hospice is restricted and the day centre has been closed. The charity is still operating its homecare service. Identity badges Age Care Calahonda has also set up initiatives to ensure its clients are looked after during the lockdown. The charity, which has closed its drop-in centre, has issued volunteers with identity badges and an official letter stating they are working on behalf of the charity to help the elderly. The charity has kept in constant contact with those considered vulnerable and it has also set up a 24-hour hotline to keep people informed of the latest updates, as well as a special WhatsApp group to help volunteers keep in contact. "We are keeping up to date with new policies coming out from the government and then advising our clients by e-mail or phoning them personally, welfare officer Lesley Berridge explained. Lux Mundi in Fuengirola and Torre del Mar have also had to make adjustments to their daily schedule. Both ecumenical centres have closed their doors, and the solidarity kitchen that offers hot food to the homeless has also been suspended. Lux Mundi is providing telephone and internet assistance in both Spanish and English, but the Christian association is concerned for those in vulnerable situations. "We have closed our facilities because the vast majority of our volunteers are older people and we do not want to put them at risk. We are sorry for the inconvenience caused to the groups that gather in our centres, but we are convinced that this is the only way we will be able to combat this contagious virus. We hope that the authorities have an alternative for the homeless, as they have become even more unprotected," Lux Mundi representative Martha Rivera said. Meanwhile, town halls have also launched solidarity initiatives aimed at combating the spread of the virus between senior citizens, especially those that live alone. Social Services departments have drawn up lists of people over the age of 70. Social workers will call daily to perform individualised attention and will also inform of any developments concerning the state of alarm. In a bid to minimise the risk of contagion among the elderly, volunteers will offer to collect groceries or medical supplies, as well as walking pets. Some town halls are also offering emergency supplies to senior citizens and those at risk. Each case will be assessed by the urgency of the individual's situation. The town halls have set up special hot-lines and people are advised to check relevant websites for more information. Avangrid officials announced Thursday that CEO James Torgerson will retire in June after the Orange-based companys annual shareholders meeting. Torgerson, 67, has led Avangrid since it was formed five years ago through the merger of Iberdrola USA and UIL Holdings. Before that, he served for nine years as president and chief executive officer of UIL Holdings, which was based in New Haven. The company is conducting an internal and external search for Torgersons successor. Jim has successfully led the integration of Avangrid, making the company a leading sustainable energy group in the U.S., said Ignacio Galan, chairman of the board for the energy holding company. His long and successful career is widely recognized by his peers in the industry. Torgerson said that while he has been contemplating retiring for a while, he is fully engaged and committed to leading this organization as we navigate the current challenges of the coronavirus pandemic. We are well prepared and committed to ensuring there is no interruption in service for our customers and taking care of our employees during this uncertain time, he said. Torgerson came to UIL Holdings from a stint as president and chief executive officer of the Midwest Independent Transmission System Operator, one of the nations regional electric grid operators. He presided over a period of dramatic growth for UIL Holdings, taking it from a small, regional energy holding company to what it has become today as Avangrid, a diversified energy company with 3.3 million natural gas and electric utility customers across multiple states and one of the largest wind power generators in this country. Avangrid was created after Spanish energy giant Iberdrola acquired UIL Holdings at the end of 2015 in a $3 billion deal. Before that merger came along, Torgerson had tried to expand UIL Holdings by acquiring Philadelphia Gas Works in 2014. But the Philadephia City Council rejected that $1.85 billion deal in October 2014 and the company abandoned the acquisition attempt a few months later. Torgerson served as chairman of the American Gas Association in 2019. He is a current trustee of the Yale New Haven Health System. luther.turmelle@hearstmediact.com Myanmar police escort the defendants out of a police vehicle for their trial at a courthouse in Patheingyi township, central Myanmar's Mandalay region, March 20, 2020. Five Myanmar villagers were sentenced to five years in prison each on Friday on charges of destroying a factory building and vehicles during a protest against a Chinese-backed coal-powered cement factory in Mandalay region, a lawyer for the defendants said. Residents of Aungthabyae village in Patheingyi township clashed with police and those in charge of the Alpha Cement Plant during a May 2019 protest against the construction of the factory near their community. Some of the demonstrators reportedly had set four vehicles and part of the factory property on fire. Nearly 20 people were injured when police fired rubber bullets and tear gas to disperse the protesters. An official from the Chinese company had filed charges against those sentenced Friday for illegally using explosives and destroying property. The defendants attorney, Sithu, said Friday that video footage presented during the trial was faulty. The court needs to uphold the law, but where did it that copy of the CCTV video recording? he asked. That was the second evidence [presented], but the video is blurred and should not be used to convict anyone. Aye Aye Myint, sister of villager Tun Myint Win who died in prison while he was being held during the investigation, said the court failed to address authorities mistreatment of the accused as they awaited trial. During the trial, the court was biased and favored the company, she said. My brother was unjustly killed in jail. There was harsh treatment, and no one revealed it or talked about it. Some villagers were tried during an earlier trial, while others face additional charges at another court session scheduled for April 3. They have said that the charges are unlawful and that they will not attend. Nine Aungthabyae residents are being detained in prison, while 33 others accused of wrongdoing during the protest have been declared fugitives, lawyers said. Village administrator sentenced In December 2019, the court in Patheingyi township sentenced village administrator Moe Lin to one year in jail with hard labor on charges of defaming the state for getting involved in the rally. Moe Lin, who oversaw the administration of about 100 households in Aungthabyae village, had been found guilty of inciting the public while trying to mediate a conflict between protestors and police, Sithu told RFAs Myanmar Service at the time. The construction of the Alpha Cement Plant, a joint venture between Myanmars Myint Investment Group and Chinas AnhuiConch Cement Company, began in December 2017. The plant is expected to produce 5,000 tons of cement a day. During the May 2019 protest, villagers blocked factory vehicles from entering the area and demanded compensation for land they say they lost when an 18-foot-wide road was built as part of the construction work at the plant. The villagers had also urged authorities to address what they said were problems caused by an influx of hundreds of Chinese employees working at the site. An official from the townships General Administration Department filed an initial complaint against 50 locals who were later charged with causing harm to a public servant, committing mischief with the intent to damage, and abetting a crime. Reported by Khaymani Win for RFAs Myanmar Service. Translated by Khin Khin Ei. Written in English by Roseanne Gerin. A new study by an international team of scientists has revealed the developmental and evolutionary mechanisms underlying the origin of a major phylum. The Cambrian Explosion was a pivotal event in the history of life half a billion years ago with the sudden appearance of dozens of distinctive animal body plans. After this initial burst of innovation, the appearance of new body plans slowed to a halt. This pattern has puzzled and intrigued scientists and led to hypotheses regarding the ecological and developmental influences on animal evolution. The study investigates the questions of whether this pattern resulted from abundant ecological opportunity early in the history of life, which became dampened with competition through time, or from evolutionary shifts in growth and development that limit evolutionary innovation through time. Bradley Deline--lead author in the study, from the University of West Georgia (USA)--assembled a team of experts to address this question by compiling the vast anatomical features found within echinoderms. This phylum that includes sea stars and sea urchins, was ideal for this study because it contains an incredible richness of forms and features, especially early in its evolutionary history. "With this information, we can trace the evolution of complex forms and address fundamental questions regarding the mechanisms that govern the overall appearance of animals through time," Deline said. Scientists have argued that features defining animal body plans have become increasingly elaborate through time such that they become burdened by their own complexity. This burden could prevent change and would explain the lack of new phyla since the Cambrian Explosion. Recent studies in modern animals show genetic interactions that mirror this hypothesis in which the genes and gene interactions that govern complex features are conserved through time. However, modern animals are 500 million years removed from the origin of their phylum, such that these questions can only be answered with the fossil record. Colin Sumrall from the University of Tennessee (USA), worked to integrate this wealth of information with a new and expansive evolutionary tree of early echinoderms. This showed the steady exploration of body plans through time that ultimately became distinctive with the extinction of transitional forms. However, body plans' distinctiveness was subsequently diminished with animals independently converging on similar forms. "This highlights the amazing complexity within echinoderms with so many groups arriving on similar solutions to become successful," Sumrall explained. "There are many examples of echinoderms continuing to change dramatically long after the Cambrian Explosion." Co-author Jeffrey Thompson, from University College London (UK), suggested testing developmental mechanisms by comparing the evolutionary stability of both complex and simple features within echinoderms. "We see no difference in the stability or evolutionary patterns in simple and complex features," Thompson exclaimed. "Large-scale characters are flexible allowing echinoderms to routinely break through constraints allowing for continued evolutionary innovation." Therefore, based on the results of this study, the major factor limiting this vast potential for evolutionary change seems to be ecological opportunity rather than rigidly constrained developmental processes. This study, along with work on modern animals, clarifies evolution and development during the Cambrian Explosion and beyond in which complex and burdened features retain flexibility enabling continued change and anatomical innovation in an ever-changing world. ### To learn more, please visit https://www.cell.com/current-biology/fulltext/S0960-9822(20)30261-X. Korean Edu-Tech group ST Unitas develops an AI-based homework solving app Conects Q&A reaches #1 on education app charts in 12 countries Official Conects Q&A app set to launch globally in April SEOUL, South Korea, March 20, 2020 /PRNewswire/ -- Conects Q&A, an education app developed by Korean EduTech group ST Unitas, has taken app stores by storm. Its beta version has topped charts in a dozen countries, while its official version is set to launch in April. According to Google Play Store and Apple App Store, Conects Q&A ranked the most popular app in 12 countries, including the US, Canada, England, Australia, Ireland, New Zealand, Singapore, Malaysia, Philippines, South Africa, India and South Korea. It was able t! o achieve such accomplishment even before the launch of its official version. Conects Q&A is an AI-based homework solving service that provides instant answers to questions in real-time. Once the student captures and uploads a problem or homework, Conects Q&A will provide an answer in less than 5 seconds by searching through its database. For additional help, it even provides a 1:1 chat with experts or 15-second video answers from experts for best answers. It provides 1:1 voice call consulting service with the expert for customized advice from experts. ST Unitas first stepped into the global market after acquiring The Princeton Review, a renowned US education institution, in 2017. It launched the beta version of Conects Q&A in early 2019 and went through a series of improvement through countless experiments. Conects Q&A was able to achieve such significant impressive success within a month of its global beta launch in mid-February 2020. The company also added that such an impressive feat in English-speaking countries, including the United States, was possible thanks to the advanced technology of ST Unitas. The full version of Conects Q&A is to be officially launched in April. ST Unitas (http://www.stunitas.com/front/main/en) started in 2010 as a startup with the goal of bringing innovation to the traditional Korean education market. It first stepped into the global EduTech market to be a truly global education company since the acquisition of The Princeton Review in 2017. Currently, ST Unitas is transforming into a global knowledge-sharing platform beyond Korea. For media enquiries: Semi Park communications@stunitas.com Photo - https://mma.prnewswire.com/media/1135627/ST_Unitas_Conects_Q_A_Education_App.jpg A A fresh case of coronavirus was reported in Telagana on Friday, taking the total number of those who tested positive for the infection in the state to 17. An 18-year-old woman, a resident of the city who returned from London, become the latest to test positive, a media bulletin issued by the state government said. The woman was referred from a private hospital and presently admitted to the state-run TB and Chest Hospital in the city. "The patient is stable," it said. The state has witnessed a spurt in the number of COVID-19 cases since Wednesday when eight, including seven Indonesians, testing positive for the virus. Another Indonesian had tested positive a day earlier. They had stayed in Karimnagar for two days last week. On Thursday, three cases were reported with one of them with travel history to Dubai and the other two having returned from London. An official release on Friday said Chief Minister K Chandrasekhar Rao would visit Karimnagar on Saturday and hold a meeting with officials there on the preventive measures initiated by the administration in view of the infected Indonesians' stay in the town. Rao has been monitoring the Karimnagar situation and wanted to visit the town on Friday itself, but it as been postponed as a video conference is scheduled to be held with Prime Minister Narendra Modi, it said. Meanwhile, addressing members of Indian Medical Association and other Associations, state Health Minister E Rajender said those who tested positive have not contracted the virus in the state. Hoping that the virus would not spread in the state, he said the government was, however, fully geared up to fight against COVID-19. Rao, who held a meeting with ministers, senior officials and district Collectors on Thursday, had said district Collectors and police officials have been given clear directives to identify people who arrived in the state from abroad after March 1 so that those having symptoms of COVID-19 could be referred to medical authorities. He had also said cinema halls, bars, pubs, clubs and others, which have been closed for a week earlier, would remain closed till March 31. The restrictions imposed earlier on certain establishments for a week have been extended till March 31, he had said. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) Commercial developers and builders are girding for supply interruptions of imported materials, even as China adopts a business as usual stance after hosting the first COVID-19 outbreak. China-related delays should become apparent sooner rather than later. Credit:Paul Rovere Industry figures report few problems to date but its too early to feel the knock-on effect of the approximate three week period when factories in the powerhouse Wuhan region lay idle. Building projects then face a second wave of interruption because of the unfolding crisis in Europe, especially in Germany and COVID-19 plagued Italy. Im not aware of any projects that have been subject to significant delays, but I think its inevitable that if things dont improve there will be impacts, said Australian Constructors Association executive director Lindsay Le Compte. A Southwest Florida man was arrested after beating a pregnant woman because she thought she had coronavirus, according to a report from the Cape Coral Police Department. Joseph Newell The arrest affidavit states that officers responding Monday night to a domestic disturbance call heard screaming and saw an individual, later identified as Joseph C. Newell, straddling a woman outside a Cape Coral apartment complex. The officers saw Newells hands around the neck of the woman, who is about six months pregnant. The woman was yelling and had blood on the side of her face, according to the complaint. The 24-year-old suspect refused to get off the woman, despite the commands of the officer, who applied a pain compliance to his neck to get him to comply, said the report. Officers handcuffed the man, who was in an intoxicated state and rambling about the victim having coronavirus, then began banging his head on the ground. Newell was charged with one count of aggravated battery and released from the Lee County Jail on Thursday on $15,000 bond. The victim was taken to a local hospital for observation, but her condition is unclear. City Editor Tom Roeder is the Gazette's City Editor. In Colorado Springs since 2003, Tom has covered the military at home and overseas and has covered statehouses in Denver and Olympia, Wash. His main job, though, is being dad to two great kids. Remember Advocate ML Sharma, the first lawyer of the 2012 Delhi gang-rape convicts? His most notable achievement in life after taking up the case was appearing in the BBC documentary 'India's daughter'. In that, he made several atrocious statements including questioning the character of the victim. "In our society, we never allow our girls to come out of the house after 6:30 or 7:30 or 8:30 in the evening with an unknown person. You are talking about man and woman as friends. Sorry, that doesn't have any place in our society. We have the best culture. In our culture, there is no place for a woman," he had said. Now another lawyer who had been representing the four convicts has echoed Sharma and has questioned the character of the 23-year-old victim, who was brutally gang-raped and murdered by his clients. While talking to media persons, AP Singh placed a question over Nirbhayas character and said that one should also ask her mother why was she out for so late and along with whom? BCCL As disgusting as it may sound, AP Singh's comments should not come as a total surprise. In a previous interview, Singh had said that "If my daughter or sister engaged in premarital activities and disgraced herself and allowed herself to lose face and character by doing such things, I would most certainly take this sort of sister or daughter to my farmhouse, and in front of my entire family, I would put petrol on her and set her alight." After the documentary was aired, Sharma and Singh had been issued a show-cause notice by the Bar Council of India (BCI) for their derogatory and anti-women remarks. But if Singh's latest comment is anything to go by, he hasn't changed a bit and still believe that victim-blaming is okay. It also shows how casually we as a society blame the victims for the rape, from her choice of dress to why did she go out at that time, we have somehow made it acceptable to put the blame on the victim. AFP For the past few months, Singh has been working overtime unsuccessfully to get his clients off the gallows. From getting the death warrants stayed to claiming that they are not terrorists, Singh had done everything to get them off the hook. Once he even said that the convicts are willing to serve the nation. "Send them to Indo-Pak border, send them to Doklam, but don't hang them. They are ready to serve the country. I can file an affidavit in this regard, he had said. Close Donald Trump waives interest on student loans Donald Trump has closed the US-Mexico border, put a hold on student loan repayments, suspended elementary school testing, extended the deadline for Americans to file their tax returns and cancelled June's G7 summit with world leaders as part of his administrations bid to make up for lost time following the coronavirus outbreak. A number of US senators, notably Republicans Richard Burr and Kelly Loeffler, are meanwhile facing calls to resign after being accused of insider trading after it emerged they dumped stock options in response to a briefing on the outbreak on 24 January, with even Fox News host Tucker Carlson joining in the outrage and demanding Burr step down. The president has said that he was "not aware" of those reports but called the senators "very honourable people." In California, 40m citizens are being ordered to stay indoors as the crisis deepens, while in New York, Governor Andrew Cuomo has ordered the closure of non-essential businesses across the state. New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio warns that the city could run out of medical supplies within three weeks without "radical" action from the federal government as the mayor prepares the possibility of a "shelter-in-place" order. Democratic presidential front-runner Joe Biden also has attacked the president's response, after he berated a reporter and has waffled on an emergency order that could mandate companies rush the manufacturing of critically needed medical supplies. Susan Rice, who also served under the Obama administration, dismissed claims by the president that his predecessor was ill-equipped to respond to a pandemic and pointed to Mr Trump's dismissal of his own pandemic response team among his national security advisers. Follow live coverage as it happened Please allow a moment for our liveblog to load Laois-Offaly Sinn Fein TD Brian Stanley has called on the Government to intervene to outlaw a number of unfair practices appearing during the Covid-19 pandemic. Deputy Stanley outlined that a small number of GPs and creches are currently engaged in unfair profiteering during the crisis and these practices must be legislated against if necessary. Over the past week, I have received complaints from constituents that some GPs and creches are engaging in unfair practices. People have contacted me saying that creches are continuing to charge full price even though their doors are shut. Parents are being told that unless they continue to pay their fees their child will not have a place when the doors re-open. These are parents who have either recently lost their job due to the pandemic or are still working but will need to find and pay for alternative arrangements for their children," Deputy Stanley added. Ive also been informed of GPs asking patients over the phone for their credit card details when they phone with potential Covid-19 symptoms. Earlier this week some GPs were charging patients an additional 30 for a Covid 19 phone consultation, despite the fact they are already being paid 30 by the Government for this consultation. I raised this in the Dail with the Minister for Health this week and he confirmed that GPs should not be loading an additional charge on patients. These are hard-pressed workers and families who are enduring significant stress and should not be taken advantage of. The Government needs to act as a matter of urgency to stamp out these sharp practices. I am calling on the relevant Ministers; Zappone, and Harris to meet with Early Childhood Ireland and the Irish Medical Organisation to tell them in no uncertain terms that this is not on and that those who are in the most difficult of circumstances must be protected. If necessary, we should enact legislation to stamp out this ruthless profiteering. Two Members of Parliament and some parliamentary staff members, who were on official assignments outside the country, have been asked to stay away from Parliament to enable a period of purging to take place before they come back. The MP for the Binduri Constituency, Dr. Robert Baba Kuganab-Lem, and his counterpart for the Ayawaso East, Naser Toure Mahama, were said to have travelled to Tokyo and India respectively. Majority Leader Osei Kyei-Mensah-Bonsu, who made the appeal to the Speaker, said Dr. Kuganab-Lem arrived with an Ethiopian Airways yesterday from Tokyo, while the Naser Toure Mahama was due to arrive yesterday. Mr. Speaker, there are some staff members of the Parliamentary Service who are also being advised to stay out, including those whose spouses have also just arrived, he stressed. The Majority Leader mentioned some of the parliamentary staff members as Joseph Ekow Acquah, who, he said, went to Nigeria, and Amoako Atta, who had arrived from Miami, USA. They will be given a certificate of clearance to come back, he submitted. The Minister of Health, Kawaka Agyeman-Manu, said the guidelines for Ghanaians, who are coming back in the country, also covered MPs. We will allow them self-quarantine under the supervision of health professionals, who will guide them, he stated and requested their details for profiling. All the affected persons are to stay in isolation for two weeks, the minister stated. By Ernest Kofi Adu, Parliament House By Catherine Shanahan, Neil Michael and Eoin English Bon Secours Hospital Cork bosses have written to Cork University Hospital management calling for a pan-hospital approach to fighting Covid-19. While they admit they have little critical care capacity, they are offering to provide whatever services they can. They are offering, for example, to take on cancer and pregnancy cases as a way of easing the pressure on both CUH and the Cork University Maternity Hospital. In a letter to CUH management, they say they want to prepare the (their) hospital to work in a coordinated manner as part of a cohesive local strategy between Cork hospitals. To this end, the letter which has been seen by the Irish Examiner states BSHC is proposing to contribute to the national effort by maximising utilisation of our facilities and healthcare personnel. And they state: The close professional ties that already exist would underpin the delivery of patient care within a local plan that will feed into action plans for management of Covid-19 at a national level which recognises the requirement to maintain urgent and time-critical services throughout the crisis. They are offering diagnostic services, cancer surgery and other oncology services as well as cardiac procedures. They are also offering acute care services, that include gynaecological, paediatric and cardiology services. However, it states that as far as Covid-19 is concerned, BSHC has little critical care capacity in terms of ventilators and has no capability to provide dialysis. Despite this, they say: We are committed to caring for Covid-19 patients to the maximum of our capabilities. To that end, we commit to maximising our Critical Care capability and to providing a ring-fenced bed base for step down Covid-19 patients and those who are unlikely to need ventilatory/critical care support. They added: Consultant anaesthetists working in Bon Secours have already indicated their willingness to participate in a citywide rota to ensure patient care. All departments at all levels are prepared to work closely with colleagues in a pan Hospital approach. We appreciate that the success of such a plan will be dependent on details agreed in advance of further pressures being exerted on hospital resources. Meanwhile, marquees have been erected at either side of the entrance to the Cork University Maternity Hospital. They are believed to have been erected so an estimated 3,000 staff will be screened when they report for duty as Covid-19 infection control measures are ramped up. It is understood that all medical, healthcare and non-medical staff will have to pass through the screening facilities before being cleared to enter the buildings. Access to the buildings will only be allowed if a staff member passes the checks, including a temperature check, designed to identify a fever - one of the main symptoms of Covid-19. When asked about the new arrangements, a HSE spokesperson said: "The HSE and the Department of Health are not providing information about individual activations of preparedness plans." [snippet1]987600[/snippet1] Members of the public continue shopping in Belfast City Centre during the COVID-19 outbreak on March 20th 2020 (Photo by Kevin Scott for Belfast Telegraph) Health officials have urged people to stop ignoring advice on social distancing as they battle to slow the spread of coronavirus. It came as many appeared still not to be heeding warnings about taking the most basic precautions. Images showed hundreds of people going about their daily lives in central Belfast on Friday. In other areas there were reports of coffee shops and cafes being busy with customers. Prime Minister Boris Johnson has announced the closure of cafes, pubs and restaurants in a bid to tackle the pandemic. He urged people: "For now, at least physically, we need to keep people apart." And he added: "The more effectively we follow the advice we are given, the faster this country will stage both a medical and an economic recovery in full." First Minister Arlene Foster said putting an end to socialising will help prevent deaths. The DUP leader told BBC's Inside Politics: "This is a way of dealing with this disease and bringing down those numbers of deaths. "This is for the community's protection, it is for our elderly and we are asking everyone to come together to embrace the giant spirit and the spirit of Northern Ireland." It came less than 24 hours after a dire warning about the potential loss of life if the virus spread is not reduced. Every one of us has our role to play in helping to prevent the spread of coronavirus and saving lives. NOW.#COVID19 #coronavirus #fightback pic.twitter.com/TbYfZZEkAT Public Health Agency (@publichealthni) March 21, 2020 Health Minister Robin Swann said that unless everyone follows the guidelines, up to 15,000 people could die as a result of Covid-19. Officials have been urging people to avoid all large gatherings and gatherings in smaller public spaces such as pubs, cinemas, restaurants, theatres, bars, and nightclubs. Dr Hugo Van Woerden of the Public Health Agency said: "I cannot emphasise enough how important it is to practise social distancing as a key step in saving lives. "The guidance to socially distance ourselves from others applies to everyone. "We should all be taking steps to reduce social interaction between people in order to reduce the transmission of coronavirus. "Every one of us has a role to play in this battle." On Friday the police was forced to issue a warning to school leavers to avoid the traditional end of term gatherings. "Anyone considering attending an end of school party, please consider your own health and the health of others. Social distancing is vital to combat the spread of Covid-19," the PSNI said. In other parts of Northern Ireland some continued to ignore the advice. While most cafes, restaurants and pubs in Londonderry adhered to government recommendations, in neighbouring towns of Coleraine, Portrush and Portstewart, for some it was business as normal. Serving staff in bars, cafes and restaurants cannot keep two metres from members of the public while carrying out their job and remain safe, which helped many owners make the decision to shut up shop. Derry City Centre manager Jim Roddy said: "Some businesses including restaurants are being imaginative and have adjusted their businesses in ways that don't put their staff or the public at risk and keep to the principles of safe distancing." A spokeswoman for the Causeway Chamber of Commerce said its members were looking to the Government for clarity on the issue of opening. She said: "Council has no power to direct premises to close or enforce social distancing. "It is the responsibility of everyone to follow the relevant guidance and once again we would urge everyone to play their part in the fight against Covid-19." A leading retail chief called on the public to follow the clear guidelines "as lives depend on it". Retail NI's Glyn Roberts also called on the Executive to set up a single Covid-19-related website and social media channel to make sure the right messages are getting across to the public. "It's been made very, very clear that we all need to follow the advice," he said. "We simply have to. Lives depend on it and that message has to get through. "That's why Retail NI will be asking the Executive to set up a specific website and social media channel to make sure the correct and relevant advice is there for all. "At the minute advice is coming from all different departments and there's so much out there that's irrelevant or wrong. We need a single coordinated platform that people can trust. We're really seeing the benefit social media can have in getting information across, but it needs to be from a single, coordinated source. "We really have to follow to the letter what the advice is. We have those who are working in the retail trade, the people serving us in shops to think of as well. "They are providing an invaluable service by remaining open and we owe it to them all to abide by the rules as much as we possibly can." The Public Health Agency also warned of the threat posed by Covid-19 if the social distancing guidelines are not followed. Dr Van Woerden said: "We understand that this will be difficult, particularly with Mother's Day this weekend for example, so it is worth looking at keeping in touch using your phone, the internet and social media. "If you are outdoors, stay more than two metres away from others. "As part of the effort to reduce the spread, only use the phone or online facilities to contact your GP or other essential services. "We strongly advise you to follow the measures as much as you can and to significantly limit your face-to-face interaction with friends and family if possible, particularly if you are over 70, have an underlying health condition or are pregnant." Scientists said social measures will need to be in place for most of a year at least in order to control the spread of Covid-19. The Scientific Pandemic Influenza Group on Modelling agreed on Monday that, while the severity of measures could alternate during the period, "stricter" measures would need to be enforced for at least half of the year to keep cases at a level the NHS can cope with. WASHINGTON Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell on Thursday unveiled a historic stimulus package that includes direct payments of $1,200 to individuals and assistance to businesses to deal with the health and economic harm from the novel coronavirus. We need to have the American peoples backs," said McConnell, R-Ky. Married couples would be eligible for up to $2,400 in assistance with an additional $500 for every child. Assistance would begin phasing out for individuals earning at least $75,000 and would not be available to those with adjusted gross incomes above $99,000. Assistance for couples phases out after $150,000 and is not available to those with joint incomes of more than $198,000. The 247-page bill, which does not yet have a price tag, would also extend the tax filing deadline until July 15. The IRS has already extended the payment deadline until that date. Small businesses would be eligible to receive a private bank loan equal to four months of their expenses that they wouldn't have to pay back if they stayed open, maintained their workforce and paid their bills. The government could provide up to $208 billion in collateralized loans to industries hard hit by the outbreak. That includes airlines, which had been hoping for grants instead of loans. "We are not bailing out the airlines or other industries period," said Sen. Richard Shelby, R-Ala. Proposed help for the health care industry includes higher Medicare payments to providers along with measures to spur the hiring of health care workers, manufacture more personal protective equipment, and speed the development of new vaccines and treatments. McConnell said Republicans would begin discussions with Democrats Friday, along with administration officials. "We know this legislation will not be the last word," he said. "But we need to take bold action as soon as possible." Senate Democrats have priorities of their own, and Minority Leader Chuck Schumer complained Thursday that they've been left out of discussions. Story continues "It had virtually no input from Democrats," Schumer said after McConnell released his plan. A few hours later, Schumer and House Speaker Nancy Pelosi released a joint statement saying their first impression of the proposal is that it is "not at all pro-worker and instead puts corporations way ahead of workers. The number one priority is addressing this health crisis, which requires a Marshall Plan to rebuild our health care infrastructure on a continental scale and ensure the resources are there to test and treat everyone who needs it," they said. Democrats share some of the same goals but not necessarily the same methods of assistance. Schumer, for example, called it a "must" that the package include sick leave benefits that expand beyond what was included in emergency legislation the president signed into law Wednesday, an issue that Republicans have been skeptical of due to the impacts on small business. Democrats also want an additional expansion of unemployment insurance and Medicaid along with temporarily canceling student loan payments. A one-time cash payment of $1,000, that might help families cover rent, groceries, for a month, but then what?" Schumer said. "The pandemic requires bold structural changes to our societys safety net to give people a lifeline for months, not just weeks. In a conference call House Democrats held Thursday to talk about the package, Pelosi encouraged everyone to "think big" about how to use federal dollars to help people, according to a summary of the call provided by a participant. "Time is of the essence," she said. Democrats on the call expressed varying views about the best way to provide direct assistance to families and businesses. While members of both parties want to speed help to small businesses to help them pay workers' salaries, there's bipartisan concern about support for large corporations. Florida GOP Sen. Rick Scott said the next stimulus package should focus solely on helping individual workers and restaurants, travel agencies and other mom-and-pop operations before moving on to large industries. Right now, Congress needs to focus on the Americans that are hurt most by the coronavirus our small businesses, hourly workers and individuals whose livelihoods depend on tips, said Scott, the former governor of Florida who once ran the nations largest hospital company. We shouldnt be bailing out large corporations that have enjoyed years of growth and prosperity. Some Democrats have particularly complained about bailing out airlines after they've stockpiled debt and spent billions buying back stock to drive up stock prices. "If there is so much as a DIME of corporate bailout money in the next relief package, it should include a reinstated ban on stock buybacks," Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, D-N.Y., tweeted Tuesday. Indiana Sen. Todd Young, a member of Senate GOP leadership, said that while airlines "may not be a sympathetic industry," they are essential to commerce. Young said he was the only passenger on his commercial flight from Indianapolis to Washington on Monday. "It was me, a pilot, a co-pilot and a flight attendant," he said. "That strikes me as an unsustainable business model." The industry employs roughly 750,000 pilots, flight attendants and other workers. Prior to the coronavirus crisis, U.S. airlines were transporting a record 2.5 million passengers and 58,000 tons of cargo each day. Today, planes are only 20-30% full and new bookings are implying 70-80% declines in traffic even as airlines make dramatic cuts in capacity, according to an industry trade group. Still, public anger at the 2008 bank bailout contributed to the rise of the Tea Party movement that helped Republicans take back the House in 2010. Young, who was first elected to Congress as part of that wave, opposed the 2008 bailout. Young, and others, say the current pandemic is a different situation from the 2008 financial crisis, which was caused by "bad decisions by bankers." But Sen. Mike Braun, R-Ind., who has worried about comparisons with 2008 and "bailouts for big companies," said he would prefer that the latest package stay focused on assistance to individuals and small businesses. Braun, however, said he wouldn't hold up the package if it's not completely to his liking. "It's an unusual situation," he said. But there's already blowback from key officials to the payment proposal. South Carolina GOP Sen. Lindsey Graham, a key Trump confidant, told Republican colleagues Thursday both he and new White House Chief of Staff Mark Meadows are trying to persuade the president to scrap the idea, according to Politico. This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: Coronavirus: Senate GOP proposes $1,200 cash payments in rescue plan He splits his time with his family between Malibu and London. And Simon Cowell and his partner Lauren Silverman were seen living it up stateside on Thursday, as they headed out for groceries in their flashy black Rolls-Royce. The music mogul, 60, appeared in high spirits as he sported a pair of signature black shades with a grey top and a pair of blue jeans. Stepping out: Simon Cowell and his partner Lauren Silverman were seen living it up stateside on Thursday, as they headed out for groceries in their flashy black Rolls-Royce Simon kept the chill off with a black padded jacket as he was spotted leaving the store carrying a large paper bag full of food supplies. Meanwhile, Lauren looked typically glamorous in a simple white long-sleeved top which she had layered with a grey scarf. The mother-of-two accessorised her ensemble with a pair of funky shades and wore her glossy brunette tresses in a loose, relaxed style. Glam! Meanwhile, Lauren looked typically glamorous in a simple white long-sleeved top which she had layered with a grey scarf The couple were joined in the convertible car by their son Eric, six, and Lauren's son from her marriage to Andrew Silverman, Adam, 14. Last month Simon introduced his little boy to the family business by announcing that they would be creating a series of children's books together. The picture book series named WISHFITS is about 'acceptance and inclusivity' and will feature magical creatures invented by the father-and-son duo. Flashy: The couple were joined in the convertible car by their son Eric, six, and Lauren's son from her marriage to Andrew Silverman, Adam, 14 Simon unveiled the project at the Hachette Global Showcase held at The Cambridge Theatre in London, revealing that their collaboration with publishing giant Hachette will see a portion of the profits go to charity 'WISHFIT' is a world where some of the most unusual animals, 'the WISHFITS' exist, with the first book in the series set to be published in spring 2021. The WISHFITS are magical and unusual creatures which have evolved in a weird and wonderful way, combining two different species to form hybrid animals with very distinct characteristics. Explaining his passion for the family project, Simon said: 'To be able to write a series of books with my son Eric has been magical. This idea was inspired 3 years ago by a very special friend of ours who runs a Children's Hospice charity. 'I told her one evening about some of the funny animals my son Eric and I would invent, starting with the Cog [Cat/Dog] and the Dat [Dog/Cat]. 'And how every evening the two of us would think of the most unlikely animal we would like to have as a pet. 'We would come up with some very strange new animals and the naming of the animals was Eric's favourite thing! She loved this idea so much she encouraged me to turn this into a book series.' Source: Xinhua| 2020-03-20 22:15:19|Editor: xuxin Video Player Close MAPUTO, March 20 (Xinhua) -- Mozambican President Filipe Nyusi on Friday announced new additional measures against COVID-19, including the closing of schools and universities, cancellation of visas already issued and suspension of events involving more than 50 people. Nyusi spoke in a message addressed to the nation from the presidential office, broadcast on state television and radio, moments after a meeting he held with ministers and health specialists. The reinforced measures are due to take effect from the next Monday, March 23, for a minimum period of 30 days. Authorities are to "suspend the issuance of entry visas to Mozambique and cancel all those already issued; reinforce the 14-day mandatory household quarantine measures for all travelers; close all public and private schools from pre-school to higher education," according to the President. Public or private gatherings of more than 50 people including religious services are to be prohibited, except those of national interest, such as state meetings and parliament sessions. Nyusi added that a professional technical group chaired by the Minister of Health will be created, which is to advise the government on the measures to be taken to contain the epidemic. Mandatory preventive measures will also be imposed in public and private institutions and on traders, to reduce the risk of infection, and as well to ensure the normal functioning of the supply chain, said Nyusi. The president said that so far 35 suspected carriers have been tested in the country and all the results are negative. "Currently, 267 national and foreign individuals from countries with positive cases are quarantined. So far we have no cases of COVID-19 infection registered in the country," he said. Nyusi called on the Defense and Security Forces and whole society to contribute to fighting the COVID-19 pandemic, as "it is a moment of great challenge for the nation". Kamal Nath on Friday quit as the chief minister of Madhya Pradesh, hours before the Supreme Court-ordered floor test deadline, as his government stared at a certain defeat in the Assembly after the Speaker accepted the resignation of all 22 rebel MLAs. Governor Lalji Tandon accepted his resignation, which he submitted around 1 pm on Friday, an official of the Raj Bhawan said. The governor also asked Nath, 72, to continue as the caretaker chief minister till the new CM takes charge. Nath's resignation brought an end to the 18-day-long political drama which also played out in Haryana, Bengaluru and the national capital. "In my 40-year-long public life, I have always done of purity and valued democratic norms and given priority to it. But what transpired in the last two weeks is a new chapter of devaluation of democratic values," Nath said in his resignation letter. His resignation brought good tidings for the BJP, which has the magic number of 104 in the 230-member Assembly, whose effective strength now is 206 after the resignation of 22 MLAs and death of two more. After former Union minister Jyotiraditya Scindia quit the Congress, 22 MLAs, most of them loyal to him, had resigned from the Assembly. After their resignations were accepted, it brought down the tally of the Congress to 92. A BJP leader said his party was now on the threshold of forming the government in the state. Before stepping down as the chief minister, Nath addressed a press conference, where he said, "Today, I have decided to tender my resignation to the governor to preserve the country's democratic values." "Today will be followed by tomorrow," he said, indicating that he hopes to bounce back. "I never indulged in of auction and horse- trading. I have done clean based on values, and the people stand witness to it," he said. "I took over the office of CM on December 17, 2018. I believe in politics of development. In my career I have pursued it. I was given an opportunity for a period of five years to give a new identity to the state. Nath said nobody could point a finger at him during his tenure as the chief minister. "But during my 15-month rule, the BJP didn't like people-centric works of my government. Right from the day I took over as the chief minister, the BJP tried to destabilise my government," he said. Nath alleged that the 22 Congress MLAs were held captive in Bengaluru by the BJP, which he claimed was seen by the entire country. "One ambitious and power hungry Maharaja rejected by the public and his 22 greedy MLAs and the BJP conspired to kill democratic values," Nath said, attacking Scindia, who lost the last Lok Sabha polls from Guna in Madhya Pradesh. "People of the state won't forgive these greedy and rebels (MLAs) who have betrayed them. BJP killed the democratic values by conspiring," he said. "I have proved my majority on the floor of the House thrice during my 15-month stint...but BJP betrayed the people of the state by destabilising the government," he said. Nath mentioned the works done by his government, including the farm loan waiver and development of cow shelters. "BJP betrayed the farmers by conspiring against me," he said, claiming that 400 promises made in the election manifesto were completed under his rule. He said the BJP was afraid of the success of his government. BJP leader Jyotiraditya Scindia termed Kamal Nath's resignation as people's victory in Madhya Pradesh. He said he has always believed that politics should be a medium of serving people. "However, the (Kamal Nath-led) government had digressed from that path," Scindia tweeted. Truth has prevailed, he added. The BJP said it had nothing to do with the political developments saying it was a fallout of the factionalism in the Congress. Political sources said the drama started on March 3, after 10 disgruntled MLAs of the Congress and its allies holed up at a hotel in Haryana and contacted the BJP leadership, apparently to topple the Kamal Nath government. On the night of March 3, senior Congress leader Digvijaya Singh, his son Jaivardhan and MP Ministers Jitu Patwari and Tarun Bhanot rushed to Haryana and were able to bring back six MLAs to Bhopal. Meanwhile, four disgruntled MLAs were flown to Bengaluru. Two of them- Congress MLA Bisahulal Singh and an Independent Surendra Singh Sheera- were cajoled and brought back to Bhopal. But, Bisahulal Singh flew back to Bengaluru and stayed there with the rebel MLAs, the sources said. After this unsuccessful bid, the BJP set its eyes on Scindia, who was then in Congress and did not get along well with Nath and Digvijaya Singh, the sources said. As many as 19 MLAs loyal to Scindia went incommunicado on March 9. That evening they landed up at a resort in Bengaluru. They were joined by three other MLAs. The 22 legislators then e-mailed their resignation which was accepted in two phases, reducing the Congress government to a minority. On Thursday, the Supreme Court had ordered the Madhya Pradesh Assembly Speaker to conduct a floor test in the Assembly by 5 pm. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) Advertisement A severe storm system is battering the country, bringing blizzard conditions, tornadoes and thunderstorms, disrupting the lives of more than 10 million Americans. On Wednesday night, several tornadoes hit towns in Texas, flipping cars and damaging homes. The National Weather Service confirmed at least two tornadoes hit the Abilene area, west of Dallas, while another tornado later hit near the town of Alvord, 150 miles north. While no fatalities were reported at either location, the damage was clear in Abilene, where where a van and SUV were seen stacked atop other vehicles in a parking lot on Thursday morning. The tornado also ripped the roof off one home, according to Fox 4. Meanwhile, aerial footage from Alvord showed the area scattered with debris and downed trees. A severe storm system is making its way across the middle of the country, bringing blizzard conditions, tornadoes and thunderstorms. A tornado flipped cars when it roared through Abilene, Texas Wednesday night At least two tornadoes were reported in the Abilene area. Residents are pictured in the aftermath of the wild weather The tornadoes left downed trees and debris in rural areas outside Abilene, Texas Volunteers were helping to clear roads, with a local judge telling the publication that residents were trying to grapple with the mess while simultaneously dealing with the coronavirus crisis. 'Through our spirit of community and our love for our neighbors, we will recover from this storm while we manage and overcome our current public health emergency,' they stated. The wild weather surged further north to Colorado Thursday, bringing a winter storm with blizzard conditions. Heavy snow blocked off major highways and caused the cancellation of more than 1000 flights out of Denver International Airport. Despite being the first day of spring, the winter storm brought up to 22 inches of snow to some parts of the state, and caused a seven-car pile-up on Interstate 70. Several other accidents were also reported. Heavy snow in Colorado blocked off major highways and caused the cancellation of more than 1000 flights out of Denver International Airport Despite being the official first day of spring several inches of snow fell in Boulder, Colorado Blizzard conditions were also experienced in southeastern Wyoming and western Nebraska. The National Weather Service office in Cheyenne, Wyoming warned local residents to avoid unnecessary travel. 'Travel should be restricted to emergencies only. If you must travel, have a winter survival kit with you. If you get stranded, stay with your vehicle,' they posted on Twitter. Meanwhile, in the eastern part of Nebraska, residents were also preparing for wild weather. Offutt Air Force Base, which is home of the US Strategic Command, evacuated all planes amid the threat of severe lightning and thunderstorms. Offutt Air Force Base, which is home of the US Strategic Command, evacuated all planes amid the threat of severe lightning and thunderstorms According to The Drive, the 'fleet of strategic surveillance and command and control aircraft is extremely vulnerable to extreme weather as most sit on the ramp in the open.' The planes have been moved further south for the foreseeable future. The Air Force is keeping extra vigilant about the weather threat, after a flood at Offutt caused nearly $1 billion of damage last year. On Friday, the storm system will move further east, with states including Indiana, Kentucky and Missouri expected to be impacted. Kabul: At least two dozen Afghan security forces were killed Friday in an insider attack on their base in southern Afghanistan, two officials told AFP. "At 3:00 am (1030 GMT), 24 Afghan police and army forces were martyred when six police infiltrators opened fire on them while they were asleep," said Rahmatullah Yarmal, spokesman for the governor of Zabul. Zabul provincial council chief Ata Jan Haq Bayan confirmed the toll, adding that the attackers had "connections" to the Taliban. Webjet appears to be no closer to solving its financial woes after sounding out major investors on Thursday evening about a potential capital raising. The travel services group, which went into a trading halt on Thursday flagging plans to raise cash from the market, did not respond to requests for comment on Friday as the board mulls its options, which are now expected to include private equity taking a stake. Webjet might be the first of many corporates being forced to go to the market for more cash despite precipitous share price declines. Flight Centre could also be forced to raise capital, according to analysts. Qantas is slashing its flights domestically and internationally. Credit:James Davies Australia's travel sector faces an unprecedented threat as the coronavirus outbreak triggers travel bans, widespread and deep cuts to airline capacity and a sharp drop in tourists. Tata Motors owned Jaguar Land Rover (JLR) on Friday announced a temporary production suspension at its UK plants in light of the social distancing underway to combat the pandemic, which has led to 144 deaths in Britain. The UK's largest carmaker said the suspension would come in place from next week and last at least until April 20, when it will be subject to a review of the rapidly-changing circumstances. As a responsible business, Jaguar Land Rover is operating in line with advice from the NHS and Public Health England to minimise the spread of the coronavirus, whilst implementing plans to safeguard its business continuity. The company will work towards an orderly return to production once conditions permit, JLR said in a statement. It confirmed that the company's manufacturing plants in India and Brazil remain operational and a joint venture plant in China had also reopened late last month, as life there begins to get back to normal. Although the company's focus must be on its business and responsibilities to employees, Jaguar Land Rover is doing whatever it can to support its communities through the current situation. The company's thoughts are with those directly affected by COVID-19 and with the healthcare professionals, whose role in combating this virus is appreciated by all, the company said. JLR has plants across the UK, including Castle Bromwich, Solihull, and Halewood in the West Midlands and northern regions of England. Meanwhile, it had said earlier that it was looking into the UK government's outreach to manufacturing to look at ways of assisting with the production of medical equipment to help cope with the pandemic. We have been approached for help with the production of ventilators as part of ongoing discussions with government. As a British company, naturally, we will do whatever we can to support our communities during these unprecedented times, JLR said. Its decision to suspend the production line follows similar steps taken by other automotive majors, including BMW, Toyota and Honda. (Bloomberg Opinion) -- When the Justice Department dropped charges against a Russian entity indicted as a result of the investigation into Russias interference in the 2016 election, the resistance was alarmed. President Donald Trumps attorney general was abandoning the case in the middle of a pandemic, they said, and hoping no one would notice. Like so many aspects of this fizzled scandal, there is less to this story than meets the eye. Yes, the Justice Department on Monday moved to drop the case against Concord Management and Consulting, which was indicted two years ago for spreading disinformation on social media during and after the 2016 election. And two of the prosecutors who signed the motion to drop the case worked for former Special Counsel Robert Mueller. The decision was not the result of political interference or pressure but rather a recognition that the indicted parties were using the trial process to learn how the U.S. government caught them in the first place. As the Justice Departments March 16 motion to dismiss the Concord defendants says: A trial of this case risks publicizing sensitive law enforcement information regarding measures used to investigate and protect against foreign influence over the political system. In some ways it already has. In late 2018, a new Twitter account posted what it claimed to be a Justice Department database that included information obtained by a U.S. hack of Russian servers involved in the 2016 disinformation campaign. The account publicized information the defendants were provided during the discovery process before trial. Of the many implications of the governments dismissal of this case, the most important is this: It reveals the limits of a strategy to fight foreign adversaries through indictments and prosecutions. The U.S. government has many tools to deter cyberpowers from attacking U.S. citizens and corporations. It can launch its own cyber counter-attacks. It can sanction entities in foreign governments that engage in this hacking. It can use diplomacy to try to persuade or pressure adversaries to back off. Story continues More recently, the U.S. government has also started indicting the foreign hackers themselves. In 2014 the Justice Department indicted five Chinese military hackers for economic espionage, hacking U.S. businesses to steal trade secrets. State actors engaged in cyber espionage for economic advantage are not immune from the law just because they hack under the shadow of their countrys flag, said the prosecutor at the time. Like Muellers indictment of Russian hackers and front companies, the 2014 prosecution showed that the U.S. government was able to piece together an elaborate scheme orchestrated by Chinese hackers to conceal their identities and the location of the computers used to commit these crimes. The 2014 indictment and others that followed were not intended to bring the defendants to trial. Indeed, part of the calculation for publicizing such indictments was an assessment that the defendants would never show up in court. If the Justice Department believes there is a chance a defendant will travel to a jurisdiction where he could be arrested, then the indictments would remain under seal, said John Demers, assistant attorney general for national security. When that outcome is unlikely, the value of unsealing the indictment and telling people who stole the data outweighs the slim chance we might be able to catch them, he told a security conference last month. In this respect, unsealing the indictments served two purposes. It deterred foreign powers by demonstrating Americas capabilities to identify foreign hackers. And it reassured the victims of foreign hacks and the wider public that the U.S. government was taking these crimes seriously. This time around Concord called the prosecutors bluff. Lawyers representing the companies participated in the legal process, even though the Justice Department said it never believed the company would accept a ruling from a U.S. court. The defendants were availing themselves of the discovery process while still perhaps evading justice if the case moves forward, says Columbia University law professor Matthew Waxman. This does not mean public indictments of foreign hackers are always wrong. But it does show the risks of using the U.S. system of justice as a tool of foreign policy. American due process is designed to protect the rights of the accused. It was not designed to protect the sources and methods the U.S. government uses to catch spies and hackers. This column does not necessarily reflect the opinion of Bloomberg LP and its owners. Eli Lake is a Bloomberg Opinion columnist covering national security and foreign policy. He was the senior national security correspondent for the Daily Beast and covered national security and intelligence for the Washington Times, the New York Sun and UPI. For more articles like this, please visit us at bloomberg.com/opinion Subscribe now to stay ahead with the most trusted business news source. 2020 Bloomberg L.P. It is not uncommon to see companies perform well in the years after insiders buy shares. Unfortunately, there are also plenty of examples of share prices declining precipitously after insiders have sold shares. So before you buy or sell Wesfarmers Limited (ASX:WES), you may well want to know whether insiders have been buying or selling. Do Insider Transactions Matter? It's quite normal to see company insiders, such as board members, trading in company stock, from time to time. However, such insiders must disclose their trading activities, and not trade on inside information. We would never suggest that investors should base their decisions solely on what the directors of a company have been doing. But logic dictates you should pay some attention to whether insiders are buying or selling shares. For example, a Columbia University study found that 'insiders are more likely to engage in open market purchases of their own companys stock when the firm is about to reveal new agreements with customers and suppliers'. View our latest analysis for Wesfarmers Wesfarmers Insider Transactions Over The Last Year In fact, the recent purchase by Sharon Warburton was the biggest purchase of Wesfarmers shares made by an insider individual in the last twelve months, according to our records. So it's clear an insider wanted to buy, even at a higher price than the current share price (being AU$34.89). Their view may have changed since then, but at least it shows they felt optimistic at the time. In our view, the price an insider pays for shares is very important. Generally speaking, it catches our eye when insiders have purchased shares at above current prices, as it suggests they believed the shares were worth buying, even at a higher price. In the last twelve months Wesfarmers insiders were buying shares, but not selling. You can see a visual depiction of insider transactions (by individuals) over the last 12 months, below. If you want to know exactly who sold, for how much, and when, simply click on the graph below! Story continues ASX:WES Recent Insider Trading, March 20th 2020 There are plenty of other companies that have insiders buying up shares. You probably do not want to miss this free list of growing companies that insiders are buying. Insiders at Wesfarmers Have Bought Stock Recently We saw some Wesfarmers insider buying shares in the last three months. Insiders shelled out AU$69k for shares in that time. It's great to see that insiders are only buying, not selling. But in this case the amount purchased means the recent transaction may not be very meaningful on its own. Insider Ownership Many investors like to check how much of a company is owned by insiders. We usually like to see fairly high levels of insider ownership. Insiders own 0.2% of Wesfarmers shares, worth about AU$92m. While this is a strong but not outstanding level of insider ownership, it's enough to indicate some alignment between management and smaller shareholders. So What Does This Data Suggest About Wesfarmers Insiders? It is good to see recent purchasing. And an analysis of the transactions over the last year also gives us confidence. Insiders likely see value in Wesfarmers shares, given these transactions (along with notable insider ownership of the company). So while it's helpful to know what insiders are doing in terms of buying or selling, it's also helpful to know the risks that a particular company is facing. Every company has risks, and we've spotted 2 warning signs for Wesfarmers you should know about. If you would prefer to check out another company -- one with potentially superior financials -- then do not miss this free list of interesting companies, that have HIGH return on equity and low debt. For the purposes of this article, insiders are those individuals who report their transactions to the relevant regulatory body. We currently account for open market transactions and private dispositions, but not derivative transactions. If you spot an error that warrants correction, please contact the editor at editorial-team@simplywallst.com. This article by Simply Wall St is general in nature. It does not constitute a recommendation to buy or sell any stock, and does not take account of your objectives, or your financial situation. Simply Wall St has no position in the stocks mentioned. We aim to bring you long-term focused research analysis driven by fundamental data. Note that our analysis may not factor in the latest price-sensitive company announcements or qualitative material. Thank you for reading. Haiti reported its first two cases of the novel coronavirus on Thursday, President Jovenel Moise announced in a press conference, per multiple reports. Why it matters: There is only one doctor or nurse per 3,000 people in the country, the World Health Organization found in 2016 and Haiti's spending in the public health sector "is among the lowest in the world." Haiti is the poorest country in the Western hemisphere, per the CIA World Factbook. Where it stands: Haiti closed its border with the Dominican Republic last Sunday and suspended flights from Europe, Canada and Latin America before recording any COVID-19 cases, the Miami Herald reports. The country also suspended travel for government officials. Schools and factories will close in the country on Friday, Moise announced in the press conference on Thursday, per the Herald's Jacqueline Charles. Go deeper: Africa scrambles to contain coronavirus Source: Xinhua| 2020-03-20 16:40:13|Editor: huaxia Video Player Close GUIYANG, March 20 (Xinhua) -- World heritage site, Mount Fanjing, in southwest China's Guizhou Province, exempted tickets for local medical workers aiding Hubei Province, the center of the coronavirus outbreak in the country, for a lifetime, sources with the scenic zone said. The tourist site has also made sightseeing buses and cableway services in the scenic area free for these medical workers, according to the developer of the site. A total of 1,443 medical workers of Guizhou Province were sent to Hubei to help with the fight against the virus. Since Tuesday, Guizhou's medical teams have been departing Hubei as the outbreak has been subdued. Mount Fanjing was reopened on Feb. 28. The tourist attraction has carried out strict epidemic prevention and control measures while resuming operation, including offering online ticket booking service, disinfecting public spaces and facilities, checking visitors' temperatures and masks. Boasting rich natural resources and high vegetation coverage, Mount Fanjing was listed as a UNESCO World Natural Heritage Site in 2018. Guizhou's top-rated 420 tourist sites, including Mount Fanjing, are made ticket-free for medical workers across the country from the restart of operation to the end of this year. She's been on a break from her latest acting projects amid the coronavirus outbreak. And Suranne Jones cut a solo figure as she headed out for a low-key stroll in north London on Friday. The Gentleman Jack star, 41, wrapped up in a long black trench coat and leather gloves as she stepped out for some fresh air. Out and about: Suranne Jones brushed off recent fears around the coronavirus as she headed out for a low-key stroll in north London on Friday Suranne was warm and cosy in her long black coat as she enjoyed the first day of spring with some fresh air. The Doctor Foster star teamed her off-duty look with skinny black leggings and trainers, and opted for listen to music during her walk with oversized headphones. Despite the recent coronavirus pandemic, Suranne didn't seem to have a care in the world as she headed out for the day. She earned critical acclaim last year for her performance in the period drama Gentleman Jack, which BBC have confirmed will be returning for a second series. Relaxed: The Gentleman Jack star wrapped up in a long black trench coat and leather gloves as she stepped out for some fresh air Relaxed: Suranne displayed her laid-back sense of style in skinny black leggings and matching trainers as she headed out in the capital In it she plays Anne Lister, a real-life landlady who is known as one of history's first lesbian women, and the novel documents her relationship with Ann Walker (played by Sophie Rundle). Away from the screen Suranne tied the knot with magazine editor Laurence Akers in 2015, after getting engaged just six weeks into their relationship, They couple met in 2013 at the wedding of Jones's long-term friend Sally Lindsay with Steve White. Busy: The Gentleman Jack star pulled back her brunette tresses into a sleek up-do as she headed out for the day Acting star: Suranne earned critical acclaim last year for her performance in the period drama Gentleman Jack Suranne also revealed last year how she became crippled with anxiety before dramatically collapsing during a West End play. The actress had to withdraw from Frozen, a harrowing story in which she played the mother of a murdered girl, after the backstage incident. It was initially attributed to illness and the 'deeply affecting' subject matter of the play, which explores child abuse. But now the star has told how her mother's death after suffering dementia, the pressures of bringing up a young son and a punishing work schedule all took their toll. 'I'm really good at compartmentalising. Building up resilience,' she said. 'And I probably did that too much. Put all the bad stuff to one side, and worked and worked and worked.' Candid: Suranne also revealed last year how she became crippled with anxiety before dramatically collapsing during a West End play Recalling her mounting anxiety before her collapse at London's Theatre Royal Haymarket, she added: 'I'd been feeling edgy. Nervous around people. Not being able to converse properly. Not being able to get my points across. 'And being in the theatre didn't help. I don't think theatre was the cause, but I think it heightened it. 'You've a 1,000-seater full of people staring at you. And when you feel the anxiety, breathlessness, it's just drilling right into your solar plexus and you think, f***. This is something I can't stop, not once the show's started.' Suranne, whose real name is Sarah, lost her mum to vascular dementia just months after giving birth to her first child in 2016. She took a year off work during which she took up yoga, had therapy and quit Instagram. Church can keep tax exemption despite receiving money from use of parking lot, court rules Email Print Img No-img Menu Whatsapp Google Reddit Digg Stumbleupon Linkedin Comment A church in Wisconsin can legally maintain its tax exempt status even though it also receives donations from the use of its parking lot, a state appeals court panel has ruled. Central United Methodist Church of Milwaukee had been allowing patrons of The Rave/Eagles Club to park at its lot in return for donations to the church. This prompted the city of Milwaukee to change the designation of the parking lot in 2017 from exempted to local mercantile, thus removing the lots tax exemption. In a decision released Tuesday, a three-judge panel of the Wisconsin Court of Appeals overturned a circuit court ruling upholding the removal of the tax exemption. Appeals Court Judge Joseph Donald authored the panel's opinion, arguing that the donations collected by the church through concert attendee parking was incidental and therefore the church was entitled to a property tax exemption. Central United does not own a for-profit corporation to isolate any for-profit activities, nor does Central United lease out the parking lot to hold for-profit activities, wrote Donald. Central United organized unpaid volunteers to collect donations on concert nights. Volunteers held up signs with a suggested donation amount, however, concert-goers were not required to make donations to use the parking spots. Donald went on to compare the money brought in through the concert parking to donations brought in from other sources, such as individual donations, bake sales, or car washes. All donations support the functioning of the church and its many activities, ranging from community support groups, to food pantries and mission trips, to childrens activities, to Bible school, continued the judge. Therefore, while the amount brought in by the parking lot use may not necessarily be inconsequential, as the circuit court found, it certainly is incidental. The panel decision overturned an earlier ruling by Circuit Judge Paul Van Grunsven, who had concluded that the church parking lot was not being used for tax exempt purposes. This use of the property does not accrue benefits to mankind directly nor does it relieve the state from expenses, as providing free flu shots to the poor would, wrote Van Grunsven, as reported by the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel. [Central United] has not met its burden of establishing it exclusively uses its parking lot for exempt purposes, as required by the statute, the lot is taxable for the time period at issue. Source: Xinhua| 2020-03-19 18:52:30|Editor: Shi Yinglun Video Player Close Zimbabwean President Emmerson Mnangagwa addresses the launching ceremony for the country's preparedness and response plan against COVID-19, in Harare, Zimbabwe, March 19, 2020. Zimbabwean President Emmerson Mnangagwa on Thursday thanked China and other countries for the support they have rendered to Zimbabwe as it steps up its preparedness to combat coronavirus (COVID-19). (Photo by Shaun Jusa/Xinhua) HARARE, March 19 (Xinhua) -- Zimbabwean President Emmerson Mnangagwa on Thursday thanked China and other countries for the support they have rendered to Zimbabwe as it steps up its preparedness to combat coronavirus (COVID-19). The president was speaking at an occasion to launch the country's preparedness and response plan against COVID-19. "I wish to acknowledge assistance so far extended to Zimbabwe by the People's Republic of China and the United Kingdom government," Mnangagwa said. China has funded the refurbishment and upgrading, currently underway, of Zimbabwe's main coronavirus isolation and treatment center, the Wilkins Hospital, in Harare. China also has a medical team in Zimbabwe which is assisting the country's health personnel with training on COVID-19. Zimbabwe has not recorded any confirmed case of the virus and Mnangagwa on Tuesday this week declared the COVID-19 a national disaster to enable the government to mobilize resources towards the fight against the epidemic. He also banned public gatherings, including national independence celebrations that were slated for next month in Bulawayo, as part of precautionary measures against the spread of the virus. Mnangagwa said the national preparedness and response plan, with a budget of 26.4 million U.S. dollars, will enable the country to have an integrated and coordinated management strategy focusing on prevention of COVID-19 in Zimbabwe and mitigating the severity of its impact. The Ministry of Health adds that the plan's overall goal is to minimize morbidity and mortality from COVID-19 and associated adverse socio-economic impact in Zimbabwe. Mnangagwa said Zimbabwe should fully prepare and try to minimize the impact of the pandemic on citizens and the economy. "With our high HIV prevalence of 14 percent in Zimbabwe, malnutrition and other non-communicable diseases especially among children, we are deeply concerned about the impact COVID-19 could have in Zimbabwe," he said. He said it was incumbent for Zimbabwe to step up its preparedness against COVID-19 considering the volume of traffic between Zimbabwe and other countries in the region and internationally. "As Zimbabwe we cannot continue with business as usual as it is no longer a matter of if but when our country will have these cases. "We need to step up and enhance our preparedness and response to the scourge. This calls for extraordinary measures and responses," he said. Home and Community Care Ireland (HCCI), the national membership organisation for companies that provide home care services has called on elected representatives in Louth to support its Covid-19 home care action plan. The organisation has put a plan together that sets out six urgent recommendations for government and the HSE to ensure home care providers can continue to provide essential care services to vulnerable people in Louth and across Ireland during the Covid-19 pandemic. According to HCCI, home care services will play a crucial role in the coming months in alleviating pressure on hospital beds. Commenting today, Joseph Musgrave, Chief Executive of HCCI, said: We are calling on all TDs in Louth to support our Covid-19 action plan, which is a framework of measures to protect clients and carers across the country, as well as to increase capacity in an already overburdened healthcare system. Firstly, we need to stabilise our sector to ensure it can fully play its part in the midst of the current crisis, providing essential care services to people in Louth and across Ireland. Covid-19 is an unprecedented challenge to our country, and our normal way of life. The Taoiseachs words in this weeks Ministerial Broadcast spoke both to, and for, our country. "Our frontline care staff are immensely brave, and particular mention has to be made for the more than 50 care staff that our members employ, who are self-isolating upon the advice of public health. Their service is courageous. Almost 1000 existing home care clients are choosing to self-isolate, including from their home carers. The current HSE policy is that, where clients choose to self-isolate, including from carers, pay for their carers is limited to the first two days of the self-isolation. "As a result, home care staff whose clients are self-isolating over several weeks are going unpaid. This threatens their job security and, indeed, the viability of our entire sector. We propose the current payment for carers whose clients self-isolate be extended from two days to up to six weeks. "The current limit unfairly penalises both carers and clients who may lose their home care package if they voluntarily self-isolate. An extended period of pay for carers would be more in line with government announcements on the Covid-19 sick leave policy and Covid-19 Pandemic Unemployment Payment. The second aim of our action plan is to boost capacity in the home care system, thereby alleviating pressure on hospitals nationwide. We are calling on government to amend social welfare limits that currently deter people from entering the caring profession or expanding their working hours as carers. If we can increase capacity in our sector now, we can move more people out of much-needed hospital beds and into home care settings. Action Plan Recommendations The HCCI Action Plan recommendations are as follows: Suspend the following social welfare rules to free up more working hours among current staff: Suspend the requirement that limits employees on the Community Employment programme to 19.5 hours of work per week. Suspend the rule that employees must earn 184 or less per week in order to retain their entitlement to a Medical Card. Suspend the rule that limits employees from working over 38 hours in a two-week period if they wish to qualify for the Working Family Payment. Suspend, for the duration of the Covid-19 emergency, the requirement for new carers to shadow an existing carer for five hours. Amend the current policy of paying providers for only two days if a client self-isolates voluntarily or upon the advice of public health, so that payment is extended from two days to up to six weeks. Issue more detailed national guidance for home care providers on caring for clients during the emergency. This should include detailed guidance on dealing with clients suspected to have Covid-19 and how to limit the risks to carers at this time. In tandem, issue a national directive that, if the need arises, sufficient Personal Protective Equipment (PPE) will be issued to all home care providers with attendant training. Expand Revenue guidance issued on 13th March 2020 to include payments, interest and penalties on PAYE, USC and PRSI, and extend this until the Covid-19 emergency is over. Employers will continue to file all returns as normal. HSE to immediately settle all outstanding invoices issued by HCCI members. HSE to put in place a robust invoice payments system that will operate efficiently throughout the period of the Covid-19 crisis. Over the past week, we have been attempting to engage proactively with the authorities to prepare a robust plan for the home care sector in the face of the Covid-19 crisis, said Joseph Musgrave. We have been in constant contact with the HSE, the Department of Health and our own members since the onset of Covid-19. To date, the authorities have issued some basic clinical guidance to home care providers and announced the damaging self-isolation pay policy, which caps pay at two days for affected carers. We all have our part to play in this national emergency, and without the support of TDs in Louth, we could see a deepening crisis in our sector, as well as a missed opportunity to support the work of hospitals across Ireland. HCCIs proposals are ready for implementation, subject to government agreement. We are calling on government to implement our action plan now to ensure our sector is operating at full capacity and effectiveness when it is needed most. Passengers were free to leave a "low risk" cruise ship docked in Sydney without being questioned about their health despite some on-board displaying flu-like symptoms only for four people to test positive for coronavirus. The test results have left health authorities facing a "serious" situation with 2647 passengers on board the Ruby Princess - deemed "low risk" by the state government - possibly exposed to COVID-19 now scattered across Sydney, including into retirement homes, and the United States. Ruby Princess cruise passengers arrived in Australia five days ahead of schedule after the government urged overseas Australians to return home. Credit:Kate Geraghty The ship had been docked at the Overseas Passenger Terminal at Circular Quay on Thursday morning and despite some passengers displaying flu-like symptoms while aboard, the four COVID-19 detections were not known until well after passengers disembarked. They were among 75 new confirmed cases in NSW in 24 hours - the biggest increase to date. There have now been 382 cases in the state including six deaths after NSW Health announced the death of an 81-year-old woman on Friday, who had been in close contact with another confirmed case at Ryde Hospital. Australia's other coronavirus death was in Perth. UN experts: 40% of world's population unable to protect themselves against corona Iran Press TV Thursday, 19 March 2020 4:37 PM UN experts have warned that some three billion people across the globe lack the most basic hygiene necessities such as soap and running water to shield themselves against the coronavirus pandemic. According to the United Nations Children's Fund, 40 percent of the world's population do not have the means to wash their hands at home. Sam Godfrey, UNICEF chief of water and sanitation in east and southern Africa, said communities lack easily accessible running water, are unable to buy soap or do not realize its vital role in preventing illness. "Even for the frontline workers, the health workers, there remains a challenge also in terms of understanding of the importance of handwashing," he told AFP on Thursday. Those living in tightly-packed slums, as well as the large refugee populations in camps and urban areas in the Horn of Africa, are particularly at risk because they may be malnourished or have underlying health problems. And they often lack sanitation. In sub-Saharan Africa, 63 percent of people in urban areas -- 258 million people -- lack access to handwashing, according to the UNICEF figures. In central and south Asia this figure is 22 percent, or 153 million people. The outbreak has infected some 200,000 people and killed 9,000, scorching through populations across the globe after emerging in China late last year. Lufthansa announces 95% cutback in operations Lufthansa warned on Thursday that the airline industry may not survive without state aid if the coronavirus pandemic lasts a long time, predicting it would emerge into a "different world" after the crisis. Like many of its rivals, Lufthansa has slashed flights, cut working hours and suspended its dividend to try to cope with the fallout from a crisis that has seen governments impose draconian travel restrictions and bookings evaporate. "Our business, and I speak with 30 years of experience, is in an extraordinary situation," CEO Carsten Spohr told reporters. "For weeks, hardly anyone has wanted to fly. Now, hardly anyone can." The German group stopped short of requesting state loans, however, saying it was cutting costs where it can so it can ride out a crisis that has forced it to ground 700 planes and slash passenger capacity by 95%. "We would seek active support from the state when this is necessary. This is not yet necessary," Spohr said, adding Lufthansa was in discussions with German state development bank KfW. Coronavirus border curbs disrupt EU food supplies Meanwhile, representatives of Europe's industry and farmers said restrictions imposed by some European Union countries at their borders with other members of the bloc in response to the coronavirus outbreak are disrupting food supplies. More than a dozen EU countries have tightened or even shut borders that are usually open and uncontrolled, in response to the spreading epidemic. Because of these measures, "delays and disruption at country borders have been observed for the delivery of certain agricultural and manufactured products, as well as packaging materials," said a statement signed by trade associations representing EU farmers, food traders and the European food and drink industry. To try to avoid shortages of essential goods, food and medicines, EU leaders endorsed a proposal from the European Commission, the EU executive, on Tuesday to establish fast-track lanes at their countries' frontiers, but they did not agree to keep internal borders open. The industry said that was not enough. "We welcome the recent Commission guidelines on border management as a good first step. Despite these guidelines, however, we continue to face severe disruptions," they said. They urged EU countries and institutions to prepare contingency plans for possible shortages of workers. France may extend coronavirus lockdown In a related development on Thursday, the French government said it will extend a two-week lockdown if the coronavirus threat persists. As the coronavirus sweeps across the globe, country upon country has announced tough restrictions on public life as policymakers struggle to deal with the biggest public health crisis since the 1918 influenza pandemic. On Thursday, President Emmanuel Macron and his government were coming under intense pressure from doctors, police and the public over a shortage of face masks, gloves and other protective gear. Countries across Europe are desperately seeking to ramp up the production of face masks, with tight supplies from Italy to Germany testing solidarity between European Union member states. German army on standby to help with COVID-19 crisis The German military is also making preparations to help tackle the coronavirus crisis should other civil servants become overwhelmed with the outbreak, Defense Minister Annegret Kramp-Karrenbauer said on Thursday. "We are preparing for a worst-case scenario where a very large number of people will become infected and we have the human resources to help," she said. The number of confirmed cases jumped by almost a third on Thursday to reach 11,000, confirming fears that Germany risks ending up with thousands of people needing hospitalization, which would overwhelm its healthcare system just like in Italy. It is a scenario Chancellor Angela Merkel's government is eager to avoid. It has restricted social contact by shutting down schools, daycare centers and non-essential businesses until after Easter. Kramp-Karrenbauer said the military had already contacted hundreds of medical reservists and would be able to protect critical infrastructure and distribute medical equipment, medicines and masks should this become necessary. It could also assist with setting up makeshift hospitals with intensive-care beds and open its own medical centers, where 60-70% of patients currently are civilian, to members of the public needing medical attention after contracting the virus. US tests two generic drugs in race to find coronavirus cure Moreover, US researchers, following the lead of scientists in other countries, have launched studies to see whether widely-available, low-cost generic drugs can be used to help treat the illness caused by the new coronavirus. There are currently no vaccines or treatments for the highly-contagious COVID-19 respiratory illness, so patients can only receive supportive care for now. But a 1,500-person trial, led by the University of Minnesota, began this week to see whether malaria treatment hydroxychloroquine can prevent or reduce the severity of COVID-19. Two other trials are studying the blood pressure drug losartan as a possible treatment for the disease. The malaria drug, also being tested in China, Australia and France, was touted earlier this week by Tesla Chief Executive Elon Musk, who recovered from malaria in 2000 after taking the medication. Besides having a direct antiviral effect, hydroxychloroquine suppresses the production and release of proteins involved in the inflammatory complications of several viral diseases. "We are trying to leverage the science to see if we can do something in addition to minimizing contacts," said Dr. Jakub Tolar, dean of the University of Minnesota Medical School and vice president for clinical affairs. "Results are likely in weeks, not months." NEWS LETTER Join the GlobalSecurity.org mailing list Enter Your Email Address Parents urged to contact their child's school if they need to send them in next week As schools rush to make preparations before they close this afternoon, the Government has released its list of key worker professions. On Wednesday the Prime Minister announced that schools across the UK would close from Friday afternoon, after its latest scientific advice said that children should stay at home to limit the chance of the virus spreading. However, it went on to ask schools to remain open for children who absolutely need to attend. These include children who are supported by social workers, those with safeguarding and welfare needs, looked after children, young carers, disabled children, those with EHC (education, health and care) plans and children whose parents are critical to the Covid-19 response. The list of parents who have critical jobs is listed below in full and includes health care professionals, emergency services, armed forces personnel and journalists. The majority of West Berkshire and North Hampshire schools are currently asking parents to contact them as soon as possible today if they will need to send their children to school next week. The schools are currently planning how they will support these children going forward. If your childs school is already closed, however, the government has said you should contact the local education authority. You can find your local council contact here. West Berkshire Council contacts can be found here. In a statement on its website, the Government said: It is important to underline that schools, colleges and other educational establishments remain safe places for children. But the fewer children making the journey to school, and the fewer children in educational settings, the lower the risk that the virus can spread and infect vulnerable individuals in wider society. The Government urged parents, even if their jobs are included in the key workers list, to keep their children at home if at all possible, but reminded them not to rely on grandparents or friends and family with underlying health conditions for childcare if they should be self-isolating. The critical services list in full Health and social care This includes but is not limited to doctors, nurses, midwives, paramedics, social workers, care workers, and other frontline health and social care staff including volunteers; the support and specialist staff required to maintain the UKs health and social care sector; those working as part of the health and social care supply chain, including producers and distributers of medicines and medical and personal protective equipment. Education and childcare This includes nursery and teaching staff, social workers and those specialist education professionals who must remain active during the COVID-19 response to deliver this approach. Key public services This includes those essential to the running of the justice system, religious staff, charities and workers delivering key frontline services, those responsible for the management of the deceased, and journalists and broadcasters who are providing public service broadcasting. Local and national government This only includes those administrative occupations essential to the effective delivery of the COVID-19 response or delivering essential public services such as the payment of benefits, including in government agencies and arms length bodies. Food and other necessary goods This includes those involved in food production, processing, distribution, sale and delivery as well as those essential to the provision of other key goods (for example hygienic and veterinary medicines). Public safety and national security This includes police and support staff, Ministry of Defence civilians, contractor and armed forces personnel (those critical to the delivery of key defence and national security outputs and essential to the response to the COVID-19 pandemic), fire and rescue service employees (including support staff), National Crime Agency staff, those maintaining border security, prison and probation staff and other national security roles, including those overseas. Transport This includes those who will keep the air, water, road and rail passenger and freight transport modes operating during the COVID-19 response, including those working on transport systems through which supply chains pass. Utilities, communication and financial services This includes staff needed for essential financial services provision (including but not limited to workers in banks, building societies and financial market infrastructure), the oil, gas, electricity and water sectors (including sewerage), information technology and data infrastructure sector and primary industry supplies to continue during the COVID-19 response, as well as key staff working in the civil nuclear, chemicals, telecommunications (including but not limited to network operations, field engineering, call centre staff, IT and data infrastructure, 999 and 111 critical services), postal services and delivery, payments providers and waste disposal sectors. 2020-03-21 00:35:00 The decision to halt all passenger flights to Greece due to a coronavirus on Sunday afternoon will be announced by the government. The decision will exclude specific cargo flights mainly for catering products. This move was considered appropriate after the increase in worldwide coronavirus cases. Many airline companies have already made drastic cuts to their routes, but lockdown will be imposed on all passenger flights from Sunday. anatakti Melbourne, Australia, Mar 20, 2020 - (ABN Newswire) - iSignthis Ltd (ASX:ISX.AX - News) (HAM:TA8.F - News) provide the following update on the impact of COVID-19 on its operations. Direct Impact : Our operations generally remain unaffected directly. The Company's existing pandemic procedures and business continuity plans were put into effect last week, ensuring that some of our staff are working remotely in our areas of operation including Australia, Cyprus, Lithuania, Netherlands, and the United Kingdom. The Company is Payment Card Industry (PCI) Data Security Standard (DSS) certified to operate remotely 100% of the time, with all staff having access to laptops and virtual private networks at all times, including when they are in any of our offices. As such, working remotely presents no technical issues, but does present challenges with regards to broadband bandwidth in working remotely (due mainly to the limitations in telecommunication networks at such a time), reliance upon remote communications and he challenges of social isolation. Indirect Impact : March 2020 revenues have slowed appreciably, with processing volumes in key EU merchants having declined in GPTV. We are reviewing the situation in March and likely beyond, with January and February having been (unaudited) EBIT positive. The Australian dollar's decline against the EURO will benefit the Company this quarter. We also note that responses from payment schemes to what are usually routine technical, commercial or settlement matters, are now taking several days to resolve, rather than minutes, hours or overnight. The Company is also expecting audit results in early April from Visa Inc with regards to access to product, which may be subject to delays due to COVID-19. Customers are also slower to engage with the Company, usually due to staff unavailability, and are thus slower to respond to offers, or to onboard. The Company is planning for up to eight weeks of remote operations and the potential for reduced revenues. The Company has sufficient cash reserves to continue with its operations and planned strategic activities well beyond the eight weeks of anticipated impact by COVID-19. Story continues The Company notes that this is an unprecedented situation with individual governments independently taking measures that are often inconsistent with each other and difficult to anticipate. It is therefore not possible to make accurate predictions on operations going forward with a large level of uncertainty that we cannot control or anticipate. We have sought to take the best measures we can under the circumstances and based on the official advice of each jurisdiction in which we operate. About iSignthis Ltd: Australian Securities and Frankfurt Stock Exchange listed iSignthis Ltd (ASX:ISX.AX - News) (FRA:TA8.F - News) is the global RegTech leader in remote identity verification, payment authentication with deposit taking, transactional banking and payment processing capability. iSignthis provides an end-to-end on-boarding service for merchants, with a unified payment and identity service via our Paydentity(TM) and ISXPay(R) solutions. By converging payments and identity, iSignthis delivers regulatory compliance to an enhanced customer due diligence standard, offering global reach to any of the world's 4.2Bn 'bank verified' card or account holders, that can be remotely on-boarded to meet the Customer Due Diligence requirements of AML regulated merchants in as little as 3 to 5 minutes. Paydentity(TM) has now onboarded and verified more than 1.5m persons to an AML KYC standard. iSignthis Paydentity(TM) service is the trusted back office solution for regulated entities, allowing merchants to stay ahead of the regulatory curve, and focus on growing their core business. iSignthis' subsidiary, iSignthis eMoney Ltd, trades as ISXPay(R), and is an EEA authorised eMoney Monetary Financial Institution, offering card acquiring in the EEA, and Australia. ISXPay(R) is a principal member of Visa Inc, Mastercard Inc, Diners, Discover, (China) Union Pay International and JCB International, an American Express aggregator, and provides merchants with access to payments via alternative methods including SEPA, Poli Payments, Sofort, Trustly, WeChat, AliPay and others. UAB Baltic Banking Service, a wholly owned subsidiary of iSignthis Ltd, provides API based access to SEPA Core, SEPA Instant and SEPA business scheme, for neobanks, banks, credit unions and emoney institutions, and provides a bridge to the Central Bank of Lithuania's CENTROLink service. Contact: Investor Relations Chris Northwood Investor Relations Director iSignthis Limited chris.northwood@isignthis.com +61 (0) 458 809 177 Media Enquiries Mark Hawthorne Director Civic Financial Communications mark.hawthorne@civicfinancial.com.au +61 (0) 418 999 894 Investor Relations Europe Dr Eva Reuter Friedrich Ebert Anlage 35-37 Tower 185 60327 Frankfurt e.reuter@dr-reuter.eu +49 (0) 69 1532 5857 Source: iSignthis Ltd Copyright (C) 2020 ABN Newswire. All rights reserved. A 90-year-old resident of Lambeth House, the New Orleans retirement home currently under siege from the new coronavirus, died Thursday night, though it was uncertain whether the COVID-19 pandemic was to blame. Frank Williams, a retired financial adviser, lived at St. Annas, the nursing-care sector of the larger retirement complex. Suffering from dementia, he had shown no symptoms other than fatigue and wasnt tested for coronavirus when he died, said a daughter, Lydia Buckley. He could have well had it. Its such an unknown right now, Buckley said. I asked our doctor this morning if they can test him after death, and I have not gotten an answer back. My guess is they're going to say no because they're short on tests. I guess well really never know. A Lambeth House spokesman said Friday that Williams' death was "completely unrelated" to the coronavirus outbreak; he cited "other health challenges." News of Williams' death quickly made the rounds among jittery residents of the retirement home, where the deaths of five Lambeth House residents this week were attributed to the novel coronavirus that has spread across the world. Williams was the second Lambeth House resident to die while living at St. Annas, where officials acknowledged for the first time Thursday that coronavirus had spread from elsewhere in the facility. Most of the 23 Lambeth House residents reported to have tested positive in the states only known cluster of coronavirus cases, thus far, were living over eight floors of independent-living apartments and were free to come and go. Its unclear whether officials will ever get to the bottom of Williams death, or perhaps others like it that came before the first patient tested positive for coronavirus at Lambeth House. Dr. Alex Billioux, assistant state secretary of health, said there were no plans to revisit all recent deaths in which coronavirus might have been the hidden culprit. There are circumstances where we would test somebody posthumously. The reason is to understand what the exposure risk is for other people, Billioux said. Its less about the answer for that family, though that can be very important. Its more about understanding how we can continue to do contact tracing and identifying people who might be at risk. Billioux said authorities hadnt identified a common point of contact among Lambeth House residents who have tested positive for the virus or died, other than the facility itself and its staff. One Lambeth House staff member also has tested positive for the virus and is isolated elsewhere, Billioux said this week, adding that he expects other disease clusters to turn up in other facilities around Louisiana for the elderly, the virus' most vulnerable targets. At Lambeth House, officials are warning residents of more illness and possibly death to come over the next two weeks. Lambeth House has begun helping residents connect to one another and family members over video chats, among other accommodations to manage fear and isolation among the 260 residents of the Uptown complex. More than a week has now passed since the novel coronavirus first turned up there, prompting the first steps in what has become a near-lockdown, with many residents sequestered in their apartments. In a letter to residents Thursday night, Lambeth House CEO Scott Crabtree stressed that more cases of coronavirus could be expected and the residents would need to remain isolated for at least two more weeks, with tight restrictions likely beyond that. There is no way to sugar coat what our residents, staff and Lambeth House family members have been going through since COVID-19 made its presence known here near midnight on March 10. Candor also compels me to say there is no way to sugar coat what we might expect over the next several weeks as this painful and deadly experience plays itself out, Crabtree wrote. Vaccine news in your inbox Once a week we'll update you on the progress of COVID-19 vaccinations. Sign up today. e-mail address * Sign Up Just how many Lambeth House residents have received coronavirus tests is uncertain. Billioux referred that question to Lambeth House, which referred it back to the state. In his letter, Crabtree said the state Office of Public Health approves all tests and that residents must show symptoms to meet federal guidelines and get tested. It took about a week to get results from tests conducted on-site at Lambeth House last week, resulting in nine new positives out of 10 conclusive tests. Four were inconclusive. Since the testing began, at least six Lambeth House residents, all men, have died. The suffering at Lambeth House is not unlike that seen during a COVID-19 outbreak at a nursing home in the Seattle area that began last month. It was the subject of a report this week from the U.S. Centers for Disease Control that could offer insight for the states nursing homes. According to the report, limitations in effective infection control and prevention and staff members working in multiple facilities contributed to the spread of COVID-19 at Life Care Center in Kirkland, Washington. The toll there was steep: 81 residents, 34 staff members and 14 visitors were infected, and 23 people have died, the report said. +7 Lambeth House urged to 'stay strong' as known coronavirus cases at retirement home climb to 23 The number of known coronavirus cases of the Lambeth House retirement community in Uptown New Orleans jumped from 14 to at least 23 late Wedne Williams graduated as the valedictorian from New Orleans Academy, attended Yale University and Harvard Business School, then worked for a General Motors distributorship. Then he then turned to investment management, eventually helping found Delta Financial Advisors, his family said. He had a true gift for life. His joie de vivre was reflected in his natty attire, and he had the charm and self-confidence to accompany his colorful creations, read a family statement. He always seemed to have a grand time and never let anything, big or small, get him down. Williams was a member of the Boston Club, the Bienville Club and the New Orleans Country Club, as well as several Carnival organizations. A grandfather, Frank Adair Monroe, was chief justice of the Louisiana Supreme Court a century ago. Williams moved to Lambeth House in 2014, first residing independently on the 8th floor. He was a fun-loving guy, I tell you, Lydia Buckley said. He loved life and never missed a function at Lambeth House. As he steadily declined, Williams was moved to the assisted-living portion of Lambeth House, and then in September to nursing care at St. Anna's, Buckley said. At 90, his health was perilous, she said, but he seemed OK until she received the call overnight. He had breathing issues, things like that, she said. He wasnt on deaths door or anything like that. A statement from Lambeth House earlier in the week sought to express the pain caused to those connected to the facility by the deaths of Dr. Robert Lancaster, 98; Dr. Charles Smith, 92; James Carriere, 80; Samuel Alcus, 84; and a 91-year-old whose name wasnt released by officials Thursday. Lambeth House is truly a community of people who care deeply about one another, board Chairwoman Christina Fay said in the statement. Any single death of a resident is felt very acutely by one and all. Two more residents of Clark County have tested positive for the new coronavirus, health officials announced Friday. In total, six county residents have tested positive for the virus, and three have died. The new cases are a woman in her 60s and a man in his 70s. Both have been quarantined and are recovering at their respective homes. Neither had any contact with anyone who was known to be ill, county officials said. On Tuesday, Clark County announced its first deaths attributed to COVID-19, the disease caused by the coronavirus. The victims were a husband and wife in their 80s. One had been living in a private home, according to Alan Melnick, director of the county health department. The other had been a resident at a Vancouver assisted living facility, and both had been hospitalized at PeaceHealth Southwest Medical Center last week. The third patient who died, a man in his 70s, was the first case to be reported in the county, officials said Wednesday, and had been hospitalized at Oregon Health and Science University in Portland. Washington has been one of several epicenters of the virus in the United States with more than 1,300 cases and nearly 74 deaths. On Monday, Clark County announced its fourth positive case, a woman in her 40s who had been in close contact with a person who tested positive for COVID-19 in Oregon. As of Friday, Oregon had 114 confirmed cases of the disease and three deaths. -- Kale Williams; kwilliams@oregonian.com; 503-294-4048; @sfkale Subscribe to Oregonian/OregonLive newsletters and podcasts for the latest news and top stories. By David Shepardson and Andrea Shalal WASHINGTON (Reuters) - A Republican proposal introduced in the U.S. Senate on Thursday would grant up to $58 billion in secured loans to help passenger and cargo airlines hit by the coronavirus crisis, but bar cash grants and could result in the government getting equity stakes. Under the proposal, the U.S. Treasury Department could receive warrants, stock options, or stock as a condition of government assistance in order for the government to participate in gains and be compensated for risks. The measure would also bar airlines from increasing compensation for, or provide golden parachutes to, executives for two years and airlines would be required to maintain some services. It would suspend some aviation taxes. "We are not bailing out the airlines or other industries period," said Senator Richard Shelby, who chairs the appropriations committee. The proposal comes after major airlines doubled down on Thursday on a request for government cash grants. "The current economic environment is simply not sustainable," Airlines for America and a coalition of major aviation unions wrote in a joint letter. The group, representing American Airlines Group , Delta Air Lines Inc , United Airlines and other airlines, and unions urged lawmakers to provide a package of unsecured loans, grants and tax relief. "The survival of our industry depends on it," they wrote. The airline group had asked on Monday for $25 billion in cash grants and $25 billion in unsecured loans for passenger airlines and another $8 billion for cargo carriers. As travel demand has collapsed due to the health crisis, airlines have suspended thousands of flights, parking hundreds of airplanes and borrowing money. They have repeatedly warned that they may cut thousands of employees without significant assistance soon. The bill introduced on Thursday would set aside another $150 billion for a separate fund and Treasury would determine who could qualify. Boeing Co , which has sought $60 billion in U.S. government loan guarantees for itself and the entire aviation manufacturing sector, could seek loans from that fund. Story continues Senate Democratic Leader Chuck Schumer said "the airline industry just spent billions and billions in stock buybacks in the last two years - liquidity that would come in handy at a time like this." But Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell defended the plans. "We're not talking about so-called bailouts for firms that made reckless decisions," said McConnell. "We're not talking about a taxpayer-funded cushion for companies that made mistakes. We're talking about loans which must be repaid." U.S. President Donald Trump said Thursday he opposed companies using taxpayer funds for executive bonuses or stock buybacks. "Conditions like that would be OK with me," Trump said Thursday, but added: "We will be helping the airline industry." (Reporting by David Lawder and David Shepardson; additonal reporting by Andrea Shalal and Richard Cowan; Editing by Will Dunham and Sonya Hepinstall) Google Doodle honours Dr. Ignaz Semmelweis, the father of father of infection control. He was the first man to discover the benefits of washing your hands to kill germs. His methods prevented the further spread of puerperal fever, back in the day With the world going through a difficult time because of the Covid-19 virus, it's hard to remember that there are people working their butts off trying to keep us safe. And one of the most important steps to staying safe is to just wash our hands. Google has just released a commemorative doodle honouring the man who discovered the benefits of washing your hands, Dr. Ignaz Semmelweis. Dr. Semmelweis was the first person to tell the entire world about the pros and advantages of washing our hands. Born in 1818 in Hungary, Semmelweis discovered that simply washing your hands with disinfectant could cut down the infection rate of puerperal fever. But, as it is with most discoveries, he was chastised due to the lack of evidence. He also discovered that patients who were not washing their hands were transmitting the disease to people who they had brief physical contact with. After a full-fledged investigation, Semmelweis asked doctors to wash their hands before interacting with patients. This led to a drastic reduction of infection in patients and with that his point was proved. Years later, this process of basically washing your hands was known as germ theory of disease. With Covid-19 tearing thorough the modern world like a buzzsaw, its time we paid homage to the doctors and scientists who figured out the best hygienic practices to avoid being infected. Let us honour the man who taught us that washing our hands was a great way to prevent the spread of various diseases. An ex-Obama administration official stormed off the set in the middle of an interview on cable channel MSNBC on Thursday after a former colleague said he wasnt being helpful as the country was dealing with the coronavirus outbreak. Craig Fugate, who headed the Federal Emergency Management Agency from 2009 until 2017, was being interviewed by anchor Katy Tur. Fugate was joined in the interview from a remote studio by Andy Slavitt, who was the Obama administrations head of the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services from 2015 until 2017. At one point in the interview, Fugate argued that the response to the coronavirus outbreak cant be handled by a single person at the federal level and that the states should take the lead. MSNBC host Katy Tur (center) on Thursday interviewed two former Obama administration officials about the coronavirus outbreak - former FEMA administrator Craig Fugate (left) and former head of the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services Andy Slavitt (right) Fugate (left) argued that the federal government should allow the states to take the lead in responding the outbreak, while Slavitt (right) disagreed A visibly agitated Fugate (left) is then seen taking his earpiece out and storming off the remote set, saying: 'I don't have time to listen to this bull***, people.' Both Tur and Slavitt appeared stunned after Fugate's abrupt departure from the set on Thursday I've always believed the best way the federal government can support our governors is to get out of their way, he said. Slavitt then responded: With all due respect to your other guest, there's not a governor in the country that's waiting for the federal government right now. They are all acting. What they need is coordination. Because we have, believe it or not, we have masks, we have a lot of these things. Guess where they are? They're sitting in the supply chain, people are profiteering off of them, or they're going to places where people are hoarding them. Slavitt, who also played a key role in Obamacare, said: We need a great partnership between the federal and state government. When Slavitt suggested that Fugate was not being helpful, an agitated Fugate took his earpiece out and said: I dont have time to listen to this bull****, people. Tur then asked Fugate if he had anything to add in response. On Twitter, Fugate was contrite, saying that he 'let emotions get in the way' Slavitt also offered apologies for the incident, saying: 'We're on the same team' Craig, you want to sit down and respond to this? Tur asked. The stunned host then said: I guess Craig has left. When Tur asked Slavitt to respond to Fugate leaving the set, he said: I don't know Craig personally, but I'm sure he's working as hard as anyone and trying his best. Everybody is. These are unprecedented times, so understandable that he's frustrated. Later on in her broadcast, Tur addressed the issue once again, saying: Tensions are really high... We really appreciate Craig Fugate coming on. Hes always been a stellar guest. He was a stellar FEMA administrator by all accounts. And were sorry that it got to that. On Twitter, Fugate was contrite, tweeting: At the point Im not helping, time to step back. Never was good at the talking head thing anyway. This is too critical of a time to let emotions get in the way. My apologies to you and your audience. To which Tur replied: No apologies necessary. Slavitt also offered conciliatory words, tweeting: Craig my sincere apologies for contributing this. Please keep informing people as you do. Youre a terrific public servant. Were on the same team. Fugate then responded to Slavitts apology, tweeting: It is I who must apologize, different views , but the same goal. Changing the outcome of this pandemic. The Trump administration has been harshly criticized for its preparedness during the coronavirus outbreak, particularly for the lack of readily available diagnostic testing for the pathogen. Experts say the lack of testing has placed the US behind the curve in stemming the spread of the virus. Hospitals also say they face critical shortages of personal protection equipment for their doctors and nurses. There is also reported to be a severe lack of ventilators and respirators that will likely be needed for the onslaught of patients expected to inundate emergency rooms in the coming days and weeks. So far, more than 10,000 people worldwide have died and more than a quarter-million have been infected with novel coronavirus. In the United States, there have been a total of more than 14,000 cases and 217 deaths. As the father of a young toddler, the son of two senior parents in the at-risk age group, and the chef/partner of a restaurant that up until recently employed a few dozen people and fed hundreds on any given night, knowing what is and isn't safe in the current environment is of the utmost importance to me, especially as it relates to food and dining. Like many densely populated metropolitan areas, the Bay Area is now on complete lockdown. All non-essential businesses are closed, gatherings of large groups of people are banned, and residents have been told to leave their houses only if necessary. Among the businesses still runningat least in limited capacityare supermarkets and restaurants, the latter of which are solely allowed to operate as take-out and delivery venues. I expect more cities will follow suit in the coming days and weeks. Even so, plenty of folksmyself includedhave been confused or curious about the safety of allowing restaurants to continue preparing and serving food. Is it actually safe? Should I reheat the food when I get it home? Is it better to support local businesses by ordering food, or am I only putting workers and delivery people at risk? And if Im cooking my own food, what guidelines should I follow? To answer these questions, I referenced dozens of articles and scientific reports and enlisted the help of Ben Chapman, a food safety specialist from the North Carolina State University and cohost of Risky or Not and Food Safety Talk, as well as Dr. Angela Rasmussen, a virologist at Columbia University, and Dr. Saskia Popescu, an infectious disease epidemiologist and infection preventionist. This article has been thoroughly vetted for scientific accuracy and I will continue to update it with the most up-to-date information as it emerges. Whether you managed to stock your fridge and pantry, or were left staring at empty supermarket shelves, there's good news: you can still eat safely, even from restaurants, provided you follow a few basic guidelines. I'll start by going over what we know about the virus, followed by some basic rules to safely shop, cook, and order food. SARS-CoV-2: What we know SARS-CoV-2 is the coronavirus that is causing the current outbreak of COVID-19, the name of the disease associated with it (not to be confused with SARS-CoV-1, the coronavirus that caused the original 2002 SARS outbreak). It's important to remember that while SARS-CoV-2 bears close similarities to other coronaviruses (such as SARS-CoV-1 or MERS), it is a novel virus, and new information is emerging minute by minute. Consequently, there's a lot we don't know. That said, there's also a lot that we do know with a good deal of confidence. How does COVID-19 spread? Coronavirus is a respiratory virus, which means that it's spread primarily through the respiratory system. According to the Center for Disease Control (CDC), the main transmission route is through person-to-person droplet infectionthat is, the inhalation of small droplets of saliva or mucus carrying a viral load. (Viral load is the amount of virus particles in a given volume of liquidthe higher the load and the longer the exposure time, the stronger the chance of infection.) This is similar to previous coronaviruses, such as SARS-CoV-1 or MERS. Additionally, people are most contagious when they are symptomatic; coughing and sneezing spreads the virus around. Aside from inhalation, are there other ways coronavirus can spread? While droplet inhalation is the main form of transmission, other types of transmission are plausible. Aerosol inhalationthe inhalation of droplets smaller than 5mis plausible, though according to Dr. Popescu, aerosolized droplets arent typically formed outside of specific hospital procedures. The German Federal Institute for Risk Assessment (BfR) reports that the virus could also be spread through "smear" infection. In these cases, a healthy person would pick up a viral load by touching a recently contaminated surface with their handssay, a can of soup, a touchscreen ATM, or a subway turnstilethen transferring the virus to their eyes or nose where it could cause an infection. Such objects that carry infectious agents are known as "fomites." As of March 25, 2020, the Department of Homeland Securitys (DHS) updated table of questions lists both fomite amd aerosol transmission as merely "plausible." Washing your hands before touching your face further reduces this likelihood, as coronavirus cannot be absorbed through your skin. Currently, the CDC reports that there have been no known cases of fecal-oral transmission of COVID-19. In such a case, viral load in the stool of a carrier would make its way into the mouth of a healthy person. Some possible oral-fecal transmission routes would be from poor hygiene during food preparation, or the exposure of food crops to human fecal matter in the field during growth or harvest. After exposure, the virus would also have to be able to infect its host somewhere along the digestive tract. A recent, non peer-reviewed* Chinese study of 73 possible COVID-19 patients published in Gastroenterology reports that the viral RNA was detectable and viable in the stool of over 50% of patients with COVID-19. During the original SARS coronavirus epidemic, the CDC suggests that "fecal/oral transmission may have occurred in some settings." Harvard Magazine cites a particular outbreak at a Hong Kong apartment complex where 329 residents were infected with SARS, with a vertical pattern of spread. It's theorized that faulty plumbing could have facilitated the fecal-oral or fecal-respiratory spread of the virus. *As all research on COVID-19 is new, very little, if any, has been through rigorous peer-review processes thus far. What is the minimum viral load needed to cause an infection? According to Chapman and Dr. Rasmussen, we dont currently know the viral load needed to cause an infection. With other pathogens, that load can vary depending on the site its depositedfor instance, only a small amount of virus may be necessary if it is inhaled directly into the lungs, while the load needed to cause an infection through the nose or eyes may be much larger. Its also important to remember that there is no single point where the viral load goes from being non-infectious to infectiousits all about probabilities. The higher the load and the closer to infectable cells its deposited, the higher the probability of contracting COVID-19. The DHS table has updated information on what we know about the infectious dose based on animal testing and other studies. How long does the virus stay on contaminated surfaces? A study funded by the NIAID and published in the New England Journal of Medicine found that SARS-CoV-2 can be detected in aerosols (airborne droplets smaller than five micrometers) for up to three hours, on copper for up to four hours, on cardboard for up to 24 hours, and on stainless steel or plastic for up to three days. (Follow the link for more comprehensive graphs of viral load decay.) This means that if a delivery person or package handler infected with the virus coughs or sneezes on packages or envelopes, the virus can stay on those packages for up to a day, while plastic take-out containers or steel work surfaces can hold the virus for three days. The viral load on any surface will decrease exponentially with time; that is, the number of virus particles decreases rapidly at the start, then slowly approaches zero over time. If inhalation is the main form of transmission, why has everyone been stressing hand washing? Though the likelihood of getting COVID-19 by touching contaminated objects may be a small risk, its still a risk, and easily avoided. That risk can also vary greatly depending on several factors, such as how recently the object was contaminated, how frequently its cleaned, and how moist or porous its surface is. Because of the wide range of situations we find ourselves in, it is easier to be safe than sorry. Moreover, frequent hand washing can also help prevent the spread of pathogens aside from coronavirus. This is important, as our goal is not just to avoid COVID-19, but to avoid getting sick or injured at all during this critical period while hospitals and staff are overworked. What are the "hot zones" on my face? Which areas should I avoid touching? According to Dr. Rasmussen, the nose is the main hot zone. The eyes could potentially be as well, as some viruses transmit via mucosal membranes in the eyes. (According to the WHO, fewer than 1% of infected individuals report conjunctivitiseye infections.) The mouth is another potential route for infection, especially when you are not actively salivating, chewing, or swallowing (i.e. sucking a finger, biting your nails, or any other activity that increases exposure time also increases risk.) Should I avoid touching things other people have touched? Avoiding all potentially contaminated surfaces is unrealistic. Still, there are two easy ways you can minimize the risk: Transfer food and other goodswhether delivered to your door or bought at the storeto clean containers when it makes sense to, and wash your hands thoroughly after checking the mail or venturing out of your home. You can also set aside packages and shelf-stable groceries in a garage or spare room for a few days to allow any potential viral contamination to fade and effectively take already-small odds and reduce them even closer to zero. Coronavirus is fragile and easily destroyed by hand soap, disinfectant wipes, and cleaning sprays (well get to more specific details on this). How long does the virus last on food? The data for how long the virus can remain viable on food is limited, but in general, viral loads remain more stable on non-porous surfaces like metal and plastic, and break down faster on organic surfaces like cardboard. Can I get COVID-19 from touching or eating contaminated food? "there is currently no evidence that COVID-19 has spread through food or food packaging." According to multiple health and safety organizations worldwide, including the CDC, the USDA, and the European Food safety Authority, there is currently no evidence that COVID-19 has spread through food or food packaging. Previous coronavirus epidemics likewise showed no evidence of having been spread through food or packaging. Are we sure food isnt a vector of COVID-19 transmission? No, we don't know for sure. However, there is strong evidence to suggest that food is not a vector. The epidemiology of food-borne pathogens is well studied, with government data going back to 1938. The spread pattern of COVID-19 does not fit models of foodborne outbreaks, which are defined as two or more people getting sick from the same contaminated food or drink. For instance, Singapore has tracked its COVID-19 patients and submitted them to extensive interviews by teams from the Ministry of Health to try to determine patterns of spread. It's been found that most cases are linked to clusters of people, including hotel guests attending conferences, church groups, and shoppers, while none are linked to contaminated food or drink. The fact that every person eats multiple times a day and thus far no link has been found between eating and viral clusters is strong evidence that no such link exists. Im still not convinced. How could food not be a vector? Lets say a food worker coughs while preparing my food, how could I not pick up the virus from eating it? This confused me as well, which is why I specifically inquired about it. According to Chapman, the risk is minimal. Even if a worker sneezes directly into a bowl of raw salad greens before packing it in a take-out container for you to take home, as gross as it is, it's unlikely to get you sick. This 2018 overview of both experimental and observational study of respiratory viruses from the scientific journal Current Opion in Virology (COVIRO) explains that respiratory viruses reproduce along the respiratory tracta different pathway than the digestive tract food follows when you swallow it. And while you might say that you just inhaled that salad, more likely you ate it with a fork and swallowed it. Dr. Rasmussen concurs, adding that when actively eatingthat is, producing saliva, chewing, and swallowingwe are protected from infection in two ways. First, saliva contains proteolytic enzymeschemicals that break down proteinswhich help break down our food and pathogens. Second, the act of chewing and swallowing minimizes the amount of time that any potentially infectious viral load is in contact with mucosa or the upper respiratory tract. The less time a pathogen spends in contact with potentially infectable cells, the lower the likelihood of actual infection. What about eating with your hands? So if ingesting the virus isn't a concern, what about this scenario: a worker coughs on a cutting board then assembles a hamburger directly on that board before placing it in a take-out container. You then come home and eat that burger with your bare hands, then pick your nose, or do something else that deposits the virus along your respiratory tract. In this situation, the viral load has been diluted several times. First when it was transferred from the board to the burger bun. Next, more viral load was shed when the bun was placed in the takeout container. It is diluted again when you pick up the burger before interacting with your face in inadvisable ways. While he didn't rule out the possibility of picking up the disease this way, Chapman described it as "a moonshot, even before you touch your face." Using clean silverware when possible, avoiding touching other parts of your face while eating, and washing your hands after eating (and before touching your face) further minimizes that risk. Are there any special risks associated with food? None that have been recognized. Food handlers are specifically trained in proper safety and hygiene procedures. Federal and state-level regulations mandate everything: the location of handwashing sinks, the type of soap used in them, the frequency of work-surface sanitization, the temperature of the dishwasher, the temperature to which various foods must be cooked, the rate at which they must be chilled, the cleaning and storage process for raw product, et cetera. Any restaurant or market that handles, packages, or serves food should beand usually isfollowing all of these guidelines. The penalties for noncompliance vary by jurisdiction, but are typically severe, ranging from posted notices for minor violations to outright shut-downs to multiple minor violations or major violations. (Here are Californias code and enforcement guidelines, for reference.) The point is: Eating food is not any riskier than any number of other activities you perform on a daily basis in which you come into contact with items other people have handled. Indeed, the hygiene standards in place at food service operations make that risk even smaller. Am I more likely to get COVID-19 from take-out, delivery, or cooking at home? The main risk factor is proximity to other people, so inasmuch as you have a higher chance of coming in contact with other people outside your own home, picking up food is a higher risk than having it delivered or cooking it yourself. That said, there are other risks associated with cooking at home, particularly in shopping at supermarkets and handling potentially contaminated food packaging. The cook at your local restaurant most likely follows stricter hygiene and safety protocols than the supermarket worker stocking the shelves. A good rule of thumb is to treat anything that comes into your home from outside, whether food, mail, or other people, as potentially contaminated and act accordingly. Wash your hands after bringing it home, transfer to clean containers and/or sanitize packaging when possible, and wash your hands before, during, and after cooking. (And stop picking your nose.) Does Chinese food pose a greater risk than other food? What about imported food and goods? Theres no indication of additional risk associated with imported foods or other products. Viral load decreases on all products with timewhether that's a plastic toy or a bunch of bananas. The increased transportation time for imported goods means that its far more likely to be contaminated by the person unloading the shipping container or stocking the grocery store shelf than anyone at its point of origin. While it is true that COVID-19 originated in China, all indications show that the transmission to other countries has been person-to-person, which is why efforts by authorities ranging from state and local governments to the WHO are focused on limiting person-to-person contact, not the movement of goods. If Im still concerned, does reheating food before eating it destroy the virus? Yes. As with any bacteria or virus, safe cooking is a function of temperature and time. The hotter the temperature, the less time you'll need to reduce viral or bacterial load to a safe level. With salmonella, for instance, 165F (75C) is hot enough to make a 5-log reduction in bacterial load in under a second (that is, only one out of every 100,000 bacteria will survive that temperature and time). At 145F (63C), the same reduction in pathogens would take around 10 minutes. (Bear in mind this is the temperature of the food, not the oven.) Temperatures and times for coronavirus are not yet fully researched, but scientists suggest a temperature of 149F (65C) for at least 3 minutes is sufficient. Experts assume that the virus will respond like other pathogens and that hotter temperatures will require shorter times, but we currently do not have experimental data to prove it. When reheating or cooking solid foods, such as a chicken breast, a steak, or a loaf of bread, it is very unlikely that any viral or bacterial load will have penetrated past the surface unless the food has been pierced or cut, so heating just the exterior is sufficient (for safety, if not for palatability). How do I sterilize my food? Heat liquids like soups, stews, and sauces to a brief simmer, making sure to stir frequently so that it heats evenly throughout. Microwave vegetables, pasta, thick purees like mashed potatoes, and meat until piping hothot enough that youd worry about burning your mouth if you took a bite. For most microwaves, that means about 90 seconds per serving on high heat (but microwave power can vary). Saute loose bite-sized items like short pasta shapes, loose vegetables, or stir-fries until they maintain a steady sizzle as you stir them around the pan. A minute or two in a preheated skillet is sufficient for a couple of servings. To reheat cutlets, casseroles, or bread in the oven, preheat the oven to 400F (205C), place the food on an oven-safe tray with shallow sides (high sides can block hot air from circulating), and heat until the surface of the food is too hot to touch for more than an instant. If you own a sous-vide circulator, follow the appropriate sous vide recipe guide in our archives. Treat whatever food you are reheating as if it were starting from raw. (See the next section for more information on the safety of slowly reheating food.) Chopped-and-formed foods like meatloaf, meatballs, dumplings, falafel, etc. should be thoroughly heated to the center, following the time and temperature guidelines stated above (heat to an internal temperature of at least 149F/65C, and hold it there for at least 3 minutes). If you want to be extra-careful, use a digital thermometer to check the temperature of your food inside and out before serving or eating. Does "the danger zone" apply to SARS-CoV-2? You may be familiar with the concept of "the danger zone," the temperature range of 41F to 135F in which bacteria thrive. Proper food handling dictates that foods spend no longer than four hours total between those temperature ranges before consumption. When reheating food, this includes the original cook time, the cooling time, and the reheating time (pay extra attention to this when reheating foods sous vide). The good news is that viruses require a host cell to replicate, which means that the coronavirus will not multiply on your food, even within the danger zone. Indeed, just as it does on other surfaces, the viral load on your food will decrease with time. That said, you should still continue to follow good food safety procedures and mind that danger zoneall the normal bugs are around, even during the coronavirus pandemic. Are we going to run out of food? Because limiting your time out of home can slow the spread of the virus, its a good idea to make fewer, larger trips to the supermarket. But how much food do you really need? Initial panic and hoarding behavior has caused short-term shortages at supermarkets and grocery stores across the country. But theres good news: the FDA reports that there are currently no long-term issues with food supplies. In all likelihood, youre still going to be able to buy eggs, dairy, dried and canned goods, paper products, fresh meat and produce, and even soap next week and next month. Theres no need to buy a three month supply of canned soup or years worth of toilet paper. That said, we have yet to see the long-term effects of COVID-19 on farms (especially as it relates to seasonal workers whose dense living arrangements are ripe grounds for coronavirus spread), or the trucking and shipping industry. Food wholesalers will also have to alter supply chains to accommodate higher sales in supermarkets and online retailers, and lower sales in restaurants. Many restaurants have shuttered for an indeterminate period, and others, like my own restaurant, Wursthall, have shifted to limited, take-out-and-and-delivey-only menu formats. (Beyond food safety, this brings with it a host of other economic implications.) Time will tell, but the reality is that those of us who were food-secure before this outbreak will likely remain so. Its those of us who were most vulnerable before the outbreak who are most likely to suffer now. I urge you to look into local organizations that assist families and individuals in need to see how you can help. Time and money are equally valuable resources these days. Whats the safest way to shop at the grocery store or supermarket? Heres my strongest recommendation: go to the local grocery store instead of the big shops. Smaller stores mean fewer customers, which lowers the odds of running into infected people and contaminated surfaces. Moreover, while the Costco and Safeway near my house have had trouble keeping anything on their shelves, Ive made trips to my local Japanese market, Chinese supermarket, and Latin produce market and found them fully stocked with goods, and nearly empty of people. (And I promise you, theyll appreciate the business right now). Here are a few ways you can keep yourself safe at the supermarket: Go at off-peak hours to avoid crowds. Bonus: Most supermarkets restock their shelves with deliveries late at night. Hit them up at this time or early in the morning and youll be rewarded with wide open, freshly-stocked aisles. Bonus: Most supermarkets restock their shelves with deliveries late at night. Hit them up at this time or early in the morning and youll be rewarded with wide open, freshly-stocked aisles. Keep your distance in line. I've seen people lining up right next to each other for the pharmacy and the supermarket checkout. Don't do that! Wait in line at least 6 feet away from the person in front of you, and gently request that anyone behind you follow the same rule, for everyone's safety. I've seen people lining up right next to each other for the pharmacy and the supermarket checkout. Don't do that! Wait in line at least 6 feet away from the person in front of you, and gently request that anyone behind you follow the same rule, for everyone's safety. Overfill your prescriptions if possible. Talk to your Doctor about ensuring you have enough of your prescription medications to last for at least several weeks to avoid extra trips to the pharmacy. Talk to your Doctor about ensuring you have enough of your prescription medications to last for at least several weeks to avoid extra trips to the pharmacy. Using the self-checkout lane reduces your contact with other people, but it also increases interaction with secondary potential infection points, like the touchscreen display and the bar code scanner. On balance, Id recommend avoiding person-to-person contact over surface contact and stick with the self-checkout. If you do go with a cashier, bag your own groceries rather than having them handled by another person any longer than necessary. reduces your contact with other people, but it also increases interaction with secondary potential infection points, like the touchscreen display and the bar code scanner. On balance, Id recommend avoiding person-to-person contact over surface contact and stick with the self-checkout. If you do go with a cashier, bag your own groceries rather than having them handled by another person any longer than necessary. Wash your hands when you get home and if possible, use a hand sanitizer after leaving the store and before touching the door to your vehicle or home. and if possible, use a hand sanitizer after leaving the store and before touching the door to your vehicle or home. Don't hoard. This is not the zombie apocalypse. Get what youll need for a few weeks at most. This is not the zombie apocalypse. Get what youll need for a few weeks at most. Use touchless pay systems. Your phone probably already has a touchless pay system you can link to your bank account. If you can't go touchless, use a credit card and avoid cash when possible. Is it okay to buy produce from open bins? So long as you are following proper food preparation procedures at homeclean, separate, cook, and chilland following the basic hygiene guides explained here and elsewhere, the risk from getting COVID-19 through produce that other people have touched is minimal. Remember: not a single positive case has been linked to food. Paper or plastic? Which is safer? What about my own reusable bag? The likelihood of any disposable bag you get from the shop having an infectious load on them is very slim, due to the length of time those bags sit in transit or storage. The bags then get pulled and opened one at a time on a per-use basis. With your own bags, the risk is also minimal. Cloth has a small advantage because you can wash it with detergents, which are very effective against viruses. Should I be using an antibacterial soap? There is no advantage to using an antibacterial soap over any other soap. First off, COVID-19 is caused by a virus, not a bacterium. More importantly, the mechanism by which soap protects against viruses is inherent to all soaps. The same properties that make soap effective for cleaning greasy pots and pans make it effective against viruses. Viruses are protected by a lipid and protein membrane. Soap is a surfactant specifically intended to dissolve lipids. As Professor Pall Thordarson, acting head of chemistry at the University of New South Wales explains in The New York Times, soap molecules act like miniature crowbars that pry open virus particles, effectively neutralizing them. Any hand or body soap is effective for washing ourselves, no antibacterial agents needed. What about hand sanitizers? Assuming you can get a bottle, the CDC recommends using a hand sanitizer with at least 60% ethanol or 70% isopropanol. Most brands of hand sanitizer fall into this range. I would recommend sticking to regular old soap at home and carrying around a small bottle of sanitizer with you when venturing outside. Its especially useful to have when you want to sanitize your hands before re-entering your vehicle or touching your front door knob. What about masks? Do surgical or N95 masks protect you? Surgical masks can offer some amount of protection against droplets and aerosols, but only if they are used correctly. Masks should cover the nose and mouth, and once in place, should not be touched other than to discard them. Because masks can become damp, its possible that virus particles could collect and concentrate on them, increasing the risk of infection if they are not removed and disposed-of properly. New research in Hong Kong shows that infectious virus can be detected on a surgical mask for seven days, making used masks a potential route for infection. A recent article in the Washington Post written by data scientist Jeremy Howard suggests using homemade masks will decrease likelihood of transmission. However, according to both Drs. Rasmussen and Popescu, this suggestion ignores studies that show that even trained healthcare workers make errors when putting on and removing Personal Protective Equipment (PPE) which can increase the likelihood of infection. If you are infected or a non-symptomatic carrier, a surgical mask can help protect others you may come in contact with, as it reduces the distance and spread of droplets. N95 masks offer protection against aerosols, but according to Dr. Popescu, it is unlikely that most people will be in situations that expose them to aerosolized virus. These situations are more likely to occur in hospitals during certain procedures. She also emphasizes that the length of exposure is a major factor in likelihood of infection. Masks are especially useful during prolonged, close exposure to potentially infected individuals. Its unclear whether they are as useful when worn in fast, transactional situations. Even more so than surgical masks, N95 masks have to be properly fitted, and you must be properly trained in their use for them to be effective. How long does an infected individual remain contagious after their symptoms clear up? If youve had flu-like symptoms including a fever, coughing, sneezing, runny nose, or shortness of breath, but have not been tested for COVID-19, the CDC recommends staying at home for 72 hours after your fever clears and at least 7 days after your symptoms first started. If you have tested positive for COVID-19, they recommend home isolation (that is, staying in a designated "sick room" in your home with minimal contact with other people) until your fever and symptoms have cleared, and two tests taken 24 hours apart both return negative results. What special precautions should restaurant owners, kitchen managers, or other folks with food-related businesses be taking? As the chef/partner at a restaurant, I have a few priorities. First and foremost is to keep my employees, customers, and community safe from the virus, and to ensure that we are doing our part to keep the virus from spreading. To this end, weve implemented the following procedures. Given the unlikelihood of foodborne transmission, many of these steps may be overkill, but they cost us very little to implement and every reasonable chance to reduce transmission is one we should take. Safety for staff: Schedule staffing density to levels that allow a minimum of six feet of distance between all employees at all times. As too many small business owners are aware, this is probably the easiest one to implement right now, as there simply isnt work for a full staff at the moment. Most of our employees have been furloughed for the time being (more on that in the section below). As too many small business owners are aware, this is probably the easiest one to implement right now, as there simply isnt work for a full staff at the moment. Most of our employees have been furloughed for the time being (more on that in the section below). Do not incentivise working while ill or going out while symptomatic. Encourage your staff to take the epidemic seriously. If you can, offer short-term sick leave without the need for a doctors note to avoid unnecessary hospital or doctors office visits. If an employee is symptomatic, send them home (with sick leave pay, when possible). If your operation has a sick leave policy that involves the accrual of hours, ignore the accrual and offer full sick leave benefits even to new employees. Currently, the contagion period after symptoms clear up is not known. Any employee who has been positively diagnosed with COVID-19, or has shown the symptoms should continue to stay at home until local health officials deem it safe to resume work. Encourage your staff to take the epidemic seriously. If you can, offer short-term sick leave without the need for a doctors note to avoid unnecessary hospital or doctors office visits. If an employee is symptomatic, send them home (with sick leave pay, when possible). If your operation has a sick leave policy that involves the accrual of hours, ignore the accrual and offer full sick leave benefits even to new employees. Currently, the contagion period after symptoms clear up is not known. Any employee who has been positively diagnosed with COVID-19, or has shown the symptoms should continue to stay at home until local health officials deem it safe to resume work. Hold meetings remotely when possible. If in-person meetings are necessary, keep attendance at a bare minimum and hold the meetings sitting at least six feet apart from one another. If in-person meetings are necessary, keep attendance at a bare minimum and hold the meetings sitting at least six feet apart from one another. Create systems for contact-free exchange of necessary documents, food, and equipment. Rather than passing equipment or food to each other, one employee will set it on a table, step away, and allow the other to come pick it up. Pay checks and other documents are laid out on a table for employees to walk up to one at a time and pick up as necessary. Rather than passing equipment or food to each other, one employee will set it on a table, step away, and allow the other to come pick it up. Pay checks and other documents are laid out on a table for employees to walk up to one at a time and pick up as necessary. Prop open any doors that are regularly accessed , including the entrance to the main kitchen, dish room, prep kitchen, offices, and bathrooms. , including the entrance to the main kitchen, dish room, prep kitchen, offices, and bathrooms. Reiterate the importance of hygiene and food safety protocols to all crew members. Communicate those protocols in all languages spoken in the kitchen (in our case thats English and Spanish) both verbally and in print. to all crew members. Communicate those protocols in all languages spoken in the kitchen (in our case thats English and Spanish) both verbally and in print. Ensure that hand washing stations in particular are well-maintained , and that every worker has an adequate supply of soap and gloves to use as necessary. , and that every worker has an adequate supply of soap and gloves to use as necessary. Provide hand-sanitizing stations to non-kitchen workers where hand washing sinks are not as readily available, such as by the front door or the dining room-side of the pass. Safety for customers and community: Transition to take-out only service. We no longer offer dine-in service and will not resume until scientists and state officials deem it safe to continue. We no longer offer dine-in service and will not resume until scientists and state officials deem it safe to continue. Remove all physical menus and payment points. Printed menus can be a source of surface transmission of viral particles. We have transitioned to an online-only ordering system. If you must continue to use printed menus, either sanitize plastic-coated menus with an EPA-approved sanitizing product, or use single-use paper menus that customer can discard on their own. Printed menus can be a source of surface transmission of viral particles. We have transitioned to an online-only ordering system. If you must continue to use printed menus, either sanitize plastic-coated menus with an EPA-approved sanitizing product, or use single-use paper menus that customer can discard on their own. Switch to no-contact payment methods. All of our take-out orders must be ordered online. We accept no cash or on-site credit card orders. If you cant go online-only, encourage the use of contact-free credit card devices and have the POS operator step back from the device before allowing a customer to come up to tap their phone or insert their credit card. Avoid cash as much as possible. All of our take-out orders must be ordered online. We accept no cash or on-site credit card orders. If you cant go online-only, encourage the use of contact-free credit card devices and have the POS operator step back from the device before allowing a customer to come up to tap their phone or insert their credit card. Avoid cash as much as possible. Offer contact-free door opening if possible. Restaurants and businesses that follow current American Disabilities Act guidelines will likely have pneumatically-operated doors with a push switch both inside and out. Encourage its use among staff and with signage for customers, and push the button with a knee or elbow instead of your hand. If possible, keep the front door propped open. Restaurants and businesses that follow current American Disabilities Act guidelines will likely have pneumatically-operated doors with a push switch both inside and out. Encourage its use among staff and with signage for customers, and push the button with a knee or elbow instead of your hand. If possible, keep the front door propped open. Offer contact-free pickup. We place ready-to-go orders on a table by our front door with the name of the customer who ordered it. We have signage asking guests to maintain six feet of distance with the party in front of them in case of a line (we have not had a line yet, for better or worse). We place ready-to-go orders on a table by our front door with the name of the customer who ordered it. We have signage asking guests to maintain six feet of distance with the party in front of them in case of a line (we have not had a line yet, for better or worse). Remove all condiment bottles, loose napkins, loose silverware, water bottles, and table decorations. Anything that may result in more than one customer touching the same surface is a potential point of cross-contamination. After physical health, my and my teams second priority is to work as hard and smart as we possibly can to come up with creative ways to generate revenue that will allow us to rehire employees that we have been forced to furlough, to make sure that employees and their families suffer as little as possible during these tough times, to guarantee that theyll have a job to return to when this is all over, and to use our resources to help those who are most vulnerable in our greater community. To this end, we suggest the following and are still working around the clock to come up with new ways to tackle the problem. No small business owner wants to see their employees suffer or struggle. Wed move mountains to guarantee their wellbeing if we could. Guarantee jobs for all furloughed employees as soon as you can generate the revenue to rehire them and guarantee their safety, and allow any benefits that are dependent on length of employment to continue rolling during any shut-down period. Facilitate the transition to unemployment benefits for all employees who qualify for them. I do not know of any restaurant that is able to keep their full staff employed, which means many folks will be relying on unemployment benefits to make ends meet. Research your states unemployment benefit policies and procedures and get the messaging out to staff in all languages spoken at your facility. Directly assist employees who may be struggling to make ends meet. Those with children out of school, with large families, or with spouses who are also currently out of work especially need help. Our goal is to tactfully and proactively help by providing meals to deliver to employees who need them, and to rehire those who are hit especially hard before those who can weather the storm more easily. Sell gift cards. We currently offer gift cards redeemable when we eventually reopen that will give customers an additional 10% value when redeemed. This extra cash goes towards maintaining the minimum operating expenses of the business. (Gift cards are not a viable long-term revenue solution, as they dont generate extra income in the long run, they merely put off debt to an unknown future date.) Come up with creative alternate revenue streams. Many restaurant owners are forgoing profits and salaries and putting that money back towards directly helping staff and feeding needy community members. Personally I take no income from Wursthall and I am donating 100% of the commission from my two books sold on bookshop.org towards a fund that will be used to make meals for employees and the greater community. Additionally, we are currently in contact with several organizations to figure out how we can best use our facilities to prepare and get food to those in need. Ideally our take-out business will be supplemented by a free-meal service that generates enough revenue through donations to be able to hire back our kitchen staff in shifts to prepare meals, and our front of house staff to coordinate and deliver. Its not easy to redesign a business from the ground up, but every chef I have spoken to is working in the same boat and working on similar projects. Every other food business owner and chef Ive spoken to has the same goals in mind. If you have ideas for what business operators could be doing to help their employees or community at this time, please do not hesitate to comment with specific or broad suggestions. To Sum It All Up: Social distancing, good hygiene, and avoiding touching your face are the most important precautions you should be taking, but there are other ways to help stay healthy. First, as much as you can, try to get good sleep, reduce stress, eat well, and relax. Meta-analyses of scientific research show that long-term stress and fatigue can weaken your immune system's response to infection, and a healthy immune system is your first line of defense not just against the coronavirus, but against a host of other pathogens that could get you sick and potentially take up valuable healthcare resources. As difficult as it may be to keep your mind relaxed, now is not the time to stress about work or get angry about politics (or to stay up all night researching and writing articles, for that matter). Turn toward hobbies you know bring you comfort and relaxation. Play some video games. Do some puzzles. Spend time with your family. One good way to keep yourself occupied? Clean your living space, especially hard, high-traffic surfaces. Wipe down counters, refrigerators, doors (especially the handles), and bathroom fixtures with an EPA-approved disinfectant cleaning product a couple times a day, and more frequently if you are still going in and out of your house or handling packages that have been delivered to you. (And if youre the type of person that finds cooking and eating relaxing, well I know a great place to find recipes, a pretty good cookbook,** and a decent restaurant thats still open for take-out in the Bay Area.) **If you order either my first book, The Food Lab, or my upcoming childrens book Every Night is Pizza Night through that link, not only will 100% of my sales commission be going directly towards producing food to be served free of charge to needy families and individuals affected by school and business shut-downs in San Mateo, an additional 10% of the sale cost will go to a nationwide network of independent bookstores. How can I help? Aside from keeping yourself, your family, and your community safe by following distancing and hygiene protocols, the best way you can help is most likely at a local level. In my own research Ive found that the organizations most in need are those addressing folks who were already food-insecure before the outbreak occurred. Homeless shelters and programs that distribute food to children and seniors seem to be particularly hard-up for monetary and food donations. Local healthcare workers and emergency responders are also working hard around the clock. In many communities, grassroots organizations are already springing up to try and connect individual donors and restaurants with food resources to spare with hospitals and healthcare workers. Its worth a local Google search to try and find organizations in your area. On a national level, Charity Navigator has a list of highly-rated charities that are directly working on COVID-19 relief. Footnotes Here are a couple more frequently asked questions that are not directly related to food safety. How fast does Covid-19 spread? The International Journal of Infectious Disease reports that the early phase of the COVID-19 epidemic has shown exponential growthin line with the World Health Organization's assessment. What is exponential growth? It means that over each given measurement period (say, each day), the number of cases will increase by the same factor. With exponential growth, small differences in the growth factor can effect large downstream changes. That is why slowing the spread early on ("flattening the curve") is so important. Why does Covid-19 seem to be spreading faster than previous coronavirus epidemics? One likely answer is "stealth" spreading. Those infected with SARS-CoV-2 typically don't show symptoms for several days, and even then, symptoms can be mild, leading them to attend public events and mingle with crowds as they normally would. Consequently, according to a mathematical simulation published in the journal Science, 86% of Covid-19 infections were undocumented prior to the January 23rd travel restrictions implemented by many countries, following the World Health Organization declaration that the outbreak was an international emergency. Here in the US, folks have still been partying like it's 1999 as recently as last weekend, despite the advice given by Anthony Fauci, the director of the National Institute of Infectious Disease (NIAID), to lawmakers last Wednesday, urging them to tell constituents to cancel parties and large events. Some politicians have even suggested people go out to the pub. (This is bad advice.) Additionally, the journal Nature reports that researchers have identified an enzyme found in human cells called furin that might factor into Covid-19 activation. This is significant because furin is found in cells in the lungs, liver, and small intestines, making them all potential sites for Covid-19 infection, though the scientists warn that this is still an untested hypothesis, and that coronaviruses can act unpredictably. Ive heard that the coronavirus attaches to cells that have "ACE-2" receptors. Does this mean that all cells with ACE-2 receptors are possible routes for infection? Angiotensin Converting Enzyme 2 (ACE-2) has been shown to be the entry point for coronavirus to infect cells. However, it is unlikely that all cells expressing ACE-2 are infectable. With coronaviruses, there are many proteins we think are involved and many more that could feasibly be involved in its infection route, meaning that ACE-2 expression is a necessary condition for infection, but its not a sufficient condition. Basically, if the coronavirus were a global game of Guess Who?, knowing that it requires ACE-2 receptors is like saying weve managed to rule out all the people wearing hats. It does not immediately follow that everyone without a hat should not be trusted. What exactly does "flatten the curve" mean? "Flattening the curve" is not necessarily about limiting the total number of infections caused by the outbreak. Rather, the idea is to spread those infections out over as long a period of time as possible in order to ease the strain on our healthcare system. The New York Times reported on a Harvard University analysis that showed that even in a moderate scenario that assumes 40% of American adults contract the coronavirus some time in the next 12 months, hospitals in many areas of the country will need two to three times the number of beds they currently have. If that same 40% gets infected in a six month period, that number jumps up to four to six times as many. Intensive Care Units (ICU) will be hit even harder. New York State has a total of 3,000 ICU beds, only 600 of which are currently unoccupied. At the current rate of spread, epidemiologistsscientists who study the spread of diseasespredict that the outbreak will peak in New York in 45 days, requiring 37,200 ICU beds. Thats over 60 times as many beds as are currently available. Spreading out the infections over a longer period of time can also buy medical researchers more time to work on a vaccine to further slow the spread of the disease. This visualization can help you understand these effects. Editors Note: We are regularly updating this article to reflect emerging findings and virologist-vetted recommendations. Last updated March 30, 2020. The social media giant TikTok said that it would donate $3 million to After-School All-Stars, a charity founded by actor and former California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger, to feed families whose food security was affected by the close of public schools in response to the COVID-19 outbreak. TikTok said in a statement Thursday that families in 60 cities with After-School All-Stars chapters would receive food vouchers and gift cards that can be spent on food and other essentials through local grocery stores. "We are all operating in uncertain times, and it's more important now than ever before for both our local and global communities to come together to help those in need," said Vanessa Pappas, general manager of TikTok U.S., in a statement. "This pledge to ASAS will help more students get access to meals, safely provided to them, during this crisis. While this alone won't mitigate the impact of the current situation, we hope it can relieve one worry for parents who are balancing social distancing mandates, work and caring for children who can no longer go to school each day." Chapters in cities that have been hardest hit by the epidemic will receive the aid, including Los Angeles, Miami, New York, Newark, San Francisco, Seattle and Washington. Corporate partners in the initiative include Food Land, Giant, Kroger, Publix, Ralphs, Safeway, Target and Walmart . TikTok, which is owned by the Chinese media company Bytedance, also said it would match up to $1 million in employee donations to the ASAS to boost the organization's ability to provide food. "During a crisis, improvisation is critical and everyone has to look at new ways to help the most vulnerable," said Schwarzenegger. "The After-School All-Stars programs are paused with schools closed, but we remain committed to supporting the 100,000 families we work with year-round. When I founded After-School All-Stars in 1992, the goal was always to support the families who need it the most. I'm grateful to TikTok for their donation which allows us to shift our priorities so our team can safely deliver groceries and gift cards for groceries to the families we help." HARTFORD After announcing the states fourth COVID-19 fatality, a Norwalk woman in her 80s, Gov. Ned Lamont on Friday ordered that non-essential workers, public and private, stay home to promote social distancing and slow the spread of the coronavirus. There were few details about the latest death. The woman had been living in her own home and died in Norwalk Hospital. The Stay Safe, Stay Home initiative, developed in conjunction with New York State, will start at 8 p.m. on Monday and last until April 22, subject to revisions. Its tough medicine, Lamont said. I think its the right medicine. What were trying to do is everything we can to improve the supply when it comes to what we can do for our health care system. Lamont suggested that people over 70, who are most-vulnerable to the virus, stay inside, exercise alone and avoid mass transit if possible. The goal is to not overtax hospitals, spreading out the infection rates over weeks and months rather than days. Exempted businesses include the news media, food stores, gas stations, health care offices, pharmacies, child care, banks, public transportation, auto repair, vehicle repair shops, large construction projects and major defense contractors such as Sikorsky Aircraft, Electric Boat and Pratt & Whitney. Package stores, too, are allowed to remain open. Tele-commute, dont come into the office, Lamont said in the Gov. William A. ONeill State Armory. I want to see the rest of all those non-essential services closed, at least for a few weeks or the foreseeable future. That means clothing stores, most offices and sellers of all sorts of general merchandise are expected to close by the deadline, under an order that Lamonts office said would come out late Friday or early Saturday. Lamont had previously shut down restaurants, bars and most businesses where large numbers of people gather. And he had set a limit of 10 people for public events. More Information What's open Monday at 8 a.m.? Supermarkets and pharmacies, hardware stores, transportation operations including buses and trains, health care offices, child care services, restaurant and bar takeouts and deliveries, liquor stores, banks, vehicle repair shops, large construction projects and major defense contractors such as Sikorsky Aircraft, Electric Boat and Pratt & Whitney. See More Collapse Beyond the orders, Lamont strongly discouraged even small social gatherings in residents homes. He declined to say exactly how many is too many. The smaller the group, the safer it is for everybody, he said. Walking a fine line It was a fine line for Lamont, speaking in the cavernous main armory hall, during an afternoon news conference, before a socially distanced, temperature-screened, sparse group of reporters and state officials. On the one hand, he wants everyone certainly including himself, as he stays in the Executive Residence most of the time to follow a clear set of rules. The governor warned that businesses that remain open could face civil fines and he made it clear the order is just that, an executive order. On the other hand, Lamont stressed what he described as a statewide cooperative effort to battle the spread of the virus, using common sense and a spirit that we all want the same goal to halt the coronavirus pandemic. The municipal police are not going to be heavy-handed, but if there are 15 kids hanging out under the basketball hoop, theyre going to say guys this is not safe for you and it is not safe for the community, Lamont said. He said even the large defense contractors, prevented from closure under federal law, should have reduced staffs who have been tested for COVID-19, if possible. Anybody that doesnt have to be on the factory floor, he said, send them home. The order closely parallels New York Gov. Andrew Cuomos declaration earlier in the day, but falls short of the edict from Gov. Gavin Newsom of California, in which residents must remain in place except for essential goods and services. It was clear from reporters questions that essential business includes some gray area, at least until Lamonts office issues clarifications. For example, hardware stores are okay to stay open, but not furniture and housewares. When a spokesman said bridal shops are non-essential, a reporter shot back, not to the bride! 194 confirmed cases Lamont announced that the total of those infected is 194, including 35 since Thursday. Of those, 122 are in Fairfield County and the next highest county is Hartford, with 29. New London County had its first case reported Friday, so all counties now have had at least one. Forty people are hospitalized. The state is now able to test 1,000 potential cases a day, Lamont said, mostly through private and hospital-based testing that has ramped-up all week. Lamont put out a call to companies that have extra protective medical equipment, asking to buy it, or the state will accept donations. Theres a nationwide shortage, he said. We did get a small allocation from the feds. We are getting that distributed now to our hospitals and nursing homes, but we have a long way to go there. If there are any companies that have the ability to manufacture this, well place an order, well help you get the incentives to get started, and Ive got fellow governors who will make that order even bigger. He asked doctors and patients to call off elective surgeries to save the protective gear, and asked that trained medical personnel, particular nurses and nursing students, make themselves known. He said 500 retired nurses have already come forward to go back on duty in the public health crisis. Were going to get through this by working together and making sure each and every one of you takes so seriously what were trying to emphasize, Lamont said. Josh Geballe, Lamonts chief operating officer, said food pantries need volunteers and the Red Cross needs blood donations, in the effort to fight the spread of COVID-19, and that people who suddenly find themselves home from work, should consider volunteering in what amounts to be a wartime effort against the virus and its effects. Related developments * The state Department of Labor reported an additional 16,000 claims for unemployment benefits, bringing the total to 70,000 over the last seven days very likely an all-time record. A typical week in good times is about 3,000, and in a recession thats spread out over time, perhaps 5,000 or 10,000. The filings are taxing a system that was set up to handle as many as 4,000 a day but the department has added resources. * Barbara and Ray Dalio and Dalio Philanthropies announced they would donate $3 million for 26 childcare centers near hospitals where the parents of 1,066 kids work. Another $1 million will be split by the states two major food banks. Ray and I are deeply concerned about these front-line hospital workers, and the additional burdens theyre bearing as a result of this pandemic, said Barbara Dalio, whose husband is the founder of the Bridgewater Associates hedge fund in Westport. We want to do what we can to make sure they get the childcare services they need so they can provide medical care for others. We are starting with front-line hospital workers whose children are all of a sudden home every day and who dont have childcare. * The U.S. Census Bureau has delayed field operations for the 2020 Census due to the outbreak. In-person household visits will start in May, instead of April, bureau officials said on a press conference call Friday. Theyve also paused the hiring process for more than 600,000 new employees, though theyre still accepting applications online. * Also on Friday, Attorney General William Tong thanked the states major utilities for reconnecting customers that had been shut off, after orders from the Public Utilities Regulatory Authority. If your service was disconnected prior to the moratorium, please contact your utility for assistance, Tong said in a statement. Families across Connecticut are struggling right now with unexpected job losses, the sudden burden of homeschooling our children, and worries about the health of our loved ones. The one thing we can do right now is stay home as much as possible. For that to work, we all need electricity, heat and water. Open absentee ballots sought * The government watchdog groups Common Cause in Connecticut and the Connecticut Citizen Action Group asked the governor and General Assembly to allow anyone to vote by absentee ballot in the upcoming Connecticut primaries and general election. Currently, to receive an absentee ballot, voters must attest that they will be out of town, are in the military or are already ill or physically disabled. And there is no online format for obtaining absentee ballots. Secretary of the State Denise Merrill, the states top election official, recently asked for similar measures. State law does not allow no-excuse absentee voting. While the Secretary of the States website includes forms for requesting absentee ballots, people have to then print them and mail or deliver them by hand to their local town clerks. The two groups are asking Gov. Ned Lamont to use his executive authority to assure that people who are concerned that they might be ill for the June 2 presidential primary, the August primaries, or even the general election in November. The request includes the General Assembly passing legislation to allow even those afraid of becoming sick to be able to vote by absentee. As advocates who support the right to vote, we are deeply concerned about the impact this pandemic will have on the upcoming primary elections next month, as well as the state primary elections in August and the general election in November, said a letter signed by Cheri Quickmire, executive director of Common Cause in Connecticut, and Tom Swan, executive director of the CCAG. We believe that during a public health emergency, all eligible voters should have the opportunity to participate in our democracy without endangering themselves or their families. Merrill, in a noontime statement Friday, said she wants the General Assembly to take emergency action on the issue. Anyone concerned about visiting a polling place for fear of spreading or contracting the coronavirus should not have to choose between their health and their right to vote, Merrill said. Thats why I requested that the governor issue an executive order to make the change in the statute for the presidential primary that would allow people to vote by absentee ballot should the pandemic continue. Dan Haar, Liz Teitz and Kaitlyn Krasselt contributed to this report . Source: Xinhua| 2020-03-20 13:01:23|Editor: Lu Hui Video Player Close SYDNEY, March 20 (Xinhua) -- At least three people on a cruise ship that docked in Sydney have tested positive for coronavirus, Australian New South Wales State Health Minister Brad Hazzard said here on Friday. About 4,000 passengers and crew were on board the "Ruby Princess" cruise ship before it docked in Sydney, and passengers are now allowed to go ashore. Advocate Abbad Ponda, his lawyer, said a person with low immunity is easily susceptible to catching coronavirus. to Yes Bank founder Rana Kapoor, arrested in a money laundering case, is "easily susceptible" to getting infected by the coronavirus in prison, his lawyer told a court in Mumbai on Friday. Kapoor, arrested by the Enforcement Directorate (ED) under the Prevention of Money Laundering Act (PMLA) earlier this month, was remanded in judicial custody till April 2 as the investigation agency did not seek his further remand. The CBI, meanwhile, obtained a production warrant against him in another case. As his earlier remand ended, the ED produced the 62-year-old Kapoor, former MD and CEO of the beleaguered Yes Bank, before the court in Mumbai. When the judge asked if he had any complaints, Kapoor said he has been suffering from asthma for the last six-seven years, has low immunity, and he was in acute depression. Advocate Abbad Ponda, his lawyer, said a person with low immunity is "easily susceptible" to catching coronavirus. "The virus is spreading very fast....It is a very precarious situation. If he goes there (to the jail) he might catch something which is very very serious," the lawyer said, requesting that Kapoor should be kept in a larger cell. The court asked the jail authorities to take proper care and provide him medicines as per the advice of the medical officer. As the ED did not want his further custody, judge Parashuram Jadhav sent Kapoor in judicial custody till April 2. According to the ED, loans of Rs 30,000 crore were given by Yes Bank when Kapoor was at its helm, and of these, advances of Rs 20,000 crore became bad loans. The central probe agency also claimed that over Rs 202 crore of loans given to a joint venture company of the HDIL group were used to repay previous dues of the real estate company which has now become bankrupt. The Reserve Bank of India earlier this month put the bank under moratorium, restricting withdrawals to Rs 50,000 per account. The ED has accused that Kapoor, his family members and others got benefits worth Rs 4,300 crore through companies controlled by his family as kickbacks for sanctioning huge loans. He is also accused of receiving bribes for going easy on loans given to a few big corporate groups that had turned into non-performing assets (NPAs). Meanwhile, the Central Bureau of Investigation, which is also conducting a probe against Kapoor, has obtained a production warrant against Kapoor to produce him before CBI court and seek his custody, its lawyer said. Last week, the CBI had registered a case against Kapoor and his wife Bindu for allegedly obtaining Rs 307 crore bribe through the purchase of a bungalow in an upscale Delhi area from a realty firm at half the market price. The agency suspects that the discounted transaction for the 1.2 acre-bungalow on Amrita Shergill Marg was a gratification to Kapoor through the company Bliss Abode Pvt Ltd in return for non-realisation of over Rs 1,900 crore in loans from Yes Bank to Gautam Thapar-promoted Avantha Realty and group companies. Kapoor's wife Bindu is one of the two directors of Bliss Abode Pvt Ltd. Photograph: PTI Photo The government of Brazils fascistic President Jair Bolsonaro announced on Wednesday night, March 18, a measure that allows companies to reduce working hours by 50 percent, together with cutting wages in half. Promoted as a measure to save jobs in the face of a projected steep economic decline resulting from the coronavirus pandemic, it is a declaration of war against the Brazilian working class. Designed by the governments economic team, led by ultra-liberal Minister of Economy Paulo Guedes, this policy complements the criminal contempt that Bolsonaro has shown for the lives of the millions of Brazilians threatened by COVID-19. Last Sunday, the president criticized concern over the disease as hysteria and argued that it was better for the workers to continue working normally, otherwise they would be forced to starve. Throughout the week, he repeated similar statements, criticizing guidelines to the population to observe social distancing as measures that will harm our economy a lot. Bolsonaro's March 18 press conference with his ministers. (Credit: Planalto) On Wednesday, the entire upper echelon of the government participated in a press conference on the coronavirus crisis. Everyone wore a mask after two ministers with whom everyone had contact, Gen. Augusto Heleno, head of the Institutional Security Office, and Adm. Bento Albuquerque of the Ministry of Mines and Energy, tested positive for the disease. Minister of Health Luiz Mandetta said that the WHOs orientation to increasing the number of tests was a waste of resources and that they should only be performed in the most serious cases. The press conference was marked by the pathetic performance of the president and the ministers, who incorrectly wore the protective masks, only underscoring the incompetence of the government. After the Wednesday press conference, there were protests against Bolsonaro in every major city, mainly in the middle class neighborhoods, with people banging pans from their windowsthe so-called panelacosand calling for the ouster of the president. A more deep-going revolt is beginning to emerge within the working class, which faces the greatest risk from the crisis. Throughout the country, entire sectors of the service industry are being closed indefinitely. Thousands of workers in movie theaters have been put on unpaid collective vacations, or have had their wages cut or pushed into voluntary lay-off programs. The Brazilian Bar and Restaurant Association of Campinas, a city of 1 million people in the state of Sao Paulo, estimated that 30,000 people could be fired as a result of declining activity in commercial establishments. After Minister Paulo Guedes relieved companies by cutting employers mandatory payroll contributions toward the so called "S System" (a net of educational, cultural and entertainment services for the population, run on public money but managed by an employers' association) by 50 percent, the Social Service of Commerce (SESC) and the National Commercial Learning Service (Senac) announced that they will fire at least half of their 90,000 employees. Underpaid informal work, which reached record levels in Brazil in 2019, is particularly under threat. Millions working under these conditions could lose their source of income overnight. In response, the government has announced that it will offer monthly aid of up to R$200 (US$39). This cannot even be considered a starvation wage! As Bolsonaro said, his government will force the workers to starve in the coming months, which will make them even more vulnerable to the coronavirus. In the auto plants, the life of the workers is being put at risk on a daily basis to ensure that the corporations continue to extract profits from their work. The ABC Paulista automakers announced on Thursday a collective vacation of about 10 days that will only start at the end of March. This announcement was received with expressions of indignation from the workers. On the Facebook page of the Metalworkers Union of ABC, associated with CUT, the union confederation led for decades by the Workers Party (PT), one worker commented: We are like the band that played on the Titanic, the boat is sinking and we can not stop playing ... In short, we can not stop producing. Another said: In Mercedes we are still producing, a lack of respect and care toward its employees, knowing that we are at risk, because buses to work are full and run with air conditioning systems; in the workplace there is not even a bottle of alcohol gel. It was supposed to stop, but the profit interest is greater! The role played by the union, in close partnership with the corporations, is abominable. Until the day before the automakers announcement of the collective vacation, its only advice to the workers was: take care of yourselves. The only demand placed on the companies was that they should clean surfaces in the factories and not adopt ridiculously risky behaviors, such as letting everyone serve themselves with the same spoon in the factory dining halls. However, on the very same day that the companies issued their announcement about the holidays, the SMABC printed on the cover of its newspaper, Tribuna Metalurgica: Either the companies stop by the 30th or we stop the companies. They then called the 10-day shutdown a victory. At General Motors, the workers will not only work until the end of the month, but they will have to work overtime for the next two Saturdays to produce Tracker units, the new SUV model produced by the company in Brazil, which costs up to R$112 thousand. The Metalworkers Union of Sao Caetano do Sul, where the plant is located, boasted of the fact that the workers are working overtime to correct GMs claim that it would be closing because of declining market demand, saying that, instead, GM would closeafter another 10 days of productionbecause of the spread of the coronavirus. On Wednesday, automaker Caoa Chery announced the closure of its engine factory in Sao Jose dos Campos and the dismissal of 59 employees. The union announced that it would demand from the public authorities measures in favor of the workers. On Thursday the workers went on strike, demanding they be rehired, and the union announced it will meet with company representatives Friday. Workers protest outside of AlmaViva Call Center, in Teresina, Piaui. (Credit: AlmaViva worker) Strikes for safe working conditions, like those that have spread in recent days in Italy, Spain, the United Kingdom, Canada and the United States, are also beginning to break out in Brazil. In Teresina, in the northeast of the country, workers from the Almaviva Call Center held a spontaneous protest on Thursday morning. Workers gathered in front of the company, shouting: Workers, do not be afraid, your health comes first! An employee, interviewed by O Dia, declared: We are over 3,000 operators. There are a lot of people with the flu, and the only thing they are giving us is just a regular cleaning product and a cloth. No gel or mask. Also this Thursday, dock workers in Santos, the largest port in Latin America, threatened to stop working in protest against unsafe conditions. The government of the state of Sao Paulo responded by threatening a state of emergency, which would suspend the right to strike and individual rights, allowing the government to force workers, with the use of the military, back to work. However, at least for the moment, it was not necessary to resort to the police or the military, thanks to the collaboration of the union. The minister of infrastructure of the Bolsonaro government, Tarcisio Gomes, personally called the director of the Sindestiva dockers union, Rodnei Silva, and, according to the latter, asked us not to go on strike. He insisted on the economic issue a lot, the losses that this could bring. Union officials then met with the employers associations and together they formed a Crisis Committee to deal with the situation. The union suspended the strike, while acknowledging that the most important thing, life, the issue of the pandemic, is not resolved. These events fully vindicate the political line advocated by the International Committee of the Fourth International, that workers should form rank-and-file factory and workplace committees, independent of the corrupt unions, to defend their health and safety. As in other countries around the world, every attempt by workers to take collective action to protect their health and safety and that of their communities is (and will be) opposed at every step by the unions. The Workers Party (PT), which presents itself as the opposition to Bolsonaro, is exploiting the governments crisis to appeal for support from factions of the capitalist political establishment and to politically subordinate the working class to the corporations. Like the Bolsonaro government, they have neglected the coronavirus crisis until the last moment, treating it as a minor problem or merely an excuse invented by the government to justify the countrys weak economy. The PTs answer to the crisis does not, under any circumstances, attack corporate profits. All the money for relief is to come from the Workers Support Fund, a state fund already destined for workers, according to the proposal advanced by the PTs president, Gleisi Hoffmann. While Hoffmann also feigned horror over Bolsonaros proposed reduction in wages and hours, this is exactly what Dilma Rousseff, Brazils last PT president, together with the CUT, proposed in 2014, also under the title of an Employment Protection Program. If they have the opportunity, they will do it again. The Brazilian working class can confront the coronavirus crisis only by forging its political independence from the PT and the unions. A successful struggle requires unifying with workers all over the world who are facing the same conditions. The present crisis reinforces the need to build a new revolutionary leadership in Brazil, a section of the International Committee of the Fourth International. The U.S. Department of State warned American citizens not to travel abroad over the CCP virus pandemic, issuing its top-level travel alert. The Epoch Times refers to the novel coronavirus, which causes the disease COVID-19, as the CCP virus because the Chinese Communist Partys coverup and mismanagement allowed the virus to spread throughout China and create a global pandemic. The agency sent out a Level 4: do not travel advisory, recommending U.S. citizens to avoid all international travel due to the global impact of COVID-19. In countries where commercial departure options remain available, U.S. citizens who live in the United States should arrange for an immediate return to the United States, unless they are prepared to remain abroad for an indefinite period, the alert read. U.S. citizens living abroad should also avoid international travel. Many countries are experiencing COVID-19 outbreaks and implementing travel restrictions and mandatory quarantines, closing borders, and prohibiting non-citizens from the entry with little advance notice, the alert read. Airlines have canceled many international flights and several cruise operators have suspended operations or canceled trips. If you choose to travel internationally, your travel plans may be severely disrupted, and you may be forced to remain outside of the United States for an indefinite timeframe, it continued. The agency last week raised the alert to Level 3: reconsider travel over the pandemic. And March 14, the State Department authorized the departure of U.S. personnel and family members at diplomatic posts who are at risk of contracting the CCP virus. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo this week told Fox News that his department is doing everything possible to protect U.S. citizens around the world amid the pandemic. We know of students that are in Peru, some other travelers that are there as well. There are other countries, too, where those countries have shut down their airports, he told Foxs, Sean Hannity. We are working to try and solve problems for each of those American citizens. We just learned about them over the last couple of days; itll take us some amount of time. But know that President Trump has made clear that were going to do everything we can to get every American home safely. The Peruvian government on Monday set up a two-week quarantine across the nation to close all travel, including airports. U.S. nationals in the country said they only got the alert at the last minute and are unable to leave. Before the pandemic, the State Department only issued a Level 4 travel advisory to several countries with instability problems, including Syria, Iran, Yemen, and North Korea. From The Epoch Times Turkey defense minister expresses support for Azerbaijan in another military aggression against Armenia Pashinyan, Putin discuss Karabakh, Kazakhstan Toivo Klaar: Deeply worried by reports of renewed incidents and casualties on Armenia-Azerbaijan Germany: A record 80,430 COVID-19 cases detected per day 3 more persons die of coronavirus in Artsakh Criminal case launched into 3 Armenia soldiers killing by Azerbaijan shootings Copper rises in price One of main tasks of Armenia peacekeepers in Kazakhstans Almaty is to prevent water supply system poisoning About 80 Americans cannot fly from Afghanistan Turkey parliament ex-deputy speaker: Armenia must fulfill 4 preconditions Border situation in Armenias Gegharkunik Province was calm at night French FM says talks on Iranian nuclear deal are progressing slowly 289 new cases of COVID-19 confirmed in Armenia Gold slightly rises in price North Korea says it successfully tested another hypersonic missile OSCE calls on Azerbaijan, Armenia to refrain from the use of force Oil is trading without a single dynamic US State Department welcomes announcement on CSTO forces withdrawal from Kazakhstan Newspaper: Ex-ministers are summoned to Hayastan All Armenian Fund parliamentary inquiry committee MOD: Armenia soldiers dead body found at midnight after Azerbaijan provocation Newspaper: Casualties of Armenia PM Pashinyan's 'era of peace' US concerned about EastMed natural gas pipeline project Giant fish sold at auction for over 16 million yen German Marshall Fund: It Is not too early to think about political change in Turkey Armenian Foreign Ministry: We call on Azerbaijani authorities to refrain from provocations Armenia's Geghamasar community head: The situation is stable now Queen Elizabeth II's favorite fast food revealed Human Rights Defender: Azerbaijani troops open fire on Armenian sovereign territory World Economic Forum: Cybersecurity and space pose new risks to the global economy Defense Ministry confirms Armenian side has 2 victims Satanovsky on sending Armenian servicemen to Kazakhstan Unofficial data: 2 servicemen killed as a result of Azerbaijan provocation CSTO and Kazakh Defense Ministry developing plan WHO thinks it's too early to consider COVID-19 pandemic European Commission to require Poland to pay fine of nearly EUR 70 million White House announces $308 million humanitarian aid for Afghanistan Erdogan angry at minister after efforts to strengthen lira failed Armenian FM has phone call with US Assistant Secretary of State India imposes one-week quarantine even for vaccinated tourists Armenian ex-president expresses condolences on poet Razmik Davoyan's death Traction Programme to showcase 8 startups during the Digital Demo Day Azerbaijan uses artillery and UAVs, 3 Armenian soldiers wounded NEWS.am daily digest: 11.01.22 Austrian Chancellor confirms plan for mandatory COVID-19 vaccination in February Armen Sarkissian and Kassym-Jomart Tokayev discuss situation in Kazakhstan Gulf, Iran and Turkey FMs to visit China 20 pregnant women with COVID-19 die in Azerbaijan in year Armenia hands over wanted US citizen to United States Economy ministry: Organizing of accommodation and public catering increased by 61.1% in Armenia Armenia parliament speaker expresses condolences on European Parliament President death Azerbaijan opens fire toward Armenia village sector, one soldier wounded Shoigu: CSTO peacekeepers deployed in Kazakhstan thanks to Syrian and Karabakh experience Azerbaijan official pledges to remove Armenian toponyms from Google Maps UN offers two plans to help Afghans totaling $ 5 billion in 2022 Armenia attorney general travels to Moscow on working visit Azerbaijan MOD blames Armenian side for soldiers death Dollar drops in Armenia Shirak Province captives families hold protest outside Armenia government building Rolls-Royce sales rise to record high in 2021 Ombudsman: Azerbaijanis directed gun at Armenia residents car in which his wife, 3-year-old child were ANCA urges President Biden and Congress to hold Azerbaijan and Turkey accountable for war crimes Serbia's Orthodox Patriarch tests positive for COVID-19 Brothers, sisters of 2020 Artsakh war military casualties to get compensation in lieu of their deceased parents Turkish authorities sanction arrest of 33 suspected FETO ties Copper rises in price Erdogan's spokesman, Biden's adviser discuss Armenian-Turkish relations Armenia deputy defense minister: No one can rule out border tension at any moment New commander elected of Russian peacekeepers in Nagorno-Karabakh Armenia official: Those 100 soldiers absence will not assume any change in terms of border tension Millionaire Robert Durst dies aged 78 Reuters: Over 1.13 million cases of COVID-19 detected in US per day Great Armenian poet Razmik Davoyan dies 2 new cases of coronavirus reported in Artsakh Deputy PM Matevosyan: About 1,190 subvention programs implemented in Armenia from 2018 to 2021 243 new cases of COVID-19 confirmed in Armenia Armenia MP: It would be right to put pressure on Azerbaijanis to remove their firing positions Oil is getting more expensive Nearly 10,000 people detained in Kazakhstan in connection with riots Tokayev: CSTO peacekeepers will pull out from Kazakhstan within 10 days Newspaper: Armenia businessmen pay customs duties to Azerbaijanis to go to Iran European Parliament speaker David Sassoli dies Alikhan Smailov appointed Kazakhstan Prime Minister Newspaper: Health minister makes decision full of contradictions in terms of Covid-related restrictions in Armenia Newspaper: Armenia authorities once again showed their being unprincipled, worthless, opposition MP says Germany teacher who had cannibalism fantasies is sentenced to life in prison Israel's military and other security services undergo largest rearmament in years Spain PM calls for a debate to consider COVID-19 endemic disease Flyone Armenia and Pegasus receive permission for Yerevan-Istanbul-Yerevan flights Pope condemns "baseless" ideological misinformation about COVID-19 vaccines Arab foreign ministers to visit Beijing Azerbaijanis stoned an Armenian car on the Stepanakert-Goris road Armenian FM has a phone call with his Polish counterpart Macron travels to French Riviera to discuss internal security issues Artsakh Foreign Ministry: Azerbaijan's aggressive behavior aims to disrupt Russian peacekeepers' activities US COVID-19 cases reach 60 million European Parliament President hospitalized due to immune system dysfunction Washington and Ankara discuss normalization of relations between Armenia and Turkey WHO excludes emergence of deltacron strain In Karabakh Azerbaijanis shelled tractor Indian Defense Minister tests positive for COVID-19 CNN news anchor Jake Tapper, flanked by Univision's news anchor Ilia Calderon, right, watches as co-anchor Dana Bash adjusts her earpiece before the start of the 11th Democratic Party 2020 presidential debate in a CNN Washington Bureau studio in Washington, D.C., on March 15, 2020. The Claim: CNN chief political correspondent Dana Bash praised President Donald Trumps message to Americans about the coronavirus On the Tuesday panel on "CNN Right Now," CNN chief political Correspondent Dana Bash commended President Donald Trump for his message to the nation. If you look at the big picture, this was remarkable from the president of the United States, Bash said of Trump's comments. This is a nonpartisan, important thing to note and to applaud from an American standpoint and from a human standpoint. He is being the kind of leader that people need, at least in tone, today and yesterday. In tone, that people need and want and yearn for in times of crisis and uncertainty. Bashs words were picked up by several outlets, including in a widely circulated Daily Wire article. Dana Bashs comments and reaction Bashs comments were widely circulated on social media, both in video clips and write-ups. Reactions were mixed: supporters of the president praised the journalist for acknowledging the presidents tone, while critics chided Bash for the statement. CNN's Dana Bash is talking about how Trump is becoming the leader Americans lead because he isn't completely denying the existence of a pandemic, tweeted Toronto Star columnist Bruce Arthur. Dana Bash is evidently insane. The lowest possible bar. In response to criticism of her remarks, Bash also tweeted, As I said in the clip you posted below, this is a moment to be non-partisan, American and human & the TONE the president set at today & yesterday's PRESSERS were remarkably different and welcomed. That's a fact. Let's all take a breath and remember we are all in this together. Trumps comments in question occurred at a Monday press briefing, where he addressed national anxieties about the spread of COVID-19 and the potential threat of an economic recession. It seems to me that if we do a really good job, we will not only hold the death down to a level that is much lower than the other way ... and we have done a good job ... but people are talking about July, August, something like that," Trump said during the presser. Story continues A Daily Caller video linked Bashs comments to those of New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo, who also commended the president for his recent response to the coronavirus. Were not Democrats and were not Republicans, we are Americans at the end of the day, Cuomo said during a press conference. The president is doing the right thing in offering to step up in New York, and I appreciate it, and New York will do the right thing in return. The comments come after the two politicians exchanged barbs on Twitter about who at fault and meant to handle the rising number of COVID-19 cases in New York state. Our ruling: True Dana Bash made several positive comments about President Donald Trumps tone and demeanor during a press briefing on the spread of COVID-19 in the United States We rate this claim TRUE because it is supported by our research. There is no reason to believe that Bashs comments were disingenuous or that available video of the statements were doctored in any way. Our fact-check sources: This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: Fact check: Did CNN's Dana Bash praise Donald Trump about coronavirus? Continued strong progress in U.S. NASH-related and global heart failure programs Successfully raised 19 million in Q1 2020 extending cash runway into H1 2021 Conference call with live webcast presentation today at 14:00 CET / 09:00 ET GHENT, Belgium, March 19, 2020 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Sequana Medical NV (Euronext Brussels: SEQUA, the Company), an innovator in the management of fluid overload in liver disease, malignant ascites and heart failure, today announces its financial results for the year ended 31 December 2019, and provides a business update and an outlook for the remainder of 2020. Ian Crosbie, Chief Executive Officer at Sequana Medical, said: We have made strong progress in 2019 in our key programmes, NASH-related cirrhosis in the U.S. and heart failure; also, we completed a successful equity financing, extending our cash runway into H1 2021. We are now looking forward to a number of exciting clinical milestones in 2020. With that said, given the spread of the COVID-19 coronavirus and its impact on global health systems, we anticipate that there will likely be delays to our ongoing and planned clinical trials. We are putting public health and the safety of our patients first and will provide more precise guidance as soon as we know more. As we approach the launch of alfapump in North America, we are making good progress in our preparations to commercialize alfapump ourselves in the U.S. and address the urgent need for a significantly better treatment solution for patients suffering from recurrent and refractory ascites due to liver cirrhosis. In light of the larger scale of opportunity for alfapump DSR in heart failure, as well as the commercial reach of existing strategic players, we intend to establish a commercial collaboration with a strategic partner to maximize its potential. 2019 Highlights Received Breakthrough Device Designation from the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) for the alfa pump for the treatment of recurrent and refractory liver ascites, recognizing the high unmet medical need in this important medical condition and the potential for alfa pump to improve the lives of these patients. First patient enrolled in the alfa pump POSEIDON pivotal study which is planned to support approval and reimbursement in the U.S. and Canada for the treatment of recurrent and refractory liver ascites. Positive Direct Sodium Removal (DSR) clinical proof-of-concept data from the first-in-human single dose study, presented at world-leading conferences in the field including Heart Failure 2019, HFSA Annual Scientific Meeting and TCT 2019, demonstrated that single dose DSR therapy was safe and well-tolerated and resulted in a clinically relevant removal of sodium with consistent results across all treated patients. First patient enrolled in the alfa pump DSR RED DESERT study. The RED DESERT study is a repeated dose proof-of-concept study with alfa pump DSR in diuretic-resistant heart failure patients. Appointed Dr. Butler, Dr. Costanzo, Dr. Tang and Dr. Testani as Heart Failure Scientific Advisors to support the alfa pump DSR development program. alfa pump included in the German treatment guidelines (DGVS) for complications of liver cirrhosis, positioning alfa pump as a good and safe alternative to repeated large volume paracentesis (LVP), the current standard of care. Appointed experienced Medtech executive, Jason Hannon, as Independent Non-Executive Director. Raised 27.5 million in an Initial Public Offering (IPO) on Euronext Brussels. Story continues Post-period events Publication in Circulation, a top-tier peer-reviewed cardiovascular journal, of positive data from preclinical and clinical proof-of-concept DSR studies. Publication in leading peer-reviewed journal, Liver Transplantation, of positive results from the alfa pump North American feasibility study (MOSAIC) in recurrent and refractory liver ascites. Raised 19.0 million in a successful private equity placement via an accelerated book building offering from existing investors and new experienced life sciences investors and industry experts, extending the Companys cash runway into H1 2021. Outlook for 2020 Focus on alfa pump POSEIDON pivotal study and alfa pump DSR As a result of the strong progress in 2019 and the large commercial potential of the U.S. NASH-related cirrhosis (estimated annual 3 billion alfapump market within the next 10-20 years) and U.S. / European heart failure (estimated annual 5 billion alfapump DSR market by 2026) markets, Sequana Medical is prioritizing development programmes in these areas. The alfapump POSEIDON North American pivotal study in recurrent and refractory ascites due to liver cirrhosis was scheduled to complete enrolment by mid-2020 with interim results in H2 2020 and primary outcome read-out by mid-2021. This timing is likely to be delayed given the current global health crisis. Results from the alfapump DSR RED DESERT study were initially expected in Q2 and Q3 2020 but may also be delayed for the same reason. This study aims to evaluate the safety and efficacy of alfapump DSR to remove excess sodium and fluid, and explore the potential impact of DSR therapy to restore patients responsiveness to diuretics. A larger feasibility study of alfapump DSR has been planned to be initiated before year-end. This also may be pushed back due to the current global health crisis. Following the focus on its core commercial markets and the growing evidence of the benefits of the alfapump in patients with refractory liver ascites, Sequana Medical observed steady growth in sales from Germany in 2019 offset by a decline in non-core markets. We had originally expected this growth in core markets to continue in 2020, leading sales to increase from the 2019 level. However, the impact of the global health crisis, specifically current restrictions on non-essential medical procedures and hospital visits, may impact sales. Sequana Medical is closely following the evolution of the COVID-19 global health crisis and is in constant dialogue with its partners to assess the impact and adapt its operations as necessary. Although it is difficult to draw conclusions at this point on the systemic risk this disease could pose, the Company has put in place mitigation plans to minimize delays. Nevertheless, the impact of increased demands on the healthcare systems, restrictions on non-essential hospital visits and procedures, social-distancing and travel restrictions are expected to result in delays to execution of clinical studies and impact sales. Sequana Medical will update its guidance on the expected impact and any material change in the Companys operations and outlook when the situation is clarified. Detailed operational review alfapump North America clear progress in pursuing approval in the U.S. and Canada, large market opportunities driven by NASH-related cirrhosis In January 2019 , Breakthrough Device Designation received from the U.S. FDA for the alfa pump for the treatment of recurrent and refractory liver ascites. This allows for more frequent interactions with FDA experts and makes the alfa pump eligible for prioritized review of the submission package to obtain regulatory approval in the U.S. In June 2019 , unconditional IDE 1 approval received from the U.S. FDA to start the POSEIDON pivotal study to support the North American approval of the alfa pump, using an optimized clinical trial design. Up to 50 patients with recurrent or refractory ascites due to liver cirrhosis across up to 20 centers will be implanted with the alfa pump for primary endpoint analysis at nine months after enrolment. Up to a further 30 patients will be enrolled in a roll-in cohort, to ensure centers are experienced with the alfa pump prior to implantation in the pivotal study cohort. In September 2019 , first patient enrolled in the pivotal POSEIDON study. As a result of the optimized POSEIDON trial design and Breakthrough Device Designation, the planned U.S. launch of the alfa pump has been brought forward to H1 2022. This timing is likely to be delayed given the current global health crisis. The final ruling from CMS 2 in August 2019 regarding the new technology add-on payment (NTAP) pathway for breakthrough devices is expected to further support reimbursement and accelerate market adoption of the alfa pump in the U.S. In January 2020, the results of the North American feasibility study (MOSAIC) of the alfapump in recurrent and refractory liver ascites were published in Liver Transplantation , concluding that implantation of the alfapump may be a definitive treatment for refractory ascites in cirrhosis, especially in patients who are not TIPS3 candidates. alfapump DSR clinical proof-of-concept of DSR, potential breakthrough therapy for treatment of heart failure patients with volume overload In May 2019 , Dr. Testani of Yale University reported clinical proof-of-concept of DSR therapy. Primary and secondary endpoints in the first-in-human single dose DSR study were met, demonstrating that single dose DSR therapy was safe and well-tolerated and resulted in a clinically relevant removal of sodium with consistent results across treated patients. Dr. Testani presented positive pre-clinical and clinical proof-of-concept data of DSR therapy at Heart Failure 2019 , HFSA Annual Scientific Meeting and TCT 2019. In September 2019 , Dr. Javed Butler, Dr. Maria Rosa Costanzo, Dr. Wilson Tang and Dr. Jeffrey Testani, pre-eminent figures in the heart failure clinical community, were appointed as the Companys Heart Failure Scientific Advisors. In December 2019 , first patient enrolled in RED DESERT, the first-in-human repeated dose alfa pump DSR study, with Dr. Bartunek, Associate Director at Cardiovascular Center Aalst (Belgium) as the principal investigator. In January 2020 , positive pre-clinical and clinical proof-of-concept data of DSR therapy were published in Circulation, a top tier peer-reviewed cardiovascular journal. Preparations are underway for a meeting with the FDA to discuss the start of clinical studies to support the regulatory pathway of the alfapump DSR in the U.S. alfapump Europe expanding clinical and commercial experience in key European territories; growth in Germany In May 2019 , the alfa pump was included in the DGVS (German Society of Gastroenterology Digestive and Metabolic Diseases) guidelines for complications of liver cirrhosis, positioning the alfa pump as a good and safe alternative to repeated LVP and stating that the alfa pump may also be considered in patients contraindicated for a TIPS. In December 2019, results from the retrospective Malignant Ascites study were published in BMC Palliative Car e highlighting that the alfa pump was effective in treating palliative patients and improving their quality of life. In February 2020, the surgical technique for the implantation of the alfa pump was published in Langenbecks Archives of Surgery summarizing the experience of leading European alfa pump implanters. Preparations are ongoing for initiation of the ProMAS study, in which up to 40 patients with various malignancies will be recruited across clinical sites in Belgium, the U.K. and Switzerland. This single arm, post-marketing study will evaluate the efficacy of the alfa pump and its impact on quality of life in patients with malignant ascites. Furthermore, the ProMAS study will evaluate the ability to obtain viable liquid biopsies in a non-interventional manner after implantation of the alfa pump. This study may be delayed due to the current global health crisis. Preparations are ongoing for the Step Counter study to measure the impact of the alfa pump on patient activity, stress and sleep quality in patients with refractory ascites due to liver cirrhosis, using fitness loggers. This study may be delayed due to the current global health crisis. Enrolment continued in the French ARIA pump study to support reimbursement of the alfa pump for treatment of refractory liver ascites in France. The study, conducted and sponsored by French clinicians and funded by the French government, is expected to be completed by end 2022 4 , subject to potential delays from the current global health crisis. Annual renewal of German NUB 5 received. The Company will focus on annual renewal of the NUB until a German DRG 6 hospital reimbursement code has been obtained, which requires a high number of implants in select hospitals. Following increased investment in the Companys core markets and the strengthening of the commercial team, year over year sales increased in 2019 in Germany by 30%. This growth was offset by lower sales in non-core / distributor markets. Detailed financial review in Thousand Euros FY 2019 FY 2018 Variance Revenue 971 1,029 -6% Cost of goods sold (198) (158) +25% Gross margin 773 871 -11% Sales & Marketing (2,838) (2,445) +16% Clinical (3,922) (1,671) +135% Quality & Regulatory (1,817) (1,372) +32% Supply Chain (931) (964) -3% Engineering (983) (1,808) -46% General & Administration (4,264) (5,761) -26% Other income 18 74 N.M. Total operating expenses (14,736) (13,948) +6% Earnings before interest and taxes (EBIT) (13,964) (13,077) +7% Finance income 53 309 -83% Finance cost (931) (1,192) -22% Total net finance expense (878) (883) -1% Income tax expense (136) (24) N.M. Net loss for the period (14,977) (13,983) +7% Basic Loss Per Share (1.22) (1.40) -13% Cash position* at 31 December 5,586 1,318 N.M. N.M.: Not Meaningful (percentage greater than 150%) * Cash position only includes highly liquid cash and cash equivalents. Consolidated statements of profit and loss Revenue Revenue (0.97 million) remained relatively at a similar level compared to the same period last year (1.03 million). Cost of goods sold Cost of goods sold (0.20 million) remained relatively at a similar level compared to last year (0.16 million). Operating expenses Despite a significant increase in Clinical expenses related to the progress in the development of alfapump and alfapump DSR, total operating expenses increased by only 6% to 14.74 million compared to 2018 (13.95 million). Sales and marketing expenses increased +16% from 2.44 million to 2.84 million primarily as a result of the expansion of the commercial team in Europe. Clinical expenses more than doubled from 1.67 million to 3.92 million mainly as a result of costs related to the North American pivotal study (POSEIDON), the DSR proof-of-concept studies and the Prospective Malignant Ascites Study (ProMAS). Quality and regulatory expenses increased from 1.37 million to 1.82 million, mainly driven by costs linked to external advice for the POSEIDON study and the preparations for the new Medical Devices Regulation (Regulation 2017/745). Supply chain expenses remained stable at 0.93 million (FY 2018: 0.96million). Engineering expenses decreased from 1.81 million to 0.98 million largely as a result of the completion of the alfapump development project. General and administration expenses decreased from 5.76 million to 4.26 million mainly as a result of the costs related to the preparation of the Initial Public Offering (IPO) and relocation to Belgium in 2018. EBIT As a result of the above, earnings before interest and taxes (EBIT) increased from a loss of 13.08 million in 2018 to a loss of 13.96 million in 2019 largely due to increased clinical activities, partially offset by lower expenses in engineering and G&A. Total net finance expenses Net finance cost (0.88 million) remained at the same level as 2018 (0.88 million) and consists mainly of interest expenses related to the Bootstrap loan. Income tax expense Income tax expense increased from 0.02 million in 2018 to 0.14 million in 2019. These expenses largely reflect taxes payable in Switzerland. Net loss for the period As a result of the above, the net loss increased from 13.98 million in 2018 to 14.98 million in 2019. Basic losses per share (LPS) Basic losses per share for 2019 amounted to 1.22, compared to 1.40 in 2018. Consolidated balance sheet Net debt Net debt7 at 31 December 2019 decreased by 15.70 million, resulting in a positive net cash position of 2.36 million compared to a net debt of 13.34 million at 31 December 2018, mainly as a result of the proceeds from the IPO in February 2019. Working Capital Working capital8 from 2018 to 2019 increased by 3.15 million, mainly as a result of a decrease in both trade payables and accrued liabilities for IPO expenses. Consolidated statements of cash flows Net cash outflow from operating activities was 18.48 million compared to a net cash outflow of 9.88 million in 2018. The difference mainly relates to the increase in operating loss and the increase in working capital. Cash flow from investing activities resulted in a net outflow of 0.34 million compared to a net outflow of 0.05 million in 2018. The net cash outflow mainly relates to the investment in leasing of cars and buildings (IFRS 16 applied). Cash flow from financing activities resulted in a net inflow of 23.22 million in 2019, mainly as a result of the IPO proceeds, compared to a net inflow of 9.47 million in 2018, as a result of the proceeds of several convertible loans. The Company ended 2019 with a total liquidity position of 5.59 million (2018: 1.32 million). Conference Call and Webcast Sequana Medical will host a conference call with live webcast presentation today at 14:00 CET / 9:00 ET. The webcast can be accessed by clicking here . To participate in the Q&A, please dial one of the numbers below ten minutes in advance, using confirmation code 9932969. The webcast and conference call will be conducted in English and a replay will be available on Sequana Medicals website shortly after. Belgium: +32 2 792 0434 The Netherlands: +31 20 794 8426 Switzerland: +41 43 456 9986 UK: +44 20 3003 2666 U.S.: +1 212 999 6659 Financial calendar 28 April 2020 Online publication of annual report 2019 28 May 2020 Annual General Meeting 2020 3 September 2020 Publication half year results 2020 For more information, please contact: Sequana Medical Lies Vanneste, Director IR Tel: +32 (0) 498 05 35 79 Email: IR@sequanamedical.com Consilium Strategic Communications Amber Fennell, Marieke Vermeersch, Sukaina Virji, Melissa Gardiner Tel: +44 203 709 5000 Email: sequanamedical@consilium-comms.com LifeSci Advisors Chris Maggos Tel: +41 79 367 6254 Email: chris@lifesciadvisors.com About Sequana Medical Sequana Medical is a commercial stage medical device company developing the alfapump platform for the management of fluid overload in liver disease, malignant ascites and heart failure. Fluid overload is a fast growing complication of advanced liver disease driven by NASH (non-alcoholic steatohepatitis) related cirrhosis and a common complication in heart failure. The U.S. market for the alfapump resulting from NASH-related cirrhosis is forecast to exceed 3 billion annually within the next 10-20 years. The heart failure market for the alfapump DSR (Direct Sodium Removal) is estimated to be over 5 billion annually in the U.S. and EU5 by 2026. Both indications leverage Sequana Medical's alfapump, a unique, fully implanted wireless device that automatically pumps fluid from the abdomen into the bladder, where it is naturally eliminated through urination. In the U.S., the company's key growth market, the alfapump has been granted breakthrough device designation by the FDA. The North American pivotal study (POSEIDON) in recurrent and refractory ascites due to liver cirrhosis is underway, with interim results originally expected in H2 2020 and a commercial launch in the U.S. planned for H1 2022, subject to potential delays from the current global health crisis. In Europe, the alfapump is CE-marked for the management of refractory ascites due to liver cirrhosis and malignant ascites and is included in key clinical practice guidelines. Over 750 alfapump systems have been implanted to date. Building on its proven alfapump platform, Sequana Medical is developing alfapump DSR, a breakthrough, proprietary approach to fluid overload due to heart failure. Clinical proof-of-concept was achieved in a first-in-human single dose DSR study. A repeated dose alfapump DSR study (RED DESERT) in heart failure patients is underway with results originally expected in Q2 and Q3 2020, which may be delayed given the current global health crisis. Sequana Medical is headquartered in Ghent, Belgium. For further information, please visit www.sequanamedical.com . Important Regulatory Disclaimers The alfapump has not yet received regulatory approval in the U.S. and Canada. Any statement in this press release about safety and efficacy of the alfapump does not apply to the U.S. and Canada because the device is currently undergoing clinical investigation in these territories. DSR therapy and alfapump DSR are still in development and it should be noted that any statements in this press release regarding safety and efficacy arise from pre-clinical studies and ongoing clinical investigations which have yet to be completed. There is no link between DSR therapy, alfapump DSR and ongoing investigations with the alfapump system in Europe, the U.S. and Canada. Forward-looking statements This press release may contain predictions, estimates or other information that might be considered forward-looking statements. Such forward-looking statements are not guarantees of future performance. These forward-looking statements represent the current judgment of Sequana Medical on what the future holds, and are subject to risks and uncertainties that could cause actual results to differ materially. Sequana Medical expressly disclaims any obligation or undertaking to release any updates or revisions to any forward-looking statements in this press release, except if specifically required to do so by law or regulation. You should not place undue reliance on forward-looking statements, which reflect the opinions of Sequana Medical only as of the date of this press release. Financial information The financial statements have been prepared in accordance with IFRS, as adopted by the EU. The financial information included in this press release is an extract from the full IFRS consolidated financial statements which will be published on 28 April 2020. As of the date of this press release, the statutory auditor, PricewaterhouseCoopers Bedrijfsrevisoren BV CVBA, with registered office at Woluwedal 18, 1932 Sint-Stevens-Woluwe, Belgium, represented by Peter Dhondt, auditor, has not yet completed his audit procedures on the IFRS consolidated statements as of and for the year ended 31 December 2019. The statutory auditor has confirmed that the audit, which is substantially complete, has not to date revealed any material misstatement in the draft consolidated accounts, and that the accounting data reported in the press release is consistent, in all material respects, with the draft accounts from which it has been derived. Consolidated statements of profit and loss in Thousand Euros (if not stated otherwise) Year ended 31 December 2019 2018 Revenue 971 1,029 Cost of goods sold (198 ) (158 ) Gross margin 773 871 Sales & Marketing (2,838 ) (2,445 ) Clinical (3,922 ) (1,671 ) Quality & Regulatory (1,817 ) (1,372 ) Supply Chain (931 ) (964 ) Engineering (983 ) (1,808 ) General & Administration (4,264 ) (5,761 ) Other income 18 74 Total operating expenses (14,736 ) (13,948 ) Earnings before interests and taxes (EBIT) (13,964 ) (13,077 ) Finance income 53 309 Finance cost (931 ) (1,192 ) Total net finance expense (878 ) (883 ) Income tax expense (136 ) (24 ) Net loss for the period (14,977 ) (13,983 ) Basic losses per share (in Euro) (1.22 ) (1.40 ) Consolidated statements of comprehensive income in Thousand Euros (if not stated otherwise) Year ended 31 December 2019 2018 Net loss for the period (14,977 ) (13,983 ) Components of other comprehensive income (OCI) items that will not be reclassified to profit or loss: Remeasurements of defined benefit plans 209 102 Items that may be reclassified subsequently to profit or loss: Currency translation adjustments 75 (76 ) Total other comprehensive income/(loss)-net of tax 285 26 Total comprehensive income (14,693 ) (13,957 ) Attributable to Sequana Medical shareholders (14,693 ) (13,957 ) Consolidated balance sheet in Thousand Euros As at 31 December 2019 2018 ASSETS Property, plant and equipment 765 184 Laboratory 71 6 Information Technology 159 138 R&D tools 4 7 Right-of-use assets 510 - Other tangible fixed assets 21 - Assets under construction - 32 Financial Assets 63 58 Financial assets rental deposits 63 58 Loans to related parties - - Total non-current assets 829 242 Trade receivables 118 97 Other receivables 1,220 450 Inventory 1,598 1,235 Cash and cash equivalents 5,586 1,318 Total current assets 8,522 3,099 Total assets 9,350 3,341 EQUITY AND LIABILITIES Share capital 1,307 888 Other equity - 184 Own shares - - Share premium 100,661 64,963 Reserves (1,652 ) (452 ) Loss brought forward (99,974 ) (85,003 ) Cumulative translation adjustment 584 659 Total equity 926 (18,760 ) Long term financial debts 2,261 2,582 Long term lease debts 305 - Retirement benefit obligation 544 792 Total non-current liabilities 3,110 3,374 Short term financial debts 459 12,073 Short term lease debts 199 - Trade payables 2,476 2,753 Other payables 1,269 1,095 Accrued liabilities 910 2,806 Total current liabilities 5,315 18,727 Total equity and liabilities 9,350 3,341 Consolidated statement of cash flows in Thousand Euros Year ended 31 December 2019 2018 Net loss for the period (14,977 ) (13,983 ) Income tax expense 136 24 Financial result 878 883 Depreciation 244 81 Change in defined benefit plan (68 ) 43 Share-based compensation 389 241 Changes in trade and other receivables (791 ) (77 ) Changes in inventories (362 ) 80 Changes in trade and other payables/provisions (3,922 ) 2,839 Taxes paid (9 ) (5 ) Cash flow used in operating activities (18,482 ) (9,875 ) Investments in tangible fixed assets (333 ) (39 ) Investments in financial assets (4 ) (16 ) Cash flow used in investing activities (337 ) (55 ) Proceeds from capital increase 26,165 2 Proceeds from financial debts (1,667 ) 9,583 Interest paid (1,279 ) (115 ) Cash flow from financing activities 23,218 9,469 Net change in cash and cash equivalents 4,399 (461 ) Cash and cash equivalents at the beginning of the period 1,318 1,684 Net effect of currency translation on cash and cash equivalents (130 ) 95 Cash and cash equivalents at the end of the period 5,586 1,318 Consolidated statement of changes in equity STATEMENT OF CHANGES IN SHAREHOLDER EQUITY in Thousand Euros Share capital Other equity Own shares Share premium Reserves Loss brought forward Currency translation differences Total shareholder equity Balance at 31 December 2017 955 - (193 ) 65,157 (183 ) (71,082 ) 736 (4,611 ) Net loss for the period (13,983 ) (13,983 ) Other comprehensive income 102 (76 ) 26 Capital increase (net of costs) 2 2 Liquidation own shares 193 (193 ) - Conversion share capital into EUR (68 ) (68 ) Transaction costs for equity instruments (612 ) (612 ) Conversion rights on convertible loans 184 184 Share-based compensation 241 62 302 Balance at 31 December 2018 888 184 - 64,963 (452 ) (85,003 ) 659 (18,760 ) Change in accounting policy 7 7 Restated total equity at 1 January 2019 888 184 - 64,963 (452 ) (84,997 ) 659 (18,753 ) Net loss for the period (14,977 ) (14,977 ) Other comprehensive income 209 (75 ) 134 Capital increase IPO (convertible loans 84 8,533 8,617 Capital increase IPO (contribution in cash) 319 25,846 26,165 Capital increase IPO (contribution in kind) 16 1,319 1,335 Transaction costs for equity instruments (1,799 ) (1,799 ) Conversion rights on convertible loans (184 ) (184 ) Share-based compensation 389 389 Balance at 31 December 2019 1,307 - - 100,661 (1,652 ) (99,974 ) 584 926 1 Investigational Device Exemption 2 Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services 3 Transjugular Intrahepatic Portosystemic Shunt 4 Clintrials.gov NCT03506893 5 Neue Untersuchungs- und Behandlungsmethoden or New Diagnostic and Therapeutic Methods 6 Diagnosis Related Group 7 Net debt is calculated by adding short-term, long-term financial and lease debt and deducting cash and cash equivalents. 8 The components of working capital are inventories plus trade receivables and other receivables minus trade payables (including contract liabilities) and other payables, and accrued liabilities. KALAMAZOO, MI The city of Kalamazoo, facing the threat of coronavirus, could delay progress on issues such as the recreational marijuana business ordinance and changes to the citys housing code while making efforts to stop the spread of the virus. The Kalamazoo City Commission recently discussed the possibility that city business, like a proposed ordinance regulating the recreational marijuana industry approval of which was originally scheduled to happen by June 1 could be delayed by the COVID-19 outbreak. Last week, the city canceled all non-essential meetings in response to the coronavirus threats and talked about the possibility city commission meetings be suspended or canceled due to threat of the virus. City Manager Jim Ritsema told commissioners during the March 16 City Commission meeting that the city was still tracking toward the June 1 deadline for a recreational marijuana ordinance, but that process could still be delayed. We have a deadline for adult use marijuana of June 1, Ritsema said. I believe we are tracking toward that, but obviously if things get protracted with what were dealing with, that may have to be postponed. Related: Kalamazoo delays option to allow recreational marijuana businesses until June Updates proposed to the citys housing ordinance could also be delayed, though the city has not publicly set any deadline on that issue. Unfortunately, we had to cancel the meetings we were scheduling for public input, Ritsema said. The city is now directing residents to send comments directly to Community Planning & Economic Development Director Rebekah Kik. We continue to work on that, and work toward moving it forward," Ritsema said. But given where things are at, we may have to push some things out a little bit. The situation changes hourly at times, Ritsema said during the March 16 meeting. Three days later, on March 19, Deputy City Manager Jeff Chamberlain said the city will have to decide by the end of March if the timeline for the recreational marijuana business ordinance will be impacted. That is because public notice of a planning commission meeting in April must be given by March 31, he said. Officials talked about the possibility of holding virtual meetings, while acknowledging it might not be possible because of the requirements of the Open Meetings Act, which requires the body to meet in a public space and allow for public participation. In the days following the meeting, Gov. Gretchen Whitmer suspended provisions of the Open Meetings Act amid the coronavirus outbreak, allowing other options for municipal bodies such as the Kalamazoo City Commission. The governors order allows meetings to be conducted virtually, but stipulates public bodies must ensure meaningful access and participation by members of the public body and the general public. Related: Michigan Gov. Whitmer suspends Open Meetings Act during coronavirus crisis to allow virtual meetings by government bodies City officials in Kalamazoo have not said whether or not they plan to go virtual, or when and how that would occur. While officials discuss those details, they are working to move the process forward in what ways they can. Vice Mayor Patrese Griffin said a video on the proposed update to the citys housing ordinance is now available on the citys web site, advising people to watch it and submit comments directly to city staff (see video below). Please continue to give input, Griffin said. Read more from MLive about the coronavirus outbreak in Michigan. Read more: How to find mental health services in Kalamazoo during coronavirus outbreak Looking for coronavirus case numbers in Michigan? Why official data lags Victorias Secret closes online store, all locations in response to coronavirus Source: Xinhua| 2020-03-20 16:29:23|Editor: zyl Video Player Close A ship carrying Algerians from France arrives in Algiers, Algeria, on March 19, 2020. Algerian government said the passengers will be sent to several hotels for medical examinations and then all will be quarantined for 14 days before returning to their hometowns. (Xinhua) Uzbekistan's Health Ministry has confirmed 10 new coronavirus cases on Friday, bringing the overall number of cases in the Central Asian country to 33 TASHKENT (UrduPoint News / Sputnik - 20th March, 2020) Uzbekistan's Health Ministry has confirmed 10 new coronavirus cases on Friday, bringing the overall number of cases in the Central Asian country to 33. "Coronavirus was confirmed in nine more relatives who came into contact with infected patients. The information about a citizen who recently arrived from abroad being infected was also confirmed," the ministry said in a statement. Globally, more than 245,000 cases of COVID-19 have been confirmed, including over 10,000 virus-related fatalities and more than 86,000 recoveries. Ahead of the governorship elections in Edo and Ondo states, governors elected on the platform of the ruling All Progressives Congress (APC) have demanded automatic tickets for Governor Godwin Obaseki of Edo and his counterpart in Ondo, Arakunrin Rotimi Akeredolu, Daily Independent has gathered. According to a credible source, the governors under the aegis of the Progressives Governors Forum (PGF) took the decision at a closed door meeting held at the Kebbi Governors Lodge on Wednesday night which lasted till Thursday morning in Abuja. Both Obaseki and Akeredolu are among the forces who want Adams Oshiomhole ousted as the partys national chairman. It would be recalled that the governors had a meeting earlier on Monday where they all agreed to postpone the National Executive Council (NEC) meeting of the party where Oshiomholes fate would have been sealed. While fielding questions from journalists after the first meeting, chairman of APC Governors Forum and Kebbi State governor, Atiku Bagudu, said President Muhammadu Buhari obliged the request of the governors on the postponement of the meeting. He also said they informed Buhari that the governors had agreed to resolve all lingering crises bedeviling the party, a request he also obliged. Also, we seek Mr. Presidents support to postpone the National Executive Council (NEC) meeting that is scheduled for tomorrow until such a time that the governors are ready to report back, he said. Asked what was the presidents response to the request, Bagudu said Buhari gladly acceded to the demand because it was the APC governors unanimous decision. Among the issues we discussed was the resolution that the governors have taken to work together to resolve all the issues in the party, he said. Speaking on what necessitated Wednesdays meeting, our source said the governors were worried because Oshiomhole upon resumption of office on Tuesday never mentioned anything about his rift with Obaseki and Akeredolu but only spoke about his reconciliation with estranged members of the National Working Committee (NWC) whom he had earlier suspended from office. Oshiomhole said he is ready to turn a new leaf and settle all disputes with those opposed to his leadership. When he resumed office, he only spoke about lifting the suspension on the partys Deputy National Chairman (North), Sen. Lawal Shuaibu, and National Vice Chairman (North), Inuwa Abdulkadir in the spirit of reconciliation. The governors met on Wednesday evening at the Kebbi Governors Lodge and there it was agreed that there should be automatic tickets for Governor Obaseki and Akeredolu. Any contrary action by the national chairman is a sign that he is not really sincere about finding a lasting solution to the crisis rocking the party. When contacted, Governor Akeredolu in a chat with our correspondent said he couldnt comment on the resolution reached at the meeting because he was absent. Speaking to our correspondent, Festus Asiriuwa, an APC chieftain from Edo State, while lauding the governors decision said Oshiomholes silence hours after the faction loyal to him in Edo APC opened a new secretariat shows that he is not ready for genuine reconciliation. It is a bold move by the governors but will Oshiomhole abide by it? Less than 24 hours after he resumed office as chairman, his loyalists opened a new secretariat in Edo State. Have you heard any word from Oshiomhole condemning it? Yet he said he is ready for genuine reconciliation. What he doesnt understand is the fact that those claiming to be his loyalists in Edo APC are only after their selfish interests. Since they know he doesnt want Obaseki to get the ticket, they are pretending to be loyal to him so he can consider one of them as the partys flagbearer. Now having realised that the odds are against them and Obaseki may clinch the ticket, they have decided to go all out by opening a new secretariat. But I can assure you that they will all be dealt with. Alhaji Lawal Shuaibu, Deputy National Chairman, North, had on Wednesday warned the partys leadership against toying with Edo State governorship ticket. He declared without equivocation that Governor Godwin Obaseki remains the strongest candidate for APC in the coming gubernatorial poll in Edo State. According to him, no party drops a candidate who is performing, insisting that global practice cannot be jettisoned in the case of Edo State. He said the party can learn valuable lessons from what is going on in USA where nobody is challenging Donald Trump among the Republicans. Quoting President Muhammadu Buharis comment during the last NEC of the party, Shuaibu maintained that the APC cannot afford to leave a performing candidate to experiment with a new person. Edo is not a time bomb. We all heard President Buhari during the last NEC meeting announce that any governor who has performed deserves a second term. There is no time bomb because why should you prefer any other person than the sitting governor? It is like that all over the world even in America that started this democracy. Donald Trump has no opposition and nobody is contesting against him. It does not make sense to bring another person to contest against the governor. Governor Obaseki is the strongest candidate of the APC we have in Edo State. Post Views: 11 Its safe to say Tom Hollands life primarily revolves around portraying Spider-Man, something one can hope he gets some aesthetic distancing from on occasion. Being the age Holland is, though, its obviously intoxicating knowing hes making film history and riding a superstardom wave besides. Not that he isnt starting to do other projects since even he has to know playing Spider-Man may not go on for a decade. With the Marvel-Sony deal out of the way (at least for now), Holland can enjoy himself in the Spidey role for at least a couple more years. What happens after that, though, is anyones guess. News has arrived hell be doing voice work as Spider-Man for Disneylands new Avengers park. Maybe its a sign he can do the voice of Spider-Man/Peter Parker in Sonys animated Spider-Verse franchise. Tom Hollands voice talents for Disneylands Avengers Campus Park Tom Holland | Gareth Cattermole/Getty Images for Disney Hollands voice work for Spidey at this new Disneyland attraction was reported by Screen Rant recently. This park area will be part of California Adventure and feature many different locales and Avengers characters from the MCU. The Web Slingers: A Spider-Man Adventure exhibit will be where Holland apparently lends his voice. Billed as a giant interactive video game environment, it sounds like the typical innovations Disney parks are known for doing. Having Holland involved was a given considering everything Disney has done for his career. If nothing else, itll make his version of Spider-Man even more iconic since the attraction will likely be in operation for years to come. Due to Coronavirus, though, one has to wonder if there may be longer waits for Holland to slip back into the role on the big screen. How long will Tom Holland really be in the role of Spider-Man? Expect Zendaya to return for "Spider-Man 3," which begins filming this July in ATL according to Tom Holland https://t.co/csryyRbwwe HotNewHipHop (@HotNewHipHop) March 15, 2020 Answering this question is one still very much up in the air due to numerous factors. First, theres the likely filming delays due to Coronavirus, perhaps delaying the release date of Spider-Man 3. Then theres also extending the Marvel-Sony deal beyond one MCU film and a standalone feature. With Bob Chapek now CEO of Disney, will he be able to broker an extended deal keeping Spider-Man at the MCU? Not that Holland doesnt have a good relationship with Sony as well, even if he agrees Spidey needs to stick with the MCU for now. No matter what happens, Holland seems like hell have plenty to do as the character in some form or another. Doing voice work for a Disneyland attraction also gives him practice for projecting in the role beyond physical form. If theres a chance Holland would cross over to the Spider-Verse franchise at Sony, would he be seen in animated form, or via motion-capture? Extending Spider-Man at Sony, and other possible media There were reports Holland was going to cameo in Into the Spider-Verse last year, yet ultimately nixed by Sony at the time. Many thought it too bad it didnt happen so it could set up a situation of acclimating into this universe down the road. No doubt itll happen eventually, perhaps in the animated form the first film was in. If so, it means Holland using his voice talents, something hes doing anyway lately with the Pixar film Onward. How he translates Parker into an animated version (and if it even works well) would be interesting to see. Dont be surprised to see Holland as Spider-Man in other media as well to utilize his time as fully as possible. Of course, the ultimate wish would be for a streaming series on Disney+. Theres always a good chance he may show up in a cameo anyway in one of the upcoming Marvel shows there. Maybe once the Marvel shows are underway, and big-screen Spider-Man movies become more complicated, a streaming series would allow Holland to extend the role into his elderly 30s. DAKAR, Senegal - The West African nation of Mali has roughly one ventilator per 1 million people 20 in all to help the critically ill with respiratory failure. In Peru, with more than 32 million people, about 350 beds in intensive care units exist. The coronavirus is now moving into parts of the world that may be the least prepared. Some countries in Africa and Latin America lack the equipment or even trained health workers to respond. Many of their nations are slamming shut borders and banning large gatherings in the hope of avoiding the scenes in wealthier countries such as Italy and the U.S., but local transmission of the virus has begun. Containing that spread is the new challenge. Africa has more than 900 confirmed cases and Latin America more than 2,500, but an early response is crucial as fragile health systems could be quickly overwhelmed. With such limited resources, experts say identifying cases, tracing and testing are key. We have seen how the virus actually accelerates that after a certain ... tipping point. So the best advice for Africa is to prepare for the worst and prepare today, WHO Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said Wednesday. We have different and significant barriers to health care in Africa, which could be a real challenge, said Dr. Ngozi Erondu, a senior research fellow at the Chatham House Center for Global Health Security. Many countries in sub-Saharan Africa do not have the isolation wards or large number of health care workers to respond to a surge of COVID-19 patients, she said. Liberia and Burkina Faso only have a few ventilators for their millions of people. Dr. Bernard Olayo, founder of the Kenya-based Center for Public Health and Development, said most countries in Africa cant afford ventilators. Even if ventilators were provided by other countries, its not sufficient because of the lack of qualified people to use them. Its complex, its very very complex because the patients that end up on ventilators require round the clock care by larger teams, he said. Many patients could do well with just oxygen, he said, but close to half of health facilities in African countries dont have reliable oxygen supplies. Oxygen concentrators can be used, but given the frequent electricity cuts in many countries, oxygen generators and pressure cylinders are needed because they can function while power is out. The WHO regional Africa director, Dr. Matshidiso Moeti, said the lack of ICU facilities and ventilators is one of the biggest challenges facing the continent. We have been able to identify importing a field hospital-type of facility that can be set up and equipped with some of the key items needed, such as ventilators, she said. Training has begun in Republic of Congo and Senegal so health care workers will be ready to operate it, and World Bank funding is being made available, she said. Its not all grim. Elsie Kanza, head of Africa at the World Economic Forum, said many countries are deploying lessons learned from the Ebola outbreak in West Africa in 2014-2016 that killed well over 10,000 people. The Africa Centers for Disease Control and Prevention was created to respond to that Ebola outbreak. As of Thursday, 43 countries can test for the coronavirus, it said. In addition, Chinese billionaire Jack Ma this week pledged to donate 1.1 million testing kits, 6 million masks and 60,000 protective suits and face shields to share among all African countries. Meanwhile, Senegal is helping to develop a fast COVID-19 test that is expected in June. But some including Adama Dempster, a human rights advocate in Liberia, warned that support for African nations efforts might dry up if cases soar. Its something that is worrisome because other countries that are so powerful and have the sophistication to deal with things like this are themselves concerned about their own situation, she said. Africa isnt the only continent worried about whats to come. Several countries in Latin America are among the least prepared in the world for a pandemic, with healthcare systems already stretched thin. Peruvian Minister of Defence Walter Martos told local America TV on Monday that the nation has less than 400 respirators available. Its not a lot, he said. Really, we dont have the infrastructure that developed nations do. Peru and other nations in Latin America are looking to the experience in Europe as a cautionary tale and hoping to curtail the spread of coronavirus cases before they overwhelm hospitals. Epidemiologist Cristian Diaz Velez said those measures could potentially create a slower rise in cases that is more manageable for Perus medical system. He said the country has around 300 to 350 beds in intensive care units, half of which are now in use. It will overwhelm our healthcare system, he said, if cases skyrocket. Other countries in Latin America could fare far worse. Venezuela ranks 176th of 195 nations worldwide in preparedness for a health crisis, according to the Global Health Security Index, a project of the John Hopkins Center for Health Security and the Nuclear Threat Initiative. The nations healthcare system has been crippled by years of economic contraction, political chaos and a humanitarian crisis, with rising infant mortality rates and critical shortages of water and medicine. A migration crisis in which over 4.5 million people have fled one of the largest exoduses in the world today could exacerbate the spread of the virus throughout the region. That is of particular concern in Colombia, where nearly 2 million Venezuelans now live. Hospitals along the border have seen their capacity stretched. The coronavirus pandemic could tip them further over the edge. The health system obviously has a capacity that could be clearly surpassed, in Colombia and in any country in Latin America, said Dr. Alfonso Rodriguez-Morales, vice-president of the Colombian Association for Infectious Diseases. __ AP reporters Clarence Roy-Macaulay in Freetown, Sierra Leone, Jonathan Paye-Layleh in Monrovia, Liberia, Babacar Dione in Dakar, Senegal, Sam Mednick in Ouagadougou, Burkina Faso; Christine Armario in Bogota, Colombia, and Maria Cheng in London contributed to this report. Alyssa Pereira / SFGate Right now is an unsettling time to be a bar owner. Just ask John Dampeer, who owns Fools Errand, a wine and beer bar on Divisadero Street in San Francisco. For the last few days, and for the foreseeable future, Dampeer will head to work to sit at the bars window, selling bottles of beer and wine to go from his bars retail shop. There's not much else he can do while the Bay Area is on lockdown while everyone works to curb the coronavirus outbreak. "We keep joking this is day one, and we have three more weeks, Dampeer told me. One week, two weeks from now, what are we going to do? Its going to be weird." The tabligh was held in Sri Petaling's Jamek mosque from 27 February to 1 March. About 14,500 Malaysians and 1,500 foreigners attended the event. Scores of participants from Malaysia, Brunei, Singapore, Cambodia and Thailand contracted the COVID-19 virus. Malaysian authorities tracked down 12,000 participants. Refugees are avoiding testing fearful of arrest and other repercussions. Kuala Lumpur (AsiaNews) Malaysian authorities are trying to track down hundreds of Rohingya refugees who attended an Islamic religious gathering held on the outskirts of Kuala Lumpur from 27 February to 1 March, after a large number of participants contracted the coronavirus. The UN refugee agency and Rohingya community leaders in Malaysia are stepping up efforts to get refugees who attended the event to come forward for COVID-19 testing, after cases linked to the event jumped across Southeast Asia. The religious gathering (tabligh) was held in Sri Petaling's Jamek mosque, attracting some 14,500 Malaysians and 1,500 foreigners (pictures). Up to 700 cases across the region have been attributed to the event. Overall,, Malaysia has reported 900 coronavirus cases so far, but 576 of them are linked to the mosque event. In Brunei 61 of its 73 cases are also connected to the religious gathering. Singapore has confirmed five, Cambodia 22 and Thailand at least two. Malaysian authorities have identified most of the people who attended the tabligh, but some 4,000 are still unaccounted for. Participants spent most of their time in the crowded mosque, but some went to restaurants, shopping malls and visited Kuala Lumpur's famous Petronas towers. Others engaged in door-to-door activities. More than a hundred thousand Rohingya refugees from Myanmar are believed to live in Malaysia, where they are considered illegal immigrants. For activists, this status is making many of them reluctant to come forward for coronavirus testing when they show flu-like symptoms. We have increased awareness and have advised the Rohingya to get tested," said Bo Min Naing, president of the Rohingya Society in Malaysia. He estimates that 400 to 600 Rohingya attended the gathering. Human rights activist Lilianne Fan said that the refugees do fear arrest and other repercussions. The UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) said on its website that it had requested the government not to arrest any refugee or asylum seeker without documents or with expired papers. For its part, the agency has postponed all appointments, amid two-week movement curbs in the country, to contain the spread of the virus. Rohingya community leaders said that UNHCR wrote to them, urging them to convince all refugees who attended the Jamek mosque to immediately contact health authorities without fear of arrests. Despite the precedent in Kuala Lumpur, another tabligh was set to take place yesterday in Indonesia. About 9,000 people from Southeast Asia, South Asia and the Middle East travelled to Gowa Regency, Malassar province (South Sulawesi Island), ignoring the requests of the authorities to postpone the event. At the last minute, organisers cancelled the event. But about 83 Malaysians who had planned to go to the gathering, did so violating the governments decision to close the countrys borders. Now there are fears about them infecting others once they are back. Lina Soo, a member of the People's Aspiration Party, a Sarawak State-based political party, criticised her compatriots behaviour, calling it a suicide mission. The COVID-19 crisis is a life and death matter, she said. In Malaysia, the infection has already advanced to community transmission with clusters around church groups and Muslim gatherings. In her view, Any Malaysian who visited the aborted Sulawesi gathering must be quarantined for three weeks as the incubation period for this virus can be as long as 20 days. What is more, she added that To deflect the infection curve, all states in the country must close their borders to prevent inter-state movement of people. (Joseph Masilamany contributed to this article). A 39-year-old Decatur woman died Thursday afternoon in a three-vehicle crash, according to a press release from the Odessa Police Department. Amber Sahagun was a passenger in a Jaguar that was westbound on Interstate 20 near Grant Avenue and was behind a Dodge pickup. An 18-wheeler, driven by Ranjit Singh, 42, of New York, was following the car. Singh failed to control his speed and hit the car, which then hit the pickup, according to the release. Sahagun died at the scene; the driver of the car was transported to an Odessa hospital with life-threatening injuries. No other injuries were reported, and no other details are available at this time. OPD and Odessa Fire Rescue responded at about 4p.m. The Grands Prix of Australia, China, Vietnam and Bahrain have been postponed or cancelled, along with others but that shouldn't spoil the fun. The Formula 1 drivers are now filling their time with other things. In F1 Social Check you will find everything that keeps drivers and teams busy during the extra break before the F1 season. Rosberg thanks everyone for help with coronavirus Nico Rosberg is a Formula 1 World Champion, but the German is currently locked up in his home in Monaco. Thank you to everyone who's helping so extremely much in this situation! Lets all support them as best as we can: By staying at home!We are all in this together! #COVID19 #StayAtHome pic.twitter.com/8tQfoPlnKo Nico Rosberg (@nico_rosberg) March 19, 2020 A message from Toto Eppendorf AG and Koki Holdings Co., Ltd., have reached an agreement that Eppendorf will acquire Kokis centrifuge business, including the premium himac brand. A corresponding agreement was signed by both companies in Tokyo. The acquisition marks a targeted step by Hamburg-based Eppendorf AG to expand its centrifuge business and solidifies its strong market position as one of the worlds leading makers of high-end centrifuges for the pharma and life science industries as well as academic and commercial research. Koki Holdings will focus on developing its position as a comprehensive provider of power tools aiming to become a leading global company through strategic investment, accelerated technology and product development. We are excited to acquire Kokis centrifuge business and its premium himac brand. These high-performance products are an ideal fit for Eppendorf's centrifuges business and high-quality standards, said Dr. Peter Fruhstorfer, Co-CEO of Eppendorf AG. With this acquisition, Eppendorf will become a full-line provider of high-performance premium centrifuges on a global level. This gives us access to new customer groups and offers opportunities for further growth. The centrifuge business is one of Eppendorf's core businesses, Fruhstorfer continued, which will be sustainably strengthened by the acquisition. We are excited to have Eppendorf as a partner in acquiring our Centrifuge & Processing (C&P) business, which has held a first-place business track record in Japan for over 65 years, said Atsushi Morisawa, CEO of Koki Holdings. With Eppendorfs investment through this acquisition, I am sure the Koki-originated C&P business will earn an extraordinary positioning in the global market. With that, Koki Holdings will strategically focus on the power tool industry to become the top brand globally. Koki Holdings Co., Ltd., develops and produces ultracentrifuges and floor-standing centrifuges under the brand name himac in Ibaraki Prefecture, Japan, which is north of Tokyo. The parties have agreed not to disclose the purchase price. Koki Holdings Co., Ltd. was established in 1948 as manufacturer of power tools, including tools used in coal mining. In 1954, Koki began a centrifuge product business that earned a high reputation in the Japanese and global market. Koki Holdings will continue to focus on the power tools business by developing superior products and services aiming to become a leading global company in the industry. The Moroccan government has adopted a draft law to fight fake news on social media and the internet and deter cyber criminality as authorities continue their crackdown on people who deliberately attempt at undermining public order on social media by sowing panic. Dozens have been arrested in different cities including a 48-year-old woman known as Mi Naima who said in a youtube video that coronavirus does not exist and that she will continue life as usual shaking hands and kissing people. Other arrests targeted people who intentionally sow panic among citizens inventing wrong news of the spread of the virus in their cities. A Woman was arrested in Marrakech after she recorded an audio message on whatsapp saying that the city was under a lockdown and asking people not to visit. In El Jadida, authorities arrested a citizen dressed in a medical gear filmed walking in the streets claiming to have the virus. He was filmed coughing at a woman who was passing by. The government said the draft law against fake news comes at an appropriate moment as the country joins effort against the coronavirus outbreak. The law is not meant to restrict the freedom of speech but rather to avert fake news and other forms of cybercrimes that aim at undermining public order. Additional reporting by Eoin English, and Neil Michael A ban on evictions is to be implemented for the duration of the Covid-19 pandemic. The Government yesterday approved a series of emergency measures, brought by Housing Minister Eoghan Murphy, to protect tenants who have been impacted by the crisis. Moratoriums on evictions and rent increases are being introduced for the duration of the emergency to ensure people can stay in their homes during the crisis. The notice period for tenancies of less than six months is also being increased from 28 to 90 days as Social Protection Minister Regina Doherty revealed the Government expects the emergency to cost up to 400,000 jobs. The measures are temporary, and will last for the duration of the Covid-19 crisis, after which will revert to normal arrangements. The move comes as a third person was confirmed to have died from Covid-19 and a further 191 people tested positive for the virus. There are now 557 confirmed cases in Ireland. It was also announced that it could be up to three weeks before we see the impact of social distancing, while the number of test centres, at the end of this week, will increase to 32. Garda Commissioner Drew Harris has fast-tracked the graduation of more than 300 new gardai to bolster high-visibility policing and community engagement in response to Covid-19. The 319 recruits will be sworn in at Templemores Garda College in a ceremony attended by Justice Minister Charlie Flanagan today. They will bring to 14,750 the number of serving gardai and will be deployed in the coming weeks. As well as releasing the latest confirmed cases, the Department of Health provided analysis of the first 350 cases of people with Covid-19. It shows 55% are male and 43% are female and a total of 26 clusters have been identified. The average age of confirmed cases is 43 and, while 31% of cases have been hospitalised, 2% seven cases have been admitted to intensive care units. Dublin has the highest number of cases at 172, followed by Cork at 62 and Limerick at 14. Of the first 350 cases affected, 84 are associated with healthcare workers and 28 with foreign travel. From today, health workers at two of the countrys biggest hospitals will be screened before they start work. An estimated 3,000 staff at Cork University Hospital (CUH) and Cork University Maternity Hospital will be screened when they report for duty as Covid-19 infection-control measures are ramped up. It is understood that large marquees will be erected on CUH grounds through which all medical, healthcare, and non-medical staff will have to pass before being cleared to enter the buildings. Tony Holohan, the chief medical officer in the Department of Health, said of the latest Covid-19 death: I would like to extend my condolences to the family and friends of this patient. It is too early to see any impact of our social distancing measures. This data underscores the importance of younger people to rigorously follow public health advice and social distancing measures. Breda Smyth, HSE director of public health medicine, said: Healthcare workers are at the frontline of this pandemic. While it is heartening to see social-distancing measures taken seriously across society, this must continue in order to protect the most vulnerable and support our healthcare staff throughout this pandemic. It was also decided yesterday that this years Leaving Certificate and Junior Certificate oral and practical examinations have been cancelled indefinitely on foot of the pandemic, with full marks to be allotted to all students involved. Mr Varadkar spoke by phone with British prime minister Boris Johnson last night. They discussed school closures, North and in the Republic, how to co-operate to battle the virus, and developments in Europe. A Government statement said: They agreed on the need to keep in contact and align their actions, in so far as possible, on the matter. It also emerged last night that Ikea is the latest company to shut its doors because of the pandemic, following Brown Thomas and Arnotts. The Swedish furniture giants flagship store in Ballymun Read More: Key points New emergency laws provide for mass gatherings to be shut down and give powers to order groups of people in areas to stay indoors. The laws also allow for the detention of a person, if a medical recommendation has been given, if they refuse to self-isolate; One infected person could infect more than 400 others within 30 days, it has been claimed; More than 58,000 people have applied for Covid-19 unemployment payment; Social Protection Minister Regina Doherty announced a move to pay weekly social welfare payments on a fortnightly basis instead to aid with social distancing; Charities express concerns at a likely rise in domestic and sexual violence as the pressure cooker in homes builds due to Covid-19 measures; Port of Cork has suspended cruise liner calls; Up to 1,000 people around the country have been asked not to attend for jury duty for Circuit Criminal Court sittings for the month of April. Housing Minister in self-isolation Housing Minister Eoghan Murphy is in self-isolation for precautionary reasons after visiting family abroad. He is the first member of the Government to self-isolate. The Irish Examiner can reveal that he has been in self-isolation for almost a week. His officials said that the minister had not been in direct physical contact with any colleagues. Mr Murphys spokesman has confirmed that the minister is in self-quarantine. He is, as a precaution, he said. He is keeping a full work schedule, like many across the country. He has maintained a full work schedule via phone and teleconference like many across the country at the moment. He has not been in direct physical contact with any colleagues. However, one Cabinet member confirmed last night that senior ministers hadnot been told that Mr Murphy is in self-isolation for precautionary reasons. I didnt know. We werent told anything. I must send him a text, said a member. Juno McEnroe [snippet1]987600[/snippet1] WASHINGTONSen. Richard Burr sold hundreds of thousands of dollars worth of stock in major companies last month as U.S. President Donald Trump and others in his party were still playing down the threat presented by the coronavirus outbreak and before the stock markets precipitous plunge. The stocks were sold in mid-February, days after Burr, R-N.C., the chairman of the Intelligence Committee, wrote an opinion article for Fox News suggesting that the United States was better prepared than ever before to confront the virus. At least three other senators sold major stock holdings around the same time, disclosure records show. Two weeks after Burr sold his stocks, he spoke at the Capitol Hill Club in Washington to a nonpartisan group called the Tar Heel Club, warning that the virus could soon cause a major disruption in the United States. The gathering, which drew fewer than 100 people, included representatives from the North Carolina governors office, as well as staff members from other congressional offices in the state. Theres one thing that I can tell you about this: It is much more aggressive in its transmission than anything we have seen in recent history, Burr said, according to a recording obtained by NPR, which reported on his remarks Thursday. Its probably more akin to the 1918 pandemic. He added: Every company should be cognizant of the fact that you may have to alter your travel. You may have to look at your employees and judge whether the trip theyre making to Europe is essential or whether it can be done on video conference. Burr has long pushed for the United States to better prepare for the threat presented by pandemics, including sponsoring legislation that Congress passed in 2006 called the Pandemic and All-Hazards Preparedness Act. His message has always been, and continues to be, that we must be prepared to protect American lives in the event of a pandemic or bio-attack, Caitlin Carroll, a spokeswoman for Burr, said in a statement. Since early February, whether in constituent meetings or open hearings, he has worked to educate the public about the tools and resources our government has to confront the spread of coronavirus. In a series of posts on Twitter, Burr accused NPR of twisting his comments into a tabloid-style hit piece. He argued that the report made him look duplicitous for sharing information at a publicly advertised event that was consistent with the message members of the Trump administration were then trying to promulgate. He did not address his stock sales. As the Intelligence Committee chairman, Burr receives regular briefings on threats to the United States, including the coronavirus. He is also a member of the Senate health committee, which in January hosted a briefing with top Trump administration officials open to all senators. It is apparently not the first time Burr has acted decisively to shield his assets from financial turmoil after hearing from government officials. In 2009, he recounted in a speech how after he heard Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson discuss a major companys difficulty moving money between banks, he called his wife and instructed her to withdraw as much cash as possible from their own accounts out of fear there would be a run on funds. Three other senators also sold major holdings around the time Burr did, according to the disclosure records: Dianne Feinstein, D-Calif., who is also a member of the Intelligence Committee; James Inhofe, R-Okla.; and Kelly Loeffler, R-Ga. The record of Burrs stock transaction shows that on Feb. 13 he and his wife sold 33 different stocks, which were collectively worth $628,000 to $1.7 million, according to the disclosures filed with the secretary of the Senate. Those sales include as much as $150,000 worth of stock in two hotel chains, Wyndham Hotels and Resorts and Extended Stay America. The values of both companies have declined significantly in recent weeks. He also sold as much as $65,000 worth of stock in Park Hotels & Resorts. Feinstein and her husband sold $1.5 million to $6 million worth of stock in Allogene Therapeutics, a California-based biotech company, in transactions that took place Jan. 31 and Feb. 18. Inhofe sold a large amount of stock all on Jan. 27 including holdings in PayPal, Apple and Brookfield Asset Management, a real estate company, with the overall value of the sales totalling as much as $400,000, a disclosure report shows. Loeffler and her husband, Jeffrey Sprecher, who is the chairman of the New York Stock Exchange, reported 27 stock sales worth millions of dollars starting Jan. 24. On that day, Loeffler tweeted about attending the Senate briefing on the coronavirus. The stocks the couple sold were in companies including Exxon Mobil, Ross Stores and AutoZone. Appreciate todays briefing from the Presidents top health officials on the novel coronavirus outbreak, she wrote about the briefing. These men and women are working around the clock to keep our country safe and healthy. Representatives for Loeffler, whose sales were first reported by The Daily Beast, did not respond Thursday to requests for comment. An aide to Inhofe was not immediately available for comment late Thursday. A spokesman for Feinstein said that she played no role in the decision to sell the stock. All of Senator Feinsteins assets are in a blind trust, a spokesman, Tom Mentzer, said in a statement. She has no involvement in her husbands financial decisions. Congress began requiring its members to disclose their stock sales in 2012, when it passed a law called the Stop Trading on Congressional Knowledge Act, which was intended to prevent lawmakers from using inside information to profit. The forms do not require lawmakers to record their actual earnings from those sales, just a range of the value of each transaction. Details of Burrs stock sales were first reported by ProPublica and the Center for Responsive Politics, which maintains a database of congressional stock transactions. The sales by Burr appear to be a significant share of his holdings, according to his most recent annual financial report. The virus outbreak surfaced in December in the Chinese city of Wuhan. By mid-February, Trump was continuing to play down the threat. I think the numbers are going to get progressively better as we go along, the president said Feb. 19. Aides to Burr said that the decision to sell the stocks was a private one long before the stock market plunged and evidence of a widespread health threat emerged in the United States. Liberal groups quickly sought to capitalize on the sales, suggesting that Burr should give up his office and advancing unsupported claims that he may have broken the law. Senator Burr needs to resign immediately, said Zach Hudson, a spokesman for American Bridge, a Democratic advocacy group. His conduct as detailed by this report represents a gross violation of the publics trust, and he must be held accountable for his behavior that appears criminal. Criticism came from the conservative side as well, with Tucker Carlson, a Fox News host, also calling for Burrs resignation. He dumped his shares in hotel stocks so he wouldnt lose money, and then he stayed silent, Carlson said during his show Thursday night. Maybe there is an honest explanation for what he did. If there is, he should share it with us immediately. Otherwise, he must resign from the Senate and face prosecution for insider trading. Read more about: Sri Lankan President Gotabaya Rajapaksa on Friday declared island-wide curfew in the country till March 23 morning as a part of preventive measure to contain the coronavirus spread. The island nation has reported 53 cases so far. "Island-wide curfew declared from 6 pm today (20) till 6 am Monday (23)," Rajapaksa tweeted. Sri Lanka has banned all incoming flights for two weeks and has closed schools and universities, Al Jazeera reported Coronavirus, which originated in Wuhan city of China, has so far claimed the lives of 10,000 people globally. The epicentre of the disease has now shifted to Europe. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) New Delhi, March 20 : Owing to the unprecedented breakout of coronavirus in New York, IANS management has decided to temporarily shut its two person bureau within UN Building as a precautionary measure till March 31. However, continued coverage through telecommuting will be available to all its subscribers without any interruption. The IANS correspondent and the TV producer will resume working out of the bureau when the situation in New York City, where 3,615 coronavirus cases have been reported as of Thursday morning, stabilises. The UN media liaison office informed the bureau on Thursday that a journalist who had been diagnosed with Covid-19 had been on the same floor where the IANS bureau is located. The journalist was not identified. The media liaison office said that the area was cleaned intensively. Earlier, the UN reported that a Filipino diplomat and a staffer at the UN had tested positive for coronavirus. The UN had asked all but essential staff to work from and accredited correspondents with offices were considered essential and allowed access to the building. From Wednesday, the daily briefings were moved to teleconference with Stephane Dujarric, the Spokesman for Secretary-General Antonio Guterres, conducting them from home enabling resident correspondent to participate remotely. Guterres held an interactive news conference remotely on Friday. Latest updates on Coronavirus (COVID-19) Gov. Tom Wolf moved Pennsylvania closer to a European-style lockdown in the ongoing battle against coronavirus Thursday when he ordered the closure of all non-life-sustaining businesses by 8 p.m. Thursday. To protect the health and safety of all Pennsylvanians, we need to take more aggressive mitigation actions, Wolf said in a statement released just before 5 p.m. This virus is an invisible danger that could be present everywhere. We need to act with the strength we use against any other severe threat. And, we need to act now before the illness spreads more widely. The new edict falls short of a public curfew and wont quite bring public or commercial life in Pennsylvania to a screeching halt. Businesses that may remain open under Wolfs latest order include groceries, restaurants with take-out service, pharmacies, gas stations, medical facilities, news media companies, public utilities and many kinds of freight hauling, manufacturing, farming and other commercial businesses. But for those ordered to close, it was a surprising, sharp and maybe unjustified blow that, in their view, could have permanent consequences. The step up in tone, terms and enforcement are a clear sign Wolf feels more can and must be done to try to interrupt the spread of a virus that now appears to have landed in every region of the state. It also was clear he felt his earlier, voluntary requests for the closure of what he had been defining as non-essential businesses earlier this week was not generating enough compliance. I had hoped for voluntary compliance so our public safety officers could focus on assisting with the crisis, Wolf said in a videotaped address from his home in Mount Wolf. "Unfortunately, we have not seen full compliance. We have no time to lose. With every minute that passes, more Pennsylvanians come in to contact with the COVID-19 virus... "This is what needs to be done to halt the spread of this virus." The new order comes with more and sharper teeth, too. Wolf said he will use the Pennsylvania State Police, the states Liquor Control Enforcement agents and local police to empty and even padlock businesses. Failure to comply, Wolfs statement added, will result in enforcement action that could include citations, fines, or license suspensions. Wolf said the warning period is over for restaurants now, and it will be for the other identified businesses on Saturday. Importantly, violator businesses will also forfeit their shots at any follow-up disaster relief funding and could also see themselves banned from future state loan or grant funding. Wolf has never publicly undersold his level of concern about the pandemic; as recently as Tuesday, administration staffers were saying the governor felt that asking police to make businesses close down or empty public dining rooms was not an appropriate use of resources. But he had also always left the door open to further measures, and Thursday he walked through. The result is a broad use of the governors emergency powers that hasnt been seen in decades on a statewide level. It was an overreach, or at the least a reach not plainly supported by the evidence at hand, some said Thursday night. Others demanded more justification for why certain businesses and industries landed on either list. We understand that there are necessary precautions that must be taken to protect life, but no other governor, even in states with many more cases and wider community spread, has taken this extreme action, Gordon Denlinger, state director of National Federation for Independent Business, said in a statement Thursday night. We want to know the basis for Governor Wolfs decision and whether it is justified by specific federal Centers for Disease Control directives." Leaders of the state Senates Republican majority echoed the NFIBs concerns and called for the administration at the least to set up a process by which affected business owners could appeal to stay open. House Republican leaders went even further, promising to explore all avenues available to us to determine whether the action hes taken is allowed within our state Constitution. The Wolf Administration set off a panic tonight throughout the Commonwealth with its edict to shut down employers," the House leaders said. These actions will shut down many small, family-owned shops and businesses, not only for the duration of this event, but possibly, and probably, forever. One former Wolf administration official, who asked not to be identified for this story because he was not privy to internal discussions, said it was clear to him that Wolf is acting on the basis of advice from public health officials who have been carefully studying the viruss progression in other countries. The governor, he said, sees forced separation of residents as the best path to prevent a situation in which the states hospital and health care systems are overwhelmed, so hes acting. 8 Penn State Health Milton S. Hershey Medical Center drive-through COVID-19 testing site That was echoed later Thursday night by Wolfs Press Secretary Lyndsay Kensinger, who in response to questions from PennLive said: Were closely monitoring countries like Italy where the dramatic increase has overwhelmed the health care system. The spread of COVID-19 is increasing at an exponential pace, especially in urban areas and southeast Pennsylvania, and new cases are beginning to appear in other counties that suggests community spread is happening, Kensinger said. Italys case count has grown by thousands of cases a day for more than a week straight now, and the number of COVID-19 deaths there now surpasses those in China, where the outbreak was first detected earlier this winter. "By limiting exposure, and with businesses closing, fewer Pennsylvanians will become sick at the same time, fewer will die, and we can prevent worst-case-scenarios for our health care professionals, Kensinger said. Some top health care officials were endorsing the governors actions Thursday night. We believe every effort to discourage crowds and to create social distancing that may help us flatten the curve of this epidemic is important, Dan Laurent, a spokesman for Pittsburgh-based Allegheny Health Network, told TribLive.com Thursday night. So we think the governor is making an appropriate decision in that respect. Wolf, who has long prided himself on his pre-politics business career, made clear in his video announcement Thursday that he is not deaf to businesss concerns about unplanned closures of indefinite length, and he promised efforts to help them survive. But you know," he said, "before we can save livelihoods, we must save lives. Wolf declared the disaster emergency on March 6 to slow the spread of COVID-19, triggering a part of the states emergency management law that vastly expands a governors powers. They include everything from ordering mass evacuations to limiting or outright halting liquor and firearm sales. Also among the new powers: controlling ingress and egress to and from a disaster area, the movement of persons within the area, and the occupancy of premises therein. That is the section - coupled with other powers given to his administration from the states Disease Prevention and Control Law - that Wolfs advisers say gives the governor the authority to shut down schools and even order businesses to close. Sources reached by PennLive Thursday evening said they could not recall a similar exercise of emergency powers on what promises to be a sustained, statewide basis. The governors move came as the number of confirmed coronavirus cases across Pennsylvania has been increasing daily through the week, reaching 185 as of Wednesday midnight. That was up from just 20 confirmed cases one week ago, indicating Pennsylvanias cases on still on more of a climb than a curve at this point. There has, so far, been one death in Pennsylvania. Thanks for visiting PennLive. Quality local journalism has never been more important. We need your support. Not a subscriber yet? Please consider supporting our work. Former Speaker of Lagos State House of Assembly, Right Hon. Adeyemi Ikuforiji, has warned that the Nigerian government, both federal and states, must take the task of preventing and containing the spread of corona virus across the country seriously. The former Lagos Assembly Speaker maintained that the government must not allow coronavirus infection to become an epidemic in the country. Ikuforiji who came back from the US last week, noted that the infection of the virus is deadly, leading to quick death outside Nigeria. The former Speaker affirmed that government should not lose focus in controlling the spread of the virus, adding that if it becomes an epidemic in the country, it will cost government a lot to terminate it. He emphasized the need for stronger collaboration between the federal government and the states to ensure that the spread of coronavirus is effectively controlled in the country. He reiterated that countries where coronavirus has become epidemic are paying dearly for it. Ikuforiji, therefore, advocated that proper isolation medical centres and other preventive facilities be provided, including adequate checks at the international airports. PV: 0 A passenger at Sydney airport covers her face with a mask in Sydney, Australia on March 16, 2020. (Brendon Thorne/Getty Images) Big Four Banks in Australia Hand Loan Lifeline to Small Business Australias big four banks will suspend small business loan repayments for six months to guard against the economic tsunami of COVID-19. The assistance package will apply to more than A$100 billion of existing loans. Australian Banking Association chief executive Anna Bligh said it could put A$8 billion back into the pockets of small businesses. This package is designed to go hard and as fast as possible to small businesses, she told reporters in Sydney. That is where it is needed most today in order to avoid more people falling out of work and into mortgage distress. The measures are not restricted to any sectors, with banks set to be flexible on eligibility criteria between small and medium companies. Bligh said banks could also look at measures to help people struggling with repaying home loans if the financial aspect of the virus crisis deepens. If we start to see any similar critical need in other parts of the community, including mortgages, that is something they know they will have to look at, she said. But at this stage, the most urgent and pressing need is for small businesses. The Australian government is also plotting a fresh round of stimulus measures after announcing a A$17.6 billion package last week. Australian treasurer Josh Frydenberg said the next package would extend support for small businesses and assist sacked workers. This second package we are working on right now is about cushioning the blow for so many of those Australians who may lose their job, he told Sky News on Friday. At an emergency meeting on Thursday, the Reserve Bank cut the cash rate to 0.25 percent, the lowest in Australias history. The central bank will also start buying government bonds to flood Australias financial system with extra cash to keep the economy functioning smoothly during the crisis. A three-year A$90 billion fund for banks to help small- and medium-sized businesses will be established, while the government will give $15 billion to small lenders. Frydenberg wants bank loans to help businesses pay rent, wages and utility bills. They need that cashflow support so they can meet some of their fixed expenses, the treasurer said. He said the governments second package would not look at structural changes that cant be removed after the crisis is overa position that will be welcomed by credit agencies. Our focus is on targeted measures using the existing tax and transfer system and making it as simple and as easy as possible for Australians to get that support, Frydenberg told the Australian Broadcasting Corporation. He also poured cold water on suggestions the government could nationalize major companies, like Virgin Australia. Thats not our focus right now. By Matt Coughlan DUBLIN, March 20, 2020 /PRNewswire/ -- The "Malt Extracts and Ingredients Market by Product (Extracts and Ingredients), Source (Soy, Wheat, and Rye), Grade (Standard malt and Specialty malt), Application (Beverages, Food, and Pharmaceuticals), Form (Dry and Liquid), Region - Global Forecast to 2025" report has been added to ResearchAndMarkets.com's offering. The global malt extracts and ingredients market is estimated to be valued at USD 17.6 billion in 2020 and is projected to reach USD 20.4 billion by 2025, recording a CAGR of 3%. Malt extracts are useful for various applications in the food & beverage industry, which is increasing their demand among manufacturers. Also, their stable demand from breweries is also contributing to the growth of this market. This report segments the malt extracts and ingredients market on the basis of product, source, grade, application, form, and region. In terms of insights, this research report focuses on various levels of analyses - competitive landscape, end-use analysis, and company profiles - which together comprise and discuss the basic views on the emerging & high-growth segments of the malt extracts and ingredients market, the high-growth regions, countries, government initiatives, market disruption, drivers, restraints, opportunities, and challenges. The barley segment is projected to be the largest segment in the malt extracts and ingredients market during the forecast period. Barley, being one of the primary sources of beer in the brewing industry, is dominating the market. There is an upsurge in demand for beer among the youth in the Asia Pacific region, which is why the major players are looking to expand their capacities to meet the demand. Also, the increase in the production and export of barley has contributed to market growth. The reintroduction of microbreweries and home-based beers is one of the major factors contributing to the growth of the market share for barley. The dry form segment is dominant in the malt extracts and ingredients market. Manufacturers prefer the dry form more than the liquid form of malt extracts and ingredients. The dry form is easy to handle. Also, the cost of storage and transportation associated with it is lower than that of the liquid form of ingredients. This makes the final cost of the products lower. Therefore, brewers prefer the dry form of malt ingredients, which include powders and flakes. The shelf life of the dry form is also more than that of the liquid form, which is one of the reasons why manufacturers prefer the dry form of malt extracts and ingredients. Asia Pacific is estimated to account for the largest market share. Currently, the Asia Pacific region is the dominating market for malt extracts and ingredients. The high population and increase in the purchasing capacity have enabled consumers to invest in luxury foods. The rise in recreational activities has increased the market for beer production, which is the primary application of malt extracts and ingredients. The growth of the market can also be attributed to the various uses of malt-based foods such as bread, cookies, and confectionaries. Key Topics Covered 1 Introduction 2 Research Methodology 3 Executive Summary 4 Premium Insights 4.1 Attractive Opportunities in the Malt Extracts and Ingredients Market 4.2 Malt Extracts and Ingredients Market, By Region 4.3 Malt Extracts and Ingredients Market, By Source 4.4 Malt Extracts and Ingredients Market, By Application 4.5 Asia Pacific: Malt Extracts and Ingredients Market, By Application & Country 5 Market Overview 5.1 Introduction 5.2 Market Dynamics 5.2.1 Drivers 5.2.1.1 Rising Adoption of Malt Extracts and Ingredients in the Food & Beverage Industry 5.2.1.1.1 Food Industry 5.2.1.1.2 Non-Alcoholic Beverage Industry 5.2.1.2 Increasing Demand for Natural Sweeteners 5.2.1.3 Increasing Expansion Strategy By Malt Extract and Ingredient Manufacturers 5.2.2 Restraints 5.2.2.1 Fluctuating Beer Market 5.2.2.2 Quality of Barley and Seasonal Variations 5.2.3 Opportunities 5.2.3.1 Emerging Markets Illustrate the Great Potential for Malt Extracts and Ingredients 5.2.3.2 Increasing Popularity of Craft Beer 5.2.3.3 Rising Demand for Organic Malt Extracts and Ingredients 5.2.4 Challenges 5.2.4.1 Supply of Counterfeit Malt as Well as Equipment 5.2.4.2 Price Pressure on Malt, Owing to Concerns in the Distribution Network 5.3 YC & YCC Shift 5.4 Supply Chain 6 Malt Extracts and Ingredients Market, By Product 6.1 Introduction 6.2 Ingredients 6.2.1 Ingredients are Majorly Used for Alcoholic Beverages 6.3 Extracts 6.3.1 Extracts are Used as Flavoring and Browning Agents 7 Malt Extracts and Ingredients Market, By Source 7.1 Introduction 7.2 Barley 7.2.1 Over 20% of the Global Barley Production is Directed Toward Malt Production 7.2.2 Global Production of Barley Per 1000 Tonnes 7.3 Wheat 7.3.1 Wheat Malt is Popular in the European Region Due to Its High Production 7.4 Rye 7.4.1 Rye is One of the Most Preferred Choices for Craft Beer 7.5 Others 8 Malt Extracts and Ingredients Market, By Grade 8.1 Introduction 8.2 Standard 8.2.1 Standard Malt Find Significant Application in the Brewing Industry 8.3 Specialty 8.3.1 Specialty Malt to Have the Highest Application in the Bakery and Confectionery Industries 8.3.2 Crystal 8.3.2.1 Crystal Malt Imparts Caramel-Like Flavor to Classic Beers 8.3.3 Roasted 8.3.3.1 Roasted Malt is Versatile in Nature and Finds Use in A Variety of Applications 8.3.4 Dark 8.3.4.1 Dark Malts are Used to Give A Sharp Taste to Recipes 8.3.5 Other Specialty Malts 9 Malt Extracts and Ingredients Market, By Form 9.1 Introduction 9.2 Dry 9.2.1 The Dry Form is Popular Due to Its Higher Shelf Life and Easier Transportation 9.3 Liquid Malt 9.3.1 Liquid Malt is in Demand Due to Rise in Home Brewery 10 Malt Extracts and Ingredients Market, By Application 10.1 Introduction 10.2 Beverages 10.3 Alcoholic Beverages 10.3.1 Alcoholic Beverages Dominate the Application for Malt Ingredients 10.4 Non-Alcoholic Beverages 10.4.1 Non-Beer Drinking Nations are Driving the Market for Non-Alcoholic Malt-Based Drinks 10.5 Food 10.5.1 Malt Ingredients are High in Demand in the Bakery & Confectionery Industry 10.6 Pharmaceuticals 10.6.1 Leading A Healthy Lifestyle Popularizes the Usage of Malt-Based Supplements and Medicines 10.7 Other Applications 11 Malt Extracts and Ingredients Market, By Region 11.1 Introduction 11.2 North America 11.2.1 US 11.2.1.1 Rising Demand for Craft Beer to Drive the Growth of the Market 11.2.2 Canada 11.2.2.1 Increasing Export Demand for Barley to Drive Market Growth in Canada 11.2.3 Mexico 11.2.3.1 Popularity of the Alternatives of Alcoholic Beverages in the Country to Drive Market Growth 11.3 Europe 11.3.1 Germany 11.3.1.1 High-Income Levels of Consumers to Drive Market Growth 11.3.2 UK 11.3.2.1 Being the Second-Largest Producer of Beer in Europe, the Growth Potential for Manufacturers Remains High in the UK 11.3.3 France 11.3.3.1 Availability of A Wide Variety of Beer and Bakery Applications to Drive Market Growth 11.3.4 Russia 11.3.4.1 Increase in Demand for Innovative Food Products to Drive Market Growth 11.3.5 Spain 11.3.5.1 Non-Alcoholic Malt-Based Drinks to Drive Market Growth 11.3.6 Poland 11.3.6.1 Changing Lifestyles of Consumers to Drive Demand for Malt-Based Ingredients and Extract Beverages 11.3.7 Rest of Europe 11.4 Asia Pacific 11.4.1 China 11.4.1.1 A Shift From Low-Quality Beer to Premium Beer 11.4.2 Japan 11.4.2.1 Increased Focus of Companies on Capitalizing on New Opportunities to Capture the Market 11.4.3 India 11.4.3.1 Increase in the Adoption of Natural Sweeteners to Propel Market Growth 11.4.4 Australia & New Zealand 11.4.4.1 Increase in the Production of Barley to Boost Market Growth 11.4.5 Rest of Asia Pacific 11.5 South America 11.5.1 Brazil 11.5.1.1 Sophistication and High Demand for Premium Products 11.5.2 Argentina 11.5.2.1 Rise in the Number of Launches for A Wide Range of Products 11.5.3 Rest of South America 11.6 Middle East & Africa 11.6.1 Middle East 11.6.1.1 Increasing Demand for Non-Alcoholic Beverages and Malt-Based Food Accelerating the Market 11.6.2 Africa 11.6.2.1 Increasing Beer Production Propelling Malt Extracts and Ingredients Market Growth 12 Competitive Landscape 12.1 Overview 12.2 Competitive Leadership Mapping 12.2.1 Terminology/Nomenclature 12.2.1.1 Visionary Leaders 12.2.1.2 Innovators 12.2.1.3 Dynamic Differentiators 12.2.1.4 Emerging Companies 12.3 Strength of Product Portfolio 12.4 Business Strategy Excellence 12.5 Ranking of Key Players 2018 12.6 Competitive Scenario 12.6.1 New Product Launches 12.6.2 Expansions & Investments 12.6.3 Mergers & Acquisitions 12.6.4 Agreements, Joint Ventures, and Partnerships 12.7 Smaller Players Microquadrants 12.7.1 Progressive Companies 12.7.2 Emerging Companies 12.7.3 Responsive Companies 12.7.4 Dynamic Companies 12.8 Strength of Product Portfolio 12.9 Business Strategy Excellence 13 Company Profiles (Business Overview, Products Offered, Recent Developments, SWOT Analysis & Right to Win) 13.1 Graincorp Limited 13.2 Malteurop Group 13.3 Rahr Corporation 13.4 Boortmalt 13.5 Groupe Soufflet 13.6 Maltexco S.A. 13.7 Malt Products 13.8 Holland Malt 13.9 Barmalt 13.10 Ireks GmbH 13.11 Muntons PLC 13.12 Simpsons Malt 13.13 Viking Malt 13.14 Agraria 13.15 Puremalt 13.16 Cerex 13.17 Diastatische Producten 13.18 Edme Limited 13.19 Imperial Malts Limited 13.20 Laihian Mallas For more information about this report visit https://www.researchandmarkets.com/r/i1cx61 Research and Markets also offers Custom Research services providing focused, comprehensive and tailored research. Media Contact: Research and Markets Laura Wood, Senior Manager [email protected] For E.S.T Office Hours Call +1-917-300-0470 For U.S./CAN Toll Free Call +1-800-526-8630 For GMT Office Hours Call +353-1-416-8900 U.S. Fax: 646-607-1904 Fax (outside U.S.): +353-1-481-1716 SOURCE Research and Markets Related Links http://www.researchandmarkets.com Well, folks in case you havent heard about it yet because youre hiding under a rock (maybe well be better off hiding under rocks), the coronavirus has been whipping people up into a tizzy over its rapid spread. Im not trying to make light of this disease, its not funny that people are worried about their health. However, I do believe were all desperately in need of a laugh or a lighthearted distraction. So for all you folks working from home (or pretending to work from home while you eat ice cream in your underwear) or under self-quarantine, heres a rather lighthearted list of bingeable shows you can watch to occupy your time while we all ride out this pandemic. Catch up or rewatch these great series that you might not have watched yet because you were busy being social. So keep calm and wash your hands, folks, and get ready to watch some lovely TV. Rewatch some classics Parks and Recreation - Netflix Let Leslie Knopes sunshiney optimism buoy you out of the coronavirus woes as she tries to better the town of Pawnee through her job at the Parks and Recreation Department. With a talented cast that features Chris Pratt (pre- and post-Marvel), Nick Offerman, Aziz Ansari, Aubrey Plaza and more, how could you not smile? Parks and Recreation has seven seasons available on Netflix. Gilmore Girls - Netflix Name a more iconic mother/daughter duo than Lorelai and Rory. The fast-talking, caffeine-guzzling Gilmore girls are sure to brighten your spirit as they live their chaotic lives in the charmingly odd (fictional) Connecticut town of Stars Hollow. The original series is spectacular, although Netflix also has the revival series as well, Gilmore Girls: A Year in the Life, that fans seem to love or hate. Gilmore Girls has seven seasons, eight if you count the revival available on Netflix. The Office - Netflix Ah, The Office, one of the most quoted comedies to ever grace a Tinder bio. The beloved (although poorly aged) series follows the day-to-day operations of the Dunder-Mifflin Paper Company. The series stars Steve Carell, John Krasinski, Mindy Khaling, Rainn Wilson and more as they carry out pranks and a whole variety of shenanigans in the office. The Office has nine seasons on Netflix. Fleabag - Amazon Phoebe Waller Bridge, the brilliant mind behind the delightfully bizarre Fleabag, has gained quite a bit of popularity recently. Her series follows a character only referred to as Fleabag as she tries to get a handle on the whole adulting thing in the wake of a personal tragedy. Fleabag has two seasons available on Amazon. Crazy Ex-Girlfriend - Netflix Who doesnt love neurotic energy set to a musical score? Rachel Blooms musical comedy about a woman who moves across the country to lowkey stalk her ex-boyfriend is a delightfully lighthearted series that raises mental health awareness while the cast shows off their pipes. Crazy Ex-Girlfriend has four seasons on Netflix. Catch up on Brooklyn Nine-Nine - Hulu Set in a Brooklyn police station, these cops solve crimes while cracking jokes and pulling their own heists to test each others skills. The cast features Terry Crews and Andy Samberg. Brooklyn Nine-Nine has seven seasons on Hulu. Schitts Creek - Netflix When a rich family becomes the victim of a financial scam, they find themselves with nothing, except the comically named town that they purchased on a lark. Schitts Creek follows the Rose family as they try to build a new life in the rural and slightly podunk town of Schitts Creek. Schitts Creek has five seasons on Netflix. The Great British Bake Off - Netflix Amateur bakers compete for bragging rights in this baking challenge. With the cheery tunes and b-roll of lambs and sheep hanging out in the fields by the baking tent, viewers will find themselves instantly put at ease while the shows contestants worry about whether or not their bakes have a soggy bottom. The Great British Bake Off has seven seasons available on Netflix. Younger - Hulu When a single mom in her 40s tries to restart her career, she ages herself down to be a millennial after being told she looks younger than she is. Younger follows Liza as she tries to balance her new career, her personal life and hide her real age. The series stars Sutton Foster and Hilary Duff. Younger has six seasons on Hulu. Queer Eye - Netflix Whats more wholesome than having five gay men help a person feel more confident about themself? Queer Eye features five gay men as they help residents scattered across the South feel more confident by giving them a new sense of style, a makeover, cooking tips, a home renovation and by helping them work through their personal issues that are holding them back from being their best version of themself. If you think it sounds too cutesy, its really not and its absolutely hilarious watching the Fab Five poke around their clients houses. Queer Eye has four seasons on Netflix. As of August 26th, 2021 Yahoo India will no longer be publishing content. Your Yahoo Account Mail and Search experiences will not be affected in any way and will operate as usual. We thank you for your support and readership. For more information on Yahoo India, please visit the FAQ New Delhi: Hours before the execution of the perpetrators of the Nirbhaya case the four - Mukesh Singh, Pawan Gupta, Akshay Thakur, Vinay Sharma - cried inconsolably inside their respective jail cells, according to reports from Delhi's Tihar jail. The four convicts were closely monitored by the Tihar jail administration and orders had been issued to keep an eye out for the convicts trying to create some sort of drama or distraction and maybe even attempts to commit suicide. Earlier, a high level meeting was held by the Tihar DG on the process to be undertaken for the execution. After the hanging of the four convicts, their bodies will be taken by the Tihar administration to the Deendayal Hospital for postmortem, which is written in the jail manual. The process of post mortem will likely start at around 8 am. As per the jail manual, if the family of the convicts refuse to take their body then the police administration cremates them. The four convicts had not stated their last wish, therefore, the money that they earned by working in jail will be given to their families from their prisoner account, post execution. READ | Asha Devi flashes victory sign, says justice has been served after hanging of convicts The four convicts - Mukesh Singh, Pawan Gupta, Akshay Thakur, Vinay Sharma - were hanged on Friday morning (March 20, 2020) at 5:30 am nearly seven-and half years after gang-raping and murdering a young medical student on a moving bus in Delhi. With this execution the crime saga that began on December 16, 2012 has came to an end. The case involved six people abducting, gang-raping and then brutalising Nirbhaya, while one accused Ram Singh committed suicide during the trial on March 11, 2013, inside Tihar Jail, another accused, a minor was set free after spending three years in a juvenile home. The coronavirus stopped communal Muslim prayers for the first time in living memory in many mosques from Indonesia to Morocco on Friday, but in some places believers have defied medical advice to join together in worship. In Islam's holiest sanctuary in Mecca, the usually crowded courtyard around the Kaaba in the Grand Mosque, towards which all Muslims pray, was silent and empty. At Riyadh's massive al-Rajhi mosque, only the imam, the muezzin who sings the call to prayer, and other staff were praying inside instead of the thousands who normally attend. "This feeling is indescribable ... the minarets are crying. The mosques were once full of worshippers," said the muezzin, Nasser Mohammed, weeping. The Blue Mosque of Istanbul, with its pencil minarets and cascading domes, Jerusalem's Dome of the Rock under its gilt roof, and the massive Hassan II Mosque in Casablanca with its ornate square minaret had all shut their doors. But in Karachi, Pakistan's biggest city, mosques were crowded as a cleric told his congregation via loudspeaker: "We are not too weak to let this one virus empty our mosques." Elsewhere, Muslims flocked to mosques from Cairo to Mogadishu, whatever the risks. "I am not telling you to reject the preventative measures, but there is too much exaggeration of coronavirus," Sheikh Abdi Hayi in Mogadishu said in his sermon, as people prayed on the street, unable to join the throng within. Prayer is one of the "five pillars" of Islam, performed five times a day by the devout, but enjoined as a communal activity only at noon on Fridays. But as the pandemic spread, some governments suspended communal prayers or closed mosques entirely, leaving many of the world's 1.6 billion Muslims to pray at home, at work, in parks or in the street. A religious gathering in Malaysia last month, attended by 16,000 people, generated 670 coronavirus cases in four countries in southeast Asia. Weekly prayers were later called off in Malaysia Crowded shrines in Iran, drawing pilgrims from that country and Shia from other nations, helped accelerate the spread of one of the largest outbreaks of the coronavirus so far. 'I'M NOT RUNNING AWAY FROM CORONA' Many Muslims in the Indonesian capital Jakarta prayed at home, and Southeast Asia's biggest mosque, the Istiqlal, stopped prayers. Its imam, Nasaruddin Umar, cited an edict from the country's clerical council. "There's enough of a reason to avoid such religious gatherings," he told a news conference. However, elsewhere in the world's most populous Muslim country, people crowded into their mosques. "Allah is protecting those who abide by their obligations," said Aswin Jusar, 76, in the town of Depok, south of Jakarta, as he prepared to attend Friday prayers despite a call from the mayor for religious activities to be suspended. Outside the Fatih Mosque in Istanbul, named for the 15th century Ottoman sultan who captured the city from the Byzantine empire, 85-year-old Mustafa Emin Ozbakan stood bereft. He has been praying there since 1941. "I'm not running away from corona. Even if I ran, if death is in your destiny, you can have a traffic accident or die some other way," he said. 'ISLAM PROMOTES LIFE, NOT DEATH' In Cairo, where mosques stayed open, religious authorities urged imams to shorten sermons and prayers and said the faithful should perform their ritual ablutions at home. But Mohamed Mosleh, a 31-year-old praying at the al-Azhar mosque, said he was not concerned. "Why should I be afraid to go out, shop, work, pray or go anywhere else? But only after taking precautions, taking care of my hygiene, and all those rules that Islam dictates," he said. But from Morocco to Libya, governments have shut mosques, a step never before taken even in times of war or revolution. Some mosques broadcast an altered version of the call to prayer, exhorting the faithful to stay at home. An Algerian expert in Islamic law, Mohamed Mouloudi, said it was the right decision: "Islam promotes life, not death." In Jerusalem, where the Dome of the Rock and the neighbouring al-Aqsa have closed, clerics allowed prayer in the sacred compound that contains the two mosques. Some worshippers scuffled with Israeli police, who tried to limit the numbers. In Syria, already stricken by war, the Ummayad Mosque in Damascus closed for the first recorded time in over a thousand years. Buthaina, 44, who had prayed there for years, felt as if she had lost her home. "I don't want to leave. I just want to sit here a bit," she said after praying outside. In Nairobi, Kenya's biggest mosque was also closed. "We, as Muslims pray to God to help us overcome this disaster because as you can see, we are praying on the verandas, all the mosques are closed, said worshipper Abdalla Hakim. Search Keywords: Short link: Danielle Bux got some fresh air on Thursday, enjoying a stroll with her husband Nate Greenwald in their local neighbourhood. The model, 40, kept comfy in a black hoodie and leggings teamed with a smart camel coat for the outing with her handsome husband and their pet dog. She also updated her fans on Instagram, sharing snaps of the couple's daughter Romy, 20 months, running around during a hike in Bronson Canyon. Out and about: Danielle Bux got some fresh air on Thursday, enjoying a stroll with her husband Nate Greenwald in their local neighbourhood Danielle looked relaxed as she chatted to Nate, an Ivy League educated lawyer with CAA, who kept hold of their pet pooch's lead. Later in the day the couple enjoyed a family hike with their daughter, as Danielle shared snaps of the little girl excitedly exploring the popular spot of Bronson Canyon in Griffith Park. 'Some fresh air feels good' she captioned one shot, while in another she wrote that she felt 'lucky to have lots of open space nearby.' Danielle also revealed the family's meal plans for the evening, excitedly sharing a snap of a platter of takeout food as she wrote: 'Our favourite Italian is now doing drive by take out. A welcomed break from my cooking for all of us.' Family time: The model, 40, get comfy in a black hoodie and leggings teamed with a smart camel coat for the outing with her handsome husband and their pet dog Danielle's relationship with Nate was confirmed shortly after her move to the United States and following her 2016 separation from Gary Lineker after nine years of marriage. Danielle, already a parent to teenage daughter Ella, 17, from a former relationship, announced she was expecting her first child with Greenwald in February 2017, welcoming Romy Wren in August 2017. Shortly after announcing her pregnancy, ex-husband Lineker was said to be one of the first to congratulate the couple on their happy news. Fresh air: Later in the day the couple enjoyed a family hike with their daughter, as Danielle shared snaps of the little girl excitedly exploring the popular spot of Bronson Canyon Food: Danielle also revealed the family's meal plans for the evening, excitedly sharing a snap of a platter of takeout food as she wrote: 'A welcome break from my cooking for all of us' Danielle confirmed she had married Nate via her Instagram page in November 2019 in a secret ceremony which took place in Nantucket, Massachusetts, in the summer of 2019. Sources later revealed the couple enjoyed a low-key service on the picturesque island, a popular summer destination off the coast of Cape Cod. An insider said at the time: 'It was a quiet family ceremony. She kept it on the down-low.' Mexican security forces in the gulf state of Veracruz last week raided a remote ranch where the country's most powerful cartel allegedly planned its operations and tortured and fed its rivals to alligators and lions. The shocking discovery of the ranch - which seemed to take a page out of Pablo Escobar's book - is located 130 miles from the port of Veracruz. Military agents and police officers were met by two lions, five deers, an ostrich, a peacock, two pigs and alligators swimming in a lake in the zoo-like atmosphere inside Monterrico Ranch. Mexican security forces raided a ranch connected to the Jalisco New Generation Cartel were their enemies were fed to wild animals, including lions An alligator (pictured) swims across a lake at a ranch in Veracruz, Mexico, where members of the country's fastest-rising cartel reportedly fed its rivals to the wild animal and two lions A soldier guards a ranch in the Mexican Gulf state of Veracruz that was seized in a raid last week. The compound had a home with 20 air conditioned rooms and cages were wild animals, including lions, were kept The ranch was operated by two siblings tied to the Jalisco New Generation Cartel features a two-story home with 20 air conditioned rooms, a refrigerated warehouse, a chapel and two gyms, including one that was located next to a cage that house two lions The property, authorities say, is registered to Jacinto and Alberto Rodriguez, siblings who command Los Pinas Cartel, which reportedly has strong ties to the Jalisco New Generation Cartel. The cartel is led by Nemesio 'El Mencho' Oseguera, who is wanted by the Drug Enforcement Agency in the U.S., which is offering a $10 million reward for information leading to his capture. Surveillance video showed the moment servicemen swooped in the compound, that according to officials on the ground, has 20 air conditioned rooms, one which was inhabited by children. A member of Mexico's security forces searches a children's room at the cartel's ranch located in Veracruz Mexican security forces were surprised by a lion (pictured), one of two that were kept in a cage at a drug cartel's ranch that was raided last Thursday Pictured is one of two pigs that were wandering a ranch registered to Jacinto and Alberto Rodriguez, siblings who command Los Pinas Cartel, which reportedly has strong ties to the Jalisco New Generation Cartel Chickens scattered from cages as the military men searched the premises and tried to knock down the entrance to the room. The raid took place last Thursday, a day after the Drug Enforcement Agency announced the arrest of more than 600 individuals connected to the Jalisco New Generation Cartel following a six month investigation. The ranch, according to Mexican news outlet E-Consulta Veracruz, has a two-story home with a giant antenna that allowed the cartels to communicate via radio with their operatives along the Oaxaca-Veracruz state borderline. The security forces unearthed a small chapel and a refrigerated warehouse located in the middle of the ranch alongside three broken down, abandoned vehicles. Authorities estimate the home at the ranch is big enough to house at least 50 people Military agents and police officers were met by two lions, five deers, an ostrich, a peacock, two pigs and alligators swimming in a lake in the zoo-like atmosphere inside Monte Rico Ranch Authorities estimate that at least 50 people could have lived at one time at the ranch, whose owners made sure theirs guest kept in shape in two gyms, one which was located next to a cage where the lions were kept. The ranch, E-Consulta Veracruz reports, could have been the last place where a family of four were last seen. According to investigation reports, Heriberto Ortiz , 59; his wife, Maria de Jesus Octavo, 49; and their children, Daniela del Carmen Ortiz, 23, and Carlos Alberto Ortiz, 25; were kidnapped by armed men in the Veracruz municipality of Isla on November 18, 2019. Cartel leaders left behind several broken down vehicles at a ranch that was raided by the Mexican military last week Surveillance camera inside a ranch that was seized last Thursday in Veracruz, Mexico, shows the moment military agents stormed the compound which is suspected of being used by the most powerful Mexican cartel to allegedly torture and kill its rivals Distraught family members allegedly called Heriberto Ortiz and the phone's GPS led them to the ranch's location. 'A few days later I heard the alleged perpetrators behind the disappearance had a place with a lizard farm or something like that in Azueta and that they were moving around Playa Vicente, Azueta and all the nearby ranches,' one of the parents said. Their bodies have not been found yet. Belen Gonzalez, head of the Search for Missing Persons Group, called for the Veracruz state attorney general to order a thorough search of the entire ranch, have the lake completely drained and remove all of the animals. Younger adults are generally more resilient than older people, but an increase in chronic health conditions among millennials, in their 20s and 30s now, has made them less hardy than they might think. They have seen rising levels of obesity and illnesses such as Type 2 diabetes and high blood pressure, as well as an increase in heart disease and some cancers. These are strongly associated with poor outcomes from coronavirus infection. In addition, some 17 percent of men and 12 percent of women ages 18 to 44 smoke cigarettes, and 4 percent to 7 percent use e-cigarettes, according to national figures. Both increase the risk of respiratory illness. How members of this generation will adapt to life during the pandemic might also dovetail with other problems. Compared with members of Generation X, in their 40s and 50s now, millennials have higher rates of behavioral health problems like depression which affects one in 20 adults who are in their mid-30s, according to one report and a significant number have alcohol and substance abuse problems, which are easily aggravated by social and economic turmoil and dislocation, experts say. Millennials make up the largest share of the labor force and are a vital part of the economy, but they also face unique financial struggles. Many millennials juggle several jobs in the gig economy, and they are more likely than any other age group to be uninsured. Many are also burdened by student debt and contend with increasingly unaffordable housing. As a generation, they have borne the brunt of drug overdose deaths. Many have postponed marriage and starting a family for financial reasons. While they have heard that by engaging in social distancing they can play an important role in reducing the spread of the coronavirus to others more vulnerable than they are, they are not immune. A restaurant in Hanois Thanh Xuan District, scored lots of attention recently for using drone food delivery. Nguyen Duc Son, owner, said: "Due to the complicated development of the novel coronavirus, people are practicing social distancing when heading outside, especially at busy restaurants. So I came up with the idea of using a drone to deliver bread, hoping this would ease peoples anxiety when eating out." Social media was rife last week with videos and photos depicting shoppers lined along the aisles of large retail outlets across Co Kildare. This followed Taoiseach Leo Varadkars first press briefing on social distancing, in response to the spread of Covid-19 across Ireland, with the first death from coronavirus recorded at Naas General Hospital on Wednesday, March 11. The demand for toilet paper, santising gels and soaps, plastic gloves, and perishable goods seemed to be high on shoppers lists as a spate of panic buying ensued. However, retailer Andrew Cross told the Leinster Leader he didnt feel last Thursdays shopping spree should be described as panic buying. Customers at Crosss SuperValu Newbridge were in good spirits and I saw no one fighting over bread or provisions. After the governments announcements of the closure of schools and creches, of course, the spend was vastly increased. I would compare it to a good Christmas Eve. But instead of panic buying, Id call it sensible shopping. People came in quickly knowing their children would be home for the foreseeable weeks to buy non-perishable goods. They bought goods that could be sustained in case of further curtailments. Read also: READ MORE KILDARE STORIES HERE Goods such as toilet paper, pasta, rice, etc were in demand. On Thursday, we closed the Newbridge store at 8pm so could re- stock the shelves and be in better shape on Friday morning. Its business as usual since, let there be no panic, he said. Goods are being re-stocked on an ongoing basis. Both Crosss SuperValu store in Newbridge and Crosss Centra Kilcullen experienced an increase in trade similar to a Christmas Eve spend with the Centra store in Naas also experiencing a large spike in trade. Tesco, with outlets in Naas, Monread, Newbridge, Kilcock, Clane, Celbridge, Maynooth and Kildare town stated: Were focused on ensuring the safety of our colleagues, customers and suppliers. We recognise some products are currently in high demand and are working around the clock with our suppliers to restock our stores every day. Our stores are open as normal and will continue to be. We ask our customers to keep shopping as they normally would. One video shared on news and social media on Thursday, March 12, showed at least 100 people lining the full length of an aisle at Tesco Extra at Monread Naas. In response to the HSEs further guidelines, Kings Gala outlets started to operate a hatch service from 10pm last Tuesday. A spokesperson for the company which has outlets in Prosperous, Maganey and Ballylinan said the stores would remain open but serving customers through a hatch. It is advised that people bring a list with them to save time. These are challenging times but we will get there in the end and our motto, remember at Kings Gala is Were always there for you. Stores are well stocked up so there is no need to panic. Meanwhile, Ciaran Conway of Merrins Gala, Naas, stated there was no shortage of food and goods. The shortage witnessed last week was as a result of panic buying warehouses across the country were never more packed with supplies in advance of Brexit. There need not be any panic, the shelves are being restocked quickly and deliveries arriving regularly. So panic buying is totally unnecessary, he said. However, he did note that as the situation continues, it is likely there will be a shortage in some products over the coming weeks, this is only natural. So we must be mindful of elderly people who need supplies. What I am doing is keeping some items such as bread, Dettol and flour behind for those likely to need them most. Mr Conway said that Merrins Gala, Naas, were hugely aware of the vulnerability of their older customers. Ive given our regular elderly customers my mobile here so they can ring and ask for groceries if they run out, and we can deliver to them. Gov. Noem lauds state economy, but big legislative fights are coming Noems speech flowed between business and economic development, lifestyle issues and social issues that were united by their conservative themes. live bse live nse live Volume Todays L/H More R Gandhis reappointment on the board of Yes Bank for the second time has raised a few eyebrows. On March 20, the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) named Gandhi as an additional director on the board of Yes Bank along with Ananth Narayan Gopalakrishnan, for a period of two years. Gandhi is a former RBI deputy governor who has handled portfolios like currency management banking operations and development, non-banking supervision and risk monitoring. This will be the second occasion that RBI is appointing Gandhi as an additional director on Yes Banks board. The last was in May 2019, immediately after the central bank identified major diversions in the reported bad loans of Yes Bank (then under cofounder and former MD&CEO Rana Kapoor). The RBI wanted its man to monitor the daily developments in the bank and have a closer look at the processes followed. RBI had selected Gandhi then under sub-section (1) of Section 36 AB of the Banking Regulation Act, 1949. Under this, the RBI can appoint additional directors if the Reserve Bank is of [opinion that in the interest of banking policy or in the public interest or] in the interests of the banking company or its depositors it is necessary so to do, it may, from time to time by order in writing, appoint, with effect from such date as may be specified in the order, one or more persons to hold office as additional directors of the banking company." In other words, Gandhi, as an RBI appointee was on the board of the Yes Bank immediately after the RBI spotted major corporate governance issues. Almost ten months later, Yes Bank collapsed necessitating an expensive bailout by State Bank of India and seven private sector banks. Is RBI saying it did well by rewarding R Gandhi a second stint on Yes Banks board? A senior banking industry official told Moneycontrol that Gandhi was on the board of Yes Bank almost a year before things worsened to a point that it needed a government-led rescue. Having access to all internal details and health of the Yes Bank balance sheet, Gandhi knew very well where things are heading to and could have acted well in advance alerting the central bank. What was Gandhi, as the RBI nominee, doing on Yes Banks board? he banker asked, requesting anonymity. Arguably, one can say that Yes Banks previous board, which comprised Gandhi and others, failed to act to save the bank in time before bailout became an option. The RBI, with all its might, supervision machinery, nominee on the board and deep regulatory insight, couldnt foresee the deep mess in the bank until matters came to a head. For instance, it is a mystery why the board waited to oust Rana Kapoor from Yes Bank even after the RBI found that he wasnt fit to head the bank. Kapoor is now in the dock for engaging in doubtful corporate governance practices. The RBI denied an extension to Kapoor to continue in the office in September 2018 but gave him time until January 31, 2019, to continue as MD and CEO. JN Gupta, a former SEBI executive director and founder of proxy advisory firm SES, said the RBI would have examined hundreds of documents before it decided against handing an extension to Kapoor as Yes Bank boss. This would obviously be due to some serious violation of rules. Still, why did it let him stay in the position a few more months possibly enabling him to continue what he did, he asked. If RBI, as a regulator, is willing to admit its mistakes and supervisory lapses and the fact that it doesnt have the same level of transparency and consultative process as its fellow regulators, we will have answers to much of the mess in the banking sector, Gupta said. There is another question that arises. Until March 2019, the diversion in NPAs, or bad loans, the RBI had identified in Yes Bank was much less--only a few thousand crores. When Yes Banks final reported NPAs were published in December 2019 quarter, the total bad loan figure was Rs 40,000 crore. Of this, Rs39,000 crore was corporate NPAs. How did RBI fail to identify such a large chunk of corporate loans turning bad just a few months later despite having its man on the banks board? Did all these loans turn bad in a few months? To its credit, the RBI acted quickly in the last minute enabling the bailout of Yes Bank in coordination with the government. But if the central bank had acted with alacrity Yes Bank could have avoided an expensive bailout and saved its customers and shareholders the pain and anxiety of recent days. Stacked against these realities including major supervisory lapses there could be only one explanation for Gandhis reappointment on Yes Bank, according to the bankers Moneycontrol spoke to. RBI is saving its face. Almost a year before he joined Yes Banks board as an additional director in May 2019, he took an advisory role on payment technology firm PayTMs board. This was to advise the company on payment systems, corporate governance, compliance and regulations. It isnt clear whether Gandhi still continues in this role. As deputy governor in RBI, Gandhi was one of the key officials in the central bank who oversaw the controversial demonetisation of high currency notes in 2016. Current RBI Governor Shaktikanta Das was then the economic affairs secretary in the government. Now that everyone is spending a LOT more time at home than normal, were looking for something to watch, especially something related to this whole coronavirus thing. Luckily, even though The Daily Show, like every other late-night show, is on a pandemic-mandated hiatus, the shows staff members are still putting out content, including Roy Wood Jr., who on Thursday posted reviews of three classic plague movies, including what to expect in terms of bleakness. First, he looked at Steven Soderberghs 2011 thriller Contagion, about which Wood said: Now, if youre looking for hope in the midst of all of this COVID-19 nonsense, do not watch this movie. Also Read: All the Hollywood Films Arriving on Demand Early Because of the Coronavirus Wood did like the stacked cast, which he said includes: Gwyneth (Paltrow); the white girl from Titanic that let Leo DiCaprio die (Kate Winslet); Walter White (Brian Cranston); and Matt Damon, but Im not sure if he was talking in a Boston accent in that movie. Woods verdict: Overall, if youre worried about catching that rona, watch another movie. It is too close to home. Next, the 1995 movie Outbreak, which he found notable because the President in this movie has a big idea hes gonna stop the virus by bombing the city that its in. Please dont show this movie to Trump, Wood joked. Also Read: California Gov. Gavin Newsom Orders All Residents Statewide to Stay at Home The final movie Wood reviewed was Danny Boyles 2002 movie 28 Days Later. Its a bunch of zombies running around England, and they eating everybodys brains, Wood said. Which I completely understand if youve ever had British food. They eat beans with their toast. Its funny stuff and you can watch it all above. Meanwhile, if youd like some more recommendations for movies to watch in these wild times, check out TheWraps list of virus outbreak movies, including The Seventh Seal and 12 Monkeys. Read original story Roy Wood Jr Reviews Pandemic Movies During The Daily Show Coronavirus Hiatus (Video) At TheWrap The Missoula Food Bank and Community Center saw its busiest day in history on Monday, when it served over 360 households, comprised of more than 1,100 individuals. "A typical day for us is the high hundreds, and a busy day is in the low- to mid-200s, so we're taking a busy day and adding another hundred families and households," said Aaron Brock, the Food Bank's executive director, on Thursday. Brock attributes the number of visitors Monday to the perception of scarcity and wanted to make clear the Food Bank has plenty of food. Despite the influx of visitors, Brock also said he is confident the Food Bank will be able to meet Missoulians' increased needs as they join a number of other local organizations and grassroots efforts mobilizing to help neighbors as Montanans feel the effects of the coronavirus pandemic. The anticipated spread of the virus and several local and statewide mandates have led many restaurants, bars, gyms, child care centers and other businesses to close or pare back services resulting in an increasing number of people who are experiencing job, income and food insecurity, and strains on other basic needs. We are seeing people this week who are coming in our doors and telling us they have been laid off or calling to ask about services because their hours have been cut or because their kids are at home so they can no longer work their normal jobs, Brock said. The Food Bank is currently in need of financial donations to purchase foods for their emergency grab-and-go model, and volunteers who are in good health can sign up to distribute those boxes on the Food Bank's Facebook page. Missoulians also created a grassroots Facebook group called Missoula COVID-19 Mutual Aid Organizing, which had attracted over 3,000 members by Thursday afternoon. Members of the group posted links to resources and helpful information, including a list of local restaurants that are still offering takeout and delivery, as well as public and private online forms where community members can request help and assistance. On Thursday, a member shared a post by Conner Buxton, of C.M. Buxton Jeweler, offering almost 30 gift cards for $25 to the grocery chain store Albertsons. "We would like to thank everyone who has and continues to support our small business and all the other small businesses out there," the post read. A number of people in the group requested and offered help with food or other services, with some offering assistance in the form of child care in exchange for financial or food assistance. Some have offered to deliver items at the door to reduce contact. Meanwhile, other organizations like the Food Bank are working on ways to get food to people who can't visit in-person. One Google form within the group allows people to post specific needs and contact information so neighbors can reach out, but it also includes a disclaimer advising people to maintain distance whenever possible, and not to deliverer groceries or give rides to people they have not had recent or previous contact with. As much as I want to inspire people to be do-gooders and just go out in the community to help people, this isnt like a hurricane or a natural disaster, said Toffer Lehnherr, who created the group. You might feel fine, but you could still be putting your neighbor at risk. Lehnherr is the director of Pedal Missoula and said he is an active community organizer. He and others have been managing the group and participating in e-meetings with a number of other community members, city and county officials and nonprofits all in an effort to brainstorm ways to address community-wide needs such as childcare. On Wednesday afternoon, Sam Duncan, a community organizer at North Missoula Community Development Corporation, hosted an online meeting in response to coronavirus for the Northside and Westside neighborhoods. Participants discussed challenges exacerbated by coronavirus, such as housing insecurity, and brainstormed strategies to respond to those needs, such as reaching out to city and county officials and landlords to discuss options for things like waiving late rent fees. Duncan said they are interested in neighborhood-based organizing because even Facebook groups may not capture all of the need in the community for people who lack internet. United Way of Missoula County is also dedicating all donations to their emergency and disaster relief fund for local COVID-19 relief. Donations can be made on their website. On Wednesday alone, donors contributed over $115,000 to the fund said Susan Hay Patrick, CEO of United Way of Missoula County. Were designing a low-barrier application process targeting displaced service industry workers who are likely to have very little to fall back on, Hay Patrick said. Hay Patrick said United Way is also looking at ways to support other nonprofits including the Poverello Center, the Missoula Food Bank and Community Center, the YWCA of Missoula and Missoula Aging Services, in addition to others. Liz Moore, the executive director of the Montana Nonprofit Association, said individuals should donate to organizations "they know and love" to decrease the danger of giving into a scam. Moore said that United Way of Missoula County's emergency fund is a good option at this time because "then youre letting people who are on the front line make the decision about where the money goes." She said both United Way and Guidestar can serve as helpful resources for vetting nonprofits, and that donations to GoFundMe campaigns should be "based on relationships" with the organizers. Concerned about COVID-19? Sign up now to get the most recent coronavirus headlines and other important local and national news sent to your email inbox daily. Sign up! * I understand and agree that registration on or use of this site constitutes agreement to its user agreement and privacy policy. Jacksons letter lays out what hes asking the president to do: I am urging you to consider immediately testing the 2.2 million persons currently incarcerated, Jackson wrote. They are a captive audience and should not be devoured by the virus should someone in prison have it and spread it. And please consider releasing those arrested for non-violent offenses who are still incarcerated, but not convicted, after they have been tested for the virus so that they do not endanger the health of other inmates or the general public if they are released. We cannot leave those without healthcare to threaten the healthcare of all. This story was produced as part of a joint effort among Spotlight PA, LNP Media Group, PennLive, PA Post, and WITF to cover how Pennsylvania state government is responding to the coronavirus. Sign up for Spotlight PAs newsletter. Story by Joseph Darius Jaafari of PA Post and Cynthia Fernandez of Spotlight PA Walter Ogrod, a death row inmate at a state prison in Montgomery County, felt ill last week. He developed a fever and a dry cough, and his cellmates at State Correctional Institution Phoenix started to panic. Speaking through his counsel, Ogrod said staff at the facility took him to the infirmary, where his fever spiked to 106 degrees. His breathing was so bad it was like breathing through a sponge. Despite these symptoms similar to ones seen in coronavirus cases Ogrod told his lawyers that he had not received a test. Its unclear if Ogrod has COVID-19 or if his symptoms were caused by the novel coronavirus. When asked about his case, the Department of Corrections would not release details and declined to provide information on how many tests have been administered to inmates. The Department of Health also denied requests for data on inmate testing, citing an old public health law that allows the state to keep certain information secret during a disease outbreak. But even without a confirmed case, corrections leaders, along with advocates for incarcerated people, believe the virus spread inside prisons is imminent. To the extent we can keep it out, we have some advantages, Corrections Secretary John Wetzel said Wednesday on Harrisburgs WITF-FMs Smart Talk. Once it gets in, those advantages turn to disadvantages. Inmate rights advocates and epidemiologists describe prison conditions as a tinderbox for the coronavirus spread, with people living in close quarters and sharing spaces to eat and use the bathroom. They are urging state government leaders to reconsider how they house prisoners, and are calling for the release of inmates who dont pose a public safety concern. Without immediate action, jails and prisons will be the epicenter of the pandemic, said Nyssa Taylor, policy counsel for the ACLU of Pennsylvania. The Department of Corrections last week imposed restrictions on family visits, provided more soap to inmates, and started to screen staff every day for symptoms of COVID-19 to keep the virus out of prisons, officials said. But it is hard to limit viral outbreaks in correctional facilities, said Joseph Amon, an epidemiologist and director of global health at Drexel University. For every incarcerated person who gets the virus, corrections officials will have to limit the spread by following measures recommended by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention isolating every person with whom the inmate came into contact. In correctional facilities, that could mean entire cell blocks. You have this point where you have to put a lot of people in isolation, potentially, and prisons don't have the capacity to put a large number of people in isolation and care for them, Amon said. I don't think theres enough space or capacity to do the kind of real social distancing you would need to do. Bret Grote, legal director for the Abolitionist Law Center, said that without the opportunity to isolate and quarantine effectively, the virus will spread to other staff and out of the facility. Thats what happened in New Jerseys Bergen County Jail. As first reported by NJ.com, a corrections officer at the facility tested positive for COVID-19 this week. Seven other corrections officers later tested positive for the virus. Now, health officials are worried the officers may have spread the virus to the jails 250 ICE detainees and 300 county inmates. The biggest concern for inmate advocates is Pennsylvanias geriatric prisoners, who account for nearly 10% of the states total prison population, and the hundreds of other inmates currently held in infirmaries. Prison officials said during budget hearings in 2019 that more than 400 inmates are receiving care at three long-term facilities: SCI Laurel Highlands, SCI Waymart, and SCI Muncy. If that population gets infected, prisons will have no choice but to utilize outside medical providers and hospitals to treat inmates with respiratory issues. SCI Laurel Highlands is the states primary geriatric institution. With 1,521 inmates, it currently houses more people than it can hold and has just four ventilators, according to the ACLU. An additional 18 of the states 25 correctional institutions are in similar straits. Almost all of these institutions are in rural regions of Pennsylvania that are going to have substantially less hospital space than there is in the larger cities, Grote said. If COVID-19 spreads inside a prison, its going to devastate the elderly and the immunocompromised. In response, advocates are calling on the state to follow the lead of other counties to reduce the states inmate population. In a letter, the ACLU of Pennsylvania, the Abolitionist Law Society, and the Amistad Law Project asked Gov. Tom Wolf to grant medical furloughs and release elderly inmates along with those who have complex medical needs. The current moment demands that we bring as many people home as quickly and safely as possible to avert a human rights catastrophe, the ACLU said in a statement. We must figure out how to reduce the number of people who are clustered together and by doing so reduce the amount of harm that will come when COVID-19 hits the prisons. On Monday, Wetzel, the corrections secretary, said in an interview that simply releasing inmates wasnt a viable option. He said there need to be reentry policies and procedures in place, and that takes time. We have zero discretion to release inmates from state prison, he said, adding that if the legislature approached him to create criteria to furlough certain prisoners, he would provide that. But its not so simple. Release them to what? Do they have a place to go? Do they have health care? Theres a bunch of considerations, he said. Documents show corrections officials are stocking up on emergency ready-to-eat meals, with the agency applying for $3 million in funds. Due to [the] threat of COVID-19, [the Department of Corrections] needs to be able to have the resources to provide inmate meals should we have a case inside an institution, a Corrections employee said in a request for funds. The request said boxed meals are the only way the department can continue to feed inmates and staff during a COVID-19 outbreak. The order would provide 10 days of meals. Without the meals, inmates would have [to] eat in the dining halls, which increase the risk of spreading the virus, thus presenting a threat to the health and welfare of both inmates and staff, the request, approved Wednesday, said. 100% ESSENTIAL: Spotlight PA provides its journalism at no cost to newsrooms across the state as a public good to keep our communities informed and thriving. If you value this service, please give a gift today at spotlightpa.org/donate. More from PennLive Coronavirus closings: Pennsylvanians seek clarity in what is considered life-sustaining businesses Gov. Wolf defends aggressive coronavirus response: Were in an unprecedented crisis Pa. grocery stores modify hours, offer times reserved for seniors Ethiopian Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed on Thursday urged citizens not to discriminate against certain nationalities as virus cases rise, after reports of anti-foreigner sentiment in the country. Ethiopia has recorded six cases of the novel coronavirus over the past six days, and the United States embassy on Wednesday said there were a number of reports of verbal and physical harassment of foreigners deemed to be bringing in the virus. "As COVID-19 awareness efforts continue nationally, it is important to note that the virus is not related to any country or nationality," Abiy said in a statement. Abiy was awarded the 2019 Nobel Peace Prize for reaching out to Ethiopia's rival, Eritrea. "Everyone is equally at risk... Prevention efforts need not be a barrier to our humanity and disposition for compassion. As a global community, we are each other's keepers. Let us not let fear rob us of our humanity." Three of the confirmed cases of COVID-19 are Japanese nationals, one is a British diplomat and two others are Ethiopians. In its security alert, the US embassy said it had received reports of "a rise in anti-foreigner sentiment revolving around the announcement of COVID-19 in Ethiopia." "Reports indicate that foreigners have been attacked with stones, denied transportation services ... being spat on, chased on foot, and been accused of being infected with COVID-19." Africa has lagged behind in confirmed cases of coronavirus, and now has reported over 730 cases across the continent, according to an AFP tally. "Before last Friday 10 countries have reported cases of coronavirus, mostly imported. Over the weekend the continent tipped over and as we now know over 34 countries that have reported coronavirus infection," the director of the African Centre for Disease Control (CDC) John Nkengasong said Thursday. World Health Organization (WHO) chief Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus on Wednesday urged Africa to "wake up" and warned the official numbers likely did not reflect the full picture. "Probably we have undetected cases or unreported cases," he said. Experts have repeatedly warned about the perils for the continent, given its weak health infrastructure, poverty, conflicts, poor sanitation and urban crowding. However several nations have taken strict measures, completely banning flights, banning non-residents, shutting schools and blocking mass gatherings. Nkengasong said some 60,000 tests should be rolled out across the continent by Monday. "The three leading countries (Egypt, South Africa, Algeria) were part of the countries that had the first influx of cases. You can see community infection is fast establishing in those countries," he said. Major British pub chain J.D. Wetherspoon plans to stay open in defiance of government advice amid the coronavirus pandemic, but has vowed to implement social distancing between drinkers. U.K. Prime Minister Boris Johnson has advised the public to avoid pubs and restaurants, but the government has so far stopped short of an enforced lockdown. The country has now confirmed 2,716 cases of coronavirus, according to Johns Hopkins University. Wetherspoon Chairman Tim Martin told CNBC that the government's guidance was "ambiguous" and likened the closure of pubs to the shutting down of Parliament. "I don't think pubs and restaurants should be shut down completely. I think there should be social distancing, people shouldn't stand at the bar, and there are various measures you can put in place for safety, but I don't think it is right to close them," Martin told CNBC's "Squawk Box Europe," adding that such a move would be "too disruptive." "If we can stay open and tick over with a few staff, distance between the tables and so on, I think that is a sensible thing for us and it is better for the country," Martin said. Martin suggested that if trade falls by 50%, he would be able to retain more than half of his staff. Wetherspoons reported first-half profit before tax of 57.9 million on Friday morning, up 15% from the previous year, but canceled its dividend and warned that earnings will suffer as a result of the coronavirus. Thursday, March 19, 2020 at 7:53PM With millions of people adjusting to working from home, including Google's own employees, the company decided it won't be releasing new features to both Chrome and Chrome OS to make sure the software will run without any issues. Chrome's development team also acknowledged in a tweet that its "adjusted work schedules" also influenced the decision to stop releasing upcoming versions of both the browser and its operating system. The tweet also said, "Our goal is to ensure they continue to be stable, secure, and reliable for anyone who depends on them." They also emphasized that they will prioritize security updates. It makes sense to pause upcoming releases because unforeseen bugs might cause problems that might not be easy to resolve. Users don't need the additional stress these problems might cause. THE SEVEN bishops of the Cashel Province have joined together to offer words of support and indicate some directions "in the face of massive disruption at so many levels because of the Covid-19 crisis". The statement was issued by Archbishop Kieran OReilly; Bishop William Crean; Bishop Brendan Leahy; Bishop Ray Browne; Bishop Alphonsus Cullinan; Bishop Fintan Monaghan and Bishop Fintan Gavin. They say with regard to the sacrament of the sick to the dying (last rites), "which may be as, or even more critical than healthcare for some, it is essential that in anointing the sick, the priest should use a cotton bud or surgical glove for the anointing with Holy Oil and dispose of them appropriately". "The rite should be administered while at a distance of one metre. It is important to follow recommendations on hand hygiene after the celebration of the Sacrament. The priest should avoid contact with others in the house of the person who is seriously ill." They say that two weeks ago, the Irish Bishops Conference "reminded us that as people of faith we are called to face the fears of this moment with a courage not our own and with a generous heart. It is a special time for us to turn to God with faith and prayer knowing that he is always with us." The bishops want to acknowledge the generous spirit of social responsibility shown by so many with all the sacrifice that it entails for individuals, families, business, parish communities and the wider society. "We note the helpfulness of the HSE guidelines and encourage everyone to do all they can in social responsibility to follow the advice being given. On behalf of the people of our Dioceses, we express our gratitude to those working in healthcare, the services relating to healthcare and public services dealing with the fall-out from the virus. We are grateful for the spirit of volunteering on the part of many in local communities and on social media." The past week has been extraordinary, they say. "Despite the difficult loss of Sunday and weekday public celebration of Mass, people have been able to find some comfort and support in spiritual communion with the Masses being celebrated by priests every day. It has been uplifting to see how many have accessed media outlets to follow Mass, take part in prayer moments, and seek out other prayer and religious resources on line. It has been a time to discover the value of quiet time of prayer in the home and prayer as a family, the domestic church. "We have heard from many they are very grateful that churches have remained open. Indeed, priests have told us of a constant presence of individuals calling into churches for moments of prayer and recollection. It has been a consolation to know that churches are still open, prayer is always possible, and that there is a vast community of prayer and support available to us even as we follow the recommendations around social distancing." The seven men of God want to express their gratitude to all their priests especially those who are elderly and may have health concerns themselves. "As well as celebrating Mass daily for the intentions of all the faithful, priests have put new arrangements in place in order to be able to communicate pastorally through telephone and social media. We recognise the challenges priests face in their desire to reach out pastorally while always mindful of the public health recommendations. "We call on priests, especially those who are elderly and vulnerable, to take care also of themselves at this time. Their ministry of prayer, blessing and support is valuable and needed, even if it is necessary to curtail to an absolute minimum direct pastoral contact with others." A particular concern for them is the issue of funerals. "In our view attendance at funerals should be restricted to the immediate family and very close friends. The desire to offer condolences is commendable. Indeed, it is a work of mercy. But condolences can be expressed in the form of a letter, a text message, an e-mail. The Covid-19 crisis will pass and there will be other possibilities for Mass or prayers to be said for those who die during this period. Such Masses and prayers will allow for people who cannot now come physically to the church to then come and offer their condolences. "We recommend that all Catholic funeral liturgies in our dioceses be limited to the funeral Mass. In other words, there should be no removal to the church the evening before. We strongly advise that the priest celebrating the funeral Mass should be the only priest officiating. We give this advice on the basis of the widespread concern that everyone does their part to contain the virus. "Mass should not be offered in family homes even in the circumstance of a bereavement. Normally, priests are advised against visiting homes at this time because priests themselves may be carriers of the virus without knowing it or the virus may be in the house. "It is clear that some priests will themselves, because of their health condition or age, feel unable to attend to the sick person in their local parish. They may need to call on another priest from elsewhere to celebrate the sacrament. "On this Feast Day of St Joseph, may we seek his intercession to protect us, especially those who have contracted the Covid-19 virus, recalling St. Pauls words in the Letter to the Ephesians that we are called to a spirit of solidarity, that is, with all humility and gentleness, with patience, to bear with one another in love (Eph 4:1-2)." The government needs to do a much better job of explaining why it needed to direct telecom operators to provide it with the call data records (CDRs) of all mobile users across the country. It implicitly raises issues like an erosion of privacy and turning the country into a Big Brother surveillance society. The Congress and other Opposition parties, not surprisingly, tried to raise the issue of what they called a sinister move in the Lok Sabha on Wednesday, seeking a discussion, though this was not allowed. The explanation given by the communications ministry, that there was no infringement of privacy as no individual data was collected and there was no tracking of any cellphones, simply does not hold water. If, as the government claims, the entire exercise was to address numerous complaints regarding quality of service, including call drops, echo, dark spots and cross-connections, surely this could have been done without requiring access to users individual data? The Opposition parties, and some others, have warned that the move by the Department of Telecommunications could be a clear breach of the Supreme Courts ruling granting all citizens the right to privacy. There are clear rules in place about giving the government access to individual users mobile phone and Internet records, mainly in cases involving national security or the investigation of crime. But blanket access to the records of all mobile phone users across the country seems excessive and heavy-handed. Also, the timing of some requests by the government, such as in Delhi in early February at the peak of the campaign for the Assembly elections, and certain other sensitive times, do raise additional concerns. The Cellular Operators Association of India has done well to red-flag this issue, which is of vital public interest, and the government needs to give the people a fuller explanation. The coronavirus death toll rose to 1,002 in Spain on Friday after 235 people died in 24 hours, and the number of cases approached 20,000, the health ministry said. The spiralling number of infections has propelled Spain into the top four worst-hit countries in the world -- with the figures growing as the country steps up its capacity for testing. Over the past seven days, the number of deaths has risen 10-fold, the figures show. Since the last update around midday on Thursday, another 2,833 infections have been confirmed, taking the overall number of cases to 19,980, the ministry's emergencies coordinator Fernando Simon said. But he said it was "very likely that the figures underestimated the overall number" of people with the virus, saying the testing laboratories were "overwhelmed" which could skew the numbers. Of those diagnosed, 52 percent were in hospital and around six percent were being treated in intensive care. Madrid remains the worst-hit area, accounting for 7,165 cases, or 36 per cent of the total infections in Spain, while the number of deaths in the capital rose to 628 -- around 63 per cent of the national total. Government figures show that 1,585 cases have recovered, three-quarters of whom are in the Madrid region. Meanwhile, Madrid and Barcelona announced on Friday they would set up field hospitals in their biggest exhibition halls to deal with the anticipated growth in the number of patients. In Madrid, the IFEMA conference centre would be fitted with 5,500 hospital beds, part of it dedicated to an intensive care unit, while a section of the Fira de Barcelona centre would be similarly equipped, city authorities said. Over the last few hours, a total of 2,640 troops had disinfected the country's main airports and ports along with retirement homes and prisons, General Miguel Angel Villarroya, chief of the defence staff, told the same conference. On Thursday, police arrested 55 people for not respecting the lockdown that was put in place at the weekend, under which Spain's 46 million population can only leave home to shop for food or medicine, go to the hospital or go to work. National police chief Jose Angel Gonzalez said there was "a rising trend" in the number of people defying the stay-home order, warned that police were operating with a policy of "zero tolerance". (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) (Photo : Screenshot From Elon Musk Quotes & News Facebook Page) Elon Musk Coronavirus Previously reported by Techtimes, a 3D printer was used to print valves for ventilators that have saved 10 lives in Italy. This goes to show how important ventilators are in the battle against the coronavirus (COVID-19). Unfortunately, some hospitals are running out so medical essentials! The SpaceX and Tesla CEO Elon Musk has said that the coronavirus outbreak is an exaggeration. Despite the claims, he has finally offered to be part of the battle against the virus by offering to make ventilators through Tesla. Musk announces his willingness through Twitter thread The conversation started from a thread on Twitter with Musk discussing the possibility of a drug being used to treat malaria as an alternative option for COVID-19 patients. In the same thread, a specific user who claimed to own a Tesla pleaded with Tesla's CEO to repurpose Tesla's factories for the production of ventilators, which are much needed. That said, danger of panic still far exceeds danger of corona imo. If we over-allocate medical resources to corona, it will come at expense of treating other illnesses. Track graph at bottom of this page: https://t.co/7nWKjiZyFn March 17, 2020 Musk announced: "We will make ventilators if there is a shortage," which brings to light his willingness to cooperate in the battle against the virus by using Tesla. Once Musk was informed of the current ventilator shortages which are already happening, the CEO released a follow-up statement asking for more information about the affected hospitals. Read Also: Is SpaceX Ready for First Crewed Mission With NASA's Astronauts After Falcon 9 Failure? How Elon Musk plans to help According to Musk, "Tesla makes cars with sophisticated HVAC systems," which was followed with an explanation that "SpaceX makes spacecraft with life support systems. Ventilators are not difficult, but cannot be produced instantly." Tesla founder certainly has the resources to make a difference with the use of both Tesla and SpaceX, as explained in his tweets. The current resources of Tesla and SpaceX if combined, should make a huge difference when it comes to the supply of ventilators. Elon Musk previously had different opinions When asked about the virus earlier this month, Musk drew quite the attention by sharing his thoughts about the virus. On Mar. 6, Musk wrote, "the coronavirus panic is d*mb" five days before the World Health Organization declared the growing virus by the name of coronavirus or Covid-19 a pandemic! Read Also: Hunt for Near-Earth Asteroids Could Be in Danger! SpaceX Starlink Might Cause Problems to Astronomers Meanwhile, Buzzfeed reported Musk had sent an email to SpaceX employees saying they're more likely to die from a car crash than the coronavirus. The previous accomplishments of Elon Musk Musk has grown in influence as even the director of Iron Man, Jon Favreau, has admitted that Elon Musk was the inspiration behind the popular Tony Stark. Aside from Elon Musk's celebrity status, the CEO has also contributed quite a lot to science as his company SpaceX is one of the only two private companies which won a contract with NASA (the other one being Boeing). 2021 TECHTIMES.com All rights reserved. Do not reproduce without permission. An election workers sorts vote-by-mail ballots for the presidential primary at King County Elections in Renton, Washington on March 10, 2020. (JASON REDMOND/AFP via Getty Images) Conservatives Say Left Using CCP Virus as Pretext to Impose Nationwide Mail-in Voting The political left in the United States is leveraging the pandemic caused by the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) to promote fraud-prone mail-in balloting in order to steal elections, Judicial Watch President Tom Fitton and other conservatives say. The thinking among conservatives is that the left tries to make it unduly easy to vote in order to promote voter fraud and allow activists to vote on behalf of the unmotivated and uninformed. Mail-in voting is particularly susceptible to fraud, they say. They also claim that states like Democratic-controlled California enacted so-called ballot harvesting laws, which allow organized workers or volunteers to collect absentee ballots from voters and deliver those ballots to a polling place, to make it easier for the votes of illegal aliens and those not interested in the political process to be cast. Allowing people to vote for weeks before Election Day also makes it easier for fraud to be committed, they say. Democrats and left-wing activists counter that everything should be done to encourage the maximum number of people to vote, and that Republican efforts to require voters to produce photo identification when voting are aimed at disenfranchising minorities and the poor for partisan advantage. Fitton, of Judicial Watch, a conservative good-government nonprofit group based in the nations capital, argues that the left isnt allowing the current virus-related crisis to go to waste. URGENT: Leftists using pretext of #CoronavirusOutbreak to push unsecure, vote by mail free for all, no voter id anywhere for 2020 elections[,] Fitton wrote on Twitter on March 18, appending the hashtag #HowtoStealAnElection[.] Fittons tweet embedded a video clip of a speech he made at last months Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC), in which he said our republic is under assault at the ballot box. Prominent Democrats have been urging increased reliance on mail-in voting in light of the ongoing difficulties posed by the CCP virus. Democratic National Committee (DNC) Chairman Tom Perez told MSNBC on March 16 that states should allow residents to vote by mail in the remaining Democratic Party presidential primaries to contain the spread of the virus. Asked if he supported universal vote-by-mail adoption in the remaining primary states, Perez answered, Wherever practicable, and I think you can make this happen, The New York Post reported. Former Democratic Party presidential nominee Hillary Clinton said in a tweet March 18 that the CCP virus is giving greater urgency to calls to make voting by mail the norm. Congress needs to act to make voting by mail the norm going forward, with the specifics outlined by election expert Marc Elias below to make it accessible for all[,] Clinton wrote. Elias, an election lawyer who represents Democratic candidates, wrote on Twitter that there were four Pillars to Safeguard Voting Rights with Vote by Mail. Postage should be free or prepaid, Ballots postmarked by Election Day must count[,] Signature matching laws reformed to protect voters[,] and Community [organizations] can help collect & deliver voted, sealed ballots. Arizona Secretary of State Katie Hobbs, a Democrat, said March 18 that she was calling on her states lawmakers to allow all-mail-in elections in the months of August and November to deal with the problems created by the virus. A day after former Vice President Joe Biden swept the Democratic primary in that state, Hobbs told lawmakers in a letter that it would be unreasonable to ask these officials to once again overcome these circumstances, should they still exist or are exacerbated if the deadly virus remains active during future election cycles. She said county boards of supervisors should be authorized to allow all elections to be conducted only by way of mail-in voting, referring to a state law that she said allows it. Electoral-integrity expert J. Christian Adams told The Epoch Times that this political push is horrible and the worst ever. Adams is president of the Indianapolis-based Public Interest Legal Foundation and a former Justice Department civil rights attorney. The Epoch Times refers to the novel coronavirus, which causes the disease COVID-19, as the CCP virus because the Chinese Communist Partys coverup and mismanagement allowed it to spread throughout China and create a global pandemic. With medical supplies in high demand in hospitals throughout the country due to the coronavirus pandemic, the casts and crews of medical dramas are doing their best to help. The people behind "Grey's Anatomy," "Station 19" and "The Resident" are donating masks, gowns and gloves to those who need them most. "At 'Station 19,' we were lucky enough to have about 300 of the coveted N95 masks which we donated to our local fire station. They were tremendously grateful. At 'Greys Anatomy,' we have a back-stock of gowns and gloves which we are donating as well," Krista Vernoff, executive producer of ABC's "Grey's Anatomy" and "Station 19" told "Good Morning America" in a statement. "We are all overwhelmed with gratitude for our healthcare workers during this incredibly difficult time, and in addition to these donations, we are doing our part to help them by staying home." PHOTO: Grey Damon stars in the ABC show, 'Station 19.' (Byron Cohen/ABC) Dr. Karen Law, a rheumatologist at Grady Memorial Hospital in Atlanta, shared that the producers of "The Resident" on FOX sent over "all the things our healthcare workers need to provide safe care for our community during #COVID19." "Yesterday, I had a serious discussion with the residents about how, though supplies are low, a magical shipment of masks is unlikely to arrive. And yet, a magical shipment of masks DID arrive, in the form of this very generous gesture," she wrote. "This kind of community support means so much to our #frontlineproviders who are making many sacrifices to staff our hospitals and care for our community." Despite government efforts to increase the United States' coronavirus testing capacity, some physicians have not been able to test their patients due to a dearth of medical supplies. According to guidelines provided by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, doctors performing COVID-19 tests should don personal protective equipment, including gloves, gowns and face and eye protection, to ensure that they don't contract the virus themselves. Story continues Scott Steiner, CEO of Phoebe Putney Memorial Hospital in Albany, Georgia, told ABC News that his staff has "gone through ... six months of personal protective equipment in just seven days." The U.S. has a stockpile of 13 million N95 respirator masks, but it's likely not enough. The federal government said that as many as 1 billion masks might be needed over the next six months. 'Grey's Anatomy,' 'Station 19' among shows donating masks and gloves to doctors fighting coronavirus originally appeared on goodmorningamerica.com Producers Alex Gansa and Howard Gordon, who adapted their thriller Homeland from the Israeli series Prisoners of War (Hatufim), have planted a time bomb under its eighth and final season. When the 12-episode swansong began, CIA officer Carrie Mathison (Claire Danes) had just been released from a Russian prison. During her incarceration, shed been interrogated and denied the medication she needed for her bipolar disorder. Her memories of the time in jail are hazy, shrouded in shadow, returning in jarring fragments. She doesnt know what she said or did and large chunks of her time are lost or at least temporarily forgotten. So this fierce heroine, a relentless fighter for her country, has now become even more unreliable. Carrie has always been a maverick: impulsive, reckless, erratic. But also really good at her job, the kind of agent who spots things that others miss. Not one to follow orders, shes both a loose cannon and a valuable weapon for her country. Now her time in Russia threatens to affect her, and her work, in myriad ways. Claire Danes plays CIA agent Carrie Mathison in Homeland, the final season of which is airing now. Credit:Sifeddine Elamine/Showtime As shes gone about her business, cutting short her convalescence and returning to the frontlines at the behest of her boss, mentor, friend and father figure, Saul Berenson (Mandy Patinkin), Homeland has continued to explore the murky operations of the international intelligence community: the allegiances, the betrayals, the compromises negotiated in order to secure desired outcomes. And at its core have always been issues of loyalty: to people, to institutions, to countries. On the other side of the coin have been treachery and deception. Photo: 2016 Yellow Images https://yellowimages.com As mentioned, the Catalina companys M.O. is keto the founder is a type-1 diabetic, and they launched in 2017 with low-carb cereal followed by cheddar-cheese bites. In order to keep the sugar out of these smoothies, they use that of-the-moment sweetener, allulose (best known to some of us as the magic ingredient in Magic Spoon cereal): It is natural, in the sense that it can be found in certain fruits, like figs (though, of course, in large quantities, its not so much plucked from a tree as manufactured in a lab), and it has none of that stevia-ish aftertaste. Its still making its way into the wider marketplace Whole Foods does not yet accept products made with allulose but industry insiders say its only a matter of time. (The Catalina smoothies, it should be said, use allulose as their primary sweetener, but also contain a bit of stevia as the last ingredient, so you do get a trace of aluminum foil cutting through that North Fork farm; I find a pinch of pink Himalayan salt helps set it off. And for what its worth, I also add half an avocado for extra creaminess.) As for freeze-dried smoothies as a whole, theres reason to believe their time has come, too. They dont take up freezer space, they last forever, and they contain nutritional density, says plant-based-food expert Luke Abbott, who does consulting for grocery stores and individual brands (no affiliation with Catalina Crunch). To that nutrition point: Most of the vitamins, minerals, and antioxidants in your typical plant foods remain intact during the freeze-drying process. Vitamins C, E, and folic acid do get reduced, Abbott told me, but then again, youre getting three full cups of spinach in these Catalina smoothies, which is a lot more than, say, the most popular spinach-smoothie listings on Allrecipes.com. Another bonus of the freeze-dried route, as pointed out by Catalina Crunch founder Krishna Kaliannan, is environmental-friendliness: Since the water is removed from the fruits and veggies, Kaliannan notes, they are much lighter, and so require far less gasoline to ship around the world. Clearly, these are all factors that have come to have mass appeal; Walmart took on a line of freeze-dried smoothies, called Everipe, last year (this one is not low carb). But in this very particular moment of social distancing which can create distance not only from others but also from our own selves what I appreciate most about these smoothies is the sense of stability they give me. Every morning as I choose from the mixed berry, strawberry-banana, and tropical flavors in the variety pack, its like Im simultaneously doing something good for my body and staying in touch with my pre-quarantine identity (which, for better or worse, was apparently tied up in regular trips to Juice Press). The air inside is stale, but these drinks make me feel a little more alive. Ive already ordered my third case. A few students who arrived from Bangladesh at Srinagar International Airport on Thursday, have been quarantined at pre-designated locations by the district administration amid the scare of Coronavirus outbreak. This came after police dispersed their parents who were agitating against the quarantine process. According to Budgam District Magistrate, the students were quarantined as a precautionary measure in view of the spread of COVID-19. The students had opposed co-operating for the quarantine process with the medical staff at the airport and broke windows and glass panes of the arrival area. READ | Maharashtra Health Minister Expects Sharp Increase In Coronavirus Cases In April Protest and vandalism Meanwhile, the parents of these students also started a protest outside the area. The airport authority and Central Industrial Security Force (CISF) then called in local police for resolving the issue. "The police party along with magistrate reached the spot and tried to pacify the protesters, but they did not budge and continued with vandalism. Therefore, the police party on the directions of the magistrate, using all restraint, dispersed the protestors," the Kashmir Police said. READ | Coronavirus: Kashmir Under Virtual Lockdown As Markets Shut, Public Transport Banned In Srinagar After the police handled the situation, district authorities sent the students to quarantine at pre-designated locations. Police have also urged all the members of society to cooperate with it in order to curb the Coronavirus outbreak. At least 170 confirmed cases of the virus have been reported in India so far, with four deaths. Kashmir under lockdown Kashmir was put under virtual lockdown on Thursday as authorities scrambled through the previous night to come up with a strategy to contain the spread of the deadly virus in the valley, a day after a woman with travel history to Saudi Arabia tested positive for the disease. Public transport in Srinagar city, the summer capital of the Jammu and Kashmir Union territory, was ordered off the roads, while markets were shut on orders of the authorities. (With ANI inputs) (PTI photo for representation) READ | Total Number Of Coronavirus Cases In National Capital Rises To 14: Delhi Health Department READ | Amid Coronavirus Breakout, UP Health Minister Holds Press Meet To Talk About Govt Feats With the entire world going haywire because of the Coronavirus pandemic, and the world staring at a global crisis, people are bracing themselves for a hard time up ahead. A lot of industries are already facing probably the worst kind of crisis, something that they clearly couldnt have anticipated. Reuters For example, most global airlines are looking at the possibility of going bankrupt by the end of the 1st quarter of the financial year. The tourism and hospitality industries are also looking at dire consequences, with many popular tourist destinations already going into lockdown, and many countries, including India, stopping all commercial internationally plying flights for at least a couple of weeks. iStock The global fashion industry too, is looking at a bleak future. Were not saying that the entire industry is going to die out, that would simply be impossible and unfeasible. Instead, as a few key incidents indicate, the industry is heading for a major slowdown, something which might take a year or two to fully recuperate from. Here are five ways that the Coronavirus pandemic is causing havoc on the global fashion industry, and therefore the global economy, and why you too should be worried. iStock 1. Fashion Weeks & Other Events Getting Cancelled Twitter/armani Fashion weeks are not just events where major designers and established labels present their latest collections, they are also an avenue for young and emerging designers to showcase their work. Global fashion events, like the Milan Fashion Week, are also avenues where designers present the latest developments in fashion technology - new materials, new and efficient ways to embrace sustainability at affordable prices, etc. All this is going for a toss. The Lotus Make-up India Fashion Week has been indefinitely postponed, the footfall at the Milan Fashion Week Was abysmally low, and a number of high-end luxury brands, as well as fast fashion brands, have already cancelled their annual events. This has actually led to a strange development. A number of labels are going the digital route now. Giorgio Armani held his runway show at Milan Fashion Week in an empty theatre, which was streamed online. Ace Indian Designer, Sabyasachi Mukherjee has been doing something similar for quite some time now. With fashion shows going completely digital, this definitely is a major paradigm shift. A lot of money is invested in fashion weeks, both, by designers, and the event organisers. We already were dealing with fashion show fatigue and the number of fashion weeks that take place every year. Imagine what would happen if every designer starts presenting their collection only using social media and digital streams. The number of shows would explode exponentially. 2. Collaborations Getting Delayed Or Cancelled Christian Louboutin Special collaborations are also getting delayed, or worse, cancelled. Most fashion events are the breeding ground for artists and designers collaborating for a special or a limited edition collection. Although this may seem somewhat benign, collaborations have been the driving force for the industry for a long time, Whether you talk of labels like Sabyasachi collaborating with Christian Louboutin, or Virgil Abloh collaborating with Nike. With collaborations getting delayed, launch events, again, may get cancelled altogether. When the situations worsen, these collaborations may get cancelled altogether, which will not only affect jobs and artistic creations but the financial world as well. A number of publicly traded fashion companies have historically seen a surge in the value of their shares, when they collaborate with artists and designers who have a cult status. Products from their subsequent collections, which have nothing to do with the collaboration, also sell well. 3. Sales & Stock Prices Dropped iStock One way that the pandemic is affecting the fashion industry globally, is the alarming drop in sales. It is quite understandable that at a time of a pandemic as grave as this, luxury is something that most people dont really care about. Fashion, being quintessentially an endeavour of leisure and luxury, is bound to suffer. People simply have stopped buying things that do not fall under the category of absolute necessity. Most giant global retailers, like Amazon, have taken a resolution to focus only on delivering items that are an absolute necessity for their customers. iStock This fall in sales has been followed by a massive drop in the value of stock prices. Now, privately held companies, are indeed affected by this, but they still will be able to fare well. Publicly traded companies are seeing their stocks plummet. Consequently, there will be drastic budget cuts and layoffs. 4. Indian Karigars Going Out Of Jobs iStock It shouldnt come as a surprise to you, that most luxury fashion companies source a lot of materials and finished goods from Indian artisans and karigars. However, they are not involved directly with artisans, but through export companies. Rarely do these companies have any contracts with these artisans. What makes matters even worse, is that most of these artisans are employed on the basis of daily wages. If you assume that these artisans are poorly paid, and do not enjoy basic benefits such as health insurance and job security, you wouldnt be mistaken. iStock Most of these artisans have to work every day, to sustain themselves. A prolonged period of unemployment will clearly not bode well for the communities of artisans. Furthermore, given the current status of our economy, stopping manufacturing and exports will only go on to weaken the Rupee. 5. Corporate Greed Metastasising Into Community Spread iStock Although a number of ateliers have already stopped work, given the lack of demand, a number of businesses are still operational in a variety of ways. As of the 19th of March, a number of retailers are providing massive discounts to buyers, which is being met by a network of delivery personnel and warehouse workers. There are a number of labels and retailers who are asking their employees to visit customers, just to show them pieces when they ring the corporate offices up. Think of them of as a private show, delivered to your doorstep. Furthermore, even though common sense dictates that if a company is not able to allocate resources for its employees to work from home, they should at the very least ensure that the situation is not conducive for the contagion to spread. Instead, many reports and social media posts reveal that the corporate offices, as well as retail outlets of a number of well-known fashion retailers are asking their employees to continue with their work until a shut down is forced onto them. iStock The situation is particularly worse in warehouses, which even at the best of times, is a cesspool of germs and contagious diseases, given our propensity to flout basic health and safety norms. Obviously, this will lead to a surge in the number of coronavirus cases over the next few weeks. iStock Having said all this, there are a few instances which show that even in a situation as dire as this one, the fashion industry even at its possible weakest moment, is taking the humanitarian route. Zara, for example, has announced that they will be making masks and hospital gowns for medical professionals due to the shortage that is being foreseen. LVMH has already started making hand sanitizers for medical workers after suspending the production of perfumes and cosmetics. Giorgio Armani, too, has donated about 1.25 million directly to Italian hospitals, which just recently overtook China in the number of deaths resulting from Coronavirus. iStock The global fashion industry sure is looking at a dark phase for a couple of months, if not years. With that being said, the tenacity with which certain institutions and people in the industry are pushing forward, combined with our grit and zeal, is proof that sooner or later, we will bounce back. I know this is a stupid question, but do we have any toilet paper? Joanna Andre asked into her Bluetooth earpiece. It was 6:07 a.m. at the Giant supermarket in Nazareth. Toilet paper was on the shelf when shoppers were let in at 6 a.m. By the time Andre checked with the stockroom, it was gone. This is the new normal now that COVID-19 has reached the United States. Giant is among many chains that now restrict shopping to just senior citizens for the first hour of business. Seniors are most vulnerable to the effects of the respiratory illness originating in China. It has afflicted more than 180 Pennsylvania residents so far. More than 100 seniors lined up outside early Friday. Some wore surgical masks. Some wore latex gloves. About 100 seniors lined up for the 6 a.m. opening of the Giant supermarket in Nazareth on Friday, March 20, 2020.Rudy Miller | For lehighvalleylive.com I have COPD. If I get this thing Im in deep trouble, said Palmer Township resident Dick Fasching. Thats why Im getting groceries now and then Ill stay away from everybody. One Nazareth woman said she was down to her last roll of toilet paper. One woman has been hunting for it for three days. Hoarding and panic buying has made that product scarce in some stores. The procession to purchase it was orderly and non-confrontational. Most seemed to get what they needed despite the apparent scarcity. A few rolls of paper towels sat alone on the shelf until they were scooped up at 6:11 a.m. Ive noticed that the customers, 99% of them are really dealing with this well, Andre said. Andre usually works in the floral department but has been pressed into new duties given the crisis. Everyone has stepped up to help without being asked, she said. We just all knew. We all help each other, Andre said. This is a really good place as far as employees helping each other. Moore Township resident Michael Rihas wife is at high risk for COVID-19, so hes handling the shopping. He also volunteered to pick up things for others in need, such as a neighbor recovering from gall bladder surgery. Moore Township resident Michael Riha arrived around 5:45 a.m. to shop at the Giant supermarket in Nazareth on Friday, March 20, 2020.Rudy Miller | For lehighvalleylive.com This isnt the time to hoard, he said. Its the time to pitch in and help each other get through the crisis. Let your faith drive how you approach this and not let fear take over, Riha said. Fear is the worst thing out there right now. He did plan to get toilet paper, enough to get by until his next shopping trip. No need to stock up at the expense of others, he said. I pray all the time that the people who hoarded all the hand sanitizer for themselves become a little more generous and start sharing it with other people, Riha said. About 100 seniors lined up for the 6 a.m. opening of the Giant supermarket in Nazareth on Friday, March 20, 2020.Rudy Miller | For lehighvalleylive.com Rudy Miller may be reached at rmiller@lehighvalleylive.com. If theres anything about this story that needs attention, please email him. Follow him on Twitter @RudyMillerLV. Find Easton area news on Facebook. Kyiv authorities gave an order to Ukrainian enterprises for another 100,000 medical face masks and expect to receive them next week. Kyiv Mayor Vitali Klitschko stated this at briefing on March 20, according to an Ukrinform correspondent. "Epicentr K Company donated 100,000 face masks to the city. Also, 62,000 masks, which we ordered earlier, have arrived in the city. We are waiting for another 100,000 masks that we have ordered for manufacturing at Ukrainian enterprises. Kyiv is expecting to receive masks from abroad as well," Klitschko said. As Ukrinform reported, there is a great demand for face masks throughout Ukraine. On March 19, Kyiv received 62,000 masks. As of March 20, Ukraine had 26 laboratory-confirmed cases of Covid-19 infection, including three deaths. ish SULLIVAN, N.Y. -- A Syracuse man was arrested after police say he was allegedly involved in an attempted-murder investigation Thursday, March 19. At 7:29 a.m., a victim reported to 911 that she and her daughter had been stabbed at their residence on Bolivar Road in the Town of Sullivan and that the suspect fled on foot. The suspect in custody was later identified as Gilberto Lopez, 36, of Syracuse. Law enforcement spoke with the victims and found that the woman who called 911 left her residence and went into her vehicle waiting for her adult daughter. When her daughter left the home, a male acquaintance of the daughter came out from under the stairs and started stabbing the daughter to her head, shoulder and arms. The mother left the vehicle and was then stabbed by the suspect two times to her head. The daughter ran over to her mother where she started to kick and hit the suspect to help her mother. The suspect stopped attacking the two women, took the daughters purse, and ran from the scene. Law enforcement arrived in the area and saw the suspect running through a field behind the victims home. After a search of the area, the suspect was apprehended near Lakeport Road by New York State Police. The two victims were taken to Upstate University Hospital where both were treated for non-life threatening injuries. Lopez is charged with attempted murder, robbery, assault, criminal possession of a weapon, and petit larceny. Lopez was held at the Madison County Jail to await arraignment on March 20. Rome Italy's death toll from the coronavirus outbreak eclipsed China's on Thursday as the scourge extended its march across the West, where the United States and other countries increasingly enlisted the military and improvised at every turn to get ready for an onslaught of patients. In the U.S., the Army prepared mobile military hospitals for deployment in major cities. In Madrid, a four-star hotel was turned into a hospital. Medical centers around the United States set up drive-through testing sites that drew long lines of motorists waiting for nurses to swab their nostrils. As the outbreak spread westward, it infected at least one European head of state: Monaco's 62-year-old Prince Albert II, who continued to work from his office. And it appeared to be opening an alarming new front in Africa, where health care in many countries is already in sorry shape. At the United Nations in New York, Secretary-General Antonio Guterres said the world is "at war with a virus" and warned that "a global recession, perhaps of record dimensions, is a near certainty." "If we let the virus spread like wildfire especially in the most vulnerable regions of the world it would kill millions of people," he said. Italy, with 60 million citizens, recorded a total of at least 3,405 deaths, or roughly 150 more than in China, a country with a population over 20 times larger. At the same time Italy reached its bleak milestone, Wuhan, the Chinese city where the coronavirus first emerged three months ago, recorded no new infections, a sign that the communist country's draconian lockdowns had worked. Health authorities cited a variety of reasons for Italy's high toll, key among them its large population of elderly people, who are particularly susceptible to serious complications from the virus. Italy has the world's second-oldest population, and the vast majority of its dead 87% were over 70. Jonas Schmidt-Chanasit, a virologist at Germany's Bernhard Nocht Institute for Tropical Medicine, offered another reason for Italy's high death rate: "That's what happens when the health system collapses." In a measure of how the fortunes of East and West have shifted, New York officials were sent to China to buy more ventilators. And in Italy, the leader of a delegation from the Chinese Red Cross openly castigated Italians for failing to take the country's national lockdown seriously. On a visit to the hard-hit city of Milan, Sun Shuopeng said he was shocked to see so many people walking around, using public transportation and eating out in hotels. "Right now we need to stop all economic activity, and we need to stop the mobility of people," he said. "All people should be staying at home in quarantine." Special Investigation 147 NY dams are 'unsound,' potentially dangerous Thousands of dams have not been inspected in over 20 years. Worldwide, the death toll crept toward 10,000 and the total number of infections topped 240,000, including nearly 85,000 people who have recovered. The British supermarket chain Sainsbury's reserved the first hour of shopping for vulnerable customers. Among them was Jim Gibson, 72, of London, who was concerned that the country wasn't ramping up testing fast enough. "You can't go on ignoring World Health Organization guidelines if they're wrong, who the hell is right?" he said. "Let's have no shilly-shallying." French Prime Minister Edouard Philippe pleaded with people to keep their distance from one another to avoid spreading the virus, even as the crisis pushed them to seek comfort. "When you love someone, you should avoid taking them in your arms," he said in Parliament. In China, Thursday marked the first time since Jan. 20 that the locked-down city of Wuhan, where thousands once lay sick or dying in hurriedly constructed hospitals, reported no new locally transmitted cases. Authorities said all 34 new cases recorded over the previous day had come from abroad. "Today, we have seen the dawn after so many days of hard effort," said Jiao Yahui, a senior inspector at the National Health Commission. The World Health Organization warned, though, that the virus is spreading quickly in Africa, from about five countries a week and a half ago to 35 of the continent's 54 nations an "extremely rapid evolution," said WHO's Africa chief, Dr. Matshidiso Moeti. Daniel Dae Kim Tests Positive for COVID-19, Offers to Donate Antibodies If He Can Daniel Dae Kim, known for his role in TV series Lost and Hawaii Five-0, has tested positive for COVID-19, the disease caused by the CCP virus. The star is staying optimistic and has said he hopes to develop immunity to the virus so he can donate his antibodies to vaccine research efforts. The Epoch Times refers to the novel coronavirus, which causes the disease COVID-19, as the CCP virus because the Chinese Communist Partys coverup and mismanagement allowed the virus to spread throughout China and create a global pandemic. Hi everyone- yesterday I was diagnosed with COVID-19, the disease caused by the coronavirus, Kim said in an Instagram post. Looks like Ill be ok, but I wanted share my journey with you in the hopes that you find it informative or helpful. Hope you all stay safe, calm, and above all, healthy. In the video accompanying the post, the 51-year-old said that he was on his way home to Hawaii after he was in New York City for several weeks shooting a role in a TV series, New Amsterdam. Production was stopped due to the virus. Kim said he felt a scratchiness in his throat as his plane touched down in Hawaii, and noted that he was asymptomatic up until then. When I landed, I called my family doctor in Hawaii and he told me to monitor my symptoms, he said. To be safe, when I got home, I quarantined myself in a room in the house and tried to rest on my own. He said that later on the same night, he experienced symptoms of chest-tightness, body aches, and what felt like a high temperature starting up. Kim was tested at a new public drive-thru testing center in Honolulu. His diagnosis came back positive three days later. He said that his doctor also gave him some medication, although he did not elaborate. The father of two noted that he has continued his self-quarantine, including being in a separate room from his family, and managed his symptoms without going to a hospital with the help of medication, bed rest, liquids, and his family at a distance. I started feeling a little better the day after that, and today, even though Im not 100 percent, Im pretty close, he said. The TV star then turned his message to the younger population to encourage them to follow the guidelines of social distancing and proper hygiene measures. For all those out there especially teenagers and millennials who think this is not serious, please note that it is, and if you treat this without care, you are potentially endangering the lives of millions of people especially your loved ones, he said. Kim also said that he hopes he can build up immunity to COVID-19. With any luck, I will have actually built up an immunity to this virus when all of this is said and done. So I may not actually need the vaccine when it comes out, he said. I hope it does soon though, and I will gladly contribute in any way I can, including donating antibodies in the pursuit of finding a vaccine for everyone. President Donald Trump on Thursday suggested that the Chinese communist regime is to blame for the CCP virus, which has spread to more than 160 countries and territories around the world, killing thousands. It could have been stopped right where it came from, China, Trump said during a White House press conference on Thursday. The world is paying a very big price for what they did, he said in reference to a question about CCP officials not sharing information sooner about the outbreak when it started. It would have been much better if we had known about this a number of months earlier, the president said, adding that U.S. officials could have moved more quickly if the regime shared information earlier about the CCP virus, which emerged in Wuhan. Human-to-human transmission of COVID-19 was occurring from at least mid-December 2019 in Wuhan, according to a paper published in the New England Journal of Medicine on Jan. 29. The paper examined data from the first 425 confirmed cases in Wuhan and found that there is evidence that human-to-human transmission has occurred among close contacts since the middle of December 2019. Chinese authorities did not confirm human-to-human transmission until Jan. 20almost three weeks after the disease was first officially reported on Dec. 31, 2019. The first patient reported with the virus exhibited symptoms on Dec. 1. The World Health Organization (WHO) stated there was no evidence of human-to-human transmission on Jan. 14. Jack Phillips and Cathy He contributed to this report. Dowling recovering at home after long hospital stay State Rep. Matthew Dowling has returned home after suffering a one-vehicle crash in October. Dowling represents parts of Somerset County. Newsfrom Japan Tokyo, March 20 (Jiji Press)--The number of people who have been confirmed in Japan to be infected with the novel coronavirus topped 1,000 on Friday, excluding 712 passengers and crew members of the Diamond Princess cruise ship. More than 50 people tested positive for the virus on the day. Among them are those who have returned from foreign countries, such as Spain, Portugal, Ireland, the Netherlands and the Philippines. In Saitama Prefecture, eastern Japan, a female tour guide was found to have the virus. In the southwestern city of Oita, four staff workers at the Oita Medical Center and a former inpatient at the hospital were confirmed to be infected with the virus. Local authorities, including the Oita prefectural government, suspect that in-hospital infections have occurred. Meanwhile, three people infected with the virus were confirmed to have died on Friday. They were a man in Tokyo in his 70s, an elderly man in Nagoya, the capital of the central prefecture of Aichi, and a Canadian man in his 70s who was aboard the cruise ship. The death toll from the virus in Japan rose to 43, including eight people who were aboard the Diamond Princess. [Copyright The Jiji Press, Ltd.] WASHINGTON, D.C. The rapidly evolving response to coronavirus is having a major impact on American businesses and workers as many workplaces shut down, either out of necessity or an abundance of caution. For southern Oregon in particular, the good news is that many small businesses were already eligible for low-interest federal disaster loans from the U.S. Small Business Administration (SBA). The Oregon congressional delegation has lobbied the SBA to support the state's request for a SBA Economic Injury Disaster Loan declaration for all counties in Oregon, which would provide resources to businesses that face closures and lay-offs due to the coronavirus response. RELATED: Oregon eases unemployment requirements as COVID-19 response causes lay-off boom Senator Merkley's office said on Thursday that Washington and areas of California had already received the declaration making neighboring counties in Oregon eligible as well. "Currently, Gilliam, Hood River, Morrow, Sherman, Umatilla and Wasco counties are eligible to apply because of Washingtons declaration," Merkley's office said, "and Curry, Jackson, Josephine, Klamath and Lake counties are eligible because of Californias." On Friday, lawmakers announced that the SBA had agreed to declare an economic disaster in Oregon, making all counties in the state eligible for loans. I have heard the fear and anxiety from small business owners throughout the state who have been impacted by COVID-19, Merkley said. In this unprecedented time, our small businesses the lifeblood of our state economy need all the help they can get. I encourage small business owners throughout the state to apply for these loans. Josephine County's Chamber of Commerce sent out a statement encouraging local businesses to apply for disaster loan assistance on the SBA's website. RELATED: Many local restaurants still offering take-out or delivery after Governor forbids dine-in Small Businesses provide countless jobs across our state and play a critical role in the economy and community, said Rep. Greg Walden. During these challenging times, we must do all we can to support our small business. The Chamber of Medford & Jackson County says that it's launching a new campaign S.O.S, or Southern Oregon Strong to help employers and workers get access to resources during the coronavirus response. The Chamber is the catalyst for bringing people together and yet we know we have to do just the opposite. We are working overtime to navigate our way through the challenges presented to us, said Brad Hicks, President & CEO of The Chamber of Medford and Jackson County. We are meeting those challenges, head on, by reworking our programs to be delivered virtually and we are excited to announce (S.O.S.) Southern Oregon Strong! For more information on SBA loans or layoff aversion grants, see this document from Rogue Workforce partnership here. NOTE: At the time of this article's publishing, the SBA website was extremely slow, likely due to the volume of traffic. However, it was still possible to get through and access information. As the Long Beach Unified School District commits to keeping classes in-person, the city a new testing site opens for LBUSD employees and students only. The city is also ramping up its own testing efforts with a new 3,000-person per day testing site. Hundreds of people gathered outside the Tihar central jail here ahead of the hanging of four convicts in the Nirbhaya gangrape and murder case. Some people carried posters thanking the judiciary. Social activist Yogita Bhayana, who held a poster which read 'Nirbhaya has got justice. The other daughters still await', said it was a victory of the legal system that the convicts are being hanged. "Justice has been delivered finally," she said. Akash Deep, who has been associated with the victim's family, said he was there to witness the victory of a long fought legal battle. "It was a tough fight. However, the justice won today," he said. Mukesh Singh (32), Pawan Gupta (25), Vinay Sharma (26) and Akshay Kumar Singh (31), held guilty for gangraping a 23-year-old physiotherapy intern in Delhi on the night of December 16, 2012 so savagely that she died of her injuries a fortnight later, will be executed in Tihar Jail at 5.30 am on Friday. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) Coronavirus has given rise to the remote work culture. While usage of the apps for remote work is rising, it will require a lot of extra data for employees to accomplish their work. The BSNL Work@Home plan comes with a 5GB daily per day at 10 Mbps speeds. To mitigate the effect of coronavirus, employees are working from home. It has, in turn, has given rise to the remote work culture. While usage of the apps for remote work is rising, it will require a lot of extra data for employees to accomplish their work. Hence, to help the remote work culture, BSNL has introduced a new plan for its subscribers who are working from home. The Work@Home broadband plan from BSNL will give users 5GB of daily data. It will provide speed up to 10Mbps. Moreover, it will be free of cost. The new plans is applicable across all networks in India, including the Andaman and Nicobar region. However, the data will only be made available to users with a landline connection. While the speeds during the 5GB free data will be 10Mbps, once the limit is crossed, users will still have access at limited speeds. The limited speed will be 1Mbps. Hence, there is no FUP limit on the plan. The more the number of people working from home, the better. Thus, it will help people in social distancing. BSNLs well-thought-of plan will help a lot of people to work from home. The BSNL Work@Home plan comes with a 5GB daily per day at 10 Mbps speeds and unlimited data at 1 Mbps speeds. Further, there is no installing or monthly charges involved with his plan. However, this plan can only be availed by existing landline users. Hence, those who do not have a broadband connection yet, wont be able to take advantage of the new development. With this plan, BSNL eyes to convert the existing landline users into broadband users and avail the free data benefits. Hopefully, the move from government telecom operator will encourage more people to work from home. L acklustre lamb bhunas and mediocre margheritas could soon become a thing of the past. Whether or not the shake-up was entirely welcome (it wasn't), theres an unexpected upside to be found in the aftermath of lockdown London now has a better takeaway scene than ever before. As the doors of restaurants across the capital were forced to close, a host of restaurants chose to boost their collection and delivery options in response, with many embracing takeaway for the first time in their histories. Diners can now take a seat yet again in (most of) their favourite restaurants, but not everyone is looking back. With venues now operating at a reduced capacity to ensure social distancing and still suffering from a considerable decrease in passing trade (particularly in Londons centre), a number of London's top spots are continuing to make their menus available for delivery and are partly relying on it. So whether the books are full for the night, or youre not quite comfortable with heading out for dinner just yet, its still possible to support many much-loved restaurants from your sofa. Weve listed some of our favourite places doing delivery newly since lockdown or otherwise and ordered them by area, to help you find one near you. From Michelin-starred dim sum to banging burgers, these are the top London restaurants delivering dinner to your door. Across London Bombay bites: Dishoom now offers delivery from three of its London locations The restaurants listed here do not, for the most part, deliver all over London, but simply have more than one site open across the capital. We've listed them here together, rather than repeat them throughout the piece. Where a restaurant is delivering widely, it has been flagged. Dishoom The Bombay-style Irani cafe brand is currently delivering its famous black daal and more from its (still closed) Kensington restaurant, and is working on setting up a series of delivery kitchens across the capital, starting with one in Battersea. W8, SW11, dishoom.com Casa Do Frango Portuguese piri-piri chicken, but better than your local Nando's. SE1, EC2, casadofrango.co.uk Iberica Tapas favourite now delivering croquetas and jamon from four locations across London. W1, SW1, EC1, E14, ibericarestaurants.com Mac & Wild Scottish spot now delivering its haggis pops and famous Veni-Moo burger. W1, EC2, via macandwild.com Macellaio RC Meat-centric Italian, who specialise in particularly good steak. SW7, EC1, SW11, via macellaiorc.com Coya Luxurious hotspots offering Peruvian with panache, via various delivery platforms. W1, EC2, coyarestaurant.com Arros QD Spanish chef Quique Dacosta's Fitzrovia paella restaurant is also delivering from Canary Wharf. W1, E14, arrosqd.com Hakkasan Mayfairs Michelin-starred dim sum has made its way east too with the help of a new delivery kitchen. W1, EC2, hakkasan.com Yauatcha The dumpling devotee is delivering across both central and east London. W1, EC2, yauatcha.com Kanada Ya The ramen specialist is now delivering its queue-inducing soups to your door in both Islington and the West End. SW1, N1, (WC2 from July 24), kanada-ya.com Roka Sushi and robatayaki at home from the high-end Japanese favourites. Two locations in W1, WC2, E14, rokarestaurant.com Prairie Fire Slow-cooked meats from the White City barbecue, delivering in east London too. E8, W12, prairiefirebbq.com Honest Burgers Proudly British beef burgers and excellent rosemary salt chips check out their new poultry-focused concept Honest Chicken too. They're currently delivering from around 25 locations across the capital, so you've got a good chance of being in range. Various locations, honestburgers.co.uk Tonkotsu The stellar ramen shop offers delivery from most of its 11 London locations the chicken chilli option is a winner. Various locations, tonkotsu.co.uk Hoppers The wildly popular Sri Lankan favourite is now delivering its hopper pancakes and aromatic karis from two London kitchens. N1, W1, hopperslondon.com Eggbreak The Notting Hill brunch cafe has expanded its delivery offering, now cooking food to-go in Southwark too. W8, SE1, eggbreak.com The Rum Kitchen Jerk chicken and more to your door from these Caribbean favourites. SW9, E1, W1, therumkitchen.com Pizza Pilgrims Neapolitan-style pizzas from this popular mini-chain are being delivered all over the capital from more than 10 locations and its frying pan pizza kit can be posted nationwide. Various locations, pizzapilgrims.co.uk Five Guys The US-hailing burger brand has dozens of locations all across the capital, with all of them offering delivery. Various locations, fiveguys.co.uk Poppies The retro style fish and chip shop delivers from its three locations dotted around London. E1, W1, NW1, poppiesfishandchips.co.uk Tandoor Chop House The Charing Cross restaurant is now delivering its north Indian food from kitchens in Southwark and Notting Hill too. WC2, SE1, W8, tandoorchophouse.com Homeslice The 20-inch pizza favourite is delivering ready-to-eat pizzas from four London restaurants, as well as take and bake versions to finish at home. EC1, EC4, W12, W1, homeslicepizza.co.uk Mildreds The groundbreaking Soho vegetarian now four sites across London, all offering delivery of its burgers, curries and more. W1, NW1, N1, E8, mildreds.co.uk Bone Daddies The popular ramen purveyors are doing delivery from every one of their six London locations. Various locations, bonedaddies.com Central/West End Dumpling devotee: Din Tai Fung's Covent Garden location now delivers Din Tai Fung The global dumpling phenomenon which caused four hour queues when it first opened in London can now be enjoyed at home. 5 Henrietta Street, WC2E 8PT, dintaifung-uk.com Jamavar Sick of slumming it? Try Jamavar's "Royal Kitchen" menu. The luxurious Indian is even offering a five-course menu with paired cocktails. Vegans and vegetarians are well looked after, too. 8 Mount Street, W1K 3NF, jamavarrestaurants.com Bombay Bustle The Mayfair Indian has launched its dabbawala delivery menu, named for Mumbais cycling lunch couriers. 29 Maddox Street, W1S 2PA, via bombaybustle.com Ormer Mayfair Shaun Rankin's West End restaurant is now offering a delivery service headed up by Great British Menu 2020 finalist Kerth Gumbs. Flemings Mayfair, 7-12 Half Moon Street, W1J 7BH, flemings-mayfair.co.uk Circolo Popolare The Fitrovia follow-up to wildly popular Gloria is now delivering its peach pizzas and crab linguine. 40-41 Rathbone Place, W1T 1HX, bigmammagroup.com Hide Ollie Dabbouss Michelin-starred hit is delivering within seven miles of its Mayfair home. 85 Piccadilly, W1J 7NB, hide.co.uk Kanishka Atul Kochhar's celebration of north eastern India. 17-19 Maddox Street, W1S 2QH, kanishkarestaurant.co.uk L'Antica Pizzeria da Michele Its Naples restaurant is said to serve the best pizza in the world you can try it delivered from Marylebone or Soho. NW1, W1, anticapizzeriadamichele.co.uk Kolamba Sri Lankan daals, hoppers, curries and more. 21 Kingly Street, W1B 5QA, kolamba.co.uk Nobu Old Park Lane Californian sushi sensation delivers from its Mayfair hotel restaurant. COMO Metropolitan, 19 Old Park Lane, W1K 1LB, noburestaurants.com Sushisamba The Covent Garden location of the Japanese-Peruvian-Brazilian restaurants is delivering sushi, ceviche and more. 35 The Market, WC2E 8RF, sushisamba.com Gymkhana The much-loved Michelin-starred Indian dining room is sending out its muntjac biryani and goat keema pao. 42 Albemarle Street, W1S 4JH, gymkhanalondon.com Scotts The celebrity favourite and seafood specialist is now delivering its well loved luxury favourites, including lobster Thermidor and grilled dover sole. Good choice of cocktails, too. 20 Mount Street, W1K 2RN, scotts-restaurant.com 34 Mayfair On the same Supper menu as Scott's, 34 are offering the best of their steak menu, as well as their lobster macaroni and cheese with black truffle. 34 Grosvenor Square, W1K 2HD, 34-restaurant.co.uk Sexy Fish The glamorous footballer's favourite is offering its pan-Asian fare, including bits and pieces from the robata grill, as well as a decent drinks list. Berkeley Square House, W1J 6BR, sexyfish.com Benares This upmarket Indian includes daily specials such as Kerala-style lamb pepper fry for a Saturday night in. Temporarily paused, but will restart July 18, 12a Berkeley Square, W1J 6BS, benaresrestaurant.com Berenjak The Iranian kebab shop is delivering from its Soho location dont forget to order the buttery house rice with tadig on the side. 27 Romilly Street, W1D 5AL, berenjaklondon.com Dumplings Legend The very affordable Chinatown favourite is delivering its delicate dumplings. 15-16 Gerrard Street, W1D 6JE, dumplingslegend.com Trishna Michelin-starred Indian food inspired by the countrys coastal cuisines, now for delivery. 15-17 Blandford Street, W1U 3DG, trishnalondon.com Sushi Atelier Luxurious sushi think truffle, wagyu beef and sea urchin from this Fitzrovia favourite. 114 Great Portland Street, W1W 6PH, sushiatelier.co.uk 50 Kalo di Ciro Salvo Unassuming Naples-hailing spot, selling what might just be Londons best pizza. 7 Northumberland Avenue, WC2N 5BY, 50kalo.com North Winner winner: James Cochran is still delivering his Around The Cluck fried chicken menu from his restaurant 12:51 12:51 James Cochrans modern British restaurant became home to his fried chicken delivery concept Around The Cluck during lockdown not only has the menu stayed, but hes serving it in-house too. 107 Upper Street, N1 1QN, 1251.co.uk Plaquemine Lock Jacob Kenedys Creole-inspired pub offering groceries on its site and po'boys on Deliveroo. 139 Graham Street, N1 8LB, plaqlock.com Trangallan Rather lovely Spanish restaurant delivering paella by bike. Besides the website, keep up to speed on WhatsApp; 07802 655 045 for more. 61 Newington Green, N16 9PX, trangallan.com Yard Sale Pizza North east Londons top pizza purveyor (with vegan options abound), delivering from all five of their sites. E2, E11, E17, E5, N4, yardsalepizza.com Gokyuzu One of the many Turkish restaurants offering delivery in the Green Lanes area this one is a top pick, and also has locations in Chingford, Walthamstow and Finchley. N4, N12, E4, E17, gokyuzurestaurant.co.uk Xian Impression Chef Wei Guirongs acclaimed Highbury restaurant celebrating the chewy noodles and spicy burgers of her home city of Xian. 117 Benwell Road, N7 7BW, xianimpression.co.uk Sambal Shiok Mandy Yins popular Malaysian laksa bar is delivering bowls of noodle soup, while Nasi Economy Rice her spot next door does the same for rice boxes. 171 Holloway Road, N7 8LX, sambalshiok.co.uk Hot Stone In-house dining is all about sizzling your own steak at the table, while the takeaway menu is a celebration of its top notch sushi. 9 Chapel Market, N1 9EZ, hotstonelondon.com East Butter me up: Indulgent Indian Brigadiers is now delivering its impressive spreads Brigadiers City drinking den with top notch Indian food the butter chicken wings are a must-order. 1-5 Bloomberg Arcade, EC4N 8AR, brigadierslondon.com Lahpet One of Londons few Burmese restaurants is now delivering its tea leaf salads and lentil chow chow. 58 Bethnal Green Road, E1 6JW, lahpet.co.uk Gloria Flamboyant Italian, now serving its truffle pasta and burrata pizzas to-go. 54-56 Great Eastern Street, EC2A 3QR, bigmammagroup.com Snackbar Lunchtime cafe from pickle genius Freddie Janssen. 20 Dalston Lane, E8 3AZ, snackbarlondon.com Oren Fresh Israeli small plates from chef Oded Oren. 89 Shacklewell Lane, E8 2EB, orenlondon.com Lucky & Joy Chinese small plates from a duo of ex-Moro foodies. 95 Lower Clapton Road, E5 0NP, luckyandjoy.co.uk Spicebox Street food star turned top vegan curry house. 58 Hoe Street, E17 4PG, eatspicebox.co.uk Mao Chow Vegan Chinese food with plenty of numbing spice. 159a Mare Street, E8 3RD, mao-chow.com On The Bab The deservedly popular Korean street food group is delivering from its Shoreditch and St Pauls sites the yangyum fried chicken is especially good. EC1, EC4, onthebab.com The Laughing Heart Wine bar offering pick-up and delivery of Tom Anglesea's weekly changing menu. 277 Hackney Road, E2 8NA, thelaughingheartlondon.com Xian Biang Biang Noodles An offshoot of Xian Impression, focusing on chef Wei Guirongs excellent hand-pulled noodles. 62 Wentworth Street, E1 7AL, xianbiangbiangnoodles.com Lahore Kebab House A go-to for an East End night out, but you can also get its curries and famous lamb chops delivered to your door. 2-10 Umberston Street, E1 1PY, lahore-kebabhouse.com Sichuan Folk Authentic and exceptional Sichuan food, ranging from silky and spicy ma po tofu to an entire grilled seabass. 32 Hanbury Street, E1 6QR, sichuan-folk.co.uk Chick n Sours The popular fried chicken hotspot is delivering Asian-influenced burgers from its Haggerston location. 390 Kingsland Road, E8 4AA, chicknsours.co.uk South What a meze: Borough Market's Arabica also has a delivery kitchen in Camberwell Arabica Borough Market staple delivering meze (with a dark kitchen in Camberwell too). 3 Rochester Walk, SE1 9AF, arabicalondon.com Nanban Tim Andersons internationally influenced ramen shop is delivering its dishes made with produce from Brixton Market. 426 Coldharbour Lane, SW9 8LF, nanban.co.uk Other Side Fried The superlative fried chicken spot is delivering its burgers and strips from its Peckham and Brixton locations. SW9, SE15, othersidefried.com Four Hundred Rabbits There are plentiful vegan options at this pizzeria group, along with feasts for meat-eaters. SE27, SE15, SE19, SE24, 400rabbits.co.uk Mamalan Beijing-style street food, including baos, dumplings and noodle soups. SW4, SW9, mamalan.co.uk Bala Baya Tel Aviv street food from Eran Tibi, including cauliflower steaks with pomegranate molasses and loaded pitas. Arch 25, Old Union Yard Arches, 229 Union Street, SE1 0LR, balabaya.co.uk Olleys Fish Experience Award-winning fish and chips on the corner of Brockwell Park. 65-69 Norwood Road, SE24 9AA, olleys.info West Swanky: High-end sushi spot Zuma is delivering for the first time Zuma The upmarket Japanese spot with an international pedigree is now delivering for the first time. 5 Raphael Street, SW7 1DL, zumarestaurant.com Mazi x Suzi Tros These Greek sibling restaurants have joined forces to deliver from Kensington. 12-14 Hillgate Street, W8 7SR, mazi.co.uk Big Fernand Paris-hailing burger restaurant in South Kensington. 39 Thurloe Place, SW7 2HP, bigfernand.com Yashin Ocean House Highly acclaimed sushi restaurant. 117-119 Old Brompton Road, SW7 3RN, yashinocean.com Esarn Kheaw Authentic northern Thai food in Shepherds Bush, complete with a generous whack of heat. 314 Uxbridge Road, W12 7LJ, esarnkheaw.com Zheng This critically acclaimed Malaysian restaurant is delivering its rendang, char kuey teow and more. 4 Sydney Street, SW3 6PP, zhengchelsea.co.uk Santa Maria Seriously good pizza all named after saints with sites across west London. W5, SW6, W1, TW8, santamariapizzeria.com Annapurna Dishes from Nepal, India and across the Himalayan mountains the Gurkhali lamb is a spicy must-order. 199 Upper Richmond Road, SW14 8QT, annapurnarestaurant.com Update March 20 6:15 p.m.: Gilliland has been found safe, according to the Shelby County Sheriffs Office: UPDATE: 3/20/20 at 1:45PM Thank you to all who shared this post. Based on your tips, Gilliland has been located and is safe. This is another great example of the community and law enforcement working together to ensure the safety of our citizens. pic.twitter.com/zfaf4lSNiB Shelby County SO (@ShelbyCountySO) March 20, 2020 Original story: State authorities issued a missing senior alert Thursday for an elderly Jefferson County man who failed to show up for a doctors appointment in the morning. Kenneth Edgar Gilliland, 87, of Brookside, hasnt been seen since he left his home for a doctors appointment at St. Vincents East at 9:15 a.m. Thursday, the Alabama Law Enforcement Agency said. Gilliland is driving a gold 2009 Chevrolet Impala with the Alabama handicapped plate TPS084. Local Positioning System data showed Gillilands vehicle was in Brookside on Brookside Coalburg Road around 12:32 p.m. Thursday. Kenneth Edgar Gilliland is driving this Chevrolet Impala. Gilliland was described as having gray hair and mustache and he may have a condition that impairs his judgment. He is 5-feet 10-inches tall and weighs 185 pounds. Iranian authorities on Thursday announced 149 new deaths from the novel coronavirus, raising the toll to 1,284 in a country that is one of the worst hit by the pandemic. While Thursday's death toll surpassed that of the previous day's -- 147 were reported on Wednesday -- the number of new cases has fallen, according to figures provided by Deputy Health Minister Alireza Raisi. A total of 18,407 people have contracted the disease in Iran, with 1,046 new cases confirmed in the last 24 hours. "In 11 provinces" out of 31, "the number of infections has decreased because people have followed our guidelines", Raisi said, renewing the call for Iranians to stay home. Tehran province had the highest number of new cases, with 137 reported, followed by the central province of Isfahan, with 108 and Gilan in the north with 73. Health ministry spokesman Kianoush Jahanpour tweeted that at the current rate, "50 new cases of infection are detected every hour and one death recorded every 10 minutes". "Considering this information, make a conscious decision concerning travel, days out and family visits during Nowruz", the Persian New Year holiday, he said. The Nowruz celebrations, which last from Friday until April 3, often see Iranians travel to visit family. For several weeks, Iranian authorities, who have so far refused to impose confinement or quarantine measures, have asked the population to refrain from travelling and to take the virus "seriously". Several provinces have ordered the closure of hotels. In a rare move, Iran announced on Monday the shuttering of four important Shiite holy sites in an effort to stem the spread of the epidemic. Pune, India -- (SBWIRE) -- 03/20/2020 -- The global Controlled-release Fertilizers Market size is prognosticated to reach USD 3.86 billion by 2026. According to a report published by Fortune Business Insights titled, "Controlled-release Fertilizers Market Size, Share and Industry Analysis, By Type (Slow-release, Coated and Encapsulated, and Nitrogen Stabilizers), Application (Cereals, Oilseeds and Pulses, Fruits and Vegetables, and Others), and Regional Forecasts, 2019 - 2026" the market value was USD 2.37 billion in 2018. The forecast period is set from 2018 to 2026, and the market is likely to witness a CAGR of 6.37% on account of increasing demand for food to suffice to the needs of the increasing population worldwide. List of the key vendors of the controlledrelease fertilizers market include; - Nutrien - Yara International - Helena Chemical - SQM - JNC Corporation - Kingenta Ecological Engineering Co. Ltd. - ICL - Haifa Chemicals - AGLUKON - Pursell Agri-Tech - Koch Industries Introduction of Cost-Efficient CRF Fertilizers to Help Market Gain Impetus The American Plant Food Control Officials (AAPFCO) defines controlled-release fertilizers as plant-nutrient containing fertilizers that delay its availability for plant uptake and use after application. With the increasing population, governments of various nations are imposing security on food. This is likely to help promote the delayed-release fertilizers market growth. Besides this, companies are trying to introduce cost-efficient and encapsulated CRF fertilizers and this will further attract high slow acting fertilizers market revenue in the forecast duration. To Gain More Insights into the Market, Click Here: https://www.fortunebusinessinsights.com/controlled-release-fertilizers-crf-market-101973 Report Objectives A comprehensive overview of the CRF fertilizers market Interesting insights and key industry developments of the market Growth trajectories such as drivers, restraints, challenges, and opportunities Significant market players and their key strategies to strive for the top position in the market Other slow-acting fertilizers market trends The increasing environmental concerns are further propelling agriculturists, farmers and others to improve the utilization of fertilizers for increasing nutrient uptake among crops. This, as per analyst at Fortune Business Insights, will further contribute to the decline in environmental stress and ultimately help to increase the overall CRF fertilizer market size in the foreseeable future. However, the lack of proper laws for protecting controlled-release fertilizers may affect the overall CRF market size in the forecast period. Nevertheless, government efforts and the launch of various educational programs for farmers are likely to help create lucrative controlled-release fertilizer market growth opportunities in the near future. Major Segments includes; By Type Slow-release Coated and Encapsulated N-Stabilizers By Application Cereals Oilseeds and Pulses Fruits and Vegetables Others By Region Asia Pacific to Continue Dominance on Account of High Production and Consumption Rates Derived from China From a geographical perspective, North America is dominating the market on account of the presence of large number of players. However, Asia Pacific is likely to register the fastest delayed-release fertilizer (CRF) market growth rate with a CAGR of 7.1% during the forecast period. This is attributed to the rapid increase in the population of countries especially China and India. This is further propelling the rise in demand for food all over the region. Japan and China are the two major market leaders in Asia Pacific with both high production and consumption. Growth in China is owing to the rise in research and development of innovative agricultural products, coupled with the presence of market players namely Hangfeng Evergreen, Kingenta International, and others in the nation. Moreover, conducive policies concerning smart fertilizers in Japan and China are further expected to help this region continue dominating the market in the years to follow. Request a Sample Report: https://www.fortunebusinessinsights.com/enquiry/request-sample-pdf/controlled-release-fertilizers-crf-market-101973 Adoption of Merger and Acquisition Strategies to Bode Well for Market Vendors Key players such as ICL, Pursell, and SQM have raised the bars and set new standards on cost-effective specialized fertilizers. This is ultimately encouraging agricultural companies to heighten their production scale and expand their portfolios by increasing the number of product launches. Besides this, new players in nations such as China, Japan, and the U.S., are entering into the CRF fertilizer market looking at the future opportunities the market will provide. Recently, companies such as Haifa Chemicals, Agrium, and Kingenta adopted a merger and acquisition strategy for the expansion of their portfolio across all geographies.Some of the key industry developments in the CRF fertilizers marketare: Some of the key industry developments in the CRF fertilizers marketare: December 2017 A leading producer of specialty fertilizers and biostimulants namely COMPO GmbH, announced a partnership with Kingenta for research and development of efficiency enhanced technology commonly called EEF technology. June 2018 The inauguration of a novel fertilizer coating facility was announced in Alabama by Pursell Agri-Tech, and their industrial partner Stamicarbon B.V. Pursell Agri-Tech, has built this plat for producing next-generation delayed-release fertilizers. Get Discount: https://www.fortunebusinessinsights.com/enquiry/check-discount/controlled-release-fertilizers-crf-market-101973 The Delhi government on Friday decided to discontinue its non-essential services till March 31 and allowed workers of such departments to work from home. The Delhi Assembly has also asked in-charges to prepare duty rosters for their staff to come to work on a rotation basis till March end. The decision to discontinue non-essential services was taken during a meeting between Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal and all the heads of government departments. "It has been decided to discontinue non-essential services of the Delhi government till March 31. All employees of non-essential services have been allowed to work from home," a statement said. In essential services, employees aged above 55 years can also work from home, which will be decided by the heads of departments, it said. Department heads have been asked to prepare lists of workers who can be permitted to work from home. All employees, including those working on contractual basis, will be paid during this period. "There is a sudden spike in the number of corona (virus) cases in Delhi in the last 24 hours. All officials and the people of Delhi have fought this battle very hard, because of which we have been able to contain the disease at the community level. But there is a need to expedite our efforts to combat the situation," Kejriwal said. "The health of our officials and employees is very important... Employees who are aged above 55 should preferably be given work from home. However, we will not be able to relieve senior people in the most essential services, like doctors, etc," he said. The chief minister said those who will work from home must ensure their availability over the phone. "This is not a paid leave but work from home. During this period people will work from home and there will be no deduction of salary," he said. The coronavirus epidemic has claimed one life and infected 16 people in Delhi. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) The city is now waiting on the district attorneys to sign-off on the releases New York City is set to release 40 'low risk' inmates from custody, De Blasio said New York City is set to release 40 'low risk' inmates from custody in a desperate bid to prevent coronavirus from spreading inside jails. New York Mayor Bill de Blasio assured members of the public that the inmates would be selected based on their medical history and low risk to public safety. It comes amid concerns that COVID-19 could spread rapidly inside federal prisons with many arguing it is not a matter of if but when the deadly illness sweeps through tightly packed populations behind bars. Mayor De Blasio said Wednesday that over the next 48 hours the city will identify any inmates held in minor charges it thinks should be released because of their health. New York Mayor Bill de Blasio (pictured) assured members of the public that the inmates would be selected based on their medical history and low risk to public safety A sign of Rikers Island, which holds the majority of New York City's prison inmates He said it's a balance of 'public safety with the very real concern about health in the jails.' Meanwhile, David Patton, executive director of the Federal Defenders of New York, said: 'I truly believe the jails are ticking time bombs. 'They're overcrowded and unsanitary in the best of times. They don't provide appropriate medical care in the best of times, and these certainly are not the best of times.' The mayor said the city is now waiting on the district attorneys to sign-off on the releases, which could begin as early as today. 'We intend to begin releases as early as today once we have that sign off, (and) we will continue reviewing other cases,' he said. An enhanced supervision housing unit on Rikers Island in New York. The mayor said the city is now waiting on the district attorneys to sign-off on the releases, which could begin as early as today Corrections officers work in the Enhanced Supervision Housing Unit at Rikers Island. Concerns have also been mounting for prison officers and inmates across the US amid the coronavirus pandemic It comes as one prisoner at Rikers Island correctional facility who tested positive for coronavirus has been moved to an isolation unit. The inmate is said to be the first in New York City custody to have contracted the disease. Union officials announced Wednesday that an unidentified New York City correction officer who works at Rikers Island has also been struck down with the virus. This makes them the second Department of Correction employee to test positive for the virus, after an investigator died from the disease on Monday. Notorious inmates across US prisons are now seeking 'get out of jail free' cards, citing concerns that the virus could spread among the prison system. Ponzi schemer Bernard Madoff and infamous cocaine kingpin Gilberto Rodriguez-Orejuela have both made cases to be released. New York City's jail system is home to around 8,000 inmates, with the majority at Rikers Island (above) A Rikers Island cell: Concerns have been mounting for prison officers and inmates across the US amid the coronavirus pandemic, as high prison populations and confined spaces could make facilities hotbeds for the disease The 81-year-old Bernard Madoff (above) is serving a 150-year sentence for bilking thousands of investors in a $17.5 billion Ponzi scheme. He has also requested release due to the virus Concerns have also been mounting for prison officers and inmates across the US amid the coronavirus pandemic. New York's Department of Correction confirmed that an employee in the Investigation Division died on Monday from the killer virus. David Perez, 56, had a pre-existing health condition and only had limited contact with inmates, officials said. New York City's jail system is home to around 8,000 inmates, with the majority at Rikers Island. America's nearly 7,000 jails, prisons and correction facilities are an ideal breeding ground for the virus, as dangerous as nursing homes and cruise ships but far less sanitary. Fears are mounting that stepped-up cleanings and a temporary halt to visitations at many lockups across the country will not make up for the fact that ventilation behind bars is often poor, inmates sleep in close quarters and share a small number of bathrooms. The Los Angeles River flows behind the Twin Towers Jail in Los Angeles County. In Los Angeles County, the prison population has decreased by 600 people already Prisons across several US states have started ramping up measures to protect inmates, releasing hundreds to decrease prison populations in an effort to combat the potential spread. In Los Angeles County, the prison population has decreased by 600 people already to combat the potential spread of the coronavirus among inmates. Early release is being granted to those with less than 30 days on their sentence, reducing inmates from 17,076 to 16,459 since the end of February. C$ unless otherwise stated TSX/NYSE/PSE: MFC SEHK: 945 TORONTO, March 20, 2020 /PRNewswire/ - In advance of the annual meeting of shareholders for Manulife Financial Corporation, please note the following: Manulife's Management Information Circular and 2019 Annual Report are being mailed to shareholders and are now available for download at manulife.com The Management Information Circular (the "Circular") contains information about the annual meeting of shareholders of Manulife Financial Corporation, including information relating to the election of directors and the appointment of auditors. The information provided in this news release supplements certain information in the Circular and should therefore be read together with the Circular. Manulife will hold its annual meeting of shareholders by electronic means As noted in the news release issued today jointly with certain other Canadian financial institutions, we have taken steps to enable us to hold our annual meeting of shareholders solely by electronic means. The meeting will be held on Thursday, May 7, 2020 at 11:00 a.m. (Eastern Time) via a live broadcast. As set out in the notice of meeting mailed to shareholders, we continue to actively monitor COVID-19 developments and directions from public health and government authorities, and have been taking a series of precautionary measures to help support the health and well-being of our employees, customers and the general public. This degree of care and concern extends to all of our stakeholders, and for that reason we have made the decision to hold our annual meeting solely by electronic means instead of in-person. We believe this precautionary measure protects the health and well-being of our shareholders, employees and other stakeholders, while also supporting shareholder engagement and enabling shareholders to participate in the annual meeting and vote by electronic means. How shareholders can exercise their vote and attend electronically Shareholders are encouraged to vote their shares and submit proxies prior to the meeting. Note that the form of proxy or voting instruction form distributed to shareholders is still valid and may continue to be used to vote shares. For more information on voting in advance of the meeting, refer to pages 10-13 of the Circular. Shareholders will not be able to attend the meeting in person but are invited to view the live broadcast at manulife.com. By following the instructions below, shareholders and their duly appointed proxyholders will be able to ask questions and vote during the live broadcast. In order to participate in the meeting, shareholders must be connected to the internet. How shareholders can join the meeting, vote and ask questions: Log in online at https://web.lumiagm.com/121039121 . To allow shareholders the opportunity to test their internet connectivity, the link will be accessible one hour in advance of the meeting start time. https://web.lumiagm.com/121039121 Click "I have a login" and then enter the Control Number (see below) and Password "manulife2020" (Note: password is case sensitive). Voting during the live broadcast: The Control Number will allow shareholders and proxyholders to log in, vote and ask questions during the live broadcast. Any vote properly cast at the meeting will automatically revoke any proxy previously submitted. Shareholders and proxyholders who do not wish to revoke a previously submitted proxy should not vote during the live broadcast. Without a Control Number shareholders and proxyholders will only be able to log in to the meeting as a guest and will not be able to vote or ask questions (see below). Registered shareholders and ownership statement holders: The Control Number is located on the form of proxy included with the meeting materials. Non-registered (beneficial) holders: As is the case for an in-person meeting, non-registered (beneficial) shareholders who wish to vote and ask questions during the live broadcast must carefully follow the instructions in the Circular and on their form of proxy or voting instruction form to appoint themselves (or another person) as proxyholder in order to vote and ask questions during the live broadcast. The person appointed as proxyholder must then also contact AST Trust Company (Canada) at 1-866-751-6315 by 9:00 a.m. (Eastern Time) on May 6, 2020, to request a Control Number for the meeting. How guests can join the live broadcast: Log in online at https://web.lumiagm.com/121039121 . To allow guests the opportunity to test their internet connectivity, the link will be accessible one hour in advance of the meeting start time. https://web.lumiagm.com/121039121 Click "I am a guest" and then complete the required fields. Any member of the public may join the live broadcast by following the instructions above. Guests can listen to the meeting but are not able to vote or ask questions. Information on the annual meeting, including any further updates, will be posted on our website (manulife.com). About Manulife Manulife Financial Corporation is a leading international financial services group that helps people make their decisions easier and lives better. With our global headquarters in Toronto, Canada, we operate as Manulife across our offices in Canada, Asia, and Europe, and primarily as John Hancock in the United States. We provide financial advice, insurance, and wealth and asset management solutions for individuals, groups and institutions. At the end of 2019, we had more than 35,000 employees, over 98,000 agents, and thousands of distribution partners, serving almost 30 million customers. As of December 31, 2019, we had $1.2 trillion (US$0.9 trillion) in assets under management and administration, and in the previous 12 months we made $29.7 billion in payments to our customers. Our principal operations are in Asia, Canada and the United States where we have served customers for more than 100 years. We trade as 'MFC' on the Toronto, New York, and the Philippine stock exchanges and under '945' in Hong Kong. SOURCE Manulife Financial Corporation Related Links http://www.manulife.com Daniel Craig has insisted he won't be giving a penny of his 125million fortune to his children because he believes 'inheritance is distasteful.' The James Bond actor, 52, revealed his 'philosophy is to get rid of it or give it away before you go' and says he has no plans on passing down his wealth to his daughters, including the two-year-old he shares with wife Rachel Weisz, 50. In a new interview, the 007 star, said: 'I don't want to leave great sums to the next generation' after earning a reported 18million for his final James Bond film, No Time to Die. 'Distasteful': Daniel Craig has insisted he won't be giving a penny of his 125million fortune to his children, including the daughter he shares with his wife Rachel Weisz (pictured in January) Speaking to Saga magazine, he continued: 'I think inheritance is quite distasteful. My philosophy is to get rid of it or give it away before you go.' Daniel is a father to daughter Ella, 28, who he shares with ex-wife Fiona Loudon, 51, and a child whose name hasn't been confirmed with current partner Rachel. The British actor, who memorably said he would 'rather slash my wrists' than consider playing Bond again after the release of Spectre, for which he earned around 48m, said he never fantasised of playing Bond as a young actor. He revealed: 'I dreamed of being all sorts of other things Superman, Spider-Man, the Invisible Man, even a good old-fashioned cowboy.' 'I don't want to leave great sums to the next generation': The James Bond actor is also a father to 28-year-old daughter Ella (pictured) from his first marriage to Fiona Loudon Last time: The star said he would 'rather slash my wrists' than consider playing Bond again after the release of Spectre, for which he earned around 48m (pictured in Spectre) The release date of No Time to Die has been delayed by seven months from April to November after 'careful consideration and thorough evaluation of the global theatrical market.' Daniel has confirmed the Bond film will finally be his last after previously starring in Casino Royale, Quantum of Solace, Skyfall and Spectre. Hollywood actor Daniel made his debut in the Sunday Times Rich List in 2018 after earning a 125million fortune. He appeared as a joint entry with his actress wife Rachel, who's famed for her roles in The Mummy franchise. Father-of-two: Daniel welcomed his first baby with Rachel in 2018, with the couple keeping the name of their daughter private Setback: The release date for new Bond film No Time to Die, which also stars Ana de Armas (pictured) has been postponed from April to November amid coronavirus fears Rachel, who married Daniel in 2011, said she won't have any more children with him after giving birth to their daughter aged 48. The actress, who's also a parent to 14-year-old son Henry with ex-Darren Aronofsky, said in 2018: 'I definitely know there won't be another one. 'When I had my son I thought I'd have maybe two or three more. 'But the preciousness of a new life and family means so much more now I'm more mature and older. My son was a miracle and it was an incredible experience.' Source: Xinhua| 2020-03-20 01:02:12|Editor: huaxia Video Player Close BEIJING, March 19 (Xinhua) -- Chinese President Xi Jinping said Thursday that China stands ready to work with all other countries to step up international cooperation against the COVID-19 epidemic and safeguard global public health security. In a phone conversation in the night with his Russian counterpart, Vladimir Putin, Xi pointed out that the novel coronavirus disease broke out ferociously, and China had to rise up to the challenge and respond to it bravely. That is because it concerns not only the lives and health of the Chinese people, but also the public health security of the whole world, added the Chinese president. Thanks to arduous efforts, the situation of epidemic prevention and control in China continues to improve, with the order of production and life being restored at an increasing pace, Xi said. China, said the president, has the confidence, capacity and certainty to achieve the ultimate victory over the epidemic. He added that China is willing to make concerted efforts with Russia and all other countries to tackle common threats and challenges and safeguard global public health security. He called for closer international cooperation in epidemic prevention and control, experience sharing on containment and treatment, and facilitation of joint research. Xi stressed that at the special moment when both countries are fighting against the epidemic, China and Russia have been supporting each other and cooperating closely, which has demonstrated the high level of China-Russia relations in the new era. Bilateral cooperation enjoys a solid foundation and a strong endogenous driving force, Xi said, suggesting that the two sides take the Year of Scientific and Technological Innovation between China and Russia as an opportunity to push for more cooperation fruits in various fields. China, he said, firmly supports the important moves taken by Russia to achieve lasting peace and stability in the country, and is confident that under Putin's leadership, the Russian people will continue to forge ahead in unity and make new achievements along the development path that suits their country's national conditions. An argument between friends turned deadly in southwest Houston early Friday morning. At least three men met at an apartment along South Post Oak near West Orem Drive around midnight, according to Houston Police Department Sgt. Hardy Hay. The group began to argue, so two of the men left in a white Mercedes SUV. COVID-19 UPDATES: Follow Houston Chronicle for live updates on the coronavirus pandemic As they left, a man driving a black car followed them from the apartment, Hay said. The Mercedes pulled over nearby, where a man from the black car walked up to the passenger side window of the Mercedes and started arguing with the driver. At some point, the man pulled a gun and shot the driver dead through the open passenger window, Hay said. He then drove away. The passenger in the Mercedes, shaken by the circumstances, jumped on top of the dead man in the drivers seat and drove the SUV near Croquet Lane and Darlinghurst Drive, where he stopped and called 911, Hay said. Detectives hope nearby surveillance video will help identify the suspected gunman. Anyone with information is urged to call Houston Crime Stoppers at 713-222-TIPS (8477). Jay R. Jordan covers breaking news in the Houston area. Read him on our breaking news site, Chron.com, and our subscriber site, HoustonChronicle.com | Follow him on Twitter at @JayRJordan | Email him at jay.jordan@chron.com Photo: Government of Canada Prime Minister Justin Trudeau Industry will be looking to a new program from Ottawa to shift manufacturing capabilities and expand production of medical supplies needed during the COVID-19 crisis. This initiative will help companies that are already making things like masks, ventilators and hand sanitizer to massively scale up production, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau told reporters Friday (March 20) outside his home in Ottawa. We also provide support for those who [wish] to retool their manufacturing facilities to contribute to this fight. Trudeau cited outreach from the auto sector asking how they could assist with the pandemic. Major car-makers ceased production across North America this week. Our health care professionals really need support, so our government will help these companies shift production from auto parts to medical supplies, he said, adding the government is also hoping to reach agreements with Thornhill Medical (Thornhill Medical Research Inc.), AMD Medicom Inc. and Spartan Bioscience Inc. as part of the new initiative to bolster the medical supply chain. Innovation, Science and Industry Minister Navdeep Bains said later in the day the objective is to increase domestic supply and swiftly create pathways to deploy resources to Canadian businesses who want to help in this crisis. This is a co-ordinated strategy that will leverage our industrial base to rapidly scale towards more Canadian production in the products that we need to fight COVID-19, he said. Ottawa will also be redirecting its Strategic Innovation Fund to deliver direct support to larger companies and research institutions, while the National Research Council will expedite research and development for small- and medium-sized enterprises. The government is also calling on its innovation superclusters to tap into its network of 1,800 members to come up with ways to address the pandemic. Innovative Solutions Canada, meanwhile, will be helping companies commercialize products faster as part of the effort. Funds will be deployed on an accelerated basis with wider flexibility to be able to tackle COVID-19-related problems, Bains said. Ottawa has received 5,800 submissions to date from Canadian companies providing information on what goods and services they can provide to fight the pandemic, according to Public Services and Procurement Minister Anita Anand. Trudeau also revealed during his briefing that 500,000 Canadians have applied for employment insurance this past week, up from 27,000 a week ago. 3 More COVID-19 Cases confirmed in Georgia, number of infected reached 43 - GeorgianJournal F ollowing the Government announcement that the majority of schools in the UK will close due to the outbreak of coronavirus, many parents have been understandably concerned about how to keep their kids entertained for what is currently an unknown period of time. In response, personal trainer and author Joe Wicks has announced he will be holding live free PE classes at 9am Monday to Friday via his YouTube channel for children of all ages, in a bid to keep everyone moving. "Parents are going to be under pressure next week and for 30 minutes a day I can take over and inspire and energise the kids to get active, bounce around and have fun. You can even join in with the kids. Please share away. This is going to help millions of children and parents feel happier for 30 minutes and beyond everyday #PEwithJoe," he wrote in an Instagram post. Wicks explained the new series further in the Twitter post below: "Its a workout specifically designed for kids because when the schools are closed there is no PE. Dont worry Ive got you, Im going to take this over. Im going to get your kids moving, feeling energised, positive, optimistic," he said. "Its a 30 minute session for little kids right up to secondary school. Get involved, have fun were going to be doing loads of basic exercises, you dont need a lot of room," he continued. "I am going to be the nations PE teacher, starting from Monday at 9am," he added. The Supreme Court's pre-dawn hearing of the plea on Friday by one of the four death row convicts in the Nirbhaya gang-rape and murder case, who were all finally hanged in the wee hours, was yet another in the line of such extraordinary proceedings conducted by the country's top court. Post midnight Friday, the apex court opened its door to Pawan Gupta's last plea challenging the rejection of his second mercy petition by the President. A bench of Justices R Banumathi, Ashok Bhushan and A S Bopanna took up the matter at 2.30 am. It however rejected the plea saying no ground was made out to warrant judicial review of the President's decision to reject his mercy plea. Following that, Mukesh Singh (32), Pawan Gupta (25), Vinay Sharma (26) and Akshay Kumar Singh (31) were executed at 5.30 am in Tihar Jail for the savage rape of the 23-year-old intern on December 16, 2012. She died a fortnight later of her injures. Similarly, the apex court had on July 29, 2015 sat through the midnight to consider an urgent plea to stay the scheduled execution of lone death row convict of 1993 Mumbai blasts case, Yakub Memon, at 6 AM in Yerwada jail the next day. Among such petitions was the matter concerning the sensational case of Noida's Nithari serial murders convict Surinder Koli, when the apex court in 2014 heard the late night move on his behalf for staying the execution of his death sentence. Also, in another case titled Shatrughan Chauhan v/s Union of India, in 2014, the execution of death sentence against 16 persons at 4 PM was challenged and the lawyers rushed with a petition to the residence of then Chief Justice of India P Sathasivam. The then CJI and Justice M Y Iqbal heard the matter at around 11.30 PM and at around midnight ordered a stay on the execution. Another such hearing took place on April 9, 2013 when a petition was moved on behalf of one Manganlal Barela against the execution of his death sentence in a murder case. The midnight knocks at the Supreme Court have not only been confined to the cases of execution of death warrants but have pertained to political and other drama as well. In May 2018, the top court had conducted midnight proceeding to hear Congress' plea to thwart the attempt of the BJP to form the government in Karnataka following the invitation by the Governor. In another dramatic matter, as far back as 1985, the top court had attracted tremendous criticism in a case when then Chief Justice E S Venkatramaiah was woken up at midnight and proceeded to grant bail to industrialist L M Thapar. Thapar was arrested on the basis of a Reserve Bank of India complaint that several companies run by him had violated the then Foreign Exchange Regulation Act (FERA). In another politically sensitive matter, the hearing had also continued past midnight at the residence of the judge on the intervening night of December 6 and 7, 1992 after the demolition of Ram Janmabhoomi Babri Masjid at Ayodhya. The Ayodhya case was heard at the residence of Justice M N Venkatachaliah, who later became the Chief Justice of India. In that case, one of the parties to the Ayodhya dispute had rushed to the apex court immediately after the structure was razed by karsevaks. After the hearing at his residence, the bench headed by Justice Venkatachaliah directed that status quo to be maintained at the disputed site. In another infamous Ranga-Billa criminal case of the national capital, a bench headed by Justice Y V Chandrachud, who held office of Chief Justice of India from February 22, 1978 to July 11, 1985, sat late in the night to consider a plea that they should not be hanged. Lawyers also recall some political matters also when the apex court had held late night hearings, including the one in which it ordered a composite floor test in Uttar Pradesh in 1998 to determine who enjoyed the majority -- Kalyan Singh or Jagadambika Pal. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) PHILADELPHIA, Pa. (March 19, 2020) An innovative remote respiratory device created by Strados Labs has the potential to save patient lives and clinicians time by reducing the burden on bed-side nurses. As the number of positive cases of the COVID-19 virus begins to rise, there are growing concerns about overloaded healthcare workers and hospital systems. Regular auscultation and checkups are required for patients experiencing respiratory distress or disease. However, as hospitals and intensive care units begin to fill up, the time between rounds will increase as nurses and doctors are stretched thin from the coronavirus outbreak. There are currently no effective ways for caregivers to capture abnormal patient lung sounds and patterns remotely, putting patients at risk for pulmonary decompensation between rounds and face-to-face visits. For small community hospitals, resources are already limited. Having remote intensivists or monitors in their corner giving status updates could be the difference between a patients life and death. A community hospital surgical unit nurse explains, You want to check on your patients as much as possible, but when your patient ratio is high, its difficult. To have someone on the outside monitoring, with the ability to call and notify you when your patient is declining, would be so helpful. This first of its kind wireless, remote, e-stethoscope could be the answer to getting a patients breath sounds and status into the hands of remote intensivists and telehealth workers. Leading-edge technology from Strados Labs, the creator of the RESP System, is used to record patient lung sounds that can then be made available for playback, or transmitted to telehealth workers, to be monitored for changes in status. This remote, wearable stethoscope can be used for spot-checking and patient wear, reducing the burden on clinicians and bedside nurses. Additionally, physicians and nurses can experience noise fatigue as their hours are extended and patient ratio increases. Having a patients breath sounds available for playback and analysis for a fresh set of ears could allow clinicians to more effectively diagnose and treat patients. The Strados Systems respiratory solution consists of a small, lightweight, non-invasive stethoscope that records lung sounds and uploads them to a digital clinician portal. Once the device has recorded the patients lung sounds, the clinician is able to access them remotely at any time for analysis. In the future, a proprietary algorithm may process and extract respiratory acoustics to highlight any changes in respiratory patterns for physician analysis. Strados is working with telehealth companies to deploy devices for use in remote care and triage settings, as well as clinical research organizations currently working on novel respiratory vaccines for COVID-19. A cough is a key symptom in over 70% of patients diagnosed with COVID-19, our goal is to remotely capture and quantify these symptoms for early detection, treatment, and interventions. RESP is currently being used in several ongoing clinical trials. With the Strados device we can provide a more objective measurement of the success of acute treatment and we can store this information for future visits. I believe that this will be revolutionary to the respiratory health field and will be a significant cost savings measure for emergency room level care, explains Gregory Almond, MD Chief of Service of Emergency Medicine at the New York Metropolitan Hospital. The Strados System is for investigational use only and is not cleared or approved by FDA or any regulatory agency. About Strados Labs Strados Labs enables clinicians to enhance the management of respiratory health across the patients transition from the hospital to home. The Strados System objectively measures cardiopulmonary health allowing providers to remotely access at-risk patients using a novel biosensor. Please visit www.stradoslabs.com to learn more. If you would like more information about the RESP platform for clinical research or pilots, please call Alexis Taylor at (410) 929-6552, or email alexis@stradoslabs.com. -end- Much ink has been spilled over the potentially disastrous consequences of US President Donald Trumps impulsive and foolhardy foreign policy decisions. Trumps withdrawal from the Iran deal, his nuclear game of chicken with North Korea, the assassination of Iranian commander Qassem Soleimani and other reckless moves imperilling millions of lives have been roundly criticised by dozens of policymakers and editorial writers. But one particularly brutal set of White House measures that has already caused tens of thousands of casualties abroad has been ignored by most of Trumps critics. Since taking office, the president has unilaterally imposed a number of deadly, sweeping economic sanctions on Iran, North Korea and Venezuela. These sanctions have not, by any reasonable measure, advanced the presidents stated foreign policy goals. They have, however, wreaked havoc and destruction in the lives of countless innocent human beings. In Venezuela, economic sanctions that Trump first imposed in 2017 and then vastly expanded in 2019, have resulted in increased disease and mortality and are estimated to have led to tens of thousands of excess deaths, according to a 2019 study by economists Mark Weisbrot and Jeffrey Sachs. Trumps sanctions on Iran have severely limited the countrys access to medicines and medical supplies, as Human Rights Watch has noted. His unilateral financial sanctions against North Korea have created critical obstacles for the work of international relief organisations, according to a recent study commissioned by Korea Peace Now. The media has generally failed to inform the public about the harmful impact of Trumps sanctions on innocent people. Hardly any of the many alarming reports on the economic and humanitarian situation in Venezuela, for instance, have mentioned the significant role of US sanctions in deepening the countrys severe economic crisis and preventing recovery. As the coronavirus spreads through Southeast Asia and beyond, it will be interesting to see to what extent the media reports on how US sanctions are preventing North Korea and Iran from accessing vital medication and medical supplies needed to confront the epidemic. Why is there so little tangible concern about the brutal collateral damage caused by Trumps economic sanctions? One likely explanation is that the US foreign policy establishment has traditionally supported sanctions, despite studies showing that they generally do not produce the desired political outcome. As a Council on Foreign Relations backgrounder explains, sanctions, while a form of intervention, are generally viewed as a lower-cost, lower-risk course of action between diplomacy and war. Policymakers may consider sanctions as a response to foreign crises in which the national interest is less than vital or where military action is not feasible. The negative human consequences of sanctions are not immediately apparent and, when reports on sanctions-linked deaths emerge as was the case in the early 1990s when economic sanctions were imposed on Haiti they are often ignored. Fortunately, some US policymakers have begun bucking the cynical bipartisan consensus on sanctions and have been speaking out against their dire effects and lack of tangible results. In December 2018, fourteen members of Congress sent a letter to the administration seeking answers regarding the humanitarian impact that recently imposed US sanctions are having on the Iranian people. In March 2019, 16 members of the House signed a letter to Secretary of State Mike Pompeo opposing Trumps economic sanctions against Venezuela and noting that they were having lethal effects on innocent people and were contributing to the ongoing outbound migration of hundreds of thousands of Venezuelans. On February 12 of this year, Congresswoman Ilhan Omar decided to take decisive action to reign in the presidents unilateral use of sanctions with a new bill entitled the Congressional Oversight over Sanctions Act (or COSA). Part of a bold new package of legislation aimed at promoting peace, human rights and respect for international law, COSA would amend the National Emergencies Act and the International Economic Emergency Powers Act, which together allow the president to order sanctions of all types without Congressional approval, simply by invoking a national emergency, regardless of whether there is evidence of such a thing. Omars bill establishes strict legislative control over the executive branchs use of sanctions by requiring Congressional approval within 60 days of the announcement of emergency sanctions powers as well as requiring additional approval for the renewal of these powers every six months thereafter. The legislation will also force a reckoning over the actual impact of sanctions by mandating studies on the impact of unilateral sanctions before and after their implementation. The US government would be required to report on whether sanctions advance stated goals and benchmarks. Importantly, the legislation would also require that the State Department report on whether or not presidential sanctions comply with the USs international treaty obligations; many international law experts would argue that they do not. COSA has already garnered strong support from a broad coalition of civil society groups. A letter urging members of Congress to co-sponsor the legislation and signed by over 40 groups that include faith-based organisations like American Friends Service Committee and United Church of Christ, Justice and Witness Ministries, peace groups like Veterans for Peace and Win Without War and think-tanks like the Center for Economic and Policy Research and the Center for International Policy. As the letter notes: The power to impose sanctions () should not be in the hands of a single individual. Too many lives are at stake and there is too much potential for abuse or overuse. As awareness grows around the injury and suffering resulting from sanctions imposed by Trump and his predecessors, we can hope that citizens and policymakers who support human rights, the constitution and international law will back COSA and any other effort to limit the presidents power to unilaterally wage economic warfare against civilian populations. The views expressed in this article are the authors own and do not necessarily reflect Al Jazeeras editorial stance. Los Angeles Mayor Eric Garcetti on Thursday issued a "Safer at Home" order, asking residents to stay home and limit all "non essential activities." "I'm issuing a Safer at Home emergency order ordering all residents of @LACity to stay inside their homes and immediately limit all nonessential movement. We're taking this urgent action to limit the spread of COVID-19 and save lives," Garcetti said in a tweet. tweet "Safer at Home" emergency order means all Los Angeles residents must stay inside their homes. The order will take effect from 11.59 p.m. PT on Thursday and continue until April 19. Workers of "impacted businesses" have an additional 24 hours, he said. tweet 2 Residents can venture outside to buy groceries, or to the pharmacy to pick up medications. They can also take a walk or walk their pets, but keep at least six feet away from others. They should not go to work unless they are providing essential services as defined by the order, or visit friends and family. They also should not travel for a job or a vacation outside the city. The order is mandatory, and not guidance, it said. San Francisco Bay area officials on Monday became the first in the country to issue a "shelter in place" order that will affect nearly 7 million residents of six counties in the Bay Area as the region tries to contain the COVID-19 outbreak. A new study has found that over 80 percent of people infected with the CCP virus in Wuhan were not recorded, shedding light on why the epidemic spread so rapidly. A Florida law firm is suing China for mishandling the outbreak, which has resulted in global economic damage. Can virus patients spread the virus after they recover? How many virus carriers have not been detected because of test accuracy? A virologist explains. A Chinese dissident traveled to Wuhan to witness the city under lockdown. What did she see and what does she have to say about the measures to control the CCP virus? Tokyo gets the Olympic flame from Greece, but the arena is empty and whether the Olympic games will happen this year is still questionable. NTD refers to the novel coronavirus, which causes the disease COVID-19, as the CCP virus because the Chinese Communist Partys coverup and mismanagement allowed the virus to spread throughout China and create a global pandemic. Subscribe to our Youtube channel for more first-hand news from China For more news and videos, please visit our website and Twitter The National Chairman of the All Progressives Congress (APC), Adams Oshiomhole, on Friday officially presented the new National Deputy Chairman (South), Abiola Ajimobi, to President Muhammadu Buhari at the State House, Abuja. Speaking to State House correspondents after the presentation, Mr Oshiomhole described the event as mere formality as the president was very much familiar with Mr Ajimobi since he was governor of Oyo State for eight years. Mr Oshiomhole said Mr Buhari was delighted to have received Mr Ajimobi whom he described as a `complete gentleman. He said the president expressed the hope that the former governor of Oyo State will bring on board a wealth of experience that will help to reinforce the quality of leadership of the APC. I came essentially to present the former governor of Oyo State, Abiola Ajimobi whom the South West has nominated to fill the void arising from the vacancy of the Deputy National Chairman, South, created by the appointment of the Minister of Industry, Trade and Investment. Of course, Mr President already knows him, he hosted us a couple of times when he was governor of Oyo State and played a pioneering role in the formation of the All Progressives Congress (APC), obviously, he is not a stranger to the President, its just a way of formality that I have to present him. Mr President was delighted that someone with his background a complete gentleman, he has been in the oil industry, a senator and a two-term governor. So, he will bring on board a wealth of experience that will help to reinforce the quality of leadership of the All Progressives Congress, he said. The APC Chairman stated that he used the opportunity of the event to commend Mr Buhari for his administration pro-masses policies and programmes. He cited the recent slashing of pump price of Premium Motor Spirit (PMS) popularly known as fuel from N145 to N125 per litre as one of such positive decisions of the government. He said: But I also appreciate the fact that a couple of decisions the President has taken this week that in my view are profound but I dont think they have attracted the kind of commendations. For example, the decision of Mr President to reduce the price of petroleum products PMS, AGO and other products because of the sharp drop in the price of crude oil. In another word, not just passing the burden of oil prices when they go up but also passing the benefit when they go down. So, I commend the president for passing the benefit to the Nigerian people for approving the drop in the oil price so that Nigerians can really benefit from both the negative and positive side of the drop -which is that the cost of PMS has dropped. We will also have some reduction in the cost of transportation because we expect people to pass it down particularly at this time when because of the Coronavirus there are couple of economic activities that are affected. Mr Oshiomhole also appreciated the prompt proactive steps taken by the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) by making funds available to support businesses that had been affected by the Coronavirus. READ ALSO: Everywhere around the world governments are rising to the occasion and I am happy that Nigeria under President Muhammadu Buhari has also taken a bold step to not only protecting Nigerians by stopping foreign airlines from flying into the country particularly from the high-risk countries with the pandemic along with other measures which will help to curtail it. These are challenging times and our president is showing leadership just as we expect of him, putting Nigeria first, supporting businesses and passing not just the burden of the drop in oil price, but the benefit of that drop. Having been active in this politics of oil pricing, this is the first time a Nigerian president, without a strike, without protest, without editorials, without commentators, by his own conviction says this drop in the price of crude must be reflected in a drop in the price of PMS. For us, as party leaders, we think he deserves commendation, he said. (NAN) Autumn de Wildes new version of Jane Austens 1815 novel Emma, scripted by Eleanor Catton, is a competent but uninspired work. Emma. has an added punctuation mark, according to de Wilde, because its a period piece. This facetious comment, unhappily, threatens to sum up the entire project. The film goes through the motions without saying a great deal about 1815or 2020 for that matter. In the opening passage of Austens novel, Emma Woodhouse (Anya Taylor-Joy in the new film), handsome, clever, and rich, with a comfortable home and happy disposition, seemed to unite some of the best blessings of existence; and had lived nearly twenty-one years in the world with very little to distress or vex her. She is also spoiled, egotistical and has false upper class values, while still being essentially warm-hearted and well-meaning. Mia Goth and Anya Taylor-Joy in Emma Living elegantly in the fictional village of Highbury, Emma fancies herself a matchmaker and nearly ruins the life of the poor Harriet Smith (Mia Goth), her personal charity case and adoring friend. Emmas father is the hypochondriac Mr. Woodhouse (Bill Nighy) and the somewhat older, dashing George Knightley (Johnny Flynn) loves Emmawho is oblivious to his romantic intentions. Emmas attempts to find what she considers to be a proper and more socially elevated husband for Harriet cause more harm than good and may ultimately jeopardize her own chance at love and happiness. Emma. is attractive enough in costume and decor, but is flat and devoid of nuance and emotional or social spark. It fails to highlight Austens cardinal concern that people are not objects to be used merely for ones own ends. Nor does the new adaptation stress Austens disdain for people being judged on the basis of their social status and the extent of their property. Nighy, a talented comic actor, mugs his way through his lines as a way of filling empty spaces. Taylor-Joy does not exude much warmth and Goth is a bit too silly. Miss Bates (Miranda Hart) is made irritating and buffoonish by the filmmakers, thus foiling Austens real purpose in creating the character. In the novel, Miss Bates, although without means, is endearing: The simplicity and cheerfulness of her nature, her contented and grateful spirit, were a recommendation to every body, and a mine of felicity to herself. Bill Nighy Miranda Hart and Myra McFadyen in Emma The novel is incisive and socially sharp. At one point, Jane Fairfax (Miss Batess niece and well played in the movie by Amber Anderson), a governess, likens herself to a victim of a type of flesh peddling: I am not at all afraid of being long unemployed. There are places in town, offices, where inquiry would soon produce somethingOffices for the salenot quite of human fleshbut of human intellect. Another character responds: Oh! my dear, human flesh! You quite shock me; if you mean a fling at the slave-trade, I assure you Mr. Suckling [a wealthy individual] was always rather a friend to the abolition. I did not mean, I was not thinking of the slave-trade, replied Jane; governess-trade, I assure you, was all that I had in view; widely different certainly as to the guilt of those who carry it on; but as to the greater misery of the victims, I do not know where it lies. Jane Austens novels have become a very popular source of film and television adaptations, for various reasons, good, bad and otherwise. To certain portions of the film world, the books seem to offer the possibility of already existing clever dialogue, pretty costumes, picturesque settings and, perhaps most importantly, female-oriented stories, and not much more. In her own day, Austen was considered a social realist, pouring cold water on romance and the previous generation of female writers tales of adventure, mystery and intrigue with improbable settings and clumsy plots that lurched from one sensational incident to another, according to one commentator. Facts, rationality, tangible reality were critical to her. Critic Arnold Kettle referred to the clarity of her social observations and, in Emma, the precision of her analysis of the Highbury world down to the exact incomes of its inmates, and suggested that all her judgments are, in the broadest sense, social. Portrait of Jane Austen c. 1810 Austen (17751817) lived through a period of vast upheaval (the American and French Revolutions, the Napoleonic Wars and the onset of the Industrial Revolution). She herself had a relatively conservative social outlook, but this does not mean she went unaffected by the tumultuous times. The very fact that she, as a woman, was writing and publishing novelsand eventually making a name for herself by doing sowas itself a product of a transformative age. In fact, Austen belonged to that group of remarkable women writers who left such a mark on English literature, including Fanny Burney, Maria Edgeworth, Mary Shelley, Elizabeth Barrett Browning, Elizabeth Gaskell, Charlotte, Emily and Anne Bronte and George Eliot. Of Emma, famed novelist Sir Walter Scott (17711832) wrote that the book displayed the art of copying from nature as she really exists in the common walks of life, and presenting to the reader, instead of the splendid scenes from an imaginary world, a correct and striking representation of that which is daily taking place around him. Elsewhere, Scott commented: Emma has even less story than either of the preceding novels ... The authors knowledge of the world, and the peculiar tact with which she presents characters that the reader cannot fail to recognize, reminds us something of the merits of the Flemish school of painting. The subjects are not often elegant, and certainly never grand: but they are finished up to nature, and with a precision which delights the reader. Contrary to what her present-day adapters might imagine, one suspects that if Austen were alive today she would be heaping scorn on the self-absorbed upper-middle class, obsessed with its petty concerns, status and identity. Her Mr. Knightley in Emma criticizes another character for caring very little for any thing but his own pleasure. It is not astonishing, Knightley suggests, that a young man, brought up by those who are proud, luxurious, and selfish, should be proud, luxurious, and selfish too. California Governor Gavin Newsom issued a statewide stay at home order effective Thursday midnight, requiring the states 40 million residents not to leave their homes except in cases of necessityto work in certain vital occupations, or obtain food and medical care. Newsom acted after state health officials projected that 56 percent of California residents will contract the coronavirus which causes COVID-19 over the next eight weeks, or a total of 25 million people. The number of those whose infections cause critical illness requiring treatment in an Intensive Care Unit is far greater than the number of such beds in state hospitals. The governor also asked President Trump to send a US Navy hospital ship, now docked at San Diego, to the port of Los Angeles immediately. The ship would not treat coronavirus patients, but would take in patients facing other life-threatening conditions who would be displaced from hospitals to make room for those hit by COVID-19. Newsom had announced Tuesday that he was putting the National Guard on alert, and would invoke martial law if it became necessary to do so under conditions of quarantine. Six counties in the San Francisco Bay area had already imposed a stay at home lockdown at the weekend. California is one of the three current epicenters of the COVID-19 outbreak in the United States, along with New York state and the state of Washington. By far the largest number of coronavirus patients is in New York state, mainly in New York City and its near suburbs to the north, in Westchester County. National Guard personnel stand at attention as they wait for patients to arrive for COVID-19 coronavirus testing facility at Glen Island Park, Friday, March 13, 2020, in New Rochelle, N.Y. (AP Photo/John Minchillo) While Mayor Bill de Blasio has sought a stay at home order for New York City, Governor Andrew Cuomo has opposed such an action, telling CNN on Wednesday, I am not in favor of quarantining a city. I am not in favor of imprisoning people. On Thursday, however, Cuomo ordered all businesses to operate with only 25 percent of their workforce, leaving 75 percent at home. This was an increase from the 50 percent limit set the day before. There is undoubtedly heavy pressure on Cuomo not to permit a lockdown of the most important financial center in the world, which includes Wall Street and the New York Fed, which carries out the interventions of the Federal Reserve in the financial markets. Meanwhile a report by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), released Wednesday, rebuts suggestions that COVID-19 is a serious threat only to the elderly. Analyzing all US cases from February 12 through March 16, 4,226 in all, the CDC found that only 20 percent of those who died were under 65, but in cases of diseases requiring hospitalization, 55 percent were under 65, as well as 47 percent of those sent to ICUs. These preliminary data also demonstrate that severe illness leading to hospitalization, including ICU admission and death, can occur in adults of any age with COVID-19, the study found. As the epidemic continues to spread, there are mounting reports of shortages of supplies and vital equipment at hospitals, particularly in the three epicenters. The CDC even issued an advisory that healthcare personnel should use homemade masks (e.g., bandana, scarf) for care of patients with COVID-19 as a last resort, if needed N95 masks were not available. There are also shortages in the chemical reagents used to test samples from patients who report symptoms suggesting coronavirus infection. This has resulted in longer turnaround times for obtaining lab results, leading to a vicious circle: during the time that patients are in the hospital waiting for results, nurses and doctors must wear protective gear for longer periods since they dont know if their patients are infected. On Tuesday, reported COVID-19 cases in the state of Florida rose by 50 percent in a single day, and state officials asked the federal government for 500,000 protective gowns, gloves and test collection kits, as well as two million face masks and 5,000 ventilators. This request from a single state exceeds the entire federal emergency stockpile. President Trump denied any responsibility for the growing gap between hospital needs and what is available, during a more than hour-long press briefing at the White House Thursday. The federal government is not supposed to be out there buying vast amounts of items and shipping them. The governors are supposed to be doing that, he said. He was repeating his sneer of the day before, when he told a similar briefing that the federal government is not a shipping clerk. Trumps daily press briefings have become ever more insufferable displays of ignorance and self-praise in the face of mounting human tragedy, to which the commander-in-chief is completely indifferent. These have been combined with arrogant dismissal of any suggestion that his performance in overseeing an unprecedented social disaster could be subject to criticism. At Thursdays briefing, Trumps main targets were the media and the Chinese government. He began the briefing by reiterating the phrase he has used repeatedly, referring to COVID-19 as the Chinese virus. Video footage shot from behind Trump showed that the text that had been prepared by his aides referred to the infection correctly as the corona virus, and that Trump had crossed out corona and written in Chinese by hand. Trump gloated about the effect of social distancing in reducing the number of journalists in attendance, since every other seat was kept vacant to separate reporters from each other. He suggested, We should get rid of about another 75 percent or 80 percent of them, and nominated two by pointing at them derisively. Then, towards the end of the briefing, there was a stage-managed provocation against both the press and China. Trump called on a supporter planted in the press corps and she asked him why the US media have teamed up with the Chinese Communist Party narrative and they are claiming youre racist for making these claims about Chinese virus. Is it alarming that major media players are consistently siding with foreign state propaganda, and they work right hereand have direct access with you and your team? This extraordinary suggestionthat US journalists are working for the Chinese government and could represent a physical threat to Trumptouched off a further diatribe from the US president in which he denounced the New York Times, the Wall Street Journal, and the Washington Post by name, concluding, If we had an honest media in this country, our country would be an even greater place. In all his public appearances, Trump puts forward variants of the claim that no one could have foreseen the outbreak of the coronavirus epidemic. This has been repeatedly debunked, with ample documentation going back to the global response to the SARS epidemic in 2002, and subsequent outbreaks of avian flu, swine flu, MERS, and Ebola. On Thursday the Washington Post reported that Senator Richard Burr, chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee, had warned a group of business cronies weeks ago about the likely impact of COVID-19, at a point when Trump was still giving empty reassurances to the American public that there was nothing to worry about. Burr told a luncheon meeting of business supporters on February 27 that, while he could not divulge any details from what he had learned from intelligence briefings, Theres one thing that I can tell you about this: It is much more aggressive in its transmission than anything that we have seen in recent history. He continued, as attested by a recording of the lunch obtained by National Public Radio, It is probably more akin to the 1918 pandemic, a reference to the global outbreak of influenza that killed more than 50 million people. Burr evidently had acted on the warning alreadyon February 13, he sold off between $582,000 and $1.56 million in his personal stockholdings, in 29 separate transactions, the bulk of his personal wealth. Not only did he unload his stocks a week before the Wall Street plunge triggered by the coronavirus crisis, but these included $150,000 in shares of Wyndham Hotels and Resorts, down two-thirds in value since then, and $100,000 in shares of Extended Stay America, another tourism stock, now down to half its former value. The senators office has, of course, denied any connection between his sudden withdrawal from the stock market and any advance knowledge he had of the likely impact of the coronavirus outbreak. Pennsylvania deer hunters killed more whitetails in the 2019-20 than they have in 15 years, according to the Pennsylvania Game Commission. The total deer harvest for the 2019-20 hunting seasons, which ended in January, is estimated at 389,431, about 4 percent more than the 374,690 deer killed in the 2018-29 hunting seasons. The last time hunters killed more deer than they did in the most recent seasons was in 2004-05, when an estimated 409,320 deer were harvested. Buck harvest climbed by about 10 percent, from 163,249 in 2018-19 to 163,240 in 2019-20. The 2019-20 deer harvest topped the previous years harvest of 374,690 by about 4 percent. The last time the total deer harvest exceeded this seasons total was in 2004-05, when 409,320 whitetails were taken. One of the highlights of the 2019-20 deer harvest was deer hunters continue to experience antlered harvest success levels comparable to historic highs in the late 1990s and early 2000s, noted Christopher Rosenberry, supervisor of the commissions Deer and Elk Section. In recent years, about 17 to 18 percent of all hunters harvested an antlered deer, and we look for this trend to continue. The antlerless deer harvest in the 2019-20 seasons was estimated at 226,191, which includes 10,461 taken with Chronic Wasting Disease Deer Management Assistance Program permits. The overall antlerless deer harvest was down slightly from the estimated harvest of 226,940 in 2018-19, which was about 10 percent larger than the 2017-18 harvest of 203,409. Keeping harvest pressure on antlerless deer is critical in our ongoing efforts to address the risk of chronic wasting disease, particularly in disease management areas, said Rosenberry. That hunters took over 10,000 antlerless deer with DMA DMAP permits illustrates the cooperation we need from deer hunters to help whitetails where CWD threats are at their greatest in Penns Woods. The percentage of older bucks in the deer harvest remained high in 2019-20. About 66 percent of the bucks taken by hunters were at least 2.5 years old. The remainder were 1.5 years old. The whitetail bucks roaming Penns Woods today are a product of an intensely managed deer herd, said Bryan Burhans, executive director of the commission. But their existence also hinged on the willingness of deer hunters to sacrifice shooting spikes and small fork-horns for bucks with substantially more headgear. About 69 percent of the antlerless deer harvest was adult females. Button bucks was 16 percent and doe fawns made up 15 percent. In the 2018-19 seasons, adult females comprised 66 percent of the antlerless deer harvest. Bowhunters accounted for about a third of Pennsylvanias 2019-20 overall deer harvest, taking 145,908 deer 74,190 bucks and 71,718 antlerless deer by bow or crossbow. The 2018-19 archery buck harvest was 54,350, while the archery antlerless deer harvest was 56,369. Unseasonably warm weather and rain impacted many fall bowhunting days in 2018. The 2019-20 muzzleloader harvest of 29,604 was up from the previous years harvest of 23,909. The 2019-20 muzzleloader harvest included 1,260 antlered bucks. Total deer harvest estimates by wildlife management unit for 2019-20 (with 2018-19 figures in parentheses) are as follows: WMU 1A: 6,400 (5,800) antlered, 13,200 (12,400) antlerless; WMU 1B: 8,700 (8,000) antlered, 12,700 (15,800) antlerless; WMU 2A: 6,900 (6,000) antlered, 9,900 (10,900) antlerless; WMU 2B: 5,500 (5,000) antlered, 10,400 (12,000) antlerless; WMU 2C: 9,400 (9,600) antlered, 14,069 (11,787) antlerless; WMU 2D: 13,000 (11,800) antlered, 18,888 (20,958) antlerless; WMU 2E: 6,400 (6,300) antlered, 9,473 (9,701) antlerless; WMU 2F: 9,000 (7,700) antlered, 9,724 (7,973) antlerless; WMU 2G: 8,100 (6,300) antlered, 6,105 (7,402) antlerless; WMU 2H: 2,400 (2,500) antlered, 1,100 (1,800) antlerless; WMU 3A: 5,700 (4,800) antlered, 5,700 (7,400) antlerless; WMU 3B: 7,600 (7,000) antlered, 10,300 (8,400) antlerless; WMU 3C: 9,400 (7,700) antlered, 12,800 (12,200) antlerless; WMU 3D: 6,000 (5,200) antlered, 4,900 (5,700) antlerless; WMU 4A: 6,000 (5,100) antlered, 7,924 (8,230) antlerless; WMU 4B: 5,700 (5,300) antlered, 8,285 (6,916) antlerless; WMU 4C: 7,000 (5,800) antlered, 8,300 (7,200) antlerless; WMU 4D: 8,700 (8,300) antlered, 10,955 (9,081) antlerless; WMU 4E: 7,300 (7,000) antlered, 9,500 (9,300) antlerless; WMU 5A: 3,400 (3,100) antlered, 5,000 (4,600) antlerless; WMU 5B: 10,200 (9,200) antlered, 15,345 (14,608) antlerless; WMU 5C: 7,600 (7,600) antlered, 14,427 (16,415) antlerless; WMU 5D: 2,500 (2,600) antlered, 6,700 (6,000) antlerless; and Unknown WMU: 340 (50) antlered, 496 (169) antlerless. Thanks for visiting PennLive. Quality local journalism has never been more important. We need your support. Not a subscriber yet? Please consider supporting our work. Contact Marcus Schneck at mschneck@pennlive.com. He's best known for playing Cameron Tucker in ABC mockumentary sitcom Modern Family. And, Eric Stonestreet has donated 200k meals to a Kansas City food bank amid the coronavirus pandemic and urged others to help 'if you have the means.' The Emmy award winning actor, 48, took to Twitter on Thursday to tell his followers about his generous gesture in a bit to motivate others to 'do what they can' to help the most vulnerable. Generous gesture: Eric Stonestreet, 48, has donated 200k meals to a Kansas City food bank amid the coronavirus pandemic and urged others to 'donate if you have the means' He tweeted: 'I am donating 200,000 meals to @HarvestersORG in Kansas City. Lindsay and I love our hometown and want to help do what we can. 'I'm only posting this to maybe motivate you to do what you can, when you can, if you can, to help vulnerable families in our community during this time. 'Normally they rely heavily on donated food, but they need the community's support to make sure they have the resources to help families and children in need. 'Link to donate if you have the means. https://harvesters.org/coronavirus ,' concluded the Kansas-born star. Every bit helps! The Emmy award winning actor, 48, took to Twitter on Thursday to tell his followers about his generous gesture in a bit to motivate others to 'do what they can' Spreading the word: Eric included a link for people who'd like to donate to the cause Harvesters is a regional food bank serving northwestern Missouri and northeastern Kansas. On Wednesday, Eric took to Instagram to encourage his 1.8 million followers to stay at home with a poem. Alongside a 'how to be coronavirus graphic', he wrote: Don't be a bonehead. Be at home instead. Don't be a punk. Hunk(er). Don't be mean. Quarantine. 'I'm just spitballing here. Oops bad choice of words there. Brainstorming, I mean. Just be smart and be cool and the new cool is staying home and protecting our grandparents and others, if you don't have to be out or at work.' Loving pair: Eric is dating paediatric nurse Lindsay Schweitzer (pictured) following his 2012 split from Broadway star Katherine Tokarz Doing it with humour: On Wednesday, Eric took to Instagram to encourage his 1.8 million followers to stay at home with a poem Modern family started modestly in 2009, and has gone on to practically reinvent the family sitcom from the ground up, winning over 20 Primetime Emmys and a Golden Globe along the way. The show's last day of filming was in February, with cast members including Sofia Vergara, Jesse Tyler Ferguson and Sarah Hyland taking to Instagram to share some amazing images marking the final time the Dunphys, Tucker-Pritchetts, and Pritchett-Delgados all got together in front of the camera. Images of empty sets, final fittings and throwback moments to the series' pilot script all underscored the bittersweet feeling that the cast and crew seemed to share as they brought the Modern Family era in their careers to a close. Modern Family's final season will return for its conclusion in April. When a small group of leaders from the Worcester community -- including the heads of nonprofits, the superintendent, a deputy police chief, and Congressman Jim McGovern -- got together this week, it was one of the most productive meetings Tim Garvin can recall. In my 40 years of working in community and nonprofit I have never been in a meeting as good as I was in, said Garvin, the CEO of the United Way of Central Massachusetts. Worcesters nonprofits, community groups and cultural organizations have been coming together during the COVID-19 pandemic, quickly finding ways to pump resources into the community and lend a hand to one another, preparing for the financial hit that widespread closures will have on revenue, funding and resources. The group that met Monday was a small gathering, so not to break Gov. Charlie Bakers ban on gatherings of more than 25 people. And they quickly got to work, Garvin said, devising a plan to make sure they can fill any gaps in the community. The Boys and Girls Club of Worcester is still taking care of kids while changing some of its operations to keep everyone healthy, said Executive Director Liz Hamilton. The club said it has increased its operating hours -- from 7:30 a.m. to 6 p.m. at its main location and from 8 a.m. to 4 p.m. at the Kids Club of Great Brook Valley and Plumley Village Clubhouse -- to support the families of first responders and people who need critical support. The club is keeping a ratio of 10 children to 2 staff members in each room, Hamilton said, and is cleaning and disinfecting every two hours. Friendly House, which receives funding from a federal food program, has been providing meals for kids, Hamilton said. In addition to breakfast, lunch and snack at the club, there are grab-and-go meals available for children who cant be on-site or who arent club members. I have to say that it has really been heartwarming to see all the nonprofits come together, Hamilton said Thursday. The Boys and Girls Club, Guild of St. Agnes and the YWCA have all applied to be emergency sites for childcare, Hamilton said. Baker issued an order that will close daycares with the exceptions of some emergency childcare centers come Monday. For the Boys and Girls Club, the emphasis is on making sure first responders and healthcare workers have a place to send their children so they can go to work and make an impact in the community, Hamilton said. Im seeing happy kids, Hamilton said. Its amazing to see how resilient they are. Theyre just having fun, learning and playing. Hamilton said the Club is accepting donations to its food and toiletry pantries. Nonprofits and community members have also been determining how to volunteer during a challenging time. When people are practicing social distancing, volunteers are making their work virtual, Garvin said. There are all kinds of ways to get involved and to say we care, were here to help and were going to do something that creates support and assistance, Garvin said. Erin Williams of the Worcester Cultural Coalition was working on a way to host a library of resources, including videos of books being read, according to Garvin. The Worcester Cultural Coalition itself has provided a way for organizations to support one another. The coalition is a public-private partnership established in 1999 between the city of Worcester and twelve cultural organizations. Now, its membership includes 80 organizations. The Ecotarium is one of those organizations and is taking advantage of the network the coalition provides, according to CEO Lucy Hale. Like many other museums and organizations, the Ecotarium is going to be hit hard from having to close its doors during the coronavirus crisis. The Ecotarium is currently projecting an impact of almost $2 million, said Hale, noting the museum usually brings in $3.5 million in revenue a year. The museum is lucky to have endowments, Hale added. If this really just goes through April 6, that recovery looks very different than if it goes through July, Hale said. Even with its doors closed, the Ecotarium is looking at how it can be a resource to the community, Hale said. Knowing that its future visitors will also feel the financial impact of coronavirus, the museum will consider free days when it can eventually open again and will also assess admission cost, Hale said. For the time being, Hale and other members of the Worcester Cultural Coalition have been talking in a group text to coordinate efforts, she said. The Ecotarium has offered its expansive parking lot if others need to set something up for supplies or food delivery, for example. Its conservation land is also available as long as people are going outside, Hale said. While people are practicing social distancing or self-quarantining, and with children out of school for several weeks, the Ecotarium is producing online content to keep people engaged at home. Its fun, its engaging things they can watch or things parents can do with their kids, Hale said. As Ecotarium staff go into the museum to take care of its animals, theyre showing the process on social media. The country has never seen a situation like this one before, but its a chance for the community to find new ways to offer support. We have a really wonderful cultural community here and I think this is a time to really come together, Hale said. Meanwhile, there are other resources online. On Facebook, the group Mutual Aid Worcester is sharing resources and identifying needs in the community. The city has also announced Worcester Together, a partnership to fundraise for basic and long-term needs of the community during the pandemic. Related Content: MILWAUKEE A Wisconsin landlord is doing what he can to help his tenants and his neighborhood get through the coronavirus pandemic. This week, John Zutz left a letter on his tenants' doorsteps, saying they will only need to pay $100 in rent for the month of April. Zutz told WISN 12 News he wants to help where he can. "I see what's happening inside the world, in the country, and I realize there's going to be a lot of people out of work, and they need help," said Zutz. "I'm not sure if (my tenants) need it or not. That's the point. They may not need it, but I encourage them, if they don't need it, to spend the money in the neighborhood." Cai Logan, one of Zutz's tenants, said he has lost about 50% of his income because of the coronavirus pandemic. "This is affecting everyone, and this is affecting me financially," Logan said. "I felt relieved, and I also felt grateful on a community level because (Zutz's) intention was to free up some money to invest back in the neighborhood during a time of economic downturn." Zutz said he is no saint, just a man trying to help his community and his country get back on their feet. He said he is losing about $1,000 in the deal and will need to reevaluate the situation if it lasts longer than a month. Zutz said he hopes other landlords will see his story and do the same for their tenants if they can afford to. "I understand how the economy works. You gotta keep the money moving. The stock market crashed three days in a row because people are sitting on their wallets," Zutz said. "Keep going, keep doing it. It'll come back. This'll pass, but we gotta work together." This article originally appeared on WISN.com. PUNE The Pune Municipal Corporation (PMC) registered 76 cases under Section 188 of Indian Penal Code (IPC) and 350 cases were registered in Pimpri-Chinchwad in connection with violation of governments order banning assembly of more than five persons at private establishments under IPC Section 188 (disobedience to order duly promulgated by public servant). DCP ( special branch ) Mitesh Gatte said that strict action is being taken to curb the spread of Covid-19 (coronavirus). The residents of the city and private establishments should follow the rules strictly and avoid stepping outside their houses. We have formed 122 teams and we will continue taking action, said Gatte. District collector Naval Kishore Ram said strict measures will be taken against the violators. We appeal to the residents to follow the law and remain safe through social distancing, he said . Divisional commissioner Deepak Mhaisekar said that more crackdowns will take place to ensure that social distancing is maintained. As many as 1,000 policemen are patrolling on the city roads in PMC and PCMC. BAKU, Azerbaijan, Mar. 20 By Tamilla Mammadova - Trend: Georgia is completely shutting down air transportation starting from March 21 in order to prevent the spread of the coronavirus, Prime Minister's Advisor for Foreign Affairs Irakli Chikovani said, Trend reports via Georgian media. "Only government-coordinated flights carried out by Georgian Airlines will be operated," he said. He went on to add that every citizen who enters Georgia will be quarantined. Georgian Economy Minister Natia Turnava announced that in order to help Georgian citizens who are currently abroad and cannot return to their home country due to suspended or cancelled flights, the government of Georgia will offer to co-finance flights that will be carried out by Georgian Airways. Turnava also said that quarantine places for Georgian citizens returning to the country from abroad amid the outbreak of the new coronavirus must be created. She added that the Georgian National Tourism Administration (GNTA) will be responsible for creating quarantine zones for them. As of today, Georgia has 43 confirmed cases of COVID-19. Amid the new coronavirus outbreak, Georgia has suspended direct flights with China, Iran and Italy, which remain the largest centers of the outbreak. The outbreak in the Chinese city of Wuhan - which is an international transport hub - began at a fish market in late December 2019. The symptoms include cough, headache, fatigue, fever, aching and difficulty breathing. --- Follow the author on Twitter: @Mila61979356 A Pakistani doctor who the F.B.I. said was intent on joining the Islamic State, either on the battlefield in Syria or as a lone wolf in the United States, was arrested on Thursday before boarding a flight at Minneapolis-St. Paul Airport. The doctor, Muhammad Masood, 28, had been en route to Los Angeles to try to travel to the Middle East by cargo ship, the authorities said. He had initially bought a plane ticket from Chicago to Jordan, but officials said the flight was canceled because of the coronavirus outbreak. Mr. Masood, who most recently worked as a research coordinator at a medical clinic in Rochester, Minn., was charged with one count of attempting to provide material support to a designated foreign terrorist organization. The charge carries a penalty of up to 20 years in prison. Mr. Masood spent the past two years in the United States on a temporary visa, known as a H-1B, that is issued to skilled workers from abroad, a criminal affidavit said. Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Friday appreciated the "bipartisan" support from politicians cutting across party affiliations to his call for a "Janta curfew" on Sunday as part of the efforts to check the spread of the coronavirus, saying all of us have to fight the menace together. Responding to tweets by leaders on his call for a "Janta curfew", he said a "bipartisan support in such efforts is deeply appreciated. We have to fight this menace together". Nationalist Congress Party's (NCP) Supriya Sule had tweeted, saying as a responsible citizen of the country, she pledged her support to the "Janta curfew" announced by Modi. The prime minister also referred to tweets by Telugu Desam Party leader N Chandrababu Naidu, who said these were testing times for the nation and everyone must fight with resilience and social distancing. Modi also referred to tweets in support of the "Janta curfew" by personalities from various fields, including sports, media and the Bollywood. He also shared a video posted by these personalities. Pitching for "social distancing" in his address to the nation on Thursday, Modi called for a "Janta curfew" from 7 am to 9 pm on March 22, saying no citizen, barring those in essential services, should get out of their houses and asserted that it will be a litmus test to show India's readiness to take on the challenge of the coronavirus outbreak. This experience will serve the nation well, he added. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) Self-isolation isnt new to me. Nearly two years ago, it meant a fully furnished studio apartment in downtown Calgary, ringed by an unpaved parking lot and unfamiliarity. A fiercely tight team of fellow reporters and editors Id only just met. Roughly 3,500 kilometres between me and the Greater Toronto Area, where Id left my family and the vast majority of my friends. A liquor store 30 metres from my front door. A history of alcohol dependency. Empty cans routinely crowded my kitchen counter: dead soldiers standing quietly at attention. When I finally drained the last of their platoons, I lost the only psychological coping mechanism I had against boredom, isolation and an undiagnosed mental illness all at once. I wouldnt wish the year that followed on anyone. Unfortunately, someone you know is fighting it alone right now as the COVID-19 pandemic confines us all. Canadas unprecedented response to the coronavirus is oddly familiar to anyone trying to distance themselves from excessive drug use. Restaurants and bars are suddenly off-limits. Social gatherings are rare. Every hour brings the abstract terror of impending catastrophe and crushing little indignities. Above it all, a disbelief that everything will or should, in fact return to a pre-crisis state. For users, the public health edict of social distancing muddies it further. How do you escape a craving for the peace of a Mikes Hard Lemonade when all the theatres are closed? Who do you visit when impending dusk and potential infection bring another lonely night? Who do you meet when most Alcoholics Anonymous gatherings are temporarily closed? (How bad is this pandemic, really?) Inevitably, you check the liquor stores closing hours. Theres a reason AA strongly encourages new members to attend their first 90 meetings in 90 days. You need to displace the inevitable cravings of your waking hours with a measured thirst for something more holistic and communal: bonding in a church basement over bad coffee. Thats no longer an option. AA and other addiction group meetings are temporarily suspending their in-person meetings due to COVID-19 restrictions on group gatherings. While they are still offering online meetings, I worry far too many members are self-isolating without the community they so desperately need. Relearning old passions is perhaps the most difficult and essential part of deciding to leave excessive drug use behind. I had forgotten the quiet peace of curling up with a thick book for hours at a time, the joy of zipping along a forest trail on my bike, the camaraderie of a gathering without a tallboy in hand. (Recalling these pleasures is still sometimes a struggle). Those whove spent decades struggling with excessive use understand all too well the perplexing terror of waking up sober and realizing they cant imagine what to do with themselves. This requires community, whether that be an AA meeting in a church basement, a sober hiking group, or simply a call from your partner. Weve all seen enough videos of Italians singing to one another from their balconies to know COVID-19 hasnt claimed us entirely. Every time I open Instagram, I see another Story from a friend offering to run groceries the length of Toronto to those in need. We are all such social creatures, especially in our own uncertain recovery from this pandemic. And our sense of solidarity still feels so fleeting sometimes, doesnt it? A plethora of Discord messages, Messenger chats and texts are keeping me tethered to my quarantined community. My partner and I chat on the phone whenever we can. Theres no shortage of stories to cover. And doctors orders from Dr. Theresa Tam say I should, in fact, settle into a good book for an entire afternoon without any social interaction. Im fine. You undoubtedly know someone who is now sober, struggling to be sober, or simply needs to cut down their drug use. Give them a call when you can. Let them post all the addiction-related Twitter hashtags in the world we need all the digital community we can muster right now. If they go to AA or SMART Recovery, they may already know about the online meetings. Point them to one if they ask. If you are that someone I swear you are not alone. There are uncounted numbers of us behind closed doors across Canada, worried the emptiness of these days in lockdown will reignite old (or fresh) cravings. If using represses trauma or boredom or incessant mosquito worries buzzing around your brain, I guarantee we can find other distractions together. Plug in the PS4 for an afternoon. Call up your fellow group members. Those of us struggling with addiction are very, very good at killing time. And if you still believe that relapse is inevitable, my inbox is always open. LONDON (dpa-AFX) - Travis Perkins plc (TPK.L) reported that the Group's trading performance in 2020 has been in line with expectations. Total Group sales grew by 2.4% year-to-date. The Group noted that recent trading has not yet shown a significant sales impact as a result of COVID-19. However, due to COVID-19, the Group expects trading environment to change quickly and materially in the coming weeks. Travis Perkins has decided to withdraw all market guidance in the near-term. The Board has also decided to suspend the final dividend payment of 33.0 pence per ordinary share, and to pause the Wickes demerger process. Copyright RTT News/dpa-AFX Werbehinweise: Die Billigung des Basisprospekts durch die BaFin ist nicht als ihre Befurwortung der angebotenen Wertpapiere zu verstehen. Wir empfehlen Interessenten und potenziellen Anlegern den Basisprospekt und die Endgultigen Bedingungen zu lesen, bevor sie eine Anlageentscheidung treffen, um sich moglichst umfassend zu informieren, insbesondere uber die potenziellen Risiken und Chancen des Wertpapiers. Sie sind im Begriff, ein Produkt zu erwerben, das nicht einfach ist und schwer zu verstehen sein kann. Source: Xinhua| 2020-03-20 09:36:19|Editor: huaxia Video Player Close TRIPOLI, March 20 (Xinhua) -- The United Nations Support Mission in Libya (UNSMIL) on Thursday condemned the attacks on civilians in Libya, a day after indiscriminate shelling killed 4 children in southern Tripoli. "Four young women and girls aged between 14-20 killed, and five others, including a 11-year-old child, were injured yesterday in a senseless indiscriminate shelling affecting a civilian neighborhood in Ain Zara, reportedly by LNA forces (Libyan National Army)," the UMSMIL said in a statement. "Appalled by this bloody attack, which comes hours after the international calls for a humanitarian pause, UNSMIL reiterates its strong condemnation of such indiscriminate attacks affecting civilians and renews its call for an immediate cessation of hostilities," the statement said. The UN-backed government and the rival eastern-based army exchanged accusations for attacking civilians in Tripoli, where deadly armed conflicts are still taking place. The eastern-based army has been leading a military campaign since April 2019 in and around the Libyan capital of Tripoli to take over the city and topple the UN-backed government. The fighting has killed and injured thousands of people and displaced more than 150,000 civilians. The two rival parties, which accepted a cease-fire starting from Jan. 12, have been accused each other of breaching truce. WASHINGTON The U.S. and Mexico are discussing closing their shared border, the busiest in the world, to "non-essential" travel, possibly as soon as Friday, in an effort to thwart the coronavirus. The White House is "talking to the Mexican government, so it doesnt become a one-way street, U.S. Rep. Henry Cuellar, a Laredo Democrat, told Hearst Newspapers. They are talking to the Mexicans and hopefully this will be done in a way that the U.S. and Mexico can agree on what restrictions. Cuellar, who said he has been in close contact with Customs and Border Patrol leadership about the potential closure, said if anything happens we should hear about it by Friday. Texas Take: Get political headlines from across the state sent directly to your inbox Meanwhile, U.S. Reps. Veronica Escobar, an El Paso Democrat, and Will Hurd, a San Antonio Republican, issued a statement "urging the El Paso-Juarez region to prepare contingency plans in anticipation" of travel restrictions. President Donald Trump has already shut off non-essential travel or urged against it to and from much of the world. The State Department on Thursday warned Americans against traveling abroad. The restrictions on the Mexican border are expected to closely resemble those the Trump administration imposed earlier this week on travel between the U.S. and Canada, which kept trade active. Trump has said he is considering the same with Mexico, which as of earlier this week had 93 confirmed COVID-19 cases. The White House has already shut the southern border to asylum seekers and migrants. For subscribers: Gov. Abbott shuts Texas schools, restricts bars and restaurants Cuellar said it remains unclear what will be deemed essential travel. People legally cross the border hundreds of millions of times every year for work, school and to buy food and medicine. He urged a broad view that would allow them to continue to do so. And Cuellar said it must be done in a way that doesnt slow trade. We cannot close it, Cuellar said. Every day there is more than $1.7 billion in trade between the U.S. and Mexico There is so much food consumed by the American public that comes from Mexico. Escobar and Hurds statement stressed the same. In the face of the coronavirus pandemic, the U.S. and Mexican authorities need to cooperate closely to contain the spread of COVID-19 and to do so in a transparent, responsible way, it said. Cooperation should include steps to keep supply chains open and safe, facilitate essential travel between both countries, and administer aid to refugees and other migrants, such as those individuals held in detention facilities in the United States and awaiting court dates in Mexico. Trump has threatened before to shut down down the border with Mexico, backing off such a threat last year by saying he was giving the nation a one-year warning to halt all illegal immigration to the U.S. Were hoping the president will treat this as a public health emergency, said U.S. Rep. Joaquin Castro, a San Antonio Democrat. We dont believe they should use this in a shameless way to try to accomplish some kind of nativist agenda. The Shevchenkivsky district court of Kyiv fined a resident of the capital $620 for violating sanitary and anti-epidemic rules during the quarantine period imposed against the backdrop of the situation with coronavirus, the press service of the court noted. "Based on the results of the case, the person was found guilty of an offense under Article 443 of the Code of Ukraine on Administrative Offenses and imposed an administrative fine of $620," the statement said. Thus, the court found that a resident of the city of Kyiv carried out the sale of food from her hands in an unidentified place, thereby violating the sanitary and anti-epidemic rules during the period of quarantine. As we reported before, In Kyiv, Vinnytsia, Dnipro, Cherkasy and the Yampolsky district, national guardsmen will be attracted to conduct restrictive quarantine measures The Guards have already begun to serve in mobile and stationary posts. They control carriers regarding their compliance with quarantine restrictions. Also, the National Guard provides security at the observational facility near the Dnipro. On the territory of the institution there are Ukrainians who arrived from European countries. They will be under the supervision of doctors for two weeks. A Harris County judge released a murder suspect on a pretrial bond Thursday, after the man requested a bail reduction, saying he feared that COVID-19 would strike the county lockup and spread like wildfire. David Cruz, 29, was detained in connection with his friends death because he couldnt afford a $60,000 bond. He asked Judge DaSean Jones to lower his bond to $30,000 and impose electronic monitoring and pretrial supervision. His lawyer stated in court documents Monday that COVID-19 is certainly going to strike the Harris County jail population and spread like wildfire among inmates. If Cruz were released, the lawyer said, Cruz would live with his parents and work as an estimator at the familys lamination business. Cruz was arrested in what he told relatives was the accidental shooting of his friend in August. The judge did not reduce the bond as Cruz had requested, but let him go without paying his original $60,000 bond upfront, instead he asked for a 3.5 percent payment to pretrial services. If he violates the terms of release, he would owe the full amount and could be returned to jail. Cruz's lawyer, David Cunningham, declined to comment. Joe Gamaldi, of the Houston Police Officers Union, called the ruling completely irresponsible and ridiculous. Certainly we understand the risk of anyone catching COVID-19," Gamaldi said, saying it was essential to "balance these decisions about letting a suspected murderer out" with the risk a person poses and the likelihood of making a court appearance. "PR bond or $2,100 bond for being arrested and charged for murder for the shooting someone in the head makes little difference. It is a miscarriage of justice what Judge Dasean Jones has done to our community and our victim's family while we are at our most vulnerable." CORONAVIRUS UPDATES: Stay informed with accurate reporting you can trust Jones, who presides in the 180th district court, has been at the forefront on bond reform among the felony judges. He declined to speak about the particulars of the Cruz case, but said the friction over such bond rulings stems from the fact that most people dont understand that poverty is not a lawful reason to keep people locked up. Its not his job to presume by default that defendants are guilty and should be detained, he said. The judge mentioned the 8th Amendment prohibition against excessive bail and fines and cruel and unusual punishments. He said you cant keep someone an eternity, citing a portion of the Texas constitution that states says you can hold someone with a criminal history for 60 days without bond, but then you must set a bond. They dont realize that the elements that were supposed to look at do not include the person being poor, he said. No judge should be using jail as a punitive effort before a person has plead or been found guilty. Investigators said at the time of Cruzs arrest in August that the defendant said he accidentally killed his friend. Cruz faces a first-degree felony murder in the fatal shooting of Christian Tristan in southeast Houston. Cruz had told three family members he accidentally shot his 27-year-old friend and then tossed the gun over a bridge on Navigation, according to police. Cruz has a prior felony conviction for failing to stop and render aid in a 2011 hit and run. gabrielle.banks@chron.com Editors note: A headline on an earlier version of this story was updated to reflect that David Cruz was released on a pretrial services bond, which means he posted a small percentage of the $60,000 bond up front. Russian cybersecurity firm Kaspersky has discovered a total of 23 malware programs being used to trick Vietnamese Internet users by taking advantage of the novel coronavirus disease (COVID-19). The malware is being disguised as .pdf, .mp4, and .docx files claiming to contain the latest updates on the epidemic or information that can help people protect themselves from the novel coronavirus. Once the files are downloaded, a series of cybersecurity threats damage, block, modify, or copy data, as well as interfering with the operation of computers or computer networks. The malware can also collect passwords and other confidential information stored on a victims device. Several of these files are spreading via email, Kaspersky reported, adding that hackers often use email addresses resembling those of the World Health Organization or the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention to dupe people into downloading the codes. In Vietnam, the cybersecurity firm has discovered 23 separate malware programs that they say are related to the COVID-19 epidemic. Similar cybersecurity threats are also being circulated in other Asia-Pacific countries, including Bangladesh, the Philippines, China, India, Malaysia, Singapore, and Japan, according to Kaspersky. This approach of spreading malicious codes appears be more effective than previous other methods, such as sending fake emails from the World Bank or the International Monetary Fund, the firm noted. The novel coronavirus, which first emerged in the central Chinese city of Wuhan in December 2019, has infected over 244,800 people and killed more than 10,000 globally as of Friday morning, according to Ministry of Health statistics. Vietnams COVID-19 tally has soared to 85, with 16 having fully recovered and been discharged from the hospital by February 16. A patient in the northern province of Ninh Binh was released from the hospital on Friday morning after testing negative for the novel coronavirus for three times. He was the first and only recovery so far among the 69 second-phase cases confirmed in the country since March 6. No deaths from COVID-19 have been reported in Vietnam to date. Like us on Facebook or follow us on Twitter to get the latest news about Vietnam! A day after his address to the nation, Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Friday said that the threat of the pandemic is common for all states and underscored the need of Centre and all States to work together. "While the participation of citizens is necessary to combat the challenge, but panic needs to be avoided. The threat of the pandemic is common for all states and underscored the need of Centre and all States working together," PM Modi said while holding a video conference with Chief Ministers of the country in the view of the coronavirus outbreak. He said that constant vigilance is of paramount importance. "Given the global context of the spread of the virus in various countries, constant vigilance is of paramount importance. The next 3-4 weeks are crucial in efforts to contain the spread of the virus, and the most important measure for containment is 'social distancing' and the Chief Ministers should ensure effective implementation of the same," a press statement quoted Modi as saying. During the video conference, health officials also informed about the action taken to combat the coronavirus. Health Secretary, Preeti Sudan gave an overview of ongoing cooperation with states, monitoring of international passengers, use of community surveillance to track spread, logistics of testing facilities, travel restrictions and evacuation of Indian citizens from abroad. Dr Balram Bhargava, DG of ICMR, said that India is currently in phase 2 of transmission, emphasizing that at present India is in the window for taking action to minimize the risk of transmission of phase 3. He talked about the importance of judicious use of health facilities and need to focus on ramping up quarantine facilities and isolation wards. Prime Minister appreciated the steps taken by the States and thanked them for sharing their experiences and giving suggestions. He suggested that the Chief Ministers should do video conference with trade bodies in their states to prevent black marketing and undue price rise. He urged them to use soft power of persuasion as well as legal provisions, wherever necessary. Prime Minister said that the COVID-19 Economic Task Force set up by Government of India will formulate the strategy to devise a suitable approach to effectively tackle the economic challenge. Odisha Chief Minister Naveen Patnaik, Andhra Pradesh Chief Minister YS Jagan Mohan Reddy, Arunachal Pradesh Chief Minister Pema Khandu, Assam Chief Minister Sarbananda Sonowal, Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal, Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath among others attended the video conferencing "The Chief Ministers thanked the Prime Minister for the support given by the Centre to the States in combating COVID-19 and also appreciated the impact of Prime Minister's message in his address to the nation," press statement said. "The Chief Ministers briefed the Prime Minister and others about the preparations done till now. During the course of their presentations, they requested for augmentation of testing facilities, greater support to vulnerable sections, the advancement of financial disbursement for 2020-21 to the states and requested for roping in private labs and hospitals in larger numbers," press statement added. All the Chief Ministers assured their support and reaffirmed that all States will work together with the Government of India to combat the pandemic. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) What was supposed to be a relaxing retreat in the Philippines has become a chaotic scramble to get home for Queensland woman Tennielle Allan. She left for Siargao Island in the Philippines on March 10 but within two days, Manila airport was closed to all domestic flights, which meant no one could catch international flights out. Brisbane woman Tennielle Allan says "the thought that I could end up here for six months is terrifying". "Then over the week, they shut down Siargao airport and Cebu," she said. "It was absolute pandemonium trying to get flights out. People are stranded everywhere." Wife of the president, Aisha Buhari says her daughter who has gone into self-isolation after returning from the UK, only did so as part of advice by the minister of health, Osagie Ehanire. According to Mrs Buhari, in a statement she issued via her Twitter handle on Thursday, the isolation wasnt because her daughter showed any symptom of covid-19 She tweeted: Good afternoon Nigerians, Earlier today my daughter returned from the UK being among the high Burden listed countries of COVID-19. Read Also: Ezekwesili Knocks Buhari Over Continued Silence On Coronavirus Based on the advice of the Hon. Minister Of Health, Presidential Taskforce on COVID 19 and that of NCDC, She is on Self Isolation, not because she displayed any symptoms of the Covid-19 . She also advised all parents to do same, while also urging Nigerians to adhere to advise of the federal ministry of health and the Nigeria Centre for Disease Control(NCDC). Please I urge all parents to do the same if possible as prevention is better than cure . Similarly, I have shut down my office for two weeks with immediate effect while essential staff can work from home as a result of some Staff who recently returned from the UK. Lets keep following the advice of the Federal Ministry of Health and the NCDC, which encourages maintaining social distancing, high hygiene culture through regular washing of hands with soaps and sanitizers. Lets adopt preventive measures and ensure the safety of our families and that of the General public. We will overcome the Covid-19 pandemic if we all take the necessary precautions at the same time! Indiana will move its 2020 primary to June 2 from the originally planned May 2 in response to the deadly coronavirus outbreak, Gov. Eric Holcomb announced on Friday. "Today I've taken action to reschedule the election that would have been on May 5 to June 2," Holcomb said in a briefing Friday. "My view on that fast-approaching primary election is it needed to be pushed back in order to again ensure the safety of our county employees, the poll workers, and the voters themselves." Indiana, with 82 delegates up for grabs, has become the latest state to postpone its primary because of looming threats brought on by the coronavirus, which has roiled markets and infected hundreds of thousands of people globally. The outbreak has upended the 2020 Democratic presidential primary as former Vice President Joe Biden and Sen. Bernie Sanders push to take on President Donald Trump in November. Sanders won Indiana in the 2016 primary, beating then rival, former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton. The current candidates have stopped holding in-person campaign events. Sanders, who has fallen behind Biden in the race for pledged delegates, is now mulling his prospects as he considers whether to leave the race or forge ahead. Several states have already changed their election schedules as the coronavirus pandemic rages across the United States and paralyzes normal activity. Louisiana and Georgia delayed their planned primaries. Wyoming also canceled the in-person portion of its Democratic caucus. Ohio delayed its in-person primary voting that was supposed to take place Tuesday. Gov. Mike DeWine was blocked by the courts from postponing the primary, but the state's health department intervened, issuing an order to close the polls due to health concerns brought on by the outbreak. Arizona, Florida and Illinois moved forward with Tuesday voting but took extra precautions, emphasizing mail-in ballots and increasing sanitation at polling places. Rhode Island could be next. It is awaiting a decision on whether its primary will be postponed. The Rhode Island Board of Elections voted to postpone the state's primary from April 28 to June 2, but the decision is "pending the governor signing an emergency order," according to the board's deputy director of elections, Miguel Nunez. Here are the states that have postponed their primaries and their new dates: Georgia (rescheduled to May 19) Connecticut (rescheduled to June 2) Indiana (rescheduled to June 2) Ohio (rescheduled to June 2, pending approval from the courts) Louisiana (rescheduled to June 20) Kentucky (rescheduled to June 23) The Democratic National Committee has so far said it will move forward with its convention in July despite the disruptions. The coronavirus, which is believed to have originated in Wuhan, China, has spread to dozens of countries globally, with more than 245,000 confirmed cases worldwide and at least 10,031 deaths so far, according to data from Johns Hopkins University. There are at least 14,250 cases in the United States and at least 205 deaths, according to the latest tallies. Burying the dead now harder for funeral homes under coronavirus restrictions Email Print Img No-img Menu Whatsapp Google Reddit Digg Stumbleupon Linkedin Comment NEW YORK Frantic funeral homes across the country say they are struggling to keep up with the rapidly changing new regulations on public gatherings and how they impact the burying of the dead in the age of the new coronavirus. Some say they are just praying that the government doesnt ask them to shut down altogether. We are forced to limit only 20 people into the funeral home and no more. Churches are canceling the masses and were having a tough time, Andrew Williams of Williams Funeral Home in the Bronx told The Christian Post Wednesday. I hope they dont shut us down. Updated guidance released by the White House on March 16 suggests no public gatherings larger than 10 people for the next 15 days while the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention advised against gatherings of more than 50 people for the next eight weeks. In a Facebook event on March 16, the CDC suggested that funeral homes limit attendance to select family and livestream funeral services for those who cannot attend. Services, they added, could also be recorded and the video shared with whomever the family deems appropriate. They further advised that those who are ill and are at-risk such as the elderly and immune-compromised be encouraged to stay away from funerals. Healthy habits such as social distancing, hand hygiene, and covering cough and sneezes were also recommended. Several other funeral home workers contacted by CP, who asked not to be identified in this story, revealed families were having a tough time with the new rules which have been changing rapidly over a short period. As of now, all of us are figuring it out, another New York worker said. Every day, every 12 hours, a new mandate comes down, Funeral Director Matt Hollebeek told Fox 17. Listening to families, and what they want us to do, and making arrangements based on that and then 12 hours later, its all unraveled. As of Thursday, more than 11,000 cases of the new coronavirus have been diagnosed in the U.S. and more than 170 have died as authorities increasingly lean on social distancing strategies and shutdowns to limit the spread of the pandemic that has infected more than 200,000 and killed more than 8,000 globally. County clerks are shutting down, doctors arent available. I still have the function of my job to do, which is bury or cremate the people who have died, Hollebeek told Fox 17. He said funeral directors are worried that if their workers get sick, they may eventually not even be able to do their job. At the recent funeral of World War II veteran John Gosciewski, a retired funeral director who ran the Gosciewski Funeral Home in Wilkes-Barre, Pennsylvania, for more than 50 years, said grieving was muted by the coronavirus, according to The Citizens Voice. Its your relatives and family. You cant touch and shake hands or hug, Gosciewskis daughter, Paula Tracy, told the publication. Your relatives have to be treated as strangers and some of these people you havent seen in years. There was distance kept. It was absolutely hands off. Karel Zubris, another of Gosciewskis daughters, said those who attended his funeral had to put up a false wall during their farewell. We did the elbow thing, air hugs. It was hard, Zubris said. Gosciewskis funeral was reported as one of the last funeral masses held at St. Peter and Paul Church in Plains Township before the Diocese of Scranton switched to the new rules limiting funerals to only immediate family members. The owners of Harold C. Snowdon Funeral Homes of in Pennsylvania also announced that they halted public viewings and services and were limiting attendance to select family members. They suggested that people could also delay the services to a future date to possibly get more room to mourn under relaxed rules. Other funeral homes may be able to meet your needs if you require more from us than we are now comfortable doing, the Snowdon family noted. That is your decision and we do not judge you for it. This is an awful situation. We are trying to do our part to limit the families that will be affected by this current crisis. By PTI LUCKNOW: With a view to check the spread of coronavirus, the Lucknow district administration on Friday ordered closure of all bars, cafes/lounges, hair salons, beauty parlours and eating joints with immediate effect. "All bars, cafes/lounges, hair salons and beauty parlours should be closed with immediate effect till March 31 or till further orders," District Magistrate Abhishek Prakash said. The decision has been taken as a precautionary measure to the check spread of coronavirus, he said. In a separate order, the DM also ordered the closure of all eating points, sweet shops, food stalls, coffee shops etc till Mar 31. Not complying with the orders will be a punishable offence, he added. A group of seers on Friday cancelled the upcoming Ram Kot Parikrama here in the wake of coronavirus outbreak. Ram Kot Parikrama, a religious ceremony, is held every year on the first day of Ram Navami which was scheduled on March 24. In the ceremony, a group of seers and some politicians go around the premises of Ram Janmabhoomi to mark the birth anniversary of Lord Ram on the first day of Ram Navami. Ayodhya District Magistrate Anuj Kumar Jha confirmed the cancellation of the ceremony. Share this article Whatsapp Facebook Twitter Linkedin News Desk (The Jakarta Post) Jakarta Sat, March 21, 2020 06:05 662 7f440ff09e92db75a02bbad206c559ee 1 National coronavirus,COVID-19,COVID-19-Indonesian-patients,COVID-19-death-toll,COVID-19-in-Indonesia,COVID-19-rapid-test,COVID-19-test Free The Indonesian government says COVID-19 rapid testing kits can return results in about two minutes. Authorities expect the kits will significantly speed up efforts to detect and contain COVID-19 in the country. Health Ministry disease control and prevention director general Achmad Yurianto said on Friday that the results would come quickly as the tests used only blood serum, and medical workers would perform short reaction tests to see whether someone had the virus. Medical officers will take a few drops of blood from the person and put them into a testing kit for examination. The results will be out in about two minutes," Yurianto said. Medical officers started rapid COVID-19 tests on Friday, focusing on areas at risk of widespread contagion, he said, adding that the initial wave of tests would be for around 600,000 people across the country who had contact with people found to have COVID-19. The first tests were performed in South Jakarta on Friday, according to President Joko "Jokowi" Widodo, as contact tracing carried out by authorities found that the area was at high risk for the disease. Jokowi recently ordered his aides to conduct nationwide rapid tests to expedite detection as not many people could undergo regular tests due to the limited number of laboratories. Indonesia has recorded the highest death toll from the disease of all ASEAN nations, with 32 fatalities to date. Read also: Indonesia starts rapid tests, imports medicines to 'cure' COVID-19, Jokowi says The archipelago recorded a total of 369 cases as of Friday, and the disease had spread to 17 out of the countrys 34 provinces. Indonesia hopes to distribute 1 million rapid testing kits nationwide in the upcoming days, Yurianto said. The government received 2,000 testing kits on Friday and was set to obtain 100,000 more on Saturday. Despite the ability to provide faster results, rapid testing kits cannot provide the strong results of the regular polymerase chain reaction (PCR) tests as they are not able to determine the severity of the infection. Yurianto, therefore, reminded the public that the tests were supposed to only confirm the infections and that they should not react excessively once the results were out. Not all people who test positive should seek advanced medical treatment at hospitals. If their results are positive after taking the test but they are asymptomatic, we will ask them to self-isolate at home, Yurianto said. However, if people experience mild symptoms of the disease, we might ask them to reconfirm the result by taking the regular PCR test." (glh) WASHINGTON A week after a rocket attack killed three coalition personnel in Iraq, the State Department said today it was disappointed with the Iraqi caretaker government's performance in protecting US and coalition troops in Iraq. If the Iraqi government does not do a better job of protecting coalition forces, the United States will be forced to take actions to protect its personnel, a US official warned. The Iraqi government is at a decision point, Assistant Secretary of State for Near Eastern Affairs David Schenker told journalists on a State Department call today. If it doesnt take steps to hold accountable those responsible for the attacks on coalition forces, which are there at the invitation of the Iraqi government, the US will be forced to continue to protect our forces proactively. It is no secret that we have been enormously disappointed with the performance of the government of Iraq in protecting American and coalition forces, which are in Iraq at the invitation of the Iraqi government, Schenker said. That remains a point of contention. We have been told by the government of Iraq that they will investigate thoroughly and bring to justice those individuals responsible for the most recent attacks, he continued. And they did in fact do some operations to arrest people. But I think the proof is in the pudding. We have heard this before from the government of Iraq. The top US diplomat on the Middle East said the United States was not focused on individuals, but principles with regard to Iraqi Prime Minister-designate Adnan al-Zurfi, 54, the former governor of Najaf. The United States hopes that Iraqs leaders stand up for Iraqi sovereignty against Iranian meddling, fight corruption, bring accountability to those who have killed over 600 Iraqi protesters and deliver public services, he said. We are looking for a government of Iraq that will be interested in putting Iraq first, in demonstrating that they are Iraqi patriots, and wanting to have Iraq be a sovereign nation rather than a vassal state of Iran, Schenker said. Schenker rejected a characterization that the new Iraqi prime minister-designate might be perceived as Washington-backed. Zurfi was first appointed to be the governor of the holy Shiite city of Najaf in 2005 by the US-led Coalition Provisional Authority, which governed Iraq after the US invasion of Iraq. We have taken a step back and we are just focused on principles, not individuals, he said, regarding Zurfi. Whether we have a prime minister of Iraq dedicated to Iraqi sovereignty that is what we want for the prime minister of Iraq. We are not Iran: We are not meddling in Iraqi internal politics, Schenker continued. We are dealing with the situation in a very principled way. Zurfi is independent, but shares the US goal of reducing Irans influence in Iraq, said Abbas Kadhim, director of the Iraq program at the Atlantic Council. I would not characterize Mr. Zurfi as Americas candidate, Kadhim told Al-Monitor. But he has positions he independently adopted that fall in line with US preferences in Iraq: curbing Iranian influence, dissolving armed nonstate actors, and a general secular attitude to governance. The human and economic toll of the lockdowns against the coronavirus mounted Thursday as India struggled to feed the multitudes, Italy shut down most of its industry, and a record-shattering 3.3 million Americans applied for unemployment benefits in a single week. The number of cases in the United States climbed above China, where the virus originated late last year, to become the worlds highest. Around the globe, the death toll rose to about 8,200 in Italy, 4,100 in Spain and 1,700 in France, including a 16-year-old. The U.S. had more than 1,100 deaths, about 400 of them in New York state, the worst hot spot in the nation. Most of those victims were in New York City, where hospitals are getting swamped. On Thursday, a running count kept by Johns Hopkins University showed the United States now had the most confirmed cases of any country, with more than 82,000. Italy and China, the latter of which was the origin of the outbreak late last year, both had more than 80,000. Collectively the three countries accounted for about half the global total. Developments on March 26: India: Some of Indias legions of poor and others suddenly thrown out of work by a nationwide stay-at-home order began receiving aid on Thursday, as both public and private groups worked to blunt the impact of efforts to curb the coronavirus pandemic. Indias finance ministry announced a $22 billion economic stimulus package that will include delivering grains and lentil rations for three months to 800 million people, some 60% of the worlds second-most populous country. In the meantime, police in one state were giving rations of rice to shanty dwellers, while another states government deposited cash into the bank accounts of newly unemployed workers. Aid groups worked to greatly expand the number of meals they could hand out. The unprecedented order keeping Indias 1.3 billion people at home for all but essential trips to places like markets or pharmacies is meant to keep the virus from surging above the 593 active cases and 13 deaths currently recorded and overwhelming an already strained health care system. Canada: Canada has told the Trump administration that a proposal to put troops at the U.S.-Canada border amid the pandemic is entirely unnecessary and would damage relations between the two longtime allies. Prime Minister Justin Trudeau said his government has been in discussions with the White House about convincing the U.S. not to do it. Trump said the U.S. has troops at the border but then said he would need to find out about that. He then suggested he would deploy troops along the Canadian border to match what is being done at the Mexican border. Egypt: Egypt has expelled a correspondent for the Guardian over a report citing a study that challenged the official count of coronavirus cases in the Arab worlds most populous country, the British daily reported Thursday. The papers correspondent, Ruth Michaelson, left the country last week after Western diplomats informed her that Egyptian security services wanted her to leave immediately, the daily said. Michaelson had reported on unpublished research by Canadian infectious disease specialists estimating an outbreak size of over 19,000 cases in Egypt. The scientists had used data from early March when Egypt officially had only three confirmed cases, according to Michaelsons report published on March 15. The following day, Michaelson, along with a New York Times reporter who had tweeted her story, were summoned by Egyptian officials and told that they were accused of misreporting and spreading panic, the Guardian said. Africa: South Africas president appeared in full military uniform for the first time since the end of apartheid and told troops to be a force of kindness as a three-week lockdown begins at midnight and they ensure that 57 million people stay home. The mission is the most important in the history of our country as coronavirus cases near 1,000, the highest in Africa. Our people are terrified right now and we should not do anything to make their situation worse, President Cyril Ramaphosa told police earlier Thursday. Italy: The eurozones third-biggest economy and a major exporter of machinery, textiles and other goods, became perhaps the first Western developed nation to idle most of its industry, extending a shutdown on smaller, nonessential businesses to heavy manufacturers. Among the companies in Italy that have shut down or rolled back production: Fiat Chrysler, Ferrari, Pirelli tires and Luxottica eyewear, maker of Ray-Bans and Oakleys. The industrial lobby Confindustria estimates a cost of $77 billion to $110 billion of national wealth a month if 70% of companies are closed, as anticipated. We are entering a war economy, said Confindustria President Vincenzo Boccia. Middle East: In Iraq and Lebanon, authorities extended far-reaching curfews for two weeks, while in hard-hit Iran, the death toll jumped by 157 to 2,234 , prompting new steps to limit public gatherings and domestic travel. There are more than 29,000 confirmed cases in Iran, where authorities have encouraged people to stay home but refrained from imposing the strict containment measures seen elsewhere. In Saudi Arabia, authorities announced a total lockdown on the capital, Riyadh, and Islams two holiest cities, Mecca and Medina, in addition to a nationwide curfew. The United Arab Emirates entered an overnight weekend lockdown. China: Worried that international travelers might bring a second wave of coronavirus infections, China announced late Thursday night that it is suspending practically all entry to the country by foreigners and is halting almost all international passenger flights as well. The announcement came after official Chinese data indicated that the country had almost completely halted domestic transmission of the virus but was struggling to handle a growing number of people who were infected overseas. Foreign residents of China and foreigners with previously issued visas will no longer be allowed to enter the country as of midnight Friday, Chinas foreign ministry declared late Thursday. The announcement represents one of the most comprehensive international travel bans imposed anywhere in the world, as governments try to slow the spread of the coronavirus that has already infected more than a half-million people and killed more than 22,000. Chronicle News Services Residents of Kosovo's capital, Pristina, protested against their government's latest political crisis by banging on pots and pans from their balconies. Organizers of the protest called on people to make noise on March 19 as a signal to politicians to solve their differences, especially in light of the coronavirus pandemic. A partner in Kosovos ruling coalition said it plans to seek a no-confidence vote in parliament against the government in the coming days, potentially engulfing the small Balkan nation in a political crisis even as it battles the rapidly spreading disease. The country's interior minister was dismissed earlier this week, purportedly for spreading panic after he backed a presidential call for a state of emergency over the pandemic. President Hashim Thaci signed a decree on March 17 declaring a state of emergency over the health crisis. But Prime Minister Albin Kurti rejected the move, saying it would cause unnecessary panic. Two weeks ago, Toronto playwright Nick Green was having a banner year: three productions mounted in 12 months and his play Body Politic had been published. But then the COVID-19 crisis hit. Green joined the thousands of Canadian artists who immediately found themselves without work, with two of those three productions cancelled or postponed. (The third, Every Day She Rose, already ran at Buddies in Bad Times Theatre in November and December.) Three productions in a year, it has taken me 12 years to get to that place, Green says. And with that comes a momentum that keeps you creating, and keeps you afloat and optimistic despite the many discouraging things that happen in this career. Luckily, Green will still collect his artist fees from Sheridan College and the Musical Stage Company, which cancelled In Real Life, the musical he co-wrote with composer Kevin Wong which happens to be a dystopian sci-fi show about communicating virtually. That hasnt eased the emotional turmoil, though, of losing the project, the team and the social engagement of the theatre-making process. Green describes it as a process of mourning. Im a single person whose family lives in Vancouver and I was going from four weeks, six days a week, eight hours a day, surrounded by people and creativity to my 500-square-foot apartment, alone. Its very hard in that circumstance to stay creative and motivated. And frankly, not knowing how long this is all going to last, its scary, along with the general anxiety of what the hell is happening in this world, he says. As the world is realizing, being productive in the midst of a global crisis is tough in the best of circumstances, but its an entirely different challenge when your work requires you to make art. So Green did the first thing he could think of to cope: he created a festival to take place entirely online. I was thinking, what if we could pose a challenge to those in the arts community who have lost their chance to show their work, and that will maybe help motivate them to be creative? he says. Because I need that; to do my best work I need to know theres going to be a place where people can see it. Green created the Social Distancing Festival website to host rehearsal videos, designs, photos, excerpts and other pieces of work that have been cancelled or postponed in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic. He put out a call for submissions on Saturday, March 14. By the next day he had 23,000 page views and, as of Thursday, 270,000 unique visitors, including more than 80,000 from the United States, 20,000 from the United Kingdom, 15,000 from Australia, and more from countries like India, Nigeria and Myanmar. And his inbox has been flooded with more than 300 submissions from artists around the world hope their work will reach an audience. Its turning pretty gigantic, Green says. He is evolving the project to include a calendar of livestreams, with the potential to grow into interviews with curators and global artists. And while Green is screening each submission for quality and authenticity, he now has the help of a few Sheridan College students and local actors in posting the content. The festivalofficially kicked off on Saturday afternoon. Im not surprised that artists are happy to have a platform like this, but I am surprised by the international response for sure, he says. I have cried a few times today reading submissions from the personal messages that people are including about the amount of work that went into their production, and how disappointing it is to not see it come to life. But to write them back and tell them I can post their submission on the site, those responses also are really special. Thanks to the Social Distancing Festival, Green encountered the work of Tadhi Alawi, a contemporary dancer from Dar es Salaam, Tanzania. Alawi was supposed to show a video work titled Body vs. Mouth and a solo piece in Ireland this year at a now cancelled festival. Its stunning, Green says about Body vs. Mouth. He posted it as a sneak peek at the kind of work the Social Distancing Festival will showcase. You have to do a lot of work to find that these other artists are out there and theyre doing this thing that you love. But once you found them, its like this real time, instant connection. I didnt know (Alawi) existed, but now were constantly messaging each other on social media. Id say this is the most connected Ive felt to the arts community maybe in my entire career, Green adds. I am surprised that we as artists arent this connected to each others work all the time. Its just a click away. Nonetheless, Green knows the Social Distancing Festival wont be necessary forever hopefully. Genuinely, my hope with this project is that it helps people engage with art that could otherwise be lost from the public. But I only want to do it until its not helpful anymore, he says. Alternately, people might burn out of looking at their screens and need to look out the window. The Social Distancing Festival kicked off March 21. See socialdistancingfestival.com Help India! Mahesh Trivedi for TwoCircles.net There is no love lost between Hindus and Muslims in BJP-ruled Gujarat after the bloody communal clashes in 2002. Indeed, the chasm has deepened further after the recent Delhi riots as Muslims have been reduced to second-class citizens, living in grid-locked ghettos that lack even basic facilities. And in the national Capital as the Hindu-Muslim slur deepens thanks to the careless rhetoric game played by extremist on both sides. In the middle of all this, however, several Muslims have come out with stories of how they were saved by their Hindu neighbors during the unprecedented Delhi violence. Support TwoCircles Similarly, some Muslims in Gujarat have been feeling grateful to their Hindu donors and friends who are saving lives by donating organs before breathing their last. Not long ago, a Hindu family in the land of Mahatma Gandhi gave a new lease of life to a Muslim man on his death bed in a similar manner. Thanks to the efforts of Donate Life, an award winning, Surat-based non-government organization working for organ donations. When Amit Halpati, son of farm labourers living in a village in Navsari in south Gujarat, decided to go for a ride with a friend on the latters motorcycle, little did he realise that he had driven a nail in his coffin. Minutes later, their bike skidded and Halpati sustained serious head injuries while his friend was only slightly hurt. He was rushed to a public hospital in nearby Surat where doctors declared him brain dead, sending shockwaves to his family. In no time, volunteers of Donate Life reached out to the grieving family and succeeded in convincing thema tough jobhow Halpatis organs could save the life of seven run-down people on their last legs. While his two kidneys, two eyes, liver and pancreas were donated to different needy patients, the heart had to be removed and safely taken to a private hospital in Ahmedabad where Sohail Vora of Anand, whose heart was dying, was awaiting a donor for eight months. With the help of policemen, airport staff and local doctors, Donate Life team created a green corridor by stopping the traffic and allowing free passage to the ambulance carrying the heart and took it to Ahmedabad by a chartered aircraft. The distance of 277 km from the Surat civil hospital to the private hospital in Ahmedabad was covered in 85 minutes flat and the five-hour heart transplant surgery was immediately performed on Sohail, said Nilesh Mandlewala, founder and president of Donate Life. Hence, the heart of a 21-year-old labourer was transplanted into the body of a 32-year-old madrassa teacher who had been fighting for life for eight months. Donate Life has so far procured 805 cadaver organs26 hearts, 359 kidneys, 264 eyes, seven pancreases and four lungs to bring smiles on the faces of 740 crucial patients, including even a few foreigners, admitted in hospitals across not just Gujarat but in various cities of India. Apart from Sohail, four more Muslim heart patients have benefited from Mandlewalas benevolent organ donation project in the recent past. Mandlewala, who has been honoured with countless prestigious awards by top-drawer organisations, told TwoCircles.net that India faced an acute shortage of donors, resulting in loss of lives, adding that while 50,000 patients required heart transplants every year, hardly 370 had been conducted in the past 25 years. Some 2 million people are suffering from kidney failure in India and around 200,000 such patients are added every year, said Ramesh Jain secretary of Donate Life. He added that the situation regarding those suffering from failure of liver, pancreas, heart, eyes, etc. is no better. In India, Tamil Nadu tops in organ donations, and globally, Spain has the highest organ donation rate of 34 donors per million compared to 25 donors in the United States, but India has a shameful record of just 0.5 donor per million. Indeed, the organ donation process in India is administered by the National Organ and Tissue Transplant Organization but heath experts like famed cardiologist Ramesh Kapadia say that state- and district-level bodies, which have failed to manage organ donation, need to be strengthened and critical care doctors have to be proactive about identifying brain death cases. About 10,000 brain deaths take place in Delhi alone every year but even 1,000 of these potential donors are not harnessed, not to mention the fact that about 500,000 patients die due o non-availability of organs for transplantation. Under such circumstances, Donate Life has an enviable record of persuading over 800 organ donorsmost of them ordinary citizens whose golden-hearted families are also rightly felicitated by Mandlewala year after year. There is no exercise better for the heart than reaching down and lifting people up, says Mandlewala, a humble businessman who has dedicated his life to his noble mission after witnessing how his father had to suffer due to kidney failure. 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United Arab Emirates United Kingdom of Great Britain & N. Ireland Uruguay, Eastern Republic of Uzbekistan Vanuatu Venezuela, Bolivarian Republic of Viet Nam, Socialist Republic of Wallis and Futuna Islands Western Sahara Yemen Zambia, Republic of Zimbabwe Storyful An affable deer created somewhat of a buzz in a neighborhood near Salt Lake City, Utah, he regularly visited over the holiday period.The deer, nicknamed Cooper by local residents, has been playing with children in the neighborhood of Herriman and was even spotted posing for photos, reports said.Herriman resident Angelica Lujan recorded footage of the tame deer interacting with her children outside of her home on South Rowell Drive.Speaking to KSTU, a Utah Division of Wildlife Resources representative said despite the deers friendly attitude, the best thing for the animal is for people to leave him alone.People dont realize these beautiful, cute deer can be aggressive as they get older. Weve had times in the past where these friendly deer, they do get aggressive, said Scott Root, Conservation Outreach Manager, Utah Division of Wildlife Resources.Weve had kids hurt at bus stops. Bad things happen when we feed deer in a residential area, Root added. Credit: Angelica Lujan via Storyful NEWAYGO COUNTY, MI The body of Richard Atwood, 25, who disappeared in 1983, hasnt been found. But a cold-case team says it found his killer. Roy Leando Snell, 55, has been charged with felony murder, punishable by life in prison without parole, and felony firearms, a two-year felony. He was arrested in Minneapolis by the Minneapolis Violent Crime Apprehension Unit. Snell is held in the Hennepin County Jail in Minnesota. Snell was reported to be the last person seen with Atwood, a White Cloud resident, on Aug. 10, 1983, before Atwood went missing. Atwoods family searched for him before reporting him missing nearly two weeks later. Richard Atwood, 25, of White Cloud, went missing in 1983. (Provided by Michigan State Police) Police recovered the victims brown 1975 Pontiac Trans Am in the Grand Rapids area two months after the disappearance. Snell was charged jointly by state Attorney General Dana Nessel and Newaygo County Prosecutor Worth Stay. Snell has waived extradition rights and will be brought to Newaygo County to face the charges. No arraignment date has been set. The arrest came nearly four years after state police task force, including state police investigators, Newaygo County sheriffs detectives and county prosecutor took another look at the case. Many investigators tried to solve the case over the years. Investigating a cold homicide case is extremely difficult but investigating a decades-old case with no body means an extraordinary amount of legwork, patience and tenacity, Nessel said in a statement. We are honored to have the opportunity to pursue justice for the family and friends of Richard Atwood. Stay, the prosecutor, said it was difficult to imagine what the Atwood family has felt over the decades. These are the next steps. Both prosecutors credited investigators for sticking with the case. State police Lt. Mike Anderson said: Working cold cases would be an impossible task without all hands on deck. Snells arrest is a very gratifying first step. Newaygo County Sheriff Mendham hoped the arrest would help bring some relief to the Atwood family. Also on MLive: Body found in Lake Michigan near pier at Holland State Park High school referees feel sting of sports stoppage due to coronavirus Number of people on life support with coronavirus, Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer says Dozens of retailers here including Penneys, River Island, Carrolls Irish Gifts, Brown Thomas, Eason and Dealz want a 12-month rates freeze and a 50pc cut for six months after that to prevent an all-out collapse of the sector due to the Covid-19 crisis. In a letter sent to local government minister Eoghan Murphy and copied to finance minister Paschal Donohoe, a Retailers Rates Action Group has warned that the crisis will leave behind a "considerably smaller sector" unless "immediate action is taken". It wants the rate freeze applied to businesses in the retail, leisure and hospitality sectors to "avoid an economic catastrophe". "Since the imposition of the social distancing measures, without the normal level of footfall throughout the country, turnover in our stores has plummeted to incredibly low and unsustainable levels," the letter said. "Yet at the same time, we are essentially being made to pay rates liabilities, as if these were normal market conditions." Penneys, Brown Thomas and Arnotts have already closed their doors here. Those closures alone have resulted in thousands of staff either being let go or left in limbo about their future. The rates freeze being sought here is similar to measures announced within the past two weeks by the UK chancellor of the exchequer. Rishi Sunak has frozen rates for 12 months for the retail, hospitality and leisure sectors. The Irish retailers want the rate freeze here backdated to March 13, meaning many businesses would be entitled to a rebate. Businesses in Ireland pay about 1.5bn a year in rates. Retail Ireland, a part of business lobby group Ibec, has previously said that the rate burden already puts a "great strain" on retailers as they typically operate on tight margins. "Clearly the threat of coronavirus needs urgent and decisive action to be taken to support the retail sector in these unprecedented times," the letter said. "We again reiterate that without the support requested above in this letter, there is no doubt that a lot of retail businesses will be lost." Industry group Retail Excellence Ireland has warned of potentially 200,000 more job losses by the end of this week. That is on top of the 140,000 already believed to have been made unemployed by the crisis. Earlier this week, Mr Donohoe would not say whether or not the Government would suspend VAT payments for businesses. Meanwhile, institutional landlords have signalled that they would be willing to support hard-hit tenants by deferring rent payments and establishing payment plans. Landlords of the Irish Institutional Property group will also suspend any rent increases. Bengaluru, March 20 : Continuing at 15 positive COVID-19 cases, Karnataka did not record another case on Friday, an official said. "No new COVID-19 positive case has been reported till 2 pm on March 20. Till date, 15 cases have been reported in Karnataka, including one death," Suresh Shastri, special officer in the information, education and communication (IEC) wing of the Health Department told IANS. However, in one day, the number of patients in isolated observation across designated hospitals the state rose from 97 to 145, with highest number of patients, 52, being monitored in Bengaluru. Karnataka government issued an advisory to the people about social distancing, avoiding sitting in restaurants or eateries and formed 100 teams, consisting a doctor, staff nurse and medico social worker for contact tracing of people who came in touch with positive cases. "Procure food through food suppliers who can be allowed up to reception in gated communities and till the door steps of individual houses," said an official statement which also encouraged online payments to avoid contact with coins and currency notes from COVID-19 affected people. Meanwhile, the health department has intensified search for the people who shared a bus rides with the 35-year-old Kodagu Saudi Arabia returnee who tested positive for virus. Karnataka's 15th positive case travelled in a Vayu Vajra bus from the Kempegowda International Airport (KIA) to satellite bus stop Kengeri at 5.30 pm on March 15, and onward to Madikeri the same day. "BMTC and KSRTC buses boarded by the 15th case have been disinfected and the driver and conductor asked to be home quarantined," said an official statement. The health department is also counselling those affected people shying away from home and hospital quarantine. In addition to the existing 104 helpline, two more numbers have been added. As many as 1,207 samples of symptomatic persons were collected for testing, of which 970 have returned negative. Nearly 3,125 people are going through home quarantine across the state, a sudden jump of 845 people in a single day, while 4,030 people have enrolled for observation. A total of 1.23 lakh passengers have been thermal-screened for the virus in Karnataka till now at the KIA in the city and the Mangaluru International Airport. Another 5,759 passengers were also checked for the virus at Karwar and Mangaluru seaports. Meanwhile, Bengaluru division of the South Western Railway (SWR) has imposed safe distance measure for passengers at all reservation centres to prevent the Coronavirus contagion. "Safe distance limits have been marked near ticket counters in reservation centres. Safe distance is also being ensured in seating arrangements," said a SWR zone spokesperson. The Bengaluru Metropolitan Transport Corporation (BMTC) announced that the transporter will run reduced services on Sunday, following the people's curfew called by the Prime Minister of India Similarly, the Bengaluru Wholesale Cloth Merchant's Association has decided to shut shop from March 22 to 25. Likewise, Mysore Silk Cloth Merchant's Association has also called for a shutdown from Thursday to March 25. Latest updates on Coronavirus (COVID-19) Watertown, NY (13601) Today Snow this morning will transition to snow showers this afternoon. High 34F. Winds SW at 15 to 25 mph. Chance of snow 70%. Snow accumulating 1 to 3 inches. Higher wind gusts possible.. Tonight Occasional snow showers. Low 27F. Winds WSW at 5 to 10 mph. Chance of snow 40%. Snow accumulations less than one inch. SK Sarkar The launching of a novel scheme under the Jal Jeevan Mission (JJM) by the Prime Minister in December for ensuring piped water supply to all rural households by 2024, is a welcome step in meeting the UNs Sustainable Development Goals (6.1) for achieving universal and equitable access to safe and affordable drinking water for all by 2030. With World Water Day being observed on March 22, its an important time to look at access to water, where India stands now, and where it aims to reach in the near future. India is home to 18 percent of global population but has only 4 percent of global fresh water resources. Indias per capita water availability is on the decline. Water demand is projected to surpass the water supply in the near future. Groundwater reserves are on the decline. Indias per capita water storage capacity is one of the lowest in the world only 8 percent of yearly rainfall is captured for storage. Water distribution in India is skewed. Due to inadequate and unsafe water supply and unimproved sanitation, about 200,000 people, mostly children, die in India every year. In India, out of 178.7 million of rural households, only 18.3 percent have tap connection of water. The JJM scheme aims to increase the water (55 litres per day) connections to 100 percent households during the next five years. Five to 10 percent of in-village infrastructure cost is mandatory on the part of the community. Also under the scheme, NGOs are participating to work as partners to support villages in planning, designing and implementing the scheme; creating institutions such as committees at state levels, district levels and panchayat levels; proposal for cost recovery from user groups by way of water tariff and user charges; etc. While the scheme has many important features, there are many challenges before the policymakers and its implementers. This scheme is not only relating to engineering design and connecting the water pipes to individual household, but also effective smart water management. First, at the macro-level, if a business-as-usual approach is maintained, by 2050, the available water demand may exceed the available water supply. So, there is a need to ensure demand-side management. Source sustainability measures such as rainwater harvesting have been envisaged under the scheme. However, these are not enough. Water-use efficiency in various sectors must be ensured. The goal of the National Water Mission to achieve 20 percent water-use efficiency and a time frame for reaching such a goal should form the basis of this exercise. Second, the water sector is a complex one. Under the Constitution, water is a state subject and the Centres role is quite limited. The water managers in the state lack expertise of the modern day water management. Their expertise needs to be honed up. Mindsets need to be changed to new water management concepts. The entire state water machinery should be restructured and water personnel should be incentivised to adopt the new paradigms of change in water management. Third, the digitisation opportunities of the new scheme should be thoroughly explored. Interestingly, the scheme proposes the use of Internet of Things for ascertaining availability and quality using censors. However, this is not comprehensive. For example, such technology should also be used for data analytics for demand and supply management and behaviour change, solutions to monitor grey water management and reuse, decision support system for scheme implementation and management, etc. A comprehensive digital water policy should be framed for its application in the water sector. Fourth, under the proposed scheme, the concept of grey water management has been touched upon at the village level. In rural areas, the reuse of waste water is negligible so far, and even in municipal areas, it is less than one percent. Thus, it will be highly challenging to implement this concept. A model waste water recycle and reuse policy should be formulated at the national level enabling the states to subsequently adopt the same. Fifth, the scheme envisages water supply with potable quality. In the domestic sector, the groundwater use is to the extent of 85 percent of its total need and thus much of this water is contaminated today. A sizable rural household does not use treated water. Even in urban piped water supply there are reported contaminations due to the intermittent water supply system. There is a need to have a holistic plan for making available surface water and ground water to all population with potable quality. Finally, in an era of climate change, water availability at the citizens doorstep is likely to be uncertain. Climate change-induced disaster (floods or droughts) and economic crises are looming large in India. Appropriate mitigation policies should be designed for smooth water availability at all times. Implementing the proposed multi- dimensional scheme is a complex exercise. There are many challenges during the process. Upon meeting them, India would be able to achieve the SDGs in the water sector. Most of the 14 residents diagnosed with COVID-19 at the Edward C. Allworth Veterans Home are in good condition, although one is listed as cri By Oh Young-jin We are but a tiny speck in the universe, or so we would say to suppress our all-too-human, ever-expanding ego. Now, that observation is made to sound insouciant. We, mankind, are under attack by a virus, an unthinking microbe that only lives to replicate itself in a living being until the host dies out. This COVID-19 coronavirus is striking fear infinitely greater than its size into our collective heart and is almost stopping it as countries not knowing what to do, and only resorting to the medieval method of quarantine, close themselves off. Just a few months ago, before this viral invasion began, the planet was seized by talk of artificial intelligence taking over and robots replacing human beings, making them redundant. The world was in turmoil as the United States and China battled for global hegemony, with people pitted against each other in the extreme case of inequality in wealth distribution. China was devastated as the city of Wuhan, the epicenter of the current disease, exploded into a big leper colony and was cordoned off from the rest of the country. Although there are signs of stabilization in terms of new cases, few would say the city's corona saga is over because so little is known about the disease. The U.S. is turning into a basket case, with new infections rising and the government cutting off connections with the outside world in an act of self-quarantine. Europe is down and out with coronavirus fever ignited in Italy and spreading with ever-greater ferocity to the rest of the continent and neighboring islands, tied up as one in the Schengen pact that basically abolished borders. One may think of Boccaccio's escape through "The Decameron" or the seclusion through "One Thousand and One Nights." Not just yet. Little have we learned from the past the Black Death, the Spanish Flu (misnomer because it didn't originate from Spain or flourish only there) and, more recently, the Ebola epidemic. Leaders, from Chinese President Xi Jinping and U.S. President Trump to French President Emmanuel Macron and Korean President Moon Jae-in, use war metaphors in their efforts to bring this disease under control. Their war is as if it were an ill-conceived crusade or an ancient Greek expedition to Troy as, in both cases, the whole was less than the sum of its parts, with each country just trying to save itself in a ragtag army. It is getting nowhere for now. For believers, the whole scene is the last moment of the Tower of Babel before being collapsed by the wrath of God. Then, the people sought to become a god, trying to build the tower to reach heaven. The curse of the time, perhaps, has been bequeathed to today as people not just speak different languages but also quarrel among themselves, not being able to find any agreement. For nonbelievers, or atheists, our modus operandi is proved to be a wrong business model, with the coronavirus revealing fatal bugs. Either way, the viral attack brings us down to the ground and makes us feel humble again. Now, we may not afford to give ourselves Siddhartha's crucial moment, being too consumed by an effort to escape from the sickness. Nirvana may or may not come. If the battle against this infinitesimal being (I think the coronavirus merits this designation as respect is due for an enemy worthy of it) comes to a close in a couple months, we will go back to our routine. If not, which appears more likely at the moment, we will be in for a reset that is enormous as the virus is infinitesimal. Oftentimes, a big change is not about whether it is good or bad. It obliges those affected by it to adapt or perish. We may have to prepare for it. Oh Young-jin ( , ) is The Korea Times' director for content. Reporters Without Borders is using subversive methods to bypass national censorship laws and deliver banned news content from places like Saudi Arabia or Russia to Minecraft players worldwide. The recently launched Uncensored Library was created in collaboration with reporters from some of the worlds most politically oppressed countries, as well as Minecraft players, who helped craft the in-game library. The massive virtual building has several wings, each dedicated to a particular country and writings which have been banned there, or contain pieces authored by persecuted journalists, in addition to more general articles describing the state of press freedom in countries around the world. Featured works include writings by Vietnam's Nguyen Van Dai, arrested in 2015 for propaganda against the state; Alexander Skobov, a dissident left-wing journalist from Russia; and Jamal Khashoggi, The Washington Post journalist whose 2018 assassination in Sadia Arabia garnered worldwide headlines. The Library serves as an example of the ways in which online platforms can be used in unintended ways, as well as how to deliver information to audiences where they already exist online. In brief: HMD Global, the company responsible for Nokia's comeback has announced a bevy of new budget and mid-range phones. The new range goes from the 5G-enabled Nokia 8.3 with a camera system that could rival other flagships to the humble Nokia 5310, another blast from the past meant to stoke nostalgia. The Nokia 8.3 5G starts things out with an emphasis on the content creation capabilities of its Zeiss cameras, particularly video. There is an array of four cameras on the back including the main 64-megapixel, a 12-megapixel ultra-wide, 2-megapixel macro, and 2-megapixel depth sensor. Among the plethora of camera features include 4K video capture, 21:9 aspect ratio, and algorithms to create effects like lens flare. Video editors will be pleased to know that they'll be able to shoot in log format which gives considerable editing control. On the inside, the Nokia 8.3 5G is powered by the Snapdragon 765G with a 4,500 mAh battery. It includes either 6GB of RAM and 64GB of storage or 8GB of RAM and 128GB of storage. Despite being called "8.3", the screen is actually a 6.81-inch display. HMD says the screen can auto adjust to the ambient lighting conditions similar to Apple's TrueTone display and upscale SDR footage to HDR. As the name suggests, the phone is indeed 5G enabled with HMD claiming that it supports a wider range of 5G bands than its competitors. The company announced more budget phones including the Nokia 5.3, Nokia 1.3, and a new entry in its "Nokia Originals" lineup based on the 5310 phone from 2007. The Nokia 5.3 is the successor of the Nokia 5.1 from two years ago. This updated model has a 6.55-inch display and a similar quad camera array to the Nokia 8.3 except that the main camera is down to 13-megapixels and the ultrawide is 5-megapixels. Internally, it's powered by the Snapdragon 665 and has 4GB of RAM and 64GB of storage. HMD expects users to get two days out of the 4,000 mAh battery. Lower down the price totem pole is the Android Go-powered Nokia 1.3. This budget-friendly handset features a 5.71-inch display, the Snapdragon 250 processor, and the dying 3.5mm headphone jack. Unfortunately, it charges over micro-USB instead of USB-C. Last, but not least, is a new phone based on Nokia's 5310 handset from 2007. It's a traditional "candybar" design and seems like it's meant for people who really don't care for a smartphone. It runs the Nokia Series 30+ operating system and interestingly only connects to 2G networks despite many carriers getting rid of their 2G networks. For what it's worth, HMD says you should expect a month's worth of standby time and even features an integrated FM antenna. Pricing is as follows: Nokia 8.3 - $650 (6GB RAM, 64GB storage) Nokia 8.3 - $695 (8GB RAM, 128GB storage) Nokia 5.3 - $205 Nokia 1.3 - $103 Nokia 5310 - $42 HMD expects to release the Nokia 8.3 this summer, the Nokia 5.3 and 1.3 in April, and the Nokia 5310 in late March. Jyoti Punwani By Till the end, I kept hoping Justice Ranjan Gogoi would turn down the Rajya Sabha nomination. It just couldnt happen in India. This was not the US where judges were political appointees. Surely the man who had headed a judiciary renowned the world over for its independence would hesitate, despite his questionable last judgments, to besmirch its reputation? And for what? Can an MP ever get the respect the Chief Justice of India does? Alas! Those who scoffed at my expectations were proved right. Judges, I have always thought, were a class apart, especially those of the higher judiciary. This impression originated in the 1980s, when the phenomenon of Public Interest Litigations (PILs) transformed the Supreme Court. Filed often by human rights organisations that had burst on the scene after the darkness of the Emergency, these PILs received astounding judgments. Two such judgments remain in mind till today as they forced arrogant rulers to acknowledge the inherent dignity possessed by even the poorest citizen. Responding to a petition filed in 1981 by journalist Olga Tellis and argued by Indira Jaising, against the eviction and deportation of Mumbais pavement dwellers, a Bench headed by then CJI Y Chandrachud held that such evictions violated the pavement dwellers right to livelihood, which was part of their right to life. The court asserted that principles of natural justice demanded that those evicted need notice of eviction, and they must be given alternate accommodation. In their judgment in response to a petition filed by the Peoples Union of Democratic Rights regarding contract workers employed for the 1982 Asian Games, Justices P N Bhagwati and Baharul Islam went further. Courts must change into courts for the poor, they said, and PILs were one way of bringing about this change, by ensuring justice to the poorest citizens. Contract workers, they held, were entitled to a minimum wage as a fundamental right, else their labour would be looked upon as forced labour. The impression of judges created by these judgments was only strengthened by the way Justice B N Srikrishna conducted the proceedings of the Commission of Inquiry into the 92-93 Bombay riots. Nervous riot victims found a judge of the Bombay High Court, seated on his raised platform, not only listening to their halting depositions patiently, but sharply questioning the very policemen who had run amok against them. Justice Srikrishna helped these victims, who had lost all hope of a hearing, regain faith in the concept of justice. And the little that has been done to bring to book the policemen indicted by him is again thanks to the judiciary. Only after CJI A S Anand asked the Maharashtra government what action it had taken against ex-Joint Police Commissioner R D Tyagi, indicted for the murder of nine innocents, did the government file a case of murder against Tyagi and other policemen. The Bombay High Court denied anticipatory bail to Tyagi, and though he was discharged, it was the only riots case where policemen stood in the dock in a criminal court. Again, it was Justices F I Rebello and R S Mohite of the Bombay High Court who forced the CBI to investigate the firing inside the Hari Masjid that killed six, describing it as a case that affects the very soul of India. When the government rushed to the Supreme Court in appeal, Justices P Sathasivam and A R Dave rejected it, stressing that this was an extraordinary case. That the CBI exonerated sub-inspector Nikhil Kapse, indicted for having ordered the firing, is a different matter. Mumbais riot victims know that if justice has eluded them, its because successive governments have used their vast powers to thwart every step of their struggle. The judiciary has always stood up for them against these governments, even describing the police in the Tyagi case as protectors (who became) predators. In the decade after the riots till it was banned, no riot victim from Mumbai joined the ranks of the Students Islamic Movement of India. The March 12, 1993 blasts, whose masterminds outside India exploited the anger of a few Mumbai Muslims, remain the only act of revenge for the riots. This rock-solid faith in the judiciary was shaken badly when the Supreme Court handed over the disputed land in Ayodhya to those who had supported the demolition of the Babri Masjid. Despite calling the demolition a criminal act, the judges didnt bother to set a deadline for completion of the case against those accused of the crime. Now, just four months later, the judge who headed that Bench accepts a Rajya Sabha nomination by a government whose guiding lights spearheaded the demolition, a government committed to building a temple on the very site where the Babri Masjid stood.What will the apex court mean now, for those whose lives changed forever in the riots after the demolition? And not just them. Be it Bastars Adivasis tormented by the state-backed vigilante force Salwa Judum; those facing a slow death by starvation; or potential targets of mob lynchingthe apex court has protected the most vulnerable citizens by holding governments accountable. Can this image of a judiciary standing tall and imperious against a powerful executive, punctured though it may have been over the last year, hold any longer? And who do people wronged by the state turn to, once they realise the court wont protect them? Did these thoughts cross the ex-CJIs mind when he accepted the Rajya Sabha nomination? JYOTI PUNWANI Freelance journalist based in Mumbai Email: jyoti.punwani@gmail.com Ukrainian banks banned from introducing limits on deposits 16:40, 20.03.20 7540 If the deposit term expires, it can be extended or the money can be withdrawn. SAN DIEGO (AP) Mexico and the U.S. announced plans Friday to sharply limit travel over their busy shared border as part of efforts to control the spread of the coronavirus. President Donald Trump and Mexican Foreign Secretary Marcelo Ebrard said the two governments agreed to prohibit recreational and tourist travel, similar to the restrictions put in place earlier this week along the U.S. and Canadian border. Trump said the actions with the country's North American partners will save countless lives. There would be no ban on people traveling for work or other essential activities and there would be no halt to commercial traffic, Ebrard said. It wasn't immediately clear when the restrictions would take effect. CORONAVIRUS UPDATES: Stay informed with accurate reporting you can trust Everyone else is not expected to have any difficulties," he added. "We're not talking about closing it. The U.S., Mexico and Canada have also worked out a new agreement to immediately return some people trying to illegally cross the borders, officials said. By excluding commercial traffic from the ban, the two governments substantially softened the economic effects. Fewer Americans are also heading south because of a statewide stay-at-home order in California and a State Department warning advising Americans not to travel abroad. Still, the restrictions are a major development along the world's most heavily crossed border. Acting U.S. Homeland Security Secretary Chad Wolf told reporters at the White House that the restrictions were aimed at eliminating non-essential travel across that border. We want to make sure that cargo continues, trade continues, heath care workers continue to be able to traverse that border. But tourism, some recreational activities and other things needs to stop during this crisis," he said. More for you These essential businesses can stay open amid stay-at-home Ebrard said Thursday he proposed steps to U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo that won't paralyze economic activity and keep the border open to commerce and work. U.S. Customs and Border Protection officials briefed business leaders Thursday on the plans to prohibit non-essential travel with Mexico, said Paola Avila, chair of the Border Trade Alliance, a business group. U.S. officials provided a long list of essential workers that would be unaffected going to and from their jobs, including farm workers, restaurant and grocery store employees and bus drivers, said Avila. Mexico was preparing similar restrictions on visitors from the United States. Keeping trade flowing, as the U.S. and Canada agreed to do, contains the economic damage. Mexico is the U.S.'s largest trading partner, just ahead of Canada. The U.S. accounts for about 75% of Mexican exports, including autos, computers and medical devices. While halting travel for students, shoppers, families and many workers would be a major blow to border economies, the impact has already been felt. CORONAVIRUS IN HOUSTON: All of the latest news, numbers and analysis to keep you up-to-date, only on HoustonChronicle.com The State Department on Thursday issued a new travel alert urging Americans not to go abroad under any circumstances and to return home if they are already abroad unless they plan to remain overseas. California Gov. Gavin Newsom ordered the state's 40 million residents to stay at home, restricting nonessential movements. People are not crossing anyway, said Avila, who is also the San Diego Regional Chamber of Commerce vice president for international business affairs. This is the right thing to do. If you dont have to cross, dont. The U.S. has also been considering whether to immediately turn back to Mexico anyone who crosses the border illegally, including asylum-seekers. President Donald Trump said Wednesday that he planned to announce such a measure very soon, relying on a law that says he can deny entry to people or reject cargo if the U.S. surgeon general determines there is a "serious danger" of bringing a communicable disease to the United States. Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Friday urged chief ministers to ensure effective implementation of 'social distancing', saying it is the most important measure to contain the spread of coronavirus. Modi deliberated on the ways to check the spread of coronavirus with the chief ministers of various states via video link. He said the threat of the pandemic is common for all states, and underscored the need of the Centre and the states working together, a statement from the Prime Minister's Office said. Modi suggested that the chief ministers should hold video conference with trade bodies in their states to prevent black marketing and undue price rise. "He urged them to use soft power of persuasion as well as legal provisions, wherever necessary," the statement said. During the course of their presentations, the chief ministers requested for augmentation of testing facilities, greater support to vulnerable sections, advancement of financial disbursement for 2020-21 to the states and need for roping in private labs and hospitals in larger numbers, the statement said. Modi stressed the need to avoid panic. Given the global context of spread of the virus, constant vigilance is of paramount importance, he said, adding participation of citizens in combating the virus is a must. Punjab Chief Minister Amarinder Singh and his Maharashtra and Uttar Pradesh counterparts Uddhav Thackeray and Yogi Adityanath were among those who attended the video conference. Modi has been pitching for involvement of people and local authorities to check the spread of the virus. According to the statement, the Union Health Secretary gave an overview of the ongoing cooperation with states, monitoring of international passengers, use of community surveillance to track spread, logistics of testing facilities, travel restrictions and evacuation of Indian citizens from abroad. Indian Council of Medical Research (ICMR) DG Balram Bhargava said India is currently in phase two of transmission, emphasising that at present the country is in the window for taking action to minimise the risk of transmission of phase three. He talked about the importance of judicious use of health facilities and need to focus on ramping up quarantine facilities and isolation wards. The chief ministers, the statement said, thanked the prime minister for the Centre's support to the states in combating the virus and also appreciated the impact of Modi's message in his address to the nation. They briefed the prime minister and others about the preparations done till now by their respective states and assured that they will work together with the Centre to combat the pandemic. The prime minister appreciated the steps taken by the states and thanked them for sharing their experiences and giving suggestions. He talked about the urgent need of capacity building of healthcare workers and augmentation of healthcare infrastructure. Modi said that the COVID-19 Economic Task Force set up by the central government will formulate the strategy to devise suitable approach to effectively tackle the economic challenge. He urged the chief ministers to ensure that all necessary steps are taken and all advisories are adhered to in order to ensure the safety of citizens in the country at large. In his address to the nation on Thursday, Modi highlighted the scale of coronavirus' impact and noted that there is a view that India has averted the crisis and all is well. "This mindset is not correct. Complacency in respect of a global pandemic like coronavirus is not appropriate. It is essential that each and every Indian remains alert and cautious," he said. Studies of the countries hit by the pandemic have revealed that it exploded after a few days, and the number of people infected by it grew at a very rapid pace, he pointed out. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) Another three servicemen were wounded in combat A 35-year-old Sergeant of the Joint Forces passed away after a sniper shot in Donbas on March 19. The Joint Forces Operation HQ reported that on Facebook. "Armed formations of the Russian Federation once again breached the ceasefire and attacked the emplacements of the Joint Forces. Unfortunately, today, March 19, Ukraine lost another courageous defender. A military serviceman of the Armed Forces of Ukraine deceased from enemy sniper fire at a position in Luhansk region", the message said. The tragedy took place near Popasna, Luhansk region. The Ukrainian Sergeant was 35 years old. He served with military unit No.0409. Another three servicemen were wounded in combat on Thursday, as Russian mercenaries landed 15 attacks on Ukrainian positions. Earlier on March 18, we reported that the pro-Kremlin militants attacked positions of Ukraines Armed Forces with anti-tank grenade launchers, large-caliber machine guns, mortars of 120-mm and 82-mm caliber, the armament of infantry fighting vehicles and small arms. Source: Xinhua| 2020-03-20 19:09:10|Editor: huaxia Video Player Close The undated photo shows Ma Zhanchuan, a new graduate of Tianjin University browsing recruitment website at home in Baiyin city, northwest China's Gansu Province. (Str/Xinhua) HEFEI, March 20 (Xinhua) -- Despite the COVID-19 epidemic and downward economic pressure, Chen Yijie, who is to graduate this summer but has been stranded at home, still managed to find a dream job as a technical engineer through online recruitment. "I was not too nervous in the video interview. Compared with face-to-face talk, I felt more relaxed at home," said Chen, an undergraduate student from Hefei University of Technology (HFUT) in east China's Anhui Province. To help this year's graduates find jobs amid the epidemic, the university has launched an online campus recruitment platform to provide personalized services to each student based on their information registered in the system, including age, major, preferred locations and jobs. "Nearly 1,500 companies have joined the platform and released recruitment information. We have also organized four major online job fairs so far, attracting more than 200,000 clicks altogether," said Ding Zhaogang, director of HFUT's employment guidance office. It is on this platform that Chen went through each step, from submitting his resume to attending interviews and accepting the job offer, from the comfort of his own home without long-distance traveling. A total of 437 students have found jobs through the platform since Feb. 17, pushing the employment rate to 51.47 percent for more than 10,000 graduates at the university, about the same level compared with a year ago, according to Ding. China expects to see a record of 8.74 million college graduates this year, 400,000 more than last year. The COVID-19 outbreak and ensuing economic fallout have added more pressure on the already-competitive job market. Just months away from graduation, both job seekers and recruiters are resorting to the internet, or cloud recruitment, as China pledges to stabilize employment amid the epidemic. Most companies have moved their recruitment process online since school openings are postponed, and students are trapped at home. Traditional on-site job fairs have been canceled to avoid mass gatherings. "Our target is to recruit 2,500 new graduates this year, of which 42 percent have been completed, and most were recruited online. We have received over 77,000 resumes so far," said Hong Guangdong, a recruitment director of BOE Technology Group Co., Ltd, a leading semiconductor display company in China. To let potential candidates better know the jobs, the company has arranged dozens of live streaming promotional sessions on Douyu, a live-streaming website in China, attracting nearly 20,000 viewers each time, said Hong. However, he admitted that the epidemic had made this year's recruitment harder than ever, as it is impossible to invite students to tour the company or even intern at the company. Unlike BOE, which has resumed production, a proportion of companies across the country have suffered huge losses from the lengthy business suspension, which has resulted in fewer job opportunities in the market. To facilitate the employment of college graduates, the country has rolled out a series of measures, such as expanding the enrollment of postgraduates and degree top-up programs, creating more jobs of medical and social services at the community level and strengthening support for micro and small enterprises to recruit more college graduates, according to a statement released after a State Council executive meeting held in late February. The enrollment of master's degree students in China is likely to increase by 189,000 this year. Meanwhile, the country's bachelor's degree programs will strive to admit an additional 322,000 junior college students in 2020, said Vice Education Minister Weng Tiehui. The Ministry of Education has also launched a 24-hour online campus recruitment program together with five major job-hunting websites last month to help graduates find jobs. The program offers more than 2 million job positions to university graduates. "Based on our statistics, about 10 to 15 of our students receive job offers per day. We are confident that most students will find an ideal job by graduation as long as they are well prepared," said Ding from Hefei University of Technology. However, he discovers that video and written records are no substitute for being on country with the elders themselves. Victor Steffensen says the recent bushfires would have been limited in extent and severity had extensive traditional burning practices been in place. Credit:Alasdair McDonald Victor Steffensen takes the reader on discovery of the lore, customs, knowledge, and totems that connect Indigenous Australians to the land through the lens of fire. His quest for traditional knowledge starts by trying to document language and knowledge on video, understanding that much has already been lost and more is being lost with the passing of Indigenous elders. Fire Country is part-autobiography, part-history and part-educational text and after 45 years of experience as a firefighter, land manager and fire scientist, I found much I could relate to. Initially, his journey was almost accidental, but his chance meeting with two elders, Poppy and TG, led to his own commitment to sharing knowledge about fire and country with others. His knowledge came from his experiences with Poppy and TG around the small Queensland settlement of Laura, about 90 kilometres inland from Cooktown. Credit: Steffensen develops a thesis that modern science is largely based on a reductionist model; that is, concentrating on some small component of the world in great detail, often in isolation from its broader context. He argues that traditional knowledge takes a holistic view of the world where people and the environment are interconnected through complex interactions. In this context, fire is presented as a fundamental and dynamic part of the environment and human culture. Following years of learning and teaching about fire, Steffensen concludes that knowledge has to be transferred from person to person and generation to generation through direct human interaction on country. Being on country is important because direct experience and observation is a critical part of gaining knowledge and understanding. It is here that the philosophy of if you look after the country, the country will look after you becomes apparent. Bill Gammages analysis in The Biggest Estate on Earth: How Aborigines Made Australia is largely consistent with Steffensens thesis. Gammage demonstrates how traditional owners used fire in a deliberate and skilful way to improve the sustainability of the landscape for a range of objectives, including food, hunting, access and amenity. Residents of Nairobis vast informal settlement prepare for coronavirus but still need to work to put food on the table. Nairobi, Kenya Take a stroll down Kibera avenue and at first glance you would not realise that the world is in the midst of a coronavirus pandemic. Vendors are still selling vegetables and motorbike drivers continue to congregate at intersections, waiting for customers. Yet, at closer inspection, it is obvious that things have slowed down. Increasing numbers of roadside stands are empty and the main thoroughfare of the largest informal settlement in Kenyas capital, Nairobi, is less crowded than usual. Rhoda Mukii, a roadside produce vendor in Kibera, voices her frustration at how quickly things have changed for her business. Now people are not going to work and Im not earning as much as before. We need the government to work faster to fix this issue. Drastic measures {articleGUID} The new coronavirus is still a relatively recent arrival in Kenya, with seven cases confirmed in one week. However, the government has already taken a series of strict measures, including closing schools, banning major public events and barring entry to the country to everyone except citizens, in an attempt to curb the outbreak, which has been declared a pandemic by the World Health Organization. Following the official announcement of the drastic measures by President Uhuru Kenyatta on March 15, Kenyans have begun to take the virus seriously. Hand washing is being carried out more frequently and the government is reducing the cost of water for those who cannot afford it. However, despite calls for social distancing and quarantining, residents of poorer areas of the city continue to go outside, interacting with others and working to support their families. Many residents of Kibera, home to hundreds of thousands of people, are aware of the risks coronavirus poses, especially in a crowded and underserved neighbourhood such as their own, which could be devastated should the outbreak sweep through and overwhelm already strained healthcare and social safety nets. Yohana Ondieki, or Santos, standing at the Kibera Seven Kids School which he runs [Duncan Moore/Al Jazeera] Yohana Ondieki, who prefers to go by the name Santos, is a community leader in the Silanga neighbourhood of Kibera. He runs the Kibera Seven Kids group, which provides discount schooling, free meals for children and promotes a wide range of outreach activities in the area. Like schools around the country, his group has closed and the children have been told to stay at home, though many continue to come by for weekly distribution of staple foods such as maize, which he has continued to offer despite the crisis. For Santos, the primary issue in Kibera is that people simply cannot stop working because of the pandemic. People are scared, but here in the slum we work hand-to-mouth, he said. If you dont work you dont eat. If you earn one dollar you cant save it, you must feed your whole family. Making matters worse, added Santos, is that the majority of the areas residents must travel daily to their jobs. We dont know if people working in the city centre will bring it [virus] back with them. When they come back in the evening, we are scared to interact with them. Asked whether social distancing is being practised, Santos laughed. Thats not possible in the slums, when we are getting water its one metre apart. We live room to room, we are sharing one wall. To work we must board the boda bodas [motorbikes], we must board the matatus [minibuses]. In the slum we must interact with other people. Boda boda drivers, already hurting from the economic effects of the coronavirus outbreak, wait for increasingly scarce customers [Yohana Ondieki/Al Jazeera] It has become apparent that even with proper education, being able to practise actions such as social distancing is a privilege for those who can afford the space and time off work. Residents of Kibera simply lack the resources to prepare for the virus. While people living in Nairobis leafy suburbs and high-rise apartments stock up on food and prepare for a lengthy quarantine, the citys poorer residents get by day-to-day. Even getting more water for hand washing is an extra expense and requires a trip to a vendor when it is not pumped to your house. 200317064809572 Additionally, Kenya lacks an effective public health system. Those with money and private health insurance take comfort in the fact that should they fall sick, treatment at one of the capitals private hospitals will be an option. Meanwhile, the clinics that serve neighbourhoods such as Kibera, which are understaffed and underequipped, fear being overwhelmed by coronavirus patients should the virus get out of hand. If the virus spreads, the current system will almost certainly be unable to handle it. Despite the risks, most of the working class have no choice but to remain there. Santos said that to save money, some people are sending their children to family members in rural villages so that they have fewer mouths to feed in the city and if the situation deteriorates more may choose to go. For now, we are just listening to the news and preparing for government directions, Santos said. As long as the government keeps things affordable, its OK. But if people really have to stay home, no one will be earning anything. It will be hard even to afford water. It would not be a good scenario. Source: Xinhua| 2020-03-20 15:42:52|Editor: zyl Video Player Close QALAT, Afghanistan, March 20 (Xinhua) -- At least 24 Afghan soldiers were feared killed in a suspected predawn insider attack at a military camp in Afghanistan's southern province of Zabul on Friday, a local source said. The shooting occurred at a joint army and police camp roughly at 3:00 a.m. local time Friday in an area about 10 km outside the provincial capital Qalat city, the provincial source told Xinhua anonymously. "The initial information found six police officers turned their guns against their colleagues, leaving the casualties. An investigation has been launched into the incident," he said. Atta Jan Haqbayan, chairman of provincial council, confirmed the incident with Xinhua, saying 14 army soldiers and 10 police personnel lost their lives in the incident. "The attackers fled the scene shortly after the shooting and they also took two military vehicles and ammunition before leaving the compound," he said. It is the latest in a spate of such attacks. Some similar incidents have happened in the past and Taliban militants claimed responsibility for most of the insider attacks. The militant group has not made comments yet. Seven police officers were shot and killed in a similar incident in neighboring Kandahar province over the weekend. Jimmy Bartel and Lauren Mand's relationship has been going from strength-to-strength since they went public last year. And it seems the blonde, 31, wants to develop her bond with the retired AFL star's children - Aston, four, and Henley, one - who he shares with Nadia Bartel. On Thursday, Lauren posted a photo of the boys' building a fort out of pillows on her Instagram story. Bonding time! On Thursday, Jimmy Bartel's girlfriend Lauren Mand shared photos of her play date with his sons Aston, four, and Henley, one - who he shares with Nadia Bartel The image showed they used cushions for walls and a blanket as the roof, and one of Jimmy's sons poking their arm out of a small gap to get an extra pillow for inside. Their 'survival games' set-up also included a stuffed monkey as their security guard, and plastic toy food as 'essential groceries'. In another post, Lauren shared a photo that gave a glimpse into the boys' room, including walker and two tubs of toys. Play: Lauren enjoyed building a pillow fort with the boys. Her image showed they used cushions for walls and a blanket as the roof, and one of Jimmy's sons poking their arm out of a small gap to get an extra pillow for inside Indoor games! Another photo posted by Lauren showed the boys' room and their play mat, which featured roads and traffic signs with their toy bus and truck Her photo showed a play mat that featured roads and traffic signs with their toy bus and truck. She wrote on the post: 'Indoor games! Used to love indoor mats still the best,' hinting to fans she was having a great time playing with her boyfriend's sons. On Friday, Lauren enjoyed a delicious breakfast of French toast with berries with her beau - tagging Jimmy in the photo and writing in the caption: 'one metre away please.' Safe distance: On Friday, Lauren enjoyed a delicious breakfast of French toast with berries with her beau - she tagged Jimmy in the photo and wrote in the caption: 'one metre away please' Doting dad: The former AFL star shares his sons - Aston, four, and Henley, one - with Nadia Bartel Loved up: Lauren's play date with Aston and Henley comes after she and Jimmy recently returned from a romantic holiday in Japan, earlier this month Lauren's play date with Aston and Henley comes after she and Jimmy recently returned from a romantic holiday in Japan, earlier this month. Jimmy was first romantically linked to Lauren just days after his split from wife Nadia Bartel was made public last year. The Bartels announced their separation on August 15, but it's believed they actually broke up two months earlier. The former couple married in February 2014 in a lavish ceremony on the Bellarine Peninsula. In late 2019, the documentary Shusenjo: The Main Battleground of the Comfort Women Issue, directed by Japanese-American filmmaker Miki Dezaki, was shown at a well-attended screening at Leipzig University in Germany. The film was shown at several European universities last year, following a US tour in 2018. The valuable documentary treats the so-called comfort women, women who were forced into prostitution in military brothels both in Japan and Japanese-occupied territory during World War II. Most of the women came from Korea or China. The subject has been the source of tensions between South Korea and Japan for decades. ShusenjoThe Main Battleground of the Comfort Women Issue (2019) In his movie, Dezaki interviews historical revisionists from far-right circles, politicians and historians who have studied comfort women, as well as activists working for the recognition of the victims. Following the release of his film, which Dezaki completed as his masters thesis and financed through Kickstarter and with his own money, he was sued by five of the interviewees. In the film, the latter deny both the responsibility of the Japanese government for the comfort women and their circumstances in the brothels. Dezaki also received several written threats and his movies distributor was sued by a right-wing extremist organisation that appears in the film. A film festival in Kawasaki (in the Greater Tokyo Area) first announced it was canceling a showing for security reasons in response to threats from right-wingers. This move was criticized by other artists, including Japanese filmmakers Kazuya Shiraishi and Hirokazu Koreeda, and owing to help from volunteers who provided additional security, the film ended up being presented at the festival in November 2019. Shiraishi described the initial decision by the organisers as an act to kill freedom of expression. Shusenjo (which means main battlefield) opens with a clip from December 2015 in which one of the surviving women, Lee Yong-Su, confronts a Korean foreign ministry official at a press conference. The press conference followed an agreement on the comfort women issue between Japan and South Korea. This agreement was initiated under pressure from the Obama administration, which viewed the conflict between its two most important allies in northeast Asia (South Korea and Japan) as a threat to its confrontation with North Korea and China. Comfort women interrogated by the US army 1944 Lee Yong-Su is visibly angry and movingly accuses the official: Who are you? What are you doing? Why do you have to kill us a second time? Are you living my life? Before reaching any agreements, shouldnt you have spoken to the victims? You think we are old and know nothing. The agreement only entailed a very limited, moral apology to the comfort women and a donation of one billion yen [$US 9 million] to a fund to be split amongst survivors. The apology did not acknowledge the full responsibility of the Japanese military, even though historians such as Yoshiaki Yoshimi, a professor of Japanese modern history at Chuo University in Tokyo and a founding member of the Center for Research and Documentation on Japans War Responsibility, have been able to prove this responsibility conclusively with the aid of historical documents. Dezakis film then moves on to examine the claims made by Japanese historical revisionists and contrast them with the explanations of serious historians and activists. To give one example, the nationalist-revisionists argue that the testimonies by survivors are inconsistent and therefore unreliable. They also claim that although prostitution took place, the women voluntarily chose to engage in it and were well-compensated with luxury goods and restaurant visits, among other things. They present the comfort women as a South Korean and Chinese fabrication and dismiss it as anti-Japanese propaganda. The attendees of the showing in Leipzig were audibly shocked and disgusted by these statements. Historians and activists in the movie explain that former comfort women from South Korea, among other countries, were faced with terrible social stigma for what they had endured. This led to many of them only speaking out years after the fact. One particularly gripping interview features a former soldier in the Imperial Japanese Army. On the subject of womens rights in Japan before the Second World War, he explains to the director: Women before the war, before the constitution, werent quite seen as human. Nippon Kaigi wants to go back to that. He also describes war atrocities again Chinese prisoners in which he was forced to participate. Nippon Kaigi (Japan Conference) is a far-right organization that advocates a return to the monarchy of the Meiji Era (1868-1912), the abolition of womens rights, state Shintoism, the remilitarization of Japan and a patriotic education in schools. It includes many members of Prime Minister Shinzo Abes cabinet, and Abe himself is a special advisor to the groups parliamentary wing. Nippon Kaigi and Abe also support state visits to the Yasukuni Shrine, which commemorates Japans war dead, including 1,068 convicted war criminals of whom 14 are A-Class (convicted of having been involved in the planning, preparation, initiation or waging of war). Bodies of victims along Qinhuai River out of Nanjing's west gate during Nanjing Massacre One of Shusenjos strong points is the way it illustrates the intertwining of far-right organizations in Japan and the US, the Japanese state and historical revisionists. Dezaki explains how after the Kono Statement of August 1993, which acknowledged the responsibility of the Japanese imperial army for the comfort women system, ultra-right groups and the Japanese government launched a targeted campaign to relativise the crimes of the Second World War. In 2006, Abe championed a reform that promoted patriotism as a basic aim of the education system. Additionally, the government initiated the practice of routinely rejecting Japanese schoolbooks produced by private publishers on the grounds of grave error, without offering any further explanation. This, in turn, led the publishers to self-censor uncomfortable facts that might cause offense in order to avoid financial problems. This kind of censorship is also prevalent in the media. A notable case was the editing out of victims testimony from a television broadcast of the Womens International War Crimes Tribunal on Japans Military Sexual Slavery, held in December 2000. This took place under the pressure of Abe himself as well as right-wing groups. Hideaki Kase is a central figure in the network of pseudo-historians, far-right activists and politicians exposed in Shusenjo. He is a member of or occupies leading positions in the following organizations: Global Alliance for Historical Truth, Society for Dissemination of Historical Fact, Alliance for Truth about Comfort Women and Nippon Kaigi. Kase (born 1936) has written numerous books and produced revisionist films, appeared on talk shows and was a special advisor to former prime ministers Takeo Fukuda and Yasuhiro Nakasone. Kase, whoamong other thingsdenies the Nanjing Massacre (in which Japanese military forces slaughtered as many as 400,000 Chinese in Nanjing in December 1937-January 1938), when asked by the director if he knew the two most important historians of comfort women, simply responded: I dont read books by other people. In the same interview he described North Korea as cute and like a misbehaved younger sibling. According to him, Japans involvement in the Second World War can be described as a war of national self-defence. As is the case in Germany and other countries, historical falsification is resorted to in Japan because its population is deeply opposed to war. When Abes grandfather, the war criminal Nobusuke Kishi, was released by the Allies in 1948, massive protests took place. During the question-and-answer session after the showing in Leipzig, Dezaki, who grew up in the US, remarked I had this question I wanted to answer from the very beginningwhy are these people trying to erase history? This led me to Nippon Kaigi and I found out it is because they want to cultivate or foster this myth that Japan has never done anything wrong and we only fought wars of peace. If you were to become a soldier in the future you dont want to believe that your country fights wars for oil, right? Like the U.S., we fight for freedom, right? The history is being erased so that people will become more patriotic. Russian President Vladimir Putin will refuse to submit to what the Kremlin sees as oil blackmail from Saudi Arabia, signaling the price war thats roiling global energy markets will continue. The unprecedented clash between the two giant exporters -- and former OPEC+ allies -- threatens to push the price of a barrel below $20, but Moscow wont be the first to blink and seek a truce, said people familiar with the governments position. Putins government has spent years building reserves for this kind of crisis. While Russia didnt expect the Saudis to trigger a price war, the people said, the Kremlin so far is confident that it can hold out longer than Riyadh. Putin is known for not submitting to pressure, said Alexander Dynkin, president of the Institute of World Economy and International Relations in Moscow, a state-run think tank that advises government on foreign policy and economy. He has proved that he is ready for a hard competition to protect national interests and to keep his political image as a strongman. RELATED: Oil has best day ever after Trump hints at role in price war After two decades at Russias helm, the president has enough experience to survive the current crisis, said three people, asking not to be named because the information isnt public. Putin is not someone who gives in, even if the fight brings significant losses, said one person. The Architect The entire oil market is watching and waiting to see if Russia or Saudi Arabia will balk at the painful price slump and call a truce. Brent crude has plunged from over $50 a barrel in early March to as low as $24.52 this week as the Gulf kingdom, angered by the Kremlins veto of deeper OPEC+ cuts, undertook a historic output surge just as the coronavirus pandemic wiped out demand. The losses are already visible for Russia, weakening its currency and potentially putting the nation on course for a recession. The state budget, which is based on oil prices of just above $40 per barrel, may be in deficit this year, forcing the government to tap its sovereign-wealth fund just two months after Putin promised higher social spending. U.S. President Donald Trump on Thursday called the price war devastating to Russia and said, at the appropriate time, Ill get involved. The Wall Street Journal reported the White House is considering new sanctions against Russia as a means to push for higher prices. So far, the Kremlin has refused to change policies in the face of such restrictions. Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov attributed the threat of sanctions to Russo-phobia. The country is not in an oil-price war with anyone and is always ready to talk, especially in such dramatic times, he said. Earlier in the week, Peskov said Russia would like to see oil prices higher. Crude prices jumped after Trumps comments. SPR: Trump orders mass oil buys to 'fill up' reserve Russia and Saudi Arabia were architects of the original cooperation deal between the Organization of Petroleum Exporting countries and several other non-members in 2016. Their goal was to end a slump in prices as low as $27 a barrel and initially their accord was a great success. The Prince Crude rebounded and relations between the two nations and their leadership were very warm. But over time, the alliance became increasingly unbalanced as the Saudis took an greater share of output curbs and Russia flouted its obligations. Putin engaged in obvious power plays, making the OPEC+ meeting in June 2019 essentially redundant by pre-announcing fresh cuts after a chat with Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman in Osaka, Japan.Russian decisions came to carry ever-greater weight within OPEC+, eventually leading to a rupture early this month. Saudi Energy Minster Abdulaziz bin Salman, the Crown Princes older brother, demanded additional cuts to offset the impact of the coronavirus, but his counterpart from Moscow, Alexander Novak, said no. Saudi Arabia responded with a shock-and-awe oil price war that stunned the global oil industry. Riyadhs unprecedented barrage on the crude market included the deepest price cut in 20 years, a record supply surge and a fleet of tankers to deliver it, and tens of billions of dollars for new fields. If these shock-and awe tactics were designed to bend Putin to the kingdoms will, so far they havent succeeded. The Strongman The Russian president has made refusing to back down under pressure one of the hallmarks of his rule. From the brutal crackdown on Islamist terrorists in Chechnya to the recent showdown with Turkey over the civil war in Syria, Putin has shown hes willing to face down foes in the face of both military and economic pressure. FUEL FIX: Now more than ever, you need our energy news in your inbox In 2014, when waves of western sanctions over Putins annexation of Crimea in Ukraine battered Russias economy and some of his closest associates, he refused to consider calls from some of his allies to soften his line. Earlier this year, Rosneft PJSC, run by the presidents close ally Igor Sechin, shrugged off U.S. sanctions on its trade in Venezuelan crude.Putins team expected the collapse of OPEC+ talks to lead to a price decline, two of the people said. The Russian leadership was ready for crude plunging as low as $20 and is facing the economic consequences with a cool head, one person said. Still, with the national economy bleeding, Russia has enough pragmatism and common sense not to refuse talks, with its OPEC partners, Dynkin said. The Kremlin is still open to cooperation with OPEC, but on its own conditions. The Russian proposal -- rejected by the Saudis -- for OPEC+ to maintain its existing production cuts until the end of June still stands, two of the people said. For any discussion with the Gulf kingdom to restart, both Russia and Saudi Arabia will need to make some face-saving steps requiring a complicated PR dance, said Elina Ribakova, U.S.-based deputy chief economist at the Institute of International Finance. Russias current position is unlikely to achieve that.It is unlikely that Saudi Arabia now would turn around and agree to the Russian proposal of extending the current cuts, said Dmitry Marinchenko, senior director at Fitch Ratings Ltd. That would essentially mean they have given in to Russia and lost face. 2020 Bloomberg L.P. So Pop Festival 2020 has been forced to cancel all shows in Australia and New Zealand amid the coronavirus pandemic. The event organisers and Ticketek announced the 'heartbreaking' cancellation on Thursday night, after government measures banned gatherings over 100 people or more. The touring festival was set to host 'world-class' international acts, including The Pussycat Dolls, Jesse McCartney, Smashmouth and Steps. Hate this part right here: So Pop Festival has been CANCELLED due to COVID-19...but headlining act The Pussycat Dolls revealed they're 'looking into options' to return to Australia The email announcement to all ticket holders read: 'It is with a heavy heart that Frontier Touring and Arena Touring announce that So Pop 2020 will no longer be taking place in Australia and New Zealand this April and May. 'Due to policies and measures put in place by the Australian Government regarding COVID-19, the promoters of the ultimate pop concert deem it infeasible for the show to go on.' The email went on to say the decision was 'heartbreaking'. The event organisers and Ticketek announced the 'heartbreaking' cancellation on Thursday night, after government measures banned gatherings over 100 people or more 'Heartbreaking': The touring festival was set to host 'world-class' international acts, including The Pussycat Dolls, Jesse McCartney (pictured), Smashmouth and Steps 'It is with extreme devastation this announcement is made with our team having worked tirelessly to produce a world-class event for fans across Australia and New Zealand,' the spokesperson added. All ticket holders will receive a full refund, but may be required to wait around 20 working days to receive the money. The Pussycat Dolls told their Instagram fans they had postponed their Australian tour, rather than a full cancellation. 'Following the latest Australian government advice we are very sad to announce we are postponing our upcoming Australian tour dates,' the group said on Instagram stories. 'We're heartbroken we will not be able to perform for you': All ticket holders will receive a full refund, but may be required to wait around 20 working days to receive the money They added: 'We're heartbroken we will not be able to perform for you all but the safety and health of our fans is of course our no.1 priority. 'We are looking at options to get back to Australia and we will inform you all as we have news. In the meantime, please continue to stay safe and look after yourselves.' They also announced they would be postponing their UK and Ireland tour until October. Jesse McCartney, who was also set to have a meet-and-greet at the event, has not yet updated his fans on social media. 'Please continue to stay safe': The Pussycat Dolls told their Instagram fans they had postponed their Australian tour, rather than a full cancellation The reunited girl group visited Australia earlier this month to promote the upcoming tour, but left the country before quarantine measures were put into place. On Wednesday, Australian Prime Minister Scott Morrison banned 'non-essential gatherings' of over 100 people, in a bid to prevent the spread of coronavirus. The international spread of the disease has seen over 219,000 cases worldwide and more than 8,900 fatalities. As of the morning of March 20, the total number of people diagnosed with the virus in Australia is 756, including seven deaths. Australian airlines cut customers a break earlier this week with the announcements that Qantas frequent flyers would receive a 12-month status extension and that Virgin Australia Velocity members would receive free frequent flyer points proportionate to what they would usually earn over the next three months, to make up for their point amassing potential being curtailed by the Coronavirus. Virgin Australia to roll out a monthly serve of free status credits for Velocity frequent flyers although we have to say, Qantas approach of an entire free year of status is a far more generous offer https://t.co/tYQjXUmXTe #PaxEx Executive Traveller (@AusBT) March 18, 2020 The general consensus was that Qantas offer was more generous, with frequent first-class flyer Immanuel Debeer, founder of frequent flyer point hacking website Flight Hacks, telling DMARGE on Wednesday, I feel that Virgin Australia misread the situation and went a similar route as Cathay Pacific. Qantas on the other hand pulled out all the stops [and] is now offering the most generous status extension out there. I think both marketing teams knew from each other that they were working on a deal but of course they didnt know the specifics. It will be interesting to see if other airlines loyalty programs follow Qantas lead and extend status by a full 12 month, he continued, in a statement that has now proved prophetic, as Virgin Australia has now updated their offer to match Qantas and go one better. The situation in Australia relating to coronavirus is rapidly evolving, as is our response as a business. This situation has developed further in the last couple of days since we developed the below Status Credit gift offer, and were really pleased to have an additional announcement, Virgin Australia told DMARGE yesterday. Awesome for frequent flyers like me to offset #COVID19Aus stoppage Virgin Australia is extending Silver/Gold/Platinum frequent flyer memberships for next 12 months #VirginAustralia https://t.co/96w0oPlRHw Ross Wilson (@rosswilsonmusic) March 19, 2020 Velocity Frequent Flyer is now providing members with a 12-month extension of their current status tier, in addition to their Status Credit gift. This means all Silver, Gold and Platinum Velocity members will receive: the below Status Credit gift and a 12 month extension to their current status (meaning that there are no minimum flight sectors required for members to maintain their current tier for the next year). We know these times are tough, and its particularly hard where travel is concerned. In this changing environment, the safety and needs of our members and guests are key and we are really pleased to be able to offer this 12-month Status extension in addition to the Status Credit gift. We hope it gives them some peace of mind, Virgin said yesterday. Virgin Australia has just informed me my gold status will be automatically extended for 12 months due to Coronavirus. I cant buy loo roll but at least if i get desperate i can make the 500km round trip to use the lounge dunny.#auspol LubiePhilrunfreeFionn (@lubiephil) March 19, 2020 Fair play. But also smart: as frequent flyer Imannuel told us: In the end, when/if things go back to normal, they will need their most loyal customers on their side. International Virgin Australia flights will be grounded from the 30th March until at least the 14th June 2020. It is also temporarily reducing domestic flights by around 50% (Qantas has done much the same). The Australian government has also imposed mandatory self-isolation for all inbound international passengers, and DFAT has updated its travel advice for the entire world to do not travel due to the spreading Coronavirus. In addition, the Australian government has announced a temporary ban on non-Australian residents from entering the country. Read Next Italian doctors are urging other countries to lockdown and prepare, as alarming footage shows the struggle healthcare workers are having at the front line of the fight against the coronavirus crisis in Italy. Footage recorded by Sky News in Bergamo in the Lombardy region of northern Italy the epicentre of the epidemic in Europe shows patients, whose faces are obscured or blurred out, literally gasping for air. What appears to be an intensive care unit is revealed to be a standard emergency ward, while other patients are seen on beds and chairs in the corridors of the hospital. The Intensive Care Unit is full. Patients are seen wearing plastic bubbles over their heads which are designed to equalise the air pressure with that in their lungs, but they also impede communication between hospital staff and patients. One doctor, Lorenzo Grazioli, who worked in Leicester for over a year, told Sky reporter Stuart Ramsey: I have never felt so stressed in my life, Im an intensivist, and I am quite used to intense moments, and the choices, and people are critical and die without any treatment, and you [usually] make the difference. But when you are at this point you realise that you are not enough. Meanwhile, the arrival of new patients at the hospital is constant. While normally any patient exhibiting symptoms as severe as many are experiencing would go straight to intensive care, this is no longer an option for the overwhelmed hospital. Coronavirus patients in Bergamo in northern Italy wear plastic bubbles which equalise the pressure of the air they are breathing with that in their lungs (Sky/screengrab) Dr Roberto Cosentini, who also works at the hospital said comparisons to influenza were erroneous. Its a very severe pneumonia, and so its a massive strain for every health system, because we see every day 50 to 60 patients who come to our emergency department with pneumonia, and most of them are so severe they need very high volumes of oxygen, he said. Here they are calling it the apocalypse, and this is what it looks like, Mr Ramsey says in the video for which he had to don a full protective suit to make the report. Italy, with 60 million citizens, recorded 3,405 deaths overnight, exceeding the 3,248 in China a country with a population more than 20 times larger. The illness is mild in most people, but the elderly are particularly susceptible to serious symptoms. One reason Italys death toll has been so high in comparison to other countries is it has the worlds second-oldest population, and the vast majority of those who have died, 87 per cent, were over 70 years old. As the hospitals have become rapidly overloaded with patients, the workload for many doctors has been insurmountable and resources have become scarce, also pushing the death toll up. Evelin Pineda, her brother and friends pose for a selfie in Peru. They are now stuck in the country after a national emergency was declared. (Evelin Pineda) While vacationing, Evelin Pineda learned Peru's president had declared a national emergency because of the coronavirus, and she made a desperate attempt to get back home to California. Pineda, her brother and two friends hired a private driver to take them from Cusco to Lima, the capital, some 18 hours away. They'd hoped it would be easier to catch a flight back to Los Angeles from there, but it did not work out. President Martin Vizcarra's declaration Sunday night of a 15-day nationwide state of emergency and border closure became effective at the end of the next day. Teacher Shawn Hill is stuck in Peru and has no ability to teach his students in Beverly Hills remotely. (Courtesy of Shawn Hill) The announcement came as Peru had 71 confirmed cases of COVID-19. Since then, the number of cases in the country has climbed to at least 263, with four confirmed deaths, according to the federal government. Some travelers said they were unable to leave the country because there was not enough time to make arrangements after the government made its announcement before all international travel was suspended to help contain the spread of the coronavirus. Pineda, 28, of Whittier, Calif., and the others in her group were among hundreds of U.S. citizens who found themselves with no way to leave. Pineda, who had expected to leave Peru on March 26, said she felt grateful that a friend's parents were allowing her and the others in her group residents of Pico Rivera and Whittier in their 20s to stay at their home in Lima during the state of emergency. "I'm somewhat lucky," Pineda said in a phone interview Thursday. "Other travelers from the U.S. are in quarantine in hotels, hostels even at the airport." Shawn Hill, a 38-year-old special-education teacher for the Beverly Hills Unified School District, was among the less fortunate. To avoid racking up costly hotel bills on top of paying rent in downtown Los Angeles, he opted to stay at a hostel in Cusco during the national emergency. "I'm with a bunch of people, which probably isn't ideal for the situation, given that you have to share everything with everyone around here," he said by phone. "But I wasn't prepared for an extra 15 days here in Peru, so I have to make do." Story continues Hill said he was worried about his students and keeping his job. "I have been told that we're supposed to be teaching online when we get back from spring break," he said. "But I don't have the tools, my lesson plans, my textbooks. I don't have anything to teach my kids from out here. Not only that, but the Wi-Fi is horrible. So I'm concerned about losing my job, because I can't perform the duties that are asked." From the hostel in the Peruvian Andes, Hill started a Facebook group called Americans Stuck in Peru. There, travelers exchange updates regarding contact with public officials in the United States, along with what they describe as frustration with local authorities and unresponsive airlines. Group members also created a spreadsheet to keep track of U.S. citizens stranded in Peru. By their estimates, more than 1,600 U.S. travelers got caught by the state of emergency. At a news conference Thursday, President Trump indicated that he was aware of the U.S. travelers stuck in Peru. "Were trying to get them out," Trump said. "We're going to work it out." Noting that Mexico and Israel moved to repatriate their citizens following the Peru shutdown, Hill said he hoped that the U.S. could help get people out as soon as possible. "I know there are people stuck all over the world, so we're not [the U.S. government's] No. 1 priority," Hill said. "But they need to do something to help us out." Republican North Carolina Sen. Richard Burr and Republican Georgia Sen. Kelly Loeffler sold a combined $2 million to $4 million in stock after attending private briefings about the coronavirus pandemic, even as they publicly amplified the Trump administration line that the virus did not pose a major threat to public health or the economy, disclosures analyzed by ProPublica and the Daily Beast show. The sales were completed before the disruption caused by widespread illness began to trigger major losses in securities markets this month. Advertisement Senators from both parties were briefed about the coronavirus by Centers for Disease Control director Robert Redfield and National Institute of Allergies and Infectious Diseases director Anthony Fauci on Jan. 24. That private briefing was arranged by the Senate Health Committee, of which Burr is a member. Burr is also the chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee; a late-February Reuters story reported that the committee had been receiving daily updates from intelligence agencies monitoring the spread of the illness around the world and assessing the responses of governments. On Feb. 25, Democratic New Hampshire Sen. Jeanne Shaheen complained to Secretary of Health and Human Services Alex Azar at a open Appropriations Committee hearing that a coronavirus briefing Azar had given senators earlier that day had been private; Azar responded that Chairman Burr, the chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee, asked that that briefing be held at the top-secret level. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement According to his disclosures, Burr made sales of stocks worth between $628,000 and $1.72 million on Feb. 13. This included a sale unloading substantial shares of Wyndham Hotels and Resorts and Extended Stay America, two lodging chains whose stock prices would later plunge as the pandemic shut down travel and tourism. On Feb. 27, according to a report by NPR that was also published Thursday, Burr told a private gathering of wealthy constituents that the virus could be as contagious as the 1918 flu and that it could create major disruptions to daily lifeincluding, he said specifically, cancellations of business travel. His message to the general public after the Jan. 24 briefing was rather different. On Feb. 7, Burr co-wrote a Fox News op-ed which asserted that the United States today is better prepared than ever before to face emerging public health threats, like the coronavirus, in large part due to the work of the Senate Health Committee, Congress, and the Trump Administration. He does not appear to have issued the warnings he gave in the private Feb. 27 meeting in any public forum. Advertisement Loeffler also attended the Jan. 24 briefing; between then and Feb. 14 she made sales worth between $1.275 million and $3.1 millionbut made purchases of two stocks, the database-management company Oracle and a company called Citrix, which makes teleconferencing software. (The transactions dealt with stock owned jointly by Loeffler and her husband, who is Jeffrey Sprecher, the chairman of the New York Stock Exchange.) On Feb. 28, Loeffler tweeted that Democrats have dangerously and intentionally misled the American people on #Coronavirus readiness and that the Trump administration was doing a great job working to keep Americans healthy & safe. On March 10, she tweeted that the economy is strong. Neither senator appears to have yet commented on the transactions. Members of Congress are prohibited by law from trading on material, nonpublic information derived from their positions. Update, March 20: Burr and Loeffler have issued statements denying that they sold stock because of information that they learned privately. Burr says he relied on public news reports to make his recent investing decisions; Loeffler says hers were made by advisers without her knowledge. Several political activists belonging to various parties and two Congress leaders on Friday joined the newly formed JKAP. A party spokesperson said the general secretary of the Jammu and Kashmir Pradesh Congress, Namrita Sharma; and the president of the JK unit of the National Students Union of India (NSUI), Raqeeq Ahmad Khan, joined the JKAP in the presence of party president Syed Mohammad Alatf Bukhari. The spokesperson said in a statement that 41 other senior political activists from the Congress, BJP and the PDP also joined the Jammu and Kashmir Apni Party, floated by businessmen-turned-politician Bukhari on March 8 in Srinagar. Bukhari had met Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Home Minister Amit Shah on March 14 and 15, respectively. This was the first visit of Bukhari, a former state finance minister, to Jammu after forming the outfit along with 30 political leaders from various state and national parties. Bukhari welcomed the new entrants, saying their inclusion will strengthen the party apparatus in Jammu and Kashmir. "I hope and believe that Sharma and Khan will work together for the uplift of people. The JKAP believes in mitigating the sufferings of people in all possible ways and manner," Bukhari said. The party, however, announced the suspension of political activities in the union territory till March 31 in the wake of the guidelines issued by the health authorities to fight the novel Coronavirus outbreak in the union territory till March 31. "In view of a positive COVID-19 case in Kashmir, all JKAP meetings are hereby suspended," the party spokesperson said. He said, "Colleagues and workers are requested not to hold any outreach activity for the time being. Party's Sheikh Bagh office (Srinagar) will be only open for urgent work." "The party activities shall be resumed in accordance with new guidelines as and when issued by the health authorities," he added. Bukhari requested the party activists to lend help to the administration in spreading awareness about proper sanitation and social-distancing guidelines. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) Portland Aerial Tram rides to and from the campuses of Oregon Health Science University, Shriners Hospital for Children and the Veterans Administration buildings will be limited to employees and patients beginning Friday. The Portland Bureau of Transportation and OHSU, which jointly operate the tram, have implemented the restrictions in response to the coronavirus and state recommendations on social distancing. Portland Aerial Tram will be limited to the following fares: OHSU identification badges VA Portland Health Care System employee cards Shriners Hospitals for Children Portland employee cards Patients of OHSU, VA Portland and Shriners Hospital OHSU has already issued a temporary restriction of hospital visitors that begins Friday. Additional details regarding OHSUs visitation policy can be found here. Tram operators will not allow more than 20 people at a time to ride in each of the two cabins, down from a normal capacity of 79. This limit was first implemented on March 16 and is intended to enable passengers and tram operators to implement the social distancing guidance the governor and public health officials have established. The tram travels from the South Waterfront to Marquam Hill daily. No tram tickets will be sold to the general public at this time. Subscribe to Oregonian/OregonLive newsletters and podcasts for the latest news and top stories. Bavaria becomes the first state in Germany to order lockdown Another case of coronavirus reported in Telangana, total number of positive cases jump to 17 Have told PM Modi to stop all international flights to Bengal, says CM Mamata Banerjee No passenger trains to operate on March 22 following PM Modi's call for 'Janta Curfew' Govt employees in Jammu and Kashmir to attend offices on alternate weeks: ANI IndiGo to operate 60% domestic flights on Sunday in view of the 'Jantra curfew' Medical staff in protective suits treat coronavirus patients in an intensive care unit at the Cremona hospital in northern Italy. The novel coronavirus pandemic has killed more than 9,800 people and infected over 240,000 so far. In India, the number of Covid-19 cases rose to 236 including 196 active cases and four deaths, according to the health ministry figures released on Friday morning. Calling it a challenge for which there is no cure as yet, Prime Minister Narendra Modi, in an address to the nation on Thursday, stressed on the importance of self-isolation and social distancing. He also called for a Citizens' Curfew on March 22 and asked people not to indulge in panic buying. Click here for complete coverage on coronavirus outbreak China's death toll, now at 3,248, was overtaken on Thursday by Italy, where 4,032 people have now died. Meanwhile, for the second straight day, China on Friday reported no new local cases of Covid-19. Here are the updates on coronavirus: New L.A. city order passed, Safer at Home, Stay at Home L.A. Mayor Eric Garcetti and other public officials explain the details Thursday, March 19. county and city officials gathered to explain new California Executive Order N-33-20, also known as, Safer at Home, Stay at home order. The new state regulation mandates all non-essential businesses to comply with social distancing guidelines by closing, secondary businesses in L.A. will be closed until April 19, with a possibility of an extension. The Safer at home, stay at home order suspends any public or private gatherings of any size that would occur outside of a single home. There are occupations exempt from the juridical act of the stay home order. Jobs such as emergency personnel, first responders, and government employees are permitted to go to work in order to keep the citys infrastructure. Mayor Garcetti expressed this new way of living will be beneficial for overall health and human preservation, it will also provide support in flattening the curve of the spread COVID-19. Kathryn Barger opened the conference with details of the next phase of COVID-19. She acknowledged the public order as the Safer at home order restricts gatherings that are more than 10 people. She went on to express that it is essential to use discretion and mindfulness when purchasing food and supply. Barger confirmed that we have enough food but buying in excess is causing unnecessary panic. Her words to heed, Only purchase what you need. Kathryn covered the plans in place for the homeless community; she acknowledges her team has been working tirelessly to ensure there are enough beds and supplies in place for those more susceptible to receiving the virus. ADVERTISEMENT Following, was Mayor Eric Garcetti with more information on the public order covering all of L.A. county. He started with gratitude of those in service at grocery stores, emergency teams, and to all those still showing up for work and maintaining the citys infrastructure. Garcetti continued by saying, I wanted to cut to the chase, tonight. Leading into the discussion topic, Human life is precious. Every decision made is with that in mind. The two concerns Garcetti laid out was, how do we protect each other, and how do we save lives. Following that, he acknowledged that he has seen the drastic changes that have taken place living in Los Angeles. Eric confessed that we need to be painfully honest, we are entering a new way of living here in Los Angeles for a period. The mayor of Los Angeles described the solution behind this national crisis, is within each of us. He showed gratitude towards those who are taking heed to the social distancing guidelines and staying home. The elected official continued, making it very clear, that this public order is a historical moment. COVID-19 became the moment when everything changed. He compared this epidemic to 9-11. Eric Garcetti explained the reason for the court order was due to the data, results coming back shows that we are at a rate of increase. The way to handle that, in his words, We are trying to intervene earlier and be like those countries where the curve starts to flatten. The mayor and his team looked at historical pandemics, they found that dating back to 1918, those cities that acted early, were the ones with a lower fatality rate. The decisions behind the public order were made with a heavy heart but a clear mind. The mayor of Los Angeles disclosed that There will be questions of economic restorations that they simply cannot answer right now. The businesses that will be affected will be museums, malls, retail stores, and non-profit organizations. Eric Garcetti expressed the only time you should leave your home is for essential needs. Garcetti disclosed that this is not a request, this is an order. Mayor of Long Beach and Pasadena has confirmed that they are following the stay at home order. Barbara Ferrer, PHD, Director of Public health, confirmed the second death related to the SARS-coV-2 virus. She ingrained that the public order is going to be active until April 19. Ferrer stated playgrounds, malls, and all non-essential businesses will be closed. Mayor of Long Beach Robert Garcia stated, This is a serious step. He continued, stating that the city of Long Beach will comply with the public order that started at midnight. He ensured that the ports down in Long Beach will still be fully operational. Mayor of Pasadena, Terry Tornek, also followed suit. The city of Pasadena initiated the public order at Midnight. He declared that all decisions are being guided by health professionals. After all the officials spoke, the floor opened for questions. There was a concern of reinforcement. Eric Garcetti shared earlier, that we are a free society. We will not be forced to be locked down, like how it might be in other countries. The places that remain open will be gas stations, banks, laundromats, pharmacies, and essential government functions. More information can be found at https://corona-virus.la/ or you can register for the City of L.A.s mass notification system by going to NotifyLA.org. Researchers at the University of Cincinnati are helping to identify those most at risk in Ohio of overdosing on opiates. A new study published in the Nature journal Scientific Reports examined Ohio Health Department records from 2010 to 2017 and found that white men between the ages of 30 and 39 were most at risk of fatal overdoses. The epidemic is disproportionately affecting white men over white women in all age categories, the study found. Opioid fatalities also affected black men ages 30 to 39 at disproportionate rates compared to the total population, the study found. Likewise, UC's analysis identified 12 clusters or hot zones across Ohio where the rate of fatal overdoses is highest. The clusters were predominantly but not exclusively in the biggest cities. These geographic areas were home to 21% of the state's at-risk population but witnessed 40% of the opiate-related mortalities in Ohio over the eight years examined. Diego Cuadros, an assistant professor of geography in UC's College of Arts and Sciences, said UC's findings could help steer health policy in Ohio to help groups most at risk avoid the pitfalls of addiction. Treatment is important, but prevention is better. We want to reduce the use and abuse of opioids." Diego Cuadros, assistant professor of geography in UC's College of Arts and Sciences Cuadros runs UC's Health Geography and Disease Modeling Laboratory, which applies geographical information, perspectives and methods to the study of health, disease and health care. Cuadros and his students collaborated with UC's James L. Winkle College of Pharmacy, Oregon State University and Drexel University. Cuadros said researchers are investigating why some populations seem more susceptible to opiate addiction. "We're just beginning the conversation to figure out what is driving this," he said. Opiates are insidious because they attack the body's ability to produce natural endorphins that make people feel better. "Opiates desensitize natural endorphins so you don't get the same feeling of contentment as you would otherwise from daily activities like exercise or food or fun activities. Each time you'll need more and more opiates," Cuadros said. UC College of Pharmacy Dean Neil MacKinnon, a study co-author, serves as co-chairman of the UC/UC Health Opioid Task Force, which was established in 2017 to bring together researchers, educators, doctors and public advocates to address the epidemic. "This study has provided valuable new insights into the opioid crisis in Ohio," MacKinnon said. "It also demonstrates the value of interdisciplinary work as Dr. Cuadros and his colleagues from the Department of Geography made important contributions to our research team in pharmacy. I hope this is an ongoing partnership moving forward for the UC/UC Health Opioid Task Force." UC doctoral student Andres Hernandez, the study's lead author, said substance abuse disorders are complex, influenced by family history, economic welfare and mental health. "For example, an individual with relatives who suffered substance abuse disorders is 10 times more likely to suffer from substance abuse," Hernandez said. The study identified 12 mostly urban parts of Ohio that were disproportionately affected by the epidemic. Many of these clusters were in southwest Ohio. "This area has a history of high rates of drug consumption and illegal drug flow," Hernandez said. "I think understanding the characteristics of the population with higher risk will result in better strategies to mitigate the epidemic." UC's analysis suggests several phases of the epidemic, Cuadros said. Researchers believe the opiate epidemic began with a surge in legal prescription painkillers. Nearly 20 million Americans suffer from chronic pain that is so severe that it affects their daily activities, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. But regulators and law enforcement began scrutinizing prescription opiates and passing laws limiting refills or reducing dosages. Some doctors were prosecuted. In the absence of easy access to prescription opiates, some people turned to illicit opiates, particularly heroin, which was comparatively cheap and readily available. "And now this latest phase has seen the rise of fentanyl in the opioid epidemic," Cuadros said. Fentanyl is a synthetic opioid that is 50 to 100 times more powerful than morphine. It's often added to heroin or other illicit drugs. Because of its potency, the risk of a fatal overdose is higher. "It's more potent than other prescription opioids. And it seems to be cheaper to produce and distribute. So we're getting a new element in the epidemic," Cuadros said. Cuadros said he would like to expand the analysis nationwide using data provided by the CDC. Negotiating access to these records can be tricky because federal health privacy laws cover even the deceased. "If not nationwide, we'd like to conduct the same analysis for Kentucky and West Virginia, the epicenter of the opioid epidemic. It's a regional problem. So it's important knowing what's going on," Cuadros said. Getty Images Coronavirus confirmed cases for Ghana rise catch nine after two new cases come join de already existing seven. President Nana Akufo-Addo wey confirm de tori on Thursday morning during Presidential Prayer Breakfast Meeting plus Christian leaders for Ghana for Jubilee House. Both be imported cases where two Ghanaians return from outside enter de country. Ghana health officials isolate both patients dey give dem treatment. On de 18th March, we received another report form NMIMR indicating two (2) more confirmed cases from de Greater Accra Region. Both be imported cases. One is of dem be 56-year-old man, who travelled come Accra from UK trip like one week dis. De oda patient chop 33 years, who return come Accra from conference for United Arab Emirates. Meanwhile, Ghana Immigration Service say travel ban dey in full force for de country. De travel ban wey govment announce take effect on Tuesday, March 17 around 1.00pm. Covid-19 Update Unfortunately we have confirmed two more cases overnight. Ghanas case count is now at 9. Health services are still managing all suspected and confirmed cases well. pic.twitter.com/arFXvTtpaG Ministry of Information (@moigovgh) March 19, 2020 Deputy Comptroller General, Operations for Ghana Immigration Service reveal say since Tuesday afternoon de travel restrictions dey in full force. He talk for Ministry of Information press briefing say dem on Monday dem stop 2 Italians, dem also stop 24 Chinese den one German on Tuesday from entering Ghana for de airport. Authorities say dem track 399 contacts through dema contact tracing wey dem dey test all dis people to be sure say dem no catch de virus. SEATTLE Medical leaders in Washington State, which has the highest number of coronavirus deaths in the country, have quietly begun preparing a bleak triage strategy to determine which patients may have to be denied complete medical care in the event that the health system becomes overwhelmed by the coronavirus in the coming weeks. Fearing a critical shortage of supplies, including the ventilators needed to help the most seriously ill patients breathe, state officials and hospital leaders held a conference call on Wednesday night to discuss the plans, according to several people involved in the talks. The triage document, still under consideration, will assess factors such as age, health and likelihood of survival in determining who will get access to full care and who will merely be provided comfort care, with the expectation that they will die. The effort is statewide so individual doctors and hospitals will not be left to make such decisions, said Cassie Sauer, chief executive of the Washington State Hospital Association, one of the groups convening the call. Success in containing coronavirus infection comes at the price of slowing economic activity, a blogpost by IMF experts has stated. With the number of coronavirus cases rising in India, Prime Minister Narendra Modi has appealed to citizens to observe a 'Janta curfew' on Sunday to check the spread of deadly novel coronavirus. In the blogpost, the IMF experts observed, "Success in containing the virus comes at the price of slowing economic activity, no matter whether social distancing and reduced mobility are voluntary or enforced." The IMF China's experience so far shows that the right policies make a difference in fighting the disease and mitigating its impact-but some of these policies come with difficult economic tradeoffs, the blog authored by Helge Berger - IMF's China mission chief and Assistant Director, Kenneth Kang - Deputy Director in the Asia & Pacific Department of the IMF, and Changyong Rhee - Director of the IMF's Asia and Pacific Department, stated. "By all indications, China's slowdown in the first quarter of 2020 will be significant and will leave a deep mark for the year," the blog said. The IMF said the past weeks have shown how a health crisis, however temporary, can turn into an economic shock where liquidity shortages and market disruptions can amplify and perpetuate. "In China, the authorities stepped in early to backstop interbank markets and provide financial support to firms under pressure, while letting the renminbi adjust to external pressures. Among other measures, this included guiding banks to work with borrowers affected by the outbreak; incentivizing banks to lend to smaller firms via special funding from China's central bank; and providing targeted cuts to reserve requirements for banks. "Larger firms, including state-owned enterprises, enjoyed relatively stable credit access throughout-in large part because China's large state banks continued to lend generously to them," the IMF pointed out. Noting that while there are reassuring signs of economic normalization in China-most larger firms have reported reopening their doors and many local employees are back at their jobs, it said stark risks remain. "This includes new infections rising again as national and international travel resumes. Even in the absence of another outbreak in China, the ongoing pandemic is creating economic risks," it said. The number of novel coronavirus cases in India rose to 223 on Friday evening after 50 fresh cases were reported from various parts of the country while 6,700 people who came in contact with the patients are under rigorous surveillance, the Union health ministry said. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) Sean Spicer, the former White House press secretary. Screenshot/State Department Sean Spicer, the former White House press secretary, reappeared in the White House briefing room on Friday, but this time he was in a reporter's chair. When the president called on Spicer, he referred to him as the reporter "in the back" and didn't acknowledge that it was his former top aide. The president then dodged Spicer's question about four lawmakers who sold large portions of their personal stock portfolios after receiving information about the impending coronavirus outbreak. Many members of the media expressed disbelief that a former press secretary could be granted a seat among reporters in the briefing room. Visit Business Insider's homepage for more stories. Sean Spicer, the former White House press secretary, reappeared in the White House briefing room on Friday, but this time he was in a reporter's chair. When President Donald Trump called on Spicer, he referred to him as the reporter "in the back" and didn't acknowledge that it was his former top aide. Spicer, who now hosts a Newsmax show, asked Trump a question about his plan for helping small businesses endure the economic crisis caused by the coronavirus outbreak and another about four senators who sold off stocks after receiving early information about the damage the outbreak was expected to do to the economy; Spicer suggested the lawmakers sought to "profit" off the crisis. Trump insisted that his administration would do more to help struggling small businesses and dodged Spicer's question about the lawmakers, three of whom are Republicans. "I don't know too much about what it's about, but I find them to all be very honorable people," Trump said, mentioning the one Democrat, Sen. Dianne Feinstein, by name. "And they said they did nothing wrong." Reporters in the briefing room tweeted photos of Spicer, who was seated in a chair designated for the conservative media outlets One America News Network and Newsmax. Some expressed disbelief that a former press secretary could be granted a seat among reporters in the room. Story continues Critics of the administration were quick to point out that Trump has long accused the press of having a liberal bias but is happy to engage with right-leaning outlets like Fox News. Trump has taken time at the podium this week to attack legacy newspapers and mainstream outlets. On Friday, he refused to answer a straightforward question from the NBC News reporter Peter Alexander, calling him a "terrible reporter." On Thursday, he praised an OAN reporter and her network for treating him "very nicely." Read the original article on Business Insider Receives A$1.6M Milestone Payment from Kyocera Sydney, Mar 20, 2020 AEST (ABN Newswire) - Regeneus Ltd ( ASX:RGS ), a clinical-stage regenerative medicine company, Today received a non-refundable milestone payment of 100,000,000 JPY (approx. A$1.6M) from Kyocera Corporation ( TYO:6971 ) as set out in the non-binding Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) signed on 2 March 2020.As announced to the market, the MOU gives Kyocera exclusive negotiation rights to Progenza for treatment of Knee Osteoarthritis (Progenza OA) in Japan. A further 100M JPY is payable from Kyocera upon Progenza meeting due diligence criteria. This second milestone payment is refundable if an agreement is not executed.Kyocera has commenced their comprehensive due diligence for Progenza and this has progressed positively.Following the due diligence period, Kyocera will have until the end of July 2020 for exclusive rights to negotiate and enter into a commercial licence for Progenza in Japan.CEO and Executive Director Leo Lee said, "We are pleased to see the MOU timeline progress positively and receive this milestone payment. We will continue to support Kyocera during their due diligence process for Progenza and look forward to updating the market on this front."About Regeneus Ltd Regeneus Ltd (ASX:RGS) is a Sydney-based clinical-stage regenerative medicine company using stem cell technologies to develop a portfolio of novel cell-based therapies. The regenerative therapies seek to address unmet medical needs in human health markets, focusing on neuropathic pain, including osteoarthritis and various skin conditions, with its platform technologies Progenza(TM) and Sygenus. Visit www.regeneus.com.au for more information. Two Turkish soldiers killed in Syria's Idlib despite truce agreement Iran Press TV Thursday, 19 March 2020 7:08 PM Two Turkish soldiers have been killed in Syria's embattled northwestern province of Idlib, officials say. A soldier was killed in a "heinous attack" in the Idlib town of Muhambal, deputy chairman of Turkey's ruling party Mahir Unal wrote on Twitter on Thursday. Later in the day, the governor's office of the central Turkish province of Sivas tweeted that a 25-year-old soldier from the area was also killed in the northwestern province. The two Turkish officials did not provide any details on how the troops were killed or exactly where. On March 5, Russia and Turkey agreed on a ceasefire to stop clashes in Idlib, the only large territory in the hands of terrorists after the Syrian military managed to undo militant gains across the Arab country. Under the deal, the two countries are required to establish a secure corridor along a key east-west highway in Idlib and hold joint patrols there as of March 15. After signing the truce agreement, Turkish Defense Minister Hulusi Akar said the country's military personnel will stay in Idlib and that any withdrawal from the embattled Syrian region is "out of the question." Syria army repels militant attack in Idlib Meanwhile, a report by state news agency SANA on Thursday said the Arab country's military troops had killed a number of Turkish-sponsored militants near Hizareen town in Idlib after they violated the ceasefire deal by targeting their military posts. The counterattack also destroyed the terrorists' weapons and ammunition, it said. The Russian Foreign Ministry said recently that the militants were not complying with the terms of the ceasefire. The ministry, in a statement released on March 16, announced that the militants have re-armed, and are now taking military action there. Terrorists in Idlib, the statement said, must either be eliminated or prosecuted. NEWS LETTER Join the GlobalSecurity.org mailing list Enter Your Email Address Messaging and conferencing app Microsoft Teams added 12 million new users in a week thanks to people working from home to slow the spread of coronavirus. Microsoft says there are now 44 million daily users of the app and 20 customers have more than 100,000 users signed in to the remote teamwork service. It's not clear exactly how many of the 12 million new users have paid for the service and how many are on the free tier. Recently Microsoft unlocked a number of premium features for users of the free service due to the rise in new home workers because of COVID-19. Scroll down for video Messaging and conferencing app Microsoft Teams added 12 million new users in a week thanks to people working from home to slow the spread of coronavirus Prime Minister Boris Johnson has urged people to work from home where possible and to practice social distancing by avoiding pubs and restaurants. He has also closed schools across the country and told anyone with a cough or fever - or family members of those with a cough or fever - to remain in isolation. The rise in home working has led to a surge in apps such as Microsoft Teams, Slack and the video conferencing service Zoom. These allow large groups of people to stay connecting while working in remote locations - including their home. Teams had 44 million users as of March 18, Microsoft said, more than double the 20 million daily active users that the software maker reported in November. The number of daily users went up by 37 per cent in just a week from March 11 to March 18 - coinciding with quarantine and lockdown orders. There were no recent numbers for the major rival to Teams, collaboration app Slack, which said in October that it had 12 million daily active users. Slack didn't update that figure during its earnings announcement on March 12, but said four of its five largest deals in the most recent quarter were won against Microsoft Teams. On Thursday, Slack said it added 7,000 new paid customers from February 1 to March 18, a roughly 40 per cent increase over each of its previous two fiscal quarters, when it had added about 5,000 new paid customers per quarter. However, that doesn't include the number of people using its free service, which is likely to have increased significantly due to an increase in home working. All apps linked to or that make remote working easier have seen a spike in demand. Global downloads of business apps including Tencent Conference, WeChat Work, Zoom, Microsoft Teams and Slack have risen nearly five fold since the start of the year, data showed, as the coronavirus outbreak changes how corporations work. While such apps attracted 1.4 million new users across the App Store and Google Play in the first week of January, that figure jumped to a record 6.7 million in the first week of March, according to app analytics firm Sensor Tower. Zoom's daily active user base grew by 67% since early January, data from Apptopia showed. Analysts, however, warn that not every business app would see a corresponding financial gain from the demand surge. 'Most of them offer a freemium version so why would users pay when they can use for free,' Summit Insights Group analyst Jonathan Kees said, pointing to services like Microsoft Teams and Zoom, which recently expanded their free offerings. Microsoft says there are now 44 million daily users of the app and 20 customers have more than 100,000 users signed in to the remote teamwork service Microsoft also rolled out several features designed to help with telemedicine and working from home, such as a bookings application for Teams to help hospitals manage virtual appointments. 'As organizations around the world are changing the way they work in response to the (coronavirus) situation, we're going to learn a tremendous amount,' Satya Nadella, Microsoft's chief executive, said in a virtual news conference. The company also announced it was making its full service free to the NHS to allow doctors to communicate safely during the crisis. 'Technology is key to supporting patients who are self-isolating and makes sure they have the information they need and access to medical support and advice,' said NHS Digital's director of technology, Ian Phoenix. 'For doctors and NHS staff this means that working remotely becomes much easier and more practical.' Microsoft said Thursday that doctors at St. Lukes University Health Network in Pennsylvania, who had already been using the Teams app, will start tapping it for videoconferencing with patients. That will include those vulnerable to the novel coronavirus, to protect patients and the hospital. Slack earlier this week said it was making the service free for many organizations working to respond to or mitigate the coronavirus and was speeding up the set-up time for new customers. Microsoft also said it was working on several new features using artificial intelligence that could make working from home easier for Teams users. One feature can automatically replace the background during a video chat, for example cropping out a messy home bedroom and replacing it with a picture of a tidy commercial office. Another feature can filter out background sounds during a conference call, such as the crinkling of a crisp packet - but that won't be available until later this year. By West Kentucky Star Staff Mar. 20, 2020 | 08:41 AM | PADUCAH The City of Paducah Planning Department has developed an online economic impact survey for businesses to assess the impact of COVID-19 related closures.The 11-question survey takes two to three minutes to take. Paducah Public Information Officer Pam Spencer says businesses inside and outside the Paducah city limits are welcome to participate.We have incredible and unique businesses here in Paducah and the surrounding region. We want to make sure we understand what our businesses are experiencing during this difficult time so that we can put together a partnership and find ways to respond to their needs. Said Mayor Brandi Harless.Part of the survey introduction reads, The City of Paducah acknowledges that we are in uncharted territory. Like you, we are trying to navigate through new guidelines and actions to protect against COVID-19 anticipating that more uncertainty lies ahead. To be most effective, we need to hear from you. Now is the time to share your specific business needs so state and federal agencies and elected leaders can be better informed on how to aid businesses in distress.Planning Director Tammara Tracy says, This is a data gathering survey so that we can truly know how this virus pandemic is affecting our local businesses. We intend to use the aggregated information to influence and guide state and federal resources and any other relief opportunities. The survey is anonymous, but it does have an option to provide contact information so that we will be able to make connections.Questions on the survey include business location, type, number of employees, and how COVID-19 is affecting business operations in addition to questions regarding assistance options and needs.To take the survey, visit the link below. On the Net: Microsoft today extended the support lifespan of Windows 10 Enterprise 1709 and Windows 10 Education 1709 by six months, pushing their retirements to Oct. 13. The original end-of-support date had been fixed as April 14. Microsoft cited the COVID-19 pandemic's impact, which in just the U.S. has ranged from massive business closings and even statewide lockdowns to a broad movement of companies telling white-collar employees to work from home. By midday March 19, 171 deaths in the U.S. had been attributed to the virus. Globally, deaths approached 10,000. "We have been evaluating the public health situation, and we understand the impact this is having on you," wrote John Cable, director of program management, in a March 19 post to a company blog. "To ease one of the many burdens you are currently facing, and based on customer feedback, we have decided to delay the scheduled end of service date for the Enterprise, Education, and IoT Enterprise editions of Windows 10, version 1709." Three years of support for 1709 Windows 10 1709 launched in October 2017, and although the Windows 10 Home and Windows 10 Pro editions of the release received just 18 months of support until April 9, 2019 Enterprise and Education got 30 months of updates. Microsoft split customers into 18- and 30-month groups in September 2018, when it created the latter support lifespan for its most important customers, larger businesses and organizations. Under Microsoft's 18/30 scheme, Enterprise and Education receive two and a half years of support only for the fall feature upgrade, the one labeled yy09 in the firm's four-digit format. The spring upgrade, yy03, provides only 18 months of support to everyone and every SKU (stock-keeping unit). The six-month extension for 1709 will supply customers security updates through the usual channels, including Windows Update, Windows Update for Business, Windows Server Update Services (WSUS) and the Microsoft Update Catalog. Cable also promised that update management processes would not need to change during the added months. "All supported versions of Microsoft Configuration Manager (current branch) will continue to support Windows 10, version 1709 until October 13, 2020," Cable said. By tacking on six months to 1709's support lifecycle, Microsoft will make it the first version of Windows 10 to receive 36 months, or three years, of support. Three years is somewhat of a magic stretch in Windows, as it was the long considered the ideal interval between OS upgrades, as in Windows 7 (2009) releasing three years after its Vista (2006) predecessor and three years before its Windows 8 (2012) successor. By giving enterprises six more months to migrate from 1709 when IT was staring at a deadline of less than a month Microsoft has reduced the pressure on admins of laggardly firms to keep client systems protected. Instead of trying to hustle during a time when everything has been disrupted if not thrown into complete chaos, IT staff, likely with a lower headcount and if not, then on a lower productivity level, can work without panicking. Unsettled release and support calendars could be the new normal Putting off upgrades, whether suspending them as Google did this week when it paused Chrome refreshes, or delaying support deadlines as Microsoft has done, may be the smart move under current conditions. There's no reason to hew to an established schedule at a time when upgrading hundreds or thousands of systems should be among the lesser worries of a business. Time spent dealing with upgrades and the inevitable questions and problems workers pose and report afterward is time wasted when keeping the business in business is dominant. In fact, it would be a surprise if the Wednesday announcement was the last of its kind from the Redmond, Wash. company, or if Microsoft and Google were the only software makers to do this. If COVID-19's impact hasn't lessened in several months, Microsoft may simply shove 1709's date back even more, then add the next in line, Windows 10 1803, to a growing list of postponements. (The Windows 10 1803 Enterprise and Education SKUs are now due to fall out of support Nov. 10.) Likewise, there's no reason Microsoft couldn't delay the launch of its next feature upgrade, Windows 10 2004, from the expected April to, well, much later this year. Or cancel the year's fall refresh, which under normal circumstances would be pegged 2009, altogether. All release and support calendars are, if not moot, then certainly unsettled. Tucking away some side gig income for retirement can help make your future more comfortable while reducing your tax bill today. Two good options for side hustlers are a SEP IRA and a solo 401(k). A simplified employee pension individual retirement account is easy to set up and allows people to contribute up to 25% of net self-employment income, to a maximum of $57,000 in 2020. A solo 401(k) has the same $57,000 cap, but it allows contributions up to 100% of net self-employment income. Solo 401(k)s involve a bit more paperwork, and the contribution limit is per person, so contributions to an employers 401(k) or other retirement plan count against the cap. To receive Steve Gutterman's Week In Russia each week via e-mail, subscribe by clicking here. The Constitutional Court jumped through hoops to give an amendment that could keep President Vladimir Putin in power until 2036 a clean bill of health, while the coronavirus could hand a real-life test to a Kremlin often focused on imagery and optics. And the anniversary of Russia's takeover of their homeland shone a grim spotlight on Moscow's treatment of Crimean Tatars. Here are some of the key developments in Russia over the past week and some of the takeaways going forward. The Constitution And The Coronavirus Benjamin Franklin once wrote that nothing in this world is certain but death and taxes. In Russia this season, the same could probably be said of the coronavirus and the constitution two things that, maybe more than any others, have been at the forefront of the news and seem certain to stay there for weeks at least, possibly months or more. Often, they seem to go hand in hand, mentioned in almost the same breath: "Neither goes anywhere without the other," the newspaper Kommersant quipped the other day. That's in part because they could influence each other. Well, not exactly. It's unlikely that the Russian Constitution, or the amendments that President Vladimir Putin is pushing through, could change the situation with COVID-19, which by March 20 had sickened more than 250 people in Russia But the coronavirus could complicate Putin's plans for the constitutional changes, one of which would allow him to seek a fifth presidential term in 2024, if he chooses, and a sixth in 2030. With the number of Russian cases rising, along with suspicions that the official statistics do not correspond with reality, as they say, the prospect of holding a nationwide vote to seal Putin's new deal with the country could be causing jitters in the Kremlin. To Vote Or Not To Vote So far, Putin is doing what he normally does: moving forward as far he can, while leaving in place the option of retreat or a halt -- a pause to await the next opening. (For an example of how that can work, look at the front lines in eastern Ukraine: Russia-backed forces did not push westward beyond the Donbas a few years ago, when it seemed like they might, but they still hold a sizable chunk of Ukrainian land and two regional capitals.) On March 17, Putin decreed that the nationwide vote will go ahead on April 22 -- unless it doesn't. He left that possibility open, saying that it could be postponed "if the situation requires." Authorities are also making arrangements to allow people to vote from home, a method that Kremlin critics say increases the opportunities for the authorities to engage in ballot-stuffing and other falsifications. There is little doubt about the result, but a low turnout would undermine Putin's mandate to rule for years to come. The vote will be the final step in a process that began just two months ago, when Putin submitted some of what ended up being about 390 proposed changes in the wording of the 1993 constitution. The amendment that now seems most important -- and that some suspect was the whole point of all the others -- was not added until former cosmonaut Valentina Tereshkova proposed it in a closely choreographed appeal in the State Duma, the lower parliament house, on March 10. Putin swiftly gave his consent to the change, speeding to the Duma for a kind of acceptance speech in which he said that the "annulment" amendment -- which would allow him to run again by resetting his term count at zero, instead of the four he has in fact served -- must only be added if the Constitutional Court ruled that it did not violate the existing constitution. There's Democracy And Then There's Democracy There was never any doubt that the court would give the "annulment" amendment a clean bill of constitutional health, of course, so the formal reasoning behind its ruling is beside the point. But it's worth reading -- as a source of black humor, perhaps, and a yet another window into the ways of the ruling class in a country where the head of the lower house of parliament said the other day that Putin -- not Russia's abundant reserves of oil and gas -- is the country's "advantage," its greatest asset. Vyacheslav Volodin also seemed to offer his own opinion -- or a hint -- about whether Putin will take advantage of the opportunity he is giving himself to run for president again and again, saying that the former KGB officer had "grabbed Russia from the point of no return and assumed a responsibility that would remain with him for life." In its ruling, the Constitutional Court said something pretty similar to that, in some ways. Setting presidential term limits is a question of seeking a "balance between different constitutional values," it said -- and went on to contrast one of those values, democracy, with another, narodovlastiye, which can be translated as democracy. Dropping the Greek roots and perhaps the gravity they convey, though, it can also be translated as people power, and the court seemed to imply, somehow, that democracy is worth little or nothing compared to people power. "On one hand, the constitutional characteristics of a democratic, law-based state suggestquite firm restrictions" on presidential terms, it said. "On the other hand, the constitutional principle of narodovlastiye implies the realization of the people's right to electthe individual they consider most worthy of the office of the head of state." In other words, if the people want Putin to stay, sure -- it's totally fine. But do they? In the midst of the push for constitutional change, but before the amendment allowing him to run again was proposed, a poll by the independent Levada Center showed that Russians' trust in President Vladimir Putin has fallen sharply in the past two years, dropping to its lowest level since 2013. President Or Pensioner? A survey by the same pollster in late January found that 27 percent of Russians wanted Putin to remain president past 2024, while 32 percent responded that he should be a pensioner, a private individual, or out of the public sphere -- a proportion that Levada director Lev Gudkov said "came as a surprise." "The increase in fatigue among people is visible," Gudkov was quoted as saying. The Constitutional Court went on to say that with the balance between democracy and, um, democracy as a backdrop, legislators addressing the issue of term limits can also take into account "concrete historical factors" including "the degree of threats to the state and society" as well as "the state of the political and economic system" and more. Translation, perhaps: Rules are made to be broken, and new ones can be made up when times are tough. Of course, Kremlin critics argue that the idea that Putin must remain in power to protect Russia from threats, or because the difficult economic or political situation makes change too risky, are evidence not of the need to keep him in power but of the opposite: that he has failed, over 20 years as president or prime minister, to make the country safe stable, and successful. Many analysts reject the idea -- put forward by pundits and others in the Kremlin's orbit -- that concerns about external factors and uncertainty in global affairs pushed Putin to give himself the option of staying on as president far into the future. Such rejections are far from guesswork: During two decades at the helm, Putin has repeatedly pointed to alleged threats from abroad when taking action that is widely seen as aimed at consolidating power, weakening opponents at home, and addressing perceived threats from within. Case in point: Moves that critics said curtailed democracy in Russia following terror attacks blamed largely on foreigners in 2004. COVID-19 The coronavirus pandemic, however, could potentially shape up as a real-life test like none Putin has faced before. He is armed with a massive arsenal for optics and image-making, but COVID-19 could test the limits of opinion-shaping tools such as state TV. In fact, fast-changing circumstances over the past several days have already revealed signs that the authorities are struggling not just with already strained health-care facilities and emergency responses but with how -- or whether -- to release information about the impact of the coronavirus on Russia. On March 19, Russia reported its first death from COVID-19 -- and then unreported it. The Moscow health department at first said that a 79-year-old woman who had tested died from pneumonia related to the virus, and city Mayor Sergei Sobyanin confirmed "the first loss from the coronavirus infection." Later the same day, though, health officials said an autopsy showed that she died from a blood clot. As for propaganda, one prominent victim of the coronavirus is 20 Questions For Vladimir Putin, a series of interviews -- meant to be Internet-friendly and appealing to young people -- that have enabled him to air his stated views, positions, and musings in the highly controlled format of interviews with TASS, one of Russia's two major state news agencies. TASS said on March 20 that the serial release of the interviews, which began in late February, would be halted and the rest of the episodes shown in full, all together, at a later date. The decision was made due to "cardinal changes in the news agenda, which goes against the idea of the project -- an attempt to evaluate together with Putin the changes in the country over the last 20 years -- and not current events," TASS said. Possible translation: There's no point sitting around making jibes at foreign countries and reshaping Russia's past if you want to look like a leader working hard for the people in the present. Benjamin Franklin made his remark about the certainty of death, taxes, and nothing else in the world in a 1789 letter to a Frenchman about the recently ratified U.S. Constitution, which he said "has an appearance that promises permanency." Meanwhile, In Crimea The Kommersant quip about the Russian Constitution and the coronavirus being fellow travelers of a kind came in an article about Putin's visit to Crimea on March 18, the date the Kremlin counts as the day the Black Sea peninsula became part of Russia -- a claim rejected by most of the world -- in 2014. For many Crimean Tatars, the seizure of their homeland marked the second time in 70 years that their fate and future had been wrenched out of their own hands by Moscow, and the start of a kind of isolation that contains none of the potential tranquility of self-quarantine. Russia took control of Crimea from Ukraine in March 2014 after sending in troops, seizing key facilities, and staging a referendum dismissed as illegal by at least 100 countries. Since then, rights groups and Western governments have denounced what they describe as a campaign of repression targeting members of the Turkic-speaking Crimean Tatar community and others who have spoken out against Moscow's takeover of the peninsula. In a 2018 report, the U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom (USCIRF) said that "[in] Russian-occupied Crimea, the Russian authorities continued to kidnap, torture, and imprison Crimean Tatar Muslims at will." 'This Will Not Be Over In A Day, A Week, Or A Month' One Crimean Tatar behind bars is Seiran Saliyev, who was arrested in October 2017 and could be sentenced to 20 years in prison if convicted of terrorism and attempting to violently overthrow the government, charges he says are groundless. His trial is being held in the Russian city of Rostov-on-Don. Russian authorities "are charging people who have lived and practiced their religion in Crimea for more than 20 years -- it is completely illegal," Saliyev's wife, activist Mumine Saliyeva, told RFE/RL's Russian Service in an interview. Saliyeva said that, in her eyes, the campaign against opponents of Russian rule came in February 2014, shortly before the takeover. "But the first blow aimed specifically at the Crimean Tatars came on March 3, when Reshat Ametov held a one-person protest. Later he was found mutilated. A person who did nothing but express his opinion was found dead, brutally murdered," she said. "Of course, that frightened everyone, and they understood that this would not be over in a day, a week, or a month." Neeraj Kumar, who headed the Delhi Police when Nirbhaya was gang-raped and murdered in 2012, on Friday said it was the "most critical" case in his 37-year career. Expressing relief at the outcome of the case after the four convicts were hanged in Tihar Jail, the 1976-batch IPS officer said his reputation was at stake with the case that caught the attention of the entire country. Had this case not been brought to its logical conclusion, "all that I had done in my professional career would have been negated", he said. Kumar, who is credited with many successful investigations that include deportation of dreaded terrorist Aftab Ansari, said the case was all the more important for him as there was a vociferous demand for his resignation and the world suddenly started "baying for my blood". The incident was shocking and hearts of everyone from the police probe team were bleeding as more sordid details about the case surfaced one after another, he said. "It's inhuman was my first reaction and the focus was to catch the culprits as soon as possible," Kumar told PTI at his residence in south Delhi. "It became the most critical case of my life because my reputation was at stake. Had this case not been cracked, charge-sheeted and brought to logical conclusion, all that I had done in my professional career would have been negated," the 66-year-old retired IPS officer said. "....everyone wanted my resignation and everyone wanted me to quit. All this happened because I came forward to take the brunt on myself," he said. Kumar said the idea was to insulate the investigation team and therefore, "I took all the pressures on myself and fortunately God has been more kind and I am happy that it has come to a successful closure and the guilty have been punished with the most severe punishment." The former police commissioner, however, said that the politics behind the unfortunate case was "a bit too much" which mainly aggravated because of differences between the then chief minister and the then Lt Governor. "When the then chief minister (Sheila Dikshit) called for my resignation, it was a cue to media to toe the line and target me. However, the then LG (Tajinder Khanna) extended all-out support to me because he was convinced that we are not wrong," Kumar, flanked by his wife Malini and daughter Ankita, said. "So I decided to take on the world and face the criticism because somewhere I was very sure that we have done nothing wrong and we are on right track as far as investigation is concerned," he said. Kumar, who has written two books so far, has dedicated a chapter 'night of shame' in his book 'Khakhi Files'. The other book written by him is 'Dial D for Don'. The four men -- Mukesh Singh (32), Pawan Gupta (25), Vinay Sharma (26) and Akshay Kumar Singh (31) -- convicted for the 2012 gang rape and murder of the 23-year-old physiotherapy intern, who later came to be known as 'Nirbhaya', were hanged at 5.30 am inside Delhi's Tihar Jail. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) HONG KONG, March 19, 2020 /PRNewswire/ -- NetDragon Websoft Holdings Limited ("NetDragon" or "the Company", Hong Kong Stock Code: 777), a global leader in building internet communities, wishes to announce that in view of the disruption of education due to the spread of the COVID-19 coronavirus, Edmodo, its global leading online education community, has been selected in an unprecedented move by the Ministry of Education in the Arab Republic of Egypt ("MoE") to be the designated online learning platform for the K12 education system in Egypt. Starting today, Edmodo will be rolled out to over 22+ million students and over 1+ million teachers in the country to provide distance learning support in the period of school suspension and to enhance learning thereafter. Since the outbreak of the COVID-19 virus, the Egyptian government has taken substantial precautionary measures to minimize the spread of the disease, including temporary closure of schools and universities, which has led to an imminent need for an effective online platform to ensure students' learning will continue to progress during the school closure. Edmodo is chosen by the MoE as the designated learning platform of Egypt, given its ability and readiness to offer a rich environment to support collaborative learning, enable teachers to communicate with students and share class materials online, and ultimately make learning accessible anywhere for students. This rapid and large-scale deployment of Edmodo nationwide, which is set to begin immediately with this roll-out, is both an important milestone in the advancement of education technology in Egypt, as well as a result of the readiness achieved through years of investment in education technology and digital content by the MoE. His Excellency, Dr. Tarek Shawki, Minister of Education and Technical Education, Egypt comments: "The unprecedented times that we have found ourselves in means that all governments around the world need to find innovative solutions to ensure the continued education of all learners. In Egypt we have been investing in our digital learning strategy for three years as part of our educational reform project. We find ourselves well positioned to be able to support distance learning, and the rapid implementation of Edmodo as the platform, to ensure that teachers, students and parents can collaborate and learn during this period." Innovera, Middle East partner of NetDragon and long-term technology partner of the MoE, will make their company resources available to support the MoE, schools and teachers with the training and helpdesk to ensure a smooth implementation and long-term usage of Edmodo within Egyptian schools. As part of this roll-out, Edmodo will also join hands with the innovative Egypt Knowledge Bank ("EKB"), one of the world's largest educational digital libraries, to bring in a massive volume of interactive contents including research journals and other exclusive educational resources for students and teachers. The integration of Edmodo and EKB provides learners an exceptional opportunity to access high quality educational resources and collaborate with their peers online. Dr Simon Leung, Vice Chairman of NetDragon, comments: "It is both a privilege and an honor to support the Ministry of Education, Egypt in delivering practical and innovative solutions that will ultimately contribute to the improvement of education throughout the country, especially during these challenging times. The deployment of Edmodo across the whole of Egypt will create for a positive transformation in the use of innovative and effective approaches to teaching. We intend to fully support the Ministry of Education in its bold and visionary approach to both the current situation, and the future of teaching and learning in Egypt." The deployment of Edmodo in Egypt will provide a remarkable foundation to accelerate the adoption of education technology in the country in ways that have never been done before, ultimately benefiting students, teachers and educators over the long run. With the epidemic continuing to spread across the world, NetDragon continues to act swiftly and responsibly to ensure the learning of students around the world will continue in the most engaging and effective manner. About NetDragon Websoft Holdings Limited NetDragon Websoft Holdings Limited (HKSE: 0777) is a global leader in building internet communities with a long track record of developing and scaling multiple internet and mobile platforms that impact hundreds of millions of users. These include China's number one online gaming portal, 17173.com, and China's most influential smartphone app store platform, 91 Wireless, which was sold to Baidu for US$1.9 billion in 2013 as the largest Internet M&A transaction in China. Established in 1999, NetDragon is one of the most reputable and well-known online game developers in China with a history of successful game titles including Eudemons Online, Heroes Evolved and Conquer Online. In recent years, NetDragon has also started to scale its online education business on the back of management's vision to create the largest global online learning community, and to bring the "classroom of the future" to every school around the world. For more information, please visit www.netdragon.com. About Edmodo Edmodo is a global lifelong learning platform that provides the support and tools educators need to fully engage learners. Founded in 2008 and now with more than 100 million users across 400,000 schools worldwide sharing over 618 million resources, Edmodo is designed to protect the privacy of students and teachers by providing a secure platform to communicate and collaborate. The company is headquartered in San Mateo, California. Find us at Edmodo and more resources to help you get started with distance learning. For investor enquiries, please contact: NetDragon Websoft Holdings Limited Ms. Maggie Zhou Senior Director of Investor Relations Tel.: +852 2850 7266 / +86 591 8390 2825 Email: [email protected] Website: ir.netdragon.com SOURCE NetDragon Websoft Holdings Limited Related Links http://www.netdragon.com A potential coronavirus treatment, Kaletra, has failed to deliver in a clinical trial done in China. AbbVie's HIV drug held promise as a potential treatment for COVID-19. However, it did not produce promising results in one of the first coronavirus trials on seriously ill patients. Doctors around the world have been testing a wide array of drugs, some repurposed from old medicine, in hopes of finding something that will work for those who are severely ill. The study involved 199 patients. For 14 days, 99 people received the HIV drug while the other 100 received only standard medical care. Patients who received the drug were given two doses a day. Abbvie's Kaletra, a combination of antiviral drugs lopinavir and ritonavir, did not improve clinical symptoms, extend life span, or reduce the detectable amount of the virus in patients infected with a severe case of COVID-19. Researchers at the Jin Yin-Tan Hospital concluded the drug made no significant difference and did not offer benefits over standard care. 14% of the patients involved in the trial stopped early due to side effects such as nausea, vomiting, and diarrhea. The group was composed mostly of 58-year-old patients who have developed symptoms 13 days before they were given the first dose of the HIV drug in the clinical trial. Read More: COVID-19 Treatment Update: 1940s Malaria Pill Shows Promising Results Australian Researchers Claim 2 HIV Drugs Kill Coronavirus Research Shows Individuals With Blood Type 'A' May Be More Prone to COVID-19 A related editorial applauded the researchers' "heroic effort" for running the study under extreme pressure and dire circumstances. It praised healthcare workers who provided patient care despite belonging to the highest risk group for the development of the disease. Earlier reports from China showed doctors giving patients antibiotics and antiviral drugs to potentially stop their conditions from getting worse due to other viruses and bacterial infection. Other patients who were suffering from severe inflammation reportedly received steroids and other drugs. There has been no solid evidence on any drug that works on coronavirus yet. Doctors and researchers are pulling out all stops and trying approaches where preliminary data suggests promising outcomes. Other hospitals have started giving coronavirus patients hydroxychloroquine, which is a malaria drug that could keep COVID-19 from invading human cells, according to lab studies. China and France reports suggest patients benefit from the anti-malaria pill. However, there is very limited data on the claim. Hospitals in Seattle have signed up to be part of a clinical trial on the antiviral drug remdesivir. Gilead, the lead researcher, will perform the trail in a controlled environment where some patients will receive placebos rather than the drug. Other health centers are giving critically ill patients with intense inflammatory reactions a drug called tocilizumab---a drug normally used to treat severe arthritis. The scientists involved in the previous study are still hopeful. They suggested more studies should be done to fully determine whether Kaletra could help if given earlier or in combination with other drugs. All findings from the Kaletra trial were published in The New England Journal of Medicine. US Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, Republican of Kentucky, holds a press briefing about legislation in response to the novel coronavirus, COVID-19, at the US Capitol in Washington, DC, March 17, 2020. Executives at companies that would receive bailout cash from the coronavirus-relief bill unveiled by Senate Republicans on Thursday would see their annual compensation capped for two years. According to the language, no employee who makes more than $425,000 may get a raise in their salary for two years. The legislation would also allow the government a chance to make money off its investments in these firms. Under the proposal, the American airline industry would receive $50 billion, cargo air carriers would get $8 billion, and other ailing industries would get $150 billion. The money for cargo air carriers was an addition to the White House's original proposal, a person familiar with the situation told CNBC. Senate Republicans now must negotiate the terms of the final bill with their Democratic counterparts, as well as with lawmakers in the Democratic-controlled House. According to the measure, no executive at a company receiving money may make more than $425,000 in total annual compensation for two years, retroactive to March 1. Company employees whose salary has already been determined through collective bargaining agreement may be exempt from that restriction. That likely applies to the union workers at companies accepting aid. Politicians on both sides of the aisle have acknowledged a need to offer aid to industries like the airlines, for fear their fall would eliminate jobs for thousands of workers. But Democrats have warned against any corporate aid that appears to be lining the pockets of executives. Republicans have worried about the appearance of flagrant spending. "We are not talking about a taxpayer-funded cushion for companies that made mistakes," said Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell earlier Thursday on the Senate floor. "We are talking about loans, which must be repaid, for American employers whom the government itself is temporarily crushing for the sake of public health," he said. Governments from the federal to the local level have called on people to practice social distancing and avoid unnecessary travel from their homes in a bid to limit exposure to the coronavirus and slow the pace of its spread. In turn, airlines have slashed capacity dramatically, and the hospitality industry has seen business plummet. Layoffs have already started to spike, according to unemployment claim data released Thursday. The worst is likely yet to come. Since the King called for the setting up of a special fund to upgrade health services, help most hit sectors by coronavirus and maintain jobs, donations kept flowing from public institutions, the private sector, state officias, employees and individuals. The fund which was targeting 10 billion dirhams received more than 25 billion dirhams as different sizes of Moroccan businesses joined the wave of solidarity bringing valuable contributions. Finance minister Mohamed Benchaaboun explained that all donations will be added to the 10 billion dirhams from the state budget which also include earmarking the 3.3 billion dirham sanction against Maroc Telecom for unfair competition. After King Mohammed VI donation of 2 billion dirhams, Hassan II Fund 1 billion dirhams, the Royal Holding Al Mada 2 billion dirhams, OCP 3 billion dirhams, BMCE 1 billion dirhams Moroccos regions 1.5 billion dirhams, fuel distributor Afriquia 1 billion dirhams, Group Azura 25 million dirhams to mention but a few large contributions. Companies based in Moroccos southern provinces generously contributed with fuel company Petrom, owned by Bouaida family, offering 100 million dirhams, and Atlas Sahara, another fuel company, contributing 15 million dirhams. A bank account was also opened to allow ordinary citizens to donate at the following RIB 001 810 00 780 002 011 062 02 21 . Moroccan ministers and cabinet members, MPs, senior army officials, senior interior ministry officials, directors of state institutions and many other senior executives and employees donated a salary to the fund. TEHRAN, Iran - Irans leaders vowed to overcome the coronavirus outbreak in upbeat messages marking the Persian New Year on Friday, even as the Health Ministry announced 149 more fatalities, bringing the countrys death toll to 1,433. Iran is battling the worst outbreak in the Middle East, with nearly 20,000 confirmed cases, and has been widely criticized for its slow response. Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, who has final say on all state matters, called the new year the year of leaps in production in Irans economy, which has been under strain since U.S. President Donald Trump withdrew from the 2015 nuclear accord and imposed .harsh new sanctions. President Hassan Rouhani also marked the new year, known as Nowruz, by promising a better economy. We will put the coronavirus behind us soon with unity, with hard work and with co-operation, he said. Most people who come down with the COVID-19 illness caused by the virus experience only minor symptoms and recover within weeks. But the virus is highly contagious and can be spread by people showing no symptoms. It can cause severe illness, including pneumonia, particularly in sick or elderly patients. More than 240,000 people have been infected worldwide. More than 10,000 have died, while more than 85,000 have recovered. Rouhani has defended his governments response to the pandemic in the face of widespread criticism that officials acted too slowly and may have even covered up initial cases before infections spread rapidly across the country. He also sought to highlight what he viewed as the achievements of the past year, including the downing of a sophisticated U.S. drone and missile strikes on U.S. bases in Iraq in retaliation for the killing of Irans top general in Baghdad. Rouhani assured Iranians his administration will prioritize health in the coming year and said it had stockpiled basic supplies. Nowruz is a major holiday in Iran, when shoppers typically pack local markets and take extended vacations. Most shops are closed this year, and those merchants who are still working can be seen warily accepting cash or debit cards from customers in face masks. Khamenei issued a religious edict this week prohibiting all unnecessary travel and authorities have restricted travel between cities. After weeks of heavy criticism, authorities finally closed two major religious shrines in recent days. Other countries in the region have imposed far stricter measures to contain the virus, including cancelling flights, sealing borders and forcing nonessential businesses to close. In Tel Aviv, the sprawling Mediterranean beachfront is deserted and authorities have roped off outdoor gyms and playgrounds to keep people from using them. Israel has reported more than 700 confirmed cases. Authorities reported Israels first death late Friday, saying an 88-year-old man with underlying health problems had passed away after a week in the hospital. Jordan announced a total curfew starting Saturday, saying all shops would be closed. Government spokesman Amjad Adaileh said a mechanism would be announced Tuesday to allow people to shop for essentials at specific times. Anyone violating the curfew could face up to a year in jail. Jordan has reported 85 cases. In Iraq, which has one of the highest death rates in the region, authorities struggled to keep Shiite pilgrims from marking the annual commemoration of the death of Imam Mousa al-Kazim despite a week-long curfew in the capital. Thousands of Iraqis typically walk to the shrine of the imam in the Khazimiyah area of Baghdad. Security forces have been stopping pilgrims, but more keep arriving. Late Thursday, the doors of the shrine were closed and the electricity turned off. Officials urged the faithful to perform the pilgrimage remotely to keep themselves and others safe. Caretaker Prime Minister Adel Abdul-Mahdi urged citizens to abide by a government curfew, and Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani, a deeply revered Shiite cleric, cautioned them not to underestimate the severity of the pandemic. Iraq has been grappling with anti-government protests for months, following years of conflict that have damaged its health care system. The coronavirus outbreak, which has infected over 200 people and killed 17, and the fallout from cratered oil prices, threaten to plunge the country into a major crisis. The U.S.-led coalition in Baghdad says it will temporarily return some of its forces from Iraq to their home countries in coming days and weeks in response to the Iraqi governments decision to suspend all training. It provided no numbers. The coalition also said that some coalition troops are being moved off a few smaller bases, partly to protect them from the coronavirus and partly because of progress in the campaign against the Islamic State group. Saudi Arabia announced it would shut down domestic air travel, buses, taxis and trains for the next two weeks, beginning Saturday. The monarchy has reported 274 confirmed cases, eight of whom recovered. In a televised address late Thursday, King Salman said: We are living through a difficult phase of the worlds history. However, we are completely certain that this phase will end and pass, despite its harshness and bitterness and its difficulties, he said, assuring Saudis the country had sufficient medical care and supplies to get through the crisis. In war-torn Yemen, thousands were held in crowded and unsanitary conditions on a campus in the town of Radaa as Houthi rebels placed travellers from abroad under a 14-day quarantine, according to some of those in the group. Photos and video on social media showed people spreading blankets on the asphalt and under trees or sleeping in their cars after militiamen stopped them from entering the capital of Sanaa. If one person is carrying the virus, it will infect thousands, said Abdel-Salam al-Gorbany. The situation here is very miserable. They were camped outdoors for about four days before being moved to a university campus, where they slept in classrooms, corridors, the courtyard and on the roof. Houthi authorities did not provide any masks, gloves or sanitizer for those cramped together, and there is a severe shortage of water and food, two travellers told The Associated Press on Friday. The quarantine is among measures taken by the Houthis to prevent an outbreak of the virus in Yemen, where a six-year civil war has destroyed its health facilities. The Houthi rebels are at war with the Saudi-backed internationally recognized government. In recent days, they sought to prevent mass gatherings by shutting down wedding halls and suspending funerals. Pakistan reported its third death from the virus, a 77-year-old cancer patient, in its southern Sindh province. Pakistan has reported 452 confirmed cases, most of them linked to travel to neighbouring Iran. Pakistan closed its borders with Iran and Afghanistan weeks ago, but Prime Minister Imran Khan on Friday asked authorities to allow trucks carrying food and other essentials to cross into landlocked Afghanistan, where infections are also rising. Pakistan closed its border with India near Lahore on Thursday. It is also placing hundreds of returning religious pilgrims into quarantine. ___ Associated Press writers Omar Akour in Amman, Jordan; Samya Kullab and Qassim Abdul-Zahra in Baghdad; Fay Abuelgasim in Dubai, United Arab Emirates; Robert Burns in Washington; Munir Ahmed in Islamabad; and Joseph Krauss in Jerusalem contributed. ___ The Associated Press receives support for health and science coverage from the Howard Hughes Medical Institutes Department of Science Education. The AP is solely responsible for all content. ___ Follow AP coverage of the virus outbreak at https://apnews.com/VirusOutbreak and https://apnews.com/UnderstandingtheOutbreak. BARCELONA, Spain Spain passed a grim milestone Friday when it became the second European country to report more than 1,000 coronavirus deaths, a mark that Italy passed a week ago, with the countrys doctors warning that the health system may soon be overwhelmed, just as in Italy. Across Europe, where there have been more than 100,000 cases and nearly 6,000 deaths, nations are preparing in the face of the growing crisis shoring up hospital resources and planning for an influx of new cases in the coming days. Taking an emergency economic measure that would have been unimaginable just weeks ago, the European Commission on Friday announced that it had triggered the general escape clause, a panic button that lifts stringent spending rules and allows countries to run big deficits to respond to a crisis. It is the first time in the history of the European Union that the clause has been used, throwing out the window the strictures of fiscal orthodoxy that stipulate low deficits and small debts. In Italy, aid groups have moved in to help set up temporary field hospitals. Britain announced that restaurants, bars, clubs and gyms would now be closed and has called on medical workers who have retired or moved to other jobs to return to the countrys National Health Service. Germany plans to double its intensive care capacity and has introduced new restrictions on movement in the southern state of Bavaria, amid warnings that the country could become the next Spain or Italy. There is exponential growth in Germany, said Lothar Wieler, president of the Robert Koch Institute, the governments disease control agency. By Friday, the institute had recorded nearly 15,000 cases of coronavirus, a number that has been nearly doubling every three days. We have gained time, Wieler said, but we are facing a similar development to that in Italy. Even as stringent new measures are put in place from Berlin to Barcelona, and health care services increase their capacity, it is unclear if they will be enough to stop the virus from overcoming an increasingly overwhelmed Europe. Spains coronavirus mortality rate, like Italys, has been significantly higher than in other countries, confounding authorities. Its a very difficult situation to explain, said Fernando Simon, director of Spains national health emergency sector. With nearly 20,000 confirmed cases in Spain and more than 1,000 deaths, Simon warned that the tough days are coming now, adding that some medical units are being stretched to the limit. Elian Peltier and Raphael Minder are New York Times writers. The U.S. government should apply the lessons learned in the 2009 financial bailout and scale them up for the current crisis -- but with stricter terms for the largest, healthiest companies, according to members of the team that led the last industry bailout. "There are certainly lessons learned from 2008 and 2009 that should hopefully help the people who are trying to solve the problem this time," said Steve Rattner, who was the so-called czar for the Obama administration's $50 billion auto industry bailout. "What's going on in Washington is pretty constructive in the sense that everybody understands the problem is of unbelievable magnitude and they're going to do whatever it takes." President Donald Trump said Thursday he'd support the U.S. taking an equity stake in companies that receive coronavirus-related aid from taxpayers and prohibiting firms from increasing executive bonuses and stock buybacks. Hours later, Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell unveiled a massive stimulus plan that provides as much as $208 billion in loans or loan guarantees to businesses hurt by the coronavirus. It would permits the federal government to take an equity stake in companies that receive loan assistance, "contingent on the financial success of the eligible business." His proposal was met with skepticism by congressional Democrats. Jason Furman, a member of President Barack Obama's economic team during the Great Recession and later chairman of the White House Council of Economic Advisers, said before the release of the Republican plan that a rescue package was justified because of the current crisis and would be politically more palatable this time because the industries aren't considered "villains" that caused the crisis. Automobile company chiefs were pilloried by Congress in 2008 for flying to Washington in private jets to ask Congress for a bailout. On a return trip, the General Motors CEO drove to the Capitol. In 2009, the U.S. allocated $700 billion to bail out banks and automakers as the collapse of high-risk mortgages rippled through the American economy. The government took stakes in car companies and banks that gave it oversight over many aspects of their operations. Many Democrats have been critical of the idea of corporate aid without strict controls over how the money is used, preventing stock buybacks or corporate bonuses they say have been the result of past bailouts. A group of 10 consumer groups sent a letter to the congressional leadership calling for any airline industry bailout to be combined with specific protections for consumers. McConnell's plan would mandate that companies receiving assistance under the act do not increase compensation for, or provide so-called golden parachutes to, executives over a two-year period from the date of enactment. This time around it's not the financial system in distress, but the business side and for companies of many different sizes, which will require multiple kinds of solutions, Rattner said. The biggest companies, that are otherwise healthy, should get money on terms that carry the true interest costs where smaller companies, particularly those that might fail, should get easier terms or even direct government investment, he said. "The government is going to need to provide capital to these companies because you don't want them to simply shut down and liquidate because you'll never get them put back together again when we get to the other side of this," Rattner said. The White House's top economic adviser, Larry Kudlow, cautioned that the idea of equity stakes was just one of many, and that the ultimate form of the coronavirus stimulus legislation would depend on what emerged from negotiations with Congress. "This thing is one day at a time," he said Thursday. Furman cautioned that any restrictions or conditions should be clearly spelled out up front and not stray too far from the bailout's circumstances. For example, he said, an airline bailout might require the company to maintain essential air service, keep payrolls at a certain level and limit management compensation. But it makes the action too complicated to set conditions that stray to "unrelated hobby horses" like wage increases for workers or emissions reductions, he said. "No one thinks it's the hotels and airlines' fault, though maybe you think they should have been more prepared," Furman said. "There's no villain this time." Equity stakes in the large, publicly traded companies make sense to assure taxpayers benefit from the rebound and limit the cost to the federal government. Auto companies didn't face any operational interference from the Obama administration, and Republican administrations are even more wary of interfering in business decisions, Furman added. "Last time we were able to structure it so we didn't lose much money," Furman said, though he thinks the bailouts will cost more this time. The so-called Troubled Asset Relief Program, or TARP, ultimately distributed $443 billion of the $700 billion allocated in assistance for banks, the auto industry and mortgage assistance, most of which was repaid to the government. The ultimate cost to taxpayers was $31 billion, according to an April 2019 report by the Congressional Budget Office. A TARP 2 might need to be as big as $3 trillion with a combination of direct bailouts for failing companies and more general investments to shore up the overall market confidence, said another top adviser to the auto industry bailout in 2009 who did not want to be named because he is considering suggesting a strategy to the administration. The government might want to consider buying up stakes of as much as 5% of all companies to put a bottom to the market decline, the person said. The payoff from warrants in the bailout companies as well as the anticipated future gain in stock investments would probably pay most of the costs of the program. Investments, much like after the 2009 bailouts, could be wound down over a year to avoid depressing market values, the person added. The most controversial discussion so far has been a bailout of the airline industry and Boeing Co. Airlines may need $58 billion in aid as travel demand collapses because of the virus, the trade group representing large carriers, Airlines for America, said in a memo on Monday outlining urgent needs. "We're experiencing massive upheaval across our economy and there's virtually no aspect of the transportation sector that isn't hurting right now,' said Rep. Pete DeFazio, an Oregon Democrat and chairman of the House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee. "Airline workers have been on the front line of this crisis since flights were cut off between the U.S. and China, and at this moment, 750,000 of those jobs are now in jeopardy." Still, Congress can't repeat past bailout mistakes such as after 9/11 when when airlines took taxpayer-funded relief, only to turn around and file for bankruptcy anyway, or 2008 when U.S. taxpayers bailed out companies that were "too big to fail," then saw executives award themselves bonuses and golden parachutes "while workers got screwed," he said. Austan Goolsbee, an Obama economic adviser who helped with auto recovery and later became chairman of the White House Council of Economic Advisers, said the most important thing is to slow the spread of the virus or test people widely enough that the country doesn't need to lock down. He also said it is crucial to set out a framework to decide which companies get rescued and which don't and set proper controls before the money is allocated. "By far the most important thing is to slow the spread of the virus." he said. "It is the spread of the virus that has put us in lockdown. And the lockdown is destroying the economy," Goolsbee said. "A rescue without a recovery is not a rescue -- It's just money that you've spent. They can have a trillion dollars or $2 trillion dollars, they will burn through the money and be back for more unless they stop the virus." - - - Disclaimer: Steven Rattner is the Chairman and CEO of Willett Advisors, which manages Michael Bloomberg's personal and philanthropic assets. Bloomberg is the founder and majority owner of Bloomberg LP, the parent company of Bloomberg News. OTTAWAFailing to comply with Newfoundlands COVID-19 restrictions could land you in jail, while other provinces would let you off with a stern talking to. Prince Edward Island is closing its liquor stores, while Ontario is keep its booze shops open. Nine provinces have now declared states of emergency in the COVID-19 pandemic. But not Nova Scotia. Prime Minister Justin Trudeau has shown unease over taking the extraordinary step of granting the federal government emergency powers for the first time since his father did so during the October crisis of 1970. Asked Tuesday about the possibility, he said the federal government is looking at other ways for Ottawa to take action without having to bring in a state of emergency. But the provinces patchwork response to COVID-19, and the rising number of cases in the country, may soon mean the prime minister has no choice, said Jack Rozdilsky, an emergency management professor at York University. The virus doesnt respect borders, the virus doesnt respect forms of government, said Rozdilsky. The virus will spread as it spreads. Is it within the range of possibilities in order to give us every tool we need to prevent lives (being lost), can this perhaps be a very narrow circumstance where portions of the Emergencies Act can be implemented for the first time? There is an urgent need for more overarching direction from Ottawa, said Goldy Hyder, the president of the Business Council of Canada, calling the countrys smorgasbord response to the crisis too quintessentially Canadian in respecting provincial jurisdictions. If we want to mitigate this health crisis, we have to shut down, Hyder said. Lets not let this thing run away from us. Under the Emergencies Act the successor to the War Measures Act, which was invoked by Pierre Trudeau in 1970 the federal government can restrict Canadians travel, requisition private property, evacuate people from hot spots and take over the distribution of goods. For instance, Ottawa could convert the Rogers Centre into a temporary hospital. It could press certain people medical students across the country, for instance into delivering essential services. While those powers can be wielded in a crisis, they are by nature anti-democratic. And the decision to assume them is not without risk, according to University of Ottawa national security law professor Craig Forcese. Emergency law can actually be quite dangerous. There are many states on the face of this planet who have been in persistent states of emergency for some time usually political emergencies and it can be very corrosive of civil liberties and rights, Forcese said Thursday on A Podcast Called Intrepid, a program on Canadian national security issues. I think, going in, we need to be cognizant of the implications of some of these powers for the coherence of our civil society, and the implications especially for vulnerable portions of that population. So far, Trudeau says Ottawa already has the powers it needs to properly respond to the crisis. As the country has seen in the past week, theres a lot the federal government can do without resorting to extreme measures shutting down Canadas borders, pushing forward an $82 billion support package, suspending and recalling Parliament. Colleen Flood, a research chair in health policy and law at the University of Ottawa, said so long as provinces and territories are following the best advice from health care experts in their jurisdictions, the federal government should have little recourse to grant itself emergency powers. What really matters is what the public health evidence is about the spread of the contagion, and if the variability (in provincial responses) is actually causing a threat to other provinces or as the country as a whole, Flood said. If not, the variability is neither here nor there. The federal government used the War Measures Act to put soldiers on the streets in Quebec during the October Crisis of 1970, and to allow for the internment of Japanese-Canadians during the Second World War. Neither decision has aged well. We are very aware that the Emergencies Act is a measure of last resort, which does grant extraordinary powers to the federal government, Deputy Prime Minister Chrystia Freeland said on Tuesday. We began a discussion of it today, and we are also very aware that it could never be invoked without consultation with the provinces. With files from Heather Scoffield Read more about: When you cant go out to venues for live music, you can at least think about past shows and the great entertainers who have come to Connecticut in the past few years and spoken with reporters about their world. Heres a few quotes from our interviews in the Go section: Actress Bianca Horn, featured in The Play That Goes Wrong at the Shubert Theatre last fall, had words about the play that could just as well apply to 2020, or The Year That Went Wrong: During rehearsals, you could be having a horrible day on the subway, you didnt sleep a wink last night, but the second you get on that stage and someone begins to do something special, all you can do is laugh and chuckle. Its the magic of laughter; it truly heals. Frankie Valli, who was at Mohegan Sun in November, talked about the great songs of the 1960s. Today he said, everythings become a big production. The kind of performers I grew up listening to where guys like Sinatra and Billy Eckstein and Sarah Vaughn... the tail end of the Big Band era. And kids today really dont realize what they missed. ... Today there are 28 dancers, lights and fire, rockets... you lose that personal touch. I so miss the small venues, like the clubs... some of the theaters throughout Connecticut, Wallingford, Conn. (Oakdale). You would go there for a week at a time. Nashville-based and Middlefield-raised country duo Presley & Taylor talked about their hometown support before coming home to play the Durham Fair in 2019: Lyman Orchards in Middlefield has hosted the duo more than once, they said. Likewise the Durham Fair, said Taylor: I mean, anyone who lives in Middlefield or Durham knows that. ... Presley and I grew up running around the Durham Fair with our friends. Jethro Tulls Ian Anderson, who played at Mohegan Sun in mid-September, told us how he came up with Aqualung: He said it began with him sitting in a Holiday Inn room in 1970 New York City with his guitar. It was kind of eureka moment where you just find a passage of notes, very few notes, that just suddenly jump out out at you, Anderson said. So I had this Da-da-da-da-DAH-DUM, and that led me on through ... an unusual progression of chords to find in rock music or pop music. ... And at that point, I didnt have any lyrics and I got Martin Barre over to my room and said, Ive got this song idea coming and Ill play you a line. Barre didnt get it at first, and Anderson later found the words with help from his first wife, who had taken photos of homeless men in a London park. (Sitting on a park bench...) Ahead of a February 2019 gig at Bridgeports Stress Factory, we asked Andrew Dice Clay about the Donald Trump-led Celebrity Apprentice 2 a decade ago, Clay says, I dont talk politics but then goes on to tell a story about how he once enticed Donald Trump to fix the roof of his sisters Brooklyn apartment building as a sweetener for a Dice performance deal at Trumps Atlantic City casinos. In his standup, Clay says Trump stole his act during his presidential campaign. I find it funny, he says. He has the Dice attitude and he wears the Rodney Dangerfield outfit, with the red tie. And then there were these words from a somewhat-simpler time last May, when Cedric the Entertainer was discussing his modern-issue but old-school sitcom The Neighborhood on commercial network CBS: We understand that you can get edge in a million places, with the growth of Netflix, Hulu and all these streamers, Cedric said. Theres so many shows with snarky attitudes and everything, but the idea ... (of his show) is get to know the person. Like, know who youre talking to first. Dont make these assumptions. ...We come to know each other and now you have communication, understanding conversation and then you have growth. Nairobi-based DJ shot by MP Babu Owino is recovering well after a successful third surgery. This is according to DJ Shock, who has been keeping in touch with the family of DJ Evolve. He is still recovering but only his mother is allowed to be close to him, other visitors wave from the outside of the glass, Shock said. This was after his third surgery so the wound can heal as quickly as possible. Shock noted that Evolves mother has to wear a mask and apron when she enters his ward, but, Its not to do with Covid-19. This was the protocol even before it was in the country. He added: Yes, the nurses clean the wound every five days, as he now has movement in his arms. Eventually, his legs will respond as well. I believe, too, he will make a full recovery. Evolves family is, however, wary of the soaring hospital bill that is reportedly almost hitting the Sh13 million mark. Evolve was shot in the neck by Embakasi East MP Babu Owino at B Club in Kilimani, Nairobi on 16th January. Also Read: Babu Owino: DJ Evolve Shooting is Between Me and God Should Charleston area restaurants, bars, and breweries be able to deliver alcoholic beverages during the coronavirus pandemic? South Carolina on Saturday didn't go quite that far, but an executive order suspending a portion of the state's liquor law will allow customers to pick up beer and wine in sealed containers, either from within licensed venues or at the curbside. The order issued by Gov. Henry McMaster did not adjust any laws pertaining to hard alcohol. Also according to the governor's office, while the order lifts the longstanding prohibition on beer and wine sales to "anyone who remains in a motor vehicle," it doesn't apply to drivers for third-party delivery services, such as UberEats. Bartenders, restaurateurs and brewery owners reeling from the severe downturn in demand caused by the COVID-19 outbreak in South Carolina had lobbied for the Palmetto State to follow the lead of other jurisdictions nationally and relax its rules about how their businesses can sell alcohol. "Our breweries and brewpubs are teetering, and were not sure for how long theyre going to be able to hold on," said Brook Bristow, executive director of the South Carolina Brewers Guild. On Thursday, the guild sent Gov. Henry McMaster a letter requesting help in "mitigat(ing) some of the catastrophic economic damage that is certainly to come to our industry." "We're looking for any solution including delivery and drive-thru service to allow them a chance to weather this storm," Bristow said. So far, a handful of states have suspended or revised their laws and regulations to allow alcohol sales via delivery, including California, New York, Texas, New Hampshire, Maryland, Illinois, Montana and Washington. More are considering the move. "We have to be fluid. We have to do everything we can to help our licensees weather this storm," a Maryland state official told U.S. News & World Report on Thursday, explaining the decision. Craft breweries in Charleston have seen sales plummet thanks to a one-two punch to their revenue: not only are their taprooms closed, but so are the bars that buy cans and kegs. Loosening rules around delivery wouldn't replace that volume, but "I think it would be a good step," said Jaime Tenny, co-owner of COAST Brewing in North Charleston. Beyond breweries, Charleston restaurateurs hope that alcohol delivery could replace lost revenues and act as a partial lifeline, as it has in states, like New York, that have moved to permit it. "I think it would for sure" be beneficial, said Matt Tunstall, co-owner of Stems & Skins in North Charleston, of the ability to deliver alcohol. "If the law allowed, I would jump right into it." His Park Circle business, like virtually all S.C. restaurants and bars, operates under an on-premise license. That classification does allow for to-go sales of unopened alcoholic beverages, but the customer must walk up to the business to make their purchase, as opposed to a worker handing them a six-pack while they sit in the car. Before the coronavirus pandemic, many Charleston-area restaurants and bars didn't bother with to-go sales, because their markup a vital source of revenue for these thin-margined operations makes their prices less competitive than retailers. But in a crisis, some restaurateurs hope that the delivery option (which has never been permitted under this license) would appeal to customers hoping to support their favorite establishments. "It would be significant potentially," said Max Kuller, owner of downtown Charleston's Estadio. "Every cent coming in is big to support our fixed costs." Expanded delivery options might prove most useful to restaurants, which can up-sell wine or beer alongside a food purchase, than it is to pure bars that make their money strictly on single-serving drink sales. "It would be somewhat complicated to navigate as a bar," said Sarah Griffith, general manager of Cutty's Elliottborough Establishment, a popular downtown dive. While the bar has a lot of inventory that it can't sell, she continued, "we aren't set up for delivery." GamesRadar+ is supported by its audience. When you purchase through links on our site, we may earn an affiliate commission. Learn more Delhi: Four men sentenced to death for the gruesome gang rape and murder of a woman on a Delhi bus in 2012 were hanged on Friday, concluding a case that exposed the scope of sexual violence in India and prompted horrified Indians to demand swift justice. The four stood trial relatively quickly in India's slow-moving justice system, their convictions and sentences handed down less than a year after the crime. India's top court upheld the verdicts in 2017, finding the men's crimes had created a "tsunami of shock" among Indians. Asha Devi, mother of the victim of the fatal 2012 gang rape on a moving bus, displays a victory sign after the rapists of her daughter were hanged, in Delhi. Credit:AP "The four convicts were hanged together at 5.30am," said Sandeep Goel, head of the Tihar Jail in Delhi. The victim, a 23-year-old physiotherapy student, was heading home with a male friend from a movie theater when six men tricked them onto a private bus. With no one else in sight, they beat her friend and repeatedly raped the woman. They penetrated her with a metal rod, causing fatal internal injuries. They dumped both victims on the roadside, and the woman died two weeks later. By Devoun Cetoute The Miami Herald A 34-year-old Los Angeles County man who died shortly after testing positive for COVID-19 had traveled to Walt Disney World and Universal Orlando in early March, reports say. On Saturday, Jeffrey Ghazarians sister Lauren posted on his Facebook page, saying he had tested positive for coronavirus yesterday and was admitted to the ICU early this morning. He has pneumonia and his lungs are blocked so theyve decided the best path forward is to intubate. Ghazarians family spoke to TMZ and said he flew from Los Angeles to Orlando on March 2 for a work conference, but stayed a few extra days to visit Disney World and Universal theme parks with friends before returning on March 9. Before flying back, he developed a cough and was coughing up blood. Reached by telephone, Alison Ghazarian Fleming, another family member, confirmed Thursday that Ghazarian had died but declined to comment further. She said TMZ had misrepresented the truth, but did not specify how. Walt Disney World and Universal Orlando closed their Florida parks on March 15 due to concerns about the coronavirus. They will be closed for the rest of March. Universal Orlando Resort said Thursday, Our thoughts are with this gentleman and his family. As is always the case -- we will take our guidance from local health officials. A Disney spokesperson said in a statement, We offer our deepest condolences to the family of Mr. Ghazarian. We continue to monitor the COVID-19 situation and remain in regular contact with health agencies for information and guidance. The Florida Department of Health did not respond to requests for comment about Ghazarians travels to Florida, and the California Department of Public Health said it could not provide any details due to patient confidentiality. On Thursday, the Los Angeles County Department of Public Health announced that the second death in the county was a man between 30 and 50 years old who lived in a small community near Pasadena, KTLA 5 reported. Ghazarian was diagnosed with testicular cancer in early 2016, according to GoFundMe and Facebook posts. Lauren, his sister, posted daily updates on her brothers battle with COVID-19. On Saturday, she said he was in stable condition taking antibiotics and on a ventilator. He started on antiviral medication later that day. On Sunday, his oxygen levels dropped and doctors initiated a protocol for acute respiratory distress syndrome (ARDS). He later stabilized. On Monday, an infectious disease medical doctor approved him to be put on Remdesivir IV, an antiviral that is used for Ebola and is showing a good response for other coronavirus patients, one post said. On Tuesday, the family finally received the antiviral drug, but on Wednesday his oxygen needs began fluctuating. On Thursday, a final post read: Our sweet, loving, fun Jeffrey went to be with Jesus this morning. He suffered a lot and put up a good fight. We will miss our Jeff everyday but we are thankful for all the fun happy memories of the times we had together. Thank you to everyone who has been praying. We love you all. As scientists scramble to find a cure for the coronavirus disease (Covid-19), the widely used anti-malarial drugs chloroquine and hydroxychloroquine have emerged as promising candidates. To be sure, large controlled clinical trials are needed to provide evidence of how well these drugs work, but anti-malarials have been among the medley of drug regimens clinicians in China, South Korea, France and Italy have been using at scale with some success to treat people severely ill with Covid-19, which has affected close to 250,000 people and killed at least 10,000 around the world. US President Donald Trump referred to the drugs on Thursday and went as far as to indicate that a treatment using chloroquine/ hydroxychloroquine will possibly be rolled out first in New York, which has been roiled by the infection. As of Thursday, New York City had around 4,000 cases of people infected with the virus and seen 26 deaths. Trump said about the treatment: I think its going to be very promising. It could be a game changer. And maybe not. Based on what I see, it could be a game changer. Theyre very powerful. To be sure, the US Food and Drug Administration was quick to clarify that extensive studies were needed to understand the efficacy of these drugs in combating Covid-19. Interestingly, on Thursday, a French study published in the International Journal of Antimicrobial Agents found that a combination of anti-malarial drugs and an antibiotic may be effective against Covid-19. Chloroquine, discovered in 1934 by Hans Andersag, who was, at the time, working for Terman drugmaker Bayer, is a synthesized version of quinine, itself derived from the Cinchona plant. To date, no drug has been approved to treat the new coronavirus, which causes potentially fatal complications in about 5% of the people infected. The treatment strategy has been based on hit-or-miss combinations. Close to a dozen drugs are in various stages of clinical trials in China. Only one antiretroviral called remdesivir, which was in trials against Ebola and the Mers coronavirus that causes the Middle East Respiratory Syndrome, is on trial in the US. Chloroquine is a generic drug that is safe and cheap and has been used to treat malaria since World War II. It works like quinine, which the British added to tonic in the belief that it would give them blanket protection against malaria, which is still endemic in many states in India. It is an inexpensive drug and widely available. India has so far approved the combination of two antiviral drugs used to treat HIV, lopinavir and ritonavir (400 mg and 100 mg, respectively) to treat Covid-19. The first major study of Covid-19 treatments found it did not work on severely ill patients in China. Treatment with lopinavir-ritonavir was not associated with a difference from standard care in the time to clinical improvement, said the report on a randomised, controlled trial on 199 hospitalised patients in China that was published in The New England Journal of Medicine (NEJM) on Wednesday. A new NEJM paper found antiretrovirals are not working, so we urgently need additional options to treat critically-ill people. We need to go with repurposed drugs as much as possible and then look for new molecules and treatment, said Gagandeep Kang, director, Translational Health Science and Technology Institute, Faridabad. Several countries asked people to avoid ibuprofen for fever and pain after a study in The Lancet Respiratory Medicine said an enzyme boosted by anti-inflammatory drugs such as ibuprofen could facilitate and worsen Covid-19 infections. Ibuprofen could be a factor in worsening the infection, said Frances health minister Olivier Veran in a tweet in French, and recommended those with fevers to use paracetamol. While the World Health Organisation (WHO) on Wednesday said that based on currently available information, WHO does not recommend against the use of ibuprofen, limited clinical data available on Covid-19 treatment and disease progression has led clinicians to caution against self-medication, saying it is best to use paracetamol for pain and fever, as is in done to treat symptoms of dengue fever. More evidence-based treatment must be fast-tracked to save lives. Given the sharp increase in the number of cases and deaths, we need multi-centric drug trials on the most effective drug combinations. With adequate recruitment of patients, a multi-country study can be completed in six months, said Dr K Srinath Reddy, president, Public Health Foundation of India. As of now, the malarial drugs hold out hope and only that. SHARE THIS ARTICLE ON PR-Inside.com: 2020-03-20 13:32:13 Press Information Published by ACCESSWIRE News Network 888.952.4446 e-mail http://www.accesswire.com # 856 Words ACCESSWIRE News Network888.952.4446 VANCOUVER, BC / ACCESSWIRE / March 20, 2020 / ParcelPal Technology Inc. ("ParcelPal" or the "Company"), (PKG:CSE)(FSE:PT0)(OTCPINK:PTNYF) is pleased to announce the appointment of Rich Wheeless as its Chief Financial Officer. Mr. Wheeless has also been appointed to the Board of Directors of the Company (the "Board"). Mr. Wheeless has over 15 years of financial leadership and corporate management experience working across various industry sectors and in both public and private enterprise. He holds a Master of Business Administration with honors from Otterbein University and a Bachelor of Science in Finance from Miami University.Mr. Wheeless has been an active investor, advisor, and/or board member for numerous privately-held companies. Most recently, he was the CFO of publicly traded company Taal Distributed Information Technologies Inc. (previously Squire Mining Ltd.). Prior to that, he was the Chief Financial Officer for the security software company Rivetz, Inc. Previous to that, he was the CFO of LaunchKey, Inc. and the CFO of Pilus Energy, which were both acquired by publicly traded companies.Previously, he was Director of Finance and Assistant Treasurer of Xtek, Inc. (one of the United States' fastest growing privately owned manufacturers of customer engineered steel replacement parts). He has also held managerial posts at Johnson and Johnson, as well as Cardinal Health, both Fortune 30 companies. Mr. Wheeless originally started his career in the private equity division at Citigroup, another Fortune 30 company. He has extensive experience in the areas of mergers and acquisitions, credit, treasury, corporate finance, financial reporting, and operations.Mr. Wheeless replaces Devon Brown, the current CFO and a director of ParcelPal, who has resigned effective today. The Company wants to thank Devon for his dedication and hard work. Devon will still advise the company time to time and help with the full transition."I am very excited to be joining the Company at this critical stage of growth," commented incoming CFO Rich Wheeless. "We are continuing to expand into numerous markets and are poised to become a dominant force in the industry." CEO and President Kelly Abbott Stated, "The entire team is extremely excited to have Rich on board. He has extensive experience in technology and finance and will play a key role in ParcelPal as we expand and grow." Abbott Continued, "I would like to thank Devon for his time at ParcelPal, the Company would not be where it is today without his efforts. I wish him all the best in his future endeavors." About ParcelPal Technology Inc.ParcelPal is a leader in the growing technology and logistics industry. ParcelPal seamlessly connects consumers to businesses, where they have access to the goods they love, anytime, anywhere. Customers can shop at partner businesses and through the ParcelPal technology receive their purchased goods within an hour or the same day. The Company offers on-demand delivery of merchandise from leading retailers, restaurants, medical marijuana dispensaries and liquor stores in Vancouver, Calgary, Saskatoon and soon in major cities Canada-wide.ParcelPal Website: www.parcelpal.com The Canadian Securities Exchange ("CSE") or any other securities regulatory authority has not reviewed and does not accept responsibility for the adequacy or accuracy of this news release that has been prepared by management.CSE - Symbol: PKGFSE - Symbol: PT0OTC - Symbol: PTNYFContact: re:Investor Inquiries -info@ parcelpal.com Forward Looking InformationThis news release contains forward looking statements relating to the Proposed Transaction, and the future potential of ParcelPal. Forward looking statements are often identified by terms such as "will", "may", "should", "intends", "anticipates", "expects", "plans" and similar expressions. All statements other than statements of historical fact, included in this release are forward looking statements that involve risks and uncertainties. These risks and uncertainties include, without limitation, the risk that the Proposed Transaction will not be completed due to, among other things, failure to execute definitive documentation, failure to complete satisfactory due diligence, failure to receive the approval of the CSE and the risk that ParcelPal will not be successful due to, among other things, general risks relating to the mobile application industry, failure of ParcelPal to gain market acceptance and potential challenges to the intellectual property utilized in ParcelPal. There can be no assurance that any forward-looking statements will prove to be accurate and actual results and future events could differ materially from those anticipated in such statements.The Company cannot guarantee that any forward-looking statement will materialize, and the reader is cautioned not to place undue reliance on any forward-looking information. Such information, although considered reasonable by management at the time of preparation, may prove to be incorrect and actual results may differ materially from those anticipated. Forward looking statements contained in this news release are expressly qualified by this cautionary statement. The forward-looking statements contained in this news release are made as of the date of this news release and the Company will only update or revise publicly any of the included forward looking statements as expressly required by Canadian securities laws.SOURCE: ParcelPal Technology Inc. The United States and Mexico are working on a plan to close their border to non-essential travel due to the coronavirus pandemic, the State Department said Thursday. The move comes as similar measures are expected to come into force along the northern border with Canada by Saturday. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo and Mexico's Foreign Secretary Marcelo Luis Ebrard Casaubon spoke on "coordinating a plan to restrict non-essential travel across our shared border in response to the COVID-19 pandemic," State Department spokeswoman Morgan Ortagus said. "The two leaders discussed the importance of creating a uniform North American strategy to reduce public health risks to our communities and more effectively address rising challenges jointly." Pompeo tweeted that he had been working closely with Ebrard "on travel restrictions that balance protecting our citizens from further transmission of COVID19." "Together, we can reduce public health risks and prioritize essential cross-border commerce and trade." In a tweet, Ebrard said he would reveal more details of the closure on Friday. The measure follows similar US moves to bar visitors from most of Europe, China and other parts of the world as its number of coronavirus cases surges. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) Flash Some US politicians attempting to politicize the novel coronavirus have come under fire as officials, scientists and experts on international relations warned that such stigmatization would undermine international solidarity in containing the pandemic. The warning came after some senior US officials connected the virus with China. They include US President Donald Trump, who described the coronavirus as the "Chinese virus" on social media and a White House media briefing, although Director Robert Redfield of the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said using the word Chinese as a way to describe the coronavirus is wrong. On Monday, Yang Jiechi, a member of the Political Bureau of the Communist Party of China Central Committee, told US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo that Beijing strongly opposes and condemns certain politicians' slanderous stigmatization of China as it fights the novel coronavirus pneumonia outbreak. Yang, who is also director of the Office of the Foreign Affairs Commission of the CPC Central Committee, said any attempt by the US to discredit China will not succeed and any act that undermines the interests of the country will be resolutely fought by the Chinese side. During telephone conversations with the foreign ministers of Singapore, Russia and the Netherlands as well as Indonesia's coordinating minister for maritime affairs and investment on Wednesday, State Councilor and Foreign Minister Wang Yi said that China strongly opposes labeling the virus with the name of a country as it is disgraceful, immoral and unfair. Such a move will divide the international community, Wang said, adding that it does not help efforts to unite countries in the battle against the spread of the pandemic, nor will it contribute to the disease prevention and control efforts in the US. The three foreign ministers also expressed their opposition to the stigmatization of China. The World Health Organization gave the pneumonia caused by the novel coronavirus the generic name COVID-19 on Feb 11 to avoid stigmatizing a country or particular group, choosing a name that doesn't refer to a geographical location, animals, an individual or a group of people. WHO officials have warned against calling COVID-19 the "Chinese virus", saying that it could lead to racial profiling. At a media briefing on COVID-19 at the headquarters of the United Nations body on Wednesday, Mike Ryan, executive director of the WHO's health emergencies program, said: "It's really important that we be careful in the language we use. "The pandemic of influenza in 2009 originated in North America, and we didn't call it the 'North American flu'," Ryan said. "So it's important that we have the same approach when it comes to other viruses." "This is a time for solidarity, this is a time for facts, this is a time to move forward together, to fight this virus together. There is no blame in this," he said."All we need now is to identify the things we need to do to move forward quickly, with speed and to avoid any indication of ethnic or other associations with this virus." London Breed, the mayor of San Francisco, said references to the virus that causes COVID-19 as a "Chinese virus" are "offensive and counterproductive". "There is never an excuse for xenophobia. Coronavirus is a global pandemic that is affecting all of us, and it requires all of us to listen to public health experts and respond together," Breed said in a statement. Zhong Nanshan, the prominent Chinese expert on respiratory diseases, said at a news conference on Wednesday that although Wuhan, the hardest-hit Chinese city, first reported the outbreak, there is no evidence that the city is the source of the virus that caused COVID-19. A lot more needs to be understood about COVID-19 and international cooperation is important in fields such as drug development, he said. Scientists have discovered through clinical records and genetic tracing that the Huanan Seafood Market in Wuhan may not be the source of the virus after all, according to the journal Lancet and other follow-up studies. The market might just serve as a jumping-off point where the virus emerged and began infecting a wider public, but who or what brought the virus to the market in the first place remained unknown, scientists noted. The Foreign Ministry has reiterated on many occasions that China believes that the origin of the virus is a matter of science which requires a professional and science-based assessment. Li Haidong, an international relations professor at China Foreign Affairs University, said that playing the blame game might help politicians divert public attention from their own lackluster response to the outbreak and alleviate social pressure in the short run, but people will eventually catch on. "Those who are pointing fingers now will soon realize this pandemic is a common challenge that must be addressed through honest and constructive collaboration," Li said. John Ross, former director of economic and business policy for the mayor of London, said in an article that through the determined fight against the virus, China created a window of opportunity of almost two months for the rest of the world before the coronavirus began to significantly spread outside the nation, but this time was wasted. Instead of learning the positive lessons of China's ability to control the virus, the US government and the Western media engaged in anti-China propaganda, said Ross, a senior fellow at the Chongyang Institute for Financial Studies of Renmin University of China. "The bitter truth is that people in the West now face a medical, human and economic disaster due in significant part to this anti-China propaganda," he added. In this ongoing series, we are sharing advice, tips and insights from real entrepreneurs who are out there doing business battle on a daily basis. (Answers have been edited and condensed for clarity.) What is your business and how long have you been running it? My name is Vincent Martino. In 2010, Kent Ivanoff and I co-founded VisitPay, a company that transforms the patient billing experience for U.S. healthcare providers. Through our machine learning-based approach, we personalize the billing experience for the patient, providing them custom payment options, resulting in significantly higher patient satisfaction and more revenue for our health provider clients. What problem are you solving for? Today medical billing is a lose-lose situation for patients and health providers. For patients, the process is often confusing, paper-based and time-consuming. Its a source of real frustration and stress in households across the country. Consequently, providers are getting paid a small amount of what they are owed. Given most U.S. healthcare systems are not-for-profit organizations, a lower margin translates directly into lower investment in new healthcare services for communities. Today patients are responsible for more of their healthcare costs than ever before, creating a real problem at a significant scale in just about every city in the U.S. Related: How to Launch Your Product Without Sinking Your Savings Was there a particular moment that led you to launch this idea? My co-founder and I were formerly executives with Capital One Financial. In the summer of 2009, as the Affordable Care Act moved through Congress, we believed the patient portion of medical bills would grow dramatically as a result of the forthcoming legislation. Our hypothesis was that patients would need to have more and longer-term options to pay their bills, and providers would need the tools to both customize the billing experience for patients and manage a much larger receivables portfolio. We believed that the best practices of consumer finance, which we knew from our Capital One days, would drive the ultimate solution, but we also knew that healthcare billing was complex and we couldn't just "bolt on" these best practices. We needed a partner and test lab where we could truly integrate consumer finance best practices with healthcare billing processes. Describe the process of getting your first customer. We felt it was very important to find a customer which I would call a partner that would work with us and provide an environment where we could immerse ourselves in healthcare billing. We pitched our idea to several large health systems, and fortunately, a large health system in our backyard of Boise, Idaho, signed as our first customer. This system had a very visionary CFO he was also very pragmatic and knew that while we were experts in consumer finance, we needed to learn the healthcare space from the inside out. I think the key is we were both willing to make sacrifices in our first deal. While we wanted to build scalable software and didn't want to be "consultants," we were willing to provide some services in order to gain access to the health system's billing practices and teams. This CFO gave us a lot of room to learn his systems and invested time with us (both him personally and his teams) as we formed the initial concept of our solution Can you describe the process of developing and iterating on your concept? Since first designing the VisitPay solution, weve taken a Human-Centered Design (HCD) approach to building the product. We engaged directly with patients in multiple settings to understand their needs and also to understand the "breakpoints" in the billing process. Once we built our first solution and understood its strengths and weaknesses, we were very willing to keep the parts that did work, throw away the ones that didn't and build new products based on our insights. While the first product was really good it drove a 70% increase in patient satisfaction and a 30% increase in patient payments we were never satisfied with good as we gained insights from consumers on how to make it even better. Said a different way, we weren't wed to the past and weren't afraid to dismantle our old product to build a new one. In the first four years of deploying our solution, we completely rewrote the solution two times, and each new version brought higher satisfaction and payments. For our newer clients who onboard with our current version, we have seen payment rates increase by as much as 110% and patient satisfaction triple over industry norms. What benefits does being headquartered in a city like Boise bring? Boise isnt the first city that comes to mind when people think of startups. But Boise, and Idaho in general, is growing very quickly. People move here primarily for quality-of-life reasons: Housing is affordable, commute times are reasonable, the community is generally safe and friendly and theres incredible year-round outdoor recreation right on our doorstep. As a rule, people who live in Boise love living here. From an employment perspective, that means we tend to have a pretty happy workforce who like being part of their community and are committed to helping grow the company. While the startup ecosystem here is expanding, we have very strong employee loyalty with low staff turnover. And we havent found it hard to attract really smart people to relocate here from traditional tech hubs like Seattle, Austin and the Bay Area. Among the leadership team at VisitPay, theres also a determination to build a company of national importance from the relative obscurity of a state like Idaho: to bust the myth that you need to be on the East or West Coast to succeed in a venture-funded tech growth company. How do you keep in-house staffers and remote workers on the same page? Were hugely into process discipline. Like many technology companies, we use agile development methods in two-week sprints. Our health provider clients are often surprised how fast we can turn around system updates and configurations compared with the legacy technologies many of them use. Just about our whole company works in some form of agile methodology, whatever department theyre in. We complement process discipline with a small set of core technologies like Slack, Jira/Confluence and Zoom that everyone uses to stay on the same page whether they are in Boise or not. Consistency of technology and process helps keep the working environment frictionless wherever we are. Related: These Music Innovators Are Shredding The Industry's Obsession With The Past Can you talk about any aspects of your corporate culture that have aided you in finding success? One of the most important aspects of our culture that weve managed to keep intact from the beginning is a learning mentality. We always want to learn and to do better, and we always turn to data to help us understand. Were not afraid to shift course if the data backs it up, and were not afraid to make mistakes if it means we find our way to a better place. It means that were a genuinely failure-tolerant place to work, unlike other work environments Ive experienced. As a result, weve created an egalitarian culture where I think any of our employees feel empowered to bring new ideas forward. And it means we dont get stuck based on past decisions weve made. Weve also learned that you can only see so far ahead, and to be OK with that. People equate being an entrepreneur with having some searing far-sightedness where the future is suddenly anticipated and understood in a very complete way. We knew we found a big problem space, and we knew we had the skills (and could get the data) to do something about it. But anyone who claims they predicted exactly how the journey would work out is unlikely to be telling the whole truth. Its obviously important to look ahead and debate what the future might be, but its no substitute for putting one foot in front of the other and building your way there. Make a call, move, understand what happened, learn. And then do it all over again, and again. Having done this a couple of times now, any words of advice for people out there with a great software or platform idea? What do you wish you knew before you started on your first venture? I see these two questions as going hand in hand. Raising capital is really important, and particularly in software ventures. How you go about building the solution will dictate how much capital you need and will burn through. There are some companies that have an immediate sonic boom in terms of revenue, but those companies are few and far between. So my advice, especially in your early days, is to search continually for and build the minimally viable solution that you think answers the market need, get it out there, test it with real customers, and then only change it after some learning cycles. I've been part of three software startups, and in all three, we overbuilt software we threw away a lot of code that was either never used or just didn't fit the market need, or that we just built too quickly without enough learning. It's easy to say but hard to do keep focusing on the market need, build the minimal features to answer it, learn from it, then build more from there. Related: Have a Great Product? Don't Be Afraid to Dismantle It to Build a Better One. Looking for a Business Idea? Turn What Other People Complain About Into an Opportunity. How to Launch Your Product Without Sinking Your Savings Copyright 2020 Entrepreneur.com Inc., All rights reserved Officials in Colorado this afternoon announced that human remains found in Florida have been 'tentatively identified' as 11-year-old Gannon Stauch. The boy went missing from the Colorado Springs area on January 27. Stauch's stepmother, Letecia Stauch, 36, earlier this month was booked into the El Pasp County jail on counts of first-degree murder, child abuse resulting in death, tampering with a deceased human body and tampering with evidence. The El Paso County Sheriff's Office said they were contacted by the Santa Rosa County Sheriff's Office in Florida on Wednesday about the remains of a boy recovered in Pace, north of Pensacola. Boy's remains found in Florida have been tentatively identified as belonging to 11-year-old Colorado boy Gannon Stauch. His stepmother, Letecia Stauch (right), has been charged with his murder Letecia Stauch makes her first appearance in El Paso County District Court in Colorado Springs, Colo., Wednesday, March 11 The District One Medical Examiner performed an autopsy, which led to today's announcement. 'We would like to extend our deepest sympathies to the friends and family of Gannon,' a press release from the sheriff's office stated. TIMELINE OF GANNON STAUCH CASE: Jan. 27: Gannon Stauch is reported as a runaway; last seen by stepmother Letecia Stauch between 3.15 pm-4 pm Jan. 30: Case is upgraded to a missing and endangered childs case due to his age, need for medication, winter weather and the length of time hes been missing Jan. 31: Letecia Stauch gives interview to KKTV saying deputies had threatened to shoot her and put her 17-year-old daughter in handcuffs Feb. 4: Neighbor Roderrick Drayton shares surveillance video showing what appears to be Letecia returning home at 2.19pm without Gannon in her pickup truck; claims boy's father broke down in tears when he saw the video Feb. 5: District Attorney Dan May visits Stauchs home; Stauch family make YouTube statement to bring Gannon home Feb. 7: Searchers use submersible remotely operated vehicle with sonar to scour a pond near Stauch family's home Feb. 8: Candlelight prayer vigil is held at Lorson Ranch Feb. 11: Letecia Stauch releases statement to Fox 31 claiming Gannon was in her truck on Jan. 27 and that later left with a 'friend' Feb. 21: Ground search for Gannon is halted by investigation continues Feb 28: Planned search for Gannon is called off without explanation Mar 2 Letecia Stauch is arrested in connection to the case. Stauch was charged with murder of a child under 12 years of age by a person in a position of trust, child abuse resulting in death and tampering with a dead body. Authorities announce that they don't believe Gannon is alive, but they haven't found his body. The investigation is ongoing March 5: Letecia is extradited from South Carolina to El Paso County, Colorado March 18: Remains on a boy are found in Pace, Florida March 20: Autopsy performed on child's remains tentatively identify the deceased as Gannon Stauch Advertisement Letecia Stauch was arrested in South Carolina on March 2 and was later extradited back to Colorado to face charges of murder of a child under 12 years of age by a person in a position of trust, child abuse resulting in death and tampering with a dead body. She originally told authorities that she last saw her stepson between 3.15pm and 4pm on January 27. She said at the time that he was heading to a friend's house in Colorado Springs. Gannon was originally categorized as a runaway, before his case was upgraded to that of a missing/endangered person. But on the day of Letecia's arrest in South Carolina, police announced they no longer think he is alive. Police have not yet laid out their theory on what happened to him or where they believe he is. Gannon's father Albert released a statement at the time to say he was shocked by the news. 'My little boy is not coming home. We will never play Nintendo again. No more taco Tuesdays. No more smooth-looking hair cuts. And no more G-man for the world. 'The person who committed this heinous, horrible crime is one that I gave more to anyone else on this planet, and that is a burden that I will carry with me for a very long time,' it read. Surveillance video from a neighbor's home captured Stauch leaving the home with Gannon in her pickup truck at around 10.13am on January 27. However, when she returned at 2.19pm, Gannon is nowhere to be seen. Footage from 2.19pm to the time Gannon was reportedly last seen is not available, but the sheriff's office said earlier that officers had no surveillance video showing the boy leaving the property. After he watched the video, a friend said the boy's father 'just broke down and started saying 'she lied, she lied about the time.' In an interview before her arrest, Letecia insisted she had nothing to do with the boy's disappearance or death. 'After news of the video broke, Stauch gave an interview to KKTV, insisting that she played no part in her stepson's disappearance. 'I took care of Gannon for the last two years in our home because his mother didn't want to do it,' she said. Surveillance footage shared by a neighbor allegedly shows Gannon entering a car with his stepmother that morning but not returning with her that afternoon (pictured). However, when she returned at 2.19pm, Gannon is nowhere to be seen Gannon's devastated mother Landen Hoitt at a press conference on the day of Letecia's arrest on March 2 'I would never ever, ever hurt this child... these people have these conspiracy theories... I'm like: "Why are you saying Gannon is dead?" He is not dead. We are going to find Gannon.' During Letecia's initial court appearance in El Paso County on March 11, prosecutors said they have not ruled out the possibility of pursuing the death penalty against her. The stepmother is due back in court for a status conference on April 14. Katy ISD and Houston ISD students will begin transitioning to online learning systems Monday, March 23, after both districts recently announced campuses would remain closed through April 10 due to concerns over the spread of COVID-19.. Some schools already use online tools, such as Canvas and Google Classroom, to share assignments or supplemental resources with students. Houston ISD plans to implement a program called HISD Home-based Online Mobile Educations, also referred to as HISD @ H.O.M.E,, which will be accessible online to all students through each schools website or at www.houstonisd.org/home. Officials say the content can be used on laptops, desktops, tablets and smart phones. A webinar is being planned to help students and parents learn how to use the program. For students without online resoruces, campuses will be contacting parents to find out who will need paper-based curriculum resources, which the district is planning to provide. In addition, the Barbara Bush Houston Literacy Foundation recently donated 100,000 children's books to Houston ISD to help kids who may not have internet access or a computer. Related: Free meals available for Katy area children at 10 Katy ISD schools "What Im asking is trustees and parents is to be patient with us as we work through pushing out online learning and look at our paper-based instruction," Houston ISD interim Superintendent Grenita Lathan told trustees at a March 19 emergency meeting. Katy ISD students will begin transitioning on Monday, March 23, according to an update posted on the district website. The week-one goal is for teachers and students to reconnect and reengage with learning activities, lessons, and resources. Each week lessons will be provided for reading, writing, math, science, social studies, art, music and physical education. Some lessons will be self-directed, while others will be supported by classroom teachers. Fort Bend ISD Fort Bend ISD is also working to start an online learning initiative, but is taking a careful approach, superintendent Charles Dupre told parents in a video posted to the district website on March 20. Related: Fort Bend ISD extends school closures through April 10, superintendent says could last even longer Online learning is much more than simply recording lessons and posting online worksheets. We must establish viable ways to teach, assess student learning and give feedback to students, Dupre said. In the meantime, Fort Bend ISD students will have access to a webpage with online learning resources. The district is working to create how-to type videos with advice from teachers about topic such as daily schedules and how to talk to young children about uncertainty. Fort Bend, Katy and Houston ISD schools are scheduled to remain closed until mid-April currently. knix@hcnonline.com Noted Israeli historian Yuval Noah Harari, who accused Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of imposing 'coronavirus dictatorship' referring to a host of restrictions that have put the country in a near shutdown mode, has evoked sharp rebuke from Netanyahu's son, Yair, who said "clever professors can be stupid about politics". Netanyahu has coped criticism for allegedly exploiting the coronavirus outbreak to trample democratic institutions. Netanyahu is using the virus fear to postpone his pending criminal trial, authorise unprecedented electronic surveillance of citizens and blocked the Parliament from going ahead with legislation against his continuity in office. Harari on Thursday tweeted "coronavirus has killed democracy" in Hebrew and "the first coronavirus dictatorship" in English. "Netanyahu lost the elections. So under the pretext of fighting corona, he has closed the Israeli Parliament, ordered people to stay at their homes, and is issuing whatever emergency decrees he wishes. This is called a dictatorship," tweeted Harari, the author of bestsellers Sapiens: A Brief History of Humankind, Homo Deus: A Brief History of Tomorrow and 21 Lessons for the 21st Century. "In Italy, Spain and France emergency decrees are issued by a government that the people elected. This is legitimate. In Israel, emergency decrees are issued by someone who has no mandate from the people. This is a dictatorship," he wrote. Yair Netanyahu, 28, retorted saying Harari, a Hebrew University professor, was an example of why "clever professors can be stupid about politics," Ha'aretz Online reported. The right-wing activist compared Harari to Albert Einstein, who Yair claimed "didn't understand politics" and "opposed Zionism". According to reports, Yair argued as to how his father's ruling Likud Party won the March 2 election, beating rival Blue and White Party for its willingness to cooperate with the Joint List alliance of Arab Majority Parties after its leader Benny Gantz had promised not to do so during the election campaign. "Perhaps because [the joint list] includes people who glorify those who crush the skulls of babies," Yair said, explaining how the Likud Party won the election. Israeli President Reuven Rivlin on Monday gave Gantz the mandate to form the government after former chief of Israel Defence Forces (IDF) won the recommendation of 61 out of 120 members of the newly elected Knesset to put a coalition together under his leadership. Taking the attack further, Yair tweeted that everything Harari has written since "Sapiens" in 2011 "has been very disappointing, with globalist paradigms, as if they were written by [George] Soros. And with all due respect, your book is essentially an AliExpress version of Will Durant". AliExpress is a web-based retail service. Durant was a historian and philosopher, who with wife Ariel wrote the 11-volume 'The Story of Civilization' between 1935 and 1975. In other tweets, Harari said, "Temporary measures have a nasty habit of outlasting emergencies, especially as there is always a new emergency lurking on the horizon". A caption of a Financial Times piece by him posted on his twitter handle read "This storm will pass. But the choices we make now could change our lives for years to come". The measures to tackle coronavirus announced by Netanyahu has led to Opposition Leader Yair Lapid alleging Israelis "no longer live in a democracy". "There is no judicial branch in Israel. There is no legislative branch in Israel. There is only an unelected government that is headed by a person who lost the election", said Lapid, a former journalist and talkshow host. "You can call that by a lot of names, it isn't a democracy", he said in a recorded video. Israeli health officials have diagnosed 677 coronavirus cases with a huge spike recorded in the last 36 hours, prompting the government to impose stronger restrictions. People have been instructed to stay at home unless there is an emergency. Foreigners have been banned from entering the country. The Israeli government has also instructed its internal security agency Shin Bet to start deploying its phone surveillance technology to help curb the spread of the virus by tracking the moves of the infected. The controversial move has come under criticism and even challenged in the court. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) Frontline NHS doctors are being forced to buy face masks from DIY stores because of nationwide shortages amid the coronavirus crisis. The British Medical Association said some of its members were so desperate they had approached building site workers and asked to borrow industrial dust masks. Protective gear such as masks, gowns, goggles and gloves, are essential for limiting the spread of the highly infectious disease which lurks in the air for hours and survives on objects for days. Health chiefs have confirmed there are problems with dwindling supplies globally, which is having knock-on effects with distribution. The BMA says ministers must remember it is their duty to protect staff as the epidemic in the UK worsens, with 3,983 cases confirmed in Britain as of today. It also urged for testing of health care workers immediately in order to avoid medics unnecessarily self-isolating and leaving hospitals under-staffed. NHS doctors treating coronavirus patients are being forced to buy masks from DIY stores amid shortages, according to the British Medical Association. Pictured, a health care worker at Virginia Hospital Center, US, putting on personal protective equipment (PPE) Dr Chaand Nagpaul, the BMA chair of council, said: 'Frontline staff must have the proper personal protective equipment if they are treating patients with Covid-19' The BMA said it had heard many of its members do not have the right personal protective equipment (PPE), or if they do, it is in very short supply. Doctors, both in GP practises and hospitals, as well as patients are all at risk if there is inadequate PPE. Dr Chaand Nagpaul, the BMA chair of council, said: 'Frontline staff must have the proper personal protective equipment if they are treating patients with Covid-19 or suspected to have Covid-19. RETIRED NHS STAFF TOLD TO COME BACK - EVEN THOUGH THERE ISN'T PROTECTIVE CLOTHING TO PROTECT THEM Up to 65,000 ex-doctors and nurses are being told your NHS needs you to fight the biggest health crisis in more than a century. Anyone who quit or retired in the past three years is being urged by ministers to return to help tackle coronavirus. But at the same time those already on the frontlines say they can't get their hands on the proper masks and protective equipment to stop them catching the disease. People fear the retired coming back to work could be risky because older people are known to be most likely to die if they catch the coronavirus, and depriving them of the right equipment could be a recipe for disaster. One said on Twitter: 'You are expecting retired doctors and nurses to [be] kamikaze pilots, they are in the most at risk group.' Another added: 'What could possibly go wrong?' Emails, which will go out this morning, echo Lord Kitcheners Your Country Needs You recruitment poster from the First World War. Staff will be allowed to re-register immediately with either the General Medical Council, the doctors professional watchdog, or the Nursing and Midwifery Council, its equivalent for nurses. NHS officials have not put a figure on the number of former doctors and nurses they expect to bring back but last week, Health Secretary Matt Hancock said he hoped to get our hands on as many as possible. All returning staff will be paid fully according to the amount of time they can work and will be given brief training and induction. The NHS is also allowing some of the most experienced trainee doctors and nurses to join the front line. Those in the final year of their degrees will be allowed to take up paid roles without having to pass their final set of exams. Advertisement 'We are hearing of staff trying to buy masks from DIY stores in desperation because they are not being provided with it by their employers. This is unacceptable. 'The Government must find a reliable way to increase the production and distribution of PPE [personal protective equipment]. 'If any healthcare worker, treating someone with Covid-19 was to become ill, or worse, due to a lack of PPE, the consequences will be dire and the impact on patient care catastrophic.' England's chief doctors Professor Chris Whitty has said NHS colleagues are right to complain they are facing shortages. 'I completely understand the points that my colleagues in the NHS are concerned about on PPE, they write to me regularly about this and entirely reasonably,' he said yesterday. 'This is a major strand of work for much of the Department of Health and Social Care. 'In the short term this is about making sure the PPE stocks that there are go to the right places, in the longer term ... there will be a global issue we need to put together,' he added, noting stocks are running low in some countries. Chris Hopson, chief executive of NHS providers, said there was not a shortage of PPE, but a 'logistical problem' in distributing it. He told BBC Radio 4's World At One programme: 'We have obviously been talking to national NHS leaders and what they say to us is there are sufficient national stocks of personal protection equipment but there is currently a problem in terms of the logistical distribution of them. 'What's happened is that because of the sudden and understandable spike in demand it is taking a bit of time for the logistical distribution to catch up. 'But the bit that they are saying to us is there are sufficient national stocks, the issue is actually ensuring that those stocks reach the frontline in the right numbers, in the right places, at the right time.' His comments came after Dr Paul Evans, a GP in Gateshead, told the programme that frontline staff did not have PPE that 'inspires the confidence of the staff' who are seeing patients who potentially have COVID-19. Dr Evans said: 'I would suggest that asking health professionals to see patients with a potentially lethal aerosol or airborne transmitted illness without adequate PPE draws an uncomfortable parallel with a decade or so ago sending soldiers to Afghanistan and Iraq in Snatch Land Rovers that were referred to by the troops at the time as mobile coffins.' England's chief doctors Professor Chris Whitty has said NHS colleagues are right to complain they are facing shortages. Picutred, a medical worker wearing full protective clothing treating a patient suffering from coronavirus disease in Cremona, Italy Health chiefs have confirmed there are problems with dwindling supplies globally. Pictured, health care workers put on their personal protective equipment before people arrive at a drive through testing site for coronavirus in Arlington, Virginia It follows GP Faye Kirkland's comments to the BBC that some doctors are having to resort to using cooking aprons because they hadn't been sent enough disposable single-use plastic aprons. And it was revealed earlier this week that doctors were being sent face masks that expired four years ago. Boxes of masks handed out to multiple GP surgeries by NHS England are printed with an expiry date of 2016, but in an apparent attempt to conceal the issue, stickers showing a later expiry date of 2021 have been placed on top. GPs suggested it was an apparent attempt to 'hide' the original date and admitted they were worried about the quality of equipment being provided. The Government was forced to deny the masks are unsafe, as the Department of Health and Social Care claimed they have been relabelled after passing 'stringent tests'. The BMA have also warned it's imperative that healthcare workers are tested for the highly infectious coronavirus without further delay. Government advice says people must self isolate for 14 days if they or a relative has COVID-19 symptoms. It means many vital medics may have to stay at home unnecessarily, adding pressure to an already stretched workforce. 'In order for the NHS to work as effectively as possible during this time, it's essential that all healthcare professionals and their families are tested for the virus not only for their protection, but most importantly, their patients,' said BMA GP committee chair Dr Richard Vautrey. 'We understand that priority testing is taking place in some areas for frontline NHS staff, however, it's clear that this is not yet widespread. 'The NHS will struggle even more if increasing numbers of staff are forced to remain at home for up to two weeks, not knowing whether they have the virus and therefore not able to care for patients.' Prime Minister Boris Johnson efforts were working on 'ramping up daily testing from 5,000 a day, to 10,000 to 25,000 and then up at 250,000'. It is understood testing will be expanded to frontline health care workers nationwide, currently only being accessed by a fraction. Frontline staff in North Hampshire are set to have access to testing from 19 March, GP Online reports. But the BMA has warned that this must be expanded across the UK 'without delay'. NHS workers in Scotland are only being tested if they have symptoms, a strategy which has been criticised for failing to protect those most exposed to the virus. In Wales, hopes have been raised that testing will be rolled out to staff soon. Dr Robin Howe, incident director for the novel coronavirus outbreak response at Public Health Wales, said: 'Based on careful risk assessment, a phased rollout of testing will commence starting with healthcare workers involved in frontline patient facing clinical care.' Share this article Whatsapp Facebook Twitter Linkedin News Desk (The Jakarta Post) Jakarta Fri, March 20, 2020 13:52 663 7f440ff09e92db75a02bbad206c2b44f 1 City COVID-19,COVID-19-Indonesian-patients,home-isolation,self-quarantine,lockdown,anies-baswedan,puskesmas,Achmad-Yurianto Free As hospitals in the capital are being overwhelmed with COVID-19 patients, the Jakarta administration is putting dozens of positive cases with mild symptoms in home isolation. However, questions arise as to how the health authorities are making sure these people do not leave home and infect others. On Thursday, out of the 208 COVID-19-positive patients in Jakarta, 70 people were under a 14-day home-isolation or self-quarantine, according to the administration's coronavirus data provider, corona.jakarta.go.id. On Friday, the number in home isolation decreased to 57 among 211 confirmed cases. "The important thing is for them to limit their interactions, staying in their own rooms," the Jakarta Health Agency's head of disease control and prevention division, Dwi Oktavia, told The Jakarta Post at City Hall on Thursday. "People in home-isolation are in relatively good condition, not a critical one." Dwi, however, did not explain how the health authorities would monitor the movements of the infected patients to make sure they stayed at home. Among more than 300 cases nationwide, 211 are in Jakarta, making the capital Indonesias epicenter for the outbreak. The government has ordered the retrofitting of the athletes apartment complex in Kemayoran, Central Jakarta, which can accommodate 15,000 people, and state-owned hotels to make them emergency wards. However, the facilities are not yet ready. Health Minister Terawan Agus Putranto signed on Monday a protocol establishing guidelines for home-isolation or self-quarantine aimed at curbing the spread of the COVID-19 coronavirus. The protocol is designed for suspected COVID-19 patients who show symptoms such as fever and respiratory infection and have a travel history to infected places or interactions with confirmed cases in the previous 14 days. However, the protocol also extended to confirmed cases, COVID-19 government spokesperson, Achmad Yurianto, said on Thursday. The protocol states that monitored persons should, among other things, stay home for 14 days, use a separate room in the house, maintain a one-meter distance from others, use a face mask, perform daily temperature checks, use separate sets of cutlery and toiletries and spray disinfectant around the house. The protocol relies on the conscience of the patients themselves as it does not carry any consequence if the patient does not follow all the guidelines. For COVID-19-positive people, the home-isolation is monitored by their respective health community centers (Puskesmas), according to Yurianto. However, he elaborated on the monitoring protocol. Yurianto advised people to consult with doctors from time to time, specifically mentioning one brand of app-based health care in his text message to the Post. Other countries also practice home-isolation for patients who tested positive but have mild symptoms. A 50-year-old Indonesian woman, for example, was observing a 14-day home-isolation at her home in Melbourne, Australia, after she tested positive for the coronavirus on March 8. According to the American Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), home-isolation requires, among other things, the patient to have a stable enough condition, an appropriate caregiver, a separate bedroom and protective equipment such as gloves and face masks. The patient is also expected to follow recommended precautions such as respiratory and cough hygiene, as well as cough etiquette. The former head of the National Committee for Avian Flu Control and Pandemic Preparedness between 2006 and 2010, Bayu Krishnamurti, said there were two types of policies to contain virus. The first involves forcible confinement and the other relies on peoples consciences. The forcible model includes total lockdown, prohibition on leaving home. That based on conscience includes the suggestion for any people, healthy or suspected cases, to not leave home, he said. If the home isolation is done with the forcible method, the government has to have detailed protocols on how to enforce the rules, he said. Bayu said so far the government had used the conscience type. He also said at the moment it was not feasible to deploy a special health worker to monitor each patient under voluntary home-isolation. (dfr) Advertisement The extraordinary archive of one of the designers of the Mulberry Harbours that enabled the allied invasion of France in World War Two have now been seen for the first time after selling for an eye-watering 35,000. Colonel Vassal Charles Steer-Webster OBE helped create the artificial harbours that were used to land thousands of troops, military vehicles and supplies, and greatly aided Winston Churchill in the nation's hour of need. The Mulberry Harbours were made up of six miles of steel roadways floating on concrete pontoons and could carry tanks British ambulances pictured using one of the piers at Arromanches off the Normandy coast during the D-Day operation A view of western arm of finished breakwater at Arromanches, Normandy, show intricacies of the work in crafting the harbour The construction was built in the dry docks on The Thames and Clyde and pulled across the channel and into place by tugs Pioneering temporary portable harbours needed to be created to help with the allied invasion of France in World War two A segment of what remains of Mulberry today is regularly observed by visitors on the French coastline 'Mulberry': The prefabricated harbours that made victory over Hitler possible To facilitate the rapid offloading of cargo onto beaches during the allied invasion of Normandy, temporary portable harbours needed to be created during the Second World War. Pioneering work was put into place to create the harbours using a base of concrete mattresses, before being assembled on dry docks on the Thames. A huge operation, the harbours were then transported away with the use of tugs, crossing the British Channel before being placed at strategic vantage points on the French coast. The Mulberry Harbours were to be used until major French ports could be captured and brought back into use after repair of the inevitable sabotage by German defenders. The Mulberry B harbour at Gold Beach was used for 10 months after D-Day, and over 2.5 million men, 500,000 vehicles, and four million tons of supplies were landed before it was fully decommissioned. Advertisement A vast collection of images, architects plans and personal documents have come to light after the slice of national treasure sparked bedlam in the auctions. Steer-Webster worked closely with Britain's most famous prime minster, and had Churchill's ear on a daily basis as the two gentlemen corresponded regarding the harbours and the rapidly developing plans to assist in the allied invasion and push back Adolf Hitler's German forces. He was one of the key engineers behind the pre-fabricated structures and was in constant contact with Churchill over their development ahead of D-Day, with letters regularly changing hands. Steer-Webster oversaw the incredible design of Mulberry Harbour B at Arromanches in Normandy that supplied British and Canadian troops in 1944, which proved to be a remarkable feat of engineering for the ages. A signed letter of thanks from Churchill for his work formed part of Col Steer-Webster's personal collection, along with his medals of decorated service that included his Order of the British Empire (OBE). Some 150 photos showing Mulberry B's construction at Normandy was also in the archive, leaving no stone unturned and showing the full process, from early conception to re-drafted designs and the initial building process. The items were sold by Col Steer-Webster's nephew with Mitchells Auctioneers, of Cockermouth, Cumbria, attracting large crowds and a feverish atmosphere. A bidding war soon erupted, dwarfing the pre-sale estimate of 15,000. The buyer paid a hammer price of 28,000, with extra fees taking the final figure to 35,400. Steer-Webster was born in York in 1897 and trained as a motor mechanic before enlisting at the outset of World War One. The multi-purpose harbours allowed the armed forces to both clear casualties and bring in additional personnel Another image details how workers constructed the concrete mattresses to set the foundations of the temporary harbour Insight: Images detail all aspects of the iconic harbours, including how female workers created the concrete mattresses He served as a private in the 13th Battalion, London Regiment, but was wounded in action and declared 'no longer fit physically for war service' in April 1916. Mark Wise, specialist at Mitchells Auctioneers, gave further insight into the rare sale: 'The archive was owned by Colonel Steer Webster's nephew who is elderly and did not have anyone to whom he wished to leave it. 'He also was very strongly of the mind that the archive should be offered in its entirety rather than being split up. Aerial view of Mulberry harbour 'B' at Arromanches gives a vivid look into the scale of the whole operation from the skies Steer-Webster OBE (middle) pictured alongside colleagues in the war office as Britain was in the throes of global conflict The temporary harbours became an integral part of the British plan, and were a hive of activity throughout D-Day 'The correspondence from Churchill reveals how important his role was in the design and construction of the Mulberry Harbours.' Colonel Vassal Charles Steer-Webster masterminded the operation and briefed Winston Churchill on a daily basis Churchill's letter, which was sent with a signed photo on VE Day 1945, read: 'Herewith... an autographed photograph of myself as a gesture of thanks to you for helping me to achieve it by your dedication to Mulberry.' In June 2012 original blueprints for the harbours were placed into the auction rooms, in which it was noted how the concept and creation of Mulberry was labelled poetically as 'an idea of simple genius' by Albert Speer, the German's minister of armaments. A Bonhams spokesman said: 'These documents contain the origins of the simple but devastatingly effective idea which transformed the Allied invasion of Europe in 1944. 'It took over two years to turn the concept first into plans and then into prototypes which, under conditions of great secrecy, could be rigorously tested. 'This illustrates the huge logistic problem which the Mulberry harbours were designed to address and makes the achievement all the more remarkable. 'This set of plans - the designer's own - are a vital part of the story and a key element in what Albert Speer, the German's minister of armaments - called 'an idea of simple genius'.' Living history: Present day images show the ghostly remains of the foundations of Mulberry Harbour at Arromanches The D-Day plans and triumphant execution go down as one of the brightest days in British military history CODED ROADWAYS AND A STAGGERING AMOUNT OF MATERIAL - THE CREATION OF MULBERRY The Mulberry harbours were completed by May 1944 and successfully launched with the use of tug boats soon after. Their purpose was to ease and speed up the unloading process so that Allied troops were supplied as they advanced across France. They were, as Churchill later wrote, 'to form a principal part of the great plan'. Each of the two artificial harbours was made up of about six miles of flexible steel roadways that floated on steel or concrete pontoons. The roadways were codenamed 'Whales' and the pontoons 'Beetles'. The 'Whales' ended at giant pier heads that had legs that rested on the seabed. The whole structure was protected from the force of the sea by scuttled ships, sunken caissons (a type of pump used in marine engineering) and a line of floating breakwaters. They were comprised of a staggering amount of material - 144,000 tonnes of concrete, 85,000 tonnes of ballast and 105,000 tonnes of steel. During D-Day operations, Mulberry A was installed at Omaha Beach, for American invasion forces, while Mulberry B was set up at Arromanches (Gold Beach) for the British and Canadians. Only two weeks after D-Day, a massive storm destroyed Mulberry A. Mulberry B also sustained some damage, but was reinforced to keep it operable at least until the end of October. Mulberry B was left open until November 19 and Hughes was involved throughout, making adjustments and reinforcements. In that time this harbour landed 2.5million men, 500,000 vehicles and four million tonnes of goods. Advertisement Among the collection a hospital ship clearing casualties at a LST Spud Pierhead Assembly Arromanches Metro Manila (CNN Philippines, March 20) The Interior Department on Friday responded to the questions why tricycles aren't allowed to bring health workers around Pasig City, but e-tricycles are allowed to ply Manila City during the enhanced community quarantine. Interior Secretary Eduardo Ano explained the system in Manila is different from allowing tricycle drivers to operate on their own while travel restrictions are in place to curb the spread of coronavirus disease or COVID-19. "The difference doon kay Mayor ng Manila, ang e-vehicles ay hindi pumapasada. Ito ay kinomission ng Manila on dispatch system for the purpose of bringing workers to the hospital. Specific, hindi pumi-pick up ng pasahero," he said in a media briefing. [Translation: In Manila, the tricycles are commissioned by the city on dispatch system to ferry workers to the hospital, not to pick up passengers.] Manila City Mayor Isko Moreno on Thursday announced 198 e-tricycles will be deployed for the frontliners in the city. He said, under the program of the national government and Labor Department, the e-trike drivers will be paid for transporting healthcare workers to public hospitals. On the same day, Interior Department Spokesperson Jonathan Malaya told Pasig Mayor Vico Sotto the city cannot be exempted from the travel restrictions in Luzon by giving in to his request to allow tricycles to service health workers and patients with urgent needs. Sotto said he would heed the instructions of the national government. President Rodrigo Duterte on Thursday also warned local government officials they may face criminal charges if they refuse to abide by the Luzon-wide enhanced community quarantine guidelines set by the national government. Art has always been at the forefront for Dale Ray Deforest. He finds freedom in creating characters, and stories run through his veins. For years, hes worked diligently to build a career in art. Lately, hes been on a great run. In fact, Deforest recently illustrated Rebecca Roanhorses Race to the Sun. I dont have a lot of new, personal art, Deforest says. Ive been so busy working on other projects. Deforest signed a contract with Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, where he will illustrate more books. The company is also home to author Scott ODell, who focuses on Native American-based stories. They hired me to produce some illustrated covers that are consistent, he says. They want the books to look like a series. Deforest grew up in the Four Corners area of the Navajo Nation specifically, around Shiprock and Farmington. Prev 1 of 7 Next He graduated from Navajo Preparatory School in 1995 and then studied 2D Arts and Photography at the Institute of American Indian Arts in Santa Fe. Much of my artistic endeavors stem from my love of the craft itself, he says. In terms of photography, I fell in love with grainy film and rough edges while maintaining crisp and cleverly captured moments in a solid frame. My other primary practice is sequential and 2D art. I employ high-contrast and thick lines to convey bold imagery matched with bright and vivid colors. Artwork that can be used to not only express, but captivate and manipulate thought and action has always been my goal as an artist. Deforest draws inspiration from the stories, as well as keeping an eye on what other artists are doing. Im still relatively new to the book publishing scene, he says. I look at other artists and follow their process. After I figure out what I want to do, I apply my process of sketching and Photoshop work. Deforest is also the creator of his own comic book, Hero Twins, which is loosely based on the Navajo creation story. Deforest ran a successful Kickstarter campaign to raise money for the series. He also self-published his first comic series, Rez-Luv, in 2010. Deforest is enjoying working on art nearly full time again. It had taken a back seat for the better part of 15 years. I kept the wheels greased, he says. Lately, Ive gotten into digital art. Thats really sped up the process quite a bit. When I was doing paper and ink, I was constantly visiting the art supply store, and I would go broke. Deforests art always has an indigenous message intertwined with todays popular culture. I strive to make everything I make pleasing, he says. The challenge is to create something different each time. Top Kremlin critic Alexei Navalny on Thursday urged Russians to boycott a vote on constitutional changes backed by President Vladimir Putin, slamming plans to hold it during the pandemic. Putin, who has been in power for 20 years, has backed amendments that would allow him to get around a limit on presidential terms and potentially stay in office until 2036. The amendments will be put to a national vote on April 22, although this may be postponed due to the coronavirus pandemic, authorities say. On Thursday, Navalny told supporters in a video post to "make fun of" the vote, arguing it would be "completely falsified" and the constitutional amendments would have no legal force in any case. The 43-year-old lawyer added that holding the vote during the coronavirus pandemic would be a "crime against pensioners" because older people are most vulnerable to complications. Navalny accused the 67-year-old Kremlin strongman of seeking to hoodwink Russians with amendments allowing him to dial his term-limit clock back to zero after changing the constitution. "Everyone knows that one can serve a first term as president only once --- the same way you can only have one first love, one first baby and one first heart attack," Navalny said. Instead of taking part in the April 22 vote, Russians should participate in regional elections in September and vote the ruling United Russia party out of power, Navalny said. A number of Kremlin-friendly candidates lost their seats in local elections last September after Navalny instructed his supporters to vote strategically. Putin had repeatedly denied he had any intention of staying on as president after 2024 and supported an amendment limiting the presidency to two terms. But then last week he suddenly backed a last-minute amendment by the first woman in space, Valentina Tereshkova, under which presidential terms served before constitutional changes will not count towards the limit. It's easy for a newcomer to the world of search engine marketing to assume that the search engines (e.g., Google, Microsoft) are all the same and that clicks from them all behave in the same ways. In order to optimize your efforts, you need to know the differences between Google and Microsoft, their search engines and shopping engines, mobile vs. desktop and much more. Learn about what you're doing wrong and how to do it right. The biggest difference between Google and Microsoft is reach: Google is larger than Microsoft, which includes Bing, Yahoo and AOL traffic in its network. According to Statista, that difference is around 63 percent market share for Google and 25 percent market share for Microsoft in the United States, so Google is around 2.5 times the size of Microsoft. You would think that suggests you should focus your initial efforts on Google to get in front of more users, right? Perhaps, but everyone else is also thinking that. There is less competition on Microsoft, and you might be able to acquire the same amount clicks at a lower cost per click and improve your ROI in the process. There's also a material difference in demographics between the two networks. Google tends to attract a younger, more college-educated, higher-income, and a generally more tech-savvy audience that Microsoft, and more Microsoft users are parents. Depending on your product offering, that could mean nothing to you (e.g., either audience watches movies). But maybe that demographic difference presents and opportunity for you (e.g., selling a product targeting older Baby Boomers may perform better on Microsoft). Those looking to attract users from outside the United States should know that Google's international reach is also bigger than Microsoft's. Search vs. shopping Just so we are clear, search ads are the sponsored listings that appear at the top of search engine results when you enter in a keyword (mostly text links). Shopping ads are the product listings that appear in the shopping sections of those same search engines (mostly visual product images). The shopping ads are typically a direct feed of your products from your website created using a management tool like Feedonomics or DataFeedWatch. If you're in ecommerce, the natural instinct is to advertise in both sections. That may work fine for you, or it may not, as we learned at my business, Restaurant Furniture Plus. We learned the shopping section mostly attracts consumers, not commercial buyers. There was a significant difference in our average order size between the two sections, lets say $500 from shopping and $5,000 from search. And based on the differences in cost of customer acquisition, lets say $100 from shopping and $200 from search, it was easier for us to maximize our revenues, profitability and return on ad spend by focusing on search and not struggle to break even on our shopping spend. Figure out what balance is best for your business. B2C vs. B2B Related to the search vs. shopping topic are the implications for B2C vs. B2B businesses. Continuing with my business' example, lets say we were advertising for chairs. Yes, chairs are needed for restaurants, but they're also needed by consumers in their homes. When we were simply advertising chairs, we were up against a lot of big consumer brands selling chairs (e.g., Pier 1, Pottery Barn, Wayfair) trying to tap into the same keywords. And those big brands have a lot more marketing muscle and repeat buying potential (as those consumers will most likely buy other products for their homes over time.) All this meant the big brands were willing to pay a lot more for those leads than we were. It wasnt until we shut off our shopping feed and changed all our generic chairs keywords to more specific ones such as restaurant chairs, commercial chairs and foodservice chairs that we started optimizing for our B2B needs. Desktop vs. mobile When I first started digital marketing in 2000, there was no such thing as a smart phone, so all the traffic was coming from desktop PCs. But over the last 20 years thanks to the innovations of Apple, Android, Samsung and others searches from mobile phones have surpassed searches from desktop PCs for many companies. The problem is that most businesses have optimized their user experience for desktop, not mobile, and search engine algorithms produce results differently depending on the perceived user experience and site speed of those different desktop and mobile channels. For example, check out this Google tool that lets you check your site speed on desktop and mobile. If Google thinks your mobile site is too slow compared to your desktop site, it will not publish your mobile advertising with the same frequency as your desktop advertising. It will also publish it less frequently than advertising for competitors whose sites are better optimized for mobile. Companies need to live in a mobile-first way of thinking even if it goes against what they've been taught. Text (prospecting) vs. display (retargeting) When you buy text ads on search engines, you can also buy display ads that retarget users who are visiting other websites within their advertising networks. There are a few ways display ads differ from text ads: What you can say and show in a few lines of text is very different from what you can say and show in an image. Not to mention that image is now being displayed to a user who has already seen your brand once, so they will be much more likely to engage with a brand they recognize. If you're going to run a search campaign, you're leaving a lot of potential success off the table if you're not concurrently running display retargeting ads. With reviews vs. without Over the years, Google has emphasized social media data in determining how it publishes ads and ranks sites for organic traffic. One of the biggest drivers of that is customer review data. The reviews must come from their list of trusted review vendors to give the review credibility and ensure businesses don't make them up. The benefit of working with one of these trusted third-party review vendors is that if you have over 100 reviews, Google will add your summary five-star score next to each of your paid search ads and your organic search result links. This does two things: It gives you higher credibility than other links on the page (increasing the odds the customer clicks on your links), and it can decrease your cost of customer acquisition by as much as 15 percent, on average, with a higher likelihood of converting into sales. General vs. custom audiences Until now, you mostly had to rely on search engines to identify the target audience and hope they got it right. In the newest iterations of search marketing, the searches engines are giving you more input on who they're targeting. For example, if you're a whitelisted email marketer, you can give them your list of email targets and they'll match it to their users and target advertising only to them. This is great if you're targeting old customer email accounts or have a list of prospects' emails. Another tactic is to give them a list of competitor or industry websites where your customers are likely looking, and they'll target advertising to any users that visit those sites. This is the first thing I've seen other than customizing keywords from chairs to restaurant chairs that will help B2B marketers go after such targeted traffic. Be sure to take advantage of custom audiences in your campaigns. As you can see, a lot has changed in the world of search marketing in the past decade, and I'm guessing that change will continue. Please dont set up your campaigns once and forget about them. You need to keep up with new best practices and reset your campaigns to have a maximum return on your search engine marketing investment. Related: 6 consejos REALES para proteger tus ventas del coronavirus 6 estrategias de marketing que te hacen perder dinero A PR Checklist For Entrepreneurs Dealing With The COVID-19 Crisis Copyright 2020 Entrepreneur.com Inc., All rights reserved By Express News Service BHUBANESWAR: Stepping up measures to keep coronavirus pandemic in check, Bhubaneswar Municipal Corporation (BMC) on Wednesday imposed restrictions on functioning of daily markets in the city. The civic body announced closure of 17 major daily markets and haats, including Unit-I, II, III, Saheed Nagar, Old Town, Nageswar Tangi, Nayapalli and Damana, after 6 pm to prevent unnecessary gathering. While the order will come into effect from Thursday, the daily markets will now function for 12 hours, from 6 am to 6 pm, till March-end. Officials said the move comes after the BMC observed uncontrollable crowd in these markets in the evening in contrast to its order for regulation of mass gatherings at public places to check possible spread of the virus in the city. The civic body asked its Zonal Deputy Commissioners to review the situation of other markets and weekly haats under their jurisdictions and submit proposal for regulation of time there. It also asked the market associations to follow the standard operating procedures (SOP) issued earlier strictly. As a precautionary measure, the State Government has also closed all shops in malls expect those selling food, grocery, medicine and other essential items. The civic body, on the day, also sealed 10 guest houses and marriage halls in Ashok Nagar, Jayadev Vihar, Gadakana and Brahmeswarpatna areas for not following the COVID-19 guidelines and SOP issued by the Government. COVID 19 LIVE | Eight more test positive in Telangana, India total cases 170 Meanwhile, the BMC has decided to launch a door-to-door visit to collect information on recent travel history of households. A total of 374 anganwadi workers along with other field staff will visit the households to collect the information. BMC Deputy Commissioner (Revenue) Srimanta Mishra said the civic body has asked the members of SHGs and transgenders engaged in collection of holding tax to wear masks and maintain hygiene and safe distance. Other measures BMC to launch a drive to collect information on recent travel history of households 374 anganwadi workers and other field staff will visit the households to collect information SHGs and transgenders engaged in collection of holding tax asked to wear masks and maintain hygiene Facing a dire shortage of protective face masks for health care workers, administrators at the University of Nebraska Medical Center decided they had no choice. Masks are certified for one-time use only. But on Thursday, the center began an experimental procedure to decontaminate its masks with ultraviolet light and reuse them. Administrators plan to use each mask for a week or longer. To the knowledge of the programs administrators, the medical center is the first to disinfect and reuse masks. We have talked with a lot of others around the country who are going after a similar approach, said John Lowe, the medical centers assistant vice chancellor for health security training and education, who designed the program. Pentagon Successfully Tests Hypersonic Missile The United States has successfully tested a hypersonic missile, marking a major milestone in the race to catch up with Russia and China in what the Pentagon describes as its highest research priority. Hypersonic missiles are the latest must-have super-power military tech. Flying at over five times the speed of sound, as the name suggests, they are fast. But they are coveted not for speed, but for their ability to slip past the eyes of military tech by gliding along the edge of the atmosphere, and for their ability to maneuver mid-flight. According to a Pentagon statement, on the evening of March 19 at a missile range in Hawaii the Common Hypersonic Glide Body (CHGB) was successfully tested. That missile is one of several hypersonic programs currently being developed by the Pentagon as it scrambles to catch up with Russia and Chinas similar programs. The military wants hypersonic missiles in the field in the next five years. Hypersonic systems deliver transformational warfighting capability, said Mike White, Assistant Director, Hypersonics, OUSD Research, and Engineering (Modernization) in a statement. The glide body tested today is now ready for transition to Army and Navy weapon system development efforts and is one of several applications of hypersonic technology underway across the department. These capabilities help ensure that our warfighters will maintain the battlefield dominance necessary to deter, and if necessary, defeat any future adversary. The Pentagon described the test as a major milestone in the race to field hypersonic missiles in the early- to mid-2020s, in support of the National Defense Strategy. An artistic rendition of DARPAs Hypersonic Technology Vehicle (HTV-2). China is also researching hypersonic weapons. (DARPA) The Trump administrations 2018 National Defense strategy laid out renewed great power competition with Russia, and more so with China, as the top priority for the military, sparking a modernization push. Half a Century of Research Hypersonic development goes back more than a half century, with the United States originally leading the pack. But as U.S. research waxed and waned, Russia continued steadily, and then China joined the race, unbound by the limitations of INF treaty. We did their homework for them, Mark Lewis, director of defense research and engineering for modernization at the Pentagon, told reporters on March 2. Hypersonics is a field that was basically invented in this country. We did the basic research, we developed the concepts, we did the fundamental experiments. Now the United States is stepping on the gas in the hypersonics race. Last year, the Pentagon requested $2.6 billion (FY2020) for all hypersonic-related research. This year, it increased the budget request to $3.2 billion. Pentagon officials said March 2 they are setting up a hypersonic war room to ensure that the U.S. industrial base is up to the task. Seven different hypersonic development programs across the Navy, Army, Air Force, and the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) are listed in a recent Congressional Research Service report. Technically, hypersonic simply means something that goes more than five times the speed of sound. But it isnt speed that makes hypersonics so sought-after, but their flight path. A X-60A hypersonic missile undergoes a hot fire test, at Cecil Spaceport in Jacksonville, Florida, on Jan. 14, 2020. (U.S. Air Force) The name is a little misleading. We actually already have missiles that can go that fast, or faster, Patty-Jane Geller, a policy analyst in nuclear deterrence and missile defense at the Heritage Foundation, previously told The Epoch Times. For example, the United States Minuteman ICBM goes Mach 23 during its descent. Rather than being launched hundreds of miles above the earth into space like ballistic missiles, hypersonics skip along the edge of the atmosphere, about 100 miles up. This makes them hard to spot for sensors on the ground and high-orbit satellites which are designed to track ballistic missiles. Strategic Advantages Different nations see different strategic advantages in hypersonics. The U.S. military wants them to help counter China and Russias long-range missiles and layers of defenses currently keeping aircraft and carriers at arms length. Vladimir Putin wants them to bolster Russias nuclear posture. And Beijing wants them to add to its nuclear options and the strategic headache for U.S. carrier commanders in the Pacific. The Chinese are very focused in this area, said Timothy Walton, senior fellow at the Center for Strategic and Budgetary Assessments. They are the world leaders in terms of intermediate-range ballistic missiles and hypersonic weapons today, he previously told The Epoch Times. Theyve fielded a significant number of very long-range intermediate weapons. Theyve also fielded a hypersonic weapon that theyve demonstrated and paraded last year, the DF-17. Hypersonics are able to evade early detection by current ground radar and satellite systems, and maneuver with precision at speeds in excess of one mile per second. The United States is also researching potential ways to track hypersonics including the use of low earth orbit satellites. During yesterdays test launch, the Missile Defense Agency also gathered tracking data to inform its development of defense against hypersonic missiles. The Hunterdon County Chamber of Commerce, in partnership with the Hunterdon County Office of Economic Development, has been pursuing a number of efforts to help inform as well as provide economic relief to the Hunterdon business community in response to the coronavirus pandemic. As of Thursday, there are eight recorded positive coronavirus cases in Hunterdon County. To gauge the economic needs of members of this business community, an Economic Impact Survey has been created and circulated by the Chamber and Office of Economic Development. Individuals are asked to respond to this survey by 5 p.m. Monday, March 23. The information provided in this survey will help us to evaluate the impacts on Hunterdon Countys employers and the Hunterdon County economy, according to a release shared with NJ Advance Media. Individual survey responses will not be released, and the information will only be conveyed in the aggregate. Moreover, the chamber has widened the availability of its Job Bank to the entire public rather than to its members alone, and has launched the Hunterdon County Restaurant Blitz, a campaign to help local restaurants that individuals can access via Facebook or the chamber website. The chamber, with assistance from the Office of Economic Development, has also set up a Business Resources page that is frequently updated with new information regarding COVID-19. We are working closely with the chamber (and this) will hopefully greatly aid our ability to be of assistance to the business community. This partnership is committed to providing whatever resources we can, Marc Saluk, director of the Hunterdon County Office of Economic Development, said in the release. Event-wise, the chamber hosted a coronavirus business briefing for its members last week that was led by Karen DeMarco, Hunterdon County health officers; Brayden Fahey, Hunterdon County Emergency Management coordinator; and Dr. Geralyn Prosswimmer, chief medical officer for Hunterdon Healthcare. Meeting hosted by the Hunterdon County Chamber of Commerce- Hunterdon County Chamber of Commerce They presented very useful information to those in attendance on the importance of hygiene, avoidance, and, if someone suspects they may have been in contact or have contracted the virus, what to do, according to the release. The chamber also hosted a call on Thursday with both the Hunterdon County Office of Economic Development, as well as leadership from local business organizations including the High Bridge Merchants Group, the High Bridge Economic Development Committee, the Clinton Guild, the Flemington Community Partnership, the Frenchtown Business & Professional Association, the Milford Merchants Association and the Delaware River Towns Chamber of Commerce. President and CEO of the Chamber Chris Phelan said group feedback was very positive, describing the call as a great resource for our local organizations to collaborate and support each other in the weeks ahead. Individuals who wish to contact the Chamber can call (908) 782-7115, email info@hunterdon-chamber.org, Phelan at cphelan@hunterdon-chamber.org, or Ana Galietta, vice president of the chamber, at agalietta@Hunterdon-chamber.org. Caroline Fassett can be reached at cfassett@njadvancemedia.com. If you would like updates on New Jersey-specific coronavirus news, subscribe to our Coronavirus in N.J. newsletter. Tell us your coronavirus stories, whether its a news tip, a topic you want us to cover, or a personal story you want to share. Have a tip? Tell us.nj.com/tips. Get the latest updates right in your inbox. Subscribe to NJ.coms newsletters. Close Get email notifications on {{subject}} daily! Your notification has been saved. There was a problem saving your notification. {{description}} Email notifications are only sent once a day, and only if there are new matching items. Jennifer Aniston became the latest celebrity to get a phone call from Ellen DeGeneres in coronavirus lockdown. Ellen, 62, has been checking in on a string of her famous friends to stave off boredom and she has treated her Instagram followers to clips of the calls. 'What are you doing?' she asked Jennifer, only for the Friends icon to reply: 'Well...not much difference since the last time we spoke about 30 minutes ago.' Hitting them all up: Jennifer Aniston became the latest celebrity to get a phone call from Ellen DeGeneres in coronavirus lockdown As seen in simpler times: 'What are you doing?' she asked Jennifer, only for the Friends icon to reply: 'Well...not much difference since the last time we spoke about 30 minutes ago' Jennifer it turns out was 'cleaning out my closet' and suggested getting a head start on spring cleaning while practicing social distancing at home. She politely asked Ellen how her puzzle was 'coming along,' and when she was told it had to stop because the table was too small, she suggested doing it on the floor. Possibly referring to Jennifer's Friends co-star Courteney Cox, Ellen said: 'Yeah, Courteney suggested that too.' Ellen explained that and her wife Portia De Rossi 'have four dogs and two cats. There's no way I can do a puzzle on the floor.' Chitchat: Jennifer it turns out was 'cleaning out my closet' and suggested getting a head start on spring cleaning while practicing social distancing at home Getting some sun: She was joined by her dogs as she called James Corden, who talked keeping his spirits up with his wife Julia Carey and their children She was joined by her dogs as she called James Corden, who talked keeping his spirits up with his wife Julia Carey and their children. The couple 'needed to get into more of a routine with the kids,' so they planned a family walk, only for it to rain. It seemed their hopes might be dashed until James' son Max, eight, said: 'I say we go out in the rain. If we were in London, we'd go out in the rain.' Ellen has been fumbling through attempts to get good at card tricks - and got a bit of video guidance from none other than celebrity magician David Blaine. Only the best: Ellen has been fumbling through attempts to get good at card tricks - and got a bit of video guidance from none other than celebrity magician David Blaine Goofing around: She also phoned her pal Kevin Hart, who joked that his hair is greying without his barber on hand to the point 'I look like Morgan Freeman's nephew!' She also phoned her pal Kevin Hart, who joked that his hair is greying without his barber on hand to the point 'I look like Morgan Freeman's nephew!' Ellen got in touch with Hollywood hot couple Jessica Biel and Justin Timberlake who each replied: 'Nothing' when she asked what they were up to. She also dialed John Legend and Chrissy Teigen, who had their children for company, prompting Ellen to 'wish I had kids right now, I'm so bored.' Bored: Ellen got in touch with Hollywood hot couple Jessica Biel and Justin Timberlake who each replied: 'Nothing' when she asked what they were up to Following distribution agreements for Russia, Ecuador and Panama, PreChecks five combined distribution territories have an aggregate population of 188 million DENISON, Texas, March 20, 2020 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- PreCheck Health Services, Inc. (OTC PINK: HLTY), a distributor of medical screening devices for use by physicians in managing a patients health, announces it has ordered and paid for 37,500 of the Co-Diagnostics Coronavirus (COVID-19) PCR test kits and has received the first 7,500 test kits to start filling orders for the product. PreCheck has also entered into its fourth and fifth distribution agreements with Co-Diagnostics Inc. (CODX). These agreements give the Company the distribution rights to Co-Diagnostics qPCR infectious disease kits, Logix Smart COVID-19 PCR diagnostic test and Co-Dx Box instrument in Romania and Moldova. This agreement follows the execution of agreements with Co-Diagnostics for Russia, Ecuador and Panama. PreChecks five combined distribution territories have an aggregate population of 188 million. PreCheck believes Co-Diagnostics Coronavirus COVID-19 PCR test is the most accurate test to detect the presence of the COVID19 infection. Co-Diagnostics has announced that it was the first U.S. Company to obtain a CE marking for a COVID-19 test. CE marking is a certification mark that indicates conformity with health, safety, and environmental protection standards for products sold within the European Economic Area (the EEA). The CE marking is also found on products sold outside the EEA that have been manufactured to EEA standards. Justin Anderson, CEO of PreCheck Health Services, Inc., commented, Today marks a major milestone, the receipt of the first 7,500 of 37,500 test kits that we have purchased. Now we can commence filling orders. We are pleased to expand our relationship with Co-Diagnostics in working together to combat this global health crisis. Further information is available in the Companys regulatory filings, which can be accessed at www.sec.gov . Story continues About PreCheck Health Services, Inc. PreCheck Health Services, Inc. is a distributor of the PC8B, a medical screening device, which it purchases from a domestic supplier. The PC8B medical device is a screening tool for use by physicians in managing a patients health. Disclaimer for Forward-Looking Information Certain statements contained in this press release, including, without limitation, statements containing the words believes, anticipates, expects and words of similar import, constitute forward-looking statements within the meaning of the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995. Such forward-looking statements involve both known and unknown risks and uncertainties. The Companys actual results may differ materially from those anticipated in its forward-looking statements as a result of a number of factors, including our ability to obtain substantial funding required for our operations; our ability to market our product to physicians, our ability to generate a gross margin from any sales we may make; our ability to obtain government approval for the sale of the COVID-19 tests in countries where we have distribution rights, competition from other products which perform similar functions, any liability that we may incur as a result of any failure of the test kits we sell to perform as represented by the manufacturer, any liability we may sustain as a result of actions taken by the manufacturers of our products, any liability we may incur as a result of the failure of our manufacturers to have rights to the intellectual property embodied in their products; our dependence upon a sole supplier for each of our products and our reliance of our suppliers to protect their intellectual property incorporated in the product we market; our ability to obtain rights to and to market successfully market products, our ability to develop the business of these businesses, our ability to maintain and develop our medical practice management business, and other risks relating to JAS Practice Management, Inc., doing business as JAS Consulting, Inc. (JAS), the medical practice management business which we acquired in December 2019, any risk or liability resulting from our failure to file the financial statements of JAS as required by SEC regulations, as well as other risks contained in Forward Looking Statements, Risk Factors and Managements Discussion and Analysis of Financial Condition and Results of Operations in our Form 10-K for the year ended December 31, 2018 and in Managements Discussion and Analysis of Financial Condition and Results of Operations in its Form 10-Q for the quarter ended September 30, 2019, and any information contained in any other filings we make with the SEC. As a result of our acquisition of JAS, our historical financial statements, which will be included in our Form 10-K for the year ended December 31, 2019, for periods prior to the December 19, 2019 date of acquisition will reflect the operations of JAS prior to the date of acquisition. Brett Maas Hayden IR (646) 536-7331 brett@haydenir.com As the four death row convicts of the 2012 Delhi Nirbhaya gang-rape case were hanged at Tihar Jail on Friday morning, several Bollywood celebrities including Rishi Kapoor, Riteish Deshmukh, Taapsee Pannu, and many more welcomed the execution. Actor Riteish Deshmukh took to Twitter minutes after the execution and expressed solidarity with the parents of Nirbhaya. "#JusticeForNirbhaya My thoughts and prayers are with the parents, friends & loved ones of Nirbhaya. The wait has been long but the justice has been served," tweeted Deshmukh. He also took the moment to call out the need for stricter law enforcement for such heinous crimes. "Stricter law enforcement, harsher punishment & fast courts for quick justice is the only way to instil fear in monsters who even think of such heinous acts. #JusticeForNirbhaya," Deshmukhs's tweet read. #JusticeForNirbhaya My thoughts and prayers are with the parents, friends & loved ones of Nirbhaya. The wait has been long but the justice has been served. Riteish Deshmukh (@Riteishd) March 20, 2020 Actor Preity Zinta also hopped on to Twitter and said that there is a need for reform in Indian judicial system for faster judgements. "Finally the #Nirbhayacase comes to an end. I wish it would have been faster but I'm happy it's over. Finally she & her parents are in peace. #RIPJyoti #RIPNirbhaya #Justicedelayed #TookTooLong," said Preity. She also said that many such crimes against women would have stopped if the rapists were hung back in 2012. "If #Nirbhaya rapists were hung in 2012 the judicial system would have stopped so much crime against women. Fear of the law would have kept the lawless in check," read another tweet from the actor. "Prevention is always better than cure. It's time the Indian govt. takes steps for judicial reforms," Preity added. If #Nirbhaya rapists were hung in 2012 the judicial system would have stopped so much crime against women. Fear of the law would have kept the lawless in check. Prevention is always better than cure. Its time the Indian govt. takes steps for judicial reforms. #RIPNirbhaya Preity G Zinta (@realpreityzinta) March 20, 2020 Former Miss Universe and actor Sushmita Sen also lauded the resilience of Nirbhaya's mother all through the course of justice. "A Mother's resilience, Asha Devi sees it through!! Finally some justice!! #Nirbhaya Dugga Dugga," tweeted Sen. A Mothers resilience Asha Devi sees it through!! Finally some justice!! #Nirbhaya Dugga Dugga sushmita sen (@thesushmitasen) March 20, 2020 Actor Taapsee Pannu tweeted, " It's done. Finally. I hope the parents can finally sleep slightly better tonight after YEARS. It's been a long long battle for them. Asha Devi." Its done. Finally. I hope the parents can finally sleep slightly better tonight after YEARS. Its been a long long battle for them. Asha Devi https://t.co/XidMPTzKm4 taapsee pannu (@taapsee) March 20, 2020 Veteran actor Rishi Kapoor also reacted to the execution of convicts and shamed those who delayed it. "Nirbhaya Justice. Jaisi karni waisi bharni. Let this set an example not only in India but world over. Punishment for rape is by death. You have to respect womanhood. Shame on the people who delayed the execution. Jai Hind!" he tweeted. Nirbhaya Justice. "Jaisi karni waisi bharni" Let this set an example not only in India but world over. Punishment for rape is by death. You have to respect womanhood. Shame on the people who delayed the execution. Jai Hind! pic.twitter.com/ENyjTxwlMI Rishi Kapoor (@chintskap) March 20, 2020 The four convicts, along with two others including Ram Singh and a juvenile, had raped and brutally tortured a 23-year-old paramedic student on a moving bus in south Delhi on the night of December 16, 2012. The victim died a few days later after battling for life at Delhi's Safdarjung Hospital and later at a Singapore hospital. Also read: Delhi gang rape convicts hanged, 2,650 days after committing the crime The case had created an uproar across the country, especially in Delhi where a large number of people came out on the streets, demanding justice for the victim, who was renamed as 'Nirbhaya' or the fearless. Follow @htshowbiz for more ANN ARBOR, MI The University of Michigan announced Wednesday that researchers across the Ann Arbor, Flint and Dearborn campuses should ramp down all noncritical laboratory research activities by 5 p.m. Friday. The announcement from UMs research department said the decision did not come easily, and the university is aware that it will have a large impact. We are working across the academic enterprise to minimize the impact this poses to your professional advancement, the advancement of your colleagues, and to your ability to return to fully functioning labs, the message reads. The university announced plans to maintain minimal access to laboratories so critical activities the maintenance of animals, unique reagents and essential equipment and materials, along with research related to COVID-19 and the new coronavirus can continue. Person with access to University of Michigan dining facility tests positive for COVID-19 Rebecca Cunningham, interim vice president for research at UM, said the university strongly encourages researchers to apply their knowledge and expertise to address serious challenges that impact health and safety, and COVID-19 is no different. We have researchers across a wide variety of disciplines who are testing hypotheses and interventions that are specific to the 2019 novel coronavirus, Cunningham said. Their research aims to improve our overall understanding of the biology of this virus and its interactions with the host, which we hope will lead to the development of new diagnostics, therapeutics or vaccines. Cunningham said researchers are also working to model the pandemic from a public health standpoint and gain knowledge into the reaction of society, as well as provide information on economic, political and societal downstream effects. UM began restricting human research March 14 in order to minimize the risk of contracting or spreading COVID-19, and those restrictions are in place through May 1. UMs research office said the restrictions could be extended, depending on the circumstances. We understand the difficulty of the situation and its potential impact on the research enterprise and to your individual work and scientific inquiry, but the health and safety of our university community and the broader public is our top priority, UMs research office said. More details can be found in the announcement. Michigan confirmed coronavirus cases jump to 334 with increase of private testing A press release from UM detailed several research projects from across the globe that are affected. Evolutionary biologists Daniel Rabosky and Alison Davis Rabosky, faculty members in the department of ecology and evolutionary biology, are in Panama and were originally scheduled to return to UM in July, according to the release. They considered leaving early, but decided to ride out the pandemic in Panama. Physics department chair David Gerdes canceled two observation runs scheduled in April at telescopes in Chile, with a third cancellation likely, the release said. According to the release, observatories in Chile are on lockdown with only skeleton crews carrying out basic maintenance operations. Gerdes said in the release his projects were extremely time-sensitive. NASAs New Horizons spacecraft is currently speeding through the heart of the Kuiper Belt, well beyond Pluto, at 36,000 miles per hour," Gerdes said in the release. "We were going to search for objects in the Kuiper Belt that New Horizons could photograph from close range continuing a successful program that led to observations of three objects last year. This is an irretrievably lost opportunity, as New Horizons is going, going, gone in a few years, and there will not be another chance to observe the Kuiper Belt up close for decades." Jose Alfaro, an assistant professor of practice at the school for environment and sustainability, recently returned from Puerto Rico, where he installed a gasifier reactor that was built in Ann Arbor, the university said in the release. His three-year project was left in the dark for months after Hurricane Maria, and now, that project has been put on hold, Alfaro said in the release. I have five teams that were supposed to travel: Puerto Rico, South Africa, Peru, Costa Rica and Uganda, Alfaro said in the release. Most of the travel dates were for May. I have asked all teams to postpone their travel until June at the earliest. In the case of Puerto Rico, I am trying to get the students to move forward with some things they can do at the university but even that is getting dicey. Alfaro said he also has a student working on aquaponics, and there are already fish in the system, meaning they cant just shut down experiments. He said in the release that most of his students have been impacted. They are worried about finishing their capstone projects and theses. I am trying my best to work with them on alternatives and worst-case scenarios," Alfaro said. Cunningham said researchers should closely monitor the local COVID-19 situation and projects that involve direct interaction with participants in areas with high risk for COVID-19 should be paused. The generation of scientific knowledge is essential to finding our path forward during these unprecedented times, Cunningham said. UM and other leading research universities across the country are ready and able to be a trusted source of evidence-based information and help find the needed solutions. More information on how coronavirus has impacted research at UM can be found here. The number of confirmed Washtenaw County cases of COVID-19 doubled to 14 Thursday, while the statewide count climbed to 336. Looking for coronavirus case numbers in Michigan? Why official data lags MORE CORONAVIRUS COVERAGE IN MICHIGAN: Complete coverage at mlive.com/coronavirus Eastern Michigan University postpones commencement, encourages students to go home University of Michigan giving employees 2 weeks paid time off due to coronavirus concerns For Michigan State students, unknowns abound after coronavirus threat prompts suspension of in-person classes Every Michigan public university suspends in-person classes due to coronavirus concern University of Michigan, Michigan State students petition for credit/no-credit classes Depart for the US immediately; Michigan State University tells all study abroad students to come back to US MSU extends virtual classes through semester, postpones commencement due to coronavirus PREVENTION TIPS Michigans State Emergency Operations Center is coordinating state-government resources and the response to the coronavirus spread. It has shared the following tips: What you can do to prevent the spread of COVID-19 and other respiratory diseases: Always cover coughs or sneezes with a tissue or sleeve. Stay home if you are sick and advise others to do the same. Avoid close contact with people who are sick. Avoid touching your eyes, nose and mouth with unwashed hands. Wash your hands often with soap and warm water for at least 20 seconds. Use an alcohol-based hand sanitizer with at least 60% alcohol, if soap and warm water are not available. Clean and disinfect frequently touched objects and surfaces(computers, keyboards, desks, etc.). Its not too late to get your flu shot! While the influenza vaccine does not protect against COVID-19 infection, it can help keep you healthy during the flu season. Ukrainian Il-76 military freighter will fly to China to get the medical cargo needed to combat the spread of coronavirus in Ukraine. "The Il-76 military freighter will soon take off from the Boryspil Airport heading to Guangzhou, China. At 11:00 on Saturday, the crew will get medical cargo: laboratory and rapid coronavirus test kits, medical masks, lung ventilators and more. I have the honour to accompany this flight to complete the paperwork and accept the cargo. I am very grateful for the great work that has made the transfer of valuable cargo possible to Ukraine, namely to the representatives of the business community, the Office of the President and all the ministries involved in the organization," Ukrainian lawmaker from the Servant of the People party Andriy Motovylovets, who will accompany the plane crew, posted on Facebook. According to him, the second flight will be performed next week. As of 10:00 on March 20, 26 coronavirus cases were confirmed in Ukraine, including three lethal cases: 15 cases (one lethal) in Chernivtsi region, two cases (one lethal) in Zhytomyr region, two cases in Kyiv region, one case in Donetsk region, three cases in Kyiv city, two cases in Dnipropetrovsk region, one case (lethal) in Ivano-Frankivsk region. ol Rajesh Kumar Thakur By Express News Service PATNA: Following the hanging of the convicts of Nirbhaya rape case, a Patna-based social worker demanded for bestowing the Padma Award upon the victim's mother, who fought for the delivery of justice to her daughter. Dr Birbal Jha, chairman of Mithilalok Foundation, a social organisation working for socio-culture-economic development, has shot off an appeal-letter to the Prime Minister of India. Dr Jha has demanded the Padma award for the legal fighter in the Nirbhaya case. "I appeal to the Government of India to bestow the Padma Award on Asha Devi, who fought for the delivery of justice in her daughter Nirbhayas rape and murder case which took around eight years to send the convicts to the gallows," wrote Dr Birbal Jha. "Remarkably, the victims mother, Asha Devi did not skip even a single date of the legal fight at courts from lower to the apex one, running from pillar to post, reposing her unshaken faith in the Indian judicial system," he said. "Notably, the conscience of the nation was shaken with how the medical student was raped and murdered in a way that anybody would begin to shudder to think of the horrible night of 2012 when the heinous crime was committed on the undisturbing deceased Nirbhaya whose name was posthumously changed," reads his letter addressed to PM. Meanwhile,the Mithilalok Foundation has passed a resolution to confer the Legal Fighter Award on the mother of late Nirbhaya, who fought against the atrocities and violence, perpetuated against the humanity. Dr Jha, who had earlier taken the initiative to provide the legal aid in the Gurugram School murder case of 2017, said that Asha Devi deserves to project an epitome of emotional empowerment so that women fighting for justice can get an inspiration from as she struggled. ABU DHABI, UAE, March 20, 2020 /PRNewswire/ -- Cambridge Medical and Rehabilitation Center has come forward to assume a leadership role by sponsoring the 14th edition of the SEHA International Pediatric Conference as a Platinum sponsor, which was held from the 16th until January 18, 2020. As UAE's leading rehabilitation and long-term care facility, for improving lives and restoring health to their patients, as carrying out a responsibility for enhancing awareness, education, knowledge, through this sponsorship that enhances value and enriches the healthcare industry in the UAE and GCC region. The conference included pediatric lecture topics such as Genetics & Metabolic, Infection, Pediatric Intensive Care Medicine, Neurology, Emergency, Quality, and Patient Safety, of which all fall under the services of Cambridge Medical and Rehabilitation Center, encompassing its 3 facilities located at Abu Dhabi, Al Ain, and Dhahran, Kingdom of Saudi Arabia. In making this contribution, Cambridge Medical and Rehabilitation Center can share their expertise and emphasize their strategies that lead to such great results. Results that are obtained by adhering to the highest standards of professionalism, ethics and personal responsibility implying worthy trust that patients place in CMRC. By providing the best care to treat patients and their families; demonstrating excellence in all of which they do. Keeping the center of focus on continuous improvement for their patients, and continuum of care, thereby supporting progress to achieve the required therapeutic goals for reaching a successful discharge. Cambridge Medical and Rehabilitation Center is not only limited to pediatric Services, as patients from all ages are served. With an available 240 beds capacity currently among the three (3) facilities with more than 800 improved patients, Cambridge Medical and Rehabilitation Center has attained world-class scores in Post-Acute Rehabilitation and Long-Term Care services. 15% to 20% of CMRC inpatients are enrolled in the Transitional Vent Unit program for mechanical ventilator weaning.; The CMRC Transitional Vent Unit program is comprised of outstanding clinical staff, inclusive of Intensive Care Physicians, ICU Nurses, Respiratory Therapists, as well as Rehabilitation Therapists, who possess singular expertise in developing bespoke weaning protocols unique to each of our mechanically ventilated patients thereby achieving a very successful weaning rate of greater than 70%. This percentage is a stand-alone proof of a healthcare organization that is always working tirelessly to provide exceptional care to its patients and their families. In relation to the success rate of weaning patients dependent on mechanical ventilators, this is associated with another achievement, which is our discharge rate. The discharge rate indicates that patients have successfully completed their required therapy plan(s), and meet and/or exceed their therapy goals thereby reintegrating to community, home, and family. At Cambridge Medical and Rehabilitation Center we lead the market in successful discharges with a cumulative discharge rate of 85%. Therefore, with this transition of patients to rehabilitation facilities like Cambridge, acute-care hospitals can free up beds for severe cases that require special acute care. Therefore, more patients can be served and benefit by being provided with the appropriate rehabilitative services in an environment designed for and conducive to their rehabilitative journey outside acute-care hospitals. Those results serve as a catalyst that facilitates patients to be transformed to other specialized treatment plans and services that are tailored to their needs and requirements at a later phase throughout their therapy journey, at Cambridge Medical and Rehabilitation Center. No evidence of human-to-human transmission says Health Minister The Health Minister for the Isle of Man has issued a statement regarding the first case of Coronavirus on the Island. David Ashford confirmed the male returned to the Island on Sunday from a holiday in Spain. He also said there is no evidence of human to human transmission and the patients family are showing no symptoms. The patient has 'mild' symptoms and has not required hospital treatment. Mr Ashford also said: "The situation has now changed. We have moved into the next chapter. We are finalising a further package of measures. A full announcement will be made this afternoon. I can tell you that everything is being considered and nothing is off the table. Further to what I have stated at previous press conferences, we will now be moving to the next stage of our plans. It is important that I make clear to people that these measures will change our daily lives." Hear the statement: Media David Ashford Friday AM Briefing Amid the crisis over the government, Madhya Pradesh Chief Minister Kamal Nath announced on Friday that he was going to submit his resignation to the Governor. He said that every citizen of the state is witness that the public welfare work done by me to BJP did not go down well. From the very first day of his tenure, the BJP started plotting against us. Kamal Nath said at a press conference held here, "You are a witness that the BJP people used to say that this is a 15-day government. This government will not run, but we started the work. By luring our 22 MLAs to hostage in Karnataka Worked. The entire state is witness to this. The public will never forgive these greeders who cheat the people of the state. BJP has betrayed the people." Kamal Nath said, "We have waived the debts of 30 lakh farmers and we were going to start the third phase of loan waiver. This step stopped farmers who committed suicide in the state. But BJP did not like it. The chief minister said, "We have worked to make the state mafia-free. The BJP did not want the state to end the mafia rule. We worked to make the state safe. We launched the youth self-respect program to provide employment to the youth." A large number of youth were unemployed during BJP's tenure. We decided to build 1000 gaushalas for the cows roaming around here and there which the BJP did not like. " He said, "Madhya Pradesh should be made such a state where people have faith. We did not make any false declarations. The BJP was afraid of the development work done by us that the door of the state would now come in the hands of Congress." We have not been accused of any scam in months. The public realized what a pro-people government is like. " Newport Beach, California--(Newsfile Corp. - March 20, 2020) - Vivera Pharmaceuticals, Inc., a pharmaceutical company focused on putting patients first, today announces a new partnership with Pharmact AG, a leading German manufacturer of rapid diagnostic testing kits. The CoV-2 Rapid Test is an easy to use, rapid diagnostic tool for determination of COVID-19 infection in patients displaying clinical symptoms. Vivera has obtained exclusive rights to market and distribute the test in the United States. As part of this, Vivera has submitted an Emergency Use Authorization application to the FDA. Under the EUA, the CoV-2 Rapid Test is intended to detect SARS-CoV-2 antibodies IgM and IgG in patients. Unlike other tests currently marketed, the CoV-2 Rapid test can further determine infection phase. A positive IgM value indicates an infection in the early phase of the disease (4 to 10 days), and a positive IgG value indicates a later phase (from 11 - 24 days). Results are available in 20 minutes, and require only two drops of blood from the patient. "These kits are designed for rapid in the field testing," says Dr. Stephen McColgan, Vivera's Chief Medical Officer. "When you have thousands of potential patients, you do not have time to wait for labs that can only process a few hundred test results a day. Infection phasing is important to adequately triage patients immediately." Pharmact CEO Eric Schaber said in a statement. "We are confident that our point-of-care tests will be critical to help tackle what is a global pandemic. We are looking forward to exclusively working with Vivera to import and distribute our tests in the United States. Their footprint and expertise means more patients can be helped more efficiently." Vivera founder and CEO, Paul Edalat, further stated. "We look forward to working with Pharmact to assist in treating this global crisis. As a company Vivera focuses on therapies that put patients first. President Trump has announced that he is asking all pharmaceutical and medical companies to do their best to assist in this crisis. On behalf of Vivera we are ready and willing to do our part." About Vivera Pharmaceuticals, Inc. Vivera Pharmaceuticals, Inc. is an innovative, science-driven pharmaceutical company focused on novel therapies for a variety of indications. In addition to its pharmaceutical and medical device products, the company has global exclusivity to license the patented and patent-pending TABMELT sublingual drug-delivery system for the pharmaceutical use of cannabinoid compounds. The company is vertically integrated with patented technology, manufacturing capabilities and distribution for its products. For more information, visit https://viverapharmaceuticals.com. About Pharmact AG Founded in 2014, Pharmact AG is a German pharmaceutical company headquartered in Berlin, Germany. The company's research center and sales office are both based in Mannheim. Pharmact is operated in Spain by Pharmact Healthcare S.L. in Alicante and the United States by Pharmact Healthcare Inc. in Chapel Hill, North Carolina. Behind an international team of medical experts, the company focuses on preventing disease through early detection. Investor Relations Inquiries: thinkHERO Patrick Piette, CFA for Vivera Pharmaceuticals, Inc. 416-526-9911 investorrelations@viverapharma.com Press Inquiries: thinkHERO Karin Elz, for Vivera Pharmaceuticals, Inc. 416-992-9848 press@viverapharma.com To view the source version of this press release, please visit https://www.newsfilecorp.com/release/53637 British Ambassador to Spain, Hugh Elliott has reminded residents and tourists still in Spain that the key requirement of the Spanish government's state of alarm decree is to stay at home. The Spanish government has not restricted flights to the UK and tourists can still return home should they wish to do, he said, although they are encouraged to check with their airline or travel company. The message comes after the British government advised against all but essential travel to Spain and recommended that all tourists return home if and when possible. British Prime Minister Boris Johnson has said that all cafes, pubs, bars and restaurants will close across the UK from tonight. The closed premises will be allowed to provide take away facilities, however. The speed of our eventual recovery depends entirely on our collective ability to get on top of the virus now and that means we have to take the next steps on scientific advice, he told the UK's daily Covid-19 press conference. And, following our plan, we are strengthening the measures announced on Monday. We need now to push down further on that curve of transmission between us. And so following agreement with all the devolved administrations, we are collectively telling cafes, pubs, bars and restaurants to close tonight as soon as they reasonably can and not to open tomorrow. Though, to be clear, they can continue to provide take-out services Were also telling nightclubs, theatres, cinemas, gyms and leisure centres to close on the same timescale. Boris Johnson said the British government would be continually assessing the situation around pubs and cafes and other requested closures to see if we can relax any of these measures. He added: You may be tempted to go out tonight and I say to you please dont, you may think that you are invincible but there is no guarantee that you will get it. (And) you can still be a carrier of the disease and pass it on. He added: We want you as far as possible to stay at home. On the heels of three more new coronavirus cases Friday, Montgomery County health officials confirmed a 13th case Saturday afternoon. According to information from the Montgomery County Public Heath District, the woman is in her 30s and lives in northwest Montgomery County and has no recent travel history. She is currently isolated at home. Montgomery County Office of Emergency Management and Homeland Security Executive Director Jason Millsaps said while more cases are expected, he said the number of negative tests are increasing as well. As we have ramped up testing at private facilities and hospitals across the county and tests become more available to the general population we expect to see increases in positive tests but we have seen an increase in negative tests so there is some good news, he said urging people to not panic or continue stockpiling groceries. County Judge Mark Keough took to social media Saturday to address misinformation clearing up rumors of any lockdown, shelter in place or that the National Guard was responding locally. He urged residents to fact check information with the county, state and federal government websites. Any orders will be distributed via press conferences where you would hear them from the originating authority directly and can see for yourself, Keough stated. The three easiest ways to deal with theses rumors are to stop listening to them and stop forwarding or sharing them. If you are passing these rumors along or creating these rumors, stop, and do not be afraid, be strong, be wise, be self controlled and unless you you hear it from the designated authorities, the rumors are false. Here are updates on Montgomery Countys current cases: Case 1: A man in his 40s, who lives in northwest Montgomery County, is still hospitalized. He remains in critical condition, but is stable and showing some improvement. He was believed to have become infected with the virus as a result of community spread. More Information Keep clean Wash hands often for 20 seconds and encourage others to do the same. If no soap and water are available, use hand sanitizer with at least 60% alcohol. Cover coughs and sneezes with a tissue, then throw the tissue away. Avoid touching your eyes, nose, and mouth with unwashed hands. Disinfect surfaces, buttons, handles, knobs, and other places touched often. Avoid close contact with people who are sick. For more information, please see www.dshs.texas.gov/coronavirus See More Collapse Case 2: A woman in her 40s who lives in southeast Montgomery County. She remains in a hospital in Harris County in critical condition. Her only travel was to New Orleans. Case 3: A man in his 40s who lives in northwest Montgomery County. He is at home, recovering well. His only travel was to Florida. Case 4: A woman in her 40s who lives in northwest Montgomery County. She remains at home, doing well. Her case is connected to Case 3. Case 5: A man in his 50s who lives in southwest Montgomery County. He is in isolation at home. The man had recently traveled to California. Case 6: A man in his 40s who lives in southwest Montgomery County. He is in isolation at home. The man had recently traveled to California. Case 7: A woman in her 60s who lives in northwest Montgomery County. She is in isolation at home. She has no recent travel history, and no known contact with other patients. Case 8: A woman in her 40s who lives in southeast Montgomery County. She is in isolation at home. She had recently traveled to Germany. Case 9: A man in his 50s who lives in southwest Montgomery County. He is hospitalized in critical but stable condition. His travel history is under investigation. Case 10: A woman in her 50s who lives in southeast Montgomery County. She is in isolation at home. She attended the Houston Livestock Show and Rodeo March 8. Case 11: A man in his 90s, who lives in southwest Montgomery County. He is currently hospitalized and has no recent travel history. Case 12: A man in his 50s, who lives in southwest Montgomery County. He is in isolation at home and recently traveled to Brazil. cdominguez@hcnonline.com Trump invokes wartime powers over corona as virus reaches Congress Iran Press TV Thursday, 19 March 2020 7:05 AM US President Donald Trump has signed into law an emergency relief package, while announcing new military-related measures in what he called "war" against the coronavirus pandemic. Trump on Wednesday signed a $100-billion package that ensures sick leave to workers with family members affected by the coronavirus, COVID-19. Those whose children's schools have closed would also still receive up to two-thirds of their pay. The original measure called for workers to receive their full pay, though. The president took the step as he was facing scrutiny for moving too slowly and timidly to fight the respiratory illness. The pneumonia-like outbreak has so far infected 9,300 people and killed 150 patients in the US, according to a Johns Hopkins University tally. Trump invokes wartime powers Speaking at a news briefing hours after signing the aid package, Trump described himself "in a sense, a wartime president," whose administration is poised to fight "our war" against the novel coronavirus. The US president announced that he was signing the Defense Production Act, which dates to the Korean War, "right after I'm finished with this conference." That would enable the president to direct civilian businesses to help meet orders for products necessary for the national defense. "In other words I think you will know what it is and it can do a lot of good things if we need it, and we will have it all completed." Under the military act, Trump will also deploy two Navy hospital ships, one of which would go to New York, the state with the most cases of the infections. That would enable the president to direct private industries to churn out protective masks and gowns for hospital workers, as well as ventilators needed to keep critically ill patients alive. "There's never been an instance like this where no matter what you have, it's not enough," he said. "We must sacrifice together because we're all in this together." The president, however, said he will use the powers only if necessary. The measures are taken as healthcare officials have repeatedly warned that stockpiles of medical equipment could be wiped out as COVID-19 infections keeps rising. Coronavirus reaches Congress In a related development, two members of the congress tested positive for the virus. Rep. Mario Diaz-Balart, a Florida Republican, and Rep. Ben McAdams, a freshman Democrat from Utah became the first known members of Congress to have been infected. The news has begun rippling across the legislature, with several representatives saying that they would self-quarantine because they had contact with the two infected lawmakers. That has sparked an internal House debate about whether to permit remote voting for the US lawmakers. Speaker Nancy Pelosi and other Democrats, however, have resisted the idea, arguing that it would set a damaging precedent for the future and signal a lack of confidence from government in the country's fight against the outbreak. NEWS LETTER Join the GlobalSecurity.org mailing list Enter Your Email Address Advertisement Australia will enjoy its last day of summer today as temperatures soar but the mini-heatwave will be short-lived sparking fears the cold will help coronavirus to spread. A cold front will come sweeping in from the Tasman Sea pushing hot air towards the east coast and sending the mercury upwards of 37C. But the warmer weather will be short lived as temperatures are set to plummet to just 16C in Sydney on Saturday. It follows the unseasonably warm weather this week recording the highest overnight low of 26.8C in Adelaide since 1940. The weather system's warming effect will fade into the weekend, but not before raising fire danger in parts of south-eastern Australia to the highest 'since late January'. As Australians enjoy the last days of summer, there are fears the deadly coronavirus could spread more effectively as temperatures drop. A masked woman is pictured on Bondi Beach on Friday wearing a face mask. Unseasonably high temperatures are forecast for the east coast on Friday Sand and sea: Beachgoers enjoy a balmy morning in Bondi. Temperatures are set to soar to 37C on Friday Seas of change: A woman in a mask checks her phone as Australians enjoyed an extension of the summer weather on Friday Business as usual: People were enjoying Bondi Beach early on Friday morning in Sydney as the coronavirus pandemic continues to have an unprecedented effect around the world Scientists are yet to find out if the novel coronavirus, which causes the disease Covid-19, is spread more easily in cold or warm weather. But Australia's Department of Health said people were more likely to congregate in enclosed spaces in winter making the transmission of the virus much more likely. 'The difference in colder weather is that people tend to congregate more in closed spaces where heating exists, and closer contact makes transmission easier,' a departmental spokesperson told Daily Mail Australia. UNSW Virology Professor Bill Rawlinson said the same things that help colds and flu spread in winter would provide the perfect conditions for coronavirus. The Bureau of Meteorology's long-term outlook for winter shows much of the country remaining extremely dry, with temperatures likely to exceed the average in most areas other than south-western Western Australia and parts of South Australia and Victoria. 'Nasal stuffiness is caused by cold,' he said. 'The thermal cold makes your nose swollen and red. This also promotes the growth of viruses.' A perfect storm of 50km/h winds and high temperatures will threaten areas from South Australia to central Victoria, Sky News Weather meteorologist Alison Osborne said. 'Thats more than enough for dust storms and warrants the most widespread fire dangers since late January from the Eyre Peninsula all the way to central districts of Victoria,' she said. Taking no chances: A woman in a masks walks along the sand at Bondi Beach, although others were happy to go without the protective clothing Soaking in the rays: Bondi Beach pictured as the sun rose above the eastern suburbs. Bureau of Meteorology forecaster Helen Kirkup said a front pushing warm weather eastwards had as of Friday morning moved into southern parts of the New South Wales What pandemic? Beaches in the eastern suburbs were still packed with sunbathers despite the virus spread as they made the most of the sun on Friday Surf's up! Surfers made the most of conditions as the sun broke over the world famous tourist destination, Bondi Beach In Victoria, the state's emergency management commissioner Andrew Crisp said severe severe fire danger warnings and total fire bans were in place for three north-western regions. Temperatures elsewhere in Australia are expected to remain high, with the thermostat in Western Australia and the Northern Territory staying above 30C throughout the weekend. Mercury levels in Queensland are set to fluctuate until Tuesday, tipping 30C on Friday before dropping to as low as 20C early next week. Melbourne will be one of the coolest parts of the country in the coming days. Temperatures could dip as low as 10C on Tuesday. The cold front (pictured) is sweeping towards the Tasman Sea from western parts of the country and the Bureau of Meteorology said it was sitting around the south coast of New South Wales on Friday morning Bureau of Meteorology forecaster Helen Kirkup told Daily Mail Australia the front had as of Friday morning moved into southern parts of the New South Wales. She said northerly winds ahead of the front would prompt high temperatures in Sydney, before the thermostat drops significantly as the system passes through. 'We're looking at levels all in their 30s for Sydney, getting up to 36C and 37C and similar further west,' she said. Similarly high mercury levels in Sydney on Thursday led hundreds of people to flock to the Harbour City's famous Bondi Beach (pictured) People are seen swimming in North Sydney Olympic Pool with the Sydney Harbour Bridge looming over. 'We're looking at levels all in their 30s for Sydney, getting up to 36C and 37C and similar further west,' BoM forecaster Helen Kirkup said 'After the front has passed through, we'll get a drop in temperature. Saturday's top is 24-25C.' Similarly high mercury levels in Sydney on Thursday led hundreds of people to flock to the Harbour City's most famous beach. It came despite the Australian government advising the public to practice social distancing in a desperate attempt to control the spread of the coronavirus. Your browser does not support the iframe HTML tag. Try viewing this in a modern browser like Chrome, Safari, Firefox or Internet Explorer 9 or later. Bondi Beach in the eastern suburbs was packed with sunbathers as they made the most of the sun and 32C heat before cooler weather settles across the country. The actions of beachgoers splashing in the waves and chatting in groups go against the advice of health authorities who have told people to exercise 'social distancing'. 'Social distancing is important because COVID-19 is most likely to spread from person-to-person,' government advice reads. The number of confirmed coronavirus cases in Australia soared to more than 750 on Friday, with a seventh death confirmed 'So, the more space between you and others, the harder it is for the virus to spread.' While social distancing in public, Australians have been advised to sanitise their hands, make cashless transactions, travel at quiet times and avoid crowds. Social distancing measures also include sitting in the back of a taxi and staying 1.5m apart. It follows the unseasonably warm weather this week recording the highest overnight low of 26.8C in Adelaide since 1940 Prime Minister Scott Morrison on Thursday announced Australia would shut the borders to non-residents at 9pm on Friday in a desperate attempt to control the coronavirus outbreak. The drastic measure came as the confirmed cases of COVID-19 in Australia surged past 750, with about 80 per cent of those coming in from overseas. Outdoor events with more than 500 people have been banned and indoor gatherings must be less than 100. 20.03.2020 LISTEN The Commission on Human Rights and Administrative Justice (CHRAJ) has raised concerns over the insistence of both the National Identification Authority (NIA) and Electoral Commission (EC) to respectively go ahead with the Ghana Card registration in the Eastern Region and the compilation of a new voter register amid the Coronavirus scare. CHRAJ in a statement indicated that the two-state institutions disregard of the Presidents directive is in breach of the international and regional human rights instruments and the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) for which Ghana is a State Party and a signatory as well as the existing World Health Organization (WHO) precautionary measures aimed at containing and combating COVID-19. The Commission, therefore, wants the President to order the bodies to without delay, suspend the planned activities to uphold the rights-based approach in protecting the right to the health of all persons in Ghana in accordance with law. The Commission is of the considered view that the President or the Inter-Ministerial Committee calls the NIA to order by suspending forthwith its ongoing registration exercise in the Eastern Region until the COVID-9 pandemic normalizes. In the same vein, the Commission calls on the President of the Inter-Ministerial Committee on COVID-19 to advise the EC on the potential public health risk and safety associated with the planned Voters Registration due to the danger or threat that any mass gathering arising from such an exercise can pose to the health and life of the people, CHRAJ noted. Currently, the number of Coronavirus cases in Ghana has risen to 11. The country is, however, likely to record more cases of COVID-19 within the next two weeks, Kojo Oppong Nkrumah has disclosed. Provision of PPEs Meanwhile, the Commission has further recommended that Government as a matter of urgency provide protective gear and equipment to all hospitals and health facilities both private and public and to all health professionals directly handling COVID-19 suspected cases to mitigate the looming contagion in the protection of the rights to health and life of these professionals who are exposed to serious risks of contracting the deadly virus in the line of duty on a daily basis. NIA sued Two citizens have sued the NIA over the mass registration and issuance of the Ghana card to Ghanaians in the Eastern Region amid the outbreak of the Coronavirus. The plaintiffs, Kevow Mark-Oliver and Emmanuel Akumatey Okrah argue in their writ that the continuous registration and issuance of the Ghana card in the Eastern Region has a strong tendency in aggravating the spread of the coronavirus. They are among other things seeking an interlocutory injunction restraining the NIA from continuing with the exercise until the coronavirus has been eliminated. That the 1st Respondent's continuous registration and issuance of the Ghana card violate the presidential directives. That the 1st Respondent's continuous registration and issuance of the Ghana card violate the Imposition of Restrictions Bill, 2020, excerpts of the writ said. Background The NIA earlier this week said it will continue with the Ghana Card registration despite the misgivings from some of its officers because of the novel coronavirus. The Authority released guidelines for its officers in line with the government's new directives on public gatherings to curb the spread of the novel coronavirus in Ghana. But the Advocacy and Research at the Africa Centre for Health Policy, has described the protocols by the National NIA put in place to prevent the spread of COVID-19 in the Eastern Region as impractical. For the EC, although it had wanted to compile a new voters' register on April 18, the exercise will not come off on the said date, following the President's four-week ban on public gatherings. It, however, said the compilation has not been canceled. ---citinewsroom Genres : Crime and Drama : Crime and Drama Running Time : 89 min. : 89 min. Directed by : Cho Sung-bin : Cho Sung-bin Starring : Hong Keun-taek, Cha Ji-hyun Synopsis : A North Korean defector who has just settled in South Korea is having an uneasy day because he is troubled by his longing for his brother who he broke up with in the escape from the North and cannot adjust to the strange reality in the South. Posted on March 19, 2020 We are collaborating with FactCheck.org, a project of the Annenberg Public Policy Center of the University of Pennsylvania, in an effort to identify misinformation and to ensure news consumers get the facts. As the White House and Congress work on a massive stimulus package to address the novel coronavirus pandemic which could result in payments to individual taxpayers social media users are spreading a fabricated tweet attributed to President Donald Trump that suggests such aid could be withheld from his critics. Trump never posted the tweet in question. Yes, I ordered the Treasury Secretary to send checks to Americans! the fake post reads. First however, we will go through your social media history from the last 4 years and search for any post with #NotMyPresident in it. I wouldnt think of offending you with a check if Im not your president! #MAGA. A quick search on Trumps Twitter feed shows no trace of that tweet, which is dated March 17 at 4:13 p.m. We also couldnt find it in the Trump Twitter Archive, which collects the presidents tweets including those that have been deleted. The archive shows nearly 50 posts that day on Trumps account, most of which were re-tweets. The fictitious tweet may be intended as a joke meant to needle Trumps critics, but if so, comments show that was not clear to everyone who encountered it. One post of the doctored screenshot was shared on Instagram by the well-followed radio host Charlamagne Tha God and was liked by more than 61,000 users. Among the comments on the post, one user said: This mans level of petty is absurd. Another wrote: Does this mean I can stop paying taxes cuz hes not my president. The fake tweet was shared by many on Facebook, too. Its worth noting that the payments are part of a package to assist Americans and stabilize the U.S. economy that is still being worked out by the administration and legislators; it is not the presidents decision unilaterally. The $1 trillion proposal drafted by the White House calls for $500 billion for such payments. Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin said on March 19 that payments could amount to $1,000 per adult and $500 per child meaning a family of four could receive $3,000 and could be issued in the coming weeks, if the necessary legislation passes. Editors note: FactCheck.org is one of several organizations working with Facebook to debunk misinformation shared on social media. Our previous stories can be found here. ALZENAU, GermanyMyStim continues to prioritize the safety of customers , particularly during the current coronavirus pandemic. In order to continue to guarantee this security during the Covid crisis, hygiene standards have been tightened in all areas, such as production, warehouse and office. Thus, MyStim can ensure that orders continue to reach customers safely, quickly and on time. Every day the whole world is informed about COVID-19 with new facts and figures, said Christoph Hofmann, managing director of MyStim GmbH. We take the resulting guidelines and recommendations for action very seriously and implement them as a matter of course. For example, we have introduced minimum distances and hourly hand washing in internal dealings. All meetings and group formations were prohibited. External service providers are not allowed to enter the company premises for the time being. Our goal is to overcome this crisis together and in a meaningful way. This also means MyStim is still doing everything possible to help people by providing sex toys for probably the most beautiful trivial thing in the world. We believe that other needs should be satisfied in addition to the basic supply, said Jessica Hofmann, managing director of MyStim GmbH and responsible for product development. After all, it would be a shame if everyone was bored to death at home during this time. The high-quality sex toys, with and without e-stim, can be ordered online at MyStim.com. Vibes, geisha balls, masturbators or butt plugsthe diverse range makes women's and men's hearts beat faster. As a candy for all incoming orders MyStim has come up with something very special: by using the code LOVEWINS, every private customer receives 15 percent off everything from now on. We should all stand together, because we are sure that we will manage this time together and are happy if we can continue to give our customers pleasure with our products despite the challenging situation, Jessica said. For more, visit MyStim.com. Bethlehem will start offering free parking in two of its parking decks at noon Friday and it is halting some parking enforcements, like booting cars and late fees on tickets. Mayor Bob Donchez announced in a news release that there will be free parking in the New Street parking deck, 324 S. New St. on the Southside, and the North Street garage, 85 W. North St. in the Historic Downtown, starting at noon Friday until April 3. Vehicles will have 24 hours to exit after noon on April 3 or they will be charged for their entire stay. The Bethlehem Parking Authority will stop booting vehicles and street sweeping is suspended until further notice. The authority is stopping all citation late fees starting March 1 until April 3 and this will be extended if needed. The city already announced it is implementing two free 15-minute parking spaces per city block to encourage people to order out from restaurants and stores. The authority will continue to issue tickets for public safety violations, like double parking, parking in handicapped spaces, blocking fire hydrants, loading zones and driveways, and parking in prohibited areas. The mayor also has postponed all city meetings from March 23 through April 3, when the city will reevaluation the situation. Additional cancelations may be required. The city urges the public to monitor the citys website and social media channels to stay up on closures, postponements and COVID-19 updates. Sara K. Satullo may be reached at ssatullo@lehighvalleylive.com. If theres anything about this story that needs attention, please email her. Follow her on Twitter @sarasatullo and Facebook. Find lehighvalleylive.com on Facebook. Dear Reader, Business Standard has always strived hard to provide up-to-date information and commentary on developments that are of interest to you and have wider political and economic implications for the country and the world. Your encouragement and constant feedback on how to improve our offering have only made our resolve and commitment to these ideals stronger. Even during these difficult times arising out of Covid-19, we continue to remain committed to keeping you informed and updated with credible news, authoritative views and incisive commentary on topical issues of relevance. We, however, have a request. As we battle the economic impact of the pandemic, we need your support even more, so that we can continue to offer you more quality content. Our subscription model has seen an encouraging response from many of you, who have subscribed to our online content. More subscription to our online content can only help us achieve the goals of offering you even better and more relevant content. We believe in free, fair and credible journalism. Your support through more subscriptions can help us practise the journalism to which we are committed. Support quality journalism and subscribe to Business Standard. Digital Editor A large and "potentially hazardous" asteroid is poised to fly by Earth next month, but don't worry it poses no threat to Earth. Asteroid (52768) 1998 OR2 will make a close approach to Earth on April 29. The hefty space rock has an estimated diameter of 1.1 to 2.5 miles (1.8 to 4.1 kilometers), or about the width of the isle of Manhattan. While an asteroid that size could wreak havoc if it crashed into Earth prompting some alarmist and misinformed media reports this asteroid poses no threat. Video: Big asteroid 1998 OR2 will safely fly by (imagery + orbit animation) Related: Potentially dangerous asteroids (images) This animation by Gianluca Masi at the Virtual Telescope Project shows the movement of the potentially hazardous asteroid 1998 OR2 in the night sky on March 16, 2020, between 4:31 p.m. EDT and 5 p.m. EDT (2031-2100 GMT). (Image credit: Gianluca Masi/ The Virtual Telescope Project At its closest approach, which will happen at about 5:56 a.m. EDT (0956 GMT), asteroid 1998 OR2 will be 3.9 million miles (6.3 million km) from Earth. That's more than 16 times the average distance between Earth and the moon. NASA has classified asteroid 1998 OR2 as "potentially hazardous" not because it puts Earth in danger, but because it fulfills certain criteria in the agency's classification scheme. According to NASA, an asteroid qualifies as "potentially hazardous" if its orbit ever intersects Earth's orbit at a distance less than 4.6 million miles (7.5 million km), or 0.05 astronomical units, the average distance between Earth and the sun. Two images from the Virtual Telescope Project's "Elana" astrograph telescope show the potentially hazardous asteroid 1998 OR2 in the night sky on March 16, 2020, at approximately 4:45 p.m. EDT (2045 GMT). Each image is the average of 10 separate 180-second exposures. In the top image, the telescope tracked the asteroid's motion, so the asteroid appears as a white dot among a sea of small star trails. For the second image, the telescope remained fixed on the stars, so the asteroid has a small trail. (Image credit: Gianluca Masi/ The Virtual Telescope Project Asteroid 1998 OR2, which orbits the sun in between the orbits of Earth and Mars, won't fly by Earth again until May 18, 2031, and it will be farther away, passing about 12 million miles (19 million km) from our planet, according to NASA. Its next two flybys, in 2048 and 2062, will be even farther away. The closest flyby of asteroid 1998 OR2 for the foreseeable future will be on April 16, 2079, when it will be only 1.1 million miles (1.8 million km) away. NASA and its international partners are actively scanning the skies for potentially hazardous asteroids and studying ways to deflect an Earth-bound asteroid before it strikes. So far, about one-third of the 25,000 large asteroids thought to be zooming around in Earth's cosmic neighborhood have been discovered. Email Hanneke Weitering at hweitering@space.com or follow her @hannekescience. Follow us on Twitter @Spacedotcom and on Facebook. Flash A special meeting via videoconference on the novel coronavirus disease (COVID-19) was held Friday among the foreign ministers of China, Japan and the Republic of Korea (ROK). The meeting was initiated by the Chinese side and attended by Chinese State Councilor and Foreign Minister Wang Yi, ROK Foreign Minister Kang Kyung-wha and Japanese Foreign Minister Toshimitsu Motegi. Wang said the holding of the special meeting via videoconference on COVID-19 demonstrated the firm determination of the three countries to join hands to overcome difficulties in the face of major challenges and their positive willingness to work together to fight the epidemic and maintain normal exchanges and cooperation. Faced with the outbreak, China, Japan and the ROK helped each other during testing times, writing a moving chapter of "Though miles apart, we are under the same sky," Wang said. Noting the ROK and Japan helped China as soon as possible at the beginning of the outbreak, Wang said the Chinese government and people, reciprocating this kindness, also provided the utmost assistance and support to their neighbors. Citing China, Japan and the ROK are close neighbors linked by the sea, with deeply intertwined interests and close people-to-people exchanges, Wang said strengthening cooperation and tiding over difficulties together is an inevitable choice for the three countries. China looks forward to sharing its experience in fighting the epidemic with the ROK and Japan through this meeting, strengthening policy communication and reaching a valuable consensus on cooperation, he added. There is no U.S. global leadership and no U.S. model, Ms. Major added. Success would be that you manage the pandemic at home, rally allies around you, lead the alliance, supply global public goods and organize the global response, as with Ebola. Instead, American institutions dont seem to be able to cope at home, she said, and there is a Trump response to act alone. The United States did provide some early aid to China. But in general, the administration has left even close allies to fend for themselves. Mr. Trump has defended his ban on all travel from the European Union, but he did not bother to consult with European leaders or even give them advance notice. [Update: Boris Johnson, U.K. Prime Minister, has the coronavirus.] The United States has the leadership of the Group of 7 industrialized countries this year, but it was the energetic French president, Emmanuel Macron, who called Mr. Trump twice in 10 days to suggest a G-7 virus summit by videoconference. Mr. Trump agreed, but left Mr. Macron to organize it. Germans and Europeans generally are angry about accusations from German officials that the Trump administration, and reportedly Mr. Trump himself, offered $1 billion to a German pharmaceutical company, Cure-Vac, to buy monopoly rights to a potential Covid-19 vaccine. The White House denies the accusations and the company has denied receiving a takeover offer. But its lead investor made clear there was some kind of approach. Share this article Whatsapp Facebook Twitter Linkedin Adrian Wail Akhlas (The Jakarta Post) Jakarta Fri, March 20, 2020 16:55 663 7f440ff09e92db75a02bbad206c3bd78 1 Business state-budget,Sri-Mulyani-Indrawati,COVID-19,coronavirus,healthcare,social-aid,fiscal-incentives Free The government will reallocate Rp 62.3 trillion (US$3.9 billion) of state spending from the 2020 budget to tackle COVID-19, focusing on health care, the disbursement of social funds and financial incentives for enterprises. The sum was a significant increase from previous estimates of Rp 27 trillion budget reallocation on top of the Rp 120 trillion allocation for stimulus packages as the government mulls over worst-case scenarios including the possibility of zero percent economic growth, ministers said. We identified around Rp 62.3 trillion of planned spending that can be re-allocated to priority areas put forward by the President. This includes funding for business trips, blocked funds and non-operational purchase of goods, among other items, Finance Minister Sri Mulyani Indrawati told a teleconferenced media briefing on Friday. We will adjust the budget to the three priority areas, including the procurement of medical devices and hospital needs such as the preparation of Wisma Atlet [athletes village in Jakarta] and hospital construction in Galangan Island for COVID-19. Read also: Jokowi urges ministers to focus budget on health care, social aid, economic stimuli Sri Mulyani referred to President Joko Jokowi Widodos directive for state spending to prioritize health care, disbursement of social funds and financial incentives for enterprises to cushion the negative economic impact of the novel coronavirus. The governments baseline scenario was for Indonesias gross domestic product (GDP) to grow above 4 percent this year, Sri Mulyani said. Meanwhile, under the assumption that the pandemic lasts for six months, global trade slumps by 30 percent and the country goes into lockdown, economic growth could fall to as low as zero to 2.5 percent, she added. Sri Mulyani asked ministries to delay big-check spending to allow more room for fiscal intervention in light of uncertainties surrounding the pandemic this year. The Finance Ministry will move quickly to facilitate other ministries spending priorities, she added. This will provide us with fiscal space for health care and protect the public and businesspeople. Indonesia had 369 confirmed cases of COVID-19 and 32 deaths as of Friday. Globally, the pneumonia-like illness has infected over 240,000 people and claimed at least 10,000 lives. The government has previously announced two rounds of stimulus packages including a package worth Rp 22.9 trillion, which includes individual and corporate tax breaks. The first package, worth Rp 10.3 trillion announced on Feb. 25, provides staple needs and mortgage subsidies for low-income families and fiscal incentives for travel-related businesses. Highlights of state spending reallocation announced Friday: Incentives worth Rp 3.9 trillion for tourism as a part of the first stimulus package will be adjusted by the government to respond to the fast-changing pandemic conditions. The government will increase the number of those receiving the Family Hope program (PKH) from 10 million families to 15 million families with the same benefits, aiming to provide a social safety net for up to 70 million individuals. A total of Rp 10 trillion funds for the newly launched pre-employment card program. Health care will receive additional Rp 6.1 trillion for insurance and compensation for medical workers including doctors and nurses. The government has pledged to evaluate Rp 3.3 trillion requested by National Disaster Mitigation Agency (BNPB) to step up fight against the pandemic. The government will redesign the disbursement of Rp 72 trillion in village funds this year. Advertisement Confusion over who qualifies as a key worker whose children can stay in school during the coronavirus crisis intensified last night as the government published a list of jobs ranging from doctors to sewerage workers - but then told them to ask their bosses if they were indispensable. Less than 12 hours before schools close their gates for the last time in a bid to stem the spread of the virus it still remained unclear which children would be allowed in on Monday. The government's wide-ranging list included vicars, binmen, road workers, postmen and funeral directors. However the advice stated: 'If workers think they fall within the critical categories above they should confirm with their employer that, based on their business continuity arrangements, their specific role is necessary for the continuation of this essential public service.' Teenage boys walk to a bus stop in Hartley Wintney, Hampshire, as all schools close tomorrow for months but a promise to keep the children of key workers in classrooms throughout the crisis descended into chaos today It added that parents may be directed to a central 'skeleton school' that will take their children rather than their normal one. Full list of key workers Health and social care This includes but is not limited to doctors, nurses, midwives, paramedics, social workers, care workers, and other frontline health and social care staff including volunteers; the support and specialist staff required to maintain the UKs health and social care sector; those working as part of the health and social care supply chain, including producers and distributors of medicines and medical and personal protective equipment. Education and childcare This includes nursery and teaching staff, social workers and those specialist education professionals who must remain active during the COVID-19 response to deliver this approach. Key public services This includes those essential to the running of the justice system, religious staff, charities and workers delivering key frontline services, those responsible for the management of the deceased, and journalists and broadcasters who are providing public service broadcasting. Local and national government This only includes those administrative occupations essential to the effective delivery of the COVID-19 response or delivering essential public services such as the payment of benefits, including in government agencies and arms length bodies. Food and other necessary goods This includes those involved in food production, processing, distribution, sale and delivery as well as those essential to the provision of other key goods (for example hygienic and veterinary medicines). Public safety and national security This includes police and support staff, Ministry of Defence civilians, contractor and armed forces personnel (those critical to the delivery of key defence and national security outputs and essential to the response to the COVID-19 pandemic), fire and rescue service employees (including support staff), National Crime Agency staff, those maintaining border security, prison and probation staff and other national security roles, including those overseas. Transport This includes those who will keep the air, water, road and rail passenger and freight transport modes operating during the COVID-19 response, including those working on transport systems through which supply chains pass. Utilities, communication and financial services This includes staff needed for essential financial services provision (including but not limited to workers in banks, building societies and financial market infrastructure), the oil, gas, electricity and water sectors (including sewerage), information technology and data infrastructure sector and primary industry supplies to continue during the COVID-19 response, as well as key staff working in the civil nuclear, chemicals, telecommunications (including but not limited to network operations, field engineering, call centre staff, IT and data infrastructure, 999 and 111 critical services), postal services and delivery, payments providers and waste disposal sectors. Words taken as they appear on the Gov.uk website Advertisement It also remained unclear whether only one parent or both would need to be key workers in order for the children to remain in school. Vital civil servants and teachers are also included on the list as are transport workers in aviation and rail and charity staff. Parents whose jobs are not included must keep their children at home. The Government said other key employees were social workers, carers, nursery staff, those working in the justice system, religion and many journalists. The Armed Forces, prison officers and border staff also make it on to the list along with benefits staff and those involved in the bank and phone industries. Education Secretary Gavin Williamson said that pupils who are deemed vulnerable will also be expected to stay in school. He also announced that children entitled to free school dinners will be given vouchers or food parcels during the coronavirus outbreak. He insisted that no child who would usually be eligible for the free meals should go without while their school is closed or they are self-isolating. But parents now potentially face six months with their children at home while desperately trying to juggle their jobs. And amid growing chaos in Britain's schools students whose GCSE and A-Levels exams have been axed fear teachers could give them disappointing grades based on their mock results and coursework because so many traditionally 'cram' ahead of final tests in May and June. Headteachers and nursery managers across the UK were yesterday taking a roll call of all people who believe they need a place for their child or children while they keep working over the coming months. But schools are using their social media accounts to warn parents that couples must both be key workers to be eligible. If not, one will be expected to stay at home with the children, potentially until September at the earliest. Single parents who work in the NHS or for the police, for example, will get a place. One social worker parent tried to register their child for an emergency school place in south-west London yesterday only to be refused because their partner does not have a public sector job. She told MailOnline: 'Children's parents at our school are being told only the children with two key workers parents can send their children in - it's absolutely outrageous. 'Half of them are part time or shift workers therefore the full time earning parent then needs to be at home with their children so the key workers can go out to work and save lives. 'Are those non-key working parents businesses going to support them to be at home with full time pay to keep them afloat - I doubt it'. St Mary's Catholic School in Harborne, Birmingham, tweeted: 'We will be closing to the vast majority of children from Friday. 'You will be aware that schools have been asked to accommodate those families where BOTH parents/carers are 'key workers'. 'If only one parent is a key worker, the Government expects the other parent to be responsible for the care of their child/children'. The same warning has been shared by several other schools across the UK, MailOnline can reveal. One NHS work parent told MailOnline: 'I'm terrified about how we will manage it as a family. Highfield St. Matthew's C.E. Primary School in Wigan has given the same message to their parents - and say proof both people are key workers will be needed 'My partner cannot work while looking after our children at home so we look like we will lose half our monthly income overnight'. She added: 'It's not ideal for anyone, but many high-paid people in the NHS such as consultants, surgeons and senior management already have nannies or stay-at-home partners - but most of us don't and have no idea how we'll cope'. Parents are also demanding clarity on how their children will be fairly graded without GCSE and A-Level exams this year as Gavin Williamson failed to give any details but admitted schools could be closed until September because of coronavirus. Headteacher Sue Tadman comforts a parent as she talks with them outside of Greenfields Junior School in Hartley Wintney today as teachers, students and parents are all in limbo Pupils enter Westminster City School in London with all UK schools due to close by the end of tomorrow - if they haven't already Parents, teachers and nursery staff have also claimed that non key workers will be expected to care for their children at home Q&A: No lessons... so now what happens to my children? By James Tozer When will schools close? Schools in England will close to most pupils tomorrow afternoon, although many are already shut or are only teaching certain year groups due to teacher shortages caused by staff selfisolating. In addition, most boarding schools are already sending pupils home for fear of an outbreak. Schools in Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland will close by the end of the week if they haven't already done so. Whose children will still be able to attend school? Children whose parents are classed as 'key workers', who would not otherwise be able to do their jobs, will be able to attend some schools, which will remain open with a skeleton staff. Examples include NHS staff, police and delivery drivers. Children classed as 'vulnerable' such as those who have a social worker will also be able to attend. What happens to those who are not eligible? There will be confusion for parents as individual schools work out what they can offer using technology. Many aim to provide online tuition, and ministers say they are working with the BBC to provide learning resources. Prime Minister Boris Johnson warned working parents that children should not be looked after by elderly grandparents who are among those most at risk from coronavirus. How long will the mass closure go on for? Education Secretary Gavin Williamson said only that schools would be closed 'until further notice' although those catering for key workers will remain open over the Easter break. The Prime Minister said that the aim was to reopen them again 'as fast as we can'. In reality, any effort to reopen schools is dependent on the success of the campaign against the coronavirus. What happens to school meals? Children eligible for free meals will receive them at those schools which remain open via a national voucher system. Details of the scheme have yet to be confirmed but ministers say it will be in place 'as soon as possible'. Why has the Government decided to close schools? Its medical advisers say that while children themselves are not at special risk, the move will curb the spread of the outbreak by further reducing social contact across society. In addition, high rates of teacher illness and staff self-isolating with a cough or high temperature now means that schools are increasingly unable to continue as normal anyway. Why was this decision not made sooner? Until today, ministers have resisted mounting pressure to follow other European countries which have already closed schools. They had insisted that shutting them would put unacceptable pressure on the NHS and other public services as parents were forced to take time off work, without significantly curbing the spread of the outbreak. What about nurseries, colleges and universities? Ministers say they are 'expecting' early years providers, sixth form and further education colleges to close, as well as private schools. Many universities have already moved lectures online. What does it mean for SATS, GCSEs and A-levels? They have been cancelled, with Mr Williamson saying 'we will not go ahead with assessments or exams'. League tables will not be published this year. How will grades be allocated? The Prime Minister insisted grades would be allocated 'fairly' but full details are yet to be outlined. However grades for GCSEs and A-levels are expected to be based on existing assessment evidence, such as teachers' grade predictions, with an appeal system in case of disputes. What will be the impact on university admissions? Plans are still being drawn up, but experts predicted the process could be turned into 'one big unconditional offer'. Last night admissions service Ucas said only that it would be 'providing further guidance... as soon as possible'. Ucas chiefs said they would be 'working through the implications'. Advertisement The Education Secretary has warned parents they should 'assume' their children will be at home 'for a considerable amount of time' when asked if the academic year is over until the Autumn when all schools close their gates on Friday. All schools in England will close today along with those in Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland as coronavirus continues to wreak havoc in the UK. Mr Williamson has confirmed there will be no SATs, GCSE or A-Level exams this year but has only said children will be graded only to say their path to work, sixth form or university will not be impeded - not how they will be graded. He said: 'I've got to be absolutely honest with you here, any sort of route that we go down is not as good as having a proper set of exams. This isn't something that any education secretary would want to be making a decision on.' When pushed yesterday on the plan on how grades will be awarded he said 'that will be coming out' later today as talks with universities and schools continue. Children and parents have been told anecdotally that teacher assessment and mock results would form the basis of grades but with many students traditionally 'cramming' for exams at the last minute there are concerns they may not get Pupils have been left devastated and confused after this year's GCSE and A-level exams were scrapped because of coronavirus. Children and parents were told teacher assessment and mock results would form the basis of grades but it was unclear how this would work in practice. Boris Johnson vowed students' academic careers would not be 'impeded'. Speaking on BBC Radio 4's Today programme on Thursday morning, Universities UK chief executive Alistair Jarvis said: 'If an appropriate way can be found to assess students, perhaps a combination of teacher assessments and assignment works that's already done, then awards could be granted this summer. This would allow students to get their grades and the university admission process to go ahead this summer.' Asked whether students who have already been offered a place at university could get it as an unconditional offer, Mr Jarvis said: 'That is possible, that would be a good option to immediately remove the uncertainty for students.' The Education Secretary Gavin Williamson said the Government would be prepared to waive the newly qualified teacher status to ensure new teachers currently in training can enter the classroom in September. During an interview with Sky News, he was asked whether - for trainee teachers who will not have had the required classroom time by September - the Government would be prepared to waive the newly qualified teacher status. Mr Williamson said: 'We will be prepared to waive that, we will be working with teacher training establishments in order to do this. 'We're also starting to roll out something called the Early Career Framework which in a number of regions will be starting the next academic year and right across the country the following year to make sure new teachers are supported'. On Wednesday, Prime Minister Boris Johnson announced school closures across the UK but promised the children of NHS and police workers and supermarket delivery drivers would still be able to attend, as would vulnerable children. So far, 144 people have died after testing positive for coronavirus in the UK and tens of thousands of people are thought to be infected. Mr Williamson said the Government stands ready to take the 'incredibly tough decisions' needed to slow the spread of the virus. He said there are currently no plans to shut down bars and restaurants and order people off the streets, but ministers will be guided by the scientific evidence. Gavin Williamson today admitted schools could now be closed until September at the earliest because of coronavirus but gave no detail about how GCSE and A-Levels students will be graded without any exams But the F.D.A. has not approved any drugs for use in the treatment of coronavirus, and the drugs were already available, to treat malaria as well as rheumatoid arthritis and lupus. To date, the F.D.A. has not added the coronavirus to the list of illnesses for which the drugs are specifically approved. Then again, doctors have been free to use both old malaria drugs for any purpose deemed appropriate. At the briefing on Thursday, Dr. Stephen M. Hahn, who has been the commissioner of the Food and Drug Administration for only three months, tended to walk back some of the presidents more inflated predictions that these drugs might vanquish the virus altogether. He said Mr. Trump had asked the agency to look into chloroquine to fight the coronavirus, and that it was setting up a large clinical trial to evaluate the drug. Some hospitals in the United States have already begun using the drugs for coronavirus patients, apparently reasoning that they may help and are unlikely to do harm. They are cheap and relatively safe. Laboratory studies have found that they prevent the coronavirus from invading cells, suggesting that the drugs could help prevent or limit the infection. Not everyone can take the drugs: They are not safe for people who suffer from heart arrhythmia, or those with impaired kidneys or liver. The University of Minnesota is conducting a study in which people who live with a coronavirus patient are being given hydroxychloroquine to find out if it can prevent the infection. Dr. Hahn also said that the agency was allowing sick patients to use remdesivir, the not-yet-approved antiviral drug made by Gilead. Such so-called compassionate use programs allow patients to take unapproved, experimental drugs if they have no other options. YEREVAN, MARCH 20, ARMENPRESS. Prime Minister of Armenia Nikol Pashinyan convened a consultation on March 20 to discuss economic anti-crisis measures conditioned by the situation resulted by coronavirus pandemic. As ARMENPRESS was informed from the Office of the Prime Minister of Armenia, PM Pashinyan noted that their works will be divided into 3 main directions - urgent economic measures, urgent social measures and strategic economic measures. Expressing confidence that Armenia will be able to find new economic prospects after this situation, Pashinyan said, In this stage our task should be not only supporting our businessmen and raising the competitiveness of our economy, but making it visible for the world that after overcoming the crisis Armenia is one of the best countries in the world for doing business. This will definitely be not an easy task but I am confident we will be able to carry it our, PM Pashinyan said, once again emphasizing that Armenia must overcome the crisis, becoming stronger and economically more competitive. Referring to the program of social assistance, PM Pashinyan emphasized the importance of making targeted assistance, so as people who really need the assistance can get it. Today we will discuss our activities in the sphere of agriculture and there are already some preliminary understandings of our future activities, Pashinyan said, adding that after public discussions they will become decisions of the Government. The anti-crisis measures in the sphere of agriculture were discussed at the consultation. The possible mechanisms and tools for assisting farmers and agricultural corporatives were discussed, including the possibility of micro-credits. Chairman of the State Revenue Committee of Armenia Davit Ananyan presented some economic indexes, showing the impact of coronavirus on a number of separate spheres. Referring to the idea of tax holiday, PM Pashinyan noted that the Government will not give a tax holiday. People must be ready to pay their taxes and considering the crisis situation, the Government will also take measures to help the citizens pay the taxes, Pashinyan said. Edited and translated by Tigran Sirekanyan Share this article Whatsapp Facebook Twitter Linkedin Made Anthony Iswara (The Jakarta Post) Jakarta Sat, March 21 2020 Indonesia has prepared its beef supply early from Australia to anticipate a spike in meat consumption during Idul Fitri when families across the archipelago celebrate the end of Ramadhan. A Statistics Indonesia (BPS) report on Monday showed that Indonesias live animal import value skyrocketed 231.72 percent month-to-month in February, despite the government's recent ban on such goods from China. A BPS official who requested anonymity told The Jakarta Post on Wednesday imported cows from Australia contributed to the increase in live animal imports. to Read Full Story SUBSCRIBE NOW Starting from IDR 55,000/month Unlimited access to our web and app content e-Post daily digital newspaper No advertisements, no interruptions Privileged access to our events and programs Subscription to our newsletters We accept Register to read 3 premium articles for free Already subscribed? login WASHINGTON, March 20, 2020 /PRNewswire/ -- Existing-home sales climbed substantially in February after a slight decline in January, according to the National Association of Realtors. Of the four major regions, only the Northeast reported a drop in sales, while other areas saw increases, including sizable sales gains in the West. February 2020 Existing Homes Sales NAR Chief Economist, Lawrence Yun (PRNewsfoto/National Association of Realtors) Total existing-home sales,1 https://www.nar.realtor/existing-home-sales , completed transactions that include single-family homes, townhomes, condominiums and co-ops, rose 6.5% from January to a seasonally-adjusted annual rate of 5.77 million in February. Additionally, for the eighth straight month, overall sales greatly increased year-over-year, up 7.2% from a year ago (5.38 million in February 2019). "February's sales of over 5 million homes were the strongest since February 2007," said Lawrence Yun, NAR's chief economist. "I would attribute that to the incredibly low mortgage rates and the steady release of a sizable pent-up housing demand that was built over recent years." The median existing-home price2 for all housing types in February was $270,100, up 8.0% from February 2019 ($250,100), as prices rose in every region. February's price increase marks 96 straight months of year-over-year gains. Yun noted that February's home sales were encouraging but not reflective of the current turmoil in the stock market or the significant hit the economy is expected to take because of the coronavirus and corresponding social quarantines. "These figures show that housing was on a positive trajectory, but the coronavirus has undoubtedly slowed buyer traffic and it is difficult to predict what short-term effects the pandemic will have on future sales," Yun said. Total housing inventory3 at the end of February totaled 1.47 million units, up 5.0% from January, but down 9.8% from one year ago (1.63 million). Unsold inventory sits at a 3.1-month supply at the current sales pace, equal to the supply recorded in January and down from the 3.6-month figure recorded in February 2019. Properties typically remained on the market for 36 days in February, seasonally down from 43 days in January, and down from 44 days in February 2019. Forty-seven percent of homes sold in February 2020 were on the market for less than a month. First-time buyers were responsible for 32% of sales in February, equal to the percentages seen in both January 2020 and in February 2019. NAR's 2019 Profile of Home Buyers and Sellers released in late 20194 revealed that the annual share of first-time buyers was 33%. "For the past couple of months, we have seen the number of buyers grow as more people enter the market," Yun said. "Once the social-distancing and quarantine measures are relaxed, we should see this temporary pause evaporate, and will have potential buyers return with the same enthusiasm." While offering a definitive forecast is extremely difficult in light of this national and global emergency, Yun says home prices will hold on well. "Unlike the stock market, home prices are not expected to drop because of the on-going housing shortage and due to homes getting delisted during this time of crisis," he said. Individual investors or second-home buyers, who account for many cash sales, purchased 17% of homes in February, equal to January and up slightly from 16% in February 2019. All-cash sales accounted for 20% of transactions in February, down from both 21% in January and from 23% in February 2019. Distressed sales5 foreclosures and short sales represented 2% of sales in February, unchanged from January and down from February 2019. Realtor.com's Market Hotness Index, measuring time-on-the-market data and listing views per property, revealed that the hottest metro areas in February were Colorado Springs, Colo.; Lafayette-West Lafayette, Ind.; Modesto, Calif.; Rochester, N.Y.; and Sacramento-Roseville-Arden-Arcade, Calif. According to Freddie Mac, the average commitment rate for a 30-year, conventional, fixed-rate mortgage decreased to 3.47% in February, down from 3.62% in January. The average commitment rate across all of 2019 was 3.94%. "In the midst of this national emergency, NAR has been and will continue to be in contact with Congressional leaders and White House officials as they consider various policies to ease the economic impact of the coronavirus," said NAR President Vince Malta, broker at Malta & Co., Inc., in San Francisco, Calif. "NAR is engaged in these discussions and presenting proposals that will support real estate and the people that make up the industry." "It is truly inspiring to see so many of our fellow Realtors and brokerages adjust on the fly," Malta continued. "Agents nationwide are keeping interest alive with innovative technologies, holding virtual open houses and computer-generated tours." Single-family and Condo/Co-op Sales Single-family home sales sat at a seasonally-adjusted annual rate of 5.17 million in February, up from 4.82 million in January, and up 7.3% from a year ago. The median existing single-family home price was $272,400 in February, up 8.1% from February 2019. Existing condominium and co-op sales were recorded at a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 600,000 units in February, about even with January's sales, but 7.1% higher than a year ago. The median existing condo price was $249,900 in February, an increase of 7.0% from a year ago. Regional Breakdown Compared to the month prior, February sales increased in the Midwest, the South and the West, while year-over-year sales are up in each of the four regions. Median home prices in all regions increased from one year ago, with the Northeast and South regions showing the strongest price gains. February 2020 existing-home sales in the Northeast fell 4.1%, recording an annual rate of 700,000, a 2.9% increase from a year ago. The median price in the Northeast was $295,400, up 8.2% from February 2019. Existing-home sales increased 0.8% in the Midwest to an annual rate of 1.29 million, up 4.0% from a year ago. The median price in the Midwest was $203,700, a 7.9% increase from February 2019. Existing-home sales in the South climbed 7.2% to an annual rate of 2.52 million in February, up 8.2% from the same time one year ago. The median price in the South was $238,000, an 8.2% increase from a year ago. Existing-home sales in the West surged 18.9% to an annual rate of 1.26 million in February, an 11.5% increase from a year ago. The median price in the West was $410,100, up 8.1% from February 2019. The National Association of Realtors is America's largest trade association, representing more than 1.4 million members involved in all aspects of the residential and commercial real estate industries. For local information, please contact the local association of Realtors for data from local multiple listing services (MLS). Local MLS data is the most accurate source of sales and price information in specific areas, although there may be differences in reporting methodology. NOTE: NAR's Pending Home Sales Index for February is scheduled for release on March 30, and Existing-Home Sales for March will be released April 21; release times are 10:00 a.m. ET. Information about NAR is available at www.nar.realtor . This and other news releases are posted on the NAR Newsroom at www.nar.realtor/newsroom. Statistical data in this release, as well as other tables and surveys, are posted in the "Research and Statistics" tab. 1 Existing-home sales, which include single-family, townhomes, condominiums and co-ops, are based on transaction closings from Multiple Listing Services. Changes in sales trends outside of MLSs are not captured in the monthly series. NAR rebenchmarks home sales periodically using other sources to assess overall home sales trends, including sales not reported by MLSs. Existing-home sales, based on closings, differ from the U.S. Census Bureau's series on new single-family home sales, which are based on contracts or the acceptance of a deposit. Because of these differences, it is not uncommon for each series to move in different directions in the same month. In addition, existing-home sales, which account for more than 90% of total home sales, are based on a much larger data sample about 40% of multiple listing service data each month and typically are not subject to large prior-month revisions. The annual rate for a particular month represents what the total number of actual sales for a year would be if the relative pace for that month were maintained for 12 consecutive months. Seasonally adjusted annual rates are used in reporting monthly data to factor out seasonal variations in resale activity. For example, home sales volume is normally higher in the summer than in the winter, primarily because of differences in the weather and family buying patterns. However, seasonal factors cannot compensate for abnormal weather patterns. Single-family data collection began monthly in 1968, while condo data collection began quarterly in 1981; the series were combined in 1999 when monthly collection of condo data began. Prior to this period, single-family homes accounted for more than nine out of 10 purchases. Historic comparisons for total home sales prior to 1999 are based on monthly single-family sales, combined with the corresponding quarterly sales rate for condos. 2 The median price is where half sold for more and half sold for less; medians are more typical of market conditions than average prices, which are skewed higher by a relatively small share of upper-end transactions. The only valid comparisons for median prices are with the same period a year earlier due to seasonality in buying patterns. Month-to-month comparisons do not compensate for seasonal changes, especially for the timing of family buying patterns. Changes in the composition of sales can distort median price data. Year-ago median and mean prices sometimes are revised in an automated process if additional data is received. The national median condo/co-op price often is higher than the median single-family home price because condos are concentrated in higher-cost housing markets. However, in a given area, single-family homes typically sell for more than condos as seen in NAR's quarterly metro area price reports. 3 Total inventory and month's supply data are available back through 1999, while single-family inventory and month's supply are available back to 1982 (prior to 1999, single-family sales accounted for more than 90% of transactions and condos were measured only on a quarterly basis). 4 Survey results represent owner-occupants and differ from separately reported monthly findings from NAR's Realtors Confidence Index , which include all types of buyers. Investors are under-represented in the annual study because survey questionnaires are mailed to the addresses of the property purchased and generally are not returned by absentee owners. Results include both new and existing homes. 5 Distressed sales (foreclosures and short sales), days on market, first-time buyers, all-cash transactions and investors are from a monthly survey for the NAR's Realtors Confidence Index, posted at nar.realtor. SOURCE National Association of Realtors Related Links http://www.realtor.org Sri Lankan has imposed a nationwide curfew from Friday until Monday to combat the fast-spreading coronavirus pandemic that has claimed over 9,000 lives globally, President Gotabaya Rajapaksa's office has announced. The curfew announcement comes a day after the country's Election Commission announced the postponement of the parliamentary election which was scheduled for April 25. The Commission said a decision on the new date would be taken after March 25. The country is to be placed under a curfew with effect from 6 pm (local time) tonight until 6 am (local time) on Monday, President Rajapaksa's office said. Although there were no reasons given for the announcement, it is believed that the government is keen to see restricted movement of the people in order to promote social distancing in the face of a looming threat posed by the COVID-19 outbreak. The national center tasked to prevent COVID-19 infections said out of the 66 confirmed cases so far, 25 were returnees from overseas. It said 22 of them were from Italy while 2 from the UK and one from India. Over 2,400 people are going through quarantine which includes 27 foreign nationals, it added. President Rajapaksa has refused to lockdown the entire country, citing economic hardships for the poor. Sri Lankan police had previously restricted the curfew to night time in the western coastal areas, a move aimed at tracking down Italy returnees who were avoiding compulsory quarantine process. The police said despite the curfew people were engaging in social activities, defying the need to maintain social distancing. Countries around the world are sealing their borders and banning travel to stop the fast-spreading COVID-19 pandemic that has claimed 9,800 lives and infected more than 232,650 people in 158 countries and territories. In view of the rising number of the novel coronavirus cases globally, Sri Lanka on Tuesday suspended all international flights arriving in the country. China with 80,967 infected cases and 3,248 deaths tops the list followed by Italy (41,035 cases and 3,405 deaths), Iran (18,304 infected cases and 1,284 deaths), Spain (19,077 infected cases and 831 deaths), Germany (15,320 infected cases and 44 deaths) and France (10,995 infected cases and 372 deaths). (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) WESTPORT A Hamden man has been arrested after fleeing police and striking a police cruiser, injuring a police dog, in a December incident. Sherod Manick, 18, is charged with first-degee reckless endangerment, criminal mischief, criminal attempt to assault a police officer, intentionally injuring a police dog, reckless operation of a motor vehicle and engaging police in pursuit/disobeying the signal of an officer According to Westport police, shortly after midnight Dec. 12, 2019, Norwalk police communicated that they were investigating an attempted armed carjacking that occurred in their city, as well as a second successful carjacking. At least one of the suspects was reported to have displayed a firearm. A description of the four suspects and the vehicle in which they were traveling was provided to surrounding agencies by Norwalk police. A Westport officer was the first to locate both the suspect vehicle and stolen vehicle traveling together. An attempt was made to stop these vehicles while both were northbound on Interstate 95 between exits 17 and 18. The stolen vehicle was able to elude police. The suspect vehicle engaged Westport officers in pursuit; members of the Fairfield Police Department, Connecticut State Police and Norwalk officers later joined the pursuit. During this pursuit, the suspect vehicle struck and damaged Westport police officers vehicles multiple times in an attempt to elude them. The force of the impact of one of these collisions caused a Westport police canine to be injured. The suspect vehicle ultimately was stopped in Fairfield. Once stopped, the three occupants did not obey initial verbal commands given by officers to surrender, but ultimately all were taken into custody without further incident. A silver revolver was located in the suspects vehicle. At that time the suspects were turned over to Norwalk police. Manick was identified as the driver during this pursuit. An arrest warrant was sought and granted for Manick. On Thursday, Westport officers were contacted by Manson Detention Center, reporting that Manick was being released from their custody, but was being turned over on this active warrant. Manick was transported to Westport police headquarters. He was held in lieu of a $75,000 bond and was to be arraigned Friday at Superior Court in Stamford. Commenting on the markets, Adam Avigdori and David Goldman representing the Investment Manager noted: The coronavirus outbreak replaced trade deals as the main focus for the markets in February. Near-term negative effects on the Chinese economy and its impact on global growth, together with the expectation that central banks around the world will provide further monetary support, sent government bond yields lower throughout the month, with the US 10Y bond yield hitting a new all-time low of 1.1%. The Chinese manufacturing purchasing managers' index (PMI), one of the first official economic indicators published since the coronavirus outbreak, fell to 35.7 in February, an all-time low and down from 50 in January. For the initial weeks of February, markets looked through concerns about the outbreak, supported by a better-than-expected Q4 US earnings season, improving business surveys in January and the expectation that the virus' impact would be short-lived and contained. However, markets sold off sharply by the end of the month as the virus has spread across the globe. Emerging markets outperformed developed markets, and the S&P 500 saw its fastest 10% fall in a week ever. China has stepped up its economic loosening with several supportive measures being announced, such as cutting the loan prime rate by 10bp, but it remains to be seen how quickly and sharply activity will recover. Whilst the Eurozone composite PMI rose to 51.6 in February, consistent with trend GDP growth, flash PMI details for February showed significant impact from the coronavirus virus. The economy is vulnerable to global supply chain disruptions though downside risks to growth need to be balanced with expectations for fiscal measures that are likely to be announced. Risk aversion has not been isolated to equities. Fears over the virus, global demand as well as stalling negotiations between Russia and OPEC on the implementation of further supply cuts saw the oil price fall another 13%, down 27% year-to-date. In the UK, fiscal policy reached a critical inflection point with two developments: the approval of the roughly 100 billion HS2 and the resignation of Chancellor of the Exchequer, Sajid Javid. Rishi Sunak the new Chancellor delivered a budget that surpassed the Labour party's after the financial crisis. Needless to say, this has been overshadowed since by news relating to the spread of the coronavirus. The FTSE All Share index fell -8.89% in February with Oil & Gas, Basic Materials, and Telecommunications as top underperformers. Over the month, the Company returned -9.7%, underperforming the benchmark, the FTSE All-Share which returned -8.9%. Premier Miton Group was the largest detractor to the Company. The stock saw price weakness, reacting to the weakness seen in the stock market, although we remain constructive on its recent merger supported by a strong balance sheet. AB Foods also detracted from performance on supply chain fears and virus contagion affecting footfall. This overwhelmed supportive full year results. Again, this remains a high quality, long term compounder in our view with market leading positions or products across its portfolio. Importantly, it also has net cash on its balance sheet, remains conservatively financed and can independently fund its own growth. National Grid contributed to performance. Utilities stocks generally performed well in the market sell-off. Rentokil also contributed to performance after the company announced solid full-year results which demonstrated strong growth and cash generation with limited coronavirus impact. We sold positions in Weir Group and Centrica. We reduced holdings in GlaxoSmithKline and HSBC. We added to positions in BHP Group, Unilever and AstraZeneca. 2019 proved to be a strong year for equity investors, with the FTSE All-Share returning 19%. The 2020 macro environment marks a big shift from the dynamics of 2019, when an unusual late-cycle dovish pivot by central banks helped offset the negative effect of rising trade tensions. From a valuation perspective, we recognise that for the most part, valuations are high but not excessive, with trailing p/e of 19x, up from 15x a year ago. On a free cash flow basis, equity markets still look attractive, with the UK the stand-out at 6.3% and around a 30% discount to the MSCI World across a range of valuations. For the UK economy, and the equity market, the picture looks better than it has done for a number of years. For the domestic-facing economy, the Conservative majority has brought more political certainty and indeed, although it is early days, we have seen signs of sentiment and investment returning following the election result. We expect this to continue. We believe the UK's economic climate has the potential to improve over the medium-term, supported by an expected increase in public sector spending. With the backdrop of 'full' employment, the recently announced increase to the national living wage suggests disposable income will continue to improve with underlying growth in nominal and real wages for the first time in recent years. We are also conscious that Environmental, Social and Governance matters ("ESG") are increasingly at the forefront of shareholders' minds. We have always looked to our companies to operate within a healthy ecosystem of all their stakeholders whether these are shareholders, employees, customers, regulators or suppliers. It is our belief that a company's 'ecosystem' is crucial to ensuring the sustainability of long-term returns. For those who have been following our strategy, we continue to employ a bottom-up approach rather than focusing on a specific macro outcome. We believe in identifying franchises across the UK market which can sustain their competitive advantages over the long term, supporting strong and consistent cash generation. Hence, we will continue to focus the portfolio on stock specific risk where our resources and long-term analysis is best able to deliver capital and income growth over the long-term for shareholders. It is certain that coronavirus will have some impact on the global economy, but as the extent of the virus is as yet unknown, it is impossible to quantify its severity and duration. We believe our focus on the stock specifics with a bias towards strong balance sheets will provide support for the portfolio in difficult times. We reduced the gearing in the portfolio significantly during January and the early part of February. Hence, we believe we enter this period well positioned and, as always, we will look to take advantage in shares we like where prices have fallen to levels we find attractive, so that the Company emerges from this period in a stronger position. New Delhi: Nepal and Bhutan have pitched in for India-announced Covid-19 emergency fund for SAARC countries. Kathmandu has announced Nepali 10 crore rupees for the fund while Bhutan announced USD 100,000 for it. Nepali PM KP Sharma Oli announced it during his address to the nation on the COVID epidemic on Friday evening. He said, "I want to inform you that Nepal will contribute Rs 10 crores in this fund set up with the objective to provide requisite help to the SAARC nations." The Bhutan foreign office in a statement said, "The Royal Government of Bhutan has welcomed the establishment of the Emergency Fund and has decided to make an initial contribution of USD 100,000." Recognising the urgent need for "collective efforts to combat such crisis", Bhutan government said, it "would like to reassure its full support and cooperation to do everything possible in close collaboration with all Member States to overcome the COVID-19 pandemic." Prime Minister Narendra Modi had made the announcement for the formation of the fund during the SAARC video conference that took place on March 15 for a joint strategy to deal with the epidemic. India announced a contribution of USD 10 million. All SAARC leaders were present in the meet except Pakistani Prime Minister Imran Khan who had sent a junior member--special advisor on Health Dr Zafar Mirza to represent him. Interim Social Democratic Party (PSD) Chairman Marcel Ciolacu said on Thursday evening that postponing the local election is "an option." Asked on B1TV private television broadcaster if he believed the local election should be postponed, Ciolacu said: "We'll see how things go. We have seen what happened in France. It was a fiasco to force the local election in this context, the second round was cancelled in France. I believe we still have time to discuss these things, to see which way things are going... Postponing local election is an option."Pro Romania Chairman Victor Ponta said on Tuesday that the local election scheduled for June in Romania must be postponed until September."The war against the coronavirus epidemic is all that matters now/the care for the people directly and indirectly affected/the measures to ensure the health, pension, salary, education services - in this crisis period! The local elections scheduled for June in Romania must be postponed until September, now there is no time for political battles and election campaigns - everything must be about the War against the coronavirus Epidemic - and about measures against the economic crisis!," Ponta wrote on Facebook.The Hungarian Democratic Union of Romania (UDMR) believes local election should be postponed by 6 months, in the context in which the priority of the moment is protecting the health of the population and reduce the effects generated by the COVID-19 epidemic, Union Chairman Kelemen Hunor told AGERPRES on Wednesday."The number one priority must remain the health system of people and the attempt to slow down the spread of the virus, so we don't put too much pressure on the health system, on the state institutions. There is nothing left by respect the indications of specialists and the authorities' decisions. This is the number one priority. After that, the economy - what we do with the SMEs, because that is where the base is, and how fast the Government must come up with some measures and after that we can also think about the local election, but not in June," the UDMR leader argued.In his opinion, according to the forecasts made by specialists, statistical models, but particularly to the development of the situation in various countries in the world, "there is no chance to have local election in decent, normal conditions.""That is why, in our point of view, a postponement of up to 6 months is a reasonable solution, somewhere at the end of September - beginning of October these elections will be organised, not at the same time with the parliamentary elections, of course. An organic law is also needed, as provided in the Administrative Code," Kelemen Hunor added.Leader of UDMR senators Cseke Attila also said that the Union MPs endorse such a draft law that could be "swiftly passed" through Parliament and he believes the local election topic must be taken out of any public debate. Within minutes of a city court refusing to stay the hanging of the four men convicted in the December 16 gang rape case, senior prison officers in Tihar Jail started final preparations for the execution on Friday morning. Prison officials said that on Thursday afternoon, the four convicts were told to prepare their wills and make a final wish, but until late Thursday night, they were yet to inform jail authorities about their wishes or a will. At exactly 5.30am on Friday, the four menMukesh Singh, Akshay Thakur, Pawan Gupta and Vinay Sharmawill be hanged simultaneously inside jail number 3. Jail officers said that on Thursday they carried out dummy executions inside phansi kotha(hanging courtyard). Late Thursday evening, jail officers along with the hangman Pawan Jallad inspected the hanging courtyard for the final time before the execution. Watch | Will fight on, says victims mother after hanging of 2012 Delhi gang rape convicts The 10 pieces of rope that were brought from Buxar, Bihar, and tied to the beams at the gallows were checked. The rope has been dipped in butter or wax by prisoners of Buxar Jail and is prepared in such a way that it does not decapitate convicts during the hanging. The lever was also checked by performing a dummy hanging using a sandbag. Around the same time on Thursday evening, the relatives of the four men came to the prison to meet the four convicts, lodged separately in four different cells and guarded round-the-clock by prison guards. They are yet to tell us about their wills. They look nervous and are anxious, but have not told us anything. Maybe they have realised that they have exhausted all legalities, said a prison officer. The officer added that the execution process will be complete before 6.30am. A prison officer, detailing Fridays hanging process, said that at around 4am, the jail superintendent will meet the four men and offer them tea or breakfast. They will be given the option of bathing or praying if they wish to. Around 5 am, the district magistrate or additional district magistrate will reach the prison and ask them about their will, if any. The four men will then be brought separately to the gallows, about 150 yards away from their cells. Their hands and legs will be tied, in accordance with the prison manual. Jail officers also have to cover the faces of the convicts with a black cloth. The hangman will pull the lever at exactly 5.30am, the prison officer, who did not wish to be named, said. Prison officers started tying the hands of convicts before hanging them because, in the early 1970s, a death-row convict had refused to be hanged and attempted to escape each time the noose was tied around his neck. Prison officers said that there wont be more than 10-12 persons present at the hanging courtyard during the execution. Apart from the hangman, the other prison officers would include the director general, the additional director general, the jail superintendent, the deputy superintendent, the jail doctor, resident medical officers, the district magistrate or the additional district magistrate, and a few guards. The four men had assaulted and gang-raped a 23-year-old physiotherapy student inside a moving bus in south Delhi on December 16, 2012. The woman died at a hospital in Singapore two weeks later. The last hanging that took place inside Tihar was of Afzal Gurus on February 9, 2013. Guru was convicted for his role in the 2001 Parliament attack case. However, there was no hangman. A prison officer, whose identity was never revealed, executed him. SHARE THIS ARTICLE ON WASHINGTON California Democratic Sen. Dianne Feinstein took to Twitter on Friday to deny she did anything improper when she sold between $1.5 million and $6 million in a biotechnology companys stock before the market crashed due to the coronavirus outbreak. The New York Times reported that Feinstein and three other senators sold large amounts of stock in late January and early February, as federal officials publicly downplayed the threat of the virus. The sales came shortly after Trump administration officials provided classified briefings to senators on the threat from the virus, the Times and other media outlets reported. During my Senate career Ive held all assets in a blind trust of which I have no control, Feinstein tweeted. Reports that I sold any assets are incorrect. Feinstein and her husband, investment banker Richard Blum, sold shares in Allogene Therapeutics, a biotechnology company, according to her financial disclosures. They sold shares on Jan. 13 and Feb. 18. The stock subsequently rose in value, peaking in early March. Feinstein said her husband sold shares in a cancer therapy company that is unrelated to any work on the coronavirus and the sale was unrelated to the situation. Feinsteins comments came as a furor erupted around reports of stock sales by GOP Sen. Richard Burr of North Carolina, chairman of the Intelligence Committee. He and his wife sold 33 stocks on Feb. 13 worth a total $628,000 to $1.7 million, according to media reports, including more than $200,000 in hotel chain stocks. Many of the stocks have plunged in value since the pandemic struck the U.S. Two other Republican senators, Sens. Kelly Loeffler of Georgia and James Inhofe of Oklahoma, also sold large amounts of stock shortly before the pandemic hit, according to media reports. Feinstein said reports that she attended a Jan. 24 Intelligence Committee classified briefing with administration officials on the coronavirus threat were incorrect. That briefing was in the same time frame as the stock sales by her and the other senators. I was unable to attend, Feinstein tweeted. President Trump defended Feinstein and the other senators during a news conference at the White House, though he said he hasnt looked into the matter. He repeated Feinsteins name several times, without naming the Republican senators. I think shes a very honorable person, he said. I find them to be honorable people. Burr said Friday that he has asked the Senate Ethics Committee to look into his stock sales and denied he had traded on nonpublic information. He said he had relied solely on public news reports to guide my decision regarding the sale of stocks. Dustin Gardiner is a San Francisco Chronicle staff writer. Email: dustin.gardiner@sfchronicle.com Twitter: @dustingardiner The relatively low number of COVID-19 cases in Japan is likely due to limited testing. Despite having cases detected earlier than most countries worldwide, Japan has seemingly not been overrun by the coronavirus. This may lead to a "false sense of security" that could cause the virus to spread more rapidly than it has so far in Japan. Visit Business Insider's homepage for more stories. As of Thursday, Japan has 924 cases and 29 deaths from COVID-19. With over 81,000 cases in China and over 8,500 cases in South Korea, experts wonder if Japan has kept the virus contained or just hasn't tested enough of its population. "The Japan conundrum is just the fact that if you don't test for it, you're not going to find a lot of cases," says Jason Kindrachuk, PhD, an assistant professor of viral pathogenesis at the University of Manitoba. Kindrachuk isn't the only one who suspects underreporting. Kenji Shibuya, former chief of health policy at the World Health Organization, told Bloomberg that Japan has either "contained the spread by focusing on outbreak clusters, or ... there are outbreaks yet to be found." Japan is reportedly using one-sixth of its total testing capacity. Ally Lee/Shutterstock With a population of over 126 million, the country has conducted 32,125 tests over the past month. However, because some people are tested multiple times, Japan has actually only tested 16,484 individuals or about one test per 7,600 people. In comparison, South Korea, with a population of over 50 million, seemingly slowed the spread of the virus by testing more than 270,000 people one test per 185 people through a well-organized program. Earlier this week, Reuters reported that Japan is using one-sixth of its total testing capacity. The capacity for testing nationwide is 7,500 a day, but the health ministry says they do not need to exploit it now Japan was one of the first countries outside China to report a case of COVID-19, with its first case on January 16. The number of cases quickly escalated after the outbreak on the Diamond Princess cruise ship in early February. But since then, Japan's cases have risen less rapidly than in other countries. Story continues Japan took measures to prevent the coronavirus from spreading across the country last month. On February 1, it imposed a ban on any visitors from China's Hubei province. On February 13, it added Zhejiang province to the restricted list. The country has closed schools and staggered commute times at rush hour to decrease crowds, although the current scene around Tokyo is still one of packed trains and restaurants. Some experts have argued that the slow spread of the virus could be that Japanese culture is inherently more socially isolated than other cultures. Moreover, people in Japan have been wearing face masks when ill or have allergies for years, so this natural tendency may have also prevented the spread early on. Kindrachuk doesn't think this is the case but acknowledges it's hard to say for sure. "There's a lot of nuances to this virus that makes it exceedingly difficult to understand and ultimately contain." Currently, low case numbers may cause a "false sense of security" he says. There is the possibility the coronavirus has not spread to the most vulnerable populations yet in other words, the low number of infected people in this group won't necessarily stay that way. "If you don't actually test and know-how broadly distributed this virus is, the healthcare system can eventually be overrun, and then you're back at square one." Read the original article on Business Insider Immigrant rights groups say Trump is using coronavirus fears to further anti-immigrant policies. United States President Donald Trump has said he will invoke a statute in light of the coronavirus pandemic to block undocumented migrants from entering the US either from the northern or southern border, saying the crossings threaten to create a perfect storm. Trump made the announcement at a news conference on Friday, in which he also announced that the US and Mexico would restrict non-essential travel across their shared border in an effort to limit the spread of the new coronavirus. Immigrants rights groups immediately condemned the move, saying it fuels anti-immigrant sentiment. Any migrants entering the country through irregular routes along the land borders would immediately be turned backed under the measure, instead of being processed by US authorities. Mexican Foreign Secretary Marcelo Ebrard said on Friday that Mexico will allow the US to return Mexican and Central American migrants caught trying to enter the US through unofficial routes. Ebrard, however, said Mexico will not permit the US to send back migrants detained on the joint frontier who are not Mexican or Central American. Around 120 migrants from the region are detained at the border every day, he said. The new policy is set to go into effect Friday at midnight. Agreement with Canada Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau also announced on Friday an agreement in which undocumented migrants crossing the border between the US and Canada will be returned to authorities from the country from which they crossed. Trudeau called it an exceptional measure that will protect Canadians amid the pandemic. There is a long-standing agreement between the US and Canada that requires those seeking asylum to apply in the first country they arrive in. Under that agreement, if an individual crossed from the US at a legal Canadian port of entry, he or she would be returned and told to apply in the US. However, if the person requests asylum on Canadian soil at a location other than an official crossing, the process is allowed to go forward. In most cases, refugees are released and allowed to live in Canada, taking advantage of social welfare benefits. Many migrants cross the border into Quebec from Champlain, New York at Roxham Road, about 50 kilometres (30 miles) south of Montreal. Canadian Minister of Public Safety Bill Blair said about 45 to 50 have been crossing irregularly each day, but on Thursday just 17 crossed. The government earlier announced that anybody crossing would have to be quarantined for 14 days. Trudeau also further confirmed that all non-essential travel between Canada and the US will end at midnight Friday. The two countries announced the measure earlier this week. Stoking anti-immigrant sentiment Trump was slammed by immigrant rights groups and advocates over the move on Friday. The US president has been accused of fuelling bigotry for repeatedly calling COVID-19, the Chinese virus, despite World Health Organization guidance to not tie the virus to groups of people, locations or certain ethnicities. Following his decision on Friday, many also accused him of tying the viruss spread to irregular immigration, despite there being no evidence to support his assertion. Fueling xenophobia or stoking anti-immigrant sentiment by calling COVID-19 the Chinese virus or linking this health crisis to immigrants at the border is deliberately hateful, tweeted US Congresswomen Veronica Escobar. History shows that scapegoating of groups, especially in times of crisis leads to violence. Weve seen far too much of that during your presidency. Stop it, she added. History shows that scapegoating of groups, especially in times of crisis leads to violence. We've seen far too much of that during your presidency. Stop it. Help us lead Americans out of this crisis instead of putting targets on their backs. Rep. Veronica Escobar (@RepEscobar) March 20, 2020 In announcing the measure, Trump said that border agents have been dealing for decades with unscreened, unvetted and unauthorised entries from dozens of countries. But now its with the national emergencies and all of the other things that weve declared, we can actually do something about it, he said. Immigrants rights advocate Julissa Arce Raya, tweeting after the announcement, said that Trump is attempting to use a global pandemic the virus already spreading within the borders of the United States as a pretext to fulfill his most anti-immigrant promises. Source: Xinhua| 2020-03-19 20:42:56|Editor: huaxia Video Player Close -Does culture play a vital role in your decision in wearing masks? -How much is the COVID-19 outbreak affecting your decision now? BEIJING, March 19 (Xinhua) -- Face masks were a common sight across East Asia, but were shunned in the West. Experts say culture plays a significant role in people's decision in wearing masks. However, with the global spread of COVID-19, how much is the epidemic affecting your decision now? FAVORED IN THE EAST, BIASED IN THE WEST To wear, or not to wear? It seems to depend mostly on where you come from. In many parts of Asia, face masks are commonplace as people use it to protect from air pollution, bacteria and viruses, or to cover facial imperfections. Pedestrians wearing masks walk under flowering cherry trees in Tokyo, Japan, March 5, 2020. (Xinhua/Du Xiaoyi) In Japan, it's impolite for women not to wear any makeup when going outside. So masks serve as a quick cover-up. But in many Western countries, wearing face masks may draw you unwanted attention or even invite stigma and racist attacks. For example, a Chinese student from Britain's University of Sheffield was verbally and physically harassed in January for wearing a mask, and an Asian woman in face mask was assaulted and called "diseased" in a subway station in New York in February. Those incidents show a fundamental difference in how masks are viewed in the West versus Asia. Screenshot of Xinhua's Twitter poll on March 18, 2020. According to a Twitter poll conducted by Xinhua on its official account, 21.5 percent of the 1019 respondents think people wearing masks before COVID-19 were disease carriers, 65.8 percent believe they used it to protect from pollution. Many people commented that "culture matters" in their decision in wearing masks. As it's culturally unacceptable, many people of Asian descent ditch their habit of wearing masks under social pressure. COMMON ENEMY, COLLECTIVE RESPONSIBILITY With COVID-19 reaching over 218,000 people and spanning 158 countries and regions, according to the latest statistics from the Center for Systems Science and Engineering at Johns Hopkins University, the global community is facing an escalating challenge from the disease. A man wearing a protective mask passes by the Arc de Triomphe on the Champs Elysees in Paris, France, March 15, 2020. (Photo by Aurelien Morissard/Xinhua) According to a recent Facebook poll on how COVID-19 is affecting your decision in wearing masks conducted by Xinhua, most people think it's not only about culture, but our collective responsibility. "Wearing masks, it's not about culture, it's all about protecting yourself, your loved ones and others too if you are sick," commented a netizen named Albert Joseph Rapiscal Radoc. But a shortage of face masks and medical supplies prevented those in the West who have already realized the importance of it from wearing one. "I have been looking for masks for more than a month now, living next to Lombardy (in Italy), but the problem is that authorities didn't organize well and you can't find any more masks in pharmacies," commented Ric Prim. "It's better to wear them now than sorry later," said Cyril Moras. Actually, health experts have mixed ideas on the efficacy of face masks to prevent the coronavirus which is generally spread through respiratory droplets from the nose or mouth of a person with COVID-19 when he coughs or exhales. Screenshot of U.S. Surgeon General Jerome Adams's Twitter post. Some argue handwashing is more important, while others say masks can help stop transmission of people who have shown symptoms. U.S. Surgeon General Jerome Adams urged the Americans to stop buying masks, as it could limit stocks for health care workers. "They are NOT effective in preventing general public from catching #Coronavirus, but if healthcare providers can't get them to care for sick patients, it puts them and our communities at risk," wrote Adams on Twitter. In China, where COVID-19 cases are drastically going down and businesses are gradually resuming operations, the wearing of masks has long been made compulsory in public places, while most Western countries just advise people to do so and many people still choose not to wear it when going out. Anyway, to wear, or not to wear, it's a deep-rooted cultural thing and a global pandemic may change it for now, will it after? Loading Without her parents around to look after her toddler, Ms Jusufovic cannot return to her vital work as a cardiac and respiratory physiologist. Early on Friday morning, her parents told her that their temperatures had normalised, they were feeling strong and were desperate to get home. It is difficult to say with any certainty why there are two categories of foreign passengers at Marseille. However, among the passengers allowed to disembark there were more than 200 Americans, escorted through a "sanitary cordon of isolation" to the Marseille airport, where chartered planes organised by the US government have been scrambled to fly them to Atlanta. The office of Utah senator Mitt Romney, a one-time Republican presidential nominee, confirmed he had been involved in the co-ordination. For the Australians, the story appears to be different. Multiple families have contacted The Age and The Sydney Morning Herald desperate for information from authorities, who, they say, have provided them with none. "The Americans contacted the government and they are like, 'yep, we've got buses and we're going to get you out on a plane'," Ms Jusufovic said. "But you speak to the Australian government and they say the travel insurance should be organising things, even though all the policies say you're not covered in a pandemic." Loading While the Costa Luminosa appears to be the only ship with confirmed coronavirus so far, hundreds of Australians are trapped on 35 cruise ships around the world getting bounced from port to port as nations close their borders. The Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade has not offered a US-style plan. Rather, it said it was "working with all involved cruise lines, ship by ship" to keep passengers informed and had "offered consular support to those Australians, if required". According to the Miami Herald, which has obtained Costa Luminosa's cabin logs, 24 crew members have fallen ill and 50 passengers are either sick or are sharing a cabin with someone who is. Three passengers who disembarked since the ship left Fort Lauderdale in Florida have tested positive for the novel coronavirus. Three other passengers were allowed to get off in the Canary Islands after complaining of breathing difficulties or a fever, but the Spanish government would not allow the other passengers to leave, according to reports. Australian families have told The Age and The Sydney Morning Herald that passengers were not told about the COVID-19 cases until about a week later and after they had missed their last chance to get off the cruise. Passengers are trapped on the Costa Luminosa. Credit:AP This is despite the Costa Luminosa's corporate owner, Carnival Corporation, having just gone through previous coronavirus crises on the Diamond Princess and Grand Princess. Passengers had earlier noticed others were sick and instinctively avoided them, but there was no effort to quarantine people until the virus had already had a chance to spread, according to families. "There was an article that came out about passengers (dropped off in) Puerto Rico with coronavirus, then everyone started to panic a little bit," Ms Jusufovic said. "Mum would question the customer service people and they wouldn't give any information and say "it's a lie it's untrue". All the passengers have been panicking and speculating. Then they got a letter from the captain [saying it was true]." It was only at this time passengers had to self-isolate in their rooms and crew began wearing masks. By then it was too late. Sign up to our Coronavirus Update newsletter Get our Coronavirus Update newsletter for the day's crucial developments at a glance, the numbers you need to know and what our readers are saying. Sign up to The Sydney Morning Herald's newsletter here and The Age's here. Yves here. In a bit of synchroniticy, at a press conference on Thursday, Trump fielded questions about the shortage of critical medical supplies, with ventilators at the top of the list. Trump blew off the notion that this was his problem. From New York Magazine: Trump [at the Thursday press conference] argued the pandemic was a completely unforeseeable event. No one in their wildest dreams thought wed need tens of thousands of ventilators, he proclaimed. Many people thought this. Trumps own government studied the issue and warned this past fall that it was unprepared for a pandemic. The vulnerabilities cited in the report included an acute shortage of ventilators. In recent weeks, news reports have highlighted the ventilator shortfall in increasingly urgent terms. More than three weeks ago, Health and Human Services secretary Alex Azar testified that hospitals lacked enough ventilators and other equipment to handle the coronavirus. Hospitals and congressional Democrats have been pleading with Trump to use the Defense Production Act to commandeer industrial resources to crank out more equipment. Asked about this again, Trump shifted the responsibility onto state and local governments: Governors are supposed to be doing a lot of this work the federal government is not supposed to be out there buying vast amounts of items and then shipping. Were not a shipping clerk. As with testing the governors are supposed to be doing it but this is really for the local governments, governors, and people within the state, depending on the way they divided it up. Governors are supposed to get it. States are supposed to get it. For years, they bought em and now, all of a sudden, theyre coming to the federal government. It is absolutely astonishing that Trump believes state and local governments should have primary responsibility for handling a national pandemic. By Thomas Neuburger. Originally published at DownWithTyranny! Click to enlarge (source) Theres quite a lot to write about coronavirus, all of it of the PSA variety. Theres the coming need for hospital beds (These Places Could Run Out of Hospital Beds as Coronavirus Spreads), the need for parts for ventilators (Volunteers 3D-Print Unobtainable $11,000 Valve For $1 To Keep Covid-19 Patients Alive; Original Manufacturer Threatens To Sue), the need to understand the new working-from-home environment (Working From Home? Zoom Tells Your Boss If Youre Not Paying Attention), and so on. But lets start with ventilators. Coronavirus-19 is a respiratory disease, an infectious disease caused by the virus strain severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2). It is not the flu. It attacks the lungs, and those whose respiratory or immune systems are weak are particularly vulnerable to severe infections, which often result in death. Key to keeping the death toll down for those with virulent infections is the availability of mechanical ventilators, machines that help people breathe when their lungs cant breathe on their own. After recovery from the COVID infection, normal breathing capability is restored and the ventilator is removed. Access to ventilators is critical to saving lives in a crisis like this, more important even than hospital beds, since ventilators can be used almost anywhere in a triage setting, for example. Of special importance are portable, low-cost ventilators. (Note the picture at the top, showing a ventilator in a hospital setting not very portable, not very cheap.) Fortunately, such a low-cost device exists, or will soon: We need more ventilators. Heres what it will take to get them. As a Stanford postdoc a decade ago, Matt Callaghan created the designs for a streamlined, low-cost ventilator that hospitals could stockpile, to prepare for the possibility of a global pandemic. But when he went to cofound a company, One Breath, he and colleagues determined the immediate need was producing cheaper ventilators for critical care in the developing world, where chronic respiratory illnesses are among the leading causes of death. The company raised several million dollars, set up manufacturing in Southeast Asia and finally expected to begin production for its initial markets within the next 12 months. Heres what the new ventilator will look like; compare that to the ventilator pictured at the top. A rendering of One Breaths ventilator The obstacles to retooling this device for first-world use are many, as you might imagine. To begin manufacturing devices suited for an escalating pandemic which entail different standards, features and batteries Callaghan says they would need to raise additional funds, lock-in contracts and secure fast-track regulatory approvals, including from the US Food and Drug Administration and that just lists a few of the roadblocks. Chief among them, of course, is money, which brings us to the free market: Adding factory capacity also costs a lot of upfront money, creating real risks for these businesses, since its possible hospitals wont need as many ventilators as the worst-case scenarios suggest. Who will pay for all the extra ventilators even if the company can ramp up? said Kenneth Lutchen, dean of the Boston Universitys College of Engineering and a professor of biomedical engineering, who is focused on developing safer mechanical ventilators, in an email. Presumably at some point this crisis will play itself out and the hospitals will have far more ventilators than they need until the next crises. There needs to be an incentivized business model to hit the go button for ramping up manufacturing and government likely needs to figure out how to successfully engage, he added. Who will pay indeed? An incentivized business model is one answer. I mean, why would hospitals pay for ventilators they need now, but wont need later, without being incentivized? Its only lives after all, and their investors need to eat too. The other answer is the Sanders solution: Its an emergency; government steps in and does the job only government can do. Government funds the ventilator company and mandates the ventilators by hospitals be purchased and made available. After all, during World War II the investment community didnt decide how many jeeps GM would produce GM was told what to produce and complied. This is as true today as it was a month ago: There is no neoliberal solution to this problem. Barring a miracle cure, well solve it the Sanders way or we wont solve it at all. As the COVID-19 outbreak continues to spread, restaurants around Alabama have had to come up with creative ways to adjust to what one restaurateur calls the new normal. Earlier this week, the Alabama Department of Public Health banned on-premise consumption of food and beverages at restaurants, bars and breweries throughout the six-county area that includes Jefferson, Tuscaloosa, Walker, Blount, St. Clair and Shelby counties. Today, the state health department extended those restrictions to all 67 counties in Alabama. While some restaurants are offering curbside and delivery service to try to make ends meet, a few -- including all three of James Beard Award winners Frank and Pardis Stitts Birmingham restaurants -- have temporarily closed altogether out of concern for the health of their staffs, their customers and their communities. In the Birmingham suburb of Vestavia Hills, executive chef and owner George McMillan III made the call Tuesday to close his restaurant for at least the next two weeks. Im just trying to do what I can to protect my staff and my community and sit back and take a deep breath and see how things work out, McMillan told AL.com. Its trying times, but were going to get through it. Meanwhile, those restaurants that have decided to stay open are doing so with smaller staffs, shorter hours, fewer customers and significantly less income. Were operating with skeleton crews, Brandon Cain, chef and co-owner of Saws Soul Kitchen and Post Office Pies in Avondale, said. Were not ordering a lot of food. Its crazy how fast its happening. It changes every hour. So, what can you do to help your favorite Alabama restaurants get through these trying times? Here are five suggestions: Pull up to the curb and pick up a to-go order The simplest way to support your local restaurant is to keep spending your money there. And one of the best ways to do that, until further notice, is to pick up the phone or go online and place a to-go order. When you pull up to the curb, your server will bring you your food usually with a grateful smile and maybe even a nice thank-you note and not only will you have taken care of lunch or dinner but you also will have done your part to help them stay in business for another day. Weve sold about 35 percent (Wednesday) of what we normally do in sales, and its increased day by day, Chris Bajalieh, who, along with his brothers Jeff and Jason, owns Sols Sandwich Shop and Deli, SkyCastle and two Slice Pizza & Brew locations, said of the restaurants curbside sales. People are getting the hang of the new normal we have right now with restaurants. (While Sols and Slice remain open for curbside pick-up and delivery service, SkyCastle has temporarily closed because its location on a busy street in the crowded Lakeview area made it difficult to offer pick-up service, Bajalieh said.) Have your meal delivered to your home or work In addition to curbside pick-up, some restaurants, such as Teds Restaurant near UAB in Birmingham, are offering free lunch delivery to customers in the downtown and Southside area. The free delivery is for orders of five or more lunches. The coronavirus has paralyzed this city, Teds co-owner Tasos Touloupis tells his sons John and Alexios in a funny Facebook video launching Teds delivery service. But there are still people who need their lunch. Take. Teds. Go. Meanwhile, Baumhowers Victory Grille -- which has nine locations throughout the state, from Mobile to Huntsville -- said in a media release today that it is teaming with the Waitr online food delivery service to allow some of Baumhowers employees to help with Waitr home deliveries. We are working with Waitr to help offset the drastic drop in dine-in business and help meet Waitrs increased demand for delivery, the release said. We are working hand in-hand with Waitr to allow our service team members who have been affected to begin delivering for Waitr. Waitr has allowed for all Baumhowers team members they bring aboard to wear their Baumhowers Victory Grille Team Legendary attire as their Waitr delivery uniform. Our focus is to use our relationships to come together as a team to pull through this and continue to be able to serve our guests as we have done for over 40 years, Baumhowers founder Bob Baumhower added. Tip like youve never tipped them before This should go without saying, but whether youre doing curbside service or getting your meal delivered, please remember to tip your servers or delivery drivers generously. Fewer customers and shorter hours mean less tips, and since they depend on tips to supplement their wages, now would be a good time to tip like theres no tomorrow. So, if you typically tip 20 percent, maybe double that -- if its within your means. Youll feel good about it, and the restaurant staff will appreciate it, too. Buy a gift certificate, and then buy another one Gift cards are a good way to help struggling restaurants generate some immediate cash flow. Cain, of Post Office Pies and Saws Soul Kitchen, said it is best to order gift certificates directly from the restaurants instead of through third-party services, which typically charge the restaurants a fee. A lot of people are buying gift cards and trying to buy them directly, Cain said. Thats revenue that can help us to (stay) open. If you buy it directly from the restaurant, the restaurant gets 100 percent of the money. Some third-party services, such as the OpenTable gift card marketplace, have waived their fees during the COVID-19 outbreak, however. During this time, weve waived our gift card fees to restaurants to better help our partners, OpenTable said in a statement. Restaurants in other areas or not in the marketplace may offer gift cards through their websites; we encourage you to reach out to your favorites. Were all in this together. Tell them you love them, and hang in there with them For those restaurants that have already closed indefinitely, one of the nicest things you can do to help, FoodBars McMillan said, is to just let them know how much you care, and that youll be there when they reopen. Ive got customers that want to support me, that are scared for me and know that my business is on the front line, and they dont want to see it go away, McMillan said. Theyre saying, How can I get a gift certificate and redeem it for take-out food? Im telling them, Just give us two weeks, and well get back together. . . . Just hold on, and when we come back, every night will be like Friday night for six months. NOTE: AL.coms Shauna Stuart has complied an ongoing list of restaurants that are offering curbside and delivery service in the Birmingham metro area. To read it, go here. The list is updated periodically. Hong Kong: Anti-terrorism drill held The Inter-departmental Counter Terrorism Unit conducted an anti-terrorism exercise at the Lok Ma Chau Spur Line Control Point today. It simulated an operation against extremists who plotted a bomb attack using improvised explosive devices. The first session of the exercise was staged at the public transport interchange of the control point. During this scenario, a man detonated a radio-controlled bomb in a rubbish bin, resulting in multiple casualties. The area was then cordoned off for rescue and investigation by Police and the Fire Services Department. In the second session, customs and immigration officers discovered a suspicious object at the departure hall. Officers of the Police Explosive Ordnance Disposal Bureau were then called to the scene to handle the object. The exercise aims to promote awareness of bomb threats taking place in public facilities and enhance the co-ordination as well as the preparedness of police units and Inter-departmental Counter Terrorism Unit member departments in handling suspicious objects. More than 250 officers from Police, Customs, the Fire Services Department and Immigration Department took part in the exercise. This story has been published on: 2020-03-20. To contact the author, please use the contact details within the article. The Chief Justice of the Tennessee Supreme Court on March 13 issued an Order Suspending in Person Court Proceedings, in regards to COVID-19 pandemic, No. ADM2020-00428. The Supreme Court Order can be found here. The Juvenile Court of Hamilton County, under the direction of Juvenile Court Judge Rob Philyaw immediately developed protocols to limit in-person court proceedings in Juvenile Court. A modified court docket and court staffing pattern for both the Court and the Office of the Juvenile Court Clerk were implemented on Monday. This week, officials have been strongly encouraging attorneys to submit court filings by U.S. Mail or fax. Now the court is adding an additional option for safety and convenience. Based upon the language of the Supreme Court Order "urging clerks to utilize available technologies, including alternative means of filing" the Juvenile Court Clerk has implemented protocols that will now allow attorneys to submit filings via email, effective Friday, March 20. An Attorney Advisory is now available on the Hamilton County Juvenile Court Clerk website, found here. Juvenile Court Clerk Gary D. Behler said, "We are pleased to immediately offer this option for attorneys to submit court filings for Hamilton County Juvenile Court by email. We have created a new email account that will allow electronic submissions as an alternate way of filing during this time of crisis due to this global pandemic. I believe that this is an appropriate use of technology to facilitate new ways to conduct the business of the Court. I applaud the hard work of my staff including Directors Cathy Jones and Jacque Griffith, Technology Coordinator Kristie McGowan, and Supervisor Sherrie Hobby. These folks helped develop this new process at the same time they were coping with a rapidly changing court landscape and a reduced staffing pattern to protect our staff and our citizens. "I also want to thank our IT Services partners who are an incredible resource: Director Bart McKinney, David Summers, Lark Walters and Darren Combs. In addition, we appreciate the tremendous support and leadership of Hamilton County Mayor Jim Coppinger during this challenging time. " Judge Rob Philyaw said, "Hamilton County Juvenile Court Clerk Gary Behler and his staff are doing everything they can to ensure that delivery of services are not impeded and are in fact easier and safer during these unprecedented times. We will continue to work with him, attorneys, law enforcement, and the public to protect children, the public and constitutional rights pursuant to the Tennessee Supreme Court directives." Southern California homeless shelter residents say long-running unsanitary and inhumane conditions now put them at severe risk of death amid the rapid spread of the coronavirus. As California officials this week urged millions of residents to stay inside and avoid physical contact to slow the spread of Covid-19, people living in several overcrowded homeless shelters in Orange county say they continue to sleep in rows of beds within a few feet of each other, and that they often lack basic hygiene supplies and amenities. The residents report a variety of serious problems, including empty soap dispensers, a lack of toilet paper, no hot water, broken sinks, no working thermometers, blood-stained walls and infrequent cleaning. They worry the shelters are ill-prepared to cope once the spread of the virus intensifies in the US. Its appalling. One person gets a cough and everyone gets it, said Wendy Powitzky, 49, who has been living at the La Mesa shelter in Anaheim in southern California for months. Weve already been passing around a standard cold. Some days, the soap containers in the bathroom go empty: Most people dont have their own. So I guess everyone else is just washing their hands with water. California has the largest homeless population in the US, with more than 40,000 people living in shelters on a given night. Advocates and shelter residents have warned for years that many of the facilities are underregulated and underfunded, and that conditions in some may pose significant health hazards. Amid the coronavirus crisis, they fear, those circumstances could make the spread of the virus in shelters near-inevitable. Homeless tents line the street in downtown Los Angeles. Photograph: Apu Gomes/AFP via Getty Images A significant number of shelter residents are older and already live with serious health problems. The ongoing problems with sanitation and accommodations in some of the shelters make it largely impossible for many residents to comply with Covid-19 precautionary measures recommended by the Centers for Disease Control, according to Eve Garrow, the homelessness policy analyst with the ACLU of Southern California. Story continues Whats more, some in shelters have been waiting for years for more permanent housing due to a severe shortage of affordable homes for low-income renters. If residents leave now, they could lose their spot and also face police harassment if they sleep outside. Despite these risks, some are fleeing the facilities to avoid the virus and returning to encampments, even as officials urge people to seek shelter. Its a recipe for disaster, said Garrow, who spent more than a year investigating conditions in local shelters for a 2019 report documenting the unsafe and toxic environments. If coronavirus impacts people in shelters, its going to spread like wildfire. Risk death inside or arrest outside: Where do we go? Homeless organizations have been sounding the alarm for weeks, warning that the coronavirus could cause catastrophic harm to unhoused communities amid the absence of a coordinated strategy to aid people already struggling to survive in tents and overcrowded shelters. Officials in Los Angeles moved on Tuesday to temporarily stop some of the sweeps of encampments due to coronavirus. Residents in four homeless facilities in Orange county, the region Garrow studied, shared with the Guardian photos and accounts of long-running problems that have sparked new fears amid the corona crisis. If I start coughing, they may throw me out and I will have no place to go, said one homeless man in his 70s, currently living at The Courtyard, a Santa Ana shelter where the ACLU last year found squalid conditions. The resident, who has spent years at the facility, asked to remain anonymous for fear of retaliation from the shelter. He has serious health problems and worries coronavirus would kill him: If I catch it and die, this miserable life will be over for me. His shelter, a former bus terminal that houses more than 400 people in cots, has multiple broken sinks and dysfunctional soap dispensers, he said: We have to supply our own soap, and then we have to wait in line to get a sink that works. Joseph Grubb, a 53 year old who has been staying at a Salvation Army shelter in Anaheim for months, said one mens bathroom has blood on the walls and the other one has no soap: The coronavirus is going around like crazy and they are not even cleaning the bathrooms up You have to go into the bloody one to wash your hands. I try not to touch the door and kick it open. With coronavirus concerns and the conditions not improving, Grubb said he decided to leave the Salvation Army, even though he has nowhere else to go. He said he was worried about the older residents remaining: If the virus does hit there, they are gone. Because the city of Anaheim also has a number of anti-homeless laws meant to prevent sleeping outside and force people in shelters, Grubb said he is now sleeping in a tent, living in fear police will cite or jail him: Every night, we dont know if were going to get arrested for being where were at, or harassed. But it was preferable to the shelter, he added. Callie Rutter, 56, recently lived in the Bridges at Kraemer Place shelter in Anaheim and is now in a care program fighting lung cancer. She predicts the coronavirus would spread at the shelter just like the notorious Kraemer cough had done in the past. Its a mass shelter in the middle of winter. But, even if it was summer, it wouldnt make a difference. Powitzky lived in the La Mesa shelter, where she slept in a dorm-like cubicle with three other women within a few feet of her. Powitzky said she left the La Mesa shelter this week over coronavirus fears and was told she would lose her spot. She said there have been basic plumbing problems at the shelter with shower water not draining properly, creating further risks of spreading diseases. When she reported her recent potential fever, staff said they didnt have a functioning thermometer to take her temperature and ended up sending her to the hospital, where she discovered she was sick, but not with coronavirus. Powitzky said she has repeatedly complained about unsanitary conditions and the response was, in effect, If you dont like it you can leave. But where are we going to go? she asked. We cant be in the streets. The dangers of mass shelter quarantines There is no single state entity with oversight over safety in shelters, which are run by a patchwork of not-for-profits and local municipalities and have often lacked the training and resources needed to support a surging homeless population with complex needs. Solving longstanding structural problems during an unprecedented health crisis is a huge challenge for the organizations, but advocates have urged government agencies to have a unified strategy to prioritize resources and supports for this population, given that they are the most vulnerable. Mike Lyster, a spokesman for the city of Anaheim, which oversees the Salvation Army shelter, did not respond to specific questions about the bathrooms, saying in an email that the shelter has a high standard of facilities. He added: There always can also be an isolated issue, but bathrooms are regularly cleaned and addressed. Paul Leon, CEO of the Illumination Foundation, which runs La Mesa, said the shelter recently had a problem with a thermometer but that it was now monitoring all residents temperatures multiple times a day. He said the shelter has no soap shortage, though there may have been an isolated incident, adding that the facility has recently stocked up on sanitizer and other supplies. Leon said the shelter was trying to be strict about when people enter and exit to minimize possible Covid-19 transmission: The shelters could be the safest place for them. He said the situation was under control, but added, Next week, well see how bad it gets. At the Bridges shelter, staff are doing widespread screening for possible symptoms and are prepared to isolate people as needed, said Larry Haynes, director of the not-for-profit that runs the facility. Some shelters are now preparing for lockdowns and quarantines if outbreaks occur. While those restrictions could help to stop the spread of the virus to the outside world, some advocates warned that they could put the most vulnerable people in the shelters at greater risk to catch the virus. A homeless man sits in the morning sun in downtown Los Angeles in front of city hall. Photograph: Mike Blake/Reuters If anyone comes down with it, were going to get locked down, said Joshua Ogle, a 41-year-old La Mesa resident who has lived in multiple Orange county shelters, adding that he feared for his friends who were seniors and how residents mental health might suffer under quarantine. People are going to really lose their minds. Garrow said she feared quarantines would do nothing to fix conditions that promote contagions. In a letter to state officials on Monday, she instead called for health and sanitation standards and social distancing practices to be adopted and enforced at shelters, for the state to bring hygiene supplies and coronavirus testing and treatment to the facilities and for officials to provide housing vouchers so people can self-isolate. Meanwhile, Californias governor said he was working to make hotels and trailers available to homeless people to get them inside and prevent mass outbreaks, and LAs mayor said he would make 6,000 beds available at city recreation centers. A spokesperson for Orange county, which oversees several shelters, including The Courtyard, did not answer specific questions but said the county was evaluating federal and state guidelines and resources to figure out solutions for homeless people: This may include creating appropriate spaces for isolation such as temporary structures, tents and trailers, and or motels and hotels as available. Davon Brown, a resident who lives at an LA park encampment, said he felt safer being able to isolate in a tent and would not consider a shelter: If you want more people to die, you put them in a shelter. One Salvation Army resident in his 60s, who requested anonymity for fear of retribution, said he should not have been in this predicament in the first place. He has been in the shelter for over two years, waiting for housing. He thought by now hed have his own roof over his head and be safe: It just hasnt happened, and it doesnt look like its going to. And now he faces a high risk of serious illness or worse, he said: If I get this, I could die. LEBANON -- Most of the state veterans home residents with coronavirus are in good condition, but one is in critical condition and another in serious condition, a medical director at the nursing home said Thursday. Fourteen elderly residents have tested positive for COVID-19 at the Edward C. Allworth Veterans Home in Lebanon, with the first two diagnosed March 11. All residents have been tested for the disease. Dr. Rob Richardson said he didnt know enough about the disease to make prognoses for the patients. Asked if the man who is in critical condition would survive, Richardson deferred to a higher power. Thats between him and his leader, his gospel leader, Richardson said. I have two weeks of experience in dealing with this infection. The patients range in age from 65 to over 100, Richardson said. The Oregon Department of Veterans Affairs, which owns the home, has said that half of them are over 90 years old. All of the patients have underlying conditions, Richardson said. Most of the patients have been fever-free or had low fevers for the last few days, Richardson said, although at least one resident at one point had a fever of 104 degrees. There are also some residents who have started showing respiratory symptoms after they tested negative for the coronavirus, Richardson said. The nursing home isnt taking any chances and is isolating them as if they do have COVID-19, he said. They arent getting retested, Richardson said, in order to help preserve the supply of available tests. State officials have declined to disclose how the residents are doing until now. -- Fedor Zarkhin fzarkhin@oregonian.com desk: 503-294-7674|cell: 971-373-2905|@fedorzarkhin Subscribe to Oregonian/OregonLive newsletters and podcasts for the latest news and top stories. The city of Toronto on Friday introduced a 60-day grace period for residents to pay property tax, water and solid waste bills. Businesses will also get a 30-day extension on a grace period announced for them earlier this week. The grace period applies to bills as of March 16. Mayor John Tory, who launched an economic support and recovery task force on Monday to help struggling businesses during the COVID-19 outbreak, announced the relief program on Friday morning. We know families are struggling to figure out how to make ends meet while also worrying about their health and the health of their loved ones, Tory said in a press release. Toronto businesses and residents need to know that we understand these are extraordinary circumstances and we are here to support them. The immediate grace period announced today will give people relief as we all work to rebuild the economy. We will continue to find ways to offer extraordinary help in these extraordinary circumstances. The grace period does not apply to hydro bills. On Monday, Toronto Hydro said they would extend their promise to suspend electricity disconnections for unpaid bills and would assist customers experiencing financial hardship. The move Friday means property owners wont be charged any late penalties if they cant make their payments for 60 days as the city works to manage the spread of the virus, which has caused businesses to close, crippled tourism and other industries, and has seen some workers lose their jobs. The city further clarified Friday how residents could defer property tax payments, saying any pending automatic withdrawals scheduled within the next 60 days that have not yet been withdrawn would be suspended. Residents will be notified of the future rescheduling of withdrawals after the grace period ends. If you pay your property taxes through a mortgage, owners should contact their financial lending institution or mortgage company to understand how it would affect their mortgage payment, city spokesperson Ashley Hammill said in an email. Anyone who wants to continue to make payments as scheduled should submit them anytime through their bank, using online banking services, telephone banking or via ATM payments. Hammill confirmed the grace period will cost the city. The city typically collects $2 million per month in revenue from late penalties and interest charges. Utility bills will no longer be due 21 days after the billing date, with an extension of an additional 60 days, Tory is expected to outline. Property tax bills will be changed to reflect the grace period. Asked why the grace period was set for 60 days rather than a longer 90-day period like that announced by Mississauga on Friday, Hammill said they are not ruling out further extensions. The announcement is part of a series of ongoing relief measures introduced by various governments in the past two weeks. Ontario Premier Doug Ford declared a state of emergency in the province on Tuesday. The mayor is also renewing a commitment to help tenants, who are currently not receiving any government-directed relief on rent payments. Though property owners may be able to defer mortgage payments up to six months, six big banks announced Wednesday, theres no obligation or incentive for landlords to allow tenants to defer rent payments over that same period. Tory, who remains in self-isolation after travelling to London, England, is scheduled to host a teleconference with landlords on Monday as part of his task force. Read more about: MIDDLETOWN The parent of an Xavier High School student, an East Hampton resident, has tested positive for the coronavirus, school administrators said Thursday. Headmaster Dave Eustis sent a letter to parents confirming the news, which he learned from the Middletown Health Department Wednesday night. The individual, whose identity and location was not disclosed, attended a sophomore parent guidance program at the school March 10, Eustis said. Eustis said the adult was asymptomatic during the presentation. However, in the ensuing days, the individual became sick and has since tested positive for coronavirus. Middletown health educator Lou Carta said the adult was not in close contact with people while at Xavier. A positive case of COVID-19 also was confirmed in Killingworth a resident over 60 who has had extremely limited contact with other residents of the town, Director of Health Paul Hutcheon announced Thursday night. The individual is self-isolating. Also, Portland First Selectwoman Susan Bransfield said, a resident there has the virus. The state Department of Public Health has reported there are positive cases of COVID-19 disease in Middlesex County, and specifically in the Chatham Health District, based in East Hampton, according to a press release. Chatham District serves Colchester, East Hampton, East Haddam, Hebron, Marlborough and Portland. East Hampton Town Manager David E. Cox confirmed the news. However, he did not know details about the person sickened by the virus. Speaking by telephone just before 4:30 p.m., Cox said, Its probably one of many. Whats it the [Centers for Disease Control and Prevention] has been saying? That theyre probably a lot of more cases of people who either have (or had) the virus and dont know it or who havent been tested. Weve been expecting this, Cox acknowledged. Cox urged residents continue to be vigilant and to take the precautions officials have been stressing: People should avoid large groups, wash their hands, not touch their face and, if at all possible, try and stay home. Residents in all municipalities within Chatham Health District should now assume that there are people sick with COVID-19 disease in their towns, the release said. Those whose doctors confirm they have the disease should remain isolated in a separate room for 14 days, and avoid contact with others in the home except to seek medical care, it continued. The health district is advising people not leave their houses until they are fever-free for at least 72 hours without the use of fever-reducing medicines, other symptoms have noticeably improved, and it has been at least seven days since symptoms began. The emergence of cases in our towns will require a coordinated, skilled, rapid, thoughtful and compassionate response; and the Chatham Health District is prepared, the town of East Haddam announced in an email. Meanwhile, Xavier is closed to the public and visitors are limited to staff only. We are committed to ensuring the health and safety of the entire Xavier community, the press release said. Mayor Ben Florsheim is waiting for guidance from state officials as to what will be done to help alleviate the large disruption in peoples lives, some of whom are self-quarantined or home with their children since schools across the state are closed. Its reasonable to say Middletown is just as much at risk of exposure as anywhere else, Florsheim said. Lots of people are coming in and out of town, and they could be exposing Middletown residents. For information on coronavirus in Connecticut, visit portal.ct.gov/coronavirus. Rich world pumps aid to fight coronavirus, epicentre Europe reeling Melissa Hobley, chief marketing officer of dating app OkCupid, walks in a park in downtown Manhattan in New York City By Katie Paul, Inti Landauro and Ellen Francis SAN FRANCISCO/MADRID/BEIRUT (Reuters) - The night after Spain's government ordered a nationwide lockdown to stem the spread of coronavirus, 30-year-old Marcos got up the nerve to ask the woman he'd been messaging on Tinder for three days to visit him at home. To his surprise, she accepted. Arriving in a taxi, wearing gloves and refusing to take the elevator, she hooked up with Marcos in his apartment before insisting he call her a cab before dawn to go home. "First time ever a girl accepts to come to my apartment for the first date," said the salesman, who Reuters agreed to identify by his first name. "I guess it will be my last pickup before this all ends." As governments invoke emergency powers to combat the coronavirus pandemic, and social distancing measures preclude meeting people in bars, cafes or restaurants, love - or at least lust - is still finding a way via dating apps. While some users like Marcos are meeting in person, many are romancing online because of the public health risks, often using in-app video chats. "It used to be more 'hey looking for a hookup' and now it's like, 'hey maybe after coronavirus'," said one Grindr user in Beirut in his 20s, who asked not to be identified because the app has been banned in Lebanon. There has been no meaningful change in the number of people downloading dating apps in the United States or globally, according to analytics firm Sensor Tower. Bumble, a leading app, said usage had stayed steady and in line with seasonal trends, while Match Group's OkCupid said it had seen an increase in usage among younger daters in big cities like New York "What we're seeing on OkCupid is a real desire to connect. As more and more folks are working from home, cancelling all social plans, not traveling, some are already feeling lonely and a bit isolated," said OkCupid marketing chief Melissa Hobley. Story continues "In many cities, coronavirus has become one of the top icebreakers in messages to matches." There are early signs that dating apps are, however, struggling to attract new users in countries that have moved into national lockdowns, which could become increasingly common around the world. Installs of Match Group's Tinder were down 37% in Spain and 41% in Italy last week versus the previous week, according to Sensor Tower. HEALTH WARNINGS Health concerns about daters making the leap from virtual contact to physical hookups have prompted Grindr and Tinder to issue health warnings advising users to practice safe hygiene and wash their hands. A Facebook spokeswoman said Facebook Dating was planning notifications too, although it had not started showing them yet. OK Cupid stressed that people should not meet up in person during the coronavirus outbreak, and both it and Bumble were nudging people towards video chats. It appears some users are listening. Nick, a 33-year-old creative director in New York, said he believes the experience of coronavirus is heightened for gay men with "muscle memory" of the AIDS pandemic. "The temptation to spend time on these location-based hookup apps is great, but your responsibility to not meet up with strangers has never been greater," he said. Disease experts say young people with robust immune systems are least likely to die of the disease. But they have asked those in their 20s to 40s, who can still pass on the virus to others, to alter their behaviors for the good of the public. 'WILLING TO RISK IT' Nonetheless Kelsey, 29, from Connecticut, said most people she found on Tinder and Hinge still seemed open to liaisons. One man she chatted with recently wanted to meet, but his family forbade him from leaving the house. Another readily agreed. "My only reason for being on [the apps] is for hook-ups, and that hasn't changed for me. If they're willing to risk it, so am I," she said. Kartika, an Indonesian student at a Hong Kong university, said she was "active as usual" through the coronavirus outbreak, with one or two hook-ups a week. Stashed under her dorm bed were 500 masks that her anxious parents had sent her, all unused. "I'm just not that worried. Most young people don't get it," the 19-year-old said. Seb, in his 30s, did not visit his family in China's central city of Wuhan, ground zero of the coronavirus epidemic, fearing stigma at work in Shanghai. But he did trust his new paramour, whom he met on Aloha, a gay dating app, even though the man was in his second day of post-travel quarantine. "As a young healthy fellow, I didn't think I'd die even if I had caught the virus," said Seb, declining to give his full name. NO END-OF-DATE KISS Keith Jones, 47, was apprehensive when he went out on a first date with a woman he met on the Hinge app to a Mexican restaurant in Syracuse in upstate New York. "Normally, you'd hug someone to say hello, but we both hesitated," said Jones said, adding that they were careful not to drink from the same glass or share a plate, but did split a flourless chocolate torte for dessert. There was no end-of-date kiss, Jones said, although he does have plans to see the woman again soon. Jones said he expects the online dating world to change dramatically. "We are all well-versed on STDs," Jones said. "Now, a sniffle or cough is a lot more frightening than it was a few months ago." For Kellyn Bechtold, 33, a man she matched with on Bumble and met for the first time last week during a trip to Malaga, Spain is now her roommate. The two hit it off on a date, sharing potato chips and kisses. A week later, she was holed up in his apartment, breaking isolation only for a last grocery run as the military patrolled the streets to enforce lockdown orders. "I met this person like a week ago," Bechtold said in a phone interview. "We're doing what people do after they've been dating for six months or a year." (Reporting by Micelle Nichols, Helen Coster, Benjamin Kellerman and Lauren Young in New York; Ryan Woo in Beijing; Inti Landauro and Paola Luelmo in Madrid; Ellen Francis in Beirut; Ezgi Erkoyun in Istanbul; Katie Paul and Elizabeth Culliford in San Francisco; Editing by Leela de Kretser and Pravin Char) As is tightening its grip across the world, with nearly 250,000 positive cases and over 10,000 deaths is also gearing up on war footing to fight it. PM Modi has called for a nation-wide 'Janata curfew' on Sunday and adviced the population to practice social distancing. To facilitate this, the nation has already got into a virtual lockdown, with govt offices cutting down attendance, private offices availing work from home regime and schools, colleges, shopping malls, and public places shut down across the country. FOLLOW Coronavirus LIVE updates here Meanwhile, here are certain tidbits that you need to know about the virus outbreak: no longer high definition in EU As millions of Europeans are confined to their homes, as several countries have locked down, will be reducing its streaming quality across the to avoid internet gridlock. ALSO READ: Covid-19: Delhi metro services to be closed on Sunday over 'Janata Curfew' The company issued a statement saying, "We are making a commitment to temporarily switch all traffic in the EU to standard definition by default." Standard definition videos are not as sharp as high definition videos. Another cruise ship hit Costa Luminosa, an Italian cruise ship, which has been hit by coronavirus, will be disembarking its passengers in Marseille, France, in small groups. The ship has over 600 passengers, including 187 French nationals. "Guests will be accompanied to their flights and transfers, organised by the company, through a sanitary cordon of isolation," Costa Cruises said, Reuters reported. ALSO READ: Centre launches MyGov Corona Helpdesk on WhatsApp to curb misinformation The ship will continue towards where the remaining guests will disembark. Virus tracker Covid-19 has infected more than 245,000 people globally and the death toll exceeded 10,000. Italy's death toll stands at 3,405, which has overtaken China, where the virus first emerged. In the US, more than 13,000 people have been diagnosed with the virus and 200 have died, with the largest numbers so far in Washington state, New York and California. ALSO READ: Coronavirus: Street and hubs deserted as people go for social distancing In Iran, is killing one person every 10 minutes, the health ministry spokesman tweeted on Thursday, as the country's death toll climbed to 1,284. Olympics flame arrives in Japan Amid the outbreak, Olympic cauldron was ignited in on Friday by a flame carried from Greece, with officials pledging the Tokyo 2020 Games would proceed despite mounting pressure to halt the event due to the pandemic. is grappling with pressure to avoid a health crisis among 600,000 expected overseas spectators and athletes at the event, which could see $3 billion in sponsorships and at least $12 billion spent on preparations evaporate. ALSO READ: Saviour of mothers: This scientist pioneered handwashing way back in 1847 The flame will now tour the Tohoku region hit by the tsunami and earthquake in 2011, in what organisers call a "recovery flame" tour before the official kick-off ceremony in Fukushima on March 26. "Herd Immunity" and how do we get it? Some experts have said a phenomenon called herd immunity will play a role in the coronavirus outbreak. It refers to a situation where enough people in a particular region have immunity to the infection to be able to effectively stop that disease from spreading. This can happen either through vaccination or from people having had the disease and recovering from it. Current evidence suggests that with the new coronavirus outbreak, one infected person passes the disease on to two to three other people. By reducing the number of people one infects with social distancing measures, the point at which herd immunity kicks in can be lowered. Good Morning to all Anguillians at home and abroad, particularly to those listening on the radio and the internet. As you are aware, the global Coronavirus pandemic is a serious challenge to all nations across the world, including Anguilla. This is an unprecedented event that poses a direct threat to lives and livelihoods. In Anguilla, we depend heavily on the tourism industry, border and access arrangements with neighboring St. Martin/St. Maarten and the importation of food and other critical supplies. And the readiness of our health service and staff to respond to this threat, disruptions to our education system, and the impact to our local economy are at the forefront of everyones minds. This is a monumental challenge for our government and our people and thus requires a One Anguilla approach that is, a united approach with all stakeholders involved. To this end, I wish to commend the government for hosting several high-level meetings over the past week to bring our people up to date on the actions being taken, and guidelines to be followed to prevent the spread of Coronavirus (COVID -19) in Anguilla. Such open and transparent consultations are promising and it is my hope that they will continue as the situation unfolds day by day and even hour by hour. I want to emphasize here that this is not a time to play politics, this is a time for principled leadership and collective responsibility in the best interest of Anguilla. Countries across the world are taking drastic measures to prevent the spread of COVID-19. This is also true for Anguilla and other overseas territories that are facing this pandemic. Such measures include: Closure of schools and universities for extended periods Implementing the practice of social distancing which includes canceling, postponing and or curtailing large public gatherings Closing borders to non-nationals and or restricting entry to persons from areas with high COVID-19 infection rates such as Europe, and Asia. Re-emphasizing good hygienic practices such as washing hands regularly with soap and water, using hand sanitizers, disinfecting surfaces, coughing or sneezing into the crook of your elbow or in a tissue which is immediately discarded, and limiting physical contact with others including no handshakes or physical greetings. As the situation unfolds, I am sure that the government, in consultation with the relevant stakeholders, will issue additional guidelines and precautions. I am calling on the people of Anguilla to cooperate fully with these guidelines. We are only as strong as our weakest link. Preventing COVID-19 and its spread in our country is everyones business and everyones responsibility and at this time it is our FIRST priority. As part of the consultative process, several concerns have been raised. I wish now to give voice to some of these concerns as we work together to fight this virus: 1. The first concern is the preparedness of our healthcare system to respond to the COVID-19 global pandemic. We are pleased to learn of an injection of US$250,000 dollars to our healthcare services in response to this crisis, with another US$250,000 earmarked through the Eastern Caribbean Central Bank facility. The British Government has also committed to the construction of an isolation facility with works scheduled to begin very soon indeed. There is concern about our current capacity in relation to testing for COVID- 19. The Caribbean Public Health Agency (CARPHA) is the designated body to carry out testing for member states and is located in Trinidad and Tobago. I believe that we should make every effort to ramp up our testing capabilities as this is part of the global strategy to flatten the curve in relation to COVID- 19 transmission rates. The more people we are able to test, the quicker we will be able to quarantine and isolate positive cases to prevent the spread of the virus. I am aware that testing has been conducted in Guadeloupe for cases in St. Maarten and perhaps we can, in addition to testing provided by CARPHA, look into the possibility of arranging testing in these jurisdictions which may increase our capacity to test a higher number of suspected cases and possibly reduce our waiting time for results. The ideal situation would be to conduct our own testing here in Anguilla, and this is something we must work towards in the future with assistance from the British Government. 2. Secondly, there is a concern about the availability of medication for those who may potentially contract the virus and will need to address its associated symptoms. As we are aware, the elderly, persons with pre-existing conditions and persons suffering from immuno-deficiencies are at greater risk. As a result of this, the people want to be assured that government is doing everything in its power to mitigate any potential shortages of medication and that our pharmacies will be well equipped through the Pharmaceutical Procurement Service (PPS). This is the official institution within the OECS that procures medicines and allied health equipment on behalf of member states. The availability of ventilator machines is also important to treat patients who may become critically ill and we must act swiftly to secure a sufficient number of these machines to handle critical cases. The role of the private sector in financing this venture is therefore critical. In addition, recent developments in Cuba have seen the deployment of nurses to our Caribbean neighbors and a special drug known as Interferon Alfa 2b which has been successful in treating COVID-19 in China. Just a couple of days ago the Chief Medical Officer in Trinidad and Tobago, Dr. Rashan Parasram, has made a request to Cuba for more information on this drug and its use. This may have potential benefits for our people and I am asking the Minister of Health to look into this and determine the possibility of using this drug in Anguilla. 3. Of critical importance now is how we address the issue of Anguillians returning home. Many persons are concerned about this and rightfully so. Residents returning from countries with high infection and transmission rates such as the USA, UK, and other countries in Europe and Asia should be subject to quarantine or self-isolation that is monitored carefully by our Health Ministry. This is the responsible thing to do. Other countries have already implemented these protocols as a way of preventing the spread of COVID-19. 4. Fourthly, we are already feeling the adverse economic impact of COVID-19 in Anguilla, with many of our tourists leaving the island early to return home, and many other tourists unable to come into the country due to several travel restrictions as a result of this global pandemic. Our economy is heavily dependent on tourism loss of revenue among hotels, restaurants, and other services will be a severe blow to our local economy. Growing unemployment rates and the loss of income to households that already live paycheck to paycheck is causing severe anxiety among our people and understandably so. Many will recall that social protection has been a major platform of mine because it is essential to address these external shocks. Providing cash transfers to the poor, vulnerable and at-risk groups is a critical step that we must take in addition to unemployment benefits. Lessons learned in the aftermath of Hurricane Irma have given us some level of preparedness to respond to such circumstances, which may have far-reaching consequences for our tourism sector for an extended period of time. For example, the cancellation of Festival Del Mar, an annual event in District One, is a major blow to local business owners, workers, and families. We must do what we can to provide a financial buffer for our people. Furthermore, we must also look at how we can simplify government to make the best use of our limited resources particularly at this most challenging time fiscal measures must be looked at carefully to see how we can reallocate funds to the sectors that need it the most at this time. Finally, I want to add my voice to a concern related to the upcoming General Elections here in Anguilla. The Coronavirus pandemic is a global threat and preventing its spread must be our number one priority. I met with the Governor earlier this week and raised this issue, citing the actions taken by the British Government to postpone local elections and the London mayoral election from May of this year to 2021. Democratic Presidential candidates in the United States have been criticized openly for continuing their primary elections during this period and some foresee the possibility of delaying the US presidential election in November 2020 if the COVID-19 is not sufficiently under control by then. Recent studies show the potential of the COVID-19 virus to remain viable in the air for a prolonged period after coughing or sneezing, and to live on some uncleaned surfaces for up to three days. In addition, recommendations from the Centre for Disease Control (CDC) call for persons to maintain a minimum distance of 6 feet to prevent the spread of this virus. Therefore, our general elections and how we conduct them is now a critical matter related to public safety and our national security. Postponing the general elections in Anguilla is something that, realistically, we may have to consider, sooner rather than later. This is an unprecedented threat that we are facing and I urge all Anguillians to cooperate fully and work together to stop the spread of COVID-19. The guidelines being implemented are in the best interest of the health and safety of our people. We must also remember the elderly in our communities who are at greater risk and do all that we can to support them during this difficult time. I am pleased to report that the Island Harbour Care Centre, with assistance from the One Anguilla Youth Movement, will be putting together care packages for the elderly in District One and will begin distribution later today. These are important initiatives that must be applauded and I know that other civil society groups will do their part to make sure that our elders are properly cared for. I am also calling for a national day of prayer and fasting for our nation and urge the Christian Council to lead in this effort. It is our faith and trust in God that will take us through this difficult period and, with His divine guidance, we will weather this storm. As I close, I wish to reiterate the measures that each individual can take to prevent the spread of this virus and these are also printed in my article this week in the Anguillian Newspaper: Ensuring that shared spaces and work surfaces are cleaned and disinfected frequently. Frequent hand washing. Covering coughs and sneezes with a disposable tissue or in the crook of a flexed elbow. Avoiding contact with persons suffering from or exhibiting symptoms of acute respiratory infections such as the flu, coughs, and colds. Avoid touching your face, particularly your eyes, nose, and mouth. Limiting physical contact with others, including no handshakes or physical greeting and to avoid crowds. Although opinions differ on the efficacy of this, Japanese doctors treating COVID-19 suggest that you should ensure your mouth & throat are moist, never dry. Take a few sips of water (not iced water) as frequently as possible. They say that even if the virus gets into your mouth, drinking water or other liquids can wash them down through your throat and into the stomach, instead of entering your windpipe and into the lungs. I have been personally following the advice of Dr. Jean Michel Bichot, a medical practitioner in French St Martin, formerly associated with the Paris Centre for the Control of Epidemics, who advocates a simple concoction to offset the symptoms of any serious flu virus: Simmer for 10 minutes in 1.5 litres of water: a star of Badiane (Star Aneth) and 5 cloves. Drink within 24 to 36 hours from the onset of symptoms. Dr Bichot adds: this preparation can be recommended for all viral diseases; the ingredients are highly viricidal. However, Star Anise should not be used by pregnant women or children under 6 years old. Finally, I want to thank our border agents, immigration officers, and our healthcare workers, who are working very hard to protect Anguilla from this virus. You are on the front line. We thank you for your service and we must ensure that you are given all the equipment necessary to protect yourselves. This is a very critical time for our nation. We must all take collective responsibility to combat the COVID-19 pandemic and work together to mitigate this significant challenge to Anguilla. As Leader of the Opposition, I pledge my full support to the government and people of Anguilla as we work together to overcome this global pandemic. May God Bless us all, and may God bless Anguilla, Always. New Delhi: The Delhi High Court on Friday (March 20) issued notices to ministries of Health and Home Affairs and Directorate General of Civil Aviation (DGCA) on a plea challenging the Centre's circular prohibiting travel of passengers from European Union, UK and Turkey from March 18 onwards to contain the spread of coronavirus pandemic. Issuing the notice, a bench of Justices J R Midha and I S Mehta directed the authorities concerned to put submit their stand on the plea, which was filed by the father of an Indian student stranded in Scotland. The student was reportedly unable to return to the country due to the travel ban, which also includes member nations of European Free Trade Association. The petition, which seeks quashing of the March 16 circular imposing the travel ban, was mentioned before a bench of Justices Siddharth Mridul and I S Mehta earlier in the day for urgent hearing. The bench headed by Justice Mridul, however, declined to hear the matter as his daughter was stranded in the United Kingdom (UK) in the wake of the COVID-19 outbreak and directed that it be listed before another bench. Justice Mridul also asked the central government to consider evacuating Indian citizens stranded in other COVID-19 affected nations as was done in China, but no orders to this effect were passed. When the matter came up for hearing before the bench headed by Justice Midha, central government standing counsel Amit Mahajan, appearing for the ministries, urged the court to implead the Ministry of Home Affairs as the travel advisory/ban was issued by the Bureau of Immigration which comes under the ministry. Subsequently, the court made the MHA a party in the case. Notably, the number of people who have died as a result of the coronavirus pandemic now exceeds 10,000, according to an AFP tally based on official data today. In total, 10,080 deaths have been reported, most of them in Europe (4,932) and Asia (3,431). Italy is the worst affected country with 3,405 fatalities, followed by China with 3,248, the initial epicentre of the outbreak, and Iran with 1,433. Members of the Fraternal Order of Eagles recently donated $4,000 to the Sweetwater Regional Cancer Center. The Fraternal Order of the Eagles honored the Sweetwater Regional Cancer Center with a $4,000 donation at their meeting on March 10. "I think it's important to continue to support our local cancer center as much as we can and we are happy to continue our support," Don Munoz, President ofthe Fraternal Order of the Eagles, said. Munoz said that they are still fundraising for the cancer center and would be presenting another donation once their fundraising efforts ended. "We are so grateful to the Eagles for their generous donation. They have demonstrated amazing community support through th... By Scott Morris Bay City News Foundation Nursing students across the Bay Area and beyond are worried that they won't be able to graduate and join the fight against the novel coronavirus because hospitals have been reluctant to accept students during the crisis. By law nursing students must complete 75 percent of their clinical experience with direct patient care in an acute care setting in order to be licensed. But with hospitals facing a shortage of personal protective equipment and worried about spending time training inexperienced nurses, many have cancelled the rotations. Sarah Joseph, a second-year nursing student at the College of Marin, said that she has already completed 632 hours of direct patient care but her final preceptorship, 144 hours in a labor and delivery department in San Francisco, was cancelled and she doesn't know how she's going to complete those hours. If she can't, she won't be able to graduate as scheduled in May. And she is far from alone: most of her 41 classmates have had their clinical rotations canceled as well. "My students have come too far and worked too hard to not be able to complete weeks before the semester is over," said Sharon Goldfarb, dean of health sciences at the College of Marin. Furthermore, if this class isn't able to graduate on time, the school won't be able to take on a new crop of students in the fall, compounding the problem, Goldfarb said. As many as 12,000 nursing students across California may not be able to graduate this semester, said Joanne Spetz, associate director of research at the Healthforce Center at the University of California at San Francisco. Usually, California has a very well-balanced supply and demand for nurses, Spetz said. "But having a whole cohort not be able to graduate, that takes some time to recover from at a time that we can't afford to lose them given increased hospital needs," she said. Depending on the spread of the coronavirus, the healthcare system could be stretched to its breaking point in the coming months. Shortages of personal protective gear are already happening, with the Centers for Disease Control even recommending that healthcare professionals use bandanas or scarves if masks aren't available. Around the world healthcare systems have faced shortages of staff and equipment as the virus quickly spread and healthcare workers were exposed or became sick. Unless hospitals change their mind about allowing students to complete their clinical experience, the state will need to relax its restrictions around direct patient care. Goldfarb and the College of Marin students have been advocating for the state Board of Registered Nursing, a section of the Department of Consumer Affairs, to allow students to complete their requirements with simulations, which Goldfarb said is just as effective as direct patient care. A petition on Change.org calling for the board to soften its restrictions had more than 52,000 signatures as of Friday morning. The board did not return a request for comment. Spetz said that some states have also discussed allowing medical students in the late stages of their training to practice early on an emergency basis to scale up hospitals. "There's a lot that they're trained to do already," she said. "We don't want unqualified hands on deck, but anyone who's possibly qualified let's get them out there." Goldfarb said there is a false notion that nursing students are a burden and at least one hospital, Marin General Hospital, has started taking nursing students back after recognizing that they could be a big help at this critical time. Joseph, the nursing student at College of Marin, said that while she understands concerns that inexperienced nursing students might not be ready to directly treat patients suffering from COVID-19, there are many roles that they still could do. "What we are asking for is to be able to help in this crisis in any way possible," Joseph said. She said that there are roles in comforting patients and providing information that more experienced nurses won't have time to do as hospitals approach capacity and experienced staff have to devote all their energy to the coronavirus. "There are then roles that they are abandoning that as a new graduate nurse we are confident that we could help fulfill," she said. Lindsey Murnin, another second-year student at College of Marin, said that she feels like she could be a resource for strained hospitals and is eager to help. Her next clinical rotation was scheduled to begin on Monday at a Kaiser intensive care unit, but was one of the first to be canceled. "I've been going to school since I was a kid and becoming a nurse has been a lifelong career dream for me," Murnin said. Copyright 2020 by Bay City News, Inc. Republication, Rebroadcast or any other Reuse without the express written consent of Bay City News, Inc. is prohibited. Tuolumne County Public Health Department View Photo Sonora, CA Tuolumne County Health officials released the Wednesday update that provides testing numbers while noting that there is still no confirmed case in the county. Below is the latest information provided by the county: Tuolumne Situation: Tuolumne County Testing* / Case Information (as of 3/19/20) Total Tested Total Pending Total Negative Total Positive Total Deaths 56 28 28 0 0 California Testing / Case Information (as of 3/17/20) Total Tested Total Pending Total Negative Total Positive Total Deaths Unknown 10,000+ 5,600+ 675 16 *Tuolumne County testing numbers include only those routed through Public Health to a Public Health Laboratory and those reported through the State infectious disease reporting system. The numbers do not necessarily include those routed through a commercial laboratory. All positive cases must be reported to Public Health. An updated overview of myMotherLode Coronavirus news stories and the neighboring County CoVID-19 report is here. Local Activations & Declarations: PUBLIC HEALTH COVID-19 CALL CENTER: Public Health has activated a call center that will go live on 3/18/20 at 9 a.m. The call center will be open Monday-Friday from 9 a.m. to 6 p.m. The call center phone number is 209-533-7440. We still encourage community members to call the Adventist Health COVID-19 Advice Line at 844-542-8840 with questions or concerns about visiting an Adventist Health clinic or hospital, but phone calls with other questions or concerns may be made to the Public Health COVID-19 Call Center. The Public Health Department has activated its Department Operations Center (DOC) to most effectively respond to the COVID-19 incident, including communication and coordination with our federal, state, and local partners. Dr. Eric Sergienko, acting Tuolumne County Health Officer, has declared a local health emergency in order to enhance the effectiveness of the response to COVID-19, to seek and utilize mutual aid, potentially obtain reimbursement, and ensure that the Countys public health professionals and providers have all necessary resources to provide quality care and keep our community safe. Dr. Sergienko issued a revised Health Officer Order on 3/17/20 (applicable until 4/30/20) regarding gatherings (summarized in Mass Gatherings section below). The Tuolumne County Office of Emergency Services, with the approval of the Board of Supervisors, declared a local state of emergency on 3/17/20. New: In order to better focus public health resources on the changing needs of California communities, as of March 18th, the state is no longer collecting information about California travelers from countries that have confirmed COVID-19 outbreaks. Community transmission has been identified in California since late February, and since early March, most of the confirmed cases in the state were not related to travel outside of the U.S. COVID-19 Testing: Testing is being conducted at the discretion of health care providers in the community, based on their clinical assessment and current recommended guidance Tests that will be conducted through the Public Health laboratory system are coordinated with our Public Health Department Testing is available through Quest laboratories with a health care providers order. These tests are not required to be communicated through the Public Health Department, but our local providers are strongly encouraged to do so Any positive test result must be reported to the Public Health Department Community Agency Updates: We would like to include relevant updates from agencies that serve the community (e.g., the Senior Center is closed but they are offering drive-through lunch pick-up). Please submit updates to PHPIO@co.tuolumne.ca.us by noon each day for your update to be included in this daily email update. Amador Tuolumne Community Action Agency (ATCAA) ATCAA has made some changes to their services as reported here. ATCAA has made some changes to their services as reported here. Area 12 Agency on Aging A12AA has closed their office for in-person services but will continue to be available by phone during normal business hours. All HICAP appointments will be conducted by phone. A12AA has closed their office for in-person services but will continue to be available by phone during normal business hours. All HICAP appointments will be conducted by phone. Behavioral Health Lambert Center closed until further notice Enrichment Center some programs (e.g., Adult Education, Small Group Support, etc.) have been canceled until further notice. Hours and locations of other programs have been adjusted. For more information, visit the following Facebook pages: Tuolumne County Behavioral Health, Tuolumne County Enrichment Center, and The David Lambert Community Drop-In Center The 24-hour crisis phone line is: 209-533-7000 or toll free 800-630-1130 Libraries The Groveland and Twain Harte Branch Libraries are closed but the Tuolumne and Sonora library remain open. All library programs (e.g., book clubs, story times, etc.) have been canceled. Senior Center The Senior Center at 540 Greenley Road will be closed until further notice The Senior Center will have meals available for pick-up only at 540 Greenley Road in Sonora. Lunches will be made available to current Intake Congregate Clients and by reservation only. Current lunch participants who would like to reserve a lunch should call 209-533-2622 by 9 a.m. that morning For more information, visit: http://www.sierraseniorproviders.org/ The Meals on Wheels Program is continuing service as usual The Sonora, Jamestown, and Groveland Congregate lunch sites have ceased on-site serving Mass Gatherings: Per the 3/17/20 Tuolumne County Health Officer Order (applicable until 4/30/20): All events that have more than 50 participants shall be canceled or postponed to such a time as this Health Officers Order has lapsed All events that may have fewer than 50 participants where it is not feasible to maintain social distances of six feet shall be canceled or postponed to such a time as this Health Officers Order has lapsed Gatherings for those who are at high risk of severe illness, such as those older than 65, those with existing heart or lung disease, and those with diabetes, shall not exceed more than ten participants who are at high risk Issuance of assemblage permits and facility use permits shall be canceled View the CDPH Guidance for Gatherings, here. Schools: The Tuolumne County Superintendent of Schools announced on 3/18/20 that County schools will extend their closure through April 13, 2020, with the anticipated return to classrooms on April 14 th , depending on guidance from the Governor, CDE, and the State Department of Health. View the full announcement here: https://www.tcsos.us/wp-content/uploads/Extended-School-Closures-03_18_2020.pdf , depending on guidance from the Governor, CDE, and the State Department of Health. View the full announcement here: https://www.tcsos.us/wp-content/uploads/Extended-School-Closures-03_18_2020.pdf The School Districts of Tuolumne County are working with their Community Partners to help deliver meals to families of school-age students (0-18). Please visit the following page to see how each district is distributing food to families: https://www.tcsos.us/newsroom/2019-novel-coronavirus/covid-19-meal-distribution/ Private school closure is at school administrator discretion Mother Lode Adventist Junior Academy has reported that they will be closed 3/18/20 through 4/12/20 Please view the CDPH COVID-19 Schools guidance here: https://www.cdph.ca.gov/Programs/CID/DCDC/CDPH%20Document%20Library/School%20Guidance_ADA%20Compliant_FINAL.pdf *New* Businesses COVID-19 Business Resources Tuolumne County: https://www.tuolumnecounty.ca.gov/1265/COVID-19 Governors Office of Business and Economic Development: https://business.ca.gov/coronavirus-2019/ COVID-19 Guidance Highlights: The California Department of Public Health (CDPH) has their guidance documents available in one place: https://www.cdph.ca.gov/Programs/CID/DCDC/Pages/Guidance.aspx Food, Beverage, Other Services: Bars, wineries, breweries, and pubs should be closed, except for venues that are currently authorized to provide off sale beer and wine to be consumed off-premises Restaurants should be closed for in-restaurant seated dining, and should be open only to drive-through or other pick-up/delivery options For the full guidance, click here. Self-Isolation for Older Adults (age 65 and older) and Those Who Have Elevated Risk Remain at home until further guidance is issued Continue with outdoor activities Practice social distancing, both in and outside the home Stay in touch with others by phone, email, or other online tools Identify family, friends, neighbors, and caregivers who can provide support Have supplies on hand Have a plan for if you get sick Practice hand washing Use respiratory etiquette Clean and disinfect your home to remove germs For the full guidance, click here. What You Can Do: Practice everyday preventive actions to stay healthy Wash your hands thoroughly and frequently with soap and water for 20 seconds, or with hand sanitizer of soap is not available Avoid touching your eyes, nose, and mouth If you are ill, stay home. If other family members are ill, including children, keep them home. Practice social distancing: put more space between yourself and others. About 6 feet is good, if you can Avoid contact with people who are sick Clean frequently touched surfaces and objects often with soap and water or household cleaners. Dont forget your cell phone Per the Presidents Coronavirus Guidelines: If you are a person with a serious underlying health condition that can put you at increased risk (e.g., a condition that impairs your lung or heart function or weakens your immune system), stay home and away from other people Per the Presidents Coronavirus Guidelines: If you are young, or otherwise healthy, you are at risk and your activities can increase the risk for others. It is critical that you do your part to stop the spread of coronavirus: Work or engage in schools from home whenever possible If you work in a critical infrastructure industry, such as healthcare services and pharmaceutical and food supply, you have a special responsibility to maintain your normal work schedule. You and your employers should follow CDC guidance to protect your health at work. Avoid social gatherings in groups of more than 10 people Avoid eating and drinking in restaurants and food courts use drive-thru, pickup, or delivery options Avoid discretionary travel, shopping trips, and social visits Practice good hygiene Those visiting Tuolumne County from counties that have Shelter-in-Place orders should, at a minimum, self-monitor with twice daily symptoms checks, including taking a temperature, if possible. These individuals should also limit their travel. For the local notice, see attached document. To learn about COVID-19 symptoms, visit: https://www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/2019-ncov/symptoms-testing/symptoms.html If someone in your household has tested positive for COVID-19, keep the entire household at home. Do not go to work. Do not go to school. Contact your medical provider. If you have symptoms or get sick: Stay home, unless you need to seek medical care Stay away from other people, pets, and animals. As much as possible, you should stay in a specific room and use a separate bathroom if available. Call ahead before visiting your doctor, clinic, or hospital Wear a face mask to avoid spreading germs Cover your cough with a tissue and immediately throw it in the trash, or cough into your bent elbow. Wash your hands after using a tissue. Wash your hands often and avoid sharing personal items Please see the CDC recommendations here. Stay Informed: Vietnams diplomatic mission in Switzerland have launched measures to assist Vietnamese citizens in Switzerland in coping with the COVID-19 epidemic in line with guidance from the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and local authorities. The Federal Palace of Switzerland in Bern (Photo: Reuters) The Vietnamese mission to the United Nations, the WTO and other international organisations in Geneva has devised plans and assigned specific tasks to staff members in responding to emergency situations, such as taking Vietnamese nationals to hospital, repatriating citizens, or support the Vietnamese community. Meanwhile, the Embassy of Vietnam in Bern continues to issue updates to the Vietnamese community about new developments of the COVID-19 pandemic. The rapid spread of the pandemic in Switzerland has prompted many airlines to cancel flights from the Central European nation, making it more difficult for Vietnamese citizens, particularly students, to return home. The Vietnamese Embassy has urged Vietnamese citizens to closely follow regulations issued by Swiss authorities and health officials, as well as avoid crowds, stay at home and only go outside if necessary. They are advised to contact the COVID-19 hotline for advice if they suspect they have contracted the disease, and keep a close eye on their flight status if theyre coming back to Vietnam. They can contact airline ticket agent EuroAsia at Konizstrasse 228, 3097 Liebefeld (Bern) or call the company at 031 971 9787 and 079 222 4228 for information provided in Vietnamese on flights to Vietnam. As of March 19, the number of COVID-19 cases in Switzerland had surged to nearly 4,000. The country has decided to suspend visa issuance from March 19 to June 15, and close its borders with Italy, Germany, Austria and France. Vietnamese peoples charity works show solidarity with Czech amid COVID-19 Vietnamese people hand over masks to Mayor of Vestec in Czech Svec Tibor. Vietnamese people in the Czech Republic have shown solidarity with the local community in combating the new coronavirus disease (COVID-19) through a number of charity and relief projects, local media reported on March 19. Medical, police and emergency units in the Czech Republic have suffered shortages of face masks and quick test kits amid the rapid spread of the pandemic across Europe. To solve this problem, Vietnamese people in the European country together with the locals have been sewing home-made masks and giving them to people and places in need. Meanwhile, Vietnamese restaurants and food stores have also shouldered responsibility by offering police as well as health and emergency workers free food and drinks like tea and coffee. So far, Vietnamese people have presented 6,000 masks and protective gloves to the governments of Vyssi Brod and Cesky Krumlove, while hundreds of masks have also been given to the governments of Ricany and Vectek and hospitals in Znojmo and Prague. The Vietnamese community has also created a website named covidinfo.cz to provide regular updates on the situation and called on people to provide interpretation services for Vietnamese who do not speak Czech. The Vietnamese community in the Czech Republic was recognised as an ethnic minority group in the East European country in 2013, now numbering about 70,000./. VNA COVID-19: UK Ambassador thanks Vietnamese doctors, Govt officials UK Ambassador to Vietnam Gareth Ward has recently made a clip in Vietnamese language, thanking Vietnam for its support for British citizens and tourists amid the COVID-19 outbreak. The Supreme Court's ruling in the Ruth Morrissey case has given clarity to a key issue which is set to feature centrally in dozens of other cervical screening lawsuits, as well as a long-awaited tribunal. In a unanimous dismissal of most of the appeals made by the HSE and two laboratories, the five-judge court gave its views on the proper "standard of approach" to be adopted by screeners. It concluded the High Court applied the correct standard when it found the defendants negligent and awarded the terminally ill mother-of-one and her husband Paul 2.1m over the misreading of her cervical smear slides. The award and the couple's legal costs were not in doubt as the Government had guaranteed them irrespective of the outcome of the appeal. The decision was welcomed by Ms Morrissey's solicitor Cian O'Carroll, who said they were "very pleased". However, their delight was tinged by frustration that the appeal was lodged at all. "The judgment makes clear that aspects of this didn't need to be appealed," said Mr O'Carroll, who hit out at what he described as "ill-informed commentary" following the High Court ruling by Mr Justice Kevin Cross last year. The main issue of controversy in that ruling was a finding that screeners should have "absolute confidence" a smear test has no abnormalities before passing it as negative. Concerns were raised over how this should be interpreted, whether there could ever be "absolute confidence" in a screening result, and whether the judge had set a test which differed from established medical negligence case law in Ireland. Mr Justice Clarke said the High Court ruling gave rise to "a significant amount of public comment, some of it unfortunately misinformed". He said while the "absolute confidence" term "may have created more confusion than clarity", Mr Justice Cross used the appropriate standard in reaching his conclusions. The Chief Justice said all of the relevant witnesses agreed a screener "should not give a clear result in respect of a slide unless they had no doubt but that the sample was adequate and did not contain any suspicious material". He was also critical of suggestions the trial judge applied the "absolute confidence" test in a way which effectively meant every error must result in a finding of negligence. He said this suggestion was demonstrably wrong and would clearly be seen as such by anyone who had taken the trouble to read Mr Justice Cross's judgment. Exploring the issue further, he said just because someone with a clear result subsequently got diagnosed with a disease did not necessarily mean there was negligence on anyone's part. Each case, he said, would depend on its own facts and an assessment of whether there was negligence would involve findings of fact by a judge based on evidence. The delivery of the ruling paves the way for the long-awaited CervicalCheck tribunal to finally get under way, although this is likely to be delayed by the coronavirus crisis. In his ruling, Mr Justice Clarke noted the tribunal would have been constrained if there were doubts over how to determine legal liability. The Supreme Court judgment also makes matters clearer for the approximately 120 High Court actions filed in the fall-out from the CervicalCheck scandal in 2018. It remains unclear how many of these litigants will take the option of going to the tribunal rather than forging on with their court cases. Ms Morrissey underwent screening under the National Cervical Screening Programme in August 2009 and again in August 2012. Her 2009 sample was examined at a Quest Diagnostics laboratory in Michigan, while her 2012 sample was tested by Medlab Pathology in Dublin. In both instances, her smear test was reported as negative for abnormalities and she was provided with a clear result. However, in 2014 a biopsy and an MRI scan disclosed the existence of cervical cancer. An audit discovered her smear test results had been incorrect. But this was not disclosed to her until 2018, when she herself made inquiries. A south London takeaway has been shut down after inspectors discovered a mouse infestation and raw sewage on the kitchen floor. Chicken wings were being defrosted in the filthy kitchen at Dallas Chicken & Ribs despite sewage leaking from broken drain pipes, Wimbledon magistrates court heard. A routine inspection by Wandsworth council uncovered used toilet paper on the floor, mouse droppings at the back of the kitchen and on a chopping board and visible faecal matter coming from the drains. On Tuesday, magistrates granted an emergency order to shut down the takeaway in Falcon Road, Clapham Junction, until it has been cleaned and deemed safe. Environmental health official David Stupples, who served a prohibition notice on the business last week, told the court: We found that there was an imminent risk to public health. It was flooded with raw sewage, including visible faecal matter. The drain pipes could be seen emanating with raw sewage, there was also evidence of mice droppings in the rear section of the kitchen. He supplied photos of the filth, including a dirty mop bucket containing sewage next to the sink where the chicken wings were being defrosted. Referring to the photos shown to magistrates, Mr Stupples said: Faecal matter was visible in the sewage and there was faecal matter around the working area. He added that diseases such as Hepatitis A, E.coli and gastroenteritis were at risk of being spread. Press Release 20 March 2020 Hospitality Net has created a curated list of the most read How to articles to help you navigate the coronavirus disruption. Advertisements Visit the Coronavirus special coverage for a live stream of relevant news to insights, market reports, opinions, webinars and more. We are in unprecedented times with the COVID-19 pandemic ravaging the travel and hospitality sector. Public health organisations and governments may advise us on how to deal with the disease here and now, but there are many unanswered questions as to how to deal with the fallout. The coronavirus is an ongoing tragedy for those worst affected, and everyone's focus should be on containing it. However, it's also wreaking havoc on the global travel industry, and it's sensible to look for ways to navigate the crisis and mitigate some of the negative commercial impact in the year ahead. The rise of Chinese travel in the last two decades means that the proportion of travelers affected by the COVID-19 coronavirus outbreak has surpassed the 2003 SARS health crisis. But the hospitality industry has been through crises before - and proved that hotels that made smart strategic decisions can come out winners in the long-term. COVID-19 is putting an end to 11 years of unprecedented growth in the hotel industry. There is no sugarcoating it: the coronavirus has induced panic across the globe, throwing markets into chaos, postponing conferences, stamping out travel and emptying drugstore shelves. Mark Carney, the Bank of England's outgoing governor announced on Tuesday: "We have to work out how to bridge this period. We don't want viable firms to go out of business because of the necessary steps that have to be taken to protect the British public." As a hotel sales trainer, it seems very odd to be writing a train-the-trainer article about how to manage cancellations, yet this is absolutely necessary as the lodging industry has been turned upside down temporarily. One of the best pieces of business advice I ever received in my professional career came from my Dad. He told me "son, the key to long term success is not knowing how to survive the storm but learning how to play in the rain". This week, the travel industry is reeling after the cancellation of ITB Berlin and various other events due to COVID-19. Whether this is just a blip on the radar or the start of a prolonged downturn, we don't have the luxury of waiting to find out. We need to regroup and re-strategize now. Your hotel room is your home away from home, with a few exceptions: the hundreds or even thousands of strangers from every corner of the world who have slept there. And the hotel staff may not have the same standards of cleanliness that you do at home. The growing international coronavirus health crisis is dramatically affecting consumer travel around the world, and global travel brands are feeling the impact most directly. As travel cancellations mount and travel to certain regions becomes more severely affected, travel brands should monitor the situation and smartly adjust their marketing spends to maximize their effectiveness during this unique event. Heineken 0.0, launched in Vietnam on Tuesday, is a non-alcoholic innovation that taps into the companys 'When you drive, never drink' campaign. Heineken 0.0 is brewed with a unique recipe for a distinct balanced taste and packs only 69 calories per 330 ml bottle, its brew master says. First launched in the Netherlands in 2017, the alcohol-free drink is now available in 57 markets around the world, including Europe, North America, Australia and Asia. Vietnam will be the 58th market to launch Heineken 0.0 in 330 ml bottles and cans. The brand's iconic green label has turned blue - the color associated with the non-alcoholic category. Heineken's Master Brewers created the new zero-alcohol beer using only natural ingredients, resulting in a beer "brewed for beer lovers, by beer lovers." Willem van Waesberghe, Global Craft and Brew Master at Heineken, said removing alcohol from regular 5 percent Heineken would have been easy, but it wouldn't deliver the best tasting non-alcoholic beer. Therefore, Heineken 0.0 is brewed from scratch and has a perfectly balanced taste with refreshing fruity notes and soft malty body, he said. Heineken 0.0 fits in all traditional non-beer moments where consumers simply cannot have a beer. The latest Heineken beer is brewed with the same natural ingredients used for Heineken Original, including water, malted barley, hops and Heineken A-Yeast. The alcohol is gently removed through a sophisticated process of vacuum distillation then the beer is double brewed to perfection with natural flavorings. Alexander Koch, Commercial Director of Heineken Vietnam, said: "Our consumers are at the heart of what we do. We see a trend of consumers around the world and also in Vietnam moving towards a more balanced and health-conscious lifestyle. "With Heineken 0.0, we are providing our Vietnamese consumers with a new and innovative option for all their drinking occasions, including ones where you cannot have a beer." Heineken 0.0 gives consumers' choice for a variety of drinking occasions. They can enjoy this non-alcoholic beer at work, at the gym, during lunch time and even if they have to drive home afterwards - as it contains zero alcohol. To support Heineken 0.0, the brand has launched its #NowYouCan global campaign, translated into Vietnamese as "0 gi 0 the". Led by a series of light-hearted TVCs, the campaign showcases the new occasions and moments that Heineken 0.0 can fit into peoples lives. Heineken turns blue with a non-alcoholic lager Heineken 0.0 Heineken turns blue with a non-alcoholic lager Heineken 0.0 For starters, Heineken 0.0 is available on the shelves of different retail channels including all major supermarkets, convenience stores, bars and restaurants in Ho Chi Minh City, Hanoi and major cities including Da Nang, Nha Trang, Binh Dinh and Ba Ria - Vung Tau. It will eventually go nationwide. Consumers can also buy the non-alcoholic beer on e-commerce platforms, including Heineken's e-commerce website at https://www.drinkies.vn/. A Queensland man who agreed to pay pregnant teen prostitute Tiffany Taylor for sex on the day she disappeared has been found guilty of her murder. Rodney Wayne Williams, 65, picked the 16-year-old up from a Logan motel in July 2015 after meeting her on the Oasis dating website. Rodney Wayne Williams is guilty of murdering 16-year-old Tiffany Taylor after agreeing to pay her for sex. Credit:Michelle Smith The pair drove to an isolated industrial area where "something happens", his Brisbane Supreme Court trial heard. Traces of Tiffany's blood were found in Williams' Hyundai sedan, prosecutor Philip McCarthy QC told the jury during the three-and a-half-week trial. To the editor: On March 3, Great Lakes Safety Training Center (GLSTC) conducted its Annual Safety Celebration Meeting, which featured keynote speaker Jason Gardner of Echelon Front, who spoke about Extreme Ownership. GLSTC was proud to give the Pete Crawford Safety Champion Award to two GLSTC members who exemplify commitment, passion and dedication to the safety of their employees and colleagues. Congratulations to Great Lakes Bay Construction and Niles Industrial Coatings for their demonstrating their continued dedication to safety. Congratulations to Dow for earning the 2019 Safety Partner of the year. Brian Powers, from Three Rivers Corporation, was giving the Spirit of Safety Award. Ryan Smith, from G.E. Insulation earned the Safety Professional of the Year Award. GLSTC would like to thank our sponsors for their generous support: Platinum Sponsors: Bierlein, Dow, Fisher Companies, John E. Green, MAP Mechanical, Nexteer Automotive and Pumford Construction Diamond Sponsors: Covenant Healthcare, Hemlock Semiconductor, Knight Facilities Management, Niles Plant Services, Niles Industrial Coatings and Three Rivers Corporation Hard Hat Sponsors: Covenant Occupational Health, DuPont, Valley Electrical Contractors and Windemuller Tool Belt Sponsors: Alloy Construction & Associated Builders and Contractors Greater Michigan Steel Toe Sponsors: G. E. Insulation, Great Lakes Bay Construction, Servinski Sod Services and Spicer Group Thank you to all of our sponsors and attendees! We look forward to seeing you in 2021! KELLY JUDAY Executive director, Great Lakes Safety Training Center During a one-on-one debate with Democratic rival Bernie Sanders earlier this week, Biden claimed that the Trump administration had declined to buy coronavirus test kits from the World Health Organisation (WHO). "Look, the World Health Organisation offered the testing kits that they have available and to give it to us now," he said. "We refused them. We did not want to buy them." The WHO quickly denied that there had been any discussions about selling the tests to the US, and that it focused on distributing the tests to developing countries. PolitiFact rated Biden's claim "mostly false". To Biden's Republican opponents - and even some on the left of the Democratic Party - his stumbles amount to something more than gaffes or even lies. Instead, they regard his slip-ups as evidence of cognitive decline. During a fundraiser at his Mar-a-Lago resort earlier this month, President Donald Trump ran through a litany of Biden's verbal stumbles - including his recent claim that 150 million Americans had died because of gun violence since 2007. The real number is around 370,000. At a recent campaign rally in North Carolina, Trump said that if Biden were elected, hed soon be put "into a home and other people are going to be running the country". Last year on Twitter, Trump asked: "Does anybody really believe he is mentally fit to be president? We are 'playing' in a very big and complicated world. Joe doesnt have a clue!" Loading Earlier this month Trump's personal lawyer Rudy Giuliani accused Biden of showing "obvious signs of dementia". "If you consider that what hes displaying gets worse, whats he going to be like three years from now?" he asked. Fox News host Sean Hannity recently told his viewers: "Biden is struggling. If he had a fastball, it's gone. If he had a slow pitch that's gone, too, and his confusing and bumbling speeches, increasing numbers of gaffes and public outbursts are beyond troublesome." It was just a preview of the nasty attacks that will come Biden's way as the November election approaches. Loading No evidence To be clear, there is no diagnostic evidence to support Giuliani's claim that Biden has dementia. The former vice-president's supporters point out that he has always been gaffe-prone and long-winded. Biden famously described Barack Obama as "the first mainstream African-American who is articulate and bright and clean and a nice-looking guy". He dropped out of his first presidential race, in 1988, when he was caught plagiarising speeches by UK Labour leader Neil Kinnock. The debate about Biden's mental acuity is also complicated by the fact he has had a life-long struggle with stuttering. During the campaign, he has become increasingly open about his battle to overcome the condition. But there is no avoiding the fact that if Biden wins the election he will be 78 years old at his inauguration. In that event he would easily become the oldest person to assume the presidency, taking over the title from Trump, who was 70 at the time. Loading It's not only Trump loyalists who have wondered about whether Biden has lost a step or two since even a few years ago. Watching Biden's speeches can be a nerve-wracking experience for those who wish him well. "Are we afraid to say that a lot of his sentences don't make sense, that he's having trouble completing his thoughts?" MSNBC host Joe Scarborough, one of Trump's most prominent media critics, asked of Biden last year. Before he dropped out of the Democratic race last year, New Jersey Senator Cory Booker asked whether Biden would be able to "get the ball over the line". "There are definitely moments where you listen to Joe Biden and you just wonder," he said. Loading Voters in Iowa and New Hampshire, where Biden finished fourth and fifth, openly expressed doubts about Biden's stamina and whether his time had passed. But then Bernie Sanders, a 78-year-old democratic socialist, emerged as the favourite to win the nomination. This prompted moderate Democrats to flock behind Biden. The doubts about him hadn't been erased, merely suppressed. The key question is: how much will Biden's age and verbal stumbles matter to voters in November? With the nation consumed by the public health and economic ramifications of the coronavirus pandemic, attacks on Biden are getting little traction at the moment. The virus has allowed Biden to fly under the radar with far less scrutiny than he would expect at this stage of the election cycle. And Trump has shown it is possible to get away with outlandish statements that would once have been considered career killers. Trump is certainly a more vigorous and entertaining speaker than Biden, but he can hardly lecture his rival about false statements and gaffes. Just last week Trump sent stockmarkets tumbling when he made several major errors in a pre-written national address. Votorantim Cimentos to install distribution centre in Uberaba ICR Newsroom By 20 March 2020 Brazil-based Votorantim Cimentos has announced plans to build a distribution centre in Uberaba, Minas Gerais, Brazil. The new centre will have storage space of 2000m2 and will serve the Uberaba region and a radius of 100km. The unit is expected to be operational in the 2H20 and provide improved and faster services for the regions customers. Published under A federal judge in Manhattan dismissed a lawsuit claiming that the Trump administration was purposefully withholding funding from the U.S. Census Bureau to cause racial and ethnic minorities to be undercounted in the 2020 census. U.S. District Judge Alvin Hellerstein said in his ruling that the case was too speculative, and that the U.S. Constitution did not require additional spending. The plaintiffs, Brooklyn-based nonprofit Center for Popular Democracy Action and the city of Newburgh, N.Y., had argued that without additional funding, the census threatened undercounts of blacks, Hispanics, and other minority communities. The plaintiffs requested an injunction to make the bureau spend an additional $770 million from previous appropriations to ensure that more census-takers would visit those communities. Investing resources in counting hard-to-count communities is all the more important now, as COVID-19 heightens the risk of undercounting vulnerable populations, Nikita Lalwani, a Yale Law student who helped represent the plaintiffs, said after the decision. The Trump administration has faced criticism from opponents who claim an effort to add a citizenship question to the census was based on political considerations, rather than its publicly stated effort to enforce the Voting Rights Act. The move was ultimately struck down by the Supreme Court in July, with President Trump then announcing that he would abandon the legal battle over the question. The White House turned instead to an executive order to direct the Commerce Department to collect the information by other means. More from National Review By IANS NEW DELHI: Despite the fear of coronavirus and the government's on the gathering of more than 50 people, hundreds of locals and youngsters, social activists thronged outside the Tihar jail on Friday at 5.30 am to see the execution of the four convicts in the 2012 Nirbhaya gang-rape case. People across ages were seen carrying placards and raising slogans, 'Nirbhaya zindabad, long live Nirbhaya', justice delayed, not denied,' 'morning of justice', day of justice read some of the posters. A group of social activists also celebrated the death of four culprits by distributing sweets. When asked about the fear of COVID-19, a resident of Tilak Nagar, Yogesh Kalra said, "today our sister has gotten justice, the daughter of the nation has gotten justice. We are here in solidarity with Nirbhaya and her parents. I came here to witness the justice unfold in front my eyes. We don't fear coronavirus". "We have come here to see justice unfold before our eyes," said the locals who had assembled outside #TiharJail to pay their tribute to Nirbhaya, hours before #nirbhayaconvicts were hanged.#NirbhayaVerdict #nirbhayagetsjustice Read more: https://t.co/KvGn6i6Jz4 pic.twitter.com/IRmXJp9Sku The New Indian Express (@NewIndianXpress) March 20, 2020 "Such criminals needed to be hanged for what they did. They were not humans and I don't even want to compare them with animals. Their deed was inhumane and we support the decision of court and system. I salute the order and justice, Supreme Court," said another person in the crowd. The four convicts -- Vinay Sharma, Akshay Thakur, Mukesh Singh and Pawan Gupta -- were hanged till death on Friday at 5.30 a.m. for gang-raping and murdering a 23-year-old physiotherapy student in a moving bus in 2012 December. "Its a day of justice. I salute the judgement. Sweets will be distributed and posters will be erected in respect of our sister," said a social activist distributing sweets. Welcome to this weeks edition of Coronavirus Surge, written in deep isolation. The Surge has barely left the house in a week but hasnt gone loopy yet. Perhaps thats because the conversations have been great. It turns out that the sofa has spirited opinions on 19th-century British literature, while the lamp is a strident medievalist. Oh lamp, you churl! A brief recap from this past Sundays debate, which took place in a haunted, abandoned CNN studio two days before Joe Biden effectively shut the door on Bernie Sanders in Tuesdays primaries: The topic was women, and Biden said (to paraphrase) Im picking one of those girl folks as my running matelots of great gals out there to choose from. And just like that, this weeks Surge theme was born. Dont worry: We will not visit the veepstakes each week for the next few months, only from time to time. Next week we might rank, who knows, potatoes? Sweatpants? But heres an early look at the list of women from whom Biden is likely choosing. The family of a 25-year-old who contracted coronavirus while on spring break have urged young people to listen to calls for social distancing. Auburn student John 'JT' Braswell tested positive for Covid-19 four days after returning to Alabama, following a ski trip to Colorado. Fox 6 reported that Mr Braswell started feeling ill and showing symptoms of coronavirus just a day after he returned home. He went to lunch at a local restaurant before seeing family at home in the evening. Mr Braswell's family have self-isolated since being informed that he was feeling unwell. "We could tell by his reaction it was positive, and I inadvertently put my hands to cover my face. I went inside and washed my hands and sprayed Lysol on a towel and patted my face," Mr Braswell's mother, Laura, told WDHN. The family are now urging other young people to practice social distancing and listen to CDC calls to end Spring Break parties. Mr Braswell's father said:"You might feel well, but still be sick and spread the virus". Despite urgent measures to stop the spread of coronavirus, spring break is very much underway, with some determined to have their fun despite the pandemic. "If I get corona, I get corona. At the end of the day I'm not gonna let it stop me from partying," one man told CBS News in Miami. According to the Covid Tracking Project at their last update, 82,571 people had been tested so far in the US. Their data shows that there have been 79 tests in Alabama so far, with 28 positive and 51 negative. More than 10,000 cases of the disease have been recorded so far in the US. The Centres for Disease Control and Prevention has recommended a two-week ban on gatherings of more than 50 people as part of the battle to contain the spread of the contagion. Gujarat Congress leader Hardik Patel, who was in Morbi district on Friday to attend a case hearing, was arrested by Ahmedabad police from outside the court. He was held in a three-year-old case of rioting lodged at Ramol police station here, said officials. Hardik was arrested by Ramol police as soon as he came out of a magistrate's court in Tankara town in Morbi district. "We have arrested Hardik Patel from outside a court in Tankara after a non-bailable warrant was issued against him by a court in Ahmedabad in a rioting case lodged in March 2017. The FIR was lodged by BJP corporator Paresh Patel, who had accused Hardik and others of trespassing and rioting at his residence," said Inspector K S Dave. The FIR was lodged at a time when Hardik was leading an agitation demanding OBC reservations for Patidars. In all, some 25 cases have been lodged against Hardik in different parts of the state, mostly mostly for holding rallies without police permission. He is also facing two sedition FIRs at Ahmedabad and Surat. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) China to firmly support its media to safeguard reputation, interests: Chinese FM Global Times Source:Global Times Published: 2020/3/19 20:18:40 China supports its media in safeguarding their reputation and interests, the Chinese Foreign Ministry said on Thursday, adding that China is forced to take relevant countermeasures against American media reporters in China, based on the principle of reciprocity. In recent years, the US government has been baselessly imposing restrictions on the normal news practices of Chinese media agencies and personnel in the US, and has escalated discrimination and political suppression of Chinese media, Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesperson Geng Shuang said at Thursday's media briefing. The normal order of life and work of Chinese journalists in the US have been severely disrupted, and many of them were even unable to return to the US to work after returning home for a leave because the US turned down their visas without a reason. They were required to provide a lot of additional materials when applying for visas, Geng said. Geng said that in December 2018, the US side required some Chinese media organizations in the US to register as "foreign agents." In February, it listed five Chinese media organizations in the US as "foreign missions," and then it imposed caps on the number of Chinese journalists from the five media outlets, which was a de facto expulsion of a large number of Chinese journalists. Facts have proven that the so-called freedom of the press claimed by the US is hypocritical and deceptive. The Chinese side has repeatedly lodged solemn representations with the US over its wrong practices, and expressed its firm opposition and strong condemnation, Geng said. The Chinese media have endured all kinds of oppression and discriminatory practices from the US side for too long, but the US has stepped up its efforts, Geng said. In the face of unfair treatment, double standards and hegemonic bullying from the US, the All-China Journalists' Association has raised strong opposition to the US side. We firmly support Chinese media to safeguard their reputation and interests, and China will be forced to take relevant measures against American media reporters based on the principle of reciprocity, Geng said. China announced early Wednesday that it would take countermeasures against restrictive measures on Chinese media agencies in the US, effective immediately. China demands, in the spirit of reciprocity, that the China-based bureaus of Voice of America, the New York Times, the Wall Street Journal, the Washington Post and Time declare in written form information about their staff, finance, operations and real estate in China, the Chinese foreign ministry said in a public statement on Wednesday. China also demands that journalists of US citizenship working with the New York Times, the Wall Street Journal and the Washington Post whose press credentials are due to expire before the end of 2020 to hand back their press cards within ten calendar days. NEWS LETTER Join the GlobalSecurity.org mailing list Enter Your Email Address Paris, March 20 : Amid the novel coronavirus scare around the world, a French researcher has reported successful trial of a new treatment line for COVID-19, with early tests suggesting it can stop the virus from becoming contagious in just six days. According to connexionfrance.com, Professor Didier Raoult from hospital l'Institut Hospitalo-Universitaire (IHU Mediterranee), put up a video to explain the trials held earlier this week. Raoult, an infectious diseases specialist, was tasked by the French government to research possible treatment for the novel coronavirus. According to the professor, the first COVID-19 patients he treated with drug chloroquine saw rapid and effective speeding of their healing process, and a sharp decrease in the amount of time they remained contagious. Chloroquine -- which is normally used to prevent and treat malaria -- was administered via drug Plaquenil. "We included everyone who was in agreement to be treated, which was almost everyone. Two towns in the protocol, Nice and Avignon, gave us infected patients who had not yet received treatment," Raoult was quoted as saying by connexionfrance.com. According to the media report, the treatment was offered to 24 patients, who were among the first to become infected in the southeast of France, and who had voluntarily admitted themselves to hospital for the process. Patients were given 600mcg per day for 10 days. They were closely monitored, as the drug can interact with other medication, and cause severe side effects in some cases, it added. "We were able to ascertain that patients who had not received Plaquenil (drug containing hydroxychloroquine) were still contagious after six days, but of those who received Plaquenil, only 25 per cent were still contagious after the given period," he added. Chloroquine phosphate and hydroxychloroquine have previously been used to treat coronavirus patients in China, in ongoing COVID-19 clinical trials. Kaletra, a US-based antiviral drug used to treat HIV, is another medicine that is being tested in the fight against the deadly virus. Latest updates on Coronavirus (COVID-19) -- The story has been published from a wire feed without any modifications to the text Karnataka government has mandated all employees from IT and biotech sector to work from home in a bid to control spread of coronavirus. However those working in mission critical and essential services are exempted, the government said in a statement. The state has reported 15 cases as of now. On March 13, the Chief Minister ordered shutdown of all commercial spaces such as malls, gyms and cinema halls for a week starting March 14. He also requested the companies to let employees work from home when possible. A week later, the statement was released after a meeting between Karnataka IT minister CN Ashwath Narayana with industry association heads, industry representatives and chairperson of vision group, IT, BT and startups. Track this blog for live updates on the coronavirus outbreak Bengaluru accounts for majority of the 50 lakh tech workforce in the country. Most of the initial COVID-19 cases reported were empoyees of Mindtree, Dell and Google. COVID-19 Vaccine Frequently Asked Questions View more How does a vaccine work? A vaccine works by mimicking a natural infection. A vaccine not only induces immune response to protect people from any future COVID-19 infection, but also helps quickly build herd immunity to put an end to the pandemic. Herd immunity occurs when a sufficient percentage of a population becomes immune to a disease, making the spread of disease from person to person unlikely. The good news is that SARS-CoV-2 virus has been fairly stable, which increases the viability of a vaccine. How many types of vaccines are there? There are broadly four types of vaccine one, a vaccine based on the whole virus (this could be either inactivated, or an attenuated [weakened] virus vaccine); two, a non-replicating viral vector vaccine that uses a benign virus as vector that carries the antigen of SARS-CoV; three, nucleic-acid vaccines that have genetic material like DNA and RNA of antigens like spike protein given to a person, helping human cells decode genetic material and produce the vaccine; and four, protein subunit vaccine wherein the recombinant proteins of SARS-COV-2 along with an adjuvant (booster) is given as a vaccine. What does it take to develop a vaccine of this kind? Vaccine development is a long, complex process. Unlike drugs that are given to people with a diseased, vaccines are given to healthy people and also vulnerable sections such as children, pregnant women and the elderly. So rigorous tests are compulsory. History says that the fastest time it took to develop a vaccine is five years, but it usually takes double or sometimes triple that time. View more Show This mandate to let employees to work from home comes at the back of reasoning that techies, who travel often overseas to client locations for work, are the high risk of contracting the virus. Following this, the government has said the companies and its employees should put on hold all business and personal travel unless it is critical. Also to facilitate WFH, it has written to Bengaluru Electricity Supply Company Limited (BESCOM) and internet service providers to provide uninterrupted power supply and connectivity, the statement added. The government had also mandated face to face meeting be replaced with video and audio conferencing. Most IT firms have already asked employees to WFH. In case of critical projects, the IT firms have getting necessary permissions so as the make WFH feasible for employees. An IT employee from TCS, who was working on a critical project, too have been given WFH for three weeks till April 14. This might be extended for another few weeks depending on how the situation develops, the employee said. The company did not respond to the email sent. Apart from TCS, other firms such as Infosys, Wipro and HCL Tech is likely to follow suit. Earlier, Maharashtra government too implemented similar mandate. In a statement, HCL Tech said that it has mandated employees in the state to work from home while ensuring business continuity. We are invoking all required mitigation protocols to ensure a seamless communication with business partners, clients and are fully prepared to provide support to our clients and employees, the statement added. The number of patients diagnosed with the novel coronavirus disease (COVID-19) has reached 85 in Vietnam after nine cases were confirmed late Thursday, with all of the new patients having been identified either at the airport or in quarantine. Among the nine new cases, five were confirmed in Ho Chi Minh City and four were in Hanoi. One is a U.S. citizen while the others are Vietnamese. Patient No. 77 is a 25-year-old woman who studies in the UK. She arrived at Noi Bai International in Hanoi on March 17 on flight QR976. The 78th patient is a 22-year-old man who also studies in the UK. He landed at Noi Bai on March 17 on flight EK394. The 79th patient, a 48-year-old woman who has lived in the UK for two years, traveled from London to Dubai on March 14 and then to Ho Chi Minh City on March 15. Her 18-year-old son, who had lived with her in the UK and shared the same travel itinerary, is Vietnams 80th COVID-19 patient. Patient No. 81, a 20-year-old man, returned to Ho Chi Minh City from France on flight AF258 on March 15. Patient No. 82 is a 16-year-old girl who traveled from London to Dubai and then to Ho Chi Minh City on March 15. The 83rd patient is a 50-year-old U.S. woman who previously traveled to Phuket, Thailand and Istanbul, Turkey before arriving in Ho Chi Minh City on March 15. The 84th and 85th patients, aged 21 and 20, are both Vietnamese students in the UK. They touched down in Hanoi on March 18 on flight VN0054. The patients in Hanoi are currently being treated at the National Hospital for Tropical Diseases, while those in Ho Chi Minh City are receiving treatment at a field hospital in Cu Chi District. The novel coronavirus, which first emerged in the central Chinese city of Wuhan in December 2019, has infected over 244,800 people and killed more than 10,000 globally as of Friday morning, according to Ministry of Health statistics. Vietnams COVID-19 tally has soared to 85, with 17 having fully recovered and been discharged from the hospital. No death has been reported in the country so far. Hanoi has confirmed 23 cases while Ho Chi Minh City has reported 17 cases, including three having walked out of the hospital free of the virus. Like us on Facebook or follow us on Twitter to get the latest news about Vietnam! After falling for four consecutive days, local stocks opened higher taking cues from Asian peers. At 9:23 IST, the barometer index, the S&P BSE Sensex, was up 496.42 points or 1.75% at 28,784.65. The Nifty 50 index was up 167.05 points or 2.02% at 8,430.50. The S&P BSE Mid-Cap index was up 2.59%. The S&P BSE Small-Cap index was up 2.15%. The market breadth, indicating the overall health of the market, was positive. On the BSE, 866 shares rose and 376 shares fell. A total of 38 shares were unchanged. Stocks in news: Hero MotoCorp rose 0.55%. Hero MotoCorp has commenced commercial production at its new greenfield manufacturing facility, situated at Chittoor in the southern Indian state of Andhra Pradesh. This facility is the company's eighth manufacturing plant and sixth in India. State Bank of India was up 2.40%. State Bank of India informed that a meeting of the central board of the bank will be held on 27 March 2020 to consider the extension of approval accorded by central board for raising equity capital from market up to Rs 20,000 crore from the market till 31 March, 2021 subject to the approval of shareholders, RBI and Gol. The board of the bank also approved divestment of entire equity stake (19.99%) held in A Little World. Sun Pharmaceutical Industries jumped 4.55%. Sun Pharmaceutical Industries informed that the company has approved the buy-back of its equity shares of face value of Re 1 each from the open market at a maximum price of Rs 425 per equity share for an aggregate maximum amount of up to Rs 1,700 crore. ICICI Lombard General Insurance Company fell 1.81%. ICICI Lombard General Insurance Company said it has rolled out a focused 'COVID-19 Protection Cover'. The policy has been launched in group insurance mode. Amid the contagious pandemic, this policy on diagnosis of COVID-19 (+ve) will pay 100% of the sum insured irrespective of hospitalization expenses. CreditAccess Grameen gained 3.31%. CreditAccess Grameen informed that its has completed the acquisition of 75.64% of equity share capital of Madura Micro Finance on 18 March 2020. Sobha was up 1.22%. Sobha informed that the board of directors approved the issue of secured redeemable non convertible debentures up to an amount of Rs 270 crore by way of private placement. Global Markets: Overseas, most Asian markets were trading higher on Thursday following the overnight rebound in the US and European markets, as massive relief packages announced by global central banks and governments to ease the economic impact of the coronavirus pandemic boosted investor sentiment. In US, stocks closed modestly higher on Thursday, in another volatile session, as central banks and governments pledged support for the economic shocks from the coronavirus pandemic. Powered by Capital Market - Live News (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) Employees' Provident Fund Organisation (EPFO) has advised its members, pensioners and employees to access its services online instead of visiting its offices. The advisory came as Centre and state governments are trying to contain the spread of coronavirus in India. So far, five deaths due to COVID-19 infection have been reported in the country and the number of confirmed cases has reached 196. "In view of Government of India guidelines to contain spreading of COVID-19, Employees' Provident Fund Organisation (EPFO) advises it members, pensioners and employers to avail various online services offered by EPFO, from the comfort of their homes, and to avoid visiting EPFO offices," a statement by Ministry of Labour & Employment said on Friday. ALSO READ: Coronavirus in India Live Updates: Delhi battles COVID-19; malls closed, metro services shut on Sunday Most of the services of EPFO are available online. Beneficiaries can generate their Universal Account Number (UAN), activate it, and seed it with Aadhaar, Permanent Account Number (PAN), bank account and mobile number online. Employees can also make nominations, check balance in their passbooks, update their date of exit, transfer their accounts from unexempted to exempted establishment, and vice-versa. EPFO also allows employees to raise claims online for Provident Fund advances or final withdrawal, pension or Insurance benefits (EDLI), and receive provident fund (PF), pension, insurance benefits directly in their bank accounts. Similarly, pensioners can download their Pension Payment Order (PPO) or preserve it in Digilocker, check their PPO number with the help of their bank account numbers or UANs, and check passbook status. Pensioners can also update Jeevan Praman (Digital Life Certificate) online any time of the year. ALSO READ: Coronavirus in Maharashtra: All non-essential shops, offices to shut in Mumbai, Nagpur, Pune For employers, EPFO allows them to register their establishments under EPF & MP Act, 1952, and obtain establishment ID, make payment of EPF and allied dues through RTGS or NEFT, and submit Electronic Challan cum Return (ECR). Employers have also been facilitated to avail e-inspections of their establishments. Employees, employers and pensioners can register their grievances and get them resolved online through EPFigms portal. The details of these services and facilities are available at www.epfindia.gov.in. These facilities are available also be accessed on smartphones via UMANG mobile application. ALSO READ: Coronavirus: Four more cases reported in Lucknow; UP total now at 23 A Polish member of the European Parliament said Friday he had tested positive for coronavirus, making him the first known MEP with the disease. "Folks, I got tested for COVID-19. It was positive. I'm in the hospital and I feel fine," Adam Jarubas said on Twitter. The 45-year-old is a member of the conservative EPP political group in the European Parliament and is also the vice president of Poland's PSL farmers party. The European Parliament said its medical service was aware of the situation and was in touch with Jarubas. "EP is not informed of other cases among MEPS," parliament spokesman Jaume Duch told AFP. Jarubas last attended parliamentary sessions on March 9 and 10, before flying back to Poland the next day. To date 378 confirmed cases of coronavirus, including six deaths, have been registered in the EU member of 38 million people. The European Parliament will hold a special session next week to confirm the urgent measures proposed by the Commission regarding the COVID-19 pandemic. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) It can certainly be frustrating when a stock does not perform as hoped. But no-one can make money on every call, especially in a declining market. The Orange Belgium S.A. (EBR:OBEL) is down 30% over three years, but the total shareholder return is -26% once you include the dividend. And that total return actually beats the market return of -38%. And over the last year the share price fell 23%, so we doubt many shareholders are delighted. In the last ninety days we've seen the share price slide 30%. Of course, this share price action may well have been influenced by the 37% decline in the broader market, throughout the period. See our latest analysis for Orange Belgium While markets are a powerful pricing mechanism, share prices reflect investor sentiment, not just underlying business performance. One way to examine how market sentiment has changed over time is to look at the interaction between a company's share price and its earnings per share (EPS). Orange Belgium saw its EPS decline at a compound rate of 24% per year, over the last three years. In comparison the 11% compound annual share price decline isn't as bad as the EPS drop-off. This suggests that the market retains some optimism around long term earnings stability, despite past EPS declines. The graphic below depicts how EPS has changed over time (unveil the exact values by clicking on the image). ENXTBR:OBEL Past and Future Earnings, March 20th 2020 Dive deeper into Orange Belgium's key metrics by checking this interactive graph of Orange Belgium's earnings, revenue and cash flow. What About Dividends? As well as measuring the share price return, investors should also consider the total shareholder return (TSR). The TSR is a return calculation that accounts for the value of cash dividends (assuming that any dividend received was reinvested) and the calculated value of any discounted capital raisings and spin-offs. So for companies that pay a generous dividend, the TSR is often a lot higher than the share price return. In the case of Orange Belgium, it has a TSR of -26% for the last 3 years. That exceeds its share price return that we previously mentioned. This is largely a result of its dividend payments! Story continues A Different Perspective While it's never nice to take a loss, Orange Belgium shareholders can take comfort that , including dividends, their trailing twelve month loss of 21% wasn't as bad as the market loss of around 32%. Given the total loss of 5.0% per year over five years, it seems returns have deteriorated in the last twelve months. While some investors do well specializing in buying companies that are struggling (but nonetheless undervalued), don't forget that Buffett said that 'turnarounds seldom turn'. While it is well worth considering the different impacts that market conditions can have on the share price, there are other factors that are even more important. To that end, you should be aware of the 4 warning signs we've spotted with Orange Belgium . Of course, you might find a fantastic investment by looking elsewhere. So take a peek at this free list of companies we expect will grow earnings. Please note, the market returns quoted in this article reflect the market weighted average returns of stocks that currently trade on BE exchanges. If you spot an error that warrants correction, please contact the editor at editorial-team@simplywallst.com. This article by Simply Wall St is general in nature. It does not constitute a recommendation to buy or sell any stock, and does not take account of your objectives, or your financial situation. Simply Wall St has no position in the stocks mentioned. We aim to bring you long-term focused research analysis driven by fundamental data. Note that our analysis may not factor in the latest price-sensitive company announcements or qualitative material. Thank you for reading. State Rep. John Barrett III at a Selectmen's meeting in Williamstown earlier this year. The 1st Berkshire lawmaker says Beacon Hill is still functioning but under challenging conditions. Barrett: 'Now the Hard Part Starts' on State's COVID-19 Response WILLIAMSTOWN, Mass. A fast-tracked law that waives the waiting period for unemployment benefits to workers impacted by the COVID-19 pandemic is a step in the right direction, but more work needs to be done, state Rep. John Barrett III said on Thursday. "Now the hard part starts," Barrett said. "It doesn't move that quickly. I talked to the governor's office and said: It's great that you're going to do this. Now you have to make sure you're not going to have a system that's going to crash." Gov. Charlie Baker on Wednesday signed into law legislation that he introduced to waive the waiting period and offer extensions on tax collections to those who really need them. Barrett said the commonwealth received more than 19,000 unemployment claims on Wednesday, and he fears more will be coming as the economic impact of the pandemic ripples through the economy. "They're trying to bring on additional personnel [to handle the claims], which I stressed to them," Barrett said. "I said that maybe they should be going back to phone centers for people who don't have a computer. Our libraries are closed, senior centers are closed all the places where people normally could get access to a public computer. "They eliminated the call center because no one ever thought you'd have a pandemic that would close those places down." Barrett said the novel coronavirus had been discussed in Boston since the end of February but state government was galvanized by the issue the last couple of weeks. Last week, he and Rep. William "Smitty" Pignatelli filed a fill to establish a " COVID-19 Quarantine Assistance Fund " to help workers and small-business owners impacted by the pandemic. He said this week's expedited passage of the unemployment waiting period waiver does not mean he will stop pushing for the provisions in the bill he and Pignatelli proposed. "We knew our bill wouldn't be the only bill, but we'll go back at it if the governor's bill doesn't do what we want it to do," Barrett said. "We've got to do more for the small businesses. "If we can find $50 billion to help the airlines we've got to make sure the small businesses are taken care of." Their bill, HD4926, has been referred to the House Committee on Rules, a procedural step in a time when procedures on Beacon Hill look a lot different than usual. "We've been put into a spot where teleconferencing is available so committees can meet," Barrett said. "It was made available as of yesterday. You're going to see more and more of that." Barrett said the virtual committee meetings are one more complication in what already promised to be a difficult budget cycle in Boston, and he predicted there is no way the House will meet its April deadline for moving a budget bill to the Senate. "Nothing is at a standstill," he said. "Believe it or not, it's continuing to go on. But it's being done remotely. "People advocating for different budget items used to visit our offices. They can't do that anymore. They're reaching out in other ways. And we're looking at ways they can address the committees in a conference call." In the meantime, Barrett is spending "99 percent" of his time in the 1st Berkshire District and much of that time on one issue with multiple dimensions. "You've got the health issue and making sure everyone is going to get what they need from the hospitals," he said. "I've had long and, let's say, passionate discussions with Sen. [Edward] Markey's office. The federal government finally OK'd Berkshire Medical Center and Baystate so they could begin testing. "Then there's the economic issue. People are hurting out there, and they're going to hurt even more. These are people who had jobs a month ago. The end result hopefully is there will be a small business program, a bridge loan, and I don't expect them to charge any interest. "Everybody is working together on this." Yves here. Coronavirus is throwing a wrench into the public school politics, not necessarily to the advantage of charter school advocates. By Jeff Bryant, a writing fellow and chief correspondent for Our Schools, a project of the Independent Media Institute. He is a communications consultant, freelance writer, advocacy journalist, and director of the Education Opportunity Network, a strategy and messaging center for progressive education policy. His award-winning commentary and reporting routinely appear in prominent online news outlets, and he speaks frequently at national events about public education policy. Follow him on Twitter @jeffbcdm. Produced by Our Schools, a project of the Independent Media Institute The COVID-19 crisis reveals the true intentions of people, Kathleen Oropeza told me during a phone call. Oropeza is a public school mom in Orlando and founder of Fund Education Now, a non-partisan grassroots effort to advocate for public education in Florida. Her remark was in the context of concerns about how state officials were governing schools as the coronavirus was spreading across the state and generating fears of how the disease would affect schools and families. Days after the first victims tested positive in the state and the first deaths were reported, Florida lawmakers in the House seemed oblivious to the impending crisis and instead passed new legislation to expand the states voucher program, thus diverting an additional $200 million from the states public schools. The bill passed despite evidence that many of the private schools that would receive the voucher money openly discriminate against LGBTQ children and families, are not required to hire certified teachers, and generally provide a subpar education. When Florida schools extended their spring breaks to slow the mounting epidemic, Oropeza received a tip from an anonymous trusted source that state Education Commissioner Richard Corcoran had called local school superintendents to urge them to restart schools March 30, primarily so school leaders could prepare for state-required standardized tests scheduled to begin April 1. According to Oropezas source, Corcoran made it clear the state considers test scores necessary for policy-making even if the scores would be much lower due to school schedule disruptions. Oropeza and her fellow activists also noticed a blitz of new marketing pitches from online education providers, most of whom operate for-profit. The fear she and others had is that tests would be used to assess learnings that in no way reflect what students were being exposed to in online courses, which she and her colleagues consider to be poor quality. In Florida, weve long seen testing used as a way to punish teachers and schools, she said, and now in a time of crisis, the top priority still seems to be on testing and accountability instead of the best interests of children. Oropeza and Fund Education Now organized a petition campaign to demand Commissioner Corcoran and Governor Ron DeSantis cancel standardized testing for the entire 2019-2020 academic year and waive the 180-school-days graduation requirement for students, especially for graduating seniors, so they would still be eligible to enroll in colleges and other degree programs requiring high school diplomas. (Governor DeSantis did decide later to cancel classes, push back school openings and waive the 180-day requirements for students.) As Florida state officials enforced a business as usual approach, as the Tampa Bay Times reported, policy leaders in other states were listening to the concerns of parents and educators. As Valerie Strauss at the Washington Post reported, popular college admission exams such as the SAT and ACT were suddenly being canceled, and some states and school districts were considering cancelations of standardized testing or giving mixed messages about enforcing assessment policies. The U.S. Department of Education also announced it would consider waiving the national requirement for states to conduct annual assessments. A few days later, Strauss reported, state leaders in Texas and Washington canceled testing and Ohio Governor Mike DeWine indicated an inclination to eliminate exams. Those early cancelations seemed to have resulted in a domino effect as more states canceled or suspended tests or sought waivers from the federal government. Some states are choosing to shutter school buildings for the rest of the academic year, while pledges some schools have made to take learning online seem unrealistic. Among the states to outright cancel was Florida, where Governor DeSantis also pushed back school openings and waived the 180-day requirements for students. Fund Education Now issued a thank-you to DeSantis for dropping the tests and seat-time requirement, but Oropeza still expressed concern to me that Florida lawmakers would stick like glue to their school accountability agenda even as the coronavirus epidemic and its impact on schools, families, and communities pushed that agenda to the margins of irrelevancy. Not content with a rollback of testing in a few states, state officials and public school advocates, including the Network for Public Education, called on the federal government to drop legal requirements for states to conduct annual assessments. Secretary of Education Betsy DeVos told some states they could cancel tests only if their testing period overlapped days when schools were closed due to the pandemic, but many of these states are urging her to issue a nationwide waiver, and some states, including California and Colorado, are ignoring her guidance. Its outrageous that the Trump administration is continuing with high-stakes standardized testing but cant properly provide tests for coronavirus, Seattle-based high school teacher Jesse Hagopian told me in an email. Hagopian is an organizer with Black Lives Matter at School, the editor of More Than a Score: The New Uprising Against High-Stakes Testing, and a leading voice in the movement to end high-stakes standardized testing. His efforts gained national attention in 2013 when he and other teachers at [his high school] organized a successful boycott of a set of standardized tests mandated by the Seattle Public Schools, wrote Erin Middlewood for the Progressive magazine in 2015. Under pressure, the district changed its policy and left it up to individual schools whether to administer the test. In his email to me, Hagopian wrote, There are more important things right nowand really alwaysthan ranking, sorting, and punishing students with high-stakes tests. The rash of canceled tests across the country caused some knowledgeable observers to speculate on Twitter that the testing industry would not be able to withstand the financial difficulties of a nationwide cancelation. But what is also in danger is the whole policy imperative of the market-based education agenda. Much in the same way that widespread teacher walkouts and the Red for Ed movement over the past two years revealed the overwhelming need for government officials to increase funding and support for frontline teachers, the mounting fallout of school closures due to the COVID-19 pandemic is forcing politicians and policymakers to acknowledge the importance of schools as vital community institutions that need resources and support rather than fiscal austerity, privatization, and punitive accountabilitythe pillars of the market-based education movement. Even amidst the avalanche of reported school closings, advocates of the market-based approach were lamenting the failure of their decades-long efforts. Neither standards and accountability nor charter schools have lived up to their promoters lofty aspirations. And there is much public unhappiness with school reform, wrote Kevin Carey in an analysis for the Washington Post. Carey, a policy analyst for a Washington, D.C., think tank that favored the education reform agenda, worked for years in policy shops that pushed market-based agendas. Carey noted a rising political opposition to market-based education advocates from the right and the left, including Tea Party Republicans who object to Common Core Standards and federal overreach in local decision-making and among progressive Democrats who are angered by the unfairness and inequities caused by market-based solutions. But while he asserted that School reform began with the civil rights movement, he completely ignored the econometric principles that ended up driving privatization policies rather than the moral values of human rights and justice that powered the civil rights movement. Market-based education advocates have long obsessed over rigid standards, outcome measures, and competition from charter schools rather than providing schools and students with what they really needed, especially in communities that rely heavily on schools as anchor institutions. For years, protests against the market-based school agenda have been scaling up from isolated actions to a nationwide movement widespread among teachers, students, and parents; grassroots-driven; and unified in opposition to an education agenda that values testing students and charter schools over attending to the needs for learners to have well-paid teachers, basic supplies, accessible curricula, and support from nurses, counselors, and librarians. As Carey noted, when Congress passed the Every Student Succeeds Act (ESSA) that revised federal education policy, it still required annual assessments but also gave states wide latitude to develop accountability policies. However, few states have taken advantage of this latitude. Our state lawmakers could have lightened the burden of testing when ESSA was passed, Oropeza said, but they didnt even consider it. Now that state and federal authorities are being forced to weigh the necessity of testing against other vastly more important concerns, perhaps more of them will choose to chuck the remaining vestiges of the privatizing and market-reform ideology altogether. A team of Chinese experts in traditional Chinese medicine shares their experience in novel coronavirus treatment with US counterparts in Wuhan, Hubei province, on March 18, 2020. [Photo by Su Feng/China Daily] The nation's leading traditional Chinese medicine experts on Wednesday shared with US counterparts their novel coronavirus pneumonia diagnosis and treatment experience that proved effective in Wuhan. Zhang Boli, an academician at the Chinese Academy of Engineering and president of Tianjin University of TCM, talked with three presidents of the American Association of Acupuncture and Oriental Medicine from Colorado, Missouri and Nebraska about prescriptions, moxibustion and acupuncture. "We do not have targeted medicine, but we have found solutions from TCM that enjoy a long history," Zhang said to the presidents through an interpreter. TCM has been widely applied and has proved effective in the prevention, treatment and recovery of novel coronavirus infected patients on the Chinese mainland, according to the National Administration of Traditional Chinese Medicine. Official figures showed that through Sunday, 91.6 percent of the patients in Hubei province and 92.4 percent of the patients nationwide were treated with TCM. Of those who were in Wuhan's makeshift hospitals, which have all been closed, 99.9 percent were treated with TCM, proving that a combined use of TCM and Western medicine is very effective. Nearly 5,000 TCM medics were sent to Wuhan, the hardest-hit city on the mainland. Zhang said that he has also helped Australian counterparts update the prescription of TCM treatment in accordance with local environmental and judicial requirements. Research is also under way in Europe. "We are eager to learn from Wuhan's experience, especially regarding TCM treatment, which is both affordable and effective," said He Jun, dean of Italy-based Qihuang College of TCM. Sichuan New Green Pharmaceuticals company, a leading TCM medicine producer, revealed that exports have been increasing since early March in Europe and North America. "Our experience in Wuhan and China proves that TCM is safe and effective in treating COVID-19 patients. It is the combination of ancient wisdom and modern technology," Zhang said. "TCM treatment is one of the highlights of China's solution, and we are willing to share the experience with the world." The Dutch prime minister has told his country to relax and unwind as they have enough toilet paper to 'poop for ten years' amid the coronavirus crisis. Mark Rutte revealed the fortunate loo roll situation to concerned shoppers at one of the country's supermarkets. Shelves have been cleared across Europe as panicked citizens raced to stockpile essentials. Mark Rutte was filmed telling shoppers there is enough toilet paper to last for ten years Supermarkets across Europe have been cleared of essentials due to a spike in stockpiling. Above is an aisle in York on March 19 In an informal exchange with shoppers at Albert Heijn yesterday, Mr Rutte told them all he had enough toilet paper, and that it was good to see it on the shelves again. 'But there's enough in the whole country for the coming ten years,' he said, 'we can all poop for ten years'. Dutch supermarkets had their shelves cleared during a surge of stockpiling, but they have now mostly been replenished. The Netherlands has reported 76 deaths due to coronavirus, and more than 2,400 cases. British supermarkets have been emptied of many products since the outbreak began, following rumours of a possible lockdown. But supermarkets have been quick to assure shoppers that they have enough to go around, and to request that shoppers refrain from buying more than three of some items. Essity in Manchester is responsible for producing 30 per cent of the UK's toilet rolls, every day it churns out 4.7million rolls from its six mills. Above is Jane Fryer during her visit Jane Fryer went inside the Manchester toilet roll mill to find out how it is made and gauge how prepared it is for panic buying up and down the country The Daily Mail's Jane Fryer visited toilet paper factory Essity, outside Manchester, this week, which supplies more than 30 per cent of the country's loo roll. Essity's communications director, Gareth Lucy, said there is enough supply and that shortages are being caused by panic buyers. 'Please don't stockpile', he adds. The UK has reported more than 3,269 cases of coronavirus, and 144 deaths. Supermarket shelves across Europe have also been cleared as citizens race to stock up on essentials. Italy, France, Germany and Spain have all restricted citizens movements in an attempt to contain the spread of the virus. Several boroughs in London such as Westminster, Southwark, Lambeth have become hotbeds of coronavirus as the Boris Johnson government scrambles to deal with the pandemic that has brought large parts of London and the UK to a standstill. Latest figures put the death toll across the UK at 144, with the number of cases climbing to 3,269; 79 people have recovered. Sections of Londons transport network have been closed, while 20,000 military personnel are on stand-by to assist civil authorities. The London boroughs with the most cases are Southwark (82), Lambeth (81), Westminster (78), Wandsworth (75), Brent (66), Kensington and Chelsea (57), Harrow (56) and Ealing (53). Brent, Harrow and Ealing are home to many members of the Indian diaspora. New UK measures include asking thousands of recently retired doctors and nurses to return to the National Health Service to help deal with the pandemic. Chancellor Rishi Sunak is due to announce more financial support across the economy. Queen Elizabeth, 93, moved from Buckingham Palace to Windsor Castle, where Prince Philip, the Duke of Edinburgh, 98, joined her from the Sandringham estate. The monarch said the UK is entering a period of great concern and uncertainty. In a statement, she said: Our nations history has been forged by people and communities coming together to work as one. We are all being advised to change our normal routines and regular patterns of life for the greater good of the communities we live in and, in particular, to protect the most vulnerable within them. At times such as these, I am reminded that our nations history has been forged by people and communities coming together to work as one, concentrating our combined efforts with a focus on the common goal. She added: Many of us will need to find new ways of staying in touch with each other and making sure that loved ones are safe. I am certain we are up to that challenge. You can be assured that my family and I stand ready to play our part. SHARE THIS ARTICLE ON Many countries in Latin America have taken aggressive measures to deal with the coronavirus such as closing their borders, dock and airports to foreigners, declaring states of emergencies and ordering business shutdowns. Mexico, by contrast, has so far taken a business as usual attitude. People still crowd street markets picking through piles of fruit and vegetables. Cars and trucks continue to fill the streets and commuters throng subway trains, though the volume of traffic is noticeably lower. President Andrs Manuel Lpez Obrador and his government have said a shutdown of the country would disproportionately hurt poor people and also be a psychological weight on all Mexicans. They say there is no reason to impose major restrictions before health officials deem them necessary a moment they are expecting in late March, based on the virus' pattern elsewhere and the Feb. 27 date of Mexico's first confirmed case. The approach is worrying many experts. But it is the president's personal attitude that has Mexicans puzzled. He continues to attend mass public rallies, shaking hands and kissing babies. Asked how he was protecting Mexico, Lpez Obrador removed two religious amulets from his wallet and proudly showed them off. The protective shield is the 'Get thee behind me, Satan,' Lpez Obrador said, reading off the inscription on the amulet, Stop, enemy, for the Heart of Jesus is with me. Lpez Obrador, often described as a leftist, is in fact a nationalist with deep religious feelings. I think President Lpez Obrador is trying to project confidence and minimize the risk, said Jesus Silva-Herzog, a political commentator and professor at the Tecnolgico de Monterrey University. But, Silva-Herzog added, I think that what he has wound up doing is minimizing the risks associated with the emergency, and sending messages that contradict what is being said almost everywhere else. Mexico reported its first death from the virus Wednesday a 41-year-old man said to have been obese and suffering from diabetes. As of late Thursday, the country has 164 confirmed cases of coronavirus, up from just over 40 a week ago. Still, Hugo Lpez-Gatell, deputy secretary in the Health Ministry and the administration's public face of Lpez Obrador's coronavirus response team, said the country remains in what it calls phase 1 of the epidemic, with all cases related to importation from other countries and no community transmission. Federal officials have suspended classes for about a month beginning after Friday's school sessions and are encouraging things like social distancing, working from home and following hygienic measures recommended by international and domestic health experts. Some large events have been called off, yet others such as a multi-day music festival attended by tens of thousands in Mexico City were allowed to proceed. Federal officials recommend that non-essential gatherings should not be larger than 5,000 people, while local authorities in the capital have said events topping 1,000 people should be canceled. Mexico has only 5,000 emergency beds, and about 1,500 intensive care or sealed rooms, for a population of over 125 million, but officials still exude a sense of calm at their daily briefings on the virus. And some observers say they are chilled by remarks like Lpez Obrador's. I think this has shown a lack of respect by the president, said Carlos Padilla, a Mexico City business administrator. I think he should be doing a better job of protecting the public, in every sense. Once community transmission begins and Mexican officials make no secret that they know it is coming, sooner rather than later the country is likely to see more aggressive measures. We are prepared. We have enough budget. All the resources we need, Lpez Obrador said Thursday. Some, however, are beginning to be nervous about the lack of response now, including among the president's political opposition. The conservative National Action Party sent a letter to the Pan American Health Organization on Thursday expressing its deep concern about the government's actions in the face of the COVID-19 pandemic." Former diplomat Enrique Berruga Filloy said in a column for the newspaper El Universal on Thursday that Mexico's geographic advantages gave it more leeway to plan for the virus and take timely actions, but that the administration has squandered the chance. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) A JD Wetherspoons pub on 10th January 2020 in London, England, United Kingdom. (Mike Kemp/In Pictures via Getty Images) Pub group JD Wetherspoon (JDW.L) has axed its dividend and told investors its impossible to predict how the business will fare, after the government this week told the public not to go to bars and pubs. JD Wetherspoon said on Friday it would scrap its planned interim dividend, worth 4.2m ($4.86m). Founder and chairman Tim Martin said profits would likely be lower this year but the company couldnt give any realistic guidance as to where they might land due to the ongoing coronavirus pandemic. It is obviously very difficult to predict, in these circumstances, how events will unfold in future weeks and months, but we now anticipate profits being below market expectations, so long as the current health scare continues, Martin said in a statement. As a result of this uncertainty, it is impossible to provide realistic guidance on our performance in the remainder of the financial year. Martin said sales of beer and food had been up over 3% in the six weeks to the start of March. However, sales fell by 4.5% last week as fears about coronavirus began to rise and have declined at a significantly higher rate since then. It follows a call by prime minister Boris Johnson on Monday not to go to pubs and restaurants in a bid to stop the spread of Covid-19. Read more: Stocks rise amid investor optimism about stimulus measures As well as cancelling the dividend, Martin said JD Wetherspoon would reduce most capital expenditure. He said government support schemes and the efforts to conserve cash means the pub group has sufficient liquidity to maintain operations at a substantially lower level of sales. Boris Johnson, left, gestures with Tim Martin, Chairman of JD Wetherspoon, during a visit to Wetherspoons Metropolitan Bar in London, last year. (Henry Nicholls/Pool via AP) Greg Johnson, an analyst at Shore Capital, said JD Wetherspoons annual operating costs are around 1bn, with 700m coming from staff wages and around 70m down to rent and repair of its pubs. Johnson estimated Wetherspoon has around 240m of cash on hand to keep the business going, equating to just a few months, but said costs could probably halved meaning the group realistically has several months of available liquidity. Story continues A lot depend[s] on the governments response to support businesses, Johnson said in a research note on Friday. The government has already announced a 330bn package of loan guarantees for businesses and Chancellor Rishi Sunak is due to announce a wage support package on Friday. As many companies and commentators have noted, the current health crisis places the hospitality industry, in particular, under great pressure, Martin said. Wetherspoon, like our peers, will be working closely with all parties, including employees, banks, landlords and suppliers, in order to emerge from the situation in the best shape. Read more: Bank of England cancels stress tests for banks Earlier in the week, Martin lambasted prime minister Boris Johnson for urging the public to stay away from bars and restaurants in a bid to stop the spread of Covid-19. Martin called the decision a tactical error that delays the inevitable and destroys the tax base at the same time. The suspension of dividend and guidance came as JD Wetherspoon reported half-year results. Revenue rose 4.9% to 933m in the 26 weeks to 26 January, while pre-tax profit dropped 13.7% to 42m due to one-off costs. Apple's cool new Magic Keyboard is reserved only for iPad Pros from 2018 and 2020. If you want a trackpad in your iPad keyboard, but don't have a new Pro, you can look at the Logitech Combo Touch instead. It supports iPad 10.2, iPad Air (2019) and iPad Pro 10.5 (2017). Logitech will start selling the keyboards in May 2020 at $150 - half of what the Apple keyboard costs. They are not the same, though. The Combo Touch combines a full-size keyboard with a trackpad. The keys feature scissor mechanism with 1mm travel. There's back-lighting and a row of shortcuts above the number keys. 5 levels of backlight illumination A row of function keys The trackpad supports multi-finger gestures and will benefit from the enhanced cursor support in iPadOS. The keyboard attaches to the iPad's Smart Connector, so it doesn't need charging. There's also a holder for an Apple Pencil (1st gen) or Logitech Crayon. However, the Logitech Combo Touch uses a kickstand, allowing it to hold the tablet tilted at between 20 and 60, depending on what you are doing, but without the flexibility of Apple's laptop-like hinge. The Magic Keyboard also adds an extra USB-C port, which the Combo Touch lacks. Four ways to use the Logitech Combo Touch case Still, there's no competition between Logitech and Apple here as they each support different versions of the tablet. Logitech also has something for the iPad Pro 11 (2018 and 2020) as well as the iPad Pro 12.9 (2018 and 2020). The Slim Folio Pro case is just a keyboard, again with backlit keys with a scissor mechanism. This will be available next month for $120 ($130 for the larger tablets) and you can combine it with the tiny Logitech Pebble i345 mouse ($30), which is compatible with all iPads. Source 1 | Source 2 | Source 3 Advertisement Furious Britons are criticising selfish panic-buyers who are raiding shelves and leaving those most in need without food and essential supplies - while supermarkets are now hiring thousands of extra staff to help battle the soaring demand from shoppers. As the number of confirmed coronavirus cases in the country reaches 3,346 with 145 deaths, and workers are confined to carrying out their duties from home, shops are still being stripped bare. Last week saw a spike in shoppers stripping shelves bare, leaving many of Britain's elderly and key workers who work long hours had to go without while others piled groceries high. Customers had complained of facing three-week waits for grocery deliveries from supermarkets - with online stores not showing availability until as late as April 9 at some supermarkets. In an effort to battle panic-buying and a huge increase in demand as customers self-isolate, Lidl will recruit 2,500 workers on four-week contracts, and Aldi revealed a recruitment drive to hire 9,000 new workers, including 4,000 permanent jobs. Asda says it will hire more than 5,000 temporary employees laid off due to Covid-19, working with 20 national companies to bring staff from industries including food and travel at risk of losing their jobs. Marks and Spencer said it will reserve a 'special hour' for NHS and emergency workers along with vulnerable customers for the first hour of trading on specific days - and Tesco announced that from Sunday they would introduce a similar measure, allowing Health Service staff to select their shopping before checkouts open. The Prime Minister has urged the public to stop 'mass buying', saying that there is 'no reason' shops should be empty and asking Britons to 'please be reasonable in your shopping and be considerate of others'. Social media users have been heaping scorn on shoppers who are taking more than their fair share of precious groceries using the hashtag #stophoarding - calling on their countrymen to be considerate and take only what they need. Footage of distraught critical care nurse Dawn Bilbrough, who was unable to buy basic foods following a 48-hour shift, showed her urging shoppers to stop stripping supermarket shelves amid the coronavirus pandemic - in a post that gained such support it sparked the #doitfordawn hashtag where Britons are urged to be considerate of healthcare workers and those in need while shopping. Social media users are now criticising shoppers who are taking more than their fair share of precious groceries (pictured: A shopper in Asda buying baby formula) Chaotic scenes unfolded at Lidl in Neasden as shoppers sought to buy groceries amid growing fears over the coronavirus Shoppers were faced with empty shelves in Tesco, Cambridge, on Friday morning when supplies were cleared before they had a chance to buy during their 'Pensioners' Hour' Eager shoppers queue outside a Sainsbury's supermarket in Kenton, London before it opens at 7am on March 20 Customers stock up on toilet roll at Costco as the Chancellor is to unveil an emergency package aimed at protecting workers' jobs and wages as they face hardship in the fight against the coronavirus pandemic Furious Britons are criticising selfish panic-buyers who are raiding supermarket shelves and leaving those most in need without food and essential supplies Supermarkets hire thousands of new staff to battle soaring demand Supermarkets are responding to increasing pressure to stock shelves and deliver orders on time with an urgent recruitment push to hire thousands including 9,000 at Aldi, and 5,000 at Asda. Lidl has announced plans to recruit 2,500 workers on four-week contracts to help keep up with high demand in stores as customers continue clearing shelves over the coronavirus outbreak. The grocer said recruits can start immediately and will be paid at least 9.30 an hour, adding 'the new hires will be responsible for working together to keep the store clean, tidy and the shelves well stocked so that customers can get the products they need'. Asda has announced plans to hire more than 5,000 temporary employees laid off due to Covid-19, working with 20 national companies to bring staff from industries including food and travel at risk of losing their jobs. Chief executive Roger Burnley said: 'During these difficult times everyone has to work together to help people most affected by Covid-19 and Asda is pleased to play its part. 'That is why today we have committed to hiring more than 5,000 employees who have lost their jobs due to Covid-19 and have been left with deep concerns about their household budgets.' Advertisement In her heartbreaking appeal, Ms Bilbrough, 51, from York, who had just completed a lengthy and exhausting shift, explained that she had visited her supermarket to pick up basic food items for the next two days when she was left having a 'little cry'. After discovering there were no fruit and vegetables for her to sustain a healthy living amid the COVID-19 outbreak, the healthcare worker made a tearful plea to the public urging them to 'just stop it'. Britons retweeted Ms Bilbrough's message using the hashtag #doitfordawn, urging shoppers to stop hoarding crucial groceries leaving others with little or nothing. The nurse took to Facebook from the seat of her car to tell the nation: 'So I've just come out the supermarket. There's no fruit and veg and I had a little cry in there.' 'I'm a critical care nurse and I've just finished 48 hours of work and I just wanted to get some stuff in for the next 48 hours. 'There's no fruit, there's no vegetables and I just don't know how I'm supposed to stay healthy. 'Those people who are just stripping the shelves have basic foods you just need to stop it because it's people like me that are going to be looking after you when you are at your lowest and just stop it please!' After sharing the emotional video, Ms Bilbrough was flooded with messages of support from concerned friends and loved ones, with some offering her some of their very own food items. One person wrote: 'Oh Dawn, I'm so sorry to see you so upset. The job you are doing is so very important to so many people, and how unfair it is that this means you are last in line for the nutritious food you really need to stay healthy and keep doing that important job. Thinking of you and sending much love.xxx' While another commented: 'Oh dear Dawn, heartbreaking to see you like this, I feel you, you are strong, and it is so important what you do....and many others...proud proud proud. I will share....' Another user added: 'Sending you love and strength Dawn Bilbrough xx' Elsewhere another person offered the nurse some of their own groceries, telling her: 'Dawn bless you, please don't cry! I'm in isolation but I have a bag of potatoes, carrots and a water melon you can have. 'I can leave them on my doorstep for you, double bagged! Be fine once, cleaned and boiled. Please don't cry.' The emotionally-charged video comes as retailers stress there is plenty of food in the supply chain but shoppers need to act responsibly to ensure everyone can get what they need- particularly those who are the most vulnerable. Pictured: Shop shelves are left empty in a supermarket in the centre of York, northern England, on March 19 The shelves are empty as panic buying continues at the Tesco Holmbush store in Shoreham, earlier this week Items that are now selling out, and subsequently being rationed, at supermarkets up and down the country, include long-life milk, cleaning fluids, toilet rolls and pasta Piers Morgan calls out stores and sellers that are inflating prices as much four times including toilet roll for 14 Calls are flooding in on social media to name and shame stores that are inflating their prices so much that a four-pack of toilet roll is selling for up to 14 amid coronavirus panic buying. Piers Morgan tweeted two pictures from local shops showing the prices of toilet roll as 14.99 and 18.99. He tweeted the pictures alongside the caption: 'Been sent this by a friend up North, taken in a local store today. Calls are flooding in on social media to name and shame stores that are inflating their prices so much that a four-pack of toilet roll is selling for up to 14 amid coronavirus panic buying 'Just as we'll never forget the wonderful generosity and kindness of people who go the extra mile now, nor should we ever forgive essential shop-keepers who fleece their regular customers in a time of crisis.' Some Twitter users have speculated that they believe the store is a corner shop in Gainford, Darlington. Another outraged customer filmed the owners of his local newsagent which had hiked the price of a packet of toilet roll to 10. Footage shows a woman behind the counter at the newsagent on the phone to police claiming the customer is 'harassing' her. He proceeds to walk out of the shop and says, 'Do not come to this shop,' while pointing his camera at the storefront. James Deegan posted the footage on to his Twitter account alongside the caption: 'This is akin to the black market in WW2 and this should be made illegal. 'She's calling police, they should be arresting them for profiteering in a national emergency. 'There is no excuse for hiking prices like this absolute scumbags.' Other social media users took to Twitter to post pictures of their local shops profiteering from similar methods. The dramatic rise in prices comes as Boris Johnson yesterday spoke on the topic of mass buying. Horrified Twitter users responded to the astonishing uploads to show their disgust During the fourth press conference of its kind, created to keep the public up to date on coronavirus issues, Johnson said: 'I really hope retailers will continue to be reasonable. 'I don't want to see profiteering of any kind. 'We've got good supply chains and farms, theres no reason for shops to be empty. 'Everyone understands why people are buying stuff - we're being advised to stay at home if we have symptoms. 'However, please be reasonable in your shopping and be considerate of other shoppers as you do it.' Sajid Javid tweeted to say: 'Stop panic buying. I know many of you are tense and nervous. But it has real consequences for vulnerable people. 'Just think. And stop it.' Horrified Twitter users responded to the astonishing uploads to show their disgust. Online retailers on eBay were also found to be hiking prices up and two rolls of toilet paper were seen selling for 9.99 One said: 'Report to trading standards, profiteering is illegal.' While another said: 'This is a disgrace! How can these people live with themselves. Can we not name and shame these individuals? 'They need outing on TV.' Online retailers on eBay were also found to be hiking prices up and two rolls of toilet paper were seen selling for 9.99, alongside another brand of toilet paper which was selling four rolls for the same price. Advertisement Supermarkets are taking measures to help shoppers during the coronavirus outbreak, particularly for the elderly and vulnerable. As thousands of customers stockpiled on products in a panic-buying frenzy, many were left facing empty shelves at the supermarkets during their food shop. Here are a range of actions taken by supermarkets to steer people away from stockpiling to ensure fewer people are missing out: Tesco has prioritised a one-hour slot for the elderly and vulnerable every Monday, Wednesday and Friday at 9am in all of its stores with the exception of Express stores. NHS staff are also able to visit large stores one hour before the usual store opening time every Sunday from March 22. Customers are only able to buy three items of the same product with the removal of multi-buy promotions. To allow for cleaning and filling shelves with stock, Tesco reduced the opening times at its 24-hour stores to 6am to 10pm. The supermarket has implemented some social-distancing measures at its checkouts with customers encouraged to pay by card. Sainsbury's has dedicated the first hour in every supermarket to elderly and vulnerable customers. The supermarket will also give customers aged over 70 and those with a disability priority access to online delivery slots from Monday. It is also planning to expand its click and collect service by adding more collection sites from Monday. To allow extra room for essential products, Sainsbury's closed all of its cafes and meat, fish and pizza counters in its stores. Customers are limited to buying three of any product and a maximum of two of the most popular products including toilet paper, soap and long-life milk. From Friday, Asda has dedicated the opening hours up until 9am in its larger stores for vulnerable people, with additional support for those who need it. The supermarket has restricted shoppers to three items of any product including food, toiletries and cleaning products. As staff numbers fluctuate with workers in self isolation, Asda revealed plans to recruit 5,000 people. Its employees are being urged to invite friends and family whose work has been impacted by coronavirus to get in touch with their local store about job opportunities. Waitrose, which is part of the John Lewis Partnership, has placed a three-item limit on certain products and a limit of two packets of toilet roll. On Friday, it launched a protected shopping period for the elderly and vulnerable at every store which will take place during the first opening hour. The retail group has also launched a 1 million community support fund to create additional delivery services, as well as delivering essential items to care homes and community groups and donating products to vulnerable people. The high street chain announced it is dedicating the first hour on Tuesdays and Fridays for NHS staff and emergency workers. This does not include franchise stores in petrol and railway stations. On Friday the first opening hour of its stores were set aside for vulnerable customers, which will continue next week every Monday and Thursday. The German discount supermarket has announced a recruitment drive to hire 9,000 new workers, including 4,000 permanent jobs, to help keep shelves filled during the coronavirus outbreak. The supermarket added that all nappies and paper products, including toilet and kitchen roll, will now be restricted to two items per customer. All other products will remain restricted to four items per customer, with a few exceptions. Morrisons announced on Tuesday it is creating 3,500 jobs to expand its home delivery service to cope with demand. It has placed purchasing restrictions across 1,250 lines. Morrisons also announced an expansion of its home delivery service, including 3,500 new jobs. On Friday, Lidl announced plans to recruit 2,500 workers to start immediately on four-week contracts to cope with the surge in demand. In Northern Ireland, there are dedicated shopping sessions for elderly people from 9am to 11am every day. The Co-op announced it will create 5,000 jobs to provide temporary employment for hospitality workers who have lost their jobs because of the coronavirus crisis. Around 6,500 students across 25 Co-op Academy Schools who currently have free school meals will be given a 20 voucher for every week that schools remain shut. Since Thursday, the first hour of opening every day at all Iceland stores have been dedicated to the elderly and vulnerable. Supermarkets are responding to increasing pressure to stock shelves and deliver orders on time with an urgent recruitment push to hire thousands including 9,000 at Aldi, and 5,000 at Asda. Lidl announced plans to recruit 2,500 workers on four-week contracts to help keep up with high demand in stores as customers continue clearing shelves over the coronavirus outbreak. The grocer said recruits can start immediately and will be paid at least 9.30 an hour, adding 'the new hires will be responsible for working together to keep the store clean, tidy and the shelves well stocked so that customers can get the products they need'. Supermarket cleared of beer - except Corona! Pictured: Corona beer at Sainsbury's in Dulwich A Sainsbury's store was stripped of nearly all its beer - but wary customers left dozens of boxes of Corona. A picture of the shop in Dulwich shows shelves almost completely bereft of alcohol, but boxes of the Mexican beer remained nearly untouched. Last month the company that owns Corona was reported to have been facing its worst quarter in 10 years following the coronavirus outbreak. Advertisement Asda's plans include hiring more than 5,000 temporary employees laid off due to Covid-19, working with 20 national companies to bring staff from industries including food and travel at risk of losing their jobs. Chief executive Roger Burnley said: 'During these difficult times everyone has to work together to help people most affected by Covid-19 and Asda is pleased to play its part. 'That is why today we have committed to hiring more than 5,000 employees who have lost their jobs due to Covid-19 and have been left with deep concerns about their household budgets.' Following the rise in panic buying, supermarket chains Tesco and Sainsbury's announced that they will be restricting customers to only buying three of any grocery item. A Sainsbury's spokesperson told MailOnline they are limiting purchases of grocery products to a maximum of three of each item and a maximum of two on the most popular products including toilet paper, soap and UHT milk. Meanwhile, while Asda and Morrisons announced they too will be restricting purchases across 1,250 regularly-bought lines. Online retailer Ocado also temporarily stopped new customers from gaining a membership after they were left overwhelmed by orders from people choosing to self-isolate amid the crisis. Yesterday Prime Minister Boris Johnson urged the country to stop panic buying and be 'reasonable' when they went to the supermarkets. He said: 'We've got good supply chains and farms, there's no reason for shops to be empty. 'Everyone understands why people are buying stuff - we're being advised to stay at home if we have symptoms. 'However, please be reasonable in your shopping and be considerate of other shoppers as you do it.' Source: Xinhua| 2020-03-20 19:36:32|Editor: huaxia Video Player Close Villager Wang Daxiang (2nd L) and her husband Yan Fugao (1st L) register after arriving at Maojiawan resettlement area in Ludian County, southwest China's Yunnan Province, March 15, 2020. Nestling deep in mountains of southwest China's Yunnan Province, Luoqiu Village is home to only dozens of households scattering in mountain valley. Villager Yan Fugao and his wife Wang Daxiang have lived here for more than 20 years. Harsh mountainous environment here has severely restricted local people's economic activities and caused some of them poor. Yan Fugao's family is among them, and was identified in 2014 as a poverty-stricken household under China's standard of poverty evaluation. In 2017, local authorities made the decision to relocate impoverished people in Luoqiu Village to Maojiawan resettlement area, which is built for the poor in the province's Ludian County. On March 15, Yan Fugao and his wife set off by bus organized by local government with other 101 households, heading to their new house in Maojiawan, about 190 km away from where they live. After five hours of travelling, they arrived at the resettlement area where they will start a brand new life. (Xinhua/Jiang Wenyao) Gov. Phil Murphy has strongly suggested that New Jerseyans should not leave their homes between 8 p.m. and 5 a.m. to help prevent the spread of coronavirus. So does that mean you can get a ticket for being out past curfew? According to an informal survey of police chiefs around the state, the answer is no. We are being extremely reasonable and diplomatic advising people they should not be out at that time or at a certain location, Hoboken Police Chief Ken Ferrante told NJ Advance Media. Edison Police Chief Thomas Bryan echoed that sentiment. No, were not doing that, he said of stopping people after 8 p.m. Pretty much at night the roads are pretty desolate. Everyone is complying. While Murphy has announced more draconian measures to enforce social distancing limiting social gatherings to under 50 people, closing bars, restaurants and barbershops he hasnt yet enforced a mandatory curfew. Unless you need to be out, we want you to be home, Murphy said during a press briefing on Monday. Police departments around the state have taken steps to mitigate exposure to the public to prevent officers from contracting COVID-19. Among those steps is cutting down on the number of traffic stops for certain offenses, like a broken taillight. When asked if his officers are stopping drivers after 8 p.m., South Brunswick Police Chief Raymond Hayducka responded, No way. No, were limited unnecessary contacts, said Andrew Kudrick, police chief of Howell in Monmouth County. Murphy has reiterated in his daily press briefings that he would revisit any restrictions if need be. But, for now, the message is use your judgment and stay off the roads as much as possible. Most folks in this state, overwhelmingly in fact, want to do the right thing, he said on Monday. But if we see that theres woeful disregard for what we put in place, we reserve the right to ratchet up the pressure. Sign up for text message alerts from NJ.com on coronavirus in New Jersey: Alex Napoliello may be reached at anapoliello@njadvancemedia.com. Follow him on Twitter @alexnapoNJ. Find NJ.com on Facebook. Have a tip? Tell us. nj.com/tips Get the latest updates right in your inbox. Subscribe to NJ.coms newsletters. Adamawa State Government has ordered the closure of all schools with effect from next week, March 27. According to the States Ministry of Education and Human Capital Development, the decision to shut down schools is an effort to prevent the invasion of coronavirus. Also Read: Coronavirus: NIMC Shuts Down Centers In 5 States Staying in the North, Governor Abdullahi Umar Ganduje of Kano State has directed the closure of public and private schools across the state as part of precautionary measures against the threat posed by the Coronavirus. The indefinite vacation is scheduled to take effect from Monday, March 23, 2020. Meanwhile, in the South West, the Governor of Ondo State, Oluwarotimi Akeredolu has ordered the immediate closure of schools across the state. According to the Governor, who gave the directive on Thursday evening during a statewide broadcast, all primary and secondary schools, as well tertiary institutions in the state should be closed as from tomorrow, Friday March 20, 2020. 20.03.2020 LISTEN The African Development Bank (AfDB) has announced health and safety measures to help prevent the spread of the coronavirus in countries where it has a presence, including its headquarters in Abidjan. The measures include telecommuting, video conferencing in lieu of physical meetings, the suspension of visits to Bank buildings, and the cancelation of all travel, meetings, and conferences, until further notice. President of the Bank, Akinwumi Adesina made the announcements at a Bank-wide virtual Town Hall meeting from the institution's headquarters in Abidjan. He stated that the measures were being taken in the best interest of public health and safety. My primary responsibility is to you, to make sure you are safe, to make sure your families are safe, to make sure you can function where you are under the best possible conditions health and security-wise, Adesina said. Adesina said all efforts are being made to ensure continuity of the Banks operations including electronic documentation and approvals. All Bank staff worked from home on Wednesday to test-run IT systems. The Bank has already taken several other steps to counter an escalation of the virus, including a 14-day self-quarantine for employees returning from high-risk countries. Other multilateral institutions in Asia, Europe, and Latin America have taken similar actions to prevent the spread of the virus. Since the start of the COVID-19 outbreak in December 2019, the Bank has closely monitored the situation through its medical centre, emergency management team, and its operational and executive crisis committees. Staff have regularly been provided with medical guidance and preventive measures are in place to protect staff and families from contamination by the virus. A three-level COVID-19 response plan has also been developed to avert, manage and mitigate the effect of the pandemic on Bank's staff and their families, while ensuring business continuity in the event of an escalation of the situation on the continent. The situation deserves that we change how we work and where we work from, Adesina said. Cases so far in Ghana Ghana has so far recorded 11 cases of COVID-19 but no death. The figure according to health experts may go up in the coming days. Minister of Information, Kojo Oppong Nkrumah said predictions by health experts are that the number of cases may shoot up within the next two weeks before a likely decline of the spread of the disease. Addressing the press on Wednesday, March 18, 2020, Mr. Oppong Nkrumah assured that the authorities have expressed readiness for any impending case and therefore called on Ghanaians to be calm and take precautionary measures seriously. The health experts tell us that the next two weeks are critical in determining whether or not we will get significant community spread. They tell us that, the general theory of pandemic management is that, often the numbers are likely to go up a bit before the situation gets better. Therefore, they are bracing for the possibility of some limited recordings of more cases in the medium term but they continue to assure us that, the systems they are putting together are such that we are able to control it and hold this virus in check, he said. Nine out of the 11 cases so far recorded are Ghanaians. The other two include a Norwegian and a Lebanese. Contact-tracing figure now 399 The Ghana Health Service website dedicated to updating Ghanaians on the outbreak in the country had captured that 399 contacts had been identified as persons who came into contact with the first six affected patients. With regards to contact tracing, a total of 399 contacts have been identified and are being followed up. Nineteen (19) of the contacts developed some forms of symptoms and samples were taken for laboratory testing, the website stated. ---citinewsroom Source: Xinhua| 2020-03-20 11:58:53|Editor: huaxia Video Player Close TASHKENT, March 20 (Xinhua) -- The Uzbek government announced Friday several measures to contain the spread of COVID-19, including providing more than 1 billion U.S. dollars to mitigate the negative impact of the epidemic and suspending international passenger traffic. Uzbek President Shavkat Mirziyoyev has issued a decree to set up an anti-crisis fund worth 1.05 billion dollars under the state's finance ministry to overcome negative economic consequences of the disease, the Uzbek Ministry of Justice said Friday. The fund will be used to support the efforts against the coronavirus' spread and provide assistance to low-income families, according to Uzbek state TV. The government will also provide interest-free loans for some enterprises in strategic sectors and subsidize a part of the transportation costs of businesses engaged in foreign trade. In addition, Uzbekistan has suspended all international passenger traffic by air, rail and road for 40 days, while the restriction does not apply to trade and cargo, the Uzbek Ministry of Transport said Friday. This decision was made by the Republican Special Commission, a special task force formed to prepare measures to prevent the virus's spread in the country. Uzbekistan confirmed its first COVID-19 case on Sunday and a total of 23 cases have been reported nationwide by now. RTHK: Italy's Covid-19 death toll overtakes China's Italy passed a grim milestone on Thursday when it overtook China's official death toll as the world has stepped up its war to try to contain the rapid spread of Covid-19. But the death toll has soared in Europe even as Chinese officials said on Thursday no new domestic cases were reported there for the first time. Italy announced another 427 fatalities on Thursday, taking its total to 3,405, according to an AFP tally. China, where the outbreak first emerged in December last year, has officially reported 3,245 deaths. Globally, the death toll from the virus whose main symptoms are a dry cough and fever has risen to over 9,000. Countries have tightened border controls and unleashed nearly a trillion dollars to prop up the teetering world economy, only to see the once-in-a-century pandemic seemingly spiral further out of control. As the toll surged in his country, Italian Prime Minister Giuseppe Conte said the national lockdown, which has been copied around Europe, would be prolonged to April 3, shattering hopes of a quick end to the crisis. "We will not be able to return immediately to life as it was before," he said. France also mooted extending the two-week lockdown ordered this week by President Emmanuel Macron, as the interior minister blasted "idiots" who flout home confinement rules and put others at risk. The disease continued to hit high-profile figures with EU Brexit negotiator Michel Barnier and Monaco's Prince Albert among those testing positive. (AFP) This story has been published on: 2020-03-20. To contact the author, please use the contact details within the article. Some international flights bound for Beijing will first land in other Chinese cities starting from Friday, authorities announced on Thursday. The Air China flight CA910 on March 20 from Moscow and CA934 on March 22 from Paris will fly to Tianjin, according to the announcement jointly released by five departments, including the Civil Aviation Administration of China and the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. Flight CA926 during March 20-22 from Tokyo and Hainan Airlines' flight HU7976 during March 21-22 from Toronto, will be diverted to Hohhot and Taiyuan, respectively. Passengers taking the above-mentioned flights will undergo quarantine and go through entry procedures and luggage clearance at the designated airports. Those who meet the quarantine requirements will then take the same flights to Beijing, according to the announcement. China will appropriately adjust the diversion arrangements for international flights bound for Beijing and related measures according to the developments of the novel coronavirus epidemic, it said. The 18-year-old aunt of murdered Montana boy James Alexander Hurley, 12, has been arrested in Texas, DailyMail.com can disclose. Madison Sasser was taken into custody on a charge of negligent homicide in Conroe, Texas, where she had been staying with older half-sister Janette Lee Rone, 28. Sasser was wanted in connection with the murder of her 12-year-old nephew who was allegedly beaten to death by her parents Patricia Batts, 48, and James Sasser Jr, 47, at their West Yellowstone, Montana home on February 3. According to court papers seen by DailyMail.com, the pair had subjected the child to a systematic campaign of abuse, regularly hosing him down with ice water and forcing him to stand naked in front of fans. He was also denied food and appeared to be emaciated, according to the Gallatin County Sheriff's Department. Madison Sasser, 18, was arrested in Conroe, Texas, in connection with the murder of her 12-year-old nephew James Hurley According to police documents, Madison had sent texts to her boyfriend in which she described Hurley as 'a piece of c*** off of my f**king shoe' Batts and Sasser Jr were arrested along with their son James Sasser III, 14, on February 3 and appeared in court last week where they were formally charged with murder. Madison, who had been listed as a witness to the abuse, was arrested at midday on March 19 on a fugitive warrant. An autopsy revealed Hurley died from head trauma after Sasser III, who is six-feet-tall and weighs 300lbs, got into a 'bad fight' with the boy A booking photo obtained by DailyMail.com shows her looking tired and disheveled and she will remain locked up at the Montgomery County Jail in New Caney, Texas, while she awaits extradition back to Montana. According to police documents, she had sent texts to her boyfriend in which she described the child as 'a piece of c*** off of my f**king shoe'. The 18-year-old also texted that Hurley 'should go die in the woods' in another message to her boyfriend. Madison has been hiding out in Texas since at least March 10 when her sister Janette posted a Facebook photo of the pair posing outside her apartment block. Janette is one of Batts' daughters from her first marriage. Hurley's father Tommy Tate, who died in January 2018, was also Batts' biological child from a different relationship. Mother-of-five Janette, 28, was too upset to speak to DailyMail.com today but her fiance Tripp Alton, 28, said the arrest had come as a shock. He said: 'She wasn't just a witness. She was arrested for felony evasion for whatever and being a fugitive. 'It happened this morning. Just now. I don't know anything else.' Madison is pictured with her mother Patricia Batts - who was also arrested and charged in the death of James Hurley His grandparents James Sasser Jr, 47, and Patricia Batts, 48, were arrested on February 3 and formally charged last week Madison, who had been listed as a witness to the abuse, was arrested at midday on March 19 on a fugitive warrant Hurley's mother Alicia Davis, 36, said the arrest was another step towards justice for her son and said Madison 'is going to get what's coming to her'. Speaking exclusively to DailyMail.com, she said: 'I heard [about the arrest]. Maybe she should have been smarter than the average bear, huh. 'She will get what's coming to her just like the rest of them.' Davis added: 'She shouldn't have played a role in what happened to him. Maybe she should have called 911 and anonymously reported it then she wouldn't be looking at being a fresh 18-year-old going to jail. 'This is another step forward to justice for James.' Until the murder, Madison had shared a home in West Yellowstone, Montana, with Hurley, her parents and brothers Sasser III and Hunter, six. Hurley had been living at the property since his father's death in January 2018, although his mother Alicia Davis said she had been trying to get her son back at the time of his death and had no idea that he was being abused. Hurley's mother Alicia Davis, 36, said the arrest was another step towards justice for her son and said Madison 'is going to get what's coming to her' Speaking exclusively to DailyMail.com, Davis said Madison's arrest is one step closer to justice for her son Madison Sasser is being held at the Montgomery County Jail in Texas after fleeing Montana and hiding out at her older sister's apartment According to a police affidavit, the 12-year-old boy had been subjected to a campaign of abuse lasting months and was treated like an animal by his aunt, uncle and grandparents. One incident saw him hosed down with cold water while half naked during which Batts is said to have commented, 'that's what they do with cats, right?' Batts told detectives Hurley 'drove her nuts' and had become 'increasingly problematic' since his father's death. Cellphone footage submitted to court showed Batts and Sasser III 'hitting him with a wooden paddle, strangling him and locking up food.' 14-year-old Sasser III admitted to kicking Hurley's head several times in the 24 to 36 hours before his death. Hurley died from head trauma after Sasser III, who is six-feet-tall and weighs 300lbs, got into a 'bad fight' with the boy. Batts told cops Hurley slept on the floor in the living room on February 2 and was mumbling and moaning throughout the night before she found him dead the next morning. Singing in Latin is tricky enough, and the coronavirus isnt helping. Two dozen members of the San Francisco Boys Chorus switched on their computers the other night for a shelter-in-place rehearsal. The virus isnt preventing the chorus from getting the upper hand on the 133-year-old requiem they have been working on. Usually the boys rehearse in person. Usually most people do most things in person. Not anymore. Are you going stir crazy yet? artistic director Eric Choate asked his young musicians, after they all had logged on to the videoconference. But he didnt wait for an answer because the Requiem Mass of 19th century French composer Gabriel Faure was waiting. Turn to page 38 in your sheet music, he said. Grab a pencil. Focus. The young faces stared back from their small video rectangles at the rectangle with Choate in it. He was sitting at his terminal dressed in coat and tie. A rehearsal is a rehearsal. Now Playing: Eric Choate is the artistic director of the San Francisco Boys Chorus. The chorus can't meet in person for rehearsals because of the shelter-in-place orders following the coronavirus pandemic. Choate and the chorus of about two dozen boys started rehearsing online through video conferencing. They rehearsed Gabriel Faures Requiem. Video: Santiago Mejia The Chronicle One by one, Choate called on chorus members by name, sang and played on the piano a brief passage from the piece and asked them to repeat it. Ag-nus-ss dei-i-i, came back the responses, which means lamb of God in Latin, the language that has bedeviled students nearly as long as contagious diseases. Excellent, Choate replied to some. Try that one more time, please, he replied to others. For much of the 90-minute rehearsal, Choate was also bedeviled by the rambunctiousness of young boys whose minds are not always on their Latin. While Choate worked with one student, others performed the online equivalent of passing notes in class, or firing spitballs. They engaged in text chat. I crashed again ... Who is that dude? ... LOL ... Whats happening ... This is so laggy... Laggy means there is so much lag time in a video conference that the young musicians cannot all sing together and hear one another simultaneously. The one-on-one exchanges with Choate were the best that technology could afford. Choate said he wanted rehearsals to be fun and he wanted his musicians to be boys, but after an hour of the online texting, he felt obliged to disable the text function for the rest of the rehearsal. I had to do it, he said. He did switch it back on during the five-minute bathroom break. A conversation immediately resumed, none of it in Latin, about a hot video game with dragons and swords. I shot him a ton to his shields and his arms are going to fall off, said one young soprano. Shoot the white dragon, replied a mezzo-soprano. That dragon has more power than regular dragons. And then, before the dragon could expire, the break was over and it was back to the 19th century and the section of the funeral Mass about being in paradisum, or paradise, which is not what the past week has been, Choate said. Drought Map Track water shortages and restrictions across Bay Area Check the water shortage status of your area, plus see reservoir levels and a list of restrictions for the Bay Areas largest water districts. Santiago Mejia / The Chronicle The pandemic probably means that the chorus wont get to perform the work as scheduled. Its May 1 concert likely will be called off. Thats OK, Choate said. Its worth keeping routines and spirits going. Chorus member Ford Cocciolo, 13, of San Anselmo said rehearsing online is easier to do and harder to do good. He called the twice-weekly chorus rehearsals a way to stay on track and keep focused. Its hard not leaving the house, he said. You feel kind of trapped. I guess the house is as good a place to be trapped as any. Learning music, he said, is more important than performing it. I just like to sing for the sake of singing, he said. The concerts are an extra thing. Choate said he agreed. He was too busy planning his next rehearsal to ponder the irony that a Requiem Mass may be necessary for his Requiem Mass. Well perform it when we perform it, he said. Steve Rubenstein is a San Francisco Chronicle staff writer. Email: srubenstein@sfchronicle.com Twitter: @SteveRubeSF President Donald Trump attacked a reporter for asking a question about Americans scared of the coronavirus pandemic during a White House press conference Friday. What do you say to Americans who are watching you right now who are scared? NBCs Peter Alexander asked Trump. I say that you are a terrible reporter, thats what I say. Its a very nasty question. Its a very bad signal that youre putting out to the American people, Trump responded. The American people are looking for answers and looking for hope. Youre doing sensationalism. Trump also criticized NBC News and Comcast, further berating Alexander: You ought to be ashamed of yourself. NBC, which previously broadcast Trumps reality show The Apprentice, is a subsidiary of Comcast. .@PeterAlexander: What do you say to Americans, who are watching you right now, who are scared?" President Trump: "I say that you're a terrible reporter. That's what I say. I think it's a very nasty question. And I think it's a very bad signal that you're putting out..." pic.twitter.com/IHzMs9hKtj CSPAN (@cspan) March 20, 2020 Huffington Post reports another reporter then asked Trump the same question as Alexander, and the president changed his response. My message to the American people is that there is a very low incidence of death you understand that and were going to come through this stronger than ever before, he said. If you happen to get it, it is highly unlikely its looking like its getting to a number that is much smaller than people originally thought in terms of the ultimate problem, which would be death. My message to the American people is number one, youve done an incredible job... There is tremendous hope. Trump was speaking during an update on the nations response to the COVID-19 pandemic alongside Secretary of State Mike Pompeo and National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases Director Dr. Anthony Fauci. According to Mediaite, another moment from the presser went viral when Trump joked about the Deep State." Secretary of State Pompeo is extremely busy so if you have any question for him right now, could you do that? Trump said. Because you know what Id like to do, Id like for him to go back to the State Department, or as they call it, the Deep State Department. You know, Mike. Dr. Fauci reacted visibly, appearing to cover his face with his hands at the reference to a deep state. The presidents apparent anger on display as he used the derogatory term Deep State Department and Dr Fauci reacted by putting his hand over his face. Watch. pic.twitter.com/Ks7j4WciVt Kelly O'Donnell (@KellyO) March 20, 2020 Was it appropriate for the president to call your department the Deep State Department at a time when thousands of diplomats are working very hard around the world to combat this pandemic? a reporter asked Pompeo afterwards. I know how much he values the people on my team," Pompeo responded. During the press conference, Trump announced that he has invoked the Defense Production Act to get needed medical supplies to help with coronavirus treatment. He also announced an agreement with Mexico to close the U.S. Southern border, days after doing the same with Canada. The Associated Press reports Fauci, the nations top infectious disease expert, has openly corrected Trump at several media briefings this week. On Thursday, Trump said he believed that a combination of medications would would work to treat the virus. Fauci said no such declaration could be made without testing. More than 14,000 Americans have tested positive for COVID-19, the disease caused by coronavirus. At least 200 have died in the U.S., according to Johns Hopkins University. I offered both Pres Trump and VP Pence an opportunity to reassure Americans. Simple question: What do you say to Americans who are scared? Trump, to me: I say, youre a terrible reporter. Pence, an hour later: Dont be afraid. Be vigilant. Peter Alexander (@PeterAlexander) March 20, 2020 Trump invokes Defense Production Act to get medical supplies for coronavirus treatment Poll: 55% of Americans approve of President Trumps handling of coronavirus crisis Trump team, senators to negotiate $1 trillion coronavirus relief deal; family of 4 could get $3,400 A group of seers on Friday cancelled the upcoming Ram Kot Parikrama here in the wake of coronavirus outbreak. Ram Kot Parikrama, a religious ceremony, is held every year on the first day of Ram Navami which was scheduled on March 24. In the ceremony, a group of seers and some politicians go around the premises of Ram Janmabhoomi to mark the birth anniversary of Lord Ram on the first day of Ram Navami. Ayodhya District Magistrate Anuj Kumar Jha confirmed the cancellation of the ceremony. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) In a major development in the political crisis in Madhya Pradesh, Kamal Nath has resigned as the Chief Minister of the state ahead of the floor test that was scheduled today. Earlier today, Nath had called a meeting of the Madhya Pradesh Congress Legislature Party (CLP) at the residence ahead of the Supreme Court-directed floor test in the state assembly. Follow live updates of Madhya Pardesh govt crisis here #MadhyaPradesh CM Kamal Nath: I have decided to tender my resignation to the Governor today. pic.twitter.com/jgaRf6F0K2 ANI (@ANI) March 20, 2020 The apex court had on Thursday ordered the Madhya Pradesh Assembly Speaker to conduct a floor test by 5 pm on Friday, leaving the fate of the 15-month-old Kamal Nath government hanging by a thread after the resignation of 22 Congress MLAs. The CLP meeting was called ahead of the special session of Madhya assembly scheduled to start at 2 pm. "Yes we are going to the chief minister's residence, where are going to draw our final strategy for the House," a Congress MLA told PTI before heading to the meeting. When asked about the speculations that the ruling party MLAs would resign en masse, he said, "I do not think so. The meeting is going to decide our future course of action." DETROIT After refusing to open a concession stand at the Detroit Zoo on Saturday in an attempt to limit the spread of COVID-19, Brandon Romines was fired for his efforts, he claims in a federal lawsuit filed Friday, March 20. The concessions stand manager alleges he was fired by SSA Group, LLC, a concessions contractor named as the defendant in the lawsuit. The wrongful termination lawsuit, filed by Ann Arbor-based attorneys David Nacht and Adam Taub of NachtLaw, P.C., seeks more than $75,000 in damages. Romines employer, The Service Systems Associates Group, LLC., is based in Denver, Colorado. The company couldnt be reached for comment. It will have 21 days upon being served to respond to the complaint in court. Romines, of Royal Oak, claims he refused to open the stand on Saturday, March 14 because Gov. Gretchen Whitmer on March 13 issued an executive order that banned gatherings of more than 250 people in response to the spread of the new coronavirus. After refusing to open the stand because he believed he would be in violation of the governors order, he was fired, the lawsuit alleges. Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer bans gatherings of more than 250 people as coronavirus spreads The Detroit Zoo was not named as a defendant in the lawsuit, but a spokesperson said the zoo never violated the governors order. The DZS was never in violation of the governors order, said Alexandra Bahou, spokesperson for the Detroit Zoological Society, in an emailed statement. In fact, the DZS consulted with the governors office after the order was issued and was told the order did not apply to the Detroit Zoo. After DZS took a number of precautions, including limiting the number of visitors in our 125 acres, closing all indoor facilities, adding more than 50 hand sanitizing stations and enhancing our cleaning protocols, we made the decision to temporarily close the Zoo on our own accord. The lawsuit claims Romines managed over 100 employees at the Detroit Zoo, and his concessions stands typically fed well over 250 visitors on Saturdays and Sundays. He is seeking compensation for lost wages, benefits, attorney fees and punitive damages. MORE MICHIGAN CORONAVIRUS COVERAGE: Complete coverage at mlive.com/coronavirus Friday, March 20: Latest developments on coronavirus in Michigan Coronavirus forces cancellation of Michigans Catholic Masses through Palm Sunday Coronavirus in Michigan stresses out residents, as anxiety, depression spikes As salons and barbershops struggle, Ann Arbor stylists petition for aid gathers nearly 1 million signatures Whitmer issues new executive order on price-gouging related to coronavirus Ann Arbor group gathering survey data on individual coronavirus responses in Michigan Two more COVID-19 cases in Washtenaw County brings total to 16 No plastic surgery, teeth whitening during coronavirus outbreak, Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer says Online school instruction in Michigan doesnt count toward learning requirements during coronavirus shutdown U.S. border with Canada, Mexico will close Friday night for non-essential travel to reduce spread of coronavirus CORONAVIRUS PREVENTION TIPS Michigans State Emergency Operations Center is coordinating state-government resources and the response to the coronavirus spread. It has shared the following tips: What you can do to prevent the spread of COVID-19 and other respiratory diseases: Always cover coughs or sneezes with a tissue or sleeve. Stay home if you are sick and advise others to do the same. Avoid close contact with people who are sick. Avoid touching your eyes, nose and mouth with unwashed hands. Wash your hands often with soap and warm water for at least 20 seconds. Use an alcohol-based hand sanitizer with at least 60% alcohol, if soap and warm water are not available. Clean and disinfect frequently touched objects and surfaces(computers, keyboards, desks, etc.). Its not too late to get your flu shot! While the influenza vaccine does not protect against COVID-19 infection, it can help keep you healthy during the flu season. An Italian doctor who had spoken out about having to treat coronavirus patients without gloves due to a supply shortage has died from the disease An Italian doctor who had spoken out about having to treat coronavirus patients without gloves due to a supply shortage has died from the disease. As per a report in Washington Post, Italys National Federation of Doctors and General Practitioners announced that 57-yer-old Marcello Natali died Wednesday after testing positive for the novel coronavirus and then battling double pneumonia. Weeks before his diagnosis and death, the doctor had given an interview where he raised alarms about the number of doctors in the country who had been infected by the virus. In an interview with Euronews, Natali had revealed he was not able to work with gloves simply because they have run out. In the course of the interview, the doctor had said that they were not prepared to face such a situation, especially growing up in a post-antibiotic era where everyone thought that a pill was enough to combat any disease. According to reports, the doctor died in isolation while being quarantined in intensive care. Following his diagnosis, Natali was hospitalised in Cremona before being transferred to Milan when he developed double pneumonia Washington Post quoted Italian news agency ANSA that Natali is among 13 doctors who have succumbed to the virus while treating patients amid the pandemic. Coronavirus has struck over 2 lakh people around the world with over 10,000 deaths due to the disease. Turkish media reports say at least 15 Turkmen labor migrants have died in Turkey after drinking what is believed to be counterfeit alcohol. CNN Turk reported late on March 19 that 15 Turkmen workers died in five different Istanbul districts, while 60 others were hospitalized and are in grave condition after consuming the alcohol. The Hurriyet newspaper reported 20 Turkmen citizens died after drinking bootleg alcohol. The reports also say that Istanbul police arrested 11 people suspected of selling the contraband. Police reportedly confiscated counterfeit vodka and several unregistered guns and ammunition from the suspects. A Turkmen national in Istanbul, who asked not to be named, told RFE/RL on March 19 that the deceased Turkmen's friends and relatives are facing bureaucratic hurdles while trying to repatriate the bodies. Also, according to the man, the situation is getting more complicated as many flights had been canceled due to the ongoing coronavirus pandemic. With reporting by DHA, CNN Turk, and Hurriyet March 20 : Superstar Mahesh Babu and Ravi Teja took to their social media profiles and hailed the Nirbhaya Verdict and congratulated the Judiciary system for restoring their faiths. What began after dusk on a cold December evening over seven years ago with Nirbhayas murder and gang-rape, ended with the execution of Vinay Sharma (26), Mukesh Kumar Singh (32), Pawan Gupta (25) and Akshay Singh (31), at Jail No. 3 of Tihar prison, at dawn on 20th March 2020. On social media, Mahesh Babu and Ravi Teja also hailed the decision and the execution which followed. Long awaited but Justice done!! #NirbhayaVerdict restores our faith in the judiciary. Saluting her parents and their advocates for their continuous unflinching efforts. Respect for our judicial system still advocating for stricter laws and quicker verdicts in heinous crimes Mahesh Babu (@urstrulyMahesh) March 20, 2020 Actor Mahesh Babu wrote, Long awaited but Justice done!! #NirbhayaVerdict restores our faith in the judiciary. Saluting her parents and their advocates for their continuous unflinching efforts. Respect for our judicial systemFolded handsFolded hands still advocating for stricter laws and quicker verdicts in heinous crimes Such incredible news...After seven long years, Nirbhaya case convicts have finally been executed! I Salute the mother and the lawyer who fought tirelessly for so many years to get justice#NirbhayaVerdict Ravi Teja (@RaviTeja_offl) March 20, 2020 Actor Ravi Teja shared, Such incredible news...After seven long years, Nirbhaya case convicts have finally been executed! I Salute the mother and the lawyer who fought tirelessly for so many years to get justice #NirbhayaVerdict Though many slammed the decision but people gathered outside the jail and the moment the news of the execution was confirmed by Tihar authorities, people started clapping and thanked the judiciary and Delhi police for delivering justice to Nirbhaya. ATLANTA - On a chaotic flight home, some passengers who had been stranded for days aboard a cruise ship after being exposed to the coronavirus suffered breathing problems, many coughed and several fainted with no food or medical personnel provided, travellers said Friday. It was a suicide mission, said passenger Jenny Harrell, of Fredericksburg, Virginia. It was a mass triage with absolutely no direction and the crew going, What should we do now? Decisions were left up to the passengers, said Harrell, who had some emergency medical training in the past and helped a physician who was also among the passengers. The jet carrying 359 people, including hundreds of American and Canadian passengers from a Costa Cruises ship flying home from France, landed at Atlantas international airport as emergency responders, and health and customs officials deployed to screen them for the coronavirus. Three people on the flight tested positive for the coronavirus before landing but had no symptoms, the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said. Thirteen others were sick but hadnt been tested, and one passenger was sent to a local hospital. Harrell, 51, said she isolated two other passengers who were having breathing problems. One had a chronic lung disease and needed to be hooked to a ventilator, she said. Another passenger had an asthma attack and several others fainted, apparently from low blood sugar levels. Harrell said many travellers were coughing and she helped treat people who had a fever. There should have been medical personnel on that flight, Harrell said. Costa Luminosa passengers also complained they were given no food other than orange juice and crackers in more than 24 hours the time it took to disembark in Marseille, France, to fly to Atlanta, and be cleared by officials. At one point, Harrell said, the flight attendants handed her the cabin microphone. I basically took over the plane, she said. I couldnt even make this up for a movie. In another instance, the co-pilot asked her and others whether they should land in Bermuda, instead of continuing all the way to Atlanta. We didnt have a choice. We had been turned away for the last eight days, Harrell said. For many, the flight was a culmination of an already harrowing journey that began on March 5 in Fort Lauderdale. Some passengers said they wanted to cancel the trans-Atlantic cruise, but the company refused to give them a refund, assuring them it was safe to go three days before the U.S. State Department issued a warning for U.S. citizens not to travel on cruise ships. On March 8, an Italian woman disembarked in Puerto Rico with breathing problems. She and her husband, who also got off the boat, were hospitalized and tested positive for the new coronavirus. Since the new cases came to light, the Costa Luminosa was denied entry to several countries. The 1,400 passenger ship was finally allowed permission to dock in Marseille, France, under strict quarantine conditions. The local administration for the Marseille region said in a statement that 36 people have tested positive for the new virus. The screening process for the passengers who got on the flight to the U.S. isnt clear, but Harrell said many of the passengers were visibly sick when they boarded the jet. They just wanted us to get home so we could be taken care of here, she said. Everybody, basically, on that flight had medical conditions. After the plane landed, Harrell called 911 because CDC officials wanted to start screening, but she demanded food first. She was afraid they would have to wait for a long process before they had anything to eat. The CDC said all passengers were screened and three passengers who were reportedly tested previously and found to be positive for COVID-19 were separated from other passengers. Federal officials are working with Georgia authorities to determine a plan for those passengers. Harrell said officials measured their temperatures, but only certain passengers were tested for the virus. She was cleared to fly back home to Virginia, where she was told to stay home for 14 days. ___ Gomez Licon reported from Miami. ___ The Associated Press receives support for health and science coverage from the Howard Hughes Medical Institutes Department of Science Education. The AP is solely responsible for all content. ___ Follow AP coverage of the virus outbreak at https://apnews.com/VirusOutbreak and https://apnews.com/UnderstandingtheOutbreak. Source: Xinhua| 2020-03-20 18:48:37|Editor: huaxia Video Player Close A researcher of Stermirna Therapeutics Co., Ltd. shows the experiment to develop an mRNA vaccine targeting the novel coronavirus in east China's Shanghai, Jan. 29, 2020. (Xinhua/Ding Ting) Calling for strengthening solidarity amid the rapid spread of COVID-19, World Health Organization (WHO) Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus on Thursday said it's the only way to defeat the common and invisible enemy against humanity. BEIJING, March 20 (Xinhua) -- Amid rising COVID-19 cases and deaths globally, many countries have unleashed more anti-virus measures, while international organizations have called for "global solidarity" in confronting the common challenge of mankind. "We are facing a global health crisis unlike any in the 75-year history of the United Nations -- one that is spreading human suffering, infecting the global economy and upending people's lives," said United Nations (UN) Secretary-General Antonio Guterres, adding that "global solidarity is not only a moral imperative, it is in everyone's interests." MORE MEASURES In Europe, more than 40 countries were hit by COVID-19, and over 100,000 people across the continent had tested positive for the virus as of Thursday evening. In response, many nations have ramped up their measures to contain the virus. In Italy, the hardest-hit country in Europe with 41,035 cases and 3,405 deaths as of Thursday, Prime Minister Giuseppe Conte said on Thursday that the nationwide lockdown, which has been in place from March 10 to April 3 to stem the spreading coronavirus, will be extended. In France, which reported more than 10,000 cases on Thursday for the first time, President Emmanuel Macron on the same day pledged to invest 5 billion euros (5.35 billion U.S. dollars) over the next decade to boost scientific research against the coronavirus pandemic. People wearing masks are seen at the Gare de Lyon train station in Paris, France, March 19, 2020. (Photo by Aurelien Morissard/Xinhua) In the United States where the number of COVID-19 cases has reached 13,680 with 200 deaths, the U.S. State Department on Thursday raised its travel advisory to Level 4, which instructs its citizens to avoid all international travel, following the announcement of the closure of the U.S.-Canada border for nonessential travel and a travel ban that Washington imposed on some European nations. In Iran, the worst-hit country in the Middle East, authorities have advised people to stay at home in voluntary quarantine and avoid unnecessary outings and travel during the holidays of the Iranian new year, which starts on Friday, as the death toll from COVID-19 on Thursday soared to 1,284, with the total number of cases surging to 18,407. An Iranian firefighter disinfects "Tabiat Bridge" in Tehran, Iran, on March 9, 2020. (Photo by Ahmad Halabisaz/Xinhua) In the Asia-Pacific region, some countries including Australia, New Zealand, Cambodia and Myanmar have closed their borders on Thursday to contain the COVID-19 spread, while South Korea announced an emergency financial aid package for small businesses. In Africa, Kenya on Thursday announced comprehensive safety measures in the public transport sector to curb the spread of COVID-19 in the country. GLOBAL SOLIDARITY Calling for strengthening solidarity amid the rapid spread of COVID-19, World Health Organization (WHO) Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus on Thursday said it's the only way to defeat the common and invisible enemy against humanity. Speaking at his weekly mission briefing on COVID-19, Tedros said the WHO has shipped personal protective equipment to 68 countries and regions, as well as 1.5 million diagnostic kits to 120 countries and regions. A list of agreed suppliers in China is available now, said Tedros, adding that certain medical equipment will be permitted to be exported from China to the WHO. As many countries are facing a dire shortage of protective equipment against the COVID-19 pandemic, China is showing solidarity by sending experts and medical supplies to countries around the world. World Health Organization (WHO) Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus says that the COVID-19 outbreak can be characterized as a "pandemic" as the virus spreads increasingly worldwide, at a press conference in Geneva, Switzerland, on March 11, 2020. (Xinhua/Chen Junxia) "A month ago, when the crisis started in China, we sent our own solidarity to the Chinese authorities by delivering protective equipment. The Chinese now returned solidarity to us," French Foreign Minister Jean-Yves Le Drian told BFM Television, as a Chinese flight loaded with masks, gloves and other protective equipment landed at Paris Roissy-Charles de Gaulle airport on Wednesday. In Zaragoza, a city in northeastern Spain, the first aid package of 500,000 masks from China donated by the Jack Ma Foundation and the Alibaba Foundation arrived at the Zaragoza airport on Tuesday, and 50,000 testing kits will follow. In Malaysia, the first batch of medical supplies, including 5,000 face masks and 10,000 surgical masks, donated by the Chinese embassy and Chinese companies in the country were delivered to hospitals on Thursday. Boxes of medical supplies are pictured during the handover ceremony of the first batch of medical supplies donated by Chinese embassy and Chinese companies in Malaysia at Sungai Buloh hospital in Sungai Buloh, Selangor, Malaysia, March 19, 2020. (Xinhua/Zhu Wei) Guterres on Thursday called on world leaders to "come together and offer an urgent and coordinated response to this global crisis." "We need to immediately move away from a situation where each country is undertaking its own health strategies to one that ensures, in full transparency, a coordinated global response, including helping countries that are less prepared to tackle the crisis," Guterres said at a press conference via video-link while all UN staff members are required to telecommute so as to mitigate the spread of the virus at the UN headquarters in New York. There's a reason why most passenger aircraft are painted white Why go for a colour thats the most difficult to maintain, right? Heres why! Its the most ubiquitous colour in the airline industry. Almost every airplane in the world is painted white, the most important differentiating factor being the tail that often carries the airlines distinguishing colours. So what makes white the colour of choice for modern-day passenger planes? And when did while become the preferred colour for aircraft? As it turns out a Quote user, Lachie Smith had this answer: Smith writes that there was a point when it was almost impossible to spot a white plane. Most airlines would opt for no colour at all leaving the bare metal open to the elements. Youll likely have seen these aircraft in several of the old movies. Now, even though it made the aircraft look tad bit shabby, there was a rationale for keeping it unpainted. Smith points out that it was because it made it easier to spot a crack on the aircrafts system than when it was covered in paint. But that also made it difficult to maintain the aircraft. Every small speck of dust, even a tiny scratch would show up making the aircraft look like its not been taken care of. Which is why several airlines ditched the chrome look to white paint. This helped them save costs on polishing and cleaning that chrome required. All this was at the cost of a little extra paint. So why white and no other colour? For one, white fades the least, which means you dont have to repaint your aircraft as often as if it was a darker colour. This saves airlines a lot of money. But theres another reason too. Smith writes, White paint actually weighs less than black paint, and with the average coat of paint for a Boeing 747 weighing at 250 kilos (550 pounds), that's a whole lot of extra weight that the airlines need to be smart about. So without the option to have no paint, airlines began to realise that the darker the paint, the more it weighs. Combined with all that weigh saving, white paint actually reflects the sun's rays and can improve the lifetime of the aircraft." Of course, this doesnt mean everyone paints their aircraft white. KLM aircrafts have a light blue hue on their top half. Similarly, Southwest aircraft are painted blue, red and gold and the American low-cost airlines Spirit went from white and blue to a vibrant yellow over the years. Theres Wizz Air from Hungary that flies aircraft with a curious mix of purple and pink, Air Greenland thats painted its aircraft red in order to blend in with the countrys landscape and NokAir whose aircraft are painted, yellow, orange and white with the tip of the aircraft designed to look like the beak of a bird! The Delhi High Court Friday decided to extend till April 3 the restrictions on its functioning to contain the spread of coronavirus. The decision, taken by an eight-judge committee headed by Chief Justice D N Patel, was communicated in a notification issued by the high court's Registrar General. The notification, which indicates the judges who would be conducting proceedings during the period of restricted functioning, said: "The Administrative and General Supervision Committee has resolved that in order to combat the impending threat of coronavirus, the functioning of this court continues to stand restricted till April 3." The high court had on March 13 decided to restrict its functioning from March 16 in view of the COVID-19 pandemic. Thereafter, on March 16 it decided that the restricted functioning would continue till March 20. On Friday, by a fresh notification it extended the restriction till April 3. The notification further said that on March 23, 25, 27, 30 and April 1, four division benches, four single judge benches for civil jurisdiction and three single judge benches each for criminal and original jurisdiction would hear "only urgent matters". On March 24, 26, 31 and April 3, three division benches, three single judge benches for civil jurisdiction and three single judge benches each for criminal and original jurisdiction would hear "only urgent matters". In the normal course, a total of 26 benches sit for hearing all the matters. With the coronavirus cases reaching 223 nationwide, claiming 4 lives, several states have taken steps to restrict or close certain public places so as to check its spread. Globally, over 10,000 people have died in the pandemic that swept from China throughout the world, forcing the confinement of tens of millions in their homes. All the courts in the national capital have also curtailed the functioning and restricting the entry of people on their premises. The high court said all the pending matters, listed from March 23 to April 3, before the court as well as the registrars or joint registrars would be adjourned to April 20 to 30, respectively. The urgent matters to be listed on the following day shall be determined by the designated joint registrars (JR) and it can be mentioned before the JR (judicial) from 10:30 AM to 12 PM everyday till April 3. "To further decongest court rooms and registry, only one advocate per party shall be permitted entry in the court rooms and registry. This restriction shall not apply to senior advocates, who may appear before the court with a single briefing counsel," the notification said. The high court also issued directions for combating spread of COVID-19 in the district courts of the national capital. It said that as functioning of the district courts stood substantially restricted, "there was no requirement for the entire workforce of court officials to report for duty on a daily basis". It directed the respective District and Sessions Judges and Principal Judges (Family Courts) to prepare a staff roster after assessing the requirements of each district court "to ensure that all officials, posted in branches, report for duty on a proportionate rotational basis and that their footfall is reduced to one third". "Since, majority of the cases are being adjourned till March 31 a mechanism be created in each jurisdiction by the District and Sessions Judges and Principal Judges (Family Courts) so that one judicial officer takes up the matters of his own court and upto of two more courts of similar jurisdiction and remains available during the working hours for taking up fresh urgent matters of such courts," the high court has said in a separate notification issued in respect of district courts. The District and Sessions Judge/In-charge of the concerned court complexes have been directed to ensure that the court building is sanitized on a daily basis. "All district court complexes should be vacated by 5.00 p.m. on working day and handed over to the sanitization staff for deep/thorough cleaning and shall remain closed till the next morning," the notification said. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) London: An independent report has sharply criticised Britain's Conservative government for the way it treated long-term UK residents who were wrongly caught up in a government drive to reduce illegal immigration. The report said the British Home Office exhibited "institutional ignorance and thoughtlessness" towards the issue of race and history of the mostly Caribbean immigrants that are "consistent with some definitions of institutional racism." Those affected belong to the "Windrush generation", named for the ship Empire Windrush, which in 1948 brought hundreds of Caribbean immigrants to Britain. The country was then seeking nurses, railway workers and others to help it rebuild after the devastation of World War II. Nearly 500 Jamaicans arrived at Tilbury on the SS Empire Windrush on June 22, 1948. Credit:Mirror Features/File They, and subsequent Caribbean migrants, came from British colonies or ex-colonies and had an automatic right to settle in the UK. But some became ensnared by tough new rules introduced from 2012 that were intended to make Britain a "hostile environment" for illegal immigrants. In the 2004 zombie comedy "Shaun of the Dead," Simon Pegg didn't have to deal with a run on toilet paper. (YouTube) Coronavirus confinement is a great time to have a zombie movie on your resume. Just ask actor-comedians Simon Pegg and Nick Frost, who've revised a scene from their 2004 horror comedy "Shaun of the Dead" to suit current coronavirus protocols. As far as PSAs go, it's cute. In the original, Pegg and Frost's characters, Shaun and Ed, urgently make a plan together to rescue Shaun's mom, whack his stepdad, rescue his ex-girlfriend and make it to a safe place where they can sit down and wait it out over a nice cup of tea or perhaps a pint. "If I'm going to hole up somewhere, I want to be somewhere familiar, I want to know where the exits are, and I want to be able to smoke," Ed says in the original scene, prompting the plan's shift to end with a pint at the Winchester pub. The new scene takes place entirely on the phone, of course, because social distancing. Instead of killing stepdad Philip if he's been infected, Pegg now urges Frost to "follow the NHS guidelines to the letter," referring to suggestions from Britain's National Health Service that people stay apart. "Sure, I want to kill him," Pegg says. "I just can't right now." Then there's the rewrite of a questionable joke in the original film in order to change the word "gay" to "gray." Pegg is confused only for a moment. "I see what you're doing," he says rapid-fire, without emotion. "I know it's 2020, but the original joke wasn't intended as homophobic. It was more a comment on the absurdity of straight-male appropriation of homophobic signifiers in order to denote their aversion to emotional candidness." Blah blah blah, Frost mimes. The new version tellingly never makes it to the pub. Instead, Pegg advises Frost to simply stay home, have a cup of tea, reach out to friends and wait it out. Frost's only problem with that? He's running out of toilet paper. Story continues Pegg, of course, has absolutely none. Zero. Zip. Nada. Honest. And it's a really good thing he and Frost aren't talking by video chat, because a picture is worth a thousand sheets. Here's the full, original "Shaun of the Dead" scene for comparison. Share this article Whatsapp Facebook Twitter Linkedin News Desk (The Jakarta Post) Jakarta Fri, March 20, 2020 18:57 662 7f440ff09e92db75a02bbad206c49c67 1 City Jakarta-city-council,jakarta-city-administration,deputy-governor,anies-baswedan,Gerindra-Party,PKS Free The long search for a figure to fill the Jakarta administration's deputy governor position will be postponed amid the novel coronavirus disease (COVID-19) outbreak in the capital, the city council has said. The Jakarta City Council originally planned to hold a confirmation hearing on March 23 to choose between Gerindra Party politician Ahmad Riza Patria and Prosperous Justice Party (PKS) politician Nurmansyah Lubis to be Governor Anies Baswedan's second-in-command. Council speaker Prasetyo Edi Marsudi said on Friday that the hearing would be delayed until further notice. I decided to postpone it, considering the impossible situation caused by the coronavirus. We are all concerned and must understand that this incident is extraordinary, Prasetyo said on Friday. The deputy governor's seat has been left vacant for more than a year since the former deputy governor, Gerindra Party politician Sandiaga Uno, resigned in September 2018 to be the running mate of then presidential candidate Prabowo Subianto in the 2019 elections. Read also: Jakarta deputy governor confirmation hearing to go ahead despite COVID-19 The ruling Indonesian Democratic Party of Struggle (PDI-P) holds the most seats on the 106-strong council with 25, followed by Gerindra with 19 and the PKS with 15. The feasibility of holding the March 23 plenary session has been questioned as the central government and the Jakarta administration have advised against large-scale meetings to prevent wider transmission of the coronavirus. Prasetyo said the council would not receive or conduct any visits for the time being as a preventive measure against COVID-19. The governor himself has been promoting social distancing amid the pandemic by closing schools and tourism destinations in the capital and by advising less travel and fewer mass gatherings, even suspending mass worship for two weeks. As of Friday, Indonesia reported 369 confirmed cases of COVID-19, with 32 fatalities. The capital city itself had 215 cases, including 18 deaths. At least 17 people have recovered from the disease so far. (mfp) Families will start teaching their sons and use the execution of the four convicts in the 2012 Delhi gang-rape and murder case as an example, the mother of the 23-year-old victim said on Friday. The four menMukesh Singh, Akshay Thakur, Pawan Gupta and Vinay Sharmawere hanged simultaneously inside Tihar Jail number 3 for the gang-rape and murder of her daughter inside a moving bus in south Delhi on December 16, 2012. The woman died at a hospital in Singapore on December 29. Asha Devi hugged her sister and lawyer after the execution of the four men convicted in the case. Finally, the convicts have been hanged. This was a struggle of eight years. It was delayed but we got justice. Today, Nirbhaya got justice and girls of the country got justice. I want to thank everyone - the judiciary, the government, every citizen - for this, she said while speaking to reporters after the hanging. This will be a message for the entire country, she said. Girls will now feel safer. After the execution, families will start teaching their sons and use the hanging as an example, she said. Also read: Timeline of a crime that horrified India Asha Devi said they will continue to fight for justice for other girls so that they are not subjected to such crimes. She said she hugged the picture of her daughter as soon as she returned from the Supreme Court. Our daughter is no more and wont return. We started this fight after she left us. This struggle was for her but we will continue this fight in future for our daughters, Asha Devi, who attended almost all hearings in the case all these years, said. The four men were hanged after the Supreme Court rejected the last petition by one of the four convicts to stop their execution. AP Singh, the lawyer of the convicts, had approached the Supreme Court to seek the late-night hearing. Also read: Fruit seller, gym trainer, driver: The 4 men hanged for 2012 Delhi rape Three judges of the Supreme Court held a special sitting to hear the petition and rejected it. We are not inclined to entertain the plea, the bench comprising Justice R Banumathi, Justice Ashok Bhushan and Justice AS Bopanna said. AP Singh cited school certificates of Pawan Gupta to claim he was a juvenile in December 2012, when the crime was committed. But the judges told him that he had already made this argument and it had been rejected. We are of the opinion that there is no merit in the case, Justice Bhanumati said, dictating the order after a 45-minute hearing, according to Live Law. The consistent view of this court is that scope for review of Presidents decision in mercy petitions is very limited, the bench ruled, according to PTI. Three of the four convicts had also approached the Delhi High Court late on Thursday evening with a similar request to stop their execution. Justice Manmohan and Justice Sanjeev Narula heard AP Singh and other lawyers for close to 90 minutes but did not find any reason to suspend the death warrant. The four menMukesh Singh, Akshay Thakur, Pawan Gupta and Vinay Sharmawere hanged simultaneously inside Tihar Jail number 3 more than seven years after they gang-raped and fatally assaulted the woman. The four men had assaulted and gang-raped the paramedic student inside a moving bus in south Delhi on December 16, 2012. The young woman died at a hospital in Singapore two weeks later. This is the first hanging in India in a rape case since Dhananjoy Chatterjee in 2004. The last hanging inside Tihar was of Afzal Guru on February 9, 2013. Guru was convicted for his role in the 2001 Parliament attack case. SHARE THIS ARTICLE ON ANN ARBOR, MI -- A local retailer is selling T-shirts to help support small businesses affected by shutdowns and slowdowns amid the COVID-19 outbreak. Ann Arbor-based Underground Printing is partnering with about 48 businesses to sell Flatten the Curve shirts, with 80% of proceeds to benefit a business of the customers choosing. The remaining 20% will be distributed evenly among participating businesses, co-owner Rishi Narayan said. Businesses will share links to purchase the shirts on their social media channels. Because we work with so many restaurants and hospitality companies in town and theyre not only customers of ours but theyre friends of ours, we thought - whats a way to efficiently get up and running? Narayan said. Customers in town are looking for ways to support. If you cant do the takeout every night, this is just another way to do that. Its kind of cool. Competing businesses are coming together to try to fight through this. The effort is not limited to restaurants. Its for any business impacted by a loss in sales due to the closures Gov. Gretchen Whitmer ordered on Monday, March 16 to limit the spread of the new coronavirus. Michigans governor orders all bars, restaurants, entertainment venues, more to close amid coronavirus outbreak In Ann Arbor, we forget were a university town and tourist town. We rely on those visitors to come and frequent our stores and shops ... I think were all struggling with it right now, Narayan said. Even the grocery stores .. theyre still struggling because they were not ready for this. This isnt just one industry, this is all of us feeling the pinches in different ways." Were going to feel this effect for months. Years, perhaps, Narayan continued. Shirts cost $30 with shipping. View the full list of participating businesses here. Underground Printing is selling "Flatten the Curve" shirts in an effort to donate proceeds to impacted businesses in the area amid the coronavirus outbreak.SavCo Hospitality Underground Printing is selling "Flatten the Curve" shirts in an effort to donate proceeds to impacted businesses in the area amid the coronavirus outbreak.SavCo Hospitality Another Ann Arbor-based company is offering help in a different way. Bright Lights, a social media marketing company, is creating online ordering systems for restaurants at no charge. Ann Arbor firm offers free online ordering help for restaurants amid coronavirus closures READ MORE: Full Michigan coronavirus coverage at https://www.mlive.com/coronavirus/ Ann Arbor council members seek resolution to embarrassing meter/ticketing fiasco U.S.-Canada border expected to close to non-essential traffic Friday thanks to coronavirus concerns Ann Arbor firm offers free online ordering help for restaurants amid coronavirus closures West Side Ann Arbor neighborhoods tackle social distancing with window decor, scavenger hunts TheRide announces free fares, reduced routes as coronavirus precautions Ann Arbors Briarwood Mall changes hours due to coronavirus fears PREVENTION TIPS Michigans State Emergency Operations Center is coordinating state-government resources and the response to the coronavirus spread. It has shared the following tips: What you can do to prevent the spread of COVID-19 and other respiratory diseases: For statewide and national information on the virus, visit Michigan.gov/Coronavirus or CDC.gov/Coronavirus. Johnny Depps text messages from the time of the breakdown of his marriage to Amber Heard were at the centre of the latest High Court hearing in his libel case against The Sun newspaper over allegations he was violent and abusive towards his ex-wife. The Pirates Of The Caribbean star, 56, is suing News Group Newspapers (NGN), the publishers of The Sun, and the newspapers executive editor Dan Wootton over an April 2018 article which referred to him as a wife-beater. A two-week trial is due to begin in London on Monday, at which Mr Depp, Ms Heard and a number of Hollywood figures are due to give evidence. At a hearing on Friday, Mr Justice Nicol is set to decide whether the worldwide coronavirus crisis means the trial needs to be adjourned. At that hearing, Adam Wolanski QC, for NGN, read out a text from Mr Depp to his sister Christi Dembrowski in June 2016, in which he says: I want her replaced on that WB film. Mr Wolanski said the text was a reference to the Warner Brothers film Aquaman which featured Ms Heard. He added: There now exists online a petition for Ms Heard to be removed from the role which has generated 400,000 signatures. Her sole fault appears to be that she crossed Mr Depp, one of the most influential and revered people in Hollywood. The barrister read out another text, sent by Mr Depp to his friend Christian Carino on August 15 2016, the day after Mr Depp and Ms Heard executed an agreement resolving issues around the dissolution of their marriage. The text read: She is begging for global humiliation. She is going to get it. Im going to need your texts from San Francisco brother Im sorry to even ask but she sucked Mollusks crooked dick and he gave her some s****y lawyers. Mr Wolanski told the court that Mollusk was a reference to Elon Musk, the billionaire Tesla co-founder. The message continued: I have no mercy, no fear and not an ounce of emotion or what I thought was love for this gold-digging, low-level, dime-a-dozen, mushy, pointless, dangling, overused flappy fish market Im so happy she wants to go to fight this out. She will hit the wall hard. And I cannot wait to have this waste of a c*m-guzzler out of my life. She will hit the wall hard. I met a f****** sublime little Russian here which made me realise that time I blew on the 50-cent stripper I would not touch her with a goddamn glove. I can only hope that karma kicks in and takes the gift of breath from her. Sorry man, but now I will stop at nothing. Adam Waldman, a US lawyer for Mr Depp who is not representing him in the libel claim, said in a statement after the hearing: The desperate Sun tabloid read out a text today without realising how much profound truth it contained. That text, in which Mr Depp speculates that Elon Musk is secretly supporting Amber Heards hoax, is curious in light of this fact: The Murdochs own the Sun, and a Murdoch serves on Elon Musks Tesla board of directors. When court is safe again, justice will be waiting for everybody in this case. Agartala, March 20 : Tripura Deputy Chief Minister Jishnu Dev Varma on Friday presented a Rs 19,891 crore tax-free Budget for 2020-21, containing several new plans including setting up a NITI Aayog-type state body, new schemes for farmers, children and students besides for rural areas. The third budget of the two-year-old BJP-led coalition government shows a Rs 511.41 crore deficit. Tabling the Budget on the first day of the week-long session, Dev Varma who also holds the Finance portfolio, said that there is no new tax proposed in the budget and the deficit would be covered by better fiscal management and smart tax collections. In his speech, he said that the "philosophy of the budget is collective action and inclusive growth" and with better tax management, the government would increase its own revenue in the coming fiscal (2020-21). The deputy chief minister has announced 19 major schemes and plans, which included NITI Aayog-type state body - Innovation and Transformation Aayog of Tripura (ITAT), Tripura Beti Bachao Beti Padao Abhiyan, Chief Minister's Fasal Bima Yojana, Chief Minister's Model Village Scheme and Tripura Road Safety Mission. In his Budget speech, he told the house that it is a matter of great satisfaction that the state has been able to achieve consistent annual growth rate of 23 per cent for second year in a row. He said that a series of measures have been taken to increase the tax collections. The measures include widening of GST (Goods and Services Tax) base by almost 50 per cent, setting up of tax intelligence unit for detecting evasion and better enforcement, facilitation to hand-holding support for filling of GST return. He said that towards making Tripura a "drug-free" state, several enforcement drives are being continuously taken with a record number of 794 NDPS (Narcotic Drugs and Psychotropic Substances) cases registered and 1,353 drug peddlers and smugglers arrested in the past two years. The Deputy Chief Minister said that a fully equipped cyber-forensic training laboratory is being set up and this is expected to be a pioneer cyber-forensic training lab in the entire northeast. Divyanka Tripathi on Coronavirus: Amid coronavirus outbreak in India, actress Divyanka Tripathi goes wrong with her tweet and mercilessly trolled by netizens. After that, she apologises for her tweet on Mumbai traffic. check the video here. Divyanka Tripathi on Coronavirus: The fear of pandemic Coronavirus is gripping the nation, with that Government of Indian urges its people to stay indoors and safe. Even Bollywood celebrities have come forward to support the issue. However, there is a very fine line to be right or wrong in front of the fan, yes, we are talking about the recent Divyanka Tripathis case where unintentionally she tweetedits the right time to quickly complete metro, bridges and smooth roads as due to Coronavirus traffic in Mumbai is less. However, things went wrong and netizens trolled her mercilessly and called her insensitive. In reply a user wrote: Its an unrequired tweet as if engineers and construction worker life is not important! Tripathi immediately deleted her tweet and apologised from netizens and wrote: We are humans and the proactive approach to a mistake is to acknowledge it instantly, so are you capable of forgiving? Does everything has to be news and point of argument? On the professional front, She has charmed her way into the audiences hearts with roles like Banoo Main Teri Dulhann. After that, she never looked back in her career and featured in hit serials like Iss Pyaar Ko Kya Naam Doon? Ek Baar Phir, Yeh Hai Mohabbatein, Bahu Hamari Rajni Kant, Kanpur Wale Khuranas, Cold Lassi Aur Chicken Masala, its an endless list. Check the post here: We all are humans and susceptible to errors. In this volatile & violent social media world, important question is: If someone's capable of realizing and apologizing..ARE YOU CAPABLE OF FORGIVING AND MOVING ON? Should everything be News & point of argument? Where's humanity there? Divyanka T Dahiya (@Divyanka_T) March 17, 2020 Meanwhile, Maharastra is the most affected state with a number of 45 cases. Recently two women are found positive, according to the state health ministry. The total number of cases in Indian has jumped to 171. For all the latest Entertainment News, download NewsX App By Express News Service THIRUVANANTHAPURAM : Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan has urged local bodies to take necessary steps to prevent community spreading of coronavirus infection. Local body authorities and peoples representatives can play a major role in preventing the risk of sudden increase in the number of Covid-19 cases, he said, addressing heads of local bodies in the state along with Opposition leader Ramesh Chennithala through video conferencing on Thursday. The risk is huge, specially in the second stage of local transmission. The government has imposed several restrictions which must be followed and the local bodies can ensure this. About 26,000 people live in isolation in the state today. Constant involvement of local bodies is required to ensure that their lives stay normal, Pinarayi said. Availability of medicines and protective equipment will also be ensured. In addition, there should be no incident of misbehaviour towards foreign tourists. They are our guests, said the chief minister. Since the virus is more deadly to the elderly, a community group, consisting of 15 members including Asha workers, anganwadi workers, junior public health nurses and junior health inspectors, health service workers and government officers residing in the area, has to be constituted in each ward to aid them. The ward members will have to oversee these efforts. Opposition leader Ramesh Chennithala said, We should not be a society that stands clueless before a disaster. In later stages, if the number of patients goes up, we will have to provide care facilities outside. Identifying such places and being proactive in such situations is important. There should be a local body-level preparation and action plan before we step into this crisis. Italian national tests negative TPuram: The Italian national, who tested positive for Covid-19 in the district last week, received a second negative result on Thursday after two tests were conducted in a span of 48 hours. He is under observation at the Medical College Hospital. 66 people were newly put under observation As many as 66 people were newly put under observation in the district on Thursday. There are 2,414 people under home quarantine in the district. There are 18 people in the isolation ward of General Hospital as on Thursday, 29 in the Medical College Hospital, four in the Peroorkada District Model Hospital, seven in the Nedumangad Taluk Hospital, four in the Neyyattinkara Taluk Hospital and one in KIMS Hospital. 23 tested negative Of the 572 samples sent for testing, 437 results have been received so far. The results of 23 tests received on Thursday were negative. The four people who tested positive are being treated at the isolation ward of the Medical College Hospital. One passenger sent to hospital As many as 1,357 passengers who arrived at the International Airport on Thursday were screened. The 31 people who arrived at the domestic terminal were screened and one person with symptoms was referred to hospital. On Thursday, 296 people who needed mental support were given instructions over the phone. So far, 1,371 people have called for psychological support. Madhya Pradesh Assembly speaker NP Prajapati declared that he had accepted the resignation of 16 rebel Congress MLAs who have been camping in Bengaluru for more than 10 days. Prajapatis surprise move, barely 12 hours before Kamal Nath-led Congress is to face the floor test on the Supreme Courts orders, reduces the strength of the assembly to 206. Thursdays development reduces the majority mark of the assembly to 104, raising questions about the survival of the Kamal Nath government. The BJP, the lead opposition party in the state, has 107 MLAs as compared to 92 of the Congress, 4 independents, 2 of BSP and 1 SP lawmaker. The speaker had already accepted the resignation of six rebel MLAs who were ministers in the Congress government and were considered loyal to ex-Congress leader Jyotiraditya Scindia. The Congress had made several efforts to reach out to the rebel MLAs over the last few days. But the MLAs - who were approached by chief minister Kamal Nath, senior Congress leader Digvijaya Singh, Karnataka Pradesh Congress Committee president DK Shivakumar and cabinet ministers - refused to budge. Speaker Prajapatis announcement coincided with reports that Kamal Nath would address a media conference at around noon. Prajapati didnt comment on the floor test to be conducted in the House. The formal notification convening the assembly to meet at 2 pm was issued by the assembly secretariat well past midnight. Speaker Prajapati had abruptly adjourned the House on March 16 to meet at 11 am on March 26, citing the risk posed by the coronavirus outbreak. BJP MLA Shivraj Singh Chouhan on whose petition the Supreme Courts judgment came on Thursday evening regarding the floor test wrote to Speaker Prajapati at the night to reconvene the assembly for the floor test. The Supreme Court on Thursday had ordered the Madhya Pradesh government to prove its majority on the floor of the state assembly by 5 pm on Friday, a course of action it chose to adopt without waiting for the speaker to take a call on the resignations of the rebel MLAs. A bench of justices DY Chandrachud and Hemant Gupta advanced the meeting of the assembly from March 26 to March 20, effectively setting aside the direction of speaker NP Prajapati to adjourn the House until March 26. BJP leader Former minister Jyotiraditya Scindia, whose exit from the Congress to join the BJP had dented the party in the state, cheered the top courts ruling. I welcome the judgment of the Supreme Court delivered to protect the democratic values in Madhya Pradesh, he said. Chief minister Kamal Nath didnt make his stand clear on the floor test till late night but sent word that there would be a media conference at his official residence at noon on Friday. Addressing MLAs at the Congress legislature party meeting held at the chief ministers house on Thursday night, Kamal Nath briefed them about the developments over the past few days. The Supreme Courts verdict came today (on floor test). We pleaded our case strongly. We also brought to the Supreme Court the fact regarding 16 Congress MLAs held captive (in Bengaluru). As per the SC judgment the floor test is to be held on March 20. But we are not disappointed. We are still united. BJP played a dirty game by keeping our MLAs captive in Bengaluru. BJP has been hatching conspiracies right from day one to topple the government as the government launched a drive against mafia in the state, he said. SHARE THIS ARTICLE ON New Delhi, March 20 : Posting of all Indian Army personnel has been deferred and soldiers on leave will be given extended leave till April 15, stated the force fresh advisory issued on Friday to enhance measures to fight COVID. Army Chief M.M. Naravane reviewed force's preparation to contain COVID-19 with important functionaries at the Army headquarters where fresh instructions were issued and strict adherence was demanded. It was decided to run extensive awareness campaigns. "Awareness campaigns are being run on precautions to be taken within the Army and also for communities in near vicinity to Army establishments," said a source. All conferences and seminars have been postponed till April 15 and temporary duty of all ranks is either rescheduled or cancelled till April 15. All service personnel, except Army Medical Corps, attending courses terminating prior to April 15 will be retained at respective training institutions. For them additional training programme can be added. Further annual and periodic medical examinations have been postponed till April 15. It has been decided to regulate entry to canteens and crowding and bunching will be completely avoided. "No movement of officers to/from country of foreign assignment whether on leave or completion of tenure till April 15," the advisory stated. Indian Army also made appeals to veterans and civilians living within and in the vicinity of army cantonments and stations to adhere to social distancing norms and to support additional and enhanced measures instituted to prevent spread of COVID-19. The Army Chief asked the personnel to reduce attendance in offices with effect from March 23, excluding personnel engaged in essential and emergency services directly involved in taking measures to control spread of COVID-19. It was also decided that 35 per cent officers and 50 per cent JCOs will work from home, adhering to home quarantine for a week starting March 23. It was also directed that the second group would proceed to home quarantine on March 30. Intermixing of groups has to be avoided, the directive said. Personnel have been told to remain available on phone and electronic means at all times for exigencies of work. In order to avoid crowding at entry and exit points, personnel attending office should adhere to staggered timings -- 9 a.m to 5.30 p.m. and 9.45 a.m. to 6.15 p.m. Latest updates on Coronavirus (COVID-19) Technology is changing the future of business and Musa Kalenga's achievements in digital, are testament to this. Kalenga, chief future officer at Brave Group, was announced as Best Individual Contribution to Digital at the 2020 IAB Bookmarks Awards. Musa Kalenga Described as the marketer of the future exemplified, Musa harnesses the power and potential of technology to empower and transform client businesses. With the Fourth Industrial Revolution upon us, the acumen of this nature is in greater demand than ever. He has an established history as a successful entrepreneur and in addition to his role at Brave Group, he is also Managing Director at Motherboard, a division of Brave Group; CEO and co-founder of Bridge Labs; and an investor and board member of Lula and Loxion Connexion.His many awards and accolades testify to the depth of his knowledge and the industrys regard for his prowess. Musa was included on the Mail & Guardians list of 200 Young South Africans in 2012. He is the author of- a book about doing business in Africa.Speaking on his newest accolade, Kalenga says that the award is another reflection of the growing role of digital as a strategic imperative in business, and a key proof point that the digital industrys value goes beyond its current offering as it is understood.The digital industry has continued to evolve into offering more than a day-to-day functions for business and people. What weve seen in recent years is how digital utility and communications provide businesses and society the opportunity to consistently innovate and improve existing methods of how we do and maintain the work.Digital is an untapped resource, with infinite potential, and we need to embrace it as more than just an additional platform in the communications spectrum. I am honoured to receive this award, and I want to thank the team for being with me on this journey, and to the Bookmarks Awards as well.The Best Individual Contribution to Digital award honours persons who have made the greatest contribution to the digital industry in South Africa. The winner is selected on presented evidence of innovation and championing digital in marketing, publishing, brands, and others, with further demonstrated success of the digital industry in South Africa.Group CEO at Brave Group, Karabo Songo says that Kalengas focus on digital and the impact of his work with clients businesses, also reflects Brave Groups drive to integrate digital into client communications, and overall marketing.Digital continues to introduce exciting new dynamics to the marketing industry and for us, it is one of the growth cornerstones for the group. We need to be plugged in to the needs of our clients and stakeholders, and should tap into the pockets of opportunities that are presented and require digital solutions and innovative thinking. We are proud of Musa and celebrate this achievement with him, and he has made our roar as the Lions of Hyde Park, that much louder.Musas involvement with the Brave Group illustrates his bold, forward-thinking approach to business. He joined forces with Karabo Songo and Andile Khumalo to form Fastgro Marketing and Comms (Pty) Ltd, a 100% black-owned investment firm, to purchase a stake in the agency. Their goal went beyond enhancing Brave Groups empowerment credentials. Rather, they were focused on pivoting the way the agency functions, introducing proven digital marketing strategies to improve the standing of existing clients and cultivate a new base. This involved moving the agency from the traditional approach, which focuses exclusively on billable creative hours. Instead, Brave Group takes an equity stake in clients business, ensuring it has a vested interest in exploring and realising growth areas.For more information on the Brave Group, please visit bravegroup.co.za and follow us on Twitter and Facebook for updates, and profiles of our team, and the great work we are doing.For more on information on this years IAB Bookmarks Awards, please visit https://thebookmarks.co.za/ Source: Xinhua| 2020-03-21 00:03:28|Editor: Mu Xuequan Video Player Close THE HAGUE, March 20 (Xinhua) -- A Dutch court on Friday convicted 38-year-old Gokmen Tanis of murder with a terrorist motive and sentenced him to life imprisonment for opening fire on a tram in the city of Utrecht and killing four people on March 18 last year. Tanis was also charged with three counts of attempted murder and threatening seventeen people with terrorist intent. Tanis boarded a tram in Utrecht on March 18 last year, pulled out a gun and shot at passengers while shouting "Allahu akbar". Almost immediately after his arrest that same day, he accepted responsibility for the shooting. In court, however, he was reluctant to answer questions. He did state that he committed his actions based on his religious convictions, according to Dutch media reports. The Congress on Friday said the judiciary has delivered justice to the young woman brutally gangraped and murdered on an empty moving bus in Delhi in 2012 but slammed the government on its "sorry state of affairs" in implementing the Nirbhaya Fund for safety of women. Congress leader and Rajya Sabha MP Amee Yajnik alleged that no details have been made available about the Fund for which a budgetary allocation of thousands of crores of rupees has been made. Justice for Nirbhaya has been delivered by the legal system and the judicial system but the implementation of the law and the Nirbhaya Fund has not happened, she told reporters. "It is a sorry state of affairs. I think, the government should speak up about its plan or its roadmap to ensure safety and security of the women of this country," she said. "Can any woman in India say 'Yes! Nirbhaya Fund has made my life fearless'? Can she see any mahila police station? Can she see any counselling centre," she asked. Yajnik said the Fund was meant to start initiatives and support NGOs to ensure safety of women. According to the 2018 NCRB data, 34,000 rapes are reported in the country but the conviction rate is only 25-27 per cent, Yajnik noted. "It is a sad day that we have to talk about delays in the justice system and I think this is the time when we need to look at law reforms, legal reforms, judicial reforms and why these systems are not giving justice to women at the right time, within a timeline. The Ministry of Law and Justice has forgotten what kind of allocation should be there in order to have the infrastructure to facilitate women...to fight for justice. "This was a lone battle fought by the family of Nirbhaya, but what has the government been doing with all these laws, with all these departments and with all these initiatives started earlier," she said adding that it was time for the government to take the initiative to stop "this multiplicity of appeals" to delay the judicial process. Citing the Unnao rape incident, where a girl was burnt alive when she was going to a court for hearing in the case, the Congress leader said, "I think not a single woman minister recollect that, today they speak, but none of the woman ministers spoke up for the victim." Congress MP Chhaya Verma said a new dawn has arisen. She, however, questioned the delay in the grant of justice to parents of Nirbhaya. "Somewhere our legal system is weak," she noted. Verma demanded that anti-rape laws should be made effective and implemented properly. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) As coronavirus is spreading rapidly and leaders around the world are advising to practice self-quarantine, a pilot in Austria did some digital skywriting by leaving a stay home message on flight radar. According to an international media report, the pilot scribbled the message during his 24-minute flight after flying from Wiener Neustadt, the Austrian airport. READ: Coronavirus: Two More Test Positive In Ladakh, Total Cases 10 Currently, Austria has more than 2,300 confirmed coronavirus cases. The deadly virus has even claimed 37 lives in the country. In avid to contain the spread of COVID-19, the Austrian Airlines have even suspended all regular flights. In a series of tweet, the Austrian Airlines informed that the passengers who booked a flight before March 16 with a scheduled departure after March 18 will either be rebooked or else their fares will be refunded. Austrian Airlines CEO also said that the airlines will be cooperating with the government and try to bring home as many Austrian as possible. READ: 'Coachella' To 'The Bachelorette'; Hollywood Hits Pause Amid Coronavirus Pandemic Ban on gatherings Austria also banned gatherings of more than five people. The authorities reportedly even told the residents to go out only if necessary. As per reports, Austria is also denying entry to travellers from the United Kingdom, the Netherlands, Russia and Ukraine, expanding measures in place for Italy and Switzerland. Furthermore, Chancellor Sebastian Kurz, in a tweet, called on all Austrians to isolate themselves and said that the restrictions are necessary to defend the health of the Austrian people and starve out coronavirus. Meanwhile, the World Health Organisation (WHO) has said on March 16 that the best way to combat the unprecedented outbreak of deadly coronavirus for all countries is to ramp up their testing programs. The WHO director-general Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said in a conference in Geneva that the simple message he has for all countries is test, test, test. He further added that the countries will remain unsuccessful to tackle the pandemic if they fail to test all suspected cases and remain blindfolded. READ: Man United Guarantee Staff Members At Old Trafford Regular Pay Amidst Coronavirus Crisis READ: Meijer New Store Hours Announced Amidst The Coronavirus Outbreak The Congresss failure in resolving internal squabbles and former chief minister Kamal Naths inaccessibility to lawmakers and workers were the primary causes for the fall of their government in Madhya Pradesh on Friday, leaders of the party and experts said. The partys top leadership has been indecisive in resolving differences within the Congresss state units, they added. The Congress is also facing a tussle between chief minister Ashok Gehlot and his deputy, Sachin Pilot, in Rajasthan. In Chhattisgarh, chief minister Bhupesh Baghel and state health minister TS Singh Deo have been at loggerheads. There have been differences between Punjab chief minister Amarinder Singh and his former ministerial colleague, Navjot Singh Sidhu, as well. Political analyst Rajendra Sharma said the Congresss central leadership has for decades encouraged factionalism to ensure a complete control over the organisation. In Madhya Pradesh, it proved counterproductive, he said. Sharma added that the party needs to empower regional leaders and ensure those with mass base are not sidelined. The Congress failed to appoint a state party chief in Madhya Pradesh for 15 months to replace Nath, who took over as chief minister in December 2018. The party did not take cognisance of growing complaints about former chief minister Digvijaya Singhs interference in running the government. Former Union minister Jyotiraditya Scindia, who joined the Bharatiya Janata Party on March 11, had repeatedly also flagged his concerns about the state governments failures in implementing the Congresss pre-poll promises. A Congress leader, who did not want to be named, said Nath may blame Scindia for the downfall, but the former never tried to understand the Madhya Pradesh politics and failed to address grievances of the workers over 15 months of his tenure. This was the reason why Nath failed to appoint even a single party leader to government boards and corporations. The leader said by the time the party formed a coordination committee for Madhya Pradesh under general secretary Deepak Babarias leadership in January, it was too late. Had this committee been formed earlier and been effective, perhaps the 22 Congress lawmakers [and Scindia supporters] would not have revolted, he said. Political analyst Dinesh Gupta said Nath and his secretariat worked like a corporate house and there was almost no interaction with workers or the people. Another analyst, Girija Shankar, said Nath could not come out of Digvijaya Singhs shadow, whom many party leaders blame for the Congresss debacle in the 2003 assembly elections. The party remained out of power for 15 years after that. Congress spokesperson Abhay Dubey said when Nath took over, government coffers were empty and the administration was in a shambles. He wanted to give a direction to the administration and it was not an easy task. It is wrong to say that he did not have communication with the party and other people. Those who deserted the party were overambitious and they would have left in any situation. Industries in Marathwada region have expressed displeasure about the withdrawal of power subsidy of Rs 1 per unit from this month onwards, an official said on Friday. The sudden withdrawal of subsidy has brought an increase in monthly expenses of industries here, he said. The industrial slowdown, financial year-end, coronavirus outbreak and now power bill hike has made things harder, Marathwada Association of Small Scale Industries and Agriculture (MASSIA) secretary Manish Agrawal told PTI. Industrial associations in Aurangabad district have also voiced their opposition to the proposed hike of power tariffs by state utility Mahadiscom from April 1. Industries in Marathwada had received a subsidy of Rs 1 per unit from the state government. But, the subsidy has been withdrawn from this month, raising our monthly bills by 10-15 per cent this month, Agrawal said. "Our average bill of Rs 33 lakh per month has gone up to Rs 38-39 lakh this time," local industrialist Vikram Dekate said. Executive member of Chamber of Marathwada Industries and Agriculture (CMIA) Hemant Kapadia said, "The funds allotted by the state government in the last financial year are over. The MSEDCL has demanded funds from the state finance ministry to continue the subsidy, but the fund is not yet transferred." Chief Engineer of MSEDCL in Aurangabad Suresh Ganeshkar refused to comment on this issue, terming it as an "administrative" process. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) Several prominent philanthropic organizations have launched campaigns to support people, families and nonprofits struggling in the wake of the coronavirus pandemic. The first, the COVID-19 Community Response Fund initiated by the San Antonio Area Foundation and United Way of San Antonio and Bexar County, is raising money to provide grants to local nonprofits focused on serving people and families who have experienced health, financial, educational or social impacts because of the coronavirus outbreak. Already, the fund has $2.7 million. The second, The Big Give Emergency Relief, launched by the Nonprofit Council, encourages people to donate directly to one of 500 nonprofits in the 15 counties in and around San Antonio some are focused on emergency response, while others address additional community needs. Were in a new reality, said Marjie French, CEO of the San Antonio Area Foundation. We havent had a community emergency like this since perhaps World War II. There are so many great people working in the philanthropic world to step up and make a difference, and this will help support them. While the funds have similar purposes, theres a distinct need for each, organizers said. There are hundreds of nonprofits that each, in their own way, serve a need, said Scott McAninch, CEO of the Nonprofit Council. If this pandemic continues to spread, those needs will grow beyond the basic safety and emergency needs. Both of these funds do essential work. From the Editorial Board: How to help others as coronavirus spreads McAninch and French said they began researching Sunday what would be needed to launch the campaigns. McAninch, who already was planning the annual 24-hour donation challenge called Big Day of Giving, said he received a call Sunday from Mayor Ron Nirenberg asking whether he would consider repositioning Big Give into an emergency relief initiative. McAninch agreed. His team quickly redesigned the website, which was ready to launch, and revised the campaign messaging to emphasize the importance of nonprofits during this exceptional time of need. His team also vetted and approved an additional 32 nonprofits that werent originally registered to take part. Unlike the Big Give, which usually is a 24-hour fundraising push, the Big Give Emergency Relief will be active indefinitely until the health crisis passes. It launched Thursday morning. The beauty of this platform is that each nonprofit can tell their own story and explain exactly what their need is, McAninch said. This is a place where people learn about the critical work being done in our community. We hope this platform goes beyond monetary donations and connects people to local nonprofits. French, the CEO of the San Antonio Area Foundation, said she was closely monitoring news about the spread of the novel coronavirus all weekend. On Sunday, she began reviewing what other community foundations were doing in cities such as San Francisco, Seattle and New York, all hard hit by COVID-19. More Information How to help COVID-19 Community Response Fund: Make a donation of $25 or more at helpsatx.org or by texting HELPSATX to 41444. Big Give Emergency Relief: People can donate at thebiggivesa.org. (About 5 percent of each donation is retained to cover credit card service charges and website maintenance fees.) See More Collapse On ExpressNews.com: Get the latest update on coronavirus and a tracking map of U.S. cases Then she called Chris Martin, president and CEO of United Way of San Antonio and Bexar County. They decided to establish a partnership. In the three days that followed, French reached out to more than a dozen local foundations and businesses, including the Tobin Endowment, Greehey Family Foundation, Kronkosky Charitable Foundation and Mays Family Foundation, among others. They all agreed to take part. Im so grateful for this community, French said. We truly are a compassionate community. Its just been wonderful to be able to see how many people are willing to step up. The fund, which launches today, will provide grants to local nonprofits focused on five key areas: the economic impact of reduced and lost work due to the coronavirus outbreak; the needs of economically vulnerable populations; increased demand for medical information and support; fear and confusion about the outbreak; and resources for families of school-aged children. Grants will be provided on a rolling basis to ensure dollars are deployed in the community quickly and responsively, organizers say. Local organizations can begin applying for the grants starting today. Emilie Eaton is a criminal justice reporter in the San Antonio and Bexar County area. Read her on our free site, mySA.com, and on our subscriber site, ExpressNews.com. | eeaton@express-news.net | Twitter: @emilieeaton To prevent the corona virus causing havoc around the world, there is a readiness to stop the entry of tourists from outside states in Devbhumi Himachal from Thursday to 31 March. Along with this, it was discussed at a high level meeting chaired by Chief Minister Jairam Thakur at the State Secretariat. Other top officials of the government, including Chief Secretary Anil Kumar Khachi, were present at the meeting. It was decided in the meeting that only select buses can be sent to outside states. At the same time all bus services can also be stopped. At the same time, the bus service for Nepal border was stopped. Apart from this, Shimla-Tanakpur bus can only reach Haridwar. The police also sealed the border areas of the province. The pilgrims are being sent back. In addition, employees and others in government and non-government offices will not be allowed to enter without screening. Instructions are to place the sanitizer at the main entrance of the offices. At the same time, patients like cough, cold, fever and asthma have been asked to take leave. Along with this, the government has instructed the employees not to spread the rumor. Officers may only hold necessary meetings. Routine meetings will be through video conferencing. Officers are also instructed not to tour. At the same time, people of 50 years and above and pregnant women have been asked to take regular medicines. In offices, most of the work is directed to be done by e-mail. The state government has decided to immediately release five crore rupees to fight Corona. Along with this, this amount has been released from the State Disaster Response Fund to take necessary steps in the first phase, while this information was given by Chief Minister Jairam Thakur while chairing the meeting of the State Disaster Management Authority. The Center has allocated Rs 454 crore in the state disaster relief fund for the coming financial year. Apart from this, the Chief Minister said that the Center has also released Rs 50 crore to reduce the risk of landslides and earthquakes in the state. Also Read: MP government falls before floor test, Kamal Nath will submit resignation to Governor at 1 pm Kamal Nath government does not have majority, Digvijay hinted before floor test Corona: Pile of dead bodies in Italy, army called for burial More than 10 thousand people died due to coronavirus worldwide Teck Resources Ltd TECK has temporarily suspended construction activities at its major Quebrada Blanca Phase 2 (QB2) project in Chile amid spiraling coronavirus fears. The move is in line with the Chilean governments efforts to curb the spread of the virus and ensure employees safety as well. The QB2 project will be suspended for initial two weeks, following which Teck will re-check the project status in response to any further development of the COVID-19 situation. The suspension will impact approximately 15,000 workers on the project. QB2 is an important project for Teck, as completion of this project will make it a major global copper producer. In December 2018, the companys board sanctioned full construction of this project, with the first production targeted for fourth-quarter 2021. The company has taken precautionary measures to ensure safety of the QB2 project employees and their families, keeping in view that a large number of its workers commute from Chile. Notably, so far, there have been no confirmed cases of the units employees testing coronavirus positive. Following the news, the companys shares depreciated 21.5% on Mar 18. Falling copper prices have aggravated the decline. This Zacks Rank #5 (Strong Sell) companys shares have plunged 73.1% over the past year compared with the industrys decline of 30.8%. You can see the complete list of todays Zacks #1 Rank (Strong Buy) stocks here. Mining stocks have been plagued with sliding metal prices over escalating coronavirus fears. Copper and zinc prices have plummeted following the outbreak of the coronavirus, while macroeconomic slowdown poses a threat to the Copper and Zinc metal markets. Copper is the worst performing among metals, with prices on the London Metal Exchange on Mar 18, sliding more than 8% to $4,860.5 per ton the first time in three years. The virus has claimed thousands of lives across the world and become a major threat to public health worldwide. Both commodity and stock markets are bearing the brunt of the outbreak with disruption of global supply chain, businesses shutting down in China as well as in the United States and Europe. Moreover, mining companies are halting their operations in a bid to contain the spread of the virus. Peru has declared a 15-day national quarantine period. As a result, Newmont Corporation NEM and Pan American Silver Corp. PAAS, along with other miners, have halted their operations in the country. Apart from this, in Canada, Brazilian miner Vale S.A. VALE is slashing its output in Voiseys Bay copper mine. Teck is a significant copper producer in the Americas, with four operating mines in Canada, Chile and Peru, and copper development projects in North and South America. Its main projects are Highland Valley Copper in Canada and Antamina, Quebrada Blanca and Carmen de Andacollo in South America. The companys business units are focused on steelmaking coal, copper, zinc and energy. For the current quarter, the company projects the Steelmaking Coal segment sales volumes at 4.8-5.2 million ton, down from the previous estimate of 5.1-5.4 million ton due to weather-related issues in British Colombia and rail blockades. Given the dismal demand due to the coronavirus outbreak, and the high inventory levels on account of rail and port constraints, the company plans to shut down the Neptune Bulk Terminals, in order to progress the facility upgrade, which might dent quarterly coal production. The company intends to complete major plant outages in 2020. Though these outages are likely to lower steelmaking coal production in the first half of the ongoing year, it will eventually pick up in the second half. Breakout Biotech Stocks with Triple-Digit Profit Potential The biotech sector is projected to surge beyond $775 billion by 2024 as scientists develop treatments for thousands of diseases. Theyre also finding ways to edit the human genome to literally erase our vulnerability to these diseases. Zacks has just released Century of Biology: 7 Biotech Stocks to Buy Right Now to help investors profit from 7 stocks poised for outperformance. Our recent biotech recommendations have produced gains of +50%, +83% and +164% in as little as 2 months. The stocks in this report could perform even better. See these 7 breakthrough stocks now>> Want the latest recommendations from Zacks Investment Research? Today, you can download 7 Best Stocks for the Next 30 Days. Click to get this free report VALE S.A. (VALE) : Free Stock Analysis Report Newmont Goldcorp Corporation (NEM) : Free Stock Analysis Report Pan American Silver Corp. (PAAS) : Free Stock Analysis Report Teck Resources Ltd (TECK) : Free Stock Analysis Report To read this article on Zacks.com click here. Zacks Investment Research Berlin: The German government on Thursday banned two clubs linked to an anti-Semitic movement that refuses to recognise the modern German state, with the Interior Ministry ordering raids on the homes of the groups' leaders in 10 states as part of a crackdown on Germany's far right. Police officers carrying boxes out of a house after a raid in Berlin, Germany. Credit:AP "We relentlessly continue the fight against right-wing extremism even in times of crisis," Horst Seehofer, Germany's interior minister, said in a statement. "We are dealing with an association that distributes racist and anti-Semitic writings and thus systematically poisons our liberal society," Seehofer added. After years of focusing on threats from Islamist extremists, German authorities have started to train their resources on combating homegrown far-right extremists. US President Donald Trump charged Thursday that the world is "paying a big price" for China's lack of transparency on the outbreak of the new coronavirus there several months ago. "It would have been much better if we had known about this a number of months earlier," Trump told reporters at a White House briefing on the pandemic. "It could have been contained to that one area of China where it started. And certainly the world is paying a big price for what they did. STRONG & UNITED, WE WILL PREVAIL! ... Mourners at a funeral were seen standing two metres apart from each other to pay their respects as a coffin was driven past. Pensioner Betty Ryan, of West Kerry, Ireland, who was in her sixties, died of a rare blood disease. Hundreds of villagers were seen lining the streets but could not even hug each other or even shake hands. Scroll down for video Betty Ryan, of West Kerry, Ireland, who was in her sixties, died of a rare blood disease. She is pictured above Her funeral was forced to be family-only due to the social-distancing policy implemented because of the pandemic, The Mirror reported. Her widower Denis told the newspaper that he 'felt every hug and every handshake in each of the faces on that journey to the graveyard'. Despite mourners not being allowed to enter the church, journalist Sean Mac an tSithigh, of RTE Ireland, said the entire parish turned out for her. Yesterday we buried a lovely woman. Due to #Covid19 there was no wake & our community couldnt enter the church. But the entire parish came out & lined the 2km road to graveyard to say goodbye to Betty Ryan. Ar scath a cheile a mhaireann na daoine #WestKerry pic.twitter.com/Sns99qUSad Sean Mac an tSithigh (@Buailtin) March 20, 2020 The video he shared has since gone viral online, leading to users across the globe to pay their respects to her. It shows her coffin going down the road as some mourners wave to pay their respects, while others look on. He wrote on Twitter: 'Yesterday we buried a lovely woman. Due to #Covid19 there was no wake & our community couldnt enter the church. 'But the entire parish came out & lined the 2km road to graveyard to say goodbye to Betty Ryan'. He then used an Irish saying meaning: 'People live in each other's shadows'. It comes as the coronavirus pandemic sweeps the world. Almost 700 people in the Republic of Ireland have now been infected with the virus, with 683 cases recorded. Former Democratic presidential candidate Mike Bloomberg addresses his staff and the media after announcing that he will be ending his campaign on March 04, 2020 in New York City. Former New York Mayor Mike Bloomberg will scrap his plans for an independent group to boost Democrats in the 2020 presidential election and instead pile $18 million into the Democratic National Committee, his campaign announced Friday. As part of the move, the one-time presidential hopeful will lay off campaign staff, who will get paid through the first week in April and get medical benefits through the end of that month, according to NBC News. Bloomberg's presidential campaign said the DNC will use the investment to boost hiring, organizing and data operations in battleground states. In addition, it will transfer "several" field offices to state parties. "While we considered creating our own independent entity to support the nominee and hold the President accountable, this race is too important to have many competing groups with good intentions but that are not coordinated and united in strategy and execution," the campaign wrote in a memo to DNC Chairman Tom Perez. The massive transfer ensures Bloomberg, who dropped out of the 2020 Democratic primary earlier this month to endorse former Vice President Joe Biden, will have sway in the general election. The billionaire, who spent more than $500 million on his doomed presidential bid, has pledged to support the eventual nominee's efforts to deny President Donald Trump a second term. The Bloomberg campaign called the $18 million transfer of unused campaign funds "the largest transfer from a presidential campaign in recent history." While Biden has expanded his pledged delegate lead over Sen. Bernie Sanders, he has trailed his rival at every stage of the primary in the fundraising race. As a wide Democratic field split donors, the Trump campaign and Republican National Committee enjoyed fundraising success in the early stages of the race. Fears about the coronavirus pandemic spreading have forced multiple states to delay their planned presidential primaries, making it unclear when a Democrat will wrap up the nomination. The outbreak has created fundraising difficulties for both the Biden campaign and Republicans. Subscribe to CNBC on YouTube. A former Google star engineer charged with stealing trade secrets from its self-driving car program has agreed to plead guilty in a deal with prosecutors, according to court documents filed Thursday. Anthony Levandowski, 39, was a founding member of an autonomous vehicle project in 2009 called 'Chauffeur,' one of Google's more ambitious undertakings. Several years later Levandowski began thinking of leaving Google for another self-driving endeavor that was eventually named 'Otto,' the plea deal said. He began negotiating with ride-sharing giant Uber to invest in or buy Otto while he was still working at Google, and admits having downloaded a whole series of documents a few months before his resignation in January 2016. In this 206 file photo, Anthony Levandowski, who was head of Uber's self-driving program, speaks about their driverless car in San Francisco. Levandowski today pleaded guilty to stealing trade secrets from Google 'Prior to my departure, I downloaded thousands of files related to Project Chauffeur,' Levandowski said in court documents. Levandowski was leader of the light-detecting and ranging (LiDAR) team when he resigned from Google without notice. The technology is important for self-driving cars to measure distances and avoid obstacles. Levandowski will plead guilty to a count of theft and attempted theft of trade secrets in exchange for prosecutors dropping the rest of the charges filed against him, the court filing showed. Anthony Levandowski, 39, pictured outside a California court last year, was a founding member of an autonomous vehicle project in 2009 called 'Chauffeur,' one of Google's more ambitious undertakings He could face up to 10 years in prison and a $250,000 fine under sentencing guidelines, but a federal judge would be free to determine the punishment. 'All of us have the right to change jobs, none of us has the right to fill our pockets on the way out the door,' US attorney David Anderson said in a release announcing the original counts of theft and attempted theft of trade secrets last year. The allegations came out in a civil case in which Google's self-driving car division, now renamed Waymo and under its parent Alphabet, accused Uber of stealing trade secrets. The allegations came out in a civil case in which Google's self-driving car division, now renamed Waymo and under its parent Alphabet, accused Uber of stealing trade secrets. Pictured: A Waymo Jaguar I-PACE self-driving electric vehicle drives on a city street near the Embarcadero in San Francisco, California, USA, 09 March 2020 That case ended with a settlement between the two firms last year. Levandowski was fired by Uber in 2017 as the two firms were preparing to go to court on the civil trial. Levandowski has filed for bankruptcy, citing listing Google among his creditors and noting a legal claim against him totaling about $179 million, according to US bankruptcy court filings. The youngest of the first 50 COVID-19 patients in the Houston area is under 25, and more than half are under 60. Many have traveled abroad, but not all. It didnt seem that way at first. Authorities reported the first local case, a Fort Bend County man in his 70s among a group that traveled to Egypt, on March 4. They announced four more the next day; others who had also traveled to Egypt and who had ridden the same cruise line. As the local numbers start to jump up after hitting 50 Thursday, mirroring the pattern of dramatically increased cases in the rest of the world, a look at the first cohort of Houston-area patients shows a mix of ages, backgrounds, travel history and health. Houston Chronicle The initial impression from emerging cases in the United States and elsewhere was that older people were more likely to contract COVID-19, the disease caused by the highly infectious new coronavirus that first emerged in China in December. And most of the first patients detected in the United States had traveled abroad, like the first Houston patient. But its become clear that both the number of people infected and the demographics of the people who are sick are much greater and more complex than was thought. And the cases identified so far are likely a fraction of the total number of sick people across Houston. These numbers are inevitably behind, said Dr. Charlene Flash, an infectious disease specialist and the president of Avenue 360 Health and Wellness, a local health system. It was 50 cases a week ago. Today its probably 150. While the virus appears to be most lethal among those age 60 or above, the cases in Houston show how the pandemic is unfurling here, infecting adults of all ages. It mirrors findings in a report issued Wednesday by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention that found about 40 percent of patients sickened by the coronavirus were between the ages of 20 and 54. VIRUS TRACKER: See the latest numbers on our interactive tracker Of the first 50 local cases, only 20 are 60 to 80. The youngest patient is somewhere between the ages of 15-25. Four others are in their 20s. Five in their 30s. Thirteen in their 40s. Eight in their 50s. That feels like the kind of dispersion were likely to see, said Dr. Clive Fields, chief medical officer of VillageMD. I think we all believe the more severe patients are going to be the elderly, comorbid patients, but the worst message is this is somehow not a big deal for kids my kids friends in that age group in their 20s. The range of severity of the illness also varied. While the total number isnt clear, at least five of the first 50 patients were hospitalized for some time, but a number did not become sick enough to warrant hospitalization Like other victims of the virus, many of the first 50 identified patients had traveled: 13 to Egypt, where they were exposed to the virus on a cruise. One to Spain, another to Italy, where cases of the virus have since topped those in China. One patient had traveled to Pakistan, another individual to Panama. More than a dozen had traveled throughout the United States; to Florida, California, and many in Texas. RELATED: Taking a bath in virus soup: Texas drivers license centers drew crowds Wednesday But many of the first victims did not appear to have traveled or had any contact with those who had. The outbreak was slower to emerge in Houston than in some other areas in the U.S. The Fort Bend man who became the first identified case went to Egypt with no idea the trip might expose him to the virus, his daughter said. At the time, the country wasnt on a list of places to be concerned about, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. China was the site where the outbreak seemed to be exploding. The daughter said that after returning home, her dad went to the hospital with difficulty breathing and was tested for the new coronavirus. At that point, no one in the region had contracted it. When he tested positive, his daughter said, the reality hit home. She suddenly had to grapple with how to inform those around her that this was real -- and it was here The fact that the first cases in the Houston region came from older tourists was a reflection of what public health professionals first knew about the disease - and the lack of available testing, said Dr. Robert Atmar, a professor of infectious diseases at Baylor College of Medicine. At least part of that is because those were the people we were testing, he said. Some of those got more severely ill, presented for medical care, were diagnosed, and many of the people were travel related, had been on similar trips, and knew each other. And so they got tested. Those who didnt fit the profile werent being tested. FIRST TX DEATH: Texas first coronavirus-related death was a 97-year-old Bay City funeral home director Day by day, authorities reported new cases across greater Houston. One in Houston. Two in Fort Bend. Another in Harris. Three in Fort Bend. But all had traveled - most on that trip to Egypt. That changed March 11, when Montgomery County reported its first case: a police officer who had not traveled abroad. He had merely traveled to Houston, to the rodeos barbecue cookoff, about two weeks before. His infection marked the first local case of community spread, the first sign that the virus was ranging free among the residents of Houston, and led Harris County Judge Lina Hidalgo and Mayor Sylvester Turner to shut down the rodeo the next day. The idea the virus could severely impact an officer in his 40s was certainly not something his chief worried about. But a week later, the Montgomery County man started to come down with flu-like symptoms that ultimately landed him in a hospital, where he had been in a coma. Now Playing: Now more than ever people need to be aware of COVID-19 symptoms and the proper way to treat the illness. Take a look at how to differentiate coronavirus vs. allergies, and hear a few words of advice from Dr. Peter Hotez with the Baylor College of Medicine. Video: Laura Duclos/Houston Chronicle Patton Village Police Chief Shannon Sharp said he had no idea this could happen -- and he feels in the dark about what will come next. How long until his officer recovers? What will that look like? Its all been a shocking process. "It was somebody else's issue, and then, boom, here it is," Sharp said. "It hits us like a ton of bricks." The shift to community spread had serious implications for how the disease might impact Houstonians, Atmar said. Where were going with community transmission, the relative importance of previously identified risk factors will become much less (important), he said. And the potential to become infected from someone infected locally is much higher -- and thats why all public health messaging about social distancing and hand washing becomes even more important to protect yourself, your family, and your community. The numbers have started climbing more rapidly as testing became more available. Three cases came March 12. Days later, a 97-year-old Matagorda County man who had been battling pneumonia died from the virus, the first Texan to succumb to the disease. Six cases popped up on the 17th; and 15 on the 18th. On Thursday evening, the number across Texas leapt from 200 to more than 300 and across the greater Houston region to at least 70. Harris County recorded its first death: A man in his 80s, from a local nursing home. The numbers are sure to rise. Chronicle reporters Emily Foxhall and Jordan Rubio contributed to this report. The North Berkeley Farmers Market was surprisingly bustling on Thursday afternoon, with farmers hawking petite cone cabbages, oyster mushrooms and golden beets. Hand sanitizer and handwashing stations greeted people upon arrival. Shoppers stood on chalked blue arrows to ensure a safe distance apart. Riverdog Farm completely redid its stalls setup, placing all the produce in bins behind its tables and requiring people to order vegetables instead of picking them out themselves. The changes brought some confusion as well as a common refrain heard around the market: Its OK, were all figuring it out right now. Eating in: Bay Area restaurants open for takeout and delivery during coronavirus 'stay at home' order Some neighborhood residents looked delighted to see all the activity. They didnt even realize the farmers market was still operating. Thats understandable. Roughly a dozen farmers markets have closed around the Bay Area. Some, like the Downtown Palo Alto Farmers Market, decided to shut down on their own. In other cases, like with Jack London Square Farmers Market in Oakland, the landlord deemed the market a large event that needed to be canceled in the name of social distancing. The closures coupled with the collapse of the restaurant industry have severely affected local farmers, who are scrambling to find new ways to get their produce to customers. But many farmers market operators have lobbied government officials to keep them open and they succeeded with Mondays Bay Area shelter-in-place mandate, which specifically named farmers markets as an essential service. People think theyre optional lifestyle choices, and theyre not, said Christine Farren, the interim executive director at the Center for Urban Education about Sustainable Agriculture, which operates the Ferry Plaza Farmers Market. Many people depend on farmers markets for their food and many farmers depend on farmers markets for their livelihood. Farmers markets are known in the Bay Area as not just a place to shop but to socialize, eat and enjoy the outdoors. Thats changed with the coronavirus. Under new guidelines from the California Department of Public Health, farmers markets must remove all seating areas, cancel events like cooking demonstrations, ban sampling and move vendors further apart. Operators say they began making those changes even before the guidelines arrived. Were not creating a lingering relaxing atmosphere anymore. Get in, get your groceries and go home, Farren said. Scott Strazzante / The Chronicle Farren is frustrated by what she calls a misconception that farmers markets are a form of luxury shopping after all, people can use food stamps at farmers markets and get the value matched thanks to the statewide Market Match program. There were almost 200,000 such transactions across the state last year, according to Carle Brinkman of the Ecology Center, which operates three farmers markets in Berkeley. It will greatly impact people who are the most vulnerable if farmers markets dont remain open, she said. As part of the California Alliance of Farmers Markets, Brinkman is fighting to get some closed markets reopened. Operators also argue that farmers markets are safer environments to shop in than grocery stores because theyre outdoors, theres more room for social distancing and theres a shorter supply chain, which means less handling from farm to market. Theyre exploring more ways to appeal to nervous shoppers, including aggregating boxes of produce from different farmers at the market for people to quickly grab and go. While grocery stores are packed with shoppers despite empty shelves, Farren said foot traffic is down 50% at the thrice-weekly Ferry Plaza Farmers Market its been particularly hit hard because tourism is down and few people are working in downtown offices. Markets in residential neighborhoods, such as the North Berkeley market, seem to be faring better. Yet the Ecology Centers efforts to instill social distancing didnt make Berkeley resident Carol Sawdey feel much safer at the Thursday farmers market compared with a grocery store. I find Im never 6 feet from people. Its hard, she said, holding a paper bag of beets. Others said it was still a more pleasant environment overall and they have bigger reasons behind their shopping decisions. I want to support the people doing the best farming we can have right now, and they need to be sustained, said Berkeley resident Lenore Thompson. Its what we have to do. As with workers in many other industries, small farmers are in a dire situation. Most of the farmers who sell at farmers markets dont supply grocery stores instead, they built their business model around selling direct to consumers and to restaurants. But most restaurants have opted to temporarily close not to mention caterers and corporate cafeterias so the chefs are no longer visiting farmers markets either. Its a domino effect. Everyone is hurting, said Aomboon Deasy of K&J Orchards in Winters, who estimated that 40% of the farmers markets where she usually sells have closed. Hopefully we have enough saved up to keep production running. Food Guide Top 25 Restaurants Where to eat in the Bay Area. Find spots near you, create a dining wishlist, and more. Farmers said they feel lucky the shelter-in-place directive happened now, since this period between winter and spring is a slow time of year anyway. If this was in July, we would have so much food that I dont know what we would do, said Sandi McGinnis of McGinnis Ranch, whose restaurant clients have all closed. McGinnis is continuing to plant as if everything were normal after all, she cant return the seeds and opened a farm stand to serve the Monterey County community of Royal Oaks twice a week. Scott Strazzante / The Chronicle Warren Simmons, the order processor at Ventura Countys Brokaw Ranch, isnt sure how to get his famous avocados and citrus to people, given that Brokaws biggest client a small distributor that supplies local restaurants isnt buying anymore and a number of markets have closed. Making home deliveries doesnt seem like a realistic option. We dont have the infrastructure for that to make sense. We would need partners, he said. Its a matter of how quickly this came upon us relationships arent established at this point. Dirty Girl Produce, however, has already taken the leap. The Santa Cruz County farm recently began delivering boxes of produce to people in the surrounding region and is working with San Francisco Thai restaurant Nari to offer boxes for pickup a customer could order eggplant curry with a side of vegetables to last all week. Stella Araiza, Dirty Girls sales manager, said shes exploring other pickup locations in the Bay Area. The community at large is trying to keep eating good food, even though theyre stuck in their houses, she said. I wouldnt be surprised if more farms take that direct-to-your-door approach. Marin Roots Farms Moira Kuhn has considered similar options, but shes not sure she could pull it off fast enough. The Petaluma farm specializes in unusual greens and edible flowers, not the typical staples like carrots and cabbage people would likely want delivered every week. She fears by the time she planted and grew such vegetables, there wouldnt be anyone left still looking for produce delivery. In a month and a half, we might have all this stuff we cant sell, she said. You have to be very innovative in farming, whether its the drought or influenza or the recession or large businesses coming into compete, there are always things happening. Janelle Bitker is a San Francisco Chronicle staff writer. Email: janelle.bitker@sfchronicle.com Twitter: @janellebitker By Express News Service From German auto giants like BMW, Mercedes Benz and Volkswagen to Japanese auto majors like Toyota and Honda, global auto companies are halting operations across United States and Europe to stop the spread of novel coronavirus. Last month, the pandemic outbreak had halted operations in China, where the virus originated, and disrupted global supply chain of components. German carmaker BMW on Wednesday said it would close European and South African factories for over a month and warned that profits this year would be significantly lower due to the crisis. Production at the two factories account for half of BMWs annual output. Our production is geared towards sales development forecasts. And we are adjusting our production volumes flexibly in line with the demand. Since (March 18), we (have begun) to shut down our European and Rosslyn automotive plants, which will close by the end of the week. The interruption of production for the mentioned plants is currently planned to run until April 19, BMW CEO Oliver Zipse said. With the fresh announcement, BMW joins the league of Daimler, Renault, Volkswagen and Fiat to shut factory doors. The worlds largest carmaker Volkswagen Group said in a statement on March 17 that it will gradually suspend production at its European plants, which would also affect its components plants. The spread of coronavirus in Europe is increasingly harming the demand situation. At the same time, it is becoming increasingly difficult to supply outsourced parts to our plants, said Ralf Brandstatter, chief operation officer, Volkswagen Passenger Cars. Earlier in the week, Fiat Chrysler, PSA Group, and Renault had announced the closure of 35 manufacturing facilities across Europe as authorities imposed severe restrictions on travel and public life. The number of COVID-19 cases continues to rise in Europe, especially in Italy and Spain. In Italy alone, 475 deaths were reported on Wednesday. Similarly, automakers in the US are seen taking similar approach as there has been a sharp increase in the number of people getting infected by the virus. Around 10,000 Americans have been infected with coronavirus with the death toll topping 150. Honda said on Wednesday that it will shut down operations in all of its North American factories for six days due to an expected decline in the market, while Toyota said it will halt production at its North America facilities for two days. Earlier, US-based automakers Ford and General Motors had announced closing of their North American production units until at least March 30. In India, however, where the number of COVID-19 cases is reaching 200, automakers have announced measures as work-from-home and workplace hygiene. India story In India, automakers have announced measures like work-from-home and workplace hygiene. Work-from-home has been implemen-ted on a rotational basis... Employees have been sensitised on the importance of home quarantine to ensure maximum effectiveness The body temperature of all employees is monitored at the entrance. TVS Motor Company had said. Tunisian President Kais Saied on Friday declared a nationwide, round-the-clock self-isolation of inhabitants to combat the spread of the novel coronavirus in the country, after an increase in confirmed cases. The start date and implementation of the self-isolation will be specified by the government later on Friday, the presidency told AFP. During the day, everyone should stay home and only go out in cases of "extreme necessity", Saied said in a televised address. Tunisia has so far reported 54 confirmed cases of the COVID-19 disease and one death. The North African country has already closed its borders and imposed a curfew from 6:00 p.m. to 6:00 a.m. (1700-0500 GMT) in an effort to stave off the epidemic sweeping the globe. Movement between regions has also been banned except for cases with a "legitimate reason", the president said. Supermarkets will be closed but shops and convenience stores will be supplied, he added. Saied also announced the closure of industrial areas with large numbers of employees. The United Church of God, an International Association, is active on every inhabited continent. We invite any and all to join us online...God is indeed a refuge for those who seek Him. The safety and well-being of our members and families comes first, so we have adopted an expanded online format for our church services on the weekly Sabbath, said Victor Kubik, president of the United Church of God, an International Association. This will continue for the next several weeks, allowing the time needed for this coronavirus crisis to safely abate. We invite any and all to join us online on Saturdays at 2:30 p.m. EDT, he continued. Although I know all of our members in hundreds of congregations worldwide would prefer to worship and fellowship in person, this online church service gives us all an opportunity to be united together regardless of national borders or inability to travel. The United Church of God is also exploring opportunities for online hymn sings and songs of praise. The URL for the global online service is https://www.ucg.org/webcast. We consider these positive actions to be biblical in nature, and remain supportive of our respective governments and public health departments in both their self-quarantine measures and setting aside a time of prayer to seek and honor God, Mr. Kubik said. God is indeed a refuge for those who seek Him. The church first suspended services in the United States and international areas on March 14. Steve Myers, a host of the Beyond Today television program and local Cincinnati pastor, delivered the online sermon from the churchs home office. Interested people can also access a wide variety of archived sermons from United Church of God ministers and presentations of the Beyond Today television program at https://www.ucg.org/. Search for topics online. Local congregations of the United Church of God in cities around the world will also be making arrangements for online worship services and opportunities to worship together for the Christian Passover and the contemporary observation of the Days of Unleavened Bread from a New Testament Christian perspective. Observing these days is critically important to us, as we mark the death and sacrifice of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ as our Passover lamb, said Mr. Kubik. We as modern day disciples of Jesus Christ follow the admonition of the apostle Paul, as he instructed the disciples living in the ancient Greek city of Corinth, Let us therefore celebrate the festival, not with the old leaven, the leaven of malice and evil, but with the unleavened bread of sincerity and truth (1 Corinthians 5:8, English Standard Version). Biblical scholars note that this statement referred to the Greek Christians in Corinth observing the Days of Unleavened Bread, a period of seven days where disciples of Jesus Christ remove leavened products and refrain from eating same. The puffing up nature of leaven is pictured as a metaphor for the process that leads to Christian sin, explained Mr. Kubik. During His ministry, Jesus Christ magnified the traditional Hebrew understanding of the Passover and high days, setting us an example. The annual Passover service will now be conducted by baptized members in their homes, with an option to link to a live webcast. The Passover service, which includes the taking of a small amount of wine and unleavened bread as the biblical symbols of the blood and sacrifice of Jesus Christ, will be conducted after sunset on Tuesday, April 7. The first Holy Day of the seven-day Festival of Unleavened Bread will take place on April 9, followed by a second Holy Day on April 15. Online services will be conducted on those days. The Church also changed its planned annual business meeting of church ministers at its General Conference of Elders (GCE) in early May, to a videoconference. Church GCE activities required by the Churchs Bylaws will be conducted online. About the United Church of God, an International Association: More information about the United Church of God is available at http://www.ucg.org . The Church publishes a Bible study guide titled Gods Holy Day Plan The Promise of Hope for All Mankind ,which describes the biblical foundation for the ancient Hebrew Holy Days in detail. The Church publishes the Beyond Today magazine and sponsors the weekly television program (now airing on WGN-America on Saturdays and Sundays) of the same name: Beyond Today . Actor Tom Hanks sister, Sandra Hanks Benoiton, has provided a health update on her sibling, after the actor and his wife, Rita Wilson, announced that theyd tested positive for the coronavirus. Hes not great, but still okay, she was quoted as saying by the Daily Mail. Hanks sister, who lives in Italy, another epicentre of the outbreak that has infected over 220000 people globally, said, I have communicated with my brother. Hes not great, but still okay. [Am I] shocked? No. Hes an actor, not a god [but] medical care in Australia is good. Hanks and his wife, Rita Wilson, were discharged from hospital recently, and are currently in quarantine in a rented house in Australia. The actor had made his diagnosis public in a social media post on March 11. Hed written, Hello, folks. @ritawilson and I are down here in Australia. We felt a bit tired, like we had colds, and some body aches. Rita had some chills that came and went. Slight fevers too. To play things right, as is needed in the world right now, we were tested for the Coronavirus, and were found to be positive. Some days later, he provided an update. Hanks wrote, Hey folks. Good News: One week after testing Positive, in self-isolation, the symptoms are much the same. No fever but the blahs. Folding the laundry and doing the dishes leads to a nap on the couch. Bad news: My wife @ritawilson has won 6 straight hands of Gin Rummy and leads by 201 points. Also read: Tom Hanks offers advice to fans from coronavirus isolation, treats himself to Australian Vegemite Hanks sons, Chet and Colin, had also shared health updates on social media. Colin had written, We are so grateful for the outpouring of support from everyone. My parents are receiving excellent care in Australia and are doing well (and in good spirits) given the circumstances. Despite the fact that Im in LA and havent seen them in over three weeks, we have been in constant contact and am confident that they will make a full recovery. Several celebrities have since tested positive for the virus, including Game of Thrones actors Indira Varma and Kristofer Hivju, Idris Elba, Olga Kurylenko, Daniel Dae Kim, and others. Follow @htshowbiz for more Five days ago Rebecca Taylor was living her dream - she worked in London and travelled around Europe in her spare time. Now, she's among the scores of Australian expats who have had their lives uprooted in an instant and been left jobless by the coronavirus pandemic. On Tuesday morning, the 23-year-old woke to the news that the federal government was calling for all Australians abroad to come home. She immediately resigned from her job, packed up her life, and 24 hours later was en route home. Rebecca Taylor (pictured), 23, was forced to leave her life in London behind earlier this week after the Australian government demanded its citizens return home 'Most of my possessions are still in London. I could only bring back one suitcase,' she said. 'Because everyone was kind of in isolation before I left I didn't even get to say goodbye to people.' On the journey home passengers around her were wearing hazmat-like suits and goggles when she couldn't even find a mask. Unexpected temperature checks during her stop-over in Dubai had Ms Taylor worried she'd be detained there. But after a 'full-on' three days, Ms Taylor landed in Sydney on Thursday night. She's daunted by the uncertainty ahead of her, and in isolation in the Blue Mountains. 'I don't know when I'm going to be able to work again, there's no way of knowing when I'll be able to go back to London, no way of knowing when I'll get my stuff back.' Vancouver-based Australian Jonathan Bernardini is in a similar position. He was visiting Melbourne when Canada announced it would shut its borders. Mr Bernardini is now unable to return to his medical research job at the University of British Colombia. Foreigners have been left stranded as countries around the globe close their borders to curb the spread of coronavirus. Pictured is a line of travellers stuck at Sydney international on March 18, 2020 He's applying to the Canadian government for an exemption but isn't optimistic. 'Everything that I've got established in Canada - like paying bills, renting my apartment - all of those commitments are still ongoing but I can't work,' Mr Bernardini said. 'I'm pretty anxious about it. I'm holding out hope but it's kind of scary to have your career and your livelihood in the hands of a foreign government.' Given his specialised line of work, the 27-year-old fears he'll find himself unemployed in Australia and will have to move back in with his parents - along with another sibling in the same position. 'The worst-case scenario would be if the virus outbreak is not contained and I find myself in limbo.' Brazil on Thursday announced it was closing land borders and prohibiting entry to people from European and many Pacific Asian countries to prevent the spread of the coronavirus, as Mexico and Peru reported their first virus deaths. And Argentina said it would go on a "preventative and compulsory" lockdown from Friday until March 31 in an effort to contain the virus. Brazil's Rio de Janeiro state also said it would bar people from its world famous beaches including Copacabana and Ipanema. Chile, rocked by months of social protests, unveiled an $11.75 billion economic stimulus package to cope with the effects of the virus on the giant copper producer, but also announced it was postponing a referendum on changing its constitution. Meanwhile, a plane operated by Spanish carrier Iberia sent to Ecuador to pick up stranded foreigners was prevented from landing at an airport in Guayaquil, which is under lockdown. Brazil said its two-week border closure would affect all neighboring countries, with the exception of Uruguay to the south, after shutting its border with Venezuela on Tuesday. Its new restrictions against travelers from Europe and the Asia Pacific are set to last 30 days, according to a ministerial decree. A man wears a face mask as he works at a market in Medellin, Colombia, on March 19, 2020 / AFP They apply to people coming from the European Union, Britain, Iceland, Norway and Switzerland, as well as China, Japan, South Korea, Australia and Malaysia who are not Brazilian residents or do not have valid work or family reasons to travel. Latin America's largest country, with a population of 210 million, has so far registered 621 cases of the coronavirus, with six deaths. Rio state governor Wilson Witzel said from Saturday he would close all beaches, bars and restaurants. He also announced a measure to cut transport links with other Brazilian states with reported virus cases, although that needs to be ratified by federal authorities. Mexico reported its first coronavirus death -- a 41-year-old man with diabetes who died on Wednesday in Mexico City. Mexico has recorded 118 virus cases. A Mexican federal judge meanwhile ordered President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador to take all preventative measures and necessary actions in order to detect infected persons in the country. Peru, which has a total of 234 confirmed cases, reported its first three deaths. - Chile stimulus plan- Chile's stimulus plan "will strengthen our ability to face the health, economic and social needs that the coronavirus pandemic is signifying and that will probably tend to worsen in the future," President Sebastian Pinera told a press conference. A woman walks near a board showing the health ministry slogan "Stay at Home" in Buenos Aires, Argentina on March 19, 2020 / AFP Senate speaker Adriana Munoz said the leaders of the main political parties had agreed to postpone the referendum on changing the dictatorship-era constitution from April 26 to October 25, to give the country time to deal with the virus. Health Minister Jaime Manalich announced a lockdown of Chile's Easter Island, saying no one could enter or leave the remote Pacific island for the next two weeks. Police meanwhile said they had foiled an attempted break-out from Chile's largest jail. Earlier this week, inmates from jails in Brazil and Venezuela managed to escape, motivated by fear that prisons are a breeding ground for the coronavirus. Chile has registered 342 cases of the virus to date. In Ecuador, Cynthia Viteri, mayor of the country's second city Guayaquil, said she ordered vehicles to block the runway of the international airport to prevent the Spanish-operated plane from landing. The flight from Madrid, with only crew aboard, was able to land later in Quito. A woman disinfects the soles of her shoes before entering a supermarket during a break of the curfew imposed by the government against the spread of the new coronavirus, in the Honduran capital Tegucigalpa, on March 19, 2020 / AFP Ecuador has banned all flights since Monday to stop the spread of the coronavirus. Panama, which hosts Central America's busiest airport, and Colombia both said they were suspending all international air travel for a month from Monday. Colombia's President Ivan Duque said the shutout was necessary because some people who had entered the country had tried to avoid mandatory quarantine regulations. Colombia closed its land and sea borders on Tuesday. - Bogota confinement - A Honduran presidential guard soldier wears a face mask and gloves as he stands next to a sign reading For your health, 1 meter distance outside a supermarket in Tegucigalpa, on March 19, 2020 / AFP Bogota city hall said the capital's seven million people would face confinement from Friday to Monday as part of a trial run for a probable future quarantine. Other cities across Colombia, which has more than 100 cases of the coronavirus, were also under nighttime curfews. Meanwhile, Eduardo Bolsonaro, the lawmaker son of Brazil's president, joined US President Donald Trump in criticizing China over the pandemic, prompting demands from Beijing for an apology. China's embassy accused Bolsonaro of using "irresponsible words" and of having "caught a mental virus." burs-db-bc/bfm/mtp A photo of the late ophthalmologist Li Wenliang is seen with flower bouquets at the Houhu Branch of Wuhan Central Hospital in Wuhan in China's central Hubei province, Feb. 7, 2020. China has exonerated late whistleblowing doctor Li Wenliang, who was hauled in for questioning by police, who accused him of "spreading rumors" when he tried to alert the authorities about the emerging coronavirus epidemic in the central city of Wuhan. Police in Wuhan revoked a reprimand they issued to Li, who has since died from COVID-19, and apologized to his family for their treatment of him, official media said. Li, an ophthalmologist at Wuhan Central Hospital, had shared information from a patient's medical records in a WeChat group on Dec. 30, showing signs of infection with a SARS-like coronavirus, the report said. Detained and reprimanded by police on Jan. 3 for spreading rumors, Li was among eight people to be detained and questioned in Wuhan over "rumor-mongering" around the new disease. "It turned out that the information they spread online alerting the public of the risks of people-to-people transmission was accurate," the Global Times newspaper, which has close ties to ruling Chinese Communist Party mouthpiece the People's Daily, said in its report on the probe. Investigators conducted face-to-face and phone interviews with Wuhan officials, party leaders, publicity officers, health experts and police, as well as the local internet censors, the paper said. "The probe's findings showed that Li did not deliberately intend to disturb public order in posting the information on WeChat," it said, adding that Li was still responsible for passing on the information "without verification." His employers, who were increasingly in the grip of the developing epidemic, spoke to Li, but didn't sanction him formally, the report said. Beijing-based rights lawyer Cheng Hai said the official attempt to make amends was largely cosmetic. "First, there is no ruling that the disciplinary punishment was illegal; second, there was no mention of the positive social impact of Li Wenliang's actions," Cheng said. "Third, there is no clear apportioning of accountability." Widespread public anger The report only said that the reprimand was "inappropriate," Cheng said. "Li Wenliang's actions were entirely lawful, and there was no legal basis for the reprimand whatsoever," he said. "Neither did they recognize that Li Wenliang's actions didn't endanger anyone, nor did they name who was responsible." A freelance journalist who gave only his surname Liu said the report was more of a response to widespread public anger at Li's treatment. "The Li Wenliang affair had a huge impact," Liu said. "If it had merely been a question of online opinion, the government might not have paid it much attention." He said the ruling Chinese Communist Party normally relies on censorship and total online deletion of negative comments when something goes wrong. "It wasn't until people started talking about protesting on the streets that they started scrambling to calm things down," Liu said. He said that since President Xi Jinping took power in 2012, his administration has become very tolerant of mistakes, but only among officials who prove their loyalty to the current leadership. "It doesn't matter how big of a mistake you make; if you loyally implement orders from on high, they will clear up any mess for you," Liu said. A psychologist surnamed Tan said the report was too little, too late. "There are still so many unanswered questions, such as what was the role played by the [Communist Party] secretary?" "The investigation team should have given a much more thorough account." In Washington, The U.S. Senate passed a resolution honoring Li. Dr. Li Wenliang tried to warn the world about the novel coronavirus, but the Chinese Communist Party stood in the way, said Republican Senator Senators Cory Gardner. We must ensure that this communicable and deadly virus is contained, and that means that the Chinese Communist Party must not be allowed to hide details of the coronavirus from its people and the world, he said. Reports that citizen journalists are still being silenced demonstrate that the Chinese government has not heeded his advice, said Democratic Senator Ed Markey. Tycoon still unaccounted for Li wasn't the last person to run afoul of the authorities after criticizing the government's response to the coronavirus epidemic. Chinese social media star and property tycoon Ren Zhiqiang is incommunicado, believed detained, after an article critical of the government's response to the emergence of the coronavirus in Wuhan appeared online. The article was attributed to one "Ren Zhiqiang," but RFA was unable to verify whether he wrote it. The article, titled "The lives of the people are ruined by the virus and a seriously sick system," doesn't mention President Xi, but it takes aim at decisions made under his direct command, nonetheless, including the decision to go ahead with a mass Lunar New Year banquet for thousands of people that resulted in a huge cluster of COVID-19 cases in the weeks that followed. "The emperor is holding up a piece of cloth, trying to cover up the fact that he is wearing no clothes at all, although his ambition to be a strong leader is naked enough," the article quipped. "No criticism of the mass assembly of 170,000 people has emerged, and the truth has never been uncovered, nor the cause of the outbreak discovered," the article said. "The covert propaganda around the decisions made during the Wuhan coronavirus epidemic will only deceive those who are willing to be deceived," it said. "It won't mend those families broken by ... lost loved ones." The article also took issue with the accusation by police that Li and his seven colleagues were "rumor-mongering." Xi has ordered China's media to follow the party line, focus on "positive reporting", and "speak the party's will and protect the party's authority and unity" when reporting on COVID-19. Reported by Han Jie for RFA's Mandarin Service, and by Lau Siu-fung and Man Hoi-tsan for the Cantonese Service. Translated and edited by Luisetta Mudie. A principal says she is heartbroken at having to close the doors to her pupils and asked parents to be patient with teachers as they are reacting to advice by the hour. Lesley Mawhinney, head of Maghera Primary School, will say goodbye to pupils this week and still does not know when the doors will reopen. It is a similar story all across the province following the announcement that schools will close from Monday as the fight to control the spread of coronavirus is stepped up. "We need parents to be patient. We don't have all the answers yet. As soon as we know, they'll know," she said. Around two-thirds of the usual 97 pupils attended the school yesterday, with staff still trying to put final preparations for remote learning in place. "I can't deny it has been stressful. What's most important is that we look after the children, especially the younger ones who don't know exactly what's going on. We would urge parents not to panic them," she said. "Mental health is vital and keeping children in routines and not alarming them is crucial. "We're really feeling for the P7 pupils. They're going to miss out on the fun things together at the end of term. Today is really the end of their primary school lives and it's such a rushed, sad way to end." Share this article Whatsapp Facebook Twitter Linkedin Dyaning Pangestika (The Jakarta Post) Jakarta Fri, March 20, 2020 17:52 663 7f440ff09e92db75a02bbad206c45609 1 National ARV,HIV-drug-shortages,IAC,COVID-19,COVID-19-in-Indonesia,health-ministry,coronavirus Free Civil society groups assisting HIV patients in the country have urged the Health Ministry to pay attention to the supply of antiretroviral (ARV) drugs for such patients, who have been affected by the global COVID-19 outbreak. The Health Ministry should think about how COVID-19 affects ARV drug availability, Indonesia AIDS Coalition executive director Aditya Wardhana said in a statement on Friday. The ministry has purchased the drugs from India using a grant from the Global Fund. However, the shipments are expected to be delayed since the airline assigned to deliver the drugs to Indonesia has canceled its flight for the past two weeks because of the pandemic. There is no guarantee that the airline will resume operations after two weeks. If the ministry decides to use another airline, they should make sure that the documents are taken care off, so the customs office wont hold them up from entering the country, he said. Read also: Lengthy AGO investigation blamed for ARV shortage In the meantime, the government had only started ARV drugs procurement using the state budget. However, the National Public Procurement Agency (LKPP) has yet to reveal who is the tender winner for the project. Even if they announce the bid winner, we will face a similar obstacle since the medicine still needs to be imported from India, said Aditya. The activist demanded the Health Ministry start identifying necessary medicines for both the AIDS rehabilitation program as well as the general public, and ensure their availability. Authorities need to gather all stakeholders to gain insights, as well as to map the potential COVID-19 effect on medicine supplies in Indonesia. This way, the government will know which medicine can be produced locally and which should be imported from other countries. Read also: Tackling HIV stigma amid LGBT+ moral panic The government should also cooperate with the Indonesian Medical Association to promote the rational use of medicine in order to save available supplies. The government should use this opportunity to fix its roadmap to strengthen the local pharmaceuticals industry so it will stop depending on imported medicines, Aditya added. HIV patients in Indonesia have recently decried the shortages of ARV drugs, which are provided for free by the Health Ministry. The ministry procures the drugs through importers PT Kimia Farma and PT Indofarma. It is the second time in the past two years that supplies have been depleted at hospitals and clinics, forcing patients to make adjustments that may risk their health. 18.9k SHARES Facebook Twitter Whatsapp Pinterest Reddit Print Mail Flipboard Rachel Maddow called out Donald Trump and Mike Pence on Thursday for straight up lying to the American people by claiming that medical masks are widely available for doctors and nurses on the front lines of the coronavirus pandemic. The vice president today at the White House and the president both gave a very cheery presentation about how millions of masks are available, the MSNBC host said. Everythings fine with the masks. Yeah, millions of masks coming online. Yeah, ask at the hospitals, she said. Maddow gave a rundown of how medical professionals all across the country are being forced to use tainted or expired masks while treating patients, all as the Trump administration says theres no problem at all, nothing to see here. Video: Rachel Maddow calls out Trump and Pence for lying about the availability of life-saving medical equipment. #ctl #p2 #maddow pic.twitter.com/EMsBDQs1TX PoliticusUSA (@politicususa) March 20, 2020 Maddow said: The vice president today at the White House and the president both gave a very cheery presentation about how millions of masks are available. Everythings fine with the masks. Yeah, millions of masks coming online. Yeah, ask at the hospitals. Heres the headline in the New York Times tonight. Quote, it feels like a war zone. Doctors and nurses plead for masks on social media. Quote, as supplies have dwindled, doctors and nurses have improvised ways to make their stock last. An intensive care nurse in Illinois was told to make a single-use mask last for five days. An emergency room doctor in California said her colleagues had started storing dirty masks in plastic containers to use again later with different patients. A pediatrician in Washington state trying to make her small stock last has been spraying each mask with alcohol after use until the masks break down. Heres a second story on the same fricking problem. Doctors and nurses plead for masks and other equipment. Quote, the open cities community health center in St. Paul, Minnesota, is considering shutting its doors because of a dwindling supply of face masks. Doctors at Barnes Jewish Hospital in St. Louis have been forced to perform invasive procedures with loose-fitting surgical masks rather than the tight respirator masks recommended by health agencies. At one Los Angeles emergency room, doctors examining a suspected coronavirus patient were given a box of expired masks. When they tried to secure them to their faces, the elastic bands snapped. With cases soaring, doctors, nurses and other front-line medical workers across the U.S. are confronting a dire shortage of masks, surgical gowns and eye gear to protect them from the virus. At a White House briefing today, President Trump said millions of masks were in production and that the federal government had made efforts to address the shortages but he said that it was largely up to governors to deal with the problem. Trump cannot be trusted to manage this crisis In times of crisis, the American people deserve a president who will be honest with them about the challenges facing the country. After all, if you cant truthfully diagnose a problem, youll never be able to fix it. At every turn throughout this global health emergency, Donald Trump has sought to cover up the truth for his own personal benefit, whether it was downplaying the outbreak last month or gaslighting the country about medical masks earlier today. With a dishonest and incompetent president of the United States at the helm, the American people are flying completely blind through this crisis. Follow Sean Colarossi on Facebook and Twitter Political tectonic plates are shifting as progs like Ilhan Omar start praising Trump's crisis management (and as his polls rise). At first, the growing wave of praise for President Trump's handling of the coronavirus catastrophe seemed like pigs flying, an unexpected and rare event. But now that the governors of deep blue California and New York have been joined by Ilhan Omar in admiring his handling of the crisis, we can see that forces far larger than individuals going rogue from Trump Derangement Syndrome are at work. TDS is being swamped by the reality of an existential crisis. Politics aside, this is incredible and the right response in this critical time. https://t.co/MUzGkAxNaO Ilhan Omar (@IlhanMN) March 19, 2020 The latest Harris polls show rising approval for the federal government's handling of the crisis: Conducted using a nationally representative sample of 2,050 Americans over two waves, March 1415 and March 17-18, the poll provided some quick feedback on how the public's perception can change overnight even as the government shifts its response to a crisis in which the news seemingly changes by the hour. Overall, both waves showed around 60% of Americans "satisfied" with how the federal government has handled the coronavirus crisis so far. Of the president's performance, 56% of the second wave approve of the way Trump has handled the COVID-19 crisis, with 44% disapproving. This is up five percentage points from the first wave, conducted only two days before. Meanwhile, Trump's overall approval jumped four percentage points between waves, from 49% to 53%. Democrat politicians have access to far more granular polling data that must show them that Americans want a strong leader in a time of mortal peril facing them and that President Trump is rising to the challenge of his office. The smarter ones among them may also understand that the nonstop carping, criticizing every move that Trump has made since taking office, has created cynicism and doubt about the sincerity of the continuous nitpicking. President Trump is not about to let them forget the wave of criticism denouncing his prescient ban on arrivals from China as racist, either, so they had better get on board and earn his favor, lest they be called out. REPORTER: "You did say a few days ago that you did have a sense that this was a pandemic that was coming. So why was the United States not prepared with more testing " TRUMP: "We were very prepared. The only thing we weren't prepared for was the media. The media has not treated it fairly. I will tell you how prepared I was, I called for a ban from people coming in from China long before anybody thought it was in fact, it was your network, I believe they called me a racist because I did that. It was many of the people in the room, they called me racist and other words because I did that, because I went so early. So when you say we weren't prepared, had I let these tens of thousands of people come in from China a day, we would have had something right now that would have been you wouldn't have even recognized it compared to where we are. How many people have passed away? How many people have died as of this moment? You could multiply that by a factor of many, many, many. So when you say that I wasn't prepared, I was the first one to do the ban. Now other countries are following what I did. But the media doesn't acknowledge that. They know it's true. They know it's true, but they don't want to write about it. Yeah, go ahead." The plain fact is that Americans rally behind their presidents when the nation is under attack, whether by a nation-state or a virus. In recent adult memory, President George W. Bush reaped such support. Those who appear to be hobbling the effectiveness of the president's response to such as a personal and lethal threat earn contempt from the majority, who want to pull together to overcome the threat that faces us as a people. Nothing unifies more powerfully than an external threat to the collectivity. When Ilhan Omar understands this, we can be sure that the message is sinking in for all but the thoroughly dysfunctional deranged (who are still numerous on the left, to be sure). It helps a lot that President Trump's management style is well adapted to crisis management in the face of an unprecedented threat full of unknowable factors. He is the very opposite of the traditional bureaucrat who appoints a task force and waits for a report on the best way to handle matters. His style is to identify the best people (in his eyes) and give them room to move quickly and monitor the results closely, making changes as the situation warrants. The top-down bureaucratic approach minimizes visible mistakes, at least when the situation is well understood, but at the cost of delay. And bureaucrats loathe being held responsible for mistakes, so they instinctively go for a strategy that minimizes personal liabilities. Trump, whose history includes a lot of scrambling to make, and then save, complex real estate deals, is comfortable with a looser, ad hoc approach, always trying to minimize the downside but unafraid to take calculated risks and rapidly act when events go south. And in his daily briefings with his team, he is unafraid to act and justify his actions on the basis of the best information available at the time, and then revise those decisions (such as his characterization of the seriousness of the threat) as data warrant. To my eyes, he also seems to be getting his sea legs as a presidential crisis leader, backing his team strongly (and receiving visible and effusive support back from them) while bringing along the public with them as they scramble to figure out together what is in the best interest of the nation. Seven and a half months, the amount of time until the nation votes, is an eternity in politics, and a lot can happen. But right now, President Trump is solidifying his role as our leader, who is doing his best to save his allies and his foes alike from a threat that could kill any or all of us. Photo credit: Grabien screen grab. To the annoyance of some shareholders, Banca Mediolanum (BIT:BMED) shares are down a considerable 53% in the last month. Indeed the recent decline has arguably caused some bitterness for shareholders who have held through the 36% drop over twelve months. Assuming nothing else has changed, a lower share price makes a stock more attractive to potential buyers. In the long term, share prices tend to follow earnings per share, but in the short term prices bounce around in response to short term factors (which are not always obvious). So, on certain occasions, long term focussed investors try to take advantage of pessimistic expectations to buy shares at a better price. One way to gauge market expectations of a stock is to look at its Price to Earnings Ratio (PE Ratio). Investors have optimistic expectations of companies with higher P/E ratios, compared to companies with lower P/E ratios. View our latest analysis for Banca Mediolanum How Does Banca Mediolanum's P/E Ratio Compare To Its Peers? We can tell from its P/E ratio of 5.29 that sentiment around Banca Mediolanum isn't particularly high. The image below shows that Banca Mediolanum has a lower P/E than the average (8.2) P/E for companies in the diversified financial industry. BIT:BMED Price Estimation Relative to Market, March 20th 2020 Its relatively low P/E ratio indicates that Banca Mediolanum shareholders think it will struggle to do as well as other companies in its industry classification. Many investors like to buy stocks when the market is pessimistic about their prospects. It is arguably worth checking if insiders are buying shares, because that might imply they believe the stock is undervalued. How Growth Rates Impact P/E Ratios P/E ratios primarily reflect market expectations around earnings growth rates. If earnings are growing quickly, then the 'E' in the equation will increase faster than it would otherwise. Therefore, even if you pay a high multiple of earnings now, that multiple will become lower in the future. And as that P/E ratio drops, the company will look cheap, unless its share price increases. Story continues Banca Mediolanum's earnings made like a rocket, taking off 121% last year. Having said that, if we look back three years, EPS growth has averaged a comparatively less impressive 13%. Remember: P/E Ratios Don't Consider The Balance Sheet Don't forget that the P/E ratio considers market capitalization. So it won't reflect the advantage of cash, or disadvantage of debt. The exact same company would hypothetically deserve a higher P/E ratio if it had a strong balance sheet, than if it had a weak one with lots of debt, because a cashed up company can spend on growth. Such expenditure might be good or bad, in the long term, but the point here is that the balance sheet is not reflected by this ratio. How Does Banca Mediolanum's Debt Impact Its P/E Ratio? Banca Mediolanum has net cash of 453m. This is fairly high at 15% of its market capitalization. That might mean balance sheet strength is important to the business, but should also help push the P/E a bit higher than it would otherwise be. The Verdict On Banca Mediolanum's P/E Ratio Banca Mediolanum has a P/E of 5.3. That's below the average in the IT market, which is 12.2. The net cash position gives plenty of options to the business, and the recent improvement in EPS is good to see. The relatively low P/E ratio implies the market is pessimistic. Given Banca Mediolanum's P/E ratio has declined from 11.3 to 5.3 in the last month, we know for sure that the market is more worried about the business today, than it was back then. For those who prefer invest in growth, this stock apparently offers limited promise, but the deep value investors may find the pessimism around this stock enticing. When the market is wrong about a stock, it gives savvy investors an opportunity. As value investor Benjamin Graham famously said, 'In the short run, the market is a voting machine but in the long run, it is a weighing machine. So this free report on the analyst consensus forecasts could help you make a master move on this stock. But note: Banca Mediolanum may not be the best stock to buy. So take a peek at this free list of interesting companies with strong recent earnings growth (and a P/E ratio below 20). If you spot an error that warrants correction, please contact the editor at editorial-team@simplywallst.com. This article by Simply Wall St is general in nature. It does not constitute a recommendation to buy or sell any stock, and does not take account of your objectives, or your financial situation. Simply Wall St has no position in the stocks mentioned. We aim to bring you long-term focused research analysis driven by fundamental data. Note that our analysis may not factor in the latest price-sensitive company announcements or qualitative material. Thank you for reading. Madhya Pradesh Assembly Speaker N P Prajapati accepted the resignation of the remaining 16 MLAs loyal to former Congress leader Jyotiraditya Scindia on late Thursday night. The development comes hours after the Supreme Court directed to hold a floor test in the Madhya Pradesh Assembly by 5 pm on Friday. "I have accepted the resignation of the 16 MLAs who have filed petition in the Supreme Court. Based on what they have stated there, I am accepting resignation of these 16 MLAs also," Prajapati told reporters. The Speaker had earlier accepted the resignations of six ministers who had resigned from their membership. Meanwhile, Assembly's principal secretary A P Singh said that a special session of the house as per the directives of the Supreme Court will be held from 2 pm on Friday and will conclude by 5 pm. In the 230-member Madhya Pradesh Assembly, the actual strength of the house at present is 228 as two seats are lying vacant. With the resignation of 16 more MLAs, the strength of Congress has come down to 92 from 108. Earlier, six ministers had resigned which brought down the ruling party's strength from 114 to 108. On the other hand, the Bharatiya Janata Party has 107 members in the House. However, the BJP had paraded 106 legislators before the governor on Monday as one of its MLAs, Narayan Tripathi, was absent and seen with the Congress legislators after the assembly proceedings. The Bahujan Samaj Party has two members in the House while the Samajwadi Party has one besides four independents. All these MLAs -- BSP, SP and independents -- had extended their support to the Congress during the formation of the government in 2018. In the renewed situation, the majority mark is 104. Source: Xinhua| 2020-03-20 21:01:06|Editor: huaxia Video Player Close HONG KONG, March 20 (Xinhua) -- Hong Kong's Centre of Health Protection (CHP) reported 48 new confirmed COVID-19 cases on Friday, the highest number for a single day since the outbreak of the virus. The new cases have brought Hong Kong's total number of confirmed COVID-19 cases to 256. The 48 newly diagnosed patients, aged between four to 69 years old, include 23 females and 25 males, Head of the CHP's Communicable Disease Branch Chuang Shuk-kwan said at a daily press briefing on Friday afternoon. Among them, 36 people had overseas travel history during the incubation period, including a four-year-old girl who had traveled to Britain with her father, some members of a tour group to Canada, a female flight attendant who had been to Indonesia and Britain, an athlete who had been to Europe for training, and eight students who were studying in countries such as Britain, Canada and the United States. The confirmed cases also include a domestic helper who developed symptoms of the disease after arriving in Hong Kong from the Philippines on March 12, and an Australian national who felt unwell during transfer at the Hong Kong airport and was sent to a hospital in Hong Kong. Among the rest of the new patients, some are close contacts of previously diagnosed cases, and four are related to two chain fitness gyms. A taxi driver is one of the few patients who had no travel history during the incubation period. Initial investigations show that the driver often picked up passengers at the airport. The CHP will trace possible close contacts of him, Chuang said. Hong Kong has seen in recent days an increasing number of imported COVID-19 cases as many travelers returned from overseas amid the global pandemic. With a large number of people expected to arrive at the Hong Kong International Airport from overseas in the coming days, two temporary test centers were established at the AsiaWorld-Expo and the North Lantau Hospital near the airport, and were put into use on Friday morning. Starting from Friday, people arriving in Hong Kong with upper respiratory symptoms will be sent to the test centers to receive viral tests and wait for the laboratory results. Linda Yu, chief manager of Hong Kong's Hospital Authority, said at the briefing that as of 3 p.m. local time 33 specimens have been collected from inbound travelers at the test centers and sent to laboratory for tests. Taipei, New Taipei seek to expand provision of 'quarantine hotels' ROC Central News Agency 03/19/2020 09:24 PM Taipei, March 19 (CNA) Taipei and New Taipei cities are in talks with a number of local hotels to become "quarantine hotels" serving those required to undergo quarantine, after the four current hotels became fully booked following the introduction of new border controls amid the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic. Commissioner Liu Yi-ting () of Taipei's Department of Information and Tourism said the capital city's three existing "quarantine hotels" are fully booked. The city government is in talks with more hotel operators to encourage them to join the initiative, Liu added. Meanwhile, New Taipei City government said the one quarantine hotel contracted by the city is also full and it is looking to sign contracts with more hotels to meet increased demand. In the meantime, the city encourages those who need to undergo quarantine to do so at home, said a New Taipei city press release. If individuals are concerned that staying at home could expose family members living under the same roof to the risk of infection, both Taipei and New Taipei government said they will offer subsidies and discounts to family members should they choose to stay at a hotel during the two-week period. According to Taipei Deputy Mayor Huang Shan-shan (), the city will offer a maximum NT$7,000 (US$227.9) subsidy for family members who choose to stay at a hotel. New Taipei City said it will ask hotels in the city to offer families who stay there a 50-70 percent discount when a family member is under compulsory quarantine. Taipei and New Taipei initiated their "quarantine hotel" project in February and early March to house individuals who are required to undergo quarantine but do not have a place to stay in Taiwan or do not want to stay in their own homes. Operators who sign with the two local governments to become quarantine hotels have to first pass required screenings by the health authorities. The two cities said the rising demand is due to the central government's announcement that starting Thursday, all incoming passengers, whether Taiwanese or foreign nationals, are required to be quarantined at home for 14 days regardless of which country or territory they arrive from, as part of the nation's preventative measure to stop the spread of COVID-19. (By Liang Pei-chi, Sunrise Huang and Joseph Yeh) Enditem/AW NEWS LETTER Join the GlobalSecurity.org mailing list Enter Your Email Address By Baek Byung-yeul SK hynix will work on reducing semiconductor production costs to respond to growing market uncertainties sparked by the coronavirus outbreak, its CEO Lee Seok-hee said Friday. Sharing this year's business plan with investors, Lee said the company, which mainly sells DRAM and NAND flash memory chips, will concentrate on "building up muscle" by pursuing low production costs and raising asset efficiency. "The year of 2020 was expected reduce the inventory burden and see a demand recovery centering on demand from servers and mobile devices, but uncertainties are looming large as the market has been affected by the spread of the coronavirus," Lee told shareholders during the annual meeting at its headquarters in Icheon, Gyeonggi Province. Lee said the company will try to launch DRAM and NAND flash chips in 2020 that it finished developing last year to cut production costs. It will also improve product quality management to expand market volume and optimize its investment portfolio to raise asset efficiency. SK hynix completed development of a 16-gigabit DDR4 DRAM on the third-generation 10 nanometer production process last year, improving competitiveness. The company also started mass producing 128-layer 4D NAND flash memory chips last year. To produce NAND chips with higher density, SK hynix incorporated peri under cell (PUC) technology that stacks peripheral circuits under the cell into the charge trap flash (CTF) structure, which is commonly used to produce 3D NAND chips. During the meeting, shareholders voted to reelect Lee as a director and Park Jung-ho, CEO of SK Telecom, as board chairman. Shin Chang-hwan, a Sungkyunkwan University professor, was also reappointed as a director. Han Ae-ra, a law professor at Sungkyunkwan University, was named as a new director. Their terms expire in March 2023. Amid concerns over the spread of the coronavirus, SK hynix restricted the entry of non-shareholders and conducted temperature screening at the entrance. It also advised shareholders to wear face masks. To follow social distancing guidelines, the company left spaces between seats. Nepali Prime Minister KP Sharma Oli on Friday announced a number of prohibitive measures including suspension of incoming international flights to Nepal and long-distance transport operation amid COVID-19 outbreak, Trend reports citing Xinhua. In an address to the nation on Friday evening, the prime minister announced that all the incoming international flights to Nepal have been suspended from March 22 to March 31 and all the long-haul transportation services have also been halted from March 23. This is the second round of restrictions announced by the Nepali government after deciding on Wednesday to close down the schools, shopping malls, cinema halls while banning the assembly of more than 25 people at a place. Nepali government had banned all incoming passengers from Europe, the Gulf, West Asia and Iran from March 20 to April 15 on Wednesday. Nepal has so far reported a single COVID-19 infection. The Nepali prime minister said that all the services except essentials ones been suspended in all the public, community and private service providing agencies from March 22 to April 3. Nirbhaya: Only two convicts wrote a will, one wanted to donate paintings, another his body Nirbhaya: The drop at the gallows explained India oi-Vicky Nanjappa New Delhi, Mar 20: The four convicts in the Nirbhaya gangrape and murder case will be hanged in a short while from now. The jail authorities have procured 8 sets of Manila ropes. While four of them would be used the rest are being kept on standby. Dummy hangings were undertaken today in presence of the officials on Wednesay. The hanging had been postponed twice after the convicts decided to exercise further legal rights. Nirbhaya: The final moments before a hanging The drop: While the preparation of the rope is crucial another factor that is taken into consideration is the weight of the convict. The weight is important since it is on this basis that the drop is decided. If the prisoner weighs less than 100 lbs. or 45 kgs, he should be given a drop of 8 feet or 2.5 mtrs. If the prisoner weighs 45 to 60 kgs, he should be given a drop of 7 feet 8 inches or 2.3 mtrs. If the prisoner weighs more than 133 lbs. or 60 kgs, but not more than 166 lbs. or 75 kgs, he should be given a drop of 7 feet or 2.2 mtrs. If the prisoner weighs more than 166 lbs. or 75 kgs. but not more than 200 lbs. or 91 kgs, he should be given a drop of 6 feet 6 inches or 2 mtrs. If the prisoner weighs more than 200 lbs. or 91 kgs, he should be given a drop of 6 feet 1.83 mtrs. For Breaking News and Instant Updates Allow Notifications Story first published: Friday, March 20, 2020, 5:28 [IST] Videos reveal filthy facilities and conditions so bad that people are protesting against the government keeping them there. Pakistan has closed one of its main border crossings with India and all exits to and from Afghanistan to contain the coronavirus outbreak. But there is anger over unhygienic conditions in quarantine centres and a shortage of doctors in government facilities. Hospitals do not have enough resources and there are fears Pakistans fragile health system is ill-equipped to deal with the coronavirus outbreak. Al Jazeeras Priyanka Gupta reports. Abby Reign, a Grant native, has kicked off her professional music career by releasing her debut single, Louder. Abby Thurin, now performing under the stage name Abby Reign, grew up in Grant, but has spent a lot of her life traveling. She has now settled in Nashville, Tennessee, which she calls the biggest small town you could have, since everybody seems to know one another. She has had a passion for music and expressing herself through artistic outlets her whole life. One of the places she remembers singing first is the Methodist Church in Grant. Another creative outlet that inspired her as a child was her frequent participation in the Missoula Childrens Theatre in Ogallala, which is making its way to Grant for the first time this year. Abbys parents are both musicians themselves. She sings, like her mother, and has played percussion instruments like her father. Up until she attended college, Abby was self-taught, but during her years at Midland University in Fremont she received formal music training. She had a double major in business arts management with an emphasis in performance and marketing. Other than making music, Abby currently works in customer care on social media for Smile Direct Club. Gov. Greg Abbott today signed several directives Thursday that limit social gatherings to no more than 10 people, close all schools and restrict bars and restaurants until at least April 3. All public schools in Montgomery County have already closed until at least April 10 New Caney ISD has closed until April 19 hoping to have kids back in class by April 13. Leaders will meet again on April 6 to determine if that is still the best course of action. For many districts, today was the first day of classes starting outside of the classroom. For students with access to the internet classes have been moved online. Along with closing schools, Abbotts executive orders are that people should avoid social gatherings of more than 10 people; avoid bars, restaurants, gyms and massage parlors except for pick-up, drive-through, delivery options; and to avoid nursing homes and retirement or long-term care facilities except to provide critical assistance. We fully support the Governors decision to temporarily close schools statewide, said TEA Commissioner Mike Morath in a press release. As we continue to prioritize the health and safety of all communities across Texas, we are working around the clock to ensure that our school districts have the instructional guidance they need so that students can successfully pursue their studies at home. The TEA has created an Instructional Continuity Task Force to ensure all school systems have access to the resources they need to support instruction remotely, whether low-tech or high-tech, Morath said. Districts are working in a number of ways to address the internet access gap. Splendora ISD sent a survey out to all district families to figure out who had internet, and the technology to utilize it. For some families, technology is being provided to students to complete their work. A similar task force has also been set up for Special Education to help school systems adapt to supporting students who are in Special Education while they are learning at home. The State of Texas is at a pivotal moment in our response to COVID-19, and it is imperative that we act now on preemptive measures to slow the spread of this virus, Abbott said in a release. Todays executive orders are precautionary measures that are in line with guidelines from the CDC and they will strengthen Texas ability to safeguard our communities and respond to COVID-19. As Texans we must continue to work collaboratively to slow the spread of this virus and protect public health. jamie.swinnerton@chron.com The state of Michigan is reporting three confirmed cases of coronavirus in Midland County as well as 549 confirmed cases in Michigan and three deaths. The new numbers were released Friday afternoon. Though Community Mental Health for Central Michigan (CHMCM) has not seen an uptick in the number of people seeking mental health services during the coronavirus pandemic, the amount of people accessing these services remains steady. Deana Mason, program director for Community Mental Health for Central Michigan Midland, said normal office hours are still being observed, however, individuals should call the office at 989-631-2320 prior to visiting. All in-person visits require a screening, which consists of a few questions. In addition, many services are now being provided via a telehealth system, which is done over the phone. Services currently being done by phone to mitigate the risk of spreading the coronavirus include supported employment, home-based services, outpatient therapy services, health services, autism and childrens waiver services, and case management/supports coordination. CMHCM is a six-county mental health service provider for Clare, Gladwin, Isabella, Mecosta, Midland and Osceola counties. Last year, the organization serviced more than 12,500 individuals, 2,664 of which were in Midland. We believe we can maintain that volume through a combination of remote and in-office services Mason said. We will continue to meet the demand for Michigans most vulnerable citizens while working in collaboration with all jurisdictions of law enforcement, prosecutors office, courts, jails, public health, emergency responders, Department of Health and Human Services, and other coordinating bodies. CMHCM offers a 24/7 crisis line to all residents living in the six previously mentioned counties and who are experiencing a mental health crisis. To reach the crisis line, call 800-317-0708. For more information, visit www.cmhcm.org/ Family and Children Services Just like most other places, Family and Children Services of Mid-Michigan is screening clients, and limiting who can accompany clients, however, the building is still open for normal business hours. Located at 1714 Eastman Avenue in Midland, the private nonprofit offers services such as therapy to assist with addiction, trauma, depression, anxiety and abuse, help managing mental health, family counseling, couples therapy, and more. The organization has posted about its response to the coronavirus on its website. It states, per Gov. Gretchen Whitmers order, only the client being seen will be allowed entrance into the facility. If medical assistance is required, visitors will be limited to one per client. A minor child shall be accompanied by a parent or guardian, however no other siblings will be allowed in the building. The organization offers many clients services via telephone and is working toward additional options in offering telehealth. Anyone interested in receiving services without coming to the building, can call 989.631.5390. We will continue our graduated response as it becomes necessary and modify our delivery of services as possible. We appreciate your understanding as we strive to reduce risks for all of our clients and staff. Partners in Change Partners in Change: Psychological & Community Services, PLC, is currently providing mental health services to residents in the safety of their own homes, and is working to help clients who might have financial hardships. Over the past year, the private practice has developed its teletherapy capabilities and is able to serve the public with more than 20 clinicians online. Teletherapy is conducted using secured video conferencing. However, if you dont have internet access or a computer, therapy can also be conducted over the telephone. Not only is this a critical method for delivering service in this time of crisis, but recent studies have proven these delivery methods are highly effective, an announcement from Partners in Change states. The clinic is staffed by experienced professionals with expertise in a variety of treatments to address concerns such as family stress, anxiety, anger, and depression. They also help all ages and are in-network with most insurance companies. According to co-owner Ann Date, they are willing to serve for discounted fees as much as possible, and she and her husband have forgone their salaries and their clinicians have taken a 10% pay reduction in order to help serve a few clients at lower costs. However, because they do not receive government grants or money, there is a limit to discount. During this time of uncertainty, if there is a financial hardship, we will work with you and reduce rates when possible, Date said. Call 989-832-2165 or email partnersinchange@midmichpsych.com for more information. Or, visit https://www.psychologistsmidland.com/ Other resources For more information about local mental health services and help connecting to resources, call 2-1-1, or visit MiHopePortal (https://www.mihopeportal.com/#), which provides a list of resources available in the region for mental health and other needs. Nation-wide free and confidential resources include the Suicide Prevention Lifeline 1-800-273-8255 and the Disaster Distress Helpline 1-800-985-5990. Midland County Department of Public Health continues to encourage residents to take precautions to prevent the spread of COVID-19: Continue to practice social distancing as recommended by federal, state and local officials Avoid touching your eyes, nose and mouth Cover your cough or sneeze with a tissue, then throw the tissue in the trash Disinfect commonly touched surfaces Stay home when you are sick Wash your hands often with soap and water for at least 20 seconds. If soap and water are not readily available, use an alcohol-based hand sanitizer with at least 60% alcohol. Two persons were killed and one injured when lightning struck them in Chhattisgarh's Surajpur district, police said on Friday. Two cattle also died in the mishap that took place at in Nayanpur village under Kotwali police station area on Thursday, an official said. "Sonia Singh (18) and Shyamwati Singh (16) were killed on the spot, while Sahindar Singh (14) sustained serious burn injuries," he said. The bodies of the deceased were sent for post-mortem, the official said, adding that the injured boy was undergoing treatment at Ambikapur Medical College hospital. A case has been registered in this regard, the official added. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) The current shutdown approach to controlling the spread of the Wuhan virus cant be sustainable (to borrow the cliche) for long. It is slow-motion suicide and, contrary to the old M*A*S*H theme song, its not painless (though it certainly brings on many changes). Costs have to be reckoned against benefits. Todays Wall Street Journal editorial Rethinking the Coronavirus Shutdown (excerpted below) expresses my own second thoughts about where we are now, right down to the question of sustainability: Financial markets paused their slide Thursday, but no one should think this rolling economic calamity is over. If this government-ordered shutdown continues for much more than another week or two, the human cost of job losses and bankruptcies will exceed what most Americans imagine. This wont be popular to read in some quarters, but federal and state officials need to start adjusting their anti-virus strategy now to avoid an economic recession that will dwarf the harm from 2008-2009. The vast social-distancing project of the last 10 days or so has been necessary and has done much good. Warnings about large gatherings of more than 10 people and limiting access to nursing homes will save lives. The public has received a crucial education in hygiene and disease prevention, and even young people may get the message. With any luck, this behavior change will reduce the coronavirus spread enough that our hospitals wont be overwhelmed with patients. Anthony Fauci, Scott Gottlieb and other disease experts are buying crucial time for government and private industry to marshal resources against the virus. Yet the costs of this national shutdown are growing by the hour, and we dont mean federal spending. We mean a tsunami of economic destruction that will cause tens of millions to lose their jobs as commerce and production simply cease. Many large companies can withstand a few weeks without revenue but that isnt true of millions of small and mid-sized firms. Even cash-rich businesses operate on a thin margin and can bleed through reserves in a month. First they will lay off employees and then out of necessity they will shut down. Another month like this week and the layoffs will be measured in millions of people. The deadweight loss in production will be profound and take years to rebuild. In a normal recession the U.S. loses about 5% of national output over the course of a year or so. In this case we may lose that much, or twice as much, in a month. The politicians in Washington are telling Americans, as they always do, that they are riding to the rescue by writing checks to individuals and offering loans to business. But there is no amount of money that can make up for losses of the magnitude we are facing if this extends for several more weeks. After the first $1 trillion this month, will we have to spend another $1 trillion in April, and another in June? By the time Treasurys small-business lending program runs through the bureaucratic hoopscomplete with ordering owners that they cant lay off anyone as a price for getting the loanmillions of businesses will be bankrupt and tens of millions will be jobless. But no society can safeguard public health for long at the cost of its overall economic health. Even Americas resources to fight a viral plague arent limitlessand they will become more limited by the day as individuals lose jobs, businesses close, and American prosperity gives way to poverty. America urgently needs a pandemic strategy that is more economically and socially sustainable than the current national lockdown. It was both Holi and Diwali, so to speak, in Nirbhaya's ancestral village of Medwara Kala here where her family members and locals gathered for celebrations after the hanging of the four men convicted of the heinous gangrape with her grandfather saying Friday marked a new beginning. "March 20 should be celebrated as 'Nirbhaya Diwas'. It is a new beginning. The convicts were more dangerous than the 'corona' and they are no more now," Nirbhaya's grandfather Lalji Singh said referring to the coronavirus outbreak. After the rape incident, we have not celebrated Holi or Diwali but we are celebrating both today, he remarked. "The accused would have been executed earlier had Delhi's AAP government not favoured a mercy petition. There should be a time-bound decision on women-related crimes," he said. Nirbhaya's uncle Suresh Singh along with other villagers chanted "Mil gaya, Nirbhaya ko nyay" (Nirbhaya got justice) and danced to tunes and played musical instruments while playing with colours. The village was abuzz with activity since early morning with media personnel reaching there to catch a glimpse of the celebrations following the execution. Mukesh Singh (32), Pawan Gupta (25), Vinay Sharma (26) and Akshay Kumar Singh (31) were executed in Tihar Jail in New Delhi at 5.30 am for the horrific assault in a moving bus on the 23-year-old physiotherapy intern who came to be known around the world as Nirbhaya, the fearless one. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) There has never been a week quite like this in New York City. Even after the September 11 attacks, Broadway shows were back and running by September 13. In my time here, the most comparable event is the 2007 Stagehands Strike, a labor dispute that saw Broadway shuttered for 19 days. But even during that, shows off- and off-off-Broadway played on. The coronavirus pandemic has resulted in a complete shutdown of New York's public venues, including gyms, restaurants, bars, and theaters. Urban life as I have always known it is indefinitely suspended. This Story of the Week reviews how the COVID-19 pandemic is rapidly changing the theater industry, assesses how this is impacting the community of artists, and asks the question on every fan's mind: When will theaters open again? The usually bustling TKTS booth in Times Square is shut down, with no tickets to sell. ( Tricia Baron) Are all of the theaters really shut down? Yes, although it didn't happen all at once. After New York Governor Andrew Cuomo announced last Thursday that all Broadway theaters would close, and that smaller houses would be limited to 50 percent capacity, most venues made the decision to end performances either immediately or over the weekend. A few off-Broadway shows like Harry Townsend's Last Stand and Stomp declared their intention to play on at half capacity, but by Monday that was out of the question following another proclamation by the governor. The financial impact of these closures won't be fully apparent for months, but it is clear that the eventual damage will be substantial. Theaters in New York and across the country have responded to this unprecedented loss of income by attempting to move their shows online. To help facilitate this, Actors' Equity (the union representing theatrical performers and stage managers), has made new streaming media agreements available to producers affected by the limitation of public gatherings. "These new streaming agreements help protect the economic security of Equity members with additional weekly salaries and health care contributions," said Equity executive director Mary McColl. While both unions and producers have in the past been hesitant to jump into the bold new world of streaming live theatrical performances, the coronavirus crisis has very quickly caused all parties to reassess their positions. While these streaming agreements are only meant to be temporary for the period of the outbreak, I suspect that should this experiment prove successful, it will lead to a relaxation of resistance to streaming in the future. How is the theater community coping? The can-do attitude Broadway performers and fans have brought to the COVID-19 pandemic is best encapsulated in the Broadway Hand Wash Challenge, which calls on people to donate to a theatrical charity while recording a video of themselves washing their hands for 20 seconds and singing a favorite showtune. Hundreds of people are participating, including big stars like Stephanie J. Block, James Monroe Iglehart, and Jelani Alladin. It's a real testament to the ability of the community to take a bad situation and turn it into something joyous and positive but really, what else would you expect from the culture that brought you Annie? While appreciating the optimism of beloved Broadway stars, we shouldn't lose sight of the fact that for so many emerging artists, the COVID-19 shutdown is a door slamming in their faces. Playwright Noelle Vinas (who helps manage TheaterMania's Gold Club) knows several artists who, faced with the prospect of indefinite unemployment in both the theater and in their side gigs as waiters, have made the difficult decision to move back in with their parents. Some of them are already reconciling with the notion of not returning to New York City. "There will be an exodus of emerging artists who will not return to New York, and that is deeply sad," she says. Vinas hopes that this crisis will force industry leaders to reconsider the way artists are compensated: "The industry has always played it close to the margins. Will this change the way that we create security for our artists? Will we start paying artists the minimum wage rather than stipends per project? How will this change the industry and will it?" The Richard Rodgers Theatre, home of Hamilton is closed until at least April 13. ( Tricia Baron) When can I see a Broadway show again? According to the statement released by the Broadway League last Thursday, theaters are slated to reopen the week of April 13. However, the latest CDC guidelines recommend the cancellation or postponement of all events with 50 people or more (that would include all but the tiniest shows in New York) for eight weeks. That would mean reopening the theaters the week of May 11 a date well past the originally scheduled Tony Awards cutoff (April 23) and the press openings of much of the spring season. Of course, all of that will have to be rescheduled. The League has already canceled its annual Spring Road Conference (scheduled for May 12-14), which invites presenters from across the country (many of them Tony voters) to New York to discuss what is happening on Broadway. All things considered, the prospect of Broadway reopening on April 13 feels increasingly unlikely. "We are currently in discussions about the most recent recommendations from the Center for Disease Control (CDC) and are prepared to follow the direction of any mandated closures from city, state, and health authorities," the Broadway League said in a statement. The word "mandated" strongly suggests that the only way Broadway will push back its April 13 reopening is if the government forces it to, a similar situation to how Broadway persisted until last Thursday, when Governor Cuomo shut things down. .@BorisJohnson has just doomed an entire industry by telling people not to attend the theatre. By not enforcing a shutdown, production insurance will not apply so producers and shows will go bankrupt, and tens of thousands of people will be without pay.@hmtreasury @DCMS Patrick Gracey (@PatrickGracey) March 16, 2020 While this government intervention may seem draconian, it is preferable to the alternative. Just look across the pond, where the West End remarkably stayed open until Monday, when Prime Minister Boris Johnson advised the British public to avoid public venues like pubs and theaters, but stopped short of mandating their closure. In response, the Society of London Theatre (the West End's version of the Broadway League) announced the closure of all of its member theaters that evening. The Times has labeled Johnson's wishy-washy statement "the kiss of death" for British theaters, who now face a period of indefinite closure and little guarantee of compensation for lost revenue. No one really knows when the theaters will open again, but they are going to need a lot of love to bounce back. The best thing you can do to help the theater community weather the pandemic is to stay engaged online, help financially support out-of-work artists as much as you can, and plan to return to the live theater as soon as the doors open again. Talbot said thats where community organizations like Beacon Place can step up and continue helping families in need. In recent days, BP members have been putting together three bags that families registered with the organization can pick up: one full of food, one full of academic supplies and one full of family games and crafts. In Kyiv, Vinnytsia, Dnipro, Cherkasy and the Yampolsky district, workers of the National Guard will conduct restrictive quarantine measures, as the press service of the National Guard of Ukraine reports. The Guards have already begun to serve in mobile and stationary posts. They control carriers regarding their compliance with quarantine restrictions. Also, the National Guard provides security at the observational facility near the Dnipro. Ukrainians who arrived from European countries are held there. They will be under the supervision of doctors for two weeks. In addition, the guards are located near the Oleksandrivsky Hospital in Kyiv, where they treat patients with complications from coronavirus. 10 Guards are involved in one shift. As we reported earlier, President of Ukraine Volodymyr Zelensky has urged the Ukrainians to observe the rules of the quarantine and not to go out without the necessity. Friends! Call your parents, your grandmothers and grandfathers. Bring them everything necessary. Order them online delivery of food and drugs. Teach them how to order such a delivery. Teach them to pay for municipal services online. Do everything to minimize their access to the street and contacts in the shops, banks, post offices. Ask them to stay at home, the president said. An emergency shipment airlifted from Dubai arrives in Chad, bringing blankets, jerry cans, mosquito nets, kitchen sets, solar lamps and other relief items for thousands of refugees who fled violence in Darfur, Sudan. UNHCR/Aristophane Ngargoune UNHCR, the UN Refugee Agency, airlifted 93.5 tonnes of emergency aid for Sudanese refugees in Chad from its Global Stockpile in Dubai on Thursday (March 19). The UNHCR-chartered Boeing 777 landed in the Chadian capital yesterday evening. Clashes in El Geneina, in Sudans West Darfur State, since December 2019 have forced more than 16,000 people, mostly women and children, to flee violence and cross into neighbouring Chad. They arrived exhausted, traumatized and often with signs of malnutrition. Most are staying in the open or under makeshift shelters, with little protection from the elements. Shelter, food, water and basic health care are urgently needed, as refugees are being relocated further away from the border, for safety and protection reasons. This latest influx brings the total number of Sudanese refugees in Chad to 360,000. Yesterdays airlift included 10,000 blankets, 12,000 jerry cans, 12,000 mosquito nets, 10,640 plastic buckets, 6,000 kitchen sets, 4,000 sleeping mats, 2,000 solar lamps and 2,000 plastic sheets, in addition to one ambulance vehicle. These emergency relief items are expected to respond to the humanitarian needs of some 10,000 refugees. The humanitarian charter flight, worth US$308,000, was organized by UPS through their team in Dubai and the transportation costs were fully covered by UPS. UNHCR is working around the clock to help people forced to flee their homes due to violence and persecution. This shipment will ensure thousands of vulnerable Sudanese families receive much-needed aid. We are grateful to UPS for its timely donation covering the transportation expenses, and the International Humanitarian City, global hub for humanitarian emergency preparedness and response in Dubai, for its continuous support. The UNHCR global stockpile in Dubai was established in 2006 and is our largest stockpile in the world. This facility has stocks of family tents and other shelter materials as well as blankets, kitchen sets and other relief items for more than 250,000 people. For more information on this topic, please contact: In Dakar, Romain Desclous, [email protected] , +221 786 396 385 , +221 786 396 385 In Dubai, Ola Anan, [email protected] , +971 50 621 3660 In Geneva, Babar Baloch, [email protected] , +41 79 513 9549 The Central Bureau of Investigation and the Enforcement Directorate have so far identified more than hundred shell companies floated by the family members of disgraced Yes Bank co-founder Rana Kapoor. CBI sources told Moneycontrol that these entities have been used by the bankers kin as vehicles for various financial manoeuvres and fund misappropriations. "Rana Kappor's family members have formed more than 102 companies in the last few years. They were used to build huge amounts of assets," the source said. The CBI and ED have traced the details of these companies through director identification numbers (DIN). According to another source, "Rana Kapoor's senior executive secretary Lata Dave affirmed this and said in her statement that these companies have been used only for buying properties and loans were taken from various financial institutions by pledging these assets." The ED earlier found details of 78 companies where Kapoor's family members had majority shareholding. Roshni Kapoor mentioned in her statement that "all financial transactions were handled by my father (Rana Kapoor), and we just looked after other operations of business". An ED source told Moneycontrol that he was surprised with the large number of companies created by such highly qualified bankers. In the initial probe, we have found dummy directors also on the boards of these companies," the person noted. Also Read: Yes Bank's journey from India's 7th largest bank stock to management crisis On March 13, the CBI registered a second case against Kapoor, his wife Bindu Kapoor, Bliss Abode and Avantha Realty in a case pertaining to purchase of one of the prime properties on Delhi's Amrita Shergill Marg. The agency alleged that Kapoor conspired with other accused named in the first information report (FIR) to purchase a bungalow on Amrita Shergill Marg by paying only Rs 378 crore through Bliss Abode Pvt Ltd (BAPL), where Kapoors wife was one of the two directors. Thereafter, the property was immediately mortgaged to Indiabulls Housing Finance Ltd for a loan of Rs 685 crore. Also Read: R Gandhi is rewarded with a second stint on Yes Banks board but why, ask bankers "Bindu Kapoor bought the prime property on 40, Amrita Shergill Marg through her company Bliss Properties Delhi Private Limited on account of a loan default by Avantha Realty. Yes Banks exposure to Avantha Realty was Rs 500 crore. Bliss bought this property by raising Rs 378 crore from Mumbai-based Indiabulls Housing," the CBI said. Moneycontrol had reported on March 11 that the real estate deal was under the ED scanner. Improper financial transactions Some legal experts point out that there is nothing illegal in floating many entities. "It is surprising that without completion of an investigation and the examination of money trails, offence of money laundering can be concluded or even alleged against anyone. Ownership of many companies directly or indirectly is not same as money siphoning. The law permits one to own companies without active business operations or significant assets for tax management purposes, for holding investments or other legitimate transactions. Financial Action Task Force (FATF) and various judgments of the Supreme Court of India provide legitimacy to many such companies," said Sumit Agrawal, Founder of Regstreet Law Advisors, and a former Sebi official. However, Amit Tandon, Managing Director of IIAS, a proxy advisory firm, told Moneycontrol: "In the past also, we have seen people maintaining a large number of companies to hide improper financial transactions. Like in the case of IL&FS fraud, more than 300 such companies were floated to hide financial deals. The investigation is now on the right track to find the reason for forming these companies". The CBI alleged that the purchase of a property in the charge of Yes Bank was not disclosed by Kapoor to Management Credit Committee (MCC) and the banks board. MCC, headed by Kapoor, had granted approval for issuance of NOC for the sale of the property. The agency said that since Kapoor was under an obligation to disclose his interest in BAPL and above transactions to the above committee and to the board of the bank, there was a situation of conflict of interest and related party transaction and a clear violation of the bank's code of conduct as well as the provisions of the Companies Act, 2013. However, after his arrest, Kapoor told Moneycontrol that he has informed about this deal to the board and the Reserve Bank of India and even the banking regulator approved of this deal. But a CBI source said that "Kapoor never informed the board about his indirect shareholding in the company". The Kapoor family-related firms took around Rs 2,035 crore loan from Indiabulls Housing Finance, including the BAPL loan, which is yet to be repaid. All these transactions are under the lens and the CBI has already started sending summons for interrogation. The CBI has also obtained a production warrant against Kapoor to produce him before the CBI court and seek his custodyThe agency will produce Kapoor in court and take custody from police. Since he is in judicial custody, getting custody from police needed court approval. Like the outbreak of wars and natural disasters, the coronavirus has proven to be a harsh test for leaders. Holding office has always been a double-edged sword in times of crisis. Fairly or not, the person in charge must take responsibility for the bad things that happen on his watch and accept the political consequences. But what happened in Israel during the first weeks of the coronavirus pandemic illustrates that challenges like these are also opportunities for incumbents. In the United States, it has primarily been Trump supporters who, at least up until last week, were expressing skepticism about the comparative seriousness of the pandemic. In Israel it has been just the opposite, with Netanyahus left-wing critics fuming about the way they think the prime minister has exploited the crisis for his own political advantage and voicing doubts about whether the actions hes taken to halt the spread of the virus are justified. Indeed, some of the measures that Netanyahu has implemented are debatable. What is not in question is that his pronouncements and decisive actions rallied the nation to view the crisis with requisite seriousness even as he seized the political initiative against his political opponents. The context for Israels attempt to deal with the pandemic is complicated. Israels political parties have been in an intractable parliamentary deadlock since the start of 2019. Netanyahu lost his majority in the Knesset when a political ally sought to topple him. What followed were three elections within the space of a year that failed to produce a majority for either Netanyahu and his Likud Party or Benny Gantz, the leader of the opposition Blue and White Party and a former chief of staff of the Israel Defense Forces. What has made this process so difficult is that, though the Likud and Blue and White largely agree on security and diplomatic issues, the opposition is animated by a desire to terminate the political career of a prime minister who is under indictment on three corruption charges. Story continues Under Israeli law, the failure of either Netanyahu or Gantz to cobble together a majority has left the incumbent prime minister in place as the leader of a caretaker government. And, though lacking a permanent-government mandate, leadership is just what Netanyahu has shown. Weeks before his ally in the White House began to realize that his public statements on the virus were handing the Democrats a wedge issue, Netanyahu was in full commander-in-chief mode, with frequent public appearances sounding the alarm about the public-health threat and ordering Israelis returning from abroad into quarantine. After eleven consecutive years in office, Netanyahu is seen by critics as a walking advertisement for term limits. But he is also showing the value of his experience in dealing with persistent military challenges from terrorist groups and regional foes. As the danger from the contagion became even more apparent, the prime minister not only spoke of it as an imminent peril but also put the full force of the state behind efforts to treat it as such. Rather than waiting to be compelled by events to order closings of public venues, Netanyahu acted quickly and in such a manner as to make it clear that Israelis needed to halt business as usual until the danger passes. Because the crisis emerged before the newly elected Knesset had organized committees to oversee government actions, Netanyahu was free to act with impunity. But while the Israeli public seems to be largely supportive of Netanyahus decisions, his political opponents have fumed on the sidelines. In a twist on the American situation, it is the Israeli Left that has been sounding notes of skepticism: They have objected to Netanyahus virus alarmism and questioned whether his orders to close the courts and for the police to enforce quarantines are compatible with democracy. As Chemi Shalev, a columnist for the leading left-wing newspaper Haaretz, put it, Netanyahu had capitalized on his countrys fear. Netanyahus coronavirus measures have become mixed up with the possible end of his tenure, via either parliamentary maneuvers or legal means. The closing of the courts a measure that was taken in most other nations as the virus spread for ten weeks was denounced by the opposition as a ploy to put off the start of his corruption trial, which would have begun later this month. In ten weeks time, presumably the danger to public health would have passed, so the closure further allows Netanyahu to focus on the imminent threat. When his critics protest the move, it is they, not he, who seem out of touch with the crisis. Netanyahus ordering of a national lockdown as an emergency measure goes as far as, if not farther than, any other nation facing the current crisis. But for a small nation that is, for the most part, densely populated, it is defensible. On the other hand, his decision to allow the countrys security services to electronically monitor the movements of those who have been ordered into quarantine does raise real concerns about the abridgment of civil liberties. Conspicuously, however, Gantz has not joined the choruses of laments about Netanyahus acting like a dictator. Before the crisis hit, Gantz appeared to be moving closer to agreeing to a unity coalition in which Netanyahu initially remained prime minister. Indeed, the former general largely agreed that the emergency measures were necessary, although he would have preferred that his rivals trial which will likely last many months and whose substantive proceedings would not have begun until the fall anyway begin as scheduled. Netanyahus tenure in office may ultimately be terminated if the courts uphold the charges against him. Few in Israel, except for dogged opponents on the Left, dispute his mastery of diplomatic and economic issues. While leaders elsewhere may flounder and seem unprepared or unable to rise to the challenge posed by a unique public-health crisis, Netanyahu has attempted to bolster the notion that Israel still needs himwhile using the opportunity to cement his control. More from National Review S chools, nurseries and childminders across the UK will shut from today until further notice due to the coronavirus pandemic. And unless parents are key workers - including NHS staff, police, social care workers or supermarket delivery drivers - they will almost certainly be working from home with children around all day. As one London mother, Hannah Lury, 38, who lives in Crouch End and is parent to Sammy, eight, and Dylan, five, summarised today: "It is impossible for me to supervise them properly and do all my work. It feels very uncertain and unmanageable. Many families regular out-of-school childcare options have fallen through. Ms Lury explained the family usually uses a childminder but she was in a social distancing dilemma so could not work. International school teacher on remote learning model UK schools may adopt So while most parts of the economy are being hit by this COVID 19 crisis, the closure of education establishments has prompted a surge in demand for inventive options - and Londons entrepreneurs are offering solutions for parents trying to home-school their offspring while on a business call. USE A LAST MINUTE FIND A NANNY NOW SERVICE Start-up Koru Kids, which has raised millions in seed funding, usually matches parents with flexible childcare to fill the after-school gap. It was founded in 2016 by former McKinsey consultant Rachel Carrell, who left her job in health tech to focus on solving the problem for families in the capital. Since the school closures announcement it has launched a new service, offering a Find a nanny now service for 0-12 year olds, where nannies living nearby will come to Londoners houses during the day so both parents can work from home uninterrupted. The service will let parents enter some details about their needs, and be shown all available nannies in their area. The start-ups three staff teachers will lead a programme sending the apps nannies activity ideas daily and give tips on how to support schoolwork, whether online or activity sheets, and how to help children stay on task. Gavin Williamson: All schools to shut amid Covid-19 pandemic Ms Carell said they will also be helped out with tips on how to navigate childcare while the parents are home as it isnt always straightforward. She explained: Last week we started hearing from lots of parents who were really worried about schools and nurseries closing. Even parents who can work from home were really worried about not being able to work properly if their children are also at home. Weve worked as fast as possible to bring out this new service, adding: One family in particular, a head teacher and NHS worker stand out, as their two children don't want to attend an empty school so have hired a nanny to care for them for the foreseeable future. EMPLOY A QUALIFIED CHILDMINDER IN YOUR HOME SHORT-TERM The founder of the UKs largest graduate recruiter, Teach First, Brett Wigdortz, last year launched a childminding app hoping to revolutionise childcare by re-training London professionals as childminders for free. Today Tiney has over 100 childminders, some former City workers, who are all vetted and Ofsted-registered and normally operate from their own houses. They have been through training in the early years curriculum, and expert-led instruction on safeguarding, learning through play, and marketing. However, all childminder centres will close their operations from Monday as directed by the government. The entrepreneur, who was awarded an OBE for services to education for his role in setting up Teach First in 2002, told the Standard that he was concerned unqualified people would be looking after children in Londoners homes during the shutdown - and urged parents to try and seek out qualified childminders temporarily out of work. He said: A worry we have is will there be unqualified people who will be taking care of kids. You see online people are trying to be really helpful, saying look, I'm out of work, if anyone needs me to take care of children I can help. Its really kind but I would urge parents to prioritise people who have actually gone through the checks and are qualified individuals. He said childminders are concerned for their livelihoods due to the COVID 19 epidemic, as unlike teachers they have no guaranteed income above a government-funded 30 hours per week. Boris Johnson shuts schools in Covid-19 fight FIND A NANNY FOR LESS - OR FOR FREE IF YOU ARE AN NHS WORKER Hemel Hempstead-based childcare consultants, N&L Recruiting, say they are offering reduced rates to anyone urgently trying to find a DBS-checked nanny due to the shutdown. They are offering their services for free to NHS workers, who can send their children to skeleton schools but may need extra hours covered. Many parents are concerned about the contagion possibilities of bringing a nanny into their home at this time, as it is impossible to practise social distancing with small children. Meghan McGinty, affiliate associate professor at the University of Washington School of Public Health, told Vox hiring a babysitter or nanny is an acceptable risk, and said the best bet would be to hire someone who had been through 14 days of self-isolation. She also advised doing temperature checks daily on both nannies and children, while Barcelona-based firm Nannyfy is now ordering its nannies to wear gloves and a mask when travelling to employers, and in the home. But according to service provider Nannytaxs Nanny Salary Index 2018-19, an average wage for a live-out nanny in London was 13.35 per hour. Parents are therefore looking for free or cheap solutions to keep their children occupied and learning productively during work hours. VIDEO-CONFERENCE IN A TUTOR TO SUPERVISE WORKING FROM HOME Research company Professional Marketplace reported a 440 per cent rise in tutoring searches in the past week, and 95 per cent of parents were asking whether the sessions could be run online through platforms such as Skype or Zoom. London-based app MyTutor, which partnered with UCL research teams in 2017 to help develop tutor-pupil matching algorithms, offers interactive one-to-one online lessons for students from home - so parents can work while their children learn. Its Skype sessions include an interactive whiteboard on the screen, so students can upload documents and make notes, and the app claims its tutors can keep students on track with school syllabi. The apps founders have also advised setting a school-day-style schedule for children in the week during this period, dividing up periods of study with active breaks, and avoiding phone use. WORK WHILE YOUR KIDS STUDY ON A FREE ONLINE LEARNING PLATFORM Dr Jamie Frost, 33, a maths teacher at Tiffin School in Kingston, launched a free online learning platform across the UK in 2017 - and since schools began shutting down around the world it has received over half a million hits per day. Dr Frost, who holds a PhD in Computer Science from Oxford University and was previously investment banker, set up the completely free site to help pupils struggling with maths. It is used by 5,500 schools worldwide, including over half of all UK secondaries, and is now helping children study as schools close. Hear Dr Frost on this episode of The Leader podcast: Loading.... DrFrostMaths.com offers interactive online quizzes and teaching slides, videos, and a bank of UK exam board questions for students to practice on - as well as learning resources for teachers. The global death toll for coronavirus has surpassed 9,000, according to an AFP tally. More than 210,000 people have been infected with Covid-19 in 172 countries as of Thursday. Meanwhile, the number of coronavirus patients who have recovered from the disease has topped 87,000 around the world. Covid-19 a flu-like disease that can develop into pneumonia was declared a pandemic by the World Health Organisation last week. Countries around the world have taken strict measures to limit its spread, with the whole of France, Italy and Spain going into lockdown. The EU said this week that the bloc would mostly close its borders to combat the pandemic. Meanwhile in China, where the virus originated, the number of infections are slowing down, with 99.9 per cent of new cases last week reported outside the mainland. More than 2,600 people have been infected with the disease in the UK, according to figures released on Wednesday. The British prime minister has urged people to stay away from social venues, the office and to avoid non-essential travel to curb the spread of the virus. The government denied reports on Thursday that travel in and out of London could go into lockdown within the next few days. Additional reporting by Reuters Aerial photo taken on Feb. 1, 2020 shows the construction site of Huoshenshan Hospital, a 1000-bed facility built in 10 days in Wuhan amid COVID-19 epidemic(Xinhua/Xiao Yijiu) By Abdul Rehman It is time; humans learn that natural calamities strike nations irrespective of their beliefs, race, color and do not recognize any distinction of size, wealth and civilization. However, violence and ferocity of natural disasters notwithstanding, outbreak of epidemics is a challenge of very different nature. The world is aware of their malice from medieval times, when despite very limited interaction among people they had been causing havoc along trade routes across continents and threatening existence of human race. Now in modern time, they spread very quickly and are even more deadly because millions of travelers rove all corners of the world. But even then people often tend to forget that, if an epidemic breaks out now, it is not a challenge to that country or region alone but to the entire humanity, battling which demands collective effort for preventing it spreading across borders and killing without impunity. To forecast and estimate as to where a new epidemic will hit, applying any form of data or sample, China due to size of its population and vastness of territory seems their likely victim more than any other country. While tracing origin of SARS and now CORONA viruses in China, western media houses are all out to locate their causes in Chinese love for exotic food, for a variety of reasons; ranging from sex to general wellbeing and curing some complex ailments. Seeing the number of stories and the type of narratives being propagated it is evident that west wants to exploit the opportunity to defame China. That may not be wrong but more than any other argument mere size and geography of the country makes it more vulnerable in the future as well. However, evidences also approve that if China is relatively more exposed, it is better equipped than any other nation to handle them as well. Their heroics in the past aside, during present crisis instantly putting a mechanism of preventing virus from spreading to other regions and beyond own borders has once again proven their ability of quick assessment and capacity of accurate decisions. In other parts of the world, no doubt transparent environment have appreciably improved governance, but at the same time, it has put leadership under lot of pressure. Resultantly, majority out of them in the face of challenges fail to take timely and balanced decisions. Often, not only they fail in difficult situations like outbreak of an epidemic and indulge in finding a politically correct decision but also waste precious time. On the other hand Chinese leadership approach, ranging from immediate measures of enforcing countrywide quarantine, during spring festival when the entire nation is on the move speaks volume about their farsightedness. Because, when Chinese move, it simply means many billions and not millions crisscrossing the country. Now in OBOR era, they have started traversing the globe and every major destination of the world has a large number of Chinese travelers. Construction of mega hospitals for thousands of patients in hours than days at break neck speed where close to a hundred thousand patients are being treated, with daily new admissions just recently dropped from figure of two thousand. However, despite such prompt response, news of neglect of patients suffering from other diseases are surfacing in international media and stories of government officials slow response are bouncing on social networks as the world has zoomed in on the epicenter. On economic front, showing resolve to endure the losses by halting manufacturing sector is no less remarkable decision by China as well. As it is not only resulting losses in billions of dollars but Chinese adversaries instantly sprang into action as if they were waiting for the opportunity of running rumor mill at full capacity for propagating possible collapse of Chinese economy. They are churning loads of data for estimating possible delays and in some cases abandoning of projects under OBOR. Such reports are in wide circulation by western media.Google News, one out of many online news agencies highly active in Pakistan is uploading reports on impact of virus on CPEC after very short intervals; Seeing the trend it is evident, other partner countries are subjected to similar Anti-China campaign. Estimates of losses are being published for month long closure of businesses, failing to even know that outbreak of virus was reported during Spring Festival when nationwide vacations start; 15 days before and after the Chinese New Year celebrations. It is evident that their target is Chinese nations morale and partner countries confidence and hopes. President Trumps appreciation of Xi Jinpings efforts to control CORONA virus is visibly an effort to repair damages done by Commerce Secretary Wlibur Ross statement about epidemics positive impact on American economy speaks volume about their hostility. Over the years, highly efficient system of near instant response to the peoples needs has established credibility due to which there is no panic and mistrust among the nation. Therefore, with confidence in leadership, despite knowing that the virus so far has no cure and can kill anyone effected, not only common people are volunteering for medical services, the entire nation is willingly following the guidelines issued by the central government. Leadership has also not indulged in giving false hopes; instead, people are being marshalled for fighting the epidemic in Chinese way. With leaderships resolve and determination despite western propaganda nation is showing usual Chinese character and resolve. Some western observers were rather quick in predicting indifferent behavior of one child policy generation, but they too have proven no less resilient than their ancestors have been. Analyzing different nations response while fighting epidemics, it is nightmarish to imagine the extent of damages if CORONA virus had struck someone other than Chinese. Outbreak of N1H1 in 2009 is just a decade old story and the way it was managed left many question on the capacity of USA, the most developed nation in the world. About 60 million people were affected, with close to 20 thousands deaths from a virus not as fatal as SARS and CORONA. These statistics cited by a Wisconsin study published in Journal of The American Medical Association in September 2010. Whereas, western analyst, government officials and policy makers are exploiting outbreak of epidemic, which is being managed very professionally, as an opportunity to satisfy xenophobia. They are criticizing Chinese leadership and political system even though World Health Organization has been compelled to praise their handling of a very complex situation, which could have risked the entire world. If prejudice can be put aside, rather than criticism world can learn loads of lessons from Chinese response and approach, which can be valuable for any such situation in the future. After the news of outbreak of a killer virus became public, I talked to government officials, some friends and got an opportunity to speak to a youngster. It was simply amazing to know their resolve, seriousness and confidence in the leadership. None talked about any conspiracy theory, neither there was a hint of charging anyone for a possible slackness. Despite some news surfacing here and there about possibility of a covert biological attack by some adversary, as the outbreak coincided with spring festival during which it would be simply impossible to implement control measures. In some circles, you can hear also the echo of the timing of the outbreak, as it coincides with China becoming world biggest economy overtaking USA. However, the Chinese people have made mature and calm response, focusing their attention on controlling the epidemic, rather than on spreading the conspiracy theories. But, with near perfect response to CORONA threat once again Chinese have not been able to pay due attention to perception management and have left the field open to usual exploitation by the adversaries. Therefore, in an environment totally dominated by western media, the world has no option but to listen them. No wonder, there are abundant possibilities of mixing conspiracy theories for pursuing their Anti-China agendas. However, if Chinese have been able to read the script and variety of propaganda themes, they need to talk to the world and tell the real story how they are battling the crisis. Through this path, possibly present crisis will become opportunity to exhibit and showcase their resolve and determination. Enhanced interaction with the world will also enable China to recognize countries who have shown solidarity and are offering them unconditional support. Though, in prevailing environment winning worldwide trust may not be easy but highly responsible approach will help China earn confidence of a greater part of the world. (The author is a retired Brigadier from Pakistan Army and now a freelance writer who wrote the book Chinami) President Trump held a news conference with the White House coronavirus task force on Thursday. What happened when the coronavirus struck a conservative New Orleans suburb. As someone who has covered climate change, Ive long been interested in the intersection of the political and the personal. So I was hoping to find someone who could help me show what that intersection looks like in the time of the coronavirus, when the early dismissiveness of conservative politicians and pundits may well have put a large number of lives at risk. I found Heaven Frilots story through a mutual friend on Facebook. On March 14, she posted that her husband, Mark, had tested positive for the virus something she felt compelled to share, she wrote, after seeing a lot of posts about people taking this virus lightly and joking about it. In the conservative suburbs of New Orleans, many understood the coronavirus through the lens of Fox News or Rush Limbaugh. On social media, they wrote off the virus as part of a Democratic plot to take down the president. Then someone they knew contracted it, someone who wasnt supposed to contract it (Mark is 45 years old and otherwise healthy), and perspectives began to change. Senator Andreas Borgeas View Photo Sonora, CA A Mother Lode State Senator has launched an additional page on his website with resources to assist people, businesses, local governments, non-profits, and others impacted by the coronavirus pandemic. In announcing the new page, Senator Andreas Borgeas (R-Fresno) remarked, As a father of two young boys with elderly family members, I believe it is important to do our best effort to keep the public informed on the rapidly evolving Coronavirus situation. Look after your loved ones, take the necessary precautions, and find creative ways to support local businesses during this unprecedented time, The new COVID-19 page can be found by clicking on the Resources tab along the websites homepage headings. Some of the information provided by Borgeas site includes: The U.S. Small Business Administration (SBA) is providing up to $2 million in emergency loans for small businesses impacted by closures. The Employment Development Department (EDD) is providing assistance to workers sick or quarantined, people impacted by reduced work hours, self-employed individuals, and employers. You can also find ways to deliver meals, donate blood, support nonprofits, create hygiene kits, volunteer at a food bank or perform wellness checks on your neighbors through California Volunteers. Click here to view the new resource page. Source: Xinhua| 2020-03-20 05:24:35|Editor: Shi Yinglun Video Player Close A worker arranges masks in a factory in Monufia, Egypt, on March 19, 2020. Egypt's largest factory of disposable medical products has more than doubled production of medical masks to meet the huge demand amid the spread of the novel coronavirus. (Photo by Ahmed Gomaa/Xinhua) by Ahmed Shafiq MONUFIA, Egypt, March 19 (Xinhua) -- Egypt's largest factory of disposable medical products has more than doubled production of medical masks to meet the huge demand amid the spread of the novel coronavirus. "We used to produce some 30-50 thousand masks a day before the coronavirus outbreak. Our daily production has now increased to some 130,000 masks," Mohammed Suleiman, manager of Medic, or Egypt for Medical Clothes Company, told Xinhua. Located in Monufia Province, 65 km northwest of the Egyptian capital Cairo, Medic is one of the pioneer companies in the Middle East specialized in the manufacture of medical clothes such as sterile surgical gowns, patient gowns, caps, masks, overshoes and sterile medical drapes. Inside the company's 9,000-square-meter plant, over 650 workers are racing against time to produce daily outputs of face masks that have been ordered by several clients. "We do not export our products to other countries because we are the main supplier of the public hospitals, health ministry and the armed forces," Suleiman said as he observed workers packing new masks and prepare them to be transported to the health ministry's warehouses. The plant's manager added that 70 percent of the company's produce goes to his permanent clients, while the remaining 30 percent go to the private sector. Regarding the recent price hikes of medical supplies in the Egyptian market, Suleiman said prices for the company's products have recently went up by 10 percent because the consumption of electricity has increased after the factory adopted 24/7 work policy. "We also started recently to import some fabrics by air in order to accelerate production ... this for sure costs much more than bringing them in by sea," he revealed. Suleiman noted that 90 percent of the machines used in the factory were imported from China, pointing out that the company also "relies on China for getting spare parts." He mentioned the factory had provided the health ministry with 350,000 masks which were later sent as a donation from Egypt to China to help fight the coronavirus outbreak. The manager noted that there are around 10 factories that manufacture face masks across the country, stressing that his plant is the largest in North Africa and one of the biggest in the region. Egypt has taken tough measures over the past weeks to curb the spread of the novel coronavirus as the number of confirmed cases has risen to 256 with seven deaths in the country. The measures include closing schools, suspending flights, and sterilizing means of transportation, government departments, hotels and tourist attractions. On Tuesday, the country halted exporting face masks and all types of alcohol and alcoholic disinfectants "to meet the needs of Egyptian citizens," according to the Trade and Industry Ministry. On Wednesday, Egypt started sterilizing hotels and places frequented by foreign tourists in the Red Sea resort city of Hurghada as the first stage of sterilizing all hotels and resorts across the country. Earlier on Thursday, Egypt decided to shut down malls, restaurants and coffee shops from 7 p.m. to 6 a.m. until March 31 to combat the spread of novel coronavirus. "Amid these measures, we have to increase our production because the demand of our clients is high," said Edward Sobhi, manager of production planning department at Medic. He said that the factory used to work for eight hours a day. However, the factory is working non-stop. "We are planning to increase the number of machines to meet the demand of the market," he said, adding that the company currently has the capacity to produce 200,000 masks a day. "By now, we have managed to overcome all logistic challenges and we are ready to double efforts to help the government fight the spread of the virus," Sobhi said. When the French sociologist David Emile Durkheim articulated the concept of the collective conscience, he made it a point to say he wasnt defining it as a shared moral conscience between people. But maybe its time that we did. Especially in the case of a punishment as final as the death penalty. If we wont learn from fact and figures, perhaps we should start with a lesson from fiction. In Sophias War: A Tale of the Revolution by Edward Irving Wortis, we see the 1776 war for American independence through the eyes of a teenage girl. The book opens on a chilling scene of Sophia witnessing a public execution in New York City, then occupied by British forces. She resolves to join the war. Working as a spy, she uncovers a traitorous plot but the identity of the turncoat is so shocking that no one will believe her. She decides to prevent the act of treachery herself despite knowing she must betray a man she cares for and send him to the gallows. After many dramatic twists and turns, the plot is subverted, the traitor caught and executed, and the Continental Army wins the war against Britain. Sophia is proud and relieved, but deeply troubled. She travels to England to lay a ribbon on the traitors grave a tacit acknowledgment of her role in his death, his blood on her hands. As you read this article, four men have been executed in Delhi: Akshay Kumar, Vinay Sharma, Pawan Gupta, and Mukesh Singh, convicted of the brutal assault, gangrape and murder of a 23-year-old medical intern in Delhi in December 2012. The discussions that follow will be predictable, graphic and voyeuristic. In fact, even before the execution, the vicarious news consumption had begun. Already we had been told that prisoners from the Buxar Central Jail have spun the rope that fulfills the mandate of the Code of Criminal Procedure, 1973 which states that, When any person is sentenced to death, the sentence shall direct that he be hanged by the neck till he is dead. We knew that the hangman had arrived at Tihar Jail to do the job. We heard that the weighing of these four men on death row had been completed, as had the testing of the nooses with appropriately weighted dummies. We were being prepared for the moment. And now we will be told repeatedly and in different ways that society can heave a sigh of relief that these dastardly men have been put away for ever; that women and girls all over the country will now be safe; that the law and justice has done its job, that the deceased woman and her loved ones can finally find peace. But who will wash the blood on our hands, if we ourselves refuse to see it? The events of December 2012 made many of us much more than spectators. We have been the voice of conscience, urging for change so that women can live the dream of being fearlessly free (bekhauf azaadi). But at the same time, we have been gullible fools, playing right into the hands of those who wish to hold greater power over our lives, and death. Consider this: We the people, who cannot find it in ourselves to trust policemen in our neighbourhood, suddenly chose to believe the account of that terrible night in December 2012 put out by the police and the older convicts. We the people bought into the narrative that the youngest attacker commited the most heinous crimes on the victim, without stopping to think how power within a groups works, making the weakest bear the greatest burden. In fact, we the people were so angry that the juvenile had the right to be tried separately that we wanted the law to change (and we got our parliamentarians to do that!), and we wanted him to be hanged with the rest of them. Damn thinking of whether young offenders can be reformed, changed, healed. Its a sad truth that even before they were caught, we the people had bayed for the blood of all six accused. Just as we did with Afzal Guru. And Ajmal Kasab. And Yakub Memon. And Dhananjoy Chatterjee the last man executed in India for the crimes of sexual assault and murder. In 2004, when his hanging was imminent we chose to disbelieve Dhananjoy Chatterjee when he categorically denied his guilt. But what do we do now, when a fresh investigation points significantly to his innocence? How do we correct the wrong we may have done to him, his family, his village, because we were too impatient to listen, too angry to care? Dare we revisit the case of Afzal Guru? Convicted of being, at most, a co-conspirator in the Parliament attack of December 2001, Afzal soon became a symbol of everything Muslim, separatist and deplorable. Tried and declared guilty by the press from the very start, his case was deeply compromised by poor representation, as well as the sheer derision and disbelief that surrounded his every assertion. His repeated appeals to investigate Deputy Superintendent of Police (DSP) Davinder Singh and other Jammu and Kashmir police officers for introducing him to one of the men who attacked Parliament and asking him to arrange logistics fell on deaf ears, and Davinder Singh became a celebrated officer. The BJP ran a virulent campaign with the slogan, Desh abhi sharminda hain, Afzal Guru zinda hai! (The nation is ashamed because Afzal is still alive). And the Congress, in a desperate rush to placate public opinion secretly hanged Afzal, denying him even his last rights. In January 2020, seven years after Afzals death, Davinder Singh has been been arrested for collaborating with other senior militants, and is himself being accused as a militant! Who will now question him about the Parliament case? Who will seek the answers Afzal pleaded for us to find? Who is invested in the truth? Each of us should be. Because in committing both Afzal and the convicts of December 2012 to death, the the Supreme Court has relied on something quite outside the lawbooks and the world of evidence and procedure. It evoked the collective conscience the shared beliefs, ideas, and attitudes that give us the sense of identity and bring us together as a community, a society, a nation. Our rage at the broken criminal justice system is being mis/used by the courts, the press, social and political powers, and the state, to derail the course of justice and take lives. Together they are the new khaap panchayats that hang those who transgress caste-community taboos, order rape as revenge, and ostracise and victimise the weakest. And if we stay silent, we are nothing more than colluders. Let us return to the case on our minds. The violence of the December 2012 case isnt as much of a rarest of the rare case of violence as its made out to be. Think of the gangrape, stripping, mutilation and murder of women from Dalit, Bahujan, Adivasi, nomadic and minority communities, trans and gender non-conforming persons, or women in conflict zones that we hear of in the odd newsflash. But time for some honest introspection: Do the sexual assaults and/or killings at Khairlanji 2006, or Bhagana 2014, or Kunan Poshpora 1991, or Imphal 2004, or Gujarat 2002, or even Kathua 2018 evoke as sharp a memory as Delhi 2012? Do they evoke a similar rage? Do they awaken us as a people? Why is it that we ourselves want certain convicts put to death and not others? How different are our own responses to crimes committed by upper caste men, men in the armed forces, men with political connections, positions of power, and of course, men from our class, family, and social networks? Data from all over the world repeatedly establishes that death penalty is not a deterrent to crimes*. Yet we are trying to believe that sexual crimes will stop after the executions of these four men. Thats nothing short of amazing. Especially when you consider that the hangings of Auto (Gowri) Shankar in 1995, Ranga and Billa (Kuljeet Singh and Jasbir Singh) in 1982, and Dhananjay Chatterjee in 2004 failed to make women safe in India. In the face of every such contradiction, the trope of capital punishment becomes more powerful than ever, making any punishment less than that, a compromise be it for sexual assault, cow slaughter, crimes against the nations. It seems nothing less than blood will do. In such an environment its hardly surprising that the Supreme Court has itself admitted that in at least 13 cases, the death sentence has been wrongly awarded and affirmed. When the French sociologist David Emile Durkheim articulated the concept of the collective conscience, he made it a point to say he wasnt defining it as a shared moral conscience between people. But maybe its time that we did. Especially in the case of a punishment as final and irretractable as the death penalty. For as Ela Gandhi, eminent peace activist from South Africa and granddaughter of Mahatma Gandhi has said poignantly, Something dies in each of us when we sanction and call for such cruel acts, as the death of another human being, and when we through our governments, execute people. About the author: Vani Subramanian's work in film explores the connections between everyday practices and larger political questions. Her documentary The Death of Us examines a range of cases in which the death penalty was pronounced, ending in execution, commutation to life sentence, acquittal or even pardon. ___ *In America, where the use of the death penalty varies between states, homicide rates of states with the death penalty are 48-100 percent higher compared to states without it. Studies in Canada have illustrated that homicide rates remained significantly lower after abolition of the death penalty. And a 2018 multi-country study across 11 nations which have abolished capital punishment also affirms the same. Photo credit: Chris Jackson - Getty Images From Harper's BAZAAR Queen Elizabeth II released a statement addressing the coronavirus pandemic, where she thanked medical professionals, emergency personnel, and scientists for their tireless work in helping the world navigate this global crisis. The queen is currently residing at Windsor Castle with the Duke of Edinburgh, where they will stay for the foreseeable future. Queen Elizabeth II has spoken out about the global coronavirus pandemic. In a statement released from Buckingham Palace, the monarch acknowledged the challenges that lay ahead not just for the United Kingdom but also the world as the novel coronavirus continues to affect countries around the globe. The message was released this morning as the queen headed off to Berkshire, where she will be spending time at Windsor Castle for the next few weeks amid the growing global crisis. The Duke of Edinburgh will also be staying at Windsor Castle, where they will spend their Easter holiday. "As Philip and I arrive at Windsor today, we know that many individuals and families across the United Kingdom, and around the world, are entering a period of great concern and uncertainty. We are all being advised to change our normal routines and regular patterns of life for the greater good of the communities we live in and, in particular, to protect the most vulnerable within them," read the queen's statement. "At times such as these, I am reminded that our nations history has been forged by people and communities coming together to work as one, concentrating our combined efforts with a focus on the common goal." Story continues The monarch continued to thank the tireless work of medical professionals, emergency personnel, and scientists for their help in navigating the pandemic. "We are enormously thankful for the expertise and commitment of our scientists, medical practitioners and emergency and public services; but now more than any time in our recent past, we all have a vitally important part to play as individuals - today and in the coming days, weeks and months," continued the queen. "Many of us will need to find new ways of staying in touch with each other and making sure that loved ones are safe. I am certain we are up to that challenge. You can be assured that my family and I stand ready to play our part." The sovereign's grandsons also publicly responded to the pandemic yesterday. Prince William, second in line to the throne, shared a video where he spoke about solidarity in uncertain times and highlighted the work of the National Emergencies Trust. Meanwhile, Prince Harry and Meghan Markle announced on Instagram that they'd be using their social media presence to share useful resources "to help all of us navigate the uncertainty." You Might Also Like MARYSVILLE, CALIF. - Marysville Police arrested two Yuba City men for conspiracy to commit bank robbery and other felonies. They say the men intended to rob the Umpqua Bank on E Street just after 10 a.m. Thursday morning. Police Officials say a bank employee called to report a suspicious man trying to cash a stolen check. Officers arrived and stopped 31-year-old Palwinder Mann as he was leaving the bank. They also detained 30-year-old Marcelino Ruiz, who they say was waiting in a car parked in front of the bank. Investigators say Mann and Ruiz were both on active parole, and that Ruiz was in possession of a black ski mask. They also say a loaded .38 Special revolver handgun was found in the car, and that both men are banned from possessing firearms or ammunition because they are convicted felons. Officers believe that the two intended to rob the bank, and credit bank employees and the quick response by officers with thwarting that plan. Mann and Ruiz were booked into the Yuba County Jail on several felony charges, including conspiracy to commit a felony, attempted robbery, and being convicted felons in possession of a firearm and ammunition. Share this article Whatsapp Facebook Twitter Linkedin Norman Harsono (The Jakarta Post) Jakarta Fri, March 20, 2020 14:09 663 7f440ff09e92db75a02bbad206c2ed59 1 Business power-plant,electricity,fossil-fuel,ESDM,renewable-energy,energy-and-mineral-resources-ministry,PLN Free The government aims to complete this year a study into replacing several aging fossil fuel-fired plants with renewable energy plants as it races against time to catch up with its green goals. The study, which began in January, not only includes mapping potential renewable sources but also future growth in targeted regions, the Energy and Mineral Resources Ministrys director general for electrification, Rida Mulyana, said on Monday. It is being conducted by state-owned electricity company PLN as the operator of the aging plants. "We are still gathering data right now," said Rida, who is also a PLN commissioner. There are a lot of plants and they are quite spread out. We can't study them randomly, but this has to be done one by one. This needs time." Indonesia has 2,246 diesel-fired power plants (PLTD) that are over 15 years old, 16.2 percent of which are in Aceh, ministry data shows. These plants have a combined installed capacity of 1,778 megawatts (MW). At the end of the day, it's a question of how much efficiency can we achieve, Rida added. Read also: Government issues regulation to jumpstart stalled renewable energy projects Southeast Asias largest economy aims to make renewables contribute 23 percent to its power production by 2025, yet regulatory headwinds are setting the country back from achieving the goal. Existing regulations stipulate that Indonesia should have reached a 17.5 percent renewable power mix by 2019, yet the country achieved only 12.36 percent that year. Energy Minister Arifin Tasrif first publicly announced the replacement plan in January. He said the governments purpose was to simultaneously supply energy at competitive prices and chase Indonesias renewable energy commitments. We are still conducting the assessment. We hope to finish as soon as possible, PLN deputy president director Darmawan Prasodjo told The Jakarta Post on March 6. Read also: Indonesia plans to fuel all diesel power plants with CPO within two years Indonesia also has 23 coal-fired power plants (PLTU) that over 20 years old and 46 combined-cycle power plants (PLGU) of similar ages. The former have a combined capacity of 5,655 MW and the latter 5,912 MW. Most of these aging plants are located on Java Island. In comparison, PLNs total installed capacity is 42,350 MW as of December last year, according to government data. Arifin has repeatedly said that Indonesias regions should use locally available energy sources, particularly renewables, instead of solely relying on fossil fuels. His statement reflects a principle enshrined in the countrys 2007 Energy Law. However, Indonesias largest electricity company, PLN, is also constantly being pushed by the government to sell electricity as cheaply as possible for the benefit of low-income households and major industries. The government imposes price limits for PLN electricity through Energy Ministerial Regulation No. 28/2016 on electricity tariffs. Such limits force PLN to invest in fossil fuel-fired power plants, whose fuel is kept at below-market prices through other regulations. Read also: Coal miner builds solar power plants to provide electricity in remote areas The governments Domestic Market Obligation (DMO) policy requires coal miners to sell one-fourth of their production domestically at US$70 per ton. The government is also allocating Rp 18.7 trillion ($1.18 billion) for fuel subsidies this year. PLN has the target of selling the cheapest electricity in ASEAN, said PLNs strategic procurement director 1, Inten Sripeni Cahyani, in December last year when she served as the companys acting president director. According to PLN data, the electricity company sells household electricity at an average of Rp 1,467 per kilowatt-hour (KwH). The tariff is the second-lowest in Southeast Asia after Malaysia, which sells at Rp 1,286 per KwH. Dozens of people trying to fly home to Australia are being left stranded on the Indonesian holiday island of Bali as a ban on all foreign travellers entering Australia comes into force at 9pm on Friday. Australian woman Laura Chisholm was due to fly from Bali's Denpasar airport on Friday with her sister, Carly Fogarty, and her sister's two children, who are three years old and nine months old. People queue at Denpasar Airport in Bali to board Jetstar flights bound for Australia. Ms Chisholm told The Age and The Sydney Morning Herald that approximately 200 people were at the airport trying to check in for three Jetstar flights due to leave Bali on Friday. The two women endured an anxious wait to find out if Ms Fogarty would be able to board the flight as, although she is an Australian citizen, she had travelled on a British passport. Ms Chisholm and Ms Fogarty's children had travelled on Australian passports and would be able to fly home regardless, but the group did not want to be separated. Unfortunately for some shareholders, the Cleveland-Cliffs (NYSE:CLF) share price has dived 55% in the last thirty days. And that drop will have no doubt have some shareholders concerned that the 63% share price decline, over the last year, has turned them into bagholders. For those wondering, a bagholder is someone who keeps holding a losing stock indefinitely, without taking the time to consider its prospects carefully, going forward. Assuming nothing else has changed, a lower share price makes a stock more attractive to potential buyers. In the long term, share prices tend to follow earnings per share, but in the short term prices bounce around in response to short term factors (which are not always obvious). So, on certain occasions, long term focussed investors try to take advantage of pessimistic expectations to buy shares at a better price. One way to gauge market expectations of a stock is to look at its Price to Earnings Ratio (PE Ratio). A high P/E ratio means that investors have a high expectation about future growth, while a low P/E ratio means they have low expectations about future growth. See our latest analysis for Cleveland-Cliffs How Does Cleveland-Cliffs's P/E Ratio Compare To Its Peers? Cleveland-Cliffs's P/E of 3.20 indicates relatively low sentiment towards the stock. If you look at the image below, you can see Cleveland-Cliffs has a lower P/E than the average (7.5) in the metals and mining industry classification. NYSE:CLF Price Estimation Relative to Market, March 20th 2020 Cleveland-Cliffs's P/E tells us that market participants think it will not fare as well as its peers in the same industry. Since the market seems unimpressed with Cleveland-Cliffs, it's quite possible it could surprise on the upside. You should delve deeper. I like to check if company insiders have been buying or selling. How Growth Rates Impact P/E Ratios Generally speaking the rate of earnings growth has a profound impact on a company's P/E multiple. Earnings growth means that in the future the 'E' will be higher. That means unless the share price increases, the P/E will reduce in a few years. So while a stock may look expensive based on past earnings, it could be cheap based on future earnings. Story continues Cleveland-Cliffs shrunk earnings per share by 70% over the last year. But over the longer term (3 years), earnings per share have increased by 29%. And EPS is down 32% a year, over the last 5 years. This could justify a pessimistic P/E. Don't Forget: The P/E Does Not Account For Debt or Bank Deposits The 'Price' in P/E reflects the market capitalization of the company. In other words, it does not consider any debt or cash that the company may have on the balance sheet. The exact same company would hypothetically deserve a higher P/E ratio if it had a strong balance sheet, than if it had a weak one with lots of debt, because a cashed up company can spend on growth. Such spending might be good or bad, overall, but the key point here is that you need to look at debt to understand the P/E ratio in context. Cleveland-Cliffs's Balance Sheet Cleveland-Cliffs's net debt is considerable, at 130% of its market cap. This is a relatively high level of debt, so the stock probably deserves a relatively low P/E ratio. Keep that in mind when comparing it to other companies. The Verdict On Cleveland-Cliffs's P/E Ratio Cleveland-Cliffs trades on a P/E ratio of 3.2, which is below the US market average of 12.2. Given meaningful debt, and a lack of recent growth, the market looks to be extrapolating this recent performance; reflecting low expectations for the future. Given Cleveland-Cliffs's P/E ratio has declined from 7.1 to 3.2 in the last month, we know for sure that the market is more worried about the business today, than it was back then. For those who prefer to invest with the flow of momentum, that might be a bad sign, but for deep value investors this stock might justify some research. Investors have an opportunity when market expectations about a stock are wrong. If it is underestimating a company, investors can make money by buying and holding the shares until the market corrects itself. So this free report on the analyst consensus forecasts could help you make a master move on this stock. But note: Cleveland-Cliffs may not be the best stock to buy. So take a peek at this free list of interesting companies with strong recent earnings growth (and a P/E ratio below 20). If you spot an error that warrants correction, please contact the editor at editorial-team@simplywallst.com. This article by Simply Wall St is general in nature. It does not constitute a recommendation to buy or sell any stock, and does not take account of your objectives, or your financial situation. Simply Wall St has no position in the stocks mentioned. We aim to bring you long-term focused research analysis driven by fundamental data. Note that our analysis may not factor in the latest price-sensitive company announcements or qualitative material. Thank you for reading. Kralendijk:--- Due to the current worldwide situation regarding the Coronavirus, there is a need among Dutch students who study or do an internship in the Caribbean part of the Kingdom to return home. Travel options are currently limited. In the coming days, KLM has reserved a number of seats for interns on flights from the islands to Amsterdam. Students who want to return to the Netherlands are requested to register with Jora de Jong van Wereldstage before Friday, March 20, at 5 pm: +5999 462 6335 or +5999 527 2442 (also Whatsapp), This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. . She is also the central contact person for information and support. Trainees who already have a return flight with KLM and who want to rebook it, indicate their name upon registration, as stated in the passport, booking code and date of the original return flight. KLM will look for a return flight in the coming days. Interns who do not have a KLM ticket but who want to fly back with KLM can book a ticket via the KLM site. Institutions on the islands that normally maintain contact with the trainees are taking stock of who needs to return. The rapid spread of the coronavirus disease (COVID19) has increased demand for and raised concerns about the availability of personal protective equipment (PPE) essential to prevent further spreading of the disease. PPE include face shields, protective spectacles, respiratory masks, protective garments, suits and gloves, among others. Due to the increased demand for PPE and concerns about availability, several countries have imposed temporary export bans and/or restrictions on specific PPE. For example, on 15 March 2020, the European Union (EU) adopted Regulation 2020/402, subjecting the export of specific PPE (whether originating in the EU or elsewhere) to an export authorisation. This is a temporary measure to prevent or remedy critical situations arising from shortages of essential products (pursuant to Article 5 of Regulation 2015/479) and is line with the WTO public health exceptions. Turkey, China, South Korea, Taiwan, Thailand, Kazakhstan, India, Russia, and the Czech Republic has also imposed temporary export restrictions on PPE including masks, goggles, and sterile gloves. Some governments may have taken the same actions on a more informal basis. Thus far, South Africa has not adopted similar actions; neither are aware of any ongoing process of adopting the measures banning or restricting PPEs exports to any country. The government gazette does not include any such measures. Even the South African Revenue Service has not provided any information related to such measures (as at 19 March 2020). South Africa produces most of the PPE listed in Annex 1 to the Regulation 2020/402 and exports to the EU and world at large. In 2019, South Africas exports of specific PPE products to the EU amounted to US$868 thousand, and US$6.7 million to the world (see Table 1). Table 1: South Africas exports of specific PPE products to the EU and world in 2019 HS Code Product Label EU exports US$ World exports US$ 392620 Gloves (apparel and clothing accessories) 405 000 6 079 000 90200000 Breathing appliances and gas masks 382 00 7 038 000 6114 Knitted or crocheted special garments for professional, sporting, n.e.s 142 000 7 184 00 40151100 Surgical gloves, of vulcanised rubber (excluding fingerstalls) 69 000 2 694 000 621139 Male tracksuits and other garments, n.e.s. of textile materials 64 000 2 479 000 62113310 Male tracksuits and other garments, n.e.s. of man-made fibres 43 000 241 000 62113390 Male tracksuits and other garments, n.e.s. of man-made fibres 42 000 1 376 000 62160000 Gloves, mittens and mitts, of all types of textile materials 31 000 606 000 62113210 Male tracksuits and other garments, n.e.s. of cotton 23 000 752 000 611300 Knitted or crocheted garments rubberised with plastics or other materials 14 000 512 000 62113290 Male tracksuits and other garments, n.e.s. of cotton (excluding knitted or crocheted): 12 000 1 805 000 62103000 Garments of the type described in subheading 6202,11 to 6202,19 rubberised with plastics or other materials 9 000 320 000 621149 Female tracksuits and other garments, n.e.s. of textile materials 4 000 830 000 40159000 Articles of apparel and clothing accessories, for all purposes, of vulcanised rubber (excluding hard rubber, footwear and headgear and gloves, mittens and mitts) 3 000 1 114 000 62114290 Female tracksuits and other garments, n.e.s. of cotton 3 000 689 000 62105000 Female garments of textile fabrics, rubberised with plastics 2 000 212 000 62102000 Garments of the type described in subheading 6201,11 to 6201,19, rubberised with plastic 1 000 60 000 621040 Male garments of textile fabrics, rubberised with plastics 1 000 840 000 Total 868 000 6 655 000 The PPE export bans and/or controls are essential to meet the domestic demand for medical protective gear and might equally have enormous substantial fatal outcomes in high-risk countries with low or no PPE productive capacity and largely dependent on the import of such products. Further, countries imposing (or considering) PPE export restrictions must adopt exceptions to allow the export of such products to high-risk and import dependent countries with low productive capacity. PPE production is concentrated in a few countries across the world and the current production is insufficient to meet the global demand. PPE production should be enhanced or urged. RIO RANCHO, N.M. - The first attempt of the historic march from Selma to Montgomery, Alabama, in 1965, led to police violence against peaceful African American demonstrators. The beatings, known as Bloody Sunday, generated anger across the nation 55 years ago this month and prompted President Lyndon Johnson to push the Voting Rights Act through Congress. It was one of the most significant moments in U.S. history but remains almost absent from public schools social studies lessons. A new online project by the Hutchins Center for African and African American Research at Harvard University and a coalition of foundations hopes to change that. The centre this month unveiled Selma Online ? a free, online teaching platform that seeks to transform how the civil rights movement is taught in middle and high schools across the country. The project uses footage from Ava DuVernays 2014 movie Selma and attempts to show students how events in 1965 shaped voting rights. Harvard scholar and documentary filmmaker Henry Louis Gates Jr. helped create an interactive website with the Southern Poverty Law Centers Teaching Tolerance program and Left Field Labs. Its release comes as schools across the U.S. have closed because of the coronavirus and many students are in need of educational material to learn at home. Its perfect timing, unfortunately, because of the crisis we are in, Gates told The Associated Press on Wednesday. Not only is the timing optimal for teachers who are developing online lesson plans but also for families. Gates said the website can be broken up into quick lessons or over a semester. The idea for it followed the release of DuVernays film. William Lewis Jr., co-chairman of investment banking at New York City-based Lazard, and other black business leaders raised money so 500,000 children in 33 cities could see the historical drama for free. The film follows the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr., played by David Oyelowo, as he and other civil rights leaders push for voting rights in Selma, Alabama. Marches are soon met with violence by police, which eventually leads to the passage of the Voting Rights Act. After the success of the fundraiser for kids to see the movie, former Time Warner CEO Richard Dick Parsons reached out to Gates about developing the website using Selma to teach the history of voting rights and the civil rights movement. It was such a novel idea, I said OK, Gates said. The Rockefeller Foundation soon awarded the project a grant. In 2019, organizers tested the website after years of development with teachers and students in schools in Chicago, Kansas, Kentucky, Alabama and California. Developers incorporated suggestions in time for the 55th anniversary of the violence this month. The website comes as educators in various states push for more lessons in ethnic studies amid demographic changes in public schools. In New Mexico, for example, scholars and teachers are working on getting Chicano studies and Mexican American history into public high schools around Albuquerque. Gates said he sees Selma Online? as a test run for similar projects around African American history, including slavery. You change the curriculum, you change civic behaviour, Gates said. ___ Russell Contreras is a member of The Associated Press race and ethnicity team. Follow him on Twitter at http://twitter.com/russcontreras Laura Cutler of La Porte has done many live painting donations over the years where she paints for an hour or two and then the painting gets auctioned to raise money for the organization. This piece was done during a Frontline Foundations sidewalk chalk art event in Chesterton. (Laura Cutler) HANOI, March 19 (Reuters) - A summit of Southeast Asian and other international leaders scheduled in Vietnam early next month has been postponed until end-June due to worries about the coronavirus pandemic, Vietnam's Ministry of Foreign Affairs said on Thursday. Vietnamese Prime Minister Nguyen Xuan Phuc has informed leaders of other Southeast Asian countries about the postponement, the ministry said. The 36th summit of the 10-member Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) had been scheduled to take place on April 6-9 in Vietnam, the group's chair this year. (Reporting by Khanh Vu) The first step to combating climate change for businesses is for them to understand their contributions to it. That's where the new Y Combinator graduate, SINAI Technologies, comes in. Founded by Maria Fujihara, a 16-year veteran of the sustainability industry whose previous work had been around the technical adaptation of LEED certification tools, SINAI is the culmination of her years of working to adapt certification tools to international markets and five years spent researching carbon emissions profiles -- most recently at Singularity University . "When I started the company, I started to do carbon offsets," Fujihara said. "For the past three years companies and governments have been calculating their carbon emissions and they know their carbon footprint and they know their carbon inventory and they've been using their carbon inventory to buy carbon credits." The market is mature enough for more companies to get involved, she said. "Emissions have only increased in the past six years and not decreased at all," said Fujihara. "We're not thinking of mitigation solutions." Companies have been focusing on understanding their measurements, but not identifying how to mitigate those emissions through different policies -- or even what areas of the business to target, Fujihara said. "Once we understand their business as user scenarios we can reduce emissions in their value chain," she said. The SINAI service automates different reporting and data around emissions for companies to monitor in an easy format. "It's kind of like doing financial analysis, but doing the environmental analysis in addition," said Fujihara. "We allow them to do this year-by-year, if not quarter-by-quarter." Right now the company is focused on five industries: manufacturing, transportation, apparel and retail, food and beverage and real estate. "The building blocks of a carbon journey are: create carbon emissions inventories (footprint), build a low-carbon scenario by selecting options that will reduce emissions, set up a carbon reduction target (science-based or not), calculate their carbon budget, analyze potential carbon taxes, define an optimal carbon price and finally, do external scenario analysis (based on national or international policies compliance)," the company said in a statement. Joining Fujihara is Alain Rodriguez, one of the first 20 engineers at Uber who is now focused on the climate issue. "Basically, we combine climate finance methodologies, to manage emissions reductions and costs related to the implementation of low-carbon technologies (ultimately, this is what a carbon price means for a company). Our inter-dependent modules allow us to onboard companies at any moment of their carbon journey and provide value on every single step," SINAI said in a statement. Pedestrians walk past a manhole cover for a sewer in Berkeley, Calif., Thursday, July 18, 2019. Jeff Chiu/AP A Northern California County is seeing a spike in sewage spills that appears to be related to people flushing inappropriate items while stuck home during the coronavirus. Public works departments across the county have been preparing for issues related to increased use of toilet paper substitutes and wipes. Cities are trying to get the word out to "Trash it. Don't flush it." Visit Insider's homepage for more stories. As if the coronavirus pandemic couldn't get any more unsettling, now there's the possibility of raw sewage flowing through the streets. Public works employees in Northern California have been bouncing between sewage spills lately. They think the cause of the spike in wastewater issues might be tied to people flushing items other than toilet paper. "I'm sure it's happening all across the state," Tony Rubio, district manager of a sanitary district in Marin, told the San Francisco Chronicle. "It's not a maintenance problem we normally have to deal with." The coronavirus has closed schools and businesses and prompted many to panic shop for toilet paper and anti-bacterial wipes. There is a concern that some may be flushing wipes and other inappropriate items down the toilet, which can cause sewage lines to back up. Officials at the California State Water Board told the Chronicle that it was too early to be certain that the coronavirus was driving the uptick in sewer problems, but the agency issued a public notice this week advising people to flush only toilet paper down the can. "People are really nervous about this virus and they're flushing anything they can use down the toilet," Mike Prinz, general manager of the Las Gallinas district, told the Chronicle. "If people are using non-flushables, there's a good probability that they're going to contribute to a spill not far away from their home." In New York City, which is also facing a shutdown due to the coronavirus, there hasn't been a spike in sewage issues, a Department of Environmental Protection spokesman told Insider. Story continues "This is an issue NYC tracks closely," Edward Timbers told Insider. "There has been no recent spike here, rather when items are improperly disposed of into the sewer system they accumulate over time." Still, bracing for an extended period of time where more people are spending time at home and might be using an increased amount of paper towels and wipes, the city is trying to get the word out about where to dispose of those items. Their recommendation: "Trash it. Don't flush it." "Now that more of us are at home during the day, we might find our households running through toilet paper a little bit faster than usual," the city tweeted. "Though there is no need to hoard supplies, there is no reason you should be flushing anything other than toilet paper!" These concerns are not limited to the US, either. Richard Wilding, a professor of supply chain strategy at Cranfield School of Management, told The Guardian that the UK is also in danger of sewer gridlock due to the toilet paper substitutes many are likely to use during the pandemic. "We are seeing shortages of toilet paper but worryingly also shortages of paper kitchen towels and industrial paper towel used, for example, in garages and workshops and other wipe products," he told the Guardian. "If kitchen towels, baby wipes or industrial papers are used as a replacement for toilet paper, our sewage systems could readily become blocked with the resulting chaos and increased health risks associated with this. Ultimately, water companies may not have the infrastructure and equipment to unblock the sewer system." The coronavirus COVID-19 has infected more than 235,000 people and killed nearly 10,000. The highly contagious virus is thought to be spread through airborne particles from an infected person's coughs or sneezes. It may also spread through fecal matter. One of the best ways to prevent getting the illness is by frequently washing your hands for at least 20 seconds, the CDC has said. If you dry them on a paper towel, though, maybe don't flush it. Read the original article on Insider Former Senator Ben Murray Bruce has announced the demise of his wife via his official Twitter handle. Mr Murray-Bruce, who made the announcement on his official Facebook and Twitter accounts on Friday morning, said his wife died of cancer. In his message, he described his late wife as a blessing to many. Reacting swiftly, former vice president Atiku Abubakar sent his condolence in reaction to the former lawmakers tweet which also serves as the announcement. Read Also: Ben Murray-Bruce Loses Wife To Cancer Im broken. Just lost my beautiful wife to cancer. She was my best friend for 43 years and my wife for 41 years. Cancer is real, but it shouldnt be a death sentence awareness, and early detection and treatment are key to survival. I miss her so so much. Im broken. pic.twitter.com/MPTTBhsGnB Ben Murray-Bruce (@benmurraybruce) March 20, 2020 Our children are devastated, I am too. But I have to be strong for them. Please put our family in your prayers. Like the sun, my wife was a blessing and touched the lives of everyone she met. Though shes gone, shed remain alive in our hearts forever. pic.twitter.com/p1givMoJJL Ben Murray-Bruce (@benmurraybruce) March 20, 2020 I miss you, my sweetheart, and my most beautiful girl, Evelyn Murray-Bruce. Forever yours, . pic.twitter.com/FlsBioKOIf Ben Murray-Bruce (@benmurraybruce) March 20, 2020 Atiku in his message wrote: My good friend and brother, @benmurraybruce, on behalf of my family, I extend our deepest condolences. Your family are in our thoughts and prayers. May her beautiful soul rest in peace. Congress leader Kamal Nath has thanked the people of Madhya Pradesh for supporting his government in the past 15 months. He said due to people's love and support, the Congress government was able to do work that had changed the "picture" of the state. Earlier, he submitted his resignation as the chief minister of the state, while accusing the BJP of cheating with the people of the state. Speculations are rife that the Congress government in Madhya Pradesh is set to fall today. With the majority government now reduced to minority, Congress leader Digvijaya Singh has also said it's unlikely that Congress government will survive. The floor test for a trust vote will be held in the MP Assembly around 5 PM today. Check all the latest updates on MP floor test on BusinessToday.In live blog 4.49 PM: Kamal Nath has thanked the people of Madhya Pradesh for supporting his government in the past 15 months. He said due to people's love and support, the Congress government was able to do work that had changed the "picture" of the state. , 15 - - 15 1/2 Office Of Kamal Nath (@OfficeOfKNath) March 20, 2020 3.11PM: Sweets being distributed at BJP office in Bhopal. #MadhyaPradesh: Sweets being distributed at BJP office in Bhopal. BJP leader Shivraj Singh Chouhan, Leader of Opposition in Madhya Pradesh Assembly Gopal Bhargava and other leaders present. https://t.co/NU0xrKnR2B pic.twitter.com/oNetQMVrRb ANI (@ANI) March 20, 2020 2.54 PM: BJP MLAs show victory sign at the state Assembly in Bhopal. #MadhyaPradesh: BJP MLAs show victory sign at the state Assembly in Bhopal. Congress' Kamal Nath has resigned as the Chief Minister of the state, ahead of the floor test which was to take place at the state Assembly today. pic.twitter.com/ZhPxjURFKt ANI (@ANI) March 20, 2020 2.38 PM: BJP MLAs have reached the MP Assembly. The floor test will be held around 5 PM. , Jyotiraditya M. Scindia (@JM_Scindia) March 20, 2020 2.34 PM: People have won today, says Scindia People have won today in MP, says Jyotiraditya Scindia. "I have always believed that politics should be the medium of public service, but the state government had deviated from this path. Truth has won again. Satyamev Jayate," says Scindia. 2.28 PM: Congress leader Kamal Nath submitting his resignation to Madhya Pradesh Governor Lalji Tandon. Kamal Nath has submitted his resignation to Madhya Pradesh Governor Lalji Tandon. His letter states "All that has happened in Madhya Pradesh in the last two weeks is a new chapter in the weakening of democratic principles." pic.twitter.com/agzKBsdbxh ANI (@ANI) March 20, 2020 2.23 PM: Kamal Nath removes 'chief minister' from his Twitter bio. "All that has happened in Madhya Pradesh in the last two weeks is a new chapter in the weakening of democratic principles," says Nath. The floor test is scheduled to be held around 5 PM. 1:40 PM: Recent development in MP is weakening of democratic principles: Kamal Nath , Jyotiraditya M. Scindia (@JM_Scindia) March 20, 2020 1:30 PM: Kamal Nath hands in resignation Chief Minister Kamal Nath handed in his resignation to Governor Lalji Tandon. The Congress leader blamed BJP and former Congress leader Jyotiraditya Scindia of conspiring against the government in MP. 1:10 PM: The people of Madhya Pradesh have won today, says Jyotiraditya Scindia MP Assembly Speaker: I had accepted 16 resignations last night. Now I have also accepted resignation of Sharad Kol (BJP MLA). He had earlier said that he was forcefully made to resign but after looking at his documents&that he didn't meet me personally, it didn't seem like that. pic.twitter.com/L6NQsRGFdF ANI (@ANI) March 20, 2020 1:06 PM: No option but to support BJP, says independent candidate Independent candidate Pradeep Jaiswal said that he has spoken to BJP. He added that he now has no other option but to support the ruling party. He said that his priority is the people of MP. 1:04 PM: Shivraj Singh Chouhan will soon stake claim in MP 1:00 PM: People will not forgive BJP: Kamal Nath "The people of this country can see the truth behind the incident where MLAs are being held hostage in Bengaluru... The truth will come out. People will not forgive them," said Kamal Nath. 12.50 PM: Kamal Nath blames BJP, Jyotiraditya Scindia "My government was able to prove majority in the house on three occasions. The BJP could not tolerate it. So, it conspired with a Maharaj (Jyotiraditya Scindia) and 22 greedy MLAs and planned to topple my government," Kamal Nath said. 12.40 PM: MP CM Kamal Nath resigns 12.13 PM: BJP MLA Sharad Kaul's has resigned from the BJP. His resignation has also been accepeted by the MP Speaker. Apart from him, 22 Congress MLAs have also resigned from the party. 12.02 PM: Accepted 16 resignations last night: MP Speaker The MP Speaker says he had accepted 16 resignations last night. "Now I have also accepted resignation of Sharad Kol (BJP MLA). He had earlier said that he was forcefully made to resign but after looking at his documents&that he didn't meet me personally, it didn't seem like that," he added. 11.57 AM: Kamla Nath to hold presser soon All the Congress MLAs, who were holed up in a Bhopal hotel since March 15, has left for the CM's hosue. Madhya Pradesh CM is expected to hold a press conference soon. Hyderabad: In the wake of coronavirus scare, AIMIM chief Asaduddin Owaisi said that all religious meetings have been cancelled and the Friday prayers will be restricted in Telangana state. Along with a delegation of Muslim clerics, he met chief minister K Chandrasekhar Rao to extend him support in the government's fight against coronavirus. "Today during our meeting with the chief minister, we extended our full support to the government in the fight against coronavirus," Owaisi said. He also said that the delegation also thanked the CM for passing a resolution against Citizenship Amendment Act, National Register of Citizens and National Population Register in the Assembly. The total number of positive cases of Covid-19 in India stands at 167, including 25 foreigners. Four deaths (one each) have been reported in Delhi, Karnataka, Punjab and Maharashtra," the Ministry of Health and Family Welfare said in a statement. KYODO NEWS - Mar 20, 2020 - 14:47 | All, Japan Japan marked the 25th anniversary Friday of a sarin nerve gas attack by the AUM Shinrikyo cult on the Tokyo subway system that left 14 people dead and more than 6,000 others injured. The cult has been disbanded and its founder Shoko Asahara and senior members were executed in 2018, but successor groups remain active. A memorial service was held at Kasumigaseki Station, where subway staff wearing face masks to guard against coronavirus infections observed a moment of silence at 8 a.m., around the time when the attack occurred on March 20, 1995. (Shizue Takahashi, whose husband was killed in the 1995 sarin gas attack, lays flowers at the station.) [Pool photo] The nerve agent was scattered in five subway train cars during the morning rush hour under Asahara's instructions, causing mayhem at stations. Kasumigasaki Station, one of the worst affected, is located in a district where ministries and other government offices are concentrated. Thirteen of those killed had died by the end of 1996 while the 14th, Sachiko Asakawa, 56, who had been bedridden with severe brain damage following the sarin attack, died on March 10 this year. Stands were set up at six subway stations for mourners to lay flowers. Among those who offered flowers was Shizue Takahashi, 73, who lost her husband Kazumasa, the Kasumigaseki deputy stationmaster, to the subway attack. "For the past 25 years, I've led a life totally different from the one before (the sarin attack.) I hope to quietly cherish memories of my husband from now on," she said. Victims and their families have been holding a gathering every year to share their experiences with younger people, but the event scheduled for Saturday and intended to be the last of its kind was canceled due to coronavirus fears. "We will no longer organize (memorial gatherings) and hope to hand over the baton to the government," Takahashi said. Many survivors still suffer from post-traumatic stress disorder as well as deteriorating health as they get older, and have been asking the government to continue providing necessary support for them. Transport minister Kazuyoshi Akaba, who offered flowers at Kasumigaseki Station, said in a statement, "We will do our best to prevent a similar incident and keep memories" alive of the sarin attack. Asahara's teachings legitimized murder and in addition to the Tokyo subway attack, cult members sprayed sarin gas in Matsumoto, Nagano Prefecture, in June 1994, killing eight local residents. The attack was meant to have targeted judges before they ruled on a case regarding a land purchase by the cult. In November 1989, cult members also murdered lawyer Tsutsumi Sakamoto, who was helping people break away from the cult, along with his wife and their baby son. (Supplied photo taken in January 2015 shows Sachiko Sachiko Asakawa (L) and her brother Kazuo.) A total of 192 people were indicted over the murders and other crimes carried out by the cult. During lengthy trials that ended in January 2018, Asahara, 63, whose real name was Chizuo Matsumoto, was convicted of multiple murders, including the 1995 sarin gas attack, and hanged along with 12 other former senior members of the cult in July 2018. AUM Shinrikyo went bankrupt in 1996, and three successor groups -- Aleph, Hikari no Wa and a smaller offshoot of Aleph -- are now active with some 1,650 followers combined. They have about 30 branches in 15 prefectures and assets totaling 1.3 billion yen ($12 million), according to the Public Security Intelligence Agency. Aleph is said to keep portraits of Asahara, while Hikari no Wa claims to have abandoned AUM Shinrikyo's teachings. The agency, however, deems all the successor groups to pose a threat to the public. Of the 3.8 billion yen in damages sought by the victims, 1.5 billion yen has been paid by selling AUM Shinrikyo assets. Aleph, however, stopped paying damages in 2017, leading victims to take legal action to seek the remaining 1 billion yen. In Hokkaido, where the group is active, dozens of people join it every year, according to the agency. Related coverage: Japan hangs 6 remaining AUM death row inmates Executed ex-AUM member said he "didn't expect" such ending Japan executes AUM doomsday cult founder Asahara, 6 members President Muhammadu Buhari has finally spoken about the Coronavirus outbreak in the country which has led to the banning of public gatherings and shutting down of schools in the country. In a statement released by the Senior Special Assistant to the President on Media and Publicity, Garba Shehu, the President called for calm from Nigerians. Also Read: Coronavirus: NIMC Shuts Down Centers In 5 States Buhari assured that his administration was taking steps to mitigate the effects on the Nigerian people. Buhari assured Nigerians that government is on top of the situation, stressing that there is no cause for panic. Islamabad: Pakistan's coronavirus cases sharply rose to 453 on Thursday, as the military said measures are being taken to make the armed forces' medical facilities available for an "extreme emergency" situation. Pakistan on Wednesday reported its first two casualties due to the coronavirus that has spread to more than 160 countries, killing over 9,000 people. On Thursday, maximum new cases were recorded in Balochistan where the number of infected people rose to 81 from 23. Punjab was the next where the number rose from 33 to 78, the Dawn reported. But the worst-hit Sindh province was still on the top with 245 confirmed cases, while Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa had 23, Islamabad 2 and Pakistan-occupied Kashmir and Gilgit-Baltistan 24, the paper said. Army spokesman Major General Babar Iftikhar told the media that army was fully geared up to support the civil administration in fighting coronavirus. "Medical facilities of armed forces will be available in case of emergency," he said. Pakistan also announced on Thursday to close down Wagah border with India for two weeks. The interior ministry through a notification said that it closed the key border point with India "for an initial period of two weeks (14 days) with immediate effect". It said the measure was taken to "prevent the spread of COVID-19, in the best interest of both countries." Pakistan's western border with Iran and Afghanistan had already been closed to curb the spread of the deadly virus. "Pakistan is taking measures to stop the spread of the infection," the Prime Minister's Advisor on Health Dr Zafar Mirza told the media. He said that Pakistan would learn from China's experience. "Our doctors will be trained by Chinese doctors through video conferences," he said. Mirza asked people to practice social distancing which will help to reduce the infections. Religious affairs minister Noor ul Haq Qadri said that training programs for Haj pilgrims were suspended as part of the preventive measure. In Karachi, which is one of worst-hit areas, Christian leaders suspended Church services. The Foreign Office announced to hold indirect press conference as a precautionary measure to control the spread of coronavirus. Foreign Office spokesperson Aisha Farooqui said that reporters can submit questions through email and answers will be published on the ministry's website. A stay-at-home order has been enacted in Illinois in response to the coronavirus pandemic. Illinois Governor JB Pritzker announced the measure on Friday. New York, Illinois and California which include the three largest cities in the US, respectively New York City, Chicago and Los Angeles have all ordered their residents to stay home unless they have essential reasons to go out. Pritzker explained during a news conference on Friday that experts recommended an urgent, statewide stay-at-home order in order to save lives. Left unchecked, cases in Illinois will rise rapidly, the governor warned. The order will take effect on 5pm this Saturday 21 March and is currently set to end on 7 April. Residents of the state will still be able to go outside to visit grocery stores, pharmacies, medical offices, hospitals and gas stations. They will be permitted to go for runs, hikes, and to walk their dogs. For the vast majority of you already taking precautions, your lives will not change very much, Pritzker said. He warned against panic buying and stockpiling, adding: There is absolutely no need to rush out to a grocery store or gas station. On Sunday, and Monday, and Tuesday, and every day thereafter, those will be available to you. Agriculture and the press, veterinarians and plumbers, laundromats and banks, roads, bridges and transit the fundamental building blocks that keep our society safe and steady will not be closing down, he said. You can still pick up dinner from your local restaurant, pick up your prescriptions, and just spend time with your family. Non-essential businesses must stop operating. Those who can work from home must do so. Essential workers will be provided with safe daycare options, Pritzker said. His office is ordering municipalities across the state to stop all evictions. School districts will keep providing meals. Pritzker said he was unable to say when schools would safely reopen. The tentative reopening date has been postponed to 8 April. To be honest, we dont have the resources, the capacity, or the desire to police every individuals behaviour, he said, adding he would be relying on Illinoians to be good members of their communities and good citizens, working together to keep each other safe. Law enforcement has been instructed to monitor the situation and take action when necessary. The easy thing to say today is that soon, everything will go back to the way it was, Pritzker said. But I want to be honest with you about that too: we dont know yet all the steps were going to have to take to get this virus under control. Chicago Mayor Lori Lightfoot stressed residents personal responsibility in the face of the pandemic. She urged people not to hoard supplies, stressing that they will remain available, and asked them to keep practising social distancing while out on walks. Remember: this is the new normal, she said. Help is on the way if you are an essential worker in Toronto scrambling to find care for young children in the wake of Ontarios order to shutter daycares and schools to slow the spread of COVID-19. The City of Toronto is planning to offer free child care on a 24-7 basis for children up to age 12 for any worker deemed essential by the province, said a city hall source. As early as Monday, four city-operated sites across Toronto could open to serve up to 60 children each or 120 kids over a 24-hour period, according to the source. And we are prepared to scale up or down based on demand, the source said. Parents will register through an online portal that will be available as soon as Queens Park gives the green light, the source added. But the emergency child care cannot open until the province amends its original order that closed all licensed child-care centres. The city has been working closely with the province all week to amend Tuesdays order, the source said. The province also needs to spell out which essential workers would be allowed to access the service, the source explained. Child care advocates, who were briefed on the citys plans Friday, welcomed the initiative. Its good that the City of Toronto is leading the way in Ontario on this, said Carolyn Ferns with the Ontario Coalition for Better Child Care. I hope they can get it up and running as soon as possible and that the province continues to work with the city and gives them the approvals they need. Ferns said it is especially important that emergency child care is free for essential workers since they are making such great sacrifices for us. During his daily briefing Friday, Ontario Premier Doug Ford told reporters that cabinet would be discussing options to provide child care for front-line health-care workers and first responders. As a parent myself, I know parents want the best for their children, he said. Ontario parents understand why schools and daycares are closed: to keep our kids safe and healthy and to slow the spread of COVID-19. Toronto officials are co-ordinating with several non-profit child-care providers to help meet demand. Its not a blanket all child cares can operate because we need rigorous public health measures to remain in place, the source explained. Toronto Mayor John Tory said the city is still finalizing the plans and hopes to have more to say soon. Suffice to say, there is a lot of work that has been done getting this ready, and we want it up and running as soon as possible, he told reporters Friday. In Quebec, where child care is heavily subsidized and widely available, the province has been offering free care since Monday for a broad range of essential workers impacted by school and daycare closings due to the pandemic. Child care advocates across the country have been calling on provinces to close all child-care programs, including home-based daycares, to promote social distancing. If parents are being told not to arrange play dates for their children, they should not be allowed to send them to home-based child care, Ferns said. Although child-care centres in Ontario are closed, licensed and unlicensed home daycares are still permitted to operate under the provincial order. Advocates also want provinces to provide free, emergency care for children of essential service workers, as is happening in Quebec. And they want provinces to provide emergency funding to all child-care programs so they can pay staff while centres are closed and ensure parents arent on the hook for fees. Otherwise, child-care centres are going to get into really tough financial straights, especially those that are refunding parents and trying to continue paying staff, Ferns said. We need emergency funding to keep those programs afloat because at some point when parents go back to work, they are going to need those child-care services to be there, she added. Some parents who have paid thousands of dollars in advance fees and postdated cheques are calling on the province to mandate daycares to provide refunds or credits while centres are closed. The emergency child care plans are part of Torontos broader response to vulnerable residents during the health crisis, announced Friday. Over the past week, the city has been meeting daily with a group of 30 community service providers to monitor needs and plan a co-ordinated response, said Toronto deputy city manager Giuliana Carbone. It is working closely with the United Way and the Toronto Aboriginal Social Services Council to ensure vital services such as food banks, meal programs and distress lines remain available for families, seniors and people living alone, she told reporters. Toronto seniors services staff continue to provide personal care, medication reminders and safety checks for seniors living in the community, she added. Access to food is a major issue for low-income residents and families. And the city is working with agencies to understand which food banks are operating ... and identifying ways to keep as many of these essential services open, she said. As many as one-third of city food banks have been forced to close during the crisis, according to the Daily Bread Food Bank. Two summers ago, a sobbing relative called to say that shed just seen one youth stab another in the chest outside her front door in gentrifying Harlem. As she spoke, she noticed that the blood had splattered her shoes. The victim didnt die, thank heaven, but staggered across the street and got help. It was a neighborhood annual reunionbarbecues blazing, salsa music blastingand the victim and his assailant, simmering with decades-long loathing now heightened by drug-dealing rivalry, exploded. I e-mailed my friend Bill Bratton, then still police commissioner, to say that a lack of quality-of-life policing in that neighborhood, including an official blind eye to petty dope traffic, clearly contributed to the do-what-you-want mind-set that prevailed in that precinct, whose former corruption once dubbed it the Dirty Thirty. Bratton needed no convincing: he was an even truer believer than I in the Broken Windows theory of crime preventionthe idea that if cops let minor crimes of disorder, such as low-level marijuana selling or subway fare-beating or public urination (or, these days, masturbation), go unpunished, the malicious will conclude that anything goes and do what their evil hearts prompt. He soon had a narcotics squad patrolling the neighborhood, and within months, the police had won a score of convictions of the pushers. Bratton is retired now; the city council has decriminalized crimes of disorder by mandating civil instead of criminal summonses for many of them, resulting in no criminal record and no arrest warrant if you dont show up in court; and the successors to the narcotics cops who worked their magic in the Three-Oh in 2015 have lost interest in the ongoing problem. Theyre just low-level kids, the detectives say; theyll soon be back on the streetsand, more than anything, as they do not say, Mayor Bill de Blasio and his city council of unemployables have decided that justice demands that the acting-out of the disorderly and the criminal, ex officio victims of social injustice, should take precedence over the peace and safety of the hardworking and civil. Out go the backlog of quality-of-life warrants of the last decade and more. Why should the wrongdoings of yesteryear weigh on the employment chances of an utterly work-unready 28-year-oldthough, of course, no one would even invoke that past transgression in a case that didnt involve current lawbreaking, just as no cop made a major fuss about small quantities of pot possession, unless some larger offense was at issue. Fortunately, city crime continues to drop, because the virtuous circle set going by Mayor Rudy Giuliani and Commissioner Bratton, and carried on by Mayor Michael Bloomberg and Commissioner Ray Kelly, has its own momentum, proving, as Adam Smith said, that there is a great deal of ruin in a nationit takes a long time to expend the social and cultural capital that so many cities and countries take for granted. As Gotham proved, you can legislate morality, in the sense that lawmaking and law enforcement can change behavior and beliefs. But laws, morals, and manners exist in a dialectical tension with one another, and what has changed for the better can also change for the worseand more easily, since improvement is harder than destruction. With a Black-Lives-Matter mayor, city council, and electorate, with Antifa thugs supposedly now the good guys, and with contrary views silenced by the universities and the trendy totalitarians of Silicon Valley (who, between engineering classes, learned what is right and moral from their required Stanford PC-indoctrination course), I would suggest holding on to your hat. Thanks to the age of Kindle, though, at least we wont have book burnings. But the reason for controlling quality-of-life disorder is not only, or even primarily, that it lowers major crime. Order is what makes urban life possible. Civilitythe art of living in a cityis not innate. We have to learn not to throw sand at other kids and to learn to raise our hands to be called on, to stand in line and take our turn, not to blast music from our apartment or car, not to display too much affection publicly, not to block the sidewalk or market aisle, not to yell on our cellphones or cram pizza into our maws on the street or public transport, not to litter, not to monopolize public spaces with our expressive behavior, not to cut off pedestrians in crosswalks, not to bother or offend others unnecessarily. We no longer teach civility in schools: instead of the citizenship that my generation learned, we impart social justice, which teaches grievance and resentment of others; and city officials, with an Obama edicts backing, have hamstrung school discipline, fostering misbehavior. In college, we dont teach free and civil discussion, tolerance of intellectual differences, or respect for learning but only a kids right to resent microaggressions and silence politically incorrect speech as violence. The result will not be urbanity. That leaves the police to stop people from disturbing the peace or committing public nuisances. Except that the city council wants them to stop doing all that; and fear of a career-ending confrontation in such an anti-cop climate makes officers all too ready to pull back. Already, boom boxes are metastasizing on the streetseven bicyclists blast themand the homeless, who go wherever lax order-keeping and virtue-signaling left-wing generosity make them welcome, have flocked to Gothams dirty-again streets. Photo by Drew Angerer/Getty Images France has reportedly accused American multinational technology company, Amazon for placing an unacceptable pressure on employees after unions claimed that the retailer would not pay the workers who refuse to go to work due to the fear of contracting the deadly coronavirus. In a radio interview, French Finance Minister Bruno Le Marie not only denounced Amazon for coercing the workers but also added that the government is going to make sure Amazon knows this. According to an international news agency, about 200 of the total 1,700 employees at Amazons distribution centre near Douai in northern France had refused to go to work on March 17, instead, exercised their right to refusal in the countrys labour code if an employee considered there is a health and/or safety risks attached to it. The union sources have reportedly also said that nearly half of the workers also walked out on March 18 at Amazons Montelimar facility in the southeast part of the country. The sources reportedly added that the management of the company had indicated its employees would not be paid as the death toll due to coronavirus reaches 372 and has infected over 10,900 people in France. Read - Pope Francis Asks Faithful To Pray For Italy Strict confinement measures in France In the wake of the coronavirus outbreak which has now spread at least 180 countries now, the French government had announced strict confinement measures that started on March 17. Under these precautionary steps, the workers are now only allowed to go to the office if their employers cannot practice telecommunication while keeping in mind that the special contagion management measures are in place. However, according to unions, Amazon has failed to ensure that employees can remain at least one metre away from each other in order to maintain social distance. Read - France May Extend Lockdown As Many Flout The Rules It has also been reported that the company does not have a sufficient supply of hand gels and sanitizers to help the workers maintain hygiene. A CGT union official at the Montelimar site, Guillaume Reynaud has said that in some places it is impossible to maintain a safe distance in order to prevent the fatal COVID-19 from the further spread, especially in changing rooms. However, Amazon has made the claims by the unions, controversial by saying that it has reinforced cleaning measures and has even taken steps, so that employees can keep a necessary distance from one another. The company further said in a statement that it is strictly following governments recommendations and directives. The US-based company has reportedly seen a hike in orders in France along with other countries as millions are being confined only to their homes while the world battles the deadly coronavirus outbreak since it originated in the Chinese province of Wuhan in December 2019. Read - France likely To Extend Coronavirus Lockdown In A Bid To Contain The Spread Read - France Reports 89 New Coronavirus Deaths In Last 24 Hours: Official (With agency inputs) Suspended chairman of the Special Investigation Panel on Recovery of Public Property (SPIP), Okoi Obono-Obla, has been arrested by the Independent Corrupt Practices and other Related Offences Commission (ICPC). Naija News reports that the Wanted Ex-SPIP boss was arrested by the anti-graft agency on Friday in Abuja, Nigerias capital. A report monitored on PREMIUM TIMES by Naija News said Obono-Obla, who was declared wanted by ICPC for allegedly refusing to honour its investigation, was picked up in an undisclosed location in the Federal Capital Territory. The report said that the former special assistant to the president on prosecution who had in the past claimed he was not aware of his suspension, was undergoing medicals at the anti-graft agencys headquarters in the capital city. Confirming the development, Rasheedah Okodowa, ICPC spokesperson, said Obono-Obla was arrested Friday afternoon, Yes, he is in our custody. Mr Obono-Obla was arrested a few hours ago in Abuja. Details will be communicated to the public, she said. However, The ICPC spokeswoman declined to comment on whether Obono-Obla was undergoing medicals, saying the agency has its own procedures for taking suspects into its custody. Removed by Buhari. Meanwhile, Naija News recalls that in August 2019, President Muhammadu Buhari suspended Obono-Obla from office with an instruction that the suspension order took immediate effect. In a letter dated, August 14, 2019, and signed by Boss Mustapha, the Secretary to the Government of the Federation, Obono-Obla was accused of falsification of records and financial impropriety. The letter read in part; I write to convey the directive of His Excellency, Muhammadu Buhari, President of the Federal Republic of Nigeria, for your suspension from office as Chairman, Special Investigation Panel for the Recovery of Public Property with immediate effect. This suspension shall subsist until the conclusion of the ICPC investigations into cases of alleged falsification of records and financial impropriety against your person. You are required by this instruction to strictly observe and comply with the provisions of PSR 030405 (a-c) of the Public Service Rules. For the avoidance of doubt, the Solicitor General of the Federation and Permanent Secretary, Federal Ministry of Justice, shall be the authority to whom you shall report. Share this post with your Friends on The views expressed by public comments are not those of this company or its affiliated companies. Please note by clicking on "Post" you acknowledge that you have read the TERMS OF USE and the comment you are posting is in compliance with such terms. Your comments may be used on air. Be polite. Inappropriate posts or posts containing offsite links, images, GIFs, inappropriate language, or memes may be removed by the moderator. Job listings and similar posts are likely automated SPAM messages from Facebook and are not placed by WFMZ-TV. Ranchi, March 20 : The Jharkhand Assembly on Friday witnessed noisy scenes after former minister and BJP legislator C.P. Singh termed Congress leader Rahul Gandhi a 'pappu'. When the Assembly session started at 11 a.m. on Friday, Congress legislator Irfan Ansari raised the question of the nomination of former Chief Justice of India (CJI) Ranjan Gogoi to the Rajya Sabha. Assembly Speaker Rabindra Nath Mahto prevented him from raising such an issue as it did not pertain to the state. Singh said that he had to raise important issues and then he termed Rahul Gandhi a 'pappu'. His remark invited sharp reactions from the ruling Congress legislators who came to the Well demanding an apology from the BJP leader. The BJP legislators also came to the Well. The situation could have turned violent but Parliamentary Affairs Minister Aalamgir Aalam and JVM-P legislator Pradeep Yadav intervened to calm the legislators. Amid slogans and counter slogans of the ruling Congress and BJP legislators, the Speaker adjourned the House till noon. When the House convened again similar scenes were witnessed forcing the Speaker to adjourn the proceedings till 2 p.m. When Gov. Gavin Newsom called for the closure of bars, taprooms and winery tasting rooms Sunday to limit the transmission of COVID-19 coronavirus, a Napa Valley winery decided to hold weekly virtual wine tastings through April 23. St. Supery Estate Vineyards & Winery in Rutherford started the tastings Thursday. "One of our winemakers will host the chat on Zoom each Thursday and recordings will be made available if you can't join in. We feel Zoom is the best platform to facilitate a more interactive session," St. Supery Estate Vineyards & Winery CEO Emma Swain said. "With improvements in technology we are able to engage more directly with our customers than in the past," Swain said. Since Newsom's order, the public health officers of all nine Bay Area counties have issued shelter at home orders that allow only essential businesses to remain open and essential activities to continue. The orders allow vineyard management, production operations, bottling, warehousing digital sales, delivery and shipping but not wine tasting or events in compliance with Newsom's order. The Napa Valley Vintners Association supports Newsom's order to close wineries' "visitor facing operations," visitor centers and tasting rooms. "The NVV will also engage with state and federal representatives to advocate for actions to minimize the impact on all businesses, employees and communities, including augmenting unemployment assistance. The NVV will move forward with new marketing promotions to encourage enjoyment of wine at home and take-out from local restaurants," the association said. Copyright 2020 by Bay City News, Inc. Republication, Rebroadcast or any other Reuse without the express written consent of Bay City News, Inc. is prohibited. We recognize that the coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic has disrupted daily life for all of us in New Haven and has posed a particular challenge to our faith communities. We know how important it is for our faith communities to gather for worship and fellowship, to draw strength from each other and to connect with the deep well of spiritual resources that are part of our various religious traditions. The City of New Haven is taking critical and life-saving steps to reduce the spread of the coronavirus, by closing schools, public buildings and public gathering spaces such as bars, restaurants, gyms, and movie theaters and theaters, and by encouraging increased physical distance and reduced contact among people. We support the citys efforts and call on all faith communities to suspend all in-person gatherings and take every measure possible to prevent the spread of the coronavirus and ensure the health and well-being of our city. While we work together to safeguard the physical health of our city, we also encourage all faith communities to use alternative ways (online, virtual, telephone) to support the spiritual lives of their members. It is said, there is no distance in prayer. Though we will not be meeting in our sacred buildings and spaces, we can use all the technological resources we have, so that our faith and connectedness can sustain us in these trying times. ACTION STEPS Suspend all in-person religious gatherings effective immediately. Use online, virtual and telephone options to support and communicate with your faith community members. Identify volunteers from your community to use online or telephone services to maintain personal contact with community members, especially with vulnerable people and those at risk of social isolation. When in-person meeting is essential, keep at least 6 feet between you and another person. Frequently wash hands with soap and water for at least 20 seconds. If soap and water are not readily available use hand sanitizer with at least 60 percent alcohol. Cover coughs and sneezes with a tissue or use the inside of your elbow. Clean frequently touched objects and surfaces. Stay home when sick. If you have a fever and cough, do not go to the hospital or your health care provider call them first. If you go to your provider you will risk spread of the disease. We recognize that not all faith communities are in positions to offer online, virtual or telephone forms of worship and communication. We also recognize that not all faith communities are able to process financial gifts online. We will work with the city and members of our faith communities who have expertise in these areas to provide access to resources and technical assistance. Stay connected with the New Haven response at https://covid-19-1-newhavenct.hub.arcgis.com. Yale New Haven Health has set up a call center in response to COVID-19. They provide assessments to patients by phone or video and determine whether someone needs to be tested. The hotline is 1-833-275-9644. Please join us in taking these important action steps. Together we can work together for the safety, health, and well-being of all people in our city. Though we may not be together in person for now, we can gather our communities in spirit and in faith. We offer this prayer in closing: A Prayer for Our Time, Rev. Dr. Frederick J. Streets, senior pastor, Dixwell Congregational Church, New Haven, Spirit of All Creation: May our faith in you and one another guide us as we cannot yet see our way through this time of crisis. May our hope in you and the goodness of our neighbors strengthen us as we endure our discomforts and fears. Give comfort to all who are emotionally, physically and spiritually distressed. Bless our health care providers and all who are taking care of those who are ill. Grant wisdom and discernment to those who are researching and searching for medicines to combat our diseases, the coronavirus and other illnesses. Help us to reassure and comfort our children and protect them from harm and danger. Grant, O God, those who lead our governments, institutions, hospitals, our schools and local organizations, safety and emergency services and us, wisdom beyond our own wisdom to contain the coronavirus; faith beyond our own faith to help us to fight our fears and strength beyond our own strength to be resilient and sustain all of our vital institutions through this time of turmoil. Although we are physically separated from one another help us, Eternal One, to maintain our social connection to one another by our creatively and ethically using social media. Help each of us to know that there is something in us stronger than fear. Birth in us a new sense of hope that will help us to rise above the clouds of despair. Grant, Eternal Love that we emerge from this time of crisis a more loving people who are more committed to the welfare of all and the earth that sustains us. Amen With gratitude and blessings on your ministries in these difficult times, Rev. Keri Aubert, Imam Omer Bajwa, Bishop Manuel Caban, Rev. Paul Carling; Rev. Barbara Cheney, Rev. Harlon Dalton, Rev. Luk De Volder, Rev. Javier Diaz, Rev. Bonita Grubbs, Rev. Abraham Hernandez, Rev. Stephen C. Holton, Fr. Thomas C. Jackson, Rev. Kari Henkelmann Keyl, Rev. Timothy J. Keyl, Imam Kashif Abdul-Karim, Rev. Jordan Lenaghan, O.P., Pastor Ariel Martinez, Rev. Deacon Kyle Pedersen, Rev. Hector Otero, Rev. Dr. Frederick J. Streets, Rev. Roger Wilkins (Newser) A 34-year-old California man has become the state's latest coronavirus fatalityweeks after he visited Walt Disney World and Universal Studios. Relatives say Pasadena-area resident Jeff Ghazarian flew to Orlando from Los Angeles for a work trip on March 2 and stayed longer to visit the theme parks with friends, TMZ reports. He flew back to Los Angeles on March 9a day after he started coughing up bloodand went to a hospital because he had a high fever. Doctors told him he had pneumonia and asked him to self-quarantine until the results of a COVID-19 test came back. Relatives say he was hospitalized on Saturday, a day after testing positive, and died Thursday morning. story continues below "Our sweet, loving, fun Jeffrey went to be with Jesus this morning," relatives wrote on his Facebook page Thursday. "He suffered a lot and put up a good fight." Relatives say Ghazarian was a higher-risk patient, People reports. He suffered from asthma and bronchitis as a child and beat testicular cancer in 2016. Officials say Ghazarian is the second person to die from coronavirus in Los Angeles County, and one of the youngest fatalities in the US, CBS Los Angeles reports. Disney closed all of its theme parks worldwide on Monday. (Read more coronavirus stories.) The Chinese Embassy and Chinese Community in Sierra Leone donated Materials to Support Sierra Leone in Preventing COVID-19 2020/03/20 On March 19th, 2020, H.E. Ambassador Hu Zhangliang handed over a batch of most needed medical materials, plus one 50 kw generator, donated by the Chinese Embassy and the Chinese community in Sierra Leone to the Ministry of Health and Sanitation. Hon. Minister of Health and Sanitation Dr. Alpha Wurie, Chief Medical Officer Mr. Samba and representatives from Ministry of Foreign Affairs and International Cooperation, heads of China-Sierra Leone friendship organizations, heads of the three Chinese Medical Teams in Sierra Leone and newsmen and newswomen from the fourth estate graced the event. In his statement, Ambassador Hu averred that under the staunch leadership of H.E. President Xi Jinping, China has been effectively kept the COVID-19 pandemic under control and things are turning for better in China. He said that though COVID-19 was first discovered in China, it does not necessarily mean that it originated from China. He stressed that just like Ebola shouldn't be labelled as African Ebola or Sierra Leonean Ebola, characterizing the pandemic as "Chinese virus" or "Wuhan virus" is unacceptable, immoral and ill-intentioned. He emphasized that the donation is a show of strong solidarity and genuine friendship between China and Sierra Leone. Ambassador Hu commended H.E. President Julius Maada Bio and his government for exerting strong leadership to keep COVID-19 away from Sierra Leone. He said despite all the challenges at home, China will continue to share experience with and provide necessary assistance to Sierra Leone within her capacity. Hon. Minister Wurie thanked China for the prompt support at this crucial moment. He said that a friend in need is a friend in deed. He commended that China is always among the first to extend a helping hand to Sierra Leone when need arises. The Hon. Minister emphasized that the medical materials donated by China would significantly enhance Sierra Leone's capacity of prevention and control of COVID-19. President of Sierra Leone-China Friendship Society, Dr. Joe Conteh shared the same feeling. The donated items include 500 sets of protective gowns, 500 N95 masks, 1,000 surgical masks, 1,000 pairs of medical gloves, 200 medical goggles and one 50 kw generator. In addition to this, the Chinese side has urgently equipped the Chinese CDC experts and military expert group working in Sierra Leone with testing kits which enables them to conduct 1,000 person-time COVID-19 testings altogether. Commercial trucks cross over the Ambassador Bridge, during the coronavirus disease (COVID-19) outbreak, at the international border crossing, which connects with Windsor, Ontario, in Detroit, (Reuters) - As carmakers grapple with growing signs of coronavirus damage, vehicle production could be reduced by about 1.44 million in Europe, North America and Latin America, according to an estimate by information provider IHS Markit. Automakers across the world have announced plans to idle factories as they conduct additional sanitation and cleaning procedures, raising concerns that extended periods of downtime could significantly hit the companies' profits. The stoppage of work would cut European auto production by over 880,000 units, considering plants are shut for an average of 13 working days in the region, IHS Markit said on Friday. North America car production is likely to be curtailed by 478,000 units, factoring in an average downtime of six working days, while output in Brazil and Argentina combined would be hit by about 80,000 units, assuming closures between eight and 15 days, the firm said. "Even if production does only halt for the announced periods of time, the assembly ramp-up phase that follows will cause further impacts," said Henner Lehne, vice president, global vehicle group, IHS Markit. About 89 million light vehicles were produced globally in 2019, according to IHS Markit. (Reporting by Ankit Ajmera in Bengaluru; Editing by Maju Samuel) STATEN ISLAND, N.Y. -- A car crashed into a commercial building in Port Richmond Thursday afternoon, causing significant damage to the structure but injuring no one. City firefighters responded to 1912 Richmond Terr. Tri-Star Home Center after a call at 5:38 p.m. indicated a vehicle crashed into the building, according to an FDNY spokesman. The spokesman said no injuries were reported, and the New York City Department of Buildings (DOB) was notified to assess the structural integrity of the building. On scene, a large hole was seen on the side of Tri-Star Home Center, which is adjacent to a parking lot. DOB inspectors determined the car backed up too quickly into the building, damaging a 10-foot section of wall, according to Andrew Rudansky, a DOB spokesman. The inspectors found no structural damage associated with this incident, and determined that the buildings stability was unaffected, Rudansky said, adding, that the owner of the building hired contractors to seal up the damaged section. D onald Trump has cancelled the G7 leaders summit at Camp David in June due to the coronavirus crisis and will hold a video-conference instead. The US Presidents decision comes as nations around the world seal their borders and ban travel to stop the spread of Covid-19. Mr Trump held a video-conference with world leaders earlier this week and plans to repeat that in April, May and June, when the physical meeting at the presidential retreat in Maryland was scheduled to take place. White House economic adviser Larry Kudlow, who also serves as Trumps G7 sherpa, has informed his counterparts about the move. Boris Johnson: Coronavirus tide can be turned in next 12 weeks The White House said it views the change as part of mitigation efforts to fight the virus. Countries normally send large delegations with their leaders to G7 summits and journalists from around the world convene to cover their meeting as well. Mr Trump had intended to focus the G7 meeting on the economy, eschewing traditional topics that often top the agenda such as climate change. He initially planned to host the leaders group at one of his properties in Florida but canceled those plans after criticism that he would profit financially from the meeting. The G7 is made up of the United States, Italy, Japan, Canada, France, Germany, Britain as well as the European Union. Mr Trump earlier irritated Europe by instituting a travel ban on its citizens without first alerting European leaders. Source: Xinhua| 2020-03-20 14:59:08|Editor: zyl Video Player Close SUVA, March 20 (Xinhua) -- Samoa and Tonga on Friday declared a state of emergency as part of their efforts to curb the COVID-19. While announcing the 14-day state of emergency which will be effective from midnight Friday, Samoa's Prime Minister Tuilaepa Sailele Malielegaoi said that the state of emergency orders include a national prayer week from March 22 to 29, shutting down international travel except for returning Samoan citizens (who will require negative COVID-19 tests five days before travelling), and a ban of gatherings of five people or more. Public transport such as buses would be temporarily stopped and night clubs and cinemas will be closed. Market hours will be restricted and travel to Samoa's largest island of Savai'i is limited to 3 days a week. Working hours for public servants working in non-essential services will also be reduced. The state of emergency orders also include flights to Tonga and Fiji being halted, only one flight to Australia a week being permitted and limited flights to New Zealand. Meanwhile, Tonga's Prime Minister Pohiva Tu'i'onetoa also declared on Friday a state of emergency which banned all foreign nationals from entering Tonga in a restriction effective until April 17. All Tongan citizens and emergency officials arriving in the island nation will now have to go through a 14-day quarantine period. Currently, there have been no confirmed cases of the COVID-19 in Tonga and Samoa, which just had a suspected case. On Wednesday, the Samoan Health Ministry confirmed the case, saying that the person, a resident in Auckland, New Zealand, flew to Samoa on March 11 for a family occasion but was presented at the hospital in the capital city of Apia after experiencing flu-like symptoms for two days. The patient is currently in stable condition and samples have been sent to Australia for testing. Results are expected in a couple of days. Kim Kardashian's SKIMS shapewear and underwear is contributing to the fight about coronavirus. The 39-year-old reality star's range will be restocking the Cotton Collection on Monday, March 23 as 20-percent of profits going to Baby2Babys COVID-19 Emergency Response Program. The fund provides basic essentials to children and families impacted by the outbreak. Big heart: Kim Kardashian's SKIMS shapewear and underwear is contributing to the fight about coronavirus On Thursday, Jessica Alba pledged to donate a whopping 3 million diapers, as well tens of thousands of other baby supplies. Their press release says: 'Over the last five days, Baby2Baby has distributed over 1.3 million items including diapers, formula, hygiene, clothing, blankets and more.' Last week Kim shared several images to promote the re-stock of her Fits Everybody SKIMS collection which has sizes ranging from XS to 4X. Sweet: The 39-year-old reality star's range will be restocking the Cotton Collection on Monday, March 23 as 20-percent of profits going to Baby2Babys COVID-19 Emergency Response Program The most recent image featured her in a nude bra and undies. This comes after the mother-of-four laughed off Amy Schumer's parody of Kanye West's Yeezy line using SKIMS. Kim looked very toned with a tiny waistline int he new snap which had her in a bra top with briefs that went high on the hips. The caption read, 'Designed with ultra soft buttery fabric.' Sweet: On Thursday, Jessica Alba pledged to donate a whopping 3 million diapers, as well tens of thousands of other baby supplies. The timing is fun: Kim had just commented on Amy Schumer's parody. 'LOL, I love her!!!!' said Kim after Amy mocked Yeezy and Skims. Amy took to social media on Wednesday to get some laughs from her fans. The I Feel Pretty actress looked moody as she tried on a 'Yeezy' look, she said in her caption. 'Yeezy, @kimkardashian @skims. I am here and I will walk the runway,' the mother-of-one noted. Skimpy: Last week Kim shared several images to promote the re-stock of her Fits Everybody SKIMS collection which has sizes ranging from XS to 4X A good sport: The timing is fun: Kim had just commented on Amy Schumer's parody. 'LOL, I love her!!!!' said Kim after Amy mocked Yeezy and Skims The blonde comedienne had on a V-neck T-shirt leotard over a pair of beige bicycle shorts in what has become a signature style from Kim and Kanye. Amy looked like she has lost all the baby weight as her waistline was small and she had toned legs. The 38-year-old star welcomed her son Gene Attell Fischer with husband Chris Fischer in 2018. Schumer seemed to be mocking Yeezy creator Kanye West as well as his wife Kim Kardashian for their designs which feature light beige underwear. Similar: Last week Kim posed in the same set. 'So excited to announce that our @skims Fits Everybody Collection is coming soon!' the Vogue cover girl wrote Last week Kim posed in the same set. 'So excited to announce that our @skims Fits Everybody Collection is coming soon!' the Vogue cover girl wrote. 'Our most wanted underwear is coming back for the first time since launch. Made from ultra-soft, buttery fabric that stretches to up to twice its size, each piece is designed to perfectly fit and mold to every body. Plastic looking people: Finally, on Thursday Kim also shared some flashback photos from Paris. She was in light brown Latex with her hair pulled back and gloves. Sister Kourtney was in a similar look only her outfit was a maroon color 'Available in 9 tonal shades and in sizes XXS - 4X on WEDNESDAY, MARCH 11 at 9AM PST / 12PM EST. Join the waitlist now.' Kim was in a bra top with thin straps and high-waisted undies with her highlighted hair worn down over her shoulder. She had short nails painted a light beige and her wedding band on. Finally, on Thursday Kim also shared some flashback photos from Paris. She was in light brown Latex with her hair pulled back and gloves. Sister Kourtney was in a similar look only her outfit was a maroon color. Kumail Nanjiani and Emily V Gordons new podcast Staying In with Emily and Kumail will share tips on how to make the best of life while quarantined during the coronavirus pandemic. The proceeds of the Hollywood couples podcast will be donated to charities that are helping people affected by the coronavirus crisis, including the Centre for Disaster Philanthropy, Feeding America, and the Restaurant Workers Community Foundation. Gordon and Nanjiani say that they will avoid talking about COVID-19. Instead, they will provide recommendations on movies, books, board games and chat with their friends about the experience of being isolated inside. Do not expect to hear updates on the virus there are actual journalists for that, the couples official announcement says. Do expect to hear talk about the emotional wear and tear of the unprecedented times were in, and about how many ways you can eat frozen waffles. Gordons health condition means that both she and Nanjiani often stay indoors for long periods of time. Oscar-nominated romantic comedy The Big Sick was based on their lives. The podcast is available on all major podcast platforms, including Apple Podcasts, Spotify and Stitcher. A Baylor University student and two faculty members have tested positive for the novel coronavirus, COVID-19, university President Linda Livingstone said. All three cases are travel-related. Neither the student nor the faculty members visited the Baylor campus after their travels and have been self-isolating since returning home, Livingstone wrote Thursday in a letter to the campus. Individuals who had potential exposure to the student and faculty members will be notified by public health officials. Waco-McLennan County Public Health District reported that there are seven cases within the county as of Wednesday. I know this news is difficult to hear and deeply unsettling to all of us, and unfortunately, we anticipate that we will have additional positive cases during the days and weeks ahead as COVID-19 continues to spread across the country, Livingstone wrote. On HoustonChronicle.com: Texas A&M student tests positive for coronavirus The news comes after University at Texas at Austin and Texas A&M University announced their own positive cases of the virus. At UT-Austin, President Gregory L. Fenves wife Carmel was the first case of coronavirus at UT. One UT student and Brett Iverson, the dean of UTs school of undergraduate studies, have also tested positive. Texas A&M announced Thursday that a female student, in her 20s, who had just traveled to New York tested positive for the coronavirus. On HoustonChronicle.com: Texas colleges postpone graduations as COVID-19 pandemic rages on Texas colleges have made several difficult decisions over the past couple of weeks in hopes of curbing the spread of the virus, which now affects more than 15,000 people in the United States alone, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. The UT System, Texas A&M, Baylor, Rice University, Prairie View A&M University, Texas Southern University, University of Houston, University of St. Thomas, Houston Baptist University, Long Star College and others have decided to postpone May and spring graduations and resume classes online for the remainder of the semester. brittany.britto@chron.com One of the convicts of the 2012 Nirbhaya gang-rape and murder case, Mukesh Singh, wished to donate his organs and had given it in writing to the authorities, sources in Tihar Jail said on Friday. All four convicts in the case -- Akshay Singh Thakur, Pawan Gupta, Vinay Sharma, and Mukesh Singh -- were hanged till death at 5:30 am on Friday. According to sources, Vinay Sharma offered Jail Superintendent to keep the paintings made by him in jail. He also wished that Hanuman Chalisa and a photograph that he keeps with himself should be handed over to his family. On the other hand, Pawan Gupta and Akshay Singh Thakur did not express to give anything. Officials said that this does not qualify as their will. The convicts expressed their wish and gave it in writing when District Magistrate Nehal Bansal went to their cell at around 4:45 or 5 am, about half an hour before the execution. After their hanging, the bodies were taken from Tihar Jail to Deen Dayal Upadhyay (DDU) Hospital for post mortem, where the autopsy will be conducted. Tihar jail Director-General Sandeep Goel said that the bodies will be handed over to the families after the post mortem. The case pertains to the brutal gang-rape and killing of a 23-year-old paramedical student in a moving bus on the night of December 16, 2012, by six people including a juvenile in the capital. The woman had died at a Singapore hospital later. One of the adults accused had allegedly committed suicide in jail during the trial, while the juvenile was released from a correction home after a period of three years. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) Three more coronavirus cases came to light in Gujarat on Friday, taking the number of Covid-19 patients in the state to five, an official said here. A man from Vadodara and two women from Ahmedabad tested positive on Friday and all of them had returned from abroad, said Principal Secretary, Health, Jayanti Ravi. The 49-year-old Vadodara resident had returned from Spain. Of the two women, one, who is 34, had visited Finland while the other, who is 21, had returned from the United States. On Thursday, a man in Rajkot and a woman in Surat were found to have contracted the disease, becoming the first confirmed coronavirus patients in Gujarat. "All the five patients are being treated as per the protocol and they are stable. We have also started identifying the people who came in contact with these patients so that we can put them in quarantine facilities," the official said. "People should inform us if they come to know about a foreign-returned person evading compulsory home quarantine. Such persons mingling with the public can prove harmful," she told reporters. The state government has already ordered the closure of gyms, water parks and 'party plots' which are rented for weddings and other functions, she said. "From tomorrow, we will start stamping the hands of suspected coronavirus patients who arrive at international airports in Ahmedabad and Surat. The government had earlier thought of making such people wear wrist bands, but we realized that stamps are better option," Ravi added. She also urged people to call 104 'fever helpline' if they spot anybody with such a stamp on the hand roaming outside. Of the 150 samples collected for testing so far in the state, five came out positive, 123 were negative while the results of 22 are pending, the official said. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) Adam Hoffman isnt your average American Jewish teen. The grandchild of Holocaust survivors on his mothers side, hes a sixth-generation Texan on his fathers side. An Orthodox native of Houston and graduate of Jewish day schools, Hoffman, 19, is now a freshman at Princeton University in New Jersey. What makes Hoffman really unusual, however, is his success bringing together Democrats and Republicans in this deeply polarized political eradespite, or perhaps because of, his public identification as a political conservative. (Hes president of the College Republicans at Princeton.) In 2018, as a 17-year-old high school senior, Hoffman organized a Day of Unity designed to bridge political differences. He got senior Texas politicians like Sen. Ted Cruz and Houston Mayor Sylvester Turner to speak to high school students about the importance of dialogue and overcoming differences. And he organized a public dialogue between the state Republican and Democratic party chairs. Our country is being ripped apart from within. The social fabric is tearing, Hoffman said in a speech that day. As young people, we are the greatest stakeholders in our future. We must move to change our political impasse. Since then, Hoffman has developed a curriculum on how to overcome political polarity in collaboration with OpenMind, a nonprofit that supports skill building to overcome differences and work together to solve collective problems. The curriculum is under review by the Texas Education Agency, according to Hoffman, and is expected to be available soon to 200,000 students in Texas who are active in high school Republican and Democratic clubs. Last year, Hoffman was recognized with a $36,000 Diller Teen Tikkun Olam Award, which is given annually to a select group of Jewish teenagers who demonstrate outstanding leadership in communal service. Hoffmans first foray into organizing came when he was 13. Concerned about rising economic inequality, he founded a charity called Food4Them that helped send food just past its expiration date or slightly damaged to towns just outside of Houston that werent being served by the Houston Food Bank. His political Day of Unity was inspired by two major events: the polarizing 2016 election, which set people against one another, and Hurricane Harvey in 2017, which prompted Houstonians of all political stripes to come together to help the city recover from the devastating storm. Our political views ceased to matter, Hoffman said in an interview. It became American helping American. We recognized each other as part of same story working toward the same goal. Since launching the Day of Unity in 2018 to bring high school students together to discuss overcoming deep polarization, it has become an annual event. That really began a spiral of action and movement, Hoffman said of his own activism. Hoffman didnt grow up in a very politically engaged family. His parents are Republicans but not activists. Hoffman traces his activism to his Holocaust survivor grandmother, with whom he was very close. I saw that the America that allowed her to succeed and gave my family all that we have was under threat and was slowly slipping away, and I felt called to action, he said. At age 14, Hoffman volunteered for his first political campaign, for Gov. Greg Abbott. During the 2016 Republican presidential primary, he backed Cruz, leading the senators Youth for Ted. He also served as chairman of High School Republicans of Texas. So how did this self-described fiercely conservative young man become a proponent of bridging the political divide? He credits his own experience with building friendships with fellow Jewsoften Democratsbefore even learning anything about their political preferences. Person before politics is the motto of the Day of Unity. Hoffman says hes used to being the token conservative in most Jewish spaces. I see it as directly related to my work with the Day of Unity, he said. I try to encourage those around me not to see me as Adam the Conservative, as Im much more than that just as were all more than our political beliefs. I try to exist as a well-rounded person who has many different interests, just like everybody. When Hoffman participated in a shabbaton last summer sponsored by the Diller Tikkun Olam Awards in the San Francisco Bay Area and met his 14 fellow winners, he stood out as a rare conservative. It didnt bother him, he says. Diller enlightened me and allowed me to see my social activism work through a Jewish lens, as part of tikkun olam, he said, using the Hebrew term for repairing the world. Also, I joined a community of young Jewish changemakers, a community that looks toward their Judaism and social activism as working hand in hand. Hoffman put his $36,000 in prize money toward his education and the Day of Unity. Asked if he wants to run for office himself someday, Hoffman demurs. Theres something in politics which is toxic to me and repulsive, and I want to stay out of the fray, he said. Right now, his goal is to succeed at Princeton and then return to his roots in Texas. I have an obligation to my ancestors at this point to stay in Texas and have my kids there, Hoffman quipped. Its much larger than me. This article was sponsored by and produced in partnership with the Helen Diller Family Foundation, which sponsors the Diller Teen Tikkun Olam Awards, annually awarding $36,000 to Jewish teens demonstrating exceptional leadership in repairing the world. Nominations/applications for 2019 are now open. This article was produced by JTAs native content team. Kartik Aaryan, who will next be seen in Bhool Bhulaiya 2, is practising social distancing and strongly believes that his fans should do the same. In his latest post, Kartik has taken it upon himself to preach his fans about the importance of self-quarantine while entertaining everyone. Kartik took to his Instagram handle and shared a 2-minute-24-seconds-long monologue about the importance of social distancing to fighting the coronavirus pandemic. The video instantly went viral due to its resemblance with Kartik's infamous monologue from Pyar Ka Punchnama. He originally shot to fame with the monologue and has used it to talk about an important issue today. In the video, Kartik addressed how people are complaining about having to stay at home currently, when on any other day it's all they want. The video was directed towards people who are not taking social distancing seriously. He asked his fans to stay at home even in free time, "It's not summer holidays, have some shame. IPL, NBA, Premier League, schools, colleges, everything is closed. Movie releases have been postponed, but you won't stop" said the actor. He also added that everyone should be ready as the virus spread could get worse in the coming days. Kartik shared it on Twitter also and captioned it, "#CoronaStopKaroNa. My Appeal in my Style Social Distancing is the only solution, yet @narendramodi we are with you, Sir !!" Many Bollywood actors took to their social media and hailed Kartik for his efforts in spreading awareness against COVID-19. While sharing the post, Kriti Sanon called the video "Fabbbb" while Varun Dhawan captioned it as, "Superb". Some of the other celebrities who also shared the video are, Arjun Kapoor, Janhvi Kapoor, Sonal Chauhan, Bhumi Pednekar, Kiara Advani, Guru Randhawa and more. Preity Zinta Shares Desi Nuska To Help You Keep Calm During Coronavirus Quarantine Top 10 Bollywood Films To Catch Up On During Coronavirus Lockdown VANCOUVER, British Columbia, March 19, 2020 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Chakana Copper Corp. (TSX-V: PERU; OTCQB: CHKKF; FWB: 1ZX) (the Company or Chakana), is providing an update on its 2020 exploration program and response to the COVID-19 pandemic. On March 15, 2020, the Peruvian government declared a national state of emergency in response to the COVID-19 pandemic and instituted a 15-day period of obligatory social isolation. In addition, the government temporarily closed its borders to international travelers. As a result of this, the Company has temporarily suspended field activities at its Soledad copper-gold-silver project in Ancash, Peru out of concern for the health and safety of its employees, contractors and the communities in which we operate. Employees in Peru, Canada, and the USA will continue working from home in preparation for our next drill program. The Company has just entered the final stages of permit approval to restart drilling in the Paloma and Huancarama areas where several high priority drill targets have been defined on the Soledad project. A detailed ground magnetics survey was completed prior to the suspension of activities and is currently being interpreted to provide a better understanding of the geology and to supplement drill targeting information. The Company remains in a strong financial position with C$7.0 million in cash, resulting from the strategic investment made by Gold Fields in 2019 (see news release dated May 13, 2019). The measures we have taken are in the best interests of our employees, contractors, and their families. We will monitor the situation closely with the Peruvian authorities and will restart activities as soon as it is safe to do so. In the meantime, we remain productive advancing our understanding of the geology at Soledad and preparing for the continuation of our Phase 3 drill program. The goal this year remains to drill test some very exciting new targets in the Paloma and Huancarama areas, stated David Kelley, President and CEO. We appreciate the support of our shareholders and they should know that we are being vigilant in conserving our cash position under the current market conditions added Kelley. Story continues ON BEHALF OF THE BOARD (signed) David Kelley David Kelley President and CEO For further information contact: Michelle Borromeo, Manager Corporate Communications Phone: 604-715-6845 Email: mborromeo@chakanacopper.com Neither TSX Venture Exchange (the Exchange) nor its Regulation Services Provider (as that term is defined in the policies of the Exchange) accepts responsibility for the adequacy or accuracy of this release. Completion of the Financing is subject to a number of conditions, including but not limited to, Exchange approval. There can be no assurance that the Financing will be completed as proposed or within in the timeframe disclosed herein or at all. This news release contains forward-looking statements, including relating to the completion of the Financing and the use of the net proceeds therefrom, and other statements that are not historical facts. Forward-looking statements are often identified by terms such as "will", "may", "should", "anticipate", "expects" and similar expressions. All statements other than statements of historical fact included in this release are forward-looking statements that involve risks and uncertainties. There can be no assurance that such statements will prove to be accurate and actual results and future events could differ materially from those anticipated in such statements. The reader is cautioned that assumptions used in the preparation of any forward-looking information may prove to be incorrect. Events or circumstances may cause actual results to differ materially from those predicted, as a result of numerous known and unknown risks, uncertainties, and other factors, many of which are beyond the control of the Company. As a result, the Company cannot guarantee that the Financing will be completed on the term disclosed herein or at all. The reader is cautioned not to place undue reliance on any forward-looking information. Such information, although considered reasonable by management at the time of preparation, may prove to be incorrect and actual results may differ materially from those anticipated. Forward-looking statements contained in this news release are expressly qualified by this cautionary statement. The forward-looking statements contained in this news release are made as of the date of this news release and the Company does not intend to update any of the included forward-looking statements except as required by Canadian securities laws. Greater Accra Regional Chairman of Ghana Union of Traders' Associations (GUTA), Mr. David Kojo Amoateng, has cautioned media men especially hosts of political programmes to be bold enough to face politicians who speak to matters for discussions on their various programmes. He attested to the fact that Ghana will be at a better position than we see today if media men will take it upon themselves to be truthful to the nation than being influenced by politicians to defend them on matters they know will disgrace their political party. According to him we need Journalists to desist from being intermidiaries for NDC and NPP members and refusing to tell them in the face when they are telling lies or not embarking on positive policies. He therefore asked Journalists to speak the truth in all situations. Making reference to the COVID-19 outbreak in Ghana on UTVs Adekye Nsroma newspaper discussion programme, Mr. Kojo Amoateng urged every Ghanaian to be a good citizen and not inflate prices of goods they sell due to higher demands on the market. However, he cited that the outbreak of the COVID- 19 shows God is the only one who knows the future and no other man, but he is happy government has taken early precautionary measures to prevent the high spread of the disease in Ghana since life supersedes everything in the world. "Everybody must practice to be a good citizen, but I am happy with the early precautions taken by government of Ghana. Let us all as citizens comply by the precautionary measures of the government on COVID-19," he said. Watch the video below Source: Elizabeth Semiheva Bedi/ peacefmonline.com / [email protected] Disclaimer : Opinions expressed here are those of the writers and do not reflect those of Peacefmonline.com. Peacefmonline.com accepts no responsibility legal or otherwise for their accuracy of content. Please report any inappropriate content to us, and we will evaluate it as a matter of priority. Featured Video Copyright 2020 Albuquerque Journal SANTA FE New Mexicans and their employers will have more time to file and pay their taxes as the state pushes to provide economic relief amid the coronavirus outbreak. Personal income taxes will now be due July 15, or 90 days later than the typical mid-April deadline, for both state and federal tax returns. The state is also pushing back the corporate tax deadline to July 15. Employers will have more time to send to the state the taxes they withhold from workers paychecks. The amounts for March through June will now be due in late July a step intended to ease cash-flow problems and help avoid layoffs. We understand that this unprecedented public health emergency is placing enormous financial strain on many residents and businesses, Taxation and Revenue Secretary Stephanie Schardin Clarke said in a written statement. These tax extensions will allow individuals and businesses in New Mexico to keep more money in their pockets for the next three months and to better weather this storm. The state wont impose penalties on taxpayers who take advantage of the extra time, but state law requires interest to accrue after the original due date. Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham said she would support waiving or refunding the interest. The state Taxation and Revenue Department, meanwhile, said it would assign extra staff to expedite the processing of refunds for taxpayers who have already filed. The Trump administration announced Friday that its postponing the due date for federal tax returns until July 15. 6.3k SHARES Facebook Twitter Whatsapp Pinterest Reddit Print Mail Flipboard Three Senate Republicans who voted to acquit Donald Trump in the impeachment trial used insider information to sell stocks and save money before the coronavirus crash. Sens. Richard Burr, Kelly Loefflers and James Inhofe all voted to acquit Trump and dumped their stock to avoid the crash. Via The New York Times: The record of Mr. Burrs stock transaction shows he and his wife sold 33 different stocks on Feb. 13 that were collectively worth $628,000 to $1.7 million, according to the disclosures filed with the secretary of the Senate. . Mr. Inhofe sold a large amount of stock all on Jan. 27 including holdings in PayPal, Apple and Brookfield Asset Management, a real estate company, with the overall value of the sales totaling as much as $400,000, a disclosure report shows. Ms. Loeffler and her husband, Jeffrey C. Sprecher, who is the chairman of the New York Stock Exchange, reported 27 stock sales worth millions of dollars starting on Jan. 24. On that day, Ms. Loeffler tweeted about attending the Senate briefing on the coronavirus. The stocks the couple sold were in companies including Exxon Mobil, Ross Stores and AutoZone. Sen. Dianne Feinsteins husband also sold stock, but her assets are in a blind trust that she has nothing to do with, and the stock that was sold was losing money before the coronavirus market crash. It appears that the three Republicans who dumped their stock did so based on insider information that they learned in Senate briefings. Using such information for personal gain is a violation of the STOCK Act. The problem is that any prosecution of the Senators would be handled by the Department of Justice and Trumps Attorney General William Barr. Trumps corruption is a symptom of larger systemic corrupt behavior within the Republican Party. It isnt a surprise that the same Republicans who turned a blind eye to Trumps crimes are committing crimes of their own. Copyright 1995 - . All rights reserved. The content (including but not limited to text, photo, multimedia information, etc) published in this site belongs to China Daily Information Co (CDIC). Without written authorization from CDIC, such content shall not be republished or used in any form. Note: Browsers with 1024*768 or higher resolution are suggested for this site. 0108263 License for publishing multimedia online Registration Number: 130349 Registration Number: 130349 Photo Illustration by The Daily Beast / Photo Chip Somodevilla/Getty For Maine Sen. Susan Collins, a lifelong Republican who believes in limited government, funding for pandemic flu preparations didnt belong in the Obama administrations economic stimulus plan. She lobbied hard to kill the money, and as one of only three Senate Republicans supporting the package, she had a lot of leverage with an administration desperate to show bipartisan support in a global economic crisis. President Obama signed the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 in February of that year. Two months later, in April, as a new influenza outbreak, H1N1, known as swine flu, got underway, Democrat David Obey, who chaired the House Appropriations committee at the time, took Collins to task: Whether or not this influenza strain turns out to have pandemic potential, sooner or later some strain will. We are not prepared today. Lets hope we dont need to be. How Susan Collins Became the Senates Most Vulnerable Republican Michael Grunwald, whose 2012 book, The New New Deal, tells the story of the massive stimulus legislation that funneled $800 billion into the economy, recently posted the page from his book that underscores Collins power in shaping the deal, along with her insistence that money for pandemic preparation was a non-starter in the bill. She was immovable, according to Grunwalds reporting. In response to criticism now about Collins 2009 vote, her communications director, Annie Clark, pushed back on Twitter, arguing that the pandemic funding did not belong in the stimulus bill since it was not emergency economic assistance. The money was redirected to community health centers, and funds for flu preparedness later passed as part of the regular appropriations process in a June omnibus spending bill that Collins voted for. She had flexed her muscle on that bill as well, initially voting against it in a cloture vote because it failed to spend funds carefully and effectively. At the time, prominent Democrats like Chuck Schumer, now the Senate minority leader, agreed with Collins that the stimulus bill should be narrowly tailored. But when the swine flu outbreak occurred soon after, it was Collins defending her vote, not Schumer, because her position on what should be in the bill was decisive. Democrats needed her vote to reach the 60-vote threshold to avoid a filibuster. Story continues And that vote came back to haunt her, says Willy Ritch with 16 Counties, a nonprofit formed last year in Maine to hold Collins accountable for votes that he claims are out of step with what Maine voters want. He points out that the $870 million she killed in the stimulus package for pandemic preparedness was in addition to the smaller $500 million for pandemic flu research that had been in the pipeline, and that was approved in an omnibus spending bill. Senator Collins talks a lot about the power she has in the Senate, but many of us increasingly dont like what she does with that power, Ritch told The Daily Beast. She always seems to have some convoluted explanation or excuse. He ticks off Collins vote to confirm Brett Kavanaugh to the Supreme Court after saying she believed his accuser, Christine Blasey Ford, but thought she was mixed up and mistaken about her attackers identity. She thought President Trump abused the power of his office, but that the Founders would not want her to vote to convict him for doing so. And she voted for pandemic preparedness after she killed it, he says. Collins is running for a fifth term in the Senate in the toughest race of her long career. Her brand is a centrist, a pragmatic legislator who works across the aisleand that took a hit when she voted to confirm Kavanaugh and when she voted against removing President Trump, says Jessica Taylor, who monitors Senate races for the nonpartisan Cook Political Report. Those are seminal moments, and they make it much harder for her to be seen as a pragmatic lawmaker. Collins is one of the last of a kind, the lawmaker whose image is based on crossing the aisle and standing up to party doctrine. In the age of Trump, it is much harder to have any moderate image, and she is a victim of that, says Taylor. After impeachment, Collins said she felt Trump had learned his lesson. Immediately after, he made it clear he had not. Voters who once applauded Collins thoughtful pragmatism now increasingly see her as having gone to the well once too often, and that when she arrives at her final position, it was the one she was going to take all along. Her decline in favorability is stunning. In 2016, according to a Morning Consult survey, she was the second most popular senator after Bernie Sanders. In January of this year, a Morning Consult poll tracker found that Collins is now the most unpopular senator, eclipsing Republican leader Mitch McConnell, who had held the position for some time. Her approval rating, once in the high 60s, has fallen steadily since 2017, according to a graph compiled by Morning Consult. The line showing her disapproval crossed over in the second quarter of 2019 to be the higher number. Theres a phrase in pollingthe trend is not her friend, says a longtime political observer in Maine. She keeps ticking down and ticking down. The race is a tossup, and for Democrats, it is a key pickup in their quest to regain majority control in the Senate. The likely Democratic challenger, Sara Gideon, speaker of the Maine House of Representatives, is in a dead heat with Collins in a Colby College poll and has a 4 percentage point lead in a Public Policy Polling survey (PDF). In the PPP poll, Gideons favorable rating is 34 percent, her unfavorable rating is 32 percent, and 33 percent say they dont know enough about her. Collins favorable rating in the poll is 33 percent, her unfavorable is 57 percent, and only 6 percent say they dont know about their four-term senator. Finally, what Collins said in 2009 and even today matters less than what Trump does now. The Senate Republicans are inextricably linked to President Trump and how he handles this crisis, says Taylor with Cook Political. He gave himself a 10. Few would agree with that assessment, and Collins has urged Trump to step back and let the public health officials lead the messaging. But criticizing Trump is tricky business in the best of times. And for Collins, these are the worst of times. Read more at The Daily Beast. Get our top stories in your inbox every day. Sign up now! Daily Beast Membership: Beast Inside goes deeper on the stories that matter to you. Learn more. Nirbhaya was virtually dead when she was brought to the hospital, a doctor who treated the 23-year old intern recalled, and it was the brutality of the entire incident that became the focal point around which a strong case was built against the accused. Mukesh Singh (32), Pawan Gupta (25), Vinay Sharma (26) and Akshay Kumar Singh (31) were executed at 5.30 am in Tihar Jail on Friday, eight years after the cold winter night of December 16, 2012 when Nirbhaya was raped in a bus that moved through the streets of the national capital. Doctors from Safdarjung and Singapore hospital deposed as prosecution witnesses and listed out the reasons that led to her death which proved crucial in sealing the fate of the accused. While there were reports that the juvenile was the most brutal, former Delhi Police commissioner Neeraj Kumar said it was Ram Singh, the bus driver, who was the "most brutal". "The narrative about the juvenile being the most brutal was floated about by media but in reality it was Singh, who had planned the entire act and instigated the other accused also," Kumar told PTI. In his book "Khaki Files", Kumar has referred to the accused as "a pack of hungry wolves" who pounced on the 23-year-old physiotherapy intern but she fought them with all her might. "As punishment for her fierce resistance, she was hurt grievously with iron rods in ways so gory and sordid, Kumar has written in his book. Nirbhaya and her friend were thrown out of the bus on December 16,2012 without any clothes by the accused who tried to reverse the bus and crush them to death but the duo managed to roll away and survived. According to Kumar, the doctors in Singapore who had treated Nirbhaya and the coroner who had conducted the post-mortem examination were examined through video conference in the court. Dr Sunil Jain, head of surgery, at Safdarjung Hospital, recalled the time when he treated her and said it was "painful". "It was such a painful thing to treat her. I can't explain the extent of brutality they had meted out. She was virtually dead when she arrived at the hospital. We did our best to maintain the continuity but we knew on day one that she was not likely to survive, he said. Nirbhaya was airlifted to Singapore for treatment where she succumbed to her grievous injuries. Jain said that the only thing that could have saved her was an intestinal transplant, something which continues to be at an experimental stage even in 2020. "She needed an intestinal transplant which is at an experimental stage in the world even in 2020. This incident happened in 2012, he said. Jain said he had a chance to speak to one of the culprits in the case and said that just because she resisted, they were brutal to her. These people were really brutal. I spoke to one of the culprits and he said that she abused me and resisted Nothing can justify what they did to her, he said. Jain said being in the medical profession, they see such Nirbhayas occurring every day and opined that the media spotlight helped the case. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) Cholera was the epidemic disease most feared around the world in the nineteenth century. In the eighteenth century neighbouring countries began to suffer from the disease and in the nineteenth century it attacked Europe. Cholera spread around the world in great epidemics from its traditional base in the Indian sub-continent and carried with it high mortality rates, severe suffering and terrifying symptoms. These began in 1817 but the first wave did not reach Europe and was halted temporarily at the shores of the Caspian Sea. From there in 1829 it spread rapidly through Europe. It arrived in Ireland around St Patricks Day 1832. This was the most serious cholera outbreak in Ireland in the nineteenth century and it has been estimated that 25,378 people died during that epidemic. The Irish death rate was high when compared to other countries for the same period. In 1832 the causes of cholera were enveloped in inscrutable mystery and thought to be beyond human control. Doctors who understood the causes of typhus, smallpox and other contagious diseases were perplexed by cholera. Whatever the causes of the transmission of the disease it was almost instinctively known that it would have its biggest impact on the poor, the undernourished and the badly housed and dressed. Because of that there were repeated exhortations to the public to eat well, not to over indulge, to keep warm and to avoid large gatherings of people. In 1832, Archbishop Murray, who had a long association with Offaly where he spent his holidays every year with the OBrien family in Rahan, told his flock that cholera had been sent by God as they had disregarded the warnings of the word of God and that, He has sent a preacher to your doors Murray saw cholera as a punishment sent to a sinful people by God. In June 1832 the outbreak of the cholera disease was followed by a general panic. One of the first reports of the epidemic in Offaly came from the parish of St Rynagh, Banagher. A local committee was established on 12 May 1832 and by 29 May the committee reported that there had been no new cases for four days. Banagher was unusual in having a doctor on the committee, namely Richard Joynt. Banagher had a population of 3,000 but as the committee complained there was no local trade and the poor of the area were generally employed in labour. This committee raised a small fund and got matching funds from Dublin Castle. The money was used to purchase oatmeal, potatoes and straw for the local poor. The straw was for bedding and the poor were encouraged to dispose of their old straw beds. Edenderry In Edenderry most of the poor relied on agricultural labour which was subject to great variation and uncertainty as to rates of wages and to the numbers employed. In Portarlington, agricultural labour was again described as the principal employment but in Birr and Banagher labour is the phrase used to describe employment reflecting the outlets in distilleries and mills in these towns. In Clara many were employed in the cotton and linen trade but since the failure of these trades many of the labourers have turned to agricultural employment which was described as very casual. The other area in Offaly where there was a distinctive craft, was Rosenallis where the weavers were in the same difficulty as casual workers. The Rosenallis committee chaired by Samuel Crossdaile complained that the labourers were almost wholly without work and the inhabitants in general were miserably poor and, in many instances, destitute even of the necessities of life. Roscrea with a population of 9,000 had a distillery, a brewery and a large dense pauper population. There June was described as the dead season for distillery workers and so many were idle. Even in the grain growing area of the county around Moneygall and Shinrone, there was a shortage of agricultural employment. The fear that cholera would strike was almost as great as the terror when it arrived. So the Portarlington committee applied in June 1832 for money to buy bedding to prevent the disease spreading. Curiously the disease was confined to the Offaly part of Portarlington and money was expended in preventing it crossing the river into county Laois. In nearby Edenderry, the disease arrived in June and the local committee had collected a mere 24=12=0. It planned to fit up a small fever hospital in the town and the local fund included 5 from the towns principal landowner, the Marquis of Downshire who resided in Hillsborough Castle in Co. Down. Edenderry had a small population of 2,000. In Birr the population was 9,617 and there cholera appeared at the end of May 1832. Within countries cholera also travelled along trade routes. It hit Portlaoise (formerly Maryborough) hard and indeed was still virulent there in March 1833. A local committee reported that homes had been deserted as people fled to the country and a soup kitchen was opened for the poor. Borris-in-Ossory or the parish of Aghaboe in Laois was described as being on the public road from Dublin to Limerick with constant intercourse from the nearest towns of Maryboro, Mountrath and Roscrea where cholera has made its appearance. Mountmellicks population of 4,000 had a rich variety of work in the 1830s. There was employment in wool combing, worsted spinning, woollen and cotton manufacturing, malt houses, breweries and a distillery. Turf cutting and saving was also mentioned as a significant employment as turf or peat was the fuel mainly used in these establishments. The towns on the periphery of the county on the main routes west and south suffered badly. Athlones 7,344 inhabitants felt the impact of the disease early in May 1832 and by March 1833, 65 deaths had occurred in the town from the disease. Athlone also had two distilleries and a brewery but its other main source of employment was described as government works and intercourse with the military. Birr Birr suffered its first cases in May 1832. A committee was set up to give aid and apply for government funds on the 25th. day of May 1832. The committee was chaired during this period by John Lloyd and included the following; Hubert OKelly, Thomas Hackett, A. G. Judge, M. J. Usher, P. Kennedy, William Kinahan, John Brereton, P. OMalley and Thomas L. Cooke. By the end of August 1832 the first epidemic appeared to have run its course in the town and only a few solitary cases occurred in the period up to the middle of October when it returned with greatly increased virulence. The committee expressed regret that there was no mendicity institution in the town to which the poor could turn for aid. Consequently the members felt obliged to feed the poor as the best means of preventing the spread of the disease. The applications made in November 1832 for aid were made by a new committee chaired by Lord Oxmantown, one of the resident magistrates who had been away during the first serious outbreak. Some of the old personnel survived and the new committee assured the Cholera Board that the funds had been properly spent by the old board. Reporting on victims the new Birr Board stated that there had been 53 deaths from the disease up to the beginning of August 1832 but that the later outbreak had carried off twice as many victims. The local board commented that it could not account for this lamentable effect. The unknown nature of the disease perplexed people. By the 25 January 1833 the committee reported that cholera had ceased for the last week but that 146 persons had died by then. Tullamore In Tullamore the population was gripped by terror when the epidemic struck and as in Birr and elsewhere, those who could afford to flee did so. It was reported that 145 of the 160 persons who had contracted disease had died and this led to the town being isolated by the surrounding rural dwellers. The canal was drained to prevent barges from trafficking with the town. In Kilbeggan, the local Board of Health employed men to prevent those fleeing Tullamore from entering that town. The siege mentality can also be seen in Portarlington where the local committee employed guards to prevent the disease spreading from the Offaly side of the town to the Laois side. The Tullamore applications for aid to the Cholera Board in Dublin Castle began after a local committee was established on the 15th June 1832. The chairman was William Wallace and the committee consisted of Edward Gorry, James Whitney and John Lever members. The application noted that the population of the town was 9,673 persons and that the employment available was mainly manual and agricultural. The Committee reported that private funds had been exhausted, that the disease had appeared suddenly and that it had a devastating effect on the town. 300 was given by the Board and it helped fund a hospital in the town. The Tullamore committee got another 100 from a London charity and 50 from the Earl of Charleville, the towns proprietor. By July 1832 the committee reported that private doctors were working in the area and that the committee was compensating persons for articles burned to prevent the spread of disease and to aid widows and other survivors of cholera. Cholera reappeared in the town in November after which it disappeared. Banagher The Banagher committee chaired by T. St. John Armstrong, landowner and magistrate, complained that there was no trade and that the poor were only supported by manual labour. The committee there purchased oatmeal, potatoes and other provisions to relieve the distressed state of the poor as the cause which appeared to aggravate the awful visitation of cholera, those provisions are distributed every second day. The committee claimed that wholesome food and constant attention to cleanliness were the main reasons as there was only one death in the first week of the disease reaching the area. In June the committee looked for money for coffins, a hospital and other necessities. Food alone was not sufficient to stop the spread of the disease. Daingean The disease lingered in this area and there were still applications for funds for medical relief in January 1833. The need to look after the poor was also mentioned by the committee for the parishes around Philipstown or Daingean. John Walsh as chairman of the Philipstown committee was still reporting deaths in January 1833 when 3 persons died in one week. He wanted funds for food, for cleaning and to pay the nurses and medical attendants. There are many references in the cholera papers to hospitals in Offaly. From Edenderry, there was correspondence with a Dr Hugh Gilligan who wrote of the need to establish a small hospital and to take precautionary measures to combat the disease. Charles Bagot, chairman of the Clara committee and a landowner and a justice of the peace, wrote in June 1832 that; From the town of Clara (where a case of cholera has already occurred) being situated between Tullamore (where the disease has raged with particular violence) and Moate near where cholera has also made its appearance, we have a strong reason to fear the immediate occurrence of the disease, we therefore think it necessary to establish an hospital, to provide medical assistance, medicines, blankets, beds and all the other means as usually adopted for the prevention of this fearful malady. The Cholera Board sent 150.00 in June 1832. Moneygall In Moneygall in the south of the county the local committee was set up in July 1832 with William Minchin in the chair. The object of the application for funds was to have in readiness a fund to provide a place for the reception of any persons who may be visited by cholera, to provide blankets and other requisites together with a nurse and an assistant. As in many areas when the first applications were made in June and July 1832, all the Moneygall magistrates were absent. The disappearance of so many must be further evidence of the flight of those with means as the disease approached. Moneygall was one of the few Offaly towns that had a dispensary and so had the nucleus of a medical relief establishment. The chairman of the dispensary board had also given at his own expense lime to clean and whitewash the houses in the town. The town had a number of proprietors listed, Lord Bloomfield who was non resident, the Rev William Minchin, Alex Holmes, Rev Arthur Holmes and Rev William Gresson. Curiously a later application for more funds makes no mention of the town suffering from an outbreak of the disease, but it still attracted aid. Shinrone In nearby Shinrone, H. Lloyd was chairman of the local committee established in June 1832. There was no local subscription raised from the 5,631 inhabitants but the prevalence of cholera in Birr was sufficient cause for the committee to attract aid. In Shinrone the longer list of landowners reflected the absence of larger estates in that area. The landowers are listed as the Atkinsons, Trenchs, Lloyds, Minchins, Hammersbys, Whites, Smiths, Doolans and Spunners. In Roscrea there was a serious outbreak of the disease and the town attracted considerable funding for its cholera hospital. The 9,000 persons living there were badly effected and there was additional distress as the towns distillery was closed during the summer of 1832, described by the local committee as the dead season of the year. Rosenallis The last of the local cholera committees included in the Offaly file was that set up in Rosenallis, county Laois. The town of 5,000 inhabitants was suffering from chronic poverty as much as from the threat of disease. The principal landowners, the Marquis of Drogheda and James Kemmis, were both absentees, John Pigott was deputy lieutenant for Laois, Lancelot Crossdaile was a magistrate and Thomas Pigott was both the vicar and a local landowner. There was a small outbreak of cholera and medical attendants were employed. By January 1833 the appeal to Dublin Castle for aid was for the relief of ordinary poverty and with some references to further precautionary measures which were required. By 1838 the new poor law was introduced and then the poor rate made the local contribution mandatory. The evidence of local contributions in 1832 shows how difficult it was to get local aid mobilised. FOR MORE ON THE HISTORY OF OFFALY GO TO www.offalyhistory.com Some 130,000 French people have been left stranded abroad due to border closings and travel restrictions aimed at stemming the spread of Covid-19. The French foreign ministry is trying to help them organise their return. People must stay calm and be patient, said Foreign Affairs Minister Jean-Yves Le Drian on French public radio Friday morning. Those stranded are tourists and business travellers alike. The foreign ministry has calculated their number based on those who had indicated travel plans on the Ariane travel advisory portal, or who have contacted French consulates or embassies, asking to be repatriated. They face practical problems, like a lack of flights, or the inability to transit through countries that have closed their borders. Several countries have suspended flights to France, including Morocco and Tunisia. The foreign ministry is encouraging those stranded to log onto the Ariane portal so they can be counted and contacted. Le Drian said a picture is emerging of where people are, country by country, and an emergency task force at the ministry is working on the logistics and the diplomacy necessary to facilitate their return. Organising flights On Monday, the foreign ministry said that it was in contact with the transport ministry, to organise flights with Air France. The national air carrier thus put in place six flights from Dakar, Senegal, on Thursday, even though travel between Senegal and France has been suspended. Cruise ships pose additional complications: about a dozen are still sailing around the world with French people on board. The ministry is looking into how to evaluate the passengers health before allowing them to disembark. Not everyone will be able to be repatriated, for sanitary and logistical reasons. Le Drian evoked difficult situations, concerning people in the Philippines, the Canary Islands, Madera and the Dominican Republic. Some 2.5 million French people live abroad. The foreign ministrys emergency task force has created a website to help those stranded by putting them in contact with French residents who could house them during the crisis. (with wires) A member of the Military Emergency Unit disinfects a hospital amid the COVID-19 outbreak in Oviedo, Spain, on March 17, 2020. (Reuters/Eloy Alonso) COVID-19 Surges In Spain With Worst Single-Day Death Toll The COVID-19 pandemic is surging in Spain, where the worst single-day death toll yet brought the countrys total fatalities above 1,000. Spains health emergencies chief Fernando Simon said the country recorded another 235 deaths, bringing the tally to 20,410 confirmed cases and 1,043 deaths associated with the respiratory disease, caused by the CCP virus. The Epoch Times refers to the novel coronavirus, which causes the disease COVID-19, as the CCP virus because the Chinese Communist Partys coverup and mismanagement allowed the virus to spread throughout China and create a global pandemic. Spain has now lost 1,043 people to the CCP virus, according to a Johns Hopkins tracker, with the number of confirmed cases now exceeding Irans latest figures, making Spain the third-biggest COVID-19 hotspot, behind Italy and China. The most difficult days are coming now, Simon told a news conference on March 20, urging the population to observe a partial lockdown imposed last Saturday as part of a nation-wide state of emergency. Keep up the effort, we have to manage (to defeat the virus) as soon as possible. The impact it is having on society cannot be sustained for long, he said. Spanish authorities said Friday they would turn a Madrid conference center into a giant makeshift military hospital for thousands of COVID-19 patients. Cleaning services across the country carried out disinfection efforts at metro stations and nursing homes. The Spanish government ordered the closure of all the countrys hotels on March 19. There are still 80,000 tourists on Spains Canary Islands, with authorities saying Friday that they expect 30,000 tourists to leave that day. The rush to leave has led to large crowds at airports on the islands as authorities order people to maintain their distance and stay at home to stop the spread of the virus. People wearing masks walk out of a supermarket, amid concerns over Spains coronavirus outbreak in central Madrid, Spain, on March 14, 2020. (Javier Barbancho/Reuters) Authorities also vowed to implement special measures in nursing homes, which house people most at risk from the virus. According to the president of the Community of Madrid, Isabel Diaz Ayuso, 80 percent of people in the Spanish capital will become infected with COVID-19. They will have mild symptoms, she said in an interview on Spanish radio, as cited by CNN, adding that it will be a problem for the vulnerable population, which is around 15 percent of people. This virus has been in Spain for a longer time and is going to spread to practically everyone, and in most, it will not leave lasting marks. But the problem is the vulnerable population, she said. State of Emergency Spanish authorities declared a state of emergency on March 13, with a nationwide lockdown initially expected to last two weeks. But Spanish minister for transport, Jose Luis Abalos, was cited by EU Observer as saying that the lockdown would last more than 15 days as this period would likely not be enough for the country to win the battle against the virus. Similar to measures taken in Italy, where the number of cases has reached 47,021 and the number of deaths 4,032, Spains state of emergency places tight restrictions on movement with exceptions for essential needs or professional requirements. We will eventually return to the routine of our jobs and again visit our friends and loved ones, prime minister Pedro Sanchez said in a nationally televised statement, the EU Observer reported. Until that time comes, lets not waste energies that are essential now. Lets not lose our way, he added, urging people not to leave their homes. People who resist or seriously disobey the authorities or officers when they are carrying out their functions would face fines, the prime minister said. Airlines in the United States and the United Kingdom have halted all flights to Spain and some other countries in the area. President Donald Trump banned travelers from the Schengen Area of Europe from traveling to America, citing the explosion of coronavirus cases in the area and a lack of decisive restrictions cutting off travelers from China earlier in the pandemic. The virus started in Wuhan last year and has surged to become a pandemic that has disrupted lives across the globe. Reuters and The Associated Press contributed to this report. Read on for news about The Magical Tales Disney-licensed titles focusing on holidays and traditions; Little, Browns picture book tied to The Office; PI Kids new formats for Disney, Baby Einstein, and Merriam Webster; and more. New Directions for Fox Chapel Fox Chapel Publishing is taking on a new role as a licensing agent. It is representing an original franchise called Ninja Kitties, created by illustrator Kayomi Harai, with whom Fox Chapel has worked on coloring books in the past, for licensing into consumer products. It is also serving as the master publisher. Fox Chapel is set to make its debut as an exhibitor at Licensing Expo this August. Ninja Kitties features nine colorful, big-eyed kittens who dress in ninja costumes. It has all-ages appeal, with a sweet spot of children ages four to eight, according to Michele Sensenig, v-p of sales at Fox Chapel. In addition to the eye-catching look of the characters, the company was attracted by the propertys positive messages, she said. It encourages fans to find their passion, to treat others with kindness, and, especially, to discover their inner strength. Each character has an attribute that is relatable to readers, such as being shy, happy, or brave. We see a strong future for this brand, Sensenig said. The franchise is a big initiative for the company this year and will launch with two coloring/activity books from Fox Chapels Design Originals imprint. The first title, Ninja Kitties Great Adventures Coloring Book, debuts in August, followed by Ninja Kitties Seek and Find Puzzle Book. Future plans include other book formats and journals. Another new venture for Fox Chapel is a childrens book by Jim Shore, an artist well known in the gift industry, from the publishers Happy Fox Books imprint. Magic in the Attic: A Button and Squeaky Adventure is Shores first childrens book and is based on characters featured in his Button and Squeaky line of figurines with Enesco. The gift range stars a teddy bear and his best friend, a purple balloon dog. The book is scheduled for a summer release. Its a new direction for us, Sensenig said. While current plans focus on the single title, there is plenty of content for future books if warranted. The figures certainly support more ideas for these two characters, she said. Fox Chapel is working with Enesco on incremental distribution opportunities for Magic in the Attic in the gift market. Little, Brown Brings 'The Office' to the Classroom Little, Brown Books for Young Readers is publishing a picture book tied to The Office, owned by NBC/Universal and represented for licensing by Seltzer Licensing Group, with a fall publication date. Our list has really changed over the last two years and the licensing landscape has changed as well, said executive editor Mary-Kate Gaudet. Weve been moving more toward non-traditional formats and brands. LBYRs team had been wanting a foothold in the growing realm of adult pop culture content repurposed for the childrens book space when it discovered that sibling imprint Running Press had identified The Office as a target license for its formats. We noticed a lot of families were watching The Office together [on Netflix], Gaudet said. It has likeable characters and great humor, and even though it has some inappropriate jokes that go over the kids heads, it has become family viewing. LBYR approached NBC/Universals team and they totally got the idea of a fan-driven adult property reinterpreted for kids. The two Hachette imprints teamed up to secure the license (Running Presss titles include a mini-kit with a bobblehead of the character Dwight). The goal for LBYR was to bring the content squarely into the picture book space. In The Office: A Day at Dunder Mifflin Elementary, the regional manager, Michael Scott, becomes the elementary school equivalent of line leader. The essence of the characters is translated to the kids world in a familiar way, with many references and in-jokes built in for both adults and, at a different level, kids. Were definitely straddling the two worlds, Gaudet said. The response weve gotten from adults has been really wonderful. Theyll have fun reading it together with their kids, and theyll have fun reading it on their own. The license is opening some new marketing avenues for Little, Brown, such as the potential for a presence at Comic Con. There will be new opportunities to explore because of the crossover appeal, Gaudet said. Were seeing a lot of excitement in support of this. Its getting a lot more traction in social media than many other licensed titles. LBYR is taking a similar path with another new title this fall, this one a board book tied to the cult classic The Princess Bride. The Princess Bride: A Counting Story teaches kids to count, Gaudet said, but has plenty of movie-based irreverent humor that adults will appreciate. A Magical Tale of Becoming a Disney Licensee Patricia Cardello published her first original book under The Magical Tales brand in 2011. She achieved success with titles such as The Magical Tale of Santa Dust: A Christmas Tradition, her first and bestselling title to date; The Magical Tale of the Friendship Dreidel: A Chanukah Tradition; and 13 other original books-with-activities. That led to her catching the eye of Disney Publishing Worldwide. The Magical Tales has now become a Disney licenseea rare coup for a small company. In December, it released Disney Olafs Frozen Adventure: A Holiday Traditions Activity Kit, representing the first in a series of Disney-licensed book-plus packages and activity kits centering on holidays and family traditions. Weve always pursued Disney, Cardello says. We thought it was a perfect combination. Nothing came from our original discussions, but we kept in touch, and when Disney started looking into this niche they turned to us. What we do is unique, and the response has been great. The book-plus products include an original 32-page storybook plus an added item or two tied to the content, such as an ornament, stencils and stickers, or balloons and confetti, designed to spark a family tradition. The activity kits contain nine to 11 items, on average, such as stickers, letters to Santa, puzzles, thank-you cards, and the like, all tied to a particular holiday, celebration, or tradition. In two cases so far, The Magical Tales combined the two formats into a book-plus-activity kit package, at the request of retail buyers. The first Olaf release saw 100% sell-through in the specialty and mass market, according to Cardino. New products for 2020 and 2021 include a second Frozen title, Olafs Frozen Adventure: Their NEW Holiday Tradition, as well at least six other books and kits tied to properties including Mickey and Minnie, Cinderella, The Nightmare Before Christmas, and Pooh. To smooth the product development and approvals process, The Magical Tales hired a Disney-dedicated team of graphic designers, illustrators, writers, and editors. Disney maintains very strict control, so we hired people who have worked with them for years. They have the Disney training and know whats acceptable and not acceptable, Cardello said. We wanted to work within their system. The agreement has opened up some new marketing and distribution opportunities. Disney is featuring a forthcoming title, Cinderella: My Gratitude Journal, in a video promoting the propertys 70th anniversary. And the retail presence of the Disney books has expanded beyond The Magical Tales standard network of specialty stores, such as Hallmark and Learning Express, into mass channels such as Target, Walmart, and grocery stores. Meanwhile, the companys core series will continue, with a tooth fairy title upcoming. PI Kids Expands Relationships with Disney, Other IP Owners The PI Kids imprint of Phoenix International Publications has expanded its licensing deals with several key rights owners, allowing it to expand into new formats to supplement the sound books and other interactive formats for which it is best known. Were not going after new one-off licenses, but were doing more with our big licensors, including Disney, said Lynn Sikora, director of marketing. For Disney, new series include My First Stories, which extends Disney Baby into formats for slightly older children, introducing readers to the classic Disney characters and films. Lead titles set (so far) for an April release include Alice Wants to Grow, The Aristocats Show, Mowglis First Dance, and Tinker Bells Best Birthday Party. This series consists of re-covered versions of titles published by Hachette in France. Its our first foray into repackaging, Sikora explained. Another series, original from PI Kids, is Disney Growing Up Stories. It features interactive board books starring the nieces and nephews of classic Disney characters and is focused on social-emotional topics (e.g., being truthful), first experiences (going to the dentist), and parental concerns (screen time). The first titles will come out in fall 2020 and include First Pet!, a spin-and-slide board book; First Loose Tooth!, a peek-and-pull board book; and First Day of School!, a flap-and-fold board book. Separately, PI Kids will also release cloth books under the Disney Baby brand this fall. The imprint is also expanding its Baby Einstein range, licensed from Kids II, with bath books, cloth books, and introductory coloring and activity formats for the very young. In addition, it is adding to its Encyclopedia Britannica/Merriam Webster license, launching new picture books under the Merriam Webster brand that highlight language, idioms, and definitions. Two titles to start include A Loveliness of Ladybugs, featuring words that describe groups of animals; and Wild Goose Chase, about animal-based plays on words. In Brief Plush maker Yottoy is extending its Golden Books range by adding characters from a new Golden Books series illustrated by former Disney animator Joey Chou, starting with Im a Dragon and Im a Unicorn. It is also one of just two licensees for The Busy World Richard Scarry, creating a range of plush portraying the characters Huckle Cat, Lowly Worm, and Bananas Gorilla, all in cars with working wooden wheels. Bendon is publishing coloring and activity books tied to toy company Zurus Rainbocorns brand. Author and artist Mary Engelbreit is now represented for licensing by Firefly Brand Management. Tie-in publishers for the upcoming film Bill & Ted Face the Music include Welbeck for a making-of title and Dark Horse for comics. Two Penguin Random House imprints are publishing gaming guides and graphic novels tied to Fortnite gamer Tyler Ninja Blevins. Clarkson Potter is releasing Ninja: Get Good and Ninja Notebook in August, while Ten Speed Press is releasing Ninja: The Most Dangerous Game in December. Dr. Seuss Enterprises partnered with Sugar Creative for a Dr. Seuss ABC: An Amazing AR Alphabet! app. My Audio Pet has acquired the rights to Sesame Street as its first licensed addition to its book-and-miniature-character-speaker line. PI Kids soundbook tied to Random Houses Sesame Street-licensed The Monster at the End of This Book will feature the voice of Grover from the TV series as the narrator. Highlights is launching a retro-driven licensing initiative called Highlights for Grownups. It is currently working with Zazzle and Hot Topic on Demand, with plans for licensed products to hit retail shelves in time for Highlights 75th anniversary in 2021. In the U.K. and Ireland, personalized book marketer Signature Gifts acquired the rights to Build-A-Bear for a line of books telling stories from the bears point of view. Licensing Link Europe represents the property in the U.K. Speaking of the U.K., Rebel Girls is expanding its brand in that market, with the assistance of agent Rocket Licensing. Gibsons has the rights for puzzles and Portico Designs for stationery, gifts, and lunchware. State Rep. Roger Hauck, of Union Township, stated Thursday that local health care officials are working around the clock to contain the coronavirus and protect Midland County families. "We can all do our part to help prevent further spread by using effective preventive measures like frequent hand washing with soap, cleaning high-traffic surfaces and staying home as much as possible, especially if feeling sick," said Hauck, who represents Isabella County and 10 townships in Midland County. Tripura Assembly on Friday witnessed uproarious scenes after the speaker rejected an adjournment motion moved by an opposition CPI(M) member to discuss the plight of 10,323 school teachers who are going to be jobless on March 31 due to a court verdict because of a faulty recruitment process. Opposition MLAs trooped into the well of the House and shouted slogans demanding that the motion be accepted. The ruling BJP members also raised slogans and the watch and ward staff threw a cordon between the two sides. Speaker Rebati Mohan Das then adjourned the House for an hour. The opposition members did not join the remaining part of the day's session. After the budget was presented by Finance Minister Jishnu Dev Barma, CPI(M) member and former education minister Tapan Chakraborty said, the speaker had rejected an adjournment motion for discussing "an important issue" - the plight of the 10,323 school teachers whose services would be terminated on March 31. Speaker Das said the issue could be discussed in the question-answer session as other business matters are also important. Chakraborty insisted that other matters should be stopped to deliberate on this issue. When the speaker again rejected Chakraborty's plea, the entire opposition led by the leader of the opposition Manik Sarkar rushed to the well and started raising slogans. Education Minister Ratan Lal Nath said he would give a statement on the issue if the opposition members return to their seats, but they continued shouting. Treasury bench members then started shouting against opposition MLAs and the watch and ward staff threw a cordon between the two groups. The speaker then adjourned the house till 2 pm. Opposition members did not join the rest of the day's session. Manik Sarkar, former chief minister, later told reporters that his government had created 13,000 non-technical posts for the 10,323 teachers after the Supreme Court verdict. "But the posts could not be filled up as the Assembly elections were announced," he said. The BJP-IPFT government came to power in 2018 and cancelled the 13,000 non-technical posts, Sarkar said and claimed that the apex court recently gave a verdict that the newly created 13,000 posts are not illegal and there is no bar in their recruitment. He said the teachers are now agitating seeking protection of their jobs but police are "harassing" them on the plea that 144 CrPC was imposed in various parts of the state including the capital town to check coronavirus. However, Nath who is also the law minister told reporters that the government was sympathetic to the cause of these teachers and the government would move the Supreme Court again as it had earlier cancelled their jobs. "The issue was discussed in a meeting of the council of ministers headed by Chief Minister Biplab Kumar Deb last night," he said. Sarkar claimed that this is an attempt to delay the process. A total of 10,323 undergraduate, graduate, and postgraduate teachers were appointed in different phases since 2010. The recruitment process was challenged in the Tripura High Court which terminated their services saying the recruitment was faulty. The then Left Front government moved the Supreme Court against the order but it upheld the high court verdict in March 2017. The teachers were pronounced to retire after December 31, 2017 as per the apex court verdict, after which they were inducted on ad hoc basis. After the BJP-IPFT government came to power in March 2018, it again appealed to the Supreme Court and it granted them one-time final extension till March 31, 2020. The teachers facing termination of jobs have been agitating since March 13. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) The World Bank and the Asian Development Bank have committed to providing USD 588 million to Pakistan for its emergency response to fight the coronavirus and to address the socioeconomic impact of the pandemic, a media report said on Friday. According to an official statement, the World Bank would provide USD 238 million and the Asian Development Bank (ADB) USD 350 million to Pakistan in support for the COVID-19 emergency response and to tackle the socio-economic disruption associated with it. The announcement was made by the Planning Commission after a meeting with representatives of the two lending agencies on Pakistan's preparedness and response to fight COVID-19, the Dawn newspaper reported. The meeting, presided over by Deputy Chairman of the Planning Commission Mohammad Jehanzeb Khan, was attended by World Bank Country Director Illango Patchamuthu, ADB Country Director Xiaohong Yang, besides other officials and representatives of the ministries of economic affairs, finance and national health services. The meeting also approved in principle a project concept "Pakistan National Emergency Preparedness and Response Plan for COVID-19". The participants of the meeting agreed that not only they needed to enhance cooperation to jointly fight challenges but also work to demonstrate firm commitment for a multi-faceted cooperation in different fields, the report said. Pakistan's coronavirus cases sharply rose to 453 on Thursday, a day after it reported its first two casualties due to COVID-19 pandemic that has claimed 9,800 lives and infected more than 232,650 people in 158 countries and territories. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) When COVID-19 was declared a pandemic, most universities across the globe shut down. Or switched their classes online. That forced many Indian students abroad to either go home. Or make alternate arrangements to stay on in the country where they are studying. Those students who stayed back have faced a host of issues. Those who elected to travel home to India, in the past week, faced cancellations, delays and other problems. Rediff.com's Divya Nair speaks to both students and parents. Photograph: Swapan Mahapatra/PTI Photo March 18, 2020 is a day many Indian students will remember for a long time. That day India closed its borders to people flying in from the European Union, Turkey and the United Kingdom. Several students studying in European nations, where universities were shutting, had already booked their tickets home. They were forced to either bring their travel departure dates ahead or postpone travel entirely. A group of 50 Indian students from the Philippines who travelled from Manila on March 17 were stranded at Singapore's Changi airport. They were informed that India had restricted entry for fliers from Malaysia, the Philippines and Afghanistan. After negotiating with airline authorities and embassies from three different countries (India, Singapore and Malaysia), they finally landed in Mumbai, late evening, March 19. Meanwhile, a few students like Satyaki Ganguly, 27, reached India earlier this week. But other problems awaited them. Satyaki, who is from Kolkata, is pursuing an MBA at University College Dublin in Ireland. He made the decision to travel back from India when he was on a college trip to Argentina last week. "I was in Argentina when things escalated pretty quickly. The shops were shut and most of the events we had signed up for got cancelled. I booked a ticket for Dublin on Saturday (March 15). I packed as fast as I could and left with a friend on Sunday," Satyaki says. "Everything was fine when we travelled from Dublin in the morning (of March 17). The airport obviously had people with masks and all. Also, people looking at each other suspiciously. When we reached Abu Dhabi to get our connecting flight, there were not many checks happening in transit," he adds. "At Bengaluru, where we landed, there were thermal checks followed by scanning of passports to find out which countries we had visited over the last six days. Some of us were isolated to be monitored for COVID-19. Although my friend and I didn't have fever, or any symptoms, just because we had travel history to Argentina, we were isolated to be monitored for yellow fever." While Satyaki acknowledges that India is making the effort to screen passengers, he also noticed how the airport was understaffed and most of them were not professionally trained to deal with the situation. "We reached the airport at 3 am and were made to wait till 6.30 am before we could be quarantined. It was funny when we were given the choice to either travel in the same ambulance that may have suspected COVID-19 passengers or privately book our own cab, (but) be accompanied by one person who will take us to a government hospital." On March 17, Satyaki and a friend were quarantined for monitoring at the Rajiv Gandhi Hospital, Bengaluru. "I didn't know that a vaccination for yellow fever was mandatory to travel to India," he says. "I wasn't informed while applying for a visa or booking a ticket. I was told it is necessary because I visited Argentina which is on the red list (for yellow fever). And since I travelled in the six-day possible infection period, I should be monitored before I could go home." "For four days, I will be charged a bill of Rs 6,300, which is still okay. But for most middle class families, these are things we are not prepared for." IMAGE: According to Srishti Agarwal who travelled to Mumbai from the United States, there were thermal checks at Mumbai airport to screen incoming passengers. "There was a passenger ahead of me who had travelled to Hong Kong 25 days ago. Since they didn't show any symptoms, they were asked to be self-quarantined for two weeks," she says. Photograph: PTI Photo Until Saturday, March 14, students like Srishti Agarwal had no plans to risk travelling home. But when the University of California Berkeley in the United States, where she is pursuing a degree in electrical engineering and computer science, sent out an e-mail stating the university would be shut and that students were advised to travel home, she couldn't ignore the warning. "Some of my friends checked with the college help desk to ensure that travelling home will not affect their grades. The next thing I know they had booked tickets and left the university. On Saturday, there were only a handful of us Indians remaining in the college group. "Also, colleges like Yale, Harvard and Duke were shutting down hostel accommodation which added to the mass hysteria. My parents were worried too. My dad kept sending me updates over e-mail and through messages. It was depressing. So I chose to come home where I thought at least I would have someone to fall back on." On March 16, Srishti, 21, started from San Francisco with two of her friends. She took a flight to New York, which she said was almost empty. But her onward United Airlines flight to Mumbai was packed with Indian students. "I met a lot of my high school friends on the flight, which was reassuring. But all through the journey, I kept worrying what if I caught the virus and gave it to my parents when I get home?" At Mumbai airport, all incoming passengers were asked to fill up a self-reporting form. In it they had to provide details about their journey and the address and phone numbers of where they would stay in India for the next few days. Srishti and others, who reported no symptoms, after many hours, were allowed to exit the airport. They were asked to isolate themselves at home for at least 14 days and report, if they faced any symptoms. Unlike most students who chose to return to India, Navnith Chandrashekhar, 25, who is studying for a master's in sustainable energy and green technology from University College Dublin, decided to stay back and minimise this very risk. "The situation is bad only if you are in contact with people. For example, going to college, using public transport, going to shopping centres and malls," he says. "All these are slowly shutting down and people have been advised to take precautions and stay home. Most companies are allowing employees to work from home." Mumbai-based Shreya Rao, an MSc student in business psychology from Heriot-Watt University, Dubai, also decided not to take any chances and didn't leave the UAE. There are only 45 students in the hostel that usually accommodates 200 students, but Rao feels that panic is not the answer. "I may not be infected, but I could be a carrier. I don't want to risk giving it to someone who may have poor immunity," Shreya says. "Also, I travelled from India only on March 2. So I was fully aware that if anything happens, I will be responsible. Thankfully, the UAE government has made it clear that we don't have to worry about food or basic supplies. Even the cost of masks and sanitisers have not been increased, which means we are doing okay. People are staying home and working from homes, avoiding travel and maintaining minimal contact." IMAGE: A student cleans her hands with sanitiser in a bus in Kozhikode, March 19, 2020. According to Srishti and Rishika, it wasn't easy to find masks or sanitisers at local chemists in India and in the US. Photograph: PTI Photo. Srishti says she was lucky to get a ticket home at half the regular price -- she booked a day in advance and got a direct flight from New York to Mumbai for $850, which would have cost her at least $1,500 or more on a normal day. But students like Satyaki who risked travelling this week from the EU had no alternative but to pay a steep price. Says Satyaki: "Thank God we booked 72 hours in advance and got a fair deal. I paid 460 euros (about Rs 38,000 to 40,000). Later I heard from people how some of them who booked after the 17th had to pay through their noses." "Students were willing to pay 700 euros for a one-way ticket just so they could get home," he adds. "They were so desperate and rightly so. And most of us come from middle-class households and cannot afford these expenses." Back home in India, parents and students were not prepared either. For Mumbai-based homemaker Sharmila Menon, whose son studies in Delhi, the past two weeks have been trying.